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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 6 months

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1968 [Chapter 2: Hera, Goddess Of Childbirth]

A/N: Enjoy Chapter 2 a little early! See you on Sunday for Chapter 3 🥰

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: 5.4k

Tagging: @arcielee @huramuna @glasscandlegrenades @gemmagirlss1 @humanpurposes @mariahossain @marvelescvpe @darkenchantress @aemondssapphirebussy @haslysl @bearwithegg @beautifulsweetschaos @travelingmypassion @althea-tavalas @chucklefak @serving-targaryen-realness @chaoticallywriting @moonfllowerr @rafeism @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @herfantasyworldd @mangosmootji

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

You are buzzed at a private party in the Rainbow Room of Rockefeller Center, Midtown, February 1966, chandeliers and candlelight, pink and red hearts made of paper hanging from shimmering strings and littering the floor. Your roommate Barbara Nassau Astor—yes those Astors, Astor Avenue in the Bronx, Astoria in Queens, “the landlords of New York”—brought you along tonight, and the chance to be swept up into her glittering existence is precisely why your father sent you to a school like Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart. Barb knows people who know people who know other people and every single individual in that grand design is wealthy and worldly and could possibly lead you into the generous arms of your future husband. You are from Tarpon Springs, Florida, heiress to a sea sponge fortune, and your father nurses powerful ambitions of intermingling his blood with the Northeastern elite.

You scan the selection as you sip your Pink Squirrel. You could marry a doctor and sit in the living room waiting for him to come home at 9 or 10 or 11 p.m., fix him a Whiskey Sour or a Sazerac, listen to him bemoan the complexities of nerves and veins before accompanying him to bed and repeating the whole process the next day. You could marry a lawyer or an advertising executive, and your fate would be much the same. Your own parents are partners in life and business, but you have seen enough to know how rare this is. These men of the Rainbow Room, 65 floors above icy streets radiant with headlights, want a wife whose hands will stay manicured and idle: nannies will tend to the children, maids will clean the house, mistresses will massage the knots out of the muscles of his back. And you—a relative upstart, new money among ancient bloodlines—will have no right to demand otherwise.

A man interrupts your reverie. He wants to know about the pendant you wear around your neck. You sigh before you turn to him; you resist the instinct to roll your eyes. And then you see him. Tall, blonde, blue-eyed, with a curious intensity and a teasing little smirk, an Old Fashioned in his grasp like molten gold. You don’t know it yet, but he is a senator from New Jersey, very recently elected, victorious yet still hungry. He steals the oxygen out of your lungs. He drowns you in the amber-musk warmth of his cologne.

“It’s Athena,” you say, touching your fingertips to the silver medallion self-consciously; and you are rarely self-conscious. The black polish has been scrubbed from your nails and replaced with a soft, shimmering champagne. You spent two hours this afternoon having your hair painfully teased and arranged into a Brigitte Bardot-inspired updo.

“Goddess of wisdom.”

“And war and peace. And math.”

“Math?” He is intrigued.

“That’s what I’m studying at school. Math.”

“And yet you are not disinterested in the humanities. You know Greek mythology.”

“Well, Tarpon Springs has a lot of Greeks, and that’s where I’m from, so.”

“Studies math. From Tarpon Springs, Florida. I’m learning everything about you.” He smiles, this magnetic stranger who has captured you like a moon lured into a planet’s gravity. He swallows a mouthful of his Old Fashioned, moisture glistening on his lips. “Do you like Greek food?”

You can’t seem to follow his words. Blood is rushing into your face, hot and dizzying. “What?”

“Greek food. Have you tried it? Hummus, tzatziki, gyros, spanakopita, horiatiki, baklava.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve had it. It’s great.”

“My family owns a house on Long Beach Island,” he says casually. “We eat a lot of Greek food there. You should join us for dinner sometime soon.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Very soon. Maybe this weekend. Are you free?”

No, you’re not; but you’ll cancel plans until you are. “Um, okay. Sure. And who…sorry, I might have missed it, but…who are you…?”

“Aemond Targaryen.” And he shakes your hand like you’re someone who matters. “I’m a senator. I’m trying to end the war.”

