#like she does not have to be a foreign correspondent but i want her in that realm

[autumnrory]

watching rory's joy at the beginning of her internship at the stanford eagle gazette and later when she worms her way back in during season 6 (which like hey whatever happened to that lol) is why i simply cannot accept a universe where she doesn't have a career in journalism

[mariacallous]

The loneliness epidemic in the United States is so bad that even federal agencies have begun to pay attention. Today, half of adult Americans report experiencing feelings of loneliness and isolation, and some of the highest rates are seen among young adults.

That’s a painful social problem—but it’s also a national security threat. I get laughed at sometimes when I try to explain this concept to old-school bureaucrats. Who can blame them? Evolving threats are a headache, so it’s easier to pretend that nothing ever changes. But consider how easy it can be to compromise the lonely and desperate.

Take Sweet Dave, as he’s come to be known among security professionals, otherwise known as David Franklin Slater, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel-turned-civilian Air Force employee. Earlier this year, Slater was charged with passing on classified information to an individual—who claimed to be both a woman and Ukrainian—via email and an unnamed online messaging platform.

Documents included in the federal indictment against Sweet Dave read like a Saturday Night Live sketch: “Dear, what is shown on the screens in the special room?? It is very interesting,” the alleged Ukrainian woman is quoted as saying to Slater at one point.

“You are my secret informant love!” Slater’s beloved coos after checking in to ask about how NATO representatives travel.

Judging by these messages, Slater wants to feel special. The person he is corresponding with makes him feel like a hero, not just a retired soldier in Nebraska. Who doesn’t, at the end of the day, want to feel like a hero?

It’s easy to dismiss Slater as foolish and horny, and while he definitely seems to be both of these things, I was curious to see a fellow open-source intelligence expert unearth his Facebook likes: Here’s a guy who’s completely awash in images of unattainable fantasy women to an embarrassing level, and it follows that he would lose all common sense if approached by one online.

Sex is an old motivation for espionage, but the current rash of cases is about far more than lust. Take Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira, who leaked highly classified information to impress his fellow nerds on Discord, a social messaging platform. He, too, wanted someone to think of him as a badass.

Foreign intelligence has always preyed on the lonely and romantically vulnerable, from the West German women targeted during the Cold War by East German “Romeo” spies to the French diplomat who believed that his lover, a Chinese man, was a woman who had birthed his son.

But the internet allows a degree of connection—or the illusion of connection—that facilitates exploitation on a scale never before seen. Sometimes it doesn’t even take foreign actors. Consider the case of Anna Gabrielian and her spouse, Jamie Lee Henry, two Americans who are due for a new trial after being charged with giving classified information to Russia. (Last year’s legal proceedings against the couple ended in a mistrial.)

What does a married couple have to do with loneliness and fantasy worlds? Not much, or so I thought at first—until I reread the indictment.

Looking at the power dynamics on display in this case is revealing. Henry and Gabrielian were in a lopsided relationship, with Gabrielian submerged in a fantasy dreamworld of “sacrificing everything” for a distant, mythical Russia. And she pressured her spouse into going along with it.

Gabrielian was so far gone that she thought that she could simply email the Russian Embassy and offer them help, and that she could trust whoever reads emails from random strangers over there. (I personally think that Russian Embassy staff members likely decided they were being played and began making inquiries of their own sources that U.S. intelligence picked up on, thus ultimately exposing Gabrielian’s plan.)

Gabrielian went as far as calling her spouse a “coward” for showing hesitation about turning traitor. This was the pedestrian version of the infamous “Russia, if you’re listening” speech by former U.S. Donald Trump, this time by a woman who clearly thought that benevolent Russian benefactors would materialize and reward her courage. There doesn’t appear to be a financial motive, as is the case with many similar cases. This was a spy fantasy concocted by a woman who obviously wanted to feel important.

In yet another unfortunate case, Gordon Black, a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, was arrested in Russia in May and accused of theft. Based on this man’s social media, he seems to have been involved with a Russian woman from Vladivostok—the city where he was nabbed by the authorities.

Based on available information, Black was in the middle of a divorce from his American wife. I’ve found pictures of him with the Russian woman in question dating as far back as June 2023. I have also found memes and comments, supposedly posted by this woman on social media, that reflect virulently violent views toward Ukrainians, anger toward NATO, and even the desire to humiliate her American boyfriend, whom she calls a slur in one memorable video.

Black was stationed in South Korea and was due to travel to a new post at Fort Cavazos, in Texas, when he decided to detour to Russia instead. According to his mother, Black did not appear to have permission to do so, and may have even been “set up”—although Black’s loneliness may have played an even bigger role.

It’s clear to an impartial observer that Black’s Russian girlfriend was bad news, yet he risked everything for her. The ardent devotion that appears in his face in one particular picture with his girlfriend is almost painful to look at.

The usual approach by both government and private actors to security training and identifying foreign threat actors is extensive, and repetitive lectures and reminders reiterate that training. But that doesn’t necessarily address the root of the problem.

Many people with access to sensitive information—like the public as a whole—are adrift both online and offline. They’re stressed, and they often don’t feel connected to other human beings. This makes them sitting ducks as far as foreign intelligence, hackers, scammers, and agenda-driven trolls go. It can also make them feel angry and resentful, willing to betray, and willing to act stupid for the sake of feeling powerful and important—and feeling seen.

In the national security world, the word “holistic” is often viewed with suspicion and seen as the purview of New Age crystal healers. But you can’t divorce human nature—and human predicaments—from digital and personal safety.

For example, I once had several diplomats act very surprised when I pointed out that not enough people are being taught that they shouldn’t use dating apps while drinking or while seriously stressed. It just hadn’t occurred to them that unwinding with a glass of wine after work and checking the apps could result in a bad outcome. These men weren’t stupid at all—they just hadn’t considered a holistic approach to using technology while holding a sensitive job.

The same can be said about drinking in other situations where you could be left vulnerable—such as in a foreign country, or in a bar frequented by the wrong kind of people. Somehow, we all know the risk, but we rarely focus on why people take it to begin with; we rarely focus on our natural need for connection and thus have a hard time mitigating it properly.

Another man in a sensitive job was once very surprised when I wrote that it’s perfectly OK and even advisable to video chat with a potential date. “You mean I can just ask for that? What if she thinks I’m rude?” he asked. The answer to that question should be “who cares?”

Unfortunately, for lonely people—and especially men—who are already having a harder time when it comes to connecting to others, “who cares” is not enough. Being in the right frame of mind, being more confident, and feeling more settled are essential to enforcing boundaries, and people desperate for connection simply have a harder time doing that.

“Put down your phone and go outside” is cliche advice, but outside is also a great place to meet people, thus leading to a lessened sense of loneliness, thus leading to reduced stress, and thus leading to better decisions.

“Recognize when you’re unhappy or desperate” is another cliche. People laugh when I bring up the fact that staying emotionally balanced is advisable from a national security perspective. Sounds like woo-woo yoga mom talk, right? Yet the clearance process is already meant to weed out people who feel desperate—people with gambling or drug problems, for example. So shouldn’t we also be focused on making sure that people who already have clearances have access to the tools they need in order to right themselves when pressures in their lives escalate?

How many leaders instead expect their subordinates to constantly be online and available? This feeds into the loneliness epidemic too—believe me. How easy do you think it is for a person to form meaningful connections when they are forced to constantly check their phone?

With lawmakers growing more cognizant of “right to disconnect” laws that allow employees space to be offline instead of demanding constant connection, perhaps we can start thinking more broadly about what it means to disconnect, and how burnout is inadvisable. Not just because burnout is bad, which it is, but because burnout can be dangerous.

Lonely and unhappy people are a gold mine for hostile actors. The subsequent need to seek connection and validation in the wrong places is a security threat—and one that national security leaders need to be thinking about much harder.

[horizon-verizon]

Dany’s bond with her dragons is unique because you can’t frame it through the pedestrian lens of a typical Targaryen dragon rider. She his their mother, their very reason for being, she breastfeed them, and she was dreaming of them even before she got the eggs. The eggs physically and emotionally healed her, they warmed in response to her emotions and influenced the child in her belly, and corresponded with her actions. The dragons nursed from her and only remained quiet in the red waste when she was in their sight. They breathe fire when she’s angry.

They hiss when she’s scared. No other Targaryen was ever a parent to their dragons, so trying to impose the rules of those dynamics onto Dany’s relationship with her dragons won’t work. Balerion and Vhagar didn’t burn anyone for trying to bond with them. The argument is that Rhaegal and Viserion are unridden so they’ll be fine to bond with others, but where dragons like Balerion, Vhagar, Meleys, Dreamfyre, etc accepted new riders, Rhaegal and Viserion even while unridden by Dany are still attached to her. When she visits them when they’re chained they scream and rattle their chains to try and get close to her. When Viserion notices Pretty Meris, his interest is piqued because he thinks it’s Dany, and then he loses interest. When Quentyn attacks Viserion, Rhaegal burns him alive. It doesn’t matter that they are unridden; no one can pull what Aemond or anyone else did by bonding them forcibly just because they’re unridden. Even Euron will die for what he does.

