HUMAN SACRIFICES by MARÍA FERNANDA AMPUERO (REVIEW)
quickly: a collection of stories that showcase the natural and supernatural horrors of living on the margins of society (women who write / men who are monsters / love turning into hate / the sons of witches / children hidden in dark places / old, rotting, wasted houses / sleeping ghosts awakened / obsessions with the dead / corruption, greed, oppression, and abuse).
A breathtaking collection of short horror stories that will give you chills and break your heart. Each story can fit in the palm of your hand, and they are delightfully short and punchy. Remember ‘Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark’? This is that book but written by an amazingly poetic Ecuadorian woman. I was beginning to think I was immune to horror in literature form. I’ve been searching for a thriller that actually thrills, and María did so much more than that. Some of the stories are about the horrors of other people, some are about supernatural horrors, and others are about the horrors of the mind. All of them question patriarchy, capitalism, white supremacy, and inhumanity. Picked it up, and finished it without putting it down. Looking forward to more from María.
hey if you're taking sacrifices can i give you my whumpees who arent any use to me?
I swear this one guy is more trouble than his worth but you might be able to have some fun with him.
lemme know if you're interested and i'll drop him off tonight.
Must One Respect So-Called “Religions” As A Matter Of Principle? And Are They All The Same?
Are cultures all the same, should they be equally respected? The “woke” not being fully awake yet, assert this complete absurdity as their main directive. As nihilistic as one can get… But they never heard about evolution, progress! Respect for individuals who don’t know any better is one thing. Respect for perverse ideologies, knowing that they are perverse, another. It turns out that all and…
Gladiatorial fights were a type of human sacrifice.
Gladiatorial fights of the sort organized for the funeral of Brutus Pera were a type of human sacrifice. Such sacrifices, held to honor great men and women at their funerals, were not uncommon in the ancient world. In the Iliad, the Greek hero Achilles sacrifices a dozen captured Trojans at the funeral of his lover Patroclus, for example.
On the Italian peninsula it was the Campanians, descendants of Greek settlers, who popularized gladiatorial fights about a century before the death of Brutus Pera—though these events were not necessarily associated with funerals. According to the Roman author Livy, the Campanians, borrowing from their ancestral homeland, began the tradition to celebrate a military victory over their archenemies, the Samnites. They dressed slaves in captured Samnite armor and forced them to fight to the death.
idk if this is accurate but i’ve felt like in previous seasons riz & gorgug have been one of the inter-bad kids dynamics we’ve seen the least of & this season has been so great in that aspect. gorgug having helped make some of riz’s magic gear. riz helping gorgug with his studies. the shared birthday party. gorgug’s gift to riz being something he himself made to protect riz. riz’s gift to gorgug being something he illegally grabbed to protect gorgug. gorgug who utilizes rage to put his body on the line for his friends & riz who will take deep levels of mental stress for his friends. even though it was within the context of a joke, riz calling gorgug an “absolute sweetie.” like yea they might not be in a band together or both part of a presidential campaign team or owlbears teammates, but they’d go to war for each other, because they’re best friends.
THESE ARE THE TYPE OF INDIVIDUALS RESPONSIBLE FOR MOST, IF NOT ALL THE DIVISION, HATRED, DISCRIMINATION, DESTRUCTION, HATRED, VIOLENCE AND WARS CREATED, PROMOTED AND FINANCED WORLDWIDE!!
i’m catching up on tsv, i think something that eskew prod does extremely well is using horror absurdism to capture the absurd horror of capitalism. it’s clear in eskew too, but i think it’s especially fantastic in the silt verses. the casualness with which sacrifice is discussed. how red lobster has a god that has and continues to take human sacrifice, and so do cereal companies, cops, and the grueling start up that has a “fun room”. it captures EXTREMELY well how it feels to live under capitalism, that you’re constantly bombarded with horrible things, discussed cheerily in a nice tone. the way it’s simultaneously numbing, hysterical, and horrifying. i think i was especially fond of how in ep 39, protest against sacrifice was taken as radical, a propostorus, idealistic thing that’s just so SILLY it’s not even worth considering, something that feels very real to revolutionary organizing/protest irl. i also liked how despite the face, when everything gets down to it, when everything is about profit, all people come down to are bodies. all capitalism is a gaping maw, and it eats the poor and marginalized first, but doesn’t STOP eating just there. the very literalized version of this, where the profit wheel (and all that includes— war mongering, the prison industrial complex, wage labor, etc) is given a very real literal set of teeth, but the body count is the same. so the electric company has a god, and so it takes humans sacrifice. do real electric companies not have a very real human cost? overworked and underpaid labors looking to make rent, or well off comfortable employees no less likely to get the axe under profit margins, or the blood shed when colonizing in the first place, in clearing the space for the electric company to move in. is that not also a very real human sacrifice? the commercial aimed at elderly people talking about “back in my day, we would just talk about all this human sacrifice and find a compromise :)” is so bleakly hysterical, but is that not very accurate? that you can put a good face on it, but in the end what it comes down to is that you’re being sold the chance to be human fodder? that there is no glory or honor on a battlefield or in working yourself to death, just mud and shit and bodies to throw at problems. idk! i’m rambling but it’s a deeply engaging podcast.