#Northern Ir

[itsjellyyy]

Drew @kingdom-of-ire’s Northern Ireland personification since they drew (I don’t know your pronouns, sorry) my Scotland, Ireland, and England personification from TikTok, here you go, you deserve it :D

And yes, father figure Scotland is so real…

[kingdom-of-ire]

catch up on my CH art lol. mind have to make my own tag for this cus I don't think usual tags fit

photo sucks cus I'm taking a picture of my tablet

[tiliman2]

Get yourself an infrared camera 👷🏽‍♂️

[jamesbrayden1]

Accounting can help you succeed in your small business by providing you with insights into your overall financial health, showing you opportunities for growth, and keeping you organized when you file your taxes. For more details log on http://www.ebservicesva.com/

[peachships]

Haha yeah I play for the plot

Definitely for the plot, nothing else

[kasarasun]

what if I made a thing or it already was that while Airplane wrote the world, Peerless Cucumber illustrated it (only the animals. And Binghe, fighting the animals.) And then then then

He'd totally do it on an alt account, right?? Peerless Cucumber can't be seen making fanart!! (And he's good at it. Like, wiki is using his art in the monsters and beasts pages (that Peerless Cucumber volleyed for. He also separated it from the plant section.) Because 1 its good 2 the artstyle is consistent 3 there isn't a lot of monster official art, other than that one with the black moon rhinoceros python and those other ones and 4 it's really that good)

Haha incomprehensible parenthesis nesting aside, Airplane is watching the forums, right? Not sure about other stuff in canon but he looks at the forums and the fanart and the fiction and most of it is probably corn and binghe and just a little bit of mobei-jun and also the wives tm but!! There's also that guy!!! The monsters guy!! (People would probably suspect 'Drawing the Beast's Ire'- or some other sex euphemism I'm not good at making those- of being Peerless Cucumber because 1 the writing style is the same 2 Peerless Cucumber is the number 1 contributor to the PIDW wiki and a lot of it is the monsters and beasts section and it makes sense, yes??) Anyway, Airplane shooting towards the sky suspects but not too seriously suspects Mr ire of being cucumber's fanart alt but uh uh that ends pre-transmigration section

So, Shen Yuan starts running about, right? Things seem really... familiar, maybe thats the word?- for some reason. This is because every animal and plant he's ever drawn, sketched- maybe even thought about but that's a stretch?- is his design. The firefly parallels hold their forelimbs like butterflies. That is how far down it goes. Maybe it doesn't come up until later, but beasts and monsters from fanfiction get involved, oc species, too... anyway,

Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky transmigrates 30 years (iirc) before Peerless Cucumber. He was an avid enough follower of Drawing the Beast's Ire to recognize that these are their designs! Here's where it gets really crazy. Xiao-Mobei comes along, and while he's still pretty young, Airplane can tell that this is Drawing Ire's design! Some aspect, maybe his ears or teeth, (this isn't a well built theoretical tangent) of Mobei isnt canon. Its Drawing Ire's. From that one Northern Kingdom collection. Whatever stretched his world building into coherence, completion, didn't just pull from fanwork, official art, whatever it could find, it went for Drawing the Beast's Ire's designs specifically. Damn that's crazy Airplane ahahaha moving on,

This is getting really long so I'll be a bit more concise, (want to know more? Talk to me. Please talk to me. I want to interact with the fandom. Ask me questions. Poke your fingers into my cage.) This all comes to head at the Immortal alliance conference. The monsters and beasts really start pouring in! And Shen Qingqiu/Yuan remembers his creations. However, he assumes that this is because like 1 other person maybe was Drawing ghost head spiders.

Hey, Peerless Cucumber really liked the monsters, right? The deadlier, crazier, more intricate, the design the better! So maybe, when he was drawing, he... added some things, really believable, logical additions, really just small creative decisions...

Anyway, the monsters that Drawing the Beast's Ire made were where it came to a head.

Lets have another Canon divergence. Maybe, during or after Binghe gets pushed in, out of the rifts comes a species that Drawing Ire created. It's beautiful, poisonous, beloved, and really quite deadly. Shen Yuan/Qingqiu, Peerless Cucumber, Drawing the Beast's Ire... realizes, quite like airplane before him, that he's illustrated, practically sculpted with his own hands, monsters from the Endless Abyss with claws and teeth and poisons as deadly as Peerless Cucumber thought that the really cool monsters could deserve. It feels like he's the one cutting, biting, poisoning his sweet little sheep. It feels like he's digging out the marrow from his little white lotus disciple's bones.

Ok it is shut up time 👍

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - September 11, 2023

Sorry for not sending last week's issue as I got covid again :/ I passed it, so here's the best things that happened last week :)

1. The IRS plans to crack down on 1,600 millionaires to collect millions of dollars in back taxes

The IRS announced on Friday it is launching an effort to aggressively pursue 1,600 millionaires and 75 large business partnerships that owe hundreds of millions of dollars in past due taxes. The newly announced tax collection effort will begin as soon as October. “We have more hiring to do,” Werfel said. “It’s going to be a very busy fall for us.”

2. The NGO African Parks announced it would purchase the world’s largest population of privately owned white rhinos

Africa’s beleaguered rhinos have been thrown a significant lifeline with the announcement that nearly 2,000 semi-wild rhinos owned by South African rhino breeder John Hume will be “rewilded” into reserves across South Africa and other parts of the continent over the next 10 years.

3. Mexico supreme court decriminalizes abortion across country

Mexico’s supreme court has unanimously ruled that state laws prohibiting abortion are unconstitutional and violate women’s rights, in the latest in a series of victories for reproductive rights activists across Latin America.

