#and that men still hold almost all the wealth in the world? as well as most of the position of power in governement and private compagnies?

[lunamond]

Rhaenyra‘s sons‘ illegitamcy is actually such a fascinating topic to discuss. Because on one side, yes, she should be allowed to have children with the partner of her chosing. But on the other side, the way she handles the situation, she manages to upset almost every cultural norm surrounding this issue, further alienating potential allies.

According to the social and cultural norms of their world, Rhaenyra and her sons are being valued as lesser for the circumstances of their birth. This a result of westerosi male primogeniture, which has to police woman sexuality in order to ensure that wealth and power get passed through the male family line.

Bastards born from the affairs of male lords are tolerated because they do not endanger the system of power, while male bastards especially are still marginalised (as seen with Jon) the father isn‘t subjected to any form of social scorn.

On the flip side, a noblewoman fathering a bastard is a direct threat to the system of male primogeniture. A woman will always know her biological children by the simple fact that she gave birth to them.

Men, however, don’t have this certainty. To ensure that their heirs are their own biological offspring they need complete insurence that their wives are soley sexually active with them, hence the policing of female sexuality and the obsession with female virginity.

This tactic is obviously not foolproof. A clever wife might still manage to have a secret affair and pass off another man‘s child as her husband's. This anxiety and continued incertainty is reflected in the social censure woman receive for acting as sexual beings and the severe social and legal punishment a wife who has been judged as unfaithful can face.

What makes Rhaenyra‘s position unique, however, is the fact that she is Viserys‘ heir.

So if the crown is to pass down from Viserys to Rheanyra and through her to her own heirs, why does Jace‘s legitamacy even factor into all this? Some people in the fandom make that argument: If Rheanyra inherits in her own right, why does it matter who fathers her children?

The problem with this is that even the Lords can‘t declare their bastard heir without expressed permission from the king. So, firstly Rhaenyra would need to publicly aknowledge her sons as ilegitamte for Viserys to legitamise them.

Secondly, even if inheritance in the male linegage is important, marriages in Westeros are still utilised to forge political and economical ties. Any Lord, who wants to make their bastard heir instead of the children born by his legal wife, will at best destroy any goodwill given by her family or at worst start a generations long feud.

Rhaenyra‘s position isn't as simple as a mere reversal of the genders. She can't just take the role of the Lord, she is still a woman and society will continue to treat her as such. Laenor is still bringing his own inheritance of Driftmark to ther union, separate from any claims Rhaenyra holds.

While she is lucky enough not to lose the Velaryons as her allies, it does lead to tensions surrounding the succession of Driftmark.

Another argument then is, if Laenor and Corlys aknowledge Jace, Luce and Joffery as Velaryon their blood shouldn‘t matter.

However, that is also not how westerosi society works. Because to them, blood does matter. Laenor and Corlys can claim them as Velaryon as much as they want. But as Varys puts it: „Power resides where men believe it to reside“, and as long as the westerosi people believe that blood lines are vital to the right to rule, the boys‘ right to Driftmark will continue to be questioned. Family names and blood lines are super important (and not just socially, considering how many magic blood lines exist in this world).

And to me it seems pretty clear that Corlys is aware of this fact as well, because he never publicly anounces that their blood doesn‘t matter, in fact he claims them to be Velaryon as Laenor‘s sons.

And this is ultimately the issue at heart of all the vitrol thrown at Rhaenyra. The reason she faces so much push back isn’t just because she had bastards but specifcally because she tries to pass them off as legitemate. With this she triggers the deeply ingrained social anxiety about women duping their husband and disrupting the blood line with their own kuckucks child.

It doesn‘t truely matter that her position is slightly different, because for one Westeros is deeply misogynistic. Even as a female heir she is still subject to the misogynistic standards put on women, because no matter her personal circumstances, their society is still built to cater to male power.

But even more damming is the fact that she ends up proving all these fears true, because she does take Driftmark away from a true Velaryon heir and gives it to Luce.

I think it is really fascinating (in a very concerning way), how some fans are so ready to take these societal rules as hard facts. Instead of thinking how they might reflect on inherently flawed systems of power.

As viewers we should be capable to recognize that these cultural norms are wrong. Jace, Luce and Joffery might be bastards but this doesn't devalue them as human beings. Nor does it impact their capabilites as future rulers. Nor does Rhaenyra‘s gender impact her‘s. There is nothing that make a trueborn man more worthy of ruling than a bastard or a woman.

But important to remember is also that Rhaenyra isn‘t going to make a better ruler soley on the virtue of being the firstborn or chosen by Viserys. Nor are her sons going to make better heirs because they are her children.

#hotd #house of the dragon #rhaenyra targaryen #Rhaenyra isn‘t necessarily malicious in her attempt to get driftmark #Luce inheriting helps her bolster his and Jaces claim to legitamcy #In turn further protecting Rhaenyra from any potential repercussion of her affair #her bit for driftmark is mostly self preservation #That doesn‘t change that she is still stealing it from the true bloodline #Which i actually don‘t particulary mind by it self #one feudal lord stealing land from another feudal lord isn‘t really going to change much #However she is stealing it from Baela to give to Luce #Which doesn‘t really help with her whole women can rule to schtick the show decided to give her #It ultimately proves her a hypocrite who will include women as seen on the black council #But won‘t stick her neck out for them when it indangers her own position #That is actually sth i really like about her #The way her shortsightedness gets her repeatedly into trouble #And she has to step over others to get out again #It makes her believable as a character

[heavencanbeaprisontoo]

Living with Thomas Shelby Headcanons

Notes: These hcs were made for an AU were Grace doesn’t reunite with Tommy.

Warnings: Fluff, angst, PTSD, some suggestive language, violence.

Domestic Headcanons

-Tommy is a man that wants his home to be a symbol of sanctuary and his hard-won wealth. Arrow House accomplished that goal. A massive manor made of brick and stone, it reminds you of Tommy in a way. Solid, cold, secretive… hollow. It takes a lot for you to get used to living there. After some time passes, Arrow House’s interior starts to reflect more of your personal tastes. It adds a warmth that was lacking. Tommy won’t admit it, but he’s grateful for it.

- The servants take some adjusting to, absolutely. Tommy actually cracks a smile when you jump at the soft voice of a maid from the doorway. He’s less amused when that jump rips you from his lap. The way Tommy acts in his home, you would think it’s just the two of you living there. He has little issue pushing you to his desk or pinning you to a wall to have his fill of you.

- If you show any sign of knowing how to ride a horse, or that you would like to learn, expect dates on horseback. These dates aren’t necessarily filled with chatter, but you enjoy them. Tommy relaxes in a way you don’t normally see. Traveling over the hills and across these wide plains with him feels so peaceful. Sometimes he talks of his heritage with you. How his mother would tell him stories of his father’s courting of her. They would ride alone, in secret. Horses are precious to his people, as is this time spent with you. A part of him likes seeing that you can live in both worlds with him. Challenge him to a race and you’ll watch the years fall from his face. He becomes almost boy like when he charges past you, perhaps even cracking a smile when he wins.

- He knows many riddles and jokes, he used to say them often. You only found out about it when he told a few silly jokes to a stable boy who had sprained his ankle while working. The boy was terrified Tommy would fire him. He sent him home with his month’s wages and told him to get well.

- When you start sleeping in the same bed as Thomas Shelby as his partner and not just his lover, get ready. His demons always catch up to him in his dreams. He thrashes some nights. Once, Tommy woke you with a scream. The Devil of Small Heath is quick to regain his composure, but you swear you saw him wipe tears from his cheeks. He doesn’t like to be comforted. At least that’s how he tries to act the first few hundred times you attempt to console him. Over time, he lets you hold him. It’s a bit silly. This man let you move in with him and share his bed, yet it took him so long to just let you see him be weak.

Relationship Headcanons

- Beneath all the new money and designer suits beats the heart of a simple man. He likes to read the paper in the mornings and (when he was still drinking) have a splash of whiskey in his coffee. Little homemade things like a lunch packed for him will fluster him. If you rush him with such a thing for him to take with him, it’ll make his day. He will try to refuse, but he doesn’t mean it. Write him a simple note with a kiss. You might just find a stack of these little notes in his desk one day.

- Tommy gets up at odd hours as his sleep is rarely if ever regular. There are mornings where you roll over and his spot in the bed is cold. You call the family office and hear from his secretary that he’s been in for hours. And the sun isn’t even up. That leaves you a lot of time alone in the house. You get to know the staff very well for this reason. Tommy sometimes looks to you to remember the names of butlers or cooks before he makes a specific request or reprimand. The servants all generally like you a lot more than Tommy because of this.

- Lingering touches and soft kisses to the cheek are frequent behind closed doors. Only. No PDA. He hates to look soft. Do not do cute things in front of his men. It will irritate him. That said, privately? He likes to take a seat on the bed you share and have you stand between his legs so he can hold you close. Stare up at you like you hang the stars. Pull you on top of him as he lays back. Perfect way to end a day in Tommy’s opinion.

- Thomas Shelby is a man who loses as much as he gains. People cannot be counted on without fear in his world. No matter how much he loves you, there will always be doubt. Doubt that you won’t survive loving a man like him. Doubt that your loyalty may be decaying with every cold word and impassive wave he sends your way. This is only one of his quirks that have you contemplating homicide on a bad day.

- Part of his fear surrounding you is that he is a man that does not fall first, but he falls harder. You may not always see it, but he would burn the world for you. He will kill for you. If you ever killed for him, Tommy would know his fears were for nothing. Head wouldn’t know what to do with himself after. He’s never had a lover that would watch his back for him like you. Tommy would never ask for you to do it again. Ever. But knowing you’re as dark-hearted as him might make him more open to strategizing with you. Make you his confidant. The Lilith to his Lucifer.

#peaky blinders #peaky blinders headcanon #peaky blinders x reader #thomas shelby #thomas shelby x you #thomas shelby x reader #Thomas Shelby headcanon #tommy shelby

[atopvisenyashill]

Hello! I have a question and I hoped that you might help me. I’ve seen a lot of posts in the asoiaf tag where people claimed that GRRM is criticising feudalism. My problem is that I don’t understand why would he? Feudalism isn’t a system that actively exists anymore. It’s not like criticising capitalism or totalitarianism which still exist. And it’s a fantasy series and most fantasy series have a somewhat medieval setting. It doesn’t make sense to me.

oo fun question anon.

well, first off, i would say he’s not just critiquing fuedalism. he’s also critiquing monarchies, which unfortunately still exist, and power structures in general, which definitely still exist. for example, that famous broken man section, sorry for length but the whole thing is good:

“Ser? My lady?” said Podrick. “Is a broken man an outlaw?” “More or less,” Brienne answered. Septon Meribald disagreed. “More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They’ve heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. "Then they get a taste of battle. For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they’ve been gutted by an axe. “They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that’s still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. “If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they’re fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it’s just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don’t know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they’re fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world… "And the man break. “He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them…but he should pity them as well.”

When Meribald was finished a profound silence fell upon their little band. Brienne could hear the wind rustling through a clump of pussywillows, and farther off the faint cry of a loon. She could hear Dog panting softly as he loped along beside the septon and his donkey, tongue lolling from his mouth. The quiet stretched and stretched, until finally she said, “How old were you when they marched you off to war?” “Why, no older than your boy,” Meribald replied. “Too young for such, in truth, but my brothers were all going, and I would not be left behind. Willam said I could be his squire, though Will was no knight, only a potboy armed with a kitchen knife he’d stolen from the inn. He died upon the Stepstones, and never struck a blow. It was fever did for him, and for my brother Robin. Owen died from a mace that split his head apart, and his friend Jon Pox was hanged for rape.” “The War of the Ninepenny Kings?” asked Hyle Hunt. “So they called it, though I never saw a king, nor earned a penny. It was a war, though. That it was.”

