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the-badger-mole · 2 years

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On the Clearest Night: 1K Followers Special

So, I hit 1K followers! For a while, I really didn't think I'd get to this point, but I did it! Somehow... Do I get a trophy or a cash prize or....? In honor of this illustrious occasion, I've reached out to my 1,000th follower and asked them if they had a prompt they wanted me to and they chose Painted/Blue. Here's the result. Thanks to everyone who followed me because of some random post I made and didn't unfollow me when I didn't live up to your expectations. Thanks to @iromiak for being number 1,000! Couldn't have done it without you! And I promise I will continue providing the nonsense you expect from my blog until I get bored and leave forever.

And now! Tonight's feature presentation:

On the Clearest Night

He couldn't decide if she was truly a spirit or not. Zuko had come at his father's request to Jang Hui to investigate the explosion at the arms factory. When he arrived he was confronted by two different versions of the story. The soldiers protecting the armory gave a report of a dark-clad vigilante leading a highly organized team armed with sophisticated explosives acting during the night. The citizens on the other hand told a tale of a river spirit appearing in the form of a beautiful young woman healing the sick, clearing up the river and ridding them of the factory that had nearly destroyed their way of life for good. One side was near rabid with the desire for retribution, and the other side spoke in hushed awe about their savior.

"That's enough,' the boy's mother took his hand and nearly dragged him away from Zuko. She smiled apologetically. "He insists he saw the Painted Lady, but the truth is none of us got a good look at her face. The veil, you know."

"I did see," the boy grumbled unhappily. "Mama said I would have died if the Painted Lady hadn't returned to help us."

"Then I'm glad she was here," Zuko said sincerely.

Still, he had a job to do. His father had entrusted him to find out what had happened to one of the most important armories in the country and to bring the guilty parties to justice. To his relief, Zuko was able to clear the half-starved, ragged villagers of any wrongdoing. He made a note with his secretary to have some sort of aid set up for the village. The soldiers from the armory weren't thrilled about sharing their rations, but it would do until Zuko could get back to Caldera and make more permanent arrangements for relief. He would have to ask his father about assigning a minister to look into how a village like Jang Hui could be allowed to fall so far through the cracks and make sure there were no other such oversights. It was bad enough that he was beginning to hear rumbles of dissent about the draconian conscription laws, the Fire Nation couldn't afford crisis-level poverty, besides.

Zuko stayed in the village another two days, gathering as many clues and leads as he could. There was something strange about the first-hand accounts from the villagers that he couldn't quite place. It was as if they were being careful about saying too much. He heard all about the people who had been brought back from the brink of death by the Painted Lady, and about the stores of food that had been laid at the doorstep of the worst-off families. He'd heard about her ethereal beauty, but they all stopped just short of any truly pertinent details.

"The soldiers said that she was human," a young boy told Zuko. "That she was from outside the Fire Nation, but I saw her! Her eyes were silver and she floated on the river with no raft. "

"I did see," the boy grumbled unhappily. "Mama said I would have died if the Painted Lady hadn't returned to help us."

"Then I'm glad she was here," Zuko said sincerely.

The day Zuko was supposed to leave, there was a sudden stir in the village center. A small group had arrived from a neighboring village, having heard about the troubles in Jang Hui. They bore what scant supplies they could spare and interesting news.

"We've been visited by the Painted Lady," a middle-aged woman said as she passed out blankets and farming tools. "She cured a few that was ailin', and then she told us that you lot would need some help to finish getting back on your feet."

"You spoke to her?" Zuko asked, pushing his way forward to the newcomers. "Directly?" The woman and her companions blinked in surprise. Someone quickly let them know who he was, and they all dropped down into deep bows.

"Please, you don't need to do that," Zuko insisted, somewhat impatiently. "I just want to know if you got a good look at her. Is she a spirit or is she human?" The villagers of Jang Hui stilled and seemed to hold their breath. Zuko tried not to notice.

"I can't say any of us got a good look at her, your highness," the woman said hesitantly. "There was a heavy fog, and she was covered from head to toe in a long, flowing robe. All any of us who were there could see was something glowing in her hands when she touched the sick, and the red markings along her arms. Then she was gone as if she'd never been there." Someone behind Zuko let out a breath that sounded like a relieved sigh. His mouth pulled down slightly at the corners. It seemed he had gotten as much information out of Jang Hui as he was likely to get. He asked the newcomers where they'd come from, and he ordered his men to prepare to follow that trail at dawn the next day.

