Toxic Holocaust - Feedback, Blood And Distortion

hey, i’m dominik (alt: dominic). over twenty, with pronouns he/him (they/them work as well). i write/read dark fantasy, gothic fiction, and classics, but i make exceptions every now and then. i love world-building and mythology. kind of a vampire fan and the aesthetic surrounding it. an all-consuming greed for power is sort of a thing in most (if not all) of my works. i also primarily focus on the villains, anti-heroes and corrupt characters alike. oh, and i make templates for the muse.

N A V I G A T I O N

[ ask ] .  [ creations ] . [ gdoc templates ] . [ notion templates ] 

P R O J E C T S

[ hunted by ] . [ terror in the mind of a priest ] . [ darling, dearest, dead. ] . [ color of greed ] . [ sick thoughts ]

A E S T H E T I C S

. to descend into chaos is a choice many are deprived of - the pit . the dominik and katja vampire book club  . love, shaped like two hands wrapped around a throat, like an empty stomach - love as hunger . love like having your throat cut - violent love  . i don’t want comfort; i want danger, freedom, sin; i want to be hungry - hunger . beauty is terror, beauty is something inhuman - beauty . eat what makes us holy; eat the god who didn’t save us - religion . do you know what it means to be loved by death - vampires, blood . villain status - taglines  . daily kafka - some kafka . a place to suffer formally

more project details under cut.

hunted by - (dark) folkloric fantasy, dark romance

Sworn to the Northern Kingdom as their leading huntsman, Kalypso was trained by one principle: thou shalt not trust Versipellis - cursed shapeshifters who turn into macabre versions of themselves at moon’s peak. His path was never meant to cross with the wicked leader of such, but a web of dark, forbidden romance and vengeance ensnares him in a cunning twist of fate.

[ introduction ] . [ tag ] 

themes .  cursed shapeshifters / eternal winter / kingdoms / werebeasts vs. hunters / witchcraft / god is a woman and there are multiple / folkloric creatures / royalty / rivalry and vengeance / becoming god

terror in the mind of a priest -  gothic fiction/romance, horror, paranormal and dark fantasy, mystery.

The epistolary story follows an expert doctor who works alongside the police to make autopsy reports for all sorts of complicated deaths. His assistance is asked in a place far from home to investigate an unexplainable chain of murders. These occurrences are unlike any he has seen before, suggesting  the existence of unfathomable creatures. Sceptic at first, he is eventually thrusted into the world of otherworldly research, meeting the Father of the Local Church along the way.

But something about the priest isn’t right. And while the priest offers his help, the doctor seizes the opportunity to study his suspect up close.

[ introduction ] . [ tag ]

themes .  demons exist / power and corruption / facing darkness disguised as beauty / dancing with the devil / seduced by the villain / story expressed through protagonist’s pieces of writing / doctor as detective / studying the monster

darling, dearest, dead. -  (contemporary) fantasy, new adult, (dark academia)

A leading figure to the university’s secret society , Laurent was always known to be brilliant to the point of cunning. He is arrogant, sharp, unwavering, with poisonous charisma and genius hiding behind madness in pursuit of something others deem impossible: immortality. All he ever lacked was a push — that was, until after he met Will, a biology student with a matching sharpness and undeniable chemistry. In their constant wars of will and philosophical sparring, a desired push comes to an inevitable shove and theory turns into the experimental. But when one accident leads to a chain of murders, ambition becomes obsession, intrigue turns into jealousy, and power results in betrayal. Will and Laurent are left standing on ashes of what used to be friendship, each with a narcissistic desire of their own - now as archnemeses.

[ introduction ] . [ tag ]

themes .  life, death, carpe diem /  hedonism / immortality / entertaining the what-ifs / in the name of science, art, and philosophy / the constitution of good versus evil / modern tragedy

color of greed - science fiction, romance/erotica (nano 2021)

(wip shelved.) In a society where the filthy rich live in the skies and everyone else below, an heiress to one of five noble families is offered a captive as a gift - one with a deadly and, fortunately rare, affinity for mind control. He is one of last and his genetic skill must be kept a secret while the heiress seeks to rob her brothers of their father's throne, all for the hungry desire to rule an inhospitable, divided world. [ introduction ] . [ tag ] themes .  power, religion, and politics / inheritance and nepotism / familial competition for the throne / mind control / master and captive dynamic (except the master is an heiress and the captive is deadly) / power play

sick thoughts -  new adult, horror fiction, gothic romance, paranormal fantasy

(wip shelved.)

[ introduction ] . [ tag ]

themes .  vampires / not-so-ordinary university life / town full of secrets / bromance despite family-rivalry / new murders / former shy one becomes the new hot / decadent aristocratic family / the grotesque, the dark / power and greed    

O T H E R

(send an ask or comment to be +/- to the general taglist.)

🦇 . i’d love to be added to taglists of active wips, so if you have anything that falls under dark fantasy, send an ask and i’ll check it out. 

Megalist of Tropes and Themes to Tag Your Story With

If you’re prone to staring at your tags on AO3 wondering “what the hell do I put here?”, knowing you want to add a tag like “friends to lovers” or “found family” but not remembering all the popular tropes and themes everyone is into, this is for you. I basically spent an entire night on this so I hope it helps.

Notes:

I tried to keep it general and avoid really obscure tags no one would ever use.

This is made for AO3 and thus there’s a lot of fandom or fannish stuff in here. 

I didn’t include any “inappropriate” tags. Feel free to make your own list.

Romance tropes and themes at the bottom. (Not all of them have to be romantic, but if they’re generally associated with romance and there are very few gen fics with that tag, it went there.)

Under cut because I’m probably going to edit this often and I’d like reblogs to be up to date. Please suggest any ideas you have.

Genre: Action, Adventure, Apocalypse/Post-Apocalypse, Contemporary, Comedy/Humor/Parody/Satire, Coming of Age, Crime, Cyberpunk/Steampunk, Drama, Dystopian/Utopia, Fairy Tale, Fantasy/High Fantasy/Low Fantasy/Urban Fantasy/Isekai, Family, Friendship, Gothic, Historical Fiction/Alternate History/Period Piece, Horror/Slasher, Mystery/Murder Mystery, Paranormal, Philosophical, Poetry, Romance, Slice of Life, Supernatural, Surreal, Suspense, Sci-Fi/Science Fiction/Space Opera, Spiritual, Thriller/Psychological Thriller, Tragedy, Urban, Western

Genre (Fandom): Angst/Light Angst, Case Fic, Crack Fic, Crossover/Fusion, Dark Fic, Fix Fic/Fix-It/Deconstruction, Fluff/Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, Podfic, Missing Scene/Gap Filler, Self-Insert, Shipping, Sickfic, Songfic, Whump

Length: Drabble, Ficlet, Flash Fiction, Short Story, Novella, Novel, Epic, One-Shot/Two-Shot/etc, Series/Duology/Trilogy/Saga/etc, Long, Short

Pairing: M/F - F/M - M/M - F/F - F/F/M - You get the idea. Also [Character] x [Character], Slash, Yaoi/Yuri (if people still use those...)

POV: POV Alternating, POV Multiple, POV First Person, POV Second Person, POV Third Person, POV Outsider

Ending: Happy Ending, Sad Ending, Bittersweet Ending, Ambiguous Ending

Diverse Characters: Gay Character/Nonbinary Character/Asian Character/Disabled Character/Autistic Character/Jewish Character/etc.

AU/Alternate Universe: (I do not have the time to list out Coffee Shop AU/High School AU/Canon Divergence/What-If/etc, I assume if you’re writing one then you already know to tag it lol)

Abuse

Adoption

Afterlife

Aftermath

Aged Up

Alcohol

Aliens

Amnesia

Androids

Angels

Animal Transformation

Anti-Hero

Awkwardness

Babysitting

Backstory/Origin Story

Band of Misfits

Best Friends

Betrayal

Blood

Bodyswap

Bodyguard

Bonding

Bounty Hunters

Bromance

Bullying

Canon Compliant

Character Development

Character Study

Childhood Friends

Children

Chosen One

College/University/Higher Education

Corruption

Criminals

Crying

Curses

Cute

Death

Delinquents

Demons

Depression

Destiny/Fate

Disability

Domestic/Curtainfic

Dragons

Dreams/Dreamscape

Drugs

Education

Ensemble Cast

Epilogue

Fanon/Headcanon

Father Figure/Mother Figure

Feelings

Feels

Fights

Flashbacks

Forgiveness

Found Family

Freedom Fighters

Frenemies

Future

Genderswap/Gender Change

Ghosts

Gods

Good Versus Evil

Gore

Grief/Mourning

Growing Up

Healing

Heartwarming

Heroes to Villains/Villains to Heroes

Holidays

Homesickness

Hospital

Hurt

I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping (A very legitimate tag.)

Imprisonment

Injury

Introspection

Illness/Sick Character

Immortality

Isolation

Jealousy

Kidnapping

LGBTQ/LGBTQ Character/LGBTQ Themes

Light-Hearted

Locked In

Loss

Love

Mafia

Magic

Magical Girl(s)

Major Character Death/Minor Character Death

Manipulation

Medieval

Medical

Melancholy

Mental Health Issues

Mentors

Merpeople

Mind Control

Military

Misunderstandings

Modern

Monsters

Morally Grey/Ambiguous Characters

Murder

Mythical Beings & Creatures

Mythology

Neighbors

Next Gen/Next Generation

Nightmares

Original Character/OC/OCs

Orphans/Orphanage

Out of Character/OOC

Parenthood

Past Lives

Peggy Sue

Pen Pals

Pirates

Platonic Relationships/No Romance

Platonic Soulmates

Plot Twists

Politics

Possession

Post-Canon/Pre-Canon/Mid-Canon/Bad Ending/etc.

Prompt Fill/Prompt Fic

Protectiveness

Rags to Riches

Rebels

Recovery

Redemption/Redemption Arc

Regret

Reincarnation/Resurrection/Rebirth

Rejection

Relationships

Religion

Rescue/Rescue Missions

Restaurants

Reunion

Revenge

Revolution

Rivalry

Road Trip

Robots

Roommates

Royalty

Sad

School

Secrets

Secret Identity

Self-Discovery

Self-Harm

Shapeshifting

Siblings

Single Parents

Slow Build

Soft

Spies

Spoilers

Substance Abuse

Suicide

Superheroes

Sweet

Sympathetic Villain

Teamwork

Team as Family

Team Bonding

Team Dynamics

Teenagers

Tension

Time Loop

Time Travel

Training

Trapped

Trauma

Travel

Undercover

Unreliable Narrator

Vampires

Villains

Violence

War

Weapons

Wedding

Wilderness

Witchcraft

Worldbuilding

xxx to Friends (Rivals to Friends/Enemies to Friends/etc.)

Zombies

ROMANCE TROPES

Battle Couple

Blind Date

Breakup

Confessions

Dating

Divorce

Dorks in Love

Drunken Confessions

Established Relationship

Eventual Romance

Falling in Love

Fake Relationship/Fake Dating/Pretend Relationship/Pretend Couple

First Kiss

First Love

Forbidden Love

Heartbreak

Idiots in Love

Long-Distance Relationship

Long-Term Relationship

Love/Hate

Love at First Sight

Love Confessions

Love Potion/Love Spell

Love Triangle

Marriage/Accidental Marriage/Arranged Marriage/Marriage of Convenience

Marriage Proposal

Mutual Pining/Pining

OTP

Pregnancy

Rarepair

Secret Relationship

Sharing a Bed

Slow Burn/Slow Romance

Soulmate/Soulmate AU

Tsundere/all of the other -deres

Unrequited Love/One-Sided Attraction

xxx to Lovers (Enemies to Lovers/Friends to Lovers/etc.)

Long, unedited text in which I rant about comparative mythology, Joseph Campbell and his monomyth,

Back in 2012 I wanted to improve my fiction writing (and writing in general, because in spite of nuances, themes and audience, writing a fiction and a nonfiction piece shouldn’t be that different) and thus I picked a few writing manuals. Many of them cited the Hero’s Journey, and how important it became for writers – after all Star Wars used and it worked. I believe most of the people reading this like Star Wars, or at least has neutral feelings about it, but one thing that cannot be denied is that became a juggernaut of popular culture.

So I bought a copy of the Portuguese translation of The Hero of a Thousand Faces and I fell in love with the style. Campbell had a great way with words and the translation was top notch. For those unaware, The Hero of a Thousand Faces proposes that there is a universal pattern in humanity’s mythologies that involves a person (usually a man) that went out into a journey far away from his home, faced many obstacles, both external and internal, and returned triumphant with a prize, the Grail or the Elixir of Life, back to his home. Campbell’s strength is that he managed to systematize so many different sources into a single cohesive narrative.

At the time I was impressed and decided to study more and write in an interdisciplinary research with economics – by writing an article on how the entrepreneur replaces the mythical hero in today’s capitalism. I had to stop the project in order to focus on more urgent matters (my thesis), but now that I finished I can finally return to this pet project of mine.

If you might have seen previous posts, I ended up having a dismal view of economics. It’s a morally and spiritually failed “science” (I have in my drafts a post on arts and I’m going to rant another day about it). Reading all these books on comparative mythology is so fun because it allows me for a moment to forget I have a degree in economics.

Until I started to realize there was something wrong.

My research had indicated that Campbell and others (such as Mircea Eliade and Carl Gust Jung, who had been on of Campbell’s main influences) weren’t very well respected in academia. At first I thought “fine”, because I’m used to interact with economists who can be considered “heterodox” and I have academic literature that I could use to make my point, besides the fact my colleagues were interested in what I was doing.

The problem is that this massive narrative of the Hero’s Journey/monomyth is an attempt to generalize pretty wide categories, like mythology, into one single model of explanation, it worked because it became a prescription, giving the writer a tool to create a story in a factory-like pace. It has checkboxes that can be filled, professional writers have made it widely available.

But I started to realize his entire understanding of mythology is problematic. First the basics: Campbell ignores when myths don’t fit his scheme. This is fruit of his Jungian influences, who claim that humanity has a collective unconsciousness, that manifest through masks and archetypes. This is the essence of the Persona games (and to a smaller extent of the Fate games) – “I am the Shadow the true self”. So any deviation from the monomyth can be justified by being a faulty translation of the collective unconsciousness.

This is the kind of thing that Karl Popper warned about, when he proposed the “falseability” hypothesis, to demarcate scientific knowledge. The collective unconsciousness isn’t a scientific proposition because it can be falsified. It cannot be observed and it cannot be refuted, because someone who subscribe to this doctrine will always have an explanation to explain why it wasn’t observed. In spite of falseability isn’t favored by philosophers of science anymore, it remains an important piece of the history of philosophy and he aimed his attack on psychoanalysis of Freud and Jung – and, while they helped psychology in the beginning, they’re like what Pythagoras is to math. They were both surpassed by modern science and they are studied more as pieces of history than serious theorists.

But this isn’t the worst. All the three main authors on myths were quite conservatives in the sense of almost being fascists – sometimes dropping the ‘almost’. Some members of the alt-right even look up to them as some sort of “academic’ justification. Not to mention anti-Semitic. Jung had disagreement with Freud and Freud noticed his anti-Semitism. Eliade was a proud supporter of the Iron Guard, a Romanian fascist organization that organized pogroms and wanted to topple the Romanian government. Later Eliade became an ambassador at Salazar’s Fascist Portugal, writing it was a government guided by the love of God. Campbell, with his hero worship, was dangerously close to the ur-fascism described by Umberto Eco (please read here, you won’t regret https://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf).

“If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge – that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.”