So Jon Snow isn’t going to steal Dany’s children from her in a flourish of triumph. Not even when he’s resurrected by blood and fire. If his stans want their boy to ride a dragon (I don’t think that will ever happen), their mother has to trust and love him and he has to swear loyalty to her and give up his “claim” for her (event though Jon has ZEO legal claim to the Iron Throne).

I feel similar; it's hard to imagine any of Dany's dragons letting anyone ride them. the first time I heard someone suggest that would happen I reflexively "gagged" and when I saw it onscreen in GoT I felt like stone. If it happens, it happens, but I'd be much more amenable to it if the rider has to go through Dany herself in some sort of way before they earn the right to actually ride one of her babies.

Jon shouldn't have a "claim", but bc of this really sexist society further having had its precedent from the Dance, he could be argued and supported to then feel or be convinced he does have one. Or have others argue such and have that spread like wildfire , which presents trouble if/when Dany ever rules Westeros bc she'd forever have a pressure to protect herself and hers for most of her reign. Rebellions here and there even with her dragons merely bc people have more feeling of righteousness both bc the history of the Dance and because she is "foreign" in a way Rhaenyra was not while also having already "lost" by having been exiled. While Jon is obviously more a Northener and a Stark by values and manner, etc, and Notherners are oftne thought more as "savages" by other Westerosi, they are still far more "familiar" than a girl raised in Essos and married off to a Dothraki who at one point would have birthed a boy with Dothraki lineage.

So yeah, if Jon expects at any point to ride one of the only dragons immediately available, he's going to have to do A LOT to show his trustworthiness and bond with Dany herself. Which could happen, but...we'll see.

[historyartthings]

Absolutely loving, adoring, Le*nda de L*sle’s review of MacCulloch’s work...

My thoughts, feelings, opinions I’ve put below. It gets very long because I cannae haud me wheesht

I don’t know why she’s obsessed with the idea that he mustn’t have loved his wife. ‘the supposedly grieving widower’? I don’t think the arrangement of a marriage for a king - which Henry obviously agreed to - is a sufficient way to judge what Thomas’s relationship with his wife was like. The (foreign and domestic) political, religious and dynastic factors at play there can’t be ignored in favour of extrapolating that he didn’t understand marrying for love. The “happy marriage” in quotation marks😭 have got to laugh. her condescending cynicism is based on nothing tangible, as far as I can work out. She shades MacCulloch as well through the, ‘he believes that although the evidence is sparse, Cromwell was indeed a grieving widower'…. Ngl I would argue it’s not a particularly strained logical leap to assume he might’ve been upset.

We know barely anything about their relationship. Mostly what can be concretely said is he, unusually, never remarried - we’ll obviously never know the reason(s) for that, but still. There was seemingly one notable relationship outside of it, which we only know of because it resulted in an illegitimate daughter, a wee while after his wife passed away. But even that isn’t for 100% certain. He also atypically didn’t have a mistress. There’s also exactly one (1) extant letter from him to his wife, which is pleasant enough, but not much revealing - he asks her for news of home and sends her a deer. she didnt live long enough so as to have any external remarks on their marriage once he entered court spheres. Essentially it’s impossible to draw anything more than speculative conclusions, but based on what can be tentatively extrapolated from his actions, it seems more likely he grieved for his wife than didn’t imo. And also just considering natural, human emotion??

(Even if you want to suggest they didn’t marry for love in the beginning - and/or weren’t in love by the end - they were married for what? Roughly a decade and a half? With no signs of estrangement, and friendly correspondence in letters to Cromwell asking him to pass on their regards to his wife. So even if it was simply an amicable relationship, on a basic level being with someone in such close proximity, for that long, and losing them is probably going to be upsetting?)

On a tangential note, as MacCulloch does point out, the valentine to Mary mentioned here wasn’t at all romantic - it’s misleading to present that, as she does, as an attempt for he himself to marry into royalty. Or more charitably, I think she misremembered the context for it from the book

I’d also question de Lisle’s point about the executions. Personally I don’t think it suggests a greater misogyny than any of his contemporaries? Imo it’s indicative of the broader pattern of a brutal, violent ruthlessness towards those he saw as any enemy, in his way, and/or as going against the crown/policy etc. As opposed to any particular or especial hatred towards women. This isn't meant as an excuse for those actions in any way, because they're - quite obviously - horrific. I just question the rationale behind such a judgement of even-worse-than-usual-for-the-time-misogyny based upon it. Such brutality wasn't isolated to women, men were treated just as abominably. She talks of their humiliation to evidence her point, but again, men were faced with the same. (Ask Richard Whiting who got dragged up Glastonbury Tor at nearly 80, whose case involved, 'to be tryed [presumably for treason] at Glaston and also executyd there' from cromwell's remembrances; or John Forrest, who was strung up in chains, which is a humiliating - to use her term - prolonged death in itself, but was also supposedly burnt using kindling made from a statue of a saint - oh how clever of you!). We don’t (afaik) have letters or remarks which reflect cromwell’s views on women in the same way as for Norfolk, for example. it's just a bizarre extrapolation to me. again, imo it's an incredibly dark, ruthless streak through his personality. it seems to have been his standard handling of any major execution. Also, to be clear, I’m not suggesting he wasn’t sexist/misogynistic, because ofc he was. All men back then were, as a symptom of living and socilisation in such a patriarchal society.

(also interesting for her to pair this suggestion w/ her thoughts about his marriage come to think of it. she seems to be linking the two in a broader picture, I assume wherein this should be added to the ‘evidence’ he didn’t/couldnt have loved his wife)

also the contrast of his physical looks in the Holbein, against his 'becoming' a 'convivial figure' in MacCulloch's work, is disappointing. not reading personalities from portraits, nor ascribing negative character traits to appearances and/or weight (implicitly or otherwise) shouldn't be a big ask, but apparently is. It'd be a wee bit different if she’d pointed to his expression - I still think that’s an unsound way to go about things fwiw - which at least isn’t intrinsically linked to his features, but alas no.

Lastly, re: MacCulloch’s arguments, i would say he’s more impartial than she implies. He might be Anglican, but I wouldn’t say he’s ‘on the Protestant side’ particularly. I struggle to see how his presentation of Catholics - from what i remember, altho it’s been a while since i've read it - is less than fair? He directly praises more and fisher iirc. but someone with a better knowledge of the book could correct me on this point.

also, positioning that he's on the 'protestant side', alongside the next line being about his argument that cromwell was grieving, is an interesting choice. is the suggestion that if you agree with the latter your sympathies must lie with "protestantism"? that it's only through a biased lens you could reach that conclusion? sksjksjk diabolical suggestion that that's the only reason anyone might consider he mourned his wife. like am i going insane or is it genuinely what she's saying??… i cant see why she'd juxtapose those specific points otherwise. Like critiquing mantel's comments about catholics and their presentation in wolf hall is fair enough, but connecting that with the fact she wrote cromwell as 'heartbroken' and that he loved his wife, comes across to me as though she's suggesting the former should invalidate mantel's interpretation of the latter. which again i dont think is fair based on the evidence we do have..

I would also question (because it is confusing to me) despite the fact that MacCulloch and Mantel were friends, why the “”””””happy marriage”””””” across both works is the way in here??? like why are you so bothered as to both lead and finish the article with that?

(And, frankly, MacCulloch paints a picture of a happier marriage - he writes that the simplest explanation is, ‘he couldn’t bear to marry anyone else’ - than Mantel does. Who presents their relationship as literally (as in, textually), ‘loves’ but not ‘in love’. and has him actively wanting to remarry. she had a line in TMATL that goes he was ‘mostly faithful’ which? I’m not sure if she meant to imply infidelity but… altho she did present a picture of him missing her i guess)

[moonspirit]

Due to Annie’s dad coming from another country I imagine that she is likely bilingual and therefore like many people who also are bilingual can pick up different languages quick. She can also read both Marlian and Paradisian script the best out of anyone.

After the rumbling I can imagine this being useful for foreign communications and stuff but also for crosswords.

Armin always wanted to do them but struggles due to the change in language/script so they work together one it

Hello!

That's a really cool hc anon! I've actually never thought of that, but it makes sense huh - Annie's dad could very well have spoken to her in another language and she grew up speaking both his tongue and Marleyan.

I know it's common to hc Armin as the logophile of the two - he reads a lot, he knows a lot of words, he's got good language skills and great vocabulary - where Annie does gets stuck in a crossword, he pitches in to help. But if Annie's grown up bilingual with a knack for picking up other tongues quickly then languages do come easier to her as you say! Where it takes Armin some time to learn a language, she's getting it down pat in the matter of a few weeks or even months. It's definitely very helpful in foreign correspondence or even when they're making diplomatic visits.

Goddamnit - they're a power couple again T/////T !!!!

[ibovaryyou]

About whom Laura is writing to, is a good question because she does say a few times in the letter that this is for a foreign town lady, who apparently had insisted in hearing Laura's story.

There is something in the Prologue (that you might not have read because re: dracula only included it in the trailer) that complicates it. There, an unknown narrator claims that this is correspondence between Laura and a Dr Hessilius (a German occult detective who has speaking roles in other stories in "In A Glass Darkly", the anthology that includes Carmilla). Could the town lady have been a fake identity to get Laura to open up? Is the narrator wrong? Either way, this person (likely the doctor's aide) says they wanted to ask Laura for more, but laments they learned she died some time after mailing the story.

