#no one has numbers its just echo chamber bull | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

victory-rose · 4 years

Text

January 6, 2021 (Wednesday)

Today the Confederate flag flew in the United States Capitol.

This morning, results from the Georgia senatorial runoff elections showed that Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff had beaten their Republican opponents—both incumbents—by more than the threshold that would require a recount. The Senate is now split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, so the position of majority leader goes to a Democrat. Mitch McConnell, who has bent the government to his will since he took over the position of majority leader in 2007, will be replaced.

With the Democrats in control of both Congress and the Executive Branch, it is reasonable to expect we will see voting rights legislation, which will doom the current-day Republican Party, depending as it has on voter suppression to stay in power.

Trump Republicans and McConnell Republicans had just begun to blame each other for the debacle when Congress began to count the certified electoral votes from the states to establish that Democrat Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. The election was not close—Biden won the popular vote by more than 7 million votes and the Electoral College by 306 to 232—but Trump contends that he won the election in a landslide and “fraud” made Biden the winner.

Trump has never had a case. His campaign filed and either lost or had dismissed 62 out of 63 lawsuits because it could produce no evidence for any of its wild accusations. Nonetheless, radical lawmakers courted Trump’s base by echoing Trump’s charges, then tried to argue that the fact voters no longer trusted the vote was reason to contest the certified votes.

More than 100 members of the House announced they would object to counting the votes of certain states. About 13 senators, led by Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), agreed to join them. The move would slow down the count as each chamber would have to debate and take a separate vote on whether to accept the state votes, but the objectors never had anywhere near the votes they needed to make their objections stick.

So Trump turned to pressuring Vice President Mike Pence, who would preside over the counting, to throw out the Biden votes. On Monday, Trump tweeted that “the Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors.” This would throw the blame for the loss onto Pence, but the vice president has no constitutional power to do any such thing, and this morning he made that clear in a statement. Trump then tweeted that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.”

It seemed clear that the voting would be heated, but it was also clear that most of the lawmakers opposing the count were posturing to court Trump’s base for future elections. Congress would count Biden’s win.

But Trump had urged his supporters for weeks to descend on Washington, D.C., to stop what he insisted was the stealing of the election. They did so and, this morning, began to congregate near the Capitol, where the counting would take place. As he passed them on the east side of the Capitol, Hawley raised a power fist.

In the middle of the day, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani spoke to the crowd, telling them: “Let’s have trial by combat.” Trump followed, lying that he had won the election and saying “we are going to have to fight much harder.” He warned that Pence had better “come through for us, and if he doesn’t, that will be a sad day for our country.” He warned that Chinese-driven socialists are taking over the country. And he told them to march on Congress to “save our democracy.”

As rioters took Trump at his word, Congress was counting the votes alphabetically by state. When they got to Arizona, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) stood up to echo the rhetoric radicals had been using to discredit the certified votes, saying that public distrust in the election—created out of thin air by Republicans—justified an investigation.

Within an hour, a violent mob stormed the Capitol and Cruz, along with the rest of the lawmakers, was rushed to safety (four quick-thinking staffers brought along the electoral ballots, in their ceremonial boxes). As the rioters broke in, police shot and killed one of them: Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran from San Diego, QAnon believer, and staunch Trump supporter. The insurrectionists broke into the Senate chamber, where one was photographed on the dais of the Senate, shirtless and wearing a bull costume that revealed a Ku Klux Klan tattoo on his abdomen. They roamed the Capitol looking for Pence and other lawmakers they considered enemies. Not finding them, they ransacked offices. One rioter photographed himself sitting at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk with his feet on it.

They carried with them the Confederate flag.

Capitol police provided little obstruction, apparently eager to avoid confrontations that could be used as propaganda on social media. The intruders seemed a little surprised at their success, taking selfies and wandering around like tourists. One stole a lectern.

As the White House, the FBI, the Justice Department, and the Department of Homeland Security all remained silent, President-Elect Joe Biden spoke to cameras urging calm and calling on Trump to tell his supporters to go home. But CNN White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins later reported that she spoke to White House officials who were “genuinely freaked… out” that Trump was “borderline enthusiastic” about the storming of the Capitol because “it meant the certification was being derailed.”

At 4:17, Trump issued his own video, reiterating his false claims that he had been cheated of victory. Only then did he conclude with: “Go home, we love you, you’re very special.” Twitter immediately took the video down. By nighttime Trump’s Twitter feed seemed to blame his enemies for the violence the president had incited (although the rhythm of the words did not sound to me like Trump’s own usual cadence): “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”

Twitter took down the tweet and banned the president for at least twelve hours for inciting violence; Facebook and Instagram followed suit.

As the afternoon wore on, police found two pipe bombs near the headquarters of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C., as well as a truck full of weapons and ammunition, and mobs gathered at statehouses across the country, including in Kansas, Ohio, Minnesota, California, and Georgia.

By 5:00, acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller issued a statement saying he had conferred with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, Vice President Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Representative Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and had fully activated the D.C. National Guard.

He did not mention the president.

By late evening, Washington, D.C., police chief Robert J. Contee III announced that at least 52 people had been arrested and 14 law enforcement officers injured. A total of four people died, including one who died of a heart attack and one who tased themself.

White House Counsel Pat Cipollone urged people to stay away from Trump to limit their chances of being prosecuted for treason under the Sedition Act. By midnight, four staffers had resigned, as well as Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger, with other, higher level officials also talking about leaving. Even Trump adviser Stephen Miller admitted it was a bad day. Quickly, pro-Trump media began to insist that the attack was a false-flag operation of “Antifa,” despite the selfies and videos posted by known right-wing agitators, and the fact that Trump had invited, incited, and praised them.

Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis laid the blame for today’s attack squarely at the feet of Trump himself: “Today’s violent assault on our Capitol, and effort to subjugate American democracy by mob rule, was fomented by Mr. Trump. His use of the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice.”

The attempted coup drew condemnation from all but the radical Trump supporters in government. Former President George W. Bush issued a statement “on insurrection at the Capitol,” saying “it is a sickening and heartbreaking sight.” “I am appalled by the reckless behavior of some political leaders since the election,” he said, and accused such leaders of enflaming the rioters with lies and false hopes. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) was more direct: “What happened here today was an insurrection incited by the President of the United States.”

Across the country tonight are calls for Trump’s removal through the 25th amendment, impeachment, or resignation. The Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have joined the chorus, writing to Pence urging him to invoke the 25th. Angry at Trump’s sabotaging of the Georgia elections in addition to the attack on our democracy, prominent Republicans are rumored to be doing the same.

At 8:00, heavily armed guards escorted the lawmakers back to the Capitol, thoroughly scrubbed by janitors, where the senators and representatives resumed their counting of the certified votes. The events of the afternoon had broken some of the Republicans away from their determination to challenge the votes. Fourteen Republican senators had announced they would object to counting the certified votes from Arizona; in the evening count the number dropped to six: Cruz (R-TX), Hawley (R-MO), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), John Kennedy (R-LA), Roger Marshall (R-KS), and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL).

In the House, 121 Republicans, more than half the Republican caucus, voted to throw out Biden’s electors from Arizona. As in the Senate, they lost when 303 Representatives voted in favor.

Six senators and more than half of the House Republicans backed an attempt to overthrow our government, in favor of a man caught on tape just four days ago trying to strong-arm a state election official into falsifying the election results.

Today the Confederate flag flew in the United States Capitol.

#tw #tw politics #us #us politics #tw us politics

34 notes · View notes

zertzertzhang · 4 years

Text

I Need a Hero Chapter One

Synospis: Seen as the demon bastard of his village, Nezha is sent on a quest to redeem his character. It was supposed to be simple. Rescue the maiden, marry her off to the viceroy, collect community service points, and done. He really didn't think one mission alone was all that it took to unravel his past, present, and future like an onion. When a cursed princess swamps him under a horde of secrets, he is faced with two choices; accept fate...or fight it.*A story loosely (or largely) based on good ol' Shrek with some other influences sprinkled here and there for giggles.

Once upon a time, in a palace far, far away, lived a maiden. Said to be the fairest of her kingdom, she was doomed to spend twenty years in solitude, locked away from all life. A curse was placed upon her, only to be broken by true love's first kiss.

If she was not saved by her twentieth birthday, then her soul would be claimed by the Dragon Lord of the East Sea.

Her true face was never seen by anyone, as the tower was guarded by a terrible dragon.

Many have tried to free her from this dreadful prison, from the warriors of the state to the princes of Agrabah. None prevailed.

Thus the maiden waited in her chambers, in the highest room of the tallest pagoda, still waiting for her true love...And true love's first kiss-

"What a load of bull!"

Nezha busted out laughing. It was a bitter sound that bounced off the walls, traveling at least half a corridor down the hall.

An ear-grating tear echoed from the rooms of Li Manor as a frustrated shout followed just seconds after.

The double doors flew open with a terrifying bang, revealing the youngest young master storming around his room in a fit of disbelief.

"People still read this shit?!" Nezha forced a harsh laugh that scraped at the butler's eardrums. "Bring me better reading material next time or else I'll send you flying to the nine levels of hell and back!"

His pointed finger at one of the butlers was enough to send the latter teetering over the edge of an epileptic seizure.

The poor butler could only sputter as he tried every method in the book to lessen his suffering "Y-yes! Young master! I apologize for my transgression! Next time-"

"There's no next time!" Nezha fumed. "One more stupid story from you and I'll take my leave to the village where I can actually have fun!"

A lopsided grin broke across Nezha's face while he uttered the last words, as if just thinking about seeing the horrified faces of the villagers could serve as ample entertainment. The dimwitted guards by the manor would be no match for him if he really wanted to leave.

It would seem that it was inevitable for a run in with the law that day. Paying no attention to the stuttering servant next to him, Nezha frowned, debating the pros and cons over leaving right then and there.

"Young master," the butler started, "how would you like to-"

Nezha interrupted with a swift wave of a hand. "Scram already!"

To add to his point, the young man snapped his gaze to the quivering butler, scowling for good measure. It worked, as expected.

The older man scrambled backwards, squeaking for mercy. But he didn't need to go far, for the subject of his terror had long left the spot where he had originally stood. Nezha was on the rooftops in a blink of an eye.

"W-wait!" The butler tried to climb over the decorative stones, only to find himself hanging by the sides of the ledge like a helpless kitten. "Where are you going, young master?!"

At the sight of such, Nezha smirked. He made no attempt to help the butler up to his level.

"You gotta try harder than that."

"But you can't go out the manor!" the butler wailed. "Master Li has specific orders that you-"

"Stay in for the rest of your life," Nezha cut in for the upteenth time. "I heard it the first time."

Cracking his knuckles, he let out an obnoxious yawn before looking down at the latter with utmost boredom. "But anyways, I'll see ya later!"

The mischievous smile never left his face as he hopped down from his perch, disappearing from the butler's vision just as fast as he did before.

It was futile to attempt to control Nezha, especially now that he had grown right into his adolescent form. Had it been a year earlier he would've still been a child no older than eight. Even then, the demon child was a living nightmare, but at least he could be consoled with a few magical trinkets.

The Nezha now was a bottle of raging hormones a few buttons away from implosion. His butler didn't want to entertain the idea of some unsuspecting villager accidentally triggering his fury, thus adding more to the Li Family's monthly bill.

There was still more renovation needed for the living room. Nezha had created a hole right in the middle of Li Manor square during one of his 'experiments'. And that alone sucked hundreds of pounds of gold into construction fees.

Putting two and two together, the butler slapped a hand over his hand, inches away from a mental breakdown. He had to come up with an excuse as to how he let Nezha slip away.

He had to save his own ass at least.

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

Not a lot of effort went into devising a plan to escape the manor. Hell, the word 'escape' never registered in Nezha's head over the two years since he began his daily avoidance from the manor servants.

In a second's time, he could turn himself into a maid. So a maid he did turn himself to.

