#1950’s politics

[redreadretale]

Times do change, history does not, our interpretation of it does. But lets look to the future we are building, even small changes in direction change the destination……

Want this book or the 2 others I have? Interest peaked? They are for sale on Amazon & soon in my Red Read Retale Posh Listings.

[mossadegh]

• Canadian media on Iran (1950’s)

[iwanttogointospace]

Gidney and Cloyd are fictional characters originally appearing in the American animated television program Rocky and His Friends. They were so funny, I never get tired of watching them.

Gidney and Cloyd are "Moon Men", inhabitants of Earth's Moon. Both Gidney and Cloyd possess the ability to disappear and reappear at will; they can disappear completely, but at times their eyes, and/or Cloyd's mouth, may remain visible (in the manner of the Cheshire cat's smile). The Moon Men appeared in Jet Fuel Formula, the first Rocky and Bullwinkle story arc, broadcast 1959-60. In this story they come to Earth in an attempt to thwart a rush of tourists to the Moon, only to become media celebrities themselves. They initially succumb to the temptations of fame but soon tire of it. (In Cloyd's words, "It's all so wonderful we can't STAND it anymore!") With the help of Rocky and Bullwinkle, they are eventually able to get home. Gidney and Cloyd return in the second-season story arc, Metal-Munching Mice, and in the third season Missouri Mish Mash.

One of the interesting things that these characters had with them to protect themselves was a gun called a Scrooch gun. When fired it would make the bad guy freeze until he was shot again with it to unfreeze him.

[misforgotten2]

She has the string on the wrong finger.

McCall's - April 1952

[thedreadpoetroberts]

"Mom, we're currently in the worst depression this country has ever seen."

"It's not as bad as the 1930's, things just seem worse because there are more people."

"Mom I've been thinking about coming home for a little while. Try to get my financial stuff figured out."

"No not allowed 🤪"

(My sister and cousin had to spell out that I was in crisis for her. Maybe if your child that never ever asks for help implies they need help it's important. But I didn't ask directly so that's my fault.)

"Mom companies across the board are price gouging."

"Well what did you expect when people refused to work for fast food places for less than $12 an hour, they have to make that up somehow."

"Mom my pet can't have that much food or he'll gain too much weight."

"I'm grandma I'm supposed to give him treats."

"Mom the political party you are voting for are trying to erase me, my friends, and everyone else who is trans. (Referencing the 2600 pages of hate.) And a lot of what is going on with Republicans right now is mirroring fascism in a really terrifying way."

(Haven't actually brought this one up. There is no point in trying.)

"Mom I found out I actually can't have much gluten and this has been affecting my physical health for a long time. I want to try to cut back as much as I can"

"Oh I have issues with that too. I just eat the things I like anyway."

"Okay but there are options-"

"I don't want to."

(We switched to an almost meatless diet for my step dads health last year.)

In horror stories parents will ignore their children until things go so incredibly wrong they can't anymore, and then ask their children why they didn't say anything. By the way.

This is all coming from the same person who said she would always believe us if we told her there were monsters in the closet.

Well mom. I'm dealing with a lot of monsters. And you don't believe any of them are real.

[tofumarinado]

it's so funny to me when i see pearl-clutching articles about how "teenagers are diagnosing themselves with mental disorders via tiktok" because like. this is not happening in a vacuum. teenagers are severely and i mean severely medically neglected. i cannot stress this enough. teenagers do not have free access to medical care. those same news outlets would be clowning on women with housewife psychosis in the 1950's.

i sometimes go pale when listening to some of what my friends have gone through in their childhoods and teenagehoods. they talk about it so nonchalantly, things that would be considered straight up torture if done to an adult, can't fathom the effect this has on children. they are on multiple anti-psychotics and several antidepressants and anxiety meds now that they are adults. medical neglect has legally and effectively disabled them. a timely diagnosis and intervention could have saved them.

of course teenagers are self-diagnosing using tiktok. if your knee-jerk reaction is to scoff at the idea and dismiss it as dumb teenager shit instead of being radicalized because the best shot young people have at attaining the mental health support they need is a fucking dancing videos app, you're categorically a political enemy of the youth.

[pastdaily]

Eisenhower - Republican Convention - 1952 - Past Daily After Hours Reference Room

Become a Patron! https://pastdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/eisenhower-acceptance-speech-1952.mp3 As Convention season gets closer (and one can only guess what 2024 will be like), here is a sampler from another Republican Convention – seventy-two years ago – July 20,1952. General Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers the acceptance speech for his party’s nomination on July 20, 1952. Eisenhower had…

[renthony]

Hope in the Hellfire: Revisiting Fahrenheit 451 in 2024

by Ren Basel renbasel.com

When I first read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, I wasn’t much younger than seventeen-year-old Clarisse McClellan, one of the novel’s major characters. In many ways I was like her: disgruntled with classmates who found me off-putting, eager to talk to adults who would entertain my unusual questions, and constantly off exploring the woods. I was a bookish loner who struggled socially. I proudly read banned books, and carried around my mom’s paperback copy of Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land—a book formally banned from inclusion in my high school’s library or curriculum—as a passive challenge for adults to try and confiscate it. None ever tried, but I sure was prepared to raise hell.

Revisiting Fahrenheit 451 in 2024 is a strange experience, not just because of the book’s political commentary. In 2024 I am 30 years old—the same age as Guy Montag, the protagonist. It is easy to put myself in his shoes now, the way I once put myself in Clarisse’s.

Montag is a fireman in a world where every house is fireproof. Instead of extinguishing fires, Bradbury’s firemen collect and burn books. Without books, the population is ignorant and complacent, kept busy with mindless screen entertainment.

Like Montag, I live in a world where books are targeted by a hostile government. In 2024 I live in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis makes regular headlines for his crusades against public education, libraries, and books. Many an op-ed has been written about the relevance of Fahrenheit 451 in our times, and it almost feels cliché as an anti-censorship advocate to list it as one of my favorites.

Cliché or not, I can’t help it. Fahrenheit 451 is a warning against censorship, yes; it is a pointed exploration of 1950s American social anxieties, yes; it is a well-written piece of fiction containing rich descriptions of exciting events, yes; but more than that? Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorite novels because it leaves me feeling hopeful in the midst of social upheaval.

After stealing and reading forbidden books, Montag’s life spirals out of control. His wife sells him out to the authorities, he kills a former colleague in self-defense, he is pursued in a televised government manhunt, and before the story ends he watches bombs reduce his former home to rubble. Montag survives, but he doesn’t fix the world. He is not the victorious hero of a glorious rebellion. Many, many books get burned, and people die. Yet still, there is hope, because Montag finds community. He finds a way to help preserve the books’ contents so they can be passed down to later generations.

In 2024, Fahrenheit 451’s message is important not only because it warns against censorship, but because it reminds us that even if the road ahead is difficult, even if things get worse before they can get better, even if some stories are lost, there are still countless unnamed, unnoticed people fighting to preserve and share knowledge.

The best part is that any of us can join them.

_

Written on commission, using the prompt, “500 words about your favorite pre-1960s Sci-Fi.”

Lovingly dedicated to the Queer Liberation Library (on tumblr as @queerliblib!) for their ongoing mission to make queer eBooks accessible. Check them out at queerliberationlibrary.org!

Like this essay? Tip me on Ko-Fi, pledge to my Patreon, or commission an essay on the topic of your choice!

[synthwayve]

Obsessed with this. HELP. The little devil horns please 😭

Random Micolaurence 1950s AU where they run rival laboratories after a bitter intellectual divorce. Laurence wants to use eldritch blood to evolve pharmaceutics while Micolash's latest obsession is to plant real eyes on robots. They work with the same poster designer just to spite each other.

(Alternate versions below)

[kaijuposting]

Update: It turns out that this isn't quite true, so if you see this, please check out the correction over here, thanks!

So apparently, "show don't tell" was pushed as Really Good Writing Advice in the 1950's because it kept writers from discussing political ideas that challenged the status quo.

Which like... obviously, "show, don't tell" can be useful sometimes, like if you're describing a terrifying monster! But pushing it as The Only Way To Write would definitely have a chilling effect on stories centering concepts and experiences unfamiliar to readers.

I find it both fascinating and a little disturbing how effectively censorship can be accomplished through simply convincing people that certain forms of expression are gauche.

[birdofwildness]

☾An intoxicating conversation

Warnings::Dark!Tom Riddle, possessiveness,1950's,lack of feminism,religious symbolism,alcohol

☾Tom Riddle

Summary::you're drunk,sad. You call Tom.

The pianist lazily tapped the keys, someone laughed at the bar, and cigarette smoke swirled like a faint veil beneath the ceiling fan.

