#we the youth dissent

[youthdissent]

[ID: A light red square post with a centered, black, bold, all-caps heading at the top that reads "Take action against the Supreme Court with queer and trans youth at a protest near you!" in all caps. In the bottom left corner is a pink text bubble with black body text inside that reads "Swipe to learn about four upcoming We, the Youth, Dissent protests!". To the right are two people. One is tan with brown and blue short curly hair, and the other is pale with a blue curly mullet. They are holding a sign that says "Stand against racism" in all-caps black lettering. End ID.]

[ID: A light red square post with a black, bold, all-caps heading at the top that reads "Join us in San Diego, CA and Colombia, SC". Below this in a centered pink rounded rectangle is smaller black body text that reads "San Diego, CA Waterfront Park/City Hall, 8/5 @ 12-2PM, connorl@queeryouthassemble.org". After a space there is more black body text that reads "Columbia, SC State Capitol - North Grounds, 8/5 @ 1-2:30PM, faithc@queeryouthassemble.org". End ID.]

[ID: A light red square post with a black, bold, all-caps heading at the top that reads "Join us in Atlanta, GA and Austin, TX". Below this in a centered pink rounded rectangle is smaller black body text that reads "Atlanta, GA - State Capitol - 8/26 @ 10:00 AM - faithc@queeryouthassemble.org". After a space there is more black body text that reads "Austin, TX - State Capitol - 9/23@ 6:00 PM - faithc@queeryouthassemble.org". End ID.]

[queeryouthassemble]

[ID: A dark orange square post, with a light orange rounded rectangle taking up the top half, with an all-caps heading that reads "Join Queer and Trans youth in protesting the Supreme Court". Below this is a group of four people standing side by side. The one on the far right has pale skin, blonde and blue short wavy hair, and is holding a brown sign that reads "Power to the people" in all-caps. To their left is a person with brown skin and brown curly short hair holding a beige sign that reads "defend LGBTQ civil rights" in all-caps. Beside them are two people with tan skin, one with orange curly hair, and the other with dark brown and blue curly hair and glasses. End ID.]

[ID: A dark orange square post with a light oval at the top that surrounds an all-caps heading which reads "We need your help!". Below this is smaller text that reads "We, the youth of the United States, have had enough of the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) and refuse to stand idly by. Queer Youth Assemble invites everyone, regardless of age & identity, to join us in protesting against recent SCOTUS decisions. We need YOUR help to make all of our voices heard! With the decisions on affirmative action, LGBTQIA+ rights, and student debt relief, the impact on youth across the country through our education, finance, and self-expression is inarguable. While things can feel hopeless, we want to remind youth that you hold more power than you realize and together, we can create a difference against injustice." End ID.]

[ID: A dark orange square post with a pale oval at the top that surrounds an all-caps heading which reads "Join our Youth Dissent protest". Below this is smaller text that reads "Take action with Queer Youth Assemble and help us organize nationwide Youth Dissent* protests against the Supreme Court! We are a nonprofit run by queer youth, for queer youth and we can use all the help we can get! Email us at youthdissent@queeryouthassemble.org to get involved or ask us any questions!" This text wraps around an image of a person with light skin, a blue mullet, and a shirt that has the genderqueer symbol in a heart on it, who is holding a white sign which reads "We the people means EVERYONE". In the bottom right corner in very small texts reads "*A dissent is a party's disagreement with majority opinion." End ID.]

[ID: A dark orange square post with a light oval at the top that surrounds an all-caps white heading which reads "Educate yourself and others". Below this is smaller black text that reads Check out QYA's posts about recent Supreme Court decisions regarding affirmative action and LGBTQ+ rights! Starting the conversation with loved ones and your local community is a great way to start! Folks often don't take action due to lack of awareness or simply feeling defenseless against a greater power. It's crucial to understand that community is what makes our voices powerful. That effort towards education is the first step." Beside this text is a white person with brown curly hair who is holding a white sign reading "Queer people will not be erased" in pink all-caps lettering. End ID.]

[ID: A dark orange square post with a light orange oval at the top that surrounds an all-caps white heading which reads "Get your community involved". Below this is smaller black text reading "Reach out to local organizations and LGBTQ+ centers to find out if they're taking any action. Encourage them to join QYA's rapid response efforts to help raise awareness for the cause!". Below this text are two people. The one on the left has white pale skin and a red mullet, and is holding a pamphlet with the trans flag and a binder on it. The person on the right has brown skin and dark brown and blue hair, and is holding a brown sign that reads "stand against racism" in all-caps black lettering. End ID.]

[ID: A dark orange square post, with a light orange rounded rectangle taking up the top half, with an all-caps heading that reads "join local QYA events." Below that smaller black text reads "Keep an eye out for more news about our upcoming rapid response efforts!" At the bottom of the page are three illustrated people, standing side-by-side, drawn from the waist up. Each holds a sign with one word, reading "protect trans kids" from left to rights. The people are of varying appearances and characteristics. End ID.]

[blooms-in-april]

In Oxenfurt there is a sacred tradition, which no one dares encroach upon: no one can be arrested during a theatre performance. And the scholars of Oxenfurt, for all their learning, are a dramatic, suspicious sort, and so the law stands. It's been taken advantage of by many a drunk and disorderly student, taking refuge in the audience of the Grand Theatre to evade the guard, until inevitably, the curtain falls and their reprieve is over.

When they come to arrest Professor Pankrantz, his students won't have it. He had come back to them quiet and broken this winter, more careless with his dissent, more bold in his defiance. He did not seem to care when the warrant was put out for his arrest, as an elvish sympathizer, a sodomite, and a conspirator against Nilfgaard.

"He knows the White Wolf will save him. He always does." Essi had said with false confidence, but the weeks pass and the university's protection wanes and the White Wolf does not come.

"He's not coming." Adrien whispers, hunched over his songbook. "We must do something."

"We will," Essi responds.

When he hears the guards outside his office, Jaskier puts down his quill for the last time. He swings open the door.

"Gentlemen!" He says. The armored faces are featureless, unmoving. "How would you like me?" They grab and cuff him hard across the head, then frogmarch him down the hall. His head rings like a great bell tolling the hour. He can feel the blood trickling out his ear.

There is a great crash, and a scuffle, and a large hand grabs him by the elbow. "Geralt." He whispers.

But it's not. Jeremiah smiles awkwardly, and holds his dented tuba in one hand. "I used to be a blacksmith before this." The quiet youth says. "Never thought it would come in handy again."

"My dear boy." Jaskier says as he's pulled along. "You shouldn't have. You saved my life."

"Your tutoring saved mine during finals. I think we're even, Professor."

Jaskier is hurried in through the backstage door, crowded with students carrying instruments, costumes, sheet music, and props. They all part way to let him through. "Top box, Professor." Essi says, hurrying him. "We saved it just for you."

He sits down, bewildered, as the guards shout outside and the orchestra tunes frantically. The curtain opens just as the guards make it into the auditorium. Everything hushes in that special breath before a show.

Essi steps on stage.

"Thank you and welcome to the members of the Oxenfurt Academy faculty, staff, and student body who have come to support this performance," she says. "We'd also like to welcome representatives of various law enforcement communities who have chosen to join us in the Academy Grand Theatre tonight. In the spirit of the arts, leave all discord at the door, and please enjoy this special performance by the students of Oxenfurt - 'The Adversities of Loving', a tribute to the life and works of Professor Julian Alfred Pankrantz."

She bows. The audience applauds. The play begins.

[warningsine]

Bangladeshi student protesters stormed a prison and freed hundreds of inmates Friday as police struggled to quell unrest, with huge rallies in the capital Dhaka despite a police ban on public gatherings.

This week's clashes have killed at least 105 people, according to an AFP count of victims reported by hospitals, and emerged as a momentous challenge to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's autocratic government after 15 years in office.

Student protesters stormed a jail in the central Bangladeshi district of Narsingdi and freed the inmates before setting the facility on fire, a police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"I don't know the number of inmates, but it would be in the hundreds," he added.

Dhaka's police force took the drastic step of banning all public gatherings for the day -- a first since protests began -- in an effort to forestall another day of violence.

"We've banned all rallies, processions and public gatherings in Dhaka today," police chief Habibur Rahman told AFP, adding the move was necessary to ensure "public safety".

That did not stop another round of confrontations between police and protesters around the sprawling megacity of 20 million people, despite an internet shutdown aimed at frustrating the organisation of rallies.

"Our protest will continue," Sarwar Tushar, who joined a march in the capital and sustained minor injuries when it was violently dispersed by police, told AFP.

"We want the immediate resignation of Sheikh Hasina. The government is responsible for the killings."

'Shocking and unacceptable'

At least 52 people were killed in the capital on Friday, according to a list drawn up by the Dhaka Medical College Hospital and seen by AFP.

Police fire was the cause of more than half of the deaths reported so far this week, based on descriptions given to AFP by hospital staff.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk said the attacks on student protesters were "shocking and unacceptable".

"There must be impartial, prompt and exhaustive investigations into these attacks, and those responsible held to account," he said in a statement.

The capital's police force earlier said protesters had on Thursday torched, vandalised and carried out "destructive activities" on numerous police and government offices.

Among them was the Dhaka headquarters of state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which remains offline after hundreds of incensed students stormed the premises and set fire to a building.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Faruk Hossain told AFP that officers had arrested Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed, one of the top leaders of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

"He faces hundreds of cases," Hossain said, without giving further details on the reasons for Ahmed's detention.

'Symbol of a system'

Near-daily marches this month have called for an end to a quota system that reserves more than half of civil service posts for specific groups, including children of veterans from the country's 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

Critics say the scheme benefits children of pro-government groups that back Hasina, 76, who has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Hasina's government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Her administration this week ordered schools and universities to close indefinitely as police stepped up efforts to bring the deteriorating law and order situation under control.

"This is an eruption of the simmering discontent of a youth population built over years due to economic and political disenfranchisement," Ali Riaz, a politics professor at Illinois State University, told AFP.

"The job quotas became the symbol of a system which is rigged and stacked against them by the regime."

'Nation-scale' internet shutdown

Students say they are determined to press on with protests despite Hasina giving a national address earlier this week on the now-offline state broadcaster seeking to calm the unrest.

Nearly half of Bangladesh's 64 districts reported clashes on Thursday, broadcaster Independent Television reported.

The network said more than 700 people had been wounded throughout Thursday including 104 police officers and 30 journalists.

London-based watchdog NetBlocks said Friday that a "nation-scale" internet shutdown remained in effect a day after it was imposed.

"Metrics show connectivity flatlining at 10% of ordinary levels, raising concerns over public safety as little news flows in or out of the country," it wrote on social media platform X.

(AFP)

[anexperimentallife]

The US far right has been working on their plan since AT LEAST the 1960s, when I was a kid listening to evangelicals talking about their plan to take over the US, and eventually the world. It's called "Christian Dominionism," and it's a fascist ideology which goes hand in glove with the GOP's plans.

Although it was not expressed so much to the world at large, this plan was OPENLY and FREQUENTLY discussed in far right circles. We kids, if we asked about it, were told that it was "God's Will." Ask any exvangelical about it, and they'll confirm. (Part of why I know so much about these dangerous and deluded folks is I WAS ONE OF THEM in my youth.)

And where has that plan gotten them? Well, the GOP recently released a hundreds of pages long document filled with their intentions if they win--including a nationwide abortion ban and a repeal of anti-discrimination laws, among other things.

Trump has already signaled his intent to create a military dictatorship if elected, by repealing laws against using the military against US citizens on US soil sp he can deploy them against dissenters, etc., and if the GOP pick up a few more congressional seats, he can do it. The GOP has already pushed to repeal presidential term limits, and Trump has indicated he'd like to be president for life.

So I'm amazed at all the people who think withholding their vote and letting the GOP win is going to somehow fix things and "push the Dems left."

You wanna know how to push US politics leftward? You're not gonna like it, because it takes actual work beyond stomping your foot and pouting and performatively showing everyone how "pure" you are by refusing to vote.

You have to start the same way the far right did (and again, they've been OPENLY talking about and pursuing this plan since I was a kid in the 1960s, AT LEAST)--they started by getting the most extreme right wingers they possibly could into any position they could. Positions like school board member, police chief, sherrif, city prosecuter, city council member, municipal judge, mayor, governor, hell, fucking dog catcher.

They encouraged far right extremists to become police officers and military personnel and work their way up the ranks to the point at which even the famously-racist FBI reported that major city police departments across the nation were pretty much taken over by members of white supremacist organizations.

In formerly reasonable churches, right wingers pushed for the hiring and training of more and more right wing pastors and mire right-wing theology.

More affluent right-wingers bought local papers and broadcasters, and as their political power grew, they changed laws to make it easier for a single entity to control the news--until now a mere handful of entities own nearly every major media outlet in the US.

And then they used every victory as leverage for the next one, and worked their way up. I mean, there's more, like the capitalization on economic and social anxiety and their inentional exacerbation of same so they could take advantage of it, but that's intertwined with the rest.

Essentially, they got this far because they put the work in.

If the US left is going to turn things around (and if it's not already too late), we've got to do the same, but it takes RESEARCHING and PROMOTING your local and state candidates, attending city council and school board meetings, and shit like that. It's actual fucking work to fix a country.

And then, after you've done all that--and after you've shown up to primaries to try to get any non-authoritarian leftist candidate you can nominated--then you vote for the leftest folks you're able to in the general. If there are no remotely leftist candidates, you vote for the centrist or right winger who will do the least damage.

Again, that's what the US far right has been doing for decades. Taking action. Wherever possible, taking new ground, but when they couldn't do that, ceding as little ground as possible. If they couldn't win, they made damn sure to do everything in their power to try to keep actual decent human beings from winning.

Actually doing the work doesn't have the emotional satisfaction of a grand gesture, but it definitely shows who is serious about making a difference and who would rather let everything burn than sully their imagined purity by voting for anything less than perfection.

Listen, Trump is not going to end the genocide in Gaza--in fact he increased tensions between the Israeli occupation and Palestine. And the GOP will never be persuaded. Hell, they want to let Russia take Ukraine and declare open season on asylum seekers.