With the excuse of buying the daily grocery, Nezha had no trouble in slipping past the manor guards. The duo of metallic chumps had no doubts, lifting the spell between the doors just enough for the disguised maid out the building.

If he could, Nezha would've been on the floor convulsing with laughter by now. There was nothing more hilarious than repeatedly fooling the same people around him with the same tricks every time, and still getting away with it.

Not bothering with another extra thought, Nezha made a beeline towards the main entrance of Chentang Pass.

The fun was just getting started.

Crunch.

His feet squandered a pitiful branch below him with a brittle snap. Nezha didn't bother with his usual surreptitious style of tormenting the villagers. Weeks of the same old pop and scream had taken to the boring side for him.

He wanted something fresh.

Like he predicted, heads snapped in his direction the moment his bare foot stepped into the street market. The stares from people were like an automatic feature the town had inserted for him.

All sounds of life came to a screeching halt in his presence. Even the leaves seemed like they had minds of their own and stopped rustling as soon as Nezha popped up.

Dead silence washed across the mass, readying its ugly fingers around their necks, urging them to scream.

The way his tendons popped as his slender fingers clenched to fists sounded akin to a bone-crusher readying himself for a new victim. It was of no help that the young man's inhuman mark glowed with his excitement.

Before Nezha, a man towards the front of the market opened his mouth. His distorted face combined with the growing tint of purple on his cheeks was a good indicator of the things that were about to spout from his lips.

It's the demon! Run for your lives! Get away!

Nezha waved lazily at them, their old scripts running through his head like a broken record. It was impossible to get them to think of something more enticing to say about his grand entrance.

For a moment, Nezha actually feared that the illiterates before him could only speak those three phrases. Crossing his arms, he allowed the grin on his lips to morph into a wolfish smile.

"You all know the drill right?" Nezha beat the man to the talking punch. "I don't need to say more than I have to."

The unified gasp was a good indicator that they got the message. Nezha scoffed.

"One."

All at once, sound rushed back to the village as screams shot through the air like a needle piercing through flesh. Under the dust of everyone shuffling at the same time, civilians stepped over one another in a frenzied attempt to hurl themselves into the nearest shelter they could find.

Soon, it was every man for himself. No place was barred from being taken up by bodies: pots, cabinets, closets, haystacks, and coffins, too.

"Four."

If the squawking chickens and kicking cows weren't a sight enough, a few villagers had somehow come to the conclusion that as long as they couldn't see him, then he couldn't see them.

"Eight."

There were times when Nezha wanted so desperately to capture the scene before him in his mind and replay it by himself in his room for shits and giggles. He wanted to memorize each and every wrinkle of terror everyone made, taking in the affects he could have on them.

"Ten." He uttered the last number with soft delicacy, but anyone with a brain could hear the restrained agitation seeping under the words.

Nezha was losing patience. Flinging an apple onto the head of a still running man, he marked the beginning of hide-and-seek with a screech from the villager.

The man skidded onto the ground in a thud, shivering uncontrollably. Something about the way he curled up into a ball, avoiding eye contact with him irked Nezha.

A grown ass man can't be that much of a coward?! I didn't even throw that hard!

Nezha scowled, passing the fallen civilian without as much as another glance.

He shouted into the void, "I hope everyone's gonna try harder than this! Ready or not, here I come!"

It was too easy; some failed to cover their mouths as they breathed in and out like a dragon in battle. Despite going on about it for over two years, the village never improved.

There was no point for Nezha to use his heightened senses to scope out the 'players'. They might as well hold up a sign that scribbled 'I'm right here!' at that point. Running finger along the cement walls in a haphazard manner, he whistled a jolly tune too festive for the tension around him,

"Come out, come out wherever you are!" Nezha called. Lifting the lid off of an empty wine pot, he feigned surprise at the lack of shrieks.

He could hear the one person in the next pot over practically whimpering under their cover. The fear must've been great enough for the entire container to shake.

Nezha hummed to himself as he stepped towards the pot, twirling a branch in his hands. With a languid drag, his feet thudded against the dirt ground with emphasized force. A tiny squeak echoed from the container, officially giving away to the person within.

"Hmm." Nezha stroked the other pots besides it almost lovingly. "Now where did ya go?"

Fwip. The pot second to the left was slapped away. Each smash of a china elicited a shriek. If Nezha had a third eye, he swore he would see the fear radiating in the last pot of the bunch.

His smile grew; playtime was over now.

Reaching over, Nezha wrapped his fingers over the handles, breathing in the anticipated rush of adrenaline the shear horror from the man would bring.

Lips peeling back to reveal sharp canines, the young man readied his most terrifying expression. At the same time, the villager inside prepared himself to beg for mercy.

Funny enough, it would appear that his prayers were answered, because the lid never opened.

Instead, Nezha's eyes were glued to the posters nailed onto the columns over his head. The stark contrast of red against white caught his attention. A warrant of some kind had been posted all over the town square.

It had to be fresh; the last time he had been in Chentang's center, Nezha didn't notice such a thing. Littering the walls of restaurants and stands, the warrants were hard to miss.

Without a second thought, Nezha's arm shot out and tore off a poster. Even the ink smelled like it had just been stamped onto the paper.

"Viceroy of Chentang calls for any brave warrior willing to rescue his bride, the maiden of the East Sea Pagoda. If successful, the reward of one hundred thousand taels of gold and twenty acres of land..." Nezha mumbled out the information in a string of low growls.

Pathetic.

In a huff, he crumpled the paper, tossing it aside. It sounded like some cheesy bedtime story plastered into reality, and he couldn't help but remember the stupid fairytale he'd read earlier in the morning.

As much as Nezha appreciated the celestial aspects of life, sappy legends were very much barf-inducing, real or not. He had seen enough men who forced others to fight their own battles to not give a hoot for this dime a dozen opportunity.

Agitation spiked through his veins. He realized he wasted a good minute of his time mulling over a poster. It almost derailed him from his original plans. Speaking of which...

Nezha chuckled, eyes zoning back to the quivering pot next to him. Throwing all thoughts of the fairytale out the window, he cracked his knuckles.

There was still a town left to scare.

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

Li-Jing's voice boomed over the courtyard, threatening to take down trees had he been any louder. The deep baritone made matters worse, echoing off the buildings like an angry thunder god seconds away from blasting lightning to the ground.

"I am about done with you!"

The servants scurried back to their quarters, not bothering to deliver dinner. Though, it didn't sound like the Li Family was hungry either.

Clustered around the mess of a room, Li-Jing and Lady Yin were currently looming over a lounging Nezha, who clearly wasn't going to pretend to give them an audience.

"What must I say to make you obey me?" Li-Jing demanded. "The village's tolerance of you is waning! One more misshape and they'll be at your neck!"

The threat made no difference in aiding their argument. If anything, the fine lines between Nezha's brows creased deeper, forming harsh valleys contorting his face in the most horrifying way possible.

He snapped, "And why do I care? That's what they said last time. If they really had the guts, they'd be dead by now."

Venomous abhorrence spewed from the youth, matching the volume of his father's with no trouble.

Li-Jing narrowed his eyes, balling his fists at his sides.

Not thrilled to see another fistfight break out, Lady Yin rested a hand against his back, trying desperately to reel her husband back from the land of rage.

The general was at his limits. In spite of all the training with Taiyi in the past two years, the volatile nature never left Nezha.

Reality crushed Li-Jing with an insufferable amount of pressure that he swore his back would break if it got any worse.

"You're not helping!" the general argued. "The more you retaliate, the more monsters you have to slay to appease them. You'll be back in square one."

Out of everything Li-Jing said, one of the words seemed to trigger Nezha, because the latter was up in his father's face in a flash, teeth baring like a wild boar beaten to a corner.

"So what," Nezha hissed through gritted teeth. "That's for me and me only! I'm not slaying monsters to make them happy. Those ingrates could rot for all I care!"

It didn't take a grand scholar to see that Li-Jing wanted to slam his own head against the poles.

Chen-Tang's general, held to the highest standard of all citizens, couldn't even control his own son. It wasn't clear if the red tint on his cheeks was from anger or embarrassment.

Lady Yin, on the other hand, didn't appear to give up. "Please, Nezha. I'll stay with you longer tomorrow. Just promise mother you won't go out like that again."

Nezha let out a bitter chuckle. Her consolidation had long lost its meaning to him. After the thirtieth time she failed her promise, he stopped counting. The efforts to calm him only served as an insult to his wounds.

"I wouldn't dream of holding you back," Nezha slurred. "Save your pity party for next time."

He rose to excuse himself, but the arm of his father appeared in his way, blocking the exit. Nezha did a double-take, but he could feel the smoldering indignation rising at incredible speed.

"That's not gonna stop me."

Li-Jing sighed. "Son, I understand your frustrations. But what happened today happened, and we need to do something about it."

"No we don't." Adamancy was Nezha's strong suit.

"I know you better than you'd think," his father retorted. "You want them to accept you. But every time some villager gets to you, you go right back to your old self. It's not doing favors for any of us. We only want you to be happy. And you do, too. But you know you won't get any better by terrorizing them."

A slight twitch at the corners of Nezha's lips was a bigger sign than all else. He was listening, albeit begrudgingly.

Exhaling in relief, Li-Jing took the silent invitation to go on. At least he had a foot in the door now.

"There might be a few assignments we could give you," he continued. "They're not boring for sure. You might have to get physical with a few demons, though. But it could come in handy for training."

At the sound of demons, Nezha made a rigid turn towards his father, his pointed ears stood at attention. As long as he had the chance to put his two-years worth of training to work, anything was negotiable.

Li-Jing knew he had his son's full interest. He just had to give one more nudge and-

Bang!

A crash exploded by the doors, slapping all three Li's from their stare-down. Li-Jing groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. They had everything smoothed over, inches away from calming Nezha, and this motherf- just had to ruin it.

The general whipped his gaze to the dusty entrance, mouth open to unleash a slew of grievances, before his eyes widened at the sight of the guest.

Standing over the crumbles of what was left of the gates, Taiyi stumbled over his two left feet, mumbling something about wine and pretty women.

Nezha couldn't roll his eyes any harder. His master was undoubtedly drunk over his head, maybe even rejected by a few girls on the streets. The scene before him was too familiar.

Huffing, he glared. "Get lost, old geezer. I'm in the middle of something."

Taiyi ignored his demand, instead sauntering over in a giddy fashion like he just discovered the next best thing.

"Yohohoho!" The stench of alcohol escaped from the deity's mouth, gagging the poor audience around him. "Found the next adventure for ya, boy! I Overheard tha 'hole thing back there!"

Nezha growled. "You could've at least knocked!"

Taiyi snorted, patting his beer belly. "Can't a retired model relive his catwalk entrance?"

If he thought that was supposed to be funny, then he flopped hard. Nezha's previous agitation was on the rise once more, this time with full force.

"Spit it out already, old man! Can't you see I'm busy?!"

"Jeez," Taiyi complained. "Alright, alright! I found the perfect mission to repair your majesty's tarnished reputation, you little ingrate."

The deity grounded the last words in a whisper, trying but obviously failing to hide his distaste. Nezha's enhanced hearing caught it without a problem.

In light of his hammered state, Nezha stayed silent despite feeling a vein pop. There was always another day to light Taiyi's pants on fire.

"Spit. It. Out," he grounded.

Taiyi seemed to find amusement in twirling Nezha's mood, opting to wag a finger in front of the youth's face. The god knew his ass was going to pay for it later, but the petty in him had to take the opportunity.

Fumbling through his many pockets, Taiyi's face lit up with child-like jubilation at the sound of crinkling paper.

Nezha was not prepared to have a smelly and stained piece of parchment shoved into his face. He was sure if Taiyi had another pot of alcohol, he would've straight up crashed into him instead.

His master wiggled his caterpillar of a brow.

"Ya interested in some dragonslayin'?"

