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city-of-ladies · 2 months ago

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A complex figure, Irene of Athens (c.750/755 - 803) was the first woman to rule the Byzantine Empire in her own name. For over two decades, she dominated imperial politics with a rare blend of resilience, cunning, and charisma. She also stood out for her philanthropic initiatives and enduring cultural legacy.

Empress consort

Irene was born in Athens between 750 and 755, into the Sarantapechos family—a locally influential clan of unclear standing, likely outside the upper echelons of the aristocracy. Her marriage to the young Emperor Leo IV in 769 was likely arranged to bind Greece more closely to Constantinople’s authority. Irene arrived in the capital that November and was crowned empress shortly after.

Her father-in-law, Constantine V, was a staunch iconoclast, while Irene already showed signs of favoring the veneration of religious images—a theological rift that may have created tension with her husband.

In 771, Irene gave birth to her only child, Constantine VI. When Leo IV died suddenly in 780, she was left to protect both her son’s inheritance and her own position.

Irene in power

Irene swiftly seized control of the government, and she and her son were proclaimed co-rulers. But her authority was soon challenged. Leo’s half-brothers, each holding the title of Caesar, conspired to overthrow her and install the eldest, Nikephoros, as emperor.

Irene dealt with them decisively. She punished their supporters and forced the princes into clerical life, effectively neutralizing their claim. Symbolically, she had them serve at the Great Church during Christmas Mass and restored a crown that her husband had removed from the Hagia Sophia—an act rich in political and religious significance.

She soon appeared alongside her son on imperial coinage and took a leading role in foreign affairs. In 781, she arranged his betrothal to Rotrude, daughter of Charlemagne.

Aware of her precarious position, Irene surrounded herself with loyal servants, notably eunuchs, whom she promoted to high office. Though often capable, their presence in military leadership roles drew resentment from the army. As a woman unable to lead troops herself, Irene depended on these trusted men—and the strategy was not without consequences, for some of her allies later proved treacherous and corrupt.

In 781, she dispatched an expedition suppress a rebellion in Sicily, which successfully restored Byzantine control over the island. Yet in the East, her policy faltered: a general defected during a campaign against the Arabs—perhaps out of hatred for the eunuch Staurakios, or due to Irene’s purge of Constantine V’s loyalists. The fallout forced her to pay a massive tribute to secure peace.

Pacifying Thrace

On the northern frontier, however, Irene scored lasting victories. In 784, she sent Staurakios to campaign against Slavic tribes in Thrace and Greece. His triumph brought back booty and captives, and Irene celebrated his return with honors.

In May of that year, she embarked on a public tour of Thrace with her son—a gesture that left a powerful impression. She fortified and renamed Beroia as Eirenoupolis (“City of Irene”), symbolizing renewal and imperial authority. Her efforts stabilized Northern Thrace that had largely escaped imperial control for two centuries. She cemented these gains by founding a new theme (the military-administrative division): Macedonia.

Champion of icons

A devout patron and builder, Irene founded the Convent of the Mother of God on Prinkipo and played a crucial role in resolving the iconoclasm controversy.

In 787, after carefully neutralizing potential military opposition, she summoned the Second Council of Nicaea. There, she overturned her father-in-law’s policies and restored the veneration of icons, marking a monumental shift in Byzantine religious life and reviving iconophile art.

Constantine VI attempts to rule alone

By 788, Irene’s name began to precede that of Constantine VI in official proclamations. She dominated his life and eventually broke off his engagement to Rotrude, arranging a new marriage with Maria of Amnia. She opposed Charlemagne’s growing influence in southern Italy and launched a military expedition that ended disastrously.

Frustrated, Constantine sought to assert his authority. In 790, provincial troops acclaimed him as sole emperor. He had Irene’s eunuchs punished and exiled, and confined her to the Palace of Eleutherios.

Yet his reign floundered. After a series of military defeats, including a humiliating loss to the Bulgars in 792, Constantine reinstated his mother as co-ruler. Their uneasy joint rule descended into chaos. As the chronicler Michael Psellos wrote:

“They went for each other, hit and hit back in turn, and now Irene exercised absolute power, now Constantine took possession of the palace alone, again the mother, again the son, until their conflict resulted in a disaster for both.”

Constantine further alienated the court by divorcing his wife and remarrying—an act that scandalized the clergy and nobility alike.

Sole Ruler of the Empire

By 796, Irene had outmaneuvered her son. She won over the army and her household through persuasion and bribes. In August 797, Constantine attempted to flee the capital but was captured by Irene's allies. Irene had him blinded in the porphyra, the chamber where she had once given birth to him.

Blinding, though brutal, was seen as a merciful alternative to execution. Whether he survived is uncertain; some sources suggest he lived until 805.

Now ruling alone, Irene struck coins bearing only her image. She used the masculine form basileus on some of her legal documents and used the masculine title autokrator, asserting full sovereignty.

Her rule wasn’t, at first, met with much opposition. Irene had carefully prepared her ascension.

Imperial philanthropy

Irene’s reign was marked by a deep commitment to philanthropy. Her concern for the poor seemed genuine, not merely political. She abolished taxes levied on soldiers’ widows and exempted orphanages, hospitals, and religious institutions from hearth taxes— a relief her successor would later revoke.

A prolific builder, she was interested in developing the capital. She funded public works, established soup kitchens, retirement homes, and free graveyards for foreigners and the poor. She reduced taxes and, in 799, distributed coins to the people during a ceremony.

The last years

Irene’s later years were fraught with challenge. In 798, she sent envoys to both the Arabs and the Franks, striving to keep military conflict at bay, but failed to secure peace with the Arabs.

She extended imperial administration into the Balkans and possibly created new provincial units in Greece. Her treasury remained strong, with substantial reserves at her disposal.

She fell ill in 799 and the crowning of Charlemagne as “Emperor of the Romans” by the Pope in 800 seriously undermined her legitimacy. The Byzantines considered themselves the true heirs of Rome, and the coronation was a major blow to Irene’s prestige.

She seems to have proposed marriage to Charlemagne, possibly to unite the eastern and western empires and ensure peaceful cooperation. Frankish ambassadors arrived in Constantinople, but the plan came to nothing.

By 802, dissatisfaction at court had reached a tipping point. Irene’s failure to designate a successor led to her downfall. Her finance minister, Nikephoros, staged a coup and was proclaimed emperor. Deserted by her allies, Irene was exiled—first to Prinkipo, then to Lesbos where she was closely guarded, most likely because she had plotted against her successor.

She died on August 9, 803. Her remains were later returned to the convent she had founded. That she managed to hold power for so long—despite lacking support and governing in a deeply patriarchal society—testifies to her extraordinary political acumen.

If you enjoy this blog, consider supporting me on Ko-fi!

Further reading:

Garland Lynda, Byzantine Empresses - Women and Power in Byzantium AD 527-1204

Herrin Judith, Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium

#irene of athens #Irene Sarantapechaena #history #women in hstory #women's history #8th century #9th century #historyedit #byzantine history #byzantine empire #eastern roman emire #female rulers #byzantine empresses #herstory

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tovibeornottovibe · 6 months ago

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Oil and Fire

Azriel x Priestess!Fem!OC (Thea)

Azriel finds Thea training up in the House of Wind after a family dinner and a sleepless night. There's comfort in knowing that the only thing that will ever change between them is that their feelings will fade. Pining for someone you'll never have has its perks. [5.1k words :0]

warnings: implied/referenced sexual assault, angst, az is angry and horny and doesn't know where to put all of that, questionable coping mechanisms, spiteful, vengeful violence

Prefer to read on Ao3?

It’s strange. Azriel remembers exactly what the fire and oil on his skin had felt like. Still knows the smell of his own burning flesh. Can taste the acrid smoke on his tongue. He can bring it to mind vividly in the same way that Rhys can’t when he tries to think of the scent of Amarantha’s sweat, or the hideous tautness of her skin touching his. He'd forgotten, and Azriel said that he maybe should be glad for it, that he didn’t know. Rhys told him that his head fabricated it anyway. It’s a kind of inescapable torture, and they had only ever discussed it once. Only between each other during a sleepless night a few weeks after he came back from Under the Mountain.

Azriel had been there. It was sealed but he slipped past the wards in shadow. Easy. Her decaying corpse was still there, torn in pieces and laying in pools of dried blood. From where he had been standing, peering over her, her brutalised body seemed rather too small, fragile, even. Rhys would have begged him not to come here, but he had to have it confirmed. She was still dead; just a collection of bones and meat and broken nerves, her mind no longer ticking. The knife Rhys had used to try and kill her was still there too, snapped in half. He had pocketed it and it sits in a drawer in his room in the House of Wind.

In the middle of the throne room, the one that was and is too similar to the one in the Hewn City, he could feel where the world trembled. A crack in the way the air moved. Where Feyre had died and been reborn. His shadows had hugged his body and urged him to move on.

Before, he had lobbied Nuala and Cerridwen for as much information they could bear to give him, but, really, he was here for one thing: to remove the traces of Rhys from this place, to cleanse it of his presence, so he knew where Rhys’ chambers had been and how little time he had spent in them. He knew the place Amarantha had kept him confined and how his brother used to preen to protect himself. This, Azriel knows, is the bitterest kind of revenge he could have gotten. Revenge after the fact. Because he can’t revive Amarantha just to kill her again. Can’t have her in the dungeons of the Court of Nightmares, the ones that her own dungeons were such a pale imitation of, and slowly drain the life out of her for years and years and years, can’t break her bones or let her blood or starve her of air. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t think about it. Rhys does too. Feyre and Cassian and Mor and Amren. They all think about it. The cruel satisfaction of it.

