#guatemala organizations

[hishandsguatemala]

Construction Zone

[alethiometry]

btw now feels like a good time to plug the organizations that the kissinger death tontine accepted donations-as-submissions from!

☞ Cambodian Children's Fund ☞ Desafío Levantemos Chile ☞ East Timor and Indonesia Action Network ☞ Guatemala Forensic Anthropology Project ☞ The Halo Trust ☞ Yemen Relief Project

[plethoraworldatlas]

Guatemalan prosecutors said Thursday they will seek to strip President-elect Bernardo Arévalo and several members of his party of their immunity for allegedly making social media posts that encouraged students to take over a public university in 2022.

Cultural Heritage prosecutor Ángel Saúl Sánchez announced the move aimed at Arévalo and members of his Seed Movement at a news conference while federal agents executed search warrants and sought to arrest more than 30 student members of the party.

It was only the latest legal salvo against Arévalo, an anti-corruption crusader who shocked the nation by winning the presidential election in August. The United States government, Organization of American States and other outside observers have suggested the legal attacks are an attempt to keep Arévalo from taking power in January

...

Since Arévalo won a spot in the August runoff, prosecutors have been pursuing his party on accusations of wrongdoing in the gathering of the necessary signatures to register years earlier. A judge suspended the party at prosecutors’ request.

Among the crimes prosecutors plan to pursue against Arévalo and others in the new case are aggravated usurpation, sedition and illegal association.In April 2022, students took over San Carlos University, Guatemala’s only public university, following what they considered the fraudulent election of the school’s new rector Walter Mazariegos. They said that during the vote by students, faculty and administrators, Mazariegos only allowed those who would vote for him to cast their ballots.

The U.S. State Department sanctioned Mazariegos for suffocating democratic processes and taking the position of rector after what it called a fraudulent process

The students did not stand down until June of this year.

In the case announced Thursday, one of the examples given in prosecutors’ documents is a message in which Arévalo congratulated the protesters on X, formerly known as Twitter, in March: “the USAC is making it possible to see a ray of hope in Guatemala.”

On Thursday, Arévalo called the Attorney General’s Office’s actions against his party “spurious and unacceptable.”

Later Thursday, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller announced that 11 more Guatemalans would face U.S. visa sanctions for undermining democracy.

“The United States unequivocally rejects continued, brazen efforts to undermine Guatemala’s peaceful transition of power to President-elect Bernardo Arévalo,” Miller said in a statement. “This includes Public Ministry officials’ plans to file charges against President-elect Arevalo and Vice President-elect (Karin) Herrera, as well as members of the Semilla party and other opposition members. We also condemn the politically motivated raids and arrests targeting members of the Semilla party.”

It came one day after the Organization of American States permanent council approved a resolution calling Guatemala’s Attorney General’s Office an undemocratic actor trying to “discredit and impede” the democratic transition of power.

On Thursday, the OAS condemned the latest moves by the Attorney General’s office as “actions of a political nature that distort the electoral process.”

[determinate-negation]

leftists on twitter are so mad at this guy for pointing out something that is fundamental to economic organization under modern imperialism lol. imperialist powers take over other nations economies, transform them to be primarily focused on key commodities for export and destroy the rest of their markets for other goods so they depend on selling these specific few commodities to the rest of the world. do you think that under a socialist government people in these countries would want to continue economies based on export of one thing or reorganize their economy to be more self sufficient and actually serve the people directly involved in it. everyone loves to point out stuff like the CIA’s involvement in the coup in guatemala but lose their shit if you point out the implications in their daily american life

[biglisbonnews]

Guatemala: Social media facilitates migrant smuggling in Mexico, Central America, and Dominican Republic, warns IOM Countries: Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico Source: International Organization for Migration Migrant smugglers are using social media and instant messaging applications to promote and provide their illegal services, according to a study published by IOM. https://reliefweb.int/report/guatemala/iom-social-media-facilitates-migrant-smuggling-mexico-central-america-and-dominican-republic

[reasonsforhope]

— Recent giant anteater sightings in Rio Grande do Sul state indicate the species has returned to southern Brazil, where it had been considered extinct for more than a century.

— Experts concluded that the giant anteater ventured across the border from the Iberá Park in northeastern Argentina where a rewilding project has released around 110 individuals back into the habitat.

— The sightings emphasize the importance of rewilding projects, both to restore animal populations in specific regions and help ecosystems farther afield.

— Organizations across Brazil are working to protect and maintain current giant anteater populations, including rallying for safer highways to prevent wildlife-vehicle collisions that cause local extinctions.

Playing back hours of footage from a camera trap set in Espinilho State Park in the south of Brazil in August 2023, Fábio Mazim and his team banked on possible sightings of the maned wolf or the Pantanal deer and had their fingers crossed for a glimpse of a Pampas cat (Leopardus pajeros), one of the most threatened felines in the world.

What they didn’t expect to see was an animal long presumed extinct in the region. To their surprise, the unmistakable long snout and bushy tail of a giant anteater ambled into shot.

"We shouted and cried when we saw it,” the ecologist from the nonprofit Pró-Carnívoros Institute told Mongabay. “It took a few days to grasp the importance of this record. A sighting of a giant anteater was never, ever expected.”

Last seen alive in the southwest of the Rio Grande do Sul state in 1890, the giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) has since been spotted 11 times since August 2023, although the scientists are unsure whether it’s the same one or different individuals. However, the sightings confirm one clear fact: The giant anteater is back.

It's a huge win for the environment. Giant anteaters play an important role in their ecosystems, helping to control insect numbers, create watering holes through digging and are prey for big cats such as jaguars and pumas.

The habitat of the giant anteater stretches from Central America toward the south cone of Latin America.

Its conservation status is “vulnerable,” although it is considered extinct in several countries, including El Salvador, Guatemala and Uruguay, as well as specific regions such as the states of Rio de Janeiro, Espirito Santo, Santa Catarina and (until now) Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil and the Cordoba and Entre Rios regions in Argentina.

‍In the last six months, the giant anteater was spotted on camera 11 times in the Espinilho State Park in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. It was the first time in 130 years that the species has been seen alive there.

Yet not only is it a triumph for conservationists to see these animals returning to Brazilian biomes, it’s also a surprising mark of success for a rewilding program about 150 kilometers (93 miles) away in neighboring Argentina.

‍Rewilding Argentina’s biomes

‍Iberá National Park in Corrientes province in northeastern Argentina is a 758,000-hectare (1.9 million-acre) expanse of protected land comprising a part of the Iberá wetlands with its swaths of grasslands, marshes, lagoons and forests. The region was once home to just a handful of giant anteaters after habitat loss, hunting and vehicle collisions decimated the population.

Since 2007, the NGO Rewilding Argentina, an offspring of the nonprofit Tompkins Conservation, has been reintroducing the species back to the area, most individuals being orphaned pups rescued from vehicle collisions or poaching.

So far, they have released 110 giant anteaters back into the wild. Nowadays, several generations inhabit the park, transforming it from “a place of massive defaunation to abundance,” Sebastián Di Martino, director of conservation for Rewilding Argentina, was quoted as saying in an official statement.

The project has been so successful that the giant anteaters appear to be venturing farther afield and moving to new territories beyond national borders, such as Espinilho State Park in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul region...

Experts now hope that a giant anteater population can reestablish itself naturally in Espinilho State Park without the need for human intervention.

“The giant anteater returning to Rio Grande do Sul shows the success of the work done in Argentina and how it’s viable, possible and important to do rewilding and fauna reintroduction projects,” Mazim said. “It is also an indication that the management of conservation units and also the agricultural areas of the ecosystems are working,” he added. “Because if large mammals are coming from one region and settling in another, it is because there is a support capacity for them. It is an indication of the health of the environment.”

