#it's way more central and north than that

[demaparbat-hp]

I didn't know Katara also had silver marks on the Kintsugi AU. How did you come up with that idea? Is it an in-universe cultural thing? If it is, is it exactly the same as Zuko's or does the Water Tribe have their own beliefs around it?

Sorry if I'm asking too many questions, I just really love how your mind works when it comes to these AUs 💖

Hello, and thanks for asking!

Initially, Kintsugi was a strictly Fire Nation tradition. Something to hold over the rest of the nations, and deepen their own belief of cultural superiority. Zuko hiding his scars played into that idea, since having gold inlaid in your body is a clear sign of Fire Nation blood—furthermore, High Fire Nation blood.

That being said, one lovely anon gave the suggestion that perhaps the other nations also have their own kinds of Kintsugi, and I fell in love with the idea. @ican-fixitbooks went even deeper into the particular philosophies of each nation regarding Kintsugi. I'll be using some quotes from them—watch for the italics.

It was during said brainstorming session that I thought of Katara having a silver Kintsugi scar, and how could it be used to enhance the themes of ATLA, Katara's arc, and this AU as a whole.

But a little background is necessary, I believe.

Kintsugi is a tradition practiced worldwide, with minor differences in philosophy/technique according to each nation.

The Earth Kingdom seal their scars with a substance that resembles bronze, as the mentality of breaking yourself down to build yourself back up better than you were is very central to their culture. It is used as a way to celebrate one's victories, made all the better if damage was taken to achieve it.

The elite have rather different views on this practice. They believe themselves to be above such things. That which is broken must be hidden away, which has interesting connotations when thinking about a certain blind earthbender.

The Air Nomad philosophy leans towards a naturalist approach. Anything natural doesn't need to be "improved" in their eyes. If a scar is there, it is there. Let it be there as a part of you, no different than any other, no need to be "made better", but in fact better to just "be".

Kintsugi is a cultural practice meant to celebrate making something beautiful out of something broken, arguably even making it better than it was. During Sozin's reign and forward, Kintsugi became a way to show the Fire Nation's superiority. Especially as that is essentially their philosophy for war: "Breaking the rest of the world so it can be reforged in fire, made a better, more perfect place."

As for the Water Tribes, there's the healing factor to take into account. The Northern Water Tribe isolated itself from the rest of the world once the war began, so they hold tight to their traditions and beliefs. If something is not broken, then why attempt to fix it? Kintsugi is scoffed at in the North—it is a foreign practice, one that is not necessary when all your wounds can be healed with bending.

However, the Southern Water Tribe has been exposed to the world. They have seen war. They have lived through it. They have suffered, but they are also free because of it, if only in spirit. The South is strong and proud and bold, so it comes as no surprise that silver Kintsugi becomes the mark of their warriors, their hunters, their people.

Katara was wounded during the last Southern Raid. After losing Kya in such a terrible way, Hakoda made sure to seal Katara's wound with the silver of their warriors, so that she would always remember that despite having been broken, she is still strong, beautiful, and proud.

The scar itself is long and thin, going from her right shoulder up to her jaw. It loosely resembles lightning.

And despite how she got it, despite all the things she lost on that day, despite it being a constant reminder of her mother's death—Katara loves her scar.

It grounds her. It pushes her forward. You are a warrior, it tells her. You are a survivor.

When Katara arrives at the North, her scar becomes yet another thing the Northerners hold against her. They use it to demean her, just as they do her gender and out-spoken personality.

The North believes a lot of things that Katara always considered natural to be a problem. What does it matter that she is a woman? What is wrong about being passionate? Why should having a scar mean she's broken?

This scar is something they cannot touch. The Northerners try to use it to demean her. To make her small. Self-conscious. Worthless.

They're scoffing at her mother's death.

Her strength.

Her beauty.

Her pride.

Her story.

And she will not allow it.

[elytrafemme]

bad spiraling activities: trauma-dumping onto a friend, punching a wall, texting all your friends about your not actually failing relationship, screaming at random people on tumblr 

GOOD spiraling activities: impulse post a bunch of instagram stories ripping into the Bad Wizarding Books school map despite probably having Bad Wizarding Book fans following you and then go to sleep [do not rb or tag or anything]

[silverwolf1249]

So I recently saw a couple posts that say that Bruce would have a heavy Jersey accent. I'm not saying I disagree with them, but also I'm disagreeing with them. Bruce not only grew up with a British butler and in high society, this man also travelled for several years around the world and learned multiple languages and accents. He also works plenty of other people around the country and the world who all have their own accents.

There's not a single chance that this man has a Jersey accent(of which there is more than one kind) unless he is actively trying to use one. Oh he sure still has an accent he uses as Batman(for Brucie I'd imagine he'd mostly use some kind of posh north east upper class accent with maybe a hint of Philly or NYC), but not one that anyone could pinpoint to any specific location or dialect because it's just kind of a mix between all of the accents he knows. Hell, he might even just switch through accents depending on what accent(s) the people around him are using, like through code switching/mirroring.

He does however, get extremely annoyed whenever he meets someone as Batman and they ask him why he doesn't have a Jersey accent, usually followed by someone saying "Joisey" or "I'm walkin' here!". He probably just glares at them until they back off, idk.

[kyistell]

This was just a random idea I had. In my brain Central Jersey is the Jersey that shows the most, problem is is since CJ is so...let's go with disconnected, with the rest of the country he gets overwhelmed, and sure North could just switch in and South could do the same if they all wanted to scare the others with a southern accent that has the slang of the California coast, but watching a place that doesn't exist (it totally does btw) is way funnier.

Besides, by now all the other states that aren't the OG13 think that New Jersey has brown-looks red in certain light-eyes and it would scare the devil out of 'em if they see the red eyes that North actually has (and considering it's HIS body, it is far to tempting).

Also is it obvious that I love the idea that it's the Jersey's and not just Jersey, like I live here, if it's one singular state then I'm from Pennsylvania (I may have been born there but I sure as heaven ain't from there). Jersey would be three different states if we wanted to be associated with the rest of the country more than we already are, that and we may not agree on things but we don't HATE each other, we leave that for the rest of the country (plus let's be real, central wouldn't exist and then what would north and south argue about?)

Anyway as a proud Centralian looking at the news of the rest of the country is overwhelming, I just want to go skating, to the arcade, and continue lovin our favorite Devil, and down the shore when it's nice (and no, down don't mean literally down, though normally we are going down).

[reasonsforhope]

The World's Forests Are Doing Much Better Than We Think

You might be surprised to discover... that many of the world’s woodlands are in a surprisingly good condition. The destruction of tropical forests gets so much (justified) attention that we’re at risk of missing how much progress we’re making in cooler climates.

That’s a mistake. The slow recovery of temperate and polar forests won’t be enough to offset global warming, without radical reductions in carbon emissions. Even so, it’s evidence that we’re capable of reversing the damage from the oldest form of human-induced climate change — and can do the same again.

Take England. Forest coverage now is greater than at any time since the Black Death nearly 700 years ago, with some 1.33 million hectares of the country covered in woodlands. The UK as a whole has nearly three times as much forest as it did at the start of the 20th century.

That’s not by a long way the most impressive performance. China’s forests have increased by about 607,000 square kilometers since 1992, a region the size of Ukraine. The European Union has added an area equivalent to Cambodia to its woodlands, while the US and India have together planted forests that would cover Bangladesh in an unbroken canopy of leaves.

Logging in the tropics means that the world as a whole is still losing trees. Brazil alone removed enough woodland since 1992 to counteract all the growth in China, the EU and US put together. Even so, the planet’s forests as a whole may no longer be contributing to the warming of the planet. On net, they probably sucked about 200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year between 2011 and 2020, according to a 2021 study. The CO2 taken up by trees narrowly exceeded the amount released by deforestation. That’s a drop in the ocean next to the 53.8 billion tons of greenhouse gases emitted in 2022 — but it’s a sign that not every climate indicator is pointing toward doom...

More than a quarter of Japan is covered with planted forests that in many cases are so old they’re barely recognized as such. Forest cover reached its lowest extent during World War II, when trees were felled by the million to provide fuel for a resource-poor nation’s war machine. Akita prefecture in the north of Honshu island was so denuded in the early 19th century that it needed to import firewood. These days, its lush woodlands are a major draw for tourists.

It’s a similar picture in Scandinavia and Central Europe, where the spread of forests onto unproductive agricultural land, combined with the decline of wood-based industries and better management of remaining stands, has resulted in extensive regrowth since the mid-20th century. Forests cover about 15% of Denmark, compared to 2% to 3% at the start of the 19th century.

Even tropical deforestation has slowed drastically since the 1990s, possibly because the rise of plantation timber is cutting the need to clear primary forests. Still, political incentives to turn a blind eye to logging, combined with historically high prices for products grown and mined on cleared tropical woodlands such as soybeans, palm oil and nickel, mean that recent gains are fragile.

There’s no cause for complacency in any of this. The carbon benefits from forests aren’t sufficient to offset more than a sliver of our greenhouse pollution. The idea that they’ll be sufficient to cancel out gross emissions and get the world to net zero by the middle of this century depends on extraordinarily optimistic assumptions on both sides of the equation.

Still, we should celebrate our success in slowing a pattern of human deforestation that’s been going on for nearly 100,000 years. Nothing about the damage we do to our planet is inevitable. With effort, it may even be reversible.

-via Bloomburg, January 28, 2024

[sayruq]

The skies of Gaza fill with shifting shapes on an early spring morning. At first they are barely visible, only specks soaring above central Gaza’s wetlands. Mandy Sirdah quickly raises her binoculars. “Storks!” she shouts excitedly. Close by, Lara Sirdah, her identical twin sister wearing matching clothes, grabs her long-focus camera and points it to the sky. “So many! So beautiful!” she cries out with joy as she snaps photos of hundreds of white storks flying in circles above her. Every spring, millions of birds set out from their wintering grounds in Africa and make their way north to Europe and Asia. At the intersection of three continents, the Middle East is an important stopover and one of the world’s busiest corridors for bird migration. Many of these birds fly over Gaza, an overcrowded coastal enclave often described as an “open-air prison.” The birds soar above more than two million people, most of them refugees whose families were forced to leave their villages in 1948 with the establishment of the State of Israel and have been unable to return. Concentrated in refugee camps, Palestinians in Gazahave also been confined by Israeli policies of military closure over many decades and a brutal air, sea and land blockade imposed since 2007. “Our movement is very restricted,” says Lara, who feels cut off from the rest of the world. “We wish we were birds so we could move freely.” Over the past years, birdwatching trips to the Strip’s wetlands, groves and fields have offered the twins a rare opportunity to escape the feeling of confinement. With their heads raised to the sky, they search for birds and dream of flight

[mcmansionhell]

this house may or may not be real

on grayness in real estate

Allegedly, somewhere in Wake Forest, North Carolina, a 4 bed, 5.5 bathroom house totaling more than 6,600 square feet is for sale at a price of 2.37 million dollars. The house, allegedly, was built in 2021. Allegedly, it looks like this:

A McMansion is, in effect, the same house over and over again - it's merely dressed up in different costumes. In the 90s, the costume was Colonial; in the 2000s, it was vague forms of European (Tuscan, Mediterranean), and in the 2010s it was Tudor, dovetailed by "the farmhouse" -- a kind of Yeti Cooler simulacra of rural America peddled to the populace by Toll Brothers and HGTV.

