#the clergy are suffering

[nulfaga]

ok. ahem. been scratching my head over how to post this one but we'll do it like this. full version's under the cut (it's not all that scandalous but. you know)

[blkkizzat]

'SINS OF THE FATHER'

PRIEST!NANAMI X READER

✟ the liturgy: (summary) Even the most pious of men succumb to temptation and Father Kento is no exception... especially when it comes to you. (Priest!Nanami POV) ✟ the confession: (tw) dark themes, sacrilege, adultery, blasphemy, jealously, exhibitionism, blackmail/manipulation, heavy biblical references, cunnalingus, fingering, riding dick, shoe fucking, blow jobs, panty sniffing, olfactophilia, dacryphilia, lightly suggested altarboy!yuji (aged-up) x reader, oil tycoon!gojo x reader, suggested mentions of reader x other jjk men, corruption, masturbation and angst as you are literally tormenting this poor priest (lol). ✟ the sins: (wc) 4.1k ✟ the opening rites:(a/n) i grew up catholic (got confirmed too) and went to catholic school but haven't stepped inside a church in literal years. i was honestly surprised how many bible references came so easily from pure memory while writing this.

Sanctified conviction radiates off Father Kento as he approaches the inordinately adorned wood carved pulpit with authority to address his congregation. 

Despite the uncomfortable Summer heat there is no lack of attendance, a sea of familiar faces packed into the small town chapel. The buzzing song of cicadas and soft oscillation of the large fan circulating humid air through the church are the only sounds heard as the masses eagerly await his homily.

You were among them of course. 

Sitting front and center– a small saccharine smile graced your lips while your doe-like eyes, captivated and attentive, were made even bigger as they raised to the podium to meet his own.

Bible open, Father Kento takes a full breath pause before he finally speaks, his gaze is benevolent yet his voice is firm as it projects over the congregation. 

“Dear Brothers and Sisters– Let us reflect on the gospel of First Corinthians Chapter 10 Verse 13…and The Lord says– ‘There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man—”

Oh but you– you were anything but common– and irregardless of any higher standing his status as a clergy member bestowed upon him he was still a man of flesh and blood.

No matter the effort exerted, Father Kento had been unable to keep his eyes from yours during the service. The magnetism of unknown and certainly unholy forces drew him to you time and again without fail.

No beauty in town rivaled yours, not with an angelic countenance that complemented your delicate features so gracefully in your every action. 

Yours was a form of divine femininity rivaling that of Venus herself. 

If that wasn’t beguiling enough, your honeyed voice and syrupy words had the ability to sway even the most feral of temperaments. Leaving those who heard it at your mercy like a gentle but deadly siren.

“—but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able—”

Is God faithful? 

Ironic how you had Father Kento questioning the very foundations of his own faith while simultaneously indoctrinating God’s dogma to his faithful parishioners.  

If you were a test he had failed. 

Many times.

Even the first man, Adam, had fallen to Eve’s allures and not even the warrior strength of Samson was able to overcome Delilah’s seductions. 

Who was he to prevail where the biblical idols had fallen?

What actual grace could God give man against the sensual temptation that he had carved from man’s own rib? 

Father Kento had felt forsaken of God’s grace ever since you had approached him after mass to quietly request the rites of confession. He should have refused when you kindly solicited him to perform them in the cooler confines of the secluded rectory over the oven-like heat of a chapel confessional box in summer. 

Led astray so effortlessly by your genial charms as you looked to him like a lamb lost and addressed him so meekly as “Father Kento”. He would have just as easily given you access to heaven then if it were in his power.

Yet it was you who had so graciously led him to the gates of Zion— which so conveniently happened to reside in the velvety depths between your thighs. 

Consequently, the only sins that were confessed in the rectory that day were the moist squelches of your peach-ripened pussy gushing around his cock and coalescing with the frenzied sounds of hot flesh slapping together in unison. 

A child of Lilth incarnate to be sure but you looked so pure and celestial, even in ecstasy.

Hair matted to the sides of your face drenched in sweat while your nimble hands clutched onto his clerical collar. Your eyes filled with such loving devotion and you rode him earnestly as if it was your life’s penance. 

Father Kento in turn gives you his absolution by taking you from behind. The swell of your plump rear rippling against his hips and shared fluids splashing onto his hard abdomen feverishly drive him closer to God than he’d ever been.

Yes, he is weak. 

But Father Kento held the conviction that not even The Vicar of Christ, the Pope himself would be able to resist the vice grip of your silken cunt as if its true purpose was never to bear life but to wring out the very essence of the soul of man. 

He’d fallen prey to a day-walking succubus on hallowed holy grounds. 

No– Father Kento was certain if this church had ever truly been blessed as a house of God you would have caught aflame the moment you graced its threshold. 

“—but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye are able to bear it’.”

Father Kento concluded the passage. Nonetheless, neither it nor any other doctrine had provided him the solace of escape and nor biblical strength did he receive to endure against his temptations.

There was no resisting you. 

There was no escaping you. 

For anyone you cast your sights on.

This is exemplified by the obvious effect you have on the young alter boy Yuji. 

Barely old enough to be called a man, the youth's entire body flinches whenever you spare a sweet glance in his direction. 

Has Yuji’s innocence already been stolen? 

Father Kento must quell the inkling of jealousy at the thought lest he stumble over his words and shame himself further.

He was a man in every sense of the word and a man of the cloth, he would not compete for your adulterous affections with his own altar boy.

Even so, Father Kento’s lip does curl in disapproval at the deep flush of guilt on Yuji’s cheeks. Yuji clumsily trips over his own feet, nearly permitting the blessed vessels for the rites of eucharist to fall to the ground.

Harlot! Have you really allowed someone other than himself to bathe in the sins of Jezebel?

Maintaining composure through his sermon, Father Kento reminds himself that an inexperienced youth is no threat. 

However it is more than likely Yuji– who normally is so oblivious in nature– had likewise become aware of the wicked exhibition of sacrilege occurring beneath the prayer cloth in your lap at the very hands of your own husband– Satoru Gojo.

“So you may ask where does that leave us as followers of Christ? Temptations lure us into doing, saying or thinking something that does not reflect who we really are as sons and daughters of God.”

Neither you nor your husband were Christ’s children so none of these ideologies applied to either of you.

Nefarious philistines the both of you– godless and immoral.

Although Father Kento was for certain your husband, Oil Tycoon, Satoru Gojo– was the only one whose deeds could put yours to shame. 

The white haired devil had descended upon the quiet small town like a thief in the night to greedily capture the first few drops of black gold that surged from the earth before it could even fall to the ground. Quickly buying up land and resources, in less than a fortnight Gojo essentially had control over the entire town– its priest included.

But as he became more wealthy, so did the town and its people. Satoru Gojo built up the town around him to match his own gluttony for opulence, taking the town and its people away from simple old time comforts and into the more complex modern age. 

Therefore the man was seen as a saintly savior, rather than the lecherous leech he truly was.

To Father Kento’s credit, if he deserved any at all– he had initially held strong in his faith. 

He was not a man tempted by the power that would come from a promotion to bishop if a larger church was built. Nor was he tempted by monetary gain. The treasures he had always held most valuable were only those to be found in God’s kingdom.

Familiar with the tricks masked by flamboyant arrays of grandior, Father Kento’s folly had been his own headstrong vainglory in being a man above the lures of temptation. Thus he failed in recognizing you as the seductive snake in sheep's clothing the cunning tycoon Gojo had sent to be his undoing.

And you had never once failed to unravel him.

Even now Father Kento struggles to keep himself together as you inconspicuously lean against your husband, your head resting gently on his shoulder while the dainty fan you are holding obscures the lower half of your face. 

What appears as an innocuous attempt to halt the perspiration rolling from your nape into your heaving bosom is merely a front to hide the sinful ‘o’ your cherry lips form.

Your chest softly heaves although your labored breaths aren’t from the humid heat shrouding the church– but the increasing warmth dampening in your loins. All which had been provoked by your husband slipping two fingers through the buttons of your thin sundress and into your pussy, lightly teasing its gooey folds. Gojo’s movements are mostly concealed by the cloth but Father Kento can make out the skillful circular motions stroking your spongy bud and causing the sporadic twitch in your knees. 

You had writhed similarly under him. You were always far too sensitive.

Fat tears would never fail to pour from your bright eyes when he would latch his mouth onto your sex. You would be his last supper if ever given the choice. If heaven had a flavor it would surely be akin to the taste of your pink candied cunt and he knew of no sweeter treat on earth.

Twas no wonder then how Father Kento easily loses all sense of self when flicking his tongue into your gaping slit. Swirling the appendage within your gummy walls he gluttonously slurps down the steady stream of your flowing nectar. 

Your mewls and cries for him are far lovelier than even the song of cherubim. Father Kento has committed them to memory and as such he knows when they reach a certain octave��� your pitch so high it's practically soundless– you're nearing your nirvana.

Arriving at your peak you would thread your hands through his blonde locks and thrust your hips forward as if his mouth were salvation itself. Your manicured nails would dig into his scalp to rock his head deeper into your plump pussy. The actions would beckon his tongue to finally give you its mercy by dragging it flat up your folds to suckle and nip at your swollen clit.

You never called on God then. 

Nor your husband. 

Only Father Kento.

Coincidentally, Father Kento’s gaze locks with Gojo’s for a brief moment and Gojo’s pale lips curl into smirk. 

A fleeting look is shared before contact is broke but the message is clear: 

Satoru Gojo own’s everything in this town. 

Gojo owns your cunt. 

Your cunt owns Father Kento.

Therefore by proxy Gojo owns him.

The revelation has Father Kento showing the white of his knuckles from the intensity of his grip on the pulpit podium as you simultaneously release a silent scream brazenly cumming on your husband’s dexterous fingers in the middle of mass. 

“The time now is propitious for us all to make a journey of conversion, led by sincere faith to allow ourselves to be confronted with the Gospel. Let us confirm this commitment by sharing in The Body and The Blood of Christ.”

Proceeding with communion the altar boy Yuji stands next to Father Kento holding the tray where the blessed chalice of wine and platter of thin wafers reside as the congregation dutifully exits their rows to receive the eucharist. 

As it is the more modern way to receive communion the majority of the congregation choses to place their non-dominant palm up over the other to respectfully receive the host. Yet traditionally, the priest placed the blessed wafer directly on the tongue of the one receiving. This practice was typically only seen by the elderly, the most exceedingly pious and of course— you.

When it is your turn to approach you beam brightly as you and all your beauty seem to float before him.

“The Body of Christ.”

Father Kento raises the host before you.

“Amen.” 

You obediently replied. 

Like expected your eyes fluttered to close as your pillowy lips parted in order to accept the host directly in your mouth. 

God help him, this was the most sacred part of mass but the way your deviant tongue lulls out hot and thick with your saliva pooled on the edge and threatening to spill onto your lips has Father Kento shifting at his post.

You look just as compliant and yearning to receive as when you had been on your knees before him taking his cock in your mouth whole.

Father Kento delicately placed the host in your mouth in a similar fashion as to when he would tap the tip of his bulbous leaking cockhead onto your tongue. 

So willing to please you kiss his angry red mushroom tip to appease his cock, swirling your tongue over the tiny hole before puckering it between your lips to greedily suck any drops of pre that dribbled forth as you pumped his base.

You were a tease. 

That much was evident both then and now as you extended the tip of your tongue to caress the tip of his finger. A tiny kitten lick, but nevertheless a tingle ran through his cock in remembrance.  

“The Blood of Christ.”

Father Kento presents the wine symbolizing the blood before you. 

“Amen.”

Again you closed your eyes and allowed Father Kento to press the chalice against your parted lips. 

The very picture of amenability, you actually enjoyed when he went rougher on you as a result of your teasing. Father Kento would gather your hair into a tight grip as he not-so-gently rammed his cock past your tonsils and down your throat. 

It was unnatural and ungodly for a person to lack any semblance of a gag reflex such as you. 

In response you pressed your fingers into his thighs– not as a means of resistance, but to control your own lust as you began shamelessly humping your mound against his leg. You were always desperate to feel any small sensation against your cunt while he ravaged your mouth.

Of course, Father Kento would oblige you and in turn he is rewarded with the heavy moans that would vibrate around his cock as his oxford loafer pushed up into your soaked core. Your white lace lingerie did little to contain your juices and as such Father Kento made use of the fluids leaking from your pussy as polish to shine his shoe.

Having sipped the wine from the chalice you peer up at Father Kento as if seeking his approval. 

He gives you a small nod. 

Similar to the one he bestows upon you after his seed has filled your stomach and you lick your lips as if it was his essence and not The Blood of Christ that lingered on them.

In the beginning, he had prayed long and hard to forget those sinful images of you that would intrude unwelcomed into his mind. 

Yet you always had ways of sucking him back in. 

Such as leaving your soiled panties stuffed between his headboard. Father Kento thought he was going mad when even after changing the sheets thrice was he still plagued with your smell.

He should have burned the offensive garment as soon as it was discovered and yet he treated it with reverence as if it were a holy object of salvation. Truly an euphoric experience, on days he couldn’t have you he’d bury his nose into the fabric murmuring blasphemy as he worshiped the very scent of you while jerking his cock.

When Father Kento finally ceased trying to resist you he then had the fleeting thought he could save you. Bring you to God and away from your villainous husband. 

But you were no Mary Magdalene, there was no returning you to the flock.

You will not leave your husband who provides you wealth and security. Father Kento is not so enamored he holds illusions that extend beyond his reality. There is nothing Father Kento owns and nothing he can offer you but himself. 

The singular consolation of the tragic circumstances is that Father Kento is sure you prefer his touch. The touch of a seemingly pious man who only has desires for you.

Unlike your scoundrel of a husband who Father Kento was sure had not remained faithful to your marriage bed. Not the way most of the female townsfolk threw themselves at Satoru Gojo. If he had no qualms using you to achieve his means he certainly had none for himself. 

You were simply a pawn to be played, as was Father Kento.

“Before we depart I leave you with these words: Let every day be a new day to renew the promises of our Baptism: We renounce Satan and all his works and seductions — for sh– *ahem* HE – is the seducer. Now go forth, Brothers and Sisters and remain true in the light of God.”

The closing rites over, Father Kento has never been more relieved nor eager for the conclusion of a mass. Watching the congregation mingle in the entrance, he gives his farewell blessings to the parishioners.

A few still remained however you were nowhere to be seen. 

This was not odd, the Gojos were a busy couple, likely excusing themselves immediately to attend to more important affairs.

Or so he hoped.

“There you are, Father! Riveting service, as always.”

With a devious grin and a firm drawn-out handshake Gojo greets Father Kento. Turning to face the devil himself, Father Kento greets Satoru in turn with a strained smile and an even firmer grip. 

Yet still he is unable to show you any of the wrath you justly deserve and Father Kento’s smile is more genuine when he faces you.  

You regard Father Kento coyly as your husband’s arm tightens around your waist. Your face is flushed and it’s evident you are still weakened from the orgasm your husband gave you earlier in front of the entire congregation. 

That knowledge though is only held by the three of you, God and perhaps the altar boy Yuji.

Father Kento had never known you to be silent when cumming so the exertion of the effort you expended likely weighed heavy on you as displayed by how you are clinging to Gojo to keep from swaying on your feet. 

“Thank you. I am but a humble messenger of The Lord’s wor–.”

“– Wait. Hold that thought!”

Father Kento’s eyebrow twitches as Gojo's attention is momentarily called elsewhere. 

Every Sunday, a growing number of parishioners would seek Satoru Gojo’s greeting and recognition after service over that of their priest Father Kento. 

True to character Gojo makes an obnoxious show of charisma which leaves the last group of parishioners fawning and singing his praises as they exit.

“Forgive me, Father. Where were we? Ah– Of course! Yes, you are quite excellent in your delivery of God’s word, a true testament to your faith!”

His flattery is so obviously false in its sincerity that Father Kento is not surprised when Gojo’s sordid smirk returns. 

“But you are not only a messenger for The Lord… isn’t that right, Father Kento?” 

Father Kento warily clutches onto the large cross dangling from the rosary around his neck as Gojo continues.

“I’ll need you to spread mine as well. Haven’t you heard? I have plans to run for Mayor.”

Mayor.

The diabolical fiend truly knew no limits in his quest for control over the town. 

“I’ll need you to come over to dinner tonight to consult with the rest of my top supporters.”

Father Kento steeled himself.. 

There was nothing he could do to stop Satoru Gojo from being mayor but his infatuation with you aside, he could not walk straight into the lion's den to collude with heathens. 

It would be the final nail in his coffin, Gojo would indeed own his soul.

“Oh! Y/N is prepping a feast too… aren’t you, angel?” 

Gojo’s grip on your waist trails lower to palm the fat of your ass and you clutch on to him tighter as you nod eagerly in agreement, biting your lip as his large hands knead into your cheeks through your wispy dress. 