I rested my fingers on the rim of a cocktail glass and watched the man sitting across me. He wasn’t particularly interesting—perhaps a little too aware of his own good looks—but still, there was something about him that made me toy with the idea of walking over.

Then i remembered that sentence. "A lady does not initiate conversation with a man."

Of course. A lady does not initiate. A lady observes, waits, hopes that someone notices her, speaks to her, chooses her. A lady stands in the background, beautifully illuminated, as if she were nothing more than a painting on the wall, a carefully arranged composition. She simply exists, artfully positioned, in the right lighting, like a Monet painting. A scene painted with broad strokes that looks perfect from afar—but step closer, and you’ll see the blurred colors, the chaotic disorder behind the illusion of harmony.

My lips trembled slightly—it wasn’t a smile, more of a fleeting reaction hovering at the edge of a thought. How simple was the world imagined by those who had created this rule. A world where a woman was merely the waiting counterpart to the acting man—a prop, a backdrop, a decorative piece.

A faint lipstick stain remained on the glass rim, a trace of my presence, my touch—yet how easily it could disappear with a single swipe.

The man turned away. I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the pulse of the music run through my skin.

Maybe tonight, I didn’t want to be a painting. Maybe tonight, I would be the one to pick up the brush.

It wasn’t this man that interested me. It was never men like him. There had always been someone else.

Someone beside whom I never had to wait for the right moment. Who never forced me into silence, into polite smiles, into letting myself be chosen. A boy who let me ask, initiate, exist in whatever way I wanted.

Tom Riddle.

The name lingered inside of me like an old melody, forgotten until a single note was enough to bring it back. We hadn’t seen each other in years—perhaps not since we could even call eachother friends anymore. But for a long time, we had been. The best of friends.

But friendship doesn’t protect you from everything. Not from the words spoken. Not from the ones left unsaid.

I straightened my posture, shaking off the memories with the movement. A shadow in the smoke, a feeling from the past that no longer needed to be taken seriously—that was all Tom Riddle was to me now.

My gaze caught on the bar counter, my eyes lingering for a moment on the fingerprints left on the glass rim. The music softened, the smoke thickened, and everything seemed distant… yet there it was, a memory stirring in my mind, pulling me back.

The plans we had dreamed up together, sitting on the benches of Hogwarts. The man I had once called my friend, the one who lived not by rules but by the pursuit of freedom and knowledge, was now…

I have heard from an acquaintance that Riddle, instead of bringing prestige to Hogwarts, had ended up working at Borgin & Burkes. A small, tucked-away shop of dark magic, where the most dangerous spells and forbidden artifacts lay hidden. He was now employed at the very store everyone tried to avoid.

So much for the ambitions of youth.

I raised the glass to my lips again, but this time, I no longer felt the familiar cool refreshment.

My friends were sinking into deeper conversation. As the hours passed, the soft melodies of the piano nearly vanished beneath the noise of the nightclub. The women spoke more and more of husbands, marriages, and their disappointments.

"Why did I ever think that marriage would make everything right?" began Augusta Longbottom, who had always considered herself an idealist, but now sadness reflected in her eyes. "My husband works all day, and when he finally comes home, it's as if I don't even exist. Nothing has changed since the initial magic, but..."

"Exactly! Every little thing we once loved about each other fades over time," said Cedrella Weasley, glancing at the group with a smile that seemed warm but tired. "My husband always used to say he needed nothing but me, but now… now there’s nothing between us. Nothing that breathes life into our relationship."

A hint of bitterness shimmered between the words. I said nothing—I had nothing to say. Simply because I was single. Instead,I started searching for patterns. The women around me shared a slow but certain pain, each speaking about their disappointment in their husbands.

"Why is it always men who decide what matters most?" Augusta continued. "They think we’ll do anything for marriage, but they don’t understand that we also want something—something they don’t give us. It’s all a performance, a game we can never win."

"Well, since we’re talking about men," Cedrella said with a teasing smile, "tell me, who was the first man who truly made your heart race?"

The question stirred a slight tension in the conversation, each woman trying to hide a forgotten piece of her past.

"Oh, my first?" Augusta let out a small, nostalgic laugh. "He was a real charmer, you know—the kind who always won everything. But then I realized I was just part of the game. And, of course, it ended."

Weasley quietly revealed a secret. "Mine... was a professor. But I never told him. I remember he was always there, somewhere in the distance, but I could never reach him."

The group laughed, but in each of their eyes lingered a past not easily forgotten. The laughter slowly faded, and I drifted back into my thoughts.

My first love wasn’t a professor, nor a famous figure. It was Tom Riddle.

"So, he was my first. With him, everything was completely different," I admitted, no longer caring what my friends might think. A faint blush rose to my cheeks, but the words spilled out before I could stop them.

Cedrella, just catching on to the direction of the conversation, shot me a curious look. "Oh, so his name is just ‘he’? Well, that’s very creative. And what happened to him?" she teased.

I hesitated for a moment, a single tear glinting in my eye before I lowered my gaze. "He was always just... there. I haven’t seen him since Hogwarts, but he never expected me to be perfect. We simply… talked."

The room fell silent for a moment, the women exchanging glances as I sank deeper into my thoughts.

"And where is he now?" Augusta asked, a touch of curiosity in her voice.

"He lives in a completely different world now," I replied bitterly.

Cedrella shrugged, attempting to lighten the mood. "Well, this Mr. ‘He’ sounds like a fascinating young man."

I laughed.

I had thought about Tom too much tonight. I had thought about him too much over the years.

And I was too drunk.

If I hadn't admitted it to myself before,I knew it now: he wasn’t just a memory.

Without a word, I stood up, adjusted my dress, and walked toward the bar with steady steps.

A young witch working behind the counter—perhaps an apprentice—was wiping a glass when I spoke up.

"Excuse me, could you tell me where I can find the telephones?"

The woman behind the bar looked at me with slight surprise, then nodded. "Down the back hallway, to the right. There are a few booths for guests."

I nodded in thanks and pushed through the crowd. The smoky air, the laughter, the clinking of glasses all faded into the background as she stepped into the dimly lit hallway. Along the wall stood a row of red telephone booths, their polished brass handles gleaming under the low light.

None of them were occupied. Fate wanted me to do this.

I stepped into one, closed the door behind me, and stared at the telephone for a moment. It was cold under my touch, the weight of the black receiver resting familiarly in my hand. As familiar as a telephone could be to a woman in the 1950s.

I knew the number. It was nothing more than an old memory, something I had last heard years ago. But some things one never forgets.

Slowly, deliberately, I began to dial.

A click. The line came to life. A faint hum sounded in the distance.

One ring.Another.

My fingers tightened around the receiver, my heart pounding harder than it should.

Then—a soft click. Someone had answered.

"Tom?" I asked, suddenly unsure.

"Y/N? Is that you?"

I recognized his voice. Time had done nothing to dull that cool, measured tone that had always been his. But there was something else there now—perhaps a hint of curiosity.

I smiled into the receiver, but when I spoke, even I was surprised by how drunken my voice sounded.

"Hiiiii Toooom."

"Are you all right?" he asked. His voice was as calm as ever, but somehow, it still carried a trace of concern.

I tried to laugh, but it came out as a rough little sigh. My head buzzed from the alcohol, my thoughts were tangled, but somehow, right now, none of it mattered.

Only that Tom Riddle was on the other end of the line.

"Of course. I'm fine."

I paused for a moment before adding, "I just... wanted to call you."

He said nothing.

And suddenly,I felt foolish. I shouldn't have done this. It was stupid.

But the words had already slipped out before I could stop them.

"Do you… um… remember me?"

On the other end of the line, Riddle was silent for a moment. The kind of silence that was typical of him. Not empty, not uncertain—just his mind working, analyzing the situation with precise, deliberate calculation.

Then, finally, he spoke.

"Y/N."

There was no question in his voice. No hesitation. Just my name, spoken in that same old, familiar tone.

I closed my eyes. It was strange how, after all these years, my name still sounded like that on his lips. Not cold, not warm—just… the way he had always said it.

"Of course I remember you."

I let out a quiet laugh. I hadn’t even realized I was expecting something else. Maybe polite indifference, a dismissive "Y/N? No, doesn’t ring a bell." Or perhaps for him to simply hang up. But no. He wasn’t like that. He never forgot anything.

"Good… because… because I remember you too."

Tom was silent again, and somewhere in the background, I heard a faint noise. Something shifting—perhaps he was moving things around in the shop.

"Is that why you called?" he asked. Not accusingly. Just curious.

Suddenly, I didn’t know what to say. Why had I called?