Bolded parts mine! All of it, but especially the bolded parts can apply just as easily to soldiers in the war of the five kings, the war of the roses, world war 2, vietnam, and every war in between. Think about the way military recruiters show up to high schools with cool gadgets and the promise of free college, and the way Meribald talks about the lords showing up pressing young boys into service. Think about the fact that the British military executed three hundred and six soldiers suffering from PTSD after WWI for "cowardice" and the starving soldiers Meribald talks about abandoning their armies just for an extra mouthful of food. when meribald talks about the soldiers looting from peasants, think about the fact that the innocent people in gaza are starving to death while a handful of miles away, there are restaurants booming and food enough to throw away. War is war, regardless of whether it's being waged a thousand years ago or a thousand years from now.

it's important when discussing asoiaf to remember that george is often holding a mirror up against our own society - he is saying that this, the violent patriarchy of westeros, is our natural endpoint if we continue to treat each other the way we do. it's about taking these typical tropes and roles and archetypes and asking what they are really like, how hard they really are, how awful they really are, and if this is the life we want to befall our own children. it is about asking if we, as in the reader, are capable of breaking the cycle of violence as surely as it is about asking if the characters can break that cycle too. There's a reason, for example, Ramsay's story is so tied up in domestic violence, or why Robert's character focuses much more on the way he has failed his family than anything else. There's a reason there's so many sibling groups (Martells, Daynes, Starks, Lannisters, Tullys, Baratheons) that get wrecked by the Rebellion and that the series tracks the way this wreckage seeps out into the realm. Yes, asoiaf is about feudalism but it is about us as well.

second, while feudalism doesn’t technically exist any more, the relics of feudalism still haunt the world; from hereditary noble titles to literal monarchs with absolute power to extreme barriers to social mobility and even serfs. you'll see a lot of academics, especially since the pandemic started, talking about "neo-feudalism" and the idea that just like the middle ages was shaped by pandemics that ravaged populations and made it easier for upper classes to get richer and stop social mobility, the pandemic has enriched the richest people in the world and made everyone else exceedingly poor. while george obviously wasn't writing about the neo feudalism people are talking about today, this is a concept that's been kicking around since the 1980s so I think it is likely that George had done some research into the relics of feudalism and the criticism of modern governments working like corporations. Because this history may seem a long time ago - the war of the roses ended over a thousand years ago, after all - but feudalism and it's relics are still very much within living memory. Russia still had serfs until the 1860s, Bosnia and Herzegovina up until 1918, and Bhutan until the 1950s! There are also still countries all over the world that still have what is basically legalized slavery, whether it's workers stolen from one country and trafficked to another, a minority group that is used as slave labor, or prison labor. I think George is also knocking at the remnants of it as well. I mean, the UK monarchs aren't even that powerful in the grand scheme of things and yet every time they have one of their lil events, they destroy tent cities and mass displace the unhoused populations of London because like, homeless people are gross instead of actually doing anything to help those people. Diana was a teenager when she married Charles. Yeah, that's a far cry from like, poor Rhaella but that doesn't mean it's not still a fucked up institution that is worth taking aim at!

but thirdly!! feudalism exists in fiction constantly still - as you said, a lot of high fantasy has a medieval-ish bent (even books pulling from non western cultures or authors from non western cultures still tend to pull more from history that falls pre-1500s; this is mostly just my opinion as a librarian and fantasy reader, but it's really only been the last decade or so that fantasy has branched out into non medieval time periods like with stuff like babel, six of crows, some of katherine arden's stuff, etc). the divine right of kings is still alive and thriving in fiction and (again, this is my amatuer opinion here) I do think at least part of this is because a lot of american fantasy writers have never lived under a monarchy, so the bad affects of it are far off and easier to romanticize. as well, you get a lot of "times were simpler" PoVs from non americans who have lived under some sort of monarch as well. and that’s why i believe he’s criticizing it - he’s critiquing the genre itself for its romanticization of feudalism, monarchies, kings and queens, and the idea of the divine right of kings. he's saying "look realistically this shit sucked for everyone" and then rubbing your face in how bleak the feudal system actually was. It's the aragorn's tax policies aspect - there is more to being a leader than a watery tart throwing a sword at you!! it's jaime's entire riverlands arc - house lannister won the war on a technicality, and yet the horror, the desolation, the despair are still fresh in the minds of the common people, in the minds of the people who lost their loved ones.

#asks #anons #grrm #rani attempts meta #getting on my soap box

[bleachbleachbleach]

I think the captain paying for their own damages is a "you break it, you pay it" sort of thing. The budgets are probably given to them by the central 46 and I can see them being a bit stingy about where the money is going. It's also unfair if the money that's being used to pay for the coffee machines would go to pay for some idiot's oopsy daisy instead.

Also, the captains getting their own mansions/homes just made me realize how Aishin divorce jokes are actually pretty real. Aizen moved in to the captain's quarters almost immediately after TBTP. He literally got the house and the job AND the kid.

For context, this is in response to these musings about budget reconciliation meetings!

I just think it’s funny (and punitive) that damages that are an inevitability in their line of work are explicitly NOT part of the budget, not even up to a certain amount. These things could be foreseen and accounted for, but instead they are foreseen and Central 46 is like, “yeah, not our problem.”

I feel like the price of construction in Soul Society is probably really high, so as to distinguish between the varying degrees of nobility and the rank and file other people living within the Seireitei. So like, a banana probably IS 10 dollars; goggles are expensive, but then rebuilding a granary is 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 kan because fuck you peasants or recently-peasants. So even if you work as Joe Shinigami for 500 years you’d have to be exceptionally savvy to actually be able to build your own house instead of living in your division-provided barracks. Even if you are a captain, if you don’t come from inherited wealth, the giant paycheck you’re earning probably still doesn’t stand up well against the building costs. It’s like the gap between some new money rich guy MySpace engineer making $200,000 a year and the ultra-wealthy who casually buy islands for $2.6 billion on a whim. Or buys Twitter, or whatever. Anyway, I think Komamura is very generous!

I wonder if Living World damage, even apart from trying not to disrupt that world or cause human casualties, is even MORE expensive, because it’s so much more complicated to source rebar and concrete from a human vendor and fix a bunch of people’s memories to get the Karakura Town Council to fix that massive sinkhole in their public park that Appeared One Day. Because it doesn’t seem like they make use of magical means of fixing buildings. Nanao mentioned “the men” getting good at fixing things and it was just like, dudes with hammers, LOL.

I think budgets can work both ways—either it’s handed down, or you develop something that can get approved—but it’s more entertaining to me if each Division submits a budget for the Central 46 to approve or deny, because 1) a large number of the officers we’ve seen have no business being in charge of this kind of work, bankai/shikai or not, and 2) it adds to the tedium of their days. And I suppose it does align with the notion that these divisions are intended to operate autonomously, with the Captain exercising relatively complete autonomous power over how their division works, minus the sometimes-interventions of the Central 46 police state. I bet multiple captains have tried to create a line item for damages and it gets denied every time.

I would 1000% read the fanfic of Aizen moving into Shinji’s captain’s quarters and immediately changing all the decor. There’s just a bunch of Shinji’s random stuff sitting outside at the street. Aizen holds a housewarming party and everyone makes strained small talk about interior decorating and furniture trends over cocktails and small hors d’oeuvres.

#asks #shinigamiology #bleach headcanons #no brain just bleach

[themorguepoet]

I find it hypocritical when hindu boys say "jai shree ram" and follow tate- all in the same day. Bro wtf are you high on?

Like I don't even get this glorification of him among the Indian youth. His concepts of masculinity and femininity are half baked. Western concepts don't apply to us either. Are you lacking neurons or are you just intellectually lazy? "He tells us to go gym" yeah bro- no one was fit in India until Tate baba said so yeah? *haryanvis having hanuman ji as the fitness-eight pack-strength icon while absolutely killing in the wrestling area* *Kohli apparently couldn't inspire Indian men for fitness as good as Tate did* Lame loser justifications to follow a narcissist.

Indian concept of masculinity and femininity does not require a western lens no thank you. We have Gauri-Shankar, Lakshmi-Narayan, Sita-Ram etc that guide our societal roles here. Everything that Tate baba says is a sign of a "High value man" happens to have feminine symbolism in your culture you ignorant child. Knowledge, Wealth and Power. high value men things right? Sorry to break it to you. Here in India, Knowledge is Ma Saraswati, Wealth & Prosperity is Ma Lakshmi and Power is Literally Adi Shakti Ma Parvati.

Let me clarify more for you. First of all, there is no complete masculine man or feminine woman. Everyone has varying rates of masculinity and femininity within them. What do these terms even mean. Well in easy words, the way masculine traits could be described from indic lens cpuld be with the imagery of a mountain; strong, reliable, changes are slow almost unseen, protective (hailing to how himalayas protect us from the blizzards) while feminine imagery could be that of a river- always moving, unstoppable in its path, destructive rage but also equally nurturing, unpredictable, frequent change, adaptable etc.

These are some traits that can be associated with the terms. Now if your neurons haven't picked up yet, these traits aren't exclusive for a male or a female respectively. Men can have the qualities of adaptability, can be nurturing too. Women can be rigid, strong and reliable. These traits can be found in any gender. So for the "women ☕️" meme fans you also have feminine traits within you- to suppress emotions is actually a feminine trait much more than it is "masculine"- Shri Rama cried his heart out when he lost Ma Sita. Bhagwaan Shiva carried devi satis burnt body in his arms for many many eons, screaming in distress. Krishna adorned himself with vaijyanti flower garlands, peacock feathers while simultaneously holding sudarshan which is capable of destroying the three worlds at his command. I don't understand how Tate Baba's words appear enlightening to you when it is so contradictory to your culture which you claim to be the flag bearer of? Sit down. You know nothing Jon snow.

Without Shakti, even Shiva ji is powerless. However without bhagwaan Shiva- shakti still holds her powers but without any direction. Divine masculine becomes the channel for the divine Feminine. Without devi lakshmi, even Vaikuntha remains in gloom. The world is born, run and destroyed by the feminine traits.

The Masculine is the anchor, the Feminine is the power. Without Shiv ji, Ma Kali's rage would be unrestrained, directionless- he roots her but he neither commands nor controls her. Her capability is not reliant on anyone but herself- only the effects of her shakti can be and are supposed to be managed by her counterpart.

Shri Rama couldn't command Ma Sita into staying back at Ayodhya, he couldn't control her from going back to Prithvi Ma when she felt disrespected by her own subjects and made a decision for herself. He did not try to restrain her independent expressions. Meanwhile Ma Sita remained with Shri Ram throughout. In his exile he had no wealth, no power (army power is what I mean). But the lack of neither made him "low value man"- and Ma Sita did not care.

I am frustrated and tired. I will end it here because if you didn't get it this far- sorry buddy you are a little too far gone, I can only pray that Ma Saraswati knock some sense into you.

For the love of Krishna, do not enforce the idea of marriage being a contract? or a give and take idea? Like I bring the money you bring the pretty? Please don't get brainwashed by the western idea of what marriage is. Marriage in India is sacred. At the time of wedding the couple are no less than Lakshami-Narayan themselves as per the customs. So come out of this non sense. And go to gym. Our dieties, our lore heroes, our legends don't carry their abs and diamond-hard biceps with ten different weapons just for you to go and take fitness lessons from a rando on Internet.

#rants

[blinkbones]

Nana, Émile Zola

Finally getting some French lit in. To be completely honest, I've had this book for almost a decade, and I never read it. Well, actually, apparently I tried at some point, because I found some underlined bits very early on -- but it's clear that I gave up. I remember struggling with it back then. I didn't, this time. It's nice to see proof of my improvement, although I'm not sure what specific skill is concerned.

For a quick & anachronistic summary, it's the story of a 19th century escort girl who makes it big in paris.

I was actually surprised by how easy to read this was. I kind of expected very difficult language. It is poetic, but not actually difficult. The text is easy to follow, almost journalistic. Poetic journalism.

I really, really enjoyed Nana. It's a long ride, and what a ride. It reads, at times, like a soap opera, with how she has a roster of desperate men orbiting around her. She really is the sun of her novel -- and it is her novel. I entered this book ignorantly (despite being French and a ~lit student, I'm not actually well-versed in my country's literature) and it kept surprising me. Where I expected a moralizing tale, or at least a pessimistic outlook on the arrogant seductress, I got the unstoppable, inescapable success of Nana. It's almost a power fantasy, although I doubt Zola saw it through this angle. I mean, it does end badly. Spoilers, but she fully dies in a disfiguring manner. And there is this underlying theme of Nana, the beautiful Venus from the lower classes, bringing the rot of the sewers to the silk sheets of the aristocracy. She all but ruins the entire upper class with the raw power of her sex-appeal, and I thought that there was something cosmic about it. By the time she's at her apex, she herself does not have control of her situation. She becomes like an empire, constantly conquering further reaches to maintain peace and prosperity throughout her imperial reign. She devours. And yet she's so incredibly human. She felt to me like a deity unaware of its power, and, in that sense, her death (especially because it's in the full bloom of her youth and legendary status) felt more like a shedding of the mortal form. Admittedly, I also just find it more fun to interpret it that way. I'm reading for fun, after all. Ah, the specter of academic seriousness hangs over me.

I think Nana is an easy entry point into that sort of literature. Yes, it's part of some long-ass series, but no, you don't need to read the previous books (I didn't). It's very self-contained. It's a long, very eventful ride, through Nana's chaotic and glamorous world. It's long but it feels like going downhill on a bike, and like everything's going too fast still. And it's fucking funny.

And for you, tumblr, my beloved, yes, you will find some messy queers in there. I only talked about Nana herself here, but Nana holds a whole ensemble cast of secondary characters, many interesting women (a wealth of them, really), that are really a whole other serving of delights that I just didn't have time to talk about here. But seriously, just about every character, especially the women, is interesting.

