2003 07-05 Salamacis finds Aphrodite’s sons bathing in her lake2004 07-06 What is happening to Aphrodite’s children?2005 07-06 Aphrodite’s new daughters celebrate their transformation2006 07-05 Salamacis, pleased with Aphrodite’s new daughters
PREVIOUSLY: For seven days and nights, Chastity and Penance have been tormented, tested, pushed, and bewitched by the succubae and their human operatives, leaving them feeling rootless, lost, malleable, in need of comfort, and desperate for love. Now, finally, Channah gives them what they long for, introducing them to her private mountain vale. NOW:
Beyond the hot bath, the forest stream, and the washing-pool was a breathtaking vista, revealed between the high greyish-black cliffs to their left and the forest canopy to their right. Channah’s vale ended in a low rise of rock, its lowest point the drain and surface level of the bathing pool. Beyond it were a line of jagged mountain peaks; and, as they got closer, opening out below before the distant peaks, a deep and wide valley thousands of feet below them.
“Remember how everything in the vale looks,” Channah cautioned her girls—as if, they imagined, they could ever forget! “This, exactly so, is the way I want it. I gave my gardeners and servants the week off. Mainly for privacy, so we can enjoy the true, intimate seclusion our marriage entitles us to—something that is among the most difficult things for me, as a Queen, to obtain. Priceless! You cannot imagine the constant attention of flatterers and wheedlers, or the freedom of being alone with my loving wives.” She sighed, squeezing them both as she continued to guide them, past the hot bath and over the stream on a little bridge. “But partly, I confess, because it turns me on to see my play-partners working and serving me.” She shivered anticipatorily, leaving them in no doubt how much she meant it. “It’s almost better than sex, which is saying something for a succubus,” she drawled. “So expect to spend some time each day cleaning and caring for my paradise. Obviously,” she shrugged, “You’ll do the cooking and laundry as well,” she purred at the thought, her eyes dancing. “And I will sit and watch you sweating in the warmth of the afternoon sun. Oh, yes, you must do the hardest work in the afternoons…” she cooed, running her hands over their shoulders and backs. “You simply must…” she bit her lip, and shook her head, as if to clear it.
“But not today. And not tomorrow. I know you sweethearts are exhausted. We have plenty of prepared food to last us a couple of days and everything is spotless now. So, the intensely sexual cleaning,” she emphasized breathily, pausing to kiss each of them, her anticipation making them want to serve her and turn her on, compounding their submissive natures, before she continued, “Will have to wait. A little spicy anticipation even as we indulge ourselves completely, playing with one another.”
Leaving them a moment, standing and staring dumbly out over the chasm in wonder, she stepped to a low chest like a coffee table between two chaise lounges, removing towels—which she set on one of the chaises beside their chastity cages—a bottle of castile soap, and some clean rags; before returning to them, setting the rags and bottle close to the edge of the bathing pool and removing their wrist and ankle cuffs, first Chastity’s, then Penny’s. She helped them and made them feel cared for by massaging their stiff shoulders and arms as they groaned in relief.
“Now,” she smiled coyly at the girls, “Kneel before me. Go on, I have to get ready to bathe, too!”
Looking at one another in delighted but nervous surprise, having never seen their own Domina naked before, despite the liberties they had been allowed with her, they knelt. Smiling magnanimously, she placed her hand on top of Chastity’s head for balance and insolently lifted her foot, presenting her boot to the two girls, who quickly worked it off. When they stopped, looking up at her expectantly, she raised a questioning eyebrow. “And my stocking and garter?”
Embarrassed, hands fairly quaking, they reached tentatively under her skirts to removed them, struggling not to take any unnecessary liberties by touching her skin more than necessary. Then, with her hand on Penny’s head, she lifted the other foot and they attended to it in turn. She then turned around and directed them to the hooks and clasps on her back where they released her dress, Penny gasping as it fluttered to the ground, leaving her only in her bra. The girls nearly hyperventilated at the sight of her bare skin. Looking back over her shoulder at them, and where their gazes turned and lingered, she smirked, enjoying their attention. “Go on! What are you waiting for?”
“Your permission” Chastity explained. “Your command,” Penny answered. As she laughed at them, they both, understanding they should not wait, tried and eventually succeeded at removing her bra. Ignoring them, she flounced into the water, up to her thighs, before spinning around, shivering from the shock of the cool water, and giving them a sultry look as she sank back into the pool.
“Don’t be shy, girls. Chastity, honey, can you bring the soap? And Penny, sweetie, the rags?” She laughed as they scrambled to collect the supplies and splash into the water with her. “Let’s bathe… Chastity first. Come here, darling.”
Pecking Penny on the cheek so she wouldn’t feel ignored, she turned to Chastity and, reaching below the water, found what she had expected. She stared into her wife’s eyes, smiling, until Chastity looked away, embarrassed. “Duck your head to get your hair wet,” she ordered, and when Chastity came back to the surface, sputtering, she was ready, her hands slippery with the Castile soap. “Turn around.” And then she began washing Chastity, sensually, hair and face, neck and shoulders, followed by her arms, humming softly as she felt Chas relaxing and melting under her ministrations.
There was a flat rock, about the size of a small bunk, in the middle of the washing pool, and she made Chastity climb onto it so she could soap her feet, her legs, her back, her breasts, her belly, and finally her clitty and bottom. She obviously enjoyed it the most when Chas did, squirming with nervousness and excitement as her hands moved over the girl’s most-sensitive parts. She lingered especially long on her clitty and breasts, enjoying watching Chas writhe and Penny shrink back nervously. Standing above Chastity’s head, she leaned over her, slowly rubbing soap into and around her nipples while making out with her, their heads facing in opposite directions, Chas moaning and arching her back. Last of all, Channah stood between Chas’s legs, pushing her fingers over Chas’s stiff, soapy flesh, locking eyes with her and drinking up every bit of Chas’s vulnerability and loss of control. She moved with a teasing, unbearable slowness, squeezing and tickling, giggling mischievously. Her delight increased in proportion to Chas’s desperation and frustration, and even Penny became lost in the drama, losing her own self-consciousness and staring with rapt fascination at the drama rising to its climax before her.
With consummate skill, Channah drew out Chastity’s passion until the girl started begging out loud, helplessly pleading for mercy, staring into and drowning in Channah’s sparkling, delighted eyes….
2001 07-04 Welcome to Paradise 2002 07-04 This is MY garden
PREVIOUSLY: For seven days and nights, Chastity and Penance have been tormented, tested, pushed, and bewitched by Channah, her succubae, her human operatives, and others, with every tool and tactic available, leaving them feeling rootless, lost, malleable, in need of comfort, and desperate for love. Now, finally, Channah gives them what they long for. NOW:
“You girls have done so well! I know, you’ve had a hard, challenging week. But I’m so proud of the way you’ve handled it! Handled yourselves! Now comes the part I’ve been wanting, even hurting for with you, the whole time. It’s been so… cutting and hard, watching you sweeties go through the trials and indignities of the demon wedding ritual. But you’ve made it through them! And now you will experience, even more than before, the intensity and ecstasy of demon marriage. A deep, special pleasure that requires more than affection to nurture and grow.”
“I don’t have a knife with me, or I would cut your bonds right here. I want to show you my paradise without any remnant of the pain from this world, but I don’t want to make you stand here in the dark while I go and fetch one. So I’m going to take you straight to the bath and free you there. Ooh… I don’t even want to interrupt our intimacy, but I want to make it perfect for all of us…. Let me show you our special and wonderful home. I love sharing this with you so much!”
Letting go of them both, and squealing excitedly, barely able to contain herself, she paused and looked back at them, her hands already pressing on the door, her body arched delightfully, a moment burned into all three of their memories. The girls would always remember her there, their bedraggled fairie queen full of incredible potential promise, self-assured and seemingly relishing everything life had to offer no matter how amazing or daunting, glowing like a saint and bringing light and life to the cold black honeycomb, her perfection untouched by her disheveled state. And Channah would always remember the naked, vulnerable, dependent, hungry, blind hope and faith and trust reflected in their shining eyes, and the raw need and desire for her, her comfort, her favor, and her love, emanating from her two most-intimate victims and lovers.
With a shudder, reflecting her own passion for this place, and her eagerness to share it with them, she pushed open the heavy iron door and admitted them to paradise.
Light cracked through the door first as it opened. There was something clear and almost hard about it, a momentary impression immediately overcome by the excitement and hope of a perfect early spring morning.
