warrioreowynofrohan · 23 hours ago
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This is one of the best articles I’ve seen yet on Trump, Trumpism, and the upcoming election. It’s directed at the right and centre-right (whereas most tumblr posts on this are directed at the left), but it’s saying – with detailed analysis and evidence – exactly what needs to be said, to everyone. This is not a normal election. How you vote this November determines whether you ever get the chance to vote in a democratic election again. This is not a game. Fascism is not a buzzword or a rhetorical device to hurl at anyone and everyone you disagree with. It is real, it is dangerous, and Trump is openly running on a fascist platform.
There are only two sides in this election: those who want the United States to be a fascist dictatorship and those who do not.
I live in Canada. I do not want to live next to a fascist state (especially since the Comservatives here are way ahead in the polls and their leader gives every sign of wanting to cozy up to Trump).
Please, stop this while you still have a chance.
Today we’re going to look at definitions of fascism and ask the question – you may have guessed – if Donald Trump is running for President as a fascist. Worry not, this isn’t me shifting to full-time political pundit, nor is this the formal end of the hiatus (which will happen on Nov 1, when I hope to have a post answering some history questions from the ACOUP Senate to start off on), but this was an essay I had in me that I had to get out, and working on the book I haven’t the time to get it out in any other forum but this one. And I’ll be frank, some of Donald Trump’s recent statements and promises have raised the urgency of writing this; the political science suggests that politicians do, broadly, attempt to do the things they promise to do – and the things Trump is promising are dark indeed.
Now I want to be clear what we’re doing here. I am not asking if the Republican Party is fascist (I think, broadly speaking, it isn’t) and certainly not if you are fascist (I certainly hope not). But I want to employ the concept of fascism as an ideology with more precision than its normal use (‘thing I don’t like’) and in that context ask if Donald Trump fits the definition of a fascist based on his own statements and if so, what does that mean. And I want to do it in a long-form context where we can get beyond slogans or tweet-length arguments and into some detail.
Now the response from some folks is going to be anger that I am even asking this question and demands for me to ‘stay in my lane.’ To which I must remind them that the purpose of history and historians is, as Thucydides put it, is to offer “an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the understanding of the future, which in the course of human affairs must resemble if it does not reflect it” (Thuc. 1.22.4). This is my lane. Goodness knows, I’d much rather be discussing the historical implications of tax policy or long-term interstate strategy, but that isn’t the election we’re having. And if hearing about these things that happened is unpleasant, well, Polybius offers the solution: “men have no more ready corrective of conduct than knowledge of the past” (Plb. 1.1.1). We must correct our conduct.
The author, Bret Devereaux, lays out the history of the rise to power of Hitler and Mussolini and draws out the lessons
What I want to note here are two key commonalities: First, fascists were only able to take power because of the gullibility of those who thought they could ‘use’ the fascists against some other enemy (usually communists). Traditional conservative politicians (your Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham types) and conservative business leaders (your Elon Musks) fooled themselves into believing that, because the would-be tyrant seemed foolish, buffoonish, and uneducated that such an individual could be controlled to their ends, shaped in more productive, more ‘moderate,’ more ‘business friendly’ directions. They were wrong; many of them paid for their foolish error with their lives (Victor Emmanuel III paid for it with his crown). Mussolini and Hitler would not be ‘shaped,’ – they would be exactly the violent, tyrannical dictators they had promised to be – to the total and utter ruin of their countries.
Note that these men were not exactly subtle about what they wanted to do. Mein Kampf is not a subtle book. But they both knew how to promise violence to their followers while prevaricating to their temporary allies; be wary of the fascist who promises violence in his rally speeches but assures you that, if you just give him power, he won’t hurt anyone (except the people you don’t like) – because it is a lie, of course.
Second: once these fascist leaders were in power it was already too late to stop them. Precisely because fascists had no respect for democratic processes and the rule of law – things they had declared openly in seeking power – once in power, they were unconstrained by them and swiftly set about converting all of the powers of the government into a machine to keep them in power. And the conversion from democracy to dictatorship was remarkably swift, in Italy, Mussolini marched in October of ’22, rewrote the election rules in November of ’23 and by December of ’24 had effectively dropped even the pretense of democracy; just two years. Hitler was faster: appointed chancellor in January 1933, by March of that year he had suspended constitutional protections and ruled by fiat; just three months.
The time to stop an authoritarian takeover of a democratic system is before the authoritarian is in office, because once they are in power, they will use that power, to stay in power and it becomes almost impossible to remove them without considerable violence (and difficult to do even with considerable violence).
That, however, creates a tricky situation. With most political ideologies, voters can adopt a strategy of judging by outputs: “if you don’t like the current government’s policies, let these other fellows here have a go at it and see if they do better. If not, you can always vote them out next time.” But with fascists and other authoritarians there may not be a next time and this strategy fails: by the time the actions of the fascists make it clear they are dangerous, it is too late to vote them out.
This is why it is important to listen carefully to what fascists say and what they promise and most importantly to take their threats of political violence and authoritarianism seriously.
Which is not to say that everything on the right is fascism (just as not everything on the left is its own authoritarian variant, communism). Ronald Reagan was not a fascist, nor was George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush or John McCain or Mitt Romney. They were conservatives within the liberal tradition (again, ‘liberal’ here in the old Jefferson-Locke-and-Washington sense). Most Republicans today are not fascists, although a distressing number appear ready to repeat Franz von Papen’s mistake of assuming they can achieve their goals through an alliance with fascists. Only the devil wins such a devil’s bargain.
How is one to tell the difference? Listen to the things they promise to do and understand that they make speak out of both sides of their mouth: promising violence to one audience and then toning down their rhetoric to another. But politicians speaking from within the tradition of liberty don’t need to speak that way because they don’t promise violence in the first place.
Listen for the promises of violence, the promises to suspend press freedoms, the promises to persecute political adversaries and when you hear them believe them.
I strongly recommend reading the whole article, as the author goes on to lay out two of the more common definitions of fascism and analyze, point-by-point, how Trumpism fits them.
There is a reason why some Republicans, even some of the people who were in Trump’s inner circle in 2016-2020, have jumped ship now. The Republicans who are willing to vote for Kamala aren’t doing it because she’s conservative – they’re doing it because they’re anti-fascist. It would be deeply ironic if people on the left who have been calling themselves anti-fascists for the last eight years proved to be less so than those Republicans. This may be one of the most crucial moments in American history. Take it seriously.
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coffeesleep-ooc · 19 hours ago
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This is going to be a bit fucked up but hear me out
CW: im talking about cannibalism and related stuff here
so i was mindlessly scrolling thru tumblr and saw art of moshang looking at bingqiu being all smoochy and MBJ chomping SQH’s cheek
and suddenly thought, what if eating each other was part of demonic lore like hitting your crush is?
So I remember part of some indigenous history, and how in Latin America until recently most books were saying that indigenous ppl were cannibals before the colonization, but the actual thing wasn’t that indigenous ppl ate each other but more like, if they were enemies and one of them was defeated, it was a belief that eating that warrior’s heart would make you absorb the beat qualities of said warrior (which to me is still eating someone but with a whole different context ig?)
So my thought process went from aww cute moshang, to, what if demons complimented each other with biting? Like, in the: you are so strong, so capable, so good that i’d like to eat you? To integrate you with my own being????
we all know that LBH originally was biting SQQ like there was no tomorrow until SQQ taught him not to bite, but what if that was hiw own way of saying ‘i admire Shizun the most, you are the person i’d like to absorb into myself to always be with you. To have the strengths you have is to be complete, superior, etc etc’ ???? like MBJ hitting SQH was a way of saying he would be a strong partner, LBH biting SQQ could be directing him the top praise he could think of in demonic terms
also, lore wise, demons that fought and defeat strong opponents could symbolically (and literally) consume their strength to enhance themselves and honor the life the other demon/warrior lived…
and for demons that ate human flesh???
well, that could still be them disregarding humans because they never fought and defeated them, human flesh would be distasteful to consume for stronger demons and a sign of weakness!
now, im not saying that eating each other would be commonplace or anything, just that it could become a highly regarded ritual
and a tease-chomp that leaves marks would make other demons know how highly regarded one is to their partner or even family-clan
now im imagining a feiend demon of SQQ asking him if he could bite him and SQQ being in shock (TM) while LBH is between smug and jealous bc NOBODY TOUCHES SHIZUN! Same with SQH honestly
SQQ n SQH: why our husbands like to bite so much 😭😭😭
demons: wow, the consorts of Emperor Luo and Mobei-Jun are truly treasured!!!
also, i think LBH would be regarded as a truly strong and altive leader bc he refuses to do said ritual (maybe abyss ptsd? Maybe his human sensibilities??) but when he gets together with SQQ and bites him like there’s no tomorrow his subjects end up appeased in that regard despite their leader marrying and giving the honor of the bite to a human jejeje
also just…worshipping someone in such a bloody and messy way is hmmm, interesting to some parts of me
maybe I’ll put this in one of my fics idk…maybe the abo one since bites are a thing there too…? Idk but wanted to get this out of my head into the wild jaja
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quibbs126 · 1 year ago
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You know, I’d love to take more classes that teach me about the historical context of certain books
I was watching some videos about Animal Farm today (mostly about the animated movie), and it reminded me of a book we went over in my World Literature class, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “We”, since it was another book that criticized communist Russia during the days of Stalin (okay I think they had different points; Animal Farm seems to have been more a warning of what communism will do, while We was meant to actually criticize the Soviet Union, considering Zamyatin lived there). I remember going over the context in class, and it was legitimately so interesting to learn about. Admittedly, I don’t remember much about the actual book, in part because I never really read much of it (though I plan to since I still have it), but the history of the author and book itself was so interesting, and I would have never known about it had I not taken the class and my professor not talk about it, and it along with the other books we learned the context for really just makes me want to learn more historical contexts for books
By the way, if you want the history I’m talking about, I’ll give a summary based on what I was told in class, though I don’t remember all the details (I’ll pull out my notes from it). Basically Zamyatin was an avid supporter of the Bolsheviks and their revolution against the Tsar (Zamyatin was Russian if I didn’t make that clear), and being active in the movement, such as being an editor for a newspaper and writing editorials supporting the revolution. However, once the party started cracking down on human rights and dissenting voices, he became disillusioned with the party, and he starts writing critiques on it, as well as writing We. He finished it in 1920, and ended up sending to Europe to be published, so that the rest of the world could know what was going on in Russia (We doesn’t directly take place in the Soviet Union, it’s a sci fi dystopian novel set in the far future, but the society (the One State) takes obvious inspiration from it). Meanwhile he read manuscripts of his work in St Petersburg, and it became the first manuscript banned in the Soviet Union, with Zamyatin being marginalized for his work and losing his job. Zamyatin eventually becomes so disillusioned with the Soviets that he writes a letter to Stalin requesting he and his family be allowed to leave. The only reason Stalin allows this is because Zamyatin was good friends with another writer named Gorky (unfortunately I don’t remember what the significance of Gorky to Stalin was, I didn’t write that down in my notes). Zamyatin had hoped that the Soviet Union would collapse in a few years so that they could return, but unfortunately he didn’t get to live to see it, dying in 1937
Sorry, I went off on a bit of a history lesson there, but I think this stuff is pretty fascinating, and I would love to hear more of the history behind books (if I haven’t made that clear already)
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spacelazarwolf · 10 months ago
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apparently a bunch of ppl on social media are trying to call for a boycott of rick riordan because of this statement in a blog post:
Becky and I are just back from a busy weekend with events at the Boston Book Festival and New York Comic-Con.
Before I get into that, however, some words to acknowledge the ongoing horrors in Israel and Gaza. As many of you may know, I am no longer on social media. My accounts post only updates on my books and related projects. I do not read posts, reply to posts, or share my thoughts about world events on those forums. That doesn’t mean I don’t have strong feelings and reactions. It means I am offline as completely as possible, except for the occasional blog post like this one.
I will say this: Over the last eighteen years, I have received many fan letters from young readers, both Israeli and Palestinian, who often told me that my books helped them escape the fear, grief and anxiety they were dealing with at the time. Some had lost family members to violence. Some were writing while in the distance they could hear explosions, gunfire, and the launching of rockets. They used my books as a way to escape into another world, where the monsters were fictional, and where demigods usually saved the day. While I am always glad that my books can help young readers find joy during difficult times, my heart breaks every time I hear about the things they have to deal with. I am grief-stricken by the horrific events now unfolding, especially because I know that they are part of a long historic pattern that has been robbing too many children of their childhood and perpetuating hatred for far too long.
I am also quite aware that when anyone, myself included, tries to speak about this issue, the reader is waiting to pounce, thinking, “Yes, but whose side are you on?” That is exactly the wrong question. If there are two sides to this issue, those sides are not Palestinian/Israeli or Muslim/Jewish. The two sides are humanitarian and dehumanizing. Dehumanizing has a long evil history. It is appealing and easy to buy into, because humans are tribal animals. We are hardwired to think in terms of ‘us’ versus ‘them.’ We are the real humans, the good guys, the ones with God on our side. Those other people are evil monsters who don’t deserve empathy. Hate mongers have thrived on dehumanizing for as long as there have been humans. It provides them with a purpose, a way to rally support, power, and scapegoats. It is easy to point to atrocities committed by our enemies, while justifying or minimizing the atrocities committed by ourselves or our allies.
Humanitarianism is a much harder sell. It requires us to empathize, to see other groups of people as equally deserving of dignity and quality of life. It requires not always putting ourselves and our needs first. But in the long run, humanitarianism is our only hope. If violence could end violence, if we could put an end to “those other people” once and for all, human history would read very differently than it does.
So yes, I am appalled by the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians. I am appalled by the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Both things can be true. Both things must be true. My thoughts are with all the people who have died, who have lost loved ones, who have had their worlds and their lives shattered, especially the children. More death and violence will not break this cycle, which has been going on for generations. There is no military solution. Even since I first wrote the post, only twenty-four hours ago, the Israeli government’s brutal retaliation against the entire population of Gaza has reached genocidal proportions. This is not only an atrocity. It is folly. Answering misery with misery only creates more fertile ground for extremism, dehumanizing the “other side,” letting hate mongers thrive, stay in power, and reduce us all to our most monstrous impulses. The only real solution is treating each other like equally worthy human beings, and negotiating a peace that allows all parties a chance to live in security and dignity, with hopes for a future that does not include bombs and rockets and gunfire. This means security and support for Israel, yes. It also means a secure Palestine which is allowed to get the international aid and recognition it needs to build a viable state.
Do I think that will happen? Unfortunately, no. Humans are simply too selfish, too ready to blame “the other” for all their problems, too ready to dehumanize, though I also believe, perhaps paradoxically, that most people just want to live their lives in peace and have a chance for their children to have a brighter future. The problem is when we don’t allow other people to have those same hopes and dreams — when it becomes a false choice of us versus them.
What can I do? I will continue to write books that I hope will give young readers some joy. I will resist the urge to demonize entire groups of people. I will call for less violence, not more violence. And when asked whose side I am on, I will tell you I am on the side of humanitarianism.
