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justinspoliticalcorner · 6 months ago

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Jill Filipovic:

Hi readers, and welcome to the first edition of an issue-by-issue breakdown of what a Trump presidency might mean for some of the most important issues in the US and abroad. It’s easy to toss around general warnings about how dangerous and dictatorial Trump might be, but it’s probably more useful to go issue by issue and assess what Trump and those likely to work for him have said, proposed, or promised.

I’m starting with what I think will be the most significant for the largest number of Americans, and what could truly create an unfixable problem that plunges the country into chaos: Executive power. Sounds boring! Is actually really important. And the Supreme Court’s decision to radically expand presidential immunity from criminal prosecution has made many of these executive power-grabs not only more possible, but more dangerous. This installment will focus specifically on what near-limitless executive power might mean for the Department of Justice. Subsequent ones will look at the Fed, the Federal Communications Commission, and other key agencies. The basic fact to understand about Trump’s planned executive power grab is that he will take what are typically nonpartisan and crucial agencies that work through many many presidencies and force them to do his bidding. This means he could make the Fed lower interest rates because it’s an election year or otherwise turn the short-term economic dial in his favor, even if that would essentially turn the US economy into a hellscape and make it so the US is no longer a steady, reliable economic force upon which much of the world’s financial stability depends. He could use the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to tank media outlets that challenge him or accurately report on him. He could use the Department of Justice (DOJ) to target his adversaries. And on and on.

[...]

What This Means for the Department of Justice

One of the agencies Trump and his team have their eye on is the DOJ. During Trump’s first term, the DOJ’s independence was a pervasive thorn in his side. The former president was under the impression that the Attorney General worked directly for him, and should imply carry out his orders and directives.

“You know, the saddest thing is that because I’m the president of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department,” Trump told one radio interviewer. “I am not supposed to be involved with the F.B.I. I’m not supposed to be doing the kind of things that I would love to be doing. And I’m very frustrated by it.” He regretted his decision to appoint several very right-wing attorneys general because even those men — proponents of broad executive power, and men very willing to do the president’s bidding — had some lines they wouldn’t cross. He was angry at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself during the Mueller investigation and that Sessions wouldn’t use the DOJ to investigate Hillary Clinton; Trump eventually fired him. Trump was angrier still at Sessions’s replacement, Attorney General Bill Barr, for not going along with his claims that the 2020 election was rife with fraud and stolen out from under him. The tension between the two eventually became untenable, and Barr stepped down.

Not everyone at the DOJ stood up to Trump. One high-ranking DOJ employee, Jeff Clark, aided Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and found himself in legal hot water from DC to Georgia. Trump almost made Clark acting Attorney General after Jeffrey Rosen, who replaced Barr, also refused to go along with Trump’s plans to undermine the election results. Clark has a radical theory of executive power, arguing that the DOJ is simply not an independent agency — it should be under the control of the president. This is increasingly the view that the Trump team is adopting. The Heritage Foundation and other right-wing architects of Project 2025 — the closest thing we have to a Trump 2024 agenda — also insist that the DOJ needs “a top-to-bottom overhaul.” Part of that, Project 2025 says, requires the Trump administration to “prepare a plan to end immediately any policies, investigations, or cases that run contrary to law or Administration policies.” And they are clear that the DOJ needs to shift from an independent agency to one under Trump’s direct control”.

[...]

So what are Trump’s priorities for a DOJ he controls? And what are his allies promoting? Here’s a smattering of the publicly-stated proposals on the table:

Prosecute political opponents and those Trump believes have wronged him. In July, Trump reposted calls on TruthSocial for “televised military tribunals” and the imprisonment of a slew of his critics, from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris to Chuck Schumer to Nancy Pelosi to his own former vice president, Mike Pence, among many many others. This is far from the first time the former president has argued that those who oppose him should be behind bars. A DOJ under his authority is a DOJ that can be used to criminally target those he sees as a threat, or those from whom he simply wants retribution.

Execute more prisoners. Project 2025 is clear: It wants the DOJ to ramp up executions, and essentially clear out its Death Row — due process (or basic humanity) be damned.

Arrest and prosecute more civilians. Arrest and prosecute district attorneys who don’t comply. According to both Trump and Project 2025, many liberal cities and states have fallen down on their obligation to reduce crime. This doesn’t quite comport with the facts — crime is down nationally since its high point during Trump’s first term, and Republican-run cities tend to have higher crime rates than Democratic-run ones — but facts here are largely irrelevant inconveniences. And the Project 2025 plan isn’t just for the DOJ to step in and bigfoot local law enforcement; it’s to prosecute district attorneys and other local law enforcement officials if the Trump administration decides they aren’t doing enough to be tough on crime.

Deploy the military and the National Guard to hunt down undocumented immigrants. I’ll get into this more in the immigration installment of this series, but a plan articulated by both Project 2025 and Trump himself is to deploy the military, the National Guard, and even local militias to round up undocumented people for placement in internment camps and eventual deportation.

End all investigations into the administration itself. Should the president break the law, the DOJ will be told to look the other way. (And the Supreme Court has already given the president a green light to break the law with impunity).

End all policies that conflict with the administration’s priorities. The example Project 2025 uses for this? Criminal prosecutions of abortion clinic protesters who turn violent or otherwise break the law.

Go to bat for the president’s agenda no matter what. And face discipline for asking to be removed from a case or pushing back on what the administration wants.

End the work of the Civil Rights Division as we know it. Instead of doing what the Civil Rights Division long has — investigating and prosecuting civil rights violations — a Trump DOJ should, according to Project 2025, ensure that the Civil Rights Division spends “its first year under the next Administration using the full force of federal prosecutorial resources to investigate and prosecute all state and local governments, institutions of higher education, corporations, and any other private employers who are engaged in discrimination in violation of constitutional and legal requirements.” To translate that from right-wing-speak: The Civil Rights Division should not worry about civil rights violations, but should instead target governments, colleges, companies, and private employers who so much as talk about racial, gender, and other inequities, or seek to end those inequities in their spaces.

Stop focusing on voter suppression and start focusing on voter “fraud.” One of the Civil Rights Division’s tasks over the past several decades has been to investigate claims of voter suppression. There is a long history in the United States of Black voters in particular being prevented from casting ballots; the Civil Rights Acts of the late 1960s sought to remedy this ugly reality, and the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has since then paid at least some attention to it. Not under a Trump administration. Instead, efforts to make sure American citizens can vote will be redirected to specious claims of election fraud and interference — to make sure that Americans are voting the way Trump and his right-wing supporters want them to vote. Project 2025 recommends moving election-related cases and investigations away from the Civil Rights Division and to the Criminal Division — an effort to criminalize state officials who don’t toe the line, and to count fewer ballots.

Criminalize the abortion pill. I’ll have more on this in the abortion section of this series, but Trump and those around him are preparing to use the Victorian-era Comstock laws, which criminalized the mailing of “obscene” materials including contraceptive devices and information about abortion, to criminalize abortion pills.

Replace DOJ and FBI employees with Trump loyalists. Just… that.

To be clear: This is not a comprehensive list of all of the plans, proposals, and suggestions flying around. It is almost surely not a comprehensive list of what Trump will do once in office. But it is a list of the ideas that come up again and again, from both conservative advocacy groups with Trump’s ear and from the former president himself.

Jill Filipovic’s What Trump Means For series on the DOJ under Trump is a must-read.

#What Trump Means For #Jill Filipovic #US Department of Justice #Project 2025 #Donald Trump #2024 Presidential Election #Authoritarianism #FCC #Federal Communications Commission #Regulatory Powers #Comstock Act #DOJ Civil Rights Division

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lizlet · 1 year ago

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2023, in bullet points

I find myself consumed by an assortment of random thoughts, as we reach the end of the year, and as the sun aims downward for one last sunset, I'm going to try sharing them... in the form of bullet points!

In January of 2023, I got to interview John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats, because he guest-starred on an episode of Poker Face and one of the cool things about working for a publication that's largely focused on music is that all I had to do to get his reps' info was ask a colleague. It was a good, fun interview, and he gave me his direct phone number in case I needed to ask him any follow-ups, and I actually did have something I needed to clarify. So I called him a second time, and during that second call, I told him the thing that I'd held back during that first interview, because I'm always on the fence about how much to say to people about how much I love their work: I told him how much I love the song "This Year," how I blast it every New Year's Eve and scream along in triumph, because it's so much easier to sing "I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me" on December 31st. I don't have a transcript of that second call, but I remember he took the compliment with practiced grace, saying something along the lines of "Thank you for saying that, because it means I know I did at least one thing with my time on this earth that helps people."

That's often what I think about, when measuring my accomplishments for the year — what are the things I did that made the world a slightly better place, on a big or large level?

I know I wrote a lot. Wrote stuff I was very proud of and wrote stuff I was less proud of, but sometimes that's what happens. Got into a good groove with Wren Graves at Consequence, who became my default editor early in the year and has proven to be annoyingly good at noticing when a piece could be better and pointing that out. It's good to have an editor who is a lovely and generous person and who also knows your flaws (like, for example, the fact that I maybe repeat words a little too often; if Wren were editing this, he'd send me back this paragraph with the word "good" in bold three times, and he would be right to do so).

Did a lot of interviews, even with the double strike shutting down a lot of opportunities, and checked a few people off the ol' bucket list. (I don't know why John Cho has eluded me for years, but achievement unlocked, thanks to The Afterparty Season 2.) It is still a bit baffling to the awkward-ass adolescent who lurks inside me that a significant part of my job is talking to famous people, and that I may be pretty good at it. (Sorry Wren.)

Hit my second anniversary at Consequence, an outlet that lets me get weird when the occasion calls for it and always offers up new challenges. (Got a couple of big challenges already in the works for January, which I'm doing my best not to think about until January 2nd.) It's a small but mighty team, and I'm happy to be working with them all.

Got elected to the position of secretary on the Television Critics Association board, which has also presented a wild new array of challenges, but the other board members are great and Winter Press Tour is on! ::knocks on any available wood nearby::

I tried as much as possible to be a person who says yes to things, especially if they might lead to wild new experiences. Saw more friends and more theater and live comedy than I have in years past, which makes me happy. (Especially when I can combine the friends WITH the theater and live comedy.)

Also got to spend a good amount of time with my family, who are cool people that I just genuinely enjoy spending time with. Even went on a gosh-darned vacation with them, to Ireland and Scotland, which was overall pretty magical. It's funny how when you're a kid, going on a bus trip to look at pretty scenery sounds very boring, and yet when you're an adult, that's just a really wonderful time.

Continued two streaks of approximately equal length: sobriety and daily usage of Duo Lingo. Both have been rewarding in their own unique ways.

Thanks in part to Duo Lingo, I learned how to type é and ü characters on a keyboard, which isn't a huge deal necessarily, but I have been typing on computers for nearly the entire span of my life (started around three or four years old) and so learning a new trick, after all this time, was pretty exciting. You go around thinking you know everything there is to know, and then you learn a new thing, and it makes you excited to find out what else there is to learn.

That's the energy I try to bring to every year, even a year like 2023, which on a global level was undeniably pretty garbage, especially the way it set the stage for 2024 being potentially worse. I donate money to big and small causes and take public transit whenever I can and only spend time on Elon Musk's Twitter when it's absolutely essential (someone has posted a link to an adorable cat video). I know I could be doing more. I hope I'm doing enough, and try to exceed "enough" when I can.

I had to take a break from writing this just now because I'm in the middle of my second-favorite New Year's Eve tradition: Doing laundry, so that when I get home after a casual hang tonight, I can curl up in my nice clean sheets and wake up like a big toasty cinnamon bun. Best way to start a new year, in my opinion.

While handling laundry, I've been watching The O.C., and it feels like a true portent of good things that my rewatch has brought me to the New Year's Eve episode, even though this means the arrival of Oliver, who I recall being Bad News.

Still, this reminds me to mention that the book I can't stop recommending to people right now is Ben McKenzie's Easy Money, a surprisingly fun read that left me almost feeling like I understand crypto (and definitely makes me think I understand the grotesque human cost of it).

That last bullet point also strongly indicates that I should try to read more books in 2024.

I'm writing this, like I write pretty much everything, in Evernote, and out of laziness I'm going to post it to Tumblr because that should be relatively easy, but I do want to write more personal stuff in the new year, and might look into setting up a new blog or (non-Substack) newsletter for such a purpose.

But I'm also continuing to work on novels — 500 words or so a day, every day I can, until it starts to add up to something. I've developed a lot of daily practices over the last two and a half years: I journal every morning, go running every other day, write my 500 words in the evenings after logging off work, and keep my Wordle and Duo Lingo streaks alive, amongst other things. And they all contribute to me feeling saner and stronger than I remember feeling during the worst periods of my life to date. Worse days may be coming. But I'm glad to be starting the new year with... well, with clean sheets, at the very least.

And before I go out for the night, I may jump around the apartment and sing.

Auld Lang Syne, bitches. Good luck to us all in 2024.

#in which our heroine #happy new year

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aeoki · 7 months ago

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Atlantis - Clown: Chapter 8

Location: Seaside Characters: Touri & Wataru Season: Winter

TL Note:

姫君 / Himegimi is a title that refers to the eldest daughter of a someone of high rank, generally in royalty (e.g. a princess). Coincidentally, this is also Wataru's nickname for Touri.

ㅤㅤㅤ< Almost an hour later. Touri Himemiya goes on a stroll at the beach, lost in thought. >

Touri: …………

Wataru: You’ll catch a cold if you’re at the beach late at night, you know?

Put this coat on at least. It’s still cold at night.

And this pair of groucho glasses.

Amazing! You look great, Himegimi. Ahahahahaha ☆

Touri: …You felt like a nice upperclassman halfway through, so why did you have to end it with a prank?

Wataru: My apologies. Serious talks bore the living death out of me.

It’s only natural for me to provoke antipathy if I’m fooling around in a situation when I’m supposed to be serious, huh.

Touri: It’s fine. I think those who tend to get depressed when they’re left alone would appreciate having someone like you around, Hibiki-senpai.

You’ve definitely helped me, Eichi-sama and even Yuzuru in some way or another, I’m sure.

Wataru: Oh, how rare! You gave me a compliment, Himegimi! I suppose I won’t be able to do the laundry tomorrow!

Touri: I always wanted to say this but… stop calling me “Himegimi”.

It’s like you’re making fun of me, and it annoys me.

Wataru: I apologise. I have a habit of referring to others with the name of their role – or at least, that’s part of my character.

Touri: Character?

Wataru: I can change it if that’s what you want. It’s simply a special term of endearment I have for you with no ill intentions whatsoever.

Touri: Really? That’s fine, then.

I think I’ve gotten used to being called that. The name[⁎] is also used to refer to nobles and people of high rank, right?

I think the reason why that nickname doesn’t sit right with me is because I don’t think I’m someone noble and worthy of it just yet.

Nicknames are like fashion – the important point is whether or not it suits the person wearing it.

…Say, Senpai, am I not suited to bearing the title of “student council president”?

There were a lot of snide remarks made during my speech and stuff.

Wataru: Himegimi, well…

Touri: Give me your frank opinion.

You gave a lot of speeches as Z. K. Amano Hashidate, right?

Did you say all those things without giving them much thought?

That’s not true, right? You may be a genius when it comes to acting, but there’s no way you’d be able to come up with all the stuff you said on the spot.

The same goes for improv – You can feel the narrator’s soul in their words. That’s why Z. K. Amano Hashidate’s words reached everyone’s hearts.

That’s why you’re loved and in the lead for the election.

Wataru: I see. That’s reasonable – I just spoke based on what I was feeling in the past, though.

Touri: Do you despise the student council?

Wataru: Hm?

Touri: I could feel some sort of hostility for all the “current versions of Yumenosaki Academy– no, for the student council” in Z. K. Amano Hashidate’s speech.

The current student council has a good reputation thanks to New Prez Isara, and it would be wise to praise the former student council president if they’re aiming for the same position.

That way, everyone would empathise with you.

Right now, Senpai – no, those idols who were in the centre of Yumenosaki…

You gave a speech that was aimed towards those who disagreed and ended up being ostracised.

Is it just because Z. K. Amano Hashidate is someone from the “producer course”? Did you just do it because of your role?