:o interesting!

I did miss the prologue. I'm planning on re-reading either before dracula season starts or during one of the pauses. We'll see when I have the time. But I'm curious about this lady and this detective. Why does this story keep giving me more questions than answers?!

Also, now I'm sad about Laura once again. Hopefully she just faked her death and met Carm somewhere...

[icanseethefuture333]

Can I ask you to do a little reading on Chris evans and Ana de armas bond? How they saw each other in the beginning when they first worked together in knives out and how they see each other now, what’s their bond like, what do they think of their current correspondent partners. Thank you angel !

Chris Evan's first impression of Ana De Armas:

For Chris' first impressions of Ana, he could of saw her as the embodiment of Taurus characteristics: Serene, down to earth, and tenacious. Very feminine and poised. It could of been obvious to him as well she was a foreigner and that peaked his interest? Chris wanted to learn more about her culture and what her traditions were. "You're breaking my heart here." I believe he sees her beauty and charm as something that would potentially hurt him. Or, this could mean he asked her out and she rejected him.

Channeled song:

Don't Go Breaking My Heart by Elton John & Kiki Dee

Ana De Armas' first impression of Chris Evans:

"He is always surrounded by beautiful and luxurious women". Ana could see Chris as someone who is a playboy - Wealthy, flirtatious, and attractive. (NSFW) She could of heard things about his sex life or was curious about it 😭? She is sexually attracted to him. Ana finds Chris to be very funny as well. She finds his optimism, good sense of humor, and sunny disposition cute, charming, and infectious. She also finds him to be childish.

Current thoughts of each other:

Left is Chris. Center is their shared thoughts. Right is Ana.

So obviously... there is romantic tension between them. Chris has been trying for a while now for this relationship to happen, but Ana is just not interested. She is a wish fulfillment for him, is he manifesting her? Seems so. Ana is more focused on her career and accomplishing her goals. She sees Chris as someone who's popular and successful, but she is unsure if this is the energy she wants to be around long term. "I don't want people to say I am famous because of him, I wish to make my own success, I will not let a man take that away from me." Good for Ana, honestly 😳. Xenophobia and misogyny in the entertainment industry are also the major factors as to why she's rejecting Chris. Ana doesn't want to be accused of "sleeping her way to the top", she feels that will continue a harmful stereotypes/beliefs about hispanic/latina women. This is something Chris is not understanding and acting naive to because of his privileges. He is just focusing more on the fact he wants to be with her vs the concerns she has. "If we're happy then who cares what other people think?"

Their opinions about each other's partners:

Left is Chris. Center is their shared thoughts. Right is Ana.

"You chose him over me?!" Chris is jealous of Ana's partner. He is very opinionated about their relationship honestly, so I will just leave it at that 💀. He feels her partner is in the way.

Something sneaky is afoot... I'm getting a vision of a phone, they could be send each other like late night texts? There is a sense of not wanting to get caught. I'm getting Chris is the one overall who is reaching out to her and Ana is not having it. She doesn't wish to reveal her feelings to him. Ana doesn't like the idea of being vulnerable. There goes that Taurus energy lol. She is very stubborn. "Why would I care about his partner? I have a job to do". Ana is too busy focusing on her bag then worrying about what that man does. This could also mean she's using work as a way to avoid reality.

Channeled songs:

Creep by TLC

On The Hotline by Pretty Ricky

The Other Woman by Lana Del Rey

She Works Hard For The Money by Donna Summer

[hondacivictrucknuts]

Kamala Harris has answered the question of who she is: She is a sex crimes prosecutor.

That's always been part of her biography, but on the Call Her Daddy podcast it became clear that it's also a dominant part of her identity. If a woman or girl you cared about were raped, you would be grateful for Kamala Harris to speak with her. She would know what to say, and she would say it with conviction, and it would help.

At one point in my academic career I got interested in sexual violence, and attempted to study it with the tools of empirical economics. I.e., if a jurisdiction implements X policy, what impact does this have on the number of women who get raped there? I didn't have much success, mainly for data availability reasons; but I also discovered that this style of question was totally foreign to the people whose careers consist of studying related questions by other means. As an economist, this took a while to wrap my mind around: all these people care so much about other people making a choice they don't like (i.e. to rape), and they're avowedly uninterested in the determinants of those choices. Eventually I came to accept it.

Kamala Harris's economics policies make more sense in this light. I've noted before that nothing she talks about corresponds to any theory I know of how prices, wages, consumption, growth, inequality, migration, deficits, and so forth are connected. She just wants to help families. And for a sex crimes prosecutor, who is used to taking the existence of rapists and rape as givens to which we can only respond, it perhaps makes sense to take GDP as given and make plans to redistribute it. The only thing she can think to do for small businesses is to give them a tax break (although maybe she's just not taking credit for giving them lots of cheap migrant labor), when regulations are a bigger burden for many small businesses.

There was a collection of essays published in the 90s called Transforming a Rape Culture. The book had a strongly implied but unstated assumption that the cultural project it proposed would reduce the suffering caused by rape in our society. Also implied, but less strongly, was that the reduction would be on the intensive and not the extensive margin. While the book begat much follow-up work, none included checking to see whether it worked.

I think Kamala Harris's notion of an "opportunity economy" is similar to the idea of Transforming a Rape Culture. It certainly sounds like a good idea! There are things which could be better in fairly obvious ways with no obvious downside. It doesn't rely on any falsifiable theory of human nature or social relationships, and it's not clear how you would measure the results.

Kamala Harris having no theory of macroeconomics is not necessarily a bad thing. Her Treasury Secretary will have to get confirmed by Mitch McConnell's Senate, and she'll probably keep Jay Powell for the same reasons Biden did. McConnell can hash out fiscal policy with Hakeem Jeffries, and Harris can ask how it affects real people and then sign the bill.

[yamayuandadu]

I was wondering, why did the Greeks associate Nanaya with Artemis? I keep reading about an "Artemis-Nanaia", but Nanaya doesn't really seem that similar to Artemis. Is there something that I'm missing?

Paul-Alain Beaulieu covered this in Nabû and Apollo: The Two Faces of Seleucid Religious Policy. Similarly as Nabu = Apollo, this seems to boil down to Seleucid royal ideology. The Seleucid dynasty considered Zeus, Apollo and Artemis their tutelary deities, and typically the local cults which were to receive royal patronage had to be equated with one of these. Zeus had the obvious parallel in Marduk, Nabu was his son so he got to be Apollo, and Nanaya was female and associated with Nabu which was a close enough match to warrant the Artemis equation. I fail to see any closer similarity, and I suspect it's down to chance that the Greeks picked her over Tashmetum. Joan Goodnick Westenholz argued a factor might have been depictions of Nanaya with a bow (source), but these are late and while it is not impossible they are a strictly Mesopotamian development, with Nanaya being representedin a way well documented for Ishtar earlier on, it might as well be the result of the Seleucid policy resulting in the borrowing of iconography of their favored deities from coins and the like for local ones. I might be wrong but I think the only Greco-Roman author to offer a different take on Nanaya is Appian of Alexandria, assuming that is who he means by "Aphrodite of Elymais" (there was a temple of Nanaya in Susa in late antiquity, but I'm pretty sure she didn't even appear in theophoric names there for most of her history). Nanaya's generally non-astral character does not make her perfect match, but this feels more justified than many Greek assertions that foreign deities correspond to Aphrodite. I would boldly suggest it's more justified than the Ishtar = Aphrodite claims, seeing as Nanaya generally lacked a warlike aspect, and Aphrodite was not exactly a deity commonly invoked by kings during campaigns, a mainstay of Ishtar devotion through solid 2000 years. The Greek-Mesopotamian interactions under the Seleucids, as well as the state of Mesopotamian religion in this period, are discussed in some detail in Julia Krul's The Revival of the Anu Cult and the Nocturnal Fire Ceremony at Late Babylonian Uruk, if you want more historical context. On the matter of Greek familiarity with Mesopotamian deities see Beyond Ereškigal? Mesopotamian Magic Traditions in the Papyri Graecae Magicae by Daniel Schwemer.

The presumably Seleucid Nanaya-Artemis connection left a trace in the further history of Nanaya, but that's a topic for another time; I will be working on a related wiki article next month so feel free to ask about that if it's of interest to you though. As a final curiosity it's worth noting equations between Nanaya and foreign deities were not exactly common in the Bronze Age: the recently discovered Amorite-Akkadian bilingual has her as the counterpart of Pidray (otherwise only known from Ugarit but presumably originally linked to Aleppo), and Frans Wiggermann maintains an equation between her and Elamite Narundi was a thing, but he doesn't cite a source and also by the time it would've occurred Narundi was only worshiped in Mesopotamia anyway.

[thursdayisbetterthanfriday]

CIVIL WAR - Spectacle and Responsibility

THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS, GRAPHIC WAR TIME PHOTOGRAPHY AND THEMES/IMAGES OF TERRIBLE SUFFERING AND SUICIDE - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Civil War is a film by Alex Gardiner, writer/director of Ex Machina 28 Days Later and Annihilation. It covers a group of war photographers travelling from New York to Washington D.C. during a new American civil war. Aiming to get an interview with the Authoritarian president on his third term, the group takes a road trip across a divided nation.