So with that said, I return to the world of books . . .
honestly, if you have a problem with this statement, it’s probably because he’s talking about you. this is exactly what legitimate activists (as in not just random westerners who share social media posts but on-the-ground activists who are doing real work) have been saying for decades. and i think all this really speaks to just how disconnected a lot of westerners who claim to be pro palestinian are from those activists.
if you can’t read a statement that says “i am on the side of humanitarianism and less violence” without immediately jumping to cancel them, you are the problem being discussed in the above statement.
#ip
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kateksmallcuteowl · 4 months ago
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June 26: Soulmates/Soulmate Marks AU
Your mark shows how old will your soulmate be when you fall in love with them. (Meaning both romantically and sexually)
For an event by @bagginshieldweek24
More headcanons after the cut. Seriously, there’s a lot, as I developed a whole idea but had no time to write a fic because of exams.
— Dwarfs come of age in around 80 y.o., having a soulmate from another race is a very rare occurrence; throughout the history of Middle-earth, there have been at most a dozen such cases, so most dwarves are unaware of this possibility. Having a mark with a number younger than the age of majority is a lifelong shame, essentially an admission of pedophilia. Unfortunately, this happens more often than having a soulmate from another race.
— Thorin spent his entire adult life, from the moment the mark appeared, wearing an extra layer of bandages under his bracers to prevent anyone from seeing the number. Fortunately, among dwarves, it is not considered inappropriate to hide the marks, as many value their privacy.
— The mark and thoughts about it were the reason why Thorin often appeared especially gloomy when the topic of romance came up.
— He truly tried to compensate for his "defectiveness" with his virtues.
— Of course, Thorin is a virgin.
— Bilbo, on the other hand, didn't think much about this; hobbits don't see anything wrong with living without their soulmate or seeing their soulmate as a friend. They are generally a loving people and don't worry about the concept of "the one and only."
— Although the topic of soulmates is considered highly romantic in hobbit literature, Bilbo was somewhat disappointed when he realized he would likely never meet his soulmate. (Hobbits are also unaware of inter-racial soulmates.)
— I tried to make young Bilbo look more like Frodo, so here he has smaller curls and a different style of shirt.
— Thorin and Bilbo both hid their marks, so when they felt an attraction to each other, especially after the Carrock, both were initially upset, thinking they weren't soulmates. Thorin, of course, was much more upset.
— During the two weeks they stayed with Beorn (yes, I'm mixing the movie and the book, what are you going to do about it? Slow burn needs time to be slow), they managed to reach the point of kissing near the river or something like that. But when Bilbo tried to unlace Thorin's tunic, Thorin stopped him and said that, unlike hobbits, for dwarves, sexual interaction is a very serious step in emotional attachment. It wouldn't be fair not to tell Bilbo what kind of monster he was getting involved with, because after seeing what Thorin had to show him, Bilbo might not even want to look him in the eye. Bilbo was honestly frustrated. (It is implied that Thorin used some term characteristic of a pedo... ahem)
— With a terrifyingly serious face, Thorin unwrapped the bandages on his wrist, and Bilbo, with a sinking heart, prepared to see a number like 5 or 12. Instead, there was a very respectable and completely normal age. Thorin turned away, not wanting to see the disappointment in the hobbit's eyes. Bilbo spent a few seconds calculating how long dwarves live and how old Thorin actually was.
— Thorin thought Bilbo wanted to shame him for having the audacity to enter into a relationship at such an age, knowing his soulmate's extremely young age. With closed eyes, he forced out that he was 195 and knew how disgusting he was because of it.
— Instead of a slap or something worse, which Thorin wouldn't have opposed, thinking any normal person had the right to treat him like that after seeing it, Bilbo reached for his own wrist and, with suspicious enthusiasm, pulled off the leather bracelet he had worn since the Shire. On the pale skin was clearly marked Thorin's age, written in dark ink with characteristic dwarvish notches.
— Some time passed in silence as they both realized that such a coincidence simply couldn't be.
— They were in for a very pleasant evening away from the company🌚🌝
— Later, when the entire company gathered by the fire, Bilbo and Thorin would come to them, holding hands, the hobbit nearly glowing with happiness in front, and a red-to-the-tips-of-his-ears Thorin slightly behind. This would be the first time anyone in the company saw Thorin without bandages, and if not for the matching age on Bilbo's wrist, now also not hidden by a bracelet, they wouldn't have believed Thorin could be normal with such a number on his skin.
— And the dwarves would realize how young Bilbo was by their standards.
— Truly, the ways of the Valar are mysterious.
— At the very end of the night, Fili would nudge Kili with his elbow and hint that since their uncle had an inter-racial mark, he might not be so angry and yell when he finds out that his brother has a four-digit number on his wrist.
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vexwerewolf · 6 months ago
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I’m suddenly getting swathes of Lancer hate across my feed… Has something happened in the fandom? “Union is ______ how could they paint them as even remotely good. They allow _____, and I hate the devs they are ______. The whole thing is just 40k with communist veneer”.
Like am I taking crazy pills…? I thought that all of the problems were literally like right there on the tin “we are a utopia in progress! We will obtain it by any means possible even if it means being everything we say we are not/fighting against. As the player you decide what is right. How much will you ignore for someone else’s idea of utopia?” Like doesn’t it mean all the tools to actually change are there and that is the HOPE aspect of all of this?
(Sorry if this in incoherent grammar is a weak point and I pulled something in my back simply standing up. Now I am sad and crook backed in spasmodic pain)
This isn't an argument I feel super enthusiastic about stepping into, because it gets the most annoying sort of people in your mentions eager to maliciously misrepresent what you say.
However, yeah, there are some pretty terrible readings of Union floating around. I'd invoke "media literacy" because think that a lot of this comes from people not really holistically engaging with the fictional future history of Lancer, but also from a sort of dogmatic purism that requires future societies to be flawless, else they're irredeemable.
It is important to note that ThirdComm is the direct descendant of two highly imperfect societies. FirstComm was formed as a response to the Three Great Traumas of discovering the Massif Vaults (and thus that they were the inheritors of a fallen world), the wars over the Massif Vaults, and the discovery of the lost colonies, all of which collectively showed humanity how close it had come to total extinction.
FirstComm decided that it had a responsibility to ensure that humanity never risked extinction again. It manifested this by trying to colonize every habitable planet it could find, pumping out ship after ship to seed the cosmos with as much human life as it possibly could. This led to problems when it encountered civilizations like the Karrakin Federation and the Aun, who had been carrying humanity's torch just fine by themselves, thank you very much.
SecComm was an Anthrochauvinist fascist state. The book defines it thusly:
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We can see a lot of Anthrochauvinist historical romanticism in the mech naming schemes of Harrison Armory, SSC and IPS-N - the fact that Harrison Armory names its mechs after great military leaders of pre-Fall Earth history, IPS-N does the same with naval figures, and SSC uses the names of Earth animals. Even the GMS Everest is named for a mountain on Earth. It's very Cradle-centric.
Anthrochauvinism was, to be clear, largely just an excuse for colonialism and hegemony. Atrocities could easily be justified under by stating that whoever they're being committed against were a threat to the Continuance of Humanity - a term that SecComm got to define.
It's also at this point that we have to zoom in from broad sociopolitical points to address one very specific piece of history: the New Prosperity Agreement. This was signed to prevent the outbreak of a Second Union-Karrakin War, and mandated that the Karrakin Houses would maintain privileged levels of autonomy within Union, and that they would be granted colonial rights to the entire Dawnline Shore. This agreement, struck in 3007u, basically defines much of the current political situation today.
ThirdComm was a final and inevitable reaction to the atrocities, abuses and excesses of SecComm. The unspeakable horrors of Hercynia were the spark, but I need to stress how little Hercynia actually mattered in the larger Revolution - at the start of NRfaW, it's explicitly stated that almost nobody in the galaxy even knows where it is, let alone what happened there. The Revolution was a generalized response to SecComm's tyranny, with no single rallying cry.
The Revolution might also have failed entirely, but for a critical error by Harrison Armory: pissing off the Karrakin Trade Baronies. After getting kicked off Cradle, the Anthrochauvinist Party organised a fleet at Ras Shamra to try and retake Cradle. Simultaneously, however, they were attempting to secure protectorate agreements to steal worlds in the Dawnline Shore out from under the KTB. Putting these two together and making five, the KTB assumed that the fleet was pointed at Karrakis, and started the First Interest War.
The First Interest War initially favoured the KTB. They smashed the fleet above Ras Shamra and simultaneously conquered the moon of Creighton in the Dawnline Shore. However, they underestimated just how ruthless Harrison I was - he "retook" Creighton by relativistic bombardment, and then conquered four of the 12 worlds of the Dawnline Shore with mechanised chassis, a technology the KTB had not adopted and had no counter for.
To prevent further loss of life, Union was eventually forced to broker a peace agreement that saw Harrison I handing himself over to Union justice in return for Harrison Armory's continued sovereignty, and the KTB joining Union as a full member state.
So, with that historical context out of the way, let me get to the second part of this absurd essay I'm writing.
Third Committee Union isn't a civilization that arose from whole cloth. It's shaped by five thousand years of Union history, six thousand years of post-Fall history, and six thousand years of pre-Fall history before that. It is, ultimately, an extremely well-thought-out and well-worldbuilt fictional polity, in that all of its imperfections come from traceable root causes in its history.
Why does ThirdComm permit the abuses of the KTB? Because to stop them, it would likely have to go to war, and such a war would butcher billions. Worse, to do so, it would probably have to ally with Harrison Armory and make horrific concessions.
Why does ThirdComm permit the expansionism and cryptochauvinism of the Armory? Because to stop them, it would likely have to go to war, and such a war would butcher billions. Worse, to do so, it would probably have to ally with the KTB and make horrific concessions.
Nobody in CentComm likes that Harrison Armory are empire-building expansionists. Nobody in CentComm likes that the KTB has a hereditary nobility and enforces blockades against planets that rebel against it. The problem is that ThirdComm is, in historical terms, still relatively new. They've been around five hundred years, and compared to the 1600 years that SecComm was around and the 2800 years FirstComm existed for, that's not very much.
ThirdComm is attempting to decouple itself from the Cradle-first politics of its predecessor, and to amend the many, many atrocities committed in the name of Humanity. It is not easy to do any of these things. SecComm was defined almost entirely by the fact that if it didn't like what you were doing, it would send in the military as a first response. Every time ThirdComm chooses to do the same, its legitimacy erodes, because the mission of ThirdComm is to prove that diverse, vibrant and compassionate human civilization can exist without devolving into war and bloodshed. ThirdComm always tries diplomacy as a first response because if it doesn't, millions of people could die.
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dykesynthezoid · 5 months ago
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Will never not be obsessed w both Louis and Armand calling Daniel “boy” and it’s never lost on me that they both have the context to understand “boy” as a social caste in a way many people (esp white people) living today might not immediately recognize… I think the context w Louis is perhaps more readily obvious to modern people (understandably) but man the reality of the word “boy” is that its usage to indicate a power discrepancy really goes back to ancient history.
In Ancient Rome, you literally could not be referred to using the term for an adult male if you were enslaved. You would forever be called a boy; “puer;” regardless of age.
Boyhood in Ancient Rome is simultaneously a marginalized, romanticized, and even eroticized position. That romanticization of youth, of youthful masculinity in all its perceived contradiction, taken to its logical extreme in such a sternly patriarchal society. The puer delicatus archetype certainly didn’t suddenly disappear with Rome’s collapse; we can see how it endures through the Renaissance, just objectively. And I would say Marius acts almost as a physical representation for the influence certain Ancient Roman ideas continued to have on Renaissance Italy, in this context. Armand is someone who actively can never fully escape his casting into this role, (can even never physically grow beyond it in the books).
In Middle English, the word “boye/boi” is most typically used to describe a male servant. Its connotation has more to do with class than age. And I think many of us are aware how that idea was preserved in American slavery and the post-slavery treatment of Black men.
I think examples like these really help illuminate the ways in which “boyhood” has always been a distinct social class, and in some cases has even occupied what is essentially a third gender role, especially in strongly patriarchal and/or martial societies.
So when Louis and Armand call Daniel “boy,” well. They certainly mean it in one or two very specific ways. (Personally I think Louis is more likely to mean it in a disparaging way since that’s the only way he’s ever heard it used for him; meanwhile I think Armand is more likely to see it as something inherently vulnerable and even potentially worthy of veneration, even if it’s in a way that’s paternalistic).
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hotchfiles · 6 months ago
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↪ QUIS UT DEUS? ─ chapter one.
AN IN NOMINE PATRIS, ET FILII, ET SPIRITUS SANCTI INSTALLMENT
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pairing: hotch x fem!consultant!reader. summary: murders committed using catholic symbology gets emily to convince hotch it's time to ask for an expert. luckily for you, you're the expert. content warnings: canon typical violence. religious themes. spoilers to season 4. mature themes. word count: 1.5K
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    In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti…
    “Amen.” If you weren’t paying attention and side eyeing him at that exact moment, you might’ve lost the way his lips moved following the ritual, no word actually leaving his mouth. 
    The black haired man didn’t look too comfortable, but didn’t look out of place either, he knew the cues, he spoke the words on automatic it seemed. It amused you to observe people’s behavior on holy grounds, that was part of the reason you asked to meet in silver spring.
    “Catholic, Mr. Hotchner?” Your question is met with a low scoff, the type only those with a bad bad history with the church gave you. “That much, huh?”
    “My parents were.” The answer is simple and you think it might stop at that, but he shakes his head and scoffs again. “I was an altar boy for years before I left for boarding school.” You nod. 
    “Ah. I've met some of you in my research.” Some of you. Church babies, altar boys. Spoon fed the bible from birth while watching everyone around sin. Sin becoming a term to reflect on what they hated. 
    “And you? Catholic?” 
    “Oh no. Never been.” You don’t explain much, aware Emily probably told him of your time in Rome, where the two of you met. “Your UnSub is though. Either devoted to Saint Michael or knows enough about his roles to look like one.” You note, being reminded of the pictures Emily sent you, big stab wounds, a small scale tipped to one side, the words Hebrews 9:22 written in blood. 
    Hotchner doesn’t reply, making a mental reminder of the new information, he looks around the place as you both leave the church and it hits him, Silver Spring’s St. Michael the Archangel parish, the church you chose as a meeting place. 
    He wouldn’t usually accept consultation for cases, especially from outsiders. And to be fair, the BAU doesn’t usually need any, Reid alone has more knowledge than anyone Hotch has ever met, and despite the humbleness he tends to show, Hotch himself can take care of the general book knowledge if Reid doesn’t step up to it. But he trusted Emily, and Emily spoke more highly of you than of anyone. Honestly, he was also trying to make amends after not having her back during the Matthew case they had not long before. 
    “She's in town giving lectures, it’s an asset we have easy access to, so why not use it?” Were her final and most convincing words before Hotch nodded in agreement, watching Emily make the call that led to the meeting. 
    He thinks now, as he’s driving both of you to Quantico, that maybe Emily should’ve been the one here, his attempts to strike conversation falling flat as you don’t even remember the last time you had to make small talk with someone, it felt awkward all of a sudden, as if you were on a date. 
    “I'm so sorry, I'm not too good with… People.” You blurt out after a long minute of silence, your neck suddenly warm from embarrassment. 
