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cryptidghostgirl · 2 months

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Drawing Down the Moon (Alastor x Ancient Roman!Witch!Reader)

Pairing: Alastor x Reader

Warnings: I don't think there are any? Please correct me if I am wrong. The subject matter is a little niche.

Description: Alastor reencounters an old friend.

Word Count: 2,871

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A/N i’ve been reading about roman magic laws for school okay?? don’t judge me. Maybe one of the nichest things I've ever written (except that one Akutagawa x Reader fic I have on my Wattpad where I made them talk to one another in ancient Greek and Latin (its called Leo, Leonis and tbh, that fic slaps if I do say so myself)). Won't be surprised if no one reads or likes this one but I don't care. This will be a monster of a fic, she's been lurking in the recesses of my mind for a hot second now.

"Why would she lie for so long? Does she think I wouldn't accept her?" Charlie was animatedly talking at Alastor as they walked the streets of Hell, "What about me, ME, says un understanding... misunderstanding?... Disunder- Wait, w-where are we?"

Alastor sprung to life as Charlie finally asked a question he had an answer to. Theatrically, he stepped into her curious line of sight, his arms held wide.

"Cannibal Town!" respectfully, Alastor turned and took Charlie's arm in his own, "There's a friend of mine I think you should meet."

"In Cannibal Town?" Charlie doubtfully asked as Alastor began to lead her towards a crowded shop entrance, "But it's... it's... surprisingly nice here."

"Isn't it, though?" Alastor proudly replied, "And it is all thanks to a very special someone."

Alastor opened the stained glass doors to the emporium, allowing Charlie to walk through them before he followed in her wake. The store was full, packed to the brim with cannibals of all sorts, all of whom seemed to part respectfully in the face of Alastor, allowing him to approach the front counter with Charlie trailing after him.

"Ah, Johnny my good fellow." Alastor hummed to the cashier, leaning casually on the counter.

The demon seated behind the table looked up with a wide smile.

"Mister Alastor, it has been quite a while since we've seen your face around these parts."

Charlie watched the interaction in mild surprise. It wasn't often she had the pleasure of meeting someone Alastor knew who didn't hate him or want him dead. Curiosity clouded her mind as Alastor waved the man off.

"I don't mean to be rude but, we're in a bit of a rush." Alastor said, politeness pooling delicately around his words, "Rosie wouldn't happen to be in, would she?"

"Ah, well, you see, Mister Alastor..." the demon seemed slightly uncomfortable, scratching at his ear slightly, "She's a tad... preoccupied at the moment?"

"A guest?" Alastor asked.

"A guest." Johnny reluctantly confirmed.

"Well, no matter. Is she in the back?"

"Yes," Johnny got to his feet, leaning forward as Alastor linked arms with Charlie once again, leading her behind the counter, "but I really don't think it's a good idea to... and they're gone."

"Wasn't that rude?" Charlie asked as Alastor pulled her behind the curtain that separated the main store from the backrooms and Rosie's apartment, "Oh no, is that guy going to get in trouble? Because of us?"

"Everything will be just fine my dear, don't you worry." Alastor patted her hand reassuringly as they came to stop before a door.

Letting Charlie's arm fall free, he straightened his jacket just the slightest bit before knocking on the door. There was a moment of silent anticipation before a voice from the other side called:

"Who is it?!"

"Alastor, Rosie." Alastor replied calmly.

There was a rustling of fabric, a handful of hasty footsteps, and the door swung open to reveal a woman. She was tall and beautiful in her long dress and her wide brimmed hat.

"Oh my stars!" she exclaimed with a bright smile, "Do my eyes deceive me? Alastor? Alastor! Where have you been? These halls really lost some of their sparkle without your lively presence and-"

The woman, Rosie, trailed off as she caught sight of Charlie standing beside her dear friend.

"Oh, who's this you brought with you? Come now, Alastor, she's much too young for you. Oh, I'm just kidding. But where are your manners, Mister? Introduce us, why don't you?"

"Ah, yes, Charlie, this is Rosie: the most darling, delightful, and dangerous Overlord this side of the pentagram."

At his words, Rosie smiled, giving a perfect curtsy. It was as her form lowered that Charlie caught sight of the interior of the room, and the strange seated figure it housed. Alastor seemed not to have noticed and as Rosie straightened herself up again, she laughed slightly.

"Oh, always such a charmer."

"And Rosie," Alastor continued, "it is my pleasure to introduce you to Princess Charlie Morningstar, daughter of Lucifer and heir to the throne of Hell."

Charlie smiled weakly, waving slightly at the imposing and nearly off-puttingly cheerful woman.

"How do you do?" she asked awkwardly, "I am very sorry for interrupting your meeting, I tried to get Alastor to wait but..."

"Oh, yes!" Rosie suddenly exclaimed, almost as if she had forgotten about her previous guest in all the excitement, "Come on in you two, I'm sure she wouldn't mind."

Charlie was about to protest when Rosie grabbed her by the arm, dragging her into the room. Alastor followed, turning his back as he shut the door behind them. Charlie's mouth fell open slightly as her eyes finally saw the truth of Rosie's guest.

She was tall, probably tall enough to rival Alastor or Rosie herself. Skin tinged slightly blue, she seemed to be covered in a faint gold dust that clung to her draped, toga-like dress and skin in equal amount. Heaps of gold jewelry hung on every inch of her as well, wrapping her wrists, her neck, her ankles, her fingers, even braided into her hair. Resting atop her head was a crown of gold with a half moon on it, her feet were bare. With wide, white eyes that nearly seemed unseeing, the woman watched Charlie carefully.

"Can I offer you something to eat?" Rosie was asking, but Charlie could barley hear her, unable to break eye contact with the woman, "I'm sure I have a leg around here or something..."

"I am afraid were not here for food." Alastor thankfully stepped in, turning to Rosie with closed eyes and a wide smile, "We happen to be in need of some help."

"Alastor?" the woman spoke and her voice resounded in itself, loud yet soft at the same time, singular and yet somehow plural.

"Well, aren't you fresh."

That was the first thing she had ever said to him. Alastor had been wandering Hell, minding his own business when he had heard that voice say those words and felt a fire ignited in him. Slowly, he had turned around to see a pair of towering demons. Overlords, he realized, and big ones at that. Alastor's smile sharpened at its edges as he began to formulate a plan.

Charlie turned at last, as if whatever spell the stranger had cast on her had broken at the sound of her voice, to look at Alastor in mild confusion. She heard his breath hitch in his throat. The man in question was frozen, his ears twitching wildly, his eyes now wide open.

"Is that you?" the demon asked again.

Alastor somehow seemed to reassemble himself before their very eyes. Slowly, he turned to the room's only occupied chair.

"Who are you?"

Alastor feigned innocence, looking up at the titan herself as she took a step forward. In an instant, she stood at his height, looking him dead in the eyes.

"An odd one too." she hummed thoughtfully, white eyes tracking the stars, reading his future it almost seemed, "Most people go with what before who."

Alastor was unsure how to respond to that one. The titan chuckled, a grin flashing across her face. It was unexpected, disconcerting. Alastor hadn't thought her face capable of any expression save solemn disinterest. She turned her head slightly to the side, looking back over her shoulder to her companion.

"Zestial, cara mea?"

The spidery demon took a step forward, meeting her eyes.

"Yes?"

"Don't you have something you need to be getting to?"

Alastor may have been dumbstruck, but he wasn't stupid. He heard the order as clearly as if she had not bothered with the formalities of disguising it. It shocked Alastor to his core. This might be his first time encountering Zestial but, he had heard the demon's name before. Most frequently, it had been spat at him by his victims who claimed that one of Hell's oldest and most respected demons would come for him. So who was this other overlord, the titan? Sure, he'd heard of her before but enough that such blatant disrespect towards Hell's most respected made sense? No. Not at all, in fact.

Zestial paused a moment before bowing his head slightly.

"You're quite right." he hummed, "I will be seeing you presently I expect?"

"Perchance." the titan lazily replied, her gaze having long since switched back to Alastor, set on analyzing his features, "I'll let you know."

With another polite bow, Zestial had turned and began walking in the opposite direction. The titan held an arm out for Alastor. He looked at it curiously before meeting the demon's eye's again. She laughed.

"So suspicious. I thought you we're the one killing overlords, not me."

His eyes went wide.

"How do you..." he cleared his throat, "how did you know?"

It was a stupid question and he knew it. There hadn't been any secret keeping, not really. Sure, he never outright said he was the Radio Demon who broadcasted screams but he supposed there couldn't be many Radio Demon's out there really. It didn't matter that he had only been going after overlords for a month or so now, she was one. Of course she would know.

"Let's go for a walk, shall we?"

All it took was one look. Suddenly, he was new again, spat fresh out of life on Earth and in to Hell's gaping maw. One look at her, and he dissolved at the edges, forming and reforming his own ability to speak and comprehend the world around him.

"It is." the woman hummed, a wide smile breaking across her face, revealing the blackness of her teeth, her mouth.

Alastor soon formed a bit of a soft spot for the inhuman overlord. It was that first meeting, that first walk. He had asked, hunting for information to wield against her, about her life on Earth and in Hell. It was her fault really, for answering. That's what had him stuck.

Y/n had laid her life out for him like a freshly pressed table cloth. She had been raised on the streets of ancient Rome and executed as a witch. She was perhaps the oldest demon remaining in Hell, the exterminations having eventually wiped out even the strongest members of her times. Just as Alastor had been reborn as a deer due to his death, so too was she reborn as what they had accused her of. Every ritual, every spell, prophecy itself all worked for her. It was then Alastor understood the interaction he had witnessed between Zestial and Y/n, then he understood the respect.

He found himself drawn to her more and more and, somehow, he always seemed to be able to find her when he went searching. He assumed it was some strange magical nonsense she controlled. Alastor didn't question it.

Y/n showed him Hell in a way he had never seen it before. She taught him where to gather herbs and how to use them, how to bend the earth to his will, how to spin iunges and call down the storms, the rain, the moon. Alastor devoured, fed by her hand.

It was odd, Charlie had never seen a demon like her before. The white eyes, the teeth black with what seemed to be darkness, the gold. All of it was off putting yet somehow, captivating. Alastor seemed to be acting weird, his eyes flitting wildly across the woman, taking in her every detail. Charlie wasn't sure what to do about that.

In some sense, Alastor seemed to be scared. In another, he was in an overjoyed state of disbelief. Charlie wasn't sure which was more disconcerting, or how to respond to either and so, she simply watched.

"I have a question, mea ocella."

Y/n announced one day and Alastor turned from where he sat spinning stories into his microphone at her feet. That was what she had called him, her little eye. She told him it was a term of endearment. Alastor had no reason to doubt. The red grass swayed slightly in the breeze as he looked up at her, immediately bringing a halt to his broadcast.

"What is it?"

"You've been so set on ending all us overlords for so long now," she hummed, "wouldn't you like to do something different?"

"Something like what?"

"See from the other side of the glass."

Her white eyes glowed blue, the gold on her skin shining out into the world around like stars. Alastor sighed.

"You're prophesying again."

She nodded in agreement. Y/n had never seen the point in lying, she had never known its use. Not since before she could remember, back in the times she lived. They were so distant now, so immaterial and unimportant she rarely payed those memories much mind.

"So, what is it you see me doing?"

"Simple riddle or play on words?"

The two types of prophesy, the two options. Alastor put a finger to his chin, humming in thought.

"Simple riddle. Please, not in dactylic hexameter if you would, decoding that always gives me a headache."

"But that has been the meter of prophecy since Justice herself sat on the Delphic throne, mea ocella." Y/n retorted in surprise, meeting Alastor's eyes.

"Yeah, well."

Y/n laughed lightly, looking back out blankly toward the future.

"As you wish, ocella. Just this once. My gift to you."

Alastor hummed his non-comital thanks, turning his gaze back out the the skyline of the city as well.

"One will be two, two will be four, when that number comes be ready for more. Seven years past under grim sudden stress, four becomes ten, I'll tell you what happens next. Help one bright star to the top, not too far, and you will be free from the one not the three."

"Rhymes? Really?"

Y/n looked down at him, the glow fading from her as their eyes met and the future vanished from the scope of her vision.

"You asked for no hexameter, I still get to have fun."

"Yeah, yeah."

The pair fell into a comfortable silence. Alastor ran the words of her fortune in his head, trying to gain any semblance of reason from them.

"They don't sound very... avoidable."

"That's because it's not one of the ones you can change."

"Oh."

Y/n pulled herself to her feet suddenly, her chiton swirling around her. Alastor watched in awe as her image flickered in the air for a moment between the image of herself just a head shorter than him, the one who loomed around nine feet tall, and some three headed monster at what must've been five stories. Leaning, she held a hand out for him to grasp. It took Alastor a moment to realize, shaking his head slightly as he at last accepted Y/n's help and got to his feet.

"Where are we going?"

"I've decided you are going to be an overlord, mea ocella."

"Why?"

"I think it might help you down the line."

It had been years since Alastor had seen her. Long before he had taken his so called seven year sabbatical, Y/n had vanished. Alastor knew she wasn't dead, he would have been able to tell if she was dead. Surly the world would have shifted in some new and strange way to lose the goddess of the crossroads, the titan, Hekate made flesh and blood. Nothing like that had happened and so he knew she was alive, just not where or how.

Y/n's prophecies were always accurate. Standing here before her now, Alastor recalled her words from all those decades before.

One will be two, two will be four. When that number comes, be ready for more.

One had been just him. Two? When he had died and met his shadow. Alastor realized now that three had been Y/n herself and that the fourth important person who had come into his afterlife was the very person who owned his soul.

Seven years past under grim sudden stress, four becomes ten, I'll tell you what happens next.

Seven years he'd been gone, indeed under an unexpected and disastrous situation. When, after seven long years, he had returned to Hell, he had gone to the hotel. It was at the Hazbin Hotel that he not only met Charlie, Vaggie, Angel, and Sir Pentious but that they became vital parts of his life along with Husk and Nifty who before then had mostly existed on the periphery. Those six, plus the original four, made ten.

Help one bright star to the top, not too far, and you will be free from the one not the three.

All along, all those years ago, she had known. Alastor had always respected Y/n, always harbored a soft and disconcerting love for the witch. Never before now had either felt so overwhelming. Alastor took a trembling step forward from his place at Charlie's side. The world closed in, she was the only thing he could see.

Y/n smiled as he sunk to his knee before her, his head bowed.

"Mea ocella." she happily hummed, lifting his head up gently with the tips of her bluish grey fingers.

"Y/n."

----

This fic will probably have a part two.

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mythserene · 5 months

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A BEATLE DIDN’T SAY THAT! Lewisohn’s lab-created quotes

“One of the things about this book that is a strength is it’s not me saying anything, it’s them or other people. I shape the text, I plot where it goes, I weave it, but the quotes are theirs. And so when I’ve got Paul McCartney behaving in a way some readers might think, ‘Whatever, oh dear,’ it’s actually him saying it. So you end up thinking that to his own credit he said that. It’s not me saying it.” (Mark Lewisohn, ‘Noted,’ (October 7, 2013) Somerset, Guy.)

This is hella long, and that's because it's actually a full blog post. (In case you want it in a less monstrous form.)

A lot of people for a long time have put a lot of trust in Mark Lewisohn’s footnotes. Or at least in the fact of those footnotes. Because once you dig through them for any length of time you quickly discover that Mark Lewisohn’s footnotes hold secrets that would get him expelled from any undergraduate program. They reveal a “history” often contrived through a mass of Frankenquotes, ala carte creations, Lewisohn rephrased ‘paraphrases,’ and worse. For some parts of the narrative things aren’t too bad, yet in others monsters lurk around every corner. But this is not the sort of thing that’s graded on a curve, and it is past time to have a conversation about what standards should be accepted in Beatles’ scholarship.

Lewisohn lists his sources unlike most others. And his footnotes alone are more insightful than some other writers’ books. (Reddit, r/beatles)

I do not judge footnotes based on their insightfulness, nor do I want to single out a redditor, but I grabbed the comment because it’s an opinion that is widely shared and even accepted as canon. At least by people who have not combed those freakish footnotes. And while the pages of piled up sources do look fearsome en masse, a closer inspection reveals an offense to the truth, a threat to the record, and a blight on Beatles’ historiography.

“The rules for writing history are obvious. Who does not perceive that its chief law is never to dare say anything false, and never dare withhold anything true? The slightest suspicion of hatred or favor must be avoided. That such should be the foundations is known to all; the materials with which the building will be raised consist of facts and words.” –Cicero

A Look at Lewisohn’s Lab-created Frankenquotes

FIRST, WHAT ARE QUOTES? AND WHY ARE QUOTES?

Quotes are the soul and center of recorded—and recording— history.

And the rules around quotes and quotation marks are pretty simple. Most people, even if they’ve never written anything beyond a term paper, understand what quotation marks represent.

A set of quotation marks means, “This person said or wrote ‘these exact words’ at some given time.” You can smash a quote from two hours before or two years before right up against a separate quote to make your point—although it might get your grade lowered—but what you cannot do is take two different statements from two different times and make them seem like they are one statement.

When you put words inside one set of quotation marks you are stating, in black and white, that the identified person made this statement. That they said all those words together—or if you want to excise a reasonable part and use ellipses to represent that— as part of the same statement.

Look, combining two separate quotes that are not part of the same thought or topic is not a subjective issue. It is not an issue of controversy. Quotes are the bone marrow of written history. Quotes are the alpha and omega. In academic work or journalism they have to be, which makes sense as soon as you think about it. If it was cool for me to take a transcript and grab half a sentence from page 2 and half a sentence from page 17, push them together as if those words were spoken one after the other in a single thought, I bet I can manage to get those words to say almost anything I want.

Separate thoughts must be in two separate quotation marks. Separate. Somewhere between four sentences and a paragraph is widely accepted as the “two separate quotes” line, and there can be some ethical and technical wiggle room in a long rant by a person, but what makes all that subjective nonsense go out the window is if the quotes come from two separate questions. Or two separate days. That’s two quotes. Not hard.

