#Million Century Ice Prison | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-ninja-legacy-whip · 2 years

Photo

So, finally, we’ve finally got some semblance of a map for Legacyverse Ninjago. It takes inspiration from like, every map iteration I could possibly find (the obvious iconic dragon-shaped one, the one from Shadow of Ronin, the Ninjago Movie’s map, etc.) buuut everything’s been shuffled a bit to fit my own purposes >:3 (the left side is a base map, the right side is how each Province compares to the others)

Take everything you know about Ninjago’s locations...and throw ‘em in a fire! (Also buckle up cuz it’s a long one)

General Info:

So after Time Began and the island of Ninjago was split in half, only the Light Island persisted, and with more unknown, unbalanced forces out there that not even the FSM could fend against all at once, the FSM called upon the help of the friends who taught him the Four Core Elements to help him watch over all corners of Ninjago, along with sending out members of the Elemental Alliance to watch over things. Each of those “corners” was divided off into a Province, with some of those Provinces being more populated, while others were much harder to inhabit due to the terrain. But, over time, people began to grow and adapt, and in this fine 21st Century, there’s a variety of people living all over the island!

Due to the variating wide-spread nature of Elemental Descendants, some places have specific cultures surrounding the Elements. This plays into the spoken languages as well. New-Form Ninjagon is the universal language in all regions (which is a blend between the symbols of Old-Form Ninjargon yet spoken similarly to English), but individual places have their own secondary languages as well. Any areas that aren’t explicitly labeled are either unexplored, uninhabited, disputed over which Province it fully belongs to and thus have no claimed name, or too uninteresting to qualify as a full landmark.

Northern Province-

Overview: The Northern Province encompasses the uppermost parts of Ninjago, consisting of mainly cold, snowy climates that range from dense forests to frigid fjords to frozen peaks. At the very crown of Ninjago in the Northern Ocean sits the Ice Fortress, where the North’s Guardian Eirlys once kept the Shuriken of Ice under tight wraps. Not a lot of people live in these parts, not going much farther than Birchwood and the outer Glacier Barrens, but if avoiding civilization is your goal, then this is your place to go!

Guardian: Eirlys (The White Wolf) Common Elemental Descendants: Nature, Smoke, Sound, Mind, (Ice) Secondary Languages: Mongolian, Welsh, Dutch, Scottish Gaelic, Yupik

Birchwood Forest

Glacier Barrens

Hypnobrai Tomb

Frozen Wastelands

Ice Fortress

Shintaro (Shares with West Province)

Wailing Alps

Blind Man’s Eye

Western Province-

Overview: The Western Province consists of the mountainous and rugged regions to the island’s west. While harboring much less dangerous areas than the other Provinces (save for the Desert of Doom), and is the second-most populated Province, the harsh and unpredictable terrain still makes it difficult to settle outside of the region’s main cities. In the westernmost point sits the Caves of Despair, where Ruamoko primarily keeps to himself while guarding the Scythe of Quakes, until he is needed elsewhere.

Guardian: Ruamoko (Gorilla of the Quake) Common Elemental Descendants: Nature, Shadow, Metal, Gravity, (Earth) Secondary Languages: Somalian, Russian, Indonesian, Turkish, Hindi

Western Range

Caves of Despair

West Haven

Mountain of a Million Steps / Constrictai Tomb

Jamanakai Village

Wildwood

Blackwood Forest

Metalonia

Shintaro Mines / Heart of the Mountain

Desert of Doom

Echo Canyon

Glimwillow Woods

Holy City of Domu

Eastern Province-

Overview: Primarily consisting of either scorching desert or places constantly pestered by storms, the Eastern Province doesn’t have much in a way of population, but the space is used for several significant locations, such as an amusement park, a junk yard, a prison, and a external power station for Ninjago City. Within the Thunder Belt on the far east edge of the region sits the ruins of an ancient floating city, from within Tawhiri watches over the area with a...temperamental fist.

Guardian: Tawhiri (Octopus of the Tempest) Common Elemental Descendants: Nature, Mind, Sound, Speed, Light, Gravity, (Lightning) Secondary Languages: Arabic, Irish Gaelic, Latin, German,

Haunted Hill / Temple of Airjitzu

Sea of Sand

Mega Monster Amusement Park

Anacondrai Tomb

City of Ouroboros

Scrap N’ Junk Yard

Kyptarium Prison

Thunder Belt

Floating Ruins / Lightning Temple

Crashcourse / Scattered Canyon

Stiix

Dyer Island

Wind Farms Power Station

Southern Province-

Overview: More populated than the East and North but not quite as much as the West and Central, the Southern Province is mostly home to lands that are extremely fertile and rich with resources, due to being almost completely surrounded by water. But there’s also its share of places that could kill a man just by visiting them (such as Torchfire Mountain, the Toxic Bogs, or even the remains of Hono Mizu City). From a small, volcanic island just off the coast of Central’s Ninjago City, there sits not just a Shark Army Base, but also a Fire Temple, and within that temple the Golden Lion Vulcanell once kept the Sword of Fire safely guarded in his possession. Guardian: Vulcanell (The Golden Lion) Common Elemental Descendants: Smoke, Shadow, Poison, Light, Amber, (Fire) Secondary Languages: Mandarin, Japanese, Italian, Bengali, Thai

Ignacia

Coastal Village

Forest of Tranquility

Cemetery of Souls / Fangpyre Tomb

Volcanic Island / Fire Temple / Shark Army Base

Spirit Coves

Toxic Bogs/ Venomari Tomb

Torchfire Mountain Range

Hono Mizu (Northern Half)

Rainbow Valley / Village in the Valley

Central Province-

Overview: Due to housing the island’s capital and despite containing some of the deadliest areas of Ninjago, Central Province houses the majority of Ninjago’s population within Ninjago City alone. Traveling far beyond Central can be exceedingly difficult, as it requires going through either the west’s mountains, the east’s desert, the north’s canyons and cold, or the southern bays (unless you have a flying ship or magically whipped up mech). Not only do people not often travel in or out, but neither does information, meaning that even though some outer places have knowledge of the Elemental Compass (such as Metalonia, Stiix, Hono Mizu, etc), nearly everyone within Central does not...despite the ironic fact that a majority of the Elemental Masters live within the city. Central Province currently does not have a Guardian, and Master Wu has been doing his best to watch over it in the previous Guardians’ stead.

Guardian: Dragon Genesis / Great Devourer (Order of the Ouroboros) Common Elemental Descendants: Surprise, Nature, Smoke, Shadow, Form Secondary Languages: Old-Form Ninjargon, English, French, Portugese

Mountain of Impossible Height / Monastery of Spinjitzu

Ninjago City

Darkley's Boarding School

Hiroshi’s Labyrinth

Primeval’s Eye

Fortress of Fortitude

Vermillion Swamps

Corridor of Elders

Aquatic Archipelago-

Overview: At the very bottom of Ninjago sits the Aquatic Archipelago, the last remaining trace of the once only landmass within the Realm of the Endless Sea. This region doesn’t seem to have a Guardian, but ancient texts from Before Time Began indicate that the FSM left the archipelago to its own devices as a sign of respect for the beings that already lived there, along with the winged-leviathan that formerly ruled the realm...although that beast’s name has since faded with time. Housing the Golden Peaks from which the rest of Ninjago was born form, and the strip of islands housing the protectors/keepers/worshippers of a very ancient, supposedly sleeping sea serpent, those who do still live here are either descendants of those who worshipped Wind and Water, or those who braved through the seas and/or the Toxic Bogs of the south to found the Vagabond Plains (which is where Jesse’s grandmother is from).

Guardian: Wojira (Sleeper of the Deep) Common Elemental Descendants: Water, Amber (Wind) Secondary Languages: Spanish, Greek, Korean, Tagalog, Swahili

Tartarus Trench + Temple of the Sea

Hono Mizu (Southern Half)

Chen’s Island

Storm Belt

Boiling Sea

Merlopia

Golden Peaks

Vagabond Plains

(Tiger Widow Island + The Keeper’s Island are also in this region, but are not on this map due to...not being on any maps normally haha)

I do have plans to do layouts for Ninjago City and the Dark Island eventually, but shh...I need a nap now...

#ninjago #the lego ninjago movie #tlnm #the ninja legacy whip #legacyverse #locations #info tag #content tag #works of mine #art of mine #art tag #and now you see why this took so long #*flops dramatically*#elemental compendium

195 notes · View notes

petermorwood · 2 years

Text

I’ve just finished giving the “Song of Ice and Fire” books another chance, and I think I’ve finally got a handle on the main reason why I can’t get into them the way millions of others have done.

To me, they’re monotonous - mono-tone.

That’s not a comment on being long-winded - after all, they’re a big, sprawling epic fantasy. It’s because it seems to this reader that everything and everyone are variations of a tune played on one string: the world and everyone in it are grim, or ugly, or cruel, or devious, or just doom-laden and depressing.

These are five thick volumes which carefully describe, from different points of view, manure heaps big and small, ancient and modern, foreign and domestic. Yet - unless I blinked and missed it - they don’t spare a single chapter that breaks away from grimdark gloom to take non-cynical pleasure in anything, even the crops and flowers those manure-heaps should help to grow.

Well before I reached the end, it had started to feel as if heaping manure was an end in itself.

And then there’s Tyrion saying this:

“Most of the stories you hear about dragons are fodder for fools. Talking dragons, dragons hoarding gold and gems, dragons with four legs and bellies big as elephants, dragons riddling with sphinxes … nonsense, all of it.”

It’s always worth remembering that The Character’s Opinions Are Not (usually) The Author’s Opinions, but this raised my hackles.

It seems deliberately aimed at Smaug and Glaurung and Chrysophylax, Yevaud and Kalessin and Orm Embar, Hasai, Morkeleb, the witty “real dragon biology” of Peter Dickinson’s “The Flight of Dragons”, a long list of other fictional dragons and every writer who created one.

Cheap shot. Bad show, I think.

*****

ASOIAF is supposedly based on the Wars of the Roses (York / Lancaster = Stark / Lannister) but I’m familiar enough with them to regard the unremitting Westeros brutality as far closer to the Thirty Years War (1618-48) which ravaged central Europe and left the German states in such disrepair that several still hadn’t fully recovered when the country unified in 1870.

(ETA: @tartapplesauce points out the 12th-century civil war so savage it’s still called “The Anarchy” (I did some work on a TV show about it called “Pillars of the Earth”). Its principals are Stephen, Henry I’s nephew vs Matilda, Henry I’s daughter. Renly / Robb vs Cersei? Close enough.

Certainly it’s the basis for “The Dance of Dragons” sequence in “Fire & Blood”, yet another GRRM fantasy where grimdark crapsack situations take precedence over everything else. That’s now being produced for TV as “The House of Dragons”, and with luck the original material might get lightened up a bit.

Contemporary chronicles called The Anarchy “a time when Christ and His saints slept.” Check out “Knight in Anarchy” (c) 1969 by George Shipway, just 250 pages of non-fantasy historical grimdark, highly recommended because of good storytelling and because its brevity means it’s less unremittingly, depressingly bleak than Ice and Fire.)

*****

By contrast, the period correspondence known as the Paston Letters show that right through the Rose Wars, at least one wellborn Lancaster-backing family was more concerned with land sales, wool shipments, litigation and the doings of sons at university than any fear of being Rains-of-Castamered for being Lancaster supporters if York seized the throne.

Instead, though Yorkist monarchs including even (gasp, tremble) Richard III DID seize the throne, and ruled England from 1461 to 1485 with just a brief Lancaster blip from October 1470 to April 1471, nothing Westeros-like ever happened to the Pastons and they went on to flourish under the Tudors.

There was a steady increase in treachery, turncoating, backstabbing and tit-for-tat take-no-prisoners action as the Rose Wars progressed (no war is more uncivil than a civil war) but IMO just one man really mirrored what seems to be standard behaviour in ASOIAF.

*****

John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester and High Constable of England, was a highly educated, deeply ruthless man who became infamous for “cruelly” impaling the corpses of beheaded traitors.

His enemies nicknamed him “The Butcher”, which is a bit unfair since the standard (non-cruel?) practice with traitors was to hang their quartered bodies up on hooks at places associated with them, and display their heads on pikes, usually above London Bridge - very few period illustrations of that structure lack a cluster of lines-and-dots silhouetted against the sky at one end.

That’s just as butcher-like, but since it was the “proper” way of doing things, it was acceptable. A charge of cruelty would have been far more justified if he’d followed Vlad III Drakulya’s practice of impaling people while still alive. But he didn’t.

Tiptoft was eventually executed himself, and paid his headsman to do the job in three chops to honour the Holy Trinity.

He was a strange, strange man.

*****

GRRM’s oft-quoted comment about “The Lord of the Rings” includes:

“What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he pursue a policy of systematic genocide against the orcs and kill them, even the little baby orcs in their little orc cradles?”

