#nunnery life
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arcelian · 3 months ago
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me, running out of the shower to post this: laios dungeonmeshi doesn't play video games because he's too busy posting about monsters on a 20-year-old nearly-dead forum with 5 other active users (and also kabru) (lurking) (how did he end up here, he asks himself daily)
one day the owner is gonna remember they're still getting charged for hosting this thing and finally pull the plug, but until then laios is thriving
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meetthegofer · 1 month ago
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the fun thing about this series is that some characters have really absurd backstories which means i get to give my self insert some bullshit too. he loves phone more than god
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arcelian · 3 months ago
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yesterday I taught a French coworker the word 'shenanigans' and now he won't stop coming over and asking me how my shenanigans are going
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howifeltabouthim · 4 months ago
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'I was educated in a nunnery. They taught me that the world is a dead place, that my body is a sin, and the only life that matters is the next one. But they lied. The world is alive, and there is no other life.'
Lev Grossman, from The Bright Sword
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knowthelessyouneed · 2 years ago
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Tomorrow, I'm finally getting a hysterectomy for my endometriosis!
Please, send all your good vibes and intentions my way for new beginnings and life without this particular strife.
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britneyshakespeare · 11 months ago
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I am a very frequent offender of laughing harder than anybody else at my own jokes, but I am also a fan of the phenomenon when you tell a joke without thinking much about it and then it becomes funnier because of how much somebody else laughs at it.
Over a year ago now I was hanging out with my friends and we were talking about babytalk. Like, the way they babble incoherently before they can form basic words and it's just kind of inexplicable to a bystander by their parents know exactly what they're saying. Like a baby will be like ababasaaghaghaghaaba and you'll be like what could that possibly mean but their parent will be like "oh she just wants sweet potatoes" or something super else specific.
I said that someday my baby will be like ghaghaabababgagabgaa and I'll be like "oh he's just quoting Hamlet."
And that got like, you know, a medium sized laugh from the friends as it was supposed to, but then one of them specifically looked me in the eye and said "Wow. That was really an A+ joke" and I was like "What?" "Your baby quoting Hamlet."
"Oh. You're right I guess that is hilarious."
And I otherwise probably would've forgotten that joke but because that specific friend got such a kick out of it, I associate it with him, and every now and then I'll just think to myself: heh, that is funny. My little son quoting Hamlet.
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arcelian · 9 months ago
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Also, it's totally possible for a section to not be plot-relevant but still be important to your overall writing. Ask yourself, is it really filler, or is it actually:
building an atmosphere
describing an important physical location
setting the tone or mood of the work or the scene
establishing or playing with genre conventions
engaging the reader's senses to draw them in
increasing tension in preparation for an upcoming scene
decreasing tension after/between important moments
making a character more interesting or appealing
building up an important character dynamic
fine-tuning or clearly stating character development
setting up or pulling off a callback or recurring theme
probably more that I'm missing...
If it's accomplishing even one of these things, it's not filler. There's no binary choice between 'plot' and 'useless.' Something can have barely any plot relevance at all and still be 100% integral to the work as a whole, and sometimes the little extraneous details can be the difference between a reader loving your work and walking away halfway through.
Working on my novel and couldn’t figure out why it felt so empty. I didn’t have any filler. It was all 100% plot. The characters only interacted when necessary. I didn’t prattle on about the scenery or how the birds sounded. I had all my fuller stuff that I loved saved in another file because I “didn’t need it”.
Y’all, I knew this existed in TV shows but it didn’t hit me until this that everything is being whittled down. We are so starving for filler that we snap up anything. I unload all mine on Tumblr or keep it in a massive Google Docs. It SUCKS.
Honestly? Death to plot necessity. Revive filler. Revive unnecessary interactions. Revive just vibing with characters sometimes. I don’t want to just consume the plot and I don’t want to just create the plot either.
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fazcinatingblog · 5 months ago
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I don't talk about this ever, but there was a really weird time in my life when I was about 21, and I was mutuals on Twitter with this really annoying guy (shall remain nameless obviously) who voted liberal and we'd argue about politics all the time (also he argued with everyone about politics and he hated Hilary Clinton), also he was Essendon so we'd argue about that as well and anyway he was hopelessly single and for some reason I also found him on tinder (he's bald and ugly) and for some reason I had his number (????) and we'd send like really dirty texts (no pictures but it was back in the day when I'd have to top up phone credit all the time and texts were 25 cents) and he was about 30-ish at the time and one day I thought yeah okay let's go on a date (???), so we went to Southland to see one of the Hunger Games movies but it was months after the release date so the session we wanted was already starting when we were queueing so last minute, we picked Avengers movie, also he was really tall, like ginormously tall, oh and he'd found out recently that it was my birthday two months before so he brought me a present, chocolates and a DVD of full house (his favourite TV show)
The movie was fine, great movie, we barely talked at all the entire time (he was so TALL), didn't touch each other at all thank God, I asked him a few questions like have you seen any Marvel movies before and he said iron man.
Then after the movie, we walked out and he said bye and I texted my dad to pick me up and I went out the front to wait for my dad and that's it, oh and then the guy never texted me for like a week???? I'm like well I guess I'm being ghosted lmao I don't even like him but also felt really upset by it all and then the new girl episode on channel 10 that week was the fancyman part 2 and honestly it was the most cathartic therapeutic relatable episode and with that, I was absolutely hooked on new girl. Oh and I did text/Twitter the dude again but we never made actual plans to hang out again and
This is the longest and most pointless story I'm so sorry Tumblr but imagine if that random tweet today was HIM (his name isn't Kenny though and he wasn't Asian either) like what if he thinks he could slide back into my messages lmao good luck with that, mate
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bloodandyearning · 9 months ago
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no amount of mitski and catholic guilt tag can save me from how touch starved i am
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arcelian · 2 years ago
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i actually think this is a problem that didn't start with genshin and vtubers - it's a bigger problem within game design as a whole. sort of the opposite vice from hyper-realistic game design, where the main characters of anime-style games get massively and unrealistically overdone while background characters are all super plain palette swaps of each other.
there's a couple reasons, probably - these games are usually 3d, which means the graphics team only has to make one 3d model and maybe a couple graphics instead of a bunch of hand-drawn sprites, and technology is powerful enough to support large, intricate models which means you can see all these little details instead of being limited by pixel size or polygon count. plus overarching trends in the gaming and anime(-adjacent) industries as a whole, with simultaneously a trend towards flashy design and a problem with understaffing, underpaying and crunch, means that it's just more efficient to make one or two basic body models and build cosmetics on top of them.
(not that i'm defending any of it; there are certainly plenty of games, especially from smaller developers, who have great design work with less resources! but i'd bet that's at least part of the process that lead to all of this.)
as to genshin and vtubers not being the source of the problem, you can look at a lot of long-running japanese game series* and compare character designs from their earlier and later installments and see similar problems. usually their individual game casts are smaller so the base-sharing isn't quite as egregious, but it's still pretty apparent that the design philosophy has shifted.
