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northwest-cryptid · 1 month

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I don't think people understand that you gotta make mistakes and grow from them by being educated one way or another about how to not make the mistake or why it was a mistake in the first place.

The internet is built around flash in the pan drama and unfortunately that has poisoned the minds of people who mean well on much more important topics.

You see someone sharing an opinion on a topic, that is just horrible; perhaps racist, sexist, or just generally bigoted. Your first instinct is to attack them, lash out; let them know how wrong they are, not why they're wrong; just that they are in fact wrong.

Make sure you really make it clear you want them dead, don't let anyone question that you might sympathize or seek to actually better this individual. They aren't worth it, they won't listen; you know this because the internet tells you so. Others "like them" have already poisoned the well and now you know the rules too well to give this one the time of day.

Prove to them that you are exactly what your enemies make you out to be, prove to them that you see them as nothing more than a horrible immoral person that doesn't deserve respect.

Sure they might come to resent you, they might in fact view everything you stand for in the same light; you may be a detriment to the very movement, people, or thing you stand to defend; but don't let that bother you... look the people on the internet love you, you get notes, you get the dopamine of knowing people think you're cool because you stood up to the bad man.

This is how we are now.

You know when I was probably just 16 I fucked up pretty minorly, like literally for context I'll just admit to this shit openly, don't talk about it much but I need you to understand the scope of this. When I was like 16 I wasn't artistically talented so I just casually traced shit, didn't know it was wrong to do so.

Tumblr however, made it clear I had fucked up, daily anon hate; mostly the generic "kill yourself" and the like; do you know what I learned from that experience?

I learned that I shouldn't listen to those people, who reacts like that? I was a kid, I still didn't know what I had done wrong, no one would explain. I was simply a target for hate; and when I'd ask for advice I'd only get further hate. I had "fucked up" online, and that was that. There was no allowance for growth. I was literally being told to fucking kill myself at 16 because I fucking traced over some deviantart shit. Can we just rationalize that for a second?

Now I need you to understand that this is how we respond to everything on the internet. It just feels far more justified when it's about something that actually matters. But hang on, let me go back a second; what did I just say I learned from that experience? Right, that I shouldn't listen to those people.

You realize the only reason I understood what had happened was because a very good friend of mine at the time sat me down, and I will never forget that the first words she spoke to me were:

"Don't listen to those assholes, it's not a big deal."

Before she ever explained to me what I had done, or why it could be hurtful; or the impact that it could have. Prior to offering me any guidance on how to actually learn art and such so I wouldn't repeat the same problem; the first thing she had to tell me was those people don't deserve to be heard.

And I needed to hear that before I was going to listen to ANYONE about anything at that point, because getting upwards of 30 - 50 anon messages telling me I was a waste of oxygen, that I needed to off myself and just do everyone a favor; that I was a mistake, every hour or so; well let's just say that really doesn't make a kid see your point of view and I don't think it works any better with adults for that matter.

Can you imagine if I didn't have someone like that to set me straight? Do you think I'd have learned anything positive from that situation? Do you think I'd have come out of it understanding what I had done wrong? Absolutely not, I'd have just thought everyone was too sensitive or some shit, whatever bullshit the people who picked me up after would tell me. Oh and that's the thing isn't it, if you make someone a victim; you've done half the work for your opposition to come in and convince this hurt individual that they are in fact correct; that you are in fact a bad person and that this individual needs to side with them because they wouldn't treat them this way.

It's easy to recruit someone who is starved of anything positive, who hasn't heard someone agree or even sympathize with them; someone who was trying to do something good and got burnt for not doing it right.

You know, I really do get it, I absolutely understand the want to just blow up and say some shit. It's fine to have emotional, speak from the heart kinda moments, it's fine. However when you're speaking on an issue that matters, when you're talking about the lives of individuals, when you're discussing what to do and the change that you want to bring you ABSOLUTELY, under no circumstances; lash out.

Because that's exactly what those who want to see you dead are looking for, you cannot afford to give them anything to work with.

It's why I lose my shit every time I see someone at those LGBT rallies screaming and causing a scene and being aggressive. Because that's the very thing people say we are, that's the very thing they use against us; and you're just giving them that, you're just letting them have that. Why? What does it accomplish!? Sure you get to feel like the big man right now, but you're hurting the very cause you stand for, and yea I hear you

"So what, do you want me to shut up and be quiet and do nothing"

NO I want you to conduct yourself like a fucking adult, I want you to show these people who might stand in the middle, who might not pick a side; that everything that a homophobic asshole has to say is wrong; I want you to prove to the world that we're just people, I want you to go forth and show people that, without being exactly the stereotype that's used against us! I want you to stop feeding people more to use against us, I want you to think before you act.

Because here's the truth, I might just be an individual to you, but to someone who sees Natives in a bad light, I could easily become an example of "see this is how Natives act" and you DO NOT give them that, you do not let them make that claim; you do not allow them to use you as an example.

If you are fighting for something, you represent the whole of that entity to those who oppose it, and you CANNOT afford to let them see you as something that isn't reasonable, that doesn't deserve the right to be heard.

You can't afford to be 50 anons in my inbox telling me to kill myself.

You need to meet people on a level they understand, you need to meet them halfway and explain it to them; you need to be willing to educate them even when it's not your fucking job. Because the alternative is being all talk and no action, the alternative is never seeing your goal come to light, the alternative is that we may as well just roll over and die.

When you can't conduct yourself with respect and dignity you act for the opposition. That's just the unfortunate truth. Trust me I've wanted to say some very choice words to some very specific people before, and I have had to remind myself that when I am in a situation where I speak for the whole I cannot allow myself to act on impulse and emotion alone; lest someone make an example of it and use it against everyone who stands with me.

This is why I say we need to educate people, this is why I say we have to approach even conflict with the idea of explaining to uneducated masses the truth about the shit they say.

If someone came to me and told me all Natives were savage killers who can't be civilized and all that shit; sure you absolutely bet I'd love to just knock em cold where they stand. Is that not exactly what they would expect from a savage? Is that not exactly what they expect a Native to do?

Sure I could cause a scene, I could fight; I could yell and scream and make a problem of it. It would only prove them right. Instead I could always educate them, explain things to them.

"But they won't listen."

Doesn't matter then, it's not for them then; it's for everyone who sees it; it's for the masses around us, who see this man approach me telling me Natives are all savages who can't be civil; because the sane among them will see a Native there who can be civil; and suddenly all that man has to say becomes nonsense.

You need to be able to disarm them with understanding, education, and fucking kindness. You need to understand how to make your enemy understand you until they're your friend, and then when it comes time for their actions to take a side, you can bet your ass they'll side with you because it would be insane for them not to; not when they know everything that you know.

We see on the internet, this constant bickering of elementary school kids; just on much more important topics.

We can't discuss shit like politics anymore, it becomes "yes" "no" "yes" "no" "yes" "no" instead of making any real progress one way or another. I know some people are VERY stupid, do you know how many times I've been VERY stupid? How many times I've been uninformed? It's a lot.

It's a LOT, and it's a lot more than I care to admit.

However I was lucky, because I was around people who actually cared about what they were saying, about the messages, about the causes they stood for. I was around good honest people who were understanding, and who taught me better.

Not as someone who was bad and needed to be fixed, but as someone who didn't know any better because I was never taught in the first place.

I was given respect, I was shown kindness, and as such I was better for it.

People talk about "converting people to your cause" and all this shit, that's not it; you don't need to convert someone, once they know what you know they will make up their mind.

If you show them that you are someone worth fighting for, that your cause is in the right; they will fight for you.

I used to be homophobic, it kept me from understanding a lot about myself, it kept me from making some very good friends; it made me a pretty awful fucking person. I didn't know, I had no clue, I didn't understand the scope of what I had been taught. That didn't change until I grew up and met other queer individuals like myself who were able to show me that everything I had known was all homophobic lies.

Not by demonizing me, or "proving me wrong" but by just being good honest people, who meant well; and acted with kindness.

The internet has unfortunately poisoned the way people engage with real social issues; and as I get older it becomes harder and harder to stay quiet about it.

There's a huge difference by the way, between this; and punching a nazi.

You should absolutely punch nazis. I'm not going to say they deserve kindness.

And by that same token, there's a time and place for that sort of militant aggressive push-back. You need to learn where to draw that line, and how to draw that line before you go making an ass of yourself and smearing the name of the cause you stand for.

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ecoamerica · 2 months

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homosexualjavert · 22 days

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Coworkers, you say? Does that mean that M. Fauchelevant was of the police at some point? Intriguing, do tell me more! He is not very forthcoming about his past- or himself in general, for that matter. How long have you known Monsieur Fauchelevant? What colour was his hair before it became white? How much is he capable of lifting? Would he be able to sling you over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes? Was he always so buff?? The people (I) need to know, Javert!

I see, I wish them the most horrendous vibes as well! I know a woman who has experience in the mystic arts, so perhaps she can curse that individual somehow.

Why, that colour code is a lovely shade of dark green! Hm, perhaps it's too saturated for a recommendation. How about #9a9460, it's a light, warm tan. The colour is neutral enough to go well with Monsieur Fauchelevant's darker ensembles as well as complement the lightness of his hair. I imagine he would look - in my non-homosexual opinion - rather angelic! Regardless, going clothing shopping with the man would be a nice date idea! Er, I mean "outing".

You have unsavory impressions of me?? Do tell, I absolutely love being the centre of others' thoughts!

May you have a speedy recovery (so as not to further "inconvenience" M. Fauchelevant),

-- M.M.

P.S. You have surprisingly succeeded in tagging, well done, Inspector! I believe I wrote a few other missives without my sign-off, if you feel like combing through pages of text? I'm sure if you make a search for "M-sur-M" on your page, I will come up a decent amount haha.

P.P.S. If not a stray cat, then a newly-medicated, formerly feral guard dog.

Er... I would not say... Of the police. He was... a... civil... servant. Why do you all insist upon asking about him!

I have know M. Fauchelevant for almost 40 years, now. Perhaps know is not the correct word, but I have been aware of him for such a time.

His hair? Er... I think it was brown. It was intermingled with streaks of a lighter brown and grey streaks, before it went fully white.

Lifting--! Uh. He. Lifts about as much as a normal person. He has always been very, very buff. Hm.

I implore you not to make use of anyone who participates in such arts. Those... pagan practices. They are not looked upon fondly by the law. I know this very well.

Er! Well. He hates tan. Uhm. Yes. So do I.

You seem very brash and attention seeking. The type of idiocy that comes with success, youth, and smarts. It fades eventually. It always does.

I hope I heal quickly, as well. M. Fauchelevant says it is no problem, but I feel horrible for treading on his hospitality in such a matter. I see no other option, now, so I suppose I must wait till I am healed. I am still unsure what to do to repay him.

I am not feral. If I was to be a dog, I would be very respectable.

#les miserables #jean valjean #valvert #les mis #cosette #inspector javert #unknown mm

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paperstarwriters · 10 months

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Thinking about Aspec Muriel & reader.

Personally I am a demisexual & demiromantic but I feel like I fluctuate sometimes, and I've kinda been thinking about Muriel and his place anywhere under Aspec umbrella (including both the asexual spectrum and aromantic spectrum)

Note: This is largely based on me projecting from my own experiences lol. I know For Certain that this won't apply to all aspec people, so if you are of a differing position on the spectrum feel free to discuss about this with me!! I'd love to hear your perspective— also, the links provided are to the LGBTQIA wiki, so if they're inaccurate, feel free to correct me!

also this is largely me just throwing hypotheticals at the wall and rambling so warning for late-night nonsense

anyways it's just —

Because I don't really see Murel as being Fraysexual or Frayromantic (although don't get me wrong, that is a possibility) I can't help but worry at how he felt being desired and admired while in the Colloseum, as let's be honest, there are bound to be a handful of horny people who absolutely loved his show of strength and power right? But practically being at the beck and call of Lucio, I can't help but wonder at how or if Muriel might've felt if he was ever confronted by some of those fans who just... did not know him.

Or I imagine some people trying to egg him on and see how many people "the beast" has slept with and he just feels revolted at the thought—not necessarily because he sees sex as something inherently disgusting, but simply because he can't see himself wanting or doing that, or he hates imagining his own body in that vulnerable position.

And it just places him in a position where people are so confused and dejected at his disinterest romantically or sexually, because "oooh here's this absolute hunk of a man why won't he fall in love/have sex ever? Isn't he human? isn't it ''natural'' to want a sexual/romantic relationship??"

and it all just ends up further othering him. as if he were some sort of Golem driven by blood and hatred, incapable of feeling love or emotion, as if he did not love and care for what few friends he had left, as if he did not love and care for Asra.

And then eventually MC comes around, and whether or not you're Aspec, you at the very least respect his boundaries, and it's a sad and sorry thing, but as a character of entertainment for Vesuvia, I can't help but expect that many rich influential nobles that could bribe their way through the guards around him did not respect that, and maybe they couldn't actually reach him, but they tried, and that's scary enough. Or maybe some rabid fan, oblivious to social expectations, or just incapable of seeing him as anything other than an animal, trying to get to him as well.

Or maybe not even any of that, maybe just the threat of it, ever hanging on his shoulders when people loudly discuss him as if he did not have keen ears, or as if the hallways did not echo, or as if he were not just a few feet away from them.

don't get me wrong, being sexualized when you don't wanna be sexualized is horrible, but the lack of being able to reciprocate or even understand any of it—how people can so easily desire someone else sexually or romantically just by looking at them—and hearing how people regard it as a "natural human experience" that feels awful.

I doubt many people would be talking about the possibility of people just not having those feelings, and it being a normal experience around Muriel and he just ends up left there, feeling so much like some sort of attraction in a cage, inhuman, abnormal and so, so wretched.

And when his only close friend, his only remaining reassurance that he was some part human, leaves for a romantic relationship, Muriel feels more disjointed and broken apart than ever.

And then eventually MC comes around, and whether or not MC is aspec, they respect Muriel's boundaries, and are willing and happy to keep the relationship platonic, or just not have sex if that's what Muriel wants.

and if MC is aspec, the both of you end up diving down into that wormhole of everyone else expressing that automatic or lasting feeling of sexual or romantic attraction to others, and how you both lack that, and most importantly, how you both continue to see each other as normal and human despite that. Regardless of what others say, and regardless what you each think of yourself, you can't bear to call each other inhuman, so you don't. You insist upon each other's humanity and you support each other like that.

Just, regardless of however your sexual or romantic orientation shifts and changes, you both find solace and trust in each other, because you both understand and you both know. And of course, most important overall, you both respect each other's boundaries, and you trust each other enough that, even if one of you realize that maybe sometimes you crave that romantic relationship, or maybe sometimes you crave that sexual relationship, you both trust each other to discuss it beforehand, rather than demand it, and you both trust that, whatever happens after, whether you accept or reject that offer or that possibility, you're still going to be friends.

and ugh the queerplatonic relationship of living together with Muriel in the forest, Sleeping over, and giving each other breakfast in bed as you both work through your chores, as you both make sure you're taking care of each other. Loving each other in that quiet, silly, tender, gentle, human way that friends love each other, that way that friends have always loved each other.

#it's late right now I'll ramble on about this more tomorrow lol #Asexuality #aspec #aromanticism #the arcana #x reader #muriel #muriel the hermit #muriel of the kokhuri #the arcana muriel #muriel the arcana #just thinking

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midgarmosquito · 2 years

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sooo instead of fantastic beasts 2 and 3 (which sucked) i wish we just got a 10-ep series abt newt going across pre-ww2 europe & cataloguing magical creatures 🤷‍♂️

maybe he noticed the creatures he had were oddly distrssed and went off to find the cause? maybe they sensed dark forces, aka. grindelwald's rise to power, the way birds can sense a storm

perhaps the creatures further east were more distrssed than those on the west? he couldve noticed that on his usual travels, or read some vague reports in the daily prophet

but ofc, the wizarding world doesnt rly care much abt magical creatures yet at this point. so the reports are pretty nonchalant and borderline joking

yet, they contain details that are pretty alarming to newt. maybe creatures harming themselves? or others? attacking muggle towns? herbivores suddenly hunting other animals? weird hybrids popping up that shouldn't even exist?

maybe its grindelwald experimenting with the idea of using creatures to gain power but psssst we dont know the reason yet ok

so newt sets off eastwards to figure our tf is going on. starting from britain and ending in ep 10 in romania (as we've learned in hp, romania has DRAGONS 🔥🔥🔥)

every ep has a different magical creature as the focus. some we know from hp (hippogriffs?), some are new. dark creatures (stuff from defense the dark arts classes in hp) also show up so there's action lol

and maybe grindelwald's minions are also on newt's tail? trying to stop him from sniffing around?

ofc jacob tags along because due to wizards not giving a fyck abt magical creatures yet, newt's only guides are local muggle rumors and fairy tales. and newt's a very awkward wizard, while jacob is an incredibly likable and normal man to whom villages readily open up

tina tags along too, because she's an american auror and is trying to figure out whatever dark forces could be gathering (but might be doing that in secret from local authorities cause politics).

theseus is there for the same reason except from the british ministry

we could have a slow burn romance with tina where newt's rly awkward and tina's rly reserved but they clearly care abt each other & over time & experiences, they bond

like newt has no idea how to be in a relationship or show feelings and might even doubt if there's space in his life for another person, considering how long he's been alone and how obsessed he is with his work. he's also kinda always been alone so it's all a strange new situation for him

tina, on the other hand, is incredibly guarded and careful to the point of seeming cold. over time she learns that yes, some people can be trusted.

oh and both learn to actually communicate lol

theseus has actually persuaded the ministry to send him (with some difficulty) because he was worried abt newt and wanted to be around to help. but he doesn't admit this, at first claiming the ministry made him come and that it's even a hassle for him.

he cares abt newt but theseus is a very regular dude who thinks newt's very weird. he loves his brother but struggles to relate to him at all. maybe even infantalizes him a bit? is overbearing?

