#maim kill kill murder kill maim maim kill kill murder

[allmyocsarebritish]

Kiss, Maime, Kill - Chapter 2: The Louisiana Butcher

Pairing: Alastor X killer! fem reader

Warnings!!!: Reader is a serial killer, convinced she is in the right, descriptions of murder, it goes without saying but I really don't condone this, Al's surname in this is Altruist cause it's even more ironic, but yes I know that's not canon

Wordcount: 1k

1928

Louisiana, New Orleans

The partnership you forged with Alastor woke something inside you. In the year that had passed, you felt alive; quite possibly more so than you had in your whole existence. Killing became even more of a thrill, something you had previously thought to be impossible. But with someone to share in the sadistic glee, it was only natural you'd be even more enthralled with the act of slaughter. How strange it was to dream whilst awake.

Murder aside, Alastor himself was truly something else. He understood your twisted mind in ways you never thought would be possible, always reassuring and calm, even in the face of utmost danger. You became close, closer than you were to anyone else, a strong friendship that broadened beyond the constraints of a mere work acquaintanceship.

Therefore, the once fortnightly affair of serial killing became more frequent as time progressed. And, proportional to the increase in your escapades was the time in which the two of you spent together outside of 'work'. Long, leisurely strolls through the park as he rambled became the highlight of your day. There was something about Al's voice that soothed you; there was a good chance that you were the top listener to his radio show, tuning in daily and without fail.

Sitting by the radio, warm mug of coffee in hand, you fiddled with the dials, the exact pattern to Alastor's show ingrained in your memory. Twisting the knobs, it felt as natural as breathing. The radio whirred into life, Al's voice rang out, clear and comforting, like a peaceful white noise.

"Salutations, dear listeners! I say, it's so good to be back on the air." You couldn't help the smile that appeared in response to hearing as he spoke.

You listened intently as Al discussed recent news topics, and, though mostly mundane and repetitive, the host managed to spark interest in even the most boring affairs.

"Now my friends, I urge all of you to stay safe out there."

A sentence which sent shivers hurtling down your spine.

"Rumurs of another missing person have spread like wildfire, and, although we must wait for confirmation of the police report, there is good reason to suspect that this is the work of the illusive Louisiana Butcher."

The Louisiana Butcher. That was what the press was calling you. It all came from Alastor's idea of how to spice up the slaughter further.

*graphic description warning!!*

You leant over the body as you slowly sliced along the man's clavicle relishing in sadistic delight. Your breath came out in sharp pants as you stared into the soulless, unblinking eyes of your victim. Sweat plastered your hair to your forehead, the exertion straining your muscles as you paused to catch your bearings.

Behind you, Alastor chuckled darkly, applauding your lack of mercy.

"Well done, Cher, quite the display."

You basked in his praise, eyes gleaming with manic pleasure.

"Thanks, Al." You stood, wiping the knife on your prey's shirt and moving towards the shovel.

"Wait-" Alastor's gentle yet firm grip on your wrist was a surprise, sending a wave of adrenaline through you, matching the high you felt following a kill. What was he doing to you?

"Leave it." He smirked, a dangerous spark lighting up his eyes.

"And get caught? Oh, Alastor, don't make me laugh!" You smirked, though your smile dropped when he remained insistent.

"I'm serious, dearest. Don't you want to make this adventure so much more exciting?" Bastard knew your weak spot: your penchant for criminal adventure. "Give the law a lead in our case. It isn't like we're at risk of actually being discovered; it will just add to the thrill of the chase when we make the front page of the tabloids!" His hand took your own, his face bearing an expression only present as the aftermath of a brutal killing. But this time there was something else in the mix of those rarely heightened emotions: affection.

Alastor liked you more than be had initially expected to. At first you had been but a mere pawn in his game, an opportunity to deflect the blame should he ever slip up. But now? You were so much more than that. His partner in crime, his best friend, his moitié. (Louisiana Creole for better half)

~

True to Alastor's word, the two of you made the cover of the paper the following evening.

"The Louisiana Butcher. That's what they're calling us, Al. Oh isn't it just so exciting?"

He smiled at the clear rush of ecstasy flowing through your veins. "Quite."

