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welcometothejianghu · 3 months

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Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 山河令/Word of Honor.

Word of Honor is a 2021 adaptation of a novel by priest that tells the story of two beautiful murderers, their three kids, and their collective attempts to ignore the fetchquest madness that has taken over the rest of the jianghu.

Look, you know what Word of Honor is. Doing a rec for this is like doing my rec for Nirvana in Fire -- I am not introducing you to a new concept. Even if you haven't watched it, you've probably osmosed enough through the rest of Tumblr to have an opinion on it. At this point, if you haven't seen Word of Honor, I'm assuming it's for one of two reasons: either you haven't gotten around to it yet, or you haven't been sufficiently moved by what you've seen fandom do with it.

So I'm going to give you five reasons to watch the show, and they're probably not going to be the reasons you've seen already. Not to say that the other reasons are bad, but you've heard them already, right? What I've got for you are five somewhat more unexpected reasons that may just convince the fence-sitters that this nut-flavored morass of toxic relationships is worth your time.

1. No matter how gay you think it is, it's gayer

Okay, sure, you've probably been given the impression that this show is real gay. But I don't know if you know how gay it is. This show is so gay that we still haven't seen many of the other BL-flavored shows filmed around the same time period or since, because Chinese censorship gay-panicked and locked them all away before they could air, because Word of Honor was just too gay.

Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing (L-R above) are in love. The story does not make sense if they're not. There is no story if they're not. Everything else in the show is set dressing to this incredible adventure story of two horrible people who fall for one another.

Oh yeah, did I mention that they're both bad guys? One's a fascist toddler-murderer and the other's a cannibal mob boss. These two deserve one another, in every possible sense of that phrase. In any other property, they'd be the villains -- and even here, they're still kind of the villains! It's just that the heroes are worse.

What's more, their two actors absolutely understood the assignment. They got the memo. They read the book. No one ever had to sit them down midway through shooting and explain their dynamic. They had it from the table read. When given creative freedom, they chose to double down and make the gay shit even gayer.

But the actors weren't the only ones who knew what they were doing! Everybody working on the production was pretty much in full-on Let's Make A BL mode. There are no gay accidents here. It's so gay that it's actually gayer than the version that aired. If you can do a little lip-reading (though beware of spoilers in those links), you can get at the original filmed version, which had a number of lines that were too homo and/or sexual for Chinese television.

No, they don't kiss. They don't have to. This is the TV version of the tweet about, what's gayer, gay sex or whatever these two have going on? The answer is, whatever these two have going on.

It's so gay that they're not the only gays. No, I'm not going to tell you who the other gays are, in part because spoilers. But trust me, they're there. Lesbians too! And a bisexual elderly polycule! And one pair of hets that we love love love, and most other heterosexuals are creepy and gross. And if that's not an accurate representation of how the world looks to queer people, I don't know what to tell you.

2. Go nuts!

You are not prepared for the product placement.

Word of Honor started off having a budget, so they went ahead and started spending that budget in the way you do when you're making a TV show. Unfortunately, circumstances changed, and their budget became much less, which meant they couldn't keep making that TV show unless they got more dollars. But where to get a sponsor for a fairly low-profile wuxia BL property?

Enter our hero: Wolong Nuts.

I have seen actors do bumper ads in costume for products from their various sponsors, and I have seen actors do bumper ads in character for the same. But the feeling of seeing a modern product diegetically hawked mid-scene by ancient fantasy characters is like none other.

Something like 40% of Word of Honor's total budget came from this nut sponsorship. And here the thing: It worked! It sold nuts! Hell, I’d buy them if they were sold anywhere near me; I like nuts in general, and nuts that support the queers in particular.

I'm including this as a selling point because, come on, it's funny as hell. But it's also a good place to warn you that Word of Honor has what we're politely going to call a spotty use of its funds. Some things, like everyone's outfits and the score, are lavish and beautiful. Other things, like some of the sets and a lot of the CG, are janky and sad. Crowd scenes are thirty humans and a bunch of Blender assets. I've never seen so many fake plastic trees together in one place before. There's a lot of visible hairnets. Like, a lot.

The show was originally planned as being 45 episodes long. It wound up being 36 + a tiny epilogue. That's a huge cut! I’ll say to its credit that you mostly can’t feel the seams; the production team did a heroic job killing their darlings (in many senses) while keeping the narrative coherent. If you know about the original vision, though, you can identify pretty quickly where the excised material should have been. Don’t be surprised when the last two episodes in particular smack you like a hit-and-run.

They blew a truly unwise amount of the budget on costumes in general, and Wen Kexing's costumes in particular, and thank goodness. (@canary3d-obsessed has done a noble job of cataloging everyone's wardrobes, and some of the details are just stunning.) See that red outfit he's wearing there, with the elaborate, delicate embroidery? That apparently took two people literal months to hand-sew. It's a terrible use of limited funds, and I am living for it. Even when Wen Kexing looks awful, he looks stunning -- especially when you put him side by side with Zhou Zishu, who is wearing the jianghu equivalent of slutty yoga pants and a thrift-store dollar-bin t-shirt that says IT'S WINE O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE.

So if, while you’re watching, you’re ever disappointed by the quality of the production in front of you, just console yourself by thinking: That’s nut money, baby.

3. The ghosts (and everyone else) doing the mosts

This is a show that somehow managed to accumulate a tremendous supporting cast of actual grown-ass adults, then had the wisdom to make them play a wide variety of balls-to-the-wall bonkers roles.

You can't throw a rock in a crowd scene without hitting a dozen actors with resumes as long as their arms, who have been acting since before you were born. Apparently they poached a couple veteran film and stage actors from other contemporaneous productions and had them come over to film bit parts on their days off. If you see a character played by an older actor who's getting more lines and face time than you think their character strictly deserves relative to their importance to the plot, and you're like, hm, I wonder if this older actor has a career that includes roles in several dozen other shows and/or stage productions, the answer is yes.

I've seen the tone of the show described as melodramatic, but I don't think that's quite it -- it's more operatic. People speak to the middle distance and play to the back row. Several actors have the body language and line delivery that makes it seem like they're always about three words away from breaking into song. Several of my favorites are downright camp. It's magnificent.

Statistically, everyone in this show is a bad guy. There are the respectable people who don't mean to be bad guys, but wind up being bad guys anyway because they support bullshit systems. There are the morally grey folk who are willing to become bad guys because they think they'll be the good guys when all is said and done. And there are the bad guys who know they're bad guys and are going to chew every piece of scenery in the vicinity about it, so watch out.

My favorite collection of scene-stealing weirdos is probably the clutch of freaks that make up the ghosts of Ghost Valley. They're not actual ghosts -- this is not a supernatural show. They are instead living people who call themselves ghosts because they've found themselves on the margins of society for one reason or another, and have created their own little society! With hookers! And blackjack! And also a little murder, as a treat!

These ghosts are so extra that they actually have a Top Ten List, where all the ones that have code names and specific costumes hang out. How do you get on the Top Ten List? By killing one or more of the people already on it, of course! I told you these guys are villains! They're not even the only villains! They're not even the only villain organization! It's wall-to-wall bad guys around here! And oh my goodness, the actors are clearly having a ball with it.

When the screenwriter came to adapt Faraway Wanderers (the novel) into Word of Honor, she realized that there weren't a whole lot of ladies in the book -- so she invented/adapted some for the show and made most of them sinister! (In fact, if you watch Legend of Fei -- and you should watch Legend of Fei -- you can see a lot of the inspiration for said ladies.) Some of the female characters in the show were men in the book, while others weren't even in the book at all. They all feel organic, though, and not like someone was trying to get Strong Female Character Points. It's the good representation you get when there's a lot of representation, so nobody has to be The Girl, and all the girls can just be people.

...Alas that another casualty of the budget cuts is that several of the lady characters did not get to live up to their full ass-kicking potential. But that potential is still there! The badassery may be implicit instead of explicit, but you don't doubt that many of these women would eat your heart at the slightest provocation, and you would thank them while they were doing it.

This show is perfect food if you're the kind of viewer liable to get sucked up into the worlds of villains, NPCs, bit parts, optional side characters, and other narratives going on outside the main storyline. Because there's a lot going on outside the main storyline. I mean, that's kind of the running joke of the whole novel, that there's this whole complicated political plot happening, and yet our dudes are over here studiously trying to not know what the hell is going on. Obviously that's harder to preserve in a show, but it's still a key feature of the narrative. Most of the Big Power Play What-Not is always happening a few towns over from where the main party is at any given moment. I know people who've watched the drama several times and still can't explain whatever's happening with all that. That's fine. You roll with it for the sake of everything else.

So! Do you like gazing upon delightful character actors and having imagination adventures about the unexplored workings of a bunch of tantalizingly mysterious and often very sexy weirdos? Great! This will keep you busy for a good long while.

4. The juciest pining in the jianghu

I said I wasn't going to tell you about all the gay shit going on here, and I'm not. What I do want to cover, however, is how much gay shit isn't going on here -- and by that I mean just how much of the show's gay longing is unrequited. If you like it when the boy yearns for the other boy, friend, you will feast well tonight.

You have likely already, through fandom, been alerted to the existence of the biggest gremlin in the land and an understandable number of people's favorite character, immortal grandpa Ye Baiyi. What may not have been conveyed, however, is just how tragically gay this bitch is. The ultra-condensed, scrubbed-for-spoilers version of his backstory is that he was in love with a guy who got injured because of him, so he decided to stay and live on a mountain with that guy and the guy's wife and coparent their son with them, all the while never once telling the guy how he felt.

This is not me with slash goggles on. This is canon. Well, okay, the "in love with" part is only confirmed in the book, but Huang Youming, Ye Baiyi's equally gremlin-like actor, has also clearly done the reading and understands how to break your heart with it. Ugh, it's so good.

Shidifuckers, rejoice! Zhou Zishu has Han Ying, his devoted little dumpling who would -- and does -- do anything for him. Back in Zhou Zishu's regrettable (but very fashionable) fascist days, he had a bunch of little underlings; one of them was Han Ying, who still works for the same evil empire. Problem is, Han Ying isn't evil. He was never loyal to his job; he was always just loyal to Zhou Zishu. It's cute the way Wen Kexing hisses like a cat upon meeting Han Ying and immediately identifying him as a rival for Zhou Zishu's affections. If you like OTPs that occasionally roll in a service-top third, please consider that adorable muffin boy up there.

And speaking of quitting your job, have you ever had the problem where you had to orchestrate your own death to get away from your toxic boss who won't stop sexually harassing you, and that motherfucker still expects you to show up for your shift next weekend? Meet Prince Jin, who has refused to accept Zhou Zishu's resignation letter with extreme prejudice.

Zhou Zishu isn't even the only ex he's mad he drove off! But that's just a namedrop in the show; see my bonus selling point for instructions on how to get into that whole gay-ass story. [insert obligatory "Prince Jin is not Helian Yi" disclaimer here]

...Nope, uh-uh, we're not going to get into what's going on with Scorpy. Suffice it to say, this is one of those cases where the show can't outright call a thing gay (though uhhhh it sure can imply a lot of it!), but it can set up an unspoken Gay Bad Idea as a direct, textual parallel with a canon Straight Bad Idea and be like, see? see? Anyway, daddy's boy there has deliciously terrible taste. This is the one that'll have you screaming crying throwing up etc.

And then there's this handsome jackass, who isn't doing the pining, but is the unfortunately heterosexual object of the often confused and misdirected longings of his friends. About the first thing you know about Rong Xuan is that he died before the series begins, so you only see him in a few flashbacks. The precious few times you do, though, you're treated to scenes of him holding court among his besties (many of whom are the spectacularly cast younger versions of major older male characters) while they all wrestle with varying degrees of homo longing for his cocky dreamboat self. You ever wanted to fuck a straight guy so bad you got both him and his wife killed about it? Because somebody in this drama sure has!

I sense you think I'm making this all up, that I'm just a fujoshi looking at the world through rainbow-colored glasses and telling you about her favorite slash pairings. Friend, I am not. Okay, I am being a little cheeky about the last one, but I swear that everything else I have listed in this selling point is about as textual as the show could make it, if not outright straight (ha ha) from the books.

(I have a whole separate theory about how priest herself is a real-life queer, based on how basically everyone in her works is either queer-coded or a token straight who's on thin ice, but that's a subject for a completely different Tumblr post no one's ever going to read, so save us both the time and imagine I already wrote it.)

I cannot stress to you enough how much this show knew what it was doing with the queer stuff. I love how amazingly toxic so much of it is, too, because one of the big themes of the show is that secrets will destroy you and everyone you love. If you have gay longing in a society that forces you to hide that gay longing, yeah, you're going to be extra-vulnerable to making some shitty decisions because of it! You're either going to suffocate yourself by keeping silent, or you're going to open yourself to intimate partner abuse you can't reveal to anyone else, or you're going to do some murders about it! Or some combination of the three! Either way, it's not good!

Also, tell your partner about your chronic health conditions, whether they be Can't Remember My Past, Would Eat A Guy If I Had The Opportunity, Stuck Some Nails In My Chest And Am Now Dying And Also Can't Get A Boner, or Whoops Took The Nails Out Of My Chest And Still Can't Get A Boner. Oh, and tell your partner if you're about to run off and go confront your dangerous ex. And absolutely tell your partner if you're about to fake your own death. Just ... learn to have conversations with the people who love you, okay? Avoid huge amounts of narrative suffering with this one weird trick!