That’s something very few of GRRM’s own characters would have any hesitation about doing, and far too many of them would secretly - or openly - enjoy it.

Aragorn’s tax policy is irrelevant to the story.

Aragorn’s orc policy is irrelevant to the story.

As summarised by its full title from the Red Book of Westmarch - “The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King” - when Sam returns from the Grey Havens to Bag End and says “Well, I’m back”, the story is complete.

Unlike ASOIAF, which isn’t.

*****

In any case, Tolkien’s own writing indicates that orcs were unlikely to be a long-term problem. When Sauron is destroyed his human supporters throw down their weapons, but orcs and trolls kill themselves or flee into hiding with no suggestion that they’ll ever come out again.

There’s an implication that without a superior will to control them, and a higher purpose or common enemy as a focus, their innate aggression will ultimately lead to them wiping themselves out - or declining into scattered gangs of brigands whose mutual hatred will prevent them from ever organising again, while the gangs whittle themselves into oblivion through internal strife.

Tolkien gives examples of how orcs interact even before Sauron’s defeat.

Despite their shared higher purpose of capturing halflings and the imminent threat of a common enemy (the Rohirrim) Uglúk and Grishnákh and their supporters are constantly exchanging threats and insults and occasionally killing each other.

Despite their shared higher purpose of guarding Minas Morgul and Cirith Ungol against the common enemy of suspected enemy spies (Frodo and Sam), and even though they speculate about running away from the Big Bosses and turning brigand, Shagrat and Gorbag and their supporters are soon slaughtering each other over Frodo’s mithril shirt.

Despite their shared higher purpose of hunting down a common enemy - the intruders they’re trailing, Frodo and Sam again - the tracker orc in Mordor shoots his companion Uruk after a threat to report him to one of the Nazgûl for desertion.

“Orcs have always behaved like that, or so all tales say, when they are on their own.”

So says Frodo.

If that’s the case - or if orcs, as corrupted elves, will fade away as the uncorrupted ones have done - then all Aragorn needs to do is wait...

*****

Whatever his other policies might have been, from absolute autocracy to benign feudal neglect, they have to be better than the standard Westeros policy shared by nearly everyone in power, which is to rapeslaughter everyone and burnpillage their goods without pausing to wonder who’ll be left alive to bring in this harvest (or any unburnt, unpillaged bits, anyway) never mind plant the next one.

Because where Westeros is concerned they’d better do that quickly, because Winter Is Coming.

Or worse.

#a song of ice and fire #the lord of the rings #the wars of the roses #the thirty years war

300 notes · View notes

systlinsideblog · 3 years

Text

Part 5

Systlin slept.

She always dreamed in vivid detail; scents, sounds, touch. Often, the dream felt quite real, until of course she woke.

This dream was warm. The warmth of the feather bed, of the blankets. The pleasant warmth from the summer breeze blowing through the open window. The warmth, most of all, of Foicatch.

She rested her cheek against the solid warmth of his chest, eyes closed. The beat of his heart, the tickle of the hairs on his chest against her nose, the smell of his skin, were all as vivid as reality.

He smelled faintly of smoke; he'd been in the forge, then. He didn't need to, of course. Hadn't, for a long time. A Bloodguard earned quite enough to hire a smith for whatever they might need, and a King Consort had the royal smith at his disposal.

But Foicatch, before any of that, had been the son of a master carpenter, and a smith's apprentice. He wore the tattoo on his arm that proclaimed his journeyman status proudly, even after two years spent in a city guard, a decade and more in the Bloodguard, and another twenty years as King Consort.

He rather liked rubbing it in the faces of some of the high lords and high ladies, to be quite honest. A smith was an honored craftsman. And he liked the forge. He liked watching the colors of the flames, the smell of hot metal and smoke, the steam from the quench tank. He liked the sound of the hammer and the feel of it in his hand. And so, quite often, the King Consort of the Northern Lands, the father of the heir to the Throne of the North, would go down to the royal smithy and serve as assistant to the master smith of Stellas Keep.

He joked sometimes that he was still working for his master-craft tattoo. It was, Systlin knew, not entirely a joke.

She pressed her cheek against the solid warmth of him. His hand was moving, fingertips stroking her spine from nape of neck to small of back and back up.

His fingers were rough, both from a sword and from the forge hammer. Systlin liked that about them, and how strong they were.

The sensation of his heartbeat under her cheek, the lingering glow of pleasure shared, and the fingers stroking her back were glorious. She hummed in pleasure, and felt him chuckle softly.

"Little cat." He said, teasingly. "You're purring."

"Mmm." She kept her eyes closed. She was the Queen Regnant of the North, had fought two wars, held the high lords in check mainly through fear of her and had earned the love of the common folk by shedding blood and sweat for them. She was a Breaker, the first in centuries, and rumored to be the most powerful yet to live. She held that power, and herself, on a tight leash.

But here, in the bedroom she shared with her husband, it all melted away for a little while.

She wondered, yet again, if he knew just how much he was the center of sanity that kept her moored and grounded. She had told him, of course, but still.

Foicatch shifted. She made a sound of protest, and he tweaked the gold ring in her ear playfully. She sat up reluctantly, eyeing the matching bond-ring in his ear and contemplating tugging back.

"I have something for you." His voice was soft.

She raised an eyebrow. He rolled to the side; she appreciated the shift of his muscles under his skin as he did so. He was a wonderfully built man.

"Here." He took something from the bed-table, and turned back to her. "I made this today."

'This' was a small round piece of iron. It was beautifully made, twisted threads of wire in a complicated interlinked pattern of knots. In the center was engraved the eight-pointed star of her family. It was strung on a chain, and clearly meant to be worn as a pendant.

"You made it?" She put it on happily.

"I purified the steel from ore myself. And quenched it in water mixed with a drop of my own blood. I burned three of my hairs, three of yours, and three of Serra's on it, for the forge spirits." He ducked his head a little, as if embarrassed. "They'll protect you, if you wear it."

It was an old ritual, Systlin knew. Hairs from her head, his, and their child, offered to the forge-spirits for protection. His own blood in the quench-tank, to keep away rust and wear.

"I know you don't need it." He was saying, still seeming embarrassed. "But..."

She kissed him. Hard and at length.

"Thank you." She told him, when they finally came up for air. He smiled, his face lighting up like the sun, and kissed her again....

Systlin woke.

The furs next to her were empty, of course. On her breast, the iron of the pendant Foicatch had made her long ago was as cold as ice.

The loneliness hit her like a brick, but there wasn't time to dwell on it.

From outside the wagon there was a cry of alarm.

She was on her feet and had her weapons in hand before it faded. There were sounds of a struggle from outside, and she was moving, barefoot and wearing her sleeping tunic, reactions honed by decades of experience engaged instantly.

It was coming from the rear of the wagon. The wood that made the wagon was sturdy, but it was roofed in canvas. Even as she leapt towards the sound of the commotion, a knife blade was stabbed through the canvas to slice a way into her wagon.

The wood of the wagon was sturdy.

That did not matter, to a Breaker, in the slightest.

The rear wall of the wagon fractured violently into a million splinters as she Broke it; she closed her eyes and raised an arm to protect them as she dove through the cloud of them.

She went low out of sheer instinct. Dove through the splinters, hit the ground outside in a shoulder roll and was back on her feet in an instant. Spun, taking in the scene before her.

A woman was on the ground, her throat slit. Another was crying the alarm, pointing to the wagon. A man was struggling to regain his feet as splinters rained down around him; he must, she surmised, have been climbing the back wall of her wagon. A knife lay beside him.

A second man was stumbling backwards, caught off guard by the explosion of splinters. He was armed with a quiva and a lance.

He saw her, and his eyes widened.

The cold light clarity of battle was setting in already. Systlin bared her teeth in a horrible parody of a smile, and lunged.

She was faster than him. She was better trained than him. She had the element of surprise.

It was a credit to his own skills that he managed to regain his footing and twist out of the way of the sword strike that would have gutted him. It was even more to his credit that he managed to parry the dagger strike that would have torn his throat open.

He did not dodge the knee kick. Systlin slammed her heel into his kneecap, and felt the crunch as bone gave way. He fell as the leg gave out, and lashed out savagely at her with his lance.

He was very fast. She was faster. Ice snapped down to parry the lance, and she sank her dagger to the hilt in his neck, just above the collarbone.

Then she was past him, and advancing on the stunned man struggling to find his breath again. He'd fallen a good eight feet from the top of her wagon, and the wind had been knocked out of him. He was bleeding in a dozen places, from where splinters had driven into flesh.

He saw her coming, and reached for the knife. She smiled at him, baring her teeth in the sheer bloody delight of battle, and stepped on the weapon, kicking it away.

"I was wondering," she told him, even as her guards finally arrived with weapons drawn. "how long it would take you bastards."

An hour later, the bound prisoner had been carted away. The corpse had been disposed of, and Systlin was back to bed.

They'd both been men granted freedom for apparent good behavior. To be honest, she'd known that some of them were acting, and had expected this.

It had been some time since she'd had assassins try to kill her in the night. It was rather refreshing, actually. Her aunt had always maintained that regular practice was needed to keep skills sharp.

The chill had faded from her pendant. She held it, for a long moment, imagining for a moment that she could still smell him, could still feel his touch.

She reached up and touched the rings in her ear...two of them, one a gold ring set with a ruby, the second silver, and set with sapphire. Foicatch wore a matching sapphire bond-ring. Sura wore a matching ring of ruby.

How long had she been here? Four weeks now?

Systlin Stellas, Queen of the Northern Lands, was not given to tears. But even so, as she lay in her bed alone, she felt wetness on her cheeks.

Come morning, when she had the prisoner dragged before her as she held court in the open space before her wagon, she had composed herself again.

The man who'd tried to kill her was not the only prisoner present. She'd had the men who'd not yet been freed dragged before her too, and set where they could watch. They were silent, and stoic. Systlin had come to expect that of them.

Despite this, of course, she noted with some pleasure that the presence of the severed head of her would-be assassin spiked on a lance set in the ground did seem to draw their eyes.

She smiled pleasantly at them. She'd learned years ago that it unnerved people when she did this.

"I am honestly surprised," she said. "That it took you this long."

The bound prisoner spat at her feet. She ignored this.

"I would like to publicly recognize," she continued, "Dina of Turia, who was clever enough both to recognize that an attempt would likely be made, and to think of setting guards at the rear of my wagon as well as the front."

Dina smiled brilliantly at the praise, and brought her lance to her forehead in salute. Her smile faltered, though; Systlin knew that she'd insisted on arranging for the death-rites of the slain guardswoman personally.

"I am sorry, Ubara." She said. "That your guards failed to stop them."

Systlin shook her head. "You cannot expect to best trained warriors after a month of practice. I have said as much. But they saw the men, and warned me, and it was clever of you to deduce where such an attack might be made."

That got another smile. "I have lived among Tuchuks." She said. "I've learned how they think."

"Now, of course, we deal with you." Systlin stood, and drew her sword. The prisoner met her eyes, defiant.

"Go on, sleen." He said. "You are no Ubara."

"Ah. Of course. Because I have not killed your former Ubar." She smiled at his shock, and in the gathered prisoners there were many suddenly wide eyes. "What? You think that I've not spoken to people? You think that the other women didn't tell me? What kind of fool do you take me for?"

Shock, from many of the men. But from the women, mocking laughter.

"It is a situation easily remedied." She smiled at him, and then planted her feet and cut, swift and hard, pivoting from the hips.

Ice cut through muscle and bone quite easily. The head hit the ground with a thump and rolled. Systlin ignored the body as it fell, and pointed towards the prisoners with the bloodied blade of Ice.

"You," she said, still smiling. "Kamchak, is it? Ubar of the Tuchuks?"

The man met her eyes steadily. She saw anger there, but no fear. He was, if nothing else, brave.

"A lesson I learned long ago." She told him. "Is that a queen with no people who follow her is no queen at all. And you, former Ubar, have barely a handful of men loyal to you. I have six thousand loyal to me. So who, here, is Ubara?"

He spat.

"But I am willing," she continued, "to do this properly. It will be a pleasure, even." She nodded to her guards. "Remove his chains, and give him weapons. If he wants his position back, he can fight me for it."

There was a roar from the gathered women, and Systlin smiled as Kamchak's eyes narrowed, and he bared his teeth right back at her.

We had known, of course. It had been whispered about camp, and the men who had managed to convince the women to free them had consulted Kamchak many times in the previous days. It had been done quietly, of course; Tuchuks are clever.

On the night that the attack was to occur, we of course heard the commotion, as the wagon we were chained to was not far distant from that claimed by Systlin. Adjacent to it, in fact, as I seemed to be of special interest to her and she apparently wished to keep me under close scrutiny.

