#technically law and society

[pixiesnooze]

Ok is this weird to ask ... What's ur major.. i wpuld just like to collect options.. that's it

omggg that’s not weird at all i’m doing law which is A Lot but parts of it are interesting !!

[mvshortcut]

wait wait okay I thought of an enriching career for Dr. Garrison after her divorce. she can be a mad scientist for birthday parties

[antlerkitty]

Huge TW for abuse and neglect and death

The more I think about it, the more I realize that I’m only alive because I live in this generation. Had I been born any earlier, I likely would have endured torture basically. And what I did have comes somewhat close, but the point is that I am alive and I am healing now. Which likely would have never happened in the past, I either would be severely traumatized or dead.

[irregularbillcipher]

i just realized that since andy is only 14 at this point in configuration you guys have no idea the man is like a chainsmoker

[lemonandpie]

There's something so sexy about a Slade who isn't evil. Is in fact a good man in a respected position. But who, in order to do good things, has to do something absolutely atrocious to Dick

[cjbolan]

This isn’t really an ask but I feel like Shona would be a major swiftie if she was a human. Especially since she loves romance 😂 Emily needs to introduce Shona to human music lol

Totally! Shona would be an absolute Swiftie. I think she'd also love Taylor Swift's country-era fashion sense. It's the long wavy mermaid hair and flowy dresses. She'd even sing Taylor Swift's songs.

On that note, I think Emily would also introduce Aaron to human music. He did grow up in a castle in the middle of nowhere. And his whole arc was him slowly adjusting to human society. So he's not exactly following pop culture trends XD. Or maybe he just listened to very old music (Classical? Baroque?) in that castle, so who knows?

[homunculus-argument]

Random worldbuilding idea: a culture where everyone is a goth, but for perfectly sensible environmental ressons.

Wearing mainly/almost exclusively black clothing because either the dye protects them/the fabric from something in the environment, black clothes are the most convenient ones to maintain, or then a century ago black dye was extremely difficult and/or expensive to produce and only the wealthiest of society could afford it, but now a cheaper dye method has been invented and after a huge trend of Now Everybody Can Wear Black, it just stuck and nobody even remembers why all clothes are dyed black. It's just tradition.

Everyone wears demonia-style platform shoes because the climate is wet and cold, and for most of the year the ground is either muddy or covered in icy slush, so knee-high tall boots are simply the most pragmatic way to keep the rest of your clothes reasonably dry and clean.

Silver and leather jewellery is widespread because the land is rich in metal ore - while the rich can afford to buy/commission delicate silver threads, even the peasants can afford some sort of rough iron chains and studs on their wristbands. Studded leather is more sensible than having metal rings touching skin directly, due to the cold weather. Studs and chains also double as armour and weapons which technically speaking don't count as such, allowing people to circumvent any "can't openly carry weapons during peace time"-laws. Law enforcement could not confiscate someone's bling without causing public riots.

Everyone is about as pale as their natural complexion allows since the climate is cold and dark and the sun does not rise much during the winter. Cold dark winters are also the reason why the culture is so morbid in general - in the heart of the darkest months there's fuck all else to do than write poetry about the moon's silver light and the howls of wolves and the beauty of death, while polishing your iron chains until they shine like silver.

Domesticated ravens are more covenient for messenger birds than doves are, as they're hardier and can manage the climate better. Even if more modern messaging technology has been invented, people prefer sending letters by bird because it's more romantic and poetic. Sending someone a raven message poem about how you'd like to be buried in the same grave together one day is a very standard way of flirting.

[robertreich]

Project 2025: The MAGA Plan to Take Your Freedom 

A second Trump term would be more dangerous than the first — in part because of something called Project 2025, a plan to extend Trump’s grip into every part of your life.

Trump’s gross incompetence in his first term wasn’t all bad. It kept some of his most extreme goals out of reach. That’s why his inner circle, including more than 20 officials from his first term, have written a step-by-step playbook to make a second term brutally efficient.

At nearly a thousand pages, it’s longer than most Stephen King novels, and a lot scarier. The Associated Press wasn’t kidding when they called it “a plan to dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump’s vision,”

Project 2025 is a road map to ban abortion, give greedy corporate oligarchs everything they want, and strip Americans of our most basic freedoms — all without needing any support from Congress.

There’s more to it than I can get into, but here are three things I want you to know.

#1 How would Project 2025 work?

Every nonpartisan government agency would be turned into an arm of the MAGA agenda.

Some of the worst things Trump reportedly tried to do as president — like having the military  shoot protesters or seize voting machines to overturn the election  — were only stopped because sensible leaders in the military or the professional civil service refused to go along with it.

In a second term, there would be no sensible leaders in the military or professional civil service because Trump would fire anyone more loyal to the Constitution than to him.

Trump started the process in October 2020 with an executive order that would have let him fire tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with MAGA henchmen. I’m talking about traditionally non-political positions, like scientists at scientific agencies and accountants at the IRS.

Trump could not act on the executive order then because he lost the election. If he wins now, he’s pledged to pick up where he left off and go further…

TRUMP: …making every executive branch employee fireable by the President of the United States.

#2 Project 2025 is about controlling Americans’ lives & bodies

Restricting abortion is such a big part of Project 2025 that the word “abortion” appears 198 times in the plan.

Trump largely made good on his campaign promise to ban abortion.

Thanks to Trump’s Supreme Court justices, 1 in 3 American women of childbearing age live in states with abortion bans. Project 2025 would make that even worse, without needing new laws from Congress.

Page 458 of the playbook calls for a MAGA-controlled FDA to reject medical science and reverse approval of the medications used in 63% of all abortions, effectively banning them.

Page 455 plans “abortion surveillance” and the creation of a registry that could put people who cross state lines to get an abortion at risk of prosecution.

Another way around Congress is to enforce arcane laws that are still technically on the books. Page 562 plans for a MAGA-controlled Justice Department to enforce the Comstock Act of 1873, which bans the mailing of “anything designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion.” This could be used to block the shipment of any medications or medical instruments needed for abortions.

But Project 2025’s control of American families goes even further. It plans for government agencies to define life as beginning at conception — a position at odds with the process used for in vitro fertilization.

Page 451 declares that “Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society,” thereby stigmatizing single parents, same-sex couples, unmarried coparents, and childless couples.

Project 2025 even takes a stand against adoption, declaring on p. 489 that “all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.”

#3 Project 2025 would turn America into a police state.

Maybe you live in a blue city or state, where you think plans like arresting teachers and librarians over banned books (which is on p. 5) could never happen. Well, guess again.

Trump has said one of the big things he’d do differently in a second term is override mayors and governors to take over local law enforcement.

Page 553 lays out how to do this, and even plans for Trump’s Justice Department to prosecute district attorneys he disagrees with.

Immigration enforcement is to be conducted like a war, with the military deployed within the U.S., and millions of undocumented immigrants rounded up and placed into newly constructed holding camps. This is outlined starting on p. 139.

Members of the Project 2025 team also reportedly told the Washington Post about plans to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy the military against anti-Trump protests.

There is much more to Project 2025. There are more than a hundred pages of anti-environmental policies that would help Trump make good on what he reportedly promised to do for oil executives if they contribute a billion dollars to his reelection. It would make drilling and mining a top national priority while killing clean energy projects, barring the EPA from regulating carbon emissions, and replacing all government climate scientists with climate deniers.

There are even cartoonishly cruel plans like slaughtering wild horses. Yes, that’s really in there on p. 528.

I thought I understood the stakes of this election, but reading this plan… Well, it gave me chills. If Trump gets the chance to put this plan into place, he will. The country it would turn America into would be hard for any of us to recognize.

[radiance1]

Inspired by @puppetmaster13u and various dragon aus they have.

BUT! This is also a bit of a fantasy/DnD au I guess...? IDK BUT HERE WE GO-

Okay now so, I'm imagining that that Danny, Tucker, and Sam create a pocket dimension for their game via the use of reality warping (via scepter) and something given to them by Pariah Dark before he went off on that whole honey moon thing with Clockwork.

For the record, Danny isn't the ghost king here, Pariah Dark is he's just the prince.

Sam created a garden from the barren earth, that eventually grew into a great forest and spread out to the rest of the world, which technically made her the creator of life but anyways. So, she's holed up in said garden turned forest.

Tucker bestowed upon his subjects (after they were made of course) knowledge and technology and is regarded as the greatest teacher in that world's history.

Danny? Oh yea he became that one that giant dragon that everyone knows is there, is afraid of, and just sleeps all day in this one specific place. You'd have to cut him some slack though, because no one told him creating a world and its laws would be so hard even with help.

That and him, as the one with basically the most knowledge and resident fanboy of space, created the stars surrounding the place as well!

Of course, they couldn't stay there all of the time. What with work (Tucker), high-society (Sam), and studying (Why the heck did Danny decide to go to collage again?). That entire place was just made to play around in before they had to go their separate ways and be, you know, actual adults, so it was easy enough to let go of it really.

Except for Danny. Not of any great reason, really, he just needed someplace where he could quietly study in peace, nap, think or just get away from the Ghost Zone before he had to go through all that princely nonsense again. Plus, none of their creations in that pocket dimension really wanted to mess with the giant fuck off dragon who was said to created the place anyways.

For the record, Danny is more of an eastern dragon in design with a long body rather than western. So that probably just added more into his intimidation with his sheer length.

So, you know, of course he would have been none too pleased when someone actually did disturb his solitude (as stated by the dimension's residents) as soon as the world was thrown off-balance by an outside force.

Meanwhile, Klarion the Witch boy is having the time of his life coming across a whole world that somehow hasn't been affected by Order or Chaos. So he's capitalizing on that.

Then he came across a place that was said to be sacred, not that he cared, and then came across a boy who didn't look a day over his teens (which frankly doesn't say much in regards to immortals) with a frankly long tail that looked longer than he was tall and very majestic looking horns.

Danny was annoyed yet curious, Klarion was surprised yet delighted.

[the-daily-dreamer]

So like a critical component of understanding team green and Alicent’s motivation for pushing their claim is completely lost on this fandom because of the fact that it’s so irrelevant nowadays that we wouldn’t even consider it.

But like…for most of human history marriages, especially aristocratic marriages, were binding social contracts that were meant to provide benefits and incentives to both parties. The woman would perform her wifely duties of bearing heirs (sons), child rearing, emotional (and physical - sometimes against her will unfortunately) support, and generally running the household in domestic affairs. And in exchange for these labors and quite frankly difficult and at times harmful tasks the woman was provided with safety from the outside world, all her needs being taken care of, and her children being the heirs. And a woman’s son being the heir means consistent protection into her old age when her often much older husband eventually died.