With him, you could be a part of something magnificent. With him, you could help save the world.

~~~~~~~~~~

Asteria is the goddess of falling stars, but the home of rising ones. On the north end of Long Beach Island, New Jersey—only 100 miles south of the sleek bladelike skyscrapers of Manhattan—lies the sprawling Targaryen estate. The nine-acre property features one main house and another three for guests, a swimming pool, a tennis court, a ten-car garage, a boathouse, a pier, and an ample stretch of beach that abuts the Atlantic Ocean, open water with nothing interrupting the infinite, miles-deep blue from the East Coast to the Iberian Peninsula. It is the first week of July, 1968, and your 23rd birthday. You are lazing in a lounge chair on the emerald green lawn and eating your third slice of melopita, a cheesecake-like dessert made with honey and ricotta. It originates from the Greek island of Sifnos.

“You two can’t murder each other while I’m gone,” Aemond says. He’s sitting between you and Aegon. His stitches have healed, the worst of his pain has subsided, his poll numbers have only improved since the assassination attempt. He has a glass eye that he can insert for public appearances, but he dislikes it; at home he wears a leather eyepatch that still unnerves the children. Tomorrow, Aemond is flying to Tacoma to campaign ahead of the Washington State Convention on the 13th. Most of the family will be joining him, with only three Targaryens remaining at Asteria: ailing Viserys, useless Aegon, and you, officially too pregnant to travel by plane. You are wearing a floral, flowing, two-piece swimsuit. The sun is blazing in a clear sky. The record player is piping out Time Of The Season by the Zombies.

Aegon waves a hand flippantly, then adjusts his preposterously large blue-tinted plastic sunglasses; he is shirtless, flabby, very sunburned. “I’ll barely be here.”

Aemond looks over at him, amused. “Oh yeah? And what pressing engagements do you have to attend to? I’d love to know.”

You take a bite of your melopita and scatter crumbs across the swell of your belly: seven and a half months along. “I’m sure the prostitutes miss him.”

“They do,” Aegon snaps. “I’m their favorite customer.”

“Well you’re a reprieve for them. It’s always over so quickly.”

Aemond is snickering. Aegon says to him: “23, huh? A 13-year age difference. She could almost be your daughter.”

“And 17 years younger than you. She could definitely be yours.”

“That’s how Aegon likes his girls,” you say. “Too inexperienced to recognize end-stage degeneracy. Still stumbling their way through Shakespeare for English class.”

“Why can’t she stay at the brownstone?” Aegon asks irritably. Aemond owns a historic townhouse in Georgetown for when Congress is in session, though he’s rarely been there since he announced that he was running for president.

“Because Doxie is here to make sure she’s taken care of,” Aemond replies. Eudoxia has been the head housekeeper of Asteria for decades, a formidable battleaxe of a woman who speaks very little English and has a seemingly endless supply of patterned scarves to wrap around her ink black dyed hair. There currently aren’t any permanent staff stationed at the brownstone, and Aemond does not trust strangers. “And because my future first lady is hosting a tea party on the 10th.”

“A tea party!” Aegon gasps, mocking you. “Surely that will patch the wounds of our troubled nation. She’s an inspiration. She’s motherfucking Gloria Steinem.”

“She’s Aphrodite,” Aemond says, beaming with pride, his remaining eye fixed on your belly. He’s lost one piece of himself, but in a month and a half he’ll gain another. “Goddess of love.”

“There must be a more appropriate mythological character. Medusa, perhaps. Lyssa was the goddess of rabies, Epiales was the goddess of nightmares.”

“Aegon, I had no idea you were so…” You search for the right word. “Literate.”

“Io was turned into a cow.” He grins at you, toothy, malicious.

“She’s also one of Jupiter’s moons,” Aemond muses. He draws invisible orbits in the air with his long, graceful fingers. “Beautiful, celestial, pristine…”

“A satellite,” Aegon says. “Mindless. Aimless. Going wherever she’s told.”

Aemond insists as he twists the bracelet around your right wrist, a delicate gold chain he bought during your honeymoon in Hawaii: “Aphrodite.”

“Didn’t she fuck around with, like, everyone?”

“Maybe you should be Aphrodite,” you tell Aegon.

Mimi appears, tottering across the lawn with the straps of her sundress sliding off her shoulders and her Gimlet sloshing precariously in its glass. The children are playing in the surf with the nannies and Fosco, who is entertaining them by diving for seashells and delivering his treasures into their tiny, grasping palms. Criston is supervising from the sand, though he steals frequent glimpses of Alicent as she feeds a wheelchair-bound Viserys—much diminished after a number of strokes—his own slice of melopita, one careful, patient spoonful at a time. “Can we…” Mimi bursts out laughing and almost falls over. She claws her way upright again using the back of Aegon’s chair. “Um…I was thinking…”

“What?” Aegon asks, annoyed, avoidant. If they’ve ever been happy, it was a transient epoch that came and went long before you joined the family. It was before the asteroid killed the dinosaurs.

“We should go back to Mykonos. We had such a nice time in Mykonos. Didn’t we? Didn’t we just adore Mykonos?”

Aegon sighs, glowering out over the ocean. “Yeah, we sure did. Ten years ago.”

“Exactly!” Mimi gushes, oblivious. “When can we go? Next week? Let’s go next week.”

“Mimi, you and the kids will be in Washington, remember?” Aemond says. Alicent will have to be her handler; usually it’s your job to make sure Mimi is ready for photos, eats enough to stay conscious, doesn’t trip over her own feet, doesn’t talk too much to the press.

“Washington?” Like she’s never heard of it.

“The state. Not the city. For the convention.”

“Oh right. Right.” She gulps her Gimlet. You could set your watch by Mimi’s drinking. Tipsy by lunch, drunk at dinner, crawling on the floor chasing the dogs around by 8 p.m. The Targaryens keep a drove of Alopekis, small and white and foxlike. “Well…maybe some other time.”

“After the election,” Aemond says with an abiding, encouraging smile. He tolerates Mimi because he needs her: happy wholesome family, American Dream. Down at the water’s edge, the nannies are giving towels to Fosco and the children as they scamper out of the frothing waves, Mimi’s five and Helaena’s three: Daphne, Neaera—no one can ever seem to spell her name correctly, least of all the six-year-old girl herself—and Evangelos.

Mimi departs, on the hunt for a fresh Gimlet. Aegon reaches into the pocket of his swim trunks—Hawaiian print, royal blue—and pulls out a joint and a Zippo. He sticks the joint between his teeth and goes to light it.

“No,” Aemond says immediately, yanking the joint out of Aegon’s mouth and stomping it into the earth. Then he points down the beach towards the sand dunes. “You know journalists will sneak around trying to get photos. You know we’re never truly alone out here.”

“They can’t tell what I’m smoking!”

“Don’t argue with me.”

“You know there are teenagers getting their limbs blown off in Vietnam right now? I think society has bigger problems than me smoking grass.”

“And yet to solve those bigger problems, I have to win in November. And the suburban housewives will not vote for me if they think I support legalizing marijuana. Trust me, I know. I’ve met them.”

“I wouldn’t want those people’s votes,” Aegon says derisively.

“You’d rather Nixon get them?”

Aegon doesn’t have a speedy rebuttal this time. He contemplates the Atlantic Ocean, the wind tearing at his hair.

“It’s hot as hell,” Aemond says to you, gathering up the newspapers he’s been leafing through, never not thinking about the election, never not strategizing. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”

As you accompany Aemond towards the main house—and of course you follow him, always, anywhere—Alicent waves you over to where she and Viserys are sitting to wish you a happy birthday again. From this vantage point, you can just barely spot Otto and Helaena strolling through her garden, a jungle of butterfly bushes and herbs. The stricken Targaryen patriarch beams at the swell of your belly. Viserys likes you, you are his favorite daughter-in-law, though perhaps this is not so lofty an achievement. Moreover, he likes that you are carrying the child of his decent son. Aemond has already decided on the baby’s name: Aristos Apollo. If it is in fact a boy, you suppose you’ll call him Ari, but he doesn’t feel real to you yet. He belongs to Aemond, to the Targaryens, to the nation, but not quite to you. He is more myth than flesh.

“Nothing is more precious than children,” Viserys tells Aemond, raspy and frail. “I would have had at least five more if I could.” Alicent bows her head, an acknowledgement of her failure in this regard. Viserys expects it. You and Aemond politely avert your gazes.

“Thank God for this baby,” Alicent says. “After the year we’ve had? That the whole world has had? We all need something to be grateful for.”

“Yes,” Aemond agrees, smiling. It must be the promise of a son that has made his maiming go down smoother, and maybe it is his soaring poll numbers too, and maybe it is gratitude that he escaped with his life, and maybe it is even the fact that he has you.

But long after dusk when you’re getting ready for bed—slathering yourself in Jergens, stepping into your chiffon nightgown—as you pass through the sliver of light pouring out of the bathroom, you catch a glimpse of something that stops you. Aemond is standing in front of the mirror with his hands on the rim of the sink, his eyepatch slung over the towel rack, his voided eye socket exposed and gory and irreparably wounded. There’s something in his scarred face that you can’t recall ever seeing before. There is a seething, secret, animal rage. There is fury for everyone who has ever denied him anything.

You remember who you were before you met Aemond at the Rainbow Room in Manhattan at a party you were almost not illustrious enough to attend. You wore your hair long and loose, you downed shots, you smoked, you swore, you slept through class almost every Monday; and then you packed all of this away in your allegorical attic and became someone who could stand beside a senator, and then a candidate, and then a president, someone who could tip the scales of fate.

And you think as you lurk unnoticed in the doorway: Maybe he’s been hiding parts of himself too.

~~~~~~~~~~

July 10th, 10 a.m. He’s snoring on a couch in the living room, the one patterned with sailboats. He’s hugging his acoustic guitar like a child clinging to a teddy bear. Sometimes he plays it for the kids: Get Rhythm, Twist And Shout, Stand By Me, You Can’t Hurry Love. That’s about the extent of his involvement in their lives. He has a law degree from Columbia that his father bought for him. Aside from a brief and disastrous stint as the mayor of Trenton, he has never been gainfully employed. You pour the cupful of ice cubes you collected from the freezer all over his bare chest.

“What the fuck!” Aegon screams as he startles awake. “What is wrong with you?!”