Now, we're fully in the era of whatever this is. Whitewashed, quasi-modern, vaguely farmhouse-esque, definitely McMansion. We have reached, in a way, peak color and formal neutrality to the point where even the concept of style has no teeth. At a certain moment in its life cycle, styles in vernacular architecture reach their apex, after which they seem excessively oversaturated and ubiquitous. Soon, it's time to move on. After all, no one builds houses that look like this anymore:

(This is almost a shame because at least this house is mildly interesting.)

If we return to the basic form of both houses, they are essentially the same: a central foyer, a disguised oversized garage, and an overly complex assemblage of masses, windows, and rooflines. No one can rightfully claim that we no longer live in the age of the McMansion. The McMansion has instead simply become more charmless and dull.

When HGTV and the Gaineses premiered Fixer Upper in 2013, it seemed almost harmless. Attractive couple flips houses. Classic show form. However, Fixer Upper has since (in)famously ballooned into its own media network, a product line I'm confronted with every time I go to Target, and a general 2010s cultural hallmark not unlike the 1976 American Bicentennial - both events after which every house and its furnishings were somehow created in its image. (The patriotism, aesthetic and cultural conservatism of both are not lost on me.)

But there's one catch: Fixer Upper is over, and after the Gaineses, HGTV hasn't quite figured out where to go stylistically. With all those advertisers, partners, and eyeballs, the pressure to keep one foot stuck in the rural tweeness that sold extremely well was great. At the same time, the network (and the rest of the vernacular design media) couldn't risk wearing out its welcome. The answer came in a mix of rehashed, overly neutral modernism -- with a few pops of color, yet this part often seems omitted from its imitators -- with the prevailing "farmhouse modern" of Magnolia™ stock. The unfortunate result: mega-ultra-greige.

Aside from war-mongering, rarely does the media manufacture consent like it does in terms of interior design. People often ask me: Why is everything so gray? How did we get here? The answer is because it is profitable. Why is it profitable? I'd like to hypothesize several reasons. The first is as I mentioned: today's total neutrality is an organic outgrowth of a previous but slightly different style, "farmhouse modern," that mixed the starkness of the vernacular farmhouse with the soft-pastel Pinterest-era rural signifiers that have for the last ten years become ubiquitous.

Second, neutrals have always been common and popular. It's the default choice if you don't have a vision for what you want to do in a space. In the 2000s, the neutrals du jour were "earth tones" - beige, sage green, brown. Before that, it was white walls with oak trim in the 80s and 90s. In the 70s, neutrals were textural: brick and wood paneling. We have remarkably short memories when it comes to stylistic evolution because in real time it feels incremental. Such is the case with neutrals.

Finally, the all-gray palette is the end logic of HGTV et al's gamified methodology of designing houses with commodification in mind: if you blow out this wall, use this color, this flooring, this cabinetry, the asking price of your house goes up. You never want to personalize too much because it's off-putting to potential buyers. After twenty years of such rhetoric, doesn't it make all the sense in the world that we've ended up with houses that are empty, soulless, and gray?

A common realtor adage is to stage the house so that potential buyers can picture their own lives in it. In other words, create a tabula rasa one can project a fantasy of consumption onto. Implied in that logic is that the buyer will then impose their will on the house. But when the staged-realtor-vision and general-mass-market aesthetic of the time merge into a single dull slurry, we get a form of ultra-neutral that seems unwelcoming if not inescapable.

To impose one's style on the perfect starkness is almost intimidating, as though one is fouling up something untouchable and superior. If neutrality makes a house sell, then personality - at all - can only be seen as a detriment. Where does such an anti-social practice lead us? Back to the house that may or may not exist.

In my travels as McMansion Hell, I've increasingly been confronted with houses full of furniture that isn't real. This is known as virtual staging and it is to house staging as ChatGPT is to press release writing or DALL-E is to illustration. As this technology improves, fake sofa tables are becoming more and more difficult to discern from the real thing. I'm still not entirely sure which of the things in these photos are genuine or rendered. To walk through this house is to question reality.

Staging ultimately pretends (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) that someone is living in this house, that you, too could live in it. Once discovered, virtual staging erases all pretensions: the house is inhabited by no one. It is generally acknowledged (though I'm not sure on the actual statistics) that a house with furniture - that is, with the pretense of living -- sells easier than a house with nothing in it, especially if that house (like this one) has almost no internal walls. Hence the goal is to make the virtual staging undiscoverable.

If you want to talk about the realtor's tabula rasa, this is its final form. Houses without people, without human involvement whatsoever.

But what makes this particular house so uncanny is that all of these things I've mentioned before: real estate listing photography, completely dull interiors and bland colors all make it easy for the virtual furniture to work so well. This is because the softness of overlit white and gray walls enables the fuzzy edges of the renderings to look natural when mixed with an overstylized reality. Even if you notice something's off in the reflections, that's enough to cause one to wonder if anything in the house is real: the floors, the fixtures, the moulding, the windows and doors.

This is where things are heading: artifice on top of artifice on top of artifice. It's cheap, it's easy. But something about it feels like a violation. When one endeavors to buy a house, one assumes what one is viewing is real. It's one thing if a realtor photoshops a goofy sunset, it's another to wonder if anything in a room can be touched with human hands. I won't know what, if any, part of this estate costing over 2 million dollars actually exists until I visit it myself. Perhaps that's the whole point - to entice potential buyers out to see for themselves. When they enter, they'll find the truth: a vast, empty space with nothing in it.

The better this rendering technology gets, the more it will rely on these totally neutral spaces because everything matches and nothing is difficult. You are picking from a catalog of greige furniture to decorate greige rooms. If you look at virtual staging in a non-neutral house it looks immediately plastic and out of place, which is why many realtors opt to either still stage using furniture or leave the place empty.

Due to the aforementioned photography reasons, I would even argue that the greigepocalypse or whatever you want to call it and virtual staging have evolved simultaneously and mutualistically. The more virtual staging becomes an industry standard, the more conditions for making it seamless and successful will become standardized as well.

After all, real staging is expensive and depends on paid labor - selecting furniture, getting workers to deliver and stage it, only to pack it back up again once the property is sold. This is a classic example of technology being used to erase entire industries. Is this a bad thing? For freelance and contract workers, yeah. For realtors? no. For real estate listings, it remains to be seen. For this blog? Absolutely. (Thankfully there is an endless supply of previously existing McMansions.)

The thing is, real estate listings no longer reflect reality. (Did they ever to begin with?) The reason we're all exasperated with greige is because none of us actually live that way and don't want to. I've never been to anyone's house that looks like the house that may or may not exist. Even my parents who have followed the trends after becoming empty nesters have plenty of color in their house. Humans like color. Most of us have lots of warmth and creativity in our houses. Compare media intended for renters and younger consumers such as Apartment Therapy with HGTV and you will find a stark difference in palate and tone.

But when it comes to actually existing houses - look at Zillow and it's greige greige greige. So who's doing this? The answer is real estate itself aided by their allies in mass media who in turn are aided by the home renovation industry. In other words, it's the people who sell home as a commodity. That desire to sell has for some time overpowered all other elements that make up a home or an apartment's interiority to the point where we've ended up in a colorless slurry of real and unreal.

Fortunately, after ten years or so, things begin to become dated. We're hitting the ten year mark of farmhouse modernism and its derivatives now. If you're getting sick of it, it's normal. The whole style is hopefully on its last leg. But unlike styles of the past, there's a real, trenchant material reason why this one is sticking around longer than usual.

Hence, maybe if we want the end of greige, we're going to have to take color back by force.

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including extra posts and livestreams.

Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar, because media work is especially recession-vulnerable.

[svsss-fanon-exposed]

Exposing SVSSS Fanon: 25/∞

VIOLENCE AS COURTSHIP IS A PART OF DEMON CULTURE

Rating: CANON

A nearly universal trope, especially in Moshang fics, is the fact that courtship is performed through violence in demon culture, and that the misunderstandings between the pair are because of cultural differences. The fact that demons mistreat the targets of their affection is canon, however, it is important for fans to note that this sort of characterization and worldbuilding is rooted in racial and ethnic stereotypes.

This is one of the most-requested topics I've ever written on this blog, and I took a long time to think about how best to approach the subject in a way that both keeps to the intention of this blog (referencing canon & providing quotes) as well as raising awareness to the very real problematic aspects of what is a well-loved and often-used trope in fanon that I don't think most western fans are aware of.

First, the canon analysis:

“If you hold unique feelings for a certain person, how can you make them understand your intentions?” Luo Binghe asked. Obviously, no one dared to tear down Luo Binghe’s facade and expose him directly, but this question was really very…unsuited to the demonic approach. After a long moment, not a single person had answered. In fact, the answer was so simple that any normal human could have given it to you. If you liked someone, you should just tell them. Unfortunately, there was not a single “normal” person on the scene—and aside from Shang Qinghua, there also were no “humans” either. Mobei-Jun thought about it. With the paths his mind was given to take, there was no telling how he had interpreted “unique” feelings. “Beat them up three times a day?” (7 Seas, Ch. 26)

Most of the fandom remembers this passage, and some may think that this is where the interpretation of violence as courtship comes from-- however, that is not the case. This passage might actually not refer to courtship at all-- while that is one possible interpretation, Mobei-jun could also be interpreting "unique feelings" to mean something different than "romantic feelings," since Luo Binghe didn't specify romance directly.

The "violent demonic courtship" idea actually originates much earlier in the novel, just after the invasion of Qiong Ding Peak:

In truth, Shen Qingqiu didn’t intend to tease; he thought himself very straightforward. The one who’d tampered with Luo Binghe’s dream realm was Sha Hualing. Though she did have some harmful intentions, her underlying motive was obvious. Naturally, she was driven by a young girl’s secret yearning for love. Otherwise, she would have directed her aggressions toward others, not specifically Luo Binghe. Demons were compelled to viciously bully the person they liked. Only if the object of their affections failed to die would the demon accept them. If their target died, that meant they were useless and not worth nursing any lingering affections for. (7 Seas, Ch. 3)

This, in fact, has somewhat more serious connotations than the way I have often seen it interpreted in fanworks-- it is not merely beating up a potential partner, but pushing them to their limits, nearly driving them to death, and it is certainly implied that it is not uncommon for the object of a demon's affections to actually die.

