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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 months ago

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Richard R John’s “Network Nation”

THIS SATURDAY (July 20), I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

The telegraph and the telephone have a special place in the history and future of competition and Big Tech. After all, they were the original tech monopolists. Every discussion of tech and monopoly takes place in their shadow.

Back in 2010, Tim Wu published The Master Switch, his bestselling, wildly influential history of "The Bell System" and the struggle to de-monopolize America from its first telecoms barons:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/11/01/the-master-switch-tim-net-neutrality-wu-explains-whats-at-stake-in-the-battle-for-net-freedom/

Wu is a brilliant writer and theoretician. Best known for coining the term "Net Neutrality," Wu went on to serve in both the Obama and Biden administrations as a tech trustbuster. He accomplished much in those years. Most notably, Wu wrote the 2021 executive order on competition, laying out a 72-point program for using existing powers vested in the administrative agencies to break up corporate power and get the monopolist's boot off Americans' necks:

https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

The Competition EO is basically a checklist, and Biden's agency heads have been racing down it, ticking off box after box on or ahead of schedule, making meaningful technical changes in how companies are allowed to operate, each one designed to make material improvements to the lives of Americans.

A decade and a half after its initial publication, Wu's Master Switch is still considered a canonical account of how the phone monopoly was built – and dismantled.

But somewhat lost in the shadow of The Master Switch is another book, written by the accomplished telecoms historian Richard R John: "Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications," published a year after The Master Switch:

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674088139

Network Nation flew under my radar until earlier this year, when I found myself speaking at an antitrust conference where both John and Wu were also on the bill:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VNivXjrU3A

During John's panel – "Case Studies: AT&T & IBM" – he took a good-natured dig at Wu's book, claiming that Wu, not being an historian, had been taken in by AT&T's own self-serving lies about its history. Wu – also on the panel – didn't dispute it, either. That was enough to prick my interest. I ordered a copy of Network Nation and put it on my suitcase during my vacation earlier this month.

Network Nation is an extremely important, brilliantly researched, deep history of America's love/hate affair with not just the telephone, but also the telegraph. It is unmistakably as history book, one that aims at a definitive takedown of various neat stories about the history of American telecommunications. As Wu writes in his New Republic review of John's book:

Generally he describes the failure of competition not so much as a failure of a theory, but rather as the more concrete failure of the men running the competitors, many of whom turned out to be incompetent or unlucky. His story is more like a blow-by-blow account of why Germany lost World War II than a grand theory of why democracy is better than fascism.

https://newrepublic.com/article/88640/review-network-nation-richard-john-tim-wu

In other words, John thinks that the monopolies that emerged in the telegraph and then the telephone weren't down to grand forces that made them inevitable, but rather, to the errors made by regulators and the successful gambits of the telecoms barons. At many junctures, things could have gone another way.

So this is a very complicated story, one that uses a series of contrasts to make the point that history is contingent and owes much to a mix of random chance and the actions of flawed human beings, and not merely great economic or historical laws. For example, John contrasts the telegraph with the telephone, posing them against one another as a kind of natural experiment in different business strategies and regulatory responses.

The telegraph's early promoters, including Samuel Morse (as in "Morse code") believed that the natural way to roll out telegraph was via selling the patents to the federal government and having an agency like the post office operate it. There was a widespread view that the post office as a paragon of excellent technical management and a necessity for knitting together the large American nation. Moreover, everyone could see that when the post office partnered with private sector tech companies (like the railroads that became essential to the postal system), the private sector inevitably figured out how to gouge the American public, leading regulators to ever-more extreme measures to rein in the ripoffs.

The telegraph skated close to federalization on several occasions, but kept getting snatched back from the brink, ending up instead as a privately operated system that primarily served deep-pocketed business customers. This meant that telegraph companies were forever jostling to get the right to string wires along railroad tracks and public roads, creating a "political economy" that tried to balance out highway regulators and rail barons (or play them off against each other).

But the leaders of the telegraph companies were largely uninterested in "popularizing" the telegraph – that is, figuring out how ordinary people could use telegraphs in place of the hand-written letters that were the dominant form of long-distance communications at the time. By turning their backs on "popularization," telegraph companies largely freed themselves from municipal oversight, because they didn't need to get permission to string wires into every home in every major city.

When the telephone emerged, its inventors and investors initially conceived of it as a tool for business as well. But while the telegraph had ushered in a boom in instantaneous, long-distance communications (for example, by joining ports and distant cities where financiers bought and sold the ports' cargo), the telephone proved far more popular as a way of linking businesses within a city limits. Brokers and financiers and businesses that were only a few blocks from one another found the telephone to be vastly superior to the system of dispatching young boys to race around urban downtowns with slips bearing messages.

So from the start, the phone was much more bound up in city politics, and that only deepened with popularization, as phones worked their ways into the homes of affluent families and local merchants like druggists, who offered free phone calls to customers as a way of bringing trade through the door. That created a great number of local phone carriers, who had to fend off Bell's federally enforced patents and aldermen and city councilors who solicited bribes and favors.

To make things even more complex, municipal phone companies had to fight with other sectors that wanted to fill the skies over urban streets with their own wires: streetcar lines and electrical lines. The unregulated, breakneck race to install overhead wires led to an epidemic of electrocutions and fires, and also degraded service, with rival wires interfering with phone calls.

City politicians eventually demanded that lines be buried, creating another source of woe for telephone operators, who had to contend with private or quasi-private operators who acquired a monopoly over the "subways" – tunnels where all these wires eventually ended up.

The telegraph system and the telephone system were very different, but both tended to monopoly, often from opposite directions. Regulations that created some competition in telegraphs extinguished competition when applied to telephones. For example, Canada federalized the regulation of telephones, with the perverse effect that everyday telephone users in cities like Toronto had much less chance of influencing telephone service than Chicagoans, whose phone carrier had to keep local politicians happy.

Nominally, the Canadian Members of Parliament who oversaw Toronto's phone network were big leaguers who understood prudent regulation and were insulated from the daily corruption of municipal politics. And Chicago's aldermen were pretty goddamned corrupt. But Bell starved Toronto of phone network upgrades for years, while Chicago's gladhanding political bosses forced Chicago's phone company to build and build, until Chicago had more phone lines than all of France. Canadian MPs might have been more remote from rough-and-tumble politics, but that made them much less responsive to a random Torontonian's bitter complaint about their inability to get a phone installed.