He had gone to Rhys’ chambers first, but they were mostly bare. Sickeningly, they were undoubtedly his. Black bed sheets still on the mattress, tucked in the way that his mother used to do it, and pillows arranged specifically in the way he liked them. The wardrobe and the drawers were empty, but under the bed there was a dagger that he had never used. Azriel still has it, but it’s in the moonstone palace. The bed was not big enough to accommodate wings, and it brings him relief even now that Amarantha never coaxed them out of his brother, that she did not remember that they had met in the First War and that she had already seen them. He had stripped the bed and burnt the sheets in the fireplace. It had purged the lingering scent of salt and citrus.

It must have been with a particular, wretched callousness, he thought as he left them smouldering, that she had provided him a room with no windows.

Amarantha’s rooms were opulent and reminded Azriel of the High Lord’s bedroom in the moonstone palace. She had, of course, been there only once, but that wing is blocked off now. Feyre had stayed in that place without knowing that, and Azriel thinks that it’s wrong of them to not tell her all these years later.

More had been in her chambers than in Rhys’: personal effects, dresses, jewellery, and scraps of fabric that had belonged to Rhys’ shirts. Azriel had dragged every piece of furniture, every pearl and diamond, all the pictures on the walls and all the decanters of liquor, did it with his bare hands instead of his shadows so he would feel the weight of them properly, out of the door and piled them in the throne room. By the time he was done, there was not a single thing of hers left. Pettily and aware that it made no difference, he had thrown the parts of her on the pyre too and set it alight. For hours, he watched it burn until it was just ash, each part indistinguishable from the rest, and revelled in the gentle violence of the act.

Then he’d doused the vestiges of her room in oil and did the same, the thought of removing every physical reminder of her overwhelming even his spiking fear at holding a can of oil in his scarred hands.

He’d gone out in the early morning and returned to Velaris in the middle of the night, had planned to sit on the terrace of the town house to make sure Rhys didn’t accidentally hurt himself if he woke from a nightmare. The ones they all knew he had and have since stopped pretending they had never noticed. Mor, as it happened, had been planning the same, and was already lounging on a deck chair with a glass of something strong when he landed.

A flicker of concern, curiosity maybe, had come across her face.

“You smell like smoke,” she’d said.

His voice rasping and quiet, he’d replied, “I know.”

And they spent the rest of the night in silence, praying that Rhys wouldn’t wake up until the morning.

So, though the question “What are you thinking about?” had been asked innocently, Az can’t give a truthful answer, can’t even give half of one, can’t obscure the fact that he had been thinking about the way he had seen Amarantha’s skin shrivel and flake away, or that walking into her rooms had made him feel ill. He gives a noncommittal shrug and says, “Just thinking.” Nesta leaves him alone after that.

He waits until his family starts to retire for the night. It had been the first family dinner where they were all there for a while, and the first he had managed to sit through and actually enjoy for the majority of the time since the end of the last war. Elain and Lucien go first, then Cassian and Nesta, Amren and Varian, and then Feyre, Nyx, and Rhys. Rhys who smiled and laughed throughout the night and so rarely now holds that haunting emptiness in his violet eyes. All Feyre has to do is touch him and he brightens. He hears Nyx babble and he softens. And he deserves it.

Just he and Mor remain, and once upon a time, he would have relished it, savoured the attention and the cadence of her voice, but he doesn’t anymore, and she knows that as well as he does. She knocks back the last of her wine and offers him a smile. It is odd that his heart doesn’t lurch because of it. He feels the keen absence of the five-century-long instinct. With a clap at his shoulder as she walks past, she tells him to get some sleep. He scoffs and she looks at him with something like pity.

Picking where to sleep tonight is an issue. Though Rhys and Feyre would never begrudge him for staying here, in the river house, it always feels like intruding, not like the town house used to be, where they all used it and owned it. This was their home, built and designed for them. Cassian and Nesta will be fucking in the House of Wind; sleep there will be impossible. He dares not go to the town house, not while Elain and Lucien are there and they can still hardly tolerate each other. Mor will go to Windhaven tonight, straight to Emerie’s house. He knows that because he checked where she was sneaking off to and the invasion of privacy doesn’t bother him. It is his job to know things, even about the Inner Circle. If she hadn’t wanted him to find out, she would have thwarted him properly.

Still deciding, he tips back his drink, lets it slide down his throat, and stands, stretching out his wings until he feels them start to strain, then a little more until it hurts. He snaps them back and they ache.

Summer nights in Velaris are warm, pleasantly so, and the breeze ruffles through the curls in his hair as he flies. Though he doesn’t have anywhere specific in mind, the natural movement of his wings takes him along the Sidra and towards the docks, where he settles atop one of the spires which mark the shoreline for passing ships. From here, the city shines, brimming with energy even as the moon reaches the height of its journey across the sky. Sailors and dockworkers are already up, loading cargo, laughing, drinking. He watches, unseen up in the room where the faelight shines out to sea, and makes sure to think about nothing at all.

By the time he makes it to the House of Wind, the sun is coming up and bathing the balconies in fleeting pinks and oranges, and the idea of sleep is entirely lost to him. He hesitates outside his door, his hand hovering over the doorknob, and he wonders what good it would do him to sit and stew at his desk. He could work, read reports and scratch out orders to his spies, probably should, but he’s in the kind of mood that would make him suggest that they cause some chaos just to see what would happen, to poke holes in the defences of other Courts just in case they ever needed to exploit them. Rhys doesn’t know he does that sometimes, and he would certainly order him not to, but what he can’t stop won’t kill him.

His shadows call him to the rooftop, to the training pit, and he takes it to mean that they want him to let off some steam, for him to physically calm himself down. He’s wrong, though, and he knows they fooled him on purpose. They meddle when he would rather they didn’t.

Up there, hitting perfect strike after perfect strike after perfect strike against the third training dummy of the session—the rest splintered and broken by her feet—is a priestess with her dark brown curls tied up like usual: Hemithea, but she hates the name, so they call her Thea. As soon as he walks through the archway and sees her there, draped in light blue training clothes which let her manoeuvre easily, he knows he can’t just turn around and leave because she’ll bring it up next time they train and he’ll have to explain himself anyway. She’s stubborn like that.

Instead, he settles himself near the weapons rack, finds tape, and wraps his hands for something to do, like he plans to train. And he watches her, lies to himself that it’s to assess her form and her grip on the blade, but it isn’t. It’s because he enjoys it and he’s too selfish to make himself look away. She’s probably aware of that. Subtlety too is lost to him this morning.

She doesn’t acknowledge him until she’s broken the dummy and sweat has only just started to percolate on her terra-cotta dark skin. That, he reasons, is why it is so mesmerising to watch her train. The utter efficiency in her hits, the skillful conservation of energy that will serve her well, the way she uses momentum and footwork and balance to wring strength from her body far above what her build should allow. Had she been born into some warrior race, as an Illyrian or a Peregryn, she would have been a natural fighter. The best of them. Az is convinced of it. This, too, while an undeniable fact, is a lie he tells himself for why he finds her captivating, so he won’t feel guilty for letting his mind wander and think about a priestess from the library when he’s in bed and throbbing need pulls over his skin.

She knows that he looks because sometimes she catches him and looks back. He knows that when he spars with Cassian she rakes her gaze over him and enjoys it when he wins. She winks at him when she floors someone and the both of them hoard the contact they get when, at the end of training, she always asks him to practice swordplay with her without a hint of innuendo in her lilting tone.

Neither of them are going to do anything about it. It just is what it is, and that’s fine. Mostly. He’d never presume she wants anything more than they already have.

The worst of it is that he can’t tell himself it’s just a physical thing. He likes Thea. He likes her voice and her laugh and he enjoys being in her company. He likes it if he can make her skin flush, either from the exhaustion of sparring or by whispering something lowly to her in the breaks.

He likes the sheer ruthlessness of the way she trains and the fact that she doesn’t hide it. They’re too similar in that way. Truly, she is a kind person, gentle with the other priestesses and never impatient like even Gwyn was on occasion. She listens and does things because they’re the right things to do. Has a generous, calming soul. But she also takes pleasure in making him bleed. The power of that. He’s content to give it to her whenever she asks, but he makes her work for it. Sometimes, it’s a necessary thing to release the pent up ache, the anger it takes to get to that point, and he understands that better than anyone.

Kinship is probably an apt word for what he feels for her, and the only one he’s willing to consciously consider. Self-preservation at its finest. Lying to himself is simpler and he can sit in the knowledge that the only thing that will ever change between them is that whatever it is they feel will fade. Preserving their little cocoon of temporary longing is important to him. He has no intentions of ruining it by overthinking.

Chest heaving, she turns to him, raises a shaped brow, and asks, “Any pointers?”

He can’t even think of something plausible. Her stance is exact, her rhythm precise, and her movement accurate. If she wanted to, and he thinks it’s somewhat strange that she doesn’t, she could cut the Valkyrie’s ribbon in a heartbeat. He starts to stretch and catches her glance downwards. “If you keep training instead of sleeping,” he says, “you’re going to exhaust yourself.”

She huffs a laugh, the sound ringing through him like a bell, and shakes her head. “You’re one to talk.” He doesn’t answer and doesn’t need to; they both know she’s right.

As she exits the ring, she very casually kicks the ruined training dummies out of the way and onto the deck, where the House promptly clears them for her. Azriel makes an effort not to dwell on how attractive he finds it when she does things like that with a sword in her hand. She goes to put it back in the weapons rack, but he’s already moved to haul a punching bag into the ring so they can’t linger in each other’s presence, because he’s not sure he has the capacity to catch the scent of her (Strawberries, and something else he hasn’t determined yet.) and not do something stupid.

He starts hitting the bag and she sits at the edge of the ring to warm down like usual. There’s comfort in the routine of it, in knowing what will come next. She’s going to ask him a question, maybe something personal, or something innocuous, and he might respond or stay quiet, depending. Then, he’ll ask her one and she’ll do the same, though she answers more often than him. He tends to ask her about whatever it is she’s reading so he can listen to her ramble. It’s more soothing than he cares to admit.