The air was cool and invigorating, fresh with life and fragrant with the smell of flowers and forest. The sky was sweet and bright and vibrant, energy practically radiating from it. Before them were vital and verdant trees, vines, and bushes, the encouragement of life, embraced by the solidity and nurturing reassurance of the Earth beneath them and, as they found themselves stepping out of a tunnel in the bottom of a cliff, behind them. The perfect black stones of the honeycomb ended abruptly as they stepped through the doorway onto a garden path made of what their tour guide called orange adoquin stone, perfectly fitted to one another with no visible grout between them.
The path divided immediately. It ran a few yards to the right along the bottom hem of the greyish-black volcanic cliff soaring above them, until—contained by a crenellation in the cliff wall, it was forced to bend to the left and disappear behind the trees.
Channah pushed the door closed behind them, sliding two heavy drawbars from holes in the cliff wall across the top and bottom of the iron door to secure it, latching them in place and making it impossible to open with anything less than a battering ram. Then she moved her hands quickly in the air before the door causing a brief glamour to sparkle and fade, suggesting even a battering ram might have trouble getting in.
She shrugged and smiled her beautiful smile. “I don’t require much, actual security. But I do value my privacy. It is more precious to me than you can imagine. And the three of us are the only people here in my mountain paradise. Do you feel the air? How thin it is?” And she enjoyed watching them breathe, eyes unfocused as they concentrated on feeling their breath in their throats and lungs. “If you don’t now, you will when you exert yourselves. And I mean for you both to do so,” she giggled, touching both their bottoms rudely and pulling them into her sides. “A lot. If you’ve never been at altitude before, you’ll feel you’re struggling for breath until your body adjusts. That will take a couple of days. We’re in a mountain valley—more like a pocket, a cauldron lined with cliffs, high in the peaks, with only two entrances, the honeycomb and a natural cave, both warded to alert me to any potential trespassers so I can know we’re alone and no one is going to come running to me with their problems and concerns. It calms me so much,” she sighed. “It’s the only time I’m really off work, in a way.” She shook her head, contemplating how busy she had been, and for how long.
And then she turned them gently to face the left branch of the path, causing them to gasp in wonder. It was a reaction she had obviously anticipated, and equally obviously, enjoyed. This way, the path descended gently and widened for a few yards, cliffs on the left and the dense, heavy forest on the right, until it reached a clear, beautiful pool in the rocks, fed by an irregular fountain of water pouring from a crack in the cliff wall and draining… well, it was complicated. And, just beyond that, a breathtaking vista.
There were actually three fountains and three waterways, a fact they slowly absorbed as she guided them down the path towards it, explaining, her hands protectively holding theirs. “They’re natural springs. The first one is my hot bath.” And indeed, they could see steam rising from the water where it emerged from the rock in a line with the surface of the smallish pool, a bowl about the size of a royal carriage with no obvious egress for the water. The force of the water entering at its margin caused its surface to ripple and bubble constantly. “The second is the mountain stream that waters my gardens.” It appeared to be the largest flow of water by volume, cascading down a spill of rocks to a narrow pool, more like a water trench or a troth, feeding a stream that disappeared into the woods. “And the third is my washing-pool, which all three of us need desperately!
This section moves beyond any reference to specific political figures or competing political interests to focus on the shared values and interests that are at the core of our Republic, and of a stable, civil, democratic society governed by the rule of law.
Either you believe in it and have the integrity to fight for it, or you don’t.
1775 07-04 Eternal Vigilance Is the Iron Price of Liberty—2025-06-30; Esmeray; propaganda poster. This phrase dates back to at least the 19th century in the US. Although apparently it was not used in relation to the American Revolution, it was popularized in the context of the abolition movement, a noble cause particularly apt today because it spoke to internal divisions within our society that went to the heart of the union formed in the American Revolutionary War period. It reminds us that we have to strive and that we cannot sit back and leave it to others, or fate, or tomorrow to protect ourselves. We cannot make excuses or hope silently that the current storm will blow over. Instead, every one of us must act to save our Republic, our way of life, our dignity, and ultimately our souls. A citizen pays the iron price for liberty every day because no other currency can buy it, no matter how socially or economically advantaged one is.
1776 07-04 Love of Liberty–DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION—2025-07-01; Esmeray; propaganda poster. How I feel; what I see in her expression and her character. The part of superhero mythology I believe in, or want to believe in, and feel dismayed to find lacking today: a shared respect for and love of liberty, and a desire by people to be the best version of themselves civically.
1777 07-04 América Libre—DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION—2025-07-02; Esmeray; propaganda poster. Translation: América Libre Free America. Alludes to the Cold War era and Cold War America (“Cuba Libre”), when Americans—for self-interest, and because of their genuine moral beliefs and simple human compassion—hoped for a better fate for another country. It reflects my belief that we do care about one another, nationally and internationally; and we should. I’m not saying it’s clear what the right course of action is internationally, or that we need to agree on it. I’m just saying human respect and support are good things, and nurturing them makes us all better off; whereas tearing down other countries and breaking off ties with them for the sake of doing so, is ultimately a self-destructive, dangerous, and self-impoverishing act. And especially, at this time, when Americans are so divided and our institutions of government are so paralyzed, we should not be disdaining the rest of the world or looking down on it. We should be trying to learn from it—in my view, the parliamentary model of democracy, although faaaar from a panacea, has lessons for us in how to make our politicians more accountable by making it harder for them to blame other Americans for problems instead of trying to fix them.
1778 07-04 Americans will always fight for Liberty… 2025?—2025-07-03; Lancelot; propaganda poster. Compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_Will_Always_Fight_for_Liberty. This one is a deep prayer and a call to action rooted in a previous time that required Americans to rise to a challenge, and reminded them then that they could do it because they had done it before. But the crises of the present can only be answered in the present; so we today must exercise our own virtues and willpower to re-earn what our ancestors gifted on to us; rather than telling stories of more glorious days while letting the side down now.
1789 07-04 LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC! Liberty is EVERY citizen’s duty!—2025-07-04; Young Hellinore, Young Esmeray; compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Leading_the_People. Translation: LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC! VIVE LA RÉPUBLIQUE !, Liberty is EVERY citizen’s duty! La liberté est le devoir de TOUT citoyen ! Expresses the reciprocity between one person’s tolerance and another’s liberty; to live in liberty with other people, we must respect their liberty as well, especially when we disagree with them but can live with their choices for themselves. Expresses that our moral strength is found in duties not privileges and that duty and privilege are opposite sides of the same coin. Emphasizes that there can be no exceptions to citizenship; cowardliness, hubris, and selfishness are bars to citizenship because they prevent one from putting anything above themselves. Expresses that liberty and other human values and interests are universal, and we should look for common ground with others rather than picking unnecessary fights.
1783 07-04 Join, or Die–Educate yourself, Compromise, Be Civil—2025-07-04; n/a; propaganda poster. Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Join%2C_or_Die. Arguably the first American propaganda image, because it was the first known image to advocate for the unity of the American colonies. Published, and apparently conceived, by Benjamin Franklin in 1754, to urge cooperation by the colonists in the French and Indian War, it was influential then, and a generation later when it—in a hundred different forms by a hundred different artists—became one of the most iconic propaganda pieces on behalf of the American Revolution. Its fundamental message is more relevant than ever, today; and the values it extols are as American as they can be.
1996 07-03 Get thee before me, Satan1997 07-03 Lambs trusting the Dragon1998 07-02 Channah’s evil thoughts1999 07-03 Let’s get this party STARTED, bitches!!! 2000 07-03 Barefoot and ensorcelled–just how Channah likes them
PREVIOUSLY: For seven days and nights, Chastity and Penance have been tormented, tested, pushed, and bewitched by Channah, her succubae, her human operatives, and others, with every tool and tactic available to the succubae on Earth and in Hell, with the twin goals of perfecting a decade of training and preparation while bringing them mentally to their current state: uprooted, lost, malleable, in need of comfort, and desperate for love. Having taken them—figuratively and literally—through hell, Channah ushers them now to her paradise. NOW:
Channah was still fully dressed, wearing her customary, splendid scarlet court gown and tall black shiny high-heeled riding boots, the same things she had worn since they left Fensmere and Earth this morning, which seemed like a lifetime ago now. Or, at least, she wore the scuffed, dirty, oily, torn, abraded remnants of the clothes she had donned at Fensmere, insofar as they remained after the orgiastic, satanic rituals at Chang’an, the skyride across the Hell of Lust, their impromptu performance at the satanikoklus, and whatever she had got up to while the girls were tethered in the honeycomb at Sademtsaowah.