It took Nezha a moment to come back down to Earth. He snatched the paper, scowling at the deity before him. Focusing on the words of the parchment, the young man almost coughed blood at the sudden recognition.

It was the warrant for the princess.

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

A/N: QUICK! Somebody insert Allstar in the scene! ;)

#shrek #shrek is love #nezha #nezha 2019 #ne zha: birth of the demon child #哪吒之魔童降世 #fanfiction #parody #ao bing #哪吒

8 notes · View notes

daybreak-dragon · 4 years

Text

January 6, 2021

Today the Confederate flag flew in the United States Capitol.

They carried with them the Confederate flag.

Twitter took down the tweet and banned the president for at least twelve hours for inciting violence; Facebook and Instagram followed suit.

He did not mention the president.

In the House, 121 Republicans, more than half the Republican caucus, voted to throw out Biden’s electors from Arizona. As in the Senate, they lost when 303 Representatives voted in favor.

Today the Confederate flag flew in the United States Capitol.

-Heather Cox Richardson

American historian and Professor of History at Boston College

#us politics #washington dc #capitol insurrection #heather cox richardson #trump #if you aren't angry you should be #i'm absolutely furious #politics

5 notes · View notes

roman-writing · 5 years

Text

the jaw of lost kingdoms

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Pairing: Edelgard von Hresvelg / F!Byleth

Rating: M (mentions of past abuse)

Wordcount: 6,557

Summary: She thought of all the ways it could have gone wrong. How much she had lost. How much more she could have lost. Not just kingdoms. Worse than nations. What she clung to -- a dog worrying a bone, lock-jawed and drowning -- but what still slipped away.

SPOILERS for the Crimson Flower route

Read it here on AO3 or read it below the cut

"I have the face of a young executioner.

I am the last temple,

the communal dressing room

where girls wear nothing underneath,

where you find yourself on your knees

offering up

both throat and key."

— Rosebud Ben-Oni, I Am Your First World Problem

Edelgard had been sitting upon the Imperial throne all day, and her lower back ached. The pain was not helped by her outfit, severe and too-tight, bedecked with curling horns in place of a crown, and crimson-lacquered armoured plates in place of silk. It had been designed to inspire fear, not comfort. Indeed, when the designer had fitted her for the first time, he had tried convincing her to leave herself space to breathe. Edelgard in turn had glared coolly at him, and ordered him to tighten the corset another centimeter. His face had paled. He had ducked his head with a mumbled apology. He did not mention human comforts again.

On a good day, this outfit wavered on the bleeding edge of what she could handle. On a day like today, Edelgard folded herself into it as if folding herself into the brazen bull. She counted down the seconds until she could be alone and shed these layers like a snake.

It took every measure of self-control to not hasten her stride. She could not afford another slip now. She had already forgotten to eat that morning, and had been scolded by Hubert for her transgression, grave as it was.

Her footsteps clacked and echoed down the great halls of the Imperial palace. Hubert stalked at her side, always one step behind her, like a shadow that lengthened in her wake as the sun fell. Even stooped to murmur in her ear, he towered over her shoulder, blade-thin, gaunt, and hawkish. And if she had felt vaguely light-headed before, it was nothing compared to what she felt at his next words in his report.

“The newly appointed ambassador to Brigid arrived earlier this afternoon. And your uncle has delivered you a gift to your personal quarters.”

Edelgard could not help herself; her stride faltered. “What?”

Immediately, Hubert stopped. “Do not worry, Your Majesty. I have scoured it for any sign of tampering or traps, be they magical or otherwise. I confess, I was a little disappointed to find nothing at all wrong with it.”

A small furrow wrinkled her brow, and Edelgard resumed her walk towards her personal quarters. “What is it?”

“A piece of furniture. And a rather gaudy one at that. I would have sent it to the kindling piles, but we can’t rightly refuse it. Not yet. Not without rousing his suspicions.”

“Hmm,” she said.

The late setting sun slanted through the arched colonnade, filtering through the stained-glass windows and painting her in stripes of bold colour. The summer heat prickled against her skin even at this late hour. She could feel the sweat gathered between the wings of her shoulder blades, at the backs of her knees, the crook of her elbows, and the nape of her neck. She had to resist the urge to shrug against her outfit. She endured the heat as she always did, with vigilant silence.

Hubert’s report was, as always, timed to perfection so that it finished just as they arrived at the entrance to Edelgard’s personal quarters. He left her there, not daring to come inside, as courtesy demanded. And he was unfailingly courteous, even when she wished he would not be. She dismissed him with a nod. Servants opened and closed the doors for her. Inside, a half-legion of ladies-in-waiting dropped into deep curtsies upon being in her presence.

Edelgard spared them not a glance. Her gaze already roved around the chamber for anything out of place, but there were no new pieces of furniture that she could see. Perhaps it had yet to be delivered. Perhaps it resided through one of the doors and into the vast complex beyond; this was only the receiving chamber, after all. In times of convalescence or emergencies, she could conduct matters of state from this very room without alerting any scandal. Her rule had not come to that. Yet.

The most senior lady-in-waiting straightened, and began leading Edelgard through the rooms without needing any instruction. Stiffly, Edelgard followed. Being in her personal quarters at the palace did nothing to relax her. If anything, it achieved the opposite effect. She stood too straight, too poised, hands clasped and chin high, as though posing for an official portrait or a new profile for coinage.

One of the sitting rooms had a balcony overlooking the capital, its walls wrought entirely of windows that flooded the space with light and air. She was not led to that room. She delved far from it, trailed by a host of ladies-in-waiting past numerous parlours and studies, past the personal armoury and bedchamber -- the latter spread with a massive four poster bed -- and into the ablutions chamber.

The room was barrel-vaulted and sheathed entirely in gleaming stone. Here, no sunlight could reach. To compensate, numerous candles had been lit, their flames wavering over pools of pale, melted wax. The air was cooler here, but not by much. The bath had already been drawn. Water steamed within the great claw-footed marble basin. A rune at its base glowed a dull coal-red, maintaining the water’s temperature for as long as she required.

Edelgard halted in the centre of the chamber, a streak of scarlet against a backdrop of immaculate white. It quickly became apparent what gift her uncle had presumed to give her. In a room made all of stone, a wooden vanity had been placed along one wall. It was a gilded monstrosity, its panels hand-carved and darkly stained. It would have taken seven strong men to lift, and even then they would have struggled to bear it to and fro.

Worst of all was the mirror perched atop it. Silver-backed and enormous, there was no hiding from it in this room. Her lips pursed. She could see her reflection narrow its eyes fractionally, could see the coldness wash over her face and settle into her skin like a mask until she looked like she had been carved from polished marble -- a statue brought to life and draped in cloth to appear human, always striving, never achieving.

She quickly looked away. "Get rid of it."

"But -?"

Edelgard did not repeat herself. She did not have to.

A number of ladies-in-waiting were attempting to lift the vanity, but it refused to budge. Gold-gilded wooden legs squealed a centimeter across the stone floor. Her teeth clenched. She could feel the muscles strain until her jaw ached.

He had done this on purpose. He knew she hated -

“Stop,” she ordered, and the ladies-in-waiting froze, waiting for her command. “Just cover it. I will have it moved later.”

There followed a collective sigh of relief, then silence. Nobody dared speak without her permission. The senior lady-in-waiting conducted the others in absolute silence. A pale sheet was draped over the vanity, but it was large enough that the legs were still clearly visible.

Edelgard faced away from the vanity. The doors to the chamber shut, and ladies-in-waiting began the ritual of disrobing their Emperor. Edelgard remained standing throughout the entire affair, though she cast a sidelong glance towards the stone seat beside the folding screen. It was almost amusing: after a whole day upon an uncomfortable throne, and all she wanted to do was sit back down.

It began with her cloak. No less than three ladies-in-waiting were required to unclasp and lift the heavy mantle from her shoulders. Carefully they folded it away as though handling the imperial flag, while two others unbuttoned her outer coat to reveal the kirtle and yet more layers beneath. The most senior lady-in-waiting stood behind her upon a stepping stool to unweave the complex ramshorns hairstyle. Even while Edelgard was wearing her heeled boots, the lady-in-waiting probably did not need the stool. Edelgard was short enough to make such things unnecessary.

Even as a student back at Garreg Mach Monastery, Edelgard had used her station to secure herself private ablutions and rooms. Before she had been the head of her respective House, some of the other students found this preferential treatment at best odd or at worst grossly unjust. Rumours circulated. She did nothing to stop them. They suited her. And besides, they soon faded. Few could remember such frivolities now.

There was a moment in the ritual when they all knew the stop, to leave her alone and still mostly clothed. She would do the rest without them. It was not customary. Custom demanded they strip her bare and scatter her with rose petals while she soaked in the water and their ministrations.

Hang custom.

It was not that she did not trust them. All of her personal staff had been hand-picked and vetted by Hubert himself. There could be no doubt as to their loyalties. It was only that she did not trust them with this.

One of the ladies-in-waiting however, the newest and youngest of the lot, did not know this crucial step of the ritual. Either she had not been informed, or she had simply forgotten. It mattered not. She reached for her Emperor’s gloved hand. The moment Edelgard registered the touch upon her fingers, she snatched her hand away and jerked a half step backwards, nearly knocking the senior lady-in-waiting from her perch.

Everyone in the room went still. The transgressor’s face was downturned, flushed and bright with a mixture of mortification and visceral fear at having erred so wildly.

Edelgard’s eyes were cold enough to burn. When she spoke, the room’s occupants shivered. “Leave me.”

A flurry of quiet activity. They moved to carry some of her clothes and most of her armour away, but she glared so fiercely that they ducked their heads in bows and scurried away with empty hands. The door shut behind them, and still Edelgard found it difficult to breathe. She blamed the corset.

All that remained of her outer layers were a single pauldron and the modified farthingale. She hated herself a little for the way her gloved fingers trembled at the straps holding the red-lacquered plate into position.

It had been years. She should be over this by now.

The armour dropped to the floor with the clang of stone against metal. She kicked the hoops of her farthingale aside. Only one half of her hair had been successfully undone, a curtain of tangled white over one shoulder from where it had been tied in a braid not moments previously. Edelgard yanked out the pins and decorative horn from the other side, hard enough to hurt. The dull pain grounded her. She tossed each ornament and stay to the ground as well. The horns gleamed in the low candle-light like monstrous golden teeth.

She was loosening the whale-bone corset when there came a tentative knock at the door.

With a small grunt, Edelgard tore the damned corset free and dropped it alongside the other garments. She put as much steel into her voice as possible. “I do not require further assistance, Bess.”

The voice that answered did not belong to her senior lady-in-waiting, but it was familiar all the same. “I’m afraid it’s not Bess.”

Edelgard’s eyes widened. It took her so long to work up a response, that Byleth’s muffled words came through the door again. “Of course, if you still want me to leave, that’s fine, too.”

Before she could properly think through the implications of what she was doing, Edelgard had crossed the room and pulled open the door.

Byleth blinked down at her, and something almost like surprise crossed her features. It was difficult to tell with her. “Oh. I thought you’d be -”

“You thought I would be…what?”

Byleth shook her head. “Nothing.”

A tense silence fell. For all that she had rushed to open the door, now Edelgard stood at the threshold, unsure of what to do.

As if she could read her mind, Byleth said, “Should I come back later?”

Edelgard opened her mouth, paused, then shook her head. “No. You might as well come in.”

She only widened the door enough for Byleth to slip inside before shutting it once more. She did not lock it. There were no locks on any of the doors in her personal quarters; she forbade them. It was utterly irrational, the lingering fear. Even if it was to lock the monsters out, it felt too much like locking them in.

There was little chance of being disturbed, unless an emergency arose. Her ladies-in-waiting knew better. Not even the newest addition to her staff would presume to intrude. Especially not after what had transpired here today.