Campbell did that a lot. He considered the Bible gospels and Gnostic gospels to be on the same level. Any serious student, that is not operating under New Age beliefs and other frivolous theories like the one that says Jesus went to India, will know there’s a difference between them (even Eliade was sure to stress the difference).

But Campbell cared nothing for it. He disliked the “semitic” religions for corrupting the mythic imagination (which is the source of his anti-Semitism), especially Judaism. When I showed him describing the Japanese tea ceremony to a friend who’s minoring in Japanese studies, she wrote “I’m impressed, he’s somehow managed to out-purple prose the original Japanese”. So, it’s also full of orientalism, treating the East as the mystical Other, something for “daring” Westerners to discover and distillate.

What disturbed…no, “disturbed” isn’t the word that I need in the moment, but what made me feel uncomfortable is that, in spite of all his talk of spirituality, the impression I had of Power of Myth is that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone more materialist than him. Not even Karl Marx, founder of the Historical Materialism, was as materialist as Campbell.

At one point in the book, he was asked if he believed in anything and he gave a dismissive reply and said “I want to get experiences.” A man who studied all the myths of the world available, apparently didn’t believe in anything. Is that what spiritual maturity is? A continuous flux of experiences? Being taken by some sort of shamanistic wind like a floating plastic bag?

In nowhere in the interview he talked about virtues. In rebellion with his Catholic childhood, he said that we should go to the confessionary and say “God, I’ve been such a good boy”. Any cursory reading of the Gospel would say otherwise. Wasn’t this exactly Pharisee’s prayer in Luke 18:9-14? While the wasn’t the publican, who went with humility and asked for forgiveness, the one who walked out with an experience? And not only in Christianity, since in Tibetan Buddhism, a tulpa is something you have to kill, not foster like an imaginary friend like in some internet circles, contamined with this obsession with experiences.

The way I came to see Joseph Campbell as a man who was so stuck in his own world that nothing could move him out of it. All he wanted to do was this big experience, but in the end it’s as wide as the ocean, but shallow as a puddle. Even when Campbell speaks about having a “cosmic consciousness”, all that New Age jargon, claiming it’s about people discovering they’re not the center of the universe, it’s still so…self-servicing. It addresses a crowd so obsessed with experiences, but wants nothing to do with anything that requires compromise. He quotes the Hindu concept of maya, that life is an illusion, but I wonder how right he is about it.

I want to share this critique, by a researcher in comic studies: “We do not remember The Night Gwen Stacy Died because Gwen’s death reminds us of our own mortality, ‘the destiny of Everyman’, but because the story exposes the fragility of Spider-Man reader’s fantasies. Even icons can die.”

The exposition of the fragility of myths, especially the Hero’s Journey, never happens in Campbell’s work. It never talks about the potential of myths hindering entire societies, causing strife and causing people who can’t fit to become outcasts. Not even the cruel ones, like the Aztec death cult is treated as sublime, ignoring the fact that the Aztec neighbors helped to Spanish because they had enough of the Aztec myth.

I have changed my article. While I will still write on the hero entrepreneur, I’ll take a more critical view. The focus of the entrepreneur as an individual has many issues, because it ignores the role of public investment (necessary for high risk enterprises, like going to the moon or creating touch screens) and it treats with contempt the worked wage. Cambpell also treated with contempt the “masses”, who cannot be “heroes”. The theory on the entrepreneur is the same, treating the entrepreneur as a hero and the waged workers as lowlifes who have nothing to do, but to work, obey and be paid – to the point it feels like some economists treat strikes as crimes worse than murder. Not only that, but they can exploit the worker (see a book named “Do what you love and other lies about success and happiness”, it could be replaced with “Follow your bliss…”).

Campbell wrote in a time that there was no Wikipedia. So his book was the introduction of myths to a lot of people. It helped it was well-written. He considering his approach apolitical, but it’s clear that’s it’s not exactly like that (though this is a reason why Jordan Peterson failed to become the next Campbell, since he’s also a Jungian scholar, but he tried to become a conservative guru and this was his downfall). And, nowadays, Campbell is still inevitable in the circles that his themes matter, unlike Freud and Jung. Read it, but be aware of its problems, because it has already influenced what you consume.

Okay so Fire Emblem anon here!! Here's a Kinda Super Long Bc I Got Carried Away description of a few Fire Emblem games, plus some characters that seem like they hit tropes you like!

The good news is that there's not a super huge overarching timeline, there's several smaller timelines that are seperate from one another except for the crossover games. I'm gonna go with describing the newer ones that you're most likely to be able to get your hands on and play; a lot of people complain that they lean into some anime-tropey stuff and are too easy, but tbh, that's a perk just as often as it isn't. Basically, it's Game of Thrones, but rated T and with more cute girls and old men who are friendly instead of creepy.

Tbh, it's a turn-based strategy game with visual novel elements for characterization, if strategy games aren't your thing and you're just interested in the characters, watching the support conversations on Youtube might be more your thing. All the characterization, none of the resetting the same goshdang level thirty times. Anyways, description of the games in passing, including a brief description of the plot concept, pros and cons, trigger warnings, and some characters you might be interested in if you're just looking up characters.

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Awakening: for the 3DS. Follows Robin, an amnesiac mage, after they're found in a field by a band of knights called the Shepherds. Involves the undead, a twink in a mask, timey-wimey shenangians, and the usual cast of oddballs you'd expect from a Fire Emblem game.

Pros of Awakening: customizable player character, intro of Casual mode (turns off permadeath) and the Pair Up system, which lets you put characters together for shipping reasons strategy and stat boosts. Also doubles as a shipping simulator, since you can pair off characters and meet their later in the game due to said timey-wimey shenangians.

Cons of Awakening: there are some....very concerning combos of names/skin tones/plot relevance for certain characters, so go in with a warning about implicit racism. Also if you like strategy games, this game is relatively easy to break and make "too easy," but tbh that's what Lunatic Mode (the Ultra Unfair Hard Mode) is for.

Trigger warnings across the main plot: underhanded politics, attempted assassinations, martyrdom, an optional character is implied to stalk Robin but idk how to tag that, identity crises, conflicts within a family, character who isn't you looks like you, backstory child abuse, an optional character is a bad portrayal of DID if you squint?

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Fates: is actually a group name for two games set in the same universe, and a DLC bonus story: Birthright, Conquest, and Revelations. All for the 3DS. All three games star Corrin, a pacifist raised in seclusion in the kingdom of Nohr. Each game reflects a different path Corrin can take in navigating the war between the nations of Nohr and Hoshido: Birthright has them stand with Hoshido, Conquest with Nohr, and Revelations has them strike out (nearly) alone. Each path has a completely different storyline, cast of characters, and difficulty curve.

Pros of Fates: honestly, the characters here cater the most to the avid pro-shipper and multi-shipper. I just love this cast. Both Nohr and Hoshido have four members of the royal family you can play and get to know, each of those royal family members has two retainers who are various levels of dedicated and/or unhinged, and the cast just widens and widens. Also a character customization and shipping simulator point for the same reasons Awakening gets it. Also, canon fujoshi rights (there's a character with a skill called Daydream, which boosts her stats when two male characters are paired up near her. one of us, one of us). Also the first game with canon queer characters: both Rhajat and Niles are bi.

Cons of Fates: unfortunately, the writing is kinda rushed or badly translated in some places. Also *shakes IntSys* my lore! Give me more lore! Also, iirc, you could get both physical games in a bundle for a discount when they came out, but not anymore, so it's sorta like Pokemon with version exclusives. Which is less fun, since you can't directly trade characters. Also the fandom for this game is RIFE with discourse, which is kinda sad bc I just wanna talk my ships with ppl sjxhdjdn

Trigger warnings for Fates: child abuse might as well be Nohr's middle name, in-universe racism (since Hoshido is p obviously Japan-inspired, and a lot of Nohrians are rancid to Hoshidans), kidnapping, on-screen murder, lots of fighting your loved ones (on both main routes, you gotta fight the playable characters from the other side AAA), su-c-de, death of sibling(s) in certain routes, demonic-like possession, there's like six characters people can read as bad mental illness rep, Niles especially is discourse bait for being a kinky (yes that's canon) bi man of color but also he's awesome so die mad antis

*break for space*

Shadows of Valentia: for the 3DS. A remake of Gaiden, the second game in the series. Follows Alm, a farm boy from a small village in Zofia, and Celica, his childhood best friend. Zofia and the nation to its north, Rigel, are two nations ruled by the dragon gods Mila and Duma, respectively. Normally, they're in equilibrium, but Rigel is invading and Mila is missing, prompting Alm and Celica to independently investigate the problem.

Pros of SoV: the most like the old-school Fire Emblem games, but it also has the permadeath-off mode. also the first to be fully voice acted! The art style is gorgeous, and the plot was polished up from the old game--two characters names Berkut and Rinea were added, and they are PEAK OTP the diskhorse can die mad. Also the cast is pretty fun all around, from buddy squad and the older brother/dad figure they adopted along the way to "hello this is my gang of childhood friends, we're gonna kill a god" Also introduces Mila's Turnwheel, which lets you rewind your moves if you realize you goofed big time and screwed yourself over.

Cons of SoV: has the most references to other games, but you won't, like, be lost if you don't get them. You just might have a few interludes of "who tf is Camus/the White Wing Brigade/etc" but it's easy enough to look up on the wiki. Also tbh, the plot kinda drags in the middle, there's some filler battles to try and make it feel more realistic and it feels...weird. Also no custom character, you are Alm and Celica and you will Like It.

Trigger warnings for SoV: you know that thing where a girl character gets killed off for a guy character to angst over? the game starts with a fakeout version of that. also a character slowly goes mad over the course of the plot (but it's really well done imo?), there's some self-sacrifice stuff in there, classism is a major theme, possession/selling your soul™, there's a couple of levels where you're exploring tombs/prisons, I'm sure there's something else but I'm forgetting right now

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Three Houses: on the Switch. The newest game in the series, and the most polished imo? Stars Byleth, a wandering mercenary turned teacher at the Officer's Academy. The Academy, housed in Garreg Mach Monastery, teaches youths from across the land of Fodlan how to be warriors, commanders, and knights. Students are sorted into three houses based on their country of origin: the Black Eagles are from ghe Adrestian Empire, led by the heiress-apparent Edelgard; the Blue Lions are from the kingdom of Faerghus, led by prince Dimitri; and the Golden Deer are from the Leicester Alliance, led by Claude, grandson of the Duke. You choose one of these houses to lead, and then everything quickly goes sour.

Pros of Three Houses: It's such a rich experience! The music is incredible, there's so much lore, and you can wander around the Monastery and hang out with the students to your heart's content. Also, it's four storylines for the price of one, even if they're all relatively similar in the first half. It does a pretty solid job of weaving together its themes into a satisfying narrative that will make you consider everyone involved. Also we got our first bi main lord (Edelgard) and non-white main lord (Claude is mixed race) in one fell swoop! Also, given the setting, it's teacher/student ship heaven.

Cons of Three Houses: just gonna come right out and say it: one of the villainous factions in the game is pretty substantially tied up with some anti-semitic tropes. There's no way to ignore it, it's just bleh, and I'm not gonna send anyone in without that warning. Also, though there's some characters you can persuade to switch sides, or spare, there's no route where there's a happy ending for everyone. Also there are so many people who are fake deep about the themes of the game, so be ready for the worst takes imaginable about your faves. also super trigger heavy, see below.

Trigger warnings: MANY. Garreg Mach and the Church of Seiros are very reminiscent of catholic religious stuff, for anyone with religion triggers, blood in cutscenes, death of a parent, death of a sibling (different characters), major gaslighting vibes in some places, lots of people going unhinged, some white savior™ vibes in places, body horror, creepy ass weaponry, backstory genoc-de (mostly not related to the anti-semitism), blood magic (definitely related to the anti-semitism), in general it goes to a lot more effort than the other games to make you think about what's Actually going on, even if it doesn't always work.

*break for legibility*

As for characters you'd like, if you just want to look some characters up, my recommendations based on what I understand about you include:

Awakening: Libra fits 'gnc man of the cloth' so well it's actually a conversation in game: "so what's a woman of the cloth doing here?" "...man, sir, man of the cloth." And Then He Never Gets Misgendered Again. Also Nowi's supports sometimes feel like a jab at antis-- she's a manakete, a person who can transform into a dragon. Manaketes also grow really slowly, as in "middle aged looking manaketes are like 1000 years old," so she's got major baby face and copes with being mistaken for a teenager by making jokes. Also Gregor, who she first appears with, is pretty fun--older mercenary with a thick accent who is like 80% here for a good time. Also Walhart, who's a villain but got some content added as DLC.

Fates: any interactions between Corrin, Leo, and/or Camilla are probably right up your alley--Camilla is obsessively protective over her siblings in a way that's Very Definitely Platonic™, and Leo also canonically has a crush on her in something that was cut in the English release. Also Gunther--once upon a time he was your classic knight in shining armor, now he's semi-retired, Corrin's personal guard, and covered in scars (and his voice is gorgeous too)

Echoes: my biased answer is to listen to every single line Ian Sinclair read for Berkut because he absolutely did NOT have to go that hard. My actual answer is to point you in the direction of the pegasus sisters Catria, Palla and Est, or maybe the older gentleman who's the head of the Priory, I forgot his name oops abbdbd. Also Clive is a devoted husband to one Mathilda, who looks just like an older version of his sister Clair 🤔

Three Houses: knowing you, you'd adore Hanneman--an older professor who's extremely passionate about his work, to the point where he tends to forget personal space and such. Also Seteth, like I mentioned before (join me in simping for him and his gorgeous pecs) and like, honestly, I know ppl make jokes about Alois but he's rlly good. Soft, awkward but he doesn't care, dad jokes everywhere. And also Mercedes, both because she's the biggest sweetheart imaginable and everyone should love her, but also bc she is just walking potential for the kinds of stuff you post on this blog. On one hand, she's the oldest student at the Academy and attached at the hip to one of the youngest, Annette (tho people act like they have a way bigger age gap then they actually do) and on the other hand, she has a long-lost half brother she can encounter (who I will not name for HUGE HUGE spoilers reasons) who she spends the rest of her life with in one of her endings. Heck, he has three possible endings total! Total!

Basically I brought the games up bc I'm used to being on the side of the fandom where everyone shoos anything uncomfortable under the rug, but there's so much material here that's being wasted I SWEAR

If you have any other questions I can send another anon? Your call! Thanks for hearing me out I love ur blog :3

OKAY!!! sorry for answering so late, but this ask was pretty much a BOOK (not that I´m complaining though! thank you so much! ;;u;;)

and from what I read here, I THINK if I´m going off on my first fire emblem adventure, I´ll try and pick up three houses if I get the chance! I have read your trigger warnings (thank you so much! ;u;) and I think I can take it! >:3

again though, I am really, really not a fan of anime and the anime artstyle in general (blergh! XP) so I´m not sure how I´ll cope with that in particular, but then again, an artstyle does not make a game! u3u

AND HANNEMAN SOUNDS LIKE A WINNER TO ME!! I looked him up and OOOF!!! he may not have NEARLY as many wrinkles as I´d like him to have, but the facial hair is definitely a step in the right direction! ;3c

NOW YOU GOT ME INTERESTED!! 

LETS GO!!!!!!!!!!!!! (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

...

I sometimes hear people complain that classic literature is the realm of dead white men. And it’s certainly true that men have tended to dominate the canon of literature taught in schools. But women have been writing great books for centuries. In fact, you could probably spend a lifetime just reading great classics by women and never run out of reading material.