-via GoodGoodGood, via May 25, 2024

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 6: Athena, Goddess Of Wisdom]

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 5.2k

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged! 🥰

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Here at the midway point in our journey—like Dante stumbling upon the gates of the Inferno—would it be the right moment to review what’s at stake? Let’s begin.

It’s the end of August. The delegates of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago officially vote to name Aemond the party’s presidential candidate. His ascension is aided by 10,000 antiwar demonstrators who flood into the city and threaten to set it ablaze if Hubert Humphrey is chosen instead. At the end—in his death rattle—Humphrey begs to be Aemond’s running mate, one last humiliation he cannot resist. Humphrey is denied. Eugene McCarthy, dignity intact, boards a commercial flight to his home state of Minnesota without looking back.

Aemond selects U.S. Ambassador to France, Sargent Shriver, to be his vice president. Shriver is a Kennedy by marriage—his wife, JFK’s younger sister Eunice, just founded the Special Olympics—and has previously headed the Office of Economic Opportunity, the Peace Corps, and the Chicago Board of Education. He also served as the architect of the president’s “War on Poverty” before distancing himself from the imploding Johnson administration. Shriver is not a concession to fence-sitting moderates or Southern Dixiecrats, but an embodiment of Aemond’s commitment to unapologetic progressivism. Richard Nixon spends the weekend campaigning in his native California, a gold vein of votes like the mines settlers rushed to in 1848. George Wallace announces that he will run as an Independent. Racists everywhere rejoice.

Phase III of the Tet Offensive is underway in Vietnam; 700 American soldiers have been killed this month alone. Riots break out in military prisons where the U.S. Army is keeping their deserters. The North Vietnamese refuse to allow Pope Paul VI to visit Hanoi on a peace mission. President Johnson calls both Aemond and Nixon to personally inform them of this latest evidence of the communists’ unwillingness to negotiate in good faith. Daeron and John McCain remain in Hỏa Lò Prison. The draft swallows men like the titan Cronus devoured his own children.

In Eastern Europe, the Russians are crushing pro-democracy protests in the largest military operation since World War II as half a million troops roll into Czechoslovakia. In Caswell County, North Carolina, the last remaining segregated school district in the nation is ordered by a federal judge to integrate after years of stalling. On the Fangataufa Atoll in the South Pacific, France becomes the fifth nation to successfully explode a hydrogen bomb. In Mexico City, 300,000 students gather to protest the authoritarian regime of President Diaz Ordaz. In Guatemala, American ambassador John Gordon Mein is murdered by a Marxist guerilla organization called the Rebel Armed Forces. In Columbus, Ohio, nine guards are held hostage during a prison riot; after 30 hours, they’re rescued by a SWAT team.

The latest issue of Life magazine brings worldwide attention to catastrophic industrial pollution in the Great Lakes. The first successful multiorgan transplant is carried out at Houston Methodist Hospital. The Beatles release Hey Jude, the best-selling single of 1968 in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada. NASA’s Apollo lunar landing program plans to launch a crewed shuttle next year, just in time to fulfill John F. Kennedy’s 1962 promise to put a man on the moon “before the end of the decade.” If this is successful, the United States will win the Space Race and prove the superiority of capitalism. If it fails, the martyred astronauts will join all the other ghosts of this apocalyptic age, an epoch born under bad stars.