Byleth had not ventured far into the bathroom. She stopped by the stone seat strewn with ivory velvet and cloth of gold. The imperial double-headed eagle had been carved into the seat’s low curule-like back, so that it appeared almost to be a throne, a miniature of the one Edelgard occupied in the grand throne room three stories below them. Edelgard had never sat in this one. She far preferred the cushioned seats in one of her sunlit studies.

“Long day?”

Byleth had always been difficult to read, and that had not changed much. One of her hands was resting on the back of the chair, but she was looking down at the mess of armour and clothing on the floor.

Edelgard sighed. “No longer than usual.”

That awkward silence again. It itched at her like a blanket made of rough-spun, lousy wool.

It wasn’t that they had never been alone together before. They had. Edelgard could feel the ring Byleth had given to her not more than a week ago, strung from a chain around her neck beneath the remaining two layers she wore. The circle of metal warmed against her sternum. Much as she would have liked to wear it upon her finger, it would not fit beneath her gloves. And she could not risk certain parties knowing that she had a heart, or that it belonged so wholly to a single person.

Her uncle and those that slithered in the dark had much to answer for. She had never relished bloodshed, but a thrill shot up her spine at the thought of wielding the executioner’s axe while her uncle bowed his head over the block.

One day. Hopefully sooner rather than later. But not yet.

“Is everything alright?”

The question jerked Edelgard from her darkly-inclined reverie. Byleth was studying her with that piercing gaze, as though she were picking Edelgard apart into pieces that could be reassembled later.

Edelgard shook her head. “I’m -” she searched for the right word, “- impatient. That’s all.”

“I find that hard to believe. You are one of the most patient people I know.”

At that, Edelgard huffed out a bitter laugh. “If only you knew.”

Byleth’s eyes softened almost imperceptibly. It was so small a thing that Edelgard nearly missed it. Not long ago, even that much expression would have been all but impossible for Byleth to achieve. “You can tell me, if you’d like.”

For some reason that made her chest ache. Edelgard had to look away to compose herself. “Maybe -” she cleared her throat. “Maybe some other time.”

“As you like.”

Byleth never pushed, always waited. The irony did not escape her -- that Byleth would say such things when she herself was the most patient person Edelgard knew.

Byleth tilted her head towards the deep marble basin full of water. “In any case, I shouldn’t keep you from your bath. Would you prefer I sit here? What’s under this thing, anyway?”

“I - Please don’t touch that.”

Byleth’s hand fell without question from where it had been lifting up the sheet that covered the vanity. “Alright.” She cocked her head to one side, curious and waiting.

Edelgard had never been good at asking for things. She was accustomed to delivering orders, or otherwise manipulating her opponents to bend to her will. Fighting a war was easier than begging for scraps of affection from a woman she had pined after for years.

Her cheeks burned. Romance had never consumed her thoughts in the past. Not like this. Now, all it took were a few fumbling covert kisses in the last week to turn her into an indecisive wreck. Kissing Byleth in a shadow-clung corner of the palace was a far cry from asking her to do -- whatever this was. She did not rightly know herself, which only infuriated her all the more.

Slowly, as if Edelgard might bolt at any moment, Byleth crossed the room to stand before her. She placed her hands on Edelgard’s stiff shoulders, a warm, gentle weight. Edelgard stood perfectly still, not daring to breathe, not daring to blink out of some irrational fear that it might shatter whatever illusion this must have been.

“Your ladies-in-waiting aren’t here.” Byleth trailed her hands down Edelgard’s arms. “Would you like me to help instead?”

The very thought made Edelgard’s mouth go dry. She had to swallow in order to speak. She almost made the mistake of explaining that her ladies-in-waiting never helped beyond this point, but cut herself off before doing so. “I would. Yes.”

Wordlessly, Byleth’s fingers curled around one of Edelgard’s wrists. Edelgard did not even realise she had clenched her hand into a trembling fist until Byleth lifted it, pressing a kiss against the back of her knuckles. The warmth of her mouth transferred through the layer of white silk.

She had lost a glove once at the Monastery, and spent nearly an hour anxiously clenching her hand into a fist and tugging down the sleeve of her uniform until Hubert noticed the problem. He had promptly stripped off one of his own gloves and offered it to her with a courtly bow. She had not hesitated to put it on, and as she had pulled it over her wrist, shame and relief had washed over her in equal measure. The rest of the day was spent worrying if anyone noticed the discrepancy in her glove sizes, after which she rushed to the market at the first opportunity to purchase a new pair for herself. She had been delighted beyond measure when Byleth found the lost item weeks later, and returned it to her.

Now, Byleth turned her hand over and gently unfurled each of Edelgard’s trembling fingers. When she began to slowly tug the glove free, Edelgard could feel herself tense, every muscle going taut. It took an unspeakable effort to not snatch her hand away, to not shrink back, arms cradled to her chest, and beg Byleth to leave.

The white silk fell away to reveal skin just as pale, and at the centre of her palm a puckered, circular scar as though something had been driven through her hand. Edelgard could not stop the shaking. She waited for some sort of reaction, some noise or comment, but Byleth gave away nothing. Long cool fingers stroked along the lines of Edelgard’s palm, moving up to push aside the fabric of her long sleeve and reveal the uneven bands of scar tissue around her wrist, orne from years of chafing against the manacles that had bound her underground.

Byleth dropped the glove to the floor. The other soon followed. Edelgard’s sleeves were billows of snowy cotton without the constraints of her armour, and Byleth unbuttoned them until they could be folded neatly back up to the elbow. The scars that extended all up Edelgard’s forearms were too uniform, too precise to be anything but deliberate. Byleth’s fingertips ghosted along the patterns of ropey scar tissue. She stopped when Edelgard flinched from the touch at the sensitive crook of her elbow.

“Is this alright?” Byleth murmured.

Edelgard had to swallow down the lump in her throat, and still her words held a rasping burr. “Yes. I’m just - I’m not used to being touched.”

Or seen. She spent most of her life clad in irons or in steel. The only skin she showed to the world was her face and the unblemished top of her spine.

Byleth’s hands fell, and for a brief panicked moment Edelgard feared she may have given the impression she neither liked nor wanted this. Her mouth dropped open to speak, but words failed her when Byleth sank to her knees and placed a hand to the back of Edelgard’s leather-clad calf.

“May I?”

Edelgard did not trust herself to form words. Her only answer was to lift her heel from the ground, and allow Byleth to slowly work the knee-high kidskin boot from her leg, like peeling the rind of a fruit. Edelgard lost a bit of height with one boot gone. She sucked in a sharp inhalation when Byleth’s thumb stroked gently against the damp cotton stocking at the hollow of her ankle.

Byleth did not rush through anything. It seemed to take an age for the second boot to slip free. The only thing Edelgard could hear was her own uneven breathing. One of the flames on the opposite wall sputtered upon the wick, and Byleth reached beneath the hem of Edelgard’s frock for the clasp that held the stocking against her upper thigh.

Edelgard temporarily forgot how to breathe, and she did not even have the excuse of the corset anymore.

When undressing herself after her ladies-in-waiting had departed, Edelgard never gave any thought to ceremony. Undressing and bathing were and always had been exercises in shame. She would race to cover herself up once more, barely drying herself off before yanking a clean frock on, the dry cotton clinging to her still wet silhouette.

Byleth’s hands, roughened with callouses, brushed against the naked skin of her inner thigh, and Edelgard had to steady herself by gripping Byleth’s shoulder, tight. Of all the acts Edelgard had heard about or read about occurring between two people, this felt by far the most intimate. Byleth on her knees, revealing Edelgard piece by excruciating piece. By the time Byleth had dragged the stockings down her legs, Edelgard was clutching her shoulders like a lifeline, biting her lower lip, and praying for buoyancy in a sea of drowning heat.

The scars stretched all along the column of Edelgard’s legs, terminating with the same circular scars at the tops of her feet as were in the palm of her hands, as though she had been affixed to a wooden structure by iron nails. Edelgard had screwed her eyes shut, trying to imagine she was not trapped in a room that felt too far underground to be located four stories in the air.

Byleth’s shoulders gave way beneath her grip, and suddenly Edelgard had nothing to hold onto. There was a soft touch at the top of her foot. A hiss escaped her, and her eyes snapped open to find Byleth bowed and pressing a kiss to her ankle, where a pink line was scored into her skin. Byleth’s mouth followed the scar up, up, all along her calf and to the curve of her knee, until Edelgard had to clench her teeth to keep a whimper from escaping.

Her frock was still partially laced shut, but it had slipped down one shoulder to reveal a network of scars. They intersected at the base of her sternum, branching out from her heart like the boughs of a tree, apple-red, or perhaps like a nest of serpents curling ‘round.

Byleth paused to speak, and her words tickled against the skin of Edelgard’s thigh. “You’re so beautiful.”

“Praise isn’t really necessary,” Edelgard gasped.

“Would you like me to stop?”

“No.”

Byleth hummed a wordless note. For a moment she said nothing. Her fingers stroked along the webbing of scar tissue as if in admiration.

“I’m so glad,” Byleth whispered, her words slightly muffled against Edelgard’s leg. “I’m so glad you let me in.”

She was not speaking of this room alone. Edelgard’s fingers curled in her lash-dark hair. Byleth worked the frock over Edelgard’s hips, and pinned the fabric at her waist with her hands. The heat was suffocating. It must have been the marble tub still filling the air with drifts of steam, like eddies of water until the entire chamber seemed submerged. Edelgard could feel the flush darkening her skin, mottling her cheeks and neck a rosy hue.

Byleth kissed the notch in her hip, and Edelgard tightened her grip. One of Byleth’s hands trailed down to nudge aside one of Edelgard’s legs, a gentle encouragement to widen her stance. The frock draped across the backs of her knees. Edelgard felt a sense of unreality as she bent one knee to lift her foot just slightly off the floor.

It was difficult to remain still, when Byleth’s head moved between her legs. Her hands were fists against the back of Byleth’s head, holding her in place. The rest of the room might as well have not existed; it faded into a vast expanse of white marble and white noise. Edelgard hardly registered the echo of her own harsh panting. Byleth’s mouth was a constant heat, warm tongue moving ceaselessly against her. Edelgard squeezed her eyes shut so she would not have to see her own scarred legs bracketing Byleth’s black-clad shoulders.

She could not stop the jerk of her hips with every slow swipe of Byleth’s tongue, accompanied by a sharp gasp encloistered behind clenched teeth. They were enshrined in a golden-tinged mist that rolled about their ankles from a bath filled with holy water to anoint the last Emperor of Adrestia. Edelgard had never been one for prayer -- not for many years now -- but the sounds that escaped her could only be described as wordless pleas, until she came with a stifled cry.

When Edelgard’s thighs began to tremble, and she was half bowed and shaking, Byleth pulled away. Edelgard nearly staggered upon unsteady legs, but caught herself against Byleth’s shoulders. Byleth remained kneeling on the floor. It could not have been comfortable. The stone must have been cutting into her knees.

“Wh-What -?” Edelgard rasped. “What brought this on?”

Byleth hummed against Edelgard’s inner thigh. “Do I need a reason to want you?”

Swallowing thickly, Edelgard opened her eyes. Byleth’s cheeks were flushed, her mouth slick. A curl of dark hair was plastered to the side of her neck. For all that, her gaze was steady, focused.

Edelgard frowned. “You are awfully cool about this.”

“You’re wrong.” Byleth teased the skin of Edelgard’s thigh between her teeth. “I’m so nervous.”

Edelgard’s breath caught in her chest. “You could have fooled me.”

“Could I?” One of Byleth’s hands still cradled the back of Edelgard’s knee. Edelgard twitched when she traced a senseless pattern there with her fingertips. “I thought you might prefer me like this, based on your reactions this last week.”

“What do you -?”

Edelgard did not finish that sentence. She had hoped Byleth would not notice how she had shied away anytime she tried removing her gauntlets and gloves. How convenient it was that they never had a moment of time to spend along together. How Edelgard always had some important duty she had to attend to without delay when their kisses had grown too heady.