This list is just a sampling of great books written by women of the past. For the purposes of this list, I’ve defined classics as books that are more than 50 years old. The list of classics by women focuses on novels, but there are some plays, poems, and works of nonfiction as well. And I’ve tried to include some well-known favorites, as well as more obscure books. Whatever your reading preferences, you’re bound to find something to enjoy here. So step back in time and listen to the voices of women who came before us.

The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon (990s-1000s). “Moving elegantly across a wide range of themes including nature, society, and her own flirtations, Sei Shōnagon provides a witty and intimate window on a woman’s life at court in classical Japan.”

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (Before 1021). “Genji, the Shining Prince, is the son of an emperor. He is a passionate character whose tempestuous nature, family circumstances, love affairs, alliances, and shifting political fortunes form the core of this magnificent epic.”

Oroonoko by Aphra Behn (1688). “When Prince Oroonoko’s passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam.”

Phillis Wheatley, Complete Writings by Phillis Wheatley (1760s-1770s). “This volume collects both Wheatley’s letters and her poetry: hymns, elegies, translations, philosophical poems, tales, and epyllions.”

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft (1790). “Arguably the earliest written work of feminist philosophy, Wollstonecraft produced a female manifesto in the time of the American and French Revolutions.”

The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe (1791). “A beautiful, orphaned heiress, a dashing hero, a dissolute, aristocratic villain, and a ruined abbey deep in a great forest are combined by the author in a tale of suspense where danger lurks behind every secret trap-door.”

Camilla by Fanny Burney (1796). “Camilla deals with the matrimonial concerns of a group of young people … The path of true love, however, is strewn with intrigue, contretemps and misunderstanding.”

Belinda by Maria Edgeworth (1801). “Contending with the perils and the varied cast of characters of the marriage market, Belinda strides resolutely toward independence. … Edgeworth tackles issues of gender and race in a manner at once comic and thought-provoking. ”

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818). “Driven by ambition and an insatiable thirst for scientific knowledge, Victor Frankenstein … fashions what he believes to be the ideal man from a grotesque collection of spare parts, breathing life into it through a series of ghastly experiments.”

Persuasion by Jane Austen (1818). “Eight years ago, Anne Elliot fell in love with poor but ambitious naval officer Captain Frederick Wentworth … now, on the verge of spinsterhood, Anne re-encounters Frederick Wentworth as he courts her spirited young neighbour, Louisa Musgrove.”

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847). “Having grown up an orphan in the home of her cruel aunt and at a harsh charity school, Jane Eyre becomes an independent and spirited survivor …. But when she finds love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a choice. “

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847). “One of the great novels of the nineteenth century, Emily Brontë’s haunting tale of passion and greed remains unsurpassed in its depiction of destructive love.”

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (1848). “A powerful and sometimes violent novel of expectation, love, oppression, sin, religion and betrayal. It portrays the disintegration of the marriage of Helen Huntingdon … and her dissolute, alcoholic husband.”

The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts (mid-19th century). “Tells the story of Hannah Crafts, a young slave working on a wealthy North Carolina plantation, who runs away in a bid for freedom up North.”

Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850). “Recognized for their Victorian tradition and discipline, these are some of the most passionate and memorable love poems in the English language.”

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852). “Selling more than 300,000 copies the first year it was published, Stowe’s powerful abolitionist novel fueled the fire of the human rights debate.”

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (1854). “As relevant now as when it was first published, Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South skillfully weaves a compelling love story into a clash between the pursuit of profit and humanitarian ideals.”

Our Nig by Harriet E. Wilson (1859). “In the story of Frado, a spirited black girl who is abused and overworked as the indentured servant to a New England family, Harriet E. Wilson tells a heartbreaking story about the resilience of the human spirit.”

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (1860). “Strong-willed, compassionate, and intensely loyal, Maggie seeks personal happiness and inner peace but risks rejection and ostracism in her close-knit community.”

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs (1861). “The remarkable odyssey of Harriet Jacobs (1813–1897) whose dauntless spirit and faith carried her from a life of servitude and degradation in North Carolina to liberty and reunion with her children in the North.”

The Curse of Caste, or The Slave Bride by Julia C. Collins (1865). “Focuses on the lives of a beautiful mixed-race mother and daughter whose opportunities for fulfillment through love and marriage are threatened by slavery and caste prejudice.”

Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley (1868). “Traces Elizabeth Keckley’s life from her enslavement in Virginia and North Carolina to her time as seamstress to Mary Todd Lincoln in the White House during Abraham Lincoln’s administration.”

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868). “The four March sisters couldn’t be more different. But with their father away at war, and their mother working to support the family, they have to rely on one another.”

A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Lucy Bird (1879). “In 1873, wearing Hawaiian riding dress, [Bird] rode her horse through the American Wild West, a terrain only newly opened to pioneer settlement.”

The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson (1890). “Though generally overlooked during her lifetime, Emily Dickinson’s poetry has achieved acclaim due to her experiments in prosody, her tragic vision and the range of her emotional and intellectual explorations.”

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892). “The story depicts the effect of under-stimulation on the narrator’s mental health and her descent into psychosis. With nothing to stimulate her, she becomes obsessed by the pattern and color of the wallpaper.”

Iola Leroy by Frances E.W. Harper (1892). “The daughter of a wealthy Mississippi planter, Iola Leroy led a life of comfort and privilege, never guessing at her mixed-race ancestry — until her father died and a treacherous relative sold her into slavery.”

The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals by Dorothy Wordsworth (1897). “Dorothy Wordsworth’s journals are a unique record of her life with her brother William, at the time when he was at the height of his poetic powers.”

The Awakening by Kate Chopin (1899). “Chopin’s daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the straitened confines of her domestic situation.”

The Light of Truth: Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader by Ida B. Wells (late 19th century). “This volume covers the entire scope of Wells’s remarkable career, collecting her early writings, articles exposing the horrors of lynching, essays from her travels abroad, and her later journalism.”

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1902). “Transformed from princess to pauper, [Sarah Crewe] must swap dancing lessons and luxury for hard work and a room in the attic.”

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy (1905). “The French Revolution, driven to excess by its own triumph, has turned into a reign of terror. … Thus the stage is set for one of the most enthralling novels of historical adventure ever written.”

A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter (1909). “The story is one of Elnora’s struggles to overcome her poverty; to win the love of her mother, who blames Elnora for her husband’s death; and to find a romantic love of her own.”

Mrs Spring Fragrance: A Collection of Chinese-American Short Stories by Sui Sin Far (1910s). “In these deceptively simple fables of family life, Sui Sin Far offers revealing views of life in Seattle and San Francisco at the turn of the twentieth century.”

American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings by Zitkala-Sa (1910). “Tapping her troubled personal history, Zitkala-Sa created stories that illuminate the tragedy and complexity of the American Indian experience.”

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton (1913). Undine Spragg’s “rise to the top of New York’s high society from the nouveau riche provides a provocative commentary on the upwardly mobile and the aspirations that eventually cause their ruin.”

Oh Pioneers by Willa Cather (1913). “Evoking the harsh grandeur of the prairie, this landmark of American fiction unfurls a saga of love, greed, murder, failed dreams, and hard-won triumph.”

Suffragette: My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst (1914). “With insight and great wit, Emmeline’s autobiography chronicles the beginnings of her interest in feminism through to her militant and controversial fight for women’s right to vote.”

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim (1922). Four women who “are alike only in their dissatisfaction with their everyday lives … find each other—and the castle of their dreams—through a classified ad in a London newspaper one rainy February afternoon.”

The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1924). “Evangeline Knapp is the perfect, compulsive housekeeper, while her husband, Lester, is a poet and a dreamer. Suddenly, through a nearly fata accident, their roles are reversed.”

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925). “Direct and vivid in her account of Clarissa Dalloway’s preparations for a party, Virginia Woolf explores the hidden springs of thought and action in one day of a woman’s life.”

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (1928). “First published in 1928, this timeless portrayal of lesbian love is now a classic. The thinly disguised story of Hall’s own life, it was banned outright upon publication and almost ruined her literary career.”

Plum Bun by Jessie Redmon Fauset (1928). “Written in 1929 at the height of the Harlem Renaissance by one of the movement’s most important and prolific authors, Plum Bun is the story of Angela Murray, a young black girl who discovers she can pass for white.”

Passing by Nella Larsen (1929). “Clare Kendry leads a dangerous life. Fair, elegant, and ambitious, she is married to a white man unaware of her African American heritage, and has severed all ties to her past.”

Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum (1929). “A grand hotel in the center of 1920s Berlin serves as a microcosm of the modern world in Vicki Baum’s celebrated novel, a Weimar-era best seller that retains all its verve and luster today.”

Thus Were Their Faces: Selected Stories by Silvina Ocampo (1930s-1970s). “Tales of doubles and impostors, angels and demons, a marble statue of a winged horse that speaks, a beautiful seer who writes the autobiography of her own death, a lapdog who records the dreams of an old woman, a suicidal romance, and much else that is incredible, mad, sublime, and delicious.”

Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers (1930). “Sayers introduces Harriet Vane, a mystery writer who is accused of poisoning her fiancé and must now join forces with Lord Peter Wimsey to escape a murder conviction and the hangman’s noose.”

All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West (1931). “When Lady Slane was young, she nurtured a secret, burning ambition: to become an artist. She became, instead, the dutiful wife of a great statesman, and mother to six children. In her widowhood she finally defies her family.”

Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann (1932). Olivia Curtis “anticipates her first dance, the greatest yet most terrifying event of her restricted social life, with tremulous uncertainty and excitement.”

Frost in May by Antonia White (1933). “Nanda Gray, the daughter of a Catholic convert, is nine when she is sent to the Convent of Five Wounds. Quick-witted, resilient, and eager to please, she adapts to this cloistered world, learning rigid conformity and subjection to authority.”

Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson (1934). “Times are harsh, and Barbara’s bank account has seen better days. Maybe she could sell a novel … if she knew any stories. Stumped for ideas, Barbara draws inspiration from her fellow residents of Silverstream.”

The Wine of Solitude by Irene Nemirovsky (1935). “Beginning in a fictionalized Kiev, The Wine of Solitude follows the Karol family through the Great War and the Russian Revolution, as the young Hélène grows from a dreamy, unhappy child into a strongwilled young woman.”

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936). “Gone With the Wind explores the depth of human passions with an intensity as bold as its setting in the red hills of Georgia. A superb piece of storytelling, it vividly depicts the drama of the Civil War and Reconstruction.”

After Midnight by Irmgard Keun (1937). “German author Irmgard Keun had only recently fled Nazi Germany with her lover Joseph Roth when she wrote this slim, exquisite, and devastating book. It captures the unbearable tension, contradictions, and hysteria of pre-war Germany like no other novel.”

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937). “One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston.”

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson (1938). “Miss Pettigrew is a governess sent by an employment agency to the wrong address, where she encounters a glamorous night-club singer, Miss LaFosse.”

The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen (1938). “The orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother’s home in London. There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (1939). “Ten strangers are lured to an isolated island mansion off the Devon coast by a mysterious U. N. Owen … By the end of the night one of the guests is dead.”

Mariana by Monica Dickens (1940). “We see Mary at school in Kensington and on holiday in Somerset; her attempt at drama school; her year in Paris learning dressmaking and getting engaged to the wrong man; her time as a secretary and companion; and her romance with Sam.”

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (1940). “Wonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated.”

The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead (1940). “Sam and Henny Pollit have too many children, too little money, and too much loathing for each other. As Sam uses the children’s adoration to feed his own voracious ego, Henny watches in bleak despair.”

The Bird in the Tree by Elizabeth Goudge (1940). “The Bird in the Tree takes place in England in 1938, and follows a close-knit family whose tranquil existence is suddenly threatened by a forbidden love.”

Anne Frank: A Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (1942-1944). “Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank’s remarkable diary has since become a world classic—a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit.”

The Robber Bridegroom by Eudora Welty (1942). “Legendary figures of Mississippi’s past—flatboatman Mike Fink and the dreaded Harp brothers—mingle with characters from Eudora Welty’s own imagination in an exuberant fantasy set along the Natchez Trace.”

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (1943). “The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years.”

Nada by Carmen LeFloret (1944). “One of the most important literary works of post-Civil War Spain, Nada is the semi-autobiographical story of an orphaned young woman  who leaves her small town to attend university in war-ravaged Barcelona.

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford (1945). “The Pursuit of Love follows the travails of Linda, the most beautiful and wayward Radlett daughter, who falls first for a stuffy Tory politician, then an ardent Communist, and finally a French duke named Fabrice.”

One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes (1947). “This subtle, finely wrought novel presents a memorable portrait of the aftermath of war, its effect upon a marriage, and the gradual but significant change in the nature of English middle-class life.”

Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton (1948). “We see that families can both entrap and sustain; that parents and children must respect each other; and that happiness necessitates jumping or being pushed off the family roundabout.”

The Living Is Easy by Dorothy West (1948). “Cleo Judson—daughter of southern sharecroppers and wife of ‘Black Banana King’ Bart Judson … seeks to recreate her original family by urging her sisters and their children to live with her, while rearing her daughter to be a member of Boston’s black elite.”

Half a Lifelong Romance by Eileen Chang (1948). “Shen Shijun, a young engineer, has fallen in love with his colleague, the beautiful Gu Manzhen. … But dark circumstances—a lustful brother-in-law, a treacherous sister, a family secret—force the two young lovers apart. “

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (1948). “Tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Here she strives, over six turbulent months, to hone her writing skills.”

Pinjar: The Skeleton and Other Stories by Amrita Pritam (1950). “Two of the most moving novels by one of India’s greatest women writers. The Skeleton …is memorable for its lyrical style and depth in her writing. … The Man is a compelling account of a young man born under strange circumstances and abandoned at the altar of God.”

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier (1951). “While in Italy, Ambrose fell in love with Rachel, a beautiful English and Italian woman. But the final, brief letters Ambrose wrote hint that his love had turned to paranoia and fear. Now Rachel has arrived at Philip’s newly inherited estate.”

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (1951). “Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history.”

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (1952). “As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors … the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived in a vanishing world of manners and repressed desires.”

Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks (1953). “In a novel that captures the essence of Black life, Brooks recognizes the beauty and strength that lies within each of us.”

Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple (1953). “Ellen was that unfashionable creature, a happy housewife struck by disaster when the husband, in a moment of weak, mid-life vanity, runs off with a French girl.”

Nisei Daughter by Monica Sone (1953). “With charm, humor, and deep understanding, Monica Sone tells what it was like to grow up Japanese American on Seattle’s waterfront in the 1930s and to be subjected to ‘relocation’ during World War II.”

Cotillion by Georgette Heyer (1953). “Country-bred, spirited Kitty Charings is on the brink of inheriting a fortune from her eccentric guardian – provided that she marries one of his grand nephews.”

Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya (1954). “This beautiful and eloquent story tells of a simple peasant woman in a primitive village in India whose whole life is a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loves.”

The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (1955). “Since his debut in 1955, Tom Ripley has evolved into the ultimate bad boy sociopath. Here, in this first Ripley novel, we are introduced to suave Tom Ripley, a young striver, newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan.”

A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O’Connor (1955). “These stories show O’Connor’s unique, grotesque view of life— infused with religious symbolism, haunted by apocalyptic possibility, sustained by the tragic comedy of human behavior, confronted by the necessity of salvation.”

Collected Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1956). “Millay remains among the most celebrated poets of the early twentieth century for her uniquely lyrical explorations of love, individuality, and artistic expression.”

The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West (1957). “An unvarnished but affectionate picture of an extraordinary family, in which a remarkable stylist and powerful intelligence surveys the elusive boundaries of childhood and adulthood, freedom and dependency, the ordinary and the occult.”

