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welcometothejianghu · 3 months ago

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Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 延禧攻略/Story of Yanxi Palace.

Story of Yanxi Palace is a high-budget 2018 Chinese harem drama about the historical-accuracy-adjacent antics of an extremely baller young woman who gets a job working in the Forbidden City in an attempt to discover the reasons behind her sister's death.

Imagine Nirvana in Fire, but only the scenes that take place inside the Inner Palace. So there's still schemes aplenty, but now these schemes are happening among a cast that's 90% women, all locked inside a walled city with rigid rules, excruciatingly strict hierarchies, and a very limited number of ways of getting out alive.

This show was huge in China. The English-language fandom is almost nonexistent. I'm betting most of you reading this have never even heard of it, and if you have, you have only the vaguest idea of what this 70-episode palace drama is about.

I enjoyed this show a whole hell of a lot. I also had some major issues with the show, to the point where I very nearly did not write this rec. But I'm doing it because I think the good parts of the show are worth seeing, and because I think the problem parts of the show are worth thinking about. Interested? Then follow me through these five reasons (and a few anti-reasons) I think you should watch it.

1. The Real Housewives of the Forbidden City

Tired of c-drama sausage fests? Want to see a bunch of incredibly talented ladies act their faces off? Then this is the show for you.

The vast majority of characters in the show are absolute bitches to one another. They are locked in a cutthroat game of power and manners where the stakes are literally life and death, so they spend their whole lives either plotting to take someone else down or counterplotting so the person trying to take them down gets taken down instead. They all know they can't trust one another, but they also sometimes can't not trust one another. They keep their friends close, and their enemies closer.

Unlike most other schemes-based shows, which are all about one big mystery, Story of Yanxi Palace has several smaller arcs. Remember the sister-murder I mentioned at the start? I was prepared for that to take the whole runtime of the show to solve; it actually gets (mostly) concluded around episode twenty-something. Antagonists arise and fall. Situations happen and resolve. Think of it less like a movie's single narrative, and more like a video game's multiple levels. Hooray, we finished Garden World! Now we get to go back to Palace World, but with way more EXP and powerups than we had before!

I know that looks like a bunch of lovely, high-class ladies in that shot, but it's not. It's a pit of vipers. Any woman in that lineup would straight-up shank pretty much any other woman in that lineup without hesitation or remorse. Every woman there knows exactly where she fits in the hierarchy and has a detailed plan for how to take out every woman above her to get to the top -- except for the one in black, who already did take out every woman above her to get to the top, and that's why everyone has to ostentatiously defer to her now.

If you are a fan of TV shows where folk scheme their way to success, this is really a can't-miss property for you.

This is also a show about how smart women have to become to survive being at the mercy of stupid men. Not only are the women being vicious to one another, they're doing so while simultaneousy having to pretend that they are pretty, delicate, vapid ornaments whose only thoughts are how they want the best for their precious emperor and his beloved mommy. It's all about the exercise of soft power, how to hide your knives behind silk sleeves and a sweet smile.

So okay, it's not quite as trashy as reality TV, but it's still bitchy as hell and incredibly fun to watch.

2. You love to hate her (and her, and him, and her)

Now if you've read pretty much any one of my previous recs, you know I like a good baddie, and this is a show with some good baddies. As I said in the last point, this is a show about bad people doing bad things entertainingly.

However, I am not going to tell you who most of the show's love-to-hate characters are, because the vast majority of them do not start out hateable. If the show introduces a female character and you like her, or a eunuch character and you like him, there is like an 85% chance they're going to do a heel turn. (And then sometimes do a face turn after? Look, schemes are complicated.)

But I will tell you about one bitch who's rotten from her first moment to her last: Noble Consort Gao.

Noble Consort Gao is the scenery-chewing, shit-stirring, absolute meanest mean girl in the palace, and it is so fucking entertaining. She's your major antagonist for the first half of the show. She's strategically mean, but she's also recreationally mean. She does the anime villainess laugh for real. Her actor, Tan Zhuo, has set her bitch dial to 11 and isn't even bothering to chew the scenery -- she's shredding it with those incredible metal claw-nails she wears.

Noble Consort Gao is a good starting antagonist because she's so blatantly evil -- and yet somehow still unstoppable. She's a good example of how you can get away with being pretty much openly sinister if you also manage to mind your manners. The reason she gets away with being so damn awful to everyone else is that she's still playing by all the rules. She's managed to weaponize every convention about propriety to lord her power over everyone else. She's like a fucking HOA.

And you'll notice I'm speaking about her with such fondness because she's delightfully awful. In fact, pretty much everyone in this show is delightfully awful. There are exceptions, but on the whole, you want to see them go down, yet you're also going to be a little sad when they go. Even Noble Consort, by the end, you get where she's coming from, and you feel a little bad for her on the way out.

Do you like vengeance? Because we've got some vengeance for you here. Many, many people in this show have been wronged, often by the people they trusted most. And of course they all respond to this in a healthy manner, seeking justice for themselves and for their loved ones through proper channels and reasonable means.

Ha ha, just kidding, everybody here is completely unhinged! The primary difference between a good guy and a bad guy in this show is how many innocent people they wind up taking down with the guilty party. It's messy as hell and we are making popcorn about it.

This is a show full of villains. In fact, this cast is pretty much entirely bad guys, semi-bad guys, potential bad guys, and good people who had to do bad things to survive. There are maybe two non-child characters who are Just Plain Good that don't get nuked almost immediately. Everyone else is some shade of grey. Even our hero (and we'll get to her in a minute) is pretty yikes-inducing cruel when she needs to be.

Going to say this as clearly as I can: This is not a show for people who cannot tolerate moral ambiguity. This is a show for people who love to watch clever bastards work. And pretty much nobody's more of a bastard than Noble Consort Gao.

Ladies and gentlemen, the cunt is served.

3. No, seriously, this is actually what it all looked like

If you are at all interested in this actual time period, you owe it to yourself to see this dedicated work of historical recreation.

The amount of research and detail that went into this production is honestly mind-blowing. Because this show is set in the 18th century, we actually have some pretty great documentation about the places, objects, and people involved in this story -- including some (slightly later, obviously) photographs! The production went all out in its attempts to replicate the setting, including using period-appropriate techniques to create various accessories and objects.

The outfits are amazing -- and excruciatingly accurate in several aspects. I've seen more than a couple people say that their first reaction to the costumes was, ho hum, kind of boring. Well, yeah, compared to some of the absolutely bugfuck-complicated wearable works of art from earlier periods, these are a little understated. But then you start paying attention to the million little details: the embroidery, the hair ornaments, the layers, the fabrics. A whole team of people clearly put a huge amount of work into these outfits.

Nearly every royal character in the show is a real person. You could spoil yourself for several major plot beats just by going to Wikipedia. In fact, I accidentally did this, because I was reading the show's DramaWiki page and thought, oh, that's interesting; I understand why the actor names are links (because it takes you to the actors' pages), but why are so many of the character names also links? Turns out: Wikipedia! So, uh, careful where you click.

One of the great things about the show is how utterly claustrophobic it is. Most of it takes place within the heavily guarded walls of the Forbidden Palace; on the very few occasion it goes somewhere else, you're just traveling to other walled manors and villas. There's one brief scene in a forest, and the psychological difference is enormous. You see a few trees and you're immediately like, oh, so that's why these women are going crazy in their gilded cages.

The drama even shows how some of the least glamorous parts of the Forbidden Palace work: the chamber pots, the coal for furnaces, the mopping, the weeding, the laundry, the fire brigades. It's an enormous production, keeping what is basically a 178-acre city-state running to imperial standards. It's nice to see a drama that acknowledges that while rich people may want to see only clean walkways and fresh sheets, those things don't happen by magic.

If anything, knowing about all this detailed research makes the unintentionally funniest scene in the entire show -- the one with the eunuchs playing Western instruments -- ten times funnier. You had artisans spending months doing exact recreations of historical hairpins, and you couldn't spend thirty seconds asking the internet "when were saxophones invented?" or "does an accordion make noises like a string quartet?" Perfect. No notes.

Trust me when I say you'll get used to the queue haircuts on the dudes. It helps that most of the time, they're facing the camera so they just look like they've got their heads fully shaved, and most of them have heads that look very good shaved! ...Most.

4. The kind of girl who'd make Mei Changsu say damn

The show has a strong ensemble cast, but the woman at the core of all the action is the tough-as-nails protagonist, Wei Yingluo.

The details we have on the actual Lady Wei are sparse. She doesn't really exist as a person in the historical record, to the point where we don't even know her given name (if she even had one) or when she showed up to the palace. We mostly know when she got given her titles, how many kids she gave birth to, some of what she did later in life, and when she died. The show takes these historical gaps and just runs with them, weaving into the silences a narrative that, while implausible, could have happened!