As the Toronto/Chicago story illustrates, the fact that there were so many different approaches to phone service tried in the US and Canada gives John more opportunities to contrast different business-strategies and regulations. Again, we see how there was never one rule that governments could have used if they wanted to ensure that telecoms were well-run, widely accessible, and reasonably priced. Instead, it was always "horses for courses" – different rules to counter different circumstances and gambits from telecoms operators.

As John traces through the decades during which the telegraph and telephone were established in America, he draws heavily on primary sources to trace the ebb and flow of public and elite sentiment towards public ownership, regulation, and trustbusting. In John's hands, we see some of the most spectacular failures as more than a mismatch of regulatory strategy to corporate gambit – but rather as a mismatch of political will and corporate gambit. If a company's power would be best reined in by public ownership, but the political vogue is for regulation, then lawmakers end up trying to make rules for a company they should simply be buying giving to the post office to buy.

This makes John's history into a history of the Gilded Age and trustbusters. Notorious vulture capitalists like Jay Gould shocked the American conscience by declaring that businesses had no allegiance to the public good, and were put on this Earth to make as much money as possible no matter what the consequences. Gould repeated "raided" Western Union, acquiring shares and forcing the company to buy him out at a premium to end his harassment of the board and the company's managers.

By the time the feds were ready to buy out Western Union, Gould was a massive shareholder, meaning that any buyout of the telegraph would make Gould infinitely wealthier, at public expense, in a move that would have been electoral poison for the lawmakers who presided over it. In this highly contingent way, Western Union lived on as a private company.

Americans – including prominent businesspeople who would be considered "conservatives" by today's standards, were deeply divided on the question of monopoly. The big, successful networks of national telegraph lines and urban telephone lines were marvels, and it was easy to see how they benefited from coordinated management. Monopolists and their apologists weaponized this public excitement about telecoms to defend their monopolies, insisting that their achievement owed its existence to the absence of "wasteful competition."

The economics of monopoly were still nascent. Ideas like "network effects" (where the value of a service increases as it adds users) were still controversial, and the bottlenecks posed by telephone switching and human operators meant that the cost of adding new subscribers sometimes went up as the networks grew, in a weird diseconomy of scale.

Patent rights were controversial, especially patents related to natural phenomena like magnetism and electricity, which were viewed as "natural forces" and not "inventions." Business leaders and rabble-rousers alike decried patents as a federal grant of privilege, leading to monopoly and its ills.

Telecoms monopolists – telephone and telegraph alike – had different ways to address this sentiment at different times (for example, the Bell System's much-vaunted commitment to "universal service" was part of a campaign to normalize the idea of federally protected, privately owned monopolies).

Most striking about this book were the parallels to contemporary fights over Big Tech trustbusting, in our new Gilded Age. Many of the apologies offered for Western Union or AT&T's monopoly could have been uttered by the Renfields who carry water for Facebook, Apple and Google. John's book is a powerful and engrossing reminder that variations on these fights have occurred in the not-so-distant past, and that there's much we can learn from them.

Wu isn't wrong to say that John is engaging with a lot of minutae, and that this makes Network Nation a far less breezy read than Master Switch. I get the impression that John is writing first for other historians, and writers of popular history like Wu, in a bid to create the definitive record of all the complexity that is elided when we create tidy narratives of telecoms monopolies, and tech monopolies in general. Bringing Network Nation on my vacation as a beach-read wasn't the best choice – it demands a lot of serious attention. But it amply rewards that attention, too, and makes an indelible mark on the reader.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/18/the-bell-system/#were-the-phone-company-we-dont-have-to-care

#pluralistic #books #reviews #history #the bell system #monopoly #att #western union #gift guide #tim wu #richard r john #the master switch #antitrust #trustbusting

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scarletttries · 2 years ago

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Romeo Take Me Somewhere We Can Be Alone (Roman Roy Succession Request)

Part Two Available Now!

Pairing: Roman Roy (Succession) x Gender Neutral! Reader

Requests: "Roman x Mattson!reader? Forbidden/secret relationship?" AND "Perhaps some smut for Roman Roy? Maybe Roman being on the more submissive side? Thank you!"

Warnings: Smut, spoilers for the new season.

Word Count: 2.7k

Author's Note: Oh Roman, I'm going to pretend I haven't seen the latest episode so I can continue fancying you without having to think critically about this piece of media 🙃 Thank you to the ABSOLUTE genius that suggested a Mattson! reader, forbidden romance vibe, I loved the request and enjoyed writing this so much, I've gone full Romeo & Juliet! (More like Rome-eo, hahaha I felt like a genius for this). Also this is my first Roman smut so it was a bit of a challenge to try and keep it in the same tone i've written Roman in so far, but I hope you enjoy! As always keep the requests coming :D

Romey-o take me somewhere we can be alone

"Have you had enough of this little ass-kiss fucky fest yet?" You watched the little bubble pop up on your phone and looked across the party in reflex, scanning the crowd until you saw his smug little smile directed your way. You unlocked your phone to reply, scrolling up to glimpse the hundreds of messages between the two of you since you'd met that day at the woodlands company retreat three weeks ago.

***

"Problems working with your older brother? I can relate." You stepped out into the night air to find Roman hunched over the railing of the small balcony, hands threading through his hair so firmly he threatened to pull it out in clumps. His shoulders grew a little less tense as your voice washed over him, hands falling to the edge of ledge as he gestured for you to join him.

"So you're the younger Mattson? You could have fooled me, on account of you not being a massive dick." He laughed at the words but it came out hollow, watching his breath form a white wisp in front of his face in the cold night air.

"Thanks, I try my best to be an actual human being. I hear out of all the Roys you're the most favourable to be around too."

He turned his head sharply to really look at you, the sincerity in your tone and the measured kindness of your words catching his attention.

"Oh yeah?" He probed, hoping another almost compliment would fall from your lips before he did something to ruin this moment. Truth was he'd spend half the weekend watching the way you floated through the conference, poised, humble, soft; the antithesis of your brother Lucas. And so he'd avoided you, sure that any moment spent in your presence would only tarnish the shining light you carried so effortlessly.

"I like to think I've got good instincts for people, and I think there's something about you that's different from the rest of your family. And I mean that in a good way." You were thoughtful as you spoke, treading lightly around the slick man in front of you, sure that one wrong move would have him sprinting back inside, spitting venom in his words as he went.

