#women of the crusader states

[magnificentempress]

have you noticed how the internet is trying to make islamic terrorism look fun?

after the taliban took over afghanistan, the news of their horrible crimes were quickly drowned out by some twitter memes about poor talibs who now have to do some office jobs and maintain the bureaucracy instead of having fun at juhad killing and raping people.

and now the whole pro hamas protests thing in the usa.

i feel nothing but contempt to people who buy this shit. if you support any of islamic terrorist groups just fucking block me.

[foone]

So here's how the story goes. Four young adults are teleported away from 1940s earth, where it turns out they're the last descendants of the great sages who defeated evil all those years ago, but with his last breath banished the sages to earth. Now, 200 years later, evil has risen again: a vile sorcerer has raised an army and is threatening the peaceful kingdoms of a fantasy world, and only the Divine Bloodline can weild the Weapons of Light and defeat the rampaging hordes. The heroes take up their weapons and fight the good fight, leading the armies of man and elf and dwarf and beast against the evil orcs, who are vaporized by their touch. They cut a path through the horde and defeat evil's greatest champions, who were guarding the Gem of Control, an ancient artifact that gave the terrible wizard control over the orcish population. Just as one of them swings their hammer to shatter it, the wizard intervenes, and uses the last bit of his control to destroy his army, lest they join you in their freed state. As the pieces of the gem hit the floor, already losing their sickly green glow, they see the attacking orcs fade into mist. They'd killed hundreds in your crusade, sure, but he just killed all of them. They later learn, against all fervent hopes, that this extended to the orcish homelands. Men, women, and children, cooking in their homes, planting the crops, raising brutecows and hunting in the dark forests... All gone in an instant. The scouts report a silent land with tools lying in workshops, food left uneaten at dining tables, and bursting into tears at entering a house to find it was a schoolhouse: Quills lying in all the seats, with rough parchment next to it showing the first few letters of the orcish alphabet.

They redouble their efforts, now fueled with genuine hatred for the evil sorcerer. He shifts his tactics, relying on darker magics to summon undead minions, which don't need the Gem of Control. They don't go poof when a holy weapon touches them, but are still no match for the divine warriors. With a skeleton the size of a zeppelin smashing down towers around them, the warriors reach the wizard and drive a broadsword of light through his chest. The skeletons collapse back into their eternal slumber in little piles on the floor.

The warriors put aside their weapons as they're received with great cheer. They're invited to join the royal families of the four kingdoms, marrying into the human, elf, dwarf, and beast royalty. They spend the rest of their long reign ensuring peace returns, monuments are made for the fallen orc nation, and the remaining undead who fled are not allowed to prey on the peasants, only taking up arms again to fight a den of vampires left behind.

In their old age, the wizard who brought them here reappears. It's taken him decades to develop the right magics, but he can finally send them home. They abdicate, letting their hybrid offspring take control, certain in their ability to run a kingdom with wisdom and justice. They leave behind their holy weapons, in case evil rises again. The wizard warns them that much may have changed in the world they left, as 80 years has passed there while it was only 40 for them, but they still want to see if London still stands and if their families or their descendants are alive.

They appear in the modern day, 2024. They're amazed at the technological progress, of course, but then there's a bigger shock. This isn't just an isekai story: this is a reverse-isekai story.

The holy weapons were forged using the same magics that brought them to the fantasy world in the first place. When they vaporized orcs, they didn't die, they were teleported. Teleported here. Every mind-controlled orc warrior that tasted their blade woke up uninjured... in Portsmouth.

And when the sorcerer tried to wipe them all out as the Gem of Control shattered, all he did was transfer that magic to every one of them. None of them died, except for a few elderly orcs who dropped dead from shock at ending up in England, Earth, 1943.

It's now 2024. The Orc population of London is 3 million. There's twelve orcs in parliament, and another in the house of lords. The world has changed a lot since they left, for the better, the weirder, and the greener.

[girlactionfigure]

Why are there Palestinian refugees?

In the months before the British abandoned its mandate & Israel declared independence, civil war raged as Arab factions tried to prevent the Jewish state from being born.

Of course, had the Arabs agreed to the UN's partition plan, they would have had yet another state & there would have been no war in 1948. 

But their goal was not another Arab state; it was to ensure there would be no Jewish state. 

Meanwhile, 5 #Arab armies amassed on the borders & waited for the British to leave so they could push the Jews into the #Mediterranean Sea.

As Secretary-General of the Arab League Azzam Pasha put it on the day of the Arab #invasion: 

"This will be a war of extermination & momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."

Or as the then war #criminal & fugitive #Nazi Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini put it during the invasion:

"Murder the #Jews. Murder them all!"

But before the invasion began, & starting as early as Dec 1947, Arab officers began ordering Arab residents of specific villages to flee. 

Their reasoning? Arab citizens not involved in active fighting could only: (1) "treacherously" abide the creation of a the Jewish state &/or even become citizens of same; or (2) be in the way of Arab #military deployments & potentially get caught in the crossfire.

And so, for example, on this day (March 8) in 1948, the Arab Higher Committee ordered all Arab women, children & elderly to leave Jerusalem. The order continued, "Any opposition to this order ... is an obstacle to the holy war ... & will hamper the operations of the fighters in these districts.” 

In fact, the Arab Higher Committee ordered the evacuation of dozens of Arab villages between April & July of 1948 (see photo of Arab citizens fleeing below).

Meanwhile, on April 19, 1948, Jewish forces secured Tiberias, which had a population of ~6,000 #Arabs - all of whom chose to leave. In fact, they left under British military supervision.

The Jewish Community Council immediately issued a statement regarding Tiberias' Arabs: 

"We did not dispossess them; they themselves chose this course ... Let no citizen touch their property."

At around this same time, in early & mid-April of 1948, an Arab faction led by Fawzi al-Qawukji was attacking Haifa & attempting to take the city. Then, rumors spread among Haifa's Arab community that Arab air forces were about to bomb the city & ~25,000 of Haifa's Arabs fled.

As U.S. Consul-General in Haifa Aubrey Lippincott noted on April 22, 1948: "local mufti-dominated Arab leaders ... [urged] all Arabs to leave the city, & large numbers did so."

On April 23, 1948, however, #Jewish forces fought back the Arab attack & retook Haifa.

Three days later, on April 26, 1948, a British police report from Haifa noted: 

"[E]very effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on with their normal lives, to get their shops and businesses open and to be assured that their lives and interests will be safe."

What were some of those "efforts?"

Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, sent future Prime Minister Golda Meir to Haifa with the direct instructions to "persuade the Arabs to stay." 

Ms. Meir was unsuccessful, however, as Haifa's Arabs told her they feared that if they stayed, they would be branded "#traitors." 

And so, another ~25,000 of Haifa's Arabs fled. 

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but despite facts on the ground, Arab leaders at the #UN began demanding the end to a fake "#massacre." 

Specifically, #Syria's UN Ambassador Faris al-Kouri, said the Jewish victory at Haifa was a "massacre" that provided "evidence that the '#Zionist program' is to annihilate Arabs within the Jewish state if partition is effected."

The #British were still on the ground, however, & the British Ambassador to the UN, Sir Alexander Cadogan, told the UN the very next day both that the fighting in Haifa had only begun as a result of "continuous attacks by Arabs against Jews" & that the "reports of massacres & deportations [were] erroneous." 

Meanwhile, after Israel declared its independence & was invaded by five Arab armies, the newly established #IDF issued an Order on July 6, 1948, making it clear that non-combatant Arab civilians were not to be harassed or expelled, nor their villages touched. 

But the Arabs were being given a very different message.

#Iraqi #PrimeMinister Nuri Said announced:

"We will smash the country with our guns & obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives & children to safe areas until the fighting has died down."

This used to be known. In fact, Arab leaders for years after the war had no qualms about repeating it.

For example, Syrian Prime Minister Haled al Azm later wrote:

"Since 1948, we have been demanding the return of the #refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call to them to leave & our appeal to the UN to resolve on their return."

Similarly, #Jordan's King Abdullah wrote: 

"The tragedy of the #Palestinians was that most of their leaders had paralyzed them with false & unsubstantiated promises that they were not alone; that 80 million Arabs & 400 million #Muslims would instantly & miraculously come to their rescue."

Similarly, Edward Atiyah, Secretary of the Arab League Office in #London wrote: 

"This wholesale #exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boastings of an unrealistic #Arabic press & the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States & the #Palestinian Arabs enabled to re­enter & retake possession of their country.”

Even as the war still raged on Aug 16, 1948, the Arab #Greek Orthodox Catholic Bishop of the Galilee told #Beirut newspaper Sada al-Janub: 

“The refugees were confident their absence would not last long, & that they would return within a week or two ... Their leaders had promised them that the Arab Armies would crush the ’Zionist gangs’ very quickly & that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile.”

A few months later, on Feb 19, 1949, the Jordanian newspaper Filastin confirmed: 

"The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies."

Even many of the Palestinian Arab refugees themselves admitted their reasons for leaving.

For example, on June 8, 1951, Habib Issa admitted to #NewYork Lebanese newspaper Al Hoda:

"Azzam Pasha assured the Arab peoples that the #occupation of Palestine & #TelAviv would be ... simple ... He pointed out that they were already on the frontiers & that all the millions the Jews had spent on land & economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple matter to throw Jews into the Mediterranean ... Arabs of Palestine [were told] to leave their land, homes & property & to stay temporarily in neighboring fraternal states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down.”

Similarly, Asmaa Jabir Balasimah recalled being told by Arab leaders to "evacuate the village & return after the battle is over," & that she & others in her village left all their possessions behind "based on the assumption that we would return after a few hours." 

Again, however (& most importantly), had the Arabs agreed to Partition or even agreed to negotiate different borders with Zionist leaders who begged Azzam Pasha to make any counteroffer instead of invading with #genocidal intent, there would never have been a single Palestinian #refugee.

[blueiight]

ldpdl, ethnicity, and the false monolith of blackness

there's this false tendency to think amc louis being made black is pandering, or a means of removing louis from his oh-so-detailed /sarcasm/ background in the books. i also find that people tend to not even understand what show louis's ethnic background is, despite rolin jones the showrunner and even the fictional louis both coalescing around this multigenerational explanation of the gens de couleur in new orleans, and how jim crow disempowered them.

I came around to his ethnicity a sort of interesting way which is through Lestat. [ … ] I was like lets give him a legitimate a third attempt at figuring how to be with somebody for the rest of his life and how to not repeat your mistakes. [ … ] I started from there so it had to be someone with some money cause he had to be with his own folks and I thought he wanted someone who could fight back and who could be a challenge and would force him to restrain himself. And nobody at AMC was interested in 7 seasons of the regretful plantation owner, so we made Louis come from a lineage that did have a plantation and did own slaves.

rolin jones in the s1 post-finale episode of the podcast names how he came to this understanding of louis's character. lestat, after failing to make a bride of his mother, and a concubine of nicki, was seeking for someone of a similar background, or the most approximate equivalent. he would not have been interested in louis if louis was an anglophone baptist black man descended from upper-south arrivals into new orleans, nor would he have been interested in louis if louis was a poor black creole honestly s1 does not give a good reading of claudia's ethnic bg in new orleans, but since she cannot understand french, we can presume shes either a poor creole removed from her cultural background with her vampiric adoption narrative in mind, or was also of an anglophone baptist black background like claudia was. louis coming from this fallen sort of gentry, the free gens de couleur, similar to that of the tvl lestat who came from this barren aristocracy dating back to the crusades, was key to lestat's long-term goals with louis.