over time he kinda Gets what newt wants to do and gets a newfound respect for him and learns to accept his weirdness and learns boundaries. and, again, communication lessons for both

i dunno how to shoehorn queenie into this but yeah she could be here too... if i think of a good pretext lol maybe she's just following jacob along

and queenie & jacob are very lovey-dovey but maybe they struggle with the realization that being together might mean being ostractized by their communities

maybe they get rly dramatic and queenie does an Edward Cullen like going "I never loved you" and breaks his heart because she believes he's better off without her

but ofc it horribly backfires and she admits what she did and the whole thing is a mess and they do get back together. but like everyone else, they learn to Communicate

and our merry band of misfits visits both other wizarding schools mentioned in hp (i dont remember their names sorry 😔🤡)

the french school has fairies and half-fairies in it and they have a connection to nature. so they give newt's concerns more attention than anyone else so far. newt's pretty stoked abt that, but there isn't much they can do. maybe the headmaster is too sceptical, despite other staff willing to help newt. maybe grindelwald's dark influence has spread, and the headmaster mistrusts foreigners, muggles, and wizards friendly with muggles as a result

the german school is far less welcoming. maybe they think he's a weirdo too. here grindelwald's influence is even stronger. but perhaps a student or young teacher comes out to help regardless of directive. maybe out of respect for newt's pure guts, wandering dangerous forests and risking everything for his beliefs. after all, their school values being stoic, and this student considers newt to fit this ideal. maybe they help the group find a giant (but i dont think giants are technically magical creatures...?) or an ice monster or something

i've always been fascinated by those other magical school, but we never got a glimpse. so i'd love it if they were very creative and had detailed interiors and exteriors. maybe the french one is an enormous living tree? maybe the german one is entirely underground?

along the way we might also meet other characters, both muggles and wizards, who help or hinder our heroes' journey. maybe we also meets other authors of future hogwarts books, or parents of known characters in hp. neville's parents are an idea, but i dunno if it's possible timeline-wise 🥴

along the way jacob helps a lot using the skills he has (strong social skills, loyalty, a good heart, maybe also knowledge of muggle affairs) and as such is a counterpoint to grindelwald's philosophy of wizard superiority

oh and in ep 1 newt has a near-death experience with a magical creature. rather than blaming the creature, he's understanding and just says the creature was distressed. (other people think he's insane, though.) this does scare him, though - what would happen to his beloved creatures if he was done? what about his body of work? his painstakingly acquired knowledge of magical creatures?

so he starts compiling his notes and writing a book, with doubles as an instruction manual on how to care for magical creatures. but he has no one to pass on his notes to, and it bothers him

maybe he tried to give the notes to dumbledore, but dumbledore smiles and says to give him the book when it's fully done

(dumbledore's lobbying in hogwarts to introduce care of magical creatures as a subject, but wont tell newt yet since its still uncertain)

oh and the eps can start with newt narrating the corresponding parts of his book. the ep's very first shot is always that shaggy, agressive meanace of a book we see in hp. then we see newt's hand carefully patting it, opening it, then reading

over time, he learns to trust his companions, and they begin to understand his work. maybe in like ep 9 he opens up abt his fear of dying and not being able to take care of his menagerie. so they all promise to care abt the creatures using newt's book, should anything happen to him

obv it does, he dies in ep 10 😭 maybe by sacrificing himself while trying to stop grindelwald from enchanting a dragon to do his evil bidding or something

his companions are sad ofc and they do keep caring abt his creatures. we see a montage of all of them doing so, jacob clumsily trying to feed some huge creature, theseus getting bitten, tina sadly stroking the back of some bird-like or horse-like thing

we can have a post-credits scene where, many years later, hagrid's teaching care of magical creatures. maybe fondly talking abt newt and wishing he could've met the man who Understood so deeply why all creatures matter

so yeah thats the kind of fantastic beasts content i crave and think about

and this is how i chose to spend my morning 😃 detailing my imaginary series into the void 😃

jk i regret nothing, this was rlyy fun to brainstorm about ☺🥰

#harry potter #fantastic beasts #fantastic beasts and where to find them #newt scamander #newtina #young dumbledore #gellert grindelwald #brain dump #brainstorm #imaginary scenarios #netflix please #long reads #au idea #someone write this #someone write it

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berlinauslander · 3 months

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Zizek on Woke Culture:

And it is exactly the same with much of the ongoing woke' movement: they awaken us (to the horrors of racism and sexism) precisely to enable us to go on sleeping, that is, ignoring the true roots and depth of racial and sexual trauma.

The paradox here is that this sleep is not a passive withdrawal from reality: it functions as frantic activity. How are we to understand this? On today's market, we find a whole series of products deprived of their malignant property: coffee without caffeine, cream without fat, beer without alcohol... And the list goes on: virtual sex as sex without sex, the art of expert administration as politics without politics, up to today's tolerant liberal multiculturalism as an experience of other deprived of its disturbing Otherness. We should add to this list another key figure from our cultural space: a decaffeinated protester, a sleeping 'woke' protester who says all the right things, but somehow deprives them of their critical edge. He is horrified by global warming and by the war in Ukraine, he fights sexism and racism, he demands radical social change, and everyone is invited to join in, to participate in the big sentiment of global solidarity, which means: you are not required to change your life (perhaps just give to a charity here and there), you go on with your career, you are ruthlessly competitive, but you are on the right side... To paraphrase the title of Ben Burgis's book, 11s the agents of cancel culture are 'comedians while the world burns': far from being 'too radical', their imposition of new rules is an exemplary case of pseudo-activity, of how to make sure that nothing really changes by pretending to act frantically.

In order to resist the temptations of woke culture, every authentic Leftist should put on the wall above his or her bed or table the opening paragraph of Oscar Wilde's The Soul of Man under Socialism, in which he points out that it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought : People

"find themselves surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this... Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the dis-ease... The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. And the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim... It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property."

The last sentence provides a concise formula of what is wrong with a pan-humanitarian approach, as epitomized by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It is not enough just to point out that the Gates charity is based on brutal business practices - one should go a step further and denounce its ideological founda-tions. The title of Sama Naami's collection of essays, Refusal of Respect: Why We Should Not Respect Foreign Cultures. Ours Included, 6 hits the nail on the head; this is the only authentic stance. Gates's charity implies the following variation on Naami's formula: respect all cultures, your own and others. The Rightist nationalist version is: respect your own culture and despise others, which are inferior to it. The politically correct formula is: respect other cultures, but despise your own, which is racist and colonialist (that's why politically correct woke culture is always anti-Eurocentric). The correct Leftist stance is: bring out the hidden antagonisms of your own culture, link it to the antagonisms of other cultures, and then engage in a common struggle between those who fight here, against the oppression and domination at work in our own culture, and those who do the same in other cultures around the world. The words of Lilla Watson, a Murri (Australian Aboriginal) artist and activist, to a rich white compassionate liberal tell it all: If you have come here to help me, then don't waste your time. But if you have come here because your liberation is bound up with mine, then come, let us work together.' 117

What this means is something which may sound shocking, but it is worth insisting on it: you don't have to respect or love immigrants - what you have to do is to change the situation so that they will not have to be immigrants in the first place. The citizen of a developed country who wants to lower immigration levels, and is ready to do something so that migrants don't have to go to a country that they mostly don't even like, is much better than a humanitarian who preaches openness to immigrants while silently participating in the economic and political practices that brought to ruin the countries where the immigrants are coming from. The problem with the ongoing culture wars is that both sides ignore this need to change the basic situation, which is why we shouldn't be surprised to find that the reluctance of the American and European new Right (as well as some of the Left) to support Ukraine clearly echoes the Russian position - they are on the same side of the global culture wars.

#books #woke culture #woke #slavoj zizek #philosophy #too late to awaken #colonialism #racism #imperialism #immigration

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ecoamerica · 1 month

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Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

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vaspider · 3 years

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'only tenet of TERFism is transmisogyny' EXCUSE ME NO ITS ALL TRANS PEOPLE. They don't want any trans person to exist. What the hell.

Some people just gotta center their own suffering always, even when they're hurting other people by doing so. I've seen this a lot in younger queer folx of all stripes, this need to be the one that hurts the most, you know?

There's a reason the phrase Oppression Olympics exists, and it's because it's a common behavior or phenomenon in oppressed communities. I see it in the disability community, too.

What I think is important to understand when we talk about how trans people suffer under transphobia is that different groups are targeted differently. I'm not the first person to say this, of course.

Now, like, this is very rough sketchy stuff, and each person's individual experiences will vary, but in my general experience, the rough breakdown of the way in which transphobia lands on trans people kind of breaks down like this:

Binary trans women tend to suffer under a lens of hypervisibility. Everything they do is seen, analyzed, and torn apart. Their struggles are generally the ones centered in the arguments of allies, "allies," and transphobes. Even when trans women are the focus of helpful attention, that hypervisibility can cause exhaustion, because they need to perform perform perform, and be perfect, all the time. It's hard for trans women to just be without feeling like they're on camera, all the time. A lot of the time, they are on camera, because trans women's bodily autonomy and right to privacy are just never respected by transphobes (and often by supposed "allies" who feel free to ask the most invasive questions and get upset when trans women won't answer them), and even if they're not literally on camera, they're supposed to perform as the best examples of transfemininity, because if they don't, then they become the next 'look at this bad trans, all trans are this bad trans' example that TERFs point at and use as a broad brush to paint all trans women. If they're not perfect all the time and have a day where they snap at someone while someone is recording, or make a mistake, or anything, it has a horrible tendency to go viral. You can think of at least three instances right now off the top of your head, right? Right.

Binary trans men tend to suffer from hyperinvisibility. This comes from inside and outside the community -- a lot of trans men talk about being told they can't lead in community because they've 'got male privilege,' that their struggles are discarded, that they're talked over and unable to discuss the things they face, which means they don't get the support they need. Now, there are TERFs and transphobes who absolutely do focus their attention on trans men to the exclusion of or to the deprioritization of the oppression of trans women -- that's where we get Tavistock and Irreversible Damage and Fourth Wave Now and all the other bullshit which focuses on the idea that trans men are "transing the gay away," specifically "transing our butch lesbians" and "stealing butches." But again, generally speaking, trans men face harmful levels of invisibility where trans women face harmful levels of visibility. That's why transmascs in general have issues like lack of understanding even by supposedly trans-competent doctors as to how HRT affects our bodies, why trans men (and transmascs in general) report things like transphobes attacking them with transmisogynistic comments and assuming that every trans person online is a trans woman, etc.

Non-binary (here used as an umbrella term for all identities outside of binary man/woman, to include agender, genderfluid, non-binary, and infinite other identities) AFAB people tend to suffer from a different, very specific form of hypervisibility, unless they start to appear too masculine, and then they slip into hyperinvisibility. This is where we get things like "women and non-binary people" that codes all non-binary people as "AFAB people I can sort of squint and view as women," and people who fall into this category tend to get a lot of attention, a lot of derision from all sides of the spectrum. This is the "blue-haired tenderqueer" sneering that we get from both within and without the queer community, where there's an assumption that these people are just cosplaying an identity, that they're not really trans, etc. Having been in the visibility category and slipped into the invisibility category within the last, oh, year or so, and having two binary trans women in my family to compare notes with, the experiences are unnervingly similar. The difference between the experience that those women have had and the experience that I have had is that according to transphobes, I'm a traitor to my womanhood and performing femininity wrong and taking on a fake identity to escape female oppression because I'm not strong enough to bear up under it, but too cowardly to become a trans man, or... something, whereas they're taking on a fake identity to sneak into women's spaces because they're perverts.

Non-binary (umbrella identity etc) AMAB people tend to suffer from their own very specific form of hyperinvisibility, unless they start to present "too feminine", and then they slip into the hypervisibility which affects binary trans women, but with a little different fuckery in which everyone just assumes they're a trans woman, and therefore they get misgendered by everyone across the spectrum of queer/non-queer/etc. Non-binary AMAB people are generally treated like they don't exist, and when they are spoken about, are often discussed in the context of 'they should just admit they're trans women or gay men,' or if they present 'too feminine,' are subjected to the same sort of horrific attention that trans women get.

Again, a lot of this is very simplistic, and doesn't add in a lot of other complicating factors like race, disability, class, etc. Trans men of color, for example, can run into a different sort of hypervisibility because as they move further through their transition, they begin to be seen in the world as a man of color. It's not really mine to speak on beyond that, but I don't want to neglect saying 'this is really really simplistic and there's more to it than that' over and over.

I really hate breaking it down this simply because it feels like creating another binary (our society does like a binary!) for non-binary people, but like, I can't really talk about my shared experiences with other trans people without putting some framework around it. Someday, I'll be able to do that without categories. Wouldn't that be awesome?

I think we do our entire community a huge disservice when we talk about transphobia as if it's a single snake trying to take bites out of only one part of the community, and not a many-headed hydra, able to attack us from multiple different directions. I also think that focusing on one form of oppression keeps us from forming meaningful solidary and coalitions; the more divided we are, the easier it is for the people who literally want us all to stop existing to pick us off one by one. We see this all across the queer community and it's only ramping up as the attacks on our community escalate from without; people tend to turn on the ones closest to them when they get really scared, and to blame the person standing next to them for the pain they're suffering. It's the "close enough to hit" phenomenon, and it's why we see ridiculous things like "bi women make cis men think that lesbians can be won over," rather than acknowledging that bi women aren't the ones causing that: cis men are the ones causing that. The bi women in that case are close enough to hit. Transmascs are close enough to hit. Trans women are close enough to blame for the problems of transmascs, which makes it possible for TERFs to lure transmascs in and attempt to detransition them, subjecting them to gaslighting and manipulation and then using them as sock puppets.

TERFs do focus a lot on transmisogyny. They focus a lot on transmisandry, too. Debating which one is more prevalent and 'worse' not only misses the point, because transmascs and transfems face very different and totally rotten attention from cis society as a whole, including cis queers. We need to like, not do that anymore: we need to give each other the space to talk about our unique circumstances, but we also need to work harder on looking at each other through a lens of solidarity and trying to see that our struggles are different but not unrelated, and that if we keep downing on each other like this, we're not going to get anywhere except in a much more difficult situation as the people who don't want any of us to exist keep picking us off.

#transmisogyny #transphobia #transmisandry #queer issues #trans issues #long post

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simpfiles · 2 years

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Okay but what are YOUR personal sfw/nsfw headcanons for Silco?

dude my silco is so boring lmao.

@eye-of-zaun mentioned that each banner could represent a member of the chem barons. if that's the case then i'd go a step further to say the symbol that sits above them is silco's. the way the s is shaped with the tendrils and circle in the middle makes it look like an eye. and we all know this dude has a thing for eye imagery.

everyone calls this man touch starved but he seems just fine touching himself. i am referring to the fact that he is always touching his face. if acne was a thing in league (doesn't look like it considering even the dirtiest of zaunites have flawless pours) silco would have had a major case of it as a teen.

probably picks at his scabs. not excessively but like, he can tell the scab is almost healed so he tries to hurry it along the way and it just ends up tearing skin again.

never had a pear in his life.

silco doesn't bat an eye to child labor because he was one himself. it's just something that happens in the undercity. also, call me a simp who's giving him far too much credit but i'd like to think that he's paying those kids.

obligatory 'silco is a villain and bad person' blah blah blah but also, he is honest to the core about his end goal. he wants the citizens of zaun to experience the same opportunities and respect that topside gets handed on a silver platter. so yeah. i'm saying this man paid those children.

unrelated note but modern silco would tip over 20%.

modern silco only pays with cash or checks. he hates credit cards.

i have 100 modern silco hcs. and 1000 other aus silco hcs that contradict themselves but one hc that will stay constant is that he has never had a pear in his life.

silco respects those who help themselves. when he says "[power] comes to those who will do anything to achieve it" i believe he doesn't mean become reliant on others or a drug to give yourself the illusion of power but that he fosters unbound ambition. because that is what zaun is to him. broken people who refuse to let their lot in life define them.

speaking of lot in life. silco doesn’t buy his clothes from piltover. he doesn’t try to mimic piltover’s fashion either. he is a proud zaun man through and through. he buys from zaun and supports zaun.

massive hoarder.

i'm obsessed with the fact that he doesn't curse in canon. and we can't even say that it's an act because we've seen him let loose and drop all pretense. whether he's alone or in the middle of making a horrible decision (ie the dinner party scene) he doesn't use colored language.

which makes me think his dirty talk is vastly different from the average generic lines that come from a porno. make no mistake, he talks dirty. with a voice like that how could he not? but his word choice is distinct and idiomatic.

he draws out his words. always starting with a command "shhhh. listen." he wants your full attention. to know that you're clinging to his words.

he is explicated in his expectations. “get on your knees and wait.” “stand and strip slowly.” “spread your legs and beg.” he wants to say more, those vulgar thoughts that swirl around his head when you look at him with eyes that make his blood race, but--- it takes him out.

here's part of a fic that never made it in the final draft: he’s uncut, a common occurrence among zaunites, with an impossibly long cock (another side effect of shimmer, perhaps?) that keeps sinking into you, until his hips are flush against yours.

would hate to be called daddy. i know it's the fandom's bread and butter it disgusts him. call him sir. call him mister. hell call him sweetie pie sugar hun baby. anything is better than his dick shrinking further into its turtleneck when you call him daddy during sex. side note: he really doesn't care pet names.

king of foreplay. he loves teasing others because he's a little shit.

he makes so much damn noise! his moans are sporadic and uncontrollable. everything about him is near uncontrollable when he gets into it, neither gentle or slow, he's chasing an end and his partner is just the means.

#Silco #Xian #was going to tag it as silco x reader but then i realized none of this mentions reader once #lmaoo my bad #if you wanted reader x silco hcs i guess send in again and i'll delete this post #lol

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theheraldsrest · 3 years

Text

“Companions (+Scout Harding and Varric) when they realized they were in love? Thank you, have a good day!”

Heehee, hooho, I’m very tired. We both work with schools and sometimes it gets hectic. Had one kid who knew what Dragon Age was and went on an entire rant about how wrong the Qun is. I’m so proud of him.

-LordLex

Cullen

-Kept brushing it off, could only see it as admiration. How you held yourself through different obstacles, being made the Herald, having to fight off waves of enemies and looking to help the people, it was truly a sight to see

-But then you started coming by to see him more often, even if you just spoke. Why did he keep stuttering? And he couldn’t stop himself from glancing over at you. Were you looking at him, just now, as well?

-Tried to keep up his professionalism but couldn’t help the smile that grew on his face when he saw you approaching him or when your voice came out of nowhere.

-And after helping him with his personnel quest, Maker help this man. He can’t help but to look for you whenever he leaves his study, listening for your voice or laughter. Love is complicated and Cullen sure as hell knows nothing about it.

Josephine

-She had lost all hope after the attack on Haven, thinking that all that you did was for nothing and it only ended up with you getting killed. But you saved so many lives and-there you were, alive. Injured but alive.

-Compared to most of the people she meets, you were very well mannered, not trying to gain favor, but honestly cared for her when you asked her if she wanted to talk for a second. Josey didn’t think much of it but started to enjoy the time spent with you, the conversations you’d have.

-At some point, she started to take mental notes about such small things: your favorite food, where you came from, what makes your nose wrinkle and what makes your lips turn up into that wonderful smile.