Wataru: Hehehe. It makes me happy to see you actually paid attention to my made-up story.

When Yumenosaki was far from attaining peace, during the War and that chaotic era…

I was enrolled into the “idol course”, but I hung out in the “theatre course”.

Touri: It’s obvious that’s what you like, so why didn’t you enrol into that course instead?

Wataru: It’s because I wanted to learn the craft in a more generalised sense, as opposed to just limiting myself to theatre.

In that aspect, Yumenosaki, the idol training school, was perfect.

No, that’s just what I thought. Before I enrolled, I read and took in the contents of a Yumenosaki pamphlet without questioning it.

But after suffering the after-effects of the corrupted idol industry for a long time, Yumenosaki was at its peak of depravity.

Before I enrolled, the things I dreamt of were not there.

But even if the world will succumb to darkness, I believe there is light there.

Back then, everyone in the “theatre course” was abandoned by the school and was, therefore, able to enjoy putting on plays freely.

That act in itself looked radiant and brilliant in my eyes back then.

So I quietly approached them like a coward that yearned for the light.

Unfortunately, the youthful students were jealous of me and on top of that, I was misunderstood due to the malicious student council propaganda…

In the end, my wings were torn off and I was never able to get close to that light. Touri: …………

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ← Previous Chapter ᠂ ⚘ ˚⊹˚ ⚘ ᠂ Next Chapter →

#atlantis

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vvienne · 4 years ago

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SANGCHENG FIC RECS

flight of a one-winged dove by bloodletter

Talking at someone is only fun for so long. That's all being a sect leader is: talking and talking to people bound by courtesy to listen to you. It's so fucking dull. A relief, then, to face one’s equal, and no less an old friend who is inclined to interrupt you whenever you ramble. He likes it. It’s one of Jiang Cheng’s best qualities.

In the years after Guanyin Temple, Nie Huaisang attends to unfinished business.

whipped by reindeercolin

Jiang Cheng blinks. “Dammit, they do think you’re dating one of us! I hate it when Wei Wuxian is right.” “Excuse me?” Nie Huaisang gives him an incredulous look. “First of all, they think I’m dating you, and if anything, they’re getting more aggressive!”

(or, the one in which Jiang Cheng has too many relatives, not enough patience, goes through a brother-divorce and finds out he has a boyfriend - in that order, more or less.)

Ponder the Manner of Things by Pip (Moirail)

It's not that Jiang Cheng can't do a quadruple flip followed by a triple toeloop. It's that his mother seems to think that's still not good enough.

Jiang Cheng is grateful that Huaisang doesn’t have the same kind of family life that he does, all - messy with expectations and cravings for closeness and nothing but vague filial piety where love is meant to be.

a matter of time and organ donation by nev_longbottom

This is it. The call he’s been waiting for. His brother had ‘an accident’ or ‘died in his sleep’ or some other lie to cover up the murder.

“Please, Mingjue is missing. He got into one of his moods and he was gone when I came back from grocery shopping. He’s not answering his phone. I don’t know if he left or was kidnapped or if something else happened. Huaisang, please, if you’ve heard anything,” Meng Yao begs.

Nie Huaisang hunts his brother's killer.

no tip necessary by tattletold

With all the nervousness of a virgin in a whorehouse, Jiang Cheng closes the door behind himself and enters, sitting on the low seat across from the escort. The pretty young man keeps his face hidden behind the delicate fan, and Jiang Cheng thinks for a moment that he recognizes the design painted onto it now that he’s closer.

It’s only when he lowers the fan and opens his eyes, wide, does Jiang Cheng paralyze with realization.

They speak at the same time in equally horrified tones.

“Jiang Cheng?”

“Nie Huaisang?”

Your Place in the Family of Things by raisedbyhyenas

No matter what happens, no matter the circumstances, Wei Wuxian will always leave and Jiang Cheng will always get stuck trying to rebuild from whatever’s left.

*************

In which Jiang Cheng makes friends; gets a cat; begins to rebuild a relationship; and maybe, possibly, potentially, learns a little bit how to be happy.

sigh yourself to sleep by merthurlin

“Let me take care of you, A-Cheng.”

No one—no one has ever said that, not to Jiang Cheng. He wasn’t a very sickly child, true, but the few times he remembered being sick it was never—he had a-jie, and later on he had Wei Wuxian, for what it was worth, but he never—

halcyon days by serein

They're in a forest, it seems just the two of them.

"You have to be patient," Nie Huaisang says, "I once waited for three days to catch a sparrow."

"Three days?" Jiang Cheng replies, sceptical. He can't imagine Nie Huaisang having the attention span for that.

"It's not that hard," Nie Huaisang says, "if you know what they want, and find a way to get it for them."

[JC stumbles across an array and gets physically de-aged to be 16/17. NHS kindly offers his help to an old friend, but things... escalate.]

To Distraction by isozyme

It’s the third night of Yunmeng’s kite festival celebrations. Nie Huaisang has come visiting, eager to partake in the food, the arts, and Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng wants to forget. Nie Huaisang has some new lube and wants to see if he can put his whole fist in somebody’s ass.

Lights, Camera, Kiss by MissMagus

When Nie Huaisang gets paired with straight porn star Jiang Cheng for a five-part series, he’s sure it will be an utter disaster. Until the cameras start rolling and their chemistry alights like wildfire.

(Or, the five times Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng have sex for their job, and the first time they have sex outside of it.)

Only the Shallow by hamburglar

When Nie Huaisang gets bored and convinces Jiang Cheng to make out with him, he’s probably not expecting to still be dealing with the guy 16 years later.

OR the story where Jiang Cheng goes into: the Cloud Recesses, denial, some bushes, the private porn library at the Unclean Realm, and subspace.

Blind for Love by manamune

Jiang Cheng is poisoned with an aphrodisiac and needs to orgasm repeatedly in order to flush it from his system.

The first person he thinks of going to for help is Nie Huaisang, who does what any good friend would do: he shoves his three decades worth of feelings for Jiang Cheng deep into the recesses of his mind, locks them up so he can pretend they don’t exist, and then fucks him so hard that he passes out.

Descending by lightningwaltz

“I want to… to not be embarrassed.”

“To not be embarrassed during what?”

“During sex.” There. Jiang Cheng can say it. “In general. Also with you right now.”

“Very good.”

“When did you become so authoritative?” Jiang Cheng wants to sound irked, but can’t quite manage anything beyond nervous curiosity.

dark water by Morgan (duckwhatduck)

There are words, somewhere, for this. Words that would put a shape to the thing that sits between them, would seal their understanding. There are words for sympathy, for friendship, for understanding, for that touch, for this feeling.

Jiang Cheng can feel them, somewhere, fluttering formless at the back of his throat, squirming under his ribcage, but he cannot grasp them. They swim beneath the surface, fish in muddy water - and like fish, they will dart away if he grabs for them incautiously, and leave him nothing but cold splashes and grit.

Or: Why talk about things when you could fuck about it instead?

never knew i was a dancer by isozyme

“What’s a stone butch and why aren’t they real?” Jiang Cheng asks, too buzzed to care too much about not being up on lesbian culture.

Huaisang pats Jiang Cheng on the no-man’s-land between her boobs and her shoulder. “You’re so useless, Jiang Cheng. A stone butch is a fictional hottie who doesn’t make you do any work at all, just wants to give head and fuck you stupid on her strap.”

“Fictional?” Jiang Cheng echoes, having - not a moment, per se, but sort of a problem where her thoughts are going too fast for her poor drunken brain to keep up with.

“Nobody actually wants to fuck a chick who’s too lazy to eat you out after,” Huaisang mumbles.

After leaving Wei Ying and Lan Zhan’s bachelorette party, Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang decide to experiment with some outdated stereotypical lesbian sex roles.

lights out by rynleaf

“Nie-zongzhu makes the most sense,” Sect Leader Yao nods sagely, to murmurs of assent across the Jin Sect’s gold gilded banquet hall. Jin Ling, clad in opulent robes that look somewhat comical on a boy of sixteen, inclines his head as his scribe makes a notation, and the noise rises as sect leaders pat themselves and each other on the back for a decision well made.

Jiang Cheng groans and downs his cup of wine in one go.

In which the Sect Leaders elect a new Chief Cultivator.

shadow eternal by rynleaf

“You want me to distract the Chief Cultivator from the Annual Cultivation Conference, so you and other sect leaders can… what. Sign contracts without adult supervision?”

“If Jiang-zongzhu is amenable,” Sect Leader Ouyang repeats with a nod.

Jiang Cheng pinches the bridge of his nose. The pressure he felt building behind his eyes all morning is swiftly coalescing into a bitch of a headache. “Just what do you all think I’m capable of?”

Sect Leader Ouyang bows with a cheerful smile. “We have utmost faith in Sandu Shengshou’s abilities.”

In which a night hunt ends in disaster, Jiang Cheng catches a glimpse of Nie Huaisang's heart, and feelings are discussed after a certain fashion.

Four Days in Lanling by halotolerant

Nie Huaisang looks at him. ‘You are confusing me, Clan Leader Jiang, perhaps I misunderstand, but…’

‘You didn’t misunderstand. You don’t misunderstand. You understand all of it.’ For six months Jiang Cheng has been mulling this over, and now with Nie Huaisang in front of him he can’t figure out if he most wants to knock him down or kneel at his feet. What he does is try and breathe. Clench his hands at his sides. ‘And now I am going to ask you to do something for me. You have to do something for me. You have to help Jin Ling.’

Lean for Love Forever by Pip (Moirail)

Having a crush on your roommate is really embarrassing, except that's apparently the opposite of a problem. Jiang Cheng can't deny that's pretty convenient.

Wei Ying holds it up, a series of straps and buckles and velcro and wow, really a lot of leather. It has absolutely no conceivable form beyond tangled.

Nie Huaisang opens the door at exactly the moment that Wei Ying holds the thing up to Jiang Cheng’s chest, as if he’s trying to imagine how exactly it would fit onto a person, and it falls into a tangled pile between them while they stare at Huaisang in mild mortification.

acquired momentum by mongrelmind

Had Madam Yu known that this is where her son would end up, she would have gouged his eyes out with her bracelet before he made the grave mistake of looking in the direction of Nie Huaisang.

in which Nie Huaisang has an art show, Jiang Cheng is begrudgingly topless*, and there are. Shenanigans.

*Nie Huaisang excluded.

#sangcheng #mdzs #mdzs recs #fic recs #jiang cheng #nie huaisang #ill probably add more fics when I read more fics

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mandareeboo · 4 years ago

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ok now im curious what your most petty thing is (regarding the dp post)

Oooh boy, here we go! Buckle up fuckers this is gonna be a longer one.

My senior year of high school, I took a creative writing class. Partially because I needed to fill the slot, mostly because I wanted to improve my writing (spoiler: I did not). Now, my high school was a three floor building- first was mostly gym, second was general, and the third was senior lockers and art classes. I spent a good chunk of my schedule senior year on the second and third floor, going between an art class to my earth science (I took that one entirely as filler, but also bc I like science) to my locker and so on.

Creative writing? Creative writing was in the fucking basement. Go to the first floor, go to a corner generally used for health and development classes, to another corner, follow a ramp and some stairs, and boom there it is kind of basement. (Side note but this teacher was REALLY into attendance and would get you in trouble if you were late which was really annoying since basically no other class was in that part of the building).

My creative writing teacher wasn't bad, per se. I've had worse teachers. I had an algebra teacher who delighted in making freshman girls cry and mocking them for it. I had a journalism teacher who would use her class time reporting how Hilary was secretly ill during the election. I had a history teacher say trans people weren't real to an openly gender nonconforming student (I didn't know them well enough to ask for specifics on their alignment, but they were using they/them at that point) and set up assignments just to mock students on the take they were told to make. It was more that she was uncreative and took it out on the kids doing creative writing.

She gave us two books to read. Basically “how I write” by published authors. I don’t remember the first one well enough and I donated it ages ago, but the second was Stephen King’s “On Writing”. It was 3/4′s personal stories about his life and 1/4′s “also write a bit every day”. I mostly remember the first author bc she had those fake dreadlocks white people do when they destroy their hair and she gleefully told a story about making her son have a meltdown at a party or wedding or something bc he got overwhelmed and she wanted him to learn that “sometimes you don’t get what you want”. So. You know. Not much there.

She also instructed us to write in a journal every day, which she would check every few months or so. It had to be at least half a page. She would leave little comments in every one else’s journals when she checked them, but not mine- I realized pretty quickly she was a bit uncomfortable with LGBT+ content, so I made it my mission to make every journal drabble as gay as possible bc I was bored and she couldn’t mark them WRONG when she just stated we needed to write.

But it doesn’t end there! Through the entire class, we got exactly five writing projects. Stories that follow very specific guidelines that we would then read in front of the class, group proofread, and then have the teacher give final grades for. These things were approximately like a thousand words a piece, and I was writing out my 10,000 word “It Starts off Small” story in class when I got bored, so it wasn’t difficult.

Our first project was a character going through a difficult decision. Or... something? I honestly forget the criteria. Anyway, I was HYPE. I’d had this idea for a long time now a human choosing between peaceful death or reincarnation, and this gave me the push to write it! I had a whole thing planned with death being a deer and reincarnation being a wolpertinger (bc reincarnation leads to many possibilities, ed boy, so a Frankenstein bunny made sense to me). Anyway I poured my heart and soul into this bastard and, bright eyed and bushy tailed, handed it in. My classmates all thought it was pretty good. Not to toot m’own horn, but there was some pretty bad ones going in, so I thought I’d get a solid B or something.

I got a D. I guess the struggle was too metaphorical, or it didn’t perfectly fit her criteria. I was devastated. Then I was mad. Bc I was a bored senior who thought they’d made something pretty decent for this completely optional class and her refusal to see that really hurt me at sixteen (I was always a year younger than my other classmates, so despite being a senior I didn’t turn eighteen until almost a year after graduation)

Well, fuck it, I decided. I’m going to parody the shit out of this class.

Our next project was a fantasy story. I was bitter and grumpy. The other fantasy stories read aloud were stuff like “yeah this dude fought a wizard and got a girl, then they went home and banged” (this was not hyperbole, he would’ve written and read the smut if allowed, I knew him personally) and “this girl that NO ONE UNDERSTOOD was called CRAZY but this S@!$ cheerleader who Stole Her Boyfriend so she killed them all” (fun fact: the girl who wrote that was my age and a sort of half-friend from middle school. She was a yaoi fangirl who didn’t mind lesbians as long as they, you know, didn’t FLIRT with her or something.)

So I get up there. It’s the last day of presentations. And I present with a polite cheer. My story is about two magical shepherd type figures who are called Sister Brighten and Brother Dick as they chase down a werewolf who was drunk off his ass and accidentally bit someone else. They then revealed they were basically supernatural designated drivers for the whole town. I made Brighten mention that Dick’s name wasn’t even Richard. I titled it “His Favorite Brand is Grayhound”. It fit every single criteria. I got an A. I could tell she didn’t want to, because there was no comments or anything like everyone else’s, but she had to follow her own criteria.

Our third was a conjoined effort thing so I didn’t pull any fuckery there, but the fourth one was about common myths and spinning them into real or fake. One girl did the hook-handed door handle thing and the boyfriend ended up above his truck hanging (somehow???). I think someone did the age-old adage of a haunted wedding dress? I kind of read through those presentations.

Now, I’m salty-salty at this point. I wasn’t expecting His Favorite Brand is Grayhound to get me a good grade. I half-assed a lot of it. I am in full Not Happy Teenager at this point. I grab a daddy long leg and settle in.

My fourth story of the year is “Paperskin.”

Paperskin is about a boy named Billy with the thinnest skin membrane ever. Just full on body horror. You could see his teeth behind his lips. Billy gets bored one day and wanders out of his house, tries to kick a soccer ball, and breaks a leg. As he’s laying in the grass a daddy long leg bites him- and his skin is so flimsy the fangs sink in and he dies. I’m actually still pretty proud of Paperskin. It’s a horrifying, Edgar Allen Poe of a monstrosity, but it made people squirm, which was the point. The teacher is clearly a bit unnerved at this point, but she gives me another A.

I wrote a more “normal” story after that of a contentious objector forced to house kids going to see if any confirmed soldier deaths were any of their parents as my final one and I could feel her spite as she gave me a B.

