#13 wealthiest families

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

When The World Is Crashing Down [Chapter 13: Condemned From The Start] [Series Finale]

Series summary: Your family is House Celtigar, one of Rhaenyra’s wealthiest allies. In the aftermath of Rook’s Rest, Aemond unknowingly conscripts you to save his brother’s life. Now you are in the liar of the enemy, but your loyalties are quickly shifting…

Chapter warnings: Language, warfare, violence, serious injury, alcoholism/addiction, references to sexual content (18+), death, angsttttttt, more children than usual, Wolfman!

Series title is a lyrics from: “7 Minutes In Heaven” by Fall Out Boy.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year” by Fall Out Boy.

Word count: 8.1k.

Link to chapter list: HERE.

Taglist (more in comments): @tinykryptonitewerewolf @lauraneedstochill @not-a-glad-gladiator @daenysx @babyblue711 @arcielee @at-a-rax-ia @bhanclegane @jvpit3rs @padfooteyes @marvelescvpe @travelingmypassion @darkenchantress @yeahright0h @poohxlove @trifoliumviridi @bloodyflowerrr @fan-goddess @devynsficrecs @flowerpotmage @thelittleswanao3 @seabasscevans @hiraethrhapsody @libroparaiso @echos-muses @st-eve-barnes @chattylurker @lm-txles @vagharnaur @moonlightfoxx @storiumemporium @insabecs @heliosscribbles @beautifulsweetschaos @namelesslosers @partnerincrime0 @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @yawneneytiri @marbles-posts @imsolence @maidmerrymint @backyardfolklore @nimaharchive @anxiousdaemon @under-the-aspen-tree @amiraisgoingthruit @dd122004dd @randomdragonfires @jetblack4real @joliettes

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoy the finale.🦀💚

In the Eyrie, one of Rhaena Targaryen’s three dragon eggs has hatched at last; the creature is small and pink, and she has named it Morning. When Rhaena’s tears fall onto the scales of her diminutive wings, they glitter like flecks of rose quartz. Deep within the snow-laden labyrinth of the Mountains of the Moon, Nettles is in hiding with Sheepstealer; already the nearby clans are bringing her offerings of meat and treasure, axes and clubs and daggers, hairpins carved from the ribs of enemies and necklaces made of bear teeth. Silverwing is settling into a lair on an island in the Red Lake at the northwestern corner of the Reach. Word of this has travelled back to King’s Landing, and Borros Baratheon implores Aegon II to seize Silverwing for himself; but the king does not want a new dragon. He wants Sunfyre back. That grim truth aside, Aegon is unable to trek across the continent to tame the beast anyway. Some days he cannot even cross a room. At the bottom of the Gods Eye, bodies are dissolving into bones, threads of long white hair breaking loose to flow in the currents like weightless strands of spider webs torn free by cold drafts. And only a few miles from the border of the Crownlands—preparing to cross the icy waters of the Blackwater Rush—the army of Northmen camps under a full moon in a clear, indigo sky heavy with stars like glinting coins.

“There are passageways under King’s Landing,” Clement Celtigar says. He stands by the bonfire with his sword in his hand, his face flame-bright and eager, forever licking up drops of the Kingmaker’s approval, a stray cat lapping milk splashed in an alley. Increasingly, Cregan Stark finds him tiresome. Clement is brash and dramatic, forever swearing vengeance, reveling in his newfound position as the head of his house. The Warden of the North has never had to beg for attention, admiration, acclaim. These things come to him like snow falls to the earth in winter: effortlessly, inevitably. Yet Cregan tries to be patient. Clement is soon to be his brother-in-law, and it is dishonorable to fail to extend courtesy to one’s kin. Furthermore, it seems, Clement has his uses.

“Are there really?”

Clement nods. He wears the banner of his house on a strip of fabric looped around his upper arm: crabs red like blood, a backdrop of white like snow. “That monster’s disciples used them to kidnap my sister from the Red Keep. But she fought hard. When we searched her rooms, all the furniture was upturned and the sheets ripped from her bed.”

“She is brave,” Cregan murmurs in agreement, though he is distracted now. The air tastes like smoke and ice, the wind rubs raw spots into the soldiers’ faces. They are arriving just in time. The depths of winter is no time to wage war. Cregan Stark imagines how you will greet him when he liberates you: a desperate embrace, hands that refuse to let go, whispered gratitude and breathless kisses on his earth-stained knuckles, bones of steel softened by the innate weakness of womanhood. You will love him, of course you will, fervently and entirely. Then when the realm and succession are secured, the Kingmaker will take you North and wed you in the tradition of his people, under the heart tree where the Old Gods can witness it. And then there will be the wedding night. In Cregan’s understanding, women receive little pleasure from the act itself. It is a burden they bear for the men they love, for the children they are divinely tasked with bringing into existence. Cregan Stark intends to alleviate your suffering in this regard as much as possible…yet he has already begun to choose the names of the sons he will make with you. He especially likes the sound of Brandon, sturdy and grounded and thought to mean leader or prince. “This is the last night your sister will ever spend in the clutches of the Usurper.”

“Praise the Seven.” Then Clement adds diplomatically: “And the Old Gods too, of course.”

“It’s the end of the world,” Cregan Stark says, gazing up into the night sky where constellations tell the stories men deem worthy of remembering. “And the start of a brand new one.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“How did you learn to braid hair?” little Jaehaera asks you in her lilting, reedy voice like a bird’s. You are sitting behind her on the floor in Alicent’s bedchamber. Nearby, Autumn is flipping through a child’s book with Rhaenyra’s ever-solemn son, murmuring as she points to colorful illustrations of ravens, dolphins, bears, dragons, crabs. They are learning to read together.

“My sisters taught me,” you tell the princess. Firelight turns her silver hair to gold, her pale skin to flames. Logs crack and pop as they melt to glowing embers. Alicent glances over at you and sighs despairingly. The dowager queen, so thin she might disappear, is hunched in a chair by the fireplace. She has an unshakeable, rattling sort of cough that reminds you of how Sunfyre sounded on Dragonstone when he was near the end. Her long auburn tresses are falling out in handfuls. She will not survive the winter, this is a certainty.

“You have sisters?” Jaehaera says, surprised. “How many?”

You smile faintly as you weave her hair into one thick braid like the kind Aemond once wore when he went to battle. “Three. Piper, Petra, and Penelope.”

“Where are they now?”

“Back on Claw Isle, where I came from. With our mother.” Mourning Father, mourning Everett, writing letters to Clement to keep his spirits high as he and the Warden of the North march towards King’s Landing to slay the Greens’ king and bind me to a different man’s will.

“What’s Claw Isle like?” Jaehaera asks with a child’s clear, boundless curiosity.

“Rocky, misty, grey. But the ocean is beautiful.” You think of Aegon’s eyes, the same as his daughter’s, a murky storm-blue that is deeper than it looks.

“What brought you here?”

You consider this before you answer. You see it, you feel it: cinders like dark snow in the air, Aemond’s iron grip on your forearm. “When your father was burned at the Battle of Rook’s Rest, he needed someone to help heal him. Your uncle Aemond found me.”

“And he asked you to stay with us?”

He would have slit my throat if I said no. “Yes, he asked very politely, as any gentleman would. And of course I agreed. I wanted to make the king strong again. I wanted to take his pain away.”

Jaehaera stares down at her tiny hands, palms crossed with lines that are long and shadowy in the shifting firelight. She does not speak of Aegon. She does not know him, and he frightens her: the burns on his skin, the suffering in his glazed eyes. She has no memories to impress his true character upon her. If she does not make them herself, she will believe whatever she is told. “I miss Aemond. I miss Daeron.”

“I know, sweetheart.” They were formally laid to rest yesterday on two funeral pyres. Daeron’s bloodied, charred, seafoam green cape was burned to ashes on one. All that was left of Aemond—his favorite books, his quills and ink, small leather eyepatches from when he was a boy—were torched on the other. “I miss them too.”

Jaehaera’s braid is finished. You reach into a pocket of your emerald green velvet gown to retrieve what you have brought for her: a thin golden chain necklace with Aegon’s ring as a pendant. He can’t wear it anymore. His fingers are too swollen. “What is this?” Jaehaera says as you place the chain around her neck. She lifts the ring and peers at it, gold wings and jade eyes.

“It’s supposed to resemble Sunfyre,” you explain. “Your father loves you very much, Jaehaera. He wanted you to have this ring and keep it with you always.” Aegon didn’t say that; he rarely mentions Jaehaera at all. Sometimes you think he forgets she exists. But she is a part of him, she is his legacy, and you cannot look at any piece of her without seeing the man you love.

“He gave it to me? Like a gift?”

“Yes. A gift.” A gift, an inheritance, a relic, a reminder.

Jaehaera turns around and looks up at you hopefully, vast wave-blue eyes like winter oceans. “Do you think I’ll have another dragon someday?”

Her own infant beast, Morghul, was killed in the Dragonpit before Rhaenyra fled the city. “Maybe,” you tell her. “There are eggs that could hatch someday. And there are a few unclaimed adults left, Silverwing and the Cannibal. Perhaps you’ll tame one.”

She wrinkles her nose in confusion. “What’s a cannibal?”

Someone who murders, devours, fuels their body to the detriment of their soul. “Someone who eats their own kind. Like a dragon who feeds on other dragons.”

“So just like in the war. Dragons killing dragons.”

“Exactly,” you say, a shiver crawling down your spine. “Now go show your new necklace to Grandmother.”

Jaehaera wobbles to her feet and dashes across the firelit bedchamber to where Alicent is slumped in her chair. “Look, look! It’s Sunfyre!” you hear Jaehaera chirping. Alicent examines the ring—skeletal hands trembling, large dark eyes slick with tears—and dutifully fawns over it, telling the little girl how beautiful she looks, how brave she has been. Then she bundles Jaehaera into her boney arms and holds her like she’ll never let go. Autumn catches your gaze from the other side of the room, and when you leave to return to Aegon she follows.

“What is your plan if the Greens lose the battle?” she says in the hallway under an arc of grey stones. Her tone is urgent, her hazel eyes sharp. Everyone knows the Northmen are within days of King’s Landing. Borros Baratheon—a large, loud, abrasive man, but with a bottomless appetite for combat—and his soldiers will march out of the city tomorrow to meet Cregan Stark’s army on the fields of the Crownlands, sparse and grey with winter. The Lord of Storm’s End has spent hours locked in the council chamber discussing strategy with Larys Strong, Corlys Velaryon, and the misfortunate yet courageous Tyland Lannister, maimed by his months of torture at the hands of the Blacks.

“We won’t.” We can’t.

Autumn slams her palm against the wall behind you; the sick thud of flesh against stone reminds you of the day Helaena died. “Wake up. We might. You’d better have your options figured out.”

And you recall Larys’ words on Dragonstone: I think it’s time for you to consider what your options are if a Green victory no longer appears to be viable. “We’ll run,” you say weakly. “We’ll take Aegon and we’ll escape through the corridors under the Red Keep, just like he did before. Cregan Stark will kill Aegon if he finds him. I can’t let that happen. We’ll have to run.”

“Run where?” Autumn snaps pointedly, pushing you towards a conclusion you refuse to acknowledge.

“I don’t know.”

“Where? Where could we go that is beyond the grasp of your wolf if he seizes the capital?”

“Dorne, Essos. Somewhere, anywhere.”

“The king won’t survive a journey like that.”

You cover your face with your hands, feel the biting cold of snowflakes melting in your hair, see the stains of earth on your thighs as Cregan Stark forces them apart. How can I lie with a man who hailed the deaths of people I loved? How can I spend the rest of my life listening to him being called a hero for killing Aegon? How can I give him children? How could I love a baby that was half-made of him? “We ran before. We’ll have to do it again.”

Autumn scoffs. “You have no idea what it means to be a woman on your own in the world. What will you become without a great house, without protection? A prostitute? A peasant? Will you eat scraps covered with rot or mold? Will you live in a tree? Will you beg some family to take you in? And then when the father who is oh-so-gallant in daylight starts fumbling under your blankets once the candles are blown out, will you let him inside you? Or will you fight him off and risk a blade in your guts, your throat? You have no fucking idea what it’s like out there.”

“I don’t care what happens to me if Aegon’s gone.”

“You would abandon Jaehaera? You would abandon me?” Autumn demands. “You speak for us now. You are the only one who can. Our fates are twisted up with yours.”

That’s true. And I promised Helaena I would look out for her daughter. You can’t imagine a life without Aegon; there was a time when he was only a name—and an infamous one, a terrible one, soulless and monstrous—but now he has broken down the eaves of what you were once resigned to call your life and painted colors in the sky you’d never glimpsed before, never even dreamed of. You ask Autumn with genuine, painful bewilderment: “What is the point of learning that something exists only to have it taken away? Why would that happen? Where is the justice in it, where is the reason?”

Autumn smiles, sad and patient. “Ah, this is an affliction of the highborn. You still believe that there is a design, and that life has some amount of fairness in it. There is no divine judgment being passed, my lady. There is no god weighing the worth of your dragon or your wolf or yourself. Life is random, and it is ungovernable, and it is very often cruel. And that makes it all the more remarkable that you knew the king for the time you did. That you ever met him.”

It wasn’t enough. And I can never go back to who I was before. “I’m sorry. I should not complain to you. Your losses have been terrible.”

“It is no contest,” Autumn replies, weary now. “But I should go back to check on the children. They need me.”

“No. They love you.”

And now she beams, sparkling eyes and copper ringlets. She doesn’t need to say it, you can both feel it in the winter-cold air. She loves them in return. She loves them fiercely. As long as they live, she will have reasons to.

When you reach Aegon’s bedchamber, Grand Maester Orwyle is just leaving. He bows to you and grins, pleased that you have both survived the fall and retaking of King’s Landing. He is haggard from his months in the dungeons when Rhaenyra ruled the capital, but he endured. Who would have guessed at the start of this war that the old man had more years left than Aemond or Daeron or harmless little Maelor? You wait in the hallway for the maester to amble sluggishly by, but then when he is gone, you peer through the slit of the half-open door to see that Lord Larys Strong is speaking to Aegon, who is propped up in bed on a mountain of pillows and wearing only his cotton sleeping trousers. He is thin, frail, ghostly pale with the exception of the scars that are a mosaic of white and scarlet and bruise-like violet. Aegon and Larys have not noticed you. You linger just outside the doorway, watching, listening.