Her mind works in ways his never could. She understands anything and everything. He’s always interested if she tells him about something informative, some scientific concept that she explains in terms that he’s sure anyone could understand without being condescending. In fact, he doesn’t think she knows the meaning of the word. What really makes him tick is when she manages to philosophize fiction. The phrase “I understand the notion of sexual liberation through smut, but Sellyn Drake really is an abomination to literature,” sticks out in his head and makes him laugh at inopportune times. Her subsequent “If you tell Nesta I said that, I swear to the gods, Azriel—!” even more so.

But he always asks second, so he keeps his fists working while he waits.

It takes a while, but she shuffles to a more comfortable position where she’s sitting behind him. He wonders if she’s watching him like he watches her, or if she’s actually studying his form, or perhaps looking for weaknesses. That little, depraved part of him that he keeps quiet desperately hopes it’s the former.

He hears her take a breath.

“Who gave you the scars on your hands?” she asks, and it’s a miracle she can’t see his face. Az had known that she would ask him one of these days, but it still shakes him a little.

A carefully, cleverly worded question which allows him to give an answer lacking in detail without outright refusing her one. His punches don’t falter as he thinks about whether or not he’s going to reply at all. He could leave it with the truth, not provide any more, and she wouldn’t push it. She never does.

“...My half-brothers did,” he says, striking the punching bag harshly enough that a jolt shoots through his arm.

“Why?”

A beat. Another punch. The bag’s starting to creak under the weight of them.

“Because they hated me,” he says, “and they were cruel.” He can practically sense the frown on her face as she tries to work out why that would be, so he puts her out of her misery and continues, unsure of why but feeling the urge to do it anyway. “I was evidence of my father’s affair, and his wife didn’t want him to take responsibility for me but he did, so she had me constrained under his keep with my wings bound. Her sons took after her, and wanted to know whether Illyrian healing would hold up against oil and fire.”

For a moment, it’s only the sounds of him hitting the bag that sound across the space between them, but she doesn’t let the silence stretch out for very long. In her voice when she speaks, it’s not pity, it’s a kind of contained, roiling rage, and he finds that more gratifying than he should.

“How old were you?”

Thea knows, of course, that he had gone to Windhaven at eleven.

“Eight,” he replies.

And she stays quiet until he stops moving, knowing that if he kept going his knuckles were going to start bleeding, and self-destruction isn’t what he’s after today. He steadies the bag as it sags.

“Are they dead?” she asks.

When he turns, he sees her staring up at him, still angry. “Yes,” he says simply and unhooks the bag.

She nods. “Good.”

It is. He remembers that day vividly too, and thinks it’s fitting that he had them begging for their lives as they died in the cold. Their voices are clearer in his head than he wants them to be sometimes.

As he throws the bag out of the ring and the House whisks it away, he wonders how he’s going to follow that up, whether to diffuse the tension, ask something light-hearted, but even as the words come to mind, that question dies on his tongue. It’s a self-indulgent impulse, what he does ask, done because he’s curious and wants to know. Maybe it’s because he cares for her too, maybe he wants to get angry on her behalf, but he doesn’t think talking about it will help, in the same way that reliving what happened to him does nothing anymore.

He sits a little ways from her and starts peeling the tape off his hands, his wings splaying out behind him. She tracks the movement. Finally, the scent of her gets carried on the wind to him, and he lets himself inhale and bask in it.

Something floral, he thinks. Roses, maybe. Strawberries and roses.

Then he says, more bluntly than he had planned to, “What happened to you?” and she understands what it is he’s referring to.

Exchanging trauma isn’t where he thought his morning was going, but it’s where he is. She doesn’t owe him a response, and he won’t ask again after this, but anything else seemed unsuitable, maybe a bit disingenuous. He knows parts of her story, that she hails from the Summer Court and walked to the Day Court before Mor found her and brought her to the city more than a century ago. It’s also no secret that the priestesses in the library, terribly, share a common experience, so he figures that’ll be something she’ll tell him, if she answers.

A wry smile comes across her lips. It does him no harm to acknowledge that he looks at her lips more often than could be considered friendly. “Is this payback for my question?” she asks drily, and it’s good-natured, but still serious.

“You know it isn’t,” he says, realising that it probably sounded like it was, moving onto his other hand and taking the tape off that one too.

Thea purses her lips and looks away.

“You don’t have to—” he starts, but she shoots him a glare and he clamps his mouth shut, lets her settle.

“In Summer,” she says, “priestesses do more than officiate ceremonies and perform rituals, they’re scholars, a bit like here. That’s why I decided to become one, not for any particular religious feeling, Mother forgive me. I lived in a temple not far from Dodecana—,” the city where the royal family spent the summer months, “—did research, spoke with other devotees to the Powers that Be, you know? I liked it there. Liked being in the temple and reading and just, it was nice.” She accents the words with another small smile, but Az’s heart starts to sink.

“One day, after a sermon, I think it was on the natural world and the Solstice that was coming up, a male came up to me and he seemed nice so we chatted for a bit. He was interesting. I don’t know how long he’d been in the Court, but he was tall, kind of handsome, had this dark hair and I clocked him as being from the Night Court pretty quickly because he had a bargain tattoo on his wrist right here.” She taps her forearm where he could see the veins in her wrist. It’s a common place for tattoos of that kind to appear. “Anyway. He started telling me about where he was from because I was curious, and he said he was from ‘a city amongst the stars’ which fascinated me. So every so often, he would come and talk to me and I’d learn a bit more about him and this nameless city of his.

“I guess I liked him. Or, I don’t know, I was too young and too naive to get suspicious.” A mirthless grimace flashes across her eyes. “I basically let him walk me into the main chamber of the temple alone and he assaulted me on the altar.”

Azriel had guessed it as soon as she’d mentioned him, but the revelation hits him like a kick to the chest anyway, the very specific violation of it. The nauseating purposefulness of befriending her before defiling her, if the act wasn’t sickening enough; the invasion of a place so important for her; the taking of safety that it provided. Anger doesn’t begin to cover it. The sensation that washes over him is thick, corrosive, and he’s sure she can see it on his face like he can see how she remembers every part of what happened to her all too well.

“I healed,” she says, and the emphasis makes Azriel feel ill. “Couldn’t stand to stay there so I just got up and left in the middle of the night, which, in hindsight, was stupid but… it was what I did. I started walking and kept going until I reached the border for the Winter Court and on the way I formed a plan. Promised myself some things. I swore that I would never, ever, let something like that happen to me again, and I told myself that I would find him, find him and his ‘city amongst the stars’ all the way up in the Night Court where, as far as I was aware, everyone was a brutal rapist who’d hurt me for even looking at them, and I would kill him. Burn his fucking city and everyone in it. Obviously—” she looks at him and the harshness in her tone softens, “—I’ve no plans to set Velaris on fire, but I was angry and hated myself and let that push me because the other option was…” She trails off, but Az fills in the gaps himself. The other option was giving up.

“I got lucky, honestly,” she continues, leaving how she had gotten through The Middle unsaid, which, knowing the horrors that exist there, Azriel thinks must have somehow been worse than everything else. It takes more than bravery to cross it unscathed. If she hadn’t been sitting in front of him, he would have called it impossible without divine intervention. “I’d made it to the Day Court and I was trying to figure out how the hell I was going to get over the Myrmidons when I collided with Mor in the middle of Rhodes. Why she was in Day, I don’t know, but she practically dragged me to the palace and made me eat because I probably looked like I was dying. She asked me what a priestess from the Summer Court was doing there and I told her everything.”

“You told Mor you were going to kill a member of the Court?”

She nods. “I thought lying to The Morrigan was probably a bad idea. And I didn’t have a lot left to lose.” A sobering confession. “She made me swear that I’d keep what I’d learnt about the city a secret, then offered to take me there, to help me find him and—the way she phrased it was ‘give him what he deserves’.

“She must have cleared it with Rhys because I didn’t meet with him until afterwards, but we found him. He lived in one of the flats near the Palace of Hoof and Leaf and I asked him why he did it. He gave me some excuse about how I led him on, but I think he did it just because he could.” He thinks she’s probably right, and he’s not sure if that makes it better or worse, if that even matters.

“So, I slit his throat and that was the end of it.” Relief, more than shock, Az realises, is what thunders through him as she speaks with a kind of vicious triumph. “Rhys told me I could stay here and I did. And, there you have it. Other than Rhys and Mor, you’re the only one who knows all that.”

He swallows. He wants her to know that he doesn’t pity her, she doesn’t want that and doesn’t need it, but that he appreciates it, her trust in him and the strength it took to reveal it all, so he says, “I’ll count myself lucky.”

Thea looses a lofty laugh that shudders and the weight on her shoulders drops. “Take it to your grave, yeah?”

Of course. Nothing they ever talk about here, when it’s just the two of them, gets told to anyone else. Not even Rhys could get him to spill her secrets, and she does the same for him. “I swear it,” he says, hand on his heart, half-joking to make her laugh, but mostly devotedly serious.

She rolls her eyes at him and, though it happens rather too quickly to be fully genuine, it pleases him to see her shake the past off her features. Back to being Thea. Everyday Thea. Not that he doesn’t want to know the other Thea, it's just… he despises it when she’s upset or something’s clearly getting her down and that’s not a selfish thing. It’s because he wants her to be happy. Because, in spite of all the complicated feelings and emotions that pass between them, she is his friend, one of the few he has, and there’s comfort in the fact that that won’t change either.

All it takes is a second, one tiny, precious second, and their little bubble gets broken by Cassian shouting his name through the hall and up to the training ring.

“Thought he was still asleep,” Az grumbles, glancing back at the entranceway.

The shout comes again and the moment is truly gone.

“I think that’s my cue,” she laughs, standing, stretching. When she passes by him, she ruffles his hair; she thinks messing with it annoys him, but he actually relishes the feel of it. Thinks about her hand in his hair a lot. It’s harmless, really.

