#they lost a lot of people to famine

[featherlouise]

Meet Mahito!!! The first husband and all round lovable asshole

When Heket spread her famine among the Lamb's followers, they had a difficult time keeping their head on straight. Mahito's stupid jokes and puns helped keep their mind away from catastrophising.

He's a bit of a try hard, but mostly enjoys working in the fields. He throws fertilizer at anyone he catches slacking and as far as he's concerned it's THE funniest shit.

[greeenchrysanthemums]

I love your GG Rivals au so much!!! I love learning about all the characters backstories and how much depth they have to them;

Also, when Etho first left to become a knight, did he want to/think it was the honourable/noble thing to do, or was it forced upon him or expected from him by his family/ the village? Feel free not to answer if it’s spoilers or anything, but I’m super curious!! ^-^

Thank you very much!! I'm super glad to hear that 💚

As the war with Coral Crest was just beginning and uncertainty was settling over the land, Wintertide offered the village protection on the condition that they fought in the war alongside them. He was the only one actually of age to join the army, so responsibility for the village's safety fell on his shoulders. No one forced him to do it, and most of them even believed he was too young to be fighting in a war so there were actually many people trying to dissuade him from leaving. However, they said it was his choice whatever he decided to do, and they would support him no matter what.

Etho was tied. He didn't want to leave; this tight knit community was all he had ever known and the thought of going away was terrifying to him. But he could tell that there was a lot of fear within the village about what would happen to them without that protection, since their population was mainly consist of children and elders. In the end he put on a brave face and decided to take the deal and join the Wintertide army. He did it out of obligation and a desire to protect his loved ones.

He kept in contact with them via letters for the first two years, but after a while the letters stopped coming and soon, they never heard from him again. They miss him every day.

[determinate-negation]

im making this post to call attention to the fundraiser of Doaa Jad al-Haq @dodoomar12345. this is a verified campaign.

doaa is a 38 year old woman with an autistic 5 year old son who escaped the genocide in gaza a few months ago but is now alone in egypt with very few resources. her son already needed special therapy and treatment before, but hes now been traumatized by the war and is suffering extreme shock and trauma. treatment for his trauma and fees for special education in egypt are very expensive, far beyond what she can afford. doaa lost her source of income when her sewing business was destroyed in the war. she is also raising money to get the materials she needs to restart her business here which you also can donate too. she told me that her sons condition is getting worse and its very difficult for her, especially since she separated from all of her family members, most of whom are still in gaza. this is a post with information on her and her sisters campaigns.

shes raising this money to support her sons treatment, as well as to help her family members who are trapped in gaza and living in horrific conditions of famine disease and death. shes extremely worried about them and struggling by herself in egypt.

we've heard a lot of news about refugees from gaza being treated badly in egypt and suffering because they had to leave with absolutely nothing. its often the case that refugees and genocide survivors are taken advantage of the most because they dont have any leverage, resources or community to depend on. its a really fucked up situation to be in, and i know that most people on tumblr seeing this would be at a complete loss for what to do if you were in her shoes. its not a position that anyone should have to be in.

because of that, i really implore you to donate to this campaign and help her and her family. its in swedish krona so USD and other strong currencies go a long way. especially if you have a degree of disposable income i encourage you think about what you could contribute because it could really make a difference.

52 SEK = $5 USD

104 SEK = $10 USD

261 SEK = $25 USD

1044 SEK = $100 USD

currently: kr 112,191 SEK out of kr 300,000 SEK

(converted– $10,744 USD out of $28,730 USD)

[arijackz]

PICK A CARD: What Era Is Your Beauty From?

☯︎ “A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Disclaimer: This is a general reading, take what resonates. I am not suggesting any of these descriptions are cannon to your ancestral history, these are just how my intuition perceived, and then presented your beauty’s energy.

p1 → p2 ↙︎ p3 → p4

🂽 Pile One 🂽 (the devil, 2oC rev., ace of cups rev., 4oW, 3oC, king of swords, the tower, the world)

❖ Pile one, I feel like I’m watching the Game of Thrones out of context. Just flashes of people from around the Medieval 1400s living their day-to-day; singing, dancing, eating together, and then… not.

❖ The imagery I got when I asked what era your beauty came from, was very longing in nature. There was a lot of joy and celebration but it felt like I was watching the film through teary eyes and a heavy heart.

❖ The “movie” flashed between a thriving culture sharing tales of triumph and having happy, drunk sing-song moments together; and then those same people under a war-torn regime of a very cruel but powerful man. I sense themes of religious persecution, nationwide government-forced famine, and general desecration of the once-peaceful way of life. The population was going through collective mourning.

❖ People lamented over their unfulfillable desire to reconnect with their homeland and all of their loved ones. With the World card at the end of the spread and the Empress at the bottom of the deck, I get the clear image that your beauty is the physical embodiment of a large collective’s longing for the sanctity of their community. You invoke that feeling people get when they remember a bitter-sweet memory that hums fervor in their chest and gives them the fire they need to push forward.

❖ Your beauty comes from an era where the genuine smile and cheer of a pretty girl sparked a nation’s hope for reformation. You are the last remaining connection to long-lost celebration and the heart of a forgotten city.

How Do You Paint The Divine Image of Hope?

🂽 Pile Two 🂽 (7oC rev., 4oP rev., full moon, leo, sacral chakra)

❖ WHOOOAAaaaaa Ammberrr is the collluuhhhhh of ya enneergyyy!! WHOoaaA, shades of gaawwllddd displayyy naturraalllyyyyyy…..

❖ Just know I was HOLLERING that. This is my hippie pile. My people. Yea that’s right, I’m talking the late 1960s - early 1970s.

❖ Your beauty arose at a time when society desperately needed color (specifically seeing some of you wearing a lot of bright colors or eye-catching jewelry or hairstyles). The world was bleak and the war’s aftermath on the overall mental and emotional welfare of the general public pushed people to radical ideals and birthed a revolution centered around liberation, pleasure, and community.

❖ Your beauty is all sunshine and rainbows. Psychedelics and organic food. The best music in human history (feel free to argue with me, but know that it is going straight out the other ear, mama) and week-long outdoor festivals full of peace, love, and vulnerability with total strangers.

❖ Your beauty brushes people with the chilling winds of shameless pleasure. The taste of unadulterated personal freedom that is almost a societal taboo. Your beauty is so purely liberating.

❖ Lmao, I imagine a guitar riff going off everytime you walk into a room.

❖ You are the physical embodiment of eccentric love and vivacious rebellion.

Play That Funky Music

🂽 Pile Three 🂽 (The lovers rev., the High Priestess rev., Ace of Swords., 4oC. 7)

❖ Revolution is a running theme for all of the piles. This collective’s beauty awakens people.

❖ I’m seeing a brilliant man going mad at the lack of creative intelligence around him and pushing for societal rebirth. A complete cultural shift from the Dark Ages (pile one), to modernity. This is my Renaissance pile.

❖ You embody the mystical fusion of art, religion, architecture, and science. You are all the world’s intrinsic beauty rolled up into one figure. You are the art that attracts painters, inventors, and philosophers alike.

❖ You have the beauty of an all-around muse. You invoke the spirit of creative passion. It is like people see you and get a stroke of inspiration. Something that kicks them in the ass and tells them to go outside and create.

❖ This pile is very romantic. A classical beauty, like red roses and bottle poems. The universal innate desire to dream big.

❖ Shoutout to my Aquarians, 11th housers, and Shatabhisha natives.

The Medieval-Modern Muse

🂽 Pile Four 🂽 (king of pentacles, 2oP, 5oP rev., 9oP)

❖ OKAY PLOTWIST?? I don’t know what era this pile’s beauty is from because it’s set in the future.

❖ It’s funny how the last piles were all set in periods of revolution (putting in the WORK) and your pile, the final pile, is set in a better world full of financial stability, the end of inequality, economic fairness, and universal abundance (the fruits of the labor).

❖ Dude, I was trying to read the message at first and was just scratching my head. I was like, “When has anywhere, literally ever been this good???” Then I saw the ace of wands reversed at the bottom of the deck and saw impending change and it clicked.

❖ I also saw some star semblance, and see that your beauty is a reminder to mankind that the “impossible” is already set in motion. The hell we have created will crumble.

❖ You are a physical embodiment of society’s future triumph. You radiate wealth and fairness. My Venusians, especially Libra. You also look regal, something about you makes people want to stand taller.

❖ You got the pride card, I see that you give people the feeling of victory. You are living proof of future triumph in a better world where greed and sorrow are eradicated.

❖ You are the harbinger of the next era.

Introducing The First Titanium Man On The Moon!

[diejager]

The writing where reader died, what happens if they were revived as a wraith like Ghost? There's probs going to have a lot of fluff and a small angst here and there. But I mostly wanna read your writings!! It's cus' I can't get enough, and kept rereading it all the time

Cw: pain, death, turning, cannibalism, implied torture, implied blood and gore, angst, fluff, hunger, tell me if I missed any. We’re going to forget how you previously died, cuz @bluegiragi gave us more info about wraiths and I just love where the comic is going.

What a cruel joke, irony hitting him in the face the same way his abrupt shift hurt him, an apathetic slap to the face that left him bloody and in shock the way he left Roba on his dying breath. Simon didn’t know what was crueler, the knowledge that you were tortured and buried alive, left to die alone for the sins of his own making and the wrath of another, or that you were left to die a slow and excruciating death after being beaten half to death, expected to lose your resolve solely on the fact that you were a medic, and turned into the monster he was.

Neither your captor nor death had been merciful, much less the reaper, a collector of wandering souls and lost ghosts, waiting their turn to cross the river with a small token for the afterlife. Be it Hermes, the messenger and the carrier of souls, Thanatos the reaper and collector, Anubis - or Inpu, however people called him - the guide, Ankou the shadow, Sgàthach the warrior, or Freyja and Fólkvangr; you weren’t granted the soft embrace of a calm death, but the cruel rejection of it, forced back into life and abandoned by sweet sleep.

He remembered his own, the painful pull of his back, the crazed smoke that filled his mind with a thirst for blood and revenge, the crack and ugly break of his bode, reshaping his body and organs dyed dark, dying and pained. He remembered well the pain of it like it was yesterday, having to crawl out of the shallow grave on his own and discover the carnage he left behind, stained in his and Price’s blood. He was reborn.

And so were you, crying and sobbing, your skin scarred beyond thinking and mind in shambles of broken faith and abandoned affection. He knew first hand how it felt, the burn and agony of it, the hunger and ache that plagued you like an undying pestilence, darker than the one that ripped through Europe in the fourteenth century and more devastating than the Justinian’s. He’d been too late, too slow to help you through the first ripple of shock and fear once you’d quenched your thirst, staunching it like you would a wound. He let you fester in your sorrow and hunger, left you without a guide or caretaker until you ravaged the area, leaving only blood and rubble in your devastation. 