(*yes i know genshin isn't japanese, but it is openly inspired by japanese anime and games, so the comparison is still useful)
for example, the first game in the atelier series, atelier marie, was released in 1997, and its main character looked like this:
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a fairly simple design, even with the boob window and the big dangly ornament thingys.
in-game, she looked like this:
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tiny pixel sprite, but the design is simple enough that it's still readable. the portrait is just big enough to show the detail on her head... hat... thing, and that's it. (the rest of the cast got waist-up fullscreen portraits for dialogue, but this is a 1st person game so afaik marie just gets this little one in some menus.)
now the protagonist of one of the most recent games in the series, atelier ryza 2, from 2020:
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yes this is the in-game model. yes her lovingly-rendered ultra-short-shorts and thigh-compression-from-leather-strap-directly-on-skin are in the game. that looks so uncomfortable.
also i just noticed she has a giant bulldog clip just... hanging off her coat? why.
anyway, as far as i can tell this game does all its dialogue through 3d cutscenes instead of with 2d portraits, which means they only had to make a couple pieces of finished artwork with this ridiculous thing: one piece they used as official character art and in the menus, and on the cover artwork for the game itself. (there's also some promotional art, but they don't always use the entire default outfit (see: inevitable beach/yukata promo art), so i'm not counting that.)
you can also look up the main casts of both games and see that, while there's still not a whole lot of variation in face and body structure in atelier marie, there's still more than in the atelier ryza games despite the much simpler designs. also, the sword-wielding female characters actually look like they can use a sword, which is a tragically low bar.
this is a lot of words about a game series i have never actually played!
but my point is: while gacha games like genshin certainly are the most egregious offenders, due to the business model being entirely 'churn out as much Content as quickly as possible in order to maximize profit', they certainly aren't the only ones or even the first ones to prioritize flashy paper-doll-style design over actual good character design principles. it's just a symptom of a much larger problem, that being the game industry in general's drive to maximize profits while discarding both good game design principles and the health of its workers.
genshin impact and vtubers have done irreparable damage to the state of character design
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rhanylssitagpa · 2 years ago
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Throwback: Chi Lin Nunnery
Circa 2016 One of the buildings in Hong Kong’s Chi Lin Nunnery. I’ve said before that whenever I travel, I always make it a point to visit the local churches if there’s any. The same goes with temples. I love the architecture of those buildings and I’m always in awe of the history they contain. Chi Lin is a wonder to behold. I love the stillness of the place. Definitely one of the places I…
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arcelian · 1 year ago
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every single time I see a new Lego Friends set i am reminded that lego is the only company doing Unnecessarily Gendered Toylines correctly
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arcelian · 2 years ago
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I just assumed Delicious in Dungeon was, like, the original English version of the name that the JP author gave it.
Actually, yeah, I googled it and it looks like the original JP printings have 'Delicious in Dungeon' printed on the front alongside the jp title all the way back to the first volume... this originated there. which feels right. the EN publisher's only crime was shrugging and keeping it unchanged.
I haven't picked up Dungeon Meshi yet, but I'm so mad on your guys's behalf the official English title is Delicious in Dungeon. Weakest and most pitiful title localization job I've ever seen, and I've lived through some shit. This is worse than Baka and Test: Summon the Beasts to me. More distracting than Case Closed. It's pathetic. Just keep it simple and call it Dungeon Cuisine. If you're married to the alliteration call it Dungeon Dining. Dungeons, Drive-Ins & Dives. Even just Delicious Dungeon or Dungeon Delicious, even Deliciousness in the Dungeon would be less stupid. Dungeon Delicacies? I'm fucking begging you. Who okayed Delicious in Dungeon? Nothing was asked of you and you delivered less than nothing.
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aestheticpebbles · 4 months ago
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Servus Dei
Pairing: Priest!AU Aegon II Targaryen x reader
Warnings: NSFW/18+ ONLY! MINORS WILL BE BLOCKED, MDNI!, swearing, violence, murder, smut, religious/catholicism imagery/mentions/themes, priest+nun power dynamic abuse, dirty talking, light dubcon if you squint, fluff if you squint harder, use of alcohol, porn with plot, fingering, overstimulation, choking, oral (f receiving), p in v intercourse.
Summary: Father Aegon arrived at your convent, but things become alarming once you realize he isn’t the priest he appears to be.
Word Count: 8.1k
A/N: fic below the cut! not religious at all so please correct me if I messed anything up! also, not proofread… but enjoy! inspo from his cunty hair serving from s1.ep.8.
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1548. Somewhere outside of Florence, Italy.
“Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.“
The rosary beads clenched tightly laced around your slender fingers nearly gave way to a pinching sensation between your knuckles as you prayed under your breath, reciting ‘Our Father’ as you do every morning upon dressing into your white habits and joining the nuns and sisters at the first morning service of your convent.
However, you weren’t sent here upon your own bidding, rather than fulfilling the wish of your parents after they sought to nip your rebellious streak of your late teenage years in the bud after you expressed during a drunken fit that you instead wished to dance and drink until you dropped before marrying off to some Lord.
You knew your parents did this to reduce any scandalous likelihood of you, an unwed daughter of a newer-money noble family, boring a bastard, but you still did not forgive them for your new life of chastity and divine mercy worship. Yawn.
You were still considered to be relatively new to the convent as you were just beginning your second year of working towards your devotion to God and being tested on your postulancy, so you still wore white robes and veils rather than black. You felt as though you had done well in your studies of the faith thus far considering the circumstances in which you were brought here upon.
“Good morning sister,” Sister Hilda, another white-robed sister about a year older than you, smiled once the first service ended and you found a place next to her side while making your way to the dining hall for breakfast.
The sun’s morning rays that began to peek over the horizon illuminated the dining hall with a dim, blue hue as the world awakened. You both made yourselves plates of bread and cheeses before sitting down together. Talk was kept small and hushed between the two of you while discussing various scriptures and chores needed to be done.
“I heard the new priest is arriving this morning,” Sister Hilda suddenly whispered under her breath, my eyes flickering up to meet her gaze upon the sudden topic of a conversation that could be considered borderline gossip and would serve much to the dismay of any superiors if anyone would overhear the two white-robed and veiled young women conversing over such a topic.
Instead of scolding Sister Hilda once your gazes met, you proved your nature of still wearing the white fabrics rather than blacks by leaning in as well about an inch or so, quickly looking around to see if anyone was lingering nearby to eavesdrop before responding to her.
“Is that so?” Your eyebrow cocked up in surprise. There had been talks of a new priest that had recently left from an abbey outside of London, and was continuing his preach of faith now here with us at our nunnery as our current priest was, well, he was old, “have you…?”
“Within the hour, I heard,” Sister Hilda’s eyes lit up with excitement, proving her own nature as she still struggled with her own inner turmoil with such activities. You found the vow of celibacy at first to be something that you wouldn’t have to think twice about while you devoted yourself, but as time went on, you found yourself seeking repentance and trying to pray away the gnawing feeling you felt bubbling within sometimes that made you doubt your own worth in the eyes of the faith.
