#'whatever souls are made of yours and mine are the same stuff (derogatory)'

[leupagus]

I firmly believe Stannis is the Westerosi equivalent of the dad who hates cats, doesn't want to get a cat, makes a big deal about not liking the cat, and ends up being the cat's absolute favorite (except instead of a cat it's a huge fuckoff direwolf with boundary issues)

x

The door to the workroom opened and Ghost bounded inside, snuffling at Stannis's hands. Lady Stark, following behind, narrowed her eyes at him as she closed the door.

"You fed him something recently, didn't you?" she said. Ghost, finding nothing, gave a disapproving huff and flopped down by the fireplace.

He had, but that was besides the point. "What are the Knights of the Vale doing here?"

"Just don't give him chicken, we had a terrible problem with the henhouses when they were puppies," she said absently, and circled round to sit at her chair on the far side of the work table. "I brought them here for you."

Stannis, still standing, paused. "For me?"

"Yes, for you. I can't bend the knee, Your Grace. Not yet. But I'm not entirely useless."

"Of all the adjectives I've thought to describe you with, 'useless' has never been one of them."

She smiled at that and looked down at the papers strewn across the table. "Littlefinger — Lord Baelish," she corrected, "had plans for the North. Marrying my Aunt Lysa and becoming Lord Protector of the Vale wasn't enough for him; he wanted more."

"How much more?" Stannis asked as he took his seat again. He was already well able to guess the answer.

"Everything," she answered, a distant look in her eye that Stannis did not like. "He wanted to marry me off to the Boltons. I think the plan was for you you to come sweeping down from the Wall and either take Winterfell or kill out enough of the Bolton forces to weaken them. At which point Littlefinger could come riding to my rescue with the Knights of the Vale. He'd have a ward at the Vale who looked to him for approval, and a new Lady of Winterfell who'd be grateful to him for saving her from monsters twice over." She nodded at his moue of distaste. "Yes, well, he always did consider me one of his cyvasse pieces, to be moved around the board as needed."

Stannis had avoided Baelish at King's Landing, insofar as he could while both of them served on Robert's Small Council. But he well remembered how Baelish spoke of women, how effortlessly he used them and used them up. What damage had he inflicted on a young, friendless girl while he'd had her in his custody? No wonder Lady Stark had fled from him at the first chance of escape.

If that's what had truly happened. The story from the Riverlands was that Baelish had been killed by his own men, and there was no reason to doubt it — such a treacherous man would have succumbed to treachery sooner or later. But Lady Stark had proven herself capable of surprising things, these past months.

It didn't bear thinking of too closely. He cleared his throat. "The Vale, the North — if Baelish wanted the Iron Throne, he'd have needed more than two kingdoms at his command."

"The Riverlands probably would have been next," said Lady Stark with a frown. She pawed through the papers and pulled out a book. "I've been going through the maester accounts, such as they are, from the time my father left Winterfell until now," she said, flipping through it. "There are gaps, obviously, but Maester Wolkan's been keeping remarkably faithful records. Including copies of every raven scroll." She passed the book over to him, tapping at a particular passage. "This was sent to Roose Bolton from the Twins, only a few days before we began the siege."

"'The Blackfish traitor has stolen Riverrun from us. In the name of fellowship among the new Lord Paramounts and the victors over House Stark, we ask for your aid in catching this damned fish and roasting him on a spit.'" Stannis set the book back on the table with the peculiar urge to wipe his hands clean. "Walder Frey was always a craven. Wanting everyone else to fight his battles for him."

"He didn't even have the courage to murder my brother himself," said Lady Stark, taking back the book and closing it with a snap. "Though I've been told it was his son who murdered my mother. A great warrior family, clearly. Plus he doesn't know it's 'Lords Paramount' and not 'Lord Paramounts.'"

Stannis had seen flares of temper from Lady Stark before (on any number of occasions), but the icy rage in her voice gave him pause. Not for the first time, he considered how very merciful she had been with him, in the end. A man responsible for his own brother's murder, when she herself had lost her brother to the very basest of treachery — what might she have done to him, if he'd been anyone other than the rightful king?