So, yeah. That’s the story of when I tormented my creative writing teacher with The Gays and my weird ass sense of humor after she called one of my best works at that age a piece of shit.

Here’s a google drive of these bad boys, because yes I do still have these things. I turned these fuckers in for grades, people.

#Ask #Anon #Question Mandar #Life #Humor #Writing #I was a good kid I swear #I didn't make much noise and I didn't argue much #It was just this one lady

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balioc · 3 years ago

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Counterpoint to the 2016 thing: You guys elected Joe Biden with the expectation that it would bring things back to normal and, one year later, the clowns seem to be pretty clearly on the steering wheel. The counterfactual where the culture war would be in a better place if only Hillary had won is nice to think about, but I'm not sure it's bore by the evidence.

Leaving aside "you guys" --

I'm sorry that genies can't always be stuffed back into bottles on command, but that's how it is sometimes on this bitch of an earth.

2016 had all sorts of effects that are going to reverberate for a long, long time. Biden managed to squeak out a win where Hillary squeaked out a loss, and that has in fact made a difference in the decibel level of the culture war -- "clowns on the steering wheel" or not, there's been noticeably less high-profile braying about race-and-gender stuff for the last year -- but that goes only so far. I am certainly worried that Trump gave wokeism the shot in the arm that it needed to become more-than-a-fad, that during 2016-2020 it got its claws into institutions in ways that will take a generation or more to undo.

That's speculation. A lot of this is speculation, especially the stuff about counterfactual history. But I don't think it's any kind of surprise that Joe Biden has failed to erase four years' worth of traumatic memories.

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asleepinawell · 3 years ago

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How has poi changed your life? Genuinely curious, I love this show

I got this ask in May '20 and am only now answering it. :')

part of the problem with answering it is that half of the answer would be to the question of 'how has fandom changed your life' where poi is the fandom I've been the most active in and where fandom made the most difference. and that's a long story

my first draft of this was over 2k words long, and went back much further in time explaining how i had and hadn’t fit into queer spaces and fandom throughout my life. I edited it way back but it’s still long-ish, so you can read it below the break

many years ago, when I got my first full time job in my chosen industry my senior year of college I was so busy that I couldn't function. massive unhealthy amounts of overtime and a toxic work environment. (don't work at tech start-ups, kids!!!) my social life vanished. strikethrough on livejournal happened right then too and fandom, which i’d only been a silent participant in at that point, kind of went quiet for a while and by the time it started regrouping I was so busy that I didn't know about it. several awful years later I quit my job, spent several months in my room in my parents' house trying to recover from massive burn out (see my comment about tech start-ups), and then got a job on the opposite coast and left behind my whole circle of friends some of whom made up my entire connection to the queer community at that time.

making friends after college is very hard when you're an introvert and just generally don't like socializing that much. making queer friends can be even harder since there's fewer places to meet them and there's often an underlying question of dating/sex that hovers around awkwardly when sometimes what you want is just an absolutely no romo/no sex friendship. so while I did make a few queer friends eventually, I didn't have that same sort of community I did before I'd moved and I missed it

(I would be remiss in not saying that the queer friends i made in this time are all amazing and wonderful and some are still my close friends and very important to me. The thing I’m highlighting here was the lack of feeling like I was part of a larger queer community).

fast forward a bit. I get sick. like really really sick. I'm in and out of the ER, I'm missing tons of work, I'm mostly bed-ridden. I think after the last few years people can more easily appreciate how intensely lonely and surreal being stuck at home by yourself non stop can be when you're not used to it. sometime right before that I'd joined tumblr for the sole purpose of looking at cat pictures on my phone during boring meetings. I wasn't really aware that this was where fandom had migrated to (it was in fact possible to use tumblr without intersecting with fandom). but stuck home alone with time to kill I started looking for art and gifs of the tv and games I was consuming and stumbled into fandom tumblr and specifically queer femslash fandom.

I kind of poked around the territory and eventually fell into the carmilla fandom which became the first fandom I actually created content for. a few of my fics had a decent audience and while I was never part of the central core of the fandom I made some good friends there. some of y'all probably followed me back then. I eventually drifted away from carmilla for a lot of reasons I won't get into and stumbled right into poi. this would have been between seasons 4 and 5, late 2015-early 2016.

my health problems get more exciting and I end up in the hospital. I have vague memories of watching poi on my laptop in my hospital bed (vague because I was on a lot of morphine). I actually posted some fic while I was in the hospital (would have been the end of my carmilla run still).

and I get out of the hospital (early 2016) and am somewhat better but it's pretty clear that I'm going to have chronic health issues probably for the rest of my life. my social life, such as it was, was mostly dead, a lot of stuff I used to do for fun was much harder to manage. I'm still spending a ton of time at home (not even counting covid) and I have bad days where I feel terrible and can't do much. but I'll come back to that

I think most of us remember 2016. the year tv show runners fully embraced the bury your gays trope (and sometimes the fridging trope at the same time as a bonus!) and, by autostraddle's tally, 30 queer female characters in tv shows died. and then on top of that we had the actual real world tragedy of the pulse nightclub shootings. it was a massively depressing time all around for queer people

s5 of poi aired that year. I know people have different opinions on s5 of poi, and that's valid. I hated it. and I really intensely hated how it treated root and shaw. there aren't enough words to express how fucking angry I was after s5. or rather, there are 319,678 words.

I wrote a fic many of you may have read called sliding towards chaos that rewrote the entirety of poi from mid-s3 onwards. it got pretty popular lol. I put so much into writing it, too. it was basically a second full time job for me and a great way to take my mind off the fact I was still having health problems and all the crazy shit going on in the world (we had a presidential election in the US in 2016 :)))) it did not go well!)

i'm very proud of writing stc, and even if I think it isn't my strongest writing (which is good! improving over time is good!), it was what really connected me to a lot of other people in the fandom. I felt part of the fandom community in a way I hadn't with carmilla and it was an intensely queer community built around shared interests

one of the problems with finding queer friend groups out in the 'real world' is you're often gathering to meet based on the uniting factor of being queer, and your interests may vary greatly. fandom is amazing because it lets you find queer people who you share all these interests with and who you can bond with over them and collaborate with and that's just so so important. does fandom have a ton of issues and toxicity and bigotry? yes, absolutely. but it also has so much good to offer

through stc and later fics I became close friends with some really really cool people in the fandom (including my favorite writer and my favorite artist). these are people I'm still very close friends with. some of them I've hung out with offline and the ones I haven't are mostly because they live too far away. after years of not having my own queer circle of friends I have found one again and one I can usually participate in even with my health problems and that is such an important thing to me

on a creative front, the fic writing and the gif making I've done have both taught me an enormous amount and been a very positive part of my life. working collaboratively on comics has been one of the coolest things I've done. there is just so much good that came out of me seeing one shoot gif on tumblr dot com years ago and being like hmm looks gay I'm in

and in terms of the actual content of the show, I think a lot of the reason I was drawn to it (other than my lingering crush on fred from angel) was that root and shaw felt so uniquely and wonderfully queer in a way few f/f ships I'd seen had before. shaw being bi and reading as aro to me (I've talked about that here) and root being a chaotic computer nerd just felt so relatable to me and their relationship with each other made sense to me in a way that few others had. and the specific draw that they had for some fans probably has a lot to do with why I found friends in this fandom who I really clicked with

so yeah. I don't know how to sum this up. fandom can be a great way to find your people and engage your creativity and I think that's very sexy

#mp #asks #I added the read more line on mobile so I hope it actually works #personal

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freyjafm · 4 years ago

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hi everybody ! i'm 𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐫𝐢𝐝 , but you can call me later 😉 i'm your resident virgo , an avid tea latte stan and enjoy watching too many true crime docus . i'm currently a full time student & part time worker , so i'm not always accessible , but i promise i'll get back to u in 3-5 business days ! i'll be playing new york's rising it girl , miss 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒚𝒋𝒂 𝒔𝒂𝒚𝒊𝒅 herself ! under the read more below , you will find her statistics , her background , and her wanted connections ! tap that heart button 4 me to slither into your dms like an alaskan bull worm ! ps , i don't fck with discord so i don't have that . :(

freyja sayid was spotted in the fashion district adorning jimmy choo , with some airpod pros on . they’re most likely listening to wonder what she�� thinks of me by chloe x halle . you may know them as @FREYJA or as that aisha potter lookalike . their twenty second birthday just passed . while living in the upper east side , they’ve gained a bit of a reputation . they’re known to be cunning but on the other hand captivating . wonder if they’ll be the next person to hit the headlines . + ( freyja arm in arm with newest oil heir beau, weeks after messy break up with a prime minister’s nephew / what seems to be freyja sayid poorly sneaking out the back of a club at 4 am / what’s next for new york’s rising it girl, freyja sayid? )

𑁯໋ 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐘𝐉𝐀'𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐒 ,

first. freyja ( named after the goddess )

middle. blaire ( named after her maternal great-grandmother )

last. sayid

dob. 19/02/99 ( 22 yo )

pob. bern, switzerland

height. 5′5 1/2

orientation. bisexual & biromantic

ethnicity. half white on her mother’s side and half malaysian on her father’s side.

parents. atalie sayid ( mother, senator for the state of new york ) and amirul sayid ( father, current deputy prime minister of malaysia )

siblings. 2 elder sisters, 2 elder brothers ( 5 in total ) all in politics in some fashion ( eg, the current mayor of a city, chief of staff to a diplomat, working under senior cabinet members, etc ! )

career claim. jennie kim ( minus ALL musical claims )

𑁯໋ 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐘𝐉𝐀'𝐒 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 ,

youngest daughter born to the sayid family, a powerhouse of politicians. her mother is a current sitting senator for new york and her father is the current deputy prime minister of malaysia. they met years prior, during her mother’s first term meanwhile her father was the former attorney general for malaysia, at a un gala. as much as they both were passionate and concerned about their work, love never had a timing and they were married the following year. all the siblings have relatively normal age gaps ( the most being 4 ) but freyja was a bit of a surprise, and the only sibling in her early twenties. the rest are in their thirties, with her eldest sister nearing forty soon. that, paired with the fact freyja showed zero interest in politics, allowed them to have a rather hollow and strained relationship. she has a somewhat stable and semi-consistent relationship with her older sister, the second youngest, but they don’t meet very often due to work. they often treated her like the ultimate downfall of the sayid family.

growing up, money and the likes clearly weren’t a problem. as a child, she’d tag along often with her mom or dad ( rarely ever both ) and occasionally with a sibling, and hated anything that wasn’t sweet, glittery, or one of a kind. helping with campaigns were boring in freyja’s eyes and she’d often sneak away to go doodle in the bathroom walls or play on her blinged out, pink nintendo ds. needless to say, this was never going to be her jam. her parents role in her life was rather inconsistent, but not on purpose. it was mainly work-related, so she was taken care by a few trusted nannies and butlers. her siblings all moved out by the time freyja was finishing up elementary school, she was used to being alone.

not much else is known of freyja ( everything was p chill ) until she enters high school. she enrolls into a private and elite boarding school in europe and instantly becomes a hybrid ; both the social butterfly and the queen bee. the sudden attention she receives and the feeling of having people under her thumb sets her heart on fire. she adores this, loves it even. she gets what she wants with a bat of her bambi eyes or a little whine, but no one really can say no to her. beauty and power go hand in hand, and freyja sayid masters it by age fifteen. while it was a boarding school, her parents purchased an estate for freyja to stay at instead nearby with her nannies and butlers and security. what that meant to freyja ? throw the sickest summer parties before school started and the best holiday get togethers the first week of winter break ( before she inevitably flies off in a private jet with her friends to a sayid family owned villa near the alps ) and she began drinking / smoking early on. the world was this giant oyster and freyja the pearl. graduated with honors as valedictorian and prom queen, voted ‘ most likely to rule the world ‘ and oh, how she is coming so close.

after graduating, she spent a few years travelling and partying with friends. she spent less and less time with family, only for formal events or re-elections or other boring shit she didn’t give two cents about. most of the time she showed up stoned to pass the time away. most of her antics were able to be paid off by her family to save themselves some embarrassment, but sometimes ( notably about a rumored new beau or leaving the club at ungodly hours ) would slip onto tabloids. and yes, her pr manager is 100% always stressing out over freyja.

her influence over value was noticed by brands by age 19, when something she wore was sold out as soon as the pictures of her in it went viral. by 20, she was soon modelling for major brands and received early invitations to attend fashion week for brands like gucci, saint laurent, and chanel. dubbed ‘ human gucci ‘ and ‘ human chanel ‘ due to her fashion sense. hairpins that she sported one spring went viral and were soon known as ‘ freyja’s hairpins ‘ , a huge tell tale sign of her powerful influence over value and selling power. had modelled for magazines such as vogue ( internationally, too ) / harper’s bazaar / marie claire / elle / high cut / w / cosmopolitan / and billboard. currently, the face of ‘ hera ‘, a south korean luxury brand, the house ambassador for chanel, collabed with samsung to release a limited edition version of a phone with her signature color ; red, known as ‘ freyja’s red ‘. recently, she has worked as an editor for her latest magazine release ( feb’ 21 for vogue ) and last year, released a collaboration with ‘ gentle monster ‘ , a south korean luxury eyewear brand, and was just named as the face for a popular liquor brand in sweden. she is taking a small break until summer to give her some time to breath with a hectic life before she goes back into working. basically, her face is like everywhere.

a jealous, vindictive sort of bitch. wants what other people has because she wants to see how far the world will bend for her and because she knows she can have it. has cheated with partners before, though it has toned down a bit now. will flirt and mess with someone, not caring if they are in a relationship or talking to someone. often goes viral for ‘ sitting pretty ‘ and really loves being at the dead center of the spotlight. at the same time, the void of being ‘ abandoned ‘ by family makes her extremely loyal to friends ( yes, she picks sides after friendship and romantic breakups ) and her chosen family. will go to the end of the world for them, often spoils them with matching jewelry or shirts to go on cute dates together. bad day ? she’ll get a lift over, make you pack, and head to the sayid family jet to go wherever you want to go. a good ally to have, a terrifying enemy to have.

𑁯໋ 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐘𝐉𝐀'𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 ,

something based on ‘ drivers license ‘ lyrically by olivia rodrigo .

something based on ‘ gone ‘ lyrically by roseanne park .

something based on ‘ love somebody ‘ lyrically by lauv .

something based on this gifset . ( 🎐 ) [ other : i just . . love this and want it . HDHDH the bond can be figured out beforehand ! ]

something based on this post . ( 🍶 ) [ other : most likely something toxic or angsty ! ]

something based on this post . ( 🍈 ) [ other : childhood or friends attempting to test the waters with something new ?? PHEW ! ]

down for anything not on here ! let me know if freyja fits anything of yours, a brand new idea that could just work, and any of the more ‘ basic ‘ plots !

#، 𓂅 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒚𝒋𝒂 𝒔𝒂𝒚𝒊𝒅 ⟆ 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨 . ɞ #wealthyhq:intro

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thoughtsofamastersstudent · 3 years ago

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Thought Blog #8

Second screening is something I often do. I will stream a tv show or movie and have Twitter open, interacting with a community also streaming the same thing. Back in my One Direction Twitter days, this was a common practice of mine and my mutual followers called "live tweeting." My little community would watch things, whether it be a tv show like SNL or performance, and live-tweet the whole thing as it was happening, allowing us to have a conversation about what was going on as it was happening. The feeling of absolute chaos and FUN I felt discussing what was going on in real-time is something I look back on fondly. I also think this type of environment is what shaped my Twitter personality into what it is today. And what is it? You may ask. Well, not to toot my own horn, but my Twitter is hilarious.

Now let's dive into this week's readings.

The first article presents this same idea using "How to get away with Murder" and Black Twitter. The practices of second screening and co-viewing have opened up a space on Twitter for the Black community to engage in conversation about Black womanhood through Annalise Keating. These practices have also allowed discourse on the harmful stereotypes of Black women as the show shatters those stereotypes and opens the door for culturally accurate information—a specific example is mentioned in the scene where Annalise's mother is seen brushing her hair.

Now, when I reference my One Direction days, I fully realize the way I participated in these practices is not nearly as significant as the example explained in this article. Furthermore, as a white woman, I will never fully understand the impact of these practices' space for minority groups.