Capital accrued from plantations of sugar and the blood of men who looked like my great grandfather but did not have his standing. But then decades of Jim Crow and the electrified light of a new century had vanquished any idea of a free man of color. - AMC IWTV 1x01

louis was of the first generations of the gens de couleur to be born, raised into, and face the institutional and personal ramifications of being viewed as black in america. this fuels much of the character's rage as he moves through storyville, trying to continue the similar modality of exploitation to the contrary of pretty baby with brooke shields, majority of the brothel circuit was statistically black girls + women being sexually pawned off to white men but ultimately failing to do so bc of the anglophone white american class that now rules over him. [tom anderson, alderman fenwick, finn o’shea starting out as louis’s subordinate then ending w/ him entering whiteness by having a sporting house throwing torches at louis’s brothel in s1e3]

By 1850, the free population of color, beset by the hostility of white supremacy, was economically diminished and residentially segregated. The Americanization of Louisiana, and in particular New Orleans, was completed before the state became the sixth to secede from the Union in 1861 in the struggle over the perpetuation of slavery. [link] The Democratic redeemers who came to power in 1877 lost no time in redefining the Negro's "place" in Louisiana life. They immediately restored the color line in the New Orleans public schools and offered silent support to de facto segregation practices in places of public accommodation. With the assistance of two landmark decisions by the United States Supreme Court, the redeemers soon dismantled the egalitarian legal apparatus put together piece by piece under the Radicals. Finally in 1890 they began to write their "final solution" into Louisiana law with a series of "separate but equal" statutes. Soon New Orleans Negroes were again segregated in virtually every public pursuit. [link]

[probablyasocialecologist]

We are living in a moment of serious gender revanchism in the United States. Feminists who self-define as “gender critical” and are otherwise openly transphobic will object to the comparison, but it is striking how much the movement to criminalize gender-affirming care for young people shares with the movement to criminalize abortion. Both find their fiercest champions in white, religious, conservative men who dismiss the evidence put forward by medical professionals that the treatment in question saves lives. Both claim to speak on behalf of silenced “children,” be they conveniently unborn or too young to be taken at their word. Both struggled to find widespread support until a father took his crusade on the road: abortion was not “an Evangelical issue” before Dr. Francis Schaeffer, a charismatic pastor, promoted his son Frank’s 1979 anti-abortion film Whatever Happened to the Human Race?; and anti-trans legislation was initially “hard to sell,” according to the Texas Tribune, until a North Texas dad named Jeff Younger built a sympathetic following online by accusing his ex-wife, a pediatrician, of wanting to “chemically castrate” their trans daughter. Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s order that citizens report parents of transgender kids to the authorities so that they can be investigated for child abuse echoes the section in SB 8 that rewards vigilante citizens for reporting abortion providers to authorities. Both movements have become central to the Republican Party’s strategy to raise funds and win elections. Not least, both movements have forced pregnant and trans people to prove, in preordained terms, their absolute certainty that they need the treatment they say they do. As the opposition puts up resistance in the form of misinformation, mandatory waiting periods, sonograms, and extensive psychological testing, patients lose precious time as hormonal processes they hope to forestall come closer and closer to transforming their bodies.

The experience of gender dysphoria is not identical to the experience of forced pregnancy, but it should not have to be for us to defend one another’s right to bodily autonomy as if it were our own. To respond to the heartbreak of losing Roe by further scapegoating trans people, as some cisgender feminists have done, is not only an unnecessary cruelty but a logical and political error that none of us can afford to make. There is no evidence to support the claim that inclusive language in reproductive health spaces “erases” or “harms” cis women, as Pamela Paul recently argued in the New York Times. (If anything, terms like pregnant people are more precise, as not all women are capable of pregnancy and not all pregnant people — e.g., cisgender girls under 18 — are women.) To say so anyway, with no basis in fact, is to do the far right’s work for them.

Dayna Tortorici, Your Body, My Choice The movement to criminalize abortion

[apas-95]

On Authority

A number of Socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against what they call the principle of authority. It suffices to tell them that this or that act is authoritarian for it to be condemned. This summary mode of procedure is being abused to such an extent that it has become necessary to look into the matter somewhat more closely.

Authority, in the sense in which the word is used here, means: the imposition of the will of another upon ours; on the other hand, authority presupposes subordination. Now, since these two words sound bad, and the relationship which they represent is disagreeable to the subordinated party, the question is to ascertain whether there is any way of dispensing with it, whether — given the conditions of present-day society — we could not create another social system, in which this authority would be given no scope any longer, and would consequently have to disappear.

On examining the economic, industrial and agricultural conditions which form the basis of present-day bourgeois society, we find that they tend more and more to replace isolated action by combined action of individuals. Modern industry, with its big factories and mills, where hundreds of workers supervise complicated machines driven by steam, has superseded the small workshops of the separate producers; the carriages and wagons of the highways have become substituted by railway trains, just as the small schooners and sailing feluccas have been by steam-boats. Even agriculture falls increasingly under the dominion of the machine and of steam, which slowly but relentlessly put in the place of the small proprietors big capitalists, who with the aid of hired workers cultivate vast stretches of land.

Everywhere combined action, the complication of processes dependent upon each other, displaces independent action by individuals. But whoever mentions combined action speaks of organisation; now, is it possible to have organisation without authority?

Supposing a social revolution dethroned the capitalists, who now exercise their authority over the production and circulation of wealth. Supposing, to adopt entirely the point of view of the anti-authoritarians, that the land and the instruments of labour had become the collective property of the workers who use them. Will authority have disappeared, or will it only have changed its form? Let us see.

Let us take by way of example a cotton spinning mill. The cotton must pass through at least six successive operations before it is reduced to the state of thread, and these operations take place for the most part in different rooms. Furthermore, keeping the machines going requires an engineer to look after the steam engine, mechanics to make the current repairs, and many other labourers whose business it is to transfer the products from one room to another, and so forth. All these workers, men, women and children, are obliged to begin and finish their work at the hours fixed by the authority of the steam, which cares nothing for individual autonomy. The workers must, therefore, first come to an understanding on the hours of work; and these hours, once they are fixed, must be observed by all, without any exception. Thereafter particular questions arise in each room and at every moment concerning the mode of production, distribution of material, etc., which must be settled by decision of a delegate placed at the head of each branch of labour or, if possible, by a majority vote, the will of the single individual will always have to subordinate itself, which means that questions are settled in an authoritarian way. The automatic machinery of the big factory is much more despotic than the small capitalists who employ workers ever have been. At least with regard to the hours of work one may write upon the portals of these factories: Lasciate ogni autonomia, voi che entrate! [Leave, ye that enter in, all autonomy behind!]

If man, by dint of his knowledge and inventive genius, has subdued the forces of nature, the latter avenge themselves upon him by subjecting him, in so far as he employs them, to a veritable despotism independent of all social organisation. Wanting to abolish authority in large-scale industry is tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power loom in order to return to the spinning wheel.

Let us take another example — the railway. Here too the co-operation of an infinite number of individuals is absolutely necessary, and this co-operation must be practised during precisely fixed hours so that no accidents may happen. Here, too, the first condition of the job is a dominant will that settles all subordinate questions, whether this will is represented by a single delegate or a committee charged with the execution of the resolutions of the majority of persona interested. In either case there is a very pronounced authority. Moreover, what would happen to the first train dispatched if the authority of the railway employees over the Hon. passengers were abolished?

But the necessity of authority, and of imperious authority at that, will nowhere be found more evident than on board a ship on the high seas. There, in time of danger, the lives of all depend on the instantaneous and absolute obedience of all to the will of one.

When I submitted arguments like these to the most rabid anti-authoritarians, the only answer they were able to give me was the following: Yes, that's true, but there it is not the case of authority which we confer on our delegates, but of a commission entrusted! These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world.

We have thus seen that, on the one hand, a certain authority, no matter how delegated, and, on the other hand, a certain subordination, are things which, independently of all social organisation, are imposed upon us together with the material conditions under which we produce and make products circulate.

We have seen, besides, that the material conditions of production and circulation inevitably develop with large-scale industry and large-scale agriculture, and increasingly tend to enlarge the scope of this authority. Hence it is absurd to speak of the principle of authority as being absolutely evil, and of the principle of autonomy as being absolutely good. Authority and autonomy are relative things whose spheres vary with the various phases of the development of society. If the autonomists confined themselves to saying that the social organisation of the future would restrict authority solely to the limits within which the conditions of production render it inevitable, we could understand each other; but they are blind to all facts that make the thing necessary and they passionately fight the world.

Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?

Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.

- Engels, 1872

[absurdthirst]

Tovar's Desires {Modern!Pero Tovar x F!Reader x Javier Peña}

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 8.5k

Warnings: Voyeurism, vaginal sex, suggestions of threesomes, masturbation, public sex, office sex, oral sex (male and female receiving), desk sex, analingus, fingering, anal fingering, double penetration, unprotected sex, threesomes

Comments: While in Spain helping track down a drug dealer, you find yourself wanting the ruggedly handsome, albeit, grumpy Spaniard. He believes that nothing can happen because you are with your partner, Javier Peña. He doesn't know the two of you don't mind sharing, allowing him to have his heart's desires.

Co-written with @storiesofthefandomlovers

**Follow @absurdthirst-writes and turn on notifications to stay up to date on all new fics.

|| MasterList || Pero Tovar MasterList || Javier Peña MasterList ||

Click Keep Reading only if you have read the Rating and Warnings and understand the warnings may not be complete to avoid listing spoilers. As AO3 says 'creator chooses not to use warnings'. You also agree that you're the right age to be consuming anything here.

You have worked in countries around the world, helping to take down some of the toughest cartels and drug lords. Working in conjunction with the federal governments and local law enforcement, you had never met anyone quite like your own partner, Javier Peña until him. 

Pero Tovar was a grumpy, brash, harsh man who seemed to find little joy in life. At first glance. It’s only after working with him for months that you had discovered there was some humanity under the layers of sarcasm. You had been shocked when you first saw him smile. Even more astounded when you heard him tell a joke. Working with him was proving to be somewhat of a distraction now that you understood how he operated. 

“You find that address?” Javi asks Pero as he enters his office in the Guardia Civil office in Madrid. “Not yet. Pendejos aren’t giving up the building over the tap. It’s gonna take a bit longer to get them to give it up.” Pero sighs, looking over at you and Javi as you sit in the chairs in his office. You’re gorgeous as the sunlight hits you and he shifts in his chair, knowing you are off limits. It’s been three months since you and Javi arrived in Madrid. A joint effort by the American DEA and the Spanish Guardia Civil to take down the drug lord Hector Jimenez. He’s evaded all efforts until the two countries decided to join forces and Pero was in charge of the Spanish crusade to take down the drug gang currently transporting drugs across the Atlantic in droves.

“At least the bureaucratic bullshit is the same everywhere.” You huff as you toss down your pen and Pero snorts, shaking his head. “What?” You ask, leaning forward and watching him. “Tell me I’m wrong?”

Pero shakes his head, “you’re not wrong. It’s paperwork that stops us doing our job.” You nod and Javi reaches for the pack of smokes, working fast to light one up. “Guess we are gonna be in Spain for the foreseeable.” Javi says as he blows smoke out of one side of his mouth and he looks over at you with a smirk, “we better find something to entertain us, right hermosa?”

Your own smirk is just as sly as you look towards Pero. “At least we have a guide.” You tell your partner. “Tell me where you go to party.” You insist, leaning back in your chair. “Where do you go stake out when you want to get laid. I know Peña would be interested in that.”

Pero snorts, shaking his head, “I do not get laid. I don’t have the time. Work is a priority and I think you should take the same mentality so you can return to the States sooner rather than later.” Pero says to you and Javi despite his stomach twisting as he wonders what you’d like naked but he pushes that thought aside.

Your eyes widen and you curse, shaking your head. “No wonder you are a grumpy bastard, Pero.” You huff, turning to Peña. “Like him only worse.” You sigh. “You are a handsome man, you can get laid any time you want. You can’t tell me that women are not attracted to the scar over your eye. It makes you look dangerous.”

