#transparent history reports

[triangle-automart]

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[etouts]

Used Cars Sales in Durham

Triangle Automart Inc is a trusted used car dealership serving the communities of Durham, Raleigh, Cary, Roxboro, and Apex in North Carolina. With a wide selection of quality pre-owned vehicles, we are committed to providing exceptional customer service and helping you find the perfect car to fit your needs and budget. Our experienced team ensures a hassle-free buying experience, offering transparent pricing and thorough vehicle inspections. Visit Triangle Automart Inc today and drive away in your dream car!

[aavya945]

Used Car & Truck Dealership in Durham

Welcome to Triangle Automart Inc, the premier used car dealership in Durham, NC. With a wide selection of affordable, top-quality vehicles, we prioritize customer satisfaction and strive to offer a stress-free car buying experience.

Our knowledgeable sales team is dedicated to helping you find the ideal vehicle within your budget. Each car undergoes rigorous inspections and comes with transparent history reports.

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[immaculatasknight]

Isn't it time?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Good riddance to the Open Gaming License

Last week, Gizmodo’s Linda Codega caught a fantastic scoop — a leaked report of Hasbro’s plan to revoke the decades-old Open Gaming License, which subsidiary Wizards Of the Coast promulgated as an allegedly open sandbox for people seeking to extend, remix or improve Dungeons and Dragons:

https://gizmodo.com/dnd-wizards-of-the-coast-ogl-1-1-open-gaming-license-1849950634

The report set off a shitstorm among D&D fans and the broader TTRPG community — not just because it was evidence of yet more enshittification of D&D by a faceless corporate monopolist, but because Hasbro was seemingly poised to take back the commons that RPG players and designers had built over decades, having taken WOTC and the OGL at their word.

Gamers were right to be worried. Giant companies love to rugpull their fans, tempting them into a commons with lofty promises of a system that we will all have a stake in, using the fans for unpaid creative labor, then enclosing the fans’ work and selling it back to them. It’s a tale as old as CDDB and Disgracenote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDDB#History

(Disclosure: I am a long-serving volunteer board-member for MetaBrainz, which maintains MusicBrainz, a free, open, community-managed and transparent alternative to Gracenote, explicitly designed to resist the kind of commons-stealing enclosure that led to the CDDB debacle.)

https://musicbrainz.org/

Free/open licenses were invented specifically to prevent this kind of fuckery. First there was the GPL and its successor software licenses, then Creative Commons and its own successors. One important factor in these licenses: they contain the word “irrevocable.” That means that if you build on licensed content, you don’t have to worry about having the license yanked out from under you later. It’s rugproof.

Now, the OGL does not contain the word “irrevocable.” Rather, the OGL is “perpetual.” To a layperson, these two terms may seem interchangeable, but this is one of those fine lawerly distinctions that trip up normies all the time. In lawyerspeak, a “perpetual” license is one whose revocation doesn’t come automatically after a certain time (unlike, say, a one-year car-lease, which automatically terminates at the end of the year). Unless a license is “irrevocable,” the licensor can terminate it whenever they want to.

This is exactly the kind of thing that trips up people who roll their own licenses, and people who trust those licenses. The OGL predates the Creative Commons licenses, but it neatly illustrates the problem with letting corporate lawyers — rather than public-interest nonprofits — unleash “open” licenses on an unsuspecting, legally unsophisticated audience.

The perpetual/irrevocable switcheroo is the least of the problems with the OGL. As Rob Bodine— an actual lawyer, as well as a dice lawyer — wrote back in 2019, the OGL is a grossly defective instrument that is significantly worse than useless.

https://gsllcblog.com/2019/08/26/part3ogl/

The issue lies with what the OGL actually licenses. Decades of copyright maximalism has convinced millions of people that anything you can imagine is “intellectual property,” and that this is indistinguishable from real property, which means that no one can use it without your permission.

The copyrightpilling of the world sets people up for all kinds of scams, because copyright just doesn’t work like that. This wholly erroneous view of copyright grooms normies to be suckers for every sharp grifter who comes along promising that everything imaginable is property-in-waiting (remember SpiceDAO?):

https://onezero.medium.com/crypto-copyright-bdf24f48bf99

Copyright is a lot more complex than “anything you can imagine is your property and that means no one else can use it.” For starters, copyright draws a fundamental distinction between ideas and expression. Copyright does not apply to ideas — the idea, say, of elves and dwarves and such running around a dungeon, killing monsters. That is emphatically not copyrightable.

Copyright also doesn’t cover abstract systems or methods — like, say, a game whose dice-tables follow well-established mathematical formulae to create a “balanced” system for combat and adventuring. Anyone can make one of these, including by copying, improving or modifying an existing one that someone else made. That’s what “uncopyrightable” means.

Finally, there are the exceptions and limitations to copyright — things that you are allowed to do with copyrighted work, without first seeking permission from the creator or copyright’s proprietor. The best-known exception is US law is fair use, a complex doctrine that is often incorrectly characterized as turning on “four factors” that determine whether a use is fair or not.

In reality, the four factors are a starting point that courts are allowed and encouraged to consider when determining the fairness of a use, but some of the most consequential fair use cases in Supreme Court history flunk one, several, or even all of the four factors (for example, the Betamax decision that legalized VCRs in 1984, which fails all four).

Beyond fair use, there are other exceptions and limitations, like the di minimis exemption that allows for incidental uses of tiny fragments of copyrighted work without permission, even if those uses are not fair use. Copyright, in other words, is “fact-intensive,” and there are many ways you can legally use a copyrighted work without a license.

Which brings me back to the OGL, and what, specifically, it licenses. The OGL is a license that only grants you permission to use the things that WOTC can’t copyright — “the game mechanic [including] the methods, procedures, processes and routines.” In other words, the OGL gives you permission to use things you don’t need permission to use.

But maybe the OGL grants you permission to use more things, beyond those things you’re allowed to use anyway? Nope. The OGL specifically exempts:

Product and product line names, logos and identifying marks including trade dress; artifacts; creatures characters; stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations; names and descriptions of characters, spells, enchantments, personalities, teams, personas, likenesses and special abilities; places, locations, environments, creatures, equipment, magical or supernatural abilities or effects, logos, symbols, or graphic designs; and any other trademark or registered trademark…

Now, there are places where the uncopyrightable parts of D&D mingle with the copyrightable parts, and there’s a legal term for this: merger. Merger came up for gamers in 2018, when the provocateur Robert Hovden got the US Copyright Office to certify copyright in a Magic: The Gathering deck:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/14/angels-and-demons/#owning-culture

If you want to learn more about merger, you need to study up on Kregos and Eckes, which are beautifully explained in the “Open Intellectual Property Casebook,” a free resource created by Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle:

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/openip/#q01

Jenkins and Boyle explicitly created their open casebook as an answer to another act of enclosure: a greedy textbook publisher cornered the market on IP textbook and charged every law student — and everyone curious about the law — $200 to learn about merger and other doctrines.

As EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kit Walsh writes in her must-read analysis of the OGL, this means “the only benefit that OGL offers, legally, is that you can copy verbatim some descriptions of some elements that otherwise might arguably rise to the level of copyrightability.”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/01/beware-gifts-dragons-how-dds-open-gaming-license-may-have-become-trap-creators

But like I said, it’s not just that the OGL fails to give you rights — it actually takes away rights you already have to D&D. That’s because — as Walsh points out — fair use and the other copyright limitations and exceptions give you rights to use D&D content, but the OGL is a contract whereby you surrender those rights, promising only to use D&D stuff according to WOTC’s explicit wishes.

“For example, absent this agreement, you have a legal right to create a work using noncopyrightable elements of D&D or making fair use of copyrightable elements and to say that that work is compatible with Dungeons and Dragons. In many contexts you also have the right to use the logo to name the game (something called “nominative fair use” in trademark law). You can certainly use some of the language, concepts, themes, descriptions, and so forth. Accepting this license almost certainly means signing away rights to use these elements. Like Sauron’s rings of power, the gift of the OGL came with strings attached.”

And here’s where it starts to get interesting. Since the OGL launched in 2000, a huge proportion of game designers have agreed to its terms, tricked into signing away their rights. If Hasbro does go through with canceling the OGL, it will release those game designers from the shitty, deceptive OGL.

According to the leaks, the new OGL is even worse than the original versions — but you don’t have to take those terms! Notwithstanding the fact that the OGL says that “using…Open Game Content” means that you accede to the license terms, that is just not how contracts work.

Walsh: “Contracts require an offer, acceptance, and some kind of value in exchange, called ‘consideration.’ If you sell a game, you are inviting the reader to play it, full stop. Any additional obligations require more than a rote assertion.”

“For someone who wants to make a game that is similar mechanically to Dungeons and Dragons, and even announce that the game is compatible with Dungeons and Dragons, it has always been more advantageous as a matter of law to ignore the OGL.”

Walsh finishes her analysis by pointing to some good licenses, like the GPL and Creative Commons, “written to serve the interests of creative communities, rather than a corporation.” Many open communities — like the programmers who created GNU/Linux, or the music fans who created Musicbrainz, were formed after outrageous acts of enclosure by greedy corporations.

If you’re a game designer who was pissed off because the OGL was getting ganked — and if you’re even more pissed off now that you’ve discovered that the OGL was a piece of shit all along — there’s a lesson there. The OGL tricked a generation of designers into thinking they were building on a commons. They weren’t — but they could.

This is a great moment to start — or contribute to — real open gaming content, licensed under standard, universal licenses like Creative Commons. Rolling your own license has always been a bad idea, comparable to rolling your own encryption in the annals of ways-to-fuck-up-your-own-life-and-the-lives-of-many-others. There is an opportunity here — Hasbro unintentionally proved that gamers want to collaborate on shared gaming systems.

That’s the true lesson here: if you want a commons, you’re not alone. You’ve got company, like Kit Walsh herself, who happens to be a brilliant game-designer who won a Nebula Award for her game “Thirsty Sword Lesbians”:

https://evilhat.com/product/thirsty-sword-lesbians/

[Image ID: A remixed version of David Trampier's 'Eye of Moloch,' the cover of the first edition of the AD&D Player's Handbook. It has been altered so the title reads 'Advanced Copyright Fuckery. Unclear on the Concept. That's Just Not How Licenses Work. No, Seriously.' The eyes of the idol have been replaced by D20s displaying a critical fail '1.' Its chest bears another D20 whose showing face is a copyright symbol.]

[zvaigzdelasas]

The US is reported to have made more than 100 weapons sales to Israel, including thousands of bombs, since the start of the war in Gaza, but the deliveries escaped congressional oversight because each transaction was under the dollar amount requiring approval.

The Biden administration has [publicly] become increasingly critical of the conduct of Israeli military operations in Gaza and the failure to allow in meaningful amounts of humanitarian aid, with the death toll now over 30,000 and with famine looming. But it has kept up a quiet but substantial flow of munitions to help replace the tens of thousands of bombs Israel has dropped on the tiny coastal strip, making it one of the most intense bombing campaigns in military history.

The Washington Post reported that administration officials informed Congress of the 100 foreign military sales to Israel in a classified briefing. Few details are known of the sales, because keeping each one small meant their contents remained secret, but they are reported to have included precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid.

The White House spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, declined to comment on the report on Wednesday.[...]

“This doesn’t just seem like an attempt to avoid technical compliance with US arms export law, it’s an extremely troubling way to avoid transparency and accountability on a high-profile issue,” Ari Tolany, director of the security assistance monitor at the Centre for International Policy thinktank, said.

She added that, in exploiting the loophole, the Biden administration was following the steps of its predecessor.

“They’re very much borrowing from the Trump playbook to dodge congressional oversight,” Tolany said. The state department office of the inspector general found that between 2017 and 2019, the Trump administration had made 4,221 below-threshold arms transfers to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, worth an estimated total of $11.2bn.

The under-the-radar deliveries made by the Biden administration to Israel were additional to the three major military sales that were made public since the start of the war: $320m in precision bomb kits in November and 14,000 tank shells costing $106m and $147.5m of fuses and other components needed to make 155mm artillery shells in December. The December deliveries of tank and artillery shells also sidestepped congressional scrutiny because they were made under an emergency authority.[...]

“We continue to support Israel’s campaign to ensure that the attacks of 7 October cannot be repeated. We have provided military assistance to Israel because it is consistent with that goal,” Matthew Miller, the state department spokesperson, said. “We support Israel’s legitimate military campaign consistent with international humanitarian law.”

The state department has been vague about how much effort it is putting into assessing whether Israeli forces are committing war crimes. A process called Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance (CHIRG) was set up in September last year, before the Gaza war, to make assessments of the use made of US armaments, and Israel’s military operations are under review, but the process is slow and does not commit the administration to taking remedial action.