“The guests are arriving in two hours. And you’re going to help me host.”

“I’m not slobbering at the feet of those manicured elitists.”

“It’s easy to say ‘vive la révolution’ from your family’s mansion that you reside in as a professional failure.”

“Yeah, you’re right, I’m so worthless. If only I spent more time hosting tea parties.”

“I can’t small talk with governors and congressmen, so I have to charm their wives instead. That’s how it works, you idiot.”

Aegon rolls off the couch and rubs his forehead, wincing, hungover. In the dining room, Eudoxia is readying cups and plates, polishing silverware, folding napkins. The caterers will be here soon, and there are also three dishes that you made yourself: stafidopsomo, a bread with raisins and cinnamon; rizogalo, Greek-style rice pudding; and baklava you spent hours chopping walnuts for. At least one show of domestic prowess is an expectation, two is impressive, three is above and beyond, something for the other political wives to chatter about. You know the importance of making a good impression on them. They are as much a part of their husbands’ careers as the speech writers, communication directors, fundraisers. “I need a Bloody Mary,” Aegon groans.

“You need to pull your goddamn weight. Everyone else is working to get Aemond elected. Your five-year-old kid is out on the campaign trail and you can’t walk around with a tray of hummus and mini spanakopitas? Are you serious?”

“I’m dead serious,” he says, standing with some difficulty and then shoving by you. “Fuck off, Miss America.”

“Aegon!”

But he’s padding off towards the kitchen with his bare feet, tiki print boxer shorts, bedraggled hair. You follow after him in your spotless white heels and sundress patterned with common blue violets. Your earrings are pearls. You’ve wrangled your hair into a tidy French twist. Aegon is getting a pitcher of tomato juice out of the refrigerator, a bottle of vodka from a cardboard Apple Jacks box. He keeps booze and pills hidden everywhere; you’re always stumbling across his caches.

You open your mouth to unleash something hurtful, something hateful, but then you feel the cold flare of liquid on your thighs as the ocean breeze gusts in through the windows. My dress, you think, alarmed. What did I spill on it? One of the ice cubes you threw at Aegon must have caught on the skirt somehow and melted. That’s your first guess, and it is welcome; water doesn’t stain, and you aren’t sure if you have another outfit that is both formal enough and will still fit you. But when you reach down to touch your leg—now the liquid reaches your knees—your hand comes away red.

You look up at Aegon. He’s staring back at you, thunderstruck, horrified. His Bloody Mary ingredients are now forgotten on the countertop. He shouts for the housekeeper: “Doxie?!”

There is indistinct, cantankerous Greek grumbling in return.

“Doxie! Call an ambulance!”

“I don’t understand,” you say to Aegon, bright clotless blood dyeing the whirls of your fingerprints. I ruined my dress, you think nonsensically. “It doesn’t hurt. Shouldn’t it hurt?”

“Don’t move, don’t do anything, just wait for the paramedics.”

But the edges of your vision are going dark and hazy, and the room spins like a flipped coin. Your knees and ankles fold, bones turned to paper. As you drop, Aegon dives for you. You clutch at him, but there’s nothing to grab onto, no suit jacket, no tie, only skin that glows with sunburn. “If I don’t wake up, tell Aemond—”

“You’re not dying, bitch. My luck’s not that good.”