Pero stares at you, trying to hide the way he flusters. You're a gorgeous woman and he knows you only have eyes for your partner, Javi. He's seen the way you both look at each other. It's obvious that you are fucking and he can admit that he's a little jealous that Peña gets to touch you. He sighs and unconsciously rubs the scar over his cheek. "They are usually scared off. I am not exactly, how do you Americans say, sunshine and roses, eh?" He asks, raising his eyebrows as he lowers his hand back to the desk.

“No, but you are sexy.” You tell him and Javi chuckles. 

“She’s telling you she would fuck you.” He tells the Spaniard. “She’s talked about it often enough over the past three months.”

You roll your eyes, wishing you had told him but you shrug when Pero’s eyes widen. “I would fuck you.” You admit with no shame. “You should come by the hotel room.”

Pero snorts, not believing you. You gotta be messing with him. He shakes his head, "hermosa, I do not appreciate your platitudes. I am more than aware that you and Agent Peña are together and I am sure he doesn't appreciate me thinking of his woman." Pero says and you scoff, "his woman?" 

Javi chuckles, waggling his eyebrows at you, "my woman." 

You roll your eyes and stand up, placing your hands on Pero's desk so you can loom over the imposing Spaniard. "I am my own woman and I decide who I fuck. Come to our room later and see what I am talking about. Room 214." You tell him with a smirk and spin on your heel, "come on Peña, we got that lead to follow up on." 

Javi stubs out his smoke in the nearby ashtray and stands, "coming bebita." He sighs and winks at Pero, "Vienes. No te arrepentirás. Room 214." He says and walks off to follow you down the hall.

Pero spends far too long staring at the doorway you had disappeared through. Unable to get your comment out of his head, he’s caught between suspicious and painfully aroused. It’s true, he’s not gotten laid in a long time and is almost sour about it, but he also knows that most Americans are very rigid when it comes to sex. Could Javi possibly be serious? He shoves the thought away and yet when he leaves the office to go home, he finds himself at your hotel, walking up the stairs to the second floor and down the hall to stand in front of room 214.

“Oh fuck baby. That’s it.” You moan as Javi pushes into you from behind. His hands finding your hips and you whimper when his cock stretches you out. Beyond the door to your hotel room, Pero stands there, eyes wide at the sound of sex coming from the hotel room of his American counterparts and he knows it wrong. He should walk away but he can’t. He stands there and listens. 

“That’s it. Such a tight pussy. Always so damn tight.” Javi grunts and his hips slam against yours. Pero should walk away. He should. But he can’t. He reaches down to squeeze his hard cock through his slacks, trying to force himself to walk away but your sweet moans have him lingering in the hall.

You had meant to wait for Pero to show up, but you were so worked up that you couldn’t resist. Javi more than willing to fuck you whenever you need and now he’s pushing into you perfectly, hitting something so sweet inside you walls that your back arches. “More Jav, fuck, harder baby, please.” You beg, your head hanging down until you collapse onto your elbows and press your face against the sheets. “Oh shit baby.”

“Mierda.” Pero hisses, glancing around and he can’t help it. He flicks the button and pulls his zipper down, reaching into his pants to pull his throbbing cock out. He imagines you moaning, his cock inside of you while you cry out his name. 

“Fuck baby. Gripping me like a goddamn vice. Hermosa, so good.” Javi grunts and slaps your ass, making you cry out. Pero can’t help himself as he wraps his fingers around his cock and starts to pump himself.

Javi knows exactly how to fuck you. His hips slap against your ass and you moan out small sounds of pleasure every time he drills into you. Pushing deep and forcing the sounds out of you. Wondering if Pero would be even more aggressive since he has not fucked anyone in a good long while. You can’t wait to find out. “More, Javi please.” You beg shamelessly.

“Fuck.” Pero grunts as your pleas echo down the hall and he fists his cock. It’s been so long since he’s jerked off, spending all hours of the day trying to get that hijo de puta. He groans under his breath and you cry out Javi’s name as he continues to fuck you. “That’s it, bebita. You like this, don’t you? You like being fucked. You’re so pretty when you cum.” Javi coos and Pero wishes he could see it. Imagines your face when you cum and his cock twitches in his hand.

“Yes. Yes.” You moan, eyes closed and you whimper when he pushes against that spot again. “Gonna -gonna cum!” You cry out, seconds before you squeal his name again. Your cunt clenches down on him and you soak him in a wave of your juices as the knot of tension inside you bursts.

Pero bites his lip as he listens to you cum. Fuck, you sound gorgeous and he squeezes his cock tighter as he imagines you clamping down on his length. He leans against the wall and bites his lip to smother his groan as he cums, spilling his seed onto the tile floor. “Mierda.” He groans, louder than he thinks he does, working his length and he’s uncaring of anything right now except experiencing his pleasure.

You whimper, swearing you hear someone outside but you’re too consumed by the pace that Javi keeps pounding into you. Your fingers grip the sheets and all you can do is take it until he drags you up and against his chest biting down on your ear and jaw as he starts to fill you with hot spurts of his seed.

Pero looks down, mortified at the sight of the cum on the tile floor and he reaches for the napkin he shoved in his pocket from his lunch earlier and after tucking his cock back in his pants, he bends down to clean up his mess. His cheeks are burning and he prays no one is watching as he bundles up the napkin and rushes down the hall to head back to his apartment. The mortification haunts him all evening along with your moans and he knows it’s wrong. He shouldn’t want you when you are with Peña. The Americans are messing with him. He drinks a little too much whiskey before he passes out, dreaming of being the cause of your moans.

The next morning, you bring in a tray of coffees as you come into the office, trailed by Javi. Pero is already at his desk, scowling at a report in front of him and looking like he hasn't got much sleep. “You look like you could use this.” You pluck a cup out of the tray and set it down in front of him. “Late night? If a tip came in you should have called us.”

Pero huffs, “thanks for the coffee, hermosa.” He takes it and sips it gratefully. “I had a tip but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t wait. Apparently Jimenez had a shipment come in last night in Bilbao. It’s too far for us to go to but it’s a big shipping area so we are checking the cameras”

“So why didn’t you come over?” You take your own cup and hand Javi the holder with his own black coffee so you can perch against the desk and look at the handsome Spaniard. “If you aren’t interested, I won’t be offended.” You promise, shrugging slightly. You would be disappointed, but you wouldn’t be offended if you weren’t his type.

Pero glances down at his desk, knowing he shouldn’t say it, his face will show his shame, but he looks back at you and says “I did come by your room but you were…occupied.” He clears his throat and takes another sip of his coffee

“Oh.” You take another sip of your coffee and look back at Javi who smirks smugly. 

“So?” Javi asks as he leans back in hise-[ desk chair. “Should have knocked, we would have had fun sharing.” He shrugs slightly like it’s not a big deal.

Pero is surprised at the nonchalance of the man but he taps his fingers on his desk. “I- I haven’t - it’s been a long time since I- I have never shared a woman.” He admits, biting his lip as his eyes meet yours.

“If you are not comfortable sharing, Javi doesn’t mind just watching.” You offer, tossing him a smirk. “He likes watching someone touch me.”

Pero bites his lip as he looks up at you perched on his desk and he reaches out to caress your thigh. “Do you want him to watch, hermosa?” He asks softly, not wanting to push you if you aren’t interested in this.

You can tell that Pero is wanting, making your cunt clench as you imagine how pent up this man must be. How long it had been since he had sunk into a tight cunt and fucked away his frustrations. You take another sip of your coffee and set it down beside his, laying your hand on top of Pedro's. "If you are comfortable with it, I want him to watch. I love for him to see how someone else fucks me."

He swallows harshly, knowing this will change your working relationship but his need for you overshadows his professionalism. He slides his hand higher until he’s pressing his fingers against your cunt. “Then I want you to come sit on my lap.” He orders, pulling his hand away from you.

Javi chuckles behind you and there isn't even time to spare the other man a glance as you stand up and walk around the desk. Behind you, you hear Javi's chair creak as he stands and the normally quiet click of the lock to the office door sounds obscenely loud. As if indicating to everyone in the building what you are about to do. Pero pulls away from his desk and you waste no time straddling him and wrapping your arms around his neck to look him in the eyes.

Pero stares at you for a moment until he surges forward to press his lips to yours. His hands find your ass, dragging you even closer and his tongue is immediately pushing into your mouth as his cock starts to harden in his pants. You’re gorgeous and he’s prepared to risk it all to touch you at least this one time.

He’s greedy and bold, making you moan as his tongue strokes yours. You can feel the passion in his touch, the need. Your fingers tangle into the longer locks of hair at the back of his neck and tug on them gently.

He grunts into your mouth at the way you tug on his hair and he hisses when you bite down on his lower lip. His cock is hard now but his hands slide up to squeeze your tits, desperate to touch more of you. “Take her shirt off.” Javi orders from his seat, a cigarette in his hand as he watches you and Pero make out.

You can tell that he is slightly startled by being given an order, so you pull away and wink at him. “He likes to give orders.” You hum, letting Pero drag your shirt over your head to reveal your bra.

Pero hums, not too bothered by it at this stage but he glances over at Peña who watches with a smirk on his face when Tovar’s gaze falls down to your tits. 

“Nice, aren’t they?” Javi asks and Pero reaches up to push them together, leaning in to lick along the flesh.

“Yes.” Your head rolls back and you lean back to give him room to do whatever he wants to you. Holding onto his shoulders and rolling your hips against his hardening cock.

“Mierda.” Pero groans and reaches behind you to unclasp your bra. He drags it down your arms to expose your tits to his hungry gaze. He groans and tosses your bra aside so he can grab your tit, tilting it so he can lean down to take it into his mouth.

“Fuck.” Your eyes slip closed and you moan again, keeping your voice low since there are people walking by. Anyone could hear you and that adds to the excitement. You know Javi is watching as Pero’s mouth suckles on your nipple, biting hard enough to make you gasp and then soothing it with his tongue.

He switches over to your other breast, loving the feel of your skin in his mouth and the way you tangle your fingers in his hair. “She likes to be bit. To be marked.” Javi says before he inhales another drag of his smoke. Pero takes his advice and sucks his mark on the curve of your breast.

“Shit.” You hiss quietly, cunt clenching and you press your now overheated core against his cock. One hand drifts down from his neck to slide down his chest and cup him through his tight jeans. “Fuck, you are packing.” Your eyes widen at the bulk in your hand and he might give Javi a run for his money in the girth department.

Pero hisses as you squeeze him and he gently pushes you off of his lap. “Take your pants off.” He hisses and reaches down to squeeze his cock through his pants and Javi smirks, “do as he says, hermosa.”

You smirk back at your lover before you start to peel your pants off slowly, bending down to give Javi a view of your ass since you had worn thongs today. “Fuck, I forgot you were wearing those.” He hisses before he lights his cigarette.

Pero swallows harshly, trying not to growl when you stand there in the tiny thong. “Fuck. You’re - fucking gorgeous.” He groans and reaches for you, lifting you up onto his desk and he trails his hands along your legs, pushing them open enough for him to press his nose to your covered core, breathing you in.

“Hmmmm are you going to lick me, Pero?” You ask, leaning back and tilting your hips up. “Right here on your desk so you can remember it every time you work late? Or are you going to fuck me?”

Pero smirks, “I’m gonna lick your cunt until you moan my name and then I’m gonna fuck you. Want you to be wet enough to take me.” Pero asserts and Javi chuckles, “oh everyone is gonna know she’s being eaten out. It’s her favorite thing. Can’t keep her quiet when someone’s sucking on her clit.” Javi flicks his cigarette and squeezes himself through his pants when Pero hooks his finger under the elastic of your thong and pulls them aside, groaning at the sight of your wet pussy. His eyes flick up to you before he leans in to slide his tongue through your folds.

