#Northern Uproar

[britpop-band-tourney]

ROUND 2: Strangelove VS Northern Uproar

NORTHERN UPROAR

For me it’s Strangelove!

[sweetestpopcorn]

What’s your opinion on Queen Rhaenys making “the law of six”? There’s some people hating on her because she limited the blows instead of making it unlawful all together. Was it even possible in Middle Ages when women had no rights at all?

My opinion is that I am waiting on those same people to rage about how no one in Westeros did anything before Rhaenys came along and women were just allowed to be beaten to d€ath by their husbands. I am also waiting for the collective uproar of the honourable Northerners keeping the First Night and that it took Jaehaerys and Alysanne coming along to change it. My opinion is also that the the energy they have for the Targaryens should be kept for the other Houses in Westeros.

My opinion is also that people should step outside of their own privilege and realise that in many places in our own universe and society women's rights are still not a thing. Maybe they can figure out why we still allow for women to be mistreated, and after they do that, they can worry about a fictional character trying to at least make it better for women.

[beardedmrbean]

Denzel Washington being cast in Antoine Fuqua’s upcoming Netflix movie as ancient Carthaginian general Hannibal is sparking some controversy in Tunisia, the home country of the great military commander.

According to French newspaper Courrier International, there are complaints about depicting the Carthaginian general as a Black African being made in the media and the Tunisian parliament. Member of Parliament Yassine Mami has pointed out that Hannibal, who was born in 247 BC in Carthage — now known as Tunis, the Tunisian capital — was of West Asian Semitic origin. “There is a risk of falsifying history: we need to take position on this subject,” the Tunisian politician reportedly stated.

Concurrently, French-language Tunisian newspaper La Presse has published an editorial in which it similarly objects that depicting Hannibal as a Black African is “according to Tunisians and many observers, a historical error.”

However, Tunisian culture minister Hayet Ketat-Guermazi had a different, more pragmatic take on the matter.

“It’s fiction. It is their [Netflix‘s] right to do what they want,” she responded, according to French newspaper Le Monde. “Hannibal is a historical figure and we are all proud that he was Tunisian. But what can we do?” She went on to note that she is trying to negotiate with Netflix to shoot at least a portion of the film in Tunisia. “I hope they decide to shoot at least a sequence of the film here and that that this is publicized. We want Tunisia to go back to being a location where foreign films are shot,” Ketat-Guermazi said, as reported by Le Monde.

Representatives for Netflix, Washington and Fuqua did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The controversy in Tunisia over Washington playing Hannibal is reminiscent of the uproar sparked in Egypt in April over Britain’s Adele James, who is of mixed heritage, playing Cleopatra in Netflix’s docudrama “Queen Cleopatra.” The first-century Egyptian queen was born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in 69 BC and belonged to a Greek-speaking dynasty. Egyptian academics went on a rampage over the fact that Cleopatra was of European descent and not Black.

The still-untitled film about the Carthaginian general will be written by John Logan, the three-time Academy Award winner who scribed Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator” and Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator.”

According to the official logline, the movie is “based on real-life warrior Hannibal, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest military commanders in history. The film covers the pivotal battles he led against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War.”

Hannibal invaded Italy while riding a Northern African war elephant. Under his lead, the Carthaginians won key victories against the Romans, allowing Hannibal to occupy the majority of southern Italy for 15 years. Eventually, Hannibal was defeated by the Romans at the Battle of Zama after they counter-invaded North Africa.

Fuqua most recently directed Washington in the action-thriller “The Equalizer 3,” in which Washington reprised his role as ex-Marine Robert McCall.

Washington is currently involved in another war epic, the upcoming sequel to Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator,” which has resumed shooting in Malta after production was halted due to the SAG-AFTRA strike.  _______________

Netflix is at it again i see.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 12, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 13, 2024

At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter, a federal fort built on an artificial island in Charleston Harbor. 

Attacking the fort seemed a logical outcome of events that had been in play for at least four months. On December 20, 1860, as soon as it was clear Abraham Lincoln had won the 1860 presidential election, South Carolina lawmakers had taken their state out of the Union. “The whole town [of Charleston] was in an uproar,” Elizabeth Allston recalled. “Parades, shouting, firecrackers, bells ringing, cannon on the forts booming, flags waving, and excited people thronging the streets.” 

Mississippi had followed suit on January 9, 1861; Florida on January 10; Alabama on January 11; Georgia on January 19; Louisiana on January 26; and Texas on February 1. By the time Lincoln took the oath of office on March 4, 1861, seven southern states had left the Union and formed their own provisional government that protected human enslavement. 

Their move had come because the elite enslavers who controlled those southern states believed that Lincoln’s election to the presidency in 1860 itself marked the end of their way of life. Badly outnumbered by the northerners who insisted that the West must be reserved for free men, southern elites were afraid that northerners would bottle up enslavement in the South and gradually whittle away at it. Those boundaries would mean that white southerners would soon be outnumbered by the Black Americans they enslaved, putting not only their economy but also their very lives at risk.

To defend their system, elite southern enslavers rewrote American democracy. They insisted that the government of the United States of America envisioned by the Founders who wrote the Declaration of Independence had a fatal flaw: it declared that all men were created equal. In contrast, the southern enslavers were openly embracing the reality that some people were better than others and had the right to rule. 

They looked around at their great wealth—the European masters hanging in their parlors, the fine dresses in which they clothed their wives and daughters, and the imported olive oil on their tables—and concluded they were the ones who had figured out the true plan for human society. As South Carolina senator James Henry Hammond explained to his colleagues in March 1858, the “harmonious…and prosperous” system of the South worked precisely because a few wealthy men ruled over a larger class with “a low order of intellect and but little skill.” Hammond dismissed “as ridiculously absurd” the idea that “all men are born equal.” 

On March 21, 1861, Georgia’s Alexander Stephens, the newly-elected vice president of the Confederacy, explained to a crowd that the Confederate government rested on the “great truth” that the Black man “is not equal to the white man; that…subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.” Stephens told listeners that the Confederate government “is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

Not every white southerner thought secession from the United States was a good idea. Especially as the winter wore into spring and Lincoln made no effort to attack the South, conservative leaders urged their hot-headed neighbors to slow down. But for decades, southerners had marinated in rhetoric about their strength and independence from the federal government, and as Senator Judah P. Benjamin of Louisiana later wrote, “[t]he prudent and conservative men South,” were not “able to stem the wild torrent of passion which is carrying everything before it…. It is a revolution...of the most intense character…and it can no more be checked by human effort, for the time, than a prairie fire by a gardener’s watering pot.”