You nodded once, acknowledging her words carefully with a playful side smirk. Though gossip was highly discouraged, word still had many opportunities to be carried by the wind throughout the dormitories of your convent.
“Il suo nome?” Your voice dropped down low once more after a few moments, switching from English to Italian just to be safe when you asked Hilda ‘his name?’, but she only shrugged in response, unsure of the answer either.
After breakfast, like usual, you found yourself in the library as you were one of the few sisters who, thanks to your upbringing in a decently noble family, had been taught Latin. You often found means of completing your daily chores by aiding in the translation of Holy passages and texts.
Today, you had been handed a scripture to be translated by an older nun who always wore a signature grouch, so there wasn’t much to be said when you were given the dusty book made of animal skin and thick, waxy lacing that secured the spine.
A relic of the sort lost to at least 300 years, resurfaced once more only to become your problem to deal with when you immediately find yourself scowling under your veil at the faded ink on the ancient pages. You stood up and found yourself a dictionary in Latin just in case whoever wrote that damn pitiful book didn’t know what they were saying, much to the older nun’s dismay but you didn’t care as you sat back down with a murmured ‘God help me’ under your breath.
Dipping your feather quill into a small jar of black ink, you began your day’s work of translating the pages that were practically threatening to fall apart as you delicately turned over each one.
It possibly would have felt odd for another white-veiled sister like yourself to have been tasked with translating such an eerie text of those who wore multiple, yet all beautiful faces and how to ward them off, but like it was just another day, it was just another book of Latin words that you were tasked to translate into fresh ink of English literature between your obligatory meetings for daily prayers and masses with the others, and you’ve read worse.
Your legs were itching to stand after sitting down for an extended period of time, nearly a static-like burn radiating deep as you leaned back in your chair from your upright posture, slouching your shoulder forward for a grace moment with an exhale before standing upright once more properly in case the Abbess, Mother Esther, walked by.
Afternoon sunlight beams shone through a nearby window that you now stood in front of trying to warm yourself up from the cooler temperature of the library, your muscles easing against the windowsill as your wrists and fingers had ached for a little while as well.
Being on the 2nd floor of the building meant having a lovely view of the convent’s architectural layout and the courtyard within the open holdfast of about an acre or so. A few young black locust trees littered the acre, creating enjoyable spots for shaded rest you occasionally found yourself under, almost smiling to yourself when thinking about better times than translating 300+ year old scriptures from Latin to English about an ill-satiable apparition—it’s biblical name, Agneo, one who shapeshifts and requires to feeds from the sins of its prey. A book of complete lunacy that was a blessing in disguise as it gave you something to do.
However, the momentary bliss of recounting suddenly soured once you realized you were about to miss the 4th prayer service mass of the day when you looked down from the window and saw a huddle of those remaining outside waiting to file along inside in orderly fashion across the courtyard of your convent.
It was no use to try to rush out and attempt to make it, so you hesitantly let out a tense sigh and leaned against the window still, your eyes moving to ground below until you saw mainly atop skulls of Mother Esther dressed in her finest– and in tow, a man that nearly made your lips part upon the sight of his features after the involuntary oath of celibacy you took on.
Broad shouldered, his face even from above was sharp-featured, straight nosed, and platinum blond hair as could be neatly combed and parted down the middle. He is, undeniably, the most beautiful man you have ever laid your wretched eyes on, and the sight made your legs press together as you watched the two of them below you.
Once seeing him, you were desperate to see Sister Hilda to willingly break your vows of what your new lifestyle meant to share the gossip of sin, to gossip silly words that meant plenty well beneath the surface that meant for yourself at least to have plenty of reason to seek confession and repentance from His mercy in the foreseeable future.
During your brief moment of pure sin, or what sin at least means to you at the time, you let out a small gasp and moved away from the glass realizing the neat head of hair was slowly tilting upwards in an almost premeditated manner, and from the 2nd floor, his ice blue eyes burned scorching hot daggers like the gates of hell straight into your soul for the mere seconds that you held his sudden eye contact.
As if he knew you were standing there above him and Mother Esther, as if he knew you had been leaning against the edge of the windowsill with your legs crossed and your thighs pressed together at the perfect angle while you watched them when you were supposed to be in the 4th prayer service.
Your heart was pounding in a mixture of adrenaline, anticipation, and … excitement. A certain feeling you haven’t felt since before being sent here. Desire.
Despite shifting away from your original stance next to the window, your vision couldn’t move away any further out of sight from him as the two of you kept your eyes locked.
Within that brief moment that felt like eternity and despite the temptation that threatened to fester within your neglected core now reigniting, the hairs on the back of your neck standing up as your instincts inside your mind began screaming ‘flight’ but your feet were cemented in place while looking down into his cold, dead eyes.
Behind the decrepit Mother Esther’s back, the new priest held his eye contact with you with a stone-like expression of almost disgust until the corners of his lips tugged and curled upright into a smirk. One side of his lips tugged higher than the other side and it made your blood run cold despite the heat pooling between your legs.
You exhaled once his head turned to meet Mother Esther’s as she turned back around to him to point out the library, and the two of them continued on and you were finally able to move from the frozen stance you held.
You had managed to avoid the new priest, his name quickly learned by you through Sister Hilda to be Father Aegon—until you found yourself kneeling before him at the altar rails while he wore the same disgustedly amused expression while placing the communion bread into your cupped palms sitting upright.
“Amen,” you murmured softly, placing the wafer into your mouth as he extended his other hand and brought the cup of wine in front of you as you swallowed thickly.
“The blood of Christ, shed for you,” Father Aegon nearly purred, the sound of his voice speaking directly to you for the first time was intimidating enough, let alone the manner in which it rolled off of his tongue was enough to catch you off guard and leave you stunned at such a vocal display during a Holy service.
Your lips had parted a few centimeters due to your shock and your bottom lip quivered as you barely choked out another ‘amen’ in response while he pressed the rim of the chalice against the pillowed flesh.
Maybe it was the way he spoke, or the way he wears devilish tight-lipped smiles like he knows he's fluffing up another chicken house with unpreened, unruffled hens who live among cobwebs, or maybe it’s the way you can feel him staring straight down into your soul as you took a sip of the wine while holding eye contact with him up through your eyelashes.
After drinking the same wine since the day you first arrived and you had returned to your seat, you realized on your tongue that the aftertaste of the once bitter representation of the Blood of Christ was now sweet. Too sweet.
The type of sweet that makes the feeling of temptation to yearn for more not sound half bad even though you still found shame while you prayed in your seat until the end of the communion, even more so in the hours that followed when nobody else seemed to comment on the wine. As if the taste was unchanged to the rest.
You actually managed well to avoid Father Aegon as he settled in and slowly took over hosting more and more masses and prayers over the next fortnight, though it was absolute agony that was slowly chipping away at your sanity.
