#willful evidence violations

[obsessivevoidkitten]

Sweetest Nectar

Yandere Sundew Plant Man x Gender Neutral Luna Moth Fae Reader CW: Noncon, no pain, drugging, aphrodisiac nectar, lured in, bondage, reader done gets violated by the tentacles, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, reader rides that dick like a cowboy, making out, french kissing, general yandere behavior, seed oviposition Word Count: 1.4k (Comm I got late last night. Wrote half before 5am this morning and the rest tonight. The name Lasio comes from the sundew subgenus Lasiocephala. Hope you all enjoy <3)

The only sound you could hear was that of the wind as it whooshed by while you fluttered without a care in the world through the purple sky. Partly cloudy, a nice breeze, no bothersome humans in this realm at all. A lovely summer evening in the realm of the fairies.

You were a luna moth type fairy. Your large pale jade wings and antenna serving as a dead give away. Not that it mattered when you were away from the land of the humans. When you were on Earth you could easily disguise yourself though, so it was never a problem. But here you were totally free to be as nature intended.

You flitted between the great flowers, many as great as trees, collecting various types of nectar to feed on later. You went at this task for a couple hours before deciding to feed on your spoils in a nice clearing near the crystal creek.

After a nice day fluttering all about it was nice to sit down and begin to relax. You sipped from one of your many vials of nectar and enjoyed the birdsong all around you. It was so peaceful here. A true paradise. You tried to spend as much time as possible here, avoiding the human world as much as possible.

With a heavy sigh you willed yourself up and readied yourself to collect more nectar and maybe some pollen for tomorrow. It took much to sustain you. It seemed you were in luck. As the wind shifted, before you even took to the sky, you caught the alluring scent of nectar.

It was the most alluring floral scent you had ever experienced, there was probably quite a lot of fresh high quality nectar. Your antennae were twitching like crazy and even though you had just had a snack you had to wipe away drool from your mouth because you were salivating so intensely.

You leapt up and began flying towards the wondrous aroma at once.

It didn’t take long for you to find it. A long vine with lovely red globules of nectar. You tried to collect one but found that they were quite a bit sticky. Terrifyingly sticky… no matter what you did you couldn’t get free. What’s more you found yourself wrapped in the vine the more you struggled.

Soon you found yourself covered in the sticky goop, its heady aroma practically drowning you. Your head grew dizzy as a heat pooled in your crotch.

Just what was this stuff?

You were stuck for a while longer and found yourself actually grinding into the sticky vine that held you, you knew you should be trying to think of a way to escape… but you were so horny… you needed to cum so bad. It was all you could think about. Your antenna vibrated with agitation at your inability to get yourself off in your current predicament, with your hands held uselessly at your sides.

Once you started to cry it became evident just what mess you had found yourself in exactly.

A man stepped out of the brush. A plant man with long sticky tentacles sprouting from his head and another mass of them branching out from his tail. They were green at the base, transitioned into a lemon yellow, and were tipped with the red globules you found yourself ensnared in.

Due to your drug-like effects of the sap you had been coated in you did not even realize the danger that you were in.

“Ah~ Pl-please help! I need help. Stuck.” You kept fidgeting. You needed to touch yourself so badly!! You couldn’t even put together that this man standing before you was the one who had trapped you in the first place.

“Of course cutie! I’m your new boyfriend, Lasio. And I wouldn’t be a very good boyfriend if I didn’t help you out~”

You did not even question what he had said, you were just too needy by that point.

At Lasio’s whim the sticky nectar became slick and slippery, but before you could get your hands to your aching crotch the vines of his tail wrapped around you tightly and drew you closer. You whimpered due to being denied the use of your hands but it quickly turned into a moan as the tip of one of the vines dipped into your pants and rubbed you thoroughly.

It pressed and massaged your entrance and you cried and begged for more. He was inclined to oblige you. The slippery appendage slid into deeply, coating your insides with the potent fluid that had already made you lose control.

You writhed and squirmed in pure sexual bliss, more stimulated than before.

But Lasio didn’t stop there, he brought your squirming form close and stilled you with a touch, his hands holding your head steady as he kissed you deeply. His tongue slipped past your lips and caressed your tongue before exploring your mouth. It was dripping with the same sweet substance that had covered your body and been deposited into your hole.

You sucked at it eagerly as you moaned softly. You absolutely couldn’t get enough.

When Lasio withdrew his tentacle like vine from you you were ready to cry in protest. It left you so empty and hollow. So needy to be filled up. Then you saw why he had removed himself from you. His cock was fully erect. It was bright yellow with a sweet looking bead of amber nectar dribbling out.

There was nothing you wanted more in this world than to be plowed by your brand new boyfriend. And there was nothing in the world that Lasio wanted more than to sink his cock into you and fill you with his seeds.

Lasio sat down on a soft patch of grass. He grabbed you gently with one of his tails and guided you over to him then pulled you down into his lap.

You understood what he needed and sat down on his cock, your well lubed hole taking him just as perfectly as his cock filled that void in you. You steadied yourself with your hands on his muscular green pecs. Your antenna twitched and lightly touched him as he grabbed your hips in his strong hands.

The sensation was indescribable as you moved yourself up and down on his prick, riding him and doing most of the work in your desperation for release. With a dazed and far away look you stared at him but you weren’t really paying much attention to anything other than the physical sensation of impaling yourself on his dick.

Lasio pulled you close and nipped at your lip gently then pressed his lips against your passionately. Reveling in the feel of your soft lips against his had him almost as intoxicated as you were.

You rode his cock until you were simply too spent to keep moving. You had already cum several mind shattering times by that point but even in your exhaustion you were no less desperate to continue making love with your wonderful partner.

“You’ve done so well for me, let me take over now my sweet moth.”

Lasio, priding himself on being the very best boyfriend ever, would never deprive you of your needs. He grasped your ass firmly and thrust into you over and over. You melted into his chest, body pressed against his with your face nestled comfortably into his neck as he thrust into you. This entire time he hadn’t yet came but he was getting close, his movements gradually became fast and sloppy as he chased his own release.

He grunted and his spasming cock flooded you with more than just semen but also many small literal seeds. The feeling of his dick twitching inside you made you squeal before going limp against him. Finally you felt sated as you wrapped your arms around Lasio and kissed him lovingly.

“Mmm, I bet you’ll grow my seeds just as well as you took my cock~”

Of course you would! You’d happily bear your lover’s children. As many as he needed you to! For once an insectoid fae had tasted of the sundew man’s nectar and then got themselves seeded by him their love for one another would be eternal.

[notnights]

PV’s tips for some Gangle writing:

We don't know all the depth Gangle has just yet, but there are a few things I notice as patterns. What they mean and why she does them are of course up to interpretation, said interpretations are what we can use to give some fun insight into what and how we write about her.

Gangle actually talks back to Jax.

"You didn’t do anything." "I feel like that violates some kind of convention." Shaking her head no at him in the dinner scene.

Prompt examples: How far is she willing to talk back? Is this her own small form of rebellion against her situation?

She questions things, she’s often asking what’s going on.

“What about Zooble?" "How’s Kaufmo doing?" "WHATS HAPPENING?!" (anyone would probably ask this one in that situation) "Why are there two bad guy trucks?”