Her girls were stripped, covered in so much oil and filth and dirt that they had caused the soiling of her own clothing, Kadidia’s and Esmeray’s clothing, and several square yards of the ritual site. Their bare skin was marked with scrapes, minor cuts, ligature marks, and, more heavily, with bruises, some smoldering and purple, some still fresh and angry and red, from their training and discipline over the preceding seven days and nights. To any observers, they appeared to wear only their collars, short leashes, navel rings, and the ropes binding their wrists. Not readily visible, but certainly of equal importance in their experiences, were the four items—in addition to the roots of their navel rings—buried deep inside their bodies: two plugs in their ears depriving them completely of any ability to see, hear, taste, or smell anything outside their own bodies; and the twisters and triggers that rested, churned, or swam by turns, at Channah’s command, inside their guts. But even with all that, what they and she were surely most-conscious of at this moment, was how thoroughly (with the sole exception of their primary sexual organs hanging as obsoletely as appendices from their crotches) their bodies had been transformed from the male bodies they grew up with to their new, ultrafeminine curves.
She held their leashes over her shoulders, her hands in front of her belly, using their chastity cages hooked to and tangled in the leashes like handles for better leverage, casually forcing them to rest their chins on her shoulders and to awkwardly scramble, their shoulders and chests pressed tightly against her back, behind her. She expected them to accommodate her own brisk and confident walk with theirs, and they were certainly in no doubt about that. She was, after all, their superior. She could feel the tension and stress in their bodies as they tried to keep their balance, keep their soft bare feet away from her boots with their sharp heels, and keep up with her using only their sense of touch.
She was snickering, well-pleased with herself and already teetering on the tingly edge of arousal when she led her girls through the honeycomb and up to the iron door separating it from her retreat.
Gently pushing Penny up against the door, she put her hand up tight behind the girl’s soft hair to protect her from the door behind her, knowing she was about to startle the girl. Only then, did she brush her lips across her young wife’s, refusing to let her pull back as her instincts tried to do when they felt an unexpected touch on such a vulnerable and personal part of her body. Resting her lips softly there for a moment, while her girl calmed down, Channah pushed her tongue into Penny’s mouth, feeling her relax and wondering if she could tell it was Channah once it penetrated past her lips. Perhaps she recognized something familiar about the feel or taste or smell of her, or perhaps even her kissing style. Knowing Penny, she suspected she could. Not because she obeyed the unspoken command to admit Channah’s tongue, but because she responded almost immediately, kissing back with a palpable enthusiasm, even of the closest thing to aggression Penny was capable of, making a soft moue of relief and welcome that warmed Channah’s heart despite herself.
Then she laughed, as Penny pushed herself forward and even flicked her tongue against Channah’s. Pulling on Penny’s hair as she laughed at her, she broke their kiss, softly pecking at the corners of Penny’s helpless mouth as if to tell her that was enough. Next, she turned around and relaxed back against Penny, smooshing her between the hard iron behind her and the soft swells of Channah’s buttocks and shoulders, really pushing into her so she knew she was being held in place and not forgotten, giggling and shivering with pleasure as she felt Penny’s lips and tongue begin attending to the sensitive back of her neck and shoulders.
Pulling Chastity in close to her, slowly enough she could tell it was a gesture of intimacy, she repeated the same soft initial brush pass she had used to signal her intentions to Penny. Chas neither pulled back nor immediately reciprocated, but instead hesitated a moment before kissing her back, confidently but less ardently than Penny. Raising her hands to Chastity’s ears, she removed her plugs and pocketed them, hearing Chas’s whimper of relief as she regained her senses.
“Domina!” she gasped, her voice somewhere between a whine and a moan, before pushing forward against the older woman and almost attacking her mouth. She laughed as she returned the kiss, carelessly using Penny as her cushion, hardly thinking of her as she focused her attention on Chastity, running her hands through her oily hair and over her dirty skin with gusto. Earthy and about as far from neurotic as one could be, Channah was not fazed by anything as minor as a sloppy encounter. In fact, she could even relish a bit of the funkiness and imperfection of the world because it was so visceral and real, especially when she knew the chaos and disorder was of her own causation, rather than reflecting any lack of attention or respect for her, coming from her partners.
When they finally came up for breath, she giggled, stroking Chas’s cheek softly and saying: “Penny’s turn. Here, come to me.” She wrapped her right arm around Chas’s head and pulled it in against her breast, forcing Chas to follow as she turned back towards Penny, managing to reach both of Penny’s ears, remove her plugs, and transfer the plug from her right to her left hand without ever releasing, or even loosening, Chas. Pocketing the plugs carefully, she purred with happiness as Penny crushed her lips against Channah’s.
“Oh, oh, oh, mm…” she murmured around their kisses, sensing again how much more desperate and hungry Penny’s kisses were than Chas’s confident and content ones. “It’s so nice to be missed and wanted. I love you girls.”
“We love you Domina!” they both cried, pressing on her with enough force that she backed into the wall beside the door with both girls’ weight squeezing her in a way she found delightfully affectionate. After a couple of moments, she loosened her arm and moved her hand so she was now holding both girls by their hair, allowing Chas’s face up and startling them—again without allowing either girl to even think of resisting—by pushing their chins and noses against hers, flicking her tongue across both of their mouths at the same time, their faces fitting against one another like three pieces of a pie.
Pausing, she scolded them: “Where are your tongues? Don’t be shy. You’re sisterwives now! You don’t have to enjoy kissing one another, but you absolutely, positively can never be hesitant or reserved about kissing me, just because you’re sharing me!” Then she dove back in, her aggression, and the size of her tongue, coaxing her girls into responding. Laughing again, she murmured: “We are going to have the most wonderful week together…. Do you want to see my home? Well… you’re my wives, aren’t you?” she gasped, sounding surprised, as she realized: “That makes it our home, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, Domina!” they agreed, happy and warmed by the idea.
1984 07-02 Into the Labyrinth–We can fly!1985 07-02 You’ll be fine when you solve the maze1986 07-02 What’s happening to us?!?!1987 07-02 The World Turned Upside Down1988 07-02 Fairies may or may not be real1989 07-02 Make your choices, and live with them!1990 07-02 Good girls get dunce-boxed forever1991 07-02 Bad girls go anywhere they want!1992 07-02 Oh no! We could’ve been us! Or them?1993 07-02 Here there are worlds and worlds and worlds…1994 07-02 Domina… You’re getting bigger! No, you’re getting smaller1995 07-02 In here, all truths are revealed
PREVIOUSLY: Channah had shaken Chastity and Penance to their cores by binding them and then stripping them of their senses one by one—sight, sound, smell, taste, and then—finally, with triggers inserted inside them, even touch and their awareness of their own bodies, leaving them completely isolated from the world, themselves, and reality. Now, only hours later, she has triggered the girls’ PTSD by leaving them kneeling naked, hands tied behind their backs, collars locked to rings at floor level, and alone in the eerie Honeycomb—vulnerable, bound, hitched, and stripped of their senses of sight, smell, hearing, and taste. They remained connected to the world, and to reality, only by their sense of touch and their awareness of their own bodies, and trapped in their fear, uncertainty, and inability to resist anything else she might choose to do to them. NOW:
Channah had, quite willfully and naughtily, allowed herself to become distracted, first by her castellan and other officials, then by her petitioners, and finally by a lover. She spent most of her time on Earth, and even the time she had for hell had to be divided among different castles by the global nature of her responsibilities. Inevitably, on the rare occasions she did return to Sademtsaowah, when she finally did reappear, she was besieged by the attentions of those she had ignored for far too long.
She had tried to assure them she would be returning next weekend, with her new brides, their qahramanah, and even Kadidia—all of those big draws for her curious officers and staff—but they had heard her promise how quickly she would be back so many times, they discounted her assurances to near nothing. This time, they would see she meant it. As much as Fang’s exhaustion concerned her with the possibility something similar could happen to her, she didn’t expect the girls could ever release that much sado-sexual sorcery again. But that wouldn’t stop her from trying to make it happen, she thought happily.
She had told her two girls she would leave them kneeling on the hard stone floor, virtually mummified and immobilized, for about half an hour. In the event, it was between four and five hours later that she finally returned to the honeycomb, casually chatting with the guards posted outside, for a moment before proceeding inside. Entering it, as she finally did, she brought light and noise to what had been a perfectly dark and silent space. But of course, her girls could not be aware of that, with the plugs she had placed in their ears and more-importantly, the triggers she and Kadidia had pushed up inside their bellies. She could strip them of their remaining sense, and indeed their connections to their own bodies, with a thought, anytime she wished; and she was confident they suspected and feared that to be the case. Still, there was no way she was going to give them the satisfaction or certainty of confirming or denying it categorically. Let them feel the creeping uncertainty and loss of confidence in their own awareness of reality, and the limits—if any—of her power that came with such profound uncertainty about something as fundamental as their very connection to the world.