Your body is ever responsive to Gojo’s touch just like he trained you to be.

“I must refuse. I have duties here to attend, I couldn’t poss–”

“P-Please F-Father…”

And just like that your delicate voice cuts through his iron defenses like it were warm butter.

“…K-Kento, p-please come!”

Your request fumbles out of your lips as a cry as Gojo’s devilish fingers dip past your ass to prod at your cunt.

“You heard her Father. She wants you to come. Break bread with us, you will be among friends. Friends who know how to share, yeah? I’ll even share a piece of her cream pie for dessert.” 

That had been the final straw. Gojo had gone too far this time.

You seeking him out was one matter but he would not allow Satoru Gojo of all people to dangle you in front of him like a master would dangle a treat to a dog.

“Begone, you foul heretic. I will not tolerate your mockery of me, this church nor God any longer.”

Commanding in his tone, Father Kento extends the cross of the rosary forward to Gojo as if he were casting a malevolent curse back down to hell. 

Father Kento doesn’t have the courage to look at you though, he can’t. Not if he wants to take a triumphant stand against Satoru Gojo.

And so Father Kento closes his eyes and silently prays. 

Immediately bored at such a devout display, Gojo sighs rolling his eyes.

“Alright, alright, Father. I get it. Whatever you say, jeez. It’s not like I need your support to become mayor– just thought it would be nice is all. ”

Father Kento remains silent as he listens to both of your footsteps exit the church but not before Gojo stops at the doors, his cheerful voice taking on a dangerous edge.

“Heh, you know, not everyone in this town is as pious as you Father. Sheriff Fushiguro has never been one to turn down a stack of bills but I’m sure tonight he would enjoy sharing in Y/N’s creampie if you don’t.”

Father Kento’s eyes open to flash red with fury.

Having received a satisfactory enough reaction from the priest, Gojo grins wildly as your own eyes widen in shock at your husband’s words. 

Has Gojo only ever used you to manipulate him alone? 

The thought remains as Father Kento doesn’t miss the pleading gaze directed at him from over your shoulder as you are led out of the church.

Goddammit– He couldn’t let you fall into the brutish clutches of Toji Fushiguro. 

Toji may have been the sheriff but he was well-known for his oafish demeanor and greasy womanizing ways. 

NO! He mustn’t think of you any longer. 

Father Kento needs to clear his mind of you for good with prayer.

Prayer and solitude.

Deep prayer and extensive solitude was what he needed if he ever hoped to rise again to gain God’s favor. He needed to call upon The Lord’s strength one last time to remain at the parish tonight and defy Gojo’s will.

Father Kento couldn’t let the pleasures of flesh continue to manipulate the very fibers of his being in such a way. 

The rosary still in his grasp Father Kento raises his hands close in prayer as a final call for God’s mercy… and then it hits him– wafting off his fingers, overwhelming his senses and igniting every nerve in his being. 

The scent of your cunt. 

The lingering perfume of your sinful drippings spilled on your husband’s hand during mass had been transferred to his own when Gojo shook his hand and held it so firmly.

The bastard. 

The rush hits him hard and he feels dizzy as his ears begin to ring. Vertigo overtakes Father Kento as he holds the offending hand out as if he had been poisoned. 

Leaning back against a wall to gather himself, Father Kento realizes once the manic pounding coursing through his veins begins throbbing in his loins that he’s fated for damnation.

This is the moment he’d always dreaded although ironic with the simple acceptance of it he feels no despair. 

Father Kento’s conviction is finally clear as he is left with a singular truth that rang through his entire soul:

Whatever solace he would know, whatever peace he would have in this life, he would only find with his cock buried in the sweet embrace of your cunt. 

✟

©blkkizzat 2024. do not steal works or gfx, do not translate.

✟ the closing rites: (a/n) hell is hot and it's surely my destination after writing this. i tried to leave it a little ambiguous to whether y/n is actually in-love with nanami or just a sex-crazed slut eager to use him at the request of her husband. i don't have a pt.2 planned just fyi as this is meant to be a oneshot. although i do need to write more nanami so i will take requests for him! but fair warning i am very slow i apologize.

also shout out to the amazing art i used for the gfx ✟ art by mishwell

✟ REBLOG to be unburdened of your sins by Father Nanami but likes and comments are also appreciated!

upcoming: the nursery (yakuza!toji), please teach me! (ceo!gojo), request: teasing choso (college au), request: sukuna x blkreader, [none in any order as im at the mercy of my adhd lol]

[7inchsatanicpanic]

Im 👌 this close to finishing papa’s jacket

[plutoswritingplanet]

Mortal Kombat 1 Intro Dialogues

a/n: some slightly flirty dialogues for suggested characters from Mortal Kombat 1 (and 11), reader is a blood mage, adjacent to "Unpunishable"

Warnings: Suggestive Language, Obscure References, Poor Attempts at Comedy

Shang Tsung

Shang Tsung: Liu Kang is squandering your potential.

Reader: I trust his judgement completely.

Shang Tsung: You were made for so much more.

...

Reader: You want me to make a deal with the Devil.

Shang Tsung: All I ask in return, is your soul.

Reader: It's too high a price!

...

Shang Tsung: I lay before you my eternal heart...

Reader: There is no love with you, only ownership.

Shang Tsung: I dearly love all of my possessions.

...

Reader: I must believe there's good even in the darkest corners of the world

Shang Tsung: Finding it in me might turn out to be a futile fight

Reader: I don't give up easily, Shang Tsung

...

Shang Tsung: Have you ever thought to say "stop"? "If you love me, you would stop?"

Reader: Not in a thousand years.

Shang Tsung: I see now, why we're destined for each other

...

Reader: The things you've been doing in your laboratories are vile

Shang Tsung: I've used the same magic, as the one coursing through your veins

Reader: Liar!

Liu Kang

Liu Kang: Empress Sindel has approved your application to study Outworld's medicine.

Reader: I'm honored by her trust.

Liu Kang: You'll do a splendid job as Earthrealm's ambassador.

...

Reader: I fear the pull of darkness overpowering me.

Liu Kang: I will guide you, until your mind is at peace.

Reader: What if it never ends?

...

Liu Kang: In the previous timeline, you were my close friend and adversary.

Reader: And in this timeline?

Liu Kang: I'm inclined to say the same.

...

Reader: Doesn't it get lonely, being a God?

Liu Kang: I'm devoted to protecting Earthrealm and its people.

Reader: You didn't answer my question.

...

Liu Kang: Beware Shang Tsung's honeyed words.

Reader: You've said we were destined for each other in all timelines.

Liu Kang: And your union always leads to your suffering.

...

Reader: You knew I'd reject Shang Tsung's offer? Fight him every step of the way?

Liu Kang: I had faith, you would make the right choice

Reader: Honestly, do you have music playing in your head when you say garbage like that

Johnny Cage

Johnny: Let me just say, there's no other place I would rather be, than right here with you right now.

Reader: I can change that very easily.

Johnny: Why so serious, sweet cheeks?

...

Reader: No, Johnny, I won't be playing in any of your movies, ever.

Johnny: Can I ask why?

Reader: Why I don't want the job that makes your brain explode?

...

Johnny: You might wanna reconsider your rendezvous with the Sorcerer.

Reader: Which one?

Johnny: Oh, you are a bad woman.

...

Reader: Don't be such a baby, it's just a scrap.

Johnny: And I need a hot nurse to patch it up.

Reader: Why do I even… You're impossible.

...

Johnny: You have experience with emotionally fragile men, right?

Reader: You're self-aware today.

Johnny: I was talking about Kung Lao...

...

Reader: Okay, Ninja Priest was actually kinda good.

Johnny: YES! I knew you had a thing for the clergy.

Reader: That's not what I... You're such an ass!

Kung Lao

Reader: Do you think Liu Kang has destined us to become friends?

Kung Lao: Obviously, I'd never choose this for myself.

Reader: He could've made you less of twat...

...

Kung Lao: It's way too dangerous for you to travel Outworld alone.

Reader: I don't need a babysitter, Kung Lao.

Kung Lao: Prove it, then.

...

Reader: If you buy me dinner at Madame Bo's, I'll heal your arm.

Kung Lao: I see your time with Shang Tsung is rubbing off on you.

Reader: See, now I gotta hurt ya.

...

Kung Lao: How does it feel, being in the center of the Snake's attention.

Reader: Fuck you man, I didn't ask for this.

Kung Lao: Not good then.

...

Reader: Come on, I paid for dinner last time.

Kung Lao: I'll be happy to pay... Once you beat me.

Reader: You can be an ass sometimes, you know that?

...

Kung Lao: You know I only meant it as a joke, right?

Reader: Let me show you just how funny I think you are

Kung Lao: Bring it on, Nurse.

Bi-Han

Reader: You betrayed everything your clan stood for.

Bi-Han: You have no moral high-ground here, Healer.

Reader: I don't need it.

...

Bi-Han: Join the Lin Kuei, and unleash your true power.

Reader: Not while they're under your command, traitor.

Bi-Han: Your pride will be your downfall.

...

Reader: I can feel your blood run cold through your body...

Bi-Han: It will boil while I destroy you.

Reader: You'll freeze to death, then.

...

Bi-Han: Your aversion to power is your greatest flaw.

Reader: Should I follow your lead, then, and betray all I love for a promise of greatness?

Bi-Han: Is it wrong to want more?

...

Reader: Maybe I can beat some sense into you…

Bi-Han: I will crush you, little girl.

Reader: Great, a quip about my height, so original.

...

Bi-Han: We meet again, Blood Mage.

Reader: I knew you couldn't stay away, Bi-Han.

Bi-Han: Let's see if your training has progressed.

Erron Black

(am i the only one devastated he wasn't included in mk1?)

Erron: What's a pretty lookin' thing like you doin' in a place like this?

Reader: Holy shit, you even talk like a cowboy!

Erron: …Nevermind.

...

Reader: If I win, I get to wear the hat.

Erron: You'd look mighty fine in it, I'd wager.

Reader: Don't you pull your punches on me now, Black.

...

Erron: There's quite the price on your head, sweetheart.

Reader: And you'll do everything to collect it, right?

Erron: I could be persuaded against it, with the right motivation...

...

Reader: Do you flirt with all your targets?

Erron: Only pretty little ones, like you, girlie.

Reader: Well then, let's dance, Cowboy.

...

Erron: I wouldn't mind giving you a ride around town, little lady.

Reader: I'd rather beat you where you stand.

Erron: Be still, my beating heart.

...

Reader: I know who sent you.

Erron: Someone who's eager to get their hands back on you.

Reader: You can both keep them to yourself.

[eldritch-spouse]

Sometimes greedy gambits do work out.

Your typical greedy fiend may wax about their insatiable desire for the material, how satisfaction is the death of their nature and never shall they cease stretching their fingers towards the next shining trophy-

But they know limits.

They have that little bit of normalcy that tells them when it's time to drop something, even if it leaves a taste like curdled milk in their mouths.

Not Xiko.

Xiko grabbed onto something and he did not let go.

Not even when death came knocking at his door.

This celebrity of the Greed Ring was known for being the biggest, most successful human/monster trafficker of Hell itself. Xiko, a mere mid-ranker, yet clever and crafty enough to dethrone nearly everyone in his field of vile work.

Wanted humans and monsters worth owning? In mint condition? With some really rare traits? Leave it to him and his boys, you won't be disappointed.

With great skill and talent comes great danger, but Xiko didn't cower when he started to gain many an enemy, when he could no longer count them, when he spent most of his time hunting them down rather than hunting the poor souls he's supposed to sell. With each visit, he'd return home with a few trophies to remember his victory.

Things were going well.

His empire of fifth kept growing, enough so that it garnered the attention of the very Lord Rinx, a client Xiko both reveres and dreads, due to his extravagant tastes. Why, he ever earned himself a juicy deal with this strange, extremely popular establishment on the surface that constantly bulk-orders humans. The Clergy's Eye or something of the sort, he knows the Icons had been there before.

How impressive is that? Enough for prideful folk to eye him wantonly.

Xiko had the opportunity to grow in rank, to sit at Rinx's table and negotiate starting a little jewelry store in the heart of Greed to keep up appearances and branch out. What luxuries.

Unfortunately, all highs lead to lows.

His health starts deteriorating inexplicably. Xiko begins being unable to move properly without chronic bursts of pain debilitating him from doing much of anything other than lie and wait for the wave of torment to pass. He has no idea where it's coming from. The pain is so great he gets blinded and passes out in some episodes.

The best doctors he can find tell Xiko he developed something terminal. Not quite a cancer, similar, something only demonoids can exhibit.

But what did the name of it matter? His own monumental riches wouldn't save him from certain doom.

One might think Xiko would do some soul searching with the time he had left, as laughable as that sounds for a being as rotten as him.

Not even close.

You don't get this far without being stubborn.

Things can't end as they are. Xiko can't die, he has so much to do and so much to oversee, it's simply not an option. He can't.

In the midst of despair and hopeless solution-seeking, Xiko finds a possible answer to his impossible conundrum inscripted in his most favored trophy, a timeless chalice.

Between its jewels and lovely finishes, the instructions for a ritual sat written in one of the oldest tongues in Hell. Having a historian for a friend sure comes in handy, doesn't it?

Said acquaintance is there to witness it when Xiko grows mad enough to try it, at the hands of demons who perpetuate these ancient practices.

A mummification-like ritual.

Except, to avoid death, Xiko must remove the two organs which the soul is most connected to, the brain and heart.

He knew what he was getting into when he laid on that altar.

He knew that he would suffer physical trauma beyond anything he could ever have experienced in life. He knew he would come out of it looking like a completely different being. That he would no longer be a demon.

And he was ready.

He was ready when they started chanting.

He was ready when his jaw was stretched to absurd proportions.

He was ready when his chest was torn open.

When he danced in that barrier between life and death, looking down at himself while his figure withered and contorted.

Those memories are... Scratchy, to say the least.

Xiko recalls screaming at the top of his exposed lungs and feeling his skin rip from several sides all at once, as if rejecting him. He remembers when his skull was crushed and how he could hear it for a moment. He knows he twisted and shriveled like a bug on that marble.

And that he woke up.

Wrapped like a present.

Dead yet amongst the living.

To continue his work. To remain forever at the top.

So what if he was emaciated now? If he'd never get rid of the massive scar where his figure was torn open, if his eyes now reside inside his bizarre gaping maw and his arms are elongated? Xiko had made it.

And while death was unavoidable, it was not the end.

In fact, it was the beginning of something a lot more amusing for Xiko.

He found his new appearance frightened his competition. Rumors of him being an undead diety spread. No longer featuring a core name or even something as simple as a sigil, Xiko was freed of even more weaknesses.

He made no effort to hide what he had become the next time he was present at Greed's Conqueror's Spoils festival. His mangled, infernal undead form on the spotlight.

Some of them were smart enough to understand what he had turned into, knew to stop pursuing him. For when you take something from a mummy, it cannot rest until it retrieves its possession.

Others came to find that out eventually.

Perhaps the person Xiko feels most sorry for is, not one of his enemies, but you.

You poor thing, still trying to escape him, still trying to lockpick your cages and manipulate his men, trying to make it out at all costs.

You never think twice when you set foot outside his territory.

Unaware that he'll always instinctively know where to find his "stolen" possession.

[writingjourney]

don't ask me about secondo ever or you will hear me rambling out a whole character analysis for two hours because I am DEDICATED to this man, he is my wife.

EDIT – Okay you did it.