You can take care of Aegon as much as you wish now: feed him, clothe him, clean sweat from his brow, dose him with milk of the poppy, rub rose oil into his scars, stretch his legs, test the heat of his skin for fever. He’s too weak to stop you. He can’t walk, can’t stand, can’t stay awake for more than an hour or two at a time, can’t even pour his own wine or milk of the poppy; the glass bottles are too heavy when full. Yesterday, Aegon had to be carried outside in a litter to see the remnants of his brothers burned on the pyres. And he had exchanged a brief, somber glance with Autumn that you neither anticipated nor understood. He acknowledges her so rarely. And yet her small hazel eyes had been alarmed, knowing.

Larys is saying with a grave expression and his restless hands propped in the handle of his cane: “Lord Borros Baratheon is asking for your assurance that as soon as the war is won, you will take his eldest daughter Cassandra as your wife.”

Aegon stares at him, incredulously, impatiently. Aegon has not called you his wife in the company of others since his homecoming. You do not ask why. You already know. It is not because his intentions have changed; it is because if he is not the victor, your life is in less danger as his captive than as his queen. “Surely even a man as brainless as Borros can surmise that there would not be much benefit for the lady now. I am a worm. Useless, pathetic, deformed, no longer virile.”

“He is willing to take the chance, I gather. And he is placing his eggs in more than one basket. He would like another daughter, Floris, to be married to me.”

“Seven hells,” Aegon mutters. Then he turns determined. “I cannot marry another. I won’t do it. I am claimed already, body and soul.”

“I fear how enthusiastically Borros’ men will fight for you if you do not agree to the match. He is risking his life for your cause. He will expect generous repayment.”

Aegon is quiet for a long time. He stares fixedly at his bedside table: a full cup, a large glass bottle of milk of the poppy. His dagger is still there from when you cut and braided his hair for him this morning; he cannot do it himself anymore. At last Aegon says, almost too low for you to discern from the doorway: “He’s not cruel, is he?”

“Who? Borros Baratheon?”

Aegon glares at Larys. “No.”

After a moment, Larys realizes what his king means. “Cregan Stark isn’t cruel. I’ve heard many whispers from many mouths, but I’ve never heard that.”

“Look at me. Don’t lie to me.”

“He isn’t cruel,” Larys says again. “Perhaps the truth is worse. He is measured, competent, merciful, wise. He is honorable. The Manderlys want to torture everyone and the Boltons itch to sharpen their flaying knives but Stark forbids it. He respects the laws of war. He tries to avoid the slaughter of noncombatants. He forbids his men from burning farms or raping women. He is devoted to the woman you call your wife. He takes no mistresses, visits no brothels. Cregan Stark is not a monster. He’s not soulless. He’s just on the wrong side.”

Aegon nods slowly, then his face breaks into a humorless smirk. “Tell Borros Baratheon that I’ll marry whichever daughter he wants me to when the war is over. I’ll marry all four if that is his preference, and bed them all on the wedding night too, one right after the other. Agree to anything he asks for. It doesn’t matter anyway.”

It doesn’t matter because none of it will ever happen, even if the Baratheon army does win the Iron Throne for the Greens. It doesn’t matter because Aegon does not believe he’ll still be here in a month, or two weeks, or perhaps even days.

But he can’t mean that. He’s not thinking clearly. He’s confused, he’s exhausted, he’s in pain, you tell yourself, before remembering that Aemond said it first.

“Yes, Your Grace.” Larys is subdued, sorrowful. He bows deeply to his king. Then he turns to depart.

“One more thing,” Aegon says, gesturing to something on the side of his bed you can’t see from where you’re standing. “I hate to impose upon you further, but I can’t manage it myself. Can you take that and empty it somewhere? I don’t care where. But you must keep it hidden from my wife. The red-haired girl Autumn knows, and so do the maesters now. They are all sworn to secrecy. Can I trust you to exercise the same circumspection?”

Larys is gaping down at an object that is a mystery to you. He begins to stammer out a reply, stops to collect himself, and starts again. “Yes. Yes you can.”

“Good.”

Larys picks up the object; you are puzzled to discover that it is a chamber pot, white and porcelain. And as he navigates around Aegon’s bed and towards the door where you wait, you see that the vessel is full of blood.

You gasp before you can stop yourself, a razor-sharp inhale of breath that both men hear. They spot you, lurking in the doorway like someone lost, someone far from home. Shock bolts across Aegon’s face, and then frustration, and then defeat, and then profound misery.

“I didn’t want you to worry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to lie to you, I just knew…I knew you’d be upset and I…I didn’t want to hurt you. I’ve never wanted to hurt you.”

“How long?”

“It doesn’t matter, Angel.”

“How long?” you ask again. “Just since this morning?”

“Four or five days now.”

“Four or five…?” Your mind whirls like storm winds. He’s dying. He’s really dying. His kidneys are failing and there’s nothing I can do. I can’t cut him open and stitch him back together. There’s no wound to scrub clean with vinegar and then bandage with honey and linen. There’s no brew that can restore the rhythm of his blood and bones and nerves. He’s just dying. That’s all there is. That’s the beginning and the end of it.

“Please don’t cry,” Aegon says, reading your face. “Don’t do that, please don’t, I’ve hurt you enough already.”

His hands stretch out to close the space between you, and as Larys slips from the room you go to Aegon, climb into bed beside him, collapse into him as his arms catch you and rest your head against his bare, scarred chest, his feverish skin mottled with the history of wounds you helped close all those months ago. “I’m sorry,” you sob. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let you go after Baela and Moondancer on Dragonstone. I should have stopped you. I should have dragged you inside the castle to wait until Aemond and Vhagar could help you. I shouldn’t have let Aemond go to Harrenhal. I shouldn’t have let Daeron fly south. I shouldn’t have let Autumn go back to King’s Landing, and I shouldn’t have let Everett stay there. I shouldn’t have let Helaena leap from the window. I should have stopped Maelor from being sent to the Reach. I should have stopped Rhaenys and the Red Queen from taking flight to burn you in your armor at Rook’s Rest. I should have stopped this! I should have done something! The only good thing I’ve ever had to offer the world was healing but I can’t save anyone, I can’t stop their suffering, I can’t do anything!”

“None of it was within your control, and none of it was your responsibility. I am the king. The fate of my kingdom and my followers rests with me. I wear their spilled blood, not you. I am so full of red I’m overflowing with it.” And he chuckles, sardonic, exhausted. He’s already battling unconsciousness again; you can hear his heartbeat slackening, the slow laborious expanding and contracting of his lungs.

“Aegon,” you say softly, as if afraid to speak it into existence. “What happens if the Baratheons don’t win tomorrow?”

“They will. They have to. There’s nothing I can do for you if they lose.” Then he winces and groans. It’s his back again, his failing kidneys, overrun with so much ruin—burns and breaks and pressure and heartache—that their cadence faltered and then ceased. You grab his cup of milk of the poppy and tilt it against his lips; and how many times have you done this since you met him, burned nearly to death and half-mad at Rook’s Rest? A hundred? Aegon drinks it down, his arms still tight around your waist. They do not loosen until he’s out like a snuffed candle.

You refill the cup on his bedside table with milk of the poppy in case he needs more when he wakes, pick up the dagger you use to cut his disheveled hair, take it to the dresser. And in the cascade of silver moonlight flooding in through the windows, you practice laying the gleaming blade against your wrists, pressing it to the throbbing arteries of your throat, angling the sharpened point of it between a gap in your ribs and towards your racing heart.

Autumn. Jaehaera. Aemond’s child that Alys carries. I still have promises to keep. I still have tasks that cannot be left unfinished.

Helaena’s words surface like a drowned man dredged from the waves: You must whisper into the right ears.

You set the dagger down on top of the dresser and roam to the castle library where Aemond once spent so many hours. You collect a stack of anatomy books and carry them back to Aegon’s bedchamber. There, before the roaring fireplace, you devour them for any scrap of hope, any last resort. You turn pages until one illustration stops you. It is an unclothed man, his major veins etched in blue and his arteries in red, his nerves a faded yellow, his bones white and unshattered, his body a roadmap of the bricks and mortar used by the architects of nature. You have seen this image before. It is the same page Aegon teased you for studying when you were travelling by carriage back to the capital from Rook’s Rest.