Angel by Elizabeth Taylor (1957). “In Angel’s imagination, she is the mistress of the house, a realm of lavish opulence, of evening gowns and peacocks. Then she begins to write popular novels, and this fantasy becomes her life.”

The King Must Die by Mary Renault (1958). “In this ambitious, ingenious narrative, celebrated historical novelist Mary Renault takes legendary hero Theseus and spins his myth into a fast-paced and exciting story.”

A Raisin the the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (1959). “Set on Chicago’s South Side, the plot [of this play] revolves around the divergent dreams and conflicts within three generations of the Younger family.”

The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns (1959). “Harrowing and haunting, like an unexpected cross between Flannery O’Connor and Stephen King, The Vet’s Daughter is a story of outraged innocence that culminates in a scene of appalling triumph.”

The Colossus and Other Poems by Sylvia Plath (1960). “Graceful in their craftsmanship, wonderfully original in their imagery, and presenting layer after layer of meaning, the forty poems in The Colossus are early artifacts of genius that still possess the power to move, delight, and shock.”

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960). “The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published.”

The Householder by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1960). “This witty and perceptive novel is about Prem, a young teacher in New Delhi who has just become a householder and is finding his responsibilities perplexing.”

The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart (1961). “This remarkably atmospheric novel is one of bestselling-author Mary Stewart’s richest, most tantalizing, and most surprising efforts, proving her a rare master of the genre.”

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1961). Miss Jean Brodie “is passionate in the application of her unorthodox teaching methods, in her attraction to the married art master, Teddy Lloyd, in her affair with the bachelor music master, Gordon Lowther, and—most important—in her dedication to ‘her girls,’ the students she selects to be her crème de la crème.”

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (1962). “Merricat Blackwood lives on the family estate with her sister Constance and her uncle Julian. Not long ago there were seven Blackwoods—until a fatal dose of arsenic found its way into the sugar bowl one terrible night.”

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962). “Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O’Keefe (athlete, student, and one of the most popular boys in high school)… are in search of Meg’s father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem.”

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (1962). “Doris Lessing’s best-known and most influential novel, The Golden Notebook retains its extraordinary power and relevance decades after its initial publication.”

The Group by Mary McCarthy (1963). “Written with a trenchant, sardonic edge, The Group is a dazzlingly outspoken novel and a captivating look at the social history of America between two world wars.”

Efuru by Flora Nwapa (1966). “The work, a rich exploration of Nigerian village life and values, offers a realistic picture of gender issues in a patriarchal society as well as the struggles of a nation exploited by colonialism.”

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966). “Antoinette Cosway, a sensual and protected young woman … is sold into marriage to the prideful Mr. Rochester. Rhys portrays Cosway amidst a society so driven by hatred, so skewed in its sexual relations, that it can literally drive a woman out of her mind.”

Epilogue Content Warnings

So as I said! Let me just. Pull these up real quick and talk about what each of them may mean for the Epilogue as a whole.

SPOILER WARNING FOR THE EPILOGUE BENEATH!

And let’s start with the characters actually!

John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider, Jade Harley, Jane Crocker, Roxy Lalonde, Jake English, Dirk Strider, Karkat Vantas, Kanaya Maryam, Terezi Pyrope, Calliope, Caliborn, Lord English: Obviously they would be here. 

Aradia Megido, Tavros Nitram, Sollux Captor, Vriska Serket, Gamzee Makara, Eridan Ampora, Feferi Peixes: Also likely to be either mentioned or to have Ghost Shenanigans. It’s quite the Troll the Meowrails aren’t around though- Equius is not around I guess because he IS a Heir of Void after all. Nepeta not being there though, come on Hussie. that is just you Trolling us with another Dead Nepeta joke.

Aranea Serket, Meenah Peixes: Makes me think we’re not going to see the Dancestors at all. They’re the two more prominent ones, and part of the whole plan to defeat LE, so they would easily be mentioned.

Davepetasprite^2: Please come back, Birbcat.

Barack Obama: This is almost DEFINITELY Dave rapping.

Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s): Likely to be any new resident of Earth C. Honestly, just the Salamanders and Carapaces already fill this.

So now let’s go for the warnings! It should be noted, while all of these do appear, a lot of them are juxtaposed to be humorous with the more heavy-seeming ones, so let’s get into it.

Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Alternate Universe, Death, Incestuous Undertones, Meta, Manipulation, Rapping, Furry, Anthropomorphic Characters, Power Imbalances, Blood, Trickster Mode, Interspecies Relationships, Guns, Murder, Black Romance, Existential Crisis, Xenophilia, Daddy Issues, Robots, Gore, Aliens, Assassination,  Theft, Ghosts, Mind Control, Teenagers, Possession, Kidnapping: This is just Homestuck 101.

Eating, Food, Clown Dynamics, Fridging, Feet, Early 20th Century Dance Movements, Clown, Honk, Faygo: These seem largely peppered in for the fun factor, and to break the... Concerning nature of some of the other ones.

The Economy, World War, Political Intrigue, Genocide, Political Rebellion, Fascism, Religion, Capitalism, Reality Television, Propaganda, Super PACs, Prison Camps, Gerrymandering, Revolutionary Rhetoric: This in general seems like it’s gonna be societal commentary talking about either Alternian or Earth Society, and perhaps some talk of stuff that’s happened in the past of Earth-C. With how messed up Alternia is and the stuff Condy did... Yeah it all checks in.

Xenophobia, Speciesism: The Snapchat Updates hinted at the possibility of anti-Human Trolls, and likely of anti-Troll Humans in the same vein, for literal Xenophobia and Speciesism, or grouped with the prior category for... You know. Sadly truthful commentary on social issues.

Misogyny, Sexism, Transphobia, Misgendering, Gender Transition, Nonbinary Character(s), Identity Questioning, Detransitioning: These are likely some of the ones that people are the most worried about- Specially regarding the one about ‘Detransitioning’. However... Honestly my two bets here are that, John is going to bump into Davepeta and have a brief moment of misgendering them before being corrected and some talk about gender identity, and that Dave may give John a big talk regarding identity and fucked up societal stuff.

Sexual Abuse, Rape, Non-Con, Dubious Consent, Slut Shaming: These may easily tie in with the previous one too, as V mentioned, these aren’t things we’re going to see at all, but they are going to get briefly discussed. So no one’s going to get coerced into anything. Bad themes but, stuff to talk about.

Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Abuse, Unhealthy Relationships, Domestic Abuse, Bad Parenting, Toxic Masculinity: I’m going to be honest. This. This just sounds like Dave’s gonna talk about Bro again.

Body Horror: This could be MANY things. Some awful wound described in full detail, it is gonna tie in with ‘Gore’ for certain. Maybe talking about Gamzee being split in half.

Alcohol Use, Drugging, Drug Use, Chronic Illness, Vomit, Addiction: The drug mentions already happened with Rose, and she’s medicating herself. Thankfully I trust she’s not falling in any sort of addiction, but the ‘Vomit’ tag could imply it’s gonna get worse before it gets better. Or maybe it’s entirely unrelated and Gamzee just barfs blood again.

Mental Illness, Depression: Someone get all of these Kids to a Therapist. Honestly.

Starvation, Suicide, Funerals: These are the ones I’m the most... Worried about. Suicide there could be talk of their Immortality, hell maybe it’s even a morbid but still joking thing that’s not serious, but I’m kind of concerned it may be more. Starvation though, I can’t... Think of anyone who could Starve, except perhaps Terezi having been outside searching for Vriska for so long, and I worry... And Funerals, please just talk about Mutie’s and Rose’s Funerals, please no one die. :I I mean except John, which I’m assuming may die, but I’ll talk about that later.

Poisoning, Pica: Another possible alternative for the ‘Vomit’ warning? It may also tie into some assassination attempt. There’s no ‘overdose’ tag, so I am ruling out the idea that Rose IS gonna start going too far. Like straight up. Pica is also a disorder in which someone eats non-edible stuffs, which could cause poisoning and vomit? But. Honestly? I think... Pica is just going to be Terezi eating chalk.

Friends to Lovers, Polyamory, Infidelity, Marriage, Cuckolding: Now BEFORE any of you crucify me for putting Polyamory and Infidelity together. I know. I’m not implying anything. BUT while it’s possible that like. Rose or Kanaya had some talk about their marriage. I think it could be quite hilarious if John saw Jade, Dave and Karkat like. Making out amongst themselves at different points and assume that they’re cheating on each other, or worse, that they tease him for having that come to mind immediately. ‘wow karkat i cant believe youre cucking me with jade im hurt’ ‘SHUT THE FUCK UP STRIDER, OH MY GOD-’

Pregnancy, Breastfeeding, Breastmilk, Diapers, Children, Babies, Milking: I know everyone’s IMMEDIATE thoughts is that someone’s gonna get pregnant. But honestly it could just be pregnancy talk and... Breastfeeding and Milking that’s just. That’s just gonna be ARquius isn’t it.

Eggs, Alien Biology, Ovipositioning: No! Stop! There’s not going to be any weird Troll Stuff! Shame on all of us. This is most likely regarding the Mother Grub, although I wouldn’t mind hearing more about Canon Troll Anatomy.

Cannibalism, Vore: I am. I am going to go ahead and think this is because of the drawing of Roxy eating a baby??? Honestly who even KNOWS at this point. Is Caliborn going to try to VORE anyone like a god damn snake? Good lord.

Mind Break, Rough Sex, Light BDSM: Remember that there’s NO sexual content in the Epilogue. Confirmed. So uh... Yeah. Okay I added ‘Mind Break’ here for humorous effect but honestly it may be better suited for some of the messed up warnings above, maybe alongside Mind Control? Oof. Rough Sex... I can imagine someone joking about it? Maybe someone gets really shameless with the innuendos. And Light BDSM I’m just going to say we’re going to see Clover. Or... Gamzee DID get tied up. Does that count?

Bimboification: This fucking one. This one is the one that throws me out for a limb the most. It may be relating to the Trickster Mode? It may also be related to Caliborn and him like. Objectifying the characters or something, but that isn’t as ‘ification’. Another thing that’s got me wondering is ‘Bimboification’. As FAR as I understand this term to go, the correct way of saying it is ‘Bimbofication’? So either it’s a typo, OR ‘Bomboification can apparently be used some times for specifically males? What I’m saying is, I can’t believe Lord English really is a Himbo.

Redemption: V... Vriska? Maybe. But also I kinda hope not. I’m really wishing ‘Redemption’ comes from everyone working their shit out together and being a big bunch of friends again.

Canon Compliant, Canon Divergent, Self-Sacrifice: Finally! The last ones! This is both Canon Compliant and Canon Divergent, which should be easy enough to parse through the Meat-Candy choice (And what I believe will be a split-path with the next update). Self-Sacrifice... Yeah that is what’s going to happen with John isn’t it? At least in the ‘Meat’ path. But I’ve talked already too much and gotten too Spoilery, ssssh!

So hey! These warnings don’t look so intimidating when you realize 90% were already things that happen in Homestuck proper, and the rest can be discussed in an adult manner without having awful things happen to people.

I’m mostly worried about people dying and getting hurt.

What are your thoughts on my personal most hated Targaryens, Balor the "Blessed"

Nothing good, I’m afraid (or I guess fortunately because we agree?)

He’s not my personal most hated Targaryen, as he’s not a violent sadist (and he was clearly mentally ill in a nonviolent way which is rare for Targ men), but he was undoubtedly a bad king and an awful brother. I think most of asoiaf tumblr (since tumblr is predominantly women who consider themselves feminists) would suppose that, if the Maidenvault were the only terrible act he did and was a normal person throughout, he would still be a fairly loathed character. That he doubled down on the religious-themed misogyny by giving tax breaks to lords who put chastity belts on their daughters is disgusting on a variety of levels. I might also add that it doesn’t seem that he was very religious, but he adhered to his idea of religion and sought to impose it on others. 

He took septon’s vows but refused to step down as king, although septons need to give up their last names and need to serve a septistry or go wandering; no, those vows were only so he didn’t have to marry again. Otherwise he had almost full control of the religion and used it as a pretext for acts that have never been mentioned as something the Seven endorses (they certainly don’t encourage projects like the Maidenvault); he changed the Faith, which had been one of the more anti-monarchy institutions in Westeros, into a tool under the monarchy’s thumb. He burned books he considered irreligious. When the High Septon died he chose 1) an illiterate stonemason and 2) a child who was singing to doves because of his visions, showing  the people that the king controlled the Seven and could choose whoever he wanted, as the Most Devout essentially rubber-stamped it. Further evidence of his egomania was when he ordered the construction of the Sept of Baelor; considering the statue of him having a vision was one of the first parts constructed (it was fully built by 187, which may seem like a long time, but consider the sept wasn’t completed until after his death and funding for the project undoubtedly went down/stopped under Viserys II and Aegon IV), it was less about piety and more a larger-than-life demonstration. That he bankrupted the treasury on it--as well as selling off the royal treasures to feed the people of King’s Landing--for a year indicates he liked grandiose highly visible gestures that betray a lack of thought for the big picture. Ultimately the king whose marriage he arranged who was loyal to his memory (Da3ron II) has a lot more in common with Baelor than fandom cares to admit.

Baelor was tortured by the Wyls’ snake venom (in what would be considered a war crime today), and he did try to take a peaceful road with Dorne after his older brother’s death. But considering the circumstances around that death (the Martells treacherously murdered Da3ron I under a peace banner, in what is considered a crime against the gods in canon), it makes him look like he doesn’t care about his family or the people who died in Da3ron’s war fighting for the Targaryen name. That he rode a mule and the hostages rode horses was an insult to those families, since “the anointed king” who was above his subjects was riding an animal of inferior quality to the ones the Dornish prisoners were. I can’t imagine Aegon IV did much to stoke anti-peace resentment at his court than Baelor already did with his absolutely boneheaded, selfish actions.

Also, he had the Maidenvault built and used it to imprison his sisters for 10 years because he was “tempted by their beauty.” If he was so tempted, he could’ve married them off (Rhaena according to the MUSH RPG was already betrothed) so he didn’t have to see them. Instead, terrible stuff happened to the sisters and Westeros because of his awful mishandling of the (admittedly fairly terrible) situations he inherited. Bad Baelor; Go directly to a sept, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 dragons.

hey, sorry if you've already made this but do you have a rec list for female anti-heroes? or anti-villains? or... just fiction centring morally complex women? I'd just really like to read more lit like that but I don't know where to start :/

I don’t remember if I have done this! And the answer is…fewer than I’d like, alas. But let’s see what I’ve got. (A number of of these are series, which I’ve listed by the first book and noted.) I’m always looking for more of these, though, so if anyone has recs…

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (The Broken Earth Trilogy)

Really any of NK Jemisin’s work would qualify, but I’m going ahead and going with this one. The main character(s) is a remarkable piece of work, and this series as a whole is just…incredible. Her realization especially of mother/daughter relationships and the complexity and possible ugliness thereof is really…augh. I cried at the end of the third book. (It also does great things with themes of oppression and power and dehumanization while telling a great story.)

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett (The Divine Cities Trilogy)

Mostly I think the protagonist of the first book (this one) fits what you’re looking for best, but this whole series is aces and the second book also features an excellent protagonist who I think you might like. And the worldbuilding and thematics of this series are also just *kisses fingers* so consider this a general rec, too.

Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone (The Craft Sequence)

I love this series, I really do. Taking place after the God Wars, in which the various gods of the world were overthrown by human sorcerers, not only is it super conceptually interesting with a lot of themes I’m personally really into (imperialism! religion and the relationship between humans and gods!) but also some really excellent complex female characters, especially the protagonist of this book, Tara, and my personal favorite, Elayne Kevarian. 