Walking around behind her girls, she stood for a moment and regarded their beautiful backs and hips. They were gorgeous, two of Channah’s best creations, submissive, feminine, eager to please her, kneeling there with their legs spread revealing their little hints of wannabe manhood below their taints—not men. They would never be men. That was never in the cards for her little futas—never had been. Femmebois.
Both girls were showing signs of physical distress, shifting almost constantly, rearranging their legs, even daring to break position for a moment to straighten one leg and then another, pointing and stretching their toes like ballerinas, inadvertently shifting their hips like whores. Penny was shivering slightly, a function of temperature but even more, Channah judged, of anxiety and dread. Chastity moaned and whimpered, little sounds of her own distress, even panic. Chastity seemed to be even more-affected than Penny had been, about the trigger.
Channah felt herself becoming aroused and reflected, not for the first time since she had broken them, how much she enjoyed their sexual ambivalence, and how muc h they made her appreciate her own. It was a combination, she speculated, of their appearance, their submission, the fact she couldn’t drain them without throwing away decades of her own hard work, and the fact she had made them, thought by thought, feeling by feeling, experience by experience, even hip by hip and breast by breast. Oh—and the maddening, fascinating technical “virginity” of her number one whore. And the fact the little bitch’s personality had, so far, made her act and feel almost like a superior little virgin, no matter what Channah subjected her to.
Usually, as much as she enjoyed the transgression of penetrating a boycow, she enjoyed being a woman so much it made her one of the straightest succubae around. And, of course, she reflected smugly, she liked the fact that no one else on Earth or in Hell ever had to compromise less than she did. That was always a fucking turn-on. Something that, she could perhaps admit to herself, had discouraged her from experimenting with her staff side as freely as she might otherwise have done. It almost made her resentful of her girls, for forcing her to abandon—or at least suspend—that conceit, even if it was at her own choice to fulfill her own ambitions. She want to punish them, for making her compromise her own rigid, dominant femininity; and she couldn’t help the feeling they were asking for it, the little two-faced strumpet-prigs. Among a species more sexually-ambivalent than almost any other, being ultra-, exceptionally-, uncompromisingly- feminine was a badge to Channah of her own uniqueness and power.
All of which kind of pissed her off. Well, really pissed her off. At them. Again. The whiny little straitlaced better-than-thou virginal sheltered taffeta-girl wimps!
Regarding their insolent buttocks thrust up at her like challenges—or at the very least, invitations—she felt herself breathing more heavily, her forehead and coccyx twitching with the rising urge to strike and penetrate them both here. She could hardly imagine how badly they would freak out to feel her pushing lube into their sphincters, reminding them of the last time they had thought themselves senseless until she showed them what it really meant…
“Fuck!” She shivered and rolled her eyes, turning away and forcing her thoughts down gentler courses. She should have done these things on the heteraslakos if she were in the mood for it. And she could always do it next weekend. Or the next. Or the one after that….
But she’d already pushed her girls harder than she’d pushed anyone she wanted to be genuinely intimate with before. And she needed them to be intimate with her—needed them to love and trust her and depend on her. She had to rein herself in and give them love they could understand. Love they were more than ready for. Love they did need, and maybe she wanted, just for a little bit—just for fun. Only, she’d made them such perfect demon-bait… too fucking perfect… Only, they drove her so crazy—
Roughly and impulsively, allowing herself to womanhandle them and leave them helpless and lost to sate her own desire to punish and dominate them, she unhooked their collars from the hitching rings. She enjoyed very much how startled and fearful each girl was at the first touch, shocked to feel evidence of anyone else after hours of being lonely and abandoned, even if they had spent those hours pining for her. They were uncertain who was unhitching them and what they would be subjected to next. They had no idea, and no way of finding out.
She yanked the girls to their feet by their shortleashes and, after she was sure they both had enough circulation and feeling in their legs to keep their feet, casually draped the leashes over her shoulders, pulling their chins down right beside her ears and shivering with the feel of their soft skin and softer breath. Pulling and holding the shortleashes tight, she forced the girls to follow her closely while trying not to trip over their Domina or their own feet. She giggled, feeling them struggle and try to move cautiously, fearful that their next step might be on a painful or treacherous or difficult surface, as she led them back into—and through—the honeycomb.
1980 07-01 Massively- (Magically-) Enhanced Interrogation1981 07-01 What’s that on your cheek–oh, no, you bit right through it!1982 07-01 Aww! He looks so sad and pathetic!1983 07-01 It’s a pity he only has one more to pop!
Explicit version containing gore, graphic violence, and enhanced interrogation themes at 07-01X The Chamber of Torment III at Patreon.com/TheRemainderman
PREVIOUSLY: Channah and Rivqah are interrogating Gasparo Orseolo in the Chamber of Torment, the nighttime nerve center of the Venetian Republic. In another part of the Palace, Chava waits nervously for further instructions with the ensorcelled child, Pen, trying not to think about how much time is passing. NOW:
“You evil little roach. You will be spending eternity with us, in hell.”
“No! No, I am a pious man! A churchgoing man! I was confessed just this morning!”
The two succubae laughed vindictively. “And you were torturing prisoners again before we found you tonight, weren’t you?” Channah observed. “Even under your church’s absurd superstitions, you are no innocent. You’re not even good.” She peered at him—into him and through him—with narrowed eyes, ignoring his blubbering protests, before nodding. “Damned as Judas, your filthy, tarnished soul is.”
“My priest—”
“Legerdemain!” Rivqah roared with amusement.
“Prestidigitation!” Channah concurred. “There are no magic spells that can save you from your Maker’s judgment. Your soul is as you have fashioned it. Old men in dresses, chanting and making hand gestures, cannot alter or hide the filth on it—within it—from God.”
“God is merciful!” This idea seemed to incense both of the succubae, but he was doubling down before he could even consider whether it was wise or not: “He will forgive me!”
After taking her own peer at his soul, Rivqah exchanged a wry glance with Channah. “I wouldn’t count on it,” was all Rivqah said.
“I’m going to ask Rivqah to come find you—what’s left of you,” Channah decided.
“Yesss!” Rivqah hissed, her eyes dancing with delight at the prospect.
“And then we’re going to hang you up again and have another little chat,” she nodded to herself, her voice dripping with malice. Channah laughed. “And down there, we can leave you in exactly this position as long as we want. You’ll never pass out or rest. Not in hell. I’m so going to hope you remember this. Enough of it, anyway, to appreciate how right I was, and how wrong you were. So I can really gloat and rub it in.” And seeing his frown of uncertainty and doubt, she shrugged. “It’s true! And quite irritating. You damned little ants can be quite disoriented and overwhelmed by hell. The red shades can’t remember anything specific about their lives. They’re consumed and defined by their lust. White shades,” she pointed to him helpfully “—that’s going to be you, loser—may remember a few details of their Earthly lives, sometimes many of them, or maybe nothing at all. That’s why I had to come interrogate you here, to learn what I need to learn before you forget it.”
“You’re mad! You can’t just—just question me, inside the Doge’s own palace! The guards—”
“Oh!” She and Rivqah smirked at one another. “I see.”
“Are you, perhaps, hoping for a rescue?!” Rivqah snickered.
Channah disappeared and reappeared a foot to the left of where she had been.
“Wha–?!” the Capo gasped, and even Rivqah—the swordswoman—was clearly taken aback by the sudden shift, although she quickly covered up that reaction.
And then, just as suddenly, Channah was standing two feet to the right of where she had been.
“I can stop time itself, Gasparo. And move through it.” And as she saw the hopelessness she had been looking for, creep into his eyes, she laughed throatily with satisfaction. “That’s right. We have all the time in the world we could ever hope for. But if you don’t cooperate with me, I won’t do that. I’ll loiter here, until another Lord of the Night or a night watchman appears with another prisoner to torture, and kill them. Who do you imagine would win, in a contest between us—your army and navy of Venice? Or my demon warriors?”
“Hail, Mary, full—”
“Oh, stop it, sinner!” she laughed, slapping Orseolo brutally across the face, more-than-incidentally pulling on his arms and eliciting another cry of agony from him. “You can’t very well be answering my important questions, when you’re chanting and whimpering, can you? No.”
And when he started up again, not quite rationally, she appeared thoughtful, moving counterclockwise around him until she stood by his left leg. With more force than Orseolo could have imagined, she twisted as hard as she could. With a scream ending in abrupt silence, Orseolo was knocked out from the pain.
He was awakened again, by a ladle-full of cold, stale water (again), hanging in the strappado—again—in the Chamber of Torment, wracked with pain. Again.