Which again, makes sense if the point is conveying information to the reader and lessening the chance of a writer manipulating someone else’s words to express something that the person didn’t mean.

This is the contract inherent in a quote. These are the rules we all agree to and understand, and these are the reasons why. And there’s no reason to break them.

Why do you want me to believe that John said these two things at one time? What was wrong with what he did say?

THE FOUR MOST COMMON WAYS MARK LEWISOHN MAULS THE MEANING OF THE QUOTE:

The Basic Lewisohn Frankenquote 🧟‍♂️

(“CONCLUDING FIVE WORDS FROM—” – I cannot even see the point of this THREE PART monster. Full footnote reads: 9) Author interview with Tony Meehan, September 6, 1995. (“I met George again in 1968 and for some reason he was harboring a grudge against me. He was very, very uptight about it—’You blocked us getting a recording contract …’ ”) First part of George quote from interview by Terry David Mulligan, The Great Canadian Gold Rush, CBC radio, May 30 and June 6, 1977; concluding five words from interview for The Beatles Anthology)

This three-headed monster attributed to George Harrison is a very dull little guy. Not particularly venomous. Just convenient, I guess. For whatever reason, Mark Lewisohn decided it was worth rummaging through the quote buffet until he collected enough pieces for George Harrison to say this thing. “…concluding five words from…” What are we even doing here? No, really. Please tell me.

And like a lot of the footnotes for these bespoke quotations, there are further problems. “[F]rom interview for Beatles Anthology”? An interview that aired? In one of the episodes? Can you narrow it down? I guess I’ll just have to listen very closely to them all and hope I don’t miss the five words.

But if we got bogged down in the sorts of trivial details that would immediately lose a college student a letter grade off a History 101 paper we would never get anywhere. We have to stick to the violent felonies.

*Love the "George would say——" Uh, would he? Well, I guess after all that trouble you went to, he would now. It's really incredible how cavalier Lewisohn is about a Beatle's words.

These sorts of reconstituted, lab-engineered, made up “quotes” are shot throughout Tune In. “Quotes” made up of words from two, three, and even four sources, spoken months or often years apart.

Ala Carte Creations 🍱

It really is a buffet, and these ala carte creations come in all shapes and sizes. They might just be words that have been plucked up and glued back together to make something more useful to a particular narrative. (Ellipses or dash optional.)

TUNE IN: “John saw a bigger picture, and it would be surprising if it wasn’t equally obvious, or made obvious, to Brian and George. He likened Paul’s enduring snag with Brian to his other long-standing difficulty: ‘[Brian] and Paul didn’t get along—it was a bit like [Stuart and Paul] between the two of them.’” (Footnote 37: Interview by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld, September 1971)

Bonus 🍒 Phoebe's dramatic reading of John's original quote:

The Donut 🍩

Then there are a seemingly uncountable number of “quotes” with a sentence or three ripped out from the middle, but with zero representation that more words were ever there. (And in most of these particular deceptions, the simple representation of something excised (. . .) would make the quote fine. There are a lot of these, but they are also the easiest to fix.)

Chapter 10: “I was in a sort of blind rage for two years. [I was e]ither drunk or fighting. **It had been the same with other girlfriends I’d had.** There was something the matter with me.”

And then there are the true buffet bonanzas, words lifted and twisted beyond recognition until they say something brand spanking new.

However, John remembered Paul’s attitude to Brian being very different. John was always emphatic that Paul didn’t want Brian as the Beatles’ manager and presented obstacles to destabilize him, to make his job difficult … like turning up late for meetings. “Three of us chose Epstein. Paul used to sulk and God knows what … [Paul] wasn’t that keen [on Brian]—he’s more conservative, the way he approaches things. He even says that: it’s nothing he denies.”

The Lewisohn Remixes 🍸

And then there are the “paraphrases.” I couldn’t even begin to guess how many of these there are, and often they aren’t even paraphrases, but whole new Mark Lewisohn re-interpretations with quotation marks slapped around them. But if you don’t check, you probably won’t know, because like this Lewisohn rewrite of a well-known Mrs. Harrison quote, there’s a good chance you’ll recognize the bulk of it, making it less likely that you’ll catch the scalpel work excising Paul. And while I don’t want to get caught in the nooks and crannies of intent in an example like this one I have to say, just this once, that what has to be a purposeful excising of Paul to create a slightly new quote on one side, combined with a badly acted, bad faith—(or bad scholar)—“Where was Paul when John’s mom died?” on the other, is par for the course.

George Harrison’s mom’s made up Lewisohn rephrase which coincidentally removes Paul from the imagery.] ❦ LEWISOHN:“ Asked some years later to describe how he’d been able to help John cope with the loss of Julia, Paul could remember nothing of the period at all. It could be they didn’t see much of each other in the summer of 1958. John was working at the airport, and Paul and George went on holiday together—adventurous for boys of 16 and 15. But Louise Harrison would recall how she encouraged George to visit John at Mendips, “so he wouldn’t be alone with his thoughts.” ❦ DAVIES: “They were still practicing a lot at George’s house, the only house where they got endless hospitality and encouragement. . . . I forced George to go round and see him, to make sure he still went off playing in their group and just didn’t sit and brood. They all went through a lot together, even in those early days, and they always helped each other.”

Why do you have to slice and dice and reconstitute people’s words? No writer, and certainly no historian, should ever feel empowered to take words from a historical figure from two or three different places and topics and times, splice them together, and tell us, “Winston Churchill said this.” No he didn’t! Why are you so intent on changing the words of the people you’re writing about? What’s wrong with just using two different quotes?

You cannot take two or three quotes from two or three or even four separate statements, stick them between one set of quotation marks and say John or Paul or George or Joe Smith said this.

No they didn’t. They never said that. Why do you want me to think they did??

All these words are Abraham Lincoln’s, but this is not a Lincoln quote:

“Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of — making a most discreditable exhibition of myself.”

(I kept it ridiculous, although I didn’t have to.)

But I want you, the reader, to be saying to yourself, “Okay, enough already. I get it!” Because in the last few days I have wandered too far into the weeds too many times and written far too many words detailing the multiplicity of ways Mr. Lewisohn does violence to each and every law of reporting historical facts, and could write many more. And I will post a more detailed list of the crimes against the quote that I am charging Mark Lewisohn with as we go forward, but I don’t think we need that now. The fact is that every fair-minded person knows what quotation marks represent, and there is no more fair-minded group of people than serious Beatles fans and scholars. And it is those fair-minded scholars who I want most to hear me. Whether you’ve written books or host a podcast or just know that you know a whole lot of stuff and take seriously your part of the trust in preserving the truth about The Beatles for us and future generations, it is you I am really talking to. My Cicero quoting-freaks. The ones who care about getting it right.

“The chief, the only, aim of style is to put facts in a clear light, with no concealment.” - Lucian of Samosata

⁠What footnotes can do, and what footnotes can’t.

You can list multiple sources in a single footnote. That’s not only fine, it’s correct. If I want to tell part of a story based on several sources, that often means several sources in a footnote. But not for one, single quote.

The problem isn’t the footnote, it’s the bioengineered quote on the page that you swept under a footnote hoping I wouldn’t notice.

Which leads us to what a footnote is not. A footnote is not a post-hoc fixative for your textual sins. You cannot do whatever you want as long as you confess it in a footnote. A footnote is not a magic spell. A footnote is not the universally understood symbol for “I have my fingers crossed behind my back.” You cannot fix lies and misrepresentations in the footnotes. Footnotes aren’t for trying to chase down three different sources to match up which part of a manufactured “quote” someone said on which date. Footnotes are not the picture on the front of a puzzle box. I should not need to find corner pieces to figure out which of these George Harrison words were actually spoken together.

Footnotes are a truthful and independently verifiable record of primary sources. It’s that simple.

And taking Mark Lewisohn completely out of the picture for a moment, I feel sure we can all agree that neither John Lennon nor Paul McCartney nor George Harrison nor Ritchie Starkey would want anyone rearranging their words as if they were guitar chords. You wouldn’t take three-quarters of Penny Lane and one-quarter of Across the Universe, put them together and call it a Beatles‘ song. So don’t take three quarters of John to Jann Wenner and one-quarter of John to Lisa Robinson, put them together and call it a Beatle’s quote.

MY PERSONAL STANDARD IS THAT IF SOMEONE REPRESENTS, “A BEATLE SAID THIS,” IT BETTER DAMN WELL BE SOMETHING A BEATLE SAID.

None of the Beatles, dead or alive, would be cool with their words being taken out of context at all, let alone two or three different statements on god knows what being combined into one. This isn’t hard, though. Use two or three separate quotation marks, and don’t take statements out of context. Don’t mix and match their words, but don’t twist them, either. If a person said something, it is the historian’s duty to represent those words to the best of your ability, and then use them to tell a factual story focused on what you feel is important. Staying true to the original words and true to their meaning. If you can’t use those words without twisting them, then change your story to fit their words, not the other way around. If their statement helps tell the story your way, use it! For goodness sake, John Lennon said at least two opposing things about almost every topic on earth, so there should be enough to choose from without being deceptive. I actually want the truth. Don’t you?

Biography is story based around accurately represented, trustworthy and verifiable facts. And look, Beatles fans, whoever your favorite is: we are not going to get the truth about his history if we don’t learn to take these things seriously. Let’s have—if not high standards—at least the lowest generally accepted standards. In the mid-term we need a lot more Beatles scholars with a lot more points of view, and now—right now—we need experienced Beatles scholars to prioritize searching out and finding smart, interested people to mentor. And we simply must ensure that we aren’t allowing to solidify into stone “facts” that are not facts and statements no one ever made. I don’t think any honest Beatles fan—(which rounds up to all of them)—wants any question around that issue.

The record is the most important thing. Now, and always. This is not about John versus Paul. John versus Paul may live on always in our hearts, but for Beatles history, it’s the wrong question. I’d rather someone be up front about their loves, but in the end the focus should be on representing the primary facts in their most pristine form. Love who you love most, but place truth above all. Pristine facts. Pristine quotes. Nothing hidden. Nothing misrepresented.

Let the historical actors speak for themselves. That is their right.

And the historian’s duty.

NEXT, WE DISSECT A MONSTER.

Final note: I became frustrated and (maybe strangely) offended by Lewisohn's obscene pretenses in 2020, but my frustrations were nebulous and unfocused until this incredible AKOM series. I feel much better now. Angrier. But better. They worked their asses off. 🥂

#lewisohn #akom #the beatles #tune in #fine tuning #frankenquotes #lewisohn's monsters #historiography #paul mccartney #john lennon #george harrison #ringo starr #mark lewisohn #a beatle never said that #beatles #brian epstein #allen klein #Spotify

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i-smoke-chapstick · 24 days

Text

'DON'T BLAME ME, [PART SIX]

-GOTHAM!JERVIS TETCH X READER-

⋆ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 ; Reader and Lee get tied up in a revenge plot.

⋆ tags/warnings. GOTHAM!jervis x female reader. SLOW BURN!!! Not sure how many chapters this will be yet! LOTS OF PLOT SET-UP!! AGE GAP ROMANCE! (reader is Jim and Barbara's daughter) Is reader really young and naive, or is she just young and angry? Lack of Jervis in this one, I apologize. I love Lee and Readers dynamic. The slow burn is slow burning. She fell first, he fell harder. More of reader dissociating. AU where The Ogre's still alive. Reader and Lee being mortal frenemies. Writing this kind of artistically and as character studies for everyone. Small time skip. Reader continues to reference Jervis as "Mr. Tetch." Just you guys wait...they'll get there. I'm taking canon out back and beating it with a stick until it stops twitching.

⋆ tag list (tell me if you want to be removed!) @adalwolfgang @jervis-tetch-my-beloved @honestmrdual @moonlightnyx @all-things-fandomstuck @killingboredom @sweetlimeharvest

⋆ 'PART ONE, - 'PART TWO, - 'PART THREE, - 'PART FOUR, - 'PART FIVE, - 'PART SIX, - 'PART SEVEN, - 'PART EIGHT, - 'PART NINE, -'PART TEN, - 'PART ELEVEN, - 'PART TWELVE, - 'PART THIRTEEN,

♫ “I once was poison ivy, but now I'm your daisy.” Don't Blame Me by Taylor Swift

Nothing seems real anymore.

You'd heard of the crazies running around in Gotham. Whether that was from your father, mindlessly ranting over a stack of police files. Or your mother, who frequently talked to said crazies on a daily basis.

Prior to Mr. Tetch, you'd only ever dealt with one first hand. At least, one that was actively trying to murder your family. And that was none other than Jason Skolimski. The Ogre. You feel your body involuntarily shake when you even think about him.

You're unsure what happened to him, exactly. You were just thirteen when everything got turned on its head. But you do know one thing. His body was shipped to Indian Hill. Your mother and father never mention it. You wonder if your mother ever thinks about it. The small possibility...that man could still be alive.

She'd probably thank him. It was because of him that she embraced her "true self".

You bite your lip, lost in your head. Somethings been missing ever since Mr. Tetch turned out to be...whatever he is. Ever since he left, Tabitha’s seemed happy. Your mom hasn’t. Appearently his hypnotism act was attracting a bunch of publicity to the club.

You should've been thankful, like Tabitha. Good riddance. That should've been the end of it. But you had begged Jim to take you to the GCPD, to ask Alice questions. You needed answers. More than he did.

You always hated the GCPD. The last time you went to the department, you were young and naive. It was ‘take your child to work day.’ You watched a serial cannibal try to bite Harvey Bullock's finger off. Tale as old as time.

It didn't matter, regardless. Jim didn't let you go again. You remember the vague shouting match between you two. Good thing, maybe. Judging by the fact Mr. Tetch hypnotized a family of strongmen to kill everyone in the place. And then Alice impaled herself on a pole. All in the papers.

What does it matter? You're not sure why you let the whole situation get under your skin.

A few dreams, a few encounters, a few shared looks. You find yourself scoffing at your own blind idiocy. Maybe you are still young and naive.

You've been taking your rightful place at the bar, next to Butch. You two have been tossing back shots of tequila, mindlessly ranting at the same time to one another. Again, there’s comfort in knowing you both want to speak to someone that you can’t have.

"I don't understand. She doesn't even look at me anymore. I mean, she just looks at Barbara. Sorry, I know she's your mom, or whatever."

"Don't apologize. I don't understand either. Where the hell even is he?"

"Your dad?" Butch furrows his eyebrows.

No, you think. Mr. Tetch. You don't vocalize that though. You lie with a nod.

Maybe the alcohol caught up to you. You should've known better. Day-drinking never ends well. You cringe, remembering Harvey slurring his words, knocking on your dads apartment door. Either way, you aren't in control of your own body. Before you know it, you're leaving the club, tossing a wad of cash to Butch. He wolf whistles and takes it gladly.

You're just walking down the street. Maybe drunkenly. Kicking loose pebbles on the sidewalk, swinging around streetlamps. You'd expect a weird look or two from bystanders. But you realize no ones on the street except for you.

It's Gotham. You should be more concerned by the fact your alone. But it's broad daylight. Surely nothing could go wrong-

Before the thought can be fully thought out, a pair of arms grabs you from behind. You find yourself kicking and screaming, being dragged by a heavy-set man. Yay.

Huffing through the set of hands over your mouth, you're shoved into a trunk, light significantly dimming as it's closed. You hear the lock click, and you stop fussing. Attempting to calm yourself, you search your pockets for your phone. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. Your mom is a crime lord. Your dad is a cop, or rather, was one. You'll be fine.

You can't seem to find your phone in your pockets though. You feel your heartrate speed as you frantically start to search. The bar. You left it at the fucking bar. Nice fucking job Y/N. You definitely wouldn't survive in a horror movie.

You give up. You're defeated. Maybe they'll be a pair of nice human traffickers. Take pity on you. You sigh and throw your head back for the rest of the car ride. Squeezing your eyes shut, you manage to accept whatever fate is in store for you.

You had a good run, champ. A voice that sounds an awful lot like your fathers praises in the back of your mind.

Like a ragdoll, you're roughly placed on the floor. Eyes still trying to get used to the bright light, you feel both dizzy and discombobulated. Your head is pounding from any alcohol you had prior. Picked a great day to drink.

Blinking wildly, the first thing you manage to digest is being chained to a bathtub.

"Y/N?" A voice asks, and your eyes snap up. Staring wide eyed at you, just tied up as you are, is Lee Thompkins.

A million thoughts rush through your head. The first one you promptly register is what is this bitch doing here?

"Lee?" You mumble. You think this might be a hallucination, but if you were going to hallucinate someone, it wouldn't be her.

You two stare at each other for a moment. Tense, awkward. The last time you saw her was when your father witnessed her having moved on. You still remember the feeling, standing on your tiptoes to look through a window. Seeing your fathers heart break before your eyes.

You never really talked to her. She always tried to talk to you though. A lot. Too much. But she could never be the Barbara you used to know. No matter how hard she tried.

"What the fuck is going on?" You whisper yell. Lee looks at you, swallowing.

"Tetch blames Jim for Alice, and we're his means for revenge."

At the mention of his name, your blood runs cold. You didn't expect to ever see him again. Let alone see Lee. You watch, petrified, as Lee fidgets around through the bathroom cabinet.

For the most part the room is silent, other than the clanking of items being searched through.

"Leave it." Is all you say, watching her look uncontrollably for something to pick the lock. She sighs.

"You expect me to just sit here and die?"

"Yes." You hiss. She doesn’t turn to look at you, but you can imagine her face, disappointed and irritated. You don't care. You get mean when you're nervous.

"…It's not my fault. Jim is who he is, Y/N. I can't change that. Neither can you."

The truth stings harder coming from her of all people.

"Oh, give yourself some credit, Ms. Thompkins," You say the name snappish. "Without you, I hardly doubt we'd be in this mess."

That makes her perk up. Her nostrils flare, and the clanking sounds louder.

"You don't seriously blame me for this?" She still doesn't make eye contact with you, but she motions wildly to the locks on your ankles. You give a nonchalant, bitter shrug.

"If you didn't leave him, he wouldn't have become a bountyhunter."

"You don't know that." Her eyes soften in hurt. It fuels you.