Prompt examples: Why is she so curious? Does she want to make sure she's kept in the loop?

Gangle actually speaks pretty clearly.

Despite speaking through tears and stuffy nose, she's pretty clear. She will get a shaky or quiet voice, but not stutter. In fact Pomni stutters more than her so far.

No prompt examples for this one, this is more in relation to how certain dialogue could be from her, tips on how to make her "sound."

Gangle appears to see situations that need involvement, but is passive about getting involved.

-Worrying about Zooble being taken by the gloinks but not doing anything about it herself until Jax finally gave her the task. -Rock, paper, scissoring Kinger for who would actually help Zooble (she gets lucky Kinger does it anyways). -If Jax hadn't made her drive in episode 2, its hard to say she would have had much of a role in the adventure itself. -She just sits there as they interact with the Fudge -She keeps lookout as they travel, it's possible either Jax or Ragatha (they're the two that take leader initiatives so far) gave her this task seeing as previous evidence shows she's less likely to take initiative in a task herself. (We only have two episodes so this is subject to have more evidence against it in the future.)

Prompt examples: Why does she lack motivation? Does she have any motivation? Why does she not want to get involved? She is indeed submissive and agreeable.

Those are the things that standout most to me, and usually what I question when making funnies involving her. Give all the love to this gangly woman.

[aphroditelovesu]

Yandere Spencer Reid Headcanons (General)

"I promise to keep you safe." — Spencer Reid.

❝ 🕵 — lady l: It's been a while since I wrote a general hc, so I don't know if it's good, but I did my best! I hope you like it and forgive me for any mistakes. 🤎

❝tw: obsessive and possessive behavior, stalking, invasion of privacy, breaking the law (?) and very implicit murder.

❝🕵pairing: yandere!spencer reid x gender neutral!reader.

Spencer Reid is a genius, in every sense of the word. He is not only intelligent but a true genius, someone who hunts criminals with pure skill, and you, his obsession, his darling, even if you are not a criminal, will be hunted by him. He will have you in every meaning because you belong to him, just as he belongs to you.

He is known for his brilliant mind and his exceptional ability to analyze complex patterns. His eidetic memory allows him to retain vast amounts of information, making him an invaluable asset to the FBI team. Too bad for his darling, however, because he will use his skills and resources to get you at the end of it all.

Spencer is fully aware that his thoughts about you are disturbing, to say the least. But is it so wrong to love someone? He believes not. Maybe the graphic and explicit violence he thinks when someone hurts you isn't exactly healthy but he doesn't care as much as he should.

You are like an enigma that he wants more than anything to decipher, to unravel all your mysteries. If he could, Spencer would read your mind to know all of your thoughts, even the most intimate ones. His insatiable curiosity would drive him to explore every corner of your mind, seeking to understand every thought, every emotion and every facet of your personality.

Spencer is driven by his desire for curiosity and his obsession with you. He values ​​his work at the FBI and his friends but he values ​​you even more. You became an extra motivation for what he does; hunt down criminals to keep the world safe so you can live in it.

He would be disturbingly uncomfortable at the thought of losing you, and his analytical mind could lead him to investigate and monitor your activities closely, perhaps even crossing some ethical lines in the process. Spencer can and probably will become a meticulous and highly effective stalker, watching your social media, searching anyone who was/is close to you.

Spencer doesn't know the word "privacy" when it comes to you, he will look up everything he can about you. He can't bear the thought of not knowing everything about you, he hates the thought of you keeping some kind of secret from him. His willingness to cross boundaries and violate other people's privacy shows how far he is willing to go to maintain his control over you.

He would love to be able to read your mind, just to know what you're thinking and if you're thinking about him because Spencer is always thinking about you. His thoughts are always about you, about how he can make you happy, how he can make the world a better place for you to live. Everything is about you and always will be.

Spencer is extremely possessive of you and it becomes evident very quickly. He is not the master of hiding his feelings for you, including the most dangerous ones. He will stare with hatred evident in his eyes and make strange expressions when someone gets too close to you.

He doesn't want to be controlling and he isn't, but Spencer gets jealous very quickly due to the fact that he's insecure about your love for him. He won't kill someone out of jealousy, he's from the FBI and knows better than to do that, but he can become more aggressive, and bitter if you don't show that you just care about him.

Along with his possessiveness comes absolute overprotection. Spencer is suffocating and ruthless when it comes to protecting you. He will go to great lengths to take care of you, being your own armed escort or having the FBI protect you. When it comes to your safety, he doesn't mess around.

He wouldn't be the type to kidnap you that quickly, no, it would take a lot of motivation for him to take you like that. Maybe you kept rejecting him or you were in a situation where you could have died, in both situations, Spencer would know that he would have to increase your protection. And the best way would be for you to move in with him, without your prior consent however.

Spencer Reid isn't the worst yandere to have, he's just very overprotective and a determined stalker. He will never hurt you, not on purpose at least, and he will make sure you are always well taken care of. He can become very smothering when he is jealous but he means well. Just don't hide anything from him and everything will be fine because Spencer can't stand the idea of ​​not knowing everything about you.

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

As a Jewish advocate for Palestinian rights, let me tell you something. I’m fucking hurting right now.

I hate Hamas because they have made the plight of Palestinians so much worse with their actions in that now even fewer people will be willing to acknowledge their 70 years of suffering.

I hate that they will be used as an excuse to demonize all Palestinians, and the US is already upping their already astronomical military funding for Israel.

I hate that they’ve committed unforgivable violence in the name of a cause that is just.

I hate the Israeli government and the IDF for creating the conditions for this tragedy and countless others stretching back to the Nakba.

I hate how they have perverted my culture into a settler-colonial ideology and perpetrated on the Palestinians the very kinds of pogroms my own family fled Europe to escape.

I hate that so many Jews in Israel and throughout the diaspora face ostracism from their communities and families for speaking out against the atrocities Israel has been committing against Palestinians.

I especially hate how many of my fellow Jews have bought into an ideology that can handwave the bulldozing of homes and schools, the imprisonment of children, the bombing of residential homes, the displacement, the massacres. Virtually all things we have suffered as Jews at points in our history.

My heart aches for the innocent people murdered across the board - no matter who the bombs came from. Even though part of me thinks settlers aren’t innocent, what can you really do if you just happened to be born there? And even if you moved to Israel, do you really deserve to die? No.

But neither do all the children in the Gaza Strip currently being bombed in a revenge attack that, with the denial of food, water, and medical aid, violates the Geneva convention.

But to everyone who is posting now about Israel and these “unprecedented tragedies” - yes, these are tragedies, and my heart is so heavy with them. But they are not unprecedented. Where were you when the same things were happening to Palestinians for decades upon decades? There’s a monumental amount of video evidence of atrocities against Palestinians, but somehow people have managed to miss all of that. If you’re only paying attention to the suffering of certain people, ask yourself why.

If you’re only now posting about “of course Palestinians should be free” in posts primarily about mourning the killing of Israelis, where were your voices before now? Those of us trying to organize and fight for Palestinian human rights could have used you.

If more people had spoken out against our government’s support of what Amnesty International and countless other human rights organizations have called an apartheid regime, who knows what could have been possible.