Wednesday’s ruling came two years after the court ordered the northern state of Coahuila to remove sanctions for abortion from its criminal code, a decision which prompted a tortuous state-by-state process of legal battles. So far 12 of Mexico’s 31 states have decriminalized the procedure.

4. The first human organ created inside an animal opens the door to manufacturing ‘spare parts’ for people

It is a historic image. A team of researchers in China has successfully generated a blueprint of a human organ in another animal for the first time. The experiment, conducted with humanized kidneys in pig embryos, represents a step toward the still-distant dream of using other mammals as source of organs for transplants.

5. Study Shows a Single Dose of Psilocybin's Astonishing Impact on Depression and Could Change Medical Treatments of Mental Health Forever

Psychedelics are making a comeback, and this time, they're dressed in the respectable garb of clinical research. Recent studies have reignited interest in these substances, particularly psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, as a potent treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD).

6. Missing cat reunited with owner after it disappeared during Alaska flooding

Twenty-six days after he went missing, an adorable black and white cat named Leo has been reunited with his family. Brave Leo went missing after historic glacial flooding swept away his home and all his owner's belongings.

7. Dogs perform Mozart with orchestra in Denmark

A classical music festival in Copenhagen, Denmark, has opened with some canine additions to the orchestra.

---

That's it for this week :)

This newsletter will always be free. If you liked this post you can support me with a small kofi donation here:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Also don’t forget to reblog this post with your friends.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

I don't have an online source yet other than a tweet in Hebrew, but I heard a report about at least two Hamas divers who tried to invade Israel through the sea. The threat has been neutralized, but this shows once again, that as long as Hamas exists, the civilians in southern Israel are NOT safe. That's along with Hamas still firing rockets at Israeli civilians whenever they can.

This morning also saw another independent Palestinian terrorist attack, this time on one of the major roads leading into Jerusalem. Two Israelis have been stabbed and injured, a 25 years old man, and a 19 or 20 years old woman (I heard contradicting reports, so I'm citing both options). The terrorist was 15 years old, and has been neutralized. He reached the scene of the attack riding on electric bicycles. Just a reminder, inciting and recruiting a teenager to carry out a terrorist attack is morally wrong, if not downright criminal, and it should be where everyone's ire is directed.

The IDF has confirmed that it has killed a Hamas leader in Lebanon, Mustafa Hadi. He was in charge, among other things, of promoting terrorist attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets outside of Israel.

I've heard a journalist saying that there are enough aid trucks entering Gaza, the issue is that Hamas is confiscating about 60% of the humanitarian aid brought in. The info is confirmed in this article, about a new pilot the IDF is trying, to try and bypass Hamas. If the last attempt (which backfired) was to bring aid in from the south, and the IDF would secure it as it's transferred to the north (instead of handing it to local elements for the transfer), now they're going to check the trucks in the south, but bring them into Gaza directly in its northern part.

I've already expressed my POV about what is probably the worst speech given at the Oscars this year, maybe ever. Now, the Holocaust Survivors' Foundation has denounced the Holocaust-hijacking, anti-Israel speech at the Oscars as "factually incorrect and morally indefensible." The ADL sent out the same message.

I've already pointed out that the absolute majority of survivors were and are Zionist (as were many of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust), but I think it really matters that the survivors who are still around are using their own voices to speak out against this distorted narrative. Will this director and others like him, who have hijacked the Holocaust for their political messages, actually listen and apologize? I kind of doubt it. Holocaust survivors are to be listened to! ...But only if they're one of the 5 or so who hate Israel.

And while we're at it, it should also be mentioned that the red hand pin that many stars wore at awards ceremonies this year stems from a symbol featured in many anti-Israel protests, leading back to the 2000 brutal lynching and murder of two Israelis who took a wrong turn into the Palestinian city of Ramallah. I think it says a lot in itself, that Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular SAFELY walk around Jewish majority Israeli cities every day, or live in them, but Jews have to fear for their lives when they enter, even accidentally, Arab areas that have been ethnically cleansed of Jews. Regarding the red hand symbol, I'm not saying that every person using it fully understands its origin, that it became a feature of anti-Israel demonstrations only after the lynching, it was never spotted at them before that, it became a prominent feature of the Second Intifada (2000-2005), I'm also not saying this is the only use of a red hand as a protest symbol ever, so people who saw the pin would have easily been unaware of its origin in this context. But it feels like another sign of the same problem: people are ignorant about this conflict, yet they allow themselves the freedom to talk about it, or use its symbols and terms, without truly understanding them, and without seeming to care about the consequences. It's a bit like someone who might have watched Dukes of Hazard, and started wearing a pin of the Confederate flag, initially not knowing (but later also not showing any care for) why this would hurt the feelings of many African Americans.

Here's another reminder from November 2023, that informed people knowing about the origin of this symbol pre-dates the Oscars:

BTW, I should probably mention that the Italian press crew, which documented the lynching and the proudly presented bloodied hands of one murderer, shared the footage despite threats to their lives from Palestinians (while another Italian film crew threw that one under the bus, promising that their TV station abides by the rules of the Palestinian Authority, implying they comply with the PA's censorship of Palestinian-committed violence). An American news team from ABC, was attacked and prevented from documenting the lynching. A British photojournalist, Mark Seager, who tried to document the lynching as well, was attacked by Palestinians, his equipment was destroyed, and he said he would have nightmares for the rest of his life. Back in 2009, Fatah (the ruling party of the PA) used the lynching to claim they were more deadly towards Israelis than Hamas. ANYONE who lived through this, as many Israelis and Jews did, or even just heard about it growing up, would not easily forget the symbolism of the red hand in this context.

