#tw war crimes description

[rapeculturerealities]

Doctor Denounces C.I.A. Practice of ‘Rectal Feeding’ of Prisoners - The New York Times

Dr. Sondra S. Crosby, a court-approved expert on torture and other trauma, testified in a long-running defense effort by lawyers for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is accused of orchestrating the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. The lawyers are seeking to suppress from his eventual trial admissions he made to federal investigators as tainted by torture.

She held up a tube that is designed to be put in a patient’s windpipe and said that — according to the agency’s once-secret records —C.I.A. prison staff inserted one just like it into Mr. Nashiri’s anus in May 2004. Agency personnel then used a syringe to inject a protein enriched nutritional shake into his body.

She testified that at Guantánamo Bay in 2013, Mr. Nashiri confided that, years earlier, C.I.A. personnel grabbed him from his cell, stripped him naked, shackled him at the wrists and ankles, bent him over a chair and administered the liquid.

He asked that she never again speak to him about it. And he did not attend the court session when she discussed it at length on Thursday.

“This was a very, very distressing painful, shameful stigmatizing event,” Dr. Crosby testified. “He experienced it as a violent rape, sexual assault.”

Another year would pass before Dr. Crosby found corroboration of the account. In December 2014, the Obama administration released a 500-page summary of a classified Senate study of the C.I.A.’s so-called black site program. It revealed the agency’s practice of using “rectal rehydration” and “rectal feeding” to punish prisoners.

At the time, the C.I.A. defended it as a sound medical procedure. The group Physicians for Human Rights then condemned the practice as “sexual assault masquerading as medical treatment.”

But this week the agency declined a request for a comment on the descriptions that were attributed to the C.I.A. in open court. Nor would an agency spokeswoman respond to Dr. Crosby’s testimony that Mr. Nashiri also told her that he was sodomized with a broom stick while the C.I.A. held him in a cell, nude with his wrists shackled above his head.

[flowersandbigteeth]

Orc boyfriend with what he thinks is a tiny, smol mate who's so smol, so delicate, so sweet... They're actually pretty firmly built for a human, while a bit short, along with being stubborn and sassy and ready to bite heads off for their adorable XL size boyfriend.

I've got so many orc stories going right now, but you know I'm not mad about it ^_^ I love Orcs <3 There are so many different ways to write them. I have another couple of Orc asks I'm working on, as well 🥵

Orc (Cedar) x thick f reader

Word Count: 5K

Tw: sfw orc fluff, some brief descriptions of battle, brief mention of sa, size difference

More monster fluff here

“Put the stick down, sugar. We’re not going to hurt you.” 

You scoffed at the soldiers circling you, their eyes dark with lust. 

“We just want to have some fun,” another said, his eyes drifting over your shapely hips. “Don’t you owe us a debt of gratitude for rescuing you?”  

You squeezed the iron fire poker that you had gripped in your hand. 

“Rescuing me? You didn’t get your rocks off burning down the damn village?” 

“It was a strategic maneuver,” the leader of the armored men said with an oily smile. “We are here to liberate you.” 

“By assaulting me?” you snapped. 

There was not a doubt in your mind that the second you lowered your weapon, they were going to drag you into some dark corner and act out all of the sick thoughts they had echoed on their faces. 

Your King’s soldiers weren’t good guys. When they heard there was an Orc camp nearby, they couldn’t be bothered to attack it directly. Instead, they burned down your village. They said it was to prevent them from resupplying. 

It was true you did business with the Orcs, who were technically your enemy, but they never acted like enemies. While big and quite scary-looking, they paid in gold and were always polite to the women running the shops. You never felt the least bit unsafe alone with one, and occasionally, they’d help you out with things that needed done– fixing roofs and cartwheels. The men of the town had all been conscripted for the war, so it mostly the ladies keeping the village afloat. The soldiers had made a whole lot of children and the elderly homeless. 

“Come on, sweetie, this game is getting tiresome.” 

One of the soldiers dared to approach you, and you didn’t hesitate a second, swinging your poker and smacking him so hard in the head that his helmet crunched. He collapsed on the broken boards that had once been the floor of your little noodle shop. 

“Now that’s a crime!” the leader barked.

He waved to his accomplices. 

“Get in there and restrain her!” Their eyes fell on the collapsed soldier, and they looked between one another, trying to sort out who was next to get a whomping. 

You flexed your wrist, preparing to swing at whoever came at you next, when you heard the heavy steps of an Orc approaching. The soldiers were too inexperienced to know what that sound meant. You’d heard them approach every day at dinner time for several months. It wasn’t until he was shouldering his way through what was left of your door that they took notice. 

“The enemy approaches! Your swords!” 

The Orc you knew as Ash, wrinkled his brow and let out a lilting call to gather his brethren. The ground rumbled as more heavy feet ran towards you. 

Wood splintered, and what remained of the ceiling creaked as they tore the walls away, making more room for a fight. 

Faced with five nine-foot Orc barbarians armed with axes almost as big as their bodies, the soldiers tried to run for it. You screamed as they threatened to trample you, trying to force their way through the back wall, but they never reached you. 

The Orcs didn’t need to draw their weapons, grabbing every soldier and smacking them against the ground until they stopped moving—a gruesome way to die, but practical. 

When the danger was crumpled into a wet gnarl of bones and metal, their eyes turned to you. Ash said something to his friends in their own language before he stomped across the room and plucked you up like a kitten, cradling you in his arm. 

“Hey, What do you think you’re doing?!” 

“Quiet, little one. You’ll give us away.” 

You puckered your lips at him, annoyed, as if the stomping of five tons of muscle was quiet. When you tried to wave your poker at him, he plucked it out of your hand but didn’t drop it, tucking it instead in his belt. He said something else to his friends before turning to split away from them. 

You had no reason to panic. The Orcs had never harmed you, but being taken away from the group put frightening thoughts in your head, and you instinctively started screaming. 

The Orc sighed, sounding tired, when four more soldiers came skidding around a corner, swords in hand. You looked up at him apologetically, smacking your hand over your mouth to stay the scream that didn’t want to stop. 

He set you on the roof of what was left of a building and pat you on the head, a gesture that you read as “stay” before pulling out his axe. You weren’t going anywhere, even if you wanted to. The drop was fifteen feet down, and the stairs were just charcoal at the base of the building. 

“Attack!” the leader of the soldiers shouted, but their moves in their heavy metal armor were slow. Ash swung his arm in a sweeping stroke that sliced four of them in half where they stood. The other one, eyes wide with horror, turned tail and ran. 

Replacing his axe, he picked you up again and headed into the woods. This time, you had enough sense to keep quiet. 

You’d never been to the Orc camp before, but you heard it before you saw it. The brassy sound of a grinder and hammers on metal rang through the trees, blended with the shouts of the Orcs in their language.  There were lots of huge tents and fires spotted here and there. The camp was buzzing with activity. Orcs ran around shouting at one another, some gathering weapons, some sending groups in the direction you came. You recognized many of them as some of your customers. They often came in groups and hauled away vats of the noodle stew you sold. 

A few Orcs waved at Ash but didn’t pay you much mind as he carried you to the nicest-looking tent. It had a banner outside of it with a gold bear embroidered into the fabric. Ash set you on the ground at the door and handed you your poker before patting you on the back, indicating you should go in. 

“What’s in there?” you asked. 

He said something in Orcish that you didn’t understand and walked away. There were too many other giants around to attempt an escape, so you pulled aside the fur covering the door and peeked inside. 

“Hello?” 

Your question was returned with a deep voice, smooth as a glassy pond. 

“Enter, little one.” 

Taking a few steps inside, you were faced with what you could only describe as the most handsome Orc you’d ever seen. His skin was a deep olive, and his hair fell over his shoulder in a long, dark sheet with small braids here and there. His tusks were large, but they seemed only to highlight how well his lips were formed. His features were harsh and defined but not unattractive, with a straight nose and deep-set gold eyes. The only thing you could point out as a flaw was a dark scar from his forehead to the right corner of his jaw. 

You assumed the Orcs were blunt tools, sprinting into battle with no real plan, but this one was sitting at a high table examining maps with a book in his hand. 

“I’m…I’m not sure why I’m here,” you said, brandishing your poker, though you didn’t feel like you were in any particular danger. 

“I asked Ash to fetch you,” he said without looking up. “You’re the noodle shop woman.” 

“My name is (Y/N), not “noodle shop woman,” and I don’t have a shop anymore. The soldiers burned it.” 

He put his book down and turned his gold eyes to you. 

“That’s why you’re here.” 

“I don’t understand.” 

His eyes drifted over you before they settled on the poker you were still holding up. 

“You were feeding most of the camp. If there’s no shop to visit, you can make noodles here.” 

You blinked up at him. 

“Oh…Am I your prisoner?” 

He chuckled. 

“If you’d like to go back to your people, I won’t stop you, but judging how they burned down your village without hesitation, I think you’re safer with us.” 

You had to admit that made some sense, but you still weren’t buying it. 

“I can’t stay here with you!” 

He tipped his head, the corner of his lip twitching up slightly. 

“Why is that, little one?” 

You narrowed your eyes at him. 

“First of all, I’m NOT little, and second, an Orc camp is no place for a lady.” 

A shudder that had nothing to do with fear shot down your spine as his eyes moved over your body. He crossed the room, scooping you up, and setting you on his table. Your feet dangled far from the ground. 

“What- What are you doing?” you snapped, waving your weapon at him. 

“My neck was hurting from looking down at you. You’re very short.”

The sparkle in his eyes told you he was teasing you, which drew heat to your cheeks. 

“Maybe compared to you. You’re unnecessarily large. What are you doing with all of that muscle? Are you going to arm wrestle your books?” you pouted, eyes drifting to the massive bicep peeking out of the fur vest he wore. 

He laughed out loud, gracing you with a wide smile. 

“You’ll fit right in here.” 

You raised your nose at him, trying to look unconvinced. 

“Where will I even sleep? All of your tents are big and drafty.” 

“Since you’ve declared your intention to court me, I wouldn’t mind if you slept here.” 

“Declared my intention to— Where did you get that idea?” 

He flicked a fingertip at your poker. 

“In the old days, Orc females came to their males' tent and threatened them into submission with their favorite weapon.” 

Your cheeks burned like hot irons, and you almost dropped it. 

“Well…I’m not trying to court you. It’s for protection.” 

He snorted at you but nodded his head. 

“If you say so, little one, but it will be much warmer in my tent if it’s drafts you’re worried about.” 

“I don’t even know your name. Ash called you something in your language. I didn’t understand…” 

He examined one of the feet you had dangling over the edge of his table. Compared to his big hand, it was tiny. 

“Cautalin, it means something close to general in your language, but you can call me Cedar. That’s what my mother named me.” 

Your eyes traveled over his barrel chest and thick arms. 

“Seems about right,” you said, finally setting your poker down. 

He picked it up, looked it over, and tested the weight in his hand. 

“Not a bad choice,” he said. “Light but effective.” 

You glanced up at him through your eyelashes, feeling cheeky. 

“Do you feel like submitting?” 

You watched a flicker of heat ignite in his eyes, and he slowly set it down. 

“Come on, let's get you to bed, killer.” 

He picked you up again, walking you over to a large pallet covered in furs. 

“This is your bed.” 

He gave you another smile. 

“We’re in the middle of a battle; I won't be sleeping tonight. It's all yours.” 

Though you weren't quite sure about sleeping in his bed, weariness overtook you at the sight of the comfortable, cozy furs, and you crawled in, wrapping yourself up to your chin in blankets. 

He put your poker next to you and blew out the candle, slipping out the front flap as you dozed. 

— 

You woke to yelling, but not the sound of battle. Crawling out of your furs, you picked up your poker and peeled out of the flap Cedar used as a door. Another Orc you didn't recognize was the one yelling, and Cedar had his arms crossed, looking bored. 

Your eyes drifted to about twenty women, elderly, and children, cowering in the chilly morning air, their faces streaked with soot from the fire.

“They’re our enemies!” the strange Orc barked. 

“Really, Asvoth? Are you really afraid of a handful of children and their mothers?” 

“This is a war camp, not a nursery.” 

“It's my camp, not yours. They stay.” 

“I outrank you. I can take your command.” 

Cedar snorted. 

“Yet the King hasn't trusted you with a unit of your own. You're nothing more than an errand boy with a fancy title. Any of these children could take your job.” 

Asvoth’s face turned a deep forest green from both embarrassment and indignation. He yanked the sword he wore on his back to his hand. Without thinking, you hopped in front of Cedar, waving your poker at the intruder. You had no idea why, a fact you only considered after you’d already put yourself in harm's way. Still, you'd made your move so the only thing to do was follow through. 

“You heard Cedar! We’re not leaving! Get on if you know what's good for you!” 

Asvoth sprung forward, dropping his sword toward your head. Your eyes squeezed shut, preparing for pain, but there was only the clang of metal. Opening one eye, you glanced up to see Cedar’s axe blocking the other Orc’s blow. 

There was a moment when you thought Asvoth might overtake him, but Cedar’s muscles weren't all for show. He shoved the other Orc back, and he toppled over, landing on his butt in the dirt. His sword landed in front of the children with a CLANG. 

“Woah!”  the little ones cheered, circling around it like it was a strange animal. 

A few of them tried to pick it up, but it was far too heavy, making their eyes pop even wider.

Cedar nodded at him, and a pair of Orcs from the camp dragged Asvoth up by the collar of his tunic, pushing him towards the forest.  

“I'm reporting this!” He shouted over his shoulder as he stumbled towards the woods. 

Cedar waved a hand at one of his Orcs, beckoning him closer. 

“You and Orin follow him and make sure the King gets our side of the story, not his.”  

When the situation seemed settled, Cedar looked down at you and patted your head. 

“Thank you for your protection, little suitor,” he said with a smirk. 

Your cheeks blew up in flames, but you puffed your chest and looked at the children watching Ash pick up the abandoned sword. They hopped around him like little bunnies, begging him to teach them to use it. 

“I have no idea what you mean! I’m here to make noodles! Point me in the direction of my kitchen! These little mouths are probably hungry.” 

He chuckled, but guided you with a large hand on your back to a large tent filled with whatever food supplies they had rescued from the village. You wrinkled your nose at the primitive workspace, but there were enough flour and eggs to work with. You were surprised to find someone had stuck in a lower table, perfect for your height. After washing your hands in a water basin, you got to cooking. 

“What are you still doing here?” you asked Cedar, who had plopped down in a chair and was reading a book. 

He smiled. 

“Reading.” 

You blinked at him, putting your floury fists on your hips. “Are you surveilling me? I’m not going to poison you all! I have to eat this too, you know.” 

He tipped his head to the side, his gold eyes sparkling in the makeshift hearth. 

“The sound of cooking is soothing. I liked to study in the kitchen while my mother cooked when I was a boy.” 

You looked him up and down. 

“I can’t imagine you as a child.” 

You thought for a second, tapping your chin. 

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Orc child, actually.” 

He looked back down at his book, shifting in his seat to get comfortable. 

“You will,” he said as he flipped a page. 

Your brow wrinkled at that nebulous statement, but you knew everyone was hungry after the long night, so you got back to work. 

By midmorning, you had a stewpot big enough to feed an army filled with noodles, vegetables, and what little bit of venison the Orcs had been able to hunt between the battle. 

“All done,” you said, clapping your hands and creating a puff of flour in the air. 

Cedar got up and shouted something to his men, and two Orcs appeared to carry the big vat into the central circle so it could be served. You felt a sense of satisfaction when all the bowls were passed out and the children, tired humans, and bloodied Orcs were eating. The mothers spoke quietly between one another, while the children could hardly sit still, their big eyes following the Orcs every movement. 

“Here.” 

You looked up to find Cedar holding a bowl out to you. A grumbling stomach had you accepting it, and he patted the seat next to him for you to sit down. The two of you ate quietly for a moment before you asked him a question. 

“What are you going to do with all of us?” 

“Hmm?” he asked. 

“Well, I mean when the battle is over. We have nowhere to go. Our town is destroyed.” 

He looked at the children who, after scarfing down their bowls, were engaged in some game with Ash. 

“I was hoping you would all return to our capitol city with us. That’s where we live when we’re not fighting.”

Your eyebrows jumped. 

“To the Orc city? We’re humans. Don’t your people hate us?” 

He shrugged. 

“There are some weak minds who reveal their own fragility with their hate, but the rest of us like your kind. This whole war started because we wished to create allies amongst the humans.” 

“What? The soldiers said you attacked!” 

He chuckled. 

“Your king has a very effective propaganda engine. That’s probably the only thing about him that is effective. We sent a delegation party to him to discuss our interest in mingling with you humans. You all are prolific; despite your size, you’re a sturdy bunch. We thought marriages would bolster our numbers and strengthen your stock. Your King attacked, and we were forced to defend ourselves. The force that attacked us was decimated, and he declared war.” 

“You mean…you wish to mate with us?” 

His eyes slid down to you, and he gave you a sharp nod. 

“Is that so surprising?” 

You thought about it for a moment. 

“I don’t know…Maybe a little. You’re so strong. You’re not afraid we’ll diminish you?” 

His thick hand cupped your chin and rubbed some flour away with his thumb. Your heart raced at his touch. 

“Size is not what makes us strong. Our strength lies in our unbreakable bonds. Your King will be defeated, not because his forces are less than ours, but because he orders his men to betray his own people.” 

He nodded towards the children, who were playing chicken fight on Ash and another Orc’s shoulders. 

“They will remember it was men who burned down their village, stole their fathers from them, assaulted their mothers and Orcs who took them in, fed them, and helped them smile again. 

“I suppose you’re right,” you agreed. 

His smile widened. 

“I will remember you took up arms to protect me against an enemy twice your size. You belong among the us.” 