The night sky glows with the ancient debris of the Aurigid meteor shower. From down here on Earth, Jupiter is a radiant white gleam, visible with the naked eye and admired since humans were making cave paintings and Stonehenge. But Io is a mystery. With a telescope, she becomes a dust mote entrapped by Jupiter’s gravity; to the casual observer, she doesn’t exist at all.

~~~~~~~~~~

What was it like, that very first time? It’s strange to remember. You’re both different people now.

It’s May, 1966. You and Aemond are engaged, due to be married in three short weeks, and if you get pregnant then it’s no harm, no foul. In reality, it will end up taking you over a year to conceive, but no one knows that yet; you are living in the liminal space between what you imagine your life will be and the cold blade of the truth. Aemond has brought you to Asteria for the weekend, an increasingly common occurrence. The Targaryens—minus one, that holdout prodigal son, always glowering from behind swigs of rum and clouds of smoke—have already begun to treat you like a member of the family. The flock of Alopekis yap excitedly and lick your shins. Eudoxia learns your favorite snacks so she can have them ready when you arrive.

One night Aemond takes your hand and leads you to Helaena’s garden, darkness turned to twilight in the artificial luminance of the main house. You can hear distant voices, chatter and laughter, and the Beatles’ Rubber Soul spinning on the record player in the living room like a black hole, gravity that not even light can escape when it is wrenched over the event horizon.

You’re giggling as Aemond pulls you along, faster and faster, weaving through pathways lined with roses and sunflowers and butterfly bushes. Your high heels sink into soft, fertile earth; the air in your lungs is cool and infinite. “Where are we going?”

And Aemond grins back at you as he replies: “To Olympus.”

In the circle of hedges guarded by thirteen gods of stone, Aemond unzips your modest pink sundress and slips your heels off your feet, kneeling like he’s proposing to you again. When you are bare and secretless, he draws you down onto the grass and opens you, claims you, fills you to the brim as the crystalline water of the fountain patters and Zeus hurls his lightning bolts, an eternal storm, unending war. It’s intense in a way it never was with your first boyfriend, a sweet polite boy who talked about feminist theory and followed his enlightened conscience all the way to Vietnam. This isn’t just a pleasant way to pass a Friday night, something to look forward to between differential equations textbooks and calculus proofs. With Aemond it’s a ritual; it’s something so overpowering it almost scares you.

“Aphrodite,” Aemond murmurs against your throat, and when you try to get on top he stops you, pins you to the ground, thrusts hard and deep, and you try not to moan too loudly as you surrender, his weight on you like a prophesy. This is how he wants you. This is where you belong.

Has someone ever stitched you to their side, pushing the needle through your skin again and again as the fabric latticework takes shape, until their blood spills into your veins and your antibodies can no longer tell the difference? He makes you think you’ve forgotten who you were before. He makes you want to believe in things the world taught you were myths.

But that was over two years ago. Now Aemond is not your spellbinding almost-stranger of a fiancé—shrouded in just the right amount of mystery—but your husband, the father of your dead child, the presidential candidate. You miss when he was a mirage. You miss what it felt like to get high on the idea of him, each taste a hit, each touch a rush of toxins to the bloodstream.

Seven weeks after your emergency c-section, you are healing. Your belly no longer aches, your bleeding stops, you can rejoin the living in this last gasp of summer. Ludwika takes you shopping and you pick out new swimsuits; you’ve gone up a size since the baby, and it shows no signs of vanishing. In the fitting room, Ludwika chain-smokes Camel cigarettes and claps when you show her each outfit, ordering you to spin around, telling you that there’s nothing like Oleg Cassini back in Poland. You plan to buy three swimsuits. Ludwika insists you get five. She pays with Otto’s American Express.

That afternoon at home in your blue bedroom, you get changed to join the rest of the family down by the pool, your first swim since Ari was born. You choose Ludwika’s favorite: a dreamy turquoise two-piece with flowing transparent fabric that drapes your midsection. You can still see the dark vertical line of where the doctors stitched you closed. Now you and Aemond match; he got his scar on the floor of the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, you earned yours at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. There are gold chains on your wrist and looped around your neck. Warm sunlight and ocean wind pours in through the open windows.

Aemond appears in the doorway and you turn to show him, proud of how you’ve pulled yourself together, how this past year hasn’t put you in an asylum. His right eye catches on your scar and stays there for a long time. Then at last he says: “You don’t have something else to wear?”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Labor Day, and Asteria has been descended upon by guests invited to celebrate Aemond’s nomination. The dining room table is overflowing with champagne, Agiorgitiko wine, platters of mini spanakopitas, lamb gyros, pita bread with hummus and tzatziki, feta cheese and cured meats, grilled octopus, baklava, and kourabiethes. Eudoxia is rushing around sweeping up crumbs and shooing tipsy visitors away from antique vases shipped here from Greece. Aemond’s celebrity endorsers include Sammy Davis Jr., Sonny and Cher, Andy Williams, Bobby Darin, Warren Beatty, Shirley MacLaine, Claudine Longet, and a number of politicians; but the most notable attendee is President Lyndon Baines Johnson, shadowed by Secret Service agents. He won’t be making any surprise appearances on the campaign trail for Aemond—in the present political climate, he would be more of a liability than an asset—but he has travelled to Long Beach Island tonight to offer his well-wishes. From the record player thrums Jimi Hendrix’s All Along The Watchtower.

When you finish getting ready and arrive downstairs, you spot Aegon: slouching in a velvet chair over a century old, hair shagging in his eyes, sipping something out of a chipped mug he clasps with both hands, flirting with a bubbly early-twenties campaign staffer. Aegon smiles and waves when he sees you. You wave back. And you think: When did he become the person I look for when I walk into a room?

Now Aemond is beside you in a blue suit—beaming, confident, his glass eye in place, a hand resting on your waist—and Aegon isn’t smiling anymore. He takes a gulp of what is almost certainly straight rum from his mug and returns his attention to the campaign staffer, his lady of the hour. You picture him undressing her on his shag carpet and feel disorienting, violent envy like a bullet.

Viserys is already fast asleep upstairs, but the rest of the family is out en masse to charm the invitees and pose for photographs. Alicent, Helaena, and Mimi—trying very hard to act sober, blinking too often—are chit-chatting with the other political wives. Otto is complaining about something to Criston; Criston is pretending to listen as he stares at Alicent. Ludwika is smoking her Camels and talking to several young journalists who are ogling her, enraptured. Fosco and Sargent Shriver are entertaining a group of guests with a boisterous, lighthearted debate on the merits of Italian versus French cuisine, though they agree that both are superior to Greek. The nannies have brought the eight children to be paraded around before bedtime. All Cosmo wants to do is clutch your hand and “help” you navigate around the living room, warning you not to step on the small, weaving Alopekis. When Mimi attempts to steal her youngest son away, he ignores her, and as she begins to make a scene you rebuke her with a harsh glare. Mimi retreats meekly. She has never argued with you, not once in over two years. You speak for Aemond, and Aemond is a god.

As the children are herded off to their beds by the nannies, Bobby Kennedy—presently serving as a New York senator despite residing primarily on his family’s compound in Massachusetts—approaches to congratulate Aemond. His wife Ethel is a tiny, nasally, scrappy but not terribly bright woman, five months pregnant with her eleventh child, and you have to get away from her like a hand pulled from a hot stove.

“You know, I was considering running,” Bobby says to Aemond, chuckling, good-natured. “But when I saw you get in the race, I thought better of it! Maybe I’ll give it a go in ’76, huh?”

“Hey, kid, what a tough year you’ve had,” Ethel tells you, patting your forearm. You can’t tear your eyes from her small belly. She has ten living children already. I couldn’t keep one. What kind of sense does that make? “We’re real sorry for your trouble, aren’t we, Bobby?”

Now he is nodding somberly. “We are. We sure are. We’ve been praying for you both.”

Aemond is thanking them, sounding touched but entirely collected. You manage some hurried response and then excuse yourself. Your hands are shaking as you cross the room, not really seeing it. You walk right into Lady Bird Johnson. She takes pity on you; she seems to perceive how rattled you are. “Oh Lyndon, look, it’s just who we were hoping to speak to! The next first lady of the United States. And how beautiful you are, just radiant. How do you keep your hair so perfect? That glamorous updo. You never have a single strand out of place.” Lady Bird lays a palm tenderly on your bare shoulder. She has an unusual, angular face, but a wise sort of compassion that only comes from suffering. Her husband is an unrepentant serial cheater. “I’ll make you a list of everything you need to know about the White House. All the quirks of the property, and the hidden gems too!”

“You’re so kind. We’ll see what happens in November…”

“Good evening, ma’am,” President Johnson says, smiling warmly. He’s an ugly man, but there’s something hypnotic that lives inside him and shines through his eyes like the blaze of a lighthouse. He pulls you in through the dark, through the storm; he promises you answers to questions you haven’t thought of yet. LBJ is 6’4 and known for bullying his political adversaries with the so-called “Johnson Treatment”; he leans in and makes rapid-fire demands until they forget he’s not allowed to hit them. “I have to tell you frankly, I don’t envy anyone who inherits that den of rattlesnakes in Washington D.C.”

“Lyndon, don’t frighten her,” Lady Bird scolds fondly.

“Everyone thinks they know what to do about Vietnam,” LBJ plods onwards. “But it’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t clusterfuck. If you keep fighting, they call you a murderer. But if you pull the troops out and South Vietnam falls to the communists, every single man lost was for nothing, and you think the families will stand for that? Their kid in a body bag, or his legs blown off, or his brain scrambled? There’s no easy answer. It’s a goddamn bitch of a quagmire.”

Lady Bird offers you a sympathetic smirk. Sorry about all this unpleasantness, she means. When he gets himself worked up, I can’t stop him. But you find yourself feeling sorry for President Johnson. It will be difficult for him to learn how to fade into disgraced obscurity after once being so omnipotent, so beloved. Reinvention hurts like hell: fevers raging, bones mending, healing flesh that itches so ferociously you want to claw it off.

LBJ gives Lady Bird a look, quick but meaningful. She acquiesces. This has happened a thousand times before. “It was so nice talking to you, dear,” she tells you, then crosses the living room to pay her respects to Alicent.

The president steps closer, looming, towering. The Johnson Treatment?? you think, but no; he isn’t trying to intimidate you. He’s just curious.

“Do you know what Aemond’s plan is for ‘Nam?” LBJ asks, eyes urgent, voice low. “I’m sure he has one. He’s sworn to end the draft as soon as he gets into office, but how is he going to make sure the South Vietnamese can fend off the North themselves? We’re trying to train the bastards, but if we left they’d fold in months. It would be the first war the U.S. ever lost. Does he understand that?”

“He doesn’t really discuss it with me.” That’s true; you know his policies, but only because they are a constant subject of conversation within the family, something you all breathe like oxygen.

“We can’t let Nixon win,” LBJ continues. “It’s mass suicide to leave the country in his hands. The man can’t hold his liquor anymore, getting robbed by Kennedy in ’60 broke something in him. He gets sloshed and shoves his aids around, makes up conspiracies in his head. He’s a paranoid little prick. He’ll surveille the American people. He’ll launch a nuke at Moscow.”

You honestly don’t know what he expects you to say. “I’ll pass the message along to Aemond.”

“People love you, Mrs. Targaryen.” LBJ watching you closely. “Believe it or not, they used to love me too. But I still remember how to play the game. You’re the only reason Aemond is leading the polls in Florida. You can get him other states too. Jack needed Jackie. Aemond needs you. And you’ve had tragedies, and that’s a damn shame. But don’t you miss an opportunity. You take every disappointment, every fucked up cruelty of life and find a way to make it work for you. You pin it to your chest like a goddamn medal. Every single scar makes you look more mortal to those people going to the ballot box in November. You want them to be able to see themselves in you. It helps the mansions and the millions go down smoother.”

“President Johnson!” Aegon says as he saunters over, huge mocking grin. He thumps a closed fist against the Texan’s broad chest; the Secret Service agents standing ten feet away observe this sternly. “How thoughtful of you to be here, taking time out of your busy schedule, squeezing us in between war crimes.”

“The mayor of Trenton,” LBJ jabs.

“The butcher of Saigon.”

Now the president is no longer amused. “You’ve never accomplished anything in your whole damn life, son. Your obituary will be the size of a postage stamp. I’m looking forward to reading it someday soon.” He leaves, rejoining Lady Bird at the opposite end of the room.

You frown at Aegon, disapproving. You’re dressed in a sparkling, royal blue gown that Aemond chose. “That was unnecessary.”

Aegon is wearing an ill-fitting green shirt—half the buttons undone—khaki pants, and tan moccasins. “I just did you a favor.”

“What happened to your new girlfriend? Shouldn’t she be getting railed in your basement right now? Did she have a prior commitment? Did she have a spelling test to study for? Those can be tricky, such complex words. Juvenile. Inappropriate. Infidelity.”

“You know what he brags about?” Aegon says, meaning LBJ. “That he’s fucked more women by accident than John F. Kennedy ever did on purpose.”

“That sounds…logistically challenging.”

“He’s a lech. He’s a freak. He tells everyone on Capitol Hill how big his cock is. He takes it out and swings it around during meetings.”

“And that’s all far less than admirable, but he’s not going to do something like that around me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s not an idiot,” you say impatiently. “He was perfectly civil. And I was getting interesting advice.”

Aegon rolls his eyes, exasperated. “Yeah, okay, I’m sorry I crashed your cute little pep talk with Lyndon Johnson, the most hated man on the planet.”

“I guess you can’t stop Aemond from touching me, so you have to terrorize LBJ instead.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Aegon hisses, and his venom stuns you. And now you’re both trapped: you loosed the arrow, he proved you hit the mark. He’s flushing a deep, mortified red. Your guts are twisting with remorse.

“Aegon, wait, I didn’t mean—”

He whirls and storms off, shoving his way through the crowd. People glare at him as they clutch their glasses and plates, sighing in that What else do you expect from the worthless son? sort of way. You’re still gaping blankly at the place where Aegon stood when Aemond finds you, snakes a hand around the back of your neck, and whispers through the painstakingly-arranged wisps of hair that fall around your ear: “Follow me.”

It’s not a question. It’s a command. You trail him through the living room, into the foyer, and through the front door, not knowing what he wants. Outside the moon is a sliver; the light from the main house makes the stars hard to see. “Aemond, you’ll never believe the conversation I just had with LBJ. He really unloaded, I think the stress is driving him insane. I have to tell you what he said about—”

“Later.” And this is jarring; Aemond doesn’t put anything before strategy. He grabs your hand as he turns into Helaena’s garden, and only then do you understand what he wants. Instinctively, your legs lock up and your feet stop moving. Aemond tugs you onward. He wants it to be like the very first time. He intends to start over with you, the dawning of a new age in the dead of night.

Hidden in the circle of hedges, he takes your face roughly in his hands and kisses you, drinks you down like a vampire, consumes you like wildfire. But your skull echoes with panic. I don’t want him touching me. I don’t want another child with him. “Aemond…”

He doesn’t hear you, or acts like he doesn’t, or mistakes it for a murmur of desire, or chooses to believe it is. He has you down on the grass under the vengeful gaze of Zeus, the fountain splashing, the sounds of the house a low foreign drone. He yanks off your panties, but he doesn’t want you naked like he always did before. He pushes the hem of your shimmering cobalt gown up to your hips and unbuckles his trousers. And you realize as he’s touching you, as he’s easing himself into you: He doesn’t want to have to look at my scar.

You can’t ignore him, you can’t pretend it’s not happening. He’s too big for that. It’s a biting fullness that demands to be felt. So you kiss him back, and knot your fingers in his short hair like you used to, and try to remember the things you always said to him before. And when Aemond is too absorbed to notice, you look away from him, from the statue of Zeus, and peer up into the stone face of Athena instead: the goddess who never married and who knows the answer to every question.

“I love you,” Aemond says when it’s over, marveling at the slopes of your face in the dim ethereal light. “Everything will be right again soon. Everything will be perfect.”

You conjure up a smile and nod like you believe him.

“What did LBJ say?”

“Can I tell you later tonight? After the party, maybe? I just need a few minutes.”

“Of course.” And now Aemond pretends to be patient. He buckles his belt and returns to the main house, his blood coursing with the possibilities only you can make real, his skin damp with your sweat.

For a while—ten minutes, twenty minutes—you lie there on the cool grass wondering what it was like for all those mortals and nymphs, being pinned down by Zeus and then having Hera try to kill them afterwards, raising ill-fated reviled bastards they couldn’t help but love. What is heaven if the realm of the immortals is so cruel? Why does the god of justice seem so immune to it?

When at last you rise and walk back towards the house, you find Mimi at the edge of the garden. She’s on her knees and retching into a rose bush; she’s cut her face on the thorns, but she hasn’t noticed yet. She’s groaning; she seems lost.

You reach for her, gripping her bony shoulders. “Mimi, here, let’s get you upstairs…”

“No,” she blubbers, tears streaming down her scratched cheeks. “Just go away. Leave me.”

“Mimi—”

“No!” she roars, a mournful hemorrhage as she slaps your hands until you release her.

“You don’t have to be this way,” you tell her, distraught. “You can give up drinking. We’ll help you, me and Fosco and Ludwika. You can start over. You can be healthy and present again, you can live a real life.”

Mimi stares up at you, her grey eyes glassy and bloodshot but with a vicious, piercing honesty. “My husband hates me. My kids don’t know I exist. What the hell do I have to be sober for?”

You weren’t expecting this. You don’t know what to say. “We can help make the world better.”

“The world would be better without me in it.”

Then Mimi curls up on the grass under the rose bush, and stays there until you return with Fosco to drag her upstairs to her empty bed.