This is 13 years old Mai Zuheir abu Subeich.

She was an Israeli Arab Muslim Bedouine. She excelled as a student, and dreamed of being an English teacher. Family members say she was even already teaching her siblings and cousins. On Oct 7, she was killed when a Palestinian rocket from Gaza hit her home, in the Negev desert. This Ramadan, as IDF soldiers continue to fight in Gaza, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Bedouins and Druze, please remember they're fighting to keep the Muslim citizens of Israel safe from Hamas, too.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 Scenes of widespread destruction following a series of firebelts launched by Israeli warplanes targeting the Abu Fovea family home in the Al-Shaboura neighborhood of Rafah city, in the south of the Gaza Strip.]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏠💥🚑 🚨

ISRAELI OCCUPATION FORCES COMMIT 9 NEW MASSACRES AGAINST PALESTINIAN FAMILIES ON 139TH DAY OF GENOCIDE

The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), on the 139th day of Israel's ongoing war of genocide in the Gaza Strip, committed a total of 9 new massacres of Palestinian families resulting in the deaths of more than 97 civilians and wounding another 132 over the previous 24-hours. The Israeli army continued to launch violent strikes against civilian homes and vehicles across the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air.

In northern Gaza, where a broken hellscape is nearly all that remains of great ancient towns and cities that were once densely populated by Palestinian families, IOF airstrikes targeted several civilian residences that were still standing, including the Odeh, Yassin, Al-Irqan and Nasser Family homes, killing at least 20 civilians and wounding dozens of others in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood southeast of Gaza City.

Civil Defense and ambulance personnel say they were unable to reach the sites of Israeli bombings, including that of the Arhaim and Naeem family homes in Al-Zaytoun as intense Israeli airstrikes and shelling continues in the area and invading Israeli soldiers occupy several positions nearby.

Also in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, the Israeli occupation murdered journalist Ihab Nasr and his wife, targeted in their home in an airstrike. Nasr's children were also wounded in the airstrike, leaving them with burn injuries.

The body of Ihab Nasr was transported to Al-Shifa Medical Complex, while his wife's body remained buried under the rubble of their family home.

Israeli aircraft also bombarded two civilian residences in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip.

Occupation warplanes also targeted the Qatifan family home in the Al-Sabra neighborhood in central Gaza City, resulting in the deaths of 7 Palestinians and wounding several others, mostly children.

IOF jets also launched a series of violent airstrikes on Palestinian homes in the Al-Rimal neighborhood, west of Gaza City, killing several civilians and wounding dozens of others.

In the Central Gaza Strip, intense firebelts launched by Israeli aircraft and artillery has killed upwards of 50 civilians across the area and wounded scores of others.

IOF warplanes bombed the Al-Daalis family home in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp, resulting in 17 deaths among Palestinian civilians.

Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes also targeted a tract of agricultural land near Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, causing casualties to four civilians, including three children, who were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where they were pronounced dead on arrival.

Occupation artillery shelling and bombing also targeted the Al-Daalis family home in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp, resulting in the deaths of at least 17 civilians.

Simultaneously, occupation aircraft also bombarded civilian residences in the Al-Maghazi, Nuseirat and Al-Bureij Refugee Camps, killing at least 10 civilians and wounding dozens of others.

At the same time, the Israeli occupation shifted most of the focus of their ire onto the southern Gaza Strip, where intense airstrikes and firebelts targeted civilian homes and vehicles cross the south, mostly in Rafah and Khan Yunis.

Israeli occupation forces launched dozens of strikes targeting the city of Rafah, which remains under the threat of an Israeli ground invasion. Occupation jets began the day by bombing agricultural lands located north of Rafah city, opposite of Dar al-Fadila in the Khirbet al-Adas region, where luckily, no casualties were reported, followed by the bombing of farm lands near the Salah al-Din Gate on the border with Egypt, where one civilian casualty was reported.

Following those strikes, the Israeli army bombed a civilian residence belonging to the Youssef Al-Hassi family in Rafah City, resulting in at least one death of a civilian.

At the same time, Israeli artillery and aircraft bombed a civilian home belonging to the Khaled Abu Azoum family in the Shaboura Camp in central Rafah, where at least one casualty was transported to a local hospital.

Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes bombarded the home of the Hajj Yousef family in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood west of the city of Rafah, while Israeli aircraft bombed a civilian vehicle in Rafah, killing at least one Palestinian.

At the same time, for the fifth consecutive day, the Israeli occupation army occupied the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza, while occupation artillery shelling continues to target in the vicinity of Al-Amal Hospital, also in Khan Yunis. Nasser Hospital has also been under siege by Israeli army vehicles and tanks for 32 consecutive days, with intense shelling of the surrounding neighborhood a daily occurrence.

Several violent firebelts were also dropped on the Qaizan, Al-Najjar, Al-Batn and Al-Samin neighborhoods of Khan Yunis, while airstrikes and artillery shelling in the area goes on with violent continuity.

In Rafah, Israeli occupation warplanes bombed several civilian homes and a mosque in the city, resulting in the deaths of seven Palestinian civilians and wounding several others.

Israeli fighter jets repeatedly bomb the border areas of the city of Rafah, while Israeli naval gunboats continue shelling the tents of displaced Palestinian families along the coast.

As a result of Israel's ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, the endlessly rising death toll has reached in excess of 29'410 civilians killed, mostly women and children, and another 69'465 wounded since the start of Israeli aggression on Gaza, beginning October 7th, 2023.