The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton

This is a retelling of King Lear and it’s one of the best retellings I’ve read in a while (I love reading retellings but I’m very picky about their execution). One of my favorite things about it is the way it brings Goneril and Regan (here Gaela and Regan) into prominence, keeping all their sharp edges while making them full characters, sympathetic and understandable. 

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente

I love this book. I love Catherynne M. Valente’s prose, and this is probably my favorite of hers that I’ve read so far. It’s a retelling of the Russian fairy tale The Death of Koschei the Deathless blended with the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and it’s...really good, and Marya Morevna is a fantastic protagonist. It’s been a bit since I read this one, but from what I remember I think she fits the bill for what you’re describing.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (The Masquerade)

Fuck man, this book. Fair warning that it is brutal in a lot of ways - don’t come into it expecting to leave without some bruised emotions. But the main character is a glorious example of what you’re talking about. And I don’t want to say more than that, because this is kind of a book it’s good to go into without spoilers.

I’m just gonna go ahead, too, and throw in a couple of Ancient Greek plays that have two of my favorite morally complex women. Obvs they’re going to come with misogynist baggage because Ancient Greece, but I’d say they’re both worth a read.

Medea by Euripides

This was actually my first Greek tragedy and I fell in love hard and fast. It’s a seriously elegant piece of work - Euripides had a reputation as a misogynist but he writes really good morally complex women, imo. And Medea in this…dominates. She owns the stage and the story, and god damn does this do the work of making her ultimately murdering two people and her own children not…totally (at least for me) remove sympathy with her. And she gets away with it. In a motherfucking dragon chariot.

Agamemnon by Aeschylus

I wrote a paper about how Clytemnestra owns this play - she drives the action, she takes charge, the men around her are relegated to helplessness and impotence - the only person who stands against her at all is Cassandra (who, of course, no one listens to). I don’t like the rest of this play cycle nearly as much as the first one, but this one…hoo boy. I could talk about this play, Clytemnestra, and the gender stuff with Clytemnestra in this play for approximately forever. Also murdering Agamemnon with an axe is, as the kids say, a #big mood.

/ NUEVA RELIGIÓN.

there is always something left to love. when people ask, that is what they say. there’s always something left to love, and it’s because of that love that they do the things they do. what makes them kill. what makes them punish and desecrate the holy alongside the mundane. it is not hatred, not revulsion, not fear, but something else, much purer than all those things combined, what turns the gears of this barbarity: a conviction that cuts through diamond. a deeper knowledge about the world and the beings that live in it, than could be found anywhere else. a willingness, stripped of all pride, to use this knowledge crucially against transgressors, against liars, against evil itself -- without any kind of differentiation between men and gods.

                                                                   ***

nueva religión is a verse subservient to elements already established in the otherworld verse and the nulliverse. it’s basically an au of an au with strong magical realism and urban fantasy influences, as well as a background in mythopoeia and crime. theology and mythology are central themes of the verse, so talks about religion are bound to show up frequently. naturally, there will be general, verse-wise trigger and content warnings regarding: blasphemy, sacrilege, and violence. there will be mentions of unsavory topics in this post like gang violence/crime, abuse and drugs, so it is best to stop reading from this point onward if mere mentions of these topics trigger you. mental health comes first, always. of course, all specific disturbances will be tagged in a post by post basis.

continue if you wish to read more about this verse, and the characters involved in it.

FUNDAMENTALS.

as prev. mentioned, this is an au of an au. it centers around the well-known (as far as my blog is concerned, at least) reyes family and their efforts running a gang that also happens to have unorthodox religious beliefs. in this verse, the reyes never went to new york between 1970 and 1990. instead, they decided to settle completely in florida in a neighborhood of miami-dade county called carrion. there, they would gain a foothold by waging war on neighborhood gangs until they achieved complete control of carrion. now the area is the base of operations for everything they do.

the characterizations in this verse are drastically different due to: 1. the different setting 2. the different background 3. the different tone -- and while characters like marcelo still retain several core characteristics, it’s best to assume the characters will not behave in the exact same way as they do in their canon verses, and they will not respond the same. it might be jarring. it’s meant to be jarring, as this verse intends to explore a ‘what if’ type of scenario for the reyes family if they still decided to be active in the criminal world.

as it’s been hinted, the reyes have an alternative religion, complete with a central deity and minor gods. this religion is completely fictional, as are their ritual practices, and they are not meant to be similar to any real life religion or belief system.  

the neighborhood of carrion is fictional too, and while certain historical elements might be taken directly from real life, i don’t mean to make accurate depictions of them (this especially concerns the cocaine boom of the 80s and colombia’s la violencia between the 40s and 50s). i also don’t plan to use any real life gangs/criminals in this verse, and i won’t acknowledge their existence. 

the verse sways between urban fantasy and magical realism. while the magic is very much real, the extent of it will be unfamiliar to most people, and a lot of things will be deliberately vague. things in carrion work a particular way, people work a certain way, and it’s not the same for other parts of miami. 

LOS DISCÍPULOS.

known by a variety of names (los dorados, los reales, la justicia, la realeza, or the kings of miami) los discipulos de la nueva religión is the gang the reyes run. consisting primarily of werecats and humans of magical predisposition, they’re infamous in miami for their extremely violent ways and their vicious grip on carrion. 

though during the first decade they were focused on drug distribution (and were, for several years, in full control of the colombia-caribbean islands-usa cocaine pipeline), over time they have downsized their drug operation.

nowadays, the kings manage protection rackets for businesses outside of carrion, simultaneously protecting their home neighborhood from the influence of other gangs -- completely for free. they also perform armed robbery and theft outside of miami and hijack trucks. 

perhaps the thing they are most known for, however, is their vigilantism. notably anti-cop, the kings have taken it upon themselves to impart justice in their neighborhood and surrounding areas. this effort, unlike the protection rackets, is completely free of cost. essentially, they will go after those they consider to have evaded justice: murderers, abusers, p*dophiles, and rapists. they will also make a point to go after corrupted authority figures in particular: police officers, priests, and the occasional politician. as a result, they have been linked to various assassinations, but nothing has ever been proven as of right now.

the kings also pump a lot of money into carrion and surrounding areas. their businesses include, but are not limited to: a tattoo parlor, a hair salon, a barbershop, and a bar. they also run a private shelter and organize many activities for the benefit of carrion’s citizens. because of this, they’re pretty beloved within their community and outside of it. the popular consensus seems to be that if you need help and ask the kings for it, you’re guaranteed to receive it. 

EL CULTO / THE BELIEFS.

though the gang came to be around the 80s officially, el culto has been going on for much longer, evolving steadily into what it is today. originally started in colombia, it centers around one main figure: la Justicia, a goddess thought to be responsible for keeping balance in the universe by killing what needs to be killed and subsequently consuming it -- something for which she was given the title of Divine Devorer (or Divina Devoradora). 

la justicia is the guiding figure of their lives, and believers kill for her (human sacrifices and offering dead bodies being quite common). she’s considered the agent of retribution, above all other gods and above all other things.

the worship maintains that all other gods might as well exist, but they too have to follow the laws of the universe, and if they break them, then they too will be consumed by la Justicia. in that way, the goddess acts as a check/balance for other pantheons. and they don’t necessarily have to like that (many, in fact, hate her) but there’s nothing they can do about it. 

the culto is notably anti-catholic/anti-christian god, and in a certain way started as a direct response to the forced christianization of south america that happened during colonial times. missionaries were often killed around this time, and many churches were destroyed. because of this tightly knit history with catholicism, it’s not rare to see worshippers of La Justicia “appropiating” catholic imagery in blatant and mocking ways. 

el culto’s other deities are La Muerte and La Locura, representing respectively the two other laws of the universe. if la Justicia is the agent of order, La Locura is the agent of disorder, and La Muerte (death) is the only certainty in the whole universe. despite their massive power, the are considered minor in the cult -- they’re seen as two natural influences that prefer not to directly involve themselves in the world, unlike La Justicia, which must be constantly pursued and taken care of.

CARRION, MIAMI.

bordered with allapattah to the west, wynwood to the east, and liberty city to the north, carrion is a neighborhood in miami with a large latino population that represents about 70% of its makeup. predominated by dominicans, puerto ricans and cubans as well as colombians and venezuelans, it’s primarily a low to working class neighborhood with a big textiles market. it’s also well known for it’s food distribution centers and mercados, which a wide variety of tropical fruits.

apart from all this, it happens to be the homebase of the kings, and where much of the action takes place. carrion has a reputation for being a strange neighborhood, where weird things often take place and “nobody notices”. despite being somewhat quiet, it boasts an alarmingly high number of unsolved disappearance cases, only rivalled by the number of unsolved murder cases. it was pretty active during the cocaine boon of the 80s and it’s rumored there’s 20 tons of cocaine hidden somewhere from those times in the neighborhood. as far fetched as that sounds, in 2016 someone found 100k worth of jewelry hidden inside their kitchen wall during a house renovation, so -- let’s just say nothing is out of the question when it comes to carrion. 

CHARACTERS INVOLVED WITH THE VERSE.

MARCELO REYES

ALBA REYES

SAUL BAUTISTA

ELIÁN VALENCIANO

CAMILA VALENCIANO

JOAQUÍN

LEON ROMERO

Toxic Holocaust - War Game

Scientology: What I’ve learned

Since the beginning of COVID-19, some friends and I are have been choosing a different topic to learn about each week. We then discuss what we’ve learned on a weekly Zoom call. 

This week we learned about the church of scientology. We’ve got our call tonight, so I thought I’d jot down everything I’ve learned here: 

Premise of Scientology

It is the belief of scientologists that humans are immortal, spiritual beings called thetans. Scientologists believe thetans have infiniate past and future lives, and that all our past lives existed in extraterrestrial cultures. 

Members of the church of scientology don’t worship a god, instead they believe in a certain path which must be adopted in order to “save the world”. Scientologists follow an in depth program (which comes at a monetary cost) of ideas or courses called dianetics, where they learn about “religious technologies”. As you advance thorugh the program and reach higher levels you are believed to gain extra sensory powers. The highest levels are called OTs (Operating Thetan levels). The highest OT you can reach is 8... Tom Cruise is currently at a 7. This program is called the “Bridge to Total Freedom”. 

The first major goal of scientology is to “go clear”. In his book ”A Brief Guide to Secret Religions: A Complete Guide to Hermetic, Pagan and Esoteric Beliefs”, David Barrett describes clearning as “the attainment of Man's dreams through the ages of attaining a new and higher state of existence and freedom from the endless cycle of birth, death, birth … Clear is the total erasure of the reactive mind from which stems all the anxieties and problems the individual has.” Clearing is achieved via a number of drills, one of the most important and important which is called “auditing” (see the key definitions below list to find out more). The more “clear” you become with auditing, the more open you are to remebering stories from your past extraterrestrial lives. 

As stated in “Scientology, what Exactly is it?”, written by Tricia and Dan Gilgoff: “ The core of Scientology teaching lies in the belief that "each human has a reactive mind that responds to life's traumas, clouding the analytic mind and keeping us from experiencing reality." Scientologists undergo auditing to discover sources of this trauma, believing that re-experiencing it neutralizes it and reinforces the ascendancy of the analytic mind, with the final goal believed to be achieving a spiritual state that Scientology calls "clear". 

Leadership

Scientology was founded by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard in the early 1950s. Hubbard serves as a Lietanant during World War II, after which he became depressed and fell ill. He requested psychiatric treatment (paid for by the Vetrans Admininistration), later condemning psychiartry as evil, which has since grown into a major theme of scientology. 

In 1950, Hubbard’s book “Dianetics: The Evolution of Science” was published. This book discussed a therapy technique Hubbard termed as “auditing” (used “ to clear”) which became one of the key beliefs and systems in scientology. Originally promoting the practice of dianetics as a science, Hubbard soon after formed the religious movement we now know as scientology. 

At the very top level of scientology is the Sea-Org, is a fraternal clergy of “top tier” scientologists, made up of 5,000 of the orginsations most dedicated members. To enter the sea-org you must sign a billion year contract, work for low pay and donate between $500,000 - £2,000,000 USD. The Sea-Org is captained by David Miscavige, the modern leader of the church who appointed chairman of the board subsequent to Hubbard’s death. Miscavige has been accused of emotional and physical by several ex-church members. There are several other allegations against him including harrassment, coercive fundraising practices and forced separation of family members. 

Ex-church members have said that if Miscavige got the sense that you were more liked than him, or better at any activity he would flip out. He is recorded 24/7 (the Scientology headquarters are constantly recording everything). 

Key Definitions

Because so much of Scientology is based in Huber’s novel, members of the church have a lot of off “jibberish” phrases they use to describe people and practices. Some of these can be found below: 

Blew: To escape or run away 

KSW (Keep Scientology Working): This essentially is a part of the doctorine requiring members of the church to only take actions/act in a way which is acceptable to the church. In the words of an ex-church member, if you break KSW, you “get crushed”. 

One of the major KSW polocies is to have a “dedicated glare”, which explains why Tom Cruise and many other seems slightly insane in interviews when speaking about it. 

Sea-Org: Top tier scientologists; the members of the church who commit the most conterversional acts.

Auditing: A form of therapy founded by Hubbard to enable “clearing”. Auditing uses a primitive lie detector called an “e-meter”. Members of the church talk about their past memories or traumas (this include memories from past lives) which are called e-grams. They talk about these memories until the e-grams disappear from the e-meter and they are clear. 

Religious Technology: The program of courses you must pay  to work through and advance yourself as a scientologist. 

Thetans: Scientologists believe humans are all immortal, spiritual beings called thetans. 

OT (Operating Thetan): The most advanced levels of the religious technology program. It is in these levels where you are able to develop extra sensory powers.

Squirrelling: Someone is considering a squirel - or to be squirrelling - is someone who uses the official scientology practice outside of the organisation. 

Squirrel-busters: A team of scientologists who harrass squirrels (lol). 

Tone-Scale:  According to the offical Scientology website, "the Tone Scale below is a numerical scale (scaled to show relative position),"The vast majority of emotional tones a person experiences can be found somewhere on this scale." The site also states, "By knowing where a person falls on the scale, one can precisely predict his actions."

In Scientology, it is drilled into you that you must talk at tone 40 (ie. the serenity of beingness). 

Bullbaiting: According to Louis Therox, this is “ learning how to withstand verbal assault and not be upset or show any visible reaction to unfriendliness or just keeping your composure. And so, you literally sit across from someone and they more or less shout abuse at you, and it can go on for hours. And you learn how to take it and then you dish it out as well."

This is one of the many drills people in the church participate in. 

SP (Suppressive Person): A suppressive person is one who has commited suppressive acts. These people are defined as “anti-social individuals” who make up 2.5% of the population. The term is often applied to people the church views as their enemies, sprouting “misinformation”. They consider suppressive people to be a danger to those around them. 

Golden base: The officical HQ of scientology. 

Mind Control

Through repeating drills such as the “tone-scale”, and following policies like “always having a dedicated glare”, it appears as though the church is able to control the actions and minds of its followers to some degree. 

They also run drills to encourage others to be able to control other’s minds (this is the higher you become as an OT). They teach you how to place intention into an object, and how to then place than intention into someone else’s mind. 

Why doesn’t the FBI raid the Golden Base? 

People (and I am one of these people) often ask, why aren’t legal authorities doing something about this? 