You rip out the page, crumple it violently, pitch it into the fire and watch it burn.

~~~~~~~~~~

At dawn, Lord Borros Baratheon leads his men out of the city. You hear them through the glass panes of the windows, closed against the winter chill and flecked with frost: boots marching, hooves of warhorses clomping against cobblestones. They carry with them swords and spears and bows and morning stars like the one Criston Cole was famed for using. Meanwhile, throughout the city, civilians are arming themselves with anything they can find to ward off an invasion of Northmen, creatures they believe to be bestial and mindless. Men carry kitchen knives and clubs fashioned out of bits of furniture or driftwood. Women hide their young children in cupboards and under creaking wooden floors.

“I should be going with them,” Aegon says. He’s just taken another dose of milk of the poppy and is struggling to keep his eyes open. His long, slow blinks close his vacant eyes for ever-increasing intervals. You’ve changed his clothes and cleaned the sweat from his skin as best you can, but he’s burning from the inside out.

“You’re not able to fight, Aegon. Nobody faults you for that. Everyone knows you were wounded in battle.”

“They must think I’m a coward.”

“No, you inspire them. They love you. I love you.”

Aegon doesn’t say it back. He never says it back. He only offers you the same drowsy, mournful phrase of High Valyrian he always does, not knowing that Aemond told you what it means: To your misfortune.

Autumn is with the children in Alicent’s rooms. The castle is tense and as quiet as a crypt—Alicent weeps soundlessly, Larys paces the halls with Corlys and Tyland Lannister, everyone peeks out of windows constantly to see if bannermen of the victor have appeared on the horizon—but she keeps them distracted with stories and games. You cycle between Alicent’s bedchamber and Aegon’s. He is in and out of consciousness; sometimes you perch beside him on the bed, sometimes you lie curled up against him counting the beats of his heart, sometimes you help Autumn read to Jaehaera and Aegon the Younger. It is just after noon when the city bells begin to toll and screams rise from the streets outside the Red Keep. You and Autumn hurry to a window. In the distance, beyond the city gates, there is a swarming mass of infantry, cavalry, archers. Their banners, when you strain your eyes to decipher them, are not the brazen, vivid yellow of House Baratheon. They are night black and an icy, steely grey. They are the colors of House Stark.

“No,” Autumn says, denial in a protracted, helpless exhale. Alicent shrieks, frightening the children. You grab Autumn’s hand and lead her out into the hallway to warn the others if they don’t know already.

Lord Corlys Velaryon comes bounding up a staircase. “There are soldiers down in the secret passageways!” he booms. “Northmen! Armed! I’ve helped our guards bar the doors, but that won’t hold them back forever.”

Autumn looks to you. “Get the children ready to travel,” you tell her. “Find Larys and inform him.”

“Yes, my lady,” she says, and is gone. You sprint in the opposite direction towards Aegon’s bedchamber. You blow the door open like a strong wind, and Aegon startles awake. You rip through his dresser for things he will need: warm clothes, boots, his dagger, bottles of milk of the poppy.

“Get up, Aegon. We have to go. We’ll run, we’ll flee, there are Northmen in the tunnels but we’ll find another way out, we have to try, we have to, if they catch you they’ll—”

“Come sit with me,” he says from the bed, calmly, like you have all the time in the world. He is reaching out for you with one hand.

“What? No, we have to hurry—”

“Angel,” Aegon says. “I need you to come sit with me now.”

Why isn’t he afraid? Why isn’t he frantic? You cross the room with slow, numb footsteps. When you reach the bed, Aegon takes both of your hands in his own. And suddenly you know exactly what he is going to say. You remember what he told his brother in High Valyrian the last time Aemond left Dragonstone. Your voice is trembling and hoarse. Your throat burns like embers. “Aemond was supposed to be here to help us win. But he’s gone. Daeron, Criston, Helaena, Otto, Everett, Jaehaerys, Maelor, Autumn’s baby, so many people are gone.”

Aegon whispers, smiling softly as tears spill down his cheeks, one scarred and the other pure: “I’m not going to get better this time.”

“No,” you moan. “No, Aegon, no. You can’t say that, you can’t tell me that—”

“I’m not going to get better.” Now his palms cradle your face, forcing you to listen. “I’m not. And it’s okay. I’m not angry, I’m not scared. You’ve done everything you could and you’ve bought me more time and I’m so grateful. But I don’t want it to hurt anymore. I’ve been in pain for so long. I’ve been in pain my whole goddamn life.” He kisses you, like tasting something rare and fleeting. His thumbprint skates along the curve of your jaw, memorizing the angles of your bones, the rhythm of your pulse. “Please, Angel. I don’t want to try to run and die on the side of the road somewhere. I don’t want to die with Cregan Stark’s blade at my throat.”

You shake your head, unable to believe, unable to understand.

Aegon glances to the empty cup on his bedside table, to the large glass bottle of milk of the poppy. Then his eyes return to you. “You know how to do it.”

No. Never. But beneath those cold, dark, stormy waters: It would be painless. “I can’t,” you say, overwhelmed with horror.

“Listen, listen to me—”

“No—”

“Angel.”

“I can’t do that to you. Not to you. I can’t, I can’t.”

“When I’m gone, go to Cregan Stark,” Aegon says. “He is an honorable man, he will ensure your survival. He is the only person who can now. He wants to put his mark on the world. He wants to play Kingmaker. Let him. He can decree that my daughter will marry Rhaenyra’s son and ascend to the Iron Throne. He can end the war. Cregan will keep you safe. Tell him that I kidnapped you, that I forced myself on you. Tell him that I wanted an heir with Valyrian blood. Tell him that I was a drunk, a degenerate. Tell him whatever he wants to hear.”

“You would become a monster?”

“To protect you? I would become anything.”

He’s holding you, he’s pulling you into him until you can feel the fever bleeding from his flesh into yours, until you can number the knots of his spine and the ladder-rungs of his ribcage, counting them with your fingers through the sweat-drenched fabric of his cotton shirt. You draw back to look at him, to really look at him, sunken bloodshot eyes and rasping breaths, scar tissue of the body and the soul. You remember the day you met him, how he’d begged to die and been refused, how you brought him back. You postponed a debt, but you never paid it. It’s not possible to ever pay enough. You stack up gold coins in a vault until they touch the ceiling and still the Stranger comes knocking, jangling his purse sewn with scorched skin and chanting: more, more, more.

Aegon glances to the cup again. “How much?” he asks you, hushed like a prayer.

You don’t answer. Instead, you stand and go to the dresser. You open a small wooden door beneath the mirror. Your reflection is a woman you don’t know, someone who walks through fog and memory, someone made of ghosts. You take four clean cups from the cabinet and set them on Aegon’s bedside table. As he watches—eyes glassy with agony, lungs rattling—you fill them all with smooth, pearlescent, lethal liquid, as well as the empty cup that was already there. “Five,” you say, and it sounds nothing like you. “I think three at once would be enough. Five to make sure.”

He sobs with relief, and only now do you realize how badly he needed this. “Thank you. Oh gods, thank you.”

Your own words come back like an echo: I preserve life, I don’t take it. But that was a different lifetime, a different you. Aegon’s fingers are lacing through yours. He is drawing you back onto the bed, he is brushing your hair back from your face, he is kissing the path of tears down your cheeks so he doesn’t waste a drop of you. He’ll never get another taste, another chance; not in this life, not on this earth.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the end with you,” he says. “I really tried.”

“I know, Aegon.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough.”

“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

He looks down at his left hand, then remembers where his ring has gone. He chuckles, darkly, bitterly, dismayed by all the failings he is built of. “I don’t even have anything to give you.” Then he remembers. “My dagger. Can you get my dagger?”

You are petrified. “Why?”

He grins, dull teeth beneath dazed eyes. “I’m not going to hack off a finger or my exemplary cock or something. I promise. Just get it.”

You fetch the dagger and bring it to the bed, and only then do you realize what he means for you to have. He points to it, then threads it through his pale, swollen fingers: his thin lock of hair that you’ve been weaving for him since the day you met. He wants you to take his braid.

“You’ll have to cut it yourself,” he says. “I don’t think I can.”

You hook the blade beneath the top of his braid, and with a few cautious slices of the dagger it is free. You tuck the braid into a pocket of your gown, thick black velvet to guard against the winter cold. Then you lay the dagger on the bedside table and pick up one of the cups filled to the brim with milk of the poppy. Your tears are scalding and torrential; it is almost impossible to see through them. You smooth back Aegon’s white-blond hair as you pour the blissful, deadly brew through his lips and down his throat, hating yourself, knowing it is the kindest thing you can do for him.

Suddenly, when the cup is half-drained, Aegon pushes it away. “You don’t have to be here. You don’t have to watch,” he says. “I can do the rest. Go, now. Right now. If the Boltons or some other house finds you before Cregan does, they might not recognize you. They might not care. You’re only safe with Cregan Stark. He has to find you first.” Aegon takes the cup with one shaking hand and presses a palm to your shoulder with the other. You haven’t moved. You can’t move. “Go. Leave me. Now. Please go. I love you, but you have to go now.”

“I can’t,” you choke out.

“You have to.”

“I’ve never wanted anyone but you.”

“Angel,” he says tenderly, smiling. “I’ll see you again. Just not too soon.”

“Okay,” you whisper, and you kiss him, traces of milk of the poppy on his lips that deaden the thunderstruck horror faintly, powerlessly, like small clouds drifting over the sun.

“If there’s anything interesting on the other side, I’ll find a way to let you know.”

The dreams, you think. “Okay,” you say again, barely audible.

“Now go. Right now. Go.”

You wipe tears from your face with your sleeve as you turn away from him. You can’t look back; if you do, you’ll never be able to walk out of this room. You take the dagger from the bedside table. Your bare feet pad across the cold floor. As you step through the doorway, on the periphery of your vision you can see Aegon swallowing down each cupful of poison as quickly as he can. It won’t take long to stop his heart. Minutes, perhaps. Seconds. You walk into the hallway. Autumn has just arrived with Jaehaera’s tiny hand clasped in her own. A few paces behind her, Alicent and Larys stand with Rhaenyra’s son. Two orphans without choices, two pawns in a much grander game.

Autumn is panicked. “Where should we go? What should we do?” Then she takes another look at your face. Her eyes go wide with terror. “What? What happened?”

“Follow me.” Your voice is low, flat, dark like deep water. Your eyes flick briefly to Lord Larys Strong. “Keep the boy here. He’s not safe with the smallfolk yet. But the Northmen won’t harm him.”

Larys knows. It’s over. He is devastated; and yet you think a part of him might be relieved as well. “Yes, Your Grace.”

“I’m not the queen anymore. I never really was.” You give him Aegon’s dagger. “I don’t think you’ll need this, Lord Larys, but now you have it in the event of any danger. Or in case I can’t convince Cregan Stark to spare you and you decide you’ve had enough of this world. You should get a say in how your life ends. You’ve earned it.”

Then you break away from them and glide through the Red Keep, Autumn and Jaehaera trotting swiftly behind you to keep up. You pass the rookery where Aemond wrote his letters. You sweep through the gardens where Helaena loved to collect her insects. You gaze down to the beach where Daeron landed on Tessarion under a dazzling sun before winter came like a plague to King’s Landing. From inside the castle, you can hear Alicent wailing as she discovers her last child’s lifeless body. What was all of this for? Why did this have to happen? Why didn’t anybody stop it?

Out on the streets of the city, the smallfolk have flocked with their makeshift weapons to defend their homes from the Northmen. But their eyes are darting everywhere and their faces are uncertain as they clutch their clubs made out of the legs of chairs and their rusty kitchen knives. They haven’t decided if it’s futile. They don’t want to be butchered for nothing.

“That’s Autumn!” they shout and sigh, especially the women. “The mother of the king’s bastard son, the one murdered by the half-year queen!” They reach out to skim their hands over Autumn’s gown, her long coppery hair, as if she is a saint or a spirit who can impart good luck upon them, who can change their fates. They fall to their knees to bow to Jaehaera, their king’s only living child, and she blinks at them with benign confusion.

But the smallfolk have a different reception for you. You hear their venomous chattering: “Is that the Celtigar woman?” “Her family put this city through hell.” “They served Rhaenyra.” “She’s a traitor, she’s a thief.” A few of them venture close enough to tug at your gown, to strike at you. A woman’s knuckles rap against your cheekbone, raising a bruise there like lavender in a dusk sky. You think dully: I wonder if they’ll gouge out my eyes with those knives like they did to Everett.

“Get back!” Autumn hisses, shoving the smallfolk away. And when she speaks, they listen. “She is going to the Wolf of Winterfell. She is my protector. She is your protector now too. She is the best chance you have left.” And the crowds open up and the three of you pass through King’s Landing unimpeded, though cloaked in thousands of fascinated gazes.

The King’s Gate has been abandoned; the guards must have feared the Boltons’ flaying knives or Lord Stark’s dark justice. Autumn instructs several hulking men of the smallfolk to open the gate if they wish to be spared from the wolf’s wrath. They are reluctant at first, but do as she asks. When the massive doors creak open, the people of the capital huddle behind the wall and peer out skittishly as you, Autumn, and Jaehaera advance to meet the Northmen, who are bloodied from battle and now within a hundred yards of the city. Above, the sky is thick and iron-grey and frigid. Snowflakes—the first of this winter to touch King’s Landing—begin to fall and land in your hair, and you are reminded of how embers rained from the smoldering pine trees at Rook’s Rest.

“Can you catch one on your tongue?” Autumn asks Jaehaera, and the little girl giggles as they both try.

The Warden of the North rides an immense, shaggy warhorse at the head of what remains of his army. He recognizes you immediately, dismounts, approaches with determined, unbreakable strides. Clement is close behind him.

“You’re alive!” your brother shouts joyously. “And apparently not pregnant with a Targaryen bastard! Praise the gods!”

Cregan Stark does not act as if he’s heard this. The Warden of the North is not as you remember him; he is larger, heavier and broader from the muscles won in battle, coarsened by weather and war. His hair is long and dark and pulled back from his face. He wears a sword at his belt that is taller than you are when it’s unsheathed. He is entombed in leather and furs. He does not hesitate before he lays his hands you. You are betrothed to him, you are his property, would a man ask before he grabs his horses or his dogs?

The Warden of the North does not seize your forearm roughly like Aemond once did. Instead, his massive palms and fingers clasp your face as he marvels at you. You can feel the stains of dirt and ashes he leaves there. You want to scream when he touches you, but you can’t. You want to burn with rage and heartache until you crumble like ruins. Your life is already over. Your life has just begun.

“You have suffered greatly,” Cregan Stark says, a marriage of shock and reverence.

“You have no idea.” Perpetual Resurrection, you think. It doesn’t mean you come back better. It just means you’re still here.

“You are safe now,” Cregan swears. “The Usurper will never harm you again.” And it ends the same way it began: with a man mistaking your allegiance and beckoning you into a destiny that he wholeheartedly believes is greater than any you could have envisioned for yourself.

“He’s dead.”

This stuns Cregan. “When? How?”

“Today. Of old wounds sustained in battle.”

He looks at Jaehaera, noticing her for the first time. “Is that his daughter?”

“Yes,” you say. “She must always be treated with kindness. She must be protected.”

“You have an affinity for her,” Cregan notes, intrigued.

You hear Aegon’s voice, so clearly it cuts like a blade: Tell him whatever he wants to hear. “We have been through great trials together. We survived the same monster.”

The Warden of the North nods. This is a story he craves to be told. “Very well. If it is your wish that she not be discreetly disposed of as a Silent Sister, I will betroth her to Rhaenyra’s surviving son. They will unite the noble houses of Westeros and end this war.”

“The worst of the Greens are dead already. Those who remain should be shown mercy. Alicent is old and ill and broken from loss. She poses no threat. She should be permitted to remain in the company of her granddaughter. Corlys was loyal to Rhaenyra until she falsely imprisoned him for treason, and he belongs on Driftmark with Rhaena. Larys Strong, Tyland Lannister, and Grand Maester Orwyle, if no pardon can be arranged for them, should go to the Wall instead of the scaffold. And Autumn, my companion there with Jaehaera…she was a true friend to me. I owe her my life several times over. She must be permitted to stay with Jaehaera and Aegon the Younger as a caretaker, and reside in comfort in the Red Keep for the remainder of her days.”

“Who do you think you are, sister?!” Clement exclaims. “You’re speaking to the Kingmaker, not some handmaiden! You do not command him!”

“I am not commanding,” you counter levelly. “I am pleading for mercy on behalf of imperfect souls who showed me kindness during my captivity. If granted, I will consider these my wedding gifts.”

“She is remarkable, is she not?” Cregan Stark says, grinning to Clement and several other men who have ventured closer. They wear the sigils of Northern houses: Bolton, Cerwyn, Manderly, Hornwood, Dustin. They chuckle in agreement, stroking their wild beards with huge filthy hands. “Dauntless but merciful. Clever but obedient.” And then the Warden of the North claims your lips with his, chaste but overpowering, the first of a thousand kisses you never desired, a thousand acts of affection for a woman who isn’t really you, feigned resignation and bitten-back rage, eternal war with the interminable knowledge that there is something more, more, more…you just aren’t permitted to have it. It was taken from you, it was ripped from your hands like stolen treasure.