The show starts when Wei Yingluo enters the Forbidden City, not as a royal lady concubine, but as a regular little maid. She's got an agenda, though -- as mentioned earlier, her sister has died tragically, and she wants to figure out why. The stakes get higher as it becomes clear just how much people don't want this question answered, for their sakes as much as for hers.

She very quickly realizes that she can't just live a quiet life and snoop around casually. Too many people are out to get her, and if she's going to survive, she's got to fuck with them before they fuck with her. And they are wholly unprepared for the self-destructive lengths to which she will go to to fuck with them.

Wu Jinyan deserves all the accolades for turning in a great performance. She has to be completely all over the board emotionally and energy-wise for seventy whole episodes, and she brings it. She's very funny and physical when the show calls for her to be! She's willing to flail around and stuff her face and ugly-cry. Then she turns on the don't-mess-with-me stare and the temperature in the room drops ten degrees. Did she get some award for this? [checks her DramaWiki page] Okay, she got several awards for this, good. Even in a huge cast this talented, she's an absolute standout. I can't wait to see her in the Double, which is definitely on my to-watch list.

I'm not going to call Wei Yingluo a Mary Sue, because that's not accurate, but this girl does have some serious plot armor on. You never get the sense that she hasn't earned it, though. She's smart, capable, and more than a little completely fucking crazy. The show makes you believe that the reason she survives most of the shit she pulls off is that everyone is just so baffled that anyone would try it at all that they don't even know how to respond.

I thought about starting out this rec post with Wei Yingluo -- putting her above the cut, in fact, because she really is that compelling. She's back here, though, because it's with Wei Yingluo that we start to slide into my points of critique. Too often, female protagonists are here to solve the problem with their cuteness and quirkiness and extra-special perfectness that shows up all the other girls and captures the heart of whatever boy she needs to save the day. And no matter how this show starts off wanting to make her something different, it ultimately can't conceive of a female lead who isn't at her core just like that.

The writers can never decide how much Wei Yingluo's Manic Pixie Dream Girl act is an act, and how much she means it. The show introduces her as a stone-cold psychopath who is capable of feigning being a carefree brainless uwu smol bean. Later it decides, actually, she's really at her core a spunky, soft-hearted creature who likes to goof off and is just capable of switching on Scheming Bitch Mode when she needs it! And it's like, are you kidding? You just spent like forty episodes telling me that it's all a big trick when she does this, and now you're saying it's not anymore?

It's like they made a character capable of decieving men, and then got decieved by her, which you have to respect. Any fictional character can fool another fictional character; only true legends fool their creators.

sidebar: fuck that dude

The show can never fully commit to this bit, because he's supposed to be our big heroic love interest, but the emperor fucking sucks.

Hands-down the show's biggest moral is that All Emperors Are Bastards -- yes, even the ones in relationships we're supposed to find cute; yes, even the ones whose lifestyles we're supposed to envy; yes, even the ones played superbly by the devastatingly handsome Nie Yuan. While watching we repeatedly invoked this tweet:

Being a billionaire must be insane. You can buy new teeth, new skin. All your chairs cost 20,000 dollars and weigh 2,000 pounds. Your life is just a series of your own preferences. In terms of cognitive impairment it's probably like being kicked in the head by a horse every day

He is the dumbest, most easily played motherfucker in China. Getting horny makes him stupid, and he's horny all the time. He has absolute power over the lives of everyone in the empire, and you can distract him with the mere suggestion of a vagina. He has taken a full You Girls Fight It Out Amongst Yourselves stance toward his scheming harem. This will not go well for anyone.

And speaking of those wives, no matter how many times they loudly profess their undying devotion to him, I have a rough time imagining these women feel anything for the Emperor beyond exhausted contempt. Well, okay, maybe the Empress who married him before he took the throne, since she had a chance to get to know him before he was in full Emperor Mode. But none of the other women should ever stop dunking on this guy like the gullible shitbag he is. If you (like me!) are already skeptical about any given heterosexual romance in fiction, be prepared to roll your eyes through the Big True Love Story this one tries to sell you.

5. Right on the cusp of a fascinating feminist conclusion!

I may be on this one for a while; skip ahead if you like.

Okay, so: What little English-language buzz I've seen about this show has used the word "feminist" about it -- mostly in conjunction with how the show's popularity made the CCP sour on its failure to portray appropriate communist values (???). So I went into it expecting feminism! And I got a show with a whole bunch of female characters in it! And hoo boy, are those two things not necessarily the same!

This show is a great example of how merely passing the Bechdel-Wallace Test doesn't make something feminist. Sure, it's mostly about a single woman who, through her plucky nature, rises in the ranks of power. But that is feminist only by the shallowest, most girlboss, Lean-In-ass definition of the word.

At the beginning, you can kinda tell this was written, produced, and directed by men. By the time you get to the end, you can absolutely tell that the production team was dudes from top to bottom. This, to me, is the big tell: that the show cannot conceive that anything these women are doing could be interesting unless it's trying to stab another woman in the back. There is a time jump very near the end, where the few female characters still standing agree to stop being shitty to one another -- and then fast-forward a decade, because why would we care about seeing what their lives are like when they're not being shitty to one another?

The show is incredibly constrained by Actual History. At the end of the day, it's a Cinderella story, and as such, we have to cheer for the social and legal mechanisms that make it possible -- even when they're grotesquely misogynistic. The show lets its female characters pay lip service to how awful it is that women are little more than breeding stock, but it doesn't let them do anything about it. Mothers can be obliquely sad that their daughters are being fed to the same patriarchy machine that fucked them up, but talking is the most they can accomplish ... because those daughters were real people who were actually fed into the patriarchy machine. We know this. We have documentation. China is very good at keeping receipts.

Wei Yingluo starts out as a servant, and throughout the first half of the show, she moves up and down in the servant ranks -- and all the while it makes the point that being a servant fucking sucks. Maybe it's better when you get to work directly under someone you really like, but the actual job sucks shit and puts you at the mercy of everyone above you in the palace hierarchy. Your life is not your own. You're barely a person. You can easily get executed for merely working in the same household as someone who broke the rules.

The feminist answer to this dilemma is to notice that the system is bad and either a) refuse to participate in it, or b) use your power to mitigate its badness. The show, however, clearly thinks that the real problem with this whole setup is that the people we like aren't at the top of it. Somebody has to take the abuse; you just don't want that somebody to be you. Once Wei Yingluo gets to a place of real power in the palace hierarchy, she starts behaving very much like the people who used to be shitty to her and takes no steps to prevent the early-show damage she suffered from happening to other people.

Now: You can make the argument that if she'd done all those radical things, she would've been dead meat -- and I think you'd be correct! But the show never indicates that it gives a second thought to how abusive and unfair this all is. Survival in this system means exploiting the people below you. There's not a neutral option. And this show expects you to cheer for exploiting the "right" people.

The show never quite seems to internalize what the stakes are -- at least, not for more than a moment or two at a time. I made the Real Housewives joke because the show more or less treats the consort-on-consort schemes as fun catfights by mean girls wanting to be the prom queen. It almost gets to the point of realizing that a woman's place in the harem is literal life-and-death shit for her, and that if she can't produce a son and work him into a powerful position, she's fucked. It always bunts when it gets there, though, choosing to play up vanity and petty grievances instead of the absolute desperation these women must be feeling.

It gets so close with Consort Shun to a real discussion about how awful it is that the men in their lives see them as pretty objects to be bartered for favor and power with other men. But it can't fully go there, because that would undermine the structures propping up this Cinderella story, and then we couldn't feel good about the Cinderella story. And we want to feel good about the Cinderella story. We will burn every other female character in the show if we get to feel good about the Cinderella story.

I've made a lot of jokes about lesbians in this show, but the truth is, it is chronically deficient in lesbianism. Lesbian sex would have improved the lives of at least half the characters here, if not more. Unlike a lot of other historical c-drama shows, Yanxi Palace acknowledges the reality and possibility both male and female same-sex sexual desire -- but it does so in order to say that both are bad. (I legitimately cannot tell if the production is doing this to show how regrettably anti-gay the past was or to play on the audience's expected homophobic disgust. I suspect the latter, but I genuinely don't know.) While it does the fascinating thing of showing desire and coupled relationships between women and eunuchs, it has no idea how queer those setups are, nor does it acknowledge the possibility for same-sex pairings to fill that same positive dynamic.

So why on earth would I list this whole mess of problematic attitudes as a reason for, and not against, watching the show?

Because it is fascinating to think about. Look, I've burned a lot of time and brainpower here writing several paragraphs that no one is ever going to read about how interesting the show's moves are. It has the weird problem where it understands what happens when you lock a bunch of women together in a high-pressure situation keyed to a brutal hierarchy -- but it doesn't ever appear to quite get why. At least, not beyond the sense that people will claw their way to the top of any hierarchy they have access to, just because it's there. (Watch how it treats the few exceptions to this, the rare nonambitious characters. See how long they stay nonambitious.)