One moment I had been laughing with my friends, and the next, I was here, clutching the telephone as if it were the only thing keeping me grounded.

The silence stretched between us, and I felt the receiver growing heavier in my hand.

"I… heard you work at Borgin & Burkes," I said finally. The words slipped out more easily than expected. "And I’ve always been a big fan of the shop."

A lie. I had never even set foot inside. It was a run-down, wretched place.

I pressed my lips together, wanting to take back the words, but it was too late. Then the man let out a quiet laugh.

He laughed. It wasn’t mocking. It wasn’t cold. Just a small, barely audible, sigh-like chuckle.

"Y/N"

He knew. He knew I was lying.

I cleared my throat, trying to compose myself. "Okay. Maybe I’m not a big fan of it."—"Maybe I’ve never even been there."

"Maybe?" he echoed, and now his voice was unmistakably amused.

I smiled. This was a fun game. "Alright, fine. I’ve never been there," I finally admitted. "But that’s not the point."

"Then what is the point?" Tom’s voice was calm again, patiently waiting for me to say why I really called.

But I wasn’t sure if I could put it into words. Because if I said it out loud, it would become real.

"Alright. Let me tell you something, okay?"

Riddle didn’t respond immediately, but I could almost feel his attention on me ."I liked you at school. A lot."

A brief silence. "Oh. Well, that was quite obvious," he added.

I closed my eyes for a moment. No. He didn’t understand. "No—Tom." His name was barely a whisper on my lips. "I liked you like that. You know..."

My heart pounded in my throat.

On the other end of the line, a short silence, then he spoke again—coolly, precisely, yet somehow entertained.

"Oh… and you don’t have a husband to confess such things to?"

I smiled. Typical Tom. He didn’t get flustered, didn’t get embarrassed—he analyzed from the outside instead.

"I don’t."

He didn’t answer right away, but I could almost hear him weighing his response in his mind. Then, finally, he spoke.

"That’s quite surprising. At your age, you’re practically an old maid."

I let out a shocked laugh. "Oh, really? And you’re the one lecturing me? Let me guess—you’re single too."

On the other end of the line, there was another small pause. I grinned. Gotcha.

I felt like this was getting to be too much.

"Alright, this is getting awkward," I laughed nervously, twisting the phone cord around my fingers. "And I think you’re right, I... am ridiculously drunk."

I took a deep breath, then, more to myself than to him, I added, "And I think it was good to say it. Now I can finally let you go..."

The words had a bittersweet ring to them. "I need to find a husband," I added playfully, but my voice trembled slightly. "Well— I guess I should hang up now."

I was about to put the receiver down when Riddle spoke.

"Wait."

I froze at the command.

"Don't hang up."—"I missed you," he added.

My heart pounded in my throat. Then Tom spoke again, slower this time.

"You don’t have to find a husband."—There was no mockery in his voice. No condescension.

I didn’t interrupt.

"I probably won’t have a wife either," he continued. "So what? Who cares what others think?"

I closed my eyes.

"Sooner or later, you'll see—the world is going to change."

The usual silence. My fingers were still gripping the receiver, but I couldn’t speak. Tom never said things like this. He never talked about the future this way.

"Where are you?"

I hesitated, trying to gather my thoughts, then finally answered, "At the Hog’s Head Inn."

The man froze for a moment, then let out a quiet chuckle. "Well, aren’t you a refined lady?"

"Stay there," he said after a brief pause, making his decision.

A moment of silence passed through the line. Then, without another word, he hung up.

I placed the receiver back down and stood there for a moment, gripping the phone. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t even process his words. What did he mean by 'stay there?'

When I finally moved, I returned to the girls, who were still sitting at the table, laughing softly, some spinning their empty glasses. As I sat down, my friends looked at me—and within seconds, they could read it all over my face. Something had happened.

"What happened? Where were you?" Augusta asked from the other end of the table, watching me curiously. Cedrella was listening too, but I didn’t say anything.

I hesitated for a moment, my eyes slowly scanning the married women in front of me. I took a deep breath—I wanted to say something, but the words didn’t come right away. My friends watched me attentively but remained silent, letting me decide when and how to speak.

"Alright..." I began, my voice slightly hoarse, the words painfully hard to push out. "This is going to be... a bit messy, but I’ll tell you."

I tried to force a small smile, but it didn’t quite work.

"So... you know that Tom and I were always friends. So, yeah… he’s Mr.'He'. And well… when we left Hogwarts, everything changed. A little, you know… maybe life just pulled us apart," I muttered, watching as curiosity grew on my friends' faces with each word.

"And I went to the bartender because I asked where the phones were," I laughed quietly, but the laughter quickly turned into tension. "You know, I just wanted to talk."

Another brief silence followed. The girls waited patiently for me to continue.

"And… in the end, I told him. After too many years, I finally opened my mouth and said that I liked him. And I guess he didn’t feel the same, because he started avoiding the topic."

After a short, almost awkward pause, I continued. "And when it was over, he told me to stay here." I fell silent for a moment.

"But I... I don’t get it," I laughed at myself."Why am I supposed to stay here?"

Cedrella, who was always the one to see things the fastest, spoke up first.

"Y/N, don’t you see?" she asked as if the answer were obvious. "He told you to stay here because he’s probably coming. He just…" she shrugged. "Maybe he thought it was obvious to you. Because it would be—to anyone else."

"Oh, I genuinely thought he meant I should just drown myself in this pile of wine. And then my body would stay here. You know," I muttered, resting my head in my hands.

"Good grief, you are completely unhinged… and morbid," Augusta replied calmly but firmly.

I pushed myself up from the table, and the girls exchanged glances but didn’t say a word.

"I need to get some fresh air," I said, forcing a faint smile before heading for the door. The girls didn’t stop me—they knew that what I needed now wasn’t company.

As I stepped out of the door, the cool night air refreshed me a little, and for a moment, the world around me quieted. The streetlights flickered softly, and there was nothing else to be heard. I tried to absorb the entire night. My heart was still pounding, but now that I was alone, I tried to collect my thoughts.

"Why did I do this?" I muttered to myself. The effects of the alcohol had faded, but the chaos in my mind was still there. Why had it been so important to tell him all of that? And why did I feel like I couldn't leave the conversation unfinished?

I tried to calm my heart when I heard footsteps behind me.A beam of light briefly illuminated the man's figure, and my heart began to race again. It was Tom Riddle.

He looked like a fallen angel—almost unnaturally handsome, but there was something corrupt about him, something carelessly sinful, hinting at unspoken depravity. His face was unforgettable, but at the same time unsettling, a face that could easily be cast for the roles of cruel men, cannibals, or even Lucifer himself.

My heart skipped a beat.

Tom stopped in front of me ,his gaze sweeping over me, and then a faint, almost mocking smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"I didn’t want us to meet like this..." he said, a bit of embarrassment in his voice, but there was still a certain intimacy in his eyes. "But here we are."

I didn’t know how to respond. Amidst the swirling feelings in my heart, I finally just said, "That’s true," I replied softly, turning my gaze away for a moment, trying to process everything I had felt since our previous conversation.

The man's footsteps were soft as he stepped closer. He paused for a moment, then, as if following an inner command, carefully touched my face. His touch was cold, yet a shiver ran through me.

There was a strange pain in Riddle’s eyes as he leaned in. My heart pounded faster, but something about the entire situation made him inexplicably unreachable.

"You know well that I was conceived under the effects of Amortentia," Tom said, his voice deep and serious. "I can't give you what you desire. At least, not the way normal people do."

I froze for a moment, the weight of his words suffocating me. Yes, he had told me this before. He had confessed it back in my school years.

"Tom..." I tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. His story was simply too much, too painful.

He stepped closer, his gaze devouring every inch of my face, trying to understand every hidden emotion, searching for what I was truly looking for. His touch felt as if it wanted to break me gently.

"I couldn’t love you that way," he said, his voice sinking even lower as the words left his lips. "My feelings aren’t like that. Not the way you think. Even 'desire' isn’t the right word. What I feel for you is a need. A compulsion. I need you, Y/N. But not the way others do..."

The words were difficult for him to say. But with every moment, the painful truth became clearer.

"My love is like an obsessive hunger. I can't give you what an ordinary man can. My love is dark, insatiable, and it will never be fulfilled. Just like me."

"I want it... I want you," I whispered, still not fully understanding what I was agreeing to. The desire consuming both of us left no room to stop.

Tom’s lips met mine. The kiss turned intense immediately, and the entire world fell silent around us—only we existed. His lips were wild and hungry.

I felt as if I was losing control, as if everything I had thought before suddenly lost its meaning. The sensation he awakened in me wasn’t normal, wasn’t ordinary.