I had asked for Kamchak to at least be chained near me. The request had been granted. We sat practically on, indeed, the flat space of grass before the great wagon that she used as her court.

We heard, quite quickly, that it had failed. Systlin sent out messengers immediately, and spent an hour before her wagon in plain view of any and all who wished to see that she lived.

She was wearing a brief silk tunic, as she had no doubt been startled from sleep. Her legs were strong; far too strong for Gorean tastes, but still shapely. The image was somewhat marred by the blood that had dripped down her thigh as she carried the head of her slain enemy to the lance fixed in the turf for this purpose.

The second man who'd attempted the attack was dragged to the grass before her, chained hand and foot and hand to foot, and tied down to lances sunk deeply into the turf.

The women, I noted, did not cringe so any longer when shouted at by an angry warrior. His cries of rage were ignored.

I noticed, for the first time, how well formed were the muscles of the women. I supposed that the hard work at camp and the running after the kaiila of their masters had always left the girls in excellent physical form. Had the last month of their play at weapons truely wrought such a change, though?

Or had the girls always been so fit, and I had simply not seen them drag a grown warrior by his hair before?

Systlin sat there holding court, clad in red silk and the blood of a slain warrior, a man who'd been sent to kill her bound before her, the firelight casting flickering shadow and light over the scene, seated on the furs and pillows as if they were a throne of gold and rubies.

She met my eyes once, in the shadows, and her smile was a terrible thing to behold.

For the first time since the she-demon had arrived, I understood how such a creature could be called a queen.

It's said on Gor that a woman who enjoys the touch of silk is a slave at heart. I wondered if the man who had first said it had ever seen a woman wearing silk and the blood of a slain enemy. I found myself, for the first time in a great while, doubting the phrase.

Come morning, of course, we were dragged to court. And there, of course, Systlin killed the warrior who'd attempted to kill her before all the Tuchuk. I had supposed as much would happen, once I had heard of the failure of the attack.

I had not supposed that she would call out Kamchak, or agree to fight him.

Kamchak, of course, accepted.

As the corpse of the executed warrior was removed from the circle, I realized that I had never yet seen the she-sleen truly fight.

"Be careful," I said to Kamchak.

He nodded, once. She was only a woman, of course, and he was proud...but I saw him narrow his eyes at her, thoughtful, as his chains were removed.

He was sly, the Ubar of the Tuchuks. I knew this.

"It is unfair." He said, as his ankle chains were unlocked. "You wear armor, and I am nearly naked."

Systlin smiled, just a twitch of her lips, and removed the red larl-hide cloak, and her leather vest. The glittering shirt of strange scales was brilliant in the sun. I could see no two scales of precisely the same shade.

She bent at the waist and wriggled out of the armor, leaving her in just the padded shirt that went under the armor. She unsheathed her dagger and spun it around the back of her hand, quicker than the eye could follow, the hilt sliding neatly back into her hand as the spin finished.

"There." She said. "Choose whatever weapons you please."

Kamchak observed her, eyes narrow, for some time. Then at last, he spoke. "Lance," he said, "And quiva."

Systlin nodded, and weapons were brought.

"You have the sun at your back," Kamchak observed. "So that it will shine in my eyes."

"Yes." She answered him calmly, matter of fact. She made no offer to change the situation.

"That is wise. I would do the same."

She inclined her head perhaps an inch in acknowledgement.

"If I defeat you, I will simply kill you." He informed her. "You are too dangerous to make a slave, witch."

She smiled at that, showing teeth.

"I suppose if I seized one of these women as hostage, you would simply overpower me with sorcery." He stretched, and weighed quiva and lance in his hands.

"Of course."

Kamchak approached her, cautious. Systlin waited, and I saw her shift her weight slightly. She was balanced on the balls of her feet, I saw, her legs spread slightly in a way that would give her stable footing and allow her to move any direction at the slightest notice.

"Tarl Cabot," Kamchak said, and I started. "It would be a terrible thing, should this witch slay me, and no one else know that which you seek is currently within my own wagon, and has often served me as throne."

I started; the gray, leathery thing that I had supposed was a bundle of old leather, and which Kamchak often sat upon?

Of course, it was like a Tuchuk, to hide such a treasure in the most clever of ways...

There was a ring of metal on metal, and I was torn from such thoughts. Kamchak had hurled a quiva, as he had at me once upon a time. And as I had, Systlin had apparently seen the throw coming, though it was so quick as to be missed upon blinking. She had moved, just as quickly, and the ringing had been her sword meeting the quiva in mid-air, and parrying it to the side.

I had seen her before in bits and flashes in the battle that terrible night, and later executing bound prisoners. Her form with a blade, I had thought, was good.

I had been wrong before. Her form with a blade was excellent, and beyond excellent.

It struck me, as she nimbly dodged a striking lance and the slashing blow of a second quiva, Kamchak bringing it up and around in a hidden strike close on the heels of his lunge with the lance, that she would have compared favorably with the best of the warriors of Ko-ro-ba.

As she danced in, light and nimble, and drove him back on his heels with a vicious, lightning quick series of strikes, it occurred to me that she was likely quicker on her feet than even I.

The sword and dagger at once was not a common combination on Gor, but the she-sleen used them to devastating effect. One may parry while the other attacks, and attack may follow attack without the slightest moment of respite. Equally, both may be used to turn aside blows given in return, though this relies upon the warrior being quick and nimble and possessed of excellent timing.

Systlin was all three. She was quick, marvelously quick. She was nimble, her footing flawless. Her timing was precise and deadly.

Within the first exchange, she had opened a deep bleeding slash into Kamchak's arm with that dagger, and as he fought to hold those biting blades off the sword slipped around and opened a cut into his thigh.

Kamchak's lance gave him reach, and he was quick on his feet as well. As she pivoted neatly around his lance and cut for his neck with a vicious flat slice of her sword, he threw himself to the side unexpectedly and hurled his quiva, at nearly point blank range.

She saw, and with a degree of control over her body and momentum that I had thought nearly impossible checked her momentum and changed direction, but still the quiva opened a cut across the front of her thigh.

Both warriors fell back, eyeing one another. Kamchak was serious, deadly so. Systlin was grinning, and I have seen that grin before on the battlefield.

Only warriors who truly delight in the fight smile so.

As we watched, the she-sleen lowered her hand, dipped two fingers into the blood flowing from her wound, and drew them across her cheek, smearing scarlet like war-paint across her skin.

"U-BAR-A!" There was chanting from the massed Tuchuk. A few, though, including the other still-imprisoned warriors, were crying "U-BAR!"

"You are good." Kamchak admitted.

Systlin simply grinned, and began circling. If the pain of her wound was troubling her, she did not reveal it.

Twice more they clashed, and twice more the she-sleen opened up wounds on Kamchak and then retreated to resume her circling. Kamchak did not manage to wound her a second time in these clashes.

I realized to my horror, as she closed the third time and hooked a blow of the lance out of the air as neatly as one could please, simply to rotate around and drive her elbow viciously into the back of Kamchak's skull, that she was toying with him.

Kamchak knew as well, as she retreated to resume that relentless circling again. The blow had dazed him for a moment, and she could have slain him on the spot, but she only pricked him yet again with that dagger, opening a slash across the back of his shoulder to join the half-dozen others he was bleeding from.

"Sleen." He panted.

"I prefer" she said, still smiling that cold and vicious smile, "to be called 'Queen'."

And with that, she moved in again.

Kamchak was a great warrior, and a canny one. Kamchak fought well. Kamchak fought with a skill that would have been credit to any warrior of Ko-ro-ba. Kamchak fought with skill and speed and guile. But no man can stand forever when bleeding from a dozen wounds.

Kamchak fought well. Kamchak fought bravely. And Kamchak died, a warrior of the Tuchuk, without begging or crying out in pain, when the she-sleen tired of the game.

She did not quite behead him. When his guard dropped, dragged down by exhaustion and blood loss, she cut again with that strange sword and opened his throat clear back to the bones of his spine.

Kamchak, Ubar of the Tuchuk, fell. I did not look away as his life bled out across the grass; I owed him that much.

Systlin turned to us as Kamchak fell, fierce and furious.

"There lies your Ubar." She cried this out, and I knew at once that she was used to speaking so that her voice would carry over battlefields. "Now we will have done with this! Is there anyone else among you who would challenge me? Because now is the time! If you wish to avenge your men, if you wish to claim the Ubar title...now is the fucking time! Because the next time I have to get out of bed to an assassination attempt, I am going to slow roast the balls of anyone involved and feed them to you."

Silence.

"Then." She hissed. "Who is the fucking Ubara here?"

I could say nothing, and I was not the only one to look away.

“That’s what I fucking thought.”

Three days later

“Fuck.” Systlin dug her fingertips into her temples. She could feel a headache coming on, and it was only midmorning. “Fuck. What is wrong with this place?”

Dina gave an apologetic sort of shrug. “I cannot answer that for you, Ubara. But the Tuchuk had been preparing for the Love Games for some time, and it is considered the event of events on the plains. We could simply move the bosk on and skip it, though it will be noted.”

Systlin gritted her teeth. Her new warriors were not well trained enough to put up against those who had been trained, as she had, since they were old enough to hold swords. They were eager, she knew, but simply not yet ready for such a fight. It would be a slaughter, and she would not have it.

“Abominable fucking tradition.” She muttered. “What will happen to the Turian women placed at the stakes if we simply do not show?”

Her advisors glanced at each other and shrugged. “I do not know, Ubara.” Said Shayla, a fiercely intelligent woman. She had a keen mind for numbers and a genius for organization, and Systlin had promptly snapped her up to assist with logistics. Her former and very deceased master had kept her in a length of nearly transparent silk that barely counted as a scarf; now she wore a long bosk-wool skirt and a conservatively cut tunic, and her hair was braided and pinned up in a coil. “But I am not Turian.”

“It would be counted as a win for the Turian champions.” Dina said. “And they will be free to go. But the Tuchuk will be marked as cowards, and runners will be sent to investigate.”

“Ah.” Systlin relaxed a bit. “Well. That’s no problem. I don’t care what they think of us for now, and a few runners are easily disposed of. We simply do not go, then, and we will come back and deal with Turia when the warriors are ready.”

“The Turians,” interjected Mettna, a Tuchuk Free Woman. She also had a keen mind for logistics, and was the matriarch of a large extended family with many ties throughout the Tuchuk. Gorean laws or not, she ruled her family uncontested, and her word was law among them. Even her teenaged sons and nephews bowed their heads when she fixed them with a flinty stare. “Will consider the women the Tuchuk would have placed at the stakes theirs by default, and they will come looking for them.” A dark look; her youngest daughter Hireena had been among those intended for the stakes. “They take pleasure in breaking us to the collar and chain.”

Systlin’s hand tightened reflexively on her dagger. “If they come looking,” She said. “I’ll make drinking bowls of their skulls, and send the rest of them back to Turia.”

“Good.” A nod. “I simply wanted you to know, Ubara.”

“And it is appreciated.” Systlin tilted her head at Dina. “It would be good practice for the warriors. Fighting for real with your life on the line is much different than doing it in practice. I know that you are impatient, Dina, but I didn’t learn in a month either.”

Dina nodded. “When DO you think…” she trailed off.

“A year, perhaps.” Systlin shrugged. “It depends on how hard you train, and how many chances there are to raid and test yourself in small skirmishes. You’ve all thrown yourselves in heart and soul, and are progressing remarkably. Keep training, and you’ll be flaying slave masters sooner than you think.”

Dina looked mollified at that.

“So it is decided then. We continue to move over the grazing grounds, bide our time, gather our strength, train, and ignore this abomination called “Love Games.” Systlin nodded to each of them. “Ah, Shayla. I had meant to ask…you had located the stocks of that stuff you call the ‘releaser?’ And the stuff you call ‘sip-root?’”

“We have, Ubara. One or two of the women have requested the releaser. I gave it to them. I hope that was not…”

“Not at all. Such things are entirely up to the individual. Continue to distribute it to any who ask, and notify me if stocks run low. I am not adverse to raiding for more supplies of any sort, should they be needed. How many men remain living?”

“Thirty two of adult years. Many more nearing adulthood, though many of them have been…difficult. There will be problems there, Ubara.”

“I know. But those will be dealt with as they come. Children have not owned slaves or raped women yet, and I’ll not punish them for their upbringing. There’s hope of teaching them better yet.” She tapped her fingers against her thigh thoughtfully. “Your siproot, quite honestly, rather reminds me of stoneseed, from my own world.”

“And Silphium.” The woman named Elizabeth put in abruptly. “From mine. The Romans…an empire, some two thousand years ago…used it so much that it was harvested to extinction, but it was apparently quite effective.” She worried at her lower lip with her teeth. “I wonder…if this siproot was grown on Earth…there’s so many who don’t have access to birth control yet. It’s a hardy plant. It could change so many lives for the better.”