"That's actually pretty nice to hear these days." Roman replied after a pause, now standing squarely to face you, searching your eyes for any hint of deception and mockery and instead finding a tranquility that washed over him in waves as you returned a smile he hadn't realised he was sharing.

"I'm really sorry about your father by the way. And I'm even more sorry that you have to be here right now." You grimaced at your brother's insistence that this weekend go ahead as planned, every ounce of humanity seeming to leave him the moment his bank account saw a certain amount of zeros. Roman nodded at your words, the taste of condolences still unfamiliar and bitter in his mouth, cursing his father for ruining yet another interaction for him, even from beyond the grave. You read his silence for the pain that it was and set your hand gently on top of his where it rested on the railing.

"Well I should go back inside before any of our siblings accuse us of fraternising with the enemy, but it was nice to meet you. I really mean that."

Panic rose up in the back of Roman's throat as you turned to move away, not yet ready for this moment to end, feeling better than he had in weeks. He ignored the voice crying out inside him to stay strong, to isolate himself, to trust no one, and instead caught your rising hand with his.

"Maybe we could fraternise just a little longer.

***

And so you and Roman had spent an evening sharing in the perils of being a younger sibling in your strange corporate worlds, swapping numbers and an unspoken agreement to keep this from your families as you departed the next day, Roman touching the spot on his cheek you had blessed with a gentle kiss when he snuck into your treehouse to say a real goodbye. And so followed weeks of secret texts and furtive phone calls, pouring out your souls until finally you were back in the same room, parted in a hotel lobby by a sea of political donors and movers and shakers, but feeling only one pair of eyes on you.

"I thought you'd never ask." You sent back in response, locking eyes with him once again and tipping your head toward an emergency exit you had checked led to a service elevator. From opposite sides of the room you each slipped through the crowd, trying your best to be unseen, aware that any of these prying eyes could collapse what you had delicately built with a single passing comment. As you reached the door you did a final scan to ensure there were no Waystar or GoJo members nearby who could catch a glimpse of this subtle rendezvous, before backing through the door yourself.

Roman stood waiting between the open elevator doors, looking almost bashful as you dashed towards him, vanishing into the small metal room as he let the door slide shut behind him.

"Thanks for holding it." You couldn't help the anticipation loaded in your tone, facing Roman and finding him stood barely an inch away from your blushing face.

"I had a feeling we were going to the same floor." He breathed out, eyes wide and hands shaking as they rose to brush either side of your face, the adoration clear in the gentle way his thumbs stroked your cheeks.

Before either of you could think your way out of something good, you leant forward, closing the gap between your lips and sending a whirlwind of warmth and glitter spinning through your bodies, the reunion more than worth the wait. His head bobbed forward to return the gesture, body following the movement until he was pressed entirely against you. It wasn't rough, or frantic, or urgent. It was like deep down you knew you'd be doing this forever, so you had all the time in the world to sweetly caress the nape of his neck, parting his lips for a content sigh that only let you taste more of him.

By the time the lift doors opened on your floor Roman could hardly remember where he began and you ended, unsure how he ever coped being half way across the planet from you, needing to keep you as close as he could for every second you could steal tonight. You could feel it too, the desperate pull of your heart towards him, the air of secrecy that only made you want him more, this forbidden fruit the sweetest you would ever taste.

You could feel his cheeks brush against yours as he fought back a smile at finally having you in his arms, and the physical confirmation you had been feeling this overwhelming chemistry too. He would have berated anyone else for believing in love at first sight, but as you rested your forehead softly against his, feeling the joy emanating between you, he didn't think this could be anything else. When you pushed the jacket free of his shoulders, helping him shrug away the fabric until it crumpled on the floor, he had to stop himself from pulling away. Not because he didn't want this with you. It was really the opposite; he couldn't remember ever feeling this way, ever wanting someone to be so close to him, to feel every part of him, and now he wanted that more than anything with you. But he was scared of being vulnerable, and insecure in his inexperience, completely unsure what real intimacy could even look like.

As you worked through the buttons on his shirt, you could see the gears whirring in his head, the unmistakable fear and excitement of a man that's seen a hard-drive's worth of porn but never felt the touch of a person that genuinely cares about them.

"We can stop?" You offered, pulling your hands away from his shirt, only for him to vigorously shake his head and rip it off himself, a stray button clattering across the floor, disrupting the heavy silence.

"I want to." He insisted, his eyes full of desperate desire as you brought your hands to his now bare chest, his heart hammering in anticipation inside. Unsure of what to do next, Roman firmly grabbed at your ass, voice wavering as he tried to take control, feeling like that should be his role,

"Do you like that, you fucking slut?" Both of your faces seemed to contort in discomfort as the words tumbled out of his mouth, his hand quickly releasing and his eyes clenching shut in embarrassment.

"Sorry Rome, I don't even think you like that?" You questioned softly, bringing your fingertips to sweep delicately over the creases in his forehead, his brow slowly unfurrowing as he blinked his eyes open to see you again.

"Fuck, sorry, I was trying to, you know, talk dirty, be sexy." He waved his hands in a gesture of uncertainty as he spoke, surprised you weren't laughing at him or taking the opportunity to run for the door.

"You know talking doesn't have to be degrading to be sexy?" You replied, the calm, confident smile on your face matched by the alluring look in your eye leaving Roman feeling like a deer in headlights, but praying the car will crash right into him.

"Oh yeah?" He gulped, eyes wide as you nodded, pushing him gently so he could step backwards towards the end of the bed. He let himself drift in your current as your touch laid him backwards, every wave of contact soothing his nerves.

"Can I show you?" You breathed in his ear, settling your thighs either side of his legs, feeling all the more powerful for being fully dressed as his bare chest heaved beneath you.

"Please." He begged softly, letting his eyes flutter shut as your lips found his again, fingers tracing a path down his stomach until they reached his belt.

"I'm so glad I got to see you tonight." You sighed against his lips as you began to undo the buckle, feeling his hips twitch, reacting to even the slightest touch. His head leant forward, trying to chase your lips as you spoke, needy for the taste of your kiss as you released the zip and buttons in your way.

"Me too." He eventually sighed out as your lips moved out of his reach, mapping a course across his cheek until you reached the edge of his jaw, applying a little more pressure until you heard the low rumble of moan escape his lips.