"No. But I know you're a whore." The words escape your mouth before you internalize them. There's a long beat of silence before she finally turns to look at you, still sitting on the ground. She huffs.

"Maybe you're just really scared and this is your way of coping," She starts, "Or maybe you're just insanely committed to taking care of your father. Either way, all I'm interested in is getting out of here."

You look at each other with a mutual mix of regret.

"Try a cuticle pusher." You finally say, smiling humorlessly. "My dad's was a cop, after all. Taught me how to pick locks. I can walk you through it."

She nods. You nod. It's not the same feeling of understanding you get when talking with Butch. But...it's not too far off either.

"You really are his daughter." She sighs, snatching a cuticle pusher up from the counter.

"Thanks."

"It's not a compliment."

"Remember you have to-"

"I got it." Lee cuts you off, fiddling with the lock. You put your hands up in mock defense. At least your humors returning back to you.

"Can I ask you something?" You start off, slow. She glances at you for a moment, before returning to her chains.

"As long as it's not about why I left your dad." She mutters.

"Not exactly," You pause, looking for the right words to say. "Why did you return to Gotham? You looked all cozy down south."

"It's really none of your business."

You let out a loud scoff at that.

"You were ready to become my stepmother less than a year ago," You continue. At this, her movements falter. "You could've chosen any city. Any job. But you chose Gotham."

"You realize we both might die today, right?"

"Yes. And I don't want to die not knowing why you left us, just to come back and dangle it in front of my dad."

Her movements stop completley.

"I didn't come here for James Gordon." She's firm in her stance. In one last fluid moment, the lock unclicks before our eyes. She heaves a small sigh of relief.

She offers you the cuticle pusher. You take it. About three seconds in, it breaks. Shit.

Not the worst fate in the world, you think. You'd be able to see Mr. Tetch again. Ask him all the unanswered questions. That is, if he doesn't immediately kill you. Maybe you’re a fool to think a part of him enjoyed your company.

"You can still escape." You nod to Lee, hopeful she'll leave, hopeful she'll stay. With what you said to her earlier, you wouldn't blame her.

"I'm not leaving you here," She speaks. Her tone is gentle. Somewhat motherly. The sentiment actually makes guilt bubble up inside you. "There's got to be something else."

Looking around the room madly, you two are interrupted in your searching's.

"My, my," A voice drawls. You know that voice. "You two have been busy."

There he is.

Jervis stands tall, looking down at the both of you. You meet his gaze. For the first time in quite awhile, that feeling of electricity shoots through you again. You want to tear yourself apart. Find whatever part of your brain is fascinated with the idea of this man. Cut it out of you, examine it, and throw it away.

"Now, if you'd kindly join me in the dining room?" He speaks. You notice his eyes are focused solely on you, effectively ignoring Lee. He still looks relatively angry though.

Despite his demeanor, he offers you a hand to help you up. Lee watches his movements. You take his arm without question. That seems to spark something in his eyes. In Lee's eyes, too.

...You're unsure if that's a good or bad sign.

#gotham #x reader #gotham x reader #batman #batman rogues #batman rouges gallery #batman x reader #gotham villains x reader #dc comics #jervis tetch x reader #jervis tetch #the mad hatter x reader #fic series #dc mad hatter #gotham jervis tetch #gotham mad hatter #jervis tetch imagine #gotham jervis

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archonsbitch · 2 years

Text

ℭ𝔞𝔱𝔢𝔫𝔞

note: I've decided to cross-post it on AO3, so you can find it there under the same name ;3

not proofread huhu

warnings: light cursing, reader panics

previous chapters: Introduction Chapter 1

Chapter 2: Survival Instinct

In any other situation you would even joke about Aether being way kinkier than you initially expected with all this sword-play that was going on… but the stern look that he was currently giving you made you reconsider resorting to humor.

Jokes aside, the idea of you having your throat sliced as a toast bread didn’t look very appealing. In all honesty, it was actually terrifying.

But why would Aether, the main protagonist that rushes to help basically any NPC you could meet in Teyvat whether they ask him to bring over a few apples or to clean the dirt near the Barbatos’s cathedral, hold you at a.. sword point? It just didn’t make sense. And in your dream all of the sudden? Was it quickly becoming a nightmare?

You were not much of a fighter, because why would a modern person leaving in the 21st century have a reason to become familiar with sword fighting styles? And, honestly, even if you did know some basics, you had a sneaky suspicion that if you tried to fight him, you would have been fucked either way, albeit he was the protagonist in all its glory. So, mustering all of the diplomatic skills you had, you have finally voiced your indeed very eloquently worded reaction:

- Aether, I do not know what has gotten into you, buddy, but I swear: I am not a threat and I would never harm you!

Was it an argument worth to go done in history of debate clubs’ best quotes of the year? No. Best argument of a month? Also no, but that was not the point! It should have been a decent conversation starter and that was precisely what mattered to you at the moment.

Yet, your words seemed to fall deaf on his ears as he hadn’t moved a single muscle in response.

And that was the moment it hit you.

Did he even understand you? Earlier you were not able to decipher what Paimon was telling him, so does it mean that he just didn’t know the language that you were speaking? And how were you supposed to communicate now?! The stress was starting to overwhelm you at this point and his gaze paired with the sword right at your throat were not helping one bit. Well, the plan failed. So you squeezed your eyes shut, ready for your fate to come at you right then and there.

Worst case scenario – you would wake up in your warm bed, unharmed and slightly shaken from this meet up… Right?... Suddenly you were not so sure about that anymore.

***

You were.. a strange one.

Sitting on a rock Aether was reminiscing about the times he spent alongside with Lumine, his twin sister, when all of a sudden a bright flash lit up the beach. Cautiously, warning Paimon to stay on her guard, the man decided to approach the spot where was now laying something that vaguely resembled a body.

The person was sleeping peacefully, absolutely unaware of their surroundings. Glancing at the stranger, Aether came up with several conclusions: a) judging by the physical condition of their body, said person was clearly not a warrior; and b) judging by their appearance neither were they from Teyvat.

And the latter thought was enough for him to visibly tense. Who were you? Where did you come from? What were your intentions? Were you a visitor just like him? Or did you happen to follow him and his sister with ill intentions? At that he decided that the most reasonable solution would be to simply wait until you wake up, watching from the sidelines.

During the slime fiasco Aether has mentally expanded his list of conclusions: you seemed to not be able to speak or to understand Teyvatian and couldn’t (or didn’t want to, perhaps?) fight of the most primitive creature, opting to run in his direction instead. Being in his head he almost missed what you said after he was done with the hydro slime.

“ Ffght ghjfo fhjffj fht hhkkll Aether!”

Aether

The sword was in his hand in an instant.

***

Hands up in "I surrender, please don't kill me" position you have finally opened your eyes after a few minutes of nothingness.

1) You were still in your stupid dream that was starting to get on your nerves

and 2) You were very thankful that the blonde guy has seemingly decided that holding you hostage was a no-no, however, he was now looking at you expectantly.

You mentally cursed yourself for skipping all of the sign language classes your college provided and decided that the best thing you could muster at that moment were… charades.

Pointing at yourself and then at him you tried to replicate the handshake movement with both of your hands. Was it awkward? Yep. Did you have a choice? No. However the blonde seemed to understand what you meant.

In return, he pointed at you, then on himself saying a single word ‘Aether’.

Oh.

OOOH.

Suddenly everything seemed to have fallen into place for you. Of course he hasn’t introduced himself and you happened to address him by his name. No shit he got suspicious. He was yet to become the known Traveler in Teyvat. Bloody brilliant, mate, you have truly outdone yourself this time.

But why would it matter for a character in your dream? Or… what if it was not a dream? Yeah, well, no.

No.

Looking around you could feel the gentle breeze, hear the soothing sound of waves. Your ankle still stung in the place where the hydro slime attacked you. You could feel the coldness from the steel of a blade when it was at your throat. Paimon and Aether were speaking in a language you didn’t understand.

You could feel the gentle breeze, hear the soothing sound of waves. Your ankle still stung in the place where the hydro slime attacked you. You could feel the coldness from the steel of a blade when it was at your throat. Paimon and Aether were speaking in a language you didn’t understand.

Impossible.

Out of the question.

Just, no.

You were not dreaming of Genshin Impact, you were in Genshin Impact. And by the looks of it you were right at the beginning.

Dvalin… the Rite od Descension.. Baal.. all the shit that was about to go down in Sumeru. No.

Entertaining the idea of visiting a game universe for a day, was very compelling. But the key words here are “visiting” and “for a day” not “experiencing” and “for God knows how long”.

How do you go back? Can you go back? How long will you be stuck here? What about your loved ones? Would they forget about you? Would they be searching for you? Would they need to hold a funeral… No, just.. No. It would break their hearts. And what if something happens to them while you are gone? And you will never know about it? Who is going to take care of them? And what about your sweet pet? What will happen to them? What about your job? Are you going to be fired? What about your taxes? Your rent? What will happen to your furniture, to your belongings?..

And all of a sudden, settling on a ground, you were breaking apart.

Survive. You would need to survive. No matter what. You would find a way back home. No “if”s and no “buts”. And, yet, being alongside the main protagonist reduced your chances of survival by approximately 99%.

So what were you going to do? You could probably lay low in Mondstadt as you were sure that you could find a job they wouldn’t require any communication on your part, you could even try asking for help from the Knights of Favonius when you have learnt the basics of a language, probably..

But right now, the best course of action would be getting away from Aether who was already cursed with the “main character” trope.

Shakily getting up from a ground you noticed that the blonde, as well as Paimon, seemed a bit worried about your state. Reasonably, neither of them chose to intervene with your personal Mental Spiral Abyss, but, by the looks of it, they did understand that you have probably had your own realization about this ordeal.

Thumbs up on your part would reassure them enough, right?

Waving your hand at them, you decided to go in the opposite direction, hoping that they would follow the plot. It seemed that they should be heading towards the statue of Anemo Archon?

However, your plans were never destined to come true.

The moment you and Aether turned your backs on each other, several events happened all at once: a bright flash lit up the deserted beach while something yanked you and Aether back to the place that you've just left. Crouching down from the back pain that followed the unexpected landing on the sand, you noticed that your right arm had somehow become.. heavier?

Your gaze dropped to your wrist, which was now decorated with a huge, golden chain. The opposite end of was connected to Aether’s wrist, who also looked absolutely dumbfounded at this new acquisition.

In a blink of an eye the chain connecting your wrists disappeared as quickly as it appeared before.

- What have you done to me?! , - Aether was justifiably furious. But, buddy, you too were not in the mood to talk right now.

- Well, you get the same question in return, Golden Boy! I have no idea, you are the one who was travelling through millions of universes before, not me!

- Sorry to interrupt both of you, but Paimon doesn’t get it: how are you suddenly able to talk to each other?

and here comes one of the Twists ( ` ω ´ )

I never really understood why the protagonist would suddenly voluntarily drag along a stranger, and how a person who finds themselves in another reality could calmly realize that they may never return home again? so, being the genius that I am, I have solved this issue by.. chaining our heroes to each other

when will I post the next chapter?.. consistency? who is she

#genshin impact x reader #genshin impact isekai #genshin impact sagau #genshin impact x you #genshin impact imagines #genshin sagau #genshin isekai #genshin imagines #genshin impact #aether #genshin fanfic #genshin x you #aether x reader #various genshin characters

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a-slut-for-smut · 7 months

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I just read your mei mei meta. 100% spot on. And I honestly I think the Shonen genre for all its violence... does a disservice automatically to women. It collapses characters into black and white cararitures sometimes..... so everyone sees a person who isn't 100% altruistic as bad. We go looking for the badness and that's even more enforced with women. Also I too am horny for mei mei. I wish jjk was more sexy. I wanna see characters be outwardly horny for each other. Up the stakes!

YAAAAAS preach it sister!!! Everything you said absolutely passes the vibe check- so much so i gotta break it down and expand on it 😁 (and heres to link to said mei mei meta jic)

And I honestly I think the Shonen genre for all its violence... does a disservice automatically to women. It collapses characters into black and white cararitures sometimes..... so everyone sees a person who isn't 100% altruistic as bad.

You wont find any argument here, in fact i would go as far to say most media nowadays suffer from this exact issue. But the real crux of the problem seems to lie in the lack of reader discernment. I dont know if its a subconscious or willful failure to understand "nuance", but its apparently lost to an audience that is obsessed with labeling/compartmentalizing everyone and everything to the point where they're essentially reducing characters (even actual people) to a single trope and judging them entirely on that when there are so many parts to a whole...feels bad man.

We go looking for the badness and that's even more enforced with women.

this is one of my biggest gripes- like i said on my meta, there are DEF some puritanical vibes behind the Mei Mei hate- its starting to feel insidiously sexist with the way the fandom is deadset on villainizing her because she doesnt "conform" within the norms of whats "good", and to a larger extent "good woman".

She isnt that maternal, nurturing, self sacrificial woman that reeks of patriarchal ideals therefore she must be bad.

She prioritizes money and considers a persons worth based on what benefit they bring to her as if this is the most unnatural way to be (thats the sad truth!) therefore she is greedy and selfish.

She has a "weird" relationship with her brother because their level of closeness makes them uncomfortable and therefore predatory.

And whats so funny to me is Mei Mei is- for all intents and purposes, a MERCENARY. She's not a teacher, shes not an instructor- she is a contract sorcerer for hire so money being a priority for her would be painfully obvious?? Shes not responsible for the students nor aligns herself with the politics of the jujutsu world- shes looks out for herself/get paid and this makes her evil?? Also cant help think that theres a certain type of person who feels threatened by a overly confident and shameless woman as a personal attack on themselves/their ideals and feels compelled to tear them down by any means possible, but maybe thats just me.

Idk, maybe it cant be helped when they see Nanami (whom are essentially foils of each other) willing forgo money and put his life on the line for the students but this still doesnt make her "evil" and so reductionist btw 🙄.

And to highlight the hyprocrisy of it all- if she was a man, the fandom would be slobbering all over her and if you need proof see: Toji, Geto/Kenjaku, Sukuna, even Gojo to an extent but the list goes on and on. Somehow these men get the pass and the fandom go to great lengths to humanize/emphasize with them, but the women? LOL

Also I too am horny for mei mei. I wish jjk was more sexy. I wanna see characters be outwardly horny for each other. Up the stakes!

oh honey, i am WITH you 100%!!! im not even trying to be petty, but the more the fandom hates on her the more i love her lol she is so HNGHHH, together we can make jjk sexy and outwardly horny for each other 🙌

#TLDR: leave my wife alone she owns what she is and its HOT #thanks for the ask!#mei mei #jjk mei mei #mei mei jjk #jjk meta #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #nanamei

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crazykuroneko · 11 months

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Perhaps its bc the tv landscape is just too crowded but for such a seemingly popular book series (and movie), the show's audience seems really small? Like it can't get major nominations at award that's solely made up of LGBT critics (losing their one nomination to the other two that ppl weren't even sure would get renewed)! It can't even get better ratings than that flop mayfair witches (both on streaming and linear), which is a much less popular book series and a total critics dud. Its actually quite concerning that the viewers dropped from pilot (600k) to finale (400k) so significantly.

I wonder what's going on cause sure amc is struggling but walking dead + spinoff numbers are still very good for cable these days, better call saul had consistently good viewership.. is it just too gay? was the wider vc fanbase too racist to get on board? is the abuse/toxicity too much for viewers who would normally be into a more fun vampire romance like true blood?

1. I don't know which awards you mean, but the ones they got noms for all are won by major studio shows. Even though a show is probably on the brink of cancellation or even trash, they still get more publicity if they come from a big studio just from the fact they're on a platform who has way more subscribers than AMC+.

2. AMC didn't do a simulcast for IWTV premiere yet they did for MW (broadcast on ALL AMC's cable and streaming channels). IWTV and MW average rating for all ages only has 0.01 difference. IWTV has a higher average rating than MW for the 18–49 age group, which is used by advertisers. A lot of the general audience and other Anne's fans saw the good reactions IWTV received and only signed up when MW was released to save money.

3. MW maybe bad to us, but Daddario is a B or C-list Hollywood actress. I personally know people who will watch any films/shows with her in it without caring about the quality. MW is also geared to a different group of audience than IWTV *cough* households of white straight people *cough*, so I'm not surprised if it does better on cable.

4. Being said that, it's obvious AMC knew "prestige TV" angle is better fit for IWTV, because as someone pointed out months before, judging from the numbers of IWTV crews, IWTV definitely got way more budget than MW. IWTV is still AMC's best hope for awards shows after BSC cos Lucky Hank (starring Bob Odenkirk) flopped. They'll probably push the Orphan Black spin off starring Krysten Ritter as well for critics (said to be released later this year).

Anyway, I don't even know what I'm trying to say with this because I'm not AMC, I don't have the numbers and statistics so I can't give you real answers. I can't find AMC+ ratings on Nielsen either so it's really only AMC who knows the real numbers.

From what I see though the word of mouth promotion works and that's the best way to reach the right people who will like IWTV. But the thing is they'll usually be stopped by the fact it's on AMC+ (either they can't afford to pay more service or it's not available for them). And judging from reactions from social media, IWTV should have better numbers in acquisitions (new subscribers) and views than MW, given it still gains new viewers over time and fans like to rewatch.

#moi.txt #i tried 🤷‍♀️#anyway ALWAYS lead people to AMC+ or Amazon to watch IWTV #or tell them to just use VPN and watch on ABC iview #this sounds like kpoppies but we do need those viewing numbers recorded

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josefavomjaaga · 2 years

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@northernmariette asked me to compile a list of houses the Soults owned, preferably with pictures. That list will be a lot shorter than I wished, because outside of Soult’s home region almost nothing seems to be left.

Still there, but from the looks of it probably somewhat changed: The house of Soult’s mother Brigitte in what used to be called Saint-Amans-la-Bastide (rebaptised Saint-Amans-Soult in 1851, in honour of the village’s most-renowned son). Today’s adresse: 8 Rue du Maréchal Soult (what else)

Saint-Amans, as somebody has recently noted, even today is in the middle of nowhere. This particular region of nowhere is called »la Montagne Noir«, and its inhabitants apparently had a certain reputation for being taciturn, severe and on their guard. Which might explain why Soult got along best with folks from his natale region later.