Systlin raised an eyebrow. “Indeed. Stoneseed is considered a basic stock necessity for any civilized place on Ellinon, as siproot seems to be here. What is done then on Earth, to prevent unwanted children?”

“Well.” A helpless sort of shrug. “We’ve pills that work well, and barrier devices, but…well, in some places there’s not much, and while we’ve plants too many are toxic or don’t work well. So, in those places there’s just…nothing.”

Systlin hissed through her teeth in disapproval. “It’s a worthy thought, then. But before we can figure out how to return you to your own world, we must set this one to rights.” She rose, as did the other women in the wagon. “Thank you all. We will speak again later.”

Outside the wagon, she found her kailla, mounted, and went for a ride around the perimeter of the camp. She’d taken to doing so regularly; an early and hard lesson had been that people need to see their leaders.

Her father had ignored this fact. He’d died for it, with her brother, and the northern lands had dissolved into war for a decade.

After her circuit of the camp, she went to the field where the fighters were training. A few of the freed men had offered to help teach, and were so far proving helpful. Systlin had been dubious; the women of this place were so conditioned to expect nothing but brutality at a man’s hands that she’d wondered if it wouldn’t cause more harm than good. However, it seemed, after some tentative starts, to be helping both sides. The women were faster losing their ingrained flinching cringe when a man moved towards them, and the men, she knew, had been stunned by how quickly the women took to training. She’d heard them speaking to the still chained men about it, and arguing. She’d seen them as well cuff and get into yelling matches with a few of the sullenly furious teenaged boys who were nearing manhood, and had found their expected power ripped away in a moment.

The man named Carl Tabot was there too. He was still chained, foot to foot, and was simply allowed to correct errors when he saw them. She’d contemplated killing him; she was certain, in her bones, that he was guilty of the same atrocities of most of the other men. But she’d no proof, and the man was a skilled warrior; she’d only broken his leg rather than killed him for that, and because she’d noted the first time he spoke that he was not of these wagon people.

He spotted her, and glowered. She was more than certain that he’d happily stick a knife through her throat in her sleep if he thought he could get by with it. She smiled at him in return, the sharp, worrying flash of teeth that was famed and feared across the sands and the northern lands. He flinched, and glowered at her.

Fuck, but she would have given anything to have Foicatch there. The ingrained misogyny of this world ran deep, and she knew that words from a man would be more seriously taken than her words, however thoroughly she demonstrated that she was, in fact, the new superior power on this planet.

Actually, the idea was quite amusing. The men of this place had made it quite obvious what they thought of being ‘true men’, and that men not like them were ‘weak’ and ‘unmanned’. Foicatch, all six feet three inches and two hundred fifty granite-hewn, deadly warrior-trained pounds of him, could hardly ever be called either. But, like most real men, Foicatch was quite secure in himself and felt little need to loudly proclaim it for everyone to hear. He was, really, far more even-tempered and easygoing than she. He’d be mostly bemused by the arrogant, angry posturing and bellowing and rage of the men of this shithole.

Until he was not. It took a great deal to rouse Foicatch’s ire, but once roused it was terrible.

Systlin entertained the thought of one of the sullen, angry Tuchuk boys being dangled from one of ‘Catch’s hands, her beloved bellowing at the little shit, and smiled again in private amusement.

46 notes · View notes

meganwritesfanfics · 3 years

Text

Buried Nightmares (Jack Hodgins x Reader)

Ever since he and Dr. Brennen had been kidnapped by the Gravedigger, Jack Hodgins had nightmares, nightmares about being buried alive again, nightmares about suffocating, nightmares about being utterly alone. Never in those nightmares did he imagine the love of his life being in danger. The Gravedigger is about to change that. When the reader is kidnapped, the team at the Jeffersonian must race against the clock to save her, before she become another one of the Gravedigger’s victims.

“No, no, please God no!” Y/N heard someone scream waking her from her sleep. Her sleepiness quickly vanished when she realized that it was her boyfriend who was violently tossing and turning next to her. She ran her hand over her face, tears in her eyes, it broke her heart to see him so troubled. Ever since he was taken by the gravedigger he had been having nightmares almost every single night. “Jack,” She said, trying to shake him away, but he was pretty deeply lost in his dream. “Jack!” She yelled a bit more forcefully and she watched as his blue eyes snapped open instantly, filling with tears. Hodgins quickly pulled Y/N into his arms holding onto her tightly. “It’s ok baby, it was only a nightmare, I’ve got you, you are safe.”

Hodgins breathed deeply taking in Y/N’s scent, finding comfort in the familiar. In his mind he still felt like he was trapped in that car, but this time he was alone. It had been months since he and Dr. Brennan had been trapped in that car, and yet every time he closed his eyes it seems as though it were yesterday.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” Hodgins sniffed, wiping the tears from his eyes.

“Hey,” She ran her fingers through his curls. “I don’t mind being woken up, if that means I can help you fall back asleep.”

Quickly he reached over and grabbed her other hand pulling it to his mouth and kissing it. “God Y/N, what would I do without you.”

“You would probably be in prison.” She smiled and Hodgins face changed from tears in his eyes to to his charming smile.

“They would never catch me alive, copper see,” He laughed as he leaned forward kissing her passionately. “I love you Y/N.”

“I love you too Jack.” And after wearing themselves out, the pair finally fell asleep in each other's embrace.

They awoke to the sound of their mutual alarm, groaning. “I don’t want to get up.” Y/N said as she covered her face with the covers.

Hodgins chuckled as he leaned over Y/N to shut off the alarm, quickly pulling the covers down to give her a kiss. “I mean we could always stay in bed all day.”

“Absolutely not,” Y/N laughed as she pushed him back. “Cam would have your head. Plus I have class.”

Y/N taught a class at Georgetown University, 20th century political theory and its relations to corporatism.

“Ugh, why do you have to be the responsible good one in this relationship.” Hodgins smiled, kissing her again.

“Just because I’m responsible does not mean I am good,” She smiled seductively as she got on top of him. “We do have about 20 minutes before we absolutely have to get out of bed.”

“Why Mrs Y/L/N are you trying to seduce me?”

“19 minutes and 30 seconds Hodgins do you want to spend it talking or…” Y/N started when Hodgins quickly grabbed her waist flipping them over, so he was on top

*****

Once they had gotten dressed, they both made their way down to the garage.

“You know I could always give you a ride. You don’t always have to drive yourself to work.” Hodgins said as the two leaned against Y/N’s silver Audi.

“Can you promise me that we will be home in time for Dancing with the Stars?” She said.

“You are such a dork, you know that,” He smiled.

“Who made us watch a documentary about beetles?”

“Fine you know, just go.” Hodgins laughed as he pulled her in for a long kiss.

“I will see you later, let me know if you are going to be really late, cause I will just eat that ice cream without you.”

“No fair.”

“I love you,” Y/N said as she got into her car heading to work.

It was a typical day for Hodgins at the lab, they were working on a case for Booth, a body had been found in a freezer and they were working on trying to identify the body.

Hodgins had been given some of the frozen bugs found near the body and he was working on identifying them and finding where they originated from. He had been working away when suddenly his cell phone rang.

A smile appeared on his face when he saw who was calling.

“Hey baby, what are you doing calling in the middle of the day?”

“Jack Hodgins,” A metallic voice responded, sending chills down his spine. “You’re precious Y/N has been buried alive, you have 24 hours to wire transfer 10 million dollars to the following Cayman account before she runs out of air.”

Jack fell backwards into his table sending some of his glass vials shattering to the floor. “No!” He screamed as he fell to the floor.

Everyone came running to Hodgins office.

“Jack, what is it?” Angela asked as she rushed to his side.

“He has her,” Hodgins cried.

“Hodgins, what are you talking about, who has who?” Booth asked.

“Y/N, the gravedigger he has her, he wants 10 million dollars.” Hodgins said, panicking.

Everyone's face fell as they looked around at each other, surprisingly it was Brennen who looked the most terrified.

“I have to get the money I have to…” Hodgins started rambling as he tried to get to his feet but his knees buckled. Zach was the one who reached out to catch him before he fell. “We have to find her.”

Brennen quickly made her way over to Hodgins grabbing his hand. “We will find her Hodgins, I promise you.”

Meanwhile Y/N woke with a start finding herself in the pitch black.

“Hello?” She called out but her mouth felt as though it was full of cotton.

Reaching out her hands she felt around for something that would give her an indication of where she was. That was when her hand fell upon something that felt like a button. Quickly she pressed a button and was blinded by light. It took her eyes a moment to adjust and when they did she was met with a sight that left her with a feeling of uncontrolled terror. She let out a blood curdling scream as she realized she was in a car, buried alive.

#bones imagine #jack hodgins #hodgins x reader #bones #imagine #fanfiction

125 notes · View notes

jays-bookmarks · 2 years

Text

A Dragon's Will

Lmao I said I wasn't a writing blog but Albedo challenged me so I had to follow through >:3c

Summary: A little something I wrote for Albedo's writing contest ft Durin and the events leading up to Fakebedo's appearance in the story (disclaimer: I wrote this as if the Traveler was writing the story so I used only the lore the Traveler knew at the time and also took some artistic liberties)

Words: 749

Warnings: Brief descriptions of blood, no event spoilers.

›•‹›•‹›•‹›•‹›•‹›•‹›•‹›•‹›•‹›•‹›•‹›•‹›•‹›•‹›•‹›•‹

The dragon no longer remembered how it felt to die. Joy, sorrow, pain, love. All had been sealed away by time. His memories, too, had been buried beneath the same powdered ice that covered his body. All he knew was that he longed to live. That longing was the reason why he carried on; even as snow blanketed the mountain where he slept, even as time eroded his flesh until all that remained were his bones and his still-beating heart. He carried on, for a dragon’s will could not be so easily extinguished.

He did not know how much time had passed. The mountain that was his resting place did not change as the years turned into centuries. So, the dragon slept, alone as he had always been for as long as he could remember.

Yet one day, an emerald dragon crossed the sky, soaring toward his freedom with wings spread wide. His flight stirred a memory from the dragon trapped in ice. As they drifted in flurries around the dragon’s glaciated mind, he began to remember.

He remembered how it felt to die. He remembered roaring, screeching. A claw at his throat. Pain, Falling, weightless as the wind whispered around him. Sudden impact, the pressure shattering his body like ice. Blood, gushing, flowing, seeping into the earth around him.

Please, let me live.

That was the dragon’s final plea. As he closed his eyes for the last time, his heart continued to beat in a defiant rhythm. Let me live… live… live…

The dragon’s heart began to devour the vitality around it, forming millions of tiny crystals that settled in layers of glittering white. Animals fled the mountain to escape the chill that now filled the air, and those that did not were frozen alongside the dragon’s body. The dragon had lived, but had he truly been alive for all that time?

He did not remember how it felt to live. Yet, the dragon knew that merely existing was not enough. Why else would he feel a tug on his heart every time he saw people set foot on his mountain? Why else would his heart burn when he heard laughter echoing around the frozen forest? There was something missing, something that both filled his heart with warmth and twisted it with pain.

Loneliness. That was what the dragon felt. In the years that he had slumbered on this mountain, not a soul had come to visit him. Was this the same reason why no one had answered his cries for help as he lay dying on the mountaintop? Was there no one who loved, cared for, and remembered him? Was he truly alone in this world?

No, he could not, would not accept such a fate. Did he not deserve to be loved by another? Did he not deserve joy and companionship? Did he not deserve a good life?

It was then that the dragon began to take closer notice of the humans who trekked up his mountain. Most did not stay for long, but there was one who spent more time on the dragon’s spine than any other.

He was an alchemist. The dragon watched him closely. He watched the alchemist work, he watched the alchemist’s friends come to visit him, he watched them talk and laugh together, share meals together. He saw the love permeating that little cave where the alchemist had set up camp.

As the dragon observed the alchemist, he sensed something familiar about him. Memories began to thaw from the icy prison they had been trapped in.

To create life… yes, the dragon should be able to do so as well. He and the alchemist were of the same cloth, after all. The dragon knew what he had to do in order to be loved.

As the dragon’s desire grew, a human body began to take shape around the dragon’s heart. Yes, to be loved by the humans was to become part of them. The dragon’s heart thrummed ever stronger, filling the body with the life it had gathered over so many years. The dragon opened his eyes. He took a breath, then another, and another. This human body was fragile and weak, nothing like the dragon’s old form, but it was perfect, for it was exactly like the body of the alchemist. The dragon emerged from his cave; only one obstacle remained.

He set off for the alchemist’s camp.