There was a purpose to marriage outside of love and ambition. But because we are privileged enough to live in a more modern society where marriage is a personal contract for which the technicalities can be selected by both individuals to ensure security and happiness, we cannot really even consider that once upon a time in the not so distant past there was a clear purpose. The man got sons/heirs and the woman got sons/protectors to care for her in her old age.

So when Alicent pushes for her son she has a plethora of reasons: believing in tradition, protecting the lives of her children who have competing claims, consolidation of suffering, etc. But she has one very clear and very reasonable reason that nobody acknowledges. She delivered on her part of the bargain and contract and she wants to collect what she is owed. She produced the sons, she gave the emotional and physical support (against her genuine will), she reared the children, she ran the household domestically and the entire kingdom. She did “everything expected of her forever upholding the kingdom, the family, and the law”. And now it’s time for her to collect her dues now that her much, much older husband is dead. To have her son be king and to be taken care of into her old age.

That is the contract she agreed to. That is the contract almost every woman in history agreed to. I give you a son and I get comfort and security when you (the husband) die and my son becomes the heir.

So I can go on and on about the personal, psychological reasoning that Alicent has that are all perfectly valid. But I don’t have to because at the end of the day she did her part of this marital obligation and contract and she deserves to receive her rewards.

[hadesoftheladies]

“what oppression do women face? what rights don’t they already have?” let me explain something very simple to you. having laws that permit women to have jobs, divorce men, abort, or kill in self-defense is literally 25% of the battle. why? because of infrastructure and societal bias.

for example, it is technically illegal to rape (legislation) yet few rapists are ever convicted and even if they are, their sentences never match the crime. why? for one, it’s hard for girls and women of challenging socioeconomic backgrounds to access services or resources like rape kits or information on how to seek legal assistance; and in the course of this, the police men are likely to sexually abuse them as well, resulting in more trauma and reducing their chances at seeking justice (infrastructure). even if a woman were to get a job (and the law doesn’t allow discrimination), if the social bias is that she can’t perform well, she is still less likely to be hired. if she is hired, she is more likely to be underpaid (read up on the velvet or pink ghetto).

government (legislation and judiciary) are reflective of social consciousness. they may agree with the rights of women (sometimes) on paper, but whether or not they are meaningfully enforced is completely up to those with the most socioeconomic power, which, for now, is largely still men (in that men maintain most of the wealth, property, and high opinion in a populace, they also control most popular metanarratives via religion, education, pornography and entertainment which means they largely control public perception). because men in patriarchal society keep their resources to themselves and seek to elevate only themselves. racism can be illegal, and still rampant, in a country. so it is with misogyny and homophobia.

if men hate women in a system that has long been organized to benefit them, a few legislative changes won’t automatically change that system. it has to be altered structurally and socially as well.

and that takes a whole lot more fighting

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How Google’s trial secrecy lets it control the coverage

I'm coming to Minneapolis! Oct 15: Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Oct 16: Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

"Corporate crime" is practically an oxymoron in America. While it's true that the single most consequential and profligate theft in America is wage theft, its mechanisms are so obscure and, well, dull that it's easy to sell us on the false impression that the real problem is shoplifting:

https://newrepublic.com/post/175343/wage-theft-versus-shoplifting-crime

Corporate crime is often hidden behind Dana Clare's Shield Of Boringness, cloaked in euphemisms like "risk and compliance" or that old favorite, "white collar crime":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/07/solar-panel-for-a-sex-machine/#a-single-proposition

And corporate crime has a kind of performative complexity. The crimes come to us wreathed in specialized jargon and technical terminology that make them hard to discern. Which is wild, because corporate crimes occur on a scale that other crimes – even those committed by organized crime – can't hope to match:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/12/no-criminals-no-crimes/#get-out-of-jail-free-card

But anything that can't go on forever eventually stops. After decades of official tolerance (and even encouragement), corporate criminals are finally in the crosshairs of federal enforcers. Take National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo's ruling in Cemex: when a company takes an illegal action to affect the outcome of a union election, the consequence is now automatic recognition of the union:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

That's a huge deal. Before, a boss could fire union organizers and intimidate workers, scuttle the union election, and then, months or years later, pay a fine and some back-wages…and the union would be smashed.

The scale of corporate crime is directly proportional to the scale of corporations themselves. Big companies aren't (necessarily) led by worse people, but even small sins committed by the very largest companies can affect millions of lives.

That's why antitrust is so key to fighting corporate crime. To make corporate crimes less harmful, we must keep companies from attaining harmful scale. Big companies aren't just too big to fail and too big to jail – they're also too big for peaceful coexistence with a society of laws.

The revival of antitrust enforcement is such a breath of fresh air, but it's also fighting headwinds. For one thing, there's 40 years of bad precedent from the nightmare years of pro-monopoly Reaganomics to overturn:

https://pluralistic.net/ApexPredator

It's not just precedents in the outcomes of trials, either. Trial procedure has also been remade to favor corporations, with judges helping companies stack the deck in their own favor. The biggest factor here is secrecy: blocking recording devices from courts, refusing to livestream the proceedings, allowing accused corporate criminals to clear the courtroom when their executives take the stand, and redacting or suppressing the exhibits:

https://prospect.org/power/2023-09-27-redacted-case-against-amazon/

When a corporation can hide evidence and testimony from the public and the press, it gains broad latitude to dispute critics, including government enforcers, based on evidence that no one is allowed to see, or, in many cases, even describe. Take Project Nessie, the program that the FTC claims Amazon used to compel third-party sellers to hike prices across many categories of goods:

https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/amazon-used-secret-project-nessie-algorithm-to-raise-prices-6c593706

Amazon told the press that the FTC has "grossly mischaracterize[d]" Project Nessie. The DoJ disagrees, but it can't say why, because the Project Nessie files it based its accusations on have been redacted, at Amazon's insistence. Rather than rebutting Amazon's claim, FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar could only say "We once again call on Amazon to move swiftly to remove the redactions and allow the American public to see the full scope of what we allege are their illegal monopolistic practices."

It's quite a devastating gambit: when critics and prosecutors make specific allegations about corporate crimes, the corporation gets to tell journalists, "No, that's wrong, but you're not allowed to see the reason we say it's wrong."

It's a way to work the refs, to get journalists – or their editors – to wreathe bold claims in endless hedging language, or to avoid reporting on the most shocking allegations altogether. This, in turn, keeps corporate trials out of the public eye, which reassures judges that they can defer to further corporate demands for opacity without facing an outcry.

That's a tactic that serves Google well. When the company was dragged into court by the DoJ Antitrust Division, it demanded – and received – a veil of secrecy that is especially ironic given the company's promise "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful":

https://usvgoogle.org/trial-update-9-22

While this veil has parted somewhat, it is still intact enough to allow the company to work the refs and kill disfavorable reporting from the trial. Last week, Megan Gray – ex-FTC, ex-DuckDuckGo – published an editorial in Wired reporting on her impression of an explosive moment in the Google trial:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics

According to Gray, Google had run a program to mess with the "semantic matching" on queries, silently appending terms to users' searches that caused them to return more ads – and worse results. This generated more revenue for Google, at the expense of advertisers who got billed to serve ads that didn't even match user queries.

Google forcefully disputed this claim:

https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1709726778170786297

They contacted Gray's editors at Wired, but declined to release all the exhibits and testimony that Gray used to form her conclusions about Google's conduct; instead, they provided a subset of the relevant materials, which cast doubt on Gray's accusations.

Wired removed Gray's piece, with an unsigned notice that "WIRED editorial leadership has determined that the story does not meet our editorial standards. It has been removed":

https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-lawsuit-search-results/

But Gray stands by her piece. She admits that she might have gotten some of the fine details wrong, but that these were not material to the overall point of her story, that Google manipulated search queries to serve more ads at the expense of the quality of the results:

https://twitter.com/megangrA/status/1711035354134794529

She says that the piece could and should have been amended to reflect these fine-grained corrections, but that in the absence of a full record of the testimony and exhibits, it was impossible for her to prove to her editors that her piece was substantively correct.

I reviewed the limited evidence that Google permitted to be released and I find her defense compelling. Perhaps you don't. But the only way we can factually resolve this dispute is for Google to release the materials that they claim will exonerate them. And they won't, though this is fully within their power.

I've seen this playbook before. During the early months of the pandemic, a billionaire who owned a notorious cyberwarfare company used UK libel threats to erase this fact from the internet – including my own reporting – on the grounds that the underlying research made small, non-material errors in characterizing a hellishly complex financial Rube Goldberg machine that was, in my opinion, deliberately designed to confuse investigators.

Like the corporate crimes revealed in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, the gambit is complicated, but it's not sophisticated:

Make everything as complicated as possible;

Make everything as secret as possible;

Dismiss any accusations by claiming errors in the account of the deliberately complex arrangements, which can't be rectified because the relevant materials are a secret.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/09/working-the-refs/#but-id-have-to-kill-you

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

Image: Jason Rosenberg (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/underpants/12069086054/

CC BY https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

--

Japanexperterna.se (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/japanexperterna/15251188384/

CC BY-SA 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

[kyouka-supremacy]

Just realized that since there was no WWII in bsd there was also no Nuremberg tribunal 1946 judgment

Okay so so terribly sorry for being an insufferable person but. if you comment one of my posts with “[Sigma is] innocent on the basis of the casino being exempt from international laws” I'm literally obliged to correct you, I'm sorry, I physically can't ignore it, it's literally the object of study of my life. Saying that no international laws apply here is just factually incorrect! Twice at that!

First: it's absurd to suppose the sky casino has its own state jurisdiction on the basis that in no word you can consider the sky casino a state. According to the Montevideo Convention of 1933, art. 1:

The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government; and d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

Sky casino fails to fulfill any of these criteria, and thus cannot be considered a state with its own jurisdiction. I don't think there's any need for me to elaborate on why the sky casino lacks a permanent population (its “population” consists of transitory customers), or a government (there's barely anything that can be considered legislature or executive and definitely no judiciary), or the capacity to enter into relations with the other states (we don't have any reason to assume it does). Finally, the sky casino platform cannot be considered a territory on the same basis that artificial islands aren't considered islands: for that we can refer to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, art. 60, par. 8:

Artificial islands, installations and structures do not possess the status of islands. They have no territorial sea of their own, and their presence does not affect the delimitation of the territorial sea, the exclusive economic zone or the continental shelf.