Edit: Since this is getting a little traction, I wanted to leave these links here. Both are very reputable organizations that are providing humanitarian aid:

[arabian-batboy]

Its disturbing how Zionists are trying to so damn hard to convince the world that Palestinians are currently on a huge raping campaign on innocent women and girls everywhere, even though there are literally ZERO evidences so far of ONE case of a Palestinian raping or stripping any civilians (and I mean real evidence, not bigots saying its true on twitter), they simply willed it into existence by merely saying it over and over again and thinking that's enough to make it into a real concerning fact

But do you know what has been proven as a legitimate fact for decades on the other hand? Thousands of Palestinians men, women and children being systematically violated and raped on a regular basis by Israeli settlers with no consequences or sympathy from the international community.

Like we literally have videos of Israeli soldiers on camera laughing about how many Palestinian women they have raped and multiple photos and videos of Palestinians being stripped naked and beaten by soldiers. Right now there's even a video of Israeli soldiers pissing on a dead naked Palestinian man on twitter which isn't being shared around or talked about half as much as much that one video of one Israeli woman allegedly being "stripped" to a bra and shorts, even though it has already been debunked by now that she was already wearing just a bra and shorts when she was captured and that neither she nor any other Israeli hostages have suffered any kind of sexual abuse by Palestinians (as you can see by how good they're being treated in this video)

It's really remind me how White supremacists in Europe have started this propaganda that Muslim refugees shouldn't be allowed Asylum because they're here to rape European women and that rape rates in Europe will sky-rocket by their mere existence, even though again, there are zero evidence of refugees committing sexual crimes (or any crimes) on a higher rates than local citizens. In fact, in some European countries and the US, it has proven that Muslim-majority neighborhood actually have the lower crimes rate compared to their counterparts.

One thing is clear here, it seems that it doesn't matter where they live, all White supremacists (especially Zionists) have the same exact trick when shit hits the fan and its: claim that "savage brown men are coming to rape your delicate white women! So you need to kill them before that happens!" each time the people they're oppressing are standing up for their human rights.

-

Palestinians made a document that contains templates for letters to US, UK, & Canadian politicians, media outlets, and companies in relation to current events in Palestine as well as petitions & other resources. If you live in any of these countries then please select a template, edit it to your preference and send according to the instructions on the relevant page.

Here is a link to it (please share it): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-RUOHHiEtr7uoclQgWN-tCWOihnHIp5hym89aNePi_E/mobilebasic

Aside from that, please protest, support the BDS boycott and spread awareness as much as possible.

[zvaigzdelasas]

President Joe Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency,” according to a final report released Thursday by a Department of Justice special counsel.

But special counsel Robert Hur said he was declining to prosecute Biden over his handling of that material.

The FBI found that material in the garage, offices, and basement den in Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home. It included documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and notebooks containing Biden’s entries about national security, the new report said.

“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” Hur wrote.

“He knew he kept classified information in notebooks stored in his house and he knew he was not allowed to do so.”

But that evidence “does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” the special counsel wrote.

Hur in his nearly 400-page report wrote, “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

“We conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter,” the report said. [...]

Hur was blunt in detailing lapses in Biden’s memory when he was interviewed for the probe.

“He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 - when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’),” the report said.

“He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him,” Hur wrote.

“In a case where the government must prove that Mr. Biden knew he had possession of the classified Afghanistan documents after the vice presidency and chose to keep those documents, knowing he was violating the law, we expect that at trial, his attorneys would emphasize these limitations in his recall,” the special counsel added.

Biden in a statement said, “I was pleased to see they reached the conclusion I believed all along they would reach – that there would be no charges brought in this case and the matter is now closed.”[...]

Trump was charged in June with 37 felonies, including willful retention of national defense information, a violation of the Espionage Act.

Trump had hundreds more classified documents in his possession than Biden did — more than 300 in total, including 102 that were seized during an FBI raid on Trump’s Palm Beach resort home in August 2022. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Hur’s report Thursday said that the materials recovered from Biden spanned his career in national office from 1973 when he became a U.S. senator, and through his two terms as vice president under former President Barack Obama from 2009 through early 2017.

Biden during his career “has long seen himself as a historic figure,” and during that time collected papers and artifacts that were connected to “significant issues and events in his career,” the report said.

“He used these materials to write memoirs published in 2007 and 2017, to document his legacy, and to cite as evidence that he was a man of presidential timber,” Hur wrote.

Well we're officially never gonna hear the end of this one huh [8 Feb 24]

[erosia-rhodes]

Speculation on Mizu’s heritage

Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix is one of the best things I’ve seen all year. As I’ve been rewatching it, I couldn’t help but speculate on Mizu’s heritage, and I wanted to share my theory so we can all laugh at how wrong I was in a few years. (I am notoriously bad at guessing plot twists. I was totally wrong about how Wandavision and Loki season 1 would end.)

Spoilers and speculation behind the jump.

Short version: Mizu’s mother was a white woman and her father was the Shogun. The Shogun’s wife, Lady Itoh, put the bounty on Mizu’s life because she was proof that the Shogun broke his own laws.

Who Would Want to Kill a Baby?

We know that there has been a bounty on Mizu’s head since she was a baby. There are only three reasons I can think of for putting a hit out on a child who’s just been born and couldn’t have personally wronged anyone yet:

1) To deny them an inheritance.

2) To eliminate proof of an affair.

3) To eliminate proof of a crime.

The woman that claims to be Mizu’s mother is Japanese, so Mizu assumes her father must be white. But once Fowler reveals that Mizu’s “mother” was actually her maid, it opens up the possibility that Mizu’s mother was white and her father was Japanese.

We know that someone is willing to a pay a lot of money to kill Mizu, but the maid also ran off with enough money to take care of Mizu for several years, so at least one person in this mess is wealthy. We also know that someone still wants Mizu dead when she's an adult because men come to kill her when her husband rats her out, so she’s still a threat to someone else’s interests at that time.

If the Shogun slept with a white woman and fathered a mix-raced child as a result, that would fulfill all three reasons to put a bounty on a baby. Killing her would remove any chance that a bastard might try to blackmail her way into an inheritance, it would remove proof that the Shogun had an affair, and most importantly, it would destroy evidence that he violated his own laws against Western influence by sleeping with a white woman.

But the True Culprit is…

But I don’t think the Shogun put the bounty on Mizu’s life. I think it was the Shogun’s wife, Lady Itoh, for several reasons:

1) Lady Itoh is willing to kill people who learn that her husband broke his own laws.

When the nobles are trying to escape the fire in the finale, Lady Itoh makes her sons lock the door behind them and sentence the other Lords to death because they witnessed the Shogun’s shame, the revelation that he broke his own laws by dealing with Fowler, a white man. She’s demonstrated that she’s willing to kill people to destroy proof of her husband’s violations, so she’d do the same to a mixed-race baby he fathered. It would also explain why Mizu’s maid never claimed the bounty herself; she would have been targeted for death too because she knew about the Shogun’s crime. She probably took whatever money was in the house when the killers came for Mizu, and went on the run as much to save her own life as Mizu's.

2) The woman’s a sadist.

Lady Itoh does everything she can to make Akemi’s life hell once she marries into the family. She saddles her with bitchy attendants and serves her disgusting food at the banquet, and finishes it off with the cooked remains of the bird Akemi tried to free. Then she sends her two more birds the next day, claiming they’re breakfast and lunch. I have no trouble believing this woman would put a hit on a baby!