Your whine is bitten off, turning into a low moan behind your teeth as you watch him lick through your cunt. “Fuck, Pero.” Your hands find his hair and you tangle your fingers into his hair and tugs.

He groans when you tug on his hair and he hisses, flicking his tongue over your clit until he’s sucking it into his mouth. “Oh she likes that.” Javi chuckles, “suck on that clit for her.”

Your mouth drops open in a silent cry when Pero immediately follows Javi’s orders. The pressure against your clit is glorious and harsh. The Spaniard pulls your clit into his mouth.

Pero sucks and releases your clit, sliding his tongue through your folds, and he groans when your thighs tighten against his head, trapping him in your cunt. “Fuck. Look at you baby. He’s treatin’ you good, huh?” Javi chuckles, watching you throw your head back.

“Yes.” You gasp out, rocking your hips down to press your cunt into his eager mouth. Needing him to keep the pressure up because it’s making you grip the edge of the desk and nearly scatter the pen cup on the edge.

Pero works his tongue inside of you, his nose pressed against your clit, and he loves the way you seem to fall apart under his touch. You’re gorgeous. Fucking gorgeous, and he’s desperate to hear and feel you cum like you did for Peña the night before. His hands grab your thighs, keeping you pinned in place and his pens go flying as you hit the cup with your hand making Javi chuckle.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” You squeal, knowing you are going to fall apart soon, the tension built up is nearly too much. It only takes another flick of his tongue against your clit to send you flying. The cry is louder than it should be in the office but you don’t care when your cunt is clenching and pleasure is wracking your body.

Pero swears he nearly cums when you cry out and he fucking loves it. Lapping up every drop you have to offer him, he’s groaning and gripping your thighs until you’re pushing his face away when it becomes too much. “Delicious.” He murmurs when he pulls back and looks up at you, squeezing himself through his pants until he’s aching. “Can I fuck you now?” He asks and you glance over at Javi who is watching with that lust in his eyes. 

“Yes. Fuck me Tovar.” You beg and he’s standing up, unbuttoning his jeans to pull his cock out.

“Fuck.” Your eyes widen as he pumps his cock and you know that you would love to have that cock in your mouth. But right now, you want to feel him inside you. “Like this or do you want to bend me over your desk?” You ask, fluttering your lashes playfully at him.

“Bend over my desk.” He demands, shifting back so you can stand up and he watches you shift to bend over his desk. Not happy with that, he kicks your ankle to spread your legs wider and he shuffles closer. He reaches out with his free hand to grip your chin, “watch your lover while I push into you.” Pero demands and Javi bites his lip as your eyes meet his just as Tovar starts to push into you.

“Ohhhhhhh fuck.” The stretch of him might be just a little bit more than Javi and your mouth drops open in a quiet moan as he pushes deep and grinds into your ass with his hips.

“Does he feel good inside of you, bebita? Is he stretching that tight little pussy out? Is it everything you’ve been longing for?” Javi asks, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees so he can watch you take Pero’s cock.

“Yes, fuck, yes.” You whimper, closing your eyes and trying to push your hips back but Pero won’t let you. “So good baby, you feel so fucking big inside me. Can’t-can’t believe you don’t get your cock wet more.”

Pero hisses when you squeeze his cock as you adjust to him and he starts to move, his pace is slow but deep, wanting to savor this feeling since he doubts he will be fucking you again. “Too- too busy working, hermosa.” He admits, his hands finding your hips to keep you still so he can keep his rhythm.

“You shouldn’t keep this cock to yourself.” You lean back, resting your head against his shoulder. “You will think clearer when you fuck regularly.”

Pero chuckles, turning his head to kiss your jaw. “Maybe so.” He murmurs, pleased that you are happy with his size, and he slides his hands up to squeeze your tits, loving how you are naked while he’s still dressed. 

“She will volunteer to drain your balls every day, amigo.” Javi snorts playfully and rubs his lower lip as his eyes dip down to where Pero’s cock is disappearing inside of you.

“Fuck.” You shiver at the idea, letting each one of these men fuck you and use your cunt. “Yes I will.” You moan, clenching around him and pushing your ass back. “Javi will watch every time you fuck me, won’t you, baby?”

Javi loves the way Pero squeezes your tits and the moan that escapes your lips. “Every time.” Javi promises as his voice deepens. He can’t help but love seeing you get fucked. Like this very own porno. He loves it. “Does her pussy feel good?” Javi asks Pero who is kissing along your neck. 

“So good.” He groans and releases your tits to grab your wrists, connecting them behind your back to pin you to his desk. He presses himself against you and starts to move faster, wanting to feel you cum around him.

Your tits bounce and all you can do is take his cock. The thrusts push you against the desk and you whine in pleasure. Javi’s eyes are dark and lusty, letting you know he will be dragging you away to fuck you himself soon. The man loves to watch you get fucked and then make sure you also take a load of his cum. “Fuck baby.” You moan softly.

Pero groans at the wet, tight, hot cunt surrounding his cock. It’s been too long since he had sex like this. Raw and feral, he pushes into you like a man possessed. The desk creaks with his movements and Javi can’t do anything but watch with rapture and desire. “Tell him how good it feels, bebita.” Javi orders, voice taking on that gruff quality

“So good.” You moan instantly. “So fucking good. Pero, fuck baby, I need you to cum.” You beg. “Need you to- to fill me up and let me drip you all day.” You are on birth control, you have to be with Javi as a lover. He doesn’t like condoms. “Please baby.”

Your words spur Pero on and he’s groaning, thrusting harder into you so your hips hit the desk and will undoubtedly leave bruises beneath your skin. “Mierda. Hermosa - fuck - want you- quiero - you need to cum.” He begs, wanting to feel it.

Your orgasm earlier makes it easier for your body to build up to another. Each harsh thrust of his cock hits something wonderful inside you after dragging against all the nerves in your cunt. It doesn’t take long, just a minute more before your back is arching and you are crying out his name softly, nearly breathless as you come apart again.

The way you squeeze his cock has him growling and his hips slam against your ass as he desperately seeks his own orgasm. Words escape him and he can only growl and hiss as he pushes deep into your fluttering cunt a dozen more times before pushing impossibly deep to paint your walls with his hot cum. His growl of your name while he twitches inside of you has Javi’s cock throbbing and he squeezes himself through his pants, knowing he’s gonna have to fuck you immediately once you get back to your room.

Whimpering, you close your eyes and grin as he rides out his orgasm. His panting against your ear is sexy and making you shiver. When he finally stops moving, you turn your head and press your lips to his jaw softly. “Feel better?”

Pero chuckles softly, “much better, hermosa. Gracias.” He murmurs, kissing you softly until he’s shifting to stand up so he can pull out of you. 

“Sit on his desk and spread your legs. I want to see his cum drip out of you.” Javi orders while Pero tucks himself back into his pants.

You hum, flipping around and sitting on the desk so you can do as Javi orders. You see the dark heat in his eyes as he stares at your cunt, knowing Pero’s seed is probably starting to drip down your folds. “He needed that, didn’t he, baby?” You coo, dipping your fingers into his cum and sliding them into your mouth. “Filled me up good.”

Javi groans when he sees you suck on your fingers and Pero slumps down into his chair, suddenly exhausted, and Javi stands, stalking over to you and grabbing the back of your neck to press his lips to yours, uncaring of the taste of Pero’s cum lingering on your lips.

Javi’s kiss is hard, demanding and it makes you moan. Your own tongue sliding against his eagerly and you wondering if Pero is watching or if he is still caught up in his own bliss.

Pero watches Javi kiss you, his spent cock twitching in interest. He’s never shared a woman before, always imagined he’d hate it but watching you both has his stomach twisting with arousal. Javi’s hands slide up and down your back until he pulls away, voice rough when he says “get dressed. I need you.”

Your lips twist in amusement and you look over at Pero. “I guess we will see you later.” You hum as you lean over and pick up your pants. Pero hadn’t even removed your thong, just pushed it to the side.

Pero picks up the bra and hands it back to you, shifting a little awkwardly from one foot to the other, unsure of what to say now that you’ve fucked. He’s not sure how this changes everything. “You two go. I’ll let you know if anything about the shipment comes in.” He says after clearing his throat.

Instead of just redressing and leaving, you walk over to Pero and cup his cheek, leaning in to press your lips to his for one last kiss. “You should knock tonight.” You murmur, smirking at you, “we can all have fun.”

Pero nods, “we will see, hermosa.” He needs to sit down and think, unsure of what he wants. You’ve confused him now that the lust has faded. 

“See you soon, amigo.” Javi winks and slides his hand into your back pocket as you make your way out of his office, leaving the smell of sex in the air. Pero slumps down in his seat, knowing he wants you again, no matter what he has to do. Even if it means sharing you. He’s not sure how long he sits there staring at the government issued cream painted wall when his phone ringing pulls him out of his stupor. “Tovar.” He answers, listening to the new intel that might just be key to getting Jimenez.

“He did not seem particularly happy.” You murmur as Javi guides you out of the building. Several people glance at you as you walk past, but that is usual and you don’t think it was because they heard you, “maybe he is not into that kind of thing. Not everyone is.”

****

Pero hangs up the phone and sighs, standing up and groaning at the fact he’s been sitting in that chair for far too long. He locks his office and makes his way over to your hotel, wanting to deliver the intel in person instead of risking it over the phone. When he stands by the door, he’s nervous. He’s certain the intel could’ve waited until tomorrow. The shipment isn’t for another week, but he still came over. He swallows and lifts his hand to knock on the door.

You look up from the report you had been pouring over when the knock at the door sounds. Swinging your head around to look at Javi and he jerks his head towards it, silently telling you to see who it is. No one is expected and the hour is so late, you had decided that Pero was not coming by. Your eyes widen when you open the door, finding him shuffling slightly and giving a nervous look. “Pero! Come in.” Swinging the door open, you invite him to come into the suite.

He enters the suite, palms slick, and he bites his lip as he glances at you then at Javi. "We have new intel." He reveals and Javi sits up, snubbing his cigarette out as he pays attention to Pero.

 "What's changed?" He asks and Pero glances back at you, 

"Jimenez has a shipment coming in on Friday. He has his top guy, Martinez, overseeing it. We are planning to ambush. We have a guy on the ground at the dock monitoring any changes so we know we can get Martinez and bring him in."

“That’s great!” Slightly disappointed that he has not come for personal reasons, you shove that to the side and concentrate on the information. “Martinez doesn’t travel on Sundays, or the third week of the month.” Snapping your fingers you turn back to the files you had been digging through. “Superstitions tied to bad accidents.” You locate the file and hand it to Javi. “So we can cross those days out.”

Javi nods in agreement, "so we wait until our inside guy confirms for Friday then we ambush and get his ass brought in for a plea deal." Javi says and Pero nods, "exactamente, amigo." He shifts from one foot to the other, glancing over at the bed sheets that are mussed up from your prior activities in the day.

“Forgive me.” You can feel how uneasy he is and you walk over to the mini bar. “Can I offer you a drink? The booze is overpriced but we have a bottle of bourbon and some beer in the ice bucket.”

“Bourbon sounds good, hermosa.” He offers you a small smile and Javi gestures to the sofa. 

“Siéntate, Tovar. Relax.” Javi orders and Tovar sits down, rubbing his hands on his jeans as he watches you get him a drink. He needs it. The urge to fuck you returning in full force when his eyes dip down to your ass.

You pour three drinks, smiling as you turn around to find the two men lounging on the sofa. Well, Javi is lounging, Pero looks like he might jump up at any moment. You wonder why he is so nervous. “Here you go.” You bring the drinks over to hand off, locking eyes with Pero.