That night, Zuko's men went to bed early in preparation, but Zuko couldn't turn in quite yet. He made his way to the edge of the river. He'd been told that up until a few days before, it had been thick and dark with the sludge from the factory. It was unfishable, undrinkable, and useless for anything except disposing of waste, but it was the lifeline of the village. Tonight the water was still murky, though Zuko could make out the riverbed in the shallow water. In a few days more, it would run clear again. Zuko frowned. Had his father known that this factory had almost killed a village?

A rustling in the bushes behind him startled Zuko. He had spun around into a defensive crouch before he really registered what he'd heard. An elderly man, who Zuko had seen lurking near the edges of his conversations with the villagers, approached. He was frail-looking, all bent and leathery with his skin stretched tightly across knobby, arthritic bones. Zuko didn't think he was a threat, but he didn't let his guard down either.

"Do you need something?" he asked uncertainly.

"I wanted a chance to speak to you," the old man said. "I didn't think I'd get to before you left in the morning, but I think perhaps I'm meant to after all." Zuko stared at him in confusion for a moment.

"What do you need from me?" he asked, not impolitely.

"I just wanted to say that in all the years we'd been begging for help from Caldera, this was the first time we'd felt we'd been heard."

"Oh," Zuko dropped his fists and shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "I...I just wish we could have done more. When I get home, I'll look into a longer-term solution-"

"I am certain you will," the man cut him off. "And we would be grateful, but that's not what I meant. When the Painted Lady arrived, we were in the middle of dying, your highness. She found several of us breathing our last, and she saved us. Then she got rid of the source of our ills and gave us a second chance to perhaps thrive once again. As I'm sure you can imagine, we're a bit protective of our protector." Zuko's shoulders slumped. He was suddenly exhausted. All he wanted was to go home to his own bed and forget all about Jang Hui. He was certain this old man had much the same wish.

"I have to know who she is," Zuko said, almost apologetically. "If she's a spirit, I have to let the Fire Lord know so we can send the sages to look into this and figure out how to keep her happy. And if she's human...I know she was trying to help, but this," Zuko gestured to the looming husk of the factory. "I can't let her- or them- get away with this. I'll argue for leniency, but this was a crime."

"I understand," the old man said, shaking his head sadly.

"Do you know what she was?" Zuko pressed.

"I'm afraid I have no answer for you." The old man shrugged. "I don't know any human who could heal the dying, though."

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

The next few days were spent chasing rumors and picking up cold trails. It was just like old times, Zuko thought ruefully. Then he promptly shoved that thought away. It was a coincidence. Nothing more.

The Painted Lady had been spotted only once more since the visitors to Jang Hui told their story. Zuko thought he'd come close to an answer in a bustling town where he'd heard about two prisoners escaping a strangely built cell- wood, of all things in the Fire Nation- but there was even less information to be gathered than in the last two sightings. It was enough, though, to make Zuko suspect that perhaps they weren't chasing another ghost.

In another town, Zuko heard rumors of a spirit that only came out during the full moon and took the unwary in the woods. Zuko thought about investigating, but he soon caught word of another struggling town not too far away. It seemed a likely place for the Painted Lady to appear next. Besides, kidnapping people in the woods was the wrong MO. It was probably animals that snatched up careless wanderers (though perhaps, Zuko thought, it wouldn't be a bad idea to send someone to investigate soon).

The town that Zuko and his men arrived in was in terrible shape. It was in worse shape than he'd left Jang Hui in. Despite being a farming town in a year with a plentiful harvest, the people were starving. Starvation had been compounded with a wasting sickness that had already claimed what was estimated to be about a third of the population. That was the sanitized version that Zuko and his men had been given, but the young prince suspected that there was more to the story and that knowing more would make the situation look bleaker. But as with Jang Hui, the villagers were tight-lipped and unwilling to give anything up. It was frustrating to Zuko. After all, how could he help if he didn't know the whole of the problem? Still, he'd gathered enough to know that the Painted Lady hadn't been through yet, and he suspected it was only a matter of time before she did. It was time to send in someone who might have better luck on reconnaissance.

Zuko had a conversation with the captain of his guard that night. It had been a long journey, he acknowledged. Longer than he anticipated, and he knew that the men were getting anxious. The captain tried to assure Zuko that the men were fine, but Zuko insisted that they needed a break. Just a small one for the evening, and then they could pick up again tomorrow. The men caught a small wooly mountain elk and prepared it for a feast that evening. Someone even brought out a few bottles of strong arrack and passed them around. The feast flared up and fizzled quickly after the first few rounds of drinks, like a firework. Soon the men began to drop off around the camp. Some made it back to their cots and others just lay down where they were and fell into a deep sleep.