"I like hearing you enjoy yourself." You purred, confidence building as he relaxed against your touch, submitting to your control, putty in your hands. Marking a sweet constellation of kisses over his neck you slowly slipped your hand inside his boxers, running one finger over the length of him and feeling him buck up to meet your touch. Roman had never felt both so excited and so relaxed at the same time, never this comfortable with someone exploring his body before, but feeling like he wanted to give every inch over to your control, sure your loving touch could put all the broken pieces of him back together.

You wrapped your hand around his hard length, pumping over him a few times to gage his reaction. His eyebrows scrunched down towards his nose, lips parting as a moan seemed to reverberate through his whole body.

"Does that feel good?" Your tone was sweet, if not a little teasing, sucking on a spot on his throat that seemed to leave him barely able to spit out an 'uh-uh' in response.

"Good, I want to make you feel good, Roman. Will you let me make you feel good?" You praised, bobbing your head down to his chest and picking up the pace of your rubbing hand. Ability to think and speak quickly surrendered, Roman just nodded, for once unable to think of a quippy comeback and just enjoying someone else taking control and being with him so intimately. He'd touched himself like this hundreds of times, thinking cruel, perverse little thoughts the whole time until he was left sitting in a puddle of his own self-contempt. But with you it felt like something new entirely, something positive, and warm, and with each soft praise and gentle kiss that poured from your lips and landed squarely on his chest he could feel his heart lifting, thinking maybe there's a reason he'll only ever thought of it as 'fucking' and not 'making love'.

Your lips drifted down to his chest, gingerly placing a kiss on one nipple and smiling at the way he squirmed under you, eyes now staring down at you in full adoration like you were the most wondrous miracle he could have dreamt of. You could feel his cock starting to twitch in your hand, cooing over him again, sure this wouldn't be the last time the two of you spend a night hiding in the sheets together.

"You're doing so well, Roman. Good boy."

"You feel - so - good." He panted out, the praise bringing him close to the edge before he could really think enough to stop it. Ignoring your own desire stirring up inside your stomach, you gripped your hand on him a little firmer, leaving the other to trace faint circles over his chest, the lingering damp of your kisses only making him more sensitive. Crashing your lips back against his you swallowed his moan before breathing out,

"Cum for me, Rome, please." His lips pressed hard against yours as his hips started to shake, unable to hold back for a second longer and spilling hot white ropes across his stomach, almost whimpering at his sensitive release, overstimulated but still whining the second you released your grip.

His hands reached up to capture your face, somehow trying to portray a lifetime's worth of gratitude and affection in a single overwhelming kiss, before finally releasing you to breathe. As you rose up onto your knees, surveying the smiling fool of a man lying beneath you, you couldn't help but laugh at the state of both of your suit trousers, marred with streaks of sticky white.

"We might need to hide up here for a while until we get cleaned up and dried off, or this might be hard to explain."

"You don't think we could say two seperate waiters happen to get lucky?" Roman rebuffed, pulling a disgusted face as he wiped a finger over the fluid pooling on his stomach.

"Or one waiter got very lucky?" You suggested with a smile, Roman using every ounce of remaining strength to sit up until his lips could find their way to yours.

"No-one's that lucky, so I guess we better stay hidden. I reckon there's a lot more stuff you could show me anyway." Roman's eyes drifted down your body eagerly, wondering exactly what else he'd been missing by never trying it with the right person.

"You don't think the party will miss us?" You teased, pretending to bat away his eager hands.

"What party?" He scoffed, letting you capture him by the wrists and pulling you back to lie with him, falling so you pinned his wrists either side of him, a position he was more than happy to end up in.

"What about our families?" You couldn't help the worried tinge in your voice as you remembered the seemingly insurmountable barrier that stood between yours and Roman's lives. With unusual sincerity he gazed up into your eyes and said softly,

"Fuck 'em, you're my family now."

#writing #fanfiction #one shot #requests #roman roy angst #roman roy fluff #roman roy imagine #roman roy x reader #roman roy #succession imagine #succession hbo #succession #succession headcanons #succession requests #succession roman #roman succession #reader insert #gender neutral fanfic #gn!reader

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scarabesque-returns · 8 months ago

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I love reading and listening to Eastern Orthodox theology because it's almost entirely the opposite side of the same coin vs Reformed. We come to many of the same conclusions, but via a very different path.

It's really upsetting, though, how little both sides know about the other. I haven't seen a single Orthodox theologian get Reformed theology right. On the Reformed side, it's mostly silence. There was a Ligonier conference in 2004 with a roundtable on EO. It had the modern giants of Reformed faith like MacArthur and Sproul... and they were all just so wrong.

A lot of the division in Christendom is based on ignorance, but how would you fix that other than sending every priest and pastor to the other's seminary?

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rahleeyah · 1 year ago

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Ok actually I made up my mind and went with payback bc the top two will move forward and fault and rotps are such strong contenders I'm sure one and or both of them will make it but payback is genuinely such a good episode that I don't want to see it fall off the list. Like it does a fantastic job of setting up all the characters, introducing us to their foibles and quirks, and it's a compelling case, and it's got all the humor and heart that made s1 so unique. The only time we ever see Serena, who haunts the entire narrative. The foundation of Elliot's internal struggle - him trying to be a Good Dad and a Good Husband but turning his back on Kathy in the parent teacher conference to have an intense phone call with Liv. Establishing Olivia's reckless streak and the push-and-pull between what is legal and what is just that the show continually tries to address (to varying degrees of success) like. Payback is the thesis statement of the show, of EO, it's the reason we're here.

#s.vu #s.vu bracket

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pannaginip · 6 months ago

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In a press conference on May 25, labor groups led by Kilusang Mayo Uno revealed a government concerted effort on intensifying attacks against workers and unionists nationwide. They warned the public of the new modus operandi of filing “terrorist financing” charges against unionists and development workers.

Unionists from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao exposed continuing violations of human rights, particularly on the freedom of association. Even after the conclusions and recommendations of 2023 ILO High Level Tripartite Mission, workers continue to experience a myriad of violations such as in the enforced disappearance of Southern Mindanao labor organizer William Lariosa, the continued harassment of workers in Gardenia Bakeries and PhilFoods in Calabarzon and the recent filing of “terrorist financing” charges against KMU vice chairperson for Visayas and AMA SUGBO KMU chairperson Jaime Paglinawan.