Suddenly the wool dress you wore was much too hot. 

“I should go wash these before the next meal,” you squeaked, grabbing his empty bowl and scurrying away.

Once safe in the kitchen tent, you pressed your hand against your chest, trying to still your heart. Why did Cedar make you feel so fluttery? You’d never felt this way around anyone before. You usually kept to yourself and steered clear of romance. It had to be the battle, you decided. You were still hyped up from the night before. In a day or so, you were sure it would pass. 

Dunking empty bowls in ice-cold river water helped cool your thoughts as you tried to focus on what to make for dinner. The Orcs stocks were pretty hefty, but they and the children ate a lot. You’d noticed many of the parents tipping some of their bowls into their little one’s, making sure they were fed properly in case the next meal didn’t come. 

It saddened you it had to be this way. What horrible person decides to burn down their own citizens' village? Who was the King even protecting you from? Not the Orcs, that’s for sure. 

A loud rabble outside dragged your attention away from the dishes, and you picked up your poker before peeking your head outside. 

A few Orc scouts were speaking in rapid Orcish to Cedar. When they paused, his eyes immediately looked around for the children and frowned before he spoke to you all. 

“The human King has sent reinforcements. They will close on our camp by nightfall.” 

The mothers all gathered their children to their skirts, looking weary. 

“Women and children to the kitchen tent! We will keep you safe, but you must stay hidden!” 

You made way as a small stampede of humans rushed past you, many pushing their children to hide under the table. 

“What’s happening?” You asked Cedar as people and Orcs rushed around. 

He scrubbed his hand over his jaw, looking disturbed. 

“Someone ran back to your King with a story that we’d kidnapped you, not taken you in from starving in a burnt-down village. We will win this fight, but then we will have to make the journey back to the capitol. They will keep attacking if they think you’re within their grasp. Do you think you can explain this to your people? We don’t intend to take anyone by force, but I wouldn’t trust the King’s soldiers.”

“Yes, of course. Whatever you need.”

You hurried back to the kitchen, where the humans were muttering to one another. 

“Should we flee to the forest?” Isla, the former town candlemaker, asked. “Can we depend on the Orcs to protect us?” 

Another woman scoffed. 

“We can’t trust anyone. These Orcs are kind now, but they’ll sell us out at the drop of a hat.” 

Linda, a quiet woman who worked as a weaver, whimpered. 

“But we’ll starve in the forest alone. Word is the King’s men have raized every town for fifty miles!” 

You inserted yourself into the conversation, holding up your hands. 

“No one needs to escape to the woods. The Orcs are going to take us back to their capitol to keep us safe.” 

Linda squeaked in horror. 

“The Orc capitol?! Where they can enslave us?!” 

“They have no plan to enslave you. Don’t you want your children to be safe? We will be safe behind their walls!” 

“Or…when the King takes the city we’ll all be hung as traitors!” 

“Shawna, don’t put that in her head. Linda, we’ll be fine. I trust Cedar.” 

You paused on that thought, realizing not only was it true, it didn’t make any sense. You’d only just met him. Your conversation was interrupted by the shouting of men outside. 

“We’ll talk about this later,” you hissed, “Here, take this.” 

You armed the humans with whatever haphazard weapons you could find, mostly butcher knives and skillets. 

Outside, you could hear the clang of weapons and the squelching sounds of metal piercing flesh. 

“What's happening?” Linda asked, trying to get around you so she could peek out of the tent flap. 

“Stay back!” You barked. “If they see us, we’re in trouble!” 

You could tell she was losing it, hopping from one foot to another, her hands getting slippery on her knife. 

“No, no, no,” she whimpered. “I don’t want to go with the Orcs. Even a human monster is better than them!” 

Before you could grab her, she skipped through the doorway, running wildly into the fray. The other humans gathered around you, their opinions spilling out like loose marbles. 

“What is she thinking?!” 

“Linda, come back!” 

“Let her go, she’s nuts.” 

You clenched your jaw, squeezing your iron poker. 

“She’s scared. I’ll go get her…you all stay put!” 

Before anyone could stop you, you darted after her, trying to catch sight of her red skirt through the mess of armour-clad humans and massive Orcs. The King had sent a much larger force than the one that had burned down your village. The battle around you was brutal. You almost slipped on a puddle of blood, your eyes frantically searching for Linda. 

You found her pointing her knife with shaking hands at a human soldier. 

“What are you doing? I’m a human, too!” 

“The King ordered you all dead!” he snarled, raising his sword at her. “No witnesses! Come on, do your duty to the kingdom, and die quietly!” 

Panicking, you launched yourself at him, whacking him with your poker as you barreled into him. The two of you went down, metal clashing as you fell and dropped your weapons. Both of you scrabbled for purchase in the blood-soaked earth. You could hear Linda screeching beside you as you tried to overpower the soldier. His armor, now slick with mud, made it impossible to get a hold of him, and he triumphantly dragged himself to his sword, clumsily grabbing it by the blade and flinging it in your direction. You saw the metal flash in the firelight before pain exploded between your eyes, and your vision went black. 

—

“Please tell me she’s not dead,” you heard Linda’s voice from far away. 

Isla scoffed. 

“You’d better hope she’s not, Linda. This is all your fault!” 

“I'm sorry!” she simpered, “I made a mistake! I thought the soldiers were here to free us!” 

“Free us from what? A good meal and a safe place to sleep?”

You dragged your eyelids open, vision blurry for a moment before it cleared. 

“What…what happened?” you murmured. 

“She’s awake!” Isla gasped. 

You felt her cool hands against your cheek. 

“Take it slow, here; have some water.” 

She pushed a tin cup into your hands, and you wet your palette with a few sips. Looking around, you were surrounded by the humans, all looking very concerned. 

“Is everyone okay?” you asked. 

Isla smirked, and the other women tittered a bit. 

“Thanks to you, I suppose. That chieftain or warlord or whatever saw you get knocked in the head and went berzerk. He killed most of the soldiers all by himself.” 

Another woman poked her head out of the tent. 

“She’s okay! You guys can untie him!” 

“Untie who? Is the battle over?” 

Isla nodded.

“Yeah, all the soldiers are dead. We’ve all been waiting for you to wake up so we can move the camp before the King sends anymore. Can you believe he ordered them to kill us? I guess so he could claim the Orcs did it and get more support for the war.”

She smirked at you. 

“And as for who's tied up, your Orc friend thought you were dead. The others had to tie him up so he wouldn’t go on a rampage. He was ready to storm the King’s stronghold! You ought to see the ropes they had to use…thick as your waist!” 

You heard the roll of stomping feet, and Cedar burst through the tent flap. His hair was wild, and his tunic was red with blood. He fell to his knees in front of you, holding his hands as if he couldn’t decide if you were safe to touch. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, carefully prodding the bandage you had wrapped around your head. “That monster didn’t do any permanent damage, did he?” 

“She’ll have a scar,” Isla said, “but I think she’s fine.” 

Cedar’s face lightened, pulling you towards him, his big arms wrapping around you. 

“Thank the goddess,” he sighed with a heavy breath. “I thought they’d taken you from me.” 

He cupped your cheeks between his palms when he finally let you go. 

“You are so stupidly brave, little one,” he gasped, eyes wet. “You have more honor than your people deserve.” 

Behind him, Isla waved the women out of the tent, leaving the two of you alone. Not used to so much intimate attention, your cheeks warmed, and you weren’t sure where to look. 

“I just didn’t want Linda to get hurt,” you muttered. 

He gave you an odd smile, scooping you out of the cot you’d woken up in. 

“Once I get you to our home in the capitol, I’m going to have to keep you locked up for your own safety,” he said, patting your head. 

You looked up at him from where you were tucked, leaning on his bicep. 

“Our home?” 

He grinned at you, counting on his fingers. 

“First step to Orc courting: Threaten your desired with your weapon. Done. Step two: Allure them with your cooking skills, cooking or hunting something delicious. Done. And the final step: Display your honor through a grand act of bravery. Done! You’ve effectively and thoroughly seduced me, little one! All that’s left is to take you home!” 

He tipped your chin up with one thick finger and dipped his head to press his lips against yours. Your whole body felt like it was made of butterflies, every nerve flickering with excitement. Despite being covered in blood and mud, his kiss tasted like honey and sage. It felt like a warm cup of tea on a chilly morning. Your eyelashes fluttered shut and you sank into his warmth, despite yourself, happy to be alive and in his arms.

“Oh!” you gasped as he straightened his neck.

Your mouth fell open, unsure what to say. Before you could think of anything, Cedar carried you out of the tent, shouting orders at his men to pack up the camp so you could leave for the capitol.

[unyandere]

Yandere clown x reader who did war crimes

Tw: war crimes, yanderish behaviour, misunderstandings (in the somehow good way), detailed description of a crime.

Do you want to read more *peculiar* unyandere stories? Here comes to the rescue the masterpost

Yandere clown Who was having a bit of a bad day, his performance that morning was worse than usual and his tricks didn’t seem to amuse the public anymore, he was still the star of the circus, but he was already thinking of leaving the circus, but then he saw you with the circus’s director, talking about getting a job in the circus, possibly as an acrobat or as a mage since you knew lots of “Amazing” tricks.

It was love at first sight, your beautiful hair, your perfect angelic face and that voice of yours… it seemed sooo perfect.

The director said that he’s have to think about that for a day or two and asked you to come back on the last day the circus was in town to get your answer.

As soon as you got out the Yandere clown approached the director and asked him to make you join.

The director was a bit hesitant at first, saying something about you being known for your violence and unpredictability, but gave in after the clown threatened to leave the circus if the director didn’t make you join. To be fair he was willing to do something much worse if the director said no…

So … you got the job! You were an acrobat that performed just after the clown’s performance, sometimes even performing with him during his act.

You two worked really well together creating amusing performances for the public.

After most shows you two went out eating some food.

“So what did you use to do before becoming a clown?” You asked one time while eating lunch, spending time with the clown wasn’t bad, he seemed like a pretty cool and trustworthy guy and while you didn’t really care about his private life you liked to engage in conversations with him.

“Accountant, and you?” The clown on the other hand was really curious about your past, he still remembered what the director said before employing you.

“Ah! I did all kinds of things, but I never got a real job!” You were still a bit uncertain if the clown could be trusted with those info.

“Like what?” He asked smirking, expecting something about gangs or maybe drugs.

“I did kill a couple of guys, a former boss of a cartel, a couple of gangs and some things like that,…” you said with non-chalance.

The clown thought you were joking, there was no way someone as cute as you could ever harm someone, you looked so weak and defenceless!

“Oh, really? You strangled him with your little itty-bitty arms?” He asked sarcastically.

Unfortunately, you didn’t get the sarcasm.

“Oh no, that would have been inefficient, I used some nightshade berries, did you know that those berries contain lots of atropine? Just a couple of them can kill a grown man in a matter of minutes, and while it can be traced most people mistake nightshade poisoning with other types of poisons and give useless antidotes giving time to the poison to kill the victim. And if you mix the berries in a box full of blue berries an unsuspecting individual could mistakenly eat even more than a couple of them!” You explained.

Now, to say that the clown was a bit shocked was an understatement: he didn’t know you were this good at making jokes! He almost believed you killed a guy with poison, but you were so harmless and innocent, you were obviously joking!

“I see~ I didn’t know you were so good at making jokes!” He said winking at you.

You mistook his winking as a way of telling you he’d keep the secret. So you decided to tell him a bit more about your past.

“You know those weren’t the only thing I did” you said looking at him.

“Oh, really?” He said expecting another joke.

“Yeah, you know the so called Ghost massacre? I was the one behind it!” You said waiting for his reaction.

The clown laughed.

“You mean the one in which all those people were crucified in a square?” He asked, looking at you with a smile.

You both had a twisted humor, he thought, it was fate that made you two meet.

“Yeah, do you know how difficult it is to kill so many people, to build some good crosses, put them in a square without anyone noticing and bringing the people on the damn crosses?! My whole body hurt so bad for two weeks!” You commented remembering the pain you felt at that time, you had to come up with a good excuse, but your doctor pretty much believed everything you said.

“Oh my! Then next time I’ll help you carry your crosses! How does it sound?” Jest the clown, taking your last joke as the proof that you were made for him, who else but his soulmate could have such a similar humor to his!

On the other hand you took his joke as a promise.

You thought he said that he’d help you with your crimes and you were sooo thrilled at the idea.

Your hands missed the feeling of putting poison in a cup to get your victims.

And so your strange relationship started.

A clown convinced of being with someone as funny as him and a (probably) war criminal convinced of having a loyal accomplice.

[botaniqueer]

Anyone who denies the Holocaust is a nasty bigot who erases and invalidates the suffering countless marginalized groups, but the Holocaust (very much real!!) is talked about in a propagandic manner, in that the US and its allies set the narrative in such a way that portrays them as the unambiguous heroes and objectively good.

If the Holocaust was taught honestly, it would be mentioned that the US and Canada turned away refugees including Anne Frank's family. The Allies were also all fine with marginalized people getting killed; eugenics was very popular at the time with all of them. They got involved when the Axis started encroaching on them, and not to save vulnerable populations. "Saving the Jews" was just a side effect, and unfortunately something they use to justify the ongoing Nakba, slaughtering countless Palestinians over the past century.

If the US actually respected the story of the Holocaust like it very pleadingly claims it does, it would have mentioned all this, alongside all the other genocides it and its now-allies have been involved with. (It structurally cannot do this, for it would invalidate its own existence if done in full.)

Along with being Jewish, I am also Filipino so I have another genocide under my belt that the US has involvement in. The Philippine genocide (TW for old BW photos of death, destruction, descriptions of war crimes) is rarely taught, probably because the US can't (falsely) claim to be the hero, and also because it's geographically removed.

"Kill everyone over the age of ten [and make the island] a howling wilderness" is a quote from a notoriously bloodthirsty US army officer involved with the genocide and who may have killed up to 5,000 people.

This is partially a late night stream-of-conscious post on genocide and how the US and its allies frame it, partially some longer-stewing thoughts I had been wanting to write on for a while.

[fedtothenight]

tw for graphic description of suicide and cyber bullying

on october 9th, 2023, an italian call of duty cosplayer going by the name inquisitor committed suicide on live tiktok.

for hours his body lay offscreen as hundreds of people watched the stream, and some ironised that the phone set-up, angled towards a glass door to the outside, with no speaking and music in the background, was him being “mysterious”.

then, a hit against the glass door. another one. another one. a man was seen break in, crouch down off screen, receiving instructions on how to perform cpr from a woman still outside, on the phone with a 111 operator.

the live ended just after paramedics came into view, thanks to the reports of some users who had understood what had been unfolding in front of their eyes.

for a day, conflicting information regarding the outcome of his attempt flooded tiktok. it is now seemingly proven that he is no longer on this earth and that his funerals are today, october 11th 2023. in italy, it is common for funerals to happen within a 48-hour window from passing.

inquisitor was 23 at the time of his death.

weeks prior, inquisitor, who had privated all his accounts before reactivating for this last live, was accused of grooming and pedophilia. screenshots came out of him allegedly flirting with a 17 year old and/or a 15 year old. the cod community rallied around the minor(s): he was, to put it in tiktok terms, ‘cancelled’. he was named a p*dophile and a groomer.

other popular accounts, with thousands of followers, posted ‘call out’ videos about him, spreading the voice. the same accounts, the ‘batman of the fandom defending minors’, barely old teenagers themselves, mocked his live as it was happening — claiming it was for clout.

it had since emerged that the allegations were, allegedly, false. yesterday, multiple other cosplayers and users in the fandom posted screen-recordings of the minor admitting that they had lied about their age to flirt with him—who had a ‘minors dni’ in his bio.

it has since further been alleged, with screenshots, that the minor and their boyfriend orchestrated the call out, with the latter, who claims to be in the us army, egging the minor to ramp up their flirting until it became sexting. it is not proven it ever got to that point. the intentions to ruin someone’s reputation, however, were apparently there.

in italy, which is not the usa, and where high school is compasses ages 13 to 20 for those who do repeat years, it is also culturally accepted for someone in their early twenties to flirt or date someone who is around 18.

this is true irrespective of anyone’s feelings about it.

regardless of all that, regardless of whatever amount of the allegations, it not all, were false, a young man is dead and his death was live-streamed to thousands of people. in his own words to one of his friends, who showed some of his last messages, he committed suicide live on purpose to show what the past few weeks had done to him.

it should have never come to this point. at least please let it be a reminder that mob mentality is deadly, that we should never let go of our empathy, and that all suspected crimes, especially if this serious, should be reported to and dealt with by the proper authorities, not people on the internet.

i won’t stay his name because to the best of my knowledge he only gave it out privately, but: he was 23. he loved star wars and worked in a tattoo shop. he lived in bologna. he liked tortellini. he had a cat named loki and a sister who sometimes joined his lives off-screen. he was loved. all this information he gave freely.

although denial still wants to make me hope he made it out, and that he is okay, and alive and well, because what’s what denial does, my thoughts go out to him, to his family, to his friends.

inquisitor, if you're not here anymore: sit tibi terra levis.

[kunikidas-lost-glasses]

Nikolai saving Fyodor - Fyolai Drabble

HEAVY SPOILERS FOR BSD SEASON 5 AND ESPECIALLY FOR BSD SEASON 5 EPISODE 11 UNDERNEATH

Nikolai didn't gave Dazai and Fyodor poison in this. There was some other stuff in the injections but no poison. He just wanted to make the game more interesting and funky/entertaining.

Important to note: This drabble is connected to my BSD Fix-It AU with the only change being the circumstances under which Nikolai saved Fyodor and the reason why Dazai told Atsushi to write down that Fyodor would lose his ability.

It's not needed to necessarily read my other post in order to understand this post.