Even as he wondered, he knew that his titles had not been what had stayed her hand in judgement. The Starks had never been particularly pragmatic, mostly to disastrous ends, and for all her intelligence Sansa seemed to have inherited a fair helping of the Tully pig-headedness on top of the Stark romanticism. King Stannis would have had no better luck against her judgement than Lord Stannis or Ser Stannis or even Goodman Stannis; it had been for some other reason she had spared him. He wondered when the bill would come due, and if it would ever be in his capacity to pay it.

Lady Stark had continued on. "I haven't found any record of a message sent back to the Twins, but I doubt the Boltons sent one. Lord Bolton were never much for rousing himself for anyone else's interests, even before he betrayed my family. I sent a raven to House Mallister of Seaguard; he sided with Robb during the war, and the Mallisters have always been loyal to House Tully." This time she handed over a scroll, flattened out but still curling slightly at each end.

It was only a bit longer than Walder Frey's, and about as useful. Blackfish holds fast; they have supplies within to last two years or more, and the siege set by the Freys will not last half a season. Brynden has not called the banners of the Riverlands, for Lord Tully is still hostage to the Freys. But if Lady Stark should call, Mallister will answer.

"'If Lady Stark should call,'" he repeated wryly.

"Lord Mallister bounced my mother on his knee when she was a babe, Your Grace," she said, equally wry. "All the oaths of fealty in the world can't replace the bonds of family and friendship between the northern Houses, even those not in the North itself."

"So I am beginning to understand," he said, handing the scroll back. "So the Twins are undefended at present."

"Most likely — Lord Frey is still there, but the bulk of his army will be at Riverrun." She leaned forward. "I've spoken with Lord Royce; he swears to me that Lord Arryn will bend the knee if you lead the Knights of the Vale and your own army and take the Twins. From there, you'll be able to break the Frey's siege at Riverrun — you'll have both the Vale and the Riverlands in a matter of months."

It was a fine strategy, but Stannis couldn't help but feel vaguely offended by it. "Do you mean to tell me that because you refuse to bend the knee, or promise any of your own army to my cause, you've delivered the Knights of the Vale and a promise of House Arryn's fealty as a...consolation prize?"

Lady Stark shrugged. "I suppose so," she admitted. "But a prize, nonetheless. I've only known Lord Royce since I was a guest at the Eyrie, but he seems an honorable man."

"He's an able commander, which is more to the point," Stannis contradicted absently, frowning down at the desk as he mulled it over. Two thousand men was no very great sum — but the Knights of the Vale were one of the best cavalry forces in the kingdoms, for all that they rarely strayed outside their mountains. With the Knights, Stannis's army could divide and take each half of the Twins in a pincer. It would be over nearly before it began.

"Of course, how foolish of me to consider such petty things as honor," grumbled Lady Stark.

Stannis ignored that. "Which leaves the Iron Islands to deal with. Has Lord Greyjoy sent any word?" Even the honorific stuck in his craw. Balon Greyjoy, the only other "king" to survive the war. Stannis had regretted the man's existence ever since the Greyjoy Rebellion.

Lady Stark shook her head. "Nothing. We've beaten back the last of the Ironborn holdouts, but I doubt they'll begrudge us that. My father always said the iron price never spent well. And they rightly blame the Boltons for whatever might have happened to Theon."

Which was still a mystery, so far as Stannis could tell. Theon Greyjoy had not been found among the dead at Winterfell, nor at the Dreadfort. If he'd escaped, there'd been no sightings reported. "No doubt you'll wish to execute him yourself, if he's found, but it would be better—"

"Execute Theon?" she said, her brow furrowing. "I — no. I don't wish that."

He leaned back in his seat. "You surprise me, my lady. I wouldn't have thought you squeamish after all this time." Perhaps that was his answer: she'd spared himself and Lady Brienne not out of principle but cowardice. In a way, it might be a relief: or at least it would be easier to understand.

She looked away. "Father did always say that whoever passes the sentence should swing the sword."

"That's not an answer. Your kindness does you credit, my lady, but if you show too much your people won't fear you. Which means they won't follow you, when the time comes." He'd said the same thing to her brother, more than a year ago when they'd argued over the fate of the wildlings and the drawbacks of mercy. The Lord Commander hadn't heeded the advice; was it a Stark family failing?