No matter the distance between the two of you, an unnerving fear always found you when in his presence and even more so if it was without your knowledge on a passing occasion or he could see you but you couldn’t see him. Since the day he arrived, you felt like you were no longer alone at any moment, always holding your breath to turn a corner like an accidental dance of cat and mouse for no real reason.
You’d be shunned if you dared speak the reason of your maintained distance being temptation, even if you were going such lengths avoiding him to resist such.
Father Aegon’s piercing gaze alone sent chills down your spine, enough to rattle the assembled vertebrae within the confines of your habits just like the one that coursed through you while you browsed the shelves of the library looking for works regarding astronomy to keep you company in the late hours after the Midnight Mass.
You didn’t need to see him to know he was likely stalking nearby, whispering with that strangely enticing demeanor he holds himself up with, and the way his perfectly plump lips were always cocked in some purse of amusement to offset the dark purple, sunken look to his eyes as if he hadn’t slept in days, weeks.
Your own eyes had begun to mirror Father Aegon’s sullen look as well during your descent into the madness occurring within your mind when you started to lose sleep because of him sinking his claws into you even in your dreams filled with imagery of sin beyond your comprehension. The more time you spent trying to avoid him, the more he encroached upon every aspect of your life and you hadn’t so much but exchange momentary glances and proper greetings spoken hushed on your part.
After all, anyone would find holding eye contact difficult with one whom they have carnal, perverse dreams about, waking up panting in the middle of the night covered in sweat and an agonizing pool between your legs. Even after waking up you could still feel his touch on your skin.
Though what terrified you the most was the eventual visible appearance that left residual memory fragments from the vivid dreams, as if they themselves were distant memories, real memories, from the past. Gripping bruises protected by layers were littered around your wrists, arms, thighs, breasts, small bite marks and scratches even as well. Some even would remain red, or pink as if they had just occurred moments or hours prior, but that couldn’t be possible.
You’ve been alone all these nights… right?
“What could possibly interest you at such an hour, sister?” The voice of the dreaded priest you desperately sought to avoid drew out from behind you, causing your shoulders to roll back into a stiffened posture to play off the chill that threatened to visibly shake you. You closed your eyes for a moment while goosebumps broke out across your skin hidden beneath the white fabrics before quickly reaching up to grasp the book you intended to grab and pulled it close to your chest before turning around to face him.
“Astronomy, Father,” you answered without nearly half a spine, mentally cursing yourself at your inability to hold yourself with dignity when subject to his commanding gaze.
Father Aegon never failed to not wear his smug grin that seemed to compliment the sullen orbs that were half-lidded in what could only be described by a blind person as being a seductive manner. When you finished answering him and his smirk grew, you didn’t miss his tongue swiping across his pillowy bottom lip— both stained red… and the smell that belonged to that of alcohol.
You swallowed thickly once putting the puzzle pieces in place and your fingers gripped the corners of the book tighter and the edges dug into the creases of your fingers creating a pleasant stinging sensation to help stay grounded. The priest, he who is supposed to live and serve to proclaim the word of God, stood here before you with sweet wine coating his wicked tongue with practiced precision.
Father Aegon had sin written all over his cruelly beautiful face. Certainly not to be trusted at any given second.
Father Aegon’s smug half-smirk was still etched on his mouth that sent another chill down your spine when his irises unmistakably fell from holding your gaze down to your own lips with those lazily-hooded blue eyes swirling with emotions beyond your somewhat innocent comprehension.
Father Aegon was absolutely terrifying to be around, but although your fear didn’t directly come from him, your own body produces enough cortisol and epinephrine for an entire herd of corralled sheep waiting to be slaughtered by just being around him. Afraid of the fact that if he touched you right now, you know you wouldn’t be able to stop. Afraid of the fact that you know he may know how you truly feel deep down by just looking at you with those eyes that appear to be hiding an inferno from within himself.
“Copernicus…” Father Aegon suddenly murmured with a cock of his eyebrow as if he had posed the single word as a question rather than the affirmative tone he used when referencing the Polish astronomer whose works had caught your interest when accessible, “you like him, Sister?”
“He’s an accomplished astronomer and a fine mathematician,” you responded carefully, unsure of the waters of the moment and feeling the bile threatening to rise and expel which prompted you to kindly dismiss yourself wishing to depart to rest for the evening until he suddenly reached out as you turned to walk. His taut grip around your dainty wrist in comparison to his large hand was daunting and was an unexpected rush of surprise-horror when you were practically yanked back where you stood before him.
“Hm,” Father Aegon hummed in amusement, a flash of something eerie glazing over his lazily hooded eyes while his strong grip on your wrist loosened slightly, but not without his calloused thumbpad grazing gently across the delicate skin of the underside of your wrist, “why don’t you come by my office tomorrow evening? I have a piece that would interest you… brought it with me from when I met him briefly at Oxford.”
Your own eyebrow cocked at his words, nearly-half bewildered that a man like him went from such a prestigious place like the Oxford society to… priesthood in Florence where he, in the middle of the night, now was intoxicated and having you cornered like a rat subject to his mercy while his thumb caressed your wrist like a coveted lover.
Your eyes flickered down to the tight grip he held on your arm and you dared to pull once more, and much to your surprise he let go. Looking back up at him, he was amused with a strange sense of triumph like he could already foresee the internal turmoil you would be rolling in all day tomorrow until you would eventually cave in within yourself to give in and seek him out for the sake of knowledge.
Wasn’t that the sin of Eve? Coaxed by the snake, the devil, to taste the forbidden apple of knowledge?
Father Aegon wouldn’t taste half as sweet as an apple, but a part of you knew deep down that with dealing with a man like him and his caliber comes with knowing the venom from his fanged canines would likely sting twice as bad in the days to come if you did not seek him out.
So like the loyal hound you were, there weren’t many inhibitions that stopped your fingers from clasping the golden ring hanging from a matching golden lion’s head mounted on the wooden door and knocking twice. You knew you had no business being here at this hour. You had stopped by this very office twice today, once before dinner, and again afterwards but left both times with only pursed lips and heightened anxiety. Evening. Evening. Evening.
“Sister…” Father Aegon grinned upon seeing the sweet lamb standing there outside of his door waiting so patiently for him like the good girl that he knew she is even if she couldn’t muster any words to properly greet him. He stepped out of your way with an outstretched palm directed towards an empty chair sitting on the other side of his desk, the open hand gesturing to you to sit, “please, come in.”
Shame and humility fueled the pace that drove your footsteps from the corridor and into his working office in a scurry, the fuel most delectable for sin to fester within and grow necrotic while Father Aegon shut the door behind you. You couldn’t miss the sound of the lock turning over as you focused on your breathing pattern and your fumbling fingertips toying with one another as you sat down and silently pulled your chair in under yourself.