But he’s here now, picking you up from the mess you found yourself in, a storm of smoke and thick black that you hid yourself in, to hide the monster you had become. He might not be proud of who he’s become - much like you - but he grew into it, lived his life as one, and he would be here to help you through the process of it. Where he wished he had a helping hand, you would have his. He would help you with your hunger, the famine that grew the more you left it alone, filling your being with bodies he’d gather up for you to absorb. He would teach you how to control the smoke - the sinews of your being, the consistence of it forming your figure - and build from it, stopping yourself from phasing to and from it, staying as a physical manifestation of it rather than darkness itself. 

Where he felt lost and confused, alone and wishing for a swift end, you wouldn’t, he made sure to stay, to be the pillar of support for you whenever you crashed, his body covering yours to stop you from vanishing in a fit of tears. Where he spent time hating himself, demeaning the cannibalism he became, you wouldn’t, he’d rather send himself to hell than let you think you were the lowest of the low, a human eating another. And where he was cruel to himself when death had renounced him, you wouldn’t, he’d whisper the sweetest words, praises, compliments, affection and guidance, he would make sure you wouldn’t drown alone like he did years ago. He loved you too much to let that happen.

Taglist: @craxy-person @crowbird @dead-cipher @iwannabealocalcryptid @iizx7y @mxtokko @capricorn-anon @perfectus-in-morte @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @bvxygriimes @distracteddragoness @konigsblog @angelcakes-22 @ramadiiiisme @ramblingsofachaoticthinker @im-making-an-effort @love-dove-noora @jinxxangel13 @daisychainsinknots @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @mul-pi @danielle143 @beau-min @makayla-666 @urfavsunkissedleo @notspiders @brokenpieces-72 @luvecarson @petwifed @randominstake @heartelysia @jggykhug09090 @hayleybarnesx @shironasumi @sparky--bunny @bloobewy @call-me-nyxx @sans-chara @cod-z @sweetnanah @aldis-nuts @thigh-o-saur @evolutionarry @kaoyamamegami @cassiecasluciluce @sobbingnshtting

[absolutely-esme]

Monster!Tim Coraline AU Idea

This idea would not leave me alone.

It’s a cross between a meta!/magic!Tim au and a Coraline au.

Before I get into it, I feel like I should explain.  I was on a bit of an Eldritch!Batfamily and Cryptid!Batfamily kick.  Then I found a collection of supernatural Tim aus.  Then I stumbled across a Coraline au.  There’s probably also some inspiration in there from vampire au fics.

It didn’t really jell until the idea occurred to me of a scene where some frightened villain asks Tim “What kind of monster are you?” and Tim says “The hungry kind.”

...

The idea is that somewhere back along the way, Tim’s family tree includes some kind of supernatural creature which may or may not have been an eldritch entity.

The supernatural heritage allows Tim to acquire abilities from other entities he has defeated, and Gotham is absolutely full of the supernatural if you pay attention.

Of course, Tim’s power isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.  It actually comes packaged with some pretty nasty side effects.

One of those side effects is perpetual Hunger.  Tim is always Hungry.  There is no way to stop it.  He eats enough to stay healthy, but he still feels Hunger at all times.  Increasing his food intake will not help and will screw up his metabolism and cause him to need more for normal function.  If this was allowed to spiral out of control it could eventually reach a point where he was physically unable to eat the amount of food he needed to function and starved to death on a full stomach. 

Fixing it is stupid hard because this particular sort of magical inheritance is really fucking inconvenient.  And, of course, whatever is up with his biology also makes him insanely susceptible to addiction, so no coffee for him unless he wants caffeine withdrawal symptoms all the time for however long it takes to fix that.  The constant Hunger also makes it difficult to get enough sleep.  Have you ever tried to go to sleep on an empty stomach?  Not easy, was it?  Imagine that every night.

The Hunger is fairly central to the nature of the magic.  Whatever supernatural entity he’s descended from, it is the Hungry kind.  The ritual of defeating another supernatural entity, taking a bit of the defeated entity’s power, and incorporating it into himself serves as a sort of metaphorical devouring, (and metaphors matter more to magic than they do to normal biology).  That’s why he’s able to gain power and abilities from defeated foes. 

...

Tim’s relationship with his parents is complicated.  His supernatural heritage comes from his mother’s side of the family.  She did her best to teach him about it and how to cope with it, but a lot of knowledge was lost over the generations due to persecution forcing those like them into hiding more than once.  There may have been a few individuals who spiraled out of control and caused small-scale famines before losing their lives.  It only takes a few cases for people to decide that a specific category of people is simply not worth the risk of having around.  Janet always referred to herself and Tim (as well as anyone else sharing the condition) as “those afflicted with Gluttony.”  This is the closest they have to a name for the condition.

One of the important things Janet Drake teaches her son is to pursue his passions.  It is incredibly important for individuals like them to have things outside the self that they can draw satisfaction and fulfilment from, things that keep them going in the face of the relentless Hunger.  This is what leads Tim to his night-time photography of Gotham, and eventually to his fascination with the Bats. 

Janet’s passions are archeology and travel.  Unfortunately, traveling from dig site to dig site is not a particularly stable or safe environment to raise a child in.  She needs to do these things to remain in good health.  Without her external coping mechanisms, she could start spiraling.  If she starts spiraling, it might trigger her son to start spiraling too because children in their developmental years are delicate, and this type of hereditary magic is fucking inconvenient (there might be ways of managing things that make it easier to live with, but between the knowledge lost and the risks that come with experimentation, they don’t have much info on how anything works).  She comes home as much as she can without the risk of compromising both their health.

She also taught Tim how to calculate appropriate portion sizes based on nutritional data so as not to screw up his metabolism, and how to fix it if he does mess up.  She also stayed and managed the process the first time it happened because the process of returning the metabolism of one afflicted with Gluttony to normal after it’s gotten out of hand is difficult and unpleasant and Tim wasn’t old enough to handle it by himself.  The nanny that had overfed him hadn’t been malicious or unreasonable, she’d just been operating on the assumption that he had standard human biology.  It took months to get Tim healthy again.  It took several hefty bribes to keep things under wraps.  Janet doesn’t know if there are still people out there hunting their kind, but she’s not willing to risk it.

Janet may not know about the aspect of the family magic that lets them gain powers from defeating other entities.  It’s possible that she was holding off on explaining this until he was older and more ready for the responsibility of multiple superpowers.  It’s also possible that the knowledge got lost somewhere along the way and Janet didn’t discover it herself because she didn’t spend her childhood running around Gotham at night and was more the sort of person who would stay home and read when she had trouble sleeping.

...

Tim discovers his ability to gain abilities from defeating other supernatural things fairly early on.  The type of defeat can vary, but it has to be something of significance.  A fight will work for most, but there are other particular challenges that will work for specific cases.

The first things a young Tim is able to beat are these small things, invisible to most, that gain power from learning secrets.  What that power is used for, I couldn’t tell you.  They don’t seem to do much other than sneak around and learn secrets.  Tim doesn’t know if there’s a proper name for these things or not, but he calls them Secret Hunters.  They are absolutely everywhere in Gotham. 

Secret Hunters are invisible to most, but Tim is able to see them.  It might be because of his own supernatural nature, or it might be something else entirely.  If it’s hereditary it must have skipped his parents’ generation.  Neither of them seem to be able to see them.  Tim gains improved stealth and a sense for when something is hidden from catching Secret Hunters until they wise up and start avoiding him.  (Catching them works in place of a fight because secret hunters primarily operate on stealth and evasion.)

He can’t just magically know secrets, but he can tell when there is a secret.  (He still figured out Batman’s and Robin’s secret identities on his own merit.  The most this ability would have done is alert him to the fact that they had secret identities if that hadn’t already been obvious from the fact that they were wearing masks.)

He also gets various other abilities from other things he encounters while scrambling all over Gotham at night.  Nearly doesn’t get out of some of the scrapes he gets himself into.  He gains the ability to cut with his fingernails as if they were razors from something that nearly killed him.  He gains the ability to climb like a goat from a Jersey Devil.  Etc.

...

At some point, Tim is targeted by a beldam.  He doesn’t get the kind of warnings that Coraline does, but his ability to sense secrets lets him know that the Beldam is hiding something, and any child raised in any part of Gotham knows to be suspicious of things that seem too good to be true.  Tim doesn’t have a convenient seeing stone from the neighbor, but he does have the advantage of his own supernatural nature which the Beldam doesn’t know about.

Tim finds a button-eyed doll that looks like him after his parents leave on yet another trip, and thinks it’s a gift they meant to give him before leaving.  They do often bring interesting souvenirs.  It wouldn’t be at all unusual for them to find an artist who sews dolls to look like people and have one made based on pictures of him.  Later on, he discovers the key. 

This Beldam is older and more powerful than the one from Coraline.  She has more power and more past victims to work with, so she’s able to make a larger, more populated world. 

Oh by the way, I head-canon that the Other versions of people in the Other world are actually past victims of the Other Mother, remade and dressed up for whatever role she has them play.  The three ghosts were just the three most recent and not fully processed for use yet.  That’s why the Others are able to act against her sometimes (Other Wybie saving Coraline from the mirror, Other Father tossing the eye to Coraline) or say things she doesn’t want them too (Other Father says “so sharp you won’t feel a thing” and Other Mother kicks him under the table).

The Other Mother doesn’t know all that Tim knows, so the Other World has inconsistencies like Other Batman and Other Robin sitting across the table from Other Bruce and Other Jason.  She doesn’t know they’re the same people.  She just knows that they’re all important to Tim.  She also tries to tell him to “eat as much as he wants” when his real mother was the one to explain the dangers of attempting to eat to fullness for people with their condition.

There isn’t a cat to warn Tim but he doesn’t need it.  He can sense hidden intentions in everything, and he’s fully capable of uncovering the hidden secrets himself. 

Tim doesn’t have a cat, but he does have Other Robin, who might have been made from whatever remained of someone close to one of the people mirrored in the Other World made for Tim.  He doesn’t remember his life, but somehow he feels incredibly motivated to help a boy who cares dearly for whoever and is willing to let him know that they're living a good life out there in the real world.

Tim discovers the nature of the other world and sets out to free the souls trapped there.  He fights the Beldam will all the viciousness and desperation of someone who knows they’ve only got one shot.  He takes everything he can from this fight as he makes sure she won’t ever hurt anyone again.  He doesn’t stop until the beldam is well and truly dead.  Then he unravels Other Gotham and spills all of the souls out into the world where they can move on and rest.

This is how Tim learns to Sew.  He can’t make entire populated worlds like the beldam, but that’s mostly because he refuses to do what she did.  He can control things he’s made (though there’s limits on how much) and even see through buttons he’s sewn (onto cushions and such, he's not the Other Mother).  He also gets some minor illusory powers that let him make things look a bit brighter/nicer/cheerier than they are.  It takes quite some time before he’s comfortable with using these powers.  Trauma is a bitch like that.

Part of the reason this version of Tim was so desperate to do something about Batman losing it out of grief is because he already has Evil Batman trauma from Other Batman, and he doesn’t need that shit happening in real Gotham.

By this point Tim has a collection of powers that allow him to navigate the more dangerous parts of Gotham largely without fear.  Now he has to learn how to manage without using any that he isn’t one hundred percent certain he can sneak past Batman, which means he’ll have to divide his attention between learning from the training and not letting himself do things the supernatural way.  This is going to suck.

