#anyway in my head this is spiritually in the in from the cold 'verse even tho i'm not sure if all the details match up

[msmargaretmurry]

Mini fic 13. things you said at the kitchen table would be fun for matthew and leon, because another pair of my blorbos have several Important Scenes in the kitchen, so seeing how that setting is used for others is nice!

as i'm sure everyone has forgotten by now, eons ago i was doing this writing meme, and so many lovely folks left me prompts that i never got to because grad school destroyed my ability to write. but i am trying to get back in a creative groove so we're resurrecting it. so thank you for your patience/sorry about the wait i guess?? 😂 anway —

13. things you said at the kitchen table

“There you are.”

The kitchen had been so quiet that Leon jumps, looking up from his phone to see Matthew leaning in the doorway, eyebrows knit together with a frown. He’s bare-chested, barefoot, wearing the gray sweatpants that had been folded on top of Leon’s hamper, worn once but not dirty enough to put through the wash yet. There’s an array of teeth marks and mouth-shaped bruises down his torso, just starting to bloom with color. If he turned around, Leon knows, there would be a matching constellation on the back of his hip, disappearing under the waistband.

Leon tends to lose himself in the moment. Sometimes it’s a little embarrassing to see what he’s done afterwards.

Matthew tilts his head. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Leon looks at his phone again, somewhere in the middle of a mindless scroll through Instagram, then sets it aside. “Yeah, just couldn’t sleep.”

“Coulda woken me up,” Matthew says, that cocky little grin of his tugging at one corner of his mouth. “I woulda tired you back out.” He’s crossing the room as he says this, ignoring Leon’s eye-roll, pulling out a chair to sit down across from him. Elbows on the table, eyebrows raised. The only time he’s stopped looking smug all night is when Leon had him gasping and panting and moaning too hard to look anything but desperate. Which is stupid, because his team kind of got destroyed earlier, but maybe his face is just kind of stuck that way.

Leon doesn’t really get Matthew at all. He likes him well enough — a surprising enough thing on its own, and one that Leon is still reluctant to cop to sometimes. But there’s something impenetrable about him. He always leaves Leon feeling off-balance. Something about the way he walks into every room like there’s no reason he wouldn’t belong there, including Leon’s kitchen. 

The sex is great, though.

Matthew hasn’t spent the night before, but not for any real reason. Just lack of opportunity. Leon usually likes sharing a bed when he has the chance. 

Matthew nudges his foot under the table. “Hey.”

Leon blinks at him. “What?”

“You sure you’re awake?”

“Yeah, I’m fuckin’ awake,” Leon says, and kicks him back.

“Well then act like it,” Matthew says, catching Leon’s ankle briefly between his feet. “Is everything okay?”

Leon opens his mouth to say yes, but then he takes a moment to consider the situation, and instead he says, “This is a little weird, isn’t it? You and me at the kitchen table?”

“Well, it’s not my fault we’re not still in bed.”

“Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“I think it’s mostly weird because it’s the middle of the night.” The way that Matthew’s curls fall in his face is distracting. Makes Leon think about how they feel tangled in his fingers. He’d be disappointed if Matthew ever cut his hair short. “You know I’m leaving at the end of the season, right?”

This startles Leon more than Matthew’s sudden appearance two minutes ago. “What?”

“Contract’s up. Bye-bye Calgary.” Matthew shrugs with an extremely measured amount of awkwardness. That— that’s why he’s so fucking confusing. Even his sincerity feels like an act sometimes. But even more than that—

“Why?”

“It’s too fucking cold, I’m homesick, and my coach hates me.”

“No, mean— really, he does?”

Another shrug. So helpful.

“I mean, why are you telling me this?”

“I’m trying to make you pay attention to me,” Matthew says. “Geez, why do you think I’m here?”

Leon raises his eyebrows. “You didn’t get enough attention earlier?”

A tiny grin. “No.”

“So where are you going?”

“Dunno yet.”

“Is that true or are you just not telling me?”

Another shrug. A slightly larger, smugger grin.

“You think I’ll miss you?”

“Nah. You’ve got Davo to keep you warm.”

“We’re not—” Leon ignores Matthew’s dancing eyebrows. “Seriously, why are you telling me this?”

Matthew kicks his foot under the table again. “Come back to bed. We’ve got, what, two games left this season? I’m trying to get the fuckin’ in while I still can.”

“So you’re going somewhere far away,” Leon says.

“Dude, you’re in Edmonton,” Matthew says. “Everywhere is far away.”

“I meant, like, out of the conference.”

Shrug. The temptation to reach across and hold Matthew’s shoulders still is so strong. Instead Leon just meets his gaze, trying for the umpteenth time to figure him out. It doesn’t work, so he looks again at the collage of bruises spilling over his collar bone. He’s changed, in the couple of years they’ve been doing this. His body used to be wirier, but now he’s starting to fill out like a grown man. Leon can feel it on the ice, when he hits him, and in bed when he fucks him. He used to be wilder, more immature, more willing to sacrifice the play to be annoying, but he’s honed that down to an art. Whatever team gets him is going to be blown away by what they find behind his reputation. And Leon— well. It’s strange to feel so acutely that in the grand scheme of things he’ll just be an anecdote in Matthew’s life. It doesn’t bother him, exactly. It’s just a strange little moment. He’d thought, maybe stupidly, that they’d be doing this for years to come. Battles of Alberta and all that. But somehow it makes a lot more sense this way.

“Come on,” he says, standing abruptly. He catches Matthew by the arm on his way around the table, pulling him along back toward the bedroom. Matthew shakes the grip off, but catches his hand instead. In bed, he kisses Leon like he means it, but there are a lot of ways to mean something.

#writing meme #matthew and leon #hockey for ts #frida at least i know you've been PLENTY busy with the weewoo show and have NOT been pining away waiting for a response to your prompt 😂❤ #anyway in my head this is spiritually in the in from the cold 'verse even tho i'm not sure if all the details match up

[cobra-shy]

One cold dark night​ there was a story about a knocking at the outer gate. Despite cries of Yes! Yes! Coming! someone still knocked and the snow that had piled on the gate was blown halfway up the door itself, with no meaning as to the blind knocking or the thick snow or why it did not stop. I knew I should be writing a straightforward story, or even a poem, but I didn’t. I should get back to words, I thought, plain words.

I had been looking at the New Testament in an 1801 edition of Johannes Leusden’s side-by-side (Greek and Latin) version, which I’d found on my bookshelf in a fragile state that did not allow the pages to be turned quickly. Little flecks broke off. I opened it at random to 1 Corinthians 10, a letter of Paul’s about idolatry. The letter spoke of people who wandered in the wilderness eating ‘pneumatic’ bread and drinking from a ‘pneumatic’ rock – or so I was translating it in my head, the word for ‘spiritual’ being pneumatikos in Greek, from pneuma, ‘breath’. Can either bread or rock be made of breath? Anyway who can drink from a rock? A sort of dreariness, like a heavy smell of coats, comes down on the word ‘spiritual’ and makes religion impossible for me. The page is turned. Flecks fall.

Before turning the page though, I noticed that Paul’s text, in the verse following the pneumatic rock, was at pains to identify the rock with Christ (that is, God) and to explain that the rock was ‘following’ these people through the desert so they could drink from it. How very awkward, I thought. I wondered why God couldn’t come up with a better water arrangement for these people and why Paul couldn’t find a more graceful image of God’s care. Presumably Paul wants people to seek and cherish God’s care? But to visualise the longed-for Other bumping along behind your desert caravan in the form of a rock might just make you morose or confused.

Confused and morose myself, not least of all because of that continued knocking at the gate, and in need of a fresh idea, I opened the Bible again and found Psalm 119:81-3. This seemed to be another text about people in the wilderness:

My soul fainteth for thy salvation: but I hope in thy word.

Mine eyes fail for thy word saying, When wilt thou comfort me?

For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget thy statutes.

And all at once I recognised it as a passage I had worked on before, at a time when snow was not my concern – I’d been invited to give a lecture on (as I recall) ‘the idea of the university’, a topic about which I knew little, and so began to compose a lecture more concerned with the word ‘idea’ than the concept of the ‘university’. I’m not clear on whether I ever delivered this lecture: I can’t find it among my papers. Three days before the lecture date my mother died. I fell to my knees in the kitchen. Astoundedness was like a silvery-white fog that seeped up and over all those days. I had visited her only a week before, the long train, then bus, then taxi trip. She seemed OK. Forbidden by her doctor from her nightly glass of Armagnac she’d taken to dabbing it behind her ears. The word ‘idea’ comes from ancient Greek ‘to see’. Was there a way to get out of giving that lecture, I wondered.

Psalm 119:83 is an outcry: ‘For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget thy statutes’ in the King James version. In more modern versions, ‘I am like a wineskin shrivelled by smoke’; or ‘Though I am shrivelled like a leather flask in the smoke’; or ‘I am useless as a discarded wineskin.’ The notion seems to be that without God the psalmist or his life becomes dry, sooty, wrinkled and worn, dark and dismal, parched, disfigured, miserable, bereft of spiritual moisture. There is a strand of tradition that reads ‘hoar frost’ in place of ‘smoke’ but no one knows what to do with that. The same week my mother died my boyfriend left. (Beware the conversation that begins: ‘Do you think people should be completely honest with one another?’) We’d been together a number of years but he was young and closeness to death made him queasy. Do I blame him? I admit I was not a very erotic person at the time. And well, my quotient of astoundedness was full. He drove me to the funeral and more or less kept going. I more or less waved goodbye.

There was no question I had to get out of giving that lecture.

The odd thing is, I can’t remember if I did or did not (get out of the lecture). The chronology is a blur. I do remember sitting in an armchair, at the very brink of an armchair, hands fisted in my lap, facing the professor of religious studies who had commissioned the lecture. I was pleading for a cancellation or deferral. He sat tightly contained on the far side of his big desk. He was pale. Alarmed. He may have been a priest. Tears poured down my face. I told him of my mother’s outlandish little red car coat. He was not a chaotic person. A large feeling of cul-de-sac filled the room. Beyond that I can recover only a few mental screenshots of me speaking about bottles and smoke to a dusty lecture hall of people with crossed legs, but these may be shards of some anxiety dream, not a credible memory.