Zuko looked over them with a small tinge of guilt as he pulled on the Blue Spirit mask he'd smuggled in his bags. He didn't spike the bottles with anything harmful, but they would have a hard time waking the next morning. Zuko would be back by then.

The men had made impressive work of that evening's feast, but there was still a haunch and several smaller cuts of meat left. These Zuko bundled as best he could and carried it off towards the village. Finding the Painted Lady was his main goal, but he was glad to be able to be of use to his people, too.

The food Zuko deposited at the door of the woman who seemed to be the unofficial mayor of the town to be distributed by her the next day. Once that was done, Zuko found a roof and settled in to wait.

It didn't take long. Zuko had barely settled in his spot when a sudden, heavy bank of fog rolled in. At first, Zuko could see nothing, but he heard someone shuffling along through the mists. His heart caught in his throat when he saw the figure emerging. The light of the half-moon penetrated the fog enough to cast her in a silvery glow. Zuko could see the outline of the flowing robes she wore, and the droplets clinging to her gossamer veil caught the moonlight and made it appear as if she wore diamonds or stars to hide her face. And she was heading right for the house Zuko was on.

She entered quietly, and a moment later, Zuko saw a bluish, silver glow coming through the window. He crept to the edge of the roof and lowered his head and shoulders so he could see. It was just as he'd heard. The glow was coming from the Painted Lady's hands. She had them pressed to the chest of a young boy who was struggling to breathe. Zuko watched in terrified awe as a long, thin string of phlegm was drawn through the boy's mouth and discarded in the hearth of the nearby fireplace. When she was done, the boy was breathing easier already. She pressed her hands to his head next, and the boy sighed with relief before falling into a deeper, more restful sleep.

Her task done, the Painted Lady stood and headed back to the door. Zuko scrambled back onto the roof as quickly and as quietly as he could. He kicked a loose tile, causing it to skitter across the roof, but it feel into some bushes below, to his relief. He made back to his original hiding spot mere moments before the Painted Lady reemerged. He waited to see what she would do next. Move onto the next house, he thought, but she stopped suddenly and turned to the exact spot he'd been hiding.

"I know you're there." Zuko froze at her voice. He knew that voice. Why did he know that voice?

"You may as well come out," she continued. "I mean no one in the town harm, but if you refuse to show yourself, I'll have to assume you mean harm." The air grew colder suddenly, and Zuko saw vicious-looking shards appearing in the fog. Reluctantly, he stepped out of the shadows and stood at his full height. The Painted Lady looked up at him, and in the moonlight, he could see the red patterns painted on her bronze skin and a slight frown on her crimson lips. Mostly, though, his attention was caught by her startling eyes. He could just see them past her veil, glowing silver in the moon's rays.

"I know you," she gasped in surprise. "You're the Blue Spirit."

#atla #zutara #painted blue #1k followers special #1000th follower request #thanks for 1k!#let's do this again for 1500!#😁✌🏾#leave a comment!#like!#reblog!#i live off attention #this wasn't supposed to be this long #but lol! what can ya do?#i hope you enjoyed it!

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burned-lariat · 1 year

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Besides Chase and Brooklynn, which other couple took years to get together or did the slow burn route on GH?

I really can't think of one since I'm still relatively new to watching the soap. If anyone can answer this question, please do!

#general hospital #asks - gh #leave a comment!#i wish i knew more anon I'm so sorry 😭

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reecehaswritten · 2 years

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WHATS UP TUMBLR TODAY I FEED YOU MY NEW AU

#hermitcraft #grian #fanfic #mumbo jumbo #I don’t know what else to tag #Enjoy the fic ig?#Leave a comment!#Maybe even hehe- subscribe?#Okay enough youtuber rambles go read

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aboutiroh · 3 months

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You know what’s astonishing about Katara? She grew up in a world without bending.

It’s not surprising that Sokka calls her bending ‘magic water’ in the first episode. It might as well have been magic to them at that point; they had never seen it in practice until they meet Aang.

So not only did Katara not have any teachers, she didn’t have any kind of guidance, no visual aids, no idea of how bending is supposed to look or work. The first time she ever sees actual waterbending movements is when she steals the waterbending scroll from the pirates. The first time she meets another waterbender is when she reaches the North Pole, where within weeks she outmasters pretty much everyone and goes on to teach the Avatar.

Everything she does is so incredibly impressive, and yet I can’t help but feel the most proud of her when she catches a fish on that little boat.