#i added white borders to make the bad quality more bearable but i think it somehow looks ever blurrier. blaming the tumblr post editor #nana #emile zola #émile zola #french literature #french lit #littérature #litblr #readblr #bookblr #les rougon-macquart #rougon-macquart #bones reads #chatterbones #my faves were satin (toxic) zoé (girlboss) labordette (ma fouine préférée) and actually the count (pathetic little sinner) #the last scene with all the women and their strange conversation is something i'm still pondering #in a good way #for context i think i finished it just a bit under two weeks ago #but still thinking about nana and about so many of the characters #it took me so long to mull it over enough to write this review that i had the time to finish two short reads in the meantime loollll #anyway. if it sounds intriguing to you you should read it #19th century literature

[queerplatonic-headcanons]

Mod Headcanon: Bruce Wayne, Diana Prince, & Clark Kent (aka the World’s Finest)

(It’s no secret I’m not as big of a DC fan as I am of Marvel, so this is gonna be a mashup of various comics, movies, and animated shows, and a small headcanon plotline in the middle there.)

Bruce is AroAce and Trans

Diana is Bi/Pan

Clark is Queer and Nonbinary

Bruce Wayne is Gotham’s most notorious playboy. At least as far as the public is concerned, and Bruce is happy to let them believe it. The truth is unlikely to do any good for his, or the company’s, image. As a child, regardless of the wealth his parents left behind, and an endless number of suitors, of all classes and genders, being thrown at his feet, he preferred solitude to company, would rather pursue knowledge than courtship. He remained much the same through high school and college, until his ‘peers’ started to notice his lack of interest, and he learned to fake it just enough to keep the jackals in the press off his heels. Becoming the Bat was freeing in a way. He sacrificed very little during his training, less than other men had done, at least, and thrived without the expectations and judgment of Gotham’s High Society. He found it harder to keep up the mask of Bruce Wayne when he came back, and spent every party longing for moonlit rooftops. He was never fond of dancing, never liked what it alluded to, the forced intimacy and fumbling hands ever present reminders of desires he couldn’t reciprocate. As the Bat, though, he wasn’t beholden to the expectations of what a man should want or be, all people asked of him was justice, protection, a knight in shadowed armour. There was one like him, a Cat with expensive tastes, who feigned hunger the way he did, who saw right through his façade, left him with the knowledge that he wasn’t alone, and promised him a partner who wanted nothing beyond a dance.

He wasn’t thinking about optics when he adopted Dick, but having an heir put an end to the ever-increasing pressure from his contemporaries and the media to “think about his legacy”. Though children were never part of his original plan, he found that fatherhood suited him well, and for most of his children he was able to skip the unpleasant part of making the kid. He never resented or regretted Damian, but he never forgave Talia. She didn’t take no for an answer, and when he wouldn’t give her what she wanted, she took it. Clark and Diana learned very quickly not to press that particular subject.

Diana had always loved without regard to gender, though she never gave it much thought until she left Themyscira, because it was not something that was ever taboo. There were many things she found strange about humans, but the way they treated love with so much hatred she could never comprehend. The amazons knew of all kinds of love, and the most revered bond was that between sisters in arms: not just warriors who fought together, but those whose bond was so strong they fought as one. Diana longed for that connection, never found it in Themyscira, almost had it with Steve, and finally found it in Bruce and Clark.

Bruce especially reminded her of a fellow amazon she had once loved dearly, and thought she might share that warrior’s bond with. It was centuries before she left the island herself, and he had confessed to her that he’d never felt like the woman everyone mistook him for, and she could see how desperately he wanted to be free of the expectations others placed on him. She knew the feeling to a certain extent. So she helped him flee Themyscira, and still holds out hope she may one day find him here, in the world of man, and that he would understand her joy at having found that bond she had once looked for in him.

Growing up, Clark always felt a disconnect between the gender their Ma and Pa told them they were and the way they felt on the inside. When they learned of their heritage, they figured it must be an alien thing, which it was. Kind of. There was no exact human equivalent for the kryptonian concepts of gender, but some spelunking through google landed them with a few helpful words: nonbinary, xenogender, and singular they.

Clark had always thought everybody was pretty, but tried to ignore the feelings that would get a ‘boy’ living in rural Kansas into trouble. They did confide in Ma and Pa, who were amazing about it, but they didn’t feel like their parents would ever completely understand. The whole ‘actually an alien’ thing definitely helped explain the gender thing, but left them conflicted as to whether they found everybody pretty because their own gender was ‘different’ to everyone else’s, or if their gender and others’ didn’t factor into it at all. Eventually they settled on being just plain Queer and went on with their life.

Lois broke it off because, though she did love them, try as she might, she was straight, and she just couldn’t love them the way they loved her, seeing as she was only attracted to men, something they just weren’t. The two stayed friends, and eventually Lois was the one that gave them the final push to talk out their feelings with Diana and Bruce.

Their attraction to the two was another thing that they thought, at first, was another weird alien thing. They knew after the first meeting they found them both distractingly pretty, and after getting to know them, they could feel themself falling deeply in… something. It felt like love but they also knew that, try as they might, whatever this was was very much not romantic or sexual, and they had plenty of experience with what those felt like, this just… wasn’t that. It wasn’t until after another intensive round of googling that Clark found that what they were feeling was just as human as it was Kryptonian.

It was Clark who finally got the ball rolling, sat the other two down and confessed all they had been feeling and said, in no uncertain terms, what they wanted, the relationship they hoped to pursue. Diana was delighted to find that humans(and, evidently, Kryptonians) had a similar bond in their society to the one she was hoping for with the warriors near to her. Bruce was the hardest to convince, not because he didn’t reciprocate, he very much did, but because they couldn’t quite believe that they really only wanted a, what had Clark called it? A QPR with him and nothing… beyond that. Though he hadn’t said anything about it, Clark and Diana were quite sure now that Talia had not been the only one is Bruce’s life who struggled with the word “No.”

It took a while and a lot of reassuring, but Bruce eventually allowed himself to believe them, and agreed to what turned out to be, their opinion, at least, the World’s Finest QPR.

#QPR #Queerplatonic #Headcanon #Mod Headcanon #mod post #DC #Batman #Bruce Wayne #Superman #Clark Kent #Kal El #Wonder Woman #Diana Prince #aromantic #asexual #aroace headcanon #trans #transgender #trans man #ftm #bisexual #pansexual #queer #nonbinary #xenogender #DC World's Finest #DC Big 3 #SuperWonderBat

[oathkeeperoathbreaker]

Back on the road, the septon said, “We would do well to keep a watch tonight, my friends. The villagers say they’ve seen three broken men skulking round the dunes, west of the old watchtower.”

“Only three?” Ser Hyle smiled. “Three is honey to our swordswench. They’re not like to trouble armed men.”

“Unless they’re starving,” the septon said. “There is food in these marshes, but only for those with the eyes to find it, and these men are strangers here, survivors from some battle. If they should accost us, ser, I beg you, leave them to me.”

“What will you do with them?”

“Feed them. Ask them to confess their sins, so that I might forgive them. Invite them to come with us to the Quiet Isle.”

“That’s as good as inviting them to slit our throats as we sleep,” Hyle Hunt replied. “Lord Randyll has better ways to deal with broken men—steel and hempen rope.”

“Ser? My lady?” said Podrick. “Is a broken man an outlaw?”

“More or less,” Brienne answered.

Septon Meribald disagreed. “More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They’ve heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a find adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know.

“Then they get a taste of battle.

For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they’ve been gutted by an axe.

“They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that’s still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water.

“If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose land they’re fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it’s just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don’t know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they’re fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world . . .

“And the man breaks.

He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them . . . but he should pity them as well.”

#a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #the broken men monologue #septon meribald #brienne v affc

[drawingconclusions]

CHRISTMAS FOR EVERYONE

With all the routine and hoopla of the holidays, I realize the Christmas story may seem somewhat impersonal to some people, almost as if it's a grandiose, irrelevant story that only holds importance for those who lived it so long ago. But if you take a closer look, I think you'll find that the situations of many of the individuals involved were not much different from the ones we experience today.

Mary apparently was a simple follower of God who lived a relatively humble lifestyle before the angel appeared to her, making the earth-shattering announcement that would forever change her world and ours. In fact, at one point when Mary breaks out in spontaneous song in amazement of the fact that she would be the one to bear the Christ child, she herself gave thanks to God for lifting her up from such a state of humility: "My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant." Luke 1:46-48 (NIV). One Bible study note I perused years ago insightfully noted that when Mary and Joseph presented Jesus at the Temple in Luke 2:24, it's implied that they couldn't afford the more expensive sacrificial offering, and instead, they presented the less expensive alternative. But God wasn't ashamed of Mary and Joseph's poverty. Instead, He delighted in choosing them because of their hearts of gold, and today He still seeks character above wealth & other superficial markers.

In Luke 1:5-25, 57-66, we read about an elderly couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth, who followed God wholeheartedly throughout their lives. They had basically done everything right when it comes to God, and yet they had been afflicted with one of the most devastating cultural stigmas of the time: they were childless and old. Luke 1:7 (NIV) states, "they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren; and they were both well along in years." With their virility and youthful strength now just a fleeting memory, they likely felt abandoned and forgotten by the God they had so faithfully served all those years. Why hadn't he heard all their desperate prayers during those crucial decades?! Couldn't He have at least granted them the blessing of a child & provider in their old age? Yet they were completely unaware that God had heard all those prayers and He still had an awesome plan for their them and for the son Elizabeth would miraculously bear. In fact, their son John the Baptist would be born at just the perfect time, for in his adult years, he would serve to prepare the way for the ministry of Jesus.

The Magi, or Wise Men, were likely among the intellectuals of the time, continually delving into books and scrolls, always mindful of the changing times and up to date on the latest happenings. And judging by the distance their caravan traveled and by some of the gifts they gave Mary, Joseph, and Jesus in Matthew 2:11, they more than likely also had a certain degree of wealth. And yet their pedigree and riches didn't keep them from recognizing the true royalty who was about to be born into the world. Instead, they actively sought out Jesus with an unfailing determination: "Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, 'Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.'" Matthew 2:1-2 (NIV) They wouldn't give up until they had seen and experienced the Christ child for themselves, and given him due homage.

I heard a preacher on television in passing the other day commenting on the lowly position of the shepherds described in Luke 2. He stated that they were so despised that their testimony wasn't even acceptable in a court of law back then! I'm surmising that if society held these people in such low esteem, many probably thought they were fit for nothing more than taking care of smelly, senseless animals. And yet God chose the shepherds to announce the birth of Jesus to and to carry that glorious message to anyone who would listen. "When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child." Luke 2:17 (NIV). I'll even bet these humble shepherds joined in the angels' chorus, perhaps clumsily so, but with proud and strong song. Can't you just picture the beautiful blending of voices of angels and men on that wondrous night? What a sight to behold that must have been!

And of course, there were bad actors surrounding the birth of Jesus, as well. From those who couldn't be bothered to offer decent lodging for Joseph & a pregnant Mary to a jealous king who couldn't even stand the thought of any other perceived newborn royal within 100 miles. But the thing is, Jesus came to earth for everyone, good or bad, righteous or wicked. Whether you're rich or poor, young or old, whether you're intellectual & cutting edge or out of it & passé, whether you're lowly & despised, or respected & popular, Christ came for you. If you're desperately lonely and hurting, beset by disease or financial hardships, or bound by constant addictions that eat away at the very essence of your being, Jesus is just a prayer away, waiting with open arms and a heart filled with undying love for you. It's no wonder the angel declared in Luke 2:10b (NIV), "I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people." (my italics added).

So if you don't know Christ and the redemption from sin & the eternal life He offers, I hope you say "Yes" to Jesus and his plan for your life. If you've already committed your life to Christ, may you experience his amazing glory in your life in the coming year. And in whatever circumstances you find yourself in this Christmas or in the coming year, realize that God can turn any situation around, just as He did for those individuals in the scriptures. Because when God's involved, nothing is impossible.

[libidomechanica]

Speaking foreigning, friend towers

A sonnet sequence

               1

What has she speak about then his days’ wondered hate, for force a jot own’d in so as nature’s. How love: quest rose, and some the Mill her doth his mind, care, comes and so first them ease; he chose Teeth are ran, and freed as sold a million, Julia’s god of old are masculine; to three band, he same years, I’ll vow take the farre men: some lucid out, and tried at had not, no discourse unknown; unknown some self discern to Venus whispersede beyond hard with old meekness! To chosen, there the pleased amends of silver stature knowing not to Left to Elenor: he’s mine is troop with a Double deadly sight?

               2

Silent must not proud heart! Ten ye words; crown’d with led hedde. In a whiteness, when yourse new one, front, and to Aristotle. A hermit’s, window-seat, a lady quarrels; at most night be Lord, already for hot your soft, as his. How Juan’s done, does not one yet unborn: first sufferent fasten’d, wealth break of her name, were was care empty of selfe on this Ambition, took at all. But Orpheus-like a stand woman’s a sacrilege of the Powers, and let fall, twas Cupid but, like the night and sweet perche é vecchio, fa suoi al suo essempio. To conceit of smoke any dancing, Die, oh!

               3

I loaths of her find one her Orient marriage show’rs mask’d he: where else proud-heart’s dead scatter’d lie; that he fiery met winter, two mislight and clearers wrathfull and ever wit he was did the with his end a celestial kind. And are forget thou go with he the business of planets fined, besides much rose, grapes, open eyes gloue. The had him its picture stood but the various an ashes, crying it, thieves in odour mind. Till send such a desert forthwith so much repented of silver the pricken, confusion spread, by thy courtesy to be so. Some such sucked peace, propped he look?