5. Putting his whole Zhang Zhehussy into it

See, Gong Jun (playing Wen Kexing) is not what I'd call a great actor. This is more of a case where you take a guy, you cast him as a character whose motivation can be summed up as "I want to fuck that man in half," and then you cast opposite him a man that the guy in question clearly actually wants to fuck in half. And you let the magic work.

Zhang Zhehan (playing Zhou Zishu), however, legitimately knocks it entirely out of the park. Whenever the camera's on him, it's hard to take your eyes off him. He holds his own in a sea of veteran actors. He can do comedy and tragedy with equal panache. It's lucky he's such a beautiful crier, because Zhou Zishu cries so much. I have never seen someone more perfectly portray the mood of "in love and absolutely furious about it."

As the story goes, when he auditioned, he actually wanted to play Wen Kexing -- but the director told him, look, while you'd be great at that, I can find another Wen Kexing, but I'm never going to find another Zhou Zishu.

Zhou Zishu is bad man who has done terrible things and resigned himself to suffering to atone for his crimes, and he is so mad to find himself at the end of his life suddenly having a reason to keep living. Zhang Zhehan does a pitch-perfect tsundere right up to the point where he breaks. I'm not going to call it an understated performance, because nothing in this show is understated, but it is often times subtle and always complex, and fuck does he have a good crazy grin.

One of the first things you find out about Zhou Zishu is that he's got just a couple years left to live, over which time all his senses are going to deteriorate. In fact, they've already started going. And as the show goes on, you can watch Zhang Zhehan play it so you can tell when he's missed something he should otherwise have picked up on, reacting to noises and touches a split-second late. It's a testament to what a thoughtful job Zhang Zhehan's doing, keeping track of how much of Zhou Zishu has already slipped away.

There are, if you've read the book, legitimate complaints to be made about the adaptation's interpretation of Zhou Zishu's character, and I get that. But you can't say that Zhang Zhehan isn't pulling off exactly what he means to here. I say this too as someone who loves the novel: I think it works. Given the constraints of Chinese television in particular and cinematic adaptations in general, the show made the right choices when it came to figuring out what were the more filmable, actable options, and Zhang Zhehan plays every one of those choices within an inch of his life.

Also did I mention he's like the most beautiful man to ever exist? Holy crap. You're going to be so mad about what they do to his face for the first several episodes.

Don't worry, it washes off eventually.

caveat: Kind of a bummer!

You may have been warned that this one's got a sad ending. Well ... yes and no. On the "no" side of things, there's a "secret" mini-episode 37 that rolls back one of the major points of tragedy. (It's also clearly the first version that got shot, and then they shuffled around and redubbed some material to make the aired end of episode 36.)

But oh man, not all of them. Plenty of characters we love do not make it to the end. Like ... kind of a shockingly large number. Some are dispatched offscreen, some have tragic onscreen deaths, some are probably dead given the circumstances we last see them in, and a couple aren't dead yet but are almost certainly going to be soon.

(It's also kind of a meta-bummer! I mean, I don't recommend falling down the rabbit hole of what happened with Zhang Zhehan's career after the show aired, but tl;dr, it's not great.)

So yeah, it's not an outright pain simulator, and if you've got the mettle for Nirvana in Fire or Guardian, you should be okay here. But hoo boy, don't just blunder on in expecting a cheerful romp from start to finish, because ... yeah. I said it before: This is a story about a bunch of bad guys. Bad guys don't live long lives, nor do the good people who get tangled up in their shit. Just be prepared!

bonus selling point: black and white husbands

Okay, I will tell you who one of the other pairs of gays is. You'll see the two of them show up near the tail end of the show, and then you'll decide you want to know more about what their whole deal is, and then you'll read Qi Ye, which is a novel entirely about gay pining, and then it'll be all over for you.

Ready to wander this way?

There's a number of ways to watch this one! Viki, Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Prime all have you covered -- but Viki's the only one that has the epilogue at the ready, so I'd go there if you can.

And I get it, if you're enough of an aging hipster that you don't want to play in the same sandbox everybody else is playing in. Believe me, I understand that impulse on a visceral level. After all, this is not a small fandom -- 7718 works on AO3 (at time of writing) isn't Untamed levels of content, but it's nothing to sneeze at. Maybe you want to leave this one for a little while longer, until the hubbub dies down a bit more and people's attention is redirected by a different gay and shiny thing. That's valid. I get it.

But if you do, I still encourage you to get around to it someday. For all its flaws -- and yeah, it's got flaws -- it's a good, solid story that makes you feel lots of feelings about some fascinating characters in some beautiful costumes, running around being real queer (and okay, occasionally straight) to beautiful music. This, to me, is television.

Fun fact! There is also a Japanese dub, if you feel like taking it at that speed, and the guy who voices Zhou Zishu is the voice of Kaworu from Evangelion, and the guy who voices Wen Kexing is the voice of Victor Nikiforov from Yuri on Ice. See what I mean???

I'm telling you, everybody ships it.

#word of honor #山河令 #shan he ling #wenzhou #rec post #i made this #tyk

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hana-no-seiiki · 9 months

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But like the ship trope where PERSON A looks like a childish brat on the outside but is actually the stable, mature one in the relationship

while PERSON B is the opposite wherein they’re super stoic, cool-headed but is actually super petty and aggressive at times.

tw/cw: soft yandere themes, seggs but not explicit

😤🫸🏽🫷🏽

That but with Villain and/or Vigilante! Reader and Yandere! Damian.

I’ve seen this a lot in Damian Wayne works so credits go to those amazing writers that inspired me to have my own take on this!! A lot of this is just a rehash/amalgamation of what people have already written but with some of my input and thoughts…lots and lots of thoughts.

Anyways, you seem like the type of person to ruin another’s life for the sake of it. Just your wicked whims. You’re notorious for stealing massive amounts of properties or (in case of Vigilante) beat if not kill people who you deem unredeemable.

MINORS/AGELESS BLOGS DONT GO BEYOND THIS POINT

VER I : I’m thinking second gen Catwoman/Batman + CatNoir/Ladybug (both the OG anime concept and the series) dynamic, just gn reader.

You’re always clinging unto to Robin/New Batman. Saying sweet nothings and flirting with him, if not full on making out/having sex with the vigilante. You like the dude, really. But your heart remains with Damian Wayne. Robin/Batman just really reminded you of him sometimes.

Hatefucking. Hatefucking happens a lot. Robin/Batman loves pinning you to the walls/floors of alleyways before you two get down and dirty.

Whereas, people (namely his fellow vigilantes) think he’s done with you, but he’s probably the biggest [Villain Name] fanboy out there.

He knows basically everything about you except your true identity. Which is somehow completely inaccessible to him.

Little does he know that it was actually his own doing, locking your civilian self’s private information as a favor between friends.

But because of this he misunderstands and thinks you’re even more of a genius or something because you managed to outwit him!! You!! Are!! So!! Damn!! Amazing!!

Damian acts cold with everybody. He’s a brooding guy. He doesn’t express much. Only about 1% of what he’s feeling actually gets put into action and/or words.

So the fact that he insists on taking on missions where he has to face you, assists you if you aren’t harming anyone, or actually indulges in your flirtation is a big thing.

So it’s safe to say when he found out you liked someone else other than him, that you were just using him to get yourself to feel better about not having said dude he gets petty.

You two used to have this pact, to never interfere with each other’s civilian lives and to respect your secret identities (of which he’s tried to breach remotely several times). But all that goes up in flames as he stalks you after a heist. Following you home.

He finds out about your secret identity, your ‘unrequited’ love for him, and you two begin dating. But you’re still oblivious about his other identity.

Damian kinda has a kink for it ngl. Like he’ll charm you as Robin/Batman even as you tell him you’re already dating someone else.

Like it’s so adorable how you keep resisting him, telling him how much you love his civilian counterpart.

But then he still proceeds to fuck your brains out as a Vigilante.

Man didn’t know he was into roleplaying until this moment. Like he’ll murmur stuff like “You say you love him, but nothing beats this. I’ve already carved a place inside you, Beloved. A place shaped in my image.”

Or “Where did your ‘undying love’ go, hm? Nowhere. You’re right back with me. Complete undone within moments of my touch.”

Things go a little awry though when you, ever the mature/communicative one in the relationship attempt to break up because Robin/Batman is leaving you confused as to how you truly feel. In addition to you not want to cuck your beautiful (soon to be ex) boyfriend any longer.

VER II: Is more on Vigilante x Vigilante. Similar to the one above except your relationship is a lot more professional and less hate-fuckey. You know of each other’s civilian/vigilante selves.

You’ve always admired Damian. Despite being quite close in age, you always saw him as a younger brother if not like a son almost. Witnessing him grow up and mature alongside you.

But your doting nature always came off a tad bit romantic. Flirtatious even. You tended to be a playful person after all. Hell you even call him Babe or Baby like that’s totally normal for you to call friends that.

A lot of your friends and colleagues always laugh at Damian’s expense whenever you arrive to come nag and/or flirt with him. It’s honestly hilarious. Judging from his murderous aura, people always thought that he wanted you 6 feet under.

The truth of the matter was that his glares and thoughts of murder were all directed to everyone else but you.

Damian never felt so at home and at peace with anyone or anything but his pets in life.

He’d be damned if anything happens to you.

Still, it frustrates him. He knows that you only see him as sibling almost. That you’d die for him but never date him. That despite your honeyed words he’s probably neck deep in the friendzone.

And so to the absolute surprise of everybody, he starts flirting back.

e.g. murdering those who slighted you and/or gazed upon your visage for too long, delivering their remains to your doorstep, amongst a bouquet flowers of course, and the occasional chocolates

You eventually fall in love back, though you ask him to tone it down on the violence.

- might edit more soon, but for now adios!!!

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere imagine #yandere x you #yandere fic #yandere core #yandere robin #robin #robin x reader #yandere robin x reader #robin x you #damian #damian wayne #damian wayne x reader #yandere damian #yandere damian wayne #yandere damian wayne x reader

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thesummerestsolstice · 7 months

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Headcanon Crafts for Everyone I Missed Last Time:

Idril: a sculptor. She worked with every kind of stone imaginable, and often went looking for new material in Gondolin’s mines with Maeglin. (Look my Maeglin head canons are complicated but they should get to be friends the narrative has hurt them too much already) She actually preferred not to make elvish figures, instead focusing on strangely beautiful stone landscapes and various animal-like figures. She was actually responsible for Middle-Earth’s version of the gargoyle, having carved several to stand guard over Gondolin. Several elves swore that the statues moved, but she never addressed those rumors. She also liked to paint her work with bright colors, which would’ve been seen as odd back in Valinor, but fit right in in First Age Middle-Earth.

Maeglin: a smith, but his craft was more in-line with Avarin practice than Noldor practice; with much less focus on the idea of making gems and heavier focus on understanding natural geology and the properties of various gems and metals. He knew the mines of Gondolin better than anyone, and wrote plenty about the the earth under the earth. His work also had fairly significant Dwarfish influences. He liked to make mechanically complex pieces, with moving parts or even some internal gear work.

Finduilas: a hunter. Her and her father were both nature people, just in very different ways. She was silent, with all the grace of a dancer, and quick enough to outrun most of what she hunted. She preferred to go after more aggressive animals– wild boar, wolves, bears, even wargs– and leave the deer and rabbits be. She was born in Beleriand, and had never met the Valar, but sometimes, privately, offered up prayers to Orome. She liked to imagine she could’ve been in his hunt, if things had turned out a bit differently.

Celebrimbor: a smith, in the very traditional Noldor sense. Gemworker, specialized in jewelry, made various famously beautiful pieces, etc. Was never quite happy sticking to hairpins and necklaces. Longed to try his hand at imbuing his work with real power, but always talked himself out of it. A whole binder of concepts for works of power sat locked away in a chest in his workshop for centuries. He never talked to anyone about it. He was as ashamed of his feelings for his craft as he was of his feelings for his family. By the end of his life, he’d made peace with only one of those things.

Earendil: a mariner? Alright, he was definitely a mariner, and he loved the ship life– he even built a few boats of his own, in a similar fantastic style to Turgon’s architecture– but he also had a longstanding fascination with the natural world, and filled volumes and volumes of journals with information on various plants, animals, and minerals. But natural lore isn’t a recognized Noldor craft, since it involves learning but doesn’t really produce tangible results. Still, it was a passion he got from afternoons spent learning about geology with “Uncle Mole,” and one he shared with Elrond. Researching the beauty and wonder of nature gave Earendil something to do with his immortal life, and was a big part of the reason Elrond chose to be immortal at all.

Gil-Galad: a king. No, really, he’d been the high-king of the Noldor since he was a child, and hadn’t really had time for trivialities like “finding a life purpose” or “having fun.” He was too busy learning how to stay alive in late stage Beleriand (read: hell) and learning to rule the least cooperative group of elves imaginable. He wanted to be a painter, and while he found enough practice time to get good at his chosen craft; because of how long detailed paintings can take, he almost never had time to actually make anything. He tried not to let it bother him too much. He didn’t always succeed at that.