3) She’s a hardliner against Western influence

After the fire, Lady Itoh orders her sons to destroy 2000 guns which they could have used in the future against their enemies because she’d so fiercely against Western influence. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the one who came up with the law banning white people and talked her husband into enacting it. That would explain why the Shogun was willing to violate the law, because he didn’t completely believe in it and only enacted it to get his wife off his back.

It Fits a Common Theme of Revenge Stories

Another reason I think Lady Itoh is the ultimate villain is because it fits the common theme that revenge is futile. Revenge usually destroys the person seeking it just as much as anyone they go after. There is a famous quote from Confucius that says, "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves." The implication is that the second one is for yourself.

If it turns out that Mizu has been going after the only four men in the country who couldn’t be her father, it would demonstrate how misguided revenge quests are. She’s spent her whole life pouring hatred into the wrong mission.

It would also be a painful twist to know that Mizu was in the same room with Lady Itoh in the finale, but she was focused on killing Fowler instead of realizing that her true enemy was fleeing out the back door with everyone else.

How It Will All Sort Out

I predict that Mizu will eventually learn the truth about her parentage and ultimately target Lady Itoh for death, not just for revenge, but so she can permanently remove the bounty on her head and live her life freely as a woman.

Akemi might end up assisting Mizu since Lady Itoh is also her enemy. Akemi will probably spend season two battling Lady Itoh for control of the household, and thus the country. If Akemi can put her husband in place as the Shogun, she could remove the bounty on Mizu's head.

If Taigan ends up working as a castle guard, this might put him in conflict with Mizu and Akemi if they target Lady Itoh since he would be honor bound to protect her.

It will be interesting to see how it all sorts out!

ETA: I misspelled Lady Itoh's name, sorry! (According to the subtitles it's Itoh, not Ito) I think I fixed every instance.

[raayllum]

Been also thinking about the line between "the text wasn't meant to be interpreted this way but it's a solid reading / line of critique (with caveats)" (#1) versus "the text wasn't meant to be interpreted this way and doing so actively worsens the story they're trying to tell" (#2).

Going to do some TDP specific examples.

But basically: When your in-depth reading takes away from the Surface Level reading rather than providing contribution, that's usually a good sign you're going into a story with 1) an expectation or reading that was never promised or 2) are weakening the story through a typically unfounded analysis.

A TDP specific example is the relationship between Viren and Harrow. Canonically, textually, they had a brotherly relationship, both in the dialogue that Viren conveys ("I think of you as my brother" / "You're my brother") and in their persistent parallel framing with Callum and Ezran.

However, that doesn't stop many fans (myself included) from reading a romantic and sexual attraction between Viren and Harrow, especially in their youth. Not only do they just have the vibes, parallels to other couples, and subtext, Viren very much places Harrow's importance in his life in a way that's usually reserved for lovers. Viren having been in love (or ongoing) just makes sense. That doesn't mean any of us are expecting TDP to ever make it Canon — like I said, it's canonically very much Not that — but it does add a layer to Viren always wanting to 1) matter to Harrow as much as he does, and 2) his frustration and severance with Harrow because he wasn't getting the acceptance and affection that he wanted.

This is what I would consider #1 avenue: it doesn't take away from their dynamic, and to me adds a layer, but it allows the text to stand as is. Viren wants Harrow's love and attention in the gradual and then sharp deterioration of their dynamic. All I'm changing is a little bit of the why per my personal reading.

Meanwhile, if I went the route of "Yeah I know canon shows Harrow appreciating, taking Viren into account, and smiling at / loving him, but I don't think Harrow cared at all and he was just a bad friend to Viren for years" then... Yeah I could read it that way — it's not as though Harrow or Viren were hardly perfect friends to each other, and Harrow's discard of Viren is harsh (even if it was a long time coming in a lot of ways) — but what does that leave me with? Frustration, maybe; a poor view of Harrow; immense sympathy towards Viren? At best, I'd maybe resent how Viren learns the lessons Harrow was trying to teach him by paying for it with his life; at worst, I'd think the narrative was being fundamentally unfair to Viren without recognizing that his previous modes of self sacrifice were always couched in ego, shirking the immediate consequences of being saved, or that he was routinely willing to sacrifice everyone around him first, including his own children.

This is where we get into area #2, and I see it happen all the time with TDP, whether it's from the series not portraying monarchies as a bad thing or the ever persistent "issue" of dark magic. Quite frankly, it's silly to walk into TDP post-S1 expecting dark magic to be anything beyond — given all the current textual evidence — "morally complicated" magic at best. Yes it can be used for good things, but that doesn't automatically make it good, and while we could spin logistical wheels for ages, the Point the story is Making with dark magic is about power, desperation, love, self-destruction, violation, and agency, and how all those things can overlap or counteract each other. Toting out "well I think dark magic is blanket statement Okay and Good actually" misses all of that, and actively makes your reading and experience with TDP worse. The surface level reading is important to take into account when examining a piece of media, otherwise it can lead to a very warped view and effect your ability to be well founded in your reading of the text.

That doesn't mean you can't desire a more morally neutral form of dark magic — plenty of fantasy series and stories have it, and some I adore (like "the legend of Zelda" — but it does mean accepting the story is never going to broadly speaking do that, and it's Okay that it won't. I'd be silly if I walked into LOZ expecting them to get into the ethics of its form of (non) dark magic of using monsters for spell parts because it's 1) a game mechanic and 2) it's not interested in the ethics of it, and no amount of me saying "well it should be" will change that, nor is it a Story Flaw that it doesn't.

This is all to say that I think asking "Why would the writers do this?" is one of the most useful, if basic, questions to ask when it comes to analysis and when figuring out whether your viewpoint is falling into avenue #1 of being grounded, or avenue #2 of veering towards warped territory.

For example, if I take Rayla not being by Callum's side when he's struggling over the pearl reveal in 6x06 as an indicator she doesn't care about him, I'm doing a deep dive that ignores all the very Surface Level emphasized scenes of Rayla caring about and supporting Callum a whole lot. I could make the claim she doesn't care based on that scene, but it wouldn't be well founded because it's ignoring miles of other much more prevalent, consistent scenes of her being there for him; it's not a well founded claim.

For something less obvious, let's look at 5x08. While Callum could've given Finnegrin the wrong spell on purpose, as some fans have thoughtfully proposed, as a sneaky wink for die hard fans... why would the authors do that? What does the story gain from that reading or intention? Well, it makes it seem like Callum was less desperate in his dealings with Finnegrin, which makes him doing dark magic afterwards come off worse. It also lessens the battle Callum has throughout that episode for feeling in control and recognizing that he can't always be. It's a reading that, in my opinion, not only strays away from the surface level reading, but is one removes elements from the text that the text would otherwise be stronger for having. In comparison, after all, if Callum gave his version of the right spell without thinking it through, he did so entirely out of desperation, which better affirms just how desperate and worn down he had to be to do dark magic, and is another instance in the episode of him feeling very much out of control (especially since we don't see the 3rd with dark magic on screen, so otherwise, we'd only have him punching Finnegrin as an example and nothing else).