#iroh’s content and comments #atla #avatar: the last airbender #i was actually thinking about Sokka and how his opinion on bending changes throughout the show #but this turned into a Katara post anyway #I’ll leave my Sokka thoughts for another day

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tadfools · 4 months

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You guys are commenting on the fics you read right? You’re at least leaving kudos on the Astarion smut and the pairs that have less than 20 fics for them too? You’re bookmarking stories you really like that are still being updated and ones that haven’t been touched in over a year right?

You know that even the smallest interactions are like cocaine to fic writers right? You understand how important a string of emoji hearts left behind on chapter at three am is right?? Right????

You’re treating AO3 like a community and not a content factory….right?

#this isnt bg3 specific btw im seeing a lot of fandoms rotting cause of this #ao3 #archive of our own #bg3 fanfiction #bg3 #PLEASE YOU GUYS INTERACT WITH THE THINGS YOU READ #you’re not being weird or annoying!!! it doesn’t matter how old the fic is!!!#you can just say ‘I love this’ or ‘it’s three am and I haven’t slept yet cause I was reading this’#you can copy and paste a paragraph you like and add ‘!!!!!!’ after it #theories in the comments! mention when you think you’ve found foreshadowing!!!#if there’s a part where you have to physically put your phone down and smile off into the distantce? TELL THE AUTHOR #you can leave comments every chapter too!!! ITS NOT ANNOYING

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sharkcutlery · 2 months

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someone said more drunk alastor. my wish is your command

#hazbin hotel #alastor #Drinking #alcohol #angel dust #lucifer morningstar #husk #Fanart #Drunk alastor #please leave me comments i love to hear your little comments

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dufrau · 1 year

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COMMENT ON OLD FICS, I BEG YOU!

I swear to god after like a week people will still be reading but nobody leaves comments anymore and I just want to make it absolutely clear that I would be excited and elated to get a comment on these fics one hundred years after I post them.

A FIC IS NEVER TOO OLD TO LEAVE A NICE COMMENT ON. GO FORTH AND COMMENT!

#ironically as i was writing this i got a comment email for a month old fic lol #i love you person who just left me a comment!#ao3 #if youre ever like 'would it be weird for me to leave a comment on this years old fic?"#i promise you the answer is no #it would be awesome of you

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smoosnoom · 1 year

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do u ever get a comment on a fic thats just so sweet that ur like Maybe slaving over 24k of fanfiction was worth it for user SprinkleTrashcan2012 to leave a three paragraph comment

#theres always like . four commenters that i always remember #outside my friends and mutuals i mean #this is specifically directed at users tofuskies and panimoo and significantace_nnoyance #plus like . toy who is always like the first person to leave a kudos 😭#anyway . this was my excuse to be like Wow people are so nice . anyone else feel like crying #/moon #breached containment #muted

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inkskinned · 7 months

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i love when words fit right. seize was always supposed to be that word, and so was jester. tuesday isn't quite right but thursday should be thursday, that's a good word for it. daisy has the perfect shape to it, almost like you're laughing when you say it; and tulip is correct most of the time. while keynote is fun to say, it's super wrong - i think they have to change the label for that one. but fox is spot-on.

most words are just, like, good enough, even if what they are describing is lovely. the night sky is a fine term for it but it isn't perfect the way november is the correct term for that month.

it's not just in english because in spanish the phrase eso si que es is correct, it should be that. sometimes other languages are also better than the english words, like how blue is sloped too far downwards but azul is perfect and hangs in the air like glitter. while butterfly is sweet, i think probably papillion is more correct, although for some butterflies féileacán is much better. year is fine but bliain is better. sometimes multiple languages got it right though, like how jueves and Πέμπτη are also the right names for thursday. maybe we as a species are just really good at naming thursdays.

and if we were really bored and had a moment and a picnic to split we could all sit down for a moment and sort out all the words that exist and find all the perfect words in every language. i would show you that while i like the word tree (it makes you smile to say it), i think arbor is correct. you could teach me from your language what words fit the right way, and that would be very exciting (exciting is not correct, it's just fine).

i think probably this is what was happening at the tower of babel, before the languages all got shifted across the world and smudged by the hand of god. by the way, hand isn't quite right, but i do like that the word god is only 3 letters, and that it is shaped like it is reflecting into itself, and that it kind of makes your mouth move into an echoing chapel when you cluck it. but the word god could also fit really well with a coathanger, and i can't explain that. i think donut has (weirdly) the same shape as a toothbrush, but we really got bagel right and i am really grateful for that.

grateful is close, but not like thunder. hopefully one day i am going to figure out how to shape the way i love my friends into a little ceramic (ceramic is very good, almost perfect) pot and when they hold it they can feel the weight of my care for them. they can put a plant in there. maybe a daisy.