It must be, for Lady Stark sighed in frustration and said, "I don't want to be feared, Your Grace. And though you've failed to notice, I'm in no need of anyone following me anywhere. I'm staying—" She broke off and shook her head. "This always happens," she muttered, an odd smile tugging at her mouth.

He frowned. "What always happens?"

"This," she said, gesturing vaguely at the distance between them. "We can't go five minutes without arguing about something."

"That's not true." She sighed again and he reconsidered. "Perhaps if you didn't contradict everything I said."

"Perhaps if you had sisters, growing up," she countered. "My mother always said Arya and I were more trouble than all five of the boys put together." Her expression darkened and Stannis followed her thoughts — Theon had been one of those five boys. Raised alongside the rest of them, within these very walls.

"I thought you would want him dead," he admitted. "More than anyone else in the North."

She got to her feet and went over to the window, resting her arms on the sill as she looked out onto the courtyard. Stannis rose and joined her: down below were a dozen carts piled high with hay. All around them men and women were busy unloading the bales and stacking them up in a corner, where more workers took them away in a brisk line deeper into the Keep. Each cart was in the courtyard only a few minutes; when it was empty, the driver mounted up again and drove slowly out through the great gates, replaced by another cart yet more heavily laden. Supplies from the Northern Houses, to lay in for the oncoming winter.

"I don't want Theon dead," said Lady Stark after a long while observing in silence. He glanced over to her, but she was still looking down at the carts. "I don't want anyone dead, Stannis — there's been so much death. And more coming, if what Jon told you about the White Walkers is true."

She'd never called him by his name before; indeed she didn't seem aware she'd done it. "I believed him," he replied. "I still do. Your brother didn't seem the sort to make up stories."

"He always was honest to a fault," she said, turning to look at him at last. Her blue eyes were bright — tears, unshed. "I wish he'd come with you."

So did he, he realized. Not for his skill in battle or his perception or bravery: but only so his sister would not look so devastated at his loss. "He took an oath to the Night's Watch," he said, cursing at himself for his clumsy words even as he did so.

"I know that," she huffed. "Five minutes without arguing, is that really so difficult?"

"Evidently," he conceded, and she laughed. A watery sound, and she pressed the heels of her hand to her eyes quickly as she turned back toward the table, but laughter nonetheless.

[darisu-chan]

whatever our souls are made of (his and mine are the same), pt. 11

Welcome back to another addition to my collection, hope you all like it.

Just want to say this is a two-parter so be sure to read tomorrow’s one-shot too for the resolution!

You can also read it here.

See ya!

my love is so hard to disguise

Prompt: You can tell me anything. I won’t listen though

 Summary: No matter what Rukia says, Ichigo just cannot stop himself from protecting her.

“What the hell was that?” Rukia tells him as soon as they reach her office.

 Ichigo shrugs in response. “Me putting some bastards on their place.”

 “Uhu… So that wasn’t you acting like an ass for no reason?”

 Her voice drips with sarcasm, something he doesn’t appreciate, but he can see her point of view.

 “I wasn’t being an ass for no reason.” He shots back.

 “Oh really?”

 “I had every reason to be an ass.”

 Ichigo probably shouldn’t have said that with such pride.

 He knows Rukia won’t see the humor in the situation.

 Still, he can’t help it.

 “Oh, and who are you to fight with my trainees again?” She replies, crossing her arms and looking less amused by the minute.

 Crap.

 “Look, I’m not going to apologize for that.” He quickly admits.

 “I may have gone overboard. But they had it coming.”

 Rukia sighs as she hides her face on her palms.

 It seems that she’s about to admonish him.

 Yet, she doesn’t.

 “Ichigo, tell me, who is in charge of this division?” She asks instead.

 “You.”

 “And after me, who is in charge?”

 “Kiyone and Sentarō.”

 “And after them?”

 “Whoever is fourth seat.”

 “So, tell me again, why was it that you had to scold the new trainees?”

 He grumbles in reply.

 “What was that?”

 She raises an eyebrow at him, daring him to lie.

 “I didn’t have to.” He says out loud.

 “Glad you’re self-aware.”

 Oh, the sarcasm continues.

 Bad sign.

 But Ichigo’s not about to back down.