This has, in part, been hyped as more of an action-heavy film. It isn't. This is very much a love letter to war photographers, and correspondents, with a serious message on the divisions occurring across the West.

Watching it, I'm left with a certain impression, which can be summed up as a question. What does it mean to be a war reporter?

BELIEVE IT

"Dave Scherman and I took off from Dachau to go look for the war front which seemed a mirage of cleanliness and humanity. The sight of the blue and white striped tatters shrouding the bestial death of the hundreds of starved and maimed men and women had left us gulping for air and for violence, and if Munich, the birthplace of this horror was falling we’d like to help." - Lee Miller

Lee Miller was a photographer for a women's magazine in the 1930s and 1940s. She originally started as a model for Vogue magazine, but was able to get herself a position as a photographer as the Second World War progressed and Miller's male colleagues were shipped off to the the armed services. The magazine worked closely with the government to put out information, and content, that could help women during the war - and Miller was eventually drafted as one of four war official correspondents in the US army during the Normandy invasion during 1944. Miller's photographs focused on many aspects of the war, such as women who were German collaborators, but some of her most impactful were from the liberation of camps such as Buchenwald and Dachau. Images that reportedly haunted her for the rest of her life.

By documenting the atrocities in newspapers, and dispatches, ordinary citizens across the world were able to discover atrocities and pressure their representatives to ensure such acts could never occur again. The subsequent Nuremberg Trials, and creation of the Geneva Conventions, were a direct result of the atrocities committed during the war.

In Civil War, Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst) is the grizzled war photographer, having covered conflicts across Africa and the Middle East. She wants to use her photography as a way to inform the world of conflicts, and help prevent them, but has ultimately failed in her own home, the United States of America. When we meet her in Civil War, she is a distant and terse figure. A disillusioned figure whose dreams of preventing conflict have died, now haunted by the images of her foreign assignments transplanted into her own country as the protections brought in at the end of the second world war eroded away.

What's in an image?

“I cried when I saw her running... If I don’t help her — if something happened and she died — I think I’d kill myself after that.” - Huỳnh Công Út The Terror of War is a photograph by Huỳnh Công Út in 1972, during the Vietnam War. During the war, a South Vietnamese napalm attack hit Trảng Bàng village. Many villagers were forced to flee, with Phan Thị Kim Phúc having to strip to avoid burning alive in Napalm jelly. The fleeing children were caught on camera by Út, against the backdrop of their destroyed home and the indifference of the soldiers around them. Út had to fight Associated Press to get the photo published, given the full frontal nudity, but when it was pushed through it became a defining image for a generation. The Vietnam war was one of the first televised conflict, with war photographers, and film crews, providing an important on-the-ground perspective that was often lacking from more tightly controlled press outfits in both World Wars. It was also widely unpopular with the US public, who were being drafted to fight in another overseas war, which they had little stake in. Many of the popular protest movements across the US, in universities, in music and popular culture were based around the Vietnam War - with images such as The Terror of War acting as a lightning rod to ignite popular public opposition to the war inside the US and beyond. After taking his photo, Út was able to get Kim Phúc, and others, to the safety of a hospital. When doctors refused to treat her due to the severity of her burns, Út flashed his press pass at them and threatened to name their hospital as the hospital that let her die. Kim Phúc was treated, and has remained lifelong friends with Út ever since - leading international efforts to provide medical and psychological aid to children from warzones. She has an affectionate nickname for Út - Uncle.

In Civil War, Lee Smith is matched by Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a veteran New York Times reporter and her mentor - joining their trip on his own path but providing her with a warmer, emotional support. Sammy is the heart of the old-school of journalism. He is the kind of journalist that would get the story, and do what he could to save those in need. He's older, wiser, and has a sense of responsibility towards Lee - seeing how her job, and attitude, has made her miserable and has caused her to repress her accumulated trauma.

Post-War Postmodernism

"Death and grief knock on the door of almost every house in Gaza... I thought this picture may reach all decision makers and the world and I hoped it would be a reason to stop the killing, strikes and destruction Gaza has seen." - Mohammed Jad Salem

The conflict in Gaza has been raging since last October, with no true end in sight. Palestinian photojournalists, such as Mohammed Jad Salem, have been on the receiving end of the violence. Not just in the images that have been captured, but physically targeted by the IDF. Under international law, journalists are protected by Article 79 of the Geneva Convention of 1949, established after the Second World War and updated with this Article in a 1977 revision: 1. Journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict shall be considered as civilians within the meaning of Article 50, paragraph 1  2. They shall be protected as such under the Conventions and this Protocol, provided that they take no action adversely affecting their status as civilians, and without prejudice to the right of war correspondents accredited to the armed forces to the status provided for in Article 4 A (4) of the Third Convention.

The Gazan war has claimed the lives of 105 journalists and support workers. Some photographs you will have seen are taken by now deceased photojournalists. With the exception of journalists embedded into IDF units, Israel does not let foreign reporters into Gaza. It does not let surviving reporters out either, unless in a body bag.

As many in South America already know, some countries are more equal than others when it comes to international law. The gamification of international law. Treating conventions as problems to be solved, puzzles to be reduced to components, to justify atrocities. This is the state of many of the world's countries have come to in the 21st century - a Post-War Postmodernism for the information age. A jaded, cynical, approach to the world which reflects the initial state of many of the Civil War characters.

Old World Blues

In Civil War, there is a parallel drawn between characters who represent the old world of photojournalism and the new. Sammy is representative of the older school of journalism. The attitude of using images to help change the world for the better. He has previously acted as mentor for Lee but, as we meet them, Lee's attitude has shifted to a more jaded mindset. Lee's work hasn't been able to stop the actions destroying the nation. "Once you start asking yourself those questions, you can’t stop. So we don’t ask. We record so other people ask. Want to be a journalist, that’s the job." - Lee Jessie Cullen is young and impressionable, but has a specific attitude towards her work - seeing it almost in a reductive means to get the perfect photo. Cullen makes a fumbling admission to Lee about two of her heroes having the same name, Lee Miller and Lee Smith, which is quickly brushed aside by Smith. Cullen is green. She's new, very hungry, and she slowly gains more experience during their road trip. She has a strong technical knowledge of her film kit, impressing even Lee. She is engrossed in the technical side of getting the perfect shot instead of thinking that there's a bigger picture to her work, like using photography to change the world. Something that Lee, underneath the cynicism, is hiding. "Every time I survived a war-zone, I thought I was sending a warning home, “Don’t do this.” But here we are." - Lee This is reflected in the downtime interactions with Lee, where Cullen acts to remind Lee of the joys in life, and is a counterpoint to Lee's hidden idealistic nature. Cullen has no pretention on changing the world through her work, she just needs the best shot. Cullen is growing up in a world turned upside down. To her, risking literally everything to be the best at her craft is the dream. As Lee influences Lee in perfecting the craft, Cullen is influencing Lee on the effective meaningless of her ideals. This comes to a head in the middle, to end, of the film where an encounter with soldiers disposing of corpses leads to the death of Sammy. This is the dying of the old, empathetic, journalism of old that Lee has aspired to. The soldiers are effectively white nationalists who proceed to quiz the group on where they're from - killing the foreign reporters and dumping them into the mass grave filled with civilians. There is a scene earlier in the film where Cullen asks if Lee will take a photo if Cullen dies. Lee blows it off with a "what do you think?". As Lee looks at a photo she's taken of Sammy's corpse, she decides to delete what is a newspaper-worthy shot. Rejecting the photo, she holds her ideals closer than before, the ideals that Sammy strived for. The humanity behind the image. As the remaining crew move towards the White House, and the defeat of the President to the Western Forces, Cullen becomes ever more brazen in her attempts to get more photos. She has gained a gung-ho confidence, having to be pulled back behind cover by soldiers to avoid her getting shot. Lee struggles in this section of the film. She clearly sees the inhumanity of what is going on. No longer the confident, cool, operator she is fully embracing her suppressed trauma - struggling under the pressure. As the soldiers sweep the White House, Cullen makes a bold attempt at a shot, only to be pushed away be Lee who takes several bullets to the chest. As the soldiers race to capture the President, Cullen takes a look back at Lee and, instead of helping her, turns back to her task and joins the soldiers with the newly captured President. As the Western Forces soldiers shoot the President, there is no empathy present. Just Cullen getting her perfect shots. Her baptism of fire ending in the death of her old mentors and their ideals.

Cullen isn't burdened by the idea that a photograph can change the world. To her that's just an ideal from a quaint bygone age. An age where a photograph can be used as a positive force for social good no longer exists for her. Instead it's just a trophy. There's little difference between her and the soldier - they're both shooting their prize. It's just that one is holding a gun, and one is holding a camera. "There is no version of this that is a mistake. I know, because I’m it. Joel and Sammy are it." - Lee "It’s my choice." - Jessie

The Cost of Capturing an Image

Civil War isn't a film about a hyper-realistic conflict. Alex Garland has explicitly set that out himself in interviews. Any critique on "California and Texas wouldn't align" is a waste of time arguing against - it's not the focus of Garland's attention. Instead Civil War asks questions of what we expect from photojournalism, and the corrosive polarisation of politics that has lead to the destruction of post-war protections, and attitudes.

