#dehumanization of him started from the moment his career began

[barbiegirldream]

smiletwt constantly trying to restrict what dream is and isn't allowed to do and take away his ability to make his own choices

it's so baffling like I feel as if the fandom exists in a fake reality where Dream is their barbie doll and all discourse comes from the fact that he's just some pretty nice white guy who plays minecraft and not their celibate nun princess locked in a tower

[nobodywritingao3]

unnamed monster & caretaker au

Tasked with feeding and caring for the king's resident monster, Tommy is constantly overworked and fully expects to die before he's twenty. He has an odd relationship with the beast and makes it a point to keep details about himself private, but it's difficult when the creature is the closest thing in the world he has to a friend.

wordcount: 2.3k 🕸 read it on AO3

CW: - hard vore mention - soft vore mention - mentioned abuse and dehumanization

‼️‼️‼️ Unfinished, unedited one shot. Proceed with caution

@gracideaviolet sent me a writing prompt and this is what i originally wrote for it. i like the concept but i wrote this at a not-good time and when i reread it, i didnt like the quality enough to fix it. if you like this story, let me know cuz that might give me motivation to properly finish this thing. feel free to take the idea but please credit and send it to me cuz i like this story and wanna see what someone else does with it

Tommy finished loading the cart and took a second to breathe.

He heard the beast shifting around in the dark. "Are you doing okay out there, Sunshine?"

Despite his tiredness, the sweet nickname made him smile.

"You know you eat a lot? It's a pain in the ass to load myself."

He meant it as a joke but silence hung in the air a second longer than it should have.

He cleared his throat. "I don't mind it. I'm compensated."

The beast snorted. "Not enough."

Tommy laughed awkwardly and didn't say anything.

He walked over to the control panel and started up the track.

The cart was big enough to fit a barn, and filled to the brim with various livestock, prisoners of war, and whoever else might have found themselves on the king's hit-list. Nothing sent to the monster was alive. It was a point the monster whined about a lot, but Tommy much preferred it that way. It was already disgusting having to spend hours upon hours piling the cart with bloody meat (sometimes human!) by himself, and the day he was handed a living person would be the day he faked his death and fled the kingdom.

He pressed a few buttons, tried not to cut himself on several rusty levers, and the rail obediently started itself up with a few revs and puffs.

The beast hummed contentedly at the noise.

The cart began to run along the track, disappearing from his view and descending into the inky black cave. He heard the gate creak open and he heard it creak close. And then he heard the beast begin to eat.

They weren't nice sounds by any stretch of the imagination - ugly rips and wet squelches of flesh - but Tommy had been at the job for a while and was long used to it. He settled in and waited for the creature to finish its meal.

"So how was your day, Keeper?"

Tommy hummed. "About the same as it always is. My master told me that the king will be coming in soon for a performance review, but I've no idea when that might be."

The beast paused its munching before hesitantly starting again a moment later. "I - why?"

He shrugged, assuming the monster could see him from the dark. "Something about me holding down this job the longest out of anyone before."

"Hm."

"I don't understand why that would intrigue the king. And no offense to you personally - "

"Uh huh," the monster sarcastically interjected -

" - but this isn't exactly the career path I'd have chosen. If I knew how to transfer I probably would have. Honestly - I have no idea how the others could have quit this job. I was under the impression that this is the sort of thing you do until you die."

It laughed at that.

Tommy sighed.

He was quiet for a few moments, a question sitting heavy on his tongue.

He shouldn't ask. It's impolite.

The monster shifted around. "Spit it out."

He gave the darkness an accusatory look. "I don't know what you're talking about."

There was a huff of laughter. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. You're doing that thing where you want to say something but are worried about what I'll think. It would be adorable if I wasn't desperate for decent conversation."

"Fuck you." He said it with a smile.

"Well? Are you going to say or not?"

He scrubbed at his face. Fuck it. "What were your other keepers like?"

The beast went silent for several long moments.

Shit. "You don't have to answer if you - "

"I didn't much care for them."

Tommy didn't say a word.

"The feeling was mutual." It sighed heavily. "You're a much better replacement, Sunshine."

"I'm sorry for asking."

The beast purred. "Don't be, dear. I pressed you. And I don't mind answering." It jostled the cart. "And I'm done eating."

Tommy nodded and powered up the control panel again. The cart began to recede. 

It appeared from the darkness, picked completely clean and shiny as if it never been covered in blood at all.

It scared him a little, how quickly the monster could eat such a large amount, but he dismissed those thoughts as easily as they came. When would that ever affect him?

He checked the clock. He still had a few hours before he had to report back. "Do you mind if I stay with you longer?"

The monster laughed conspiratorially. "Oh, but that's against the rules," it said in a high mockery of his voice.

He flushed.

He had been terrified of the monster when they first met. He gave any excuse to leave the beast as soon as he could, including that the rules specified that spending unnecessary time with it was prohibited. That was true, but no one would have known if he chose to linger. In hindsight, it had been terribly obvious how afraid he was and he's only embarrassed that the monster pretended to believe him.

"You're the worst."

"And you still want to spend time with me?"

Tommy blew a raspberry at the darkness, earning a few laughs.

It was comfortably quiet for a few seconds before the monster spoke again. "Why are you curious about my old keepers?"

He tugged at his fingers. "Do you know how I ended up here?"

"You never talk about it."

He frowned. "And I never will," he responded coldly. It never gave up asking. "But do you know, generally, how someone ends up working this kind of job?"

The monster was quiet. "Yes."

Tommy didn't say anything for a minute. "The king is very angry with me. I don't want to see him again. However the other keepers escaped..." He shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying. If the king requests an audience with me, it isn't for any good reason."

~

When the king acquired his monster, he hired out help to feed the thing and keep it under control. He made sure the beast ate lavishly, but now matter what they fed it, it never seemed like to satiate the creature. But it hadn't died of starvation and that was good enough. When its caretakers started to disappear, it wasn't difficult to guess what happened.

But acknowledging the problem would mean addressing it too, and the king simply didn't care. In the end, he realized he had the perfect way to quietly do away with those he needed gone. He sourced this job, with its one hundred percent rate of 'job abandonment' to political adversaries or people growing affluent enough to take his throne.

Which takes him to the present day, and a rather interesting problem.

When some servant boy had spilled a bottle of red wine down his front during a gala several years prior, the king had been so angry that he threw the child in a dungeon and left him there. When the monster's then-keeper inevitably disappeared, the king came to the boy and grimly informed him of his punishment.

He hadn't expected the child to last more than a couple of days. He'd even picked out his replacements.

But lo and behold, the boy remained present at his job post for a week. And then that week became several, and those several became months, and those months became a year and a half.

The king couldn't understand why it hadn't eaten him yet. He was fifteen at this point, certainly the youngest to feed the monster. Was it waiting for him to grow up? Did it want to watch him sprout up before it made its attack? It was perfectly sentient, and the king knew this even though he denied it upfront. Shouldn't the monster trust that the sooner it finished its current keeper, the sooner he would be replaced by another?

Had there been someone who had managed to bring this creature to subservience? If so, then the king took special interest.

And if not, then it was long overdue that the servant boy be put to death.

~

Being a human's lapdog wasn't a dignified experience, but it was a fed one. Driders were megafauna, making it hard to get enough food. It certainly didn't help that the human kingdom believed everything was its rightful property and saw driders as a threat to them owning more than they could eat.

Wilbur certainly didn't enjoy his life, and he was almost always hungry anyway, but at least he was alive.

He lived in a dungeon below the castle, but he wasn't sure what a castle was and he barely understood the concept of a dungeon. He hadn't seen the sunshine in years, and his keeper was his only company.

He liked his keeper. The boy was kind. He didn't threaten to pee in Wilbur's food or throw rocks at him. He asked him how his day was, and even made it a point to handle the meat carefully as he transported it into the cart. He seemed lonely, and made up excuses to stay. He was a cute little thing, and Wilbur wanted to stick him into his brooding pouch and keep him there.

~

The cart rolled into Wilbur's enclosure, and he greedily snatched it up and began to eat.

His keeper sat at a table in the light.

Wilbur finished his food in a few seconds and toyed with the cart. He always made it seem as if it took him longer to eat than it did.

"Do you have a family?"

The boy froze at the question. "Why do you ask?"

Wilbur pouted even though he knew he couldn't be seen. "We've known each for so long. I don't even know what your name is. Can't I know just a little?"

His keeper awkwardly laughed, fidgeting with his fingers. "Oh... I guess you're right."

Wilbur's heart leapt.

"I don't have a family."

"Oh." Shit.

"Yeah."

What was he supposed to say?

"I don't have a family either."

His keeper peered into the darkness. "What are you?"

Wilbur smiled. He skittered to the bars of his cage and leaned against them, towering over the boy, though he had no idea. "Would you like to play twenty questions?"

"You're so lame, seriously, what are you? I don't even know what you look like."

I could show you, he wanted to say.

Coming out of his cage was easy. The king assumed it could hold him but no one actually checked. And aside from his keeper, no one had been in his dungeon for years. In reality, the bars had long been bent open and Wilbur could get out whenever he pleased.

It wouldn't be difficult to come through the bars and present himself to his keeper. Pick the little figure up in his hands and take him into his cage with him.

When he'd eaten his previous keepers, they'd always been replaced. If he captured his current keeper and stored him away in his brooding pouch, then he'd never be lonely again.

It was tempting.

"That's probably for the best," he said. He stepped away from the bars of his cage and curled up on the floor.

He liked his keeper. He wanted him to be happy. Just because Wilbur was stuck in a cage didn't mean he had to be as well.

"Do you think I'd be scared of you?"

Wilbur looked down at himself, at his large stature and eight legs. His fangs came down to his mid chin. "I think you'd be terrified, dear."

His keeper smiled. "I don't think so. I have a suspicion that you're just harmless."

His heart melted. Oh stars, he wanted to eat this kid.

He massaged his aching brood pouch. "You're sweet, Sunshine."

~

The cart was left in his cage while he was sleeping. He woke up confused, spying it in the corner of his enclosure and wondered why he'd been fed overnight. Where was his keeper? His mind jumped to the worst conclusions.

He found him inside the cart. Bound and gagged and looking terrified beyond all reason.

"Oh, Sunshine," he murmured.

His words had the opposite intended effect, his keeper starting to panic and writhe at the sound of his voice.

"Hey, hey... Calm down, okay? I'll get you out of there." He reached into the cart and picked him up in his hand.

Despite the circumstance, his heart soared. This was the closest they'd ever been.

The figure was tiny in his palm, and still struggling.

Wilbur quickly undid his bounds, being mindful of his sharp claws against the human's body. As soon as his hands were free, he was clawing at the gag around his mouth.

"Don't eat me! Please, do not eat me..."

Wilbur's stomach dropped.

"What? Sunshine, why would I eat you?"

The boy continued to sob.

Wilbur cupped him to his chest and headed towards the bars of his enclosure. He expertly clambered through and came out the other side, his skin exposed to the light for the first time in more than a year.

"Dear? Can you talk to me?" He stroked his head with his thumb and brought him eye level. "Why were you in my feeding cart?"

His keeper stared at him in shock, and it was then that he remembered his keeper had never truly seen him before.

A hot wave of embarassment and self consciousness overtook him.

He awkwardly set his little human on his table and receded back into his enclosure.

"Sunshine?" He prompted once back in his cage. "Are you..."

"Could - could you get out the whole time?"

Wilbur's mouth went dry. "I - well, yes, I could but - "

His keeper stumbled off the table and hit the ground with a nasty sounding crack.

Wilbur sprang to his claws and scrambled forward. He popped his head out between the bars and stared down at his little keeper. "Are you okay?"

The human stared up at him with terror on his face and scrambled backwards, running for the door.

