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fictionadventurer · 9 months

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I have to talk about Chester Arthur. His story makes me go crazy. A mediocre president from the 1880s who's completely forgotten today has one of the best redemption stories I've ever heard and I need to make people understand just how cool his story is.

So, like, he starts out as this idealist, okay? He's the son of an abolitionist minister and becomes famous as a New York lawyer who defends the North's version of Rosa Parks whose story desegregates New York City's trolley system.

Then he starts getting pulled into politics and becomes one of the grimiest pieces of the political machine. He wants money, power, prestige, and he gets it. He becomes the right-hand man of Roscoe Conkling, the most feared political boss in the nation, a guy who will throw his weight around and do the most ruthless things imaginable to keep his friends in power and destroy his enemies.

Because Arthur's this guy's top lackey, he gets to be Controller of the Port of New York--the best-paying political appointment in the country, because that port brings in, like, 70% of the federal government's funds in tariffs. He gets a huge salary plus a percentage of all the fines they levy on lawbreakers, and because he's not afraid to make up infractions to fine people over, he is absolutely raking in the dough. Making the rough equivalent of $1.3 million a year--absolutely insane amounts of money for a government position. He's spending ridiculous sums on clothes, buying huge amounts of alcohol and cigars to share with people as part of his job recruiting supporters to the party, going out nearly every night to wine and dine people as part of his work in the political machine. He's living the high life. Even when President Hayes pulls him from his position on suspicions of fraud, he's still living a great life of wealth, power, and prestige.

Then in 1880, his beloved wife dies. While he's out of town working for a political campaign. And he can't get back in time to say goodbye before she dies. Because he's a guy who has big emotions, it absolutely tears him up inside, especially because Nell resented how much his political work kept him away from home. He has huge regrets, but he just moves in with Roscoe Conkling and keeps working for the political machine.

And then he gets a chance to be vice president. The Republican Party has nominated James Garfield, a dark horse candidate who wants to reform the spoils system that has given Conking his power and gave Arthur his position as Port Controller. Conkling is pissed, and he controls New York, and since the party's not going to win the election without New York, they think that appointing Conkling's top lackey as vice-president will pacify him.

They're wrong--Conkling orders Arthur to refuse--but Arthur thinks this sounds like a great opportunity. The only political position he's ever held is Port Controller--a job he wasn't elected to and that he was pulled from in disgrace. Vice President is way more than he could ever have hoped for. It's a position with a lot of political pull and zero actual responsibilities. He'll get to spend four years living in up in Washington high society. It's the perfect job! Of course he accepts, and Conkling comes around when he figures out that he can use this to his advantage.

When Garfield becomes president, Arthur does everything he can to undermine him. He uses every dirty political trick he can think of to block everything that Garfield wants to do. He refuses to let the Senate elect a president pro tempore so he can stay there and influence every bill that comes through. He all but openly boasts of buying votes in the election. He's so much Conkling's lackey that he may as well be the henchman of a cartoon supervillain. On Conkling's orders, he drags one of Garfield's Cabinet members out of bed in the middle of the night--while the guy is ill--to drag him to Conkling's house so he can be forced to resign. He's just absolutely a thorn in the president's side, a henchman doing everything he can to maintain the corrupt spoils system.

Then in July 1881, when Arthur's in New York helping Conkling's campaign, the president gets shot. By a guy who shouts, "Now Arthur will be president!" just after he fires the gun. Arthur has just spent the past four months fighting the president tooth and nail. Everyone thinks he's behind the assassination. There are lynch mobs looking to take out him and Conkling. The papers are tearing him apart.

Arthur is absolutely distraught. He rushes to Washington to speak with the president and assure him of his innocence, but the doctors won't let him in the room. He gets choked up when talking to the First Lady. Reporters find him weeping in his house in Washington. Once again, death has torn his world apart and he's not getting a chance to make amends.

Arthur goes to New York while the president is getting medical treatment, and he refuses to come to Washington and take charge because he doesn't dare to give the impression that he's looking to take over. No one wants Arthur to be president and he doesn't want to be president, and the possibility that this corrupt political lackey is about to ascend to the highest office in the land is absolutely terrifying to everyone.

Then in August, when it's becoming clear that the president is unlikely to recover, he gets a letter. From a 31-year-old invalid from New York named Julia Sand. A woman from a very politically-minded family who has been following Arthur's career for years. And she writes him this astounding letter that takes him to task for his corrupt, conniving ways, and the obsession with worldly power and prestige that has brought him wealth and fame at the cost of his own soul--and she tells him that he can do better. In the midst of a nationwide press that's tearing him apart, this one woman writes to tell him that she believes he has the capacity to be a good president and a good man if he changes his ways.