-She felt horrible about getting you involved in her family business but, when it came down to it, she wouldn’t have any regrets, thinking you two had grown closer through this experience

Solas

-You caught his eye and it wasn’t just because of the mark. You were...different. That’s the closest word he could connect you to. You were strong and powerful but also kind and gentle. Working with those around and yet you’d also be by yourself with a thoughtful look.

- He fell in love when you started asking for his advice Kidding, but he does get very excited when you start questioning about magical studies and the fade and the history behind certain artifacts

-He tries to distance himself from everyo1ne but you always seem to pull him back, pull him into conversations, going out of your way to spend time with him, even when you didn’t even seem to understand what he was saying

-With his personnel quest, he’s completely taken by you. You do so much for others, for him, when you really should care for yourself. He doesn’t want to feel this way, he doesn’t want anything to do with mortals. But you...you’re a different story.

Cassandra

-It’s been a hell of a ride for Cassandra on the rollercoaster of emotions. First she despises you, then gives you an inkling of doubt, then suddenly she values you as a friend. And now...flirting?! How dare you

-When you started to change your tactics and be more direct, she continued to try and brush them off as nothing more than friendliness. Sometimes would humor the idea, but you had more important matters to deal with

-Cassandra Allegra Portia Calogera Filomena Pentaghast does not fall in love, there’s too much to do and too much to take care of. And with the Inquisitor no less! Preposterous! She could lie to herself but that didn’t change how she’d drop whatever she was doing to talk to you

-Even with her personal quest out of the way, she has more emotions to sort through, including what she thought was admiration for you

The Iron Bull

-Bull doesn’t ‘fall in love’, it’s always just someone curious or someone wanting some company or something new. Never ‘in love’ and he didn’t think that would ever be something he’d have. He’s a soldier, meant to be used

-Started out as admiration. Was impressed with how you handled yourself and the inquisition. It’s not easy being a leader when you’re thrown head-first into war with a darkspawn

-Starts to question his feelings a bit after helping him during his quest. There’s still admiration, but with every touch, with every word, there was something else. Maybe he just appreciated you more?

-And then you brought him the other half of a dragon tooth. He had spoken about it so off-handedly, not expecting anything further from it and yet here you were, wishing to commit yourself to him. It was that moment that he truly fell in love with his boss.

Dorian

-Doesn’t seem like it, but he’s a romantic. He used to picture the perfect life with someone he truly loves, but since the issues with his family, he had basically given up on that life. Until you

-Most of his partners so far were just flings, so you can bet that he thinks he’s sick when he starts feelings butterflies in his stomach around you or looking to you to lend an ear

-He’s not used to someone caring for what he has to say or actually treating him more than that ‘evil magister from tevinter’, he likes it but is so confused

-He wants to accept these feelings but he’s so unsure of himself, so unsure if this is more than just another one of his flings. Gods, he hopes it is

Sera

-She doesn’t much care for relationships or ‘caring’ or ‘feelings’. If someone’s fun, she’s gonna hang around them more often. Nothing more to it

-Except it’s more than that with you. You’re big and important, nobles talk about you like you’re one of them and lower class praise you like Andraste gave birth to you, but you don’t hold yourself like any of that. You’re not a prick, you’re a goof and you actually enjoy Sera’s company

-She’s so excited when she sees you coming, when you look to her, you’re so easy to read and it’s easy to make you smile and laugh and- Sera’s falling for you

-She’s so inexperienced with these things, she doesn’t know what to do and she doesn’t want to screw up what you two already have. So, for now, she’ll lay low, admiring from a distance

Blackwall

-Blackwall respects the person you are. A fierce warrior but at the same time a kind leader. And he knows you respect him as well, as a person and as one of your companions

-He didn’t know he had more feelings than that till you started to flirt with him. He would have never considered it, not because he didn’t like you, but because he didn’t think he’d ever have that kind of chance with someone

-He pushes them down, trying to convince himself that he didn’t deserve it. You don’t want him, you’d be making a mistake. He could hurt you, he could hurt who you are. But sometimes he’d slip up, let something show

-After his quest, he fully believes that now you’ll truly see he doesn’t deserve you, but he’d forever love you

(Bonus!)

Varric

-Love is a touchy subject. Sure, he knew how to write it and a lot of his readers lapped it up, but that was only from witnessing it and experiencing the worst of it

-Who’d have thunk that he’d become rather attached to the Inquisitor, seeing them as the person they were before the mark, treating them as if they were anyone else, but always offering a shoulder if needed

-He’d worry for you, watch over you, making sure you were ok and not pushing yourself. It wasn’t until he saw you come back from the fade that he realized he cared for you, more than he ever cared for Bianca. Even Hawke would ask if he’s crazy

-Also tries to convince himself that he doesn’t deserve these feelings. You can be so close to someone without them knowing how you feel and it hurts. He had to go through it once, he doesn’t know if he can do it again

(Scout) Lace Harding

-Honestly, she hadn’t planned for you. How could she? She joined the inquisition to help and was made as one of the main scouts for the Inquisitor. She hadn’t planned on the Inquisitor having pleasant conversations with her on the few times they meet, even some playful banter

-She also didn’t plan on seeing you more often when the inquisition was moved to Skyhold. Before now, she had one of the most well-spoken attitude, but with you around she’d stumble over her own words, hitting herself for saying anything embarrassing

-She both hoped she was and wasn’t imagining the flirting, it gave her some hope that maybe you felt the same but also that maybe it was some sort of game.

-She did enjoy your company and, when given the chance, the drinks you two would share. If only you could do this more often, but then she’d be completely smitten with you

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leviiattacks · 3 years

Text

Boxer Levi & Coach Reader

author note :: i lost the ask for this, but this is not good at all. quite literally the worst thing i have ever written /srs anyways,,,,, anon said they wanted me to post it no matter what so i hope you do enjoy whatever this is,,, the pacing is non-existent and it has not been edited 👍🏼

requests are always open :-) i promise i am usually better than this,, anyway i may just use this as a rough outline for a fic 🤔

word count :: 5.4k....... yeah......

you and levi become acquainted with each other in university. it’s all very cliche if you do say so yourself. he steps in playing the role of good samaritan heroically saving your wallet and wordlessly he hands it to you even after running for the thief. the man doesn’t do as much as pant in exhaustion.

his stamina is…never mind that, his reflexes are out of this world

he expects a thank you because anyone else would expect at least a token of gratitude shown via words but the sentence you want to ask only ends up trapping itself in your throat

it comes to the point where he nods understanding maybe you have a sore throat or just don’t want to thank him at all

eyes flicking to his hands you immediately lunge forward taking your chance.

almost immediately you feel regret for holding onto the wrist of a complete and utter stranger without permission

“your stamina it’s great!” the man turns to you, he isn’t smiling but he’s definitely intrigued by the sudden change in behavior

and that’s where it all begins

levi’s horrible at getting to know strangers, even worse at forming bonds and connections. maybe that’s why he doesn’t warm up to the idea of having to deal with new people and new settings all at once

“i hope you’ve met your coach this is aman-” introductions are cut short by levi stubbornly interjecting in the middle of your sentence

“i have, but is she you?”

pursing your lips an awkward chuckle leaves your mouth, you look around uncomfortably wondering what he means.

“well, no?”

“then i won’t box.”

?????

you don’t even know what to say??? here you were thinking maybe he would be a little more cooperative than this.

his index finger points right at you and he takes a step forwards. his shoes come into contact with yours and you find yourself holding your breath apprehensively.

“i won’t box unless it’s you in charge.”

that is when you and levi formally meet for the first time. you are but an inexperienced coach and he, an inexperienced boxer.

“i’m getting drinks you want anything?”

“oh no don’t worry i’m good!!” you smile at levi and he nods his head venturing off to buy himself a bottle of sparkling water

levi has had you coaching him for a few years now

really he doesn’t think he’s ever felt more than respect for you. respect for the way you stay back late with him to train, respect for the schedules you make him and he’s most definitely respectful of your boxing knowledge

sure out of the two of you he’s more physically capable but it doesn’t change the fact that he becomes frustrated when he’s told he has to spend a day without you.

it’s not like you think that levi cares or anything, nothing sappy like that.

he just probably hates, no, despises having to listen to anyone else’s instructions. he finds that they somehow sound demeaning or less sincere.

every instruction you give him has a reason behind it. you don’t beat around the bush and he’s stated before that he enjoys that he knows he’s developing his skill set and progressing when he’s with you.

the olympus ring - one of the largest boxing competitions known to man is approaching soon and if levi manages to place in the top two his career is set to sky rocket in no time at all

that thought makes you feel unusually nervous

worry gnaws at your mind and you wonder about whether or not he’ll replace you after the competition concludes. after all who wants a coach with little fighting experience? all you really know is from your family. your brother and father had been professional boxers years prior.

you have no doubt at all that levi will place number one that’s for sure but you really hope he doesn’t find a replacement for you.

you’ve never had much faith in your coaching and to be left behind in the dust hurts you a tiny bit but you never bring it up because you know what? levi progressing in his career will make him happy :-)

levi’s happiness over yours and it’s not good to be selfish you suppose >:(

“y/n.” he’s waving a hand in front of your face, you’re uncharacteristically quiet today and he’s caught on

“you awake?” he asks again.

upon receiving no response levi’s now waving his hand with more tenacity

“wake. up.” he flicks at your forehead and you stir a little finally coming to your senses once you see him leaning up above you.

he looks taller than normal from this angle and your cheeks blaze, he has a habit of walking around shirtless whilst training and doesn’t realise the effect it has on you

“i- yeah good totally good. just thinking.”

“thinking about?” levi kneels to the floor looking you in the eyes and your mind falters wondering when it was he began to sit so close to you. it feels like it was just yesterday when the two of you used to eat lunch separately out of embarrassment.

the silence stretches for a second too long and his eyes narrow suspiciously leaving you to think on your feet

“i well, you have a press conference soon and i have to think of transportation and-”

“coach. i can deal with that.”

you’re a little stunned when he says that because he’s never tried to take away from your responsibilities in the past. is this a hint that he no longer wants you around?

“but it’s my job?” you reply back feeling threatened

“but you’re always doing it. i can figure it out this once.”

without even hearing the rest of what you have to say he stalks back towards his punching bag leaving your chest empty

he’s definitely thinking of replacing you is what you think

really this should not be getting you worked up.

you’ve known levi for years, you should have faith in the fact he trusts you but you find yourself indulging in self doubt more often than you intend to

guilt fills you as you scroll through the multiple job listings in front of you but you have a justification. this is your lifeline, you can’t afford to lose your source of income and it’s best to be prepared

however there’s no real amount of preparation that can get you used to the prospect of not seeing levi every day

he’s sort of just made a space for himself in your daily routine

chewing at your bottom lip you can’t get through one job listing without thinking about him and you shut your laptop down thinking tomorrow will be a better day and you’ll check back in then

why does levi even matter?? he’ll officially be an ass when he dumps you of your position?? who cares about him???

but that doesn’t stop you from caring and now you’re hunched over your closed laptop trying to understand what it is that’s making you feel this way

maybe it’s the whole attachment you have with him??

he is the very first person you’ve ever coached that’s true

he’s made you proud and allowed for your name to get out there in the boxing world

maybe that’s what’s holding you back from looking into other jobs

but that reason doesn’t make much sense

you should still be frustrated with him.

AND

you most definitely should not care about how he’s doing OR worry about who’ll patch him up when he ends up stupidly injuring himself during practice (he does that a lot)

“why do i care so much for him?” you type into google thinking there’s no person on this earth that can help you with this predicament now

honestly at this point asking AI is probably going to have to be your only reliable option

tapping on one of the first links you hope to find your answer

“what happened? yeah, you had sex?” pops onto your screen and you tap off as quick as possible.

no. you did not have sex. oh god, you haven’t even touched levi much. the most you’ve done is lace your fingers with his and offer him a hug

are you meant to have… had sex???

is it wrong for you to feel that way withou-

okay enough. this has got nothing to do with sex and your feelings are still valid. maybe you are right and you’re attached to him that’s it!!! right?

scrolling further down you nearly give up until you reach another link titled “the science of caring for those who don’t care for you.”

rolling your eyes you still hesitantly tap praying you find some sort of answer

and an answer is what you find that’s for sure

staring you right in the face in bold letters

1. you feel responsible for that person

not really, he’s very independent.

2. the person is a family member

absolutely not

3. you could be romantically attracted to the person in question

…….

romantically interested?? no. that’s wrong. not true. incorrect. not right. just not real. you are not romantically attracted to levi

,,,or are you?

that does explain why he makes you feel jittery, it explains why you shivered the one time he engulfed you in a hug at his first championship

it also explains why you feel burning jealousy when a celebrity shoves their number into your hands asking you to pass it onto levi. they don’t even look at you like you’re a human being. you’re just a messenger pigeon

they’re worlds away from you. you forever stuck in your tracksuit and them - those beautiful models in skintight dresses and heels to match are stuck in a world where everything they want is handed to them. that includes men

you know it’s not their fault and you’d kill to be like them too but you guess the whole sweaty tracksuits and boxing daily has just become your niche

nonetheless levi is a man. a popular man.

and he sure as hell has no romantic interest in his clumsy, uncoordinated coach

sighing you huddle yourself into a ball choosing not to think about it anymore

but you know you’ve already come to your conclusion

you like levi ackerman more than a coach should

and it’s taken you years to take notice of it

when you became a coach you never really thought people would talk about you much

you were clearly very wrong about that. you and levi are both hot topics on discussion forums and boxing panels. luckily for you levi finds no entertainment in such forms of boxing and so never glances at them

he’s completely unaware of all the online comments. to be honest you’re happy he’s oblivious to it all. he doesn’t deserve to deal with spiteful, mean spirited jabs

you’re less like levi and find yourself aimlessly scrolling through news articles and boxing q&a pages. it’s interesting to see what people have to say on social media

but these days all the searches for your name are filled with “replaced soon?” and “not good enough to coach ackerman?”

the headlines are cruel jokes but again you’re willing to handle taking the brunt of the press’ force instead of levi. yes, even if it hurts you.

“what you reading?” levi peers over your shoulder and you nearly throw your phone away to the other side of the room but instead you choose to grip at it tightly and shove it into your chest

you grin hiding the screen away. “something private.”

levi doesn’t look like he believes you, he wants to ask if you’re okay and if you need anything because frankly you do look slightly distraught but he decides against interrogating you

“oh okay. i’ll be back. you want anything from starbucks?” he asks.

at that moment you wish he asked you if you wanted to talk about what had been bothering you

but you know even if he did ask you’d deny his help

the olympus ring’s official press conference is one in which many rivalries will be established

levi has always had an issue with zeke jaeger one of the top contenders in his division.

it’s a long story......

one which includes the purposeful injury of a mutual friend in order to sabotage his career

you remember it all, the way you had to physically hold levi back from pouncing at the man. it had been one of the most difficult things you had to do

erwin was your friend too and you wanted him to receive justice. part of you wanted to let go and allow for levi to attack zeke with his all but you chose to be levi’s coach before you were erwin’s friends

if he wasn’t going to make good decisions for himself you would do it for him

if you had let him go through with that rash choice he could have risked suspension and suspension could completely halt some careers. suspension almost always led to shorter longevity and motivation

and so that’s why you always shift to levi’s side when he walks past zeke. there’s no way you’re taking a chance. knowing levi he could lose his cool and completely pummel him with an upper cut

so that’s what you’re doing right now. trying to edge levi to the other side of the hall but he does no such thing.

“coach, do you have to be so cautious with zeke?” he finally asks with a bland look on his face

you wince a little when he doesn’t use your name and it looks like he notices the reaction. he makes no commentary on it

“this is my job. let me do it properly.” you explain nudging him to the side so your path doesn’t coincide with zeke’s

levi looks at you poking a tongue in his cheek clearly not amused nor happy

“i’ll do what i want.” and with that said and done he walks on ahead. you take note of the fact that despite saying he’ll do what he wants he does in fact comply with your instructions and walks in the opposite direction and into a nearby convenience store

sighing you rummage through your backpack trying to find your meds

your head has been pounding since you’ve arrived and you hope to fit in at least one nap

looking up to survey the area the street is clear and there is no sight of zeke. you feel at ease at that discovery, not only does he cause you discomfort but he’s a general displeasure to interact with

his tuft of dirty blonde hair irks you to no end and you’re up for no conversation with the man who who ended erwin’s career

he’s the last person you want to ever initiate small talk with.

but fate is a weird thing is it not? because as soon as you’re sure you’ve escaped the clutches of zeke jaeger you hear a chuckle behind you

“well if it isn’t levi’s side piece?”

a hand lands on your shoulder but you shake it away immediately

jaw clenching you try to ignore zeke as best you can but he continues to taunt you

“imagine if levi got an actual coach and not a whore to fuck in the gym?”

turning to face him you see him midway through shrugging his shoulders

believe it or not there had been a time where you and zeke were good friends. a time where he hadn’t let fame get to his head.

so for him to refer to you like that does make your heart sting a little

“cat got your tong-”

and there it is

the long overdue punch

it hits him right in the jaw without warning and you’re tripping trying to stop levi - who might you add has shown up from NOWHERE.

you thought he was shopping?????

“you know if i needed to swing at him i could have?!?” you whisper shout at him completely infuriated that he’s possibly thrown away his chance of competing

“you weren’t going to though.” he says plainly and you can’t deny it.

you don’t have it in you to swing at zeke.

levi doesn’t choose to inflict more pain on his opponent and instead kneels beside him leaning by his ear

you don’t know what he whispers - you’re completely out of ear shot but it’s not even thirty seconds later till levi rises and saunters away seeming content

shooting zeke an apologetic look for the over the top beating you’re surprised to see him look...regretful?

whatever levi said you wonder what it was

it’s been a solid fifteen minutes of you walking behind levi

his back is all you’ve seen so you have no idea about his mood and it’s not that you’re intimidated or anything but peering in just to look at his face is a little odd so you choose to stay a suitable distance away

“y/n.” he says finally when he reaches his hotel room.

fishing through your backpack for his keys you’re surprised when he holds your wrist to stop you

“listen to me.” he sounds calm but slightly on edge

“has zeke always said those things?”

twiddling your thumbs you awkwardly laugh

“well no, we used to be friends. remember how i told you ages ago? he was so cool back then and yeah i miss that zeke :-) but i don’t know what’s up with him.”

you’ve never really told anyone about how you feel about zeke’s hostility so you’re getting KINDA emotional right now thinking about the friend you miss

“i mean to ask, since you started coaching me has he always said that?”