Now that the canonical basis of the idea has been established, let us move on to the second, and arguably more important part of this post: the racism.

I would like to add a disclaimer here-- I am going to discuss this in hopes of raising more awareness in the fandom, but I am not North/West/Central Asian myself, so I will only mention things in brief and somewhat generally-- if anyone who belongs to the affected cultures would like to make corrections, or more detailed explanations, or any other additions to this post on this topic, I greatly welcome that, as I feel it is an important issue that should be addressed.

In Chinese fiction, particularly fantasy genres like xianxia/xuanhuan/xiuzhen, but also in historical and wuxia fiction, there is a pervasive, prevalent tendency for authors to use racial and ethnic stereotypes against Central, Northern, and Western Asian cultures such as Mongolian & Arab cultures in their worldbuilding regarding the North, while stereotypes against Southeast Asian cultures are used in worldbuilding regarding the South. These stereotypes are most typically applied to villains and villainous groups, and are so widespread as to be ubiquitous within the genre. MXTX has used these tropes before-- notably with the Banyue people in TGCF, with adaptations of both TGCF and MDZS including design stereotypes, such as CQL's portrayal of the Qinghe Nie (combining their tendency toward violence and 'unnatural' cultivation method, with design traits typically associated with Northern/Central Asian cultures).

It is worth noting, though, that most authors do not intentionally use these traits as racist stereotypes in their worldbuilding, especially when regarding a non-human species-- in the same way that western fantasy authors use goblin and orc characters and tropes without realizing or acknowledging their racist origins and connotiations, these stereotypes have simply become genre tropes without that direct connection to their origins. Nonetheless, it is still worth noting-- and worth trying not to fall into the trap of leaning into stereotypical traits in fanworks' character portrayals.

Stereotypes include but are not limited to barbaric and brutish cultural traits, association with animals/having animal features, dark or corrupt magical/spiritual practices, certain types of braided hairstyles & other fashion choices, and originating from the far north or south.

Some of the prejudice and stereotyping of Northern Asian cultures likely originates from the fact that in the past, China was invaded and subjugated by peoples from the north (under Mongolian rule during the Yuan dynasty, and under Manchurian rule during the Qing dynasty) as well as having many conflicts with these peoples throughout history. In fact, the Qing dynasty only ended in the early 1900s, so some of this oppression is still in recent memory-- nonetheless, people belonging to ethnic minorities in China are still affected by this negative stereotyping today, so regardless of the origin, racism is still racism and should be addressed, and China today is a majority Han Chinese nation-- even if Han Chinese are considered a minority and affected by systemic racism in other places in the world.

Additionally, many tropes specifically applied to the southern demons, but also used for demon culture as a whole, are tied to stereotypical portrayals of Southeast Asian culture, which is rooted in a long history of Imperial China's invasion and oppression.

All of those stereotypes listed above apply to SVSSS' demon culture. Even in Mobei-jun's name-- 漠北 meaning "northern desert," which is the real-world name for a region in the north of the Gobi desert in Mongolia.

Therefore, it is important to remember that though violence-as-courtship in demon culture is canonical within SVSSS' setting, it nonetheless originates from harmful racial and ethnic stereotypes. It would be a good idea for fans to keep this in mind when creating their fanworks, and to treat the topic with sensitivity-- but I will leave any direct suggestions on how to handle this to those who are actually part of the affected groups.

--

(thanks to @flidgetjerome for additional notes regarding SEAsian stereotyping and author intent!)

Also, to be absolutely clear: I am not saying that svsss’ demons are specifically coded as any real ethnic group— it’s only that in many ways the portrayal is similar to the common portrayal of various ethnic groups in cmedia. I don’t believe they are specifically meant to parallel a real life group, unlike for example TGCF’s Banyue— but it’s worth questioning why these traits, why these characters.

[magz]

Palestine related news summary from LetsTalkPalestine, May 1 to May 4, 2024.

[Ways to help, sources, and more: LetsTalkPalestine Linktree]

May 1.

(Instagram reel of UCLA protest. Includes footage of treating n washing a pro-palestine protestors' bloody head)

Day 208

🇨🇴 Colombia to cut diplomatic ties w/ Israel

•⁠ ⁠33 killed, 57 injured in the last 24 hours. Real number likely higher

⚖️ US lobbying ICC not to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials, after Israel's threat to respond by retaliating against Palestinian Authority for sparking ICC investigation

🇫🇷 France denies selling weapons to Israel used in Gaza, claiming what's sold will be re-exported to 3rd countries via Israel, but did supply Israeli Iron Dome defense system

🇹🇷 Turkey set to follow Columbia & Nicaragua by joining South Africa's ICJ case against Israel

🎓 Zionist mob attacked Palestine protestors at UCLA w/ fireworks & pepper spray for 3 hours, police didn’t intervene (📹👆). Columbia & CUNY asked NYPD to raid & arrest 280+ student protestors. New encampments across UK, Tunisia & Canada

🚚 First aid trucks enter through Beit Hanoon crossing to north Gaza despite Israel's promise to open 1 month ago. Nearly half of aid convoys to north Gaza denied by Israel.

May 2.

(Instagram post, news update. The Israeli occupation has killed Palestinian Dr. Adnan Al-Barash.)

Day 209

• 28 Palestinians killed, 51 injured in last 24 hours. Note that the toll is underreported.

🏥 Dr. Adnan al Barash killed in captivity after IOF abducted him in Dec (📷👆)— 496 medical personnel killed in Gaza + 309 in captivity

🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia arrests many for anti-Israel online posts, incl. an executive & media figure. Timing suspicious w/ reports of renewed normalization talks

• IOF attacks aid convoy, killing 1

🇹🇷 Turkey stops all trade w/ Israel after banning 54 exports to Israel

🇺🇸 US House pass “antisemitism awareness” bill using repressive IHRA definition of antisemitism despite antisemitism covered in anti-discrimination law. Why is IHRA definition problematic? See tinyurl.com/ynsfy8sx

• IOF airstrike in central Gaza killed 5, incl. a child

🪨 37m tons of rubble in Gaza, heavy contamination w/ unexploded ammunition & 800,000 tons of asbestos

🎓 Columbia & Emory University face federal investigation for anti-Muslim discrimination, reports of doxing & harassment

May 3.

Day 210

• World Press Freedom Day: Israel killed 100+ journalists since Oct 7 + holding 53 captive

• 26 killed, 51 injured in the last 24 hours. Note the toll is underreported.

• Israel attack on Rafah killed 7, incl. a mother & her children — the children’s bodies were shredded by the airstrikes

🇹🇹 Trinidad & Tobago recognizes the State of Palestine as West Bank & Gaza

🇬🇧 UK sanctions 2 Israeli groups + 4 settlers for violence in West Bank, warns of more sanctions if no Israeli action against settler attacks

• Israeli strike on Bureij camp killed 5, incl. a child

💰 UN estimates cost to rebuild Gaza at $40bn; more than post-WWII reconstruction

🎓 Goldsmiths University students in London win & obtain demands after occupying library — @ goldsmithsforpalestine on instagram for details

🎓 University encampments for Gaza go global spreading to 🇨🇦 🇮🇳 🇳🇿 🇪🇸 🇦🇷 🇯🇵 🇰🇼 🇱🇧 🇹🇳 🇯🇴. US crackdown w/ 2,200 students arrested

• Iran-backed Bahraini militia launches attack at southern Israeli port Eilat

May 4.

Day 211

✝️ Israel blocks entry of many Palestinian Christians to Jerusalem for Holy Saturday celebrations

•⁠ 32 Palestinians killed, 41 injured in Gaza in last 24 hours. Toll underreported

•⁠ ⁠IOF killed 5+ in 15-hour siege on Tulkarem (West Bank) & clashes with Hamas resistance fighters. IOF targeted fighters’ homes w/ women & kids inside, demolished homes trapping many under rubble

•⁠ ⁠Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 11 incl. 3 in bombings of tents in Rafah

•⁠ Head of UN WFP says north Gaza experiencing “full-blown famine” and it’s only a matter of time before south Gaza faces same level of starvation

🇫🇷 British-Palestinian @ dr.ghassan.as denied entry to France for Senate address as witness of Gaza Genocide as Germany put year-long ban on his entry to Europe (Schengen)

🇺🇸 88 US lawmakers warn Biden that Israeli aid blockade violates US ‘foreign assistance’ law

•⁠ IOF abducts 5 overnight in West Bank

🎓 Uni encampments spread to Switzerland, Ireland, Germany, Cuba & Costa Rica

[astrstqr]

☆˙˖ DESIRED REALITY !

things i script for my modern dr. lmk if you want more

⬭ racism, homophobia, ableism, transphobia, islamophobia, anti semitism, misogyny, global warming, climate change, overconsumption, overpopulation, deforestation, habitat destruction etc., used to exist, however they currently do not and will never suffer from them again.

⬭ everyone is treated equal

⬭ no “pro-life”

⬭ people are allowed to have abortions no matter what age they are

⬭ women products are free such as pads/tampons and birth control

⬭ everyone is educated on problems happening around the world

⬭ health care is free

⬭ natives are seen as the founders of America

⬭ south, west, southeast, & central Asians are seen too + people know Asia is not just the east

⬭ having guns are illegal unless your job requires you to have one and there is no other way to get a gun

⬭ periods last a day and are very light

⬭ covid-19 doesn’t exist

⬭ plastic surgery is normalized , isnt look down on but people rarely gets it unless necessary

⬭ children of any age are not sexualized in any form or shape

⬭ in public bathrooms the toilet is always clean, people don't knock on the stall you are in, there is always toilet paper, always soap and a hand dryer

⬭ the Chinese government isn't so harsh & gives the citizens freedom

⬭ people of color’s cultures are RESPECTED, & not appropriated

⬭ foster care takes treats kids nicely

⬭ nobody harms animals and kill shelters are not a thing

⬭ all country leaders are good and honest people

⬭ human trafficking does not exist

⬭ the government never watches you through your phone

⬭ trump never ran for president

⬭ no world hungers

⬭ no one is homeless, and everyone has a home

⬭ world peace

⬭ women and men are equal

⬭ it’s easy for people to make money

⬭ all sickness has a cure

⬭ bullying does not exist

⬭ black history and pride month still exist

⬭ the government isn't greedy and take care of their people

⬭ every country has money, food, isnt poor, etc. etc.