Please also refer to the case of Sovereign Recognition of the Principality of Sealand, where the Principality's characteristic of being a World War Two anti-aircraft platform located within Britain's territorial waters makes it the perfect analogous case to compare to the sky casino; the platform's sovereignty isn't formally recognized by any country.

Concerning which jurisdiction the sky casino actually falls under, first of all we can refer to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, art. 1:

The contracting States recognize that every State has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory.

So the sky casino's jurisdiction is the one of the state underneath it (most likely Japan).

In case the sky casino lies above high seas (all the sea spaces out of any country's jurisdiction), by the shared analogy between legal regime of sea spaces and airspaces, we can again refer to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, art. 92, par. 1:

Ships shall sail under the flag of one State only and, [...] shall be subject to its exclusive jurisdiction on the high seas.

So it'd be the jurisdiction of the country the sky casino is associated to, for example the one it was built in.

Second: no person, no matter their country or lack or thereof, no matter the jurisdiction they were subject to at the moment of the crime, is extent from international laws. Individuals are considered by the international law doctrine having international legal personality (together with other personalities, such as nations and international organizations) on the exact basis that, besides benefiting from international rights, they also have obligations in front of the international law, and those duties are exactly the duty to not commit international crimes (International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg, 1946 Judgment: “International law imposes duties and liabilities upon individuals as well as upon States”; “Crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provision of international law be enforced”).

Everyone is subject to international laws no matter the jurisdiction; it's just that no one realizes it because to actually commit international crimes means you have to screw up real bad (i.e. : commit crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes). Everyone being subject to international laws with no exceptions is. a huge thing. It means people will be held accountable even when their country decides not to process them. It permits‚ for example‚ the International Criminal Court to issue a warrant of arrest for the current president of Russia, despite we can take a guess that he'd never be processed by his country.

In conclusion: you can't say Sigma is extent from international laws, because no jurisdiction or person is extent from international laws. If anything, what you can do is argue he never committed any international crime, although that'd be hard on its own to sustain; the UN General Assembly condemned terrorism in its resolution 49/60, 1994:

Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them

not to mention he likely would have to answer for counterfeit coin too.

[la-pheacienne]

I feel like I understand people's blorbofication of Javert because I get why someone would really cling onto a complex (male) antagonist with a traumatic past whose entire life is a lie and who kills himself when he reaches that final moment of realization. It is absolutely tragic, and it is easy and natural to cling onto that, we've all been there. But you need to understand that two things are in motion here: the first one is Javert's individual tragedy, and the second one is the broader system he personifies. He's a symbol. His primary function in the narrative is to personify the hateful, bigoted, cruel, inhumane legal system that intervenes after the fact and crushes all those that society has already put down. He, the incarnation of that bourgeois legal system, delivers the final blow. He finishes off what society started, and he does it with joy. When we say that he killed Fantine, it's not even about Javert the individual per se. It's about the entire system he represents. That system killed Fantine and Javert is its flesh and bones. Fantine was a poor girl that was exploited and let down by society in every single way and when she was herself a victim of actual physical violence, the Law, personified by Javert, instead of protecting her treated her like an animal, dehumanized her, humiliated her. The Law was scandalized that a woman like her dared attack the bourgeoisie. The Law was horrified that such a disgusting creature got medical care because she should just drop dead on her street. The Law rejoiced in tearing down her sole protector. The Law prevented her from getting her child back from the con artists that have been stealing her for years because the Law doesn't care about the crimes committed against marginalized people. That's not its function. Its function is to use its discretionary authority in order to dehumanize and punish people that ended up on the wrong side of the street.

So when you come at me with nonsense that Javert "didn't tEchNIcALLy kill Fatnine", "he was just rude", "he was just bitchy", "he just stole her final happy moments", respectfully, you don't know what you're talking about. Javert absolutely killed Fantine. He's not the only one who did but he eagerly and enthusiastically precipitated her execution, and that is the entire point Hugo is trying to make. Your arguments against it are nothing but a mere technicality that stems from the fact that the individual's actions technically do not qualify as manslaughter. It's as if we literally had an individual at court and we were thinking of whether or not to condemn him for manslaughter. It's not about that. It's not about your blorbo and his sadness. Your blorbo has a whole other function in the narrative. You have completely missed the mark of the entire book and you have let your personal emotional attachment for a character prevail over Hugo's main argument about the structural punitive violence that literally kills people. Javert being the product and the embodiment of an entire system that exceeds his individuality does not mean that, as a police officer, he's not responsible for his actions or their consequences. On the contrary, he's precisely entirely responsible for the structural violence committed against Fantine, that's what "embodiment" actually means, that's what we mean when we say that he personifies that system. Absolving Javert of his crimes goes directly against the themes of the book, because while systems operate above individuals by definition, they need those individuals to function. The system needs Javerts. Javerts are everywhere around us, yes even today and it is important to hold them accountable for their crimes. I can't believe I have to explain this tbh.

[ericscroptop]

Wet Dreams

✧ pairing: eric sohn x mid-size/chubby fem! reader

✦ genre: friends to lovers + smut

✧ warnings: 18+ (minors DNI) smut, kissing, cursing, slight angst, inexperienced reader, hand job, male receiving, lots of spit, fondling, praising/praise kink, pet names, talk of insecurities, body issues, internalized fat phobia, etc., pls be cautious because i know it can be a sensitive topic for some!

✦ word count: 9.3k words (LMAOOOO)

✧ synopsis: your friend eric invites you over to his house for a swim and it is then that you realize eric wants you in ways you would’ve never imagined for yourself.

✦ note: this fic is kinda self indulgent—written as someone who is mid-size/chubby and has insecurities. i just want people who have a chubbier/thicker/fat body to feel loved and be included explicitly in writings because we are all deserving of love and affection!

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You hated swimming.

Well— okay, so you didn’t actually hate swimming.

Your disinterest for the activity was not rooted in swimming itself, but for the fact that you’d have to wear some sort of bikini in order to swim.

Technically, there wasn’t a law that said you had to wear a bikini to the beach or the pool. There are plenty of people who happily choose to wear something like a t-shirt or cover-up that’s more generous while swimming for whatever reason.

There are also a plethora of bathing suits that exist, so there’s gotta be one that you feel comfortable in, right?

The thing is, you plainly felt insecure in showing skin. You were insecure of your arms that seemed to carry excess fat that was especially visible when you moved them. Your belly hung low and it honestly was more plump than your behind. You also had skin-colored stretch marks that decorated your lower back that never seemed to go away.

These were things about you that you constantly dwelled on no matter what. You couldn’t recall a day where the topic of your body didn’t flood your mind.

You had no problem in people showing skin at all. At the end of the day, the problem was simply your lack of confidence due to society’s beauty standards that have been shoved in your face, pressed into your mind, and flooded your ears for as long as you could remember.

Though today, you were attempting at conquering your insecurities and finally stepping out of your comfort zone.

It was scorching in L.A. today. It was too hot to go out but also too hot to just rot in your home all day. Even with air conditioning, you just felt nasty.

Your friend Eric invited you to come to his house for a nightly swim. A wave of anxiety hit you when you had read his text of the invitation. First of all, he was a guy— of which, you found insanely attractive.

He was a friend that you made in your Sociology course. You remembered how he randomly approached you one day to ask a question mid-semester about something that he could’ve easily found the answer to if he looked back at the syllabus.

Though, you were happy to help anyone who needed it and answered him nicely. Or maybe it was merely because he was probably the prettiest boy you had ever laid eyes on that actually approached you, so you didn’t think twice to reply to him—but you would never let anyone know that. He was appreciative, and since then, he decided to cling onto you since you showed him courtesy.

You honestly thought he would’ve forgotten about your presence or only come to you when he needed help, but he actually started sitting with you and even distracting you with mindless but entertaining conversations during lectures.

While you started looking forward to coming into class and now having someone to talk to, your only interest in the class became the charming guy who was energetic and always made you smile from ear to ear. You eventually told Eric that you needed to prioritize your lectures and cut back on the excessive side conversations during class. He decided to take that as an opportunity to ask for your number, so you guys could hangout outside the classroom.

You were shocked that he wanted to be your friend. You didn’t feel as charming or alluring as he was, but he still found interest in you. You guys started hanging out and doing things like studying (or trying to at least) and doing miscellaneous activities at least once a week.

He became your best friend all of a sudden. You were super grateful that he came into your life, but you still felt nervous around him. He was such a good guy. You didn’t want to take your friendship for granted.

Eric was also super outgoing and friendly, while you were more reserved and it was rare for you to make new friends and be spontaneous. Sometimes, you still wonder why he decided to become your friend.

Maybe you felt this way due to your insecurities, or maybe it was because you had this lingering feeling of butterflies in your stomach every time you guys were together. Maybe it was a mixture of both.

Anyways, for whatever the reason, you just tried to be a good friend to the guy. You didn’t want to fuck anything up and so you tried your best to please Eric and not be a burden in any way.

Now, you find yourself looking at your reflection in the mirror of Eric’s guest bathroom. You tug on your favorite oversized Spongebob shirt that you own, pulling it to where it ends just below your bottom. You were getting ready to finally swim, and Eric was already out by the pool waiting while you freshen up and change.

You sighed at your reflection with both of your hands placed against your hips, wondering why the fuck you’re feeling so uneasy.

You actually surprised yourself by deciding to wear a bikini for tonight. You purchased one awhile back just for the heck of it, even if you never mustered up the courage to wear it. The bikini was high-waisted and red with a twist front on the bottoms. The bikini top was also red and a wireless bra. It was actually super comfortable against your skin and red was a striking color, but all you saw in the mirror was your plump stomach screaming at you to be covered, and your cleavage just wasn’t elevated enough to your liking. Your arms were also bothering you, as you could only focus on the excess fat that was noticeable as you moved them. You probably were gonna look like a whale next to Eric and the thought made you uncomfortable mixed with embarrassed.

So that’s why you brought a t-shirt to swim in just incase you chickened out. There’s nothing wrong with having a shirt on in the pool. I mean, it’s normal! Though, you couldn’t help but feel ashamed that you felt like shielding yourself and not letting yourself wear that bikini freely. It was only going to be you two together, so why were you making it so complicated?

“Fucking hell.” you sharply inhaled and let out a heavy sigh. You stared deeply into the mirror one last time, picking at your skin as you had no makeup on. Another thing you felt insecure about. You always had makeup on around Eric, but this time you didn’t for obvious reasons. “Ugh, whatever.” you groaned out before finally leaving the bathroom, fed up with all this negativity you felt towards yourself.