“I think we’ve established your leg isn’t dead yet,” Channah reminded him, as his eyes blinked and tried to refocus on the world around him.
“Not dead—what?”
And she barely poked it, eliciting another scream, this one not ending in abrupt unconsciousness.
“Your leg is still alive. But the tourniquet will kill it soon enough.”
“Tourniquet?!” he looked down and wailed again in horror at the rope constricting his left leg. “Oh no,” he gasped, panicking, head twisting back and forth, eyes rolling in his head. “Oh no. Oh no. Oh no….”
“You won’t be bleeding out on us, Gasp-o,” she assured him. “Sorr—eee. But after we kill the leg, we’ll have to continue above the tourniquet. So….” She leaned down and tugged his chin to the left so he couldn’t avoid her eyes. She smiled brightly. “I’d best take advantage of your shattered knee right now, hadn’t I? How did you first come to suspect Anzola was ‘possessed’?” And then she dug her thumb in , shuddering with pleasure as she watched him cry and shudder.
1976 06-128 Channah & Rivqah show their cards… and their claws 1977 06-128 Nothing Gasparo Orseolo EVER hoped to see 1978 06-128 …and I bet he can take it all the way up to HERE1979 06-128 Standing under a former Lord of the Night
Explicit version containing gore, graphic violence, and enhanced interrogation themes at 06-128X The Chamber of Torment II at Patreon.com/TheRemainderman
PREVIOUSLY: Channah and Rivqah have just killed two Venetian soldiers and captured two Venetian officials who were supervising their torture of a Venetian prisoner in the Room of Torment of the Doge’s Palace. Now one of Venice’s 3 Capos—who rotate responsibility for day-to-day management of Venice—awakens to find himself bound and hanging by his wrists, which are tied behind his back, with his knee shattered, learning that his captors know him already. NOW:
“Finally. You find yourself in the place you most deserve, Gasparo Orseolo.”
The capo couldn’t conceal the uneasy alarm in his voice. “How—how do you recognize me?!”
The women laughed. “We don’t ‘recognize’ you,” Rivqah assured him.
And Channah explained: “We came for you. We picked a night when you would be on duty here. Because we want to know what you know. Well…” she exchanged an amused glance with Rivqah. “That’s half the truth. They say if you want a thing done right, you should do it yourself. But that’s why I keep charge of training my operatives: to make sure every one of them is trained right. If all I wanted from you was information, I could have sent any one of them here for you tonight. Instead of honoring you—and indeed, all of Venice—with my esteemed presence, and that of my Duchesses, in this little backwater.”
“Backwater?! Duchess—” the Capo looked genuinely incredulous and confused, as well he might. Venice was one of the brightest lights in Latin Christendom, and (in his relatively seasoned and well-informed experience) Duchesses were ladies rather than thieves and assassins. “But—what could you possibly want from me?!”
“24 Sha’ban, 921.”
“What?”
Channah made a circular motion with her hand. “Ahhh…” looking mildly frustrated, she shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter to us.”
“What you would call, um… Wednesday, October 3rd, anno Domini 1515,” Rivqah clarified, with exaggerated formality.
“Thank you, my dear.”
Orseolo looked discomfited, nervous, and uncertain. “October… October two years ago….” His thoughts were slow, even stuck.
Channah let him fumble around for a moment, her eyes flat and hard. “This one, for your sake, I hope you can remember: Anzola Ipato.”
Orseolo gasped. “You—you are what, her sisters? I promise you—I swear to you in the Lord’s name, the Anzola Ipato I knew, she was not your sister!”
“Oh, yes she was!”
“No, I swear it—your poor sister had departed before I ever met her. The Devil had already taken her! Her body was a vessel for him when she was brought to me. I swear it! Three patricians swore it to me and I confirmed it.”
Both women were incensed, stepping forward, faces contorting with rage. “Liar! She was no devil!”
The Capo’s voice rose several octaves, as if they’d already castrated him: “I swear it! The Archibishop himself confirmed it! Her flesh was scarred by Holy Water—it evaporated on he—”
“You threw holy water on her?!” Channah’s hand shot out to seize his jaw and pinch it, hard, impossibly hard for what Orseolo imagined to be a frail woman.
He was baffled and scared; their reactions completely inappropriate, indeed illogical. “I don’t—I don’t understand, I’m telling you—we tried to save her! We did everything we could to expel the demon from her!”
“You did expel the demon from her, exorcist! And with it, extinguished her ability to live and move in this world!”
“What–?!” No one had ever been more baffled than Gasparo Orseol was in that moment. “Praise be to the Holy Mother Church!”
“Fuck and damn the Holy Mother Church!”
“Who are you?!” He wailed.
And with a sly glance at one another, for his reward, they showed him.
It took him a moment to wrap his mind around what he was seeing, the horns rising from their foreheads, their teeth and fingernails sharpening and lengthening, their skin taking on a ruddy hue under the olive one, and even—though he didn’t spot them until later—their tails extending under their skirts to swirl and brush the floor. But as soon as he did begin to try and make sense of the insensible, to the succubae’s delight, Orseolo started quaking and blithering Catholic incantations: “Hail Mary, full of grace, The Lord is with thee. Blessed art th—”
“You honor the mother of your lord by urinating?!” the demonesses laughed.
“Wh—what?” Orseolo looked down and sobbed to see the evidence of his own shame on the platform below him. Then he noticed a second puddle, much larger, and of a much darker and stickier liquid, on the same surface but much nearer to his head than his groin. What attracted his attention was movement, of another dark red drop plummeting past him to land in the puddle. Gasping with shock, before even thinking how much sudden motion would hurt him, he craned his neck to look up, his screech of pain turning into a prolonged scream of terror at the sight of his Lord of the Night hanging half a dozen feet above him by the very same rope.
The two demonesses chuckled and shook their heads. “We haven’t even started to torture him properly yet!” Rivqah clucked her disappointment.
The demonesses simply enjoyed his horror and shock, drinking it in and appraising it with experienced eyes for perhaps 2 or 3 minutes, until he came back to them, and to the room around him, well enough to start thinking and calculating and—this was the sweetest to them—hoping and praying as desperately as he was fearing and dreading, all at once plunged into a complex mixture of emotions and thoughts.
As his eyes came back into focus on Channah’s, Channah asked him conversationally: “You’re an experienced torturer. What are the advantages of the strappado?”
“Wh—what?”
“Over, say… the Judas seat. Or…” she raised her hand, holding an exquisitely-detailed and -inlaid dagger with a radically curved blade. “a simple blade?”
“I don’t—I—I—”
“Oh, I am disappointed,” Channah professed, shaking her head and frowning. “First question, and a simple one. And not even a state secret, by any stretch of the imagination. And you can’t answer it. It’s so easy: Longevity. Specifically, yours.” She shrugged. “Relatively speaking, of course. You know you’re going to die where you hang, don’t you?”
“What?” he barked hoarsely, like a small dog kicked in the stomach.
“You’re never going to leave that rope,” she explained slowly, as if speaking to a small child. “Not inside your body, anyway. Never going to know another second free of pain.” She tut-tutted, as if there were something about the situation she regretted, rather than relished. “Never going to be happy again.”
“Hallelujah, I will when I join my Lord—”
And here both of them laughed, a sharp, mocking cackle with a supreme confidence that rattled the Capo. “Oh, is that where you think you’re headed?” Channah could barely contain her mirth.
1925 Man of steel materially transforms the superstructure to abolish private property and all the classes! (English version)1925 Man of steel materially transforms the superstructure to abolish private property and all the classes! (German version)1925 Man of steel materially transforms the superstructure to abolish private property and all the classes! (Russian version)1926 Man of Steel (ALT ver where AI didn’t print globe on beach ball but awesome expressions),1927 Man of Steel (ALT ver where AI gave S and un-Stalinish face but fantastic globe distortion)1928 Man of Steel (ALT ver where AI has him ironing nothing but love the coloring and style)1929 Man of Steel (ALT ver 2nd place for a variety of small factors)2025 Trump—Making the World Pay (BASE version)2025 Trump—Making the World Pay … to Make America Mexico Again (Mexico version)2025 Trump—Making the World Pay … to Make America Jacksonian Again (Jacksonian version)2026 Trump (ALT ver with my favorite of several brilliant expressions)2027 Trump (ALT ver with awesome money globe)2028 Trump (ALT ver great eating money while sycophants applaud)
These images are broken out because they were the last added to the production, and because the existing post on this section was already pushing the outer boundaries of oversized posts. But these images are intended as part and parcel of subsection 07-04-H.