 “But I wanted to.”

 That’s obviously not the right answer as Rukia curses under her breath.

 “Damnit, Ichigo! Why?” She whines.

 And Rukia is not a whiner.

 So that means he has really screwed up this time.

 However, his position remains unyielding.

 “They were talking shit about you behind your back, so I couldn’t let that stand.”

 She sighs.

 “When that happens, you tell me about the situation so I can solve it! You don’t just step in and deal with something that pertains to me.”

 “Sorry not sorry, Rukia. I can’t just let that stuff go.”

 He stubbornly continues.

 “And why’s that?”

 “The moment someone is being rude to you, I must step in.”

 That gets her angrier.

 “Ichigo, it’s not your job to defend me, much less from my direct subordinates.”

 And he knows that.

 He gets it.

 Rukia is short, young-looking, and a woman in a very patriarchal society.

 Not to mention she’s fairly new at being a lieutenant.

 Then there’s the whole issue with her being from a noble clan and all.

 In cases like this, she is the one who needs to assert respect.

 But when he heard the new trainees complaining about Rukia, calling her every name on the book, from spoiled rich brat to incompetent Shinigami, he hadn’t been able to remain quiet.

 Much less when they had said she shouldn’t be in charge as she was too busy being “the Substitute Shinigami’s whore.”

 That he definitely couldn’t let pass.

 So Ichigo had followed his instincts and done what he had thought was appropriate.

 Kicking their asses.

 And he knows Rukia should have handled it.

 But the name calling had bothered Ichigo way more than he would have thought.

 It had been a dig to his own insecurities, of taking too much of her time, of Rukia being ignored or disrespected due to his presence.

 And the way these trainees had defined their relationship had been the last straw.

 Was that how they looked to the outside world?

 He has to wonder.

 Was Rukia seemingly nothing to him but someone he could use for sex?

 That statement was beyond derogatory.

 And Ichigo knows that Rukia has been called many names before.

 From the time she was a child growing up in the Rukongai to when she was adopted by the Kuchiki Clan, she had been called many things.

 Street rat.

 Spoiled.

 Robber.

 Stuck-up.

 Undeserving.

 But Ichigo never wants to be the reason why someone feels the need to insult her.

 So he had snapped.

 In hindsight, maybe he should have just been mildly terrifying.

 Maybe a bit of yelling would have sufficed.

  That has never been his style though.

 Truthfully, he hadn’t beaten them up like he would’ve done in the past.

 It had just been enough to scare them from furthering offending their very capable and admirable lieutenant.

 Yet Rukia hadn’t been amused or thankful.

 Ichigo does get it.

 It’s just… he can’t just let such things happen.

 He can’t watch silently as the woman he admires so much gets insulted by the people that should be respecting her.

 It is the very least Rukia deserves after all she has done to improve and get to where she is.

 “I get your point.” He concedes.

 “You do?” She says, clearly skeptical. “Because it doesn’t look like you’re listening to me.”

 “Oh, I hear you, Rukia. I’m just not going to stop doing things my way.”

 Yet, he stands his ground on this issue.

 “Ichigo, we’ve been through this! I can’t take care of myself.”

 “I know that. And I don’t doubt it. You’re a badass. You’ve saved my skin more times than I can count. It’s just, I can’t just stand there and let other people insult you. Not on my watch.”

 Rukia sighs again.

 “You know what they’re going to think, right? That I have a guard dog waiting there to bite anyone who’s against me.”

 Guard dog?

 That doesn’t sound so bad.

 “Damn right you have. They’re gonna think twice before being disrespectful now.”

 “That’s not going to solve the issue here.” She deadpans.

 “Maybe not, but you can’t deny it was satisfying watching grown ass men crying for their moms.”

 He jokes to ease the mood and it works.

 Rukia chuckles and shakes her head.

 “If they accuse me of being a tyrant, it’s going to be your fault.”

 She gently admonishes him and Ichigo grins.

 “Hey, I accept all responsibility.”

 She drops it after that, muttering something around the lines of “you never change.”

 Sooner or later it’s going to come up again, though.

 But maybe next time he won’t get such a light scolding.

 And it’s not as if he doesn’t know what Rukia meant.

 He does and he respects it.