But his eyes are panicked; and they are the last thing you see before you black out.

~~~~~~~~~~

Arteries of cement, bones like lead, heavy eyelids opening to reveal strange white walls.

Am I dead?

But no: you hurt all over. Heaven isn’t supposed to hurt. There are needles pierced through the backs of your hands, a splitting rawness in your throat.

Was I intubated? Did I have surgery…?

You try to sit up. The pain is blinding; the severed and sutured latticework of your abdominal muscles is a pit of glass. You gasp, moan plaintively, fumble for the nurse call button on the wooden nightstand.

“Will you stop moving?” Aegon says as he walks into the room. He’s slurping on a straw that pokes out from a Dairy Queen cup. The fluid inside is clumpy and red. Instantly, you think of blood, and a wave of nausea punches through the shredded gore that was once your belly. Aegon flops down into the salmon pink armchair beside the bed and props his combat boots up on the ottoman. “They sliced you up like the Black Dahlia. You’re gonna rip your stitches.”

“They did a c-section…?”

“Yeah, you had some kind of uterus…thing. I don’t remember.”

The baby?? Is the baby alright?? “An abruption?”

More slurping. “No…I think it started with a P.”

“Previa?”

“Yeah, that one.”

You remember waking up a few times: on the kitchen floor as men were lifting you, in an ambulance as the siren shrieked. Someone said you were being taken to Mount Sinai in Manhattan. And that makes sense, that would have been Criston’s plan. Mount Sinai is one of the best hospitals in the country. You look around the room for a bassinet or a crib. Instead you see a wheelchair and a myriad of flower bouquets; word has already gotten out, and so the customary well wishes are pouring in. Lady Bird Johnson sent bluebonnets, the state flower of Texas; Abigail McCarthy sent lilies of the valley; Muriel Humphrey sent roses, traditional, safe, uninspiring; Pat Nixon sent blood orange gladioli. Mrs. Wallace, newly deceased, neglected to call a florist. “Where’s the baby?”

“He’s fine. He’s downstairs in an incubator.”

Ari, you think, though he still doesn’t seem real yet. “What…?”

“His lungs are underdeveloped. But the doctors think he’ll be alright. You want a Mr. Misty? There’s a Dairy Queen like two blocks from here.”

“No, I don’t want a Mr. Misty,” you say, incredulous. “I want to see the baby.”

“Well they can’t move him and they can’t move you, so you’ll have to wait.”

“I’m going to see him—” You swing your feet off the bed and feel daggers, fire, a splintering like someone has taken a hammer to your bones. You almost scream; it takes everything in you to choke it down and only gasp as your flesh becomes an inferno. I want a joint, you think randomly, an urge you’d believed you had exorcised from yourself, an archaic relic of a past life.

“Told you,” Aegon says smugly.

You lie panting, helpless, glancing at the phone on the nightstand. “Aemond knows?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve called everyone. He knows.”

“Good. So he’ll be here soon.”

“Sure,” Aegon says, perhaps a tad noncommittally.

“Okay.” You’re still trying to catch your breath. Tacoma is a six hour flight away. Even if Aemond doesn’t leave until morning, he’ll be here by sundown tomorrow. “You can go now.”

“Go?!” Aegon exclaims, then laughs, one of his reckless, taunting cackles. “Oh no. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You definitely are.”

“No, I’m not,” he insists, grinning. “For once in my life, I’m the person who’s exactly where he’s supposed to be. I’m the honorable one. The sacred heir of the favorite son has just been born, and the blessed mother has been sawed in half like Saint Simon the Zealot, and where is Aemond? Where is literally everyone else? Across the continent shaking hands and forcing smiles to win him the great state of Washington. I’m not going home. I’m collecting every second I spend here like coins from a slot machine. I won the jackpot, babe. No one is ever going to be able to call me the family fuckup after this.”

The pain is horrible, insurmountable; you can’t think through it. You close your eyes and try not to sob, to wail, to split yourself open in body and soul. I can’t let him see me break down.

“What’s up?” Aegon asks. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I want a Mr. Misty. Go get me a Mr. Misty.”

“Okay,” Aegon says doubtfully. “What flavor?”

“I don’t care. Not red.”

“They have orange, lemon-lime, grape—”

“Just pick one!” you shout, tears brimming in your eyes. Get out, get out, get out.

“Calm down, psycho!” he yells back, heading for the door.

As soon as he crosses the threshold, you snatch the call button off the nightstand and press it frantically until a nurse arrives. You get more morphine and sink into a stillness like deep water, down, down, down.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s dark outside, stars and a crescent moon. On the television is grainy footage from the Battle of Khe Sanh. American soldiers younger than you are dragging their wounded brethren to a Chinook helicopter for evacuation: bandages, burns, missing limbs and faces. Aegon had dozed off in his chair—assisted by an ample amount of Vicodin, surely—but is stirring awake now. He blinks groggily at the screen.

“It’s so fucking awful,” you say, and Aegon’s eyebrows shoot up; it’s the first time you’ve ever sworn in front of him. You trained yourself to stop when you met Aemond. “30,000 Americans dead, God knows how many Vietnamese peasants, Buddhist monks setting themselves on fire, and for what? So we can say we did everything we could to stop communism? So we can humiliate the Russians? There is no liberation of Vietnam. All we’re doing is making those people hate us. And we’re destroying ourselves too.”

“I didn’t know you cared about the war.”

You look at him, mystified. “Everything I do is about the war.”

“But you never really talk about it.” Aegon yawns and stretches, reaching up towards the ceiling. “You talk about Chanel dresses and tea parties.”

“Well yeah, because it’s…it’s unseemly, I guess. For me to speak on the war. Me specifically.”

He snorts. “Because you’re a woman? Who told you that? Aemond?”

You hesitate, watching the television again. Now there are napalm bombs incinerating villages and rice paddies. “I had a boyfriend before Aemond, you know.”

“What, in kindergarten? Chasing each other around the playground? Illicit snuggles beneath the slide?”

You chuckle, shaking your head. “A real boyfriend.”

“No way. You did not.”

“I did,” you insist, smiling a little. “We met at a party my freshman year of college. He was at NYU studying…oh, I always forgot, that was one of our jokes. It was either archaeology or anthropology. I actually thought I was going to marry him for a minute there.”

“Scandalous.” Aegon is gazing at you with his murky blue eyes, grinning, playful. “What happened?”

“He had a moral crisis about poor kids getting shipped off to Vietnam to be slaughtered while he was tucked safely away in his ivory tower. So he enlisted, and honestly it was shocking how quickly I started to forget about him. We exchanged a few letters, it didn’t last long, I think he was forgetting about me too. But he ended up getting killed in action in October, 1965. His old roommate told me.”

Now Aegon is thoughtful. His crooked grin dies. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s his parents I feel bad for. He was an only child. I heard his father drank himself to death.”

“You’ve been carrying a story like that around with you and you never used it? Not in an interview or an article, not at one of your asinine little tea parties?”

“I can’t,” you confess. “Aemond doesn’t want me to. He doesn’t like to be reminded about…you know. That there was someone else before.”

Aegon throws his head back and cackles, combing his fingers through his disheveled blonde hair. “As if Aemond was a virgin when you met him.”

But it’s not the same. It isn’t to Aemond, and it wouldn’t be to the rest of the world either. It is your eternal disgrace. It is something you will be expected to atone for until you’re in the grave. “Give me a joint.”

Aegon is amazed. “What?”

“I know you have some, you always do. I want one. Give it to me.”

“You smoke grass?”

“I used to. Then I gave it up. But I’m making an exception.”

He gawks at you for a while, then slips a joint out of one of the front pockets of his green army jacket. He places it between his lips, lights it with his little chrome Zippo, and inhales deep and slow. Then he offers it to you.

“I don’t want herpes.”

Aegon laughs. “I don’t have herpes. I swear.”

“Not yet, maybe. Give it time.”

“Are you gonna smoke or not?”

You take the joint and fill your lungs with earth, floral notes, a tinge of spice. It’s been years, but it comes rushing back in an instant as the high hits your bloodstream: calm quiet weightlessness, a sense of wellbeing that fills the honeycomb hollows of your bones. “I need to see the baby.”

Aegon stalls. “The doctors were really insistent that you stay here.”

“And all the sudden you care about rules.”

He considers this, drumming his palms on his thighs. His jeans are ripped; he’s biting his lower lip. Then abruptly, he stands. “Alright.” He grabs the wheelchair and pushes it up against the bed. “Let’s go.”

You take another drag and then discard the joint in your empty Dairy Queen cup. You throw off your blanket and try to touch your bare feet to the cool linoleum floor. It hurts, it feels like razor blades, but you keep going. Then you remember you still have one IV in the back of your left hand. “Wait, how am I going to…?”

“You’re in luck. I am well-versed in needles.” Aegon holds out a palm. Nervously, you give him your hand. He peels off the medical tape, takes a moment to examine the vein, then slides out the needle so smoothly you don’t feel it at all; it barely even bleeds. He balls up a Kleenex from the box on your nightstand and secures it to the wound with the same strip of tape. “You’re welcome.”

“Junkie.” You try to lower yourself into the wheelchair and a yelp rips from your throat.

“Oh, this is pathetic,” Aegon says, but not quite unkindly. “Here.” He leans down in front of you. Too desperate to be prideful, you link your arms around the back of his neck. Aegon’s shaggy blonde hair tickles your cheek; his hands skim gingerly to settle on your waist, steadying you without too much pressure. He helps you into the wheelchair, where you collapse gasping and sweating bullets.

“If you ever mention this again, I will guillotine you.”

He winks. “Relax, little Io. I never kiss and tell.”

“I’d assume you’re usually too plastered to remember the details.”

“Be nice. I could roll you down a staircase.” But he doesn’t; he rolls you into the hallway instead.

The lights in the corridor are dim for night, for dreams. You see a few nurses shuttling in and out of other rooms from a distance, but none seem to notice you and Aegon. He steers the wheelchair into the elevator and you ride it down two floors, then cross another hallway and pass through a set of doors. There must be a dozen incubators, half of them occupied. The nurse on duty—currently cradling a tiny infant in her arms, a girl judging by the pink hat, and feeding her from a bottle of formula—gapes at you.

“Ma’am? You aren’t supposed to be—”

“Shut up,” Aegon tells her, and the nurse doesn’t say another word.

Aegon pushes the wheelchair down the line of incubators until you reach the one with a name card labelled Targaryen, Aristos Apollo. And there he is: unmistakably fragile, impossibly small, blue veins like a roadmap beneath translucent skin, tangled in tubes and wires. In his sleeping face you don’t see Aemond or even yourself, but rather an inexplicable familiarity. You feel like you’ve met him before. You feel like you’ve known him all your life.

You press your hand to the clear, domed wall of the incubator; shadows in the shape of your outstretched fingers fall over Ari’s face. “He’s real.”

“Of course he is.” Aegon is watching you; you can see him on the periphery of your vision, a blur of blonde hair and high cheekbones. When you turn to him, he immediately looks away.

“What?” you ask.

“Nothing.” But his voice is distracted, bewildered, like someone fumbling for a light switch in a dark room.

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen ii #aegon ii #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon x reader #aegon targaryen #aegon ii x y/n #aegon ii targaryen x reader #aegon ii x you #aegon ii x reader #aegon ii fanfic #aegon targaryen x you #aegon targaryen ii x you

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eretzyisrael · 4 months

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by Dion J. Pierre

The US House of Representatives has launched an investigation into 20 nonprofit organizations that are currently funding anti-Zionist student groups mounting pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses, an effort aimed at uncovering long suspected links to terrorist organizations and other hostile foreign entities.