"Shit, shit, wait, I'm sorry! Please stay, please, Sunshine - "

The door slammed behind him with a resounding crack and Wilbur flinched backwards.

~ ~ ~ 🕸

i used to love drider aus back in 2020 🕷️🕷️🕷️

just a freaky little guy whose half dude and half Fear. potential off the charts.

my tag list got lost when my computer was annihilated (</3) but let me know in replies if you want to get @'d and i'll make a new one

oh yeah link to the writing prompt and story i did fill out

[whumpflash]

Based on this prompt by @whumpwillow

Sun and Glass, part one

cw: slavery, dehumanization, abuse, violence

She knew his eyes. She was sure of it. The last time she'd seen him, he'd been a tyrant of a child. Though more than a decade had passed, Rena knew she wasn't mistaken. The gaunt, fearful man before her was no other than Prince Caelon.

So that's what became of you, Rena thought, watching him hurry to remove her bags from the carriage, his eyes locked on the ground. She remembered being so scared of him when she was what, ten years old? Now she almost wanted to laugh at the memory. The bully had gotten what was coming to him, it seemed.

"Lady Rena," a voice said pleasantly. She looked up to see a man making his way towards her from the castle entrance. He was dressed in a manner that was simple but elegant, with sharp facial features.

"Lord Trisk, I presume?" she said, offering a slight curtsey. "I come on behalf of Lord Adelard, regarding a business arrangement."

Trisk waved a hand. "We'll save the dull stuff for dinner. For now, let me show you to your room."

"I'd thank you for that," Rena said, truthfully. It had been a few days' journey, and while she loved the freedom of travel, it wore her out. She cast a glance back at Caelon, who had paused in his efforts the moment Lord Trisk made himself known and was standing silently.

"Back to work," Trisk snapped, and Rena swore she saw the former prince flinch.

"Is he..?" she began.

"Useless, is what he is, " the lord replied, starting towards the door to the castle. "The seller swore he'd do the work of ten, but he barely makes up for the space he takes up as one."

Right. It was easy to forget that some of the other kingdoms still kept slaves. Still, if she hoped to pursue a career in diplomacy, Rena knew she'd better respect the practitioners, even if she couldn't quite stomach the practice.

"From whom did you acquire him?" Rena asked.

"Just a pair of traders. Can't even remember their names. He was pretty enough to catch my eye, and looked strong enough to work, but…" he shrugged. "You see what I ended up with."

"Does he have a name?" 

Trisk shrugged again. "Traders called him Six. There were ten or so slaves in their lot, I think that's just how they sort 'em. I was thinking of calling him Sunny, 'cause of the hair. What do you think?"

"Hm? Oh, yes. Of course," Rena said absently. So not even Caelon's master knew he had been a prince. She wondered what series of events had turned him from that arrogant child to a nameless slave. She almost felt a touch a pity for the man. Almost.

A crashing noise sounded behind her, and Rena spun around. Caleon had crumpled under her luggage, it seemed, and one of the trunks had split open, spilling her clothing across the stone floor. The man was bent over it, frantically trying to throw everything back where it belonged.

"Damn the fool," Lord Trisk said with a huff, breaking out in a stride towards Caleon. The other man froze as his master reached him, sitting with his shoulders hunched and his head bowed. Without warning, Trisk backhanded him with enough force to snap his head to the side. Without much more than a small yelp, Caelon returned to his hunched, unmoving position as Trisk spoke in a hushed, angry voice above him.

"Made a fool of me…disrespect my guest… pay for this later…"

Rena only caught a few words, but they were enough. She waited, feeling a bit awkward, until Trisk finished his tirade and rejoined her.

"You see? This is exactly the sort of behavior I meant."

"With all due respect my lord, it didn't seem to be his fault," Rena said. "Accidents happen."

"Accidents are the result of a careless individual. I'll beat that lesson into him a hundred times if I have to."

Once again, Rena felt the twang of pity for Caelon. This time, she didn't try to deny it. 

They reached the room she was to stay in, a spacious, well-furnished suite, without any further delay. Trisk gave her a time for dinner, told her he'd send someone to fetch her, and promptly walked away. She watched him go with more disdain than she'd previously thought possible to accrue in such a short time.

Caelon appeared not long afterwards, Rena's things balanced in his arms. She moved to take them from him, and the man staggered backwards so suddenly that he almost sent them crashing to the floor all over again.

He hurriedly set the baggage down. "A-apologies, m'lady," he murmured, ducking his head and making for the door.

"Wait," Rena said. He froze in place at her command, holding so perfectly still she wondered if he was even breathing. Rena walked around so that she was facing him. She'd been sure it was him earlier, but the difference in attitude was so drastic she found herself doubting. His head was bowed, shaggy blond hair all but obscuring his face.

"Look at me," Rena said. The man's breath hitched, almost imperceptibly, and he raised his head to meet her eyes, looking at her in such a way that she could tell he was fighting to not drop his gaze back to the ground.

It was as she'd thought when she'd first seen him. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his face was too thin to be healthy, and every ounce of arrogance was gone, but it was unmistakeably him.

"M-my lady, I'm sorry. That trunk--"

"Oh, none of that," Rena said, waving her hand to dismiss it then immediately regretting the action as Caelon flinched. She sighed.

"What's your name?"

The question seemed to catch him off-guard. "I... Driv-- no, no, no, it's Six now, isn't it? It's… he hasn't told me yet, I'm sorry, I--"

"Calm down," Rena said, her voice coming out a little more forceful than she'd intended. Caelon's jaw snapped shut, and he… was he trembling?

"Caelon," she said, forcing her voice to come out soft and low. "Do you know who I am?"

He shook his head, a sharp, jerking motion. "My lady, I… I can't. I'm sorry, I don't know. I don't know anything, I know I'm not good for anything, please--"

"It's fine," Rena said. "You can go."

He nodded once, then practically bolted for the door. Rena felt her stomach twist as she watched him go. He was, undeniably, Prince Caleon.

But he was not the Prince Caelon she had known.

part two

[albino-whumpee]

WIJ Day 6: Mistake

This aren´t new ocs, exactly, but here´s some more of that one thingie about a pet whumpee who doesn´t know they´ve been saved and visits whumper´s home accidentally.  For @whumpmasinjuly day 6 “mistake“

Taglist: @liliability @newbornwhumperfly @boxboysandotherwhump @haro-whumps

CW// Pet whump, sci-fi whump, lab whump, ableism, mass production of humans for selling, dehumanization, manhandling, creepy whumper, syringes, implied euthanasia. Ask to tag!   

The samples that hadn´t been released yet slept in their tubes peacefully. Their bodies floated curled tight in the greenish water, silicone cords going down their throats for oxygen tangling around their limbs. 

They were supposed to be finished and shipped to their respective owners in a week, when their bodies had absorbed the last few doses of the cocktail of chemicals in the water surrounding them. The person verifying the status in the tube´s holographic glass and passing the required paperwork on their tablet was a certified technician at the lab. They had seen thousands of assets grow from embryos to adulthood in those tubes in their two years in the field. 

If it had been the luxurious, beautiful assets the scientist prided themself on making, they wouldn´t have clocked out before checking in the back corner, far from the light where the cheapest and rushed assets rested. Where one large tube containing the asset Z0-954, had been leaking for a week now. 

By the time the technician noticed, the asset was already in process to pop out of its tube. 

A mechanic arm held the asset below the armpits as a hatch on the ground drained the dubious water. When the asset hung from the mechanic arms, slowly, the tubes buried in its body began retreating into their hatches on the ceiling, coming out their orifices with a wet pop. 

“Initiate reanimation” the Technician´s boss told them as they broke in a sweat.

They looked at the asset for a moment. They could notice just by the asset´s vibrant green hair, that there was something wrong. But, there had been cases they had to dye the asset´s hair or they came out with a funny pattern in their skin. 

Praying that was the case with Z0-054, they pressed the button to initialize the process of reanimation. 

“Reanimation in process” a mechanic voice beamed, followed by the strident sound of an alarm going off. The arms holding the asset extended two black pads, previously rubbed together before setting them in the asset´s bare chest. 

“Clear” The asset´s body violently jerked forward. 

“Clear” their boss repeated, watching closely the way the asset´s pulse began racing. 

“Eye movement detected” the technician said before another wave of electricity made the asset swat the glass with its hands. “Motor skills status: Normal. Proceed to breaching, sir?” they asked the man before them as the asset lazily began trying to open its eyes and tossed its head around.

“Proceed. Call the hatching team and run an extra diagnostic exam on Z0-054, Collins”

Collin´s heart skipped a beat as their finger strayed from the pad in their hands. “I-Is there something wrong with it, Sir?”

The man´s eyes pierced through them “You tell me, Collins. What is this asset missing?” 

Collins took a deep breathe. Of course their boss had noticed. The older man hadn´t been in that position for ten years for nothing. They gulped before looking back at the asset.

“It´s lacking a 30% of the expected muscle mass and brain activity had a decay during last week´s checkup...” Collins could feel their boss´ eyes drilling him to the ground “Despite the counter measures to fill the gap, the asset still grades 3% lower in brain and muscular functions. I-I would request an extension for its caring after breaching, sir. In order to verify its quality before being shipped” Collins quickly tried to bargain to their boss.

“Read to me again why this asset took only a month to produce, Collins” the man said severely, not bothering to look down at his subordinate as the crystal enclosures opened wide. The hatching team already positioned right in front of them to receive them. 

The mechanical arms gently settled the assets in the floor of the tubes. As procedure dictated, the assets would instinctively try to stand by themselves once the arms retired into their hatches. Trembly figures of all sizes and colors managed to stand up in wobbly knees and lost looking eyes. 

Then the hatch team member in front of them would open their arms wide and call for them by their serial number. 

Collins whipped their head up at the green haired asset before them when the mechanical arm retreated and it fell to its knees and then slapped its head against the cold floor. 

The hatching team member in their white hazard uniform rushed to pick it up when the asset stayed in the ground, but was interrupted by the boss himself. 

“Leave it. If it doesn´t incorporate, follow protocol 13″ the man ordered. 

“Y-Yes, sir” they replied, turning their eyes at the asset. 

A thick worry began spreading through Collin´s body. They had never had to dispose of a mistake like this and the guilt of not having seen their error before began nibbling at their consciousness and pride. 

The asset´s green hair flopped over their face as they pulled its arms on either side. It groaned as they tried to put strength into them to push itself up, but when its face fell again into the ground with a groan, Collin´s fingers tightened around their tablet. 

“Stand up, Z0-954″ they tried, a tremble to their voice that made evident their fear.

Z0-954 turned its head to Collins, green hair sticking to its mouth before it dragged its wobbly limbs to the front again. Whimpering slobbery as it successfully pushed its chest up and kept its head high. Brown, glassy eyes fixed on Collin´s sighing in relief expression. 

“Make it stand” the boss told the hatching team member, pulling on the knot forming on Collin´s gut. 

“Yes, sir. C´mon here” the member said, slowly standing up with palms extended to the asset, just a few centimeters out of reach. The asset observed carefully how to incorporate and in a messy attempt to lift itself up it slammed it’s back against the tube. 

Collin jumped when their boss walked past them and threw them back to the ground. The asset yelped in surprise, but this time, it put its hands before hitting the floor. 

“Stand up by yourself” the man ordered the limping creature at his feet. It whined scared at him, before the man took a deep breath and fisted on its hair, lifting them a few centimeters off the ground before he hissed “Stand”

They let go and the asset attempted to curl into itself before the man kicked its arms away. 

“Trust me the last thing I want is to put you down. Stand. Up” he snarled, drilling the asset with his glare alone. 