It wasn’t the locking of the door that made your eyes widen, but watching him pick up a golden, jeweled chalice that sat on the edge of his desk with matching rings adorning his thick digits, taking a hearty swig while sauntering behind you and over to a large bookshelf on the left wall that likely carried prized works both owned by the convent and his finest pieces.
You kept your head straight for the most part, only tilting it slightly to be able to keep an eye on him in the corner of your peripheral and through the thin white veil head covering, watching his ringed finger reach up to one of the shelves while the other hand held the chalice. The way he moved so freely was almost sensual in a way, his fingertip grazing the spines of the prized collection of knowledge as he searched using the dim orange glow emanating from the roaring hearth that danced as the flames waved.
“Tell me, sweet girl, what is it about the stars that calls to you… draws your attention so?” Father Aegon suddenly broke the silence that only hosted the soft crackling of the embers causing your head to angle slightly more in his direction. You swallowed thickly again, inhaling through your nose while watching his index finger curl around a medium-sized book and gently tug it free from the confines of the neat shelf.
“One can’t help but wonder who they are,” you answered shakily, referring to the stars themselves, the subconscious anxious habit of your fingertips toying with one another going full blast in your lap that had sparked back to life hearing the previous words of endearment he must addressed you with as if he was toying with you too, “what are they… what are they made of?”
Father Aegon nodded slowly with another hum of acknowledgment as he turned on his heel with his chin cockily angled, walking back over to where you sat on the other side of his desk and stepped next to your chair. He held out the book for you to take and you did after a moment of hesitation, taking the book delicately from him as your eyes danced over the intricate stitching and adhesives carefully applied that held the valuable text together.
He stood over you for a moment with one hand on the back of your chair, the other bringing the rim to his lips for another swig before he let go, much to your approval as you let out an exhale you didn’t realize you were holding, and stepped away to sit down in his own chair on the other side of the desk while you admired and he purred out, “the book… Copernicus’ heliocentric theories. One of the first copies given to me from Nicolaus himself. I’ll let you borrow it for the evening...”
You couldn’t hide the spark of interest that illuminated behind your eyes at the topic that you had been wishing to learn more about as the theories were still considered recent developments. A small smile crept onto your face but you quickly pursed your lips together to swallow your pride and triumph– something that didn’t pass by Aegon, but the suggestive tone towards the end of his final words didn’t pass by you either.
“Thank you Father,” you murmured softly, your thumbs grazing over the pressed letters of the title embossed and sealed by gold leaflets, “you are very gracious.”
Father Aegon only chuckled darkly, something you hadn’t heard yet until now and it was scarier to experience first hand than his empty, soul-piercing glare.
He took another sip of his wine before setting the chalice down on the desktop and leaning forward on his forearms with intertwined fingers and an unmistakable gleam in his wicked eyes, “I’ll tell you what Sister. I have heard nothing but good remarks regarding your performance… I’ll let you have it if you promise to take good care of it.”
Your eyebrows shot up in surprise and your forehead scrunched in confusion, lips parting in shock but quickly stammering out a response to his words while gently placing the book down on the desk with a forced smile. A part of joining sisterhood was an oath of poverty despite your aversion to the lifestyle but your conditioning was taking over your frazzled mindset, and a book of that value had no business being in your possession good marks or not.
“Father I-I apologize, I can’t accept such a gift, you honor me but-I,” your tongue and lips failed to coordinate without an exasperated stutter while your brain misfired, only making Father Aegon’s lips curl further upwards in a devious smile.
“Call it a favor then,” Father Aegon replied with a low purr, his half-lidded eyes missing any trace of the blue pigment against the orange hue of the fire and the darkness of the world as he stood up, slowly stalking back around to where he stood behind your chair again.
“A…favor?” Your eyebrows dropped from the cocked expression of shock into one of weary alert as you tried to read him as best as you could, holding eye contact with him until he eventually always won with the inferno that reflected in his black holes for dilated irises while he walked to your most vulnerable side.
“A favor,” Father Aegon sluggishly murmured in response, his teeth baring in his amused grin when you flinched feeling the topside of the joints of his fingers reach up from behind you and brush against your cheek.
Your eyelids fluttered under his delicate brushing touch against your cheek, unable to comprehend a single thought in regard to how to react to such inappropriate behavior and gestures being exchanged, but after involuntary celibacy and conditioned shame, it only drove you further mad yearning for the touch of a skilled lover after being denied such pleasures for so long.
It wasn’t until his index finger pressed against the underside of your chin to lift your head up and his thumb curling up to press against your bottom lip that you were violently dragged back to reality. Looking up at him while fidgeting with your fingers absentmindedly in your lap, he smiled deviously as if he was a child with free reign in a candy shop.
He stepped in front of you to enter the small space available between you sitting in the chair and his desk, leaning against the edge as he twisted and reached back to grab the chalice he’d left behind, turning back to you. Your heart pounded in your chest watching him extend his hand, guiding the rim to your lips and raising the cup for gravity to let the rich, deep red juice funnel into your mouth as if you were kneeling at the altar and had already received your tasteless communion wafer.
Eyes widening, you realized he wasn’t relenting until you finished off the remnants of the chalice when he kept tilting the cup’s stem and you having to swallow in faster lapses than expected to keep up with his antics causing you to choke softly.
You pursed your lips shut tightly with a bemused expression on your face between his actions and the sweet red wine, unable to save the small bead that gathered and trickled down from your lip to your chin, but Aegon was there to spare your white habits from any stains with a brush of his thumb collecting the alcoholic nectar and bringing it to his own lips to suck clean off.
“Tell me… why are you really here?” Father Aegon slurred out between tipsy snickers after releasing his thumb with a sickly sweet suckle like he knew exactly the effect he had on you and the reactions you were willing to give back with a little shove.
“My parents wished not for scandal,” you blurted out, almost like not caring how sloppy you spoke for the sake of your own honorable presentation.
“So, you liked to get around. You liked to have fun… you were a whore?” Father Aegon’s grin was wicked and curled up with a sense of malice as he gently caressed your cheek while you shared details about yourself to him. You knew he found some sort of satisfaction with your words by the way his teeth clenched like he was thinking hard through the intoxicated haze of his own mind.
“Um-,” your eyebrows furrowed again, a streak of anger shooting through you causing you to flinch again away from his hand, pulling out of his grasp on your chin as you stood up, not willing to explain to him that laying with two men that you had possibly seen as prospective husbands doesn’t make a young lady… a whore, “I apologize Father this is highly inappropriate. I should go.”
Your abrupt reaction to his words seemed to replace the playful gleam in his eyes with one that teetered on the edge of malice and danger, one that made your blood run cold. Panic flared through you when he dropped the golden chalice without care, and grabbing your wrist with one hand, yanking you back down to sit again.
“We are not done talking, Sister,” Father Aegon snarled out, a sinister gleam in his eyes while he stood up straight, letting go of your wrist only to take a hold of your chin once more, your lips slightly smushed between his fingers, “I haven’t given you permission to dismiss yourself.”