Riddle's hands gripped me firmly—he never wanted to let go. The kiss grew deeper, more desperate, more untamed.

And then, suddenly, he stopped.

The air was thick with tension, and raw yearning mixed with fear and uncertainty.

"Y/N..." he whispered, his voice strained. "There’s no turning back now."

[mossadegh]

• Mossadegh media: newspaper & magazine articles, editorials

[cheshirebitch]

Alastor with a 1950’s housewife styled reader. When he sees her he doesn’t even understand why she’s in hell in the first place.

!!Mentions of domestic violence!!

She killed her husband for laying a hand on their child. She was slow and methodical with her kill, and when Alastor finds out he becomes enraptured by her. In awe of how proper and kind she is but how devastatingly cruel she can be if the circumstance calls for it.

He finds her duality alluring in a sense, and he’s so curious to see what fresh hell she’d let loose in hell if she decided to unleash herself upon some poor sinners.

This is my first request in a long time and I’m super tired so I hope this makes sense 😅

Oh boy, oh boy, did I love this idea and I hope I did you justice on it :)!

ℂ𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕤𝕪 𝕊𝕖𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕥𝕤

Alastor x Reader

“Alastor, dear, can you do me a favor?” I asked while smoothing my dress out nervously.

“Of course darling! What can I do for you my Angel?” Alastor started calling me that the day he met me. He was adamant that heaven messed up or I was a fallen angel for being too good. Every time he would go on one of his long stipples, I would have to keep my lips tight and calm my beating heart for two reasons. He really was too sweet to me and because I never want anyone to know my ugly truth. Not that I’m ashamed but because I don’t need everyone hunting down the man, especially considering he was alive and well in hell with me. I think he suffered considerably for his actions and I didn’t need the whole hotel, that was supposed to be a walking advertisement about redemption, trying to murder this man. Especially Alastor, he would be completely unforgiving.

He was always so polite when it concerned me and always had a compliment to throw my way.

“Mon Cher, looking elegant as always.”

“Darling, do smile more often. Hell would be much better with your sparkling smile.”

“What’s a looker like you doing at the bar by yourself? Care for company Angel?”

“Mon Cher,

“Would you be so kind to help me make dinner today? I truly didn’t expect the King of Hell to be visiting or I could’ve handled it on my own.” Exasperated that Charlie failed to mention, again, about her fathers visit. I rather not have him thinking an old housewife, such as myself, failed to uphold the standards I was raised with. This place will be spotless and perfect in two hours by my own hand, if Alastor agrees to assist me. I always batted his hands away when he’s tried before, being conditioned that all this work is only my job. My ex husband made sure I learned that too.

“Absolutely! Anything for my sweet Angel! Are you certain there is nothing else I can assist you with? Perhaps some cleaning, laundry, anything?” Alastor was leaning in towards my personal space as I pushed a finger over his massive smile. He truly is a pure gentleman despite his horrific sins he’s committed. Maybe that’s why I’m so attracted to him?

“Oh, no. Just some help in the kitchen will be fine. I just need someone to watch over the meal as it cooks so it doesn’t burn while I clean the rest of this hotel.” I smiled at him as polite as I could while trying not to tremble over the simple act of asking for help. It’s always involuntary when I flinch at a man, so much so that I’ve overheard conversations about it from the group. Charlie and Angel express their concerns to me but the rest just watch with pity in their eyes.

“Angel, certainly there is more I can do?” He gave me his smile still, slightly strained, but concern and a small hint of frustration were in those burgundy eyes. I pretended to think on it before shaking my head.

“That simply won’t do. I will handle all kitchen duties and you can clean. Don’t try to stop me.” Alastor morphed through the shadows as I raced to beat him to the kitchen, only to be met with a locked door. I huffed before giving in, but only because I was on a tight schedule. Fighting with Alastor’s stubbornness was at the bottom of my list and making sure this place was spiffy was at the top. So, I raced around on the lobby floor, cleaning everything and everything. I couldn’t help but notice how Alastor was trying to slyly send his shadow and Niffty to help. Ignoring them on purpose, faking ignorance for his sake, and kept cleaning at my full speed.

By the time I noticed there was nothing left to do, I was out of breath and was done one hour earlier than I thought I would be. That was also considering how I had two extra sets of helping hands plus the fact I didn’t have to check the kitchen at all. I smiled as I panted out, wiping the sweat from my brow. I sauntered into the kitchen, now with unlocked doors, and had my hands on my hips as I watched Alastor finish cooking everything I had laid out. I had a bandana on to keep my hair pulled up and stop the sweat from running down my neck. It was the pretty maroon and black one Alastor gave me the first year I knew him.

“Lovely to see you using the things I get you.” Without even turning around, he knew what I was wearing and didn’t degrade me for not completing these tasks completely on my own or faster. The smile spread on my face as I began to tease back.

“Always lovely to see you cooking. Don’t think I don’t see that tail wagging happily, deer.” I emphasized on his nickname being used more so as what animal he was. His ears twitched as he turned around with a playful grin. My tail whipped around behind me, showing I was teasing him playfully. He leaned closer, invading my personal space again.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Angel. I’m just helping a deer friend out.” He chuckled at his own pun, making me smile and nudge him. This is what normally happens when one of us tells a joke, it turns into a pun war. Right now though, I guess it was deer themed with a hint of good tension between us. He had us switching places, where I was the one with the counter behind me and he with nothing. Walking closer and closer, getting more into eachothers spaces with no complaints. Which of itself, others would find quite odd how Alastor wasn’t upset by myself being this close to him.

“That pun wasn’t one of your best. Dare I say, I wasn’t too fawn of that one.” His smile widened with genuine happiness without anything evil being the cause of it. It really was beautiful. I couldn’t help but morph my smile from a playful one to a genuine smile as well, full of admiration. I could even feel my eyes basically forming heart shapes for him.

“Angel?” His eyes looked relaxed along with his smile, he was still leaning so close to me I could feel his coat tickling my skin.

“Yes, deer?” He smiled more before continuing.

“How are you in Hell? Really?” My smile froze as I panicked slightly. He was someone I could see hunting my ex husband down and brutally killing for what he’s done, especially towards me and my family. My hands moved before I could stop them, gripping his with mine. His eyes looked confused at our hands before looking at me, waiting for what it was.

“Promise me, Al, that you’ll let it go after I tell you.” His eyes searched mine before he sighed out.

“You know I can’t promise that, my Angel.” One of his claws carefully brushed my cheek slowly. He started moving slower with his movements when they were towards me after noticing how I flinched. The bright red claws remained on my face as I looked away, defeated.

“It wasn’t always horrible with him, my late husband and father of my two beautiful girls.” I smiled as I mentioned my children, who have long lived their lives after my death, and both in heaven.

“But after a couple years when my youngest turned four, Paul wasn’t the same. He was laid off from his fancy office job and started drinking when he couldn’t find work. We had to sell our home and move. I started working at a couple diners and cleaning for a couple homes, anything to make the bills.” My smile turned sad as Alastor’s turned strained the second I spoke of alcohol. His grip tightened slightly but never enough to hurt me.

“He would get angry when I came home late, how the house was a mess, when the children got fussy, and just anything that involved work for him. That’s when I got tired and mouthed off.” Alastor’s upper lip curled in disgust at what was about to be spoken next.

“He didn’t like that, slapped me back in place.” Alastor’s eyes squinted.

“I think you’re downplaying it, Angel.” I sheepishly grin, knowing he’s right.

“A little.”

“Tell the truth now, darling.”

“He beat me till I couldn’t stand anymore. I tried fighting back but…” I shook my head and felt my eyes burning.

“I was just a silly housewife.” He took his claw and gently swiped away a fallen tear. It was the only tear I will let fall.

“I only said enough when he went to hit the oldest for trying to pull him off of me.” Tension was rising up my spine and locking my jaw tight. Alastor’s radio static picked up even more the second I spoke that sentence. I could feel his anger radiating from him.

“I hated him for it, so much so I killed him.” I looked up at Alastor right when his eyes dilated, recognizing the shock and admiration that was swirling in his eyes. His smile spread out across his face more as the radio static cut silent, then he spoke without any static in his voice.

“My, my, what have we got here? Dare I say my Angel is really a demon after all?” I could tell he said it with slight humor, still thinking I’m too pure to be in hell.

“I poisoned him for months with rat poisoning in his alcohol. He chose his own death, I just sped it up. Everyone thought he died of alcohol poisoning but it was me. I’d do it again if it meant my kids never had to see that ever again. He could’ve lived if he just chose his family over the alcohol.” I shrugged with no remorse for my actions.