“it was a bit before that but yeah. it’s no big deal at all. people change, zeke changed. i can’t do anything about it.”

moving to find his room keys again you don’t expect for him to hold his grasp

looking up at him there’s a look of simmering anger on his face

“why did you never tell me he said that about you?”

running a hand through your hair you’re only getting anxious having to deal with this in the middle of a hotel hallway

“levi. everyone says that about me. me and you are always together, all sorts of stupid rumours spread.”

“so why do you have to deal with all the malicious comments?? it’s unfa-”

“levi, the world has never been fair.”

handing him his keys he looks between you and them. he’s deciding if he wants to continue with his questioning

ultimately he decides he’s heard enough

a few hours have passed since the incident. neither you or levi have had the courage to come out of your separate rooms to discuss anything

you know you’re going to have to break the quiet and go through his possible press conference questions with him. even if you don’t want to this is your job after all.

so that’s how you end up sitting cross legged on his bed in your pyjamas. levi’s still in the shower so you’ve welcomed your self in. it’s common practice between the two of you to do so

after the one time he walked in on you naked…there’s practically nothing to hide from each other

scribbling a few ideas down onto your notepad you’re curious of what the press have in store for him this time

“yes exactly my thoughts” the sound of levi’s voice is coming from the bathroom, you suppose he’s had to take a business call and think nothing of it

“y/n?” he scoffs and you assume at first he’s calling out for you but then things take a turn for the worst

“sometimes i think about not having y/n coach me that’s all… there’s nothing wrong with that?”

oh.

so your suspicions were correct.

glancing down at the interview questions in your lap you jot down a note at the bottom

hey couldn’t stay for long but try to review the press conference questions on your own if you have the time! :-) much lov good luck, y/n !!!!

and then you retreat.

you don’t know if you make it up but you swear you hear knocking at your door during the night. you aren’t too sure but whatever it is disturbs your sleep.

stretching outside of your room the next morning you’re drowsy and beyond exhausted. you don’t even notice levi come outside.

one of his knuckles is rubbing at his bloodshot eyes. has he not slept well?

“i tried to wake you up but i guess you were asleep?” his statement comes out as a question. you’re not used to levi exhibiting much emotion at all and right now he seems unusually inquisitive.

“i was sleeping.” not even sparing him a second of your time you give him a rehearsed smile and walk off towards the hotel cafe

you can’t find the energy to even look at him

the hall is lined up with barricades to prevent possible assault or injury and you’re behind the stage with levi

the two of you have yet to say another word to each other since this morning. levi’s buttoning his shirt up and you’re looking around for his necktie. the least he can do after yesterday’s confrontation with zeke is to look presentable

“tie?” he asks over his shoulder

throwing it at him you hear a grunt of annoyance. he must have disliked that.

“can you help me with my cuff links?”

breathing out of your nose you feel anxious. you’ll have to get really close to him to do that.

but again you have to.

you take them from his hands and stand in front of him. you don’t really know how to go about this, what way is there for you to appropriately position yourself?

he’s sat on a backstage bench and checks the time on his phone “we’ve only got a few minutes left.” he’s clearly requesting that you hurry this up but you can’t seem to do it you’re completely frozen in place

“y/n, what’s wrong?” he asks

“nothing.”

he doesn’t have to know you know

“something’s wrong.”

“we’re in a hurry it doesn’t matter.” yanking him by his right sleeve you slot one of the cuff links through the slits in his shirt.

levi silently observes you fiddling with his sleeves, you can feel his stare burn into you. even as you’re moving onto the opposite side you can see from the corner of your eye that he hasn’t stopped staring

“was it something i said to you?” he asks again

a silence drags between the both of you and you debate on whether or not you’d like to enlighten levi with the information you obtained yesterday night

“more like something you didn’t say.” you finally respond.

thrusting his arm back at him his hand lands onto his lap and he opens his mouth to respond only to be cut off by an announcer

“THIS YEARS OLYMPUS RING CONTESTANTS MAY ENTER.”

crowds can be heard cheering outside but levi still hasn’t ripped his eyes off of you

“go on, maybe you’ll find a new coach after the press conference.” your bitter smile tells him all he has to know and his face visibly drops realizing what has happened

“i–”

“mr ackerman to the stage. i repeat mr ackerman to the stage!!”

he’s torn between staying behind and explaining himself or leaving to head towards one of the most important press conferences of his life

his teeth tug at his bottom lip as he looks between you and the entrance to the stage

“go levi.”

and he does.

levi’s sat on one of many chairs on the panel, he gulps taking a sip of water to calm his nerves. he’s not even nervous about the press conference, that can wait. he doesn’t know how much you’ve heard and how much you’ve misinterpreted what he’s said

he finds it weird at first that he’s even worried because you and him have a professional relationship

but then he has to stop himself from smacking the back of his own head. he knows that much isn’t true, hell if it was a strictly professional relationship he wouldn’t be walking around shirtless to get your attention

he wouldn’t lace his fingers with yours when he was nervous either

he wouldn’t let you tend to his injuries and scold him if this was about being professional, he doesn’t tolerate being scolded by anyone but if it’s you he’ll take it

when it’s you scolding him for fucking up one of his fists it feels okay, it feels right. he feels warm inside knowing that you have to care for him if you get that angry

he sighs feeling exasperated waiting for the last person to join the panel and get this question and answers segment over and done with

zeke makes his obnoxiously late appearance but levi doesn’t have it in him to roll his eyes. evidently he’s still stuck on you and thinking about apologizing as soon as this is finished

zeke sits right next to levi and some members of the crowd whisper amongst themselves

“have they made up?”

“think there’s gonna be another brawl??”

“i hope not they’re both my favourites…”

one of the reporters right in front of the stage but behind the barricades is the first to speak

“as we all know there has been an unmistakable sense of tension between two of the most promising contenders this year. mr ackerman and mr yaeger. would you like to put the rumours at rest?”

the question makes levi clench his jaw, zeke rolls his hands into two fists feeling just as frustrated. this is boxing not a reality tv show who cares what the terms of their long broken friendship are?

zeke nudges levi’s knee with his and levi returns the movement.

for now they’ll call a truce. it seems that both he and zeke have more pressing matters to attend to

“me and levi are bros. i’m frankly upset such a rumour started in the first place!” the crowd is mumbling again and the reporter himself is stunned by the unexpected response

“i admit that a fight which some may have saw yesterday was my fault. i had made some inappropriate comments towards his coach to get at him. it was a malicious move on my part and i hope people don’t think him and i are mortal enemies because of this bump in the road.”

zeke is so well spoken when he wants to be that levi feels self conscious sitting there having said nothing.

“mr ackerman? would you like to comment or?”

levi’s eyes light up, this is an opportunity to have you hear him. he doesn’t have to wait to explain when he can throw hints right now. you may be giving him the silent treatment but you wouldn’t miss this press conference for the world

sitting up in his chair and clearing his throat levi looks directly into one of the cameras pointed at him. he’s sure you’ll be able to see him from backstage.

“me and zeke have no other disputes apart from that i assure you. i simply value my coach greatly and so i acted rashly yesterday.”

the reporter nods along feeling pleased with the answer.

a few more questions are thrown around to the other contestants, levi sits there bored out of his mind until at the last minute before everything is just about to wrap up he’s asked a question once again

“regarding your coach, have you thought of a replacement if you win the championship?”

levi presses his lips together not understanding the question

“why would i replace my current coach?” where on earth has this question even come from??

“rumours have been flying around regarding lack of experience and the fact you’re outgrowing each other now. it’s all over boxing discussion forums.”

your hands are embarrassingly shoved into your pockets as people pass behind you backstage offering you pitiful looks. maybe wearing your bright pink team ackerman tracksuit wasn’t the best choice because everyone can hear what’s going on up front

levi’s memory flashes back to the number of times you hid your phone behind your back and awkwardly chuckled saying nothing was bothering you. he understands what you were hiding now

his mouth twists into a scowl, he knows you’re a few meters away listening to all of this and hearing it coming out of a stranger’s mouth is probably upsetting you

“i plan to stick with my coach till the day i die.”

you sit up not believing what you heard, it entirely contradicts what you heard last night

some journalists are jotting down notes, members of the audience are leaning forward listening intently

“well, why is that?” the reporter presses on

levi twirls a pen around in his hands staring off into the crowd.

“i don’t think anyone else could tolerate me.

you bite back a laugh because you know that’s true :-)

“they’re a person who saw potential in me when no one else did.”

he chuckles to himself. “your stamina it’s great!” his witty imitation of you is rather accurate

“that was the first thing coach ever said to me.” he pauses allowing himself to reminisce.

“but i did want to drop my coach the other day.” he admits.

hearing him confess to it should make you mad, you should be pissed off right now but you can’t manage to feel that way at all

“i said it because i wanted them to relax. i never really understood the magnitude of the criticism they were receiving until recently.”

levi’s staring directly at the camera and his eyes pierce into yours, it’s as if he’s actually looking right at you

“i’d be lost without them, so i want to say to the one person rooting for me backstage, thank you for everything you do for me :-)”

you’re covering your face with your hands feeling the blush creep up your cheeks now. GOD what is he doing??? you may as well be the same colour as your tracksuit, you’ve never heard him be this sentimental in his entire life

“so no, i won’t be replacing my coach any time soon. if anything i should worry about my coach replacing me.”

levi ackerman...

he’s a HUGE idiot if he thinks you’ve ever thought of seriously replacing him

levi presses his arms against your sides when you’re both alone and in the solitude of his hotel room.

“i’m sorry for thinking you wanted to fire me.“ you mumble it into his chest feeling much too embarrassed to look up at him and say it

“also i may as well say this now but i have a fat, massive, huge crush on you “

after that you awkwardly laugh to yourself. you both kinda stare at each other and you’re meant to regret telling him how you feel right now but you don’t. having that weight lifted off your shoulders feels amazing.

"you don’t have to like me back or anything and i know you don’t like me back obviously you probably like that one actress- what was her name?? the one with the long black hair she gave you her number at a fundraiser dinner. you’d both look cute together, have i said that??”

levi gives you a blank look

“i threw her number away.”

you’re open mouthed feeling completely shocked, she’s gorgeous??

“HUH?? HELLO WHY? LEVI ACKERMAN, HAVE YOU EVEN SEEN HER??”

“i have but is she you?”

the all too familiar words from years ago ring in your ears

nostalgia hits the both of you in waves and levi takes you in for another hug. your heart hammers in your chest and with your face pressed against him once again you can feel the irregular beat of his heart too.

that is when you and levi formally meet for the second time. this time you are but an experienced coach and he, an experienced boxer.

:-)

284 notes · View notes

robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

Note

Prompt - Nie Mingjue's temper is already not great at the Phoenix hunt, so when they haul out men and women, some who look a great deal more like frightened peasants than cultivators he snaps, this is not how you treat POWs, it turns into a riot/battle and Jiang Cheng has had enough of kowtowing to the Jin and he and the new Jiang sect members and Wei Wuxian all rally to Nie Mingjue, does anyone else? Where to the Lan fall? Was nie mingjue's snap directly at jgy or more in general?

ao3

Nie Mingjue was, probably for the first time in his life, tired of fighting.

He’d fought in secret against the Wen sect for years, thanklessly defending the other sects that had refused to even acknowledge Wen Ruohan’s actions for years on end, and yet it had not prepared him for the brutality that was open warfare, for the difficulty of being the general of the entire Sunshot Campaign, for the burden of knowing that so many lives depended on him and him alone. He’d fought battle after battle, won tremendous victories, and yet the last hope had seemed out of reach – he’d eventually resorted to a desperate stratagem that had gone wrong – he had been tortured, mocked, his men killed – and at the moment of when all seemed lost, he was saved.

Saved…only to realize that it was Meng Yao being credited with it, with being their spy, and Lan Xichen had not told him.

He’d limped back to his camp, but they’d chased after him, and the news of what Meng Yao had done got out – not really a surprise; given the man’s ambitions, if someone else hadn’t spread it he would have done it himself – and in the end, politics had meant that there really hadn’t been much of a choice about swearing sworn brotherhood with the two of them, binding them together in life and death, not unless he wanted to risk another war.

Nie Mingjue very, very much did not want another war.

He had still not fully recovered from his injuries by the time the Jin sect had set up a celebration in the Nightless City, with Jin Guangshan using Nie Mingjue’s refusal to take on any of Wen Ruohan’s ridiculous trappings as an excuse to all but name himself Chief Cultivator in the man’s place. Nie Mingjue knew he should have protested then, but he was tired, his sect in need of rebuilding – they had been the ones bearing the brunt of the war, as they always had, and the only reason they were not the worst off of the Great Sects was because of what the Wens had done to the Cloud Recesses and the Lotus Pier – and he’d never really wanted personal advancement, anyway.

After what had happened with his father, he’d had a lifetime’s worth of being promoted.

Besides, as part and parcel of their self-granted promotion, the Jin sect had promised to take care of the worst of the clean-up, including dealing with the prisoners of war, and that had seemed fine, even a good result. After spending half his life doing things for other people, Nie Mingjue would return home to focus on that which matter most to him, and for once someone else would take the lead in caring for the rest of the world.

It wasn’t like the Jin sect couldn’t afford a few more mouths to feed.

It wasn’t like their coffers were anywhere near empty, or that they needed to rebuild; it wasn’t as though they’d ever stopped trade with Qishan or actually led in a major battle or - he should stop thinking about it before he became angry.

He’d been angry for so long. It would be nice to stop for a while.

Of course, it felt as though he’d barely settled in back at home before he was being summoned for yet another celebration hosted by the Jin sect, this time at Phoenix Mountain. A hunt, no less, and it was so pointedly designed as the sort of thing that the Nie sect favored that it would have been impossible to turn down the invitation. Not to mention, the invitation had oh-so-casually mentioned that Jin Guangyao, his sworn brother, would be the one in charge of setting up the hunt, meaning that any disruption or failure cause damage not only to his own reputation but to Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen’s, for having sworn with him.

Jin Guangshan would either have his day in the sun or a reason to tear everyone else down - a win-win situation for him, lose-lose for everyone else.

Fucking politics.

Still, there wasn’t anything for it. They had to go, so they went.

Nie Mingjue felt himself drifting back into that disconnected state that had allowed him to survive years of discussion conferences hosted by his father’s murderer. It was a strange sort of state, that allowed him to do the things he had to do to support his sect while feeling as though the world was separated from him by a window through which he watched everything happen. Anything that occurred beyond that window – all sounds and sights and even emotional reactions – was dulled or even muted; he could look Wen Ruohan right in the eye and think to himself of how much he longed to slaughter the man where he stood for his crimes, look at Jiang Fengmian smiling quite sincerely at Wen Ruohan and Lan Qiren bowing to him as if he was a man worthy of respect, as if they weren’t hypocrites that took Wen Ruohan’s money in trade and said apologetically that there wasn’t anything anyone could prove about Nie Mingjue’s father’s death, and yet, no matter how much he hated them all, his body would do nothing.

He would drink tea, and nod, and he would not breach etiquette, he would not bring war down on his sect’s head, he would do nothing.

Sitting in a place of honor at Phoenix Mountain felt much the same: yet another burden to bear, a torment that he could only hope passed quickly.

(It wasn’t healthy, but then again, what was? His entire life was grist for the mill that was his sect’s well-being, shortened by excessive cultivation and stress and endless rage, and knowing it didn’t change anything.)

He saw in the corner of his eye the way his little brother’s eyes flickered to him and then frown – he’d never liked it when Nie Mingjue went quiet and passive, knowing how alien the feeling was to him, knowing through fellow-feeling what it felt like, though perhaps he was wondering why the state had come upon him now again when Wen Ruohan was already dead and gone, even though it had never really just been about Wen Ruohan.

Perhaps because of that fellow-feeling, Nie Huaisang found a conversational interlude hat allowed him to slide over a little closer than politeness dictated, casually putting a hand on Nie Mingjue’s arm as if to beg for something. He knew that Nie Mingjue took comfort in the touch, in the reminder that with his saber at his side and his brother within arms’ reach, Nie Mingjue felt as thought he had everything he valued most in this rotten world close enough that he could try to protect it.

And then the Jin sect – using Jin Guangyao as their mouthpiece, though whether it was because of his skillful silver tongue or simply because they didn’t think he was worth anything more than that, only he would know – announced that they would kick off the hunt with some entertainment.

Nie Mingjue lifted his cup of tea to his lips, feeling pained, and his eyes briefly met with Lan Qiren’s across the hall, no longer in the place of the sect leader but slightly behind, his expression making clear that the same thought was on both their minds – anything but the prostitutes again.

(Surely Jin Guangyao had a bit more self-respect than that…?)

When a bunch of people in chains were marched out, Nie Mingjue had only enough presence of mind to be briefly relieved that the presence of mixed genders meant that they were probably not prostitutes – Lanling Jin abided by rules relating to birth gender and sexuality that seemed nearly as strict as the rules they were always criticizing Gusu Lan over, and according to them no one ever switched or was misaligned or deviated at all, which frankly seemed more than a little bizarre and unbelievable – and then uncomfortable because, well, they were in chains. Weren’t they supposed to be done with war?

And then Jin Guangyao started announcing the rules of some sort of ridiculous archery contest that the younger generation would engage in, and for a moment that seemed almost a relief as well – as a sect leader, Nie Mingjue was excluded from the younger generation despite being only a few years older than the rest of them, and of course there was no point in expecting his brother to participate in any competition of martial skill, and so for a moment it seemed as though this could be another part of this torturous endless experience that he could just tune out.

Indeed, that he was obligated to tune out. No matter how idiotic it was, whatever it was, whatever he thought about it (and he wouldn’t like it, he knew he wouldn’t like it, he’d never liked anything Wen Ruohan – no, that Jin Guangshan, insofar as there was that much of a difference – he’d never liked anything Jin Guangshan had set up in nearly ten years of working together, and odds were good that he wouldn’t like this), Nie Mingjue still had to think first of his sect and the consequences of making a fuss, and that meant he didn’t. He didn’t want a war, and so he had to be polite, restrained, quiet, no matter what he thought.

It wasn’t that hard to simply pull back even further. Nie Mingjue had been suppressing righteousness in favor of etiquette at these horrible conferences for such a long time that it came naturally to him, the way all bad habits did.

Only this time he’d brought Nie Huaisang with him, which he’d always resisted before, and his brother’s hand tightened on his arm to the point of pain.

Nie Mingjue’s first thought, stupidly enough, was to be pleased by the discovery that Nie Huaisang actually had some arm muscle underneath all those prissy frills he favored. His second was concern that Nie Huaisang had suddenly taken ill – with admittedly a bit of hopefulness that perhaps it would be something they could use as an excuse to leave early, as long as it wasn’t that serious – but when he turned to look at him his brother didn’t seem sick.

He seemed – angry?