And then he does. After Garfield dies, people come to Arthur's house and find servants who tell them that Arthur is in his room weeping like a child (I told you he had big emotions), but he takes the oath of office and ascends to the presidency. And he becomes a completely different man. His first speech as president mentions that one of his top priorities is reforming the spoils system so that people will be appointed based on merit rather than getting appointed as political favors with each change in the administration. Even though this system made him president. When Conkling comes to Arthur's office telling him to appoint his people to important government positions, Arthur calls his demands outrageous, throws him out, and keeps Garfield's appointees in the positions. "He's not Chet Arthur anymore," one of his former political friends laments. "He's the president."

He loses all his former political friends. He's never trusted by the other side. Yet he sticks to his guns and continues to support spoils system reform. He prosecutes a postal service corruption case that everyone thought he would drop. He's the one who signs into law the first civil service reform bill, even though presidents have been trying to do this for more than ten years, and he's the person who's gained all his power through the spoils system. He immediately takes action to enforce this bill when he could have just dropped it. He becomes a champion of this issue even though it's the last thing anyone would have expected of him.

He oversees naval reform. He oversees a renovation of the White House. He still prefers the social duties of the presidency, but he's respectable in a way that no one expected. Possibly because Julia Sand keeps sending him letters of encouragement and advice over the next two years. But also because he's dying.

Not long after ascending to the presidency, he learns he's suffering from a terminal kidney disease. And he tells no one. He keeps going about his daily life, fulfilling his duties as president, and keeps his health problems hidden. Once again, death is upending his life, and this time it's his own death. He's lived a life he's ashamed of, and he doesn't have much time left to change. He enters the presidency as an example of the absolute worst of the political system, and leaves it as a respectable man.

He makes a token effort to seek re-election, but because of his health problems, he doesn't mind at all when someone else gets the nomination. He dies a couple of years after leaving office. The day before his death, he orders most of his papers burned, because he's ashamed of his old life--but among the things that are saved are the letters from Julia Sand, the woman who encouraged him to change his ways.

This is an astounding story full of so many twists and turns and dramatic moments. A man who falls from idealism into the worst kind of corruption and then claws his way back up to decency because of a series of devastating personal losses and unexpected opportunities to do more than he could have ever hoped to do. I just go crazy thinking about it and I need you all to understand just how amazing this story is.

#history is awesome #presidential talk #i thought about his story again this morning #and was once again struck by the desire to chase people down and make them understand just how amazing this story is #and instead of harassing random strangers i decided to inflict it on tumblr again #my original essay was rather too long and dry and tangled up in too many other details #and didn't quite capture the 'i want to chase you down and look you in the eye and make you freak out about this with me' vibe of this stor #this still doesn't quite capture it but at least it's shorter #and prevents me from rambling to unsuspecting family members #sorry for inflicting this on you again but what else am i supposed to do?

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phoenixcatch7 · 7 months

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Dp x dc twin au where Danny and Damian were in fact conjoined/siamese twins, but the most dangerous type - one head, two bodies.

Their early removal from talia being because their shape would not have allowed for natural birth, they were written off but talia begged for the chance to send them off in the lazarus pit.

By some bizarre miracle, before she turned to leave, two small bodies bobbed to the surface - identical in every way, except for the eyes. The previous blue eyes now split in two, one left, one right, and the new eyes, pit created, a bright green.

She took her child, her two children, and together, they survived.

Being removed prematurely, their early years were tough, but soon they blossomed into promising heirs for the league. In sync with every step, the closest of brothers, the league was certain the old fairy tale of twins being telepathic had been granted by the pit that separated them, the remnants of being born as one mind, one brain, one skull.

But then Danny had to flee, and leave his other half behind. Stretched by distance for the first time, the bond grew thin and stretched, and Damian grieved his brother as dead. When he started being sent on public missions, he hid his distinctive heterochromia, choosing the green in memory of the pit that had given him and his brother life.

Danny, hiding his pit aura in the ocean's worth that was Amity park, took to blue, the colour that he and Damian were born with.

Damian moves to Gotham, and continues to mourn his brother as dead, right until one day when he is twelve, when he learns what the death of your other half truly feels like.

Their reunion is a thing of family legend. Violence runs hot in both bloodlines, ghosts are highly emotional and prone to fighting a the drop of a hat for bonding, playing, testing, every reason under the green sun. Their training and play often consisted of friendly spars, competitive spars, furious spars, venting spars. Both have been exposed to unhealthy amounts of ecto since before their birth.

There is a long, long minute of staring, before they rip themselves away and lunge at each other like wolves.

The bat family are horrified by their brutally efficient youngest suddenly barreling towards a clone (?) and trying to claw his throat open with his bare hands while openly sobbing.

It ends with them wrapped around each other crying into the others shoulder as their minds finally meet again and relax from the painful stretch for the first time in years.