#source1

#source2

#source3

#source4

#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[ataleofcrowns]

Bonus Lore: Crowns of Old, Part I

Hey everyone!! I posted a lot of additional lore on the Patreon last year, and since the game itself will never dive this deep into it, I decided to release some of it and store it on the blog.

As the title says, this is regarding previous Crowns of Arsur - namely ones that won't have any relevance to the story. So, here is some lore about the reigns of the three Crowns after Crown Ashadūna.

The Second Crown: Cunning Arsāma

Crown Arsāma was originally a boy from one of the tribes of Sur who lived in what is now known as Zerat. His appointment as Ashadūna's successor was seen as rather fortuitous, if not convenient, for Ashadūna's newly-founded Empire: it strengthened the ties between the tribes of Sur and Arsur itself during a tumultuous time of transition. Not all tribes, after all, were like-minded or willing to submit.  

Even with Arsāma's appointment as Ashadūna's successor, however, there was still considerable anxiety among the other tribes. Some in the province of Hathura, as well, considered his appointment to be an act of revenge from the tribes that King Fravastis had previously waged war upon, which made them fear for what would become of Hathura under Arsāma's rule.

After Ashadūna's passing, however, Arsāma accomplished something remarkable: he prevented civil war, and solidified harmony within the empire. It may not seem a great achievement, and is often underestimated by those who look to Crowns with more distinguished achievements, such as Zana's brokering of trade routes or Keybanû's treaty with Ivia. However, Arsāma continued the unification process that Ashadūna had originally started. Not through force, but through diplomacy, as well as political cunning.

Threats from neighboring nations loomed large upon the horizon. Historians have recorded the ways in which Arsāma would deliberately provoke threats from the outside in order to give people within the Empire reason to remain united. One famous anecdote exemplifies this best: during a visit from a rather arrogant and temperamental Thalloi prince, Arsāma provoked his ire with subtle remarks that would seem innocent to most, but ones that targeted the prince's weaknesses expertly.

The Thalloi prince lost his temper in spectacular fashion, threatening to run Arsāma's Royal Protector--who was also Arsāma's promised one at the time--through with a spear. The prince was apprehended, jailed for three days and three nights, then finally banished from Arsur, leaving in disgrace. 

The storytellers that Arsāma had invited to the event recounted it throughout the Empire and beyond. Upon arrival home, the prince was stripped of his royal status by his mother, the queen, and disowned for his failure. Beyond humiliating the prince, however, it more importantly served as a cautionary tale to those who sought to sow discord from within: Arsur's enemies would destroy the Empire, if given the chance.

The Third Crown: Mighty Humati

Crown Humati's reign was not as peaceful as her predecessor's. While Arsāma built a unified foundation for Arsur, that same unification now meant that the Empire was a greater threat to its neighbors. Arsāma's methods had provoked many foreign relations, and once he passed and the young Humati took his place, several Thalloi city-states, as well as nomadic Sacati tribes from the northern steppes above Arsur, saw this as an opportunity.

Fortunately for Arsur, Humati was no stranger to war.

Her prowess in military tactics and battle strategy was second to none. She outmaneuvered the Sacati nomads as easily on land as she sunk Thalloi warships at sea. Humati oversaw key battles personally, as she not only understood military tactics but also the importance of logistics. She revolutionized the organization of the army, which now incorporated the combined soldiers of Hathura and Rojan, as well as the warriors of the tribes of Sur. 

Humati's armies were considered to be the most fearsome foe to have to battle at the time: Arsurian mounted warriors and battle magi still invoke fear to this day. Arsur came to breed horses with specific magical abilities to aid in battle, making them a nearly unstoppable force, and the specialized training of battle magi made them devastating on any battlefield.

There are famous ballads written about the Battle of Artioch's Pass, where Arsurian battle magi summoned enormous whirlpools in the Sea of Igris that pulled countless Thalloi warships under, wiping out the entire fleet.

During Humati's time as the Crown, Arsur did not lose a single war and did not have to make a single concession. For every battle she lost, she paid her enemy back tenfold. Despite her military might, however, Humati did not go on an expansionist campaign. Rather than conquer new land, her military principles were not guided by aggression, but self-defense: Arsur would not attack anyone, so long as they did not form a threat to the Empire. 

Humati realized the importance of building relationships, and moreover, she had personally experienced the horrors of battle as a young child and did not wish to inflict it upon her subjects unless it was absolutely necessary. While her tactics seemed ruthless to some, Humati always sought for ways to end a battle as quickly as possible, if it could not be avoided altogether.

This mindset has become a lasting guiding principle for how the High Generals of Arsur are also expected to act, taking Crown Humati as their example.

The Fourth Crown: Medya the Would-Be Priest

When Medya was chosen as the successor, he was recruited from a family of priests, as his epithet eventually came to reflect. He was a Crown that let religious principles guide him in all matters, often spending days at a time in seclusion for meditation and prayer.

His family was part of a sect of worshipers devoted to Apas, the Major Spirit of the Waters. Crown Medya, following its teachings, was a ruler known for long periods of reflection before making decisions. It made him prone to indecisiveness, and overly dependent on the advice of priests.

In fact, during his rule, he instated a special Office of Rituals and appointed a favored high priest, Lady Avjin, at its head. Usually spiritual advice is given by the Wisdom of the Crown who will deliberate with both spiritual and secular experts in order to give many possible perspectives on an issue, but Crown Medya changed this dynamic.

It was a controversial decision. Many praised him for prioritizing spiritual traditions, but just as many criticized him for elevating only certain traditions over others and forcing them upon the whole of the population. Some considered it to be in direct conflict with Ashadūna's aspirations to create a unified, but multicultural, empire.

