THE BIG SPLIT

TCinLA

The circus came to town in DC for the past four days and did a good job of displaying why the Republicans are in a lot of trouble.

The CPAC clown show, er, I mean shitshow, er, I mean conference, is proof of the difficulty the party will have in keeping their increasingly fractured coalition together for 2024.

A mere 40 years ago, the Republican Party was defined by overall ideological unity on three conservative principles: free markets, a muscular foreign policy and traditional social values.

Those three pillars were the heart of the Reagan revolution. No more.

The MAGA movement, which clearly took over this year's CPAC conference, has moved the party to a protectionist, populist, belligerent outlook. The one issue that appears to still unite the GOP is fighting "wokeness," which even former House speaker Paul Ryan - called a RINO last night and targeted for “removal” by Trump in his Nuremberg Rally speech - cited as his primary reason for continuing to support and be involved with Faux Snooze in a combative interview last week with his formr friend and ally, Charlie Sykes.

No more free markets. For the past year, companies such as Disney and PNC Bank that are proud to publicly showcase their commitment to progressive values that embrace diversity have come under attack, with Governor InSanity declaring he will control the content creatd by Disney to prevent further attacks of “wokeness” on good god-fearin’ patriotic Amurrikins.

What was once the “Party of Lawn Ordure” sees Fraternity Freddie, er, I mean Matt Gaetz, call for defunding the FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies if they don't “get back on our side." The goobers at CPAC gave him a standing ovation. Vivek Ramaswamy, a venture capitalist and GOP presidential candidate issued a call for the FBI to be dismantled and replaced with something else.

Trump’s keynote address last night was two hours of a vengeful indictment of the GOP establishment: "We will expel the warmongers, we will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists, we will throw off the political class that hates our country. The Republican Party was ruled by freaks, neocons, open-border zealots and fools. We're never going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove and Jeb Bush.” He then pledged to protect Social Security from any Republicans pursuing reduced benefits.

This from a former president and current leading presidential candidate of one of the two major political parties of this country, who pushes his political campaign with a “music video” that has the “J6 Prison Choir” - the convicted insurrectionists now in the DC jail - singing “The Star Spangled Banner” while he shouts the Pledge of Allegiance.

Can it get crazier?

Well, yes, since you ask, it can.

Friday night, Marjorie Traitor Goon targeted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in her speech, telling him to "leave your hands off of our sons and daughters." When asked about former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, both unapologetic Ukraine hawks, Congresswoman Goon replied "I don't listen to Nikki Haley and I don't think she's going to do well in the primary."

The Goonbimbo is probably right.

For those who think Governor InSanity will be a threat to the Trump Party, a top Trump adviser said that the governor has "Reagan Republican" vulnerabilities the former president will exploit.

“Reagan Republicans” are now “the enemy” in the looney half of what passes for the Republican Party today.

Trump knows his audience: he dominated DeSantis in the CPAC straw poll, 62%-20%, and saw improvement from his 2022 numbers when he led DeSantis 59%-28%. “Trump has completely remade the party since he’s become president,” a Trump aide said. “He realized there’s a difference between what grassroots activists thought and what Bush Republicans in Washington, D.C., were trying to enact.”

"In 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. This is the final battle, they know it. I know it, you know it, and everybody knows it, this is it. Either they win or we win. And if they win, we no longer have a country." The neverwere’s, the neverwillbe’s, the lifetime losers, the Dilberts who know they’re the geniuses but no one will recognize them, they love this, this is why they support him. He’ll “get” all those people who pointed at them and snickered.

He also knows who the average wingnut moron is: a senile old white male boomer. "We're not going back to people that want to destroy our great social security system. Even some in our own party, I wonder who that might be. That want to raise the minimum age of social security to 70, 75 or even 80 in some cases, and then a route to cut Medicare to a level that it will no longer be recognizable."

“Get your government hands off my social security!” - the battle cry of the drunks in The Villages.