#warm up #writeblr.#i am not going to personally comment on the pineapple debate #some things are too big for me.#maybe we could have everything on earth choose their own names.#wouldn't that be fun #it is a creative writing exercise. okay. ily #''why only these languages?'' ..... bc i dont know every language #sorry :(#PLEASE leave me comments about what words u think are correct. i love learning them #btw! this isn't saying these are the most BEAUTIFUL words for it... just the words that are the most CORRECT #like i quite like the word ''keynote'' as mentioned. it's got a lot of fun sounds in it.#but it is not CORRECT.#''gloaming''' is interesting and fun and poetic but it is NOT correct . evening is MORE correct #but less beautiful.#does that make sense?

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justcuriouspolls · 15 days

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(i have a feeling this poll will get way more views than some of my other ones so I am once again asking you to fill out https://forms.gle/66bRngwjD2fzWX7p6 if you know anything about the character)

#art #artwork #writing #fanfiction #as someone who writes and draws drawing is far more difficult but i’m curious what other people think (hence the url)#fanart #polls #tumblr polls #my polls #feel free to leave your nuanced answers in comments/reblogs #reblogging for sample size is appreciated

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wanderingcas · 23 days

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people are really looking at stats to determine if a fic is worth reading? no wonder fics that never got popular at the first drop never had a chance 💀

#also people don't really leave kudos anymore #or comments #so stats are fallible!!#don't do this i beg of you #best fic i ever read: barely 100 kudos #worst fic i ever read: most popular in a fandom based on stats #i'm just saying!!!

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thebibliosphere · 1 month

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Whenever I talk about the medical neglect and ableism I've encountered as a victim of the healthcare system, there's always some cockwaffle who feels entitled to come into my inbox and make the argument of "not all doctors" while talking about how "people like them" (because it's always someone in a field of medicine who does this) are doing their best and it's really hard because so many people fake being ill to get on welfare (Yikes), but like, yeah, obviously #not all doctors, because if all doctors were negligent, bullying scum bags, I'd be dead.

But here's the thing: while I truly believe that the majority of doctors are doing their best in a system stacked against them and their patients, their presence does not negate the mass harm caused by the bad ones. And there are far more bad ones than you realize.

Fuck, John Oliver literally did a segment on this last week:

youtube

Yes, the truly bad, malicious doctors are in the minority. Most are just horrifically burned out and fighting a losing battle against a system, killing both them and their patients through a lack of funding and resources and profound overwork.

But the malicious ones do exist, and they will go out of their way to harm patients who don't kowtow to them.

I almost lost my life because when I was in my early twenties, I told a doctor I didn't think she was listening to me, and I disagreed with her assessment of my mental health (she was not a mental health doctor, and I was there for heart palpitations and chronic pain). She retaliated by putting "non-compliant" in my file.

There was also a fun little "doesn't show respect" note too that lives rent-free in my head because I know I wasn't rude. I was polite. I just didn't agree with her, and my refusal to accept her off-handed comment that "you probably have bipolar or BPD" (again, I was there for heart palpitations and chronic pain) meant I was "refusing care."

I wasn't. I just refused to be slapped with a mood/personality disorder when I was there because I kept fucking fainting when I stood up.

(Spoiler alert: it was dysautonomia)

That "non-compliant" marker followed me around for years. It followed me across an ocean and effectively ensured that any doctor I saw was going to treat me like absolute dogshit because no one wants to help Difficult Patients. It wasn't until I was so undeniably ill, literally on the brink of death, that anyone helped me.

I'm alive because of a good doctor. And all the good ones that came after him because of him.

So, I know they exist. You don't have to tell me that.

But I really fucking need you to acknowledge the bad ones and that you're part of a system with a long, long history of abusing minorities and vulnerable people. I need you to acknowledge that because it's the only way we're going to survive this godforsaken nightmare and make things better.

So yeah, #notalldoctors, but if you feel the need to say that because someone talking about being literally left to die by the medical system hurts your feelings, I'm going to have to ask you to take a step back and ask yourself if you're going into medicine for the right reasons.

Namely: do you want to help people, even the "difficult" ones?

Even the ones who might disagree with you?

Even if they're on welfare?

Even if they'll never get "better" in a way that means "cured"?

Just a thought. But hey, what do I know. I'm just someone who experienced hemolytic anemia because doctors kept telling me I was anxious and needed to exercise more 🤷‍♀️.

#chronic health tag #medical abuse #medical neglect #medical #ableism #to all the good health care workers who follow me and leave supportive comments: I appreciate you so much #but you need to come get your fellow drs #and idk #give 'em a shake or something #Youtube

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