As I said when I labeled this point, the show is just on the edge of a smart conclusion, and that smart conclusion has to do with how awful it is that women are both the people who suffer most under heteropatriarchy and the people who work the hardest to uphold it.

Yes, the world into which these women have been thrust is awful. But they make it ten times more awful because they're all semi-voluntarily engaged in a vicious, Highlander-esque zero-sum competition. They could cut one another some slack, but they're more invested in continuing the cycle of abuse to maintain an intense, repressive order. The ones that try to be kind about it get repeatedly fucked by the ones who have no interest in kindness. They all have to engage in performative rituals that mimic sincerity without actually producing a single genuine emotion toward one another. It's horrifying and paranoia-inducing in the extreme. And they're doing most of it to themselves.

If it were really feminist, the moral of the Story of Yanxi Palace would be it does't have to be like this. This dynamic is not inevitable; this is a choice perpetuated by generations of people who benefit from it just enough not to question its correctness.

Sadly, there's still enough promise in patriarchy that being a Good Girl will save you from the shit we put the Bad Girls through -- so don't you want to be a Good Girl? All we need you to do is throw all those icky Bad Girls under the bus. It's their fault for being Bad Girls anyway. But you? You don't have to be afraid. We're not going to hurt you. You deserve all the good things we're giving you. You're not like all the other girls. You're different. You're special.

Just don't forget to watch your back.

If anything, I think the CCP is terribly wrong: This show is an excellent demonstration of communist values, in that if these women had just joined together in solidarity, all their lives would have been so much better! The Emperor should have been posting helplessly on Reddit like "My (55M) consorts (40F, 36F, 31F, 28F, 22F, 19F) have unionized" so the entire internet could come for his ass.

Care to watch?

This is another of those shows you can find in a whole bunch of places! Here's the ones I know about:

YouTube

TVBAnywhere

Viki

Tubi

iQiyi

I know seventy episodes is a commitment. I know eighteenth-century palace drama is a lot. I know that last selling point of mine seemed to go on for-fucking-ever and you probably didn't read any of it. But this show is a beautiful work that I think more people should see, warts and all. Besides, if all we ever consume is ideologically "pure" media, how do we learn to think critically about anything?

True story: My Chinese colleague, knowing I was watching this show, taught me slang for "lesbian." It's 拉拉 (lala). Very useful.

#story of yanxi palace #yanxi palace #rec post #i made this #延禧攻略

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anthropologyruinseverything · 6 months ago

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One-Shot Roman Reigns

Untitled off shoot of a longer fic I am working on

🚨SMUT MINORS DNI 18+ only plz

1.75k words - Roman Reigns x Indigenous American FMC - Established D/s relationship/embarrassment/free-use/prompt exercise

I could barely contain my excitement as we filed into the conference room for the big merchandise meeting. Knowing Roman found the art interesting but the numbers talk insufferable I had planned this little stunt specifically for what I knew would be an exceptionally long and boring one. His shoulders were wound up tight already and his leg bouncing.

A week ago I’d removed my the simple purple bracelet I’d worn non-stop for a year. The free-use bracelet I had started to feel he took for granted. Politely, sweetly, I’d rebuffed any other attempts of his to come onto me with our safe word, which meant hard stop and no questions, and so he’d been left very frustrated but unable to do much about it. I never used our safe word and suddenly I was using it daily. His gentle questions answered with “I’m fine really, just not in the mood” or “It’s not you, I’m just really tired” and I knew he was close to bursting.

Memories of why I was doing this had kept me strong all week. I’d been on a call with costumes when he’d insisted on sex, embarrassing me on a professional call when I’d been unable to contain a shout. The giggle from Jamie on the other end of the line haunted me.

It wasn’t the only time he’d taken advantage of our agreement and I knew it wouldn’t be that last and that was okay. I just felt like we could use some boundaries and these seemed like a fun way to get my point across.

The roots of seeking revenge took hold and so I’d planned to do everything in my power to embarrass him in some way that would match up.

Mister Tribal Chief, Head of the Table, Big Uce could stand to be taken down just a single peg from time to time.

Digging into my bag I fired off the photos I took earlier along with a video and the words “hope your phones on silent”. Next I sent the app for the vibrating underwear I was wearing. He couldn’t control it but he could see what was happening on a live chart. I waited, watching as he settled in the chair next to me and fished his phone out before the meeting got started.

Roman’s tanned face went from his normal golden to deep red in a matter of seconds, even his ears turned pink. I could be a brat for sure, but I was shy and typically submissive, not one to do something so rash as take *those* kinds of photos, shots of my wet center and naked breasts. Not one to send a video of me orgasming with the toy he’d tortured me with so many times.

And in them all I was wearing the bracelet. Waiting for him to look up I tugged the long sleeves I was wearing to my elbows, exposing my wrist. Realization I had been wearing it all day dawned on his face and his mouth fell open ever so slightly. I made sure to glance away quickly, acting as if nothing was happening, as if I wasn’t nearing another one right now. Thanks to him I’d developed quite the poker face in our year together.

“Roman, you good?” Paul Levesque asked. He snapped his mouth shut but couldn’t hide the blush.

“Yep. Fine.”

My phone dinged.

*WTF*

I ignored it.

Again. *What are you doing? This isn’t funny.*

It was a struggle not to laugh as I heard him shifting urgently in his seat.

“S’matter with you dawg?” Jey threw him a dirty look from his other side. “Be’in annoyin’ as hell right now.”

“Sorry.” But he shifted again, earning a disgruntled sound from his cousin.

His phone buzzed letting him know I was peaking and I squeezed my pen a little tighter before turning the setting back down as if I were shooting off any old text. I looked over at him sideways.

“You feeling okay? You look a little flushed.”

If looks could kill I’d be dead. Making a face at him I held my hands up like I’d done nothing wrong and went back to doodling. Paul cleared his throat from the front of the room.

“Roman? If you’re alright we can get started?”

Again he flushed bright red and nodded. “Course. M’fine, just hot.”

Jimmy snorted from the end of the table. “Yeah, and bothered. Like a teenager over there Uce.”

Roman shot him a death glare as everyone chuckled softly. Never before had he been the butt of the joke and everyone in the room seemed to be enjoying his distress.

Without hesitation I fired off another video.

I’d been playing this game all week, he just didn’t know it. In this one I wore one of his tshirts, making it obvious I’d taken it while he was in the shower one night. In this one I rode a pillow and toyed with my breasts, something he loved watching me do when he had me wound up and desperate but wouldn’t allow me to touch myself with my hands.

*Coyote.*

I didn’t answer or look his way, just watched the slides as Paul talked.

*This isn’t funny. What the hell?*

Instead of answering him I sent yet another video, this on from even earlier in the week. Making it very clear that while I’d denied him all week I had enjoyed myself various ways while he was busy but close. His knee jerked and the table jumped at the video of me in shower, using the water stream to pleasure myself. Again something else he loved to do.

“What are you watching? Care to share?” Paul Heyman sounded mildly annoyed, he’d nearly lost his coffee when Roman had bumped the table.

The dark haired man beside me slammed the phone down on the table, hard enough I was worried he cracked the screen. “No. Look, it’s nothing.”

But it clearly wasn’t nothing. Again his phone buzzed as I adjusted my underwear. It looked like he might cry.

I relished it, wishing I could take a picture.

“Bet it’s porn.”

Everyone stilled before bursting into laughter, except Roman who buried his face in his hands. Sometimes Solo had the best things to say and he’d gotten much bolder about giving his older relation a hard time.

Once the laughter subsided the meeting moved forward, moving rather quickly. Roman was agreeable, clearly in a hurry.

“I think that sums it up-“

“Great.” Pushing himself up the tall Samoan grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet in front on him in one smooth motion. “See ya later.”

“Uh-hey! My bag-“

“Somebody’ll grab it.” He never missed a step, pushing me out of the room ahead of him. Stumbling into the hallway he kept a tight grip on my shoulder. “Closet, now.”

With some strange stoke of luck the first supply closet we came across was unlocked. Various boxes of what appeared to be holiday decor lined old metal shelves in a room dimly lit by a single bulb. It was musty and cramped and kinky.

I loved it.

Loved how feral he looked as he locked the door behind us.

“You’ve been *such* a bad girl Coyote.” His voice was like a dagger cloaked in velvet. Letting his hair down he approached, his eyes were focused but wild. “It’s time to pay.”

Putting on the bracelet meant he could do what he wanted, when he wanted, and where he wanted, only to stop if I pulled out the safeword.

“Strip and get to your knees.”

I shivered, moving quickly to do as he commanded and speaking the words I’d been train to. “Yes chief.”

He circled me in the enclosed space, tugging off his own tshirt. “You wanna behave like a little slut? Like a *dirty* pet?”

My whole body clenched in want. At first it had bothered me that I liked his dirty talk but now I embraced the rush of feelings it brought. Shame swept me yet my nipples tingled in anticipation.

Falling to his knees behind me he shoved me forward with one hand between my shoulder blades. “Then I’m gonna fuck you like one.”