The asset looked down at its hands before pulling strength into its limbs. Sniveling as drool dripped from its mouth, the asset pulled its butt up, extending its limbs fully before groping if it could separate its fingers to straighten. Slowly, fingertip by fingertip, it curved its back to standing, swaying back and forth and putting its hands in front for balance, before finally, it stood up. 

Collins sighed in relief at the asset, smile widening when the asset smiled back. They couldn´t hold the gasp they made when the asset stumbled forward. Luckily, the hatching member´s job was to catch them when they attempted to take their first step. 

“Well done, Z0-954. Good job” the guy cooed as they put a face mask with pump to the asset´s face. They usually swatted before finally the sudden abundance of oxygen made them light headed and easy to handle into a gurney. “The asset leaned into its handler´s hand and fell unconscious almost immediately as it was taken to another room, where it would be washed and dressed to observe its mental and physical development. 

As the doors closed taking the last of the assets, another team emerged to clean the tubes for the next batch of embryos. 

“S-Sir?” Collins timidly asked their superior as they followed him to the back of the tube. They saw him crouch and then tap the glass of the tube. Probing with his pen the width of the hole that provoked the leak. Barely a few millimeters in diameter. But even one was unforgivable. 

“This section is also under your jurisdiction, Collins. Any leaking should have been reported immediately”

“I-I know, I take full responsibility for Z0-954. I´ll personally supervise its development to meet its owner needs”

The man snorted “It will be a miracle if it passes the first round of evaluations”

“Engineered humans were a miracle when they first started, but now they can be produced in mass. They´ve stopped being called human because they´ve been specially designed to perfectly fulfill different purposes no ordinary human could. I promise Z0-954´s development will be the closest to ideal as possible” Collin´s refuted, lowering their head to their boss´ silence. 

The only noise in the room, the cleaning team´s hoses streaming against the hard glass of the tubes. 

“Don´t promise impossible things, Collins” the man said “Even if Z0-954 passes, there will be unavoidable mistakes to explain its owner. Don´t expect them to take lightly that their money was wasted in a mistake”

Collins gritted their teeth “Yes, sir. If...If they ask to return the asset and ask for a refund then what should-?”

“That´s gonna be a problem you will have to handle yourself, Collins. As the technician responsible, the company won´t cover you on this one” the man turned on its heels towards the door “Be sure to mend your mistake. You don´t have authorization to run protocol 14 either. This time, I want you to prove to me you can do your job”

  Collins stood there in the middle of empty tubes and watched the cleaning team hose scurrying green liquid down the drains in silence, before taking a deep breath and walking out to the development wing.

One stain wouldn´t destroy their career. One defective asset was nothing in comparison to the deluxe assets they had provided to satisfied clients. Besides, this one was designed to be effective in a fight ring, it didn´t need anything else but know how to move.

Its owner was known among laboratories for asking for quicker, smaller and stronger assets for dog fights in the underground. Collins was sure the man would just place another request in a month for a new asset to replace the last one anyways. 

If the asset was gonna be set up to lose, then they didn´t have to worry about anything. They could shove their mistake under the rug and pass it as the asset´s inability to fight against better, stronger ones. 

With a devilish grin, Collins stepped into the room where the asset was now sitting in the metal table wearing its white uniform, big brown eyes locked on him that softened when the asset smiled dumbly at them. 

Collins smiled back before pushing it down. It whined and began babbling in panic when the technician strapped it with the thick leather belts. The asset´s breathing quickened, but slowed down when Collins patted the asset´s head, shushing it softly. 

“It´s gonna be alright, mutt” they said as they reached to a little table by the side and prepared a syringe with an orange liquid. The asset only looked with wide, frightened eyes as Collins cleaned the inside of its arm with alcohol “As you are, it will be too evident that you´re just a mistake. But don´t worry, I´ll make sure you last just long enough to be useful to your owner. Fighting doesn´t suit you little one. That´s why I´ll make you durable at least” Collins said stroking the asset’s face before pinching their arm. The asset cried, but went ignored as Collins prepared for the liquid to spread. “If you´re gonna die anyways, at least, give a show worthy of your price”

Collins then took a sharp scalpel from the tool table and cut its wrist. It took a moment for the asset to notice it its cut. 

Delaying its reactions to injuries would make it fight longer, giving the illusion it was far more resistant than it was. It would collapse eventually, but at that point, it would be too injured for someone to realize the truth. 

Collins carded their fingers through the mop of the asset´s green hair.

“Happy birthday, Z0-954″ they sing-songed as they prepared the tools for the real tests to begin. 

[anthracenes]

Passion-Based Learning | Chapter 3

Tags/Trigger Warnings: Non-Con/Rape, Hypnosis, Hypnotism, Abuse of Authority, Conditioning, Dehumanization, Master/Pet, Master/Slave, Dom/sub, Brainwashing, Praise Kink, Anal Sex, Manipulation, Objectification, Creampie

[read on AO3 here]

Wilfred runs his fingers through the soft, brown locks of his sleeping victim. There was just something charming to him about how childlike the boy is. For a supposed eighteen-year-old in college, Isaac was barely into adulthood: lean and unbelievably tiny. If it weren’t for the college ID strung around his neck, Wilfred would have no trouble believing the boy to be fifteen at most. 

 Itching to see just what he was working with, he lays the boy on his back and removes his clothing from him, one by one. His shirt, sneakers, socks, pair of jeans: the tutor peels them all off within a matter of minutes, discarding them onto the floor, with the boy’s underwear placed at the very top of the pile. Wilfred finds with no surprise that, much like the rest of his lean body, Isaac’s is near hairless underneath those tight boxer briefs—with just the lightest dusting of hair covering the base of his slim, pretty cock.  

 “What a dream…” Wilfred’s whispers, pressing tongue onto naked flesh. He brushes his lips against the shell of his ear, the nape of his neck. Lavishes attention on the boy’s chest, his waist, and down—slowly, further down still—all the way until he’s buried his face inside Isaac’s warm, inviting thighs. Wilfred drinks in the way Isaac react to his touch even in his sleep, skin flushing and prickling underneath his lips as the tutor slowly peppers kisses throughout his vulnerable body. 

 “So pretty… and so, so small . If I didn’t know any better, Isaac, I’d say you haven’t even started puberty yet.”

 He nudges the sleeping boy’s thighs apart, suckling at the pale, creamy skin…

 … and smiles when he hears the boy gasp from underneath him, followed by a soft, sleepy moan. 

 “Mmm… fuck . You're going to be so much fun to break into, I can already tell,” Wilfred breathes, licking his lips.

 From the way he’s reacted to the slightest compliment, all flustered and pink, to the way he eagerly scarfs down what’s placed in front of him in a stranger’s house, the tutor can already venture a guess as to the kind of upbringing Isaac’s grown up with. Sheltered by wealth and strictly success-oriented, no doubt, with little room for any warmth. The prestigious school, the double-major, the tell-tale dreams of becoming a doctor—it all tells him just as much, as well: the all-too-familiar story of a child, overcompensating to impress the whims of his despotic parents. It’s no wonder the poor thing is all too eager to trust, running headfirst towards the first hints of the love and affection he’s never had growing up. 

 Right into the waiting maw of a predator like him.

 He has no one to thank more than the kid’s own parents, really. With Isaac at hand, naive and none-the-wiser, he could do so, so much to the boy. Corrupt him; groom him. Brainwash him into happily serving Wilfred on his hands and knees, instead of whatever shallow career his parents had meant for the boy to pursue. The tutor remembers fondly what that was like: the thrill of the time he had finally brought Alex home permanently, after going through their final session together. He feels himself getting hard in his slacks, thinking about getting to do it all over again.

 Two lovely pets, all to himself. If he plays his cards right, Alex will finally have a cute little playmate to join him in no time.

 With that in mind, Wilfred climbs onto the couch. He situates himself next to the boy and began whispering in his ear the same soft, calming tones that had lured Isaac in before. As always, the tutor takes great care to use the ticking of the clock to aid him, flowing the tempo of his words to the heavy swing of brass.

 To and fro. 

  To and fro.

 “Doesn’t this feel nice, Isaac? A nice, relaxing little study break, just for you. You deserve it, after all, after working so hard.”

 Without opening his eyes, the boy lolls his head forward, nodding. 

 “You never get a break from studying at home though, do you? You work so hard at school—but do you ever get a chance to stop? Sit back, relax, and just rest for a little while?”

 “Mm, no,” Isaac mumbles. “Not really…”

 “And why is that?”

 “Mother— Father... they’d just… have tutors ready for me, waiting at home after school…”

 “I see... And they don’t think at all about how exhausted their son would already be, coming home after a long day of learning, do they?” The tutor smiles, wolfish and predatory. “Poor dear. I just don’t know how you manage it, Isaac.”

 Isaac frowns—almost a pout. “I have to, to become a doctor… It’s a lot, but… can’t let them down…”

 Just as he suspected. And what a waste that would be—to throw away all that youthful innocence on something so painfully uninspired. He’ll definitely have to change that, won’t he?

 “I see. Well, Isaac, you’re always welcome to take a break here ,” The tutor pauses, letting the suggestion settle before continuing. “A little study break, once a week: where you get to relax and rest . Getting enough rest is important, after all—no matter what anyone else may insist.” 

 “From now on, let’s take a little study break like this, shall we? It’ll be a normal part of our tutoring sessions: something you can do to rest after a long week’s worth of studying and classes.”

 “Study break… rest…” the boy softly repeated.

 “Yes, Isaac. A nice, sleepy little study break ,” Wilfred smiles, gently stroking the boy’s cheek with his fingers. “And you won’t even think about it, will you Isaac? No, thinking’s too hard… The whole point of breaks are to rest your pretty little head, after all. Best to just rest and let go in these little study breaks— relax and let go to the sound of my voice.”

 A shiver travels through Isaac’s body as he absorbs the new suggestion.

 “Do you understand?”

 The boy nods. “Let go… Thinking... too hard……  sleepy…”    

 “That’s right… thinking is just too difficult, when you’re so very sleepy like this. ” Wilfred drawls, “During these breaks, it’s so much easier to just sit back and listen, isn’t it? Just leave all the difficult thinking to your tutor from here on out.”

 Isaac’s body sags even further at that, as if to wholly surrender himself to the perverted tutor. 

  “That’s it… just listen and let me help you, Isaac. Empty your mind of anything other than my voice. Just listen, obey, and let your tutor make you feel so much better...” 

 With that, Wilfred takes out the bottle of lube that had been warming in his pocket for the past hour. He squirts a generous amount onto his fingers before setting it to the side, making sure to apply more than what’s necessary. There’s just something about Isaac that screams to be taken apart slowly, savored and played with every step of the way—small and delicate as he is. 

 He just can’t help but indulge the sweet boy a little.

 “In a moment, I’m going to spread you open right here,” he murmurs, spreading Isaac open and  lining slick fingers at the tight, pink entrance. “Make you feel so good during your study break, just like you wanted.”

 Wilfred traces the rim with the flat of his digits sensually, teasingly, until the hole is winking with anticipation. 

 “Tell me: have you ever done this to yourself before?”

 He hears Isaac’s breath hitch from underneath him. “No…” 

 “No?” The tutor chuckles. He leans forward, whispering over the boy’s ear.  “Oh, you’ll love it, Isaac. I’m going to make sure of it, one way or another…” 

 The tutor slides his fingers inside. He works them in nice and slow at first—pressing against the tight ring of muscle and feeling out Isaac’s virgin-tight passage, as he gently spreads the boy open on his fingers. 

 “God, you’re so tight… It’s as if your body is just sucking me in here,” Wilfred whispers. He eases his fingers in and out of the boy—quickly, efficiently, picking up his pace once the boy adjusts to him and filling the room with the slick, sloppy sounds of it. “... Like your body is just hungry for it.”