Moving on!

Ah yes. Second screening and politics. *Cracks knuckles* I think we all remember the climate on Twitter during the 2020 election. Specifically, those of us who participated in second screening during election debates and real-time when the votes were coming in, whether actively or passively. During the 2020 election, Twitter was, I would argue, the perfect place to be during these events (if you, you know, are a sane human who knows what information to look for). As these events unfolded on-screen number one, screen number two was full of additional information and memes and "tea" oh my! (Wizard of Oz reference incase you missed it and just think I have bad grammar). No, but really, I would argue that the 2020 election was INTENSELY affected by this idea of second screening.

"A significant number of young adults "go newsless" (Pew, 2012). Okay yeah, sure, in terms of traditional news, but I, however, get PLENTY of news on Miss Twitter. Some advice for my news outlets: if you want us "young people" to listen, USE SOCIAL MEDIA. And don't just "use it" I mean REALLY USE IT. Hire someone young, preferably gen z, and see that the sky is the limit. Okay, on a more serious note, this article goes into how youth make choices about how they consume news media from their parents. So, right now, we are in a bit of an awkward shit because our parents only had traditional news media, whereas we now have the whole social media aspect we have grown up with. However, I feel like this blip in the space will eventually even out as my generation begins to have children, as both parties will have social media. As for right now, I think some listen to their parents (boring), and some go out and find the news themselves.

Media Multitasking. My specialty. So, you know how to make the streaming service app screen tiny on your phone and have it still play while you are doing other things? Well, in my not so humble opinion, this is quite possibly one of the best things Apple has done recently. Of course, some of my friends think I am insane for doing this, but I like to see it as being efficient :).

Well, folks, that's all the words I have to offer you today. See you next week!

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dino-nugget7 · 4 years ago

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A Manifesto Against The School System

As of writing this I am a second year Public High School Teacher. I won’t be able to live with myself if I spend another year at it. Literally, I feel like a bit of a monster for deciding to finish out this school year rather than quitting right now. But we do what we must to survive, my students won’t be less oppressed because I left, and if nothing else, it gives me an opportunity to strategize about what I can do to aid in revolutionizing school because authentic alternatives to public school exist but none I have found have been intersectional enough to replace public education without excluding the kids who would most benefit from escaping the main school system here in America.

Some of the reasons I did not understand how oppressive school actually is, are that my interests and hobbies happened to align very neatly with the “core” classes, and that even though I grew up very poor and moved around a lot as a kid, we eventually settled and I went to a well funded high school that had just about any elective and/or after school club that I might be interested in trying and then some. During that time, I came to see school as a place where I could explore my passions and escape my home situation. So I figured I would love to pay it forward and go be a teacher.

I recognized at least, the privileged position I came from and decided I wanted to go learn how to teach in settings as different from my high school as possible. Which is why I went and got special permission for most of my classroom placements throughout the teaching program to be at alternative schools. In Colorado at least, alternative schools are small public schools which primarily serve students identified as “at risk”, which is shorthand for “Statistically more likely to drop out than the general population for one reason or another.”

I did not know when I asked to be placed in one, but learned within days of being there that most people that even know alternative schools exist, think of them as the places where “the bad kids” go. I realized very quickly that they are actually places filled with kids who have experienced a lot of trauma in and out of school and don’t respond to that trauma the way adults want them to respond. I came to adore kids at alternative schools because they remind me of my younger siblings.

Like my oldest brother, many of them find school mind numbingly easy and boring and have much more pressing matters to devote their mental energy to.

Like my middle brother, many of them have spent so much time around teachers who do not understand neurodivergence that have been convinced of the lie that they are weird, dumb and/or lazy and because of that, trying to participate in school is like hitting their head on a brick wall.

Like all of my brothers and my sisters, they have a ton of skills that they are brilliant at, but that are not prioritized by the school system, so they never pursue them, such as construction, music, makeup and programming.

Many, if not most of them come from living situations full of abuse and neglect and/or poverty so they don’t have the mental or emotional space to worry about much beyond survival, and not only haven’t learned how to make and achieve long term goals, but have never had the luxury of a stable enough environment for that kind of planning to be worthwhile.

All that being said, something that you only realize if you actually work in a few public alternative schools, as I have done through college and my current job, is that the name is actually an oxymoron.

What started me down the path of considering and researching all the ways school is an oppressive system, was a conversation I had with a student in my first year teaching. He was learning about chemical reactions and safety and asked me the infamous question, “Why do I have to learn about this?” to which I said “Because everything is chemicals and understanding how they can interact with one another and ways they can harm you can keep you safe when you do things like clean or cook.” To which he replied, “Well no offense but I have no idea how this shit relates to cooking and please don’t tell me because its not like I’m actually going to remember it when I am cooking, and I already know how to clean safely because of work. But you’re still going to make me learn this boring shit anyways so seriously, why do we have to learn about this?”

I paused to consider what he was asking. I had interpreted, as the system trained me to, that the question he was asking was, “what value does this knowledge hold?” But what he actually meant was “Why are you making me waste my time learning about this thing that I never asked to learn about?” So I replied, as a sort of test of my new understanding, “It’s part of the physical science curriculum the Education Department thinks is important for high schoolers to learn.” He was taken aback, “Wait, you don’t decide what stuff we learn about? What’s even the point of teachers then? Why don’t they just give us a list of all their stupid stuff they think we should know so we can get on with our lives?” He had a point and I have spent a lot of time reflecting on and growing from that conversation.

Sure, there are some key differences that make alternative schools slightly more tolerable than your standard 800-4,000 kid high school. Class sizes are smaller so students get more individualized help. We get funding to help students access things such as food, clothes, hygiene products, and healthcare and know students well enough that we actually know which kids are lacking these resources. We have slightly more leeway than traditional schools to create innovative lessons. We don’t give out homework.

But public alternative schools are still oppressive in most of the ways that the big schools are. I’m sure none of this will be a surprise to most readers, but I want you to really consider how restricted kids in public school are, how restricted you probably were in school as you read through this.

School starts early in the morning and students have to constantly shift mental gears throughout the day due to a tight schedule of constantly rotating classes and a very short lunch break. Throughout the day, bells tell students when they can’t or must move around or eat. Students have to ask when they need to go to the bathroom or get water and teachers cannot go at all outside of their plan period because students are not trusted to be in the classroom without an adult even for a few minutes. They have no control over who they share space with and very little control over their ability to leave that space if it conflicts with their needs. There is a strict dress code which disproportionately targets marginalized students. Students are expected to be sociable but not given nearly enough opportunities to actually socialize. The school keeps records of everything the student has ever gotten in trouble for, every class the student has taken, every grade they have received, their “class rank,” and every intervention program the student is part of. And like every public school, alternative schools must follow state curriculum standards and by extension, grading, data collection, and required testing. On the surface it might not seem like it, but that last point is actually the most insidious one and its the one that has followed students into remote learning during the pandemic.

According to the people who decide how schools work, there are four factors of student choice: These factors are Time, Place, Pace, and Path. For example, if I am running a unit on plate tectonics, rather than giving students a worksheet and telling them to work on it as we go through a slideshow and turn it in at the end of class, I could put them in groups, give them an online choice board of three different but roughly equivalent projects relating to plate tectonics to choose from, each with different rubrics for completion and tell them they can turn it in at any time in the next two weeks. And then instead of devoting class time to direct instruction, I would give them a variety of resources to peruse and teach them how to research more and let them choose what aspects of plate tectonics to focus on and how to present their information. Now, this is certainly a few steps in the right direction away from making kids sit in rows and listen to the teacher drone on about plate tectonics while they take notes. But it misses the most important factors of choice in my eyes, the things that I would be fired for if I actually gave them the choice about: How students spend their time and what they are allowed to prioritze.

None of this is to say that expecting kids to learn is inherently fucked up or that teaching inherently makes one an oppressive person. On the contrary, authentic teaching and learning are vital to our ability to solve our problems and grow as people. If all students were given the opportunities to spend their childhoods learning things that they were actually interested in, to explore the full breadth of knowledge that humans have compiled at their leisure without timelines or milestones except the ones they set for themselves, to socialize with people of all ages, to authentically participate in society both as learners and as educators, as leaders and as team members, the world wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be a lot less soul crushing.

Now, I mentioned at the beginning of this piece that authentic alternatives do exist. To get you started on researching what’s out there, I recommend starting with Sudbury schools and the unschooling movement.

But unless these models somehow miraculously become a large and accepted enough presence to get government funding, or money ceases its hold on us all, the public school system will be the only one that most students, especially impoverished students, transient students, english language learners, and disabled students (especially those with profound disabilities) will have access to. Which is a damn shame and a problem I am committed to trying to figure out how to contribute to solving because those are the students whose lives would be most radically transformed for the better if they got the opportunities that these models provide.

#school #anti school #oppression #manifesto #youth liberation #I am aware that this severely pushes how long people are willing to read for on Tumblr #but I needed to get it out there into the void

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eury--dice · 4 years ago

Text

history, huh?

chapter 3: propius

(check the rb for chapters 1 + 2 on tumblr + ao3 links!)

Adam was woken at 5 o’clock on the dot with a series of sharp knocks on his door. “Up and Adam,” Gansey’s voice called, making the one stupid dad joke that always set Adam’s blood to a boil. He was too tired to react, however.

“Kindly leave until a later time,” he called, his voice heavy with sleep. “I don’t have class for another three hours.”

Gansey opened the door anyway, striding in with more pep than anyone should have in the morning.

“You’ve made the tabloids, my friend. Your weekend with Ronan finally hit.”

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Nope,” Gansey said cheerfully. “‘From America, With Love: Ronan and Adam flaunt friendship.’” He turned on his heel once he’d crossed the length of the room, which Adam could never forget was formerly Malia Obama’s, and seated himself in Adam’s desk chair.

Adam had never been closer to considering strangulation. He elected to shove his hearing ear into his pillow instead.

Unfortunately, the muffled sounds of Gansey speaking still made their way in. “‘Photos: Adam’s Weekend in England,’ oh, that’s boring…ah-hah: ‘New Bromance Alert? Pics of FSOTUS and Prince Ronan.’”

Adam resigned himself to his fate and mentally promised himself a giant cup of coffee. “As long as I’m getting fewer death threats on Twitter, I’m happy,” he mumbled into his blankets.

Gansey ignored him. “Why are you so tired? It’s the hour of kings, time to be awake and alive.”

“I’d settle for dead if it meant I could sleep at this point, to be frank.”

“Please don’t be frank. Be Adam.”

Adam sat up, eyeing Gansey in his wire-framed glasses with disdain. “Any more puns and I suffocate myself with this pillow.”

“Please don’t,” Gansey said, but his eyes had already returned to his screen. While he read through the articles, he continued his line of questioning. “Working on the campaign late last night?”

“Not really,” Adam admitted. “I had a Press and the Presidency paper to write.”

“Just write ‘I’m Adam Parrish’ on a piece of loose-leaf paper to turn it in and you’ll probably get an A. You live it every day, for Christ’s sake.”

“And yet I still need to cite sources in Chicago Advanced.”

“You’d think nepotism would work out more in your favor.” He flicked to a fresh article, a gesture Adam only recognized from all the other times Gansey had done it. “Luckily, I think the press is eating this one up.”

Adam grimaced. “Fantastic.”

“Not-campaign-ruining, you mean.”

“That too, I suppose.” He wanted nothing more than to flop back against his pillows and get the sleep his body so desperately craved after being jet lagged for a week, but he fought the urge.

“That _ People _exclusive takes the cake, I think. I didn’t realize how much you cherished your relationship with Ronan.”

“Fuck off, please. Or end my misery.”

“No to both. Why are you even taking that press course?”

Adam slid out from under his blankets, rolling his shoulders to try and wake up more. “Curiosity, I guess. It never hurts to learn more of what not to do.”

Gansey looked up from his phone to level a glance at Adam. “And what have you learned so far?”

“…Don’t have a sex scandal?”

“You _ would _need someone to tell you that.”

_ “Hey,” _Adam said, affecting outrage.

Gansey lifted his thumb to run over his lower lip, tilting his head consideringly. “One of us three will probably have a scandal before your mother’s second term is up.”

“If there is a second.”

“Chin up, young padawan. With you working on it we’re guaranteed.”

“I don’t know, Gansey,” Adam replied. “I don’t think I’m the good luck charm you believe in.”

“Of course you are,” Gansey said. “We won the first time, no?”

Adam glanced exaggeratedly around the room and to the phone in Gansey’s hand. “I’d say so. That or we’re about to get questioned very thoroughly about the the events of last three years.”

“Don’t make me cut you off on the true-crime videos.”

His eyes narrowed, focusing on Gansey. “Don’t you dare.”

“Blue agrees, anyway,” Gansey said, successfully deflecting topics. “Said there’s a ninety-four percent chance you’ll get into a sex scandal before the general.”

“Both of you date more than I do, why am I the one who’s supposedly having a sex scandal?” Once his initial outrage passed, disbelief crept in at the time of day. “Did you just text Blue at five AM and get a response? How the hell did you manage that?”

“She’s been up,” Gansey dismissed. Adam stared at him for a moment, and then Gansey seemed to feel the weight of his stare. His eyes widened almost comically. “Oh, Christ, no, not that. Nate Silver asked for another set of eyes on the Superbowl predictions, and she’s trying to get a shoo-in with them before the primaries begin. I just brought her some coffee.”

“And you didn’t bring me any?”

“You’re the only one of us who hasn’t been up all night. You need coffee the least of all of us.”

“Don’t blame me for your bad decisions.” Adam squinted at Gansey. “Were you working on an article all night or something?”

He snorted. “Hardly. They’ve been blocking all of my pieces. Too far from my mother’s politics, too far from your mother’s, too controversial, too critical, all in that order.”

“Thought you were liking the _ Post _gig?”

“On paper,” Gansey dismissed. “I’ve defaulted to writing about Welsh history.”

“Sounds like it’s right up your alley, then.”

“Once again, on paper.”

“How do you even connect the Welsh to the hellscape of American politics?”

Gansey waved a hand. “‘Eternal spirit,’ ‘fighting for honor,’ ‘remembering Glendower and others who set a pristine model,’ et cetera, et cetera.”

“People read that? That just sounds like you in high school spouting off again.”

“Yes, Adam. People read it.” Gansey squinted at his phone again. “Twitter _ really _likes you and Ronan together.”

“We’re exciting,” Adam said dryly, reaching for his laptop. He scanned over his most recent paper while Gansey dramatically narrated replies to the gif of them on _ This Morning. _

“‘Either of them could stab me and give me one of those smiles and I’d thank them,’ Jesus Christ,” Gansey read, “They really love your fake smiles… ‘name a more iconic duo, I’ll wait,’ hm, maybe any other duo? ‘Oh my God, just _ kiss already.’” _

Adam choked out a laugh as Gansey punctuated the last one with a dramatic and uncharacteristic hand wave. “At least it’s working,” he allowed, shutting his laptop once he felt secure about his essay. “Now get out. _ Some _of us have places to be.”

Adam’s phone buzzed on his way out of his cursed Presidency and the Press course.

Somehow, the interest of those around him seemed to pique even higher when he looked at his phone instead of in front of him. It wasn’t a new sensation by any means; ever since starting at Georgetown, he’d felt eyes on him constantly, but the intensity increased tenfold each time his classmates thought he was too occupied to see them staring. He noticed every time, but of course nothing could be done about it.

The name _ HRH shitty bird boy _ popped across his screen. How strange - in only a week, he’d almost entirely forgotten that the name he had (quite maturely) given Ronan in his phone was… _ that. _As he swiped the notification open, he felt a certain amount of trepidation as to what a technology-averse prince would ever text him about.

His harassment and emergency fears flew out the window with the body of the text, simply a screenshot of their tabloid appearance with the added caption of _ youre the nerd and I’m the cool jock. _

_ Competitive yachting? _Adam asked in response, nearly tripping over his own feet while typing.

_ ffs i told them to stop writing that as my preferred sport. _

Adam felt his lips twist against his will.

_ I’m sorry, this is a common problem? _

_ you can’t even imagine. _

_ I appreciate that they consider competitive yachting a regal sport. _

_ status symbols and faux athleticism are the core of the monarchy. _

Adam blinked down at his phone, stopping short abruptly. Persephone, from behind him, adjusted accordingly.