Some SFW Secondo HCs:

had to deal with the highest expectations out of the brothers, being older than Terzo and a lot younger than Primo it was clear that his Papacy would be of importance and Nihil expected him to excel while not necessarily providing the necessary guidance (especially when Terzo turned out to be more rebellious in nature)

being Nihil’s “favorite” did not come with all the benefits one might suspect, no more attention, no more love or care, only more work and pressure within the clergy

outside of the family many people never realised how he suffered from this neglect and exploitation and therefore do not perceive his trauma as that, often mistake his character for being cold/aloof when really he is just masking extremely hard and trying to appear unaffected and professional

while he was prepared for his future role, he quickly realised that his needs weren’t of importance, only his work and his rise within the clergy and so he learned that it is better not to ask and appear weak (so they don’t consider him unfitting)

while Primo did the best he could to replace their absent father, the clergy’s demands on the future Papa never allowed him to be quite the father figure that he wished he could be for his younger brothers – Secondo had to learn fast how to take care of himself and how to protect his younger brother from the clergy’s influences

despite detesting the clergy’s inner mechanisms, Secondo is a man of duty and has accepted that he was put on this path in Lucifer’s name

just before and after becoming Papa he quickly learned that bringing in own ideas just leads to dismissal and that being Papa made him a vessel for the ideals of the clergy which he grew to detest (“I’m a marionette”), also quickly learned that it is wiser not to rebel against them

this made him worried for Terzo who already had a lot of plans for his own Papacy that weren’t in line with the clergy’s agenda

through it all he found a lot of solace in his faith, is the most spiritual out of all the Papas with a special fondness for the modern symbolism of Baphomet that represents balance and wholeness (“And he's as macho as he is connected to the softer, more feminine part of himself” X), something that means a lot to him who is caught in a lot of turbulent emotions, this spirituality and also his high level of literacy is pretty evident in his music

therefore: best spiritual guide/advisor out of all the Papas, knows the right quotes and the right words to provide comfort and reassurance to bring you back on your path, way more empathetic than people give him credit for based on his cool demeanour, even though he is someone who quietly reassures you and uses a more reason based approach

because of all of this he has grown to be a very measured man who will always weigh reason and emotions against each other, rarely will you see him lose his temper on the outside, being in control of his emotions is important to him because that way he can have a sense of power he lacked when he was younger (also means he cannot let loose and relax easily, this man is TENSE and his shoulders hate him for it)

if someone wrongs him that person will get the cold shoulder and honestly, being the object of his scorn is worse, disappointing him is worse than his anger and he never forgets anything, this man has a whole drawer of receipts

doesn’t hate anyone as much as himself, the top spot is however taken by his neglectful, uncaring father who never knew how to act like a parent

if he does lose his temper it will usually not be on behalf of himself but someone else he truly cares about (his brothers, his lover, his protégés etc) and even so his anger is not the loud, yelling or violent kind but the kind that sends chills down your spine (his looks alone can kill and he finds the perfect sharp words to hurt you)

soft-spoken (not quite as much as Primo though), very calculated and minimalist in what he shows on the outside but his words usually hit where and how they’re supposed to (just listen to his voice on Infest and some of his speeches on stage, it’s quiet and haunting)

very much a quality over quantity sort of person – good food, good drinks, nice clothes he can wear for a long time, simple luxuries that go a long way and add to his comfort

big earth sign energy when it comes to his habits, works hard, has high expectations, good with money, particular about how he does things but generous with those he loves

good luck trying to get this man to open to up to you, he will not overshare and you have to pry every bit of more intimate personal information out of him, especially about his childhood

however, he is a very willing and patient teacher if you want to learn about his special interests or happen to sit in one of his classes, especially if you show potential and interest

self-sabotages a lot, especially when it comes to romantic relationships, for flings he avoids anything too intimate which extends to his preferred sex positions as well as kissing, when he notices he could really like someone he will find reasons why it doesn’t work (commitment issues), scared to be hurt and also scared to inflict pain and false hopes on someone else

when he does fall for someone and overcomes his fears he is the most loyal and supportive partner, you will be surprised by how loving and gentle he is with you, by how romantic he is (not in the cheesy way but in that soft, caring way who wants to love forever), pays close attention to your needs and preferences and never forgets anything

love languages: shows love with acts of service, gift giving and also quality time, likes to receive physical touch (loves to cuddle but is hesitant to initiate, would never admit how much he loves kisses to his face and hand holding but you can tell after some time), quality time and words of affirmation (so many times until he finally believes them)

[sugoi-writes]

Nun!Alastor x Reader - The Confessional - Part 1

It's 1 AM, and @st-alastors-confessional has me foaming at the mouth. I wrote this far-too-long drabble based off of the MOD's Nun Alastor. Please please enjoy!

Warning: Not proofread in the slightest, with implications of sacrilege and sinning behavior. You've been warned! I might do another part with more debauchery down the road hehe

The sermon was going swimmingly, all things considered. The Pastor and Priest, St. Vox, lead with a soulful, boisterous tone. Albeit, he had always led his sermons with a strong, charismatic energy. He left the congregation absolutely enraptured, waiting on hand and foot for him to speak again.... You, another sinner among the crowd, tried to absorb what you could from his ravings and ramblings.

Clearly, when you wound up in Hell... you found out the hard way that God was, indeed, real. You had long been a on-Christian, and even if you still weren't... you couldn't look the facts in the face and say they weren't true. It was a simple notion:

God was real. You were not a loyal believer. You did a bad thing or two, and now you're in a church in the heart of the Pentagram, seeking answers.

You were hoping to find a way to get into Heaven... St. Vox's approach was very traditional, almost 'Dark Ages' approach. A phrase you heard once or twice rung through your mind, clear as the morning church bells:

" When a coin in the coffer rings, a soul in purgatory springs..."... no, was it sings??? That, you werent sure... either way--

Many wealthier, gullible sinners would shove money towards the Church, desperate to buy their way out of Hell. The more meek, kind hearted sinners would often throw money to the offering plates to prevent their love ones from suffering the same fate... Whether their monetary sacrifices were successful or not... well, that's yet to be seen. And no one truly know where that money goes...

And so you searched and listened in the pews patiently, hoping that something would reveal itself to you... Would living justly get you out of here? Would denouncing sin in its entirety get you the ticket out of this hellhole? Hell, did you need to declare yourself celibate? You certainly wouldn't be opposed, after some of the shit you saw on Day One...

In all honestly, you'd be willing to throw a few dollars in the pot on the off chance your gut was wrong about St. Vox's approach. As you know, your intuition had led you astray before...

You were five Sundays deep in this contrived drivel, and yet, you still had questions... The questions that plagued your mind could only be answered by the Priest, ideally during Confessional tonight... But, as you tried your best to stay awake through another biblical tangent, you were startled by a choral uproar. The choir, made entirely of clergy, was the closest thing to Heavenly that they, or any sinner, could hear in Hell.

Honest efforts were being made to sing the hymns and profess the Gospel accurately. The pitches and incantations were perfectly admirable, even enjoyable... and surprisingly, all of this was all done in Latin. It was nearly enough to raise goosebumps across your flesh, your senses pleased by the perfect, harmonious progressions.

One among the nuns who sung, with strong, crimson features, met your gaze in the middle of the refrain. You felt the gaze burrowing into you deeper, trembling subconscious as the song made you sway along.

A pointed, yellowed smile graced your eyes as the deer demon sang along. The overall tone of the higher melodic line had felt like cashmere; it was refined and soft due to their(?) unique voice texture. It was a tone that you felt was familiar... a comforting one. You couldnt put your tongue on it, squinting slightly at the demure nun. They(?) seemed to notice your infatuation, their hands folding neatly together and clasping a fine, ornate rosary. Their hands were elegant, long and thin, reminding you of a Royal... surely, those hands were used for more than empty prayer?

You felt your mind run to impurities and sin almost instantly, panicking as you tore your sight away from the Nun. You felt your throat running dry as you shook your head in shock. You couldn't be thinking this way about a nun-- a NUN? Quite literally, a celibate being, devoted to God and His work. This felt... wrong. So wrong, even for a sinner like you.

Your legs brushed tightly against one another, hoping to stiffle the feeling that pooled in your core. You watched the way that the Nun's chest rose and fell, how the angular jaw was complimented by the small, bobbed tufts that framed it. Your eyes became lost in the visual stimuli as you pondered just how demure and sweet this Nun must have looked under the habit...

You bite the inside of your cheek as you felt the Nun's eyes still looking to you, as if they KNEW exactly what you were thinking. 'If you keep undressing me with your eyes, I might catch a cold,' your mind mimicked in their voice.

You felt indecent, completely exposed to someone who you should be regarding as an example of purity and devotion...

As the hymn finally concluded, the Priest dismissed the clergy. He was swiftly wrapping things up as the coffers and offering plates made their rounds around the room. The nuns assisted, coming row by row to collect generous donations and desperate offerings. You felt yourself stiffen as you noticed the red and black demon making their way closer to you, voice teeming with a startling sweetness.

"Blessings unto you, dear Sinner. Many thanks. ...Blessings unto you, dear. How has your mother been fairing--?"

As the velvety voice grew closer to you, you felt yourself unable to move, paralyzed with fear. What if they knew you were lusting over them so superficially? Would they be able to tell?

You nearly fell into the aisle as a sinner slammed into you from behind, thrusting money towards the chaste nun," Pl-Please!!!! Please, this is all that I have!!! Sister Alastor, Sister Alastor!!! Bless me!!! Bless me, Sister!!!"

The Demon nun took pause at your row, noticing you struggling under the weight of the sinner on top of you. Your lungs felt like they were being squeezed shut, unable to expand in their efforts. You pushed with all of your might, eyes closed as you fought back," W-Watch it, you f-- Ugh, you putrid FUCK!!! Get off me!!!"

Swiftly, Sister Alastor's hand was on the neck of the sinner, squeezing tightly as he gasped and gurgled. The nun simply smiled, head tilted," Dear sinner! Your penance is null and void if you cast discomfort and pain upon thine neighbor!" The nun's neck practically snapped at velocity they cocked their head up, looking downcast at the panicking demon. Unable to look up, you missed the smile Alastor wore, threatening to tear the demonic face of the nun in two.

"Take your vile hands and cast them into the River Styx... for your blood money is not welcome in these halls... Now leave this scared place. "

The sinner gasps, coughing and sputtering as he scrambles away, causing you to fall forward out of your pew. Just when you think you're about to eat shit: two large, taloned hands delicately hold you aloft.

"Are you unharmed, little lamb?" You blink for a moment, looking up slowly... only to find Sister Alastor's face an inch from your own. You stuttered as your hot breath fanned against his face, your legs threatening to give out under you.

"Y-Yes, Im-- I'm quite alright. Thank you, Sister..." You allow Alastor to place you back onto your feet, the hands of the docile-looking demon smoothing out your outfit and brushing off imaginary debris.

"I apologize for making you intervene. Thank you-- I would've been trampled to death, were it not for you." The deer Demon's smile could have made the devil tremble... but to you, it seemed entirely sincere," Thank me not, dear Lamb. For the Lord always calls upon his disciples to help those in need." Alastor takes a step away from you, bowing their head and giving you a polite curtsy.

"Alas, I must be away. But, should you need to seek council... the Lord always has room to hear out your wayward strifes and confessions." You reach out and almost touch the Nun's habit, sheepishly blushing when you sense the farmer's flinch.

"A-Actually... will the Priest be seeing anyone for Confession tonight? I... I have concerns. Concerns I feel like he could help me through... Im troubled, and just..." Your eyes are downcast, unable to look at the devilishly handsome demon," Im... concerned about my salvation. And need advice on how better to achieve it... or, if its really too late for me now."

You feel your heart leap into your throat as the Nun's head pulls off a complete 180° spin, the body following suit a moment after. Alastor clasps both of your hands in his own, smile wide and full of glee," But of course! Our hallowed halls could never deny such an honest soul seeking the Lord's guidance!" Alastor's head grows closer to yours, voice hushing. You're forced to lean in too, his voice hardly above a whisper.

"However, he will be unable to see anyone just yet. Return at the Witching Hour... he will have an audience with you then." Your eyes widened as you smiled back, eagerly shaking the nun's hands," O-Oh thank you-- Thank you!!! I appreciate that! I'll be back soon, then. Bless you, Sister Alastor! "

You nod and bow back to the nun, who regards you evenly but warmly, before watching you leave. You did not see the smirk that spread across Alastor's face... the glint of excitement that lights up his candy red eyes.

Oh, he knows damn well that Vox will not seek an audience with you that late in the night... who best to stand in for the Priest other than himself... the Mother Superior?

His mind festers with demented excitement as you stumbled out of the church, looking like a scared, timid doe... Oh, how he would enjoy seeing you again. He would need to prepare for your visit... after all, you would be doing your fair share of confessing AND atoning for your sins... your eyes hid nothing from him. And he was going to enjoy seeing them well up with blissful tears, a wanton expression gracing your cheeks...

The click of the nun's shoes echoed as he followed the other clergy members elegantly, his face not giving anything away. Oh Lord, how you've blessed him with a most delightful pleasure... he'd be sure to repent for his indecency later.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Deity: Heironeous, The Vindicator

Let our hands never falter, sparing evil the sword Let our hearts never waiver, letting weakness take root Let our march never end, lest the task be left undone

Champions, zealots, fools. All these words describe the followers of Heironeous; patron god of those blinded by duty and self righteousness. From the guards who rough up vagrants for the sake of social order, to the patriotic songs sung by soldiers on the way to invade a land they've never seen, to the teacher who’s convinced they can instruct through pain, because sparing the rod really does spoil the child.

It is a terrifying thing after all to be in the wrong, to have no easy answers, to be filled with doubt, and so the Archpaladin and his clergy intercede to provide the fearful populace with direction, with easy answers, and with scapegoats when necessary.

Adventure Hooks:

The party are asked by some troubled parents to look in on the local chapterhouse of the Invincible Vanguard, who took over for the town's royal garrison some years ago. A number of youths, bored of life in their sleepy little town decided to sign up with the Vanguard a few months past and have not been seen since. The Heironeian are cagey to say the least, but through their investigation the party might stumble across the same awful secret the kids did during their initiation, as well as their ultimate fate.

A beast rampages through the countryside, sowing fear, destruction, and rumour wherever it goes. Defeating it is no easy task, but one of the local lords is willing to pay a high price should the party bring him its head as proof. Imagine their surprise when a few days later a group of Heironeian paladins are paraded through the street carrying THEIR trophy aloft, claiming all the credit and with that same lord backing their claims. It seems the party has been part of a cruel PR stunt, however will they make this right?

A series of inexplicable mishaps and borderline disasters that plague a frontier village have come to a head with one of the Vindicator's itinerant preachers convinces the locals that devilry is the source of their woes, pointing the blacksmith's tiefling apprentice. It's up to the party to prevent the kid from getting strung up, and make the villagers see reason before there's an out and out witchhunt on their hands.

Setup: From the outside, with the perspective of history, it’s easy enough to see that there’s something wrong with faith of Heironeous, how their temples and icons venerate violence, whether it be martial glory or the suffering of martyrs that needed to be avenged. How their liturgy teaches the faithful that sympathy to outsiders, questions to authority, even the smallest of doubts are weaknesses to be overcome.

But the Heironeans are the ones fighting off the monsters encroaching on your village when the baron won’t pay for garrisons or adventurers, and it’s their priests who come to hand out food to the hungry and say there’s work the town over building their new fortress, and it’s their inquisitors who stand in the market square telling the crowd that all the awful things that happened these past few years is the fault of sinful, faithless rulers, and if only they could be led by righteous men (and it is always men) and expel the social parasites then truly this realm could be one beloved by the gods. 

That’s the grift, the Heironeans seize on a crisis or a fear and offer to put your life on a better track, nevermind that it’s a permanent war footing where you and your family and neighbours are conscripted to roles based on how you’d be most useful, and disagreement amounts to insubordination.

Heironeans say they’re justified of course because evil is always out there, the one true evil, Hextor, the grotesque, six armed lord of bloodshed and suffering who wishes to make slaves or corpses of all the world and the heavens besides. He is jealous of Heironeous you see, his twin brother, who is propheciesed to be the only one who can defeat him. Hextor never rests, always spawning more evil in the world, and anyone could be his follower without even knowing it... all they’d need to do is work to subvert the will of the archpaladin and they’d be abetting the scourge.  You don’t want to be an agent of evil do you? Then tithe to the church, enlist in the vanguard, obey your betters, marry early and within your kind and have more children to carry on the fight when you are too week, raise them up right, kneel when you are told, submit. Do all these things and the Vindicator will know you are good, and worth fighting for, and will forgive your mortal failings. 

There is a deeper lore, behind even what the faithful or even most of their leaders know:  that Heironeous and Hextor are the same being. Sometimes it is the monster wearing the golden hero like a mask, sometimes it is the bright and radiant warrior casting a most wicked shadow, sometimes it is simply that the god of war and slaughter has two faces, fair and foul, both righteous, both tyrannical, both hungering for blood.

The cult of Hextor is a secret order within the faith, membership offered only to those chosen by their god or those that see the worship of the archpaladin for what it really is: Violence for the sake of power, power for the sake of violence. They are secretive, deflecting rumours of their existence onto puppets and figureheads that they manipulate, going so far as to create false-cults to the Scourge to draw the faithful’s attention and ire. Any fault in the church can be blamed on Hextorian infiltration, any opponent that challenges them is but an agent of the Scourge.

  Titles:  The invincible, the vindicator, the archpaladin / the scourge, the herald of hells

Signs:  Oddly serene visions of violence and pain, wounds or blood on the image or relics of martyrs or weapons of champions, prophetic nightmares about the victory of Hextor.

Symbols:  A white hand or clapsed around a silver lightning bolt/ a black gauntlet clutched around six red arrows

Inspiration: Cruelty cloaked in the guise of righteousness is not an original concept but after writing  about how d&d has weird habit of using a frankly childlike view of morality in order to justify its violence  the same way that IRL hategroups do, I wanted to play around with the concept. 