It does, in fact, suck.

Oh, it turns out some of the rogues are a bit supernatural.  He gains a bit of an intuitive understanding of the health of plants from Ivy.  He gains the ability to taste emotions from Scarecrow.  (Also, Johnathan Crane is a freaking weirdo, fear tastes like spoiled milk!)  The rogues with supernatural tendencies are freaking terrified of the new Robin because he always seems like he wants to freaking eat them.  The non-supernatural types don’t get it.

Eventually, Red hood breaks into Titan’s tower.  Tim, by this point, is very good at deciphering how supernatural entities work and is packing an extensive inventory of powers.  He realizes quickly that this is some kind of manipulative entity that feeds on rage and pain attached to an unwitting host.  When he realizes that the unknowing (and therefore unconsenting) host is Jason Todd, he tells the Lazarus Entity in no uncertain terms to give Jason back or perish.

Jason, who does not realize he has a malicious, mind-warping, supernatural parasite and believes there to be no one other than himself and Tim present, is understandably confused.

Tim decides that the Lazarus entity has had its chance and springs into action.

Jason is treated to the terrifying sight of just what Tim Drake is like when he’s not expending conscious effort on not being something out of a horror movie.  Suddenly he’s in the middle of a spider’s web and no matter how hard he tries to fight back everything around him is under the control of his opponent.  Furniture flies around on puppet strings.  Getting too close puts him in range of the freaking claws this kid apparently has!?  Trying to get away just leaves him caught in strings and the more he struggles the more entangled he becomes!  The new Robin is skittering and gliding around in a decidedly inhuman way. 

Jason honestly thinks he's going to die when he finds himself bound with Tim standing over him.  He passes out when Tim rips the Lazarus entity away from him and destroys it. 

Tim gains the ability to heal from defeating the Lazarus entity.

Jason is surprised and confused when he wakes up bundled in a handmade quilt with his head in Tim’s lap and a cool compress on his forehead, feeling sore but more well and whole than he has since before he died.

Jason later decides that his memories of the fight at Titans Tower must be some kind of weird fever dream caused by his body purging the last of the Lazarus Water from his system. It goes along with Tim's account of things.

According to Tim, Jason entered the tower, initiated a lock-down, and then collapsed on the floor. Then, Tim moved him closer to a wall where he was less likely to get stepped on than in the middle of the walkway and did his best to take care of him there because Jason was simply too large and heavy for him to carry all the way to the med bay by himself.

This is far more believable and less of a mind screw than what Jason remembers. Obviously this tiny, baby-faced kiddo who played nursemaid for a stranger who broke into the tower and now looks up at him with wide, starry eyes couldn't actually be the terrifying, predatory creature from the nightmare. It was all just a bad dream.

He's honestly glad he collapsed before he had time to do any harm. The poor kid will never have to know what Jason went there to do. Jason knows, though, and he'll do his damned best to make up for it. He may have flubbed first impressions, but he is going to be the best damn big brother that ever big brothered.

...

Tim might or might not go full on feral cryptid when Bruce is lost in the Timestream. I haven't decided. He will probably pick a fight with the Lazarus Pit much to the confusion and alarm of everyone around.

That’s all I’ve got so far.

[laceylavender]

Gale and Katniss are proof that you can grow up in the same circumstances and still learn to see the world in a different way.

Growing up in famine, abuse, violence, poverty and under control of a corrupt government gave them similar circumstances to grow up in: being the oldest sibling, their fathers dying in the mine, becoming the providers of the house at an early age, losing almost everything to said government. While Katniss developed a sense of empathy for everyone affected by this government (whether they were more privileged than her, or not), Gale developed a sense of hatred and thirst for vengeance because the people that weren’t his people had privileges that no one should have, while his family and his friends were being starved, or killed.

That’s why from an early age (pre-teen to full blown teenage years) he had always been thinking with the mindset of a hunter, only he wasn’t only hunting in the forest for prey and food, he was hunting in the real world and he was hunting his enemies, perpetrators and by-standers who did nothing to stop them, they all fit in the same category for him: the enemy. He grew up thinking of ways in which he could kill them if he could, that’s why earlier in the books he tells Katniss he would kill the Capitol citizens if he could, they were nothing to him.

When Gale sees the Capitol bomb and fire his district and kill his people, then gets evacuated to district 13 and has the opportunity to do something, to be of value and design strategies that can help kill said enemy, he does it. No second thought.

The thing is, both Katniss and Gale were right in certain aspects, especially in those they couldn’t agree on, and for me is easy to see from the perspective of both.

In war it should be common rule to offer the possibility of surrender first, but when your enemy doesn’t surrender and you see your own army lose more and more members, you attack - most of the time these are “last resort” attacks that end in lots of human life lost, but when you still give them a last chance to surrender like they did with the train in 2, it still shows a little glimpse of hope and empathy, that not everything has to be lost to war, and this is the part Gale didn’t understand, because if he paid too much thought to it, the lines would get blurred in his head, it was easier to see in black and white.

Personally, I’m in a grey zone when it comes to both of their thinking, and that’s why as a world with increasing and escalating issues we’ve created mechanisms like humanitarian law, war law, international human rights, etc, etc, we need to draw the lines, this is the playbook Katniss was referring to. What’s too much in war? A bullet to the head? Burying people in a mountain just for the sake of killing them? Where’s the line? Hijacking and manipulating people, stripping them of their consciousness and identity? Sending children into an arena to murder each other? Human trafficking? Sex trafficking? You see where I’m going? This is not about Gale, it’s about war.

Look at history, look around you. What do you see? What do you make of it? And please, use critical thinking. Is it acceptable to kill group B if they’ve killed people from group A? Do people from group B deserve a second chance, although their victims didn’t? Your opinion and reasoning depends a lot on the morals you have, and your own experience with war and abuse, which, if you’ve been lucky enough not to have a first hand experience with it, you should also take it into consideration before saying something. Just think, consider, see beyond yourself, see from different points of you, keep the definition of good and evil close to your hand and take note where they start to get blurry. What do you see?

[sunfyresrider]

*ೃ༄SACRILEGE | AEGON II TARGARYEN

✧Synopsis. You’d been sent to Valea Zalanului, Transylvania to aid a church in desperate need of sisters of the faith. Since you arrived your faith has been constantly tested and the priest himself stirs nothing but unease within you.

✧Content. 18+nsfw ahead, Old English, vampire!priest, fem!reader, “blood letting”, confessional, provocative thoughts/dreams, vampire cult?, blasphemy, sacrilege,“father”, corruption kink, smut, m/f cunnilingus, pnv. WC. 6.3k

✧Translations. Wot- know, Gramercy- thanks, Hast- have, Hath- had, Thou - you, ‘I- in, Dost/Doth- do, Thy- your, Tis- it is, Merely- solely/only, Beray- reveal, Aye- always/ever, Ere- before

✧Note. anddddd we’re back. I haven’t been writing enough in the last few months so I am rusty. FYI the plot moves fast, this was originally just meant to be a short smut. Tags. @criticallybella @etherial-moon-blog @xylianasblog

Valea Zalanului,

Transylvania,

1480

You had been sent on a journey to join and aid in a new church far from home. A little village twenty some miles from the nearest city in desperate need for a priest and sisters of the faith. You hadn’t minded traveling the distance, albeit the chill from the soon to pass winter season made it all the harder. The town itself was even smaller than you assumed, a grandiose church sat in the middle of around thirty very simple dwellings. The wood, straw and stone was much different from the entirely stone city you were blessed to be born into.

Valea Zalanului had a certain charm about it that most large settlements lacked, natural beauty. God had taken extra time to craft the hills and forests surrounding it. Unfortunately, you’d be inside the church for most of your stay here. Which might not be a horrible thing considering many lives had been lost due to disease, a child who made it past three was considered a blessing. Not to mention the wars that raged on throughout the country.

Your heart ached with excitement at the idea of being a part of this place and helping the people who lived here.

You noticed that even though it was shrouded in beauty every face you passed seemed grim and the town itself was droll in comparison to ones you visited previously. In all honesty, and god forgive you for saying this, you’d find more cheerful faces during a funeral.

As you began to ascend the steps to the church you were immediately greeted by two sisters, one was much shorter than the other, her face soft and fresh, the other was tall and sharp. The elder seemed less pleased to greet you as she stood a distance, observing you carefully. The younger girl stepped forward and bowed slightly before taking your hands.

"Thou might not but be our new sister! welcome, I be sister Marishka, the one standing yonder is sister Aleera!” Her voice was sweet and her excitement was evident. “Pleased to compose thy acquaintance Mariska,” you smiled earnestly, “And sister Aleera.” Her eyes bore into you and you waited with bated breath for her judgment. None came, only a single nod and a knowing look to Mariska.

“Don’t let her fright thou, that little nod means she approves. Aleera is normally quite welcoming, it’s just these days hast been busy.” Your face betrayed you as it showed your surprise, the town seemed too empty to have a lot of traffic. “Truly?”

“Oh yes, many of the sisters that hast traveled hither were disappointing to say the least. Not to mention the sheer numbers of victims of war and famine that hast graced our steps… This winter hath been much worse than 'i the past.” You glanced around, observing your surroundings for all the people she spoke of but none were found. Perhaps that had all passed away while in their care or sent away for whatever reason.

A strange feeling began to creep up your spine. You could not place what it was or why it was but it was very much present. Your head whipped back to the door where Aleera was beckoning you inside, an arm wrapped around your own, paired with the brightest smile you’d ever seen. She had practically dragged you inside, gawking at the new ceiling fixtures. It grew ever darker the further you moved inside, save the one grandiose stained glass window depicting the crucifixion.

For how busy she claimed it to be, the church seemed rather empty. It felt chilled, more so than the outside and instead of oak the building was made of stone. Her chatterings were lost on you as you took it all in. There was something greatly lacking, overshadowed by a presence you could not name. It almost felt as if this building was a costume, built to resemble a sacred place. You nearly began to regret auctioning yourself to a newer place, perhaps adventure was not suited for you.

A light nudge to your waist drew you out of your stupor, gazing incredulously at Marishka. Her voice was still hushed as you turned to look upon, what you could only presume was the acting priest. He looked far younger than what you expected, messy platinum hair framing his baby-esque face. His smile was bright, yet his eyes were a stark contrast. They were drowned in a hue of violet, shrouded with a cloud of something you could not pinpoint.

His lips moved and you still could not hear, you were far too focused on how his attire was not in the proper size. “Mine mind seems to be elsewhere, please forgive me. What was it thou spoke?” He chuckled silently to himself, your disrespect of his status seemed to amuse him.

"Never fret, thy journey hath been long and i presumed thou had been exhausted. I’m father Aegon, the current and hopefully 'i the foreseeable future priest.” His accent was heavy and foreign, British, not something you had heard often. You bowed slightly, hand pressed against your chest as you greeted him.

"Mine name is-” Father Aegon waved his hand, “I wot thy name and all the important details. I’ve been 'i close communication with thy sect and we feel most blessed to hast thou” His smile felt unnerving, unusually sharp at the tips of his mouth. You could almost swear his teeth were whiter than most, though dental hygiene was not a common practice.