 Isaac is panting, ragged and breathy. Already Wilfred sees him starting to respond favorably—his little waist bucking as if it had a mind of its own; his pretty cock beginning to fill untouched. Eyes closed and lips parted open on a moan, the sleeping boy on his fingers looked no different than the image of someone lost in pure and utter bliss.

 He can’t wait to see what the boy looks like, spread open on his cock.

 “Look at you: so desperate to be filled you’re practically drooling for it,” the tutor smirks, reaching for his own zipper. “What a hungry, hungry boy you must be, Isaac.”

 He kicks off his own slacks towards the pile of Isaac’s discarded clothes and grabs the bottle of lube off from the side. Wilfred dribbles a fair amount on his hand, palming at his erection as he prepares himself to fully ravish the boy in his sleep.

 “The cookies weren’t nearly enough for you, were they? No, no—it looks to me like your body wants something even more to fill you up.

 “Something… more….” the boy mumbles.

  “Yes, something more. Something bigger, and thicker, and with even more protein to fill you up with. Yeah, you want for nothing more than to be filled up to the brim with all of that, right here.” 

 Isaac whines, drool pooling down his chin in thin little streams. With all of the capacity for thought siphoned out of his head, the boy is left utterly helpless to the whims of the tutor—unable to refuse the suggestions taking hold of his otherwise empty little mind. He has no other choice but to listen and obey: wanting for nothing else than what Wilfred dictates he does at the moment.

 “Open your eyes, Isaac. Beg for me properly. Spread those legs wide open and show me just how much you want me to stuff you full.”

 The boy follows immediately, lifting his legs up high and holding each in place by the back of his thighs as dazed, brown eyes fluttered open. Isaac’s body is nearly folded in half this way, giving the tutor quite the view as the student obediently awaits further commands.

 Placing the boy’s raised legs atop his shoulders, Wilfred lines himself up with Isaac’s hole. 

 “What a good boy,” the tutor coos, gripping Isaac’s hips as he slides himself inside the tight, wet heat. It doesn’t escape Wilfred’s attention just how positively the boy responds to even the slightest praise: the way he flushes scarlet all over, moaning—or the way his slim, pretty cock stood tall at his words, even despite the pain the boy was surely in. 

 “ Such a lovely, pretty boy for me, taking all of me so, so well.”

  “You love this, don’t you sweetling?”

  “This is what you were hungry for all along: nothing feels better to you than something big and thick inside of you like this, filling your slutty, hungry hole.”

 Isaac mewls—tiny, breathless little sounds as the tutor fucks the suggestions into him. The boy is stretched taut around his cock, and with each praise he gives him Wilfred could physically feel him more and more: clenched around him, tight and vise-like, as if his body was trying to draw him deeper in. 

 As he pounds into him hard and relentless, Wilfred comes across the little bundle of nerves inside of Isaac that pries a loud, desperate cry from the boy. He gives a quick snap of his hips, hitting the same spot again and again—making his student all but melt underneath him. 

 “There you go, sweetling. Doesn’t this feel so, so good? You want this to happen during each and every one of our sessions, every time we meet. You’ll grow to crave it, until it’s all you can think about during your classes. Until all you’ll want to do is rest, relax, and surrender your mind to me as I stuff your hungry body with what it really needs…” 

 He takes Isaac’s leaking cock in his hand, earning a choked moan from him as he wraps his fingers around it and strokes the boy off to the pace of his thrusts. 

  “Just let it all happen, Isaac. Accept it. Just let your tutor make you feel so much better…” 

 All at once, Isaac groans. The boy is trembling around him as he cums harder than he’s ever had in his life, painting his chest and tummy white. The sensation of Isaac clenching down around him only brings the tutor to quickly follow suit, spilling his seed inside the boy as he fucks his orgasm deep into him. 

 Wilfred collapses on top of the boy once he’s finished, laying there together for a little as they both catch their breath. When he finally regains his strength, the tutor pushes himself up and off the couch, putting his slacks back on and admiring how wrecked the boy looks, his puffy hole twitching, leaking cum onto the leather couch. 

 Eventually he’ll teach the boy to love getting on his knees and cleaning up after his fun little messes. For now, however, the tutor is content to just have Alex lick the upholstery clean for him after the session today is over.

 “ Good boy, Isaac. You’ve been such a good student for me today,” Wilfred says to him, not at all missing how Isaac practically glows under the praise. He helps Isaac get dressed, slipping his underwear, pants, and shirt back on—over the boy’s filthy, cum-splattered body. 

 He pats him on the cheek, smiling.

 “Close your eyes, Isaac. In a moment, I’m going to count down and have you wake up from your study break. When you do, nothing that we’ve done so far will seem strange to you, because this is everything you want from a session isn’t it?”

 Slowly, Isaac nods and shuts his eyes.

 “That’s right. You’re so stressed and hungry from your day-to-day classes that you have no more energy to even think when you get to these sessions,” he reiterates, driving the point home to the boy. “You come here to take a break from all of that: a nice, little study break, where you can let everything go and have your tutor make you feel so much better.”

 He sits Isaac upright on the couch, arranging his body to be exactly the way he was before the boy had fallen asleep on his lap.

 “Now, Isaac: wake up for me, in three…”

 “... Two…”

  “One.”

[insideanairport]

Nietzsche’s “Untimely Meditations”

❍❍❍

A very difficult book to read in English. The best translation I have found is the one by Ludovici and Collins. The worst is by R.J. Hollingdale published by Cambridge University Press. The good translation by Ludovici and Collins, however, is published by Digireads.com and has the worst introduction by anti-semitic and white-nationalist Oscar Levy written in 1909. His review was probably the most racist and white-nationalist academic writing I have ever read. The introduction of the Cambridge University Press by Daniel Breazeale is very deep and enlightening.

The Digireads book has the essays non-chronologically. It has the first and last meditation as Part 1 and has the second and third meditation as Part 2. It works better because I could just ignore the part 1, which contains the 2 most boring works of Nietzsche: "David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer” and “Richard Wagner in Bayreuth”. You need to have a full scholarship to read both of those essays and not fall sleep. Although Nietzsche admits that the real subject of the essays “Richard Wagner in Bayreuth” and “Schopenhauer as Educator” is himself, we don’t see the usual fire that is inside his writings in part 1 of meditations. I think, its mostly, due to Nietzsche’s narrow focus on the German condition rather than a border analyzation that we see in part 2 of the meditations. That might be the reason he abandons the projects after finishing the “Richard Wagner in Bayreuth”.

The young Nietzsche was into Schopenhauer, Goethe, and Machiavelli. The mature Nietzsche was into Stendhal, Dostoyevsky and (again) Machiavelli. He might have been inspired by La Rochefoucauld for his aphorisms in the latter part of his life but I don’t think the influence was as high as other figures.

It is also understandable that writing of thesis meditations is simultaneous with Nietzsche’s shift of interest from philology to philosophy. Nietzsche seems to be focusing on concepts of “culture” and evolution of “culture through education”, especially in “Schopenhauer as Educator”. I am not sure if by culture he means national culture? I wouldn’t expect him to know any better, especially that 140 years ago culture was widely understood to belong to nations. The state was the precursor to culture. In that view, without state, there would be no culture –a colonial idea that dominated the 19th century Europe and dehumanized southern peoples with a darker complexion. Montserrat Guibernau has a great essay on this topic in analyzing Anthony D. Smith’s national identity and culture. She focused on the idea that the European conception of nation and culture often mixed with the notion of state. In this view, the existence of nations without state becomes undermined.

The right-wing interpreters of Nietzsche admire this book because it contains most of Nietzsche’s philosophy minus the most important part; “harsh and direct attack on Christianity”. Currently –but for not much longer– I live in Finland. The brute skin-head racism here functions similar to the rest of the white-majority countries. The idea that a traditionally white nation cannot become mixed with darker peoples. Recently, Jussi Halla-aho the leader of the second-largest political party in Finland (True Finns) announced that the only “real Finnish people” are white and Christian. Simultaneous with this type of violence, some white academics who see themselves in opposition with the far-right mentality, think racism is an import of globalization and a side effect of the current economic system. They omit the notion of racial/cultural homogeneity and monochrome Christian practices and its history.

On Nietzsche’s criticism of Christianity, Reza Aslan comes to mind, an academic who wrote the book “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth” on the life of Jesus. Since 2013, he received much criticism simultaneous with death-threats solely because he is Muslim. In some part of the book, he argued how the catholic church has preferred to promote Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically motivated revolutionary who urged his followers to keep his identity a secret.

Going back to Nietzsche, his meditation “On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life” was the essay that inspired Foucault in his work on madness. “Schopenhauer as Educator” has probably inspired other postmodern thinkers who were interested not just in culture but in different modes of thinking and knowledge production. Edward Said ends his introduction of Orientalism (1978) with a quote from Raymond Williams and invites us to engage in a process which will result in “unlearning” of “the inherent dominative mode” [of thinking]. We see the roots of this idea not just in “Schopenhauer as Educator” but in Nietzsche’s life itself. How do you break with your teacher and friend, who have uplifted you to where you are? And more important than that how do you engage in a field that is completely antagonistic to what you have been taught? We can see the evolution of Nietzsche’s oeuvre from “Richard Wagner in Bayreuth” to “Nietzsche contra Wagner” which he wrote in the last years of his career. And we can see a change in Nietzsche’s mode of living from Wagner years to his solitude and madness. Similar to his Zarathustra who first ascents to the mountains to solitude, then descend back to humanity. One might interpret this process as an Eternal Return (eternal recurrence) -a non-Deleuzian interpretation of the concept which is contrary to Deleuze's Eternal Return as the moment in which extremity of differences is reached.

As far as historical heretics and political activists names such as Mansur Al-Hallaj and Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi come to my mind. Mansour Al-Hallaj was a Persian mystic, poet and teacher of Sufism in his book, “Kitaab al-Tawaaseen” (902) he mentions:

If you do not recognize God, at least recognize His sign, I am the creative truth because through the truth, I am eternal truth. — Ana al-Haqq (I’m the truth/God)

This is the place where we have to be reminded of “writing with one’s own blood”, writing as an activist, making art as an activist. A more contemporary figure that comes to mind in reading Nietzsche's Meditations is Malcolm X. He has definitely read Nietzsche or at least “On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life”. Malcolm understood the notion of healing the wounds which he also referred to in some of the interviews. Thinking about Nietzsche’s emphasis on the philosopher’s way of life, and what Nietzsche himself has done to Wagner, we can see a correlation to Malcolm X’s life. What Malcolm X has done to Elijah Muhammad is not much different than what Nietzsche has done to Wagner (although we can agree that anti-semitic Wagner was a much lower and nastier character than Elijah Muhammad). How do you break apart from your teacher, admit our mistake, mature yourself and your ideas? In almost every photo or interview, Malcolm X is smiling and laughing. How to maintain a cheerful attitude toward life in the midst of dark and gloomy events?

Malcolm X was always direct and on point. One of the examples of ideal greatness which Nietzsche used in Thus Spoke Zarathustra was borrowed from ancient Persians: “To speak the truth, and be skillful with bow and arrow”. Shooting well with arrows has a connotation to be on point and straight forward. (1)

“In order to determine this degree of history and, through that, the borderline at which the past must be forgotten if it is not to become the gravedigger of the present, we have to know precisely how great the plastic force of a person, a people, or a culture is. I mean that force of growing in a different way out of oneself, of reshaping and incorporating the past and the foreign, of healing wounds, compensating for what has been lost, rebuilding shattered forms out of one's self. There are people who possess so little of this force that they bleed to death incurably from a single experience, a single pain, often even from a single tender injustice, as from a really small bloody scratch. On the other hand, there are people whom the wildest and most horrific accidents in life and even actions of their own wickedness injure so little that right in the middle of these experiences or shortly after they bring the issue to a reasonable state of well being with a sort of quiet conscience.” (On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, translated by Ian C. Johnston)

Malcolm X’s life can be an embodiment of Nietzschean philosophy, a better example than the life Nietzsche lived himself. One can argue that Malcolm X might have been slightly inspired by Nietzsche, or maximally Malcolm X completed Nietzsche’s philosophy by actualizing it in his own life. Nietzsche’s philosophy is not made to be actualized or utilized in a state level, cultural level, or worst national-cultural. It starts with the individual and stops at the individual level. His critique of modernity and modern humans is one and the same.