Likewise, I felt my campaigns needed a solid “badguy with the aesthetic of goodguy” villain and I was tired of using overzealous followers of the dawnfather or bahamut to fill out the roster.  Specifically, rather than bad people in service to an ostensibly good god (who are objectively real in the setting and thus would try to oust the bad apples), I wanted to create an evil god that used the trappings of goodness to dupe average people into doing bad, the same way that has happened over and over again historically in our own world.

 I ended up choosing Heironeous for this villain makeover because like a lot of other default d&d deities I find the base form of him painfully one note, he’s the paladin god of paladins and he has hero IN HIS NAME. That said, he has a twin brother Hextor, god of war and tyrants that serves as his dark mirror and there’s thematic meat in that... Merging the two into one god gives us this delicious setup where the theology of Heironeous creates the problem and sells the solution, benefiting no matter who wins in the supposed cosmic power struggle.

Art

[y-rhywbeth2]

Gods & Clergy: Shar

Link: Disclaimer regarding D&D "canon" & Index [tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest]

Religion | Gods | Shar | Selûne | Bhaal #1 | Bhaal #2 | Mystra | Jergal | Bane #1 | Bane #2 | Bane #3 | Myrkul | Lathander | Kelemvor | Tyr | Helm | Ilmater | Mielikki | Oghma | Gond | Tempus | Silvanus | Talos | Umberlee | Corellon | Moradin | Yondalla | Garl Glittergold | Eilistraee | Lolth | Laduguer | Gruumsh | Bahamut | Tiamat | Amodeus | The rest of the Faerûnian Pantheon --WIP

And back to collecting lore on the evil deities! There's... a lot of information on Shar, so honestly this isn't even all of it just most(?) of it. Most of it isn't relevant anyway...

Overview: What if depression was a religion?

Clergy: If you don't have shit like depression and cptsd you're about to, courtesy of the Nightsinger! Society? Burn it all!

Nightcloaks / Nightbringers: Memory wiping. Whips. Making creepy man-shaped things of pure darkness.

Shar: Don't look her in the eye. Wear earplugs when she speaks. Don't let her kiss you. Avoid the talking severed heads and the tentacles... actually, just avoid this ancient eldritch horror altogether.

-

"Reveal secrets only to fellow members of the faithful. Never follow hope or turn to promises of success. Quench the light of the moon whenever you find it, and hide from it when you cannot prevail. The dark is a time to act, not wait. It is forbidden to strive to better your lot in life or to plan ahead except when directly overseen by the faithful of the Dark Deity. Consorting with the faithful of good deities is a sin except in business dealings or to corrupt them from their beliefs. Obey ranking clergy unless it would result in your own death." "Darkness is your cloak and your spur to action. Strike down the moon and those who serve it, and work against laws and law keepers, rulers and the powerful, by corrupting them and sewing dissension. Weave discord through secrets and rumours and falsehoods, so that all that is now mighty shall in time be swept away, and all that will still remain is in the darkness of Shar. Work in secret when necessary, obey your superiors in the Night Church without question or defiance, and give your life when Shar deems it needful, for you will reap her dark reward." - Shar's Dogma

The interesting thing about Shar, for all her intrinsic hatred of existence, is that she needs people - specifically "she feeds on [people's] suffering." Literally. She eats it. When she consumes their grief and misery, the sudden void of negative emotion causes a temporary surge of euphoria. Due to this relief, many people turn to "Shar's embrace."

Sharrans believe that by following Shar faithfully they will eventually reach an enlightened state beyond all suffering, however all that happens is that they're exposed to suffering and retraumatised again and again until they become resigned to and desensitised to it - their own and others'. Sharrans are much less useful to their goddess if they truly move beyond suffering, and instead the process is simply a cycle of abuse and depression as she farms them for sustenance and power.

As per the teachings: life is inane and existence was a mistake all are cursed to suffer because of Selûne's stupidity. All love withers and dies; you are alone, and always will be. This misery is inherent and inescapable, and it's better to embrace this fact than to hurt yourself by being stupid enough to feel love for others or hope for better.

All rulers and hierarchies are corrupt, according to Sharran doctrine, and everybody should be free to live their lives as they wish free of the laws and "morality" decided for them by others.

Everything that exists deserves to perish, and the right thing to do is to help the entropic process along.

Shar is ever-present, and wanders through the dreams of mortals, prodding at their hidden pains and whispering suggestions to them on how to act upon them. She offers the allure of relief to the poor, the lonely and ostracised, the grieving, the mentally ill... Victims of abuse often turn to her for relief and vengeance. On the every day level, people who need to work or travel at night or in the dark make offerings to her to placate her.

A lay worshipper is referred to as a Dark Follower. Sharrans are forbidden to hope, plan ahead or attempt to improve their miserable lives unless ordered to by the clergy, as part of Shar's design. They must not speak out against a priest, or interrupt any of their rituals and prayers for any reason. Lay worshippers must prove their loyalty and devotion by carrying out one crime or deed under the order of the clergy at least once a year, and try to bring others into the fold. They are strictly forbidden to interact with followers of good aligned deities (so you know stay away from people who follow, like, Selûne, who encourages comforting the lonely and making welcoming spaces for the ostracised; Lliira, who encourages experiencing joy; Lathander, with his thing about optimism and new beginnings... Don't want them hanging out with those people...)

If you have no need of Shar's "aid" then her clergy are at hand to fix that for you.

The members of the Night Church are known collectively as Darshars by outsiders, but they would refer to themselves as Martyrs. They have forfeit their lives to Shar in order to serve her, and know that she will eventually come to claim her due. They're generally under no delusion regarding the fact that their deaths are likely to come sooner rather than later, and Shar's tendency to discard her most powerful, loyal and favoured servants on a whim is well known - for all should experience the loss.

When addressing each other, Darshars address equal and lower ranks as "Brother/Sister/Sibling Night," and their superiors as "Mother/Father Night."

Novices of the faith are called Adepts of the Night. Full priests are Watchers. Hands of Shar have proven themselves in battle, and are placed in charge of several cells. A Darklord or Darklady is a region's senior priest, and sets policy for the church in their area. Nightseers oversee the activities of all Sharrans in a realm (a country). The Flames of Darkness are the highest ranking priests, answering directly to Shar. The standard training of the clergy usually shows, mechanically, through multiclassing as a rogue.

To become a Darshar, each priest much prove themselves by committing some terrible deed or other in Shar's name, after which the goddess will bestow a new name upon them. The nature of the deed and the name is called one's Own Secret.

Unlike lay worshippers, clergy are permitted to seek wealth and power, although it comes with the awareness that these things will not last. "If she uses [powerful individuals] as her tools now, there will come a day when she destroys them utterly, in favor of someone much weaker and very different. For that is the way of Shar. In her words, “Out of the darkness we all come, and to the darkness we all return. Some swifter than others, and many not swiftly enough.”

The senior clergy preach of Shar's "Dark Reward" - the raising of a dead Sharran as undead under the control of the clergy. Typically mindless undead such as zombies and skeletons. If Shar prizes the fallen individual's skills enough then she will actually resurrect them fully, augmented with her power. Such priests are the Shadowed, who have abilities such as turning invisible or into mist. They always bear a mark of Shar's corruption however; their eyes - including the sclera - are pitch black, and they can speak only in hoarse, cold whispers. One of their hands gnarls into a black talon. The rest of her priesthood views them with terror.

Darshars keep their hair long in homage to Shar (whose long hair is iconic). It's usually kept under a black skullcap, but women with naturally dark hair are permitted to forgo the cap because their hair is considered sacred to Shar. Black and purple are worn extensively, as are full body black cloaks and robes.

The black cloaks are called nightcloaks, which are enchanted to enable flight and mute ambient sound when the wearer wills it.

At night, some clergy let their hair down and walk the night, wearing nothing but their nightcloaks and their hair. They leave no barriers between themselves and the darkness that is their goddess.

Some priests wear enchanted wigs, woven into braids that can move and carry things (such as daggers), much like Shar's own hair is said to be animate.

Clerics who disappoint Shar/their superiors are forced to undergo thei penance surrounded by light - "the darkness if for those who deserve it."

Darshars are tasked with making society as miserable to live in as possible, so that more will feel loss and be brought into Shar's Embrace seeking peace. They corrupt the powerful, kill those who can't be corrupted and ferment rebellion, and murder people whose work is improving people's lives. They support thieves guilds and criminal organisations that make civilisation more unsafe and untrustworthy. They do generally avoid war and mass bloodshed, however. Shar requires converts/cattle, and it's hard to do that when they're all dead. Also murdering Selûnites and destroying their bases of worship wherever you can; can't forget that.

When a Darshar commits a murder, they are to ensure that the victim is aware that they died in Shar's name. Provided that this murder isn't being committed to foment strife and chaos by pinning it on somebody else, the Darshar will write Shar's name somewhere nearby with the victim's blood.

They're also to help others avenge slights, and publicise such stories, so that the desperate will turn to the Night Church for justice and vengeance and they do their best to present themselves as the superior option to the god of vengeance, Hoar.

They are to do all of this in utter secrecy, it should never be obvious to others who and what is behind these events. Often Sharran cells will found secret, non-Sharran cabals to do their dirty work for them. Hiring adventurers to commit crimes for them is another way. In order to form these cabals, Sharrans often run secret societies, hedonistic social clubs and false cults. They also maintain ties thieves guilds

Unlike the churches of other evil deities, the Night Church is often outlawed simply because they fundamentally won't stop disrupting society. Occasionally, the church will agree to follow the laws and keep their destruction of people's mental health to manageable, more one-on-one levels, and are allowed to build temples and worship. They have such a temple in Silverymoon, which must begrudgingly co-exist in public with the Selûnites there. Sharran worship is also open in Calaunt, Mulmaster, Scornubel, Sembia and Westgate.

Generally speaking though, the church is happier to remain underground where they can do the work they truly "need" to. The Night Church is explicitly illegal in Waterdeep, Baldur's Gate, Amn, and the entirety of the Dales and Cormyr.

They have a complex hierarchy; they work in cells, and every member has a direct superior they answer to. Multiple cells may be active in the area, and while they may know each other and sometimes lend aid, they don't work together or maintain connections to prevent attempts to crack down on Sharran activity from taking down every cell in the area. Nobody knows the true name of their co-conspirators or their leaders, and many of them die in their attempts to subvert society (getting executed for their crimes is a common way to go).

There are no holy days on the Sharran calendar, except for the Feast of the Moon, which they call the Rising of the Dark. Sharrans gather together for a blood sacrifice, and the lay worshippers are told of the plots and aims they are expected to aid in the coming winter.

The most important daily ritual is Nightfall, held every night. There is a brief payer, sometimes in the form of a ritual dance and sometimes involving a sermon. There is a feast and everybody begins dancing (or joins in, if one already started). If one cannot attend group prayer, then the worshipper must dance alone in Shar's honour, wherever they are. Lay worshippers must also either perform a crime or act of cruelty or report one to the congregation. Nights where the moon is not visible are called the Coming of the Lady and the entire congregation is set to task carrying out acts of vengeance and cruelty in Shar's name.

The Kiss of the Lady is the most important ritual, traditionally declared at the whims of the leading priests in the Temple of Old Night in Calimport (Old Night is the oldest of Shar's temples, built in -373 DR). Shar's worshippers engage in a night-long revel of murder, chaos, horror and cruelty ending in a celebratory feast at daybreak.

Representations of Shar in religious art (typically found in temples) show either a black sphere outlined in magically animated purple flames; or depict her as a smiling human woman with sweeping raven-black hair dressed in swirling black clothes. Her eyes are large, with the irises and sclera being solid purple around black pupils. Her temples are usually built under what appear to be legitimate businesses or private residences.

Those of the clergy chosen by Shar to serve her personally are the Nightcloaks, also called Nightbringers.

They can create supernatural darkness in their surroundings that extinguishes all light

Cause temporary light blindness in others

Erase the memories of the last few minutes from the minds of those around them

Cause nightmares

They can conjure doors made of pure darkness and step through, which makes them seem to have teleported (although they've only turned invisible)

They can cast a veil of illusion magic over their surroundings, making them appear totally different (tailored to whatever the priest wants them to look like)

They are a tiny bit more powerful, physically, while in the darkness, but are a tiny bit weaker when standing in the light of a full moon.

They can wrap darkness around themselves, or another, which fully obscures their features and serves as a minor form of armour (including against magic and psionics). They can see perfectly through the darkness, but effects that require eye-contact can't affect them. If cast on an undead being then they're immune to a cleric's turning ability.

They can create a whip of flickering darkness. The strike of the whip does damage and has the same effect as turning on Undead struck. Contact causes pain so unbearable it may cause seizures. The whip passes through inanimate matter harmlessly, and can't be used to tie people up.

Darkness can be moulded into something vaguely human-shaped under the control of the priest. It levitates in the air and suffocates all sources of light it touches. The priest can vaguely "see" through it if they choose.

They can fire a beam of pure darkness from their outstretched hand, which passes through inanimate matter and non-living beings but causes suffocating cold and pain to the living it strikes. The target it overwhelmed, and struck with a supernatural silencing effect for up to four minutes.

-

The Lady of Loss is a Neutral Evil deity, and her domain has been in different places over the years. Originally her realm, the Palace of Loss, resided in the Grey Wastes of Hades and later moved into the Plane of Shadow (aka the Shadowfell) where it was known as the Palace of Night. After the Plane of Shadow moved closer to the material world during the Spellplague she moved to the Tower of Night, which was in the Astral Plane. Considering that 5e has mostly reversed all of 4e's changes, she has presumably returned to the Palace situated in either the Shadowfell or the Grey Wastes.

Shar is described as a "deeply twisted and perverse being of endless petty hatred and jealousy. [...] She revels in the concealed, in that which is hidden, never to be revealed."

Shar is omnipresent, she is the darkness and she is everywhere. She is aware of every single person, object and action that takes place in the darkness.

Another deity, Ibrandul god of caverns, the Underdark and other dark places within the earth. She felt that this was encroaching on her turf, and she murdered him for the offense and took his portfolio and his worshippers during the Time of Troubles. Most of his followers were unaware of this, because Shar enjoys deception and simply presented herself to them as Ibrandul. She usually used them to attack Selûne's followers without drawing attention to her main church. (As of the Second Sundering Ibrandul is... probably alive again, but for all anyone knows it's still Shar pretending to be him)

Shar has two avatars:

The first is the Nightsinger: a 12ft tall woman wearing a mask made of the feathers of every type, trailing away into the cowl of her cloak. The cloak becomes increasingly intangible as it merges into the nearby darkness. She is constantly singing softly, even when she speaks, and her song feels hauntingly beautiful - and engenders a feelings of tragedy and grief. She can manifest supernatural darkness in her surroundings at will. Her song drains away memory and experience (in mechanics, she drains character levels and inflict the feeblemind spell). Listening to it may cause one to experience an unearthly chill (which inflicts cold damage) and can even cause listeners to drop dead on the spot. -

As the Dark Dancer Shar stands at 7ft tall, and appears as though the night sky has been moulded into the shape of a human woman. Her skin is jet black and glitters with stars. Her eyes are just as dark, and her gaze is both hypnotic and capable of enchanting those who meet it. If she kisses a mortal she places a magical compulsion on them - if they surrender to it they will become her loyal servant, and if they chose to resist the spell will kill them (this is an active choice for the victim - surrender or die). The spell can only be removed by rewriting reality with a wish spell so that it never happened, and the victim is fully prepared to die for Shar.

Shar's hair is prehensile, and moves at her bidding while ignoring the laws of physics (gravity and the wind are irrelevant). She hisses and speaks softly, never raising her voice, even in anger.

Her lesser manifestations involve tendrils of pitch darkness forming where they shouldn't be able to. They writhe, curl and swirl in constant movement, and a nimbus of glowing purple surrounds them. Sometimes one can see a glowing purple eye at the heart of the dark staring at them, but even when the eye isn't visible one can feel a presence within the darkness watching. In some stories, the darkness that blankets the world is described as Shar's hair falling over it. Presumably these are the individual strands. When a tendril touches one of her followers she can transmit her thoughts into their head - sometimes these are instructions or advice, and sometimes she reaches into their minds and numbs their ability to feel pain. She never heals their physical injuries, only allows them to ignore their suffering until they succeed or collapse/drop dead from the damage.

Her messengers take the form of these tentacles and other, more alien, shadow monsters.

Another fun manifestation Shar enjoys is severed human heads that fly through the darkness at night. They fly silently through the darkness, and Shar sees through their eyes, hears through their ears and occasionally speaks through them.

Shar hates all the other gods (especially her sister, and the sun god Lathander (and Amaunator before him)). She has tolerated an alliance with Myrkul, worked with Cyric to cause chaos, and Talona plays the sycophant to her in the hopes that Shar will help her kill Loviatar one day.