What is photojournalism for? Is it to warn of the dangers of conflict, to help leaders prevent them in future and to better humanity? The Lee Miller and Huỳnh Công Út approach to inform, educate and entertain humanity?

Is it just to reach the peak of technical perfection - to get the best shot for the bragging rights, and the glory? The Paparazzi, pay-per-click, Public Relations approach? A means to promote your brand, and display the trophy of "my team is winning"?

What is the cost of each image? In financial, and human, terms - when you choose the action of recording instead of intervening?

In an age of blink-and-miss-it news articles, where graphic images of dead children on beaches and bombed hospitals are plastered front-and-centre, is the image being taken to inform and educate, or a reductive means to draw the most attention in a landscape of click-bait articles that require newspapers to have the most attention grabbing stories to even survive. In a world of us vs them, can you still connect to each other with a universal common humanity? How is the post-war consensus being dismantled? Modern conflicts, such as in Gaza, have seen a significant number of journalists killed by the IDF. Reporters, attempting to bring to light brutality against those desperately in need, are murdered and claimed to be part of the "other team". Meanwhile the real perpetrator is allowed to continue running the country in the Knesset, despite deliberately allowing the very organisation which conducted the October 7th attacks money and resources to stymie the cause of Palestinian independence. The atrocities documented by Lee Miller and other brave reporters in the 1940s were the crucible which forged the Geneva Conventions, and helped secure the protection of journalists in future wars across the globe. It is concerning that in Israel, in Gaza, that those that fought to secure those protections are letting clear violations slide. The United States continues to supply the Israelis with weapons and billions of US taxpayers dollars, despite claiming to abhor violence. Actions speak louder than words. Now, as then, students are now standing up for the rights of those affected by US backed wars in foreign lands. Against the hypocrisy of their elders who claim to uphold a post-war system of international relations, but who are actively undermining that freedom with their actions.

If we allow our democratic institutions to ignore the values, and ideals, which glue society and our international relations together then we too will end up like Cullen. Willing participants in a red team blue team game that only exists because we give it legitimacy.

The message of Civil War therefore is clear: If we cannot relate to each other through a common humanity and come together to resolve our issues, then we are doomed to see the world through a conflict of false binaries that are designed to divide us.

Sources:

Lee Miller Archive - https://images.leemiller.co.uk/

Lee Miller: Witness to the Concentration Camps and the Fall of the Third Reich | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans (nationalww2museum.org) Photographer Lee Miller's Second World War | Imperial War Museums (iwm.org.uk) 'Napalm Girl' photographer Nick Ut looks back at a career that included war's carnage and Hollywood's red carpets - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

‘Accidental Napalm’ turns 50: the generation-defining image capturing the futility of the Vietnam war (theconversation.com)

Palestinian Photojournalists Document Gaza’s Carnage (rollingstone.com)

IHL Treaties - Additional Protocol (I) to the Geneva Conventions, 1977 - Article 79 (icrc.org)

More than 100 journalists killed in six months in Gaza – where is the international community? | RSF

[theinsanecrayonbox]

G3 Moffa maybe? 👀👀👀

well i did kinda do up a little bit of that a while back...but hey i like theory crafting and we do have some more info on characterization than back then...kinda...sorta...

Momba is still a gorgon-naga mix, so still doing the stone venom which can be used to make anti-venom for most forms of petrification. (i kinda feel the stone venom is also kinda a nod to the DnD Gorgon (that is not a Medusa) that has the petrification breath, so that's a fun extra)

she started off as a travel writer, and that became more of a foreign correspondent kinda of writing. (i was just watching Degrassi so think Kaitlin Ryan). however, once she became Seth's legal guardian, she had to pause the traveling, and has picked up freelance writing work more locally, thus leading her to covering more high end social events or whatever

thus how she met Nefera. they met at some fashion charity event. as always, Neff had the "oh no she's hot!!" moment, because Momba is a tall muscular snake lady (and Neff is actually kinda tall after all, so finding a taller lady! oh boy! lol). the two of them do hit it off, at the event; Momba talked about her past travels, Neff had plans to go glob trotting after graduation so that is very interesting. Neff does just so happen to "accidentally" bump into Momba a couple days later, since she did mention what paper/news outlet she was writing the event piece for. they meet up a few more times, either intentionally or 'accidentally' before Momba asks Neff out on an actual date.

and from there there was no going back lol. Neff is still a little hesitant at first to tell her family she's dating a woman (because if she'd had a past relationship she hadn't told them then) but, in G3 continuity, they were very supportive. the main point of hesitation was the fact that Momba technically had a kid (Seth); now granted Seth was no younger than 11 when they first meet (because if main cast is 15-16 range, he's 13-14, and who knows how long they've been dating), and again she became his legal guardian...she was up front about having guaridanship of Seth once she formally asked Nefera out though, because yeah having a kid around could be a deal breaker and Momba wanted to make sure that Neff knew she wouldn't be ditching him for her. I'd say the DeNiles approved of that sentiment, and again Seth is a sibling so it's a different dynamic. whatever.

BUT Seth living with Momba has made it so Nefera hasn't moved in fulltime with her yet. HOWEVER, when a too good to pass up foreign assignment comes to Momba (that is a few weeks, maybe a month long), Nefera offers to stay with Seth for the time. so we get Seth and Nefera shenanigans lol. he gets along with her fine; wouldn't be surprised if Cleo has been roped into babysitting him once. and Cleo gets along well enough with Momba too; to be fair both siblings are like "that's my sister's girlfriend, so...whatever i guess". most certainly Cleo appreciates when Momba keeps her out of the house while she's still feeling under Neff's shadow.

and like i said, since Neff doesn't have the fear of her family not accepting her relationship, Cleo gets that now when she starts catching feels for Frankie. (again, watching Degrassi, so Paige's dilemma when she started dating Alex) because her sister's gay, so she'll have to be the one to carry on the family legacy...but again, the parents are far less rigid and more accepting so when she breaks down and admits that, the whole family gets a group talk about how they'll love both the girls no matter who they choose as life partners, so long as the partners are good to them.

eventually, we do get ourselves a wedding, and yes Cleo gets to be the Maid of Honor, because pretty dresses and party lol

but the tl;dr i guess is still, G3 Moffa has far less drama to their courtship because the G3 DeNile family isn't as broken and ridged as the G1 version, but they are still both very into and supportive of each other

[silvercrystal1]

Here are some recs!

English:

The Half of It

(WLW | Film)

Summary:

When smart but cash-strapped teen Ellie Chu agrees to write a love letter for a jock, she doesn't expect to become his friend - or fall for his crush.

Notes: It's like a coming of age, sapphic, Cyrano de Bergerac set in high school with a great portrayal of friendship.

Trailer | Netflix

Brazilian:

Eu Não Quero Voltar Sozinho (I Don't Want to Go Back Alone)

(MLM | Short Film)

Summary:

The arrival of a new student in school changes Leonardo's life. This 15 year-old blind teenager has to deal with the jealousy of his friend Giovana while figuring out the new feelings he's having towards his new friend, Gabriel.

Notes: The short film was popular enough that the director into a full length film (with the same cast) called Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho (Today I Want to Go Back Alone) / The Way He Looks. It was also selected as the Brazilian entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars! The full length film has some heated moments.

Short Film | Full length film trailer | Full length film platforms

On to Asian Boy's Love (BL) and Girl's Love (GL) recs. There's been a lot of BL (and more recently, GL) series coming from Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea, but I'll start you off with some Thai recs.

For Asian shows, MyDramaList (MDL) is a decent resource that gives you a synopsis of a series, a way to keep track of Asian shows, and lists streaming platforms for the shows. Stay out of the toxic comment sections though.

"Where to watch" is going to depend on your location. Sometimes different streaming platforms will geoblock you, so I'll share whichever official links are available to me, but MyDramaList will also list available streaming platforms.

If a Thai show is on YouTube, then each episode will be cut into 4 parts. Some shows may be available for free on YouTube as a "cut" version (usually corresponds to over the air run time) while having an "uncut" version on a separate platform. Some shows may be free to watch on YouTube during it's original 3ish month run and then move to a separate streaming platform.

Thai:

My School President

BL | 12 episode series

MDL Summary

Trailer | YouTube | Viki

Notes: Do you like musicals? This series has characters singing at least once an episode. Lighthearted high school series where the queer characters are (mostly) treated gently. Great portrayal of supporting parents (and parents who are perhaps struggling a bit with processing that their child is queer and hiding it from them, but the parent never ever, makes it the child's burden). This show is like a warm, comforting hug and is one of my favorite high school series of all time.

Bad Buddy

BL | 12 episode series

MDL Summary

Notes: Do you want something like a Romeo and Juliet romcom set in college? This is the series for you! Episodes 1 - 5 does a good job of setting up common Thai BL tropes and then subverting expectations. Even if the humor may not be your cup of tea, watch until episode 5. Episodes 1 - 4 does such an amazing job for setting up episode 5. Some heated moments, but nothing too explicit.

Trailer | YouTube | Viki

23.5 the series

GL | 12 episode series

MDL Summary

Notes: Sweet high school series that's generally lighthearted, though the last 3 episodes were divisive for people. Features a disaster lesbian and a sunshine popular girl. This is GMMTV's (Thailand's equivalent to Disney/Freeform channel and one of the most prolific Thai BL production company) first Girl's Love series.