6 Mar 24

[soon-palestine]

not only is this a transparant attempt by the New York Times to shield Jeffrey "I don't do evidence, I do stories" Gettleman and her partner's nephew food blogger Adam Sella, they're also lying about it being about "a liked tweet" to defend the "mass rape" hoax they fabricated it was never just about "one liked tweet". That's a pathetic cover-up attempt. She expressed repeatedly, including with her nephew Adam Sella, that she set out to fabricate the "mass rape" hoax "because it is important for Israeli hasbara [propaganda]

then The Intercept went back and looked over her public detailed statements, and confirmed this. Anat Schwartz intentionally set out, together with her relative Adam Sella, to fabricate this hoax in coordination with the Israeli regime. That is the scandal

recently graduated comp lit student and food blogger with zero reporting experience Adam Sella worked daily with his uncle's wife Anat Schwartz to self-admittedly fabricate this hoax. And the NYT keeps letting him launder it as detailed in these threads:

just recently the New York Times finally buckled after months of depraved shielding of the original "mass rape" hoax fabricated by Gettleman, Sella and Schwartz, and admitted just one of the huge glaring holes in it, while still trying to cover for it

all the fabricated "mass rape" pieces produced by Jeffrey Gettleman, Adam Sella and his uncle's partner Anat Schwartz have been definitively debunked as genocidal atrocity propaganda hoaxes by Mondoweiss, Grayzone, Electronic Intifada, Intercept and myself

instead of acknowledging this, retracting them and firing Gettleman and Sella for journalistic malpractice not seen in NYT history since Judith Miller, they are still standing by them and scapegoating Anat Schwartz with the grotesque cover-up lie about "it's just one liked tweet"

here is the original thread where I exposed Anat Schwartz for the self-admitted genocidal atrocity propagandist hoaxer she is, and notice that I immediately included her nephew Adam Sella and Jeffrey Gettleman. The NYT desperately wants to scapegoat her

minimal journalistic integrity and morality demands that the New York Times immediately fire Jeffrey Gettleman and Adam Sella, retract all their "mass rape" hoax pieces, profusely apologize, then also fire executive editor Joseph Kahn who oversaw and defended all this for months

Joseph Kahn, Jeffrey Gettleman and Adam Sella worked together to commission, publish, and then defend long after its decisive debunking a genocidal atrocity propaganda hoax that played a key role in the Israeli regime's propaganda effort to launder and continue the Gaza genocide

it was intentional, it was deliberate, and the New York Times keeps standing by it. Every second it does it further erodes the last remnants of its credibility. Again, this is their biggest journalistic scandal since Judith Miller's WMD hoax. There has to be accountability for it

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

President Lula, Canadian Prime Minister hold talks on Venezuela

The Planalto presidential palace reported on Tuesday (Aug. 13) that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva received a phone call from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. During the call, Trudeau expressed support for Brazil's efforts to defend democracy and transparency in Venezuela's electoral process. The results, which re-elected Nicolás Maduro for another term, are being contested by the opposition and several countries.

According to the palace, Lula remarked that “there is a history of missteps by the international community regarding Venezuela,” specifically pointing to the imposition of sanctions and the recognition of Juan Guaidó as president. In 2019, Guaidó, then the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly—controlled by the opposition—declared himself the country's president, with the backing of part of the international community. However, this recognition never materialized in practice.

In his conversation with Trudeau, the Brazilian president highlighted the coordination efforts of Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico to normalize the political situation in the neighbouring country. “The most important thing is to keep South America free of conflict, with prosperity and harmony,” said Lula, as he emphasized the importance of dialogue between the Maduro government and the opposition.

Continue reading.

Tagging @allthecanadianpolitics.

[abnerkrill]

Petition: establish AI regulations

EU people (but possible to sign from elsewhere in the world) please add your name to this petition for human-centric and culture-friendly AI regulation. Needs 47,000 more votes as of the time of posting. From the petition:

'Summary: In an open letter, the Authors' Rights Network (Netzwerk Autorenrechte) calls on the German government as well as the French and Italian leaders to reconsider their stance on the (non-)regulation of AI, to take a stand against the massive damaging effects of unregulated AI applications based on theft, to protect people and authors from data theft and disinformation and to reflect on values such as trust, democracy and justice.

++ Open letter on the subject of France, Germany's and Italy's position on the planned EU Artificial Intelligence Act ++

Dear Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Germany),

Dear Federal Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck,

Dear Federal Minister for Digital and Transport Volker Wissing,

Dear President Emmanuel Macron (France), 

Dear Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (Italy):

It is with great concern that we, the members of the Netzwerk Autorenrechte which represents authors and translators in the book sector from 15 organisations in the D-A-CH region, observe Germany's, Frances and Italy's new position on the AI Act proposal. This new position runs counter to the consensus previously reached by EU Member States on the legal regulation of AI, in particular with regard to transparency and liability obligations for developers of generative technology.

According to reports from Euractiv on 19 November 2023, Germany – under the lead of the Digital Ministry and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and together with France and Italy – wants to push for "obligatory self-regulation" instead of legally binding regulation. There are no sanctions for saftey incidents such as copyright, authors’ rights and data protection violations, insufficient labeling, or circumventing ethical standards in the position of these three countries.

Reason

Dear Chancellor, dear Vice Chancellor, dear Federal Minister,

dear Mr President of France, dear Prime Minister of Italy:

We urge you to change your position, which currently favors supposed economic advantages to the detriment of sustainable legal rules. Your position sends a fatal signal to everyone in the cultural sectors and to all people in Europe: namely, that you're willing to protect the same tech companies that illegitimately make use of cultural works and citizens data for their own profits – rather than protecting the people whose work and private data have made these foundation models and generative applications possible in the first place.

The consequences of your position would be devastating. Generative technology is already threatening numerous jobs. We can already observe several harmful “business models” based on AI products and an increase in disinformation. It's been proven that generative AI uses unlawfully obtained works without the knowledge or consent of the works' authors. Without legal regulation, generative technologies will accelerate the theft of artistic work and data. They'll increase discrimination and the falsification of information, including damage to reputations. And they'll significantly contribute to climate change. The more legally deregulated generative products reach the market, the more irreparable the loss of trust in texts, images, and information will become for society as a whole.

We urge you to return to the values of trust, democracy, and justice. We're standing on the threshold of an evolution, of one of the most decisive moments in history. Will we regulate the machines that are using humans in order to replace them? Or will we choose the short-sighted ideology of money?

We trust you have the political resolve to do the right thing.

Berlin, 24 November 2023'

[kp777]

By Jake Johnson

Common Dreams

Jan. 6, 2024

"Billionaires attempting to influence politics from the shadows should not be rewarded with taxpayer subsidies," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.

Legislation introduced Tuesday by a pair of Democratic lawmakers would close a loophole that lets billionaires donate assets to dark money organizations without paying any taxes.

The U.S. tax code allows write-offs when appreciated assets such as shares of stock are donated to a charity, but the tax break doesn't apply when the assets are given to political groups.