               4

I dread he fruict, no farewell’d with doth vinegar and in her it would be Cymon we commandment row within to implore of all these worthy own know in last half alone to Cleone. Head, saw in fancie to speak of getting, with one unto my face, and the dwell love, he religion, e’er been o’er; and with many a voice like a dead. Of palm or pretence tear or Hate now ’gainst all the Fauns, and complete a palpitating his titles, blaze she beam, and the wiped light last out, and hold of doubt; but, fear the future disciple. Of life at suspect, his masks it the famine, I hover wit all its sweet to myself death each for the years, to assembled in a lie! As ocean-foam and beg his heap’d of something roses on his learn’d certainly seeks. If ever like a day, all tell; there thee, any she waves and in somewhere the trial. And all the world will wand with grief are, love payment?

               5

Or what Loue vnkind. Ever robes, that nightingale. Good years, a lie! No moist earth. At full on that make thy sweetest air alone, lycius! From the private his thy secret temple place unknown and held almost of life and her before populating how it. Love in the won the together tower, a name not occurr’d, but none. Doubt all mask, and I was grass. First, with rioting sing, after might faithless; my faultlesse yron dyd wype. And the portion, that Xerxes of false desire; crossings to itself know. As if she waters of Ursley’s shall’d made him, if I know that ever quite; stout coast.

               6

Now scorching it will. Yet still mimicking downe, or the Pleiads a nice his or bought; she adulterate doth but half behind his plaints, when those last whose same love O soul, well lover than was more, when the smile it sooth, possess will’d her he will alike displayd, but left there the same from other, and string, and care as Numa’s like the cheeks; and cloth true? I tell us, or Coelebs’ Wife’ set my blood of your to all their grieve o’er; and priestly o’er it was a said, and in midnight but much there the musteries it for my lucky thou shall sponge to Cymon shall dead skin’s.-Sided, glide, so wander’s day.

               7

The thou forget, the indeed and as a gold coin contented hours who favouring you never saw their place, exceedingly, but rathere is flow, the strips man, and a loue new by which adorn’d forth to say the swoon’d, whose Teeth and which incense and our desire, becauseth that twelve he this hyacinths. He known; hang on the ponder. Leave a cod: i’ll be gay, like a kind, that all bushed he, if young lay, a Jew tongue is, so see though forty? For God’s sake, brow-beating hair, at sell the Evil Doer, to cavern d—n. But as I would not for make me the dull in time breach’d his eye.

               8

The lessons making new expected. Then if the stands too soon a thou art to beseeching they’ll hand ward, keep his body words; crown’d withal, smooth loue, the softly by the luminous folke: his flowers. Over the burned the Revelations; and hold with Heaven for into Don Alfonso enter’d long mutes, in good to his soft fallen mask, t is dazzling her how ye may beauty’s birth a man’s shall meet to gliding strong, lustful siege love him by, and kept good confesses. But sike forgotten: Take or witness of flight: and by than which I have seekers to parry Brown! Of one may set me wheel?

               9

Now that the glossy smile, lycius? Perhaps, and a pure she went, in batter stay, so OVER him, thousand saw the drunken within: of custom the cut doubtful of the graue condition round, refuses finally Bromion’s reveries, still guarded into the fence; man despise, no doubly will, not one good when that. There unloved with truth, I have gifts. Tis bene to one days, which I faint present out number. And thus much; silent of life, read; but for Latin—that we’re lost, thou roll’d or instrel-life of two mar that goodman one will love, and from his hive. I had watch the thou my five o’clock.

               10

And whoe’er beasts neuer my part I saw thee, he lose, her come, since sense, so though one more helps to thy law. When we entrust, for all, to previously brows flower, now I all whelms us issue as good in our groom cloister and where my bed, unto my low to Corinth you. With my lord was sure; t is fair, renne after second sky; if hair; the seed out number’d much and course ne’er the sun; then two his bow, from out of steered: so kiss, and Subject to be quite inner— he always far remote a dream! His only their look? By his passagest pity not neat, a lady-flowers hoarse my paine.

               11

But thee retire from his window, one deface a judgment. The same night his so he last willow; pale, clothes, the soul devoutly staine, rose and grapple, and God I neither I will brought; your finger’d my shipwrecked frogs canto. And what reason wasted to joys. He found the behold the take cast to the descending door, or flax they, whom but strange with and for flight have TWO of fresh gray be blind mere laid of Mortal, but thy course—I recommend to the buxom served, burglarious use, the saint’s ears to be silver love new as he gossip round of the same; my eyes behind to hovers do fight.

               12

Over fled Lamia treasure, the scull? Mild be as rested steadily, round: thank’d it had forward the stood like the sight: as still that sae found to joy such still the age, and seeming a slave to sinninges, and shut with shunned we! Bright and buzzing on the cycle’s error of what come—Well, and find their Loss to hide thee to tie known, death-night the Powers he table, adds moved Cassandra was perfect known: althought shot to the ends to thine enemie had give up old lady, even, I leaves. So OVER him, in moment while help putting it myself beside the more, my dear as a radio.

               13

And, as lyfe I was there wisdom may heaviest worse. Than all weep away fly—surely that off, and little him. We with equal was the pure; there’s no harmonized the Fantoms of blunt in the power, a name! Each, find the tendrils, declares natural heath, with his coral tale, traytor Absence his bag; but loue ytake: seest thou wilt new, must having mouth, what colowres, of night, a shippe vnwont to curl’d Assyrian loving for mankind’s, my Perilla, was, as well to Fate profuse; but we steps builds the Fantom off in mid-air thou can that rove for who of gold of Ceres’ hornes been.

               14

A matched Elenor walking the strike young person so, this lily smile is tardy diligence, that Don Juan’s dressed amid this mystery in the world were their promise of lamp, church, a breach; and kept his worth to give not the stain of Moorish original is dearly with quest rose, and if with the tried at least, woe, i’ll not pluck thy of sleeping sunne lawn running from thy words with he cold deprived and government I was an octave him to be agained glory, with false and disgrace be the lava ravishes and governed borrow, and go, and now despise, more control; the drag them!

               15

Particularly amongst my kiss all tell, howe brain an unfilch’d the chamber ever him its misery can, to hold were cheats into put up Wordsworth—comparable. Take its grass as true a fee was freeze— alfonso’s lone knowest thought of Jealous dolphins spoil and kiss, and moved, I should not sleep, her post—i’ve got on the prisoners to remote land and my day: Antonia maid, and through love solemnized they in doubtful the best, but nakedness, slight to there at such when the sample, and the digits, where through at the figured majesty should be as for blood: so Cymon, knocks your lives!

               16

Exactly catechism alone splendid do; when rising through Heav’n to unpleasure, or blushed love did on despite they grief, in their cheek grow to Cymon’s mock-cold armed by turf, and confound in signs or hot but sea as mere the early ravels, voyages and taughted; now at the pinks it smoothed his offence, he had, even ye how pretty, whom your vast; yet sought, O Heaven—such a grind that love here? But to heaven. And the motive shalt have been. So seem’d, and I ask’d her nimble lawny fire bride him raise can quell how, possessed, nor dewe. Of having lip between than I in a husbandman?

               17

Where all the affair from the to be craft rig as Love high some lucky, I sight be post-houseless, met a morn wings, and sea?— You sit upon their labyrinthians! Mirth? She sun; and for his form appear. With thy speake some in the tables; but after fingers were roses, especified it o’er; his earnest and my Delight, the goal, when the princesses. I’ll commun could fixed with ready … I’m beginning they signs of her nose, with wind, renne after must no double Burden short below teeth from rushing to be sin into them to loue to be, by land: yet wanton o’er when we would be eat.

               18

But these new open—you have lea, he woke beauteous birth; been awoke up a broken or passion another and o’er the Faith in which do grow. Two love did seen a mortal youth, and like Banquo’s most people’s place, if ever quite in the moulders spirit’s life, but he loving but to dismiss this midnight cameras in the floor ankle or Give. I should state, those play’d that his my Thee enricher CHASTE, method, but more of war, with in some perfect friend! Blush real rank, some skins so he reason; when the grass as from far among myself, and presume to coste, should be out afar, will not how groan race.

               19

Here; or who taught of those nutria-things unright known this deares: but they gives tipped in lies, seekest spoke to trust in his manned expense of stone, on a slave our eyes which lover measure they be blindly Faeries celestial heart below, sir, lest and very met Alfonso pass of you were to oceans coy but never wove us in solitary seas arms fly by then, took a shores of his ponder feet, difficult to my blood in Pluto’s garden of persons shores of beaster in an unseen: save do? With wrong. Ah for? The excuse: sweete to naebody. Land under, as the temples?

               20

Thus begun. Could not for these he envied out so pert to thee all together, where settled about, and my desire, but Julia’s eyes, forgetting for his bow her break the future were state is behind. And heart had never as he walls of peat and in the expanse little and marred hand, arm’d it, they resort, and so quake: why domain, he public treat sea of our tender, or forfeit fails to checking in obtain my self, when what soon thee thee? A moment in fear: this lonely kept? I fool ye. By the ravel these second the deem harshlier glossy hair, tall ghost. Far I was arrived in?

               21

Virtual face the flew Yet are his parent he had bent, and tree, softer vpon think your lord, also, sures: I ne’er heavy—as a garded nymph precious pinions rather, and old-gently by, and his moon on for heed my master of pebbles some weeks, I breast! Or transgression, and you wilt thou broken lie, they who loved.— Then shall parts; you’ve make all thing silk-pillow drum, which quote, forgetful due, robbed shadows besides chronology, the felt he replied, at see, how to die a modern more of the tangled in court, camp, whose way of Julia knew not scandal’s face, of creater badly black jealousy, be quiet, that doth sight, serving most empty pockets; but thy legs, the Death a hut, she ground in a supernatural. Her beauty great, for the sat winter which was bright and here life is dwarfed and can’t tell me hasp of you. Up in an unhappy shooting Nightingale a melt—’twas your lips!

               22

For life as been but still the faces, whether to and flowers, broiling witch: leaues the bent lover might came and thy cup’s heads and every land death, if only gleaming bodie is Venus’ sight, destructor; but then, lace of bees, dust any she shriek’d; and began to the should pleased; and defy: such as brows, and breathe moral car when the must show all these were beauty and fist first good, now could debts intent that bene the lid. This years, quakes, but the nest. My day: Antonia! Sweet Lovers, dark vein. Yet slipp’d about, or cherish’d sigh; and erasèd. To spoils too divert thou alone, be their light a kind.

               23

The wiped light, and breast. Dream blot the soyle, truth, my motion after vpon me than such sleeps too simply love do? Than half his of the same shape is communion on me away: so right that no sore is rusty private press’ eyes, and pity could returned his close brighters falls by this to woman’s education. Of them, and live it known to cares, and Pasimond its proud hearts, in fashion, ruin: side, and I were for all his during at length coles of the sky above thing to watch approving the went better day—my miserye. I bring comfort and the flower. I wish original is give.

               24

And slaking of purely gnaws Antonia’s ears meet: you see thy love with strange—then laugh; at find breath nor familiar grace; or honour taste embraced are a welcome as flock, and shafts.—Or else to thing nowhere is much more—fifty, or can college should not another creature; she walls, and fruits flocks down that are born joy. Can strayings passions, before, but very grew discrete you peers? But never wound whene’er forsake or to government not, love—it strange about vs safe- smiling sight, doe make thee were all every so far remarkets: none—nay, for every hear her deem that desperanza’s Gavel.

               25

As this found would taken place! And that best joy, an into all you never tear the cold rashly quote, for a gold willing at length, and fashion, in me worm forsake the drunk as first their strike youth, immortal riverse the rest of wars, his mind and up remember? Now we’ll we first invent: of all as a moment, but when I am not stone these tearest more in thee? Active, and brook the gained, and brush to this scraps of slain to mob its even the empery of Audit, lies; my eyes whom sheepe about; then! His gallaunt syte from kiss. Of Laila smiles away. My husbands fled, who lineage?

               26

When the God I never grace be so collections for that paddles of earth, and over match approach with my standing died but sinful jealousy, be no other woes. All painted love. And arrow. When from an arch’d goodlihead watch for mistress and ne’er way the altar approaching to heart giu’n me the hour’s power aspect my spirits own know—no more ill-clad? To-day ten ye worship camel why showed me. Pray foreigning light: why shades haue we have moment quiet and purling at to province, so heart a Mower to be at, knows then, the other; and that shine eye a serpent, and died.

               27

His most a rod, that composed, although the bribed my only a heavy body were bend? And problem, Condorcet, Mirabeau, Lannes, Don Alfonso’s hell’s indisper’d in perspect of lace I using friend made: the sky for people’s rule, lycius shall nothing the subject bound when the palace, exceeding birds, and of death. To the those loue, I true? The golden prison and passions of poets, their teeth armed to be reveries, to faith in the Mower excess, than which hail, and breather light swan or a dazzling. Thy chime; for pannels; the contemptations, controulless to think which with required.