    Hotch side eyes you, brows lifted in confusion. You seemed much less confident in the car now than what you showed him of you minutes before back at the church. He figures you felt confident talking about your area of expertise and that he could relate to easily. “Did you notice anything else by the pictures Emily sent you?” 
    The switch of topic makes you sigh loudly in relief and you mentally thank him for brushing your silliness off. “He’s using different pieces of catholic dogma and putting it together, but most of the symbology eludes to Michael, the stabbing looks like a sword, the tipped scale indicates judgment, the verse he chose doesn’t cite Michael but talks about sins being forgiven by the shedding of blood… He’s the judge and executioner of his victims.” You try not to sound excited as you ramble on, it’s a terrible thing to witness, the pictures were grotesque and would’ve made you sick on a normal day, but the cherry picking of symbols the murderer seemed to make fascinated you. 
    “So you believe it’s a man?” 
    “Oh! I–I don’t know? I just assumed… Is that misogynistic?” You mumble the last part more to yourself, but it’s loud enough to make him chuckle and you look at him quickly to make sure it’s not mean spirited. 
    It’s definitely not. But it is amusing from a profiler perspective, he’s so used to defining serials’ genders by their crimes he hasn’t thought about misogyny being a factor to those assumptions in a long time. 
    “Brutality suggests male. But posing looks remorseful, theatrical…” His grip on the wheel tightens, two victims by now, feet crossed, arms wide open. 
    “If there were more allusions to the crucifixion, yeah, but I–” You take your phone out to look at the pictures once more, an attempt to seem less abstract in what you’re about to say. “No crown, no nails, this isn’t about Christ, it’s about punishment–I mean, I think.” You’re not usually self conscious about your knowledge but inferring characteristics and desires to someone by looking at a crime scene was not your specialty. 
    “To further point they were judged and executed…” Hotch nods, understanding where your line of thought is going and completing it immediately, not leaving you much time to doubt yourself. 
    “A very shameful execution.” 
    You both spend the short ride from Silver Springs to Quantico going over the symbology present, you tried to help here and there with the associations of what you saw to who could’ve done it, even though that was not what you were called in for. Strangely enough—for him at least, Hotch didn’t seem to mind your guesses, they were educated ones.
    And it was interesting to hear someone speak with such passion about religious aspects without any of the fundamentalism. It was definitely something he wasn’t used to.
    “Mi amore!” Are the first words you hear as you enter the famous bullpen from Emily’s texts, her arms surrounding you in a tight warm hug you haven’t felt in years—it hits you then how long has it been. You weren’t able to come and mourn Matthew with her, his parents weren’t fond of you either (Lord almighty, you didn’t even go to church with them!) and you were busy with your lectures.
    “Hey troublemaker, how’s it going?” Your question is muffled in the hug, your hands clasping together behind her back.
    The reunion doesn’t last long, curious eyes set on you two and a rather impatient Hotch leading the way to what you learned was the conference room.
    The briefing room. The round table. Emily told you about it when she first got into the BAU.
    You end up sitting between Emily and who you would bet was Spencer—there’s this sweet kid working with us, he’s super smart, annoyingly smart, but so sweet, he reminds of Matty when we were teens—the lanky boy was the only one with what seemed like naivety enough in his eyes to be the one Emily mentioned back then. 
    Aaron sat in front of you almost, serious, stern, very different from the few chuckles you got from him in the car. This was unit chief Hotchner, the subtle difference was fascinating.
    “Alright, as we know, DC is in trouble, second murder in three weeks.” blonde and gorgeous, you believed that was JJ, there had been no time for introductions, all you could do was try to remember the e-mails and few phone calls you shared with Emily the past years. “Richard Beckett, married, no kids, 27. He works for his father's car dealership.” 
    Pictures show up on the screen, showing the man when he was alive. It’s a punch to your gut, just minutes before you were fascinated by the way this real person was murdered. You’re glad you had a light breakfast by the way your stomach turns.
    “Monica Dawson, divorced, no kids, 53. She’s a counselor at a local school.” The woman continues speaking, with more pictures on the screen. And then pictures of their deaths, side by side. The fascination is completely extinguished then. “Both were stabbed countless times with a large blade. Left in abandoned warehouses posed in a cross position, a tipped scale on their side. Both naked. Both were heavily drugged.”
    “They didn’t have kids, is that a coincidence?” You hear Emily speak up and suddenly you can see all their brains working.
    “Could that be the linking between them? The victimology is all over the place.” Derek. Oh. You’ve heard of Derek. You’ve seen pictures of Derek. He needs no introduction. 
    “Reid, Morgan, go talk to the first victim’s widow. Rossi, JJ, Ms. Dawson’s ex-husband can give us insight on her life. Emily and us—” He gives you a look and you understand he means you, nodding in reply. “Will head to the DC police precinct.” The way Hotch gives orders is effortless, not only his job but his vocation. 
    Everyone listens and agrees quickly, moving and leaving the table, even Emily is fast on her feet, even though she won’t leave without you and him. You stay still, stiff, eyes glued to the screen.
    “Are you alright?” His voice is soft, laced with worry, genuine worry. You didn’t even notice he had stayed behind, but you nod again at Hotch, a question burning at the tip of your tongue.
    “Do you still believe in God, Mr. Hotchner?”
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blueparadis · 1 year ago
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❝VOID❞ + JING YUAN.
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+. CWs —» established relationship, arrange marriage, husband!jing yuan x wife!fem!reader, slowburn, a little worldbuilding, mutual pinning, smut, oral acts, he is so lovesick here it makes me cry. word count-3.5k (I'm in misery)
+. PRECIS —» Jing Yuan has picked up a new hobby ever since he married you and brought you to Xianzhou. He riles you up because of two reasons; one: he loves seeing your reactions and two: he relishes the thrill of appeasing you in various ways.
+. NOTES —» This is for @8kh. I've been wanting to write something for you for a long time and after reading your jing yuan i knew i he was the chosen one. I hope you really like this huntie. finding you on this hellsite is one of the best thing that has happened to me and i'm so grateful for you godly writing.
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Lately, Jing Yuan has been spending most of his time with Yanqing. Training him in fighting, teaching him about the history of lands and management, and sometimes tutoring him in case the official pedagogue was absent. Yanquing has been an integral part of his life. Ever since he brought you to his homeland by marrying you; you never complained just learned to get used to it. It was not like he was not giving you time, he was but more than you needed, more than you wanted. Jing Yuan just wanted to give you space because arrange marriages are not a match made in heaven. So, in his head, he was just being a patient husband. 
The first few months were wasted due to too many rituals and traditions. Then, the night arrived that he was waiting for, like a hungry lion watching his prey grow bigger with each passing day. It was one of the best nights he had, both in terms of consummating the marriage and sleep. He is no master at things like this but he tried his best within his knowledge. He knew it bits and pieces. He was inexperienced. He was modest. He was gentle.
But lately, all he can think about is how he wants to pleasure you, be near you, and make you happy. He is relieved that he has Yanqing to occupy his time when he is away from you otherwise he would become someone you would definitely dislike. He has noticed how easily you blended in his household, with the workers, staff, commoners, and especially with Yanqing. No doubt he has grown fond of you. Sometimes when Jing Yuan was busy with wars and meetings he would occasionally spot Yanqing with you. It would make his chest tighten but at the same time lighten his heart seeing you are slowly adjusting, trying to fill the gap left by your homeland— which means you are trying to work this marriage out just like he wants, which means he can keep you, which means he can own you.
When he feels his chest contort in pain he while seeing you smile avoids you. For days. He does not know why and he is not bothered about it as long as you are happy, as long as your smile is intact. He thinks it must be the guilt of snatching you off from your home. You must miss your home, if not the people then the climate, the food, and so on. It pains him. 
It really vexed you when he kept Yanqing busy during evenings with books and games when he should spend time with you to show you the ropes of palace management. And, late at night, when he comes crawling to you exhausted from his worldly affairs he becomes a little handsy, not that you mind but you wish he would rather tell you before showing you. At dawn you find yourself curling into his chest with one of his arms underneath your head as a pillow.
Tonight would be no exception. Yanqing was buried in books while the general was in his inner chambers. The sun has just bid goodbye to the sky. It is time for you to retire from your work too. You entered his room and found him nowhere so you strolled towards his bath lounge witnessing an odd thing. The general was soaking himself in the bathtub, the steam of hot water filling the room and a maid was applying soap in his shoulders.
It instantly made you sick to your stomach. The thing that was happening in front of your eyes seemed oddly familiar yet this is the first time you have ever witnessed him in such a poor display of taste. Oh! That's right. You have heard stories from your mother and read some too when you were young when you were not married.
Jing Yuan opened his eyes as the approaching footsteps came to a halt. “Well, this is a surprise.” He exclaims waving his hand towards the maid. But even before that she already stopped herself when she saw you and was ready to leave even before her master ordered to. Your husband did not fail to notice the gravity of your presence that affected her, and almost made her leave without her master's permission. As the maid left the bath lounge closing the door behind, Jing Yuan let out a short-lived soft chuckle. “It seems that my little sparrow is angry at me.” leaning his head at the edge of the tub closing his eyes.
Half a minute passed yet there was no response from you. When he opened his eyes again he could not see you. His eyes scanned the room and it stopped where you were fidgeting inside a cabinet. “Sorry to interrupt your bath, your Highness. I just came to take some of the bathrobes that I left last time.” He clicked his tongue in annoyance. He hates it when you address him by those petty titles. Master, general, highness — he hates all of them. with a heap of silky robes in your hands you proceeded towards the exit.
“You could have asked some maid to do that.” His words made you pause. You turned around trying your best to keep up the poker face inhaling the stabbing sadness in your ribs. “I apologize my ... master. I'll keep that in mind. You will not be disappointed next time.” As those words escaped your mouth you could slowly come to terms with the reality, of what was happening. You have seen your mother shed enough tears to be aware of what feelings can do. It is common for a high-ranking male like your husband to own one or two, or maybe more concubines so it is best not to get too attached to him.
“Hmmm.” Jing Yuan speaks again, “Since you scared her away help me to clean.” There was no hint of kindness, just straightforward orders which was the only thing you had a hard time adjusting to since in you came here. His orders. His fucking annoying habit of barking orders. In your hometown, no one dared to bark orders like that but you were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps, it was just his force of habit.
“Yes. My ma—”
“Lion.” Jing Yuan corrected quirking one of his brows as your eyes snapped at him. “I prefer Lion.” He held your gaze. You sauntered towards his back breaking the eye contact, keeping those robes on the nearest shelf and picking up the soap to apply on his shoulders. Scrunching up your nose in disgust you hesitated before touching him. The memories of your mother crying and your father shouting at her were too frequent in your mind for you to focus on him. You closed your eyes before finally touching him but he grabbed your hands and when you opened your eyes by hearing splashes of water, he was already standing, naked, dripping with water. 
The steam in the room had long faded.You felt your ears burn, cheeks heat up seeing him naked. You have seen him naked before during your first night but this is still embarrassing. When you finally looked at your husband he said, “You know what . . . I changed my mind.” with an upcurve at the corner of his lips. He stepped out of the tub.
“God! You’re so soaked. Let me grab you a towel otherwise, you’ll catch cold” Great. No honorifics. No modesty. Things did not go as Jing Yuan planned. Moreover, you are so sly at avoiding him. Maybe he really hit your nerves hard this time. You were about to turn with a towel in your hand but wet, toned muscular arms wrapped around your upper body.
“you looked like you were jealous.” He stated cooingly resting his chin on the crook of your neck, his member nudging the apex of your hips. Even through the fabric, you could feel your skin igniting with goosebumps.  “She is just an ordinary maid. Don't fire her or punish her, okay love ?” He sounded apologetic and regretful, flawlessly hidden underneath his husky voice. You exhaled. You do not need his explanation nor he is obligated to give you one. With his position and wealth, he could have anything at any moment. Your title is nothing in front of his orders. The perpetual tapping sound broke you from the trance. He just undid the chain of buttons of the gown that you were wearing. You could see your reflection in the mirror and his amber eyes glued on you as started to slide his hand through the innerwear.
“I was not jealous.” You babbled feeling his fingers playing with the straps of your innerwear.  Turning around you sat at his feat hoping to avoid his eyes and whatever he thought he could do by unbuttoning your dress. “I was just surprised, my lord. If you had told me about this, I would not have acted the way I did. I would not have embarrassed you. I would not dare. I am really sorry — Jing Yuan chinned up your face. Seeing tears settle at the corner of his eyes he cursed himself
Fuck! He really should not have played a prank on you like this. He thought you would get jealous just like other girls, and he would have handled you in his own way like men generally do. But seeing those tears was somehow satisfactory since he never thought he would mean so much to you; rather than being jealous you are hurt at the thought of losing him or having any woman by his side. He had stopped taking baths in the presence of others since he became a man and doing it just to get a reaction out of you was definitely not a good idea. You swayed your face jerking away from his hold embarrassment hitting your body in all proportions but he was strong, a lot stronger than you could ever imagine. 
“Wow, my lion is sensitive today.” You stated as he stood hovering above you. Jing Yuan's mind is so quick to wander from those eyes that were trying their best to hold back the tears to your trembling lips. He runs his thumb on your bottom lip holding your chin as he kept up with your gaze. You do not move. You do not avert his gaze. You let him grow comfortable in the silence. 
“And my little sparrow is so wounded today.” He swallows as he enjoys the view of you. His beautiful innocent wife sitting at his feet. It makes him want to ruin you in ways that he even can not seem to fathom yet. 
“General,” two loud bangs followed. “The meeting is ready. And you promised you would let me join tonight.” It would definitely be Yanqing. Jing Yuan pressed the bridge of his nose letting out a frustrated groan. “Yeah, I’ll be there soon. You carry—Taking this golden opportunity you stood and walked away towards the door. On your way out you grabbed a serape that Jing Yuan generally uses. He ruined those buttons anyways. You have to get it fixed by a tailor.
“Are you not forgetting something? Hmmm, my little sparrow,” You paused and looked sideways. From your peripheral vision you could tell he was wrapping a night robe. You just nodded in denial. The moment you took another step he grabbed you from behind. This time his grip was harder. You winced a little and he turned you around keeping his firm grip on your forearms. “I will see you in our room tonight.” He smiled before leaving a kiss on your forehead. “Don’t lock the room like last time.”
As soon as he released you, you ran like a bird without looking back. Jing Yuan could hear the sound of your anklets accompanied by hurried footsteps. When it stopped he could hear Yanqing's voice and your smooth melody of laughter. “She is lively as ever,” Jing Yuan painfully groaned looking at his rock-hard cock.
The assembly was going smoothly. Several warlords were present today. Xianzhou has been at peace for centuries but not Jing Yuan’s mind. His mind was always busy weaving something. Evenings never go empty. Even though he eradicated all the threats, he still makes schemes for battles because that is what he is made for, that is all his mind can do— predict and prepare for battles, eradicate or kill any possible threats, train or recruit potential candidates for the next general after him. His life has become an experiment, and he himself a weapon. He is an inspiring legend to many. People aspire to be like him. 