It's only important to know that the ADA managed to obtain the page and that Dazai told Atsushi to write on it that Fyodor would lose his ability. He knew about the consequences it would have and while he hoped that Fyodor was gone for good, he wanted to make sure that if he would really somehow manage to come back, he wouldn't try to start a war again, not trusting him at all.

This AU works with the theory that Fyodor is highly influenced by his ability.

TWs (PLEASE take them seriously): Mentions and descriptions of blood (a lot of blood), descriptions of injuries, panic, crying (a lot of crying), medical procedures, descriptions of being in pain, mentions of fever, mentions of getting sick, mentions of the medical procedure of stitching up/suturing wounds, descriptions of treating wounds, descriptions of struggling with loosing the ability to use one hand, descriptions/mentions of utterly neglecting oneself, slightly implied depersonalization/derealization, slight mention of feeling numb, mentions of death, mentions of being heavily influenced by something, short slight mention of one of Nikolai's graphic crimes (they were mentioned when the ADA took his case), mention of scars

Maybe a bit ooc. (I understand the characters I swear. I just enjoy writing stuff which is a tiny bit ooc to allow more fluff to happen. However I tried to make it not extremely ooc though.)

(I did bend the rules of legitimacy/reality a bit in regard to treating the injuries in order to make this possible as well as a bit more easier to write.)

It's all hurt/comfort tho and it does have a lot of fluff towards the end. I promise.

Word count: 6341 words in total

He didn't know what came over him but before the helicopter crashed into the tower of the prison, Nikolai used his ability to drag Fyodor into one of his portals.

Dazai and Chuuya didn't notice him using his ability.

As soon as Chuuya and Dazai left, entering the prison one more time in order to get Sigma out of there, hoping that he would be still alive, Nikolai hectically opened up a portal himself and used it to rush into one of his many hideouts in which he had teleported Fyodor

Nikolai had never felt so glad about all the different little hideouts he had everywhere where Fyodor would be in case he needed him for a plan.

Searching a hotel room where he could try to save the Russian would become quite difficult and bringing him to a hospital while both of them were wanted criminals (one of them on the run and one of them officially pronounced dead to the public) wasn't something he could do.

Nikolai wasn't thinking clearly anymore when he arrived in the shabby little house which he called his hideout and which he had purchased under one of his many many fake identities.

In fact, he wasn't really thinking at all anymore. At least not what he would normally think.

He always expected that if he would ever see Fyodor dying, he would be filled with a sense of relief, a happy and freeing feeling, knowing that he finally reached his goal and became free.

However now this wasn't the case at all.

The only things he felt were panic and some kind of denial.

He couldn't believe what had just happened. In one minute he was chatting with Fyodor who was sitting well and alive in the helicopter, his mind already filled with excitement, imaging their upcoming new game which would have something just between them and the next minute Fyodor had been stabbed in the stomach with a metal bar which was pinning him in place, his white prison suit was covered in red, thoroughly soaked with his own blood while his body was shaking and his voice was filled with pain.

Never once had Nikolai seen Fyodor in this much pain, never once had he seen the emotions of his dear friend written so clearly and openly all over his face and not once had he himself felt so awful before. Not once has he felt such fear while his own life wasn't in danger at all.

He had felt utter sadness and heartbreak before, yes. But not such a nearly hysterical panic.

It was deep, painful sadness which ran through his veins, squeezing his heart together when he had noticed that the eyes of his childhood friend with whom he had lived together on the streets and with whom he fell in love became more hazy, losing all the light in it and when his tiredness and mature character which came from all the trauma he already had to go through since a young age slowly turned into a harsh cold personality.

Nikolai could do nothing when Fyodor's ability started to take over his friend more and more as they grew older, influencing his mind and with that his personality as well as his actions thoroughly, seemingly merging Fyodor Crime and Punishment until Fyodor slowly became a part of his ability himself. Cold, cruel and harsh.

He could only watch as Fyodor started to act and when Punishment would take over completely for short periods of time. He was unable to do anything, knowing that the ability itself was just as intelligent as the one who wielded it.

Still, he knew exactly when Fyodor, even though his mind was still heavily influenced, was coming through more and still he knew exactly that the goal was to get rid of all ability users and with that all abilities came from his Fyodor.

Surprisingly, he couldn't bring himself to love Fyodor any less, despite his more cold and cruel personality.

The sadness however, still ran deep.

But he had never felt any panic and fear like this. Not when his own life wasn't in danger.

He had expected that the moment he would see Fyodor dying would bring him joy but the expected joy was a feeling of panic and denial which clouded all his mind and made it hard to think straight and instead of feeling a sense of victory upon seeing Fyodor's face twisted in pain, he felt sick to the stomach when he saw him spitting out a concerning amount of blood, feeling like vomiting himself.

If he could think straight, he would have possibly wondered why his mind wasn't acting up, refusing to try to treat his friend in order to reach his goal but now, he only could think about saving his friend, hoping that it wasn't too late.

He rushed into the bedroom in which he had placed Fyodor on the little bed, nearly tripping twice on his way due to running so fastly through the hallways.

Upon finally reaching the bedroom, seeing his friend, he felt his heart sink.

By now, Fyodor had fully passed out, his body lying limp on the bed. His face was covered in cold sweat, his hair sticking to his forehead and the now visible large stab wound was bleeding like crazy.

If Nikolai wouldn't have been used to seeing very disturbing things, he would have probably vomited but even now he still felt incredibly sick, not due to the injury but from seeing his dear friend like this.

For a short moment, he stood next to the bed like frozen before quickly bending down to check if Fyodor was still breathing and if he still had a pulse.

He knew that the chances were slim and he nearly didn't dare to check but he had to.

Upon feeling a faint pulse and upon feeling Fyodor breathing even though it were small and uneven breaths which he took, he felt like a giant weight got lifted off his heart, which felt like it was close to shattering in thousands of pieces, breaking beyond repair anyways.

However, he still couldn't feel real relief until he knew that Fyodor was in a stable shape again.

He knew that he had a lot to do now, knowing that he was still alive but he had barely any time due to Fyodor bleeding out at a rapid speed from his stab wound but also from his injured hand and the wound where Sigma had shot him.

Trying to frantically stop the bleeding through applying pressure to the wound, Nikolai remembered the trick he did with Sigma when the latter was bleeding out from where he was shot.

Sigma's injury had been way smaller, he had lost much less blood and he wasn't in such a bad shape as Fyodor at all but he knew that doing this trick once again, would at least give him some more time.

Carefully, he pushed Fyodor into his portal before looping him through the two portals which he had opened up, slowly letting some blood flow back into his body.

This time, he was much more careful than he was with Sigma and it didn't bring him any kind of entertainment at all.

He also reduced the distance between the two portals to being as small as possible, not wanting to let Fyodor fall through the air longer than needed.

After being sure that Fyodor had more blood in his body again, he quickly lifted him back on the bed, using his ability once more to grab the box in which he stored all his medical supplies from the bathroom, not wanting to waste any time and not wanting to leave Fyodor's side.

As soon as he held the box in his hands, he placed it on the bed, opening it with shaky hands and grabbing one of scissors inside of it in order to cut open the prisoner suit in order to treat Fyodor.

After cutting the remaining parts of the upper half of the jumpsuit open, he grabbed a cloth from the bathroom with his ability, pressing it onto the wound, trying to stop the bleeding while trying not to worry about the fact that Fyodor didn't even flinched or made any pained noise upon Nikolai putting pressure on the large wound on his stomach.

Nikolai himself was only taking short hitched breaths anymore as he watched how the previously brightly colored cloth slowly got soaked in the blood of his dearest friend, turning more and more red with every passing second.

After some time, of trying to slow down the bleeding and after using the portal loop a couple of times more to give him more time, he finally had the bleeding a bit under control which meant that he now came to the part he feared the most.

Nikolai had treated many wounds before.

He had been the one to clean and stitch up Sigma's wound while they were in a hotel on the way to the prison.

He didn't really feel scared that day. He knew that he had already treated and stitched wounds of his own already so why shouldn't it work with Sigma's wound.

Sigma himself wasn't really scared either. He had been lying on the bed, looking like all the life had been sucked out of him, the realization that his casino was really gone and that all the people in it were dead had crashed down on him, shortly after their little conversation after he had woken up again after falling from the Sky Casino.

If anything, Nikolai had been more scared of Sigma's clearly upcoming breakdown which was brooding inside of him, even if he was still feeling numb at the moment.

Nikolai also hadn't been scared when he had treated his own wounds, stitching them up himself.

He had done it multiple times as a child living on the streets in the Ukraine until Fyodor joined him, insisting to treat Nikolai's wounds.

Hell, he had even skinned a person before and didn't feel scared. Numb yes. Like he was watching it happen in a movie theater, yes. But not scared.

However now his hands wouldn't stop shaking and his breathing became even more quicker and hitched but he knew that it was the only way to save Fyodor.

Noone else besides him would treat his wounds. They had nowhere else to go.

He hectically grabbed the little chair which was standing in the room, pulling it next to the bed, sitting down on it, removing his now bloody gloves, putting on some medical gloves which had been in the box as well, placing everything he needed to start treating the wound properly on a new cloth on the bed, taking a needle into his hand.

Taking a deep breath, he told himself quietly that he had to pull himself together now and that he had done this many times before but that his hands had to stop shaking now or else he would mess it up.

It was one of the few times Nikolai genuinely prayed.

Nikolai didn't know how long he treated Fyodor's wounds and his hand but it felt like hours.

He made use of all the medical knowledge he had from books and from Fyodor himself as well.

He had asked his friend a couple of times before about random medical stuff, simply because he wanted his friend's attention and because he had wanted to talk with him and he had never been so glad about the fact that he asked him about it and listened to him before.

After he finally dressed the wounds, putting multiple layers on them before wrapping them all up in clean white bandages as well as after wrapping the hand up, he felt all the energy which mainly came from his panic as well as from his sheer willpower and his wish to save his friends life fade out of his body, his body practically slumping together on the chair as he still somewhat propped himself up, elbows on the bed and his head leaning against his hands.

The silence around him felt both defening and calming as he only now realized how quiet it was.

Only his own and Fyodor's hitched breathing were the only noises in the room.

While taking a couple deep breaths, he realized that he really did it, that Fyodor's life was (for now) pretty much saved but also realized what he just did, that he saved him instead of killing him, realizing that Sigma was right when he once told him that Nikolai was unable to kill Fyodor, that he needed him and was still attached to him too much to kill him off and that he still loved him more than anything but also, upon him finally coming out of his panicked state, tears started to form in Nikolai's eyes and he was by no means able to stop them from falling down his cheeks.

He was too tired and felt too much to even think about stopping them and like that, Nikolai sat next to the bed on which Fyodor who now looked like was sleeping if one ignored the sweat on his face, the hitched breathing and the thick bandages, was lying, crying more than he ever cried before.

He cried for more than an hour, his mind a mess and everything from the past weeks crashing down on him.

Eventually he didn't even knew if he cried because of the relief after saving Fyodor or because he was so mad at himself or maybe because he realized how deeply wrong he was or maybe because he felt so torn apart but he still wouldn't stop crying. The tears continued falling down his face and he felt like he would never stop crying.

Eventually he did though.

After the crying finally quieted down, he felt more worn-out and even more like all his energy and life got sucked out of him.

Everything hurted, he had a pounding headache and light hurted in his now swollen red eyes while his face felt like it was about to explode in general.

Slowly sitting up again, slumping against the backlean of the creaking chair, he let his gaze wander over Fyodor and the bed.

There was blood everywhere on the bed and on his medical supplies, the room was a mess, used cloths, cotton balls and tissues were lying around everywhere, his own purple now reddish stained gloves were lying next to the bed and Fyodor somehow still looked breathtakingly beautiful.

Nikolai just hoped that Fyodor would handle it well, especially because of his anemia or else he would have to steal some blood transfusions from the nearest hospital.

It would be no problem. He knew how to do it, he knew Fyodor's blood type for whatever reason he couldn't recall anymore by now and after what he had just done, a blood transfusion was nothing compared to it but he knew all the risks which came with one and it was really something which he had never done before unlike treating a wound (even though he has never treated such a large and drastical wound before and even though he had usually never saved lives before) so it was really something he only wanted to do if there was no other way anymore.

Besides this he wanted to draw as less police attention to his surroundings as possible so he wanted to refrain from committing any crime but if he had to do it for Fyodor he would do it without having to think about it twice.

He looked with tired and nearly empty eyes at the scene before him for quite some time before he scratched together all the willpower and energy he had left in his body to drag himself out of his chair in order to clean up a bit.

He cleaned the room and the bed a bit up, carefully cleansed all his medical supplies if he would need them again in case of an emergency and washed his hands which were stained with blood from when he tried to stop the bleeding earlier.

Afterwards, he fully got Fyodor out of his prison clothes and dressed him into some lose pyjama pants of his own.

They were way too big and way too long for him but he didn't wanted to let him lie there in either a torn apart bloody prison jumpsuit or just in his underwear.

He also put him some of his warmest socks on, not wanting to let the other freeze before placing multiple blankets on top of him.

He didn't wanted to put on a shirt on him since he needed to frequently change his bandages and also in case he quickly had to do something on the wound again but he also didn't wanted to let Fyodor freeze or get sick on top of all so he gathered all the blankets he had lying around or which he had stored in his portals, placing them on top of Fyodor.

He also put his hand on a spare pillow so that it would lay a bit higher, knowing that it would help for a better blood flow but also reducing the risk of Fyodor accidentally touching it in case he would start to move. And Nikolai wanted so badly that he would start moving soon.

Seeing Fyodor's body lie there so limp, made his heart sink each and every time he looked at him again.

His hand was beyond fixing. Nikolai did his best but it was so injured that he probably only could move it and the fingers a little bit.

It still worked but he most likely could never use it as much as before.

After everything was done, Nikolai sat on his chair next to Fyodor for the next days, holding his injured hand gently, looking at him, monitoring his breathing, checking his overall shape and looking out for him him general without a break.

Only when he felt close to passing out he would force himself to get up to drink something and to nibble on a slice of bread or whatever random "snack" he would find but he couldn't really eat anything. He didn't want to eat anything.

The only thing he wanted was Fyodor to wake up. To look at him again with those hypnotizing purple eyes of his in which he could get lost ever since they met and to speak to him again.

He would even be fine with Fyodor telling him that he would kill him. He just wanted him to wake up and to hear his soothing deep voice with the heavy Russian accent which he loved so much.

Just like when he cleaned the room and dressed Fyodor, watching over him he felt like in some kind of trance. Everything just passed by. He was caught up in his thoughts, thinking about Fyodor, about Punishment, about what happened, about his childhood, about their shared childhood, about his ideology, about freedom and his love.

He never noticed when he fell asleep. Sleeping and being awake kind of blurred together.

Often he would dream about Fyodor and about them as children on the streets. How he once took care of Fyodor in another cold and cruel winter when he got sick, shoplifting medicine and holding the shivering Fyodor in his arms as he sat on the ground the empty side alley in which they always slept, his panic rising the higher Fyodor's fever got and about how he wrapped his own coat about Fyodor in a desperate attempt to keep him warm and shield him from the cold which surrounded them even if that meant that he would freeze himself. As long as he could help Fyodor he was happy.

He dreamt about how he prayed while Fyodor's fever was the highest it had ever been and he dreamt about how he cried in happiness when Fyodor started to eat, talk and walk around again, finally feeling better.

He dreamt about them dancing around. He dreamt about the prison about the helicopter he dreamed over and over about Fyodor's pained expression but he also dreamed about how they would sometimes lie together in the bed of Fyodor's apartment at night, holding each other after Nikolai came over to Fyodor's place once again after having a nightmare, Nikolai listening to Fyodor's steady heartbeat, neither of them saying a word, only hugging each other, knowing that there will never happen more between them than this. A faint reminder of how close they once were as teens trying to survive.

He dreamt of purple eyes, cold but gentle and soft bony hands, black hair and the sound of a feather quill scratching over paper as well as flickering screens with the purple symbol of the rats.

He dreamt about birds and freedom.

The days would pass like this, Nikolai never leaving Fyodor's side for longer than a couple of minutes until one day after nearly a whole week, Fyodor's body tensed up, his face twisting in pain for a second, his breathing becoming quicker before he managed to open his eyes a bit, blinking a couple of times before his eyes fully focused on his surroundings.

Nikolai stared at him with wide eyes, not really daring to believe that what he was seeing was real and not a dream.

Upon gaining more and more consciousness, Fyodor sucked in a sharp breath due to all the pain he felt but his mind was still too clouded to really register where the pain was coming from.

He didn't recognize his surroundings so he moved his head a bit to look around but seeing who was sitting next to him wasn't something he would have expected at all.

Upon seeing Nikolai sitting next to him, staring at him with wide eyes, a mixture of happiness, relief and disbelief written all over his face, Fyodor's own eyes widenth.

He was the first one to break the silence between them, Nikolai seemingly not daring to do anything, still not really believing what was happening.

It took him a lot of energy but he managed to say Nikolai's name, his voice being awfully hoarse and sounding fragile and weak.

As soon as Nikolai heard Fyodor call out his name, he left his frozen state and tears welled up in his eyes.

Fyodor looked at him in shock upon seeing the other tear up, still not really being able to fully wrap his head around what happened and that he was alive but despite his mind being all messy, he tried to squeeze the other's hand out of reflex, only to realize that he couldn't really move his hand before a piecing pain shot through his body making him flinch hard, causing another wave of pain to roll through his whole body this time and not only through his arm.

After the pain got a bit less again, he finally realized that his stomach and his shoulder were covered in thick heavy bandages which were neatly wrapped around him as well that wasn't wearing any prison clothes anymore.