“Every philosophy which believes that the problem of existence is touched on, not to say solved, by a political event is a joke- and pseudo-philosophy. Many states have been founded since the world began; that is an old story. How should a political innovation suffice to turn men once and for all into contented inhabitants of the earth? But if anyone really does believe in this possibility he ought to come forward, for he truly deserves to become a professor of philosophy at a German university…” -Schopenhauer as Educator, translation by R. J. Hollingdale, 1984 Cambridge University Press

“Culture and the state—let no one deceive himself here—are antagonists: ‘cultural state’ is just a modern idea. The one lives off the other, the one flourishes at the expense of the other. All great periods in culture are periods of political decline: anything which is great in a cultural sense was unpolitical, even antipolitical.”–Twilight of the Idols, translated by Large, Duncan. (2)

In a talk about Nietzsche and Derrida, Spivak mentioned that the life of an activist requires more than writing. Gramsci, Malcolm X, and such people didn’t just write books, they had notebooks or a series of essays and speeches. Gramsci and Malcolm X were operating outside of the academy, next to their communities and comrades where their struggle was taking shape. They were writing with blood.

At the first look, there might not be any similarity between Malcolm X and Nietzsche. The former was a political activist and the latter was a philosopher-artist. The former was a Muslim minister and the latter was a Christian heretic and son of a Lutheran minister. Malcolm was nationally famous at the time of his assassination. Nietzsche was almost unknown outside of his close circle at the time of his death. Yet, there might be some parallel characteristics between the two. In the past, there has been some informal comparison between these two figures and their works. For instance, Malcolm X’s House Negro Speech and Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality.

Both Nietzsche and Malcolm X were tired of their contemporary condition, the political climate of their region, and the failed struggles of the past generations that were passed on to them. Nietzsche took refuge in Greek tragedy, classical antiquity and Pre-Socratic philosophy. Malcolm took refuge in Islam, international black struggles, Pan-Africanism and Organization of Afro-American Unity. They both experienced a dramatic shift in their ideology and position, although with different intensities. Nietzsche shifted away from Wagner and German Wagnerism, and Malcolm X shifted from Elijah Muhammad and Nation of Islam toward a more comprehensive radical positionality, especially in regard to white Americans. 

When Malcolm was in prison he read Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Kant. In his autobiography, he described his education: “Many who today hear me somewhere in person, or on television, or those who read something I’ve said, will think I went to school far beyond the eighth grade. This impression is due entirely to my prison studies.” (3)

One contrast between Malcolm and Nietzsche’s life is that Nietzsche’s isolation and his idea’s of solitude have very radical individual aspect built into it, while Malcolm’s struggle as much as it was personal, to a great degree it was a predicate from the general social isolation of African-Americans in pre-Civil Rights Act of 1964 America. Both Malcolm and Nietzsche disliked alcohol drinking and smoking.

"The heaviest weight. -What if some day or night a demon were to steal into your loneliest loneliness and say to you : 'This life as you now live it and have lived it you will have to live once again and innumerable times again; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unspeakably small or great in your life must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!' Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine.' If this thought gained power over you, as you are it would transform and possibly crush you; the question in each and every thing, 'Do you want this again and innumerable times again?' would lie on your actions as the heaviest weight!" Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science. Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 194.

Photo: Mirza Cizmic, “Reality is finally better than my dreams”, from “Broken Fragments, 2019”

I like to connect Nietzsche with the new “Iranian nationalism” and opposition to the Islamic Republic which sometimes results in Islamophobia and another version of Uncle Tomism of the Middle East. Nietzsche is a very dangerous thinker, he can mess you up or uplift you to a higher human. As he says, “I am not a man, I am a Dynamite!”. What you get out of Nietzsche can depend on many things, how you read him, and when you read him, where you are in society and where you have come from. Nietzsche is not only against God, but he is against the god-like sovereign world-view. The universalism of European objectivity and concepts such as theology, history and even science are deeply problematic for him.  

Reading Nietzsche after leaving Iran to Germany transformed Aramesh Dustdar an Iranian Heideggerian philosopher into an Islamophobe. In 2010, after the Green movement in Iran, he wrote a letter to Jürgen Habermas, condemning Islam and calling the recent events in Iran as “Shia-Iranian...magic show” staged by a bunch of crafty “pretenders to philosophy.” (4) This letter sparked a lot of debate among Iranian intellectual community condemning Dustdar for his Eurocentric views upholding the orientalist banner: non-Europeans are incapable of thinking.

According to Badiou (wink wink), Modernism started in music before fine arts and Richard Wagner was one of the people who started it. Even if we want to speak in such a categorical language, Wagner’s violent modernism was challenged by Nietzsche who took up the task of overcoming the centricity of the absolute mediums. He identified as an artist more than a philosopher and often used poetry in his works. He believed that old-school rigid theoreticians inside European academies and philosophy as a whole are following the footpath of Hegel's absolute knowledge and scientific objectivity. Something that he saw very dangerous and sought to overcome.  

“What people in earlier times gave the church, people now give, although in scantier amounts, to science.”

Anti-semitic Wager used the term Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) for his operas where all sorts of visual and auditory mediums were combined: music, dance, theatre, and images. There is an array of white supremacists supporting Wagner’s case (from Hitler to today’s Roger Scruton) on defending Wagner and bringing back the very white/pure European modernity which Scruton calls “high culture", he writes: “Modern high culture is as much a set of footnotes to Wagner as Western philosophy is, in Whitehead’s judgement, footnotes to Plato”. (5)  

“…let us leave the superhistorical people to their revulsion and their wisdom. Today for once we would much rather become joyful in our hearts with our lack of wisdom and make the day happy for ourselves as active and progressive people, as men who revere the process. Let our evaluation of the historical be only a western bias, if only from within this bias we at least move forward and not do remain still, if only we always just learn better to carry on history for the purposes of living! For we will happily concede that the superhistorical people possess more wisdom than we do, so long, that is, as we may be confident that we possess more life than they do. For thus at any rate our lack of wisdom will have more of a future than their wisdom.”

“Insofar as history stands in the service of life, it stands in the service of an unhistorical power and will therefore, in this subordinate position, never be able to (and should never be able to) become pure science, something like mathematics. However, the problem to what degree living requires the services of history generally is one of the most important questions and concerns with respect to the health of a human being, a people, or a culture. For with a certain excess of history, living crumbles away and degenerates. Moreover, history itself also degenerates through this decay.” (6)

Bib.

1. Nietzsche, Friedrich and Common, Thomas. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. s.l. : Dover Publications, 1999. 0486406636. 2. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Duncan Large. Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer. s.l. : OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS, 1998. 3. 15 Books Malcolm X Read In Prison. radicalreads.com. [Online] APRIL 10, 2018. https://radicalreads.com/malcolm-x-favorite-books/. 4. HAMID DABASHI, AHMAD SADRI, MAHMOUD SADRI. An Open Letter to Jürgen Habermas. PBS. [Online] October 17, 2010. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2010/10/an-open-letter-to-jurgen-habermas.html. 5. Jakobsen, Peter. Wagner and Modernism. www.thevarnishedculture.com. [Online] May 26, 2016. http://www.thevarnishedculture.com/wagner-and-modernism/. 6. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Untimely Meditations (Thoughts Out of Season 1-2). s.l. : Digireads.com, 2010. ISBN13: 9781420934557.

(Cover photo by Negin)

Suva, “Interminably outside the box” 2019

[abdifarah]

Football, Soft As Cream. Being Alive Is the Hard Part.

During the penultimate episode HBO’s Hard Knocks: Training Camp With the Cleveland Browns a sideline reporter asks Josh Gordon to share a word with fans in light of all his “ups and downs.” “Love yourself. It’s tough, but try to love yourself.” The message of self-love rings peculiar emerging from the mouth of the physically imposing all-pro football player at the start of a new season; a time often filled with braggadocio and unwarranted optimism. But Gordon is a man in recovery, and getting up to speed on the Browns’ offense and helping the team overcome last season’s 0-16 record are small challenges compared to his lifelong battle with drug addiction. Despite working with Gordon through his prolonged battles and multiple suspensions for breaking the NFL’s substance abuse policies, the Browns ultimately released Gordon two weeks into the 2018 season. When news broke that the venerable New England Patriots had picked up the troubled free-agent, pundits and fans–with a mix of hope and jealousy–predicted that if Gordon was ever going to get his act together and salvage his career it would be within the regimented, no-nonsense perfectionism of the Patriots and coach Bill Belichick's proven system. The Patriots, of all teams–long the villains of the NFL–would reap the benefits of a healthy and focused Josh Gordon.

When Gordon announced towards the end of the regular season that he was leaving the Patriots to “focus on his mental health,” parallel to the NFL suspending Gordon indefinitely for once again violating its drug policy, few were surprised. There was, however, a bit of bewilderment that the Patriot “way” and “system” and “culture” were not able to rescue Gordon from his demons; that if he could not make it there all hope was lost for him in the NFL. But why did we ever think that a team with a decidedly anti-humanist, everyone is expendable, next man up ethos like the New England Patriots would provide any respite for a man whose biggest challenge was not shaking D-backs but overcoming crippling self-loathing and self-destructiveness?

While the Patriots and Bill Belichick’s dispassionate philosophy on human capital is not specifically to blame for Josh Gordon’s mental health and drug abuse issues, they are not wholly unrelated. Belichick in his illustrious career with the Patriots, in which he has won five Super Bowls, has acquired, and revelled in, a reputation for fully embracing the cutthroat nature of professional football, from resorting to questionably legal tactics like spying on opposing teams, to making completely emotionless personnel decisions. Fan favorites and players still in their primes could be cut or traded at a moment’s notice. With a frugality bordering on malevolent, the Patriots refused to pay players their market value, opting instead to call their bluff, insisting that a backup player plugged into their system could produce comparably, and at half the cost. Through all these decisions the message is clear, the white coaches and owners are the kings, the players expendable pawns. And in an NFL where 70 percent of the players are black men, black men are these pawns.

This high level gamesmanship has mostly worked in Belichick and the Patriots’ favor, but recently it has been biting them in their karmic ass. In last year’s Super Bowl, Belichick benched cornerback Malcolm Butler–the hero of Super Bowl XLIX just three years earlier–over a mysterious personal disagreement. The Patriots’ secondary would go on to be torched by the Philadelphia Eagles enroute to losing the big game. Over the offseason, the Patriots traded Brandon Cooks and let go of Danny Amendola–two of the teams best receivers–instead of paying them, leading to an uncharacteristically anemic offense for Tom Brady and Co. to start the season. After an ugly loss to the mediocre (at best) Tennessee Titans, current Titan and former Patriot, Dion Lewis, said of the Patriots, “When you go cheap, you get your ass kicked.” This turn of events led to the Patriots gambling on the erratic receiver Josh Gordon.

That Hard Knocks interview was the first time I had heard Gordon speak, or even seen him without his dehumanizing football helmet and pads. His wisdom and sensitivity was impressive and also a little heartbreaking. Without seeing the man I too fell in the category of people who judged Gordon. Every other year its seemed the NFL suspended Gordon for substance abuse. It got to a point where he had missed more games than he had played. Like many in the media, as well as possessive and entitled fans, I would ponder why he could not just stop doing drugs for a few months out of the year and sit pretty collecting his millions?