“Was I wrong?”

It took Edelgard a moment to reply. “No. But is this what you want?”

The corner of Byleth’s lips twitched in a small smile. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

Edelgard gave a fistful of Byleth’s hair an admonishing little tug. “So flippant for one on their knees.”

That earned a soft laugh against her hip. Byleth grinned into her stomach, then rose to her feet. "Shall I bathe you as well?"

A thrill of fear shot down Edelgard's spine. "No," she said too quickly and too harshly. Angling her body away, she smoothed the frock about her knees once more, and added, "What I mean to say is: I would prefer you join me, instead."

Byleth’s expression softened. “I’d like that.”

The moment Byleth reached for the stays of her own outfit, Edelgard averted her gaze. Watching her undress felt too sacred to witness. She fumbled with the last laces of her frock before pulling it over her head. The ring she left hanging around her neck on its chain. She never took it off, even while sleeping. She did not look around while Byleth continued to disrobe -- bits of armour and cloth falling to the floor in heaps of black silk, black gorget, black breastplate. Instead, Edelgard hoisted herself into the bath using the stepping stool left behind by her senior lady-in-waiting.

The water lingered on the border of too hot. She slipped beneath the surface regardless, ignoring the way her skin prickled and reddened. Her pale hair darkened to an aged ivory in the water, and she hastily doused her head. As she rose back to the surface, Edelgard wiped the water from her face, raking a hand through her hair just as Byleth was using the stepping stool to join her.

The basin was enormous. It would easily accommodate three or four people. Normally, Edelgard huddled in one corner as though it had been partitioned off like the chamber of a heart, or perhaps like a cell, inviolable. On the other hand, Byleth sprawled, her arms propped against the sides of the marble walls, and her legs extended so that they encroached upon Edelgard’s usual empty space. Slowly, Edelgard allowed her own legs to stretch out. While there was enough space they could have not touched at all, Byleth purposefully tangled their legs together and ran her foot along the back of Edelgard’s naked calf.

The water was murky with suds and fragrant oils. A few flower petals drifted between them, gathering at the edges of the basin. Byleth rubbed one white rose petal between thumb and forefinger. “I’ve never had a bath quite as nice as this before.”

“Mmm,” was Edelgard’s non-committal reply. Her mouth thinned. She had told Bess that she wanted no fanfare whatsoever where her baths were concerned. Scented oils were one thing, but flower petals were beyond the pale.

Byleth was watching her curiously. She was mostly obscured by refractions in the water, but Edelgard’s gaze drifted down nonetheless. Edelgard would never understand how someone could be so confident in nothing but their own skin.

“I feel I owe you an apology.”

Byleth cocked her head. “What for?”

“Being so -” Edelgard flicked a rose petal away from herself, her nose wrinkled. “- unavailable.”

“You don’t need to apologise for that. I know you’re busy.”

“Yes, but I want to make time for you. For us.”

There was something vaguely guilty in the way Byleth toyed with a lock of her own water-darkened hair. “I may have asked Hubert about your schedule in order to find out when would be the best time to -”

Edelgard’s eyes widened. “You -? You mean you told him that this was what you were going to -?”

“What? No!” Byleth sat up straighter in the bath, sending ripples throughout the water. “I just wanted to know when you might be free without bothering you.”

With a sigh, Edelgard tipped her head back so that her neck rested against the lip of the basin. “I am sure he has already put two and two together. It’s not like I have been particularly circumspect about us. Not as much as I should have, anyway.”

Byleth’s eyes were dark and intense. “I trust that he would never let anyone do anything that was against your best interests. Not even me.”

“Some people might say that sort of presence in one’s life is stifling and unhealthy.” And though Edelgard drawled, her mouth was quirked in a fond smile.

“If Hubert thought his presence was detrimental to your health, he would fling himself off the highest tower in the capital.”

Edelgard made a face. “I really should talk to him about that.”

Byleth grinned. “Face it, El: he’s a lost cause.”

The use of her family pet name still sent a flood of warmth rushing through her that had nothing to do with the heat of the bath. Edelgard could feel her shoulders relax incrementally. “You’re probably right.”

The silence that settled over them lacked the stiffness that had been present before. Edelgard looked on indulgently while Byleth gathered as many rose petals as she could. She even sent a few drifting along in Byleth’s direction with a flutter of her fingers against the surface of the water.

Not once did Byleth mention the scars. She had her own, after all, though none as extensive or deliberately placed as Edelgard’s. Hers were little nicks and cuts from years of mercenary work in the field, where access to the healing arts were far less easy to come by than they were in monasteries or palaces. Indeed, Byleth never once mentioned any aspect of Edelgard’s odd behaviour.

It could not have been a lack of interest. Edelgard could see those dark eyes following the complex patterns of scar tissue. She could remember the way Byleth had lavished physical attention upon them not moments ago; the phantom touch of her mouth made Edelgard shiver at the mere memory.

She wanted to know the story behind every sword, ever arrow or dagger that had marked Byleth’s skin. The desire for that intimacy of knowledge washed over her like the tide. It was suddenly, urgently important that Byleth know something about her that others did not -- not even Hubert -- and the words spilled from her like a confessional.

“When I was in captivity,” Edelgard grimaced even as she said it; she hated nothing so much as being akin to a songbird behind bars, “there were very few avenues of resistance I could employ. I tried them all. Refusing to sit still during procedures. Refusing to perform tasks. Refusing to eat. Refusing to bathe. They made me, of course. Eventually.”

Force-feeding was a less than pleasant experience; Edelgard did not try that for long. The last of the list had persisted for weeks, however. At least, until her uncle finally ordered her to be bathed by guardsmen. They stripped her and dunked her in freezing water, their hands rough, pushing her head beneath the surface until she thrashed and came up gasping, half-drowned and shivering. After that incident, she was treated to sumptuous bath experiences by ladies-in-waiting -- their tongues all cut out, so they could not speak to her or of her -- as though her uncle were trying to train a dog with the lash and sweets both.

Edelgard was studying the ripples her hand made across the surface of the water. She did not have the courage to look up when Byleth asked, “And did they...do anything else?”

At that, Edelgard snorted with wry laughter. “Nothing like what you’re thinking, no. I was too valuable a prize to be ‘sullied’ so to speak. Especially when they planned to stud me like a virginal mare. I imagine they still entertain such schemes."

Truth be told, one of the guards had dared to peek over his shoulder once while she disrobed. Her uncle had slit his throat. The blood had trickled across the stone floor until it lapped against her feet like the tide against the shore. She had tread bloody footsteps all the way to the bath. The water had lathered, pink and foamy, around her until she could not tell if it was the heat that dyed her skin a blushed coral, or something else.

She dared to glance up now, and an awful chill washed over her. “Please don’t look at me like that.”

Byleth averted her eyes, choosing instead to scatter the petals she had gathered together like a white cloud. They skimmed across the water in every direction. “I really am looking forward to killing them once and for all.”

Edelgard managed a grim smile. “That makes two of us.”

Shaking her head, Byleth dipped her head beneath the water and began to lather her hair clean with a bar of flawless, ivory soap upon a silvered dish that Edelgard knew from experience smelled of cloves and fresh rainfall. She waited patiently for Byleth to finish, at which point Byleth scooted the soap along the floor of the basin towards her.

Edelgard cleaned herself as she always did: with brisk and thorough efficacy. Suds clung to the raised ridges of her scars with every pass of the soap, bringing them into sharper relief against her pale skin. By the time she was finished however, Byleth had tilted her head back, her throat and chest bared. Edelgard was loath to hurry her; not when Byleth looked so at peace.

She thought of all the ways it could have gone wrong. How much she had lost. How much more she could have lost. Not just kingdoms. Worse than nations. What she clung to -- a dog worrying a bone, lock-jawed and drowning -- but what still slipped away.

But for now, in this moment, at least she had this. The past she arrayed like a fan of knives, placing each memory with the blade pointed away as if in the hope they would not cut, and all the while her hands bled.

“Look at my hands,” Byleth had lifted her arms to inspect her hands above the water. “I look like I’ve been pickled in brine.”

In surprise, Edelgard glanced down at her own hands to find that her fingertips had gone pink and wrinkled from exposure to the water. She could not remember that happening since -- well, since before she had been forced to undertake the Crest procedures. She always took baths quickly, never lingering longer than absolutely necessary.

“We should probably get out,” Byleth said even as she closed her eyes and sank down a little further, so that the water reached her neck. The motion meant their legs were entangled more fully together. Edelgard could feel a naked ankle rub against her outer hip.

It was distracting enough to make Edelgard’s breath hitch. She let her hand wander down to stroke lightly against Byleth’s knee, watching for any reaction this might illicit. Byleth opened one eye, and flexed her leg beneath Edelgard’s touch.

For now, those who lingered in the shadows could wait. She had far better prospects in her immediate future.

Edelgard patted Byleth’s knee, then rose, dripping, to her feet. “Come along, then. Let us repair to another room.”

“Any room in particular?” Byleth asked, standing to follow.

Fluffy white towels were neatly folded into cubby holes inset along one wall. Edelgard crossed over to grab a few, one of which she tossed in Byleth’s direction. “I know of at least one that has a rather spectacular bed, if I do say so myself. And I know that of the two of us, only one has been properly taken care of this evening, which is -- quite frankly -- grossly unjust.”

“How very charitable of Your Majesty.”

Towel wrapped around herself, Edelgard strode over to Byleth. She had to rise up on her toes to kiss her, but by the time they parted, Byleth’s spine had bowed to accommodate her. Edelgard teased her thumb against Byleth’s lower lip, and murmured, "Let it not be said that I am not a generous Emperor."

NOTES:

I am aware that with my mention of farthingales and all that, Edelgard wouldn’t have been wearing a corset but a precursor called “stays.” I elected to stick with “corset” under the basis that I wanted my audience to know what the heck I was talking about.

#edelgard #byleth #edelgard/byleth #fe3h #fire emblem #roman writes

152 notes · View notes

aalapdavjekar · 3 years

Text

On Identity

First published in October, 2020.

At the age of fourteen, I found myself in my first online chatroom. "Asl," they asked — early Internet slang for age, sex, location. It was never self identifying information. No one was interested in names. No one cared about what you looked like. You were free to be anonymous as long as you provided a small token of details from which the rest could be inferred. Your interests were apparent from the room you were in and your avatar dropped other crumbs of personality. The concept of anonymity was still years from making sense to me yet the obliviousness to physical identity was real. The idea of a fourteen year-old from India soon became dull. So, I decided to get creative.

Some days I would be a 75 year-old living in rural Mongolia who had just purchased his first computer after selling 25 of his favourite sheep. On another, a divorced mother of three, fresh out of prison, looking for advice on everything from makeup to homeschooling. Each day was a blank slate, a new role to fill, a fresh start. Identity on the web is as literal as fiction. It could be as entertaining as you wanted it to be.

Regardless of how you chose to portray yourself, your personality was a central component to how each story was laid down. Regardless of how out there you wanted to go, to an extent, most would assume you were giving out correct information. In theory, you could be the Pope pretending to be the Queen. Not many would care but most would find it funny.

No one can judge the unknown. On forums such as Reddit, getting a new identity is as easy as coming up with a new username. There’s no one to question your motives, judge you by the colour of your skin, or ban you for being too young.

You have no age on the Internet, no gender and you have no country. Your username might change, your writing will mature over time, new subreddits will be found, some will disappear.