The memories of what happened before he passed out came back as well and while he had been so sure that that was it, he was now lying here and since he could tell that this wasn't any official hospital or an infirmary at the prison he knew exactly who brought him here and who saved him.

Upon realizing all of this, he looked at all the blankets covering him before looking back at Nikolai with such a soft yet pained gaze.

It was then when he saw how awful Nikolai looked. He had lost a lot of weight, there were deep dark shadows under his eyes, he still wore his clown costume, just the hat, the card covering his eye and his gloves were missing but it looked messy and there were blood stains all over it. However since Nikolai didn't seemed to be injuried at all, Fyodor could tell that it was all his own blood which was still all over Nikolai's clothes, showing him that he hadn't even changed after cleaning up, hurrying next to his side again to stay with him.

His white hair was a mess as well and looked like it hasn't been combed since days. Even his braid which was usually done all neatly and accurate was a mess, strands of hair being out of the braid here and there and the bow at the end of the braid seemingly trying it's best to hold the last remains of the once braided hair together.

Nikolai was pale and looked more worn-out and tired than Fyodor had ever seen him and to his surprise, he felt his heart sink upon seeing his friend like this.

He wanted to say something, asking Nikolai what he had done but before he could say anything, Nikolai cried out that he hated him, tears starting to fall down.

Fyodor was caught off guard at first before a soft smile spread across his lips and he managed to say "Thank you Koyla" before he tensed up again, another wave of pain making his body feel like it was getting stabbed in the stomach all over again.

Nikolai stared at him in disbelief before gently lifting Fyodor's bandaged hand to his own face, cradling it and holding it softly against his cheek, looking at Fyodor with a wobbly smile before breaking down crying once again, not letting go of Fyodor's hand.

Fyodor just looked at Nikolai and for once he did let himself feel how painfully in love he himself was with Nikolai.

Normally he tried to suppress it, denying himself any kind of love he felt towards the other but now he couldn't bring himself to even just try to do so.

He was glad that he woke up to Nikolai sitting next to.

He couldn't say anything to Nikolai as the latter cried, since the few things he said already took out all his energy so he just lied there, looking at the other with a small smile.

Eventually Nikolai pulled himself together again, carefully laying down Fyodor's hand on the pillow again, however not letting go of it before asking him a couple of things about how he was feeling which Fyodor answered with either nodding his head or shaking his head.

In the following days, Nikolai would continue to take care of Fyodor, gently propping him up against the headboard of the bed, feeding him soup and other more nurturing dishes he would cook for him as well as making him drink a lot of water and tea.

He also made him regularly take iron supplements and fed him sweets every now and then to help his body to recover from the blood loss.

They didn't talk much. Fyodor couldn't talk much anyways but it was off-putting to see Nikolai so quiet and drowned in thoughts.

Fyodor knew that he had to leave him alone with his thoughts now and that he himself had to sort this battle between his humanity and his ideology out for himself.

Nikolai would change his bandages and the covers of the blankets regularly and kept a close eye on the wounds.

The wound were Sigma shot Fyodor in his shoulder healed good and quickly but the wounds on his hand and especially the large stab wound were healing slowly but luckily, neither of them showed any signs of an infection.

Fyodor did his best to appear put together when Nikolai was changing the bandages but sometimes he couldn't prevent himself for making pained noises, flinching hard or tensing up, hashly sucking in the air.

Nikolai never made any comments on it but he often looked at him with a worried and apologetic expression.

He hated feeling so weak and vulnerable and he was horrified of Punishment lashing out an Nikolai whenever he was in a lot of pain since it tended to lash out when Fyodor felt threatened or in pain so he was often lying there utterly exhausted after Nikolai exchanged the bandages, partly from the pain but mostly from trying to keep Punishment at bay in his weakened state.

He felt Punishment rage inside of him every single day and he found himself having the urge to get revenge on Dazai and Chuuya and the whole ADA.

However one day, just when his body was in a good enough shape for him to slowly start to get up again he felt the harsh feeling of Punishment inside of him as well as the influence it had on him disappear completely in just one moment.

It didn't fade away slowly, it was like someone had just flicked off a light switch and turned it off.

Suddenly he regained his whole consciousness again, his mind which always was a bit messy and foggy due to Punishment's influence suddenly feeling completely normal again.

He didn't really know what happened but the disappearing of his ability made unable to leave his bed even more again.

All the memories of what happened crashed down on him besides of parts where his ability had taken over completely, and the guilt was eating him up alive.

In addition to that, he had to fully readjust to having his full consciousness back.

Mostly however, he had to wrap his head around the fact that he was only Fyodor now. Not Crime, not Punishment, only Fyodor.

He felt the rage and the twisted thoughts disappear and it made him both utterly relieved and scared.

It was like a part of him got taken away but he didn't felt less whole now. If anything, he felt like himself again despite the guilt eating him up alive and it confused him more than anything.

Nikolai was there for him the whole time. He wouldn't leave his side before and he wouldn't leave his side now.

When he had entered to room, seeing that Fyodor stared at him in disbelief and fear, his eyes not being hazy anymore and lacking all the coldness but now being filled with light again, Nikolai would have nearly dropped everything he had been holding at that moment out of disbelief and shock himself.

He immediately recognized those eyes and at first, he didn't dare to believe that for whatever reason, Punishment was gone for good now.

Nikolai himself, was having a battle with his mind over all this time and slowly he let himself believe that he could be together with Fyodor while being free at the same time.

Nikolai knew by now that Fyodor returned his feelings and he knew that he would wait for him until he was ready and Fyodor did wait.

He waited until they were both ready to finally put into words what they were feeling all those times before, taking the step to finally get together.

Fyodor recovered slowly but aside from the time after losing his ability where he got worse, he was recovering steadily.

Nikolai, who had put his clown attire away by now and who slowly started to eat more again as well as started to somewhat take a bit care of himself again due to Fyodor refusing to eat until Nikolai ate something himself, helped him the whole time.

He continued to feed him, he changed the bandages, made sure that bed and room were clean, after Fyodor was able to sit up again for a few minutes without being in too much pain he would gently wash him every day, he brushed his hair making sure that it wouldn't become matted, he changed his clothes regularly and when the time came he helped him to slowly sit up without leaning against the headboard for support again, he helped him to move around in his bed to scoot over to the edge of the bed, sitting on it and placing his feet on the floor again for the first time since weeks if not months and eventually he helped him to stand up again, taking his first few wobbly steps again.

The first time standing up again was nerve wracking for both of them.

It had been painful to sit up on his own with only a bit support but it was much more manageable than when he first tried to sit up.

He couldn't stand lying in bed any longer.

Nikolai had been looking at him, his eyes filled with worry while he was firmly holding Fyodor's healthy hand with one, and his forearm of the other arm with his other hand.

After getting used to the feeling of sitting up and after the first row of pain got lesser again, Fyodor looked at Nikolai and nodded, him being as tensed up as the other himself, before using all his energy to drag himself out of his bed and up on his feet with Nikolai's help.

His weakened legs were shaky and wobbly and he immediately felt like passing out, his anemia making him see black and flimmering colors for a second but before he could fall, he felt Nikolai wrapping one of his arms around him, careful not to touch the wound on his stomach, steadily holding him and preventing him from falling, letting him slump against him until he was able to see something again a few seconds later.

His legs were shaking, his breathing became faster and he was clinging with his healthy hand to Nikolai as if his life would depend on him but he felt more genuinely happy than he felt since a long time, finally being able to stand again.

However, he quickly had to lie back down again upon the pain and the exhaustion becoming too much, making him feel dizzy and like his legs would give out on him any moment.

Nikolai himself had a big smile and teary eyes as he told Fyodor that he did great, feeling relieved due to seeing how well Fyodor was recovering and that he would be able to walk at least short lengths again being written all over his face.

He also helped him to slowly move his hand more again but just as he had suspected, Fyodor couldn't really move or do anything with his hand anymore.

Teaching himself how to write and how to handle a weapon with his non dominant hand wasn't that difficult for Fyodor but he did struggle with doing daily activities with mostly only one hand and he grieved after not being able to play the cello anymore.

Nikolai tried his best to cheer him up whenever he saw that Fyodor was getting frustrated again because of his hand or when he sensed that he became upset when listening to music including a cello again.

After getting up again for the first time, they would continue to train getting up and walking around again.

The first few times, Fyodor had to hold onto Nikolai and often wasn't able to take more than two or on good days three steps before his legs felt like they would give out again and before the pain coming from the large stab wound became too much again.

However after quite some time had passed, he was able to walk around more freely and without having to hold onto Nikolai as much again.

He was still shaky on his legs, walking quickly became exhausting and painful after a while but he got better and better.

It still took a very long time until he was able to fully get out of bed over nearly a whole day, to walk around and do things completely on his own but Nikolai was there for him the whole time and he continued to be there for him even when Fyodor had fully recovered just like Fyodor was always there for Nikolai when the other needed him.

When the large wound was finally so well healed that Nikolai could finally pull the stitches out, he did try his best not to tear up again, the process reminding him of how he was desperately trying to save his dearest's life but also showing him once again that he did manage to save him, reminding him of how far they came.

After they finally got together after Nikolai was ready and after they both were both in a much better state, both physically and mentally, Nikolai would often kiss Fyodor's injuried hand, holding it as gentle as possible if Fyodor either was upset because of it again or if the chronic pain which developed from the injury became worse again.

Fyodor would always have two large and messy looking scars and a fully scarred hand now but Nikolai didn't mind. He would always tell Fyodor that he looked beautiful, despite all the scars which the other hated so much and he would frequently kiss them whenever he got the opportunity to do so.

After Fyodor had fully recovered and was able to live more independently again, they moved out of the little shabby hideout to live a quiet life underground in a small but cozy house under fake identities and in a different country, far away from where everything went down.

Due to Punishment being gone, Fyodor had no desire to start another war or to get revenge on the ADA anymore.

He just wanted to get as far away from anything which reminded him of this time as it was possible.

He craved to start a new life together with Nikolai, far away from all the things which reminded him if the past.

They might still had a long road of recovery and redemption in front of them but they both felt happier than they've ever been and their relationship was a true and honest one, based on a deep and mutual understanding for each other and based on utter and deep running love which would never end.

If you read all of this, thank you so much! I love u <3

I hope you liked it!

[gust-jar-simulator]

Vio needs some enrichment and the LU quest does NOT give him the opportunity for it.

Characters: Four, the colors.

TW: discussion of torture, Vio being morally dubious.

🌲🌌🏕️🌌🌲

Vio knew exactly why he did what he did, thank you, and did not require external commentary on the subject.

The thing is, this quest had come from... a bit out of nowhere. It was inconvenient. Four occasionally wondered if any of them had left the stove on, or a paddock gate open, or a door unlocked when the portals came. As much as adventure was always a part of being a hero, one could always hold out hope that the last one was really the last one, or at least that they'd have time to tie up loose ends before the next.

Point being, Vio was a very busy man and gallivanting through time and space in the company of Hylia's blessed attack dogs- and yes, the description was accurate, the other three would do well to find some humor in it- took time away from his own personal projects.

Yes, saving the universe was arguably more important than necromantic research.

On the other hand, it absolutely wasn't.

Four sighed and ground his conflicted opinions on heroic selflessness into the swipe of a whetstone, settling into the idle rhythms of camp winding down. Wind was a good storyteller, voice rising and falling and easy to tune out to the edge of his attention, like music. Somewhere, Hyrule and Warriors were cataloguing healing supplies. Time was propped against a tree, taking in the night air and talking quietly to Twilight. A good group of good men. Wholesome. Heroes.

Like us.

You can't be a hero and be completely clean, I think.

I get your point, but... Sky.

...he has to have done something. There's no way.

He's Hylia's boyfriend.

Hylia's kind of a bitch though-

Blue!

There were pranks, and jokes, and the occasional experiment in battle. Using that many bombs on a skulltula was probably a war crime. Legend in particular had a sense of humor sharp enough to cut yourself on, if you took him too seriously, and the more he relaxed the sharper he got. But it was all well within the bounds of reason, safe and couched within the parameters of heroics, of selflessness, of keeping up morale.

When they fell asleep Four dreamed of fire and dragon scales between his thighs, stars blotted out by the smoke of burning homes, and he didn't hate it as wholeheartedly as he probably should. It itched, in his hands, in his gut, in his teeth. Green didn't want to hurt anyone. Red didn't mind a bit of controlled arson. Blue loved a good fight with the feral intensity of a lynel, but could talk himself down or channel it into acceptable targets. Mostly because Red would yell at him.

Vio had to be careful, because something like creaking restraint itched at his tongue and teeth and the clinical glance of his eyes, the way his fingers twitched for a weapon or a quill or both. He was curious. He could call himself curious. He could call himself frustrated, too, denied personal projects and personal space.

Four woke up from dreams of scalpels and equations and ritual component substitutions, nightshade and wormwood and the copper stench of old blood. Vio couldn't even find it in himself to be sorry, but thankfully the others didn't press. It was... easier, when they were separate, to have their own interests. It was no one's fault that Vio had to know if bokoblins were susceptible to poison, or if poe fire had any practical uses. He was simply built the way he was.

About a month into things, they'd almost gotten used to the odd ache in their blood like a smothered flame.

Still.

Four woke up in the middle of second shift, staring at the stars, and Vio's sigh curled between the constellations like dragons' smoke.

It's getting worse. Blue can fight all he likes, there's no shortage of monsters. Green has the satisfaction of heroics and working with fellow knights. Red has Wind and Hyrule and even Wolfie, and there are certainly opportunities to light things on fire.

The others were awake, but there was nothing to say to it. Vio was verbalizing what they already knew.

The last bit, however, he carved out of himself in his own approximation of vulnerability, honest as a vivisection. All I can do is read. I can help with strategy, I have rare chances to educate, but nothing... I have no practical application for my skills. My interests. My... desires. I'm behind in my research.

Are you? Blue's question was a quiet pressure on the bruise.

Well I'd certainly have made more progress by now-

You miss it, Red interjected softly, and something about the comment made Vio bristle like an affronted cat.

I miss HIM, you know I miss him, it's not-

We'd dream more about Shadow if it was just that. Wind in the trees, leaves stirred by cool autumn. It's okay to have hobbies, you know.

It's not just a hobby-

Yeah, sure, it's gay too. A scoff, like the crunch of ice, but fond. You're the last idiot I thought would have trouble being selfish.

And wanting Shadow isn't selfish?

Wanting to do something that wigs the rest of us out is selfish, nerd. At this point I don't give a shit if Shadow shows up for dinner. Stop pining for the chance to dissect keese eyes or whatever and just fucking ask.

Vio didn't quite speak a response as much as he just mentally presented them all with the concept of the Chain. Green made a thoughtful noise, and Red tilted their head a little.

Well... what are you researching?

I want skin samples. Their tongue traced the edge of their teeth, slow and considering and just on the edge of that slow-burning hunger. It was research. Just research. Bokoblins in particular are creatures of darkness, easy to find and easy enough to kill. They're vulnerable to weapons of light, but not sunlight. I want to know why.

A flicker, a spark. Wild has monster parts, you could start there? And if someone else is collecting, there's no reason we can't!

That was very true, very helpful, and full of excellent excuses that would fly perfectly under the radar.

Vio's blood burned like the belly of Death Mountain, breath a little too short, skin a little too sensitive, words shaped as carefully as spun glass. I... appreciate it, Red. Thank you.

It felt like trying to put a candle snuffer on a wildfire.

Blue sighed. You want to tie a 'blin to a chair and peel its skin off while it chokes on a gag.

Vio could not answer that, not when Green reeled back and Red went politely blank in response, but he also really didn't need to. They all knew, some of them just held onto a bit too much hope. So he tugged at the edge of their tunic, shifted a little in their bedroll, and let the night answer for him.

There was the wordless impression of a gesture from Blue, a sort of there it is, and it took a long minute for Red's boundless optimism to chime back in again. Well! I'd really want to do that after splitting, but since we decided it's not safe yet... I mean, we can think about it? There's a lot to plan for something like that- space, time, getting away from everybody. Do you want a forest or a cave. That kind of thing. As long as it's real actual planning, would that help? And maybe journal about it?

Green made a slightly nauseated noise, but presented them all with the reminder that as monster hunters they were pretty good at sketching.

They were... helping. Actually helping. Vio blinked, turned more of his attention to them like a flower towards the moon. It would take the edge off. You're fine with me filling up our journal with that?

Sure! Maybe we can get you your own special one next time we're in town too. And obviously probably use code.

Obviously. He wasn't an idiot.

....if we're doing this, Blue started, hesitant, and we're not splitting for it, then we're gonna... be there.

Most likely. That was the issue, after all. Otherwise Vio would have done something about this within the first week.

Do you care if we're there-there, then? Might as well pull up a fucking chair if we're doing it anyway. I want to see.

Vio stared at the stars and tried to absorb that. You want to see.

I use a hammer, Vio, I'm not a fancy noble. I wanna know what's so great about this. There's more to it, but I break bones for fun, y'know?

It won't be fair, Vio reminded him quietly over Green's steady nausea. It's never fair.

Yeah, well, it's never fair for me either because I'm the fucking best. Checkmate.

They won't be able to get away.

Isn't that kind of the point? We're not sending the bastards to reform school, it's search and destroy. You just... take longer. Blue grimaced, glanced aside, huffed. Look I already know it's gonna be weird and uncomfortable and whatever the fuck, I just wanna know.

...you can read my notes, Vio decided, after I make them. All of you. And then we'll see.

Thank you. Green, shaky but steadfast, and the others swiftly followed with their own.

It was... strange. Vio had certainly never thought to ask. He'd quietly resigned himself to having a breakdown at some point and hopefully returning to normal afterwards. But now the opportunity was there, the chance, the... odd support and even interest.