⬭ no toxic parenting

⬭ the Sewol ferry never had an accident

⬭ school shooting doesn’t exist

⬭ minimum wage is $15-$20 an hour

⬭ crimes are punished with justice in mind

⬭ history is recorded correctly

⬭ people can start driving at 15

⬭ Korea is not conservative

⬭ Korea doesn’t have an unrealistic beauty standard

⬭ Korea never divided, it is united and free. But south of korea is like the city part and the north is like rural part

⬭ pollution does not exist

⬭ earth air is clean and easy to breathe no matter where you are

⬭ no acid rain, urban sprawl, ozone layer depletion

⬭ allergies do not exist

⬭ the world is more colorful and not dull looking

⬭ coral reef still has it color

⬭ no water in unwanted places

⬭ grass is always green

⬭ if the population increases the planet gets bigger to produce resources to accommodate the growing population. it doesnt effect the mass of the earth or the gravitational pull

⬭ global warming doesn't exist

⬭ humidity doesn't ruin hair

⬭ the library of alexandria was never destroyed

⬭ apple pencils work on iPhone

⬭ everything is wireless, and nothing needs a cord

⬭ line is always short in stores and restaurants

⬭ buildings and renovating don’t take longer than a wee

⬭ you can book a hotel with being 18 or older

⬭ traffic is always fine

⬭ netflix have more of a large selection of things and dont remove shows/add shows no one wants

⬭ spotify is free

⬭ the switch have a web browser

⬭ tv companies still make tv shows similar to the 2000s and early 2010s , just updated to keep up with the times

⬭ the sims franchise lore is linear throughout the series

the open world features from sims 3 is still present in sims 4

sims 4 is like an updated and better version of sims 3 keeping all the features from the sims 3 (still including everything that is already in sims 4)

non of the games have bugs

every expansion pack etc is just added to the game as an update and no one has to pay for it

⬭ cheap jewelry doesnt tarnish

⬭ washer/dryer cycles are 15 mins

⬭ in the show dancing dolls everyone was treated equally and was never fake to each other.

⬭ people actually do the theme for the met gala and it’s always unique

୨୧⠀˙⠀⠀˖⠀ world aesthetic & vibe

[sissa-arrows]

Arabs are not native to North Africa, that's like saying white people are native to South America or South America. They're all there because of colonialism.

Except there’s tons of studies proving that the “Arabs” of North Africa are not descendants of Arabs but Arabized natives.

Very few Arab tribes settled in North Africa and the process of arabization was way more cultural than demographic. For example in a 2017 study that used Tunisia to represent North Africa they concluded that we were 88% North Africans/Imazighen, 2% from Western and Central Africa, 4% Arabs and 5% Europeans.

So Arabs as a whole are not native to North Africa but the people living there and calling themselves “Arabs” are native not colonizers.

You can totally condemn the arabization but claiming that Arabized natives are colonizers is stupid.

Lastly as I always say as an Algerian our grandparents fought for a FREE ALGERIA. For an ALGERIAN ALGERIA. They didn’t fight for an Arab Algeria or an Amazigh Algeria. So I don’t give a flying fuck if people are Arabized or not. We’re Algerians that’s it.

[mokulule]

A Pinch of Salt - part 3

First | Masterpost

John couldn’t believe he was doing this, listening to the bloody kid. The cigarette hung forgotten from his lips. Every instinct told him to hunt down the kid and get him out of there; he’d seen enough dead kids to last him several life times.

Yet here he stood, counting down the minutes with a watch in hand. A spectral storm was dangerous, it could hurt a lot of people, attract even worse things. The plan was sound.

The end justified the means.

He felt sick.

There hadn’t been any screams from the kid (yet) - just the feeling of the malevolent energy moving further away. As long as it was moving away the kid had to be moving too.

Time was up and John was running. Kid was not getting a second longer than he’d asked for. It took him a minute to reach the plaza.

He spun around taking in the space. The central installment, which would have been some kind of fountain had it been finished judging by the exposed piping, was kinda in the way.

John huffed in annoyance.

This was clearly not gonna be the prettiest binding he’d ever done, just circle and a sigil for each cardinal direction, but it’d have to do. He pulled out a compass and promptly grimaced at the way the needle shook from electromagnetic disturbance.

Yeah, so north was probably over by the escalators.

The malevolent energy had turned around and was now coming back. Kid better be alright or John would have to murder him himself.

Time was hastily running out. It was a bloody good thing John worked well under pressure. He’d barely drawn the last squiggle when he heard fast running footsteps. He looked up just in time to see the kid take a running leap off the first floor banister.

Fuck. John’s heart jumped into his throat. He was only halfway through a levitation spell when he realized he would be too late. He wasn’t fast enough. At best the kid would break a leg at worst he’d break his neck!

He braced himself and then- John didn’t believe his eyes- the kid ducked into a rolling landing jumping right back to his feet like some kind of bloody knock-off Robin.

“Ya nearly gave me a fucking heart attack,” John said clutching his chest.

“We don’t have time for that. Here they come!” Kid yelled as he ran over to him. And right he was, the storm burst into the room in a tornado of trash, tools and now gray dust - just great, it had gotten into a bag of cement powder.

It was John’s turn. Just as the storm entered the circle, John slammed his hands onto the circle and activated it. His hairs rose on end as the magic activated. The wind and dust slammed against the binding, but it held despite the less than ideal circumstances.

Time to do the banishment. John couldn’t wait to be done with this.

-

The hairs on Danny’s arms stood on end; so this was magic.

Danny knew magic existed. He’d been mind controlled by a magical scepter. He’d seen magic used and reality itself changed at the snap of a finger - heck Danny had wielded the Reality Gauntlet himself. But that was just it, wasn’t it? those were magical items. Objects of power that bestowed a certain set of abilities to the wielder.

It was real, but it was less real somehow, or rather more mundane. Not quite so different from the crazy things his parents invented and that was just science.

It was something quite different to see, to feel, the power in the air, the way pressure increased and his ears popped when he swallowed all because Trenchcoat held out his hands and said a series of strange words.

Danny could feel reality warping at this guy’s will, a point above the ghost where this world was growing thinner. He was making a portal right here, with nothing but words and will and whatever magic was supposed to be - something that had been his parents’ magnum opus, taken years of study and then not even worked until Danny stumbled inside, an unwitting sacrifice.

Would it have even turned on without him inside? Or had that been a little bit of magic too?

Danny laughed with an edge of hysteria. And here Trenchcoat made it look easy.

So much time spent - missed dinners and awkward school events waiting for parents that never came and they should have just found this dude instead.

Something caught his attention. At first he couldn’t tell what it was, but invariably he was drawn to the forming rip in reality.

Something was wrong.

Heat and sulfur stuck in his nose. A sense of dread pooled in his gut. There was something malicious about it. That wasn’t a portal to the ghost zone.

“Where are you sending them?” Danny yelled over the whipping winds.

“To Hell,” Trenchcoat yelled back, not taking his eyes off his task.

“Hell!” Danny squeaked in horror.

Trenchcoat spared him a bewildered glance. “It’s a banishing, kid. It’s what it does.”

Danny’s gaze shot from the portal to the ghost back to Trenchcoat. No, it was all wrong. The ghost was in pain and yes they were out of control but they didn’t deserve to be sent to Hell for it. Danny had to do something.

“Stop! You have to stop!” Danny stepped in front of the man hands raised almost in mirror, except Danny didn’t have anything as potent as magic at his disposal, not unless he wanted to reveal himself. He felt some of his resolve crumble at that thought. Danny still didn’t want to find out what the man had intended to do to him, had he not passed his salt test.

“Hell’s bells, kid! What are you doing?”

“You have to stop they don’t deserve this!”

“Kid, it’s out of control! This is how it’s done.”

Absolute certainty.

Danny wobbled. Clearly, he knew what he was doing, he was the real deal. Who was Danny to question that?

The ghost screamed in despair, cutting straight to Danny’s core. His lips pressed into a thin line. He met light blue eyes, held them, and then he took a step backwards - into the circle.

-

Am I being mean? A little bit XD Sorry I couldn't help it. I hadn't planned for Danny to do it quite like this in my original plan but he sure did it.

Thanks for the lovely comments on the previous part :D

You can subscribe the masterpost for the series here

[humanpurposes]

De Facto

She can't afford to fantasize over Aemond Targaryen, he's her boss and the Prime Minister... but stopping is easier said than done- this fic now has a part two :)

Main Masterlist

PM!Aemond x unnamed female character

Warnings: 18+, smut, mentions of SA, questionable power dynamics, politics (putting my degree to good use), unnecessary world building

Words: 7700

A/n: Thanks for the inspo @ewanmitchellcrumbs, sorry it's not Dishy Rishi tho :(

Throughout the whole train journey into Central King’s Landing, she’s sure she’s dreaming. Her body feels strangely light, her hands are restless and her heart is beating steadily in her chest. 

She flows effortlessly with the stream of commuters, along the platform, through the station’s glass atrium, then left towards Conquest Street. She knows her way around this part of the city already, and though she’s never been inside, she’s walked past Hightower House countless times.

This time is different. Now she walks up to the iron gates, pressing her thumbnail into her index finger, because the armed guards are making her nervous. 

She tells them her name and one of them mutters into a radio.

Her eyes run along the gold crest that marks the gate, a shield divided into seven, a sun for Dorne, a rose for The Reach, a stag for The Stormlands, a Trout for The Riverlands, a Falcon for The Vale, a Kraken for The Iron Islands, a wolf for The North, and at its heart is the symbol that unites them, the three headed dragon (although strictly speaking, Westeros abolished its monarchy centuries ago).

Suddenly one of the guards catches her attention. He opens the gate for her, and says she’ll be given a security pass and instructions to use the staff entrance following her official induction.

Hightower House stands proudly before her, an ornate facade of balustrades and columns, order and symmetry, an obvious juxtaposition of the medieval majesty of the Red Keep, just down the road.

It all feels very daunting, but the last five years have led her to this moment, the entirety of her adult life. She keeps telling herself that she deserves to be here, after all, she was the one who made it through the first round of applications, who made it to the shortlist and the final interviews, and she was the only one of hundreds of applicants who received the phone call, offering her a position as a personal advisor to the Prime Minister.

The contract only lasts two years, but it is the most effective stepping stone into a career in politics that she could ever ask for.

The entire morning is spent working out formalities. First she meets the deputy chief of staff, a handsome man named Criston Cole, who she’ll directly report to. He shows her through mountains of paperwork and gives her a brief overview of her role. Essentially, she is to assist the Prime Minister on whatever he deems necessary, policy aims, speeches, media coverage, political rhetoric, public image. 

“You’re a glorified assistant,” Cole says as she reads and signs page after page of her employment contract, “but with a salary to reflect it, so don’t feel discouraged. There will be some admin work which can get tedious, but you’ve been selected for your expertise and your passion for the party.”

That’s the crucial part of the job. Everything she does will be to benefit Mr Targayren as head of the Green Party, still running off the high of their victory at the last general election, just under a year ago. 

She signs her last signature triumphantly, despite the ache in her wrist, and hands the pen back to Cole with a smile. “All done?” she asks hopefully.

Cole grimaces sympathetically. “Not quite.”

There are four people to meet before she’s officially in. She takes a deep breath to soothe herself. It’s all just more formalities, which she can understand, given the weight of this job.