But Oh! How he wished he could throw it all away sometimes. But he can not. His hands are tied. He is born to lead and protect. Any slight deviation in the system might collapse it from the roots and that is what he feared most: changing and mellowing because of life. And it happened so quickly and so vividly that he had no choice but to embrace it. Marriage was not the part of plan and he had no manual on ‘how to run a marriage so by nature he is bound to experiment and go through the ups and downs.
Like right now, all he can think of when this meeting is going to end and he is to retire in your chambers. Generally, you are to wait for him in the master bedroom only after he sends the message to see you but he has broken many rules and traditions to the point that some are deemed null and void for him. He could dismiss all the warlords and commissioners at ease but Yanquing is so invested that it makes him change his decision. In the end, he was too conflicted between Yanqing and you that he ended up going by his schedule. Finished the meeting, had supper, and retired to his chambers. So, to distract himself he carved an eagle out of a piece of wood during the meeting till it came to an end. He would have given it to Yanquig but he rather felt comfortable keeping it to himself.
Staring at the heavily embellished ceiling he thinks if he could still visit you, if you would still keep the door open or deliberately lock it even after his polite reminder. But a certain locked door would not keep you apart from him. He would still visit you if he wanted like he did that one time. Around midnight when you were tossing and turning he was standing right behind the door. He was still hesitating because of the cold war he had with you this evening. He did not mean to hurt you. He just wanted a reaction, a mechanical reaction that he could match with otherworldly things and tend to it.
Exhaling strongly he knocked once. No answer. Twice. Still, no answer. Thrice. “Alright. That’s it. I’m coming in” he murmured with annoyance before swinging the door open only to find you sleeping at one side of the bed peacefully. He smiled to himself at the sight. So, you were expecting him despite the hurt he caused you. He sat by the edge of the bed as soundlessly as possible trying not to wake you up. Something nudged his hips and when he checked his pockets he found the carved eagle. Keeping it to a side bed table his eyes landed on you again. You released a soft moan as you turned around and he could feel his cock twitch. He wished he could fuck you witless right now but at the same time, he did not want to disturb your sleep, especially after hurting you this evening so badly; though unintentionally but he did. He keeps reminding himself of that.
Jing Yuan kept staring at your face for a while until he finally gave in. As he brushed the back of his fingers along your cheek you jerked wide awake. Nice reflexes. You curled at the corner of the bed in an instant like a coiled spring pulling the duvet up to your neck. Now that he thinks about it, you were wearing such a flimsy dress that he could see your breasts. But his eyes were solely focused on your face. He blinks before locking eyes with you as he speaks. “Do you find me that appalling? Are you scared of me that much?” 
“No. I could never. Please do not misunderstand. I’m—-
“Sorry?” he finishes your sentence. 
“Ugh. not scared.” You bit the inner flesh of your bottom lip. ”And not appalled.” Jing Yuan blinked in surprise a few times cocking his head at you. Of course. He could never see eye to eye with him. You have to oppose him, prove him wrong, say something entirely different from what he expected of you, do something anything remotely related he had thought you could do. His lips tug up in delight as he crawls towards you. “Not bothered either?” he slides the duvet away from your grips. You do not respond. There is no point in it. He would catch your lie anyways.  
Jing Yuan closes his eyes before grazing his nose against your cheeks very lightly making you grip the silk bedsheets. “your heart is beating so fast right now.” He rasps. His hot breath tickles your nerves. 
“Yours too, my lion.” you whispered back. He recoils looking at you with a surprise. He is now hovering over you being all on his fours while you were underneath him, on your knees touching his chest. As you straightened your legs as a gesture to invite him he grew more surprised by you. He could do two things. Either he can talk it out with you or he can fuck your brains out. He chose the second. 
Jing Yuan's lips landed on yours disrupting your balance. His weight forced you to lie on the bed. His arms slide underneath your waist scooping you up as if you were not close enough to him. His kiss grew hungrier eliciting slow soft moans and shaky breaths from you. Your hands flew back to the back of his nape and then slides upon his chest. Unable to take him any longer you pressed on to his chest slightly. He retreated, huffing and panting savoring the hungry look in your eyes. “Hold this for me,” he muttered bunching up your nightgown up to your waist. He could ask you to take it off or hold it above your chest displaying your breasts for him but he did not do that. He wanted you to do that, voluntarily. He wanted to remove the veil of modesty you have once and for all. It will take time and he is a patient hunter.
As he brought his mouth towards your entrance you gulped and the moment his mouth latched on to your vagina it felt like he was tasting the forbidden fruit of heaven for the first time. This is not the first time he has gone down on you but something was different. He was earnest and hungry, his tongue was swiftly licking your folds, his lips sucking onto your bud. It felt like he was about to devour your soul out of your astral body. Your hand reached onto his head, diving into his silver strands. He sucked at your bud hard before pausing to speak.  “you keep your hands where they are or I'll tie them up.”
You were so out of breath to fabricate a reply but inhaling deeply you exclaimed softly, “Like this.” bunching up your garment up to your neck and then discarding it. 
“you're such a fucking tease, you know that?” he mused merrily before diving back his mouth into your cunt. He kept sucking and licking as your moans kept rising, your body squirming, and his grip on your hips grew stronger. You shut your eyes closed, feeling a knot forming at the pit of your stomach. His teeth sank into your inner thigh as he managed to push his fingers into your hole. With a few erratic strokes along with sucking and biting your lips and you came into his palm, soaking the bed sheets. 
When he sat upright with glistened nose and lips, and disheveled hair you were buck naked while he was still clothed. “This going to be a long night.” He teased seeing you tugging with the sash of his robe. He leaned towards you giving you a taste of your juices. “Don’t you just taste divine?” he says breaking the kiss. 
“I couldn’t tell, my lion.” You hinted asking for more. Jing Yuan smiles, his eyes flash on the wooden eagle he kept at the bedside table. He smirked before kissing you back fervently. 
Yeah. It can wait. The baby talk can definitely wait.
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metamatar · 8 months ago
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This is maybe a stupid question but do you think there's any ties between like orientalist trends in western countries that glorify dharmic religions and Hindutva? Like I've heard 'Hinduism is the oldest religion on Earth' and 'Hinduism/Buddhism are just so much more enlightened than savage Abrahamic religions' and 'how could there be war and oppression in India? Hindus don't believe in violence' from white liberals and it certainly seems *convenient* for Hindutva propaganda, at least.
Not stupid at all! Historically, orientalism precedes modern Hindutva. The notion of a unified Hinduism is actually constructed in the echo of oriental constructions of India, with Savarkar clearly modelling One Nation, One Race, One Language on westphalian nationhood. He will often draw on Max Mueller type of indology orientalists in his writing in constructing the Hindu claim to a golden past and thus an ethnostate.
In terms of modern connections you can see the use and abuse of orientalism in South Asian postcolonial studies depts in the west that end up peddling Hindutva ideology –
The geographer Sanjoy Chakravorty recently promised that, in his new book, he would “show how the social categories of religion and caste as they are perceived in modern-day India were developed during the British colonial rule…” The air of originality amused me. This notion has been in vogue in South Asian postcolonial studies for at least two decades. The highest expression of the genre, Nicholas Dirks’s Castes of Mind, was published in 2001. I take no issue with claiming originality for warmed-over ideas: following the neoliberal mantra of “publish or perish,” we academics do it all the time. But reading Chakravorty’s essay, I was shocked at the longevity of this particular idea, that caste as we know it is an artefact of British colonialism. For any historian of pre-colonial India, the idea is absurd. Therefore, its persistence has less to do with empirical merit, than with the peculiar dynamics of the global South Asian academy.
[...] No wonder that Hindutvadis in both countries are now quoting their works to claim that caste was never a Hindu phenomenon. As Dalits are lynched across India and upper-caste South Asian-Americans lobby to erase the history of their lower-caste compatriots from US textbooks, to traffic in this self-serving theory is unconscionable.
You can see writer sociologists beloved of western academia like Ashish Nandy argue for the "inherent difference of indian civilization makes secularism impossible" and posit that the caste ridden gandhian hinduism is the answer as though the congress wasn't full of hindutva-lites and that the capture of dalit radicalism by electoralism and grift is actually a form of redistribution. Sorry if thats not necessarily relevant I like to hate on him.
Then most importantly is the deployment of "Islamic Colonization" that Hindu India must be rescued from, which is merely cover for the rebrahmanization of the country. This periodization and perspective of Indian history is obviously riven up in British colonial orientalism, see Romila Thapar's work on precolonial India. Good piece on what the former means if you've not engaged with it, fundamentally it posits an eternal Hindu innocence.
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cuntylouis · 6 months ago
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It's an underdiscussed part of the show, maybe because it's so obvious, that ultimately this whole interview is happening because Daniel Molloy wanted to fuck that vampire. Like before the 1st season even started Eric Bogosian was already talking about Daniel feeling attracted to Louis, and that attraction is an essential part of their complicated history and relationship and is always underneath every other thought and feeling Daniel has about Louis.
Daniel's intellectual/journalistic interest in Louis is inseparable from his physical attraction to him. When they met in the 70s Daniel felt an instant pull towards Louis, and as he said he really wanted to interview him, but he was also quite obviously assuming they would sleep together. Decades later that pull is still so strong he's ready to throw everything else away to get some kind of closure. I think he's sort of embarrassed by his own emotions (especially when he seemingly hasn't come to terms with his sexuality) and that they still have so much power over him no matter how old and mature he is. He's so snarky and rude to Louis to protect himself, to hide his vulnerability and feel like he has some kind of control over the situation. It's something similar with Armand; whether Daniel and Armand have a history or not, Armand is an attractive, powerful man who managed to trick Daniel, so Daniel feels the need show that he's in control and that he's not afraid of or intrigued by Armand, even though he's both.
But this exterior started to crack at the same time Louis' own did. In the beginning Daniel tried to keep his distance (and he probably reminded himself 'these people serial killers' every time he found himself feeling sympathy towards vampires) but when Louis is now acting so vulnerable and strikingly human, doing things like openly crying when talking about his daughter and sincerely thanking Daniel for helping him, it's impossible for Daniel to not feel empathy for him. In the s2 premiere you can see he's genuinely sympathizing with Louis and not even always trying to hide it anymore. Although Daniel says he doesn't really care it's a blatant lie; he's personally invested in Louis' situation. He cares about finding out what's going on and he cares about Louis. He wants to solve this and he wants to help Louis. He still feels strongly attracted to him. Hell, he might even be a litte bit in love with him. Most people who meet Louis are.
In the first season Daniel often perceived Louis as his opponent, and in the s2 premiere he acts like Louis and Armand are both his opponents, but i think the situation will (based on what we've seen so far and promo/cast interviews) now probably pretty fast evolve into Daniel starting to think he and Louis are in the same team and Armand is their common enemy. We know Daniel is basically inserting himself between Louis and Armand's relationship and even the word love triangle has also been used. Armand and Daniel were famously a couple in the books and might end up together in the show too, but at least for now they're both focused on Louis. I wouldn't be surprised if Daniel starts to feel like he has to 'save' Louis from Armand - even though Louis probably doesn't want to be saved
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Today on popping the corn and feeding the children, what do you folks think of this discussion? :)
I'm always curious to hear what other Trek fans, especially queer Trek fans, think about our place in Trek history and how we fare as the queer participants within our fandom. What have your experiences been like?
Overwhelmingly I've found a great reception and a welcoming attitude, but I admit that has increased considerably since the 90s. However, there are still some Trek fans who seem to be vehemently in denial about queer history in Star Trek, or the fact that anyone who has worked on Trek has pro-LGBT attitudes. This always surprises me considering some of the blatant queer content we have already seen in Star Trek such as the Jadzia Dax and Lenara Kahn kiss.
Anyway, I enjoyed the discussion that followed and seeing the overwhelming outpouring of support coming from Star Trek fans in response to this thread.
Here was my two cents contribution:
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"No, what they said was factual.
Have you forgotten Nichelle Nichols was indeed an African American woman in the core seven bridge crew back in 1966?
Or the fact that Gene Roddenberry went out of his way to write The Motion Picture Novel, creating the term "T'hy'la: friend, brother, lover" so that fans could choose which interpretations of Kirk and Spock they saw fit? He also embraced K/S fans and hired a number of them to write the earliest Star Trek novels, including the very first official one (The New Voyages Vol. 1 & 2) which included slash fiction as well as Gene's approval/forward in the books.
In case anyone has forgotten, here's a little bit of background on Gene Roddenberry and his perspectives on queerness in Star Trek.
He admitted that in his early life he was very affected by how society and culture treated the LGBT community, and that he too found himself subjugating and judging others for that lifestyle because it was what people did at that time. As he got older and had more life experience, he began working with a number of queer artists in Hollywood -- and through TOS, a number of queer individuals began asking questions about Kirk and Spock.
Instead of vehemently shutting down this perspective, Roddenberry was intrigued, and saw potential to tap into a large audience (LGBT) that most others didn't want to go near or acknowledge publicity-wise. He saw it as an opportunity to expand the fanbase while also pushing yet another envelope.
But with the heat already on the show for what they'd already pushed, he found he was often stuck between what he'd like to do and what production would let him get away with. There are a number of Kirk and Spock scenes in scripts that got cut out for leaning a little too obviously romantic. Tiny trickles of that content still made it in were infamous moments like the backrub scene in Shore Leave. Even the 2009 movie had a K/S moment while Spock Prime and Kelvin Spock talked that was written and filmed that was cut out of the final product.
Queer subtext and coding has always been relentlessly weeded away at with an excuse ready to go for why they always try to cut us out, but we all know it's because they are scared of the homophobic backlash and ratings hits. Look how violently homophobes went after the gay romance episode of The Last of Us **just this year**. This has always been our reality, so for someone like Roddenberry to make efforts in the 70s? That was massive.
But Gene as well as the queer/slash Trek community managed to accomplish some things in the 70s which I'm surprised more folks don't talk about or give much credit.
In the same TMP novel which features "T'hy'la" and the famous footnote, Gene cleverly wrote Kirk with a bisexual/pansexual lens: Kirk describes himself as *preferring* women but being open to "physical love in **any** of its many Earthly, alien, and mixed forms." (Direct quote from Genes book). Basically, Captain Kirk was DTF with whoever if there was a connection, which was a very progressive take for a character in a novel written in 1979, but made sense for the future which would have a lot less hang ups about sex and love compared to our current rather puritan/conservative society.
I also prefer women, but I married a man. Shout out to Gene Roddenberry for giving us a seat at the table back in the 70's when folks *still* try to insist there is no place for K/S or queer concepts in Trek, because he made efforts -- however small -- to employ queer people and show queer perspectives. According to David Gerrold, LGBT+ representation was a big thing that Gene personally pushed for in TNG and wanted various depictions of love/couples in the Risa scenes, to name one example.
In the 70s, fanzines led to meetings and swapped fanmade magazines, which got so big that they needed hotel centers, then convention centers, then one day the TOS cast came to one and what we know as modern fan conventions were born -- inspiring even George Lucas who attended Trek conventions in the 70s and saw how popular Trek was in syndication; it was a great climate to launch his Space Opera. Star Wars then became so huge that we got TMP.