Southern white elites celebrated the idea of a new nation, one they dominated, convinced that the despised Yankees would never fight. “So far as civil war is concerned,” one Atlanta newspaper wrote in January 1861, “we have no fears of that in Atlanta.” White southerners boasted that “a lady’s thimble will hold all the blood that will be shed” in establishing a new nation. Senator James Chesnut of South Carolina went so far as to vow that he would drink all the blood shed as a consequence of southern secession. 

Chesnut’s promise misread the situation. Northerners recognized that if Americans accepted the principle that some men were better than others, and permitted southern Democrats to spread that principle by destroying the United States, they had lost democracy. "I should like to know, if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it stop?” Lincoln had asked in 1858.

Northerners rejected the white southerners’ radical attempt to destroy the principles of the Declaration of Independence. They understood that it was not just Black rights at stake. Arguments like that of Stephens, that some men were better than others, “are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world,” Lincoln said. “You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden…. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent….”

Northerners rejected the slaveholders’ unequal view of the world, seeing it as a radical reworking of the nation’s founding principles. After the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, Lincoln called for 75,000 to put down the rebellion against the government. He called for “loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union, and the perpetuity of popular government; and to redress wrongs already long enough endured.”

Like their southern counterparts, northerners also dismissed the idea that a civil war would be bloody. They were so convinced that a single battle would bring southerners to their senses that inhabitants of Washington, D.C., as well as congressmen and their wives packed picnics and took carriages out to Manassas, Virginia, to watch the Battle of Bull Run in July 1861. They decamped in panic as the battle turned against the United States army and soldiers bolted past them, flinging haversacks and rifles as they fled.

For their part, southerners were as shocked by the battle as the people of the North were. “Never have I conceived,” one South Carolina soldier wrote, “of such a continuous, rushing hailstorm of shot, shell, and musketry as fell around and among us for hours together. We who escaped are constantly wondering how we could possibly have come out of the action alive.” 

Over the next four years, the Civil War would take more than 620,000 lives and cost the United States more than $5 billion. By 1865, two-thirds of the assessed value of southern wealth had evaporated; two-fifths of the livestock— horses and draft animals for tilling fields as well as pigs and sheep for food— were dead. Over half the region's farm machinery had been destroyed, most factories were burned, and railroads were gone, either destroyed or worn out. But by the end of the conflagration, the institution of human enslavement as the central labor system for the American South was destroyed. 

On March 4, 1865, when a weary Lincoln took the oath of office for a second time, he reviewed the war’s history. “To strengthen, perpetuate and extend [slavery] was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it,” he said. “Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. 

“Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered—that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”

“Both parties deprecated war but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish,” he said. 

“And the war came.” 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[jttwaudiodrama]

Logo Design

Hi, this is Zhuang. I made all the art for this series. And here's how I came up with the logo for this project.

This post is also on our Patreon page.

First of all, this was made on Procreate with purchased painting brushes by artist 茶子鱼插画 on Bilibili. She specializes in creating traditional paintings digitally. You are welcome to check her out.

From the very beginning, we decided that the logo has to be round because we need it to be able to spin smoothly, mimicking the spinning discs you see on music apps. After that, settling for a monkey head was kind of a no-brainer. The idea is for the logo to have both strong JttW features and also reflect the nature of the project as an audio series.

I'll start explaining from the center.

① The heart-shaped face of the monkey is a tribute to the classic facial makeup of Sun Wu Kong from traditional Chinese theater (not limited to Peking Opera, other regional variations feature similar aesthetics). The pattern on the forehead refers to a bead/pearl that is a common symbol in Buddhist belief.

I have a scroll (right) on my wall with a similar design.

You can also find elements of this design in the 1960s animated movie The Monkey King: Uproar in Heaven. And their official lego figure too. (Yes, this is also mine.)

We chose this design as a salute to JttW's theater roots, as this story was the collective creation of many generations of grassroot performers. They may be actors on stage, or they may just be storytellers in a teahouse, and what we are doing now is only a return to where JttW began but in a different language. We are delivering the story in the same way it was meant to be delivered 500 years ago.

② Peaches for headphones.

In the story, Wu Kong ate divine peaches, or Pan Tao 蟠桃.

In modern Chinese, Pan Tao also refers to a type of flat peaches. As you can see, the Wikipedia page simply equates the two Pan Tao, suggesting that this is the type of peach Wu Kong ate, which we don't think is correct.

Flat peaches are only grown in the northern regions of the country, so it is unlikely that ancient text from way before JttW would even know this type of fruit existed. Their imagination of Pan Tao the divine fruit is more likely based on the more common, round peaches we can find in the warmer parts of China. Because, if anything, Pan Tao is considered "big peaches" and flat peaches don't really fit that image. If you check any modern adaptation of JttW, their depiction of Pan Tao are always bigger versions of the common round peach.

In the logo, though, I did draw shapes that resemble flat peaches more than round peaches because I need to keep the headphones closer to the head. You can consider this a play on the mix-up of the two different Pan Tao.

Ref: Chapter 5, Part 1

③ Pine cone as mic.

Lin's mic does not look like this. Her mic is a tabletop model.

But again, we needed to keep all the shapes closer to the face otherwise the round shape cannot sustain. Wu Kong's years with Patriarch Pu Ti began with him eating pine cones outside his cave, and ended with him transforming into a pine tree for fun. So this is a convenient symbol to mark his earliest years.

Ref: Chapter 1, Part 2; Chapter 2, Part 2.

Yeah, that's pretty much everything. Let me know if you have questions.

[moonmaiden1996]

AemondxreaderxOsferth

The mark of the seven glared down at you as the festivities unraveled around you. No expense had been spared in celebrating the betrothal between you and the princes. Despite the uproar, the Faith of the Seven had tirelessly promoted the unusual engagement you found yourself in, sending riders to every house in Westeros to come to see the Mothers blessing. However, it didn’t seem to stop the whispers not matter how blessed by the gods you were.