His eyes, on the other hand, were strange. You’d never seen such a color before nor been enchanted into gazing at them. It seemed you could become lost in the depths, if only for a moment. Your silence must have been off putting because Marshika seemed to grip you harder. “Alright, Methinks mine sister hath had too much excitement for today. I shall guide her to her chambers.” Father Aegon nodded, a silent understanding passed between them.

You struggled to find sleep after today's odd welcoming. After mindlessly reading through the weathered pages of a Bible you’ve owned since a child you blew out the singular candle in your room. You settled under the thin blanket and turned your back to the window.

The moon was full tonight. It bathed your whole room in its pale light, creating odd shadows from your belongings. Your eyes were trained on the window across the room. The howling sounds of wind began lulling you to sleep like a corrupted lullaby.

Everything will be okay, you told yourself as you squeezed your eyes shut. God will guide me through this, you murmured as you finally drifted off into slumber…

The sudden feeling of your bed being weighed down stirred you awake, but when you tried to move your body became limp. You glanced up to see a figure on all four limbs climbing onto the bed, dazzling red eyes boring into yours as it moved above you. A beast, one that seemed to be plucked out of hell itself. Your blood ran cold, the pounding of your heart echoing in your eardrums as its clawed, beastly hands slowly descended upon you.

You could neither scream nor move, as if you had been held down by an invisible weight and gagged by an unknown object. Your eyes squeezed shut, praying, begging for some sort of escape. Dear Lord art in heaven, whatever sin I may have committed or performed against you, dear god have mercy on me.

A soft pair of lips touched your collarbone, kissing against your trembling skin gently. You felt the devil above you shift, the horrid hands changing into ones that carefully caressed you. Blasphemy, you thought bitterly. How could such a heinous creature use such loving, familiar gestures? And yet, the hands and lips brought a strange warmth that calmed the tense muscles in your body and eased the erratic beats of your heart.

Your eyes began to pry themselves open, a flash of silver hair just hovering in your field of view. The smell of wine and a strange hint of musk entice your senses, the image growing clearer by the second. It was not the nightmarish shape you had seen before. Instead, a beautiful, gorgeous being that lulled you to another world with his hands.

Priest Aegon? No, not him, it couldn’t be.

His kisses did not cease, instead trickled down to your collarbone. His fingers inching onto your breasts, massaging into the tender flesh. You were not in your right mind, thoughts beginning to form and protest kept slipping away. It felt too good to fight it. Surely, this man is god in disguise.

The father’s lips pressed into that of your breast, his tongue ghosting your nipple. Your breath hitched, the feeling alone almost is enough to send you into convulsions. However, you were abruptly pulled from the haze, a sharp sensation pricked at your breast. With sudden clarity you peered down to see the priest sinking his teeth into your breast.

You jolted awake, eyes flying open and hands grasping at the spot where he bit you. You were in your room, alone, but you still were reeling from the dream. You heard the soft chirping of chaffinches and the soft rustling of the leaves. The normally comforting sounds of day instead brought a sense of dread in the air, as if the nightmare that visited you had left an imprint on the atmosphere.

As you remove yourself from bed and began washing yourself in front of the mirror you noticed A thin sheen of sweat coated your brow, and when you shifted you felt an odd ache between your legs. Worry began to nestle within your chest, could the lord see your dreams? Will he know about the vile, carnal, utterly strange thoughts that came to you?

You had neither had intentions to act on anything nor the carnal desire others held. You would repent for this, pray for forgiveness and to banish the image from your mind entirely. Out of thought, out of mind, you repeat to yourself in your mind as you readied yourself.

It’s important to note each house of God has different rules, in this one they are extremely picky about who they allow to work inside. Though it was increasingly clear it desperately needed some changes. To start, proper sleeping areas and a better way to heat the stone building. Perhaps more windows as well, it was extremely dark inside, midday felt more like midnight.

Everyone had made themselves scarce after breakfast, a small meal of bread and cheese that the farmers were kind enough to provide the church. It was a Sunday which meant communion would be held later in the evening. You attempted to make yourself busy in the meanwhile traveling around the town to feel out the people, culture and whatnot. It’s very important to know whom you would be spreading the word of the lord to.

The hallways within the cathedral were dimly lit, torches lined the walls instead of the usual decorative windows. There were few people around during the day and you encountered none of them. It seemed eerily empty, lacking something you could not put a name to. The wooden floorboards creaked as you walked across them and the grandiose door made a wicked screeching noise as you pried them open.

You felt lighter as you stepped outside, you felt lighter as you stepped outside, as if a weight was lifted from your shoulders and the dust no longer filled your airways. How odd, you thought to yourself, no house of God had made you feel like that before. You shook your head, starting your venture outside the confines of your home. The sleet had turned the soil into mud and the clouds remained dreary but at least the sun was starting to peak over the distant clouds.

Without hesitation you made your way through town, taking note of the way people eyed you suspicious and the caution everyone exuded while walking around the church. A scrawny man with a scraggly beard and rotting clothes strode towards your direction, probably going to visit the single alcohol serving establishment. You decided to attempt to speak to him, “excuse me, sir?”

He seemed completely uninterested as he avoided meeting your eyes. “S-sir? Doth thou hast a instant-” The man paused in his steps, turning around to meet your face. “You’re new, aren’t thou? Shipped 'i from another country i'd wager.” You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, glad he was willing to converse. “Only a few countries away,” you lightly jested.

He let out a sigh of disappointment, almost gazing at you with pity in your eyes. “If you’re as smart as thou sound, sister, i would turn tail and flee.” Before you could muster up the courage to ask him why, the man continued. "Aye since that priest came around everything’s been strange. Don’t say to me thou haven’t noticed aught?” You opened your mouth to return the sentiment, perhaps ask more questions, but the sound of the church bells caught you off guard, the bells signaling the start of service. The man gave you a curt nod before continuing his trek.

You nearly fell over yourself trying to walk back to your temporary home. The doors were open, though there was hardly any people inside. Just as you stepped through the threshold you heard the doors close, the heavy wood clanging together loudly and shutting you out. A sudden wave of panic hit you, instead of feeling safe locked away in the house of god, you felt panicked.

You kept your head down as you walked to the front, seating yourself farthest from the altar. You closed your eyes, readying yourself for opening prayer.

“We gramercy, our father, for that life which thou've discovered to us by jesus, thy son, by whom thou made all things, and take care of all of the world-”

The insistent pounding of your heart beat berated your eardrums, drowning out the flurry of voices around you. A part of you worried someone could read your mind, see what you saw last or heard the distrust for your church evident in your innermost thoughts. No longer did you feel pure enough to partake in any ceremony and if you could, you would flee to your chambers.

“Eternal god, we bid thou 'i the name of thy son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those whom receive it. That they may eat 'i remembrance of the corporal agent of thy son, and witness thee, o god.”

You were drawn back to the start of the communion, realizing you must have blacked out to miss so much. It felt as if time moved differently, you could swear you had just sat down.

“Holy God, we bid thou 'i the name of thy son Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this wine to the souls of all those whom receive it. That they may posset 'i remembrance of the blood of the lord which was shed for 'em”

Father Aegon’s voices boomed and bounced against the stone walls. It resounded in your head, as if it had come from within. You watched with careful eyes as the followers of Christ walked the aisles, one by one lining up in front of him. It was your turn now to stand and retake communion, as was required of nuns who moved sects. A part of you wanted to just sit and not join the line, but the fear of being shamed was far greater than the woe.

Your legs felt weak as you stood, your muscles nearly denying your pleas to move. You felt guilt weighing down your soul, as if divine punishment was awaiting. You shuffled along, eyes casted towards the ground as you gripped your dress. The Father was looking at, you could feel his eyes as you moved forward. From the tone of his voice he appeared disinterested in every other participant. Nervously, you stepped onto the last step, his form looming over you.

Father Aegon’s eyes bore into yours as they glimmered, unnatural they were, but he would just deny the accusation. He presented the host, and carefully he placed it in your mouth. His eyes studied the way your tongue nervously peeked out of your mouth, the way your large pupils stared into his own with such innocence and devotion.

Aegon imagined you would look even better on your knees.

“The body of Christ,” he proclaimed as he studied the way your throat moved as you swallowed the host. “Amen,” you mumbled out so quietly even his advanced set of ears struggled to hear. Your eyes watched him carefully as he turned to pass the chalice of wine to you. Quite the attentive little thing you were.

A moment later, he handed you the chalice with a light smile. The golden cup was unsteady as your hands trembled for an unknown reason. A strange feeling continued to creep up your spine as you lost yourself in his gaze. Perhaps it was due to the fact you hadn’t seen a man with his appearance in your entire life. If you were allowed to think such, he could be considered devastatingly beautiful.

The liquid slipped from the chalice and into your mouth. Instead of the warmth of Christ coating your senses, you felt your throat constrict and a harsh itch causing you to choke. You nearly dropped the holy cup to the floor as you tried to force yourself to swallow, his hand caught it before it could hit the floor, eyebrows raised as he studied you closely, listening to the rapid beat of your heart.

It burned in an unfamiliar way, as if you were being poisoned, and soon the taste of the communion wine coated your mouth with its putrid flavor you weren’t used to. Panic settled in your veins as your mind raced with explanations, fear of damnation.

Aegon smiled a small, amused grin which caught you off guard. He looked deeply into your eyes, his own burning with a mix of hunger as one hand slowly rose to wipe the wine from your lip. You couldn't look away as he brought his finger to his mouth and licked the liquid away, humming lowly. “Tastes like shit, doesn’t it?”

Your breath caught in your throat as your mouth gaped in shock. This was your Lord's blood, this was a sacred ceremony. How could he say something so vulgar. Aegon cleared his throat, lazily moving his hands to make the sign of the cross. “The blood of Christ,” he spoke louder than necessary. “Amen.”

You bowed your head, fingers gripping tightly onto the hem of your dress as you scurried away. The rest of mass you sat in utter silence, your gaze casted onto the floor. What the hell was happening to you? You had accidentally disassociated throughout the rest of communion, whatever prayers and hymns were sung you did not hear. You denied Marishka’s invitation to supper, instead running straight to your room to find solace in isolation.

Sleep once again eluded you the night after communion. It did not matter how much you tossed and turned, the sheets felt suffocating and your blood burned beneath your skin. Each time you began to drift your mind wandered where it shouldn’t, thoughts you hadn’t had before crept into your subconscious. Why did you choke? You’d never done anything like that before.

It felt as if the wine itself was rejecting you, deeming you unholy and not worthy of swallowing it. That terrified you, what had you done to deserve such a punishment? Nothing, you’ve done nothing in your existence that was against neither god nor man. You sat in bed, tearing the cloth that shielded you from prying eyes. It was better, but it was not enough. You swiftly leaned over in bed, pushing the tiny window up so the cold air could enter. Finally, your lungs seemed to inhale deeper, a blanket of ice wrapping around your flesh and easing the constant heat.