Two other declared GOP candidates, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, garnered 3 and 1 percent of the vote respectively. Michigan businessman Perry Johnson, who ran a Super Bowl ad for his long-shot campaign for the GOP nomination came in third with 5% of the vote. Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, along with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, each had 1% of the vote to round out the tally board.

The straw poll also found 79% of attendees oppose U.S. military aid to Ukraine, while 74% want abortion regulated on the state (not federal) level.

Basically, Trump is prioritizing the 30% of Republicans who consider themselves "Trump-first Republicans," leaving his rivals to compete for backing among the shrinking minority who support the party first.

Trump declared he would run even if he was indicted, and the goobers cheered him. he will, too.

If four or five others enter the race and divide up that 70% who aren’t “Trump first” among them, Trump ends up with a plurality win in most of the coming GOP winner-take-all primaries, just like he did in 2016. And in that 70%, most of them already also agree with the policies Trump is promoting. For anyone else to win, they will have to adopt Trumpism hook, line and sinker, whatever they want to call it.

This morning, “moderate” “sane Republican” former Maryland governor Larry Hogan announced he is NOT running for president in 2024.

The media and the political elites want to find Anything But Trump to write about, unless it is clown shows like this past weekend at CPAC. The fact is that even the people claiming to not be Trump, like Hikki Haley, cannot find anything they disagree with him on when asked by interviewers. They announce that they too are supportive of the most recent Idiot Thing among Republicans, the way Paul Ryan defended Fox because it is “anti-woke,” though even he couldn’t describe was “woke” is and why it should be opposed, when asked. Either all of this, or they want to prove they could out-Trump Trump, as DeSantis is attempting to do with his non-campaign campaign for president.

What we have witnessed and are witnessing is a Republican party on steroids to turn the latest fringe belief or activity into the next mainstream definer of the party. This is because this is now a party bereft of ideas, that likely won’t have a convention and write a platform in 2024 because they don’t have new ideas and know that their old ideas are unpopular; this is why they no longer believe in democracy. It is now a badge of belief in the party that the Jauary 6 insurrectionists are “persecuted political prisoners,” that the footage that has been shown of the insurrection is faked.

The Republican Party is whatever a mentally-deficient, un-educable, lifelong cheat and liar says it is whenever he opens his mouth and words come out. Two hours of mendacity; malevolence; revenge fantasy; willful, chosen ignorance; and free association broadcast last night is today what the Republican Party believes and is about.

Until the next time he lets words fall out of his mouth.

People have asked, how did it happen in Germany in the 1930s - this is how it happened then and is happening now.

[TCinLA :: Thats Another Fine Mess]

Recently, I was watching television when a formless ghoul appeared and told me that it was my fault for not owning a house. Despite the fact that I do own a house thanks to the unsolved death of my landlord and the subsequent squatters-rights law that allows me to keep adverse possession of the property unless I leave for over 24 hours at a time, something else about what she said stuck in my craw.

She explained that if I would just take $1500 a month out of my paycheque, and put it aside, and never touch it, I would have enough to make a down payment on a house. This made sense, but only that kind of sense which is made until you put down the bong and ask the other person at the party to repeat themselves very slowly while you pull out your Bowie knife and body-snatcher detector.

if you did indeed start saving $1500 a month in January 1st, 2018, you would indeed have $90,000 by January 1st, 2023. Probably a little more from interest, but not nearly as much as you would have had by repeatedly putting that money into literally any investment vehicle, such as a 1978 Plymouth Volare.

Now, here's where things get really crazy.

If you take that same $1500 a month and you start putting it in your bank account in the year 620, by January 1, 2023, you will be able to afford a $25 million house, all cash. Or the 20% downpayment on a $125 million house if you’re feeling like you can stretch it a little. And you also will have experienced the entire arc of the industrial revolution, which you will have been unable to enjoy while paying rent to more than two dozen landlords, even as the concept of serfdom collapses around you.

Here's where things get even crazier.