Before she crosses the threshold and goes back to the library, she tosses a wave over her shoulder and calls out, “See you, Az!”

It’s too soon for his liking. He’s got too much he wants to say to her, too much that he still has to work out, but all of it’s too sincere, too deep for the atmosphere, and he doesn’t know what else he has that would make her look back or stay a while longer. So he calls “See you,” back and finishes unwrapping his hand, having gone idle as he listened to her.

He takes a breath. Two. Lingers where he sits for a bit, then goes off to find Cassian.

#azriel #azriel x oc #azriel angst #acotar #acosf #inner circle #rhysand #morrigan #azriel fanfic #azriel fic #azriel x reader #azriel x you #azriel one shot

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saintshiv · 2 months ago

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i invited you in, twice i did

part I, part II, final part

─ remmick x f!oc

─ synopsis: after four months of silence, she carries on with her life like the creature of the night had simply been a fitful dream. but, when a familiar face infiltrates her church’s revival, she finds herself at a crossroads between sinning and saintdom.

─ warnings: smoking, LOTS of religious talk, mild blood

─ w/c: 3.6k

and almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

hebrews 9:22

IT WOULD BE FOUR MONTHS BEFORE THEIR EYES MET AGAIN. It was late, damn near ten at night. The old Greenwood United Baptist Church was holding a revival, the tent packed to the brim with members and strangers alike. A large smile spread on her lips as she watched Reverend Stokes pace the wooden stage, his voice raised. "And the Good Lord don't want none o' y'all to burn - no, He don't!" Women and men alike joined in, shaking their heads and tapping their Bibles. "He wants us all to rejoice in His holiest of cities! There's a mansion up there waitin' on each 'f us! Yessir! Praise God!" He pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his slacks, dabbing at the sweat that beaded his forehead. Breaths heaved from him as he leaned against the podium where his Bible sat splayed open, verses staring back up at him. "But that's only for those right with Him. Only for us lucky few. Yessir, I can feel it now. Got a few lost souls in search of something greater, something certain."

A shiver ran up her spine. Someone was watching her. Her hand rubbed the back of her neck as the hairs stood to attention. Her head turned, looking back towards the crowd behind her. Eyes searched the crowd to no avail. With furrowed eyebrows, she slowly turned back towards the preacher with a small frown on her lips. "Yessir, we got several sinners up here and I hates to see it, but boy... I'm glad to have y'all. The Lord is gracin' us with pleasant company here now. And speakin' of, I'd love to welcome out the li'l Catton sisters to sing 'I'll Fly Away'. Yessir, give 'em our Greenwood greetin', y'all."

The crowd cheered as three little girls all dressed up in dresses of pink, yellow, and green stomped onto the stage. Their mother clapped loudly, whooping and hollering for them. Their father joined the three on stage, a guitar strapped over his shoulder. He tapped his foot on beat before he began strumming the guitar. The girls began singing, off-key and rushed, but none cared too much.

A hand pressed to her shoulder, ripping her attention from the girls. "Howdy, Miss Esther." A familiar voice spoke, their hand gripping her shoulder tight and friendly. She turned, her eyes widened in familiarity.

"Li'l Johnny Heaton!" She gaped, a giggle escaping her lips as she wrapped the young man into a welcoming hug. Her arms wrapped around him, his own arms reciprocating with his own laughter. "Good Lord, I ain't seen you since you just barely reached my thigh! How you been?" She pulled back, her hands holding him close as a wide smile spread on her lips. Her eyes trailed over him, taking in his newfound growth. With dark hair and even darker eyes, she was struck by how handsome he'd become. "You've really grown into them Heaton features, you sure have."

He chuckled, slowly nodding his head. A soft flush coated his cheeks as her eyes roamed over him. His hand reached up to scratch the back of his neck, another chuckle letting loose. "Yeah, y'know... got'a thank my mama, I s'pose." Shrugging his shoulders, he smiled brightly back at her - a charm in him that dreadfully reminded her of men she'd have rather not known.

"It's been some time, ain't it? Didn't, uh..." She trailed off, her smile slowly dropping into a small frown, "I thought you'd run oft. Tennessee, right?"

"Yes, ma'am. Followed my heart up that way. Up where even the grass sings." He smiled wistfully, as if recalling some old dream he'd had when he was younger. It almost made her envious, to be able to experience such a feeling was foreign to her. The mere idea of it so unknowable. Her lips pursed in a form of swallowed envy. This was the Lord's house now, she needn't be so sinful off the bat. "I, uh... joined m'self a band, actually."

Her eyes widened, her envy nearly forgotten in a wash of excitement. "A band?!" She scoffed in surprise, gently slapping his shoulder in a friendly manner. "Li'l Johnny Heaton's a celebrity. Anybody I heard?" Her smile widened, toothy in nature, stained from decades of drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.

With a dip of his head, he chuckled and shrugged his shoulders again in a show of humility. "Not yet, no ma'am. We're, uh... We're actually performin' tonight. And tomorrow night, too. Reverend Stokes is real excited to have a real deal bluegrass band."

"Bluegrass, huh? Bunch o' Kentucky boys in this band o' yours?"

"A couple, yeah. The other feller's from 'round Mississippi, though. Plays the banjo like none I ever met."

Her smile remained wide, pride in every pore for the boy turned man that she'd helped raise. "Well, I better get an autograph before you're shipped back to Nashville and singin' for the President 'n' all."

As the Catton sisters finished their song, the crowd began to applaud for them. He stiffened, glancing towards the stage. "I'll be sure to save ya front row seats, ma'am." Leaning forward, he pressed a quick kiss to her cheek before rushing off into the crowd as the preacher rejoined the stage, clapping along with the crowd as the three girls and their father exited the stage. He dabbed once again at the sweat that seemed to make its permanent home on his forehead and neck. Thanking them for their performance, he asked for the crowd to applaud them once more for their courage and for their right steps with the Lord.

"Now, I know y'all're tired and pro'ly itchin' to get on home, but we got these here boys all the way from Tennessee here to sing us a few songs. One of 'em includes our very own Johnny Heaton, so let's give 'em all a big Greenwood welcome, y'all."

The congregation was quick to applaud for the group of four men that approached the stage. Her entire body stiffened. Time began to slow as they neared the center of the stage. All of the applause was quick to fall away, falling silent in her ears as she watched a very familiar man step in with them, flashing a charmingly crooked smile to the crowd. A banjo is strapped to his chest, his arms resting along it like second nature. Her jaw clenched, her hands balling into tight fists as her sides. Letting out a shaky breath, she watched him scan the crowd as Johnny spoke to the crowd. His words fell on deaf ears as their eyes finally met. His smile widened, flashing his impossibly sharp canines. A glare formed in her eyes as Johnny stepped back into the quartet line.

Strumming the banjo, the four began singing 'Are You Washed in the Blood'. She almost scoffed. Too on the nose, even for him. Her eyes never left his form, nor did his. Even as people near the stage began dancing with each other, singing along with the four men. It was the most theatrical the revival sermon had gotten all day. Maybe because it was near the end of the week, near the end of the revival. Sinners had been saved, their jobs had been done. Material had begun to grow old. One could only hear about fire and brimstone and golden streets for so long. But this performance seemingly set a fire under all of them, sending them all into a frenzy of worship. She simply watched, a frown on her lips and the glare still in her eyes. His smile only ever widened.

Leaving now had crossed her mind. But her feet seemed to be planted firmly in the ground. She should leave. She should flee as quickly as possible. But she couldn't. Not when he was watching her so intently, strumming his banjo and singing with the others. Their own voices had soon been drowned out by all of the congregation singing along, whooping and hollering. When the song ended, they quickly shifted to playing 'Where the Soul of Man Never Dies' and she almost laughed aloud. He was being obvious, he was being clumsy. None of them would ever notice, but she would. She did. His eyes never left hers more than a few seconds, never strayed to anyone else in the crowd. Only her. Only ever her.

Bodies bumped into her, shoving and pushing. But she paid them no mind. Her mind was glued to one man, and he was standing up on that stage, strumming a banjo and smiling down at her. A wolf in sheepskin. None of these poor people knew that the Devil had entered the tent, was enticing them with his song. This was anything but holy. This was a sacrifice. When they'd begun to play 'Can't Feel at Home', she finally ripped her gaze from his, turned and pushed out of the crowd. Her wrist was quickly caught as one of the men in the congregation spun her around in a dance. He laughed as he swung her back and forth. She attempted to pull herself free but it was in vain.

The man laughed as he slung her towards another man, this one catching her and holding her waist as he shifted side to side. "Get the hell-" She was cut off as the man wrapped his arms around her, dipping her downwards in the dance. Her hands clung to his button-up in a desperate attempt not to fall onto the dirt floor. "Christ, Collin, let go o' me!" She shouted as he brought her back up, spinning her around. Her words seemed to have no effect on him as he spun her towards a third man. When the third man caught her in his arms, she stomped down on his foot with a glare. His movements halted as he shouted out, bringing his foot up and away from her own treacherous appendages.

She was quick to push past him and make her way out of the crowd and through the flap of the tent. The warm night air was welcoming, more open than the stuffy hotbox that the tent itself had turned into. Hands ran across her face, wiping away the sweat that was beading across her forehead and her chest. The hem of her dress across her chest was now stained with sweat. Soft curses spilled from her lips as she looked down at the fabric. If she got home soon, she might be able to save it from getting a more permanent stain. Heavy breaths finally turned into normal puffs of air. Her fingers twitched at her sides, her feet glued to her spot.

With a sigh, she dug into her bra, pulling out a cigarette box that was damp with sweat and her lighter. She pressed one of the cigarettes to her lips before stuffing the box back and lighting the end. In some form of irony, it felt like she could finally breathe. "There she is."

