beckyh2112: (Avatar: Dai Li)
Rebecca Hb. ([personal profile] beckyh2112) wrote2009-12-25 12:01 am

Giftfic for Pux

Because she is a good girl, and it's Christmas.

Some lines gleefully stolen from cracked.com's The Five Most Bad-Ass Presidents of All Time.

Art History with Thanh

---

Aang looked at the elegant portrait of yet another Earth King and tried not to let his eyes glaze. This was boring. Boring, boring, boring. Boooooooooring. Even Momo was bored.

But it was polite. And the ministers wanted to show Zuko the importance of Earth Kingdom culture. Very, very badly. Fortunately, someone had talked them out of letting the Dai Li doing said showing, but...

Aang wondered if he could dive out a window, and if any windows in here actually went outside or if he'd just wind up in another palace corridor.

"Ah, King Hung, the forty-third of the dynasty," A man said thoughtfully.

Aang glanced over his shoulder, startled. There hadn't been anyone behind him before! But there was now, an older Earth Kingdom man with hair an iron-grey. He didn't wear the clothes of a bureacrat, and his hair was worn in a long braid- Crap, it was a Dai Li. Except he didn't wear the uniform, but he had the hair and the quiet, so...

The man folded his arms behind his back, which made Aang blink, and gazed up at the portrait. "Old Hickory they called him in his day. A rather impressive monarch."

"Why did they call him that?" Aang asked, faintly aware that Zuko and their escorts had paused to wait for him.

The old Dai Li gestured at a cane the Earth King had resting against his throne. Aang hadn't really noticed it before. "He used to carry a hickory cane around and beat people senseless. If you're wondering why he did that, it's because he was a fucking lunatic."

End

[identity profile] dark-puck.livejournal.com 2009-12-25 06:03 am (UTC)(link)
*DIES*

*and squees and jumps on and loves*

Oh, Thanh. You are incredible. <3 Poor Aang.

I bet Thanh's the kind who makes history interesting, isn't he?

[identity profile] beckyh2112.livejournal.com 2009-12-25 06:05 am (UTC)(link)
Thanh is.

"Memorize lists of kings and battles? Fuck that shit. Let's go out and re-enact the invasion of Omashu."

[identity profile] gg-crono.livejournal.com 2009-12-25 06:10 am (UTC)(link)
Sounds like fun! :D

Good fic.

[identity profile] beckyh2112.livejournal.com 2009-12-25 06:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you!

[identity profile] weirdlet.livejournal.com 2009-12-25 06:16 am (UTC)(link)
HAH!

*falls down and rolls about cackling*

[identity profile] beckyh2112.livejournal.com 2009-12-25 06:25 pm (UTC)(link)
*grins* I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[identity profile] lunatron.livejournal.com 2009-12-25 04:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Nice story, and I love the link! Andrew Jackson totally needs a Matrixesque movie made about him now. It could be completely factual and no one would believe it.

[identity profile] beckyh2112.livejournal.com 2009-12-25 06:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Cracked.com is to me what TVTropes is to most people. I really love most of their articles, because they do a great job of describing things in a really weird, memorable way.

[identity profile] blue-lacquer.livejournal.com 2009-12-25 04:22 pm (UTC)(link)
This made me laugh so very hard. :D

[identity profile] beckyh2112.livejournal.com 2009-12-25 06:27 pm (UTC)(link)
*grins* Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[identity profile] bookblather.livejournal.com 2009-12-25 07:58 pm (UTC)(link)
I WANT HIM TO BE MY HISTORY TEACHER.

And it is true. Andrew Jackson was a fucking lunatic. An entertaining one, though, and he got shit done. And God help you if you tried to badmouth his wife.

[identity profile] beckyh2112.livejournal.com 2009-12-25 09:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanh is damn awesome that way. I think his classes have a tendency to get waiting lists.

I really need to research the man more.

[identity profile] cobaltcat-tf.livejournal.com 2009-12-27 10:02 am (UTC)(link)
Thanh... is strangely similar to my art history teacher. Only older and male and the lectures we get are rarely on the subjects of whatever work we're looking at and more about the artist/creator. (Michelangelo punched out a Pope!) But Thanh would totally fit in at my college!

I would love to have Thanh as a teacher, though.

Thanh should probably be giving to tour, not whoever is escorting them.

This was a fun read!

[identity profile] beckyh2112.livejournal.com 2009-12-27 06:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Tell me stories? 'Cause I do want to do awesome things with Thanh, but I have lacked history-related teachers of sufficient awesome. (English teachers are a whole 'nother matter, mind, but Thanh objects to teaching kids the classics for some reason.)

Thanh should be, but you know. Ex-Dai Li, and the Avatar and Firelord made it clear they didn't want to have anything to do with Dai Li.