As part of the inquiry, US Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and James Comer (R-KY) wrote to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday, asking her to share any “suspicious activity reports” generated by the activities of Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, American Muslims for Palestine, Tides Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and other groups.

Foxx and Comer chair the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, respectively.

“The committees are investigating the sources of funding and financing for groups who are organizing, leading, and participating in pro-Hamas, antisemitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American protests with illegal encampments on American college campuses,” Foxx and Comer wrote in their letter to Yellen. “This investigation relates to both malign influence on college campuses and to the national security implications of such influence on faculty and student organizations.”

The inquiry comes amid widespread suspicion that an eruption of anti-Zionist protests on college campuses, in which students illegally occupied sections of section and refused to leave unless their schools agreed to condemn and boycott Israel, was fueled by immense financial and logistical support from outside groups. Foxx and Comer said in their letter that the investigation’s findings will inform recommendations for new federal laws requiring increased transparency and reporting of foreign contributions to American colleges and universities.

On Tuesday, Foxx told the Washington Free Beacon, which first reported the investigation, that the protests were a symptom of a larger threat to national security.

“It’s no coincidence that the day after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack, antisemitic mobs began springing up at college campuses across the country,” Foxx said. “These protests have been coordinated and well organized, indicating that outside groups or influences may be at play. American education is under attack. It’s critical that Congress investigates how these groups �� who are tearing apart our institutions — are being funded and advised before it’s too late.”

Foreign links to the anti-Zionist student movement have been the subject of numerous comprehensive studies.

Last week, the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) published a report showing a connection between the anti-Zionist group Shut It Down for Palestine (SID4P) — a group formed immediately after Hamas’ massacre on Oct. 7 — and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). NCRI explained that SID4P, which organized numerous traffic-obstructing demonstrations after Oct. 7, is an umbrella group for several other organizations which compose the “Singham Network,” a consortium of far-left groups funded by Neville Roy Singham and Jodie Evans. The report describes Singham and Evans as a “power couple within the global far-left movement” whose affiliation with the CCP has been copiously documented.

“The Singham Network exploits regulatory loopholes in the US nonprofit system to facilitate the flow of an enormous sum of US dollars to organizations and movements that actively stoke social unrest at the grassroots level,” the report said. “Alternative media outlets associated with the Singham Network have played a central role in online mobilization and cross-platform social amplification for SID4P.”

In 2022, the National Association of Scholars (NAS) revealed that one of the founders of Students for Justice in Palestine, Hatem Bazian, is also a co-founder of American Muslims for Palestine, an advocacy group which, NAS said, “retains ties to terrorist groups operating in the Palestinian Territories.”

NAS added that the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic Cultural Boycott of Israel — which has been influential is steering the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel in academia — is “structurally linked” to Palestinian terrorist organizations through the Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine — a member of the Palestinian BDS National Committee which comprises Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Popular Front-General Command, Palestinian Liberation Front, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

“On the one hand, BDS is designed to secure political legitimacy vis-á-vis Israel, with boycotts and divestment offering Palestinian activists and terrorists new domains to assert their cause,” NAS senior fellow Ian Oxnevad wrote. “On the other hand, BDS, along with the formation of multiple NGOs and nonprofit organizations, offers the Palestinians new avenues by which to access funding in a post-9/11 international financial system designed to curtail funding for terrorism.”

#anti-zionists #protests #students for justice in palestine #bds #virginia fox #james comer #investigation

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reannasims · 5 months

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Here is another build for yall. I've changed so much stuff since the WIP photo lol but i hope you guys like it. The build does include the SS beer wall and their liquor shelves so if you don't want it to make sure to delete that folder once you unzip it. BTW i know this isnt the Rockefeller yall thinking, i just needed a sign lol also this build is set as a restaurant! (DOWNLOAD AT THE BOTOM)

💢💢PLEASE DO NOT CLAIM AS YOUR OWN💢💢

WILL BE FREE ON 05/25/2024

LOT SIZE: 30X20

LOCATED IN OASIS SPRINGS

✨If you use my CC please tag me on IG, Tumblr, or youtube i would love to see it in yalls game✨

IG: Reannasimsxo

Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/reannasims

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@ReannaSims?si=4-Y5mcf5S31tQ4le

✨ CLICK HERE FOR DOWNLOAD✨

#sims 4 #ts4 #ts4cc #sims 4 cc #sims4 #the sims 4 #sims4cc #simblr #sims 4 custom content #s4cc #sims 4 builds #the sims 4 builds #sims 4 build #blacksimmer

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crippled-peeper · 1 year

Note

america invented eugenics?

the USA specifically did. we used it most acutely against immigrants, against institutionalized people, the mentally ill, the disabled, and anyone who wasn’t white. and it very much inspired the nazi party. eugenics is deeply and quietly entrenched in our history. do you know of Hellen Keller? she believed in eugenics. yea seriously

A lot of early thinkers and progressives were eugenicists too.

The American eugenics movement received extensive funding from various corporate foundations including the Carnegie Institution, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Harriman railroad fortune. In 1906, J.H. Kellogg provided funding to help found the Race Betterment Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan.[13] The Eugenics Record Office (ERO) was founded in Cold Spring Harbor, New York in 1911 by the renowned biologist Charles B. Davenport, using money from both the Harriman railroad fortune and the Carnegie Institution. As late as the 1920s, the ERO was one of the leading organizations in the American eugenics movement.

In years to come, the ERO and the American Eugenics Society collected a mass of family pedigrees and provided training for eugenics field workers who were sent to analyze individuals at various institutions, such as mental hospitals and orphanage institutions, across the United States. Eugenicists such as Davenport, the psychologist Henry H. Goddard, Harry H. Laughlin, and the conservationist Madison Grant (all of whom were well-respected during their time) began to lobby for various solutions to the problem of the "unfit."

Davenport favored immigration restriction and sterilization as primary methods; Goddard favored segregation in his The Kallikak Family; Grant favored all of the above and more, even entertaining the idea of extermination.

Here’s the Wikipedia about the subject if you want to keep reading about it

TW for forced sterilization, eugenics (obviously), genocide, abuse.

#I’m #not a historian or academic I’m just some guy don’t quote me #eugenics #american eugenics #racism #xenophobia

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jerzwriter · 5 months

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Choices Fandom Acts of Kindness - April 2024

Hello @moominofthevalley ! I am your secret pal for the @choicesfandomappreciation Acts of Kindness event. After driving relatives around to see the cherry blossoms last week, I thought this would be the perfect spring day for Trystan and Emily. But it's not all hearts and flowers; it comes with a bit of sarcasm, too. I truly hope you enjoy this, I always get nervous writing other characters, but I hope it fits! (This is some serious fluff! lol) Thanks so much for being such a kind and supportive member of the fandom—I'm so glad you're here! 🩷🩷

Spring's Eternal

Book: Crimes of Passion

Pairing: m!Trystan Thorne x f!MC (Emily Rose)

Rating: Teen

Words: 700

Emily attempted to hide the grimace on her face as she looked at her watch. It was 6:35, and she was more than ready to go home. Her aching feet would provide the perfect excuse, but that would require admitting Trystan was right about wearing more comfortable shoes, and she was not about to give him that.

"Trystan!" she hollered, but he had already taken off. Bolting ahead with the excitement of a child who had just spotted a candy display.

In some ways, he had. The city was coming to life after its long winter slumber. Flowers seemed to pop up everywhere, dotting the cityscape with vibrant bursts of yellow, purple, pink, and blue. New York was nature's canvas, and even the most jaded native had to admit... this artist had created a masterpiece.

Its crown jewels were the cherry blossoms in Central Park, and that's where Emily thought they were heading when they headed out at the crack of dawn. But, no. Trystan insisted on starting on the Lower West Side and meandering the length of Manhattan Island until they reached the crowning glory.

Emily walked as fast as her sore legs could take her; her enthusiasm for the beautiful blossoms had diminished somewhere around Rockefeller Center, but not Trystan. Trystan spun around, camera hung around his neck, taking shot after shot after shot. She couldn't help but roll her eyes as she approached him; the goofy grin on his face was priceless. No matter how much she wanted to go home, she wasn't about to deny him this, but that didn't mean she wouldn't tease him.

"Trystan Thorne," she huffed upon approach. "Do you understand that we live here? You're not a tourist; you don't have to take a million pictures to ensure you remember this all."

"Ah, but I do," he grinned. "We live in New York all year round, but these delightful pink treasures are here for a very short time, and I want to remember them."

Emily chuckled in spite of herself. She had to admit that Trystan's zeal and enthusiasm were softening this tough detective's edges, even if she didn't fully understand why.

"I don't get it. You've lived in New York for how many years? Yet you're acting like you're seeing spring in the city for the very first time."

"I am," he said, looping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her near. "After all, it's the first time I'm seeing it with you, and that makes everything immeasurably more beautiful than it was before."

Emily wrapped her arms around his waist, nuzzling her face against his body as she held him close. The moment was precious, and she craved the closeness, but there was more: she didn't want him to see the full effect of his words.

"Trystan, you need to stop this. I have a reputation to uphold, and you're doing all you can to erase it. I won't have it."

"Don't worry," he laughed, stopping to place a kiss upon her head. "You're reputation will still be firmly intact, and I'll defend it to the fullest. People will believe it too because the softer side of Emily Rose... that's something reserved for those closest to you, and this year, I'm so happy that includes me."

He let out a breath as her hand smacked his chest. "Stop it! Stop it, stop it, stop it! You're going to give me diabetes with all this sweetness."

"Fine," he smiled. "I'll dial it back. Besides, I know you're tired. Would you like to head back home?"

"I did," she said, watching the blue sky melt into a palette of purple and pink. Once more, nature put on a show for free. The air was beginning to take on a bit of a chill, but Trystans's embrace kept her warm. The truth was, she wished the moment could linger forever. "I did. But now... I don't want this to end. You're right; spring is entirely too short, and we should enjoy it."

"It is, but it's going to be a little longer this year."

"It is?"

"Sure is, spring's eternal now. I have it whenever I'm with you."