Historically the first instance of the noun ‘idea’ in ancient Greek is in an epinician ode of Pindar (Olympian 10:103) praising an Olympic victor ‘beautiful with respect to his idea’, that is, in his appearance. Plato’s use of the word to designate things like ‘the form of the good’ is familiar. Slightly stranger perhaps, Demokritos’ choice of atomoi ideai (literally ‘uncut shapes’) to mean the indivisible elements of his atomic theory. Best of all is Matthew’s phrasing in the final chapter of his Gospel (28:3) to describe the look of the angel who came down from heaven, rolled back the door of Christ’s tomb and sat on it:

ἦν δὲ ἡ ἰδέα αὐτοῦ ὡς ἀστραπή

(The idea of him was like lightning.)

‘And his garment shone white as snow,’ continues Matthew’s Gospel, reminding me to go to the door and see who was knocking – has it stopped? – but there is a sense of suspension in the night air, as of a person not quite turning away to go back on their own footprints through the deepening snow. Snow can deepen fast on nights like this. The reason I went to visit my mother, the week before her death, was a dream I had. A young man in red epaulets was ministering to a room of restless guests who lay fully clothed in bathtubs. Waking suddenly (3 a.m.) I knew the young man in red epaulets as the night clerk in the hotel where I stayed when I visited her. Strange choice for a psychopomp, I thought, as hours later the train glided west in a weak tarnish of dawn. There was ground fog everywhere, then afternoon sunlight (the bus) so deep you could enter it as a lake. Finally a taxi gliding past people in their kitchens.

The weekend was spent watching her sleep, oxygen shunting on and off. When awake she glared wildly, or ate small dabs of ice cream or, once, spent a few minutes studying a photograph I’d brought her (of myself at a posh artist’s retreat on Lake Como) then said, ‘Why did you wear your glasses?’ I was not with her when she died. I assume the young man in red epaulets showed up and that he let her wear her car coat. She loved that red car coat.

Last thing: one Sunday evening about a year before all this we were on the telephone, my mother and I; it was just after we sold the house and she’d moved to the facility, where she was allowed a small sensible room and a few possessions. As we talked I was watching snow drift down the dusk outside, counting it, one hundred and five, one hundred and six, one hundred and seven, when out of a pause she said: ‘It’s funny to have no home’ – funny being a funny word for what she meant. I say this now to remind myself how words can squirt sideways, mute and mad; you think they are tools, or toys, or tame, and all at once they burn all your clothes off and you’re standing there singed and ridiculous in the glare of the lightning. I hung up the phone. I stared at the snow for some time. I expect she did too.

--Anne Carson, On Snow

[gloriousmonsters]

...goddamn, I’m still thinking about this wen ning-su she swap AU, because the question occurred ‘if you can use demonic cultivation without a core, and awakened fierce corpses seem pretty similar to humans aside from the lack of spiritual energy... could an awakened fierce corpse use demonic cultivation?’

anyway in this ‘verse WWX decided to go on a little sabbatical to the Burial Mounds to meditate or something, and then wound up staying there because the pressure for him to Stop Being Him kept growing and him and Jiang Cheng’s relationship was becoming more strained; this was still meant to be temporary but it gets complicated when rumors spread that he’s starting a sect based on demonic cultivation, and wwx is like ‘lol no I’m not?’ only to poke his head out of the cave he’s been napping in and find out that sms has returned from wherever he went to brood last and has been recruiting people that show up as disciples

screaming arguments happen where sms is like I’M SORRY FOR ATTEMPTING TO GET US MANPOWER WHEN WE’RE ABOUT TO GET ATTACKED ANY DAY NOW and wwx is like STOP TELLING PEOPLE THINGS AND SAYING I SIGNED OFF ON THEM oh wait i’ve packbonded with some of these losers you brought in now. i guess i’m a bit more ok with it

(jgy is currently hiding the whole wen fam in his basement and repeatedly hurrying his assistant, a-ning (who definitely isn’t a wen who thinks he looks like  a wen? don’t be silly) away from jin zixun before things go bad on either side)

I’m seeing wwx’s death in this ‘verse either being a modified Qiongqi Path - there’s no Hundred Holes Curse in this scenario, but look, I REALLY don’t think you need to try hard to make jin zixun want to try and take out wwx; and it would be so easy to play a scenario where wwx and sms argue about him going, causing wwx to slip off to go alone and get caught without backup--or some kind of scenario where the Jin kidnap one of the Yiling Wei’s younger disciples and use them as bait for wwx to come over and get killed. either way, he still dies around the same time, but sms--and the rest of the sorta-sect--still have demonic cultivation on their side, and they successfully defend the Burial Mounds against siege. everyone thinks about their life choices for a bit, someone yells ‘we’ll get ‘em next time, boys!’ and we cut to 13-16 years of very very uneasy peace

(in this scenario you could TOTALLY still have at least jiang yanli, and maybe even jin zixuan, alive if you wanted! just realized that.)

(in the wwx-is-dead interim, wen ning assists jgy in killing nmj quick n’ sweet with some untraceable poison or something. rip nmj. wen ning is also REALLY useful in knocking people out for ‘assassinations’ to be conducted by ‘outside forces’, etc. he also gets along great with all the kids! great guy)

i could see sms as, before wwx’s death, basically trying to pretend he hadn’t died (don’t read into the amount I cover up or the fact I never use qi in public anymore! I still carry a sword AND my robes are wrapped the right way. shut up) but after, leaning ALL the way into the oldstyle Yiling Patriarch, nightmare of the battlefield aesthetic. the Yiling Wei have almost a Ghost Valley rep--are they human? are they demons? we just don’t know, etc; and sms gets ALL the atmospheric mileage he can out of being Actually Legit Dead. god. he’d probably get some kind of White Grim Reaper moniker and encourage the fuck out of it. wwx is going to die of secondhand embarrassment when he comes back to life and sees how edgy everyone’s aesthetic is

(look I don’t know HOW this happens exactly but in this AU i need jin rusong to live also. usually I don’t really care but I just reread what i wrote above and pictured Wen Ning--possibly not able to see his family all that often because jgy got them settled somewhere safe, but rather out of the way, and he has duties in Jinlintai--bonding with jgy’s kid, and my heart is FULL i need this)

also there’s so much delicious tension in the idea of WWX coming back to a world where the Yiling Wei/Burial Mounds are an entity, and are locked in a vicious semi-cold war with Lotus Pier (sms would Absolutely capture and torture jiang disciples as retaliation for losing his demonic cultivators) meanwhile LWJ is. still just trying to do his thing, waiting to see if wwx’s spirit ever shows up, wishing he didn’t really fucking hate everyone else who used to know wwx

#gay necromancy: the show #i will not write another fic i will not write another fic #su she #wen ning

[stiltonbasket]

could i possibly please prompt you for some grown up kiddies? like the girls and a-yu, what's their dynamic like when they're like teens? do they like to get into trouble a lot or follow all the rules strictly? it'd be interesting to see them on a nighthunt together, maybe. what do they do when they get into trouble, how do they solve problems together? i adore all your fics and your oc's, i'm in awe of you bro

Boys Over Flowers

by stiltonbasket

The worst day of Wei Shuilan’s life comes not long after her fourteenth birthday, when her A-Die hands her a packed lunch in a basket and tells it to take it to her elder brother in the produce field.

“Xiao-Yu sent a butterfly saying he couldn’t leave his moonflower sprouts,” A-Die says. “Go bring him his lunch, A-Lan, and then hurry back so your food doesn’t get cold.”

Looking back on it, that was the moment Wei Shuilan's world imploded.

(Or: nineteen-year-old Lan Xiaohui falls in love. His sisters try to cancel his romance subscription.)

All of those days were miserable in their own gloomy ways, but the worst day of Shuilan’s life comes not long after her fourteenth birthday, when her A-Die hands her a packed lunch in a basket and tells it to take it to her elder brother in the produce field. 

“Xiao-Yu sent a butterfly saying he couldn’t leave his moonflower sprouts,” A-Die says—because Lan Yu is a shidao cultivator, and the medicinal herbs and crops he grows are so strong and wholesome that Uncle Xichen once swore that the dandelion tea from Yu-gege’s field could cure his reading headaches. “Go bring him his lunch, A-Lan, and then hurry back so your food doesn’t get cold.”

Shuilan nods and takes off at a run with the basket balanced on her elbow, dodging over rocks and clumps of grass until she gets to the produce field. She expects to find her brother kneeling in one of the flowerbeds, since his moonflowers have proved even more stubborn the enormous cactus he grew for burn paste, but the moonflower bed is decidedly free of muddy teenage boys with equally muddy forehead ribbons, and a squint around the field reveals that Yu-gege is standing near the lotus pond instead. 

Yu-gege isn’t alone, though. There’s a young man hovering next to him, dressed in the colors of Qinghe Nie, and his face is so red that Wei Shuilan can see his ears turning scarlet all the way from the gate. 

“I thought you might like these,” her brother’s strange companion seems to be mumbling, shoving a bunch of fire lilies in Lan Yu’s direction. “They, um. They still have the bulbs on, and the shop said they would put out new roots just a day after touching soil, so you can p-plant them.”

“Zhuyan!” she hears Lan Yu cry, obviously delighted. “How pretty! But—oh, no, my—will you dig out some holes for me over there, Zhuyan-xiong? I can’t leave my moonflowers seedlings for another hour, or I’ll have to start from scratch all over again.”

Wei Shuilan feels her blood run cold. 

No. No, it can’t be. 

“I can help you with them,” the other youth says shyly. “Can I?”

Not the moonflowers! Wei Shuilan wants to scream. Gege doesn’t even let me touch the moonflowers!

That’s because you keep trying to combine the modao with Xiao-Yu’s shidao cultivation and turning his radishes into demons, a voice that sounds a great deal like her Xiongzhang’s scolds in the back of her mind. Of course he doesn’t let you touch them!

“Do you mind waiting until they’re a little stronger?” Lan Yu replies, cheerily oblivious to his own younger sister coming to deliver his lunch. “They should be able to handle double spiritual signatures in a month, I think.”