Out of thought and out of mind you murmured to yourself as you laid back down, out of thought and out of mind, out of thought and out of mind, out of thought-

In your dreams you mindlessly roamed the halls, drawn to an unknown location. Through the darkness you eyed a crack in a doorway, golden light emitting into the hallways. You stalked closer, carefully angling yourself so you could peek inside without being caught. It took you a moment to recognize the sounds, quiet giggles, panting breaths, soft murmurs, and vulgar noises coming from a female. It made your skin crawl.

You could make out three figures on the lavish bed, which you noted was much more posh than your own. Their bodies intertwined around each other and fully nude. There was something strange about it, each of them were glistening as if their skin was damp with water. Quietly, you sunk to your knees, bending your neck so you could truly focus in. As your pupil dilated, your mouth gaped in shock, thank god no noise came out.

They were there, you mean, the sisters and a strange man were all there. Their skin covered in what you could only assume was blood due to the red tint and they were… coupling. Or were they devouring him? Quickly you rose to your feet, silently scurrying away to not draw attention. Your heart raced as you neared your chambers, reaching your hands out into the darkness grasping for salvation.

Your body collided with something hard, arms reaching around to blindly grab hold of it. The pale moonlight illuminated the silver locks adorning his head, violet eyes and white teeth glowing against the dark. Priest Aegon. You looked back down in shame, your eyes had deceived you. You were not in the halls, no. Instead, in his chamber.

“Are thou alright, sister?” He asked in a gentle voice, a hand resting on your cheek, caressing the warm skin. You aren’t sure why your body refused to move or why your hands refused to release their hold on him. It felt as if your blood had turned into lead, weighing you down. Your eyes trailed up to his face, purposefully avoiding the lack of clothing or cotton bottoms he adorned which hid nothing.

“I- Methinks I was sleepwalking.”

Aegon’s fingers pulled your chin up, the corner of his lip tugging into a grin. Your brain was a fog, a mist, unable to process what was happening. He was leaning in, and the smell of wine and musk blinded your sense. You felt his lips brush past your ear, a chill running down your spine.

“And thy subconscious brought thou to me. Could it be that you’ve been dreaming of me?” The words were whispered like a secret, a taboo, a forbidden thing. Aegon’s words enticed you, which they shouldn’t, it is immoral and sinful. Your heart raced at the thought, “yes,” you breathed out.

Your hand reached up to rest against his bare chest, feeling his heart thump in the same erratic pace. “I’ve been dreaming of thou too, little lamb.” A hand found its way to your neck, his lips grazing over yours as he spoke. “Each time, thou devote yourself to me merely and i consume thou wholly. Keeping thou inside me eternally.” Your stomach flipped, a tightness building in the pit of your abdomen. It was sinful, it was wrong, it was utterly obscene.

And yet you sunk further into him, lips parting and inviting him to ravish you. His hands slipped under your dress, cupping your bottom and lifting you up as if you weighed nothing. Your legs instinctively wrapped around his torso, his cock pressing against your sensitive region. Aegon climbed on top in a familiar way, his soft lips dancing with yours.

Your head felt fuzzy and light, the sensation of his touch overwhelming and euphoric. You lost control of yourself, abandoning the vows and purity you swore. You were so lost, consumed by lust and sin. He pressed his hips against yours, rubbing against you. Aegon’s lips trailed down your jaw, peppering kisses along your neck.

He moved away from you and for a moment you mourned his touch, yearning to have him close to you once more. You observed him with lidded eyes as he kneeled down between your thighs. He was beautiful, a divine image of an angel sent to heal you. “I wonder if you taste as sweet as your scent, little lamb.” The father muttered before pushing up the skirts of your dress, he pressed a gentle kiss to the inside of your thigh.

The warmth of his breath tickling the most sacred area. His strong hands gripped your thighs, holding them down. Aegon licked a long stripe from your entrance to your clit, the sensation sending shockwaves into your body. You couldn't help but completely lose yourself to him. You never imagined such pleasure could be given, and by a man of god.

The father's tongue circled your clit, sucking on it gently. Aegon pulled away and pushed a finger inside you, a quiet gasp escaped your lips, a foreign pleasure spreading through you. He began to pump his finger in and out of you, curling his fingers, stroking a bundle of nerves that sent electricity through your body.

Your head began to spin, pleasure consuming your every thought. A pressure began to build within you, an indescribable sensation that only grew. His tongue traced intricate patterns onto your core, suckling on the sensitive bundle. ”p-please father,” you begged, though you were not sure what. Aegon chuckled and the vibrations made your eyes roll in the back of your skull. Your sense of reality had all but abandoned you, your head was stuck in the cloud as if you had ascended to heaven.

You felt your body shake and the tension in your abdomen snap. It was as if your soul was torn out of you, the euphoria so intense it was almost painful. You felt dazed, lost in a trance, and unable to move. However, as you glanced up you no longer saw your angelic priest.

Instead, a demon gazed down upon you. The beautiful face now morphed into a twisted image, fangs protruding from its jaw, and eyes glowing a sinister crimson. Its mouth opened, a forked tongue slipping out and licking a path up your thigh. Your mind started to clear, terror seeping its way in your heart, and before you could scream for help it sunk its fangs deep within the flesh.

knock knock

You jolted awake, grabbing the skin around your neck and chest as your frantic breathing cut through the silence. It was only a nightmare, you muttered to yourself. You shifted in place, feeling something cool beneath your bum. Gazing down at the creased sheets, the sight of a sopping wet spot on the cloth made your stomach churn.

knock knock knock

“Sister! Tis time to wake!” The door handle wiggled, the sound of locks echoed throughout the room. “Y-yes, sister!” Hurriedly you rushed to the water basin to try and clean off the sinful stain, but as you stood your head began to pound. It was as if a needle pricked at the backs of your eyes. To add further to the misery, an instant dizziness overtook you as your legs buckled beneath you, sending you tumbling to the ground.

Horror flooded into your veins, was this a divine punishment for what happened in your thoughts? It was pure carnal desire, a disgusting and immoral craving. This was a divine warning, a sign that if you don't rectify your sins soon you will be punished. You scrambled to your feet, putting on the clothes necessary to venture to the altar and pray for forgiveness.

You flung open the door and hurried out, leaving a bewildered sister behind. You ran as fast as your legs could carry you, passing a group of befuddled visitors in your wake. Tears streamed down your face as the weight of your actions began to crush you. As soon as you reached the altar seating in front of the statue of God himself you fell to your knees.

The sickness he has placed upon you was a warning, the dreams you were having were cursed. You felt as if eyes were always watching, a shadow lurking around every corner. The walls seemed to be closing in on you, the air thick with regret. You bowed your head, clasping your hands together in front of you.

You prayed on your knees every day for the next week. Each night you dreamt of him, he was a devil, a temptress pulling you into sin. You had to rid yourself of the thoughts. Each day, you would pray, and each night you would dream. Your own mind began eating itself alive, the constant fear and paranoia taking its toll on your body. There wasn’t a day in the past weeks where you did not feel exhausted or sickly.

It was only an amount of time before you fell from grace, perhaps died from stress. You have felt like an animal hiding in the skin of a holy nun. No matter how many times you scrubbed yourself, you still felt the filth from your nights. It was only a matter of time until they found out, until the others saw. It was past time you confessed to your crimes and beg the lord directly for forgiveness, you could let these ill feelings fester no longer.

You’d never had to take a confessional in your life except for when you first became a sister. Since then, you have remained in good standing. It was an awkward thing, especially since the only confessor was the priest. You knew you could tell him anything, he was the voice of god, yet a larger part of you was frightened too.

The idea of seeing him, knowing what you dreamt, was terrifying. But you had no choice, you needed to seek repentance, or else your mind would eat itself alive. As you walked to the confessional, a familiar feeling of eyes burning holes in the back of your skull followed. You begrudgingly pushed through, waltzing towards the steps of the lord. It was darker than usual, the storm brewing outside mimicking your internal warfare. The quiet cracks of distant lighting illuminating the statue of Christ, in a haunting way.

It lacked a confessional, though one was being built in the far side of the room, until the carpenter disappeared. Unfinished and unused it sat and a part of you envied it, for now you felt sullied. The soft pitter patter of footsteps approaching from the hall echoed throughout the chapel, growing closer. A lump formed in your throat, nerves eating you from the inside. You felt him kneel next to you, his head tilting to gaze at you. “Come to confess, little lamb?” His words came out in a purr. The script you had rehearsed vanished into the void and your mouth dried up. “How’d thou wot?”

Aegon raised a hand and tucked a stray hair under your veil. “I’ve taken notice of thy ailments as I hast taken notice of the lack of thy presence. I wot all that goes on inside these walls.”

“Then I suppose I hast no choice,” you sucked in a deep breath, chewing at your bottom lip. Aegon beckoned you to continue, his face laced with curiosity and understanding. “Forgive mine, Father for I hast sinned,” the words rushed out of your throat. “I hast been having dreams of late. The most intricate and vivid dreams I hast had ere. 'i mine sleepless nights I see things that I shouldn’t and doth things with thou that are deemed unholy. I betray mine God and worship only thou. ” You released the breath you were holding, awaiting his response.

He moved closer to you, his lips brushing the shell of your ear, causing you to shiver. "Tis not wrong to worship I, his voice and his will join through me. I grant thou what he not, if only thou speak to me.” Aegon’s violet eyes gleamed, and his smile divine yet twisted. “Wouldst thou like to live eternally? Wouldst thou like to feel ecstasy?”

“What will you from me?” The words left you silently, your own voice unrecognizable to your ear. "Remove thy dress as I will guide thou thumb," His hand slipped from the veil and caressed the soft skin of your cheek, a thumb grazing your lips. His hand caressed yours, his warm touch sinking your mind further into the clouds. At first, you moved away, some semblance of sense still lingering within.

“Dost thou not desire what I giveth freely?” Aegon’s eyes were so magnetic, pulling you closer into his gravity. You could not deny him, nor did you want to. You shook your head quietly, beckoning him to continue. He guided your hands to the string lacing together your blouse, pulling them apart. One by one the threads popped, a slow and tantalizing pace. The fabric slid off your shoulders, exposing the tender skin underneath. Your heart beat flurried, some remnant of holiness trying to will you to stop. “Such beautiful skin thou hast,” Aegon murmured, his nose brushing against your neck.

A soft kiss was pressed into the side of your neck, his teeth lightly dragging along the flesh. You gasped, your eyes closing. You were lost in a fog, unable to think clearly or make rational decisions. Father Aegon guided your hands to the waist of his skirt, slowly pulling it down. Your eyes shot open, watching his cock spring free from the cloth.

The tip was a soft pink, one large vein running down the middle. You were clueless as to what to do. You felt his fingers slip under your veil, gripping onto your hair. “I will guide thy mouth,” he purred, as if he read your mind. Father Aegon stood up, “like this,” his hand guided yours, stroking him slowly.

You leaned in, pressing your lips against the tip, the skin velvety and hot. Your tongue darted out, licking his tip. You could feel him throb within your grip, his eyes glazing over with lust. Father Aegon pushed your head down, forcing the head past your lips.