Pressing the cup to your mouth, you swallowed the sour wine as you watched another gaggle of Ladies eye you with red cheeks and judging stares as you sat the top table left with no place to hide.

Since the announcement you had waited to wake from this dream, to find yourself back in your chamber in your families keep. No matter how much your pinched yourself you did not wake up. Here you sat, a little sheep surrounded by dragons. Osferth and Aemond had been lost to the crowd for some time. Aemond to smooth over the troubles with the Baratheon: Osferth pressganged by the Septon to dazzle some northern believers in the Old Gods, leaving you seated by yourself once again.

Despite residing in the keep for nearly a moon, you had not been able to have more than fleeting conversations or moments alone with either prince. Walks had been commandeered, dinners usurped, even your betrothal breakfasts had been derailed by the Queen and the small council. So while you never seem to be wanting for your betrothals company you had yet to have a proper conversation with them,  and with your approaching marriage it appeared you would be marrying strangers. The two boys you spied playing dragon rider in the garden were gone, replaced by two strapping men, chiselled by the gods themselves. Who were to be yours. Only yours you hoped. And you had no idea what to do about it.

A sudden heat raised through your body, making your skin prickle and tingle against the stifling mesh of the corset the queen and her attendant squeezed you into.

"Are you okay my child?" The king spoke, pulling you from your thoughts.

"I am a little hot, my king. If you will excuse me I require some fresh air.” You rose carefully curtsying before scurrying towards the doors.

Your feet only met the middle step of the platform before you were held fast by the stiff grip of the king. Once the steely grip of the warrior weakened by time and disease, yet strong enough to keep you in place.

"My king?"

"Are you well my child? Happy?" his tone soft, fatherly almost.

It was a strange question, no one had asked her if she was happy before the announcement, your own sweet father didn’t even ask you. Marriage was expected, a duty, and marriage to a prince an honour. Your honour being twice so with two princes and blessed by visions from the Mother. But we're you happy? Osferth’s was, by all account, pleasant and gentle, he smiled and spoke softly to you when he pulled chairs out for you or passed you plates of food. Aemond was more problematic, stoic, broody, he seemed to hover constantly, and though he was far less approachable then his brother, he was sweet, informing the kitchen of your preferences, distracting the queen when she overwhelmed you. You were lucky to have a match with men like them, rather them than a man like Aegon.

"Yes my king, I am... very happy to become a member of your household." You frowned as the kings eyes scanned your face.

Slowly, his feeble grip relented and allowed you to escape the stifling heat and burning eyes of the court, but more importantly those lavender eyes of the Princes.

Xxxxxxx

The icy air felt good on your skin, soothing the fire within you your chest heaving from your heavy pants. Closing your eyes you lent against the cold stone, enjoying the brief respite from the chaos of the feast.

"A Lady should never wander too far from the feast... especially one thrown in her honour. One might think your trying to escape... " A deep voiced purred. Opening your eyes you meet the violet eye of Aemond Targaryen.

"Prince Aemond I... I am so happy to see you." you sighed.

"Your rapid departure would appear otherwise...some would think you were not happy about our betrothal.’’

"I am happy..." you stuttered.

"I heard...very convincing." Aemond luscious mouth stretched out in a grim line.

"... Aemond...I am simply a little overwhelm. It all too much..."

“To much... your are to be princess. A Targaryen. A blessing from the Mother herself...many women would do unspeakable things to be standing beside two dragons.” His voice was harsh, as he growled at you.

“I didn't ask for this... I”

"Did you not...? So it was not you that went confessing to the septa asking them to absolve you of that little sin that that made  your little bud of yours glisten and gush... for me and Osferth" A tight smile graced his features as he descended upon you.

"My darling little brother came scurrying to me.” he purred. "A flustered stuttering mess. Should have seen how much cold water it took to soften his cock. Us dragon have fire in our veins and the mere thought of you makes us burn even brighter. I always thought you were too berthed over my brother taking his vows to even think of the one eyed cripple just like the rest of the court....” he advance slowly, pushing you back against the wall. "But on hearing how you wished us to devour you... Was to good to pass...” his voice was low now, hot like molten lava against your skin "having to come up with this little farce to get you my pretty girl, but your worth it. Even having to listen to those pious old cunt and being paraded around like a doll, worth it to soon be finally between your softness, having you to touch and hold every night. To be ours.” Aemond growled curling his hand around your throat, forcing you to look at him.

Never before had you seen the composed features of the dragon be so contorted with emotion. Another gasp gave him a opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth. Clumsy and awkward but still enough to take your breath away.

"Aemond." A scolding tone pulled your apart.

Osferth. His short golden hair, like a halo around him, he always seemed so otherworldly, they both did, but Osferth was so pure it hurt to even look at him. Even now you could not bare to look at him.

“I really thought you were beyond such base instincts dear brother.” Osferth preened as he walked closer, making you painfully aware you were still pinned to the wall by a firm, hard body.

“Do not pretend to be above them, dear brother. I was simply showing our future bride the intensity of our affection.” Aemond rumbled pulling you closer, his hand ghosting over your neck, making you whimper.

Īlon agree daor naejot sȳngagon zirȳla. (We agree not to scare her.)

Eza issare qrīdrughagon hen īlva tolī bōsa, kesan daor emagon zirȳla stolen qrīdrughagon dombo, qogralbar se rest hen zirȳ. (She has been kept away from us too long, I will not have her stolen away anymore, fuck the rest of them.)

 Aderī lēkia, aderī (Soon brother, soon)

“Aderi.’’ Aemond nodded, tightening his hold on you.

You stood frozen as you stared wide eyed at the princes as they glared at each other, only snapped from their silent communication as the words tumbled from you lips. "You lied... you were to become a Septon... How could you?..."

"Hush... I would not have joined, those men care less about the faith then anyone. They know nothing of goodness, or purity or love. My dreams and my thoughts are only of you. The Mother has shown me that the only true power she can give us is love. The love we have for you, and with that, we can better the world."

"But..."

"Hush, dear heart..." Osferth cooed, pressing you against him, wedging you fast between their bodies.