You were sitting on the plush, brown leather sofa in his living room, two mugs of coffee on the small table before you. Leaning into him slightly more than you knew you should, his arm draped over the back of the couch, directly behind where you sat. The broadsheet newspaper you had picked up in the way over splayed across your laps, the two of you intricately studying page one, the title practically jumping out of the sheet.

"Alastor?" You asked after a moment's pause.

"Hmmm?"

"What do you think would happen if we were to be caught? Y'know, just in case." Something foreign weighed down your voice, fear.

Alastor folded the paper and placed it on the coffee table, turning to face you entirely. He took your chin between hos thumb and forefinger.

"Well, first of all, Cher, you needn't fret in the slightest. Not a single officer would ever suspect a pretty little thing like you as a cold blooded killer. And regardless, even if the whole world was against you I'd still proudly stand at your side, my darling." Your cheeks heated at the compliment, drawing a smile to your lips, reflected on his own.

"But what if you were suspected?" Al let out another laugh at your concern.

"Ha, ha! My dear, don't make me laugh! You know I wouldn't slip up in such a way!"

"You promise?"

"You have my word." He drew your knuckles up to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to them.

"Thank you, Al."

"Whatever for?"

"For being here." You moved further into his side, to which he froze for a long moment before reciprocating.

"Not a problem in the slightest, Mon Cher."

[shutupvincent]

my own modern queer experience

wake up early with explicitly queer music made by explicitly queer artists blasting in my ears

be grateful i have not been killed or otherwise maimed for my identity as a queer teenager

eat breakfast

be grateful i live in a world just a little bit more accepting than the last few decades—dream about a future where i can grow old and still be queer—hope that this world supports that dream

eat lunch

play some video games

think about all the queer lives lost, both young and old, from the 1800s to the current

think about my own death. will i be able to die of natural causes like old age or will i murdered for who i am

make relatives friends colleagues uncomfortable because i am the way i am

kiss a boy

cry when i see myself

wish i wasn't different

have dinner

read walt whitman freely, without demonization of my queer soul

feel sorry for queer people born before me and think of the lives they lead and the lives they could've or wanted to lead

think about how many humans grew uncomfortable depressed or didn't even get to grow because of their queer identity

sleep and dream of our future

[coweggomelet]

every retail customer die challenge

[mmelolabelle]

My favourite lucemond dynamic is when they’re characterised as having very different reactions to committing ✨atrocities✨

Aemond: I am a monster. This is the price I pay for mine and my family’s ambitions and to keep the people I love safe. If I am to be called ‘evil’ by all men then so be it - let me be evil.

Lucerys: Idk man for me it was just ‘Tuesday’. Anyway—

[bruciemilf]

I'll have a good day and then boom, I remember that DC writers force Bruce to protect the bitch ass clown that murdered his child under the guise of a bullshit moral code, and not because he's profitable to their audience of edgy incels

[tavina-writes]

MDZS Society! aka: there's a lot less killing than you'd expect

This follows from this post and also the recent translations of MXTX’s most recent interview (which I can now no longer bother to find bc this has been sitting in drafts for like, siiiix months? More? Oh god anyway.) which reminded me about my feelings regarding MDZS society and how different it is from the martial societies we see depicted in typical modern wuxia. (Small disclaimer, I am a wuxia genre fiend and I love like, thinking about fictional societies so this is like, “AHA! You’ve unlocked my trap card!”) 

For the purposes of this, I’m going to be looking at MDZS/CQL’s depiction of the jianghu (which I think is fairly similar! I don’t actually think the show writers made CQL’s jianghu/martial society more genre typical than it was in the book) and comparing that with modern classic wuxia (mostly Jin Yong and Gu Long works.) For this comparison, I’ll be looking at a Jin Yong book — Legend of the Condor Heroes (which is widely considered the starting point of modern wuxia as a genre) — and one Gu Long book — Dagger Li/Sentimental Swordsman, Ruthless Sword (widely considered his most popular work) — and seeing how their societies differ from MDZS society. 

This will likely come in two parts because this one was already getting long, and I don’t think we can fit “how often does nobility exist in a typical jianghu and what do bloodline sects look like normally versus what they look like in MDZS” in this post along with the main topic of “is MDZS society a particularly physically violent place?” 

This post discusses how often cultivators are socially expected to kill people. Like, actual living human beings instead of, say, monsters or ghosts which have been categorized differently than like, human beings. 