Four fell asleep that night, dreamless, and woke actually rested for the first time in weeks.

[crownofconvergencerp]

𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐋𝐘𝐍 𝐒𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐆𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐔𝐂𝐂𝐔𝐁𝐈 𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐋𝐃 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑

evelyn was born succubi, in the ruins of the destarin before it had been built up, her father a demonic being from an alternate plane of existence and her mother a gorgon, what truly shaped evelyn was the taking of a local guild for her own use and the death of her childhood love. appearing in her early forties evelyn is actually one hundred and ninety-seven years old and has had a few children of her own. 

TW: war, death, murder, crime.

The war torn ruins of a town on the edge of kingdoms was hell - in the best possible way - to a small demonic girl and her sisters. Evelyn, born one of three to her demonic father, and the sole child of her mother, was raised by her own mother and that of her sisters. A community with a gorgon, a witch and a drow for mother's certainly raised a particular type of child. Each demonic girl was able to shift into her own little animal form, and the venomous girls would play for hours on end in the streets of Destarin before returning to their studies with each of their mother. All grew up both proud and educated, in all manner of ways.

Evelyn, the eldest of the three, certainly attempted to use all that she was being taught to make a certain sort of life for herself. Her dark eyes were always watching the various criminal collectives within the town, her horns poking around corners to observe the deadly actions of guilds. She would play pretend with her sisters that they were their own criminal enterprise that took no prisoners and stole all the gold the town had to offer. Which was why when Evelyn began to come of age, and the signs of her father truly began to show through, she was able to find her way into the arms of a local guilds son. He was as restless as she was for the approaching future, when they would have control.

The more Evelyn's powers grew however, the more of the succubus that began to form, the more inclined she was to take that which she wanted and Evelyn and her love began to plot the removal of his own parents. He had his own reasons for wanting their deaths but Evelyn made no secret that she wanted the guild for herself and she would only help him if he intended to give her and her sisters the reigns of it. It was difficult to convince him...until she became pregnant and his focus became on their future child. His parents were removed swiftly.

Their relationship, once Evelyn had been instated as head of the guild and had their first born child, varied in forms of passion. The succubus had requirements to her survival that were not always the easiest to understand and her mortal partner slowly began to age ahead of her. But it was not that which changed everything for Evelyn's family, it was the death of her partner at the hands of an enemy guild. Evelyn schooled her emotions regarding his death as best she could, but her sisters and her child saw the truth of her grief.

In her eldest child that grief potentially manifested and Evelyn watched as their focus shifted from the guild to other things, distant with her in ways they had never been prior to their father's death. Evelyn tried for some time to draw him back to her but eventually...she gave up. The guild, and the establishments that came with it, especially that of their pain club that fed most of her appetites became her primary focus. Vengeance sworn on the enemy guild that had killed her love. All consuming.

WHAT ARE YOU...?

species: snake succubi. weaknesses: mortal, needs to feed on sexual intimacy to survive, weak to holy magics, antivenom can be made if one knows how from her poison to make someone immune to her. strengths: seductive venom that can be poisonous released through a bite, delayed ageing, can shapeshift into a snake, can heal wounds through sexual intimacy, can summon lesser demons through an extended ritual (not on the spot). physical description: evelyn has long red horns with sharp spikes protruding from either side of her head, her skin also sheds every few months which is what helps her stay young. additional notes: born of a gorgon mother and a demonic father, evelyn's abilities differ slightly from her sisters as they inherit snake like traits.

evelyn scourge is played by paris and her fc is megan fox

[drbased]

Slavery - From Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape by Susan Brownmiller

[tw for rape, violent dehumanisation, anti-black racism, misogynoir]

The American experience of the slave South, which spanned two centuries, is a perfect study of rape in all its complexities, for the black woman's sexual integrity was deliberately crushed in order that slavery might profitably endure.

In contrast to rape during the Indian wars, which was largely casual and retaliatory—men getting even with men through the convenient vehicle of a woman's body—rape under the Patriarchal Institution, as it was named by the patriarchs, was built into the system. The white man wanted the Indian's land, but the coin he extracted from blacks was forced labor. This difference in purpose affected the white man's relations with, and use of, the black woman. Rape in slavery was more than a chance tool of violence. It was an institutional crime, part and parcel of the white man's subjugation of a people for economic and psychological gain.

The Patriarchal Institution took the form of white over black but it also took the form of male over female, or more specifically, of white male over black female. Unlike the Indian woman who was peripheral to the conquest of land, the black woman was critical to slavery. She was forced into dual exploitation as both laborer and reproducer. Her body, in all of its parts, belonged outright to her white master. She had no legal right of refusal, and if the mere recognition of her physical bondage was not enough, the knife, the whip and the gun were always there to be used against her. Forced sexual exploitation of the black woman under slavery was no offhand enterprise. Total control over her reproductive system meant a steady supply of slave babies, and slave children, when they reached the age of six or eight, were put to work; it did not matter whether they were full-blooded or mulatto.

An important psychologic advantage, which should not be underestimated, went hand in glove with the economic. Easy access to numerous, submissive female bodies—and individual resistance was doomed—afforded swaggering proof of masculinity to slaveholding males, while it conversely reduced and twisted the black man's concept of his role.

"Sexually as well as in every other way, Negroes were utterly subordinated," writes historian Winthrop D. Jordan of the slave South. "White men extended their dominion over the Negroes to the bed, where the sex act itself served as a ritualistic re-enactment of the daily pattern of social dominance." Jordan's words are too temperate. "Bed" is as much a euphemism as not, and "ritualistic re-enactment" implies a stately minuet of manners—a vastly in-adequate description of the brutal white takeover and occupation of the black woman's body.

"Lawdy, lawdy, them was tribbolashuns!" an eighty-seven-year- old ex-slave by the name of Martha Jackson told a recorder for the Federal Works Project in Alabama (who wrote down her words in an approximation of her dialect). "Wunner dese here womans was my Antie en she say dad she skacely call to min' he e'r whoppin' her, 'case she was er breeder woman en' brought in chillum ev'y twelve mont's jes lak a cow bringin' in a calf."

Martha Jackson's choice of imagery was grounded in the realities of slavery. Female slaves were expected to "breed"; some were retained expressly for that purpose. In the lexicon of slavery, "breeder woman," "childbearing woman," "too old to breed" and "not a breeding woman" were common descriptive terms. In-country breeding was crucial to the planter economy after the African slave trade was banned in 1807, and the slave woman's value increased in accordance with her ability to produce healthy offspring. Domestic production of slave babies for sale to other slave states became a small industry in the fertile upper South. In

fact, it was observed to be the only reliably profitable slave-related enterprise. Quite an opposite state of affairs had existed in the North before abolition, where slavery had never been profitable. In colonial Massachusetts, one observer has written, slave babies when weaned "were given away like puppies." But the state of Virginia annually exported between six thousand and twenty-thousand homegrown slaves to the deeper South, where the land, the climate and a harsher work load took precedence over fecundity. The Virginia-reared slave, like Virginia leaf tobacco, was always in great demand.

A member of the Virginia legislature used revealing language when he addressed that patrician body in 1831:

It has always (perhaps erroneously) been considered by steady and old-fashioned people, that the owner of land had a reasonable right to its annual profits; the owner of orchards, to their annual fruits; the owner of brood-mares, to their product; and the owner of female slaves to their increase . . . and I do not hesitate to say, that in its increase consists much of our wealth.

The fellow from Virginia, Mr. Gholson, was attempting to make the point that a slaveholder would not mistreat a female slave as he would not mistreat his broodmare, since the "increase" of each needed a period of nurture in order to show a profit. In return for the production of slave babies, the female knowingly bartered for more food and a reduced work load in the weeks before and after birth. But despite Mr. Gholson's protestations, a lightened work load was not an automatic quid pro quo.

Nehemiah Caulkins, a white carpenter who worked for a time on a North Carolina rice plantation, presented this picture of breeder women in an antislavery pamphlet of 1839:

One day the owner ordered the women into the barn, he then went in among them, whip in hand, and told them he meant to flog them all to death; they immediately began to cry out, "What have I done Massa? What have I done Massa?" He replied, "D—n you, I will let you know what you have done, you don't breed, I haven't had a young one from one of you for several months." They told him they could not breed while they had to work in the rice ditches. (The rice grounds are low and marshy, and have to be drained, and while digging or clearing the ditches, the women had to work in mud and water from one to two feet in depth; they were obliged to draw up and secure their frocks about their waist, to keep them out of water, in this manner they frequently had to work from daylight in the morning till it was so dark they could see no longer.) After swearing and threatening for some time, he told them to tell the overseer's wife, when they got in that way, and he would put them upon the land to work.

The Georgia journal of Fanny Kemble, whose husband owned a pair of cotton and rice plantations, records this entry:

The women who visited me yesterday evening were all in the family way, and came to entreat of me to have the sentence (what else can I call it?) modified which condemns them to assume their labor of hoeing in the field three weeks after their confinement. They knew, of course, that I cannot interfere with their appointed labor, and therefore their sole entreaty was that I would use my influence with Mr. [Butler, her husband] to obtain for them a month's respite from labor in the field after childbearing.

Fanny Kemble was unsuccessful in her intercessionary mission. Breeder women were sometimes blatantly advertised as such, for if they were "proven," they could command a higher price. The following advertisement from the Charleston, South Carolina,

Mercury became an abolitionist classic:

NEGROES FOR SALE—A Girl about twenty years of age (raised in Virginia) and her two female children, one four and the other two years old—is remarkably strong and healthy—never having had a day's sickness, with the exception of the small pox, in her life. The children are fine and healthy. She is very prolific in her generating qualities, and affords a rare opportunity to any person who wishes to raise a family of strong and healthy servants for their own use. Any person wishing to purchase will please leave their address at the Mercury office.

It mattered little to the slaveholder who did the actual impregnating, since the "increase" belonged to him by law. Paternity was seldom entered in the slaveholder's record book, and when it did appear, it was strictly for purposes of identification. The female was often arbitrarily assigned a sexual partner or "husband" and ordered to mate. Her own preferences in this most intimate of matters may or may not have been taken into account, depending on the paternalistic inclinations of her master. "I wish the three girls you purchest had been all grown," an overseer wrote to an absent master. "They wold then bin a wife a pese for Harise & King & Nathan. Harris has Jane for a wife and Nathan has Edy. But King & Nathan had sum difuculty hoo wold have Edy. I promist King that I wold in dever to git you to bey a nother woman sow he might have a wife at home."

Sexual activity for the male slave after the day's work was done was considered by the slave and master to be in the nature of a reward, but it is difficult to make such a generalization for the female. The accepted modern authority on slavery, Kenneth M. Stampp, writes, "Having to submit to the superior power of their masters, many slaves were extremely aggressive toward each other." It is consistent with the nature of oppression that within an oppressed group, men abuse women. "We don't care what they do when their tasks are over—we lose sight of them till next day," one planter wrote. "Their morals and manners are in their own keeping. The men may have, for instance, as many wives as they please, so long as they do not quarrel about such matters."

Another slave owner kept marital law and order in the following fashion, as recorded in his diary: "Flogged Joe Goodwyn and ordered him to go back to his wife. Dito Gabriel and Molly and ordered them to come together again. Separate Moses and Anny finally. And flogged Tom Kollock [for] interfering with Maggy Cambell, Sullivan's wife." The narrative of Charles Ball, Fifty Years in Chains, tells of a slave woman who was forced to live with a fellow slave whom she thoroughly detested and feared—and who never stopped reminding her that in Africa he had ten wives! That warm, sustained relationships did develop between male and female slaves in bondage is a most profound testament to what can only be called humanity, which everything in slave life conspired to destroy.

Field laborer, house servant and breeder woman were the principal economic roles of the female slave, but she was also used by her white owner for his own sexual-recreational pleasure, a hierarchical privilege that spilled over to his neighbors ("I believe it is the custom among the Patriarchs to make an interchange of civilities of this kind," wrote a correspondent in Missouri to a New York newspaper in 1859), and to his young sons eager for initiation into the mysteries of sex. The privilege, apparently, was also expected by visitors. "Will you believe it, I have not humped a single mulatto since I am here," an aide of Steuben's wrote to a friend in condemnation of the lack of hospitality at George Washington's Mount Vernon.

The sexual privilege also filtered down to lower-class white males in the planter's employ (overseers with the power of the whip and craft workers with access to the plantation) and to certain black male slaves ("drivers") who were also handed the whip and directed to play an enforcer role within the system. At the top of the hierarchy, setting the style, was the white master.

Nehemiah Caulkins testified:

This same planter had a female slave who was a member of the Methodist Church; for a slave she was intelligent and conscientious. He proposed a criminal intercourse with her. She would not comply. He left her and sent for the overseer, and told him to have her flogged. It was done. Not long after, he renewed his proposal. She again refused. She was again whipped. He then told her why she had been twice flogged, and told her he intended to whip her till she should yield. The girl, seeing that her case was hopeless, her back smarting with the scourging she had received and dreading a repetition, gave herself up to be the victim of his brutal lusts.

Solomon Northup, a shanghaied New York freedman who was forced to spend twelve years on a Louisiana plantation and later published his narrative of bondage, wrote a sympathetic description of a field slave, Patsey, who had to endure her master's "attentions."

Patsey was slim and straight. She stood erect as the human form is capable of standing. There was an air of loftiness in her movement that neither labor, nor weariness, nor punishment could destroy. Truly, Patsey was a splendid animal, and were it not that bondage had enshrouded her intellect in utter and everlasting darkness, would have been chief among ten thousand of her people. She could leap the highest fences, and a fleet hound it was indeed that could outstrip her in a race. No horse could fling her from his back. She was a skillful teamster. She turned as true a furrow as the best, and at splitting rails there was none who could excel her. . . . Such lightning-like motion was in her fingers as no other fingers ever possessed, and therefore it was that in cotton picking time, Patsey was queen of the field.

Yet Patsey wept oftener, and suffered more, than any of her companions. She had literally been excoriated. Her back bore the scars of a thousand stripes; not because she was of an unmindful and rebellious spirit, but because it had fallen to her lot to be the slave of a licentious master and a jealous mistress. She shrank before the lustful eye of one, and was in danger even of her life at the hands of the other, and between the two, she was indeed accursed. . . . but not like Joseph, dared she escape from Master Epps, leaving her garment in his hand. Patsey walked under a cloud. If she uttered a word in opposition to her master's will, the lash was resorted to at once, to bring her to subjection; if she was not watchful when about her cabin, or when walking in the yard, a billet of wood, or a broken bottle perhaps, hurled from her mistress's hand, would smite her unexpectedly in the face. The enslaved victim of lust and hate, Patsey had no comfort of her life.

Northup described one incident in the field when he and Patsey were hoeing side by side. Patsey suddenly exclaimed in a low voice, "D'ye see old Hog Jaw beckoning me to come to him?"

Glancing sideways, I discovered him in the edge of the field, motioning and grimacing, as was his habit when half-intoxicated. Aware of his lewd intentions, Patsey began to cry. I whispered her not to look up, and to continue her work as if she had not observed him. Suspecting the truth of the matter, however, he soon staggered up to me in a great rage.

"What did you say to Pats?" he demanded with an oath. I made him some evasive answer which only had the effect of increasing his violence.

"How long have you owned this plantation, say, you d—d n****r?"

Master Epps chased Northup across the field and then re- turned to Patsey. "He remained about the field an hour or more. . . . Finally Epps came toward the house, by this time nearly sober, walking demurely with his hands behind his back, and attempting to look as innocent as a child."

Patsey's story had a terrible ending. The jealous Epps became convinced that his slave had had relations with a white neighbor. He ordered her stripped, staked and beaten into listlessness. "In- deed, from that time forward she was not what she had been. . . . She no longer moved with that buoyant and elastic step—there was not that mirthful sparkle in her eyes that formerly distinguished her. The bounding vigor—the sprightly, laughter-loving spirit of her youth, was gone."

Narratives such as Northup's, published by the Northern abolitionist press in the nineteenth century, and oral histories of former slaves that the Federal Works Projects Administration collected in the nineteen thirties cast cold light on the life-style of slavery. W h e n the female ex-slave was asked to tell of her experiences, not surprisingly she did not dwell on sex. "Them was tribbolashuns," and a combination of propriety, modesty and acute shame on the part of narrator and recorder must have conspired to close the door on any specific revelations. (Male ex-slaves, because of a freer convention among men, were permitted to discuss the sexual abuse of females.)

But horror at the sexual abuse of enslaved black women was a recurring theme among white female abolitionists. The Grimké sisters of South Carolina and Margaret Douglass and Lydia Maria Child, among others, did not let it rest. They spoke and pamphleteered relentlessly (but alas, delicately—so dictated the times) out of a strong sense of identification with their black sisters in bondage. Margaret Douglass, a Southern white woman who was convicted and jailed in Virginia for teaching black children to read, wrote from prison in 1853:

The female slave, however fair she may have become by various comminglings of her progenitors, or whatever her mental and moral acquirements may be, knows that she is a slave, and, as such, powerless beneath the whims and fancies of her master. If he casts upon her a desiring eye, she knows that she must submit; and her only thought is, that the more gracefully she yields, the stronger and longer hold she may perchance retain upon the brutal appetite of her master. Still, she feels her degradation, and so do others with whom she is connected. She has parents, brothers, sisters, a lover, perhaps, who all suffer through her and with her.

The politically keen Mrs. Douglass, writing to a white audience, then added these lines:

White mothers and daughters of the South have suffered under this custom for years; they have seen their dearest affections trampled upon, their hopes of domestic happiness destroyed. I cannot use too strong language on this subject, for I know it will meet a heartfelt response from every Southern woman. They know the facts, and their hearts bleed under its knowledge, however they may have attempted to conceal their discoveries.*

(*Kenneth Stampp unfairly uses this portion of Mrs. Douglass' letter to buttress his contention that "Southern white women apparently believed that they suffered most from the effects of miscegenation.")