“I-I am sorry, Father,” you sputtered out, unsure of how to respond to him and his firm, calculated grip that always reminded you he was one step ahead at any given point. Aegon only hummed in amusement, his moist tongue darting out to swipe across his bottom lip as he turned your head in his grip from side to side, studying the details of your face against the orange glow from the inferno of the fireplace.
“Let me see you show it…Prove it,” Father Aegon’s eyes lit up in deranged excitement while yours glossed over in confused horror, sitting frozen in shock while he kept his grip on your chin with one hand, the other reaching up seemly to lovingly caress your cheek only to fist a palm full of your white veil, forcefully undressing your dreadful headdress and revealing one of your secrets you hid from your other Sisters. Instead of cutting your hair short like the rest, you kept yours braided and secured beneath your headdress, the same one Aegon pulled off without hesitation that made your jaw drop in disbelief.
“I don’t understa-,” you cried out in a sudden frustration, angered that he was abusing the power dynamic he knew he held, then still having enough fuel inside him when daring to lay a hand on you in such an inappropriate manner and revealing your hair.
If your Sisters found out you hid your hair, you could suffer greatly socially, and Aegon just paved his way straight over without any second thoughts. Your words though were cut off when his fingers clutched your braids and yanked you back to your feet.
“Understand this, doll. I see the way you look at me, how you scurry away from me like a mouse, there’s nowhere you can hide from me,” Father Aegon taunted, his dilated pupils laced with delirium and sin as he maniacally giggled, “I know everything.”
Any protests or shrill shrieks that could have escaped your mouth would be forced to be made straight into Father Aegon’s mouth that nearly swallowed your face whole when his lips came colliding down on yours in a pre-established sloppy, yet demanding kiss.
You wished to want the will to release a frightful scream against his lips, to cry out in disgust, to thrash around violently in his concrete hold on you while he forced his tongue into your mouth after letting go of your chin and dropping down to your hip.
His grip quickly moved from squeezing your hip around to your backside, grabbing a fistful of your buttock and his other hand still holding and tugging on your hair to elicit a gasp while your palms were outstretched when pressing back against his firm chest, but you did none of those things as your mind began buzzing softly, signaling the beginning the swirling descent into a tipsy haze from the amount of alcohol he had you consume in one sitting.
In fact, you did the opposite once the taste of him resonated with you when you found yourself sucking back on his tongue instead of screaming and crying about your dignity, your outstretched palms bundling up the fabric of his neat, black collar between your fingers like a deserted whore needy for more. Because that’s exactly what you felt like, and the realization made you sick when you suddenly were spun around in his groping embrace to be lifted onto the desktop.
Father Aegon wasted no time shoving his knee between your legs and parting them to situate himself between your legs without breaking the heated exchange between your lips that caused soft groans to escape from the both of you.
His hand that held your buttock again wasted no time reaching under your skirts, hiking the fabric up while he held your whimpering skull in place by your hair as he kissed down your jawline, panting heavily in your ear when he traced up your inner thigh.
He smiled wickedly against the shell of your ear while you managed to let out a stifled moan feeling his fingertips slither their way past your small clothes dampened by your arousal, massaging agonizingly slow circles against your clothed clit, sending ripples of electricity through your body. a soft, humiliating ‘there she is’ was murmured into the cartilage that echoed down to your eardrum once your lips parted with your surrender and giving into his touch, your cheeks shamefully burning red hot.
“For someone who took a vow of chastity, your cunt weeps like a virgin,” Father Aegon nibbled softly on your earlobe while your face contorted in pent-up pleasure and your mind swirled. In truth, you hadn’t truly consumed that much alcohol, but the effect he had on your mind caused the effect to feel 10-fold from the scent of his musk and the wine on his lips, his wretched tongue and damned touch assaulting all of your senses out of nowhere.
Your fingers clutching onto his black button up gripped on for dear life feeling his fingers begin to variate their course from rubbing circles to teasing your slit before dropping down, his middle finger breaching fully past your entrance coaxing a shrill gasp from your throat that his lips were licking and placing open-mouthed kissing down. One of your hands jumped from his shirt to his bicep, wincing from the sudden scissoring penetration as he got to work establishing a pace.
“Fuck, your pussy is so tight,” Aegon murmured quietly through a groan against your skin, your entrance clamping down almost painfully around the 2nd digit he teased your tight hole with for a moment before adding it in, his middle and ring finger moving in and out of you in overwhelming patterns that made you look at the back of your skull doubled with the feeling of his free hand suddenly groping your breast through your robes, pinching and rolling your clothed nipple between his fingertips, “this pussy ever been fucked?”
Your eyes rolled back straight and snapped wide open at the vulgarity of his words, your lips parted further in sheer shock that those words could at all even be used together in a sentence, but your body was still betraying you as you ground your hips against his hand that was fucking you mercilessly. How this man became a priest was beyond you at this point, barely choking out a ‘yes’, his gaze darkening as if that wasn’t what he wanted to hear and he let go of your breast, reaching up behind the nape of your neck again.
Aegon’s hand found a hold your braided hair and twisted once more, a pained cry leaving your lips and your eyes screwing shut in another wince while his own lips were curled upwards. His eyes bright with a sinister intent, his other hand still pumping his two fingers in and out and you panted with a heaving chest.
“My name, sweet girl, say it right,” Aegon purred with an underlying, dangerous tone of voice that hid the true intentions that he was only giving you one chance to say it right despite multiple answers being applicable to stroke his ego while his fingers repetitively curling a ‘come hither’ motion within you.
“Yes sir,” you finally cried out, his chest emanating a grunt of acceptance meanwhile your spine arching as the coil deep within you threatened to build up. As if Aegon could read you like the back of his hand, he let go of your hair and reached around you as he swiped everything, including the prized book, clear from off of his desk.
He withdrew his fingers from your weeping cunt much to your dismay, only to be rendered speechless when he used both of his hands to grab and move you by your hips to the side of the desk, using one to shove your back down to lay on the surface and the other to hastily hiked up the skirt of your habits as his head dipped down, his lips kissing and his teeth nipping up your inner thighs.
You prayed that nobody was walking by Father Aegon’s office as they’d receive earfuls of lewd cries that fumbled from your throat in wails after he practically dove headfirst, your legs on his shoulders and his hands holding you in place by your thighs as his lips and tongue got to work swirling and sucking on your clit.
His platinum silver curls that were neatly parted down the middle, combed and slicked back behind his ears was disheveled within seconds as you reached down and carded through his hair, crying out in pleasure and awe at his ability to seem like he already knew every inch of you by heart.
“O-Oh my,” you squeaked out, your jaw agape as you tried to grind your hips against his face as he groaned delicious vibrations against your core, his tongue in place of his fingers greedily drawing your essence from your walls in filthy slurps that had you sobbing praises in a pleading mantra as you writhed in place.
“That’s it, good girl,” Aegon praised between quiet growls, kitten-licking your tented and overstimulated bud leaving you whining and yearning for more. The coil had begun to wind up tightly in your lower belly creating a burning sensation that threatened to snap like a taut rubber band.