Shoving his pants down just enough to free his cock he waisted no time slamming into me to the hilt. His big hands clutched my hips with bruising force as he pounded away with abandon. Glancing back over my shoulder I was rewarded with a gorgeous sight, his hair loose around his shoulders, face flushed and sweaty, warm brown eyes clouded with lust.

I loved it when I made him lose control.

Normally such a calm and cool and confident Dom he was lost to his passions now and I was falling quickly as well. All week I’d missed being stretched by his huge dick and now that I had it I was teetering on the edge of oblivion.

“Not letting you outta bed for a week.” Roman was panting, grunting loudly like he didn’t care if anyone could hear.

It made my walls clench tighter around him. The slapping sounds of our flesh were lewd and delicious at the same time, the jolt of his hips slamming into me aided in the pleasure.

Wrenching my head back he leaned over me, pressing his lips to my ear. “Who owns this pussy Coyote? Who owns you baby?”

“You do!”

“And who am I?”

“My chief! Oh, Roman!”

“Coyote, ah fuck!”

If they hadn’t heard him before surely someone heard his shout now.

I fell apart beneath him, pulling him with me, my clenching walls greedily took all the cum he had to offer. It was incredible, feeling his cock pulsing deep within me as we lay there panting.

“Gonna use you as a cock warmer all night you brat.” Roman nuzzled my neck and nipped at my ear.

“Tie you up and torture you with those damn toys. What the fuck were you thinking?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes it feels like you don’t respect me. I was embarrassed on that phone call and so I wanted to give you a taste of your own medicine for once.”

He looked incredulous. “Course I respect you.”

“Okay, well how about we agree not to embarrass each other in a work setting again?”

He chuckled and squeezed me tightly around the middle. “Deal. But you gotta have mercy. A whole week? What’s a guy done to deserve that?”

I slapped his shoulder and we laughed. There would be another round in the closet before be finally collected himself enough to get us back to the bus.

True to his word I didn’t leave the bed for a week.

#wwe #fanfiction #roman reigns #roman reigns fanfiction #the bloodline #wwe fanfiction #ao3 writer #smutty fanfiction #writing #smut #roman reigns smut

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barrenclan · 1 year ago

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"Arms Tonite" by Mother Mother, for Rainhaze and Asphodelpaw? It reminds me of them idjdjidi

Aw... that makes me sad. Rainhaze and Asphodelpaw is okay, although the romantic vibes of this song put me off a little bit. And Asphodelpaw, would she be okay with dying at Rainhaze's paws? There's some other characters, though...

"I died in your arms tonight I slipped through into the afterlife, it was nice White light in your arms tonight I lost sight in your arms tonight, it was nice"

"I cry in the afterlife I cry hard because I have died, and you're alive"

youtube

I see we both enjoyed that Shadowsight PMV...

"No, what they say it's "keep your eye on the money" No, what they say it's "keep your eye on the prize" Gracefully and suffocating on my lies We'll hear the love you gather all around When you're six feet underground"

"Make your peace Do a sacrificial dance All your jubilant intentions never stood a chance You see the coming on the end times"

youtube

I don't think I've ever heard of this band! I've been listening to a lot of old rock lately, so it's fun. I agree with you, too.

"I'm sitting here alone in darkness Waiting to be free, Lonely and forlorn I am crying I long for my time to come"

"Hate is my only friend Pain is my father Torment is delight to me Death is my sanctuary" <- lol yeah rainhaze

youtube

"Bewitched be delight, you'll reach the night Dancing and singing to my fiddle So take my hand, and understand That no-one will see you again"

youtube

That's a specific choice! I do like it, though. Rainhaze is pretty easy to fit with a lot of music in general.

youtube

Aw... if those two had it together a little more, I can see it very cleanly with them.

"There once was a time when we walked crooked lines But that's all over now I'll walk with you into the blue"

"You got any weekend plans? Can't help but wonder if you're still my pal But you told me once that you would follow me into hell And oh man, that place is far behind me now"

youtube

Oh yes, I can imagine Nightberry singing this chorus to Pinepaw!

"Don't ask your questions to the wall They keep their secrets locked inside If blood and bones are what you want I suggest that you look behind you"

youtube

Not to my memory.

"He goes to the desert, fires his rifle in the sky And says, "God, if I have to die, you will have to die"

"Every time you think you're walking, you're just moving the ground Every time you think you're talking, you're just moving your mouth Every time you think you're looking, you're just looking down"

youtube

Hm, what's the bad faith interpretation of that? I think it works! "Sleep" is practically his themesong, anyways.

"Another night and I'll see you Another night and I'll be you Some other way to continue To hide my face"

"Touched by angels, though I fall out of grace I did it all so maybe I'd live this every day"

youtube

Yeah, this one has been suggested before! Still holds up.

youtube

I can definitely understand the This Is My Blorbo instinct, very valid.

"We exercise the demons of the things we used to know The gnashing of the teeth become the remnants of our homes We think we're moving on from materials we long To forget we ever sold our souls to own"

"There's a chilling absolution that we're given from our birth A powerful delusion and a plague upon the earth"

Ran out of video embeds xoxo

#ask #anon #music #cypressfoot #nightberry #ranger #rainhaze #redpelt #deepdark #pinepaw #slugpelt

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mithliya · 10 months ago

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Some believed that the Oct. 7 attack only targeted military sites. Others were convinced that all Israeli civilian casualties were the result of mistaken IDF counter-fire or the activation of the “Hannibal Directive,” a portion of the IDF Code of Conduct — which has reportedly been revoked since 2016 — which purportedly allows for Israelis to be targeted in order to prevent their captivity. Oct. 7 denialism was further fueled by some reports that turned out to be false or inaccurate, such as the 40 beheaded babies or first responders finding dead children hung on clotheslines in a row.

Nevertheless, overwhelming video and anecdotal evidence unequivocally and definitively prove the unspeakable scale of the atrocities committed against Israeli civilians, many of whom were in fact leftists and even peace activists.

I never thought that the Palestinian people and their entirely legitimate grievances would be associated with such brutal acts as those that actually took place on Oct. 7. While Hamas militants are a small part of the Palestinian population, their crimes are a shameful stain in the history of Palestinian resistance to Israeli injustices. Someone who is truly of the left cannot in good conscience explain it away.

Along with the stubborn unwillingness by some on the left to acknowledge how horrendous Oct. 7 was, there exists an equally staunch refusal to denounce Hamas as a seriously violent terror group that not only committed a vile atrocity against Israelis, but has exercised authoritarian violence against Gazans for over 17 years.

Herein lies the problem: Hamas has hijacked the resistance narrative and even the Arabic word for resistance (muqawama). Since taking over the Gaza Strip, the group has consistently hidden behind the resistance narrative, thus shielding itself from criticism and absolving itself of its dismal political and economic failures.

Despite nearly two decades of the Israeli blockade that harmed the lives and prospects of ordinary Gazans, Hamas created an environment in which its members, patrons and affiliates were insulated from the blockade’s dire effects. Hamas established a web of businesses and imposed taxes on virtually every financial transaction and exchange, worsening the economic conditions for millions who were living under crushing poverty.

…

In 2017, 2019 and in the summer of 2023, tens of thousands of Gazans protested against their living conditions, the lack of human rights, and the political deadlock between Hamas and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. In each of these instances, Hamas responded with overwhelming brutality and force. They jailed, beat and tortured protestors and unleashed its thugs and cyber warriors to bully and harass everyday Gazans.

…

Hamas’s rise to power and entrenched control of Gaza was supported and desired by Netanyahu and his regime of anti-Palestinian extremists. The Islamist group was bolstered in an effort to keep the Palestinians divided and to weaken the PA, preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state. With a weak PA and a militant Hamas, Israel could proclaim the lack of a viable partner to negotiate peace with. Netanyahu is now desperate to prolong the worst war that Palestinians have faced in generations to save his political prospects, putting Hamas and Israel’s dictatorial strongman in an unspoken alliance against the people of Gaza.

Hamas’s intransigence and continued refusal to sacrifice some of its demands to achieve a rapid ceasefire agreement illustrates the group’s callous disregard for the lives of its people. Imagine how much more powerful the pro-Palestine movement would be if its actions and strategies were built upon an anti-Hamas framework that acknowledges Palestinians’ rights to resistance but denounces indiscriminate violence against civilians, the theocratic authoritarianism of Islamist groups like Hamas and the human rights abuses that Gazans themselves experienced under Hamas’ rule. Imagine if the pro-Palestine left understood the vast extent to which Hamas was a useful idiot in the nefarious designs of Netanyahu’s regime.

As Gazans turn against the Islamist group in droves due to the horrendous consequences of its deadly actions, it’s time for the pro-Palestine left to follow suit and abandon Hamas.

not the full article but these are sections i found important.