His fingers brush yours and he swears he’s about to implode. He thanks you and takes a sip, enjoying the burn of the liquor. “So did you have a good afternoon?” Pero asks Javi who smirks and gestures to the bed, “what do you think, hermano?” He asks and Pero chuckles, “I guess you did.”

“Hmmmm.” You smirk, enjoying the small wink Javi sends you and turn back to your guest. “Do you have plans for the night, Pero?” You ask conversationally. If he just wants a drink and then to leave, you won’t stop him.

“No. Just going to go home and watch television. Maybe work on my woodwork.” He murmurs and 

Javi chuckles, “you woodwork. Jesus, you really did need to get laid.” He says playfully.

Pero snorts with a smirk, “well, tú bebita is the first one in a long time and I enjoyed having her for the one and only time you’ll allow it.”

“The one and only time?” You look over at Javi, knowing that he did not say something to Pero. “Did I miss something?”

Javi shakes his head, “I did not tell him no. I enjoyed watching him fuck you. I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.” He admits and Pero bites his lip, “I did not think you’d want to share her. I wouldn’t if she was mine. I would love to touch her again but she’s - she’s yours.”

“She is her own person.” You speak up. “I am with Javi, but he doesn’t not mind sharing and neither do I.” You shrug. “It is not for everyone. I understand that. But you can touch me.” You hum. “I want you to touch me.”

Pero bites his lip as you sit beside him on the sofa. It’s so different from his upbringing. To have this kind of sexual experience. But he likes it. He wants more. His hand comes out to rest on your thigh as you settle down next to him. “Can I fuck you again, hermosa?” He asks softly, not wanting to push you.

“Yes.” You agree immediately, not needing to think about it. “Will you share me with Javi tonight? He doesn’t want to touch you.” You assure the Spaniard. “He just likes fucking me with another man.”

Pero is nervous but looks over at Javi who is lighting another cigarette. “Like we take turns fucking you?” He asks, curious and wanting to know exactly what is involved.

“The same time.” Javi puffs on the cigarette and smirks. “She loves having her cunt and mouth filled with cock at the same time.” He winks at you again. “Or having a cock in each hole.”

“The same time.” Pero says and Javi nods, “she loves it.” 

The idea makes Pero’s cock twitch and he swallows harshly. “I- I want to do it. I want to fuck her again while she sucks your cock.” He murmurs, feeling nervous but excited.

“Yesss.” You moan quietly, always loving making Javi moan your name when you have his cock in your mouth. You stand and quickly reach for the loose shirt you had thrown on after showering earlier.

Pero watches you pull the shirt over your head and he groans, cock twitching in his pants, and you shift to sit between Javi and Pero on the sofa, reaching for Pero to press your lips to his. He groans, his hand sliding along your spine while your tongue caresses his. You kiss for several moments until Javi taps your back and you pull away from Pero, turning your head to press your lips to Javi’s.

You know that Javi is not a greedy lover, but he wants to be involved. Your moan is soft and you reach back for Pero, taking his hand and bringing it to your breast while you kiss your lover. This is meant to be shared and you won’t have anyone feeling left out.

Pero squeezes your breast for a moment before he leans down to take your nipple into his mouth. He groans and Javi pecks your lips as he pulls back. “Suck his cock while I finger that tight little pussy, bebita.” Javi orders, knowing Pero needs to experience that gorgeous mouth.

You whimper and Pero groans, pulling off your breast so he can lean back and open his pants. Standing, you pull down the soft shorts you are wearing, no panties underneath this time. There had been no need when you know Javi would strip you down before crawling into the bed together.

When you kneel on the sofa, ass towards Javi, he can’t help but smack your flesh, making you gasp. “Fuck baby. You’re so perfect.” Javi groans and slides his hands between your folds, loving when he finds you wet for him. 

Pero watches as your hand slides into his pants, reaching in to wrap your fingers around his cock and pull him out. “Mierda.” He hisses, watching you grip him.

“You have a beautiful cock, Pero.” You praise, rolling the foreskin down and humming when you feel him growing in your grip. With a few, quick strokes. He is fully hard and you lean down to wrap your lips around the tip.

“Fuck.” Pero hisses as you take him into your mouth. He groans and you moan around him when Javi pushes a thick digit into your cunt, his teeth sinking into your ass cheek enough to make you gasp.

Javi’s fingers are deadly, thick and surprisingly dexterous as he curls them and pumps them into your quivering cunt. The excitement of getting to have both men makes you drip and your eager mouth swallows down his cock as much as you can.

"Fuck." Pero groans, his head tilting down to watch you take his cock, and he caresses your head while you take him even deeper into your mouth. Javi loves watching you suck Pero's cock and he shifts his hand so he can press his thumb against your clit, wanting to make you feel good while you give pleasure.

Every time you bob your head, you push yourself to take more of him, the two fingers around the base is all you have to keep your lips from taking all of him. Swallowing around him and pulling off to rub your tongue over the sensitive head. Javi’s fingers make you rock forward, groaning every time he pushes against that spongy little spot deep in your cunt.

“Her mouth feels fucking good, doesn’t it, amigo?” He asks and Pero nods, mouth open as he groans when you let your split dribble down the side of his cock. “Fuck baby.” He coos, caressing your shoulders and back while Javi adds another finger to stretch you out. His eyes find your puckered hole and he can’t help but lean forward to slide his tongue around the sensitive flesh.

Your gasp and “fuck” is garbled around Pero’s cock, muffling the sound. Although the Spaniard loves the sensation and moans loudly, rocking his hips up to beg you to take more. Now that his tongue is pressed into your asshole, you know Javi will be balls deep in your ass tonight while Pero fills your cunt. You whine and double down on your attention to the man’s cock, wanting him to be addicted to you.

Your whimpers make Pero groan at the way it vibrates down his cock and you are incredible. This is better than anything he fantasized about when he was thinking about you with his cock in his hand. He hisses when you hollow his cheeks and Javi uses his other hand to push a finger into your ass, wanting to stretch you out for him while his fingers move inside of your pussy.

Moaning around the cock in your mouth, you push your hips back and beg for more. It’s not like you’ve never had him fuck your ass, but you need him to get you ready for it.

Javi knows what you need. He leans in to spit on your ass and adds another finger to stretch you out even more for him. Pero notices and groans, “are you going to fuck her ass, amigo?” He asks Javi who nods, “only if you fuck her cunt. She loves being full of cock.” Javi chuckles when your walls clench around his fingers. 

“Fuckkkk.” Pero hisses, cock twitching in your mouth at the thought.

For long minutes Javi stretches you out, scissoring his fingers and pumping them into your ass while you reach down and cup Pero’s balls. Swearing that the only reason he doesn’t blow his load is because he fucked you earlier. When you feel his thighs tense, you pull off his cock and look into his eyes. “Fuck me, Pero.”

"Come here, hermosa." Pero groans and Javi withdraws his fingers, reaching down to unbuckle his belt as you straddle Pero. The Spaniard groans when you grip his cock and sink down onto him. "Coño es - fuck - cielo." He murmurs and his hands find your ass, smacking it hard enough to make you squeal.

Working on the buttons of his shirts, you circle your hips. Pero hisses and that makes you hum, grinning evilly when you clench down around him. “You feel so good, so thick.” You praise breathlessly.

Javi pulls his cock out of his pants, eager to touch you, and he caresses your spine as he pumps his cock in one hand. “Does it feel good, bebita? Riding his cock? You want me inside of you too?”

“So good, Jav, so fucking good.” You moan quietly, feeling Pero twitch inside you at your praise. You lean back, feeling Javi press against your back and clench around the cock you are sitting on. “Get the lube baby, I’m going to be stuffed full.”

He steps back, reaching into the nightstand to grab the lube and he comes back over. “Lay on your back, amigo.” Javi orders and Pero grunts, shifting with you still on his cock to lay down on the sofa. Once you are situated, he kneels behind you and squirts the lube into his hand, coating his cock and pushing two fingers into your ass to make sure you can take him. “Gonna fill you up bebita. Make sure you are stuffed with cock.” Javi says as he takes himself in hand and slowly pushes inside of you.

It makes your mouth drop open, a low moan coming out of you. The feeling is exquisite and your eyes flutter with the sensation of being stretched out. “Javi, Pero- fuck.” You whimper, biting your lip as he stops for a moment, pulsing halfway inside you.

Pero can feel Javi’s cock through the thin layer of skin and it makes you impossibly tighter as you clench down around him, keeping still while Javi works himself inside of you. It’s incredible and Pero watches your jaw drop as Javi works his cock deeper until his hips are pressed against your ass, his cock buried deep.

“Shit.” You hiss, your nails digging into Pero’s shoulders until you nearly break the skin. “Oh god, it - it’s so good. I’m so full.” You moan quietly.

Javi kisses along your neck as you adjust to him until he starts to rock his hips, slowly moving inside of you. Pero keeps still, loving the pinched expression on your face as you start to enjoy the motion and he begins to rock his hips up into you, letting you experience two cocks moving inside of you.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck.” You whine, throwing your head back and laying it against Javi’s shoulder. 

Pero palms your tits, pinching your nipples hard enough to make you moan as he roams his hips up. “Fuck you like this, don’t you, hermosa?” He groans, unable to believe that you truly do love this.

"I love it. I love it." You cry, clenching around his cock buried in your pussy. Your moans echo in the room and Pero's eyes drift down to watch you taking the two mens' cocks inside of you. "Fuck, hermosa. Gorgeous." He compliments you with a groan and you whimper when he thrusts up into you. 

"She's a little whore, aren't you baby?" Javi chuckles and bites down on your shoulder.

“Yes, fuck yes.” You agree, letting them use you like you are their personal fuck toy. “Love it, Jav, Pero.” You babble as they pick up speed, your cunt and ass clenching around them as they steadily fill you again and again.

Pero hisses, getting close after he had his mouth on you so he groans and reaches down to rub your clit, wanting to watch you cum at least once from his touch. Javi smirks against your shoulder, “that’s it, amigo. She loves that. Don’t you, bebita? You gonna cum for us?” Javi asks, kissing along your neck.

You nod, body nearly shaking as they continue to rock into you, each one right after the other so there is the constant sensation of being filled. “Yes baby, I’m gonna- gonna cum.” You promise breathlessly. Pero’s fingers against your clit are perfectly pressed, making you cry out when he swipes it again and again.

“You gonna cum for us, bebita?” Javi asks, biting down on your shoulder and Pero groans when you squeeze his cock, getting closer. 

“She is. Aren’t you, hermosa? Cum for us. We wanna hear you cry out our names.” He demands and you whimper, getting closer and closer to your orgasm until finally, you clamp down on their cocks, making both men groan.

Cumming with being stuffed so full is nearly overwhelming. Every nerve ending inside your holes is on fire and making your entire body light up in white hot pleasure. Crying out loudly, you don’t know if you call out Javi’s name or Pero’s or a garbled combination of the two.

Pero hisses when you clamp down on his cock, soaking him, and he watches you ride through your orgasm. Javi bites down on your shoulder, “good girl, bebita. Fuck, feel so good.” Pero watches you and he’s so close to cumming. He pants, fingers digging into your hips as he gets closer and closer.

Lunging forwards, you press your lips to Pero’s, sliding your tongue into his mouth to moan as you ride out your high. Fingers sinking into his hair to tug on it desperately, wanting to feel him cum inside you again.

Javi loves watching how desperate you get and he caresses your spine as you kiss Pero, the Spaniard’s hips starting to lose rhythm until he pushes deep inside of you. “Fuck fuck fuck.” He pants into your mouth as he paints your walls with his hot cum.

You whine, knowing Javi will be the last to cum, he has managed to hold out. Slumping forwards, your ass is pushed out more to let him fuck you just as fast as he wants.

Javi grits his teeth, grunts and hisses escaping his lips as he pushes deep into your ass, his hands sliding up to grab your tits, pulling you back towards him. Within a half dozen thrusts, he’s pushing deep and cumming inside of you. Javi isn’t wordy when he cums, he grunts and bites down on your shoulder.