However, donations to 501(c)(4) organizations—which are allowed to engage in some political activity as long as it's not their primary purpose—are exempt from capital gains taxes, a loophole that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) are looking to shutter with their End Tax Breaks for Dark Money Act.

Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who has focused extensively on the corrupting effects of dark money, said the need for the bill was made clear by what ProPublica and The Lever described as "the largest known donation to a political advocacy group in U.S. history."

The investigative outlets reported in 2022 that billionaire manufacturing magnate Barre Seid donated his 100% ownership stake in Tripp Lite, a maker of electrical equipment, to Marble Freedom Trust, a group controlled by Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo.

The donation, completed in 2021, was worth $1.6 billion. According to ProPublica and The Lever, the structure of the gift allowed Seid to avoid up to $400 million in taxes.

"It's a clear sign of a broken tax code when a single donor can transfer assets worth $1.6 billion to a dark money political group without paying a penny in taxes," Whitehouse said in a statement Tuesday. "Billionaires attempting to influence politics from the shadows should not be rewarded with taxpayer subsidies."

"We cannot allow millionaires and billionaires to run roughshod over our democracy and then reward them for it with a tax break."

If passed, the End Tax Breaks for Dark Money Act would ensure that donations of appreciated assets to 501(c)(4) organizations are subjected to the same rules as gifts to political action committees (PACs) and parties.

"Thanks to the far-right Supreme Court, billionaires already have outsized influence to decide our nation's politics; through a loophole in the tax code, they can even secure massive public subsidies for lobbying and campaigning when they secretly donate their wealth to certain nonprofits instead of traditional political organizations," said Chu. "We can decrease the impact the wealthy have on our politics by applying capital gains taxes to donations of appreciated property to nonprofits that engage in lobbying and political activity—the same way they are already treated when made to traditional political organizations like PACs."

The new bill comes amid an election season that is already flooded with outside spending.

The watchdog OpenSecrets reported last month that super PACs and other groups "have already poured nearly $318 million into spending on presidential and congressional races as of January 14—more than six times as much as had been spent at this point in 2020."

Thanks to the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling, super PACs can raise and spend unlimited sums on federal elections—often without being fully transparent about their donors.

Morris Pearl, chairman of the Patriotic Millionaires, said Tuesday that "there is no justifiable reason why wealthy people like me should be allowed to dominate our political system by donating an entire $1.6 billion company to a dark money political group."

"But perhaps more egregious is the $400 million tax break that comes from doing so," said Pearl. "It's a perfect example of how this provision in the tax code is used by the ultrawealthy to manipulate the levers of government while simultaneously dodging their obligation to pay taxes. We cannot allow millionaires and billionaires to run roughshod over our democracy and then reward them for it with a tax break."

[unicorncornflakes]

Little One - Story AU! | Chapter 5

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Paring: Reader x Aemond Targaryen.

Summary: You are the only daughter of Jacaerys Velaryon, future lord of the tides. After the victory of Aegon and his side in the war, your family suffers the rejection in Driftmark. There you must always give an account to the king's new hand, Aemond Targaryen. However, when the time comes, Aegon and his court claim you as Queen Helaena's lady-in-waiting. As a new piece of the Greens' strategy to coerce your father, you are taken to King's Landing to begin your life in high society. Aemond will be, much to his pleasure, in charge of guiding you in this new stage.

Tags: Alternate Universe/ Enemies to Lovers/ Emotional Hurt/Comfort Drama & Romance/ Eventual Smut.

Warnings: This fic includes noncon, dubcon, manipulation, violence, death, forced marriage, and inc3st, at some points.

Tag-List (If you wanna be tagged in thi series or all of my work, let me know): @thedamewithabook @bluevxnus @tempt-ress @bellameshipper @qyburnsghost

Author´s note: Pls, enjoy! Feedback, shares and comments are always welcome!

Word Count: 3.6K

"If you had involved her more in the management of Driftmark and in the history of our family, we wouldn't be like this now." Corlys remembered saying those words to Jace the same night that you had left for King's Landing. You and your grandfather had been very close. Well, actually your great-grandfather. Although you had always called him grandfather. Corlys hated what Jace and his granddaughter had done to you. Hiding the war from you was not the solution. Hiding what had become of most of your family at the hands of the Greens was not the solution. Now a defenseless girl had been left at the mercy of monsters, in the Red Keep itself. Jace danced to the tune of those who had taken everything from him only for fear of losing the only thing he had left. You.

But, Corlys was going to fix it. He had proposed to him the same day your brother had died. He was going to end the Greens even if it cost him his life. He got off the ship that had taken him to King's Landing, limping, leaning on his cane. He could see how other nobles who had also come this far in the port were looking at him in amazement. The lord of the tides had left his home, ready to celebrate the tournament for the King's name day, like all of them. He saw how no one had expected him or his entourage. But, he didn't care. Steadily, he and a few of the men he had selected as the best in Driftmark walked in the direction of the castle. There was a name day to celebrate and a death to report to you.

You looked in the mirror. Thank the gods you hadn't tried on that dress until you'd stopped bleeding. It almost seemed as if Aemond had known the day your Moonblood disappeared. It was impossible. You had begged Mistra and she must have kept quiet. It had been a simple coincidence that they were going to try on that dress the same day that you had woken up that morning without staining the sheets. You looked at yourself in the mirror again and blushed.

You saw Aemond just behind you, a safe distance away, while the tailor continued to make the final adjustments to that dress. It was almost transparent. The only parts that it managed to cover elegantly were your breasts and your pubis. Part of the buttocks was visible and Aemond seemed more than satisfied while they made the last arrangements. Jaehaera was there too, so that once they were done with your dress, they would move on to the princess's. You were sure that that girl's would not show so many parts of her skin. Yours was blatantly transparent.

"Since you don't want to fly with dragons, we have to show the others the loot we have, right?" Aemond had whispered it in your ear one of the times he had approached you while the tailor continued with his mending. You looked at him defiantly and he thought that you would be quiet, but that at any moment you would take out your nails... although he was fooling himself. He had imagined that any night you would come to him after that kiss. You had liked it and he had imagined receiving your visit in the middle of the night... your nightdress fell to the floor... and with that you managed to wake up the dragon that had been asleep for so long... but, you had not appeared and he had consoled himself with his own hand, when no fucking Helaena thinking of you. For you it had been a quiet week in which no one had bothered you, for the prince it had been insufferable. But, you were in better shape than when you arrived, leaving you alone almost seemed advisable, but, that was not what Aemond wanted...

"She should have more cleavage," Aemond said in a flat tone, as if he didn't care what he was seeing, when all it did was turn him on at times. He heard Jaehaera sigh and looked at her daughter. The girl was looking at the dress you were trying on.