The Dems suck. But the GOP is far, far worse, and will do MORE damage, and kill FAR MORE innocents. And if allowed to do so, will make it even harder to change the system than it is now. They've already PUBLICLY ADMITTED that their only chance of victory is keeping people from voting. Don't play into their hands.

Under current circumstances, you know what the Dems are going to do if Biden and a bunch of other Dems lose for not being pure enough? You think they'll be all like, "Oh, no! The left sure taught us a lesson by handing the country to the GOP! We'd better shift to the left!"

No. They're going to sip champagne in their multi-million dollar mansions and have meetings about how they need to move FURTHER RIGHT to win elections, because the left doesn't vote.

And if the US becomes a military dictatorship, most of the high ranking ones will simply take their fortunes and leave.

Yup, it'd sure teach ol' Joe a lesson to force him to spend the rest of his days sipping cocktails on the Riviera.

Look beyond the single battle and think strategically. That's how the GOP keeps gaining power. And refusing to act strategically is why the left is losing. We cannot take the hill we want right now. But if we lose the hills we've already taken, we risk losing the entire goddamn war.

So fucking vote. Work to get every leftist you can in any office you can. And if you can't do that, support the one who will do the least harm.

And if it takes voting for that shitbag Biden to keep Trump and the GOP out, hold your fucking nose and pull the goddamn lever.

[letsgobarbs]

Chapter 3 (Fin.)

INDEX Warnings: They are provided on the Index page A/N: Anaticula means little duck/duckling.

Acacius stared at the honey cakes on the table. He knew Lucilla had not meant to be cruel but the sight of them made his chest tighten. He wondered, not for the first time, what they would taste like in his mouth with the same poison lacing them as she had used on hers. He could bet they’d taste sweet, they would taste of reunion. 

Acacius…

“Acacius.” 

“Acacius,” Lucilla called. He broke out of his reverie to blankly stare at her. And he regretted it. 

As his priestess had not completed her contracted term with Vesta, Lucilla had taken her place as a replacement since there had been no requirements of youth or virginity— divorcees were acceptable albeit frowned upon. The role suited her as she had a post in the College of Pontiffs; since the death of the previous chief Vestal, Lucilla had taken her seat and established her voice in the Senate. But he couldn’t look at the red and white ribbons in her hair without choking on his sobs. Acacius went back to staring at the cakes. 

“You cannot keep living like this, Acacius. It has been months since we have heard you speak.” 

It wasn’t that he could not speak anymore. He has heard the sound of his voice when he wakes up in the dead of the night clammy, tears staining his cheeks and a hoarse scream on his lips— begging his priestess to not leave him. He just did not have much to say these days.

No, he actually had far too much to say. All his words were lost in his heart somewhere, they filled him up to his throat and suffocated him— stifled him— but they stuck to his mouth because the person supposed to hear them was not here. She had not left him, not truly. She resided in his heart. He spoke to her there without having to talk.

“Lucius could use your guidance… some of the Praetorian Guards are dissenting. We could use your help.” 

They didn’t need his help, he was a soldier, not a politician. And last he had heard, their new Emperor was making the Praetorian Guards fight each other in the arena in the name of training. As for the guards who were causing too many problems by terrorizing the public or plotting a coup, Lucius would fight them in the arena himself, reasserting himself as a public hero. 

His priestess had left him a letter, advising him to take the throne and then work towards establishing a republic rather than foisting the country over to rotting administrators and decaying pillars. She had counselled Lucius to wait for the senators to succumb to their vices; and nurture better successors for them. 

She may have hinted that it did not take much to remove a senator from his post— both Lucius and his priestess shared a devious mind. Just last week Senator Thraex suffered an apoplexy while he indulged in his whores and had since passed away. The Emperor has been steadily introducing legislature that cut into the power of the Praetorian Guards, and levied higher taxes based on income. 

Their mutual friend Ravi had leveraged her extensive information network to benefit the new Emperor who kept a very close eye on many restless Praetorian Guards and Senators. Any voices of dissent were swiftly nipped in the bud. But Thraex had been correct about one thing, politics did follow power; after an example or two, all other senators had fallen in line. 

Ravi, too, had received a letter from his priestess. Lucilla, as well, who had been tasked with continuing his priestess’ efforts to educate the poorest children of Rome. She had left letters for Publius, for the Vestals, for her servants, for employees, for clients, for friends, for whores— even for Fortuna, Macrinus’ former slave. 

There were letters for everyone but him. And that fact bothered him like a speck of dust in his eye he was unable to remove. He would sometimes wonder if she had cared so little for him, but he knew that was not the case. The absence of a letter for him, when everyone had received one, had felt like a purposeful slight and that thought hurt more. He had not known his anaticula to be so cruel. Which only meant she had been upset with him for not remembering her— for not recognising her. 

After a particularly restless but clear night, when he had felt like smoke had diffused into his every breath, and when pacing along the roads of Rome had not worked, Acacius had found himself on the doors of the Temple of Vesta. He had made every little Vestal acolyte read aloud their letters from her. One of those girls had the eyes the same colour as his priestess. He had to leave because he couldn’t bear looking at her. He had dreamt of her giving him daughters that took after her. 

“You should join us for the festival in a few days,” Lucilla continued explaining her planning for the festival. He appreciated her kindness, truly; he could understand she was trying to be there for him. After all, they had grieved Maximus together. But she would never be able to grieve for his priestess with him— she didn’t know her. After Maximus, Lucilla had her son to live for, and Rome to live for. He had nothing. He was not going to that festival, he couldn’t stand to be in a room full of people who didn’t know her— who didn’t speak of her. He felt too raw and vulnerable to be around those who were celebrating and making merry.

They shouldn’t worry, he wanted to say as much, but the words felt futile because he knew they would worry anyway, so he didn’t say them. The sun would set soon, and Acacius would go to the domus on the far side of the city and cook the food. He left the feeding part to others who could listen to the gossip, and glean important information. Acacius found his thoughts would drift out of his control, he was unable to focus on extensive conversations.

Then he would climb the mountain to watch the sunrise, he would lay on his back and reminisce about all the things he should have said to her then— informing her of his plans foremost, so she would not have… taken the drastic decision she took. He had shed countless tears into the earth of this mountain, softening it so it could engulf him, swallow him whole. And each morning the ground did not accept him, he would watch the sunrise even though its light no longer felt warm, it scratched and chafed him like dry, arid sand.

He would spend his morning training soldiers. He taught them how to march and fight. Help them with the construction of buildings, fortify city walls, and maintain the roads. There had been blissfully no wars, and what skirmishes had arisen had been dealt with diplomatically— Rome now offered people more sovereignty over their land, but still collected their tax. In the absence of war, he did woodworking. Acacius carved several idols of Vesta in her human form; they had all looked like his priestess.  

He would go to the baths then, the ones she made free for the public, to ensure they were being operated in good condition. It was by no means something she entrusted to him, but the man she had left it to was ageing and could use the muscle. As all people in their older years, this man too was prone to nostalgia and reminiscing. He would recall the glory days of his youth as a soldier, and his stories would feature his beloved pupil— a young Vestal child he taught the art of fighting. His priestess.

Then it would be evening. There was something very morose about evenings. The silence of his home gnawed at him. The grief he had veiled in the air floods out in a deluge, and the waves of time slow. Acacius would wish nothing more than to reunite with his beloved in his dreams but sleep eluded him. He wished could drown himself in drink but found that he did not like his sight blurred because then he couldn’t envision her clearly. More often than not, he would sit staring into the blazing hearth and imagine her sitting beside him. 

He could not express the injustice of it all if he tried. She was close at all times, he took her with him everywhere— nestled in his very being. Acacius belonged to her, but he would never know if she was his or not. They existed like two opposite shores of a river that do not meet— so near yet so far away. The distance, the grief, was unbearable. 

It was not that he had not considered covering that distance. It would not be too difficult to swim across the river of the dead if she were waiting for him at the bank. But… he loved her. And that was reason enough to breathe. She had not just saved him at the Colosseum, she had breathed new life into him; and now he carried a part of her within him. He could not bear for that small flame to extinguish— deprive the world of that small part of her. For decades, he had only known that world which had been darker and crueller without her.

It was not that her work, and her accomplishments, required him as champion and supporter. What she had done in life will echo in eternity. And as she had hoped for, the people rallied for their communities; new faces took her place to continue the work she had begun. He knew others would take their place in the future.

Her name still rang on their lips, there were still signs of her around him. But he knew that one day she would be forgotten. The world would move on without her and it would leave him behind with her. But he wanted to live so he could remind them of her— her light, her kindness, and her love; because he would always remember her. Acacius would never be able to breathe in a world that had forgotten her.    

“Lucius likes her brother. He wants him to join him in the city… run for senate. But the man has been resistant.” Lucilla was still talking to him. He wasn’t always this bad at listening— Acacius had always been more of a listener than a conversationalist. He stroked the soft red fabric spread over his leg; he had later learned that his priestess had spent days embroidering his cloak personally. Acacius did not dare read into the significance of the act fearing it would drive him insane. 

“Acacius… I’m talking about her eldest brother. I heard you were friends once.” Her brother? 

Instantly he felt ashamed, nervous. He had prided himself on being a man of his word but he had not kept the promise he had made to his priestess’ brother— his friend. Her family had been the only ones to welcome him with open arms when he had first come to the city in search of work. 

He remembered her father, a respected general, who had taught him honour, hard work, and valour. Acacius had been incensed when they were accused by Commodus, and heartbroken when they had to leave in disgrace. He remembered her mother; Acacius had been too self-concerned as a young man to speak to her about her work and trade. But he remembered her rose petal jam, the taste of it, the scent of which her daughter wore on her body. 

His priestess would always hide behind his legs after breaking her mother’s precious artefacts, knowing she would not be punished in the presence of a guest. Acacius would unabashedly lie for her. But he had not been treated as a guest in their home. He remembered her mother’s eyes full of admonishment and mirth, “I know the demon that has crawled out of my womb, Marcus. You’re much too sweet of a boy to destroy or break anything.” How wrong she had been, all he had done his entire life was destroy things. And he had allowed his actions to destroy her daughter too. 

He thought of her brother, one he had called brother himself. They had fought battles together; he had never had to worry about being attacked from behind knowing his friend stood at his back. His friend had never taken to bloodshed the way Acacius had; he had the cunning of a politician tempered by his kind nurturing. He had promised his friend to watch over his little priestess, they had been so worried to leave her alone in the city without friends or family. And he had not kept his promise. She had died because of him. 

“You could visit her family at their countryside villa… convince her brother to come to the city…” Lucilla left after some time without an answer from him— as was their routine. She did not need to hear the answer anyway, he would always say no. It was funny, he would have never imagined denying her several years ago. But he had been freed of his oath. 

He could never face her brother. He wouldn’t know how. But the thought of seeing him had firmly grown roots in his mind, he could not stop thinking about it. Her brother had the same eyes as her, and he just wanted a glimpse of them full of life and vitality. That night, Acacius left without informing anybody, not that there had been anyone to inform.

Acacius paused, he was a soldier. His instincts never lead him astray. They helped him survive. He had already spent several days in this town which had been both blissful and distressing. Her presence was strong here— her scent was in the air; he could sometimes hear her laughter; he would see wisps of her hair in the crowd or turning the corner; he would hear whispers of her name. It had all felt like a dull knife sawing on his heart, reminding him of the loss and grief he carried. 

But Acacius looked around him, and carefully studied his surroundings. The food stall served rose petal jam along with cheese and bread. There was a woman eating her meal; the sleeves of her tunic were tied into a more flattering shape with red wool strings. Despite their wealth, women wore their hair in much simpler coiffures. Women tended to wear their palla with intricately woven designs incorporated while the fabric was being produced on the loom; this town sported the additional fashion of embroidering over the cloth.

He made his way over to an old man sitting under a tree, unsure and hesitant about phrasing his question. Anticipation curled in his belly. But he sat there for several long seconds before clearing his throat. 

“The family that owns the land here… I heard their daughter returned.”

“Aah”—the man grinned—“You must be one of the prospective suitors.” Hope unfurled in his chest, could it be?

“Prospective suitors?” Acacius asked.

“Yes, a retired Vestal virgin with a handsome pension from the state, who wouldn’t want to marry her.” 

“She was in Rome?”

“No, no… not Rome. We heard about the Vestal they buried there. Terrible business that, killing an innocent woman for politics. This one was south of Rome, the temple in Bovillae, I think.” Acacius felt an incredulous laughter overcome him. 

“You’re in luck, all the wealthy Patricians from neighbouring territories have come down to see her… But she hasn’t taken a liking to any of them. You are handsome enough to test your mettle against her. She’s no ugly duck that one but she is not young. Men prefer younger brides…” Acacius did not stay to hear more. 

The instincts of a predator had already overcome his rationale. He stalked down the street in search of his prey. It would be easier to just show up at her estate lying in wait for her. But he had heard her laughter just around a few corners. His gait was quick and sure, she would not escape him— not now, not ever. 

Acacius was in disbelief, a muscle twitched in his cheek, he was frozen at the sight of her. There she stood under the setting sun, bathing under its glowing light tasting the food out of a pot in the cart. He had walked past that cart just a few moments ago and had not realised it had shielded her from him. His feet carried him to her involuntarily, he heard that laughter again as she nodded about something, her gaze trained on the person speaking to her. He grasped her elbow and whirled her around to face him. 

It was her. She was alive. She was alive. She was alive.

His fingers grazed her cheek, oh so gently, fearing she was a being of air and mist conjured by his dreams and hallucinations. Her skin was warm under his touch; her eyes stared up at him speechless and bewildered but alive— bright with vitality. 

He didn’t know whether it was laughter or sobs that were escaping his mouth, but even as he enfolded her in his arms, they racked through his body. He held her tighter still as she jostled in his arms because of his own heaving breaths and jagged sounds. Acacius did not relinquish his hold on her, grasping her closer to him, feeling the shape of her shoulders and the strength of her spine with trembling hands. His legs too were trembling as sheer relief flushed through his body, she braced him around his chest— holding them both up so they didn’t sink to the floor. 