~~~~~~~~~~

The next afternoon, you’re lying on a lounge chair by the pool. Tomorrow the family will leave Asteria and embark upon a vigorous campaign schedule that will continue, with very few breaks, until Election Day on Tuesday, November 5th. The children are splashing and shrieking in the pool with Fosco, but you aren’t looking at them. You’re staring across the sun-drenched emerald lawn at the Atlantic Ocean. You’re envisioning all the bones and splinters of sunken ships that must litter the silt of the abyss; you’re thinking that it’s a graveyard with no headstones, no memory. Your swimsuit is a red one-piece. Your eyes are shielded by large black Ray Bans aviator sunglasses. Your gaze flicks up to the cloudless blue sky, where all the stars and planets are invisible.

Jupiter has nearly a hundred moons; the largest four were discovered by Galileo in 1610. Europa is a smooth white cosmic marble with a crust of ice, beautiful, immaculate. Ganymede, the largest moon in our solar system and the only satellite with its own magnetic field, is rumored to have a vast underground saltwater ocean that may contain life. Callisto is dark and indomitable, riddled with impact craters; because of her dynamic atmosphere and location beyond Jupiter’s radiation belts, she is considered the best location for possible future crewed missions to the Jovian system. But Io is a wasteland. She has no water and no oxygen. Her only children are 400 active volcanoes, sulfur plumes and lava flows, mountains of silicate rock higher than Mount Everest, cataclysmic earthquakes as her crust slips around on a mantle of magma. Her daily radiation levels are 36 times the lethal limit for humans. If Hades had a home in our corner of the galaxy, it would be Io. She glows ruby and gold with barren apocalyptic fury. You can feel yourself turning poisonous like she is. You can feel your skin splitting open as the lava spills out.

Aegon trots out of the house—red swim trunks, cheap red plastic sunglasses, no shirt, a beach towel slung around his neck, flip flops—and kicks your chair. “Get up. We’re going sailing.”

“I don’t want to talk to anybody.”

“Great, because I’m not asking you to talk. I’m telling you to get in my boat.”