But nobody else has any idea what to do.

#Idk I just really like slightly codependent twins #Talia and ras had to put so much work in to prevent them from developing separation anxiety like dogs from the same litter #Also I like Damian thinking Danny is dead until he very abruptly finds out he is now via soul mate agony. Someone did a fic with that idea #It was really good. Let's dial it up to eleven #Danny and Damian having different eye colour and it being the fault of Damian's extra exposure to the pit is awesome too #But I wanted to see if there was a way they could both have the same eyes. Well. Close enough.#Same eyes + twin telepathy + the birth complications people like to give Danny = siamese twins #Also the portal accident happens two years early so there's that #I can't decide whether I want the first meeting to be alive Danny or dead Phantom #Or whether it be a summoning or something #I just need Damian and Danny to lay eyes on each other and immediately go feral #They still don't want to share a room though #dc x dp #dp x dc #dpxdc #dcxdp #danny and damian are twins #twins #twin au #dp x dc crossover #dp x dc prompt #dc x dp prompt #dc x dp crossover #It's not like telepathy it's more if one twin has seen it so has the other #It's not conscious on their part. They don't choose to share things usually. It's been that way since they were born.#That's what they think twins are for the longest time until talia realises and explains #Ras genuinely thinks Danny died because of how devastated Damian was and how he stopped knowing things he shouldn't #1k

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jattendschaton · 27 days

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Émilie Agreste purposefully giving Adrien an allergy to feathers to make sure her son would never be able to use the peacock miraculous in the future

#miraculous ladybug #emilie agreste #adrien agreste #I'm never quite sure what I think about emilie as a parent #but clearly she was aware of gabriel's obsessive tendencies #and maybe she didnt want him to be able to force adrien #(his son who he can literally control to do anything)#to wield the peacock miraculous #hard to do much miraculous-ing when you're sneezing every two seconds !#she trusted her husband so little she had to magically prevent him from using his son (in this specific way)#((obviously gabriel has lots of other ways of controlling his son))#(((but this one particular way—the way that emilie is most familiar with and the way that was ultimately going to kill her—#he cant have that way. she will protect adrien at least from this. at least from what killed her)))#that or it was just for the bit #who knows

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zokinus · 5 months

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Oscar gestured a sleeping motion to give Lando a hint about his answer to the hidden talent question.

sigh i‘m sorry but this is the cutest thing ever

#i like the riding theory #but this is so cute i just had to point it out #he wanted both of them to get it right #or prevent lando from saying something he shouldn‘t be saying #either way this is ADORABLE #landoscar #twinklaren #mctwinks

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crengarrion · 4 months

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edit: please read my additions at the bottom before reblogging this post. please do not reblog this post without also reblogging the others i've linked!

if you saw my reblog(s) of ahmed's donation posts in which he includes his crypto wallets (and my links to those posts), anyone else's posts explaining how to donate to him using those wallets, or any aid post that mentions his ability to accept cryptocurrency and decided to villianise him and accuse him of being hamas for it... you are repulsive. you are not welcome here.

people are dying. paypal and ko-fi take percentages. paypal has a monthly withdrawal limit. i'm the first to admit i know nothing about cryptocurrencies, but ahmed has said it goes directly to him without a service taking a cut. i assume there are fewer or no withdrawal limits. it is harder to track and less regulated, which, in this case, provides an additional layer of security for people being precision targeted. get over it.

anyway. donate to ahmed's ko-fi. donate to ahmed's paypal. follow ahmed @90-ghost for updates on how to help him, and check his ko-fi and tumblr posts for updates. send him a nice ask. reblog his posts depicting he and his family's life in gaza. read tumblr user neaeach (naoual sahe)'s interview with ahmed. bring hope. listen to palestinians, don't speak over them.

ahmed's reblog of his interview, with a link to it:

direct link to the interview:

edit: i don't need reblogs, but palestinians, muslims, arabs, and other people suffering directly due to zionism and islamophobia do! please reblog their posts!! @el-shab-hussein has also made a post about these accusations against ahmed, which @fairuzfan added onto. and please reblog this post with ahmed's latest ko-fi update and all the ways you can DIRECTLY donate to him! thank you

#[ whispers ]#i swear. people will do anything to derail. people need victims to fit into their perfect little box or else they deserve to suffer.#sickness. repulsive. help or get out.#ahmed is a man. a human being. his family are human. people. they want to live. they deserve to live.#how dire does it have to get for people to just. help. or at least stop trying to prevent help.#reiterating in tags: Please. please reblog ahmed's posts! please reblog palestinians' posts! elevate them directly! their voices and their #words are valuable and must be amplified. i'm just a native guy in new york. i'm just angry and scared and fighting. that is all i am.

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