He would remember to be angry at her later, but his tears soaked her clothes now. She was whispering something into his ear that he could not hear. Multiple hands were trying to pull him off her; another time he would realise how inappropriate it was for him to even touch her let alone hold her against him. But the entire Roman army could not pull him away from her now. He had forged all his strength, tenacity and ferociousness through decades of war for the sole purpose of holding on to this woman. He will not let go now that he has her again. 

Her words finally pierced through the fog surrounding his ears, “Marcus… Acacius you are hurting me…” 

He loosened his hold, just enough so that he could look down to observe her. He still kept her pressed into him; Acacius studied the contours of her face; and watched her take deep, steady breaths. She was panting with effort, her ribs struggling to expand against his own. He gave her more space within his enclosed arms, but she swayed on her feet, her hands grasped his shoulders for support, clenching his tunic in her fist. His lips lingered over her brow and temple, firmly kissing her, uncaring of the crowd that had formed around them.

“Step aside… give way, step aside.” 

His priestess flung away from him at the new voice, turning around to face the intruder. 

“Brother…”

Acacius looked at the man as he dispersed the crowd and sent them back to their jobs. The years had been kind to his friend, he looked fit and healthy, his skin flushed bronze from work under the sun, his hands still strong and powerful.

“He thought I was someone else.” His priestess explained without having been questioned. The sardonic stare his brother levelled at the distance between them, Acacius knew he didn’t believe her. And Acacius would not corroborate her lies. 

He stepped away from her anyway, part in acquiescence with his pointed stare; but mostly so that when he chose to hit him for taking liberties with his sister, his priestess wouldn’t be accidentally hurt. But instead of the blow he had braced for, his friend engulfed him in a warm, welcoming embrace with several hearty pats on the back. 

“We just got our sister back, Marcus. Have you come to take her away from us so soon? You must know we will not easily hand her over to you.” Her brother spoke over his shoulder. Acacius struggled to make sense of his words. Regardless, if they did not want to give his priestess to him, he would make peace with living at their doorstep like a pet dog just to be close to her. There was no getting rid of him now. His friend released him with a firm grasp on his arms. 

“There will be no handing me over to anybody… I have considered renewing my vows with the Temple of Vesta.” His priestess primly interrupted, before leaving him staring behind her agape. 

“Seems like you’ve upset her, Marcus.” His friend was having fun at his expense. 

The dinner had been sadly oppressive. It wasn’t his host’s fault; they had all been enthusiastic in their welcome, and the conversation had flowed smoothly. Tears had stung his eyes, his nose had burned when he had met his mentor; the man was still strong for his age, jovial too. Acacius had been ungrateful for severing his connection with the man who had shaped him. He also wondered when he could start pleading and begging for their forgiveness for not having protected their daughter. But they had surprised him by tearfully thanking him. 

Things had all gone downhill from there. He was tongue-tied, ashamed and lost. His priestess had lied to her family and had credited him for rescuing her. She would not meet his gaze the entire time. He had wanted to burst out the truth, Acacius was neither familiar nor comfortable with lies. Every time he had tried, she had spoken up to guide the conversation elsewhere. He couldn’t eat, his palms felt clammy and his skin crawled with anxiety until he had worked himself up into a temper.

He had come to several infuriating realisations when he had later found his priestess reposed over a bench admiring the moon, “Where you ever going to tell me?” His voice thundered through the garden. 

She appeared unphased at his outburst, “General Acacius.” She had called him Marcus when he had found her.

“How many people know?” He choked on his words, he could not shake off the feeling of betrayal that coated his chest.

“Know what?” Her tone was mild as if they were discussing the weather. He scoffed.  

“Oh. Not many, but they all will eventually. Since I am still in trade.” 

“Why”—his voice broke—“Would you do this? I had promised to rescue you. I would’ve come for you.” Acacius took several deep breaths in the silence between them, shoving his sobs back down his throat. She was never going to tell him that she was alive.

“I was just tying up loose ends.” 

“Loose—” He laughed this time, loud and scornful. Loose ends? Did she not realise he was the loose end? His heart was a loose end?

“But I came for you.” His voice was small and vulnerable— it expressed the injustice he felt. But the placid, distant way she looked at him made him feel like had no right to object to how she had wounded him. 

“I’m sorry it was done that way.” There was not a hint of regret in her voice, just endless politeness that was driving him crazy— it made his jaw clench and teeth itch.

“Why tell your family I rescued you?” He demanded. 

“Because you made plans for it. I appreciate your attempt at rescuing me, it would have worked had I not made my own arrangements.” Acacius paced the short length of his garden, her eyes followed his form curiously but tentatively. 

“You do not need to worry about it,” she continued, “I saved your life at the Colosseum. And you made plans to save mine. Consider your debt to me repaid.”

He whirled around to face her, “Is that what you think this is? Agony over a life debt?”

“Well, of course.” She genuinely looked confused.   

“So why do it? If you knew I would worry over a life debt, why make me believe you were dead? Why go with your arrangements? Why did you not wait for me? Why not trust me?” His words were rushed and frenzied. There was an angry fervour to them which made her flinch back and stare at him like he was an animal that would pounce on her. 

Acacius abruptly put distance between them, he had enjoyed that fear in the eyes of his enemy, but he could not bear for her to look at him thus. He tried to rein in his temper, she was inexperienced in the ways of love, and she probably didn’t even know what he felt for her. His priestess had spent so many years alone, protecting herself and others with nobody to depend on. It must have been difficult for her to trust someone else to come to her rescue.

“No, you could not have saved me.” Her words were heavy with meaning. He believed the moonlight was playing tricks on him, her eyes could not look so cold, dark and lifeless. Acacius felt an urgency course through his veins, and sweat broke out against his back. She seemed so far away like she could slip from between his fingers again. Just as he moved to grasp her arm, her eyes met him in a hard, contemptuous stare; the polite smile on her lips was disingenuous and false.   

“You would have forgotten about me. The moment I disappeared from your sight, you would have forgotten about me. That is how it has always been between us… it is how it will always be.” She had delivered the words with such certainty that they lingered in the air, suffocating him, long after she had bid him goodnight in that same soft, placating tone. 

“Acacius?”

Her father stood behind a column, and Acacius spun to face him— flustered, embarrassed and entirely overwrought. He did not have any more conversation or niceties left in him. When had the man snuck up on him? How long had he been standing there?

“Join me for a drink, Acacius.” He had no choice but to follow.

He poured him a drink of wine, as both men sat facing the hearth. A large painting hung over the fireplace, it was his priestess’ mother. She had her mother’s eyes and colouring.

“The thing about brilliant women, Acacius, is that their mere memory could sustain you for a lifetime. Do you not agree?” And Acacius sighed with relief— because he knew. Her father knew that he had not saved her. 

“I agree,” He whispered. 

The older man gave him a kind smile, “How long do you plan to stay with us?” 

He knew the question demanded a different answer. This was no host making living arrangements, this was a father asking Acacius what his intentions were for his daughter. There was much he could tell him, that he loved her, cared for her— every day without her was a struggle for survival that exhausted him like he had fought an entire battle when he had not even stood from his seat. But the words stuck to the roof of his mouth along with his tongue. She deserved to hear these words from him before anyone else. 

“I am sorry… for not protecting her—”

“It’s not what I asked. I cannot blame you for not protecting her when I have failed to, as well. I know how it hurts to let her down, Marcus. And I am her father.” There was a charged silence between them before the older man sniffed into his drink. 

“She used to send us these letters through her tutors. Desperately begging us to take her home, she would never say what was wrong… nobody could tell what was wrong. Her mother and I worried, but we always told her to be strong… You couldn’t imagine the horror we felt when we found out she had poisoned the Pontifex Maximus, what had pushed a child to such extents… she never sent us letters again, unless we wrote to her first. Never asked for help. I was surprised she came home honestly, grateful, but surprised.” 

Acacius felt a stone lodge in his throat; worry and fear warred within him. She had needed a protector, he was supposed to have been there… He calmed his twitching fingers by pressing them to his thigh, hoping to ease the uneasiness in him. He remembered the previous Pontifex Maximus, the man had barred him from seeing his priestess because she had been too busy playing by the sacred springs. He bit the inside of his cheek in realisation that he had been lied to, he had gone home content to know she had made new friends, and was enjoying herself in the temple. He had believed that monster. 

“She dug under the walls, you know?” The man looked smug and proud.

“She paid her men to dig from outside the city walls, tunnel under it to reach the crypt. Thank you for leaving her those extra supplies, she had needed them”—her father raised his glass at him in salute and gratitude—“she had to break the mud bricks lining the inside of the crypt to access the tunnel.” 

“I had to send one of my men to fill the tunnel again to fortify the city’s defences.” He informed Acacius with a sigh.

“I had promised to visit her often and watch over her… I am sorry for not keeping that promise.” Shame coloured his voice, it came out so low that he was afraid the older man would not have heard him. 

“We do not blame you, Marcus. The politics at the time had been… murderous. As a general, I understand. As a father, I will say that my daughter deserves to hear that apology. She always looked at you with hero-worship in her eyes, even when you were nothing more than a young inexperienced boy who didn’t deserve to be called a soldier.” 

Acacius smiled at the memory of her large, twinkly-eyed smile, she had always depended on him— trusted him. It would have hurt her more for him to not have been there for her when she needed him. 

“She will forgive you, I know. Maybe she already has. My daughter wrote the most colourful letters describing your ascent in the military. Nobody was prouder than her. So were we, I hope you know. My wife and I relished every news we heard of you— well— except for your marriage that is.” 

Marcus felt his eyebrows rise in surprise as he shared a laugh with his mentor. He had not realised they would follow his career and life so closely. 

“Her mother was so angry when you had married. She almost beat me up while we were sparring. Blamed me for stubbornly ruining things… If she had her way, she would have foisted our daughter on you as soon as she had turned seven, she would say to me”—His voice took on a higher pitch and an accented lilt to mimic his late wife—“you don’t understand, old man. I have travelled the world. I know a good man when I see one. This one is a diamond in the rough, you will never find someone better for our daughter.” 

Marcus felt humbled, a warm glow spread across his chest. He had been nothing then, he had nothing with which they could trust him with their daughter. But their confidence in him was sobering. 

“You do not have to tell me how you feel about my daughter, Marcus. The truth pours from your eyes. You have never been one for schemes and lies.”

You carefully peel the outer petals of the bloom before arranging it again in the vase; it instantly looks fuller against its companions. You heard the door shut behind you, it was probably someone who collected your empty breakfast tray. Someone cleared their throat, someone with a voice so deep it sent a girlish thrill through you. But you were far too embarrassed to face him this morning. It was best to get this over with as fast as possible. 

Marcus. He looked at home in his soft tunic and wool toga, and briefly, you hated that he still looked so comfortable when he had you so unsettled since yesterday. You gave him what you hoped was a gentle smile and not the grimace you were desperately trying to contain. 

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

You both spoke at once. You couldn’t help but give an answering smile to his amused one. 

“I’m sorry about last night,” you decided to lead, “it was wrong of me to question your honour. I know you would have come to rescue me. But I am used to depending on myself.” 

“And I am sorry that I never visited you at the Temple. I should have been there to lend my protection when you had required it. I know you are more than capable of protecting yourself, but you should not have had to.” He sounded so earnest. 

“It is not your fault, Marcus. You were still a child yourself, and away at war for most of the time. Commodus was also purging those loyal to his father at the time. And with you fighting under Maximus then. Helping this family’s daughter would have just unnecessarily made you an eyesore.”  

He was silent for a while as if considering his next words, he cleared his throat again, “Last night… I spoke to your father. And I expressed my interest in you— marrying you.” 

You blinked in shock, it would have been more believable if he had told you the clouds were green today, and the heavens brown. An incredulous laugh builds in your chest as you realise he is entirely serious. “No.” It was all you said, all you could manage. And it had taken all your strength to say it, you had fought every dream and every instinct to deny him. 

“Why not?” He asked so gently. 

The truth was that you loved him, more than he could ever love you. And if you were to marry him, you would waste no effort in making him love you. But if he didn’t love you then you would grow to resent your marriage because you would be trapped in an endless cycle of begging for his attention and affection then feeling lonely and bereft at the lack of it. Eventually, you would wither away from the loneliness in a marriage to a man who loved another.

You gave him an excuse that was part truth and part lie, “Because we do not love each other, Acacius.” I love you, so much. You do not love me.

“But I love you.” 

For a brief horrible moment, you think the words had slipped past your lips— that your mind had finally tired of keeping it a secret and shoved it out of your mouth. But as you looked at him, standing there with his brows furrowed over hesitant, pleading eyes, you realised he had said it. Acacius said he loves you… He loves you? 

“Of course, I know. You have always loved me… but brotherly affection cannot sustain a marriage.” He didn’t need to go so far as to marry you to compensate for whatever way he imagined he had failed you and your family. Because that could be the only reason for marrying you. Anger curled in your belly, blistering and ravenous, did he truly believe you would settle for his marriage of duty and honour… after you had loved him for so long?

He was slowly stalking towards you, as if you were some spooked little animal he did not wish to alarm. He weaved around the table and the sofa, and you took a step back with every forward step of his until your back touched the wall behind you. 

“You love Lady Lucilla.” You tightly remind him, he had said as much in the arena that day as well. 

“Ah, yes, but brotherly affection cannot sustain a marriage.” He had a teasing glint in his eye that only infuriated you further. He stepped even closer, his hand clasped the side of your waist; you squirmed away from his touch— it was overwhelming. Did he enjoy being cruel to you?

You had never felt so angry at someone and noticed how beautiful they were at the same time. He was infuriatingly perfect— even with all his little imperfections; you adored the enraging way his left eyelid drooped ever so slightly more over his eye than the other, the creases across his forehead, and the crevices formed around his eyes. 

“Do you think I am stupid?” You hissed at him as you fiercely shoved against him. But the bull of a man he was, Acacius didn’t budge at all. Damn him.