1925 Man of steel materially transforms the superstructure to abolish private property and all the classes! (English, German, and Russian versions)—2025-06-25. n/a; naked political statement; compare: https://www.rbth.com/history/334246-stalin-soviet-cult-personality. Translation (German English): Superman verändert den Überbau materiell, um das Privateigentum und alle Klassen abzuschaffen! Man of steel [lit: Superman] materially transforms the superstructure to abolish private property and all the classes! Translation (Russian English): Сталин существенно преобразует надстройку, чтобы уничтожить частную собственность и все классы! Man of steel [lit: Stalin] materially transforms the superstructure to abolish private property and all the classes! Stalin’s superhero costume has a “C” on it because that is the Cyrillic character starting his name and, I think (?) is associated with the “S” sound in English. For formatting consistency, I kept the foreign language to English translation format, I used English-language wording and sources for the original quotes, partly because it is difficult for me to access other versions and even more to determine which is the correct “original” language. Although Marx and Engels were both German, and presumably wrote and thought “first” in some way in German, many of their most famous quotes come from addresses at international conferences or publications directed towards international organizations. I don’t know if these addresses were given in German, French, or for that matter English although my general understanding is that in the Nineteenth Century French was still the predominant, er, lingua franca. The language of this poster actually crams together four quotes or parts of quotes where merging them seemed intellectually honest because I was stringing together concepts (such as materiality and transformation) that they often linked; although of course the poster deliberately makes a point which they might resist. But the intention of the posters is to attack their ideas head-on, not to misstate those ideas and avoid grappling with any issues. Although the USSR is mercifully gone from the world, this subject matter seemed not only relevant but necessary not only because of the connection between the man and the comic book genre, but because it hopefully provides some framework for comparing with 2025 in terms of where I’m coming from.
1926-1929 Man of Steel (4 ALT vers)—n/a; examples of process; n/a. 1926 Man of Steel (ALT ver where AI didn’t print globe on beach ball but awesome expressions), 1927 Man of Steel (ALT ver where AI gave S and un-Stalinish face but fantastic globe distortion), 1928 Man of Steel (ALT ver where AI has him ironing nothing but love the coloring and style), and 1929 Man of Steel (ALT ver 2nd place for a variety of small factors) are included first, because I liked things about them, and second to illustrate some of the challenges of working with AI, especially given the tight restriction on number of words, and the difficulty I have in keeping concepts and parts of the image distinct while the number of ideas I’m trying to inject goes up.
2025 Trump—Making the World Pay (BASE version), … to Make America Jacksonian Again (Jacksonian version), … to Make America Mexico Again (Mexico version)—n/a; naked political statement; n/a. Compare: https://mvau.lt/media/a79e0a4b-9695-4cee-ba10-156d617d3ddc, https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2025/02/fact-check-trump-crown-long-live-the-king-magazine-cover.html, https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/business/money-report/trump-posts-ai-generated-photo-of-himself-dressed-as-the-pope/6249230/. This, and to a much-milder extent, 1779-1780, are the only direct attacks I allowed myself on specific living political individuals or movements. I am concerned that posting them will cost me viewers, but the fact is, one of the worst problems we have in America today is people feeling like they can’t speak to people on the opposite side of the political divide, or that they’re not interested in hearing from people on the opposite side of the political divide. This is not an ad hominem attack since it’s all about policy not appearance or personality; and I generally avoid criticizing others if I can find a way around it, sometimes going too far in that direction. However, if I hesitated to express my very deeply-held views when I genuinely feel a need to express them to make important points, for fear of losing audience, (1) I wouldn’t have artistic integrity, and (2) (something I think is really artistically and politically important here): my biggest concern about the US is people not speaking their mind in a civilized way to people on the other side of any given political fence. So how can I possibly comment on that, without standing up and doing it? I wanted to do it, and I did. If you want to respond, please do so with constructive comments or with counter-works of your own. If you send me a message on DA I *will* check out your response on your website and offer any thoughts in response I might have. Let’s talk! (Not shout or ignore one another.). We have a lot to offer one another!
2026-2028 Trump (3 ALT vers)—n/a; examples of process; n/a. 2026 Trump (ALT ver with my favorite of several brilliant expressions), 2027 Trump (ALT ver with awesome money globe), and 2028 Trump (ALT ver great eating money while sycophants applaud) are included first, because I liked things about them, and second to illustrate some of the challenges of working with AI, especially the difficulty of getting it to portray specific actions, especially ones that sound violent with respect to symbols (e.g., smashing a globe). It took a LOT of work to get it to do anything other than sprinkle dust or snow on top of the globe. I believe I drew a policy-violation-you-could-be-banned warning when I tried specifying “Donald Trump” in an image months ago, so I had to try describing his face and toss out many, many, many otherwise-promising versions because I didn’t feel like they “vibed” Trump. On top of that, I became convinced that at some point the AI started fighting me on descriptions that sound like Trump; query whether Big Tech has muzzled its most dynamic creations to prevent anything other than glorifications of their great helmsman, Trump, e.g., “orange hair,” the same way Chinese censors erase references to Winnie the Pooh because of its use in the past to refer to President Xi (who you risk your life and family to criticize directly in the PRC). Certainly, the White House’s production of AI-generated images showing Trump as a King, the Pope, etc. suggest fawning on the Great Helmsman is allowed in Silicon Valley. But definitely not criticizing.
1790 07-04 Long Live the Republic—DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION1774 07-04 American Maniac1779 07-04 Raising a Flag over Mar a Lago (faded)1780 07-04 Raising a Flag over Mar a Lago (sepia)1784 07-04 Such is life (ABRIDGED version)1785 07-04 Everything is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds (ABRIDGED version)1786 07-04 It’s good to be the king! He who saves his Country does not violate any law (ABRIDGED version)1787 07-04 I AM the deep state. Let them eat cake (ENGLISH version)1787 07-04 I AM the deep state. Let them eat cake (FRENCH version)1788 07-04 After us, the flood. Weep and watch us eat, you revolting peasants!
This section’s title is not intended to preach to Americans, but rather to clarify that while I am culturally deeply rooted in the Anglosphere, I have great respect for the French and my goal here is not to echo old jokes, but rather to help Americans recognize that we cannot well laugh at the French without pausing to ask whether their experiences are any different from our own.
These images are about the soul of America, not France; and the extreme hostility and division of America into two camps of people who don’t seem able to communicate with one another any more, even though our interests as fellow Americans are 98% aligned and only 2% unaligned, a problem I end up addressing most squarely in the last image, 1783.
The more I focused on propaganda, freedom, and civility in the present as the point, the less-relevant it was to limit examples to any specific historic time period. But as it happens, my starting point was WW2, the contemporary Golden Age of Comics, and what America’s obsession with fundamentally anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian superheroes might say about its challenges with self-awareness. Particularly since I found support for something I had long suspected: That not only was the original idea of a “superman” or “overman” underlying American superheroes the selfsame theory of Friedrich Nietzsche that inspired the Nazis, the inspiration for Superman’s moniker, the so-called “Man of Steel,” was none other than the mass-murdering dictator Joseph Stalin (“Stalin” was a pseudonym he adopted meaning “Man of Steel” or “steel man”). Numerous factors contributed to the success of the character and the genre, but critical to it was the fact that many people were highly receptive to the idea. Fantasies about how wonderful communism and fascism were in other countries in the 1930s were grossly misplaced, but understandable to some extent; and I wouldn’t hold them against anyone with the intellectual honesty and personal humility to learn over time when faced with their overwhelming and obvious flaws. But understandable or not, believing such fantasies was then, and is now, an existential threat to the things that really can make the future better: democracy, capitalism, and above all individual liberty. Falling for the fantasy that celebrities, the wealthy, strongmen, the vanguard of the proletariat, the purebloods, philosopher-kings, or any other category of special people can be or ought to be trusted with power over others is stupid and dangerous. Deciding that one cannot be bothered to educate oneself and vote responsibly, is stupid and dangerous. It reminds me of the old joke about playing cards: How can you tell who the sucker at the table is? It’s the coward who surrenders their faith in individuals, including their own agency and responsibility, then acts surprised when he or she is exploited. D’uh.
It’s no accident I picked crazy Esmeray as the primary representative of the US in this series of pictures. She expresses both my hopes that America can be its best, and my fear of its worst excesses.
1790 07-04 Long Live the Republic—DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION—2025-06-24; Esmeray; propaganda poster. I made this one, then discarded it in favor of the French posters when I started developing them, then brought it back to fill out the series because I like the image, and the reason I originally liked it was the way it seemed to draw a parallel between the experiences of the US and France, and the challenges they have faced in the past and they both face today.