Same thing with the old (now debunked) theory of Callum's bio dad being elven in nature. It's an interesting idea, exploring the implications and backstory and how'd grapple with it, but it'd weaken what canon is actively striving for, which is that Callum's magic use is special precisely because he's an ordinary human who's gained primal magic, and having elven ancestry would counteract that. It doesn't mean that the idea isn't a Good one or that it's not fun to explore in fanon, but there's a lot of reasons the story isn't (or decided not to) have it be canon, because it was stronger for the story they Wanted to tell for it not to be.

Sometimes, as fans this means acknowledging that what we want or prefer in a story is just blatantly not what's being set up, because the story is going to do things regardless of what we want or personally like. That doesn't mean those decisions are bad, and it also doesn't mean those elements or decisions or constructions are beyond critique, but it does mean to ask yourself some key questions:

Is there anything my reading is missing? (ie. if TDP shouldn't have monarchs and that's the critical focus, we lose the messages about leadership, family, and legacy that are engaged with through the vessel of hereditary monarchy)

Why might the story or scene go in certain directions? Are there story constraints (time, tone, etc) they have to abide by?

Am I expecting the story to ascribe to my worldview or preference, and am I open to things that don't do that? If yes, why? If no, why not?

Is my in-depth takeaway aligned with a surface level reading? Are both readings working together, or are they opposed? What other surface level readings might be plausible here for a casual viewer?

Even if this is not personally compelling and/or believable to me, does my personal takeaway match up with the characters' responses to it? Why or why not? (Think every Disney movie where they fall in love in 3 days. Realistic? No. Does it matter within the context of the story? Also no)

Again, this is not to say that 1) what the casual takeaway Is is an objective singular monolith (it isn't) or 2) if the casual takeaway and your interpretation is at odds that you're wrong. But through context clues, we can usually narrow it down as to what the story intends, and that if our interpretations do veer heavily to examine why and to manage expectations accordingly.

Anyways hopefully this all made sense Viren x Harrow forever

[matan4il]

We've lost so many people since the last time I could make a news update post, that I find it hard to write about them all. I guess at the very least, I need to write about 38 years old Elad Fingerhut, father of 3, who was murdered by Hezbollah on our Independence Day. He was a civilian, who happened to be nearby when a terrorist rocket attack on Israel's north started, he realized soldiers were hurt, and ran in to help. That's when he was hit directly by a following anti-tank missile fired at the same spot. He was murdered for being a decent human being, willing to help others even under fire.

The IDF has recovered the bodies of 4 Israeli hostages, all of them were murdered on Oct 7 and it was their bodies that the terrorists had kidnapped. The corpses were found thanks to military intel in a tunnel in northern Gaza, next to explosive devices, so Hamas was actually using these bodies as a booby trap to kill Israeli soldiers. I will never understand people stanning an organization capable of murdering innocent civilians, and then using their bodies like that. The four hostages were Shani Louk, Ron Benjamin, Itzhak Gelerenter, and Amit Buskila. As far as I'm aware, only Shani was confirmed as murdered on Oct 7 before this operation, so bringing the bodies back allows, in addition to proper burial of the murdered, for the families to finally know what happened to their loved ones, get to mourn, and hopefully start processing, and eventually, healing. As for Shani herself? Just a small reminder that on Oct 7 itself a vid was published, showing her body stripped down, leg broken, tossed into the back of a truck, guarded by armed terrorists, with a random Gazan teenager was spitting on her violated corpse, and after that, a Gaza "journalist" called her family to lie to them and claim Shani's alive, just injured, and being treated in a hospital for her wound. If that's not enough, a Gaza "photojournalist" won an award for taking a picture showing the Hamas terrorists riding the truck on top of her. Now her family can finally find comfort in knowing their kid is at rest.

There are at this time 128 hostages in Gaza still, at least 39 are believed to be bodies. This includes two Thai men who were kidnapped from Israel, for whom there is now evidence that they were murdered on Oct 7, and their corpses are held hostage.

May the memory of all Palestinian terrorists' victims be a blessing.

I assume everyone knows already that the (undemocratically elected) president of Iran, Ibrahim Raisi, known as "the butcher of Tehran," has been killed in a helicopter crash. What people may not be aware of is that the UN has actually observed a moment of silence for the man who personally oversaw the murder of countless innocent Iranians, many of them as part of the Islamic regime's gender-targeted violence, and who, as part of the regime, was responsible for many more deaths of people around the world, including financing Hamas and so enabling the Oct 7 massacre. In fact, the UN secretary general has extended personal condolences to the people and government of Iran for Raisi's death, as per his official statement. Here's what the UN's one tweet about it looks like:

(I'm not surprised that the top comment is an angry one from a Ukrainian woman, since the Iranian regime does supply Russia with attack drones and missiles)

Meanwhile, do you know how long it took the UN to officially discuss for the first time the hostages abducted from Israel on Oct 7, as part of a massacre enabled by Iran? Seven and a half months (discussion held on May 16, five days ago). But sure, the UN isn't biased at all, and is totally reliable and a force for peace. Please keep this in mind as the UN's judicial arms, the ICJ and ICC, continue to make a mockery of justice and the idea of international humanitarian law. Hey, did you know that the ICC's chief prosecutor never asked for arrest warrants against Raisi?

Meanwhile, around the world, antisemitism has only been intensifying. Some recent incidents include an Israeli father living in Belgium being attack by an anti-Israel mob in front of his visiting daughter, in France they burned down a synagogue (great how I couldn't find a single headline where the synagogue attack was mentioned before the fate of the attacker following it), in Sweden there were shots fired near the Israeli embassy, and in NYC a man randomly stopped his bike by a group of religious Jewish kids playing on the street and physically attacked them...

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[silent-sanctum]

You know in honor of Valentines Day, how about I make a list of Valentines headcanons about Jotaro Kujo:

♡ When someone asks what flag color he is, one would most likely say red because of his rude, standoffish, and aloof personality (mostly seen in his teenage years)

♡ However, if you think about it aside from the rough exterior, he's actually a subtle green flag. Let me explain-

♡ This is one of those instances where you have to look past his awkward loner-esque personality and observe how he treats people that don't constantly piss him off.

♡ There's a reason why some of us compare his "heart of gold" to the Amazon Forest that is Jonathan:

♡ Jotaro respects boundaries. As someone who's space often gets violated by unwanted fangirls, he's very aware of the importance of personal space. He won't force you to do stuff you don't want to.

♡ Jotaro is open-minded. He likes to explore his surroundings a lot and isn't exactly rigid with preferences or routines. He's willing to accompany you to wherever you want to go and would try out stuff you'd like for him to try out. After all, he did surprise Joseph when he said India was a neat place to be in.

♡ Jotaro is an active listener. Unlike Jonathan, he can't really offer you solid words of comfort. It's not his expertise. But to make up for that, he'd lend a ear to whatever you want to say to him. Sure, he won't talk much but at times, when you really need someone, he'd be there for you- help you out by giving advice on how to not get hurt again, and help provide you logical reasoning that validates your feelings.

♡ Jotaro is loyal and caring. Yes, he's all "mean and grouchy" no one's denying that, but behind that tough skin is someone that loves his friends and family. He values their security above all else and is willing to put his life on the line just to keep them safe from danger. He also isn't one to condone cheating as evident by his statement about Joseph's infidelity.