"Let me and Osferth look after you..." Aemond whispered lowly in your ear as his face burrowed into the crook of your neck, inhaling deeply. For the rest of the night, you were trapped between the dragon princes, never leaving your side.

Couldn't wait to post this while I edited my Claiming his Queen chapter. Please let me know what you think and if you want to see anything. This will properly be a series of one shot.

@multitargaryen

[sunriseverse]

So this is more a plotbunny than an AU but: a significant Zhang artefact was stolen and wound up in the British Museum. The gang needs to get it back.

oh fixa i LOVE this idea it's going to be so hard to fit this into only five bullet points. hope you enjoy!

let's say it's set right after sha hai, in terms of time period—xiaoge is back, memories and all, whole and hale, etc etc. sanshu was, on top of being a graverobber, also a regular thief, and wu xie followed in his footsteps. so, of course, when the british museum unveils a new exhibit about the religious traditions of northern china in the late qing period, and the cover page for this news is a fucking zhang bell, the iron triangle can't just stand aside! who knows what'll happen if someone pokes at it!

unfortunately the british museum's patriation efforts are. well. i think we all know. anyway, clearly there's nothing to do but steal it back! and, what do you know, there's a gala being held at the museum coming up, and the wu family does have a lot of international connections..........(i don't know if the bm does galas. if they don't just take this as artistic liberty.)

this is basically just an ocean's eight dmbj au. sorry. that's the only heist film i'm actually familiar with. anyway, they gather The Team: by which i mean, xiao hua, hei xiazi, and huo xiuxiu. by order, we have: wu xie, the mastermind, xiaoge, the acrobat/actual man on the ground, pangzi, the outfitter/resources guy, xiao hua, the hacker, hei xiazi, the smooth talker/negotiations for when things go awry, and huo xiuxiu, logistics and organisation. they're going to get that damn bell back, if they have to burn the museum down to do it.

cue: outfit montages. everyone's dressed their best. they don't just blend in with the rich and famous, they sell it. there may or may not be a dance involved. pangzi and wu xie may or may not keep switching the roles for who leads on each other. (xiaoge would be there, but this man does NOT thrive in loud, crowded environments. he's sneaking into the back rooms where the artefacts are being held while hei xiazi distracts the guards and xiao hua runs tech interference and xiuxiu watches them all like hawks to make sure everything goes to plan.)

andddddddd they pull it off. of course they pull it off. no one even knows what happened—the pros of chinese artefacts is they've been reproduced so many times over the course of history; it's not that hard to swap the genuine items for fakes. the museum, of course, is in an uproar as soon as they find out, but what can they do? and the chinese government basically goes lol. lmao, even. your problem not ours. and an ocean away, the foremost six chinese graverobbers sit around a plastic table on rickety chairs in a tiny hamlet and toast to a job well done.

[cittielinks]

VILLAIN KDJ

Joongdok

Where Kim Dokja transmigrated into the main antagonist in the novel. The son of the most richest and powerful Duke of the Northern Kingdom.

Before, the previous Kim Dokja was timid, shy, and a pushover. He had always liked Yoo Joonghyuk the Crowned Prince. Because he was so obsessed with the Prince, Kim Dokja tried to make friends with all that supported Yoo Joonghyuk’s ally but every ally Yoo Joonghyuk exploited Kim Dokja. Poor Kim Dokja asked Yoo Joonghyuk for help but he did nothing and to add pain and insult to the injury, Yoo Joonghyuk married Lee Seolhwa, the kind saintess who helped him ascend to the throne. It had ruined the name of his parents and was banished from the Kingdom. Hades, the great ruler was no more.

When he transmigrated, Kim Dokja vows to change.

He refused to tarnish the name his kind father created for them, he hates how his mother worries for him and he loathes how he ruined the North Kingdom’s life all because he liked a boy who never even took his time to look at him.

So he began to change, fuck Yoo Joonghyuk and the plot! He’s gonna be a better son and a better heir for his land!

The very first thing he did was walk into the Academy of Neutral side and where an all-powerful figure studied, with confidence. He ignored the snickers and forced those weaklings to move away.

“Pfft. the scardey cat, Kim Dokja suddenly became confident? Ha! As if!.” snickered a nobody who has a lower rank than Kim Dokja.

Kim Dokja stood up and walked towards the laughing group of boys.

He slapped the man who bad-mouthed him and kicked his shin.

This took everyone by surprise, even Yoo Joonghyuk looked at the scene.

“Shut up, you lowly bastard. You are seriously ruining the air with your lousy mouth. Shut up will you?”

“You?!”

“Yes me.”

“Just wait! I will get you!”

“Why don’t you shut up, Son of Baroness Sung. As if you can get me. I heard you are a son out of wedlock. Poor you. Your bastard of a father gambled all your fortune and you don’t even know if you will ever get a chance to sit at the table as the Prince’s aid? I heard your mother has been soliciting around the nobles. Embarrassing. Just what power do you have to insult me? You’re nothing but a cloud of dust. I can crush all of you without batting an eye, even that Prince you all like. Your lucky we don’t care about politics here in this crusty almost falling Kingdom, because if I were my Dad I would burn everything to dust. So back off before I crush you, okay?” Kim Dokja smiled.

Everyone shivered and made a space for Kim Dokja as he walked back. The crowd of people around the fallen boy who insulted him dispersed and they began to murmur.

Everyone wondered what has changed Kim Dokja but none of them talked to the main subject.

Yoo Joonghyuk only stared at Kim Dokja, thinking that the man only has a tantrum and leave it be.

“Ah! Before I forgot. The Duke of the Northern Kingdom will forfeit their support for the Crown Prince. My father will write the document and have it sent by today. I just want to inform you in advance, Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi.”

And then Kim Dokja fell asleep on his desk.

Everyone went into an uproar, Duke Hades was the biggest Support Yoo Joonghyuk has and now that they are forfeiting it will become a great hassle.

Yoo Joonghyuk clenched his fist,

He wanted to shake this madman out but he cannot do so, as he has a reputation to keep up.

Since then no one tried to make fun

The very next day, news around the whole nation talked about how the Northern Kingdom ruled by the Powerful Duke had receded his support and began to close off the trade of some of the most annoying nobles. No one could enter and exit their Kingdom without a permit.