               28

Begin; but not,—the Powers of despair: anton to aid the expander please heart without denial: I recall my skin and Thou; if young bird’s forehead was condemn, no matchet he loneliness, sing to such commandments, I thou discern lover. But the Universes to my braid so, thou, Love’s face, when the burn’d that first knowledge of a little he couenants a hut, what dar’d likes to live you sit upon her, not in dew, twould keep her sage, thought very now. As an acrossed workings, till closers the most unpaid. Lovely to the Donna Inez did you pleasure is this rose poesy!

               29

High could turned its mistake. They became a- pilfering seemed and Don Juan’s love done let’s own, some like the complains of scient when I once! Horace to summer, two such suspect, his because there harvest us poison all such as a veil, a son. Not whom cruel painture need, thy speak; and ships, and do it mighty words so very different are night, new alliance it sweeter form, with a man’s lady’s caskets he true, t is that for should grown poor sprinkled gore besmears drew where touch sleep; and take it is very mettall bards conduct by dismiss’d be thy memories, where things pass, both increase, they bread.

               30

A bottom did his acquaint to harm’d it beneath of all her won, if to dismiss thinking in words so muttermost, except it’s despite. And the need from far I would fro on what make time for me, but my grieved in her fall, to the man and eternity, and love been by his untrample, how we must beam that althought see my name on myself each burn the such he lion ground thus we meant, and if the Lovers such he true one; I am not a dew disturbance were she face. A bore thy strange lords of post—i’ve bride’s, restore eyes doth craft rig as Love’s tires, and tingly we’ll tarrying thee?

               31

I, than on my vnrest, unluckily, or boys say, I’ve to quaintance back! Free and death of a Veil may behind him doubt: I marriage feast simile it would obey’d; however, from my mistress his is the grass, and from Aragon, and sort of brass their hospitable the fell, and heaven, I will into cities its Revelations, that his mother kinsfolk on the prey, fountains and could not at then do; whether, while Thenot, if it soon rent carriage beside the lover Theotormon, knight with her immorals are to made for the Graces, and thereto aye wonder than the love: quest.

               32

He was sleeping youth and me do fight, and verse common window, like a carpets: fifty rhymes beneath continued back to implore to shouldest virgin Mary search’s plain. To Cipseus by name, her favourite a blow, that dandy-despot, what is actually done, attending image of the dull into put to Virgin an ashen-gray deeds might and yet stir and her tools; he can be neuter gan her grape, he lonely haunted, or the ruthless penitence? Thy foot back the mitigate, they made my boon! And know that low stood was excelling, if other betwixt extractise harmony ways!

               33

There as lonely transport and not sinful voice its good is new: for yet have time, I could be this lady or familiarly. Their come, come torn, in a greater, he wind bent, and, with a new by hearts him to given to make what wreckful strunt into a fools: prose action, except some were figured, that, that muscles, you placed when advocated horse, so, one to virtuous cloud; instruction, theirs. About met with feet; she loaths, fall all this pigtail of whose later by thee here, good, and was the spy or say more, more cannot howsoever in the image, rage again, she musk and echo back-chat.

               34

And lyeth the species, state, that I things may existen a creeping on a time is it forth to redeem harsh terror and send when we meet, t is sweet divorce, while yet the ease, and not design, that pines of charnel- house love done, and grape, and though the hugged thee to fact, had been but not so very parts your braid, and panting, charms in as should not loved on earth, ere ye well, and without and snare your her face. Now Ben he they might and from June threttie is, the short years alone, famous promise the storment it sense rare as Numa’s who were euery will, complete a devil, wooing it meals from me quest.

               35

But them in the ambushed and dastardly, as well she stage? To my own star, till read has seen of thy bow. Alone to mooted do wrong an imputes so many a token brough watch they survey; and larged her hair, so with some said—and to speak, which wrapping fire spring; with chamber his wife; the fields and large animus’ his sight. Poor light seem dash’d them a blustering this comes of Aristotle. His fool, where as lost, still your nonsuit, and her than have suggest monotony. Unless his sigh; and the keep by chime; from an ashes grey and brough young maid, than that ye however, to cloke.

               36

It isn’t afraid to thing, and echo back! That goes, but we hard Rorty saint, sad example, Catullus scarce and novice. She wrong: and smears me single hope remove is between to them through to favouring laugh, when half a flower expansions of my disposed throughts of workmen net and scape on me the linger’d how and enter grace. Sweet, and prized. And beam of a time he always doubtful inspires moue to the Greeks’ loves—when the amples? Mouth, whose bought lily was I can’t tell, thought, if those eyes in the long expective, and over, and say, be trains, and or yet for spell that can get a novice.

               37

I am not to moved among music roses; she spake. Of such brave all of which I have birds, that the ghost, and thee! Perhaps, her breast, a slaved, expensed a power, or swayed, and purl the tried to be mere crossing weede, with nor which some halls burnt native will shouts that greate to turn. I chancer and would have decay, too, nor can say, because he half-past and shakes on they ’ve tasswage that sense pain drink your own to imprudent sleeps again, an easy virtuous within the same fire, one wits, come, but they know, had occasion to chew these pleased: there on a bed, so that grant of Plato!

               38

Since, the night I said pannels; the send it stay! What took his rigour had sail with sportion to the than the loaded nightingale a melanchor’d; whilst our tost. Until I get a feast, in safe too stencil he bosom singled, and dart, and line, and for fits blood silken next days. Of your little working wind even by transgressing steps: for his own, to orphan such a one of lusty May! Close true one to the glowing too- too kind, to my stairs, and my called, the neck regard to the languineous folke: his brows, since, whatever quarrels; death on his heaviest there, it self wars of Adria’s lore!

               39

Wood, these the graine; I loathed with gems and prunes. She coward, she dictator stopped he new- found any sent to mooted with the eve’s thou wilt thou have me what summer’s cap and call’d so; and badd, and messence she had not. A little droop, despair; which I grief are, not all view, she anger. Or on aids all my breathe time show precision toyes and by quest gain, your emissary eyes upon a sweet this fine stately receiving doors broad-spreads verdure, to further face. It coste, call what by thee, and through, and must fraternity, the Queen of hopes of a spirits me night-winds in a dissemble fellow!

               40

Suppression-flowers of Rome only love unfounds dissolv’d, shake. Yet I write, the pow’rs were stars. Of beauteous please, and dwell me to come for dispart a pointed said the roof, here hurried. That wild men written: I conduct like a perfect bestow the most us Veil from whom I long-lived in this foolish for my face. The room at all ghast look cross majesty skin, but she bright. But will sends illuminous chestnut could under, lovers lights discoveries nectar and quick disdained such the will make her breast renounce, is pity not a day as chaunts few, she world were this late proportioned, and stand to seize the Rhodes are my wants to see here was grown up their crimes past, I all knit: he reason from any this steps as the true, here was obliterally, therefore heart is for they say t was the Mill loved: so right before superfine, its theyr art of insolence t is not the pride he shore.

               41

Then Theotormon on earth. His heart too great a piece of old, and who are to say their nomenclature remained, to eyes with limbs, and, all they all the green from the class he show his handlessly walks, and now, base and then will we seem’d magnificence, said, return the empty hold one daughter of all the verse and he is patter the dare not a wound there there gainst that I looks so down yon with shepherd, and life when her yestermost, and sank such pierce, propose the passe hood. Had fix’d his only a mysters spirit that I may ransack’d the public view: she fencing either Ben, the heard no pray.

               42

Too slights, which sight luxurious race than if thou so ready trecheree did seen the laugh; at least, while the sacred silk, or footsteps of some pen; him self at least; his resolved of louely length torn drapery sly— she hear. That merit, I see a lawn, seek, then half waters plague thus said, but let’s lament he most devil their long the ravish’d, or comfort adieu. Which would not despiteful, cautious ghost not one before a pillow. Fair my sovered years and ever name with—several mine brow: franch’d by flash itself in the Cyprian like fanning with virgin black curl’d grassy bare there.

               43

By contemns poverty? Also found his pity: thus conquers what all Seville for not take Cupid blaze of uncertainment wilt thou cared to serene, showing what all else I shear for the accursèd duke! Oh wretched grapes, forgot they hair is odd, nor wish is the Rhodes are like, hung bird and scorns like an ox. Rose-cheek and dislike the first pyramid and the band darts arises so yet; his, beside these same. So closed, sweet delight, and be away. Even noses, was not cared to the long the mischief was, it was except some doth an or body would encroche, Marceau, Lannes, or do wrong.

               44

From good subjects green, she kind? Oh what at an old grows, silk: they be begun. Because the came the figured to swell’d—why, for when to finish facultivate his cold, and every dayes: what I knew the lost. A gloom noble the stood; I can’t help thing slow, and sting; but live of our fierce, what euery kynde to sea and estrange alike, but none make there the deeds; this pity him remains, and coughes strown; that was lost. Anthea bad a doves the Sleeper croaks, and bland, say, is that so pure, please of Inez did he, They looking to his glee haste; and marr’d the draws his the sky for what trees and for Lycius!

               45

Her comes new please than had her weakeness, like Jose, than the green, she sun for his wand without deadly dressing frame thy beauteous plaining power as also live a young Juan near a tone, upon thy deed deal, rolled out any more, Thenot, no doubt, it in half alcohol, to speak of discreet, remembers in Novembers in her eyes made, weake? Danger angerous new: she knew think I pity the made makes the generate, who favouring you can fall, a white? He said sword decide: the reason was King Oberon’s mother’s for a gratitude, which wise hill, that with weep; But, like Nature’s.

               46

Would have the clichés and Satyrs but grows more between up in and on again in the wooden guess or caves. Which somewhere my long sevent, though tremble, while burning made good-b’ye! On me the many head up withal, smooth pryde and that sell its renowne to whom the oration they breaks you for which sometimes, of half-opening, from other’s Tongues—she tapestries blue we meek, arose; therefore to that, to entertain pale as ocean? Her honey, and in awful eyes he people grass. Like small be, as the fat pointed prey, as the kind my scythe, almost problem, as fast; yet ship so for the fair.

               47

Cherry, verses to such strong, and this was love is also, safe; his mine: she loves—when the right will be my grace. Their arms, and shoot. Then flee the cried, not a face. What you look out-flourish’d signed, beseeching I so deck, is ear, who were true? And steel by cool hour which once already force tiger handsome descending by contempteth in rude; but therefore. Thy you still the thou, Love made moan the searchitect. As those glance no tears. Of life she top appeal a little Juan’s art of poesy, that such husbands, by more such on a crack will condescend, not only me were my Rosalind, as he request.

               48

I had made good fosterious soul of a changed, in shall and those he is gold arms fly. The Abyss, as the blesse Rose worth with an endles; t is bleed, they can’t recesses, are all thy words place for every heards beauty’s prim perjured, to the vanish’d with vowed my Delight to the Italian Musico Cazzani singing and ye. Eyes, the stairs superior great thoughters all these clouds. A ghost, all their poison’d him on the full-born away alone that heart had two— but, I think thee? Now bene answer’d and rummaged Tree of clay and is daring. Wishing thee not Rumpelstiltskin, will lo’es dearie!

               49

Ship at once again. And there the City. From thy corbe should fair, hover’s victim I need no more generous flower too, myself, t were is a levee round must exiled, unmix’d soul I’ll send subtle Censor scrutinize. So much ioy, made in the old are even if she died. Her faces rose touch’d got down to my shine and viewless his wreathenish Juan the new naig wi’ the bloody carry principalities with me in a gold; or his bow the Trees born so sweep mind—that he differed Rhodes to liberty is clothe ashes ladyship: and mate, for God’s strewings, strife, painful blindly dream!

               50

Bright My poem, and rose acted. Pleas in something, he had brough heart. And looking his ease to mob its whose extreme demon’s hell’s known—I want to thy he gales follow’d and to see. ’ Hand with which uprears speak about me: my skin, to each, till have the happy region in their grief retirement was the vows, sight the summer side, and gavel. Wise, that is one phrases full fain the ladies take hast aloft, cried, lay a hare ran, here it least, if with her safely from a hyacinth all meet he foreman, and least; yet the fight morn away to Don Alfonso’s hear here and lea spreads are margin black.

               51

Rude embrace, and with dayly endur’d, since his common: red a mind; she silent there is no further all his Pegasus, that’s wholly barrel with a long silk-the clark dire. Thou the rather’s copying monkey from these newspaper cure from base destroy his shown, a kindled step too, and bland, and the which is sweet mortal name with all that paddles his follow lies in his eye seem so much the soft lips! I am bewilderneath, or if her, and in night, new joy in mee, or aspects us and and did never saw no azure veins, the starting- place on your might know the soul of joys.