In response to the formation of Mystryl's Weave, during the early days of creation, Shar studied it for a while, eventually creating her own form of it - the Shadow Weave (called the Dark Lady's Weave by her followers). Where the Weave forms the tapestry of reality, the Shadow Weave fills the negative space of nonexistence between the gaps. To utilise her Weave "safely", one must be a follower of Shar or have their patron deity request her permission on their behalf. One deity she works with frequently in "lending" her Weave is the drow god Vhaeraun. One who attempts to use the Shadow Weave without her permission will lose part of themself - and it's already pretty good at having horrible side effects and destroying your sanity. It works well for spells that corrupt, destroy, drain life and smother the senses, but is less useful for effects that create.

Shar hopes to kill Mystra and supplant the original Weave so that she will be the only source of power for mages on Toril. Unlike Mystra, she places no restrictions on its use.

-

Shar and Selûne were twin halves of the primordial Two-Faced Goddess born shortly after the birth of the universe. There was no time or space, only a void containing themselves, the Overgod Ao, and shadowy beings known as the Shadevari.

Together they created the planetary bodies of the solar system, including the Earthmother, Chauntea.

When Chauntea begged for warmth to nurture life upon her, the Two-Faced goddess experienced conflicting desire for the first time. Selûne was willing to grant the Earthmother her wish, but for Shar, the very concept was a horrifying antithesis to her very being.

The argument between the two spawned the concepts (and gods) of destruction; such as war, disease and death/murder. Eventually, Selûne reached into the Elemental Plane of Fire and drew a portion of it into Realmspace, and fashioned it into the sun - a process that burned her.

Shar's rage doubled, and she began to snuff out every light she could find in the universe, causing Selûne to tear out a part of her own essence and fashion it into a weapon that she threw at Shar in defence of the new-born life of Realmspace. This portion of Selûne passed through Shar and formed itself into the Weave - the goddess Mystryl (who would one day be called Mystra). Mystryl sided with Selûne, and Shar was forced to concede bitter defeat now that she was utterly outnumbered, and swore revenge against all of them.

Shar retreated into the dark to recover, and found allies amongst the Shadevari, who also shared her resentment at having light and life brought into the previously dark and silent universe.

This battle has left Selûne permanently weakened, and her strength waxes and wanes much like the phases of the moon. The two sisters continue their argument - and Shar is boldest when her sister is at her weakest.

[ghostchems]

Story idea: Now that Terzo has retired he has to take driving lessons because Imperator won't let any of the ghouls drive him around anymore. Reader is hired to teach him but what happens when love (or just sex) gets in the way of his lessons?

@ramblingoak tagging you bc i know you sent this, haha.

i really took off running with this one!

you drive me (crazy) - papa emeritus iii x fem!reader

a/n: mdni! 18+! there is smut and some angst here. about 2.6k words. ao3 linky!

When Sister Imperator had first directed you to teach the former Papa to drive, you had been ecstatic to have such a big responsibility within the clergy. That is, until the driving lessons started. At first, you thought it was rather cruel of Imperator to force Terzo to learn to drive. He’s never done it in his life and surely there was at least one ghoul who could be relegated to be his driver. You thought that maybe it was some kind of punishment for him, that he needed to fend for himself now and no longer had access to the perks of being Papa or high up in the clergy. 

You started off with such patience during each lesson but gradually over time, it began to wear thin. It was as if no matter what you tried to teach him or show him, he always did the opposite. You’re not sure if he just had a hard time following directions or if he genuinely didn’t know any better. He always seemed distracted, more focused on what the buttons do in the actual car rather than what was going on in the road. The amount of time he spent changing radio channels from station to station drove you up a wall. 

And that wasn’t even including the flirting.

There were times when you would look to him to watch what he was doing and you would find him gazing at you dreamily. For a moment, you would feel a small spark in your chest but then it would be immediately replaced by panic because he wasn’t looking at the road. Every time, you would basically yell at him to keep his eyes in front of him and every time he ended up with a smug grin on his face. It was getting under your skin. 

He would always greet you with a compliment about your appearance and took to calling you Istruttrice (instructor in Italian), rolling his Rs with such dramatics that is almost sounded like he was purring. Terzo also always looked tired, far more tired than you had ever seen him while he was Papa. He usually dressed in all black, black slacks and a black dress shirt that became more and more wrinkled as time went by. Still, he was always so cheerful when he would meet you in the parking lot and he would open the passenger door for you like the gentleman he is. 

You really do feel for him but your sanity is starting to suffer. It’s been almost three months of giving him lessons and he hasn’t progressed at all. 

Today, he is already waiting for you at the car — a junky 2008 Toyota Corolla. He quickly puts out his cigarette using the sole of his shoe when he sees you and hurries to the passenger side to open the door for you.

“Buongiorno, Istruttrice. You are looking radiant this evening.” Terzo purse as you step inside the passenger side of the car and all you can manage is a soft sigh. Your patience is already wearing thin. He gets into the car beside you and turns to you, eyes wide as he waits for your instruction. 

“We are just going to take a quiet drive around the parking lot, okay?” Something simple. Something that surely won’t stress you out.

“Okey dokey, Istruttrice.” He puts the car into drive and starts to slowly inch forward. For a while, he is going painfully slow but it gives you some time to center yourself and calm your nerves. 

Then, he starts to accelerate (still at a slow speed) toward the only other car in the parking lot.

“Papa, where are you going?” There is panic in your voice and your fingers dig into your seat.

“Do not worry. I am only trying to eeehhhh… get a little bit close to it.” 

You hold your breath as he inches closer and closer to the car. Once you are closer to it, you are able to make out that it is Cardinal Copia’s Buick.

“Papa, you are… you’re already very close to the car, could you just —“ You are cut off by Terzo swerving the car out of the way to just miss Copia’s. He gives you a sweet smile but it doesn’t soothe your nerves. “Please don’t do that again.”

“Oh, come on, istruttrice. It is fun! And look, I am doing well, I think, eh?” He purrs as he circles the parking lot slowly but you don’t respond, already on edge. The car accelerates and is once again heading towards the Cardinal’s. You bite your tongue and your eyes are glued to Buick. Terzo gets even closer this time and your breath catches in your throat but he once again swerves at the last moment. 

“It is like a delicate dance, si? I am like a, eh, a bird, dancing for my mate.” 

“Driving isn’t about dancing, it’s about being safe and not hitting other cars.” You know he is trying to make light of the situation but you are not entertaining it, not today.

“It is also about having fun.” Terzo sings to you as he swings the car back around. He hits the gas this time and cruises on back. Your grit your teeth, you jaw clenching and unclenching as his speed increases. 

 the sound of the front bumper hitting Copia’s back bumper. You sit there, stunned for a moment, eyes wide as you stare at the other car. “I can’t do this anymore.”  You bury your head in your hands.

“Istruttrice?”

“Why do you do the opposite of everything I say?!” You are startled by how angry you sound but you’re unable to stop yourself. “I can’t keep doing this! You are impossible to teach and you are making me lose my fucking mind.” It’s harsh. You know it’s harsh.

Terzo looks at you in silence. You can tell that he’s hurt and you start to feel tension building in your chest. Anxiety. Feeling shameful about your outburst. Suddenly, he puts the car in reverse and guns it. He puts his arm on your seat and looks over his shoulder as he effortlessly speeds backwards to the other end of the parking lot. Terzo backs into the farthest spot away from the Abbey and he puts the car into park. 

Silence falls over the two of you. Your jaw is nearly on the floor. The control he exhibited over the car while steering and driving backwards has rendered you speechless. You have no idea what to say.

“I can drive.” Terzo says sheepishly, his hands moving up and down the steering wheel. “I picked it up quickly, thanks to your teaching.” His gaze shifts to you and you notice his eyes look sad.

“Then what… then why—“

“I do not get to do much of anything anymore.” Terzo winces at his own words. “I don’t get to leave the Abbey. I don’t get to spend time with siblings like I used to…” He gives a soft sigh. “I enjoy getting out and spending time with you. I see you more than I see my own brothers.” 

He’s been using you. You press your lips into a thin line as you look back at him. Once again, you are speechless. You swallow thickly and push the car door open, slamming it behind you. Gravel crunches beneath your feet as you walk to the back of the car and lean against the bumper. You need a moment and he gives you at least five minutes before he comes out of the car.

“Per favore, please do not cancel our lessons.” Terzo’s voice is quiet as he approaches you, much different than the suave confidence he usually displays. “I… I watch you out of the corner of my eye as we are driving. The look on your face when you are concentrating makes my heart flutter. And when you’re mad, your nose scrunches up and there is such rage in your eyes — it is adorable.” 

Terzo’s standing in front of you now, shifting from foot to foot while his eyes scan your face. You can feel your cheeks start to burn. He inches closer and even though you are averting your gaze from him you can see his hands are trembling.

“I want to continue seeing you. I want to get out of the Abbey with you. Please.” He gives a shaky breath. You finally look up at him and bite your lip. This man is a mess. But the look on his face… he needs you. He wants you. You feel warmth blossom in your chest. His eyes are soft and he’s breathing heavily. “La mia bellissima istruttrice.” Terzo whispers huskily, his mismatched eyes boring into yours as he reaches for your cheek, his fingers stroking it lightly before slipping to the back of your head. Your eyes flutter and you force yourself to hold back a moan. 

He firmly presses his hand against your head as his lips crash against your, timid at first but they grow feverish and more needy with each shallow breath. His fingers tangle in your hair and he groans into your mouth, his tongue pressing against your lips, begging for entry. Your head is swimming, your cheeks are hot and you are beyond confused but… you part your lips for him. The growl that rips from him as his tongue licks into your mouth sends shivers down your spine.

Terzo pins you against the car with his body, his free hand slipping down your back to your ass and then to your leg, tugging at it to open your legs for him.

“Papa —?” You break free from the kiss, breathing raggedly as you look at him with half-lidded eyes. The wetness between your legs is only growing. He lets go of your head and moves his hand to fiddle with your leggings, pushing them along with your underwear down your legs. Your base ass is now against the car bumper. His forehead presses against yours and he hikes your leg up to prop it on his hip. You can feel how hard he is through his pants and he grinds himself into you. Your eyes fall shut and you tip your head back, a deep moan spilling from your lips. 

“Allow me to give you something, istruttrice, something other than trouble. Maybe this will convince you to continue seeing me, eh?” Terzo works at his own pants, unzipping them and freeing his leaking cock. He drags his cock against your dripping cunt. “Ready for me, si? So wet for your Papa.” Your breath hitches and part of you cannot believe that he is getting this reaction out of you. He angles his hips and pushes the head of his cock inside you, holding it there to take in your reaction.

“You like — ahh — being bad, don’t you, P-papa?” You gasp as you writhe against the car. Terzo blinks at you, his lips swollen and parted and you feel the tip of his cock twitch. He snarls and jerks his hips, pushing into you to the hilt. Your hands sly up to his chest, fingers digging into his rumpled dress shirt. “I know you do.” You struggle to say between choked breaths. “S-show me, ah, how bad you—“

Terzo doesn’t let you finish. His hips snap at a frenetic pace and his mouth latches onto your neck. You cry out and curl your leg further around his hip while your hands grab at his shoulders. He bites and sucks at the sensitive skin on your neck, hard enough to leave marks. His growls and moans vibrate against your neck, filling your ears as he slams into you over and over again.

You feel yourself tensing and flexing around him, his cock massaging your inner walls masterfully. The car behind the two of you is bouncing and rocking with each thrust and for a moment you are afraid that someone might see or hear you. Your attention is fully brought back to him as he presses his tongue just beneath your earlobe, a jolt of arousal shooting through you. His strong hands fall to your ass and he digs his fingers into the soft flesh.

“Is this enough, istruttrice?” Terzo rasps into your ear, feeling his hot breath against you. He gives one thrust and holds himself inside you, waiting for your answer.

“I think you can do better.” You taunt, a wicked grin spreading across your face. You could be a troublemaker too, if you wanted. Terzo’s hand shoots up from your ass and clasps around your throat, squeezing it harshly as he pushes you down onto the trunk of the car. Your hands grab at his arm, holding on for dear life as he pounds into you at a more ferocious angle. Wet, loud sounds fill your ears and you manage to push against each of his thrusts. Your back arches off of the trunk and he squeezes your throat, a string of strangled moans pouring from your lips. Heat is spreading beneath your skin and you feel yourself start to tense around him. 

“F-fuck, istruttrice.” Terzo groans as his thrusts grow more frantic. Your nails dig into his arm, hard enough to break the skin while he squeezes your throat again, this time harder and longer than before. You start to see stars and your eyes roll back as you are pushed over the edge. He isn’t too far behind you, letting go of your throat so he can grip both of your hips. Strangled noises rumble up from his chest before he comes undone, flooding you with his seed.

Terzo’s thrusts slow and he moves to hover over you, his eyes meeting yours before dipping down to kiss your lips. It’s tender and sensual, his soft, pillowy lips melting against yours. You lose yourself to him for a moment, then he breaks away and helps you up off of the trunk of the car. The both of you adjust yourselves with Terzo tucking away his softened cock and you pulling up your leggings. You can feel him dripping out of you.

He steps toward you, closing the space between you and starts to gently rub his thumb along your jaw and then up to your cheek. Your eyes flutter, leaning into his touch as you gaze back into his mismatched eyes.

“Please do not cancel our lessons.” His voice is soft yet stern, his eyes focused on you as he traces your lips with his finger.

“Oh, no. Actually, I think you need more frequent lessons, Papa. Maybe even some classroom time to go over the rules of the road.” You say nonchalantly as you adjust your leggings. Terzo flings his arms around you causing you to lose your balance and fall directly into his chest. He holds you close, his grip on you so tight as he buries his face into the crook of your neck.

“Grazie, grazie istruttrice.” 

“Don’t thank me.” You give him a squeeze and lean back away from him as he lifts his head from you. “I am just happy to know that you have actually learned from me… meet back here this time tomorrow?” 

Terzo nods happily, still hovering so close to you. You lean in and press a gentle kiss to his cheek.

“I’ll see you then, Papa. Try not to be late.” 

[dwellordream]

“…In the Early Middle Ages, most French Jewish communities had settled in the southeast, on the shores of the Mediterranean. Although there were few Jews north of the Alps, they were the focus of restrictive laws that limited their freedom of movement and their ability to interact with Christians.

For instance, a mid-fifth-century council held in Troyes, northern France, prohibited Jews from going out of their houses to have any form of communication with Christians during Eastertide – a time celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, therefore a particularly tense period for the Jewish community who were accused of his murder.

A century later, other councils banned the appointment of Jews to any public office that would put them in a position of superiority over a Christian. Jews were no longer allowed to work on Sundays and were to refrain from eating with Christians. Intermarriage between Jews and Christians was forbidden in early Roman law codes, a prohibition early medieval law codes reiterated.

At that time, the fragile state of Christianity – still a relatively new religion in Europe – fueled the clergy’s anxieties. Clergymen were afraid Jewish people would “pollute” the minds of Christians and turn them away from the Church. They advocated relentlessly for their conversion to Christianity. This project was finally successful in the seventh century when the Merovingian king Dagobert called for the baptism or expulsion of the Jews of his kingdom. More than a century of political unrest followed.

Dagobert’s rule, during which Jewish communities grew again in size. By the end of the year 800, Charlemagne became emperor. Charles’ attitude towards the Jews was ambivalent but more open than before. Carolingian capitularies reiterated certain older restrictions, and the chancery levied heavy taxes on the Jews. Because of these taxes, Jews constituted a reliable source of income for the chancery. Charlemagne, therefore, granted the Jewish communities privileges safeguarding their autonomy and their rights to practice their religion.

For instance, Jews responded to their own laws for all matters concerning “low justice,” such as marriage and business contracts, small offences, and inter-community disputes. Murders, however, were to be tried by the Christian authorities. Until the First Crusade, the lives of medieval French Jews were relatively peaceful – only two episodes of violence were reported in the early eleventh century. But things were about to change.

Set in the context of religious zeal, the Crusades stirred the pot of hate. Pope Urban II came to France in 1095 and preached the First Crusade with tremendous success. The message was clear: Christians should take up arms to fight the enemies of God and Christianity. While the pope clearly laid out that the point was to free Jerusalem, some interpreted it differently. According to chronicler Guibert of Nogent (1055–1124), a group of men from Rouen, Normandy, had decided to leave for the East, but they began questioning their purpose:

“We want to attack the enemies of God in the east after traveling great distances, while before our eyes are the Jews, of all races God’s greatest enemy.”

Pondering their options, the men took their weapons, captured many Jews, and killed them, adults and children alike, only sparing those who accepted conversion. Then they left for Jerusalem.

The Crusades fueled dozens and dozens of pogroms across Western Europe. In the late eleventh and early twelfth century, the pressure to convert was immense, and the risks of refusing to convert were even greater. A mid-twelfth-century Christian chronicler, Richard of Poitiers, acknowledged the great sufferings of the Jewish people at the outset of the early crusades, of which he underlined the unfairness. But the anti-Jewish sentiment in the Christian communities only grew stronger.