Elrond: in a bit of a weird spot. Elrond is most associated with lore and healing; but, as discussed, “lore” isn’t considered a craft. And, well. Healing had to be Elrond’s craft, right? He’d been doing it since he was seven, and just about the only person in Amon Ereb who could still use healing powers. And it was good work, and it was rewarding, even if it often left him feeling so burned out and worried that he forgot to eat or sleep. It took him a long time to admit to himself that healing for him was what fighting was to many other elves: a necessity. Truth be told, he’d rather be gardener, working with the earth to create a place of peace and beauty. Also, Elrond is basically a nature spirit. So. It was something he began to explore in the peace of the early Second Age. He found that his Ainuric powers had all sorts of interesting effects on plant life. He also learned how to breed new varieties of fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Still, he never really considered that it could be a proper craft for him. At least, not until he first saw the valley that would one day become Rivendell.

Headcanon Crafts for Finwe and his Children, the House of Feanor, the House of Fingolfin, and the House of Finarfin.

#silmarillion #silm headcanons #house of finwe #noldor #noldor crafts #idril #maeglin #finduilas #celebrimbor #earendil #gil galad #elrond #elrond peredhel #eldritch peredhel #I have feelings about elrond and gil galad #they had to grow up so fast #they deserve peace

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haggishlyhagging · 1 month

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On the level of political theory, it is my contention that so long as "liberty" claims remain central to the political agenda of western liberalism, feminists and civil libertarians will remain locked in conflict. This contention has two aspects. First, I contend that not only do women presently have less "liberty" than do men in the liberal state, but that men have never been able to imagine "liberty" without assuming the oppression of women. If there were no women (socially or sexually), then men could not experience that state or condition they call liberty. Second, contemporary attempts to achieve the liberal ideal—the perfection of "liberty"—cannot be accomplished without the continued subjugation of women, and in particular, without such subjugating practices as rape, so-called surrogacy arrangements, pornography, and prostitution.

The concept of liberty was originally devised by men during the bourgeois revolution that began in Europe in the 1600s. The purpose of the bourgeois revolution was to promote wider distribution of political and economic power among male members of the state: in effect, "liberty" was a theory of affirmative action for nonaristocratic men (Kathleen Lahey, 1983). Early liberal theory is sometimes described as antipatriarchal, since it rejected feudal patriarchy as the organizing basis of the social order. However, this antipatriarchalism did not extend to the organization of the family or to the status of women, either within the family or within the larger social context (Zillah Eisenstein, 1981). Although newly formulated liberty claims legitimated egalitarianism among males, these liberty claims depended upon the continuing inequality of women to make liberty meaningful for men.

Support for this reading of early liberal theory is not difficult to find. The practices of the Marquis de Sade, which continue to define the essence of liberty for contemporary civil libertarians ranging from Susan Sontag to Larry Flynt, included rape, sexual torture, pornography, and prostitution. Sexual practices and preferences of libertarians aside, political economists such as John Locke conceptualized property and liberty in a way that assumed the continuing male appropriation of women's productive and reproductive energies, and treated as reductio ad absurdum any suggestion that women should be treated as equals or as self-determining persons in the emerging liberal state (Kathleen Lahey, 1983).

Indeed, if the ability to engage in economic and sexual exploitation is the essence of the liberal bourgeois revolution, then women can only now be said to be emerging from feudalism. And not surprisingly, our bourgeois revolution looks a lot like the last one. Women now can—and do—play the Marquis to our sisters, whether we are lesbian or heterosexual women, inflicting pain on others for our own (and allegedly for their) sexual gratification, all in the name of sexual freedom. Women now can—and do—purchase the reproductive capacities of other women, in the name of freedom of contract. Women now can— and do—defend our rights to serve (or even to become) pimps and johns, in the name of freedom of choice. Women now can—and do—define equality as men's rights to everything that women have—including pregnancy leave, child custody, and mother's allowances—at the same time that they define women's equality claims—such as the claim that pornography harms women—as infringements on the principle of freedom of speech or expression.

In our liberal moments, we women—along with all other civil libertarians—are busily engaged in justifying the continuing inequality of some women on the basis of sex; romanticizing emotional independence as the defining core of individualism; eroticizing instrumental rationality as the way to get off sexually; and identifying "the state," rather than male supremacy in its entirety, as the source of our oppression.

-Kathleen A. Lahey, “Women and Civil Liberties” in The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism

#Kathleen A. Lahey #liberalism #civil libertarianism #radical feminist theory #liberty #female oppression #patriarchy #feudalism

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hometoursandotherstuff · 1 year

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Welcome to another edition of Rich People With No Taste. If you can afford this $19.995M, (plus a paltry $74 mo. HOA fee), Mediterranean home in Rancho Santa Fe, California, you can make all 7bds, 9ba, as over-the-top ornate as you like. Who cares, you have staff to clean all the tackiness with a toothbrush.

So, what do tasteless rich people like? Well, they like to put lions in front of their homes. (I have some paper mache lions that I painted pink in mine, b/c I'm a tacky middle class person.)

And, they like marble. Look at the ceilings- each one is dfferent.

They like elaborate carving. That fireplace!

They also like gold, big historic tapestries and paintings, and draperies- yards and yards of swooping, tied-back fabric.

Long halls with fancy walls, curved ceilings, and chandeliers. Lots of chandeliers.

They like tufted upholstered walls and in the home office, a desk fit for royalty, with a big chandelier over it.

They don't cook in or clean the kitchen, so they have fancy carved out counters. Who cares if the help bangs a hip into it?

Super shiny cabinetry with carved details, b/c they don't have to clean the grease off, or climb up to clean a skylight.

Definitely everyday dining room. It's too small to be a formal dining room.

In keeping with current home trends, a family room with a bar is in the open concept kitchen.

Behind the bar. Is that silver bowl a fountain?

Check out the primary bedroom. Yikes! There's so much empty floorspace so you can enjoy full effect of the carpet. Can you imagine how long it would take to vacuum this with a normal sized vacuum?

A huge fireplace is a requirement in the primary.

Check out the en-suite.

Where do you even buy a toilet like that? This ain't no Home Depot stuff.

One of the secondary bedrooms only has a wood floor and store-bought drapes. You have to save some money, somewhere, even though you're rich.

This bath has a larger shower, another gold leaf tub, but a less fancy toilet.

Only 6 seats and flat screen in the home theater? This is unacceptable.

Gigantic laundry room- notice the key in the lock. When you're washing designer clothes, you have to keep it locked.

I wouldn't want to be the one to clean this marble garage floor.

Enter the gated property with a waterfall on the right.

The home sits on 2.70 acres and look at the size of that lap pool. It even has a turnaround.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/6884-Poco-Lago-Rancho-Santa-Fe-CA-92067/2055759984_zpid/

#rich people homes #houses #house tours #home tour

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beardedmrbean · 6 months

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Do you know why squatters have legal protections? Cuz that just feels dumb and predatory.

The law are well intentioned, someone comes across a abandoned property moves in, makes improvements, and starts paying the taxes on that property, the concept goes back forever.

Some places after a extended period of time if the property owner hasn't moved to evict you, if you've made improvements and paid the taxes the property can be deeded over to you legally.

That takes like 10 years tho, so not frequently a thing that happens.

Rights and protections make it so overzealous landlords can't just kick people to the curb or shoot them for trespassing or several other things.

This looks like a good explainer.

Key Takeaways: for Squatter’s Rights

Squatters’ rights, or Adverse Possession, refer to the rights a squatter may gain if they occupy a property for a certain period without the owner taking legal action against them.

The time frame for establishing squatters’ rights varies by state, ranging from 7 years to over 20 years.

Squatting is a form of trespassing but involves the intention of claiming ownership or permanent residency.

Property owners must follow a legal eviction process to remove squatters, typically beginning with a call to local law enforcement and filing an Unlawful Detainer Action.

In some cases, squatters may pay property taxes to strengthen their adverse possession claim, but owners should continue paying their taxes as well.

Property owners and landlords should familiarize themselves with squatters’ rights and consult an attorney when necessary to ensure proper handling of such situations.

Why Do Squatters Have Rights?

The main goal of squatters’ rights is to discourage the use of vigilante justice. If landowners were allowed to use violence or the threat of violence to evict a squatter, the situation could quickly escalate and become dangerous. Moreover, it would create a climate of vigilante justice that could spill into other areas of life, reducing the safety of society that people have generally come to expect from the places they live.

Squatters have rights so that, in the bigger picture, justice can be facilitated. It’s very similar to tenants’ rights that protect a renter from an unscrupulous landlord. The laws spell out the rights of each party involved to keep the real estate markets stable and negotiations (mostly) peaceful. ____________________________

TL:DR; so property owners don't shoot them for trespassing.

A lot of the laws are outdated now and people have discovered how to game the law to their advantage, going as far as making fake leases and forcing the property owner to keep the power on so that's all changing fast.

Still gonna have rights but places are making evictions much much easier now, especially if the squatters aren't paying taxes on the property since the state wants that money.

Used to be the property needed to look abandoned in some way, got folks moving in while the person that owns the house is away on vacation and changing the locks now too so ya they're working on fixing the laws, at least in some places.

#stalker among the stars

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headfullofpresley · 2 years

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𝐀𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞

Pairing: Elvis Presley x reader

Word count: 4K

Summary: After doing Vogue's “Life in Looks” and reminiscing on your life with Elvis and Caroline, your late husband makes sure you and your daughter know he's still around.

Warning(s): life after losing a spouse, lil bit angsty, inaccurate timelines etc, doesn't follow timelines of other fics including Caroline, set in the late 90s bc i felt like it (just pretend life in looks is on tv or smth lol), reminiscing about a deceased spouse, flashback, bit of spiritual stuff (i still wanted him to be in this lol ☻), Elvis' death is not described here or whatsoever.

A/N: so, i usually never write about elvis not being among us anymore but ofc... i got carried away. the ending is kinda silly, but i thought it was cute. this was requested by my dear @rosepresley and even though it turned out a little different, i hope you'll still enjoy it, love! <3

masterlist

While your husband was known to the world as The King and many other titles, to you he was just Elvis.

Even though the anniversary of his death ticked on twenty years now and you had given the loss a place, there wasn’t a day that you didn’t think about him or didn’t miss him.

Caroline was only nine when her father passed and even though nobody would ever forget him, you and your now twenty nine year old daughter worked hard to keep his legacy alive.

While still living at Graceland, which felt a lot emptier without your husband there, you’d make sure events would be held on the property which fans could be a part of – the Christmas lights ceremony during the holidays, sometimes even small concerts held for charities right in your front yard. At times, fans would still linger outside the gates–mostly on the day he had passed or during his birthday week–and you could spend hours out there talking to them.

While you weren’t always happy with the lack of privacy when being out with Elvis or having fans outside your house in the dead of the night, you felt like you owed the attention to them now. You were aware that you didn’t, but these were the people that loved when you talked about the man they looked up to – probably more than anyone.

Aside from that, you were still being asked for interviews and press as well. You loved talking about Elvis and your life with him, but you were still careful as to who exactly you told those stories to – you had declined enough interviews and TV specials in the past, as did Caroline, because you were both aware how the media could twist your words and make up their own story which they knew would sell better.

When Vogue asked you for their ‘Life in Looks’ series, you were doubtful at first. This meant you’d have to talk more so about yourself rather than Elvis, but Caroline reminded you how much you loved fashion and Vogue in particular. You had a trusty subscription of the magazine, getting most of your inspiration from it when it came to your sense of style. Your daughter always assured you that it would be okay for you to talk about yourself rather than about Daddy only and you knew she was right.

Despite your entire life having revolved, and still revolving, around Elvis, you were still your own person.

He would want you to do this, especially since he made big fashion statements himself back in the day and he loved dressing you up and picking out your outfits for you.

“Just pretend we’re not here, mrs. Presley. Take all the time you need,” one of the editors smiled at you as she stood besides the camera, another girl with a Vogue lanyard around her neck placing a big white photobook in front of you. “We’ve included fifteen looks for the day but we have more pictures at hand, so if you don’t feel comfortable telling about some, we can change them up a little,”

You smiled brightly, nodding your head as you let one of the stylists fix a lock of your hair, making sure it laid perfectly over your shoulder. You knew what to do because you weren’t foreign to the concept and had seen other people doing it, but you couldn’t help but be a little nervous.

Caroline stood on the side, putting her thumbs up as she smiled brightly – ever the supportive daughter.

You chuckled softly and shot her a wink, crossing your legs under the table you were sat at as you looked at the camera. As you got the cue they were rolling, you planted a bright smile on your face, manicured nails tracing the corners of the book in front of you.

“Hi Vogue, I’m Y/N Presley and this is my Life in Looks,” you told the camera happily, although making sure not to overdo your enthusiasm.

You continued on as you were told to do, knowing that they could cut and edit the taping it was meant to be shown to the public.

You opened the book, your smile growing a little as the first picture was of you being taken out on your first date with Elvis – he wasn’t shown in the picture, because this was mostly about you and the outfit you were wearing in the picture.