The first is the Prime Minister's private secretary, a glamorous woman with black hair and piercing green eyes, named Alys Rivers. She greets her warmly, having already spoken over the phone with her several times. She also knows her CV off by heart. It’s a little strange having someone know almost everything about her education and employment history when her face is unfamiliar.

The next is a young woman named Maris, the other of Mr Targaryen’s personal advisors. She has dark hair and a look of determination in her grey eyes. She explains that there are always two personal advisors, but hired on alternating years. She was hired at the start of Mr Targaryen’s premiership, and has a year left of her contract.

There are a thousand questions she wants to ask Maris, but before she can even scratch the surface, Cole’s checking his watch and dragging her off to another office.

Otto Hightower is the chief of staff. He’s thin and wiry, but incredibly intimidating. He has tired, sunken eyes that seem to glare right through her, and a passive but severe expression on his face, as though he’s scrutinising, having already decided she’s a waste of his time.

It’s not a great feeling, being looked at like that by a man she’s idolised for years. She knows his career timeline by heart. He earned his bachelors in Politics and Economics from Oldtown, before doing a masters in International Relations at King’s Landing, where he met and befriended Viserys Targaryen. He worked his way to becoming an MP and soon into Viserys’ cabinet when be became Prime Minister.

But things changed when Otto’s daughter married Viserys. No one really knows the whole truth, but Otto resigned from the Black Party, and took over from his own brother as leader of the opposition.

Now he works in the background, the mastermind behind his grandson’s remarkable successes.

Cole explains that Mr Hightower had the final say in the shortlist and determining which applicant would be given the final job offer.

“You had an impressive application,” he says, briefly looking up from a document. “I’m sure you’ll do well with us.”

“Thank you, Mr Hightower,” she says through the slight tremble in her jaw.

Other than that, the interaction is brief, and soon Cole is ushering her out of the room, back to Alys’ office, as richly decorated as the rest of the building. Maris is sitting at another desk, typing away furiously on a laptop.

“Tea? Coffee? Water?” Cole offers her, gesturing for her to take a seat on a green leather sofa.

“Water would be lovely,” she says.

“Maris,” he calls.

She glares up from her laptop. “That’s not my job.”

“No, but it’s courtesy,” he says.

Alys’ slight smirk doesn’t escape her attention.

Maris purses her lips, but she closes her laptop, pointedly slams her hands against the arms of her chair, and marches out of the room, her shiny black heels clicking against the dark wood floor.

“She’s nice really,” Cole says, “just a bit… direct at times.”

“Direct,” Alys groans to herself. 

She feels her brow flicker into a frown but stops herself.

“She’s good at her job,” Criston says like he might say something else, but he doesn’t.

When Maris returns, she seems a little less on edge.

She takes the glass of water with a cautious hand, Maris’ eyes lingering on her maroon painted nails. 

“I like your top,” Maris says.

She glances down. It’s nothing special, black and long-sleeved, to go with her long blue and green patterned skirt.

“Thank you,” she says.

Maris hums to herself before she goes back to her desk.

“Do you often work in here?” she asks.

Maris shrugs. “It depends.” She doesn’t care to explain further.

Alys is smirking again.

“Mr Targaryen was in a meeting with the cabinet this morning,” Cole says, then checks his watch. “He has a few phone calls to make, but he should be ready to see you at about 4pm. Maris?”

“Yes?” 

“Will you show her in around then?”

“Yeah,” she says, flatly, “of course.”

Cole shakes her hand before he leaves. “Alys will show you out when you leave. I’ll see you on Monday morning.”

She continues to wait on the sofa, restless in the silence that follows once the door has shut. Alys and Maris are both typing, their nails clicking against their keyboards. She starts to bounce her leg and stops herself.

Her mind is racing. The day seems to have gone well so far, but what if she meets Mr Targaryen and it all falls apart? What if he decides he doesn’t like her and sends her packing? 

She’s too lost in her own head to notice the flash of Alys’ emerald green dress as she stands in front of her. That is, until she’s leaning down and waving a bar of chocolate in front of her. “Get a bit of sugar in you,” she says, “and breathe slowly.”

She smiles as she takes the bar and places a single cube on her tongue. She lets it melt, savouring the sweetness and the slight bitterness of its taste.

You can do this, she thinks to herself with every inhale. And then she exhales. You are here for a reason.

The phone on Alys’ desk rings. She checks her own phone. It’s exactly 3:59.

“Yes, sir, Maris will show her in now.”

Aemond Targaryen is on the other end of the line. Her heart drops at the thought.

As the second son of Viserys, it seems like he was always destined for the family business. He differs from his father and grandfather in that he did Politics and Philosophy at Sunspear, before going on to do his masters in History at Oldtown, and then another masters in International Relations at King’s Landing. By all accounts, he is fiercely intelligent, mature beyond his years, with the right balance of intimidating and charismatic to command the support he needed to get in as MP for Rosby, then as party leader.

In fact, it had been his first campaign that inspired her to apply for a degree in politics in the first place. She loved how he spoke, how he managed to strike a balance between grace and passion, and how deeply he cared for his policies. He was poised and perfect, but driven by a genuine want for improvement.

He perfected his craft within a matter of years. With the mess Rhaenyra Targaryen had made of the country, it was all too easy for him to win a majority with a few winning speeches, a hand running through his silver hair, that lazy half-smirk and the intense look in his eyes that just made you want to fall at his feet. And people do. The press adore him, his party worships him, foreign dignitaries often remark on his charm but also his capabilities as a negotiator and a leader.

Maris leads her out of the office, along a quiet corridor. She stops outside a door with gold lettering: Office of A. Targaryen, Prime Minister

Seeing it in front of her, strangely, seems to subdue her nerves. Her chest flutters, but the anxiety is more manageable than before.

Maris taps her knuckles against the door three times.

From the other side of the door she hears a gentle but chilling voice. “Enter.”

She follows Maris inside.

He’s perched against his desk, his long, silver hair falling around his shoulders as he looks over a few pieces of paper. He wears a white shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, black slacks and brown leather shoes.

He looks up slowly, the light of the early Autumn evening beaming through the windows, over the sharp features of his face, his cheeks, his nose, his jaw, his neck.

His eyes find hers, unashamed and curious.

Suddenly she can feel her heart in her throat.

Maris introduces her. “I’m sure Alys already debriefed you, but she’s here for her induction. Cole said you wanted to meet her as a formality and–”

It feels awfully like she’s talking for the sake of it.

“That will be all, Maris,” Mr Targaryen says softly. She can’t help but watch the way his lips move when he speaks.

“Oh, are you sure, sir?” she asks. Her face is twisted into a slight frown but her eyes are wide. “I just thought, for her sake, it might be useful if I’m here to explain everything.”

“I’m sure, thank you.”

She stands with her hands clasped in front of her skirt as she listens to Maris’ footsteps move towards the door. It opens and closes, and now all she can hear are her own breaths, gently flowing through her nose.

She doesn’t know where to look. At the patterned carpet on the floor? No, it would be rude of her to hang her head. At the portraits that line the wall? At the bookshelves? At the desk? No, that all seems too intrusive. Out the window? No, that might seem like she’s not paying attention.

So her eyes settle on him.

He hasn’t moved from his position, but he’s placed the paper on the desk behind him, leaning with his palms at the edge. His eyes glance over her once, up and down.

Fuck, he’s so much better looking in person.

Then he stands to his full height, and picks up a clipboard from the desk. He flicks through a few of the pages and hums softly to himself.

“You had an impressive application,” he says.

She swallows through the slightly dry feeling in her throat. “Thank you, sir.”

“And an excellently written cover letter.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You did your masters in Comparative Politics at Sunspear. Oberyen Martell is still head of faculty there, isn’t he?”

“Yes, sir. He taught one of my modules, Security Studies.”

“He’s an interesting character,” he muses, smiling to himself. “He was my supervisor for my undergrad dissertation.”

She already knew that. Dr Martell loved to go on about his star student. She would too if she taught the future Prime Minister.

He flicks to another page. She watches as his eyes skim over the words in front of him. “And you came with glowing reviews from Tyland Lannister.”

She’s not sure how she’s supposed to respond to that– it makes her sound more like a product than a person– so she just smiles, as delicately as she can, making sure not to squint her eyes too much. 

She had spent the last year as Mr Lannister’s Parliamentary Assistant, at his office in the Red Keep, starting just as he had been appointed as Foreign Secretary. 

“How was he as a boss?” Mr Targayren asks.

Straightforward, she thinks. He took his job seriously and was decidedly not a fan of smalltalk. His office often worked in silence, and even when he was stressed he was efficient.

“No complaints,” she says.

“I’m sure you were all kept busy, cleaning up Corlys Velaryon’s mess after the Stepstones.”

A minor military excursion to defend a few key trading routes, or at least that’s how it had started. Within a matter of months the Stepstones had spiralled beyond control, costing Corlys Velaryon his seat and the Blacks their majority in Parliament.

“If I remember right, it was Daemon Targaryen pushing that particular policy,” she says.

The corner of his mouth curls upward. It could be a smile but she’s not entirely sure. 

“Sir,” she adds, hoping to soften the blow of her unintentional insult; what idiot tries to correct the Prime Minister on their first day on the job? She does, clearly.

He doesn’t seem irritated or angry, more amused. A cryptic “hmm” sounds in his throat as he flicks back to the first document. “And before that you were a campaign manager for the party, yes?”

“Yes,” she says brightly, grateful for the change of subject. “I was working in the Stormlands in the lead up to the general election.” The region was formerly a Black stronghold, but turned Green thanks in part to her efforts.

“Excellent work,” he says.

The smooth, seductive tone of his voice seems to come so naturally to him. She bites her tongue at the image it prompts in her head, of his lips brushing over her ear, his hands resting on her waist, she can almost feel it–

No. That’s wrong. So wrong.

Fantasising about the Prime Minister of Westeros is not a habit she can afford to keep up, not when she’s supposed to be working with him in such close proximity.

But that’s easier said than done.

Cole enters his office, bright and early on Monday morning, before the rest of Hightower House is awake.

Aemond’s routine is the same every day. Up at 5am, run a few laps of the expansive gardens or spend an hour going through his meticulously planned gym routine. He showers, shaves, applies his skincare and haircare products, dabs some perfume on his wrists, dresses, and takes breakfast and a black coffee in his office. By 7:30am he’s ready to work.

He needs the routines and the outlets. They help keep him sane.

He’d seen how this position twisted his father into a tired, irritable and irrational man, how it got to Rhaenyra’s head until she became a liability to herself. He won’t be like them. He has a reputation to uphold, a legacy to claim.

Cole places a folder on his desk. “The background check you ordered, sir.”

He thanks him, quietly and sincerely, and waits until he’s left the room to open the folder.

His new personal advisor intrigues him. He’d made the request for the background check as soon as their meeting had ended on Friday. 

She has no criminal record, which is unsurprising, that definitely would have come up sooner if she had one.