Anarchasis Combes describes the village of 1769 like this:

In the flat part of the village, between two mountain slopes, stood the church, with its bell tower from the end of the 14th century, an entrance on the south side, surrounded by the cemetery. On the sloping ground, while gaining the edge of the Thoré, one saw, separated from each other by pàtus [I’m not sure of the meaning, sth like a small courtyard?] or by small unpaved streets, five houses with a first floor, with windows and shutters painted with red ochre; they were thus made distinguishable from the lower dwellings, which were reduced to a simple ground floor. Three of these houses belonged to some bourgeois, who oversaw the cultivation of their meager estates, the other two were inhabited by the local notables, the priest and the notary.

So, young Jean-de-dieu, being the son of said notary, definitely belonged to this metropolis’ upper class. After all, his home had a first floor! And judging from the picture above, his birthplace has improved a lot since then, because by now the building even has acquired a second floor, and so did the neighbor houses!

I would have loved to smuggle in a picture of 1796 Solingen and Louise Berg-Soult’s house at this point. However, with Solingen’s town center completely destroyed during WWII, that’s out of the question. Wilhelmine Berg and her daughter Louise lived in a street named »In den Casernen« that does not exist anymore, though I suspect today’s »Kasernenstraße« may still refer to it. The closest thing to a reference I could find is an old photography showing the house of Louise’s uncle Abraham Knecht, the so-called »house on the stairs«, where the wedding took place [to be found in the book »Alt-Solingen und Dorp« by Axel Birkenbeul, the house itself being demolished in 1900]:

From Solingen, Louise followed her military husband around for the next three years, through Germany and Belgium to Switzerland, until the end of 1799, and joined him whenever he stayed in the same place for some time and could make sure Louise would not be in immediate danger. In January 1800, he for the first time could visit Saint-Amans again and introduced Louise to his mother (the two women apparently liked each other immediately). Soult’s home leave was cut short, however, when a courier from Masséna urgently called him to Genoa. Louise remained in Saint-Amans, but when she learned of Soult being wounded and taken captive during the siege of Genoa, she immediately left and reached upper Italy precisely at the time when Soult was exchanged. From now on, she stayed by his side again, first in Turin, then in Taranto, Apulia, until on June 12, 1802, General and Madame Soult finally reached Paris, that neither of them had seen yet. It was also the first opportunity for them to give up their nomad ways and to acquire a home. Particularly as Louise was pregnant for the first time.

But at first, it seems they merely rented an appartement in Rue Caumartin No. 742, from where they at some point moved to Quai Voltaire, No. 3. That’s where their son Napoléon-Héctor was born. As to buying a house, it seems the Soults acquired a »maison de campagne«, in September 1802 before even thinking about a house in Paris. The estate was called »Villeneuve-l’Étang«, close to the parc of Saint-Cloud. It’s gone today, destroyed around 1880. There are some paintings, however:

Both Soult and his wife were very attached to »l’Étang«, and the castle is an important topic in their correspondence. However, during the Restauration, after Soult’s return from exile, they had to sell the estate to the Duchesse d’Angouleme, in December 1821. Apparently they never attempted to get it back later. (I’ve found an interesting detail on this website: apparently, Soult demanded the castle be attached to another parish as he found the way to his church too long, meaning that, unlike some of his fellow generals, he actually did go to church. And Madame Soult had – sheep. Even a couple of merinos. Lannes’ enthusiasm seems to have been contagious. Somehow I now picture all the marshals walking their priced merinos on a leash, like Marie-Antoinette…)

According to Nicole Gotteri, the total price for the estate of Villeneuve-l’Étang was 270,000 Francs. The Soults made a down payment of 135000 francs in September 1802 and paid the remainder in two installments, on February 16 and August 26, 1803, at five percent interest. At which point Gotteri inserts quite an interesting list of income per annum for an officer in Soult’s position:

until 1798: général de brigade: ~12,000 Franc per annum

1799 – 1800: général de division: ~18,000 Franc per annum

1801: lieutenant général in Taranto: ~24,000 Franc per annum

Assuming Soult saved just about everything he had in income since his marriage (1796), that’s still only 96,000 Francs. So where did you acquire the rest of those 135,000 Francs in September 1802, Monsieur, hm? (Just because I have a soft spot for you doesn’t mean I’m not watching you! - Nicole Gotteri vaguely invokes »gratifications«, a term that may very well refer to the same thing that was seen as »French extortions« by those locals of occupied countries who through their war contributions had to finance the extra payments to French soldiers.)

Soult now being one of the four commanders of the »Garde Consulaire«, he also needed a representative »hôtel« in Paris and thus acquired a house in Rue de l’Université, No. 291, later No. 57, though it seems the entrance to the appartements where the family really lived (the rest of the house was rented to tenants) in the beginning was Rue de Lille, No. 498.

Soult bought the Paris house on the same day he paid off his first installment for Villeneuve-l’Étang, 16 February 1803, for 120,000 Francs – not a bad invest, considering that in 1865, the town of Paris had to rebuy it from Soult’s heirs for 1.47 millions, just so it could be torn down to make room for the reconstruction plans of famous baron Haussmann. Yes, this house is gone, too. I could not find any picture but would be very interested if somebody else manages to.

Update: I may have found something, even if it’s called No. 67 here:

Even Gotteri admits that the Soults acquired these very imposing houses before Napoleon truely installed his imperial court and ordered his militay chiefs to become gentlemen and even nobility. They clearly did not mind this development.

It’s quite likely that Soult over the years acquired more estates, particularly in his home region and for his family, but his main residencies (even if he barely ever saw them) were Rue de l’Université and Villeneuve-l’Étang. So let’s fast-forward to the time after Waterloo, when Soult was exiled and nolens volens had to find a place to live. This place was Alleestraße 7 in Düsseldorf, close to the Ratingen gate (»Ratinger Tor«) where, according to a newspaper, he rented a seven-room appartment for his family, lived a very retired life and did not even have his own carriage. (He did at one point join a local club, however.)

I do know there exists a drawing of the house as it looked back then, but I could not locate it online, sorry. In case anybody wants to check the quarter on Google Maps, please don’t get confused, the street has been renamed to »Heinrich-Heine-Allee«.

Which brings us back, full circle, to Saint-Amans. As stated above, finally allowed back to France in 1819, Soult sold his estate of Villeneuve-l’Étang to the Duchess of Angouleme in 1821, for a whopping 740,000 Francs! This decision still cannot have come easy to the family, but with Soult being effectively in disgrace and his income vastly diminished, upkeep for this ostentatious estate would soon become impossible.

Assuming that his days of fame were over (Soult had turned fifty when he came back from exile), he stayed in Saint-Amans longer and longer. From 1827 on, he built his house »Soultberg« on a hill about fifteen minutes from the village church of Saint-Amans.

This is the place where Soult lived most of the time during his remaining years (he probably had not expected there would be so many of them), even when he became minister of war during the July Monarchy. According to Anarchasis Combes he did not want people to refer to it as a castle, because…

A castle, he said, is a fortified building, and I had no ambition to imitate Vauban, by building a pavilion in the middle of a park.

So, this is what a pavilion à la Soult looks like. It is also the place where he died.

And then we have the very last building. Yes, Soult had his own funeral place planned and built during his lifetime.

I think I have already posted that apparently, from this chapel on the side of Saint-Amans’ village church, one can see both the house that Soult was born in and the one that he died in. As if he wanted to overlook his whole life from his last resting place.

On a lighter note: That possessive »S« on the door of the chapel, hooked into the »B« of (Louise) Berg makes me smile every time I see it. Obviously, just because he was dead did not mean he would let go of her!

#napoleon's marshals #jean-de-dieu soult #louise berg-soult #saint-amans

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yurawrites · 2 years

Text

🌺Underworld Flowers🌺

Episode 3

"Camelia"

“Crimson Rose: ideal to declare; Lavender pink: you have crushed me; Multicolored Peony: Your beauty makes me want you…”

Desha flipped through the catalog, grimacing as he read the honeyed descriptions of the flowers that were available. He had a very busy days, the least he wanted to do, it was spend the last hours of that day reading a half-finished catalogue.

He remembered that the florist had told him that it was ordered by popularity of each species so he assumed that it would be less tedious if ,instead of continuing reading the catalog in order, he would start somewhere in the middle. Desha came to a page with slightly more exotic flowers and more "specific" descriptions.

“Royal Mallow: Ambition; Yellow Hyacinth: Jealousy; Dahlia: Instability”

Desha didn't understand why there were flowers for these things. Judging by the handwriting and some drawings in the corners of the catalog pages, he was the first person to read it. Although, more than a catalog, it looked like a research book on plants. Desha would ask the florist about these flowers later, probably teasing her and asking for her opinion on the best flowers to wage war on. He laughed to himself imagining her reaction.

Turning another page, Desha stopped dead.

"Camellia"

Although the illustration of the flower was not entirely accurate, Desha recognized it immediately. As he looked at the illustration, his thoughts took him to a spring day. He was hiding under a bush trying not to laugh or his brother would find him. Suddenly, arms grabbed him from behind, dragging him out of his hiding place. He didn't remember her voice, or what to say about her face, but that image, her with her hair covered with the petals of the camellia bush while she said between laughs "I found you" were some of the few moments in which he remembered her being really happy .

Desha was surprised that this flower did not have a description or a meaning, no doubt this catalog was still a work in progress. He read a few more pages, making a list of the other flowers that would complement the garden before closing the catalog and going to sleep. Tomorrow, as usual, another day of boring meetings and endless paperwork awaited him, of course, with the difference that the florist would be in the palace again.

-------------------------------------------------

"Okay, these are the blueprints I worked on this morning." The florist dropped a couple of scrolls on Desha's desk. Did everything have to be planned so carefully? This made him feel more and more ignorant about gardening.

"Look, I propose that in the side planters we start by planting some scented bushes, so we'll give it a more refreshing touch..." Phoebe kept talking as she enthusiastically showed him the blueprints. “…and right in the center, we could place the flowers that you liked the most. Did you read the catalog, right?"

“Something like that.” Desha handed her the catalog.“I made a list of the flowers I want for the garden” he handed her a sheet of paper with the names of the flowers he had selected “I was especially struck by the camellias” Phoebe seemed surprised before the king's election "However, I think it has no description."

"Does not have it?!"

"Nope"

Phobe blushed. "Give me a moment... I know if I see it... I'll know... what..." Phoebe searched through the pages of the catalog as her voice became less and less audible.

"Take your time" Said the king ironically, outlining a mocking smile.

Phoebe grumbled a bit. She knew the king was laughing at her expense, but she didn't wanted to get in trouble with him. It was not convenient for her plans and even less now with a project as big as this garden. She finally reached the page of the camellia verifying that , indeed, it had no description.

“How strange, I could have sworn I was done with this part.” Phoene said as she scratched her cheek.

"It doesn't look very complete to me." Desha chuckled. "So what is its meaning?"

Phoebe looked at the king for a few moments without saying anything. She smiled at him in a very sweet way. Desha felt a little confused but then he noticed that the smile was full of a great melancholy.

“I will love you forever.” Phoebe said.

"Sorry?" Again the florist's thoughts and words were in sync.

"I-I mean, the meaning!" Phoebe stammered as she realized the misunderstanding. "I will love you forever is the meaning of the camellia." Pheobe was so embarrassed that she couldn't see the King in her face.

"If that's your way of flirting with me, I must tell you how original you are," Desha laughed.

"Majesty!" Phoene exclaimed with her face red as tomato. She was angry and embarrassed at the same time.

"You should at least ask me out on a date, don't you think so?" The king continued this with immature behavior. However Phoebe would not tolerate it anymore. Before Desha could react, the small woman climbed onto the desk, standing up to him face to face.

"Your Majesty with all the respect you deserve, I'm going to ask you to stop making fun of me!" Phoebe placed her hands on her ample hips, “Do you find me as joke? What bout my job? What do you find so funny?”. Desha was stunned. He wanted to stand up and answer these accusations, however with every question of the florist, the words trailed off before they could leave his mouth. “Since yesterday you have done nothing but make fun of me. I had heard that you were a good ruler, however I think what you do to me is very disrespectful. ” Again, everything Phoebe said was true, totally true, a few drops of sweat ran down the king's forehead. He was feeling frustrated at not being able to utter a single word.

Suddenly, the doors opened and the guards outside the office entered to help Desha.

"Ma'am, get down from the desk immediately!" One of the guards ordered.

Phoebe suddenly realized what she had done. This outburst would undoubtedly cost her life. Desha could see the fury flicker out of those green eyes. He could feel an immense fear and regret emanating from that small woman. With a wave of his hand, Desha calmed his guards down.

“I see…you have guts Miss Phoebe…I like that.” Desha got up from his desk chair.

Then, to the surprise of everyone in that room, the king knelt before Phoebe.

“I have underestimated you, I beg you to forgive me.”

Phoebe was stunned, now she couldn't utter a single word.

"Everything is in order, you can leave now." The king ordered his guards.

“Y-yes sir.”

When they were finally alone. Desha and Phoebe were silent for a long time. Phoebe slowly climbed down from the desk and began to take the plueprints.

"What are you doing?" Desha finally asked.

"Well..." Phoebe stopped.

“Are you leaving already? But we're not done discussing the details for the garden yet.” Desha took the blueprint that Phoebe was about to take.

"But Your Majesty... I thought that... after what I said..."

"Look... I usually don't tolerate anyone talking to me like that, I could have sent you to prison, you know?"

Phoebe was beginning to feel very sorry for her actions.

“However… I think I deserved it. When I offered my apologies, I wasn't lying Miss Phoebe.” Desha said still looking at theblueprint . Phoene noticed that the monarch's ears had turned a little red.

"Do you know something?" Phoene said outlining a smile, feeling calmer. "I think I'll take your Word, you majesty."

"About what?" The king asked without looking at her.

“On asking you out on a date”

Desha felt something caught in his throat. He turned his head quickly to see this woman in her face. Damn… as soon as he looked at her, he realized that he had fallen into his own game. She looked at him playfully. She hadn't lied, he could feel it, but for a second, just for a second, he thought this date would imply something more…

Desha chuckled "I guess I could have tea with you once in a while"

"Well, I'll have to prepare everything for the garden, but as soon as I get back to the palace, I'll be happy to share a nice jasmine tea with you."

Desha and Phoebe chatted for a few more hours. Defining the final details for the project until it was too late. With a bow, the little florist finally left the king's office. Desha watched the door close behind her and stayedin silent for what seemed like an eternity. No doubt this meeting had been…well…definitely unexpected. Now that she thought about it, this woman was completely unexpected, unpredictable, challenging. He had no doubt that this project would be more fun than he thought. When Desha came to, he realized that Phoebe had left the catalog on his desk.

“That woman…” Desha sighed resignedly. At least he would have something to entertain himself with before he could return the catalog to her owner.

#king desha #canon x oc #ranking of kings #fanfic #fanfiction #desha #phoebe

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blakelywintersfield · 2 years

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Joyofsatan.org (JoS) is not based upon LaVeyanism, JoS is literally against LaVeyanism and atheistic Satanism. They repeatedly state this on their website.

JoS follows the Al Jilwah and the Qu’ret Al Yezid as their main texts, they don’t believe in the Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey. JoS is 100% theistic while LaVeyanism is atheist.

So like, what is all of this about then? Unless they just recently bogarted that site from this group described with sources listed? Nazism is referred to twice in the introduction alone, and multiple times in multiple sections. The founder of JoS was married to NSM chairman Clifford Herrington while she was a high priestess in the group. Nothing that you've said seems to line up with this sourced, up-to-date information (the oldest source being about 10 years old and referencing general parts of theological Satanism as a whole).

You can be a queer person of color and still be a Nazi -- "Uncle Tom" is a term for a reason in black culture. You can be a part of a group and still hate that group. We literally deplatformed Milo Yiannopoulos for being a gay man who was also an outspoken white supremacist. Internalized self-hatred is not a new concept and yes any minority can be guilty of it, including women, people of color, and queer people. As for Anton LaVey -- he has a long history of antisemitic preaching. It's in his books. It's in his speeches. It's in his social life. Being ethnically Jewish does not mean he cannot hold antisemitic views, especially if you're not raised Jewish (which he never confirmed what he was raised as, but it's been implicated many times he was raised as Christian). The religion also adopts "alien race" conspiracy theories into its basic ideology, which not only has heavy racist implications ("It's considered by Joy of Satan that most salient of his creations were the Nordic-Aryan race") but also reminds me a little too much of the notorious Church of Scientology.

I've gotta say, your view of Abrahamic religions is extremely Western Christian-based. Islam, Judaism, and Christianity can hardly be grouped together when you get to know some of the base beliefs -- calling any of them anti-gay and anti-women is just... well, a very Western Christian take, especially since there's also modern sects of these religions that are extremely pro-choice, pro-queer, etc. Judaism has its own literal magical practices, too -- saying the religion is anti-Pagan is its own form of ignorance. A lot of modern Pagan religions have appropriated Jewish magic (Wicca especially, but modern Paganism in general is bad about it) so damning the religion on top of taking from it is just. That's literally a core part of cultural genocide, y'know?

There's a lot to unpack here and I just don't have the mental energy right now to collect all the resources to go into this further, but like. Condemning full religions based on shitty sects condemns millions of innocent people in the process, and judging a group of religions based on your relationship with one of those erases the history and cultures of all the others you damn with it. I get it -- Christianity has a lot of very toxic traits that have hurt millions since its conception. The most aggressive forms of it seem to be here in the western hemisphere, too. But I will not denounce other religions I've never been a part of nor know enough about for having a distant relationship with the one that hurt me. I don't believe Satanism is inherently bad either, and I did even say in the tags I wouldn't assume anyone that's a part of the church to be overtly antisemitic, but the fact remains that antisemitism is a core part of JoS.