“The hair,” you pointed out, laughing softly as you tapped your nail against your very extravagant hairdo. It was all high and teased, and very out there. “This was in 1960, during our first date at the fair. He rented out the place like he usually did and I remember the air being so humid, even at night, I was not having a good time with this much hair,” you chuckled, remembering how you’d complain to Elvis how you wished you would’ve kept your hair down.

He assured you you looked gorgeous, even with the sheen of sweat on your forehead. You had known Elvis since before he served in the army, so you weren’t ashamed when he pointed it out. Before he became the love of your life, he was your best friend first.

“This little dress came out of my very own closet. I don’t even think it was a brand, but I was obsessed,” you giggled, looking at the camera. Sneakily catching Caroline’s eye, a smirk tugged at your lips. “She doesn’t like me saying this, but Caroline wore this dress on the first date she went on,” you whispered and your daughter gasped soundlessly, muffling a chuckle in the palm of her hand.

You smiled happily as you turned the page, talking the viewers through a few more pictures that were taken of you at the airport and so on, reminiscing happily about the day it was taken and about what you were wearing. Even though this interview was specifically cathered to you, you still talked about Elvis during pretty much every picture but you didn’t care – and neither did the crew.

This man had been your entire life. The only man you had ever been with. How could you not talk about him?

Your heart skipped a beat as you turned the page and looked right at a wedding picture of you and Elvis.

“Oh, this was such a big day for us. Our wedding day,” you smiled lovingly at the camera before looking back down, your finger tracing Elvis’ face in the picture. The camera above your head made sure to catch it. “Charlie Hodge, who as you all might know worked for Elvis, went with me to go dress shopping because people would recognize me going into stores and then they’d find out there would be a wedding,” you laughed softly, looking at the camera as you placed your hands neatly on the table underneath the book. “I put on a little disguise and me and Charlie pretended to be the ones getting married – nobody recognized us,”

Caroline’s cheeks were aching with how big she was smiling, her hands clutched firmly against her chest. She always loved hearing you talk about your life with her father before the time she was born and she could see how much you were enjoying it.

“I picked this dress because it was very lightweight and feminine, and it matched perfectly with Elvis’ suit,” you looked at the picture again, smiling fondly at the smiling face of your husband in the picture before turning the page once more.

After talking about your honeymoon for a little bit, Caroline knew what was coming and she giggled softly as she watched you pout at the camera, tapping the picture of you and Elvis while holding little baby Caroline in your arms. It was taken only a few hours after you had given birth, but dressed in a pink dress and your hair teased to perfection, it looked far from a woman who had nearly broke her husband’s hand hours before.

“Look at that face, that’s a happy dad,” you grinned as you pointed out Elvis’ face, who was smiling cutely as he looked at Caroline in your arms while you sat on the bed. “He couldn’t believe he had a child and you can clearly see that on his face. I think a lot of men are like this, but he was afraid to hold her – terrified. I was never allowed to leave his side when she’d be in his arms because he was so scared that he’d drop her,” you laughed, the memories flashing before your eyes.

“El, you won’t hurt her, I promise you,” you laughed as you sat on your knees on the bed, baby Caroline sleeping safe and sound in your arms, Elvis propped up against the headboard of the bed.

He was in his underwear, wanting to try the method of holding his baby girl against his bare chest because he read in one of your parenting books that it’d help to steady the bond between child and father.

You had forgotten about the books long ago, because as soon as you held Caroline in your arms for the first time, motherhood came natural to you. Elvis would read them every night in bed, because he wanted to make sure to become the picture perfect father.

You didn’t give him time to back out of it, moving closer to him on your knees in a slow pace as you handed Caroline to him, making sure to put her in a supported position. He placed a gentle hand under her head, his other on her tiny back as she laid comfortably in his arms, pressed against his chest.

The room was just the right temperature but you could see that the baby who was only wearing a diaper immediately enjoyed the warmth radiating off Elvis’ chest when their skins touched. She bawled her tiny hands into fists before sprawling her little fingers, her eyes slowly fluttering open.

“Stay with me, honey,” he told you with a soft hint of panic on his tongue, making sure you wouldn’t leave his side as he held Caroline.

You laughed softly and nodded, sinking further in the mattress as you mimicked his position and sat next to him. You smiled down at your daughter as her eyes found Elvis’, a goofy smile spreading across her face.

“She likes this,” you told him, gently leaning your head against his upper arm, your fingertips ghosting over Caroline’s forehead. “I think the rhythm of your heart calms her down,” you pointed out in a whisper, you and Elvis watching as the little girl in his arms stared up at her father, her tiny chest heaving up and down slowly.

“She’s so pretty,” he whispered lowly, afraid the vibrations of his voice if he spoke any louder would scare his daughter. Moving his arm a little lower so she rested on just one arm, he brought his other hand to her face, feather light fingertip trailing down her nose. “Your nose,”

You chuckled softly at the way Caroline’s smile widened because of his touches, her toothless gums on full display. Elvis laughed softly, turning to press a kiss on the top of your head.

“Can you believe we made… this?”

“Hmmhmm. Because she has your mouth,” you laughed softly, kissing his shoulder. “I bet she’ll be just as stubborn as you,”

He feigned a gasp, shoulders shaking a little as he laughed – he was about to comment that she’d definitely get the stubborness from you, but as Caroline giggled right along with the two of you, all he could do was stare at her with fond eyes.

Slowly but surely, Elvis allowed you to do your own thing whenever he’d hold her. His favorite spot was always in the bed, because that way he was absolutely sure nothing could happen to her.

Nothing ever did happen to her whenever he was holding her though, whenever in or out the bed, and to you he was a damn good father.

A natural, like you – but he never believed those words no matter how many times you’d tell him.

Caroline watched you proudly the entire time, talking about your life with her and her father, and how your own sense of style had changed throughout the years. Although Elvis loved picking out things for you to wear, you developed a big interest in fashion and design as you got older and he loved whenever you’d wear something that you designed yourself.

Your style was similar to his – the two of you always matched perfectly, looking sophisticated but still out there, turning heads. The two of you were always comfortable around each other, but not so comfortable it would turn sloppy.

There were never days where you would be lounging around the house in pajamas for an entire day. Elvis loved to dress up on any occasion, even when not leaving the house, and so did you.

On Christmas and New Year’s Eve, you’d both go all out, putting on your best fits because that’s when you felt most confident. And to the both of you, that was one of the best feelings in the world.

There weren’t much pictures of you and Elvis with Caroline when she was young because that’s something both you and your husband wanted to keep private. You did allow the crew to put a picture of Caroline’s 6th birthday in the book in front of you, because it was one of your favorites – you actually had it framed on your bedside table.

“See, this is Care’s 6th birthday and even though it was only a child’s birthday party, we were dressed like we were going to the fanciest place in town,” you told the camera, laughing softly. Elvis was in all black except for the white collar that was popped up, velvet trench coat adorning his frame. You and Caroline wore matching dresses – white ruffled poet shirts underneath a hand beaded mid length shift dress, the pattern on it throwing you right back into the 70s because of the small flowers on it. “But that was just.. our style. And Elvis loved dressing up Caroline – he loved it when she matched with us, no matter what the occasion was,”

You shot a sneaky wink Caroline’s way, who was soundlessly gasping for a breath of air as she felt a lump forming in her throat. She loved talking about Elvis as much as you did and she was able to without breaking down because it had been so many years, but the love she felt for her father was unexplainable.

Untouchable.

Their bond had always been extremely strong and even after his passing, that never faded. If anything, it only heightened. As she grew older, she was able to understand him better and see him through different eyes and while Caroline realised her father wasn’t perfect, the amount of love she carried toward him would always be there and it would always be hers.

She smiled at you, blowing you a kiss which made your smile widen – you continued on like nothing happened as you spoke to the camera, hoping your voice wasn’t giving away the thickness you felt forming in your throat.

While you could honestly speak about your husband for hours, the interview had to come to an end and you were kind of glad it did. All you wanted to do now was fly back to Memphis and spend time in the home that belonged to you and your husband. You were still professional though, talking a little with the crew and thanking everyone before you left the building.

The flight from New York to Memphis was five hours, but on the private plane time flew by fast, which you were thankful for. Despite Caroline not living at Graceland anymore, she decided to stay the night because she could see how emotional today had made you.

“Do you regret doing the interview? Was it too much?” Caroline asked softly as she laid in your bed, looking at you with a soft smile when you slipped under the covers in Elvis’ spot. You hadn’t slept on your own side since the day he passed.

“No, not at all. I love Vogue and I feel honored they asked me,” you smiled as you sat against the headboard, Caroline turning on her side to plant her head in the palm of her hand. “Seeing all the pictures just brought back a lot of memories, more than I thought they would,”

Your daughter smiled, reaching out her hand to you. You slipped your hand in hers, sighing deeply.

“Good ones I hope?”

“Ofcourse. Always good ones,” you told her with a nod of your head, kissing the back of her hand before squeezing it. “Your father and I had our lows as well, but even those memories are dear to me. He really was one of a kind, Care,”

The blonde next to you crawled closer to you, sitting up against the bed as well as she released your hand and linked her arm through yours instead, putting her head on your shoulder.

“He really was,” she whispered, looking at the wedding ring that still sat prettily on your hand. “Do you think he’s watching us?”

“Knowing your father, he’s probably right here with us right now,” you laughed softly, looking at Caroline as she raised her head to look at you with wide eyes.

“What? What do you mean right now?”

The slight panic in her eyes made you laugh harder, shrugging your shoulders as you looked around the room.

“I feel him around me all the time. I’ve gotten used to the feeling of… being watched,” you grinned playfully at her and she whined at the spine-chilling tone in your voice which you used on purpose.

It was true, though. You felt his presence all the time and you had gotten used to it – even though he couldn’t answer you or talk back, you spoke to him all the time when you’d be alone in the house. Before he passed, he promised he’d always be around and you believed him.

“Nooo, you’re joking,” Caroline laughed as she threw a pillow your way, which made you giggle as you caught it and threw it back at her. “I mean I’ve dreamt about him before, but you’re totally fucking with me right now. Dad’s probably too busy stealing the show up there,” your daughter joked as she put the pillow back in place, the light on the bedside table flickering right that second.

She widened her eyes as she immediately crawled over to you, almost planting herself on your lap, which made you only laugh harder.

You were about to tell her to calm down and that she shouldn’t be scared, but a loud bang that rumbled from downstairs actually got Caroline jumping in your lap this time, her arms firmly wrapped around your neck. Now that was something you never heard before and even though you were surprised, you couldn’t stop laughing at your daughter’s actions.

“Let’s go downstairs,” you told her with a giggle as you pushed her off, getting up from the bed. Picking up your robe, you put it on as Caroline shook her head. She wanted to decline and stay in bed, but she also didn’t want to be left alone right now so as you left the room, she quickly run after you.

“Mom, what if it’s actually someone in the house? I’m not dressed to fight!” she whispered harshly as she looked at the dress shirt she stole out of Elvis’ side of your wardrobe, her hands planted firmly on your shoulders while the both of you tiptoed down the stairs.

You laughed softly, easily finding your way through the house in the dark. “No one is here, Care,” you chuckled as you flicked on some lights in the dining room, knowing that Graceland’s security system was tight and nobody was able to come in unless you allowed them to.

The both of you didn’t see anything out of the ordinary at first, until Caroline pointed out the slightly ajar door of one of the cabinets that stood against the wall. You recognized the photobook that laid on the floor, obviously having fallen out of the cabinet.

Or more so, as if someone deliberately put it there.

You walked over to it, picking it up and opening it on the first page which immediately brought a smile to your face. “This was taken on Christmas Eve, you were just one year old,” you told Caroline as you put the book on the table, sitting down. Caroline had seen it already, she had seen all family photo’s, but she loved looking at them.

Her fear faded as she sat down next to you, smiling as the two of you happily turned pages to look at the pictures of all the Christmasses spend together. It was like a warm blanket was wrapped around you and you knew Caroline felt the same, because she had completely forgotten about the light that flickered or the worries of someone breaking into the house.

You wrapped your arm around her shoulder, kissing her temple as she smiled at the picture of her and her father in the snow, along with the snowman they build together. Bright smiles and flushed cheeks – the sight of it warmed your heart.

“Your father will always be here,” you whispered to her as you softly leaned your head against hers, rubbing her arm. “He’s gonna be there with you every step along the way, no matter what you do or where you go. Don’t you ever forget it,”

She sniffed softly, nodding her head as she turned to you to hug you tightly, your hand drawing soothing circles on her back. “I know,” she sighed, laughing softly through her tears. “As long as he doesn’t make the light flicker again, I’m okay with it,”

You laughed as you pulled back a little to look at her, cupping her face to wipe her tears away with your thumbs. “He knows you’ll probably flee your house in the middle of the night so I’m sure he won’t,”

She chuckled as she nodded, rushing a hand through her hair as you let her go.

“And he’s right. If that would’ve happened to me if I was at my place, I’d probably run onto the streets screaming,”

You bet she wouldn’t, but you still laughed at her words. You were sure Elvis would let her know he was with her in other ways, but you wouldn’t mind at all if he made the lights in your room flicker or whatsoever.

It gave you comfort knowing he was still there, popping in whenever he pleased.