#palestine #israel #hamas #this was written by a palestinian man btw

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pescalozz · 3 months ago

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Ares

Ares (Αρης) was the olympian god of war. He was the oldest child of Zeus and Hera and was known for his sheer violence and brutality. He was the most hated of all the gods and was loved neither by gods nor by men. Ares is the second companion of the Goddess Aphrodite.

Sacred Animal(s) :

Ares sacred animals are the vulture, the snake and some species of owl (Eurasian eagle-owl & Barn owl) which ancient augury identified as portents of war.

Offerings :

Offerings you can give to Lord Ares are :

Swords/daggers/knives (or any blade weapon really), spears, soldier imagery (like toys), dog tags, shields, helmets, armors, workout gear (dumbbells, lifting gloves, running shoes, etc.)

Dragons/snakes/owl/vultures imagery, bones (of animals naturally found please), preserved animals, ashes, trophies/ribbons/awards. War books/movies/games, first aid kits/wound care

Bird imagery, Feathers, metals, claws.

Devotional acts :

Like any other gods, you can do devotional acts on what feels the most of him to you.

But here are some of my suggestions like always :

Workout/Exercise, attend a protest, self-defense training, learn about wars, go to a shooting range if possible in your county (I'm looking at you French fellows).

Identify and cope with your anger, go to a rage room, play war video games, start a fire (safely).

Watch war movies/documentaries, visit war sites/memorials, scream, get out of your comfort zone, work through your fears.

Learn wound care, take home security measures, learn about PTSD, practice divination, particularly ornithomancy.

Support people who are currently living through wars (like Palestinian : link to donate, and a second one who almost reached their goal)

━━━━━━━━━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━━━━━━━━

I know it's been awhile and I'm sorry but here is finally a guide to worship Lord Ares, God of war and protector of women 🤲🏼🏛️

Thanks for sticking with me :)

#greek gods #greek mythology #hellenic polytheism #hellenism #pagan #paganism #religion #greek religion #ares #mars #ares deity

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tawneybel · 2 months ago

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Note: “can you do a n/sfw male reader for Ryan... the hot firefighter stripper, from Dead Island game 2?” Clean, despite mention of enema.

Imagine Ryan indulging your fireman fantasy.

“I’m surprised you were able to recognize me. You must not watch a lot of porn.”

Somehow it wasn’t immediately apparent that Ryan was a stripper. Slipped in and out of fun personas for a living. Like you. (The massive hotness should have been a giveaway.) Ryan wasn’t doing a good job of hiding the fact he recognized you, though. Not even in front of the others. They probably thought he was developing a crush. Unaware he had been crushing on you for a few years.

You began to suspect as much in Emily Jaunt’s exercise room. Emily sat on a workout bench; you sat on a couch behind her. She stared at the floor, gun in hand, while you drank in Ryan’s unconscious body. Weaponless, you readied yourself to pull Emily back if he was infected and she lost her nerve. You wouldn’t blame her.

Just as you were pondering whether the undead were smart enough to uncuff themselves, Ryan woke up.

“Take these off,” he said, jigging his wrist. “My fever’s gone. I’m feeling human again.”

“They’re toy cuffs,” explained Emily, “just push the button.”

Ryan did. Then noticed they weren’t alone. His eyes darted to you. And widened.

Occasionally people recognized you in public. Now most of them were probably more interested in eating brain than giving it. This firefighter might be the last compatible man on earth. Hopefully not, but the interest was definitely mutual from the get go. Waiting for the bitee to wake up, you wanted to touch him so badly. Like how he’d wanted to touch you so badly since stumbling upon your OnlyFans.

“So if you’re a firefighter,” you drawled, taking in his semi-nude form. “So if you’re a fireman… Does that make you, um, the authority?”

Ryan groaned from his seat on the bed. Half-naked and semi-erect, he’d do anything for you. Anything he’d seen you do in those videos. And more. That’s what he told you on the way to the guest bedroom, where you whipped out a handheld camera. He ditched his shirt outside the door and you unzipped his pants. You almost wanted him to leave them on, but that ass. Just get him to lower them, duh, you told your lust-addled brain. Then you had an idea. You always carried an enema-kit, for any impromptu shooting. Not just bulbs, but a tube that could dilate a hole up to three inches ad hoc. Then power wash the colon. And you’d never recorded a partner rinsing himself out for your cock.

You initially wanted to ask Emily for another pair of handcuffs, then decided nah. You’d make your new boy do the work.

“I’m sure your partners ask you to roleplay a lot, right?”

Flushed, Ryan nodded. You’d suspected he hadn’t so much as set foot in a fire station. Or a police station, because he hadn’t been able to tell they were toy cuffs. (Even if he had shown up to Emily’s impersonating a cop, you’d be the one conducting a cavity search.) Later, he’d mention he did have experience with handcuffs. It was just that, waking up, he hadn’t exactly been thinking clearly.

“I’m not going to ask you to fireman carry me or anything… Unless you want to try it.”

It wasn’t like you could nestle a regular hose’s nozzle, let alone a fire hose, inside his tight ass. And Emily wouldn’t appreciate you utilizing her shower cord that way. For all you knew, that was her personal pleasurer.

If Emily wasn’t already a mainstream actress, she’d make a great adult-

Ryan’s groan brought you back to reality. He needed something fit snugly inside that hole. Stat. His hands were already enticingly spreading his cheeks apart.

“Yeah, a little wider,” you encouraged, zooming in, prompting Ryan to further splay his asshole. Frequent rewatches of your videos let him know it’d soon be spread to its limits. At least you had lube, from that kit you just happened to be carrying with your other stuff. Ryan would reflect on how happy he was you kept it in case of unexpected ass-fucking proposals. Post-apocalyptic ass-fucking proposals.

Note: Originally gonna be 2.5+ words, but I keep getting interrupted in the middle of smut writing. :/ So back to writing shorter images on my phone it is.

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t0talbra1nd3ath · 7 months ago

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Facts about Efren? 🙏 (I’m fixating on him at a concerning rate rn)

IVE BEEN WITING FOR THIS QUESTIONNN

Efren Lore + Fun Facts

(May contain some mild spoilers)

I think out of all of the DBM characters Efren has the most mild lore.

He's Filipino, but he was born and grew up in USA. His full name is Danilo Efren Dagohoy (yes he goes by his middle name). He doesn't really know any language other than English, though his parents did try to teach him Tagalog and he did take Spanish in high school.

His family is overall very average: middle class, suburban white picket fence house, church on Sundays, etc. He has 4 siblings - one older brother, and three younger siblings - two sister and a toddler brother.

Despite the pretty average upbringing he was always the black sheep of the family. He was always the biggest out of the five siblings, being born the weight of 8 pounds and 11 ounces. He was a chubby kid, though during puberty he started to grow really tall and with a bit of regular exercise he developed an impressive muscle mass.

He was always freakishly strong and completely unaware of it. In kindergarten and primary school he would get in trouble for accidentally hurting other kids and breaking toys. This self control issue really came to a boiling point when he accidentally killed the neighbours cat while playing with it. After that incident most of the kids his age in the area weren't allowed to talk to him. In middle school he became more of a loner and that stays true even to this day.

He still lives in a suburban-ish area. There aren't any houses near by but there is a road that joggers frequent near by.

Efren works from home as a cyber security guy for a whole array of websites ranging from sketchy to full on illegal. On top of being naturally strong he also has a talent for IT. In high school he would make simple viruses and hack into random websites for shits and giggles. That is actually how he got his job - he broke into one of those sketchy websites and after being tracked down on suspicions of being a fed he was offered to either work for them or perish (lol).

Efren has a very skewed sense of empathy. He doesn't feel much for people, you could confess your undying love to him or shoot yourself in the head in front of him and he wouldn't care either way. On the other hand he has insane levels of empathy towards animals, even the "gross ones" like bugs, snakes, arachnids, etc. He gets genuinely mad if someone kills a spider.

Other than a skewed sense of empathy Efren also has a very odd aggression response. His emotional response to being mad never results in impulsive physical or verbal aggression (yes ik in-game it's not really shown, I'll have to rewrite a few sections). But what does illicit impulsive physical aggression in Efren is something cute. That is the primary reason he won't get an actual pet cat, even though he desperately wants one, he is terrified of hurting it.

Ok now for a rapid-fire-round-up of small fun facts:

Efren hates beer! His favourite alcoholic drinks are a vodka-redbull and a banana daiquiri.

Efren is a massive nerd, he grew up spending all his free time playing video games and nowadays since his schedule is pretty lax he spends a large amount of his time watching anime and playing FPS shooters.

Efren has a two pet tarantulas named Tarantino and Tammy (they are both female).