“While he was getting more and more ill, I would watch from the doorway of our bedroom, where he slept. Just holding a kitchen knife and sharpening it, watching him sleep horribly.” Alastor smiled wider, wider than I thought possible really, and dipped me down gracefully. His arm behind my back holding me completely as his other hand delicately glided his ruby claw down my cheek.

“Mon Cher, penser que je ne pourrais pas t'aimer davantage.” **

Alastor was immediately thinking about how he’d worship her forever and was intrigued to see what fresh hell she would unleash by his side with this daunting loyalty and protective spirit. He also took note to pay a visit to dear ol’ Paul, the current bartender that replaced Husk at the casino in town.

** translation - “My dear, to think that I couldn’t love you more.”

(As always, characters belong to their owner and the story belongs to me. If you have any requests or ideas, send them over :)! I will gladly try to write things for my supporters! Thank you for the love and have a great day! <3)

[omgthatdress]

Tackling the fashion around the Manson case is needless to say, a huge fucking subject. I've had to do a ton of research on all the little aspects of everything, so before I get into the story, here's the resources I've used to make sense of it all:

You Must Remember This: Charles Manson's Hollywood by Karina Longworth

This series from one of my favorite podcasts is the best straightforward telling of the story that I've found. It makes the basic assertion about Manson that I have come to agree with: that he was a bitter wannabe rock star who was seeking revenge on the Hollywood that rejected him, and using his Helter Skelter prophecy as an excuse.

YMRT puts the story in cultural context and fills out the stories of the victims and the famous people in the periphery of the story incredibly well.

Jay Sebring: Cutting to the Truth

A documentary, directed by Jay Sebring's nephew, not just about the life of Jay Sebring and how he pretty much re-invented the men's haircut (srsly the most influential fashion person I am going to cover, played an absolutely massive role in how men presented themselves in the 60s), and how his fame and influence was overwhelmed and then eventually eclipsed by how he died.

It's a very good look at Manson-mania in the media and how the victims kind of got lost in the mix of it all.

Manson

An Oscar-winning 1973 documentary about The Family, with the members who weren't in jail telling their stories and how they came to be with Charlie. Has some excellent footage of what everyone was wearing.

and of course

Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi

You kinda have to include this in any coverage of Manson simply because it's the definitive telling. It's the events and trials as the lead prosecutor saw them and experience them, so it tends to be very factual, very cut-and-dry, very lawyer-y. Worth reading if you're into the legal stuff, but otherwise honestly kind of boring.

Manson: A Geographic History by Sean Munger

Classic 2 1/2 hour long Youtube video essay about something that outwardly seems incredibly boring, but nonetheless sucks you in and suddenly you know way more than you thought was possible about the subject. Looks at the places in the story and fills in the histories and class significance of those places.

Shit About The End of the Sixties in General:

The White Album by Joan Didion

One of the non-fiction books that helped define the sixties after they had fizzled out. It's a collection of Didion's essays and recollections on the era. It is clear-eyed and unsentimental, to the point of being cynical, about the era of peace, love, and joy.

If you want to get further into the disillusionment of the 70s, you can pair this with Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson, which is mostly about Hunter S. Thompson going to Los Vegas and doing an absolute shit ton of drugs, but has a few moments of poignant reflection on how the counter-culture lost its joy.

Emma Rosa Katharina is a YouTuber who does essays on 1960s fashion and culture. I find that she tends to romanticize the era, but she still provides some pretty good analysis and insight into what was going on.

IN CONCLUSION

Doing all this, I had the thought I should talk to a great-aunt of mine who was more of a Kennedy-era girl, but still was young and politically involved at the time. Unfortunately, she passed away before I was able to talk to her. So the important lesson is, TALK TO PEOPLE IN YOUR LIFE.

Since my grandparents passed away in the 2010s, I've been struck by the passage of time: my grandparent's generation, who grew up in the Depression, fought in World War 2 and enjoyed the American prosperity of the 1950s, are all gone.

The ex-hippie baby boomers who in my childhood and teenage years seemed perpetually middle-aged are now the same age that I remember my grandparents being, and are slowly dying.

I've had so many times since then when I've wished I could go and talk to my grandparents about what they remember of those years. If you're lucky enough to still have your grandparents in your life, TALK TO THEM. They won't be around forever!

[theoutcastrogue]

Cartoon depictions of the homeless increasingly reflect the hostility of today’s political leaders toward people on the streets. We’ve gone from images of charming hobos with bindles to zombies taking over cities. If you consume any news at all, you’ve probably noticed that the United States is pathologically cruel to its homeless citizens. This May, the brutal killing of Jordan Neely—who was strangled to death, at the age of 30, simply because he was unhoused and shouting on the Manhattan subway—captured the national spotlight, but it was just one of many such cases of unprovoked violence. In January, two cops reportedly kidnapped a homeless man in Hialeah, Florida, drove him to an “isolated and dark location,” and beat him unconscious. That same month, art dealer Shannon Collier Gwin faced battery charges after he sprayed a homeless woman with a hose outside his San Francisco gallery, barking “Move! Move!” at her. (Predictably, Gwin got a lenient plea deal of just 35 hours of community service.) Elsewhere in the city, homeless San Franciscans have been attacked with chemical bear spray on at least eight occasions. Other assaults have been more impersonal but no less vicious. On July 14, the city of Houston abruptly closed its only public cooling center in the downtown area, potentially condemning anyone without shelter to suffer heatstroke in 90-degree weather. Among the property-owning class, the phenomenon of hostile architecture—sidewalks with spikes that stab anyone who tries to sleep, benches with iron bars, and the like—has become de rigueur. The widespread callousness and lack of compassion are both infuriating and hard to comprehend. How on Earth, we might ask, did things get this bad? [...]

Looking back at older cartoons, one of the things that stands out immediately is the absence of negative attitudes toward the homeless. In fact, during the Golden Age of animation, creators seemed to have had a real affinity for the poor and unhoused, often placing their most iconic characters in that role. There’s a wonderful 1948 Warner Bros. short called “Riff Raffy Daffy,” in which Daffy Duck is looking for a place to sleep—first on a park bench, then a trash can, and finally a furniture display in a shop window—and has to dodge the harassment of the police, as represented by Porky Pig in a little blue uniform. (Literally, the cop is a pig!) Or, in the 1950 cartoon “Homeless Hare,” Bugs Bunny’s rabbit hole is destroyed by a new construction project, leading him to unleash his usual slapstick mayhem against the developers until they put it back. In these cartoons, homelessness is something inflicted on people by outside forces—gentrification and the real estate business, in Bugs’ case—and something which can be successfully resisted. Even Disney cast a homeless dog as a romantic lead in 1955’s Lady and the Tramp, contrasting Lady’s sheltered naivety with Tramp’s superior knowledge of the world. The title invokes the memory of Charlie Chaplin’s “Tramp” films, which similarly brought dignity and humanity to the role of a homeless man. (Bugs Bunny, too, takes inspiration from Chaplin, and multiple Warner animators have drawn him as the Tramp.) In 1961, Hanna-Barbera’s profoundly underrated Top Cat followed the adventures of a gang of wisecracking Manhattan alley cats, who, like Daffy, are always outwitting a meddling policeman. At worst, classic cartoons may trivialize the suffering and danger associated with homelessness—there’s a certain recurring image of the carefree hobo carrying a bindle, which paints the whole subject in a romanticized light—but the homeless themselves are rarely disparaged or made the butt of the joke. Quite the opposite. 

It took a few years, but cartoons caught up to the Reaganite turn. In episodes from the ’90s and early 2000s, there’s a palpable shift in the way homeless characters appear compared to earlier decades. The perspective is different: we’re now seeing them through the eyes of comfortably housed characters, rather than their own. Often they don’t even get proper names. [...] This trajectory leads us, perhaps inevitably, to SpongeBob SquarePants. [..] Squidward gets accused of stealing a dime by his comically greedy boss, Mr. Krabs, and quits his job in a fit of outrage. We then flash forward to see Squidward, now bedraggled and unshaven, living in a cardboard box on the street and begging for change. [...] Mercifully, the ever-cheerful SpongeBob gives Squidward a place to stay—but the moment he’s safely off the street, Squidward turns from a sympathetic victim of circumstance into a lazy, entitled freeloader, straight out of a Reagan speech. He makes no effort to find work and loafs around SpongeBob’s house for ages. [...] Eventually, an exasperated SpongeBob writes “GET A JOB” in his alphabet soup, before shoving him (bed and all) back to work at the Krusty Krab. [...] Worst of all, though, the episode suggests that homelessness can be solved on an individual basis if the people in question simply stop being lazy and “GET A JOB.” This is the biggest myth of all. In 2021, a statistical analysis by the University of Chicago found that 53 percent of people in homeless shelters, and 40.4 percent of unsheltered people, do have jobs. The problem is that their wages are too low, and rents are too high. According to statistics from the same year, it’s impossible for someone working a full-time, minimum-wage job to afford a single-bedroom apartment in 93 percent of U.S. counties, and there are no states in which someone can rent a two-bedroom space on the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. In other words, homelessness has little or nothing to do with personal responsibility, or lack thereof. It’s a consequence of large-scale economic decisions made by landlords and bosses. [...]