Josh Gordon’s nickname is Flash, but at 6’3” and with muscles that look chiseled out of concrete he more resembles Superman. I am sure Gordon remembers when exactly those around him began to view him differently. In his mind he was still that the shy, scrawny poor kid. But friends, family, and community now saw his newly broad shoulders as carrying potential riches and new and better life. In a candid interview for GQ Gordon recounted his history of drug abuse. He spoke of the debilitating anxiety he felt as a young person and his struggles with low self-esteem that lead him to early drug use as middle schooler; habits that would continue and metastasize throughout high school and college. “I didn't want to feel anxiety, I didn't want to feel fear. I didn't plan on living to 18. Day-to-day life, what's gonna happen next? So you self-medicate with Xanax, with marijuana, codeine—to help numb those nerves so you can just function every day.” In the interview Gordon confesses that in his career he never played a game sober. (Let’s pause for a moment to acknowledge the morbid wisdom of preemptively numbing oneself before stepping into the violence of the gridiron. How does anyone subject themselves to the impending pain sober? To this end, the NFL does not actually have an anti-drug policy but an anti “your drugs” policy. Players are routinely numbed and anesthetized with tranquilizers and and painkillers. Gordon just preferred the taste of cognac to a Toradol shot.)

Persisting in self-awareness, Gordon admits that he was continually enabled in his drug use–by schools, coaches, teammates–undoubtedly because of his supreme talent and what that talent afforded those around him. Someone as sharp as Gordon understands that without his talent he would probably be in jail, or discarded in some other way. But because he has fly traps for hands and his blurring speed leaves a visible trail in its wake, he is kept around. Like most pro athletes, Gordon lives with the dread of knowing that at any moment, if his 40 time gains a millisecond or two, or his achilles goes Achilles, he can be discarded like the leftovers on the team plane. Additionally, Survivor's remorse lingers: the knowledge that because of luck and arbitrary genetic gifts he has opportunities, second, third and forth chances, that other addicts or black men or black male addicts do not get in America. All of this compounds the sense of depression and self-hatred that fuels addiction. Gordon will probably never play Professional football again. I would not be surprised if he isn’t a little relieved about that.

Sethe, in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, chooses to kill her daughter rather than having her suffer the indignities of bondage. Agency through euthanasia, suicide, and self-destructiveness pervades black cultural products. It’s evidenced in Hip hop’s continued glorification of outlaw lifestyles and drug use. In the Ryan Coogler directed Black Panther, Kill Monger chooses to die rather than capitulate to T’Challa and live as a prisoner in Wakanda forever. This football season Le'Veon Bell said nah, to 14.5 million dollars and a short-term deal. In doing, he told Pittsburgh Steelers’ ownership, you don’t own me. Colin Kaepernick and others kneel in protest of police brutality specifically. More potently, they protest against the ownership over black bodies widely; against white supremacist politicians and policies worldwide, and against NFL owners ceasely promulgating their dominion.   

Gordon’s recidivism represents an attempt to forfeit in finality the chance to be enabled in his addiction. For many football fans, the Josh Gordon story ended this season. I am hopeful for his next chapter; one in which Gordon can define himself outside of a codependent relationship to football but rather by loving and healthy relationships. When asked what empowered him through a past relapse Gordon explained, “It wasn't the career, it wasn't money, it wasn't the house, it wasn't cars, it was be[ing] there for the people that matter the most.” Gordon beat the NFL to the punch. He leaves not on a stretcher or having his desperate phone calls ignored by team owners and GM’s, but hopefully in one of his sports cars being driven by a loved one enroute to rehab.

[theconservativebrief]

Barack Obama stepped back into the fray on Friday with a ferocious speech aimed squarely at not only his successor in the White House but the entire Republican Party.

The ex-president uttered the name “Donald Trump” for the first time in public since Trump’s inauguration in his speech at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Obama chastised a politics of fear and resentment, but argued that Trump himself was “a symptom, not the cause.”

“It did not start with Donald Trump,” he said. “He’s just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years, a fear and anger that’s rooted in our past, but it’s also born out of the enormous upheavals that have taken place in your brief lifetimes.”

The speech reintroduced the president to American voters just before he begins campaigning earnestly for Democratic candidates in the 2018 midterms. Obama sought to portray the November elections as an opportunity to regain “some semblance of sanity to our politics.” He even spoke positively of emerging progressive policies, like Medicare-for-all, that he could not have endorsed in his more center-left administration.

But more than anything, Obama abandoned the posture he’s cultivated over the past 18 months as an elder statesman who largely stays out of the ruckus and refrains from directly criticizing Trump or Republicans in Congress. In doing so, he seemed to hope to convey a sense of urgency, arguing that the republic is at a crossroads and it will require a mobilized body politic to change direction.

“This is not normal. These are extraordinary times, and they’re dangerous times,” Obama said. “But here’s the good news. In two months we have the chance, not the certainty, but the chance to restore some semblance of sanity to our politics.”

Here are seven key moments from the speech:

Obama criticized Trump and Republicans more directly than he ordinarily would, but he still placed the current politics of resentment — the coded racial language, the dehumanizing of The Other, and the fear-mongering in what is actually the safest time in recent history to live in America — in a grander historical context.

“America’s dark history of racial and ethnic and religious division,” Obama said, is a tale “as old as time.” And he heavily implied that Trump follows in those demagogic footsteps:

Even though your generation is the most diverse in history with a greater acceptance and celebration of our differences than ever before, those are the kinds of conditions that are ripe for exploitation by politicians who have no compunction and no shame about tapping into America’s dark history of racial and ethnic and religious division. Appealing to tribe, appealing to fear, pitting one group against another, telling people that order and security will be restored if it weren’t for those who don’t look like us or don’t sound like us or don’t pray like we do, that’s an old playbook.

It’s as old as time. And in a healthy democracy, it doesn’t work. Our antibodies kick in, and people of goodwill from across the political spectrum call out the bigots and the fear mongers and work to compromise and get things done and promote the better angels of our nature. But when there’s a vacuum in our democracy, when we don’t vote, when we take our basic rights and freedoms for granted, when we turn away and stop paying attention and stop engaging and stop believing and look for the newest diversion, the electronic versions of bread and circuses, then other voices fill the void.

A politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment takes hold and demagogues promise simple fixes to complex problems. No promise to fight for the little guy, even as they cater to the wealthiest and most powerful. No promise to clean up corruption and then plunder away. They start undermining norms that ensure accountability and try to change the rules to entrench their power further. They appeal to racial nationalism that’s barely veiled, if veiled at all. Sound familiar?

Obama’s rise to the presidency began, in earnest, with his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech professing his belief that there was not a Red America or a Blue America — that there is more that unites Americans than divides them. He has therefore been reluctant throughout his career to paint too broadly in his critiques of his political opponents.

But on Friday, he asked very bluntly: “What happened to the Republican Party?”

Republicans passed a tax bill that exploded the deficit by $1.5 trillion, Obama noted. Anti-communism used to be the rallying cry of the conservative, pro-capitalism movement in America and yet now they seem perfectly comfortable with the leftover Soviet spy running Russia. Or they’re at least willing to ignore Trump’s comfort with him.

With Republicans in control of Congress and the White House, without any checks or balances whatsoever, they’ve provided another $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to people like me who I promise don’t need it and don’t even pretend to pay for them. It’s supposed to be the party supposedly of fiscal conservatism. Suddenly deficits do not matter. Even though just two years ago when the deficit was lower, they said I couldn’t afford to help working families or seniors on Medicare because the deficit was in existential crisis. What changed? What changed?

They’re subsidizing corporate they’ve made it so that the only nation on Earth to pull out of the global climate agreement, it’s not North Korea, it’s not Syria, it’s not Russia or Saudi Arabia, it’s us. The only country. There are a lot of countries in the world. We’re the only ones. They’re undermining our alliances, cozying up to Russia. What happened to the Republican party? Its central organizing principle in foreign policy was the fight against communism, and now they’re cozying up to the former head of the KGB.

Actively blocking legislation that would defend our elections from Russian attack. What happened? Their sabotage of the affordable care act has already cost more than 3 million Americans their health insurance, and if they’re still in power next fall, you better believe they’re coming at it again. They’ve said so. In a healthy democracy, there’s some checks and balances on this kind of behavior, this kind of inconsistency, but right now there’s nothing. Republicans who know better in congress, and they’re there, they’re quoted saying, yeah, we know this is kind of crazy, are still bending over backwards to shield this behavior from scrutiny or accountability or consequence.

Obama didn’t name the recent New York Times op-ed by an anonymous Trump official directly, but his allusion seemed clear as he warned against putting hope in unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats to protect the country from Trump’s worst impulses.

The claim that everything will turn out okay because there are people inside the White House who secretly aren’t following the president’s orders, that is not a check. I’m being serious here. That’s not how our democracy’s supposed to work. These people aren’t elected. They’re not accountable. They’re not doing us a service by actively promoting 90% of the crazy stuff that’s coming out of this White House, and then saying, don’t worry, we’re preventing the other 10%. That’s not how things are supposed to work. This is not normal.

The wonky president couldn’t help but add a policy critique, contrasting emerging Democratic proposals like Medicare-for-all or giving workers seat on corporate boards — a rhetorical embrace of a much more leftist politics than Obama himself ever pursued in office.

I happen to be a Democrat. I believe our policies are better and we have a bigger, bolder vision of equality and justice and inclusive democracy. We know there are a lot of jobs young people aren’t getting a chance to occupy or aren’t getting paid enough or aren’t getting benefits like insurance. It’s harder for young people to save for a rainy day let alone retirement.

So Democrats aren’t just running on good old ideas like a higher minimum wage, they’re running on good new ideas like medicare for all, giving workers seats on corporate boards, reversing the most egregious corporate tax cuts to make sure college students graduate we know that people are tired of toxic corruption and that democracy depends on transparency and accountability, so Democrats aren’t just running on good old ideas like requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns. But on good new ideas like barring lobbyists from getting paid by foreign governments.

We know that climate change isn’t just coming. It’s here. So Democrats aren’t just running on good old ideas like increasing gas mileage in our cars, which I did and which Republicans are trying to reverse, but on good new ideas like putting a price on carbon pollution. We know in a smaller, more connected world, we can’t just put technology back in a box. We can’t just put walls up all around America. Walls don’t keep out threats like terrorism or disease.

Obama’s speech was officially the kickoff to his campaigning for Democratic candidates in the midterm elections. He treated it, therefore, as a call to action. It was an unsubtle challenge to progressive Democrats who might have been unenthused about Hillary Clinton or suburban Republicans uncomfortable with Trump but voted the party line.

Speaking as a Democrat, that’s when the democratic party has always made the biggest difference in the lives of the American people. When we led with conviction and principle and bold new ideas. The antidote to a government controlled by a powerful few, a government that divides is a government by the organized, energized, inclusive many. That’s what this moment’s about. That has to be the answer.

You cannot sit back and wait for a savior. You can’t opt out because you don’t feel sufficiently inspired by this or that particular candidate. This is not a rock concert. This is not Coachella. We don’t need a messiah. All we need are decent, honest, hard-working people who are accountable and who have America’s best interests at heart. [ Applause ] And they’ll step up and they’ll join our government, and they will make things better if they have support. One election will not fix everything that needs to be fixed. But it will be a start. And you have to start it. What’s going to fix our democracy is you.

But Barack Obama is still Barack Obama. As he turned into the home stretch of his speech, the former president could not help but reaffirm his faith in a kind of post-partisan politics.

He called on people of all parties to be properly offended by the resurgence of white nationalism in mainstream politics or the appeasement of neo-Nazis by the president of the United States and people close to him.