Horrified into speechlessness, Shuilan throws the lunchbox at his head with a burst of spiritual energy and flees. Yu-gege doesn’t even blink, though, and neither does the stranger, and Yu-gege only looks up when the basket thumps gently to the ground at his feet.

“Oh!” he frowns. “Wait, that’s the basket A-Niang uses for my lunch. Was someone here?”

“I don’t think so,” the stranger says, with an adoring face like a dumb calf that nearly makes Shuilan sick on the spot. “I didn’t see anyone but you, A-Yu.”

Oh no, you don’t, Shuilan thinks, stomping back to the jingshi with clenched fists and helping her parents lay out the lunch dishes so angrily that they exchange a pair of startled glances over her head. I don’t care who this Zhuyan-xiong is, but I’m not going to let him take our Yu-gege away!

*    *    *

Wei Shuilan comes from a rather large family, which is rare among the Lan clan: and among the Weis, as far as she knows, because six generations’ worth of records at Lotus Pier show that her A-Die’s forefathers tended to have single children. Papa has only one brother, Uncle Xichen, and their father had a single didi, Great-uncle Qiren; but Wei Shuilan is the third child out of four, and her parents sometimes joke that they wouldn’t have minded another dozen. 

Her eldest brother, Lan Sizhui (or Xiongzhang, to his siblings) is almost as old as A-Die is, due to A-Die’s sixteen-year stint as a dead man that began when Xiongzhang was a baby. By the time A-Die came back to life, Xiongzhang was almost eighteen, and then he and Papa adopted Yu-gege, who was only two years old when A-Die found him in a brothel in Yunping. Shuilan arrived three years later, after her parents were married, and her younger sister Chunyang was born just after Shuilan’s third birthday.

Shuilan and Chunyang are the closest in age, and the youngest of the four, which is why Shuilan makes a beeline to her sister’s desk after lunch to ask if A-Chun knows a young master from the Nie clan with the courtesy name Zhuyan. 

“Of course I do,” Chunyang says, her warm sweet voice tinted with confusion as she looks up from her book of fu verses—a gift from Uncle Zizhen, who wrote most of the poems in collaboration with Nie-zongzhu. “He’s Nie Zhuxi-gongzi’s younger brother.”

“Really?” Shuilan frowns. Nie Zhuxi is something of a family friend, since he’s Nie-zongzhu’s heir, but he barely visits the Cloud Recesses because Father never even makes an effort to hide how much he dislikes him. “Oh. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Why did you ask about him?” A-Chun wonders. Shuilan fights the urge to poke at her chubby steamed-bun cheeks and then decides that she might as well just do it, because A-Chun is nearly eleven and her adorable round cheeks probably won’t last for much longer anyway. “Jiejie?”

“I saw him just now in A-Niang’s produce field,” she sulks. “He was giving Yu-gege flowers.”

“So what?” Chunyang’s bewilderment makes sense, she supposes, because everyone gives their brother plant-related gifts when they visit Gusu; he’s the most famous shidao cultivator within the four great sects, though most of his fame comes from that one time he ran into a dog yaoguai when he was seventeen and yelled for A-Die and Father to save him. “Nie-shushu always gives Gege flowers and seeds. And he couldn’t come this week for your birthday, so he must have sent the flowers along with Nie Zhuyan.”

“It’s different when it’s Nie-shushu,” Shuilan protests. “He sent A-Die a baby dress for you before you were even born! But this Nie Zhuyan, he blushed when he was giving flowers to Yu-gege, and his ears were red! Like Papa’s always are when he looks at A-Die!”

“Oh!” her sister gasps, shooting straight out of her chair and grabbing Shuilan’s hands. “You mean—you mean he was giving Yu-gege flowers as a courting gift?”

A-Chun’s eyes look like sparkling black stars, and Shuilan nearly groans out loud before pulling the little girl back down to earth with a bump. “A-Chun, that’s bad! He’s not allowed to court Yu-gege!” she hisses. “We don’t know a thing about who he is, or where he comes from, or—”

“But...but he’s Nie-shushu’s cousin,” A-Chun points out. “And we’ve visited Qinghe Nie hundreds of times. We know his older brother, too!”

Shuilan’s eyes go wide. “That’s right!” she cries, bringing her fist down on the table as A-Chun leaps two feet into the air. “We know Nie Zhuxi, and we can’t trust him!”

“Um...why can’t we, Jiejie?”

“Because Nie Zhuxi tried to steal A-Die from Father! Before A-Die and Father got married, they were staying at the Unclean Realm, and Nie Zhuxi kept on flirting with him! He came to A-Die’s room after dark, and he made A-Die wear his clothes, and—”

The door slides open. 

“Nie Zhuxi?” their father’s voice croaks, right before they turn around to find him standing in the doorway with a frozen kind of look on his face. “A-Lan. Has Nie Zhuxi been here?”

Chunyang pouts and crosses her arms. “Papa, it’s time you made up with Nie-gongzi! You know Uncle Huaisang was just bribing him to flirt with A-Die so it would make you jealous!”

“I do not like him,” their father says snootily. “He demanded the clothes off your A-Niang’s back, and then he had the nerve to laugh when Wei Ying took them off and returned them to him.”

“That’s why we have a problem, Papa!” Shuilan cries. “His brother is trying to court our Yu-gege!”

Their father’s lips turn white. “What?”

“I saw him! He showed up with flowers for Gege, and he kept blushing—and Papa, Gege was staring at him so much that he didn’t notice I was there! I came to give him his lunch basket, and he didn’t even look at me!”

“Courting,” Father says, in a strangled voice that makes Shuilan’s own throat ache. “Not—not possible. Xiaohui is only nineteen.”

“He’s of age,” Chunyang pipes up, apparently under the impression that someone courting Lan Yu is a good thing instead of the worst crisis their family has ever had to endure. “And if they’re courting now, they’ll probably court at least a year, right? Gege will be twenty by then, Papa. Don’t worry.”

“I must speak with Wei Ying,” Father mutters, before absconding in a whirl of white satin robes and the flash of a silver hairpiece. “Courting my son, without leave! As if I would ever let such a thing happen!”

And then he disappears, leaving his daughters blinking in a sudden draft behind him. He’s probably going to find A-Niang in the jishi, which means that A-Niang is going to be responsible for telling Nie Zhuyan to stay away from Yu-gege. 

(For a moment, Wei Shuilan almost feels sorry for her brother’s would-be suitor, for having his dreams crushed the moment he worked up the courage to give Lan Yu a courting gift. 

Only almost, though.)

*    *    *

“So, Xiao-Yu!” A-Die says at dinner that night, as cheerful as ever as he fills Yu-gege’s bowl with hot rice and makes sure he gets plenty of vegetables from the dish in the middle of the table. “What’s this I hear about you going courting? Did you really grow up so much when I wasn’t looking, baobei?”

“Courting?” Lan Yu asks, around a mouthful of stew beef and potatoes. “Who’s going courting?”

“You, you silly cabbage. Aiyah, A-Yu, why didn’t you tell us? I’ve been looking forward to seeing you get married for so long, baobao, honestly—”

“I’m...I’m not courting anyone, though,” Gege replies, looking like a stunned rabbit for a minute before shaking his head and serving himself a helping of beans. “I’m too young, A-Niang! I just want to cultivate my plants and help you take care of A-Lan and A-Chun. And I don’t even like anyone, either.”

“You need not fear to tell us if you grow to care for someone, Xiaohui,” Father says anxiously. Shuilan can’t work out whether he’s still upset or not, because that sounded like he was upset at the thought of Lan Yu courting someone in secret rather than by the fact that he was courting at all. “We are your parents, and it is our privilege to guide you through all aspects of your life, including this.”

“Um. Thank you?” Lan Yu offers, clearly bewildered by the worry in Father’s eyes. “I really don’t want to court anyone, though. And I promise to tell you if I ever do, Papa.”

“Then what about Nie Zhuyan?” Shuilan wails, bursting into tears. “He gave you flowers! I saw him! And you were looking at him like he was the only one left in the world, and—”

Unexpectedly, her brother throws his head back and laughs. “Oh, my poor little A-Lan!” he coos, putting down his chopsticks and coming around to her side of the table to hug her. “Oh, no! I’m not courting Zhuyan-xiong. Those flowers were from Uncle Nie, not him, and—don’t cry, Lan-bao! Nie Zhuyan is the last person on earth I would ever think of marrying, you know. And besides, he already has someone he likes! He told me so.”

“Really?” Chunyang asks, looking so disappointed that A-Die passes her a dish of sweet bean porridge. “Who is it?”

“Oh, it’s Mianmian. You remember Auntie Qingyang’s daughter, right? She’s just a little older than Zhuyan-xiong, and he’s been making eyes at her for years. You know, I baked some of A-Niang’s lotus cakes for her once when we went to visit Ling-gege, and Zhuyan was so upset when he heard! He cried, actually, and he didn’t stop until I promised that I didn’t like her that way.”

A-Die’s face turns purple, and he almost chokes on a bit of meat before burying his head in his hands and laughing until he cries. Next to him, Father’s face goes oddly still, and stays that way until A-Die drags himself upright again with tears of mirth running down his cheeks. 

“He likes Mianmian?” he gasps, bursting into another fit of giggles. “Oh. Oh, so it’s like that.”

“What does that mean?” Chunyang inquires, as Father puts his chopsticks down and closes his eyes. “Like what? Papa?”

“You’ll understand when you’re older,” A-Die snorts. “Here, A-Yu, have some more of the lotus pudding.”

And after that, for some reason far beyond Wei Shuilan’s fourteen-year-old comprehension, the subject of Nie Zhuyan courting her brother is never brought up again.

*    *    *

“Oh, that poor boy,” Shuilan hears her A-Die cackle later that night, while she and Chunyang are brushing their teeth in the bathroom. “Oh, that poor boy! Lan Zhan, he’s just like me!”

“I am aware,” Father says wearily, followed by the creaking sound of her parents climbing into bed. “I do not doubt that Xiao-Yu will remain blind to Nie Zhuyan’s love for the next several years.”