All your life you will have to murmur in wounded agreement when people recount the terrible sins of the Usurper. All your life you will have to praise Cregan Stark for killing millions to rescue you. And the days will pass, weeks, months, years, summers and winters, the births of your children and their own marriages; and when Cregan’s boy Rickon, born of his first wife, produces only daughters, your son Brandon and his descendants will become the heirs to Winterfell. In the desolate North—so far from the ocean, so far from everything Aegon ever knew—your greatest solace will be letters from Autumn as she learns to read and write, books that your husband orders for you from the Citadel, setting bones and treating burns, a tiny lock of braided silver hair that you keep in a hidden drawer of your jewelry box, dreams that you never want to wake up from.

But one day, decades after you leave King’s Landing, you will receive a raven from Queen Jaehaera Targaryen, and she will ask you: You knew the Greens in your youth, Wardeness Stark. You knew Aemond, Daeron, Helaena, Alicent, Otto, Maelor, Aegon the Usurper. What can you tell me of them? What was my father like? Who was he really?

And you’ll pick up your quill and begin writing.

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aegon targaryen ii #aegon ii #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon x reader

[erik-even-wordier]

I really don’t owe my Trump-supporting friends an apology. I’ve been critical of Trump these last several years, and am still exhausted from the experience.

But to be fair, Trump wasn’t that bad…………..other than when:

1. he incited an insurrection against the government,

2. mismanaged a pandemic that killed a million Americans,

3. separated children from their families, lost those children in the bureaucracy,

4. tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church,

5. tried to block all Muslims from entering the country,

6. got impeached,

7. got impeached again,

8. had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history,

9. pressured Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden,

10. fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia,

11. bragged about firing the FBI director on TV,

12. took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community,

13. diverted military funding to build his wall,

14. caused the longest government shutdown in US history,

15. called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate,”

16. lied nearly 30,000 times,

17. banned transgender people from serving in the military,

18. ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions,

19. vetoed the defense funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers,

20. refused to release his tax returns,

21. increased the national debt by nearly $8 trillion,

22. had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history,

23. called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers,

24. coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismembering of a US-based journalist,

25. refused to concede the 2020 election,

26. hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House,

27. walked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl,

28. called neo-Nazis “very fine people,”

29. suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight COVID,

30. abandoned our allies the Kurds to Turkey,

31. pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans,

32. incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic,

33. withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords,

34. withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal,

35. withdrew the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership which was designed to block China’s advances,

36. insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter,

37. pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op,

38. failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies,

39. called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries,

40. called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation,”

41. claimed that he single handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere,

42. forced his Cabinet members to praise him publicly like some cult leader,

43. believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,

44. berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General when he recused himself from the Russia probe,

45. suggested the US should buy Greenland,

46. colluded with Mitch McConnell to push through federal judges and two Supreme Court justices after supporting efforts to prevent his predecessor from appointing judges,

47. repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people,”

48. claimed that if we tested fewer people for COVID we’d have fewer cases,

49. violated the emoluments clause,

50. thought that Nambia was a country,

51. told Bob Woodward in private that the coronavirus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public,

52. called his exceedingly faithful vice president a “p---y” for following the Constitution,

53. nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet,

54. nominated a corrupt head of the EPA,

55. nominated a corrupt head of HHS,

56. nominated a corrupt head of the Interior Department,

57. nominated a corrupt head of the USDA,

58. praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies,

59. refused to allow the presidential transition to begin,

60. insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death,

61. spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president,

62. falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote,

63. called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone cold loser,”

64. falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year,

65. considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions,

66. mocked wearing face masks to guard against transmitting COVID,

67. locked Congress out of its constitutional duty to confirm Cabinet officials by hiring acting ones,

68. used a racist dog whistle by calling COVID the “China virus,”

69. hired and associated with numerous shady figures that were eventually convicted of federal offenses including his campaign manager and national security adviser,

70. pardoned several of his shady associates,

71. gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressmen who amplified his batshit crazy conspiracy theories,

72. got into telephone fight with the leader of Australia(!),

73. had a Secretary of State who called him a moron,

74. forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history,

75. botched the COVID vaccine rollout,

76. tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him,

77. charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates at his properties,

78. constantly interrupted Joe Biden in their first presidential debate,

79. claimed that COVID would “magically” disappear,

80. called a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas,”

81. used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise,

82. opened up millions of pristine federal lands to development and drilling,

83. got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers,

84. claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US,

85. ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings,

86. blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining,

87. redesigned Air Force One to look like the Trump Shuttle,

88. got played by Kim Jung Un and his “love letters,”

89. threatened to go after social media companies in clear violation of the Constitution,

90. botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico,

91. threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them,

92. pressured the governor and secretary of state of Georgia to “find” him votes,

93. thought that the Virgin islands had a President,

94. drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane,

95. allowed White House staff to use personal email accounts for official businesses after blasting Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing,

96. rolled back regulations that protected the public from mercury and asbestos,

97. pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for COVID,

98. rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping waste into rivers,

99. held blatant campaign rallies at the White House,

100. tried to take away millions of Americans’ health insurance because the law was named for a Black man,

101. refused to attend his successors’ inauguration,

102. nominated the worst Education Secretary in history,

103. threatened judges who didn’t do what he wanted,

104. attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci,

105. promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t),

106. allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues,

107. struggled navigating a ramp after claiming his opponent was feeble,

108. called an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ,”

109. threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders,

110. went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic,

111. claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts,”

112. seemed to demonstrate a belief that there were airports during the American Revolution,

113. demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director,

114. praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles,

115. completely gutted the Voice of America,

116. placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service,

117. claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged Trump Tower,

118. suggested that the US should allow more people from places like Norway into the country,

119. suggested that COVID wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public,

120. overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported,

121. reduced the number of refugees the US accepts,

122. insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames,

123. gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address,

124. named as head of federal personnel a 29-year old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties,

125. eliminated the White House office of pandemic response,

126. used soldiers as campaign props,

127. fired any advisor who made the mistake of disagreeing with him,

128. demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade,

129. hired a shit ton of white nationalists,

130. politicized the civil service,

131. did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked the U.S. government,

132. falsely said the Boy Scouts called him to say his bizarre Jamboree speech was the best speech ever given to the Scouts,

133. claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won,

134. insulted reporters of color,

135. insulted women reporters,

136. insulted women reporters of color,

137. suggested he was fine with China’s oppression of the Uighurs,

138. attacked the Supreme Court when it ruled against him,

139. summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House to pressure them to overturn the election,

140. spent countless hours every day watching Fox News,

141. refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas,

142. hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer,

143. tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him,

144. acted as if the Attorney General of the United States was his personal attorney,

145. attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a prominent lady who accused him of sexual assault,

146. held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present,

147. didn’t disclose his private meetings with Vladimir Putin so that the US had to find out via Russian media,

148. stopped holding press briefings for months at a time,

149. “ordered” US companies to leave China even though he has no such power,

150. led a political party that couldn’t even be bothered to draft a policy platform,

151. claimed preposterously that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers,

152. tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course,

153. suggested that the government nuke hurricanes,

154. suggested that wind turbines cause cancer,

155. said that he had a special aptitude for science,

156. fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election was secure,

157. blurted out classified information to Russian officials,

158. tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida,

159. fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban,

160. hired notorious racist Stephen Miller,

161. openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear them,

162. interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel,

163. abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war,

164. tried to get Russia back into the G7,

165. held a COVID super spreader event in the Rose Garden,

166. seemed to believe that Frederick Douglass is still alive,

167. lost 60 election fraud cases in court including before judges he had nominated,

168. falsely claimed that factories were reopening when they weren’t,

169. shamelessly exploited terror attacks in Europe to justify his anti-immigrant policies,

170. still hasn’t come up with a healthcare plan,

171. still hasn’t come up with an infrastructure plan despite repeated “Infrastructure Weeks,”

172. forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with COVID,

173. told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,”

174. fucked up the Census,

175. withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic,

176. did so few of his duties that his press staff were forced to state on his daily schedule “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings,”

177. allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act,

178. seemed not to know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican,

179. stood before sacred CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win,

180. constantly claimed he was treated worse than any president which presumably includes four that were assassinated and his predecessor whose legitimacy and birthplace were challenged by a racist reality TV show star named Donald Trump,

181. claimed Andrew Jackson could’ve stopped the Civil War even though he died 16 years before it happened,

182. said that any opinion poll showing him behind was fake,

183. claimed that other countries laughed at us before he became president when several world leaders were literally laughing at him,

184. claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President,

185. created a commission to whitewash American history,

186. retweeted anti-Islam videos from one of the most racist people in Britain,

187. claimed ludicrously that the Pulse nightclub shooting wouldn’t have happened if someone there had a gun even though there was an armed security guard there,

188. hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent Bowling Green Massacre as a reason to ban Muslims,

189. had a press secretary who claimed that Nazi Germany never used chemical weapons even though every sane human being knows they used gas to kill millions of Jews and others,

190. bilked the Secret Service for higher than market rates when they had to stay at Trump properties,

191. apparently sold pardons on his way out of the White House,

192. stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians,

193. falsely claimed Biden wanted to defund the police,

194. said that the head of the CDC didn’t know what he was talking about,

195. tried to rescind protection from DREAMers,

196. gave himself an A+ for his handling of the pandemic,

197. tried to start a boycott of Goodyear tires due to an Internet hoax,

198. said U.S. rates of COVID would be lower if you didn’t count blue states,

199. deported U.S. veterans who served their country but were undocumented,

200. claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln,

201. touted a “super-duper” secret “hydrosonic” missile which may or may not be a new “hypersonic” missile or may not exist at all,

202. retweeted a gif calling Biden a pedophile,

203. forced through security clearances for his family,

204. suggested that police officers should rough up suspects,

205. suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs,

206. tried to stop transgender students from being able to use school bathrooms in line with their gender,

207. suggested the US not accept COVID patients from a cruise ship because it would make US numbers look higher,

208. nominated a climate change sceptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy,

209. retweeted a video doctored to look like Biden

210. had played a song called “Fuck tha Police” at a campaign event,

211. hugged a disturbingly large number of U.S. flags,

212. accused Democrats of “treason” for not applauding his State of the Union address,

213. claimed that the FBI failed to capture the Parkland school shooter because they were “spending too much time” on Russia,

214. mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault,

215. obsessed over low-flow toilets,

216. ordered the rerelease of more COVID vaccines when there weren’t any to release,

217. called for the construction of a bizarre garden of heroes with statutes of famous dead Americans as well as at least one Canadian (Alex Trebek),

218. hijacked Washington’s July 4th celebrations to give a partisan speech,

219. took advice from the MyPillow guy,

220. claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists,

221. said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading opposition figure,

222. never seemed to heed the advice of his wife’s “Be Best” campaign,

223. falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent,

224. announced a precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest,

225. insulted the leader of Canada,

226. insulted the leader of France,

227. insulted the leader of Britain,

228. insulted the leader of Germany,

229. insulted the leader of Sweden (Sweden!!),

230. falsely claimed credit for getting NATO members to increase their share of dues,

231. blew off two Asia summits even though they were held virtually,

232. continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders,

233. said that the Japanese would sit back and watch their “Sony televisions” if the US were ever attacked,

234. left a NATO summit early in a huff,

235. stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of 5 knows not to do that,

236. called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary,

237. refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and kept his promise.

238. Don’t forget that he took many classified & top secret documents with him when he left the White House, many of which have not been recovered & may have been compromised.

I’m sure there are a whole bunch of other things I can’t remember at the moment.

Plz copy and paste. Whoever wrote this deserves credit but I don't know who it is.

#donald trump #popular #long post

[aphilayx]