“Javi.” You moan happily, closing your eyes and enjoying the feeling of both holes being filled. Pero’s cock twitches inside your cum soaked cunt, obviously feeling the pressure through the thin wall as your lover cums. “Fuck baby.” You whimper, turning your head and kissing his jaw.

Javi smirks, “you enjoy it?” He murmurs against your neck, hoping you did. You’ve been wanting a threesome like this since you talked about your desires not long after you met.

“Yes baby.” You reach back and run your fingers through his hair as he pulls away to kiss your lips. “Everything I wanted.” Your cunt clenches around Pero and you turn back to kiss the Spaniard. “Everything.”

Pero caresses your waist while Javi groans as he pulls out of you, shuffling off to grab some rags to clean everyone up. Pero kisses you for a moment longer until you are shifting off of his cock. “That’s it baby. So good.” Pero murmurs, looking down to watch his cum drip out of you and onto the leather sofa below.

You are wonderfully sore and smirk as you lay there. Javi chuckles, coming back in the room with the rags and leaning in to kiss you before starting to wipe away the evidence of your night. “We will have to do this again.” You groan quietly, looking over at Pero to see how he feels about that idea.

Pero nods, shifting to sit up and he leans in to kiss your cheek. “We have not solved the case yet, hermosa. We will have to do this again and again.” He smirks and you giggle. 

Javi winks at the Spaniard. “Well we haven’t gotten Jimenez yet so we have plenty of time.” 

Tovar chuckles, “maybe we will never find him.” 

You smirk, “it’s selfish of me to say, but I hope not.” The men chuckle and you all lay down on the sofa after you’re all cleaned up. Javi and you are a dynamic partnership but with Pero, you’re an unstoppable trio.

[vanquishedvaliant]

Been reading / rereading all the dune books lately after the movies set off a nostalgia kick

And they’re generally quite interesting and great, except for their undercurrent of insidious misogyny that perfuses every bit of the writing

I’m not the kind of reader that usually harps on about that kind of thing and I’m definitely not making some moral crusade or calling it problematic

They’re also a product of their time etc written in the 60s

But even not being in an activist mindset looking for it to say the right things some of the insinuations are frankly just… distracting? Like it’s not that I’m exactly offended I’m just pulled out of the story by how flatly idiotic some of these chauvinist undertones are and how little they make sense with the rest of the worldbuilding and how the society is described to function

It’s partly because so much of the rest of the book asks you to buy into some particular assertions of religious and political philosophy and then raises those as quandaries you’re supposed to fret over

But the biological determinism of women’s inferiority of men is just like. Flatly stated as fact that explains things. Like it’s the truth as seen by multiple in universe perspectives and there’s not a lot of counterplay to cast any doubt.

It’s bizarre.

Still really cool books for sure but it’s definitely an observable flaw that kind of breaks the flow whenever it comes up

[alpaca-clouds]

Let's talk about the whole "natural order" thing

Something I have realized is that a ton of people are not quite aware of the context of the one idea that the bad guys within Castlevania: Nocturne keep bringing up again and again: The natural order.

If you watch the show you will find that no episode goes by without a bad guy bringing up that idea every other scene, so let this history nerd quickly explain that concept.

So, this entire idea came from two sources: Enlightenment, and the pre-capitalist, colonialist system.

You need to understand that from the 4th century till the 16th century usually most stuff got explained to people with "because it is God's will". Why is that person poor, and that person rich? Because it is God's will. Why is that guy the king? Because God had made him. Why do we have this war? Because God wants us to.

That does not mean that the people in power actually believed that, but they could get away with everything by having some arch bishop or even the pope agree with them. (I mean, just look at the crusades.)

But then things happened. Gutenberg invented the printing press. Folks read the bible for themselves. People started to get more literate in general. Information about science got wider spread. There was splintering within the church. And people were just not as willing to accept "because God" anymore.

At the same time we had just as bad (if not at times worse) differences in quality of life between rich and poor than in the middle ages. And of course we had the entire colonialism happening, that also included genocide and slavery. And this needed justification. Que: The natural order.

This was just the umbrella under which so much pseudo-science would pressed underneath at the time. A pseudo-scientific explanation for everything that was happening.

Why are some people richer than other? Because they are just naturally more suited to be rich. That is the natural order.

Why do we have a king? Because it is a human need to have one central leader. And that family were always kings. It simply is the natural order of things.

Why do we subjugate the people in America? Because it is just natural for advanced civilizations to subjugate other civilizations. It is actually good for them. It is the natural order.

Why do we enslave Black people? Because they were actually born to be servants. That is their natural state. It is the natural order.

The entire stuff with phrenology and eugenics and all of that came from this specific idea. Of a natural order. Like, racism and all that came from that. Manifest destiny. All of that was connected to this idea of a natural order.

Ironically, while this sprang from the need to take the religion out of the stuff, they then just fitted religion right back in. Making the "church being excempt from everything" also as part of "natural order".

And yes, this is still very much the idea that a lot of conservatism is build around. That there is this pseudo-scientific idea of "this has proofen to work this way before, so it should work like that forever, that is only natural".

Funnily enough those new atheist scientist dudes also LOVE to appeal to the natural order. At times literally. Because they are also really big at conservatism when it comes to women, and keeping cultures apart, and anti-queerness and all of that. And yes, they are gonna appeal to the natural order and it being natural. Somethin that has only been brought up and seen critically recently.

But of course religious conservatives also love to use that, too. Because not all of them have the guts to just keep saying "but God" to defend their position (and sometimes they even know that their stuff directly contradicts the bible). And then they will also go: "But it is natural!"

It is a shitty idea. That is where it came from. It was what a lot of people used to argue against a lot of change that was happening in the 18th and 19th century.

[diacripticcomplex]

Shu x Yui smut (Yui going back in time again?? Optional)

Shu x Yui: (Crusader time period)

TW: War and sexual violence, rape, murder.

Shu’s POV:

Our calvary managed to breech into the desert kingdom, it was quite beautiful but I just wanted to take a moment to myself…it’s been a long war, I didn’t sign up for this, nor did I lead or devise any plans that was mainly Ayato and Reiji. I don’t care for glory or power, I just want to be left in peace..

Roaming this desert area was a pain, it was unbearably hot and due to the war there weren’t any women in sight. Most of them hiding, waiting for us to take them for the capture, the spoils of war, we were allowed to do as we wished with these women, we killed their men, enslaved their children…it was the way. I sigh out to myself. “What’s wrong Shu~?” Laito’s annoying voice sang out. I don’t say anything to him. “Where are the women??!” Kanato yelled out, throwing his sword to the ground, it made an irritatingly loud sound. “They’re probably hiding in that temple over there” Laito stated, and pointed in finger to a large structure it was quite lovely, the art and the color, it was a sandy dune nothing like the churches that were built in Europe.

We all make our way to the temple, Laito was indeed correct, the women were there and they were in for a difficult time, but as I said before, this was the way of war. My brothers wasted no time and began to defile the women they found. Reiji had them strung up, naked and slice cuts all over them. He’s usually not like this, but war took away his gentlemen aspect I guess..the triplets raped women together then killed them slowly. “This isn’t right…” Subaru said to me, we were the only two not participating in this slow slaughter. “There’s no point in stopping them…I don’t care I’m going to find a place to sleep..” I tell him, and I got up the stairs on this lavish temple. There was a dark room that I entered it was much colder in this corridor also, it felt nice, I couldn’t hear the screams of the women anymore.

“You..! You can’t be here..!” A human woman shouted at me, just when I was enjoying the quietness. “Yea? Tell it to someone who cares, get out my way mortal” I reply back to her, she looks furious, I got a better look at her, she had silky slightly curled platinum hair and pink eyes, she was very pale for a desert person, she must be royalty..the princess Yui it had to be her.., always indoors she’s wealthy enough to be kept inside. I come up to her, closing in on any space she believed she had the right to, I shoot my hand to grab her face, such soft delicate features, I want her on her knees. “On your knees, we control this kingdom now, you have no choice but to submit to me here..or you’ll suffer much worse by my brothers, make your choice…” I gently tell her. “Your brothers..?” She questioned, I nodded and explained to her all the vile things they are doing to the women of her kingdom that she is supposed to protect, her face twists with sadness and fear, it wasn’t a bad look at all. “Please don’t do this to them.” She begs, I chuckled. “I can’t do anything about them…better pray my brothers give them a swift death…you however are a real treat, you smell awfully appetizing..” I state then lick her neck, I took a bite out of it right after, she hollered in pain, her cries were music to my ears. “I don’t want this..get off me!” She screamed and with all her pathetic strength she pushed me off her. “Alright I’ll give you to my brothers then..” I state firmly, and gripping her by her hair, felt like silk in my hands. I dragged her all the way downstairs like this, she kicked and screamed, she’s such a nuisance but it’s definitely giving me some energy.

“Who the fuck is this? She smells great” Ayato remarked and flashed his stupid smile. Reiji turned, he was holding a fresh head he just decapitated. “She does indeed smell quite ravishing.” He commented, all my brothers even Subaru were intrigued by this woman. “Her blood is of the finest quality..I gave her a choice she hasn’t made it yet..” I say out to them, I think after looking at all the disbursing things my brothers committed towards these innocent women she grew mortified.

“You’re all monsters…” she whispered, her eyes widened with fear, gripping her flimsy cross. “Make your choice human..” I tell her, she gulped. “Fine..I choose you.” I smirked at this answer, then I grabbed her by the back of her neck and bent her down, pulling up her dress, I guess desert women don’t wear under garments, must be too hot for that…not complaining. Her skin needed to be defiled with my handprints. I smacked her butt, hard. Instantly the skin turned bright red. I was already half hard, and decided to just take her then and there, in front of my brothers, I didn’t care what they thought..or what she wanted I cared only for my pleasure and power over this foolish human. “Know your place…you’re my slave now princess Yui..” I say, sadism and lust dripped in my voice, her moans enticed me further, she cursed at me and begged for me to stop already, I didn’t want to, and she couldn’t do a damn thing about it, she’s nothing now, nothing but my plaything.

[spookyabuki]

So while it is crucial to challenge the Israeli state, it must be done in a manner that acknowledges the range of complicit actors. Historically speaking, settler colonialism has a long history of articulating its violence through the protection of serviceable figures such as women and children, and now the homosexual. Pinkwashing is only one more justification for imperial/racial/national violence within this long tradition of intimate rhetorics around "victim" populations. Further, Islamophobia has proliferated since the beginning of the "war on terror," but it also predates 9/11 in various forms (see, for example, Edward Said's periodization of Islamophobia as heralded during the end of the cold war). Pinkwashing works in part by tapping into the discursive and structural circuits produced by U.S. and European crusades against the spectral threat of "radical Islam" or "Islamo-fascism."

—Jasbir Puar, from "Rethinking Homonationalism," in the International Journal of Middle East Studies

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Revs. Jan Barnes and Krista Taves have logged hundreds of hours standing outside abortion clinics across Missouri and Illinois, going back to the mid-1980s. But unlike other clergy members around the country, they never pleaded with patients to turn back.

The sight of the two women in clerical collars holding up messages of love and support for people terminating a pregnancy “so infuriated the anti-abortion protesters that they would heap abuse on us and it drew the abuse away from the women,” recalled Taves, a minister at Eliot Unitarian Chapel in Kirkwood, Missouri, as she sat on a couch at Barnes’ stately church in this quiet suburb of St. Louis.

“I thought: ‘Whoa, these people really are not messing around.’ But then I thought, ‘Well, I’m not messing around either.’”