~~~~~

(I imagine about a week later, on a cold, rainy day, Trystan gave Emily the collage he created (above). She hung it on the wall in her bedroom, and though the skies were grey outside, spring was eternal... it lived in their hearts.)

#crimes of passion #trystan thorne #trystan thorne x f!mc #trystan x emily #moominofthevalley #choices fandom appreciation #spring kindness week

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int-writersmind · 9 months

Text

I Hate Christmas, Peter Parker {Part 2}

Peter Parker x f!Reader

It’s simple: You don’t see what the big fuss is all about surrounding Christmas, but Peter Parker thinks that this is unacceptable and puts you through step two of a multiple step list to make you fall in love with the holiday.

{Read Part 1}

Warnings: Fluff

Word Count: 1.2k

Author's Note: Not well edited will fix soon; Another Christmas song suggestion, a personal fave

That stupid little elf that greeted you as you left your apartment every morning was a reminder that Peter’s little list was far from being over. That stupid little elf, with it’s stupid little plastic face, creepy smile and knowing eyes.

“It’s an elf on the shelf, kids love them!” Peter said when he placed it on the way out of your apartment after the two of you spent way too many hours decorating your place. You hated to admit it, but you actually had fun. But the elf on the shelf was not the cherry on top that Peter was so keen on it being.

“You’re telling me that children actually enjoy the idea of some vile creature constantly watching them?” you responded.

Anyway, you were dreading whatever was next, it was the second week of December and there wasn’t any movement from Peter’s end. Granted he was pretty busy with his second life, dealing with a group of baddies that decided that this time of year was the perfect time for a group project of evil–Peter’s words, not yours.

You were admittedly gutted, Christmas was far from being your favorite holiday, but at least it gave Peter an excuse to annoy you more than often, and more Peter was always better. But you knew and understood everything that came with Peter’s other job.

It was late now, soft snow was falling from the night sky. Anywhere else that would be magically and beautiful, the very definition of a White Christmas. But all you could imagine was the aftermath that came when it snowed in the city. Train delays, black ice, yellow snow, and that god awful gray snow that somehow, not matter how careful you were, your foot always found itself in. It wasn’t Christmas fault of course, annoying snow could come at any time over the winter (and sometimes Spring) season, but the damn thing was always linked to the holiday.

You were loss in your work, trying to catch up on some documents before the holidays caused everyone to not check their emails until the new year. You were snuggled up in some pajamas pants that once had a matching top and a raglan t-shirt from the men’s section. As you are sip from your hot chocolate, you don’t even notice the subtle tapping coming from your window. Alone on your couch, you just chuck up the sound to some apartment ambience. It isn’t until the tapping become more preseinset that you notice it.

“Oh gosh, sorry,” You say to Peter as you open the window, reaching for a hoodie as the brisk winter air rushes in. Peter just sits on your windowsill, pulling his Spider-Man mask off. Your little apartment was tucked in a strange corner of the city, one where most of your windows were facing a wall, some Peter never really feared that someone was watching the two of you.

“Good thing I wasn’t bleeding out.” Peter just swings his legs in, not fully coming into the apartment.

“Not this time at least” You respond, “So what’s up? Can you stay?” You gesture to the Spider-Man costume.

“Oh yeah, the city’s quiet tonight,” He glimpses at the city behind him before returning this attention back to you. “I was actually here because of…the list”

You roll your eyes. “Really, and what could possibly be on the list that involves Spider-Man?”

“The Tree.”

You try to stifle a groan, he was talking about the Rockefeller Christmas Tree, the one Christmas tree that all sane native born New Yorkers knew to avoid like the plague around this time. Yes, yes, it was very pretty with its gigantic size, thousands of lights, and of course that enormous Swarovski star on the top. The tree was nice to view on TV during the tree lighting ceremony and through other people’s social media, but actually being there, in the thick of it, was terrible. The crowds, the cold, the totally unoriginal photo ideas. “Peter–��

“Now listen here Debbie Downer,” You make a face at Peter, who puts his hands up in surrender. “If we go now I bet you it will be a fun time.”