His fingers gripped into the softness of your belly, and he pulled you against him until your chest touched his. His other hand came up to roughly tangle with the braids and coils in your hair. He firmly pulled your head back, exposing your neck to him. It made you feel far too vulnerable, he could see the wild beating of your pulse on the side of your throat. He could probably feel the tiny shivers of anticipation racing across your spine.   

“No… I do not think you are stupid.” He whispered, his breath teasing across your lips.

“You”—you were mincing the words in your mouth before they came out—“you… arrogant, stupid, self-centred, BASTARD!” You had shoved against him again, mixing physical strikes with the verbal ones. You clenched your fists and rained blows over his chest and arms. He absorbed the force of your hits as if he couldn’t even feel them. It only made you struggle harder in his hold. 

“No doubt, I am all those things… but tell me why you think so, anaticula.” He sighed his endearment against your throat, his lips brushed your jaw. You flung your head to the side, hitting his nose with your jaw. You paused, panting with effort, and watched him twitch his nose and flare his nostrils to check the damage of your hit. 

“Tell me.” He demanded once he believed his nose was alright. 

Your face contorted into a scowl of rage, lips trembling with the pain you held inside. His hand receded from your hair to cup your neck. Acacius brought his thumb to gently massage the side of your jaw you had hit him with, his gaze on you intent and focused. It seemed he was reading your every fleeting thought and wavering expression. Helpless, resentful tears streamed down your face, they scalded your cheeks. 

You could not possibly bear his gentleness right now; you had used all your strength and courage to leave him behind in Rome, and then again just now to seemingly deny him your hand in marriage. You were weak, your soul fragile— you could not barricade him out of your heart for too long. You summoned the last of your strength. Your hands found purchase on his shoulders and you leveraged their steadiness to fling yourself up and savagely bite his ear. 

He reared back, pulling his ear out of your mouth before you could painfully bite down. He laughed, wild and free, as he squeezed the back of your neck to shove your face in his chest. He pulled the both of you off the wall, while you fought him with flailing arms and legs. Your foot caught his shin with a dull thud, you heard him grunt in pain. Acacius threw you on the seat of the sofa, knocking the wind out of you. 

You gasped for breath while he stood over you, but you were not silent for long. You lunged for him again, screaming long and loud, uncaring of who heard you in your home. In a swift, smooth movement, he had you pinned down under him, his legs pressed down on yours preventing them from moving, your wrists were grasped in each of his hands, and Acacius pushed down his weight on you effectively cutting off both your screams and your breath.

Somebody furiously pounded on the door of your office, “General Acacius! My Lady!” 

Acacius shouted at them to go away while he finally shifted some of his weight to his elbows. You tilted your chin up to take large, gulping breaths of air. 

“If anyone opens that door, they will face my blade, do you hear?” His threat was ironclad; his voice— deep and hoarse. This must be what he sounds like in battle. The thought sent a pleasurable little current straight between your legs. You were embarrassed to feel your nipples tighten under your tunic. Please, please don’t notice them. 

He did not take his eyes off your face, and the footsteps finally receded from the door. A tiny voice in the back of your mind panicked that the servant would return with your brother or, Dear Gods, your father; you would be caught with Acacius on top of you. You continued your struggle against him much more silently but with newfound vigour, arching and turning into him to throw his weight off you and onto the floor next to the sofa. 

Acacius shocked you into stillness by licking a wet, long stripe across your cheek and tasting your tears. He looked at you with wild, overbright eyes. His grip on your wrists was beginning to ache. 

“Stop struggling, you will hurt yourself, dulcissima.” Even though he spoke slowly, his voice sounded otherworldly, like he was possessed by some crazed, bloodthirsty spirit. 

His grin was savage and predatory. “Tell me.” He commanded again. 

You laughed hysterically, no doubt surprising him, bending your wrists in his grip to scratch your nails against his hand.

“I saw you,” you viciously informed him, “I saw you take that stupid oath to protect her and her child. I saw you marry her.”

Your chest heaved, touching his with every breath, the contact far too sensuous on your oversensitive skin. You had no more tears left, the last of them were drying on your cheeks. But the rage, the frustration, the pain still churned in you— they overwhelmed you, burned you alive. 

“I have watched you for years!” You sobbed, “And you never saw me…”

It was as if the dam had broken with this one little truth; everything you had hidden and suppressed gushed forth with vengeance. 

“I see you now.” He said. Damn you. 

“You didn’t even know my name.” You shouted once more.

Acacius bit the uppermost swell of your breast, leaving indents of his teeth. A broken, keening sound left you and you arched into his mouth. When had he untied your tunic?

“I know your name now.” He swiped his tongue over the teeth marks he left.

“You…”—you swallowed another moan—“you didn’t even remember me. You forgot I existed.” All coherent thoughts had left your mind, you continued to mindlessly thrash against him, throwing your bitterness and aggravation at his body.

“I remember you now.”

Acacius leaned away and slid down your body, you nearly wept at the loss of him. His hands were rough and warm against your thighs; he had lifted both your tunic and stola until they bunched around your hips. He guided your foot over the back of the sofa where it limply hung in shock. He grasped the other foot under your knees and spread you open to his eyes. There was a mortifyingly wet sound at the movement; you could feel a slick moisture coating the inside of your thighs.

You struggled to cover yourself again, trying to pull your clothes down over the most intimate part of you. Whoever this man was, he wasn’t Acacius— Acacius would never do this. He would never take your virginity and deprive you of a choice in your marriage. Desperation burned in your throat. And you resorted to one final act of protest. Your hand reached up to soundly smack against his face. 

There was a stinging current in your palm from the impact. A redness bloomed on his cheek, along with an imprint of your hand. You began to regret your choice of action at the sight of his marred face. For several long moments, Acacius was frozen with his head still whipped away from your strike. You anxiously waited for a reaction, forgetting to even right your clothes. 

He slowly turned around to face you again, and gently clasped the hand that had hit him. He frowned at the redness of your palm before tenderly pressing his lips to the warm centre of it while giving you a reprimanding look through his lashes. He massaged and caressed your palms before interlocking your fingers with his.

Just as you had thought the storm had passed, Acacius swooped down in a swift and urgent motion. His jaw stretched, and the hot cavern of his mouth entirely covered your dripping sex. His tongue started flat against the base of you, between the cheeks of your arse and dangerously close to another hole farther down. It licked a strong swipe between the folds, scratching past the pert bud of nerves on the way to the very apex of her where short hairs curled. You arched into his mouth, quite incapable of sound as your belly contracted with the shock. Your eyes rolled back in your head and fell close until all you could do was feel. 

There was a difference between innocence and ignorance; you had spent enough time with whores on the street to know what sexual congress between two people looked like. But they had failed to inform you of this…

He was tasting you, slow and intimate, as if he had all the time in the world. Each stroke elicited a different sound from you, he perused your reactions to him to draw forth more of your pleasure. His tongue circled the throbbing bundle of nerves sitting at the top of your slit before enclosing his mouth on it and he sucked. You rocked your pelvis into his face to ease the tension building at its spine.

Acacius dragged and pulled on that bit of flesh in his mouth, rolling it between his lips and tongue. You were quivering under him, his hands found your hips and pressed them back down into the seat under you. You felt his teeth graze over that sensitive bud as he nibbled on it. The tension snapped, and an intense white heat spread from your centre until you saw stars behind your eyes. You came, shuddering with the force of pleasure; every nerve felt alive. The loud wails and moans escaping your mouth broke on the need for you to gasp at the intensity. You had forgotten how to breathe.

He was still licking into your folds with devastating accuracy, coaxing more tremors from your body as he cleaned up your release with his tongue. Acacius pressed his tongue deeper into you, barging inside where your flesh was still contracting and releasing. You clenched over the sudden intrusion and… Dear Gods, Acacius was trembling between your legs. A low groan rose from deep within his chest and disappeared into the fluttering walls of your cunt. It was an intoxicating thrill, to know you could provoke such a response in the usually steadfast and composed man like him. 

You waited, limp in the pool of pleasure and warm relief, for Acacius to resurface between your legs. There was a thin, silvery string that still connected his shiny, wet lips to your opening. He licked his lips regretfully, no doubt tasting you, his eyes voraciously trained on your pussy. His head bent down again, and you thought he might repeat his actions. Any resistance you might have had was already melted away from your body. 

But his eyes flickered up to the door, hearing something you could not hear over the rush of blood and ringing in your ears. His shoulders slumped in defeat against your legs. And he pressed a reverent kiss against that sensitive and raw piece of flesh that made you twitch under him again. He looked down at your wanton form, thighs spread wide open for him in invitation, gaze half-lidded and enticingly parted lips. 

There was a rightness that enveloped you as Acacius consolingly kissed inside your knee as he pulled your leg from the back of the sofa. There was… a new awareness, a new yearning as he helped you sit up and pulled your clothes back down your legs. You watched him, fascinated, as he fruitlessly fussed over your hair to fix your coiffure before settling to tuck the loose strands of hair behind your ear. 

He kneeled by your feet. His large hands firmly stroking your thighs over your clothes, it sent another pleasurable thrill down your spine. Acacius reached for his toga that he had abandoned on the floor in your struggle, wrapping the cloth around him and draping it to cover the insistent bulge pushing forth below his torse— you caught a wet patch staining his tunic before you averted your eyes. Your mind configured lewd images of what the whores had taught you, but it was Acacius… Acacius inside you, inside your mouth. His hands came to rest on your knees as he sighed your name. 

“I cannot change the past dulcissima.” The man was obscene. His tongue flicked over the side of his lips to taste you as he called you dulcissima— as if you truly did taste sweet.

“But I can promise you now that I will never have another woman except you in my lifetime— even if you refuse a marriage to me. You are everything I want. You are all I see now.” His eyes were earnest and sincere. 

You looked down at where his hands were clutching onto your knees, his grip betrayed the anxiety and nervousness he felt in the moment. But you were distracted. His hands had new scars. They sprawled over his hands, some of them flat and lighter in colour, others puckered and slightly red. Your nails had scratched into the thin skin of his scars and drawn blood; you gently and apologetically grazed over his wounds before coaxing them around to see his palm. The skin of his palms was coarse, new callouses had formed over abrasions. 

“What happened to your hands?” Your question was whispered into the skin of his palm as you imitated the kiss he had given your palm just earlier. 

“Nothing.” His voice was deeper, lower in octave, you could sense the emotions he was trying to bury. The scars weren’t nothing if he wasn’t able to tell you how he got them. These weren’t the callouses one got from holding a sword or weapon. One of his fingers sat at an odd angle like it had been broken and then fixed. 

A suspicion arose in your mind, “What did you mean last night when you said that you had come for me?” 

He did not answer you, he did not need to. Acacius was a man of his word, nobody could have stopped him from digging you out. 

“But I made a show of drinking poison. They must have told you.” He harshly gulped, his jaw twitching before he gave you a soft smile. His hands climbed from your thighs to hold your waist while he leaned up on his knees to give you a chaste kiss on the lips. It was nothing more than a press of two warm lips but it made a current run through your veins. You were going to marry this stupid honourable man who had fought over your grave to pull you out. 

“I love you.” You finally told him. A wave of joy and euphoria overwhelmed you. 

“I love you, too.” You giggled at his admission, still in disbelief. 

You leaned down towards his face, Acacius turned his head to catch your lips but you jerked your head back from his. You both watched each other, and you admired his features again as he acquiesced to your silent demand to turn his face forward again; he watched your movements out of the corner of his eye. 

You lined your cheek to Acacius’ jaw and in a fluid, cat-like movement rubbed yourself against him until the bristles of his beard scratched all the way down your neck and to your shoulder. You gasped at the delicious scraping sensation on your skin that sent a jolt of pressure to your nipples, through your belly and between your thighs. He huffed a small, amused laugh at your actions. 

“Never known what beards felt like… thought they’d be softer— like fur.” You explained, eyes still coloured with lust.

“Should I shave mine off?” He teased.  

There was a spot just to the side of your folds, inside your right thigh, that was still vaguely itchy and burning, his beard had rubbed that patch of skin raw. You looked down at him, dark and forbidding. 

“I will never marry you if you shave it off.” You threatened. 

The door of the office flung open; you and Acacius scampered away from each other. Your father and brother stood by the entrance looking livid as their eyes studied the both of you. Oh dear. You stood to say something in Acacius’ defence, but your brother turned to you with an accusing glare. 

“Why would you do this to him? You cannot act like a savage animal in this civilised home!” You gasped, affronted and shocked, looking to your father to rein in his son. 

“Really, anaticula, look at the state of him. What did you do to him? How will we ever find you a husband?” What did you do to him? You should be asking what HE did to ME! 

You looked at Acacius. There was a clear imprint of your hand on the side of his face. You noticed with a wince that blood had dried near his ear, had you truly bit him that hard? His hands were also bloodied from your scratches. Very well, he looked like he had been mauled. It wasn’t fair at all, you were incensed at being unable to defend yourself. Even more so when you realised his shoulders were shaking from laughter.

“About the husband… I have just asked your daughter if she would marry me.” All three men turned to look at you. And you only had your eyes on one of them. Acacius looked… happy. His eyes were warm, twinkling with delight and contentment. He looked like a man in love. He was in love with you. 

“Well… you haven’t exactly asked.” You still replied petulantly. Both your father and your brother whipped around to look at Acacius whose gaze on you was affectionate and devout. The smile gracing his lips made him look boyishly young. 

“Anaticula, I find myself hopelessly and irrevocably in love with you. I know I have made you wait for far too long”—you both swallowed the emotions clogging your throat at the moment—“but will you please reach into your endless reserves of mercy and deign me worthy of marriage to you?” 

You laughed through your tears, the words were so unlike Acacius that you could see him physically searching for them in his mind. 

“Very well, but only because you begged so prettily.” You knew you would pay for your words later when lustful heat flashed past his eyes. But for now, you were drawn into each other’s arms again— as it was always meant to be.    

INDEX A/N: I hope you guys had fun reading that last smut hehe. I enjoyed writing it, it's inspired by this romance novel I read during COVID (can't remember the name or the author) and I remember the heroine fighting the hero because the hero was a manwhore and she was like 'You never noticed me!' and he was all like 'I see you now.'