Not Huaisang, Nie Mingjue thought, heart abruptly seized with an ancient fear. He knew perfectly well what he’d gotten himself into when it came to the saber spirits, had accepted years ago that he would die young, die early, die horribly and alone with nothing but his rage, but that was not going to be Nie Huaisang’s fate, not if he had anything to say about it.

The fear curdled in his chest, and it felt as though a crack appeared on the window that shielded him from all sensation, all pain and desperation forced far away.

No one was talking, other than Jin Guangyao droning on and on about whatever the new entertainment was – Nie Mingjue had stopped paying attention long ago – and so he couldn’t ask Nie Huaisang what was wrong, but he looked at him and furrowed his brow, trying to convey the question silence.

Nie Huaisang caught the glance and understood, and his mouth moved, shaping silent sounds – it’s an execution, they’re going to kill them –

What?

Baxia, lying by his side as she always did during these meetings, shifted a little, her rage nudging against Nie Mingjue’s mind as it always did – sometimes he thought she hated these meetings as much as he did, other times he was sure of it – and the crack in the window got a little wider, let in a little more light and color and sound, and Nie Mingjue found a thread of willpower to force himself to listen to what the entertainment Jin Guangyao was proposing actually was.

He replayed the words in his mind, turned to look at the people in chains – Wen sect, apparently, and though he couldn’t tell on sight whether they were civilians or cultivators, that didn’t matter. Not even criminals were executed like this, by standing at a distance and waiting to die, not even able to hope for an expert aiming to kill quickly and cleanly, but through a misplaced arrow that could strike them anywhere, cause them a lingering and painful death…this was supposed to be a game?

This was meant to be their entertainment?

The window between Nie Mingjue and the world shattered.

And suddenly all he felt was rage.

“What,” Nie Mingjue said, even as Jin Zixuan got up with a set expression on his face to accept a bow from his servant, “are you doing?”

Jin Zixuan paused, looking puzzled – and no surprise, since Nie Mingjue hadn’t said anything beyond the most mundane greetings when he first arrived. “Sect Leader Nie..?”

Nie Mingjue rose to his feet, his brother’s hand falling off of his arm as if he’d shaken him off like a dog. “What are you doing?” he demanded, louder this time. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Da-ge –” Jin Guangyao said, an obvious hint, a reminder of their relationship – Nie Mingjue was the one bound by it, the older brother responsible for setting a good example, and for all that Jin Guangyao was supposed to listen to him and follow his lead Nie Mingjue had never seen a hint that he’d ever planned to do so – but Nie Mingjue didn’t listen to him.

He was angry.

It felt good to be angry – a clean anger, a righteous anger, anger at injustice being perpetrated right before his eyes.

(Something so poisonous as rage shouldn’t feel this good.)

“This is an abomination,” he said, a touch of the battlefield in his voice so that it would be audible throughout the hall, would spread far and wide for all to hear. “Those are people you’re putting on the line.”

There was a moment of awkward silence.

Jin Zixun, Jin Guangshan’s nephew, broke it with an abrupt laugh. “Sect Leader Nie,” he said, pretending to smile, “surely you don’t think so little of us to suggest that my cousin would miss –”

“I don’t care even if he does strike true,” Nie Mingjue snapped. “You do not play with the lives of men.”

“Hardly men,” a minor sect leader, closely affiliated with the Jin sect, said. Sect Leader Qin, if Nie Mingjue placed him right. “Perhaps you did not hear, Chifeng-zun –” It was always his title they used when they wanted to avoid calling him sect leader, when they were trying to make a point about how young and angry and foolish they thought he was. “– but those are Wen-dogs.”

“I don’t care who or what they are,” Nie Mingjue shouted, and now he had fallen back into his body, back into the battlefield, because this was a battlefield; it was only that he had allowed himself – through tiredness or shock or a desire for peace – to forget it for a moment. “Is this not a celebration of peace, the end of war? If they are criminals, sentence them; if they are condemned, execute them with a sword. Even a rabid beast deserves to be put down cleanly, not to be used as target practice by children for the entertainment of others!”

There was movement in the crowd, multiple people shifting from one side to the other, the audience abruptly uncomfortable when faced not only with a gory spectacle but their own complicity in it.

“Sect Leader Nie, calm yourself,” Jin Guangshan said. His voice was stern, irritatingly condescending – as if he thought that styling himself as Chief Cultivator gave him the right to act as if he were Nie Mingjue’s father. “You go too far for proper etiquette; will you not give any face to me, as your host? Naturally, if you have a complaint, I will hear it –”

“I don’t recall the moment I yielded to your authority in matters of ethics, Sect Leader Jin,” Nie Mingjue snapped. “Please, feel free to remind me – the last I recall it, you were the one begging me for assistance.”

“Sect Leader Nie!” Jin Guangshan shouted, rising to his feet with his face starting to purple.

Nie Mingjue saw the furious glance he sent at a frantic Jin Guangyao – control him already! – and it makes his own rage surge even higher. It was not that he didn’t know that his sworn brother was being used as leverage against him, but to have it shoved right into his face like that, to think that they thought that etiquette and brotherhood would be sufficient to make him complaisant – to allow Jin Guangyao to run roughshod over his morality – to think that it had nearly worked –

“Sect Leaders, please.” That was Lan Xichen, standing up as well, his hands outstretched. “Is this not meant to be a celebration of peace?”

For a moment, Nie Mingjue thought he was standing up for his sake, supporting him in decrying what was happening in front of them – something he despised as much as Nie Mingjue did, that much was obvious from his stance – but then his eyes flicked from Nie Mingjue to Jin Guangyao as well, silently beseeching Nie Mingjue to remember how his actions could hurt Jin Guangyao’s standing, and Nie Mingjue felt cold.

So much for brotherhood, it seemed. How much was he supposed to bear on behalf of Jin Guangyao without receiving anything in return?

He turned his face away.

If the Nie sect had to make this stand alone, so be it. Even if it meant war, war against the rest of the cultivation world, war that would be ruinous to his sect...

There was no choice. The Nie sect stood for refusing to tolerate evil; to do any less would be to throw off the traditions of his ancestors more wholly than Nie Huaisang’s refusal to train the saber had ever been. Even on a personal level, he had long criticized others who stood quiet when evil was happening, and he would not let himself become the hypocrite that so many others had been.

Nie Mingjue had never before willingly backed away from doing the right thing, the righteous thing, simply because it was hard to do – he would not start now.

“It seems strange that a celebration of peace would begin with death.” That was Jiang Cheng standing up as well, the fourth of the Great Sects. His sister had once been engaged to Jin Zixuan, and she had been invited to the hunt as Madame Jin’s special guest – popular thought had it that the Jin sect would snap her up soon enough, allying with the last remaining sect, and leaving anyone who opposed them to stand alone. But even if that was the plan, it hadn’t happened yet, and Jiang Cheng was putting his voice on Nie Mingjue’s side – Nie Mingjue would have to find a way to repay him for his support later. “Weren’t the Wen sect supposed to be resettled somewhere peaceful? Or was the news I received incorrect?”

“The innocent branch members and civilians were of course resettled,” Jin Guangyao said, and his smile was strained – or was it? Was it actual concern, or some sort of show? Nie Mingjue could never tell with him, not now that he knew how easily the snake changed its skin. “These however are war criminals, sentenced to execution in the manner of our choosing. I hope you all understand: their deaths are in no way comparable to their crimes –”

You would know, having participated in so many of them, Nie Mingjue thought, and levelled a glare at his youngest sworn brother to remind him of that fact. It briefly interrupted the smooth flow of words, making them catch in Jin Guangyao’s throat; at least he had that much shame.

“Can I see?” Nie Huaisang asked in the brief interval, his high voice just as carrying as Nie Mingjue’s shouting – all those music and singing lessons had clearly been worth something.

“See what?” Jin Zixun sneered, stepping forward – and interesting that it was him that did so, while Jin Zixuan, the heir, remained still and silent. His expression was frosty, but he hadn’t yet spoken up in his own father’s defense; hardly filial, but given such a father it was difficult to see what else he could do. “See their crimes? Do you want a list, or for us to drag out their victims to testify? Is this how little your Nie sect thinks of our Jin sect?”

A strong effort on Jin Zixun’s part – it put the burden on them to prove that these were not evildoers and criminals who deserved what was coming to them, made the issue their rudeness and lack of etiquette, made it seem as if they were the ones looking down on everyone.

But for all that Nie Mingjue despaired of Nie Huaisang’s skill at arms, he had never doubted his skill with words.

“You misunderstand me,” Nie Huaisang laughed nervously, hiding his face behind his fan in a gesture of shyness – he made it look as though he were being bullied by Jin Zixun, rather than debating him. “I just meant, well, they’re criminals, right? They must be truly impressive cultivators to fight against the brave soldiers of our Sunshot Campaign…could we see their strength?”

Nie Mingjue knew a cue when he heard one. “Such strength must be considerable to deserve such a fate,” he said scornfully. “Even Wen Ruohan, who killed hundreds, was merely cut down, rather than tormented in the same manner he tortured so many of our cultivators…Or do you think to emulate him in this manner as well?”

“How dare you?!” Jin Guangshan was florid with rage – as if rage would ever stop a Nie. “You come to my home and accuse me with no basis –”

“I do accuse you!” Nie Mingjue shouted, letting his voice trample down Jin Guangshan’s. “But by your own acts you are condemned, by your own callousness and indifference. So much Nie blood was shed to stop Wen Ruohan from running rampant over us all – I would die rather than have spent that blood to buy us nothing more than the same dominion in a different color!”

And then everyone was talking at once, shouting, yelling, and Nie Mingjue took the opportunity to turn on his heel and stride over to Lan Xichen, standing there looking lost. Lan Wangji was beside him, only a step behind, and he caught Nie Mingjue’s eyes as he came over and nodded – he, at least, was with Nie Mingjue in this, and his support gave Nie Mingjue more confidence in what he was about to do. What he had to do.

“Will you abide by your Lan sect’s values and stand with me in this?” he asked Lan Xichen in a low, clipped tone. “Or was my oath of brotherhood only worth the benefits it could get for Meng Yao?”

“Da-ge!” Lan Xichen exclaimed, looking horrified. “Don’t think that, please. Of course I stand with you in this – what they were planning for the Wen sect members goes beyond bad taste and into the horrific.”

He hadn’t meant it the way Nie Mingjue had taken it, then. It must have only been Jin Guangyao’s pleading looks that had led him to take a stand the wrong way, seeking peace and friendship over justice.

“One should not look away from righteousness simply because it would be easier,” Lan Wangji added smoothly, sounding almost as though he were agreeing with his brother and not subtly scolding him. He saluted Nie Mingjue. “You have our full support, regardless of who is on the other side.”

Nie Mingjue continued to look at Lan Xichen who hesitated – no doubt thinking of the tough position they’d just put Jin Guangyao into – but in the end he nodded.

That was fine. Okay, no, it wasn’t fine, but right now he needed Lan Xichen’s support, regardless of his level of enthusiasm; the rest could be dealt with later.

He turned again and went to Jiang Cheng – Wei Wuxian was there as well, having appeared at some point, and he was vociferously yelling at some minor sect leaders. In Nie Mingjue’s favor, at least.

“Sect Leader Nie,” Wei Wuxian said, turning to him before Nie Mingjue could say anything to Jiang Cheng – not that he really need to confirm his support, given the public display from earlier, but it was only polite to come convey his thanks. “There’s something else you should know. I’ve heard some things about the innocent members Wen sect that were supposedly ‘resettled’ – and what’s been happening to them…”

Nie Mingjue glanced at Jin Guangshan, still shouting, and did a quick calculation. “Take Lan Wangji and go check it out at once,” he ordered. “They were supposed to be resettled by the Qiongqi Path. If Sect Leader Jin has been treating these ones so cruelly as this…I’m willing to believe anything right now. But whatever it is, make sure it’s both of you that see it with your own eyes, to make it harder to doubt your words.”

Wei Wuxian saluted him and headed towards Lan Wangji without even seeking approval from his sect leader. Nie Mingjue abruptly felt awkward and looked at Jiang Cheng, but the other man nodded his agreement before he could apologize for commandeering Wei Wuxian as if the other man was still his subordinate.

“At least he listens to you,” Jiang Cheng said, a rueful smile on this face. “Can I convince you to talk some sense into him when all this is done..? I must admit I wasn’t expecting another war so soon.”

“I had hoped we wouldn’t see one for another generation,” Nie Mingjue admitted. “I still hope we can avoid it – it depends on how the smaller sects fall out, and how determined the Jin sect is to dominate the rest, rather than willing to accept equality. But no matter how it goes, we can’t turn our faces away from injustice.”

“Agreed,” Jiang Cheng said with a sigh. “I think we have the better of the argument, and hopefully it sways the rest of them. But have you considered what happens if we win?”

“What do you mean?”

“Sect Leader Jin has been setting himself up as Chief Cultivator. After something like this, even if there’s no actual fighting, that’ll be impossible. You need respect to lead. So who will it be?”

Nie Mingjue experienced a brief moment of horror at the thought of having to take it himself – but no. It was a reasonable solution, of course, but it would also taint the whole thing. It would make his decision to stand up into a tawdry political play, designed to increase his power, rather than a genuine outburst of offended principle.

He might have proposed Lan Xichen as a compromise – he would have, even a shichen earlier. But after that display of weakness from earlier, however brief, he feared that it would somehow end up with Jin Guangyao (and Jin Guangshan behind him) pulling the strings from behind the scenes, using Lan virtue as a cover for their iniquity…no, that wouldn’t do at all.

The only other option was –

Well.

Nie Mingjue had thought to himself that he needed to do something to pay Jiang Cheng back for his support earlier, hadn’t he?

(And at worst, he’d owe him yet another favor.)

Nie Mingjue put his hand on Jiang Cheng’s shoulder. “You have my full support,” he said solemnly, and ignored the sudden look of panic on Jiang Cheng’s face. “Think it over before you say no.”

Being Chief Cultivator would do more to restore the Jiang sect to prosperity than anything else Jiang Cheng might do, and he’d put that together himself sooner or later even if the idea of that much responsibility had to be fairly terrible. But before they could decide things like that, they needed to win.

One more fight.

He could do that much.

#mdzs #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #jin guangyao #lan xichen #jin guangshan #lan wangji #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #my fic #my fics #roseunspindle #spectacle

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syn0vial · 3 years

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The Official Star Wars Fact File: Zam Wesell

(Unofficial translation by me, syn0vial. Please forgive me for any mistakes, I've studied Spanish for some years but it's definitely not my first language!)

Zam Wesell was an exceptional figure that belonged to an equally exceptional species, the Clawdites. The bounty hunter was an unorthodox and extraordinary being who left a mark with her short life and career.

The Clawdites have always been oppressed and never been trusted. It is something that is accepted as natural in life. Their society arose due to a gene therapy that cured a sickness, but also created a new species, condemned to be exiled from the principle habitable zone of the planet Zolan. All Clawdites can change the color of their skin, but only a few are capable of altering the texture of it, and there are even fewer that can change its shape. Only a small number—very capable beings, dedicated and with great self-control—could take the form of another being for an indefinite period of time.

Shape-shifting results in great pain and discomfort for a Clawdite; they must use oils and ointments to stop their skin from becoming horribly cracked. Yet, in contrast to even the best of her species, Zam Wesell could not only change form with relative speed, but could maintain it while resting.

Combat Training

In Zolan society, those that deviated from the rigid secular norms were persecuted. Clawdite society was less restrictive, but even they showed apprehension about some of Zam Wesell's activities.

In the semi-anarchic society on the Clawdite-dominated continent of Sultur, where Zam was born and raised, the clans were governed by warriors known for their boastfulness. In general, the strongest prevailed, but even the boastful owed loyalty to their clan. Among them all, the best warriors of Zolan were the Mabari knights. They were part of a religious order that would not admit sinners among their novices. The religion of Zolan preached that the untruthful were the worst sinners of all. Despite this, Zam, when she was with them, successfully hid her true nature long enough to reach the third level of mastery in the Mabari martial arts, before being forced to flee Zolan.

Zam relocated to the corporate planet of Denon, where skills like hers were in great demand. The corporate security organizations always needed new employees and with Zam's shape-shifting ability, it didn't take much for her to ascend to the rank of sergeant. Nevertheless, this was only the beginning of her career. She calculated each step with utmost care; in this way, she quickly rose to become a very well-paid corporate bodyguard.

She was a self-proclaimed "progressive" and never forgot her planet and her people. She always sent huge sums of credits to Zolan, to radical Clawdite groups dedicated to the emancipation of their species; it is unknown whether she was truly invested in the situation of her species or if she only wished to provoke unrest.

Outlawed: Zam Wesell's journey before she became a bounty hunter was a winding one. She was denounced on her home-planet, Zolan, for being Clawdite and even more so, for her ability to shape-shift. After learning martial arts in a religious sect of warriors called Mabari, she abandoned her planet.

Clawdite Assassin

Since leaving Zolan for Denon, Zam Wesell had accepted work that provided huge profits and little excitement. Not much happened before she left her job as a bodyguard and sought a change of scenery.

Her experience in the risky world of industrial espionage on Denon had perfected Zam's deadly skills, while also allowing her to develop a web of contacts, financing, and gear to start her career in earnest. Finally, she could establish herself as a bounty hunter. She had adopted as her identity the appearance of a short, attractive female human, as a means of securing more work and hiding her true Clawdite face. With practice, although not without pain, she managed to maintain this appearance even while sleeping. She also adopted a uniform, a purple jumpsuit that could adapt to both her human and Clawdite forms, and that helped protect her skin.

Above the jumpsuit, she wore a flexible armored doublet and a protective skirt. The skirt's connected segments concealed an impact-absorbing system that offered protection against attacks from behind. Her helmet had its own light and incorporated a commlink under the veil that hid her face. In the heat of combat, her true Clawdite face could emerge, which the veil helped hide. Zam's belt had a series of compartments and essential devices for her profession, including the holster for her KYD-21 blaster. In front of her doublet, she carried a small respiratory device. These tubes inserted into Zam's body and allowed the device to function through her lungs if it was required by the atmosphere. The uniform came complete with a certain number of Mabari objects, among them an ancient cape clasp, an emblem on her helmet, and combat gloves. All these objects were ingraved with inscriptions from sacred Mabari texts.

We're bounty hunters, Zam, not heroes: The partnership of Zam and Jango Fett began long ago, long before she was contracted to kill Padme Amidala. The two bounty hunters respected each other. Zam had the honor of knowing the son of Jango, Boba Fett.

Elite Assassin

It was fated that the paths of Zam Wesell and Jango Fett would meet, but it would prove a very dangerous crossing.