EDIT: I forgot to talk about Dagger Li but this was already much too long sorry. Feel free to hmu for more thoughts though.

Now, it might be easy to think that cultivators killing actual people is a really common thing in MDZS/CQL universe! After all, they do have martial arts training and one of the prominent things about the first life is just how many people die both in the Sunshot Campaign and the fallout afterwards. However, I would argue that a lot of the traumas and related issues and reactions that happen in MDZS happen because cultivators are, by training and education, not actually prepared for killing actual living breathing human beings! (And also that the morality of this world prevents it for the most part) 

Now, we do actually get a pretty good window into what the typical training is like for young cultivators in MDZS, because we get a fairly well defined schoolhouse scene where LQR is asking them questions about "how do you tell the difference between various different problems we have to solve?" and "how do you go about fixing this problem?" and none of those include the moral quandary of "if I, a young cultivator out in the Jianghu, see a guy who is doing something I morally disagree with, under what circumstances do I beat him up and/or kill him." This does not appear to enter the curriculum at any point, leading me to believe that the morally correct number of people not like, ghosts or ghouls or fierce corpses, a regular average MDZS cultivator is supposed to have killed is approximately 0.

Which. Is a thing you get in a normal martial arts wuxia jianghu. There is generally the threat of "oh yeah this that or the other faction will be doing shitty things and thereby try to murder you." Instead, in MDZS/CQL most of the heirs of sects are...attending school together. Doing teenage things like partying and gossiping and attending classes.

And sure yes, there was a case of WWX and JZX trying to beat each other up. But the sects did sure let their kids stay at Lan summer camp for months on end (sometimes repeatedly, see NHS) without fearing for their lives or that anyone would steal another sect's techniques or otherwise causing real havoc or intersect warfare etc.

Which is infeasible in any other sort of Jianghu situation. For example, contrast this scenario with this scene from LOCH where Guo Jing's shifus are giving him advice since he is newly 17 and about to set out by himself into the great big world:

Guo Jing therefore bid farewell to his teachers. They had witnessed his battle against the Four Demons of the Yellow River, and were not too greatly worried. The young man had proved that he knew how to use the skills that they taught him. Therefore they let him leave alone. On one hand, the meeting of outlaws in Yanjing worried them greatly, so that they could not ignore it; and on the other hand, a youngster always had to travel the jianghu alone, in order to learn lessons that no teacher could pass on. At the moment of parting, each made their last recommendations. As usual when the Six spoke after one another, Nan Xiren was the last one to express himself. "If you cannot defeat the enemy," he said. "Flee!" He knew that given Guo Jing's dogged character, he would prefer to die rather than to surrender, if he met a master, he would certainly fight to the bitter end, even at the risk of death. That was the reason Nan Xiren gave him this common sense warning. " Martial arts have no limits," added Zhu Cong. " As the proverb says, 'For every peak there is one yet higher', so for every man there is one stronger. Whatever your power, you will always one day meet a foe stronger than you. A true man knows to retreat when necessary, when facing grave danger, it is necessary to contain one's impatience and anger. This what is meant by the adage, « If one preserves the earth and its forests, one does not fear to lack firewood ». It is not therefore not cowardly to take good advice! When the enemy is too numerous and that you cannot face them there, it is especially necessary to avoid being too reckless. Keep in mind Fourth Shifu's advice!"

Does this seem like the sort of advice that any Young MDZS Cultivator would get? "You're a good kid, but when you go out into the world, there will be people who straight up want you dead even though they met you 15 minutes ago, you cannot persist in fighting with these people because they will want you dead and you are a baby cultivator who needs to learn to run away when shit gets rough or you will be dead."

And again I come back to how MDZS cultivators are more like occupational ghostbusters because this really does inform how their society functions and runs and how everyone reacts so badly to the Sunshot Campaign beginning and its aftermaths and possibly explains how JGS could get his way after Sunshot.

Because what happens when you get a society that does train heavily in martial arts and have Able To Kill Real People Weapons who spends most of their time solving very black and white situations of "okay is this ghost whose eating people's livers good or bad? y/n?" and a clear hierarchy of "how do we get rid of the ghost eating people's livers in town x" instead of say "is it morally correct to kill this group of bandits who's been threatening the town" or "is it morally correct to kill this shitty businessman who's been holding people hostage and threatening to hack off their limbs" you have a reduced level of philosophical musing on like, "what is the purpose of martial arts, which is designed to kill people and what do I use martial arts for?" and "under what circumstances and situations would I personally find it morally correct to kill a man?" Which are all questions that Wuxia coming of age stories typically have, and I think MDZS does have, but expressed differently.