She spun on her heel towards the voice, her eyes wide. He stood before her, in all of his imposing glory. The banjo was still strapped to him, now hanging from his back. Like her, sweat stained around his collar, beading his forehead, just under his dark hair. "Hell're you doin' here?" She hissed, her voice low so as not to draw attention. Her eyes darted around in search of anyone that might have followed him out here. "Surprised you didn't burst into flames the second you crossed that tent threshold."

A chuckle escaped his lips as he took a few strides towards her, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his black slacks. "Well, li'l Johnny Heaton invited me right in, told me all 'bout this here beautiful revival y'all havin'. Couldn't pass up the opportunity to share in some music." His smile was malicious, conniving. She felt like she'd entered in a conversation with a fox that had taken human form. His fingers drummed along the strap of his banjo that crossed his abdomen. Sharp eyes watched her every move, practically listened to her every thought. "I tell ya, that feller sure knows how to sing. It's a shame to think what might happen he falls into the wrong hands." She doesn't enjoy the implication.

"Don't hurt him." A small frown settled on her lips, a pinch of worry in her strained voice.

"Why, you like him? Can't say I'd blame ya, handsome feller, he is."

"Ain't like that-"

"Maybe it's those fellers you were dancin' with, then. Clingin' to like they're the only lifeboats in a goddamn ocean-"

"The hell're you on about?" She snapped at him, her frown deepening and her glare sharpening. A silent moment, a thick silence that she could've cut with a knife. Her eyes flickered across his face, settling on his eyes that refused to meet hers all of a sudden. A lightbulb went off. A chuckle escaped her lips. "Are you... No... Can't be..." She giggled, her hand reaching up to cover her mouth. "He's jealous." She muttered through giggles before she pressed the cigarettes to her lips, a smile still beaming up at him. That got his attention. His eyes shot towards her, the glow now inescapable. "There he is." She mumbled, smoke slipping past her lips with the sounds.

"You're a rotten woman." He muttered, eyes watching as she took another drag from her cigarette. His eyes flickered down towards the worn Bible in her other hand. "Why were you dancin' all up on them men?"

A subtle smirk danced on her lips as she shifted her weight onto one leg. Her short heels were beginning to cramp her feet from standing so long. "Was tryin' to leave. Got grabbed. Couldn't get 'em off 'til I stomped Joe Copper's foot so damn hard he didn't have no choice but to get off." A faint breeze passed by, a welcome one. It cooled her down, dried down the sweat that refused to vanish from her damp skin. The cigarette crackled between her fingers as she took another drag. It was half gone by now. "Plenty o' other girls in there for you to keep yer eye on. Why you watchin' me so damn close?"

Another silent moment, a beat of tension. A part of her wondered if she'd gone too far. Had taken their usual banter too seriously. Didn't want to sound like a jealous ex-girlfriend. Then, he took a step towards her, nearly bridging the gap between them. Her eyes flickered between his hands stuffed into his pockets to his eyes that watched her so carefully, so cautiously. She wished so desperately that she could read his mind, that she could fill the gaps herself. Give her something that didn't leave her curious and wondering for however long before she saw him again. Any little sign that she wasn't some crazy old woman conjuring up ghosts to talk to. Isolation did wonders to the brain, she knew that firsthand. It wouldn't be too far of a stretch to discover he'd never even been real.

But, as an arm snaked around her waist, it was impossible to imagine he'd ever been made up. Not as he pulled her forward, their bodies pressed against one another. On instinct, her arms wrapped around his neck, her Bible dropping to the dirt floor, but her cigarette pinched even tighter between her fingers. "Can't have anyone thinkin' you're theirs, now, can I?" His voice lowered, nearly reverberating against her ear. His eyes flickered across her face, taking in every little detail he could. Four months could only ever be eternity away from her. A deep part of him didn't like that, didn't like that he'd made a habit of this. Kill the bitch and get it over with, he'd thought on several occasions. She's making a fool of you. And every time he thought he'd finally worked himself up to do it, he'd stand in front of her and be reminded of exactly why he couldn't. Not when those venomous words sounded so sweet coming from her. Not when that cigarette hanging from her mouth looked so inviting. Not when that vicious smile looked good enough to eat.

"And who said I'm yours?" Her own voice lowered, dropped just above a whisper. The darkness around them seeped past the words, consuming every spot not illuminated by the moonlight.

His smile widened, his sharp canines glinting in the light. "You remember ten years back, a tent revival just like this one?" Something in his voice shifted, imperceptible to most, obvious to her. A nostalgic lilt to his voice, a shift in his eyes. It was almost endearing. Her free hand slid through his hair, combing through the soft waves. "Preacher Humbert invited me in, let me sing a few songs with them two brothers."

"You sang 'Will the Circle be Unbroken'." She spoke, a small smile on her lips as she watched him carefully, closely. She'd never been able to look at him this closely, not even the last time he'd come to her house. Pressing the cigarette to her lips, she used her newly free hand to cup his cheek, to cradle his face. A part of her wished she could name this sinking feeling deep in her gut. It always struck her when he was around, when he looked at her, when he spoke to her, when he touched her.

"You were mine the moment our eyes met 'cross that congregation, darlin'." His grip on her waist tightened, pressing their bodies as close as possible. He leaned in close, their lips hovering just an inch apart.

Her hand in his hair curled into a fist, pulling him back from her. "I don't belong to no one. Got that?" She ground the words out like it hurt. Every word punctuated with spit.

He flashed his fangs, a low chuckle slowly dripping from his lips. His own fingers dug into her tender flesh, one hand drifting down to her hip. Turning his head slightly, he pressed a gentle kiss to the palm of her hand that had cradled his cheek. "Yes, ma'am." He lifted the hand that remained around her waist to brush his fingers along the length of her arm. A shiver ran up her spine at this display of sensuality, this open affection. He held her hand as he trailed soft kisses down her arm, starting with the pulse point of her wrist and down the arm until he reached her shoulder. Her hand in his hair loosened, sliding down to cradle the back of his neck.

His kiss to her neck was wet, open-mouthed. His drool dripped down her neck and onto her collarbone. Trailing up to her jaw, a soft gasp slipped from her lips as his teeth nipped her jaw, his tongue darting out to taste the dollop of blood that came from it. "You love blood too much." She muttered, her arms returning around his neck and pulling him impossibly closer. Pulling himself from her jaw, their eyes met in a heated display. So deeply unlike the sermons that she had spent every night of the week listening to. But what had being Godly gotten her? A farm to tend to and a dead mother to look up to. Funny how death seemed to wash away all sins.

Watching each other, she gave in, let herself feel something for once. Let herself give in to the thoughts that had consumed her mind for a decade now. Closing the gap, her lips pressed to his with such force that she would be surprised if she weren't bruised by the end of this interaction. His hands caught her hips in a rough grasp, fingers digging into the skin through her thin dress. A moan escaped her as his teeth nipped at her bottom lip. He moved forward, backing her up until her back pressed into the rough bark of a tree. Hands slipped down towards the hem of her dress, lifting it just above her thighs to press into the soft flesh. She gasped, mouth opening enough for him to slip his tongue in, quick to press against hers. The taste of copper filled her senses, exploded against her own tongue.

Patrons began exiting the tent, conversing with one another and sharing their goodbyes and see-you-later's. Her hands pressed to his chest, pushing him back enough to break the kiss. Both of them panted, her face flush with desire and shame. Her hand raised, wiping the smeared drool from her chin. "I caught a ride with Susanna." She breathed, an apologetic look in her eyes. One of her hands slid up his chest, toying with the collar of his button-up. A small smile danced on her lips as she leaned in, lips nearing the shell of his ear. "But next time you're by... c'mon in." She whispered, teeth nipping at his earlobe before she moved past him, searching for her friend.

Remmick cleared his throat, using the sleeve of his shirt to wipe at the thick drool that dripped from the corner of his mouth as he turned to watch her leave. For the first time in over a few hundred years, he'd found someone worth keeping around. He'd finally found someone worth keeping by his side. He adjusted the front of his slacks in a vain attempt to hide the erection that tented them. Running a hand through his damp hair, he cursed under his breath. Four months was far too long for him to wait to see her again. And this time, he would step onto her porch, step past her doorway. He would come inside. And that would be the last time the two would be apart.

#films #sinners #sinners fic #remmick #remmick x reader #remmick x oc #remmick x you #vampires #southern gothic #ethel cain #ptolemaea #yearning hours #jack o'connell

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mariacallous · 9 months ago

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Rhetoric has a history. The words democracy and tyranny were debated in ancient Greece; the phrase separation of powers became important in the 17th and 18th centuries. The word vermin, as a political term, dates from the 1930s and ’40s, when both fascists and communists liked to describe their political enemies as vermin, parasites, and blood infections, as well as insects, weeds, dirt, and animals. The term has been revived and reanimated, in an American presidential campaign, with Donald Trump’s description of his opponents as “radical-left thugs” who “live like vermin.”

This language isn’t merely ugly or repellant: These words belong to a particular tradition. Adolf Hitler used these kinds of terms often. In 1938, he praised his compatriots who had helped “cleanse Germany of all those parasites who drank at the well of the despair of the Fatherland and the People.” In occupied Warsaw, a 1941 poster displayed a drawing of a louse with a caricature of a Jewish face. The slogan: “Jews are lice: they cause typhus.” Germans, by contrast, were clean, pure, healthy, and vermin-free. Hitler once described the Nazi flag as “the victorious sign of freedom and the purity of our blood.”

Stalin used the same kind of language at about the same time. He called his opponents the “enemies of the people,” implying that they were not citizens and that they enjoyed no rights. He portrayed them as vermin, pollution, filth that had to be “subjected to ongoing purification,” and he inspired his fellow communists to employ similar rhetoric. In my files, I have the notes from a 1955 meeting of the leaders of the Stasi, the East German secret police, during which one of them called for a struggle against “vermin activities” (there is, inevitably, a German word for this: Schädlingstätigkeiten), by which he meant the purge and arrest of the regime’s critics. In this same era, the Stasi forcibly moved suspicious people away from the border with West Germany, a project nicknamed “Operation Vermin.”