— Alex Skopic

[humanpurposes]

Hysteria

(1950s AU) A housewife reaches breaking point and seeks medical advice at her husband's request // Main Masterlist

Aemond x nameless female character

Warnings: 18+, smut, period typical sexism, dub-con,

Words: 5400

A/n: inspired by this ask on @lightningandfireinmybones 's blog, shout out to @b-vvitched for the prompt, I couldn't stop thinking about it :) Also available to read on AO3.

She reads over the gold painted letters on the door to make sure she has the right room.

Dr A. Targaryen

General Practitioner

She brings her hand up to the door, hesitating for a moment before she softly taps her knuckles against the wood, thrice.

She holds her breath, unsure if a moment passes or a minute.

His voice comes soft and distant from the other side. “Enter.”

The room is simply four white walls, a dark wood desk and cabinets and an examination table with black leather upholstery. The harsh afternoon sun and a slight breeze bleed in from the open windows, floating through thin, white curtains. It’s surprisingly serene but still plain and inoffensive.

Dr Targaryen– Aemond as he insists as he shakes her hand– has harsh blue eyes, the left framed by a long scar slicing down his face, a pointed nose, curved lips, a sharp jaw and pale blond hair, stylishly gelled like some movie star. Something about him is unsettling despite the small smile and the impeccable manners as he offers her a seat in the green leather chair on the other side of his desk.

She contracts her hand slightly once he lets go of her. His grip had been rather firm.

He opens a brown leather notebook and flicks through a clipboard on the desk, frowning and tapping a pen against it as he goes over some paperwork and basic information she had given the nurse, as instructed.

She holds her hands together in her lap and winces at how damp her palms are. She’s sure it’s just the weather, and smooths them over her pale blue, rayon skirt. She checks her nails while she’s at it too. She had painted them red the night before, but they are already starting to chip from where she’d started her day with washing the dishes and doing a deep clean of the kitchen.

“You said your husband recommended you seek medical advice, is that right?” he asks, his head tilted down and his eyes meeting hers, expecting a prompt answer, she realises.

She swallows through the scratchy feeling in her throat, wishing she had accepted the receptionist’s offer of water. “Yes, that’s right.”

His eyes move over the page again and he gives a cryptic “hmm.”

The specifics often change but lately she’s realised that each day of her life feels the same. Wake up before her husband, make his coffee and his breakfast, make sure he wants for nothing and see him off to work. Help the mother-in-law with her shopping and her laundry. Bake a cake for the village fundraiser and drop it off at the the Church. Make polite conversation with the vicar and the other women helping out, compliment their babies, ask about the older children. Try not to cry when she’s bombarded with the dreaded question. “How soon can we expect little ones from you?”

Two weeks ago her husband had come home from work and found her on the sofa, staring into space, too tired to even reach for a book or a magazine. Everything had seemed to be going wrong for her that day, evidenced by the broken washing machine, the broken heel on her shoe, the cuts and blisters on her feet, the shopping left unceremoniously on the kitchen counter. She was absolutely exhausted, but when his dinner wasn't ready and waiting for him, her husband hit the roof.

Something snapped. Before she knew it, she was screaming, eyes hot and streaming with tears as she choked on her own sobs. She had never been so loud in her life. She can hardly even remember what she said.

Her husband’s voice screams inside her head. “Emotional… irrational… hysterical…”

“And you went to the nurse first?” Aemond asks. 

“Yes.”

He looks back at the notes. “What did she tell you?”

She shifts in her chair. It should all be right there in front of him, why does she have to say it?

She takes a deep breath, as subtly as she can. “She suggested it could be a hormonal imbalance, or a symptom of…”

Aemond raises a brow, expectantly.

She feels a warmth rushing to her cheeks “... monthly courses,” she says quietly.

“And have you had issues with those?” he asks.

“They can be irregular.”

He hums again and writes something in his notebook.

She clenches her fist around her skirt and notices the soft ticking of the clock on the wall over the desk. It’s not too obtrusive, and the rhythm gives her something to focus on while neither of them are speaking.

Aemond shifts back in his chair, crossing a leg over the other, absentmindedly pressing the lid of his pen to his lips like he’s trying to solve a crossword in the morning paper. “What exactly was your husband’s main concern?”

There comes a familiar feeling, an emptiness in her chest like her body might concave, and a swelling in her eyes. She bites down on her lip to dispel the urge to cry.

Everyone around her loves to comment on how happy she is, how blessed she is to have such a happy marriage and a loving husband.

“He says I’ve been too emotional.”

“Emotional in what way?”

She tells him about the outburst two weeks ago, expecting him to tut and shake his head and chide her for her behaviour. Instead he watches her and listens.

“He says he doesn’t know what else to do with me. He says he does everything he can to make me happy, but that it’ll never be enough for me,” she says.

“And does he make you happy?” he asks.

Her answer hitches in her throat. The obvious response would be of course. He does what any good husband does, works, brings home a salary, sweet talks her mother and smokes cigars with her father when they visit every other Sunday. 

Happiness seems to be an external factor, something people comment on and praise her. When other people say she is happy she wears it with pride, like a medal or a precious piece of jewellery.

She loves her husband, as well as any self respecting woman does. She reminds herself that’s the whole reason why she’s here.

At her silence Aemond smiles to himself and begins to write. She follows how his fingertips grip the pen and how the tendons in his hands flex.

“Wait!” she says, shuffling forward in her seat.

He pauses and looks at her like he did before, with his chin tilted down.

“No– I meant to say yes. Yes, he makes me happy.”

His eyes move around her face and briefly down, over the pearl charm hanging from her neck, her white blouse and her hands bunched in her blue skirt. She releases them when she realises he’s looking and rests them on the arms of the chair instead.

This feels like a test, one in which every word and gesture will be put to scrutiny, earning either a curious “hmm” or a scratching of the pen against the paper. She wonders which is worse.

“How long have you been married?” he asks.

“A year in July.”

“No children?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

His question leaves a tight feeling in her chest and in her gut. 

Aemond sets the pen down on the desk without making a sound. “Sorry, I know these questions can be obtrusive. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but it would be useful to know what I’m working with.”

That’s an odd way to phrase it, she thinks.

“No it’s alright,” she says, her fingers moving anxiously over each other. “It’s not for lack of trying. We… try a few times a week. Usually on the weekends or when he’s not tired– he’s often tired after work.”

“And how is it?”

“Oh, um–” without thinking her hands move back into her lap and she starts to pick at the red nail polish. “He says there’s something wrong with me.”

Aemond tilts his head. “Wrong with you?”

She squeezes her thighs together at the familiar memory of her husband’s downright painful attempts to make love to her. He practically has to force his way inside of her and she can never stand it for more than a few thrusts before she pushes him off. 

He was understanding for the first few months, but she can tell it’s starting to irritate him now. She doesn’t understand why it doesn’t work, what she could possibly be doing wrong.

“Does he prepare you?” 

She looks up with a knitted brow. “Prepare me?”

He tuts and mutters something that sounds like “poor thing,” before scrawling another quick note. 

Then he stands, rolling up the sleeves of his white coat and the black shirt underneath. “I want to check a few things,” he says, cocking his head towards the examination table on the other side of the room.

She follows dutifully, propping her hands against the leather upholstery and pushing herself up to sit on it. Her black heels don’t reach the floor. She crosses them at the ankle and lets them swing a little. 

Once Aemond has washed his hands he approaches her. He’s tall, she realises as he stands before her. His hips are level with her knees and the edge of the table and while he’s not quite close enough to touch her, her legs twitch at the proximity.

She tries to avert her gaze from the somewhat intense expression in his eyes as he simply looks at her. Her eyes don’t stop moving, looking past his shoulder or down at her sides, but there’s not anything interesting to look at.

She focuses on the steady ticking of the clock, counting ten long seconds before she realises she’s holding her breath.

When she finally releases she finds herself focusing instead on the gentle sounds of Aemond’s breath through his nose, the smell of his hair gel, musky aftershave and the lingering scent of smoke. 