I'd also like to add -- if you're aware that Jewish people are an ethnicity (Judaism is an enthic religion; race is a social construct based on salient characteristics alone and has no scientific backing; an ethnicity shares history, culture, etc.) then you must be aware that damning Jewish people... is in itself a form of ethnophobia. One we have a specific name for -- antisemitism.

If you have to found your religion based on the hate of another religion, you're simultaneously continuing to let that religion run your life, and inviting violent extremism into your group. I'm sorry if you're a part of this group and just now finding out about its extremist views through a tumblr ask, but like. I'm highly against anti-theism. I'm not a fan of "all religion bad" takes, but I'm also critical of religion as a whole. One of my main drives for leaving Christianity was the fact that separating my personal views from the heavily Protestant, Baptist, and Fundamentalist views that permeate western sects was next to impossible. Even when I'd go into the details of sects I liked, there would eventually be things I'd not be comfortable associating with (in the majority of cases, antisemitism). I'm not about to damn an entire population based on the fact that one guy ties them together.

Judaism is nothing like Christianity, with what little I know about it (and I know more than the average gentile about it). Back before I started learning more about it, I did just lump it in with Christianity and Islam, but everything we're taught about Judaism is wrong. Unless you were taught about the beliefs by a practicing Jew, what you think you know about the religion is probably just. blatantly false. It's kind of fucked up.

I implore that you take a step away from your computer or phone right now and take some time to process this -- I'm assuming the original ask was originally in good faith (albeit a little strange) and that you're probably feeling gobsmacked by my response, and you were originally unaware of these things, which has you upset now. And understandably so! I'd be upset to hear about something as intimate as my religion having unsavory origins or core beliefs. (Hell I have had to deal with that in the past, both with Christianity and when I was in the introductory stages of Wicca.) I don't mean this in a "go outside" kind of way, or a "quit being overly emotional" way -- I mean like. It's okay, it's healthy to give yourself time to process these kinds of things. I say this from experience because my emotions can be so strong I might not fully understand what I say or do when I'm in the midst of feeling them.

I want to believe you came to me in good faith; I want to believe you're a good person, no matter how much of a stranger you are, and giving yourself time to breathe is important. Then do some research -- slowly, but thoroughly. Look at the Wikipedia article. Look at the sources. Check the biases -- the sources and your own. This isn't a misunderstanding or an unwillingness to learn on my end; this is the information I have from cited, peer-reviewed sources. I don't take any pleasure in telling people "this thing you hold close has an unsavory core to it" but I'm also not going to deny the truth. Organized religion is a landmine -- many that sound too good to be true are. This one is no exception.

#also: i do not feel comfortable debating ''why shouldn't we hate jewish people?'' that's not something to debate.#i can be patient with a lot of things but if you're wanting me to give ANY validation to hating jews you're in the wrong place #i'm of the belief that it's 100% moral to execute nazis on sight. the core belief of nazism is hating the jews.#unless you're a former practicing jew the claim that judaism has wronged you personally is dubious #and i don't know how the belief system could've damaged the world at all #sorry to all my followers that this is so long lmao

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peppertaemint · 2 years

Note

Weird question because I'm sure you don't talk about EXO much but I'm an EXO fan and have been since 2018. What's your opinion about the hate that SM gets from fans of SM groups? I know they're not a perfect company and they've made a loooooot of mistakes towards their artists some that proved tragic and also business wise but purely speaking as an EXO fan, I don't understand why SM gets constant hate from fans. Yeah they could treat certain EXO members better imo but that said, they've done nothing but give EXO the best writers, producers, choreographers they could ask for. Their discography is almost flawless as I'm sure you feel the same about SHINee and the members as soloists. I'm Baekhyun and Kai double biased and their albums are great. EXO subunit groups EXO-CBX and EXO-SC are also great. SM has also backed them with great teams. I know Lay didn't resign with SM but but he's also very successful in China and is CEO of his own company there so it makes sense he wouldn't resign with SM again. He did say his company was working on a deal with SM where they can work together and essentially still be part of EXO I take it so all of that said, do you as a SHINee fan see anything that I can't regarding SM mistreating them? I mean if it rains, SM is somehow at fault for some fans it seems. Do you think the hate is warranted or do you think this is the result of entitled overly dramatic instigating international fans?

Hello EXO Anon!

I think it's very fashionable to hate on SM for the smallest things. In all fandoms, I think there's quite a healthy number of "damn the man" stans who love to shit talk the powers that be. Because that's what SM, Hybe, YG etc are - they're "the man" who supposedly have all the power and call the shots, and when anything goes wrong it's their fault but when everything goes right, it's the artist who clawed their way to success, right?

As always, I'll be brutally honest in my reply. I think SM has done a fair (and I use that word carefully) job of learning from horrific mistakes and creating a talent agency that does look after its talent. It promotes from within, for example Changmin taking an director role and BoA working with younger talent to ensure their voices aren't drowned out by management. Is it a perfect place? Not by a long shot. Is your workplace perfect? Mine isn't even close LOL.

I can understand how a "hate SM" culture arose, however, given all the things that have happened. I'm not going to list them here because any quick google search will bring up a plethora. I judge SM in the present. I see senior artists getting great opportunities to take artistic direction in their work. I see younger artists working incredibly hard but again, getting opportunities to develop their craft with top talent. I do see inklings of changes with girls groups. GoT was perhaps misguided with the whole mean girl shtick but I don't think the tough attitude we see from Aespa, and the enriching meta world they're involved in, should be overlooked in a country where women have a lot less agency than their male counterparts.

And the other thing I see at SM is a lot of variety in the art they're putting out. When I watched NCT The Link, I was astounded by the solo performances. Each artist brought different vibes — they weren't all crazy kinksters like Johnny and Taeyong, but this more adult content was side by side with different music and performance styles.

And I agree that in terms of quality of music, such as EXO's discography, SHINee's, etc, the quality is astoundingly high. That's not to say there aren't duds or songs I don't vibe with, but there's a lot of well-crafted music with meaning and artistry behind it. I don't get the cookie-cutter feeling. Look at Red Velvet's MV for Feel My Rhythm and the countless art references in there. Maybe the sound of the song doesn't feel new for a girl group, but the content of the MV, even if perhaps flawed by trying to do too much, hit many different levels. It's not 14 year old girls singing about someone looking at their cookie. Yes, I'm going there.

SM shed the questionable pedo-oriented content and Hybe picked up where they left off. This is where a lot of the criticism comes in because Hybe is supposed to be a new, forward-thinking company that puts its artists first. SM hasn't debuted a minor since the producer Min Hee-jin, who is NewJeans' creative director, left.

On the balance of things, I think SM fans have a lot less to complain about and they lose sight of reality. I don't know if this happens in EXO-L spaces, but in Shawol spaces, there's a lot of victimization of the members. Since Key's last comeback, it's all been about how he had to claw his way forward with that comeback and then everyone just copied him, when in reality the retro-futurism concept, although uniquely and superbly executed, was hardly new when he used it, and SM repurposing their props/creative ideas is not exactly a crime. It's likely the same product designers etc working on the next project. What is remarkable is that Key did his own creative direction, in essence, and he was given the space to do that and has been given the space to do creative direction from at least 2015 when he started designing costumes. He's not a victim. He's a creative working in his industry and excelling in it. 💀

Re Lay not resigning and the company — there's basically laws in China that make it necessary for actors and talent to operate their own studio. The studio becomes a legal entity for them. And that entity can take responsibility for bad fan behaviors legally speaking. I'm no expert but I would imagine Lay leaving to create his studio would help him work safely in China given the legal landscape. As far as I understand, this has all come up after the YiZhan controversy that highlighted the negative behaviors of large fandoms, and the government wishes for actors or singers etc to be ultimately responsible for that behavior. This is my understanding but people are free to correct me if I've got it wrong.

#EXO ask #EXO and SM #SM #EXO

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masonpelt · 2 years

Text

Five Misconceptions About The Elon Musk Twitter Deal Explained

Originally published at https://pushroi.com on September 2, 2022.

People are getting a lot of things wrong about the deal between Elon Musk and Twitter, here’s an explanation of five of the most common misconceptions. This article is based on the below video. Disclaimer I’m not a lawyer, and while I’ve read the contract and checked with lawyers who deal with M&A law to ensure correctness, this is not legal advice.

Misconception #1

The dispute is about the number of total Twitter users that are bots.

Twitter, unlike most other social networks, does not report total monthly active users. Twitter uses a metric called mDAU, (monetizable daily active users). The mDAU metric purports to show users who logged in and accessed Twitter and could view its ads.

Twitter’s SEC filing doesn’t say that under 5% of total users are bots but that likely less than 5% of the mDAU are bots. Twitters SEC report reads in part “[W]e applied significant judgment, so our estimation of false or spam accounts may not accurately represent the actual number of such accounts, and the actual number of false or spam accounts could be higher than we have estimated”.

Yes, mDAU’s are a bit murky. The proprietary nature of Twitter’s metric leads to speculation about what accounts the company considers a user. That means even very good quality analyses like the one by SparkToro & Followerwonk are likely to be incorrect about what Twitter considers an mDAU.

The data patterns I’ve seen for users who click Twitter ads and engage off Twitter appear mostly human. And Twitter as a company has non-public data about login locations and user behavior that are not in the firehose API. The point here is not to hash out whether Twitter’s numbers are true or not, just to correctly frame the disputed facts.

Misconception #2

The contract is an unknowable black box.

Twitter being a publicly listed company means the contracts and a good portion of communication between Musk and Twitter are public. The lawsuit between Twitter and Musk put other communication and documents into public view. What this means is most speculation about how the Twitter acquisition deal was set up is incorrect.

Misconception #3

Musk can exit the contract because of due diligence.

Twitter’s filing with the SEC about the acquisition in late April 2022 stated that “Mr. Musk also disclosed that his acquisition proposal was no longer subject to the completion of financing and business due diligence.” The fact that Musk waived due diligence was widely reported. As best I can tell, Musk did not dispute the Twitter statement or any of the media outlets reporting on Twitter’s statement until early July 2022.

Charitably this fact is disputed. But based on the lawyers I’ve spoken to, and many more lawyer’s public analyses, the argument Musk’s lawyers put forth is very weak. It seems more accurate that Musk’s contract with Twitter is binding, and Musk gave himself no path out of that agreement.

An ever-growing pile of legal breakdowns, including the arguments made by Musk’s lawyers and a straightforward reading of the contract, all say the same thing. Musk was willing to accept Twitter’s estimates and reports to the SEC, reports that didn’t claim to be exact.

Misconception #4

Almost anything involving the SEC forcing Musk or Twitter to take any specific action.

The SEC is not god. They are also not a judge in a court. The SEC is investigative and prosecutorial for a subset of financial crimes. Under certain circumstances, the SEC could delist Twitter from public markets or bring legal action.

But the SEC cannot, for example, force Twitter to discount the share price to take Twitter private or make Musk buy Twitter. Many things people bring up as possible are just well outside of the SEC’s power level.

Misconception #5

Most allegations of fraud.

Not to say everything Twitter has said publicly or to Musk is true. But most allegations of fraud in this case, are related to a misunderstanding of the mDAU metric, what a bot is, or what fraud means.

Without re-explaining the mDAU metric, what people perceive as bots on social media are not always bots. I replied to @elonmusk with mild criticism and received around 200 replies from accounts that look like the idea of a bot. New accounts, accounts with few tweets or followers, without profile photos and bios or with very generic ones.

For the most part, I believe these accounts to be operated by humans. The Tweets are all somewhat unique. I didn’t spot significant clusters of dates the accounts joined Twitter.

Most of these accounts pass the human test on inspection. While some automated tools would have labeled these people bots, some tools also label Musk a bot. I don’t know if one person runs 11 accounts, but that’s not Musk’s complaint.

Most other fraud claims are made without the evidence needed to build a fraud case. Fraud means that; Twitter stated something as true, knowing it was false and that Twitter’s statement damaged the other party. The Twitter whistle-blower may give a different set of fraud claims credibility. But the “Twitter lied about how many bots they have” seems unlikely to rise to fraud.

youtube

#elon musk #musk twitter

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erenisms · 3 years

Note

IM IN LOVE WITH YOUR BLOG AAAA

Can you do a levi x reader with any format where the reader is badass, a lil bit scary and strong, but when with levi she does cute things that make him want to smile and kiss her then and there. Like holding his sleeve, being clumsy, making random cute noises or obsessing over a random rock

my kind of dumb | levi ackerman

you and levi are two strong soldiers who are weak for each other. as much of an idiot as you are with him, he knows he's much more of an idiot when he's with you because he just lets you be an idiot.

pairing: levi ackerman x f!reader

genre: fluff, crack - this is like the light-hearted version of tired | levi ackerman

warning/s: cursing, mc with a rock is dangerously cute >:(

word count: 1987

omg, really? thank you ! m sorry, it took long, but i finally found time to continue writing!

WHEN I READ THE ROCK PART, ALL I COULD THINK OF WAS LEVI AS ELMO

“No offence, Kirstein but you look like someone who will be in Military Police.” You mused, leaning against a nearby tree.

“Is it because he looks like the horse on their jackets?” Connie piped up from behind a wobbling crate that he was struggling to carry.

“Shut up, baldy!” Jean snarled, dropping his own crate in indignation before whipping his head at you to nervously demand an explanation. “Wait, uh, what do you mean by that?”

“Well, when Jaeger was talking about you and the other 104th cadets, the way he described your personality wasn't exactly... you know, pleasant.” You shrugged, pushing yourself off the tree and lifting twice the amount of containers that they did.

Connie and the other few cadets who are helping with transferring the supplies stared at you in bewilderment as you nonchalantly toss the heavy materials around without breaking a sweat. They started thinking if you actually need their help at all. Truthfully, most of the soldiers just volunteered because it was you who asked.

They seem to hold you in high regard and they weren't wrong to do so. Not only you are one of humanity's aces, but you are also approachable. You are the only superior that doesn't totally scare them off. Granted that a part of you was still intimidating but at least you don't look like you're going to use them as titan baits— not like you'll need it.

“Damn, must be nice being gifted.” One of the soldiers from the back mumbled, earning an elbow to the side from his companion.

You craned your head to the side and stared in their direction and squinted. It looked like you were glaring at them.

“Hn?”

“W– We're sorry, squad leader!” The two men saluted clumsily before scurrying away.

“Huh?” You briefly wondered what those two were apologizing about before staring again at the purple butterfly that flew by, its colour was rare.

“Is he trying to ruin my image or something?” Jean continued to press, scowling at the mere thought of Eren's existence and ignoring everything else.

“Calm down, Jean, s'not like Eren will say anything wrong.” Connie teased, trying to keep himself from snickering which earned him a nasty glare from the other male.

“Don't short circuit on it.” You snorted, amused at the two younger soldiers.

“That bastard! What could he have possibly said about me?!” Jean continued to fume, determined to defend himself in front of a very admirable superior.

“Dunno, can't remember it well. Hey, you both, are you done over there?!”

Jean's jaw dropped. He wanted to clear his name and image because he doesn't want a bad impression on you, and honestly, who would? But then you simply turned away from him and went back to your task as if it didn't matter and he's not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

“Yes, ma'am!” Two female soldiers enthusiastically replied, happy to be acknowledged and not scolded.

You gave them a grateful smirk and checked your list of inventory to wrap things up. Frankly, you meant no harm to Kirstein. You did not care about what you heard about him because you want to see his character on your own before judging him. You just tried to stir a reaction because Levi often complained about how Kirstein and Jaeger have petty, childish fights.

“Go back to work already.” You ordered at the duo of Jean and Connie.

And speaking of Levi, the man was walking towards you and ignoring all other cadets who proudly saluted at him. The cadets felt giddy. They're not only seeing one super-soldier but two. Some stared at Levi in awe but most were full of fear. You waved at the approaching man with your clipboard, meeting him halfway.

“Hey, what're you here for?” You smiled at him, placing the checklist on top of a nearby crate.

“You didn't eat breakfast earlier. We're going to the mess hall for early lunch.” He flatly said, leaving no room for protest.

“Eh? We're not done yet though.” You reasoned. “Don't worry, we're almost finished—”

“These brats can do a task as basic as this. And if they can't, they'll be sent to the fields.” Levi fixed his emotionless stare at the frozen cadets who watched the two of you interact.

“Well, probably but...” You pursed your lips and looked at your group of soldiers, too.

You know they're trustworthy enough but you don't want to dump your job at them. The others noticed your unease and decided to shout their own assurances.

“We'll be fine, Squad Leader [Last Name]!”

“Yeah, don't worry about us!”

“We will do our best!”

“Scout's honour!”

Levi stared down at you with a look that said ‘I told you so’.

“Fine, fine.” You gave in, rolling your eyes playfully. “Kirstein, I'm leaving you in charge.”

“Holy shi— I mean— Yes, ma'am!” Jean saluted stiffly, turning around proudly and trying not to seem too boastful in front of two superiors.

You turned your back at the cadets with Levi, giving one last wave before walking away together.

When the two of you were far enough to have privacy, you reached out a hand to grasp at the cuff of his sleeve softly. You touched your cheek on his shoulder and looked at him with your doe eyes.

“You're so mean to our fellow soldiers sometimes.” You spoke, speech slightly slurred with the way your cheek was pressed against him.

Levi rolled his eyes and shook off your hand that held his sleeve. As painfully adorable as your quirk of holding his sleeves, he wanted to hold your hand. He replaced the sleeve with his own palm instead and you immediately intertwined your fingers together.

“Those idiots won't do a decent job if you don't get strict with them. They're being too comfortable.” Levi scoffed, letting you swing your hand with his.

“Hmm, I guess so. Say, do you think butterflies— ack!” Your random question was cut off when you tripped on grass, a grass (which was your way of defending yourself because you totally didn't trip over your own feet), and face-planting straight on the soil when accidentally let go of Levi's hand.

“Oi, are you alright? Damn idiot.” Your dark-haired companion hid the slight panic in his voice well because he is, unfortunately, used to something like this.

You didn't answer him. Levi stared. You laid there for a couple more seconds. Levi crouched down to check if you hit your head that hard. Suddenly, you brought yourself up quickly, your head nearly hitting him square on the jaw if he hadn't reacted fast enough.