Trailer | YouTube | Viki | IQiyi

The Loyal Pin

GL | 16 episode series

MDL Summary

Notes: This is a Thai historical drama, romcom, and melodrama about a princess who falls in love with her childhood friend. More mature themes with some sex scenes here and there. Fun fact: this company (IdolFactory) produced Thailand's first GL series (GAP the series); both series have the same main actors.

Trailer | YouTube

Hey y’all! I’m looking for recommendations for movies and tv shows with main queer characters (especially lesbians) to watch with my 12yo.

She’s still pretty uncomfortable with sex, but that’s not a big deal as we can skip those parts as long as we know they’re there, and adult language is fine (she hears worse with us, I’m sure).

But I’d like to avoid media where the queer characters die or are subject to violence, and graphic violence of any kind is a no-go.

She’s already seen and loved Owl House and Steven Universe.

Thanks y’all!

[theplanetofthesnapes]

Under the Weather

Summary: You’re in the order, staying at 13 Grimmauld place and manage to catch wizard flu. Snape ends up taking care of you.

Warning: mentions of sickness and throwing up so if that affects you don’t read.

I wake up with a pounding head and a sore throat. Oh great this is just what I need right now, to get sick.

I’d been working with the order for a few months now ever since I got suspicions that there was something a miss going on in the ministry. I worked in the foreign correspondence department and I’d heard Fudge mention that there were a group of rogue wizards that believed Harry Potter and they were making a plan to defeat Voldemort. He laughed at the idea but I felt I needed to join them. I managed to find out Kingsley Shacklebolt was part of this group of rogues and I approached him offering my services.

The order welcomed me with open arms and I was happy to be a part of it, so now I spend all my waking time (and sleeping time) here too. Today I was supposed to go to Hungary with Sirius to seek out some werewolves living there and convince them to join us but my body has other ideas. I move to get up and everything aches, I’m going to have to tell him I can’t go.

I trudge downstairs and into the kitchen Remus, Sirius and Severus are in there chatting and look up at me as I walk in. “Oh wow you look terrible lass” Sirius said concerned.

“I feel terrible, I think I caught that wizarding flu from Umbridge in that meeting on Tuesday. She sat right next to me and was coughing and sneezing the whole time. I wish she’d stuck to the rules she gives the students at hogwarts and kept her distance from me like she wants the students to from each other” I laughed weakly.

“Why don’t you go back to bed y/n, I will go to Hungary with Sirius I have just come back from my own mission so I don’t have anything else I need to be doing right now. You get some rest and maybe you can join me in Scotland next week.” Lupin said kindly.

I opened my mouth to argue but honestly all I wanted to do is curl up in bed with a cup of tea. “Okay” I agreed and go to put the kettle on.

“Let me do that Y/L/N, I’ll bring it up to your room” I turn around shocked by who that voiced belonged to, it couldn’t be Severus Snape could it. To my surprise that’s just who it was, looking at me with that same emotionless expression he always does. I must not have heard him correctly surely he must have said something else.

“You don’t have to..” I start, looking to Sirius and Remus who looked equally shocked by Severus’ kind offer.

“Hush now, get some rest. Let me make the tea, go on upstairs.” He dismissed me like I was one of his students after class.

I left the kitchen grateful but confused. Me and Severus Snape have not really had much communication the time I’ve been here, he only stays here for meetings and generally doesn’t stick around to socialise. I mean I always smile and say hi when I see him and make small talk about the weather or something but the only real conversation I’d had with him was when we’d argued in the last meeting about how to handle the giant situation. Oh well, I’m not gonna complain I really did feel like hell right now.

I got in to bed and closed my eyes. After a few minutes I heard a small knock at the door “come in” I croak.

Snape walks in with a tray that contains tea and a strange green potion vial that I’ve never seen before. “Here, I brought you a potion that should make you feel better, it’s a concoction of a flu remedy and a sleeping draft. It’s perfectly safe don’t worry.” He states as he places the tray next to me on the bedside table.

“Thank you” I say weakly as I sit up. I take the tea and start to drink it.

“Let me know if you need anything else, I will be in the study.” He says as he quietly leaves.

I wake up to a quiet rap at the door, I check the time I’ve been asleep for 5 hours. I sit up and immediately regret it, I feel worse than before it really must be the flu, my head is spinning. Snape opens the door a crack then sees that I’m awake and opens it wider and walks in. “ I just wanted to see how you were doing”.

I can’t focus on what he’s saying the room just keeps spinning. I jumped up and run to the bathroom, he follows me and just in time I reach the toilet to throw up. I groan thinking about how I probably just got sick in my hair then realise there’s someone behind me holding it back.

“Are you done or are you going to vomit again?” Severus says gently. My words don’t answer his question as another wave of nausea washes over me. I should be embarrassed he’s here and tell him to leave but I can’t find the strength to.

After what seemed like an eternity the uneasy feeling in my stomach settled and I stood up carefully. I walked over to the sink and cleaned my teeth. I looked at myself in the mirror, I looked terrible, my hair all over the place and my face was pale.

“I’m sorry you had to see that” I chuckle weakly. “You shouldn’t have followed me in here”.

“I’m a professor at hogwarts, I have to have a strong stomach to work around children all the time. They often take those puking pastilles created by the Weasley twins to get out of my class, compared to some of them that was nothing. Besides anything I can do to help I will”.

“I need to go and lie down” I say starting to feel a little dizzy. He said nothing and just helped me to my room in silence.

Once I was in bed he said “I’ll be back in a moment, I’ll get you something that should help with the sickness” and he walks out the room.

I close my eyes hoping it’ll help but it doesn’t and I open them again once he comes back in. He hands me a yellow vial which I drink without questioning it because if it kills me then at least it’ll put me out of my misery. “Why are you being so nice to me, you never have before?”

He chuckles “I’m not nice to anyone, that doesn’t mean I don’t care. You’re probably the only person around here that actually treats me like a human being and not something they’ve wiped off the bottom of their shoe.”

“Oh” I say, I didn’t know what to say because thinking about it no one does treat Snape with any kind of respect in the order. “I’m sorry they don’t treat you with respect. If you want I can say something to them” I try to smile at him but I feel too crappy I think I end up just grimacing.

“No I’m used to it, it’s been the same since we were all in Hogwarts. But anyway let’s not talk about me, you need to get some rest to feel better. Is there anything else you need, do you need anything to reduce a fever?” He says but doesn’t wait for my answer he presses the back of his hand to my forehead “you seem to feel like an okay temperature. Do you feel hot or cold?”.

I shake my head to answer his last question “I don’t need anything” I reply, he nods and goes to leave “wait” I say a bit too loudly because it hurts my head, I wince.

“What is it, do you need be sick again I can…”

“No” I interrupt him. “It’s nothing like that just would you mind if. I mean it’s okay if you don’t want to I just, can you…”

“What is it, come on you can ask me anything” he says in concern.

“Would you stay with me? I’m just feeling a bit sorry for myself so don’t want to be alone” I say weakly.

“Oh, of course.” he goes to sit on the other side of the bed. If I didn’t feel so rubbish I might laugh at the way he’s comically perched right on the edge almost falling off.

“You can get closer you know, I don’t bite” then regret what I’d said because I realise that he’s probably sitting so far away because I’m contagious. I’m an idiot. “Oh wait yeah it’s probably best you don’t get too close, I wouldn’t want you getting ill too. I mean I would take care of you but my potion making skills aren’t as good as yours so I’d probably end up making you worse” I try to make a joke to hide my embarrassment from my earlier stupidity.

He scoots closer and goes to press a kiss to the top of my head. “I’m not worried about getting sick, I assume you have the same flu that is sweeping its way around the ministry and took a viral prevention potion before I came in here, the ministry has just given the recipe to all teachers and hospital staff to ensure that students and patients can be properly looked after if they get sick. I just didn’t want to make you uncomfortable by sitting too close” he says matter of factly.

“You couldn’t ever make me uncomfortable Severus.” I slur the last part of that sentence and close my eyes, man I’m tired all of a sudden. I try and open them to stay awake.

“Oh sorry I forgot to mention I added some more sleeping vial to the anti sickness medication to help you sleep. If you want me to leave I can go” he says sounding genuinely apologetic for not warning me.

“It’s okay” I say my voice barely legible. “Please stay at least until I fall asleep” I move to cuddle up against him, enjoying the body heat because I’m suddenly feeling very cold. It must be the fever setting in, I was wondering when that would hit.

He hugs me back. “Always.” he replies and I drift off to sleep not knowing whether I imagined that last word from him or not.

_______________________________________

I wake up, groggy and realise that it’s the next day. I realise I’m alone in the room. Maybe Snape being here taking care of me was just a hallucination thought up by my fever driven mind. Then I turn over in the bed and see a piece of parchment on the other pillow.

“Dearest Y/N,

I have had to go away on business of the order for a few hours. Please forgive me for leaving you I did however administer you some anti fever potion and your fever appeared to break not long after that so I do hope by the time you are seeing this you are feeling much better.

I will check on you once I return but I have left you some headache potion on the side as my research suggests the usual progression of this illness that is most likely what you will be suffering with when you wake up.