His hips began to rock, pushing deeper into your mouth. It was difficult not to choke, the saliva in your mouth gathering quickly. The sounds of his pleasure were like choirs of angels to your ears, serenading you into a trance. Your jaw ached, drool dribbling down the side of your mouth and the length of him.

He pushed your head down, his cock hitting the back of your throat. Your eyes welled with tears and he admired their glistening beauty. You were utterly perfect for him, he decided, a divine blessing. You tried your best to keep up with his pace, but the dull ache between your legs blinded you. A few small whimpers escaped your throat as you dropped your hand to ease the feeling between your thighs. Aegon released your head, a strand of spit connecting his cock and your lips.

Father Aegon gripped your cheek, colliding his lips with yours. He devoured you as if it was his last meal, as if your lips were the sole path to redemption. His tongue darted out, swirling around your mouth and relishing in your sweet taste. Your mind grew hazy, lack of breath making you dizzy, but you could not pull back. You had desired his touch more than you have ever before.

You whimpered into his mouth, the feeling of his body pressed against yours was indescribable. His firm hands gripped your waist, pushing you on the ground. “Thou look so ethereal underneath me,” he panted out in between breaths. “Wouldst thou like to feel me inside thee.” Aegon rubbed his cock against your heat, your juices coating him.

“P- please Father, I need thou,” you begged, wrapping your legs around his torso pulling him closer. “Needy little lamb, aren’t thou?” His cock pressed into, slowly stretching you to fit him. You let out a moan, a sound you didn’t know you could make. Your fingers found their way into his dress shirt, gripping onto him as he pushed himself inside you.

“Confess sister, how did you allow me to defile you,” he thrusted inside you, filling you completely. You could not think straight, his cock hitting the bundle of nerves that made you squirm. “Confess,” he beckoned before he began slipping himself out of you. “N-no I confess,” you whimpered. Aegon began to slam back into you, a rhythmic pace that made you see stars.

“I- I confess father, I let thou defile me, I dream of thou fingers inside m-” Aegon suckled on your ear, “more,” he growled. “I- I- I dream of your tongue bringing me p- pleasure- every night.” He thrusted into you harder, the sounds of his cock slamming inside you echoing.

He was a god, a divinity sent to bring you to madness and bliss. Aegon had bewitched you body, mind, and soul as you him. “I dreamt thou devouring me,” you screamed out, your legs shaking. Aegon grabbed your hips, digging his nails into the skin to keep you in place. “Wouldst thou like to stay with me forever?” The father’s hips snapped as he pushed deep inside, his cock pulsating. You could feel him inside your womb, his hand pressing down on your lower stomach to feel himself.

Your head spun as the coil inside you began to unwind, the intensity of ecstasy blurring your being. “Y- yes Aegon,” you whimpered out, tears welling in your eyes. His thrusts began to stutter, his pace faltering. Your cunt tightened around him,the muscles in your stomach clenched as a wave of pleasure began to overcome you. “Dost thou swear thyself to me forever,” he whimpered.

“Aegon!” you screamed out, eyes fluttering open. The coil in your stomach snapped, eyes widening moments before you saw his fangs sink into your neck…

[lonniemachin]

I was asked to help share Ibrahim's fundraiser. He is a medical student from northern Gaza urgently trying to help evacuate his family of 7 from Gaza to Egypt and continue his studies once he and they are safe. He has currently made €1,595 out of his €30,000 goal! Please donate, and if you can't, please share!

From Ibrahim's GFM page:

Hello, I am Ibrahim. I live in northern Gaza. I live with my family consisting of 7 people, a father, a mother, 2 brothers, 3 sisters, and me. I study human medicine at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Before October 7, my family had a house and a car. And now there is nothing. On October 12, my house was completely destroyed and all possessions and dreams were destroyed. My family and I want to complete our dreams and our lives by leaving Gaza and settling in Egypt. This costs a lot of money, as it costs the whole family 30 thousand. Dollars, and we do not have that because money was lost during the bombing and war. I was also forced to flee from northern Gaza to southern Gaza, where there is suffering. We get water and food with great difficulty. I ask for your support to complete my dream of studying medicine and my family’s dream, hoping for a better life.

I have had the dream of studying medicine since childhood, but now that my dream has become more important and my goal of studying medicine has become an inevitable goal in relation to what I saw of the urgent need for doctors in my city of Gaza in this war in which we are still living until this moment. I write this letter after more than four months of bombing, destruction, famine and genocide to which we have been subjected. I took the first steps to achieving my dream after I finished my high school studies and obtained a 96.3% average. I registered at Al-Azhar University and specialized in medicine. I started studying in September 2022, and I only completed two weeks of my second year of study, almost on the path to my dreams before this war began and the occupation bombed and demolished my university. As I did in all the universities in the Gaza Strip, my dream vanished with it. The financial burden on my father has become unbearable, especially in light of the bad conditions caused by the war and the destruction of my home. It may take my father many years to rebuild it and put in everything he possibly owns. In the end, I aspire to be an exceptional doctor in my field, in order to help the people of my city of Gaza who suffer from various physical disabilities, such as amputation of limbs and others, and health problems resulting from war and fighting. Many, many medical personnel were killed while carrying out their duties in hospitals, clinics and medical facilities, which led to the collapse of the health system in the Gaza Strip, so I hope to continue my dream of studying this specialty as soon as possible.

Now I hope that my voice will be heard and that you will help me continue my university studies outside Gaza and build my dream and my family’s dream again, become a doctor, serve the world, and support my family. I hope you take my call to your hearts and spread hope to the world, and thank you to everyone who will help me achieve my dream.

[sindar-princeling]

The previous post made me think some more about the real life influences on LOTR, so because I’m down with a cold and have a lot of time to spare, I finally wanted to write a coherent post about those comments GRRM made about Aragorn and his tax policy.

For those who haven’t heard the actual quote, here it is:

Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles? In real life, real-life kings had real-life problems to deal with. Just being a good guy was not the answer.

And my god, do I have problems with this approach to Tolkien. It’s kind of like asking why Bilbo was unconscious for a lot of the battle of five armies, when we know it was a story Tolkien was telling his kids before sleep.

When looking at LOTR, I think you can’t not read it as an ultimate escapist fantasy - and what’s most important, Tolkien’s personal escapist fantasy.

He is Frodo - a man born into a middle class family, educated, well-read, with close friends coming from the same “social sphere”, like Merry and Pippin, who died in WWI. Sam is in a very literal sense the batmen Tolkien fought with, which he said he considered “so far superior to myself”.

Tolkien had a few batmen during the war, like the article from my previous post mentions. Most probably because he fought in a few different units, but also, he may have lost some of them to war.

And in LOTR, they all get a happy ending.

Of all four of them, Frodo is the only one who can’t return home, most probably mirroring Tolkien’s trauma. He’s the only one whose ending is grounded in trauma, PTSD, loss. The rest of the hobbits get happy endings - very simple and traditional in a way that after the war was nothing but good - they marry, they have kids, the kids marry each other, everyone is happy and lives long lives.

Sam, especially, gets the happiest ending of all in this sense - he marries a woman he grew up with, he has so many beautiful kids, he is mayor for like seven times and everyone loves him, the Shire thrives.

Tolkien was too traumatised after the war not to write Frodo as a mirror of his experiences. But then he took all the people who fought alongside him, who suffered alongside him, people who he lost, and gave them the happiest fairy tale endings he could think of. And it’s not that Merry, Pippin and Sam weren’t as traumatised - this ending is not meant to belittle their experiences - Tolkien is simply giving them the ending that real life didn’t give them.

Returning to the original point, to Aragorn - it’s just another version of the same mechanism. Gondor was struggling, Gongor had Mordor as their immediate neighbours and was heavily affected by the war as well. And then there came a just, good king, and everything was fine. The end. It’s a subplot of the same fantasy as the hobbits’ endings. It doesn’t matter how hard ruling is, we trust that Aragorn is a good king, because people of Gondor deserve a good king (the people of the real world deserved a good ruler who wouldn’t drag them to war), and we know that Aragorn is an honorable, just man.

Nothing about the LOTR ending - apart from Frodo’s trauma - is meant to be realistic. Why would Tolkien want to write WWI and the aftermath - this time fictional.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Insurance companies are making climate risk worse

Tomorrow (November 29), I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

Conservatives may deride the "reality-based community" as a drag on progress and commercial expansion, but even the most noxious pump-and-dump capitalism is supposed to remain tethered to reality by two unbreakable fetters: auditing and insurance:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community

No matter how much you value profit over ethics or human thriving, you still need honest books – even if you never show those books to the taxman or the marks. Even an outright scammer needs to know what's coming in and what's going out so they don't get caught in a liquidity trap (that is, "broke"), or overleveraged ("broke," again) exposed to market changes (you guessed it: "broke").

Unfortunately for capitalism, auditing is on its deathbed. The market is sewn up by the wildly corrupt and conflicted Big Four accounting firms that are the very definition of too big to fail/too big to jail. They keep cooking books on behalf of management to the detriment of investors. These double-entry fabrications conceal rot in giant, structurally important firms until they implode spectacularly and suddenly, leaving workers, suppliers, customers and investors in a state of utter higgeldy-piggeldy:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/29/great-andersens-ghost/#mene-mene-bezzle

In helping corporations defraud institutional investors, auditors are facilitating mass scale millionaire-on-billionaire violence, and while that may seem like the kind of fight where you're happy to see either party lose, there are inevitably a lot of noncombatants in the blast radius. Since the Enron collapse, the entire accounting sector has turned to quicksand, which is a big deal, given that it's what industrial capitalism's foundations are anchored to. There's a reason my last novel was a thriller about forensic accounting and Big Tech:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues

But accounting isn't the only bedrock that's been reduced to slurry here in capitalism's end-times. The insurance sector is meant to be an unshakably rational enterprise, imposing discipline on the rest of the economy. Sure, your company can do something stupid and reckless, but the insurance bill will be stonking, sufficient to consume the expected additional profits.

But the crash of 2008 made it clear that the largest insurance companies in the world were capable of the same wishful thinking, motivated reasoning, and short-termism that they were supposed to prevent in every other business. Without AIG – one of the largest insurers in the world – there would have been no Great Financial Crisis. The company knowingly underwrote hundreds of billions of dollars in junk bonds dressed up as AAA debt, and required a $180b bailout.

Still, many of us have nursed an ember of hope that the insurance sector would spur Big Finance and its pocket governments into taking the climate emergency seriously. When rising seas and wildfires and zoonotic plagues and famines and rolling refugee crises make cities, businesses, and homes uninsurable risks, then insurers will stop writing policies and the doom will become undeniable. Money talks, bullshit walks.

But while insurers have begun to withdraw from the most climate-endangered places (or crank up premiums), the net effect is to decrease climate resilience and increase risk, creating a "climate risk doom loop" that Advait Arun lays out brilliantly for Phenomenal World:

https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/the-doom-loop/

Part of the problem is political: as people move into high-risk areas (flood-prone coastal cities, fire-threatened urban-wildlife interfaces), politicians are pulling out all the stops to keep insurers from disinvesting in these high-risk zones. They're loosening insurance regs, subsidizing policies, and imposing "disaster risk fees" on everyone in the region.