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But none of that would have happened without the level of organization, passion, and creativity that those fans poured into Star Trek and their characters after it got cancelled and went into syndication.
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Without queer folks we wouldn't have George Takei, Theodore Sturgeon who gave us Tribbles, Bill Theiss and his amazing TOS costumes, Mike Minor's art direction, Merritt Butrick, David Gerrold (writer for TOS, TAS, TNG) to name a few of many queer contributors to Trek that Roddenberry respected and tried to go to bat for wherever he could in a climate that was absolutely impossible to gain an inch in.
At a time during the 70s and 80s when so many people resented and feared the queer community and wanted us to disappear, especially in the 80s during the AIDS epidemic which many homophobes claimed was "God's punishment to the gay community" or "Gods's answer" to our "hedonism", thinking we'd gotten our just desserts and should just disappear . . .
During that time, Gene Roddenberry gave us queer folks a place to say: "You know what? Sure. Write your stories. TV says you guys shouldn't exist, they pull books with queer people off the shelves and burn them. Laws exist specifically to forbid you guys from loving each other, and call you mentally ill. You can't even hold hands in public. But I'm going to validate you guys and invite you to write novels or work for me, try to see what we can get by production, and allow you to see yourselves in my characters if you want to. There's a place for you in our fandom."
He gave us bi/pan Kirk, he gave us K/S is open to interpretation. In Phase 2 Kirk's surviving nephew Peter, son of his brother Sam from Operation: Annihilate!, was going to be written as gay and living on the Enterprise with his partner -- that also got chopped and reworked into a script that wouldn't get used until decades later. That was huge at a time that being queer was officially listed as a mental illness, and villainized due to the AIDS crisis.
So before you try to dismiss or tell K/S + queer Trek fans whether or not they deserve a seat at the table, remember that Gene Roddenberry was among the **first** to pull that seat out for us in a climate that was ruthlessly against LGBT+ folks." -- 1Shirt2ShirtRedShirtDeadShirt
P.S: Have some cute bisexual/pansexual K/S pride gifs. :) Pride month is a hop, skip and a jump away.
LLAP!🖖💚
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queers-gambit · 10 months ago
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The Battle Above the God’s Eye
part one: Sands of Time
prompt: decades after the Stepstones, it's his turn to be rescued.
pairing: Daemon Targaryen x female!reader
fandom masterlist: House of the Dragon
word count: 6.3k+
note: i'm not the happiest with this piece, so i'll most definitely (probably) write an alternative when the time comes and the show does the Battle. y'all know me by now, you know i love me a good ol' reader-insert and i didn't want to wait years to publish some kind of sequel so here we are.
warnings: reader isn't explicitly a Targaryen but we had to make this work and i'm burnt the fuck out. so fuck it, dragon rider reader. cursing, books spoilers, violence, imagination required, maybe Red Priestess reader, mention of more Little Birds (let author live), toxic family (duh), heavily encouraged imagination, depictions of death, angst, some hurt and comfort i think ? missing warnings 'cause wonky brain goin' wonky.
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"There's rumor, Mistress, of a dragon the color of night," the hooded figure informed. "It nests in the Ruins of Ancient Valyria, seen by farmers and countryfolk; they say his wings beat like thunder. It's a colossal shadow they fear to engage, but after hearing your ransom, they reported it."
You hummed as you took a sip of scalding tea, finding comfort in the heat, musing, "I've been to the Ruins myself on two seperate excursions, I promise you, friend, there is no dragon that nests there."
"It's come from the East, a new beast in the sky."
"I require proof if I am to pay the ransom."
The man with a hood over his head reached for his rucksack and rummaged, a moment later, placing two items on the polished mahogany table between you both. One was unmistakably a dragon's tooth, and when you examined it, there was still clotted blood on the root - assuring it was a fresh pull. The second was a large black scale that weighed at least a dagger's worth.
You smirked, "This is promising. Where in the Ruins has it been seen? Who procured these artifacts?"
You discussed specifics with the man for an hour, offering him a hefty finder's fee after getting the name of the village the man had gathered his own information from. It was a messy journey from there; leaving the home you had made in the decades since the Stepstones to head for what was probably another dead end in Ancient Valyria. You were something akin to a magistrate, the people saw you as a figurehead, a leader; their person of authority who they were all too happy to follow.
Your village flourished, growing in size, number, popularity, and strength by the passing day. The people seemed happy, wealth flowing from exports and trade, and apparently, a few cartographers have begun the process of updating a few maps to add your village's name to history.
Much had changed in your time away from your Rogue Dragon Prince, but you knew that was all coming to an end soon. Your Lord of Light had shown you much in your flames, one of which was a repeating image of you, mounted atop a dragon all your own, soaring over the Narrow Sea with distinct purpose. You weren't a Targaryen, but your religious devotion seemingly gave you the ability to walk amongst beasts and their flames.
Exploring Ancient Valyria took over a year on foot.
You had plenty of encounters with the Stone Men, but all met their merciful demise - those left after that steered clear of you and your Valyrian Steel sword. Around the ruins of the ancient volcano that hadn't erupted since The Doom, you found a graveyard of goat, sheep, and cattle bones. There were bigger skeletons of aquatic creatures, something you found incredibly fascinating - what fully grown dragon went deep diving?
Soon, you found scat. For those who don't spend time in the wilderness or who are simply unfamiliar with the term, "scat" refers to waste produced by wild animals. Yeah, you're reading correctly, after you found the plethora of skeletons, you found dragon shit.
So, you knew you were closer than before. But the fucker still alluded you to the point you felt insane circling the Ruins.
You located about three different potential caverns, investigating them all with caution, but finding them all empty. Feeling exhausted from the months of searching, you claimed one of the caves as your own; hunting for a meal after gathering adequate fire wood. You listened to the untamed wilds of Valyria as you ate whatever you roasted, trying to distinguish familiar sounds of an approaching dragon.
Or perhaps even a distant one!
You'd take any sign!
It'd been weeks since you found the dragon droppings, no other signs appearing. You would search new areas for days, then return to your cave for rest; feeling disconnected from reality the longer you lingered in the ruined empire. You wondering what your village was doing, you were curious if the young woman, Ferona, had a baby boy or girl, if they had erected the new buildings you left blueprints for in an effort to create opportunist housing and houses of worship - as your people had requested.
How did the krill and shrimp season fair? What weddings happened this past spring? How was the irrigation system holding up?
Weeks drug by slowly. Weeks turned to longer months. Two years, you spent in that Gods forsaken ruin of a city - but couldn't find it in you to abandon your search.
Your Lord of Light had yet to send word, yet set your heart ablaze every time you "decided" to go home. You stared into the flames every night, desperate for any indication you were on the right path, but nothing was seen - nothing was said - nothing was shown to you. Until one night, during a torrential downpour and thunderous storm, you were shivering, drenched to your core, fighting the wind to let you keep your flames alive.
And there, in the dying, flickering warmth, you saw it. With wide, unblinking eyes, you stared into the flames harder; unsure how long you remained in the tranquil state before a particularly strong gust of wind nearly pushed you face-first into the embers. You gasped, looking around as the smoke nearly choked you as it filled the cave; stumbling out into the rain as you coughed and patted your chest. Stumbling slightly from malnourishment and delirium, you leaned on the outer shell of your "home", panting with relief before there came a screech so fearsome, you were then cowering into the wall with fear.
You dropped to your knees, huddled into the rock formation; the ground trembling as something enormous touched down. You gasped when through the haze of sideways rain, two nostrils flared and heaved thick plumes of smoke; reddened from the ignited flames deep within an invisible chest. You flattened against the wall, four taloned paws striking the ground and causing it to crack, quake, and tremble. With the fleeting clouds, you used the moon's light to distinguish the beast that loomed closer to you; over you; and then, in your face.
A long, blackened snout nearly pressed into your chest; fabric of your tunic caught in the razor sharp teeth. You had faced death, you had faced beasts, you had faced hacking axes and swinging swords. You had faced the wrath of the Queen Alysanne's court, the rumors of the common folk, and judgment from both man and God. But nothing was like this moment: a wild dragon staring you down, sniffing your chest and stomach, debating if it should just open it's mouth and eat you whole yet or not.
Thankfully, it chose an alternative route.
You're not fully sure how it happened, but you dedicated two years to finding this terrible beasty, and yet, it only took about 6 weeks to bond with the (obviously) young thing. Time with your Dragon Prince proved most useful, creating a bond so secure, you were beginning to wonder if someone deep in your bloodline had mated with a Targaryen. It was natural, the way you both became accustomed to one another; living together on a carbon-dated land long doomed.
The lessons from Daemon came flying back to you. You practiced your High Valyrian, laughing when you obviously got a word or two wrong because the dragon would snort at you. In the light, she was still the color of the night, but her scales were dusted the same gold as her eyes. She was impressive, she was huge in size but nowhere near Vhagar. In fact, you'd wager she had outgrew Caraxes - the only dragon you had true experience with.
Speaking of Caraxes, you were on the shores of Old Valyria, debating how you were going to convince your new companion to join you back "home" in the village, when suddenly, your beast gave a defensive growl.
Looking to the skyline, you spotted the distant dragon and frowned. This dragon wasn't the color of flames like Caraxes was, no, instead, it was a murky blob in the sky with two wings. You offered calming words to your dragon in her native language, not sensing danger, but your beast was unhappy leaving you in the open. Her tail curled around you to corral you back into her body as the muddy brown dragon landed with a thunderous shake a respectable distance away.
Your name was begged by the rider descending from who you recognized as a wild dragon by the name of Sheepstealer.
"Nettles? That you, love?" You asked in skepticism, managing out of your dragon's grasp. "What're you doing here? You all right?"
"I needed to find you," she panted. "I-I need you help - it's all - it's all gone wrong! Please!"
"What's wrong? The fuck's happened?"
"Do you know nothing, Auntie!? Do you know nothing of the war!?"
Your eyes rolled, "Watch that tone with me, girl. The Dance of Dragons is of no concern of mine, it had barely started when I came here."
"Well - it's your concern now," she insisted. "You took me under your wing - you helped raise me in a village you built from the ground, despite not ever needing to - "
"Your mother was a dear friend of mine," you cut her off sharply. "She was kind to me when I came back to Essos, let me stay with her and your father. When I set out on my own, she was always a friendly face, and when my settlement was established..."
"She came to you for help after getting pregnant with me," Nettles nodded. "You've told me this before."
"Then you should know better by now that I owed your mother more than my life, so, raising you was the least I could've done. A life for a life."
"And as such, you let me go into the world with stories filling my head of a handsome Dragon Prince that saved you from the Crabfeeder!" You scoffed at her words, ready to argue, but she rushed, "He's in trouble, Auntie."
You paused, finding no lie in the girl's eye. Slowly, you asked, "Come again?"
"I found him, Mistress," she nodded. "After I got back to Westeros, I found your Prince Daemon - the ones from the stories! He's... He's brutish and harsh, they call him Rogue, but he was kind to me when I told him I knew you. When he heard your name, Lady, he just - he insisted on keeping me close. He protected me, even against his wife - Princess Rhaenyra."
Your head cocked, "Hmm... He usually did have a taste for younger flesh. I'm not surprised he took to you - "
"No, no, no, Mistress, not like that," she insisted desperately. "He was kind, educational - similar to a mentor."
"I see."
"He needs your help."
"Prince Daemon does not need rescuing, he is no damsel."
"He searches for Prince Aemond," she informed, making you lift your chin slightly. Though lost in the wild of Valyria the past two years, you were still well versed in the affairs of King's Landing; staying updated, curtesy of your Lord, the Lord of Light: R'hllor. In your village, you were known to pay for any accurate information - eventually hiring your own spies to relay trustworthy information from around surrounding cities and villages. Nettles was one of your Little Birds.
You sighed, "And? What of it - Aemond killed Lucerys, did he not? Since he married his niece, her children are now his step-children, right? Daemon is within his rights to want some form of vengeance - it's war, Nettie, it's never fair to anybody.
"He will not survive this, you don't understand! It's horrible, Mistress, please, he-he-he's deranged. Mad with grief, lost to his wife's useless fucking war. It'll be the death of him, Auntie, please!" She paused, seeing you just stare back at her; so she begged again, "Please!"
You nodded, "What do you want me to do, Nettie? Hmm?"
"You've told me those stories! I remember them well! You always said he came back for you, saved you from The Crabfeeder," she reminded, making you stiffen. "Does he not deserve the same? Or at least a chance? Rhaenyra will not help, she'll kill him herself I fear, but you can - you can help!"
You nodded, "I will consult the flames - "
"I am telling you - "
"I have heard you, girl!" You snapped, glaring at your Little Bird. "But there are greater forces at work than what you know, I cannot just so willfully trust the word of a child before flying off across the Narrow Sea. Allow me my time with my Lord, I will have an answer for you." Turning from her, you gathered whatever materials you could; setting it up in a small teepee before stepping back.
In High Valyrian, you gave your command. From over your shoulder, your beasty opened her mouth and shot a single flame at the structure.
On your knees, you muttered repeatedly; chanting, summoning your Lord of Light to come to you now in a great hour of need. And He did. Through the flames, you saw what R'hllor wanted to show you: the two Princes engaged in a brutally epic fight that would claim them both in the end...
Unless you left right that moment, as your Lord commanded.
"Make yourself safe, Nettles, go back home," you told her in a rush, catching the pouch of Gold Dragons she tossed you when you sprung into action - and for the first time, mounted your dragon. Like your minds were connected, the Great Shadow took to the sky - leaving Nettles and Sheepstealer behind, and you'd never see either again.
You remained high in the sky, being a blob to the naked eye should any dare to stare at the sun.
You only paused to let the Great Shadow dive into the Narrow Sea for a meal; surfacing with creatures in her jaws as you swam an exhausting broad stroke. Was it terrifying to swim in the open water? Absolutely, but your dragon seemingly kept any threats at bay. When she was satisfied with her meal, the Great Shadow scooped you onto her back and relaunched into the air again to continue your flight for Westeros. You both dried in the air.
The trip was draining.
It was grueling on you both.
Yet when you saw the distant shore, you couldn't help the spike of relief in your heart and veins.
Once in Westeros, you were forced to ground yourselves in the open area of the Stormlands because you needed to know where to go since Nettles hadn't been sure where to send you specifically. Using the usual thunderstorm as cover, you had to separate from the Great Shadow; leaving her in the dark as you ventured to the closest village.
With the pouch of Gold Dragons Nettles gave you, you paid for information that you needed. You were told all the nitty gritty details about the Dance of the Dragons that you've missed, understanding what (Nettles and) the Lord of Light had been trying to tell you for years: the Black Queen would be Prince Daemon's death.
The time had come for you to return his favor from the Stepstones. If this worked the way you wanted it to, you wouldn't be his first, second, nor third wife, but his fourth and final. You knew what you had to do.
"What do you know of their whereabouts?" You asked the innkeeper who wiped down the bar you leaned on.
"The Princes?" She asked, tisking right after. "The One Eyed Prince has been burning the Riverlands for almost two weeks now. The Rogue Prince was in Maidenpool but he's called his nephew to meet him at, uh, oh... Oh, bullocks, what's that haunted castle? The one that was torched?"