Warm fingertips brush against her jaw as he brings her to look at him. She can feel the slight roughness of the pads of his fingers, but he’s gentle when he touches her, almost cautious. 

He leans in a little closer until he’s touching her knees. She doesn’t let herself react but her heart is drumming furiously, more so when his thumb strokes over her cheek. He moves back and forth, grazing the corner of her mouth, before he swipes it over her lower lip. 

She relaxes her mouth as he presses and tugs on the soft flesh. It’s somehow both terrifying and oddly reassuring.

And then he settles, pressing both of her lips into a slight pout while his fingertips rest against her jaw and the top of her neck.

“Open your mouth for me,” he says.

She stares back at him with wide eyes. Had she heard that correctly?

The corners of his mouth curl politely, waiting for her compliance.

So she does as he asks.

With his fingers holding her chin, Aemond inches his thumb into her mouth, settling on her tongue. His skin tastes clean and faintly medicinal from the amber soap.

“You can close your mouth,” he says.

She keeps her eyes on his as she closes her lips around him, careful not to touch him with her teeth.

He hums again, low and contentedly. “Good girl.”

She shudders at the sudden weightlessness in her belly.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

She gives him a small nod.

"Good," he utters, "just breathe."

She loses count of the seconds on the clock as he simply settles inside of her. She does as he says, breathing deeply through her nose, looking up at him through her eyelashes, trying to read if he's pleased or not.

When he starts to withdraw and she instinctively drags her tongue along his thumb. She looks down at his hand, the imprint of her mauve lipstick on his skin, the glistening digit and the small line of spit that trails from her mouth, which he wipes away with his fingers.

“How did that feel?” he asks.

She thinks for a moment. “Good.”

He glances down and her eyes follow, to the fabric of her skirt. When she stands it falls to her shin, but seated, the hem rides up to just below her knees. He places a wide hand on her left knee, their skin separated only by a thin layer of nylon stockings.

“These outbursts of yours,” he mutters, “are they a regular occurrence?”

“Not really,” she says.

“What do you think caused it?”

She presses her teeth together and looks away from him to think. “Lots of things I suppose. It all piles up.”

“How did it feel, to shout at your husband?”

She huffs a laugh at the instinct that appears in her head, it’s not something she should ever admit, but there’s something about Aemond’s eyes and the feeling of his hands that make her want to tell him the truth,

“I liked it, I was just so…” she shakes her head looking for the right word, but she supposes there’s a simpler explanation. “I was so angry, angrier than I’ve ever been in my life.”

“What were you angry at?” Aemond asks, his thumb starting to stroke against her thigh. 

Would it be too much to list every aspect of her life that irritates her?

She hates a lot of things. She hates tidying the house just for it to get messy again. She hates it when her new shoes dig into her skin and make her bleed. She hates that she seems incapable of interacting with another person without suffering their scrutiny. She hates it when people tell her that her life is perfect.

Everything races around in her head, screaming and shouting at her until the noise becomes silent, just a throbbing pain in her head.

“Just… everything,” she groans, rubbing her fingertips against her temple. “I don’t understand it, everyone says our life together is so perfect, but I don’t feel perfect.”

His hand moves away from her and she looks up at the absence.

Aemond takes a slow breath. “Are you familiar with hysteria?”

Her heart sinks and he seems to see it in her face.

He purses his lips for a moment before he explains, “it’s essentially an excess of ill-managed emotions. It can lead to irrational behaviour and quite severe distress.”

She’s heard of the condition before, sparse stories here and there of men who had no choice but to seek proper treatment for their wives when they are too emotional… irrational… hysterical.

She’s not like those women, surely, and her husband knows that, right?

“Is that what's wrong with me?” she asks.

His mouth quirks. “Quite possibly.”

“But I’ve heard of women with this condition before. I’ve heard what their husbands do to them, I—” she can feel her eyes beginning to well with hot, stinging tears. “That’s not going to happen to me, is it?”

She hangs her head, dread pooling in her belly, until his hands cup the sides of her face. Aemond brings her gaze up into his eyes.

“Don’t send me away,” she whispers, blinking the tears from her eyes so they roll down her cheeks. “Please, there must be something you can do–”

“There there, pet,” he says, tracing his thumbs along her teartracks, “everything is going to be alright, hmm? We can sort you out.”

She nods at his reassurance and the feeling of his hands against her skin. It must be entirely improper to be so close to another man, even more so when she starts to realise just how much she likes it, a sweet sort of unease. Perhaps that’s just his nature, perhaps he’s just good at this part of his job.

For a moment he presses his lips together in a strange way, like he’s holding something back. “There is one treatment I’m keen to suggest,” he says.

“What treatment?” she asks.

He tilts his head slightly. “Hysteria is an instability of emotion. You need a release.”

“Like when I shouted at my husband?”

He smiles at that. “It felt good, didn’t it?”

She nods.

“We can undergo controlled releases,” he says, “you’ll be much happier for it.”

She takes a sharp breath when one of his hands moves down from her cheek to rest casually at her waist.

“I can start the treatment today, if you’d like?”

His face is close to hers now, She feels every flutter of his breath, the heat of his body separated by inches of empty space.

“Yes please,” she says quietly, like she might disturb the peacefulness in the room if she speaks any louder. “If it’s not too much trouble?”

“Don’t worry, pet, we’ve still got plenty of time left,” he says, stepping away. “Take your skirt off, and lie back.”

Suddenly her skin feels tight. “My skirt?”

“If you don’t mind?” he says over his shoulder as he walks towards his desk. “It just makes things a little easier, maybe the blouse too.”

She hops down from the table, heels clicking against the floor.  While Aemond’s pen scratches against paper, she turns her back and starts to pick at the buttons on the top of her blouse. She pulls it over her head and folds it, setting it down on the table, where her head will go. Then she pulls down the zip on her skirt and lets it fall around her. For the slightly mortifying prospect of standing there in her stockings and undergarments, the breeze from the window washes over the bare skin of her arms and torso. It’s quite nice, a welcome relief.

She waits with her heels close together and her hands clasped in front of her. Aemond has his back to her and she watches the way the sunlight catches in the silvery streaks of his hair. He tears a sheet from the pad of prescription papers and leaves it on his desk before he moves to the sink to wash his hands. It’s methodical, like before, well rehearsed and memorised for efficiency. Does he even have to think about what he’s doing, she wonders?

Once his hands are dried he reaches into a drawer under his desk. He keeps his eyes on the small object in his hands as he walks towards her.

She straightens her back and puts her hands on the table behind her, testing her weight so she can shuffle on top of it. 

Aemond looks up and she pauses.

His eyes dart up and down her body. “Shoes and stockings off too.”

Blood rushes to her cheeks but she complies, reaching down to undo the small buckles on each shoe. Once they’re under the table she stands straight and curls her thumbs around her stockings.

She looks up to Aemond. He gives her a small nod.

She starts to pull the thin material down her legs, so thin it should hardly make a difference. She shivers as the breeze meets a new part of her body. She straightens again, dutifully awaiting her next instruction. 

The corners of Aemond’s mouth curl. “Perfect,” he mutters. 

He steps closer to her, until she can make out the object in his hands. It’s a coppery colour, gleaming like metal, and no smaller than a tube of lipstick. He slips it into his coat pocket.

She follows Aemond’s hand as he reaches out and runs a slender finger under the strap of her brassiere. “I think we’ll keep this on,” he says.

She nods, though she doesn’t really know why.

A hum sounds in his throat and his eyes look over her face. “Lie back.”

She does as he says and fiddles with her hands, unsure of where to put them until she decides to keep them by her sides. Anticipation sets her nerves alight. She listens to every breath, each taunting footstep as Aemond comes to stand at the foot of the bed.

He moves slowly so as not to agitate her, but her whole body tenses when his hands clasp around her ankles. It’s obvious he’s trying to be gentle, but even when softly spoken his voice leaves a restless feeling in her gut. “Shh, try to relax, and just let me…” he lifts her legs up along her body until her knees are by her hips. His hands go to her thighs next and she lets out a short whimper of surprise when he pulls her closer to him.

“There we go,” he muses to himself, one hand on her thigh while he gently rests the other on her navel, over the hem of her panties.

Her hands are restless, fists clenching and nails digging into her palms.

Aemond looks down at her with a hint of concern. “You can tell me if you want to stop, at any point.”

“No it’s alright,” she breathes, suppressing the urge to arch her back.

His brows raise as he looks down, grazing his fingertips over her skin. Each movement has her breath hitching or her body squirming, no matter how hard she tries to relax, just as he’d instructed.

He brings both hands to her knees, closing them together before he reaches for her panties and slides them from her legs. She doesn’t see where he drops them. Her hands come into fists again as he gradually spreads her legs. 