Zam Wesell was considered one of the best bounty hunters of her generation, and she believed it. So it was logical that she would come to be known by Jango Fett, considered the number one in their profession.

One of their first encounters [Syn's notes: preceded five years by their true first encounter in the game Star Wars: Bounty Hunter] took place after Antonin Vigo, of the Black Sun, contracted Zam to kill Dreddon the Hutt. She took the form of a red-headed slave and successfully carried out the mission. Just as she was about to take her leave, Jango Fett appeared. Zam discovered that she was not going to be paid, nor was Jango, who had taken out Antonin at the behest of Dreddon.

Zam and Jango both knew of each other's reputations. The mutual respect that they had and their simiar ethics led them to allow one another to go on their way. However, the two would meet again shortly afterwards when a dug named Fernooda contracted Zam.

We've Got To Stop Meeting Like This: Zam and Jango were contracted to recover an ancient artifact. She let him do all the hard work; then ambushed him and made off with the idol.

Jango, you're always complaining about my shapeshifting: The mutant power of a Clawdite was very useful in her work and elongating her arm to grab hold of the idol that both she and Jango Fett were searching for. [Syn's notes: The presentation of this information is a little misleading. Zam catching the idol like this occurred well after this job for Fernooda, when both Zam and Jango were working together to keep Fernooda's boss from using it in a terrorist attack.]

I know that there's a man under that mask: Zam managed to get closer than anybody to the mysterious Jango Fett, with the exception of his son Boba. Even so, she knew that a relationship between them would affect her work, and thus decided not to push it further.

It was an awkward situation, since Fernooda had assigned the job to Jango, but had decided to ensure its success by also contracting the Clawdite. The aforementioned mission involved recovering an idol that had been in the possession of Fernooda's boss. Zam, who knew that Jango had also been contracted, let her rival do the dirty work before springing an ambush. This time, she insisted on seeing the face of the man under the mask. She was so transfixed on him, that she didn't realize there was an enormous insect, the guardian of the idol, about to attack her.

Without knowing why, Jango came to Zam's rescue and, recognizing that she was in his debt, she allowed him to leave with Fernooda's idol. Thus began the strange and exceptional relationship, even friendship, between Jango Fett and Zam Wesell. [Syn's notes: As mentioned earlier, their association truly began with the events of Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, but perhaps this is the point things got a little more personal between them.]

Partners: Without a doubt, Zam and Jango worked well as partners. The question was whether they were willing to let their affection become more important than their work.

Mutual Empathy

Although it was nearly inevitable that Zam Wesell and Jango Fett should encounter one another again, the first reunion that occurred between the two bounty hunters did not go as either had expected.

At first glance, the mission seemed simple. It involved an assignment that Vigo Antonin, of Black Sun, had given to Zam Wesell, and the contracts from this organization were always lucrative. Certainly, the jobs offered to bounty hunters of Zam Wesell's level were never easy.

The target was Dreddon the Hutt. It was never a good idea to threaten Black Sun business and Vigo Antonin wanted to make an example of him. Zam used all the resources at her disposal to investigate and infiltrate Dreddon's organization. Her Clawdite powers allowed her to adopt the form of a human dancer that appealed to the Hutt. She needed all her concentration to maintain this form during a prolonged period, but Zam was very good at what she did. The disguise completely fooled Dreddon. Hutts are very difficult to kill.

Poisons and blasters could not guarantee that Dreddon wouldn't have time to call for his guards, so, to end his life, Zam restrained herself to placing a microbomb hidden in one of Dreddon's amphibian snacks when he was about to enjoy a private performance from his favorite dancer. The result was somewhat chaotic, but decisive.

A Private Affair

Just when she was about to leave, Zam heard someone approach. She grabbed her blaster and hid, waiting to see who could be intruding on her mission. She was almost happy to see Jango Fett, the most infamous bounty hunter in the galaxy, next to the corpse of his client.

Zam had successfully completed her mission and would soon receive a rich reward for her troubles. What's more, she could make fun of Jango Fett for the murder of his client. She had him at her mercy, pointing at him with her blaster, knowing who he was and what he was capable of.

Unfortunately, Zam's good humor soon went up in smoke. Jango had returned from completing a contract for Dreddon: killing Vigo Antonin! Thus, neither Zam nor Jango would be paid. Fett took the first opportunity to draw his blaster and with that both bounty hunters were in the same bind.

Zam was the first to lower her blaster, with her trademark style. With a twirl and a grin, she pointed out that the problem was that neither of them wanted to make the first move. She then flounced off, leaving Jango alone with his thoughts.

It's a weird rock: The artifact that Fett and Wesell had to recover was an idol that, as they would discover, bestowed mysterious powers upon its owner. [Syn's notes: ...If "mysterious powers" means "ownership of extremely explosive chunk of rock," then yes, that is correct.]

A New Contract

However, Zam needed work. The matter with Dreddon had left her without anything to show for it. A dug named Fernooda offered a contract shortly after she returned to her base of operations, but he warned her that he had already contracted another bounty hunter for the job in question: Jango Fett.

Zam readily accepted the job, since it seemed simple. Recovering a little statue from the natives of the jungle planet Seylott that had been stolen from Fernooda's boss. She had already decided to let Jango do the dirty work and ambush him at the temple's exit.

Jango's Revenge

It seemed that this time, Zam Wesell had won. She even managed to get Jango to remove his Mandalorian helmet. The scarred face she saw was handsome, if a bit gloomy. Then, a huge carnivorous insect attacked Zam from behind. The other bounty hunter ignored Zam's cries for help, taking the statue and running.

My client offered 50,000 Republic credits: The paths of Wesell and Fett crossed once again when the dug Fernooda contracted them to recover an object that the natives of Seylott had stolen from his boss. Immediately, the instinctive sense of rivalry returned between the two bounty hunters.

Heroes of Coruscant

Zam thought that she was doomed, Jango Fett had taken off, leaving her to be devoured by the enormous monster on Seylott.

While fighting to escape, Zam was surprised to see Jango return. He told her to take out all the explosives that she had on her and prepare to detonate them. Zam didn't have much option but to trust him, although she wasn't sure that he wouldn't get both of them killed. Fortunately, Fett's jetpack got them out of trouble. Zam picked up Jango's helmet from amidst the smoke and the dust left from the creature's destruction, gave it to him, and allowed him to take Fernooda's idol; afterwards, she turned and left, smiling as she told Jango to take care until next time. There would be a next time, Zam assured her rival, although this didn't seem to bother Fett.

However, Wesell wasn't satisfied. She had heard rumors here and there, and soon learned the truth about her mission on Seylott. The idol had been under the power of the Force-sensitive natives. The Annoo-Dat general Ashaar Khorda wanted the idol to use as a weapon capable of generating explosions that could destroy an entire planet. Even worse, Khorda's target was Coruscant.

Zam traveled quickly to Kamino, where she met with Jango and, to her surprise, with his young son Boba. She believed that Boba's mother had been killed and Jango said nothing to the contrary. Instead, he listened impatiently to Zam's story about the idol. Zam ended by saying that, since she and Jango had found the weapon, they owed it to the people of Coruscant to stop Khorda's plan.

Under the Mask: Zam Wesell was one of the few people who could elicit affection from the harsh and implacable Jango Fett

A Matter of Conscience

Jango wasn't interested, since he wouldn't be paid for the work and his son needed him on Kamino, but Zam convinced him that there were countless children that needed him on Coruscant. Jango Fett, an orphan rescued by strangers, softened his position and finally accepted his first time working together with Zam Wesell. [Syn's notes: Again, second time since Star Wars: Bounty Hunter.]

Zam had seen Khorda's right-hand man, the dug Fernooda. Thus, she took on his appearance in order to discover Khorda's and his lackeys' plans. They found out that Fernooda planned to place the idol in one of the planet's central reactors, where the explosion would cause a chain reaction that would destroy the planet completely.

Jango and Zam, along with a solitary Jedi, found the mad killer, after following the clues that he and his gang had left. Together, the three proceeded to defeat the gang and recover the idol. The Jedi could absorb the Force of the idol and leave it without power once more; although at the cost of his life.

Safe Return: Zam Wesell worked together with Jango Fett to seize a powerful Force artifact and return it to its owners. She managed to convince Jango to accept the mission.

Zam and Jango took the idol back to Seylott, earning them the gratitude of the natives. They were requested not to return ever again, something that the bounty hunters had no intention of doing. Upon returning to Kamino, Zam was not fooled by Jango's complaints of not being paid, since she knew that, deep down, he knew that returning the idol had been the right thing to do. It was the same impulse that had saved her on Seylott. She said goodbye to Jango with a kiss on his scarred cheek, so he wouldn't feel it had all been for nothing. It seemed that Zam had won again.

Altruistic Mission: Zam's desire to prevent the deaths of millions of people in a terrorist attack shows that she had a certain sense of conscience.

The Final Mission

Jango Fett made an atypical decision: subcontract Zam for the most dangerous assignment.

Jango wanted to spend more time with his son Boba. The boy's education was very important to him. However, the most famous bounty hunter in the galaxy had many offers of work. He accepted most of them and the rest he passed on to Zam Wesell. She worked alone most of the time, although they worked together occasionally, to the benefit of both of them.

Assassination Contract

A man that Jango knew as Tyranus, the same that had given him work with the Kaminoans, requested that he accept a special mission. It involved the killing of a high-order politician who had interfered in Tyranus's business. The pay was very good and Jango was happy to be able to pass it on to Zam Wesell. It seemed like a simple job.

The target was a senator dedicated to public life, something that would make her an easy target for an intelligent assassin. However, the target was also a queen of Naboo, friend of the Jedi and a central figure to the supreme Chancellor of the Republic.

Direct Hit: Ostensibly, Zam Wesell had killed the senator Padme Amidala with a bomb on her ship, but the victim ended up being a decoy, making it necessary to take another approach.

Reckless Driving: Zam realized that she was being pursued by Jedi. Her skill at the wheel of a speeder allowed her to traverse the busiest districts of Coruscant, but her pursuers wouldn't give up the chase.

To Kill a Senator

Zam chose the occasion carefully.The target was to return to Coruscant for a crucial vote, and her landing would be predictable enough. Zam used her capacity for shapeshifting to discover the time and place of Senator Padme Amidala's return.

With her usual cunning, Zam managed to place a bomb on the target's landing platform and then left to observe from the heights of a building a kilometer away. From there, she waited for the moment of truth. Amidala's silvery ship landed, flanked by fighters. The senator came down from the ramp and the moment her foot stepped onto the platform, Wesell detonated the explosive. There were few survivors and the news was full of stories and images of Zam's success.

Double Action

Zam Wesell believed she had completed the mission, but her satisfaction was short-lived. Amidala was apparently alive in the rotunda of the Senate at the end of the day, a very irritating outcome. The woman killed on the landing platform was a double. Fett was angry, along with his client. There could be no more mistakes.

Fett spoke with Zam and gave her a glass tube with two kouhuns inside. He cautioned her that they were extremely venomous, since she wasn't an amateur.

The bounty hunters counted on an ASN-121 droid, programmed with the location of Amidala's quarters, to deposit the deadly cargo. Then, Zam sat and waited for the return of the robot.

It was emiting an alert signal. Zam saw through her scope a Jedi holding onto the droid. Not even the droid's destruction could shake the Jedi, and soon she was being pursued through all of Coruscant, with her skills as a pilot put to the test.

Just when she thought she had lost them, one of the Jedi jumped onto her speeder. In the subsequent skirmish, her vehicle was damaged and she was forced to land. She sought refuge in a bar with the Jedi close behind.

Death of a Hunter

Seeing one of the Jedi at the bar, Zam approached as close as she dared, knowing that he could deflect a blaster bolt if warned in time. Unfortunately, the Jedi was much more astute, igniting his lightsaber with a twirl and severing Zam's hand that held her blaster. The pair of Jedi dragged Wesell's wounded body into an alley to interrogate her.

Ground Chase: Zam, without her speeder which had been damaged, had to flee on foot. She got into a bar, where she intended to ambush her pursuers, but Obi-Wan Kenobi attacked her with his lightsaber before she could fire; Wesell was badly injured.

One of them, the younger one, pressed Zam to reveal the name of her client. At first, she resisted, but then, after the Jedi spoke again, began to tell her captors what she knew.

The poison dart that Jango shot ended Zam's life before she could speak a word. She died quickly from the venom's deadly effects; she didn't suffer. This was the last thing that Fett could do for a friend.

#zam wesell #jango fett #boba fett #whew! this took a while :`D #please let me know if any of my translation needs to be corrected; i'm definitely an amateur when it comes to translating!#star wars fact file #star wars fact file 71 #the official star wars fact files

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skipps-writes-for-gojo-satoru · 3 years

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I'm not sure Gojo has ever even shown an interest to any girls.

He calls Utahime weak and teases her by making fun of her, essentially- which she hates. Mei Mei is incredibly strong and beautiful, and Gojo acknowledges her skill but that's it. I also noticed that in the anime (the manga doesn't have honorifics, so please correct me if I'm wrong) but he calls her Mei-san rather than Mei Mei. Therefore, I don't think he ever tried to get much closer to her than the interactions we've seen. When she asks him if he'd comfort her if she cried, he tells her that's she strong- she wouldn't cry. I thought it was interesting that while Mei Mei's question was slightly flirty, Gojo answered so simply, without any teasing.

He calls Shoko by her first name, which is understandable since they spend more time together being in the same grade. He realizes that her ability is rare and useful, but like with Utahime and Mei Mei he doesn't go any further than that. He mostly speaks to her about work related things and doesn't flirt or tease much at all.

Honestly, I think Gojo actually respects his female colleagues and mostly pokes fun at Utahime because she's so uptight and strict. Shoko and Mei Mei are more relaxed and self-assured, and Gojo recognizes their skills and compliments them for it rather than teasing them. I doubt Gojo really thinks Utahime is truly weak more than he just loves riling her up. Other than that, Gojo's pretty respectful.

Also, in the Hidden Inventory arc, Gojo was bombarded with screaming from all the girls excited to see him. Other than pulling his shades down so they could see his face- after they asked him to, btw- he didn't really do much else. He didn't even react much to the teacher giving him her phone number. His only comment was "what a fun school," and it's interesting to see that while lots of girls do appreciate his looks, he acts only mildly amused.

Other than that one model as his wallpaper, we don't really see Gojo flirt or show interest with anyone. He only really teases Utahime to piss her off- I suspect he hates how much she follows the rules like Nanami does, who he teases often as well. He likely just enjoys annoying people so stern because rules just don't sit well with him (especially because of what those "rules" had done to Geto).

It's just a possibility, but he could be one of those guys who's more interested in work than pleasure- I know, he's handsome, but not all handsome people are players and cheaters. I think that's a horrible stigma and a lot of attractive people irl are judged and criticized solely for their looks. People make too many assumptions on someone just based on their genes, and I think it's pretty shallow to think Gojo's a womanizer just because he's attractive. And he knows he's attractive- but when did being confident in yourself make you a philanderer? Gojo has never used his looks manipulatively at all.

It's definitely a possibility that he would be a womanizer, but I'd say it's unlikely based in what we've seen. To sum it all up, Gojo doesn't show interest in anyone. He teases Utahime often, likely for the same reason be teases Nanami- they're too uptight. Shoko and Mei Mei are both incredibly skilled and beautiful sorcerers, and he does acknowledge and compliment them for it, but he doesn't tease or flirt with them. He's respectful, and he works with them as his colleagues. He didn't get distracted by the teen girls fawning over him either, or suddenly get overtly cocky or show off, only sliding his glasses down so they could see his face, and even then he acted only mildly amused. Also, when Miwa asked him for a picture, he didn't even stay and chat with her or anything (I know she's a minor, but if he truly was a womanizer, he would have at least stayed to hear her compliment him or anything to feed his ego) Maybe ask her "Oh, you want a picture with me? The strongest? How cute~" A flirty comment, a joke, something to fuel his own ego, but he doesn't do that. He doesn't act in a way that conveys he openly pursues attention from women. He just takes the picture with her and walks off casually.

Therefore, other than the fact that he's handsome- and I know many people who would assume things about someone based on their attractiveness, which is a terrible stereotype- Gojo doesn't show much interest in flirting at all. He could be the type of guy who works more than plays- and there's plenty of guys who are handsome but aren't super interested in playing around. Being handsome doesn't automatically mean he's the type to sneak around and have affairs here and there. It's completely realistic for a handsome man to be uninterested in any kind of relationships- not all men are sex crazed, and being a tease to his friends doesn't make Gojo a flirt either. Teasing your friends is perfectly normal.

Therefore, Gojo being a 28 year old virgin is totally possible- not everyone's a sex crazed teen who only thinks about what's between their legs, and basing it on what normal Japanese teens do is unfair. Neither Gojo or his lifestyle is exactly normal, and there's definitely barriers when it comes to experiencing normal youth activities for Gojo's generation- especially Gojo's generation. Yuji's generation definitely has more freedom to do fun things because of what Gojo has done to give the youth more freedom- things he hasn't been able to experience himself in his youth, like playing baseball during the exchange event. That was the first time they ever did something different to tradition, and that was only because of Gojo's consideration.

Gojo's youth was filled with blood, exorcising, and choosing between life and death. The deaths Yuji and co. witnessed were what Gojo experienced as well, if not worse. Gojo's task in his youth was to protect the weak, and he found that burdensome. At least, until Geto betrayed them, and Gojo realized the new burden he had to bear in changing the Jujutsu world because of what it had done to his only best friend.

There are definitely more important things in Gojo's mind than just losing his virginity, like saving people and choosing who to save, whether he should kill or not kill.

Gojo is the strongest, but he also bears the biggest burden- and that burden is something he chose to bear, and being the strongest is something he chose to be. Because before Geto left, it was "We are the Strongest." Now, Gojo worked tirelessly so that he could say "I am the Strongest."

And that's not something you can do while sleeping around. I think a lot of people fail to recognize just how hard Gojo works for himself and others. They just think, oh he's the strongest, so it should be easy for him. But it's really, really not that simple, is it? Especially when you have to do it on your own, and even then Gojo realizes that his strength alone isn't enough to save people. He can't save everyone by himself- It's not enough for just him to be the Strongest, so he works diligently to build and inspire his students to stand with him.

He's actually a very deep and emotional man who cares about his students and especially, even now, his best friend. Everything he does is for their sake- he sacrifices the normal life he could have lived, like Nanami had done, for their sake. And he fights with the higher ups, takes the brunt of their ire, and laughs it off, acting as if he fine, like a dad pretending he's superman for his kid's sake. But Gojo is burdened, and he's tired, and he hardly sleeps, and he has the most missions- he's the Strongest, which means everyone needs him, and he bears it.