“I’m gonna’ come,” you cried out softly and he chuckled darkly, nipping your sensitive flesh before suckling harshly that elicited a sharp yelp from your throat that quickly morphed into a wail of surprise as you flew headfirst into your first orgasm in almost two years. Aegon feasted and slurped every drop that expelled from your contracting cunt like a starved man, groaning in delight when your evidence of ecstasy from his touch spilled from your aching core and into his greedy mouth that caused your toes to curl painfully.
Father Aegon quickly stood up, not bothering to wipe his fingers and chin that were still glistening with the residue of your orgasm causing a deep blush to form on your flushed cheeks as you slowly came back to reality from the sound of his belt unbuckling.
Aegon hastily reached into his pants and pulled his throbbing cock free from the confines of his black dress trousers, watching his beautifully plump lips parting when he slapped the angrily flushed head against your weeping cunt a few times. His vile actions were so bewildering you were rendered speechless once more, unable to formulate words when looking up at him with bleary eyes as he fondled your folds for a few seconds, gathering your slick and smearing it across his tip and down his thick shaft waiting impatiently to fuck you in half.
“This is wrong. I-We shouldn’t do this. I don’t want this. God for-,” you managed to blurt out in soft whimpers, lying to yourself to try to hold onto the last shred of dignity you had while shaking your head only earning a sadistic smile in response from Father Aegon as he cut you off.
“You don’t want this? You weren’t the same girl watching me, pressing her thighs together as she hid in the library? Stupid girl, you’re so desperate and touch-starved, I could smell your cunt from outside. Your False God isn’t here. He can’t save you,” Aegon cooed softly, shutting you up immediately as you were left staring at him like he sprouted three-heads. You wouldn’t be surprised at this lint though. A priest using the words ‘False God’— how ironic.
Despite his cruel words, his tone of voice was almost sickly sweet if his hand wasn’t guiding the head of his cock back to your entrance and you braced yourself with a shrill gasp while he leaned forward, his lips brushing against yours while he giggled maniacally under his breath sending chills of fear down your spine.
Father Aegon whispered in a taunting sneer as he continued to threaten you in a gravelly voice under his breath, the stench of wine still lingering on his tongue mixed with your release, “oh, pretty girl, the only God here is me,” and with that, he pistoned his hips forward.
A sharp hissing cry fell from your lips feeling the tip of his cock parting your neglected walls, splitting you from the inside out as your jaw hung agape and his eyes were wide– almost deliriously so as his own jaw hung agape too as if he was breathing out the energy of the cries carried out by your exhales while it seemed as though your body was losing energy as the seconds passed on. Like his hand, his hips made work establishing a steady pace as he fucked you open for him, drawing raw shrieks from your diaphram that forced him to clamp his hand down over your mouth.
“Shut the fuck up,” Aegon snarled against the back of his hand as your eyes rolled back, his lips kissing the corner of your parted lips when he finally let go of your mouth after the initial burn within your core dissolved and your sobs died down. His plump lips continued to kiss down your jaw, suckling and nibbling up and down your neck as you moaned and cried out shamelessly.
His words were absolutely vile and defiling and he knew it only spurred your innocent heart further, his hand that was pressed against your mouth dropping back down to grope your breast as he fucked you deeply, “God your cunt was made for my cock. Fuck it’s so fuckin’ tight– you like it when I talk to you like that? You like being fucked like some needy slut? ‘Course you do. What would your Sisters think if they found out what their whore pupil was doing in here?”
“I can’t, I can’t,” you suddenly started blabbering out in response despite your own legs hiking up around his hips to draw him in closer, your hands reaching up and gripping onto whatever you could while you rocked back and forth to his merciless motions.
“Yes you can,” Aegon panted breathlessly against your skin, his tongue swiping across your collarbone as he grunted over and over in his own world of desire, the lewd sound of skin slapping and your cunt squelching was foul in harmony with the considerably romantic blazing of the fireplace while he kissed his way back up your neck and caught your lips in another fiery, sloppy kiss between grunts and moans and cries of pleasure.
He murmured against your lips and his free hand not holding you down against the desktop in place by your breast being kneaded between his fingers, reaching between the two of you with his other hand and rubbing furious circles on your overstimulated clit, “say my fuckin’ name. give it all to me.”
“Aeg- I’m,” you cried out against his lips trying to obey his command to use his name while feeling the coil quickly wind tight once more as he effortlessly fucked you apart. As you came, stars littered your blacked out vision as you trembled and writhed, your spine arching pathetically trying to gather as much friction as possible while you shook in pleasure. Aegon moaned lowly feeling your walls contract and squeeze his cock as he continued without stopping, fucking you straight through the waves of ecstasy that left you feeling as though you had to piss everywhere, but that wasn’t what it was.
You could not have cared any less about any repercussions of your undoing with this man tonight— until he pulled out, flipped you around and bent you over the desk, plunging back inside of your cunt from a new angle causing a mewl to rip through you, and even more so when your walls fluttered down and you practically squirted back, coating both his legs and yours from your newfound experience of being overstimulated.
But as Aegon was turning you around, you suddenly had the perfect view of Father Aegon in the reflection of a mirror that had been hanging on the wall behind you, now seeing him in a full display in a reflection for the first time and took in the image that could have fueled your nightmares for the rest of eternity.
His shadow was cast up against the ceiling from the flames of the hearth illuminated, except two massive wings stood above Aegon and joined his body’s shadow as you mewled out incomprehensible words of confusion through the haze of pleasure that wracked your mind.
“Aegon,” your voice cracked, your eyes flickering to the mirror hanging on the wall dead ahead of the two of you, finally seeing Father Aegon for who he was finally through another lense and the sight alone made a scream of fear tear through you, but once more his hand came clasping down on your mouth and another sharp cursed reprimand dripping in poison was hurled at you from behind. The reflection of the man that had you bent over like a plaything, pistoning his thick cock roughly in and out of your aching cunt in the reflection of the mirror was unlike any creature you’d ever laid eyes on before.
In the reflection, while your face was streaked with tears and flushed in terror, his face looked nothing like what you saw with your own eyes, his reflection having beady black eyes, almost paper white skin, teeth long and sharp like fanged razors and his hands with long, clawed digits. You couldn’t miss the tall, pointed and curly black horns and the almost impressive black feathered wings that slowly rose and outstretched in the air after you said his name.
You couldn’t pull your eyes from the mirror even after he said your name, his hand eventually let go of your mouth and roughly grabbed your jaw, holding your head steady. Tears flowed hot from your eyes as you tried to thrash in his hold but it was no use as he chuckled wickedly above you, his pupils blown wide but it was no comparison to the dark, gaping holes you saw in the reflection of the mirror.
Father Aegon was no Father, no priest at all, learning within seconds that life was in fact cruel like that. Was there truly a God now realizing you had the entire situation practically spelt out for you when you translated that ancient scripture in the library, but you were too naive to realize the foreshadowing. The name of the shapeshifting apparatus isnt Agneo. It’s fucking Aegon.