Ok this turned out much longer than expected, sorry for the info dump Q_Q

Let me know if any on y'all are interested in lore on Isra and Hawk!! (I'm holding off on Orion lore since it would be a major spoiler for the full game)

#death by mixer #asks

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defensenow · 6 months ago

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youtube

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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The Athenian historian Thucydides once remarked that Sparta was so lacking in impressive temples or monuments that future generations who found the place deserted would struggle to believe it had ever been a great power. But even without physical monuments, the memory of Sparta is very much alive in the modern United States. In popular culture, Spartans star in film and feature as the protagonists of several of the largest video game franchises. The Spartan brand is used to promote obstacle races, fitness equipment, and firearms. Sparta has also become a political rallying cry, including by members of the extreme right who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Sparta is gone, but the glorification of Sparta—Spartaganda, as it were—is alive and well.

Even more concerning is the U.S. military’s love of all things Spartan. The U.S. Army, of course, has a Spartan Brigade (Motto: “Sparta Lives”) as well as a Task Force Spartan and Spartan Warrior exercises, while the Marine Corps conducts Spartan Trident littoral exercises—an odd choice given that the Spartans were famously very poor at littoral operations. Beyond this sort of official nomenclature, unofficial media regularly invites comparisons between U.S. service personnel and the Spartans as well.

Much of this tendency to imagine U.S. soldiers as Spartan warriors comes from Steven Pressfield’s historical fiction novel Gates of Fire, still regularly assigned in military reading lists. The book presents the Spartans as superior warriors from an ultra-militarized society bravely defending freedom (against an ethnically foreign “other,” a feature drawn out more explicitly in the comic and later film 300). Sparta in this vision is a radically egalitarian society predicated on the cultivation of manly martial virtues. Yet this image of Sparta is almost entirely wrong. Spartan society was singularly unworthy of emulation or praise, especially in a democratic society.

To start with, the Spartan reputation for military excellence turns out to be, on closer inspection, mostly a mirage. Despite Sparta’s reputation for superior fighting, Spartan armies were as likely to lose battles as to win them, especially against peer opponents such as other Greek city-states. Sparta defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War—but only by accepting Persian money to do it, reopening the door to Persian influence in the Aegean, which Greek victories at Plataea and Salamis nearly a century early had closed. Famous Spartan victories at Plataea and Mantinea were matched by consequential defeats at Pylos, Arginusae, and ultimately Leuctra. That last defeat at Leuctra, delivered by Thebes a mere 33 years after Sparta’s triumph over Athens, broke the back of Spartan power permanently, reducing Sparta to the status of a second-class power from which it never recovered.

Sparta was one of the largest Greek city-states in the classical period, yet it struggled to achieve meaningful political objectives; the result of Spartan arms abroad was mostly failure. Sparta was particularly poor at logistics; while Athens could maintain armies across the Eastern Mediterranean, Sparta repeatedly struggled to keep an army in the field even within Greece. Indeed, Sparta spent the entirety of the initial phase of the Peloponnesian War, the Archidamian War (431-421 B.C.), failing to solve the basic logistical problem of operating long term in Attica, less than 150 miles overland from Sparta and just a few days on foot from the nearest friendly major port and market, Corinth.

The Spartans were at best tactically and strategically uncreative. Tactically, Sparta employed the phalanx, a close-order shield and spear formation. But while elements of the hoplite phalanx are often presented in popular culture as uniquely Spartan, the formation and its equipment were common among the Greeks from at least the early fifth century, if not earlier. And beyond the phalanx, the Spartans were not innovators, slow to experiment with new tactics, combined arms, and naval operations. Instead, Spartan leaders consistently tried to solve their military problems with pitched hoplite battles. Spartan efforts to compel friendship by hoplite battle were particularly unsuccessful, as with the failed Spartan efforts to compel Corinth to rejoin the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League by force during the Corinthian War.

Sparta’s military mediocrity seems inexplicable given the city-state’s popular reputation as a highly militarized society, but modern scholarship has shown that this, too, is mostly a mirage. The agoge, Sparta’s rearing system for citizen boys, frequently represented in popular culture as akin to an intense military bootcamp, in fact included no arms training or military drills and was primarily designed to instill obedience and conformity rather than skill at arms or tactics. In order to instill that obedience, the older boys were encouraged to police the younger boys with violence, with the result that even in adulthood Spartan citizens were liable to settle disputes with their fists, a tendency that predictably made them poor diplomats.

But while Sparta’s military performance was merely mediocre, no better or worse than its Greek neighbors, Spartan politics makes it an exceptionally bad example for citizens or soldiers in a modern free society. Modern scholars continue to debate the degree to which ancient Sparta exercised a unique tyranny of the state over the lives of individual Spartan citizens. However, the Spartan citizenry represented only a tiny minority of people in Sparta, likely never more than 15 percent, including women of citizen status (who could not vote or hold office). Instead, the vast majority of people in Sparta, between 65 and 85 percent, were enslaved helots. (The remainder of the population was confined to Sparta’s bewildering array of noncitizen underclasses.) The figure is staggering, far higher than any other ancient Mediterranean state or, for instance, the antebellum American South, rightly termed a slave society with a third of its people enslaved.

The ancient sources are effectively unanimous that the helots were the worst treated slaves in all of Greece; helotry was an institution that shocked the conscience of Athenian slaveholders. Critias, an Athenian collaborator with Sparta, was said to have quipped that it was in Sparta that “the free were most free and the slaves most a slave,” a staggering statement about a society that was mostly enslaved (and about Critias as a person that he thought this was praise). Plutarch reports the various ways that the Spartans humiliated and degraded the helots, while the Athenian orator Isocrates argued that it was a crime to murder enslaved people everywhere in Greece, except Sparta. Sparta, with both the most slaves per capita and the worst treated slaves, was likely the least free society in the whole of the ancient world.

Nor were the Spartans particularly good stewards of Greek freedom. While their place in popular culture, motivated by films such as 300, puts the Spartans at the head of efforts to defend Greek freedom from the expanding Persian Empire, Sparta was not always so averse to Persia. Unable to deal with the Athenian fleet itself, Sparta accepted Persian money during the Peloponnesian War to build its own, selling the Ionian Greeks back into Persian rule in exchange for humbling Athens. That war won the Spartans a brief hegemony in Greece, which they quickly squandered, ending up at war with their former allies in Corinth.

Unable to win that war either, Sparta again turned to Persia to enforce a peace, called the “King’s Peace,” which sold yet more Greek city-states to the Persian king in exchange for making Sparta into Persia’s local enforcer in Greece, tasked with preventing the emergence of larger Greek alliances that could challenge Persia. Far from being the defender of Greek independence, when given the chance the Spartans opened not only the windows but also the doors to Persian rule. They also refused to join in Alexander the Great’s expedition against Persia, for which Alexander mocked them by dedicating the spoils of his first victories “from all of the Greeks, except the Spartans.”

Instead of a society of freedom-defending super-warriors, Sparta is better understood as a place where the wealthiest class of landholder, the Spartans themselves, had succeeded in reducing the great majority of their poor compatriots to slavery and excluded the rest, called the perioikoi, from political participation or citizenship. The tiny minority of Spartan citizens derived their entire income from the labor of slaves, being legally barred from doing any productive work or engaging in commerce.

And rather than spending their time in ascetic military training, they spent their ample leisure time doing the full suite of expensive, aristocratic Greek pastimes: hunting (a pastime for the wealthy rather than a means of subsistence in the ancient world), eating amply, accumulating money, funding Olympic teams, breeding horses, and so on. Greek authors such as Xenophon and Plutarch continually insist that the golden age of Spartan austerity and egalitarianism existed in the distant past, but each author pushes that golden age further and further into that past, and in any event, archaeology tells us it was never so.

And that lavish lifestyle was clearly very important to the Spartans because they were willing to sacrifice all of their other ambitions on the altar to it. Beginning in the early 400s, the population of Spartan citizens, defined by being rich enough in land to make the mess contributions that were a key part of military and social lfie, began to decline as Spartan families used inheritance and marriage to consolidate holdings and increase their wealth, from 8,000 Spartan citizens in 480 B.C. to 3,500 in 418 to 2,500 in 394 to just 1,500 in 371. The collapse in the number of Spartans who qualified for citizenship had disastrous effects on the manpower available for the Spartan army, causing Sparta’s strategic ambitions to all crumble, one by one. Yet efforts by Agis IV (245-241 B.C.) and Cleomenes III (235-222 B.C.) to arrest the decline were foiled precisely because the Spartan political system denied any political voice to any but the leisured rich, who had little incentive to change.

Sparta is no inspiration for the leaders of a free state. Sparta was a prison in the guise of a state and added little to the sum of the human experience except suffering. No American, much less any U.S. soldier, should aspire to be like a Spartan.

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onboardsorasora · 1 year ago

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That video 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 made me want to write more tennis Dan. He is so so soft... I just. Here's some soft tennis Dan 🥺

I'll tag everything properly tomorrow

Part 1 l Part 21

Part 22

"DR, I need an answer." It was Blake, calling into the kitchen from the living room. Daniel peaked out above the open fridge door in confusion.

"To?"

"The WTA, the meet starts tomorrow."

"Oh." Daniel closed the door, his brow furrowed as he looked at his hand, it wasn't swollen anymore and the surgical scar didn't look so severe. "I thought you were joking about that."