Conflict continued to grow between various factions. Even the nobility, who first sought to take advantage of Medya's strict adherence to religious rituals, became aggravated at the Crown's insistence on involving his spiritual beliefs in every facet of his governance. Being chosen as the Crown likely had turned his previous, relatively normal devotion, into an almost feverish obsession for the spirits. This only became worse as time went on.

Soon, he named the high priest that he had previously appointed as Minister to the position of the Crown's Sorcerer. This was unprecedented. While a high priest could technically qualify, since priests are required to be trained as magi first, it was understood that the Sorcerer should prioritize magic, not spiritual guidance. Medya soon started to leave all matters of governance to his Sorcerer, preferring instead to pray and partake in religious ceremony.

Ironically, Lady Avjin was much more inclined towards governance than the Crown. While the public was still greatly dissatisfied with the situation, she managed to assuage the nobility merely by her willingness to bargain with them, whereas Medya had drawn a hard line in the sand before. While Lady Avjin essentially ruled, Crown Medya was rarely seen up until his death.

He became known as a mere figurehead, the only one in Arsur's history. Long after Medya's rule, Crown Keybanû would abolish the Office of Rituals.

[ Part II ]

[esther-dot]

A Besotted Fool 1k by @sibyldisobedience

He scrubbed his hand down his face and found his attention drawn to the fluttering lace in one of the upper windows of the house. Suddenly there she was, his radiant girl; a soft, inscrutable expression gracing her lovely features. She nodded to him with a stately little dip of her chin, and he waved back at her, like some kind of overly eager green boy. He cringed inwardly and cursed himself for a fool. A pathetic, besotted fool.

Aunt Lysa Settles the Question 5k by @sibyldisobedience

"But tell me now child, and be quick about it, who is this young man and what reason does he have to be alone with you in the parlour?” Sansa bristled at being called ‘child’, she was seventeen and had just received her first proposal of marriage for goodness sake! She turned to Mr. Snow, the poor man looked as though he wished the floor might open up and swallow him whole. “This is Father’s friend, Mr. Jon Snow.” “Snow? What Snow? Do you mean that boy’s tutor?” Lysa looked Jon up and down, and grimaced. She then turned the full force of her ire on Sansa, who could only wring her hands. “And what pray tell has Father’s friend been saying to make you look like a peony?” Before Sansa could begin to think of what to say in reply, for it really wasn’t any of the old fussbudget’s business, Jon cleared his throat.

Married Life 10k by @sibyldisobedience

Sansa and Jon settled into married life very easily. The Dovecote was small, to be sure, less than a third of the size of Winterfell, but the lovers relished their proximity to one another. How wonderful it was to be so close — in constant contact — when during their three year engagement, they had been apart longer than they had been together. After one entire week of blissful seclusion, the couple had to concede that they could not live on love alone. So Jon returned to work, and some gentle ribbing from his co-workers, and Sansa took up her housewifely duties.  As the young couple established a routine, they found that even after a few months, once the initial novelty of “playing house” had worn off, they were just as blissfully happy as they had been that first week. Sansa was as breathtakingly lovely as ever in her faded wrapper, beaming at him from behind the familiar coffee pot. And Jon’s deep Northern brogue never failed to send shivers down her spine, even when he was simply following up his parting kiss with the tender inquiry, "Shall I send home mutton or beef for dinner tonight?" 

(the above are all in the 14 part series Little Women of Winterfell)

marriage is an economic proposition 3k

Sansa meets her childhood friend Jon Targaryen while traveling with Aunt Lysa in the capital.

PRE CANON - WESTERN - FAIRYTALE - REGENCY - HOLIDAY - SEASON 6 - ANNE OF GREEN GABLES - THE GIRL IN GREY - FREE CITIES - FAIRYTALE PART II - POLITICAL MARRIAGE - SALTY TEENS - POST CANON

[greeksorceress]

cregan stark actually manages to make a good first impression in aemond’s demanding eyes.

the northern youth is as tall and as broad as his father and the rest of their kin, not older than aemond for more than a couple of years but already a man in the court’s account. the stark heir is also polite and honourable, just as they had expected, and he treats royalty and service with humility and grace. 

on top of all of that, cregan is a prodigy when it comes to swordsmanship, knocking on their backs three knights in a row the first time he’s invited to the training yard. 

so, it’s safe to assume that aemond would take a liking to him, finally meeting someone who he can consider an almost equal in skills and hard-work. 

it doesn’t take long for aemond to notice that he’s not the only one impressed by the stark. 

lucerys, who used to pester aemond for his attention and time, now spends his mornings and afternoons trailing after the older male like a little duck, utterly and childishly enamoured with the stark’s abilities and stories. 

aemond’s liking towards cregan considerably dampens after this realisation. he makes himself busy by his own and counts down the days for the northmen’s departure.

he doesn’t understand lucerys’ eagerness, to be honest. yes, cregan might be worth of being called a decent man, good-natured and skilled, but he wasn’t that impressive. after all, he was just a common man from the north, he didn’t have the old valyria blood of the targaryens, nor had the dragons or the power. 

what was a wolf to a dragon, anyways? aemond bitterly questions lucerys’ poor choices, purposely ignoring the voice that tells hims that he doesn’t have a dragon either.

much to aemond’s dismay, lucerys does seem very interested in the wolves. he asks about the lands and about the ice, about the castle and about the wall, but his questions always circle back to the damned animals.