The two of you just stare at one another, “Fine, I’ll get my coat.”

About fifteen minutes later, Peter has the two of you swinging through the snow and cold, both whipping past your face and ears, causing a slight stinging sensation. The damn coat, hat and scarf did nothing to cut down on the weather’s feeling.

Since the two of you started dating and some time after Peter told you the truth of him being Spider-Man, you had your fair share of swinging through the city moments. It didn’t mean that you were used to the feeling of constantly falling through the sky to only be pulled forward. Oh c’mon this is slow Peter once said.

Thankfully the journey wasn’t as long as Peter quickly lands the two of you on a rooftop across the street from the Tree. “See, not too bad?” Peter says.

“Sure, sure, sure, sure.” You answer back, sitting at the edge of the building, feet dangling over the side, it takes Peter a few moments before he sits next to you.

Now without a mask and spotting a brown bag, Peter sits next to you, nudging his shoulder into yours, you can’t help but smile as you pull out a Christmas tree shaped donut out the bag.

As you bite into the somehow still warm pastry, glancing at the tree and all it sparking glory before looking at Peter. “Two Christmas trees on the list Parker?”

“Well, this wasn’t originally the plan ok,” Peter scoffs as he bites into a Santa shaped donut. “It was going to be a whole day, with ice skating, tree viewing–”

“I’m just joking,”You lightly punch him on the arm, taking another bite from the donut. “I actually quite like this, just the two of us, here, looking at the tree. You get to like, actually enjoy looking at it without getting in any one’s way. “

“That’s true, just the two of us up here…how many people can say they saw the tree like this?”

“Well, probably everyone that lives in this building?” You both laugh as the two of you finish the donuts. You lean over and kiss Peter, savoring the sweetness from his lips. You can’t help but lick your lips staring at him as you do so. “Just so you know, I really appreciate this.”

“I know,” Peter’s eyes glance downwards towards your lips. “Does this mean you're starting to love Christmas now?”

“Hell no, but I can think of a few ideas that might change my mind.” You lean in, hands resting on his chest, pecking at his lips again.

“Not yet,” He moves just slightly away from you, “But I promise the next one will be worth it.”

Before the two of you kiss again, the lights on the tree go off, you stare a little loss at one another. “Peter?”

“No Spidey-Sense, nothing’s wrong.”

You pull out your phone and check the time—midnight “Guess it's much later than I thought it was.”

“God, same, I’m so tired.” Peter lets his head fall on your chest, you hold him in your arms.

“Come back to my place Spider-boy,” You gently run your fingers through his hair. “You’re freezing and I have a hot chocolate with your name on it. “

“Sounds good to me,” Peter looks up. “But only if we can watch a Christmas movie.”

“Of course.” You say with just a hint sarcasm

Sorry for the late upload and the short length just not in the right head space right now, but I'll live. try to get something up on Wed but no promises in case I forget. But stay with me pls!

Anyway, to lighten things up, what Christmas movie do you think Peter would pick?

#peter parker fluff #peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker #peter parker x you #christmas fic #christmas fanfic #spider man fluff #spider-man fluff #spider-man fic #spiderman fic #spider man fic #spiderman fluff #christmas spider-man

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ducktalesnstuff · 1 year

Text

Throw back to last spring when my history teacher mentioned John D Rockefeller and my only thought was “like the duck?”

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voyagerii · 2 years

Text

On: 2-21

Happy Sweet 16 Rocky

#rockefeller springs #rockefeller #rocky #voyager creation

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dylanobriencloset · 6 days

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Where?: Dylan O'Brien with a fan before his interview with “Late Night Seth Meyers” at 30 Rockefeller Center in New York City.

When?: September 19, 2024

What?: Bose QuietComfort Headphones in White Smoke I $349.00

Worn with: New York Mets New Era Light Blue/Red Spring Color Two-Tone 59FIFTY Snapback Hat, Calpak Luka Mini Belt Bag & Vintage 1991 Looney Tunes "Property of Mets" Shirt

#dylan o'brien #cat: dylan other #bose

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racefortheironthrone · 1 year

Note

Read your post on "disruptors", loved it, and made me wonder why so many have a cult of personality spring up around them. Were there similar cults of personality for the mega wealthy in the past; like was Rockefeller worshiped the way so many worship Musk? Or is it a more modern trend fuelled by our constant connectivity and consumption of media? Thanks!

You raise an interesting question.

It was certainly true that the robber barons of the 19th century - Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Gould, Frick, etc. - were larger-than-life figures in the media (especially the part of the media that covered high society). It is also true that with a lot of these figures, there was this popular myth of the self-made man that sought to turn them into quintessential rags-to-riches, up-by-your-bootstraps American sucess stories.

But for the most part, the robber barons of the Gilded Age were hated for their monopolistic behavior and their use of violence to suppress the working class - and these magnates often had to go to great lengths to repair their reputations. Andre Carnegie's library-building campaign, for example, was very much a PR move meant to soften his image after the Homestead Strike. In fact, my great-grandfather Humphrey Attewell helped to organize opposition to the construction of a Carnegie library in Northampton, because he and other working-class people felt that the funds for the library were blood money distributed by a murderer. Likewise, it's not an accident that John D. Rockefeller founded the Rockefeller Foundation right around the same time that the Ludlow Massacre turned him into a monster in the eyes of the American public.

I would argue that we start to see more of a cult of personality around the mega-wealthy a bit later - say, 1900s-1930s - and the major turning point was the career of Thomas Edison. While Edison was every bit as ruthless and grasping as the robber barons before him - hence the war of the currents, his penchant for patent theft and/or stealing credit for inventions, the very existence of Hollywood - the fact that he was an inventor with so many world-changing patents to his name made Edison into a very different kind of media figure. Thomas Edison became a star of pulp fiction and dime novels, a sort of proto-superhero Science Hero - in addition to Edison's Conquest of Mars (an unauthorized sequel to the War of the Worlds in which Thomas Edison gets revenge for the Martian invasion of Earth by launching a counter-invasion of the red planet with his superior technology), there was a whole genre of Edisonades all about young inventor geniuses who use their inventions to save the day and/or explore the "savage frontier."

I think you can draw a line from the cult of personality around Edison to the cult of personality that formed around Henry Ford in the 20s and 30s as not just a car manufacturer but a visionary who had created a new age of modernity, and from there to the legend of the Packard garage, and from there to contemporary Silicon Valley.

#history #robber barons #gilded age #the 1%#billionaires #u.s politics #u.s history

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immaculatasknight · 1 year

Link

How to contrive a pseudo-science

#eugenics #America #academia #elites #Nordic master race #social control #reproduction #sterlization #Carnegie Institute #Cold Spring Harbor #Davenport #Rockefeller #pseudo-science

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liaromancewriter · 1 year

Text

New York Moment

Premise: Max and Sienna get cast as extras on a movie set, and funny antics soon follow.