"Why do you want her to look like a prostitute at the father's party?" she asked looking at Aemond with cold eyes and he looked at her almost pale. He would never have expected those words from the princess. The girl looked at the one she had for her uncle, she continued with her gaze, judging him in silence, and for a moment you thought you had found a true ally within those walls.

"We have to find a good husband for her" Aemond replied, annoyed. He would never have expected something like this from his own daughter. Then he saw Jaehaera's eyes grow sadder. "We have to marry her well married, princess"

"Then I should be dressed the same," she replied, and Aemond's lips tightened. You looked at him in disbelief while the girl looked down at the ground. She was older than you, and yet she was not married. Everyone in that place was waiting, they didn't quite know what to do with her, with a girl who was beginning to wither between the walls of the red fortress and who you had seen she only spent time with her uncle Daeron.

"Don't talk nonsense, princess," Aemond chided her daughter, but then she continued speaking.

"Men should not hide your own desires behind the search for our own happiness" she blurted out without any affection, returning to her state of perpetual sadness and silence. That was the first day you saw her really angry. The girl looked at you once more, scrutinizing you in silence, to finally return her purple gaze to the ground. You saw how Aemond suppressed the desire to answer her, but he seemed more surprised than angry, as if he had never expected that answer from the girl, always quiet, sweet and prone to tears. You didn't want to wear that dress, and there was little you could do, but you appreciated Jaehaera's words. She could almost read your mind, and if she could, it's because she was also a woman with whom men did what they wanted.

They finished mending your dress and then moved on to Jaehaera's, but the tension was palpable. Aemond had stopped enjoying you thanks to the princess and he could only outline concern. He knew the place women held in society, but he was beginning to fear that Jaehaera might forget that, as if they had forgotten for too long that she was already a woman who had grown up constrained in the rubble of the Red Keep.

The next day was the starting of the celebration of those week-long festivities in honor of Aegon II. So, it was not your place to take care of Queen Helaena those days. Some older and more experienced maids than you took care of the poor and sad queen. She was groomed to be able to endure at least the inaugural tournament, for her to look like a normal woman, someone who was really still in the real world and not lost in her fantasies. They combed her, they made her up. She was dressed in the clothes that she would wear for that day. They forced her to walk a couple of steps alone. They reminded her of how she greeted the common people. She was prepared to be in the real world for a few hours. Something you had no idea about.

You had spent those days walking around the red fortress like a shadow, always silent and trying to go unnoticed. You had discovered that if you went to the kitchen first thing in the morning, one of the cooks would always surreptitiously leave you a freshly made cinnamon bun on the counter, that at night there was a couple who would meet in the stables and kiss until they It was almost midnight, that in the library there was a passageway that led outside the castle walls, that... no one really missed you in that place... that you could even almost escape, if it weren't for the regular visits from Mistra. The old maid showed up at night and in the morning, even if you weren't going to serve the queen that day. She would set you up and ask how you were feeling. Since you shared the secret of your bleeding, the woman cared more about you, and you appreciated it while she later informed the one-eyed man behind your back. Life was relatively quiet those days.

At that time, you were sitting among the roots of the tree of the old gods when a presence much taller than yourself stood before you. "What are you reading, sea foam girl?" Princess Jaehaera asked you, tilting her head to the side, studying you again, deciphering you as she would a treasure map. She sat next to you with great elegance. She had only been raised to look pretty behind a man, to be silent all day. Pretty girls were seen, not heard. She was the maxim her uncle Aemond of hers had raised her with.

"Sea foam girl?" You asked her confused, closing the book and she looked straight ahead, serious and still angry. But, you knew she wasn't mad at you. You didn't know who she was with, but she wasn't with you.

“Today my mother called you that. She said to me: 'Where is the sea foam girl?' ”She said with a shrug and picked up one of the leaves that had fallen from the weirwood. The truth is that you had been surprised, not that Helaena had asked for you, simply that she had spoken something other than crying or an incomprehensible murmur. The princess saw your confused face and continued speaking. "When they prepare it for a public act it seems almost normal, if that's what you're wondering" she said, turning her sad gaze to the ground.

"I'm sorry" you said, answering with your soul. You didn't think that Jaehaera had much to say in the plans of the adults around her, and that, like you, she was another collateral victim of a war that hadn't even brought greatness to the victors. You changed the subject and answered her first question. “I am reading an old book of legends that I found in the library. It is not a big thing"

She looked at it curiously and picked it up after asking your permission. You gave it to her and she gave a sad smile. "Uncle Aemond used to read this same book to us when we were kids, maybe... the attraction he feels for you makes some sense" she told you, handing the book back to you and you blushed. She looked at you confused at your blush and looked straight ahead again. “He may think he's smart, but he dress you like a whore whenever he can for a reason. He wants you to bend to his will, which at the end of the day is what all men want. They are all liars” she told you angrily, and you realized that normally at that time she always flew with Daeron. She was taking it out on you because she had been watching you for too long to know that you weren't a threat. You stayed silent, nervously grabbing one of the corners of the book and she only said one more sentence before remaining silent "They promise they'll take you away from here, but in the end it's all a lie" You both continued in silence and that This moment was a turning point for both of you. After two weeks there, you had found someone to trust, really, because you also knew a secret about her, and even though Jaehaera hadn't told you. Now you understood what was going on between her and Daeron. You had a first piece of information. She missed that burst of sincerity with you, but you understood that it was only due to a matter of the fact that you were both just as alone in that place. That night you had dinner with Jaehaera. And, Daeron, even though his princess was now angry with him, he sighed largely in relief that she had come to you.

"I did not expect to see you here, Lord Corlys" Cregan Stark was the only nobleman at that banquet held among the most important men in Westeros before the great festivities the following day in honor of the King. It wasn't a celebration as such, but Aemond's way of reminding everyone that Aegon's name day could be celebrated tomorrow, but that the one who really controlled everything was him. The sailor greeted the northerner with a handshake and they both sat together at that great table that the "King" would shortly preside over.

"I didn't like leaving Driftmark either, but I'm here for reasons beyond my control," Corlys commented as Cregan helped him sit, pushing the chair out of the way so he could better fit into that huge row of chairs, all neatly arranged on the floor, long table that was placed in the throne room.

"Yes, I've heard how the hand was infatuated with something that it shouldn't have been infatuated with," commented the northerner complicitly with the one who had been his ally in the rebellion a few years ago "She's just a kid, what are that damn butcher thinking about?" he told her angrily whispering in his ear. You weren't really a girl, but Corlys smiled pleased to see how rumors ran rampant in the kingdom, and how you appeared as a victim of the green ones. That image suited him well for the plan that he was beginning to have in his head.