He browses through her education history, a star student at Storm’s End Grammar School, a bachelor’s in history from Rainwood, a masters from Suspear, where she was head of Debate Soc and Amnesty International, while working various internships and retail jobs in between.

The next page is full of articles from student publications, The Importance of Integrity in Politics for the Rainwood Student Journal, Sovereignty in the Stepstones for Red Sun Rising. He reads through them both. Her writing is immaculate, concise and convincing.

The final page is more personal, social media profiles. It’s nothing scandalous, but she clearly has a certain image she wants to project. Her Instagram is full of art and history museums, coffee shops and preppy outfits. She has a few pictures on her LinkedIn of her at the Green Party conference last year, pictured with a group of girls her age and a caption that talks about the importance of representation in politics, with links to various charities and initiatives. In the photo she’s wearing a white silk shirt, open just enough to show off a dainty gold necklace and a hint of the swell of her chest.

She seems perfect. Too perfect for his own good.

The first months go smoothly enough. 

Maris is a practical person. She’s good with numbers, good for bouncing off ideas for economic policies and analysing data for him, even if she is a little overbearing at times.

But she fills the gaps perfectly. He secretly looks forward to their meetings and debriefings, when he asks her to write or edit speeches for him, or run through questions with him before a press conference. Politics is never easy, but she has a remarkable talent for keeping a level head. He likes that she’s always calm and composed. He likes her soft, reassuring smiles and the sharp look in her eyes. 

They just click. She’s always switched on, always knows the right things to say and do, always knows what he needs.

Every moment they are alone feels monumental; the settled quiet of his office when she first walks in and takes a seat on the other side of his desk; when they make an exchange, debriefing papers for an empty coffee cup, and their fingers will brush over each other; when he stands over her shoulder to read the document she’s working on, close enough to smell her perfume and feel a heat simmering under his skin. It’s starting to become unbearable, and yet he craves that feeling.

And then, one morning, he gets a phone call from the Crownlands Messenger. They’re about to publish a story. His brother has been accused of inappropriate conduct by no less than three women.

Fucking Aegon.

The entire country is in an uproar. How can anyone trust their Parliamentary representatives when they do shit like this? Is Aegon an outlier or is this just scratching the surface? What will his punishment be? What else are the Greens hiding? 

There are hundreds of emergency meetings with his grandfather, tense phone calls, bearating headlines, and onslaughts of outrage online. There’s no question about it, Aegon has to resign as an MP, but the damage is done. The polls are turning Black instead of Green. People don’t trust the ruling party, or its leader.

It’s late. Aemond paces his office while a headache pulses in his head. He’s long ditched the coffee for whisky, swirling it about in his glass. He sent Maris home hours ago. He doesn’t have the patience for anyone at the moment. Except for the woman leaning against his desk, flicking through news articles and the pages of notes she’s prepared for him.

Tomorrow is PMQs. No doubt there’s only one topic the Blacks will be asking about. He can already see Rhaenyra and Daemon’s smug faces, the delight they’ll take in watching him fall apart. There’s just no way he’s getting out of this easily.

He feels so restless. His hands are trembling and his lips won’t seem to stop moving, so he places himself against the wall, mindlessly tapping his fingers against his glass as he takes another generous sip.

From the desk he hears a heavy sigh that hums slightly in her throat. “Is there anything else you want to go over, sir?” she asks.

“No, I think we’ve exhausted the hypotheticals,” he says, running his free hand through his hair. He resists the urge to pull at the roots, to take his frustration out on something. “It’s just– fuck’s sake, I’ve been saying Aegon’s a liability for years. But no, Otto always wanted to keep pushing for him. Said it was good for the family’s image.”

She places her phone and the document behind her, and takes a few steps towards him.

He glances down at her, at the way the low light of the lamps and the fireplace glows against her skin, the contented sort of look in her eyes. 

Her eyes flicker down at his now empty glass. “Refill, sir?” Her lips stay slightly parted once she stops speaking.

Then he realises he’s staring.

“No, thank you,” he mutters, tapping his finger against the glass. “I should probably stop now.”

She takes the glass from him with her middle finger and thumb, avoiding touching his hand before she takes it away. Maybe it’s the alcohol getting to his head but his heart sinks at the lack of contact.

What is he doing? It must be after 9pm now and he’s still keeping her here without a real reason. 

She’s standing by the drinks cabinet, carefully placing the crystal bottle of whisky away and setting the empty glass out for housekeeping to clean up in the morning.

Instead of thinking about her, the way her hair looks, the way her skirt hugs her waist and the curve of her backside and thighs, he tries to think about how much he hates Aegon. This only makes him more agitated.

He closes his eyes and throws his head against the wall. His heart is racing and there’s a hollow feeling in his chest. He’s craving something, not another drink, not a smoke (he quit once he was first elected as an MP). He wants something else, something dangerous and damning. 

The heels of her shoes tap softly against the floor, until she’s standing in front of him.

He opens his eyes.

She frowns slightly before lifting her hand and delicately placing it on his shoulder. “You need to relax, sir,” she says.

He lets out a low “hmm,” as he weighs out his options. This seems like a bad idea. A really, really bad idea.

“That’s not going to happen with you here,” he says.

Her calm, somewhat smug expression falls. She looks so innocent now, so sweet. “What does that mean?” she says.

He leans in closer to her, until the tip of his nose barely brushes against hers. “I think you know what it means, darling.”

She hesitates, before her mouth spreads into an eager smile that shows off her teeth.

Her hands find his, ensnaring him under a soft but commanding grip. She leads him away from the wall, to the sofa by the fireplace. 

He settles on it, leaning against the arm as she comes to her knees before him, spreading his legs apart to make room for herself.

She palms her hand over the hardness that’s been straining painfully against his trousers for hours now. She feels along his clothed cock, pressing her cheek against it and gazing up at him with a look of teasing innocence.

Aemond knows he is done for, jaw slack, chest rising and falling as he breathes. He would have never presumed he would find himself in this kind of position, not after all the work’s he’s had to do cleaning up the mess of Aegon’s fuck ups, not after working this hard to get where he is, and least of all because he believes himself to be a decent man. 

But he doesn’t stop her as her fingers undo the button and the zip on his trousers, and he doesn’t make any kind of protest as she takes his freed cock in her hand and teasingly strokes along it. 

He keeps his hands firmly on the sofa, digging his fingertips and his nails into the leather, as if he hasn’t been dreaming of having her like this for weeks, as if he hasn’t fucked his own hand countless times pretending it was her.

He doesn’t have to pretend anymore. He looks down, his jaw slack, barely containing his strained breaths, and there she is, doe-eyed and eager as she places a delicate kiss to his flushed tip. Her lips barely brush against him before she pulls away, keeping a hold at the base.

His arousal stains her mouth and she fucking grins.

“Enjoying yourself?” he says through gritted teeth.

“Yes, sir,” she says, sweetly, earnestly.

He runs his hand against her hair, gently, as if trying to soothe her. It seems to take her by surprise which only serves to excite him further.

She leans into his touch, lips parting, her eyes half-lidded and dreamy.

Until he grips his fist and pulls. He tilts her head up. It shouldn’t hurt, but it’s enough to bring her attention back to him.

He decides he won’t tell her what to do, not directly, but she’s a smart girl, she knows what he wants. 

With her eyes wide again, she opens her mouth and inches his cock past her lips. The tightness in his gut starts to burn as she works up and down his length, slowly– excruciatingly slowly. It’s not in anyway relaxing, he thinks, but it’s a nice kind of torture.

He loses himself to the warmth and the wetness of her mouth, her tongue running over the underside of his cock, her lips teasing over the tip before she moves back down, using her hands where her mouth can’t reach.

He chokes out a throaty “fuck,” knowing there’s a security guard outside the door, and probably a few of the staff still lingering about. 

But she looks so beautiful like this, her brow furrowed in determination as she tries to take him deeper and deeper, desperate to please him, happy to make him suffer for it. And the little noises she makes, the gags and the moans. He imagines that she likes this, that she’s been wanting this for as long as he has, and if he pulled her onto his lap and slid his fingers under her skirt, he’d find her drenched.

She starts to up the pace until he brings his hand to the side of her face again, his hand large enough that he can rest his palm against her cheek and tease his fingers through her hair. Her eyes dart up to his, wide and teary. 

“Good girl,” he whispers, “nice and slow, just like that.”

She whimpers around him, breathing desperately through her nose.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he coos, “you started this, didn’t you? Wanted to taste me? Wanted to feel my cock in your mouth?”

She hums in agreement.

“Just fucking take it then,” he says with a clenched jaw, gripping her hair to bob her head up and down, keeping that torturous pace.

The pleasure builds slowly, running hotly through his body, but he fights the urge to clamp both hands around her head and buck his hips up to fuck her throat.

He comes harder than he thinks he ever has before, keeping himself sheathed within her as he paints the inside of her mouth, and pulls her head away to see the last few drops spill against her lips.

She gazes up at him with dazed and glassy eyes. She’s panting, trying to catch her breath. Her forehead glistens with sweat, mascara runs down her face and his spend drips over her chin.

He wipes some of the mess away with his thumbs, cradling her face in his hands. “Swallow,” he orders.

Her mouth closes and her throat bobs. He can already feel the tension in his gut tightening again.

If only he could keep her like this forever.

She makes it to Hightower House at the usual time of 8am, despite leaving work so late last night. Despite the hours she spent consumed by thoughts of Aemond Targaryen as she rode the train and dragged herself into her bed. Despite the aching arousal that went unfulfilled. Despite the marks on her knees and the stiffness in her jaw.

When she walks into Alys’ office to sign in, she’s already there, perfectly poised and typing away on her laptop. 

“Morning,” she says brightly.

Alys looks up from the screen. The white light shining from below makes her face look a little eerie. “Morning,” she says with a smug look on her face.

She ignores it, scrawling down the time and her signature beside her name.

“You were working rather late last night,” Alys says.

“Yeah, I was,” she mutters, placing the pen down and straightening her spine.

Alys is staring at her. Her eyes are unnervingly bright. “He never asks Maris to work late.”

Her heart drops.

It’s like she can feel the weight of him in her mouth, the taste of him on her tongue.

“I bet he’s just realised I’m more of a people pleaser,” she says.

Alys hums and smiles. “Yeah?”

She doesn’t have time for this. She hangs up her coat and her bag, and picks up two black coffees from the coffee machine in the kitchenette down the hall.

Aemond is in his office, leaning back in his chair with his mobile pressed to his ear. He doesn’t react much when he sees her, he just watches her as she sets one of the cups in front of him. He raises his eyebrows in thanks and brings it to his lips.

She imagines the person on the other end of the call is starting to bore him.

“Yeah… yeah… I know… well there’s not much to be done now but get it over with.”

She takes a few sips from her own cup, wiping the corners of her mouth. Aemond follows her fingers as she does.