“Hey, do you think butterflies fly at petals because they look like other butterflies waiting for their soulmates?” You asked, seemingly more excited than before like nothing happened, like you were just really lying on your stomach on a soft patch of grass cozily.

Levi breathed deeply and suppressed the urge to rub his temples. You two are far from being butterflies yet he found you without waiting. Maybe you are a pretty butterfly so you came to him. He won't tell you that though.

“Dumbass, they're not attracted to the petals. They come to flowers for pollen and nectar.” Levi stated, actually unsure of his answer because he didn't have the privilege of education as a kid before turning his back to you and continued walking. “Now, come on, we're wasting time.”

“Eh?” You just blinked at his retreating form.

You didn't follow him. You didn't even stand up. Instead, your focus was caught by something that for some reason, stood out in your eyes. You grabbed the little thing and held it under the sun, smiling at its appearance.

Levi who slowed down his walking so you'll be able to catch up immediately noticed that you didn't follow him fast enough. And then his [Name] senses told him that you weren't planning on catching up to him anytime soon. He exasperatedly trudged back to where you were and saw you crouching on the grass. Levi narrowed his eyes.

“[Name], get off the ground. It's filthy— is that a fucking rock?”

He momentarily paused in his steps, face contorting incredulously. You fully faced him and held out the object in front of you to show that it is, in fact, not a rock but a stone. A pretty one at that.

Levi stared at the rock in your hand, then back at your face with his mouth slightly agape. He blinked once, twice, and finally decided to compose himself. He raised a brow, jaw almost opening again because he still can't believe what is happening and raised a brow to ask why, why do you have a rock?

“...”

“...It's smooth.” You mumbled, answering his unasked query as you clutched the stone almost shyly. “Plus the colour's nice. It's got white specks in it.”

“That's dirty.” Levi sighed, already knowing there's no winning this nonexistent argument.

“It's okay, I can wash it.” You declared proudly, earning a facepalm from the man.

“[Name].” He called sternly but it didn't affect you at all.

“Yeah?” You just tilted your head so innocently while petting that stupid rock and Levi wanted nothing but to swallow it so you'll stop giving it attention.

No, he's not jealous of a rock. That's fucking dumb. But if it meant wasting your precious time that he managed to stole from working with other cadets, he's not going to have it.

“Get up already.” He strongly clasped your wrist and pulled you up with enough force so you won't be able to resist but not enough to hurt you.

“Oof!”

And not to yours and Levi's surprise, your feet caught on another... grass. Once again, you lose your balance but instead of soil, you landed straight onto Levi's toned chest that you could feel under his clothes. He caught you with ease, wrapping his arms perfectly around your waist to secure you.

“Hi.” You greeted, chin resting on his chest as you hugged him back.

“Klutz.” Levi rolled his eyes while his lips formed a small smile as he pats your head.

He gently pushed you off of him but didn't let go of your hand. Funnily enough, it was the hand that still holds the dumb rock. Levi opened your palm and almost scrunched his nose at the sight of the object. Never had he been so infuriated over something so insignificant.

“You're really going to keep that thing?” He grimaced, glaring at the rock in disgust.

“No.” You answered shortly and Levi was about to sigh in relief until you started speaking again. “You are.”

You left the stone in his hand. He stood there frozen, and if you weren't you, he would've thrown it at your face. But because you're [Name], all he wants to do is forget about that stupid rock and kiss your stupidly cute face—

“It reminds me of the colour of your eyes.” You admitted with a tiny grin, tilting your head slightly on the side.

Levi's grey eyes widened a fraction for a split second before clicking his tongue and turning his head away from you so quickly, you thought he might crack his neck. You nearly squealed when he grasped your wrist once more and started dragging you to the mess hall without a word.

You didn't dare ask him anything because you know Levi didn't like to talk. But that didn't stop you from wondering what the hell has gotten into him that he speed-walked out of nowhere. Meanwhile, Levi just refused to let you see the heat that somehow travelled to his face. You've done far cheesier things, unknowingly and not, he should be used to this. So he doesn't know why in the world is he flustered now.

Levi wanted to laugh. You're stupid. The rock, no, the stone is stupid. And he, too, is stupid— stupidly in love with you, that is.

requests are open!

- love, zari

#attack on titan x reader #aot x reader #aot x you #aot imagines #snk x reader #snk imagines #levi ackerman x reader #levi x reader #levi x you #soft levi #levi ackerman fluff #x reader

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

Note

For a prompt, what if Wen Xu arrives to burn down the Cloud Recesses while everyone is studying there

Home Alone - ao3

“All right,” Wei Wuxian said, when Lan Qiren announced that the Cloud Recesses would be imminently under attack by Wen Xu and the Wen sect armies, the calm in his monotone voice belied by the wrinkle of concern in his forehead. “We’re going to make that bastard wish he’d never been born, right?”

He was speaking lightly, as he always did, trying to make those around him feel more comfortable, braver, less afraid – his was the language of confidence and arrogance, of never backing down, and he didn’t know how else to speak.

He didn’t mean anything in particular by it, or at least not more than he usually did.

He wasn’t expecting Lan Qiren to look at him and say, “If you have any ideas, now is the time to contribute them.”

“So what exactly do you do again?” Wei Wuxian asked, following the older Lan sect disciple around – at least, the man was dressed like a Lan sect disciple, and with a forehead ribbon suggesting that he shared blood with the main clan, too, but Wei Wuxian wasn’t so sure he really was one.

“I blow stuff up, usually,” Lan Yueheng said cheerfully.

That was why Wei Wuxian had doubts.

The man was practically skipping. There was no way he was a Lan.

“Shishu is an alchemist,” Lan Wangji said. His hands were folded behind his back, as always, and he looked tense as might be expected, what with an imminent attack on his home by a colossal army intent on ravaging and destroying everything in its path – but the way he looked at Lan Yueheng was unaccountably fond, as if he were someone he was close to. Wei Wuxian hadn’t known there was anyone other than Lan Qiren or Lan Xichen that Lan Wangji was close to. He was oddly jealous. “Not always successfully.”

“Hey, at blowing things up, I am the most successful!” Lan Yueheng grinned. A moment later, though, the grin faded, and he looked anxious. “Wangji, are you sure you won’t go with your brother?”

“Brother will protect the sect books,” Lan Wangji said solemnly. “I will stay here to defend the sect and the guest disciples.”

Wei Wuxian appreciated that, being one of said guest disciples.

Anyway, it made sense. Lan Qiren had seriously considered trying to send them away with Lan Xichen, saying that their lives were more important than some extra books – other Lan elders hadn’t necessarily agreed, judging by their expressions – but regretfully concluded that adding more people to Lan Xichen’s escape route would do nothing but reveal its existence, dooming all of them.

So they’d split up: Lan Xichen, heading out virtually alone with the most precious Lan sect books, and all the rest of them here to try to resist as much as they could – even Lan Wangji.

Lan Yueheng didn’t try to argue with Lan Wangji, only sighed, sounding as though he’d expected nothing less from him and had only felt the need to make a token protest before accepting it as inevitable. It seemed he really was close to Lan Wangji.

Yeah, Wei Wuxian was definitely jealous.

“All right, then,” Lan Yueheng said, shaking his head and resuming his cheer. “Blowing things up in self-defense plan it is! You’re both talented in music, right?”

“What does music have to do with explosions?” Wei Wuxian asked.

The answer, apparently, was a lot – at least when you were an experimental alchemist in a musically inclined sect and you’d developed a way to trigger explosions via certain combinations of musical notes.

“So, did you know that Teacher Lan was scary?” Wei Wuxian asked Jiang Cheng, who’d finally returned from helping get all the elderly and children and civilians to evacuate – and refusing to join them, of course, even though he was entitled to go in order to preserve his life, being the heir of a sect and all that, completely typical Jiang Cheng – and was now pacing around, eager for a fight.

“Just because he punished you a few times doesn’t make him scary,” Jiang Cheng said.

“No, it doesn’t,” Wei Wuxian agreed. “You know what does make him scary? Playing music that makes his opponents try to cut their own necks.”

“…what?”

“Apparently he gets really upset when you mess with his students,” Wei Wuxian said wisely.

Unlike Jiang Cheng, he’d had time to adjust to the concept of Lan Qiren being terrifying: they were on the fifth wave of scouts, and this set wasn’t doing any better than the first four, not even when they’d realized it would be better if they stopped their ears with wax before approaching.

That’d only made Lan Qiren shift tactics – and songs.

Some of which had an even wider area of impact.

“Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Cheng said, looking at him suspiciously. “What did you do?”

“I convinced Teacher Lan that guerrilla warfare that destroyed as much of the enemy as possible would be more effective than just trying to defend the sect’s territory, since that was clearly a lost cause,” Wei Wuxian said promptly. “He agreed, but said that he could only do so much since he wasn’t a very good sword fighter. And then I asked him if he knew anything else that could be used as an attack and he said ‘no’ and then he said ‘well, I suppose’ and then he listed off a few things that – according to him – aren’t meant to be used in warfare but, and this is a direct quote, ‘could be put to a destructive use if one so wished it’.”

“And we now ‘so wish it’?”

“Yup. Oh, and watch out for anything that has a Lan sect cloud with a three-looped circle carved into the side of it, and I do mean anything– those explode.”

“Of course they do.”

“Hey! For once it has nothing to do with me!”

“I thought you said he said he was bad at swordfighting,” Jiang Cheng said suspiciously.

Wei Wuxian held out his hands helplessly in a ‘don’t look at me’ gesture, trying to defend himself from a sharp and pointy elbow to the side while also not pulling his eyes away from the ongoing battlefield for even a single moment.

“Shufu considers himself to be of average skill at the sword,” Lan Wangji said in the peaceable tone of someone who had been taught the basics of swordfighting by the person in question. The basics of really awesome swordfighting. “His real strength is in music, as you’ve seen.”

“I get that, really, I do, his music is terrifying,” Wei Wuxian said, and meant it completely. Between the two, he’d rather go up against Lan Qiren with a sword, where he’d at least be able to make a decent showing of himself before getting chopped to bits by the man’s fluid and almost seemingly delicate style that was nevertheless highly effective at skewering Wen sect disciples left and right; it would be better than with music, where he might as well just cut his own throat or strangle himself with guqin strings now to save Lan Qiren’s fingers the trouble. “But Jiang Cheng’s still right, okay – why in the world does he consider that to be ‘average’? Who is he comparing himself to?”

Lan Wangji considered the question for a long moment, then finally said: “A statistical outlier.”

“I wish we had aerial attacks we could use against the Wen sect’s swords,” Wei Wuxian said wistfully, and next to him Jiang Cheng nodded with a sight of longing – it was so frustrating seeing more and more Wen sect soldiers arriving in groups, like flocks of birds that started to fill the skies because they couldn’t be so easily shot down. “But if we try anything, they’ll just shield against us.”

“Teacher Lan said we can’t use spiritual energy against them, since we’d lose,” Jiang Cheng said, and as much as they all regretted it, Lan Qiren was probably right: they might be better trained than the Wen sect soldiers, might be better cultivators and stronger in spiritual energy individually, but they were young and immature, and at a serious numerical disadvantage.

It would be far too easy for the flying cultivators to stop their flying just long enough to set up a defensive array, block whatever spiritual attack they sent out, and then keep going to find and stab them before they’d even recovered from the energy expenditure.

“I didn’t mean spiritual energy,” Wei Wuxian grumbled. “I just meant, you know, like the explosives we’ve laid in all over the ground – something like that. If we could attach those to something…”

“I don’t think we have anything that flies anyway,” Lan Yueheng said regretfully.

“You have lanterns, don’t you?” Nie Huaisang said, and everyone turned to look at him. “Fill them with something that explodes when disturbed and send them floating into the air. Better yet, write ‘peace’ on the side of them to make it look like you’re making some sort of meaningful gesture designed to shame them. The Wen sect won’t be able to resist kicking them aside as an insult, and that’ll trigger them.”

They all stared at him.

He shrugged.

“We have a lot of defenses set up against invasion, at home,” he said. “And not always the budget to pay for anything fancy, so we’ve come up with some slightly more unorthodox ideas, too.”

“It’s a really good idea,” Wei Wuxian said, suddenly focused on the hitherto ignored Nie Huaisang. Clearly he’d made a tactical error, thinking of himself as the only person who knew how to get up to tricks. “Do you have any other ideas like that?”

Nie Huaisang smiled.

“Teacher Lan, I have an idea,” Wei Wuxian said, inserting himself briefly into the clearing near the Lan sect gate where Lan Qiren was sitting to rest in preparation for the Wen sect’s next attack. “But you’re going to hate it.”

“You may proceed,” Lan Qiren said, not looking up.

“Wait,” Wei Wuxian said, blinking. “Really? You’re not even going to ask what it is? Or why you’d hate it so much?”

“There is no time for that,” Lan Qiren said, and finally spared him a glance. He looked tired. “Things will get worse very soon.”

“But we’re winning!”

“No,” Lan Qiren said, shaking out his fingers – even despite occasionally alternating to using the sword when necessary, he’d played his guqin to the point of drawing blood and breaking nails, and was continuing despite everyone pleading with him to stop and swap out for someone else for a while. He’d said that there was no one else on his level, and he was probably right, but still, surely, just for a little… “We are surviving. Do not mistake the two.”

“Okay, so,” Wei Wuxian said, rubbing his hands together. “Resentful energy –”

“No,” Lan Wangji said.

“Thanks,” Wei Wuxian said to Jin Zixuan, who’d probably just saved his life by stabbing a Wen sect cultivator in the back right before the man had been able to stop Wei Wuxian from activating another series of explosions. “I guess I owe you one?”

“Don’t mention it,” Jin Zixuan said. “How else can I help?”

“I don’t know,” Wei Wuxian said, scratching his head and thinking about Nie Huaisang as precedent. There wasn’t time for schoolyard rivalries right now. “Do you have anything really unexpected that could be used to hurt people? Be creative – they’re guarded against all the usual defenses, so the weirder the better, anything goes. I won’t judge.”

Jin Zixuan thought about it. “I’m pretty sure I have a drug that puts people to sleep?”

“…why do you have something like that?”

Jin Zixuna grimaced. “My father gave it to me along with another one that he said not to use in excess, though I don’t actually know what that one does because that was about when my mom ran in and started throwing things at him. I can’t throw it away because it was a gift from my father, but I put it as deep into my bags as I could so that I’d never have to see or touch it. Ever.”

Wei Wuxian’s nose wrinkled. He’d never before felt pity for Jin Zixuan, but having to put up with Jin Guangshan on a regular basis was pretty bad – much less owing him filial piety.

No wonder Jin Zixuan was so twitchy all the time.

“Okay, so one sleep drug and one…uh…”

“Enhancement. Presumably. Can we throw it at the other side? Maybe turn it into incense and make smoke-bombs or something?”

“You know what,” Wei Wuxian said. “Why not? If nothing else, it’d be distracting, right?”

“This doesn’t feel honorable,” Jiang Cheng said, watching the fun. They’d raided the Lan sect’s medicine cabinets and kitchens for other noxious and irritating substances that might make for good smoke-bombs – Jiang Cheng himself had even located a whole patch of something not unlike poison ivy that had been quickly repurposed for the cause. “Strictly speaking.”

“Honor’s overrated,” Wei Wuxian said. “Making the Wen bastards pay for attacking Lan Zhan’s home is what’s important.”

Lan Wangji didn’t smile, exactly, but Wei Wuxian took his expression as a win regardless.

It turned out that music could also make plants grow really fast.

According to Lan Qiren, the spell ruined the plants’ nutritional value and made them basically useless.

Well.

Useless if your goal was eating them, anyway.

(First they could grow under their enemies’ feet and attack them, roots and vines twining around them to strangle them, and then they could be used up in the smoke-bombs – two for the price of one!)

“Are you sure about not doing the whole resentful energy thing?”

“Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Cheng said. “No.”

“Hey, Wei-xiong, do you have or can you create any more papermen?” Jin Zixuan asked.

“Yes, sure, plenty,” Wei Wuxian said. He’d like to say that he’d known he’d one day need such a skill, and that that was why he’d learned the trick so thoroughly, but that was a complete lie. “Why?”

“Nie-xiong, Jiang-xiong and I are going to use them to make a shadow-play to lure a bunch of Wen sect cultivators into another plant-and-explosives trap.”

“…that’s amazing, Jin-xiong,” Wei Wuxian said, marveling. “How do you even think of that?”

“Even I get into trouble sometimes,” Jin Zixuan said, and was startled into an unexpected smile when Jiang Cheng punched his shoulder approvingly.

Wei Wuxian was actually having a pretty good time with it all right up until the main force of the Wen sect decided to ignore all their traps and charge straight towards the classroom they’d fallen back to using as a headquarters, and then suddenly he wasn’t having a good time at all.

“Run,” Lan Qiren said, and put down his guqin, drawing his sword once more.

“But we can fight!” Jiang Cheng argued.

“Run.”

“Shufu –”

“Run.”

They ran.

“If you don’t come out, I’m going to make him pay,” Wen Xu called.

His fingers were knotted in Lan Qiren’s hair, pulling their teacher’s head back to show how his face was covered in blood, how it was seeping out through his mouth and nose, how one of his eyes was badly bruised and swollen from having been beaten down by sheer force of numbers.

Lan Qiren had made them pay dearly for their efforts to bring him down –

But there were just so many of them.

“How dare he,” Jiang Cheng hissed. “He was once one of Teacher Lan’s students, too!”

Wei Wuxian was holding Lan Wangji back, but only barely; his fingers were starting to go numb from the sheer effort of it. If Jin Zixuan and Jiang Cheng weren’t there to help him hold him down, Lan Wangji would have already given away their position, rushing out to make some futile gesture in his overwhelming rage. Wei Wuxian was focusing with all his being on how much he had to stop Lan Wangji from doing something like that, because if he wasn’t, if he let himself think about anything else for even a single moment, he’d have also run out there, sword drawn, without so much as a care – he hadn’t realized he’d be so angry over it, so furious, so betrayed and horrified by Wen Xu’s cruelty.