#genshin impact #albedo #shadows amidst snowstorms #genshin albedo #genshin writing #genshin impact writing #genshin scenarios #genshin imagines #my writing

11 notes · View notes

1962dude420-blog · 3 years

Photo

Today we remember the passing of Tupac Shakur who Died: September 13, 1996 in Las Vegas, Nevada

Tupac Amaru Shakur (born Lesane Parish Crooks, June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), better known by his stage name 2Pac and, later, by his alias Makaveli, was an American rapper, songwriter, and actor. He is widely considered one of the most influential rappers of all time. Much of Shakur's work has been noted for addressing contemporary social issues that plagued inner cities, and he is considered a symbol of activism against inequality.

Lesane Crooks was born to Afeni Shakur (née Alice Faye Williams), a member of the Black Panther Party, and she renamed him Tupac Amaru Shakur—after Peruvian revolutionary Túpac Amaru II—when he was a year old. He spent much of his childhood on the move with his family, which in 1986 settled in Baltimore, Maryland, where Shakur attended the elite Baltimore School for the Arts. He distinguished himself as a student, both creatively and academically, but his family relocated to Marin City, California, before he could graduate. There Shakur took to the streets, selling drugs and becoming involved in the gang culture that would one day provide material for his rap lyrics. In 1990 he joined Digital Underground, an Oakland-based rap group that had scored a Billboard Top 40 hit with the novelty single “The Humpty Dance.” Shakur performed on two Digital Underground albums in 1991, This Is an EP Release and Sons of the P, before his solo debut, 2Pacalypse Now, later that year.

2Pacalypse Now was a radical break from the dance party sound of Digital Underground, and its tone and content were much closer to the works of Public Enemy and West Coast gangsta rappers N.W.A. The lack of a clear single on the album limited its radio appeal, but it sold well, especially after U.S. Vice Pres. Dan Quayle criticized the song “Soulja’s Story” during the 1992 presidential campaign. That same year Shakur joined the ranks of other rappers-turned-actors, such as Ice Cube and Ice-T, when he was cast in the motion picture Juice, an urban crime drama. The following year he appeared in Poetic Justice, opposite Janet Jackson, and he released his second album, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. The album did not stray far from the activist lyricism of his debut, but singles such as “Holler If Ya Hear Me” and “Keep Ya Head Up” made it much more radio-friendly.

With increased fame and success came greater scrutiny of Shakur’s gangsta lifestyle. A string of arrests culminated with a conviction for sexual assault in 1994; he was incarcerated when his third album, Me Against the World, was released in 1995. Shakur was paroled after serving eight months in prison, and he signed with Suge Knight’s Death Row Records for his next release. That album, All Eyez on Me (1996), was a two-disc paean to the “thug life” that Shakur embodied. It debuted at number one on the Billboard charts and sold more than five million copies within its first year of release. Quick to capitalize on his most recent success, Shakur returned to Hollywood, where he starred in Bullet (1996) and Gridlock’d (1997).

On the evening of September 7, 1996, Shakur was leaving a Las Vegas casino, where he had just attended a prizefight featuring heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, when he was shot by an unknown assailant. The incident, believed by many to be the result of an ongoing rivalry between the East Coast and West Coast rap communities, shocked the entertainment world. Shakur died six days later. In spite of his relatively short recording career, Shakur left an enduring legacy within the hip-hop community. His popularity was undiminished after his death, and a long succession of posthumous releases (many of them were simply repackaged or remixed existing material, and most were of middling quality) ensured that “new” 2Pac albums continued to appear well into the 21st century. Shakur was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.

#September 13 #1996 #R.I.P.#Tupac Shakur

4 notes · View notes

xhxhxhx · 3 years

Text

Alan Allport’s Britain at Bay (Knopf, 2020) is great on all the ways the United Kingdom was an only imperfectly free country at the beginning of the Second World War.

On the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act:

Police power in Northern Ireland was very different in character from elsewhere in the UK, owing to the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act, or SPA. The SPA was originally passed in the emergency conditions of 1922 at the end of the Irish War of Independence. Its powers had only been supposed to last one year, but it was found to be so useful that it was annually renewed by Stormont up to 1933, and made permanent thereafter.

Using the authority granted to it by the SPA, Northern Ireland’s government could impose curfews, prohibit public gatherings and protest marches, ban newspapers, arrest members of the public wearing uniforms or bearing items associated with proscribed organisations, search for and seize contraband goods, indefinitely detain those suspected of ‘subversive activity’ or exclude them from entering Northern Ireland, punish anyone making a report ‘intended or likely to cause disaffection to His Majesty’ and, in broad terms, ‘take all such steps and issue all such orders as may be necessary for preserving the peace and maintaining order’. In December 1938 the SPA was used to introduce internment without trial for suspected IRA men. Some of these detainees were taken to a prison hulk called the Al Rawdah, moored off Killyleagh, into which they were packed in bronchitic squalor for five months. The SPA granted Craigavon’s executive virtually unlimited domestic powers of control and surveillance, which were directed specifically at an ethno-religious minority regarded as a parasitical and disloyal enemy within. The SPA formed, in the words of a National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) report in 1936, ‘the basis for a legal dictatorship’. W. J. Stewart, a progressive Unionist critical of the UUP, described Northern Ireland’s government in the 1930s as ‘more completely in control of the six counties than either Hitler or Mussolini in their own countries’.

[...]

The police responded to the [IRA’s 1939] bombing campaign in different ways, some constabularies taking great pains to distinguish IRA terrorists from the Irish community at large, some less so. Newspaper stories from the Spanish Civil War had been full of reports about seditious ‘Fifth Columnists’, and the possibility that Irish migrants might be providing sanctuaries for IRA men did not seem completely fantastical. In London the Metropolitan Police asked hotel and boarding-house staff to provide details about any new visitors with Irish addresses or accents. The public was encouraged to report sightings of Irishmen ‘idling’ during daylight hours on the streets of the capital. S-Plan attacks provoked panicky and legally dubious police work. After the Piccadilly bombing constables ‘dashed through the crowd haphazardly’, as one witness later put it, rounding up dozens of men with Irish brogues. The whole operation was conducted with such a lack of basic procedure that all of the detained men had to be released later in the day for want of evidence – including a couple of suspects who, it turned out later, really had been involved in planting the bomb.

On the Prevention of Violence (Temporary Provisions) Act:

Earlier in 1939, the S-Plan terrorist campaign had provoked a similar kind of test, on a smaller scale, of how far the British were willing to compromise their traditional civil liberties in the name of public safety. In July 1939 the home secretary had introduced the Prevention of Violence (Temporary Provisions) Act to the Commons, a remarkable piece of legislation rushed through Parliament at breakneck speed, largely forgotten in the subsequent hubbub of war but something that ought to be better remembered than it is. The Prevention of Violence Act granted the home secretary the authority to prohibit anyone who had been resident in Great Britain for less than twenty years from entering or re-entering the country if it was believed that they were ‘concerned in the preparation or instigation […] of acts of violence designed to influence public opinion or Government policy with respect to Irish affairs’. He could expel such persons from the United Kingdom and detain them for up to five days prior to that expulsion. The Act allowed, for the first time in history, a political appointee to imprison, deport and exile British subjects without reference to the courts. It also empowered the police, under certain circumstances, to conduct searches and seizures of suspects’ property without obtaining a judicial warrant first. British subjects – as all Irishmen and -women still legally were in 1939, even those living in the Free State – had never been subject to such peacetime restrictions before.

Hoare insisted to Parliament that the new Act was a ‘temporary measure to meet a passing emergency’ which would remain on the statute books for no longer than two years. Some MPs were not convinced. They saw it as an attack on Britain’s culture of democracy. ‘We are proud that this is a free country,’ argued William Wedgwood Benn (father of Tony and grandfather of Hilary). ‘Our people hold their heads a little higher because they believe they enjoy a measure of freedom […] I do not think public opinion will be assisted by giving the Home Secretary power to turn us all into ticket-of-leave men, if he so wishes.’ In return, supporters of the Act regarded these objections as a sop to terrorists. ‘What about King’s Cross?’ demanded Sir Joseph Nall, Tory MP for Manchester Hulme. ‘What about the people who are being maimed and killed?’ It was much better, he argued, ‘to deport a dozen innocent persons than to allow one innocent person to be killed’. The Prevention of Violence Act passed into law.

Even before the Second World War broke out, then, fears of terrorism had already caused the government drastically to revise traditional assumptions about the freedoms of the individual British citizen. The Prevention of Violence Act was a first step in the creeping Hibernicisation of British law during the twentieth century, a process in which restrictions on civil liberty originally applied in ‘troubled’ Ireland were progressively transferred to the rest of the United Kingdom as well. In time, an indefinite state of emergency would become the new normal.

On the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act and Treachery Act:

All of this [invasion scare] seemed to suggest that the democracy itself could not be trusted in a crisis. Only by abandoning the ‘present rather easy-going methods’ of national life and adopting a set of restrictions ‘which would approach the totalitarian’ could Britain survive a Nazi onslaught, the Cabinet was warned by Chamberlain on 18 May. The legal apparatus for such a siege dictatorship was established four days later, when a new Emergency Powers (Defence) Act was passed by the Commons in its entirety in just two hours. This was an extension of the existing emergency legislation passed at the outbreak of war which now gave the government almost unlimited authority to regulate people, property and capital without the need for parliamentary scrutiny. As the new minister for labour later observed, it made him ‘a kind of Führer with powers to order anybody anywhere’. A Treachery Act passed the same day made it a capital offence to assist the enemy’s military operations or to hamper Britain’s own.

As the Times put it, the Emergency Powers Act ‘comes near to suspending the very essence of the Constitution as it has been built up in a thousand years. Our ancient liberties are placed in pawn for victory.’ A slew of regulations soon circumscribed even the most quotidian features of the British citizen’s life. It was unlawful to ‘endeavour to influence […] public opinion in a manner likely to be prejudicial’ to the war effort, to take part in a strike, to withhold information about an invention or patent if the state demanded it, to hold an unauthorised procession, to put out flags, to operate a car radio or to put icing on a cake (wickedly wasteful of sugar). Chamberlain hoped that public opinion would back these restrictions; but if not, recalcitrant non-cooperators could be drafted into a compulsory labour corps under prison discipline.

The creation in mid-May 1940 of the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV), later renamed the Home Guard, ought to be seen in this context of government nervousness. Private citizens had responded to news of the German parachute landings in the Netherlands and Belgium by announcing the formation of ad hoc militia companies to defend their homeland. Whitehall felt it had to act quickly to control the process. One quarter of a million men aged between seventeen and sixty-five registered to join the new auxiliary force within the first week of its announcement, and by July 1940 its nominal strength stood at 1.5 million.

On Regulations 39BA and 18B:

Sir John Simon’s 1938 prophecy that rearmament and war would turn Britain into ‘a different kind of nation’ seemed to have come true. Moreover, it had happened with a remarkable lack of discussion or opposition. ‘A united nation feels no hesitation or misgiving’ about the abandonment of its personal freedoms, insisted the Times when the Emergency Powers Act was rushed through Parliament: ‘the temporary surrender [of liberties] is made with a glad heart and a confident spirit.’ That was not altogether true. There would be resistance to some of the more controversial powers the government had acquired for itself. That said, the assault on other values, particularly the presumption of innocence in law and the protection of minorities, inspired rather less sympathy.

The very British right to grumble out loud produced an early skirmish in this conflict over liberties. Regulation 39BA, introduced in June 1940, made it a criminal offence, punishable by up to a month in prison, to circulate ‘any report or statement relating to matters connected with the war which is likely to cause alarm and despondency’. It was announced at the same moment the Ministry of Information launched a ‘Silent Column’ campaign that condemned spreading rumours and gossiping about the war effort. The government was not shy about using its new power. By late July there had been over seventy prosecutions. A tradesman in Yeovil was jailed for thirty days for saying ‘Hitler will be here in a month’. A Bristol septuagenarian earned himself a week in prison for claiming that the Swastika would soon fly over Parliament.

As the summer wore on, however, a press backlash caused the government to retreat. Churchill admitted to the Commons on 23 July that, however ‘well-meant’ it had been, Regulation 39BA had had the unfortunate effect of criminalising ‘silly vapourings which are best dealt with on the spur of the moment by verbal responses’. The Silent Column was put into what he called ‘innocuous desuetude’, and the Home Secretary was asked to review all ‘alarm and despondency’ convictions. To what extent the Order’s continued existence had a chilling effect on free expression is unknowable. (‘Best to pass no opinion these days,’ as one Briton was reported saying by Home Intelligence. ‘You might get hung.’) Could anyone be certain that that innocuous pollster or Mass Observer asking them questions about the war was not a government provocateur?