If you had $1500 American dollars per month in the year 620, you would actually be able to just buy the papacy and install yourself as Pope, replacing the uncharismatic Boniface V. In this case, you would be living rent free in the Vatican for over 1400 years, unable to be removed unless through direct sub-papal fiat, although still vulnerable to the radical side-effects of internecine warfare in Italy and especially the pressures of standing up to a politically strong emperor in a time when the Church’s absolute power over politics is beginning to wane. Then, you can spend that $1500 a month on whatever you like, instead of housing or food. I recommend a 1978 Plymouth Volare.

This is the real life hack, and it's shocking nobody talks about it.

Subscribe to my tiktok for more finance tips, and by “tiktok” I mean the sound that the broken camshaft on my 1978 Plymouth Volare is making. If you buy it, I swear it’s an easy fix.

When the door is finally opened and Anthony reveals himself to Aziraphale, the artist can distinctly see the Lord holding his breath and squaring him from head to toe. Oh, it is marvellous to see him swallowing, as if he had a lavish banquet before his eyes and was foretasting it. His cheeks flush first a soft pink, then a bright red, blinking and mouthing a few words which, however, does not come to the surface. In the end, to complete the picture of Aziraphale's tender nervousness, there are his hands that join in front of his chest and begin to torment each other. Oh, yes, Anthony smiles contentedly, I've hit the nail on the head. "You are... Are..." The Lord clears his throat, averting his gaze, "you're really... Really charming today, Mr. Crowley." He hints an embarrassed smile. "I mean, it's not like you're not usually, ah, I mean, um," he pauses, "I wasn't expecting so much effort, honestly... I mean, it's just... It's just..." ''Just the exhibition of an emerging artist,'' suggests Anthony. "... and a dinner," Aziraphale continues. ''A dinner at the Ritz,'' specifies the artist with an amused smile. On Valentine's Day, adds his mind. It's not what it looks like, protests his rational side, it's not a date. But it looks like one! "You look very good too," Anthony continues, ignoring the internecine warfare going on in his head, "but you are always impeccable, after all." "Oh, that's not true..." "Aziraphale, you sleep in fancy pyjamas. Even if it's tartan." "Tartan is stylish!" "And that is definitely your opinion."

[ my sugar baby is a piece of art - chapter #13 - read here ]

You mentioned once an old lesbian sci-fi book series with a dom/sub binary divided along hair color (brown hair/blonde hair) that developed a IRL subculture, like Gor.

I can’t remember the name of it (and Google has been unhelpful).

--

Aristasia was an offline community of people in the UK who ended up in court over sketchy BDSM practices as well as a larger online community full of internecine warfare over whether the point was, in fact, horny lesbian spanking world or not.

References to Vlad III in Renfield (2023)

Vlad III Draculea was the voivode (a prince-like military leader) of Walachia—a principality that joined with Moldavia in 1859 to form Romania—on and off between 1448 and 1476. Also known as Vlad III, Vlad Dracula (son of the Dragon), and—most famously—Vlad the Impaler (Vlad Tepes in Romanian), he was a brutal, sadistic leader famous for torturing his foes. By some estimates he is responsible for the deaths of more than 80,000 people in his lifetime—a large percentage of them by impalement.

Walachia had been ravaged by the ceaseless Ottoman-Hungarian conflict and the internecine strife among feuding boyars. Trade had ceased, fields lay fallow, and the land was overrun by lawlessness. Vlad III began his reign with a strict crackdown on crime, employing a zero-tolerance policy for even minor offences, such as lying.

As for the boyars—the high-ranking figures who had killed his father and older brother— Vlad III had a retributive plan. In 1459 he invited 200 of them to a great Easter banquet, together with their families. There, he had the women and the elderly stabbed to death and impaled; the men he forced into slave labour. Many of these workers would die of exhaustion while building Poenari Castle, one of Vlad III’s favourite residences.

Many of the Germans under Vlad III’s aegis were Saxons. Not to be confused with the Anglo-Saxons of England, these were German migrants who had settled in Transylvania in the 12th century after the region was conquered by Hungary. They were mostly well-to-do merchants, but to Vlad III, they were allies of his enemies.