1774 07-04 American Maniac—2025-06-24; Esmeray; more an explanation of the concerns and anxieties that helped motivate me to make this series, than WW2 subject matter itself. This image seeks to set up the issue by distinguishing between citizenship and partisanship. We can be members of the same civil society, and deal with one another as colleagues, without agreeing about everything. We can put the interests of our country ahead of other things, without being mindless jingoists or accepting an aggressive view towards the world, or a servile view of our relationship with US authorities. I would be pleased if the entire series could encourage Americans to reconsider the benefits of working with others since the evidence is overwhelming that everyone is better off when they cooperate to improve everyone’s lot, and is worse off when they view the world as a zero-sum game where the goal is to take as much from your neighbors as you can get away with. I’m not saying there isn’t a time for fighting or a time for standing up for yourself; there certainly are. But there’s nothing about 2025 that would make this the time for disrupting any alliances, let alone all of them. We as a country need to remember the value of cooperation and mutual respect.
1779 07-04 Raising a Flag over Mar a Lago (faded) & 1780 07-04 Raising a Flag over Mar a Lago (sepia)—2025-06-25; Esmeray; old personal photos. Compare
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_a_Flag_over_the_Reichstag. The source photo is one of the most iconic photographs of World War 2, and came to mind when I was thinking about how to portray patriotism and superhero powers together: waving the flag on top of a building in Metropolis came to mind. And it involves Stalin, with a whole raft of ironies introduced by the fact the whole war in Europe started when Stalin and Hitler agreed to split Eastern Europe by force between them, and Western democracies objected to this horrific plan. Ultimately, I decided to use Mar a Lago as the building because it was symbolic of much of what I object to about America’s current situation. Long before Trump bought the property or ran for office, the US government refused to accept the estate as a gift for use as a Winter White House because it was too expensive to maintain. He later obtained the property at a discount by threatening to destroy its value if the owner didn’t sell, a tactic representative of his history of sharp dealing. After converting it to a club and being elected President, he used it into a way to charge people for access to a public official (himself) by making himself available in the club, which is only accessible to people who pay an exorbitant membership fee, much like the bribe-takers on the steps of the Vatican who once sold access to the Pope. Metaphorically, we do need to take back government from the place where it is wrongfully conducted in the corrupt twilight between private and public sectors, to the light of day. The idea that this is an acceptable or mainstream way to run a country ignores the fact that it is what traps most of the world’s population in a cycle of poverty and oppression to this day. We shouldn’t be accepting backsliding but instead should be trying to make our country better.
1784 07-04 Such is life (ABRIDGED version) & 1785 07-04 Everything is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds (ABRIDGED version)—UNABRIDGED VERSIONS CONTAINING FASCIST IMAGERY AVAILABLE AT PATREON.COM/THEREMAINDERMAN—2025-06-26; Martin (in 1784) & Cutter (in 1785); propaganda posters. Compare: https://www.alamy.com/vichy-france-ww2-propaganda-poster-against-communism-french-militia-supported-by-marshal-petain-anti-semitic-xenophobic-authoritarian-propaganda-poster-for-the-recruiting-recruitment-of-nazi-appeasement-appeasers-french-facist-militia-1943-signed-eric-ww2-world-war-ii-image466236767.html?imageid=218485E2-ED7B-4276-89BF-7FACCE305A9C&p=66052&pn=1&searchId=92fed0677eaf89ed1cdf2bada5be10e0&searchtype=0 (for basic composition, coloring and words) and https://www.alamy.com/vichy-france-propaganda-poster-1941-ww2-vintage-world-war-two-propaganda-poster-issued-by-the-vichy-government-world-war-ii-laissez-nous-tranquilles!-leave-us-in-peace!-image-of-a-french-family-planting-a-tree-with-four-black-beasts-three-dogs-and-a-three-headed-snake-symbolizing-the-enemies-indicated-in-writing-de-gaulle-freemasonry-the-lie-the-jew-ready-to-attack-the-land-of-france-and-its-inhabitants-vichy-france-french-rgime-de-vichy-is-the-common-name-of-the-french-state-tat-franais-headed-by-marshal-philippe-ptain-during-world-war-ii-image593595906.html?imageid=E4B5FB98-DA7E-43B7-B4CB-F56FEB1CA341&p=66052&pn=1&searchId=92fed0677eaf89ed1cdf2bada5be10e0&searchtype=0 for the thinly veiled theme that Germany has saved Frenchmen from any need to worry their pretty little heads about world events. Translation: C’est la vie Such is life (but I did not find any clear etymology online); Dans ce meilleur des mondes possibles, tout est au mieux In this best of all possible worlds, everything is for the best (apparently a shortened form of the original quote from Candide, instead of the direct language from the play). La Vie Française The French Life (in abridged version); Milice Française French Militia (in unabridged version).
Parrainé par l’École Européenne pour les Américains Sponsored by The European School for Americans; La Presse Française The French Press. The French Militia was a paramilitary organization created to assist the SS and Gestapo in suppressing the French Resistance. The rapid French collapse in World War Two resulted from a number of factors, including most sympathetically, that France—like its capitulating leader, Petain—was demonstrably a shell-shocked and traumatized version of the country that resisted the previous German invasion a generation before, that had been one of the primary battlegrounds of World War One, and that its military forces and tactics were greatly overmatched by those of Germany. But while acknowledging France lacked the endless steppes of the USSR or the English Channel of the UK to provide it with breathing room to sort itself out, it is a fact the USSR and the UK similarly had their asses summarily handed to them in their first encounters with the Wehrmacht, but fought on despite deprivations and losses. It is impossible to avoid some sense, though, that the swiftness of the capitulation, before the country’s armed forces were categorically defeated, reflected the fact French devotion to their own cause and Republican government were less passionate and committed than that of countries with governments and traditions much less worthy of loyalty than theirs. To me, that loss of faith and belief in a system that at the end of the day was worth fighting for or better yet improving upon, resulting in capitulation to a much-worse form of government, resonates strongly with the corrosive hostility of the internal US “culture wars” with their focus on lashing out at other Americans in indulgence of people’s petty rivalries and gripes, and at foreign countries for our own weaknesses, rather than remembering the much greater interests and values embodied in our history our moral strength and even our institutions, as frayed as they are. Certainly, our interests as Americans, humans, and moral agents are aligned with making democracy, liberty, and cooperation with others stronger, rather than abandoning them; and the benefits of our cooperation and tolerance are orders of magnitude larger than the ultimately small and unworthy bickering to which much of contemporary dialog often sink. Giving up did not serve the French very well in World War Two and it’s not serving Americans very well now. Yes, the French, galvanized and reminded of their values and heritage by the shock of occupation, returned better and stronger with a vibrant, even defiant, democracy after the war was over. But could we please pull our collective heads out and work together, within the rule of law, to make America better without having to shoot ourselves repeatedly in the hands, feet, and other body parts first, to remember why that’s a bad idea?
1786 07-04 It’s good to be the king! He who saves his Country does not violate any law (ABRIDGED version)— Unabridged version containing graffiti including sexual themes at 07-04 DEFEND THE CONSTITUTON at Patreon.com/TheRemainderman
—2025-06-27; Penny, Chastity; propaganda poster. Compare https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z8SpgmF0sA and https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-if-it-saves-country-its-not-illegal-2025-02-16/
Translation: (here translated *to* French) It’s good to be the king C’est bon d’être le roi; (here shown as translated in both directions) Celui qui sauve son pays n’enfreint aucune loi He who saves his Country does not violate any law; Parrainé par l’École Européenne pour les Américains Sponsored by The European School for Americans; La Presse Française The French Press. The first quote is from Mel Brooks’s History of the World Part 1 (1981); but to me, it captures the attitude of public figures who openly and unapologetically use their position and power for personal ends, to the wreckage of the state and private institutions, confident that the sheep below them will not question or criticize him for anything he does. The second quote is brilliant, because the President deliberately and knowingly quoted the dictator Napoleon I who returned France to monarchy and converted wars to defend the French Revolution, into wars for his personal aggrandizement and gain. Napoleon did have some achievements, like modern civil codes and courts to enforce them, on the plus side of his ledger; but it’s hard to understand how they could possibly outweigh his failed efforts at continental conquest, let alone his successful destruction of the last vestiges of the First French Republic. The fact the US President drew the same parallel between himself and Napoleon, and thus the US and France, supports my own comparisons in this series. The quote is also evocative of Richard Nixon’s claim that “when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal, by definition,” highlighting the extraordinarily dangerous tone of the President’s current speech. I have portrayed Napoleon making the statement while partying down during his very brief occupation of Moscow as the first snow of the season starts to fall, to highlight how unlikely the claim of being a singular savior of a nation really is.