♡ Jotaro's love languages are Acts of Service and Quality Time. He likes company but he just can't express it well. At times, he'd spend some of his free time just being by your side, lowkey glad seeing you happy with him around. He can tell when you're upset just by reading your body language or can tell what you need from piecing together recollections of your words. As a result, he'd find ways to make you happy using the methods he can do. He'd buy stuff you like, offer you dinner dates at a restaurant that serves your current cravings, put on your favorite movie or music etc.

♡ Jotaro isn't as possessive as you'd expect him to be. He's very aware he's shit at being an entertaining guy, so he isn't in the position of being all high and mighty of wanting you to just be with him. If anything, he likes seeing you enjoy your day hanging out with friends... but he'd really appreciate it when you'd often have him in mind and you invite him to hang with your friend group. Whether he accepts or declines, he's happy you considered inviting him. But if he sees someone blatantly trying to make moves on you, then he has to intervene to remind everyone that you're taken.

❣️ When Valentines arrives... ❣️

♡ Honestly, don't expect him to show up in public being head-over-heels with some grand display of affection because he's not Jonathan nor Joseph.

♡ Instead, you'd find him waiting for you to finish your tasks and either tells you ahead of time where they're going to spend the day or asks you where do you want to go.

♡ Either way, you engage in usual banter and conversation, just how you both liked it over the months, and continue to do so even when dining or spending time in said place.

♡ You both don't show much PDA as an average couple would, and you didnt mind it one bit. But there are times where Jotaro wouldn't mind holding your hand in public. He'd slowly reach your hand, hold it, and place your interlocked hands in his pocket. And you find that genuinely endearing.

♡ Depending on his impromptu plans, he'd either bring you out in a quiet area of a park or ask you if you'd like to hang in his place or yours. And when reaching somewhere private, it's only there that you find out he actually bought you a bouquet and a gift containing something you wanted.

♡ With the way he approached you all bashful under his hat throughout the entirety of the day, you're reminded why you fell in love with him despite the awful first impressions.

♡ To end it off, you both finish the day either by cuddling to sleep or having an intimate session before going to sleep.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

I've got a way more fun and much less racist conspiracy theory if anyone wants it: the whole show is Ed and Stede telling the story of how they met and got together to their grandkids while they're babysitting. That explains the over-the-top nature of it, they're trying to keep kids interested in a fun pirate tale.

In real life, Ed and Stede opened up coffee shops right next to each other. Stede's shop had multiple chandeliers, one time Izzy went in and Stede told him to fuck off and Ed was obsessed with that. Ed saving Stede from the Spanish was actually him swooping in to fix Stede's many, many health code violations.

Izzy is still equally as intense as he is in the show ("I was honored to work for the legendary Blackbeard, the most genius part-time Starbucks manager I'd ever known"). He still tries to kill Stede (tries to hit him with his 2006 Chevy Malibu) so Ed fires him. Izzy then just straight up calls the cops on the coffee shop, which is annoying but ultimately doesn't go anywhere because, again, they run coffee shops. Stede has his crisis after Ed admits he's thinking about selling his shop because running it is just stressing him out so he goes back to Mary; they end up finalizing their divorce papers after like 30 minutes.

Ed's feeling bummed and can't reach Stede on social media, so he feels abandoned and reaches out to the crews of their shops for companionship. Izzy threatens to call the cops on him again and he freaks out because he realizes this mean little White guy is totally willing to weaponize that against him.

Ed's "kraken era" in "real life" is just him firing Lucius and then "marooning" Stede's crew by changing the locks on Stede's coffee shop so they can't get in. He tries to force the crew to unionize against him and force him out of the coffee shop he hates running by making them work overtime. He starts talking about making them work a big Black Friday-esque sale and Jim just throws a bag of coffee beans at his head with expert precision and knocks him tf out.

Stede finds the crew loitering outside his shop and they go to sort things out like five minutes later. He finds Ed just fucking face-down on the kitchen floor. They take him to the hospital, Ed has to pretend to let Lucius be his boss for like a week, and for the rest of their lives every time Ed suggests something Jim doesn't like they say "don't make me bean you again, old man."

The rest of the show is them trying to translate how they navigated building their relationship into their pirate fantasy. Characters like the Badmintons and Ned Low are blatant wish fulfillment on old bullies. Season 2 feels rushed because the kids' parents are coming to pick them up soon so they have to hurry. Izzy dies in the show because they just fired him in real life but they wanted to give the kids a moral story but panicked and had to think of an out so the kids don't ask where he is now.

Do I have hard evidence for this? Don't worry about it. Yes, I know I'm a genius, please hold your applause.

[romanarose]

Just a Fantasy

No outbreak!Joel x gn!reader

Summary: Joel finds out what kind of porn you've been watching...

Warnings: Mentions of porn and potentially risqué or out of pocket porn but nothing specific is mentioned. Saying no to sex stuff, boundaries. Cock warming, creampie

Immersabilty: Reader is AFAB

******************

You were putting the dishes away when Joel came home. It was late, Sarah had already fallen asleep but you were waiting up for Joel this time. It was a busy season for a contracture, Joel and Tommy working long hours and taking on a lot of extra work as they did. Being owners, they didn't have to worry about over time and no one was there to make them hold themselves to labor laws, so Joel was not above working 12 hour or even 16 hour days. This last week, you hadn't seen him at all, and you were determined to spend some quality time.

Even if it meant just warming his cock while he slept and got a good night's sleep for once.

"In the kitchen!" You call to him, and hear his heavy boots clump into the room. You almost yell at him for leaving his shoes on after being at a work sight, but now wasn't the time. He would be helping you shampoo the carper the day time you both have a day off though.

"Hiya darl'n" Joel drawled, wrapping his around around you as you dried your hands. "What're yuh do'n up? S'late."

You rest your head back on him while Joel nuzzles his face into your neck. A tell tale sign of what he wanted.

"Just waiting for you, baby. Wanted to actually see you."

Joel hummed into your skin, beginning to press soft kissed into you. "You know what I was thinking of all day?"

You chuckle. "I have an idea."

"You." a kiss. "Me." Another kiss, then he got up close to your ear and whispered something, a fantasy you had in your head, but that had remained in your head... and in your porn searches.

"Joel!" You gasp, shocked that he could have known that. "What- where did you get that idea?" You back was still up against him, so he couldn't see the discomfort in your face. Was he going through your phone? No, Joel wouldn't do that... Joel trusted you... so how did he find out something so secret?

Joel began to suck gently into your neck; light, not wanting to leave a hickie he'd have to explain to Sarah. Did she know what a hickie was? Joel didn't want to think about that. "I saw your pornhub-"

"Joel!" This time, you push off him and turn around, the concern and confusion evident on Joel's face at the abrupt nature was clear. "You were going through my phone?!" You felt betrayed and maybe a little violated. Was Joel going to judge you for the things you were watching?

"No!" He was quick to raise his hands in defense, palms out towards you like he was placating a wild animal. "No, no baby of course not! It's just, when I got home last night my phone was dead..." Joel seemed to hesitate himself.

"Go on." You were willing to hear him out.