Yours,

Severus Snape”

Oh so it wasn’t a hallucination or dream after all, he was really here. I smile to myself especially at the word yours. “If only” I mutter. I realise he was right I did feel a lot better, still a bit of a headache and my throat hurts but there’s no nausea and general aches have all gone. Also I realise my appetite must be back because I’m starving.

I go to the bathroom and brush my teeth and shower this icky feeling of illness away and then make my way to the kitchen to see what I can find and decide to make a sandwich. As I’m buttering the bread someone walks in.

“Feeling better I assume” Snape says hopefully.

“A lot, thank you for taking care of me Severus, it means a lot. I promise if you ever get sick I will be your number one nurse” I smile.

“If that’s the case maybe I shouldn’t have taken the protection potion after all” he makes a joke. I’m surprised by this, what’s he trying to say? My brow furrows. He seems to notice this and says. “If it meant I’d get to spend more time with you, then I’d do whatever it takes.”

I laugh. “Be careful what you wish for. But seriously I wouldn’t wish how I felt yesterday on anyone, if you want to spend more time with me just ask.” I say hopefully.

He picks up the headache potion I was about to take with my sandwich and hands it to me. “How about once you are fully recovered, you let me take you out to Hogsmeade for dinner.”

“I’d like that a lot” I say before I drink the potion and kiss him on the cheek. He looks into my eyes for a second and I don’t know what comes over me, maybe I’m still slightly delirious from the fever but I get the strong urge to kiss him so I press my lips to his and for a second he kisses me back. Before I can take it any further though he pulls away, sighs and goes to carry on finishing making the sandwich I started. I stare at him, tears forming in my eyes slightly from the rejection.

He looks at me and notices my tears he lifts his hand to wipe them away before they can fall “You need to eat, and rest and if by some miracle once you’re feeling completely better you want to do that again, I will be more than happy to oblige.” He says reassuringly. “You were saying some very odd things in your sleep and I need to know that your consent is truly valid and not a result of some sort of delirium before I even so much as kiss you.” He looks sad for a moment. “It’s just I can hardly believe you would want to kiss someone like me anyway.”

“Oh Severus” I say. “I barely even feel sick anymore I swear, but it’s admirable that you’re waiting until you know for sure I can consent. You’re such a gentleman and I promise you once I’m better I’m definitely going to want to do that some more” I wink at him.

He smiles, then thrusts the plate containing the sandwich towards me. “Then I will look forward to it greatly but for now please eat”.

I take the plate and sit down, he sits next to me and we sit in silence while I eat. For the first time since Harry had announced Voldemort was back I felt hopeful for the future. Maybe getting sick isn’t so bad after all.

[rarepears]

First of all thank you so much for supplying that good mxtx crossover drabble content I am so so thankful beyond words; second of all could I perhaps interest you in my Yu Ziyuan mdzs and Qi Qingqi svsss forbidden sort of exes concept wherein they met when they were both disciples and developed mutual crushes. Qqq wanted yzy to join cang qiong with her but yzy was already engaged to jfm and wanted to uphold her family's expectations- hence they were never fully able to realize their relationship tho they never truly forgot about each other even as their responsibilities began to pile up and they fell out of contact.

*Sips tea*

This further adds into the reasons why Yu Ziyuan is so upset at Jiang Fengmian. She keeps using Qi Qingqi as a measuring stick of what a good partner is and Jiang Fengmian is... nothing like Qi Qingqi. :/

She'll admit that she's a bit hypocritical to be so upset that Jiang Fengmian can't get over Cangse Sanren considering how she's not over Qi Qingqi, but here's the thing: she's trying to actually build a relationship with the person that she's married to. He... isn't. Not even one iota of effort can she see him attempting.

Yu Ziyuan has stopped her correspondence with her old lover; she hasn't even attempted to visit or see Qi Qingqi again even though it would be so easy to. Establishing an alliance with one of Cang Qiong's peaks would boost the Jiang sect up so much, if not by trade than by influence. It would help keep the Jiang sect's power from being overly dependent on its main ally, the Jin, who was much too closely tied to the Wen for Yu Ziyuan's comfort, no matter the fact that her childhood friend is married to the Jin Sect Leader.

What's the saying again? It's not good to have all her eggs in one basket.

Yep.

But Jiang Fengmian won't even discuss sect politics with her. He won't treat her like a proper sect leader's wife, introducing her to the key people that she should know or instructing her on how the Jiang Sect does things - she has to wrestle for every duty, every inch of respect from the sect's people. She knows she's trampled on many toes, offended many people (which only hinders her efforts), but it's the best she can do with what she's got.

She's so besieged fighting the Jiang internal politics to even think about proposing any foreign relationships for the Jiang sect. There's no point in even thinking about "blowing pillow wind" with Jiang Fengmian either. He won't even do his duty of broaching the subject of when they would create sect heir.

Like always, she has to demand him to do the bare minimal.

And even then, he fails to deliver.

She sees her children and as much as she loves them, she still can't help but be disappointed.

This is the best that Jiang Fengmian's descendants can do, her mind whispers in derision. She can see no traits of similarities with Qi Qingqi in them. They duck their heads about and waffle when they are called to make decisions; Qi Qingqi knew what she wanted immediately and got even a bit too tunnel-visioned in her quest to achieve her goals. They struggle with their coursework - of course, they did well in comparison to the rest of the Jiang disciples, but they were the Jiang heirs and were supposed to be held to a higher standard. Qi Qingqi was a cultivation genius and fought with her own unique weaponry and forms.

But no matter what happens or how much life continues to disappoint her, Yu Ziyuan refuses to wonder what her life would have been like if she didn't refuse Qi Qingqi's offer and abandoned her duty to run to Cang Qiong.

[psablog]

PSA: Be conscious of biased algorithms!

By: SUMMER

I recently read “A Sea of Data: Apophenia and Pattern (Mis-)Recognition”, a chapter in the book Duty Free Art by Hito Steyerl. She discusses the growing issue that data analysts face in a world where there is an overwhelming amount of data to go through - how to differentiate between signal and noise. She argues, “Vision loses importance and is replaced by filtering, decrypting, and pattern recognition”.

I thought that her idea applied to us as media consumers and social media users on an everyday scale in a similar way. We’re being hit with so much information at all times that our brains sometimes go on autopilot, constantly deciding what’s worth paying attention to and what has to go. On social media, we end up curating a stream of content that perfectly caters to our interests and shows us what we believe is important - that’s us separating signal from noise.

Who does social media actually care about? Steyerl references a mythical Ancient Greek story in which “affluent male locals” produced actual speech, while “women, children, slaves, and foreigners” were just noise - annoying and irrelevant. I thought of our last Digital Humanities class, where we talked about how social media platforms function and whose interests they prioritize. While we do have some control over what we want to see on our feeds, we concluded that biased algorithms maintain feeds that are dominated by people who are white, able-bodied, conventionally attractive, etc. Some of my classmates noted how marginalized communities, like LGBTQ+ folks, are being censored and shadow-banned on social media. It sounds an awful lot like a modern-day equivalent of that Ancient Greek story.

TikTok users speak out about their posts being wrongly shadowbanned and flagged for violating Community Guidelines.

Not to burst your bubble... “Dirty data” is a term that Steyerl uses, which can mean inaccurate and inconsistent data, but should also be understood as “real data” that “documents the struggle of real people with a bureaucracy that exploits the uneven distribution and implementation of digital technology”. What she means by this is that entire groups of people are ignored - “not taken into account” - because these digital and social structures simply do not work in their favor. We're at fault here, too - the downside of having that control over curating our feeds is that we tend to trap ourselves in a bubble. We make connections that reinforce our existing worldviews and cry “dirty data!” at the stuff that doesn’t fit the mold that we’re comfortable with. Organizations like Logic are recognizing this issue and making plans to use their platform to amplify the voices of typically silenced groups of people, like trans and Indigenous writers. Action like this is important in broadening our perspectives and making room for content outside of the bubbles that we and our biased algorithms have worked together to create.

Data vs. reality What are the dangers of relying too heavily on these algorithms to analyze data? To what extent do the patterns they find correspond to actual reality? In the chapter, Steyerl talks about automated apophenia: computers perceiving connections in data where there aren’t any. She prompts us to consider the real-life consequences of making decisions based on these phantom patterns. In recent years, tenant screening technology used in selling and renting homes has been threatening housing equality due to its programmed bias. This article from Curbed explains how the problem boils down to tech experts designing these systems “in a vacuum”, without any knowledge on civil rights or social implications. The NSA’s SKYNET program that Steyerl references in his chapter is the same type of issue on a larger, deadlier scale.

I won’t deny how important technology is for our everyday functioning, but it isn’t perfect or limitless by any means. Supposedly objective and fact-based algorithms often become reflections of our own human biases. But if we’re the ones who wrote them, then we can be the ones to recognize their flaws and work towards fixing them!