A beat of silence, then. “Lan Zhan,” A-Die whispers, “you—I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I should never have made you wait for me for so long. Sometimes I think of how I love you now, and how much it would hurt me to lose you, or believe that you didn’t love me back, and…”

“I would have been the happiest man in the world even if you rejected me,” Father whispers back. “As long as you were happy, and healthy, and safe. I would you rather hate me, torture me a thousand ways, than injure a single hair upon your precious head—Wei Ying, you were gone, and then you returned to life when I spent the last sixteen years cursing myself for letting you go. What more could I ever have asked of you, my love?”

“I made you wait for me a whole year after I came back, darling. You can’t tell me that wasn’t torture to bear, Lan Zhan, because I won’t believe you.”

“Xingan,” their father chides, before the sound of a kiss makes A-Lan giggle so much that her toothbrush falls out of her mouth. “I had my beloved sleeping in my arms, with our son sleeping between us, and you think I was unhappy?”

“Well, when you say it like that…”

“That was the happiest year of my life, A-Ying. And then I married you, and the next year was the happiest. And then we celebrated our first anniversary, and the next year was happier still.”

“Does that mean that today was the happiest day of your life, then?”

“No,” Father says decidedly. “It was yesterday. Before I heard about Nie Zhuyan.”

“Aiyah, Lan Zhan. Our little ones have to grow up someday, you know. A-Yuan might not ever marry, but A-Yu and A-Lan and Chun-bao are going to fall in love, and have people fall in love with them, and they might even get their hearts broken, but—”

“Never! Never, not while I draw breath. I have had my heart broken into pieces, and I would rather die than see our children suffer so. If that means I must pass a decree forbidding that boy to enter the Cloud Recesses, then it shall be done.”

The conversation doesn’t end there, but A-Chun’s eyes are slipping closed, and Shuilan doesn’t want to hear any more kissing, so the two of them go back to their room and jump into their beds.

“Jiejie?” Chunyang asks, after Shuilan puts out the lights and drags her pillow up over her head. “Do you want to fall in love? Someday, when you’re older?”

Wei Shuilan shakes her head. “No. I hate boys. The only one who even wants to talk to me is Lan Fang, and all he ever wants to talk about is how demonic cultivation corrupts the body and wounds the soul.”

“But it doesn’t corrupt A-Niang’s body and soul, does it?”

“He doesn’t mean A-Niang,” she sniffs. “He means me. Lan Fang thinks he knows better just because he’s a boy, and I hate him.”

“Oh,” A-Chun nods. “Jiejie, I think I want to fall in love.”

“Then Jiejie will support you! Do you like anyone, Chun-bao?”

“Not yet. But someday!”

And then Chunyang closes her eyes and falls asleep, leaving Wei Shuilan to her own muddled thoughts until she falls asleep, too. 

#wangxian #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #my fic #@anyone who reblogs this i will love u forever and also cry #please ;-; #lan xiaohui #rip anyone who likes this boy he is a FOOL #wei shuilan #wei chunyang

[drwcn]

Discordance!verse part 2: there are consequence to loving someone you shouldn’t. 

in which wwx is lxc’s husband through political alliance, and there is an affair. 

[8] | [7] | [6] | [5] | [4] | [3] | [2] | [1] [synopsis]

Objectively, massacre was not the correct term to describe the sight before him, but it was the only word that came to mind as Lan Wangji stepped dazedly across the threshold into the courtyard of Songfeng Shuiyue Pavilion.

At some point during the hour before Nie Huaisang arrived and broke him out of jingshi, it had begun to rain. 

The swoosh of the discipline whip being wrought through the air howled louder than the easterly wind, and like lightning it came shooting down, delivered with a thunderous crack as it made contact with a young man’s back. 

Two ninety nine. 

Technically I’m your brother too now... Let’s be friends!

But there was no light, no brief moment of wonder in the aftermath, just the echo of a sickening splatter. The cotton under-robe between whip and skin, once pristine white, had been reduced to strips and tatters. Drenched red, it was nearly indistinguishable from the raw overturned flesh.

“Er-gongzi!”

We can’t - I can’t... I’m your, we’re - Lan Zhan, mm, Lan Zhan please - 

In the periphery of his awareness, Lan Wangji heard disciples yelling his name, ghostly hands pulling at him from all directions, but it was beyond his capacity to heed those warnings now. Transfixed, he gravitated towards the man under the whip, who made not a sound even as his body convulsed with every merciless stroke. 

Three hundred.

I’m not afraid. The future doesn’t frighten me. I have you. Nothing else matters.  

Wei Wuxian laid face down along the surface of a flat long bench, stripped of his outer robes and deprived of his guan. His hair, swept over one shoulder, dipped into a puddle of rain water, cloudy and pink from the blood that dripped down his chin. 

Inside the dry refuge of the pavilion hall, Uncle and the Elders sat in witness. No one showed any inclination to stop this insanity.

Three hundred and one. 

Don’t panic, let’s not panic. We will explain ourselves. Everything is going to be fine. Lan Zhan, look at me, do you trust me? 

As he drew close enough, Lan Wangji saw the thick strip of leather clenched between Wei Wuxian’s teeth and bound back at the base of his skull. But it was hardly the gag that kept him silent - Wei Ying was barely conscious. 

There was water running down Lan Wangji’s face. Whether it was rain or tears, only the gods knew.  

The whip sailed through air again, cutting off raindrops in their paths, but -

Clang! 

Nie Huaisang’s saber swung into the disciplinary weapon, knocking it out of the hands of the disciple.   

“LAN WANGJI!” 

I’m not afraid. 

I have you. 

I have you.

You do have me.

That single thought thrust him back into the present, freed from that far away place suffocating him inside a thick fog of utter hopelessness. 

“You cannot wield my saber. Your meridians are locked. Your core is muted. But take it anyway. At the least, it’ll intimidate. But remember, if you really try to use it without spiritual energy, it will damage you.” 

So be it. 

The rain pelted down around them, and Lan Wangji found himself surrounded by eight senior disciples pointing their swords at him and at the saber in his hand. Without his cultivation, the early spring downpour felt like ice against his skin, and Qinghe’s first class spiritual weapon weighed more than gold. 

"Lan Wangji! Remember yourself!" 

His uncle had stepped out under the eave, along with five other Elders. 

“Stop this.” Lan Zhan demanded, as if he had any rights to make demands. As if he hadn’t been defiling the sanctity of his brother’s marriage behind his brother’s back, as if he hadn’t broken the trust of the one person who had always, always been there for him. 

His uncle was so angry he couldn’t speak, but Elder Zonghui beside him, the most senior and respected of the thirty-three did not have such a reactive temper. 

“Put down the saber, Wangji. Your sense of righteousness is misplaced. Nothing is happening here that isn’t deserved and agreed upon.” 

“Agreed upon by whom?” Lan Wangji gritted his teeth, seething. 

“By all parties involved, of course. Requested even,” said Lan Zonghui, his unaffectedness towards the violence being committed before his very eyes chilled Lan Wangji to the core.  

“Wei Ying requested to be whipped three hundred times?!”

“Four hundred times,” corrected Lan Qiren, cutting into the conversation. “Your actions have violated a dozen precepts of our clan, but for the four most salient transgressions we issued fifty lashes each, totaling two hundred. As you are both participants, you were both to receive them, but Wei Wuxian offered to bear the entirety of the punishment.”

At his uncle’s words, the pain that tore through Lan Wangji was akin to being gutted by his own Bichen. 

“Take Lan-er-gongzi back to his room. He is not in his right mind."

“Do not move!” Lan Wangji commanded, as loud as his nature allowed. “I am not leaving without Wei Ying.” 

A beat of silence. 

“Nhn....” 

Wei Wuxian clung perilously to the edge of consciousness and pleaded at him through hooded feverish eyes. From where he clutched at the front edge of the bench, a trembling hand reached out and tugged on Lan Wangji’s robes. 

Just like that, like a taut string on his guqin plucked with a force too great, the tension inside him snapped, and all the fight that kept him going melted from his bones. Lan Wangji lowered his arm. Qinghe’s saber slipped from his grip and landed on the ground with a splash. 

“Wei Ying...” He fell to knee, uncaring of the eyes judging them as he smoothed back Wei Wuxian’s wet, matted hair and caressed his face, undoing the gag in the process. 

The rain had stopped, but Lan Wangji continued to cry. “Why...”  

Wei Wuxian reached for his cheek, brushing the teardrop collecting at the groove of his nose with his thumb. He smiled, a chasm of crimson red. 

"Lan Zhan...”

“I’m here, I’m here. You have me.” 

“No, no...shouldn’t be here.” Wei Wuxian shoved at him weakly. “My penance... I deserve it." 

But Lan Wangji could not stand another second listening to such words, such lies. He removed his outer robe and laid it across Wei Wuxian’s ruined back. Then, as carefully as he could, he rolled the other man over and into his gentle embrace. 

Strengthened by resolve, he turned to the mixture of faces that watched him with anger, mortification, and disgust, and said, “It takes two for a sin like this. If Wei Ying is culpable then so am I.”

"No.” gasped Wei Wuxian, struggling in protest. “Go, go -” 

“Three hundred and one. There are still ninety nine lashes left, aren’t there? I am here, and I submit before the ruling of the Elders and the Lan family precepts.” 

His Uncle shook his head, sweeping back his sleeve and sighed long and loud, as though all his anger had been defeated by a sense of profound disappointment and resignation. 

Lan Zonghui stepped forth, down the steps towards them. His eyes cut like frozen glass as he examined the spectacle. 

"Even your mother knew decorum,” he said, glancing from Lan Wangji kneeling the on wet ground to Wei Wuxian cradled against him. His gaze lingered there. “Or, perhaps not. The fruit does not often fall far.”  

Lan Wangji wasn’t sure if Zonghui had meant his mother the murderess, or Cangse Sanren the sectless wanderer, but in his arms, Wei Ying seemed to hear the connotation behind those callous words. He took shuddering breath, closed his eyes, and turned his face into Lan Zhan’s chest.