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

So how about some angst romance stuff

Goat!Reader was dating and perhaps married to Sozo when Sozo switched back to Dr. Sozonius and they aren't in love anymore, just. Sozonius doesn't remember anything from when he was Sozo, and reader loves Sozo, not Sozonius

"What did you do to him?"

Lamb jumped a little upon hearing the sound of a follower slamming the doors to their temple wide open, as they were in the midst of preparing for the next ritual.

They would have earned the harshest scolding if not for the fact it was you, the goat who decided to join their cult out of your own volition.

You were also the one who was wedded to Sozo--Anura's mushroom researcher who was driven to madness, died due to shroom overdose, and revived within the cult grounds..before finally being restored back to his old self.

All it took was simply depriving him (or rather the parasite on his head) of those same shrooms that once killed him. The fungus simply shriveled up and died, turning into nothing more than dust.

It ended up revealing his true age: as an elderly soul with little time left, but Lamb figured out a "fountain of youth" of sorts...and soon they and their followers got to know Dr. Sozonius.

One of the most intelligent scientists in all of the Old Faith.

Knowing how much he meant to you, Lamb would have thought you, of all people, would've been elated and thanking them endlessly for the "miracles" they somehow made happen, and brought your spouse back to you. Free of the parasite that took him away.

But for some reason..you were doing the exact opposite: condemning them in their own temple.

Why, though?

"I kept my promise. I told you I'd cure him, and I did..didn't I?" They hummed, closing their book as they stared down at you from behind the podium, wondering why you still looked so resentful.

"Lies. You killed the ant I loved."

Now it was their turn to be crossed. "[Y/n], you shouldn't be calling your divine leader a li-"

"He doesn't remember me at all!"

"....what?" Their eyebrows furrowed with confusion. "I mean..the fungi may have messed with his mind, and his memories aren't what they-"

"No..he..h-he doesn't know who I am anymore." Tears filled your eyes, gripping the sleeves of your robe. "He knows nothing of our vows..our wedding bands..the Mushroomos...not even how we met. He looks at me like a stranger. Like I'm the one eating shrooms!"

Their eyes widened a little, initially shocked by this revelation, but they were quick to double down with a scowl. "Listen, I'm terribly sorry to hear that. Truly, I am. But there's no way I could have known that was going to happen. You were wedded to an intelligent doctor, and I did my best to restore him. Just like you asked-"

"No...no, no, no...I never loved "Dr. Sozonius", Lamb. I loved Sozo."

A pause.

"You...never knew him as...?"

"No. When I got lost in Anura, his followers took me in..to the Spore Grotto. And Sozo..he showed that he cared, even if the fungi made him say some..questionable things. At times, I didn't know if he loved me for me or for the shrooms I've found across Heket's domain. But what we had...was real." You swallowed back more tears, your voice thick with emotion. "At our wedding, he..e-equated my love to being as addicting as those shrooms. And that day...I knew it wasn't the fungi talking, but his heart. He loved me, and now..he doesn't even know my name..."

As Lamb listened to your grief-striken ramblings, they felt their ears droop slightly more and more with each passing second. Yet their gaze remained firm as they stepped down from the podium, eyes full of sympathy.

"[Y/n], the Sozo you knew..it..it wasn't the real him. He was miserable, addicted. It was the fungi that convinced you-"

"Enough with the lies, damned Lamb.."

They stopped, noticing how you stared back at them with such hatred in your eyes...and he could see red starting to glow within them.

Indeed, they were eyes of a dissenter.

"Excuse me?"

"You killed my beloved, and replaced him with an impostor." You spat angrily, stomping your hoof as you sneered down at the sheep. "You think I'll accept him as that? The others will know my story...how you destroyed our love. You wouldn't hesitate to do the same to other couples, would you?!"

"You've got this all wrong, [y/n]. Sozonius is his real identity-"

"LIES!! ALL LIES!! I ONLY LOVED SOZO!!"

In blind rage, you raised your hand up--but before you could take any sort of action, their Red Crown manifested a giant shadowy claw that grabbed ahold of your ankle, tripping you.

As you grunted from the initial pain of your horns hitting the hardwood floors, you saw Lamb now sneering down at you this time.

"You were in love with a parasite. The monster that killed him in the first place. I cured him, set his mind free, restored his happiness and youth....and you repay me like this? With a threat to strike me?!" Sharp teeth began appearing in their mouth, and you could only stare back at them, shuddering a bit. "You'd rather see him suffer over and over again..than accept this is the real him?"

"I-I..refuse to accept this impostor you created."

"You will soon enough. But for now..I believe reeducation is an order. To show you that he's better off this way. Perhaps better off without you and your obsession." Lamb huffed, dragging you outside as you thrashed and clawed at the grass, all while the bewildered followers watched you being taken to the pillories.

Among them was Sozonius, who looked confused and a bit saddened when you called out his name.

"Sozo".

He didn't think you two were well-acquainted enough to warrant the nickname you've given him, and he didn't understand why you kept calling him that since the day he gained clarity and found himself chained up in the same pillory you were in now.

Except...you had no clarity, but rather started babbling nonsense about "love" and how Lamb lied to you.

He did pity you, yet at the same time was a little scared that you've mentioned a "wedding" like you both were already married.

But you weren't...right? He was a mushroom researcher, always on the go until he decided to settle down in Lamb's cult. He wouldn't have time for marriage.

How he wishes he could help you sort out these thoughts and let go of this "fantasy" you're living out. Maybe then, he'd be more willing to get to know more about you.

Until that happens, though, hopefully Lamb's methods of reeducation could help you.

[immoralimmortals]

Akatsuki Flowers! What a lovely ask. Let's look at your suggestions first:

Hidan, prince's feather:

Ohhhh immortality! I think that's perfect. Apparently a nickname for this flower is "kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate"

Deidara, buttercups:

Youth, joy, play, simple pleasures? Interesting choice, I can see why you went this direction! Matches his hair, too. It seems awfully innocent for him, I wonder if he'd disagree!

Deidara, australian rose:

A couple of results say "you are all that is lovely", and my gut tells me that may not be what you intend? But nevermind that LOOK HOW PRETTY IT IS

Anyhow!

I've used a little bit of flower symbolism, as you've probably guessed, for my fic! Red roses (and their various states of life, death, and preservation) and forget-me-nots are pretty obvious, though. But I used two others, hydrangeas, and daffodils, and they both suit Kisame!

Kisame, hydrangea, daffodil:

I picked a hydrangea festival, for one because it's a real thing that happens, and two, it means heartfelt emotion! I think Kisame feels with all of his being, intensely. He, as many people are not, is someone very aware that he is not always aware, if that makes sense; he is wary of the way his blood can boil, rage heating under the skin. Goes along with him not always feeling "human." Daffodil, the flower I used for the lotion in my fic, is in opposition as it stands for truth and honesty. We all know "truth" is sort of Kisame's thing. It's his pinnacle of morals, his reason for living, and then dying. I think it keeps him in line, too.

Itachi, white poppy:

Consolation, Rest, (Eternal) Sleep, Peace, Dormant Affection. He's a man that is a nice comparison and foil to Kisame, because like him, he feels deeply and has to deal with that in order to carry out his sacred duty. He is a man that wants peace, and with the short time he has on Earth tries to use it to redeem himself, his brother, the Uchiha name as well as he can, all the while dreaming that things will eventually go for the better. Dead man walking, a ghost with work to do.

Nagato, flowers of the elm tree:

Protection, Warn of Others, Purification of tainted areas. He protects his village by summoning rain, keeping watch of who even so much as whispers dissent. His land is pure. And he will purify the world. Perhaps it's a warning about him, too.

Konan, white rose:

Honestly this is a pretty predictable choice lol. I think she's emotionally...stagnant. In constant mourning, even if by her definition she's entirely moved on. Like Nagato, she takes her pain and uses it to continue, define her existence. She is the right hand, that which Pain uses to purify, an angel who does not boast of her power. She merely acts upon the will of that which justifies death.

Kakuzu, spruce, chamomile

Spruce: Eternal hardiness, Endurance, Symbol of North and Cold.

Chamomile: Patience, Attracts Wealth, Energy in Adversity

Yeah, I know spruce isn't technically a flower, but it's a growth on a tree and something you'll see in the language of flowers, so I'm using it. Kakuzu's ring, of course, means "north", and I honestly think it's fascinating to think of that in comparison to the north wind. He is a man as hardy and cold as the world he's trudged through. He's the definition of withstanding the worst, both physically and emotionally. The chamomile goes along with that, with a tenacity to make things work. You don't get to live to be 91 and still an active rogue ninja without a willingness to crack some eggs.

(also my art accounts are all chamomile-carillon or some variation. I love chamomile. And I love Kakuzu. yea)

Sasori, the four ancient poisons:

Aconite: Lustre (reflected light), Misanthropy

Hellebore: A Beautiful Year Ahead, Wit Relieve My Anxiety, Relieve my anxiety, tranquilize me

Hemlock:   You will cause my death

Nightshade: Truth, Silence; Your Thoughts are Dark ; Falsehood ; witchcraft/sorcery

I at first was just going for poison but all of these are PERFECT for him in their own right. Misanthropic man who wants to feel numb, wants to cause death and ultimately chooses to die. The contradiction of nightshade being both truth and falsehood...reminds me of how contradictory he is. A man who is trying to gain all the time in the world, absolutely impatient and unwilling to wait a second. Oh I can see the art for this in my head now....

Obito, love-lies-bleeding:

Love-lies-bleeding (Amaranthus): Desertion, Hopelessness, Constant, Unchangeable, Immortal or Unchangable Love, Immortality, Fidelity, Everlasting Friendship

This one just kind of has it all for him. The way everything good that ever happened to him left his world, his steeled resolve, his extended life via Madara's help, his love for Rin... Hoo.

Zetsu, two-bloomed green rose, dock flower, astilbe

Two-bloomed rose: Secrecy

Green rose: alien, strange, We Are Worlds Apart

Dock: patience

Astilbe (false goat's beard): I'll Still Be Waiting

He's really defined by his patience-- black Zetsu especially but white Zetsu was also playing the long game too, sticking around Obito since his childhood. The rose is pretty self-explanatory; he keeps a lot of secrets and he exists in a way that is very hard for others to comprehend. I figure he has difficulty understanding others, too.

[nats-revival]

Not they tryna reenact KOSA… anyway yall, here’s why KOSA is bad!!

If you don’t already know, KOSA, or Kids Online Safety Act is a bill that was proposed to keep children safe on the internet. You might ask ‘why is this bill bad if it’s in favor of supporting the safety of children online’? Well, according to stopkosa.com, it puts pressure on platforms to add even MORE filters on anything they think is inappropriate for children. This is especially harmful for LBGTQIA+ youth because the knowledge about this topic would be censored, as well as knowledge on suicide prevention and LGBTQIA+ support groups. Do you see how this an issue? For those children who are wanting to learn more about these topics they’d be turned away because of this bill. It would also be likely that it’ll allow the shutdown of websites that allow them to learn about race, sexuality and gender.

This bill would also add more internet surveillance for all users across all social media platforms. It would expand the use of age verification and parental monitoring controls. These things in itself are already very invasive, but doesn’t take into consideration the children who live in unsafe environments where they are domestically abused and/or are trying to escape these situations. To add my two cents onto this, I strongly believe that the KOSA bill is an unnecessary violation of our first amendment rights (if you’re American), and doesn’t really make the internet any more safer. It actually makes it more unusable for youth. Hypothetically, if this bill were to be passed, then this would make social media unusable for literally anybody. To censor content from the youth about wanting to learn about their identity is extremely harmful. Blocking them from accessing resources that may prove as helpful in their scenarios is outlandish and unneeded. We try to shelter our youth so much to the point where we try to boil them down to only being with their parents want them to be and also not being able to let them learn and explore about other things that they may want to identify themselves with. This is very harmful.

This is a list of companies who are saying no to KOSA ..

• Access Now

• ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)

• Black and Pink National

• Center for Democracy & Technology

• COLAGE

• Defending Rights & Dissent

• Don’t Delete Art

• EducateUS: SIECUS In Action

• Electronic Frontier Foundation

• Equality Arizona

• Equality California

• Equality Michigan

• Equality New Mexico

• Equality Texas

• Fair Wisconsin

• Fairness Campaign

• Fight for the Future

• Free Speech Coalition

• Freedom Network USA

• Indivisible Eastside

• Indivisible Plus Washington

• Internet Society

• Kairos

• Lexington Pride Center

• LGBT Technology Partnership

• Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition

• Media Justice

• National Coalition Against Censorship

• Open Technology Institute

• OutNebraska

• PDX Privacy

• Presente.org

• Reframe Health and Justice

• Restore The Fourth

• SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change

• SWOP Behind Bars 

• TAKE

• TechFreedom

• The 6:52 Project Foundation, Inc.

• The Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center

• Transgender Education Network of Texas

• TransOhio

• University of Michigan Dearborn – Muslim Student Association 

• URGE

• WA People’s Privacy

• Woodhull Freedom Foundation

There is something you can do to stop the KOSA bill from being passed! On the website I linked, there is a petition. All you have to do is fill out the information and it’ll send off an email for you. The email reads as follows:

I’m writing to urge you to reject the Kids Online Safety Act, a misguided bill that would put vulnerable young people at risk. KOSA would fail to address the root issues related to kid’s safety online. Instead, it would endanger some of the most vulnerable people in our society while undermining human rights and children’s privacy. The bill would result in widespread internet censorship by pressuring platforms to use incredibly broad “content filters” and giving state Attorneys General the power to decide what content kids should and shouldn’t have access to online. This power could be abused in a number of ways and be politicized to censor information and resources. KOSA would also likely lead to the greater surveillance of children online by requiring platforms to gather data to verify user identity. There is a way to protect kids and all people online from egregious data abuse and harmful content targeting: passing a strong Federal data privacy law that prevents tech companies from collecting so much sensitive data about all of us in the first place, and gives individuals the ability to sue companies that misuse their data. KOSA, although well-meaning, must not move forward. Please protect privacy and stop the spread of censorship online by opposing KOSA.