Yet, like real life, people can and do judge you based on certain criteria. Online, credibility is based on reputation — call it Internet points, karma, the number of followers, likes, etc. To some online services, these signify your commitment to your role. Like seniority in a real life occupation, Internet points signify how long a profile has been around. The Reddit karma system which was primarily developed as a reward mechanism also serves as an easy way to distinguish between credible profiles and inflammatory and digressive posters — trolls. If you post worthwhile content, you get upvotes — points! On the other hand, if people don’t like what they see, you get negative points. Unlike the virtual world, physical age plays a very important role in real life in determining your credibility. It gives people an easy excuse to ignore your opinions depending on how old you are while giving way to cultural cliches such as respect your elders or tradition is sacred. One of the harshest — kids are stupid might almost seem like a mathematical axiom but ignores certain aspects of the child that are seldom found in adults such as the ability to quickly master languages or adopt new skills.

ASL in the offline world is very much like the Internet. The major difference is that it’s much easier to catch someone lying. As an Indian teenager, I could never pretend to be a 75-year old Mongolian even with the best makeup advice. Yet, there were other ways to pretend. At the time, I thought of myself as shy but I could still stir up some confidence when I had to talk to strangers. I only had to pretend to be charming, smart, and interesting. Society even had my back. “You can be anything you want to be when you grow up,” they told me at school. “Always dream big,” they proudly added. Years later, I realized all these statements only translated into, “get a bigger salary.” So, yeah, they were pretending too. Eventually I came to the conclusion that everyone was pretending. Everyone I interacted with had a story to tell. They all had a big bag of words that they used to confidently describe themselves. Most interesting of all, they all took the story they told themselves and others very, very seriously and would happily clock you in the mouth if you merely hinted at anything otherwise. Like calling someone out in the chatroom for their alleged fakery, painting someone as a liar in real life was akin to assault. But my conclusions weren’t based on some impulsive thought. They were carefully considered observations. The wall of pretense we erect is not even a conscious decision. Almost always, it is based on years of cultural indoctrination.

Who are we?

Culture is a weird one. The typical North American and South Asian of the 1950s could be considered living centuries apart from each other. The Indian, most likely an illiterate farmer barely making ends meet, could not dream of life in the American Golden Age — minimum wage that could pay for two cars and a mortgage. He could not conceptualise the existence of luxuries such as refrigerators, ovens, swimming pools and shopping malls, hospitals and discotheques, or the ability to travel the world on tips earned while bartending. The average Indian farmer desired healthier bulls, better harvests, regular rainfall, obedient wives for his sons. But then, as much as now, drastically different cultures still overlap in certain ways. The Indian farmer, much like his American counterpart, looked to his neighbour to understand himself. If the Jones next door bought a fancy new car, everyone living in the neighbourhood wanted something better. If the Kumars next door threw a huge wedding for their son, inviting everyone from the closest twenty villages, the Chopras dreamt only of throwing a larger party next year. The collective psyche of each culture is only a reflection of the desires of each individual. But cultures, homogeneous or otherwise, are an echo chamber. They consciously or subconsciously produce edicts, rules and regulations that individuals integrate and pass on. Whether it’s capitalism good, communism bad in the American psyche, or India good, Pakistan bad in the Indian, from economic policy-making and government initiatives to television programming and pop art, everything must adhere to cultural norms and traditions. Unless it fits the identity of the collective and follows a cultural narrative, it will be discarded.

Take the never ending list of Indian god-men and celebrities who are routinely treated as infallible figures worthy of worship. Devotees are often so unflinching in their faith that they are willing to overlook overwhelming evidence of rape, murder, exploitation and extortion. This is not unique to India. Charismatic personalities have sway over swaths of people all across the world. Whether it’s Trump, Duterte, Bolsonaro or Modi, the ability to pander to the masses and speak to the cultural norm is more important than competence at one’s job. Trump gave voice to a collective that was scared of immigrants taking over their jobs. Years later, his ineptitude would lead to one of the worst administrative failings in American history and the death of over 400,000 people in the course of the pandemic. The actions of the Indian government during the second wave need no mentioning.

In many countries, questioning one’s cultural norms is akin to treason. Similar to questioning a person’s opinions, questioning the integrity of a political ideology often leads to terrifying consequences. The BJP’s rise to power in India has been followed by the arrests of intellectuals, academics, students, poets, and doctors for voicing opinions against the party. This is quite the routine for authoritarian governments. In the 1950’s, Mao Zedong’s government in China persecuted and killed half a million of its educated populace before launching the Great Leap Forward, a project that aimed at transforming China from an agrarian economy into an industrial power. While it looked great on paper, it led to the greatest famine in history and resulted in the deaths of at least 20 million people. This failure politically weakened Mao. In response, he launched another program to weed out and eliminate dissidents, killing another million in the process while leading to the destruction of thousands of Chinese historical and cultural artifacts. What was the outcome of this violence? It only strengthened Mao’s hold over the masses. His personality was now a cult.

To call humans sheep would be unfair because sheep are never pushed off a cliff by their masters. Human societies, on the other hand, are rife with power struggles, deep hierarchies, discrimination, and violence. Yet, each of us identifies as a good person. We can rationalize why we are good, therefore we must be good. No country in the world would ever think about labeling itself as a force of terror, cruelty, and animosity, but we can easily call “the other” any number of names. We look to our family, friends, and society to support and reinforce these views — call them nationalism, patriotism, freedom, equality — regardless of how accurate or even relevant these views might actually be.

Oscar Wilde said, “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

Our identity does not quite work in favour of our individual or collective happiness. We associate a feeling of national pride towards statistics, numbers, and symbols. Rising GDP is popularly correlated with the “wealth” of a country, but many forget that this number just smashes together a country’s total economic output over a period of time without distinguishing between “good” and “bad” economic activity. Even the man who came up with the concept, Simon Kuznets, was of the opinion that the number had nothing to do with individual well-being.

We look to our history to understand where we came from without realizing we have many incomplete pieces to an enormous puzzle. Many contemporary Indians would associate themselves with the iconic Indus Valley civilization and think of the core of their cultural and religious identities as unchanged for thousands of years. However, the morals and the values carried by the average Indian today — monogamy, marriage, vegetarianism, holidays and celebrations, rites and rituals — all stem from thousands of years of mingling with the outside world. What we define as violent invaders and conquerors today have played an important role in shaping our culture into its current form. Not only did the Mughals contribute to our aesthetics and our lexicon but they also brought with them mathematics, science and philosophy. Global trade helped carry the Indo-Arabic number system (the numerals 0 to 9) to Africa, Europe, and eventually to the rest of the world. The British brought their own legal and judicial systems, passed down from the Romans, the railway infrastructure, and a bizarre penal code which sought to divide the subcontinent culturally, morally, and geographically according to their own prudish Victorian attitudes.

Hinduism, a major global religion today, has its roots in the Vedas, a collection of manuscripts believed to have been written by ancient sages at least a thousand years before the birth of Christ. The Vedas described the lives and spiritual pursuits of the priestly class, the Brahmins of ancient India. Before being written down, they were orally passed on from teacher to pupil. The Vedas described the lives of gods, rites and rituals, spells and incantations, all of which have their roots in even earlier animistic traditions, or the worship of animals, plants and nature — a theme common to the birth of nearly all religions. These texts were central to the agrarian communities that inhabited the Indus Valley. However, one might be hard pressed to call this Hinduism. These ancient traditions later branched out into numerous schools of thought such as Samkhya, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Yoga, Mimamsa, and Vedanta, each with their own unique set of philosophies.

Due to the geographical scale of the Indian subcontinent, the diversity in language, culture, and race, the ideological descendants of Vedic traditions were in the hundreds, if not thousands, and were regarded as a way of life by those who practiced them. The word ‘Hindu’ was simply used to describe people living near the Sindh, a river that flows through the northwestern part of the subcontinent. The word had nothing to do with the individual beliefs of these people. The modern form of Hinduism developed in the 18th century through reformist movements started by Ram Mohan Roy who wished to rid Hindu traditions of superstition and promote rational and ethical ideas about the religion. Thinkers such as Dayananda Sarasvati, Paramahamsa Ramakrishna, and Swami Vivekanada, would develop the idea of a unified Indian continent and seed missionary movements that brought Hinduism to the shores of Europe and later, the United States. Savarkar, who used the term hindutva to describe ‘the quality of being Hindu’, brought on a politically-charged connotation to Hinduism. This was further fueled by the Indian Independence movement that promoted the idea of ‘India as a Hindu nation’ before the eventual partitioning of the subcontinent along religious lines.

It is a topic of much debate whether an organized and unified Hindu nationalist identity that brought the sheer variety of the subcontinent under one banner to overthrow colonialism would have naturally evolved without the presence of the British Raj. More importantly, the idea of a ‘Hindu nation’ starkly contrasts the cultural openness of the early inhabitants of the subcontinent, and their acceptance of hundreds of cultures and different belief systems, which is ironic considering the foundation of Hindutva is based on the myth that India has always been a country for Hindus.

What are we?

Does my cat know he’s a cat? Do animals know of themselves? What about viruses and bacteria? You might say no to all of these questions and state that the ability to know oneself is unique to homo sapiens. The correct answer is debatable but not really the point I am trying to make. What if I asked you what you made you believe you were human, or conscious, or even real? There is good reason for you to believe in all of those things because you might think it’s ridiculous to believe we are just deterministic machines running on genetic code. Surely, we must have free will. Surely, we must be the most intelligent byproduct of evolutionary pressures. Surely, we must be the only creatures capable of stewarding the Earth. Surely, we must be correct about the things we know and accept as fact.

How comfortable would you be if none of these were true? I won’t attempt to answer these questions here because these are an entirely separate discussion but my point is that we believe we are a number of things only because we have identified with these beliefs for a good portion of our lives. Like the Ptolemaists who believed the Earth was the center of the Universe, or Creationists who believe ‘the Earth is 6000 years old and dinosaur bones exist only to test our faith in god’, there may still be numerous misconceptions of reality that we accept as common fact. Regardless of what these beliefs are, it’s critical to understand that our beliefs are our identity. Through many years of indoctrination, people on opposite sides of the Korean Demilitarized Zone still identify as human beings, but their world views are starkly different. One might defend the ideals of capitalist society while the other might think his leader is god and gladly give his life to protect this belief.

There is no distinguishing between one’s beliefs and oneself. Our beliefs form our habits, which in turn form our personalities. We live our lives from the point of view of our beliefs; a home forged from our own subjective interpretations of the world. We hold ourselves accountable to our identity; define ourselves with tokens of adjectives, layers of tradition and symbolism, while in the meantime, we fight to preserve every shred of it, and live the rest of our lives in a struggle to cultivate it. We try to keep it sacred, unique, and immutable. Otherwise, we ask ourselves, what is the point? We work tirelessly to make sure we’re not just another cardboard cutout while raking in trophies, certificates, photographs, children, exclusive club memberships, Internet points — anything to expand our fairytale legacy; anything to suppress our natural mortality and increasing vulnerability. We judge ourselves not through the motivations, beliefs or struggles of others; we judge others based on ourselves. Identity is a relational web. It is a comparison sheet we use to analyse our place in the world. It helps us weave a meaningful story to answer difficult questions such as: What am I? When did I begin? What will happen to me when I die?

No one is born religious. No one is born to identify with a particular piece of land. No one is born to identify with a particular political party. No one is born as a specific identity. We are all simply products of indoctrination. Every single day, from the moment we are born, our education begins — not towards an ideal of truth but towards survival. The agenda of the education system is only a reflection of the cultural landscape it inhabits. Perhaps only science can claim the ability to course-correct and steer its way towards better models of the universe. Humans, meanwhile, are not so flexible. Between years three and four, most children start forming opinions about the world and themselves. I am this. I like that. This young identity is shaped through an education system whose primary objective is passing exams, failing which the child is immediately labelled as stupid. The child is routinely compared with their classmates, labelled any number of things — shy, honest, hardworking, problematic, unmotivated. Their place in the world begins to solidify. The child, in most cases, assimilates these assessments as accurate characteristics about themselves, never questioning their validity.