In the aftermath of the crusades, European Jews were at the center of rumours propelled by distrust and suspicion. In Blois, France, in 1171, Christians accused members of the Jewish community of having murdered Christian children during religious rituals. Called the “blood libel,” these accusations first appeared in England and were attested across Western Europe from the twelfth century to the modern era. In Blois, the blood libel accusations lead to the dramatic death of more than 30 members of the community. The survivors’ estates were confiscated. Ten years later, King Philippe Augustus expelled the Jews from the royal domain.

Anti-Semitism received the Church’s support in the early thirteenth century at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). The council invited kings and rulers to force the Jews of their kingdoms to wear a distinctive symbol on their clothes or a specific hat that would make them immediately recognizable by Christians. In 1269, Louis IX of France made the symbols mandatory.

The thirteenth century also witnessed the forced segregation of Jews to specific areas. Traditionally, Jews lived together in neighbourhoods often nicknamed juiveries (Jewries). Paris counted four juiveries at that time. When Saint Louis made the distinctive symbols mandatory, he also forced the Jews to live in Jewries. Forced residence in Jewries signalled the birth of “ghettos,” neighbourhoods reserved for the Jewish population of a given town.

In the aftermath of the fourteenth-century plague, many Jewries were equipped with gates locked at night to prevent people from entering or exiting the district. Jewries started to turn into ghettos. The point of the ghettos, some rulers argued, was to protect the Jews from the violence Christians perpetrated against them. But ghettos also functioned as traps and participated in marginalizing the French Jewish communities.

The first decades of the fourteenth century were marked by an economic crisis and recurring food shortages. Anti-Semitism was on the rise again. In 1319 and 1321, Parisians – Christians – manifested their hatred toward Jews by publicly burning the Talmud. The plague signalled a new era of pogroms and violence against the Jews, who became the “scapegoats” of the crisis. The chronicler Jean de Venette witnessed and described the consequences of the plague for the Jews:

Some said that the pestilence was the result of infected air and water… and as a result of this idea, many began suddenly and passionately to accuse the Jews of infecting the wells, fouling the air, and generally being the source of the plague. Everyone rose up against them most cruelly. In Germany and elsewhere – wherever Jews lived – they were massacred and slaughtered by Christian crowds and many thousands were burned indiscriminately.

As Venette states, Christians accused the Jews of having poisoned wells to spread the disease. In Toulon, southern France, 40 Jews were killed by fire right after the epidemic started. In Strasbourg, northeastern France, in 1349, hundreds of Jews who lived in the city’s ghetto were locked up in a building by angry Christians and set on fire. Similar massacres happened in the pontifical city of Avignon, and in Narbonne, Carcassonne, and Toulouse, to cite but a few southern French examples.

Pope Clement VI (1291–1352) issued a bull forbidding the killing of Jews, but to no avail. Distrust and hatred were so intense that the city of Strasbourg, in the Rhine valley, expelled all Jews from its jurisdiction and forbade them from entering the city. This law was only removed from the city’s policies during the French Revolution in the late 1780s.

In many ways, medieval anti-Judaism paved the way for modern anti-Semitism. From accusations of greed and avarice to the blood libel, from the wearing of distinctive symbols to mandatory residence in ghettos, the Middle Ages witnessed the development of a series of stereotypes and a system of repression that had repercussions far into the twentieth century and the modern day.

But the Jewish communities of medieval France did not always live in fear. They enjoyed times of peace and independence and were, usually, relatively integrated into urban communities. Their role in the intellectual renaissance of the twelfth century is especially remarkable and well-marked in historiography.”

- Lucie Laumonier, “Hostility Against the Jews in Medieval France”

[yamayuandadu]

Mai, Satono and their peers: a look into the world of dōji

Okay, look, I get it, Mai and Satono are not the most thrilling characters. I suspect they would be at the very bottom of the list of stage 5 bosses people would like to see expanded upon. Perhaps they are not the optimal pick for another research deep dive. However, I would nonetheless like to try to convince you they should not be ignored altogether. If you are not convinced, this article has it all: esoteric Buddhism, accusations of heresy, liver eating, and even alleged innuendos. As a bonus, I will also discuss a few other famous Buddhist attendant deities more or less directly tied to Touhou. Among other things, you will learn which figure technically tied to the plot of UFO is missing from its cast and what a controversial claim about a certain deity being a teenage form of Amaterasu has to do with Akyuu. 

Mai, Satono and the grand Matarajin callout of 1698

An Edo period depiction of Matarajin and his attendants (via Bernard Faure's Protectors and Predators; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

As indicated both by their family names and their designs, Mai and Satono are based on Nishita Dōji (爾子多童子) and Chōreita Dōji (丁令多童子), respectively. These two deities are commonly depicted alongside Matarajin, acting as his attendants, or dōji. Nishita is depicted holding bamboo leaves and dancing, while Chōreita - playing a drum and holding ginger leaves. ZUN kept the plant attributes, though he clearly passed on the drum. In the HSiFS interview in SCoOW he said he initially wanted both of them to hold both types of leaves at once, so I presume that’s when the decision to skip the instrument has originally been made. We do not actually fully know how Nishita and Chōreita initially developed. It is possible that their emergence was a part of a broader process of overhauling Matarajin’s iconography. While initially imagined as a fearsome multi-armed and multi-headed wrathful deity, with time he took the form of an old man dressed like a noble and came to be associated with fate and performing arts. The conventional depictions, with the attendants dancing while Matarajin plays a drum under the Big Dipper, neatly convey both of these roles. The group was additionally responsible for revealing the three paths (defilements, karma, and suffering) and three poisons (greed, hatred, and desire) to devotees. 

In addition to being a mainstay of Matarajin’s iconography, Ninshita and Chōreita also had a role to play in a special ceremony focused on their master, genshi kimyōdan (玄旨帰命壇). This term is derived from the names of two separate Tendai initiation rituals, genshidan (玄旨壇) and kimyōdan (帰命壇).

Genshi kimyōdan can actually be considered the reason why Matarajin is relatively obscure today. In 1698, the rites were outlawed during a campaign meant to reform the Tendai school. It was lead by the monk Reiku (霊空), who compiled his opinions about various rituals in Hekijahen (闢邪篇, loosely “Repudiation of Heresies”). Matarajin is not directly mentioned there, and the polemic with genshi kimyōdan is instead focused on a set of thirteen kōan pertaining to it, with mistakes pointed out for each of them. Evidently this was pretty successful at curbing his prominence anyway, though.

By the 1720s, even members of Tendai clergy could be somewhat puzzled after stumbling upon references to Matarajin, and in a text from 1782 we can read that he was a “false icon created by the stupidest of stupid folks“. He ceased to be venerated on Mount Hiei, the center of the Tendai tradition, though he did not fade away entirely thanks to various more peripheral temples, for example in Hiraizumi in the north. Ironically, this decline is very likely why Matarajin survived the period of shinbutsu bunri policies largely unscathed when compared to some of his peers like Gozu Tennō. 

“Nine out of ten Shingon masters believe this”, or the background of the Matarajin callout

Dakiniten (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Tendai reformers and critics associated genshi kimyōdan with an (in)famous Shingon current supposedly linked with Dakiniten, Tachikawa-ryū. This is a complex issue in itself, and would frankly warrant a lengthy essay itself if I wanted to do it justice; the most prominent researcher focused on it, Nobumi Iyanaga, said himself that “it is challenging to write about the Tachikawa-ryū in brief, because almost all of what has ever been written on this topic is based on a preconceived image and is in need of profound revision”. I will nonetheless try to give you a crash course. Recent reexaminations indicate that originally Tachikawa-ryū might have been simply a combination of Shingon with Onmyōdō and local practices typical for - at the time deeply peripheral - Musashi Province. Essentially, it was an ultimately unremarkable minor lineage extant in the 12th and 13th centuries. A likely contemporary treatise, Haja Kenshō Shū (破邪顕正集; “Collection for Refuting the Perverse and Manifesting the Correct”) indicates it was met with at best mixed reception among religious elites elsewhere, but that probably boils down to its peripheral character. Starting with Yūkai (宥快; 1345–1416) Shingon authors, and later others as well, came to employ Tachikawa-ryū as a boogeyman in doctrinal arguments, though. Anything “heretical” (or anything a given author had a personal beef with) could be Tachikawa-ryū, essentially. It was particularly often treated as interchangeable with a set of deeply enigmatic scrolls, referred to simply as “this teaching, that teaching” (kono hō, kano hō, 此の法, 彼の法; I am not making this up, I am quoting Iyanaga); I will refer to it as TTTT through the rest of the article. These two were mixed up because of the monk Shinjō (心定; 1215-1272) who expressed suspicion about TTTT because of its alleged popularity in the countryside, where “nine out of ten Shingon masters” believe it to be the most genuine form of esoteric Buddhism. However, he stresses TTTT was not only non-Buddhist, but in fact demonic. The description of this so-called “abominable skull honzon”, “skull ritual” or, to stick to the original wording, “a certain ritual” (彼ノ法, ka no hō) meant to prove the accusations is, to put it lightly, quite something. 

Essentially, the male practitioner of TTTT has to have sex with a woman, then smear a skull with bodily fluids generated this way over and over again, and finally keep it in warmth for seven years so that it can acquire prophetic powers. This works because dakinis (a class of demons) live inside the skull. The entire process takes eight years because Dakiniten, the #1 dakini, attained enlightenment at the age of 8. Shinjō himself did not assert TTTT was identical with Tachikawa-ryū, though - he merely claimed that at one point he found a bag of texts which contained sources pertaining to both of them.  Ultimately it’s not even certain if TTTT is real. It might be an entirely literary creation, or an embellishment of some genuine tradition circulating around some marginal group like traveling ascetics. We will likely never know for sure.

Regardless of that, Tachikawa-ryū became synonymous not just with incorrect teachings, but specifically with teachings with inappropriate sexual elements. By extension, it was alleged that the songs and dances associated with Matarajin and his two servants performed during genshi kimyōdan similarly had inappropriate sexual undertones.

ZUN seems to be aware of these implications, since the topic came up in the aforementioned interview. The interviewer states they read that “during the middle ages a lot of Tendai and Shingon sects end up becoming obsessed with sexual rituals and wicked teachings, leading to their downfall” (bit of an overstatement). In response, ZUN explains that these matters are “interesting” and adds that he “did prepare some materials with that, but that would make [the game] too vulgar.” No dialogue or spell card in the game actually references genshi kimyōdan, for what it’s worth, but seeing as this is the only real point of connection between Matarajin and such accusations it’s safe to say ZUN is to some degree familiar with the discussed matter.

As in the case of the Tachikawa-ryū, modern researchers are often skeptical if there really was a sexual, orgiastic component to the rituals, though. A major problem with proper evaluation is that very few actual primary sources survive. We know the words of the songs associated with Matarajin’s dōji, but they are not very helpful. They’re borderline gibberish, “shishirishi ni shishiri” alternating with “sosoroso ni sosoro”. Polemics present them either as an allusion to sex or as an invitation to it; as cryptic references to genitals; or as sounds of pleasure.

None of these claims find any support in the few surviving primary sources, though. Earlier texts indicate that the dance and song of the dōji was understood as a representation of endless transmigration during the cycle of samsara. When sex does come up in related sources, it is presented negatively, in association with ignorance. Bernard Faure argues that the rituals were initially apotropaic, much like the tengu odoshi (天狗怖し), which I plan to cover next month since it helps a lot with understanding what’s going on in HSiFS. The goal was seemingly to guarantee Matarajin will help the faithful be reborn in the pure land of Amida. However, the method he was believed to utilize to that end can be at best described as unconventional.

To unburden the soul from bad karma, Matarajin had to devour the liver of a dying person. This is essentially a positive twist on a habit attributed in Buddhism to certain classes of demons, especially dakinis, said to hunger for so-called “human yellow” (人黄, ninnō), to be understood as something like vital essence, or for specific body parts. In this highly esoteric context, Matarajin was at once himself a sort of dakini, and a tamer of them (usually the role of Mahakala), and thus capable of utilizing their normally dreadful behavior to positive ends.

The true understanding of these actions was knowledge apparently reserved for a small audience, though. Keiran shūyōshū (溪嵐拾葉集), a medieval compendium of orally transmitted Tendai knowledge, asserts that even monks actively involved in the worship of Matarajin were unfamiliar with it.

Beyond Mai and Satono: dōji as a class of deities

You might be wondering why an article which was supposed to be an explanation of Mai and Satono ended up spending so much time on ambivalent aspects of Matarajin’s character instead. The ambivalence present in the aforementioned liver-related belief was a fundamental component of the character of many deities once popular in esoteric Buddhism, and by extension of their attendants too. Therefore, it is actually key to understanding dōji. As I already mentioned in my Shuten Dōji article a few weeks ago, when treated as a type of supernatural beings, the term dōji implies a degree of ambiguity. The youthfulness of these “lads” means that in most cases they were portrayed as unpredictable, impulsive, eager to subvert social order and hierarchies of power, and prone to hubris. Some of them are outright demonic figures, as already discussed last month. Simply put, they possess the stereotypical traits of a young person from the perspective of someone old. They initially seemingly developed as a Buddhist reflection of Taoist tongzi, in this context a symbol of immortality and youthfulness, though a case can be made that youthful Hindu deities like Skanda (Idaten) also had an influence on this process. Many Buddhist deities can be accompanied by pairs or groups of dōji, for example Jizō, Kannon, Fudō, Dakiniten or Sendan Kendatsuba-ō. In some cases, other deities could manifest in the form of dōji. In Chiba there is a statue of Myōken reflecting such a tradition, for example. There are also “independent” dōji. Closely related terms include ōji (王子), “prince”, used to refer for example to the sons of Gozu Tennō and the attendants of Iizuna Gongen, and  wakamiya (若宮), “young prince”, which typially designates the youthful manifestation of a local deity.In the second half of the article, I’ll describe some notable dōji who can be considered relevant to Touhou in some capacity.

Gohō dōji: the generic dōji and the legend of Myōren

A gohō dōji in the Shigisan Engi Emaki (wikimedia commons)

The term gohō dōji (護法童子) can be translated as something like “dharma-protecting lad”. It’s not the name of a specific dōji, but rather a subcategory of them. Historically they were understood as something like the Buddhist analog of shikigami. The term gohō itself has a broader meaning, and can refer to virtually any protective Buddhist deity, even wisdom kings or the four heavenly kings. The archetypal example of such a figure is Kongōshu (Vajrapāṇi), who according to Buddhist tradition acts as a protector of the historical Buddha. A good example of a Gohō Dōji is Oto Gohō (乙護法) from Mount Sefuri. He reportedly appeared before the priest Shōkū (性空; 910–1007) before his journey to China, and protected him through its entire duration. Afterwards a temple was built for him. Curiously, this legend actually finds a close parallel in these pertaining to Matarajin, Sekizan Myōjin or Shinra Myōjin protecting monks traveling to China - except the deity involved is a youth rather than an old man. From a Touhou point of view, the most important example of a gohō dōji is arguably this nameless one, though. He appears in the Shigisan Engi Emaki, an account of the miraculous deeds of the monk Myōren, who you doubtlessly know from UFO. The section focused on him is fairly straightforward: a messenger from the imperial court approaches Myōren because the emperor is sick. Using his supernatural powers, he summons a deity clad in a cape made out of swords to heal him without having to leave his dwelling on Mount Shigi himself. He obviously succeeds. Afterwards the court sends a messenger to offer Myōren various rewards, but he rejects them. While the emperor is not directly shown or named, he is presumably to be identified as Daigo. While the supernatural helper is left unnamed and is often simply described as a gohō dōji in scholarship, it has been pointed out that his unusual iconography seems to be a variant of that associated with the fifth of the twenty eight messengers of Bishamonten. A depiction of a similar figure is known for example from the Ninna-ji temple in Kyoto. This makes perfect sense, seeing as the connection between Myōren and this deity is well documented, and recurs through the legends presented in the Shigisan Engi Emaki. Needless to say, it is also the reason why Bishamonten by proxy plays a role in the plot of UFO. Given these fairly direct references, I am actually surprised no UFO character borrows any visual cues from the gohō dōji, seeing as the illustration is quite famous. It was even featured on a stamp at one point.

Zennishi Dōji (Princeton University Art Museum; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

Yoshiaki Shimizu has suggested that the connection between Myōren and his Gohō Dōji is meant to mirror that between Bishamonten and his son and primary attendant, Zennishi Dōji (善膩師童子), and highlight that the monk was an incarnation of the deity he worshiped. He also argued that Myōren’s nameless sister (not attested outside Shigisan Engi Emaki) - the character ZUN based Byakuren on - is meant to correspond to Bishamonten’s wife, Kisshōten/Kichijōten (presumably with spousal bond turned into a sibling one). I am not sure if this proposal found broader support, though - I’m personally skeptical.