You don’t reply. You don’t think you can without your voice cracking. Aegon crouches down beside your chair and pushes your sunglasses up into your Brigitte Bardot-inspired hair so he can see your face. Your eyes are pink, wet, desperately sad. Deep troubled grooves appear in his forehead as he studies you. Gently, wordlessly, he pats your cheek twice and lowers your sunglasses back over your eyes. Then he stands up again and offers you his hand.

“Let’s go,” Aegon says, softly this time. You take his hand and follow him down to the boathouse.

Five vessels are currently kept there. Aegon’s sailboat is a 25-foot Wianno Senior sloop, just roomy enough for a few passengers. He’s had it since long before you married into the Targaryen family. It is white with hand-painted gold accents; the name Sunfyre adorns the stern. He unmoors the boat, pushes it out into the open water, and raises the sails.

You glide eastbound over the glittering crests of waves, slowly at first, then faster as the sails catch the wind. Aegon has one hand on the rudder, the other grasping the ropes. And the farther you get from shore, the smaller Asteria seems, and the Targaryen family, and the presidential election, and the United States itself. Now all that exists is this boat: you, Aegon, the squawking gulls, the school of mackerel, the ocean. The sun beats down; the breeze rips strands of your hair free. The battery-powered record player is blasting White Room by Cream. When you are far enough from land that no journalists would be able to get a photo, Aegon takes two joints and his Zippo out of the pocket of his swim trunks. He puts both joints between his lips, lights them, and passes you one. Then he stretches out beside you on the deck, gazing up at the September sky.

You ask as your muscles unravel and your thoughts turn light and easy to share: “Why did you bring me out here?”

“So you can drown yourself,” Aegon says, and you both laugh. “Nah. I used to go sailing all the time when I was a teenager. It always made me feel better. It was the only place where I could really be alone.”

You consider the math. “Wow. You haven’t been a teenager since before I was in kindergarten.”

“It’s weird to think about. You don’t seem that young.”

“Thanks, I guess. You don’t seem that old.”

“Maybe we’re meeting in the middle.” He inhales deeply and then exhales in a rush of smoke. “What do you think, should I get an earring?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“It might shock Otto so bad it kills him.”

“I’ll get two.” And then Aegon says: “It’s not cool for you to mock me.”

You are dismayed; you didn’t mean to hurt him. “I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were. You were mocking me. You mocked me about the receipt under my ashtray, and then you mocked me again last night. I’m up for a lot of things, but I can’t handle that. Okay?”

“Okay.” You turn your head so you can see him: shaggy blonde hair, stubble, perpetual sunburn, the softness of his belly and his chest, flesh you long to vanish into like rain through parched earth. “Aegon?”

He looks over at you. “Io?”

“I don’t want Aemond to touch me either.”

He’s surprised; not by what you feel, but because you’ve said it aloud, a treason like Prometheus giving mankind the gift of fire. “What are we gonna do about it?”

If you were the goddess of wisdom, maybe you’d know.

[hisbucky]

A 9-1-1 Fic: Bones!AU

Summary:

“I’m Dr. Evan Buckley, an anthropologist working for the National History Museum in Los Angeles. I’ve been in Guatemala for about two months, helping a very renowned and well-regarded colleague, mind you, to identify victims of a genocide. Including that one on your table right there.”

He pointed to the skull in question, the same one that got him into this mess.

-/-

AKA Buck is Dr Brennan, but he's not, he's still Buck

Rating: Mature

Main Ship: Pre-Buddie

Warnings: Some descriptions of (staged) intimacy NOT between Buddie to gather information, inaccurate depictions of PTSD, and the Typical Crime Show Warnings; depictions of murder, death, substances, crime, violence, etc.

As what has been hinted, here is the Bones AU I've been working on.

Shoutout to my pocket friends @nibblyssacrifice & @bluroux who beta-read this - literally could not have made the final editing for this fic any smoother 💜💜💜

Read here

There's also a (really short) snippet you can preview below.

... “Not a sociopath,” he denied. “Just not neurotypical.” “I feel like I should know what that means,” the officer had said it with an odd inflection, he noticed, which led Buck to believe that the man knew exactly what he’d meant, but for some reason was choosing not to disclose that fact. It was that insight that held him back from spilling out the wealth of information he had on the matter. Instead, Buck was left feeling a little bit wary. “I’ll send you a few audiobooks on it after you tell me how we can make this go faster. I’m missing lunch with my sister,” he shrugged, restraining himself from narrowing his eyes at the man, wondering if the officer’s slow reading was part of a farce too. As if answering his thoughts, Buck saw movement from the corner of his eyes. Leaning against the doorway was the figure of man he could hardly forget, and even with those shades he could feel that heavy gaze on him. “What are you doing here?” he squawked, mouth gaping at the unexpected visitor. Said visitor merely took off his aviators and walked in, brandishing his badge in one motion — face carefully neutral as he introduced himself to the room, “FBI, Special Agent Edmundo Diaz. Major Crime, Los Angeles.” He tipped his head in Buck’s direction. “Dr. Buckley here identifies remains for us.” Nonplussed, Buck amended. “I do more than just identify by the way.” “He also does podcasts.” Without missing a beat, a smartphone was brought out from that form-fitting suit coat he was wearing. Buck could only stare as the agent proceeded to carelessly toss the device over and across the table, somehow managing to land the thing safely in the other officer’s hands in a perfect arc. “That one’s pretty popular among the kids and college students. ‘Voices from the Vertebrae’, don’t know if you’ve heard of it.” Fully offended, Buck scrunched his nose. “Rude.” ...

[wachinyeya]

Mushroom Enthusiasts Help Find Species Lost to Science–Rescuing it from Nature’s ‘Top 25 Most Wanted’ List https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/mushroom-enthusiasts-help-find-species-lost-to-science-rescuing-it-from-natures-top-25-most-wanted-list/

The big puma fungus is actually quite small, and despite being on the ’25 Most Wanted List’ it’s also rather unremarkable, being slightly greyish brown, and no bigger than a shitake.

GNN is always abreast of updates to the brilliant conservation initiative Search for Lost Species which has rediscovered several wondrous species of plants and animals through collaborative scientific expeditions to look for forms of life not seen in over ten years.

The big puma fungus (Austroomphaliaster nahuelbutensis), an enigmatic species of fungi that lives underground in Chile’s Nahuelbuta Mountains had only ever been found in the wild once.

An expedition team from the Fungi Foundation in Chile set out for the temperate forests of the Nahuelbutas in May 2023 to retrace the footsteps of Chilean mycologist Norberto Garrido, who discovered the big puma fungus and described it to Western science in 1988.

They timed the expedition to coincide with the exact dates in May that Garrido had hiked the mountains more than 40 years earlier.

“It’s possible that the reproductive parts of the big puma fungus—the mushroom—are only fleetingly visible above the soil on the same few days each year, which made the timing of the expedition a crucial factor,” said Claudia Bustamante, a mycologist, and member of the expedition team.

The expedition was captured in a documentary called In Search of a Lost Fungus, in which viewers can see how a last-minute day hike organized near a local Nahuelbutas community led to the big puma fungus’ eventual discovery.

On the last day of the expedition, the Fungi Foundation led a workshop and a community hike to look for fungi in a nearby forest. During that hike, two of the local participants found a group of about four mushrooms that all matched the description of the big puma fungus.

The expedition team carefully collected the mushrooms, leaving the mycelium in the ground, and took the mushrooms to the Fungi Foundation’s fungarium (FFCL). Although the mushrooms matched the physical and microscopical description of the big puma fungus, it was a DNA analysis that eventually confirmed the team had found the correct species.

“We knew it was going to be hard to find the big puma fungus and that the chances of finding the mushrooms were low, considering their colors and how they blend with the fallen leaves,” said Daniela Torres, programs lead at the Fungi Foundation and leader of the expedition.