1787 07-04 I AM the deep state. Let them eat cake (FRENCH & ENGLISH versions)—2025-06-28; Chastity, Penance; propaganda poster. Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L’%C3%89tat%2C_c’est_moi and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake. Translation: L’État, c’est moi I am the state; Qu’ils mangent de la brioche Let them eat cake. I like that this propaganda poster is built on not one, but two different quotations I was taught in history, but that are now questioned or rejected by historians (as discussed at the referenced links). At once, it reminds us that we have to adapt to changes, whether they make us comfortable or not; and be guided by reason and empirical evidence, rather than unfounded superstitions, no matter how comforting our superstitions are; yet at the same time, they’re particularly potent examples of propaganda because (to me at least) it’s clear why they have gathered such force despite their doubtful provenance. Wherever they came from, they capture important insights in a pithy, memorable fashion. They reflect realities and attitudes that still drive human behavior today by those who imagine their life circumstances are the only moral justification they need or care about. At the same time, they require us to exercise judgment about what has been proven, disproven, can be proven or disproven, or is unknown and unknowable; and how our knowledge of the truth (or lack thereof) must be a moral bound on discourse. I have pushed these issues further by adding the word “deep” because I think it may help clarify the relevance of an old quote to our present situation and debates, rather than misleading anyone about an issue that isn’t intended to be the focus here (literal translation).
1788 07-04 After us, the flood. Weep and watch us eat, you revolting peasants!—2025-06-29; Penance, Chastity; propaganda poster; compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apr%C3%A8s_moi%2C_le_d%C3%A9luge. Translation: Après nous, le déluge After us, the flood; Pleurez et regardez-nous manger, paysans révoltés ! Weep and watch us eat, you revolting peasants! I was taught King Louis XV was responsible for the first quote, acknowledging that the rot and vested interests inherent in the French Ancien Regime would not long survive the forces unleashed by the Enlightenment. Apparently it was more likely (and indeed fitting on some level) that his mistress, Madame de Pompadour, said it in the plural “Après nous, le déluge”. Scholars debate exactly who said it, and what they were referring to; but it still speaks to me, and seems an apt reflection of the stark conflict between the Enlightenment, reason, compassion, and knowledge on the one hand; and stupid bloody violence and tyranny on the other. The second phrase has no specific antecedent but simply expresses outrage at the degree to which people define themselves by how they believe they rank, instead of on their own terms. Whether it’s ordinary people showing deference to celebrities, the privileged, and the successful; or the fortunate few spitting on people below them simply because they can, it’s a loathsome, negative, hollow, and immoral way to live. It also references an old joke about peasants revolting.
1973 06-127 We’re gonna fuck you up so hard1974 06-127 YES! Keep screaming for us, little piggie!1975A 06-127 Before: You’re just WOMEN!…1975B 06-127 Before: Serious persuaders, ready to motivate1975C 06-127 After: … for whom I have only the utmost respect!1976D 06-127 After: Another successful conversion
Explicit version containing graphic violence, gore, and enhanced interrogation themes at 06-127X The Chamber of Torment I at Patreon.com/TheRemainderman
PREVIOUSLY: Channah and Rivqah have just killed two Venetian soldiers and captured two Venetian officials and a Venetian prisoner being subjected to strappado, in the torture room of the Council of Ten. NOW:
The prisoner continued to moan and struggle, but the other sounds—sounds of movement and violence—abruptly ended. Channah had already begun to move to her left, keeping her arrow trained on one Venetian official while remaining mindful of the second official face-down on the floor before her with his arms extended to the sides. Cautiously, she darted a glance toward the middle of the room, nodding with satisfaction to see Rivqah was the only figure standing.
The two of them remained motionless and silent, eyes on their respective prey, listening intently for any sound of alarm.
The Capo began: “What is the me—”
“Shh!” Channah hissed, with sufficient force, and a gesture from her bow, that the Capo fell silent while the interlopers listened for a beat, two, three, four, and five.
Channah flicked her eyes back to the middle of the room, meeting Rivqah’s, and raised her chin questioningly. Rivqah shook her head slightly in response, and both women relaxed.
“Stay still until we get to you,” Channah barked at the two men in front of her, watching the Capo’s eyes widen at the sound of her voice, while Rivqah sheathed her sword and returned to the wall, unwound the rope, and let the prisoner down. He groaned and wept in an odd, sobbing combination of pain, and much-greater relief from the weight finally coming off of his arms. Still holding the pulling end of the rope, she released the man’s arms from the hanging end, and helped him off the platform to a standing position on the ground.
“Thank you! Thank you!” the prisoner wailed gratefully. “My arms—please—for the love of God—” the man pleaded, sincerely, turning his back towards her.
Emotionlessly, Rivqah spun him to face her and pushed him backwards to the wall, where she tied the lifting end of the rope back to the ring in the wall, and then tied his arms to the ring, ignoring his sad and pitiful whimper. “Do. Not. Try. To. Escape.” She commanded, staring into his pain-wracked eyes with her own, ice-cold ones, satisfied by his brief nod and hanging head.
“You’re women!” the Capo cried out in surprise, and then humiliation immediately turning to a hard, contemptuous rage. “Just women!”
Rivqah had already moved to join Channah, stepping around the table and grabbing the Capo by the shoulder of his expensive robe.
Imagining he saw his chance, the Capo cried: “Let’s take them!” as he spun towards Rivqah, who stepped back—yanking him off-balance by tugging on his robe—even as she executed a side-kick into his knee, the Capo fell to the ground, never to stand again. When Rivqah pitilessly dragged him further towards her, to pull him out from behind his table, the twisting and turning of his ruined knee elicited a sharp scream and then silence as he became unconscious.
The Lord of the Night, gamely—or, perhaps, with a foolish, misplaced, misogynistic self-contempt—responding to his superior’s cry, pulled his arms and feet in towards his body, gathering himself to rise to his feet. His effort was killed instantly and decisively by Channah’s boot, which she raised and slammed down on the back of his head, knocking him unconscious, his arms and legs falling slack with the rest of his body as blood pooled on the floor.
Channah and Rivqah exchanged another glance and shrugged, like: “well, so much for them.” Then they both turned their faces toward the prisoner to make sure he wasn’t trying to take advantage of the ruckus to get loose. If he’d thought about it, maybe even tested his bonds in the initial seconds after the Capo cried out, he wasn’t doing so now. Now, he was looking towards them, appalled, his face whiter than the rest of him, shrinking back towards the wall as if it might shelter him.
When the Capo stirred back into consciousness, light reaching his eyes through his fluttering lids, he felt cold water rapidly warming on his face, the room swimming slowly back into focus.
Blinking, he found himself facing two of the most beautiful women he had ever seen in his life. Despite the sweat on their faces; despite the tangled state of their black hair after peeling off their hoods and masks; and despite their middle age—thirties or forties, he guessed, although it was hard to tell precisely because their olive skin glowed with the vigor of youth, even as their dark hawklike eyes regarded him with the cold, acute scrutiny of the most hardened and wizened crones—the two of them were unimaginably lovely. So lovely, in fact, they made the most expensive courtesans and the most-desirable debutante noblewomen of Venice look common enough. “Angels…” he gasped before he was entirely alert, even as he was noticing the wood-paneled wall and the shocked, terrified prisoner pressing himself tightly back against the wall behind them.
Memory came flooding back as his body alerted him to the most extreme kind of pain, more than anything he had felt since he was shot fighting the Turks over a generation ago; more than he could have even imagined before that injury. His knee, shoulders, elbows, and wrists stung and burned worse than any sting or burn he could conceive of.
“It hurts! It hurts worse than I—” he screamed. And as full recollection reminded him where he was, he screamed again, twice as terrified to see the corners of the women’s mouths turning up, delighting in his cries.
“Angels…” the swordswoman, now holding an empty ladle, returning it to the water bucket near her feet, sneered.
“Of a kind,” the archer smirked. “You are surprised to be in pain? You know where you are, yes? Where we found you?”
“The Chamber of Torment,” he sobbed.
“The Chamber of Torment,” the archer practically purred. “But not your usual seat. Capo.” The word was spoken with all the venom and hatred of a viper.
“My arms! My leg—” and then he cried in horror, memory and recognition finally completely returned.
“I think you’re a little overdue for this chair, don’t you?” And with a vindictiveness that shook him even deeper: “And unlike the… I’m going to guess, thousands of others who came to sit here before you, you came into this room voluntarily, didn’t you? Like you knew you deserved to be here. Gasparo Orseolo.”