is it true your woods are ten thousand years old? are wolves as loyal as dogs? can you trust them just as much? has it ever been so cold in winterfell that even you couldn’t stand it? what do wolves usually eat? do you feed them yourself? have you ever mounted one? do you rely on them when you go hunting or fighting? 

it’s disgusting how lucerys wastes his time in such insignificant matters. 

and then, on the third day of the northmen’s visit, aemond finds himself reading by the window in the third floor of maegor’s holdfast, hidden behind rows and shelves full of books in the most secluded part of the library. he likes coming here, because nobody seems to recall this little spot exists, a nd he likes to be left alone.

happy screech coming from the training yard makes him look away from the lines he was trying to memorise and he peers over the window.

there, lucerys and cregan stark seem to be sparring, but they’re not. they’re circling each other, using the wooden swords to jokingly poke more than to hit, and lucerys is laughing his little heart out as cregan lightly smacks his thigh with a smile. 

aemond closes his book with a loud smack and runs down to the yard, nor bothering to contain his fuming. 

as soon as he’s in the same space as them, he marches towards lucerys and grunts at him “weren’t you sick?”

it’s what he has said when aemond asked him to come to te library. that his tummy hurt and that he wanted to take a nap. 

lucerys has the decency to look ashamed. it does nothing to quell the unexplainable ire bubbling in his blood. “i felt better after my sleep! i was looking for you, but i couldn’t find you!” 

aemond looks at lucerys’ flushed cheeks, unrelenting, “hm.”

of course, cregan stark, the noble northern that seems to have taken with grace and mirth the position of lucerys’ guardian and protector, steps in.

“it’s true, my prince. he was looking for you in the training yard and i happened to come across him, so i invited him to a friendly spar. prince lucerys is nothing short of talented, so we got a bit caught”

lucerys looks up at the northern heir, doe eyes glassy and wide as if he was contemplating salvation itself, and it makes aemond’s lips curl in a snarl. 

“lucerys doesn’t like training, he always throws a fit when he’s asked to”

lucerys glares at him and aemond glares right back, daring the youngest boy to refute his words. 

cregan beats him to it.

“well, why don’t we train together then, my prince? let’s work hard so we can make prince lucerys feel fonder towards sparring after seeing us!”

everything seems to get back to normal after that. cregan and him spare together and lucerys cheers for him more than he does for cregan. the resentment slowly dissipates as cregan and him clash their wooden swords against each other’s, and aemond decides he had just been in a weird mood before.

jacaerys and aegon join them at some point, and cregan and aegon team against him and jacaerys. it’s fun, much more fun than their regular training.

lucerys claps loudly for him when aemond and jacaerys win over the older boys —their loss was completely on aegon, but it matters little to aemond if he won because of his own abilities or the lack of such from his opponent when lucerys looks at him with the stars in his eyes that the northern lord was taking for himself a while ago. 

they return back to the castle, their walk animated by the nonsensical talk of aegon and ajacerys over the stories of the tapestries hanging by the walls of the corridors.

“this one is about maelor I, when he lost his right shoe and sent a party to look for it to the forest!”

“and this one if about visenya, she’s about to dress her dragon in a gown and take it to a ball!”

cregan merely snorts, amused at their antics. lucerys, however, the innocent fool he is, looks at aegon and jacaerys in awe, nodding along their ‘lessons’. aemond chuckles at this, for he knows the maesters are going to have a rough time taking these thoughts out of lucerys’ head. 

then, lucerys turns to look at him, as if to corroborate their words, and aemond’s chest tightens with pride. he relishes in the trust, and drinks from that unsullied admiration whenever lucerys checks on him after aegon and jacaerys spit yet another insane conjeture. 

when they reach a tapestry that represents the crypt that was built three hundreds of years ago in hopes of imitating the one in winterfell, aegon grins like a madman. 

“and this is the best one yet to come! behold their sex fest in the dungeons!”

aemond grimaces. no matter what it is, aegon must always ruin it with his disrespect and blatant lack of manners. 

“It’s a crypt,” aemond corrects, “they wanted to built one as the one in winterfell, but decided against it in the last moment”

“really?” lucerys asks, awed at the explanation.

“yes,” confirms the stark, “we’re very proud of it. i like to think of it as the heart of our home”

“i guess it’s similar to the dragon pit for the targaryens,” offers aemond, “it’s the heart of our own home.” then, he turns to look at lucerys. “their crypt was built little after the castle of winterfell. all the starks who have perished rest within its tunnels”

cregan intervenes at this with a smile, trying to soften the commentary. “actually, my prince, the crypt was built much before the castle, after the long night, which is accounted to have happened around eight thousands of years ago. and technically, it’s not the burial place of all starks. burial sites extend beyond the walls into unprotected land, where many of my ancestors perished while fighting against the white walkers. their tombs do not hold names, but we know they’re in there” 

aemond tries no to make much of it. he bites his tongue and waits for the vitriol to slow down his throat before humming. his annoyance flares higher when lucerys mouth turns into a perfect O, wonderment and affection evident in his demeanour. 

aemond hated it. he hated hated hated hated it.

later, when dinner time comes, lucerys begs cregan to sit by his left side, jutting his lips out and everything. aemond looks at lucerys’ pout from the other side of the table and feels his teeth clank in irritation. 

he forces himself to eat, trying to diminish his discomfort and willing himself to stay put with the promise of flying to his rooms as soon as dinner is over. 

he’s doing a pretty decent job at it when lucerys’ excited voice resonates over the clinking of the glasses and cutlery and the uninteresting conversation of adults.