The fist that grasped at the front of his lapel trembled, tight knuckles blanched as white as his robes. 

Lan Wangji felt ill. What could Elder Zonghui have possibly insinuated for Wei Ying to hide himself away like this? As if what was said was too cruel for him to brave, as if the three hundred or so lashes he endured were nothing compared to this carefully chosen insult. 

“Words are unnecessary. You know what you know. We have nothing further to say.” Lan Wangji curled around Wei Wuxian, covering him as much as he could. 

“I’ll take the whip.”

“Your meridians are locked,” countered his uncle, a trace of worry lacing his tone. 

But Lan Wangji could not be dissuaded. “The whip, if you please.” 

Too weak to protest further, Wei Wuxian stared up at him despairingly, dark doe eyes brimming with tears. He was frightened, despite having shown no signs of fear just moments ago. Releasing Lan Zhan’s robes, his cold hand curled around Lan Zhan’s neck, bringing him closer. 

Lan Wangji went willingly, eyes falling shut, and let the press of their foreheads together anchor him to what was real, what was true. 

He heard the whip before he felt it, and when he did -

He always knew the discipline whips were painful. They were created for such purposes, charmed by the most clever and fickle of their spells. It did not kill, but it tortured. And now he understood. 

Excruciating. 

The pain was excruciating. 

The second hit followed soon after the first, and when the impact exploded along the column of his back, he felt Wei Ying quiver against him and heard the sob strangled in his throat. 

Lan Zhan did not envy his position, for he understood completely now that although the discipline whip hurt, it would hurt him more to know that it landed not on himself, but on the man he loved. 

The third hit never came. 

“That’s enough!” 

All eyes turned to the source of that outraged bellow, a seldom phenomenon within Cloud Recesses. 

Lan Xichen stood under the courtyard doorway, the wind at his heels, long hair flying about him, seemingly descended from the sky. Behind him, Nie Huaisang peeked out nervously, pointing to the saber on the ground.  

“Uhm - if I could just -” 

“Xichen -” Elder Zonghui started. 

But Lan Xichen did not allow him to finish. “When has it become acceptable at Cloud Recesses to abuse the Sect Master’s heir and husband without the Sect Master’s knowledge or consent?”

He stepped up to Wangji and Wuxian and physically put himself between them and the congregation of clan elders who had all come out to greet him upon his arrival. 

Uncle sighed, for what seemed like the umpteenth time that afternoon. “This is not abuse, this is punishment.” 

“Oh?” Lan Xichen tilted his head, eyebrows rising innocuously. “For their sexual relations, I assume?”  

This was perhaps the first time ever in Gusu Lan history that a Sect Master had rendered the Elders so utterly speechless. 

Lan Xichen turned to the senior disciple still holding the whip in mid swing. “Put that away before you hurt yourself.” 

"We have not told them to stop,” objected one of the Elders in the crowd, as though he was unable to fully process what was happening.

The glare that Lan Xichen cast over his shoulder was cold and pointed. Without raising his voice, he said, "But I have. And the last time I checked, Wei Wuxian is still my husband and I am still the Sect Master of Gusu Lan and the head of this family."

“Xichen-” Uncle interjected then. “You don’t understand -” 

“On the contrary I understand perfectly. Each year, I, as Sect Master, am granted one allowance to veto the council’s decision. I have never in my life used that privilege before, because I have trusted in the wisdom and guidance of my Elders. However today, forgive me Uncle, Elders, for saying that you are all mistaken.” 

Not waiting for a response, Lan Xichen knelt down beside the two young men.

Lan Wangji stared at his brother with wide, anxious eyes and held Wei Ying closer. He could face his uncle, he could face the Elders and all the world, but for his brother Xichen, the subject of his betrayal, he did not know how to begin to atone or what he would do next.  

“Xiong-zhang, I -”

“How is he?” His brother’s brows were furrowed tightly as he scanned Wei Ying up and down. 

Of course, thought Lan Wangji. Of course his focus would be on Wei Ying. Xichen was not like Uncle, not like the Elders; he knew better. He knew Wangji. And because he knew Wangji, he would know that the one to blame in this wretched situation was not Wei Wuxian. 

Lan Wangji hung his head. His whole face felt hot with shame, and he could not bear to look at his brother anymore. 

“Not good.”

Nestled against him, Wei Ying swayed in and out of consciousness. With the adrenaline of Lan Zhan’s punishment fading, the effects of the freezing rain and his earlier punishment were quickly catching up to him.

“How many?” 

“Three hundred and one.” 

Lan Xichen cursed under his breath. 

A stream of pale blue light flooded into Wei Ying’s left temple. Lan Wangji let out a breath of relief. His brother was strong, of cultivation and of heart. He was kind and forgiving, and undeserving of all that Lan Wangji had done to him, but at least...at least he could forgive Wei Ying, if not his little brother. That was mercy enough. 

The infusion of spiritual energy jolted Wei Ying awake. Sucking in a sharp breath, he grabbed onto Lan Xichen’s wrist. 

Lan Wangji watched with twisted pain and guilt as Wei Ying turned those doe eyes on his husband, “Zewu-jun -” 

“Wuxian, conserve your energy. All can be said later.”  

"No, no, Zewu-jun.” Wei Wuxian shook his head, “Don’t save me. If you do... Please...don't send me back to Yunmeng. I can't go back like this. Madam Yu and Uncle Jiang - I can’t. I know what I have done. I know I deserve everything - anything - but please I beg you, I am willing to die, but let me die here at Gusu. Please the disgrace on my family, on Yunmeng -"

Lan Xichen dabbed his clammy forehead with the edge of his sleeve. "Shh, enough of that. You're delirious, A-Xian. You know not what you speak. No one is going to die, and I will not send you back to Yunmeng." He laid the back of his hand against Wei Wuxian’s temple. “Heavens, he’s burning up - Wangji!” 

Lan Wangji did not realize he had faded off to that hazy place again until his brother shook him by the shoulder. A cool hand pressed against his forehead. “Dear gods, you too. What - what happened to your -”

“It’s been locked,” piped up Nie Huaisang, clutching his saber. Amidst the chaos, no one seemed to be questioning his presence and what he was still doing there. “I tried but I couldn’t -” 

“No, you wouldn’t be able to. The spiritual seal of Gusu Lan can only be undone by the natural momentum of the cultivator’s core. It’ll take time. Come help him, Huaisang.” 

Nie Huaisang threw an arm around Lan Wangji’s shoulder as Lan Xichen lifted Wei Wuxian into his arms. 

Together, they rushed towards Hanshi. 

Update:

[part 3]

#cql #the untamed #wangxian #wei wuxian #lan wangji #lan xichen #nie huaisang #lan qiren #the gusu lan elders #shit does down here #i mean nhs is being awesome as per usual #but... lots of hurt #and some comfort? #you have been warned there is corporal punishment #discau #discordance #wangxian fic #corie fics

[volkswagonblues]

prologue to my zukka biopunk role-reversal AU

note: It’s technically a sequel to Through the Ice Darkly, but you don’t need to read it for this snippet. All that’s required to know is that it’s set in a world where the Northern Water Tribe attacked instead of the Fire Nation. Instead of ATLA’s steampunk world, the NWT and SWT developed biopunk technologies instead. Zuko, growing up in a conquered nation, is still obsessed with the Avatar. Sokka is still the son of Hakoda, chief of the SWT, though because his society isn’t ravaged by war, he has more time for his scientific interests. 

Though of course, in ATLA-verse, science and spirituality are two sides of the same coin...

They were great adapters, Sokka’s people. Clever and resourceful, they were hunters and dreamers and storytellers. Like ice, they knew how to move and reform with the seasons.

They called themselves the Southern Water Tribe, not because some among them had the power to bend water, but because they thought of themselves as water. They understood and respected the great flexibility of the world.

prologue - when Sokka meets Koh the Face Stealer - snippet under cut

The summer that Sokka was ten, Bato brought him to a hunting camp situated at the mouth of a wide bay, about two days’ journey away from Sokka’s normal home in the capital city. Sokka’s grandmother was there, along with a dozen or so families. They were there to hunt the enormous shoveller deer whose herds migrated to find food in the warmer months. Where the deer went, humans followed. And that summer, Sokka was one of them. 

The summer that Sokka was ten, Bato brought him to a hunting camp situated at the mouth of a wide bay, about two days’ journey away from Sokka’s normal home in the capital city. Sokka’s grandmother was there, along with a dozen or so families. They were there to hunt the enormous shoveller deer whose herds migrated to find food in the warmer months. Where the deer went, humans followed. And that summer, Sokka was one of them. 

He didn’t want to leave home, but that was what the adults had decided. It seemed a strange and mysterious decision to Sokka, but at ten, most things seemed strange and mysterious to him. Especially Sokka’s own dad. Sokka would have protested, but in the end he loved his dad too much to say anything that could make him sad. There was enough sadness going around already that summer.So when Bato came to take him away to join Gran-Gran and  the rest of the people in the Old Village, Sokka went quietly, like the good son he wanted to be.

They called it the Old Village, but in truth the Old Village wasn’t old or a village at all. The people of the Old Village didn’t stay in one place but moved around with the seasons. In winter they built houses out of snow and ice. In spring they traveled on long sleds made of wood boards that were lashed together, and when the temperature warmed they got off their sleds and moved into sod houses instead, or pitched skin-tents to follow animals for hunting. 

Once upon a time they would have built or sewed everything by hand or with waterbending. For instance, waterbenders would make the runners for their sleds out of ice, but if there were no waterbenders that generation, people put frozen moss or even frozen fish on the bottom instead, to make sure the sleds skimmed lightly over the terrain nonetheless. This was how it used to be done, but since then even people of the Old Village accepted a few modern conveniences, like sugar and steel Earth Kingdom knives and warm underclothes spun out of air bison wool, which kept out the cold antarctic air like nothing else.

They were great adapters, Sokka’s people. Clever and resourceful, they were hunters and dreamers and storytellers. Like ice, they knew how to move and reform with the seasons. 

They called themselves the Southern Water Tribe, not because some among them had the power to bend water, but because they thought of themselves as water. They understood and respected the great flexibility of the world.