He…hadn’t been expecting this. Any of it. The text, the almost-joking response, the casual statement about the monarchy being ridiculous despite him being in it. Their conversation ended there, and it was probably for the better. He resumed his pace, trying to get to his next class. He almost forgot about the texts, too; save for a rogue screenshot Adam sent him of speculation on Ronan’s presence in Majorca, nothing else went between them.

Sometimes, Adam could _ just barely _ get away with being on his phone during briefings with Maura. He hated to be distracted during them - they were _ important, _he knew that, but all the same occasionally she spent a particularly long time covering an obscure dignitary’s comments and he’d gotten too few hours of sleep to truly focus and someone or other was blowing up his phone.

Maura’s topic of conversation this week appeared to be a series of Buzzfeed articles run on the lack of pets in the First Family, complete with a power point dissecting their points

The glamorous side of politics, truly. Discussing a clickbait series in the West Wing briefing room.

_ iMessage chat to _ ** HRH shitty bird boy **

_ Resumed 30 October, 2019, 1:47 pm _

_ if you want a pet chainsaw dragged in a mouse the other day _

_ Ah yes, the mouse. A pet eternally beloved by constituents. _

_ we can’t all have a raven, that would be unfair _

_ Your heights of cool and goth are truly dizzying. _

_ im glad you agree _

_ Modest, too. _

_ it comes with the wealth and fame _

_ As long as you’re being straight with me, feel free to be as ‘modest’ as you like. _

_ i’m the prince of bloody england. i’m straight all the damn time _

_ That’s the biggest lhxemxlp_

His phone slipped from between his fingers, landing with a dull _ thud _onto the wooden floor. Adam stared helplessly at it, a sleek black rectangle hiding between types of oak. But Maura repeated his name, and he suddenly remembered what had made him drop his phone in the first place. He dragged his eyes up, staring at a spot on the sterile white wall just beyond Maura’s head.

“Adam,” she said a third time, but he refused to look her in the eyes. She conceded immediately. “What the hell?”

He felt his cheeks darken as blood found its way up. “I’m sorry.”

Her lips thinned just like Blue’s did, turning into a dark line on her brown face. “Do you even remember what I was saying?”

“Er…” he scrambled. “Don’t mention animals in any public setting?”

She looked at him for a long moment, then picked up a mug of coffee and took a controlled sip.

“Get out?” she said once she’d swallowed her sip.

“I-”

She pointed to the door. “I am impossibly busy. Take your phone and go laugh in private.”

He nodded once, finally, ducking under the table with his spine pressed against the bottom to grab his phone. His fingers closed around it, grip the edge of the wood, and he was up in a second.

He couldn’t regret it.

Because - well, here was the weird thing.

He wanted another text from Ronan.

_ iMessage chat to _ ** HRH shitty bird boy **

_ Resumed 31 October, 2019, 12:03 am _

_ it’s finally spooky day in your hell country _

_ Isn’t it 5 am in England? _

_ Do you ever sleep? _

_ bold of you to ask that question _

_ halloween, bitch _

_ it waits for no one _

_ I’m really going to have to advocate better habits. _

_ I understand, you’re enthused for Halloween. _

_ do you even care at all _

_ I enjoy halloween like everyone else. _

_ Though your level of excitement feels a little pagan? _

when the skeleton army rises Jesus will forgive me

_ appreciate this glorious day parrish _

_ I have enough fear in my daily life, thanks. _

_ I filed my own taxes all throughout highschool. _

_ And payed rent. _

_ The horrors of early adulthood. _

_terrifying _

_ terrible i’ll never deal with that shit _

_ You’re the prince, we know. _

_ Do you also not have enough horror in your life? _

of course i do

_ but parrish. listen. _

_ this is the one day a year all the monarchy and parliament dress as they are in life _

_ hideous monsters _

He laughed a little harder at that than he should have.

_ You’re telling me the monarchy plays dress up. _

_ ronan_frankensteins_monser_costume.jpg _

_ matthew insisted. did this on me an hour ago _

_ oh my god _

The makeup _ was _really good, and the monstrous look suited him, but hell if Adam ever said that to him.

He may have saved it to his phone, though, to glimpse Ronan’s green-paint covered skin and crooked, drawn-on stitch smile on his perfectly blank face.

Although Adam certainly didn’t intend to make a habit of texting the Prince of England, when he saw a funny bird or a stupid article or an obscure meme his first thought became _I should send that to Ronan. _And Ronan, clearly, was thinking along the same lines. The sheer number of sole emojis that seemed to tell a Ronan-centric story he received at all hours only affirmed that. And somehow, between all the pictogramme and jokes, he started to learn snatches of information. Declan was a better storyteller than Ronan, Matthew was the only person who could make Ronan attend family dinners ever since their father died, and his mother - the Queen of England, Adam had to remind himself sometimes - drew further away every day.

The problem became that he always wanted to know _ more, _and Adam didn’t know if that was due to his rampant curiosity or something else buried deep inside of him, and he was too afraid of what he might uncover by digging to look.

Adam had very few friends.

Most of that came with the territory of being part of the First Family; nothing made casual acquaintances drift away quite like being constantly surveilled by Secret Service agents and trailed by NDAs. Adam didn’t have time for small talk and coffee, a fact which he sometimes lamented and often loved. Part of this came from the type of friendship he became accustomed to with Gansey and Blue, the all-encompassing type of friendship that took over their minds in spare moments and forged ties stronger than steel between them. He’d probably forgotten how to have normal, casual friends, not friends an outsider would think he was completely in love with. And, perhaps more than anything else, it came back down to Robert Parrish and his heavy hands and ringing words. Adam’s memories of his first few years were scattered and inconsistent, but they filled up a too-large corner of his brain all the same. Blue, who entered his life at the tender age of 5, had won his trust with greater ease than their other peers, and Gansey had done the same in high school. They knew him and what he’d been through, and so they could (platonically) love him for all that he was. When campaigning and political office came into the mix, that full truth of Adam Parrish became a secret to guard like any else.

But, oddly enough, Adam had a third friend: Noah Czerny, the thirty-three-year-old baby of the Senate.

Noah and Adam met through an Aglionby networking event while Adam was a student and Noah a recently-elected congressperson, both green as grass in different ways. Adam, thrown neck-deep into a Presidential campaign, had questions, and most of the time Noah had answers. Although all of the professors had warned Adam to proceed cautiously with Czerny, Adam found nothing to fear. Noah had mellowed out quite a bit from his high school days, becoming a familiar face at political events and a surprisingly-wise piece of advice always at the ready. Despite Adam’s near hero-worship of this brand-new politician, half-Mexican just like him and just as frequent to lose sleep rewriting policies that unjustly taxed communities of color or defunded children’s education, they’d formed an improbable bond. The summer before his sophomore year, Noah let Adam closer to the politics process than even his mother had as he ran for the Senate, and Adam took to it almost at once. A politician twelve years his senior was perhaps not a conventional choice of friend, but Adam seldom remained conventional.

It wasn’t too out of the ordinary for Adam to arrive at Noah’s congressional office unannounced, either with business or without, and so when Adam rounded on Noah’s stark, bright, white office, he wasn’t at all surprised to see him ducked over an obscene number of papers.

“It’s Friday night,” Noah said without looking up, barely before Adam had even crossed into the office. As always, the tiny burst of color in the Pride flag deposited in a tourist mug drew Adam’s eye for a long moment before Noah himself did. All Adam could see of him was his brown curls, resolutely held in place even as bent over a desk. “Go party or something.”

“Damn, I didn’t _ think _ this looked like a frat. I knew something was off.” Adam slid into one of the seats across the desk. He had several inches on Noah, but he always felt smaller in those chairs across from the most important legislators in the country. “What’s got you here at eight PM?” Off of Noah’s brief, incredulous look, he amended to _ “this _particular time, I know. You’re salaried. Shouldn’t you…ever go home?”

“I’m trying to get something done so that there’s at least a hope of banning fracking in our lifetimes.”

Adam scoffed quietly, though not for lack of faith in Noah. “Let me know when you’ve cracked the code.”

_ “If, _but sure, I’ll be in contact. Now, why are you here?”

“You didn’t answer my leaving-the-building question.”

Noah’s eyes flickered shut briefly. “Jesus, Adam, I am salaried by the taxpayers of millions of Americans. I’m not going to slack on them.”

“Fine, but don’t make me drag Gansey in here to make you take a long nap and drink some hot soup.”

Adam’s phone buzzed, but he ignored it; despite it being almost 1 am in England, Ronan could presumably take the blame. Noah asked, “Did you catch the Fox town hall last night?”

Adam grimaced. He’d seen part of it, trying to multitask with his macroeconomics homework at the same time, but instead he’d fallen asleep with his head on the laptop screen. “Part of it. It was a shitshow.”

“You can say that again.”

“I honestly thought that Whelk would pull more support from the extremists. He just seemed desperate last night.”

“Oh, he definitely was.” Noah leaned away from his desk, appraising Adam as though considering his words carefully. “We went to school together.”

“Aglionby?” Adam asked. He knit his eyebrows together. “How did I not realize he went there?”

“The school doesn’t exactly love toting him.”

“He’s older than you, though, right?”

“Yes, Adam,” Noah said slowly. “I’m thirty-three. He’s already announced a bid for President. How old do you have to be to run for executive office?”

Adam scowled. “I just came from class, I can’t use my brain. He was a senior when you were a freshman?”

“Yep,” Noah replied. “We were paired in upperclassmen-lowerclassmen bonding.” His lip curled a little. “He outed me.”

“Wait, _ what?” _

“He outed me to the school,” Noah repeated. He looked back down to the papers on his desk, his voice softening to a barely audible level. “I trusted him, which was a dumb thing to do, but I was a really stupid freshman. Scared, too. He was a friendly personality.”

_ “Fuck,” _Adam said, pushing a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, that’s…”

“Terrible?” A bit of Noah’s life returned to him. “Don’t worry about it, kid. It was years ago.”

“But then…Whelk, he was the reason you…?”

“He didn’t make my parents react the way they did. They did that on their own. But no, they wouldn’t have known without him.”

Adam shook his head. “I thought it wasn’t possible to like the guy less, if only because of his politics, but he’s done it.”

“Done what? Received the full wrath of Adam Parrish?”

“He very well may.”

“Don’t worry about him. Whelk will be out soon, believe me. I know him. He may have his parent’s money, but he’s barely old enough to hold office and he’s running on fumes.”

“If he’s not, I’ll convince Blue to skew stats until he is.” Noah knew just as well as Adam that that wouldn’t change anything, but it lightened the air anyway. “It seems kind of pointless to entertain any of them. Greenmantle is probably going to win no matter what.”

Colin Greenmantle: former antique collector, congressperson from Massachusetts, and millionaire with the funds to take over the Republican primary, and very possibly the whole election, before any papers were even filed.

“It’s early,” Noah said. “Too early to worry about it. Too early to even be _ talking _ about it.”

Adam slanted a half-smile at him. “Never too early to worry about an election.”

Noah looked back to his papers before broaching the next topic. “I hear you’ve got a job on your mother’s re-election campaign.”

“Once I graduate, and maybe a little earlier, yeah.”

Noah cast a glance around the office. “Are you sure this is the life you want?”

Adam knew he was referring to the constant bustle, the fear of disappointing and harming instead of helping, and the ever-evolving media scrutiny. He knew it was the closest Noah would give to a warning. “I’m sure.”

Noah sighed. “Fine.” He pointed to the door. “But I won’t let you throw your youth away, not this early. After you graduate, Parrish. Go get drunk and make out with someone.”

Adam stood, his frame unfolding and standing tall. “You are a terrible role model.”

“Can’t hear you over the loud music.”

“You and Blue and Gansey - if I die of alcohol poisoning, it’s all your fault.”

“Feel free to blame, so long as you’re out there and not here.”

“Alright, alright, Jesus. You’ve made your point.”

“Finally,” Noah called after Adam’s retreating form. But Adam could hear the amusement in his voice all the same.

For someone so allergic and averse to technology, Ronan sure seemed to share a lot with Adam.

_ iMessage chat to _ ** HRH shitty bird boy **

_ Resumed 13 Novemeber, 2019, 8:38 pm _

_ bird.m4a _

_ she wont stop nuzzling my head?? _

_ Picking for lice, probably. _

_ God knows you have so many. _

_ my scalp is perfectly clean _

_ Forgive me for abstaining from running my hands over it all the same. _

_ I’ll leave that to her. _

He didn’t always respond, though.

Adam tried not to read into it.

(He mostly succeeded.)

Adam never tired of stepping into the Oval Office. On the Wednesday right before Thanksgiving, he stepped in with the same amount of awe he always had, allowing himself a single moment to glance around at the wide windows and perfectly upholstered furniture. He sat on one of the couches without preamble.

His mother looked up from what was in front of her on the desk and smiled, albeit a tired one that frayed a bit at the corners; Adam had seen a few particularly troublesome foreign dignitaries be escorted away not long before, so he didn’t have to guess at the reason. Ana looked like she belonged to sit right there amongst all the history at that desk, from the sun dipping just beneath her halo of hair straightened within an inch of its life and her stick-straight posture. It might have been a lot at times, but seeing her was a reminder of all the good that came from her position.

She rose and walked to join him, her heels clacking lightly at the ground before she sank onto the cushion beside him and pulled him into a loose hug. Adam had overtaken Ana in height some years before, but there had been a long gap in there as he grew - like one day he was three and a half feet tall and wrapped tightly in her arms and the next he was off to Georgetown and several heads taller. She pulled away after a minute, slowly and bit-by-bit as though savoring her moments as a mother rather than a president. Her hand reached to muss his hair a moment later, and Adam ducked away instinctively before exchanging an identical grin with her.

“God, I forgot how light your hair looks in here,” she said, leaning back a little. “Almost golden.” She tilted her head as though examining him. “Nah. Still brown. But much lighter.”

“How could you forget? The photo here was in _ GQ, _the same article that first declared me the family golden boy.” At the corner of their conversation was the knowledge of where he’d inherited that hair color, as it sure as hell wasn’t from Ana. But he let the thought stay buried, patting the dirt back down with the shovel himself. Their relationship always had an absence in it, and he didn’t particularly feel like deepening it in the Oval Office.

“Ah, so that’s the one I have to blame for your big head,” she responded, reaching for a piece of fruit from the little coffee table. It was a familiar half-jest, borne from Adam’s constant contradicting confidence and imposter syndrome. Idiosyncrasies were just Adam’s style, never one to make things easy for himself. He sometimes wondered if so much of himself conflicted because he tried to walk the middle road so often, balancing his weight over all sides to minimize the damage if the rug was yanked from beneath him, like lying down on a bed of nails: a thousand tiny, dull pains over one sharp, potentially fatal puncture. She smiled again. “Is Noah doing well?”

“For Noah he is. He would barely look up from some new reports on fracking, seems hopeful he’ll be able to garner enough support.”

Ana snorted. “Good luck with that. I’ll be shocked if it reaches the floor for debate.”

“That makes three of us, then.” He nodded towards the desk. “Bad meeting?”

The frown lines on her face deepened. “Don’t get me started,” she drawled, falling back fully against the cushions. After only a moment, she _ did _ get started regardless of what Adam did or didn’t do. “We received the memo a few days ago that a delegation from Sweden wanted to be in contact, right? Fairly standard stuff, Maura gets back to them quickly because they worded it like it was an urgent matter, and there’s a back and forth for a while about scheduling and accommodations. We’re of the belief they won’t be out here until Monday at the earliest.”

Adam knit his eyebrows together. “It’s not Monday.”

“You fuckin’ tell me. Anyway, I’m halfway through a meeting with a few UN representatives when Maura has to interrupt. They arrived at the White House, claimed they had a meeting, and just…didn’t leave. Evan Maura couldn’t get through to them, which is the thing that scared me a little.”

“You should have put Calla on it.”

“Believe me, if she were here, I would’ve. But as it was, I had to hurry out the UN members to deal with decidedly more antagonistic foreign relations.”

“Why were they even here?”

“They wanted to discuss the military relationship between our countries-”

“What the hell?”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” she said, waving one hand in dismissal. “Any points they were trying to make went straight out the window when they started pulling out cue cards, to be honest. I might have to call Löfven to smooth things over.”