But the insurance companies themselves are simply not responding aggressively enough to the rising risk. Climate risk is correlated, after all: when everyone in a region is at flood risk, then everyone will be making a claim on the insurance company when the waters come. The insurance trick of spreading risk only works if the risks to everyone in that spread aren't correlated.

Perversely, insurance companies are heavily invested in fossil fuel companies, these being reliable money-spinners where an insurer can park and grow your premiums, on the assumption that most of the people in the risk pool won't file claims at the same time. But those same fossil-fuel assets produce the very correlated risk that could bring down the whole system.

The system is in trouble. US claims from "natural disasters" are topping $100b/year – up from $4.6b in 2000. Home insurance premiums are up (21%!), but it's not enough, especially in drowning Florida and Texas (which is also both roasting and freezing):

https://grist.org/economics/as-climate-risks-mount-the-insurance-safety-net-is-collapsing/

Insurers who put premiums up to cover this new risk run into a paradox: the higher premiums get, the more risk-tolerant customers get. When flood insurance is cheap, lots of homeowners will stump up for it and create a big, uncorrelated risk-pool. When premiums skyrocket, the only people who buy flood policies are homeowners who are dead certain their house is gonna get flooded out and soon. Now you have a risk pool consisting solely of highly correlated, high risk homes. The technical term for this in the insurance trade is: "bad."

But it gets worse: people who decide not to buy policies as prices go up may be doing their own "motivated reasoning" and "mispricing their risk." That is, they may decide, "If I can't afford to move, and I can't afford to sell my house because it's in a flood-zone, and I can't afford insurance, I guess that means I'm going to live here and be uninsured and hope for the best."

This is also bad. The amount of uninsured losses from US climate disaster "dwarfs" insured losses:

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/hurricanes-floods-bring-120-billion-insurance-losses-2022-2023-01-09/

Here's the doom-loop in a nutshell:

As carbon emissions continue to accumulate, more people are put at risk of climate disaster, while the damages from those disasters intensifies. Vulnerability will drive disinvestment, which in turn exacerbates vulnerability.

Also: the browner and poorer you are, the worse you have it: you are impacted "first and worst":

https://www.climaterealityproject.org/frontline-fenceline-communities

As Arun writes, "Tinkering with insurance markets will not solve their real issues—we must patch the gaping holes in the financial system itself." We have to end the loop that sees the poorest places least insured, and the loss of insurance leading to abandonment by people with money and agency, which zeroes out the budget for climate remediation and resiliency where it is most needed.

The insurance sector is part of the finance industry, and it is disinvesting in climate-endagered places and instead doubling down on its bets on fossil fuels. We can't rely on the insurance sector to discipline other industries by generating "price signals" about the true underlying climate risk. And insurance doesn't just invest in fossil fuels – they're also a major buyer of municipal and state bonds, which means they're part of the "bond vigilante" investors whose decisions constrain the ability of cities to raise and spend money for climate remediation.

When American cities, territories and regions can't float bonds, they historically get taken over and handed to an unelected "control board" who represents distant creditors, not citizens. This is especially true when the people who live in those places are Black or brown – think Puerto Rico or Detroit or Flint. These control board administrators make creditors whole by tearing the people apart.

This is the real doom loop: insurers pull out of poor places threatened by climate disasters. They invest in the fossil fuels that worsen those disasters. They join with bond vigilantes to force disinvestment from infrastructure maintenance and resiliency in those places. Then, the next climate disaster creates more uninsured losses. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Finance and insurance are betting heavily on climate risk modeling – not to avert this crisis, but to ensure that their finances remain intact though it. What's more, it won't work. As climate effects get bigger, they get less predictable – and harder to avoid. The point of insurance is spreading risk, not reducing it. We shouldn't and can't rely on insurance creating price-signals to reduce our climate risk.

But the climate doom-loop can be put in reverse – not by market spending, but by public spending. As Arun writes, we need to create "a global investment architecture that is safe for spending":

https://tanjasail.wordpress.com/2023/10/06/a-world-safe-for-spending/

Public investment in emissions reduction and resiliency can offset climate risk, by reducing future global warming and by making places better prepared to endure the weather and other events that are locked in by past emissions. A just transition will "loosen liquidity constraints on investment in communities made vulnerable by the financial system."

Austerity is a bad investment strategy. Failure to maintain and improve infrastructure doesn't just shift costs into the future, it increases those costs far in excess of any rational discount based on the time value of money. Public institutions should discipline markets, not the other way around. Don't give Wall Street a veto over our climate spending. A National Investment Authority could subordinate markets to human thriving:

https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/industrial-policy-requires-public-not-just-private-equity/

Insurance need not be pitted against human survival. Saving the cities and regions whose bonds are held by insurance companies is good for those companies: "Breaking the climate risk doom loop is the best disaster insurance policy money can buy."

I found Arun's work to be especially bracing because of the book I'm touring now, The Lost Cause, a solarpunk novel set in a world in which vast public investment is being made to address the climate emergency that is everywhere and all at once:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause

There is something profoundly hopeful about the belief that we can do something about these foreseeable disasters – rather than remaining frozen in place until the disaster is upon us and it's too late. As Rebecca Solnit says, inhabiting this place in your imagination is "Completely delightful. Neither utopian nor dystopian, it portrays life in SoCal in a future woven from our successes (Green New Deal!), failures (climate chaos anyway), and unresolved conflicts (old MAGA dudes). I loved it."

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/28/re-re-reinsurance/#useless-price-signals

[deathmetalunicorn1]

I finally got to have my request! I waited 3 asks 😭😭

The RoR react to reader, who are known as the Queen of the Kings and have all 3; brawn, brain, and beauty. Reader have the personality of a ball of sunshine but also won't hestitate to put anyone in their places. Turns out she earned the titles Queen of the Kings because she puts a lot of monarch/leaders, especially male ones, in their place when they get cocky and also have a lot of them falling for her.

Qin Shi Huang, Buddha, Poseidon, Hades, Odin, and Thor, and romantic please!

-There were many queens throughout history, but none more notable than you, as you held many titles, with your most well-known one being Queen of the Kings.

-You were a sole ruler, inheriting the throne from your parents, and while many suitors tried to come for your hand, to become king by your side, including threatening you, you never married- as you ruled expertly on your own.

-Your kingdom never knew war, never knew famine or hardships under your rule, as you made it mandatory that all citizens, no matter the class, should have access to food, housing, jobs, and medical treatment.

-Your people loved you, as they all praised your wonderous rule, so much so that other people from other kingdoms moved to yours, as yours was so wealthy but also so happy.

-This made the kings nearby, whom you refused to marry, quite angry, seeing how well you were doing and how well liked you were.

-Many came, demanding their subjects back, but you argued back that they were free to choose where they lived. Not liking your sass, the four visiting kings tried to attack you, to put you into their place in front of their guards and the nobles from all five kingdoms.

-Armed only with your slipper, you quickly had all four kings on their knees, begging you for mercy. Seeing that you got all four of the kings, many who had been in wars before, begging you for mercy, scared of you and your slipper, they quickly lost their credibility.

-However, you weren’t cruel, giving them mercy and in turn, you offered your assistance, showing them how you ruled, so they could take it to their own kingdoms, so they would have a thriving kingdom as well.

-You weren’t to be underestimated, as you were a trained warrior yourself, but you always chose the peaceful route first, and you only resorted to violence if you had to, and those who opposed you quickly learned this.

-In Valhalla, you were still regarded as a queen and many respected you because you still ruled as you did on earth, with gentle kindness and threats of your slipper.

-You met many unique humans and gods in Valhalla, ones that you would gladly call friends, and you also found the only man that managed to capture your heart, (Love).

-He treated you like a queen, despite being a ruler himself, but to see him treating you as an equal, while those in your past wanted to undermine your power, it was refreshing, and you came to adore him.

-He learned of your past battles, including the one where you put those four kings in their place, something (Love) thought was hysterical, learning of these so-called powerful kings being put in their place, four on one, with you being the victor with your slipper.

-He thought it was just a story people told to get their children to behave, as a lot of people used slippers to keep their kids in line.

-That was, until a bold king, one who only ruled for a short while, less than a month, before being overthrown for being such a crappy leader, approached you while you were waiting for (Love), demanding you, not asking you, to go on a date with him.

-When you refused, he grabbed your arm, trying to threaten you. Those around you quickly took several steps back, afraid, getting out of the swinging zone.

-(Love) saw this boy grab you and he immediately came over, but he froze in his tracks, seeing you immediately slapping his hand off of you while removing a slipper and you bitch slapped him right across the face with it, sending him to the ground.

-Your glared darkly down at him, “Don’t grab when you don’t get your way, boy.” He was stammering, holding his cheek, begging you not to hit him again as you threatened to, to teach him a lesson.

-(Love) approached and the boy immediately ran off, terrified of you.

-Offered to go after him for you, which you brushed off, “No need- he learned his lesson.” As you said this you held onto his arm, putting your slipper back on before he bent, pecking your cheek in greeting before offering you an arm, “If he’s bold enough to try again, you may do as you wish.” You pretended not to see the grin on his face, looking excited before he whisked you away.

            -Buddha, Hades, and QSH

-Had his weapon at the ready, “He put his hands on you- he needs to learn a harsher lesson.” You grabbed onto his arm, steadying yourself while you put your shoe back on, “And you can teach him one if he tries to approach me again. It’s not the first time a young one approached me like that, and it won’t be the last.” A dark aura surrounded your lover as he glared, fully ready to make some head roll, hearing how you had been treated. It seems he needs to stay by your side more, to protect you, and to throw hands for you.

-Poseidon, Odin, and Thor

[gor3-hound]

wips

☆ who's a good girl? - leon and dante

ft. monsterhunting brothers!leon + dante x werewolf!reader

the brothers come across you one day in the woods, snarling and ready to attack. dante decides you'd be a lot more fun in his bed than six feet under. leon disagrees.

☆ cat got the cream(pie) - chris redfield

ft. dog hybrid!chris x cat hybrid!reader

chris didn't expect his owner to bring you home. you're only a small thing, all fluff and claws. he can't help but grow a little fond of you.

☆ cabin fever - billy coen

ft. infected!billy x reader

an infected billy manages to stumble his way across your family's cabin in the woods. he breaks in, thinking there's no one there, only to be faced with you taking a little winter retreat.

☆ blue shirt in the laundry - dick grayson

ft. canon!dick x reader

nightwing saved you weeks ago when you were on the closing shift in the shitty video rental store you work at part-time. since that day, a bright-eyed guy called dick keeps showing up every friday night to buy cheesy romantic movies and flirt hopelessly with you.

☆ the wolf of the north - leon kennedy

ft. viking!leon x reader

the weather this spring was harsh, leaving your village in famine. the crops were lost, leaving your people with nothing but grains from the past harvest to survive on. when the vikings come to collect their tithe, leon decides there is one thing he would accept in placement of the crops owed to him. you.

☆ heartbeat - matt murdock

ft. canon!matt x reader

matt loves the sound of your heartbeat. he can tell when you're nervous, angry, happy. more than anything, he loves the way it tends to stutter in your chest when he touches you.