It was the complete end of the season, the US Open had ended weeks ago with total Djoko dominance. The only thing left on the docket was a tournament held by the World Tennis Association, where they invited the top six men and women in the world to play essentially dinner theatre for a cash prize at the end.

As the world number 1, Daniel was automatically invited, but with his injury he had been ruled out and replaced.

"No, Matteo dropped out. He hurt his ankle– so they asked if you're good. I told em your doc signed off but it's up to you."

Blake watched as Daniel got that deer in headlights look and sighed. He turned back to his laptop, preparing to reply in the negative.

"Daniel, are you ok?" Max exited his sim room, eyeing Daniel's shell shocked form curiously, almost worriedly.

Carefully, Blake filled him in when it seemed like Daniel was having a conversation with his palm— as if he was willing his bones to give him the answers.

"You should do it." Max said simply. He grabbed a water bottle from the fridge– nudging Daniel out of the way as he did so.

"Wait what now?" Daniel's head whipped up, his shock returned.

Max shrugged, he said what he said and he knew Daniel heard him.

"But…"

"You can grip the racquet, you're right hand dominant anyway so it'll just be if you want to power through your back hand– which you don't normally do a lot so I don't think you're going to all of a sudden want to, maybe." Max stated matter of factly with a small shrug of his broad shoulders. Blake and Daniel stared at him as if he grew another head.

A loud crunch sounded behind them and Daniel almost got whiplash from turning to see Micheal sitting on the island countertop eating an apple. "He's right." Is all he added, his mouth full.

"What if— what if I like fall or something?" Daniel's voice was small, insecure. His shoulders sagged a little.

"Don't fall." Was Michael's oh so helpful reply.

"Just like…tuck?" Blake was marginally better but still received a deadpan glare.

"I can't think of crashing when I drive, or else I won't drive to the best of my abilities. You never used to think of falling when you play, you shouldn't start now." Max cupped Daniels cheek with his cold palm– wet from the condensation.

"Max—" Daniel felt nervous, helpless. But he wasn't sure if he was ready. He wanted to play, don't get him wrong. The fire was in his belly and watching the US Open had been an exercise in torture. But now that the opportunity was in front of him, he felt hesitant to step forward and take it.

Max watched him with a quiet confidence that was just all Max. Daniel looked around and saw Blake and Micheal also looking at him with a silent belief. They believed he was ready but they were ultimately leaving it to his decision.

"How soon can we leave?" Daniel asked after a moment, bolstered their faith and conviction.

The group of men cheered, apologizing swiftly and contritely to the cats who scattered in fear at the sudden noise.

#maxiel #max/daniel #tennis!dan #tennis player! Dan #tennis au

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hyunsvngs · 1 year ago

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having had a workplace crush in the teaching environment, here is how i would assign the boys as teachers. given my experience in in elementary but we’ll let it slide. obvi they would all love to be music teacher but i cant pick one.

chan: channie has a calling in math. he’d sit on the floor with kids and use all different kinds of tools to help students find their way of thinking. he wouldn’t force the standard way of math. he’s rarely behind his desk, his class is so hands on, all the kids use different methods to learn and they are the top of the school.

lino: lee know would be incredible in the theatre teacher roll. imagine him helping the quiet kids finding their voices. every year starts off with stage blocking and moving correctly so he gets to joke around and they see that the quiet looming teacher is actually a goofball? and they get to spend a whole year with this guy who quickly showed his colors.

binnie: this man is a p.e. teacher. argue with the wall. also he lives for two things: dodgeball and field day. seeing the kids let out all their energy and laugh their asses off while also exercising? nothing can make him happier. he spends all year planning the best activities for field day and makes sure to ask the kids what they would like.

hyune: an art teacher. but he loves stepping in and helping for the ela teachers!! his classroom is filled with his students art (he refers to his students as his kids), he’s been told multiple times to take it down by fire marshals but he’ll take the risk. he loves to see what creations they come up with, and he WILL take things home.

han: han would kill it as a history teacher. every history teacher i had was so carefree and i know that han would love to have kids act things out. he’d have a couch in his room for kids to relax on while working. he’d be super chill with deadlines and things like that. also he’s be open about his anxiety so his kids can see that adults are like them too.

felix: home economics. he spends his weekends coming up with different ways to make recipes accessible for kids with allergies and food restrictions. he makes sure everything is up to standards and is fun for students too. he loves to play videos for the kids so they have fun. also has a food pantry for all the kids on campus just in case they need something to eat.

seungie: seungmin gives off bio or chem teacher energy. but in the best way. most science teachers can be kind of anxiety inducing, but he would make sure to write a joke on the board everyday, he’d wear his pocchaco hairclip on test days to lighten the mood, or go around putting stickers on people papers then denying it just bc he thinks its funny.

innie: language arts. he loves loves loves helping the students write and find their voice. whether it’s essays, poems, short stories, he loves seeing his students grow during the school year. also his kids love story time (yes he does story time and he would never take that from his kids) they love to hear his voices!

sorry for going overboard, i’m a sucker for tropes.💕

victoria baby you ate with this.

also the way im literally gonna be teaching history & english after uni… i’m telling u me n sungie r soulmates

AND AND AND i COMPLETELY agree that bini would be a p.e teacher who would make things fun!!!!! i wouldve actually enjoyed p.e if he taught me LMFOAHSJD

♡ juno

#juno’s asks ♡#user: moondustmemories #asks: ot8

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angeltreasure · 9 months ago

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Hi, i feel better when i pray the rosary, but sometimes i have this insecurity (?) That makes me wonder if im doing too much, most people my age probably dont pray it as much and idk, i guess i just wanted to hear from someone that prays it more regularly that its good

I was actually going through the same thing last December asking myself, am I doing too much? A person who last year, who I kindly asked for spiritual direction, actually made fun of me for praying all the prayers that I did, but especially the Rosary. He tried to make fun, saying I cling to my Rosary beads trembling with fear of every little thing and that my prayers all the years of my life up were useless. Don’t listen to that little voice on your head that is trying to tell you otherwise, or anyone in person like that I had, because the truth is we can never do too much for God. God doesn’t need anything from us because He made us, but praying is in itself loving Him. When we pray the Rosary, we take our mind off of the world and instead meditate on the lives of Jesus Christ and His mother, Mary.

Do not be afraid to pray and do not be afraid to love the Rosary. Our Rosary looks like beads to us but to the evil one he sees a sword. Keep it close to your side like a knight and pray it whenever you’d like, wherever you’d like, and as many times as you’d like.

I highly recommend it. I even encourage you to try out doing it in different ways, alone in a whisper, aloud with family, praying it with Relevant Radio, checking out the videos offered by Word on Fire and EWTN (especially the ones of Mother Angelica and her nuns), pray it outside when you exercise, pray it in a group at church, go to a Rosary rally, pray it for others such as outside of an abortion clinic, etc.

Prayer is good. The Rosary is good! 🙏🏻💚☘️

Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.

- Psalm 144:1

youtube

The Holy Rosary. The Glorious Mysteries led by Mother Angelica to pray on Wednesdays and Sundays.

If you download the EWTN app you can get the full video for free and use it on any device!

#asks #Rosary #and you don’t have to be Catholic to pray the Rosary! all are welcome

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dustedmagazine · 11 months ago

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Slept Ons: 2023

Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter

If you write for Dusted, you listen to music all the time and you try, at least within your general area of interest, to stay current with what’s current. Ask any of our significant others, and they’ll say we listen to too much music, to which we inevitably reply “What’s that, this ‘too much’ you speak of?” We listen to music while we’re eating, while we’re working, while we’re exercising, while we’re driving from one place to another, even while we’re brushing our teeth sometimes; though, admittedly, the sound quality is not that great in the bathroom.

Even so, we miss things. Here, in what has become an annual tradition, we revisit some of the albums that slipped away in one fashion or another, the ones that we kept putting off until it was too late, the ones we somehow didn’t catch wind of until well into January, the ones we discovered tardily on other people’s lists and year-end podcasts and radio shows. So here are our late finds, a favorite or two each that we never got the chance to write about. Fortunately, unlike bread and fresh fruit and bunches of cilantro, albums don’t go bad if you let them sit for a while.

Die Enttäuschung und Alexander Von Schlippenbach — Monk’s Casino Live At Au Topsi Pohl (Two Nineteen)

This record wasn’t so much slept on as patiently sleuthed. Die Enttäuschung, the long-running German quartet (their name translates as The Disappointment, an appellation that says more about their sense of humor than the quality of their ever-buoyant reimagining of bebop and early free jazz) started selling it at gigs in the spring of 2023. I bided my time, and when I made it to Berlin last fall, scoring a copy was on my agenda. To this day, the record and the internet are near strangers; while you can buy it from Bandcamp, there’s no download, streaming or videos. So, you’ll have to just take it from me that Die Enttäuschung’s reunion with now-octogenarian pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach will take wrinkles off your brow. The first time that these musicians recorded together as Monk’s Casino, back in 2005, they performed every one of Thelonious Monk’s compositions over three CDs; pith was essential. The repertoire hasn’t changed this time, but the approach is looser. Crammed into the intimate confines of the now-shuttered Au Topsi Pohl just as Omicron started ruining parties, the five musicians goose the tempos, spike the solos with impertinence, and veer around Monk’s sharp angles with a combination of intimate familiarity and belt-busting abandon.