Over the next few years, Vlad III razed entire Saxon villages and impaled thousands of people. In 1459, when the Transylvanian Saxon city of Kronstadt (today Brasov) supported a rival of Vlad III’s, the voivode’s response was savage. After initially placing trade restrictions on Saxon goods in Walachia, he had 30,000 people impaled—and reportedly dined among them so he could witness their suffering personally. He also had Kronstadt burned to the ground. Back in Walachia, he impaled Saxon merchants who violated his trade laws.

Vlad III dines amid impaled victims following his assault on Brasov (then known as Kronstadt). Printed in Nuremberg in 1499, this engraving, and others like it, helped spread Vlad III’s gruesome reputation across Europe.

PHOTOGRAPH BY MARY EVANS, AGE FOTOSTOCK

Vlad III’s tactics, both on and off the battlefield, against the Turks were extraordinarily brutal. In the spring of 1462, Mehmed II assembled an army of 90,000 men and advanced on Walachia. After conducting a series of night raids and guerrilla warfare, Vlad III employed his trademark tactic, impaling more than 23,000 prisoners with their families and putting them on display along the enemy’s route, outside the city of Targoviste.“There were infants affixed to their mothers on the stakes,” writes the French historian Matei Cazacu, “and birds had made their nests in their entrails.”The sight was so horrifying that Mehmed II, after seeing the “forest” of the dead, turned around and marched back to Constantinople. Vlad III wrote to Matthias I explaining that he had “killed peasants, men and women, old and young . . . We killed 23,884 Turks, without counting those whom we burned in homes or the Turks whose heads were cut by our soldiers.” To prove the truth of his words, he produced sacks full of severed noses and ears.

(Text taken from https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2021/11/vlad-the-impalers-thirst-for-blood-was-an-inspiration-for-count-dracula)

Republicans erupt into open warfare over Ukraine aid package vote | Republicans | The Guardian

internecine warfare

On the topic of the Werefolk and Therianthropic culture in general (Creative Writing/Fantasy)

As I dip my pen into the pot and begin to write upon the silicon once more, I wonder where I should begin. About which of the wonders I have seen I should tell you.

The fall of Atlantis? The Titans who reigned there? The Betrayal? The Dark Millennia and its internecine warfare? The crash of the Vampyr and the legacy of the ship and her children? The Fae-driven quest for colonialism?

Where, in short, do you begin when you want to cover the vast scope of the world? Captain America or Gilgamesh? Heracles or Superman? Plato or Angela Davis? In the vast swathe of human experience that is filled with laughter and terrified screams, where do you begin?

Where should I begin?

Perhaps, taking a dart and metaphorically throwing it at the board, we shall discuss the Therianthropes--the Werefolk.

When the words "Werefolk" are invoked, most people think specifically of the Werewolves and the Lycanthropic Panic that was started by Universal Films in 1913.

The studio's release of "The Werewolf," and the now well-documented Lycanthropic Panic saw the Werewolves flee from America's cities to hide in the rural spaces of the world. Europe, never a very welcoming place to Lycanthropes, saw that old prejudice flare up again, and it spread across the world. First across the British Empire before jumping borders.

But of course the fear and hatred did not stay contained to the Werewolves. All the Werefolk found themselves fleeing population centers and hiding wherever they could, where they remain to this day.

From the Werehawk to the Werelephant, the shapeshifting branch of humanity known as the Werefolk fled to the corners of the world that had not yet been overly touched by the rest of humanity. Here and there groups would form, often but not always along the lines of their kind, but communities of mixed Werefolk were as common as not.

And there they have largely stayed, only in the last decade or three beginning to probe the wider fabric of society as the latest generation, impossibly bored by the generations of exile, have begun making names for themselves as the world has begun to rediscover and embrace the weird and fantastical and magical alike.

There is no singular Therianthropic culture, just as there is no singular form they all take. But there are some fairly regular constants around Werefolk culture writ large:

Unlike some of the horror stories that have risen up in popular culture about them, the Werefolk are indeed human. Their form may have been altered by the Fae during the Dark Millennia but they remain firmly human, if at times something slightly more.