This kind of language was not limited to Europe. Mao Zedong also described his political opponents as “poisonous weeds.” Pol Pot spoke of “cleansing” hundreds of thousands of his compatriots so that Cambodia would be “purified.”

In each of these very different societies, the purpose of this kind of rhetoric was the same. If you connect your opponents with disease, illness, and poisoned blood, if you dehumanize them as insects or animals, if you speak of squashing them or cleansing them as if they were pests or bacteria, then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them. If they are parasites, they aren’t human. If they are vermin, they don’t get to enjoy freedom of speech, or freedoms of any kind. And if you squash them, you won’t be held accountable.

Until recently, this kind of language was not a normal part of American presidential politics. Even George Wallace’s notorious, racist, neo-Confederate 1963 speech, his inaugural speech as Alabama governor and the prelude to his first presidential campaign, avoided such language. Wallace called for “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” But he did not speak of his political opponents as “vermin” or talk about them poisoning the nation’s blood. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps following the outbreak of World War II, spoke of “alien enemies” but not parasites.

In the 2024 campaign, that line has been crossed. Trump blurs the distinction between illegal immigrants and legal immigrants—the latter including his wife, his late ex-wife, the in-laws of his running mate, and many others. He has said of immigrants, “They’re poisoning the blood of our country” and “They’re destroying the blood of our country.” He has claimed that many have “bad genes.” He has also been more explicit: “They’re not humans; they’re animals”; they are “cold-blooded killers.” He refers more broadly to his opponents—American citizens, some of whom are elected officials—as “the enemy from within … sick people, radical-left lunatics.” Not only do they have no rights; they should be “handled by,” he has said, “if necessary, National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”

In using this language, Trump knows exactly what he is doing. He understands which era and what kind of politics this language evokes. “I haven’t read Mein Kampf,” he declared, unprovoked, during one rally—an admission that he knows what Hitler’s manifesto contains, whether or not he has actually read it. “If you don’t use certain rhetoric,” he told an interviewer, “if you don’t use certain words, and maybe they’re not very nice words, nothing will happen.”

His talk of mass deportation is equally calculating. When he suggests that he would target both legal and illegal immigrants, or use the military arbitrarily against U.S. citizens, he does so knowing that past dictatorships have used public displays of violence to build popular support. By calling for mass violence, he hints at his admiration for these dictatorships but also demonstrates disdain for the rule of law and prepares his followers to accept the idea that his regime could, like its predecessors, break the law with impunity.

These are not jokes, and Trump is not laughing. Nor are the people around him. Delegates at the Republican National Convention held up prefabricated signs: Mass Deportation Now. Just this week, when Trump was swaying to music at a surreal rally, he did so in front of a huge slogan: Trump Was Right About Everything. This is language borrowed directly from Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist. Soon after the rally, the scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat posted a photograph of a building in Mussolini’s Italy displaying his slogan: Mussolini Is Always Right.

These phrases have not been put on posters and banners at random in the final weeks of an American election season. With less than three weeks left to go, most candidates would be fighting for the middle ground, for the swing voters. Trump is doing the exact opposite. Why? There can be only one answer: because he and his campaign team believe that by using the tactics of the 1930s, they can win. The deliberate dehumanization of whole groups of people; the references to police, to violence, to the “bloodbath” that Trump has said will unfold if he doesn’t win; the cultivation of hatred not only against immigrants but also against political opponents—none of this has been used successfully in modern American politics.

But neither has this rhetoric been tried in modern American politics. Several generations of American politicians have assumed that American voters, most of whom learned to pledge allegiance to the flag in school, grew up with the rule of law, and have never experienced occupation or invasion, would be resistant to this kind of language and imagery. Trump is gambling—knowingly and cynically—that we are not.

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ask-aunt-spoon · 17 days ago

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Hey there, squidkids~! It's sure been awhile, huh?

It's been a WILD few years, but now that things have settled down again, I'm super thrilled to report that Ask Aunt Spoon is back!

Hope to see you all again in the asks, and remember to stay fresh~!

A Note from Teapot: Hey, folks - sorry for the long hiatus. It has definitely been a long few years since Splatoon 3's initial release, and I've had the pleasure of enjoying most of it even through some rough times. There have been a lot of ups and downs on my end, and I'm sure that rings true for a lot of you folks as well.

To start, I'd like to thank everyone for sticking around as long as you all have, and whether you're an old, loyal follower or new to the blog, please know that all of you are the reason why I continue AAS!. I really, truly enjoy running this blog, and even through the long hiatus I've wanted to continue and revive it, even if I had no real motivation or desire to physically draw replies.

Admittedly, I was extremely daunted by how involved some of the replies got, as extended OC cast exponentially increased the scope of both the asks and subsequent replies. This led to some long and often times complex planning and paneling that I very quickly ran out of steam trying to finish, eventually culminating in just not finishing anything at all.

Additionally, I was also unsure how to navigate the continued universe of Splatoon 3 while it was still actively updating in case I accidentally contradicted something new, so I inadvertently ended up just waiting until live content updates were over.

That being said, the blog going forward will continue as always, though I will try to better learn my limits and decrease the scope of replies as much as possible. I've moved from SAI to CSP, which has helped smooth out my workflow, and overall I feel more confident in my ability to draw quickly. The extended cast page will remain up for now, but I'll probably either pare it down or remove it completely at some point just for brevity's sake. After all, this is a Callie blog. However, if you have a tangential interest in the OC portion, feel free to shoot me a message or ask about it, and I'll direct you elsewhere.

There will be some updates made to the FAQ, as well.

As for old asks, I will probably end up just purging most of them just for a fresh start. Sorry if I missed your ask - but, if you really want it answered, feel free to ask it again!

Planned cast updates and appearances: - Marie (Knife Mom) will continue to stay, for obvious reasons - Cap'n 3 (Sunny) and Neo Agent 3 (Bee) may cameo, depending - Team Agent 4 will likely not return - Agent 8 (Toko) may cameo; her brothers will likely not - The Elites will still cameo depending on circumstance - Off the Hook may cameo depending on circumstance - Deep Cut may cameo now, depending on circumstance - Acht (dedf1sh) unlikely to cameo, sorry; not a calf1sh blog </3

TL;DR - Sorry for the long hiatus; Ask Aunt Spoon is back! I've moved to CSP, will be cutting down the cast, clearing old asks, and starting fresh. Please continue sending asks, as always!

Cheers, --Teapot

#splatoon #squid sisters #callie #aori #art #announcement

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moonlightmagical · 1 year ago

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god i really hope the rat grinders get revived and in doing so, purge the toxic rage shit from their systems. like those are kids. they got power-levelled by authority figures who they thought they could fully trust and now are caught in the middle of a divine scheme and war made to benefit one bad and selfish man and his twink boy-toy.

truly i don’t believe the bad kids had any other way to succeed other than killing them—and they were threatening to rip apart the world, manipulated or not—and of course death means something different in a world with revivify, but while they might have been maybe a bit dickish before they rage-revived, the rat grinders had their whole lives to change and realize that maybe a stupid high school feud isn’t worth that amount of energy. i mean i don’t particularly love her, but kipperlily was literally in therapy before this all started. there was a path forward for her, and i’d like to believe a path forward for all of the rat grinders.

and now they’re going to die.

#idk where this came from y’all #their deaths are just kinda tragic #dimension 20 #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #fantasy high spoilers #fh #fhjy #d20

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cyb3rtarot · 1 year ago

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Pick a Pile: Nature Messages

Disclaimer: In this PAP I'm reading my homemade nature-based oracle with tarot and other oracle decks. There’s general messages and advice. Readings are not replacements for professional advice! Take what confirms you and leave what confuses you.

pile 1 ❀.ೃ࿔ pile 2 pile 3 ❀.ೃ࿔ pile 4

ᨒ↟

Pile 1:

Rushing Water

[Healing (King of Emotion), Receptivity (Queen of Emotion), Uncertainty]

Hi pile 1! This pile has gone through a major healing period, or you might be in the tail-end of it. This could have been intense or fast—like a whirlwind of purged emotions and memories. Mental energy that was stagnant for a long time was suddenly swept away, and not painlessly. Now you’re a clean slate. You understood the importance of exfoliating these old mindsets, and there’s an inner child ready to look at everything with wonder again. Roles you have been forced to play dissipate. You can decide who you are instead of only reacting to an idea of yourself. There’s a sense of starting again and freshly taking in the world.

Beauty

[Experiencing, You Can’t Go Back to Yesterday, Ordinariness]

You have opportunities to appreciate the moment. You might be leaving a door open for things from the past, or you feel anxious about where to start with your new self. Be in the present! The beauty of life is coming through the routine and mundane—appreciating existence even when nothing big is happening. Finding joy in just being and the small things can help rebuild yourself. Appreciation will help you feel more connected and aware in the grand scheme of things. But, it’s harder to be open to this beauty if you’re still holding old expectations over yourself. Physical activities rather than mental ones may be especially helpful at this time, such as walking or gardening.

Cactus

[The Tower rx, Impossible Things rx, Achievement (Sun in Capricorn, 10th house)]

Your defenses are up. Many of you have constant worry as a backdrop to everything. You’re waiting for something big to happen or to blow up in your face. Some are waiting for a dead situation to revive and putting your defenses up to everything else. Part of healing is trusting yourself to manage even when you don’t have all the facts. Waiting for something to happen can function as a way to ignore your present life or procrastinate, and you might end up ignoring lovely things. There’s irony here, having skepticism about good possibilities but not being skeptical about the worst possibilities. Not every day can be a tower moment. Many days are regular and will slip into time, which is why the opportunity to experience and steer it now can be a gift. Remembering this will create a strong foundation for later.