The website also gives you like a format of what you can say if you chose to call your representatives. If after reading this post, you feel inclined to do something then I would say just go ahead and do it. My first time learning about KOSA was today immediately after seeing the post I felt inclined to send my lawmakers an email. Please try to help when you can and this will only take a few minutes so I think this is something that you can consider. This post is getting a little long now, so I’ll stop here. There are more resources online if you would like to learn more about the cons of this KOSA bill, thank you for reading.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

NYPD brutalizes, arrests, and hospitalizes multiple protestors, including WOL Leader

Tonight, the NYPD unleashed the full force of their violence against New York’s Palestinian, Arab and Muslim communities in an attempt block us from protesting the United Nations as the General Assembly commences this week. WOL leader Abdullah Akl was violently arrested and sent to the hospital tonight. Dozens of others were also brutally attacked by SRG officers who clearly targeted Muslim youth leaders, as the unit serves to criminalize Black and Brown communities.

Thousands of New Yorkers took to the streets today after “israel” massacred over 500 people in Lebanon on Monday. As the US demonstrates its barbaric support for the genocidal Zionist project and opposition to it grows worldwide, the NYPD has escalated its brutality against our movement.

Our community is subjected to extreme state violence in a clear effort to deter the people from righteous dissent as our taxes and politicians fuel a genocide and regional war.

Following months of barbaric brutality from the NYPD, we demand:

1. The resignation of Eric Adams

2. The disbandment of the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group

3. Shut down NYPD’s office in occupied Palestine

Read our full statement here:

[mariacallous]

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Supreme Court upheld the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youths Friday, rejecting pleas from parents that it violates their right to decide on and seek medical care for their children.

The 8-1 ruling from the all-Republican court leaves in place a law that has been in effect since Sept. 1, 2023. Texas is the largest of at least 25 states that have adopted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.

The Texas law prevents transgender people under 18 from accessing hormone therapies, puberty blockers and transition surgeries, though surgical procedures are rarely performed on children. Children who had already started the medications had to taper off their use.

“We conclude the Legislature made a permissible, rational policy choice to limit the types of available medical procedures for children, particularly in light of the relative nascency of both gender dysphoria and its various modes of treatment and the Legislature’s express constitutional authority to regulate the practice of medicine,” Justice Rebeca Aizpuru Huddle wrote in the court’s decision.

The lawsuit that challenged the Texas law argued it devastates transgender teens who are unable to obtain critical treatment recommended by their physicians and parents. The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law estimates about 29,800 people ages 13-17 in Texas identify as transgender.

The only justice dissenting with Friday’s ruling said the Texas Supreme Court was allowing the state to “legislate away fundamental parental rights.”

“The State’s categorical statutory prohibition prevents these parents, and many others, from developing individualized treatment plans for their children in consultation with their physicians, even the children for whom treatment could be lifesaving,” Justice Debra Lehrmann wrote in a dissenting opinion. “The law is not only cruel — it is unconstitutional.”

A lower court had ruled the law unconstitutional, but it was allowed to take effect while the state Supreme Court considered the case.

Texas’ Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton, vowed in a post on the social platform X after the ruling that his office “will use every tool at our disposal to ensure that doctors and medical institutions follow the law.”

Advocates criticized the ruling.

“It is impossible to overstate the devastating impact of this ruling on Texas transgender youth and the families that love and support them,” said Karen Loewy, senior counsel and director of Constitutional Law Practice at Lambda Legal, which was among the groups that sued the state on behalf of doctors and families.

“Our government shouldn’t deprive trans youth of the health care that they need to survive and thrive,” said Ash Hall, policy and advocacy strategist for LGBTQIA+ rights at ACLU of Texas. “Texas politicians’ obsession with attacking trans kids and their families is needlessly cruel.”

The law includes exemptions for children experiencing early puberty or who have “a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development.”

Such exemptions underscore the law’s discriminatory nature, said Dr. Jack Drescher, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University who edited the section about gender dysphoria in the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual. Gender dysphoria is the psychological distress experienced by those whose gender expression does not match their gender identity and is a required diagnosis before treatments can begin.

“They’re saying if you’re not a transgender child and you need these drugs, you can have them, but if you’re a transgender child who might benefit from these drugs, then sorry, you have to move to another state,” Drescher said.

The restrictions on health care are part of a larger backlash against transgender rights, touching on everything from bathroom access to participation in sports. Former President Donald Trump has vowed to pursue other measures that would restrict the rights of transgender people if he wins the November election, including a ban on gender-affirming care for minors at the federal level.

As more states move to enforce health care restrictions, families of transgender youths are increasingly forced to travel out of state for the care they need at clinics with growing waiting lists. At least 13 states have laws protecting care for transgender minors.

Most of the states that have passed restrictions face lawsuits, and the U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to hear an appeal from the Biden administration attempting to block state bans on gender-affirming care. The case before the high court involves a Tennessee law that restricts puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors, similar to the Texas law.

Gender-affirming care for transgender youths is supported by major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association and the Endocrine Society.

In a concurring opinion, one justice dismissed the position of the medical groups.

“The fact that expert witnesses or influential interest groups like the American Psychiatric Association disagree with the Legislature’s judgment is entirely irrelevant to the constitutional question,” Justice James Blacklock wrote. “The Texas Constitution authorizes the Legislature to regulate ‘practitioners of medicine.’”

Texas officials defended the law as necessary to protect children and noted a myriad of other restrictions for minors on tattoos, alcohol, tobacco and certain over-the-counter drugs.

Several doctors who treat transgender children testified in a lower court hearing that patients risk deteriorating mental health, which could possibly lead to suicide, if they are denied safe and effective treatment.

The ban was signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, the first governor to order the investigation of families of transgender minors who receive gender-affirming care.

[youthdissent]

[ID: A yellow square post with a light yellow rounded rectangle taking up the top two thirds, with large, black, bold, all-caps text that reads "California! join queer and trans youth in protesting the Supreme Court". In the bottom right corner there is smaller bold black text that reads "Join us in San Diego, CA." Non-bold black text below this reads "at the San Diego Waterfront Park/City Hall on August 9th from 12:00-2:00PM PST!". In the bottom left corner is a drawing of a person with light tan skin and mid-length green curly hair using a wheelchair and holding a progress flag. End ID.]

[ID: A yellow square post with a light yellow rounded square in the middle that takes up most of the post. Inside there is a heading in all-caps, bold, black text that reads "We, The Youth, Dissent". Below this is smaller black text which reads "The Supreme Court has recently targeted areas of our everyday lives that impact our finances, education, and our freedom of self-expression. With the rulings impacting student debt relief, lgbtqia+ rights, and affirmative action, we have had enough. Queer Youth Assemble has created Youth Dissent as a way to highlight the impact of these recent Supreme Court rulings especially on minority groups within the lgbtqia+ community. The intersectionality of these rulings is too large to ignore and we the youth, dissent." End ID.]

[ID: A yellow square post with a light yellow rounded square in the middle that takes up most of the post. Inside there is a heading in all-caps, bold, black text that reads "What should I bring?". Below this is smaller black text which reads "Here's a quick list of things you might want to bring with you to your upcoming demonstration. Keep an eye out for our resource guides on organizing and protesting coming out this week!" Below this there is a list of checkboxes in slightly smaller text whose items include, "Necessary medications, Water & Small snacks, State ID, cash & coins, Fully charged cell phone, Hand sanitizer & a mask, Hat & sunscreen, Our printable "Know Your Rights" & "In Case of Emergency" cards*, A sign". Below this is smaller text which reads "*These are available on our site alongside printable pages to cut and distribute at your demonstration!" End ID.]

[ID: A dark yellow square post with a light yellow rounded square in the middle that takes up most of the post. Inside there is a heading in all-caps, bold, black text that reads "Find a protest near you". Below this is smaller black text that reads "Please reach out to us at connorl@queeryouthassemble.org if you have any questions! Organizing and Protesting resource guides available in our bio now! Check out our page and website to stay up to date on our latest demonstration announcements.". Below this is smaller, centered text that reads "Currently featuring.... Atlanta, San Diego, Seattle, and much more!" End ID.]

[queeryouthassemble]

[ID: A banner-sized collage of photos and graphics with torn edges, attached with tape. One photo is of a queer youth in a jean vest speaking into a megaphone in front of the Supreme Court building. Another features a queer youth wearing glasses and holding a sign reading "Legislate guns not people" in rainbow bubble letters. Another image is a sign that reads "Thank you QYA you are loved and supported" in all-caps red and black painted letters. Another is a poster advertising the "We the Youth Dissent" Washington, D.C. protest. An additional image is of the Supreme Court building with the words "We're here we're queer" stamped over, along with stamps of famous queer activists. Another features a queer youth with orange hair and glasses holding a sign which reads, "Diversity is a necessity" in blue all-capital letters. Another image is of a Black woman standing at a microphone. Toward the right are three images: a sign in all-caps rainbow bubble letters that reads "respect our existence, expect our resistance" with a peace sign, a queer youth holding a progress flag printed with the word equality, and white painted letters reading "Let us live." Below are red letters that read, "Impeach Thomas + Alito" in all-caps. There is an image of a queer youth with pale skin and dark hair in a jean jacket speaking into a red bullhorn, which has stickers that read "Fuck the Proud Boys" and "DC Rats." In the bottom right is the QYA logo. End ID.]

[fandomtrash-whataboutit]

Fairy Tail Freed Justine Thesis

Part 2a. (Of ???)

Part 2 is meant to be ‘Character’, but I wanted a separate post to talk about the gay thing. And it does need to be talked about.

This is another topic in which my personal process feels significant to this amalgamation of nerdom, so here it is. Sometimes, my therapist lets me just talk about the hyperfixation for 40 minutes straight. And, to be clear, while this is not a shipping post, I personally am a fraxus shipper, and it is going to come up, because Freed’s treatment when around Laxus is part of ‘the gay thing’. Now, I was rambling about all of this when it hit me like a truck, and made me a little sad. Technically, it is, and I do consider it, canon that Freed is queer, because guess what I didn’t realize until three years after I watched the show? All those moments of Freed being weird around Laxus? The joke is ‘haha he’s acting gay’ and they are very much homophobic jokes that are, admittedly, the product of this story really coming from the early 2000s, not 2020 when I watched it. But Freed is the butt of gay jokes, and unfortunately that is what is happening. Is it any wonder that my brain clings onto this character so hard?

But now, beyond the realization/explanation. You don’t need to be a shipper for this, and in fact I actively encourage non-shippers to read this, because I’m gonna try my best to keep this directly to all the things in canon. The gay thing is important to Freed’s character, especially because he is a minor character and therefore the few main identity features that he is given are the majority of what we know about him. Now I’ll be honest, I don’t have a great recollection of those moments because I get insane second hand embarrassment, but a large part of our introduction especially to Freed is that ‘unflinching devotion’ to Laxus (believe me, we’ll get into that). This is another thing that is very much sprinkled in and left to let my creativity run wild.

There is this seemingly unintentional depth ascribed to the relationship between Freed and Laxus in the Battle of Fairy Tail arc. Because Freed is completely devoted, so he is willing to go into this fight and do things he doesn’t agree with all for Laxus’ sake. But he is also willing to call Laxus out on it, to voice his dissent, to inevitably side WITH fairy tail. And there is never a lessening of his care or friendship with Laxus, it is a simple disagreement over method despite the Freed’s implied knowledge of the parts of Laxus’ youth that pushed him to that sort of behavior. There’s this balance that isn’t normally displayed in side characters like this, especially at their first introduction. Bixlow and Evergreen are portrayed as mainly following Laxus but still enjoying the chance to start a fight, but Freed? He is shown to have his loyalty to the guild and his morals at odds with his devotion to the person he cares for the most. Laxus’ side is criminally under-explored but the relationship is given an astonishing amount of depth from Freed’s side things, and that relationship, as well as and combined with being the subject of repeated gay jokes, actually make up a large and important part of Freed’s character.

[omegaremix]

Finds For 2014.