"Harrenhal?"
She snapped her fingers at you, "That's the one!"
"Fuckin' Hell," you muttered, wiping your eyes. "What's your thinking, love? 'Bout this war?"
She scoffed, rolling her eyes, "Stupidest thing I've endured so far. How silly, the House of the Dragon does not know who rules it, or so says our liege lord. So we must all pay their price in Fire and Blood."
You nodded slowly, "Who do you think holds the better claim t'the Throne?"
"Depends on your views," she muttered, "but in truth, it doesn't matter to me - so long as this all comes to an end. But between us?" She leaned in, glancing around before muttering, "The Bitch Queen would burn us all. Can't say if King Aegon would be much better, but at least we'd know what we were dealing with."
"And if he was another Maegor?"
"Can't be worse than the Black Queen. Hear they call her Maegor with Tits."
You smirked, chuckling lightly, "Thank you, ma'am, for your words." You offered her a few Gold Dragons, repeating, "Harrenhal?"
"Harrenhal," she nodded, accepting the payment. "I do not know if the One Eyed Prince will answer the Rogue Prince's challenge, but that is where he lures Prince Aemond - Harrenhal. Now, how's about a nice bowl of stew? You look drenched, love, and a bit skinny - you been eatin'?"
"Your kindness is refreshing in this shit-for-a-kingdom."
You winked at her and tapped the bar in parting before turning for the door, and into the rain you ventured once more. You didn't notice the cold, your Lord kept you warm and moving; finding the Great Shadow, mounting, and shooting off into the unknown sky again.
It wasn't easy directing a dragon without a saddle nor any stabilizing reins, yet your beast was something of a decently smooth fly. You minimally directed her as you went, but in truth, her instincts directed you both more than anything. When the storm broke, you were soon flying over charred scores of land; homes smoldering and burning, the wind spreading the embers and never letting the fire fully die out.
"The fuck..." You muttered, sitting up straight as you flew through the carnage. "Seven Hells, he burnt it all, didn't he?" You whispered, needing to hold onto the spinal ridges of your dragon to keep balanced. "Gods be good," you gaped at the damage beneath you.
The sun moved into position, getting ready to set when you heard the horrible screams of feuding dragons. You couldn't see Harrenhal yet, but you heard the fight, and then, as the sun began to set, there came flashes of bright firelight that lit the sky to a new level.
It was nearly the shade of daylight with the way the flames danced against the setting sun. You were desperate to get closer, and after directing the Great Shadow over a set of charred rolling hills, you finally had Harrenhal in sight. "Go! Go, please! That's them - we need t'get there!" You begged through a small sob of panic, and if possible, your dragon flew all the faster.
You were so close, yet felt so far.
The air trembled when the pair of dragons, Vhagar and Caraxes, collided in the sky once more. They grappled and snarled and shrieked and blew flames and gnashed their teeth and slashed their talons. You paid no mind to the pregnant woman standing on the shoreline of the lake they fought over, and instead, focused on your task; feeling as if you were moving on pure instinct and adrenaline.
The Great Shadow dove low to the lake's surface as Caraxes and Vhagar came barreling to the ground. It all happened too fast. As the two dragons fell, you saw one man - in black armor - leap from his crimson beast with his Valyrian sword winking in the dying light. Just as his arm extended to pierce Dark Sister into Aemond's blind eye, the dragons were tussling enough to turn over and forced Daemon off their hide.
You gasped as you reacted - no fucking thought to your actions.
As the Great Shadow glided over the surface of the Gods Eye lake, you were leaping off her back to launch into the air; tackling the Rogue Prince hard enough to disrupt his impact on the water's surface. You hit the water all the same, but instead of it being like hitting fresh pavement, it was a softer landing due to the Great Shadow's expert and quick maneuvering.
Two dragons hit the water, three human bodies; sending a wave of water higher than the towers of Harrenhal's fortress. It was a shock to land in something so wet and cold, but your adrenaline was stronger than any feeling of freezing water. Your arms kept an iron-clad lock around Daemon's unconscious waist, surfacing as the lake rippled and churned from impact; turning a seeping red from the open wounds on the dragon sinking into the depths.
Prince Aemond never surfaced, and years from now, he'd be found still chained to Vhagar's saddle with Dark Sister still stabbed through his skull. His Red Witch standing on shore couldn't save him, it appearing that your Lord preferred the Rogue Prince to the One Eyed.
Keeping Daemon afloat was difficult, but to your shock, you were being gently propelled forward to the shore by a fatally injured Caraxes. You encouraged him best you could, trying not to choke on the water splashing around your frantic forms. When you were able, you started heaving and dragging Daemon up the lake's embankment; the crimson dragon crawling out of the lake behind you, slowly, heading towards Harrenhal. You wanted to offer the loyal beast aid or comfort, but you were much too preoccupied with his master that was dead weight in the water's surf.
You trembled as you swiftly hoisted his dragon winged helmet off to leave bobbing in the surf; unhooked his armor, shucking it off him and compressing his chest rapidly - just like a fisherman taught you to do.
"C'mon," you grunted. "C'mon, Daemon, breathe - fucking breathe, damnit! Please, come back to me - don't do this. I just found you again, c'mon, my Prince, breathe. Breathe, Daemon, don't give up - not now, not on us! Don't give up on us, c'mon, my Prince, breathe, w-we finally have our time." Sobs wracked your form. "Breathe, Daemon, please! Please! I'm back - I finally found you, please, my love, breathe!"
You shoved harder into his breast bone with increased ferocity until water came suddenly spewing from his lungs. You heard the Great Shadow land in the near distance, turning Daemon on his side to help him breathe better; choking the water out. You spoke in relief, "There, there you go, c'mon, love, breathe! Thank fucking Gods, you're all right, you're okay, get it out - you're okay, just breathe, my love."
Daemon choked your name in pure disbelief, holding one of your wrists in a vice grip that only briefly concerned you. He panted and relaxed into the embankment, loosening his grip as he turned over to look up at you in shock and wonder. "How is this possible?" He wheezed.
"It's a bit of a long story," you teased softly, caressing his cheek. "Bit of a boring tale, 'M afraid."
"How? How is - how can this be?"
"You needed me," you explained, "thought I'd return the favor since you saved me all those years ago, huh? You got me out of the sea, I got you out of the lake - we're even, yeah?"
He still panted, only staring at you as if he couldn't believe himself. "You've not aged a day," he whispered.
You smiled, petting his cheekbone with your thumb daintly. "You need rest, reprieve, aid," you whispered.
"No, no," he gulped, "not when I just got you back. T-Tell me 's done. Tell me we're done being apart."
"You have a wife still, Daemon. She won't let you go, she wouldn't let us be together."
"Tell me what your flames say."
"Now you trust my flames?"
"When they bring you back to me, yes - oh, fuck yes, I'll believe whatever those fucking flames say. Please, love, for us - consult your flames, tell me what they've said."
You frowned, petting a soaking wet lock of hair from his forehead. Quietly, you whispered, "My Lord showed me what was to pass if I did not come for you... This war, this Dance of Dragons, would claim your life, Daemon. Your wife, your niece... She'll be the end of you, my Prince. You will not survive if you go back to her. Neither of you will survive this... My Lord has shown me that Rhaenyra will meet her end in flames, but following her will cost you your life in water," you glanced at the lake. "Not a death befitting of a Targaryen Prince."
"And now?"
"Now, she will fight her own battles for the first time," you whispered, "and I will return home, and you will make a choice."
He smirked, "We've gone lifetimes apart, like you said before."
"We have."
"I would not go another day," he coughed, wincing in pain. "I do not think I can fight anymore anyways, love. Please... Please."
Daemon never begged. You swallowed harshly, asking him, "No? No more fighting?"
"No," he agreed. "'M so tired, my sweet. I-I can't do this forever," he half-slurred, making you perk up slightly in attention. "Retirement sounds all too appealing now. Rumor will spread that neither Aemond or I lived, it'll be the perfect escape."
You nodded in agreement, flinching when a new voice screeched, "YOU BITCH!"
The pregnant woman you saw on shore stormed towards you, making you chuckle dryly as you had already foreseen this Alys Rivers - pregnant concubine of the One Eyed Prince Aemond and fellow Follower of R'hllor. Alys was unique in the sense that her training was decent enough to ensnare Aemond (it seemed), but not so decent that the Lord yet favored her.
She wasn't more than ten feet from you when the Great Shadow opened her mouth and showered the Red Witch in holy flames; an end she surely did not see coming - not that R'hllor would've showed her. This all caught Daemon's attention, who flinched slightly when he had to turn and look; not expecting the flames nor the beast.
Then his eyes drifted over the land, breathing hitching, and he sat up with a painful groan. "Daemon," you worried, but instead of trying to get him down, you helped him up.
You knew what he saw.
When at Caraxes' side, you helped Daemon lower to his knees at his dragon's head. He whimpered and moaned, belly slashed open, wing torn apart; bleeding out into the cold soil he rested on. The Great Shadow moaned gently in sympathy, lowering herself around you three to let you grieve in peaceful, protective privacy and ease Caraxes to his next life.
The moon was fully in the sky when the crimson bloodwyrm took his final breath with the ebony giant's flames to warm you all. You weren't sure what could be done, but Daemon was pressing a tender kiss to his dragon's head before turning to face you - a lost, confused, vulnerable look coating his features. "Come on, love," you eased gently, helping him to his feet; knowing a few ribs were shattered and probably his clavicle, too.
"Where will we go now?"
"Well, I have somewhere safe for us t'live," you grunted in assurance, wobbling a little under his weight. "But we need rest for tonight. Any ideas?"
"I doubt anyone will venture to Harrenhal this night, should be safe..."
You agreed, and together, you and Daemon settled in the empty castle with the Great Shadow resting on the outskirts of the Keep. She was too big for the interior of the courtyard, so, she was left outside with Caraxes' corpse as you and Daemon settled in the room he had commandeered.
"How is this possible? How can you be here?" He asked, holding your hips as you worked between his spread legs. Daemon had minimal supplies at the ready; hopping up on a work bench to let you care for his injuries and wounds. He watched your every move with a softening look. "I thought I wouldn't ever see you again, that I'd be cursed to only remember you in my dreams. Rhaenyra said I say your name a lot at night, when I sleep."
"I'm really here, Daemon, ease yourself," you offered an assuring grin, tending to the head wounds he obtained from the fight.
"How?"
"Nettles."
"What?"
"Nettles," you repeated with a smirk. "She's one of my Little Birds, Daemon. It was not entirely coincidence she found you..."
"So she said," he frowned. "But how - "
"She told me you needed me," you smiled softly. "And when I consulted the flames, I was shown what could be. I made a decision, I just wanted you safe, no matter what that meant."
"I just want you. Fuck," he seethed, squeezing your hips, "'s been fucking decades since I've even touched you."
"You're delirious," you teased. "Sleep deprived, maybe concussed."
"Perhaps all at once, but I finally have all I've dreamt of. Please," he whispered, "do not deny us longer. I've endured lifetimes - "
"Daemon, being here and now, you know I can't walk away. But we've time t'talk it all out, I need you to let me help your wounds - so sit still."
He nodded, "One thing I do not understand, though - the dragon? How did you...?"
"Spent two years in Valyria, looking for her."
"Why were you there?"
"Searching for a dragon, of course," you smirked. "She's impressive, isn't she? And from her size, I wager she can easily support us both back across the Narrow Sea."
He grit his teeth when you cleaned his open cuts and wounds, wrapping whatever clean cloth you had around the larger wounds; easing him out of his tunic to have better access to the blackened ribs he sported. "Would you tell me?" Daemon whispered some time later.
"Of what?"
"Your life since the Stepstones?"
"Oh," you chuckled, "sweet love, you know it was dreadfully boring without you."
"Doesn't seem it, you being in Valyria two years? That's not heard of, what was it like? How'd you survive? Why go looking for a dragon?"
This lead to you both laying in bed, hands held together, resting, but not sleeping. You just spoke quietly, fingertips tracing idly over each other's faces; sharing in each others lives that the other missed, reminiscing together in fond memories.
When morning broke, you had to move swiftly. Caraxes was left where he laid and after a final parting to the loyal beast and commandeering his saddle, together, you and Daemon mounted the Great Shadow. She wasn't a fan of the restraints, but once you and Daemon were mounted, she did not fuss as it was evident you humans had an easier time with the leather contraption.
"I must confess," Daemon whispered in your ear, using you as an anchor and leaning into your back, "I fear I might feel something akin to guilt for fleeing home."
"That's natural," you assured, "you're leaving family behind, 's never easy."
"There was no winning this war," he admitted, sighing. "I lead so many to their death... Destroyed my family - "
"From what I have heard, this is not your doing," you argued sharply. "That night, when Aemond attacked Lucerys, what were you to do? Leave that kind of atrocity without consequence? No, that is not in the Targaryen's nature. You did not start this war, Daemon."
"But I knew..."
"You knew what?"
"I knew Jace, Luke, and Joffrey were Harwin Strong's, not Laenor Velaryon's. We thought if we married her sons to my daughters, nobody would care much else about lineage - but we were wrong."
"It's okay to be wrong," you promised, leaning your head back to let your forehead rest against his temple. "It's okay to make mistakes or have regret. Tell me, do you wish to return to your wife? I will take you now, no quest - "
"No. No, I do not wish to leave you. This is... This is Rhaenyra's war, I've done my part. I'm free and finally with whom I belong."
"Now it's time to heal," you told him.
"Time to rest," he agreed, squeezing your waist and placing a few kisses to your neck. "This is where I should've been all this time... After the Stepstones, I should've stayed with you, none of this would've come to pass. I regret leaving you everyday - "
"I told you, for us to get here, to this point, now, we had to separate. But look where we are," you smiled back at him, the Great Shadow soaring higher in the sky to keep Westeros at a distance, "we will not be apart again. 'S you and me, love... Until our end, which we will greet together."
Daemon's lips found yours at long last, whispering, "Together," against them before sweeping his tongue against yours.
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The port was lovely this time of day, sun high in the sky to give light to the fishermen and vendors hard at work. Sailors made port, calms were being shucked, different Aristocats trying to barter and trade on their journeys abroad. You smiled at the people you passed, grateful to be home after a prolonged absence; arm looped tight with Daemon's as you both strolled the pier.
"It's hard to imagine you've done all this in a lifetime or less," he mused, a hand folded over yours, dressed in the best clothes you could find. "It's s marvel, my sweet," his compliment was sincere.
"Thank you," you whispered, hugging his arm as your skirts swished around your ankles, just tickling your bare feet. "This season's expected to be bountiful," you told him, pointing to the various teams bringing crustaceans, fish, and other sea life in different crates and traps. "I expect there won't be much of an off-season."
He glanced around, "And you don't collect taxes?"
"Why would I?" You scoffed. "We're more dynamic than that. Everyone works for their place, if you wanted to think of it that way. They are not expected to contribute, but the village seems happier that way. Being close knit, helping one another, sharing wealth. No one person has complained, so, I figure it's working so far. Even if it didn't work, I still wouldn't charge them taxes - it'd be like charging them to live. Always seemed silly t'me."
"Morning, Mistress!"