“Well, to get him hot in the cold nigth. Since he killed the witch who warmed his bed, he has not heard of another woman who has been between his sheets and that was almost twenty years ago ”Lord Tully interrupted them. Another of the allies of the blacks. The three of them were whispering, but just stopped talking when Aemond's presence entered the throne door.

Aemond appeared dressed as always in black and green, carrying on his left hand the same ring that he had ripped from Daemon Targaryen's dead hand, and Dark Sister, well sheathed, in a dark green cloak, he descended the stairs of the throne hall followed by the royal guard. The only thing missing was the crown, he knew that detail very well. For all practical purposes, however, all the great lords in this room knew that Aemond Targaryen was king. The lords who had not yet sat down hurried to their places. They all got up to greet him. Everyone except Corlys. His leg wouldn't allow it, and neither would his spirit.

Aemond waved them to sit down and Cregan plopped into his chair, while Lord Tully sat down in one fluid motion. “I want to excuse the King. Today he was not in a condition to be able to enjoy this evening with us, but he has asked me to convey his best wishes to you and that tomorrow he will be together with the queen presiding over the inaugural tournament" he said in a cheerful tone, as cheerful as he could be.

All the great lords of the place began to comment, Aemond continued talking about the great opportunity that tournament was, like every year, how it served to unite the ties broken by a series of traitors, almost eradicated, thanks to the seven. He spoke of benevolence towards his enemies and of their future plans for Westeros, such as the renovation of various main and secondary roads. Corlys thought that if Aemond had not been such a stubborn green to his family, he would have made a fine monarch. The King's hand continued to speak of concord and then Lord Corlys spoke. The first part of his plan began.

“I would like to see my granddaughter, Lord Hand,” Lord Corlys Velaryon said diligently, and all other murmurs in that room ceased. "We are talking about cordiality and establishing new ties and ties previously broken, but I have arrived this morning and I have not seen her since you took her from Driftmark" the old man looked at him and Aemond drank from his glass in silence, under the watchful eye of the rest of the great gentlemen who had sat at that table.

Aemond drained his glass and tapped slowly on the table with two of his fingers. One of the butlers ran to refill his now empty cup. Corlys did not bow his head at the silence that he was now the greatest ruler of the seven kingdoms. Aemond continued to look at him as if he wanted to cow him, but the lord of the tides was undeterred by the Shadow King.

"She is with princess Jaehaera, when they finish dinner you will see her, under my tutelage, of course" she informed him, fixing his only eye on him. And Corlys claimed that it was fine with him, but he had already reported with that gesture that the King's hand had taken an innocent girl hostage to the red keep. And every lord in Westeros had heard that Aemond Tragaryen had taken with him the daughter of his greatest enemy. Those who did not like him took note of it.

After that dinner, Aemond approached Corlys. They both ended up drinking quietly in Aemond's chambers while they waited for you. They were both alone, without guards, with nothing and no one who could hear them. Just the two of them.

"I'm surprised there aren't any guards." Corlys broke the silence, looking at the bottom of his now empty glass, but he didn't want to pour any more wine. He did not trust the King's hand. He would never do. Aemond was devious, despicable, and capable of no emotion. At least, it was so for the lord of Driftmark.

"If you haven't murdered me even once in your house, I don't think I can fear it in mine" Aemond replied in a bad way, while he continued to wait for you. He needed to see you. How I needed to see you almost every day, but that day in particular would show you how benevolent I could be with the traitors in your family. He scolded himself for trying to impress you, but he couldn't help it.

"Many kings have been slain in their beds," Corlys replied with a smile, and Aemond sneered to finish drinking from his cup. Why were you taking so long?

"I have something to offer you, Corlys, so I don't think you want to kill me," Aemond confessed, shrugging and fixing his one eye on the old sailor. The lord of Driftmark looked at him in confusion and continued speaking. “You think I don't know why you mentioned your granddaughter at dinner. It is a good way to raise blisters among those who are still sympathetic to your cause. I know there still are. I'm not stupid, sea serpent ”he smiled defeated and Corlys returned a charming smile, as if he had already counted on Aemond Targaryen already going to know what was going through his head.

“What is it that you propose? What I give you the hand of (Y/N) in marriage? So that she can give birth to the children of the murderer of half of her family?” your grandfather replied tired but with a smile. Aemond poured him another glass of wine and leaned back in his chair.

"No... she... she's not for me" he lied, he would rather have his remaining eye gouged out than accept that he was crazy about you, because he was. You had managed to drive him crazy in much the same way that Alys had. "The position of naval adviser is still open, and I had thought that perhaps you would like to take it up again" The King's hand checked with a smile as your grandfather's face changed. In the end he was going to end up having him eat out of the palm of his hand. It was good to have your friends close, but you had to have your enemies even closer.

Corlys's heart skipped a beat, get his seat back on the council? Yes, yes... it would be a rebirth for her house, a way to protect yourself there, a way to start weaving his plan much closer to the initial problem... "It has to have some trick, doesn't she?" the lord of the tides asked and Aemond pursed his lips into a smile. “I do not believe that this wonderful offer is without cost to me… or to my family…”

"I... am a responsible governor" he explained raising his eyebrows, assuming his true role as King of Westeros. "I am magnanimous with my enemies and I know how to recognize those who deserve recognition... and you were a great naval advisor..." he would impress you with that. You would throw yourself into his arms when you knew that thanks to him part of your house would shine bright again. Not all of it, that was out of the question, but a large part.

"Grandfather!" you appeared, precious, and Corlys got up as he could to give you a hug. He did not continue in his speech. You had interrupted him, and he didn't see himself able to continue with his machinations with you so close. You cried in the arms of the sea serpent and he kissed your hair gently. Aemond looked away, because he perhaps had not expected you to have cried so bitterly in your grandfather's arms. He didn't want you to be as utterly unhappy as you seemed at the moment to have you in King's Landing all to himself. Only for Aemond Targaryen.

[triangle-automart]

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[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Gertz at MMFA:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s impending move to crash out of the presidential race and endorse Donald Trump is fitting given that his bid was a cynical and transparent right-wing media operation intended to help return the former president to the White House.   Kennedy, a notorious anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist, plans to end his independent presidential campaign and throw his support to Trump, perhaps at a planned event on Friday, NBC News first reported. The apparent move followed reports that Kennedy was seeking a major administration job from Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris in exchange for his endorsement.

Right-wing media stars who want Trump to win the presidency were among the most fervent supporters of Kennedy’s bid. They encouraged him to run for the Democratic nomination, touted his campaign after it launched, then urged him to run as an independent when they thought he would take votes away from that party’s standard-bearer. But they turned on him as it became increasingly clear that his run was actually hurting Trump.