I’m sure there are plenty of reasons, but ex-church members claim mind control as one of the major factors. You are so drilled into believing the church’s doctorine, and that anything positive you have done in your life is due to it, and anything negative is a result of you straying from it. You believe you willingly partake in the torture that is inflicted on you.  

If the FBI was to raid the premises, the church members would likley say they are willing victims. 

Why don’t more people escape? 

Putting alleged murders aside, ex-church members say you would have to be in a state of extreme desperation to escape, and most people probably haven’t reached that level yet. They say you would need to be desperate to leave, because leaving the Golden Base would mean: 

- You would leave everyone you have ever known 

- You would go into a world you don’t know or understand, with no support

- You wouldn’t know how to get a job

An ex-church member described leaving as a “suicide of sorts”. 

Music Review: Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.

Kendrick Lamar DAMN. [Top Dawg; 2017] Rating: 5/5 For Jill, who would have hated this shit. So I was taking a walk the other day… Sometimes, when I’m taking walks by myself, I make lists in my head of what’s going to get me killed: CANCER. CARDIAC ARREST. PULMONARY EMBOLISM. The worst part about being a hypochondriac is that this shit isn’t just in my head (as if that would make it any less valid); it’s all corporeal, it’s all in my DNA. I’ve had a BLOOD clot, my grandfather died of a HEART ATTACK while shoveling snow when my dad was six years old, CANCER killed my sister. Some say that LOVE can get you killed, but it’s FEAR that’s going to be the death of me. It’s in my DNA. I’ll prolly die from anxiety. What is Kendrick Lamar afraid of? On his latest release, Kendrick reveals that his greatest fear is loss, whether it be of money, creativity, LOVE, LOYALTY from PRIDE, GOD’s light, HUMBLEness. There’s a FEAR present here that no degree of straight fire will ever reverse GOD’s curse against all things black. Doubt and duplicity permeate Kendrick’s lines while he maps his way forward, but he delivers his thoughts with unmatched clarity. Kendrick knows even more now (or at least when he spits knowledge, it’s more succinct): murder, conviction, burners, boosters, burglars, ballers, dead, redemption, scholars, fathers dead with kids. When Kendrick takes a walk, he’s also making lists of how he’ll die, vivid in his imagery in a way that only somebody who’s almost died can be: “anonymous… with promises… walkin’ back home from the candy house… because these colors are standin’ out.” To Pimp a Butterfly saw Kendrick going home after making it out. This time, we hear him wrestling with whether making it out was enough. DAMN. Damn is a derivative of damnare, a rather mundane Latin word meaning loss or harm. John Ayto, author of The Dictionary of Word Origins, reveals that it didn’t become exclusively a theological term or an expletive until its original meaning was lost around 16c; its Biblical use is therefore contested, as its original connotation of mild condemnation does not fit what has eventually become synonymous with exemption from divine mercy. Its use on DAMN. encapsulates all of these historical permutations, as loss, harm, and exclusion (from both divine and mundane spaces) are all prominent themes. There’s a recurring motif, delivered at one point through a voicemail from Kendrick’s cousin Carl, of people of color being cursed by GOD for being inequitable and following other gods. Damn, as a verb here, is something that GOD does. It’s a top-down kind of smiting, but this kind of exchange is also present here between mortals. On opener “BLOOD.,” there’s a sample of FOX News reporters misquoting and deriding his song “Alright” after his 2015 BET Awards performance. “Oh please, ugh, I don’t like it,” one anchor says of its supposed anti-police message. It’s another, fleshier example of punching down, of condemning (or reinforcing condemnation of) a disenfranchised people. On “ELEMENT.,” a song that mostly eschews religious imagery for pointed digs at fake rappers, Kendrick uses “damn” as a participle, adjective, verb, and an expletive in one line, highlighting how those most affected by violence are pushed out of those very positions of power that could protect them: “Damned if I do, if I don’t (yuhhh)/ Goddamn us all if you won’t (yuhhh)/ Damn, damn, damn, it’s a goddamn shame/ You ain’t frontline, get out the goddamn way.” It’s a biting twist on Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous line, delivered as a sparse bridge in between sexy James Blake-produced keyboard stabs and grimy snares. Kendrick is asserting through this track that nobody can take him out of his ELEMENT, which in this case is wherever he’s at. While “damn” itself is used in a plethora of different ways throughout DAMN., it is “DNA.” that sets these permutations into motion through its sheer power, eliciting that initial reaction from its audience: “DAMN.(!)” Kendrick is cracking open his genes all over this thing with vigor, unravelling strands of his pedigree like a Pandora’s ladder, choking those who are offended by his inner duplicitousness: “I got millions, I got riches buildin’ in my DNA / I got dark, I got evil, that rot inside my DNA / I got off, I got troublesome, heart inside my DNA.” There are multitudes here, mutations, mutilations, meditations, millions. Packed so tight that it never stops popping. Unpacking it all is an impossible task. Luckily for us, trying is a Helluva time. I got so many theories and suspicions… As both a religious person and a scholar of religion, I’ve always been fascinated by religious rhetoric and imagery, especially in non-worship music. Biblical imagery is abundant on DAMN., but its intentional juxtaposition with profanity is what makes it stand out. Deuteronomy 28:28 is referenced multiple times and presents us with DAMN.’s central dilemma: “The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind.” This is essentially a curse, one that Kendrick’s cousin Carl uses as an etiology for black suffering. This divine curse leaves Kendrick wrestling with two options throughout DAMN: keep defying it by succeeding against all odds, or guarantee everlasting life by repenting and coming clean. “YAH.” exemplifies Kendrick’s quandary: “I’m not a politician, I’m not ‘bout a religion I’m a Israelite, don’t call me Black no mo’ That word is only a color, it ain’t facts no mo’ My cousin called, my cousin Carl Duckworth Said know my worth And Deuteronomy say that we all been cursed I know he walks the Earth But it’s money to get, bitches to hit, yah Zeroes to flip, temptation is, yah First on my list, I can’t resist, yah Everyone together now, know that we forever” In one verse, there is both a rejection of religion and a reclamation of an ancient religious lineage. Kendrick respects his cousin Carl’s faith amidst adversity, yet offers that temptation is often stronger. Ultimately, Kendrick professes a message of togetherness, locating eternity in fraternal bonds. Attaining redemption, however, rides on making it out in America, a land plagued by its own inequities divorced from those that drove Kendrick’s people out of the Promised Land, America itself a land that promised radical equality for those who have been oppressed and suppressed. As Bono sings in “XXX.,” “It’s not a place/ This country is to be a sound of drum and bass.” U2’s chorus reminds us that America is still at war with itself and is so by its own cruel design. Three months in, DAMN. feels like our first Trump-era classic. It’s as bold and as hard and as hopeful as it is bursting with vitriol. It’s as distracting as it is inciting. It’s as cohesive as it is dense. It’s a volatile, unpredictable chapter in a legacy that’s followed Kendrick from Compton to Congress and now to the Cosmos, as we all struggle for meaning together in a Universe that’s on fire and covered in BLOOD. DAMN. is an expletive shouted into infinity, a judgment of our own judgments, a wrestling with GOD, a letting go of loss and harm, something that we could all give a little more of. It’s a DAMN masterpiece in a world that too often feels like a DAMN shame. FEEL (alternate version) I FEEL like my only accomplishments are reflections I FEEL like my privilege only silences my message I FEEL like I’m losing my GOD DAMN edge if I had one I FEEL like I never had much to say in the first place FEEL like, I FEEL like we’re on two different planets FEEL like I am part of a problem that I can’t fix I FEEL like too many people out prayin’ for themselves I FEEL like violence is a function of FEAR and that’s BULLSHIT GOD. DAMN. you GOD. DAMN. me GOD. DAMN. us GOD. DAMN. we GOD. DAMN. US. ALL. GOD bless every DAMN one of US ALL. Are we gonna live? Or die? “It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in any way, but that by my speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer.” — Philippians 1:20-22 “Pay attention, that one decision changed both of they lives One curse at a time Reverse the manifest and good karma, and I’ll tell you why You take two strangers, and put ‘em in random predicaments; give ‘em a soul So they can make their own choices and live with it” — “DUCKWORTH.” Two Christmases ago, my sister died of cancer. Around that time, I started experiencing stomach pains and frequent dizziness for no discernible physiological reason; part of me convinced myself that I had somehow contracted cancer from her ghost and that ghost cancer just wasn’t detectable. We weren’t that close, but as those holes have closed up tightly in her absence and my other sister and brother and stepmother and I have grown closer, I’ve realized more and more just how intimately people can be connected. Loss can be physically devastating. On hard days, I’m reminded more than ever before how violent disconnection can be. For a lot of people, life isn’t a choice; it’s a sentence. It’s hard finding lessons in what so often feels like a cavalcade of creative and destructive accidents. But here’s where hope enters: we have some control of that speeding, blistering motorcade. We can listen while others mourn, we can hold each other up when foundations bottom out, we can rebuild this house together, and we can forgive when listening and holding and rebuilding and forgiving seem impossible. Life is DAMN. hard, but it’s shit like DAMN. that make it a bit easier. It’s fresh air over a gravestone. Sunshine on an epitaph. GOD BLESS these molecules, bent on decay. So I was taking a walk the other day… http://j.mp/2oRE5gA

CHRISTIANS ARE LIKE SHEEP TO THE SLAUGHTER

STUPID DUMB CHRISTIANS ARE LIKE SHEEP TO THE SLAUGHTER By Pastor Del Wray Something is wrong with America! What was it that destroyed the Roman Empire? Let me suggest three things that caused Rome to collapse. First Rome “Rotted from Within Morally”. Second, she made too much of “Sporting Events” with her large coliseums and third, she “Over Taxed” her citizens. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Today's newspapers are full of stories about the rampant rise in divorce rates; the increasing abuse of children by some parents; increases in the incidence of rape; pornography being read by an increasing number of people; more crimes against property; demands for world government; urgings for national borders to fall; Christian churches being closed because they will not seek licensing by the state; etc. But why are these things happening? Why are all of the legacies of the past, the family, national borders, the right to practice any chosen religion, the right to private property, amongst other things, under such attack? Is it possible that there are actually people and organizations who really want to change the basic order of things? Clues to the answers to these questions can be gleaned from some comments made by people and organizations that are talking about these wide-reaching changes in the nature of our lifestyle. Could it be that American Christians have turned from their Creator? Yes all of the above, but there is an unseen hand at work behind the scenes seeking to destroy American Democracy and rid America of Christianity. American Christians are blindly relishing in their materialism having become lazy and apathetic about this unseen enemy that is out to tear down and obliterate its freedom. They’re like sheep hell-bent to the slaughter, stupid and dumb, blind and deceived, unbelieving and refusing to obey God just as the Jews in ancient times. Any student of the Bible who has studied Holy Scripture for any length of time knows the Church Age ends in apostasy followed by 7 years of Tribulation, 31/2 years of Jewish domination of the world under their false messiah, the Jewish anti-Christ, when tens of millions of Christians will be killed for refusing to follow after this satanic One World leader. It’s estimated that over 200,000,000 Americans will be slaughtered by way of the guillotine and decapitation. After which, begins the second 31/2 years of trumpet and viol judgments known as the Great Tribulation, upon the Jewish nation for rejecting their true Messiah and becoming the instruments of death and slaughter of all those who have been martyred in the name of Jesus Christ and Christianity down through the centuries. Jesus Christ returns in His glory destroying His enemies and reins over the earth for one thousand years, called the Age of Righteousness or the Millennial Kingdom. Then God’s people will be removed from the earth and a New Havens and New Earth is spoken into existence. The Holy Spirit then cries out to John, there on the Isle of Patmos… "And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new..." Rev. 21:3-5 What is wrong with America? The Jews are what is wrong with America. "The Jewish religion as it is today traces its descent, without a break, through all the centuries, from the Pharisees."— Universal Jewish Encyclopedia The very people Jesus spoke vilest about. Today, the Christian church stands at a crossroads. The divine and sacred mission of the Christian faith faces a danger at this juncture in history which is greater than any it has faced in 2,000 years. If the day ever comes when Christians cannot profess their faith as they do today in America, then we will see the beginning of the end. The history of the world, for the past several Centuries and current events at home and abroad, confirm to the intelligent person that there is indeed something wrong with America, a conspiracy is afoot to destroy Christian civilization. The world-wide plot of these diabolical conspirators has been instituted while most Christians have been asleep in front of their pulpits and their TV's. For the most part, the Christian clergy, who should have been in the forefront of exposing this danger, have been indifferent or ignorant and have been the ones who assisted the enemies of Christ in their efforts to destroy us. This ignorance and indifference have dealt a blow to the Christian faith from which many will never recover. Christian fundamentalist believes in The End Times, the Rapture, the physical return of Jesus Christ, Armageddon and the Millennium. I have no argument with those who do just as long as they aren't aiding and abetting the New World Order, as exemplified by the so-called Christian Zionist John Hagee ministries out of Texas. Our shamefully dumbed-down American public refuses to take these warnings seriously, like sheep to the slaughter because they cannot imagine that the betrayal is as huge as it actually is and they are so utterly dependent on what they witness locally, meaning that since they don't see the 20 foot high barb wire fences around FEMA concentration camps in their neighborhoods, they must not exist. Well, just 8 miles from our church is Camp Somerset, an X-WW2 German POW camp being prepared right now by FEMA to be used as a Concentration Camp. I have observed myself FEMA vehicles/trucks coming and going from this camp. Why? Woe to you foolish Americans when they come for you and your family... There should be no confusion in the minds of Christians when it comes to the fundamentals of the faith. The mindlessness and confusion in this country would not exist if it were not for those of the preachers who are allies with the enemy who seeks to destroy them. There are countless Christians who are standing on the sidelines watching as their faith withers on the vine, and their freedom is about to drop into the laps of their enemies like overripe fruit. This cup will become bitterer when they realize that it is the ignorance and indifference of their spiritual leaders which has caused the deplorable condition of Christianity today. When Christians see their leaders in defeat on every front, they too will become confused and afraid. To stop this surrender, the clergy MUST make an about-face, no matter how painful it may be. They must take a stand against the invisible and intangible ideological war which is being waged against Christianity. How stupid can we be? As one preacher said, “we ought to sue our brains for non-support”. Let me say to those who read here, don’t be stupid all your life. America is deaf, dumb and blind when it comes to their spiritual well being, reaping the consequences of our sin. I do not utilize the aforementioned terms in a derisive or derogatory manner to those who may be physically handicapped, but rather I am referring to those millions of Christian in this land of ours who are mentally and spiritually deaf, dumb, and or blind.   Before considering these conditions, it would be wise to look at the definitions of these terms so that we may have a better understanding. DEAF: unable to hear; refusing to listen. DUMB: without the power of speech; bereft of the power of speech temporarily; that which does not speak or is little addicted to speaking. BLIND: lacking the sense of sight; unable or unwilling to try to understand; not controlled by reason; not possessing or proceeding from intelligence; lacking all awareness.   I fully understand that the "remnant" reading this article is cognizant of the matters which I will present herein, but this message very likely is applicable to your friends and family who may appear blissfully unaware of the coming judgment of the Almighty. Are you fulfilling your role as a Christian watchman in accordance with Ezekiel 33:6?   Over the years, since Roe vs. Wade, we have witnessed more than fifty million babies being murdered under the guise of abortion. Sadly the vast majority of these have been babies. We don't see foreigners and strangers having a great number of abortions. After all, more babies mean more public assistance.   Our people whether we like to acknowledge it or not, are under the Law. Those who say the Law was "nailed to the cross" are in serious error. The only thing nailed to the cross were the "ordinances," mostly pertaining to the animal sacrifices, since the Lamb of God was slain for us, there is no need for further blood sacrifices, And our people are deaf dumb and blind.   Violent crime, murder, rape, physical assault, armed robbery, etc. continues to escalate throughout the country and the U.S. Justice Department statistics indicate one such type of crime occurs every four minutes somewhere in the nation. The growth of Hispanic and Oriental gangs in the past decade had been epidemic with senseless initiation-type murders, car-jacking, home-invasions, drive-by shootings, etc. It has reached the point where those who are supposed to protect us are in fear for their own lives. And while our people may appear to be concerned, they are in truth, deaf dumb, and blind.   While the Scriptures are very clear on homosexuality, Lev. 18:22, 20:13, Rom. 1:24-28, et al. We have in the past two decades witnessed an explosion in the open flaunting of such decadent behavior. Prior to that time, these sodomizers dared not parade their disgusting acts in public. Today they have parades in our major cities and special "queer" weekends at "theme parks," and "resorts" and they openly demand "their rights" to do so. In addition, we have elected politicians who openly admit that they are "gay" and who continue to be re-elected by their mainly ungodly constituents. And our people, while they may disapprove, are deaf dumb, and blind. Our God is not mocked! Judgment cometh!   Have you noticed the tremendous growth in pornography, in all forms: print, movies, television, etc. that is sweeping the country? And it is not all "adult" in nature but it is expanding into the area of intimate acts of child porn. Notice if you will the heavy involvement of the Jewish Talmudists in these endeavors. And our people, some of whom subscribe to this filth are deaf dumb and blind.   We are literally being invaded today by tens of millions of aliens and strangers from all of the third world countries of the world. These illegals bring into our nation sickness, filth and disease, and non-Christian traits and living conditions. We have been informed in Scripture that we shall not "put a stranger over thee," and yet today we don't seem to understand this admonition. If our political leaders would listen to, and abide by the Word of God, illegal immigration would cease immediately. Miscegenation/race-mixing is on the increase and why would we expect anything else? Read the history of our people! And yet, most of our people are deaf dumb and blind to what our God states with regard to this.   Our so-called "excellent" system of public education is costing hundreds of billions of dollars every year to achieve nothing better than mediocre or failing grades and dumbed-down graduates. According to the U. S. Dept. of Education, almost 46% of the students who graduate from high school are considered "semi-literate." We have allowed the humanists, the AFT, and the NEA, and dare I say, the "Satanists" to take over our schools. We have "outlawed" school prayer, and removed God from our schools. Yet, even though parents clamor for more educational resources, they are deaf dumb and blind to the many shortfalls. Is it any wonder that many of our people have commenced "homeschooling"? From about 1,000 children twenty-five years ago, home-schooling now numbers almost 8 million children.   As a nation, we have expended huge sums in the "wars," the war on poverty, the war on drugs, etc., and we have obviously LOST all of these. Drugs and Poverty are still with us, and more so than ever. We have exported our manufacturing and industry in the name of corporate greed. Our manufacturing is now done in Thailand, Japan, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nigeria, Cambodia, Peru, India, Pakistan, China, and other nations in Africa and South America. Just look at the labels on most all of the products you buy. We have become an "information" and "service" society! We are a destitute nation who has given our God-given resources to third-world nations that despise us. And our people and our leaders are deaf dumb and blind to the consequences.   We have no morality and ethical levels of conduct left. We see the corruption and greed running rampant among our leaders. We have more lawyers in this nation than all the rest of the world combined. Contrary to Scripture, we have become a "suing" people. And our people, for the most part, are deaf dumb, and blind as to what the Word of God says.   We have expended hundreds of billions of dollars in aid and support to the ungodly Jewish Talmudists. We are even now involved in the war in Iraq at a cost of 2,000+ of our sons, fathers, husbands, mothers, sisters, and brothers. I would like to pose to President Trump, the question asked by Jehu, son of Hanani, of King Jehoshaphat of Judah long ago: "Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord." 2 Chron. 19:2. And the Fundamentalists and Evangelicals and many from Protestantism are deaf dumb and blind. The Zionists reject Jesus Christ, and such conduct was unheard of fifty years ago.   Our churches, for the most part, have become hollow, empty and Godless buildings. Many of the pastors, ministers, and priests follow the traditions of men over the Word of God. Materialism governs the established church. The pastors, ministers, and priests are supposed to be teaching the Word of God, but many have no idea of what the Gospel message is. There are some who deny the "virgin birth" of our Saviour as mere fiction. There are others who question the truth of the resurrection without which there is no salvation for Jew or Gentile. There are others who see nothing wrong with same-sex marriage. There are some who are practicing homosexuals and lesbians. For many of the clergy, it is a career, and not a heartfelt commitment to work for the LORD our God. And our people follow these blind leaders and are deaf dumb, and blind to what the Scriptures say.   We are a sick and troubled nation! We are sick and troubled people!   We are deaf. We don't want to hear about such unpleasant things as I have mentioned in this article. We are mentally and spiritually unwilling to hear.   We are dumb. We don't want to use the power of speech to speak out on the critical and important issues that we face as a people and a nation. We prefer not to get involved.   Some may think that we are religious extremists or kooks, or at best religious intolerants. Remember, whatever the issue, if it conflicts with the Word of God, we have both the duty and the responsibility, and the right to speak out. Use the power of speech!   We are blind. We don't want to see what is going on all around us. Many do not want to search the Scriptures to find out what God has to say about some issue. When you know the truth, you have to react in accordance with the Word, or pay the price of disobedience, and isn't that price SIN? You cannot merely pay lip service to God. God is not mocked!   We have had the "blessings" as stated in Deuteronomy 28:1-14, and now we have progressed to the "curses" section of verses for disobedience. Read this chapter of Scripture and compare what we have been and what we are today.   There does appear to be somewhat of an "awakening" on the part of our people today as they question some of the concerns that I have enumerated herein. And surely, the ultimate solution to all of our problems is to follow the instructions contained in that famous verse of 2 Chronicles 7:14.  