KMU slammed the US-Marcos regime for perpetuating these attacks, and for deliberately undermining the ILO HLTM recommendations. It can be recalled that Marcos issued EO 23 forming an inter-agency task force to end FOA violations, which labor groups called farcical. It is a far cry from the tripartite mechanism demanded during the mission.

“Mayroon din pong global na propaganda campaign itong Biden regime sa Estados Unidos na champion sila ng labor rights, pro-labor na Pangulo ng US ang kanilang pakana. Pero ang US, sa kasaysayan, sa kaniyang pananakop at mga polisiyang idinidikta niya sa mga bansa, ang numero unong violator ng workers’ rights. Sa katunayan, ang paglikha ng NTF ELCAC na salot sa manggagawa ay naka-pattern sa mga kontra-insurhensyang programa ng US.” added [Jerome Adonis, KMU secretary general].

[There is a global propaganda campaign being peddled by the Biden regime in the US that they are a champion of labor rights, their concept is to have a US president who's pro-labor. But the US, historically, with its occupations and foreign policies (?), is the number one violator of workers' rights. In fact, the creation of NTF-ELCAC, which is a thorn in the side of workers, is patterned after the counterinsurgency programs of the US.]

KMU called on workers and the people to expose and oppose the continuing violations of their rights and steadfastly commit to ensuring our fundamental and Constitutional rights and freedoms are held.

2024 May 25

#junk anti terror law #philippines #labor rights #state violence #usa

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ramadaeosurabaya · 2 months ago

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wily-one24 · 1 year ago

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Top 5 SVU episodes. Or if you want to break it down more can choose any/all to answer: top 5 overall, top 5 eo episodes, top 5 olivia centric episodes, top 5 elliot centric episodes, top 5 whatever other character or partnership you want episodes

Do you understand what you are asking me to do? Like, there are over 500 episodes. Top 5?!?! That's, like, 1%. I can't... I just can't... I have been going over season by season and I'm up to S13, I already have a list of over 70 episodes and so will definitely have to narrow it down. Scrap that, I'm gonna go into headings.

Top 5 SVU Episodes Overall In SVU 1.0:

"911". Season 7, episode 3. Without a doubt, I love this one. The drama, the suspense, a child in danger, Olivia all dressed up, Olivia showing emotion, Olivia going absolutely feral as she cracks a guy's nose with her elbow, then pushes him down on the bed and threatens his life? Fuckin' A. Will watch that one forever and ever.

"Signature". Season 9, episode 12. Erika Christenson as Agent Cooper, plus Olivia pairing up to hunt a psychotic serial killer/torturer? Lack of Elliot? Yes please. Give me some angst... oh, that's right. You do. A victim that may have lived if different choices had been made. A multi-state FBI case. The moral dilemma of how right it is to kill a purely evil psychopath, which we can all understand, but there is supposed to the law and you can't just go off and shoot who you want. Olivia being slightly (a lot) traumatised because she has over-identified with Agent Cooper and then Cooper shoots herself in front of Liv while saying "Those who hunt monsters should be careful, lest they become monsters". It has everything.

"Zebras", Season 10, episode 22. This is just fun all around. There's a puzzling murder mystery. Inept crime techs we all love to hate. Over protective Elliot almost punching out a guy for suggesting Olivia might be a good victim. Cragen not even caring and telling the guy he'd deserve it. THEN, well, we all know what happens, right? With the hostage taking and Olivia pretending to take sides and slapping the ever living fuck out Elliot and screaming at him? Then fake kissing the perp? Yeah, we know. We love it.

"Locum"/"Bullseye", Season 12, episodes 1 and 2. Originally shown together as a season opener and later edited to be streamed separately. Bailey Madison as a little lost girl (score one more for Olivia's orphanage of lost case children) who tries so desperately to escape her batshit crazy parents (hi Joan Cusack, we love you) and is ultimately left in a bad situation while everyone else around her gets a happy ending? That poor child. I still believe Olivia should have just taken her. Then pad it out with a horrific pedophilia case with Henry Ian Cusick and a bunch of traumatised ten year old girls. Like, it's a lot, but it's a good set of episodes. The angst. The drama. The absolute absurdity of ANYONE calling Olivia dried up and repulsive. (Man, have you no eyes?).

"Behave", Season 12, episode 3. I cannot. Jennifer Love Hewitt. The trauma. Olivia stepping up and lending her power until she can find it in herself again. Olivia being all badass "You're my bitch now". The entire squad getting up in that guy's face, like the absurdity of a bunch of detectives following this guy into the bathroom to watch him pee, and sitting in his medical conferences to publicly ask why he rapes women. And Olivia being all go get 'em and travelling interstate to get her evidence. And JLH at the end, all "Be a good boy". The absolute satisfaction of it. It's a good episode with a good outcome and a good story.

Top 5 Episodes in later seasons, post Elliot:

"Hunting Ground", Season 13, episode 15. Not only do we get a psycho killer abducting young women and taking them out into the woods to drug them and hunt them down for sport (and the odd rape now and again, it *is* SVU after all). This is the first episode that really cements Nick as Olivia's new partner, the building of a great bond. I adore it.

"Institutional Fail", Season 17, episode 4. This will always hold a place in my heart. This is the episode that got me hooked on SVU. I had never seen the show, it wasn't even on my radar, until about November last year when I saw clips of this episode on FB. I was only able to track down what show it was from, because I knew Whoopi Goldberg (I mean, who doesn't, let's be real). It's a good story, it tugs on the heart strings. And it has abolutely no characters from the early seasons (except Olivia, who is radically different seventeen years earlier) which lead me to actually question if it was the right show for the first few episodes of season 1, but then I was hooked so it didn't matter.

"Townhouse Incident", Season 17, episode 11. I mean, let's face it. Olivia being taken hostage (yet again, for all perpetuity, come on girl, you need to have a lojack installed on your person or something... a personal alarm necklace or something... please) yet again is always fun. Bloody her up a little. Bring back her Lewis PTSD. What's not to like?

"The Book of Esther", Season 19, episode 20. This one draws me in every time. I don't know why. I almost always end up hoping it ends different, when I know it doesn't. The way it draws Amanda in and Olivia can tell her time and time again from experience not to get too involved, but she won't listen, and it nearly breaks her. The absolute absurdity of her being the one to take that shot and the cruelty (and necessity) of Olivia being the one to tell her.