“cregan explained a lot of things about the north today!” lucerys chirps animatedly at Rhaneyra, who sits by the boy’s other side cooing at him. “he is so smart, mother! he’s even smarter than aemond!”

aemond cannot stomach any more bite, nor he can stomach the words. 

cregan grins at lucerys and ruffles his curls with affection, and that’s all he needed.

he excuses himself under the pretence of being sick and slams the doors to his chambers after him. 

[kuniswifey]

Genshin Reincarnation Au

An AU where you get reincarnated in genshin but it's different... Like you guys know those manwhas/novels/mangas where you get reincarnated as some character in their favourite novel? The romance, otome isekai ones? Yea that but genhsin impact in a setting where wrio is the "Northern Duke"

WARNING

Mention of abuse

Implications of death

Implications of killing

OKAY SO Imagine like getting reincarnated in genshin but like in a well off highly status family in Fontaine...and you get into a political marriage with the duke aka wriothesley.... LIKE ONG THE REINCARNATION TROUPE MANWHAS WITH WRIO AS THE "Northern Duke" HE GIVES OFF NORTHERN DUKE VIBES ASF. And your family got you too on a political marriage for whatever reason and make peace with the duke....like damn...

It's like the cliche with the abusive guardians.. like your parents dead for some reason and your taken in by your uncle but he and his family dgaf abt you so your treated like shit...then let's say they have to get Thier own daughter to the "ruthless monster of the north" (wrio) but they would never give Thier own daughter so such A man eith poor reputation....so they send you instead cus Ur still part f the family....

LIKE YOU WENT COMPLETELY UNFAMILIAR WITH YJIS WORLD LIKE YOUR THINKING 'Is this one if the manwhas/novels I read?" door opens....and who do you you se!?! WRIOTHESLEY from GENHSIN FUCKING IMPACT......

And obviously it turns out he's not some mean ferocious monster who will cook you and eat you up and he's just a shy puppy Infront of you who WILL STAY AWAY CUS HE THINKS YOU HATE HIM OR HES UNWORTHY IR HES GOO MUCH OF A MONSTER AND SILL RHIN YOUR REPUTATION...LIKE WRIO WAS FUKLY PLANNING TO SEND YOU BACK SOON BUT LIKE he finds out you are abused and stuff and like got so fucking pissed he would never send you back instead will indulge in making your family's life a living hell and 'take care' of them...

he's like the meme "looks like he can kill you but is a cinnamon roll" to you obv noone else...

IDK JUST SOME THOUGHTS

[jamesbrayden1]

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[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Uranus aurora discovery offers clues to habitable icy worlds

The presence of an infrared aurora on the cold, outer planet of Uranus has been confirmed for the first time by University of Leicester astronomers.

The discovery could shed light on the mysteries behind the magnetic fields of the planets of our solar system, and even on whether distant worlds might support life.

The team of scientists, supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), have obtained the first measurements of the infrared (IR) aurora at Uranus since investigations began in 1992. While the ultraviolet (UV) aurorae of Uranus has been observed since 1986, no confirmation of the IR aurora had been observed until now. The scientists’ conclusions have been published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The ice giants Uranus and Neptune are unusual planets in our solar system as their magnetic fields are misaligned with the axes in which they spin. While scientists have yet to find an explanation for this, clues may lie in Uranus’s aurora.

Aurorae are caused by highly energetic charged particles, which are funnelled down and collide with a planet's atmosphere via the planet's magnetic field lines. On Earth, the most famous result of this process are the spectacles of the Northern and Southern Lights. At planets such as Uranus, where the atmosphere is predominately a mix of hydrogen and helium, this aurora will emit light outside of the visible spectrum and in wavelengths such as the infrared (IR).  

The team used infrared auroral measurements taken by analysing specific wavelengths of light emitted from the planet, using the Keck II telescope. From this, they can analyse the light (known as emission lines) from these planets, similar to a barcode. In the infrared spectrum, the lines emitted by a charged particle known as H3+ will vary in brightness depending on how hot or cold the particle is and how dense this layer of the atmosphere is. Hence, the lines act like a thermometer into the planet.

Their observations revealed distinct increases in H3+ density in Uranus’s atmosphere with little change in temperature, consistent with ionisation caused by the presence of an infrared aurora. Not only does this help us better understand the magnetic fields of the outer planets of our own solar system, but it may also help in identifying other planets that are suitable of supporting life.

Lead author Emma Thomas, a PhD student in the University of Leicester School of Physics and Astronomy, said: “The temperature of all the gas giant planets, including Uranus, are hundreds of degrees Kelvin/Celsius above what models predict if only warmed by the sun, leaving us with the big question of how these planets are so much hotter than expected? One theory suggests the energetic aurora is the cause of this, which generates and pushes heat from the aurora down towards the magnetic equator.

“A majority of exoplanets discovered so far fall in the sub-Neptune category, and hence are physically similar to Neptune and Uranus in size. This may also mean similar magnetic and atmospheric characteristics too. By analysing Uranus's aurora which directly connects to both the planet's magnetic field and atmosphere, we can make predictions about the atmospheres and magnetic fields of these worlds and hence their suitability for life.

"This paper is the culmination of 30 years of auroral study at Uranus, which has finally revealed the infrared aurora and begun a new age of aurora investigations at the planet. Our results will go on to broaden our knowledge of ice giant auroras and strengthen our understanding of planetary magnetic fields in our solar system, at exoplanets and even our own planet."

The results may also give scientists an insight into a rare phenomenon on Earth, in which the north and south pole switch hemisphere locations known as geomagnetic reversal.