All of the kingdoms has their eyes fearfully staring at the most powerful nation, the Empire was in shambles. The nobles forced their sons and daughter to be friends with their only heir but Kim Dokja became so closed off that no one wanted to be near him as he was surrounded by shadow guards.

And Hades and Persephone are just glad that their son, Kim Dokja has his eyes opened and also helps them rule the land that they created solely for their son.

(( would prolly make a longer fic with alot of drama and a slowburn joongdok but not now sadly))

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:

On the lush, rolling savannas that link northern Tanzania to Amboseli National Park in Kenya, foraging elephants move back and forth on a sloping landscape in the shadow of snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro.

The animals are accustomed to open-sided 4x4s full of tourists on the Kenyan side and seem to sense no danger from the visitors pointing phones. But what the animals probably do not know is that just across the border on the Tanzanian side, which for three decades was just as safe as the park, there are now people pointing guns, not cameras.

Since September, five bull elephants from a population centered around Amboseli have been shot and killed, most likely by trophy hunters, in the Tanzanian part of this wildlife corridor. At least two were so-called super tuskers, with tusks so long that they swept the ground.

There hasn’t been a similar cluster of rapid killings in the area since the mid-1990s. Conservationists say it points to a breakdown of a tacit agreement between the countries that banned hunting in the border zone.

It also highlights challenges the neighbors face in aligning different approaches to managing their shared wildlife heritage: Kenya forbids hunting and gets all its wildlife revenue through sightseeing. While wildlife spotting safaris are an important part of the Tanzanian economy, the country also permits wealthy tourists to shoot big game.

“This is heartbreaking for me,” said Cynthia Moss, an American zoologist monitoring the roughly 2,000 elephants in the Amboseli herd as director of the Amboseli Trust for Elephants. About 10 of Amboseli’s super tuskers are left, and an additional 15 or so remain across Kenya, she said. “I know these elephants. I know how trusting they are.”

The killings have sparked an uproar in Kenya. In April, scores of leading conservationists wrote an open letter to the Tanzanian government demanding that the authorities ban hunting within 25 miles of the Kenyan border.

A spokesperson for the Tanzanian Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, asked for comment, said the country’s conservation strategy was based on “a strong foundation of regulation, research and scientific evidence” and noted that Tanzania had one of the most abundant elephant populations in Africa. Government statements in the past have justified hunting on the grounds that it brings in millions in much-needed income.

Kenya’s wildlife service did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

[mariacallous]

A ‘guest’ appearance by a right-wing politician at a local arts festival, who ordered attendees to remove children from what he called a ‘perverted’ play, would normally make for an amusing anecdote were it not indicative of a wider trend in Fico’s Slovakia.

On August 18, the state secretary of Slovakia’s Environment Ministry, Stefan Kuffa, stood up in front of an audience at an open-air theatre in the tiny northern village of Mala Frankova, interrupting a performance by actors from the Kosice National Theatre. Witnessed by an editor at the local newspaper Zamagurske noviny, this government representative of the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party (SNS) then began to berate members of the audience for bringing their children to a “perverted” play, Little Gem by Irish playwright Elaine Murphy, and ordered the parents to take them home.

“It's unbelievable. It doesn't matter whether someone liked the show or not. If you like, you can stay; if not, you can go. But we can't have people coming here to a small village, flashing lights [on a limousine] paid for with state money, displaying brute strength,” the local editor, Lukas Marhefka, said in a video posted on Facebook.

This scene, which played out like a dystopian farce, actually captures well the current state of affairs in Slovakia: a mixture of authoritarian intimidation, attempts at free-style censorship, no open communication from officials in the aftermath.

Normally, summer in Slovakia is what local media refer to as the “cucumber season”: the country’s parliament has a two-month vacation, and it often seems as though the government and president follow suit. In other words, politics tends to be rather boring and quiet. This year, it was anything but.

In July and August, Robert Fico’s government – a nationalist-populist coalition of the Smer, Hlas and SNS parties – took control of the public service TV and radio broadcaster; the justice minister released from jail a former special prosecutor, Dusan Kovacik, who had been convicted of taking a bribe to help a mafia boss stay out of prison during a previous Fico government; and Culture Minister Martina Simkovicova, a pro-Russian internet TV personality, caused uproar in the arts sector after dismissing the directors of two of the nation’s most prominent cultural institutions for no apparent reason.

If the last few months and promises by officials are anything to go by, Slovakia is in for a troubling fall season, with several new legislative proposals in the works aimed at limiting citizens’ freedom of speech and expression, and restricting their rights to information and free assembly.

Two steps closer to autocracy

Only three months since the shocking assassination attempt on the prime minister, political pressure can be seen impinging on multiple levels of public life – from local municipalities firing employees for “not sharing the opinion of the town’s magistrate”, to ministers sacking the legally appointed managers of important state institutions, to former prosecutors of high level crimes and corruption being investigated and demoted, down to artists being interrogated by the police for organising a petition calling for a minister’s resignation.

Over the summer months, there have been several reports of rising censorship at STVR (formerly RTVS), the new public service broadcaster under the control of the government. In the weeks since the takeover, several high-profile reporters have left the broadcaster in an effort to avoid the rising editorial interference and censorship.

Miro Frindt, a long-time presenter at RTVS and its news channel :24, decided to resign after the nominees of the SNS party took control of the Culture Ministry.

“I had expected that they would replace the director of RTVS, as they did in the past. But they went even further, destroyed RTVS completely and built a new medium, STVR, with an even stronger state influence,” Frindt tells BIRN. “There are several mechanisms that turned a public institution into a state one. It doesn’t matter what the new law actually says, it matters how the processes are set. And they are set up for a complete political takeover of television.”

Kristina Chrenkova, a foreign news reporter at Slovak Radio, part of STVR, echoes the fears of many about the turn to censorship. “I think that people are starting to be more cautious with the topics they cover, with the things they say in public. We are not getting any explicit instructions of course, but you can see that they’re not happy if you express any concerns,” Chrenkova says.

Her work on the international desk has been made significantly more difficult by the decision of their colleagues at Czech Radio to withdraw cooperation out of concerns for journalistic freedom at STVR. Besides the foreign correspondents that contributed regular reports from geopolitical hotspots like Ukraine or Middle East, the Slovak public broadcaster also lost the opportunity to talk to foreign policy experts and analysts from Czech Radio.