Sorry for ranting again tho. I think I went into two different topics lol oops- 🤔

OUR SAVIOR 🤔 EDUCATING PEOPLE pay attention ya'll another thing I've noticed in the latest episode is that in his phone contacts he actually writes Utahime's name properly like formally no emojis or teasing shit he actually sees them as his colleagues people he can rely on his field of work and yes about the whole thing when he bursted into riko's class man was absolutely clueless just silent as a teacher tries to give him his number. I'm pretty sure as a child Gojo wasn't allowed to attend public schools due him being in danger or putting others in danger so he doesn't know much about public schools or normal people in general since he spends all his time with people from the jujutsu society.

That is definitely true just because someone is good looking that doesnt mean he's some cheap womanizer. I see a lot of people shipping him and Utahime together which is understandable ship who you like but I don't think Gojo as any ulterior motives like wooing Utahime by teasing her he just is plainly teasing ya know like friends do but in this case Utahime hates his guts and he doesnt know. I mean it takes some amount of hate to try to throw hot tea at someone 😂

While certainly I agree Gojo's teen like wasn't the best it was like he literally had a full time job at that age but who's to stay he didn't go messing around one time? I'm sure during his teen days he wanted to experience things he didnt get to to but now could because he lives on his own now. But maybe he didnt at all who knows? Which also raises another question, I wonder if he has any romantic experiences? And this was all before what happened in the hidden inventory arc after that I can see him more becoming invested in his duty and with what happened with geto as well would of definitely had a huge impact on him to try harder even though hes the strongest so that the next generation wouldn't have to experience the things he went through.

It's really sad if you really think about it what hes been through and what he has to shoulder all while keeping the facade that he's okay, I bet there were times he cursed his powers and his life....but he bears with it anyways because everyone is counting on him....

And don't be sorry at all! I am actually really learning alot about Gojo from you. Please continue to tell us your thoughts and feelings. I don't mind at all ❤ and thank you for taking the time to write 💕

#gojo discussions #virgin or not?#gojou satoru #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen gojo #jjk gojo #jujutsu kaisen x reader #gojou satoru x reader #gojo satoru #jjk imagines #gojo satoru x reader #skipps chat

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trashforhockeyguys · 3 years

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Vienna Waits For You -1- William Nylander

A/N: The official start of Vienna Waits For You! I can’t wait for you guys to really get to understand William and Avalyn. This is probably the most unique story I’ve told so far. I hope y’all will enjoy the ride.

“Miss Bradshaw Kreitzburg, we can’t begin to explain how excited we are to have you here with us,” One of the Assistant Directors said as she was led into a posh hotel.

“Just Kreitzburg is fine, or Avalyn,” She cringed, hating it when people used the full name that her parents insisted on.

“There she is!” A loud voice boomed from the doorway of a very large conference room.

Avalyn couldn’t help but smile and nearly squeal as she ran to the man. Jackson Portland was one of the only people that she felt like really knew her. They’d been best friends since they first worked together in the early years. Back then, Jackson was an awkward lanky kid, not the bonafide sex god that he was now. Truthfully, Avalyn wanted to laugh every time girls literally threw themselves at him. To her he would always be Jacky, her best friend.

“You made it!” She jumped in his arms, holding onto him for dear life.

Jackson was like her life vest. She wasn’t sure she would’ve been able to do something like this without knowing he would be by her side the entire time. She trusted him with everything that she was. He’d been the one to call her about the role and tell her that she’d be perfect for it.

“And so did you! God you look fantastic Avey. But you really could eat a little more. Do the Monsters have you on another diet?”

“They wanted me to be on one,” She confirmed, “But none of them are here...soo I guess I’m not anymore?”

“Then you and I are going to burgers whenever this is over,” He declared, setting her down.

She nodded excitedly. Going out with Jackson was always her favorite. Somehow they always found a way to just be normal twentysomethings. Jackson and Avalyn made each other feel almost normal for the first time in their lives. Seemed only fitting that the two of them didn’t want to let that go.

“Have you scoped out our ‘advisors’?” Avalyn asked, holding onto Jackson’s arm.

He shrugged, flashing his famous dimpled smile, “Oh you’ll love them.”

Inside the room, most of the younger Leafs were somewhat huddled together, keeping their distance until told to do otherwise. But some of the older, more experienced players were talking with some writers and producers from the project.

Avalyn tried to calm her nerves, her grip on Jackson’s arm tightening with every step. She hated meetings like this. She didn’t know a single player on this team, hell she didn’t even know a thing about hockey. She knew that they probably all had their own preconceived opinions of her, none of which were good. Just like how nothing the media published these days was good. Good for press, but bad for her personal life. For once, she wished she could just pause it all.

Some of her friends from childhood, which she lost contact with long ago, went to college and are in steady relationships. None of them have their entire life looked over with a magnifying glass. They could wear what they wanted, or eat what they wanted, go out with whoever they wanted wherever they wanted...Avalyn never had that luxury. But she couldn’t say she was jealous of them...envious might be a better term to use though.

“Alright boys, listen up!” An older man in the team’s jacket called, “I want you to listen to what they instruct you. Remember, you’re representing the organization and Toronto.”

“Thank you for that Coach Babcock,” One of the show’s producers said before standing in front of everyone, “We’d like for all of you to pair up in a few minutes, but before we do that, why don’t all of you take a second and get to know each other. Get all of the awkwardness out of the way so we can all get to work? Gentleman, at each table is a dry erase board with a rink on it, I was told that’s what you all use in practice to show plays and things, feel free to do the same today. We’ll call you all when it’s time to come back together.”

Avalyn didn’t move for a moment, not as long as Jackson stayed where he was. But it wasn’t long before the producer was coming over with the other man, who seemed to be the coach of the hockey team. Behind them trailed several young men, which Avalyn could only assume were players. Jackson nearly jumped, seemingly excited about who was coming over to them.

“Coach Babcock, these are the two I was telling you about,” Eric, the producer, looked proud of himself, “These two are the stars of our show, Jackson, Avalyn, I’d like for you to meet Mike Babcock, coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, as well as three of his star players, Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander.”

“You don’t have to tell me who they are, Eric,” Jackson waved him off before extending a hand to the coach, “It’s an honor to meet all of you. You guys had a hell of a season last year.”

“Jackson grew up in Connecticut prior to becoming an actor, he’s one of the only cast members with hockey experience.”

“Sick man, I love that movie you were in last summer with Taylor Kitsch. Shit was badass,” The one with dark hair and blue eyes said.

Avalyn couldn’t remember who was who. All she knew was one had long blond hair, and two with dark hair. She used to joke that all hockey players looked the same when Jackson would try to make her watch games, but she couldn’t say that anymore. No two players in the room looked alike.

“See, I told you Avey!” Jackson joked, “She said there was too much blood. I tried to get her to watch American Assassin with me, since O’Brien and Kitsch are such great guys, but she wouldn’t.”

Avalyn felt uncomfortable in her own skin. She hated moments like this. Jackson always seemed to be in his element and on his game. But Avalyn wasn’t comfortable with these people. She didn’t watch hockey, all she really knew was that they constantly hit each other and fought over the tiny rubber puck.

But Jackson just seemed to fit right in with them. Almost like he was a member of the team and had been for a very long time. She was jealous of the fact that he always seemed to make it work. He was never a stranger. Whereas Avalyn always felt like a stranger. She often felt like she was playing dress-up all the time, and eventually someone would call her out on it.

“Thanks for making fun of me again,” Avalyn said under her breath, “It’s nice to meet you guys.”

“So, what are you? The token romantic interest?” The blond quipped.

“Willy-”

“No I uh-” She couldn’t really find her voice. She should’ve been used to people assuming she was only there to further the story. She was just pretty face, meant to smile and just be pretty.

Maybe that was part of the reason she took this role...she wanted to prove she was more than that. Yet, she couldn’t even find a way to tell the man standing in front of her the very same thing that she was fighting to prove.

“Actually, Avey is playing the only girl on the team. She’s pretty important actually,” Jackson cut in, “Pretty badass too.”

“Avalyn, we’d like you to pair with Willy, if the rest of you want to come over with me we’ll get you all sorted,” Eric suddenly interrupted, “You two can go over to that table over there.”

Suddenly, she was left with the blond that obviously didn’t exactly like her. Avalyn wasn’t uncustomed to it. A lot of people were standoffish with her at first, the sugary sweet persona she put on was enough to make anyone hate her. She knew that. But she wasn’t used to people being like this to her face. So blatantly obvious….he didn’t even bother trying to hide it.

The blond, William, rolled his eyes before walking over to the table. Avalyn knew this wouldn’t be a very fun time. Jackson and the rest of the cast and crew would probably spend the whole session laughing. Yet, she was pretty sure William wouldn’t be overly helpful or talkative.

She glanced around, hoping someone might come to her rescue, but everyone else was already paired off and talking to their respective hockey player. Jackson was already laughing with one of the dark haired boys, and a very large red headed man. Avalyn wished she could be like that.

“Are you coming or not?” The blond grumbled.

Avalyn took a deep breath and followed him to the table. He sat with his arms crossed. She wondered why he already seemed to hate her. Had he read something about her and decided she was a horrible human being? One of those cheap tabloids who made their living off of dragging her through the mud?

“I’m Avalyn,” She said, trying to break the tension, but her voice still shook.

He scoffed, “Yeah, I know.”

She nodded and reached for the glass of water. Couldn’t she have anyone else? Or just have someone else at the table? Why did they have to take Jackson and put him all the way across the room. She felt like she didn’t know how to do this without him. She was out of her comfort zone now.

“Okay,” She said quickly, “You obviously don’t like me, but I don’t really care. I have a job to do, and so do you. So can we just please drop the shit and you actually tell me what I’m supposed to know?”

“Who said I didn’t like you?” He fired back, leaning forward.

She let out an almost bitter laugh, “Oh, I got the message loud and clear. You have no reason to hate me, but you do. You know nothing about me, so next time maybe try to get to know the person before you form an opinion.”

It was his turn to laugh as he leaned over the table, getting closer. His eyes seemed to almost burn into her. For a moment she was afraid. She didn’t know this man, she didn’t know what he might do. But every bone in her body seemed to yell at her to run. Maybe everyone was right, maybe this was the worst choice she made.

“I know enough,” His voice was low, but the power of it made her want to shiver, “America’s princess on the outside, and a fucking bitch on the inside.”

He leaned back in his chair once more. There would be no more talking. It was like Avalyn and William were on different sides of a battlefield. They both had the next attack just waiting, and neither would wave the white flag. Avalyn didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing what his words did. Each one was like a knife going deeper and deeper into her chest.

William just didn’t want to give in. He was being stubborn, and he was sure all of the guys would say he was an ass. But he heard enough about little miss Avalyn Bradshaw Kreitzburg. He wanted nothing to do with her. Everyone that he knew that knew her all said she was really a bitch, that the sweet little innocent thing she had going was an act. That Jackson Portland acted as her guard dog in public because she couldn’t rip people to shreds for fear of losing her perfect little reputation.

So William sat across from her, a smirk playing on his lips when she finally seemed to be at a loss. So, the two sat silently as the hours ticked on. No one seemed to notice that they weren’t talking, or that William wasn’t using the dry erase board like the rest of his teammates. By the end, no one seemed to notice that they didn’t move a single inch over the course of the entire session.

“I’m not what you think,” Avalyn said quietly, “Whoever told you whatever ridiculous rumor, it’s not true.”

He smirked again, like he knew something that she didn’t, “I think Margret Vicklyr knows you enough to know the truth.”

Before she could even process the sickening feeling, he was gone. He couldn’t know Margret. Margot might hate her now, but surely she wouldn’t go as far as telling random people whatever she felt like it. After a couple of years, Avalyn hoped that Margret would just forget about whatever she was convinced that Avalyn did. But it seemed that she wasn’t forgetting...and now it didn’t seem like William would forget either.

Avalyn struggled to get in a deep breath as everyone started to get up and leave. William looked too pleased with himself as he got up from his chair and started moving towards his group.

William liked the feeling of having knocked Hollywood's princess back down to size, or at least that’s what he thought he did. He had no way of knowing what was really going on behind the glitz and the glamour. He had no way of knowing that she was struggling more than she could ever let on.

William didn’t like Avalyn Bradsaw Kreitzburg, especially after what Margret told him during her summer in Sweden. The person that Margret described to him was horrible, incapable of caring for anyone but herself, and maybe her precious Jackson Portland.Yet, he couldn’t help but feel a sort of pain in his chest at the way she seemed to sink as soon as he landed his final blow. He knew his mother would’ve had his head if she saw him acting like that. But for some reason he couldn’t help it.

How was he supposed to know that she was doing everything she could to keep her head above water and make this project work?

“Avey! C’mon, let’s go get dinner,” Jackson cheered, surrounded by the hockey players.

Avalyn shied away from all of them, “I think I’m just going to go back to mine. Raincheck?”

“I’ll hold you to it!” Jackson cheered, following the team and some other cast members out of the hotel.

As soon as she got back to her apartment, Avalyn tried her best to fill herself with music. All she kept thinking about was the way that he looked at her. The disgust...he made his mind up about her before he even met her, all because of Margo and whatever she came up with. All Avalyn wanted was to make this work, to prove that she was capable of choosing her own projects and that she was more than just the stupid doe eyed girl.

But she still felt hollow, like she was already losing control. She still didn’t know anything about the game. Her ‘advisor’ wouldn’t be of any help. She would have to fight an uphill battle. But she wanted this more than she wanted any project before now.

With music at full blast in her ears, Avalyn laid down, trying to drown herself in the sound of old classic rock and indie. She never did eat dinner like she promised. Instead, hoping the music would fill her in a way that food didn’t.

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phantomphangphucker · 3 years

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Phic Phight: If Only You Had Compassion

Prompt Creator: @summerssixecho

The bad blood between humans and ghosts was going to come to a head eventually, and when it did everyone was going to get hurt.

Danny sighs, runs a hand through his hair, and leans back against the wall; staring at the news disbelievingly.

They had lost.

Lost the entire goddamn case. Because the American government had officially decided: Ghosts were not sentient. Ghosts were not beings. Ghosts did not have rights. And ghosts were a threat to the country. Meaning any and all instances of ghosts and anything -excluding weapons or other items used to combat, control, or harm ghosts- were illegal to exist, possess, or help.

Danny, they, had gone about this the human way. Had been respectful. And nice. And friendly. And it didn’t fucking work. They extended a hand and got fucking bit.

And of course, anyone who had been fighting for ghosts and their rights and safety were the first ones to come under fire and scrutiny. And with nearly all of Amity Park being on that list, it was no surprise the G.I.W. were coming here and banging on doors at record speed.

What’s worse? Danny had been the loudest voice. Of course he had. He had to be. He was fighting for his own goddamn rights after all; not that the government or his family knew that. But it wasn’t just that. No.

Danny Phantom was King. THE High King. This was something he had to deal with, had to handle. And well... the cards hadn’t landed in his favour. In their favour.

But that wasn’t the end of it, because on top of it, his parents couldn’t understand what he was doing, to the point that Danny had to just get out of that house.

Technically he was homeless now, but well, being a ghost rather negated that. He had a whole dimension if need be and could get by just goddamn fine on the streets.

In the end, Danny had lost pretty well all his respect and love for his parents. They had become the enemy too and he just couldn’t afford room to old sentimentality and dwelling on ‘what could have been’ if they had been better people and parents.

At least Danny had listened to his gut and firmly ordered all the ghosts back into the Infinite Realm. He didn’t have to worry about any full ghosts getting captured, tortured, dissected, and destroyed.

Elle was safely with the residents of the Far Frozen too, so no worries there.

And Vlad... Vlad could look after himself. Last he heard the man fully intended to blow up his entire mansion and lab should the case fall through, purely to stop the G.I.W. from getting their hands on anything. Money only went so far in protecting yourself and your assets after all. Danny didn’t doubt the man’s willingness to do it either.

So that just left Danny. The one who was really the most at risk. He was damn near the face of the case, of the campaign. He was a minor still, limiting his rights even further. His ‘parents’ were hunters, hunters that idolised the G.I.W. and worked with them gladly and eagerly.

And he was a true halfa. Exactly half and half. He couldn’t even hide himself from the Fenton’s janky scanners, hiding wasn’t an option.

But then again, hiding had never even been an option for him. Hiding wasn’t Phantom’s thing, wasn’t the Kings thing. For now though? He lays low. He watches. And he waits. Waits for the Observants to finally back him proper. For FrightKnight to rally and ready. And finally for ClockWork to give him that melancholic face that says there is no other option.

Because Danny played this like a human. Because Danny gave humanity a chance. Because Danny wanted to have faith in people. Because Danny had hoped his goddamn half-beating heart out.

Because Danny was scared. Because he was still a kid. Because he shouldn’t have to pick one or the other. Because he doesn’t want anyone to get hurt.

Well now there wasn’t much of a choice. He picked ghosts the day he took that crown. The day he agreed to apprentice under ClockWork instead of the Fenton’s. The day Danny Fenton became just a fabricated mask for Danny Phantom to hide behind.

And now everyone was going to have to play their part. Fulfil their role. Dance out repeating history on the world’s stage. Everyone was going to have to pay a price.

Because when you take away someone’s rights in your own eyes, then they take away yours in theirs.

Because when the government decides someone doesn’t get to exist, and then every other government falls in line because the military powerhouse that is America has decided, then that someone is going to thrash and bite and scream to get to exist.

That’s how its always been.

Survival of the fittest.

And humans? Humans weren’t the fittest by miles.

Because humanity had been given coexistence on a paper. Had been given peace on a paper. And had drawn weapons and scalpels and hate instead.

And for that, this means war.

And not just a skirmish or dispute. No. An all-out bloody war. A massive war. A war beyond anyone’s wildest imaginations or worst dreams.

Because what humanity didn’t know is there were laws that existed. Laws that already governed dead and mortal interaction and travel between the realms. The Oaths and Seals. Older than most of the Ancients and predating nearly all mortal life in the universe.

And one of those Seals states simply that any being of death or life could traverse between Realms freely without harm, threat, or unwilling containment from ruling bodies or any species as a whole.

To say ghosts couldn't exist here. It was such a direct blatant violation. There was no way around that. There really wasn’t. If it wasn’t acted on then it could be overlooked as someone making stupid laws and ignored. But that just wasn’t the case. Wouldn’t be. In that sense it was both blessing and curse that Amity would be targeted first. He had a chance to stop them. To hedge them at the gates.

To cut the Gordian knot.

To meet them at the doors to his lair and tell them what awaited them should they choose to pass. Should they choose to continue a damned and forsaken path.