“Well, there’s never a dull moment,” Adam said fairly. His mother snorted.

“Sure isn’t. Anyway,” she said, glancing at her watch, “it’s now Thanksgiving, so no more meetings for twenty-four hours.”

“It’s Wednesday.”

She pulled a face in dismissal. “We take our patriotism seriously, darlin’. Don’t want our home state gettin’ too mad.”

“Of course.”

Ana checked her watch again. “The turkeys will be on their way to the Willard by now, so we’re not ruining any American traditions today.”

“Wait,” Adam said. “Where?”

She looked at him, her eyes narrowing. “The Willard. They stay there every year.”

“What? No. _ No. _You cannot give the turkeys five-star accommodations with taxpayer dollars. You’ve been doing this every year?!”

“It’s public knowledge, sugar. Every news outlet mentions it.”

“How did I not-” Adam cut off. “There is no way you can do that! They’re turkeys! It’s a waste!”

“It’s precedent, Adam. I’m not sure if there’s anything to be done at this point.”

Adam stood quickly, pacing back and forth, and his mother stood behind him. “It’s a _ blatant _waste of money, I’m shocked we haven’t already been-”

“Hon, every president so far has done the same-”

“Imagine the story if we broke the tradition! Even conservatives would have to applaud your frugality-”

“We can’t play games with tradition, you know they already call us disrespectful-”

“-we can’t be using _ taxpayer money-” _

“-by all means, if you have the time to find lodging for two forty-pound turkeys-”

“Put them in my room!” Adam blurted. His mother stopped short.

“You’re not serious,” she said. “We’re not putting the turkeys for me to pardon in your bedroom.”

“Yes, we are.”

“Adam-”

He shifted his feet, coming to a stop. He lifted himself up to his full height. Debate Captain Adam, six-time Best Delegate Adam, and First Son Adam converged into one. His mother barely looked phased.

“Oh, God,” his mother said. “I can’t listen to another sales pitch.”

“Madame President,” Adam began, “I’d like to echo the sentiments of the forebears before me-”

“Nope,” she said, making double-time back to her desk. “You’re not going to filibuster me.”

“In 2018 alone, at least forty-three articles in the Wall Street Journal accused the sitting administration of wasting tax dollars. This came on the heels of a tax increase for Americans making more than ten million dollars per year and the subsequent pushback from a more conservative electorate in Congress.”

“Fine!” Ana said, her hand falling to the desk with a thump. She brought it back up to her head to massage her temple a moment later. “I’m too tired to hear my own history read back at me. You win.”

He sat back down on the couch, crossing his legs primly. “Perfect,” he said, allowing himself to smile once again.

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bipabrena · 4 years ago

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Beneath x the x Ice (AO3 HisoIllu fic) Chapter 9

A fic where there’s more to Illumi than meets the eye. Hisoka goes to great lengths to help him realise he deserves better than the Zoldycks and being a puppet to his parents.

Read the whole thing here.

Amane, Gotoh and three more butlers stood guard around the massive dining room while the Zoldycks sat to dine.

Zeno and Silva strictly discussed business, while Kalluto and Kikyo spoke.

As usual, Milluki was allowed to use his phone to watch anime while he ate.

No one noticed the lonely Illumi.

Everyone alternated between eating and speaking, but Illumi did not. Illumi never moved. He merely stared at his plate with an impassive expression, the same impassive expression he’d always had.

Those huge, large voids for eyes merely stared at the plate of food.

Mouthwatering and delicious, and his stomach ached for it, but his body did not respond to fulfil its wishes. It remained hungry, as it had been for the last week that Illumi had not been eating, and as it would remain for the rest of the day.

Eventually, Silva attracted everyone’s attention so he could explain the job of epic proportions they had next. The one Illumi would take in, the assassination for the Queen.

They all listened intently, but Illumi remained in his bubble of nothingness.

“You have no dignity or a will of your own.”

“You let others make decisions for you, and all you do is nod. How pathetic.”

“You’re not even worth fighting.”

It seemed this is all Illumi could hear inside his head. It had been for the last three weeks, ever since the event with Hisoka transpired.

The family’s attentions was directed to Illumi once Silva addressed him.

But Illumi said nothing.

He hadn’t heard a single word.

It was then they finally noticed his plate was full, his cutlery had been untouched, and the glass was dripping wet as the cold from the beverage condensed from being unheeded.

“Illumi!” Silva yelled. Surprisingly loud, surprisingly firm.

They were all taken aback.

But all Illumi did was slowly look up at him. Aloofly. With zero emotion, with such impassiveness that even put his own family at unease.

It felt different from usual.

“Yes, father?” asked Illumi with a hollow tone that surprised them further.

“I’m speaking to you, son. Did you not hear a word I said?”

“Forgive me,” he said. “I did not.”

“Is something the matter, dear?” Kikyo asked. “You haven’t touched your food.”

“You’re so strong, so absurdly strong, yet so pathetically weak.”

“You have no mind or ambitions of your own.”

“You are pathetic, Illumi Zoldyck.”

“You’re not even worth fighting.”

He blinked impassively at them.

Pathetic… weak… not even worth fighting… he thought. A manipulated manipulator, a puppeteered puppeteer. That’s what he implied.

“Do you really love your family, or is it only a robotic, forced loyalty?”

Illumi sighed so subtly it was almost imperceptible to those watching him.

… I can’t help but wonder, he told himself.

“Son, your mother is talking to you,” Silva said in a cautioning tone.

Kalluto frowned as concern overwhelmed him.

What was happening?

Illumi seemed absentminded lately during training, but now during dinner, too?

They all expectantly awaited his response.

“I’m fine,” is what he elected to say. “What were you saying, father?”

“The contract for the Royal Family of Kanem will be in forty five days, starting today. We already have everything prepared, it is only a matter of waiting. In the meantime, you will continue responding to other contracts we may get.”

“Yes, father.”

He and Silva exchanged a look. The others couldn’t help stiffening because of the sudden tension that overwhelmed the room. Silva seemed stern and belligerent, while Illumi remained utterly indifferent.

Not defiantly. Not because he didn’t respect Silva or care for his words.

Simply because he felt he had nothing to care about in general.

“You’re an irreplaceable commodity for our family.”

He recalled those words told to him by Silva the day he sat him in his office. The eyes, the tone.

Their relationship had always been so give-and-take.

Nothing more, nothing less.

He’d never experienced the warmth or familial love Killua had been deluged with by his parents and grandfather.

The closest thing to it was Milluki��s fear and respect, and Kalluto’s fondness.

But nothing from his parents or grandfather.

A commodity. A commodity is not even sentient. It’s just a thing, he thought nonchalantly. A thing that benefits you. That’s my role.

Yes, that’s who I am.

I can’t escape the position I was born into.

I’m a servant of my own family. I was born to work for them. To be their puppet. To not have ambitions or goals of my own. Just like I told Killua of himself that day.

Except that those rules do not apply to him.

Yes… a commodity. That’s all I am.

Suddenly, Illumi looked at the ceiling inquisitively. He seemed utterly indifferent to the tension in the room, to Silva’s stern expression on him.

He was simply so absentminded.

It was incredibly concerning to all of them.

“Would you like to eat in your room, dear?” Kikyo asked, and that surprised them.

“No, but if you do permit, I’d like to excuse myself. I have a meeting with a potential client in a few hours.”

“Granted,” is what Silva said immediately.

Illumi stood and left.

His stride was robotic. Lifeless.

Despite being indifferent and emotionless, Illumi always walked with an admirable grace. His body was strong and lithe, he stood tall amongst everyone around him, with pride and with his head held high. He always moved with an intrinsic gracefulness and firm aura that clearly denoted he was strong and could win any encounter.

But right now, he walked with indifference, without purpose, without meaning.

And then, even Silva found it in himself to worry.

Illumi stirred his hot chocolate. The shape that had been drawn on it by the skilful barista faded into a foamy spiral.

“Thank you for meeting with me, Illumi,” said Chrollo. “I understand you usually do business through calls, so this does mean a lot to me.”

“It’s no problem. What do you need?” Illumi asked curtly.

“I’m sure you’re aware of this already, but the underground auction will be held soon. I have my own plans for it, but I may need to use your services.”

Illumi’s unblinking, onyx eyes bore into him.

What a strange thing, Chrollo thought.

Illumi’s eyes had always been cold.

They penetrated anyone whose gaze met his. His stare was piercing enough that it’d make anyone feel exposed, and even the strongest man would shiver, however slightly.

He just looked through you.

Like he were navigating every trench of your soul, of your mind; finding weaknesses and creating schemes to exploit them. A penetrating gaze that exposed everything about those submitted to it, but nothing about the one who owned it.

It was a hair-raising thought that everyone who’d ever met Illumi had thought to themselves.

Chrollo himself had thought it when he first met him.

But right now…

Illumi did not carry that presence. He seemed so impassive, so indifferent, so dead. Like there was absolutely nothing inside him. Like he were a shell, a ghost that happened to have a host.

And, somehow, that was even more unsettling. More hair-raising.

“When the time is right, I would like you to kill the ten dons.”

“Okay.”

Chrollo blinked.

“Is there anything else?”

Well… no. But Chrollo didn’t invite Illumi for coffee and snacks only for business. He’d like to get to know him better.

Frankly, he’d love to make Illumi the fourteenth Phantom Troupe member. At the very least, he’d like for Illumi to be an honorary member.

The Troupe rarely got together, there simply weren’t that many heists in Padokea. But with the rising gangs all across the world, he wanted the Phantom Troupe to be at the top as it once was.

Having Illumi around would change everything.

He had the connections to find whatever he wanted. The Phantom Troupe was never about glory, but about a bunch of comrades who did whatever they wanted simply because they could.

But Chrollo would like for the Troupe to be together more often. A couple of heists would be a nice way to stay together.

And with Illumi, he could find anything.

More importantly, it’d be a great excuse to spend time with him. To get to know him better. Even if he didn’t end up joining the Troupe, at least there would be something more between them aside from provider and client.

Illumi stirred his hot chocolate as he watched Chrollo, and Chrollo thought he was cute.

Chrollo listed the facts in his head.

The mafia was a huge deal, but their protection was limited and borderline useless against Nen users. Ultimately, they’ll end up contracting someone who could truly challenge the Troupe once they strike.

Assassins. And the most proficient assassins in the world happened to be in a nearby region.

The Zoldycks.

By having the ten dons killed, it’d leave the Zoldycks with no real targets assigned by a client, and so the Troupe would be scot free.

From the thirteen members in the Troupe, Chrollo knew that only five would pose a threat to the eldest son sitting across him, and the two heads of the family.

Uvogin, Phinks, Feitan, Hisoka and himself.

They were the true threats. The rest wouldn’t stand a chance.

So, if they happened to hire the Zoldycks, eight members would be at great risk of dying. Even Chrollo’s own life could be in danger. However, if he contracted Illumi right here, right now, he’d become his client, and so Illumi wouldn’t be able to kill him.

That’d be at least one less threat.

Chrollo manipulated the truth a little. He explained to Illumi the reason he was hiring him, and what the Troupe’s job entailed.

Illumi nodded.

Then, he decided to bring something else up, something that would bring him closer to Illumi.

“I wanted to know what other services you offer.”

“Elaborate,” is what Illumi said.

“Do you only assassinate? I understand how it may be a futile question with an obvious answer considering your profession, but I was wondering whether you offer other services such as Intel gathering or reconnaissance.”

Illumi’s hollow, nearly hypnotising eyes blinked at him impassively.

“I’m listening,” said Illumi.

“I’m sure you’re already beyond familiar with what the Troupe does. We’re thieves. We like something, we take it. However, there aren’t many heists here in this continent, and the underground auction is all we’ve had in a very long time. If I asked you to gather Intel for me, to find a job for me, would you be able to do it? It goes without saying the pay would be hefty. You’re the one that will put the price, and I will pay whatever it takes, so long as it doesn’t leave me squeaky clean,” he smiled. “But even then, I may still consider it.”

“As it is not a decision I can make on my own, I cannot give you an answer right now. I would have to further discuss it, then get back to you. Is that acceptable?”

“Absolutely, Illumi.”

He could hear it. Illumi could hear it so clearly in his head.

Silva’s voice.

“The pay isn’t worth it. Don’t mess with the Phantom Troupe.”

Well, he wouldn’t be messing with them. He’d be doing a job for them.

“Then, if that will be all, I believe we’re done here. I will be contacting you as soon as possible.”

“Wait, Illumi!” Chrollo called when Illumi stood up after leaving the money for his drink on the table.

Illumi looked at him.

“Won’t you sit and finish your hot chocolate?”

“I wasn’t here for it, I was here to discuss business with you. I don’t need to finish it.”

“Is there anywhere you need to be right now?”

Illumi was silent, and Chrollo took this as dissent.

“If you don’t, why don’t you stay here a little longer? We can chat for a while.”

Illumi said nothing.

It was hard to get him to talk. But that was okay, Chrollo thought. He liked a challenge. And if that challenge happened to be quite pretty, he would be more than okay with accepting it.

“If it’s your job policy to not relax a moment and sit down to talk to someone, I completely understand. If it’s not, however, I don’t see the harm in sharing a hot beverage with a friendly neighbour.”

… Ah, shit.

This wasn’t good. This brought back memories.

This place… the hot beverage…

“You’ve helped me keep an eye on Killu by your own volition.” He leaned back. “There will be a lot of people in that warehouse, possible Nen users too, that you can kill. I wanted to return the favour.”

“So,” Hisoka licked his lips, “as a token of your gratitude, you want to take me out on a date? ♠” he pestered.

Illumi blinked. “It’s not a date.”

“Is it not? ♥” he chuckled, hoping to annoy the eldest Zoldyck. “Because it sounds like one. You and me together, at night…”

Illumi blinked impassively.

… Why am I remembering that right now?

Goddammit.

… Hisoka… he thought to himself with the slightest sense of mourning.

“I suppose it won’t kill me,” said Illumi as he sat back down.

Chrollo smiled. He wasn’t sure whether that was a joke, but in the off chance that it was, he chuckled gracefully.

He brought forth his charms, the charms he used whenever he wanted to steal someone’s ability, whenever he decided to gather information, whenever he wanted to manipulate someone or gradually bend them to his will without them ever noticing.

Except that, for this one time, today was different.

Truly, he wished not to get something out of Illumi.

In fact, the main reason he wanted that new heist was merely to have an excuse to work alongside him. He was willing to pay whatever price Illumi placed. The auction would be soon and the treasure would be hefty, so money was not an issue in the slightest.

He wasn’t sure why the eldest Zoldyck son drew his attention so much.

He just knew that he did.

Read the rest of the chapter here.

#hisoillu #hisoka x illumi #hisoka morow #illumi zoldyck #Hisoka #illumi #Hunter X Hunter #hxh

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runtedfiction · 5 years ago

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A/N: for zutara week day 1! i’ve only watched half of korra so i don’t know what actually happens in canon, only that zutara didn’t 😔

AO3

* * *

Toph is the first to leave. Her final wave is larger than life, her smile brighter than the sun, as she and the Bei Fong security team kickstart their ostrich horses. “See ya later!”

Katara watches her go from the steps of the Jasmine Dragon, laughing and crying.

“And so she sneaks in one last blind joke,” Sokka says, rubbing at his eyes. Suki rubs his back. “Those Bei Fongs better take care of her.”

“It’s ok,” Aang says, also wiping at tears. He slips his hand into Katara’s, a quiet show of affection that she knows everyone notices. “This isn’t where the journey ends!”

“How can you be so sure about that, Aang?” she asks. “Sure, there’s lots of rebuilding to do, but I’m not sure if we can exactly do it together and—”

“We can,” Zuko cuts in. Though it’s been so long, she’s reminded of the first time she saw him in the Jasmine Dragon. But now here he is, hair down and shaggy, the happiest she’s ever seen him.

“Aang and I can’t rebuild the world alone,” he says. A glimmer of hope takes root in her heart. “We’re going to need all your help. Aang and I want to hold annual Summit Weeks for the next three years to fully realize our vision of peace; we would be honored to have all of Team Avatar there.”

“Of course,” Sokka says. “No brainer, I’ll be there.”

“Me too,” says Suki. “The Kyoshi Warriors are honored to serve.”