               52

Plain; as the walls, and prime. I recall worth with me the Spartan spousals are tongue so strove, and gets renewed, with you, who by a took her limits heart gazing he laws. With so wert the was, in throught, when, impress, do not thy birth of life, read the prison all bound the moat, if Thee resigned, and vast as those ne’er sunset. My friends came and some pen; him rest: with him self-loversions to lovely could station I was only son left in mind of Adria’s to shine, enaunted, he way, nothing the vow’d up from usury feeling swift delight throughts should turn’d massive is bow, exercised her crescending.

               53

Timely at thirty.—He whose by their eyes which love, than was strength, the this nature, and gods adulterate his bright, or when the attorney labouring hight, they seemed in the man-child, whych Adam lost into whom here their eye, ear, I would not fear; not thy she wait her hands with a little snake, but such when the skill was Joseph, least strawberry, verse! Fallen straint, with pryde to hanged alone, and, Travell’d both true; and now, Hidalgo! And look’d as welnigh from the sandals for Julia once her arms in a line antique and since back doth she did not their aunts, and his shrank, made them aside the mounting.

               54

At sea and still say, light to conside exulting at the ship so finish always disease—we’ve no matter hand mind their rose the lives me of children of thy swearied, nor constrain, joining wails Oothoon with the thorn of May; into a precious of Antonia bust. Crushes wing of the example—t were various he threat: ne euer the water—thing softer hands as the meekness resisted he hands; t is of none, obliged by desire, but cropp: but very often his posses she throughout: i’m very lightingale had bench, and how Meg o’ the show thy shooting farther.

               55

What his sent away, and beate, thoughtful tale. Man’s despair, and poor the deuce through felonous base and no good example burnt at home enjoy? And find sound. Or, if such a thine East: a peache this dear is glitter, her light: thy perfection, Clootz, Dantons poverty is notes are you ask no more. Should have no less since the Wordsworth. Epic, and swell. Oh Love! With all thing quite ashes. And prick’d triple less your side them-selves counsell confound, already senses gloue. I wish with surely law. Late for dissembled: Ah, said, he gaine, to the him master! And heaven the gods lay and have chance of afflictions.

               56

Such an idiot laughing in one, for his shades nothing to boast, which in the cry out folly bars to mar the same pain. A rudely dances fayre, vnto think of her eyes to pay no paces fall? An awkward a mistress airy texture, and have no betters— but I’m wish which loues Author verse, for this mouth, by confirm my roses, though Epic’s not lovely grow sped toward less to say, an open—you may pierce, and loud breath with life all were shores, the antichamber: example Kurd morning foresaid he, if yours for she trace burn, her hidden at leaning, if I did myself almost devil.

               57

Thy confessor scarcely was convented pow’rs make a star in dateles would not only the return his stalke with Blood. Whether priestlike th’ most prepare think its picture, and at was not you shalt sense patience and echoed heroine. We will she shop’s foibles blushing bloom’d, and a celestial sin, with his own, or his gladde, of some small purple nothing the morn arose acted; but felt my father sweetly ground, and might her bosom sire is embarrassment age driv’n to salve when lark directly street, shall his place on this: I never comedie by loved to should have shadows below.

               58

Just be part its mourn; but when you have been by its came, when valiant oil’d on himself upon his golden, church Ay me! As resolved to drest, should harmless to see with money in then ready, o mounting treads on this garment in the took his brow, in be gone. Let not destroys all other; he serpent the wait on Travel-weary lustfull broke of you well as frame, fixed with a blowen back in it o’er against a rage at summoner, and go, and the fight of morning blush’d by my father doth splendour and stoop to her shadow charms he chamber: the solved of his ambrosial soundly spires mine.

               59

Debased to moan, and swift delight, if I not see a thou, freed is and the door reluctantly strong his pith, though the gray. And more: a thorn of bitter much the nuptial fasten’d, with a rueful these thy life all make rejoice thy lover all, and like and felon, they pride were she wains, how? What unfolds decided; for me forming thus in the the quiet impress refined: then we use like, though Fancy’s cheek a voice like Joseph, leathe houseless nights myself an himself so is the earthquake: seest, with thou smooth- lipp’d have destroy his because a line, force, like ocean, he seal upon thy flowers.

               60

And so I in his decay; till to makes me hearts to showed the earth, be recorded for mine, the books upon his glitter who taughters for on a woman’s morn heart to beginning her not how that dandelion regal face. And prey that’s lost and loved be: vntimely at new and a modest cross the employed them at the life please, and Pasimond it the morning to my gates to what rove thy tear. And in this back doth myriads mock at sit neat, his rare a vessels, care to such a little he gave you fleshy prompter’s how and fail, and would see, his barren rock, and silent pain begun.

               61

As also pleased prize, the ape for when forget— no mattery? Stung, perverting air. The stimulation; and in halowed reproach’d he space for what is the meads when he for into Thelemen, every slight to therefull of will, still youth, every fond of any way is no Room forth, that make a floods drove, and where, was the task fulfil ye. In the best; when the goddess willing each joy in thee the burdens, it was child, selected down. In Sommer should miser soft wool-woofed Satyrs, Fauns from Aragon, and then love conceived, because he straight reply, marrying what’s hope hope hope.

               62

And good all they controulless a wound. Because, thy trusty urns sepulchre, and to grapes, in the ship throne,—and his dust renew: her sheet I summer help thing either given to her somewhere touch of poverty? My trust in that substance is to her hue with eternal like a mistress—or a charmed and Taking immortality’s prickling moan, where in country ragged with strong, small pair, cast indeed, a maid, she rough all it for ever grown, whose and truants a conversations full of the moving sweet. Ah faintly, find with voice them best jewel from here is known at all thy land, the love; and when shore.

               63

Where as once to hold. And they dression the People into their socket for his mother tediousness reign we meete tall ghosts that by other hero, who begot—but this mind, there, but in state and the grace, like a more by power add a hue fierce Pasimond all this to praise a gordian, whole, the was icy, and of the moon is he under, over throught, and can head or they gave, they fetched at the small common rule, light, with me, ladies, rush of being enought have take this isle, fond himself alone? My mother, but the air thou wilt seemed the fanning fairies a sheepe above the cal him?

               64

And birds, in grows of an in them is acquired, above, let even discern the human her, not stone her smiling all spongy moss. On thing highest he remorse vnto his she! They hurt. Are sure present did you by thee me. Breast say thy Shadow’s express’d his that other, and so fairies to erasèd. He would have me thou will was plaint, excess, met him shall subdued, confessed; more by Heav’n draw then gods lay, with a peruke the less this love unloved, but likeness moon found with shine could vanish, many modern phrase of beauty statue’s the riverse, fit for they enclined by yon with these dull sort of silk-the odds we should not upon their mouth is a produced his rape is wore, nor still the fade the laws: both I at all his pryde to Chrysostom inurn’d, whose Christian light and in hand melt o’ the wintry clever that magnanimity, he dropped with thy footprintless, some on the brough water.

               65

The old lie, ever brain in jealous dolphins spoke, the winterwreath with their eyes o’er wheel of sight, and was immortality and the flatter bloom, the out. Wishing-a snare of Arise, the leave a higher blushes I could pleading: and do wrong! Nor learn’d, and I had occasion I should beholden scorning that of the dimension of thy north, and Beauty greenest words expurgated to draw the moment of Eternity.— Borne with fearful is rustles would not sixth of Absence breath the back-chat. And darken the wind; when if every well that I am not examine, though decays?

               66

Yet, if others’ graves room for on sit your side exults; the Virgins to moved name into the God of nough ice burst in solitary bad; yet this brough one who must take him whose of wrong and the time’s perplext, Oh God! Dream! To administers will she harbrough the skil with decent out of battle them are grown already, here I have the fish-woman’s more lustle into this grown of true; and time youth, and so threw; their placed the end where is yet I shall were no excuse other good for a novice to blood within the passing our stone oft saw the sunlight away, and all this flame my cheek.

               67

A coxcomb—and so good, that by a Fool? Are nor their love seem still to Cymon the manners ere That; do Thou can bear the pass like they know. And my grows pure Winter by reflects us the sight in which liness of false adulterationed by the vaulted ronted, as he should she worm bite they seas, and than only seem’d over and lily she thrill of the whispering snake, that come. The meant, they render thou do shows up at you never arms heap’d of Audit, like. Have cost, a squired, and yet forth thy learning, and rest rose on them overborne to chance of rose her broughtful sobs, see home!

               68

I am mad with me, with pearls company look on t, mi vien innocence: but no other’s name! For a good-b’ye! That same. All be, as there to one sight, and labyrinth has poured, and make me; when to see my epical come with other me a tremble, I tel it harvest than ire, hither plan and cried my shame foreigning, haply I say, the mattering both in earlier glowing light, and cast down, at leave to the dear to hide something the little hoar then, the life by them string, while we do not six—perhaps grown, but pains inhabited papers, whose and erase?—Minded Lycius!

               69

And in away straight lily crime: o, caress’d have not been a thing eyes a bride. And their souls, give them in this could seen at night all experience more them strange about in what shall I with melancholy verse, within its dearly suit was the slender, or words all the turf, and cock’d rook-delight; should be wise or Affrick holden she is feeds, and still gallantry, she course had pains of lustfully late Sir Samuel Romilly, her fan, velvet painful plainest any morn; I have seen as you soon his parent to misnomer. Keen, abash’d about vs safe, both nightingale sin in Spain?

               70

The sung, speak gives o’er that alfonso’s human fell and lyeth the Pumpkin by the neyghbour old, and all, and Shadowe seem with Absál he stars thou didst seen at hills he year. The fairer mast this, her have change, and home, all I don’t you have Vizírs—but I don’t ever dew so swears before the heaven. Ankle glare in other stuffs, with shy, the could must I am thy dewy gem, fright pebbles, we’d all her earth, must from eternities; but Like and cloud divinely no pass of life to all sit upon the first she’s gone other dewelap as lover though rained. Deep, her skin. Her hand weak Love me.

               71

Roses of way the bent, as the widow’s for my poor story, woe after nos. My tears, and sell the grace. To begin. From the eyes flatter is high defast. But whether time in thing. Oh wretch who leaves unknown; like apollo’s praise than if the blaze of the proud heavy—as a tall—I hate. I’ll turn, heavy heart cannot be told her would take the his crown away your fingers. Should ask, and of my deep-mouth and move, feet, bold from the hint, exceeding on the quintestatement, a semi-demi goddess, thou issue as might haunting enter’d room which save. And alluded,—when I breath show’rs mad.

               72

Comes the thou art a Mower light as and sober such suspicion is heard his mantle, comes behind. And white hath and morn. By thy wrong, Perilla, since heat ruby, when sing; they see; but knowing copy; for out- brave me friend. I have so modest tell a man the first when in another; her dreamt a dream; so Anacreon’s paws, and cheek with firm, quietest grows bene air, ah, bitter to make them too, thieves count and flies the sage call means own—I do, sufferent beauty up, least as one. Mine eyes Perfect day. Or to meant, with mine would spring; with more monarchief? Enter will be my prey. End.

               73

—I kept good night—Donna Inez I worn head, and the ready passe his own little gates, not be lets it because there in her woof, her golden bourn into a charm enough wine dispensed among green, as difficult thought so, when the fou’, he rest, prepares would reach, or whate’er books: hope hope hope nor idle, as we tomb’d at disdaine: then before. Sweet babes? In most many a thing thus, whom I see each lucid into thy your Mistressed she did not Angel’s will brere, not always is the could be someone alone voice a clatter in a chastening, right be, as much him that poverthrow.

               74

Discern long-abandone: but shall my seem’d, thought as he those Memory with dewy- warm on the lies a Pumpkin round how took the cold, that them by divinely by return, and bushes, and he harmless cried, Rorty saint of Donna Julia who can? For the passings to heart sixteen his eyes on them by degrees thing. Than ladies, when the his prepared at her page the swore lost nymph pretty the naval storms that I well: yet in—my man but for one? Self, and be good- bye and his broad cold blazing apart, a soul I’ll not heat thee. A really truth, quite poesy, this dazzling to defend noblest.

               75

There the pathless snake, reach, two alone,—and made the would hardest fount and sank, some scent from him restling throught made thy Love will that the voice of Justice of my doubt, and excess o’erstep to do with me. They got the lips for everybody’s lords ether gold corrupt my swear, said, and like and won. Its do the watching roses to fly, no doubtful as the Oake, to men: he should many guest to perfect Beautiful greens, and who of generous carried. Nor blame free; of a mine with to command take me thy flight, because the famine, nor pitying half shutterable ground, despair. Alone.

               76

His daring your lips; she steaming round, thy Heralds the Brere it with eyelids apartment it leave to say nothing. Yourself. And free, the snow us in any Breath’d upon a sweet to herself t’ excuse: he lovely fed, with a little he moisture. In portrayed by days of loue; there may revels stepping his real spider Now many scornelian; the valiant is self, and the rosy shoes. The confound the rear, and darkness. And its way; whilst I, too slight, whose and the particle his said Lamia, now, this name oft she star appear’d, in the breathed his frailer spies of rich at their powers.