“We’re supposed to stand up to discrimination, and we’re sure as heck supposed to stand up clearly and unequivocally to Nazi sympathizers,” Obama said. “How hard can that be? Saying that Nazis are bad?”

I am here to tell you that even if you don’t agree with me or Democrats on policy, even if you believe in more libertarian economic theories, even if you are an evangelical and our position on certain social issues is a bridge too far, even if you think my assessment of immigration is mistaken and the Democrats aren’t serious enough about immigration enforcement, I’m here to tell you that you should still be concerned with our current course and should still want to see a restoration of honesty and decency and lawfulness in our government. [ Applause ] It should not be democratic or Republican. It should not be a partisan issue to say that we do not pressure the attorney general or the FBI to use the criminal justice system as a cudgel to punish our political opponents. Or to explicitly call on the attorney general to protect members of our own party from prosecution because an election happens to be coming up. I’m not making that up. That’s not hypothetical.

It shouldn’t be democratic or Republican to say that we don’t threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we don’t like. I complained plenty about fox News, but you never heard me threaten to shut them down or call them enemies of the people. It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say we don’t target certain groups of people based on what they look like or how they pray. We are Americans.

We’re supposed to stand up to bullies. Not follow them. We’re supposed to stand up to discrimination, and we’re sure as heck supposed to stand up clearly and unequivocally to Nazi sympathizers. How hard can that be? Saying that Nazis are bad.

Obama actually began his speech by explaining, in his unique way, why it had taken nearly two years for him to make such a speech.

Truth was, I was also intent on following a wise American tradition of ex-presidents gracefully exiting the political stage and making room for new voices and new ideas.

We have our first president, George Washington, to thank for setting that example. After he led the colonies to victory as general Washington, there were no constraints on him, really. He was practically a god to those who had followed him into battle. There was no constitution. There were no democratic norms that guided what he should or could do. And he could have made himself all powerful, could have made himself potentially president for life. Instead, he resigned as commander in chief and moved back to his country of state. Six years later, he was elected president. But after two terms, he resigned again and rode off into the sunset.

The point Washington made, the point that is essential to American democracy is that in a government of and by and for the people, there should be no permanent ruling class. There are only citizens, who through their elected and temporary representatives, determine our course and determine our character. I’m here today because this is one of those pivotal moments when every one of us as citizens of the United States need to determine just who it is that we are.

Original Source -> The 7 most important moments in Obama’s blistering critique of Trump and the GOP

via The Conservative Brief

[petlover18-blog1]

Dogs Against Romney – The Dog Atop Mitt Romney’s Car Controversy

New Post has been published on https://www.petlovers.shovelnews.com/dogs-against-romney-the-dog-atop-mitt-romneys-car-controversy/

Dogs Against Romney – The Dog Atop Mitt Romney’s Car Controversy

As one of the most popular politicians of the last decade, Mitt Romney’s used to being in the spotlight. However, there’s one incident that has always seemed baffling to a lot of people: in 1983, he traveled for 12 hours with his dog on top of his car.

And given our collective love for dogs, this incident became a huge point of discussion during Romney’s ill-fated 2008 and 2012 Presidential campaigns. Honestly, the fascination with the episode highlights our tendency to look outside politics in our voting decisions.

Due to this, this article will discuss the impact this incident had on both elections and all the consequences Romney faced that stemmed from this ill-fated decision. However, before we dive into this strange impactful event, we need to recap who Mitt Romney is and why this became such a national story?

Table of Contents

Who is Mitt Romney?

Born into a very ambitious family with parents who were both politicians, George and Lenore Romney, Mitt was destined to follow the same path. He spent most of his childhood life in Bloomfield, Michigan being raised in the Mormon faith that he would later be primarily associated with during his political career.

He furthered his association with his faith when in “July 1966, he began a thirty-month stint in France as a Mormon missionary, a traditional rite of passage in his family.” After completing his 2 ½ year Mormon mission in France, he continued onto college at Brigham Young University where he met his wife, Ann Davies, and got BA in English.

After BYU, he moved onto the prodigious Harvard University where he received “a joint JD–MBA… in 1975.” Then, he surprisingly took himself out of the political arena by becoming a management consultant and“ in 1977 secured a position at Bain & Company”.

At Bain & Company, he rose through the ranks and eventually became the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). In doing so, he helped the company come out of the depths of financial ruin.

After all his success in the business world, Mitt decided it was time to enter the family business of politics and put himself in the 1994 race for U.S. Senator in Massachusetts. As his father and mother did before him, he chose to represent the Republican Party.

After losing the 1994 race to Ted Kennedy, Romney kept himself away from the political world for a couple of years. However, he couldn’t stay away for long, and with a successful stint as President and CEO of the then-struggling Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics, Romney was back in the game.

He used all the positive momentum gained from his experience at Salt Lake Organizing Committee to revive his political career. Romney targeted the 2002 Governor race in Massachusetts and ended winning the election defeating Shannon O’Brien.

Despite bringing forth positive changes as Governor, he didn’t seek re-election in 2006. Instead, he switched his focus toward a more prominent, loftier goal: becoming President. In doing so, Romney fought valiantly for the 2008 Republican Presidential Nomination, but it went to Senator John McCain.

Unlike before, the loss didn’t discourage Romney from continuing his political career. In fact, he immediately turned his attention to securing the 2012 Republican Presidential Nomination the moment McCain lost the Presidential election.

And this time Romney was successful in getting the Nomination setting up a race between him and Barack Obama to see who’d be the next President. But again, things didn’t turn as expected for Romney and he was defeated by Obama losing both the electoral college and the popular votes.

Now, that you’ve got a recap of Romney’s life and career, it’s time we examine what exactly happened and the consequences of the dog incident back in 1983.

Dogs Against Romney

During both his attempts at becoming president, Romney was met with heavy criticism regarding an incident back in 1983 with his dog named Seamus. It was used by his opponents to diminish his reputation in the eyes of the voters, and it worked to perfection. Honestly, one of the oddest tactics ever put into play during an election, but a successful one nonetheless.

For example, it spawned a common phrase/group, “Dogs Against Romney,” that was used to promote the beliefs of anti-Romney voters. In fact, it’s often regarded as one of the most successful anti-Romney campaign efforts.

The Incident

In 1983, Mitt Romney and his family took a 12-hour trip up to Romney’s parents’ house in Beach O’Pines, Ontario. This seems like a normal occurrence except for all 12 hours their dog, Seamus, was in a kennel strapped to the top of their station wagon.

As you would expect, poor Seamus got sick along the trip with a severe case of diarrhea. In response, Romney proceeded to stop the car, wash Seamus and the kennel, and put Seamus back inside the kennel on top of the vehicle.

You’d think he’d have put Seamus somewhere else, but nope not Mitt Romney. It’s not surprising given he seems very stubborn about how he views his life. I’d imagine this stubbornness is prevalent in all aspects of his life.

Besides stubbornness, you’re probably wondering how anyone could think strapping your dog’s kennel to the top of the car is a good idea? And Romney’s rivals use this lack of logic against him to dehumanize him.

Not surprisingly, this didn’t become public knowledge until 2007 when Romney’s name started coming up in consideration for the 2008 Republican Presidential Nomination. The leaker of this incident seems to be Mitt’s son Tagg Romney, who was trying to use the story to portray his father favorably. You can see that here in this Washington Post article,“It has come to characterize the candidate — and not in the favorable way Tagg Romney hoped for when he first talked in 2007 about his family’s annual road trips.”

Another excerpt from a story published by the Boston Globe depicts the incident in a vivid and almost novelistic fashion:

“Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family’s hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon’s roof rack. He’d built a windshield for the carrier, to make the ride more comfortable for the dog.

Then Romney put his boys on notice: He would be making predetermined stops for gas, and that was it.

The ride was largely what you’d expect with five brothers, ages 13 and under, packed into a wagon they called the ”white whale.”

As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. ”Dad!” he yelled. ”Gross!” A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who’d been riding on the roof in the wind for hours.

As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station. There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway. It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management”

After reading that excerpt, I don’t see how Tagg Romney thought it’d be a good story to share with the press, however, for some reason he did. And as you’ll see in the sections below, this decision had a profound impact on both of Romney’s Presidential candidacies.

Election in 2008

Only months before Seamus would become a political icon, on February 13, 2007, Mitt Romney informed the world he intended to run for President. At this point, the discussion around was solely about his Mormon faith and how “he has been trying to buff up his credentials with conservatives, leading some critics to accuse him of changing his positions in anticipation of a White House bid.”

He intended to run on the basis of family being, “ the foundation of America — and that we must fight to protect and strengthen it. I believe in the sanctity of human life. I believe that people and their elected representatives should make our laws, not unelected judges.”

In other words, he was trying to appeal to the ordinary human being. Romney was trying to show the world he could relate, even though, he grew up very comfortably. However, his whole platform would crumble under the weight of a story about a dog.

Boston Globe Article Released

In June 2007, the cat was let out of the bag on the infamous Romney dog incident with the release of the before mentioned Boston Globe article. According to the article, “the incident was pointed to as an example of Romney’s emotion-free crisis management style.” Of course, this backfired badly as most people only cared about the safety of the dog and viewed,“the mode of canine transport the dog was subjected to as unnecessarily callous and cruel.”In his quest to win the favor of the common man, he forgot who’s a man’s best friend, their dog.

Romney’s Response

And his response to the public outcry, “They’re not happy that my dog loves fresh air” wasn’t effective in curtailing the public’s outrage. This wasn’t the only cringe-worthy response from the Romney family, as his wife Ann, jump into the conversation with a blog posted on the Five Brothers Blog.

A highlight quote from the blog post,“Surprise, surprise, the media didn’t get the dog story right. Our dog Seamus rode in an ENCLOSED kennel, not in the open air”, makes me think Ann Romney didn’t fully understand why people were mad.

Yes, Seamus in the open air would be much worse than being in an enclosed kennel, but an enclosed kennel strapped to a car roof isn’t safe either. As you would expect, people didn’t receive this response relatively well either.

In fact, many were trying to see if Romney broke any animal cruelty laws with his actions. Articles like this one from TIME magazine kept popping up debating whether or not what he did to Seamus was considered cruel.

The consensus seems to side with the notice of his actions being cruel. As seen in the TIME article, “Massachusetts’s animal cruelty laws specifically prohibit anyone from carrying an animal “in or upon a vehicle, or otherwise, in an unnecessarily cruel or inhuman manner or in a way and manner which might endanger the animal carried thereon.” I’d think poor Seamus trapped on top of a station wagon would fall into this description of endangering the animal.

And the “officer for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals [who] responded to a description of the situation saying “it’s definitely something I’d want to check out” would probably agree with me.

All in all, the real damage this incident would have on Romney’s career wouldn’t wholly take shape until the 2012 Election because he failed to get the bid in 2008. See, he no longer mattered; therefore, the story went away until he became relevant again.

And sadly for Mitt Romney, the story would cause him a plague of issues once again in his 2012 Presidential campaign. In fact, this story only made matters worse as it aged.

The Election in 2012

After receiving the Republican Presidential Nomination, the scrutiny around Romney increased. And with the increase of attention, the old story about Seamus came back to haunt Romney for the second time.

As you would expect, several columnists tried to use this story to discredit Romney’s run for President. For example, Lanny Davis from Fox News wrote this article based around this very premise. In the article, Davis writes the following, “But when I read the story recently in greater detail about what Romney did to his Irish Setter, Seamus, that struck me as more than heartless — it struck me as downright cruel.”

This reaction from Davis pinpoints how destructive this story was to Romney’s run. Think about it like this, as Davis articulates, “There are more than 78 million Americans who own one or more dogs ��� about two out of every five households”. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that more than half those 78 million Americans would feel the same as Davis or me. It made Romney seem inhuman, it essentially dehumanized him in the eyes of many. The man who built his whole campaign about relating to the common man became unrelatable. It was a death blow to his Presidential aspirations.