I mean, why did you care so fucking much? You knew deep down that Eric would never judge you. Any normal person wouldn’t think so hard about going for a swim. This is a casual activity, why were you overthinking it?

You walked through Eric’s massive house towards his patio. You already knew the ropes around his house, since this wasn’t your first time here. Though, you had only been here for things like baking brownies on Friday nights and playing Super Mario Party on the Nintendo Switch, not for using the pool.

You reached the glass sliding door that opened the patio and led yourself outside. His patio lights were on, illuminating his backyard so that it wasn’t completely dark out. You spotted Eric sitting on one of the pool chairs, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram reels obnoxiously loud on his phone. He seemed to be passing time while waiting for you before he got into the pool.

“Hey, you.” you made your way over to where he was sitting with a smile on your face.

Eric perked up at the sound of your voice and abandoned his phone, twisting his body towards you. “Finally! I was seriously about to call you to ask what’s taking so long.” Eric mimicked your smile and adjusted his arms to where they were now leaning back behind him.

You felt a flush of heat wave over your body, not due to the humid summer night, but due to Eric’s appearance. His hair has been permed for a while now and you just can’t help but admire how good he looks in curly hair. His dark brown curls complemented his naturally tanned-skin so well. He’s also already shirtless, in nothing but a pair of blue swim shorts and a chain adorning his neck. He also had a cute bracelet around his wrist and small hoops that dangled from his ears as they always did. Every detail of him just looked so beautiful to you.

You mentally slap yourself for gawking at your best friend. You scoffed in response, “I don’t doubt that you would’ve.”

He chuckles as he rises from his chair, brows furrowing in confusion as his eyes run down the length of your body. “I thought you were changing into your bathing suit?” he asked curiously.

The tips of your ears go hot as he questions. You stare at him like a deer in headlights, fingers going down to fidget with the tips of your hair.

“Oh yeah, I just didn’t like how it looked at me.” you shyly admitted. You couldn’t lie to Eric over small matters. Even if you were embarrassed, you still felt complied to always be honest when he asks you something. Though, it was hard to have deep conversations with Eric because he was a guy— of which, you possibly have a small crush on. This was all new to you and you were still learning on how to navigate your friendship.

“Why?” he simply asked, staring at you, eyes full of concern. You bit your lip as he looked at you, your body starting to get a little tense.

“I dunno, I just am not used to wearing a swimsuit,” you shrugged. “I actually don’t go swimming often so I’m not used to wearing one. I typically would just wear a shirt like I am now.” You rubbed your left foot against your right ankle as you spoke, starting to feel awkward in having this conversation.

“Oh,” was all Eric said, starting to frown a bit but quickly shook his head and crossed his arms. “You know, I don’t care what you wear as long as it makes you comfortable, but right now, it’s just you and me here,” he subtly smiles. “We’re gonna be in the water having fun and cooling off. I don’t want to pressure you or anything, but you’re safe around me.” Eric reassures you and you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

You half smile while looking down at your feet. “I know.” you simply agreed.

You suddenly look up at the feeling of his dominant hand now on your left shoulder, patting it reassuringly. “Y/n, you don’t have to be shy in front of me. We’re good friends, let’s be comfortable with each other, yeah?” His eyes were full of tenderness as you met his gaze. You pouted your lips playfully in attempt to not get sappy at his words.

He was right though. You just want to have fun and you’re letting your insecurities get the best of you. You know Eric isn’t an asshole. He never judges anyone’s appearance and you know he’s a sweetheart.

You nod your head as you take in his words. “Thanks Eric, really.” your face flushed as he shook his head.

“You don’t need to thank me. I know people wear shirts in the pool but when I picked you up earlier, you said you brought a swimsuit, so I figured you wanted to wear it. You don’t have to feel shy.”

He licks his lips and pauses for a moment before continuing, “You always look good.” Eric rubbed the back of his neck and shyly looked to the side as his voice faltered uttering that last part. Your lips parted slightly as you processed that compliment. The corner of your lips then curled upwards and you let out a soft chuckle.

“Okay, I guess you’ve convinced me. It’s just us, right?” you said rhetorically, sighing deeply. I mean, you were mainly going to be in the water anyways, so why trip over this?

Eric smiles seeing you finally deciding to remove your t-shirt, allowing your bikini to be worn properly. You toss the shirt onto the chair he was sitting at, and adjust your bathing suit top’s straps. He timidly looks away as you do, grabbing his phone to connect it to his speaker to play some music while you guys swim.

You start moving towards the pool, ready to finally do what you came here to do and allow yourself to enjoy this time. Eric looks back up at you dancing to the song he put on while making way into the pool, your locks of hair twirling around your back with each step. His gaze then ‘accidentally’ wanders down to your red bottoms, his cheeks flushing once realizing he’s checking you out.

Oh wow. he thinks to himself as he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment to tame his thoughts, rubbing his lips against each other. He then hears you call out to him that the water feels good and to come join him.

Eric puts his phone down and looks at you, your form hidden underneath water, splashing and gleaming as your body felt more relaxed now.

“I’m coming!” He shouts before he starts running towards your direction. You start grinning at his words because you have a dirty ass mind, but it immediately falters once you realize he’s gonna cannonball. Your brows knitted as he made way closer, both hands shielding your face and eyes closed once he plunges into the pool, creating splashes of waves in your direction.

“Eric!” you playfully scold him for of course having to jump into the pool like a maniac. You rub your face after the splashes drenched your face and hair, tucking your hair back behind your ears, sucking in a breath. Eric emerges from beneath the water breathing heavily, laughing as he sticks his tongue out, grazing it over the corner of his lip.

“You’re such a guy.” you scoff at him, rolling your eyes. Eric raises a brow and then begins to splash more water your way. “I’m only having fun!” Eric raises both hands from his sides, gesturing to the pool and cheekily smiling at you as he shakes his head gently.

———————————————————————————

You two swam for about an hour. You guys tossed a beach ball for awhile, chatted about old gossip you always brought up when together, and even played mermaids upon your request— to which created plenty of laughter on your part seeing Eric take his role very seriously for awhile.

He then pleaded for you guys to race— which you initially declined, having no interest. He pouted at your disinterest, but started racing anyways. Water splashed all over your face for the nth time as he swam to the opposite end of the pool, leaving you behind sulking and rolling your eyes.

“I’m getting out!” you yelled and lifted yourself out the pool. Eric continued racing himself as you walked away to grab some towels nearby for the both of you. Once he made it to the end, he let out a sigh at your lack of desire to race. He clearly wanted to spend more time together in the water, but you were all tired out.

He sees your figure loosely drying your hair, and makes his way out the pool towards you. You met his gaze and nodded your head towards a towel you laid out for him. He silently thanked you and began drying himself, then wrapping it around his waist.

You ditched the now-damp towel you used for your hair and wrapped a fresh one around your figure, almost like a blanket. You both sat down together on one of the long pool chairs, soaking in the night while letting the air dry you guys some more.

“Do you wanna order some food? I’m really hungry,” Eric turns to look at you, your eyes meeting his at the sound of his voice.

“Yeah, before my stomach starts growling.” you chuckle as Eric smiles.

“Does pizza sound good? The usual, right?” Eric asks even though he’s already looking through his contacts, searching for the number of a local pizza place that has become a regular for you guys.

“Yes, please.” You cuddle into your towel as Eric calls the number, the pizza place answering after two rings.

He began ordering you guy’s usual and you can’t help but stare at him while he talks on the phone. His curly hair is wettish from all the swimming, some of the curls falling past his forehead. Every so often he’d toss his head a little to shake the hanging curls away from his eyes.

You just couldn’t help but admire how fine your best friend was. It was a crime that he walked around looking like a god. The jawline he had could probably leave a cut on your skin if you brushed against it with how defined it was. His side profile was beyond alluring and would make you double take when passing a glance. His beautiful, bronzed skin made him look so godly.

And he even had such a nice body. Eric frequented the gym, and his abs and muscles were definitely proof of that. He was proud of his body, and did his best to keep his prominent muscles defined by working on himself consistently. He was dripping with good looks.

Eric ends the call eventually and you’re ripped away from your wandering thoughts, crushing hard over your best friend.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Eric speaks in a playful tone, meeting your gaze after putting his phone down.

You awkwardly begin to laugh. “Just about how hungry I am.” you obviously lie.

Eric cocks his head and shoots you a grin. “You were staring at me, though.”

Your teeth began to tug on your bottom lip, before letting out another nervous laugh as you looked to the side.

“Well… I guess I was just waiting for you to finish ordering.” you replied nonchalantly, making a weak attempt at putting on a poker face even though you’ve already failed.

“You love spending time with me, huh? Can’t get enough of me?” Eric playfully hits your arm with his elbow, causing an ‘ow’ to escape your lips even though it barely hurt.

“Why do you always have to be such a tease?” you wrinkled your nose in question.

“‘Cause I like you,” Eric casually admits like nothing, his eyes having been scanning over your face this whole time since having ended the call.

Your lips parted as you blinked harshly, eventually letting free a forced laugh and your face forms a lopsided grimace.

“Can you be serious right now?” you scratched your head as you looked at Eric.

“I am.” Eric spoke softly, losing the playful tone completely.

He felt like he was gonna explode at his random confession. What you thought was harmless teasing was him actually flirting and him having romantic interest in you. You guys started out as friends but as time went on, he fell for you. After all the conversations and hangouts, he got to know you better and even from the first day, he thought you were such a pretty girl.

Though, he didn’t know when the proper time to confess was or if he even wanted to. You guys have such a solid friendship, and it seemed like you were fine with your stance.

Then again, you were very timid, so you often held back any talk involving feelings— at least with him. You weren’t the type to open up first. He usually had to question you to get an answer out of you— as much as you were willing to say, anyways.

“Like… as friends, right?” Confusion flooded your face as you hadn’t a clue of where he was going with this.

“Yeah, but… what if I said I meant it as more than that?” Eric had this hope-filled look clouding his face. He looked at you anticipating that you felt the same. Even at his random confession, he hopes that you can see how serious he is. That he didn’t just fuck up your friendship by making things weird and that you get the hint that he wants to be more with you.

“Okay— this is not funny. Literally, what are you going on about?” you scoffed and shook your head. You honestly couldn’t believe what he was alluding to. It just can’t be. No way in hell is Eric Sohn admitting that he likes you in that way. No damn way.

“I would never in my life joke about something like this, Y/n. I know this is out of no where— hell, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to tell you because I already appreciate what I have with you.” Eric sucked in a breath before continuing. “But I selfishly want to be more. After all this time together, I just can’t help but wanna be able to hold you and call you my girlfriend every time I am around you.”