北美作业代写：The revenge

下面为大家整理一篇优秀的essay代写范文- The revenge，供大家参考学习，这篇论文讨论了小说《复仇》。小说《复仇》是美国犹太裔作家菲利普·罗斯的封笔之作。该小说叙述了一位犹太体育老师巴基的悲惨人生际遇。作者通过对《复仇》的创伤性解读，揭示当代美国犹太民族在“大屠杀”语境下的战争创伤、由于传统道德说教产生的道德意识创伤和身份困惑中的文化创伤。

American jewish writer Philip roth is one of the most distinguished writer in literary world in America today. The novella, revenge, was Ross's 2010 novel. The novel revolves around the 1944 outbreak of polio in Newark, an American jewish community, and tells the tragic story of a jewish sports teacher, barki. This paper mainly analyzes the characteristics of jewish writing in revenge from the aspects of ethnic persecution, moral bondage and identity loss suffered by jewish ethnic groups. Through the interpretation of "revenge" of traumatic, reveals the contemporary American jewish people in the context of "holocaust" of war trauma, moral consciousness due to traditional moralizing trauma and identity confusion of culture.

As the twentieth century American ethnic violence and the rise of the civil rights movement of jewish national consciousness constantly strengthen, American jewish writers also begin to pay close attention to the jewish people suffered all kinds of disasters and traumatic for a long time. The long exile life of the jewish nation makes the jewish literature form its unique writing style of trauma. Philip roth is one of the contemporary American literature prolific jewish writer. As a controversial figure in the history of American jewish literature, rose's writing career has spanned half a century. Similar to many jewish writers, Ross's many works still maintained a distinctive and unique jewish identity and ethnic characteristics, in the literary creation showed relatively unified jewish cultural traits: strong moral consciousness, serious racial persecution and lasting memory.

Racial persecution and to the jewish holocaust caused by trauma is deeply rooted, a typical theme of American jewish literature is for long-term oppression and persecution of jewish history writing. Ross polio by describing Newark area events and characters of bucky misery, reconstruct the history of the jewish people suffered from war trauma memory, reveals the racial persecution and the shadow of "mass murder" is always rooted in the inner depths of the jewish people. Tao jiajun, a famous scholar, discusses the three problems of western trauma culture through the criticism of trauma culture and cultural reproduction. "The contradiction between trauma experience and historical memory, symbolic trauma events and trauma cognition is the first major difficulty in western trauma culture." During the second world war, in order to safeguard the dignity and honor of the jewish people and to save the jewish people from the grave disaster, the jews actively fought with the national spirit of resistance and died. And cantor bucky is due to the eyesight abandoned by battlefield, become one of the few young people in the war. He was ashamed to wear civilian clothes, to see news films about the war, and to see the trauma of the war and the misery of the reality that had struck bakih twice. Newark community paralysis is an Italian deliberately caused by infection, suffering from polio Italian boy struggled to jewish children spread disease is fascist destroy the history of the jewish people. "We are here to spread of polio, we don't want to let you the jews to escape from", "so since when there is a study of banning spread polio, the playground director Sir?" The malevolence of Italian boys towards jews and their contempt for baqui are manifestations of deep racial discrimination, and the spread of polio in the Newark community is a reflection of the genocide.

"The silence of trauma and the voice of literature are the second most problematic aspects of trauma culture." The key is to recognize and reflect on the traumatic events and to make people root out the latent psychological trauma. "Mass murder" is a heavy topic for jews, many contemporary writers expressed the silence, and Philip Ross did not shy away from this area in the works to the jewish people hit the topic, he chose to literature, let people to face up to the permanent traumatic events. He not only hinted at the existence of the holocaust in jewish consciousness many times, but also discussed the fear of the holocaust in his works. "I oppose the fear of jewish children. I am opposed to the fear of jews for a long time. Fear in Europe, that's why jews fled. This is America. Less fear will make us better off. Fear makes us timid; fear corrupts us. Cultivate people to fear less -- that's your job and mine." This is Dr. Steinberg's encouragement and hope for Mr. Baki in his predicament. During a period of wild polio, steinberg chose to stay in the affected areas and encouraged barky to overcome his fear. But his words suggest that the psychological trauma of the holocaust remains.

"The three great difficulties of western trauma culture are the recurrence of crisis." By recreating the crisis, rose has brought to light the psychological trauma of the holocaust. "A crisis is a crisis of existing knowledge, because it cannot reproduce the unrepeatable; In other words, it is impossible to approach, express and talk about the lasting and repeated painful psychological reality and spiritual suffering caused by traumatic events to the subject of trauma culture. Ross breaks through the crisis of representation of traditional cultural narration and USES symbolic metaphor to break the time boundary between the past and the present. In revenge, Newark jewish community and Indian mountain respectively refers to the jewish holocaust and relatively open the United States, Europe and bucky from d chief fleeing yu also pointed to the disaster in the community of people fleeing from Europe to America. Similarly, the scourge of polio among the jewish community of viquique heralds a painful continuation of the holocaust. "Anti-semitism says that because they are jewish, polio is there. All this was the work of all the jews. The community of viquique became a center of paralysis, and jews should be quarantined. Some of them seem to think that the best way to get rid of the spread of polio is to burn up the community of viquique and all the jews inside. When disease prevails, racism becomes more pronounced. Americans take all disease, disaster, punishment due to the existence of the jews, they even think that the best way to escape the plague is burned to death all the jews, this can not help but reminiscent of the Nazi jewish genocide of evil deeds. The jewish nation has suffered trauma today in another way, the past trauma and present overlapping, not only restored the historical memory of the jews, but also exacerbated their soul the traumatic experience.

The jewish people attach great importance to the traditional ethical and moral concepts of Judaism and attach great importance to the strong moral integrity. The moral values that they focus on are derived from Judaism's view of itself as the chosen people of god and the doctrine of suffering for the atonement of mankind. Judaism has an innate sense of superiority and confidence that distinguishes it from other religions. They have long practiced a most holy way of life. In terms of religious belief, they believe that jewish behavior should conform to the norms of the jewish code, so they pursue an extreme moral standard of self-discipline.

The collapse of the spiritual world shook his faith. He could no longer believe that god could save mankind. "God killed my mother when I was born. God gave me a thief father. In my twenties, god made me sick with polio, and he made me infect at least a dozen children, probably more, including Marcia's sister, including you "At the same time, baki vented doubt and hatred of god on himself in reverse. In baki's heart, he has become an accomplice to god's evil, and his doubts and resentments against god are an endless psychological punishment to him. "Polio among the children of the Indian mountain camp is a tragedy, but he cannot accept it. He must translate tragedy into his own guilt. It was this paranoid jewish sense of morality that kept baki from getting away with his punishment, and the result of his persistence was the destruction of his mind and body. The ethical and moral standards that baki abides by are exactly the original sin spirit advocated by the traditional jewish culture. Jewish religion believes that people are born with original sin, so they should take the responsibility to get salvation. Under the influence of this kind of paranoid moral concept, baki constantly introspect himself, chastise himself, and even carry out self-psychological abuse. Eventually this misplaced sense of responsibility so that he abandoned the good of all, bucky refused his girlfriend Marcia company, he believes that "the only way to save dignity is what have rejected all he longed for.

For thousands of years, the jewish people have faced the decline of their nation and suffered numerous persecution and crises, both spiritually and culturally. Although the jewish people have continued their cultural identity through their unique lifestyle and religious beliefs, the jewish people have been suffering from cultural trauma after more than 2,000 years of exile. This cultural trauma is concentrated in the second generation of jewish immigrants. The second generation of jewish immigrants under the influence of American multiculturalism is eager to enter the mainstream of American society on one hand, on the other hand, facing the jewish tradition and the dilemma of American culture, inevitably produced identity confusion and lost. As du bois put it in 1901, "double consciousness" : "it makes one always feel the duality of one's own identity; Two souls, two minds, two irreconcilable struggles; Two kinds of antagonism coexist in one body. In revenge, Marcia represents the modern American mainstream culture that baki yearns for. The existence of Marcia constituted his hope for modern American life. While being influenced by American multiculturalism, baki also inherited the jewish culture tradition. His grandfather, Sam, tried hard to cultivate bakih as a traditional jewish tough guy. He encouraged his grandson to stand up for himself and stand up for his jewish identity. Grandfather from breeding and strict requirements to its making bucky difficult to break through the confine of cage, the power of the traditional jewish culture outweighed the penetration of the outside world, bucky struggling in the culture of the margins of society. This reality of living in the cultural gap for a long time gives modern jews a sense of trauma of being rejected by the world. While displaying the jewish national cultural tradition, Ross also reveals the spiritual confusion, fear and alienation of contemporary American jewish people. Departure from the younger generation of traditional jewish culture, for his "other" is the status of anxiety and fear of anti-semitism highlights them in cultural identity confusion suffered trauma. Baki's fear of anti-semitism is a true reflection of post-world war ii jewish psychology. In the early days of the polio epidemic, Mr. Baki sought to reduce the impact of fear on children in the playground. "It's important not to infect children with the virus of fear," which is essentially anti-semitic fear. Mr Baki's valiant drive away Italian anti-semitism in the playground shows his determination to overcome fear. Bucky wanted his children not to be destroyed by fear, but he was quickly controlled and destroyed by it. After suffering from polio, baki killed his love for his fiancee, Marcia, and he was too scared to get out of the shadow of the disaster. Racial persecution and the holocaust is far away, but it still stay in the shadow of anti-semitism heart all jews, lingering fear made him in the United States policy relatively loose still feel confused about what to do.