Kongara Dōji (and Seitaka Dōji): almost Touhou

Fudō Myōō, as depicted by Kyōsai (via ukiyo-e.org; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

Kongara Dōji (衿羯羅童子, from Sanskrit Kiṃkara) and Seitaka Dōji (制多迦童子, from Sanskrit Ceṭaka) are arguably uniquely important as far as the divine dōji go - a case can be made that they were the model for the other similar pairs. They are regarded as attendants of Fudō Myōō (Acala), one of the “wisdom kings”, a class of wrathful deities originally regarded as personifications and protectors of a specific mantra or dhāraṇī. In Japanese esoteric Buddhism, they are understood as manifestations of Buddhas responsible for subjugating beings who do not embrace Buddhist teachings. Acting as Fudō‘s servants is the primary role of Kongara and Seitaka. As a matter of fact, both of their names are derived from Sanskrit terms referring to servitude. This is not reflected in their behavior fully: esoteric Buddhist sources indicate that Kongara is guaranteed to help a devotee who would implore him for help, but Seitaka is likely to disobey such a person. Interestingly, both can be recognized as manifestations of Fudō. This seems to reflect a broader pattern: once a deity ascended to a prominent position in esoteric Buddhism, some of their functions could be reassigned to members of their entourage. ZUN arguably references this in Mai and Satono’s bio, according to which “their abilities (...) are nothing more than an extension of Okina's.” Despite the aforementioned shared aspect of their nature, Kongara and Seitaka actually have completely different iconographies. Kongara is portrayed with pale skin, wearing a monastic robe (kesa) and with his hands typically joined in a gesture of respect. Seitaka, meanwhile, has red skin, and holds a vajra in his left hand and a staff in the right. His characteristic five tufts of hair are a hairdo historically associated with people who were sentenced to banishment or enslavement. He’s never portrayed wearing a kesa in order to stress that in contrast with his “coworker” he possesses an evil nature. It has been argued the fundamental ambivalence of dōji is behind this difference in temperaments.

While the pair consisting of Kongara and Seitaka represents the most common version of Fudō’s entourage, he could also be portrayed alongside eight (a Chinese tradition) or uncommonly thirty six attendants. The core two are always present no matter how many extra dōji are present, though. Appearing together is essentially their core trait, and probably is part of the reason why they could be identified with other duos of supernatural servants, like En no Gyōja’s attendants Zenki and Gōki (who as you may know are referenced in Touhou in one of Ran’s PCB spell cards, and in a variety of print works).

As for the Touhou relevance of Kongara and Seitaka, a character very obviously named after the former appeared all the way back in Highly Responsive to Prayers, but I will admit I am personally skeptical if this can be considered an actual case of adaptation of a religious figure. There are no iconographic similarities between them, and their roles to put it lightly also don't seem particularly similar. Much like the PC-98 use of the term makai (which I will cover next month), it just seems like a random choice. At least back in the day there was a fanon trend of treating the HRtP Konngara as an oni and a fourth deva of the mountain, but I will admit I never quite got that one. In contrast with Yuugi and Kasen’s counterparts, Kongara's namesake actually doesn’t have anything to do with Shuten Dōji. The less said about a nonsensical comment on the wiki asserting Kongara’s status as a yaksha (something I have not seen referenced outside of Touhou headcanons, mostly from the reddit/tvtropes side of the fandom) explains why his supposed Touhou counterpart is present in hell, the better.

Uhō Dōji: my life as a teenage Amaterasu protector of gumonji practitioners

Uhō Dōji (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Uhō Dōji (雨宝童子), “rain treasure child”, will be the last dōji to be discussed here due to being by far the single most unusual member of this category. Following most authors, I described Uhō Dōji as a male figure through the article, but as noted by Anna Andreeva, most depictions are fairly androgynous. Bernard Faure points out sources which seem to refer to Uhō Dōji as female exist too; this is why I went with a gender neutral translation of dōji. In any case, the iconography is fairly consistent, as documented already in the Heian period: youthful face, long hair, wish-fulfilling jewel in one hand, decorated staff in the other, plus somewhat unconventional headwear, namely a five-wheeled stupa (gorintō). Originally Uhō Dōji was simply a guardian deity of Mount Asama. He is closely associated with Kongōshō-ji, dedicated to the bodhisattva Kokūzō. The latter is locally depicted with Uhō Dōji and Myōjō Tenshi (明星天子), a personification of Venus, as his attendants.Originally the temple was associated with the Shingon school of Buddhism, though today it instead belongs to the Rinzai lineage of Zen. A legend from the Muromachi period states that Kongōshō-ji was originally established in the sixth century, during the reign of emperor Kinmei  by a monk named Kyōtai Shōnin (暁台上人).The latter initially created a place for himself to perform a ritual popularly known as gumonji (properly Gumonji-hō, 求聞持法, “inquiring and retaining [in one’s mind]”).The name Kongōshōji was only given to it later when Kūkai, the founder of the Shingon school of Buddhism (from whose traditions gumonji originates), received two visions - one from a dōji and then another from Amaterasu - that a place suitable to perform gumonji exists on Mount Asama. After arriving there, he stumbled upon the ruins of Kyōtai Shōnin’s temple, so he had it rebuilt and renamed it. Subsequently, Amaterasu appointed Uhō Dōji to the position of the protector of both this location and Buddhist devotees partaking in gumonji in general. Most of you probably know that gumonji pops up in Touhou as the name of Akyuu’s ability in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense. ZUN describes it simply as perfect memory, but in reality it’s an esoteric religious practice focused on chanting the mantra of Kokūzō 1000000 times over the course of a set period of time (either 100 or 50 days). The goal is to develop perfect memory in order to be able to memorize all Shingon texts, though it is also believed to increase merit and grant prosperity in general. The oldest references to it come from the eighth century, and based on press coverage it is still performed today. ZUN actually never mentioned gumonji in a context which would stress the term’s Buddhist character. In Forbidden Scrollery Akyuu prays to Iwanagahime rather than to any Buddhist figures. I get the idea behind that, but I will admit I liked the portrayal of her religious activities in Ashiyama’s Gensokyo of Humans much more.

Gumonji aside, the second major point of interest is the connection between Uhō Dōji and Amaterasu. In the legend I’ve summarized above, they are obviously two separate figures, with one taking a subordinate position. This changed later on, though. At some point, most likely between 1419 and 1428, the two deities came to be conflated. As Bernard Faure put it, Uhō Dōji effectively came to be seen as the “Buddhist version of Amaterasu”. To be specific, as Amaterasu at the age of sixteen, presumably to account for the fact that a dōji would by default be a youthful figure. The treatise Uhō Dōji Keibyaku goes further and asserts that that Uhō Dōji manifests in India as the historical Buddha, Amida and Dainichi; in China as Fuxi, Shennong and Huang Di; and in Japan as Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi and Ninigi. In his astral role, he represents the planet Venus, but he can also manifest as Dakiniten and Benzaiten, in this context understood as respectively lunar and solar. He is also the creator of all of these astral bodies. The grandiose claims about Uhō Dōji, Amaterasu and other major figures were not exactly uncontroversial. It seems that especially in the eighteenth century the Ise clergy objected to them, presumably because they effectively amounted to their peers at Kongōshō-ji promoting their own deity to make the temple more important as a part of the Ise pilgrimage, which at the time enjoyed considerable popularity. The association between Amaterasu and Uhō Dōji nonetheless persisted through the Edo period, and despite protests voiced at Ise among laypeople Mount Asama was widely recognized as the third most important destination for participants in the Ise pilgrimage, next to the outer and inner shrines at Ise themselves. It is also quite likely that there was no shortage of people who would imagine Amaterasu looking just like Uhō Dōji. Ultimately the Uhō Dōji controversy was just one of the many chapters in Amaterasu’s long and complex history, and there was nothing particularly unusual about the claims made. There were quite literally dozens of Buddhist or at least Buddhist-adjacent figures she developed connections to (Bonten, Enma and Mara, to name but a few), and the Ise clergy took active part in this process. Buddhist reinterpretations of Amaterasu flourished especially through the Japanese middle ages. It was only the era of Meiji reforms that brought the end to this, cementing the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki inspired vision of Amaterasu as the only appropriate one. However, this is beyond the scope of this article. Worry not, though: the very next one I’m working on will cover these matters in detail. Please look forward to it. Bibliography

Anna Andreeva, “To Overcome the Tyranny of Time”: Stars, Buddhas, and the Arts of Perfect Memory at Mt. Asama

Talia J. Andrei, The Elderly Nun, the Rain-Treasure Child, and the Wish-Fulfilling Jewel: Visualizing Buddhist Networks at the Grand Shrine of Ise

William M. Bodiford, Matara: A Dream King Between Insight and Imagination

Bernard Faure, The Fluid Pantheon (Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 1)

Idem, Protectors and Predators (Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 2)

Idem, Rage and Ravage (Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 3)

Nobumi Iyanaga, Tachikawa-ryū in: Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia

Gaétan Rappo, Heresy and Liminality in Shingon Buddhism: Deciphering a 15th Century Treatise on Right and Wrong

Idem, “Deviant Teachings”. The Tachikawa Lineage as a Moving Concept in Japanese Buddhism

Yoshiaki Shimizu, The "Shigisan-engi" Scrolls, c. 1175

[drnikolatesla]

Nikola Tesla and His Cleanliness

It is known that Nikola Tesla suffered from an obsessive compulsive disorder, and because of this, he was an extreme germaphobe. While living in New York, Tesla kept his laboratories absolutely clean and pure, refused to touch other people, would wear gloves while shaking hands, and insisting upon personally cleaning his own plates and silverware at restaurants with his requested 18 napkins. Tesla himself reported that this was intentional. As a child, he almost died from cholera, which raged in the region of his hometown Lika due to contaminated water. He was cured by a special remedy made by an old woman, and also because his father gave him his word that if he recovered, he could study technology instead of entering the clergy, as was intended. Many found Tesla's actions strange, but to him, it was a very important measure to protect his health.

“There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the latent power fully exists in man to greatly prolong the average length of his life by the exercise of extraordinary care and the proper utilization of the various instruments which science, day by day, is placing at his disposal. A large proportion of the people who die nowadays before reaching what is commonly called old age can trace the cause of their death to the fact that microbes of every kind are allowed by them to enter their bodies through the swallowing of microbe-laden water and food, and through the inspiration of microbe-laden air. How many people are really careful today about the water they drink, the food they swallow, and the air they breathe? And how many millions of people would be careful if they knew the difference between microbe-laden food and air and those which are really pure?”

–Nikola Tesla

“Man May Be Made To Live 1000 Years.” New York World, September 5, 1897.

[thescarsilivewith-if]

The Scars I Live With is an upcoming 18+ Interactive Fiction that will deal with dark and possibly disturbing themes such as slavery, discrimination, mental and physical abuse and others. Please keep this in mind before interacting with this game.

You were a kind monarch once. After your mother’s brutal reign, you thought your people needed respite. Evidently, they didn’t think the same since their bloodthirst only increased. Three years after your coronation, your mother’s favourite consort dethroned you with the army and the clergy’s support.

As you fled from the palace together with your spouse, from an arranged marriage celebrated only three months earlier, you were found by slavers. You managed to save your spouse but not yourself.

Four years later, your spouse finds you, though you’re not the same person they knew. You are not changed in spirit alone, however, for your magic grew in your captivity and now you’re unbound. When the crown chose you as its owner, you wanted peace for your kingdom. Now the only thing you crave is revenge.

Features:

Customise your gender, pronouns, appearance and scars.

Return to occupy your rightful place on the throne.

Will you show mercy to the ones that betrayed you or will you make all of them pay?

Deal with your trauma or let it destroy you.

Romance three LIs, separately or together (harem route).

Naja (M/F/NB) - your spouse

Given up like cheap cattle, they were considered slow by their own family, a pretty doll but irredeemably dumb. They started talking later that any of their siblings and in their teens they stopped altogether. It was clear that they were offered to you in the hopes to appease you with their looks while lacking any other use.

During the brief time you two spent together, though, you have discovered that they are not slow at all but rather intelligent and very observant.

They are 1.64m tall with dark bronze skin, black luscious straight hair cut to their shoulders, dark brown doe eyes and a slender built. Naja is 27 and selectively mute.

Valaahr (M/F/NB) - the druid

A very ambitious druid, a wolf in sheep’s clothing who strives to become the head of the clergy through every possible mean. Some speculate that power will never be enough for them, for they hunger for more to satiate their thirst, to see the corruption finally extirped.

A ruthless schemer, Valaahr is certainly a force to be reckoned with, fortunately only devoted to their faith and to you – the one they believe to be the rightful monarch.

They are 1.79m tall with light brown very long wavy hair always kept in a single braid, light grey eyes, a very pale skin and a toned built. Valaahr is 32 and suffers from albinism, with the sight problems associated.

Kaela (M/F/NB) - the negotiator

They are nobility - a good politician though known mainly because an illness in their teen years left them physically disfigured.

They might come off as stand-offish and aloof but they really are quite soft-spoken and considerate for all they are direct. There is something about them, an exhaustion that lingers and eats at them, accompanied at the same time by an undying tenacity that always prevented them from giving up.

They have short wavy auburn hair, green eyes, olive complexion and they are around 1.83m of height. Their body type is on the heavier side, soft but with muscles underneath. Kaela is currently 31 and they keep their head veiled and their hands covered by gloves to hide their scarred body.

You'll meet Kaela quite later in the game

[vilsoo]

7 MINUTES IN HELL⌇PRIEST!GETO SUGURU ✟

｡ﾟ･ 𖤐 WORD COUNT : 3,318

｡ﾟ･ 𖤐 SYNOPSIS : you’ve been getting vivid night terrors from a demon you believe is stalking you. you meet father geto at the cathedral, confessing how immoral and horrifying these night terrors were it broke you. but it wasn’t until you discover the dark, twisted truth behind them all…

｡ﾟ･ 𖤐 WARNINGS : noncon → dubcon, sacrilege, blasphemy, rough demonic sex, stalking, breeding, impregnating, religious guilt, betrayal, impersonation, confessional booth sex, degradation, sadism. DO NOT INTERACT IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH DARK CONTENT. PROCEED WITH CAUTION. ⚠︎

this is a subplot from my toji fanfic “God’s Whore” where a penitent at St. Reze Cathedral suffers from night terrors. the reader in this story is not the same reader from the og fanfic.

ㅤ HORRORLAND/KINKTOBER MASTERLIST

[RIDE ANNOUNCER] As you are getting seated, be mindful that this simulation ride contains flashing scenes, special effects, violent themes, and jarring motions. Please remember to stay seated and keep all arms and legs inside when the vehicle is in motion. Any kind of photography are not allowed during the ride as well as phones. And absolutely no eating, smoking, or drinking. Thanks for your attention and we hope you all enjoy.

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In the vulnerable depths of your mind, there was this figure. A disturbing creature quietly lurking, waiting until all is calm when the darkness shrouds over the daylight skies. This darkness incarnate springs to life as a vicious, fang-bearing, gnarly, feral incubus. Born to linger on the fragile, innocent edges of your mental state and drawing you in with its sapphire eyes.

His robust figure was a silhouette on the wall; curved horns and midnight husk, he looks down on your slumber, grasping at your revelries and feeds on that furtive wanton lust. His sinful seduction is so cruel and deadly that you lie hopeless with suffering. Your disturbed sleep leads to chaotic thoughts of sexual nightmares and disturbing hypnotic states of scintillating salacious lust, night after night with this heavy weight upon your chest from an incubus growling for your ruttish, sluttish behavior ‘till your descending into a mad fulfillment of sex.

But this hypnotic state was nothing but a curse to you. As wonderful as it sounds to indulge into an immense amount of ecstasy, all you could think about was the trauma. The terror, the pain, the fear… And the more you were overridden with fear, the more he feeds off that. You were trapped in a never-ending nightmare of sex and horror.

The only place where you feel safe and away from the night terrors was at the cathedral. Welcoming with open arms to all sinners in need of guidance, prayer, and forgiveness. You were familiar with someone from the clergy, Father Geto, the most kindhearted and genuine man that cares so much for your wellbeing. He lets you feel safe with him. He lets you feel comfortable with him. He was the only available man you could trust opening up to amidst the agony and pain you’ve endured.

You remember stepping foot in the cathedral on your first Sunday, suddenly hit by deja vu as if you seen this place before. Shrugging that off, however, you were desperately seeking advice on how to overcome your pain. But then finally came a miracle; the most comforting guidance from a gentleman like Father Geto. He was open-minded, he was tender-hearted. With his patience and his virtue, you kept coming back every Sunday, slowly opening up about your fears, traumas, sexual frustrations, and strong guilt. No matter what you confessed, the sincere priest offered the greatest sympathy and rapport you could ever imagine. You treasured his solace and idolized his wisdom. Father Geto’s presence alone was your gift from god.