“It was truly a unique moment when we managed to be in the right place at the right time to see the mushrooms. Understanding the biodiversity that exists and interacts within a specific area helps us comprehend its behavior and its potential to adapt to ongoing changes and underlying threats.”

Since 2017, the Search for Lost Species has rediscovered 13 of the world’s most wanted lost species. In addition to the big puma fungus, Re:wild, working with partners across the world, has confirmed the rediscovery of Jackson’s climbing salamander in Guatemala, both Wallace’s giant bee and the velvet pitcher plant in Indonesia, the silver-backed chevrotain in Vietnam, the Somali sengi in Djibouti, the Voeltzkow’s chameleon in Madagascar, Fernandina giant tortoise in the Galápagos, Sierra Leone crab in Sierra Leone, the Pernambuco holly tree in Brazil, Attenborough’s echidna in Indonesia, De Winton’s golden mole in South Africa and Fagilde’s trapdoor spider in Portugal

[bbulbasaurus-rex]

The Latino Racial Justice Circle are raising money for the families of the missing (now presumed dead) people who were working on the Francis Scott Key Bridge right before it collapsed. These men were originally from El Salvador, Mexico, and Guatemala and leave behind families and friends.

[hishandsguatemala]

Center of Dreams Construction Completed

It never ceases to amaze me at what can be accomplished when you put God first. In less than 2 weeks we were able to take an empty shell of concrete block construction and turn it into something beautiful and inspirational. The days were long 16 hours plus some days, and the weather was hot with a heat index of 112 on a cool day. But no complaints from anyone, because the glory was not for us,…

[allthecanadianpolitics]

WARNING: This story includes distressing details.

A Guatemala-based forensic anthropology organization is extending its hand to Indigenous Peoples looking to potentially recover remains of children on the grounds of former residential schools in Canada.

Fredy Peccerelli, a founding member of the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation, has been working for nearly 30 years to bring home bodies of the "disappeared"— Maya civilians who were killed during the 36-year civil war in Guatemala that ended in 1996.

He said he's seen first-hand how the pain caused by the loss of family members and their missing remains can rupture through generations and communities.

"It doesn't go away," he said.

Peccerelli said his group's Indigenous-led excavations identify the remains of as many as 125 people per year, on average, which are returned to families and communities. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[beardedmrbean]

A man accused of firebombing an anti-abortion office in Wisconsin last year has agreed to plead guilty to a federal charge of damaging property with explosives.

Online court records show Hridindu Roychowdhury, of Madison, filed a signed plea agreement Monday in the Western District of Wisconsin. He will face up to 20 years in prison but prosecutors have agreed to recommend the judge reduce his sentence because he has accepted responsibility for the crime. A judge is set to consider whether to accept the agreement at a hearing on Dec. 1.

According to court documents, someone broke a window at the Madison office of Wisconsin Family Action on May 8, 2022, six days after news outlets reported that the U.S. Supreme Court was set to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

WISCONSIN MAN CHARGED WITH FIREBOMBING OFFICES OF PRO-LIFE GROUP

The reports sparked abortion rights supporters to mount protests across the country. Two Catholic churches in Colorado were vandalized in the days leading up to the Madison firebombing. And someone threw Molotov cocktails into an anti-abortion organization’s office in a suburb of Salem, Oregon, several days later.

The U.S. Supreme Court did indeed overturn Roe v. Wade a little more than a month later, putting Wisconsin's 1849 ban on abortion back in play. A Dane County judge this past August ruled that the state's ban doesn't apply to medical abortions, prompting Planned Parenthood to resume offering abortions in the state weeks later.

Someone threw two Molotov cocktails through the broken window, setting a book case on fire, and spraypainted "If abortions aren't safe then you aren't either" on the office's outside wall.

DNA FROM HALF-EATEN BURRITO TIES EX-WISCONSIN DOCTORAL STUDENT TO PRO-LIFE CENTER FIREBOMBING ATTACK

Firefighters extinguished the fire. Investigators pulled Roychowdhury's DNA as well as two other people's DNA from the Molotov cocktails and the broken window. DNA that investigators pulled from a half-eaten burrito that Roychowdhury threw away matched one of the profiles. Court documents do not say whether investigators have used the two unknown DNA profiles to identify anyone.

Police arrested Roychowdhury at Boston International Airport in March 2023. He had a one-way ticket to Guatemala, according to prosecutors.

Roychowdhury's attorneys, Joseph Bugni and Alex Vlisides, didn't immediately respond to an email Tuesday seeking comment.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Truthout:

Asunción Mita is a town of roughly 40,000 people in the hills of southeastern Guatemala, near the border with El Salvador. It’s dusty and hot in the dry season — located in the Central American dry corridor, which is particularly vulnerable to climate disasters. And it has become the center of a battle over the future of mining in Guatemala.

In January, the outgoing Guatemalan government gave the green light for the Cerro Blanco open-pit gold mine in the hills outside of Asunción Mita. The mine is run by Canadian corporation Bluestone Resources, which expects to produce over 300,000 ounces of gold per year. Bluestone says it will bring jobs and opportunities to the local community.

But most locals don’t buy it.

“The impact of this mine would be immense,” [Yony Barrera, a member of the Permanent Environmental Committee of Asunción Mita] says. “Not just for the environment, but also the lives of so many thousands of people. It’s sad. It’s sad that the ambitions of a few are worth more than the well-being of millions of people.”

Barrera’s point of view is commonly held in the region.

Nearly 88 percent of the population of Asunción Mita that participated in a town consultation process two years ago voted against the mining project. The referendum was held at the request of the local municipality and accompanied by dozens of organizations including the local Catholic church and environmental organization Madre Selva. After hearing the results, hundreds of residents celebrated in the town square.

But the mine and the then-government said it didn’t count. In a statement, Guatemala’s Ministry of Energy and Mines said the municipal government didn’t have the authority to hold the referendum.

[caffernnn]

Hey idk if you'd be interested but free! Heist AU

Rin - the mastermind

Rin inherited this business from his late father who was secretly running this organization. He is a driven and charismatic leader who only has eyes looking forward to achieve the next goal. He is an intelligent planner who makes sure his heists are perfect and foolproof, and that he is equipped with the best items and personnel for the job. He will not hesitate to use other people to achieve his goals, and views everyone as a stepping stone for success (unless he takes a really strong liking to you and deems you indispensable). He can be very persuasive with his words, with very provoking offers that you can't help but bite and get baited. But he also be very scary and intimidating, and he's very skilled in a lot of things related to his chosen career. He's a strong hand-to-hand fighter, as well as with quite a few weapons, like a handgun and a knife. He leads the operations and he rarely backs down from a fight.

Haru - the fraud

He can copy any item that is presented before him. Penstroke or brushstroke, he can forge or falsify anything on paper created by the human hand. He can recreate any material, and replicate it 100 times more. He has made a living creating and selling fake copies of expensive items, and their authenticity (or rather, the lack of) is rarely discovered. He takes pride in his craft, which he uses to support his best friend and long-time boyfriend's college education and home expenses.

Makoto - the conman

Haru's boyfriend. He can charm people into agreeing with what he says and making them do what he wants to. He knows how to read people like open books, and therefore knows everything that will make people tick and click. He puts up a facade of kindness that creates a false security, making people fall for his words even deeper. They think everything he says is for their own benefit.

He actually has been working with Haru for a long time now, with him selling the counterfeits Haru manufactures. This is how they met Rin, when they sold him something fake and it took Rin a long time to discover that he was astonished.

Rei - the hacker

A computer genius with too much time on his hands, Rei delved deep into computer technology. There is no digital system he can't hijack. His application to a university got rejected after an academic rival sabotaged his chances, and while taking a gap year, fell too deep into tinkering computer programs, codes, wires, and other gadgets. He exposed corruption of several huge academic bodies under anonymous accounts and became a target under hiding. Rin was able to track him and took him under his wing for his service in exchange for protection.