What is dearer than being the wealthiest person in the world of Twelve to Ruel? The brotherhood of the Tofu. He loves Evangelyne's courage, Amalia's laugh, Dally's blunders, and Az's loyalty. And, of course, Yugo. It's canon. It's from a book where the story takes place between episodes 13 and 14 of season1. I'm starting to think that if Ruel called them family, it wasn't just to pay less.

#wakfu #wakfu yugo #wakfu amalia #yugo wakfu #wakfu ruel #wakfu eva #wakfu evangelyne #wakfu dally #wakfu tristepin #amalia sheran sharm #ruel stroud

[morithanz]

yandere!oc x babysitter!reader

a/n- trying out writing for fun :) will be publishing a part ii. soon

disclaimer- gn!reader, oc and babysitter are both of age, lowercase intended, type of mental illness implied

you ring the doorbell of one of the most beautiful houses you've seen in your lifetime. the door opens almost immediately, they must have been waiting for you.. the woman who opens the door has a small and hesitant smile on her face. she welcomes you inside, where you are met with, who you assume, is her spouse. she introduces herself as 'mrs. dupont'. the gossip which spread about this family when they moved in was never-ending. everyone said that they were the wealthiest household in the neighborhood.

and why were you, a broke college student, at their doorstep?

for a baby-sitting job, of course! you had been browsing the internet on how to make a quick buck when you came across an ad for this specific family. they needed a baby-sitter for their son. you weren’t good with kids, per-say; but what could go wrong? you just had to watch over a child for a few hours..

mr. dupont called for their darling boy to come downstairs to meet the new baby-sitter. they wrote in the ad that their son was a teenager, so you expected to see a boy around 13-14 years of age but were surprised when a guy who looked to be around your age glided down the stunning stone staircase. he quickly moved to his mother’s side, refusing to meet your gaze. he stood there, fidgeting with his long, slender, fingers. mrs. dupont apologized profusely for not mentioning the actual age of her son, she still seemed nervous and uncertain about the whole situation. the couple try to explain to you that their son wasn’t exactly.. normal.. which is why he needed someone to watch over him while they were gone. to say you were spooked by this sentence, would be an understatement. still, they took off, leaving you alone with the brunette-headed boy.

you both stand together in silence, before you break it by introducing yourself as ‘[name]’, encouraging him to do the same. he slowly spoke up, “dion..” an odd name, you thought to yourself. whatever, you just had to get through 2 hours.. then his parents would be back. he quietly walked back towards the staircase, making an attempt to escape this awkward situation. but you stopped him, asking him whether he had already had dinner. he turned back and for whatever reason, looked like he was on fire. his pale face looked to be the brightest shade of pink you’ve ever seen. “... you okay, man?” you were genuinely weirded out by this freak. 

#𓍢ִ໋🌷͙֒dion #yandere #male yandere #yandere x reader #yandere x gn reader #oc x reader #male oc x reader #oc #babysitter

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Chart: Courtesy of The New York Times

Children from ultra-wealthy families are more than twice as likely to gain admission to Ivy League schools compared to others with comparable test scores, finds a widely shared new working paper from a group of Harvard economists who study inequality.

Why It Matters: Even as the U.S. Supreme Court just eliminated racial preference in college admissions, the data show another kind of bias — that is, toward the very wealthiest applicants (who are disproportionately white).

• "In effect, the study shows, these policies amounted to affirmative action for the children of the 1%, whose parents earn more than $611,000 a year," per the New York Times report on the paper.

Between The Lines: The schools examined — the eight Ivies plus Stanford, Duke, M.I.T. and the University of Chicago — graduate a disproportionate share of the country's business and political leaders.

• 12% of Fortune 500 CEOs went to an Ivy, as did a quarter of U.S. Senators and 13% of the top 0.1% of earners, notes the NYT.

#us politics #news #Axios #the new york times #affirmative action #ivy league schools #racial preference in college admissions #us supreme court #scotus #students for fair admissions v. harvard #yale university #cornell university #harvard university #columbia university #princeton university #university of pennsylvania #dartmouth college #brown university #stanford university #duke university #university of chicago #Massachusetts Institute of Technology #classism #class warfare #2023 #education system #education reform

[horizon-verizon]

Viserys loved Alicent more than he ever loved Aemma. He loved her so much that he always saw the best of her. Offended Corlys Velaryon, the wealthiest man in the Seven Kingdoms, in order to marry her. Closed his eyes when Alicent abused and mocked his “favorite child”, and spread destructive rumours about her. Viserys clearly states in F&B he married once for duty so with Alicent he would marry for love. Alicent was the love of his life, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to get away with going openly against her husband’s heir.

*EDITED POST* (4/13/24)

Response to this post? Or more likely this one by lady-corinne I reblogged.

Yes and no, he seemed to love her, but I don't know about it being the pure & unbending sort of love and favor you're trying to make it be. a lot of this will be diving into his head.

A)

Yes, Alicent is described as a "lovely" and "clever" girl at 18, committed to the Faith, and could be actually funny without meaning to be if it weren't unfortunately applied in sexist or cruel jabs--she definitely has her merits that would be considered desirable in this social landscape and outside of such conditions. To some people. Yes, his marriage to Aemma was arranged while he chose Alicent.

But I think you're forgetting that this is a man who is both invested in not being the one to muck up the trend of Targ prosperity after his grandfather ushered it in while being better suited to being just a normal prince but refusing to really fix the mistakes or put his foot down when he really needed to, or choosing to be stubborn about the wrong things (Rhaenyra's marriage)

AND:

he saw through her attempts to get Rhaenyra & Aegon to marry, so he wasn't willing to compromise Rhaenyra's claim for her pleasure nor her & the Hightowers' ambitions…and Alicent's ambitions are pretty much her first priority, aside from her kids' lives --- he dismisses her father when Otto persists in trying to get him to name Aegon as his heir, and with Alicent having been doing the same, he knew she'd be upset by that -- this was him protecting Rhaenyra's rights and not giving in to his wife's desires…so…

he went on impregnating both woman several times, by quick succession. He actually treats Alicent similarly to Aemma in this way. It's just that Alicent was older and "fertile" to be lucky enough to not die.

despite being the daughter of the 2nd son, Alicent's family is also very rich and influential, and the Hightowers have the cultural prestige of being those who "patronise" the Citadel, as well as their historical connections to the Faith (some members became High Septons)...the Hightowers still stood to gain more prestige on the advent of one of their own rising to become Queen Consort, esp when she is a closer relation to the lord--being his niece and the Hand his brother--vice versa, the Hightowers could have supplied a sizeable number of soldiers and supplies to Viserys and did for the greens during the war through said influence and power, esp getting their smaller bannerman Reachmen houses to join. More money and preventing bad relations/a possible rivalry with such a strong house. Useful ally/alliance.

The Faith has a pull on the minds and hearts of the overall populace, noble or common, too. With Alicent's family neck deep in the Faith PLUS the Targs already having dodgy relations with the Faith even w/the Doctrine bc incest=bad in the Faith religion, it's very possible that Viserys saw an opportunity in marrying Alicent to appease AND solidify Faith-adherents' loyalty to the Targ dynasty through such a marriage. Of course, ambition or politics don't always discount true affection of love, but Alicent likely wasn't just chosen for her beauty or how well they clicked.

Alicent was chosen under the pressures of his daughter being his only heir and wanting to allay/appease his council and the realm's concern with "backup" children. In a way, he felt his options were more limited.

Alicent was 18 to Laena's 12 at the time of the considering who'd he marry (after having impregnated his 13 yr old 1st wife and finally losing her to childbirth bc her body simply gave out from multiple failed pregnancies and harsh deliveries, he'd probably want to avoid both the pressures of impregnating another girl towards her death even if her parent gave the go-ahead AND the putting himself into that sort of situation of guilt and reliving those bad memories?) It's possible that Viserys saw in Alicent an opportunity to enjoy his own sexual pleasure and sexuality without worrying too much about potentially killing his bride, esp after their first two kids. How much that could that affect or twist one's affections for another person, idk.

What Viserys really did was to try to maintain a balance between his wife & his daughter, because he just inherently hated conflicts, had already married Alicent (so he didn't know she'd be so persistent), loved her AND Rhaenyra was his miracle child from the woman he probably feels very guilty about:

[A Question of Succession]:

Rhaenyra was both his first child AND the only child to survive from his first marriage. She "made" him a father by surviving. She came from the marriage that made him into a husband. And evidenced by the text [in section B], the trio's life together was very happy despite the pressure of the heir-making and grief when others died. Which is part of why Rhaenyra is, in the narrative sense, called the "Realm's Delight": if the monarch is happy, usually they're performing better but also her existence in the overall narrative of the Targ succession could have been seen as suggestive of the dynasty not dying out to those in-world. Like she's "proof" of that.

However, AllegedlyLola on TikTok exolains how he really pedestalizes Aemma when they talke about HotD!Viserys (much can the same shoudl be said for his book version):

he says he loved Aemma, that he will always love her, etc. and pedestalizes Aemma to the degree that Rhaenrya could never be Baelon, her siblings can never be her, and all to never really give us a real picture of who Aemma was so he does not have to divulge how some of his actions have ruined Aemma's life. Helaena not having kids or at least stop having them before Rhaenrya becomes Queen/he dies would have even helped Rhaenyra...smh. He doesn't ever think to not let his daughter Helaena marry at 13 & have TWINS not long after (as Aemma died in part bc she started having children WAY too early after they consummated their marriage); he forces his daughter to marry Laenor to fix a problem he created instead of actually thinking about what would be better for her claim and position--which is not to marry a gay man!, esp when everyone knows he is gay; I mention Alicent already...this is the same guy who marries a 15 year old but gets angry with Daemon for seducing his 19 year old daughter and saying she is just a "girl"...bro...Add on the fact he allowed a faction against his heir and be lead by his second obviously hostile Hand & wife exist in court instead of properly intervening and diminishing Otto and Alicent's influence over Rhaenrya so she wouldn't have to escape to Dragonstone...no self reflection, just constant deflection, ignoring, placating the wrong people, putting his foot down at the wrong moments, not pursuing certain avenues or voids of information like in the Vhagar claim incident AND allowed the same thing that happens to his first wife happen to his next wife and his two daughters...ugh.

With all this, he maybe felt that his status, position, and elevating Alicent to Queen Consort was enough to carry their relationship and any romantic bond they had. But it's also not likely he'd be totally self-blind (just denying to himself) to the possibility that her admiration & attraction partially came from those things. He's king after all, and apparently, it's a dream for noble girls to become a Queen. So while it's more than likely that he loved Alicent, it's negligible.

Unfortunately for him, he didn't count for a wife who was so traditional and ruthless (the last is a compliment on its own, but combined with the first, ew) , one who seemed to have a strong will of her own.

So it's not that he loved Alicent, he just wanted his cake and eat it, too. Be seen and perceived as a good king, maintain the leftover wealth & picture of generosity/prosperity and "wisdom" Jaehaerys basically left for him, while he really didn't know what to do with his own family and emotions half the time because he never accepted and took responsibility for how he contributed to Aemma's death by continuing to impregnate her (book & show) AND then cutting her open without her consent or informing to extract the son he put above all logic or sense. By doing too much appeasing to get people to like him or feel they have an "in" with him (which people like him can mistake as "liking" or respect) while isolating those who could have only made him stronger through honest loyalty and candor, telling him like it is while keeping that measure of observation (talking about not just Rhaenyra but Dameon here). But Viserys never wanted honesty! He wanted the fantasy of power.

B)

People assume that Viserys didn't love Aemma or loved her less because he impregnated her way too young and way too many times. And because we don't get the word "love" between them. And because they believe that there had to be some truth in the rumors of Alicent hanging around Viserys before Aemma died, thus clueing in on the possibility that he wasn't so devoted to Aemma as to be taken in by Alicent while she was literally suffering. All of these are valid deductions.

However, as I will argue, I think that it wasn't so much a matter of love for love's sake as he could "start over" & not have to be encumbered by the worries of a too-young wife's ability to survive pregnancy & childbirth. Of course, he'd have some attraction in the beginning, but the anticipated relief would be a great motivator towards Alicent.

Plus, the impression R&B gives us of his life with Aemma and Rhaenyra was a very happy one, despite the pressure of producing an heir.

[A Question of Succession]:

C)

You: "Offended Corlys Velaryon, the wealthiest man in the Seven Kingdoms, in order to marry her."

As for Corlys Velaryon, again, I think that he was banking on their closer blood ties, crossed lineage, shared historical heritage, & his own position as Corlys' king/superior to deter Corlys from really opposing him or being a huge problem. Which, ironically, he was correct about...if that was his thought process. again, we don't know.

Though Corlys was obviously upset and it did sour their relations, there wasn't really a real danger of Corlys openly rebelling, esp with the possibility that Rhaenys (a Targaryen princess who still values her maiden family but also would be thinking how young their kids are and how meaninglessly destructive such a thing would be for everyone involved [her discouraging war in HotD doesn't make sense though, bc the greens were always hellbent on war 7 they were the ones looking for it AND Aegon truly stole the throne, whereas Viserys is free-er tomarry whoever he wishes]) was at his ear discouraging him from that. Corlys was not losing anything material or essential thing here, a need, when Viserys denied marrying Laena.

To me, Viserys considered for a long time marrying off Rhaenyra to Corlys' Laenor at least in the smallest part of his mind and it didn't become a solid intentional thought until Rhaenyra got older. He sent her off on that faux kinds but not really suitor tour (kind not really bc its not like it is in HotD), and whatever incident with Dameon happened convinced him to finally force her to marry Laenor. Oh look, how convenient for him that it also retied Corlys to them after his own decision to not marry Laena...

Though I do feel almost bad for Viserys here. On the one hand, it's politically advantageous to marry the daughter of the man who has a fleet of ships to his name AND that girl being the daughter of a dragonriding mother [assurance that the kids would also be riders]. But the gir is 12 & he'd have to wait to consummate and impregnate her...and clock's ticking. Plus she's a child even to them. And if he had married Laena, there's no way Corlys would have kept quiet or not pressed even harder for Laena's son to be named Viserys' heir, and if Viserys insisted they'd probably have the Dance earlier. Or just a war without dragons. On the other hand, Alicent is much older BUT she comes from the Tower and was very adamant about "males-first" primogeniture...still, he couldn't have had his own official tour?

But then I remember his refusal to really have accountability while having the audacity to direct his own daughter and heir into a more vulnerable position...

D)

You: "Closed his eyes when Alicent abused and mocked his “favorite child”, and spread destructive rumours about her."

Again, he saw through his intentions about the marriage at least, and we see his intention is to not encourage the thing Alicent wants most: Aegon's being named heir or having most of the power.

["A Question of Succession]:

Thus showing he had a kernel but very real and substantial kernel of distrust of Alicent that existed & grew before that moment.

.........

Option ONE: It's coul be more don't think that Viserys actually was aware of how deep Alicent's hatred for Rhaenyra ran or that the rumors either existed or that Alicent was the source, acting with malicious intent, because:

Alicent's faith devotion can lend the idea of her being morally righteous or at least "conscientious" of duty and giving "respect" to the hierarchy and her spreading those rumors to deliberately harm Rhaenyra, her stepdaughter, is too direct and contradictory to his explicit will for Rhaenyra to become his heir -- would Alicent really dare to hate his kid? He'd probs fool himself.

AND he likely believed that Alicent wasn't ruthless or daring enough to actually try to kill or seriously harm Rhaenyra after he died, because he would think Alicent valued her kids' sibling relationship w/Rhaenyra above her own want for power AND the socio-religious taboo against kinslaying, besides thinking/hoping she would love his memory enough to not do so

OR especially with how he and Daemon were relatively close after the loss of Baelon, he banked on the assumption that family would eventually come first. Again, that passive deterrent pattern.