She’s not sure what to expect or how this is supposed to help her control her emotions, but she tries to concentrate on staying still, keeping whatever dignity she has left.

“Look at that,” Aemond hums, circling his thumbs against her inner thighs, “you’re already getting wet.”

She can feel it, the warmth pooling between her legs. No one has ever told her it’s bad, but it’s one of those things she wonders if she should be ashamed of. She tries to shift but there’s nowhere for her body to go, nowhere she can hide from him.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, “it’s not bad, is it?”

Aemond frowns. “You mean you don’t…” he trails off as his face melts into an amused sort of sympathy, like he’s piecing together a puzzle. “Bad news for your husband maybe. It means you’re aroused.”

Aroused. She repeats the word to herself a few times. 

Surely it is a bad thing to find herself in such a state, only she finds herself turning her attention to Aemond. Her gaze trails shamelessly over the veins and tendons of his hands and forearms as he kneads at her thighs, the curve of his upper lip and the tip of his tongue swiping between his teeth. If only she could read his mind, figure out what he’s thinking behind those pretty blue eyes, what hypothesis he’s playing around with inside his head. 

And then he reaches into his pocket. She lifts her head to try and get a better look. The coppery object looks more like an oversized bullet, with a slightly pointed head and a black button at its base. When Aemond presses the button it starts to hum. Even the noise of it sparks a reaction from her. She feels something strange, like a shockwave flashing through her body.

“Relax,” Aemond says, bringing his other hand to her hip. “I don’t want to have to tie you down.”

“No,” she utters, “sorry.” She lets her head fall against the upholstery and stares up at the ceiling, determined not to react.

Until something presses to her centre, humming against her. Pleasure pulses through her, unfamiliar but hot and bright. Her eyes snap shut and her hips try to buck but Aemond’s hand holds her down. 

“How does it feel?” he says.

Her first attempt to speak comes out as a broken whimper. “Good,” she manages, stilling her hips from trying to rock against the bullet. “Fuck…”

Something inside of her feels tight, tensing and tensing until she’s sure she can’t take any more. But he keeps it against her, making small, rhythmic movements through her folds, edging her closer to that rising feeling only to relieve her of it.

Her nails start to drag along the leather, clawing at it for purchase. She tries to stay still, to keep her hips steady but something has to give. She turns her head to the side, whimpering and groaning into her shoulder.

“There you go,” Aemond hums, as he finds a truly torturous pattern, slowly swiping upwards from her entrance to the sweet spot of her pearl, only to start over. 

“Please,” she whimpers as he tears her away from that feeling again. Blissful tears blur her vision and she feels utterly weightless. “I can’t stand it…”

He lingers the bullet just below her pearl. She’s so close to something. She can feel it. 

“Do you want to stop?” Aemond asks.

“No!” she cries.

He starts to move in small circles now and her body feels like it’s burning. “Just take it,” he says, “you can take it, just be a good girl for me, hmm?”

“Yes… yes…” she utters like a dreamy chant. 

The button clicks and the vibrations increase. She hardly registers the wanton noises she makes, but she’s all too aware of wet sounds of her arousal and Aemond’s short hums when her hips start to buck again.

“You’re so close, aren’t you?” Aemond says. “Come on, pet, you can do it, you’re almost there…”

She feels the hum of her throat as she groans his name and suddenly the tight feeling snaps. Her whole body releases, just as Aemond promised, and she feels herself come undone. He guides her through it, the bullet whirring against her and his hand steady on her hip.

When he finally withdraws, her limbs don’t feel like her own. She listens to her own breath and feels the rise and fall of her chest as she wills herself into a state of awareness. She props herself onto her elbows and her eyes meet Aemond’s.

He smirks, and looks down again, gently drawing a thumb through her folds. 

Her back arches and her breath hitches, though not as intensely as before. She can feel how slick she is now, how easily he moves against her. She eases under his touch and just lets it feel good.

“You did so well,” he says, “fuck, the way your cunt twitches when you come…”

She gazes at him with a bewildered kind of awe, at his parted lips, the golden glow of sunlight trailing down his jaw and his neck, and now the dark, almost hungry look in his eyes. She can already feel the desire rising again, the wanting for more.

“There’s something else I want to try,” he says. His thumb slips further down, teasing her entrance. “If you’ll let me?”

She holds her bottom lip between her teeth and nods.

“Good girl,” he hums.

That alone has her trying to roll her hips against him, but then he’s gone. She wants to groan in protest but keeps her mouth shut as she watches him remove his white coat and black shirt, both of which he drapes over his chair. For his seemingly slender frame, he’s surprisingly muscular. 

With his back still turned to her she watches his hands move to his trousers. She hears the clinking of his belt buckle and the sound of his fly coming undone. He reaches back into the same drawer, tears something between his teeth and discards a small, white packet on the desk. 

As he comes to stand before her once more she can’t help the small smile that graces her lips, unashamedly appreciating the muscles of his torso, his pectorals and the lines of his abdominals, and his now freed cock, already hard, and certainly larger than her husband’s.

He stands before her once again, bringing her knees down so he can slot himself between her legs.

She can already feel herself twitching and her heart racing. 

He doesn’t waste much time on preamble. “You’re fucking soaked,” he mutters, lining the his cock to her entrance and taking a hold of her thigh, “be a shame to waste it.”

She expects it to hurt when he pushes inside of her, and for a moment it does. She feels the way he stretches her out with just the tip. He moves slowly, dragging in and out of her, each time pushing in a little more. She can take the pain, at least until it starts to melt away. After a few strokes it feels effortless.

Aemond lets out a sharp grunt as he comes close to bottoming out. “How does it feel?” he asks with a small amount of strain.

It’s a different kind of pleasure, it’s duller and deeper, less frantic but it still burns in the best way.

“Good,” she breathes.

Aemond’s hands take hold of her waist as he increases his pace, dragging her into him to match his thrusts.

The air feels hot and thick now, the ticking of the clock drowned out by laboured panting, breathless moans and the soft sounds of skin meeting skin.

“Fuck you’re tight,” he hisses, sinking his fingertips deeper into her flesh.

“I don’t suppose that’s a medical term?” she says with a dazed grin.

Aemond huffs a laugh but it seems to spur him on, his jaw slack and his brow furrowed in determination. 

She wraps her legs around his hips and reaches up for him, but all she manages is to graze her fingertips over his torso. He snatches her wrists, leaning over to pin them on either side of her head as he brutally starts to snap her hips into hers. Like this he fucks her deeper and harder against the leather.

She feels her release building slowly, his cock brushing against a spot that has her eyes watering again.

“Going to come for me?” Aemond grits out, pressing his forehead to hers. 

“I want to,” she whimpers, arching her back to get closer to him, “fuck–”

He releases one of her wrists and slips his hand between them, circling her pearl with the pads of his fingers. 

He brings his lips to the shell of her ear. “You’re squeezing me so good,” he whispers harshly, “nearly there, nearly there sweetheart…”

Her legs start to shake as her pleasure peaks and her climax washes over her. Every part of her body tenses and moulds itself into him. Aemond doesn’t relent, he keeps fucking her until she’s whining and squirming, until finally he lets out a guttural groan into her neck. His hips still and she feels him throbbing inside of her, spilling himself into the condom.

For a moment she’s content to lie there, no matter how uncomfortable the surface of the bed is. She likes Aemond’s weight on top of her, his breath on her neck, the scent of him, the sweat from his brow against her skin. But they don’t stay like that for long. He pulls away from her and makes quick work of disposing of the condom and tucking himself back into his trousers.

“Nothing wrong in that regard,” he says, reaching for her hand to help her sit up. “If you’re having trouble it’s the fault of your husband. He needs to prepare you before he tries to fuck you.”

She flicks her hair from her neck to relieve some of the heat. “Oh, right.” She can feel herself trembling, but she feels light, like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders. 

“How are you feeling now?” he asks, placing a reassuring hold to her arm.

“Good,” she says.

Aemond carefully helps her back into her panties, stockings, shoes, blouse and skirt. He rights her necklace, wipes the dried tears from her cheeks, drags his thumb around her mouth where her lipstick has smudged and helps her down from the bed, keeping a firm hand on her until she nods to let him know she’s alright. 

He tears off a prescription paper and hands it to her. She quickly skims over it. He’s not prescribed any medication or recommended a lobotomy, thank God. 

“Contraction therapy?” she reads, looking up at him with a raised brow.

“I want to see you twice weekly,” he says, buttoning up his shirt. “Maybe we can go for three times a week, if you feel it would be beneficial.”

She tries her best to hide her smile. “Well I’m sure you know best, doctor.”

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