[macgyvermedical]

can you talk a little about wegovy and muonjaro for weight loss?

The answer is maybe.

If it were just the drugs themselves, I'd say absolutely. But there is a surprising amount of cultural baggage associated with these medications, and I don't really know that I can do them justice.

So first, let's talk about weight. There's a fantastic book called "Fat Talk" by Virginia Sole-Smith, about being overweight or obese in an age that prioritizes thinness, and how diet culture in particular is a threat to young people. Another, called "Intuitive Eating" by Elyse Resch, discusses how calorie restriction- commonly cited as the "way" to lose weight along with exercise- only works once or twice, because our bodies get wise to it and want to hold onto fat.

Humans evolved to gain weight. Fat is how we store energy for times when we might not have enough to eat. And if "not having enough to eat" (whether because of famine or because of calorie restrictive dieting) happens repeatedly, we have evolved to change hormones and metabolism so we a) don't need as much food to stay alive and b) are primed to eat more food than we need when it is available.

Aren't human bodies cool?

In the medical world, there are a lot of things tied to weight. For example, statistically, being overweight or obese means you're more likely to have health conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease. It is unclear, though, if those problems are caused by the weight itself, or other dietary, activity, and behavior patterns that may also happen to contribute to the weight gain. Things like a sedentary lifestyle, frequent consumption of foods with low nutritional value, avoidance of medical care due to stigma, or even chronic calorie restrictive dieting.

Unfortunately, due to this statistical tie, there is a lot of effort made in the medical world to get patients to "lose weight at any cost" instead of recommending dietary, activity, and behavior changes for health reasons alone.

Culturally as well, we prioritize thinness as attractiveness. I remember in high school there was a poster in my health classroom that read "Ideal weight- or it might be hard to get a date!". There are lots of negative associations with people who carry more weight, including that they are lazy or stupid- things that have nothing to do with body size.

Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't things that could be benefits of losing weight. For example, joint and back pain can be improved with weight loss. But weight loss is probably not the end-all be-all cure-all it's touted to be.

Because it is really hard for most people to meet this standard of "lose weight at any cost", there has long been medications that purportedly help people lose weight. Most of these medications have been stimulants, which decrease appetite and make it more comfortable to engage in calorie restrictive dieting. They also increase energy, which can make it easier to exercise or tolerate more exercise than would otherwise be possible.

Before we talk about the drugs, I want to say- there are risks and benefits to all medications, including these! The discussion you should always have is what risks are you and your healthcare provider willing to tolerate for the potential positive outcome. Also, this is a discussion of the drugs when used for weight control. The same drugs used for diabetes are at different dosages and have potentially different risk/benefit comparisons.

Ozempic/Wegovy (semaglutide) and Mounjaro/Zepbound (tirzepatide) are both a type of medication called a GLP-1 agonist. GLP-1 agonists are also called incretin mimics, because they mimic a type of hormone (incretin) that tells the brain and body that it is full. This makes it easier to eat a small amount of high nutrition food and feel satisfied. They also work by increasing metabolism. Between the decreased consumption and the increased metabolism, weight is lost.

Over the course of a year and a half, tirzepatide causes about 15-20% average reduction in body weight with continued use. Over the course of about the same time, semaglutide causes an average of about 15% body weight reduction with continuous use. Say, for example, you weigh 100kg. A year and a half on one of these medications could get you down to 85kg.

The problem is, as soon as that drug is withdrawn, the body realizes it was starving, and tries to compensate. These drugs are good at getting rid of weight, but maintaining a new weight usually means staying on a lower dose of the drug perpetually. Most people regain all weight (and potentially more than they lost) within 5 years of stopping the drugs.

Some studies suggest that repeatedly regaining lost weight may be more detrimental to health than remaining overweight or obese when it comes to statistical risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and other "weight-associated" illnesses.

The main side effects are GI-related. Most of these are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, gas/bloating, constipation, dizziness, and abdominal pain. More severe side effects include pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas) and gasteroparesis (paralysis of the stomach and part of the digestive tract).

[engalaazaqout]

⏰ 🚨 attention please🙏🚨

Lovely supporter💔, I hope this message finds you and your family in good health and high spirits.

Dear Friends and Supporters,

My name is Alaa Zaqout, and I am writing to you from occupied Gaza, Palestine. As the head of my family 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦, I am a PhD student in the Faculty of Engineering but my dreams were cut short by the war as I finished my BA and MA and have started my PhD. 🍉

I am asking for your help in raising funds to save our lives as we face famine during this desperate and urgent time, my mother, father, brother, sister, wife engineer Dana and my twin daughters Alma and Lama💔

Before the war, we lived a peaceful life full of love and happiness🕊. I had a beautiful house, a car and an engineering design office, and I have always excelled in my studies, I have attached all my certificates in the GFM link 👨‍🎓

My house and car before and after. There are more pictures and videos in the GFM link.

My and my family life changed dramatically when Israeli military launched a sweeping war against Gaza. My home , My Car and our neighbourhood in the North have been destroyed along with our belongings and precious memories early in this crisis😣💔,Sadly, I also lost my bird😭

Forced to flee with nothing but the clothes on our backs, today, we find ourselves sheltering in a displacement camp lacking access to sanitation, medical supplies, food and drinkable water. I will not talk a lot about the dire and unbearable life we have to go through, as no word can express it fairly 🥺😣

My twins Alma and Lama are supposed to play with other kids, color pages, go to school. We are supposed to hug our parents, not cry in fear of bombing. We are supposed to hug with love and peace, not be buried under rubble and stones.😢💔

This genocide has been 10 months of hell and horror. We have reached a point where there is no hope left for us here in Gaza.

I refuse to succumb to despair, holding on to the belief that brighter days lie ahead 🖤🤍💚💖

Your compassionate aid would mean the world to me and my family.🥺🙏🍉✌

Please note, This campaign is dedicated to helping and saving 8 people, my father, mother, brother, sister, wife, my twin daughters Alma and Lama and me. The campaign has all the fine details with pictures and video, my house, my car, my workplace, my twin daughters, my father, my mother and everything before and after, and I also attached the car license, my master's and bachelor's degree certificates and everything.

@booklover13 @pierogish @booklover1312 @shrubsteaparty @bromantically @a--messy--blog @itssideria @cripplemother

@bundle-of-glitter @serfuzzypushover @gardenofskeletonss

@bluejeanjay @thermodynamiclawyer @the-true-imortal @butchexe

@skipppppy @bethrnoora @kuroshitsuji-g4g @bancaishi @korrasamibottles @fabtool @ruushes @aceppt2 @blookisses2

@blookity-bloke @maoistyuri @aleciosun @finnstansonly @toychest321 @pyrrhiccomedy @cubedmango @sirlancenotalot

@brokenbackmountain @caramelcoeur @ask-azurearts @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @akamanto0 @mcksnn @mcksnnon @joshmyersfursona @laconicmoon @violeteyedmedium @sareinadale @minicarrotcakes @sillymanwithideas @denn1s-lessing @tbhimnoteasyonmyself @sundawnsong @unholylavender

@carnadelions @idkart-111

[yandere--stuck]

Could you write a few Yandere headcanons for Ragnvaldr? I'm interested in your interpretation of him

🍖 Born with the Soul of The Tormented, Ragnvaldr always knew his life would be forever marred with struggle. Even from his youngest years, nearly dead by his own father's hands during a famine. The thing he had to do to survive… Best not to think too hard about it. As he grew, though, he became optimistic. Comfortable. Happy with the family he had made and the community he had grown into. For once, things were looking wholly up for the Outlander. But, of course, he should have known better. He should have expected tragedy to strike at some point. His family. His people. His home. All gone. All gone, by the command of a fair-haired captain who slaughtered and stole from his people. Consumed by bloodlust and revenge, Ragnvaldr promised to himself and those he lost that he'd get revenge. That he would kill that man with his own hands…

🏹 The Outlander certainly hadn't planned on making friends during his journey into the dungeons, but after coming across you in the courtyards, he found himself drawn to you. Years of experience and tragedy behind him left him with a certain amount of distrust toward others, but something about you lowered those walls, made him want to be by your side. And he had to agree with you - there was strength in numbers. It certainly made the trek deeper into the dark a lot less lonely and just a bit more comforting. It also helped that you were easy to talk to. When you had moments of reprieve, you'd talk about your life on the outside, what brought you both here, what your interests were… Ragnvaldr wasn't exactly ready to spill his soul and bloody past to you (not to mention the exact reason he was there), but… He was able to be himself around you. He talked about things he'd never had the chance to utter in so long. Hell, it'd been ages since he last really conversed with someone, and… Talking to you was both a comfort and a relief.

🍖 The deeper you delved and the closer you grew to one another, the harder and more desperate Ragnvaldr began to fight. This was no longer about just the Knight captain, this was also about protecting his newfound comrade. No matter how strong, skilled, or adept in magic you are, Ragnvaldr will encourage - or, all but force - you to stay behind him or hide to keep you out of the way of danger. It came to the point where he nearly killed the stray wolf down in the catacombs, if it hadn't been for your offering of rotten meat to quell the beast. All the more reason why you made such a great team! Ragnvaldr was a man of action, and someone who was able to step back and attack trouble from a different angle was refreshing and, much as Ragnvaldr loathed to admit, good for him. Good for the both of you, even.

🏹 The closer you grow, the more desperate Ragnvaldr's behavior becomes. He even goes so far as to begin devouring the bodies of enemies so as to allow most of the food to go to you, designating the rotten food to Moonless. He fights with even more determination and fury, not even daring to allow a chance for an enemy to get a hit on you. If you give any signs of wanting to part from him, Ragnvaldr will at first try to subtly redirect your or change your mind, but it won't be long until the Outlander will be begging for you to stay, threatening to harm himself or any allies you've met on your journey. He may even begin to align himself with Sylvian in an attempt to successfully become a marriage with you, if he really believes you'll leave him.

🍖 Whether Le'garde is alive or dead, it doesn't change the outcome. You knew full well by this point why Ragnvaldr is here, and whether you agreed with his methods or not didn't matter… He… He was your friend. He deserved closure. He'd beat Le'garde to death, until his fists were bloody and he was shaking with effort and spent rage. He'd keep going until Le'garde is unrecognizable. The floors, walls, Ragnvaldr himself… All covered with blood. Even if Le'garde was already gone, he'd brutalized the man's body until he's satisfied. Afterward, he'd acknowledge that the captain was good for something, at least - meeting you.

🏹 You are what soothes Ragnvaldr's tortured soul. You're all he had left now. You and Moonless. He couldn't just let you leave! Without you, there was nothing. No reason to go on. You couldn't part now! Meeting each other had to be fate. He could take care of you. Please? You don't think you could really just say no to him, do you? When he was strong enough to break all your limbs or saw them off, leaving you dependent on him forever. Please, just make this easy on yourself. On him. He's been through so, so much. He just wanted to have you. Love you. And he would do whatever it takes to make you realize you and he were meant to be. He'd been through too much to start taking the easy route now…