Nagisa - the moneymaker

He's the guy who helps Rin earn his funds, albeit by using unconventional means. He's the greatest thief in the team, being able to steal anything; from pickpocketing a stranger's wallet to infiltrating a heavily-guarded jewel and running away with it. He's also an amazing gambler and bluffer and is able to earn money by betting against people he meets. He ran away from home and made a living on the streets by himself and that's how Rin found him.

Gou - the secretary

Rin's sister whos only in it as a promise to her father to keep an eye on Rin and make sure he stays away from harm. She handles all the internal affairs and logistics of the team, such as record keeping and accounting. She rarely goes out for a mission, unless the team needs a femme fatale to bait a client for her to use her seduction skills on. She can take care of herself, with some fighting moves under her belt and equipped with the skill of using everyday objects as weapons. Yes, she has crippled a man for life with nothing but a clutch purse and her heels.

Kisumi - the backer

This guy has connections everywhere. He knows everyone from everything and therefore is always able to pull several strings whenever Rin is in a pinch. Need a man in Guatemala? He got you covered. Need a guy with a ship? He knows one. Need 25 billion yen? Oddly enough, someone owes him that exact amount. Do not make an enemy out of him. Be his friend! Just like what Rin did with him!

Asahi - the grease monkey

He's a dropout from automotive school after his sister's shop went bankrupt and he can no longer pay for his tuition. Equipped with only a rundown mechanic shop and a dream, he studied automotive all on his own and was discovered by Kisumi when he repaired his car that no one should be able to when it broke down in the middle of nowhere (the nowhere being Asahi's rural town where he is the only mechanic). There is no machine he can't disassemble and reassemble at the same breath. He can fix, modify, customize, and redesign any vehicle with his mechanic skills that the team thinks he could create the next ultimate war weapon if left unchecked.

Hiyori - the chameleon

He can transform into anyone at the blink of an eye. Being a master of deception, he is able to imitate a person's body language, movement, personality, speech pattern, etc. which allows him to turn into a completely different person. With each transformation, he is able to completely erase traces of his former self. Combined with skill in disguise and makeup application, he is the best spy the team could offer. No one knows if they have seen his true face or personality, nor does anyone know of Hiyori's lonely past and desire to be wanted and accepted. Is that his real face? His real self? His real name? Who knows...

Ikuya - the stalker

He can tail a person without letting his presence be detected whatsoever. His attachment issues with his younger, who is a free spirit roaming around the world and tried his best to shake him off of him led him to develop his stalking tendencies. Anywhere his brother goes, he was able to follow. He can bypass any security, any lock system, and no one would be able to detect. He can get in anywhere, even places people wouldn't be able to get into. Lock him, bind him, imprison him, and he will escape. He can follow anyone to the depths of the earth, to the most hidden corner of the planet. He can find anything you need, person or item. When he locks onto a target, he is unstoppable, and no one knows how he is able to achieve these feats. The only way he found out about Rin's team and got recruited was because he followed Natsuya and broke into the hideout. Rin was impressed and recruited him along with his brother.

Sousuke - the wheelman

Rins best friend and very first member of the team. He was the original partner in crime and his job was to take Rin wherever he needed to be. He can drive any vehicle from practice because of his background. He comes from a rich family and has experience driving several vehicles, using his father's money to enjoy the luxury. He was an up and coming car racer but an accident hindered his chances of becoming a pro, so he ran away from his high status lifestyle to join Rin in his adventures (and to try pursue romance with him but really, he hasn't gotten far with his attempts with him yet).

Can he pilot a plane? Yes. Can he man a ship? Yes. Can he drive a van with one arm while shooting his pursuers with the other? Yes. Can he go around the city without getting lost all by himself? No. His only weakness? His lack of sense of direction.

Natsuya - the navigator

He knows everything about everywhere because of his experiences travelling to a lot of different places. He knows every nook and cranny of every town,  village or city and knows how to get around either through the fastest, safest, or easiest way. He knows a lot of things about different buildings as well. He knows the layout of his target's places inside and out. He's an experienced thief like Nagisa, and he usually comes with Rin during infiltration and most of the time works as Sousuke's navigator when he's on the wheel. He's also an excellent shotgun rider, with an excellent aim when shooting from his seat.

Nao - the intel

The only person better than Makoto at reading people. He has a weird ability to know a person's nature and tendency just from a single look, and from there formulate a strategy on how to deal with them. He always submits his reports with extensive personal profiles of their targets and no one knows how he manages to get his hands on these data. Only joined the team after quitting his job of being a corporate worker to keep an eye on Natsuya.

Nitori - the contingency

One of Rin's most trusted subordinates. Rin may be the one planning everything, but not everything goes according to plan. And that's where he comes in. He has backup plans for everything, in case anything that can go wrong, goes wrong. Most of the time his anxiety induced overthinking is useless when things go smooth, but it has definitely saved Rin's ass several times when he got cornered into a pinch. Years of being a victim of bullying made him good in "thinking of what it do in case something goes wrong", but he doesn't like to talk about that. Not when Rin had already saved him from that nightmare of a past.

Momo - the inside job

He works at a media company in charge of delivering headline news. Indebted to Rin for freeing his brother out of prison, his role is to receive intel from a more stable source, and whatever data he receives from the journalists he delivers to the team. He is also responsible for covering up their heists and making sure that none of their activities make it to the public.

Do not let the childish demeanor fool you, he is the brother of a convict and is trained in combat as well. Journalists have many enemies, and he will not hesitate to pull out and shoot when he deems you as a threat.

Sei - the combat master

Rin's most trusted soldier. An ex-military who got suspended for "unknown reasons", he is an expert in several martial arts styles from around the world, and is very skilled in fighting either barehanded or with weapons. He can fight people way above his weight class. He is trained in using all sorts of weapons, from knives in close-range combat to snipe shooting. Rin recruited him after helping him escape from prison because he greatly needed his talents, and he refuses to let him go to waste and just rot locked up in confinement.

Loooove a crime ring or heist AU 😈 a whole bunch of potential for different power dynamics and grey moralities and such. There’s a lot of fun character bits I’d love to hear more about as well 👀

- How much did Rin know about the company/ring/etc before he inherited it? How much did Gou know? I’m curious since it feels like some characters could’ve known Rin before he became a boss figure (Sousuke and Kisumi being the kids of family friends or allies, with their own varying degrees of awareness/involvement in the underground scheming). I’d be curious to see how the few people who are able to get close to Rin (more than an employer) see him take on the mantle, see him will himself into the mastermind by force — the talent is anything but natural, anything but easy, and there’s a reason he tends to put himself on the front lines in their missions despite being the figurehead they all probably can’t afford to lose (pride, obligation, control). I can see conflicts arising from him not stowing himself away with the other roles behind-the-scenes (Gou, Rei, etc) and focusing on management stuff (convening with the info/intel/PR roles to maintain face as a chairman or something). I can see that being a possible beef and debate between Rin and Haru, how Haru doesn’t understand why he would insist on being a part of the action so directly all the time (how he can manage to have any semblance of life/normalcy with his face/identity surely being tied to chaos in the underground scene at least), and Rin hitting Haru in a sore spot by saying something about “for a guy that cares about getting to have security, you sure don’t seem to mind that your boy puts his own hide on the line a lot. Why do you think Makoto does it?” (Something something, Haru trying to insist more than once over the years that Makoto doesn’t need to be involved in the con, versus Makoto’s stubborn “you can’t get rid of me that easy” smooth-talking. Haru hoping they can keep getting away with everything long enough for Makoto to get his degree and an above-board gig, while being acutely aware that each mission involves Makoto taking on more and more conning responsibilities and having less moments to breathe as his most earnest self. The shared struggle of them both making a living off of emulating other things [it’s never his own expression/art, it’s never Makoto’s own kindness/heart] and how that wears them down over time.)