"Well, you were asleep and I was feeling kinda... well, you know." You did, so he continued. "So I thought it wouldn't be a big deal to pull up some uh, videos," He cleared his throat, moving one hand to rub the back of his neck. Joel hadn't been the most experienced man when you first met him, and his southern Baptist's upbringing turned him into a blushing virgin sometimes. "And I pull up your internet explorer and see porn already up and it was... well it was that." Joel emphasizes the particular kink you were watching. "I didn't think much of it, but when I went to the search function, I uh..." Wringing his hands together, he looked nervous. "Well I saw the most recent searches, and you had been searching that in um... a few capacities... and..."

"And?" You urge him on with a wave of his hand.

"And I went back to the video, and was imagining you... um, you know, and then I... yeah. So I thought maybe that's something we could try?"

In the heat of the moment, when horny and in love, Joel could dirty talk with the best of them. His voice can and has brought you to orgasm with the filth he says, but outside the safety of the bedroom, he was as soft as they come. You felt a little bad for snapping, but were relived that you were correct. Joel wouldn't cross a boundaries like your phone privacy. It was not uncommon for you two to use each others phones, so him grabbing yours while you slept wasn't a problem. And if he orgasmed to the same video as you, he can't have thought it was too weird... but there was still a problem.

"I'm really sorry baby, I shouldn't have just sprung that on you." Joel apoligizes, so you smile and take his hands.

"It's okay, sweetheart. Thank you for explaining, and I'm not mad."

A cheeky little grin begins to spread on his face. "So is that a yes?"

"It's a no."

His face falters, but not in a way that makes you feel bad for saying no, but confusion.

"No right now, or no forever?"

"No, probably forever." You sigh, trying to think how to explain it. "Some things are just a fantasy. It's fun to watch but... not something I want to actually do."

You weren't sure Joel understood, but he didn't need to understand. You had said no. "Alright baby, that's okay. We ain't gotta do noth'n you don't wanna do, you know that."

You did. Joel made you feel safer than you ever had. "I know baby. Come on, let's go to bed."

Joel took a shower and you closed down the down, making sure when he came out, everything was ready down the covers being turned down and PJ's on the bed. You wanted to fuck him, you wanna to ride him for hours and hours or feel his sweaty chest on you back as he pounded you, but that wasn't for tonight. Joel was tired, and he need to sleep. You lay him down on the bed, keeping his pj pants on but releasing his cock through the hole in the front. As you jerk him, you explain the plan and tell him not to worry about getting you off, just come when he ready.

Keeping him on his back, you sink down on him, keeping your night dress on for warmth and then pull the blankets over both of you. Together you lay there and talk, soft whispers with his cock speared inside you and cuddled up on the bed. Sometimes you'd rock a bit, sometimes you'd squeeze your pussy around him just to hear him moan, but mostly you both just enjoyed some time together, alone.

Quietly, Joel came inside you momments before falling asleep under your body, and together you lay there, as close as two people can be, happy to just spend time together.

*************************

I watch certain porns and read certain fics that I simply would not want to do in real life, hands down. It's fun in theory, not reality.

It's okay to like the idea of something but say no to it irl.

Remember, reblogs help a lot!

@k-ra @fandxmslxt69 @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction @runa-falls @summonthesoups @whatthefishh @campingwiththecharmings @ahookedheroespureheart @littlenosoul @stevenandmarcslove @del-ightfulling @faretheeoscar @harriedandharassed @milly-louise

[museumofferedophelia]

why do u hate trans ppl

I don't hate trans people.

I hate medical malpractice. I hate the medical industrial complex. I hate the grooming of children. I hate that traumatic reactions to misogyny are treated as evidence of a woman being trans. I hate that having a gay/lesbian fetish is treated as evidence that a person is trans. I hate that the identities of marginalised groups are treated like a fun trend that people can opt into. I hate when marginalised groups are forced into cultural colonisation/gentrification in order to make way for people that don't belong to them. I hate that sexual coercion and violating people's boundaries has been pinkwashed as woke and progressive.

I am irritated by the fact that a lot of the trans community is willing to put their head in the dirt about issues in the trans movement rather than speaking out. It speaks volumes to me that so many consider discussing the above points as "transphobia."

As to trans individuals themselves, I am supportive and respectful, so long as their motives aren't corrupt, misguided, or ignorant. That's the baseline.

[goodqueenaly]

What will Jaime's reaction and development in response to the probable slaughter of Freys and Lannisters ("Red Wedding 2.0") by Lady Stoneheart, and the rebellion of the Riverlands that will likely follow, be? While there are a lot of valonqar theories and theories of how he might survive the encounter with Stoneheart, but for some reason I don't recall any theories on this front. Might there be a realization that his family's, and his, actions in the Riverlands from AGoT forward were wrong?

To the extend a “second Red Wedding” or similar event happens, I tend to think the impact would be intended for us as readers, rather than for Jaime as a character. Throughout his chapters in AFFC and ADWD, in my opinion, Jaime never quite gets to the point of realizing, to put it a certain way, “are we the baddies”. Jaime may pat himself on the back (with his golden hand) for hanging outlaws found beneath a Wode keep, but never considers what responsibility his father’s order to raze the Riverlands had on these presumably homeless, presumably starving people sheltering in a now-rare refuge. Jaime advocates for the Lannister-Frey household at Darry to “make the smallfolk love you” as a response to their support of the brotherhood without banners, without acknowledging the hypocrisy of this household trying to win the love of people whose neighbors had been raped, murdered, and despoiled by Lannister agents and whose lords and countrymen the Freys had murdered in a gross violation of guest right (or such smallfolk seeking justice from a royal dynasty which directly engineered and benefitted from the Red Wedding). Jaime applauds himself for, as he sees it, bringing about Riverrun’s surrender without seeing, or being willing to see, that by bringing an army to this siege, mentally deciding that he would storm the walls if the Tullys remained obstinate, and threatening Edmure with violence against himself, his people, and his unborn child, he, Jaime, had already violated his oath to Catelyn (to say nothing, again, of rewarding the perpetrators of the Red Wedding). Jaime departs Raventree Hall not only by threatening Lord Tytos with Hoster’s beheading if Tytos were to aid any “outlaws and rebels” but by wishing him “a good harvest and the joy of the king’s peace” - a cruel and hollow sort of farewell, given that Jaime’s family’s agents ravaged the Riverlands  and its hope of harvests and that this same royal government was the one which oversaw the murders of, among others, Blackwood’s second son and his king. Given all that, I don’t see it likely or timely for Jaime to witness a second Red Wedding type of event and say “oh right, we were wrong the whole time”; Jaime’s had plenty of evidence of that up to this point without drawing that conclusion. 

Which is not to say that this event, should it happen, would have no impact, of course. Rather, I think GRRM may use such an event to have readers reflect on, and perhaps challenge, any desire for and approach to vengeance. The Freys may suffer and die en masse - not necessarily just those who directly swung a sword or helped organize the Red Wedding in the first place. The uncomfortable display and exploration of the violent execution (pun intended) of certain acts of vengeance is a topic GRRM often handles very well, and I could see the author writing a second Red Wedding as, perhaps, an escalation of the end of Brienne’s arc in AFFC: as then the brotherhood, under Lady Stoneheart, was willing to murder Brienne, Hyle Hunt, and Podrick Payne on grossly inaccurate and unjust connections to the Lannister regime, so now perhaps the brotherhood and Lady Stoneheart will kill any Freys they can seize, whether or not these Freys actually participated in or even condoned the Red Wedding. 