Peace and ‘normalisation’ of society

The purge of personnel in the public sector is merely a symptom of deeper changes taking place in Slovakia, experts warn.

First, the government took control of all law enforcement and judicial institutions, save for the (for now) independent courts. A new law closed the Special Prosecutor’s Office, which had been responsible for prosecuting organised crime, extremism and corruption, demoting all the specialised experienced prosecutors to common regional offices. The government also took control of the Judicial Council, which effectively controls the judiciary in the country. And effective from September 1, it dissolved the National Criminal Agency (NAKA), responsible for investigating high-level criminality, which Stefan Hamran, a former police chief, criticised as an attempt to remove inconvenient officers and weaken special units, specifically those targeting high-profile figures involved in public finance corruption.

“In this case it’s not really so important that Fico’s government is intimidating people, that some people are starting to be afraid, that it’s all very vulgar and primitive, especially in the culture sector. There are much more worrying things happening in the Judicial council, NAKA, Special Prosecution, Special Court, Supreme Court, General Prosecution, SIS [intelligence agency], the police in general – they’ve subjugated all these forces completely,” Michal Vasecka, a sociologist and director of the Bratislava Policy Institute, tells BIRN.

“If Slovakia were trying to get into the EU today, it would never be accepted. It might get a similar rating as, say, Serbia,” he adds.

After the latest controversial steps of the government brought tens of thousands of people onto the streets of Bratislava on August 13, coalition leaders began calling for new regulations on public gatherings, citing the need to limit the “vulgar language” being used.

Ironically, it was actually current government members who had been encouraging the vilest language during their own anti-government protests not so long ago when they were in opposition, targeting migrants (neo-Nazi LSNS party), COVID-19 restrictions (LSNS, Smer, SNS), and the former president Zuzana Caputova or Igor Matovic’s cabinet members (Smer, SNS, Hlas).

“It’s a restriction on freedom of speech,” Vasecka says of the new proposals to regulate public gatherings. “After all, we can argue that our long-term experience with political manifestations, protests, participation organised by civil society have always been very peaceful, for over 35 years, contrary to many other countries.”

In a series of legislative changes dubbed Lex attentat (“Law assassination”) at the end of June, the government already limited the right to assemble by forbidding public protests from being held closer than 50 metres to residences of government officials, the president or other state institutions. Lex atentat II, which is already in the works, should extend those measures even further.

“We don’t want to limit freedom of speech, but we want to limit the spread of hate,” explained Tibor Gaspar, an MP of the ruling Smer party, using as an example the chant for “Robert Fico to jail” heard at previous anti-government protests.

Experts, as well as opposition politicians, keep referring back to the term “normalisation”, the period following the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 during which the authorities clamped down on the opposition, civil society and critics by means of persecution, censorship and intimidation.

“In everyday life, this ‘normalisation’ demonstrated itself in the moderation of the social dynamic: instilling fear in people, making them stop caring about public affairs. In this sense, ‘normalisation’ is really powerful – it is an attempt to discourage people so much that they retreat to their homes, holiday cottages, and stop caring,” explains Vasecka, saying he is sure this is already happening in Slovakia today.

No information, no problems

The Slovak government is now turning its attention towards ways to limit public access to information.

SNS, which is in charge of the Culture Ministry, announced it wants people to pay if they request an “excessive amount” of information from public institutions. “The legislative change is in reaction to the long-term problems created in cases where public officials are overwhelmed by frequent or excessive requests for access to information,” SNS legislators wrote in their proposal, which should be discussed in September.

In the meantime, a group of Slovak NGOs has been fighting another attempt to limit public access to information, this time coming from the Hlas-led Interior Ministry.

“Using a critical infrastructure law, they wanted to change the law about classified information, introducing a new term, ‘limited information’. This could be any information regarding a public institution that could endanger the trustworthiness of the institution ‘in particular’,” says Lubomir Danko, a former police investigator who now works for the Stop Corruption Foundation.

Since this proposal was submitted via a traditional legal process, activists and the public were able to submit comments. Significant public pressure, including a collective comment signed by 15,000 people, seems to have had an effect and forced the Interior Ministry to amend its proposal. Even so, the NGOs are still trying to get the ministry to change the term “internal affairs” of the state from the definition, which could give the government wide latitude to hide a range of information from the public.

Fico’s government members, especially from the SNS party, are becoming increasingly creative in finding ways to limit free expression in multiple areas.

In late August, SNS legislators said they would propose a law to order all state-owned buildings to fly a Slovak and EU flag, banning all others. The opposition sees this as a clear attempt to ban the rainbow flag of the LBGTQ+ community from state institutions. Moreover, the same legislators want to ban any information relating to “non-traditional sexual orientations or gender identities” from schools, essentially banning educators from providing any information about LGBTQ+ issues or modern sex education.

“They don’t do it because of a deep ideology or refined geopolitical strategy about redirecting Slovakia,” argues Vasecka about the motivations for Fico’s government, which often mimics ideas coming out of Russia and Hungary rather than the West. “[Fico] has started ruling the country not just in an authoritarian way, but in a truly autocratic way. Just like [Viktor] Orban in Hungary, Fico too has become a ruler with unlimited power,” he says.

“What is surprising, however, is the speed with which Fico is taking control. What Robert Fico has reached in merely ten months since the [last general] elections, Orban reached after maybe three terms in office,” he adds.

Speaking at the Globsec Forum 2024 in Prague on August 30, Michal Simecka, leader of the opposition party Progresivne Slovensko (Progressive Slovakia), said the government and Fico in particular wants to make political debate in the country all about culture wars, LGBT issues and gender. “Fico wants to create permanent cultural conflict and polaristaion because that’s the way he stays in the majority. But it’s a trap – we need to tell voters that this does nothing to make peoples’ lives better,” Simecka said.

[jgfiles]

Do you think there is a slight connection with odagiri and fukumoto with yuuki?

I'm so sorry for the late reply! I completely missed this ask!

As for your question...

it's hard to say.

Although here the three of them are depicted together...

This normally doesn't happen.