“I’ll speak to you after. Yes, thank you, grandfather.” He hangs up the phone and tosses it onto a stack of papers on the desk. “Seven fucking Hells.”

“How did that go?” she asks.

Aemond rolls his eyes and huffs a tired laugh. “He wants to talk through candidates for the by-election in Duskendale. I said I’ll think about it if I survive PMQs.”

She sets her coffee cup down. “What are you most worried about? You’ve prepared for this. What’s worrying you?”

Aemond taps his fingers against the desk. She tries not to ignore the thrill it sends through her belly.

“I’ve never had to deal with something like this. I’ve never been this worried about the party’s image, but that’s usually because I do everything right.”

The whole Aegon situation is beyond his control, and yet he’ll be getting the scrutiny for it.

“People need to be able to trust you,” she says.

Aemond looks up at her expectantly.

“Is Aegon still a party member?” she asks.

Aemond’s expression darkens. “That was discussed. Otto wants him to remain an official member.”

“You’re the Prime Minister. Put your foot down.”

“I can’t,” he says, standing and fixing the rolled up sleeves and undone buttons on his shirt before he reaches for his tie.

“You can’t afford not to. If you go easy on Aegon, Rhaenyra’s going to play to some kind of ‘the Greens are anti woman card.’ Your voters need to know you’re taking this seriously.”

“And throw my own brother under the bus?” he says, sternly.

But she can tell he’s still nervous. His hands are shaking as he ties the tie around his neck.

She pauses, wondering where the line is here. Aegon Targaryen will be fine. He’ll be put under investigation and keep getting bad press for a while, but he can live off daddy’s money in the meantime, and in a few years the whole scandal will be forgotten.

She takes a few steps towards him and comes close enough to smell the dark, boozy smell of his perfume, and shoos his hands away.

“What would be better for the country,” she asks, tilting her head and keeping her eyes focused as she fastens his tie, “presenting yourself as a leader who is committed to integrity and respect, or leaving yourself open to further criticism?”

She pushes the knot up tightly against his collar for emphasis.

Aemond just smirks. “You’re very persuasive,” he says.

“That’s my job, sir.”

She gasps as his hand grabs her hip and pulls her against him. His breath runs hotly over her face as he tilts her chin up to look at him. His throat hums as he breathes.

She could fall apart then and there.

Until a knock on the door has her practically shoving him away.

Aemond chuckles and shrugs on his suit jacket. “Enter,” he calls.

She turns her back to the door to hide the flustered look on her face, pretending to look through a bookshelf that she’s never really looked at properly before.

“Car for you, sir,” Alys says from the doorway.

Aemond calls for her by her surname. Fuck– she was supposed to pack his briefcase before he left. She takes a breath and goes about collecting all the pages of notes and briefings he’ll need. 

She brings it to him, and notices Maris standing in the hallway behind Alys. Maris usually goes with him to the Red Keep for PMQs, but today he requests that she accompany him. She supposes it makes sense, she’s been the one helping him prepare after all.

Maris’ face is a storm. Alys looks down at her feet and tries to stifle a giggle.

The next few hours are a blur. She trails after Aemond through the ornate corridors, keeping her eyes on his silver hair, flowing down the back of his black suit jacket. Somewhere along the way, Cole and the head of security, a man Aemond greets as “Mr Westerling”, joins them.

They leave through the front entrance, into the sharp September air and into a black car. The hum of the engine and the smell of leather makes her nauseous, but they’re only in the car for a matter of minutes before the door swings open and she’s been ushered towards the Red Keep.

Once a seat of Kings, now the red stone castle seems a little out of place with the rest of the city. This is where Parliament gathers.

As they walk through its halls, Aemond tells her to throw a few questions at him. She has them all memorised in her head, able to recite a few without really thinking about it. Aemond mutters the answers they’ve rehearsed under his breath, smiling politely and waving as they pass by civil servants, MPs, Green and Black party members alike. They even pass Cregan Stark, leader of the Northern Independence party. He whispers all of their names in her ear.

There’s a small room where Aemond waits in before he enters the Great Hall. She can hear the noise and the chatter on the other side of the double doors, engraved with the same crest that marks the gates to Hightower House.

He won’t stop moving, adjusting his tie and his cuffs, tutting and pursing his lips.

She makes sure Cole and Westerling are muttering to each other before she leans into Aemond, putting her hand on his shoulder. “You’ll be fine,” she whispers, “don’t see it as a chance for them to criticise you, see it as an opportunity for you to reassure everyone else of how brilliant you are.”

Aemond turns his head towards her. He’s not touching her but she feels the proximity.

“That’s an interesting way to look at it,” he says.

She smiles. “It’s all perspective.”

Before Aemond is called into the hall, Cole directs her to the gallery, above the benches where the MPs sit.

She and Aemond meet eyes before she leaves. She stops herself from reaching for him, not wanting to leave his side.

“Good luck,” she says.

As if he needs it. She watches everything unfold from the gallery, the MPs sat below her like she’s watching a play in a theatre.

Aemond starts off with an amazing opening speech which, at her recommendation, doesn’t shy away from the issue of the whole Aegon scandal. He affirms his commitment to ensuring that central government is a safe and inclusive working environment, which is when he announces Aegon’s resignation as an MP, as well as his removal from the Green Party.

The chamber in an uproar. A few members of the Green Party make a bit of a fuss, but mostly Aemond’s announcement is applauded, even by a good number of Black Party members.

Rhaenyra, Aemond’s sister and predecessor, is at a loss for words, as is her deputy, Daemon.

Aemond seems to get a boost of confidence from this and takes every question in his stride, using elements from the answers she had rehearsed with him and even throwing in a few one liners which has half the room cheering him.

And he’s fucking hot when he’s cocky.

While he speaks all she can think of is how he sounded while she was between his legs. “Good girl… just fucking take it…” she has to clench her fists and her jaw at the wave of arousal that rises within her.

Afterwards she walks with him to the car. A whole host of Green Party members crowd him as they walk through the hallways, praising him, commending him. He smiles graciously, looking over his shoulder every so often to look at her, to make sure she’s not fallen behind.

The silence of the car is unbearable with Cole and Westerling in the front, and Aemond beside her, drumming his fingers against his thigh and running his other hand through his hair.

She presses her thighs at the obvious arousal pooling at her centre.

Seven hells, she’s acting like she’s in heat.

She follows Aemond back through Hightower House, past Alys’ office, to his own office. When he closes the door behind them, he locks it.

She leans against the desk, keeping her hands on the wood behind her.

Aemond turns back to her with a ravenous look in his pale blue eyes. He reaches into his pocket, effortlessly pulling his hair into a low bun, as he usually does in informal company.

She can’t take her eye off him as he tosses his jacket over the sofa, and begins to roll up the sleeves of his shirt. Then he stalks towards her, his chin tilted down and his lips in a tight line, until he’s close enough to paw at her waist. 

“I suppose I should thank you for your help,” he says, eyes fixed on his hands as they tease over the fabric of the red mini skirt she had picked out this morning, the way she squirms underneath him.

“Oh,” she breathes. One of his hands trails up, untucking her blouse from her skirt and brushing his fingertips against the bare skin underneath. “Just… doing my job, sir.”

He hums to himself as his hand works its way round to her backside, squeezing gently. “Do you like calling me ‘sir’?”

She can’t help but nod, dazed at the feeling of his hands tracing the shape of her body.

“Yeah, I think you do,” he says, leaning in to press a slow, firm kiss to her neck.

Her resolve is shattered. She throws her hands around his neck, pulling herself into him, desperate to feel him against her, to stay close to him.

She almost whines when he moves away, much to his amusement, feeling her mouth fall into a pout.

“Don’t tell me I’ve got a brat,” he says, taking her chin in his hand. “Are you going to be good for me, pet?”

“Yes, sir,” she utters.

“See? You don’t even need to be told,” he says with a smile. “You’re going to turn around and lean over the desk.”

She follows his instructions without missing a beat, bracing herself on her forearms, against the surface. She feels her skirt being pushed up over her hips, her tights and panties pulled down in one go, fingertips trailing over her thighs. Then she feels his breath against the wetness of her bare pussy. 

She can’t help but let out a quiet moan, pressing her nails into the wood in anticipation.

“Haven’t even fucking touched you yet, are you that desperate for me?”

“Yes, sir,” she whimpers, trying to look over her shoulder.

Aemond’s hand finds its way against her head, pressing her down. And he doesn’t let go.

His fingers drag through her folds, teasing her entrance and her clit before he slides in a single digit. It feels so different from her own, longer and thicker, pressing into her at an unfamiliar angle. She feels utterly weightless, the obscene sound of him moving in and out of her only adding to her arousal.

Aemond’s voice is dark and husky, as it was last night. “Good girl,” he coos, “that feels good, doesn’t it?”

When she doesn’t reply, he withdraws and lands a stinging slap against her cheek, before he pushes into her again. “Answer me,” he says, clearly and firmly.

“Yes, sir,” she says, frantically trying to nod against his hold of her head. “Feels so fucking good.”

He increases his speed, pumping in and out of her until her climax washes over her. It happens gradually, building and building before a pleasant numbness washes through her, to every corner of her body. 

While she comes down from her high, her attention is caught by the sound of a belt buckle and rustling fabric.

The tip of his cock presses into her without warning. He inches further and further in until he bottoms out, the material of his trousers pressing against her skin– the cunt hasn’t even bothered to take off his clothes.

He finally relents his hold of her head, grabbing at her waist as he ruts into her. It’s fast and primal, adrenaline pumping through her blood, Aemond’s fingers digging into her flesh, her breath coming out in moans, his belt buckle hitting the desk with every harsh thrust.

“Knew you were a little slut,” he grits out, grabbing at her cheeks and spreading them out to watch his cock moving in and out of her. “Fuck, you’re so tight.”

She covers her mouth with her hand to hold back the wanton noises threatening to slip past her lips. 

Suddenly a hand comes to her shoulder, pulling her up against his chest. One hand kneads at her breasts through her blouse and her bra, while the other slips between her legs, tracing quick circles over her clit.

“I wanna feel you come,” he rasps into her ear, “wanna feel my good girl clench around my cock.”

She doesn’t know what to do with herself. She clings to his arms and digs her teeth into her bottom lip. She can feel herself hurtling towards her climax, if only he would move his fingers a little faster.

“Please,” she whispers.

“What was that, pet?” Aemond asks, brushing his lips over her cheek. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want to come!” she whines. “Fuck– please… please, I just want to come, sir.”

She feels him smiling against her as his fingers rub faster over her clit. She can feel how deep he is inside her, how his cock bullies against that sensitive spot, over and over again, until her orgasm tears through her.

She tries to keep her mouth shut but she can’t help the pleading groan that hums in her throat. Aemond holds her as she falls apart, fucking her thoroughly through it all.