[she-is-ovarit]

Ashli Streeter said Stevens Transport did not hire her because it had no women to train her. Credit...Montinique Monroe for The New York Times

The trucking industry has complained for years that there is a dire shortage of workers willing to drive big rigs. But some women say many trucking companies have made it effectively impossible for them to get those jobs. Trucking companies often refuse to hire women if the businesses do not have women available to train them. And because fewer than 5 percent of truck drivers in the United States are women, there are few female trainers to go around. The same-sex training policies are common across the industry, truckers and legal experts say, even though a federal judge ruled in 2014 that it was unlawful for a trucking company to require that female job candidates be paired only with female trainers. Ashli Streeter of Killeen, Texas, said she had borrowed $7,000 to attend a truck driving school and earn her commercial driving license in hopes of landing a job that would pay more than the warehouse work she had done. But she said Stevens Transport, a Dallas-based company, had told her that she couldn’t be hired because the business had no women to train her. Other trucking companies turned her down for the same reason. “I got licensed, and I clearly could drive,” Ms. Streeter said. “It was disheartening.” Ms. Streeter and two other women filed a complaint against Stevens Transport with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Thursday, contending that the company’s same-sex training policy unfairly denied them driving jobs. The commission investigates allegations made against employers, and, if it determines a violation has occurred, it may bring its own lawsuit. The commission had brought the lawsuit that resulted in the 2014 federal court decision against similar policies at another trucking company, Prime. Critics of the industry said the persistence of same-sex training nearly a decade after that ruling, which did not set national legal precedent, was evidence that trucking companies had not done enough to hire women who could help solve their labor woes. “It’s frustrating to see that we have not evolved at all,” said Desiree Wood, a trucker who is the president and founder of Real Women in Trucking, a nonprofit. Ms. Wood’s group is joining the three women in their E.E.O.C. complaint against Stevens, which was filed by Peter Romer-Friedman, a labor lawyer in Washington, and the National Women’s Law Center. Companies that insist on using women to train female applicants generally do so because they want to avoid claims of sexual harassment. Trainers typically spend weeks alone with trainees on the road, where the two often have to sleep in the same cab. Critics of same-sex training acknowledge that sexual harassment is a problem, but they say trucking companies should address it with better vetting and anti-harassment programs. Employers could reduce the risk of harassment by paying for trainees to sleep in a hotel room, which some companies already do. Women made up 4.8 percent of the 1.37 million truck drivers in the United States in 2021, according to the most recent government statistics, up from 4 percent a decade earlier. Long-haul truck driving can be a demanding job. Drivers are away from home for days. Yet some women say they are attracted to it because it can pay around $50,000 a year, with experienced drivers making a lot more. Truck driving generally pays more than many other jobs that don’t require a college degree, including those in retail stores, warehouses or child care centers.

The infrastructure act of 2021 required the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to set up an advisory board to support women pursuing trucking careers and identify practices that keep women out of the profession. Robin Hutcheson, the administrator of the agency, said requiring same-sex training would appear to be a barrier to entry. “If that is happening, that would be something that we would want to take a look at,” she said in an interview. Ms. Streeter, a mother of three, said she had applied to Stevens because it hired people straight out of trucking school. She told Stevens representatives that she was willing to be trained by a man, but to no avail. Bruce Dean, general counsel at Stevens, denied the allegations in the suit. “The fundamental premise in the charge — that Stevens Transport Inc. only allows women trainers to train women trainees — is false,” he said in a statement, adding that the company “has had a cross-gender training program, where both men and women trainers train female trainees, for decades.” Some legal experts said that, although same-sex training was ruled unlawful in only one federal court, trucking companies would struggle to defend such policies before other judges. Under federal employment discrimination law, employers can seek special legal exemptions to treat women differently from men, but courts have granted them very rarely. “Basically, what the law says is that a company needs to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time,” said Deborah Brake, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who specializes in employment and gender law. “They need to be able to give women equal employment opportunities and prevent and remedy sexual harassment.” Ms. Streeter said she had made meager earnings from infrequent truck driving gigs while hoping to get a position at Stevens. Later this month, she will become a driver in the trucking fleet of a large retailer. Kim Howard, one of the other women who filed the E.E.O.C. complaint against Stevens, said she was attracted to truck driving by the prospect of a steady wage after working for decades as an actor in New York. “It was very much a blow,” she said of being rejected because of the training policy. “I honestly don’t know how I financially made it through.” Ms. Howard, who is now employed at another trucking company, said she had worked briefly at a company where she was trained by two men who treated her well. “It’s quite possible for a woman to be trained by a man, and a man to be a professional about what the job is,” she said. Other female drivers said they had been mistreated by male trainers who could be relentlessly dismissive and sometimes refused to teach them important skills, like reversing a truck with a large trailer attached. Rowan Kannard, a truck driver from Wisconsin who is not involved in the complaint against Stevens, said a male trainer had spent little time training her on a run to California in 2019. At a truck stop where she felt unsafe, Ms. Kannard said, the trainer demanded that she leave the cab — and then locked her out. She asked to stop the training and was flown back to Wisconsin. Yet she said she did not believe that same-sex training for women was necessary. “Some of these men that are training, they should probably go through a course.” Click the article to read more. The author is Peter Eavis.

[eternal-echoes]

Just to clarify some confusions brought on by this post (especially since it has reached outside my usual Christian tumblr clique a lot of implicitly agreed upon context is lost), Catholics do not seek to make every sin illegal. St. Augustine even stated that we shouldn’t make earthly human laws banning every single sin because some good may be wiped out as a result.

For example, it’s a mortal sin to use contraception during sexual intercourse whether within or outside of marriage. However, if we were to make it illegal, we would have to violate people’s right to privacy in order to find evidence to prosecute people due to this prohibition. Hence why Catholics shouldn’t seek to make it illegal.

The point of the statement:

"Is an alcoholic free if he's allowed to take another bottle or if he's prevented to get another drink?"

is to show that an alcoholic isn’t really free; he’s a slave to his carnal desires. An alcoholic reaching for another drink is only hurting himself; he’s not fulfilling his best potential. If you love someone, you would prevent them from hurting themselves. Because the definition of love is willing the good of another. And the logic of love is the basis of Christianity.

Just as an athlete restricts himself certain food in order to achieve his best performance in a marathon, so too Christians follow certain rules and regulations so we can be purified and be worthy in uniting with God in the afterlife; because nothing unclean can stand within the presence of God.

We Christians abstain from pre-marital sex and pornography so we don’t settle for the kind of “love” that reduces people to sexual pleasure. And also so we can have the unconditional love and see the real soul of the person in his/her naked body after genuine and honest courtship and receiving the sacrament of marriage.

Because freedom is not an end on itself, it’s a means to an end, which is to achieve man’s purpose. And the purpose of human life is to love and serve God.

Since God made everything in the universe, everything exists to serve Him. Catholics believe that the purpose of the government is to lead people to God, not just preventing ourselves from killing each other.

Having said that, the kind of human laws that we should have that only forbids certain sins and not the others requires another blogposts (more like another book) so I’ll just end this right here.