Prior to today, he wouldn’t have said he even liked Lan Qiren!

“My students are not so foolish as to fall for so obvious a scheme as that,” Lan Qiren said, his tone as monotonous as it ever was during his lectures – for the briefest moment, Wei Wuxian felt that he was dreaming, that he had merely dreamt everything that had happened: surely it was still yesterday, with Lan Qiren standing tall, safe and healthy, at the front of the classroom, lecturing about one of the Lan sect rules…which one had it been? Shoulder the weight of morality? Have a strong will and anything can be achieved? Be mighty, and others will die for you?

Do not break faith?

Somehow, despite everything that had happened, Lan Qiren’s eyes curved ever so slightly.

“Present company excluded, of course.”

Wen Xu threw him down to the ground, mouth twisting and teeth gnashing with offended anger.

“Beat him,” he ordered his men. “Make it hurt. I want him screaming – let’s see how his precious students like that. Or maybe it’s just that they don’t care?”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said, eyes red with unshed tears and barely swallowed rage. “Tell me your idea about resentful energy.”

“Perhaps,” Lan Qiren said, then paused briefly to cough up some blood. His voice, when he resumed speaking, was hoarse. “Perhaps I should have reviewed your idea more closely when you first proposed it.”

“Possibly,” Wei Wuxian said, offering up some cloth to help wipe away the blood. Lan Wangji was busy bandaging his uncle’s injuries up, while Jiang Cheng, Jin Zixuan, and Nie Huaisang hovered by the door, only barely pretending to be keeping a lookout the way they were supposed to. “In my defense, I didn’t quite expect…that.”

Everyone politely did not ask him to elaborate.

The effects had been…well, it turned out using resentful energy the way Wei Wuxian had thought was possible, to say the least, and also that they’d taken down an awful lot of Wen sect soldiers in their defensive efforts.

“You will all have been affected by the resentful energy you used to summon the corpses,” Lan Qiren said. “Although the method you devised appears to avoid the most immediate consequences, which – let me remind you – include qi deviation and death in some instances, there is always the possibility that it has left traces of resentful energy within your meridians. If it is allowed to build up, it will escalate into a backlash that would rip your body and soul to pieces. There are spells and songs that can help clear your spirits and ease the effects.”

“Nie Huaisang has been playing some of them for us, since he can’t fight,” Lan Wangji said. “Nie sect ones – they’re…uh, not especially calming, more of a cleanse-by-force thing, but they seem to be working.”

Jiang Cheng nodded. “We’ll listen to any others that you’d like, Teacher Lan,” he said, anxious, and the rest of them nodded. “Just say which ones. If there’s any array or anything – or if you want us to write an essay about why using resentful energy is dangerous and wrong –”

Even Wei Wuxian nodded at that – even Nie Huaisang nodded, and he hated essays more than anything.

Lan Qiren huffed lightly. “Now you’re all so obedient.”

They all bowed their heads.

“…you did a good job,” Lan Qiren finally said, and they all looked up to stare at him. “You rescued me and repelled the Wen sect, however temporarily. Even though you used demonic cultivation, which is forbidden, you did not purposefully disturb graves, and you can make recompense to the spirits later. It was well done, and I thank you for it.”

He noticed that they were gaping and frowned at them.

“What have I taught you?” he scolded, and he sounded enough like he normally did that Wei Wuxian had the sudden urge to burst into totally inexplicable tears. “The preservation of human life is the priority, always. Why is this a surprise?”

“Shufu is right,” Lan Wangji said, and there was something of peace and calm in his eyes, the foundation of his world steady and unfaltering – he was almost glowing with it, satisfied and happy, and he was so utterly beautiful in Wei Wuxian’s eyes that it was almost blinding. “We acknowledge Teacher’s words.”

“We acknowledge Teacher’s words,” everyone else quickly agreed.

Lan Qiren shook his head, nodding in appreciation. “What is your next step now?” he asked. “The Wen sect was only repulsed, not defeated. They will not be gone long – they are already regrouping outside our gate, and this time they will be prepared for the effects of your demonic cultivation. In the end, they still have the advantage of numbers.”

“I don’t think we got as far as that in our plan,” Wei Wuxian said, rubbing the back of his head.

His thinking had mostly stopped at get Teacher Lan back and make them pay. He was pretty sure the same was true for Lan Wangji, and probably all the rest of the, too.

“Maybe you didn’t,” Nie Huaisang said with a sniff, and damnit, Wei Wuxian really needed to stop underestimating him just because he was a bad cultivator and a bit empty-headed. “I, on the other hand, sent a message back to my da-ge way back when this first started, and he should be here very soon with an army of his own.”

There were those in the Jiang sect that liked to mock the Nie sect as being unduly paranoid, always preparing for war and speaking grimly of its inevitability, always training their disciples and soldiers as if each one of them would need to fight five or ten of the enemy at once.

If Wei Wuxian ever met any of those people ever again, he was going to punch them in the face.

“Just be sure to get your sect ready when you get back,” Nie Mingjue advised them all grimly when it was all done and Wen Xu’s head was stuck on a pike at the entrance to the Cloud Recesses as a warning. The Nie sect’s forces were smaller than the Wen sect’s invasion force, but their people were better trained; even after flying all the way from Qinghe, they’d come down on the remaining invasion force like a hammer. “This isn’t over, not by a long shot.”

“We understand. There is still war to come.”

“Not just war, but uneven and unbalanced war, and not in our favor,” Nie Mingjue said heavily. “Understand that even with this loss, the forces of all the cultivation world put together can’t match up to the armies under Wen Ruohan’s command.”

“Actually,” Lan Qiren said, and gave all of his students a pointed look, probably on account of the fact that they all still owed him the essay they'd promised to write, “I think you’ll find that there’s something more that we can add…”

#mdzs #wei wuxian #lan qiren #lan wangji #jiang cheng #nie huaisang #jin zixuan #my fic #my fics #home alone

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purrincesskittens · 3 years

Text

Star Eyes, Zuko is mistaken as Water Tribe.

Gift for @muffinlance based off this post and this one

......................................................................

It was night when they found him. A quick examination showed blood on the back of his head. As they pounded on his back someone noted his eyes. “Gold eyes.” They called. “Are you fire nation?” The boy lifted his head and the light of the lantern caught his eyes reflecting back at them. “Of course I am.” The kid snarls. “Star Eyes.” Someone breathed. Shit this kid was one of theirs. “Could be the child of a war bride.” Was suggested by someone. “At least he’s not a fire bender.” There was a laugh that was quickly interrupted by the star eyed boy himself. “Yes I am.” “Well that was.... honest.”

Star eyes were only something seen in the water tribes though. Even if this kid was a fire bender he had to be water tribe. More then likely the result of a woman stolen from her tribe during a raid and raised as Fire Nation since he looked enough of the part. But he was young, probably just recruited or practically forced into joining the military. There was a easy way to figure out how dangerous this kid was or rather how much more dangerous he was considering he was a fire bender.

“Have you ever killed someone?” Hakoda asks crouching before the boy lifting his chin in one hand so the boy had to look him in the eye with those gold colored star eyes. “What? No ... I don’t think.... No.” The kid seemed confused the blood on the back of his head suggested a head wound but this kid was young probably just assigned to a ship only to get knocked overboard by either by a storm or by another soldier. Those eyes probably didn’t make him popular or the fact that this kid’s eyes kept sliding away from Hakoda’s own suggested he may be a fey child.

“What do we do with him?” Somebody asks as they watch the kid cough up water, curling and uncurling his fingers against the wood of the deck his eyes cast down. “We keep him for now. His mother is probably Water Tribe war bride if he is star eyed. Have Kustaa check him over and if he survives we figure out what to do from there." Hakoda announces to the crew. They took care of their own and until they figured out who his mother was and could turn him over to her family if she had any left the crew of the Akhult would take care of him for now. Half Water Tribe and the child of a war bride was still Water Tribe and like hell were they going to turn him over to the Fire Nation to continue using as a weapon.

Kustaa later informed him the boy had hypothermia as well as potentially severe head trauma it was hard to tell right now. The kid mistook him for his uncle. Which uncle they weren't sure. It's possible the boy's mother had a picture of her family she either managed to take with her or she drew herself or he could be thinking Kustaa was his father's brother. The escape attempts didn't help some of the crews opinions on keeping the kid but considering he was raised as Fire Nation and was in a strange place so its expected that he would try to escape although climbing the mast was something Hakoda really wished he didn't do along with scaling the side of the ship.

Kustaa had mentioned the boy called for his mother while delirious along with begging his father for forgiveness pledging his loyalty to him and pleading no to the man which didn't paint a pretty picture of the man or gain much favor of the fire nation in the crews opinions. "Tell me about your mother." Hakoda suggests sitting up on the mast beside the boy. Glowing gold eyes blinked at him. "I remember trailing robes. She favored long sleeved robes with delicate embroidery. She had long hair I remember her brushing mine when I was little. I would sit in her lap and she would brush my hair talking to me about theater or turtleducks or plants. Different things she liked. I think I would sometimes tell her about my day or what I had done recently I don't remember clearly its... faded almost. Fuzzy. I barely remember what she looked like."

Hakoda frowned the boy was water tribe he had to be with those star eyes of his but why wouldn't his mother tell him about her people, her home. Maybe she couldn't? Maybe the boys father was so controlling he made sure she never spoke of home to their son? Then the boy said something that made him rethink everything he knew about the kid. "Uncle said my hair is alot like hers. Or it was. I don't even remember why I shaved it." The kid frowned obviously struggling to remember rubbing his head with one hand. The head wound had left him confused he didn't rember his name or much of anything recent but he remembered he had been burned for cowardice supposedly or partially for that but what did the fire nation consider to be cowardly? Kustaa suspected the boy's own father burned him based off what they gleaned from fever dreams and night terrors.

“What did she look like?” Hakoda questions softly holding his breath hoping he was wrong with the hunch he had. “Elegant, beautiful, she had long straight black hair that was so soft and amber eyes with flecks of true gold in them she wore long sleeved red robes with elegant embroidery. The sleeves would bellow and she would hide me in them when I was little.” The boy continued to talk about his mother someone he remembered fondly although all the details suggested the hugs, the turtle duck kisses and every else stopped when the boy was small. Something happened to his mother and Hakoda was beginning to suspect it may have something to do with the boys true parentage. But how to suggest it to the kid without breaking the poor things mind? The whole crew already suspected he was spirit touched as the water tribe liked to call those who were different mentally the earth kingdom called them fey and not all of the earth kingdom where kind to them.

“If I promise no one on this ship will hurt you and we won’t turn you over to the Earth Kingdom will you stop with the escape attempts?”Hakoda asks when the boy falls silent picking at the grain of the wood under his hands not meeting Hakoda’s eyes. The kid blinked up at him startled. “Okay.” Getting the kid down the mast was surprisingly easy after that and a few more rules were hashed out before the kid was sent to see Kustaa again and the crew was gathered. “The boy’s mother was fire nation. He remembers her more clearly then anything else.” This drew murmurs from the crew some wanted to toss him over board then since he wasn’t the child of a war bride. “But he’s star eyed he has to be Water Tribe.” Toklo says tilting his head in confusion. “Exactly. We know he seemed to have issues regarding his father and Kustaa suspects he may have been the one to burn the kid. I learned his mother also disappeared or may possibly have been killed when he was young.” This gained more murmurs from the crew.

Panuk pulled in a sharp audible breath. He had figured out what Hakoda was getting at. “Does any one here know where they were about 16 to 17 years ago? If they were around the Earth Kingdom or the colonies anywhere?” Their chief had to ask if none of the men on this ship was the boys father he would have to send messages out to all the others in the fleet see if anyone remembered if maybe had met a pretty woman in the Earth Kingdom or in the colonies and spent a night with her. If the kids mother was Fire Nation and he was star eyed that meant his real father had to be Water Tribe. His mother had to have married or started a new relationship soon after and the boy looked fire nation enough to pass him off as her husband’s but the husband probably suspected what with the star eyes. There was silence followed by an uproar. “You can’t be serious?!” Aake shouted in outrage. “I’m not judging anyone but the boy is water tribe and with his mother gone we most definitely are not giving him back to the Fire Nation so we need to figure out whose he is. We take care of our own.” Hakoda soothed the crews ruffled feathers listening as the men scrambled to remember where they were and what they were doing all those years ago.

Slowly they managed to clear the majority of the crew those who couldn’t remember were left struggling valiantly to justify why they couldn’t possibly be the boys father while their youngest two crew members watched with glee obviously in the clear themselves due to their age. Once Kustaa cleared the boy Hakoda set him to work and had to add no breathing fire to the list of rules. Toklo and Panuk made friends with their newest crew member over laundry and the boy was very shouty about women’s work. And then the issue over the kid not having a name he remembered came up. Names like Siqinq, Kallik, Cupun, Tulok, Yuka and Tulugaq were tossed around. He is pretty sure they settled on Tulok simply because they already have a Tuluk and Toklo on board and that name is almost a combination of the two plus it had a star meaning behind it. The boy just wanted to fit in.

Reds were changed for Toklo’s blues and the boys hair shaved to regrow properly after Kustaa managed to break it to the kid that a real father wouldn’t abuse his son, biological or not. They picked up Bato who sympathized with them for wanting to keep the star eyed child, teach him his real culture, and find his real father but the kid was still a fire bender. A fire bender on a WOODEN SHIP!! The boy, Toluk looked like a kicked polar puppy being denied sleep in the hammock he was used to and his usual snacks when ever he wanted. They still had a lot of work cut out for them when the kid thought he would be killed over a bending accident because he didn’t fully remember he needed to mediate to control his fire. His memories were still patchy at best. So Hakoda ended up with his temporary foster star eyed child sitting in his cabin breathing with a lantern holding a dog.

The kid liked sea prunes proving he was Water Tribe at heart. He was good at using his fire bending for non evil purposes even if he protested it. He proved he shouldn’t be left alone in port either by himself or with his friends. He gained a piercing, two rusted swords, a theater scroll and a cabbage? No one seems to know about the cabbage. He can cook as it’s proven despite how spicy his cooking is and nearly gets kidnapped by prostitutes. Sex workers were not on the list of people Hakoda thought he would have to fight for custody of Tulok with. He nearly gets himself kidnapped by a Earth Kingdom solider they are allied with who seemed sure their boy was then dead prince of the Fire Nation. Never mind that the prince was dead and their boy was star eyed. The solider was surprisingly unfazed by the heat of the kids cooking. He didn't end up kidnapped despite his best efforts.. The kid really needed to stop climbing the mast. “Prince Zuko?!” Hakoda’s kids seemed to also mistake Tulok for the dead prince.

“That’s the Prince of the Fire Nation, dad he chased us all over and tried to capture the avatar numerous times. His sister did capture Aang.” His kids argued trying to convince him that their new foster brother was some evil prince. The kid in question for his part had more headaches then usual and just seemed more confused and angry. He remembered something. A little sister named LaLa. It takes a while but after watching their new brother and listening to the crew, “His name is Zuko, he is the prince of the Fire Nation, his father is Fire Lord Ozai does no one care about that?!” Sokka asks in outrage staring as the kid in question does laundry like its a perfectly normal thing for a prince to do. “His mother may be fire nation but his father sure isn’t.” Panuk comments dodging a wet shirt thrown by their resident fire bender. This earned laughter and calls of “Good for her!!” And “She could do a lot better!” Followed by “At least a water tribesman would treat her right!!”. Sokka groaned in frustration and confusion.

“Why is my nephew wearing blue, convinced Ozai isn’t his biological father and that he is water tribe?” General Iroh the Dragon of the West questions calmly. Tulok seemed to recognize Iroh and even called him Uncle and recognized some of the crew but he still didn’t have complete clear memories although his headaches grew worse until Kustaa told him it didn’t matter if he remembered or not he was water tribe and nothing was going to change that spirit touched or not. “He is star eyed you can’t possibly tell me the fire nation has star eyed kids that’s a water tribe thing only.” Iroh considered it briefly before dismissing it. His nephew looked similar to a young Ozai, so Ozai had to be his father even if he wasn’t much of one and his nephew deserved better then Ozai. But surely Ursa couldn’t have had an affair while married to Ozai it was impossible. Iroh tried to do the math off the top of his head of when Ursa and Ozai married vs when Zuko was born. “Look the obvious answer here is that the boys mom met with a Water Tribe beefcake and had a one night stand that lead to the boy. It’s the only thing that explains why his supposed father hated him so much and why he struggled with fire bending and is star eyed.” Bato explains grinning. “Beefcake?” Hakoda and Iroh question.

Azula finds this all far to amusing. “That just means I’m the rightful heir after all. You can stay here with your little water tribe family and I can be the next Fire Lord after Uncle.” Somehow things get worked out that their star eyed fire bender’s fire nation sister will be staying with them along side her two scary friends and the kids supposed Uncle will become the next Fire Lord once they take down Ozai. The kid is still confused and there are still gaps in his memories but they aren’t giving him back now he is their’s and the fire nation can’t have him. They still call him Tulok since the fire nation does consider the sun to be a star after all. He seems to like it better then Zuko. He still does their laundry still wears beads in his braids in red, blue and one gold. In all that’s happened no one thought to alert the rest of the fleet about what they learned leaving them in for one heck of a surprise when they reach Chameleon Bay where the rest of the men from the fleet scramble to try to remember where they were sixteen-point-nine years ago.