Book: Open Heart (post series) Pairing: Sienna Trinh x Max Valentine (M!OC) Rating/Category: Teen. Fluff. Words: 1,425

A/N: This fic was requested by @trappedinfanfiction from @creativepromptsforwriting Meet Cute list (prompt 15). Tagging for reblog to @creativepromptfills. I'm using @choicesflashfics week 29, prompt 3 (in bold). Submission for @aprilchallenge prompt "dance"

The streets of Manhattan were teeming under the steaming summer sunshine. Native New Yorkers walked determinedly about their business, and tourists ambled on sidewalks, smartphones in hand, ready to capture their New York moment.

Cars honked, buses wheezed, and people yelled. It was noisy and exciting, annoying and fascinating. It was New York.

Sienna Valentine watched the drama unfold from the relative peace of a shaded sidewalk patio in Greenwich Village, and thought, “I’ve missed this.”

She’d attended medical school at Columbia, and this city had been home for four years. She had so many memories here. Studying in Central Park on a warm spring day. Taking the A Train downtown for a night out with her friends. Ice skating at Rockefeller Center.

Sienna had enjoyed her life in Boston and loved living in DC now. But whenever her husband Max needed to visit New York for work or family, she tagged along if her work schedule allowed.

Luckily for Sienna, Max had no issues making non-work trips either. An overnight trip to watch a Broadway show, a quick day trip to go shopping in Midtown or a romantic weekend getaway.

Life with Max was never dull, Sienna thought dreamily, looking away from the view outside to watch him walking toward her.

“Sorry about that. The guy just wouldn’t stop talking,” Max said, sliding into the chair across from her. He started to reach for his wine glass but suddenly stopped. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you want to drag me to the nearest restroom and have your wicked way with me,” he grinned lasciviously.

“I’d rather wait until we get back to our hotel,” she countered with a wink and a smile. “And then I’ll have my wicked way with you. So you might want to load up on carbs.”

“Good plan,” he chuckled. “Check, please!”

Sienna burst into laughter. Definitely not boring, she thought again.

They finished their lunch, talking and just enjoying each other’s company, lingering over their wine. While Max settled the bill, Sienna quickly called their nanny.

“Noah okay?” Max asked, clasping her hand in his as they left the restaurant.

“Yes. Mrs. Banks said he was still asleep and to take our time.”

They started walking east toward Washington Square Park for an open-air concert, passing leafy residential streets lined with brownstones and avoiding the crowds on Bleeker Street by cutting through Cornelia Street.

They were two blocks from the park when they saw steel barricades and a clump of trailers and trucks lined up along one street. Security guards held back crowds as a film crew set up for a shoot outside the park; light stands, cameras and film equipment were everywhere.

“Now what?” Sienna said, disappointed at having their afternoon plans disrupted. It would take time to go around the barricades and crowds.

She turned toward Max, but he was standing a few feet away, reading an information notice taped to the side of a tree trunk.

“Hey, Si? Wanna be an extra in a Hollywood movie?”

When Sienna glanced at him in confusion, he grabbed her hand and pulled her to his side, pointing at the sign.

Intrigued, Sienna read the words block printed on bright yellow paper. “Extras wanted. Couples only. Report to Production Office.”

“Well?” Max smiled, a hint of adventure in his eyes. “It can be our New York Moment.”

“I thought our New York Moment was that extravagant proposal on The Highline?”

“Who says you can only have one?” he challenged, arching his eyebrow.

Intrigued by the idea, Sienna found herself nodding, her apprehension about being on camera carried away by Max’s enthusiasm.

They were outside the production office a short while later, standing in a queue with other couples. A production assistant collected their details and directed them to a trailer for a wardrobe check. That done, they joined the others in a closed-off waiting area near a fountain.

“What kind of movie do you think this is?” Sienna said, craning to see if she could spot any stars.

“Definitely not a porno, given the location,” Max teased, his lips quirked in a half-smile. “I was really looking forward to seeing you in a leather catsuit.”

Sienna snorted. “I don’t have time for your prurient fantasies, Valentine.”

“You say fantasy, I say, meet me at midnight.”

Max took her hand and twirled her into an impromptu dance, their hips swaying to the jaunty tune drifting from a street musician behind the barricade. He tightened his grip on her hand; his other hand splayed across her lower back.

Well used to their rhythm, Sienna readied herself for the backward dip, confident he wouldn’t let her fall. Suddenly, Max tugged at her, and she tripped over her feet, falling against him.

Sienna giggled at her clumsiness, but his smug look and hands cupping her ass made her think it was on purpose.

She locked her hands behind his neck and leaned in, kissing the open space at the base of his throat where he'd left the buttons of his shirt collar undone. She felt his breath hitch before he pulled back slightly. But she wasn’t done.

Sienna stretched on her toes and drew his head down to place her lips against his ear.

“Are you trying to seduce me in public?” she whispered.

He chuckled. “What a thing to say? I’m just rehearsing. For all you know, my character is a suave international spy trying to throw the assassins off his scent by dancing with a beautiful stranger in the park.”

She scoffed. “We’ve both seen that movie, and it usually ends with the spy seducing the woman before jumping out the window.”

“Maybe in this movie, the beautiful woman is the seductress,” he said, amused. “And hopefully she has handcuffs so the spy can’t escape her bed.”

He said the last in such a deadpan manner that Sienna burst into laughter. She laughed so hard she had to wrap her arms around her stomach and gasp for air.

The production assistant walked over, still talking into a headset, clipboard in hand.

“All right, folks. Thanks for your patience,” he said hurriedly. “The AD’s just finishing setting up the shot, and then we’ll escort you to the set. Just some house rules….”

Sienna tried to school her face to pretend interest and attention. It didn’t help that Max moved behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and leaned down to speak in her ear, cracking jokes.

“Don’t feed the pigeons? Why would we do that?” Max murmured, deliberately twisting the production assistant’s words about not disturbing the actors.

Sienna covered her mouth with one hand so people couldn’t see her laughing, but there was no hiding the tears spiking her eyelashes.

“Wait? I thought this was a family feature. Why would we be dancing naked in the square with a clown?”

Sienna guffawed, and the production assistant stopped to stare at her. Embarrassed, she pretended to cough and waved a hand in apology. The man continued his instructions, squinting suspiciously at her.

She could feel Max’s body shaking in mirth behind her. As soon as the coast was clear, Sienna slapped the arm around her waist and hissed in annoyance.

“Are you trying to get us kicked off the movie? And you know he didn’t say anything about naked dancing. The extras are supposed to be couples dancing in the park to a summer concert.”

She shivered as Max kissed the sensitive spot behind her ear.

“Tomayto, tomahto,” he said, voice smug. “Want to go back to our hotel for naked dancing?”

Before Sienna could tell him to behave himself, the production assistant announced it was time to head out.

They took their places on discretely placed x-marked spots on the floor. After listening attentively to the director’s instructions, they turned to face each other.

The more it dragged on, the technicians adjusting lighting and whatnot around her, the more nervous Sienna became.

Max placed her hand on his shoulder and put his arm at her waist, ready to swing her into an impromptu dance on a beautiful sunny day. The setup was so similar to what they’d been doing in the waiting area earlier that Sienna’s nerves vanished.

“It’s a good thing we rehearsed earlier,” Max said, a winsome smile hovering on his lips, reading her thoughts perfectly.

Sienna kissed his jaw. “Don’t worry. If you mess up, we can keep practicing back in our hotel. Clothing optional. One more New York Moment.”

“And cut!”

Bonus

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