[min-jpg]

Hi!! Can you do they boys getting kidnapped but its Diluc, Childe, and Kazuha? Thank you!!💗💗

Note: I just want to point out that there's no actual reason on how I choose for the reader to beat up the kidnappers since part 1,, it's totally random as long as I'm trying out different ideas whatever fits ehe. Enjoy! 💖

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Kidnapped Genshin Boys x Fem Rich!reader pt.2

Part 1 (Kaeya, Zhongli, Xiao)

Characters: Childe, Diluc, Kazuha

Genre: fluff, established relationship, some woman kicking ass action, (TW: mentions of blood and violence)

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CHILDE

Your boyfriend would definitely try to go head-to-head against the shady group of people who abducted him. The gang accountable must be living under the rock for even considering one of the most dangerous Harbingers as their prey to carry out their schemes.

However, Childe learned that there would be ramifications if he tries to be rash without gathering solid intel first. Having no knowledge of your current circumstances and whereabouts troubled him to the core. They could have already sent out a corresponding group towards you and endanger you if he failed to listen.

Being wealthy is not a foreign concept to Childe as he is also a wealthy man himself. That said, the premonition of being a target for a ransom would not be unrealistic to him. For now, he is glad that he is the victim here instead of having to witness you kidnapped.

"You know, you could've asked me nicely for some money. I might just give it to you, instead of doing all this for my girlfriend's money." Despite being in a position far from desirable, Childe leisurely sat on the chair that he was bound to, crossing his legs. He was making small talks to push away the worst scenarios happening to you. Are you safe? Are you crying? Did they hurt you?

"I don't know who you are to be running your mouth, but you should value your life a little more." Their leader emerged from the group.

Childe's ocean eyes squinted as menace casts upon his pupils, his voice lowered, "Is that so? Ironic, because you guys seem to value money more than your lives."

The head stepped back slightly, "Enough with your empty threats! You should be aware of the current situation you're in. We're not fooling around here."

"I'm not fooling around either."

As sparks were thrown back and forth, you made your way in through the main entrance. Tapping the shoulder that belongs to one of the men, "Excuse me, I need to get to my boyfriend." Your fist sunk into the side of his face when he turned towards you. He collapsed on the ground with a few broken teeth and blood spewing out of his mouth. Moving on to the next adversary in your path, you fought with full faith in your abilities no matter how intimidating they were.

Soon, the leader and people further ahead finally took notice of it. You pave your way towards your boyfriend and eventually, both your eyes meet each other. Childe puffed out a breath of relief when he finally saw you, but also registering the fact that you just took down most of the men with your bare hands.

Kicking away the men who tried to grab you, you then waved enthusiastically at Childe, "Hey girlie, hold still." Rushing right ahead to the leader, you brought your arm near your face, elbow pointing outwards. The sharp edge from your elbow jabbed his throat, causing him to choke and lose balance.

As his reaction dulled, it was your chance to strike again. Thus, you gallantly overthrew their leader and the entire gang by yourself.

After helping Childe, he stood up abruptly and placed his hands on your shoulder with eagerness written all over the face, "I never knew you could fight so well! How about a spar with me right now?" Expect your boyfriend to continuously bug you to indulge in his rampant itch to fight anyone that comes across as a worthy opponent. Though, the real takeaway from this experience was the way your hair clings to your face with sweat as the adhesive and the triumph look in your eyes. It was a rather attractive sight to relish in his taste.

DILUC

Your boyfriend would be infuriated that crooked people like these exist, much less target him to extort money from you. Just another validation to add up on how incompetent the Knights of Favonious is, he thought. Someone will have to clean up their mess, that someone being him. What better way to do that than to follow them to their hideout to seek out the whole organization?

Diluc is renowned for being one of the richest men in Teyvat. Naturally, the group thought they hit the jackpot on not only holding him for ransom, but potentially garnering some money from him as well.

The only concern he carries is your wellbeing. Diluc fears that this incident will affect you mentally. His head started filling up with formulations on ways to resolve this matter without causing any uproar to guarantee your safety.

When the head was introduced to him, he gritted his teeth to suppress every ounce of his might to not reach for his claymore. Diluc still has to prioritize gathering information first regarding the gang. His patrons at Angel's Share are usually the ones providing him with promising intel of any evildoers, but some things are just meant to be obtained by himself.

"Is this the only hideout you have? Quite in a shambles, don't you think?" Diluc's eyes shifted around the dilapidated building, observing the surroundings to know his enemies better.

The leader rolled his eyes, "It wouldn't be so bad once we get some funding from you and your girlfriend." Diluc hummed. Judging from his answer, it is safe to assume that the organization is rather a small scaling one. Defeating them right now will result in uprooting the source once and for all.

As Diluc was about to do so, a lackey of the gang ran frantically towards them, panting labored when he reached and trying to catch his breath. "What is it?" The leader question.

"T-there's... there's someone." He pointed towards a direction with fear layering his voice.

"What? Why are you so scared?" They all glanced towards the spot.

"I swear there was a woman! I don't know who it is, but she took out some of our guys on guard outside."

In disbelief that a woman could have done anything so reckless, the leader trudged to said location. As it is a spot lacking light, the darkness and shadow made it challenging for him to pinpoint if anyone is there. When he moved closer, you crept out behind from his blind spot and kicked the back of his head, causing his head to spin. Your arm lunged forward, gaining a tight hold onto his nape. You put everything into pushing him, his forehead hammered down to the floor. Creating a loud thud, it gave him a concussion.

"Looking for me?" Your foot stamped onto his back, just making sure he stays down.

Everyone, including your boyfriend, had their pupils dilated at the scene. You sighed at the silence, "All of you just messed with the wrong couple." Lifting your foot away, you stomped forward without giving them a second thought. Your arms and legs are all warmed up for many rounds against your foes.

Diluc watched you from afar as you drove your way towards victory. Although he could step in to help, he admits silently to himself that he would like to observe you a little longer. Putting his trust in your calibers to carry you far, his eyes never left your brave figure.

Once you cleared the group, the next thing to do is checking on Diluc. Already unfastening the restrains himself, he walked to you, "That was well executed. Your abilities shouldn't be underestimated. Don't join the Knights though." He stressed the last remark, scoffing. You chuckled and held his hand to guide him out of here, "Thanks. Glad to impress you, Master Diluc. Let's go home."

KAZUHA

Your boyfriend is a rather hard target to impose on for their plans of kidnapping him. His senses are just too refined for an ordinary person to challenge. Basic tactics, such as overthrowing him with the element of surprise have proven to be futile. Thus, Kazuha will always be able to evade falling prey into their hands.

The only way Kazuha could have been kidnapped is through falsifying evidence of you being in a life-threatening situation. Although he has successfully saved his own skin, not the same could be applied to you. Feeling his resolve shaken, what other choices could he have? Prioritizing your safety is the most important thing right now.

Kazuha may have faced similar situations in the past when out in the sea, encountering pirates of other crew aiming for the Crux Fleet's fortune. Being in the position as a captive for ransom is new. He actually found it amusing, rather than having thoughts of blaming you. It is not your fault that you are blessed with wealth. It is the fault of the criminals.

"Ain't you that the kid who's with Beidou? You're part of her crew." The leader questioned his target, to which he was greeted by Kazuha's silence. "Tell you what. You're just like the rest of us. We want to be rich. How about you ask your girlfriend to bring some more money and we'll give you a share as well?"

Kazuha's face darkened, "I don't know what you've heard, but it must be really valiant of you to assume to worst out of the Crux Fleet and myself. I'd appreciate it if you cease lumping me together with criminals like you."

The Crux Fleet does put up with an infamous reputation amongst the Qixing. Perhaps the abductors concluded that Kazuha has a negative conscience just like them, as in upholding a relationship with you to have a taste of your assets. Still, if he tried to talk his way out of it, barbarians like them will never reach a mutual understanding with him. Kazuha shut his eyes, ignoring any further confrontations to preserve his energy as he contemplates a plan.

He was interrupted when he thought he heard your voice nearby, carried by the wind. The others around him did not hear it since it was just something only Kazuha could pick up. Applying full concentration, he managed to form what he heard, "Get out of my way, please, while I'm asking nicely."

Opening his eyes, he turned to stare at the entrance. As if on cue, the door swung open when you kicked it down, announcing your presence. Some men fainted below your feet.

The others instantly reacted by storming towards your direction to stop your advancement. You stood still in your position, taking a mindful deep breath. One thing you learned from Kazuha is to always remain cold-headed before engaging in a fight.

Kazuha wanted to get out of the restraints to rescue you, but instead, you started dishing out few moves against the men.

When you thought you finished with the remaining numbers, their leader was about to declare his victory, "I got you!" Encircling his arm around your neck in an attempt to strangle you, you huffed and grinned towards Kazuha to signal him you have it under control.

You elbowed his stomach and felt him loosen his grip when he winced. Making enough gap between his arm and your neck, you slipped away and swiftly kicked in between his groins. The color drained from his face and tumbled to the ground, passing out in pain, "Hmph, this is what happens when you touch a lady without her permission." You brushed away the hair from your face after an arduous fight.

Jogging towards your boyfriend, "Kazuha!" He brisked towards you as well and held you in his embrace, softly rubbed your nape, "You're giving me plenty of inspirations for a haiku after such a wonderful performance." Kazuha would appreciate you refraining from such a heedless approach next time. He was comforted to see you safe and knowing the threats were nothing more than to use you, his weakness, against him. After witnessing that, Kazuha will be slightly ashamed he even doubted you in the first place, so he trusts that you can watch out for yourself next time.