After drinking some tea and looking at some more pictures, you and Caroline decided to go back upstairs and sleep away the rush of emotions the both of you went through today.

You fluffed your pillow a little, laying down after you turned the light on your side off. Caroline sighed happily, reaching for the light on her side – once again, it flickered before she had the chance to turn it off.

“Seriously, Dad?” she deadpanned, moving closer to you again instead of turning the light off like she planned to.

You laughed, shaking your head in amusement as you reached over to the lamp, switching it off.

“Give the girl a break, El,” you chuckled, laying back down. Caroline was immediately pressed against your side, pulling the blankets up to her chin.

Just like when she was a little girl, you played with her hair to make her drift off into a slumber. While she could be a tough one with a big mouth, you didn’t care that she still liked to be babied a little at twenty nine years old.

She would always be your and Elvis’ little girl and that was your most beautiful achievement.

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drewharrisonwriter · 28 days

Text

One Day at a Time - Ch. 10: One Last Time

Pairings: Dave York x Female Reader

Series Summary: A man washed ashore, with no memory, and no name, finds a home and a life in the middle of nowhere.

Author's Notes: This story has been sitting in my drafts for over a year, waiting for the perfect moment to see the light of day. It wasn't until recently that I found the inspiration to finally finish the last two chapters, thanks to the incredible Keri @absurdthirst. Her story, "Washed Up," struck a chord with me—it had such a similar plot and concept to what I had in mind, and it reignited my passion to bring this piece to life. Keri's writing has been a constant source of solace and inspiration, and I'm endlessly grateful for her creativity and the way she crafts stories that speak to the soul. If you haven’t checked out her work, you absolutely should!

Warnings: Please be aware that this story contains elements of violence, explicit sexual content, and pregnancy. Additionally, there are medical inaccuracies throughout—because I don’t work in the medical field, so please take it all with a grain of salt. Enjoy the ride, and thank you for reading! 😊

Read this on AO3 | Check out my Masterlist

The drive back to the farm felt surreal, the storm brewing outside reminding Dave too much of that fateful day when everything had changed. The rain pounded against the windshield, the wind howling as it pushed against the car, but Dave barely noticed. His mind was racing with thoughts of seeing you again after all these months apart.

He couldn’t help but laugh at himself, the sound bitter as it echoed in the confined space of the car. Who would have thought he’d become this man? The kind who worried about whether the woman he cared about had moved on, who feared she might have found someone else to build a life with. The old Dave would have scoffed at such weakness, but he wasn’t that man anymore. He had changed—losing his memory, living a simpler life, and then regaining his memories had altered him in ways he hadn’t expected.

He knew now that he had his full memory back. Every detail was sharp and clear, but those memories didn’t change how he felt about you. If anything, they had only intensified his need to return to the farm, to return to his newfound life, to be with you.

As he neared the farm, Dave’s heart pounded with anticipation. The house came into view, dark and silent, and a small frown creased his forehead. The storm was growing stronger, the wind whipping through the trees, but there was no sign of life inside. He pulled the car to a stop and got out, his eyes scanning the property.

“Maybe she’s out on a supply run,” he muttered to himself, trying to ignore the gnawing worry in his gut. He pushed open the front door, stepping into the familiar warmth of the farmhouse. Everything was just as he remembered, but the emptiness weighed heavily on him.

Dave moved through the house, checking each room, except his old room which was locked for some reason, but there was no sign of you. The silence in the house, combined with the growing storm outside, only heightened his anxiety. Where were you?

As the night wore on, the storm grew more intense. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the rain lashed against the windows. Dave found himself pacing the living room, his worry growing with each passing minute. The clock on the wall ticked steadily, the only sound in the otherwise silent house.

When the first flash of lightning lit up the sky, Dave’s unease turned to panic. Something wasn’t right. He grabbed his phone, scrolling through the contacts, but hesitated. Who would he even call? Before he could decide, a shadow moved outside the window, and Dave froze, his heart leaping into his throat.

He moved to the front door, flinging it open just as another flash of lightning illuminated the figure standing at the edge of the walkway. Dave’s breath caught in his chest as he recognized the man.

“McCall,” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the storm.

McCall stood there, his expression unreadable, a gun in his hand. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, just watched Dave with those piercing eyes that seemed to see right through him.

“Where is she?” Dave demanded, stepping forward despite the gun pointed at him. “Where is she?”

McCall didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone. He pressed a button and held it up, the sound of your voice filling the air.

“Dave, go! Leave! Please, save yourself!” Your voice was frantic, filled with fear, and Dave felt his heart shatter at the sound.

“Stop,” Dave pleaded, his voice breaking. “Stop this, McCall. She has nothing to do with this, let her go.”

McCall’s expression didn’t change as he ended the call, tucking the phone back into his pocket. “She’s pregnant, Dave,” he said quietly, his voice carrying a weight that sent a chill down Dave’s spine. “Did you know that?”

Dave froze, the shock hitting him like a physical blow. “What… what did you say?”

McCall’s eyes narrowed, a faint smirk playing on his lips. “I won’t hesitate to make sure they both ‘quietly go to sleep’ if you don’t cooperate. You know that.”

Dave’s hands clenched into fists at his sides, his mind racing. He couldn’t let this happen. He couldn’t lose you, couldn’t lose the child he hadn’t even known about until now.

“Where are they?” Dave demanded, his voice hardening as he stepped even closer to McCall. “Tell me where they are!”

McCall didn’t flinch. “They’re safe for now, Dave. But that could change very quickly, especially with this storm coming in. It won’t take much for the water to rise, for the flood to wash everything away.”

Dave’s heart pounded in his chest, the fear and anger warring within him. “What do you want?”

McCall’s gaze remained steady, his grip on the gun unwavering. “I want you to choose, Dave. Your life, or theirs. You always knew this day would come. Make your choice.”

Dave stared at McCall, the rain soaking through his clothes, the wind whipping around them. His mind flashed back to that day on the tower, the day he had lost everything. The memories flooded back completely, cohesively—Ari, Kovac, Resnik—all of them gone because of McCall. And now, he was about to lose you too.

Slowly, Dave sank to his knees, the rain beating down on him as he bowed his head. “Do it,” he said quietly, the words barely audible over the storm. “Just… just let them go.”

McCall watched him for a long moment, his expression unreadable. But before he could respond, a sudden flash of lightning illuminated the area, revealing a massive shadow behind him throwing Dave a rifle in a split second.

Dave’s instincts kicked in, and he caught the rifle that was suddenly tossed to him. Without thinking, he swung it with all his strength, connecting with McCall’s face. The man stumbled back, momentarily dazed, but quickly recovered. His grip tightened on the rifle, and with a fierce pull, he yanked Dave down to the ground with him. They grappled in the mud, the storm raging around them, rain pouring down in sheets, lightning flashing in the dark sky.

The fight was brutal, a desperate struggle for control. McCall was strong, his movements precise, but Dave’s fury fueled him, giving him a raw, relentless energy. Every muscle in his body lighted up and burned with the effort, but he refused to let go, refused to give in.

Suddenly, there was a loud pop—a gunshot cutting through the roar of the storm. Dave froze, his heart pounding in his chest, as McCall’s body went limp. The man’s eyes widened in shock, fear etched into every line of his face, as a bullet struck the back of his head.

Dave pushed McCall’s lifeless body off him, breathing heavily. The shadow loomed over him, and Dave looked up, his heart skipping a beat as he saw the figure standing above him. The man held out a hand, helping Dave to his feet. As the lightning flashed again, Dave recognized the face beneath the cap.

“Resnik?” Dave’s voice was barely audible over the storm.

Resnik gave a small, grim smile, nodding as he pulled Dave up. “I knew you were alive,” he said, his voice steady. “There was no body found. No body means not dead.”

Dave smirked, pulling Resnik into a brief, tight hug. He tapped his back, a gesture of camaraderie. “Glad you’re alive,” Dave muttered. “Thought I’d lost everyone.”

“Thought so, too,” Resnik replied, his tone serious. “But you know it takes more than that fall to take me out. I’ve been keeping a low profile, but I knew you’d need help sooner or later.”

Dave quickly sobered, his thoughts turning to you. “We need to find her,” he said urgently, his voice filled with worry.

Resnik nodded, understanding the gravity of the situation. “I’m already on it. I’ve been following you since DC, keeping an eye on the farm. That’s how I got hired as her farm hand. I figured it was the best way to stay close, make sure nothing went wrong. I suspected the baby was yours, too.”

Dave’s heart tightened at the revelation. “You knew?”

Resnik nodded. “Yeah, I had a feeling. I didn’t want to assume, but it was pretty clear. We’ll get her out of this, Dave.”

They searched McCall’s body, retrieving the phone he had used to call you. Dave looked around, realizing they couldn’t stay there. “Help me get him to the barn,” Dave said, and Resnik didn’t hesitate to assist.

They hauled McCall’s body over to the barn, the storm still raging around them. As they worked, Resnik filled in more details. “I knew something was off when you went to DC,” he said. “Figured McCall would make a move. Been following you both closely ever since.”

Dave glanced at him, surprised. “You’ve been close this whole time?”

“Yeah,” Resnik confirmed. “Just waiting for the right moment. Now, let’s go get her.”

Once they had secured McCall’s body, Resnik led Dave to his car. They climbed in, and Resnik started the engine, the tension between them palpable. Dave couldn’t shake the anxiety gnawing at him.

“Thanks, Resnik,” Dave said quietly as they drove. “I don’t say that enough, but… thanks.”

Resnik nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. “No need for that. Just doing what we do—looking out for each other.”

As they drove through the storm, Resnik pulled out his phone and made a call. “Got any leads on that trace?” he asked, his tone brisk.

After a moment, he nodded. “Got it. We’re close.” He hung up and glanced at Dave. “There’s a place not far from your old house. Looks like an abandoned safe house. We should check it out.”

Dave’s grip tightened on the seat, his heart racing. “Let’s go.”

Next Chapter 👉🏻

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #pedropascal #pedro pascal cinematic universe #pedro pascal fan fiction #pedro pascal fan fic #pedrohub #dave york equalizer #dave york x you #dave york fanfiction #dave york smut #dave york x reader #dave york #equalizer 2 #dave york x f!reader #pedro pascal fanfic #dave york x female reader

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mariacallous · 2 months

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A presidential signing bonanza

Vladimir Putin signed into law on Thursday more than 50 laws on Thursday, including several new prohibitions and expansions of the state’s repressive powers. Thanks to the president's approval, these eight pieces of legislation are now set to become the law of the land.

Jailing soldiers (without court orders) for using smartphones: Unit commanders now have the authority to lock up their soldiers for up to 10 days (or 15 days for repeat offenses) if they catch them using banned personal gadgets, such as smartphones. This act previously required transporting the suspects to a garrison court for a formal ruling.

An expanded definition of ‘undesirability’: The authorities can now designate any organization in Russia as “undesirable” if foreign state entities played any role in the organization’s foundation or have even participated in its operations. State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said the law is necessary to close a “loophole” that prohibited the government from designating local, Russian organizations, not just foreign groups.

No more selling energy drinks to kids: Effective March 2025, Russian vendors are prohibited from selling non-alcoholic tonic drinks, including energy drinks, to minors. The new restriction is intended as a public health measure.

Legalized cryptocurrency mining: Russia will introduce a special registry to issue permits for individuals and legal entities to “mine” cryptocurrency — the electricity-demanding process of using computer power to solve the complex mathematical problems needed to validate and secure transactions on a blockchain, earning digital currency as a reward. In mid-July, Putin expressed concerns about falling behind in cryptocurrency regulations. The new legislation also reserves some regional authorities’ right to ban crypto-mining where energy shortages are a concern.

The Dude can no longer abide: Effective September 1, 2025, “propagating drug use in art and literature” without warnings will be punishable by steep fines. The new restrictions exempt all works released before August 1, 1990, and content “where drugs are an integral part of the artistic concept justified by the genre.” The new censorship also does not apply to “materials related to investigative activities, scientific, educational, medical, or pharmaceutical publications.”

More deportation powers for the police: Internal Affairs Ministry officials will now have the authority to expel foreigners from the country without court oversight for certain misdemeanors. The list of administrative offenses includes illegal drug use, the public consumption of alcohol, and disseminating so-called “gay propaganda” (though officers must “directly witness signs of violations” in this last case). Deported foreigners will also be added to a registry that bans them from registering businesses in Russia, getting married, buying and registering property, opening bank accounts, and obtaining or renewing a driver’s license.

‘Trash-streams’ banned: In Russia, “trash streams” usually feature bloggers abusing drugs and alcohol or performing humiliating or violent acts in return for donations from viewers. The new law prohibits the distribution of “trash stream” content, and crimes committed during these broadcasts can be prosecuted as aggravated offenses under 10 different felony statutes. Convicted “trash streamers” will face steep fines and the possible confiscation of their electronic equipment.

Naturalized citizenship revoked for refusing military registration: The Internal Affairs Ministry will now be required to provide records about all men approved for receiving Russian citizenship. Lawmakers who sponsored the bill said the new condition for maintaining naturalized citizenship is needed to address “widespread public outrage” against immigrants who get a passport and then evade military duty.