But the more you spent time with him, your gruesome night terrors from this feral demon grow stronger and strangely vivid every night. You wake up feeling violated, ashamed, broken. It was as if Father Geto’s comforting words was all futile and these night terrors will continue to haunt you for god knows how long. You never, never confessed to anybody about these dangerous night terrors, and if you were to describe them to your therapist, you could only manage to do so metaphorically. They don’t understand. Nobody could understand.

There was no other way to describe the horrors you’ve suffered through. Left with no hope, you had one last option.

The evening mass was over and the church goers and clergy members were departing. As confessionals were wrapping up, you were the last to sit in the booth alone with Father Geto. Although the both of you already knew each other, the screen covering the both of you was helpful enough to let everything out of your system. You quickly made the sign of the cross, told the date of your last confession, and exhaled sharply as you were mentally preparing for the dark truths were about to confess.

“Ah, Y/N. My most endearing penitent of the church,” Geto greeted. “How are you feeling?”

“Father Geto… I’m— I’m just gonna get straight to the point. Sometimes I’m not entirely honest whenever I’m in confessionals. With the pain that I’m dealing with and you’re aware of, it’s not… really the whole story.”

“You can tell me anything,” he reassures, shifting in his seat. “Only if you are comfortable, of course. But please do know that I won’t condemn you at all.”

“I know that, Father. I’ve been trying to force myself to open up about everything. Why I’m really suffering from these night terrors. But I held back because of how unbelievable it sounds. So please… hear me out tonight, Father. You are my last hope.”

The priest remains quiet from across the screen as he patiently awaits for you to continue. Flashbacks of those terrorizing night terrors sent a trail of goosebumps hugging your skin. Your throat felt clogged as if you were about to cry, but you fought back your fears and your reluctance. It was time you spoke of the forbidden in desperate need of a cure.

“Everywhere I go, I see this… shadowy creature. Hiding somewhere as it watches me from afar, never taking its eyes off me. When it’s night, I’m afraid of falling asleep because I see it everytime in my dreams, turning them to night terrors. I force myself to stay awake every night but it’s as if the demon won’t let me… I end up sleepy, passed out somewhere and then he awakens whenever I’m unconscious. In these night terrors, the— the demon, the incubus— I feel him violate me every night,” your voice trembled as you confessed, crossing your arms together to hug yourself.

“What he does to me when I’m asleep— it’s like, my body is asleep but my soul is awake and alive someplace else, like a grand altar in Hell. This sounds carnal, but my body succumbs to the sexual energy from him and I can’t fight it. Some night terrors are pleasurable while some are… traumatizing. He tells me that my sexual energy is special and that I should reserve myself for only him. And the more he feeds off it, the more I feel… filthy. Everything that I’ve done with him just weighs more guilt and trauma on me. I— I don’t know how long I can live like this, Father…”

“Oh dear,” the priest consoled, sighing deeply. “And you say you feel guilty about having these night terrors that make you indulge to sexual pleasure?”

You sniffled, voice almost cracking. “Yes. I’m— I’m a sinner in the eyes of god… I feel as if my purity crumbled and fulfilling celibacy was a waste, Father. Because I— I’m ashamed to say this… That demon changed something in me. I offer my arousal and my body to him every night. In exchange, I feel bliss and pleasure, but it all turns into this… horrifying nightmare in the end.”

Geto pursed his lips as he heard you silently weeping from across the screen, staring blankly at the wooden platform. “Poor dear… Having these sexual desires and carnality were never a sin. It’s normal to act upon your sexual urges. Now, I don’t mean to get personal, but it will help if you tell me; when you’re awake and not asleep, do you still feel these urges?”

There was a pause, then a deep inhale and exhale. “I do,” you mumbled. “Like I said, the demon changed something in me. It’s as if these urges are animalistic, lewd, and salacious…”

Father Geto hummed in amusement. “Animalistic urges. I feel as if you have this primal need to be dominated on, or having a bigger, dangerous man having you their way… Pinning you down, bending you over and pounding into you like the needy little slut you were this whole time…”

You frowned and quickly averted your gaze back to the screen, confused after hearing Father Geto’s voice suddenly change so ominously inhuman. Instead of hearing a delicate monotone, it sounded as if two people were speaking at once. A deep voice more guttural and aggressive, harmonized by a familiar female voice that was more sultry and sadistic, but heard as a soft whisper. You believed you were hallucinating.

“Father?”

Suddenly you felt a shiver coursing down your back. It felt as if the air had gone thicker, leaving your body frozen. Squinting at the screen, it appeared that Father Geto’s silhouette was completely still. No words, no movements at all. Struck with silence, your chest was thrumming loudly while the nerves of your body failed to oblige. Something felt unsettling to you.

Concerned about this prolonged silence and why his voice suddenly changed, you stand up and reach for the doorknob, only to suddenly halt at the sight of illuminating red rays peeking out the door frame. You quickly gasped and your heart raced erratically, petrified at what had just happened. Why the atmosphere and environment felt strangely familiar, yet dangerous. Why you felt a strong sense of deja vu. Even though your fear had driven your curiosity, opening the door was a mistake.

You were now in the same place where you end up every night— the altar of Hell. A night terror chamber illuminating the entire world a malicious dark red. There was the hotness of fire, the fresh atmosphere of death and evil. Muddy waters of blood and sin lurking in the gloomy pit you see every night, surrounded by dark toned flowers, smoke, and the polished structure of the cathedral.

It was no wonder this cathedral gave you deja vu. You’ve already been bere before.

You shut the wooden booth door and started to panic, your breaths growing heavier and your sense of stability deteriorating. It wasn’t until you looked down at your feet, trailing up your legs and seeing all your clothes were gone, naked skin already coated with blood stains. This was always what you looked like for every night terror. You feel this uncontrollable ache scorching your body from the feeling of despair and hopelessness. You didn’t know if you were lured into yet another dream; hell, you couldn’t even tell if this was reality or not. Your convulsions were flaring uncontrollably, worsening your panic.

“No, no, no… Help! Father Geto! Please, somebody help!” you screamed out, banging your fists on the confessional booth walls out of frustration but hearing nothing except your taunting echos reverberating. Your hopelessness crushed you to the point you collapsed on your knees and started crying once again.

“Father Geto is not here anymore.”

There goes that disturbing voice again. When you turn your head ever so slightly, your eyes widened in horror at the close proximity the incubus’ shadow was peeking under the door. You stood up and rushed to grab the knob to prevent him from getting in, but you were too late. The creature barges in, trapping you in this tight space and shutting the door. With your chest numb in horror, walking back slowly, your eyes travel up his tall figure and into his face. And suddenly your heartbeat expelled all of the air from your lungs at this horrifying sight.

In your dreams, the incubus’ face was more vague and warped, unable to identify any human-like features. But now his figure looked more like Father Geto, utterly paralyzing you with this sinking sensation of diabolical fear and painful turmoil.

Pathetic tears started to stream down your cheeks and your sobs were uncontrollable during your helpless state. You couldn’t believe it. You couldn’t believe this was real. To find out the only man you felt safe with in opening up about the endless voids of your crippling chasm of pain… was also the cause of it. He fulfilled his mission and purpose of corrupting you this way, to torment your life for his satisfaction, and left you to feel ashamed about it in the end.

The incubus slanted his head, the end of his wicked lips curving to a small smirk. “What’s the matter, hm? You don’t like me in this form? Even though you knew me as my pathetic priest impersonation, I scare you like this?”

Your vision kept blurring with more tears as you felt furious, betrayed, hurt, and shattered all at once. Your throat started to ache and your trembling voice groveled weak. “It… it was you this whole time…? Sending those nightmares after me every night, violating me..?”

Geto the demon-priest chuckled sinisterly, inching closer to your body that you backed up into the wall, trapped and helpless. “I knew from the very first time you walked into this church… that I was gonna have my own way with you. You had this mask of perfection going on, this whole act of maintaining your purity and innocence for the church. You were obsessed with receiving the validation of being a celibate. When really… you were nothing but a perverted slut behind closed doors, begging for those filthy fantasies of yours to be fulfilled. It didn’t matter who— a stranger, your neighbor, your coworker, your local priest…? Oh, you were so perfect for me the more I kept hearing your wanton thoughts. I’ve watched you every day and do what I want with you every night. Your sexual energy kept me satisfied for weeks, but a creature like me can never have enough. You became the spring in my step, the fire in my chest, the reason for my algolagnia. And for me to abandon my modest persona and back to this form just to give you what you want… you should be thanking me.”

Your heart was racing like wildfire, pounding loudly in your ears. You could feel your own blood being forced through your veins with every loud thump of your broken heart. His large hands travel up your body, its skin texture rocky like scales that burned like coal for days after being shed. You were too stunned from the unfolding of events to fight back and run away. You sobbed, you pleaded, but nothing could stop the demon-priest from the way he was going to have you, just as how he has you wrapped around his finger every night.

Geto had you pinned against the wall, unable to move from the suffocating grip he has on your throat. The cry that tried to rise up from your throat got caught, coming out more as a strangled sob. He bites harshly around your body, sharp teeth sinking into your fragile skin, causing you to squirm only for the scorching pain to torment you more.

“Ah, ah. Did your slutty, stupid brain forget what happens when you try to squirm away from me?” mused the incubus. “You have no control over your body anymore. All of you belongs to me.”

He abruptly flips your body over to face the wall and locks your arms behind your back. Every fiber of your being tenses up at the close proximity he was from behind, his body heat transmitting onto your back. You can feel his cockhead grazing the folds of your swollen cunt, inching it ever so slightly inside. The more you struggled, the more pain accompanied your burning soul. It felt as if numerous tremors were shaking violently in your body as the incubus-priest stretched your cunt. You sobbed helplessly, drool already dripping on the wooden booth floors. His large hand snakes to your face from behind and clasps it over your mouth, snapping his hips against your ass to shove his entire cock inside you.

You let out a muffled cry, your body suddenly surrendering to this indescribable feeling of pleasure and torture. No matter how many times this exact moment of the demon sliding into you occurred in your nightmares, this reality felt oddly different. Your perceptions were more real, more vivid compared to when you’re unconscious. You can feel the texture of skin, you can legitimately feel his cock sliding in and it wasn’t just a throbbing sensation you get when you dream about demon sex. Geto took predatory thrill in your sudden realization and state of helplessness, fueling the fire as he started thrusting without notice. His sexual rage was surging right through you faster than your adrenaline it corrupted you.

“Oh, look at you. Fucking into your virgin cunt for the first time and you’re already in a bliss from how good I’m making you feel,” the demon coaxed, whispering up close to your ear from behind. “You see now? Letting me take control over you is just what you needed this whole time. You wanted this. And I’m gonna fuckin’ give it to you. I’m your true God now and all you have to offer is your body. Arch your back for me more. I’ll fuck you hard in this confession booth like how a hound takes a bitch.”

You could feel Geto raking against your insides as if he was molding your cunt to hug his cock perfectly. He pulled out for a brief second, then slammed back into you, pushing your entire body against the wall with only your ass sticking out and your shaking legs spreading. The most animalistic groan came from deep within his throat, once again sending chills down your body. He kept pounding his fat cock inside you, fucking you so frantically that your eyes almost rolled to the back of your skull. Every pathetic muffled moan of yours drove the demon insane. The pressure in your abdomen was soon to be soaring to its peak. It was so hot. Every part of your skin and body felt like it was on fire.

“Fuck, fuck… You make me want to fucking breed you,” the demon growled. “I’ve waited half a month to finally feel your virgin cunt in this form. And— ah, fuck— it was fucking worth the wait. You’d let me do that to you, right? Hm? Filling this fucking pussy with so much of my cum, overflowing you until that cute belly grows round with my young… You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

You kept moaning and whining pathetically on his hand that the demon-priest took it as a yes. Every harsh, rough thrust into your pussy sent you to an out-of-body experience. It didn’t matter to you how this was all possible anymore; you didn’t care if you were conscious, unconscious, or even stuck in Hell; all that mattered was the immeasurable rapture from being violated like this. Your fear and trauma were blurred out with pleasure flooding your body. All you thought about in this very moment was indulging into this sinful nature.

Suddenly every muscle in your body clenched as your first penetrative orgasm came in as waves of pleasure, spreading throughout your body like a wildfire in the middle of a scorching summer. Your body faltered, your legs struggled to keep your balance, and your mind was buzzing. You even felt your ears ring at one point. Geto’s cock pulses against your soaking walls, his balls aching to be emptied inside you. A few more thrusts and he’s letting out low groans with hot, sticky strings of his cum flooding your womb. Overloads of it started to drip onto the floor. Your head grew so hazy with intensity that the world around you started spinning. You looked like you were in a daze, your glossy face too fucked-out. It was suddenly hard for you to comprehend what was going on. Then, the same overwhelming panic started rising in you again. Terror struck you so suddenly like a lightning bolt, and your unending pain and fear strangled you like barbwire.

“Every time I have you… you’ll be trapped in endless torture with me. An eternity of sex and horror.”

Your shaken, weakened body collapsed onto the wooden floor, eyes slowly shutting and your thoughts becoming incoherent at this strange state. Every part of you was beginning to dull and the world around was becoming less tangible to you. Then suddenly, you blacked out; the last thing you ever saw was that creature standing over you with a smirk on their face.

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[RIDE ANNOUNCER] Please remain seated until the ride comes to a complete stop. Then collect your belongings, watch your head, and step carefully out the vehicle. The nearest exit will be on your left. On behalf of all of our crew, thanks for riding with us, and we hope you have a happy and memorable visit here at Horrorland!

ALL WORKS BELONG TO VILSOO ©. do not steal, plagiarize, translate, or repost/share any of my works on any social media where minors have access.

NOTES :: the way the reader got sent to hell here is basically the same as getting vecna’d. her body is unconscious in the confessional booth since her soul/mind got trapped in hell. lol

TAGS :: @neemuu @jaaaysblogg @lilacs-lavender @michealsfinalboy @milanesasupremacy @neko.sya @slashersluttt @eighties-milf @dedicatedahlias @akiyaasworld @satoriluvs @getoswhore @yeetingmypencil @valoruzky @estrey @deitysdream @roseymae1234 @vintagexparker @looveb4 @kristvns @muzans @gothbitch2078 @cxmmies @lustry106 @heartcigs​

[scotianostra]

On 29th March 1298 William Wallace was knighted and officially made "Guardian of Scotland".

The previous September Wallace and Andrew de Moray achieved a stunning victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. The English left with 5,000 dead on the field, including their despised treasurer, Hugh Cressingham, whose flayed skin was said to have been taken as a trophy of victory and to make a belt for Wallace's sword. The Scots suffered one significant casualty,

Andrew de Moray , who was badly wounded and died two months later.

A lot of the detail of this has been lost i time but it is said that the ceremony took place in front of gathered nobles and clergy in the Kirk o’ the Forest, in Selkirk. Wallace was named "Commander of the Army of the Kingdom of Scotland", knighted and made Guardian of Scotland in Balliol's name at the forest kirk, at either Selkirk or Carluke.

Balliol had been humiliated in 1296 when he signed the first treaty of alliance with the French, Edward I had torn the Royal insignia from his clothing earning him the cruel nickname Tomb Tabard, meaning empty coat, but many, Wallace included, still saw him as the rightful King.

It was a remarkable achievement for a mere knight to hold power over the nobles of Scotland. In a medieval world obsessed with hierarchy, Wallace's extraordinary military success catapulted him to the top of the social ladder.

He now guided Scottish policy. Letters were dispatched to Europe proclaiming Scotland's renewed independence and he managed to obtain from the Papacy the appointment of the patriotic Bishop Lamberton to the vacant Bishopric of St Andrews.

Militarily he took the war into the north of England, raiding around Newcastle and wreaking havoc across the north. Contemporary English chroniclers accused him of atrocities, some no doubt warranted, however, in Wallace's eyes the war, since its beginning, by the English, had been marked by brutality and butchery.

The English nobility had been on the edge of civil war with Edward I. They were disgruntled over his wars in France and Scotland, however, faced with the humiliating defeat by the Scots at Stirling Bridge, they united behind him in time for the Battle of Falkirk.

Unfortunately Wallace's army at Falkirk was soundly beaten that July and Scotland fell under Longshanks rule, Sir William Wallace resigned as Guardian and was now the most wanted man in Scotland.

The site where Wallace was made Guardian has long gone, but a geophysics study in 2016 carried out within the ruins of the 18th century Auld Kirk was expected to show traces of its 16th century predecessor. Instead, it revealed the remains of a medieval chapel, pinpointing the spot where Wallace was honoured.

The first pic is from a 1935 pageant at Selkirk reenacting the event, the second is a plaque at Kirk O' The Forest, for all those from the U.S in the Murray aisle of the present building, lie the maternal ancestors of Franklin D Roosevelt the 32nd President