The concept of an "Inner Wolf/Animal" that fights them for control of their mind is a dehumanizing stereotype originating in England in the mid-1800's that was later used as an excuse for the Werewolf Hunts.

The concepts of Alpha, Beta, and Omega Werewolves (and sometimes by extension other Werefolk) are, as always, not true and never have been. This theory that found its way into popular culture was started by L. David Mech in his book The Wolf, and debunked by him years later, even if popular culture has failed to recognize this.

While it is true that in some respects Werefolk's human physiology is affected by the form they shapeshift into, it is generally agreed that the Werefolk Essentialist claim that the animal they become is the main predictor of their behavior are, in fact, wrong. No matter how loud the Essentialists are. A diminutive weremouse can be as aggressive as a Polar Bear, and a massive Wererhino as meek and gentle as a capybara.

Werefolk tend to form tightly knit communities that are generally insular, often around family-based "clan" cultures forced upon them by the Werewolf Hunts of the 1930s that, after all, were rarely satisfied with just hunting the Werewolves and often changed up their targets to other Therianthropes, from Wereotters to Weremoose.

While generally distrustful of outsiders, they are fiercely loyal to their friends and found family. Some have, in the last century, developed formalized bonds of social debtory via formal, pronounced pacts, colloquially known as Life Debts.

Unlike their portrayals in Popular Culture, Werefolk can generally transform from human to animal form within seconds in a usually painless procedure (see also: Permanent Therianthropism and Transformative Disabilities)

Despite what you may have heard from print and film, Werefolk rarely stayed alone in their communities for long. Indeed, the modern American hidden cities were all formed with Werefolk as a base, with other magical humans and creatures trickling in to hide as they, in turn, were targeted and had to flee.

An academic footnote on Life Debts: So-called Life Debts were only awarded for acts of extreme bravery and a highly formalized, culturally-specific form of alliance stronger than any other kind of bond. Stronger than friendship, stronger than blood. Life Debts were not declared on an individual level, but at the clan, family, and/or community level. Despite what the fantasy authors may tell you, there is not a single recorded case of a Life Debt on an individual level. They tended to last for at least 2 generations before being considered having been repaid, and often saw an intermingling of Werefolk involved in the Debt from the affected communities. Modern Therianthropic academics dispute the number of Life Debts that have ever been declared and fewer still that were called upon, but out of the thousands of examples in the historical and literary record, they suggest that fewer than three hundred were ever actually formed and less than half that number ever called upon. It is a colorful, though overhyped, example of Werefolk culture that has caught the imagination of popular culture. The historians additionally tell us that only the Werepuma, Werepossum, and Werebison communities have recorded examples of initiating Life Debts in their oral or written histories.

Keep trying to write a post on why the concept of "raised Baptist" Hawkeye is interesting to me and struggling sjjfjd because the funny part would be the layer of "I don't even believe in this stuff anymore but you are SO WRONG" to his interactions with Frank, but I don't know how to explain the nuances of internecine baptist warfare and why this is really funny to me