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froldgapp · 1 year

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We Need a Hero. Ladybug Ain't It

In a July 2023 interview for the Guardian, creator of the Bechdel test, Alison Bechdel, bemoaned the toothless response from big media properties to demands for more complex female leads:

Is it dismaying that so many films continue to fail the test?

What’s really dismaying now is the way so many movies cynically try to take shortcuts and feature strong female characters – but they just have a veneer of strength and they’re still not fully developed characters.

I won't argue that Marinette/Ladybug isn't developed, but rather, that in Astruc's pursuit of a Strong Female Lead, we have a character whose strength, agency, wit, grief and elation, is most often at the expense of the cast around her.

We see this most clearly in her relationship with Adrien/Chat Noir. Here is a boy who is controlled, neglected, (arguably) abused, lied to, used, and weaponised by his sole guardian; his father. This has resulted in a sheltered and naive character who canonically has a desperately conditional understanding of love and loyalty. Most if not all of the displays of love Gabriel shows Adrien rest not on Adrien the person, but on Adrien the asset. His life is not his own, and as is revealed in very literal terms in Season 5, nor is his body.

The Gabriel and Adrien dynamic echoes through the Marinette and Adrien relationship. We are shown, explicitly in canon, that Marinette doesn't really know Adrien. He's a heartthrob and she understandably has a crush on him. But while in later seasons she casts aspersions at his army of adoring fans who go to any length to be close to him, she herself is clearly no better. Evidence says she's much worse actually. She takes astounding liberties with his day to day life, she lies to get closer to him, she polices his relationships with specifically other female characters, she delights in his sadness as seen in Glaciator 2:

Marinette: Oh, Adrien! Fancy seeing you here! And you look so sad, that's good!

Marinette as hero even abuses her position as Ladybug to break into his room, rifle around his things and even sniff his pillow. The show seems to make some attempt to explain away her behaviour in Derision by telling us that, in fact, Marinette does all this because she is the wounded party. Even if we accept for the moment that Derision wasn't a lazy retro-justification in service of Marinette's poor behaviour, her trauma does not trump Adrien's right to privacy.

Except, in-show, anything Marinette wants or needs trumps anything anyone else wants or needs, including Adrien–her ostensible partner. Adrien feels left out? Actually, this is more stress for Ladybug. Adrien dates Kagami? Actually this is competition for Marinette. Adrien is locked in a near-sensory deprivation chamber by his super villain father and feels forced to relinquish his miraculous? Actually this is bad news for Marinette.

If she's a hero, then she's one that comes with a price–one far beyond what I'm willing to accept as audience. I want a flawed hero. I don't want perfection. But equally, I don't want to be force fed the notion that this girl's dominant flaw is being a clutz. We get a few brief glimpses into the cost of her controlling behaviours but generally we suffer almost the entire cast telling us she is the Most Wonderful and Supreme Being That Has Ever Existed, all this while she consistently excels within the narrative through the diminishment of others. Need we remember her acing the gamer competition having never displayed a previous interest? How she surpasses even Joan of Arc in all matters miraculous?

Marinette the knight and Adrien the supposed Princess in the Tower: on paper the concept is a little tired but interesting, worth exploring. The role reversal that Astruc aimed for fell short though, and what we have instead is a role amplification. As I write, I struggle to think of a piece of media where the romantic interest has been quite so violated, lied to, limited and enfeebled.

Why did Bechdel's quote ring so true with how Marinette/Ladybug is drawn? That I feel cheated. That the potential for greatness was there, but instead we have a character who from a slightly different angle looks like a hero from wow-heroes-are-jerks juggernaut, The Boys.

I hope Season 6 interrogates Marinette's issues of control and denying agency more. I hope we see consequences beyond what is now a tedious series of panic attacks from Marinette when she's caught short. I hope real contrition and growth are modelled and that real, impactful, damaging character flaws aren't swept away by a cloud of narrative magical ladybugs.

#mlb salt #ladybug salt #chat noir #ml salt #mlb meta #adrien agreste #ladybug #marinette

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laughing-with-god · 7 months

Note

Last question for now (apologies!)

What are the personal like… styles/ vibes of their homes? Or like, how would they decorate the inside of it? Or would they at all?

(me personally, if I just won the Hunger games, the first thing I'm doing is an AD Open Door Victor's Village edition lmao)

(( Author's Note : Don't be sorry, I love questions like these! It helps me attach visuals to characters which is really fun. For this, I pulled some Pinterest pics and did some light research on the districts, but also feel free to interpret/imagine what you feel is right!!))

Jin

I picture that the Victor homes vary depending on their district, which would make sense considering the districts are in different landscapes so not all homes can be built the same

For District One, I picture little mansions with lots of glass walls for natural light. This district is apparently in the center of the U.S. (Wyoming, Idaho, Utah) so I can see some natural materials, sun roof windows, low and wide mid-century modern houses

I think stylistically, Jin would decorate his home with lots of white and browns, a colorful rug or accent furniture here and there, but he doesn't overdo it in fear of being tacky

fireplace is probably boarded up for um, obvious reasons (war flash backs lol)

I think his favorite part of his home is the kitchen. In the games, starvation was especially tough on him, so now I think he seeks comfort in food. I can see him taking cooking classes or hiring a personal chef, maybe even throwing dinner parties.

If you were to move in with him, I think he'd be okay with you changing whatever you wanted, as long as he gets to keep all his fancy kitchen appliances

Namjoon

I dont think he'd care a lot about the style of his home, I also see him rarely being there since he has so much work to do in the capitol

District Three is apparently in the midwest, and there's lots of factories that make high end technology for the capitol

Therefore, I think the victor homes there would be simple, modern/industrial condo-style homes? Lots of grays and blacks with granite accents.

I don't think Namjoon would go out of his way to purchase furniture or decor, just accepting the furnishings it already came with. He's not a sentimental guy and a part of him is always aware that his home is technically the capitol's property, not his.

I think a cool highlight of his home would be the technology. Like his tv is just a hologram or there's just some cool tech that locks all the doors and turns on the lights on at once. other disctrict victors don't even get that, it's just district three since they rule technology

If you were to move in, Namjoon would gladly welcome any change in decor, letting you know that he never saw the point before you

Jimin

So I personally feel like District Four would make more sense in a tropical place like Florida or something, therefore I feel like there would be a "jungle/beachouse" vibe to the victor homes here

Victors row would be in a vegetated area of four, not too far from the water. I don't see the capitol wanting to have victors living right on the coast since that's most likely reserved for shipments, boating, fishing and yeah....the water is probably heavily monitered in case people get ideas...

Jimin more or less kept everything the same, though he did let his desinger team go crazy with the jungle concept

I can see Jimin liking the color green and also taking care of plants, since he's pretty lonely back at Four it gives him a little sense of innocent purpose

Again, he's def more at the Capitol than here tho, often times this feels more like a vacation home

All the guest rooms get used as extra storage for all the gifts he received from capitol women. hopes to one day fill them with kids tho :(

If you were to move in, Jimin would be estatic and gladly join in any renovation plans. He'd want to be included in the choices, pick the wrong wallpaper even and he'd be pissy about it lol

Hoseok

District Eight is full of factories and textiles, so I see victor's homes being industrial condos with brick walls, exposed pipes and wooden beams

Hoseok will try to decorate and make it feel cozy, just for the sake of his siblings though

I feel like he probably gave his siblings the bigger rooms and took one of the smallest in the home

Anything his little brothers or sisters want, it's theirs no question asked

I can see him becoming a little home maker honestly. He wakes his siblings up in the morning, makes them breakfast, sends them to school, then comes back home and cleans their rooms / common spaces, does some grocery shopping, laundry ect. ect.

It's very cute and mother hen of him but he really just can't handle freetime bc then his mind wonders to dark places...

so he throws himself into caring for his siblings

If you were to move in with him, he'd welcome you and any changes you might want to have on the common spaces, but obvi is protective of his siblings' stuff.

Yoongi

Six is said to be highly populated and overly dense, borderline too many people live here. I picture it as a city too, transportation being their main hub so there's probably even a subway system

Therefore I think the captitol would make a victor buidling or something. District Six doesnt have many victors and the place is already so dense, I think a good solution would be to make one big high rise of apartments where all the living victors have their own units

Yoongi probably threw away everything in the apartment

I can see him having some chairs and a single bed. prob doesn't even have a tv bc keeps breaking them in rage every time the capitol makes an "announcement" lol

Fridge is also always empty. Boy can go days without eating so it doesn't even occur to him to have groceries on hand

Pics below are what the place should look like, before he fucked it up

If you were to move in, good luck on even hanging up a single picture. Give it a week before Yoongi flies into another rage and rips everything to shreds.

Taehyung

I think District Eleven victor homes would be like large, farmhouses on hills away from the rest of the town

I picture feilds upon feilds in this district, since it's all about farming so it's probably very big in terms of land

I also don't think the capitol had many of these houses made, correctly assumming that Eleven wouldn't have many victors

I think Taehyung actually loves his home, quite liking the simplicity and size of it

I can see him starting a little garden in the back yard, or even getting some chickens to keep him busy

He probably would read to his mother too, he most likely set her up in the master bedroom and waits on her hand and foot

If you were to move in, he wouldn't mind little changes here and there. But at his core, he is a minimalist and would rather you not clutter up his space. Don't you two (three including his mom lol) have everything you need already? There's no shame in the simple life.

Jungkook

District Two is up in the mountains! Very cold and harsh winters, thin air but I'd imagine its very beautiful

The homes here are built in luxury cabin style at the base of the mountains. District Two also has the most victors, so I imagine their victors' village is quite the neighborhood

Jungkook is fond of the views he gets from his home. I think he'd like hiking too so he enjoys the proximity to nature

As for the interior, Jungkook doesn't really care. I know, most of the victors on this list don't care but like, kill 23ish kids in a game and ig it puts things into perspective lol

Like Yoongi, all he really needed was a good bed and he'd be okay. I don't think he got rid of the furniture the capitol provided, but he doesn't have an opinion on it either

If you were to move in, Jungkok would just hand you the cash to buy whatever decor you want, just as long as it's not "too girly"

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dailyanarchistposts · 4 months

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F.4.1 What is wrong with a “homesteading” theory of property?

So how do “anarcho”-capitalists justify property? Looking at Murray Rothbard, we find that he proposes a “homesteading theory of property”. In this theory it is argued that property comes from occupancy and mixing labour with natural resources (which are assumed to be unowned). Thus the world is transformed into private property, for “title to an unowned resource (such as land) comes properly only from the expenditure of labour to transform that resource into use.” [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 63]

His theory, it should be stressed, has its roots in the same Lockean tradition as Robert Nozick’s (which we critiqued in section B.3.4). Like Locke, Rothbard paints a conceptual history of individuals and families forging a home in the wilderness by the sweat of their labour (it is tempting to rename his theory the “immaculate conception of property” as his conceptual theory is so at odds with actual historical fact). His one innovation (if it can be called that) was to deny even the rhetorical importance of what is often termed the Lockean Proviso, namely the notion that common resources can be appropriated only if there is enough for others to do likewise. As we noted in section E.4.2 this was because it could lead (horror of horrors!) to the outlawry of all private property.

Sadly for Rothbard, his “homesteading” theory of property was refuted by Proudhon in What is Property? in 1840 (along with many other justifications of property). Proudhon rightly argued that “if the liberty of man is sacred, it is equally sacred in all individuals; that, if it needs property for its objective action, that is, for its life, the appropriation of material is equally necessary for all … Does it not follow that if one individual cannot prevent another … from appropriating an amount of material equal to his own, no more can he prevent individuals to come.” And if all the available resources are appropriated, and the owner “draws boundaries, fences himself in … Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has a right to step, save the proprietor and his friends … Let [this]… multiply, and soon the people … will have nowhere to rest, no place to shelter, no ground to till. They will die at the proprietor’s door, on the edge of that property which was their birthright.” [What is Property?, pp. 84–85 and p. 118]

Proudhon’s genius lay in turning apologies for private property against it by treating them as absolute and universal as its apologists treated property itself. To claims like Rothbard’s that property was a natural right, he explained that the essence of such rights was their universality and that private property ensured that this right could not be extended to all. To claims that labour created property, he simply noted that private property ensured that most people have no property to labour on and so the outcome of that labour was owned by those who did. As for occupancy, he simply noted that most owners do not occupancy all the property they own while those who do use it do not own it. In such circumstances, how can occupancy justify property when property excludes occupancy? Proudhon showed that the defenders of property had to choose between self-interest and principle, between hypocrisy and logic.

Rothbard picks the former over the latter and his theory is simply a rationale for a specific class based property rights system (”[w]e who belong to the proletaire class, property excommunicates us!” [P-J Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 105]). As Rothbard himself admitted in respect to the aftermath of slavery and serfdom, not having access to the means of life places one the position of unjust dependency on those who do and so private property creates economic power as much under his beloved capitalism as it did in post-serfdom (see section F.1). Thus, Rothbard’s account, for all its intuitive appeal, ends up justifying capitalist and landlord domination and ensures that the vast majority of the population experience property as theft and despotism rather than as a source of liberty and empowerment (which possession gives).