So when Missouri’s abortion ban took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, Barnes and Taves decided to fight back. Along with rabbis and ministers across several denominations, they joined a first-of-its-kind lawsuit arguing Missouri blurred the line between church and state, imposed a particular Christian idea of when life begins over the beliefs of other denominations, and threatened their ability to practice their religions.

As the nation nears the one year anniversary of the fall of Roe, the Missouri case is one of nearly a dozen challenges to abortion restrictions filed by clergy members and practitioners of everything from Judaism to Satanism that are now making their way through state and federal courts — a strategy that aims to restore access to the procedure and chip away at the assumption that all religious people oppose abortion.

In fact, many of the lawsuits are wielding religious protection laws enacted by anti-abortion state officials to target those officials’ own restrictions on the procedure.

In Indiana, a group of Jewish, Muslim and other religious plaintiffs sued over the state’s near-total abortion ban. Their argument: that it violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed into law in 2015 by then-Gov. Mike Pence. A lower court judge sided with them in December and blocked the state’s ban from taking effect — the most significant win the religious challengers have notched so far.

Then, earlier this month, the Indiana judge granted the challengers class action status, meaning a win for them could apply to anyone in the state whose religion supports abortion access in cases prohibited by state law.

“Even if the Religious Freedom law was intended by Mike Pence to discriminate against people, we thought: ‘Let’s use this for good instead,’” said Amalia Shifriss, a leader of Hoosier Jews for Choice, one of the Indiana plaintiffs. “It brings me joy to think how much this must upset him.”

A Pence spokesperson characterized the lawsuit as a “pursuit to legalize abortion up to and even after birth.” They added: “It will probably strike Americans as pretty tasteless to call the latest iteration of their abortion crusade as a cause ‘for good’ and a source of ‘joy.’”

Conservatives with a history of mounting their own religious challenges to state laws dismiss the effort as doomed to fail, arguing that even if people can prove the abortion bans violate their beliefs, it won’t be enough to halt enforcement.

“As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg explained in one Free Exercise case, the right to swing your arm ends just where the other man’s nose begins,” said Denise Harle, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group that has filed briefs defending state abortion restrictions, including from faith-based challenges in Wyoming and Florida. “Even if you have religious freedom, there is a line at which you are doing actual deadly harm and destroying human life, so it’s appropriate to limit what can be done in the name of religion.”

But with oral arguments and rulings in several of the cases expected this summer and fall, other legal experts say there’s a solid chance the challengers can persuade courts to grant religious exemptions to abortion bans if not strike them down altogether.

Shlomo C. Pill, a lecturer at the Emory University School of Law who specializes in religious rights, said the lawsuits have “a strong basis and should be successful,” particularly after a series of COVID-19-related cases paved the way for more religious exemptions. Pill pointed to multiple Supreme Court decisions during the pandemic that said whenever states create secular exemptions to laws — like indoor gathering restrictions or vaccine mandates — they have to justify not offering religious exemptions as well.

“So the fact that secularly-motivated exemptions to abortion bans exist — such as for rape and incest — means the legislature could also have to offer similar exemptions for people with religious objections,” he said.

‘REAL CHUTZPA’

Most of the cases, including those in Indiana, Kentucky, and Texas, are demanding exemptions from the bans for people whose religions support abortion rights. But a few, including the lawsuits in Florida, Missouri and Wyoming, are attempting to have the bans struck down entirely.

In Missouri, the plaintiffs argue that because lawmakers put religious language in the text of the abortion ban itself and made explicit religious appeals when voting on it, they violated the Establishment Clause.

“It took real chutzpah for the legislators to voice their own religious motivations, to wantonly and shamelessly purport to know what God wants or doesn’t want and to enshrine that into law,” said Rabbi James Bennett of Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis, another plaintiff in the Missouri lawsuit. “They’re entitled to their interpretation of when life begins, but they’re not entitled to have the exclusive one.”

Last week, the group faced off in a St. Louis courtroom with state officials who are pushing to have the case thrown out. A ruling could come as soon as this summer.

In Florida, clergy representing Reform Judaism, Buddhism, the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Church sued in state court both to overturn the state’s 15-week abortion ban, and — if that fails — to secure religious exemptions. Their case makes free speech arguments as well — claiming that state bans on “aiding and abetting” abortions are muzzling clergy members who want to offer counseling to parishioners grappling with whether to terminate a pregnancy.

In Kentucky, three Jewish women are arguing that the state’s near-total abortion ban violates their belief that life only begins when a baby takes its first breath, saying it’s preventing them from pursuing pregnancy through in-vitro fertilization.

“To have someone else’s religious belief that an embryo is a human being imposed on me in a way that’s so personal, that prevents me from growing my family, is just rude and un-American,” Lisa Berlow, the lead plaintiff in that case, said in an interview. Berlow had one child through IVF and was planning to have another before Dobbs made her and her fellow plaintiffs fear prosecution. “Discarding non-viable embryos could now be criminalized, or I could miscarry and not know what type of medical care I would get or whether I would be investigated for causing the miscarriage,” she said.

The Satanic Temple is in federal court challenging abortion bans in Texas, Idaho and Indiana, arguing that the laws infringe upon their congregants’ belief in bodily autonomy and right to practice abortion as a religious ritual. A Texas District Court ruled against the Satanists last fall, saying they didn’t prove the need for a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the ban against its members. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is poised to rule on the challenge in the coming weeks.

These cases are unlikely to restore abortion rights at the federal level given the weaker religious rights protections in the U.S. Constitution compared to many state constitutions as well as the federal judiciary’s rightward tilt.

Elizabeth Reiner Platt, director of the Law, Rights, and Religion Project at Columbia Law School, stressed that the Supreme Court has a record of protecting the religious rights of some groups and not others, pointing to its back-to-back decisions in 2017 upholding the right of a Christian baker to refuse to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding and allowing the right of the Trump administration to deny entry to travelers from majority-Muslim countries.

“While I don’t like to read the tea leaves, I don’t have any hope that the current Supreme Court would, after ruling that there was no due process right or privacy right to abortion, would find a right under the Free Exercise Clause or the Establishment Clause,” Platt said.

Still, she and other legal experts see the state-level religious challenges as one of the best chances abortion-rights advocates have to chip away at bans on the procedure.

“The arguments are quite powerful for creating religious exemptions in the reproductive context under First Amendment doctrine and under state laws for Free Exercise,” said Micah Schwartzman, director of the Karsh Center for Law and Democracy at the University of Virginia Law School. “What Judges do with them is another story.”

In order to succeed, these lawsuits must prove: that the right to an abortion is central to the religious practices of the people suing; that they are sincere in their beliefs and have a track record of observing them; and that state abortion bans make it impossible for them to live according to their faith.

The cases challenging abortion restrictions in their entirety face an additional hurdle: proving that state officials stepped over the line separating church and state in crafting the bans.

“We have a really strong Establishment Clause argument because it’s clear that these bills were passed for religious reasons,” said Marci Hamilton, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Pennsylvania who is part of the legal team representing clergy in Florida. “The 15-week bill was signed in a church and members of the state legislature repeatedly referred to God when arguing why this had to be done.”

Other experts are skeptical, however, of the strength of these arguments.

“There are a million-and-one other explanations a state could give for their abortion restrictions,” Pill said. “They could argue it’s a matter of secular conscience, for example. And once you have any kind of secular justification, an Establishment Clause argument becomes more difficult.”

For their part, the states defending their abortion laws and the conservative legal groups supporting them have to prove that they have a compelling interest — unrelated to religion — in protecting fetal life, that they’re using the least restrictive means to protect that interest, and that the challengers’ claims are speculative and premature because none of them have actually sought an abortion or been blocked from obtaining one since the laws took effect.

“I think these are much more like political stunts than they are viable court cases,” said Lori Windham, a vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund, the legal firm behind the Hobby Lobby case that secured a Supreme Court ruling allowing many employers to opt out of covering certain forms of birth control for their workers due to a religious objection. “You can have a sincere political belief or policy preference, and it can be passionate and deeply held, but that doesn’t make it a religious practice.”

CITING SCRIPTURE

Judges have historically avoided questioning the sincerity of someone’s religious beliefs, but Becket and other groups have filed amicus briefs that do so.

To combat these accusations, the challengers point to scripture that lays out a case for abortion rights as well as support from religious leaders for their claims.

The Jewish challengers in Kentucky cite religious texts including the Mishnah that say life begins when a baby takes its first breath, not when it is conceived, and if medical issues arise during pregnancy, the pregnant person’s life “comes before the life of [the child].” They also submitted to the court letters from rabbis arguing that current state exemptions for life-threatening medical emergencies aren’t enough, saying Jewish law permits, and in some cases requires, an abortion when there is “a risk of poverty, abuse, addiction, or mental illness.”

The case challenging Missouri’s ban cites the United Church of Christ’s vote in 1971 to acknowledge the right to abortion and members’ “autonomy to determine what happens to their own bodies,” as well as the Episcopal Church’s “long-standing opposition” to any government attempt to infringe on reproductive choices.

“There’s a tendency to see these cases as kind of a clever, legal switcheroo. Like, here’s a way to take these laws that are often thought of as very conservative and use them to protect abortion rights,” Platt said. “But the idea of reproductive rights as a religious liberty issue is absolutely not something that came from lawyers. It’s how faith communities themselves have been talking about their approach to reproductive rights for literally decades.”

[blitznut]

Tfa as college students

Blackarachnia has an organic chemistry degree from a private all-women's college. She unfortunately could not find a girlfriend, and she has tons of debt. Poor girl.

Lockdown went to community college for morturary science. He loves to tell you about how he graduated debt free. Just give him a dead body, and he'll figure it out from there.

Blitzwing went to college at one point, but he had to quit because of his schedule. He ended up getting an associates degree in dance theory from an online community college.

Lugnut has a gender studies degree from a fancy private liberal arts school. He's very much adament that he could easily get a job with his degree. He graduated at the top of his class. He was also so devoted to his studies that he somehow graduated debt free.

Megatron got a degree in business management from a for-profit college that got busted by the feds for being a money laundering scheme. Ever since then, Megatron has been on a crusade against for-profit education.

Optimus Prime has a history degree from a state school. He now works as a space bridge worker. Life finds a way, I guess. He is still paying his debt off to this day.

Bulkhead graduated magna cum laude with a degree in engineering from a technical institute. He and Bumblebee are trying to find a way to pay off their debt at the same time.

Bumblebee went to college, and has a fine arts degree. It took him a while to graduate, but he did it. He bounced from school to school for a while. He and Bulkhead are trying to find a way to pay off their debt at the same time.

Prowl is against the higher education system.

Ratchet has a BSN. He got it online. He was a certified RN before he got his full degree. He makes BS jokes all the time. He has no debt because he served in the Autobot army, so he has free education.

Arcee has a doctorate in education. She graduated at the top of her class from a prestigeous women's college. She got her degree because she's passionate about education and the well-being of students.

Sentinel went to a state school with Optimus. He partied all throughout his four years, but somehow managed to graduate with honors and with a degree in English. He doesn't use his degree at all because he works in the military.

Jazz is currently working on getting his french horn certification. He has a media production degree. He is Adobe Audition and Premiere Pro certified.

Jetstorm is too busy with the ladies to get a degree.

Jetfire is too broke to go to college.

Shockwave does not have a degree. He just coasts on good vibes.

Starscream got kicked out of the Vosian Institute for Technology for trying to plot the downfall of his professor. He says he was only 10 credit hours away from graduating, honestly!

[incorrect-koh-posts]

Other than leper king and his heirs which book would you recommend for research on Baldwin iv of Jerusalem?

All right then, buckle up for some nerdery! 😁

I will preface this by saying that I am not a total expert on Baldwin and haven't done a colossal amount of research specifically on him. I could chew your ear off prattling on about the general world of the crusader kingdoms, their politics, and about Raymond III of Tripoli and Sibylla of Jerusalem in particular, but Baldwin isn't my main interest here. Also, as far as I know, Hamilton's study is the only longer academic work centred solely around Baldwin. Hence, in order to learn more about your fav and the world he lived in, I'd recommend reading a little more broadly. Being a king, he is featured (at least in some capacity) in most publications that deal with the Latin kingdoms in the latter half of the 12th century.