Advice—Bonfire

[Consciousness (Ace of Mind), Nothingness, 7 of cups]

The only mental suit in your reading is in your advice, and it emphasizes not overthinking. Awareness is needed to find yourself underneath your stressors, otherwise you may treat those as inherent parts of your character and life. This awareness can be found in joys of the mundane, letting your inner child out, and celebrating. Do things that bring you out of your head and into the physical. Or, activities that join reflection with sensory experience, such as meditating with candles & incense. Don’t waste your new self seeking those who can only accept past versions of you. If being present means taking more time with just yourself, that’s okay. Purposeful alone time is very helpful right now, especially during night if you can make time. You have a vast abundance of potential in and around you that can sprout anything, but you won’t truly understand or appreciate the extent of this if you don’t live it. Slow down and appreciate the warmth that’s already available. Also, don’t beat yourself up for progressing slower.

Extra Details: coastal areas (coves or hills, golden sand), the beach at night, yellow stars (star shaped lamp?), working with friends/partner (especially if you left), The Office, gratitude practices (affirmations, journaling, etc), greatly increased intuition, or increased feelings of connection to Source/God/Higher Self/etc—you felt the connection was strained before? There’s awareness of something bigger than yourself, even your emotions or soul. xxxHolic, healing heart & throat energies, blue, water Sun & Moon, water N. Node (especially Cancer), Venus dominant, Venus-Moon natal aspect, heavy Cancer placements, feeling hopeful about career/finances or taking steps in that area (even slowly), trees/tree-hugging, taking care of plants, feeling like you’re given or gifted things & opportunities (but maybe you don’t care for whatever these are lol), shooting stars/meteor showers, comets, making a wish (or you feel very hopeful at this time), starting a new solo project or career, waiting for an ex (partner or friend), deer in headlights, lotus, feeling alone especially at night (you may want to try setting aside peaceful time if you’re usually busy at night or do something to purposefully wind down). If you were already drawn to pile 3 it may resonate

ᨒ↟

Pile 2:

Hope

[Innocence, Nothingness, Awareness]

Hello pile 2! There's a very new and wonder-filled energy. An old version of yourself is dying so to speak, and you’re entering a different headspace. You might feel like a kid again, or life is prompting you to give your inner child power. Some of you are worried that means making bad decisions or indulging in things you shouldn’t? But this is about the innocence in your inner child’s perspective—and you still have knowledge and experience to express this part of yourself wisely.

With Nothingness + Awareness, I feel you’re already embodying this, but some of you have anxiety that’s stopping your enjoyment and hope. There may be shame with past relationships. Like how you may have gotten used, or you’re angry at yourself for things you didn’t notice. This is a good time to revisit activities and places you loved in your childhood. They can help integrate the experience you gained with your inner child. Time alone with yourself and nostalgia, becoming reacquainted with yourself & life (finding healthy ways to engage with nostalgia is important for you). Things that were blinding you have passed and you've been made anew. Lay down the last self-judgements so you can be fully aware of life’s present potential. If you already felt drawn to pile one, this “clean-slate” vibe and huge energy of potential is very similar. Or, you might have friends that embody the energy of pile one.

Organization

[Friendliness, Manipulation (Jupiter in Scorpio, 8th house), All in the Golden Afternoon]

In terms of divine timing, there's a time and place for everything. What doesn’t make sense now may be a key piece of a puzzle later or an important shift. Many of you are having a faith or emotional crisis. You may feel strained with the grand scheme of things or a higher power, wondering why things happen the way they do. This is linked to that clean-slate energy, as this transformation of self/beliefs is having a profound impact on your inner world. These strong emotions (especially if you’re angry or indignant) can fuel your investigation of life, your new beliefs, and in creating.

You could be experiencing things emotionally & spiritually you never have before, especially in relation to a major loss in the last 6-9 months. Some of you got some blessing or achievement related to this time and you may feel conflicted about it. Regardless, balancing socializing with alone time is important for you. Interacting with others will help you make sense of the world, can inspire you, and can also help you work through grief both of you may be experiencing. The phrase “checking in” comes to mind; both you and your loved ones can benefit from being more there for each other. This doesn’t extend to people who no longer have a healthy space in your life. Some of you are punishing yourself or caging yourself in loneliness by not seeking healthy social interaction. Intentional alone time is good, but not as a way to punish yourself.

Underwater

[Clinging to the Past, Keep Your Temper, Discovery (Mercury in Sagittarius, 9th house)]

Positive outlets for emotions and restlessness are very important. Strong emotions have come out twice. You may feel like you’re drowning in feelings or confusion. You could have an explosive or blinding temper right now that you’re suppressing. There’s anxiety & fear about how fast or strangely things are moving in your life—especially if any kind of intuition, spiritual practice, or similar things have developed. But the fear you feel is not reflective of your abilities. Loss, change, and learning curves ARE scary. I keep getting this self-punishment or self-“inflammatory” (?) vibe. Like when too much emotion or confusion builds up, you become your own target (especially in anger). Your emotional capacity is not the enemy. Always seek professional emotional help or stress management if you need it; don’t take it out on yourself when life is hard. Your emotions are powerful when directed into something non-destructive. That’s easier said than done, but the bottom row of your reading really emphasizes self-discoveries, creative ideas, and new perspectives your emotions can lead you to. Healthy ways to manage your explosive side will help you tap into this. For example, travel keeps coming up. Going somewhere to clear your head and get away from stifling energy could help, especially if you can travel somewhere special to you. Even going to a new place locally can shift energy. A lot of you are experiencing this because of grief or because rapid changes are pushing you to the familiarity of the past. You may look at past people with rose-tinted glasses or long for innocent times. This can be another form of self-punishment—making yourself obsess over what once was (or never was) instead of loving present you. You are braver than you let yourself feel.

Advice—Decay

[Impulsiveness (Mars in Aries, 1st house), the Lovers rx, Page of Swords rx]

There’s an important ending; this could be part of the grief mentioned if you’re now trying to feel alive again. You’re clinging to something that’s gone or leaving, and this is fanning the flames of emotion. All things naturally reach endings, and there's more on the other side of the transformation. What steps can you take that signify a new mindset? It can be as simple as trying a new activity.

I am picking up a lot about communication with another. Maybe a relationship is coming to a close or not on good terms, or you’ve been thinking about communicating with someone from the past. Maintain a wide and objective perspective; very high emotions may cloud your communication skills. It’s not so much about regret, but you may not be satisfied if you speak while upset. For those that resonated with this, you may also resonate with the message below (I channeled it before I wrote this part).

Specific message: please be careful of overindulging, especially drinking! This message is so important, it came through in my dream before I pulled your cards. Your guides or whatever forces you believe in are really, really wanting me to stress about not overdoing it in this department, especially if you tend to think you’re more sober than you are, or go from 0 to 100? Be very aware of your pacing because there’s something about easily going overboard without realizing, and potential communication in regards to that such as drunk confessions. This is 200% so if you’re hosting or going to a party/get-together, or socially drinking. If you’ve been drinking more this is fueling your past regrets and nostalgia.

Extra Details: restless/excited energy (& anticipation/anxiety), transitory period, anxiety in your chest, blocked heart/throat/third eye energy (may feel an imagination block; journaling can help). Great Red Spot, starfish, suddenly feeling very intuitive, confused about spiritual/religious beliefs, Jupiter as an important natal planet, Sagittarius + Scorpio placements, fire Moon and Mars, water & fire as dominant elements in inner planets & Jupiter, death of someone that changed your life but you weren’t close or on good terms (already happened), rehab, wanting to host a party/get-together, angry or confused with God/universe, putting on an "okay" attitude for others’ sake, nostalgic dreams, feeling stagnant, questioning or leaving a music career (singing, gospel/spiritual music?), veggie tales?, gardening (maybe in childhood), wanting to break no communication or text an ex/new crush, finding online communities, “Are We Moving Too Fast?” by Malibu 92, feeling like you’re in a dream/ infatuated with a dream version of someone, love songs, Kyoukai no Kanata

ᨒ↟

Pile 3:

Changing of the Seasons

[The Lovers, Abundance (King of Material), Sharing (Queen of Action)]

Hi pile 3! You guys are embodying a new energy much like the other piles. Your cards show having so much to be shared. With the King of the physical suit, this is likely material blessings. Some of you have been struggling with past regret/vendettas, and deciding to move on has shifted the energy. Or, some of you are starting a new faith? This is a very fulfilling time and it reminds me of Summer, with all the abundance and “sunshine-y” energy (maybe a significant season for you). Wholeheartedly embrace however this manifests; matching the effort from the Universe/higher power/etc will increase your success (I also heard “manifold;” there could be many things happening at once).

Let go of lack, scarcity, and insecure mindsets; there’s enough to go around. This Lovers card speaks of how people mirror each other and how love evolves into compassion. Embracing compassion—and trusting that it’s okay to feel safety and joy—will allow abundance to overflow. This can even just be uplifting yourself and those around you with positivity. This extends into your community, uplifting the “village”. It goes the other way too. If people would like to support you in a healthy way, let them! Don’t be afraid of people expressing their love to you as assistance. Effort from you OR those in union with you will help increase good things that are already going (like how the land grows fruit regardless, but farmers can multiply it drastically). Seasons come and go so make the most of a fruitful one!

If your success/wellbeing is heavily tied to someone close, this could be a great time for both of you. The increases one of you experiences will be very positively mirrored or appreciated by the other, especially for happily married people. You may want to share more, help & be helped more by the other at this time.