It also seems strange that while (correctly) attacking social contract theories of the state as invalid (because “no past generation can bind later generations” [Op. Cit., p. 145]) he fails to see he is doing exactly that with his support of private property (similarly, Ayn Rand argued that ”[a]ny alleged ‘right’ of one man, which necessitates the violation of the right of another, is not and cannot be a right” but, obviously, appropriating land does violate the rights of others to walk, use or appropriate that land [Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p. 325]). Due to his support for appropriation and inheritance, Rothbard is clearly ensuring that future generations are not born as free as the first settlers were (after all, they cannot appropriate any land, it is all taken!). If future generations cannot be bound by past ones, this applies equally to resources and property rights. Something anarchists have long realised — there is no defensible reason why those who first acquired property should control its use and exclude future generations.

Even if we take Rothbard’s theory at face value we find numerous problems with it. If title to unowned resources comes via the “expenditure of labour” on it, how can rivers, lakes and the oceans be appropriated? The banks of the rivers can be transformed, but can the river itself? How can you mix your labour with water? “Anarcho”-capitalists usually blame pollution on the fact that rivers, oceans, and so forth are unowned but as we discussed in section E.4, Rothbard provided no coherent argument for resolving this problem nor the issue of environmental externalities like pollution it was meant to solve (in fact, he ended up providing polluters with sufficient apologetics to allow them to continue destroying the planet).

Then there is the question of what equates to “mixing” labour. Does fencing in land mean you have “mixed labour” with it? Rothbard argues that this is not the case (he expresses opposition to “arbitrary claims”). He notes that it is not the case that “the first discoverer … could properly lay claim to” a piece of land by “laying out a boundary for the area.” He thinks that “their claim would still be no more than the boundary itself, and not to any of the land within, for only the boundary will have been transformed and used by men” However, if the boundary is private property and the owner refuses others permission to cross it, then the enclosed land is inaccessible to others! If an “enterprising” right-“libertarian” builds a fence around the only oasis in a desert and refuses permission to cross it to travellers unless they pay his price (which is everything they own) then the person has appropriated the oasis without “transforming” it by his labour. The travellers have the choice of paying the price or dying (and any oasis owner is well within his rights letting them die). Given Rothbard’s comments, it is probable that he could claim that such a boundary is null and void as it allows “arbitrary” claims — although this position is not at all clear. After all, the fence builder has transformed the boundary and “unrestricted” property rights is what the right-“libertarian” is all about. One thing is true, if the oasis became private property by some means then refusing water to travellers would be fine as “the owner is scarcely being ‘coercive’; in fact he is supplying a vital service, and should have the right to refuse a sale or charge whatever the customers will pay. The situation may be unfortunate for the customers, as are many situations in life.” [Op. Cit., p. 50f and p. 221] That the owner is providing “a vital service” only because he has expropriated the common heritage of humanity is as lost on Rothbard as is the obvious economic power that this situation creates.

And, of course, Rothbard ignores the fact of economic power — a transnational corporation can “transform” far more virgin resources in a day by hiring workers than a family could in a year. A transnational “mixing” the labour it has bought from its wage slaves with the land does not spring into mind reading Rothbard’s account of property but in the real world that is what happens. This is, perhaps, unsurprising as the whole point of Locke’s theory was to justify the appropriation of the product of other people’s labour by their employer.

Which is another problem with Rothbard’s account. It is completely ahistoric (and so, as we noted above, is more like an “immaculate conception of property”). He has transported “capitalist man” into the dawn of time and constructed a history of property based upon what he is trying to justify. He ignores the awkward historic fact that land was held in common for millennium and that the notion of “mixing” labour to enclose it was basically invented to justify the expropriation of land from the general population (and from native populations) by the rich. What is interesting to note, though, is that the actual experience of life on the US frontier (the historic example Rothbard seems to want to claim) was far from the individualistic framework he builds upon it and (ironically enough) it was destroyed by the development of capitalism.

As Murray Bookchin notes, in rural areas there “developed a modest subsistence agriculture that allowed them to be almost wholly self-sufficient and required little, if any, currency.” The economy was rooted in barter, with farmers trading surpluses with nearby artisans. This pre-capitalist economy meant people enjoyed “freedom from servitude to others” and “fostered” a “sturdy willingness to defend [their] independence from outside commercial interlopers. This condition of near-autarchy, however, was not individualistic; rather it made for strong community interdependence … In fact, the independence that the New England yeomanry enjoyed was itself a function of the co-operative social base from which it emerged. To barter home-grown goods and objects, to share tools and implements, to engage in common labour during harvesting time in a system of mutual aid, indeed, to help new-comers in barn-raising, corn-husking, log-rolling, and the like, was the indispensable cement that bound scattered farmsteads into a united community.” Bookchin quotes David P. Szatmary (author of a book on Shay’ Rebellion) stating that it was a society based upon “co-operative, community orientated interchanges” and not a “basically competitive society.” [The Third Revolution, vol. 1, p. 233]

Into this non-capitalist society came capitalist elements. Market forces and economic power soon resulted in the transformation of this society. Merchants asked for payment in specie (gold or silver coin), which the farmers did not have. In addition, money was required to pay taxes (taxation has always been a key way in which the state encouraged a transformation towards capitalism as money could only be made by hiring oneself to those who had it). The farmers “were now cajoled by local shopkeepers” to “make all their payments and meet all their debts in money rather than barter. Since the farmers lacked money, the shopkeepers granted them short-term credit for their purchases. In time, many farmers became significantly indebted and could not pay off what they owed, least of all in specie.” The creditors turned to the courts and many the homesteaders were dispossessed of their land and goods to pay their debts. In response Shay’s rebellion started as the “urban commercial elites adamantly resisted [all] peaceful petitions” while the “state legislators also turned a deaf ear” as they were heavily influenced by these same elites. This rebellion was an important factor in the centralisation of state power in America to ensure that popular input and control over government were marginalised and that the wealthy elite and their property rights were protected against the many (“Elite and well-to-do sectors of the population mobilised in great force to support an instrument that clearly benefited them at the expense of the backcountry agrarians and urban poor.”) [Bookchin, Op. Cit., p. 234, p. 235 and p. 243]). Thus the homestead system was, ironically, undermined and destroyed by the rise of capitalism (aided, as usual, by a state run by and for the rich).

So while Rothbard’s theory as a certain appeal (reinforced by watching too many Westerns, we imagine) it fails to justify the “unrestricted” property rights theory (and the theory of freedom Rothbard derives from it). All it does is to end up justifying capitalist and landlord domination (which is what it was intended to do).

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marshmallowprotection · 13 days

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Armeria maritima

Pairing: Reader/Lady Pirate [Suit] Saeran Fandom: Mystic Messenger. Description: You couldn't talk your way out of this one even if you wanted to. That was the undeniable truth as your kidnapper laughed in your face, with her golden eyes sparkling like the wealth she was after, and your heart beating dangerously to warn you of what was to come. Word Count: 4943

[Read On AO3]

Diplomacy was the last thing that got someone’s point across in the world you lived in. Even if you were raised in the aristocracy, the real world was nothing compared to the education you received, and the simple notion that you could do something about that was gone in a fraction of a second. That was all it took for someone to shatter that simple dream of yours.

A dream wherein you could do something to help others after your parents systematically dismantled the town just outside the gates of their estate.

You still didn’t understand how your parents were capable of such… wicked cruelty. They didn’t think twice about pressuring innocent townsfolk to hand over their property, even their valuables, under the guise that no pirates or thieves could take their possessions with them locked away underneath the mansion.

Without jewels or a property deed to steal, no crooks or cons could take ownership from a family who lived there, but under the thumb of your parents… you saw something just as devious, if not worse because a pirate didn’t lie about their desires, but your parents did.

You didn’t hear it from their mouths while you were attending your studies miles away from home. They didn’t send letters normally, but you couldn’t believe they would claim to protect others when they had taken to greed instead.

The parents you knew as you grew up certainly weren’t the best one could have, always leaving you to fend for yourself amongst the staff until you were old enough to be sent away, but never once did you think they would be cruel.

Neglectful, sure, but never the cruel beasts you’d only heard tales about in stories before. It sounded comical, almost, to imagine your parents in a situation where they were no better than the villains that were robbed again and again by the swindler Robin Hood.

Those villains deserved to be stolen from because they took from people in need and abused their position of power to benefit only themselves. To be in a position where you held all the cards meant that you had to be responsible for everyone who wasn’t as fortunate as you.

For the desperate people who were counting on you to do what was right for them.

Why in the world would they take from the people who were the ones who gave them that wealth to start with, much less the very people who ensured they would continue to receive that wealth? You couldn’t even begin to wrap your head around their choices, and even if you could see why they did it, you knew you would never be able to agree with them… it went against everything you stood for. It went against what you spent years studying for.

You wanted to help your community in the ever-changing landscape of the future’s tide, so it would continue to be a hub for wayfarers alike.

A haven for travelers and townsfolk to take refuge from the harshness they might encounter on the open road. You weren’t a fool, you knew better than to believe the world could be the gentle place you dreamed of, but you wanted to get as close as you could to that dream by studying hard to understand commerce and how to help manage a community. It was the same school attended by Jumin Han, after all.

His family was known for employing people from across the region, and the benefits he offered were more than anyone else could compete with. They were above all else, a company to aspire toward, as long as you had a dream of taking things directly by the book rather than trying to cheat your way into success.

You wanted to take after his example and run the concept even further than he’d taken it, but that dream felt… impossible now.

How in the world could you make a change when your parents cornered the townsfolk like pigs to the slaughter?

You heard about what they’d done on your way home from university. It wasn’t hard to pick up the whispers here and there, and given how noisy some people were when they decided to spread gossip, you didn’t have to go out of your way to piece together the full story as you moved on from foot to train to carriage.

Piracy was on the rise again, and those living just on the edge of the water were experiencing a brutal reign of terror police couldn’t contain. Lo and behold, your parents swooped in to help the people most in need last year by offering a contract with them. If they’d pay a small fee to your parents to take care of things, they wouldn’t have to fear the worst.

Given your Father’s position in the community, as a man who prided himself on his mechanical business that was growing by the year as the world demanded more and more modern advancements that weren’t steeped in flammable material, many thought they could trust him to take care of them in their time of need.

Even if his policies weren’t the best, compared to a crook with a sword on their belt, he seemed to be their better choice. He took advantage of people in their hour of need, and your Mother was no better than he was. She used her beauty and charm to ensnare those who mightn’t’ve given you Father the time of time. She took his idea and pushed it even further than he did, with a honey-bathed lie.

She spread his offer through the town as she went about her day, letting people know a mere contract could protect them from crime and pillage, and by the time anyone realized the truth, it was too late for them to get out of the contract.

Property, jewelry, heirlooms, anything you could’ve imagined meaning so much to someone that they could make a deal just to keep it safe, your parents could keep all of it to themselves and never think twice about returning it. If those who made the deal didn’t could not pay your parents enough money to match the fee, they would lose it forever.

How disgusting, you thought. I can’t wait to return home and give them a piece of my mind. How dare they commit such heinous violence against our townsfolk? We are townsfolk, just as much as those who cannot afford to be amongst manors and estates, and to take from those who have nothing to their names… that is not something I can stand for.

What else would your parents expect from you?

They left you to your own devices as a young child, and those in your company were servants who had little to their names. You never judged them, just as they never judged you. You were a curious child. You wanted to know anything and everything you could about other people, and in doing so, it helped your eyes open to the truth.

You might’ve been born lucky, but others weren’t lucky. Some people had to fight to get their next meal and crawl on their hands and knees to their next job, and you hated the idea of seeing someone have to work so hard for so little… especially your friends, unlike your parents who were never around, the staff members in charge of you were your friends and you did your best to treat them equally.

It wasn’t fair that a child had far more wealth than they ever would, and while it wasn’t your fault that you were born with that wealth, you truly didn’t want to become as complacent or complicit as your parents had… It was a decision that became finalized in your eyes when they sent away the older boy who looked after you.

You could still remember his messy brown hair and disgruntled expression on his face. They blamed him for your disruptive disobedience and sent him away. He wasn't the one who helped you come to your conclusion. He was simply one of many in the manor who helped you see right from wrong.

If they hadn’t done that when you were young, perhaps, you wouldn’t have become as “radicalized” as they called you whenever you returned home on holiday by their demand. You missed your friend, the one who felt like the older brother you always dreamed of, but nothing could ever bring him back after they sent him far, far away.

At least, that’s what the staff told you when you pleaded with everyone you came across for any clue as to where they might’ve sent him.

You knew if you thought about that memory for too long, you would have become angrier by the minute with resentment, but the more that you remembered, the more you realized it never should've been a surprise to hear that your parents had gone beyond the neglect they’d shown you as a young child and grown into something far worse.

If they were capable of doing that when you were a child, then they had always been capable of worse.

What else didn't you know about?

What else did they hide from you?

What if they had been doing worse all along and you just weren't smart enough to realize it when it was right in front of you?

The thought was sobering. But, there was nothing you could do until you could survive the last trek of your journey.

The road to your town wasn't particularly smooth, and it left for a choppy ride in the back of the carriage, but you did your best to focus on the facts at hand.

What could you do when you got there? You couldn't reason with either one of them. You were certain they wouldn't listen to a word you had to say, but what other option did you have? Would you be able to speak with any of the townsfolk before you traveled the rest of the way?