Bill Meyer

Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter — SAVED! (Perpetual Flame Ministries)

Not slept on so much as avoided— and why, at this point I am not entirely sure. When I saw Kristin Hayter perform under her previous Lingua Ignota moniker back in December of 2022, she opened with a set of devotional songs on piano, a variety of metallic objects set and chains draped across the instrument’s interior string works. It was extraordinary, and SAVED! features the same basic set of raw, austere elements: that prepared piano, Hayter’s remarkable voice and the problematics of faith. The avoidance may stem from my own fraught relations to the sort of grim Protestantism Hayter reimagines; I spend some time around fire-and-brimstone Baptism as a child, and it left a mark on me. She wove some of that language and those textures into the excellent Lingua Ignota record Sinner Get Ready, but there they were much more symbolic, and largely couched in specific fundamentalisms (Amish and Mennonite) that distanced them somewhat. The sounds and spiritual gestures on SAVED! are a good deal more familiar to me, and they haunt. Likely the haunting is the point. Certainly “All of My Friends Are Going to Hell” and “I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole” smolder and then burn with varieties of hellfire I have smelled before. One can also hear those songs more metaphorically, and “I Will Be with You Always” (the best thing on the record) is replete with images and intensities that call to multiple levels of meaning, simultaneously and sublimely. SAVED! is a hard record for me to listen to, and that’s why I have come, somewhat belatedly, to prize it so highly.

Jonathan Shaw

Illusion of Safety — Pastoral (Korm Plastics)

Daniel Burke has been carefully and consistently nurturing his Illusion of Safety project for 40 years, and I’ve been embarrassingly ignorant of the output until now. Burke released multiple audio artifacts in 2023, including a 40th anniversary ten-cassette box set, so choosing a single album to write about for the Slept On column was a daunting undertaking. Pastoral is unique in that it shows off a more delicate and expansive side of the Illusion of Safety oeuvre. It’s also one of the few music-focused objects that the stalwart Korm Plastics label has released in years; the imprint focuses on the written word these days. Sonically, Burke has established a series of vignettes that follow a similar pattern. The music flows from short, sharp attacks into lengthy sustained quietude. Burke unleashes his jarring, frantic salvos both percussively and synthetically, and these brief but unsettling periods morph into slowly churning drone swarms. Given that this is just one example of Burke’s sonic vernacular, I’m excited to hear more. Thankfully, when it comes to Illusion of Safety, I’ve been a veritable Rip Van Winkle.

Bryon Hayes

Malla — Fresko (Solina)

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So slept on was Malla Malmivaara’s second solo album that even the normally reliable Beehype missed it, but even if you did happen to notice its inclusion on my midyear list, overstating how well-crafted and immersive Fresko’s dance-pop tracks are is hard to do. It makes sense given she’s better known for her acting career, but Malla’s been in the Finnish music game for a long time, too — first in the short-lived mid-aughts house trio Elisabeth Underground, then as herself with 2019’s “Sabrina” single (which got a Jori Hulkkonen remix, a guy who once redid M83) that ended up paving the way for her self-titled 2021 debut full-length. Despite using similar synth arpeggios and a healthy dose of vocal reverb as she did on Malla, Fresko is a little bit darker, moodier, more down in it. Lead single “Moi” (“hi” in English) tells the tale, its perfectly crafted video full of young Rolf Ekroth models doing things like looking impossibly cool in ridiculous outfits and having fashion shows with ATVs in snowy back alley Helsinki parking lots are a perfect marriage of audio and video, images and a melody burned in my brain the moment I saw it. It is very much a dance record flush with tech-house tweaks and no grander artistic ambitions, but Malla’s barely crested 40; now that she’s pledged more time to her music career, it’s entirely possible Fresko is but a warmup for something bolder — and even if it’s not, you could do much worse than a third album full of body movers like this. Hi is right.

Patrick Masterson

Kevin Richard Martin – Black (Intercranial)

Ostensibly a eulogy to Amy Winehouse, Kevin Richard Martin’s Black is a deeply humane expression of isolation, loss and grief. Built from the ground up, the bass deep and warm, swathes of glacial arpeggiated synths and beats that hint at the club. Notes echo and ripple away to create silhouettes of solitude, a tangible manifestation of absence. Despite the deep weight of his music, Martin imbues Black with an incredible delicacy. His abstract architecture allows the mind to roam and the listener to connect with emotional truths. It’s the balance Martin finds between the particular and universal that gives Black it’s power. In the strutting bassline of “Camden Crawling” smeared with narco/alcoholic fuzz, the looming threat of “Blake’s Shadow” and the bleary saxophone in “Belgrade Meltdown” there are the faintest echoes of Winehouse’s sound which emerge from the depths of Martin’s echo chambers. A work of terrible sadness, great beauty, empathy and comfort.

Andrew Forell

Derek Monypeny — Cibola (2182 Recording Company)

Cibola eased into the world as 2022 turned into 2023, but it took me nearly a year to get to it. Monypeny is a confirmed westerner, having lived in Arizona, Oregon, and (currently) the California desert, and an awareness of both the wrongfulness and the good fortune of living in that neck of the woods infuses Cibola, which is named for one of the American southwest’s legendary cities of gold (helpful hint; if you ever encounter a conquistador looking for gold, tell them it’s somewhere else). Monypeny alternates between guitar, shahi baaja, and on electric autoharp the LP’s seven tracks, and Kevin Corcoran contributes time-stopping metal percussion to one of them. The music likewise toggles between stark evocations of space and swirling submersions into nether states. In either mode, Monypeny effectively suggests the gorgeous immensity and pitiless history of the land around him.

Bill Meyer

The Sundae Painters — S-T (Flying Nun)

One minute, The Sundae Painters are churning wild screes of noisy guitar, the next they construct airy psychedelic pop songs of a rare unstudied grace. The band is a super group of sorts — Paul Kean and Kaye Woodward of the Bats, Alex Bathgate of the Tall Dwarfs and the late Hamish Kilgour of the Clean — convening in loose-limbed, joyful mayhem in songs that glisten and shimmer and roar. “Hollow Way” roils thick, muddy textures of drone up from the bottom, the slippery bent notes of sitar (that’s Bathgate) and Woodward’s diaphanous vocals floating free of a visceral murk. “Aversion” lets unhinged guitar shards fly over the thump of grounding drums as Kilgour chants inscrutable poetry. The two HAP tracks, I and II, stretch out in locked-in, psychotropic grooves, relentless forward motion somehow dissolving into an endless ecstatic now. This full-length, sadly the only one we’ll ever have from the Sundae Painters now that Kilgour is gone, is as good as anything that its esteemed participants ever did in their more famous bands, and that’s saying a lot.

Jennifer Kelly

U SCO — Catchin’ Heat (Self Released)

Here’s the extent of what I currently know: Someone I have on Facebook posted a link to it as one of his favorite records of the year, and someone I don’t know responded that they bought a copy of the cassette before the first track even finished. U SCO are Jon Scheid (bass), Ryan Miller (guitar), and Phil Cleary (Drums) and they are from and/or based in Portland Oregon. According to Discogs and Bandcamp Catchin’ Heat is the first thing they’ve released since 2016. That’s it! I started listened to this with the same box-checking, due diligence energy I tend to have for the dozen or so records I hear about one way or another after I’ve already done my year-end writing; most of them, every year, I don’t even make it through one play (the fatigue has fully set in by this point in the process). But sure enough before the end of that first track, I knew this was going to have to be the record I slept on. It’s perfectly structured, with extra-long, absolute blowouts beginning and ending the record, the second and second-last tracks being the two shortest and the only moments of relative calm, and the middle two making up a strong core that both brings in some elements not found elsewhere on Catchin’ Heat (the vocals on “trrrem”) and is just the most straightforward version of the absolute burners U SCO can clearly summon up on command (“woe dimension”). As great and arresting as that opening track is, though, the closing “abyssal hymn” might be the real highlight here, bringing in clarinet and saxophone to add a whole new layer of skronk to what they’re cooking. I’ve listened to this record about 10 times in a couple of days, and they deserve to sell out of that run of cassettes.

Ian Mathers

#dusted magazine #yearend 2023 #slept ons #Die Enttäuschung und Alexander Von Schlippenbach #bill meyer #Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter #jonathan shaw #illusion of safety #bryon hayes #malla #patrick masterson #kevin richard martin #andrew forell #derek monypeny #jennifer kelly #the sundae painters #Ian mathers #U SCO

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