History’s most obvious political rat-fucking attempt is now coming to an end, but its impact on the 2024 race reflects the broader ongoing right-wing turn against vaccinations since the COVID-19 pandemic. And it could still have even more disastrous consequences if Trump’s right-wing media supporters get their way and Kennedy snags a position running a federal health care agency in a second Trump administration.

A right-wing plot to put a “chaos agent” in the Democratic field

Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show was a launchpad for Republican extremists seeking the GOP kingmaker’s support in their election bids. But on the night of April 19, 2023, the candidate receiving plaudits from the Fox star was ostensibly seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.  “Bobby Kennedy is one of the most remarkable people we have met and we are honored to have him on our show tonight,” Carlson told his viewers at the top of their fawning interview. Kennedy’s friendly sit-down with Carlson was characteristic of the glowing treatment he received from right-wing outlets and influencers for the Democratic run he had officially announced earlier that day. His bid drew fervent praise from the likes of Trumpist political operative Charlie Kirk and arch-conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and he became a constant presence on right-wing cable outlets and podcasts. In the early months of his campaign, Kennedy received more Fox weekday appearances than high-profile Republican presidential candidates like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and more mentions on that network than all but three members of that field.

It’s no secret why avowed right-wingers were so interested in Kennedy’s Democratic presidential bid — they thought he could be a spoiler who would help Trump win. Indeed, Steve Bannon, a former Trump White House adviser who had spent years using his streaming show to promote Kennedy’s anti-vax conspiracy theories, reportedly encouraged him to launch the run because he viewed Kennedy as “a useful chaos agent.” Other current and former Trump advisers also talked up Kennedy’s campaign and were not shy about why they were doing so: As Roger Stone put it, Kennedy would “soften Joe Biden up for his defeat by Donald Trump.”

Kennedy was a bad fit for a Democratic campaign. He has one of the party’s most celebrated names, and played a leading role in environmental organizations earlier in his career. But in recent years, he became better known for promoting conspiracy theories about childhood vaccinations, and his extremist views on the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine put him in step with the right-wing propaganda machine. As a candidate, Kennedy thrilled white supremacists by claiming that the virus had been “ethnically targeted” to not affect Jewish people. Kennedy’s positioning made him a better fit for MAGA voters than Democrats. So when he failed to gain traction in the Democratic race and switched to an independent run in the fall, he immediately became a thorn in Trump’s side.

[...]

An anti-vaxxer running HHS?

Kennedy’s campaign had reportedly been trying to secure him a future administration position in exchange for his endorsement. His efforts to meet with Harris to discuss such a deal went nowhere. But Kennedy found Trump more amenable to such a deal. Kennedy reached out to Trump following the July assassination attempt on the former president, using a phone number reportedly provided by Carlson. The pair reportedly talked about Kennedy “about endorsing his campaign and taking a job in a second Trump administration, overseeing a portfolio of health and medical issues.” Kennedy subsequently told The Washington Post he is “willing to talk to anybody from either political party who wants to talk about children’s health and how to end the chronic disease epidemic.”

Trump has since publicly floated giving Kennedy a major job in his administration, telling CNN he “probably would” consider such an appointment. It’s unclear what such a job might look like, and Trump is such a huge liar you’d have to have brainworms to trust him to hold up his end of such a bargain. But Donald Trump Jr. has said of Kennedy, “I love the idea of giving him some sort of role in a three-letter agency and letting him blow it up.” And Trump’s media supporters have proposed offering Kennedy a position as prominent as secretary of health and human services, with Paul Dans, the former director of Project 2025, suggesting Kennedy should head that department, the Food and Drug Administration, or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in order “to really clear house at the agency.”

Granting Kennedy control of HHS and its $1.5 trillion budget, or one of the “three-letter agencies” it oversees, like the FDA or CDC or the National Institutes of Health, could have disastrous consequences. As a report on the prospect from NBC News detailed, Kennedy has kooky health views and “has described wanting to dismantle those offices and rebuild them with like-minded fringe figures.” But such a move would serve as the natural culmination of the right-wing media’s campaign against the COVID-19 vaccines developed under Trump and rolled out under Biden. Carlson and his ilk spent years waging war on those lifesaving medications, falsely claiming they were ineffective and inflating claims about their potential side effects. (By driving down support for the vaccines among Republicans, their effort surely led to the deaths of many members of their audiences.)  Thanks to that campaign, Trump was unable to take credit for the COVID-19 vaccines on the campaign trail. The former president shied away from discussing his administration’s greatest accomplishment to avoid alienating his own supporters during the GOP primary. He’s tried to court Kennedy’s endorsement by talking down childhood vaccinations, bizarrely telling him in a leaked phone call, “I want to do small doses” rather than giving infants a shot that “looks like it’s meant for a horse, not uh, you know, a 10-pound or 20-pound baby.” And on the campaign trail, he’s vowed that his administration “will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate.”

The RFK Jr. campaign was nothing more than a right-wing ploy to help Donald Trump in his quest to gain a 2nd term.

[intersectionalpraxis]

Heyo! As a Canadian, are there any particular ways we can help Palestine? Also, who are the companies actively shipping shit to israel?

Hello! Thank you so much for the question. I'd first like to take the opportunity to state that the federal government in Canada right now -the Trudeau Government -has been terribly consistent with supporting the IOF. For DECADES -since the creation of the settler state (which should not be a surprise to anyone, of course), Canada has a LONG 'diplomatic' history of being pro-Isnotreal. For folks who don't know/aren't aware, since we often hear about/talk about the US's imperialistic policies and actions against many communities around the world (which, again is understandable given the billions in military aid they give to Isnotreal and the sheer amount of militaristic aggression and violence the US unleashes daily to people they deem a 'threat' to their empire) -but I always remind folks to not forget that Canada is equally awful and problematic.

The Trudeau government, like many MP's across party lines, have supported the IOF and the Trudeau government has denied genocide 'allegations' against Isnotreal at the ICJ. Trudeau is also the one who advocated for a "humanitarian pause," after stumbling on his words a few months ago, and has, from time to time, 'condemned,' the IOF military for going 'overboard' when he trickles in his little empathetic 'we are so concerned for the people in Gaza,' while in the same breath saying the IOF didn't strike hospitals... (side eyes).