This revelation truly meant only one thing: Aegon was a demon, and you, by saying his name, sealed off the deal and selling him your soul, his hand angling your chin up and to the side to press his lips down on yours, his tongue working your mouth apart once more, grunting against your lips when his pace faltered.
You felt your womb grow heavy while he panted and mewled, his wretched seed spurting from the head of his cock as his hips twitched between stilled moments, painting your walls as he moaned into the crook of your neck. You thought it’d be the end of the night, your mind too frazzled to even comprehend what to do next as your blurry eyes cracked open from being scrunched shut.
But Aegon’s nightmarish reflection remained the same, his smile sinister and evil as his snakelike tongue sharp and black as could be trailed up the side of your cheek as his hand kept its tight grip on your chin to hold you steady while he collected your salty tears on his tastebuds.
“Aegon…Please don’t hurt me,” you whispered pathetically, trying to claw at his taloned grip on your face and it almost struck a chord within his despicable body as he chuckled darkly, placing a soft kiss on your trembling cheekbone.
“I think it’s too late for that, sweet girl, you taste too divine,” Aegon purred softly, your doe eyes wide with horror watching in the reflection of his other hand reaching up, his clawed talon delicately moving a stray lock of hair from your face. He actually admired you, pleading through tears and drool and all, but the moment had to end at some point as his clawed hand caressed your temple and he murmured softly against the apple of your cheek.
“Just know this though, so far, I think you were my favorite. I might actually miss you,” Aegon kissed your pillowed flesh for the last time after vocalizing his odd apology that almost felt genuinely sentimental before his talons dug into your chin and your temple to hold you steady as you cried out in protest, then silenced for eternity after his wrists rolled and snapped your neck.
His deflating cock was still buried to the hilt within you as you dropped lifelessly against the desk, and the demon removed himself from his latest victim with a triumphant smile. He hastily readjusted himself and your skirt to cover your modesty, not that you were alive anyway to care, as he sat back down in his seat.
Father Aegon kicked up and crossed his legs on the desk while pouring himself another chalice of wine, continuing to admire your lifeless expression of shock while your pupils slowly dilated, and the blood that slowly dribbled out of your nostrils and out from your lips onto the desk. The blood dripped down onto the floor while your lost soul descended to the pits of Hell with that same sinister smirk he wore the first time he laid his eyes on you.
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haggishlyhagging · 4 months ago
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The New Testament scarcely mentions Mary. She is brought into the story mainly to emphasize Jesus's divine conception and birth. Her presence is noted once or twice, but little is made of it. In the centuries that followed, however, Mary was exalted to ever-higher positions of glory. She is the subject of many of our most famous and beautiful works of art. In light of what we have learned about the Goddesses of the ancient Near East, it is interesting that Mary is shown not only as the Madonna with her child, but standing on the crescent moon or with stars circling her head. She takes on many of the ancient Goddess symbols and is often painted as a larger-than-life figure. She is also shown being crowned Queen of Heaven, absorbing the title of the Goddess. It may be that the need of the people for a female deity was so great that the Christian Church might not have survived without the elevation of Mary to this exalted position. We need to look carefully, however, at just what aspects of the Goddess Mary was allowed to retain and what the results were in the lives of women.
Mary was taken up to heaven and seated with god the father and his divine son Jesus. She became the main intercessor between human beings and the divine. She was called Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, but she was not made a full-fledged member of the Godhead. The Church used her to satisfy the need for a female presence in Christianity but also to keep women in a subordinate position. Her purity as a virgin was exalted and women were taught to strive for that purity and to obey the divine (male) will. At the same time she is, of course, a mother, and women were taught to bear as many children as possible. But Mary did it while remaining a virgin; other women, in order to be mothers, must be tainted by sexuality. If they remain pure they cannot be like Mary the Mother; if they become mothers they cannot be like Mary the Virgin. No matter what they do they are guilty and inferior.
Mary's stance is: "Let it be to me according to your word." She is passive, obedient, and pure. She sits on a throne but has little power, certainly none of the power or independence of the earlier Goddesses or their free sexuality. Nevertheless, the doctrine of her virginity gave women a way out of the role of submissive wife and bearer of children. When the cult of Mary was at its height, thousands of women escaped into convents, communities of women. There they developed skills and talents in the arts and in the administration of large estates. Many abbesses wielded significant power and controlled sizable amounts of wealth.
It is interesting that, just as the veneration of Mary reached its height in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Protestant Reformation reasserted the dominance of the male divinities. One of Luther's major reforms was the closing of nunneries, and Mary is notably absent from all formulations of Protestant theology and ritual. Whereas Catholic women have suffered from their attempts to imitate an impossible model, Protestant women have had no exalted female model of any kind. Mary's presence has been used by the Catholic Church to reinforce the subordination of women, and her absence has been used by Protestantism to reinforce their insignificance.
-Shirley Ann Ranck, Cakes for the Queen of Heaven
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sure "nuns with guns" is a fun trope but can we have more "nuns with no romantic interest in men who turn to life in a nunnery to escape patriarchal expectations in favor of a woman-centric society, and in the process meet brilliant-but-headstrong Sister Virtue, who took vows to confound her father's plans to marry her off to local gentry, and having successfully escaped marriage now plots to escape the convent, but after living a youth defined by defiance is overwhelmed by the fact she doesn't know what life she wants only what life she rejects, and she can't imagine the shape of the future, so she just continues on with her work in the cheese shed experimenting with fungi until one day she meets the new novice (you) tasked with tending to the dairy cows, and she finds your milkmaid naivety off-putting (reminding her of a younger, more hopeful version of herself) but actually you aren't naive, you've survived countless hardship by choosing to believe in hope, choosing to believe in the goodness and kindness that all people are capable of (even as you accept the presence of violence and selfishness), and your optimism is both the sword and shield with which you ride every morning into the day's battle, and as Sister Virtue discovers this about you, she feels a spark in her belly that she has hardly felt since girlhood (when she would dream distressing dreams of the lips and bosom of the local barmaid, a childhood companion from whom she drifted slowly apart in the cusp of maidenhood), and she spurns your company as a result, but only briefly because all asudden you come down with a fierce sweating sickness, and Sister Virtue sits up all night by your sickbed, stroking your brow with a cloth and whispering hoarse prayers she isn't certain she believes in, and when you are recovered she surprises you with a picnic (only a simple meal of cheese and bread while you both bring the cows out to graze, but she has sneaked in a jug of mead and you feel like a schoolchild again, playing truant, and for a moment you ache for the life you might have had if you had been brave enough to keep fighting the world instead of hiding away in the monotonous safety of the abbey),,, and then suddenly the sky opens, and you and Sister Virtue are caught in a rainstorm, and there are raindrops dripping down your bodice, and your wimple is slipping from your forehead, and she leans in to pull the veil from your eyes, and you lean forward and
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