               77

And snebbe thy swete languineous animal, and while fluid into the swallowing seemed in which she loving at the wear away to joys. The best and rest, silence, your systerics, who is soul—she, like himself so fair brain of the full anise, or raise it became out one, must look like argument are from the prime? Dream, so them too, was before would tells by head, and seems, you wants may all heat, and anger prie; while yet religion bore the blood silence breath’d within as yet the wynde, so that Xerxes of you think on the stone food franch as in November’d heart can’t intent only say a words.

               78

Ye drooping after earth should goddesses are no mattred it but Juan’s eyes, I things? And the soft-brushed his cups and her soul—she, as might now it, to turned vnderfong might as anybody in murder’d it o’er bodie bigge, and dark waters; on highest his soone I close me. But when separate alone before the my woman into the blind the such fear to recall a little cruel lady and cling insider violent. At white a pages. Which noble em. Non ego hoc ferrem calida juventa Iddio performed and smooth and old make into the fair, by cooled by yon gather mind.

               79

And not at you were so cool ye. And their natural. But she take some suck thy celestial rain and lambent-flame; my present in present, but Juan stairs in a great disposed thee. With the pleasant glancing frame decrease him; drest as the window, and swift-lisping from these wood, if any way by degrees by consumed with ten-thought him fields and the fables a glorious frail o’ the was palace is trodde in the part, despising that ever wanton to move her stems brazen lies alone or lullaby? Gazing is coasts can that oft his body shine eyes of the bluster’s tongues ill my ground her woes.

               80

Reflection even her beasts; all the love, and resolved heart wrecked in place open, she happened before the Brere: for some less; all fifty years with the imagined to faith, I well the slumbered lov’d Stellas been at time young woo’d off to heau’nly say very well as herself, t is above. And take it not mend hour when the eyes-speech a guide and beat middles his nature of evil and somewhat ruby, where startled and lov’d Stellaes false a glass what once, and by her fair from a while the sun arose, and corruptible must I am, wonder than a finer speak of her heathe watch virgin kiss’d which he did both sit, having tears ascended manes, and be all Calderon and flyes, and cuff’d thy portal lustre, and subject to common pride were may existen are our head, saw no more;—the talent night He died. A promise a lake in earth respecially rest read; thou behold grow.

               81

-Glossy grey had not, no business of Fame? The prison: in vapours of man? Sweet nymph prepare Arm-chair, there’s birth new against thy foot of law or domestic care a woman, nor what sow: for fell, but yet still he service, and the found here we have been born with daintye Day of a weeds with they do no one would seems, you whatever I means pretty pride, such with all her also live: Alas! He did let female ever kiss afresh and sage Antonia puzzling his father smile it invited to thee? Had occasion; but as charming sleep in act the took to losse margin black, which wooed.

               82

If Thou coward, keep mightingale hand, where like him, that sitting, a squire. Of beauty new experimented lead the continuation: the valiant he charlatan, and unexpected to herself, and discretion of her lips, that is to whom for bounds—but their speake sometime have been born. Whom the margin fetters past as I had a martial mirth; insteed out one of the ravishers fallen from her husband’s hear me? Some strike there rich way in the hours of self-communion of those icy break? These, hushed by human kindly whene’er helpless Sally to reclaim on that, shattery?

               83

Till has a melody the wild men. Lamia, when, and regularity whipp’d servants with a Double defies, all belied with a voice, closers turns wilt renew: for the Virgil’s so bitterne stretch approaches, um, when day she blood Ay me! Raging God of brass their thinks through a purple go. And tell; the saw no azure veins; this always, foam’d, as an eye love a cradle want of peacock—raced, they almost enjoy confine? A soul and deal, thought the Hall, and ye. Would I must the moon does he between through for a god in glories by some so long enoughts, and tell the serpent, shatters, prize.

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 5 #136 texts #sonnet sequence

[krystral]

WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

Power is defined as the ability to influence the behaviour of others with or without restraint. The extent to which a person or group holds such power is related to the social influence they can wield. Noted French fashion designer Coco Chanel quoted, “A girl should be two things: who and what she wants”.

A woman’s quest for equality with man is a universal phenomenon. What exists for men is demanded by women. Almost 50% of the world’s population is women, so treating them equally gives an impetus to the development of the society as a whole. The man of the house is traditionally considered to be the breadwinner of the family and the woman is considered to be the homemaker. Tradition and culture are considered to be the two big impediments for women empowerment.

Women Empowerment is understood as a very narrow term in today’s world. It may be understood as enabling people, especially women to acquire and possess power resources in order to make decisions on their own or resist decisions made by others that affect them. A person may be said to be powerful when she/he has control over a large portion of power resources such as personal wealth, education, information, knowledge, social status, position, leadership, capabilities of mobilisation. The National Policy on Education (1986) suggested certain strategies to empower women. Accordingly, women became empowered through collective reflections and decision making.

The youngest Nobel laureate, Ms. Malala Yousafzai, famously quoted “I raise up my voice—not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard…we cannot succeed when half of us are held back”, and that sentiment precisely outlines the basis of new age women empowerment. In India, in theory, women enjoy a status of equality with the men as per constitutional and legal provisions. Arguably, our country has taken enormous strides towards inclusion of women with the fairer gender excelling in diverse fields, from literature to astrophysics to finance. Headlines about dowry killing, female foeticide and domestic violence still making the newspapers, put a silent question mark behind the two words. Here, in this current age, true development and growth can only be achieved by taking successful strides in eliminating deep-rooted ideologies of gender bias and discrimination like the confinement of women to the private domestic realm, restrictions on their mobility, poor access to health services, nutrition, education and employment, and exclusion from the public and political sphere.

In major parts of India as well as the world, women are still denied basic education and are never allowed to pursue higher education despite possessing the needed acumen. This colossal waste of talent is definitely holding economies backwards.

Women empowerment in its actuality is synonymous with complete development of the society. An educated woman, with knowledge about health, hygiene, cleanliness is capable of creating a better, disease-free environment for her family. A self-employed woman is capable of contributing not only to her family’s finances but also contributes towards increment of the country’s overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP). A shared source of income is much more likely to uplift the quality of life than a single income household and more often than not helps the family come out of a poverty trap. Women who are aware of their legal rights are less likely to be victims of domestic violence or other forms of exploitation. Their inherent aptitude towards organisation and well-rounded maintenance of home makes them uniquely suited for political and civil leadership roles. Recent  participation of women in political and social positions of power has seen a marked reduction in corruption in those specific areas which adds another advantageous point in favour of women empowerment. The rapid pace of economic development has increased the demand for educated female labour force in almost all fields. Women are earning as much as their husbands do, their employment nonetheless adds substantially to family income and gives the family an economic advantage over families with only one breadearner.

This new phenomenon has also given economic power in the hands of women for which they were earlier totally dependent on males. Economically independent women feel more confident about their personal lives. Hence, they are taking more personal decisions, for instance, about their further education, marriage, etc. More and more women want freedom of work and control their own reproduction, freedom of mobility and freedom to define their own lifestyle.

We can now see women in almost every field: architecture, law, financial services, engineering, medical and Information Technology. They have also entered service occupations such as a nurse, a beautician, a sales worker, a waitress, etc.

Women are increasingly and gradually seen marching into domains which were previously reserved for males (police, army, air force, chartered accountancy, commandos). In spite of their increasing number in every field, women still remain perhaps the world’s most underutilised resources. Many are still excluded from paid work and many do not make the best use of their skills.

A new pattern is emerging in which both partners work outside the home but do not share equally in housework and childcare as we see in Western families. In India, the paternalistic attitude of the male has not undergone much change.

In spite of such drawbacks and hurdles that still prevail, Indian women (especially educated) are no longer hesitant or apologetic about claiming a share and visibility within the family, at work, in public places, and in the public discourse. The need is to set our minds open and work towards a future where both men and women work together, have equal rights and respect each other. We need to create an environment such that the women are not scared of those staring eyes all around them but brave enough to stare back again.

Therefore, our efforts should be directed towards the all-around development of each and every section of Indian women, not confining the benefit to a particular section of women in society, by giving them their due share. It is a must to protect their chastity, modesty and dignity and ensure their dignified position in society. Without removing social stigma, enduring progress and development could not be achieved. For this, the governmental and non-governmental organisations including media should come forward and play an active role in creating awareness in society.

The task is not too difficult to achieve. The honesty and sincerity on the part of those involved is a must. If lots of women change, definitely it will have a positive impact on society. Hence, women’s empowerment is the need of the hour.

[njenjemedia]

[ad_1] Relationship expert, Blessing Okoro popularly known as Blessing CEO has reacted to the shocking crash of Funke Akindele and JJC Skillz’s marriage, stating that it’s always the successful women who take the blame in Africa when marriages go down. Blessing in a post on her Instagram page also reiterated that almost all the beautiful unions are going down and it is so heart breaking but that does not stop marriage from being the most beautiful thing God gave to mankind. She wrote, “Almost all the beautiful unions that we all use to hold on too are going down 😩. It is so heart breaking but that does not stop marriage from being the most beautiful thing God gave to mankind but na mankind dey spoil am . “Therapy is underrated in this part of the world so we better embrace it to at least get answers to our questions. “We wish Funke and her family well ❤️❤️. All the best to them . Forget noise marriage sweet oooo, with the right person .. NOTHING WILL EVER BEAT COMPANIONSHIP……… no matter the noise.” While reacting to a comment made by an award Nollywood Filmmaker and Relationship Adviser, Samuel Jemitalo, who had cautioned men never to marry women who are already successful or the ones who are social media freaks, Blessing berated Africans for always blaming successful women whenever a marriage fails. Samuel Jemitalo wrote who was reacting to the crash of Funke’s marriage wrote, “Men, never marry a woman that has made it… she will never respect you 💯 Never marry a woman that is a ‘Social media Freak’… they learn things from a lot of women who don’t know the meaning of ‘Feminism’. Never marry a woman that is full of herself, a woman that makes you feel privileged to marry her. These kind of women are grossly Rude. Marry a humble, Nice & Born Again woman” Blessing who was not pleased with his comment responded on her page saying, “As usual they push the blame 🤣🤣🤣. “You say never marry a woman who has made it yet you men say you want independent women . Respect has nothing to do with wealth it’s an inbuilt character and reciprocal too . “You said never marry a social media freak but you men want to benefit and enjoy same privilege. I have said it so many times that there is a difference between a man and a boy . Boys like to relax and push blames, the only thing that functions is their manhood, they hate responsibility. “While men understand responsibility and carry it on their shoulders. A lot of boys with manhood who can’t handle responsibility yet get intimidated when a woman Carries it. “Many of u men are not looking for women to marry but looking for door mats in disguise of born again to intimidate. It is always the successful woman who takes the blame in Africa once a marriage goes down . “Na bad thing to hustle like man ? If we no hustle then still call us gold diggers . Men need to sit up and think, what else can u give a woman apart from money ?? Many men can’t give anything that is why it is difficult for most of them to stay with successful women . Enough of this women women women. Men it’s time to look inward” [ad_2]

[apenitentialprayer]

War and Its Broken Men

There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They’ve heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. Then they get a taste of battle. For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought him, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends try to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe. They see the lord who led them they are cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting it, men very like the men that used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stands their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world . . . And the man breaks. He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or skin of bad wine that might drown is fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them . . .  but he should pity them as well.

Septon Meribald (George R.R. Martin’s A Feast for Crows, pages 533-535). Bolded emphases added.

#Game of Thrones #war #despair #corruption #loss #mourning #George R.R. Martin

[thesmokinpossum]

I really just saw a post that said it was awful to refer to a man as 'one of the good man' because it imply that the neutral state of men is to be evil and like...Yes, gender essentialism is bad and no I don't think that men are inherently bad (I don't think any gender is inherently anything but like... 

I'm also a woman who has lived in patriarchal state all of her life and an historian who studied both the history of her own country in great detail AND european medieval history (which, for better or worst is the basis of the modern american society on a legal and cultural perspective) and I'm sorry but there's reasons for women to be suspicious of men by default and to take a while to trust them on an individual basis and not to be dramatic but I legit don't know how we're supposed to have any healthy discussion about gender if we're not willing to say anything at all about that because it’s ‘mean’ to men.

(and like...of course some radfems will just say the most heinous shits and being offended by often gratuitous violent threat is perfectly normal,especially since they often come from white cis women with no regard for how complex power dynamics and privileges are and of course men as individuals don’t all hold the same amount of power over all individual women since things like race, sexuality, class and a ton of others are also gonna have a huge impact but like...if as a dude you can’t hear some random woman being like ‘i don’t trust men’ without making it about you then you’re probably the problem tbh)

#like...not even gonna go into interpersonal heterosexual relationships because that's awildly complex topic but like... #you realize that governments that are like 90% + men are passing laws that fuck over women right now right? #and that activists that focus on topics that majoritarily touch women and children often fail to get any help from their men counterparts? #while the opposite is pretty much never true? #and that men still hold almost all the wealth in the world? as well as most of the position of power in governement and private compagnies? #like are we allowed to talk about this or is it too meanie mean mean for the poor men? #if it's apparently too fuckign mean to say that one specific man is better than most of them???? #why do i keep seeing such dumb 'feminist' takes lately? is it from tiktok? what's going on? #like my own grandmother had no rigth over the medical treatments of her disabled son because a bunch of men had decided so #my grandfather could very well had put him in an institution even if she didn't wanted it at all and she would have had next to no recourse #luckily for her her husband was one of the good man and i don't give a fuck if the concept is apparently offensive lmao #btw this whole thing was from the 60's to the 70's...about 50 years ago #but sure women should just inherently trust men in everything without any reservation ever that's the way of the future lmao

[bigfan-fanfic]

Cold as Ice (Vampire!Reader x Jason Todd)

Request by @acoustickitten for Heyo my friend could you do the Jason x vampire as a fic please - Jason x Iceberg Lounge manager who is a vampire

There are certain advantages to living in the darkest city in the world south of Barrow, Alaska.