These are some recent examples (the first in June, and December of 2023, respectively) -which shows proof that Canada exports weapons to the IOF (but often through the US -the article below addresses this). Since you asked about about which companies are shipping to Isnotreal, the only one I can reference is CN Rail [Canadian National Railway] (which is where some protests have happened), but there aren't any other particular companies I can reference because shipments are done relatively in secret, so there's not a strong/direct paper trail, so to speak. this is an except from the first article below:

"Canada doesn’t normally release many details on defence exports to Israel or other countries. Since 2015, however, the largest annual categories of shipments fall into three categories: bombs, torpedoes, missiles and other explosive devices; aircraft, drones, aero engines, aircraft equipment for military use and electronic equipment; spacecraft and components." "A 2020-2021 study by the House of Commons foreign affairs committee obtained records that shed some light on the goods Canadian firms were seeking permission to export to Israel, including transport vehicles, circuit boards for Israel’s fleet of F-15 and V-22 aircraft and components for radios." "The Canadian-made components that go into each F-35 don’t show up in Ottawa’s records of military goods exports because they are shipped to the United States, where the aircraft’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, is based, and Global Affairs Canada does not publish the full value of annual military exports to the U.S."

It is very concerning how the Canadian government operates this way, and we should all be demanding more transparency about arms transfers to the US. Project Ploughshares, the research committee that they spoke about in the first article, is a resource I would look into if you want to learn more about this. They focus on "disarmament efforts and international security specifically related to the arms trade..." I've attached their website below. You can also access previous webinars, reports, and commentary on their page on these topics.

There were 2 successful direct action protests in Canada, one in Winnipeg and the other in Montreal, in November and December of last year, respectively. Both of whom were blocking railways in an effort to raise awareness about Canada supporting and sending arms to Isnotreal.

This also happened recently:

Now, what can be done on our ends? Plenty -sharing and creating posts about what is happening -and telling the world we won't remain silent on the genocide happening in Gaza.

This is the most updated BDS movement list for you to boycott companies and brands that either profit off of or indirectly support the genocide of Palestinian people:

Oxfam also created this small article about what we can do to help which I find is a great start:

Some of the actions include emailing the Prime Minister (they have a template for you to work with), and I wanted to also include emailing your MP's (Members of Parliament), to demand a ceasefire.

There is also a current petition in parliament right now you can sign -it's a demand to a ceasefire, and also demands an investigation into Canadian arms deals/sells in Isnotreal -and for more transparency into this, generally speaking (you can read everything the MP outlines below). This is open until February 19th, 2024. I may also make a separate post about this too:

There are some petitions on change.org I know people have set up, so you can take a look there of course. There is also a source that Oxfam links -they have a section of current events/resources where you can take action. The most recent national march for Gaza was in December 2023 (it took place in Ottawa, on unceded and un-surrendered Algonquin territory -Parliament Hill), and I am sure more will be planned for those able to attend/what is accessible to you.

I know this was quite long, but I hope this offers some direction and clarity, if not encourages more people to look into some of these topics and issues more deeply. Thank you once again for sharing this today. I will also be updating my page soon.

As always, free Palestine!

[akutasoda]

chapter two - trickster haunting

　↳ ghost!osamu dazai x reader

warnings - gn!reader, fluff?, slight angst, wc - 1k

it was a fresh start, a new opportunity in your life to start over in a new place. from most of your research and recommendations from various people, you had decided on quite the quaint little residence located in yokokhama. it seemed like a good catch, the area was nice and it had a rather low rent. the low pay would be surprising but it had detailed in the description that it was supposedly haunted. and you were never really one to believe in that kind of stuff.

ghosts were cliche by this point. classic horror movies, stories hosted round campfires or passed around at get togethers in hopes of scaring one another. so you had heard your fair share of ghost stories. but you would just laugh them off and not think anything about them. sure they were fun to tell but that was about it.

so you had very little concern that your new residence was haunted. if anything, the last resident probably reported something that wasn't what they thought it was and now they had to legally say that it may be haunted. you weren't complaining, the remt was significantly cheaper. it had never specified why exactly it was haunted, no history of murders or any deaths and no recorded evidence, even more reason to discount it.

moving in had been easy, you hadn't owned much to result in issues and your adjustment period seemed to go by rather quickly and before you knew it, you could convince yourself that you had lived here all your life. however something that plagued your mind was sometimes you swore you saw something move out of the corner of your eye or things would move randomly. but that quickly was discounted to a sort of placebo effect. you had read it was haunted and now your mind was playing tricks on you.

however no matter how much you told yourself it wasn't real, nothing could hide from the fact that you did indeed have a ghostly roommate. dazai had long lost track of how long he had wondered as a ghost. but he seemed bound to this residence, perhaps because he himself used to live here. but he found great pleasure in chasing out the new residences. he didn't find much entertainment anymore and the only source came from messing with the mortal. having previously chasdd out the old tennant he was now faced with ways he could try and get you out aswell.

he started small, moving objects and or displacing them. but that didn't seem to phase you, so he upped it a bit quicker and started trying to freak you out by quickly becoming visible to the corner of your eye. but no matter what he did, you came up with a logical reason for it and brushed it off, forgetting any encounters too quickly for his likely. you were the first person in a while that he thought would be evenmore entertaining to see how far he would have to push you to get you gone.

but no matter how much he tried an tried to freak you out, nothing seemed to be working and he had one last final ditch effort in getting you gone. he didn't mind some people occupying the residence buf it was the only entertainment he got. and that final effort was him showing himself in full - hoping that it would be enough to finally scare you off.

more and more nowadays you were beginning to feel as if that warning was actually legit. that this place was indeed haunted and although that sent a little fear through you, you had just purchased and moved into your new residence. you could hardly afford a new one in such small notice. so if there truly was a ghost, they better learn quick that you won't be leaving anytime soon.

it was rather cliche how you jad met your haunted roommate. it was late at night and you had saw something yet again in the corner of your eye, turning to find nothing just to turn back to be met woth the ghoulish dull light emitting form the transparent figure while you had a initial shock it wore of very quickly and you came to your senses and confronted the apparation. this shocked dazai quite a bit, not only did you brush off his last attempt at scaring you but asked him about what he was doing.

now he found a new way of keeping himself entertaining. he no longer felt the need to hide during any time, you were well aware of his presence and simply didn't mind what he did. whether he showed himself or not as long as he respectes your privacy you didn't care. now he found entertainment in trying to scare you constantly or letting you show him things such as your favourite shows and such.

he much preferred this arrangement. and to you it was much like having a roommate. a roommate that you didn't have to accompany into your budget and didn't have to argue over paying halves on rent. a roommate that was rather transparent and quite the trickster. but you didn't mind all that much. dazai brought a sought of enjoyment to living in the seemingly normal residence.

and dazai much enjoyed having you around. by far in his eyes the best occupant of the residence. he truly enjoyed spending time with you, you seemed to make his existence as a ghost seem less of a burden but more fun than he could've ever hoped for. while you sometimes pitied the ghost, you quickly brushed that off and decided that maybe living in this haunted residence wasn't so bad.