“I… I honestly think i’ve fallen in love with you.” Eric breathed out and swallowed hard as he looked at your now-incredulous expression, his own eyes widening as he realized what he just said. Your mouth’s open in shock as you blinked excessively, trying to blink away at your now-moist eyes.

“With me?” you laughed harshly at him and Eric’s lips turned down. “I think you’re mistaken.” your gaze shifted towards your feet as you continued. “You cannot love me in that way. I’m just… not perfect.” You’re in utter disbelief. You were way too insecure for your own good.

Of course you fucking loved him back. You tried to ignore it for so long, your stupid little crush on someone you accepted you couldn’t have because you felt that he was way out of your league and your status remained as just friends. He only saw you as a friend, you thought.

You were you and he was Eric fucking Sohn. He was on the baseball team, athletic, a gym rat, popular, out going, a sweetheart, and hot.

While you in comparison, stayed home most days you had zero obligations, barely had any hobbies, and had like 3 friends.

You felt unloveable because of how insecure you were. You didn’t think someone like you was capable of having romantic feelings reciprocated. You felt unworthy. Eric could easily bag an L.A. model if he wanted to. So why the fuck is he here saying he wants to be with you?

Eric blankly stares at you for a moment. His face has gone pale and he feels his throat getting tight. He’s trying to process what you have said. Where is all this coming from?

“You’re perfect to me.” Eric reaches out for your hand and you get goosebumps at the action. Your eyes shift to where your hand is now in his, his thumb stroking your skin gently.

“Eric…” you barely whisper before removing your hand from his hold, looking away and missing the sadness in his eyes at the loss of contact and rejection.

“You cannot be with someone like me… I mean, look at me and then look at you! You are fucking amazing, Eric!” you finally look at him to gesture your right hand at his figure. “You could have anyone in this world and you’re trying to tell me that you’re in love with me? Have you seen me?”

Tears well up in your eyes as you remove the towel you had draped around you from your body. Your fingers roam around your stomach and you harshly pull at your love handles. “This can’t be what you’re attracted to!” you swallow hard, feeling so vulnerable right now.

You felt ugly. Society has told you that you needed to lose weight to be loved. You needed to be slim or appear a certain way in order for everyone to be kind and pay any mind to you. Not many people bothered to get to know you. Even though Eric has been your friend for a while now, you still find it hard to believe someone as handsome as him wanted to be around someone like you.

No guy ever showed any desire in wanting to be with you romantically or physically, or even as a friend. All your friends with ease had people lining up to be with them and you felt so lonely. So unwanted.

Your whole existence, you’ve always felt unworthy and everyone’s last choice. You felt like something was wrong with you and you’ve sorted accepted it.

Eric sat in silence as he took in your words. He had no idea you felt this deeply about yourself, how you saw yourself in a negative light. He thinks back to when you came out in your shirt and said how you weren’t feeling yourself in your bikini which prompted you to come out covered. You were self conscious. He looked at you with distraught and teary eyes. He was heartbroken to hear you think so lowly of yourself when in his eyes, you were practically Aphrodite mixed with an angel.

“Y/n, I didn’t know you felt this way.” Eric’s eyes softened as you looked down to the concrete, feeling ashamed and embarrassed of yourself right now.

“I’m sorry if anyone has ever made you feel unworthy or uncomfortable to live as yourself. I’m sorry that you cannot see the beauty in yourself.” Eric choked out.

“But I promise you, that you are so beyond beautiful inside and out.” he licked his lips and shook his head. “You don’t understand how beautiful you are. How much I enjoy spending time with you. Why do you think I insist we hangout at least once a week?”

Eric lets out a chuckle which prompts you to look up at him. “After every hangout, or even after every class we had together, I was already longing for the next time we’d see each other. I’ve been desperate for you… you consume my thoughts, Y/n.”

Your face turns crimson as he says all this to you, processing his every word. It did begin to make sense. He’s the one who asked for your number first. He always invites you over to his home. He actually seems to care about you. You chew on your lip at the realization. You were so caught up in your own self consciousness.

You never have imagined that someone could love you in this way in reality.

Eric notices you begin to soften up a bit and his lips curl upwards. “I like that you can handle my silly antics and loudness, and always laugh instead of seriously being annoyed. I like that you have such a kind heart, and are always willing to make time for others— even if that means sacrificing your own obligations and time.” Eric looked at you in adoration, like a puppy in love. You have to admit, your heart swells at his words, and it brings a slight smile to your face.

“Oh come on, you’re so cheesy.” you playfully slap Eric’s hand as you sniffle.

He bites his lower lip and rubs his chin before continuing, “I also like when you have your hair up in a ponytail and leave two strands out on either side. I don’t see you with your hair up often, so I get excited when you do have it up.” You grab a piece of your hair and begin to play with it, face flushed as he keeps going.

“And,” he pauses for a brief moment, blushing as he whispers the next part. “I like it when I see you and I can tell you’re not wearing a bra.”

You drop the strand of hair and look at him with wide eyes, face full of sudden shock. Are you hearing correctly?

“Your nipples are always so hard, baby.” he chuckles as his gaze moves towards your chest.

“Even now, I can see them poking through,” he nods his head at your breasts. You look down and move your hands onto your chest, feeling your nipples through the top. You glance back up at Eric, a cheeky smile plastered on his face.

“Was that cheesy, too?” he questions, tilting his head to the side, shit eating grin smothering his face.

“Eric!” you scold the boy and mischievously hit his arm for suddenly admitting he stares at your breasts often. Though, your thighs instinctively press together at his lewd words, face still crimson.

Your best friend has admitted all these things to you. He sees you the way you see him, and it all feels like a hallucination. You usually feel so insecure, but he sees you like gold. You’re nothing but stunned right now.

Eric laughs as he wraps an arm around you, making you shiver at the sudden contact.

His hand reaches over your shoulder, accidentally brushing over close to your breast, resulting in you jolting at the sudden action as you felt sensitive to the touch.

Eric immediately removes his hand and leans back. “Shit, sorry!” he doesn’t hesitate to say. He’s embarrassed at his attempt in being smooth. He doesn’t want to scare you off.

“It’s fine.” you shyly speak. You have to admit, you were getting a bit turned on. After him showering you in compliments and confessions, you were now slowly accepting that he actually does want you in the same way you’ve fantasized over him.

Not only does he seem to like you for your personality, but also physically.

“No it’s not. I don’t know why I thought touching you like that without permission was okay. You’re still vulnerable.” Eric feels guilty and moves his eyes to look away from you in embarrassment. You haven’t even responded on whether or not you accept his feelings. I mean, you seem fine now.

Of course your insecurities won’t disappear overnight, but you looked more relaxed. He just hopes you don’t feel the need to shy away from him anymore.

“Eric…” you softly speak. He looks up at you curiously, humming as your eyes are already on him, looking at him softheartedly.

“I love you, too.” you murmur tenderly.

Eric’s heart suddenly starts beating fast. He adjusts his posture and a smile creeps up to his face as he registers your words for a moment.

“Are you serious?” he looks at you excitedly with flashing eyes.

“One thousand percent.” you gain the confidence to reach over to run your thumb along his cheek, taking your time to caress him. Eric feels the hair on his skin begin to stand up as you touch him intimately. His eyes shut as you take in his face, feeling it for the first time.

You smile at how cute he looks, softening under just the touch of your thumb.

“I’ll be yours if you’ll have me.” Eric states, his eyes opening to look at your own glistening ones. His face leans into your touch, feeling so good that you’re finally embracing him like this.

“Of course I’ll be your girlfriend.” you look up at him lovingly.

His heart swells at this moment. The moment he’s been longing for, where he can finally call you his.

Eric is going to make sure you feel loved every second of the day from now on.

He removes your hand from his face and holds it gently within his own. With his other hand, it is now his turn to stroke your face with his warm palm. You swallow as you feel yourself melting like ice at his hot touch.

Eric is so close to you, yet so far. You have him now, so that means you can do all the things you’ve longed for with him.

“I want you to k— kiss me.” you suddenly blurt out, gaining trust to do so.

Eric pauses his delicate strokes against your cheek, and looks at you in surprise.

“I’ve never kissed anyone before.” you shyly admitted. You fluttered your eyelashes at him and stared at him pleadingly. “Please teach me, Eric.”

Eric swears he feels his dick twitch at your eagerness. With a simple sentence, his brain feels like it’s on fire. Oh how he’s longed to kiss your pink lips for what seems like forever.

Your innocence is cute, he thinks. How you’re willing to open up to him like this. How you are allowing yourself to let him love you in this way.

“You’re so precious.” Eric breathes out as he begins caressing your cheek again. You look at his eyes that carry a sense of longing as he scans your face, soaking up your features.

“We can take it slow.” Eric murmurs and you nod.

Eric’s thumb moves to your bottom lip, tracing the lines and feeling how plump it is. Your palms began to sweat in anticipation, and your heart rate increases at the build up.

Your eyes are open still, watching him curiously as he grazes his thumb over your lower lip gently, which makes his own heart flood in an ocean of warmth.

Eric’s thumb drops and his dominant hand moves to gently cup your jaw. His other hand pulls you closer against his chest, hand now resting on your side. You slightly shiver at his touch, fingers dancing over your love handles.

“You can touch me too, baby.” Eric nods at you, seeing you’re a bit tense and don’t really know what to do even though you so desperately want to feel his lips on yours already.

You hesitantly place your hand over his chest, rubbing the area carefully. Your fingers graze over his nipple and his eyes immediately shut at the feeling. He inhales sharply at your movements, and you can’t help but chuckle seeing him affected like this just by your touch.

Your other hand rests on the back of his neck along the nape, beginning to tangle your fingers in his curls and it feels like home for the both of you.

You don’t know what to do next, so you just continue combing through his hair. Though, you finally close your eyes, signaling to him that you’re ready for a kiss.

Eric’s lips curl upwards at how cute this is— you waiting for him to take the lead. He finds you very endearing like this.

He caresses your side as he slowly pulls your jaw close. Your lips separate faintly while he does so, awaiting for your lips to meet.

His eyes shut as he captures your bottom lip within his lips. He tilts your head ever so slightly so that you don’t bump noses, and your fingers messily fidget with the nape of his neck as he gently sucked your balmy lip.

Eric’s lips against yours feels electric. You allow him to guide you and you slowly get the hang of it, you soon after kissing him back. The kiss feels so magical. The feeling of his lips against yours sends sparks all throughout your body. You feel as with every movement his lips make against yours, you’re bound to explode like a firework at the passionate sensation.