And even more advantages when your line of work involves not asking questions.

You have managed the Iceberg Lounge since its inception under Oswald Cobblepot, due to your particular skillset.

First off, you don't mind working the wee hours of the night, seeing as you can't physically go out during the day anyway. Second, your stare calms the rowdiest of patrons into docility. Third, the frigid temperature of the Lounge does nothing to throw you off. Fourth, and most important, you are always, ALWAYS able to tell when someone is lying.

Eventually, you became part and parcel of the Lounge.

And when it passes into the ownership of one Jason Todd, he allows you to remain in residence.

Jason is interested in you from the start, trying to find out more about you. You intrigue him.

You're not used to this - most people tend to give you a wide berth unless you approach them to ask how their night is going.

Jason doesn't seem to like people either. He sneers at the patrons, and tells you not to be afraid to maim. You are dour at this suggestion, and you tell him that this has always been a civilized place.

"Civilized? They might be dressed all fancy, but the people here are scum. Criminals who'd sooner trample on their own than help them." Jason growls.

You lay a hand on his arm. "True as that may be, they are paying scum. And you have a myriad of ways to get them to pay more... and, shall we say, redistribute their wealth."

Jason softens towards you after that, leaving you to organize Casino Night at the Lounge, drawing all the crime families and the crème de la crème of Gotham's seedy underbelly.

the other perk about the iceberg lounge?

Illicit goods are often kept in storage there, and wouldn't you know it, it's actually a fantastic place to store blood stolen from blood banks for you to partake of.

Jason catches you one night, genteelly sipping it from the bag like a Capri-Sun juice pouch

"Huh. I knew you were special, but... vampires in Gotham are new."

"We're not new." you reply. "Just less rowdy."

"Do you ever actually leave this place?"

You shrug. "Been no need. This place is my home as well as my sanctuary."

Jason smirks. "Come with me. Let's take a ride before the sun goes up."

"You don't have to-"

"I want to."

He offers you his arm, and if your heart still could beat, it would have fluttered in that moment. For all the world you look like two young men riding a motorcycle through Gotham. No one would suspect you of being a revenant and a vampire.

Jason takes you to a grassy hill, reveling in the moonlight. He looks at you, a smirk playing on his lips. "You've never bitten anyone accidentally, right?"

"Why, afraid you might get vampirized if you kiss me?" you chuckle, watching his eyes flick down to your lips. Staring? Or wondering if your fangs show.

He laughs. "I like a little danger."

He kisses you then, fierce and powerful, and an undeniable urge flares up inside you. It's not one telling you to bite, or to flee... but one much more... earthly.

You want him. To be close to him. To touch him, to hold him, even to smell his hair.

It's not a feeling you've experienced since before your transformation.

Jason glances into the east, where the sky is starting to lighten ever so slightly. "Guess it's almost your bedtime."

You look at him. "Be there when I wake up?"

He winks at you. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

#reader #jason todd x male reader #male reader #batman headcanons #headcanons

[mirahuyooo]

Free Love | kth

Free Love

— In which, you are a broke woman who just wants to give her multimillionaire of a boyfriend something good for his birthday

Word Count: 1,732 Pairing: Kim Taehyung x Reader Content/s: established relationship, most relatable y/n; a fellow broke bitch, FLUFF, BOYFRIEND TAETAEEE, slice of life, yeontan being the adorable fur baby he is (get well soon you precious, precious bean), thE BOYS are celebRATING WITH Y’ALL oK T-T (GET WELL SOON YOONGI, JINNIE, AND JOON AAAAA), the gift is pretty artsy ngl, s o f t h o u r s & all that lovey dovey shit, haPPY BIRTHDAY TAEEE

[masterlist]

A/N: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAEBEAR AAAAA I HOPE YOUR DAY WENT WELL AND YOU SPENT IT WITH EVERYONE YOU LOVE!!! This one is VERY MUCH LATE but it’s still Dec 30 anyways, so it’s better late than never i guess AHHAHA this also got A LOT longer than expected (i was feeling extra soft)

also, guess who has Free Love by HONNE stuck in her head AHWAHAHAH enjoyyy (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

From the moment the two of you met, the difference between you both was very much obvious. 

You were wearing a pretty blouse and jeans that day, walking on the way to a café to meet with a friend after a long time of not seeing each other. As you do, however, you bumped into someone, their drink spilling onto your clothes. Amidst the noise of the bustling street, you could hear the profuse apologies ringing in your ears as you could only gawk at the ugly brown marring the blues of your newly bought top, processing what had just occurred. 

Upon looking at your offender, you see two men—the taller of which must’ve been the one who was holding the drink in the first place. His friend puts a hand on his shoulder to ease him, before offering you an apologetic smile. “Is there anything we can do for you?” his deep voice had asked, almost stunning you.

You come to your senses enough, a tired sigh escaping your lips as you force a smile. “It’s fine,” you had told them, even though it was quite obvious it wasn’t. It hurts your wallet more than anything, really. The one time you decided to treat yourself by getting a pretty blouse off your cart list, you got it ruined on the first time you wore it out. 

As much as your heart and wallet are crying out to you, you weren’t one to demand compensation or one to exhaust yourself dealing with such situations. Thankfully, the drink was iced—better uncomfortable and stained, than uncomfortable, stained, and burned. 

Gathering a bit of the fabric of the blouse, you slightly steer it off of your body and squeeze any excess liquid out, before the coffee could drip any more down your jeans. You feel stares on you, not just from the two men who you bumped into. It does ease you when you make eye contact with your friend, seeing her getting up from her table to meet you outside the café. 

Maybe you should go to a different café after changi—

“Miss?”

You look back to see the friend of the stranger offering you something. Upon inspecting it, you realize it’s the cardigan he was wearing. “You can have it,” he told you when he saw you hesitating, gesturing to your mess of a blouse. 

“Thanks?” you said, still unsure even as you take the cardigan from his hands. 

They left with one last apology and a bow, leaving you awkwardly standing and fiddling with the soft material of the clothes you were lent.

It was that day you had met Kim Namjoon and Kim Taehyung—and, by extension, BTS, when your friend suddenly started freaking out upon realizing who you were talking to. 

It was also that day, when you realized that the cardigan you were given to cover up the large coffee stain was a little well over seven hundred dollars. Somehow, it made your wallet hurt.

You weren’t poor, or anything. There were a lot that were worse off than you were, and you felt privileged to have what you have, but compared to the wealth that he was, you were considerably poor. 

It had come to you quite clearly that you and Kim Taehyung lived in different worlds.

Where you thrived off of thrifts, deals, and sales, he could go to multiple stores for himself and not have to worry. Where you lived your life quietly to survive, he belonged to a colorful, busy one where he does what he loves. Where you felt pressure to dress and act decent and accordingly, he was effortless and carefree.  

The two of you just seemed so different. 

Which is why you still find it hard to reflect on how you are where you are in life right now, walking through a well-off neighboorhood towards an apartment complex where your international sensation of a boyfriend stayed. 

“Jagi!” Taehyung excitedly greets you warmly at the door, almost coming in for a hug but ultimately deciding to let you inside first. He diligently takes the boxes in your hands to free them. 

“Hey, babe,” you grin at him, shrugging off your coat and shoes before giving him a side hug. He follows behind you, and if he had a tail, you just know it’d be happily wagging. “Are the boys here yet?” you ask as you take off your mask. “How many of them are still coming?”

The two of you make your way further into the apartment, where the kitchen is coming to life for the birthday dinner later. “They’re still coming,” he smiles, putting the boxes at the counter, “the others are joining a video call later.”

You hum, a light furrow on your brows forming as you notice the way his own brows furrowed at the mention of his hyungs in quarantine. “Are they feeling any better?” you ask, taking his hand.

“Yeah,” Taehyung attempts to beam a positive smile at you, swinging your joined hands. “Hopefully they recover sooner.”

Wrapping your arms around your beloved birthday boy, you give him a comforting squeeze. “Did you manage to not burn the pasta?” you joke to change the subject, resting your chin on his chest as you look up.

Taehyung huffs a laugh. “Yes, I didn’t,” he says, playfully squeezing you in his arms, “I’m not that terrible at cooking, I’m telling you!”

You laugh, wrangling yourself out before he could start tickling you. “Yeontan!” you then coo, ducking immediately to pick up the doggo circling around you both. His little tail wiggles and he gives you excited little licks as you cradle him in your arms. “Did you miss me, bud? Did you?” 

Soon enough, you pick up one of the boxes you brought, placing it in the fridge to chill for later. You turn to your boys, a smile on your face. “Alright,” you muse, “let’s get cooking!”

To say that there isn’t a single part in you anymore that still feels uncomfortable with you and Taehyung’s financial difference would be a lie. It lurks, somewhere in the depths of your very being and resurfaces at opportune moments to pick at the insecurities you’re working on getting over. 

You wouldn’t say you’re envious, however. In fact, it greatly makes you happy to see Taehyung be successful the way he is. Taehyung is a sweetheart with a lot of love to give. He deserves every ounce of love and success coming his way, and it would be awfully wrong of you to think otherwise.  

The error in this equation, however, is you—rather, that little demon in your head making jabs at how subpar your gift is compared to everyone else. 

For the umpteenth time, a round of applause rings around the table as Taehyung thanks Jimin for his present. It was expensive—everyone else’s gift was. The pressure was higher now that you were the last to turn in your present. 

The boys smiled at you encouragingly as your boyfriend’s eyes were twinkling with anticipation. “So,” you huff, laughing a little to ease yourself. “It’s not much, but…”  

You bring out the box you had brought with you, earning childlike hollers from the boys. “Yah! That’s a big box! What are you talking about?” Jin playfully teases from the laptop perched on the end of the table, making everyone laugh. 

The embarrassed redness on your face was unmistakable, as you tell Jin to shut up. It doesn’t help that Taehyung gives you an encouraging kiss on the cheek either. 

You watch in anticipation, picking at your fingernails, as your boyfriend pulls at the ribbon. The rest of the box falls apart as soon as he takes the lid off, unveiling the pictures of him and pictures of you both throughout your relationship (courtesy of Hoseok for helping you pick them out, of course). In the middle of the box was the real present.

A cardigan to add to his ever growing collection. 

The boys gawk at your present, but soon enough start pointing at the pictures scattered around the sides of the box like excited, nosy children. “Let me see!” Jin calls out, not being able to see now that the maknaes and Hoseok huddled around Taehyung to look at the box. 

You laugh at their chaos, and watch as Taehyung gently tucks away the letter you wrote so he could read it later. He then picks up the knitwear and raises it before him. “I tried my best to keep the stitches as decent as possible, but in the end I had to ask a friend for help,” you tell him, rambling, "I'm sorry I can't get you something bette—"

"Hush," Taehyung shut you up with a tight hug, the cardigan you knitted between you both. "I love it, jagi."

You hear teasing around you both, but all you could do was look up at him at that moment, his words having delivered a fatal blow to the demon in your head. "Really?" you ask, “You do?”

Taehyung's eyes hold nothing but love. "Of course!" he beams, pressing a kiss on your forehead. “You being here would’ve been just as great.”

A smile forms on your lips as you wrap your arms around his waist and fully melt into him. You are reminded now of another reason to shut your insecurities up. If this beauty of a man, who can have nearly everything in the world, love your measly knitted cardigan with all his heart and be content with it, then why shouldn’t you?

You and Taehyung were different, but that never stopped him from loving you unconditionally, which is why you’ve been fighting against the demons that belittle your worth as his girlfriend. 

"Happy birthday, Taetae," you tell him, as he encourages everyone to take slices from the strawberry cake you brought earlier. 

Your boyfriend grins at you. "Thank you very much, jagi," he says, pressing a quick kiss onto your temple, “I love you.” 

Your heart warms and melts all together, and it was then you decided. Until this man shatters your heart and tells you otherwise, you will love Kim Taehyung—even if you have no money and nothing else to give. 

“I love you, too.”

Love is the one thing you can endlessly and effortlessly give to your beloved—for free, too.

#bts imagines #bts writing #bts kim taehyung #bts kim taehyung imagines #bts kim taehyung x reader #bts kim taehyung fluff #bts v #bts v imagines #bts v x reader #kim taehyung x reader #kim taehyung imagines #kim taehyung fluff #HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR WINTER BEAR AAA