Option TWO: Or/and it was way too late for him to have take-backsies or regret marrying Alicent. Sure he could put aside Alicent, kings can do that and have. Except then he'd offend the Hightowers and the Faith worse than anything he could have the Velaryons or Corlys. Again, the Faith-Hightower ties. Huge scandal and a mark against his house/his own reputation. He'd want to avoid all that. And he'd be endangering his "investment" in putting Alicent aside. Plus, they already had kids Alicent/Otto/the Hightowers could use, so Viserys may have "decided" on continuous "damage control", as he tried by making his youngest son Daeron and Jace have the same wetnurse and force his sons and grandsons to be in the same room together as to improve their relationships...which we know actually just made things worse. and again, I think he was hoping/"sure" that Alicent wouldn't bar Rhaenyra from her ascendance.

In response to Jaehaerys being known as the conciliator and managing to keep the dynasty on "track" for a long time, Viserys though that it is enough to appease by putting out an image of generosity (prosperity) and showing himself as actively listening to his councilors, letting them win the most battle of wills so they feel as if he's not a force they need to "put down" or rebel against. But Viserys unfortunately didn't seem to inherit a steady will.

So he does what he usually does when the politics have gone awry & off-balance for him--he instead tries to get the two women he loves to reconcile while not addressing the true meat of the issue or closing his eyes to deny the reality. And I can't totally blame him like I feel I can do with Jaehaerys or Aenys, he inherited the amplified issues with the Faith or/and primogeniture they created or perpetuated.

[HEADCANON TERRITORY] If we really want to get dark, maybe in his subconscious he's trying to avoid that case where he'd have to reconcile himself with the fact that his wife continued to put power before him or didn't leaned away from his hopes for a devoted partner -- that he brought that in. Viserys is the sort of person--ruler?--who finds comfort in denial more than facing the facts or exploring his options when he's out of his depth, which is why he's so obviously different from Daemon, why they don't really agree a lot of the time even though they love each other. Perhaps the feasts and dances were his way of distraction AND a way he could enjoy his family's company without having politics color his relationships.

While it's still very possible he continued to love Alicent and/or look to her for companionship, it's also inevitable that all this put a strain on their relationship that would only get worse (evidenced by Alicent deliberately and ruthlessly leaving out his body to rot for days to plan against Rhaenyra). Before then, he likely would have sensed that shift and can we really say that he felt all that pleasant towards her for us to think their/his love survived that strain when they got together in conditions where Alicent became more invested in the relationship more for the politics and status (an assumption I know and even if true, it isn't bad. But doesn't match his own entirely) and when her desire to have Aegon on the throne was denied, things irrevocably soured for them?

I feel that for Viserys to love someone, he needs to observe that they desire or approve of his presence. Otherwise, his interest or love starts to die. Or maybe not--maybe he clings? But who knows, I could be talking out of my ass. After all, we don't have journal entries for this last part I mention. But I think this would be very interesting to read...

Speaking of, wouldn't it have been awesome if we got those from various characters instead of just recorded declarations and anecdotes and testimonies?!! Like Dracula. Maybe, if he ever gets to it (probably won't) GRRM will look into that for Fire and Blood V2?!

[out of headcanon valley]

So...

I'm not saying he didn't love Alicent, never loved her, or that there was no chance or possibility that he hadn't become attracted to her before they married.

There are strong enough arguments for why we don't need to think that he loved her "more" than Aemma and that it was a bit more complicated. While the Velaryons were rich, prestigious, and culturally and by-blood closer, it's the Faith-tie, age-of-candidates, Otto's physical and constant proximity, and Viserys' loneliness or guilt that maybe put the Hightowers ahead. And from there, Viserys was trying to keep the chariot on heel.

After all my points, too, I tend to think of it more like Alicent was Viserys' second chance to "get marriage right" and have unencumbered love, be unconstrained in that area. It's also why he might have been more affectionate than some wanted or expected from him.

#asoiaf asks from others #viserys i's characterization #aemma arryn #alicent hightower #viserys i #targaryen succession #fire and blood writing #alicent and viserys #aemma and viserys #fire and blood #asoiaf

[sunnyie-eve]

1 | Reaping Day

Series: The Benefits 

Paring: Coriolanus Snow x OFC Plinth!

Word Count: 1.8k

Warnings: none

| MASTERLIST |

~

Plinth's twins, Sejanus and Aurelia were immediately perceived as outsiders when they moved to the capital with their parents at the age of eight. With their family profiting greatly from the First Rebellion, providing most of the weaponry used in the fight against District 13. With their father deciding to side with the Capitol combined with their family's newfound wealth earned the Plinths their Capitol citizenship, instantly affording them privileges that the oldest and most powerful families had earned over generations.

During their younger years to even later in life, they had a campaign of vicious bullying by their classmates. Coriolanus Snow, a boy who came from a well-known and once-rich family, had considered participating in this, but decided against it, opting to ignore Sejanus instead. This initially inclined Sejanus to trust Snow more, believing that Snow was more likely to help him than any of his classmates. With Sejanus treating Snow as a friend right away, that meant Aurelia trusted her twin brothers' instinct to befriend Snow as well.

Honestly, Coriolanus Snow knew that anybody in their right mind would know that the Plinth family bought their way into the Capitol because he knew that you really have to have a lot, and I mean A LOT, of money to come and live from the District 2 in the Capitol and give your two children an opportunity to attend to the Capitol's Academy of all places. So Coriolanus must admit to himself, at first he was sceptic as hell. They were from District after all. They had no place here.

The moment he had met Sejanus he thought that he was annoying as hell. However, he soon realized that Sejanus kind of grew on him. He was a kid with a kind heart, there was no denying that. He was stubborn, too. But most of all, he was so against the government's decision to hold the Hunger Games and that would annoy the hell out of Coriolanus because Sejanus had a bad tendency to speak of it out loud, with no filter, and that would often get him in a bit trouble.

The trouble that Coriolanus would often have to help him get out of. Coriolanus didn't really mind it, Sejanus was like his brother after all, but he just wished that he would stop being so reckless. Coriolanus truly felt like he could have a heart attack, cold sweat consumed him, every single time Sejanus spoke. It honestly left him feeling anxious.

He just wished for that to stop, and once he met Aurelia it was anything but. The moment the two shook hands after Sejanus introduced Coriolanus to his twin sister, he felt like the last breath was knocked out of his lungs. His chest tightened as he looked at her.

Aurelia was radiant. He thought that her beauty was unmatched. The way she carried herself, her hair, her piercing eyes that were the exact copy of her brothers, her smile, her everything, it was just perfect for him. She was perfect for him.

For Aurelia, deep down she was still very cautious of Coriolanus growing up, just to be safe. She had her doubts about his friendship with her, but mainly with her brother. After all, the Plinth family had things that Snow no longer had and wanted. She didn't want to believe that he was just pretending for the benefit of their family's hospitality for the sake of Sejanus.

At the age of 14, Aurelia saw how Coriolanus lived with his cousin Tigris and his Grandma'am. Despite living in one of the wealthiest penthouses in the Capitol, she saw how he struggled to keep himself fed and bought most of his clothes from the black market due to lack of money.

"Ma, do I look okay?" Aurelia looks at herself in the mirror wearing a short black dress with white long sleeves. Her curly long hair was straightened for the event and she had on red lipstick.

She felt terrible as she stared at herself she didn't want to be go to the reaping for the 10th Hunger Games. She hated the idea of the games as a whole. They were a morbid and brutal competition.

"You look wonderful, my dear. You and your brother both." Her mother smiles, "Now you two must get going. Don't wanna be late." As they leave their place.

Arriving, of course no one really wanted to talk to the twins, so they spent most of their time chatting with their mother. Aurelia ends up wandering around listening in on classmates talking bad about her and her family.

"Pay no attention to them." The sound of Coriolanus's voice behind her causes her to turn around to face him.

"You know I never do." She gives him a smile, "You look dashing by the way." She adds before whispering, "I love what Tigris did to your father's shirt. I wish I had her talent."

Coriolanus at times hated how she knew his whole act with other classmates was fake. He at times feared she would tell everyone the truth, but at the same time, he knew she never would. That wasn't the type of person she was. Not even close to that.

"She is wonderful isn't she." He agrees with her, "She said you suggested the buttons be made from the tiles."

Aurelia couldn't help but let out a giggle, "I did, but in a joking matter but I see it turned out terrific." Her giggle caught the attention of their other classmates causing them to whisper about the two, "I'll leave you to do your act." She turns to leave him but he reaches for her wrist stopping her. Aurelia looks down at her wrist where he still kept his hand, "Just go tell them you tolerate me. After all, I'm District."

"You've been in the Capital long enough to make you not District in my eyes. You're not District at all anymore." He looks into her eyes.

"Time doesn't determine that. I was born as a District."

He lets go of her watching her join her brother once again as he joins his classmates who talk down on the Plinths.

"Nice for you to join us again, Lia." Sejanus smiled at his sister who looked back over at Snow with the others. "Is your crush on Snow finally back?" He gives her a look.

"What makes you say that? Because I looked over at him?" She laughs at him.

"Please, Aurelia. When we first moved here you had the biggest crush on him then suddenly do a 180 as time went on."

Aurelia stares at her brother completely annoyed with him since she explained why she changed her mind years ago. She of course still found him super attractive, how could she not with his blonde curls and beautiful blue eyes.

"Because as time goes on, I can see that if I wanted there to be something, it wouldn't work between us. He's Capital and I'm District. And I know for a fact that some of our views are very different." She explains a bit to him again.

"Shall we join the others?" He puts his arm out to her so she takes it and they walk over to their classmates.

"I'll put him in the arena mys-," Festus stops talking as the twins walk up to them, "Sejanus, Aurelia. You made it to the Reaping for once."

"And you made it to graduation, Festus. We're both shocked." Sejanus responds causing his sister and Coriolanus to chuckle.

"Spill it. Who won the prize?"

"Oh, no, I'm not gonna ruin my father's big day. No one here actually likes him, but they do love his money." Sejanus tells her and the others.

"You know what that's like, don't you, Arachne?" Aurelia gives her a smile so Coriolanus looks down at her a bit.

"Funny." She responds as the music starts to play for them to get in their seats.

"Coryo, I know you have high hopes for this... But there's no prize today." Aurelia tells him as they walk to their seats, "Not anymore. I'm so sorry." She takes her seat between him and her brother.

Aurelia's mind filtered out most of Highbottom's speech. She could never take him seriously with all the little vials she'd seen him pound down before each class. Until he revealed that there was to be a rule change. They were to mentor a tribute, akin to fattening a pig for the slaughter.

She gulped thickly, feeling nauseous as he started assigning the other classmates to their tributes.

"Aurelia Plinth," Highbottom called her to attention and she looked up, "District eight, girl." He lazily spoke, pointing to the overhead screens, showcasing her tribute, Wovey.

Aurelia hated how young she looked. She didn't deserve to be put in the games. Hell, no one deserves to be put in the games.

"So far the runt. Good luck with that." Festus leaned forward muttering into Aurelia's ear.

Refusing to show him any reaction, she keeps forward looking at the rest of the tributes. When it came to the last District girl, Aurelia could tell Coriolanus was irritated with having her. But that soon changed when he discovered that he had been given an unexpected gift. At her reaping, Lucy Gray enchanted the audience with a musical performance.

"Well, she's mentally ill." Arachne says as they were finished, "I'm sure she'll still last longer than Aurelia's runt." She snickers walking off.

Sadly, Aurelia knew that Wovey was most likely not going to win the games. If she was it would have to come down to her hiding the whole time while the others take each other out.

"You okay?" Coriolanus takes Aurelia's hand into his so she takes it back.

"What do you think, Coryo? We've been tasked to mentor this year's tributes... I'm now going to feel responsible for her death. You saw her, she's so innocent." Aurelia tries to keep her cool, "I know I she can't win against the others, so I'm gonna make my job as her mentor to make her feel loved."

"You know, Auri, you're too sweet for this world. Wovey is lucky to have you out of all of us." He reaches for her hand again and this time she doesn't pull it back.

"I know this assignment means a lot for you and your future... I believe you might have gotten lucky with your Songbird, Lucy Gray."

"You truly believe that?" He didn't believe her. 

"I truly do, Coriolanus Snow. She's got the confidence and a seemingly effortless stage presence. Plus she's filled with sass with is a perfect match with you." Aurelia finally takes her hand back as she backs away from him.

"Are you calling me sassy Aurelia Plinth?" He follows her with a smile spread across his face.

"You have your moments, Coryo." She heads off going to find her brother.

Coriolanus never understood why he felt the way he did for her. She and her brother were District, people he didn't care for or particularly like. He thought the way she thought of the Capital and the Games would never draw him in. But she made him feel soft and it disgusted him to no end.

#the ballad of songbirds and snakes #ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas #coriolanus snow #coriolanus x oc plinth #sejanus plinth #tom blyth #young president snow #oc #ofc #lucy gray baird

[a-cloud-for-dreams]

Detective Haelyn Rózsa

Name: Haelyn "Lyn" Rózsa

Meaning(s): Gift from God/Honorable/Love & Protection (Haelyn) and Rose (Rózsa)

Face Claim: Kelsey Merritt

Pronouns: She/Her

Sexuality: Bisexual

Birthday/Zodiac: November 18 (Scorpio)

Love Interest: Trystan Thorne

Family:

NOTE: I know I promised to follow the actual CoP MC's background and be normal but ofc I found a way to unnecessarily connect characters and bring back old MC and OCs I didn't use so enjoy imao

Distant Maternal Great Grandmother: Raine Nightbloom Distant Maternal Great Grandfather: Tyril Starfury Distant Maternal Grandmother: Eclipse Sarenya Nightfury

Maternal Grandfather: Beckham D'Souza Maternal Grandmother: Londyn Wolfe (Pia Wurtzbach-Jauncey) Mother: Diamond Wolfe Maternal Uncle: Nasriyan Wolfe Paternal Great Grandmother: Vanadey Silva (Warrior Nun) Father: Jacques Rózsa Paternal Uncle: Thomas Rózsa

Goddaughter: Cirilla Watanabe-Webster

Pet: Paris (Former Stray Dog)

Quick Background: (subject to change)

Diamond and her younger brother Nasriyan were raised in a life of crime. She's part of the largest and wealthiest American mafia crime families and, of course, despises any kind of law enforcement.

One day, she accidentally bumped into a man while waiting in line to get coffee at a cafe, where she was supposed to meet a contact. The man she bumped into would be Jacques Rózsa, who would later be revealed as a new police officer. That same night, she met him again at the same bar, and it felt like fate.

They spent more time together in secret to avoid her family's prying eyes, and eventually fell deeply in love with each other. Diamond felt super conflicted because interacting with Jacques clashed with the beliefs she was raised with, but she admired how genuine Jacques felt about wanting to help others. She eventually eloped with him, had a small wedding with only a few trusted guests, and moved back to his hometown in New York. Here, they opened The Drunk Tank and stayed under the radar.

Keep in mind, that Jacques still wasn't aware that his wife was part of a crime family he had been assigned to arrest. The case always fascinated him but has been unsolved largely due to their influence and power within higher-ranking officials. He became extremely passionate about the case and was determined to be the officer to solve it. Somewhere along the line, they had Haelyn and they were all super happy.

But then, Diamond's brother Nasriyan finds out they're in New York, and they have an ultimatum: do certain tasks for the family (she isn't officially registered on any wanted lists) and he'll turn a blind eye. So she did these tasks and slowly got back into the life of crime and violence she was happy to escape from.

Jacques eventually connects the dots and confronts Diamond's parents without knowing they're related. He knows the Wolfe leaders had a daughter, but she didn't seem relevant as she either died or ran away. He ends up having to kill the parents, but her younger brother escapes and lives on the run. Now, the whole Wolfe family is in shambles. Diamond realizes she could never live a content idyllic life and leaves her husband and daughter to go back. She couldn't bear to tell Jacques she had lied about her family history and left him a letter saying that she had to prioritize her duty etc. Jacques and Thomas were both heartbroken and lied to Haelyn so she wouldn't have to feel any guilt.

Haelyn lives a relatively normal life until her dad was killed when she was 13 supposedly by her own uncle, revealing Diamond's darkest secret in Jacques's last moments. Diamond eventually finds him and sends him to some confinement where he cannot escape. When she returns in Book 3, she and her daughter work together to track down Jacques's killer

Romance Route: (subject to change)