Emma adds: “We don't have many studies on this phenomena and hence do not know what effects this will have on systems that rely on Earth's magnetic field such as satellites, communications and navigation. However, this process occurs every day at Uranus due to the unique misalignment of the rotational and magnetic axes. Continued study of Uranus's aurora will provide data on what we can expect when Earth exhibits a future pole reversal and what that will mean for its magnetic field.”

TOP IMAGE....An artistic representation of how the northern infrared aurora would have looked like in 2006 (marked in red). The darker red locations indicate confirmed aurora locations, with fainter red used to mark possible aurora locations. Credit to NASA, ESA and M. Showalter (SETI Institute) for the background image of Uranus, as was observed by the Hubble Space Telescope (in the visible spectrum) in August 2005. CREDIT Credit to NASA, ESA and M. Showalter (SETI Institute) for the background image of Uranus, as was observed by the Hubble Space Telescope (in the visible spectrum) in August 2005.

CENTRE IMAGE....Averaged emission spectrum between 3.4 and 4.0μm, with annotated positions of valuable H3+ emission lines (known as Q lines) found at specific wavelength locations, the brightness of each line is determined by both temperature and density of the H3+ particles in a planet's atmosphere CREDIT Source: University of Leicester

LOWER IMAGE....Measured infrared brightness from the upper atmosphere of Uranus combined with rings of magnetic field lines which occur as the planet rotations (which produces the oval shape we see in most aurora). These rings are called shells and we expect the majority of auroral signal to occur between the dashed and dotted lines (as seen in 1986), which a portion of our results do. CREDIT Source: University of Leicester

BOTTOM IMAGE....Measured infrared brightness from the upper atmosphere of Uranus over a 6-hour period, areas highlighted with a black border and no hash or dots are locations of enhanced emission (aurora). Hashed areas means possible aurora though the signal is too weak to confirm and dotted areas means no aurora in these points.  CREDIT  Source: University of Leicester

[gatheredfates]

Tonberry - Tell a story of a time you were blinded by rancor! Is it still ongoing, did you act upon it, does it compel your actions?

Hi, my name is Sea, and I have a lot of thoughts about how utterly fucked up Ishgard is as a nation. I'm putting it under a readmore because there's a lot of dark topics involved (and I ranted a bit).

I've explored bits of it here, here and here, mostly through Elandervier's perspective, but when you actually look at the control enacted by the Holy See, perpetrated by members of the High Houses, it's honestly horrific. Here is a nation overseen by powerful factions ruled by men, in which those beneath them are granted power and prestige based on their politics, money and gender. If you are not rich, cunning or cruel, you will be fed straight into that war machine. Before the Warrior of Light, it didn't matter how 'good' you were or how hard you tried. Aymeric was a good man and still got a knife in his belly because there were people in Ishgard desperate to hang onto a world where a few powerful men held complete control. They wanted to keep doing whatever they wanted to populace so brainwashed by propaganda they didn't have time to see that the call coming from inside the house.

People see Garlemald as being the 'evil' militant faction and, while that is true, I think it comes at the cost of overlooking just how similar Ishgard was towards the dragons. In my opinion, there is so much environmental storytelling indicating young peasants were militarised and drafted into war whether they liked it or not — especially if they were hyur — and high society was strictly regulated to keep the status quo. Garlemald may have been upfront about its fascism but Ishgard has a lot of demons they still need to exorcise.

Both Elandervier and Alaice are products of that machine, and both deal with that in different ways. El is nothing if not rancor. She is the daughter of a middle-class house desperately trying to rid themselves of their Gelmorran roots, and her entire childhood was a lesson in abuse from a mother too frightened to break the machine if feeding her daughter to it make her more comfortable. She had to smile to lordling boys cruel to her because they were lordlings — because going against them was to be branded a heretic at best and a trip to the Brume at worst. At least those outside of Ishgard did not risk the Temple Knights enacting their 'justice' late at night because they were bored or looking for a bit of sport.

Her entire early life was a palatable pantomime. Smile like this, walk like that; why are you inspiring their ire, why are you cracking the porcelain? The well isn't fetid. The tart is sweet because there is sugar, just ignore the poison.

Because El wasn't originally from Ishgard she knew she'd never fit in, and the powers that be were happy to remind her if she thought to put a toe out of line. They called her strange and heckled her; they made fun of her and went out of her way to give her attention because they knew the result would be negative, even if their initial attentiveness was 'kind'. They knew they held all the power to rip what little comforts she had because they had the prestige and she had none, and they spared no effort to put her in place.

The difference is, El didn't want the prestige. She wanted to break the wheel. When they tried to take everything from her, she turned it on them and fled. Highborn fathers lost their pedigree sons born from pretty women offered to the machine and, though she knew others would take their place, she at least got hers.

The worst part was, even when she had established herself in Dravania, she still had people come after her. Sometimes they were mercenaries paid for by the high houses, sometimes they were the lords themselves... and sometimes they were women, children and peasants who equally left the city but had nowhere else to go. They learned of a witch in the northern bogs who practiced dark magic and figured their odds were better than the city that claimed to care and protect them. She'd have young girls fall at her door with wild eyes and swollen bellies because going back would be to face objectification and heresy for crimes committed onto them — not by them. The outrage was palatable, she wanted nothing than to rend them from the inside out, but she was one woman against an oligarchy.

It's an anger that is difficult for to put into words and cannot be levelled against a single person, even if she detests most highborn. El has the recognition that even those higher than her were at the mercy of those higher still, and she did not gain any luxuries by defecting. Yet it still influences her every action. She's compelled to violence and manipulation because they conditioned her to savour it. She makes herself malignant and unknowable because she's too traumatised to know who she really is. She might have escaped the machine but its teeth still mangled her limbs. It's hard to live with.