It would mean revealing himself. Would mean ending the lies and double life. It would mean definitively and finally choosing a side. Choosing ghosts. But it was what had to be.

And if they choose to cross him?

Then it’s game over.

Because Amity was Phantom’s lair. The High Ghost Kings land. His people. His subjects. His. It would be treason. Would be a crime against the High Crown. Against not only the Seals but the Kings Decrees and the Law Of Ages as well. There would be no going back.

The punishment was death. Was absolute subjugation. Was the end of humanity's reign upon the earth.

Because in the eyes of the universe, humanity would have forfeited the right to stand as equals to the dead. They would become lesser and treated as such. Any human who refused to kneel and bow to the Infinite Realm, to him, would be summarily cut down and disposed of.

He didn’t want this. He truly didn’t.

But it wasn’t his choice to make.

It was humanities. The G.I.W.’s.

Danny had very little faith.

But at least he could try. He was a determined bastard to a fault. Even when he should probably give up. When it was probably a lost cause.

This was hopeless now. He knew it. But he had to try and when that failed... then he’ll fight. He’ll fight with a frown and tears screaming down his face. But he’ll damn well fight.

Because that’s who he is. What he is. Because if he doesn’t do this for the ghosts then he’ll do it for the humans he protects.

For Sam and Tucker, both nearly halfas themselves due to UnderGrowth and a past life lived.

For Star, Paulina, Dale, Brittney, Kwan, Ashley, Emilie, Todd, James, Dash, Mikey, Nathan, Rosalia, Jasper, and Carrie, so horribly contaminated by Spectra’s and Bertrand’s experiments.

For Jazz, who’s opinions and field of study made her a ‘threat to humanity’ all the same.

For Valerie, who’s nanobot suit ran on ectoplasm that she could never be separated from without her death.

For Lancer, and Trent, and Remi, and Testlauf, and Ishiyama, who all just knew too much.

For every citizen of his home, his lair. Because the G.I.W. would wipe them all out.

Because he was King.

It does not matter how a king cries nor mourns nor wishes things could be different. Because a king sees his people free before he grasps his own. Because a king knows his people safe before he dares relax. Because a king does not belong to himself but to the people he rules. Because they are the kings children dear and he must see them well. Because it is his duty to do what they can not and pay every price. Because a king can never fall unjustly. Because he is their hopes and dreams.

And though he cries and begs and weeps, his blade hand must stay steady and his sword must strike swift without mercy. Even if he wants to run, every friend and family dear he must be willing to sacrifice if the need arises. Even if that leaves him alone and in pain.

Because that is the cost of the crown.

And now Danny has to pay his dues.

Has to see himself a conqueror to the human world he once protected with everything in him.

He doesn’t want this but this is what the world has given him and he must walk with it.

Into a future that may be filled with hurt and pain. That’ll make him hate every breath he takes or the things he’s seen. Or maybe something beautiful will grow from the ashes. One can only hope.

He sighs and stands. What must be, must be. Running a messy hand through his hair and shaking a spray can. He may as well tag the place where he found things changed before he goes.

Goes to wait on the road.

Wait for the men in white suits to make their arrival.

Wait for the end result of the pain the mortal government chose to wrought.

Wait for Danny Fenton’s ending.

The spray cans psssshh is oddly loud. It hurts his ears.

The FrightKnight meets him outside the alleyway. He nods and Danny nods back. It is done. His army awaits him.

He wishes it didn’t.

He knows the humans have armies of their own. Awaiting retaliation or strike back perhaps. But those armies won’t see war. They won’t do battle or struggle to win. This won’t be two forces meeting to oppose each other. No. It will be more akin to an exterminator coming in with his toxic fumes and spraying down annihilation.

The Dread Army stood four billion strong.

That wasn’t a force humanity could face.

And the Dread were truly non-sentient. Casualties on their side was not of issue or concern. And should humanity somehow persevere and fight back. Then there would be so many more ghostly armies ready and waiting for his regretful and pain-filled command.

He senses the pulse from the Observants, sent out through the Infinite Realm’s ectoplasm and across the threshold of life and death.

They approve. And inside, he weeps.

He traces his fingers on the bricks, walls, and trash cans. Everyone is tucked inside. They know what’s coming as much as he does, just not what comes after. They see this as their end. Danny does too, but for different reasons.

He knows Sam, Tucker, Valerie, and Jazz are all hovering over the extractions waiting for his signal. Waiting to pull his lair into the Infinite Realm. Waiting to save them and leave him behind.

Amity will always be home. But it just won’t be the same. Not for him. He won’t be able to just be another citizen in their eyes or to them anymore. And his friends, they’ll have to look at him knowing that he’s was ultimately directly responsible for the demise of at least thirty percent of humanity.

And he’ll have to get used to that being reflected back at him in the mirror. And refusing to look at all was a weakness he couldn’t allow himself to have.

Stopping at the fountain, its waters reflecting gears and cogs and swaying necks of clocks. As it always had since everything began. As if the water was counting down to the end itself. Only Danny knew that was more fact than fiction.

Water flows like time after all. And no matter what it must continue on. For the sake of life. For the sake of growth. For the sake of time itself continuing on. For the sake of everything.

Danny sits on the edge and it is not his own reflection that greets him, a small mercy, but ClockWork’s.

They look old and tired and worn. Aged by the faults of humanity's actions and inactions. Aged by the weathering storm that is change and its cruelties. But above all else, aged by what they know must be and what they must ask of him.

All is as it should be.

And isn’t that an awful thing.

Danny can only look to the sky tinted faintly green and nod, carrying on his way. Changing everything with every step he takes. Aching more with each breath he takes. And becoming more king than hero with every inch the city limit grows closer.

A hero can fall and rise a king.

But is still a fall all the same.

Because a king does not do what is right. He does not do what is good. What is just. What is kind. He does what he must. Decides what is best.

Humanity decided what was best and lost the bet. They gambled against death.

But death...

Death always wins in the end.

It’s the house we all must rest on. It is the debt collector at the end of every tax season. It is our last breath or a snap of the neck at the end of the noose of our own creation. It is the bullet in the gun that we forged ourselves. It is the black screen left after the credits roll, only ghosts going home.

It was always going to be this way.

What will his ‘parents’ do. Will they die. Will they live. Will they force their way back to the mortal world and seek to strike him down. Will the town or ghosts see them hanged as an example. Will they accept reality and learn. He doesn’t know. In a way he doesn’t want to.

Regardless the town’s edge approaches and he finds himself standing on the precipice of everything he has ever known, everyone he has ever loved, every place that has ever housed him.

And now he steps forward to leave it behind. Says goodbye with resounding footsteps. Mourns the loss as the G.I.W.’s armoured vehicles and containment trucks drive toward him.

Toward death.

He wished they’d stop. Turn back. Change their minds. But knows they won’t.

Ignorance would be bliss.

The most decorated vehicle stops barely feet from him. The officer inside hoping out with a smirk that Danny hates down to the bottom of his guts.

“Well how nice for the worst of them to come greet us. What. Here to turn yourself in for your disgusting crimes against humanity“.

Danny honestly doesn’t care about their words. Not how they’re said nor what is said nor who says them.

It’s meaningless.

Danny shakes his head disappointedly, “I tried. I really tried. So sorry about this. But you leave me no choice”.

The man squints at him. Not that it matters.

Danny looks up at the sky, if he didn’t know better he’d say the clouds were swirling all centred around him and waiting for him to do as he must. As the crown commands. Sighing, “I don’t know why humans must make things so hard for themselves”, and lets his human form melt away without any flashy light show. Green energy pulsing out of his feet and shooting skyward like flaming arrows lighting up the funerary ship seeing a fallen warrior off.

The reaction is immediate. They open fire on him, pausing only when every single high anti-ecto round merely bounces of his green shield; the town behind him shimmering green before vanishing like wet oil wiped off canvas.

Danny shakes his head, “that isn’t how this is going to be. Sorry”, and takes one single step forward. Voice bellowing and sturdy though he feels like shaking apart into sand, “the American government, on behalf of the entirety of the human race, has designated that the ghost species is no longer allowed amongst them or on earth. As such, they, alongside the rest of humanity, have broken the True Kept Equivalent Co-Existence Fault Line Seal of the Exterial law of the Realms. Your options are as follows: revoke your illegal actions and halt your approach or continue on as you are knowing that your actions are an act of war and punishable by the immediate annihilation of thirty percent of humanity followed by the forced subjugation of your entire species. Furthermore, any actions of violence or harm taken against Amity Park, her citizens, or Daniel James Janus Fenton Phantom, will count as an act of treason and war against the High Ghost Sovereign, king of the entirety of the Infinite Realm; and is punishable by immediate death and I do mean your death”.

He stands there and stares. Waits for a response. The men take their time, but eventually...

One of them fires.

“There’s your ‘answer’, you lying ectoplasmic scum”.

Danny bats away the weapon, not even bothering with a shield. They would need nukes if they wanted to so much as scratch him.

He had all the Infinite Realm’s ectoplasm at his fingertips after all. And it sings to be used. To defend its lands and king. To strike down those who must be, for the prosperity and safety of its people.

And Danny gives it that.

He must after all. It is his place.

With merely a flick of his fingers the Dread Army make their debut. Some are here, some are elsewhere. But where ever they may be they bring down destruction and chaos and punishment.

You may think Danny wrong for placing all this on one man’s response, but in truth he, as Phantom, had informed every government of this reality already.

The decision was already made. The choice already set in stone.

He just thought that maybe...

Maybe.

These men before him would have some heart. Some soul. Some sense. Some compassion.

And choose to say no. And refuse to follow orders.

He would rather team up with humanity to stage a coup d’état against their respective governments than what has to transpire now.

The FrightKnight appears and gores the man who dared to fire at Phantom knowing the consequences of doing so. Danny forces himself to watch the man fall, knowing his orders and words and actions were as much the sword that killed him as the one his High Dread Knight wields.

The FrightKnight turns back to him and he knows there is sorrow in his helmeted eyes, for he knows his Knight knows he is not a hardened man nor a man at all.

Just a child with too much weight. Too much hope. Too much asked of him. Too much power at his fingertips. And too much of both life and death.

“Go”.

Danny does as he’s told, as he’s asked. Thankful to have even an ounce of personal responsibility lifted off his shoulders.

Humanity was never going down a good path. Never doing the right thing.

Damning the water they drank with oil and plastics.

Damning the air they breathed with tar and fumes.

Damning the earth that fed them with pavement and poisons.

Damning their fellow neighbouring mortal species with overhunting and stolen lands.

It was only a matter of time before they damned themselves with their ego and actions.

Nothing can survive if it burns every bridge around it.

Especially if the bridge it sets its sights on to burn is the bridge with death.

For only nothing lies where death can not be.

End.

Prompt: After a fierce legal battle to end experimentation on ectoplasmic entities, it's determined that, no, ghosts can't have any rights in the human world and possessing ghostly artifacts, materials, or organisms is illegal. With the GIW enforcing the new laws, starting with Amity Park, how will Danny avoid scrutiny?

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robinsarm · 3 years

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Heya!! Can I get some sleepy Quentin headcanons? I'm on a "monster befriends human" kick, so maybe something involving that? You said you needed ideas, so here ya go?

Sleepy Quentin, huh, @chaoticlovingdreamer? I think I can scrounge up a couple >:3

I assume that a lot of people see Quentin as a pill or caffeine fiend, especially while he lived in the real world. But what I think some people forget is that he also has ADD/ADHD as stated by his movie. Do you understand what lack of medication and exhaustion does to a person with ADHD? It's not fun, I'll say that much.

When Quentin is really hitting the bottom of his energy tank he gets more and more distant from everyone else. He'll stop talking, start sitting further away from the fire, and intrusive/depressing thoughts start to riddle his mind. Since a healthy dose of sleep isn't on the menu for Quentin usually, he'll start to cope with his exhaustion in other ways; other ways that aren't healthy and can be left up to the imagination for now.

Some of the survivors that have been there the longest have learned to spot these signs from Quentin before he begins "coping". They'll immediately get up and take him for walks or bring him back to the fire and in front of 20+ other sets of eyes. Claudette, Ace, Meg, and Laurie are usually the nicest and manage to cheer him up faster than anyone else. Steve, in recent years, has also grown to notice and make sure his teammate is okay.

Have you ever seen the joke of someone getting hit in the head on a cartoon and they fall flat on their face, knocked out? Visualize that, and realize Quentin does that on a regular basis just without the hitting part. Like someone with narcolepsy, when Quentin’s brain and body are tired of being awake, he’s out like a light; heaven forbid he’s standing near anything sharp when this happens. From time to time, Quentin will just suddenly fold like a GMOD player hit their kill key. There’s no waking him up for a while after that. So far, it’s never happened in a trial; who knows why, Quentin is just grateful for that much.

When Quentin is tired and actually decides that he’d rather sleep then Collapse™, he will pass out just about anywhere. On the logs, in the bushes, up a tree (won’t do that anymore because he’s prone to falling out of said trees), on someone. Quentin has no shame when it comes to finding a place to rest his head for a minute and the others, for the most part, are fully understanding.

Sleepy Quentin can also be confused with what Drunk Quentin would look like, only in his movements, however. I’d compare it to those really yanking pulls that Boiled Over can do in-game that just send the killer 5 meters to the left. Yeah...Quentin will do that a lot when he’s really tired. It’s normal to see him firmly planted on the ground when he’s extra tired just so he doesn’t fall into something or someone. (He took out a game of Blackjack that Ace and Bill were playing and felt incredibly bad afterwards) If Quentin can help it, he won’t move when he’s on the very verge of passing out.

Not so much headcanons but two scenarios I’d like to imagine have happened to Quentin:

Quentin doesn’t sleep due to Freddy’s constant torment that he resumes every time the survivor falls asleep. But Quentin isn’t the only one Freddy torments. It’s been known that Freddy will hop from person to person if Quentin goes for too long without sleeping. However, the killer once made the mistake of pulling the same shit on the Legion which earned him a proper beating from the four teens afterwards. Because of this, the Legion made sure that the Nightmare can’t enter Ormond unless he’s in a trial.

(I have a personal headcanon that killers can ask the Entity to block a different killer from entering their realm if given proper reasoning, and that’s how I’d see the Legion being able to keep Freddy out of Ormond)

Quentin, by an odd string of occurrences, ends up at Ormond and gets to talking to the killers - since they’re in a good mood. One of them brings up how shitty Quentin looks and actually offers if he’d want to sleep there for a bit. Quentin, taken slightly off guard, shrugs the invitation off, explaining Freddy would just show up and start attacking him again. The Legion, ever so boastful, counters with their story and clue him in on the fact that the Nightmare can’t enter the realm outside of a trial. Quentin’s not buying it but the killers insist just to prove themselves right, eventually having to hold the boy at knife-point to get him to stay and sleep. After a three hour, uninterrupted nap, Quentin wakes up and realizes they were telling the truth.

Regardless, Quentin doesn’t trust the Legion. However, if he’s feeling exceptionally tired and has a few 100k bloodpoints lying around, Quentin will pay the Legion to let him sleep for a few hours, undisturbed. They’re happy to take his money and he’s happy to sleep off his exhaustion.

Still, Quentin does sleep at the fire on occasion; he does only because of the fact Freddy wants him. If Freddy can’t get to Quentin, he’ll start tormenting and hurting his friends. Since Quentin doesn’t want that, he keeps his trips to Ormond few and far between.

II.

There’s one killer Quentin never thought in his life he’d manage to “befriend” outside of trials. Slinger is a fat no; the man is still a hard-ass to everyone other than Zarina. The Yamaoka family keep to themselves and kill anything on sight. The original four are apathetic towards everyone. Michael, Freddy, Ghostface, Pinhead, Nemesis, Pyramidhead - all psychopathic monstrosities that earned their own circle in hell. I could go on.

No, of all the killers to actually show any sort of compassion (or just lack of hostility) towards Quentin was the Demogorgon.

It started during a horribly unfortunate trial on Azarov’s. Felix and Yun-Jin were long since dead, leaving only Quentin and Feng to do the last two generators. The thing was, Feng seemed to be trying her absolute hardest to screw Quentin over every time the killer got close. She ran in front of him while they were both running from the killer, she blocked pallets, blocked windows, if the killer got close she immediately hid behind anything large enough. Sure she apologized at the beginning of the trial, but those quickly trailed off. Quentin just wasn’t in the mood for it. So, when he went down for his third and final time due to Feng’s not-so-subtle body blocking, Demo surprised both of them by not picking up the boy immediately. Instead, the killer hunted down Feng (for all of 20 seconds) and threw her onto a hook immediately, not leaving her until she was dead and gone. Quentin had the foresight to bring Unbreakable before entering the trial, so, by the time Feng had reached second stage, he was up and running.

Even though hatch was visible before Feng died Quentin couldn’t find the damn thing to, literally, save his life. As he ran back into the territory where the killer was last, Quentin’s hope began to dwindle more and more as he heard and saw nothing. Demo, seeming to appear out of thin air, found him first and shred-tackled him into the dirt. On his back, Quentin thought he was going to be mori’d for sure, but then something...worse happened. The killer regurgitated Feng’s med kit onto his chest then stepped off and away from Quentin. Quentin didn’t know whether to thank the killer or puke himself. The amount of slime and saliva that drenched his clothing and neck had him pressing his mouth shut tight. What the hell is this killer doing? was the only thought in Quentin’s mind as he pealed the kit from his chest.

Quentin didn’t believe that Demo could sit on his haunches like a dog before that trial, but he does now.

The killer only watched as Quentin used the non-soaked medical supplies on himself until he was fully healed. Afterwards, the killer rose and started walking towards the killer shack. When Demo realized Quentin wasn’t following, it turned back, pathed behind the survivor, and herded him towards the decrepit building. Quentin had seen a lot when it came to weird shit, but this experience was quickly climbing the list. Rounding the far corner of the shack, Quentin found the hatch humming where it usually was. He turned and saw the Demogorgon, not trying to stop him but lying down like it was ready to take a nap.

Quentin pointed to the hatch with his free hand. “I can have that?” The killer, not understanding human speech, looked down at the hatch then back up to Quentin. The survivor figured that was good of an answer as any, thanked the killer with a shaky voice, and hopped into the backdoor exit.

Ever since that trial, Quentin has had this weird relationship with the Demogorgon. It’s fully based off the killer’s mood at the time, but for the most part, the pair seem to respect one another at the very least. Some trials, Demo will slaughter everyone mercilessly; others, the killer attacks everyone but Quentin. The survivor hasn’t found any rhyme or reason to the killer’s decision on how to treat him that day, but he’s grateful for the break when they come.

#Quentin Smith #The Legion #The Demogorgon #DbD hc #dbd #dead by daylight

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