Part of that flexibility meant that, a century or more ago, when some of them started building a great city out of snow and ice closer to the Pole, some of their friends and clansmen adapted. They moved within its great walls and started new lives there, trading and studying and putting their cleverness and resourcefulness to use inventing new contraptions and new ideas – new animals as well. Some of their friends and family did not do this, and they chose to live the way their people had always lived, adapting themselves to only the great machinery of nature. What was good for their ancestors was good enough for them. They shunned a city life for something bigger and wilder and free. 

Neither side lived a better life than the other. They were just different, that’s all. 

Sokka’s grandmother liked her life outside the cities; her son-in-law – Sokka’s dad – was content inside one. He was a very important man, and he was responsible for a lot of people, so he and his wife brought up their children inside the capital, where he was busy trying to carve out a future for all of his people. He was very concerned about their future, and because all things were connected that meant he was also concerned about his past. He often sent his children to visit his mother-in-law. He wanted them to sleep in sod houses and learn to cut deer hides and listen to old stories, so they wouldn’t forget the old ways. Where they came from. 

When Sokka becomes a young man, the past will become an interesting topic for him too.  But the summer that he was ten, he wasn’t thinking about any of this. He was too busy doing two things: the first was avoiding the other boys, and the second was watching the otter-penguins.

There was a colony of them a mile away from the hunting camp. They were all the company Sokka required that summer.

A mile’s walk there and a mile back wasn’t much distance for a ten-year-old boy with a lot of energy, and a few weeks after he and Bato arrived there, Sokka began sneaking away every morning to visit the rocky beach where the rookery gathered. No one accompanied him, and he found that he liked it that away. The otter-penguins were amazingly social creatures with one another, and they accepted their strange featherless visitor with a cool indifference. Sokka had arrived just before their eggs were ready to hatch, and the penguins were more concerned about diving for food than about him. 

So he spent those weeks observing them, sometimes mimicking their waddling walk for his own amusement, sometimes working on projects that he designed for himself. He built a little roofless house right by the rookery, and he built it by piling up driftwood and pebbles he found on the beach. Some days he sat there for hours, just watching the flock. He learned a lot about them very quickly. For instance, the male otter-penguins had excellent balance. Even an injured male could hold a round egg against his stomach, gracefully tumble over small precipices and trip across rocky slopes – and never drop it. And after the eggs hatched, the female otter-penguins took care of the pups in the water and held them close by wrapping them with strands of seaweed. And they each had their own names, just like humans did. The mothers and father made distinct noises to call their own pups back to them when it was time for feeding.

They did all of this, and Sokka watched. He listened. He observed.

At ten, Sokka should be doing chores around the camp: fetching and carrying, sharpening knives and harpoons, scraping the hair off hides, helping to repair and maintain the skin-canoes – that sort of thing. But he was no good at doing any of that. He was ten and going through that unfortunate phase where none of his limbs were the right length, and everything he did that summer he seemed to do wrong. He kept dropping knives and ripping up fishing nets by accident. The worse part was that the other boys didn’t even laugh at him; they gave him looks of pity instead.

Before long, he gave up on the chores and the camp altogether. He avoided the other boys, and after a while they avoided him right back, which suited Sokka fine. He’d found something more interesting to think about anyways. 

That summer he was ten was a time of sunlight, rocks, penguin calls, and the rushing tides. It was the first and last time he ever applied himself to anything with such purity of purpose. He was acquiring knowledge the same way that the otter-penguins dived for fish or hatched their eggs: instinctively, without questioning why.

The little otter-penguins were cute, with their soft fuzzy heads and their wobbling walk. Sokka liked them, and though he winced when some of them were eaten by the leopard seals who prowled the dark, frigid sea, he never interfered. The fish were food to the otter-penguins, just as they were food to the seals, just as the seals might one day be food for Sokka himself. His father called it the miraculous interchange that made the universe work, and Sokka believed him. But still, he felt sad. The poor parents that had worked so hard through the winter were left with nothing to show for it. It seemed unfair..

It was sad, but Sokka could bear it. He did bear it, until one day, when Sokka himself was busy repairing one wall of his driftwood house – the colony started yipping and fussing like nothing he’d ever heard before. 

Sokka ran to see what was the matter, expecting a seal or maybe even a particularly bold black whale. But when he got to the source of the commotion he nearly stumbled from the shock. 

One of the penguins was missing a face.

There were no smears of blood, no telltale signs of shredded feathers. This was no ordinary injury from a preying seal. Somehow, the dark eyes and the nubby beak was gone. There was nothing but a smooth patch of feather, like someone had wiped their sleeve across a patch of snow. It was a female penguin, and she was waddling sightlessly, trying to find its way back to its hungry pups.

Sokka looked around him wildly; the mother had left her two pups a bit farther up, on a great flat rock shelf. The pups whined, but the rest of the otter-penguins were calming down now,  returning to their placid business, diving and feeding and caring for their own young. He looked back at the faceless penguin, still waddling around in circles, unable to sense the hungry cries of her own children.  

What happened? Sokka had never seen anything like this before, but one thing was clear: the mother was ill, and she would not get better. He examined the pups: without a mother to teach them how to swim and feed, they would both die before the season was over. 

The world was very cruel to children without mothers.

“No!” Sokka screamed out loud. “No, no, no!”

All his grief and loneliness surged up at once from a small dark space inside his heart. All the sadness he’d been carrying exploded through him, and it was such an enormous feeling that, had Sokka been a waterbender, the tides next to him would have crested and crashed with powerful roars of foam.

But he wasn’t a bender, and something else that was stranger and wilder happened instead. The world shimmered; the air itself cracked down the middle, and everything that Sokka had been so calmly and so happily observing a moment ago became strange. 

Mist rolled by, even though it was a sunny day. Flying, glowing creatures zoomed around Sokka, and everything became brighter and richer in colour, even through the mist. Sokka stopped screaming, fascinated by the changes in the landscape. He wanted to chase one the flying creatures, but then something scuttled by him and left a chill running down his spine.

It was a massive being, many-legged like an insect, coal-black and plated with hard shells. It looked like a bug but it had the head of a human woman – a disconcertingly pretty one with sad grey eyes. 

“Hello there,” said the bug-thing in a rasp. Its face flickered, changed in rapid succession from the young woman to an old man to some sort of animal Sokka had never seen before.

Sokka stumbled backwards, fell, and cried out again when his palms scraped against the rocks. The thing changed its faces like a dancer putting on masks for a ceremony, except it when a dancer took off their mask at the end of the ceremony, the whale or seabird went away and the dancer became human again. 

Whatever this creature was, it wasn’t human.

It’s been a long time since I came this south, said the creature. But the Avatar has a powerful pull on all of us.

Sokka screamed. He tried to get up and he tried to run, but he couldn’t. One sharp pincer edged towards him. It came closer, closer–

And then a distant mountain peak, one that Sokka had seen a million times before, leaned down. It crossed the hundreds of miles between them like it was a single step, and the mountain bent its great heft over the creature, all its crag and weight bearing down with unbearable pressure, and then the mountain too spoke:

Not yet, Koh. We still need him. 

The creature hissed, about to object, but then the ocean, all salt and tumbling motion, also rose up and added its presence to the mountain’s. 

Leave him, said the ocean, and this command was echoed by the unseen moon and the distant aurora and the ancient rock under their feet.

“First it was the moon girl, now it’s this boy,” Koh said. “Mark my words: we’re intervening too much in human affairs, and you all know it.”

Koh gave one last look at Sokka, and then disappeared, scuttling back into the mists. Sokka was too terrified to speak, too terrified to move. All the spirits were focusing their attention on him now. He knew this instinctively,  the same way that he knew up from down, light from dark, the smell of burning deer fat from seal. 

The mountain shifted; the enormous and distant rock became a heavy weight hovering over Sokka's chest. It prodded him there, like a finger.

Hello, Sokka, said the mountain, and the greeting was echoed a hundred times. A million.

Hello Sokka. Hello. Hello. Hello.

Sokka didn’t remember running the distance back to the camp, but he must have, because the next lucid thing he remembered was throwing his arms around Bato, not caring that he was leaving blood and dirt over Bato’s clothes. 

“What’s wrong?” asked Bato, his brows creased with concern. “Sokka, what happened?”

Sokka shook his head. He was born and raised a city kid; he would always be one at heart. He could not describe how terrifying it was to discover that, the whole time he was looking at the world, the world was looking back. 

“Bato, please,” he sobbed. “Please. I want my mother. Where is she? Where’s Mom?” 

Bato patted his head and held him close. “Oh, Sokka,” he said – and nothing else.

Sokka’s grandmother was nearby too, running over from some task with her grisly knife still in hand. She clucked her tongue; wiped the blade off with a brisk motion. “Tell the boy to stop wailing and get him inside somewhere, I’ll bring him something to eat. Something warm will snap him out of it.”

Sokka raised his head from where it was buried in the material of Bato’s sealskin parka; he shook it. He wanted to stop too, but his body had other ideas. Water was running down his face: a mix of tears and snot, blood from where he had bitten his own tongue. The taste of it all was frightful, all coppery and salty, slick from the mucus building up in the back of his throat, which was too wet and too dry all at once. 

“Dad?” It was someone else who came to see what was going on: Ayaliq, Bato’s own daughter. She trotted over and cuddled Sokka from his side, wrapping her little arms around him and Bato at the same time. “Don’t be upset,” she said. “It’s okay, Sokka.”

One of Bato’s hands cupped the back of Sokka’s head, a warm protective weight. “Leave him be,” he said to Sokka’s grandmother. “This is the first time he’s cried since the day itself. It’s only been three months.”

“You think I don’t remember how long ago my only child died?” 

Sokka let out another howl. His vision was swimming; the force of his gasps made him light-headed. Gran-Gran gave him a sharp tap on the back of his head. The sudden jolt of pain stunned him, but it also grounded him back in reality. 

“You shouldn’t have brought him here alone,” Gran-Gran said in the silence. “He needs his sister and his father with him.”