Robert Rental Mental Corrections

Dalek “Abandoned Language”

End Of A Year / Self Defense Family “Apport Birds”

aTelecine “Armour (Cut)”

A-Frames, The “Black Forest”

Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement “Black Magic Originated In Nature”

Cleanteeth “Pushing Rope”

Rubberoom “Bleach”

Unsane “Body Bomb”

Cabaret Voltaire “Crackdown”

Wild Nothing “A Dancing Shell”

Serengeti “Directions”

Thomas Lear & Robert Rental The Bridge

XXYYXX “DMT”

Tying Tiffany “Drownin’”

Leather Nun “Ensam I Natt”

George Duke “Feel”

Tony Hymas “Final Inspection”

Killing Joke “Goodbye To The Village”

Curve “Horror Head”

Rustie “Hyperthrust”

End Of The Year / Self Defense Family “It’s Not Good For The Man To Be Alone”

Bikini Kill “Jigsaw Youth”

Tunnel Canary “Jihad”

Professionals, The “Join The Professionals”

Sleaford Mods “Jolly Fucker”

Cabaret Voltaire “Just Fascination”

Chi-N.Y. Network “Keep The Fame”

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti “Kinski Assassin”

Fantome “Love”

Nite Jewel “Lover”

Minks “Margot”

Neon Indian “Mind, Drips”

Sleaford Mods “My Jampandy”

Grimes “Oblivion”

Young Galaxy “Pretty Boy”

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti “Round And Round”

Chrome Sparks “Send The Pain On”

Leapling “Seventeen”

Teen Daze “Shine On, You Crazy White Cap”

Zombi “Shrunken Heads”

Black Dice “Smiling Off” (DFA RMX)

Rubberoom “Style Wars”

DIIV “Wait”

Teen Daze “Waves”

General Lee & The Space Army Band “We Did It Baby (Pt. 1 & Pt. 2)”

Phil Western “We Have Come To Bless This House”

Severed Heads “We Have Come To Bless This House”

Xray Eyeballs “X”

Death Grips “5D”

Rory St. John “Astroakoustic One-Three”

Cloudface “Summer”

Ramleh “Elite Gymnastics track B4”

Fancy Books “Sponge Boy”

Duran Duran Duran Over Hard

Perfect Pussy “Big Stars”

Ringo Deathstarr “Two Girls”

Westerbur & Rowe “Side C”

Odd Future “Bitches”

M83 “Skin Of The Night”

Dangerous Birds “Smile On Your Face”

Au Revoir Simone “More Than”

Petticoats “Normal”

Joanna Newsom “Sadie”

Parquet Courts “Borrowed Time”

Slugabed “Sex” (Daedelus RMX)

Cleanteeth “Shitbreather”

Courtney Love Uncrushworthy

Japanther “Cable Babies”

Noh Mercy “Caucasian Guilt”

Visible Targets “Mechanical Man”

Michael Pipes “You Got Stopped”

Chromatics “Looking For Love”

Small Black Moon Killer Mixtape

Ringo Deathstarr “Summertime”

Au Revoir Simone “Let The Night Win”

Swervedriver “You’ll Find It Everywhere”

Empress Of “Don’t Tell Me”

No Joy “Hare Tarot Lies”

Xiu Xiu “Hi”

Muslimgauze “Hamas Cinema Gaza Strip”

White Arrows “Fireworks Of The Sea”

Naomi Punk “Fleeing Is Believing”

Slum Village “The Look Of Love”

Purity Ring “Grandloves”

Parquet Courts “He’s Seeing Paths”

Desire “Under Your Spell”

Japanther “Critical”

Starkey “Villagers”

Now Now “Wolf”

Pharmakon “Xia Xinfeng”

Mass Production “Slow Bump”

Atari Teenage Riot “Modern Liars”

Late! “Color Pictures Of A Marigold”

Peter Brown “For Your Love”

Black Marble A Different Arrangement

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti “Schnitzel Boogie”

Purling Hiss “Don’t Even Try It”

Omar Souleyman “Kell Il Banat Inkhatban (All The Girls Are Engaged)“

Cutthroats 9 Dissent

Poly Styrene (as Mari Elliott) “Silly Billy”

L.I.E.S. label Music For Shut-Ins

Jonwayne “Dumbo”

Carbonas “September Gurls”

Predator “Honest Man”

Panda Riot “Golden Age”

Whirr “Mumble”

Run The Jewels “Blockbuster Night Pt. 1”

Arca “Thievery”

Night School “These Times”

Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments “Cyclotron”

Broadcast “Goodbye Girls”

Ariel Pink “Put Your Number In My Phone”

Ninos Du Brasil “Pandiero Sinchinsa”

NeruvianDOOM “Disastrous”

Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments “Please Hear My Plea”

Future “Coupe”

Suicideyear “Hope Building A”

Hussy, The “EZ-PZ”

Carbonas “Frothing At The Mouth”

Night School “Birthday”

Krewe Of 77 “Three’s A Crowd”

Ekoplekz “Robert Rental”

SNTZXSNTZ “Boundless”

Wara From The NBHD “Squeal (Peel Off)”

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti “Fright Night (Never More)”

Mono/Poly “Alpha & Omega”

Casket Girls, The “Chemical Dizzy”

Bug, The “Void”

Suicideyear “Rememberance”

Standish / Carlyon “2 5 1 1”

Clark “Herr Bar”

Vereker “Rosite”

Pond “Leisure Pony”

Ninos Du Brazil “Tuppelo”

Pure X “I Fear What I Feel”

SpaceGhostPurrp “Mystikal Maze”

Dead Voices On Air “Philadelphia Introduction Comedy Routine”

Dual Action “NC-17 Drive In”

Consumer Electronics “Sex Offender Boyfriend”

Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments ”Turntable Battlefield”

Bug, The “Swarm”

Suicideyear “I Don’t Care About Death Because I Smoke”

Travis Porter “Do A Trick” (Suicideyear RMX)

Fatima Al Qadiri “Star-Spangled”

Standish / Carlyon “Industrial Resort”

Ninos Du Brasil “Rebanho Espetacular”

Lussuria “Mondo Narcotico”

Factory Floor “How You Say” (Helena Hauff RMX)

Function & Vatican Shadow Games Have Rules

Giorgio Moroder “Giorgio’s Theme”

Vereker “Disconnect”

Axxa/Abraxas “Waiting Daze”

Lussuria “Keys To Unlock Paradise (Roman Showers)”

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Ben Appel

Published: Jan 20, 2025

In March 2024, the Community Education Council for District 2—the largest school district in Manhattan—passed a resolution to review the NYC Department of Education’s 2019 Gender Guidelines, which had replaced the category of sex with “gender identity” in all areas, including school restrooms, locker rooms, and athletics.

“Resolution #248” authorized a review committee to “propose amendments, changes and additions” to the guidelines once “an inclusive, evidence-based process” had determined their impact on female athletes. The resolution specified that the review committee must include those who were excluded from the process in 2019, such as female athletes, parents, coaches, relevant medical professionals, and evolutionary biology experts.

On the day of the vote, eight voted in favor of the resolution and three voted against it. One member was absent.

After the resolution passed, backlash was swift. Trans activists and their allies began showing up in droves at school board meetings to protest. They shouted down council members, screamed obscenities, and, if anyone dared to speak favorably about the resolution, stood up, turned their backs to the council, and hummed loudly in unison. In May, eighteen New York Democrats, including Rep. Jerry Nadler, called on the council to rescind the “hateful, discriminatory, and actively harmful” resolution, alleging in their public letter that it could lead to an increase in suicide attempts among transgender youth.

And all of this because a school committee council had voted to merely conduct a review of the existing guidelines.

Maud Maron, one of the four council members who sponsored the legislation (and who is now challenging Alvin Bragg in the 2025 Manhattan District Attorney race), contacted me in December, inviting me to speak on a panel about this topic at an official council meeting. The other panelists would be my friends (and Informed Dissent cohosts), Cori Cohn (who also cohosts the Heterodorx podcast) and the journalist Lisa Selin Davis. We set the date for Monday, January 13.

In the days leading up to the event, Maud texted the three of us with details. She said that the audience might be hostile, adding that some parents had emailed the superintendent, demanding that the meeting be shut down for promoting “hate speech.”

Maud also alerted us to a list of instructions trans activists had posted online for fellow protesters. The list, titled “This Week’s Jazzy Tactics,” advised comrades to enter the room “with pizzazz,” “wear white and/or keffiyeh,” and, “during transphobic testimony,” “take care of ourselves and one another” with things like “headphones, fidgets, coloring books, bubbles, snacks, treats.”

Oh, and “Macarena.”

The meeting, live streamed on YouTube, was held in a school auditorium on the Lower East Side. In the end, only about 20 people showed up. I assume this is because the activists knew they’d be confronted with logic and reason, and, as we all know, even the slightest bit of scrutiny causes their entire house of cards to tumble down. Thus, I only got a small taste of the hostility that Maud, her fellow council members, and other people who care about women and girls and the wellbeing of gender-nonconforming kids have had to endure over the last year.

When Maud opened the meeting around 6:45, she asked each of the panelists to share a little bit about ourselves and why we agreed to come here.

Cori suggested that, before we begin, we should probably clarify what we mean by “gender ideology,” since it’s become such a loaded term. He proposed a definition. “I would say that gender ideology is the idea that we can self-identify our sex based on our internal insights instead of relying on material indicators of sex, like what gametes your body produces or what your genital configuration is. So, it’s the idea that you can substitute gender identity for sex.”

No one objected, so Cori continued with his story.

In the eighties, as a young kid, Cori was relentlessly bullied for being different. He prayed to be a girl, thinking that would solve a lot of his troubles. When he was 15, his parents took him to a psychologist, who suggested he was transexual. At 18, Cori socially transitioned and started cross-sex hormones, and at 19, he underwent vaginoplasty. The surgery left him sexually dysfunctional.

Around 2010, the radical trans movement really began to kick off. Whereas previously, a male had to medicalize with cross-sex hormones and undergo castration surgery to enter female spaces, now activists were demanding that any male, no matter his medical history or appearance, be able to claim a female identity. Even worse, policymakers and legislators were obliging them. This, Cori noticed, was seriously compromising women’s rights and privileges.

After a lot of reflection, Cori eventually concluded that, if we think there’s a need for sex-segregated spaces—and Cori believes there are many reasons why we need them, particularly for women and girls—then that separation must be based solely on sex. Further, by demanding that one take hormones, have surgery, and become infertile in order to access a space, the state is creating a mandate for people to surgically and medically modify themselves.

“That’s not fair,” he said. “So, the conclusion is that, one, these spaces have to be sex-segregated, and two, they have to be safe for all users. Boys who want to present in a feminine way, have long hair, take a feminine name—they have to be safe in male spaces. There cannot be any tolerance at all for any abuse of somebody based on their gender presentation. That has to be protected. But you cannot substitute gender identity for sex and at the same time have safe, single-sex spaces.”

Cori then passed the mic to Lisa.

Lisa’s kids attend District 2 schools. One of those kids is a masculine daughter. When her daughter was little, Lisa noticed people responding very oddly to her daughter’s gender-nonconformity. They would ask what her pronouns were, and if she was a “trans boy.” Lisa was mystified. Since when did it become unacceptable for girls to be tomboys? Why were people (liberal people) suggesting her daughter needed to identify as male in order to be herself?

In 2017, Lisa wrote an op-ed about this issue for The New York Times. Soon came the vitriol. People threatened to kidnap her daughter for not “affirming” her as trans. Before long, most of the news outlets to which Lisa had contributed for years deplatformed her.

Since then, not much has changed about Lisa’s perspective, other than that she’s collected a heck of a lot more information (she’s currently working on a book about what she’s learned). For her, the desistance literature was particularly enlightening. This consists of a series of studies on gender dysphoric young children, which all came to the same conclusion: if not socially transitioned, the bulk of the children desisted in their distress and grew up to be gay.

Lisa accepts that some people have a belief system she doesn’t share, and she recognizes their right to live according to that belief system. But she objects to the idea that we all must accept the idea of gender identity as fact, and she worries about the imposition of this idea on gender-nonconforming children.

“Education can’t be, ‘There is one way to think about this and if you don’t think this way, you’re a bad person,’” said Lisa. “It has to be, ‘There are a lot of ways to think about this, and let’s try to create an environment in which multiple viewpoints and understandings can be heard.”

In a normal world, a statement like that might draw at least a smattering of applause from an audience of supposedly liberal New Yorkers. But no one made a sound.

Then the mic came to me.

I started by speaking about my own gender-nonconformity in childhood—the lessons I was taught by my religious teachers about homosexuality, and being relentlessly bullied by my peers. I told the audience about how I coped, which was to “defeminize” myself in order to become what a boy is “supposed to be.” I spoke about my battles with anxiety, depression, drugs and alcohol, my eventual recovery, and my foray into activism.

“This was very grandiose of me,” I said, “but I wanted to create a world where there’s more space for gender-nonconforming boys and girls. Where little boys and little girls who are really different—yes, they might not be the norm, and the majority of young kids might act like your typical boys and girls—but there are going to be gender-nonconforming kids that are inherently that way. And rather than saying, ‘There’s something wrong with you,’ we protect them from the bullies. We safeguard them. We tell them, “Yes, you are different, and that’s perfectly OK.”

That vision, I found, was not very popular in the world of “LGBTQ” activism. Gender-nonconforming kids were not natural variations of their own sex. Instead, they were “trans” and therefore “born in the wrong bodies.” Thus, in order for feminine boys to behave the way they wanted—in order for them to openly like pink and wear dresses and grow their hair long—they needed to identify out of their sex category, and then medically and surgically modify their bodies to fit properly into society.

Soon, like Lisa, I became really hungry for knowledge about this issue. After I learned that youth transition began not so long ago, with the medicalization of a small cohort of young people, nearly all of whom were homosexual, I became really concerned. And then I started meeting gay people who had been harmed by these treatment protocols.

Maud asked me if, at age 12, I may have thought transition was an option if I had been exposed to the idea that I was perhaps born in the wrong body and actually a girl.

I said, “If the adults I trusted—the guidance counselors, teachers, whoever—had intervened and stopped the bullying and then told me, ‘This is not a spiritual malady. This is not something evil about you. This is a medical defect that can be fixed.’ My god, would I have thought, ‘Hallelujah, I’m saved. Sign me up.’ I would have finally fit in. I would have been allowed to express myself in the way that I wanted to—to be gender-nonconforming, so long as I identified as a girl. But that would mean that there would also be folks saying, ‘There’s a medical protocol that you follow.’”

So, there you have it. There’s our “hate speech.” Our “transphobic” screeds.

Pretty reasonable, right?

Apparently not. After that, things got spicy. Maud asked each of us to speculate about how we had gotten to a place where the only way to “protect kids”—something we all want—is to silence whoever disagrees with you.

Lisa took this one. She explained how our understanding of the concepts of “harm” and “safety” have changed over time. When anti-bullying measures were first developed in the 90s, they were a response to the extreme violence that gender-nonconforming kids endured. “How did we get from that to, ‘If you don’t use the pronoun I want, I’m in danger of suicide’?” Lisa said.

Which was a great segue into a very important point.

“The bottom line is,” continued Lisa, “as Chase Strangio admitted to the Supreme Court, the suicide statistics you’re hearing are not true. There are not increased suicides among unaffirmed trans youth. There is nothing in the history of this research that suggests that we need to only treat people in a specific way or they are in imminent risk of harm.”

A woman sitting near the back of the audience interjected. “Why would you not treat someone the way they want to be treated?!” she yelled. “It doesn’t make sense!”

“Well, we can talk about compelled speech,” said Lisa. “We did try to explain that there is a belief system around gender identity that we do not share. And I respect your right to believe in it, but I don’t. The curriculum requires us to bow to a belief system we don’t share, and it includes lessons that we have concerns about, as former gender-nonconforming children and as a parent of a gender-nonconforming child.”

“What curriculum are you referring to?” yelled an audience member.

“We’re gonna take questions,” Maud reminded the audience. In the meantime, she asked them not to shout out questions.