You lose yourself in his lips, his hands soothing your body in the process, and nothing else matters except for Eric Sohn kissing you.

He pulls back for a moment, and you both stare at each other in awe at what you’ve shared. Eric suddenly lifts his rear off the chair for a bit, removing the towel he had wrapped around his waist and tosses it on the ground. He then decides to pull you over his lap, seating you on top of him with your legs wrapped around him. Your mouth opens agape at the action, your hands moving to his shoulders to steady yourself.

“Am I not too heavy for this?” you cringe, feeling like you can’t even be in this position for a second before it gets uncomfortable for Eric’s hold.

“Nonsense— you fit perfectly, baby.” Eric says. He spreads his legs a bit to make it more comfortable for you.

His hand rests on your back, fingers rubbing it soothly. His fingers trace the valleys of your stretch marks that decorate your lower back, and he smiles at the feeling of your skin.

“S’ gorgeous.” he murmurs, your cheeks heat up in response. Eric’s lips lean in to press against your pink cheeks, leaving tender, wet kisses all over your face. “You’re such a pretty girl.” he announces as you giggle at his affection towards you.

You crave for his lips on you again, so you take the risk of moving to glide your tongue over his bottom lip, begging to be invited in his mouth for seconds. A groan of satisfaction vibrates through Eric’s chest and he lets you in. Your tongues greet each other as your lips enveloped. A moan escapes your throat at feeling the wetness of his tongue against your own. You’ve suddenly lost your inhibitions after hearing all of Eric’s praises and tasting his pillowy lips. This kiss was sensual, becoming all hot and breathy in desire for one another.

Eric’s teeth gently graze over your bottom lip and you can’t help but move your body from the pleasure, resulting in you grinding down on Eric’s lap.

You pull back for a breath and your heart misses a beat as you feel something hard press against the fabric of your bottoms. You gasp at the foreign feeling.

“Shit, I’m sorry.” Eric breathes out and goes to pet your hair. “We can stop if you want, just tell me.” Eric says, face turning red.

One of your hands moves to fiddle around his neck, admiring the chain that rested against his collarbones. You bat your eyelashes as you rub yourself against Eric’s crotch again, eliciting a deep groan out of him, his eyes drawn shut from your actions. You bite your lip at the stimulation it brought to your core. There’s a strange feeling growing in the pit of your stomach. This was all new to you, so it was very thrilling.

You lean over his neck and tenderly begin peppering kisses all over, his hips bucking up at the feeling of your mouth on his sweet spot.

“Mhm.” you whimper at the friction of his bulge against your core, which captivates Eric. The sound of your pretty moans and the way your body responds to him has blood rushing straight to his cock.

“What are you doing, princess?” Eric gently pulls you back from his neck, looking at your desperate eyes with his own, wetting his lips with his tongue.

You continue to rub your core against his crotch as he introduces that nickname. Your arms wrap around his neck and your fingers get lost in his curls once again.

“You like when I call you that, huh?” Eric nods his head at you, smirk prevalent on his face.

You whine at his teasing, hiding your face in his neck. “Eric…” you announce.

“Hm?” he hums, rubbing your back soothingly.

You pull back from his neck to look at him. He presses his lips together as you bashfully look at him. Your lips part in wanting to say something, but you hesitate in doing so, moving your gaze away from his own.

“What is it, baby?” Eric coos as he cups your jaw. “You can tell me.” he encourages you since you’ve suddenly gone shy.

“I— I want to taste you, Eric.” you practically whisper to him.

He chuckles, “You want more kisses?”

He sees you cutely furrow your brows with lips slightly pouted, gently shaking your head. “I don’t mean like that. I mean like… let me help you out.” with heavy lidded eyes, you gesture towards his manhood.

Eric’s lips gape slightly as it registers what you’re saying. He cannot believe what he’s hearing. You have no experience and yet you’re beyond eager. You’re so needy for him and it is fucking turning him on. He could probably cum right now in his swim shorts just from the kissing and grinding.

But, he doesn’t want you to rush into things so suddenly in the heat of the moment. He wants your firsts to be perfect. Even if you guys knew inside that you trust one another, he still wants to be sure.

“Y/n, let me take you on a date first at least, hm?” Eric rubs your thigh gingerly. “I don’t want you to do anything just because i’m hard right now. We can wait until you’re ready.” Eric softly smiles.

You’re still pouting, and let out a huff of frustration at his words. “I just want to taste it.” you whine out while your hips rut down into his, which draws a moan out of Eric, his fingers pressing deeply into your thigh in response. You sigh at the feeling.

“I’ve dreamed about giving you head since I met you.” you confess as you continue, drunk off the feeling of his cock through the thin pieces of fabric. “I promise I want to, Eric. It’s all I want to do tonight. We don’t have to go further than that— it’s what i’m comfortable with for now. We can save all the other stuff for another time. But right now, I just wanna please you if you’ll let me.” you babble, giving him pleading eyes and he see’s how bad you want it.

He wonders what happened to you being coy not that long ago— not that he’s complaining or anything, but you’re now feening over him. This feels like a dream. You wanted to please him so bad and he just could never say no to you, not in a million years.

He would be a fool to turn you down.

He lets out a deep sigh and tsks, his hands snaking around to grip your hips to keep you steady. “Okay, princess. I’d hate to ever say no to you.” Eric goes to chase your lips, sealing the deal. The kiss has you mewling into his mouth and he gulps hard at your noise.

You pull back from his lips and go to leave a tender kiss on the corner before he helps you get off his lap. You stand up as he stays seated, curiously watching your movements. You crouch down and your hands are on the towel Eric tossed earlier, starting to spread it neatly on the ground so your knees can rest over it.

“Here?” Eric questions as you get on your knees and your eyes lock. He bites back a groan as he has to now look down to meet your eyes, seeing you on the ground all submissive on your knees with your cleavage perfectly on display. It has him screaming internally.

“Yeah.” you say as you begin to stroke Eric’s knee. “I’m too impatient to go inside.”

Eric laughs and bends forward to press a kiss on your forehead, your nose scrunching cutely as his lips make contact against your skin. His hands then goes to cup your cheeks. “I’ll be as gentle as possible and guide you if you need it. Just tap my thighs or tell me if you want to stop. Okay, baby?”

“Okay.” you say and nod your head. Eric’s lips give you one last kiss on the corner of your mouth, and he lets you go.

You swallow hard, mentally questioning yourself on how you want to go about this. Eric watches you, smirking as he can practically see the wheels turn on your head. He’ll guide you, but only if he sees you struggling or if you ask for it. He wants to see what you can do, since you seem to be so eager for his cock.

You begin by inching a bit closer to his crotch, just between his knees. Your hands move to touch his abdomen, running your fingers along the defined lines of his abs. Your lips pucker up as you press hot kisses along his stomach, appreciating how beautiful Eric’s build was. Eric’s dominant hand goes to rest in your locks, massaging your scalp as you kiss his tummy.

“You like my body, baby?” a smug look is present on Eric’s face as he says so.

“You’re beautiful,” you breathe out shamelessly, pausing when you’ve gotten closer to the skin just below his belly button.

You soon remove yourself and he lets his hand fall while your hands move to the waistband of his swim shorts. You play with the fabric a bit in nervousness, still figuring out how you’re going to approach this sensual act and wondering if Eric will be satisfied with your performance.

You finally tug his shorts down and fully off. His cock then immediately flops up against his abdomen, slapping the skin.

You gasp at first sight of his cock. It’s pretty lengthy and fat, erect with precum residing on his tip. You gulped as Eric’s right hand moves over to his shaft, beginning to stroke himself as he nibbles on his bottom lip. With pursed lips you look at him, feeling tingly and flushed all over as he makes eye contact with you while he touches himself.

“You wanna touch it?” Eric raises a brow as he slicks his cock in his wetness. You’re salivating at the sight of his naked form playing with himself. He looks so pretty on display like this for you.

He lets go of himself and you finally start to test the waters, hesitantly grabbing the base of his cock and stroking the skin. Eric hisses once he feels your small hand over his base. “Fuck, baby.”

You bite back a smile at his reaction and you start to give the tip kitten licks while rubbing the underside of his cock with your thumb. The taste of his precum lands on your tongue, causing Eric to purr in pleasure.

“Starting off as such a tease.” he mumbles while his legs instinctively spread to give you more room and his left arm goes behind the back of his neck and head, giving you a perfect view of the little sailboat and paw print tattoos that decorate his bicep. So fucking hot, you think to yourself.

You experimentally press your tongue along the underside of his cock, gliding it over a vein all the way up towards his tip, then deciding to take the head of it in your mouth.

A hearty groan rips from Eric’s throat as he feels all these sensations, and you begin to bob your head over a bit of his length, your hand jerking off the rest of his shaft.

“Breathe through your nose, baby, and hollow your cheeks.” he advises you between breathy moans.

You slowly challenge yourself to go deeper, coating his cock with your saliva. Eric is entranced by the slurping sounds that start to escape your lips and becomes drunk off the feeling of your warm mouth encompassing his cock.

His eyes shut while his hips can’t help but buck into your mouth at the feeling. You choke at the sudden movement, removing your mouth and gasping for air, sobbing out a moan as his length pops out your mouth.

“Fuck, princess. Mhm— sorry, can’t help myself.” Eric chuckles, licking his lips as his hand falls into your hair, caressing it gently and keeps it from falling around your face.

Your eyes meet and you hold contact, both of your eyes each going dark with lust while you take him in your mouth again, your left hand running up and down on what you can’t fit while your right decides to rest on his balls, beginning to massage and fondle them.

“That’s it, baby! What a good girl, playing with my balls without being asked. Hmm— you’re an angel.”

Eric praises you and your moans vibrate around his length in response. Your sucking starts to become more enthusiastic at his praises. You remember to curl your lips over your top teeth so they don’t touch him when you start to feel confident to take him deeper.

Eric’s gaze is fixated down on you as you bob your head, being such a brave girl and taking as much of him as you can. Your head rotates from side to side while sucking him, and your right hand is still rubbing circles along his balls, groping them and loving how heavy they feel in your hold.

Eric can’t help but grip your hair a bit tight as your mouth is driving his body insane. You gag around him as you take a bit more than you’re able and he carefully pulls you off. You cry out as you breathe in the fresh air, a string of saliva still connecting your lips with his cock. Eric growls seeing his cock coated in your saliva and his precum, and then moves his vision towards your mouth, your own spit now raining down your chin.

You inhale sharply as you give your mouth a short break and your right hand starts to jerk him off, feeling the wetness of his shaft glaze your hand.