Mrs. Douglass' analysis went further:

Will not the natural impulses rebel against what becomes with them a matter of force? For the female slave knows that she must submit to the caprices of her master; that there is no way of escape. And when a man, black though he may be, knows that he may be compelled, at any moment, to hand over his wife, his sister, or his daughter, to the loathed embraces of the man whose chains he wears, how can it be expected he will submit without feelings of hatred and revenge taking possession of his heart?

The slave's revenge took many forms—although white retribution was swift and certain. A traveler through the South wrote in 1856:

A Negress was hung this year in Alabama, for the murder of her child. At her trial, she confessed her guilt. She said her owner was the father of the child, and that her mistress knew it, and treated her so cruelly in consequence, that she had killed it to save it from further suffering, and also to remove a provocation to her own ill-treatment.

A visitor to Mississippi in 1836 sent a letter to a Northern friend:

The day I arrived at this place there was a man by the name of G----- murdered by a Negro man that belonged to him. [The black man was publicly lynched.] G------ owned the Negro's wife and was in the habit of sleeping with her! The Negro said he had killed him and he believed he should be rewarded in heaven for it.

The narrative of Charles Ball tells of a mulatto slave woman, Lucy, who rebelled against her forced sexual servitude to her white owner and successfully plotted with her slave lover, Frank, to kill him. Charles Ball himself played a role in their apprehension and confession. Lucy and Frank "were tried before some gentlemen of the neighborhood, who held a court for that purpose," and were hanged at a public gallows. "It was estimated by my master," Ball records, "that there were at least fifteen thousand people present at this scene, more than half of whom were blacks; all the masters, for a great distance round the country, having permitted, or compelled their people to come to this hanging."

The case of Peggy and Patrick received considerable notoriety in New Kent County, Virginia, in 1830. This pair of slaves, who were lovers, were condemned to be hanged for murdering their master. Extenuating circumstances caused the local white citizens of New Kent to submit a petition to the governor asking that punishment for the pair be reduced to "transportation."

One black witness whose testimony was solicited declared that

the deceased to whom Peggy belonged had had a disagreement with Peggy, and generally kept her confined by keeping her chained to a block and locked up in his meat house; that he [the witness] believed the reason why the deceased had treated Peggy in this way was because Peggy would not consent to intercourse with him, and that he had heard the deceased say that if Peggy did not agree to his request in that way, he would beat her almost to death, that he would barely leave the life in her, and would send her to New Orleans. The witness said that Peggy said the reason she would not yield to his request was because the deceased was her father, and she could not do a thing of that sort with her father. The witness heard the deceased say to Peggy that if she did not consent, he would make him, the witness, and Patrick hold her, to enable him to effect his object.

Since it was the slaveholdirig class that created the language and wrote the laws pertaining to slavery, it is not surprising that legally the concept of raping a slave simply did not exist. One cannot rape one's own property. The rape of one man's slave by another white man was considered a mere "trespass" in the eyes of plantation law. The rape of one man's slave by another slave had no official recognition in law at all.*

(* Some evidence exists that masters attempted to police, in their own fashion, the more blatant abuses that male slaves committed against females. An 1828 advertisement in the Elkton, Maryland, Press for runaway "Negro George Anderson, about 21 or 22 years of age," declared informatively, "A few days before he absconded he attempted to commit a rape upon a young female of his own color, the punishment for which has caused his running off.")

Moral objections to the "liberties" that the slaveholder and his overseer took as a matter of course were voiced within the oddly angled framework of miscegenation, amalgamation, mixture of the races, licentiousness, degradation and lust. Typically for the power class, the slave's coerced participation in the act was turned on her. Her passive submission—the rule of survival in slavery—was styled as concubinage, prostitution or promiscuity when it was alluded to at all. Even the Northern abolitionists shied away from defining coercive sexual abuse under slavery as criminal rape, preferring to speak emotionally, but guardedly, of illicit passion and lust. Modern historians tend to operate under the same set of blinders.

The patriarchal institution of marriage dovetailed with the patriarchal institution of slavery to prevent perception, by even the most enlightened observers, of a concept of sexual rights and bodily integrity for the female slave. In the nineteenth century, a married woman was considered by law to be the property of her husband, and any abuse to her person was considered, by law, to be an abuse to his property. If the woman was not married, the abuse was to her father's property. But slaves were not permitted to marry legally, and criminal sexual abuse of a female slave (a rape) could not be considered by law an affront to her slave "husband" or slave father, who had no rights of their own. The examples we find in abolitionist literature that express concern over the sexual abuse of female slaves are frequently couched in terms of sympathy for the abused women's husbands! As a Maryland lawyer observed at the time, "Slaves are bound by our criminal laws generally, yet we do not consider them as the objects of such laws as relate to the commerce between the sexes. A slave has never maintained an action against the violator of his bed." Of his bed.

Statutory prohibitions against interracial sex, or more accurately, against the act of sex between slaveholder and slave, were on the books of all the slave states from the time they were colonies of the king. Even in South Carolina, where the slave-trading city of Charleston earned a dubious reputation as the libertine capital of North America (a reputation later claimed by New Orleans), and where "interracial liaisons were less carefully concealed than else- where on the continent/' a grand jury in 1743 took notice of "the too common practice of criminal conversation with Negro and other slave wenches in this province," and scored this conversation—or intercourse—as "an Enormity and Evil of general Ill-Consequence."

But it was "pollution of the white race" and not concern for the rights of slaves that lay behind such pronunciamentos. The laws against "admixture" that white men wrote were not applied to white men. They were applied by white men against white women —as several divorce suits and bastardy charges of the time showed—and they were applied with a special vengeance against those black men who entered into liaisons with white women. (The implications and consequences of this sex-race quadruple standard are still with us. See Chapter 7, "A Question of Race.")

A Louisiana Supreme Court decision of 1851 after some backing and filling proceeded to define concubinage as a "mutual" liaison, although one participant was a slaveholder and the other a female slave bound to him by law and force.

The slave is undoubtedly subject to the power of his master; but that means a lawful power, such as is consistent with good morals. The laws do not subject the female slave to an involuntary and illicit connexion with her master, but would protect her against that misfortune. It is true, that the female slave is peculiarly exposed . . . to the seductions of an unprincipled master. That is a misfortune; but it is so rare in the case of concubinage that the seduction and temptation are not mutual, that exceptions to the general rule cannot be founded upon it.

It is difficult to gain a clear understanding of concubinage as it was practiced in the slave South. I do not mean to argue the point that all sexual liaisons between white masters and black slaves fall within my extended definition of rape, although such an argument is tempting. For many black women, concubinage was the best bargain that could be struck, a more or less graceful accommodation given the hopeless condition of bondage; certainly for some it was as close to emancipation as possible, short of a run for freedom with Harriet Tubman. But first, last and always, concubinage was a male-imposed condition: a bargain struck on male values exclusively, resting on a foundation of total ownership and control. Accommodation in lieu of forcible seizure could bring a variety of amenities into one's life: relative status, pretty dresses, gold earrings, and the hope—always the hope—of manumission for one's self and children. This last must have been held out to the black concubine like a carrot on a stick. Several slaveholder wills survive in which freedom for a favored slave and her children is provided, along with bequests of money and real property. Sadly, but not surprisingly, the terms of these wills were often successfully challenged in the courts by the slaveholder's lawful heirs.

Sexual exploitation of black women by white men was understood as one of the evils of slavery by the abolitionist movement, even though abolitionists were unable to bring themselves to call it rape. Specific cases of concubinage and "amalgamation" reported by travelers through the South were incorporated, with appropriate moral outrage, into American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, compiled and collated by the Grimké sisters and Theodore Weld, Angelina Grimké's husband, in 1839. The Grimké testimony, and that of Margaret Douglass, formed the backbone of an i860 antislavery pamphlet edited by Lydia Maria Child. The abolitionist women, in dealing with the sexual behavior of men, were treading on dangerous ground, bound by conventions that decreed that a man's private life was beyond the pale of political scrutiny. "We forbear to lift the veil of private life any higher," wrote Angelina Grimké, whose brother had sired mulatto slave children. "Let these few hints suffice to give you some idea of what is daily passing behind that curtain which has been so carefully drawn before the scenes of domestic life in slaveholding America."

The "few hints" of which Angelina Grimké wrote and spoke were scandalous enough for the times. "The character of the white ladies of the South, as well as the ladies of color, seems to have been discussed, and the editor of the Courier was of the opinion that the reputation of his paper, and the morals of its readers, might be injuriously affected by publishing the debate," a Northern newspaper reported after a Grimké speech—neatly turning the crime of men into a matter of the "character" of women, in the age-old tradition.

In the winter of 1838-1839, while Weld and the Grimkés were compiling their documentary record of slavery in New York, the English actress Fanny Kemble was in residence on a Georgia island plantation, recording her shocked observations in a journal that remained suppressed for twenty-five years. The celebrated and strong-minded Miss Kemble had inadvisedly married a young Philadelphian, Pierce Butler, who inherited a pair of cotton and rice plantations employing more than one thousand slaves. The marriage went badly, but it proved invaluable to history, for Fanny Kemble traveled with her husband to Georgia and wrote down what she saw in the form of letters to a friend.

As Fanny Kemble made the acquaintance of slaves on her husband's plantation, it dawned on her that the complexion of some of them was decidedly light, and for a very specific reason— the plantation's overseer, John King. She described the slave woman Betty:

Of this woman's life on the plantation I subsequently learned the following circumstances. She was the wife of head man Frank . . . the head driver—second in command to the overseer. His wife [Betty]—a tidy, trim intelligent woman with a pretty figure . . . was taken from him by the overseer . . . and she had a son by him whose straight features and diluted color . . . bear witness to his Yankee descent. I do not know how long Mr. King's occupation of Frank's wife continued, or how the latter endured the wrong done to him [italics mine]. This outrage upon this man's rights [italics mine] was perfectly notorious among all the slaves; and his hopeful offspring, Renty, alludfed] to his superior birth on one occasion.

Betty was not the only slave on the Butler plantation whom the white overseer, King, forced into sexual service, Fanny Kemble discovered.

Before reaching the house I was stopped by one of our multitudinous Jennies with a request for some meat, and that I would help her with some clothes for Ben and Daphne, of whom she had the sole charge; these are two extremely pretty and interesting looking mulatto children, whose resemblance to Mr. King had induced me to ask Mr. Butler, when I first saw them, if he did not think they must be his children. He said they were certainly like him, but Mr. King did not acknowledge the relationship. I asked Jenny who their mother was. "Minda." "Who their father?" "Mr. King." . . . "Who told you so?" "Minda, who ought to know." "Mr. King denies it." "That's because he never has looked upon them, nor done a thing for them." "Well, but he acknowledged Renty as his son, why should he deny these?" "Because old master was here then when Renty was born, and he made Betty tell all about it, and Mr. King had to own it; but nobody knows anything about this, and so he denies it."

The Butler plantation operated under absentee ownership for most of the year and the white overseer, King, was left in charge as a virtual dictator. The power of his station, and its sexual privi- leges, extended to those directly below him in the chain of command, the black drivers, who themselves were slaves. Owners, overseers, drivers, neighboring white men—all could force the black woman against her will, and she was held morally responsible for the injury done to her. Fanny Kemble herself started from this premise, but rejected it in time.

Quizzing more of her husband's slaves about the paternity of their offspring and hearing the names King and Walker (a white mill hand) and Morris (a black driver) repeated by many of them, she recorded:

Almost beyond my patience with this string of detestable details, I exclaimed—foolishly enough, heaven knows— "Ah! but don't you know—did nobody ever tell or teach any of you that it is a sin to live with men who are not your husbands?" Alas, Elizabeth, what could the poor creature answer but what she did, seizing me at the same time vehemently by the wrist: "Oh yes, missis, we know—we know all about dat well enough; but we do anything to get our poor flesh some rest from de whip; when he made me follow him into de bush, what use me tell him no? He have strength to make me." I have written down the woman's words; I wish I could write down the voice and look of abject misery with which they were spoken. Now you will observe that the story was not told to me as a complaint; it was a thing long past and over, of which she only spoke in the natural course of accounting for her children to me. I makeno comment; what need, or can I add, to such stories? But how is such a state of things to endure? and again, how is it to end?

Kemble privately circulated a handwritten copy of her journal among her friends and it quickly gained an underground reputation as the most explosive insider's antislavery testament. Lydia Maria Child urged her to publish portions of it, at least, as ammunition for the abolitionist cause but Pierce Butler flatly refused permission. As a slaveholder he thought the journal was unseemly, which it was. As a husband he could withhold consent, by law, to any publication of his wife's, which he did. The journal, Kemble's antislavery views, and her equally daring belief in equality in marriage, figured prominently in Butler's eventual suit for divorce. Butler won custody of their two children and the visitation-rights agreement stipulated that Kemble must do nothing to embarrass him. In 1863, earning her own living again on the English stage,

Fanny Kemble finally published her Georgia journal. By that time the War Between the States was well under way and Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, based in part on the Weld-Grimke pamphlet, had stolen much of her thunder.

The appointed roles of concubine and breeder woman forcibly progressed to outright prostitution in the last decades of slavery. Traders dispensed with pretense and openly sold their prettiest and "near-white" female chattel for sexual use on the New Orleans market. The cavalier term was "fancy girl." The place was the French Exchange in the grand rotunda of the St. Louis Hotel, and the favored hour was noon. This gaudy fillip to the slave trade was no more than a logical extension of institutional rape, the final indignity.

"Every slaveholder is the legalized keeper of a house of ill-fame," the ex-slave and orator Frederick Douglass thundered to an abolitionist meeting in Rochester, New York, in 1850. Douglass' understanding of the dynamics of slavery far surpassed that of any other single person. That night in Rochester he instructed his audience in the dynamics of sexual oppression.

I hold myself ready to prove that more than a million of women, in the Southern States of this Union, are, by laws of the land, and through no fault of their own, consigned to a life of revolting prostitution; that, by those laws, in many of the States, if a woman, in defence of her own innocence, shall lift her hand against the brutal aggressor, she may be lawfully put to death. I hold myself ready to prove, by the laws of slave states, that three million of the people of those States are utterly incapacitated to form marriage contracts. I am also prepared to prove that slave breeding is relied upon by Virginia as one of her chief sources of wealth. It has long been known that the best blood of Virginia may now be found in the slave markets of New Orleans. It is also known that slave women, who are nearly white, are sold in those markets, at prices which proclaim, trumpet-tongued, the accursed purposes to which they are to be devoted. Youth and elegance, beauty and innocence, are exposed for sale upon the auction block; while villainous monsters stand around, with pockets lined with gold, gazing with lustful eyes upon their prospective victims.

New Orleans was "fully tenfold the largest market for 'fancy girls,'" Frederic Bancroft wrote in his unmatched study, Slave Trading in the Old South. " The prospect of great profit induced their conspicuous display." Beautiful New Orleans! Ambitious slavers chained their prettiest catches to the coffle and headed for the balmy Gulf port. Racing season and Mardi Gras were especially remunerative times. The Hotel St. Louis on Chartres Street was a beehive of activity. Bilingual auctioneers tickled the libido of the sporting men in simultaneous French and English, for a 2 percent

commission. The slave women stood near the auctioneer's hammer and smiled, bedecked in bonnets and ribbons. Sales of two thousand dollars and up were not unusual. Private rooms off the main rotunda of the Exchange were always available for the gentleman who wished to inspect his prospective purchase. Inspection at the French Exchange was a serious matter. "To gamblers, traders, saloonkeepers, turfmen and debauchees, owning a 'fancy girl' was a luxurious ideal."

The master-slave relationship is the most popular fantasy perversion in the literature of pornography. The image of a scantily clothed slave girl, always nubile, always beautiful, always docile, who sinks to her knees gracefully and dutifully before her master, who stands with or without boots, with or without whip, is commonly accepted as a scene of titillating sexuality. From the slave harems of the Oriental potentate, celebrated in poetry and dance, to the breathless descriptions of light-skinned fancy women, de rigueur in a particular genre of pulp historical fiction, the glorification of forced sex under slavery, institutional rape, has been a part of our cultural heritage, feeding the egos of men while subverting the egos of women—and doing irreparable damage to healthy sexuality in the process. The very words "slave girl" impart to many a vision of voluptuous sensuality redolent of perfumed gardens and soft music strummed on a lyre. Such is the legacy of male-controlled sexuality, under which we struggle.

ADDENDUM: THE CLIOMETRICIANS

By running two sets of statistics into a computer and by making a few unsupported, outlandish statements, "cliometricians" Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman argue in Time on the Cross, their statistical view of slave history, that the sexual abuse of black women by white men was not a common occurrence. Dismissing all known reports collected by the abolitionists, they write:

Even if all these reports were true, they constituted at most a few hundred cases. By themselves, such a small number of observations out of a population of millions could just as easily be used as proof of the infrequency of the sexual exploitation of black women as of its frequency. The real question is whether such cases were common events that were rarely reported, or whether they were rare events that were frequently reported.

This is a "real question" only for someone who does not want to accept how infrequently cases of sexual assault are reported even in this day and age, let alone in the time when Angelina Grimke wrote, "We forbear to lift the veil of private life any higher."

Fogel and Engerman heap scorn on Fanny Kemble for having a distorted vision of slavery based on her "upper-class English" bias. In fact, Kemble's origins were not upper class. She was the daughter of a family of celebrated but impecunious actors who relied on her income—hence her gamble on a marriage to Pierce Butler. Ignoring the reasons why her Journal remained suppressed for twenty-five years, they try to slough it off as "a polemic aimed at rallying British support to the northern cause." It is not a polemic, as the dictionary defines the word, nor was it aimed at the British at the time of its inception. These errors of fact and interpretation could have been cleared up if Fogel and Engerman had read the Journal in its entirety, had read the Butler divorce papers, or had read one of the several biographies of Kemble.