A) Book 1 and Book 2 Events B) Trystan is coronated and does not abdicate the throne. This means he is still temporarily engaged to Princess Jia; Haelyn felt the wisest decision would be to break up before the situation gets messy a lil too late but okay C) A crime happens (ex. someone stole royal jewels) and he hires the best private detective he knows and trusts to solve the case D) She solves the case and heads back as quickly as she can because it hurts being around someone she would never be able to be with. When she gets back, her mother reappears and sets off the Book 3 plot of finding the truth about Haelyn's father's death E) Trystan hears about this through Luke and Ruby and flies out immediately (Marguerite joins in later). He says he has business to attend to in America and says he'll be back in time for engagement planning F) They solve the case and Trystan heads back, inviting the whole gang to the engagement. At the last minute, like what happens in the Book 2 finale, he reveals his true feelings and abdicates the throne. Princess Jia didn't want to be married and Trystan wasn't interested in their arranged marriage or the Drakovian throne so it was a win-win situation G) They all live happily ever after THE END

Trivia:

She's never been in a romantic relationship. Ever. She's been interested in people before but she's never officially dated since she was super busy and not the best at initiating/maintaining close long-term relationships. Trystan was her first boyfriend and last boyfriend

She is fluent in English, Spanish, Italian, and eventually proficient in Drakovian and Filipino

She’s left handed and sketches in her free time, or whenever he’s having trouble solving a case

Haelyn Rózsa's Dossier (made by @storyofmychoices!)

#she's my other MC whose backstory is a lil more tied to the real CoP MC in case anyone was confused #playchoices #choices book club #haelstan🌹 #haelyn rózsa oc #crimes of passion 2 #pretty people edits 💕 #crimes of passion #trystan thorne #trystan thorne x mc #ruby webster #luke watanabe #bisexual #eclipse sarenya nightfury oc #raine nightbloom #tyraine 💫

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

When The World Is Crashing Down

Series Summary: Your family is House Celtigar, one of Rhaenyra’s wealthiest allies. In the aftermath of Rook’s Rest, Aemond unknowingly conscripts you to save his brother’s life. Now you are in the lair of the enemy, but your loyalties are quickly shifting…

Chapter 1: Am I More Than You Bargained For Yet

Chapter 2: Choose Love Or Sympathy

Chapter 3: We Drown Traitors In Shallow Water

Chapter 4: These Words Are All I Have So I’ll Write Them

Chapter 5: Turn Off The Lights And Turn Off The Shyness

Chapter 6: I Am Missing You To Death

Chapter 7: Keep Quiet, Nothing Comes As Easy As You

Chapter 8: I Just Need A Stronger Dose

Chapter 9: We’re Friends When You’re On Your Knees

Chapter 10: Blame Everyone But Me For This Mess

Chapter 11: I Know This Hurts, It Was Meant To

Chapter 12: And I'm Just The Boy Who's Had Too Many Chances

Chapter 13: Condemned From The Start

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aegon ii #aegon targaryen ii #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon x reader #aegon ii x y/n #aegon ii x you

[eaglesnick]

IS CAPITALISM WORKING?

Perhaps that question should be:”Is capitalism working for you?”  It is certainly working for the already rich members of our society.

“The gap between the richest in society and the rest of the population has widened over the 10-year period,” the ONS said. “The wealthiest 10% of households held 43% of all the wealth in Great Britain in the latest period; in comparison, the bottom 50% held only 9%.” (Guardian: 07/01/22)

And as the very rich become richer still, the rest of us become collectively poorer. Official figures tell us that there has been an increase in relative poverty from 13% in 1996 to 17.4% of working households in 2020. This figure is even higher according to the Roundtree Foundation, who put the figure at 20% (13.4 million people).

Clearly capitalism isn’t working for millions of people. But what is meant by the term capitalism? Kate Raworth, an economist, described it like this.

“To me capitalism is…yes its markets and its business but it’s more than that for those have been around for millennia. For me capitalism is an economic system that prioritises, above all, delivering profit for the owners of wealth. And that’s in terms of dividends for those who own stocks and shares in corporations; that’s in terms of rent for those who own land, and housing and real-estate; and that’s in terms of interest for those who own other peoples debt. And the key consequence of this is not just the obvious that it enriches the already rich, it systematically puts a squeeze on everything else that we value. So, it underpays and undermines waged workers. It privatises public goods like health care and transport. It exploits care that is provided by families and communities. It degrades the living world on which everything depends. It appropriates land   and culture from indigenised and racialised communities. And crucially it captures the legal system and political system so that it can secure and reproduce privilege.” (Kate Raworth, "Start The Week: BBC Radio 4: 27/02/23)

If only half of this is true, then maybe we should start to question whether the capitalist system we live under is fit for purpose? If it isn’t then perhaps a change in political and economic direction is called for.

#uk politic #kate Raworth #capitalism defined #rich #poor #poverty #inequality

[moneeb0930]

Paul Cuffee, shipbuilder, the wealthiest Afrikan in the Amerikkkan colonies, early Black Nationalist and Pan Africanist was born on January 17, 1759.

Paul Cuffee was born on January 17, 1759 during the French and Indian War, on Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts. He was the youngest son of Kofi or Cuffee Slocum and Ruth Moses. Paul's father, Kofi, was a member of the Ashanti ethnic group, probably from Ghana, Africa. Kofi had been captured at age ten and brought as a slave to the British colony of Massachusetts. His owner, John Slocum, could not reconcile slave ownership with his own Quaker values and gave Kofi his freedom in the mid-1740s. Kofi took the name Cuffee Slocum and, in 1746, he married Ruth Moses. Ruth was a Native American member of the Wampanoag Nation on Martha's Vinyard. Cuffee Slocum worked as a skilled carpenter, farmer and fisherman and taught himself to read and write. He worked diligently to earn enough money to buy a home and in 1766 bought a 116-acre (0.47 km2) farm in nearby Dartmouth, Massachusetts. The couple would raise ten children together, of which Paul was the seventh in line.

During Paul Cuffee's infancy there was no Quaker meeting house on Cuttyhunk Island, so Kofi taught himself the Scriptures. In 1766, when Paul was eight years old, the family moved to a farm in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Cuffee Slocum died in 1772, when Paul was thirteen. As Paul's two eldest brothers had families of their own elsewhere, he and his brother John took over their father's farm operations and cared for their mother and three younger sisters. Around 1778 Paul persuaded his brothers and sisters to use their father's English first name, Cuffee, as their family name, and all but the youngest did. His mother, Ruth Moses, died on January 6, 1787.

In 1779, he and his brother David built a small boat to ply the nearby coast and islands. Although his brother was afraid to sail in dangerous seas, Cuffee went out alone in 1779 to deliver cargo to Nantucket. He was waylaid by pirates on this and several subsequent voyages. Finally, he made yet another trip to Nantucket that turned a profit.

At the age of twenty-one, Cuffee refused to pay taxes because free blacks did not have the right to vote. In 1780, he petitioned the council of Bristol County, Massachusetts to end such taxation without representation. The petition was denied, but his suit was one of the influences that led the Legislature in 1783 to grant voting rights to all free male citizens of the state.

Cuffee finally made enough money to purchase another ship and hired crew. He gradually built up capital and expanded his ownership to a fleet of ships. After using open boats, he commissioned the 14 or 15 ton closed-deck boat Box Iron, then an 18-20 ton schooner. Cuffee married Alice Pequit on February 25, 1783. Like Cuffee's mother, Pequit was also Wampanoag.[13] The couple settled in Westport, Massachusetts, where they raised their seven children: Naomi (born 1783), Mary (born 1785), Ruth (1788), Alice (1790), Paul Jr. (1792), Rhoda 1795), and William (1799)

In the late 1780s Cuffee's flagship was the 25-ton schooner Sun Fish, then the 40-ton schooner Mary. In 1795, the Mary and Sunfish were sold to finance the construction of the Ranger - a 69-ton schooner launched in 1796 from Cuffee's shipyard in Westport. By this time he could afford to buy a large homestead and in February 1799 he paid $3,500 for 140 acres of waterfront property in Westport. By 1800 he had enough capital to purchase a half-interest in the 162-ton barque Hero. By the first years of the nineteenth century Paul Cuffee was one of the most wealthy - if not the most wealthy - African American and Native American in the United States. His largest ship, the 268-ton Alpha, was built in 1806, along with his favorite ship of all, the 109-ton brig Traveller.

From March 1807 on, Cuffee was encouraged by members of the African Institution in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York to be involved in helping out the fledgling efforts to improve Sierra Leone. Cuffee mulled over the logistics and chances of success for the movement before deciding in 1809 to join the project. On December 27, 1810 he left Philadelphia on his first expedition to Sierra Leone.

Cuffee reached Freetown, Sierra Leone on March 1, 1811. He traveled the area investigating the social and economic conditions of the region. He met with some of the colony’s officials, who opposed Cuffee’s idea for colonization of Blacks from the United States for fear of competition from American merchants. Furthermore, his attempts to sell goods yielded poor results because of tariff charges resulting from the British mercantile system. On Sunday, April 7, 1811 Cuffee met with the foremost black entrepreneurs of the colony. They penned a petition for the African Institution, stating that the colony's greatest needs were for settlers to work in agriculture, merchanting and the whaling industry, that these three areas would best facilitate growth for the colony. Upon receiving this petition, the members of the Institution agreed with their findings.

In 1816, Cuffee envisioned a mass emigration plan for African Americans, both to Sierra Leone and possibly to newly-freed Haiti. Congress rejected his petition to fund a return to Sierra Leone. During this time period, many African Americans began to demonstrate interest in emigrating to Africa, and some people believed this was the best solution to problems of racial tensions in American society. Cuffee was persuaded by Reverends Samuel J. Mills and Robert Finley to help them with the African colonization plans of the American Colonization Society (ACS), but Cuffee was alarmed at the overt racism of many members of the ACS. ACS co-founders, particularly Henry Clay, advocated exporting freed Negroes as a way of ridding the South of potentially 'troublesome' agitators who might threaten the plantation system of slavery. Other Americans also became active, but found there was more reason to encourage emigration to Haiti, where American immigrants were welcomed by the government of President Boyer.

In the beginning of 1817, Cuffee’s health deteriorated. He never returned to Africa. He died on September 7, 1817. His final words were "Let me pass quietly away." Cuffee left an estate with an estimated value of almost $20,000.

Source: Wikipedia

[beardedmrbean]

President Biden's Twitter account posted a questionable statistic on Saturday about how much tax Americans billionaires pay.

"Look, I think you should be able to be a billionaire if you can earn it, but just pay your fair share," Biden's tweet read. "I think you ought to pay a minimum tax of 25%. It’s about basic fairness."

The tweet included a graphic of a Biden quote that said: "You know the average tax billionaires pay? Three percent. No billionaire should be paying a lower tax than somebody working as a schoolteacher or a firefighter." 

But it is unclear where the 3% figure came from, and contradicts figures the White House has issued in the past. 

In February, White House issued a fact sheet called "The Biden Economic Plan Is Working," which calculated how much tax the U.S. could collect if it counted unrealized gains – a potential profit on an unsold asset – as income.

"In a typical year, billionaires pay an average tax rate of just 8%," the fact sheet read. Factoring in unrealized gains is the reason for the lower statistic. 

"Using the existing definition of taxable income, really rich people pay an average federal income tax rate in the mid-20s," Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center senior fellow Howard Gleckman told PolitiFact in July. "If you want to include unrealized gains in your denominator, as the White House does, the average rate would go way down."

HUNTER BIDEN: SUBPOENAED BANK OF AMERICA RECORDS OPENED 'NEW AVENUES' OF INVESTIGATION, HOUSE OVERSIGHT SAYS

Another White House figure from 2021 gave an 8% figure rather than the 3% one Biden recently cited. 

"The analysis from OMB and CEA economists estimates that the wealthiest 400 billionaire families in America paid an average of just 8.2 percent of their income – including income from their wealth that goes largely untaxed – in Federal individual income taxes between 2010 and 2018. That’s a lower rate than many ordinary Americans pay," the 2021 post read.

In response, Twitter CEO Elon Musk disputed Biden's tax claim.

"I paid 53% taxes on my Tesla stock options (40% Federal & 13% state), so I must be lifting the average!" the South African entrepreneur wrote. "I also paid more income tax than anyone ever in the history of Earth for 2021 and will do that again in 2022."

"Would be curious to hear how these other 'billionaires' are so good at avoiding taxes!" Musk added in another tweet, after asking Twitter's Community Notes feature to fact-check the statement.

#nunyas news

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The lives of roughly 26,000 children could have been saved since 2010 if gun deaths in the United States occurred at rates seen in Canada, according to a new analysis published Friday by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

While firearms recently became the leading cause of death among children in the U.S., KFF found that they rank no higher than fifth in 11 similarly large and wealthy nations—behind motor vehicles, cancer, congenital diseases, and other injuries, and often trailing other conditions such as heart disease.

Guns—including accidental deaths, suicides, and homicides—killed 4,357 kids between the ages of 1 and 19 in the U.S. in 2020, or 5.6 per 100,000 children.

Canada had the next highest child and teen firearm mortality rate among high-income countries, at 0.8 gun deaths per 100,000 kids—seven times lower than its heavily armed southern neighbor.

According to KFF:

"Combining all child firearm deaths in the U.S. with those in other OECD countries with above median GDP and GDP per capita, the U.S. accounts for 97% of gun-related child deaths, despite representing 46% of the total population in these similarly large and wealthy countries. Combined, the 11 other peer countries account for only 153 of the total 4,510 firearm deaths for children ages 1-19 years in these nations in 2020, and the U.S. accounts for the remainder.

Firearms account for 20% of all child deaths in the U.S., compared to an average of less than 2% of child deaths in similarly large and wealthy nations."

The child and teen firearm mortality rate in the U.S. soared by 81% from 2013—when it reached a recent low of 3.1 gun deaths per 100,000 kids—to 2020, when it hit 5.6 per 100,000.

The U.S. is the only country among its peers that has seen child firearm deaths increase over the past two decades, climbing 42% since 2000.

Comparably large and wealthy countries' combined average child and teen firearm mortality rate declined by 56% between 2000 and 2019, from 0.5 to 0.3 gun deaths per 100,000 kids.

The 2020 surge in child gun deaths in the U.S. was "primarily driven" by an uptick in violent assaults, which are responsible for 65% of the nation's child and teen firearm mortality, KFF reported. "The child firearm assault mortality rate reached a high in 2020 with a rate of 3.6 per 100,000, a 39% increase from the year before."

There have been more than 3,500 mass shootings in the U.S. since the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut, including dozens since 19 students and two teachers were slaughtered at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on May 24.

However, "not all firearm deaths are a result of violent attacks," KFF noted. "In the U.S., in 2020, 30% of child deaths by firearm were ruled suicides, and 5% were unintentional or undetermined accidents."

The child firearm suicide mortality rate is on the rise in the U.S., increasing by 13% from 2019 to 2020, 31% since 2000, and 89% since the recent low in 2010.

"Not only does the U.S. have by far the highest overall firearm death rate among children," KFF pointed out, but it "also has the highest rates of each type of child firearm deaths—suicides, assaults, and accident or undetermined intent—among similarly large and wealthy countries."

KFF added:

"In the U.S., the overall child suicide rate is 3.6 per 100,000 children, and 1.7 per 100,000 children died by suicide from firearms. In comparable countries, on average, the overall child suicide rate is 2.8 per 100,000 children, and 0.2 per 100,000 children died by suicide from firearms. If the U.S. child firearm suicide rate was brought down to 0.2 per 100,000 children (the same as the average in peer countries), 1,100 fewer children would have died in 2020 alone."

Although President Joe Biden recently signed into law a watered-down gun safety bill, Congress has repeatedly failed to pass legislation to meaningfully reform the nation's gun laws, thanks in large part to the opposition of Republican lawmakers bankrolled by the National Rifle Association.

#us politics #news #common dreams #2022 #gun rights #gun control #gun violence #tw child death #gun mortality rate #canada #Kaiser Family Foundation #twitter #tweet #Cynthia Cox #nra #national rifle association #sandy hook shooting #robb elementary shooting

[sabineelectricheart]

To Escape Her Father’s Realm

Summary: Lucette marries a foreign prince, just so she can be as far away from Angielle as possible. If that is so, why does she feels so disappointed and alone?

Rating: T - Suitable for teens, 13 years and older, with some violence, minor coarse language, and minor suggestive adult themes.

Words: 2500

Notes: Happy Not-Halloween, y’all! Enjoy non-horror themed fanfiction!

“Hello, beautiful." The young king slurred as he fell into her arms like a bundle of jelly bones stinking of brandy. “How’s doing tonight?”