“You’re s’ so big, Eric.” you whine and your lips stay parted, running your tongue along the inside of your mouth. “Jaw is starting to hurt.” you whimper as you look up and flutter your lashes at him, throwing your head back, thighs squeezed together as you tighten your hold around his cock.

“Just a little longer, baby. Getting close.” Eric coos and guides your lips back to his cock again. You run his tip all over your lips like a lipstick, humming in satisfaction at the wetness. You want nothing more than to drown in his essence.

Although your jaw is growing tired, you’re desperate to make him cum. You force your mouth to open wider and bob up and down as far as you can, sucking more of him as much as your mouth can handle.

The suction and slurping noises start to become more frequent from you as you pick up the pace. Eric’s breathing becomes more ragged at your rhythms and pretty sounds.

“Mhm, fuck! Getting close princess— where do you want my cum?” his brows furrow as he peers down at you, tears beginning to form in your eyes when you bring his head far back enough to trigger your gag reflex.

You start to get sloppy with your movements and meet his gaze with your own pleading eyes as he attempts to pull you back by your hair, though, your left hand finds purchase on his base and your right hand’s fingers dig deep onto the skin of his leg.

He laughs in seeing you not having any desire to come off him, “So this is what you meant when you said you were hungry earlier, hm? Can’t believe my pretty, perfect girl wants me to cum in her mouth for her first time. So fucking hot.” Eric’s cock twitches and balls tighten up once he’s approaching his release, brows knitting together and mouth agape, beginning to whimper in overstimulation.

“Mhm— Eric!” you muffle around his cock while your pussy throbs from listening to his pretty sounds leaving his lips as a result of you and from his fat length twitching in your mouth.

You continue to suck and jack off sloppily what you can’t fit, and before you know it, his hot, creamy load coats your tongue and paints your mouth white.

Eric’s head is thrown back, abs and jaw clenching as his release creates spasms throughout his entire body, sighing your name over and over weakly like a mantra.

His cum feels hot, thick, and sticky in your mouth. His release tastes slightly sweet, and you swirl and swish it around your mouth before swallowing as much as you can.

Your eyes are heavy lidded as you gently suck the head of his cock like a lollipop in attempt to drink up every last drop of his cum. You bring your lips to the tip and kiss it a few times, rubbing his balls tenderly to soothe him.

“Atta’ girl. Good fucking girl.” Eric praises you, groaning with a raspy voice.

You huff out a breath as you remove yourself entirely from his length. Wetness from tears decorates your eyelashes and stains your cheeks, vision somewhat blurred from all the work you put on his cock. Drool mixed with Eric’s cum is dripping down your lips and chin, and you continue to let spit fall, your mouth open with eyes closed as you try to calm yourself.

Looking at you, Eric feels numb in the head seeing you all fucked in the face from his cock. What a gorgeous sight.

After a few seconds, you both slowly start to calm down your uneven breathing. Your hand goes to wipe off whatever is left on your face, but not before Eric tuts at you and carefully hoists you up against him, his lips attaching against your own in a beat of his heart. Both of your lips move hungrily in sync and you moan into the kiss.

“You did so well, princess. You were such a good girl for me. The most perfect girl, and all mine.” he growls in between kisses as he tastes your saliva mixed with his own cum, and places you on his lap. Your hands go to wrap around his neck and one of his hands smooths over the fat of your middle, massaging it lovingly while his other hand rests on your neck. You shift a bit as he does so, gasping once you become aware of how damp and creamy your bottoms are. Eric seems to feel your wetness over his dick, grinning as the tip of your ears turn red and your cheeks flush pink in embarrassment.

“Aw, my pretty girl is all soaked ‘cause of me?” his hand goes to play with the flesh of your ass and you whine at his words. He kisses your cheeks sweetly and nuzzles his nose against your own. His heart feels so full to be so close to you like this. To have you in his arms and sharing intimate moments is a dream come true. You feel the same as he embraces you and is so gentle to you, feeling so loved by your best friend turned boyfriend.

“Can’t wait to take you on a date and treat you like the princess you are.” he whispers. “Then, when you’re ready, i’ll be sure to make you cum as hard as you made me. Sound’s good, baby?” Eric murmurs and you grab a hold of his chin, ready to plant another kiss on his lips before the sound of a ring causes you both to jolt up.

Eric groans, eyes rolling back in annoyance as he twists his head to see that it’s his phone ringing. You press a quick kiss to his jawline as he answers it, massaging his scalp while he talks on the phone.

“Hello… Oh, you’re here?— I’ll be right out!… Sorry to keep you waiting… Okay thanks, bye!”

“Shit, the pizza’s here.” Your eyes go wide as you register the call and his words and you quickly get off Eric. He rushes to put on his swim shorts and immediately bolts inside to get the food at the front door, leaving you outside by yourself.

You laugh at how fast he scurries off and then you sigh at the feeling of you bottoms sticking to your core within all the wetness. “I hope he lets me borrow a pair of boxers or something.” you say out loud to yourself as you make your way inside, ready to dig into some real food.

As much as Eric’s meat filled your mouth up nicely, you could use a couple slices of pizza to now fill up your empty stomach.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

[thesirenisles]

Examining the "Feminine"

mythology & meaning of venus, taurus, and libra ♀

by thesirenisles

Dark/Night Mode recommended. Do not steal, rewrite, or copy any of my original writing. Photos are from Pinterest or collaged by me. If it does not apply, let it fly. All rights reserved. © 2024 The Siren Isles

Your Majesty,

It is as if you manifested in this world to be adored and cherished. Blessed with royal charisma and a natural grace, your Venusian energy is often happily welcomed. Even with afflictions, there is just something(s) about you that others value.

A Venusian is blessed to enjoy the material aesthetics and splendors of this world. They understand high-quality, material value in items and prefer the nicer things. They have an inherent taste for what is aesthetically pleasing. The Venusian tends to collect all of these things... while being on the journey to understanding that they can't collect people.

At your core… you are here to create and increase the value, beauty, harmony, and love in the world around you.

It's all about life’s pleasures when you’re a child of Venus and they float diplomatically, steadily seeking pleasure of all forms, whether this be from material means, the five senses, or even the addictive taste of social relevance.

╰┈➤ Think: Serena VDW from Gossip Girl, waltzing around with her “Golden Retriever” energy lol. Beyoncé, (Venus 1H) no matter the rumors... honestly can she actually ever be canceled? Jasmine Tookes (model) has such a Venusian complex, Venus 1H)

With this energy dominant in the natal chart, you can become a natural feminine role model for the women in your life. Venus is a benefic and a lucky chart ruler energy. But, this does not come without its lessons usually involving worth, value, and balance.

-`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´-

In astrology, the gifts of Venus manifest in:

⋆˚⋆˚ ❥ TAURUS (fixed Earth) 2nd House (Possessions, Values, Skills) understands tangible & personal worth but is seeking to understand the value of intangible beauty in life.

⋆˚⋆ ❥ LIBRA (cardinal Air) 7th House (Marriage and Partnership) understands how to create beautiful social and romantic relationships based on justice, but is seeking to understand the true value of self love & worth.

-`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´-

If you control the feminine deity,

you control the feminine.

VENUS (Aphrodite to the Greeks, Hathor to Ancient Egyptians) is the Goddess of love, feminine energy, erotic desire, harmony, balance, and to some motherhood.

Greco- Roman Mythology:

When consuming any ancient mythological texts, one must consider the social and political attitudes or even agendas during that time period to add context. This female social status very clearly carries over into their mythology.

-`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´-

🐚 In Ancient Greece: "Greek women had virtually no political rights of any kind and were controlled by men at nearly every stage of their lives." (source)

🐚 In Ancient Rome: "Unlike society in ancient Egypt, Rome did not regard women as equal to men before the law." (source)

Glamour is the enemy of truth.

Her sordid birth is GLAMOURIZED in an undeniably gorgeous painting: “Birth of Venus” by Sandro Botticelli; 1486 (see below).

🐚 This beautiful portrayal led to Venus being OFTEN glamourized by women, especially here on Tumblr. We feel empowered by her, which is justified. But, her Greco-Roman mythology is anything but empowering. No shade, but it embodies the social limits and pain for women within the dominant European culture. 🐚 The Goddess is often presented on display, (as above) her womanhood made a spectacle! Her very "feminine" form is written to have manifested from the discarded sexual organs of a male God, (Uranus), Also then.. technically her father.

This is a DIVINE Goddess and YET ...

Her adoptive father, Jupiter (Zeus), literally sold her to her "husband", Hephaestus (Vulcan), like property.

She has petty grudges stemming from vanity, tormenting beautiful young maidens.

She engages in frequent, extramarital love trysts with a sibling, Ares (Mars)

... & we're supposed to romanticize this??? ✋🏾(It's giving Cersei Lannister).

-`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´-

🐚 Negative divine feminine imagery creates a space to demonize the many beautiful traits associated with Venus! This became especially apparent after the bloody global shift into Christian and Catholic dominance.

-`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´--`♡´-

and alas life imitates art:

"HOTTENTOT" VENUS

🐚 The Greco-Roman/ European depiction of Venus being on full display makes a disgusting reappearance in their humiliation, brutalization, and rape of naturally curvy and voluptuous African women. 🐚 Most notably, a South African Khoikhoi (or Khoisan) woman named Saartjie (or Sara) Baartman, who was fiendishly deemed the: "Hottentot Venus." (a racial slur; see image below) Her divinely feminine body was, like Venus , put on live display and defiled for ANY paying Europeans. Most all had never witnessed such divine beauty, 1810. (source) 🐚 They were socially conditioned to gawk, hyper-sexualize, and inflict pain upon the female form. Even after death, she was taken in 1816 and displayed in a French museum until as late as 1985."

Venus Figurine:

🐚 This grotesque misuse of Venus in the news article title takes its inspiration from: The Upper Paleolithic “Venusian figurine”, an example the “Venus of Willendorf” (28-25,000 BCE; see below) which also shows pronounced hips and figure. Men were said to carry these in thought of women. However, the exposure is none short than Venus' own in the Botticelli painting.

🐚 While similar in their representation, the Greco Roman translation of this Goddess is far too crass and none of Venus' listed Greco-Roman origin stories have any symbolic feminine connection or adoration to the actual bull or scales! LOL. So, I went on my search to connect the lost ancient mythological mysteries that did not make it past the Euro-Colonialism eradication and re-naming. 🔎🕵️

"Mother of the Pharaohs"

taurus: the horned cow🐄

HATHOR is the (Ancient Egyptian Goddess of the Divine Feminine, Love, Fertility, and even expression of female sexual desire). The Goddess is a cow or a maiden with cow horns, typical symbol of Taurus.