Claiming they deal in facts, not conjecture, the authors, by presenting the results of two tangential computer runs, argue that white men did not as a rule molest black women, coyly adding that in their opinion interracial exploitation "would undermine the air of mystery and distinction on which so much of the authority of large planters rested." The first standard they employ is an analysis of the number of mulattoes reported in the i860 census. Thirty-nine percent of the freedmen in Southern cities were reported as mulatto that year. Among urban slaves the proportion was 20 percent and among rural slaves, who constituted 95 percent of the slave population, the percentage of reported mulattoes was 9.9. Since the overwhelming majority of slaves lived in rural areas, the authors required no sleight of hand to arrive at a figure of 10.4 percent for the census proportion of mulattoes in the entire Southern slave population. From this they conclude, "Far from proving that the exploitation of black women was ubiquitous, the available data on mulattoes strongly militates against that contention."

Several things are wrong here. The progeny of an interracial union can "come up dark" or "come up light," so in itself the color of the offspring is no sure-fire test. Secondly, how were these i860 census reports obtained? In their supplemental methodology volume Fogel and Engerman tell us that the census was taken by "thousands of enumerators" who were "drawn from the category of literate middle- and upper-class whites," and who used the criterion of skin color. We may assume that the freedmen reported their heritage to the enumerators in person, but do the authors suggest that the slaves did the same, or that the industrious enumerators entered the grounds of each and every plantation and counted heads and judged color from shack to shack?

It is reasonable to assume that the owners did all the reporting for their slaves, particularly in the rural areas, and it is reasonable to assume that plantation owners would be most reluctant to admit to the government that they were siring mulatto children, especially since miscegenation was technically against the law. Plantation owners, I am certain, saw what they wanted to see, and reported what they wanted to report to their class allies, those middle- and upper-class white enumerators. Any census statistic on the proportion of mulattoes on a plantation would be a most unreliable figure. In addition, why do Fogel and Engerman assume that a rape, even in a "non-contraceptive society," as they put it, is necessarily going to result in pregnancy and birth? Periods of fertility being what they are, a rapist plays Russian roulette with more than twenty chambers, yet the authors would have us believe he impregnates every time.

This fallacy in thinking also affects the import of their second set of computed facts. From a limited number of plantation records, the authors of Time on the Cross draw up a distribution chart indicating the age of slave mothers at the time they gave birth to their first child. (Unfortunately the cliometricians do not tell us how large a sample was available to them.) Thirty-six percent of all first births took place between the ages of fifteen and nineteen, and an additional 4 percent took place among girls below the age of fifteen. "Some readers might be inclined to stress that 40 percent of all first births took place before the mothers were 20," the authors generously admit—in the fine print of their methodology volume. In their major volume they write only that "the average age at first birth was 22.5, the median age was 20.8."

The median age is the more significant of these two figures, since it shows that there were as many first births below the age of 20.8 as there were above. The average age in the Fogel-Engerman computation is beefed up by each first birth that planter records claim occurred at age thirty-five and over; it does not mean that "most" slave women gave birth to their first child at twenty-two.

From this limited presentation Fogel and Engerman extrapolate, "Only abstinence would explain the relative shortage of births in the late-teen ages," and "the high fertility rate of slave women was not the consequence of the wanton impregnation of very young unmarried women by either white or black men." They hopefully conclude, "The high average age of mothers at first birth also suggests that slave parents closely guarded their daughters from sexual contact with men."

Leaving aside the entire question of the accuracy of slave ages, which does not seem to bother the authors, or the incidence of spontaneous miscarriage and folk-remedy abortions for the very young (information certainly not available), what is most troubling about these first-birth statistics is that nowhere are they matched up against the average age of menarche, the time of the first menstrual period. As it happens, the age at which menstruation begins has been perceptibly declining. In 1960 it fell between twelve and thirteen; however, in 1860 first menstruation usually occurred between the ages of sixteen and seventeen. Not only that, there is evidence in modern medicine and anthropology that fertility in the first few years after the onset of menstruation is comparatively low.

Fogel and Engerman's statistics tell us nothing about the sexual exploitation of black women in slavery. Statistical analysis is a valuable tool when it deals with reported crime. Unreported crime, however, remains beyond the magic of computers.

[homemadegirlbossbattle]

ROUND 2 / SIDE A / POLL 1

Lady Moth Anvell (@ifidogaysomyself) vs. Rose (@hershelchocolateart)

Lady Moth Anvell info:

Description: Moth is relatively tall woman, she's a middle aged lady but you wouldn't really clock her as older than in her late 30's on first glance. She often puts aesthetic over practicality when picking out her clothing, though she can absolutely still kick someone's ass even while in a hoop skirt. She actually is pretty pleasant to talk to, as long as you don't commit anything deemed an act of betrayal*. She's analytical in her actions and sticks to her principles, even if most would not deem them moral, which allows her to both have a focused scientific mindset, and be a brilliant politician and tactician. While there are many things she has done that make her insanely irredeemable (see list of crimes/wrongdoings), she is also physically attractive and technically classifies as a milf, as well as has a background for why she chose to take those actions (which doesn't justify them, but puts them into perspective), so there would probably be at least one person who'd be a Moth defender till the end.

*Moth isn't afraid of many things, but someone very important to her betrayed her in the past and attempted to kill her, so she's more than slightly paranoid of it happening ever again. Because of that, she takes many, MANY precautions in selecting who she trusts with anything, and it takes the slightest slip-up for you to land on her shit list. Depends on how bad your actions were in her eyes, you will likely either be fired and declared an outlaw, or die due to abuse of a heavily flawed judicial system. The only exception to these rules is a literal deity, and that's only because he cannot be physically harmed.

Crimes: TW: mentions of child abuse, I'm going to be vague but it's still there REQUIRED CONTEXT: The story takes place across two dimensions, therefore the crimes will be explained in some detail in order for them to make sense

[A Dimension Not Unlike Ours, But It's Not Our World Specifically]

Taking advantage of capitalism in order to secure a countrywide scientific conglomerate so she can be technically legal about basically kidnapping people (Being An Evil Capitalist/Scientist) Thanks to a convenient piece of fine print in their contracts, the victims of such experiments inevitably get introduced to the business end of a blade, before having their souls dragged through a dimension portal and eternally enslaved to her in the other world (Unethical Necromancy) Engineering the interdimensional portal in the first place, because going against laws of (admittedly questionable) physics is still going against laws, therefore it is technically a crime even if I personally think it's really cool that she was able to do that (Breaking Laws (Of Physics))

[The Ailes, aka the Cool Completely Original Early-Steampunk Fantasy World]

Breaking God Out Of Jail (he's not supposed to breach containment) Unethical experimentation on a child under her care Child neglect (it's a different child from the one who was experimented on) I am not sure if creating a fully sentient, articulate, humanoid being using a mixture of magic and science then forcing them to commit an unfathomable amount of war crimes under your name while they have the physical disposition of a minor counts as creating a child soldier or if it's protected by copyright law Using an army of enslaved undead and one (1) extremely overpowered child soldier, as well as her own manipulation tactics and political prowess, in order to secure the highest social standing possible and establish a skewed government system that works like something between a monarchy and an MLM scheme Regular cause of unemployment among poor officials who just want to do their jobs Countless bouts of unfair executions based on a biased court trial system that she herself dictates and claiming "acts of betrayal" a legitimate reason for such Several attempts at intentionally sending assassins after a minor Anything else you can probably think of from an evil dictator who's actively leading one side of a war and was not afraid to murder an 11 year old if it came down to it

Other notes from the submitter: apologies if the art is rough in some places, i only found out about this bracket yesterday night and had to quickly doodle up a ref with only a few hours to spare haha. i am likely to draw more of her as propaganda if she's part of the bracket, and even if moth doesn't end up getting in, i still had a blast listing all her crimes. may the best (worst?) girlboss win!

Rose info:

Description: Rose is a ghost that lives within the boundaries of the Whisper Court Ghost Sanctuary. She's been there for a very long time, more than most of the other ghosts, and she fucking hates it. The Sanctuary is home to a large variety of ghosts with a large variety of personalities, so it's often used as a training grounds for new paranormal investigators. Rose sees this as patronizing, and is the only ghost recorded to have killed an investigator that was in her home. She hates being there, she hates talking to people, she hates her existence and she wants to watch it burn. She is an incredibly powerful spirit, with multiple abilities (uncharacteristic, as most ghosts only have one). She leaves firey footsteps wherever she goes, can summon fire at will, her cries can be heard by the living if she's loud enough, and she can untie the ribbons in her hair, releasing the lesser spirits she has trapped within to attack others at her bidding. She hardly ever speaks, hardly changes expression, and will do anything she can to see those around her hurt for the crime of trapping her in this neighborhood. (Which isn't even true. She trapped herself the second she died.) https://toyhou.se/16299555.rose

Crimes:

-Allied with the main antagonist to kill everyone in the neighborhood. This would also kill her, as she's attached to it, but she hates it so much she doesn't even care -Killed multiple people, both before and after becoming a ghost -SO much arson. Just. So much arson. Both while she was alive and after she died. She even originally died in a building fire that she caused, though it was someone else who caused it to get out of hand to the point where it killed her -Antagonized the main character to the point of them almost entirely fading away from existence for no personal benefit to herself. She just doesn't like them -Is completely apathetic and does not care about the neighborhood and its inhabitants at all, but still takes every chance to hurt them that she can for no reason other than she gets personal satisfaction from seeing them in pain or distressed -Threw and ruined a plate of Lorelai's ghost cookies and it made her sad and this crime can never be forgiven

Other notes from the submitter: The image was made by me, but I would like to add that YourOnlyDrPepper on tumblr designed her :) i am also madly in love with her.

[chilligyu]

my faded fantasy | wonu/reader wip | 18.5.23

@diamondyjh thanks for the inspiration bby tw: fire, descriptions of a city ravaged by fire, mentions of murder setting + characters based on the manhwa your eternal lies

the day of her execution was set.

when the judge slammed the gavel, she didn’t even flinch. fifteen days, three hours, and 56 minutes after she killed her husband, she was to be hanged for her crimes. a crime for which there was no evidence, no motive, no proof. she had no reason to kill him, but the courts didn’t care. he was a man of power; she was a woman of nothing. they condemned her to death the moment they found her sobbing over his body; terrified of what his death meant for her. they gave her two more weeks to live as if it were a kindness.

she didn’t even bother to mourn a life that was stolen from her.

it was never hers to begin with.

as the days passed, each dragging into the next, no one came to visit. there was no one left in the world that cared about her. she was an orphan, she had no friends left, the only person she had in her life was the man she allegedly killed in cold blood. her last moments in this world would be quiet and lonely, and that was fine. for two weeks—she could finally breathe.

the night before her execution, there were sirens. air raids, most likely. she was used to those; the war had been going on for so long she could hardly remember life prior to it. she used to stay up all night, trembling in fear, back when she didn’t know that the real monster slept in her bed. pulling the tattered blanket over her head, she tried to get some sleep. but the sirens never stopped.

neither did the bombs.

the night before she was to be hanged, fire descended upon the city, and quickly reduced everything she’d ever known to ash.

she watched the fire burn for hours from the relative safety of her cell. distraught citizens screamed, newly orphaned children cried, and the sky turned blood red from the blaze. it was a horrific scene. still, no one came to get her. no one cared for the woman who was destined to die. all she could do was sit there and wait. wait for everything to finally come to an end. whether she died from starvation or the rope, did it really matter?

finally, a shell made contact with the prison, and the upper floors started crumbling away. whoever else was trapped in there with her didn’t make it, their desperate pleas for rescue fell on deaf ears. they burned up just like everyone else out in the streets. those who didn’t want to face the fire simply leapt to their deaths. she could hardly blame them, if she had the choice, she could imagine herself doing the same.

by the time the imperial army swooped in, it was too late. they shot down the enemy planes and did their best to quench the flames. but there was no one left to save. she was the only one left, and she wasn’t anyone worth saving. the walls of her cell had cracked from the bombings, loose cobble fell to the floor. she could smell the putrid stench of burning flesh more distinctly. if she really wanted to—she could run away from everything. it was her only chance.

hiking up her gown, she climbed through the biggest opening she could find, and made a dash for the woods. once she made the tree line, she turned back to the still burning city and watched the planes flying overhead.

“one day, I’ll come back and take you far away from here.” a handsome young aspiring imperial pilot promised her a long time ago.

“thank you, jeon wonwoo.” she smiled, not knowing if he was even up there. “but it’s time I saved myself.”

[battleangel]

Why I am Antinatalist

TW: mentions & descriptions of r*pe.

Absolutely fucking sickening.

Dude, its motherfucking December.

Its practically freezing temperatures outside, in the 30s.

So, tell me why the fucking humidity is 80%+?

I am 42 and I have never seen humidity levels this high during winter.

Whats the cause?

Climate change endlessly driven by capitalist excess, human greed, zero sum late stage capitalism, consumerism, overconsumption, materialism, corporatism, lobbying and profiteering.

Basically, humanity.

Humanity caused climate change.

Therefore, end humanity.

Its not complicated.

Neither is antinatalism, which is the belief that is morally unjust to create a life.

Why?

The better question is, why is society so endlessly pronatalist?

Why is pronatalism the default stance?

Why?

Because people cant get over their disgusting self-serving obsessive egotistical need to have little mini-mes running around as extensions of their pathetic self-aggrandizing selves and their disgusting myopic need to continue their respective bloodlines, add to their lineages, create their own family trees and create and propagate endless children, grandchildren, greatgrandchildren and so on because individually if you (universal) have 1 to 2+ kid(s) and those kid(s) go on to have their own kid(s) -- when does it stop?

When does it ever stop?

How many ecocidal, environmentally destroying, climate change causing and contributing, landfill filling, ozone depleting, overconsuming, plastic using, oil guzzling, carbon footprint having, non biodegradable using, GMO consuming, pollutant causing, fast fashion shopping, Amazon Prime Delivery in 1 Day demanding, 1400 pounds of trash a year generating, thousands of gallons of water wasted a year just showering, electricity consuming, excessive indoor temperature control (AC/heat) energy vampire little cunts do you need to personally shit out to feel "complete" and "fulfilled"?

Pronatalism is a motherfucking joke but is the literal default in virtually all human societies.

Humanity is nothing but a self-replicating virus that has caused immeasurable harm to the planet and inexplicably to itself as a species yet still it continues to endlessly self-replicate as mindlessly as the Borg on Star Trek.

Never an independent rational emotionally detached logical reasoned out devoid of societal pressures, rewards and punishments thought, just wombs to be endlessly assimilated by the Pronatalist Borg Masculine Patriarchal Seed Collective.

How many little shits will you generate even from having "just 1 kid" because then how many kid(s) does that "only 1 kid" go on to have?

Just dont have them.

Stop your own personal lineage with yourself.

Stop adding to the human experiment.

It has failed.

Why?

I would think it would be obvious but here we are at this late stage in the game in 2023 with people allowing themselves to become impregnanted and I am endelssly pressured as a woman to immediately say, "Congratulations!"

Congratulations for fucking what?

The human experiment has failed for endless reasons:

Genocides. War crimes. Ethnic cleansings. Chemical warfare. Mass graves. Mass incarceration. Public executions. Lynchings.

Terrorism. Carpet bombings. Civilian slaughter. Bombing schools. Bombing hospitals. Hostage taking. Hostage execution.

Human experimentation. Tuskegee Airmen. Forced sterilizations (Puerto Rican women by the US government).

MK Ultra. Big agriculture. Big pharma. Military industrial complex.

Raytheon, Northrop Grumman & Lockheed Martin company stocks exponentially increasing 300%+ since 20k+ Palestinian civilians have been murdered over the past 2 months.

Endless wars. Endless profiteering. Duopoly. False agendas. Propaganda. Misinformation campaigns.

Burning innocent witches at the stake.

Forced births.

Crack epidemic in the 80s caused by Reagan flooding the Black inner cities with crack cocaine.

Endless exploitation.

Hundreds of millions killed by the death cult known as capitalism via houselessness, poverty, hunger, famine, lack of universal health care and affordable medical insurance, violence stemming from capitalist patriarchal systems held and endlessly reinforced by militarism, police states, toxic masculinity, sexual violence, misogyny, oppression of females and femmes, transphobia and homophobia, policing of women and femmes behavior, dress, mannerisms, sexuality, career choices, life decisions (marriage, motherhood) and personality and a constant demand for women and femmes to be polite, "nice", agreeable, inoffensive, pliant, and especially likeable at all times even and especially when we are being mentally/physically/emotionally/sexually/spiritually/financially abused, manipulated, gaslit, harrassed, assaulted, attacked, controlled, coerced, raped, beaten, isolated, ostracized, humiliated, silenced, repressed, suppressed, oppressed, intimidated, stalked, threatened and even killed.

As a woman and a femme, you are endlessly groomed, societally conditioned, raised, brainwashed and endlessly pressured and rewarded for constantly apologizing, shrinking yourself, making everyone else feel comfortable at the expense of yourself, endlessly justifying yourself, endlessly having to explain yourself and defend yourself, never being confident as it will be misconstrued as cocky, never being assertive because it will be misconstrued as aggressive, never speaking up for yourself because you will wrongly be called a bitch, never taking charge as you will be hated, never being logical by detaching your emotions as you will be accused of being cold and heartless, never deciding your actions and behavior through reasoning and logical deduction as you will be endlessly pilloried for not thinking with your heart instead of your head, endless pressure at all times to perform emotion and to "wear your heart on your sleeve", constant demands at a societal macro level to perform feminity, maternal care and emotional labor at work meetings & functions, holiday parties/dinners/events, performing emotional labor in all situations and environments regardless of personality (having to attend baby showers at work even if you are an antinatalist and/or childfree woman, having to excessively emote if there is a personal tragedy reported at work with no corresponding requirement for male employees -- miscarriage, hospitalization, accident, death, firing, layoff, etc.).