"Remember Me/Remember Me Too", Season 19, episodes 23 and 24. Okay, okay, I know it. Olivia is taken hostage again (that personal alarm necklace is lookin' pretty good right about now, huh?). But it's more than that. It's the return of Feral Liv. Like, full out, balls to the wall, screaming red faced and incoherent in the face of a tied up man. And, honestly, the first time I saw this episode, I did not know whether or not she was playing a part to pacify the victim/hostage taker, or whether she believed her and this was honest emotion and it gets me everytime. Because it could have gone either way.

I mean, I'm already at five and there's still five season to go!!! C'mon here. It's not fair. I've already culled so MANY good ones. I'm sad. Sad Jacqui. 😞

Top 5 Storylines:

William Lewis, beginning at the end of S14 and continuing throughout S15. I am a sucker for threatening my favourite female characters. Hell yeah, let's kidnap Olivia and tie her up and get her all bloody and make her fight for her life. Then show us the aftermath and the horrific trial and her therapy and the subtle signs of trauma and PTSD afterwards... and THEN bring him back to fuck up her life some more so that it carries with her for years afterwards and is given to us in small doses of her trauma recall. I am ALL FOR THAT SHIT. Let's go.

Olivia's ongoing child hunt, trawling through all her cases for the perfect baby/child. Like, from a popstar's neglected daughter, to a crack addicted dying baby, to poor fostered Calvin being wrested screaming from her broken hearted arms... YES. Give me more. Oh, you will? A baby sold to child pornographers and kept in a drawer? That turns out to be the love child of a junkie prostitute and the devil incarnate human trafficker/pimp that she gets to adopt? That later turns out to be insane Psycho Brooke Sheild's grandson? This is my crack. Oh, what's that? He has blood relatives and decides to decimate her by calling complete strangers the only real family he has? Mmmmmm, fine wine.

Olivia as collateral damage. All of it. From her tragic conception, the rape of her mother, to her mother's inability to love her, her mother's psychological (bordering on physical) abuse of her, the absolute cruelty of her childhood that leads her to pursue a career in SVU so she can heal people the way her mother (and she herself) were never healed. That she can get the justic for others that she and her mother were always denied. Yesss. Give it. Bring it back in tantalising doses, like her inability to trust others, her inability to let others help, that poor neglected little girl that rises to the surface all the time, that locks herself in an interrogation room and bares her soul to a victim/killer despite Fin and Carisi trying to pull her out... that makes her look women in the eye when they tell her they cannot raise a monster baby left to them by their rapist. The way it leads her to never trust affection and keep everyone at bay. No, Cassidy, she'll never love you. No, Ed, she'll never trust happiness with you because happiness never lasts, not for her. The only one she'll ever really open up to is the ONE PERSON WHO IS UNAVAILABLE forever and ever. In every aspect is he unavailable, her work partner, her MARRIED work partner. The only one she can trust, because she never feels worthy of anything good. It's like they reached into my brain and looked at all the shiny buttons and decided to push them all.

Amanda forever and ever (at least in the early years) putting herself out there as bait, as a potential victim with no thought to her safety, because she refuses to see herself as anything but a victim and carries so much guilt, feeling complicit in her own rape, so she has to try to make it happen again to prove to herself that she DESERVES IT. That it was inevitable. That putting herself there gives her a modicum of control over the narrative. Mmm, delicious, yes, Give me a messy bench. Give me gambling addiction and smoking and the inability to see her family for what they are.

Fin, being Olivia's Ride or Die. He's so loyal. He would anything and he would also kill anyone for her. I absolutely believe he knows enough people that nobody would ever find the body. He has secret connections and knows things no normal person should know. I love it. He's like a secret agent, always there to protect Liv and solve cases. She deserves him.

Top 5 Guest Stars (other than the ones I have already mentioned):

Ally Walker. My old Profiler fave come back as a fucked up psychiatrist that fakes schizophrenia in a young boy so she can institutionalise him and rape him and have him father her baby? Oh, dear lord, fandoms collide. I love it. Bring it On.

John Stamos. You knew I was gonna say this. Anyone with the balls to bring up Elliot's pregnancy kink is a winner in my book.

Mary Stuart Masterson, little gay Jacqui loves her some Idgie Threadgoode and Benny & Joon. MSM coming into CANONICALLY point out the toxic codependency of Elliot and Olivia and how it legitimately effects their ability to work together? YASSSS.

The Rizzoli and Isles group... aka... Sasha Alexander, Jacqueline Bisset and Sharon Lawrence (Maura and both her mommies), my faves, not to mention Angie Harmon and Jordan Bridges, Michael Masse, Bruce McGill, John Damon, Chazz Palminterri, and so many more.

The Orange is the New Black gang, like, so many I cannot even mention. They're pretty much ALL there. Over and over again, in nearly every season. (If you missed Pablo Schrieber, I cannot help you), but even minor roles, nearly all the gang is there. Except Piper and Alex, but.. they were never my faves anyway.

I could keep going all day, fave characters (other than Olivia, because that's a gimme), favourite one liners, favourite relationships, favourite outfits, favourite undercover stints. What's not to like about this show?

#i could have added so many more #but this has taken forever for me to list out #and probably nobody cares honestly #dahllaz

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mostlysignssomeportents · 9 months ago

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This day in history

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW in SALT LAKE CITY (Feb 21, Weller Book Works) and then SAN DIEGO (Feb 22, Mysterious Galaxy). After that, it's LA, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and more!