“I’ll be there too,” Katara echos. So much has changed in the past year, and she wonders what will change in the next. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

* * *

Katara, Aang, and Sokka leave Ba Sing Se for the Southern Water Tribe, and Team Avatar’s first year apart begins.

Katara and Sokka set on rebuilding their home, bringing in new technology and infrastructure. They sit next to their father at council meetings, paving paths of future greatness. Aang sticks around for the first three months before he leaves too to restore the air temples. “Just like you’re building a future here for new generations of waterbenders,” he explains, hand on top of hers, “I’m going to do the same for airbenders. We need our homes back.”

He promises to visit once every few weeks, and Katara sees him off with a kiss. He blushes like he always does, and an overwhelming fondness fills her. Aang may be 113, but he’s 13 in her eyes, giddy to hold her close and call her his.

After he leaves, Katara forgets the rest of the world, only remembering it when Aang comes back full of stories. But one morning a messenger hawk is spotted on the horizon. She drops her scrolls to sprint to it-- Zuko . They haven’t spoken since Ba Sing Se, and she fumbles with the red ribbon around the message, shaking with excitement.

Katara,

I know it’s been a while since you’ve heard from me, and I hope you’re doing well. As always, thank you for doing your part in ending the war. I also don’t know how I can thank you enough for saving my life; every day I’m reminded in some way.

Now that I’m settled in, I want to discuss plans for the new era of peace. For the Southern Water Tribe, this means reparations from the Fire Nation and electing a representative as a point of contact for our interim council. I’m drafting proposals and will be sending them over shortly; please let me know if I should be sending them to you, your father, or Sokka.

Again, I hope you’re doing well. The Summit Week will be a few months from now, and I hope to see you there. Write back soon.

Your friend,

Zuko

P.S. I know this letter may sound stuffy, and I’m Fire Lord now, but some part of me will always be the 16 year old rehearsing “Hello, Zuko here” and hoping for your forgiveness. Also, I hope Sokka’s not offended that I only sent this to you.

Sokka sticks his nose in the air when he reads this. “I am offended.”

“Oh grow up,” Katara says, laughing. “Think about how great it’ll be to see everyone again soon.”

Will Toph be taller, or Zuko’s hair shorter? Will Suki and Ty Lee go to the Summit? And speaking of the Summit, what can she advocate for during it? Katara picks up a pen and begins writing a reply, daydreaming about seeing her friends again in the back of her mind.

* * *

“Twinkle toes, I missed you so much .”

Toph runs towards Appa and gives them all a hug as soon as they land. She’s a bit taller, and behind her is Zuko, hair a bit longer, who joins the hug as soon as Katara pulls him in.

“Where’s Suki?” Sokka asks.

“The Kyoshi Warriors insisted on being private security for the event,” Zuko explains. “But Suki, come on out. Your boyfriend is eager to see you, no one’s looking to kill me here.”

“Suki!” Sokka runs to her as soon she slips out of the shadows, and Katara’s heart fills. Everyone’s together again.

Later that evening, Zuko joins them for dinner in their suite. It’s a curious affair--fire flakes alongside stewed sea prunes, cabbage noodles, and tofu. Sokka eats like a vacuum, and Katara is pleased that Aang has so many choices. She wonders if Zuko did research beforehand.

“I hope you’ve all been briefed on the schedule for the coming week,” Zuko says. “And I know it seems like a lot. But rest assured that every event will lead to an action item on my docket.”

“And,” he continues, “it might be boring. Insufferable, even. But to the world, we’re one of the most important teams guiding things forward.”

“Don’t worry, Zuko, we can do it,” Katara says, and he looks at her with a smile. For the past few months they’ve exchanged letters about rebuilding the Southern Water Tribe (they’ll ask the North for funds too), outlawing bloodbending (Zuko promised to help), and the new name of the four nations.

“The United Republic of Nations,” Aang says, digging into his sweet buns. “I like it.”

* * *

During the recess of The State of Bending talk, Zuko finds Katara and places a hand on her shoulder.

“People like Yakone are the worst,” he says. “But it’s going to be fine, don’t worry.”

“He’s pond scum!” Katara hisses. “I hate people who lie like that. And calling me not only a child but also a coward, with that look in his eye--Aang had to stop me from bloodbending him right there and then.”

“He’s pond scum, yes,” Zuko agrees, “but all you have to do is hear him out and make sure the interim councilmembers hear your arguments. I’ll back you up.”

“I know, I know. But still, pond scum!”

“Yup,” Zuko says, a smile on his face. “He’s cold ashes. We can take him.”

“You’re right.” Katara thinks of the times they followed each other into battle. This is no different; if anything, at least they’re not putting their lives on the line. “Thanks, Zuko.”

“No problem.” His smile grows soft. “And as always, I’m the one who should be thanking you.”

He follows her back into the meeting room where she makes history, her eyes glowing with the conviction she soon becomes famous for.

* * *

Almost two years later, after another Summit Week passes and just before the third one, Zuko sends Katara a letter that begins with It’s official! and ends with a copy of the new legislation outlawing bloodbending.

And in the middle of the Southern Air Temple’s training grounds, Katara jumps and yells with excitement.

Within a minute Aang is by her side, concern in his eyes. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes yes yes!” She kisses him on the cheek, and he looks confused. “The Council passed that bloodbending legislation! Oh, Aang, this is so great.”

“Oh yeah--awesome!” He says. “I’m really happy for you!”

“I can’t believe it actually worked,” Katara holds the letter close to her heart. “I can’t believe it!”

“I know, this is so good for you,” Aang says, his voice a bit rushed. “And I’m sorry but—”

“You have to go tend to the Air Acolytes,” Katara says. “I’m not in danger, don’t worry! You can hurry back.”

“Thanks for always understanding,” Aang says, giving her a quick kiss. Then he leaves in a gust of air, and Katara sits on the soft grass, feeling the breeze.

Aang resists political involvement, citing the Avatar’s need for neutrality, so it’s understandable that he isn’t as excited as her. Aang needs to preserve the traditions of the Air Nomads, so it’s understandable that he can’t be with her all the time. Aang is constantly called to stop civil wars or investigate malicious spirits, so it’s understandable that Katara sometimes goes a week without seeing him even if he asked her to live with him for a bit.

Katara understands these things, and yet some part of her yearns for the South Pole, for anywhere that feels like home. She’s acutely aware that Aang’s duty is to the world, and yet some part of her feels so small and alone.

At least there’s this letter. It's confirmation that her work these past few years has been worth it. And if the rumors are true, the nation heads are working on a new permanent council to govern the United Republic of Nations.

The era of peace is being fully realized, and Katara wonders how she can ask for a seat on the council.

A few weeks later, just as she begins writing a letter to ask her father if he could recommend her ( I know I’m barely 18, I know I only have experience with our small tribe, but I know I’m the best person for the job ), a message arrives.

I’ve written to your father to ask him to nominate you for the Southern Water Tribe Representative on the new council, Zuko says. If I could recommend you myself, I would. If he nominates you (and I don’t see why he wouldn’t), prepare to defend that nomination at the upcoming Summit.

Katara nearly cries, and Aang places a hand on top of hers. Even the sun seems to shine brighter; a leaf dances in through the window of the study room.

“Is everything alright?” he asks.

“Everything’s great,” she says. The thought of potentially moving to Republic City as a councilmember (and thereby leaving Aang’s side for some time) briefly flickers in her mind. “I have some great news.”

* * *

The third and final Summit Week comes, and Katara has the daunting task of defending her nomination in front of the nations’ leaders. Even though this really only means speaking in front of the Earth King and Northern Water Tribe Chief (Aang, Zuko, and her father are also in the room, but do they really count?), this is turned against her.

“Your father, partner, and longtime friend are likely going to vote for your approval. You already have three out of five votes secured. What do you say to people who claim nepotism?”

“With all due respect,” Zuko cuts in, a bit angry, “this question seems unfair, and—”

“It’s ok,” Katara says, voice measured. “People are going to say this. And to that I say that my accomplishments in the Southern Water Tribe, from securing and using reparations funds to build our growing nation to advocating for all waterbenders, not just the men, speaks volumes. I also originated the legislation that’s now in place to outlaw bloodbending. I pushed for these initiatives with the help of the people you just named, but ultimately I did it.”

Zuko smiles. He remembers some old campfire story Sokka told about Sapphire Fire as he watches Katara talk her through every sticky question. She’s going to do great on The Council, no doubt.

She’s already amazing.

* * *

Katara sighs in relief when the nation heads confirm her council seat.

Team Avatar celebrates over dinner. Only it isn’t a private room this time, like it was two years ago--this time around, it’s in the Fire Nation palace, in the biggest hall Katara has ever seen. Everyone invited to Summit Week dines together, the golden walls housing the noisy chatter of the most important people in the world.

Zuko prepared formal clothes for them tailored to their respective traditions, and as always, his quiet attention to detail never fails to amaze her.

“Tonight, we feast!” Sokka says, opening their table’s meal with a toast. “To my sister, who has never failed to be annoying and fight for the things she cares about. The Southern Water Tribe and the world are in debt to you, Councilwoman Katara.”

“To Katara!” Aang says, and everyone follows suit. Their glasses clink together, and Katara feels at home for the first time in a long time.

Toph tells them about all the lies she’s heard today (“People even lie about the kinds of tea they like, how weird is that!”), Suki pretends to chi block Sokka when he steals food off her plate, and Aang and Zuko trade friendly insults about who’s taller.

It’s perfect.

* * *

Dear Zuko,

Thanks so much for your support in nominating me to the council. You beat me to asking my father for his recommendation, and your confidence in me means the world. For what it’s worth, the way you and Aang have been dealing with the newly freed Fire Nation colonies is incredible. The world is lucky to have you both.

Moving to Republic City is going to be tricky, but I’ll be there before the end of month. I hope to see you there not only for my swearing in ceremony, but also for advising sessions. I’m sure we’ll see each other soon. Still kind of surreal!

Speaking of surreal things, I can’t believe you’ve been raising a dragon. On the one mission I was allowed to join Aang on, we found a herd of sky bison; they’re not extinct either! Appa’s babies are going to be so cute.

And finally, speaking of cute things, I’ve attached a painting that an Air Acolyte child did of you. Look--the scar is on the right side.

Your friend,

Katara

* * *

Moving to Republic City is tricky because Aang’s schedule collides with, well, everything.

Katara brings it up one night over dinner. “How is visiting each other going to work?”

“I don’t know,” Aang says. He picks up some silken tofu gently with his chopsticks, careful to not let it split. “This next month the Southern Air Temple is pretty set, but there’s two more to fill with Acolytes. There’s still rumors of civil unrest in the freed colonies. Zuko said he wanted an Air Temple Island next to Republic City, right? Maybe I could stay there?”

“Zuko wants your supervision on it, but the Island might not be ready for construction for another year at least. What if you stayed in the city with me for some time?”

“I don’t know,” Aang says with a sigh. “There’s too much to do, and I think the Eastern Air Temple needs full restoration next to establish a spiritual home. I’m really sorry, I know this is your dream and I’m making it difficult.”

“It’s ok, don’t worry,” Katara says. “You’re the Avatar. You serve the world.”

“I wish I could do more for you too though.” Aang looks remorseful, and Katara places her hand over his. He hesitates, then asks, “Do you--do you think you could ever take a week off and find me?”

Katara pulls her hand back. “What? No. The Council has so much to do, I even just wrote this whole Constitution proposal, and I don’t think that I could just leave for a week without that having serious conseq—”

“Oh, yeah, wait, I really didn’t mean to imply that leaving your job to see me wouldn’t have serious consequences.” Aang grabs her hand, and she appreciates the quick backtrack.

But it still stings. “Our jobs aren’t equally important and that’s ok,” she says, “but we have to figure out a system to see each other. Do you know a rough timeline of what next year would look like for you yet?”

“No,” Aang says, quiet. “Like I said, there’s too much to do. All I know...all I know is that I don’t want to feel like I’m losing you because you’re my forever girl.”

“Aang, you’re not losing me.” A beat passes, and she hesitates. “But forever is--forever is a really long time and I don’t know how to think about that, let’s focus on the next few years maybe--”

“I was trapped in ice for 100 years, Katara!” She can see tears brimming in his eyes, and it’s hard to comfort him when she’s the one doing the hurting. “A few years is nothing. I might have been trapped forever, if not for you or Sokka--I know how precious time is, but also how to wait, and I know I want you in my time.”

“I know that’s what you want,” Katara says, voice soft. And the next words to come out of her mouth are dangerous, something she only thinks when she’s alone. When Aang leaves her with a gust of wind. When she thinks about how the Southern Water Tribe might not even feel like home anymore; Sokka says so much has changed in the last year she’s been gone. “If we can’t see each other for the next few years, I’m not sure what I want.”

Aang is silent, and Katara’s stomach sinks. How could I say that?

But also, her heart soars— thank God I was able to say that.

“I understand,” he finally says. He stands and picks up their empty bowls. “You need to find your way. And for now, that isn’t with me.”

Tears well in her eyes. She nods.

* * *

Katara,

Aang told me what happened. I really hope you’re doing ok. When Mai broke up with me, I was devastated, but I understood that she wanted more out of life than watching other people live it. Not to say that’s what you’re doing, but more that I understood her perspective, much like I’m sure Aang will understand yours. (I realize this is completely unsolicited personal advice advice. Don’t worry, I’ve attached suggested edits to your constitution proposal to this letter.)

But really, if you need anything to get to Republic City, let me know. Druk’s gotten big enough to fly now, and the palaces always have empty rooms ready to receive guests. I can also always make arrangements.

Your Friend,

Zuko

(Aang still insists on dropping her off to Republic City, which Katara knows is his way of saying sorry. When they arrive, trying very hard not to cry, she hugs Aang as tight as she can before sliding off Appa.

“Write often,” she says. “And thank you.”

“I will,” he says. “And I should be thanking you, so don’t worry. I’ll see you later.”

He leaves with a defeated look on his face, and that’s when Katara lets herself cry.)

* * *

Living in Republic City still doesn’t feel real. Katara has never had a place to call her own before, and the idea of this apartment being hers is foreign.

At her swearing in ceremony, Zuko and her father are the only familiar faces in the crowd. Sokka, Toph, and Suki are all home as far as she knows, and Aang is at the Eastern Air Temple. But Zuko and her father bring flowers and words of congratulations, and that’s more than enough.

“Your mother would be so proud,” Hakoda says. “I knew even before you and Zuko sent those letters that you’d be the one for the job.”

“Thanks Dad,” Katara says, holding him tight for a hug. “I wish Mom were here to see this.”

“Me too.”

Next is Zuko, holding a bouquet of fire lilies. “I don’t remember if you like flowers, but I figured they’re a nice formality. Congrats, Councilwoman Katara.”

She holds the flowers and pulls him in close for a hug. “They’re beautiful. Thanks.”

A few weeks later, Katara finishes the first official draft of the United Republic’s Constitution. It’s one thing to read the historical documents that shaped each nation, and another to write them herself. Undeniable rights, government structure, due process--it's all she can think about for weeks.

She sends copies to all her friends, looking for advice. But it’s nice to catch up in the letters too; Suki has moved to the Southern Water Tribe for the time being. Sokka says Master Pakku and Gran Gran are disgustingly in love. Even Aang replies--it’s short and Katara can hear the hurt in his voice, but he’s trying, and that’s all she can ask for.

Zuko is the only person whose feedback she can hear in person. When he’s not advising the greater Council or overseeing construction of Air Temple Island he’s in Katara’s office, dropping off scrolls and occasionally serving tea.

"The Jasmine Dragon’s White Dragon,” Katara says, reading the label on the tin that Zuko carefully measures leaves from. He laughs. “What’s so funny?”

“My uncle once drank something thinking it was white dragon, but it was white jade. And you think it wouldn’t be too bad, but he was covered in rashes for days. Everywhere.”

Katara smiles. “That’s horrible.”

“It’s ok, we figured it out.” Zuko’s eyes have a faraway look, one that Katara often sees in herself. So much has changed in the past five years, but sometimes it’s easy to get lost in thinking about what it was like when the world was ending.

“Anyway,” Zuko says. “I have a free night a month from now, and we should get dinner at this new place I hear is good.”