A more ominous issue came up in August, when the government sought to create special regulations to deal with a crisis in which heavy bombing or invasion had halted normal legal procedures in some parts of the country. It proposed the creation of regional ‘War Zone courts’, presided over by experienced judges and appointed by the lord chancellor. Although these would not be military tribunals or courts-martial, they would nonetheless have the power to impose death sentences without appeal. ‘If we are not shot by the Germans we are evidently going to be shot by our own people,’ one Briton commented on hearing the news. The proposal was attacked in the Commons as far too vague, considering its life-and-death stakes. The Home Secretary’s reassurance that such courts would only operate with the greatest restraint was condemned as feeble by the barrister and Liberal MP Frank Kingsley Griffith: ‘it is all very well for anybody to come before this House and say, “I have a Bill which entitles me to cut off your head, but I can assure you that I am only going to cut your toe nails.” ’ In the end, the government retreated and promised that all War Court sentences would be subject to appeal. They were, in the end, never used anyway.

The Home Office received enough popular pushback against both Regulation 39BA and the War Zone courts for it to moderate its plans on the grounds of civil liberty. There was much less public concern provoked by the mass incarceration without trial of British citizens, which began on the morning of 23 May with the arrest of Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Under Defence Regulation 18B, the Home Secretary could detain indefinitely anyone of ‘hostile origin or associations’ or who had recently committed ‘acts prejudicial to the public safety’. Anyone so interned had a right of appeal to an advisory committee, but they were not allowed to know who had recommended their arrest, or why.

Regulation 18B had existed since the outbreak of war but was only now applied with any seriousness. By July 1940 over 700 BUF members and fellow-travellers of the far right had been swept up, most to Brixton Prison (only a single Communist Party member, a Yorkshire shop steward accused of sabotaging workplace production, joined them).

Not great!

24 notes · View notes

lettheladylead · 4 years

Text

avoid the unhappy ending (ch10)

ships/characters: Goldie, Scrooge, Scrooge/Goldie words (ch10): ~1800 summary: Goldie comes to town to see Scrooge. Instead, she somehow manages to run into literally everyone else. ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27108943/

[1 & 2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

Chapter 10 under the cut:

There’s a lot of comic references in these next chapters. Nothing that couldn't fit into DT17 canon, so I’ll quickly summarize for context:

Scrooge and Goldie met in Dawson during the Klondike Gold Rush. She drugged him and stole his giant gold nugget. As punishment, he took her to his claim and made her work for him digging gold. Goldie stayed because she wanted to steal Scrooge’s lock box which contained the deed to his property, the giant gold nugget, and (unknown to her) a lock of Goldie’s hair that was cut off in a scuffle with a bear. They went their separate ways after falling in love and not wanting to admit it to each other. (‘Prisoner of White Agony Creek’)

Two years later, Scrooge made his first million dollars and decided to go back to Dawson to settle down. He went back to his claim in White Agony and grabbed his old stuff, then wrote Goldie a letter and bought her a box of chocolates. He lost them on the trip to Dawson and decided that trying to settle down was bad for him and he should just keep working instead. Fifty years later he found his stuff and she finally read the letter, but nothing came of it. (‘Last Sled to Dawson’)

Beakley gave her directions to the right spot. How had she gone all these years unaware of a Klondike Room? Maybe she wouldn't have anything to steal from there, but it'd be nice to explore and enjoy the nostalgia. And hell, maybe there was something to steal. A goose-egg sized gold nugget, perhaps.

The path she was going in took her towards the Other Bin, which Scrooge thought was a secret, but Goldie had been there more than a few times to borrow certain mystical items and even stored some of her own there. Having Scrooge keep them safe was much easier than trying to build her own magically fortified bin.

And it was kind of nice to have things of hers in his home. A bit more meaningful than a toothbrush, at least.

She could see the room that led to the Other Bin down the hall, and the one Beakley had mentioned should be just a few doors further. Goldie took a moment to peek inside and took note that the room was still as junked up as always. A housekeeper and a ghost butler, but Scrooge still managed to have rooms that looked that bad.

Four more doors and Goldie wondered if this was an elaborate, annoying prank Bentina was playing on her as revenge for...well, a lot of things. Didn’t seem like her style. But she supposed it didn’t matter, she was checking the room either way.

Opening the door as quietly as possible, Goldie’s eyes widened at the display in front of her. The room was chilly, but filled with some very familiar pieces of furniture. It felt like a cabin. Scratch that, it felt like the cabin. His cabin.

On the other side of the room, she (finally!) saw Scrooge - wearing his old coat and even older hat - sitting with his back to her on the edge of a bed (and based on how it looked, she was pretty sure that was the bed), looking into a little lock box on his lap.

Of course, it was the box, too. Walking into this room felt like walking into a time machine. And she wanted to say something clever and cute. Some reference to their first meeting or something that would send a shiver down his spine.

Instead, she simply said, “Hey, Handsome.”

Scrooge didn’t react right away, then slowly closed the box and put it to his side before turning around to look at her. “Goldie, Dear, I wondered when you’d find me.”

She closed the door and walked over to the bed, taking a seat on the other side. “So you did know I was here.”

“Aye, Gyro sent me a message about it a few hours ago.”

Goldie turned to him and scoffed. “It has not been that long!”

He just smiled at her and she felt her heart beat faster. Damn that man. She wanted to yell at him for all the trouble she'd gone through, but one look at the space made all her complaints melt away. Clearly there was something more important going on.

“So...how didn’t I know about this?” she asked, stretching out her arms and emphasizing the room.

“You never asked,” he responded with a shrug, moving the box down to the floor and under the bed.

Goldie fell back and spread out her limbs all over the mattress, sighing at the familiar creaks and groans of the old, worn thing. “I can’t believe we slept on this.”

“Don’t complain - you only slept on it for a month,” Scrooge said as he laid down next to her. “Feels terrible, doesn’t it?”

“Hmm,” she hummed, turning to the side so she was looking at him. “It could be worse.”

They stayed silent for a minute while Goldie stuck her hand out and started playing with his whiskers, enjoying the smile and blush that graced his face while she did.

“Seems like you talked to the whole family today.”

“Mhmm.” She kept playing with his feathers while she answered. “Everyone wanted to harass me about not marrying you.”

His face got a little redder. “I didn’t ask them to.”

“I know. You didn’t ask me to, either.”

Scrooge’s eyes darted around the room in a clear attempt to avoid looking at her until he sat up and cleared his throat, cheeks still very colorful. “Um...not in so many words, but…”

Goldie leaned on her arms and watched him, smiling and enjoying his nervousness. Together on-and-off for one hundred and twenty years and he still got like this around her. It was so adorable it bordered on annoying, but she loved it nonetheless.

She sat up next to him and planted a hand flat on his chest, leaning over and kissing his cheek. “I’m just kidding, Scroogey.”

He laughed awkwardly and tugged at his collar, not wanting to continue that specific line of conversation. He started playing with his hands and his eyes darted towards the side of the bed where he’d hidden the lock box.

Goldie smirked. “You know I already know what’s in there. If you think I’ll be weirded out about the hair, you’re a century too late.”

“Ach,” Scrooge grumbled and shrugged her hand off. “It’s not that. Being in here with you...it just brings me back. I feel like you could take the nugget any second.”

“Well I certainly could, if you’d like to chase me down,” she said smugly, started to crawl past him to the other side of the bed.

Scrooge quickly grabbed her wrists and roughly pulled her back to where she was before. “Not on your life, you heisting harpy!”

Goldie winced momentarily as her shoulder stung, but shook it off before he could notice. She smiled and leaned closer, nuzzling her beak under his. “So what are you doing in here, Scrooge? I've been looking for you everywhere."

“Oh, I heard,” he said with a chuckle, letting go of her wrists. “Duckworth stopped by a few times to tell me if you’d gotten close.” He laughed harder at Goldie’s irritated expression. “I cannae believe you went and asked Beakley for help!”

Goldie groaned and shoved her side into his, trying and failing to seem annoyed. “You’re such a lousy old sourdough.”

He shoved her back. “And yet, here you are.”

“Here I am.” She leaned her head onto his shoulder and stared at the furniture set up in front of them - it was his old table and chair set. She was pretty sure the pan she cooked him eggs and bacon in was there, too.

He sighed and leaned his head on top of hers. She could hear his heart beating faster at the contact.

“So…” she mumbled softly. “Why are you in here?”

There was a few seconds of silence before he finally answered. “...you’ll just make fun of me for bein’ sentimental.”

“That’s probably true, but my curiosity stands.” She scooted herself around him so she’d be facing him directly. “I don’t remember today being special for us, but your staff seems to think it is.”

“It’s not special for you,” he said with a shrug, not looking at her. “Just for me.”

“...why’s that?”

He blushed again and she raised an eyebrow. “Scroogey, just tell me. I promise not to make fun of you. For at least an entire minute.”

“It’s nothin’ ridiculous,” Scrooge grumbled. “It’s just...it’s an anniversary. Of me...buyin’ somethin’. For you.”

She gave him a curious expression. “That’s what all this embarrassment is about? I don’t remember you getting me anything.”

“I never gave it to you,” he answered with a shrug. “Lost it in an ice storm.”

Goldie huffed and put her hands on his cheeks, forcing Scrooge to make eye contact with her. “What was it?”

He put his hands over hers. “It was just a stupid box of chocolates.”

She smiled. “How romantic.”

“I suppose.”

“Do you spend the day in here for every mundane anniversary?” Goldie said with a smile as she pulled away, moving to the edge of the bed. “At your age, I’m surprised every day of the year isn’t reminiscent of something or other.”

“What about you?” he asked, genuinely curious. “You’re goin' to pretend you don’t have a million things to celebrate?”

Goldie stood up and chuckled. “Of course I do. I always visit you on the day we first met.”

“And you always steal somethin' gold.”

She turned her head to give him a sultry look. “Would you expect anything else?”

He stood up behind her and let his hands drift to her hips. “From you? Never.”

Goldie spun around and ignored the sparkle in her eyes as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m glad I came today. I always enjoy when you’re nostalgic and this room really takes the cake.”

Scrooge pulled her a little closer. “Oh? Even with my family bothering you all day?” He smirked. “Don’t tell me ol’ Glitterin’ Goldie is startin’ to enjoy domestic life…”

She just hummed softly for a moment before closing the gap between them and pressing her beak to his very gently, gliding her left hand from the back of his head to his whiskers so she could play with them a bit more. She pulled away after a few seconds. “I think I could deal with this every once in a while.”

He broke out into a huge grin and leaned over to peck her beak quickly before squeezing her tight around her middle, lifting her up, and spinning her around.

“Whoa, hey!” she squeaked as she held onto his shoulders. “Watch your back, Old Man!”

Scrooge laughed as he lost his balance and they both fell back onto the bed - Goldie dizzy on her back and Scrooge winded on top of her. It only took a few seconds before Goldie started laughing with him and then they kissed again, losing themselves in the moment and the memories.

A few minutes later and they were back to where they started - laying on the familiar bed and staring at each other.

“Any chance you’re really plannin’ to stay for dinner?”

Goldie huffed and held back a laugh. “Come on, Scroogey. No one besides you and Della want me taking up a seat at that table. And she’s probably on the fence about it still.”

He reached over and grabbed her hand, holding it in front of his chest. “Just come anyway. I have a feelin’ we’ll just be talkin’ about you whether you’re there or not. Might as well come and defend yourself.”

She laughed again and tugged her hand out of his grasp. “Well with an offer like that, how can a girl refuse?”