"Morning, Don," you beamed, leading Daemon towards the dock. "How are you, kind sir? Looks as if you've been working all day already."
"Aye, up before the sun," he nodded, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. "Wanted t'thank yah, actually."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, yeah, with that dragon? We're hauling in more ships," he chuckled, and just overhead, the Great Shadow glided over them all to head out to sea to fetch another round of ships. "Gets us out there quick, brings us back when done, 's like a wee bit of an assembly line, ain't it?"
You chuckled, "Sounds like it, friend. Uh, Don, have I introduced you to my husband?"
"Husband?" Don grinned, cocking his head, "No, Mistress, I wasn't aware you even had a suitor. Mariam don't tell me much gossip these days," he snickered, referring to his wife. "It's nice t'meet you," he told Daemon, "name's Don, just Don - no, it ain't short for nothin'."
Daemon smirked some, shaking the man's fishy hand boldly, "A pleasure, Don, Just Don."
"Oh, this one's got a bit uh humor, don't he?" Don laughed lightly. "What's your name, lad?"
"Daemon?" A voice answered for you all, and just above you, a little further on the pier, stood an aged Laenor Velaryon.
"Excuse us, Don," you spoke swiftly, confusion marring your features. He understood or sensed the slight tension, backing off to let you approach the "dead" knight.
"Oh, my - Y/N," Laenor breathed, another aged man at his side with what you assume to be his children. No question could be asked yet as your old friend launched himself into your arms, laughing merrily, giving you a tight squeeze with his still-toned arms. "Oh, the Gods are good for this!" He laughed, rocking you slightly, "Oh, how the Seven bless us."
"You're so dramatic," you laughed back, patting him happily until he pulled back. "But I must confess, I am so fucking confused - what is this? How are you here? I thought you died, Laenor, that's what ever spy reported."
"They should've," he nodded, glancing at Daemon, "but perhaps, the explanation will be better received after some wine?" He caressed your cheek in affection before looking at your husband, nodding, "It's good to see you again, my Prince. Or is it King Consort?"
"Neither, just Daemon," he corrected, your heart soaring a little at the idea that he would abandon his title so easily. Yet you knew, there was nothing to go back to for him.
"Well, how about I introduce my family?"
"Family?" You grinned, seeing him present the others.
"My husband," he gestured, giving his name. "And our kids," he introduced the other three.
"How?" You asked simply.
"We found a Red Priest who was willing to officiate the ceremony," Laenor explained, "and the kids were sired by different mothers, too."
"Whores," the husband smiled.
"Huh," you nodded in impression. "Well, perhaps wine is best to hear that tale, as well?"
"Perhaps," Laenor grinned. "Uh, but first, we should find accommodations - "
"Oh, come off it, you're staying with us," you waved. "Your belongings?"
"This is it," he half-shrugged, you eyeing the few rucksacks around their feet, neck, shoulders... "We heard of the prosperity here, thought it was worth the move."
"How right you are," Daemon answered. "Come, old friend." He picked up a few sacks for the kids and you looped your arm with Laenor's to lead the way. How good it was to have your friend back, your husband at your side, and a functioning, happy village with your placement amongst them most important... Everything you could've wished for, it seemed, came true.
And in your womb, a Dragon Seed was planted; soon to make its announcement known. Truly, a happier ending than you thought deserved - but R'hollr worked mysteriously, blessing those deemed worthy to spread his flames.
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requesting rules and masterlist
HOTD masterlist
note: i'm not the happiest with this piece, so i'll most definitely (probably) write an alternative when the time comes and the show does the Battle. y'all know me by now, you know i love me a good ol' reader-insert and i didn't want to wait years to publish some kind of sequel so here we are.
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patito-oward · 5 months ago
Text
Always Been You
masterlist
Prompt: And the other is about how Pato falls in love with the reader, just how he says "oh yeah she's THE ONE"
since this prompt was pretty vague I took a lot of liberties with it, but I still hope you like it :)
Summary: After being dumped by his long term girlfriend, Pato realizes everything he’s ever wanted in a relationship has been right in front of him
WC: 4.1k
It happened very suddenly. Here’s the thing, Pato didn’t mean for it to happen at all. On the list of things he had planned for the year, this was definitely not on it. A 500 win? Definitely. A championship? Yep. Extending his contract with Mclaren? Right again. But starting the off season by being dumped by his long term girlfriend and realizing he’s in love with his best friend was not anywhere in his mind.
It all started at the last race of the season, Pato was leading the championship, and granted he got a podium on this race he would finally have his championship victory. To celebrate and support, almost everyone he knew came to Nashville. Pato rented out a block of rooms at a hotel, and one of the many people who showed up for him was his childhood best friend, YN.
So maybe it all started in 2008, when YN and Pato were in second grade and met on the playground at recess. YN was sitting on the swings reading a book when Pato approached her, he was new to San Antonio and didn’t have any friends, and wanted to know if they could be friends. From then on the two were inseparable. Pato was a daredevil at heart, and would often hurt himself, and YN would take the delicate time of walking him to the school nurse and kissing his injuries better. Pato always made YN laugh, and made sure she was never sad, no matter what happened in YN’s life, Pato was there everyday to make her smile.
As they got older their relationship changed, it lost a little bit of their childish innocence, but they grew so much closer. YN was at Pato’s first win in karting, and she was more excited than he was. When YN’s childhood dog died, Pato was at her house at 6:00 AM and spent the whole day with her, trying to cheer her up. They’d even started their own holiday traditions, every year on Christmas Eve, the two of them spent the day making cookies together and exchanged presents. YN had practically become family, she didn’t have the best home life, and the entire O’Ward family was so loving that she ended up spending more time with them than her actual family.
The two dated for a few months in eighth grade, and were each other’s first kiss, but when Pato began racing for F4 and was in France every weekend the two agreed it was best they just stayed friends. Since then that is all they had been, things in YN’s home got significantly worse as they went through high school and despite whatever Pato may have felt, he knew she needed his friendship and wasn’t willing to risk their relationship.
With Pato coming up through Indycar and YN being a full time student and having a job, it was easy to assume the two would drift after high school, that was never the case. They still saw each other everytime Pato was in Texas and Pato made sure YN made a couple of races every year. She remained his biggest supporter as he went from her hometown best friend to the most popular driver in Indycar.
Fast forward to now, things were going pretty perfect for Pato. He finally won the 500, he’s about to win the championship, and he’s got a great girlfriend, Maria. He figures he’ll marry her, he does love her, she’s supportive and nice and insanely hot. They’ve been dating for over a year and things have been going really well. The only time they’ve ever really fought is over YN, when she found out there was a “history” between them, and in hindsight Pato realizes maybe he should’ve told her sooner, but he never really thought about it. Yeah they’d dated for a few months a lifetime ago, but she’s always just been his YN, he doesn’t even think of her like that anymore. YN was one of the most sure things in his life, and sure for awhile he always thought what if?, but that was in the past.
All that being said, he didn’t think twice about inviting her to Nashville to watch him possibly win the championship. YN wasn’t able to make it to the 500, or any other race this year, and he wished she was there. She knew more than anyone how much this had meant to him, coming up after losses she was always the person he went to, and he wanted her to see him now that it had all been worth it. YN was reluctant to come, but after a lot of begging from Pato she agreed.
Thursday night he made sure everyone he invited out came to dinner with him at a steakhouse. There were 20 people at the restaurant, but Pato ended up with Maria sitting next to him and YN sitting across next to Elba. Maybe Pato should’ve realized it, the tension in her shoulders and how Maria’s smile tightened as he laughed at YN’s jokes, but he didn’t. So Maria sat there all night, and she really tried to be understanding, but she felt as if she was third-wheeling her own relationship. She had to listen to a million inside jokes she didn’t understand, and watch as his family fawned over YN.
It was at that dinner she realized that she’d spent a year dating a taken man. Pato was too good of a man, she knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose, but it became undeniable. As she watched him, she realized everything she felt for him, he felt for the woman across the table. At first she felt possessive, the need to prove that he was her partner, and that no matter what he’d chosen her over YN, but as time passed she felt less possessive and realized that there was no way to continue the relationship. It wasn’t fair to her, she deserved a man who loved her and only her, and Pato deserved to be with the person he loves.
After the dinner, they headed back to the hotel where Pato, who was utterly clueless of her realization, continued to be the perfect man, only making it so much harder for Maria to leave. She didn’t know how long she should let it go on for, if she broke things off now would she be getting in his head and ruining the weekend for him? Would continuing a relationship she’s already checking out of be just as cruel? Could she stand the rest of the weekend watching her boyfriend making heart eyes at another woman?
After sleeping on it, or rather not sleeping very much at all, she’d come to the conclusion that a clean break was best for everyone. They ordered breakfast to the room and as they sat at the small dinette she knew she had to bring it up.
Pato was halfway done with his breakfast, but she hadn’t eaten much at all, mostly just pushing her food around with her fork. “Pato, I think we need to talk.”
It’s rare that she’s this serious, and Pato knows that can’t be good, his silverware clatters as he sets it down and looks up at her. “Uh oh, what’s wrong?”
She hesitates for a moment, not knowing the best way to start the conversation. “It’s YN.”
Pato’s shocked, he doesn’t know what he expected but it wasn’t that, “What about YN?”
She figures there’s no reason to beat around the bush, “You’re in love with her.”
Pato’s a lot of things, surprised for sure, but also shockingly defensive and angry. “What? Babe, that’s ridiculous. I know you were upset about us in middle school, but I swear there’s nothing going on! I would never even think about cheating on you!”
She rested her hand on top of his, “I know you would never cheat on me, and I know you said there’s nothing and I believe you, but I saw the way you looked at her, and how she fit into your life, and it makes so much sense because you love her.”
Pato doesn’t really know what to say to that, “I love you.”
“But you are in love with her. Listen I love you, Pato, and you’re such a good man, but it’s not fair to either of us to continue this relationship. Not when your heart clearly isn’t in it.” Maria struggles over her words, voice cracking and eyes watering, but a soft smile is on her face as she says them.
“Are you saying what I think you are? You’re just giving up?”
“Pato, I’m letting you free, tell her how you feel, you deserve that kind of love.”
And maybe what she’s saying finally resonates with him because the best thing he says is, “I never meant to hurt you.”
She lets out a broken laugh at that, a single tear rolling down her face, “Oh, Pato, you never could, we aren’t meant for each other, but we still had a lot of fun, right?” He nods at her.
After that she’s on a plane and back to her home before he knows it. Pato’s sad, he feels a little empty, someone who had been such a big part in his life just walked out leaving the biggest mess in her wake. He thought about her words, but shook them off. He loved YN, of course he did, but it wasn’t like that, she was like a sister to him.
Although it’s not his sister he messages asking if she wants to come over. YN is at his hotel room within a minute of him sending the “you busy?” text. YN asks where Maria is, but all he has to say is “gone.” and YN knows to drop it.
YN knows him better than anyone, knows that he has an irrational fear of being destined to fail at every relationship. She knows he has never actually broken up with a girl, only ever been broken up with, and she knows he spent over two years single because he was afraid of being hurt. But she also knows that there’s no way anyone could spend more than an hour with him and not be in love with him, God knows she is.
It’s the way he knows her, inside and out, but it’s also the way he makes everyone around him laugh, and spends hours interacting with his fans to make them all happy, and how caring he is with animals and babies. YN is only human, how is she supposed to feel when her insanely attractive best friend is doting over her niece?
YN puts it all aside because she’s his best friend first, she’d made that promise to herself a long time ago and she’s always kept it. She sits with him and watches Friends reruns with him, he’ll talk when he wants to, but until then she’ll be by his side.
They don’t end up talking, the one good channel the hotel room has switches from Friends to Modern Family, and then Pato has to go practice. A quick google search helps her find the best tacos in Nashville, so while he’s gone she runs out to get them dinner. They had dinner plans with his parents and Elba, but YN texted Elba long ago to let her know that plans were changing. He’s a superstar, so of course he doesn’t let his life affect him and it still the fastest person in the first practice, YN thinks that’s a good sign.
When he returns he seems to be a little better, talking to YN about track conditions over their dinner. YN has had enough of waiting for Pato to bring it up, and she can tell he’s feeling better, so she has to work up the courage to ask him what happened.
“Are you going to tell me what happened with Maria or am I supposed to guess?”
His smile drops, turning into one that’s much smaller and forced. “She just left.”
“No explanation? She just woke up and was gone?”
“Oh, she had an explanation but it was bullshit. She probably just got tired of me, it's no big deal.”
YN furrows her brows at that. “Pato stop it, you’re so great anyone would be so lucky to be with you. Maybe there was some merit behind what she said.”
“Well she said I was in love with you, but I told her so many times we’re just friends and that’s all we’ll ever be.”
YN’s stomach sinks at that, it’s not like she expected him to confess his love, but he didn’t need to friendzone her that hard. “Oh.” Is all she can think to say.
“I mean you’re great, but you’re like a sister to me!”
YN forces out a laugh, “Right.” She also can’t help but feel like maybe it’s her fault this all happened, was her pining really that obvious? “Well then, she’s stupid for leaving because she’s not going to find anyone better.”
Pato’s smile is genuine for the first time since the conversation started, “Thank you, you’re the best friend I could’ve asked for.”
“Right, and don’t forget that when you’re trying to figure out what to do with all your championship earnings.”
He lets out a real laugh at that, a stark contrast to how mopey he’d been the rest of the day. “One, greedy, and two, I’m not buying you anything else. I'm tired of you getting mad when I spend money on you.”
“Pato, a graduation gift is fifty bucks, not a two thousand dollar tennis bracelet.”
He leans back in his seat and shrugs, smirking as he says, “Yet I’ve never seen you not wearing the bracelet.”
YN’s eyes go to her wrist where, sure enough, the bracelet was, just like everyday for the past three years. When Pato gave her the bracelet she refused to take it, saying it was too much and he needed to return it. After arguing for ten minutes she thought he’d finally agreed to take the bracelet back, but found it later sitting on her dresser. “What can I say? You have good taste.”
The rest of the night mirrored the morning, but had a much different tone, the two of them sat sprawled out on the couch quoting the episodes of Friends that were on, having seen them so many times they were known by heart.
When YN went to her own hotel room Pato realized how empty the place felt again, something he hadn’t noticed all day. He chose not to think too hard about how effortlessly YN took up space in his life.
The next morning, Pato had already scheduled to have everyone meet in the lobby so he could take them to the track for the day. YN had clearly told everyone about Maria because despite some odd looks no one asked about her and he was grateful for that. He didn’t think twice when everyone began to split into different cars and he pulled YN along with him, or when they arrived at the track and Pato sent most people up into a suite, but brought YN and his immediate family to the pits. Maybe that’s how it’s always been, and how it’s supposed to be.
Pato gets swept up in work for the rest of the day and YN gets to spend some real time with her second family. As soon as they’re alone, Elba doesn’t hesitate to start interrogating her.
“What happened with Maria?”
“Apparently she told Pato he’s in love with me and just left.” YN shrugs as she says it, still a little puzzled by the whole thing.
“Huh.”
“What? No ‘huh’ I know what that means just tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I just thought Maria knew by now and didn’t care, maybe she’s not as smart as I gave her credit for.”