A woman in the audience became irate. “This was publicized as a parent-led discussion, and this is not….!”

Maud put her foot down, saying she would close the meeting down if people don’t follow the rules.

The woman continued yelling. “This was falsely advertised!”

“I’ve raised four kids and I know how to shut down temper tantrums,” said Maud. “You guys have five more seconds to stop interrupting me and then the meetings over.”

“Heads down! Heads down!” a man in the audience shouted. He put his head in his arms and leaned against the chair in front of him. This, apparently, is one of the “jazzy tactics” the activists use to signal their collective disapproval of whatever is being said. This time, though, none of the other audience members put their heads down.

By now, my heart was about to pound out of my chest. I just don’t fare all that well when adults are yelling at each other. Not to mention that Cori, Lisa, and I had just shared some really vulnerable stuff with a bunch of strangers, so to quickly be met with hostility was disorienting, to say the least.

“There are people in the audience who have been really respectful, and I want to acknowledge you,” said Maud. “Also, I’ve had 10 months of rude protesters at our general calendar meetings, so my fuse is a little shorter than it usually is.”

Two audience members yelled something I didn’t make out.

Soon after that, the question-and-answer portion officially began. The first person to speak was named August. She appeared to be a female who had masculinized with testosterone. August introduced herself as a trans person, a Trevor Project representative, a crisis counselor, and “someone whose life was saved by my community.” She said she was saddened that we would come there and “smear” kids “who were so vulnerable and so sad.” She accused Lisa of misquoting Chase Strangio (Lisa did not misquote Strangio), then said, “There are so many people who are dead. Who are dead!”

Finally, August got to her question. She asked Cori to define what a woman is.

“Can we talk about female, or do you want woman?” Cori said.

“You were like, ‘There needs to be women’s spaces,’” said August.

“I think I said ‘sex-segregated,’” Cori responded. “What do I mean by sex-segregated? It’s your biological plan. So, if your body was developed to produce eggs, you’re female.”

August proceeded to interject with an activist talking point so clichéd, any of us could have predicted it.

“So, it’s just if you have eggs,” August gibed. “So, people who are infertile…”

“No,” Cori said. Clearly, he too was expecting this exact response. “If your body’s development plan is to produce eggs, you’re female. If your body’s development plan is to produce sperm, you’re male.”

August called this “hypothetical.”

“It’s not hypothetical,” said Cori. “It’s observable. If you believe in science, then you know that there’s instruments that can be used to determine which body plan…” He paused, frustrated that he needed to explain the birds and the bees to an adult. Or maybe I was just projecting. “Even in the extremely odd case where the chromosomes are XY, that female development pattern is still female. So, we have these really weird corner cases…”

“Those people are intersex, they’re not really weird,” sniped August.

“I'm gonna ignore you for a minute,” said Cori, “because that's really rude to twist…”

“Well, you said ‘really weird.’”

“I didn't say individuals were weird.”

“Can you have a seat?” Maud asked August.

“I thought this was a dialogue,” August said.

So, Cori dialogued. “It's sort of dirty to say that a difference of sexual development is unusual or weird, and then for somebody to say you're saying the people are weird. No, it's an unusual condition. So, you are a woman if you are an adult and your body follows the female development, and you're a man, like I am, like some other people in the audience are. Some people are male but look more feminine, some people are female but look more masculine. But you're a man if you're an adult human male and you're a woman if you're an adult human female. There's nothing wrong with that, there's nothing shameful about that. And if you're like me, and you've done something unusual with your body so that you've modified your sex traits, your sex characteristics, you may have some of the outward appearances of the opposite sex, but that doesn't make me not a man and it wouldn't make somebody like Buck Angel not a woman.”

August returned to his seat.

Maud asked Lisa if she wanted to add anything to that. “Sure,” she said, adding how distracting it is to have to argue that a woman is an adult human female. She then spoke briefly about two very rare intersex conditions, which, when it came to sex-segregated spaces, would probably be the edge cases we need to consider.

“How does this show up in the curriculum?” came a question from the audience.

Lisa said, “On the first day of fourth grade, my daughter was asked to create an identity web and put whether she was cisgender, transgender, or nonbinary on it. So, there are lessons about gender identity, and they are, again, taught as fact. You can look up the New York City DoE regulations, they say exactly what you have to do. There’s a lot of compelled speech. I don’t know how that works with the First Amendment…”

“It doesn’t,” said Maud.

A man sitting in the front row spoke up. He introduced himself as a D2 parent and a father of two daughters, “one trans and one not.” He asked how he could keep his trans kid safe from experiencing gender dysphoria if everything is sex-segregated.

Cori thanked the man for coming and for sharing his story with us. He said he can imagine that, over the years, a lot of “good-hearted people” have given him “the worst possible advice at the worst possible time.” He told the father that a lot of doctors and therapists are not telling parents the real risks of these treatments. The surgeries aren’t great, and if his child was on puberty blockers, there’s a good chance he won’t be able to have a normal sex life. Earlier, Cori recounted for the audience an op-ed he had written for The Washington Post in 2022, in which he admitted that, as a result of his vaginoplasty at 19, he has never been able to orgasm with a partner.

“That’s crushing, actually,” said Cori. “Because in order to partner with people, a healthy sex life is really important.”

“I have made post-op girls cum, just for the record,” August shouted. “It’s not…”

“We’re gonna let them answer, please,” said Maud.

Cori continued. He advised the father to think about his child in the future, and that he will have to live for many years with the decisions that his parents made for him.

“I promise you they will come for answers,” said Cori. “They’ll say, ‘What was I really like? Was there anything else that I could have done, were there any other treatments?’ And you’ll be able to say, ‘No, the doctors didn’t give me any other options,’ because institutionally talk therapies and [cognitive-behavioral therapy] have been recategorized as conversion therapy.”

At some point, as Cori spoke, August stood up from his seat and walked to the front row. He had the father stand up so that he could give him a hug in front of everyone.

Next, it was a mother of a nonbinary child who has chronic health conditions. The mother is a volunteer facilitator for PFLAG. She called Cori arrogant for projecting his own experience onto everyone else’s. She said we’re facing “a tsunami of anti-LGBTQ policy coming our way.” She asked him if he supports Trump’s proposal of eliminating X gender makers for adults who identify as nonbinary.

“You’re so articulate, I appreciate the question,” Cori said. “PFLAG no longer stands for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, right?”

The woman said no, it’s just the acronym.

Cori proceeded to answer her question. “If there’s a marker that’s supposed to list your sex, it should be male or female, and there’s no need at all for your gender marker to reflect your gender identity.”

Next came a question for me. A woman sitting in the back asked why I think there’s not a space for gender-nonconforming kids right now. She said she’s not understanding the debate.

I reiterated that I object to the reductive way that gender expression is talked about in schools, which I fear will lead gender-nonconforming children to think they might’ve been born in the wrong body simply because they behave more like the opposite sex. If, as a child, I had been asked which sex I “feel” like, I certainly would have said I “felt” like a girl. While I can acknowledge there are some people whose gender dysphoria will persist into adulthood, and that those adults might make decisions to modify their bodies in order to appear more like the opposite sex, I believe that every kid has a right to grow up with their bodies intact and healthy.

Lisa spoke next. She thanked the woman for her question and said she had one of her own. “Why are so many people here so hostile to incorporating our ideas?” She added that most of the questions have assumed that gender identity is a fact, while we see it as a kind of religious belief. She doesn’t believe that everyone has a separate gendered soul that can be “excavated and revealed.”

“It’s fine if you believe that,” she said. “What we are asking for people to consider is that some people don’t, and it doesn’t make them bigots.”

Lisa then mentioned a book often seen in schools, I Am Jazz, in which the protagonist says he has a girl’s brain in a boy’s body because he likes pink and mermaids, and that makes him transgender.

“Therefore, what many children learn, if they’re a boy who likes pink and mermaids, is that they’re in the wrong body,” said Lisa. “And it needs to be OK for us to raise our concerns about that.”

After that came a question from a woman wearing a mask, who identified herself as a “cis queer woman” with some kind of LGBTQ certificate from NYU. She said she’s gender-nonconforming because she has short hair and sometimes wears pants. She told Lisa that, actually yes, Lisa does have a gender identity.

When it appeared she was just going to keep rambling, Maud asked if she had a question.

“MAUD!” shouted the irate woman. “Can you actually show some respect for the people asking questions?!”

Maud gave the masked woman a few more chances. She continued to ramble, but never got to a question. Finally, she passed the mic to a very tall man wearing a blue cardigan. It was the same man who had ordered everyone to put their heads down.

The man stood up. Along with the blue cardigan, he wore a dress. His question was for Cori. “I’m a trans mom, I’m a transwoman,” he said. “I’ve got two kids, and I’m at the airport, and I’ve got ‘F’ on my passport. And I think, in the universe that you’re creating, that would not fly—excuse the pun. Then what happens? Like, what would happen to me and my family?”

“Well, depending on how you were presenting yourself…” Cori began to answer.

“I’m in a dress. I’m wearing a fucking dress.”

Maud asked him not to curse, since it was a school committee meeting.

“Oh, I can’t say ‘fuck?’ Fucking fuck fuck fuck,” he said.

Cori went on. “I use men’s spaces, and it’s OK. It’s a little uncomfortable. But you know what? Men just wanna pee.”

“What does that mean?” the man said.

“It means, if you use the men’s room, they’re not interested in what you’re doing, they’re just there to pee.”

“Are you calling her a man?” said August.

“I’m saying that, if you use the facility that accords to your sex, you don’t have to worry about the men that are in there mistreating you, because they’re just there to pee.”

“I think you are suggesting that I have to go to the men’s room,” the man said.

Cori replied, “You should use the sex space that’s accorded for your sex.”

Shortly thereafter, the man in the blue cardigan gathered his things and stomped out of the room. The mother of the nonbinary child with chronic health conditions followed him.

Finally, we made it to the last question. A person in the audience asked what kinds of policies we would propose to replace the existing ones.

Cori answered, “Sex should be treated as sex, and what we consider ‘gender’ should be protected as gender expression. Boys should be able to wear female-coded clothes, females should be able to wear masculine clothes, they should be able to adopt nicknames, they should be safe in school always and not targeted for violence or bullying because of their gender expression. If all of the energy that went into gender identity instead went into just how we express ourselves, I think that would be the best way to help these kids.”

I concurred. I said that there are males and females and rare intersex cases, and that people can express themselves however they want. I said that the way gender is currently being talked about in schools might actually be priming gender-nonconforming children to become gender dysphoric as they grow up. If a young boy says he “feels like a girl,” and all of the adults in his life affirm him as one, then, as his body matures, reality will betray what everyone has been telling him. He’ll become dysphoric, and medicalizing will seem like the most viable option.

After me, Lisa made a plug for viewpoint diversity when it comes to creating policy. She said we need to hear people who have been helped by existing policies, but we also need to hear from people who have been harmed.

“We cannot make good policy if we do not acknowledge the cost,” she said.

And with that, the meeting was adjourned.

Later that night, Maud realized she left behind some of the recording equipment. She emailed the school principal about it, and also thanked him for allowing us to use the space for our meeting. He responded by saying that his mother, who once represented the KKK when she worked for the ACLU, taught him that “suppressing hate speech is counterproductive, making martyrs of bigots.” He hadn’t watched the program, but he thinks he would have vehemently disagreed with a lot of it.

Maud responded, “You would likely learn a lot from, be impressed by, and find yourself agreeing with the panelists last night. Defending the 1st A and viewpoint diversity, as your mom did, is at its most robust when you do more than just begrudgingly allow speech but when you actually listen to other points of views. And here those points of view included multiple D2 parents.”

She pasted a link to the live stream and thanked him again.

To the principle’s credit, he followed up with Maud after he watched the video. He thanked her for suggesting he watch it and was glad he did. He said he still disagreed with a lot of what was said, particularly the underlying assumption that schools are pushing a particular ideology. He wondered whether the “fear mongering and scapegoating of trans people during the election made people pay attention and think there is a crisis.”

Isn’t that always the way?

These people are bigots.

OK, they’re not necessarily bigots, but they’re overreacting. This stuff isn’t happening. Besides, it’s probably all because of Trump.

Eventually, down the road:

OK, this stuff is happening.

And finally:

It’s good that it’s happening…. Bigot!

As of now, Resolution #248 is dead in its tracks. The former schools chancellor, David Banks, who retired in December after having his house raided as part of the federal corruption investigation into Mayor Eric Adams’s administration, said last year, “We will not be entertaining changes to that [2019 gender] guidance.” To my knowledge, the new chancellor, Melissa Aviles-Ramos, has not commented on the resolution.

Regardless, it’s now very clear how deeply gender identity ideology has embedded itself within our schools and communities. As a result, we no longer speak the same language. Maud, Lisa, Cori, and I acknowledge the material reality of sex. We’re run-of-the-mill liberals who believe in things like free speech and viewpoint diversity. But not these folks.

In his final email to Maud, the principal did mention that he doesn’t see a lot of this occurring in his school. And that very well might be true, since his school has a lot of low-income and immigrant students, which are not the primary demographics in which gender ideology metastasizes. I only hope it stays true.

But what we all must realize is that this is occurring in schools. Widely occurring. Right now, in the most advanced nation in the world, kids are being taught that sex isn’t real. They’re being taught that they can choose their sex, and that that choice rests upon the most regressive ideas of what it means to be a boy and what it means to be a girl. Girls are being taught to simply accept the presence of boys in their sports and private spaces. They’re being told that it’s their problem and that they might be in trouble if they object to a boy who claims to be a girl coming into their locker room.

Right now, in America.

Perhaps that’s okay for some people. But I’m worried about the consequences of an entire generation being taught a pseudoscience. And I don’t think it’s wise for kids to be told to disregard their personal boundaries.

And I know I’m not alone. A New York Times poll has revealed that the majority of Americans disapprove of trans-identified males in women’s sports and do not believe that gender-distressed minors should have access to puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.

The majority of Republicans and Democrats.

We must end it now.

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Full video:

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As always...