  However, Ichigo cannot just listen to her on this one thing.

 Let people think whatever they want.

 Let them accuse him of being overprotective.

 Of being her personal guard dog.

 They might be right.

 Because he will never let anyone hurt Rukia.

 Ever.

 And if she gets mad or if others criticize them, so be it.

 It is the price he must pay for wanting her to be happy.

 Because her happiness is everything to him.

[richmegavideo]

The Grand Finale © N.W.A.

This post is the last one in the life of Poisonous Paragraphs, a blog that represents three years of continuous work. I had left my job in management & quit emceeing between October 2005 & Summer 2006 and I needed a new direction. I used to have no problem getting work in record stores or video stores but they'd been all but phased out by then & they no longer needed to hire knowledgeable staffs anymore due to new advances in technology.

I needed to get into Hip Hop journalism but I had spent the past 10 years working and I had no resume, writing credits or journalism degree so no one would dare hire me. I needed a plan. I ended up running a stickied thread on AllHipHop.com called "School Me On Some Hip Hop" and frequenting Hip Hop blogs but it wasn't until the AHH users began posting blogs by Tara Henley, Sickamore, Billy X. Sunday (who I didn't know was Dallas Penn @ the time) & Byron "Bol" Crawford. Needless to say, I soon became a frequent XXL blog commenter as Poisonous Dart.

Other XXL blog comment regulars of the same time include Meka Soul (Meka @ HipHopDX & 2DopeBoyz) and Khal (Khal @ Rock The Dub) so I was in some distinguished company back then. Most of my comments were venom directed towards Byron Crawford, though. I noticed that of the 100 hateful comments direct towards him he'd often respond to mine. That let me know that I was on to something.

Back in the summer of 2006, XXL blogger, mixtape DJ and Atlantic Records A & R Sickamore started these series of blogs called "80 Reasons You're Not An 80's Baby" . I thought that he had a point to some of the stuff he was saying though I didn't totally agree with his viewpoint.

Most older heads just got pissed off and blindly attacked him and the younger generation for not knowing their Hip Hop history and reveling in their ignorance of it. Every Hip Hop site with a message board seemed to have a flame war going on with older heads on one side and younger heads on the other (usually Dipset fans...why was I not surprised?).

Rather than take part in this "divide and conquer/Willie Lynch" mentality, I decided to stay out of it and try to bring the sides to a middle ground if I could by posting on AllHipHop.com with more regularity. I was already running a stickied thread called "School Me On Some Hip Hop" along with some other regular posters but I wasn't big on posting in "The Reason" because it was wild ass hell on that messageboard (those that used to frequent it before the new version went up can attest to that) and it was hard as hell to get a point across to readers as The Reason wasn't really used to reason, ironically enough.

After Sickamore fanned the flames with the second post of what was to be a four part series I could see that by reading the third part that he really ran out of stuff to write about and began using shortcuts. I knew that he probably didn't feel like doing a fourth part and that he would only do one at his own leisure because it seemed like his heart really wasn't in it. I figured that if I made my own version of his blog series, but for older heads it would help the situation out some. I had to go all out, though. I decided that I had to do "100 Ways To Know If You're A 70's Baby".

My first draft was about Coleco Vision and Atari 2600 and shit only a kid born in the 70's would be able to relate to. I realized pretty quick that my blog would actually help more if it could be relevant to a wider cross section of readers. After all, most heads that old weren't the ones actively frequenting Hip Hop messageboards anymore. I wrote another draft of my blog and began revising it all night until I got it where I wanted it to be.

I posted it up on my MySpace page first (the same place I posted all my early blogs that only about 20 people read) and then I posted it up in The Reason section on AllHipHop.com early in the afternoon. I was surprised to see that people were reading it like crazy. Eventually it got stickied and I began getting PM's and e-mails from all over the place. I thought that would be the end of it...not even close. That night, Sickamore posted up a new blog on XXLmag.com ...mine.

It turns out that he went on to AllHipHop.com that afternoon and read it himself and liked it so much he posted it where even more eyes could see it. Now the e-mails and PM's really started coming in like crazy. It got to the point where I even asked Odeiesel (of AllHipHop.com) for a bigger PM box. He responded by saying yes provided a post a regular blog each week on AllHipHop.com and posting it in The Reason. I said "Hell yeah".