#water tribe zuko #star eyed zuko #zuko Is mistaken as water tribe #glowy eyed zuko #zuko’s eyes glow #gift for Muffinlance #salvage au #inspired by salvage #hakodad #hakoda adopts zuko #atla fanfic #atla zuko #atla hakoda #sokka is not okay with this #put the feral fire bender back where you found him #the akhuklt’s crew is okay with zuko being one of them #like okay if his mom isn’t a war bride then his mom hooked up with a water tribesman #which good for her at least a water tribesman would treat her properly #Iroh protests this #He is 90 percent sure Zuko is actually Ozai’s son #not that that’s is a good thing #he can’t be sure though #atla #Avatar The Last Airbender #Give Zuko happiness #ursa could do better then ozai #hey uh no judgement whatsoever to whichever water tribesman is the kids father but uhh come pick up your lost cub #Bato calls other warriors beefcakes #which watertribesman lost their cub they didn't know they had #everyone struggles to remember who they were with and where they were 16 years and nine months ago

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warmau · 3 years

Text

☆: bounty hunter! you x thief! minghao au tw: ment of violence/weapons | this was in my drafts so i decided to finish it

“there’s no way in the world any of you are going to catch him, but if you do -”

the head of the police, hong joshua, stands tall and straight behind the podium

the gold of his medals shines harshly under the white light of the town courthouse

and your mind wanders off as you think about the pretty penny you could get if you were to just happen upon stealing one of those medals....not that a bounty hunter should ever steal

“but if you do, the police will wipe your own felonious records clean and even offer a good amount of monetary compensation.”

that perks your interest, since you’re currently looking for some extra cash

plus being a bounty hunter isn’t a so called ‘clean’ job - you have stains on your record you’d like to see get erased.

and you know mr. hong doesn’t like you all that much so having him be the one clean up for you is sickly satisfying to some part of your psyche

you’ve been working in this shitty underground world for too long

someone’s voice comes from the back of the interrogation room and you don’t even have to look to know that it’s that newbie seokmin

all excited and bouncy and not-yet-dead-and-cold-inside like the rest of the people around you

“who is the criminal we’re chasing?”

the monitor on the rolled up caddy beside the policeman flickers on

“xu minghao. he’s a notorious thief in the city, responsible for the last string of high art robberies from the homes and personal collections of the elite.”

you snort, the ‘elite’, being rich makes you some kind of level above human now doesn’t it?

“his latest victims are the choi family, he stole not only paintings but some jewelry as well - possibly high end watches and the sort.”

“choi family?”

god this new kid knows nothing

“choi seungcheol’s family” you say with a yawn “you know, the choi seungcheol - the mayor.”

seokmin gasps and you finally look at him.

he’s got a build to him that probably helps with physical altercations but he gives off the vibe that he’d faint at the sight of blood

“exactly.”

joshua shoots a pointed look at you and you kind of dance around in the disgust

“which is why we are going out on a limb and asking for the bounty hunters to help. the choi family desperately wants these pieces returned to them.”

you look at minghao’s face on the screen, it’s obviously not a mugshot so you note that the police force has actually never caught him

it’s a kind of photo that looks like it has been pulled off a social media account

minghao is standing in some sort of white room, he’s tilting his head and looking at the camera - or maybe the person holding it - and one of his eyes has a piercing blue colored contact in it

his features are angular, sharp, and long - but they fit together to make an unusually handsome kind of face

you slide forward in your chair and take your own phone out to snap a picture of the monitor

“how much for him?”

another voice echoes somewhere from the corner

joshua’s straight-faced expression twitches like he’s trying to believe the number that comes out of his mouth.

“ten million”

you keep counting the zeros in your head as you push your keys into your motorcycle and adjust yourself on the seat

you could retire with that kind of money. you live a frugal existence as it is.

you know that minghao is probably also somewhere in the city, still plotting for his next job.

he’s been hitting rich people’s houses for two months straight and the choi’s are a victory, for sure, but they’re still not the biggest shark in the ocean.

the people who sponsor them, the people who made seungcheol mayor, minghao has to be going for them next

you make a list of the three family names that come to mind, luckily enough you also know someone who works in the business of ‘technology’ or so who can help you track down the lead forming in your head

you look one last time at the picture of minghao on your phone before you slip it into your jacket pocket and pull out of the parking lot

“how much?”

“stick-up-his-ass hong said ten million, the choi’s really want there watches and monet’s back.”

jihoon turns to you with a deadpan expression

“you know monet’s can go up to ten times that amount right?”

you shrug and shove a half eaten bar of candy in your mouth that you stole from a bowl by his computer

“i don’t know, i didn’t go to college for art history. anyway, can you help?”

“how much of your cut will i get.”

you lick your lips and think for a second

“if i get him alive i’ll cut you in thirty percent. if he’s dead, ten.”

jihoon taps his foot and adjusts the glasses on his nose, he told you once they’re for the blue light or whatever that come out of his six computers.

“deal.”

you come over and see him open up the page of one of the most expensive and professional art dealers in this city, jihoon mentions that this person is in charge of the buying accounts for all of the three families you mentioned

he also happens to manage the choi’s, so looking into him could lead to possible other leads for the three targets you have in mind

“if minghao is planning to rob them - he needs to know what pieces to take. he’s probably also tracking down what they’re currently thinking about buying.”

“yeah, and im gonna assume - you know, bounty hunters intuition or whatever, that he’s going to hit whichever family recently bought the most expensive piece.”

jihoon’s fingers type faster than your eyes can follow. he doesn’t even seem to move his face, just his pupils and then a bunch of screens are popping up everywhere

you had befriended him on an assignment to catch a hacker - not jihoon, although he’s actually got a price on his head too - but another hacker who was clambering up jihoon’s business

you watch as jihoon does his magic, and then in about ten or so minutes you have an answer

“one of the family’s just bought and received a vase from this guy, it won its auction at around twenty five million. it’s from the ming dyn-”

“which family?”

you don’t care if they got a vase, a sofa, a painting, or a gold and diamond encased piece of potato - something in your stomach told you that whoever just spent the most was on minghao’s radar and minghao was on yours

jihoon adjusts his glasses

“that would be ... oh, that would be the yoon family.”

you taste something iron on the tip of your tongue, yoon jeonghan was on the cover of last month’s vogue if you remember correctly

“got it. thanks.”

you shrug your jacket back on and jihoon spins around in his chair when you get to the door of his dark apartment

“remember, thirty if he’s alive!”

“and ten if he’s not!”

you don’t like the fact that this new kid, seokmin, is standing outside the giant gates of the yoon family mansion

he’s wearing a cut off white t-shirt and new balances for christs sake

“hey!” he looks like he’s seen the sun when he spots you sort of loitering nearby, you try to ignore him but he’s coming over

“hi.”

“staking out the yoon’s? my first impression was they’d be minghao’s next targets because they’re rich and like art too.”

you wonder how he knows that so you ask, half expecting he might actually tell you - which would be a stupid thing to do.

he does.

“oh! i mean their son is a designer, they must be the best people to steal from.”

that’s so fucking ridiculous but he’s actually right. going to tell jihoon im cutting his share in half since apparently his intel could have been free.

“uhuh. well good luck.”

the words are stale when you say them, but sparkling eyes seokmin takes them to heart with a gracious “you too!”

you actually didn’t come to stake them out - you came to see if minghao might be staking them out

no good thief actually just bursts into someone's home, they need to know every nook and cranny of a place if they want to get out clean

judging by minghao’s track record, you can tell he’s cautious and detailed

you circle the house at a safe distance and then head back home, you read a bunch of articles on minghao’s past crimes and eat the only thing you have in your fridge which is mint ice cream - it was left there by a late night hook up who’d doordashed 7/11 even when you told them not to

you do some other minor research on smaller bounties you could chase after minghao is caught, none are interesting or any where near the price of minghao’s

you lay down and the stray you recently started letting crawl through the fire escape makes a little fuzzy circle at the base of your feet

you look at your phone, look at the photo of minghao

wonder if he’s as detailed orientated in other things aside from stealing. looks like he’d know what to do with his hands.

you fall asleep with the phone on your chest.

the next day, you’re texting jihoon about the seokmin thing - he tells you to piss off and not even think about downing his cut or he’ll leak your social security on the internet

that’s so fucked up dude

you’re a shit bounty hunter and im a hermit hacker we aren’t good people anyway

fine, are the yoon’s buying any other vases or whatever

actually, they won an auction a month ago for some ceramics. heard they’re coming tomorrow.

oh, might be a good time to steal that vase and some extra trinkets too for our thief

look how ugly these things are tho

jihoon sends you a photo pulled from the auctioning website, they are ugly, but they’re expensive

you rub your temple and decide that’s enough for today, you don’t see seokmin around either

seungcheol’s generic smiling im-a-good-mayor-and-i-kiss-babies face is grainy on your tv

you eat the takeout you picked up on the way back and are only mildly surprised when you notice someone familiar in the crowd

this is old footage, from a rally he did before the crime

your eyes pan to the corner and pull out one person from the sea of faces, everyone looks so excited to see seungcheol, minghao stands staunch and unwavering in the moving bodies

he’s not grinning - he’s kind of half smirking from what you can tell

he really does his research, i kind of like him

you put the chopsticks into your mouth, yeah. i think he’s going to be a fun one to catch.

goddamn seokmin is here again - on the night the drop shipment of the ceramics is scheduled - you tell yourself you were a clown for believing all that ‘i just thought they’d be the right family!’ bullshit he was telling you about

he probably has an informant of his own, definitely not jihoon though. seokmin is the type jihoon would rather drive a usb through his head than ever cooperate with

you avoid him the second you see his strong shilloute and make your way to the otherside of the house, right on the outskirts of the back garden

there’s one person in it - none of the immediate yoon family you can recognize, probably just a worker

you know there’s three entrances from here - the garden doors, the side opening that leads to an underground washing room, and there’s also a way to get into the back of the kitchen

you are betting that either one of them might be a good choice for minghao, but you put your bet on the washing room - it has stairs that lead up into a spare bedroom which is adjacent to a gallery type room inside of the huge mansion

it’s where the family will probably put the items, rich people love to be all like “look at my room of expensive things you don’t get to touch”

you stick your tongue out to yourself, morally you don’t care about thievery. especially when it’s stolen art stolen from people who just want it to feel superior to others

but minghao is worth ten million, that’s why im taking the higher ground on this ‘crime’

bounty hunters are allowed to carry guns, but you’ve never liked them - you like to use mace instead

that being said, you’ve brought your gun along - unloaded - just to use a scare tactic if push comes to shove. it’s heavy and it reminds you constantly of the job you came to do.

no getting distracted by newbie muscle heads or how hot you’re coming to think minghao is

you hear something - eyes darting to behind one of the columns of a large gazebo in the garden

you swear you see something slink across as the only person in the garden gets up to head back inside

keeping your movements and noise to a minimum, you position your body for a better view and after what seems like two heartbeats you see him dart from the enclosure and toward the mansion

you don’t follow immediately, the only way you’re going to catch someone who is so elusive is if you one up him

you have the element of surprise, but not really, he might be expecting personal guards of the yoon household or the police

not a rogue bounty hunter with a can of mace

but he’s still expecting - and someone whose entire job is to be like a shadow - you’ve got to be careful

you wait the amount of time you deem appropriate and then do the same, you realize when you slip through the backdoor of the washroom that now you’re also committing a crime of breaking and entering

you’re sure the yoon’s won’t mind though - you are about to make sure their ceramics and vases don’t get stolen

plus, you checked up on all of them, the main family shouldn’t be home. the only people on premises are some cleaners and the gardener. you’re sure minghao knows that too.

you map out the house in your mind from what you’ve learned in the past couple of days and find the gallery with ease

you can see the large double doors are open just enough for a person to slip through

so he’s already in ther-

“HEY YOU! YOU BETTER STOP!”

your eyes widen and you push inside to see what’s going on

seokmin, flashing something in his right hand and holding a light in the other is pointing at the long, lean figure of minghao

he’s standing there in the circle of light holding the vase you and jihoon had been looking at before

his eyes are unimpressed when they settle on seokmin

“ok, ive stopped - now what are you going to do?”

“im going to arrest you and bring you to the poli-”

the vase that’s held professionally between both his arms then gets dropped and crashes to the floor

the crescendo of noise startles seokmin because it’s the one thing all these new kids who want to try this kind of work get wrong

the thief is never going to drop the valuable goods - except they are, getting caught is worse then anything else.

there will always be shit to steal - except you know if you’re in jail.

minghao beelines for the doors and you’re there, big grin and mace in hands

“hi!”

his eyes widden and you tackle him with ease, one hand bent behind his back as you make sure to keep your weight off him

“ugh, that big idiot had a partner?”

“he’s not my partner, by the way that vase is worth more than what im getting for your head.”

minghao shifts his cheek against the hard floor of the gallery and he’s smiling back up at you

“how much for me?”

“choi’s but ten million.”

he makes a pfft sound as he releases air from between his lips

“cheap as fuck.”

seokmin tries to bound over to help once he comes to, but you bite at him to back off. this is your win.

he says he can drive you and minghao to the station, but you tell him again that you’ve got this on your own

you kind of feel bad about how flustered he is and you tell him he can still brag about how you two were the only people with sense to look at the yoon’s

for some reason, that actually brightens him up. he leaves to go downstairs and you don’t know if he sticks around or goes off on another job.

you get the handcuffs on minghao’s wrists before the workers, who hear the noise come running up in terror

you flash your bounty id and they scramble to get a hold of the local police office

minghao sits up against the wall and you sit directly in front of him - you can see him better with the lights on

his dark hair is long in the back and messy, his eyes are brown and long and twinkle when you look into them

the bottom corners are highlighted by what you can’t tell if is sweat or glitter

“you’re different”

he starts and you put up a finger

“im not different, im just experienced.”

“you like money more than you like your morals.”

you put the finger down and gleam at him

“bingo”

“so why are you sitting here waiting to hand me over for some chump change like ten million dollars when you and i are inches away from a collection that’s worth close to a hundred million?”

you touch the holster on your hip and tilt your head

“we - even the two of us - wouldn’t be able to steal everything in there. we’d need a whole team and-”

you start as minghao open’s his mouth to counter. all his teeth are white and straight.

“and if we could, you’d backstab me and take it all and run because you just said it yourself. money over morals.”

“ive got morals when im dealing with the right people.”

the snort you let out is louder than you expect and it makes minghao cock an eyebrow

“don’t care, you’re a professional liar. plus hong said he’d clear our records and get us that money.”

“joshua hong works for choi seungcheol who is a bigger liar than i am and you know it.”

there’s real spite in the way he says it - you assume he’s probably had interactions with both. or he’s just grown up in this city like you have, all the trouble politics can cause - all the stupid, underhanded shit that goes on

he leans a little forward

“plus, you’re hot. usually anyone who manages to catch me is very gruff and very mean.”

“i am gruff and mean, don’t test me.”

you banter but then look around and the gardener who was supposed to stay up here with you and minghao has turned his attention elsewhere - normal people don’t like facing criminals and well...whatever category bounty hunters are in.

“what’s the most expensive thing in that room.”

you ask under your breath suddenly, the police won’t be here for another five minutes at least.

you text jihoon to tap into their comms and let you know the exact moment they’re at the door.

minghao shines that grin, slender fingers lift up and toward the door

“i broke it, but that place is jammed of other million dollar treasures. i saw an original signac that could score us close to 17 million.”

“a signac? who is that?”

minghao laughs with his hands still behind him

“so you’re hot but not into art, i can still work with that. he’s an artist, paul signac. the yoon’s own ‘la corne d'or.’”

you shrug your shoulders again and pretend you don’t hear the first part but mutter that art doesn’t make sense to you and minghao lets out another quieter laugh

“it’s a painting of boats but it looks psychedelic almost, super colorful. thirty six or so inches across.”

you think to yourself - one painting and it’s 17 million, what if you get another painting with it

“ok...anything else in there catch your eye?”

minghao wiggles a little

“lots, i know art like people know starbucks orders. very well.”

your phone pings and it’s jihoon’s warning. the police are going to be coming upstairs to take minghao off your hands in the next sixty to ninety seconds.

“i can’t trust you.”

he thins his lips and then taps your foot with his own, does a weird jostle of his body and then to your shock breaks out of his handcuffs with ease

he rubs his wrists as you think you hear some noise downstairs and the gardener jumps out of his seat to go greet the police without noticing the thing that just happened only a feet away from him

“i’ve had a bobby pin this whole time, i could have run away five whole minutes ago instead of giving you a history lesson on boat paintings worth more money than you’ve ever dreamt of.”

you don’t miss a beat

“let’s get the fucking boats then.”

you get up and minghao takes a hold of your hand in a way you haven’t experienced since maybe middle school

like when a beloved childhood friend would take you and lead you toward the playground, giggle about school or your parents, pull you in to a fun moment under the basking sun

you and him stand, hand in hand, in front of the painting he mentioned

it’s pretty, it almost looks like it was drawn by crayons, you wonder why it’s so expensive

“let’s take it and the two sketches over there, one’s a lady with a piano the other is a couple under an umbrella

“are they-”

“at least two million each. plus - we can comeback for the ceramics later.”

you don’t know why it makes you feel warm - but it does and you take the two framed sketches off the wall

the painting is large, but minghao has done this enough times before that he knows how to handle it - you two are out the hall and down the stairs by the time you hear the police shuffling up them

took their time thinking he’d just be sitting up there wrapped up like a present huh?

you think to yourself, minghao is quick on his feet and leads you in the direction of a inconspicuous looking tiny car that could seat you, him and maybe that stray that hangs around your apartment

he opens the back and it is a perfect size for the painting

“did you come here on your bike?”

you realize the whole look of you must give away the fact that you ride one

“never, i dont bring it on jobs because people know what it looks like.”

he tips his fingers toward you in acknowledgement

“good because this car isn’t mine either, so add auto theft to the list of crimes you’re committing with me on this first date.”

you bite the inside of your cheek, can’t tell if he’s joking or not

he hits the gas before there’s any movement on the street where it’s parked - the yoon mansion fades into the distance as he rushes into the evening traffic

“is this the part where you kick me to the curb?”

you ask

minghao takes one hand off the wheel and puts it on your thigh

“this is the part where you tell me where you live so we can go get your things and ride off into the sunset, bonnie.”

you laugh

“so you’re clyde?”

he looks at you at a red light - looks at your lips and then your eyes

“do you want me to be?”

you can decide the answer to that yourself

*if you’re interested here is la corne d’or on the sothebys website.

#listen idk what this is really but im worldbuilding a lot arent i #seventeen scenarios #seventeen au #seventeen imagines #minghao au #minghao scenarios #minghao imagines #the8 au #the8 scenarios #the8 imagines #the8 #minghao #seventeen #minghao x reader #the8 x reader #violence/ weapons/

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