Until finally, he reaches his end, hissing through his teeth and pulling out to spill himself onto her pussy. She feels the warmth, how it drips through her folds, for now uncaring of the mess they’ve surely made.

Aemond keeps holding her against his chest. His forehead falls against the back of her head and his hot breath echoes over her neck. “I really appreciate the work you’ve done for me,” he says breathlessly. “I think you and I make quite a pair, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes, sir,” she mewls, letting her head fall against his arm.

Aemond hums a laugh to himself, it rumbles in his chest and against her back. “So pretty and polite,” he coos, “how did I ever manage without you until now, pet?”

General taglist: @randomdragonfires @jamespotterismydaddy @theoneeyedprince @tsujifreya @dreamsofoldvalyria @targaryenrealnessdarling

A/n: I might do a part 2 to this so let me know if you would liked to be tagged :)

[phoenixyfriend]

The groupings are not based on trying to ensure equal demographics in each, but by proximity to and impact of the Bering Strait Land Bridge theory or other relation to prehistoric colonization of the Americas.

I wasn't sure how to group Oceania and the Polynesian/Micronesian/Melanesian folks given the overall histories, so you get your own bunch. I can't remember if those theories about Polynesians reaching the Americas for trade on occasion, prior to written records, are legitimate/supported or just a thing I heard once. Either way, I think that history of 'discovering unpopulated lands by heading east from large landmasses' is similar enough that maybe it comes up for overlapping histories? IDK! You get your own buttons.

Also wasn't sure if it would make sense to include SEAsia with East Asia or lump it in with the rest, buuuut I think upon reviewing the maps that it looks like the Strait is a lot less geographically/politically related to most of East Asia than I thought, so there's less of a difference between EAsia and SEAsia than I thought, enough that marking them out separately from Russia but not each other probably works.

I initially wrote out a less America-Specific description of primary/secondary or elementary/middle/high but honestly? It took up too much space. Appropriate disambiguation made the title so long that people wouldn't have read it. So. You get K-12 or equivalent.

I'm including Mexico with Central America for two reasons: 1. Most Mexicans I've seen talking on the topic recently, at least on tumblr, prefer to be divided in that direction for cultural reasons. 2. Geographically much more distant from the Bering Strait than its northern neighbors.

Also, please reblog! I want this to go past my primarily anglophone-countries circle if possible.

[alpaca-clouds]

So, You Wanna Write A Solarpunk Thriller

Based on the blog I wrote yesterday about conflict in Solarpunk stories and how people either don't understand how stories work, have never read a book, or plainly act more dumb than they are. Because, yes, you can in fact tell almost any sort of story in a Solarpunk work - without resorting (like, sadly, way too many writers do) to "Actually the utopia is a lie and Solent Green is people!"

Meaning: If you need a "dark secret in society" to have a conflict in your story, you have a skill issue.

But let's talk about the genre that usually comes with those kinda dark secrets. While not necessary for the genre per se, it is a common trope here. Thrillers.

Ironically we all have some picture in our heads what a thriller might be - even though it might be one of the most loosely defined literary genre. Though probably we will think first of some movies.

The top 10 thriller movies according to this list on IMDB, the top ten thrillers are:

Seven (Police/Crime)

Silence of the Lambs (Police/Crime)

Shutter Island (Psychological)

The Sixth Sense (Supernatural)

Zodiac (Police/Crime)

Inception (Crime)

North by Northwest (Spy)

Identity (Psychological/Crime)

The Game (Financial)

The Prestige (Psychological/Crime)

Something you will note to your surprise: None of those actually feature a central conflict based on the society having a dark secret. In fact half of them are basically just Mystery movies with higher stakes (which is what turns them from mystery/crime drama to thrillers).

In fact I would argue that at least half of those movie plots could be rewritten fairly easily to take place in a Solarpunk world without any problem. Like, sure, The Game would not work, because this story very much is build around capitalism existing. And one could argue how those stories, where the main character is a cop need to be changed (because I know that my vision of a solarpunk does not involve cops).

In fact, going through the list of those 50 movies in total, I count a total of 6 movies in which a government conspiracy is part of the central conflict. Out of those 6 movies 4 are Cyberpunk.

Generally speaking, there is a variety of concepts for thrillers. There is the police/crime thrillers, but others as well. Wikipedia lists those kinds of thrillers:

The legal thriller, spy thriller, action-adventure thriller, medical thriller, police thriller, romantic thriller, historical thriller, political thriller, religious thriller, high-tech thriller, military thriller.

And I might add, I am very much missing the psychological thriller in there.

So, what am I saying here?

Basically: All you need to write a thriller is high enough stakes. In the end, a good thriller works by the stakes being high (though what means "high" might also vary from subgenre to subgenre), and by the readers or watchers understanding the stakes well.

So, that said, let me go through the kinds of thriller we have named above and name one example each for how the story could be made solarpunk.

Legal Thriller: The easy example here would be the fight for a Solarpunk world. Either pre-Solarpunk and a group of environmentalists is taking a big company to court for what they did against the environment. Or in a Solarpunk future I could also see some former rich folks trying to bring down the Solarpunk society by trying to find loopholes in the legal system - and a group of lawyers fighting against it.

Spy Thriller: This one will depend a lot on how you construct a Solarpunk future. The easy answer here is a world in which not all of the world is solarpunk - and we basically have a cold war happening between the solarpunk state and the old world state. Works out fine.

Action-Adventure Thriller: A good chunk of the movies in these genre feature natural catastrophes. So... Uhm... An earthquake will still happen in a Solarpunk world - and people try to survive. Easy. Next?

Medical Thriller: Another easy one. There is a break out of a new pandemic. People work hard to prevent further spread. Bonus points: Here we can actually use the setting to show the advantages and the shortcomings of a Solarpunk society, that is an anarchic and socialist/communist society.

Crime Thriller: (I will say, no police, because I do not believe in Cops in Solarpunk.) Again, even though it is to be assumed that crime will go back a lot if we create an equal society, there will still be some people who will kill. And there might still be a serial killer. And there will be those, who will try to capture that serial killer. Again. Easy.

Romantic Thriller: Okay, let's face it. The romantic thriller is so watered down by now that it is "a thriller that also has a strong romantic subplot" for most of the part - rather than the romance being the source of the trilling elements. But for the sense of saying the actual "romance turning into a thriller"... Let's be honest. Even if we had a Solarpunk world in which polyamory was the norm, there would be still crimes of passion - and just plainly abusive partners. So, here my prompt: One partner in a polycule goes to a mental crisis. In the attempt to protect them, the polycule gets drawn more and more to violence.

Historical Thriller: Uhm, okay, I will leave this one out because historical and scifi setting do not quite gel xD

Political Thriller: We have a more anarchic world, but there are still some people who hold more influence, because old habits die hard. Some of them try to use political tools to get the world to revert into the old ways, just to gain more power for themselves.

Religious Thriller: Let's face it. This genre is often very close to horror. But to go with the non-supernatural way... No, I do not believe in forbidding religion in a Solarpunk future. However, there is the issue that religion will always make it easier for cults to form. So, this is the story of a young man who gets into the claws of a religious cult - but only realizes too late what he got into.

High-Tech Thriller: (Translate: SciFi Thriller) Alien, but Solarpunk. The only difference: There are in fact people trying to help. They just fail to do so.

Military Thriller: Like the spy thriller - but instead of cold war it is open war.

Psychological Thriller: I am going here with a parent who gaslights their adult child, while the adult child tries to differentiate reality from the fiction presented by said parent.

So, why did I do this?

Basically just to show you: If you really think the only story you can tell as a Solarpunk author is how the Solarpunk utopia is in fact an illusion made to paint over a corrupt system, then it is very much a skill issue. You just are not very good at telling stories.

Thankfully there is a cure for that: Consume more stories. Watch movies. Read books (or listen to audiobooks). Read comics. Watch shows. Just consume more media.

[reasonsforhope]

"Despite the Central Appalachia ecosystem being historically famous as coal country, under this diverse broadleaf canopy lies a rich, biodiverse world of native plants helping to fill North America’s medicinal herb cabinet.

And it turns out that the very communities once reliant on the coalfields are now bringing this botanical diversity to the country.

“Many different Appalachian people, stretching from pre-colonization to today, have tended, harvested, sold, and used a vast number of forest botanicals like American ginseng, ramps, black cohosh, and goldenseal,” said Shannon Bell, Virginia Tech professor in the Dept. of Sociology. “These plants have long been integral to many Appalachians’ livelihoods and traditions.”

50% of the medicinal herbs, roots, and barks in the North American herbal supply chain are native to the Appalachian Mountains, and the bulk of these species are harvested or grown in Central Appalachia, which includes southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, far-southwest Virginia, and east Tennessee.

The United Plant Savers, a nonprofit with a focus on native medicinal plants and their habitats, has identified many of the most popular forest medicinals as species of concern due to their declining populations.

Along with the herbal supply chain being largely native to Appalachia, the herb gatherers themselves are also native [to Appalachia, not Native American specifically], but because processing into medicine and seasonings takes place outside the region, the majority of the profits from the industry do too.

In a press release on Bell’s superb research and advocacy work within Appalachia’s botanical communities, she refers back to the moment that her interest in the industry and the region sprouted; when like many of us, she was out in a nearby woods waiting out the pandemic.

“My family and I spent a lot of time in the woods behind our house during quarantine,” Bell said. “We observed the emergence of all the spring ephemerals in the forest understory – hepatica, spring beauty, bloodroot, trillium, mayapple. I came to appreciate the importance of the region’s botanical biodiversity more than ever, and realized I wanted to incorporate this new part of my life into my research.”

With co-investigator, John Munsell at VA Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environment, Bell’s project sought to identify ways that Central Appalachian communities could retain more of the profits from the herbal industry while simultaneously ensuring that populations of at-risk forest botanicals not only survive, but thrive and expand in the region.

Bell conducted participant observation and interviews with wild harvesters and is currently working on a mail survey with local herb buyers. She also piloted a ginseng seed distribution program, and helped a wild harvester write a grant proposal to start a forest farm.

“Economic development in post-coal communities often focuses on other types of energy development, like fracking and natural gas pipelines, or on building prisons and landfills. Central Appalachia is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. I think that placing a greater value on this biodiversity is key to promoting a more sustainable future for the region,” Bell told VA Tech press.

Armed with a planning grant of nearly half a million dollars, Bell and collaborators are specifically targeting forest farming as a way to achieve that sustainable future.

Finally, enlisting support from the nonprofit organization Appalachian Sustainable Development, Virginia Tech, the City of Norton, a sculpture artist team, and various forest botanicals practitioners in her rolodex, Bell organized the creation of a ‘living monument’ along Flag Rock Recreation Area in Norton, Virginia.

An interpretive trail, the monument tells the story of the historic uses that these wild botanicals had for the various societies that have inhabited Appalachia, and the contemporary value they still hold for people today."

-via Good News Network, September 12, 2024