“What could I do, Kanna? The Northern Water Tribe is here making threats again; Hakoda wouldn’t leave the capital. Katara wouldn’t leave her father, not even for her brother. And I had to take him here, Kanna – at least out here Sokka’s taking an interest in something. You didn’t see him in those first few days. We could barely get him to get out of bed. He grieves hard for someone so young.”

Gran-Gran sighed. “I grieve for my daughter too,” she said. “Every day. Every minute. But death is a part of life. My grandson will learn this in time.”

Sokka wanted to say that he had already learned plenty, but instead he spat weakly on the ground and watched the string of drool stretch, then snap in mid-air. It was disgusting. He felt disgusting. He had also wet his pants, he realized, and he was so embarrassed to be like a little kid again in front of Ayaliq, that he shoved his face back into Bato’s parka. Ayaliq was a year younger than him, but she had probably never wetted her pants.

“Be kind to your cousin, Ayaliq,” Bato was saying. “And give him some time, Kanna. Let him cry for now. Just let him cry. He needs it.”

--------

Later, as a young man, when Sokka’s sister would breathlessly tell him about meeting the Avatar, the bridge between their world and the Spirit World, Sokka would scowl. He would turn away with his heart pounding.

“I prefer things that exist in the real world,” he would say, and it would come out much harsher than he’d meant it to. Katara would take it as a sign that he was judging her somehow, that he thought she was a silly girl for believing in the extraordinary. She would react badly to Sokka’s disapproval of the Avatar.

And Sokka did disapprove, though not for those reasons. He disapproved because he was afraid.

He wasn’t good at explaining it, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the world of spirits was not necessarily friendly towards the human one. That his brief glimpse – hallucination? – of the Spirit World told him that it was brisk and insensate, that it was filled with impossible angles and geometric paradoxes. That its inhabitants were ancient and careless beings whose intelligence was beyond human, and obeyed rules set not by morality but by order and chaos. Those beings were sometimes benign, sometimes malicious, always incomprehensible. Sokka wasn’t sure he wanted to meet a person who bridged that world to theirs. 

He wasn’t like Katara, always with her eye fixed on some higher purpose. The everyday world with its speechless mountains and rolling seas, its everyday interchange of energies and motion: this was enough for him. Sokka didn’t need to meet Tui and La to appreciate the wonder of the tides and the moon. What spirits that existed in this world already were vast and incomprehensible enough. 

Sokka would prefer to keep the two worlds un-bridged.

He couldn’t explain this to Katara, and they would grow even further apart because of this. Piercing through to the Spirit World would be easier than crossing the chasm between them. It was as if Kya’s death had split some fundamental building block of the world as Sokka had known it: On one side, Sokka went with Bato; on the other, Katara stayed with their father. 

On one side, the radiance of discovery. On the other, the terror of what he might find. And then, much later, the horror of what Sokka’s discoveries would be used for.

By the Avatar.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #zukka #zukka fic #my fic #through the ice darkly

[songofclarity]

Heliocentric

[ Ch. 2 | MDZS Fanfic | Novel-verse AU ]

Canon Divergent AU in which Wen RuoHan gets to live and Nie MingJue has to survive

Or: Nie Mingjue's Very Bad No Good Fire Palace Adventure

Table of Context: Ch. 1

Read on AO3

Rating: Mature

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Whump, Sick Fic, Angst (with a happy ending)

Ships: Lan XiChen/Nie MingJue, non-con Wen RuoHan/Nie MingJue

Notes: For @whumptober2020 Day 2. This is still novel-verse but if this scene reminds you of a certain scene in CQL, that is by design~ Also don't make it easy for them, Nie MingJue! Fight on!

Chapter Two: Collars

 They gave Nie MingJue a tonic – forced it down his throat – when he first awoke on a cold stone table and weighed down with heavy metal chains. The rest of the day was spent in a gloomy haze. He didn't know what time it was, if it was night or day, if one day had passed or several.

Meng Yao appeared through the gloom, sometimes wearing Wen suns and flames, sometimes Nie dark knits, and Nie MingJue struggled each time against the chains with nothing else on his mind than the desire to rip him apart.

“Are you awake, Sect Leader Nie?”

Not enough to speak, not even when sharp needles stabbed his skin and dug under his nails. Nie MingJue struggled, and then Meng Yao went away.

The twilight returned to day eventually, as did Meng Yao, standing over him once more.

“I have more medicine for the pain, Sect Leader Nie.”

“I want nothing you have to give,” Nie MingJue retorted through his teeth, every muscle stiff and taught with barely concealed fury. Although the medicine earlier had indeed tempered the pain, it prevented him from meditating and gathering his spiritual energy. Stripped to his waist, the cold stone radiated into his back. It was no Cold Spring of Gusu and all it did was add to his discomfort.

Mediation should have been his priority now, but it was the farthest thing from his mind.

Meng Yao gave him a bored look, then frowned. “Nothing? If you're not in pain now, you will be by this afternoon. Sect Leader Wen has no interest in broken things and you don't want to die, do you?”

Nie MingJue's brows furrowed and the chains rattled as he struggled. Everything that was broken remained broken, but it hurt far less to move now. “Take it yourself then!”

“Please don't be stubborn about this,” Meng Yao said, looking down as he mixed the spoon in the bowl as pitifully as if he'd been kicked. “Think about how HuaiSang will feel if—”

The chains rattled again, the links pinched the skin across Nie MingJue’s chest and arms, and the weight of them made his fragile ribs ache, but Nie MingJue was past caring. “How dare you! Don't speak his name! Don't speak at all!”

“Fine,” Meng Yao snapped. The bowl clattered to the floor as he tossed it aside. “Sect Leader Nie knows best. It's not as though you listen to anyone anyway—”

“Listen to what? To your excuses? To those lies you thought would work on me?” Nie MingJue didn't grow up raising Nie HuaiSang to become so blind. All he wanted was the truth, but all Nie HuaiSang had to do was stick out his tongue and show how black it was with ink.

“I'm not lying! I practiced my saber before I started painting, Da-ge!”

“With what saber? The one that's been in my office all day collecting dust again?”

“I wasn't lying!” Meng Yao stood up straighter, and Nie MingJue was almost surprised he didn't hear him stomp his foot. He was clearly insulted, childishly so. Nie MingJue had seen him use the Wen sword and technique with his own eyes. He was lying.

Nie MingJue let out a harsh, strangled laugh. “Listen to you kill those disciples and ask for more, you mean!?”

He could picture it clearly by just closing his eyes: the Sun Palace. The pool of blood. Their bodies on the floor. Meng Yao holding Baxia in his hands. “Why don’t you take a guess at how many times Sect Leader Wen has to slap it for it to break this time?”

“What did you do with Baxia?” Nie MingJue bit out.

It was the wrong question. The weight of the room shifted.

Meng Yao smiled and it did not reach his eyes. “I don't think Baxia is what you should be worrying about right now, Sect Leader Nie.” There was a forewarning in his voice. A clear threat. “Since you didn't want to take the medicine, we don't need to wait for the effects to set in.” He gestured to the Wen-dogs to approach and they came with chains dangling in their hands. “We'll proceed with putting Sect Leader Nie on the hooks now.”

“Don't you dare—”

“I can see you've regained your energy, Sect Leader Nie, that's good,” Meng Yao praised. “I would like to demonstrate some new inventions for Sect Leader Wen. You should be able to tolerate them, so please do your best.”

Nie MingJue's stomach twisted. This was his old lieutenant!?

A metal collar, not unlike the one his sect disciples had worn, clamped around Nie MingJue's neck. The weight of it strangled his throat and he twisted on the table. But twisting and thrashing out didn't stop them from wrapping his arms and legs in new chains before removing the ones holding him down.

A pair of Wen-dogs dragged him off without warning and he crashed and stumbled as his feet sought ground. All the blood left his head from the sudden upright position. The room spun and he swayed dangerously.

By the time he recovered, the group of Wen-dogs had made a circle around him. The chains hung in all directions, ready to pull him each and every way.

Certainly they could try.

“Please watch your step, Sect Leader Nie,” Meng Yao said, standing back and observing, just as he had stood back and observed a hundred little tasks while working in Hejian. That nothing had changed but the sides they stood on made Nie MingJue’s skin crawl. “Any blood left on the floor can be quite slippery.”

“The only blood on the floor will be yours.”

Nie MingJue lunged, and the Wen-dogs behind him yelped as they were dragged along with him. He was still weak, but not so weak to be held back so easily. They had killed his sect disciples – Meng Yao had killed his sect disciples – and he had no reason to care for their safety. He would cut them all down if he could.

Meng Yao's face turned ashen, his eyes widening, and he moved to place the stone table between them. “Sect Leader Nie—”

The back of the collar, anchored by a newly grounded chain, gave an almighty tug that nearly sent Nie MingJue flying onto the flat of his back.

Letting out a wordless shout, Nie MingJue regained his footing. They tried to pull his arm back but he still grabbed the chain pulling on his neck. He was outnumbered but not outmatched, not by these lowly cultivators

“Please, Sect Leader Nie,” Meng Yao said, almost desperate. “You'll just tire yourself out. The outcome will be the same whether you fight or go calmly, won't it?”

“It won't!” Nie MingJue roared. The Wen-dogs behind him had pulled back again just as the ones holding his arms yanked him forward. The collar strangled over his windpipe, silencing him completely.

Footsteps shuffled and the Wen-dogs grunted and called orders to each other as they pulled him three difficult steps to where ropes and tethers and hooks hung from a low-set ceiling.

“Meng... Yao...!” Nie MingJue growled out, his lungs and chest on fire. His recovery had been less than perfect for this kind of full-body struggle.

And when the doors to the Fire Palace opened and a new audience swept in, Nie MingJue nearly yelled in frustration and his mind went blank with the need to fight for his life. Grabbing onto the chain pulling that arm, he yanked the Wen-Dogs towards him, ready to use them against their master just as he done the last time.

They let go of the chain immediately, perhaps realizing his intention. It still gave Nie MingJue a weapon to use as he panted for breath, eyeing Wen RuoHan for his next move.

There would be no summoning Baxia this time.

“You're right, Meng Yao,” Wen RuoHan said, his smile less than pleasant. “He has become quite lively now.”