Welcome to Nerath

This is just me shouting into the ether about my homebrew setting, mostly just so I get stuff jotted down somewhere and also for anyone who might want to mine it for inspiration. In 4e D&D, Nerath is the civilization that fell relatively recently to create the “Points of Light” base setting. In my world (creatively named Arth *long* after we’d been playing in it for a while), the Nerathi Confederacy is one of the major nations of the world, a collection of city-states that united after centuries of internecine warfare after the fall of Bael Turath and Arkhosia. They are: - Highmark: The capital and most cosmopolitan city, Highmark is a mining town and industrial powerhouse. (Highmark is kind of the New York/Sharn/Coruscant hub, at least for Nerath) - Grimfar: Grimfar is a primarily dwarven city and the breadbasket of Nerath. (Grimfar is kind of quietly powerful, in that folks tend to think of the dwarves as bumpkin farmers, but they *also* have kind of a mafioso feel in that they control whether people eat or not) - Issenvik: Issenvik used to be a pirate haven, and maintains a steadfastly nautical focus, but has shifted towards more mercantile concerns over the years. (Issenvik still has a major piratical/viking feel to it, and bragging is a *very* common Issenvik pasttime) - Thantopolis: The city of the dead, the necropolis of Thantopolis is ruled by its unliving citizen class, while the living flourish under the protection of their legions. (I tend to find undead fascinating, and Thantopolis is very much influenced by the Scarred Lands setting’s Hollowfaust. It has a kind of Greek/Roman feel to it, in part because the oldest undead hold to more ancient fashions and ways of thinking) - Aethrennar: The fey city of Aethrennar is itself a work of art, crafted over the years by numerous eladrin and gnome artisans. It exists simultaneously in the mortal plane and the Feywild. (This is basically the party town of Nerath. :) ) - Vanilorra: Hidden in a deep forest in the center of the continent, the elven warriors of Vanilorra are staunch traditionalists and steadfast protectors of the wild places of the world. (We jokingly referred to the elves of Vanilorra as “hillbilly samurai”, and it’s not far off) - Yondon: Yondon is a trading city and religious site for the nomadic halfling tribes of the southern part of Nerath. It varies wildly in size depending upon the migration of the tribes. (It has kind of a frontier/Wild West sort of feel to it, mixed with some Vaes Dothrak) - Mythragal: The floating city of Mythragal is built on an earthmote (flying chunk of rock), and is home to the finest mages in Nerath. It is also the mortal plane home of the goddess Ioun, though she very rarely involves herself in mortal affairs. These were the original eight cities. Over the course of the first campaign a ninth city was reclaimed, and two more introduced that would eventually be brought into the nation. - Nachtur: The goblinoid city of Nachtur had been lost to demons due to the machinations of the other cities at the founding of Nerath, but the goblins were able eventually to reclaim their homeland. - Shom: The extraplanar city of Shom was held in temporal stasis from before the Change, but was brought to Arth through the efforts of a group of adventurers as part of the cleansing of Nachtur. - Mag Tureah: The Underdark city of Mag Tureah was long thought a myth until its fomorian rulers staged an invasion of Nerath. Nerath was eventually able to counterattack and topple the fomorian king, inducting the city into Nerath with a ruling council of formerly enslaved cyclopses and fey.

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Germ Warfare – The Internecine Battle Over Germ Theory is Ratcheting Up! – The Expose

https://expose-news.com/2024/04/20/germ-warfare-the-internecine-battle-over-germ-theory-is-ratcheting-up/

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I've a genuine question, regarding the most recent discourse (for lack of a better word) about asexuality in this blog. I'm not someone who sees discourse about asexuality very often, specially on sites like this (which I understand, Tumblr had a very serious aphobic phase) or Twitter. I'm also not American so I don't know that much about the politics there. My question is: was there a change, over time, about what it is expected of asexual people?

Asking this because the last few asks have mentioned that sex is expected in any kind of form (correct me if I misunderstood this). The last time I saw Internet discourse about asexuality (three years ago, more or less, but it wasn't here or Twitter, it was in a fanfic forum) all people freaked out when someone said that asexual people can have sex or libido or masturbating. The people on this forum claimed "that can't be true because if asexual people do any of this then it defeats calling themselves asexuals, this is dumb". That made extremely angry, never touched that forum again. Same on my experiences in social interactions outside the internet, specially in my university (sigh).

But yeah, has this changed? The expectation for asexual people regarding sex? Or this is something rather more specific on certain circles/sites? Or maybe the changed has had happened inside the queer/LGBTQ+ community only? Because I can pretty confidently say that the people on that forum and the people at my university aren't exactly queer or know very little about things beyond the binary division of heterosexual/homosexual.

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Has there been one singular change? No, I don't think so.

But the term is a bit of a catchall for some fairly disparate experiences of (lack of) attraction, and it doesn't inherently indicate what you do any more than any other orientation does.

Naturally, this leads to much internecine warfare about who's in and who's out and what the Right Way To Be Ace is.

when bipartisanship is censurable, the government has become so bound up with internecine warfare it has become less than useless. This is where the USA is.