Over the course of a lifetime, many layers of identity are crafted and worn, each accentuating every other. Our identity has an appetite. It must consume knowledge and meaning or risk starvation. Some may be consumed by this hunger, turning into narcissists and megalomaniacs. Others might see through the illusion. Yet, most people never manage to leave their opinions behind, not enough to provoke a different perspective because the need never makes itself apparent. Most people internalise their self-beliefs themselves to the point where they are defined by them. People tend to stick with people who think like they do. They fall into a loop of self-compliant views and confirmation biases. Eventually, this simplistic view of the world and the self becomes hardwired and impossible to outgrow. Anything that challenges these hardwired beliefs is first ignored as fake news, but eventually, it brings forth an increasingly agitated response. The stronger the hold of identity, the greater is its tendency to fight back against change. People might call themselves vegan, neo-marxist, jazz aficionados, liberal, Muslim, pan-romantics, Indian first, Maharashtrian second, [enter artist’s name]’s biggest fan. They might have good reason to suspect these words as truth. Regardless of their accuracy, these are just layers of identity, to be worn as per the demands of the situation, like seasonal clothing.

When people communicate, it is a specific identity that does the talking. When I am speaking to my boss, I wear the mask of a loyal employee; when I am speaking to my son, I wear the mask of a loving father; with a stranger, all the politeness I can muster; with a foe, skepticism, mistrust, anger. We carry countless and distinct identities, only to utilize a specific ASL — a condensed and limited disclosure of the ego based on the situation and circumstance. These are like webpages which hide the underlying HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code while only showing you what you wanted to see — a funny cat video. The individual’s relational web grows with every new encounter, every new discovery about the world. It begs to answer only one question — Where is my place in the world? The relational web offers a map to reality; a model that seeks to understand and tailor itself based on experience. This is an intrinsic biological mechanism without which the ego cannot survive.

Our identity is life itself. It is the very antithesis to death. These are polar opposites: creation and destruction. Identity forges meaning while death snatches it away in an instant. While the pursuit of meaning is a lifelong endeavour, ageing is a paradox. Ageing in the modern world is the contradiction between wanting a longer life as well as infinite youth. A trillion-dollar anti-aging industry that only seeks to postpone the inevitable, is testament to this fact. In the meantime, all we are left with is the pursuit of polishing our individual story. Some might cherish the annual event that signifies the day they were born while others might hate it, resenting the lives and achievements of others associated with a smaller number while casting everyone else into a basket of irrelevance. Perhaps this is why the shadow of anonymity offered by the Internet is such a comforting place to live. But whether offline or online, my ASL is whatever I want it to be as long as it gives me the joy that I seek and the comfort I need to go on.

There is no point in living in a cage of dubious and limiting self-beliefs. I am not suggesting you could fly simply by identifying as a bird. I am merely suggesting identity is an emergent phenomenon. It is a continuous carving and remodeling of the ego. It evolves in response to experience of an immediate environment because it is essentially a tool evolved for survival. With that knowledge, at the very least, it might bring you a step closer to staying open to new ideas and possibilities. Just don’t take yourself too seriously.

#identity #psychology #humancondition #internet #reddit #hinduism #hindutva #politics

0 notes

placetobenation · 7 years

Link

Making the Case for Al Snow

Al Snow came into WWF and was saddled two failed gimmicks. As Avatar, he came to the ring with a mask, put it on, and took it off after the match. As Leif Cassidy, he was an out of touch New Rocker teaming with Marty Jannetty. Snow briefly left WWF as part of a lend-lease program with ECW, where he was able to retool himself and find the gimmick that dominated the rest of his career, for better and for worse. A lot of the Attitude Era was a blur for me. With the accelerated pace of booking and the addition of Smackdown, so much was happening all at once. Snow’s work can be lost in the blur, with only a few of the most notorious angles standing out. Remembered mostly as a comedy/hardcore act, not too many people have gone back to examine his work. I have watched a number of matches and angles. What I have found is one of the hidden talents of the Attitude Era and secretly good TV workers. Today, I would like to share with you my perspective on Al Snow’s run in WWF. Using the NJPW rating system, I hope to make the case on why I believe Al Snow deserves to be on your Top 100 WWE Wrestlers of All Time list.

Nuance

Al Snow’s run with the company went from 1995 until 2003, with exclusion of the previously mentioned ECW run and the inclusion of a brief WWECW run in 2006. During much of that time, he was planted firmly in the midcard. Upon his return to the company from ECW until he became the head trainer on Tough Enough, Al Snow often had an angle running on TV. The comedy aspect of his act probably kept him from being a gatekeeper to the main event. During one of the hottest periods in company history, in the middle of a war with WCW, the company believed enough in this act to place him on TV quite frequently. During his eight-year stint with the WWF, he was put in a good position on TV for much of that time. Granted, he got a slow start as Avatar and Leif Cassidy. But from doing the JOB on the PPV to being head trainer of Tough Enough, Snow had some good roles in his tenure with WWE.

When searching for footage, invariably one will come around shoot interviews. Al Snow seems to fancy himself a heel, stating that he had played heel most of his wrestling career prior to being with WWF and ECW. In WWF, he was mostly a face and had little success as a heel. There was a period in ‘99/2000 when they tried to turn him heel, following a split with Mick Foley. The idea was turning Al into a sadistic crazy man instead of the friendly crazy man he had been to that point. That run featured some good work against The Hardy Boys and Too Cool. This is quickly transitioned though into teaming with Steve Blackman as Head Cheese. You could see him working hard to get this change in direction over but it just wasn’t connecting with the audience. They gave him some creepy theme music that I forgot upon hearing. One reason this may have not taken off is that he still had Head with him. No matter how hard JR tried to sell us that Al Snow was a sick man, fans wanted to chant “We Want Head”. Of course, when discussing flexibility and heel characters in regards to Al Snow, I have to mention The New Rockers. People didn’t want to boo The Rockers, new or otherwise. Fans, by and large, liked Marty Jannetty. Marty and Leif’s heel work consisted of stomping their feet and pumping their fists in the lowest energy way imaginable. My observation is that The New Rockers weren’t feeling it and neither were the crowd. Their work isn’t as bad as you may have heard. But like much of 1995 WWF, it didn’t connect at all with the crowd. Certainly, the booking didn’t help either. Who cares about a team that can’t win a match when one partner walks about on the other, such as this Smoking Gunns match from Superstars on 10/27/96.

You may think that this lack of flexibility would hurt his case. And you are kind of right. In addition to only getting over as a babyface, his spot on the card was laid in cement. There were attempts to elevate him. The aforementioned heel turn was an example. I recall reading in one of Mick Foley’s books that the company believed Tough Enough would elevate Al into the mainstream consciousness. That really didn’t happen. The impression I got from the feud with The Big Boss Man which lead to the Kennel from Hell Match was another attempt to elevate his position on the card. I guess they thought that a guy who talks to a dog would be more endearing than a guy who talks to a head. This isn’t a case where they didn’t try to elevate a guy. There was effort made. But the fans seemed to have a clear impression of who and what was Al Snow.

Which brings us to the intangibles. He had a connection with the audience. He was exactly over. The Head gimmick was over. Not super-hot. Not cold. Just over. While the audience got on board with what he was doing, there was only so far you could go with that gimmick. When they tried to move away from it, the fans weren’t terribly interested. For example, in the infamous Kennel from Hell Match, which I recently watched, the only thing in the actual match that fans reacted to was when Al pulled out Head and walloped Boss Man with it.

Another thing I think Al Snow brought to the table that is difficult to measure is how much he could do in the ring in a short period of time. Having watched a lot of TV Matches from this period of time, he manages to fit a lot of work into a short period of time, usually three to five minutes. There is a Raw match against Val Venis from late ’99 that is a good example of a match that felt like they did more work than the time would allow. I have also come to appreciate how much good work was being done on the C-Shows at this time. On Heat, he had decent matches with Edge, Christian, and Essa Rios which I will link to but there are plenty more examples. Look, I like Greg Valentine taking a half hour just to get warmed up as much as the next guy, and Valentine will get a high spot on my list than Al Snow. But since the Attitude Era, no one is getting half hour matches on Raw, least of all mid card comedy acts. Al being able to get the best match possible in the time allowed for a TV match was a real asset to the company.

Jump Up Factor

For a guy who was mostly a comedy act, it is perhaps ironic that the most memorable moment he had in company history was unintentional comedy. That would be the angle in which The Big Boss Man fed Pepper the Dog to Al Snow leading to the Kennel from Hell match at Unforgiven 1999. This match overshadowed the far superior Hardcore Title Match between these two at Summer Slam ’99, which I thought was a lot of fun but had a crap finish. The Kennel match has become the stuff of legend and taken a life of its own. But if you bother to watch it, you are not going to see dogs doing the nasty around ringside. The match is a pedestrian plunder fest in front of a dead crowd with three moments that got a reaction. One was the return of Head which received a collective “Thank God” from the audience. Second was Boss Man handcuffing Al to the ropes. I think a few people expected Snow to get beaten ’89 jobber style but it didn’t happen. Third was Al’s escape from the cage which was quite athletic. It was also one of the few WWF Hardcore title matches featuring Al Snow in which blood was drawn. I’m not going to tell you it was a good match. It wasn’t. But the echo chamber opinion that it was the worst match ever is really overblown. Obviously, what the dogs were doing outside the ring took the crowd completely out of the match. But what took place in the ring was not that bad. The angle itself was also a piece of brilliant unintentional comedy. And why? It’s pretty sadistic that Boss Man would kidnap a dog and feed it to the owner. But Boss Man’s dialogue and delivery is just too damn funny. On paper, it looks like a horrific storyline. In practice, no one took this seriously. Or at least very few people did. I know I am supposed to be making the case but I must be honest. This is Al Snow’s most memorable moment with the company.

There were other big storylines Al Snow was involved with. In late ’99, Al Snow hatched a plot to get in between The Rock ‘N Sock Connection. Snow throws The Rock’s autographed copy of Have A Nice Day in the trash where Mankind finds it. Mankind learns to forgive and forget which forces an angry confession and heel turn from Al Snow. Al Snow teams with Chris Jericho against The Rock ‘N Sock Connection. The blow off between Snow and Mankind is an average Falls Count Anywhere Match on the 12/14/99 Smackdown. Snow gets a win over The Rock in a Brahma Bull Rope Match on the 12/20/99 Raw. The next night on Smackdown, The Rock gets his win back in a Steel Cage. These matches are all out there on line but not in great quality. This storyline also found its way onto one of the videos games storyline mode. At this point in the company, it was a pretty big deal that they use Al Snow in this position.

This heel turn for Al Snow lead to him chasing some bonus money put up by The McMahon/Helmsley regime against The Hardy Boys. The 1/3/2000 Raw featured a Steel Cage Match between Jeff Hardy and Al Snow that was quite good. The follow up was Al employing the help of The Dudley Boys in a Six Man Tag against Edge, Christian, and Jeff Hardy, also a pretty decent match. They really tried to sell that Al Snow had become a sadistic, crazy man but it didn’t last long. By the end of the month, he was teaming with Steve Blackman with the team name of Head Cheese. I feel like they could have gotten more mileage out of heel Al Snow, but I am here to talk about what is, rather than what could have been.

A personal favorite that I came across was Al Snow’s European Title reign setting up for William Regal’s introduction to the WWF. This time, he wasn’t coming in as A Real Man’s Man. Now Regal was appointed Good Will Ambassador to the WWF by Mr. McMahon. He was here to teach all of us Americans proper manners. So, he would do guest commentary for European Title Matches. The European Champion at the time was Al Snow. Snow would proudly misrepresent various countries in Europe in the most stereotypical way possible. Regal’s commentary was priceless. Snow had some decent TV matches during this run too. This leads to William Regal challenging Snow and capturing the European Championship. I love the way this was built. It was a good way to reintroduce the audience to William Regal. They took a title that didn’t mean much, put it on a comedy act, and used it to launch a new-ish character. Al Snow’s dumb American idea of what Europe is like vs William Regal’s worldly knowledge. This kind of well planned, week to week storytelling, with a tangible goal in mind is really something you haven’t seen in WWE in a while

Promo and Character Work

How one rates this category depends entirely on how you felt about The Head gimmick. Avatar left the audience confused and wasn’t around long enough to move the needle on anyone’s opinion of his promo or character work. Perhaps if he had worked with different masks and changed his wrestling style based on the mask he was where, that would have been cool. I doubt Vince has played Majora’s Mask though. Leif Cassidy doesn’t really factor into any of this either, unless you were impressed with how well he played a dork. I can only speak for myself here but I felt no need to boo the New Rockers for being out of touch dorks, as I myself was an out of touch dork.