Again, it appears that the number of Real Live Human Beings that it is morally acceptable to have stabbed in your life is approximately 0 in this universe, and the expectation that you, personally, might have to fend off people trying to stab you over brunch is also approximately 0.

This also leads to a situation where like, questions of vengeance have very difficult escape hatches! If your parents are murdered on the job by an evil rampaging ghost, this is very sad and tragic and now you're an orphan and of course that's not good, but this is a occupational job hazard, not like, "Yeah Joe Bob from the sect down the street murdered my dad because #Reasons~, and now it's my legacy to grow up to murder Job Bob from the sect down the street to avenge my dad."

(I have a whole essay about how this pertains to both of the Nie Brothers, and how it pertains to JGY and also Jin Ling, and how this seems to routinely fuck people up in MDZS in a very specific way we don't typically see in other wuxias, but this is getting SO long as it is).

But yeah "the socially acceptable number of real living people (instead of ghosts or demons or fierce corpses or whatever) to have killed in your lifetime as a cultivator is approximately 0" means that the Sunshot Generation gets really really fucked up by all of this "killing real people" they did.

Which! might be why JFM was so slow to move on "yeah the Wen are threatening to kill your heirs." <- socially inconceivable behavior. Why society in general is so shocked by Xue Yang and the murder of the Chang <- which would be bad normally but not quite like this. And why no one did anything specific about JGS even if they felt he wasn't entirely correct. What are they going to threaten him with? Death???? A trial of his peers? Social Shunning??? Public shame???

"But Tav how does this relate to CQL!Su She's morality?" I hear you ask. Well you see, the question of "he should've been ready to die for his sect!" is utterly baffling in a society where nobody is expected to be ready to die for their sect on a regular basis because the idea that you should be ready for someone trying to stab you before brunch is utterly nonsensical in a world where most people expect that the baseline number of murders a cultivator does in their lifetimes is 0. That's the world he lives in.

On this regard CQL!Su She is utterly blameless. Nobody handed him a rulebook or expectations sheet for "the sect down the street will try to kill you" nor SHOULD they expect he'd be ready to die at a drop of a hat when no part of the education or social expectations include "ready to die for your sect because it's routine for people to try to kill you."

If you don't even expect to be stabbed and possibly die at a discussion conference where there are lots of cultivators from many sects why on EARTH would you expect to be facing down death in your own home when there's. cultivators here to kill you, this situation is so out of left field?

[brahmenbones]

I’m normal I’m normal I’m normal I’m normal I’m normal

[ash-and-starlight]

OOPS I MEANT ZUKKA SCENE 😳

oh! my favorite zukka scene is this one <3

[i-can-not-art]

Incredibly lazy artificer

[pepurika]

The in-depth, all-caps arguments my friend and I are having about whether that guard is dead are starting to get out of control ngl

HE'S DEAD!!!

[pcktknife]

u can snooze tumblr live for 30 days on mobile but the stupid fuckin camera logo won't go away okay (-_- )

[wherethelightrots]

I hope Jmart is evil for Magnus Protocol, that is my only wish. I need them to be evil and cause problems, they deserve to be evil, mansplain and manipulate and put our new baby characters through horrors. It is vital to my mental health that this happens

[dramatic-dolphin]

allistic people: oh, autistic people need every social interaction to follow rigid scripts, so sad :(

allistic people when an autistic person doesn't follow THEIR rigid social script and doesn't perform the correct ritual of expressing their emotions:

[sayruq]

it's 2023 and asoiaf lannister posts are still like

poor tyrion faces ableism and abuse and he's just going through a tough time right now 😢

cersei is a drunk, stupid, lazy, crazy, fat, ugly bitch who is exactly like her rapist and abuser 😡

poor jaime everyone is so mean to him cause he killed aerys and saved everyone and his bitch sister won't break her back to accommodate his every whim 😥 but i know brienne will 😁

[yuyu-bubu]

FUCK THIS THING