Some books are a good example of why popular histories are very good when they're good and when they're bad they're wretched:

This book is a good exemplar of what I would unkindly call the 'white feminist' school of women's history or still more unkindly the Third Wave school. Why? Because it bemoans the absence of a history of women in power as offering little to the imagination and then describes a standard medieval history of treachery, internecine warfare, and brutality on a grand scale whose main distinction, and this is admittedly the point on which everything rests....is that it was between two women.

It does, however, vastly oversell a point by claiming that this is an era of women in power when these are not European Wu Zetians, though there would be such women in the 18th Century which much better fits this image between Russia and Austria, but more in the line of Dowager Empress Cixi. Women who held power from men, however tenuous the claims, and were ideologically and personally unwilling to go so far as to implement it in their own rights.

For that matter though her war was at best a stalemate the 'Empress' Matilda, the real first Queen of England, could have qualified for what this book wants to claim was there more than Brunhild and Fredegund do in the real world. Deeds that are wretched and deplorable committed by the various Merovingian kings become laudable done by Queens when the only difference is a woman does the exact same thing a man does, which somehow carries within itself the seed of absolution.

Granted this is a popular history from a poet and not an academic history by a historian trained to actually parse through sources in their own times.....but that also loops right back to 'if a woman does it, it's right, if a man does the exact same thing he's a monster.' Problem is when one invokes morality in politics that undercuts the entire premise as politics, in all eras, is an amoral pattern at best and at worst much more than that.

So while this is an acceptable popular historical refashioning of the framework of someone like Gregory of Tours, it is not a historical work and it should not be treated as such, and instead should be treated as the equivalent of 'I have read very little history and would be perfectly fine with the worst excesses of the Crusades and the like if a woman did them' . Which, of course, will mean if Shelley Punak discovers Eleanor of Aquitaine that another such work will be written where Eleanor would be made into more of a feminist idol in all the ways she wouldn't have seen herself as any more than Brunhild and Fredegund did, and in the eyes of white women of the 21st Century West wanting to reshape the past in the same comfortable ways rich and well to do white people of a specific demographic have done all their lives while not recognizing that the true problem is that this is done at all.

It also admittedly grates me just a bit wrong that this reads as Third Wave feminism in not calling people who sound an awful lot like a medieval proto-trans person in practice by anything approximating that name and clinging to transphobic phrasing and going out of the way to do that for no reason at all.

I wouldn't call it radfem or TERF, however, because it doesn't go all the way with transphobia and because the entire book is a fairly staid 'those were the days' thing right out of the opening of All in the Family.

4/10.

Riastrad

The Greymanes, understandably for a Space Marine Chapter, are highly private when it comes to their initiation rituals. It is known that they favor aspirants who have already proven to be brave in battle, preferably those wounded to near-death or who would otherwise not be missed. The Chaplaincy closely observe the internecine warfare of the feral tribes and pick these elect from their ranks, as with the Space Wolves. Lurid rumors fly to this writer from travelers to the Eastern Fringe of what the initiation tests actually involve. The fungi swamm, that is only found to grow on New Albian battlefields where casualties were high, is said to be used extensively. The Chaplaincy processes this entheogen into a liquid form for initiates to drink, the effects of which are, according to certain Ordo Hereticus representatives, similar to the illicit drug ‘spook’. If this allegation is true, this swamm-juice likely kills a good portion of aspirants outright upon imbibing. It is lucky for the Greymanes, then, that the Canis Helix seems to be tamed for them.

If the Greymanes do indeed use such a thing in their initiation rite, though, that might partially explain the aforementioned tranquility of the Canis Helix in their brothers. For that matter, it perhaps explains the presence of an altogether different curse besides. Such Warp-suffused drugs and entheogens are known to, taken in quantity, to open or even heal the channel between one’s body and soul. Perhaps, in their wisdom, the early Greymanes saw the need to use such methods to sustain the Chapter, isolated as they are in the Eastern Fringe. Far from the hearth-world, inches away from the darkness beyond the Astronomican, they made their choice. Time will tell if that was the right one.