That said, have a list:

Piers D. Mitchell: "Leprosy and the Case of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem: Microbacterial Disease in the Crusader States of the 12th and 13th Centuries", International Journal of Leprosy, vol. 61, no. 2, 1993, pp. 283-91. Pretty self-explanatory. You can find this article on the internet; Mitchell also has a few other publications that deal with medicine in the crusader states, so you might find some additional Baldwin stuff there as well.

Elma Brenner: "Recent Perspectives on Leprosy in Medieval Western Europe", History Compass, vol. 8, no. 5, 2010, pp. 388-406. Has a little bit on Baldwin, might be useful if you want to find out more about how the disease was regarded by his contemporaries.

Helen J. Nicholson: Sybil, Queen of Jerusalem, 1186-1190. Routledge, 2022. This is a really good and really recent one that I was lucky enough to find in my uni library. Of course Sibylla-centred, but gives a good overview of the politics in Outremer and of course has passages about Baldwin in it. Also look into some of Nicholson's other publications if you're interested in the role of women in the context of crusading.

Kevin James Lewis: The Counts of Tripoli and Lebanon in the Twelfth Century: Sons of Saint Gilles. Routledge, 2017. Obviously mostly a Raymond-centric source, but it is also relatively recent and has a good chunk on Baldwin in the chapter where Lewis talks about Raymond's time as Baldwin's regent.

Joshua Prawer: Crusader Institutions. Oxford University Press, 1980. More politics to be found here, but very well put together. Prawer was an extremely prolific scholar where the history of the Latin East and the crusades was concerned, so - once again: if you're interested, look up his other works.

Jonathan Riley-Smith: The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, Oxford University Press, 1997. Good overview that goes into detail about the mentality among crusaders and aspects of daily life. Again, Riley-Smith is one of the authorities in the field, so looking into his bibliography might be worth a shot.

If you're into military history, the works of Benjamin Z. Kedar, John France - or, if you want something more dated, R.C. Smail - might be of interest to you. They mostly cover general points of Frankish and Muslim warfare or the Battle of Hattin in particular (other than in Hamilton or in some of the primary sources from the crusader period, I've never come across an article on the Battle of Montgisard), but might be helpful if you want to get a feel for what life was like at the time.

Hans-Eberhard Mayer is also definitely worth a look as a scholar, even though his works are a bit older now. However, I'm not sure how much of his stuff you can find in translation - I've only read him in German.

For the physical setting of crusader-period Jerusalem and the material culture, I very heartily recommend two works written or edited by Adrian J. Boas: Jerusalem in the Time of the Crusades: Society, Landscape and Art in the Holy City under Frankish Rule (Routledge, 2001) and The Crusader World (Routledge, 2016). I consult both of these frequently for world-building in my fic writing.

If you want something on the general concept of the knight / chivalry, Maurice Keen's Chivalry (Yale University Press, 2005) might be a good start. For a detailed analysis of medieval courtly culture, I recommend Joachim Bumke's Courtly Culture: Literature and Society in the High Middle Ages (2000, English translation by Thomas Dunlap). That thing was invaluable when I was writing my BA thesis. And if you'd like to know more about the literary life of the crusaders, there is a recent publication called Literature of the Crusades (Cambridge University Press, 2019) edited by Simon Parsons and Linda M. Paterson that I also found rather good.

For fashion: The various Osprey Military History books are a good choice if you want visual representations of knightly dress. There's also a collection of essays called Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: Objects, Texts, Images (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) edited by Désirée Koslin and Janet Snyder, which is one of the better ones I've found, as most books about medieval fashion focus mostly on later centuries. This one might be a bit hard to get through, though, if you don't have some kind of background knowledge about medieval texts or architecture.

If you want something less strictly academic and more in the vein of popular history, you might want to try James Reston's Warriors of God (2002) or the much more dated but rather fanboy-ish The Crusades: A History (also sometimes titled The Dream and The Tomb) by Robert Payne, which is very pro-Baldwin.

Other than that, I'll link you an older post about fictional depictions of Baldwin and other assorted good bois and girls from KoH. I hope this will scratch the Baldwin itch for you!

And: If anyone has more suggestions, of course do feel free to add them!

[queering-ecology]

Erotophobia And the Colonization of Queers/Nature

“The rhetoric and institution of Christianity, coupled with the imperialist drives of militarist nation-states, have been used for nearly two thousand years to portray heterosexuality, sexism, racism, classism, and the oppression of the natural world as divinely ordained” and though today’s Western industrialized world claims to be largely secular, these countries with Christian and colonial origins retain the ideology of divinely inspired domination” (122). “All eco feminists who have addressed the topic of spirituality, have observed that Christianity has been used as both an authorization and a mandate for the subordination of women, nature, person of color, animals and queers” (123).  

Christianity originated as one cult among many in the Roman Empire—Christianity is then by its very inception, an urban religion. It appeared during a time of increasing militarization in the Roman state where stoic morality held chastity as ideal--with heterosexual intercourse allowed only for procreation within marriage; the belief was that procreation was the only legitimate reason for intercourse (Greenberg 1988, 219)(124). “To be like the angels was to be spiritual; to be carnal, unspiritual. Sex was the essence of carnality, hence the antithesis of spirituality” (1988, 224).

What distinguished Christianity from the many other ascetic cults of its time was the severity of its asceticism, its complete intolerance of other religions, and its high degree of organization aka hierarchy (124). Two accounts in Genesis have been used in Christianity to legitimize human/nonhuman hierarchy (human domination over nature, Genesis 1) and anthropocentrism (man as the center of creation, Gensis 2) (124). Moreover, the word ‘hierarchy’ itself means ‘holy order’.  As Apostle Paul once said: “Let everyone obey the authorities that are over him, for there is no authority except from God, and all authority that exists is established by God”.

Christianity fit quite nicely with Roman state ideals, and it spread through the Roman military where eventually the cross was adopted as a military symbol and the Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire—the union of church and state as representing God’s will on earth was sealed.

“The inferiority and subordination of women, animals, the body, nature, the erotic, and all their associates was proclaimed by law, decreed by religion and relentlessly enforced” through violent assaults such as the Inquisition, the Crusades, the witch burnings and the ‘voyages of discovery’ (124).

[3rdeyeblaque]

On November 26th we venerate Elevated Ancestor & Hoodoo Saint Mama Sojourner Truth on the 140th anniversary of her passing 🕊

An abolitionist, Womens’ Rights activist, & itinerant evangelist, Mama Sojourner Truth truly lived up to her name as one of the fiercest, relentless, & unstoppable pro-abolitionist voices of the 19th Century.

Given the name, Isabella, at birth, Mama Truth was born around 1797 to Dutch-speaking enslaved parents on Colonel Ardinburgh Hurley's plantation in Ulster County, NY. The actual date of her birth remains unknown. At the age of 9 she was sold away from her parents. She was passed through the hands of several slavers across NY State before ending up with the Dumonts. As was the case for most enslaved folks in the rural North, Isabella was forcibly isolated from other slaves and suffered physical & sexual abuse at the hands of the Dumonts.

Alone in the nearby woods, she found peace. Here, she'd speak to Spirit/God. Inspired by her many conversations with Spirit, one day in 1826, she walked away from Dumont Farm to freedom. Although the journey tempted her to return to the Dumonts, she stayed the course after she was struck by a vision of a man she identified as Jesus, during which she felt "baptized in the Holy Spirit," and thus gained the strength & confidence to push on. Like countless Ancestors before her, Isabella called on Spirit & supernatural forces for the power to survive her conditions.

Eventually, she married & birthed 5 children. On July 4, 1827, the NY State Legislature emancipated the enslaved, including Isabella & her children. Yet the Dumont family who "owned" her, refused to comply. Before dawn the next morning, with her youngest baby cradled in her arms, she sought refuge 5 miles away with an abolitionist family. During her time there, she converted to Pentecostal and joined their local Methodist church.

She later then moved again, this time with one of her eldest sons, Peter, in NYC wherein by day she worked as a live-in domestic. Here she found & joined a religious cult called, The Kingdom. It's leader, Matthias, beat Isabella and forced her to take on the heaviest workload. Soon thereafter she became a Pentecostal preacher. Her faith and preaching along with her life story as an emancipated slave drew the attentions of abolitionists & women's rights crusaders. Her speeches were not political by nature. They were based on her unique interpretation - as a woman and a former slave -of the Christian Bible.

On June 1st 1863, Sojourner Truth was born. Isabella took on this new name for herself as she headed East to, “exhort the people to embrace Jesus, and refrain from sin". She lived in a utopian community called, The Northampton Association for Education & Industry, which was devoted to transcending class, race, & gender. She preached at camp meetings for a few years before the community was dissolved. Even though the community lasted less than five years, many highly influential & reform-minded individuals visited the Northampton community; including prolific abolitionist leaders such as Frederick Douglass & William Lloyd Garrison.

Through these connections, she began to speak at public events on behalf of slave abolition and women’s rights. Eventually, this compelled her infamous 1851,“Ar’nt I A Woman” speech at a Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, OH. This was a significant moment in the sociopolitical climate of the country at the time because, for the first time for most, "slave" became equated to women & "woman" became equated to Black. She became increasingly involved on the issue of Women's suffrage, but eventually separated her voice from leaders such as Susan B. Anthony & Elizabeth Cady Stanton one they asserted that they would not support the Black vote if Women were not also granted the same right.

In 1857, Mama Truth purchased a house with the help of friends in a small Spiritualist community called, Harmonia, near Battle Creek, MI. Here she lived thriving the years of supporting hwrself thrift paid speaking events, selling photographs of herself, publishing her book titled, "Narrative of Sojourner Truth" which was written by an amanuensis, as she was illiterate.

Once the Civil War began, Mama Truth pushed for the inclusion of Blacks in the Union Army, which was not intitially the case. She then poured her energy into gathering food & clothing supplies for the underserved volunteer regiments of Black Union soldiers. This is when the plight freed slaves captured her attention, as many of whom were living in refugee camps in Washington D.C.. Mama Truth embarked on a round-trip journey from her home near Battle Creek,MI to D.C. to meet with President Abraham Lincoln to discuss the conditions of the freedmen refugees in D.C. & across the North.

After the Civil War, she championed the idea of a colony for freed slaves out West where they could galvanize their desires to become self-reliant. Mama Truth garnered numerous signatures for her petition urging the U.S. Government to provide land for this endeavor. Although she presented this petition to then President Ulysses S. Grant, her mission never materialized. Nevertheless, in the Fall of 1879, a large migration of Southern freedmen ventured westward to start begin life anew. Mama Truth saw this as God's Divine Plan for our people. Despite her old age, Mama Truth traveled to Kansas to help them. Four years later, Mama Sojourner Truth passed away at her home near Battle Creek, MI. She was believed to be 86.

"How came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and woman who bore him. Man, where is your part? But the women are coming up blessed by God and few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, and he is surely between a hawk an' a buzzard." - Sojourner Truth @ the 1851 Ohio Women's Convention.

We pour libations & give 💐 today as we celebrate Mama Truth her selfless service and pioneering vision for the freedom & self-determination of our people. May her life be a reminder of: the power of stillness & deep meditation, to lead with Spirit, & the grit of perseverance that's alive in our blood.

Offering suggestions: woodland soil, water, Pentecostal prayers/ scripture, read/share her speeches & written words.

‼️Note: offering suggestions are just that & strictly for veneration purposes only. Never attempt to conjure up any spirit or entity without proper divination/Mediumship counsel.‼️