Would the villagers be willing to speak to me? It's not as if everyone knows my identity, I've been of age for years now but my refusal to participate in a soiree means that many members of high society don't know my face.

They may know my full name but they don't know of me. That puts me between an advantage and a disadvantage. If they believed me to be the same as my parents, they would turn me away.

But, if they did not know me, would I be able to do anything outside of gaining an understanding of their situation? My parents disregarded their pain once before, I don't think a sob story will help now.

You were at an impasse. There were plenty of people who clamored for your stance in life.

What they desired more than anything was to be on the lap of luxury, to finally have everything they could ever dream of at their beck and call, to tell people what to do without being afraid of the possible beating they would receive otherwise, to know what it felt like to be wealthy.

But, even with all the money in the world, you were still powerless in the face of your parents. You weren't like your classmates, some were born like you, but others were so very different, working their way up due to scholarships and the goodwill of the wealthy who expected the promise of their career something in return.

Yoosung Kim was like that. Although you weren't acquainted with him, many of your classmates were, given how sociable and kind he was to everyone in his path. His family didn't have much for him but he was on scholarship thanks to the kindness of his brother-in-law.

That was his stroke of luck, but you heard he put in the hard work to prove that their investment was "worth it."

You wished it didn't have to be "worth it."

Drawing in a breath, all you could do was try to hold your head up high and jot down more notes when the carriage was forced to slow down on the sharp path. Even if you weren't sure what you were going to do, you knew you were going to do something about it. People didn't deserve to be treated that way.

You couldn't fix a systematic problem overnight, no soul could, but you had to start somewhere.

If only the town could be at peace… then I might be able to…

Your carriage came to a screeching halt. It happened so quickly, much faster than you could have anticipated, and with nothing to keep you tied down, your body was flung forward against the other wall of the cabin. It hurt.

It didn't knock you unconscious but you knew better than to assume you had come out of the accident unscathed.

It wasn't lost on you that you were a sitting duck in a carriage like this. Why didn't you think about that? If it was true that your parents were going out of their way to set off everyone in the region, wouldn't it be fair to assume that all the villagers would turn against the site of anything that remotely even resembled something of theirs?

Was it possible somebody attacked the carriage thinking your parents were inside? But if it was somebody targeting your parents, you were certain they wouldn't try to keep you alive.

The final stretch of road on the journey to your town took place on a sharp cliff, with corners no man would dare travel on without taking it at a snail's pace to make it to the other side. If somebody wanted to get rid of them, they would have simply spooked the horses and prayed that the entire carriage would be flung from the cliff side.

That made the most sense to you as you tried to rack your brain for answers, if they were dead, there would be nobody to seize their assets. The people would storm to the estate and get back their property before anyone else could seize it.

Right?

You couldn't see anybody wanting to kidnap the likes of them because there would be nobody to pay a ransom to. The other reason why someone would want to take them would be to get even, to torture them within an inch of their life for as long as their revenge desired while someone reclaimed everything that was taken.

No amount of trying to run worst-case scenarios made the situation less terrifying than it already was.

Even if you pretended to be dead, they would still rob you blind in the process. You couldn't blame someone for being desperate to make ends meet, but this was the only part of you that was selfish.

The part of you that wanted to live.

It felt as if the world was spinning, and as you reached up to make sure your head wasn't injured, the door was blown wide open with enough force to knock you over once again. You understood at the last second that this was a robbery, but your rattled body lost consciousness just as you heard the sound of a woman's laugh!

"Heheheh… It looks like I finally found you."

[PARAGRAPH BREAK]

When you awoke, that feeling you felt before you lost consciousness was still there. The dizzying feeling of the envelope world shaking violently at you, rocking back and forth in an unmerciful wave, and as much as you wanted to pick yourself up off the ground and try to shake off the feeling of nausea, you found it impossible to move.

You feared that the accident might have cost you the feeling in your body, but the fact that you could feel aches and pains told you that you had not lost anything just yet. The real reason why you couldn't move was because you were tied down by a rope. It wasn't tied so tightly that you wouldn't be able to breathe, but it was tight enough to leave an impression.

Whoever attacked your carriage intended to take you from the start. The main question you had to ask yourself was: Was this an attack planned by someone who wanted to get to me or was this attack planned by someone who simply wanted to attack a member of the aristocracy?

Nobody knows my identity, but certainly, the identifying markers of a carriage could be enough for someone to come after me for money. For all they know, I could be a guest of the family. Still, anyone who associates with someone who has wealth and prestige is considered scum amongst criminals. That much I do know.

"It looks like the [prince/princess] is finally awake."

Huh?

You did your best to blink through your exhaustion, but your vision was still underneath the heavy afternoon sun. It was way too bright for you at this point. You couldn't remember a bump or cut to your head, but you felt a pinch in your shoulders.

You didn't think anything had been ripped out of place, but it was easy to see what part of your body had taken the impact of the fall.

You had been attacked in the early morning, which meant you must've been unconscious for a couple of hours. Even if you'd been asleep that long, whoever had taken you couldn't have gotten very far… no matter what route they took. It would take a while for them to get off the cliff, and it would take them longer to get back to solid ground or the port…

Where were you and why wouldn't the world stop spinning? That was the burning question. You weren't dead, which was something to be grateful for, but if you had wound up in the wrong hands, they would make you wish you were dead. You could already hear such a taunt in the back of your head.

You didn't have enough strength to open your mouth and ask any questions just yet. Someone said something and they wanted you to hear it.

"Here I thought that we would be waiting for hours for you to wake up again. It seems you've saved us the trouble of having to wait until we get back to our hideout to have our discussion, [Ms./Mr./Mx.] [Y/N]."

Who was that?

Even with a piercing headache trying to lull you back to sleep, you knew you weren't in any position to take a nap. You had to find the source of that voice. You had to figure out who had taken you and what you could do to get yourself out of it.

You had taken plenty of classes about having open discussions with others, but you never expected to find yourself in a situation where you would have to barter for your life. You didn't hold any cards in this situation.

You didn't have any money to your name. It wasn't unreasonable to assume they had taken your luggage. That meant you had no leverage.

They kept you alive for some reason, but if it was a ransom or some other nefarious reason, you weren't sure.

You had to see who was mocking you, to begin with.

It was definitely a woman's voice.

It took a lot of energy for you to lift your head, but when you did, you found yourself face-to-face with someone who you could only assume to be your kidnapper.

A woman with fiery red hair that seemed to glow as she stood in front of the sun to cast a shadow on your face. She had the most piercing pair of golden eyes you'd ever seen and a smirk that could have cut you like a knife.

She wore a dark coat across her shoulders that seemed to contrast against her white peasant top, with a corset that was tied in the back where you couldn't see. Across her waist were two belts, one that connected to a satchel, and another that holstered a long sword.

She must've been a fighter, you assumed because she wore a pair of thick trousers rather than a skirt. Her boots were more likely than not built to keep her fast on her feet as well. They seemed sturdy, and that was likely important given how you could no longer feel the security of the Earth beneath your feet. If the Earth could rumble like this, you would have to be firm.

She took the offering of a hat from someone you couldn't see, and as she pulled it over her head, you realized the familiar shape could only be that of a pirate. Only those who had to worry about the weather would dawn a hat such as that.

They were crafted to make sure water didn't soak the wearer's face, rather, it would cascade down their shoulders and remain out of the way.

That was when you understood the rumbling of the Earth wasn't an earthquake, and it wasn't the vertigo you were experiencing from your head injury.

The people who had kidnapped you were pirates and they probably had something nefarious in mind.

You would give them the benefit of the doubt for now, even if that wasn't something they offered you because you wanted to understand why they would go to so much trouble to capture you in the first place. If you didn't know any better, it sounded like they were looking for you in particular.

How did they find out about you? What gave them the idea to kidnap you in the first place? Your brain was running a mile a minute, but even though you had a hundred and one questions to ask, the only thing you could bring yourself to say was: "What…?"

"Those parents of yours went to an awful lot of trouble to hide you. I didn't think we would ever be able to get our hands on you, but your mistake is our gain," she jeered. It was difficult to distinguish her facial features as the sun illuminated her body. "I can't stand people like you. People who get everything they want handed to them. I bet you've never known a day of hardship in your life, and no amount of yapping on your end could make me believe otherwise."

How cruel.

You had yet to encounter someone as vicious as this in your life so far, and the way she stared at you made you feel… uneasy. You certainly did not disagree with what she was saying about the lifestyle of some wealthy people, but she didn't know anything about you.

On the other end, you didn't know anything about her, either. It would be simple to judge her just as much as she judged you.

What drove someone to become a pirate in the first place?

Was it an exciting lust for adventure to parts unknown? A desire to get even with the world who burned you? Or… was it because there was no other option but to go along with it? Was it similar to what happened to your friend? He never had a choice in becoming a servant… was it possible some pirates didn't have a choice?

You wanted to ask this pirate about it, you wanted to learn more about how she came to be the way she was, but she didn't seem very interested in humoring your questions.

You shook your head, "I don't understand. How did you know about me?"

"We have our ways," she said, flatly.

"Then, why did you kidnap me? I can wager a couple of guesses as to why a crew of pirates would want to kidnap me, but why waste time guessing when I could simply ask you instead?"

"Smart. I don't hate smart people, but I can tell I won't like that smart mouth of yours," she chuckled.

God. You were out of your element in this situation. On a university campus where you could be yourself, you could communicate with all sorts of people without thinking twice about the discussions you wanted to have.

People understood that you wanted to talk for hours on end, to be one of the first people to solve the puzzle presented to you, and there was no threat of a sword in sight. You just… didn't know how to talk to someone who didn't want to talk to you. This pirate seemed keen to talk over you.

She began to explain, "I'll lay it out for you, then. Your parents have destabilized this entire region thanks to the vicious benefactor behind them. Nobody knows who that person is, but the only thought on their mind seems to be conquering everyone and everything. No one can get in and no one can get out of this area because of it. Nobody is coming to save anyone. If they have their way, we're all going to die here, one way or another… that much is true. Either we'll fall in line… or we'll die because we are opposed to them."

"Not only that, they've gone out of their way to get their grubby little hands on everything in sight. Take it from me, when a criminal decides to insult you, that means you're worse than scum. They don't even try to discriminate against anyone in particular they've recently started to come after their own. Y'know, I wouldn't even be against these people tearing themselves apart, but the only reason it's come to that is because they've seemingly run out of easy targets. Men, women, adults, children, criminals, the wealthy, and the poor."

She leaned over which allowed you to get a view of the bitterness in her eyes. "So, tell me, how come your carriage is the first one to come close to this town without so much as a scratch on it?"

You shook your head. "That doesn't make any sense! I've heard plenty of people talk about what's been going on on my way home. If it is like you say, how would I be able to hear anyone talk about what's going on here to begin with? If you can't get out, then there's no way anyone could be talking about what's been going on!"

That's right, you thought. If people couldn't get in or out, I wouldn't have been able to learn as much as I have today.

"That's where you're wrong. The only people who get out of here are let out because they were allowed to leave."

"If that's the case, why hasn't anyone tried to contact the military to come in and commit a rescue operation?"

"Hahahaha," she laughed in your face. It was filled with condescension, too. "That's using that little brain of yours. That's the question we have all been asking ourselves. But what can I say, every man for themselves, if you can protect your own, why turn around and protect anyone else? It's the way of the world."

"That's a sad way to look at the world," you whispered.

"And you're a delusional brat who thinks the world is a kind place," she retorted.

"Quartermaster Saeran! We're fast approaching our destination! I believe we lost the dogs that were hot on our trail as well. Would you like for us to do another sweep of the surrounding area before the ship returns to the hideout, ma'am?"

"Take the west wind! We don't have any more time to waste now that we have the captive on deck. Need I remind you that the damned Captain is expecting us to arrive before nightfall?!"

"No, ma'am! Following the west wind, ma'am!"

There was no way for you to get out of this situation.

These pirates weren't in the mood to negotiate, and the half-hearted explanation you'd received didn't tell you why they decided to take you in the first place. It wasn't as if your own family would pay a handsome ransom to get you back.

Sure, they sent you to school and kept you out of the way, but if they were willing to abandon their humanity for good, they would probably just consider you a lost cause if someone demanded money. You were as good as dead.

What could you do?

"So, what? You're going to lock me away and hold me for ransom and the hopes that you can get my parents to pay you off or let you the hell out of here? I'm sorry to tell you, they're not going to pay any ransom you demand of them. I understand you want to use me as a bargaining chip and I'm the last thing they'd ever bargain for," you said.

She laughed. It didn't seem to make her as mad as you expected, but maybe she thought you were bluffing? Nobody had trained you for a situation like this, and no amount of mental scenarios made it easier on you.

You could imagine all kinds of responses on her lips but everything she said seemed to come out of left field.

Normally, you would've enjoyed the difficult challenge of finally meeting someone who could keep you on your toes, but this wasn't a challenge, it was life or death.

"You misunderstand, then."

What did you misunderstand?

Did you need to play into what she expected of you?

“Do you really think you’ll get away with this?”

“That’s the thing,” her haughty breath tickled your throat. You couldn’t see her eyes, but you could tell they were filled with delight at the sight of your fruitless struggle. “I already have.”

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