- the Kirishimas of it all are interesting, especially with how Ikuya’s abilities make it sound like he’s versatile enough to be a powerhouse in his own right. Nat functions well with being the navigator for Ssk, and Ikuya and Nao following him into Rin’s ring makes sense, but I almost wonder… do you think Ikuya ever question’s being led by Rin? How his own skillset is versatile enough to compare to Rin’s hands-on leadership (both being honed by their own dedications and desperations to Do What They Have To), and that he might like, idk, impress his older brother and make him “proud” by trying to branch off with his own gang/group? As Hiyori gets attached to Ikuya (originally being an undercover genius and gradually morphing into Ikuya’s right hand man), and Ikuya develops enough connections over time within the company (naturally having pre-existing Nat/Nao connections, getting info from Kisumi, running into Asahi for a few things, etc), I’d be curious to see if they’d like, have a threat of a grand split, or he branches off technically within Rin’s company, but with his own kingpin/leadership type position. IDK, PLOT!!

- One thing I keep wondering is how many people are like, primarily goons under Rin’s thumb versus separate contacts that are seen on equal footing. Momo makes me wonder how much he really gets to know about any of the missions before they happen, rather than being a mostly-removed guy in reporting that Nitori or one of the sweet-talkers convenes with from time-to-time to ensure they get cover stories done. How much does Asahi get involved; does he know much more beyond Kisumi and Rin being wealthy repeat customers who come to him with odd requests he doesn’t ask questions about? So many paths. They can all be called in when needed for the right mission or heist, but how many are still connected to Rin in the in-between? How many have debts or are on payroll, and how many could refuse if the price wasn’t right? Extra little dynamic stuff that could make things ~juicy~.

- (no coherent last notes. Just thinkin about ssk and all the ways he could have lasting disabilities from the incident/injury that took him out of the racing circuit. The possibility of Rin knowing him as a rich boy family friend before the incident and having some sense of closeness that makes him wonder sometimes how selfish it was to invite him in to a more underhanded world full-time. Ssk paralleling Makoto in how he goes from “I’m here because you’re here” with one notable skill/role that develops over time to being more risky and involved. Rin being so used to the noise and chaos at this point that it takes a moment of seeing Sousuke on a Bad Pain Day between missions to remember how human they all are, or have that “why didn’t you tell me you were worn down” talk that makes him realize how far ssk is willing to go simply because Rin’s the one asking. Classic sourins)

[reasonsforhope]

"The transformation of ancestral lands into intensive monoculture plantations has led to the destruction of Guatemala’s native forests and traditional practices, as well as loss of livelihoods and damage to local health and the environment.

A network of more than 40 Indigenous and local communities and farmer associations are developing agroecology schools across the country to promote the recovery of ancestral practices, educate communities on agroecology and teach them how to build their own local economies.

Based on the traditional “campesino a campesino” (from farmer to farmer) method, the organization says it has improved the livelihoods of 33,000 families who use only organic farming techniques and collectively protect 74,000 hectares (182,858 acres) of forest across Guatemala.

Every Friday at 7:30 a.m., María Isabel Aguilar sells her organic produce in an artisanal market in Totonicapán, a city located in the western highlands of Guatemala. Presented on a handwoven multicolor blanket, her broccoli, cabbage, potatoes and fruits are neatly organized into handmade baskets.

Aguilar is in a cohort of campesinos, or small-scale farmers, who took part in farmer-led agroecology schools in her community. As a way out of the cycle of hunger and poverty, she learned ecological principles of sowing, soil conservation, seed storage, propagation and other agroecological practices that have provided her with greater autonomy, self-sufficiency and improved health.

“We learned how to develop insecticides to fend off pests,” she said. The process, she explained, involves a purely organic cocktail of garlic, chile, horsetail and other weeds and leaves, depending on what type of insecticide is needed. “You want to put this all together and let it settle for several days before applying it, and then the pests won’t come.”

“We also learned how to prepare fertilizer that helps improve the health of our plants,” she added. “Using leaves from trees or medicinal plants we have in our gardens, we apply this to our crops and trees so they give us good fruit.”

The expansion of large-scale agriculture has transformed Guatemala’s ancestral lands into intensive monoculture plantations, leading to the destruction of forests and traditional practices. The use of harmful chemical fertilizers, including glyphosate, which is prohibited in many countries, has destroyed some livelihoods and resulted in serious health and environmental damage.

To combat these trends, organizations across the country have been building a practice called campesino a campesino (from farmer to farmer) to revive the ancient traditions of peasant families in Guatemala. Through the implementation of agroecology schools in communities, they have helped Indigenous and local communities tackle modern-day rural development issues by exchanging wisdom, experiences and resources with other farmers participating in the program.

Keeping ancestral traditions alive

The agroecology schools are organized by a network of more than 40 Indigenous and local communities and farmer associations operating under the Utz Che’ Community Forestry Association. Since 2006, they have spread across several departments, including Totonicapán, Quiché, Quetzaltenango, Sololá and Huehuetenango, representing about 200,000 people — 90% of them Indigenous.

“An important part of this process is the economic autonomy and productive capacity installed in the communities,” said Ilse De León Gramajo, project coordinator at Utz Che’. “How we generate this capacity and knowledge is through the schools and the exchange of experiences that are facilitated by the network.”

Utz Che’, which means “good tree” in the K’iche’ Mayan language, identifies communities in need of support and sends a representative to set up the schools. Around 30-35 people participate in each school, including women and men of all ages. The aim is to facilitate co-learning rather than invite an “expert” to lead the classes.

The purpose of these schools is to help farmers identify problems and opportunities, propose possible solutions and receive technical support that can later be shared with other farmers.

The participants decide what they want to learn. Together, they exchange knowledge and experiment with different solutions to thorny problems. If no one in the class knows how to deal with a certain issue, Utz Che’ will invite someone from another community to come in and teach...

Part of what Utz Che’ does is document ancestral practices to disseminate among schools. Over time, the group has compiled a list of basics that it considers to be fundamental to all the farming communities, most of which respond to the needs and requests that have surfaced in the schools.

Agroecology schools transform lives

Claudia Irene Calderón, based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is an expert in agroecology and sustainable food systems in Guatemala. She said she believes the co-creation of knowledge is “key to balance the decision-making power that corporations have, which focus on profit maximization and not on climate change mitigation and adaptation.”

“The recovery and, I would add, revalorization of ancestral practices is essential to diversify fields and diets and to enhance planetary health,” she said. “Recognizing the value of ancestral practices that are rooted in communality and that foster solidarity and mutual aid is instrumental to strengthen the social fabric of Indigenous and small-scale farmers in Guatemala.”

Through the implementation of agroecology schools across the country, Utz Che’ says it has improved the livelihoods of 33,000 families. In total, these farmers also report that they collectively protect 74,000 hectares (182,858 acres) of forest across Guatemala by fighting fires, monitoring illegal logging and practicing reforestation.

In 2022, Utz Che’ surveyed 32 women who had taken part in the agroecology school. All the women had become fully responsible for the production, distribution and commercialization of their products, which was taught to them in agroecology schools. Today, they sell their produce at the artisanal market in Totonicapán.

The findings, which highlight the many ways the schools helped them improve their knowledge, also demonstrate the power and potential of these schools to increase opportunities and strengthen the independence of women producers across the country...

The schools are centered around the idea that people are responsible for protecting their natural resources and, through the revitalization of ancestral practices, can help safeguard the environment and strengthen livelihoods."

-via Mongabay News, July 7, 2023