Resourcefulness

[Ace of wands, 10 of wands sideways, Publicity (Jupiter in Leo, 5th house)]

Get your hands into the new opportunities life is throwing your way. Have a direct experience with life. This pile might use manifestation methods where you mostly sit back and allow it to come to you. Or there’s a similar approach of watching + waiting, not really getting into things too much as you wait for what’s meant for you to present itself. You might also always keep manifesting something, like even as your manifestations appear, you go after something else instead of interacting with it. You’re highly encouraged to get INTO whatever life has to offer right now, to actively co-create and experience the world. I heard “recognition;” that may be what’s in store if you exert effort. How can you make the most of the present, the fertile ground? Idk why there’s so many farming metaphors but they represent your situation, how the “land”/life is there for you to work and multiply the natural blessings. Even in a shared blessing, you can make it work especially for you—if you’re willing to get your hands dirty (metaphorically, not promoting corruption or shady behavior lol). This could be work but it feels more like creativity, passion, faith.

There’s also something about working too hard with the 10 of wands sideways. Maybe you’re used to working and grinding hard all the time. These opportunities prompt you to view “hard” work more creatively and openly. Especially if you've struggled materially—and maybe that’s why some of you have passive manifesting styles. Adapt—as all nature must to make the most of the situation—don’t bring old approaches forward that don’t serve the present. What helps you survive Winter may not be beneficial in Spring.

Faction

[3 of wands, Justice rx, Belong to Your Own Dream]

This seems like energy from someone around you rather than you. What I’m getting is a group or partnership of people that’s so heavily tied, something happening to one affects all. Someone around you has gone through a transformation that’s changing the dynamic of a group. I heard “undercurrents” and “hidden,” so I think this isn’t apparent yet. Not everybody knows about whatever this is, but it’s a shift that affects you. This could be you too since this is a group reading, but for most here I think not.

What I picked up is someone coming to terms with an identity or self-expression. I also picked up on power dynamic changes, so this could be someone getting materially blessed and it having a ripple effect. Below in the details, I picked up on a baptism which may be related. There’s literal baptisms, but it could also be someone feeling initiated into a new group, organization, or identity. Regardless, being heavily tied to others has responsibilities and consequences beyond our control. We sacrifice some freedom to share our compassion, ups and downs, the blessings too. Some people and blessings will ONLY be in our lives for a season, and some people are only a certain version of themselves for a season. Make the most of the present because the future is changing & moving, and staying in the past sacrifices what you currently have.

Advice—Abundant Harvest

[Power (Moon in Scorpio, 8th house), Impossible Things, Exaltation (Moon in Taurus, 2nd house)]

Idk what to tell you because the whole reading really, really emphasizes that there’s so much good stuff here to “reap the rewards” of 😭. I know we talked about this all along but it came out again. Idk if you guys are very hesitant to accept good things or make the most of them and maybe this is why it’s being emphasized so much lol. I channeled a food forest that feeds the whole community for free, that may describe this energy for you and your people. Or, may describe your role soon.

There’s a message about having gone through a profound inner transformation, having “repositioned” yourself in the world. For example, some of you always viewed yourself as a servant and now you’ve shed that? You may still do it, but you’re not only this one thing, and it’s in a way that empowers you. There’s something about relating to the world as yourself in a different, unique way, and this having a huge change on power dynamics. You may not outwardly appear this way, maybe others don't understand, but you’ve empowered yourself greatly somehow, & if not this is a change to embody so you can reap the most of the blessings. I keep wanting to say reap—there’s energy of good things already fruited, especially with this Moon exalted in Taurus. So much security + comfort is laid in your path right now, please tune into the version of yourself that can multiply BUT ALSO enjoy this!

Extra Details: nature as significant in your faith, promotion for someone in a duo/close group, forgiveness, homemaking (recently switched to/out of it because of changes in finances or beliefs), worship of a masculine + feminine deity (or recognizing feminine + masculine qualities in a gendered deity, or yourself), Cave In- Owl City, getting into nature + water, caves/coves, orange, beach towns, hopeful, end of a dark night of the soul, weddings/unions, Christianity, finding someone/ community with similar beliefs, baptisms, moving up in an organization, new clothing or style, shift in power/money in relationship, parable of the sower (the actual parable). Scrying, divining signs, charm casting. Coming out, changes to beliefs about gender expression & roles. Healing the relationship with a specific part of yourself. Going back to school or studying a new topic (astrology) (some of you want to go to a religious university?), legal situation ending (divorce, suing, etc). Dragging out your words. No longer thinking you need someone to survive or complete you, Single Ladies- Beyonce, moving on from toxicity into new partnership or friends. If you were already drawn to pile 1 or 4 they may resonate

ᨒ↟

Pile 4:

Underground

[6 of cups, The Creator (King of Action), the Hanged Man rx]

Hi pile four! The first thing I heard is “sharing is productive, sharing is compassion.” A lot of you have been doing your own thing, developing yourselves or a project behind the scenes. There’s something about your life or inner landscape others are not privy to. Expressing yourself—or sharing this part of yourself where appropriate—will be “productive,” I hear. You can also be an example of whatever it is. Maybe there’s some knowledge, beliefs, or world perspective that could be a positive influence to those around you? You could feel like you have a mission to bring these ideas or something else to your community, but you’re not sure how to start. Showing people who you are through your self-expression, ideals, words, mannerisms, and how you interact with others can be just as impactful as explaining something. Your style may also have an impact if you’ve changed it recently or if it’s different from those around you. It’s important to do all this from a place of compassion for the best impact (I heard “best outcome” & “best product;” some of you are part of a project or group goal where this is relevant?). You are no longer only preaching at people or trying to get end results when you move with compassion & understanding. It also allows you to remain grounded when disagreements occur. Compassion is the point.

Nurturing

[the Fool sideways, I Want to Be a Queen rx, Judgement]:

You may have transformed very quickly or changed some fundamental beliefs, and now I hear you feel you’re on a different “momentum” and “speed” than those who’ve been in your life, especially those who’ve been around for a long time. Maybe you feel you’re outgrowing them. You could have lost interest in a project or relationship you invested in, or could be moving away. There’s conflicted feelings about a new lifestyle at the cost of the things left behind. This could refer to a childhood/past dream you’re unsure about pursuing.

It’s not about picking the “right” thing, it’s about if you’re willing to nurture the energy and accept those consequences. Staying with the past, doing something new, being in the middle—each has its own set of consequences you must face. There’s an emphasis on that with the judgment card next to the Hanged Man rx—whatever you invest your energy + thoughts in, you’ll experience what follows that choice. Some of you feel like you’re hiding from life by not moving forward or postponing something, but that's also a choice.

Old and new are inherently neither good nor bad; what are you willing and able to do to nurture the life you choose? Can you do this with compassion and discernment? Your life is your choice. That decision is only one part of a much larger picture: the life you continuously create (and what you choose to associate with). When you act with wisdom and discernment, you learn more about yourself, what’s really calling for you and not an illusion. You can be honest with yourself, not only about what you want but what is right and good for you. Compassion allows you to create with love (including self love). It reinforces your ability to live honestly, in the moment—and not only do things for results.

Friends

[Two of wands rx, Going with the Flow (ace of emotions), You Are Rare and Free]

I know “friends” is not necessarily nature-based, but it’s what came out. "Going with the flow” talks about allowing yourself to be moved with life instead of fighting against it or staying stagnant. Again, many of you are holding onto something familiar or ignoring something to avoid change. This card talks about detaching from ego-based ideas and expectations. So many of your cards throughout the reading speak of looking back or nostalgia—6 of cups, 2 of wands rx, Hanged Man rx, even the Fool is not fully upright, but yet you have Judgment too. Judgment is a reminder that reckoning comes for everyone and everything; life continues even when we cling. Contemplate what you want and what action this entails. This pile is taking paths of most resistance; something you’re doing or thinking is making things complicated. It seems related to friends or family. Caring about them a lot is making the decision harder, or you might have some kind of investment/entanglement with them. Remember who YOU are and stick with that. You can enjoy and share with other people without it being at the expense of yourself. You aren’t necessarily a people-pleaser, but you may hold yourself to what old versions of you wanted or thought. It’s okay to change, it’s unavoidable. Fighting a change in yourself may feel easier than dealing with the effects, but is it really? You may avoid facing others, but you’ll always have to face yourself.

You might really try to hold onto control (especially for timing) as a substitute for trusting yourself. Decisions and change feel so monumental because you don’t know if you can make it through what comes afterwards. Build trust in yourself and applaud your skills that help you make it through day to day.

Advice—Practices

[Defense (Mars in Taurus, 2nd house), Follow the White Rabbit rx, the Chariot rx, 8 of swords rx]

Set up little actions and routines that will help you make steps towards what's on your mind. Your cards suggest the goal, move, or decision you’re interested in might not see forward movement right now. You might feel like you meet resistance, but this might just be because you need to build a routine, discipline, or set of steps before you can see progress. This period is needed for the discord to clear in your mind. This’ll be a time of mental transformations more than physical ones, but this is the foundation of the tangible changes later. This doesn’t have to all be boring. I keep hearing “reverence;” blending spirituality with your goals will be very helpful. Or, anything that adds fun & peace to productivity. Example, time in nature (being outside at all) can be uplifting as well as brainstorming time.

Extra Details: freelancer, work that doesn’t feel like a job (because you like it or it’s not traditional), thinking about life goals (large/collective ones like helping humanity), supervisor or manager (or similar group leader role), taking responsibility for power and influence you wield with others, fashion scene or niche artistic local community like DJing, culinary, food service, cooking shows, “the time will pass anyway,” choosing between a childhood dream/community and a new one, unsure about medicine or another lucrative field. Walks or solo activities where you can sort your thoughts are very beneficial. Guilt about an ill/injured loved one (wanting to do something where you won’t be able to see them?), divination routine, There's a lot of emphasis on food as a passion or because you need to eat lots of fruits and veggies, tea (dandelion tea?), Kate Bush. If you already felt drawn to pile 1 it may resonate. If you already felt drawn to pile 3, the resourcefulness and faction sections specifically may resonate.

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