#scroldie #ducktales #goldie o'gilt #scrooge mcduck #fic #fics #avoid the unhappy ending

24 notes · View notes

redofthewestcountry · 3 years

Text

FEBRUARY'S THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD AND THE WONDERFUL

Month 2

1st Feb: Myanmar military coup - Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratically elected leaders detained

1st Feb: Dustin Diamond (Saved by the Bell) passed away

1st Feb: India cuts Internet in New Delhi - agriculture reform protests

1st Feb: French football crisis deepens as league fails to resell TV rights

2nd Feb: Captain Sir Tom Moore dies from Corona virus

2nd Feb: Man wakes from 10 month coma with no knowledge of covid

2nd Feb: Space X prototype crashes, again

2nd Feb: Rare black leopard spotted in Indian wildlife park

3rd Feb: Myanmar dance video goes viral with Coup in the background

3rd Feb - Proud Boys labelled as terrorist group in Canada

3rd Feb: Perth wild fires

3rd Feb: Navalny jailed

3rd Feb: Biden signs three executive actions to reunite migrant families separated by Tr*mp policy

4th Feb: Kenyans celebrate zero Rhino killings in 2020

4th Feb: Iran diplomat jailed for plot to bomb French Rally in 2018

4th Feb: Denmark politicians gives green light for first 'energy island' in North Sea

5th Feb: Christopher Plummer passed away - Sound of Music

5th Feb: Smallest reptile on earth discovered in Madagascar

5th Feb: John Pullin - Former England Rugby player passed away

5th Feb: Stutthof Camp - 95 year old woman accused of aiding mass murder in holocaust

5th Feb: 185 German actors come out ad LGBT+ in campaign for more visibility, diversity, and recognition

6th Feb: Myanmar Internet shut down

7th Feb: Pope appoints first female undersecretary to the Synod of Bishops

7th Feb: Tampa Bay win super bowl

7th Feb: Indonesian Town turns red as flood waters hit textiles factory

8th Feb: Tangier illegal underground factory flood

8th Feb: Uttarakhand, India dam disaster

8th Feb: UK's youngest terror offender sentenced

8th Feb: First major snowstorm in Netherlands in a decade

9th Feb: Second Impeachment Trial begins - votes trial to impeach is constitutional

9th Feb: New Mozambique Military Chief dies from Covid

9th Feb: UAE Probe makes it into orbit around Mars

9th Feb: Weetabix suggests baked beans on weetabix

9th Feb: 116 year old French nun survives Covid

10th Feb: Saudi women's right activist released from jail

10th Feb: First photo of Mars from UAE Hope orbiter

10th Feb: Lawyer accidently uses cat filter on zoom

11th Feb: Hundred car pile up in Texas

11th Feb: Blues' Clues new alphabet song includes P is for Pride

11th Feb: Biden cancels funding for Tr*mps border wall

12th Feb: 5km wide Dartmoor Fire

12th Feb: Mario Draghi named new Italian Prime Minister

12th Feb: Belarusian migrant given a 90 day bus pass, and a free Polish language course for pushing bus out of the snow in Warsaw

12th Feb: "Convict Tr*mp and Lock Him Up" banner flown over Mar-a-Lago

12th Feb: Indian Village teacher wins $1 million prize for world's most exceptional educator

12th Feb: Female founded dating app Bumble tops $13 billion in market debut

13th Feb: Tr*mp acquitted of inciting insurrection

13th Feb: Japan appoints Minister of Loneliness

13th Feb: Stonehenge linked to original site in Wales

13th Feb: Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) issued for people with learning disabilities with covid

15th Feb: First woman appointed Head of World Trade Organisation

15th Feb: Southern states snow storms

15th Feb: Hidden world of bizarre creatures discovered under Antarctic ice

17th Feb: Tr*mp era in Atlantic City ends with three thousand sticks of dynamite

17th Feb: Zanzibar Vice-President dies of Covid

17th Feb: Wife of North Korean leader reappears after a year

18th Feb: National League North and South teams vote to null and void season

18th Feb: NASA's Perseverance rover lands on Mars

19th Feb: China-India border clash

19th Feb: First colour photos from Mars

19th Feb: First Black Hole ever discovered far bigger than first thought

19th Feb: 2,300kg of cocaine worth £184 million found in banana boxes from Colombia in Portsmouth

19th Feb: Man fakes kidnapping to avoid work

20th Feb: Algerian protests start again

20th Feb: Boeing 777 scatters engine debris over Denver homes

21st Feb: Daughters of Malcom X ask for murder investigation to be reopened in light of new evidence

21st Feb: Israel oil spill on Mediterranean coastline

22nd Feb: H5N8 Bird flu infects humans

22nd Feb: Daft Punk split after twenty eight years

22nd Feb: Gender reveal device kills dad-to-be

22nd Feb: Boeing 747 drops engine parts in Netherlands

22nd Feb: NASA releases first audio recordings from Mars

23rd Feb: Public inquiry into Capitol riots begin

23rd Feb: Tiger Woods car crash

23rd Feb: Oldest Australian rock art discovered approx 17,300 years old

24th Feb: Neil Lennon resigns as Celtic manager

24th Feb: Detention camps reopen on Mexican border, to hold hundreds of children

24th Feb: First delivery of UN Covax vaccine

24th Feb: 12th Century bathhouse discovered in Sevilla

2th Feb: 28 whales saved from stranding spot

24th Feb: Syrian ex intelligence officer jailed

26th Feb: Unexploded WW2 bomb found in Exeter

26th Feb: Over two hundred prisoners escape from Haiti prison

26th Feb: Amazon rainforest plots being sold on Facebook market place

27th Feb: Archaeologists uncover chariot outside Pompeii

27th Feb: Indian man killed by own rooster during cockfight

27th Feb: Iceberg the size if Bedfordshire breaks off Antarctica

27th Feb: WW2 bomb found in Exeter detonated

28th Feb: Russia launches Space satellite Arktika-M on first mission to the Artic

#news #feb 2021 #2021

5 notes · View notes

dutifullybitchypeach · 3 years

Text

My two cents worth for the first six chapters and some reasoning around IC and Nesta. All my own personal opinion. Read if you want but it's just my general thoughts. Please, please don't flip if you disagree. I love Nesta and the darkness she is in right now and her behaviour is taking over this sassy no nonsense Queen and it needs to change.

THIS INCLUDES SPOILERS.

....................

Is the House of Wind a prison...technically no. Nesta just does not have the ability to fly or winnow. And no one is on standby to be her taxi. She can leave by walking. Amren threw her that challenge on purpose. She's not alone, Az and Cassian live there. And the Priestesses. Yes it has dark memories. Yes. I know that and I take it on board.

On a side note, it's irritating to hear 'I'm not your prisoner" from Nesta (who I like!!!!) I think of Azriel, Feyre, all the Fae Under the Mountain, even Elide 💗. Then again everyone's idea of prison is different. But the fact remains. She CAN leave. It's just bollocks hard. For a reason

But we know it's what she needs. We know that. We don't have to like it. Not one likes the reality. The ultimatum is uncomfortable and harsh. Our way or fuck off. They are not suggesting manual labour or degrading her. They suggest training, food, working in a library, purpose, being part of something. This doesn't sound bad to me. It just sucks it comeing across as an order. But this is Nesta's POV and she doesn't do requests or pretty please. The fact I got riled up reading it is a compliment to Mass. I had to take a major step back and reassess. Nesta sees everything as an attack. And no that is not her fault. Stay with me! I agree people enjoy provoking Nesta ( Rhys, Morrigan, Cassian) and then get affronted when she bites back. At some point I'd enjoy her retaliation akin to her ripping their head off :) And their vow to never go there again.

The IC 'review' is what annoys me. The "we" will decide where you go from here if you play ball. My hope 🤞 is that Nesta will TELL THEM where she will go/what she will do with sass. But right now sitting on a rock instead of trying to train is fucking juvenile (Again I stress I like Nesta). She hates her power as far as I can tell. But she is so low she can't see the wood from the trees. Or the hand that is been given to her.

Does Feyre have a right to be embarrassed. Yes. I'd die of shame if my sister (I have 3 btw) kept at that again and again and again all on my families dime. Without even being polite or respectful to anyone. She's only ever provided for Nesta. Period. Not to mention being a high lady with all the responsibilities that entails. Living her own life (well earned) and well life in general! I mean Jesus, Nesta is not her only priority. She maybe ours lol! But Feyre has 101 things going on. Give her credit. She tried with Nesta several times. Gave her space and time which Nesta wanted while still making the effort to reach out. Nesta needs to acknowledge that. Feyre was bankrolling her self destructive lifestyle and it had to stop.

The whole "your behaviour reflects badly on us". Well yes it does. Nesta doesn't get a free pass. The whole of Pyrithian is rebuilding and our girl is pissing away money. That's not even hers! Her behaviour does undermine the Court, folks must eye roll when IC lay down the law when your sister/ sister in law is prancing around being a with a big fuck you. Everyone is broken and rebuilding. And it's a slap in the face. Is the saving face irrelevant to Nestas issues, yes! But is Feyre allowed to feel fucked over, yes! Sisters say shit when they fight. Arguments are not flawless debates. Their emotive and bring out the worst in people. Feyre darling is feeling the pressure of being high lady and it came out all wrong. Especially when it's your sister acting up.

And Nesta never tried (as far as Feyre can tell) WE know Nesta IS trying, and surviving every day is a battle. But Feyre doesn't. Why would she. Nesta doesn't speak to her. But their relationship is so toxic that it's beyond Feyre to get it. And that is not her fault. NO ONE is perfect. There is only so much responsibility Feyre can CONTINUALLY take.

Rhys being there. I have a feeling that a male will not let his pregnant mate anywhere near someone he is afraid of. It's instinctive. Someone who hasn't trained to control their powers especially. He is on High Lord mode cause guess what he is a High Lord. This is his court and the people in it his responsibility. Not to mention the oncoming drama with the queens on the horizon and general court bullshit. Does he abuse his position of power.... well in this world the HL have the power. Everyone is answerable to one. Even Amren obeys the rules. Nesta doesn't/won't recognize that. Which is rare. They tricked and lied to get her "consent" surprise surprise a dick move from Rhysand/Feyre. We know they will do that for the "greater good". Lie, steal etc all in the name of saving the day. He screwed Morrigan over in front of her ass Father for flip sake! My point is the NC stability is his priority now more than ever if impending fatherhood is on the way. It's no surprise he wants Cassian to take on more responsibility. Nesta is a liability cause she is AWOL. It's worth noting he had this plan for months but Feyre refused preferring to give Nesta space and the opportunity to decide for herself what she wanted. So we could assume if Rhys had his way Amren and Nesta would have still been friends and it would have been far different. Amren would have been by her side. Do I condone his domineering behaviour, no not in a million years. And neither did Feyre. Will he apologise? Probably not he's an arrogant ass. And wanted to control the room. Fact. He wants/needs Nesta on board the team to bolster his ranks. She is that powerful. We KNOW he will do anything to protect his family (baby on the way).

Morrigan and her nasty comment on sending Nesta to The Court of Nightmares. Cassian acknowledges it's an insult but also the truth. That's a harsh fact on how Nesta is percieved right now. But I believe she wouldn't just thrive there, she would CONQUER ;) I don't know if Morrigan is referring to the people that abused her or the "type" of people that live in Hewn City...? Will we give HER the benefit of the doubt... hmmm.

Morrigan and that comment on good people giving Nesta the benefit of the doubt...that's Morrigans issue. She never gave Eris the benefit of the doubt and yet he proved her wrong with Keir. She's all over the place as a result . And she's been lying for 5 centuries. To her family. Cassian said he values the raw honesty that he has with Morrigan. Wow is he going to get a shock some day. Nesta may be a bitch but at least she's an honest one. And Morrigan knows it which must rattle her to no end. Point is Mor isn't supposed to be in this story very much and Nesta never really cared for her opinion anyway. So neither should we. I've checked out of Mor. Knowing she won't give Azriel closure or honesty just makes me not consider her opinion. It suits her to keep Nesta down in the gutter so her lie can continue.

Amren - her behaviour. I have to remind myself Amren is OLD, a stint in the Dungeon is probably a standard response! Her idea after the Summer Court fiasco and the jewels was to go there and crush them. Amren is by nature harsh. Which is why she gets on with Nesta the most. Cassian tells us she cares. Nesta can't see this. Her comment on Nestas sex life in ACOFAS. People ran with that. Fae lifestyles always kind of disgusted her. She wasn't Fae so bodily functions were an alien concept. Now she's Fae she's slightly horrified. Also no one else has much to say on Nesta's bedroom antics. Cause it's a non issue Mass doesn't do slut shaming. So neither should we. Speaking as a woman also here.

Elaine - we know Elaine craves peace and quiet. Confrontation is not her thing. Being there would mean Nesta would use her as a crutch, and I'm not sure Elaine wouldn't cave. Nesta pushed her away on purpose and Elaine choose to try and find some sort of contentment. That's her right and choice. Agree or disagree. She walked away or decided she can't deal with Nestas difficult behaviour. I don't know. Or is she oblivious to the situation ?! Who knows. Elaine is an enigma! It's the first 6 chapters! Right now they are two different people and have been drifting apart since ACOWR. Nesta is a dichotomy of pushing people away and hurt when they stop trying. It's exhausting for the people that have to deal with it. Who are not perfect and have their own issues and lives. Elaine has stepped back from this situation. Because either she recognizes it needs to happen or cannot sway the majority. Though I think Elaine did say something to Feyre, cause when Nesta pressed her she refused to say what Elaine thought. Just that she wasn't there and not part of the issue. Feyre is high handed when it comes to her sisters. Because that's the role they allowed her. Nesta is fighting back. And Feyre takes it personally. Which is only natural. They're sisters.

Cassian! Ah Cassian. He was spectacularly rejected and being around Nesta is a constant reminder. That's enough to make me cringe in a corner. He acknowledges he stayed away cause it hurt too much. He's a soldier and has serious self discipline. He has no idea how his behaviour/comments hurt her until she confronts him. Deliver him a few home truths. Another well deserved kick in the balls. Flirting with Mor, not sure his behaviour there has ever changed. He keeps it normal cause being around Nesta gives him the shakes!! Lol. He is slack jawed after Nesta and wants her badly, passion we know is big thing for them. It ignites them. Raw and real. Recognising Morrigan is aesthetically beautiful is just a fact. We know she's a looker. So what. Meh to this issue some people have.