When Lucette had woken up in the morning after her wedding night to a cold bed and empty presence, she cursed herself for feeling disappointed. For missing the warmth that radiated from him though it was icy cold from how far he slept within the tiny bed.

To her, marriage seemed a suitable escape. She hated Angielle and Angielle hated her right back, she hated every single soul on that land, and she especially loathed her father and step-family. All the involved would prefer not to have anything to do with each other, so committed herself to one selfless act in her life and abdicated her place on the succession in return for a handsome dowry and a foreign marriage. She wanted to try her luck somewhere else, somewhere people would not despise the sight of her, and this was her best shot. Perhaps, she would even have a family that could love her.

Her vision was red when her eyes first fell upon his velvet suit proud with military medals and honours. Klaude was in his uniform when he had spoken to her father first, in the castle at Angielle. The then-Crown Prince looked uncomfortable, forced even, but still, he had his charming smile on throughout the time Genaro pledged alliance and thrust her into his hands. 

For his part, Genaro had been generous in his negotiations, undoubtedly to sate his wayward daughter and guarantee the throne for his favourite. He found the wealthiest, handsomest prince there was in the continent and gave them everything they could want if they just took her as a bride. He would pay any price to be rid of her, after all.

Six tedious months had passed and the silence grew in private, the extravagance still held its head high in public, announcing every inch of living thing that the heir to the throne is married. He has a new liability in his hands. 

Lucette now makes a life in the court of Brugantia, a place full of excitement and glamour, somewhere completely opposed to the sober and austere Angielle. So different, except in one regard. Perhaps she expected too much. Perhaps she expected nothing. Yet, the little bit of something her husband always seemed to leave behind wrenched themselves into her heart, twisting and turning, but leaving a stupid smile lingering on her face. 

She hated it. She hated him. She hated herself but she shook herself awake every day, wore her crown like the queen she had been taught to be and went on as if she were not littered with shards of fake endearments and burns from touches that should have been with love. 

If one is to take the situation rationally, it is obvious that her marriage with the young king of Brugantia was just like every other royal one. For alliance and heir; never love. The only one who expected anything else out of it had been herself, while blinded by deep despair and loneliness.

The good that it did to her. Marry in haste, repent at leisure, as they say.

Lucette groaned, trying to hold him in her arms as Klaude sloppily slipped to the ground, giggling to himself. She had no idea where he had gone but she hoped it was a gibberish-King-friendly place. 

"You are drunk!" She gagged accusingly.

She pulls the red-haired man up by his uniform with little to no regard if it would tear and remain in her tight clutch as the king made himself comfortable on the floor, not too unlike a bored cat.

"No, no." He waved a dismissive hand, probably hoping to swat her hold away but never being able to, suddenly pushing himself straight with newfound energy and vigour. "I'm just happy." 

He spread his arms wide, hitting her in the chest as he did, like he was a bird flying in the air with its wings outstretched to the most as he glided to his bed, arms flowing in rhythm and flopped on it. 

"We finished that dam project." The man whispered, staring at the ceiling as she cursed and walked to the bed. "So, Llama and I thought it would be wonderful to have a bit of celebration." 

"Prince Lance and you?" She glared at him, pulling him up by the arm, shaking off the thought that she might rip it out of its socket.

Sitting Klaude up, she carefully unpinned his medals. Despite the feeling she had towards him, he was still a king and the medals spoke, especially because, for what she could gather, he actually deserved them for bravery and valour in battle, instead of pure vanity of his father’s part. Not that she could attest to any of it herself, nor that the men in this dynasty are not quite vain.

Unpinning them also made sure they would not prick him, or her, in the night when he tossed around. She would prefer not to stain the new sheets red so soon, nor give false impressions to the chamber maids to gossip around the palace.

The king, the ingrate that he was, groaned, pushing her hands away.

"Alright, it was my idea but we both deserved a break." He thought for a second before adding, "And a bit of fun." 

Lucette is afraid what "fun" they had, for she knew Klaude and his way of fun was never what she would describe it to be. 

The man glanced up at his wife as stood trying to remove the medals from his uniform. They were a bit too much for her liking and she could not wait to get rid of the last two to move away from his prying gaze. 

"You are very beautiful, Your Majesty." He whispered, earnestly, pulling her between his legs. "Have I ever told you that?" 

Loads of time, for the people to see. She thought bitterly.

Instead of fighting him on the matter, the queen resorted to an uninterested hum as she furiously tried to ignore the way she stood with his chin pressed against her stomach and his arms wrapped around her waist. It was foreign and a fuel to both her hate and her guilty pleasures. 

"Is that a no?" He cocked his head to a side. "If it's a no, then I'm probably the worst person you've ever seen." 

"What would be so wrong with you?" She scowled.

Maybe it was merely an honest confusion, but deep down Lucette knew it was just the disbelief voicing its twisted thoughts. 

Klaude chuckled, burying his head into her stomach bringing back those burns which she always felt whenever he acted like a loving husband. Naturally, those fleeting moments are the only thing that she wants out of him, pity that they tend to be rare, and so they also accentuate her sense of betrayal and abandonment.

This time, though, the burns brought a sense of soothing along with them. 

"I must be an absolute idiot if I hadn't acknowledged your striking beauty." He sighed dreamily, holding her hands gently, as he stared at his wife with his genuinely handsome smile. "You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life. Not person, of course, I'm still the most beautiful person in the world." 

Klaude giggled, falling back onto the bed, pulling her down with him. She slammed a hand against his chest in a desperate attempt to stop herself from falling. He coughed and pulled she down to him, her head laying on his arm.

This was the closest the two of them ever had been in private and Lucette tried to relish in the feeling of it, for she does not know when she would feel it again. 

“Beauty and brawn, I see.” He chuckled; the stink of brandy on his breath fought the blissful sensation of his nimble fingers twisting strands of her hair. “I must be the most brilliant man to choose such a wonderful queen.”

“You are not exactly brilliant, per se, and you did not choose a thing. It was chosen for you.” She mumbled.

Her hands itched to push him to the ground and let him sleep on the dirty rug, but her heart hoped to stay in his stinky arms and listen to him speak even if he would not remember it the next morning. 

“Oh, is it?” The red-haired man let his voice drop as if ashamed to speak but he had a dreamy smile on his face. “I wouldn't disagree with you on that. Not now.”

He buried his face into her hair, holding Lucette close in his arms. She let herself be relaxed against his chest, having her nose buried in the crook of his neck, smelling the faint smell of rose cologne that he put on that morning. The part of her that valued self-esteem screamed for her to pull away but her body simply resisted.

Perhaps, she is exhausted. Perhaps, she just wants to be fooled and humiliated this time.

“The dam project we completed?” He spoke, suddenly, rubbing her arm. “I wanted to name it after you, but not quite literally, ‘cause it would be too weird. And then I didn't know how you’d react so, I panicked and named it after me.”

Lucette chuckled into his chest. It was the most Klaude thing he could do, to name a dam after himself, but he was the king, after all, and everyone indulged his comic narcissism. Including herself.

A few minutes passed in comfortable silence, her body slowly moulding against his, the steady rhythm of his heart lulling her into a sleepy state like the melody of a siren drawing her to the waters. 

Klaude’s fingers slowly came to halt, his breathing steady and even and before she knew he was completely asleep, he whispered into the night, “I love you, my beautiful wife.”

Tears sprang free from her eyes, seeping into his uniform. She held onto him, tightly as if it would prevent him from forgetting the words that seductively echoed in her ears. She hated it but she also loved it. 

Lucette is not going to leave him hanging so she whispered into his ears, just for him to hear, “I love you, too.”

*_*_*_*_*

It was a hazy mess when Lucette had woken up the next day, safe in the arms of her husband who she had cried against the night before.

The blanket was messily weaved around the both of her after she somehow managed to sleep properly without her legs hanging over the edge. 

"You are tickling me." Klaude mumbled, his voice hoarse as he groaned, burying his head further into her hair and pulling her tight against his chest. "And my head feels like it's about split into two. And the entire room stinks."

"Not the entire room. It is just you, Your Majesty." She whispered, untangling herself from the blanket that she had just realised was the bedsheet.

Before she could stand up, though, her husband pulled her back to his side, consciously wrapping his arms around her waist. 

“You know, most people think that one does not remember the nonsense they spoke when they were drunk.” He said, pulling away to rest his cheek against his palm, the dreamy smile from the night before returned to his lips, dancing with a hint of smirk. “But one cannot forget love confessions, darling.”

“Shut up.” Lucette looked away trying to mask her panic.

Did he hear what she said? Did he feel her tears? What did it do to him? And above all, is this just another elaborate plan of his? Some selfish high that he is chasing?

As if he could hear her thoughts, he said, “I have no idea what nonsense I spoke the last night, but what I said was a complete truth.”

“Did you hit your head or something?” She looked back at him with utter disbelief. 

“No, I am quite alright, but it does feel like I have an entire palace inhabited by elephants on top of my head.” He nodded, pointing to the side of his forehead. 

She narrows her eyes at him. “That is oddly specific, Your Majesty.”

He half-smirks, his eyes rather droopy. “I swear on my great grandmother’s diamond ring that I did not do anything untoward or immoral.”

Lucette sighs in response. “That is even more specific and now I am worried about how you feel.”

“You worry about me, my love?” Klaude pressed a kiss to her cheek, staring at her like he always did at parties hosted by noblemen and processions held for the public’s view.

“I actually felt bad for you when I first saw you.” He twirled a strand of her hair between his fingers. “You looked so sad and so out of place, and I knew that you were trying to escape your father’s realm. And then you were absolutely magical as a queen! I was always proud of you when you were with me at the council and bashed that ambassador for his ridiculous policies.” 

The woman stared at him. She wanted to decipher what was going on, but the moment soothed her aching heart and patched up her scars so she stayed silent, not wanting to wrench the knives any further. 

“I love you, and I am so sorry I did not truly tell you this for all these months we have been married.” He sighed. “I was planning to make huge confession letters and such but my drunk self seems to not like the idea.”

Lucette let out a breath of relief, pulling him close to make sure this is not all her mind playing cruel tricks. That, from this day on, she could make herself a place to love and be loved.

Klaude seemed to understand it, for he held her tighter and whispered, “I am right here.”

Chuckling into his neck, she said, “I loved your drunk self.”

“Trust me, you are going to see more of him.” She glared at him, which prompted him to defend himself. “Without the brandy, of course.”

“So, are you going to get up and do something productive?” The queen asked, pulling away with a sure smirk dancing on her face. 

“No, certainly not.” Klaude pinched her nose. “I am going to spend the day here, with my beautiful wife.”

He, then, pressed his lips against hers in a passionate kiss. 

Lucette felt hope for once in a very long time, because she knew that her husband would try to soothe her painful past. She knows he can be a good man, even if she is rather vexed with his behaviour every once in a while.

She would be alright. She would have Klaude to break her fall because she held onto his words, his confession. She would trust him. In time, everything will be alright.

*_*_*_*_*

Cinderella Phenomenon Masterlist

#cinderella phenomenon #Klaude Almonte

[m0tel6mxzzy]

a rant on monet de haan and “but og gossip girl was old money”

not to bitch abt racist og gossip girl fans but im gonna bitch abt them. i REMEMBER yalls tone when the show first got promo before it even aired, and weren’t even willing to give it a chance, u just made assumptions bc the entire cast wasnt white. 

 ppl, specifically og gg tiktok fans, were saying the old show “gives old money” and the new show doesnt, conveniently forgetting chuck’s dad wasn’t born into wealth but became wealthy when chuck was young, making him new money. his dad is worth 22 billion dollars. 

monet’s parents are heirs to a new york pharmaceutical company and on her wiki its listed that her family descends from old money. johnson and johnson is one of the biggest and has a net worth 435 billion as the wealthiest pharma company in the us. bc im lazy and dont feel like counting means and stats for the top 10 pharma companies in the us relative to ny, im assuming the de haan company has a networth of 100-400+ billion. whatever her family’s networth is i will happily believe it is more than chuck bass.

and monet’s parent’s donation of the wing had to occur sometime after everyone in the og show including jenny’s grade had graduated constance bc it wasnt yet canon, but just before monet had gone there. if we’re talking as soon as jenny’s grade had graduated, thats between june 2010-aug 2018, and monet would be 5 to 13. i’m going to average that the time the wing was planned to be built was 2014 when she’d by 9 bc i love the idea of little monet dreaming of going to constance with absolute certainty, and bc 2014 is a prettier number. my theory is that greyson and camille were planning to have monet go to CB St Judes ever since she was a child, hence the early donation.

anyway her parents literally paid for wing in constance and it has their names on it w the money from an old new york pharma company they own. and yall are like,,, dying on the hill she, bc she’s part of the reboot, wasnt born into wealth??? and even if she wasnt i know yall didnt just forget the og gg had poc on the show who were also old money or otherwise so loaded rich they could afford constance, but usually they were background characters like the minions, nelly yuki, and raina. the minions who literally only served to do blair’s bidding, and nelly yuki who was opposed bc blair saw her as an academic rival and was willing to sabotage her.

 and then raina thorpe whos one of the only black girls in the show w a prominence in the og series, but idk. she’s moreso there bc she was w/ nate and chuck, but also her dad is basically a “villain” in the show and raina gets the short end of the stick and has to suffer for it, which is when she leaves the show. im just saying ofc someone the same race as monet or luna or aki would be happy to see themselves represented on screen and not as a background character or recurring character there only a short amnt of time if they loved the og gg. 

and if you personally aren’t? cool thats ok but let ppl who are be happy. you dont need to mount some moral high horse pretending u care abt poc to defend why u hate us being represented in media. yall complain whenever poc are shown in media even when it isnt a reboot but rather an extension of the franchise such as star wars, so i find it hard to believe ur crapping on new reboots in media for having poc bc u actually care abt us being properly represented. 

like, factually racism is the only thing convincing yall the old gg is “old money” and the new one isnt. also we need to have a talk abt what yall constitute as old money, bc hf twitter stayed hating on alexa demie for her early 00s fashion for being “cheap” as if paris hilton also wasn’t dressing kinda like alexa currently does in the early 00s while also happening to be an heiress to a hotel brand. and as if hf twt doesn’t constantly worship the air bella hadid breathes for wearing low rise jeans and baby tees which is just as much y2k inspired as what alexa wears. 

like,, yall think all rich people, w/in ur very narrow view of what rich old money ppl look like, only ever dress in ralph lauren polos,,,and it’s not even like yall read the gg books to know the og characters wear burberry and ralph lauren which any tiktok old money “connoisseur” would hate for being “flashy,’ but because its in the list of their weird arbitrary rules of crap all old money rich ppl apparently do. if the reboot characters wore burberry scarves and ralph lauren polos w giant logos on the front yall would complain they arent following ur made up rich ppl rules u think applies to everyone who’s an heir to fortune. 

yall just forget abt raina and hated gg2021 before it even aired all bc it starred poc, and bc its weird seeing a rich it girl in a position of power who doesnt look like blair or serena. for the de haans to have the money to donate a wing to the school and pay monet’s tuition on top of that and live in the excess monet does simultaneously kinda shows like,,how fucking rich monet is. therefore the attitudes of the students make a lot of sense. and if blair was treating a teacher the way monet does bc she had a wing dedicated to her parents, yall would eat that shit up whether blair was old money or not!!!

listen im a huge gg fan but i also pay attention!!! i am not letting monet de haan slander slide!!!! im all for her being as entitled due to her wealth and carefree as blair was!!! bc blair did some f’ed up shit yet monet being snide w a teacher gets yalls feathers ruffled...and we all know why yall wouldnt have the same reaction if it were audrey doing the same but thats none of my business 

#gossip girl #ggrb #monet de haan #gossip girl 2021 #gg 2021 #and if i got the math wrong on when the de haan wing was first planned idc the exact numbers and calculations arent the focus #anyway i spent an hour trying to properly articulate this