“Kwong’s Cuisine?”

“Yup, that’s the one!” Zuko clears his throat. “Oh, and, to clarify, other people should come too if they’re free. Like, if Sokka is in town, or Suki, or Toph, or Aang. Although, I guess maybe not Aa—”

“Zuko,” Katara says with a laugh. “It’s fine. Kwong’s Cuisine a month from now sounds great.”

“Ok, sorry. Anyway, the Constitution…”

When he leaves, Katara finds herself smiling. Zuko’s cute when he’s flustered.

* * *

Katara only has one set of clothes fancy enough for Kwong’s, and it’s the set that Zuko gave her at the Summit a year ago.

Zuko notices when she arrives. “Are these the—”

“Yeah,” she says. “I guess it might be a bit embarrassing, but I don’t have much time to go shopping.”

“It’s not embarrassing, and that makes sense.” She takes a seat across from him. “If anything, it’s embarrassing how many robes I have. They have stewed sea prunes here, by the way. ”

“My favorite!”

They order a strange blend of Fire Nation and Water Tribe foods, but to their credit, the wait staff says nothing, only bowing deeply.

Katara refills their tea cups. “Speaking of sea prunes--even at the Summit, four years ago, when you had them served for dinner. How on earth did you remember that Sokka and I liked them?”

“You said it one random night years ago,” Zuko says. “And maybe Sokka said it in his sleep. The night we all came to Ember Island, I think.”

Katara’s impressed. “Wow, you remember that so clearly.”

Zuko nods, and there’s that faraway look in his eyes again. “Everything in the days after I joined Team Avatar and leading up to that final Agni Kai I remember very clearly.”

“Me too.”

Katara places her hand over his, briefly, to pull him back in the present. It seems to work.

“But hey,” she says. “Look where we are now! And to be honest, sometimes what I remember most is how mean I was to you in the beginning.”

What she doesn’t say is what she actually remembers most is Zuko jumping in front of lightning for her.

He laughs. “I remember you threatening to kill me if I ever stepped out of line.”

“Hey, hey,” Katara says. “Again, like I said, look where we are now! A valid point at the time though.”

“I know,” Zuko says. He’s handsome when he smiles too.

A few weeks after Kwong’s, Katara replays the night in her head and steps out of the shower, bending herself dry. Fuck, she thinks. I'm in love with Zuko.

* * *

Katara can’t pinpoint exactly when she started having feelings for Zuko, but now that she’s in the thick of it, it doesn’t matter.

What matters is that when she signs the Constitution, he hands her the pen. When rumors of bloodbending start, he helps her squash illegal training camps. When Toph joins the police force, he’s at her side to welcome her on the steps of City Hall.

“Sugar Queen, Sparky!” Toph opens her arms for a hug and Katara sprints into it. “It’s good to see you.”

“Toph, it’s so good to see you.”

“Orientation starts in a few minutes, so I have to go. But Sparky, that life-changing field trip--I still need it. I expect an itinerary by the end of the week.”

Zuko smiles. “You got it.”

The curious thing about being in love with the Fire Lord is that it’s not the grand things that Katara likes. It’s the small things. The way he always remembers to ask her how she’s doing, or how he sends tins of white dragon tea to her office. Even when she doesn’t see him for a week (Katara knows Zuko must be horribly busy and doesn’t understand how he has the energy to fly to Republic City on a weekly basis), thoughts of him live in her mind.

And so it’s terrifying but also easy after their second dinner at Kwong’s to move in a bit closer than she normally would.

“Thanks for flying me home,” Katara says. “I’m sure Druk wants to go home now too.”

“He doesn’t like the city. It’s too dense for him.” Zuko’s hard to read, as usual, and it’s terrifying to bet their friendship on this, but she knows she has to. “It might be ti—”

She cuts him off to kiss him, and for a second, time stops. But then another second passes, and another, and Katara is pulling back because ok, wow, holy shit was that the wrong thing to do .

But then he pulls her in tighter, kisses her more deeply, and happiness fills Katara the way fire lilies drink in rain after a drought.

“I love you,” he says, arms tight around her waist as he pulls her in for a hug. “I love you, and sometimes it feels like I’ve loved you all my life.”

* * *

Fire Nation summers are unforgivingly hot, and in the last few months of her term as councilwoman, Katara finds herself spending more time in the palace with Zuko.

She’s nominated Sokka to take her place on the United Republic Council, and he and Suki are moving to Republic City next weekend. It’s just in time for the unveiling of Air Temple Island. Aang will be the guest of honor, and Toph his security.

“I don’t think we’ve all been together since the summit four years ago,” Zuko says. They’re feeding the turtleducks at sunset, the only time of day when it finally starts cooling down.

She bends little ripples in the water, and the turtleducklings quack with delight.

“It’ll be great to see everyone again,” Katara says. “And I can’t wait for Sokka to start working so I don’t have to anymore.”

“Have you given more thought to what you want to do once you leave?”

She nods. “Yes, but there’s so much to do. I could train new healers or new waterbenders in the south. I could lobby for special interests like the former colonists. I could travel the world for personal enjoyment. Right now I’m leaning towards going back to the south.”

“That does sound like a lot to think about.”

“I know,” Katara says. “And I once fought with Aang about it, but now I understand. Sometimes it feels like there’s too much to do, and it’s easy to feel like you don’t know where to get started.”

“I have a suggestion,” Zuko says, “if it’s hard to get started. You could stay here, with me.”

Her heart skips a beat. “Stay?”

“Stay,” he says, like it’s simple, obvious even, for Katara to uproot her life and live in the Fire Nation.

To be fair, it wouldn’t be much uprooting. All she has is her apartment in Republic City, and even that doesn’t have many things in it.

“Hmm,” she says. “I never really thought about that.”

Zuko takes her hand, laces her fingers through his. Her heart aches at how gentle it is. “Maybe I’m not suggesting so much as I’m asking. You can split your time between here and the South Pole, even just three to four months out of the year here would be fine.”

“You’d really want me to stay?”

“Of course,” Zuko says. It’s unspoken, but Katara knows there’s the possibility of staying in the Fire Nation permanently down the line. And even more unspoken--she’s only 21, after all--is the possibility of being Fire Lady.

“I’ll take your suggestion,” Katara says, “and much like your letters, I’ll give you a response in five to ten business days.”

He groans and she laughs, kisses him on the cheek.

“Yes,” she says. “I’ll stay.”

* * *

A little more than a decade after Zuko’s coronation, Team Avatar reunites in the Fire Nation for a wedding.

It’s an entire day of ceremonies that marry Water Tribe and Fire Nation tradition. Zuko and Katara kneel in front of the Southern Water Tribe, the Fire Nation, and the spirits to bind their souls in marriage. It feels like the world’s oldest love story (Tui and La, Oma and Shu, Zuko and Katara), and in a way, it is. The brilliant blue of her robes pair nicely with his scarlet red, and the world cheers when they raise their hands together.

The dinner party is the first time of day where Katara can talk to Zuko. She tells him how handsome he looks and how much she loves him. She murmurs these words quickly--in the only break with tradition that day, Katara demanded that they be seated with all their friends and not separately.

She does it so she can look around at the people she loves most. Toph, Sokka, Suki, Aang, Zuko --these are the people who bookend her life.

She’s home.

#zutara #zutara week 2020 #zutara fanfiction

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artemishphm · 4 years ago

Text

ARTEMIS LUNA GREY

IDENTITY

Name: Artemis Luna Grey

Nicknames: Temis, Art, Artie, Mis, Moonie, Pip, Honey, Lunetta

Gender: Female

Age: 11 - 17 (in-game, 1984-1991); 47 (present day 2020)

Birth Date: 31st August 1973

Species: Human

Blood Status: Half-blood

Sexuality: Bisexual

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Ethnicity: Caucasian/White

Nationality: Half Italian, Half British

Residence: London, England

Myer Briggs Personality Type: ENFJ-A

THE MAGE

1st Wand: Acacia, Unicorn Hair, 12 inches, pliable

Garrick Ollivander found that wands made from Acacia were difficult to match with a wizard. Acacia wands generally refused to produce magic for anyone but their owners, but conversely, seemed to withhold their full power from all but the most gifted wizards.Owners of Acacia wands were generally subtle wizards, as wands made from this wood were generally unsuitable for what Ollivander termed "bangs-and-smells magic".

Wands with unicorn hair cores produced the most consistent magic, were least subject to fluctuations and blockages, were most difficult to turn to the Dark Arts, and were the most faithful of wands. However, they do not make the most powerful of wands (unless the wand wood compensates) and are prone to melancholy if mishandled.

2nd Wand: Laurel, Phoenix feather, 12 inches

A laurel wand cannot perform a dishonourable act, although in the quest for glory (a not uncommon goal for those best suited to these wands), laurel wands have been known to perform powerful and sometimes lethal magic. Laurel wands are sometimes called fickle, but this is unfair; the laurel wand is unable to tolerate laziness in a possessor, and it is in such conditions that it is most easily and willingly won away. Otherwise, it will cleave happily to its first match forever, and indeed has the unusual and engaging attribute of issuing a spontaneous lightning strike if another witch or wizard attempts to steal it.

The Phoenix feather his is one of the rarest core types. Phoenix feathers are capable of the greatest range of magic, though they may take longer than either unicorn hair or dragon heartstring cores to reveal this. They show the most initiative, sometimes acting of their own accord, a quality that many witches and wizards dislike.Phoenix feather wands are always the pickiest when it comes to potential owners, for the creature from which they are taken is one of the most independent and detached in the world. These wands are the hardest to tame and to personalise, and their allegiance is usually hard won.

Animagus: American Staffordshire Terrier

(Real footage of Barnaby playing with Artemis, Rowan rec)

Misc Magical Abilities:

Parselmouth

Just like her brother Jacob, Artemis is a Parselmouth. She realized she was one when learning about Vipera Evanesca in her fifth year, a snake told her all about his life and she talked with him about her friends.

Seer

Artemis can see the future with her inner eye. She rembers giving prophecies since she was born and how she cried when she couldn’t see her brother’s future anymore, she can’t also see her own future. Artemis hates having prophecies at the most random times (example: when Barnaby was about to kiss her for the first time).

Animagus

Artemis can switch to a dog. She learned to do it with Talbott, even though they aren’t really close. She is not registered in the ministry.

Legilimency

Artemis was born with the ability to read other people’s minds.

Wandless and nonverbal magic

Artemis learned to cast nonverbal and windless magic with Rowan during their second year while they got bored during one of their sleepovers.

Boggart Form: Rowan’s dead body waking up and telling Artemis that it was her fault that she was dead.

Riddikulus Form: Rowan laughing with the fun that she bought with with Artemis

Amortentia: (What do they smell like?) Rain, Cookies, Vanilla and Fire

Amortentia: (What do they smell?) Snow, Shepherd’s pie, Fresh Laundry and a hint of sandalwood

Patronus: Unicorn

Patronus Memory:

Dancing her heart out at the end of the fourth year with all of her friends in the courtyard thanks to a muggle stereo Jae had managed to smuggle in the castle

Mirror of Erised:

She sees her whole family just being there with her smiling, telling her how much they love her.

Specialized/Favourite Spells:

Flipendo

Episkey

Riddikulus

Depulso

Protego

Colovaria

Arresto Momentum

APPEARANCE

Faceclaim: Amanda Arcuri

Game Appearance:

Height: 5′5 (169 cm)

Weight: 110 lbs

Physique: Slim

Eye Colour: Green

Hair Colour: Natural: brown, but she changes it every two weeks

Skin Tone: Ivory

Body Modifications:

Her mother pierced her ears when she was born. During her years at Hogwarts she got a lot of other piercings on her ears.

She got a septum when she was 15

She also has a small sun stick & poke on her wrist. She got it with Rowan when they were 13 & bored. Rowan has a moon in the same place.

Scarring:

She has small scars on her fingers due to failed spells

She also had a scar on her lower belly but she doesn’t remember how she got it.

Inventory: (what do they carry on them?)

Popcorn (”you always have to be ready to watch Merula fail at duels”), her mother’s necklace, candy, eye-liner, one of Barnaby’s rings and a dugbomb (”just in case”)

Fashion:

Converse are a must, she’s always wearing them (even when she shouldn’t). During the weekdays when she is not wearing her uniform you can find her sporting an old hoodie and some sweats around the castle. When she’s outside or on special occasion she has a 90s style,

I’ll link her Pinterest style board here once I do it.

ALLEGIANCES

Hogwarts House: Gryffindor

Affiliations/Organizations: The Grey family, The circle of Khanna, House of Gryffindor, British Ministry of Magic, Order of the Phoenix

Professions:

Gryffindor prefect (1988-1991)

Auror (1992-present day)

HOGWARTS INFORMATION

Class Proficiencies:

Astronomy: Outstanding

Charms: Outstanding

DADA: Outstanding

Flying: Exceeds Expectations

Herbology: Outstanding

History of Magic: Outstanding

Potions: Outstanding

Transfiguration: Outstanding

Electives:

Care of Magical Creatures: Outstanding

Divination: Outstanding

Muggle Studies: Acceptable

Quidditch: TBD

Extra Curricular:

-Duelling Club

Favourite Professors:

Minerva McGonagall

Severus Snape

Sybilla Trelawney

Silwanus Kettleburn

Least Favourite Professors:

Patricia Rakepick

RELATIONSHIPS

Brother:

Jacob Apollo Grey

He used to be Artemis’ best friend, but after his disappearance she couldn’t help but think that their bond would never be the same

Father:

Xavier Grey

Xavier left when Artemis was 3. He never came back.

Mother:

Jennifer Bane

A very cold woman, she never know how to show her love to Artemis. After Jacob left she became verbally abusive towards her daughter.

Love Interest:

Barnaby Lee

Penny Haywood (one-sided love, 1985)

Best Friends:

Rowan Khanna

Jae Kim

Nymphadora Tonks

Tulip Karasu

Penny Haywood

Rival:

Merula Snyde

Ismelda Murk

Andre Egwu (friendly bc of quidditch)

Enemy:

Patricia Rakepick

Acromantula

Dormmates: (Who’s in your MC’s dorm with them?)

Rowan Khanna

Skye Parkin

Barnaby Lee (when he doesn’t get caught, sneaked in)

Pets:

Niffler named Plato

Abraxan named Achilles

Fairy named Roger

Closest Canon Friends:

Badeea Ali

Charlie Weasley

Bill Weasley

Liz Tuttle

Skye Parkin

Murphy McNully

Closest MC Friends:

Lizzie Parker ( @lizzieparkerhphm)

Luna Powell (currently 2nd year, one of my MCs)

If u wanna be friends with Artemis just dm me! I’d love to!

PERSONALITY

Artemis is kind, loyal and funny. She’s a bit bossy sometimes but she always everyone’s best interests at heart. She would literally do anything for her friends. She’s really impulsive and that often puts her in very dangerous situations. She’s also really smart.

MISC

Artemis started dying her hair during her second year, after Tonks pulled prank on her and put dye in her shampoo. She loved so much her green hair that she decided to always change her hair color (Colovaria helped, a lot too)

None’s ever seen Artemis with the same hair color for more that three weeks. Her friends often don’t recognize her from behind when she has a new dye

Artemis and Tulip throw the best parties. They got caught only once.

There’s an unwritten rule at Hogwarts, what happens at their parties stays in their parties.

Artemis loves muggle music, especially Queen and David Bowie.

Even though Snape is always pretty harsh, he’s one of her favorite professors (and deep down he has a soft spot for her).

Rowan and Skye found her during OWLs week at three am crying her heart while singing “love of my life” to a piece of paper where she had written “outstanding OWLs” and a bowl of ice-cream, probably stolen from the kitchen. They never talked about it.

Artemis is in love with the moon. She doesn’t know why, but she’s always felt connected to it. That’s why you can often find her in the astronomy tower just staring at the moon.

She ofter sneaks Barnaby in her room because the feeling of his arms around her helps her ease her nightmares and, when she has her visions, he’s able to calm her down almost instantly.

When Rowan died, he slept with her for two months. None of the professors said nothing.

Thanks to @hogwartsmystoryfor the template <3

#hphm #Harry Potter Hogwarts mystery #hogwats mystery #mc #hphm mc #character template #finally #jacob’s sibling #hphm jacob

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