That one blog ended up being posted all over the internet and MySpace. If I Googled it I'd find it all over the place. I was in shock that so many people read it and responded to it. It was then that I decided that as much as I posted on all of these messageboards all over the internet that I might as well write. It's pretty much what I had already been doing anyways if I really thought about it.

After four months of blogging every week on AllHipHop.com, I decided that on January 1st, 2007 I would start my own blog where I could write about whatever the hell I wanted at any time. Blogging was like playing Uno with two people to me...mad fun ("Skip you back to me, skip you back to me, reverse you back to me, reverse you back to me, Wild draw four and the color is green...Uno!" and the one card you have left is a green nine that looks like a six with the line underneath it).

I decided to call it Poisonous Paragraphs after the underlying name of my blog series on AllHipHop which was called "The State Of Hip Hop: Poisonous Paragraphs". I initially started that series to directly combat the ignorant shit posted on Bryon "Bol" Crawford's blog at XXL.mag, he had what I wanted...mad readers. I eventually realized that he's a grown ass man that has to answer for his own ways and actions and going at him was a waste of time when I should be focused on myself and my own writing (though, he still does piss me off with the ig'nant shit he posts from time to time).

To read any of my old ass blogs from the State Of Hip Hop series read 'em here (some have been posted here already). I'd like to thank my boy Rideout from Detroit who first encouraged me to blog by doing his MySpace blogs. I'd like to thank Odiesel and all the heads and moderators from AllHipHop.com for being first to acknowledge me and giving me a forum to address people.

I'd also like to thank all of my old BostonRap.com, RepDaBean.com. Okayplayer.com and Dissensus.com compatriots for trading information with me and putting me on to things I normally wouldn't be into. I'd like to thank all of the bloggers I met when I did those legendary threads on Okayplayer where I'd go around the internet finding links to out of print albums for understanding that I wasn't just jacking their links and not giving them credit..that's how I met a great deal of the bloggers I know now.

I'd also like to thank all of the regular readers of this blog for bearing with me even when I didn't know how to post links to albums until February 2007, post pictures on the blog until May 2007 and imbed YouTube videos until April 2007.

I wish knew when I first started to switch to Firefox from Safari when posting blogs from my Mac so I could use "Compose" and add functionality to Blogger. In September 2007, I went into Newbury Comics and saw the cover of a New Avengers comic book drawn by Lienil Francis Yu that gave me my now iconic avatar/logo.

In the past three years of blogging on Poisonous Paragraphs I've run though about 4 laptops, run afoul of a bunch of bloggers, writers, websites, film studios, television networks, celebrities (both local & international) and record companies. I've also learned how to be a better writer by regularly reading posts by the best bloggers, writers and journalists in the game. I don't understand why so many people use the word "blogger" as a blanket derogatory term.

The print media is dying so many of us bloggers that would be writing professionally for a publication or didn't attend journalism school will never get the chance to become "legitimate"writers. I don't give a fuck what company you draw a check from, you're either good or you're not. Period.

I'd like to thank all of my blogging brethren & sisteren for tolerating me posting up eleventy billion jpegs thereby freezing your Blackberries and writing all the goddamn time like a graphomaniac madman (anyone who follows me on Twitter can attest to that). I'd also like to thank you all for making me step my game up over these past 734 posts over 156 weeks and 1,096 days.

I'd like to thank the collapse of the print media for preventing me from ever getting a job doing this, eMusic for fronting on the dough once they realized I was going to bankrupt them and all the publications & sites I turned down because I refused to write some bullshit about some wack artists I didn't believe in.

In turn, I'd also like to thank all of the producers, emcees & artists that made material that inspired me to get up every day and write. I'd like to apologize for being a damn ninja to all the people in Boston's Hip Hop community since late 2005 as well. All my peoples that knew who I was and didn't say anything get all the props in the world. I'm ending this blog without compromising my integrity and keeping my reputation & principles intact which is more than I can say for some folks. You'll be seeing me soon. Believe it.

Steve "Dart" Adams Poisonous Paragraphs/Bloggerhouse poisonousparagraphs@gmail.com

One.

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