We know that Yuuki 'saved' Odagiri when the latter was arrested for 'insubordination' and was likely going to lose his rank and be discharged from the army with dishonor.

Yuuki: Are you the one they called "untrainable?" Any plans for after you quit the army? Odagiri: Good question. Maybe I'll move to Manchuria and become a roving bandit… Yuuki: If you feel up to it, come take my exam.

The novels make clear Yuuki made an exception when he took Odagiri in his agency.

The people D Agency chose were “civilians”. When D Agency had just began, this policy of Lieutenant Colonel Yuuki caused an uproar within the army, but Tobisaki was an exception. Starting at Military Preparatory School, then experiencing Imperial Japanese Army Academy, and finally being appointed as army second lieutenant, he could be considered as a “purebred” army officer. (XX translation by @unnagi)

In the anime it's implied he also sent him to Manchuria because Nogami Yuriko will move there.

In the novel things are different as Nogami Yuriko is the culprit and Odagiri is assigned in noth China.

“Your new place of assignment is Northern China. Apparently you’ll be a First Lieutenant.”

Lieutenant Colonel Yuuki said so half-heartedly. Needlessly to say, Tobisaki already knew the meaning behind his words. D Agency handled confidential matters of the army, including illegal affairs. Naturally, the military couldn’t let someone who “knew too much of the inside story” live on. Tobisaki’s new place of assignment was probably the battlefront that was raining in bullets at this very moment.

— First give him a promotion, then a place to bury him.

This was the cruel “considerate plan” of the army. Tobisaki accepted the transfer order in accordance with the rules, placing it under his arm and turning around, when he was just planning to step out of the room… Someone from the back was calling him by his real name. He turned to look back, only to see Lieutenant Colonel Yuuki had stood up from the seat, his right hand in front of his forehead, he was doing a military salute in front of Tobisaki for the first time.

“You cannot die.” (XX translation by @unnagi)

So Yuuki's only kindness is telling him he can't die as a way to encourage him to survive.

As for Fukumoto... we see no interactions between Yuuki and Fukumoto.

The first stage used Fukumoto as kind of Yuuki's secretary if I'm not wrong as he was often the one reporting situations to Yuuki.

I don't know about the second as it was never translated which is too bad.

It's still not much but, I guess, this means fans can interpret things the way they prefer.

Sorry if it's not terribly helpful and thank you for your ask!

[britpop-band-tourney]

ROUND 1: Northern Uproar VS Pimlico

NORTHERN UPROAR

PIMLICO

I don’t have much of a preference with this one. Tbh I think Queenie is a masterpiece so for that reason I prefer Pimlico

[torrhen-manderly]

endure

a character challenge for @asongofgoldenfireandblackblood. additional character mention of @manderlypearl.

Lady Maisie Manderly had once told her lord husband that their firstborn son thrived off the life of others. Torrhen had heard his mother speak the words late one night while he wandered throughout New Castle, sneaking into the kitchens to grab a rare fig tart. He had been ten and three, while his younger sister Erena had been six. Her door had been his first when he slid a wrapped fig tart under the door, giving one to his brother Medrick when he returned to their shared room. His mother’s words met little to him than before the grey days had come, but now Torrhen Manderly understood that she had been right.

He had no connection to King’s Landing besides the feudal ties that had brought him here. He had come to swear loyalty to Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen on behalf of his ailing father. The queen mourned her father, a thought that tormented him when it came to his mind. Desmond Manderly was the cornerstone of his house, and Torrhen was unsure if he could be the same. When he and Cregan Stark arrived in the capital, Torrhen had seen the new queen in spare moments. But the tone of the castle was not of festivity but of fear and paranoia. The Dragon Queen had been poisoned, and the court had been in an unsteady uproar. While a Northerner, Torrhen had heard undercurrents of rumors of unknown succession. Those rumors shook the castle to its very foundations. 

Anxiety seeped into his veins with each passing minute and conversation. It had been two days since the night of the poisoning, and as the Red Keep had been closed, his mood had only decreased. He joined many in the darkening attitude, not quite melancholy, but it crept ever closer. Now was not the time when he needed to prove himself in court for himself, his father, and his family. He would not be an unworthy son in such a time.

So Torrhen Manderly found himself slipping into his sister’s room once again. However, this time, he did not slink around New Castle but the royal seat. Erena had been his lighthouse since their childhood, home without home. When the melancholy beckoned, he ran to her. Erena was his reminder of life and its worth when all seemed a mistake or a loss. While the guards remained on edge, they recognized the easy smile of the Manderlly heir to let him inside the small chambers assigned to his sister. He padded in, his mind settling as he heard her soft hum before the window. Erena’s back was to him as he looked from the doorway, but he knew by the flick of her hand that she was at work. His sister was an artist, one of the finest he had seen.

Torrhen stood in the room's threshold, not entering but not leaving. Erena would know it was him. He would listen to or watch her paint for a time before eventually moving forward to speak with her. But it was enough to gather his thoughts and calm the flood of anxiety that rushed through him. Each stroke of paint hummed verse, and the bounce of Erena’s head soothed him. Torrhen would enjoy the small things in such a moment of strife, just as his younger sister did in the moment before him. The court would endure such an event, and the mood would lift, so Torrhen resolved to do the same.

[bondsmagii]

lmao god this is the mood right here. like I know it's not every American but jesus. I have never had anyone from any other country comment on my writing or message me "correcting" my spelling. it baffles me how it's a uniquely American phenomena online to just... forget that you might be talking to somebody from another country. when I was a fairly prolific creepypasta author this was actually so constant and derailed so majorly from some projects I was working on that I had to change all my spelling to American English, just so people would read my fucking work without insulting me with "jokes" about my word choices or spelling errors. (god help you if you refer to a flashlight as a torch. people just lost their minds.) there's still writing of mine in circulation that's written in American English, and it pisses me off so much. I absolutely refuse now, and if anyone tries to be smart about how I write I start hitting them with Northern Irish slang just to make them even more confused.

while I'm going Off on this subject I have to mention the funniest American Gotcha moment that I experienced. I was sharing a story online and part of the context was that I was at McDonald's at 3am. this small fact created uproar in the thread, throwing my entire account into accusations of lying, because "OP said they were in the UK and their McDonald's restaurants are never open that late... 24 hour McDick's in an American thing." in the end I had to take a fucking timestamped picture of the nearby plug sockets to get everyone to shut the fuck up.