I rather liked The Head gimmick and Crazy Al in general. He never rose to the level of Tom Hanks in Castaway but I think that was the general idea with how Al interacted with Head. The crowd seemed to be behind the gimmick. Early into the run, he started a stable of guys who generally lose called The JOB Squad. Much like Head, feelings on The JOB Squad vary. At this point in the 90’s; smart, insider language was infecting the product. Snow, almost from the beginning, would throw around smart terms that better than half the audience didn’t get. This sort of thing played better in front of an ECW audience than a WWF audience. Snow wore the t-shirt long after the faction had run its coarse. They tried to tweak the Head gimmick by giving Al Snow a dog but it just didn’t work the same. Theoretically, Pepper should have worked better than Head. People talk to their dogs all the time. It should have been more relatable but not so much. At the time, Snow was primarily in the Hardcore division. Head was a useful prop. He could use it to smack an opponent and win a match. No one wanted to see Snow wallop someone with Pepper. I think it is remarkable that he could get over by interacting with and playing off of an inanimate object.

If Head isn’t your thing, there was other work he did during his run with the company that I think was quite good. The feud with Foley leading up to 2000 was some of Snow’s best promo work. Some of the anger about the jokes written in Mick Foley’s book came off as real, and for all I know he was channeling some real anger. Between Snow’s team with Foley, the heel turn, and the series of matches vs The Rock ‘N Sock Connection, Head faded into the background. He still brought Head to the ring but it didn’t play a role in the feud or promos. The team with Steve Blackman was another case were his character work had nothing to do with Head. In a way, during the Head Cheese run, Blackman took place of Head as someone Al would bounce silly ideas off. Blackman would then call him an idiot. There were a lot of fun, short segments with Snow and Blackman during the run, based mostly around Snow pitching ideas to Blackman on how they could get over with the crowd. Blackman played a good straight man to Al’s crazy character, they made a good pair, playing off each other. They were a pretty underrated team in the ring as well. Unfortunately, their comedy act wasn’t going to rise above a certain level in the stacked tag division of 2000. They get lost in the shuffle of some legendary tag teams of that year like The Hardy’s, The Dudley’s, and Edge and Christian. Head Cheese is worth reexamining if for no other reason than to see what kind of character work Al Snow could do that didn’t center around Head.

I also liked the role Al Snow played as friendly mentor and trainer to the Tough Enough contestants when they would appear on WWE television. It didn’t lead to great success for anyone but Al did his part as helpful veteran who wanted to see Maven success or teach Chris Harvard some manners. He was a counterbalance to Bob Holly, the cranky veteran who likes to hurt people. This was the beginning of the end for Al Snow in WWE, eventually becoming a color commentator and sparsely used through 2003. Snow’s role as likable trainer on Tough Enough which bled into his role on Raw and Smackdown is still worth mentioning.

Workrate

I feel like Al Snow is underrated as a worker. As a single and a tag worker, Al Snow could really go in the ring. He is large associated with the Hardcore division. From the footage I have watched, that is some of the weakest examples of his work. He was able to get creative with his Hardcore work, adding comedy spots like the Bowling Ball Below the Belt bit. He had a good walk around brawl with D’Lo Brown for the Hardcore Title in ’99. They did some creative things that I felt stood out. I already pointing out some of the work he did with Big Bossman aside from the Kennel match. Hardcore Matches in the company weren’t really built around giving guys a chance to show their best work. Most of them came off as tame compared to a lot of the stuff happening with other companies at the time.

What I think a lot of people don’t notice is the not Hardcore Matches he had during his time with the company. In particular, how much he could do with limited television time. There is a 2/5/01 Raw Match with Chris Benoit which only goes about four minutes but seems a lot long. They trade stiff looking blows in and out of the ring, work in some arm psychology, and still have time for Al to get in a couple of moonsaults for a near fall. The European Title run which I already showcased also points to this positive trait for Al Snow. One of the best matches he had that I have seen was against Triple H on Smackdown of 10/21/99. The match is only about five minutes but Snow gets momentum on his side and the crowd really gets behind him, hoping he pulls off an upset.

I also have to mention his work as a tag team wrestler. The New Rockers didn’t catch on with the audience but in the ring, they were not that bad of a team. Early in their run, there were certainly some hiccups in terms of coordination. They get it figured out quickly. While they are not as good for a team as The Rockers, they did get their tag offensive working well in tandem. They worked the house shows with Doug Furnas and Phil LaFon which I imagine were good. It’s too bad they didn’t make tv. Snow’s team with Mankind was short lived but fine. Even though they were tag champions, they didn’t have enough time together to really gel as a team. I have already stated my appreciation for Al Snow and Steve Blackman. Head Cheese was a team that, much like Snow, could put together an entertaining, three to five minute match on television. Their role was usually putting over more established tag teams. Still, they had good chemistry as a team and did a good job making other teams look good. You can find footage of them facing most of the teams of this era on line. I can’t help but think that they could have been a top team if they had been put together a few years before or a few years after this. The ’97 tag division was virtually nonexistent and the ’02 tag division wasn’t a whole lot better.

Conclusion

Most of the main points have already been made in this article. If I can say anything in conclusion it is that I have found Al Snow to be unrated. If you look just beneath the surface, I think you will find a very polished worked that put on some fast paced, well worked matches in the Attitude Era. Workrate certainly suffered during this period of time but if you look on the undercard and C-Shows, there were some guys putting on pretty good matches. Al Snow probably will come in between 80 or 90 on my list. To me, he stood out as a veteran, solid worker who anchored the midcard during a time when workrate wasn’t a high priority.

– Michael DeDamos

#IFTTT #Place to Be Nation

0 notes

trendingnewsb · 7 years

Text

Jeremy Liew says to forget the critics and watch Planet of the Apps for its window onto pitch meetings

Reviewers have not been kind to Apples first TV offering, Planet of the Apps. Variety had a particularly entertaining, if biting, take, with writer Maureen Ryan likening the show to something that was developed at a cocktail party, and not given much more rigorous thought or attention after the pitcher of mojitos was drained.

Earlier today, we talked with one of the shows stars, Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners, about those reviews, along with how many startups he found through the filming and where hes shopping now. Liew said he doesnt mind the critics opinions but worries founders could miss a solid opportunity to learn from the pitch meetings aired in the latter half of each episode. I dont think there are many opportunities like this for people to understand how the process of pitching a VC works in real life.

The next episode airs tomorrow. More from our conversation, edited for length, follows.

TC: Lightspeed reportedly had to commit $10 million across various companies as part of this show. How many investments did you make?

JL: We made about a dozen investments altogether across the 10 episodes. We committed to making our best effort to fund interesting companies, but we were also clear that we werent going to drop our standards. Because of the nature of the show, we made more seed- and pre-seed stage investments than is typically the case for the firm [but in solid teams].

TC: How many pitches did you sit through for the filming of the show, and did you feel like they were vetted well enough?

JL: We probably sat through 35 to 40. They were very well vetted. Thousands of people applied originally; the founders who met with us had made it through a number of levels [including talking with show mentors Jessica Alba, Gwyneth Paltrow, Will.i.Am, and Gary Vaynerchuk, as well as participating in six-week incubator] before we talked with them.

Theres a pretty big investment that gets made tomorrow night. We made a few investments that would qualify as Series A size checks.

TC: You were holding one-hour long meetings with these companies while they made their pitches not listening to the escalator ride pitches that are a feature of the show. Do you believe in elevator or escalator, in this case pitches?

JL: Absolutely. Investors, journalists we get pitched a million times a day. If someone is inarticulate or unable to capture in 30 seconds why we should pay attention to them, they either dont have [an interesting story], they dont understand whats special about their business, or they dont have that charismatic, visionary feel that you often need to change the world. People do need a good elevator pitch. You have to give someone a good reason to spend an hour talking with you.

TC: When people participate in a show, theyre oftensurprised by the final product. Do you feel like the editors did you justice?

JL:I do think I come across the way I actually am and that the nature of the conversations we had with the entrepreneurs was very well-preserved. For people who want to understand how VCs make investments, its an excellent window onto how the process works in real life. Tosome extent, the [filmmakers] could have chosen all the clever things or dumb things or nice things we said, but I think they captured the essence of the conversations pretty accurately. Anyone wanting to know what a real pitch process is like could do a lot worse then watch them to see what works, what doesnt, the kinds of questions you get, how people can answer those questions well and answer them badly. I dont think theres another resource quite like it.

TC: Outside of the show, where are you shopping right now?

JL: E-commerce and m-commerce continue to be the gift that keeps on giving as more people buy things online. My most recent investment, for example, was Rothys, an e-commerce startup that makes fashionable womens flats. [Editors note: The Times wrote up in the company in its Style section last week. The shoes are made from recycled plastic water bottles.]

The special twist is the shoes are made through a3-D knitting machine that enables them to use different colors and styles and enjoy a great deal of flexibility. Theyre also known for being super comfortable to wear.

TC: Youve also been a bitcoin bull for several years. Are you still actively backing bitcoin and blockchain technology companies?

JL: We have four investment right now: Ripple [the real-time payment system], Blockchain [the bitcoin wallet company]; [the Chinese bitcoin exchange] BTTC, and LedgerX [a company thats right now awaiting final approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for its bitcoin options trading service].

We may have more to report in that space in a little while. But as everybody is seeing, the industry has been heating up over the last 12 to 18 months after a bit of a slow start. Youre seeing much broader adoption taking place right now across industries, across geographies, and across use cases.

TC: What do you make of internet coin offerings, or ICOs, and should VCs be nervous about them as an alternative means for startups to raise money?

JL: I think its a super exciting space. Whenever you have people pushing the envelope, youll see some success and failure, and were paying a lot of attention.

TC: Have you taken part in an ICO, just to better understand firsthand how the process works?

JL: I havent. But the more important question is what happens to those tokens after the product launches and whether a liquid market develops beyond speculation. As those markets and tokens develop, well see what those opportunities look like.

TC: You led an investment for Lightspeed in Snap, which is now down 30 percent from its IPO price. Did you sell at the IPO? Are you concerned about its prospects?

JL:Snap asked some of the early holders to sell a little bit at the IPO to provide additional liquidity at the float, and we complied with that request, as did all the other early investors.

TC: Think the stock is misunderstood?

JL: Id never bet against Evan Spiegel and his product sense. He has a once-in-a-generation type mind for product. I think he has a lot of interesting stuff up his sleeve, too, that well start to see over the coming quarters.

TC: As we speak, youre in a car en route to the airport. Youve traveled a lot in recent years, saying Silicon Valley is an echo chamber and you can get a better feel for consumer trends elsewhere. Is that still the case?

JL: Im still traveling a lot, yes. I made 45 trips last year, and Im on track to do the same this year.

Part of why we participated in Planet of the Apps is because were seeing more entrepreneurs starting outside of the Bay Area and wanted a better mechanism to reach those people. Im on my way to Luxembourg right now. Ive been to Belgrade, Tennessee, Arkansas, the University of Chicago.

Infrastructure entrepreneurship is still largely concentrated in the Bay Area, but consumer entrepreneurship is so distributed; if you want to see great founders, you need to be willing to get on a plane.