#15yrsago Tesla coils sing the Doctor Who theme in orgy of electric awesomesauce https://arcattack.com/about-us/

#15yrsago HOWTO Make a duct-tape corsage https://www.instructables.com/How_to_Make_a_Duct_Tape_Corsage_and_Flowers/

#15yrsago 419 scammer impersonates the nation of Ethiopia, takes $27 million from Citibank https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/nyregion/21scam.html

#15yrsago On the demise of books, newspapers, music and movies https://web.archive.org/web/20090301000000*/https://www.internetevolution.com/document.asp?doc_id=171555&

#15yrsago Future of News video from 1981: epitome of foolish futurism https://memex.craphound.com/2009/02/20/future-of-news-video-from-1981-epitome-of-dumb-futurism/

#10yrsago Comic explains problems with Oakland’s Domain Awareness Center surveillance plan https://medium.com/the-nib/the-testing-ground-for-the-new-surveillance-db4f129a7177

#10yrsago Well-Sorted Version, an alphabetical Bible https://www.wellsortedversion.com

#10yrsago Sculptor collaborates with honeybees to cover statues with comb https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/02/artist-aganetha-dyck-collaborates-with-bees-to-create-sculptures-wrapped-in-honeycomb/

#10yrsago Obama’s top Trans-Pacific Partnership officials were given millions by banks before taking the job https://www.republicreport.org/2014/big-banks-tpp/

#10yrsago Report from a meeting of Wall Street’s secret, tasteless plutocrats’ club https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2014/02/i-crashed-a-wall-street-secret-society.html

#10yrsago Edgar Allan Poe’s interior design proscriptions https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/edgar-allan-poe-interior-design-critic-180949543/

#10yrsago Museums and the free world: keynote from the Museums and the Web conference in Florence https://mwf2014.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/glam-and-the-free-world/

#5yrsago Florida inmates sue prisons for digitally confiscating the music they were sold https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/crime/2019/02/19/florida-prisoners-could-form-class-action-to-demand-refund-on-confiscated-media-players-and-files/5881894007/

#5yrsago Owner of civil war reenactment business sues school district that canceled field trips after his far-right social media came to light https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-rileys-farm-lawsuit-oak-glen-20190219-story.html

#5yrsago FDA: infusing young people’s blood will not improve your health https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/19/health/plasma-infusion-young-blood-fda-bn/index.html

#5yrsago A malicious USB cable with its own wifi rig https://twitter.com/_MG_/status/1094389042685259776

#5yrsago Magic Lantern: feature-rich addons for Canon EOS cameras https://www.magiclantern.fm

#5yrsago Google admits Nest security product has a secret mic, insists it wasn’t supposed to be a secret https://www.businessinsider.com/nest-microphone-was-never-supposed-to-be-a-secret-2019-2

#1yrago Turbotax is blitzing Congress for the right to tax YOU https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/20/turbotaxed/#counter-intuit

#pluralistic

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serethereal · 2 years ago

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roman and kendall joking around w eo like you’re fucked you’re so fucked before the press conference to make the other feel better

#THEY ARE LITERALLY. BROTHERS #succession #succession spoilers

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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 2 years ago

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38, 39, 40!

soap bar that smells good: i don’t like bar soap, here’s what’s on deck in the shower. the every man jack sandalwood is a mainstay idk how many of these ive gone through. the cypress+juniper is unfortunately inextricably intertwined with a bad hospital stay in my brain bc that’s what i used as soon as i got home, but im not able to throw potentially useful things out ever, and the dove holy basil is Fine. a little strong.

do you use lip balm: yes how am i supposed to leave sticky kiss prints all over my cat’s little head. here’s the little tray on my desk that holds shit. big fan of putting on lip balm during a conference call and seeing how many other women go “oh shit” and also put on lip balm.

the lighter divides the lotion from the lip balms. the unreadable one is fresh’s Sugar Lip Balm Hydrating Treatment that is my favorite of all time but it’s twenty five fucking dollars. i go through at least three eos a year. the chapstick with SPF lives in the car. no strong feelings about the tiny fancy l’occitane. it’s fine.

have i had a snack today: i have barely eaten breakfast (1 [one] strawberry greek yogurt)

#answered #ty!!!#for someone who looks fucking haggard all the time i have a lot of opinions about potions and lotions

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saratogaroadwrites · 1 year ago

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Adamantus (8/12)

Adamantus | saratogaroad rating: G+ total wordcount: 15,328 characters: Aulea Lucis Caelum, Regis Lucis Caelum, Noctis Lucis Caelum, Ardyn Lucis Caelum relationships: Aulea/Regis, Aulea & Noctis other tags: Mother-Son Relationship, Character Death, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence warnings: Character Death Starts The Plot

When Noctis is three years old, Regis takes ill. The doctor tells her that he will recover, that all will be well.

It isn't.

Aulea Lucis Caelum is left to raise a son on her own, knowing that a Kingdom depends on her strength and will to survive.

She will not lose him, too.

Aulea arranges a trade with Emperor Iedolas Aldercapt of Niflheim the day after her discussion with Ardyn. In return for the halting of attacks on the wall of Insomnia and for the safety of her people in Lucis proper, she will secede all lands outside of the city of Insomnia to the Empire.

In return for Ardyn joining her cabinet and the safety of Ravus Nox Flueret, she will give Niflheim the Crystal. They do not need to know that it has lain dormant the past three years, or that there is a would be God slumbering in its core.

She doubts Iedolas' return agreement even had time to dry before he stuffed it into its official envelope and shoved it into the hands of a beaten, battered Ravus, but it is an agreement all the same. Watching Lunafreya, scarred and scared and sobbing, hold onto her brother with both hands as he weeps for the first time in she has no idea how long, Aulea tries not to wonder what Regis would have done in her stead. Would he have traded land for safety, tradition for life? She thinks she knows, but the answer curdles her stomach. She tries not to think of it.

She hasn't dreamt of him since the night of the fire. The magic of the Lucis Caelum line no longer whispers to her. Doubtlessly, it has chosen another.

Ardyn says it is fickle like that as they watch three of Niflheim's artificial soldiers load up the Crystal onto an airship of their Science division. He says a great deal many things once he is a member of the Lucis council, once the Crystal is away towards Niflheim, and none like a single word of it. Most find it too hard to believe, but knowing what she does, Aulea does not question. She seethes, instead, watching as he paces the conference room and speaks with broad gestures of his hands. More than once, Cyril or Clarus have to duck, turning aggravated glances at his back.

In what is likely a telling measure of his character, Ardyn only smiles at them as he continues to talk. It is a grand tale, one that has been woven across generations of Kings and Queens. It is his word against all of Eos' written history, and yet...

"History is written by the victors, Aulea," Her father had told her once, the words unknowingly echoed by Regis years later. Their voices ring in her ears as she listens to Ardyn speak, watches each of her trusted circle watch him in turn.

Uncaring that Cor and Asteria both look ready to rip his head off at any moment, Ardyn tells them of being gifted with the ability to heal the Scourge, which blighted the world after a war among the Gods cast the goddess Eos into a pit from which none could return her. The Healer Prince, as he was known then, and the only one with the ability to survive the glut of the God's powers combined.