We know from spoilers they start training and communicating and Mass is a Nessain ship so I'm excited to see this grow and flourish! I've read spoilers here on these two so I've no qualms.

Cassian for me is right. He and others have been through similar situations before so can empathise. But until she answers him back without snapping he won't be able to be that shoulder to lean on or turn too. He's not going to be her Prince though. Nesta is her own Queen!

I've read some spoilers on her friendships and I'm so happy. I've no idea how it will go but it says to me that the IC have a block when it comes to Nesta and don't see her the way others do and Nesta opens up to people who don't have a predisposed prejudice.

Also the IC have no idea how Nesta is going to react at any stage. It's like walking around on eggshells. Why would anyone actively choose to be around someone like that. That and very obvious fact they are BUSY AF. They don't have time to have a daily bollicking from Nesta. Yet all fall in when the plan is announced. Make what you will of that.

Some further musings:

Nesta being reminded she has to be respectful to Clotho and the priestesses is sobering. Like wow, people can't trust you will have basic manners. Again I know this is Feyre saying it but Christ to worry about that. Will be interesting with Gwyn and that friendship and a nice reality check for the IC.

I spent 4 God damn books understanding Rhys motives. He's a prick yes. Which I enjoy. But the bastard people are making him out to be I don't agree. Half of Pyrethian hates/hated him, Nesta hating him won't stress him. Or her for that matter. They have a 2 people they both care about in common and will just have to deal.

Training in Illyria, well Nesta is powerful, training in the mountains is probably damage control if she explodes. And a change of scenery from her prison!

Rhys was controlled for 50 years, Amren escaped worlds to be free. I don't believe they want to control Nesta.

Families are messy and fucked up. The intervention is a perfect example of how arseways it can get.

Azriel being Azriel I'm not sure about anything with him right now. I've read the snippets and spoilers and I'm all over the place. He is one of my favourites. FYI when I say IC I never mean Azriel I don't know why but I always imagine he finds it just plain drama and avoids it at all costs. Nesta is drinking and gambling away her life. Okay! Nesta is now training and we are all on board to help. Okay! Nesta is a powerful Queen and we are all afraid. Okay! Nesta has turned Cassian into a drooling mess and hes ass is hers. Excellent ;)

Sisters! They need to deal and respect each others independence. They are all in the wrong. It's just annoying at this stage. Personally I'll rip into my sisters when I need to but usually get a red mist when anyone else does. Even if they are in the wrong. I have a habit of always defending them.

So overall the angst killed me in the first 6 chapters. Did Rhys dominant shite irritate me? Yes. Do I want Nesta to make it clear she's not a pawn in his/their world? Yes. In spectacular fashion please.

Did Feyre handle it well? No. Does she ever deal with Nesta well? No. Perhaps only when Nesta is more inclined to talk. Which is rare. The ultimatum we know from Cassian sickened Feyre she recognizes it for what it is it but really cannot see any other option. Her fault or a combination of factors you decide. It was hyper tense situation we all just wanted to get through.

Would we be so angry if this was a soft approach headed by Elaine/Feyre/Amren? Would Nesta even react?

Cassian compared Nesta to a sleeping dragon who has just been woken up. Nesta needed a kick in teeth. A major reality check. Life in Pyrethian is hard. This a fae world. She is angry and incensed they have dared to 'interfere' and 'assume' she will be controlled. I want her to tackle her demons, confront her fears her issues with herself and others and live! Live! I've no idea what she wants and can't wait to find out.

***I've read some spoilers on the end. The rumours and the actual basic plot ending. I'm like Mass I love a HEA. And am hopeful I'll be satisfied. I had a similar theory when I heard the pregnancy rumour. A move by Nesta that would never have anyone doubt her.

#acosf spoilers #a court of silver flames #acofs #nessian #nesta archeron #nesta and azriel brotp

5 notes · View notes

paxpaxpax-3x · 3 years

Text

Countries of Dansly PT.2: Walra

Walra resides in the southwestern side of the world, and snows nearly the entirety of the year. Walra, since it’s inception on the south pole to the far south of Knives edge, has been run by the same family of Dragons. Walra, before the Era of Ascension, was the most unified of all of the previous Nations. However, within the past century, the family of dragons that had once led Walra have been killed. With Walra in disarray and having left the family's trusted advisor to try to mend the broken nation.

“Imena Harik was a dear friend. He died in my arms and left me with his nation to rule. I am no leader, and the people of Walra know this. But I will try to keep the image of the nation Imena and his ancestors had imagined, if not for him, but for all of us.”

From the Biography of Imena Harik, written by Lucius Quies

Lucius Quies has been struggling to maintain the nation's unity and the war with Pase has made it no easier, with soldiers spread thin and the nations unrest growing as the once-advisor grows in age, the question has breached the surface of what happens to the nation after their leader dies.

One group, known as the Ice Haven, have proposed to concede in the war with Pase, a futile and petty war to begin with that was sparked off of nothing more than disagreements between leaders being dragged into the battlefield. And after conceding, approach Saturday, the nation they had once ruled as a prison colony, and ask for a unification. Walra falling under Saturday's banner.

While at first the option seemed entirely impossible and unadvisable by many people of the nation in the beginning, as Lucius grows older and more and more talks with the Council Three of Saturday have taken place, things have become more and more of a conversation between the Walran people, and as such have made peace with Pase.

The Ice Haven

Head: Principal Nikolai Ditlveson

Purpose: To reunify and make an alliance with Saturday as one nation and reclaim the once prosperous visage they had with the help of the people they had once scorned and attempt to rebuild those bridges.

Years Active: 30

Number of Members: 3.45 million identify as Ice Haven Party Members.

Head Quarters: Ice Haven Chapel within Nest.

The loss of their leader and the war with Pase are not the only recent problems the country has experienced. The Acantho, the Crime family that has spread it’s enterprise over the entirety all over the world, has sunk it’s teeth into the nation.

The Acantho have taken to capturing and interrogating Walras many enchanters, stealing the runes from the times before they traveled North from below Knives Edge, as well as beginning to sell experimental drugs to the criminals of Walra to test them. Despite help from Saturday in looking into this problem, The Acantho have yet to be stopped within Walra and are still stealing old traditions and letting loose their drugs into the Black market of Walra.

“The Acantho have gone too far. With the stolen secrets of the Ine’Khet Rune from the Cathedral of Harik and their unleashing of these drugs they have brought Walra further to the brink of breaking apart and ending us completely. I will not let this happen. I cannot. Not on the grave of The Frozen Ancestors.

Grand General Lena Dam

The standing army of Walra resides under a number of Generals and Principals from a number of different provinces within Walra that have existed since the time of The Frozen ancestors to the south. The generals follow the Grand General along with the Grand Principal and under each them the Principals and Generals exist together and manage their provinces as one, following the supreme law of The Grands.

Along with this, the Jade Pantheon, while still recognized within Walra due to the events of the Ascension Era, many of Walras citizens follow several gods of The Onyx Pantheon, the old and forgotten gods of a previous pantheon that much of the documentation of was destroyed during the time of the rule of Vimanti Empire.

8 notes · View notes

eeattherich · 4 years

Text

We are much closer to facism than most people would think

(from leftnortheast)

This is from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

[the slide includes a picture of poster that reads: early warning signs of facism in big print. Beneath it it lists the warning signs: powerful and continuing nationalism, disdain for human rights, identification of enemies as a unifying cause, supremacy of the military, rampant sexism, controlled mass media, obsession with national security, religion and government intertwined, corporate power protected, labor power suppressed, disdain for intellectuals and the arts, obsession with crime and punishment, rampant cronyism and corruption, and finally fraudulent election]

Each early warning sign is here in present-day America.

1) Powerful and Continuing Nationalism

both presidential candidates are relying strongly on nationalism to make their case for the Oval Office. Trump’s nationalism (“Make America Great Again/Keep America Great”) is much more obvious, but Biden’s emphasis on “fighting for the soul of our nation” and the like appeals to voters who want to restore their sense of American exceptionalism lost under Trump.

2) Disdain for Human Rights

there are ICE concentration camps at the US-Mexico border where many have died from awful conditions, gone missing, or have been separated from their families. The United States has destabilized, bombed, and invaded dozens of countries in the Middle East and the global south in the name of corporate profit. Millions are homeless and without healthcare in the richest country on the planet, and recently President Trump has proposed numerous transphobic pieces of legislation

3) Identification of Enemies as a Unifying Cause

the Cold War and the War on Terror are the most prominent examples of this “common enemy” tactic used to rally public opinion. In recent weeks, Trump and the GOP have used Antifa, which isn’t even a real organization, as a scapegoat for the protests and riot, despite leaked FBI documents showing there was zero evidence found of Antifa involvement in the George Floyd protests. The Democrats have also used the “common enemy” tactic, most often with Trump himself. The corporate owned DNC was able to justify nominating a centrist candidate whose policy measures do nothing to address the poverty and systematic poverty the majority of American people face

4) Supremacy of the Military

one of [leftnortheast’s] recent posts goes into detail about how much we spend on our military. Not only is it vast amounts of funding completely contrary to what Americans need, out military is used primarily by our politicians to install and maintain corporate-friendly governments in third world countries

5) Rampant Sexism

Donald Trump has dozens of rape allegations and was caught on tape saying he grabs women “by the pussy” to get them to sleep with him. Joe Biden has a number of allegations of inappropriate behavior himself, as well as an extremely credible rape accusation from Tara Reade

6) Controlled Mass Media

90% of American media is owned by five corporations. As [leftnortheast] talked about in [their] recent #MediaMonday post, these corporations are beginning to censor smaller, dissenting political voices

7) Obsession with National Security

after 9/11, the government passed the Patriot Act, and now out government (through the NSA, FBI, etc.) now have completely stripped Americans of their privacy by monitoring phone calls, messages, emails, etc. In fact, immediately following the first wave of George Floyd protests, an overwhelming bipartisan majority voted to give Trump increased survelliance powers, something that’s been done before. There were also credible reports of spy planes monitoring peaceful protests.

8) Religion and Government Intertwined

Trump’s bible photo-op was probably the most egregious example of this, but it’s not hard to find this. “In God we trust” remains the United State’s official motto, and “one nation, under God” remains in our Pledge of Allegiance. “God Bless America” is another one of Trump’s favorites.

9) Corporate Power Protected, Labor Power Suppressed

[leftnortheast] combined these two, as they are both untrusting to a capitalist economy— the two classes have conflicting interests and need to stymie the other’s in order to succeed. Corporate power is protected by the state, because the capitalist class uses lovbying, corporate media, and campaign donations to ensure politicians serve their interests and not those of the people, the working class.

10) Disdain for the Intellectuals and the Arts

Public schools and colleges across the country have cut arts and humanities programs at an alarming rate

11) Obsession with Crime and Punishment

Despite only making up 4% of the global population, the United States accounts for 20% of the world prison population. The US has the most people in prison per capita of any country on a Earth.

12) Rampant Cronyism and Corruption

For 2018, the median net worth of members of Congress was $511,000. The richest Congressional members are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

13) Fraudulent Elections

There is more than enough evidence to conclude the Democratic Party rigged the 2016 presidential primary in favor of Hillary Clinton. Documents have been released revealing the DNC was working jointly with Hillary Clinton while the primary was still happening, and emails brought to the public show how the DNC would work with the media to manufacture smear campaigns against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Mass voter suppression is prevalent throughout this country.

After the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, voter suppression, which targets BIPOC and low income communities especially, was declining. By 2012 for example, 90.2% of eligible Black voters in Mississippi were registered to vote, compared to less than 10% prior to it’s passage. However, in 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional. Since then, thousands of polling places have been closed around the country, many of them in predominantly Black neighborhoods, and other obstacles target transgender, low income, BIPOC, and/or young voters like voter ID laws have become increasingly popular.

For example, in 2016, a voter ID law in Wisconsin had blocked around 27% of the systems Black population from voting, which the Republican Attourney General would later brag had helped Donald Trump win Wisconsin

Final Slide: If the working class is not aware that it is the flaws of capitalism and the actions of the bourgeoisie that has forced them into a poor material state, they will often misdirect their hatred, which is why a lot of fascist states scapegoated specific groups of people.

This was evident in many of the 20th century fascist states in Europe.

In times of economic strife, the bourgeoise are more likely to endorse a fascist revolution, because it will quell the working class and allow them to maintain their assets and power.

“Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism, because it is the merger of state and corporate power” - Benito Mussolini

#facism #antifa #anti facism #anti facist #antifacist #antifacism #donald trump #trump #joe biden #biden #democrat #republican #us politics #american politics

20 notes · View notes