[baddybaddyadardaddy]

Coming up next on Awake, Arise or Be Forever Fall’n:

Gondolin. Will. Fall. 

“Gondolin is in uproar: bells sound through the streets, clanging in constant, diverse rhythms to alert its people of the coming danger, and the air is filled with frantic screams as Morgoth’s host begins to breach the northern wall...”  -Excerpt from Chapter 28: The Fall 

[p.s. Robert Sheehan = Maeglin 5eva, I will not be taking questions at this time.]

[beardedmrbean]

France's President Macron wants to reform immigration law with stricter deportation measures. Migrants and refugees protesting against the reform say its severity is unprecedented.Thousands of people were marching in the streets near Montparnasse train station in southern Paris on a recent Sunday afternoon. They were holding signs proclaiming their opposition to the "Darmanin law," named after France's interior minister. Other placards said "Immigration is not a problem ― racism is."

Right at the front of the group, a megaphone in hand, was Ahmada Siby.

The 33-year-old Malian arrived in France almost five years ago. Benefiting from a legal loophole, he has been using other people's papers to work as a cleaner, a chambermaid and, lately, a dishwasher.

'We are doing all the dirty work'

"Most of us undocumented immigrants are using this method, but it means we are paying social insurance fees and taxes without benefitting from services such as regular public healthcare like French citizens," he told DW.

"President Emmanuel Macron's government treats us as if we were nothing, although we're doing all the dirty work ― at construction sites, including the ones for the Paris Olympics next summer, in restaurants and as cleaners," he added.

That's why Siby and others have banded together to protest the bill, which France's government said is a compromise including left-wing and right-wing measures.

Deportations easier, family reunifications harder

The draft law is set to be discussed in the National Assembly, France's lower house of parliament, starting on Monday, December 11, 2023, and could enter into force early next year.

The final version of the immigration bill still needs to be pinned down, but some details are already known.

The new bill is likely to fast-track asylum procedures and shorten delays for appeals, make family reunifications more complicated and restrict the possibility to come to France for medical treatment. Changes also include the option of deporting people who were younger than 13 when they came to France, and deporting foreign parents whose children have French citizenship.

Paris was planning to create a one-year green card for people working in sectors with a labor shortage. But as it stands now, the decisions on these one-year permits are left up to local authorities.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin brought the immigration reform bill into the Senate. But France's upper house of parliament, which has a center-right majority, recently considerably toughened the draft. And the government is expected to keep some of these changes to get the bill through the National Assembly. Macron's Renaissance party and its allies don't have an absolute majority there and need the conservative Republicans' support.

Since a recent terror attack by a Russian immigrant on French teacher Dominique Bernard in the northern town of Arras, the government presents the law mostly as a safeguard against unwanted immigration and terrorism. Migrants, refugees and aid organizations are worried the new rules could lead to more stigmatization and discrimination.

France 'passing a new threshold of toughness'

Lisa Faron from Paris-based Cimade, an NGO providing support for refugees and migrants, is one of those who is deeply concerned.

"The government had promised a balanced bill, and yet, the new rules will almost exclusively restrict immigrants' rights and make it more complicated for them to get legalized, which will result in even more undocumented migrants," she told DW.

"France has voted through many immigration bills, but it feels like we are passing a new threshold of toughness with this one ― for example by making it easier to expel foreign parents of French children, which was beforehand only possible if they had committed serious crimes," Faron added.

For Vincent Tiberj, professor for political sociology at University Sciences Po Bordeaux, the draft law is reflecting a general shift to the right in the political debate.

"Most French politicians are depicting immigrants as a burden and a threat. They completely forget that many migrants, also of later generations, are contributing a whole lot to our society," he told DW.

The sociologist thinks mainstream politicians are out to grab right-wing votes. Far-right party Rassemblement National is predicted to come first in next June's European Parliament elections according to polls.

"And yet, parties such as Renaissance should know this strategy doesn't work ― it only legitimizes far-right movements and helps them gain even more ground," Tiberj said.

Will new immigration rules have an impact?

Alexis Izard, Renaissance parliamentarian for the department of Essonne just south of Paris, says the final bill will still be balanced.

"Every year, we need to expel about 4,000 illegal immigrants who have committed crimes, and that will be possible with this new law," he told DW, adding that deportation procedures would take one instead of two years after the changes.

"At the same time, we want to attract those who come here and work. This will be a highly efficient law," Izard said.

Herve Le Bras, historian and demographer at the Paris-based School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences EHESS, begs to differ on that last point.

He says none of the more than 100 other immigration laws since 1945 have been effective.

"The bill is completely useless and will have practically no impact on the number of migrants coming in per year. It only gives politicians, from the far-right to the far-left, a platform to express their stance," he stated in an interview with DW.

"If you look at the immigration figures under past governments, you'll see that they are uncorrelated to politics," he said.

Alain Fontaine, owner of the restaurant Le Mesturet in central Paris and head of France's Association of Restaurant Owners, is still hoping the initially planned one-year green card will be put back in and even extended.

"Bars and restaurants won't be able to function without foreign workers who represent about a quarter of our work force," he told DW.

Some 12 out of his own 27 employees are foreigners.

"We need immigrants ― also since our own youth prefer to work in the digital sector or jobs linked to the protection of the environment," he said. "They no longer want to do the tough jobs."

Fight for a better future continues

Malian immigrant Ahmada Siby doesn't think the automatic one-year green card, even if prolonged, would be the right way forward.

"It would enshrine modern slavery into law, as we would need to work in that one sector to keep it. You'd still be at the boss's mercy," he said, sitting on his bed in a 15 square meter (161 square feet) room in the suburb of Montreuil east of Paris, a studio flat he's sharing with an uncle and a cousin.

"We want the government to legalize all of us, so that we can choose the job we'd like to do," he added.

Then, Siby looked at pictures of himself five years ago, after he had reached Spain from Morocco on a small inflatable boat.

He thinks of the crossing, which took almost a whole day, as "the most difficult moment in my life."

Everyone on board almost died.

"Once you've survived this, you don't just give up," Siby said. "I'm determined to fight for a better future."