He tells them of how he was chosen to rule, to be the first king, the Healer King of Lucis, only to be cast down, cast out, like so much rubbish when it came to light that the Scourge had no real cure, that it could not be removed so much as moved, from one host to another.

He turns a wide smile upon them then, teeth stained with black and eyes weeping thick, dark tears. Aulea's blood becomes ice in her veins as she realizes that he has the entire ruling council of Insomnia in the same room with him. Predator golden eyes seek her out and there is a knowing, a bone deep feeling that churns in her gut, that if he wishes them harm or worse, they would be hard-pressed to stop him. Something warm uncurls in her chest, fights back the chill, as everyone leaps to their feet, draws their weapons in defense of one another. Before blood can be shed she scrambles upwards, slams both palms to the table and yells--

"Enough!"

Her voice echoes. No one lowers their weapons, relaxes their stance. Golden eyes gleaming in black sclera, Ardyn contemplates her. He inclines his head. She swallows hard. Would that she thought he could be killed...

"Everyone," She distantly hears herself say aloud in a voice far too calm for the situation, "please. Sit. Ardyn, if you would..."

His color returns, the marks upon his skin fade like water. He begins to pace again, but no one dares to duck or flinch away any longer. They all watch him with sharp, angry eyes as he continues his tale.

His solution, the one that does not hinge upon Noctis marching to his death, is surprisingly simple: Free Eos from her prison and banish the Scourge with her light. Otherwise, if it is allowed to go unchecked, it will spread like a plague and plunge their world into darkness. It is like something out of a fable, a tale told to children to ensure they pray and never turn their backs upon the Six.

Unsurprisingly, none of her trusted circle believe a word he has said. Normally quiet Clarus actually starts to yell as Ardyn stands on the opposite side of the table from Aulea, his golden eyes only on her. Clarus is going red as she raises a hand, gestures for him to be calm, to wait, and meets Ardyn's gaze.

"And where, precisely, is this Eos located?"

"In the depths of Pitioss," he returns, "A rather nasty little pit of hellfire in the mountains of Cleigne." He waves a hand in the air. "Full of all manner of traps and stumbling blocks, not to mention locked to all but the heirs of Lucis themselves."

"Then why haven't you gone in and done away with this mess?" Cyril asks acerbically, his weight shifted towards Aulea, "You are of the line of Lucis, are you not?"

"A point to the gentleman for his knowledge of history," Ardyn grins, all white teeth this time, "but seeing as I was cast out, I am no longer of such a venerated house. No," he looks back to Aulea, "That honor belongs to one alone now."

The ice returns to her veins.

"Noctis."

Ardyn nods. That same glimmer of something she could not name from when he first told her half of this returns. It sits heavy in her stomach as he stands up straight, the very image of a modern scholar.

"Correct," He says, looking away when she makes a keening noise in the back of her throat. He looks from Cor to Clarus to Cyril to Asteria and then back to Aulea, all hint of playfulness gone. "The young Prince must enter the place alone, descend to its depths without losing his mind, and restore Eos from her slumber." He shrugs. "A tall order for anyone to undertake, let alone an untrained youngling."

Cor growls something about how the boy is barely ten, not even entering puberty, but Aulea's mind is turning elsewhere. She knows the prophecy to be true, one way or another. Bahamut's words still ring within her skull, and should this tale be a falsehood Noctis must be prepared to face that. Regardless, she does not think Niflheim will leave them in total peace for long. The crystal, Regis once said, powered only the Wall. The magic of the line of Lucis was through the Ring and the spirits within.

She still has the Ring, hidden in her nightstand for a time when Noctis sits the throne. As such, its magic remains, waiting for a proper user to call upon it. She cannot use it, cannot warp as she saw Regis do--and thank Shiva for that since he first warped into a tree atop her head!--but Noctis...she closes her eyes and prays that she is doing the right thing.

"Then train him," She says over Cor's grumbling. Ardyn looks at her, and she does not flinch away. "If this plan hinges upon Noctis, then make sure he is capable of doing it."

Of killing Ardyn, should the unthinkable come to pass. She holds Ardyn's gaze for a long moment, the entire world seeming to hold its breath, before he smiles.

"Thy will be done," He says with a deep bow and a hand pressed to his chest. "Your Majesty."

And then he walks from the room, shutting the door behind him. For another moment, Aulea forces herself to breathe. It feels as if she has just gone three rounds with a Behemoth and come away unscathed, but with the beast alive behind her. She must keep moving, must keep them all moving.

"Cyril, Asteria" She says before the sound of the door clicking shut has even finished echoing through the room, "Check the archives for anything that can verify his claims. Cor, seek out Weskham and Cid," Her eyes narrow at the doorway. "Make doubly sure we missed nothing in our search for the Accursed."

"Aulea," Asteria says quietly, "What of what he said? Accursed or otherwise, you don't truly believe his tale, do you?"

"I don't know," Aulea replies, gathering her skirts and beginning to stand. She needs to check on the Flueret children, ensure that Ravus is alright. Needs to see that Nyx understands Ardyn will be teaching Noctis but that makes him no less a threat.

She needs to see her son.

"But?" Clarus prompts her even as he stands up at her side.

"But," And she looks across the table where Ardyn lay his hands, no marks upon the marble to prove he was ever there, "our options are limited. We will make of this what we can and proceed from there." She looks to each of them in turn, sees the determination in their eyes, and nods firmly.

"You each have your orders," She says in a tone more firm than she feels, "Now go."

Each bows, a hand across their chest.

"Yes, your Majesty."

(When she finds Noctis an hour later, there is a hint of nervousness that clings to him even as he beams at her, even as he tells her of how Chancellor Izunia is a distant cousin and can use the warping magic his father could, and he said he'd teach Noctis and isn't that great!

She smiles at her son, a ten year old bundle of energy, and tries to squash the instinct to bundle him up, take him away from Ardyn's knowing look, from Nyx's barely contained protective rage.

Yes, she tells him, It's certainly excellent indeed.

Watching as Ardyn begins his first lesson, Aulea cannot shake the feeling that, one way or another, this will lead to heartbreak.

She just hopes it isn't Noctis' heart that is going to break before this all over.)

#ffxv #final fantasy xv #ffxv fic #!fic #series: crystalline shards #fic: adamantus

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