“What do you mean? Knew what?”
“Come on, YN, Pato’s been in love with you since you were nine, I wouldn’t want to be dating him.”
YN is struggling to process what she’s hearing, and automatically turns to deflection. “He is not.”
“Oh my god.” Elba starts giggling maniacally.
YN has no clue what could be funny, “What!?”
“You’re in love with him too!”
“I am not!” Despite her refusal, YN can feel and Elba can see the heat rising up her neck.
“You totally are! All this time I thought you had to know it’s so obvious, I mean, he follows you around like a puppy, but you had no idea!”
“Ok, keep your voice down.” YN puts her hand over Elba’s mouth really not wanting anyone else to hear their conversation. “Even if I did like him, and I’m not saying I do, he does not feel the same. I mean you should’ve heard how hard he friendzoned me yesterday.”
Elba looks sympathetic then, “Babe, I think my brother has spent so long denying himself what he wants he doesn’t even know what that is anymore. I love him dearly, but relationships are not his strong suit.”
“Then I guess we’re at a stalemate because I am certainly not going to be the one to ruin our friendship.”
Elba’s exasperated, “Oh my god, you two are exhausting!”
By the time Elba finished her intervention, qualifying finished resulting in Pato getting the pole. Mclaren has been dominant the last few weekends, and this weekend is no different with all three cars in the fast six. Pato is in the driver’s lot, getting ready to head back to the hotel, everyone else had dispersed from the track, and Felix has tracked down Pato and is calling after him.
“Hey, Felix! What’s up?”
“Bro, you’re about to win this fucking thing.” There’s nothing but excitement from Felix for his best friend.
“I know, I just hope tomorrow is a clean race and we can bring this thing home.”
“You’ve got this, I know it. Hey, where’s Maria been all day?” Felix says it like he’s just realizing she’s not around.
“Who knows. Yesterday morning she woke up determined that I’m secretly in love with YN and got on the next plane out.”
“So you guys are done?”
“Yeah about as done as you can be.”
“And YN?”
“YN is my best friend.”
“No, I'm your best friend.”
“Sorry, Fro, even you lose to YN.”
“I don’t want to win what YN is winning.”
Pato rolls his eyes and stomps his foot, huffing, “And what exactly is YN winning?”
Felix puts his hands up in self-defense, “Listen, all I’m saying is if you looked at me like you do YN, I think Emille would feel threatened.”
“Very funny.” Pato kicks the ground, staring at his shoe, he thinks about his relationship with Felix versus his with YN, sure it’s different, but him and YN have so much history. “Look, I don’t know what I feel for YN, but I don’t care either because she’s too important as a friend for me to lose her.”
“Mate you’ve been practically dating for years, I don’t think making it official will ruin anything.”
With that last piece of advice Felix takes off, leaving Pato alone with his thoughts. The whole drive back to the hotel and the rest of the night he spent thinking about YN. If everyone closest to him is saying one thing, how could they all be wrong? He thinks about everything they’ve been through together.
His first win in karting when she was the first person he ran to when he got out of the car; how she comes to every family reunion and often traveled to Mexico to spend time with his family; their senior prom when she was sad about not having a date, but she was the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen that night; except for Christmas mornings when she’s in her pajamas and he gets to watch her eyes light up as they answer presents together. Maybe it’s been in front of him all along. What’s been missing from all of his other relationships has been right there.
It’s a lot to take in, but it doesn’t really matter because, like he told Felix, he wouldn’t risk their friendship if she doesn’t feel the same. He can handle a trail of failed relationships, but he could never handle losing YN. He went to bed that night knowing he had to just focus on the race and on bringing home the championship.
The next morning he’s awoken by a knock on the door. “Patricio! Open up, room service!”
He knows who’s behind the door before he opens it, there’s only one person who cares enough to bring him breakfast. When he lets YN in he sees the bag full of takeout food from a nearby diner. “Breakfast of champions, for the champion.”
Of course she’s already decided he’s a champion before the race. No one has ever believed in him as much as her. “Calm down, I don't want you to jinx me.”
“Au contraire my friend, a jinx would mean you’re winning by luck, and you are winning by sheer talent.”
It always amazes him how smart she is in the morning, he knows no more than 5 words for a solid hour after waking up, and she’s always speaking a million words a minute. “7AM is too early to be speaking another language.”
“Aw, pobrecito, ¿estás cansado?” She knew very minimal spanish, but had picked some up from time spent with his family, and used it pretty exclusively to tease him.
“You’re so not funny my brain hurts.” He is slouched over the table with his head resting on his arms.
She begins to unpack the food in front of him, “Alright, come on, time to wake up you’ve got a big day.”
The smell of eggs and bacon is what gets him to lift his head and start eating. He tries not to focus on the fact that she got him exactly what he eats every race day because that’s a can of worms he doesn’t want to touch. Regardless he eats the meal, and is sad when she pulls out her pancakes and begins to eat with him. She offers him a bite which he takes, but they both know he won’t eat any more than that because he doesn’t like big meals before a race.
After they finish, YN starts picking up their trash and Pato thanks her, “You take such good care of me, can’t believe you brought me breakfast I’m not worthy.” She’s glad for her back being turned to him because she can feel how much she’s blushing.
The rest of the day goes by in a blur, leave it to YN to be the eye in his hurricane, bringing calm before the storm. The race was close, a shitty pit stop meant Pato had to make some big passes to make up position, but Pato ended up pulling away with the final race win of the season and the championship.
YN and Elba leave the suite a few laps early so they can be on pit lane when he gets the win. After his victory lap and celebratory donuts he pulls into pit lane. Immediately his crew is flooding around him as he struggles to get out. Once he does there’s a giant group hug around Pato. Rossi and Fro also both make their way to his pits to congratulate him.
When Felix pulls Pato into a hug he whispers into his ear, “Why haven’t you gone to your girl yet, she’s waiting for you.”
Felix’s words had weight to them, all these people were surrounding him, but none of them had been on this journey with him as long as her. She waited for him for the last 15 years while he chased a career and different women, and now he’s at the peak of his career, having everything he ever wanted, and she’s not the one by his side. It hits him like a ton of bricks how bad he wants her to be the one celebrating this win with him, and every win for the rest of his life. Walking over to YN he pulls her into a hug, hoping that everything he’s feeling can be conveyed through the touch.
YN is in his ear, “I’m so proud of you, I always knew you could do it.”
He can’t find the right words, so all he says is, “I’m so glad you’re here.” he’ll explain later.
Holding her in front of thousands of people, Pato isn’t scared of losing their friendship anymore. He’s not sure of a lot, but he knows they’ll be ok, and that he’s loved her since before he knew what love was.
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lixzey · 1 year ago
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the name of the game
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Sirius Orion Black has, for the first time in history, lost.
Sirius was known to be a bit of a daredevil, always betting with his friends for things he knew he could do no matter what. However, he had just suffered his first ever loss in a bet. He agreed to a bet against James, that he could get five detentions within a week. He was sure it would be easy, and that he would win. But when the end of the week came, he had only gotten four detentions. James had won the bet, and Sirius couldn't believe it.
Now, because of the terms of the bet, he had to do whatever James wanted him to do.
One would think that since they were best friends, it would be easy and all that, but it wasn't.
Yes, Sirius Black and James Potter were the best of mates, but that doesn't mean they'd go easy on one another. Others would think it's pathetic, but Sirius and James enjoy making their lives a little bit harder. But above all, they have been through all the good and bad together—well, mostly the bad.
Sirius knew James like the back of his hand. It was James' first time winning a bet; naturally, he'd take his time picking a dare for Sirius. The possibilities were endless, and knowing his friend, it was bound to be either humiliating or disgusting—like how Sirius always dared James.
“I know what to do with you.” James smirked, his eyes gleaming with mischief.
Sirius rolled his eyes. “Let's get this done and over with.”
“For the love of Merlin, don't make Sirius show his arse in the Great Hall, James.” Peter groaned from beside Sirius, leaning over the wall behind him.
"Oh, I won't, Pete.” James grinned, turning to face Sirius. “I dare you to go on a date with someone.”
Sirius cocked an eyebrow at him, a smug smile gracing his lips. James wanted him to date someone. It was too easy! Here he was thinking that James would dare him to punch Snape or any other Slytherin, for that matter. Sirius has no problem getting a girl. It was too bloody easy. All he had to do was smile, and a girl would be on her knees, begging for him.
As if reading Sirius' mind, James smirked. “Oh, I'm not done yet, Pads.”
Sirius rolled his eyes. “Go on then, Prongsie.”
“I dare you to go on a date with someone,” James repeated. “And you have to ask her to be your girlfriend.”
Sirius nearly choked on his own saliva. James wanted him to go on a date with someone and ask her to be his girlfriend. What kind of sick joke was that? Sirius has never asked anyone to be his girlfriend in all of his eighteen years of existence. He'd hook up with girls and forget about it the next morning. Sirius Black never commits, even if it's only for a dare.
“I'm not doing that, James.” Sirius crossed his arms over his chest.
“You have to!” James said indignantly. “I did everything you wanted each time I lost a bet!”
Sirius thought back to the last thing he had James do when he lost against him. Sirius had told James to ask Lily Evans out in the most exaggerated way possible. He made James sing and dance in front of everyone in the Great Hall. It was hilarious seeing James proclaim his love for Lily Evans wearing dress robes only to get hit in the head by a dictionary-sized book.
Remus sighed and shook his head. “It's a terrible idea, James.”
“Oh, please, Moony. I deserve this! Padfoot always wins, and this may be the first and last time I get to win and dare him to do shit.”
Remus raised a brow at James. “You want to drag an innocent girl into this just because Sirius always wins?”
“Don't be such a buzzkill, Moony.” James rolled his eyes, playfully shoving Remus to the side. “So what do you say, Padfoot? You game?”
“I'm in,” Sirius said without thinking. “It's not that hard; I mean, how bad could it be?”
James' grin widened. “Glad to hear it, my good friend.” James then started to elaborate on his dare.
1. Sirius has to court a girl of James' choosing.
2. Date her for a year, and when she's completely head over heels for him,
3. He has to break her heart and tell her it was all an act, all part of a dare.
“I bet you can't do this, Pads,” James teased, wrapping his arm around Sirius.
Sirius scoffed. “I can and I will do this. You're on, Potter.”
James and Sirius shook hands, marking the start of the dare. Remus sighed in annoyance, while Peter had no choice but to support Sirius. Unlike the past bets the Marauders made, this was a secret; no one else could know about it.
“So, which girl is Sirius going to date?” Peter asked. James' eyes scanned around the courtyard, choosing between the girls scattered around.
“Her.” James declared after a while, pointing to a girl clad in gryffindor robes who sat alone by the large fountain. She had long (y/h/c) hair that fell over her shoulders in soft waves and bright (y/e/c) eyes that were glued to the book in her hands.
Sirius stared at the girl, confused. “Who is she? I don't know her.”
James snorted. “She's in our year, you dolt.”
“You were far too busy flirting with every other girl here at Hogwarts to even notice her.” Peter shrugged.
“Honestly, Sirius. You've spent nearly seven years at this bloody castle.” James tutted mockingly.
Sirius continued to stare at the girl. How come he has never seen her before? She was in the same house as him, and yet he never noticed her.
Of course you don't know her, a voice in the back of Sirius' head whispered. You hardly notice anyone who's not worthy of your attention.
“Who is she, then?”
“That's Y/N L/N.” Remus said matter-of-factly. “I've sat with her once in Arithmancy.”
“She's perfect!” James exclaimed. “You two can get to know each other.” he teased, wiggling his eyebrows.
Sirius rolled his eyes before breaking into a mischievous grin. “Game on.”
“You'll start tomorrow, Pads.” James said, patting him on the back. “You have until graduation.”
Sirius smirked confidently. “This is going to be fun.” This was going to be a piece of cake. He won't need a whole year to make Y/N L/N fall in love with him.
���Give me a week, and Y/N L/N will be mine. Mark my words.’’
Remus rolled his eyes, sighing in defeat. This was a bad idea, and he knew it would backfire in the worst way possible. But Sirius was too stubborn to listen. This was only the start of another one of Sirius' stupidity, and knowing Sirius, there would be more to follow.
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jaehaeryshater · 2 months ago
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Illustration from Septon Barth’s novel ‘Dragon, Wyrms, and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History.’ The image depicts Vhagar proudly presenting her hatchlings to her mate Balerion, circa 35 AC. The hatchlings are identified by Barth as Sheepstealer, Cannibal, Vermithor, and two she-dragons that remained nameless, as they died before bonding and being named by any Targaryen. ‘The Black Dread’, as he was called, invoked fear in the hearts of not only people, but other dragons as well, and his hatchlings are depicted cowering from him, though he meant them no harm. All except Vermithor, who easily became familiar with his father, which greatly pleased Vhagar. This depiction was later called into question for being propaganda for Jaehaerys’s rule and exceptionalism, but the truth remains unknown.
art by: @ra-horakhty-art
Recently, I promised a sweet Balerion, Vhagar, and family artwork and I (and the artist ofc) have delivered! You might have seen the artist post this already, but I wanted to post it on my blog as well because I’m so proud of the piece. My vision going in was for it not to be depicted just as an artwork for us in the real world, but also presented with a storybook feel, with the added lore that it’s supposed to be an illustration from one of the histories in A Song of Ice And Fire. I tried to take into account not just popular depictions of the dragons, nor House of the Dragon, but specifically from the text and from art that GRRM himself has commissioned. Because of this, Vhagar is bronze-greenish instead of her standard green. After hearing @francy-sketches theory that Vhagar, for lack of a better term, oxidized with age and became green as she got older, I decided I liked that interpretation and have depicted her as green in artwork of her once she gets older, and this color when she’s relatively young. I‘m a bit biased but I do think it looks beautiful and exactly how I wanted it, book accurate and something you could imagine actually seeing in a Westerosi history book.
My main motivator in these dragon arts, as I’ve stated before, is to explore the nature of dragons, not as weapons of war or in context of the Targaryens, but as mythical animals. They’re not quite like lizards, but also can’t be held to the same standards as people. In most dragon lore, they often act like mammals but are physically reptiles. Most stories involving dragons have the creatures caring for their young and maintaining a bond with their mate, so for lack of anything on the subject from GRRM, I take it upon myself to feed my headcanons. I find it sweet to depict times where Vhagar was not lonely, nor being used in war. It adds another element of tragedy, that these dragons did not have to fight each other but were made to anyway. On a happier note, is it not so so sweet how the hatchlings here are so comfortable with their mom to protect them, they’re cowering under her and climbing on her wings because they trust her. My favorite is Sheepstealer on her wing, that’s adorable to me. And Vermithor, I did mean for that to be true instead of just propaganda, but I couldn’t help adding a little Jaehaerys slander. But Vermithor is still a very brave boy and wants to be just like his father when he grows big and strong! Cannibal, on the other hand, is scared out of his mind, all these anxieties and being forced around other dragons caused him to fly away and isolate himself (in my mind).
It was such a pleasure to work with @ra-horakhty-art, they were super accommodating and worked easily with my ideas. The process was super fast and easy on my end, he works hard and quickly so I was absolutely impressed.
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