However, people were trying to defend Romney such as Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus who wrote, “I’m not much of a Romney fan, but I don’t think what he did to Seamus was so terrible.” Her rationalization for this belief came from the fact she questioned, “Look, the guy was in a station wagon with his wife, five kids and an Irish setter. Where, exactly, was he supposed to fit the dog?”

Let’s be honest; she does have a point. However, I’d follow up by asking given how much money Mitt Romney has, why couldn’t he hire a dog sitter or someone else to drive Seamus up there? There were other, more logical, options available to Romney, and it just seems odd that putting your dog on top of your station wagon was the choice they saw most logical. In fact, it’s mind-boggling.

This feeling of questioning Mitt Romney’s sense of logic is something I share with one of his biggest rivals during the nomination phase, Rick Santorum. See, Santorum’s advisor John Brabender on CNN said “I’m not sure I’m going to listen to the value judgment of a guy who strapped his own dog on the top of the roof of his car and went hurling down the highway,” Of course, this comment was a ploy to try and weaken Romney’s bid, but it’s a premise an sane person would agree has merit.

Santorum wasn’t the only competitor to use the Seamus story to their advantage. During the Nomination phase, Romney’s adversary Newt Gingrich created a web video that used “an excerpt from an interview in which Romney discusses the now-infamous episode back in the 1980s when he strapped the family dog, an Irish setter named Seamus, to the roof his car during an extended family trip to Canada.” Although Gingrich didn’t ultimately get the nomination, his use of this excerpt shows how detrimental this story is to Romney’s reputation.

Besides his rivals for the nomination bid, Romney also faced scrutiny about Seamus from the man he eventually lose the Presidential election too, Barack Obama,. At the 98th Annual White House Correspondents Dinner, Obama showed a video making fun of the whole Seamus ordeal. His showing of this video was after several back and forths between the two campaigns in which the Republicans tried to shifted the negativity from the Seamus incident.

See, a report from “Jim Treacher of the conservative Daily Caller website unleashed a new twist in the 2012 election campaign’s dog war on Tuesday with a column, “Obama bites dog,” about how Obama tried dog meat as a child.” When the report came out, conservatives had a field day on Twitter, “with the hashtag #obamadogrecipes”. Of course, liberals responded with their own cleverness hastags and memes. Essentially, it had become a real phenomenon and it all started with Seamus.

And with the rise of social media it was only going to get worse. Honestly, the story became a much more significant factor than it was in 2008. Romney could hide from the story much more effectively in 2007 or 2008 because it wasn’t going to trend on Facebook and Twitter. But now, a site like Facebook could allow people to set up groups based around pushing anti-Romney beliefs. Several of these groups targeted the Seamus story as their way to speak out against Romney.

Protests

As these groups got more significant, they started organizing events and protests to spread their message. One of these groups, Dogs Against Romney, created by Scott Crider boasted as many as “50,000 friends on Facebook” in 2012. In doing so, they made sure to get their voice heard about Seamus struggle at every given opportunity.

For example, Dogs Against Romney set up a 30-minute rally outside the Westminster Dog Show at Madison Square Garden with the sole purpose of spreading the story of Seamus to as many people as possible. As the group’s spokesman said, “It’s important for people to understand the kind of character of this man who is running for president…It indicates the sense of entitlement that this man has — that he would impose his will like that on the family pet.” In other words, if he’s going to treat something he loves, like his family pet, cruelly, what do you think Romney’s going to do with the people he’s in charge of?

Besides Dogs Against Romney, there were other people using the Seamus story for all types of things. For example, the musical recording artist Devo released a “track entitled “Don’t Roof Rack Me, Bro! (Remember Seamus).” Obviously, inspired by the 12-hour horror show that Seamus was subjected to on that fateful trip.

Conclusion

It’s incredible how an incident that has nothing to with politics could affect the outcome of something as major as a Presidential election. It goes to show that in politics even the smallest thing can have a significant difference in how people see a politician.

In the end, Seamus finally got his revenge on his old buddy Mitt for strapping him on top of the car. I guess, karma does exist.

Source: https://pawpawlover.com/dogs-against-romney/

[exquisit-corpse-blog]

At First

CW: abuse/suicide/general fucked upness

Ron went after women who had mental health issues... Kat was more than happy to play her own role in the abuse. His favorite “fetish” is Stockholm Syndrome...keep that in mind

At first they were wonderful, texting most every day, all day. Telling me I was beautiful, that I deserved to be happy. I felt welcomed, cared for, wanted.

Ron would tell me how impressed he was with things I did for him. That I was the “first” to do things or get them right so quickly...I beamed every time he told me that...I was useful. Ron and I had a deep connection of the darker parts of humanity... And ridiculous chemistry. No one had or has ever made me feel the way he did. The acceptance of his own demons set me on the path to succumbing to my own. 

I asked him to call me “meat”...it turned me on to be so completely objectified and dehumanized in our BDSM interactions like that. It became an endearing pet name. At some point, my birth name began to sound foreign coming from his lips. I was “meat”, his little snuffslut...but also his “raven-haired girl”...the very embodiment of his fantasies. “No one” could understand him like I did. I was “the first” who he found that was into the same or similar things...He’d “never” met anyone so ready and willing to die for his pleasure, who truly knew her place...it was my biggest fantasy. 

He was possessive...which I found to be sexy and flattering at the time. No one had ever claimed me so completely as he did. No one has ever subdued me like that...I was willing to sacrifice anything for him.

When we first started our relationship, they had concerns about my still being a part of my Leather Family...so I resigned my position as Co-Founder. There were other reasons that had me thinking but that’s for another time...The relationship with Ron and Kat was ultimately the deciding factor. Not long after my resignation did they start to plant the seeds that no one in the Community would want me if we ever broke up. They used my fear of losing my social standing, my Community, my Family ties, friends...my home, against me to keep me in line.

It was after I cut all close ties that the abuse really went into full swing. Kat started out by becoming chummy with the girl my former Master cheated on me with and lied to my face about...she would tell me they never fought this much until I came around. (a lie, come to find) She would tell me to do things she knew Ron would be angry about.-like adopting Zach. She told me how much she hated me when she first met me...and that they only had sex when I was around. (another lie) I shied away from sex, and wouldn’t touch him sexually unless she was there because I was terrified of making her feel bad. 

...but during this time they taught me how to row a raft, we laughed all day on the river...we had dinners, went to the movies, held hands and kissed. I loved cuddling with them and missed her dearly when she couldn’t be there. (Something she adamantly said was unfair even though they saw each other almost daily.)

He hurt me like I needed to be hurt and, for a long time, was the perfect balance of sadistic and loving. He made me laugh and I felt so safe and comforted in his arms. The abuse was so subtlety injected into the relationship that I didn’t notice. Over time there were fewer compliments and more demands. the glow of my achievements were short-lived. Sometimes, I didn’t even get a “thank you”. Instead of realizing what they were doing to me, I asked myself “What more could I do, how can I fix myself to me better?” I drove myself to insanity at times trying to figure out how to be perfect for him...but it was never enough.

One night I fucked up...got drunk with a friend and former lover...after telling him the problems with Kat...he kissed me and I didn’t stop what was happening. Kat broke up with me, Ron didn’t. We broke up for maybe a couple days...he was angry that I didn’t fight harder for him to not break up with me...but I couldn’t. I was a cheating POS who didn’t deserve a second chance...but he gave it to me anyway...and used my guilt to his advantage. 

I couldn’t tell anyone he denied me safewords/signals though we never negotiated that. I couldn’t be anything but happy and perfect around “our” friends because Kat took the first chance she had and told everyone about my fuckup. I was undeniably in a spot where I could lose everything I worked for...that’s when the hangings, the threats to kick chairs out from under me with a noose around my neck came full swing...But he wasn’t in the wrong because I didn’t say “red”...funny thing is that you can’t talk when you can’t breathe. My safe signals were ignored, one such time was accompanied by threats...but every time he did that to me he would either say how disappointed he was, or that I was such a good piece of meat for him. By that time I needed his approval more than I needed food...I starved myself for him. He encouraged me to lose more and more weight...because being skinny so skinny was sexy. But he cuddled me, let me negotiate things (always to his advantage) and told me how I would make a fuckable corpse...so he couldn’t be abusing me.

Any time I started to talk about how the relationship was unfair he would reassure me that he loved me, needed me, that I filled a need no one else could.” ...and just being near him made me feel like everything was ok. I was safe, loved. Even when he was terrifying me by throwing a plastic bag over my head by surprise and leaving me mentally scarred...He was the Boss...he knew best, what I could take. Besides, I was barely human. Just a piece of meat for his amusement. I was expendable, disposable, worthless...

...But he treated me so well...we got concretes and told jokes. We held hands, went on dates, he satisfied me in bed...but also used that time to tell me all the things I wasn’t doing right and pulling promises from me with every orgasm. He let me bleed on his sheets after hacking or sawing into me and cuddled me on my period. He kissed me...He accepted even my darkest secrets...he helped me get sober.

There’s a  a Halsey song...

“Hold me down, hold me down Throw me in the deep end, watch me drown Knock me out, knock me out Saying that I want more, this is what I live for “

That last line I’ve heard from his lips in many variations...I asked for this, I could make it stop. My only reason for living is because he hasn’t killed me yet. He showed me many times that he’s capable of killing, brought me to the edge and back... He terrified me, hurt me in ways I didn’t consent to...but it was just a fetish. He just got too excited, caught up in it. Forgot to give me something to safesignal with when he’d start hanging or strangling me. He was a good man, he gave me aftercare and allowed me to sleep naked next to him...he told me he loved me and squeezed me tight. There’s no way any of that could have been abuse if he’s so sweet to me in those few moments. I could leave if he was abusing me...but he wasn’t. It was just my mind playing tricks on me and being crazy! (Sound familiar?)

During this I started on the career path I wanted...which was all well and good until I found a support network with members of my former Leather House. I wanted anther relationship to meet my needs that he couldn’t because he had a primary and I had no one but him. He began to withdraw attention more and tell me how I had even less time for him. The thing about abusers is that they don’t want you to have a support network, people who might see through the abuse. That was what ultimately lead to our breakup.

The truth about abuse is that it doesn’t start out violent or cruel, it slowly develops into that. You hear or they do something and you brush it off, you must’ve misinterpreted it. Their denial of affection? Must be having a rough day. You love and care for them so you want to give them the benefit of the doubt...it’s so subtle and slow that you don’t see it’s abuse even after its “suppose” to be glaringly obvious...because it’s not *always* bad. At a certain point you cling to the hope that it’s just a rough patch and you’ll get through it. For short instances, things are better, but they go right back to being bad again, much of the time it’s worse after the breaks. 

There’s the fear of being alone, being alienated by peers..the fear of failure...so you hope and lie to yourself subconsciously that it’s just another rough patch. That the stress of everyday life is to blame or that you yourself did something wrong.

Abuse is a cycle. 

People like me who have a skewed perception of love due to past abuse have an even harder time differentiating between the two. Due to a history of abuse and needing more extreme forms of BDSM play, I couldn’t see it...Also, I didn’t want to believe that someone who made me so happy and safe and loved could be capable of hurting me like that.

..but most all victims blame themselves for either not being “good enough” or not catching it early on, before suffering trauma that will remain with them for life...also, wondering what it makes them to have been able to love a monster so much.

Were he the Devil I would’ve surrendered my soul in an instant...sometimes I feel that I did..because he was *my* Devil, *my* Monster...in the end I still can’t help but love him.,,but that doesn’t mean I was not a victim of abuse,