How is Venus connected to Hathor?

🐄 Since the moment they step foot in the "ancient New York City" that was Ancient Egypt, their European neighbors were enamored of Ancient Egypt's Neter (Gods), especially the "Mother of the Pharoah's". The Greco-Roman nations would come to conquer Egypt. Under Alexander the "gr8" in 332 B.C., they renamed one of the seven major African cities that worshipped Hathor: "Aphroditopolis" or City of Venus and made it a CAPITAL of its district. 🐄 The Venus planet symbol ♀ is literally the African Ankh. This fascination and renaming is like the renaming of Thoth into Mercury, Hermes, or "Hermes Trismegistus". (some say they explain it with "reincarnation.") You, as the reader, decide which mythology matches the energy best for yourself.

Mythological Origins:

🐄 Hathor is said to be born from the eye of Ra, like Sekhmet. She was thought of as beauty, love, grace incarnate. Her presence is said to exude an aura of allure, femininity, and attraction. She embodies passionate expressions of desire, love, and the pursuit of exquisite living. 🐄 A maternal symbol, she is considered the mother or nourisher of all of the Pharaohs. The presence of the Goddess in a Pharaoh's royal court is essential to ensure the connection to the divine. 🐄 Music and dance are another keystone of Hathor's energy. The female body is created to release tension and trauma with the very movement of your hips! Connect with your inner Goddess! 🐄 Symbols for Hathor: Cows, Sun disk with Cow Horns, Lotus Flower, Sistrum, Protective Cobra, Mirrors, and Cosmetic jars.

Why the cow? 🐄

🐄 Ancient Kemet (Egypt) connected their Gods to the natural skills, gifts, and talents of the animals within their ecosystem. This is the reason their Gods’ are called Neter, like “Nature". (For example: Lions of Leo are native to Africa) 🐄 The African cattle breed: “Ankole-Watusi" has female cows with very large horns… similar to the male bull. These horns are depicted holding the sun disk upon the head of Hathor, (as seen above & below in the Egyptian bas reliefs).

🌷Cows are the mothers!🌷

┈➤ Bulls are the male cow. Heifers are the females without offspring.

🐄 The natural feminine physical traits associated with the cow are: plush eyelashes, a pretty symmetrical face, pronounced nipples that produce milk, and wide hips. 🐄 However, the cow also provides fertilizer, which brought forth the agriculture of the African Nile Valley. The cow , not bull...is a perfect fertility symbol.

Hathor provides the Pharaoh the ANKH or “Venus planet symbol.” ♀ (see below)

Bas Relief of the goddess Hathor, Temple of Horus, Edfu, Egypt, Ptolemaic Period, c251 BC-c246 BC

"soft life"🐄

🐄 I imagine a Taurus (or 2nd houser) thriving in the energy of the cow, frolicking the lush green lands, eating their fill, and providing nourishment. If the 5 senses of a Taurus are satisfied, they are content. 🐄 They will create this value around them, often ensuring that their spaces smell good, the food is prepared excellently, and only the best to drink it down. Access to a Taurus is access to their natural value. 🐄 They will bless you with gifts that you need because they care enough to pay attention and want to increase your value too.. all while being loyal! I love Taurus energy, so similar to cancer... but less mood swings.

(noun). a person, especially a woman, who pursues a lifestyle of buying luxury items or of seeking them as gifts from lovers and admirers.

🐄 Taurus most often manifests Venusian gifts in the physical and sensual. This can be "classically" feminine physical traits, such as wider hips or ample bosoms, etc. On a negative, these traits can be hyper-sexualized or demonized while they are young, like their sister sign, Scorpio. But, it can also be literal material gifts and blessings.

🐄 On a positive, Venus will bless them with options! Many suitors will present these Earthly gifts, writing love poems to woo the feminine cow. Taurus may find pride in the flattery that comes with this treatment and beauty privilege. They are used to being adored (unless badly aspected).

Beware the love Bomb.

🐄 In love, these cows are especially vulnerable to being victims of love bombing. (When a potential suitor bombards one too quickly with serious promises, excessive flattery, and material gifts. This can be friends as well.🧿) The key here is to not allow flattery to falsely parade as love.

🐄 Taurus (2nd house) carries a natural royal energy and an air of grace. It’s your silent, but solid confidence of being a fixed sign. They are extremely loyal when they consider you kin. However, this dogmatic belief system can result in you charging your horns into sketchy territory. This reminds me of John Snow and his “honor” energy (from Game of Thrones).

it’s nearly impossible to change your mind.🌸

🐄  In love, this can be ignoring all of your friends over a partner who is not good for you. You find yourself giving all of your love, loyalty, and even money (most have a language of gift giving and receiving) to an undeserving soul. On the bright side, these tragedies will result in a tower moment marked with major transformation (also like sister sign Scorpio).🌷 🐄 Ultimately, I feel and often see that the Taurus (2nd house) native will be challenged to vacate the creature comforts in which they enjoy in order to transform like their sister sign, Scorpio. When in doubt, do NOT choose the Hephaestus (safe choice).

"Queen of the Earth"

libra: moral scales ⚖️

MA'AT (Ancient Egyptian Goddess rules balance, justice, harmony, law, order, and morality.) She is depicted as a maiden adorned with beautiful wings, very similar to Isis.

⚖️ I often find my beautiful Libran queens confused about the meaning of the scales and how it connects to femininity. I hope to be a light bearer. ⚖️ Ma'at represents the typical light feminine attributes in my opinion (elegance, forgiveness (justice), and nurturing energy (Venus). Similar to Librans, who inherently know how to enact these gifts create harmony in their social spaces and float amongst varying personalities. (Think: Lady Liberty or Lady Justice). However, the sign is the masculine side of Venus.

Mythological Origins:

⚖️ Ma'at is also a daughter of Ra, sometimes written as his wife. She manifested with Ra from the waters of Nun (Chaos). Her existence brought order to the realms . She is often depicted holding an ANKH and a scepter to symbolize power and eternal life. (See Below) Some sources say that she was married to Thoth (Mercury) and birthed 8 children, known as "The eight gods of Hermopolis." (Just like Aphroditopolis)

Why the Queen of the Earth?

⚖️ As mentioned, Ma'at was said to be present at the beginning. She was present when Ra stood upon her "mound" (seen above) for balance as he created the realm of Earth... ending chaos. This placed the Goddess in charge of the cycle of seasons, the movements of the sun, moon and stars, all parts of religion, relationships, and the moral actions of both mortal and God-alike. This is very powerful!

⚖️ The Libra native can carry very similar themes. In life, they may feel the need to regulate amongst their social circles and be the organized hostess. Cardinal energy blesses them with the drive to girl boss through anything!

⚖️ The ethical and spiritual foundation of Ancient Kemet was presented by a woman. The head of religious worship and justice was called "Priest of Ma'at". From this, you gather that Ancient Kemet was nothing as Egypt is today in terms of equality for women. Women were free to own their own properties, businesses, marry one-another, divorce their husbands, and even rose to be Pharaoh like in the case of Pharaoh Hatshepsut. (personal fave)

Why the scales? ⚖️

The Libran scales literally determined if a soul had lived their life with balance and morality! (7th House).

⚖️ The actions and morality of the Ancient Egyptian people were guided by a set list of commandments, known as the "42 Laws of Ma'at". These ancient texts predate the Bible, but have uncanny similarity in diction to the 10 Commandments. ⚖️ It was believed that Upon death, before one could enter the Duat (Underworld), the heart was weighed on the scales of Osiris (God of the Underworld) in comparison to a single feather of Ma'at. Osiris is linked to Saturn which is exalted in Libra. The weighing was done by Anubis (God of funerary practices and care of the dead).

“light as a feather”🪶

⚖️ If the heart weighed less or the same, the spirit was granted access to Aaru (a sort of heaven). This explains the scales of LIbra. If it did not, the heart was eaten and the native faded into nothingness.

(noun) a woman who acts as master of ceremonies, moderator, or who receives and entertains guests in her own home or elsewhere.

⚖️ The mythology of Ma'at is excellent... a little too excellent. She is like the oldest and favorite daughter who must be 100% perfect. Many Libra's may have father or projection issues in this way. The expectation of excellence begets pressure! ⚖️ This carries over into the relationships of course. This balancing act is where things get tricky for the Libra. This can manifest as people pleasing to keep the peace with friends, family, romantic partners, or co-workers. There can be a distaste for controversy or not wanting to damage the public image. It gives "Dollhouse" by Melanie Martinez vibes at its worse. Rich Auntie vibes at it's best!

Their scales will be tipped. ⚖️

⚖️ The Libras/7th housers will find themselves in situations where they have to STAND on their boundaries. It's like a self-actualization that has to happen. Venus is teaching them to respect and protect their Venusian gifts. Similar to Taurus. Venusian energy will bless you with generous suitors. BEWARE THE LOVEBOMBERS. ⚖️ They bear the reputation of almost needing to be in a relationship. This is obviously due to the 7th house ruling, but also stems from it's less favorable position with the sun.(Father). It is also kind of true, because it is apart of your life path. ⚖️ While it can be painful to have to experience relationship after relationship, these are apart of your life path and contribute to your glow up! To love and be loved is truly a blessing. You guys are blessed with so many loving friendships and romantic experiences!

Regina George?

⚖️ There can be some performative behavior and some judgment! After all, this is scales. Blessed with beauty, style, and grace... they can end up judging those who aren't. Mean Girl vibes. But, I believe this comes from the Libran urge to judge and lead the masses LOL. Ma'at energy. ⚖️ Despite any of this, Libra is the least slandered amongst the air signs (unless it’s Libra moon… I see quite a bit of slander? LOL.) Ma'at seems to bless the Libran with this air of favor. It's like they can really do no wrong, even sometimes after doing so. People are going to think the better of them 9/10 because the Libra has already established their character and value amongst social groups. The air just adds a bit more flow, allowing more harmonious energy in their relations.

Conclusion

♀ The intention of this post is to shed some light on lesser known mythology and symbolism of the planet Venus. I also believe that it is worth noting a very beautiful pattern among Venus and her signs.

♀ The Libran scales and Taurus Cow horns both resemble the female reproductive system. They also resemble the African Ankh symbol (of fertility and eternal life). Nature makes no mistakes and everything has duality, just as the Ancient Egyptians understood so well. It’s beautiful. (See below).

Thank you for reading!! Wishing you blessings!

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