Rapes, sexual trafficking, sexual slavery, slavery, child sex trafficking, child molestation, child abuse, pedophilia, murders, tortures.

Pharmaceutical industrial complex, pathologizing of normal behavior by the psychiatric industrial complex, overmedicalization, misdiagnoses, overprescribing prescription medication, excessive nonsensical harmful medical interventions, extending life beyond all sense and reason to the point where the interventions are needlessly painful, harmful and completely unnecessary versus accepting death as not just a part of life but a beautiful transformation that should be embraced and not feared, contrived forced and constantly pushed and reinforced fear of death, sexual repression.

Women getting a scarlet letter for being a slut, whore, hoe; men getting an "attaboy" for being a player, stud, ladies man for the exact same sexually promiscuous behavior.

Tyranny of motherhood and demands for women to do constant endless unpaid domestic and emotional labor for their children for absolutely zero compensation and very little social reward beyond perfunctory lip service once a year on Mothers Day.

Endless materialism, endless consumption, endless consumerism, capitalist excess, corporatism, lobbying, fake news, us vs them, tribalism, political prisoners.

Child soldiers, child brides.

Famine, poverty, houselessness, lack of clean water, gun crime, gun deaths, drivebys, AK-47s, machine guns, serial killers, serial rapists, Columbines, Sandy Hooks.

False flag events, paid actors, green screens, sound stages, scripted events, rigged elections, Mandela effects, strangers in Moscow.

Gang violence, frat hazings, initiations, kidnappings, abductions.

Religious cults, priests raping altar boys, Eagle Scouts raping Cub Scouts, ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas, IDF, US military.

Elementary schools, churches and theaters being shot up.

Police brutality, Ahmed Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Say Her Name, Hands Up Dont Shoot, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Its just a bag of Skittles officer.

13 year old boy shot dead, not by the police, but by a Stand Your Ground civilian.

Dont Tread On Me Zionist Proud Boy.

Islamophobia, racism, white supremacy, racially motivated killings, hate crimes.

Donald J. Trump and Elon Musk.

Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook.

Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel.

Roger Goodell and Vince McMahon.

She was asking for it, what was she wearing, was she drinking, why was she out so late, she went upstairs with him what did she expect.

Theres no such thing as marital rape, feminazis invented that term in the 90s.

I dont care if you have a headache.

I dont care if you dont like anal, flip over and stop complaining.

Its not my fault that youre bleeding.

Then stop tensing up and it wont hurt so much.

I bought you the anal numbing cream and youre still complaining? Its lidocaine. Shut up.

I want anal every week so were having it.

I hit you open handed no bruising. Stop complaining.

I want to cum on your face. Theres nothing wrong with facials. Stop complaining. Leave your glasses on. Now take them off. Open your eyes. Keep them open.

Im into golden showers. Stop complaining.

Im into scat. Stop complaining.

Im into spanking. I didnt hit you that hard. Stop complaining.

Im into choking during sex. Its okay to not be able to breathe. Its only for a few seconds. Stop complaining.

I like biting your nipples. Its supposed to hurt. Stop complaining.

I like slapping your cunt. Stop complaining.

I like spitting in your mouth. Stop complaining.

I like roleplaying. Youre going to be 8 years old. Im going to be your uncle. Yes, during sex. Its just a roleplay. Stop complaining.

When can I put one of our videos on stileproject? You'd be good in porn. Why cant I upload them? Why do you say no to everything?

Okay, put your forearms on the floor and your legs on the coach on either side of my waist. No, were going to have anal this way. Im tired of doggy and Im tired of you riding me and Im tired of missionary. Were going to have anal in different positions. Youre tiny and flexible. Do it. Stop complaining.

Then stop gagging and stop throwing up. Theres no reason why you shouldnt be able to deepthroat me. Then work on your gag reflex. Stop complaining.

Get in the bathroom stall. Now. We'll be done in time for the start of Revenge of the Sith. Face away from me. The wall. Stop complaining. Pull your shorts down. Hurry up. No, in the butt. I dont want to wait to get to my house. Hurry up so you can still get your popcorn shrimp. Stay still. Stop moving so I can get it in. Be quiet. Youre not bleeding that much. Stop complaining.

Take your jeans off now. Do it. Im not in the mood for your little girl shit. Take them off. Stop crying. Both pant legs. Now. Hurry up so I can take you home to your fucking father. Stop crying! Be quiet. Hurry up. Its the least you can do after you danced all night at your cousins party.

Dont lie to me. Youve had sex since the restraining order. Shut up. Dont tell me what to do. Nothing hurts. I dont believe you. Hm. It is tight. Youre not hurt. Shut up. Be quiet, let me do this. Stop moving around and stay on top of me. Stay still. Stop shaking. Youre not bruised and youre not swollen. Stop talking. I still dont believe you havent had sex since we stopped dating. Dont talk to me. Leave me alone.

Dark side of private life.

Abusive spouses, murderous spouses.

Respected couple, matriarch and patriach, pillars of the church and community, married for almost 50 years.

Golden anniversary, golden showers.

Dark secrets, dark pasts, hidden criminal pasts, hidden felonies, hidden convictions, hidden prison sentences, lies to daughters, lies to mothers, lies to wives, repressed background check reports.

Might makes right, force, violence, imposing physical will, domination, vanquishing, crushing, destroying.

Humanity has had hundreds of thousands of years to fix these issues.

But we havent.

Were still -- as a species -- murdering, killing, raping, shooting, stabbing, enslaving, ethnic cleansing, erasing, occupying, colonizing, settling, imprisoning, making thousands of animal species extinct, filling thousands of landfills, destroying thousands of acres of rainforests, destroying ecosystems, overfishing, overextracting earths resources, killing indigenous people for diamonds, emeralds, ore, minerals, etc., pillaging, causing climate change, unsustainably raising the planets temperatures, causing wars and genocides, profiting off of and creating jobs for the manufacture and sale of weapons and bombs used to kill civilians mothers daughters grandmothers babies toddlers children teens students hospital patients fathers sons grandfathers teachers doctors nurses volunteers protestors intellectuals conscientious objectors love warriors revolutionaries prophets, AI cloning metaverse social media messaging apps streaming shows endless scroll always on never off, non stop notifications Slack Teams Google Meet Citrix Trello Asana Outlook Gmail corporate slave golden handcuffs modern day plantation.

The solution to all of the above unimaginable suffering is human extinction.

The solution is stop reproducing.

Stop procreating.

Stop pronatalism.

Stop humanity.

Reject societys non-stop endless brainwashing, programming, conditioning, grooming, messaging, demands, pressures and coercion to be pronatalist and reproduce endless bodies for the capitalist Borg machine.

Stop producing workers for them!

Rockefeller invented modern day public education and school systems because he wanted a "docile and obedient" workforce.

Thats all K-12 is because its all it was designed to be -- a feeder system for corporate, nothing more nothing less.

K-12 -- and college -- works exactly the way its designed to.

It breeds endless acquiescence to authoritatian figures.

Coaches, band leaders, music conductors, dance instructors, choir leaders, school counselors, school nurses, teachers, disciplinarians, principal as God figurehead.

Organized religion is the exact same -- endless acquiescence to authoritarian figures (priests, bishops, nuns, ministers, pastors, imams, Catholic pope as ultimate authority and God figurehead).

Corporate is the exact same (supervisor, +1, VP, Officer, CEO as ultimate authority and God figurehead).

Nuclear patriarchal family is the exact same (older siblings, older cousins, aunts/uncles, grandparents, mother, father as ulimate authority and God figurehead).

Government is the exact same (local representatives, mayor, governor, Congressmen/women, Senator, Speaker of the House, Supreme Court justices, President & Commander In Chief as ultimate authority and God figurehead; provinical representatives, Prime Minister, princes & princesses, dukes & duchesses, King as ultimate authorities and God figureheads; Queen is ultimate maternal archetype - "God save the Queen!").

Law enforcement is the exact same (beat and traffic cops, detectives, officers, seargants, captains, Chief of Police as precincts ultimate authority and God figurehead).

Military is the exact same (foot soldiers cannon fodder sausage for the sausage factory, squad leaders, corporals, seargents, captains, generals (1 through 5 star), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as ultimate authority and God figurehead).

End the karmic cycle of humanitys universal suffering.

Say no to pronatalism and no to breeding.

Say no to continuing environmental destruction, ecological destruction, ecocide, rainforest destruction, landfills, environmental waste, climate change, ozone depletion, animal species going extinct, wars, genocides, ethnic cleansing, chemical warfare, civilian slaughter, carper bombings, hostage taking, executions, tortures, lynchings, slavery, sexual slavery, sex trafficking, child trafficking, rapes, molestation, abuse, child abuse, domestic violence, murders, shootings, stabbings, drivebys, fatal hazings, kidnappings, abudctions, child soldiers, child brides, political prisoners, civil wars, tribalism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, misogyny, hate crimes, racialized violence, toxic masculinity, military industrial complex, police states, militarism, empire building, war machines, commodification, profiteering, capitalism, excess, materialism, overconsumption, consumerism, lobbying, duopoly, fake news, agendas, misinformation campaigns, forced births, misdiagnoses, overmedicalizations, pathologizing of normal behavior, CTE, concussions, head impacts, permanent brain damage, violence, misogynoir, terorrism, mass shootings, human experimentation, forced sterilizations, mass incarceration, prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, medical industrial complex, corporate plantation, man as machine, dehumanizations, beatings, objectifications, fetishizations, cheapening of human life, commodifications, globalism, slave labor, slave wages, exploitation, endless wars, death squads, rape rooms, comfort women, profiteering, religious cults, forced baptisms, family secrets, abusive family patriachs and matriarchs, capitalist death cult, dictatorships, cults of personality, strongmen, deceivers, manipulators, gaslighters, thieves in the night...

Stop contributing to the endless cycle of human suffering and do something to end it.

Dont reproduce. Dont procreate. Dont have children.

Abstain from sex and be celibate, masturbate, watch porn, read erotica. Or have sex and use birth control, pills, sponges, patches, injections, surgical implants, spermicide, condoms, tubes tied or lasered, withdrawal, Plan B and/or abortion. Or have sex other than vaginal sex (oral, anal, manual, intercrural, etc.).

Just dont add to the already failed and flailing on its ass 7 billion plus strong current human experiment.

[yellobb]

Sometimes I think about the assignments from my 10th grade English class and think “what the actual fuck was that.” It was basically a “let’s traumatize an entire class of 16 year olds” speedrun. Like, a lot of what we learned was important, but to have it all back-to-back was something else. Here’s some of what we read/watched (be warned, my descriptions aren’t graphic but the content is. TW for war, violence, and death):

Unbroken - This was our summer reading assignment. It’s about an American soldier and his real experience as a POW in Japan during WWII

All Quiet on the Western Front - Anti-war book based on the author’s experience in WWI. There is apparently a very graphic scene where horses are killed that I just completely blocked out of my mind. I do remember one character stabbing another and then having to rot in a hole with them for like a week while he slowly realizes how human the man he murdered was

Life is Beautiful - the most heart-wrenching movie I’ve ever seen. I cannot recommend it enough if you haven’t watched it. Just know it’s set during WWII

Hiroshima - The experiences of multiple victims of Hiroshima. I remember it being GRAPHIC

The Crucible - The Salem Witch Trials

The Things They Carried - Vietnam war vignettes. I remember one vignette included a lady with a necklace of tongues which was,,,,, certainly something

Night - A memoir from a holocaust survivor

Oedipus Rex - I feel like yall already know what this one is about. We also read Antigone, which isn’t much better

Things Fall Apart - Colonialism in Africa

A Separate Peace - not as bad as the others on this list, but notable because one of the kids breaks his arm and fucking dies because of it????

Crimes against humanity - I’m not even kidding. We were required to research a crime against humanity and write a paper about it. I wrote mine on honor killings. I know someone who wrote their’s on female genital mutilation

[firedragonx]

Poppy War by R. F Kuang Review

Tw: body mutilation, graphic description of dead bodies, self-harm, drug abuse/addiction, rape, child rape, and forced marriage. In this story, Rin a war orphan raised by drug dealers was going to force her to marry an older man. So instead she competitive exam in the hope of being accepted to the most prestigious military school in the empire. Then a whole bunch of stuff happens. There is no review of this without telling you it’s based on the second Japanese and Chinese war that happened before and during World War 2. Which is worse than human war crimes in recent memory. Poppy War doesn’t hold anything back. It shows the dark side of war and doesn’t glorify it, which I like. The magic system is unique. Human contact with gods is a frame that is not good, as they see the world as a plaything and people as vessels. There a rich history of this world that makes it feel alive. The Mugen, who are Japanese people, are written to be as evil as they can be. While the war was popular, there were people who opposed it as well, especially toward the end. I know why it’s written like this because it’s from the point of view of Rin, who sees their war crimes and thinks everyone from that country is like this. But in real life, there are more people who opposed it and more after the war. Go read it for yourself; it’s an interesting read. The ending leave a bad taste in my mouth giving historical context of not only the victims and the people involved. And I get why it was written like this. To show the horror of war and how far a person is push. However, the real people who were involved suffered mental breakdowns throughout their lives and victims still alive today suffer from the fallout. Just didn’t sit right for me how the character reacted. I don’t know. Let me know what you guys think. Overall I give this 8/10.

[haunted-vespera]

Intro! (Asks are open)

Pronouns page

Fics:

'my slice of heaven'

OC x Canon

TW: none

Fluff

Also on ao3

'The devil is me.'

OC x Canon

TW: violence, gore, bodily harm, bombs, swearing, alastor in general, suicide descriptions, suicide notes, war crimes, death, murder, drug use, smoking, eye gouging, torture, sex jokes and more.

series ' the truth lies in my grave '

Fluff, angst, ect.

PLEASE READ ALL TAGS BEFORE READING!!!!!! THIS FIC IS AND WILL BE GRAPHIC AND VIOLENT

The empress and the ten cups

WIP

AO3 homepage link:3

OC ROLE PLAY ACCOUNT: @rock-4lyfe-05

[quartings]

I don't know who I'd normally talk to this about, but I wanted to discuss one of my least favorite tropes here. That being the whole "mastermind serial killer trope".

(TW for descriptions of all the awful stuff media serial killers usually do below)

What I largely dislike about the trope is the fact that the moment you see a character like this in any show or movie, you know they're 100% going to win and beat the protagonist because they're soooo smart and they somehow managed to set up an impossibly elaborate sequence of crimes, obscure clues, and psychoanalysis that culminates into some dumb grandiose message. So because you know they're always going to pull some nonsense out of their ass by the end and win, there's no reason to watch whatever show or movie they're in anymore because there's no real tension anymore.

And the thing is, that even if they know every detail about how to commit a crime and about the people trying to stop them, their plans are always so pointlessly convoluted and time-dependent that even the slightest accident from an outside source can throw everything off and ruin the whole plan.

What if the courier you send to deliver the severed head or cryptic message gets caught in a traffic jam and doesn't make it at the oh-so specific time you need them to? What if the detective assigned to find and arrest you isn't the "worthy intellect" you want, and they're just of average or lower intelligence and can't solve any of your cryptic riddles? Even if they're smart, what if they just overthink everything and misinterpret the riddles and go way off case? What if some stranger stumbles upon your crime scene and messes up all the clues before the cops get there? What if an even bigger crime or disaster happens that overshadows all your killings in the media? What if your time-sensitive clues go unnoticed and expire?

It just really makes me want to write a story about a really smug serial killer who's planned out this massive trail of complex clues and killings that's meant to teach people a "lesson about society" or some nonsense, finally culminating in him mindbreaking the hardboiled detective sent to arrest him (as usual). But instead, nobody picks up on the clues or misinterprets them, and people attribute the killings to a bunch of unrelated suspects, so the killer doesn't even get any infamy or a cool nickname. By killing very low-level public figures, even if some of them were shitty people, the serial killer realizes that they haven't really done anything to improve the actual bureaucracy they hate and their city gets even worse.

Maybe there's even a Cindy Lou Who kind of moment where some very earnest soul confronts the killer about his motives, and he gives this massive spiel about humanity and how he's "figured out the system" and the other person is just like "that's dumb, why don't you just be nice to people instead". Sort of like "Killing one bad person but not undoing or mending any of their bad actions does nothing"

Conversely, you could have the killer confront an even more cyncial person who's like "Oh wow, you just killed one random corrupt governor while there's still so many worse people running around? You're patting yourself on the back for being some sort of genius while wars, famine, and Bionicle cancellations are going on? Whoop-dee-fuckin-doo, don't talk to me until you've wiped out every last person I hate personally, that'd at least make my life better. Kill me and see who cares. Hell, do your usual mastermind martyrdom suicide thing to 'send a message' right now, we all could use a good laugh. Starving orphans on other continents will totally get your grand goal and thank you. Fuck off."

And this is a bit more 'out there' but you could even "Ghost of Christmas Future" the serial killer and show them that the only impact they'll have on history is to be a very annoying chapter in textbooks, and most kids in high school will only remember them as "that stupid bitch that was on question 10". Pain and suffering existed before them and will exist after. Or even better, to see a serial killer react to all the thousands of Gen Z memes people make absolutely RIPPING into them and every personal aspect of their life.

Idunno, maybe I'll do something with these notes and make a story/comic/animation along these themes, maybe not. Just thought I should at least get this off my chest.