The literary works of a certain period are always closely related to the social background, political history and culture of the time, and American jewish literature is no exception. This paper starts from the personal experience of the hero barky in revenge and reproduces the historical trauma suffered by the jewish nation. In his previous works, Ross satirizes the post-holocaust identity politics in a way that highlights the fear of war as the historical source of jewish trauma. Born guilty, the dilemma is the religious root of baki's self-punishment, and his identity confusion and loss under the multicultural background lead to his deep cultural trauma. In this paper, from a perspective of trauma, parsing Philip roth this work, the reasons why the American jewish suffering severe all trauma is a historical problem, bucky trauma herald a generation or even several generations of the trauma of the jews. The trauma of the 20th century -- the holocaust, world war ii, terrorism -- will not fade with time. Only by awakening people's sense of trauma and releasing repressed emotion is the way out of trauma. Literature is an effective means of expressing emotion and healing trauma. Philip rose through the power of literary narration, make people witness trauma, so that the people in need out of the collective trauma.

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Part 2, Friday, April 14th, 2017

International News:

--- "A United Nations expert said on Friday she hoped her visit to Cuba would open the door to a more intense dialogue on human rights and praised the country's social welfare system for reducing Cubans' vulnerability to human trafficking. Communist-run Cuba is generally suspect of inspections by international institutions, and this was the first visit by a U.N. human rights investigator in a decade. "I hope that this will be a stepping point for a more intense and fruitful dialogue with the whole human rights system," said Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, U.N. special rapporteur on trafficking in persons. Cuban dissidents, whom the government considers mercenaries funded by U.S. interests, said it was a positive sign that she had been invited, but only a first step. "It is notable they are not inviting special rapporteurs who look into torture, penitentiary systems, freedom of expression, the functioning of electoral systems, etc," said Elizardo Sanchez, leader of the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, which monitors arrests of opponents. Cuba's free healthcare, education and social security systems help reduce vulnerabilities that can lead to trafficking, Giammarinaro told a news conference."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-rights-idUSKBN17G1JK?il=0

--- "Pope Francis, presiding at a Good Friday service, asked God for forgiveness for scandals in the Catholic Church and for the "shame" of humanity becoming inured to daily scenes of bombed cities and drowning migrants. Francis presided at a traditional candlelight Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) service at Rome's Colosseum attended by some 20,000 people and protected by heavy security following recent attacks in European cities. Francis sat while a large wooden cross was carried in procession, stopping 14 times to mark events in the last hours of Jesus' life from being sentenced to death to his burial. Similar services, known as the Stations of the Cross, were taking place in cities around the world as Christians gathered to commemorate Jesus' death by crucifixion. At the end of the two-hour service, Francis read a prayer he wrote that was woven around the theme of shame and hope. In what appeared to be a reference to the Church's sexual abuse scandal, he spoke of "shame for all the times that we bishops, priests, brothers and nuns scandalized and wounded your body, the Church." The Catholic Church has been struggling for nearly two decades to put the scandal of sexual abuse of children by clergy behind it. Critics say more must be done to punish bishops who covered up abuse or were negligent in preventing it. Francis also spoke of the shame he said should be felt over "the daily spilling of the innocent blood of women, of children, of immigrants" and for the fate of those who are persecuted because of their race, social status or religious beliefs."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-religion-easter-pope-viacrucis-idUSKBN17G1KN?il=0

--- "A Palestinian man fatally stabbed a British student on Jerusalem's transit network on Friday, Israeli police said. Israel's ambassador to Britain, Mark Regev, named the victim as Hannah Bladon on his Twitter account, adding that she was "murdered in a senseless act of terror." The incident occurred in a train carriage on the light rail network near the walled Old City. TV footage showed blood on the floor of the carriage with police officers restraining a man and carrying him away. A paramedic for the Magen David Adom ambulance service said the woman had suffered multiple stab wounds and was pronounced dead in hospital. The British Foreign Office in London said in a statement: "We can confirm the tragic death of a British national in Jerusalem. We are providing support for her family at this difficult time and are in touch with the local authorities.""

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-violence-idUSKBN17G0XY?il=0

--- "Marine Le Pen has brought the National Front from fringe status into the political spotlight and made herself a real contender to be France's first woman president and its first far-right leader since World War Two. Since taking the helm in 2011, Le Pen has sought to rid the party of the anti-Semitic image it acquired under the nearly 40-year leadership of her father, ex-paratrooper Jean-Marie Le Pen. The twice-divorced mother of three has positioned the party instead as an anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic force offering protectionist policies to shelter French workers from globalization. Polls have consistently shown Le Pen as one of the favorites to get through the April 23 first round and contest the May 7 runoff. That would be a step further than her first attempt in 2012, when she failed to reach the second round, and equal the achievement of her father, who reached the second round in 2002, only to lose by a landslide to conservative Jacques Chirac. While polls suggest the younger Le Pen would also lose in the run-off, they point to a much closer fight this time."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-lepen-newsmaker-idUSKBN17G18J?il=0

--- "South Korea's military said it believed missiles displayed in a North Korean military parade on the anniversary of its state founder Kim Il Sung included new types of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). The North's leader, Kim Jong Un, attended the parade in the capital, Pyongyang, as a series of missiles, multiple launch rocket systems and rockets were on display, amid questions about U.S. plans for the country and concerns about a possible sixth nuclear test."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-icbm-idUSKBN17H034?il=0

--- "North Korea warned the United States on Saturday to end its "military hysteria" or face retaliation as a U.S. aircraft carrier group steamed towards the region and the reclusive state marked the "Day of the Sun", the 105th birth anniversary of its founding father...The North's warning came as leader Kim Jong Un, looking relaxed in a dark suit and laughing with aides, oversaw a military parade at Pyongyang's main Kim Il Sung square, named after his grandfather, on his birth anniversary. Goose-stepping soldiers and marching bands filled the square, next to the Taedonggang River that flows through Pyongyang, in the hazy spring sunshine, followed by tanks, multiple launch rocket systems and other weapons. Single-engine propeller-powered planes flew in a 105 formation overhead..."All the brigandish provocative moves of the U.S. in the political, economic and military fields pursuant to its hostile policy toward the DPRK will thoroughly be foiled through the toughest counteraction of the army and people of the DPRK," the KCNA state news agency said, citing a spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People's Army...KCNA said the Trump administration's "serious military hysteria" had reached a "dangerous phase which can no longer be overlooked". The United States has warned that a policy of "strategic patience" with North Korea is over. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence travels to South Korea on Sunday on a long-planned 10-day trip to Asia.   State TV showed North Korea's Pukkuksong submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) on parade with tanks and other heavy machinery in front of Kim Jong Un. It was the first time North Korea had shown the missiles, which have a range of over 1,000 km (600 miles), at a military parade. Displaying more than one of the missiles indicates North Korea is progressing with its plan to base a missile on a submarine, which are hard to detect, said Joshua Pollack, editor of the Washington-based Nonproliferation Review."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-anniversary-idUSKBN17G0WU?il=0

Domestic & International News:

--- "U.S. President Donald Trump's administration declined to name any major trading partner as a currency manipulator in a highly-anticipated report on Friday, confirming a decision to back away from a key Trump campaign promise to slap such a label on China. The semi-annual U.S. Treasury currency report did, however, keep China on a currency "monitoring list" despite a lower global current account surplus, citing China's unusually large, bilateral trade surplus with the United States. Five other trading partners who were on last October's monitoring list - Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany and Switzerland - also remain on the list, ensuring that the Treasury would apply extra scrutiny to their foreign exchange and economic policies. The Treasury report recognized what many analysts have said over the past year, namely that China has recently intervened in foreign exchange markets to prop up the value of its yuan currency, not push it lower to make Chinese exports cheaper. Foreign exchange experts told Reuters last week that a manipulator label was unlikely for Beijing."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-currency-idUSKBN17G1JD?il=0

--- "President Trump is abruptly reversing himself on key issues. And for all his usual bluster, he's startlingly candid about the reason: He's just now really learning about some of them. "After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it's not so easy," the president said after a discussion with Chinese President Xi Jinping that included his hopes that China's pressure could steer North Korea away from its nuclear efforts. "I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power" over North Korea, he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "But it's not what you would think. That's just one of several recent comments offering insight into what looks like a moderate makeover for an immoderate president. As he approaches 100 days in office, Mr. Trump appears to be increasingly embracing what he describes as his "flexibility" – acknowledging he may not have thought deeply about some of the issues he shouted about throughout his political campaign. Over the past 48 hours, the outsider politician who pledged to upend Washington has:

Abandoned his vow to label China a currency manipulator.

Rethought his hands-off assessment of the Syrian conflict – and ordered a missile attack.

Turned his warm approach toward Vladimir Putin decidedly chilly and declared US-Russia relations "may be at an all-time low."

Decided NATO isn't actually obsolete, as he had claimed.

Realized the US Export-Import Bank is worth keeping around.

"Instinctively, you would say, 'Isn't that a ridiculous thing,' " he said of the bank he once panned as "featherbedding" and pledged to eliminate. He now says of the bank, which supports US exports, "Actually, it's a very good thing. And it actually makes money." Allies describe Trump as merely growing in the job, taking what he's learning and adapting. The White House, however, is struggling to explain some of the changes...Trump, who seemed to remain in campaign mode for months after the election, appears to be listening to different advisers now. His onetime campaign guru, Steve Bannon, has been somewhat marginalized while moderate voices grow louder. It may also be that Trump is merely looking for a way to improve his low approval rating, acknowledging his best tactic could be switching to a less dogmatic, more pragmatic approach."

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2017/0414/As-Trump-sharpens-focus-on-key-issues-surprising-reversals-on-core-campaign-rhetoric

Further information/commentary regarding Trump's change in policy positions: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2017/0414/Why-Trump-s-palace-intrigue-matters

--- "Hackers released documents and files on Friday that cybersecurity experts said indicated the U.S. National Security Agency had accessed the SWIFT interbank messaging system, allowing it to monitor money flows among some Middle Eastern and Latin American banks. The release included computer code that could be adapted by criminals to break into SWIFT servers and monitor messaging activity, said Shane Shook, a cyber security consultant who has helped banks investigate breaches of their SWIFT systems. The documents and files were released by a group calling themselves The Shadow Brokers. Some of the records bear NSA seals, but Reuters could not confirm their authenticity. The NSA could not immediately be reached for comment. Also published were many programs for attacking various versions of the Windows operating system, at least some of which still work, researchers said. In a statement to Reuters, Microsoft (MSFT.O), maker of Windows, said it had not been warned by any part of the U.S. government that such files existed or had been stolen. "Other than reporters, no individual or organization has contacted us in relation to the materials released by Shadow Brokers," the company said. The absence of warning is significant because the NSA knew for months about the Shadow Brokers breach, officials previously told Reuters. Under a White House process established by former President Barack Obama's staff, companies were usually warned about dangerous flaws.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-swift-idUSKBN17G1HC?il=0

--- "Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, the Guardian has been told. GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added. Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump’s inner circle and Russians, sources said. The European countries that passed on electronic intelligence – known as sigint – included Germany, Estonia and Poland. Australia, a member of the “Five Eyes” spying alliance that also includes the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand, also relayed material, one source said. Another source suggested the Dutch and the French spy agency, the General Directorate for External Security or DGSE, were contributors. It is understood that GCHQ was at no point carrying out a targeted operation against Trump or his team or proactively seeking information. The alleged conversations were picked up by chance as part of routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets. Over several months, different agencies targeting the same people began to see a pattern of connections that were flagged to intelligence officials in the US...The Guardian has been told the FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of contacts between Trump’s team and Moscow ahead of the US election. This was in part due to US law that prohibits US agencies from examining the private communications of American citizens without warrants. “They are trained not to do this,” the source stressed. “It looks like the [US] agencies were asleep,” the source added. “They [the European agencies] were saying: ‘There are contacts going on between people close to Mr Trump and people we believe are Russian intelligence agents. You should be wary of this.’ “The message was: ‘Watch out. There’s something not right here.’”"

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/13/british-spies-first-to-spot-trump-team-links-russia?CMP=twt_gu

Domestic News:

--- "President Donald Trump nominated former Republican lawmaker Scott Garrett as president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States on Friday, completing an about-face over an institution he had denounced as "featherbedding" for big business. A White House statement also named Spencer Bachus, another Republican former congressman, to be a member of the board of directors of the bank. Both were named for four-year terms. Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday he would fill the two vacancies on the bank's five-member board that have prevented it from having a quorum and being able to act on loans over $10 million. His picks must gain approval from the Senate, which blocked nominees by former President Barack Obama. The Export-Import Bank, an independent government agency, provides loans to foreign entities that enable them to purchase American-made goods. For example, it has been used by foreign airlines to purchase planes from Boeing Co (BA.N) and farmers in developing nations to acquire equipment. The bank has become a popular target for conservatives, who worked in Congress to kill the institution, arguing that it perpetuates cronyism and does little to create American jobs."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-eximbank-idUSKBN17H003?il=0

--- "United Airlines said on Friday it is changing its policy on booking its own flight crews onto its planes after a man was dragged off an overbooked flight to make way for a United employee on Sunday, video of which went viral and made the airline the target of global criticism and ridicule. The airline, owned by United Continental Holdings Inc (UAL.N), said it would make sure crews traveling on their aircraft are booked into seats at least 60 minutes before departure. It said the new policy would ensure that a situation in which a passenger is forcibly removed from a plane does not occur again. United said the change is an initial step as it reviews policies in order to "deliver the best customer experience." The passenger ejected from the plane, David Dao, suffered a significant concussion, broken nose and lost two front teeth in the incident, and will need reconstructive surgery, according to his attorney, Thomas Demetrio, who has signaled that Dao will likely sue the airline. United's board said on Friday the company had to craft policies to win back customer trust and apologized to Dao and his family. It added that it stands behind Chief Executive Oscar Munoz, who has been under fire in the wake of the incident. Munoz has said he has no plans to resign. Even before this week, Munoz was under pressure from activist investors to improve the airline's performance, including its customer relations."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ual-crew-idUSKBN17H00M?il=0

--- "As knowledge moves from pages to pixels, many of America's public libraries have broadened their mission. Take, for example, the Boston Public Library, which occupies a full city block in the Back Bay neighborhood. Its imposing granite Johnson Building underwent a $78-million facelift last year, receiving larger windows, higher ceilings, and an LCD screen art installation behind its Information Desk...“We’re trying to really define what is meant by a library in 2017,” says Jessica Elias, one of the BPL’s curriculum development coordinators...Some libraries, like the BPL, enjoy large municipal budgets to support their operations. But in struggling urban neighborhoods and small rural towns, the costs of just keeping the lights on or fixing a leaky roof can shutter a library. The Trump administration's proposals to eliminate government funding for the IMLS, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts could force many of these institutions to make hard choices in coming years. To solve this problem, David Rothman is asking the super-rich to create a national endowment for libraries...However the federal budget process turns out, David Leonard, president of BPL, expects private funding to prove more necessary as library patrons seek ever-more expensive services. “As we see a shift towards people wanting to see libraries do more programming [and] more classes, we're going to need even more of those dollars available,” Mr. Leonard says of private philanthropy. “And the hope is that it will be in addition to – and not have to be a replacement for – city, state, or federal money.”...“It is very tempting, when one looks at the erosion of public support, [to] say, 'well, let's turn to the rich people, and they can solve things.' ” explains Professor Marker, who also founded Wise Philanthropy, a philanthropy advisory and education firm. “But in fact ... there is no ability of private support to take the place of public support.” Even an annual endowment payout of $1.1 billion would only mark a 9 percent increase over the $12 billion that US libraries took in as revenue in 2014. While that could offset some federal budget cuts, most experts say that support for libraries needs to be a robust combination of public, private, and government funds."

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/2017/0414/Why-libraries-could-soon-need-a-national-endowment