The Wen-dogs restraining him didn't dare drop the chains, but the others had already bowed and remained kneeling.

Meng Yao, too, had gone to his master's side. All fear from earlier was gone. “Yes.”

“Doesn’t he need to be on hooks for your demonstration? Why is he standing in chains?”

“Excuse my incompetence, Sect Leader Wen. Sect Leader Nie refused the medicine. So, it has become like this.”

Wen RuoHan laughed. “You call it medicine now?”

Nie MingJue grated his teeth. The Wen-dogs holding him back yelped as Nie MingJue took a powerful step forward. “Meng Yao, you traitor!”

Meng Yao didn't even flinch. The Wen-dogs recollected themselves and yanked Nie MingJue back from Meng Yao and Wen RuoHan both. The collar crushed his Adam's apple, and the coughing fit forced him to a knee, his hair falling into his face as he bent over.

They reclaimed the chain he had stolen the moment his grip slacked and, in that a moment, Nie MingJue was back to how this all started: collared and chained and empty handed.

But instead of dragging him along as they had done, they all waited in place as Nie MingJue caught his breath.

He looked up to find Wen RuoHan watching him. With his head tilted in thought and a hand held to his chin and a knuckle brushing his lips. “If he has this much energy, it would be a waste to let him hang. He is quite able-bodied as well, under those Nie robes.”

“Sect Leader Wen?” Meng Yao asked, for the first-time showing signs of being at a loss.

Wen RuoHan swept his robes as he turned to leave the Fire Palace. “I’m returning to the Moon Palace. Bring him.”

Nie MingJue immediately dug his heels down, but Wen RuoHan was already looking back at him with laughter in his voice. Although he spoke to the room, his crimson eyes bore into Nie MingJue’s. “Oh. When he tries to resist, I'll take the chain myself.”

“That—” Meng Yao flustered, and he gave Nie MingJue an unreadable look. Whether it was the Sun Palace, the Fire Palace, or the Moon Palace, it made little different to Nie MingJue. He had no higher ground in this place. “That shouldn't be necessary. Sect Leader Nie is well aware that your strength far exceeds his own.”

“I know he does,” Wen RuoHan said dismissively, “but I also know all about this one.”

“Yes,” Meng Yao agreed, and Nie MingJue realized Meng Yao must have told Wen RuoHan everything. Everything about Hejian, about the Nie Sect, about their numbers, about their movements.

And about him.

Nie MingJue bristled at being talked about in this manner, but his anger clenched his hands and stayed his tongue. Meng Yao was beyond reason and Wen RuoHan had none to begin with.

In Wen RuoHan's wake, the Wen-dogs pulled Nie MingJue out the door into the blinding sunlight.

#my writing #heliocentric fic #ruojue #nie mingjue #wen ruohan #jin guangyao #i don't really want to character tags these but ahh #mdzs #whumptober2020 #fic #no. 2 #collars #threat of torture tw

[thememcry]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

My muse is:   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent ( potentially ) / fandomless

Is your character popular in the fandom?  YES / NO. 

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK.

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. (apparently there are youtube comments circulating about how boring or weak aerith is. if an explanation needs be provided for how strong of a woman, character, and fighter she is in her own regard then the point of the character is missed entirely.)

Are they underrated?  YES / NO.

Were they relevant to the main story?  YES / NO.

Were they relevant to the main character?  YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG.

Are they widely known in their world?  YES / NO.  (the big baddies know of her, the little baddies know to look for her and the heroes just learned of why she’s important).

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL.

How strictly do you follow canon?

      it depends entirely on the person / character i’m writing and what verse they’re in. when someone approaches me and doesn’t specify a verse i give them main verse (ff7r) and follow canon as closely as i’d like. but most of my threads diverge from canon for exploration or other purposes. i’m not concerned with how close to canon my aerith is ------obviously i’d like people to hear her voice when i have her speak, or see her performing the actions i have her commit to but i’d also like this interpretation to be my own. so when someone reads a piece of my writing they say oh yes, that’s kay’s aerith definitely.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutual.  

      i could make an entire post about all of the things i love about aerith gainsborough on its own, so i’ll try not to let this be too rambly.

      she is such a three-dimensional character and she always has been. people expect just to meet the damsel in distress, to rely on cloud and company to help her out at every twist and turn. square even did a good job selling her appearance: soft pinks, gentle features, and when she was given a voice actor the first few times they always went the route of someone who had a lighter lilt. to the first glance she is very much all of those things. except it’s not all she is.

      aerith wears masks to cover the horrendous things that happened to her as a child: experimentation, the shocking loss of her mother after escaping it, crushing loneliness, an awareness that she was different and nobody around who understood the properties of that difference to explain it to her in a way that didn’t terrify her. she heard the planet, could tell when people passed away and rejoined the lifestream, surrounded by all of these voices yet so fucking alone. and did she let it make her bitter? did she become angry or cold, jaded or cruel? no. aerith is kind and giving without being too self-sacrificing and without making her boring. she’s not as innocent as people are made to believe.

      look at her first interactions with cloud. she flirts mercilessly with him, and then you discover she did it to zack, too. she’s not afraid to express herself in any fashion and she’s unapologetic about how forward and positive she is. despite all of the shitty things that happened to her, she’s still all of these great things. she’s scrappy, she can be a brat (ask the turks!) and she blooms under the cover of oppression that she lives. sure, she’s in a beautiful house with a loving mother figure but she’s in the slums and she’s being watched constantly by some part of the company that wants to see her dissected or worse.

      and she’s divine. no, literally. of course it takes her death for the realization of that divinity to really be understood by the fan base and even by her own party, but once aerith dies she becomes an actual deity. it’s sad that you don’t get her in your party any more but it’s obvious how much she affected everyone she worked with (and even those she didn’t). they spend the rest of the game avenging her, they spend the rest of the game explaining their grief over her loss, promising her death won’t be in vain. and once that’s done? there’s an entire movie where cloud deals with his grief over everything, but mainly his self-appointed guilt over her death. as if he could have changed it? i mentioned to @seraphicwiing​ in a conversation (an au one) about sephiroth and aerith ------he didn’t kill or break her. he gifted her divinity.

      so this sweet flower girl goes from a first appearance damsel in distress to an actual conduit of the planet, watching over her friends and everyone else from the spiritual plane of it. controlling the lifestream itself to rise up and crush back meteor.

      if you don’t like her by this point, it’s a lost cause. honestly, just go play pacman or something.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  

      maybe strong female leads aren’t your cup of tea? perhaps you really wanted aerith to maintain her softness and have none of the bite or edge that i argue make her interesting?

      some people want a strong woman to be something like paine in ffx-2, or lightning in ffxiii, or even lulu in ffx itself ... dark and perhaps a bit brooding, angry with someone or something. they can be gentle but they’re mostly a razor sharp edge threatening to slice anyone who tries to get close to them. aerith is arguably a hot take on the stronger female leads ... even compared to tifa. you don’t doubt that a woman who fights with her fists is a tough, bad bitch ... but aerith isn’t physically strong. she’s the image of a princess honestly and that’s just not what some people want to see or deal with.

      arguably her personality can come off a bit strong. she’s snarky and, as i said, a tease. she can be bratty from time to time and that can absolutely be read as irritating, especially to someone whose looking for negative personality traits to focus on at a first glance.

      and a lot of people just see her as a love interest to cloud. and she is, i won’t deny that. it’s been further addressed in the remake with her dream sequence that cloud absolutely has feelings for her. it dredges up the age-old argument from 1997 of: tifa or aerith. why does it have to be or? why can’t he love them both in different ways? or the same way? it’s not like aerith has a lot of time to be the love interest, anyway. we all know how disc 1 ended, by this point.

      perhaps people see her end-game divinity as a deus-ex mechanic. sure, it kind of it. but the game never hid its intentions of why aerith was there. she was always special, we just didn’t know how. she always had holy, we just didn’t know what it meant at the time. but it does seem a bit convenient that right as the meteor is going to crush midgar ------here comes the lifestream, holding it back so holy can stop it! wow, amazing! darn that aerith and her connection to the planet. how awful. maybe cloud could have just braver’d it.

What inspired you to rp your muse?  

      i love her. it’s just that simple. she’s so complex and so different from other characters i tend to gravitate toward. she has a darkness but she’s good, genuinely. i usually go for people who are deeply seeded in some kind of trauma, or are just generally a piece of shit. and aerith certainly has her trauma, but she’s risen above it. she chooses to live her life as much as she can before the ultimate doom clock ticks to 0, you know?

      i admire her beauty. not just her physical beauty (and she is), but the beauty of her as a person. i wish i could be as endlessly positive as she is, even faced against such awful odds. i wish i could be the kind of person who surrounds themselves with people who love them, despite their flaws. but i am very much the opposite of aerith.

      i consider myself endlessly lucky to be a mouthpiece of some kind of version of her. this is a character i’ve had a connection to since i was like, 7 or 9 (and i’m 30 now). the very fact that i get to log in every day and express some form of this wonderful character keeps me connected to her. she has a loud voice in my head, and i think she always had. i think that remake just re-lit the flame for her.

      i wrote her a long time ago, during myspace rp days. but we all know how myspace ended. so i choose to write her now because it feels right. and i really do enjoy having someone who shines so brightly in my head.

What keeps your inspiration going?  

      the same as everyone else, i think: music, clips of the character, art of her ... but mostly? my writing partners. i wouldn’t be anywhere without the people in this site who come to me every day with an interest in my interpretation of aerith. i never expected so many lovely humans to want to see what i can do with her. but i have people dm’ing me on discord every day with ideas or thoughts, with musings or what-if’s ... and it really just keeps this muse so alive for me.

      even though i have a backlog of drafts and inbox things to answer, i can know that they will get done ... it’s just up to me as a human to write things out.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO. 

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO.

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO.  (i’d prefer to write out a reply to a solo drabble).

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO. 

Are you confident in your portrayal?   YES / NO. 

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO.

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO.

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?

      in the proper context. i don’t want someone coming on here and telling me i play aerith wrong because it’s not what she would do canon. that’s cool, i don’t write her strictly canon. but if i’m having doubts and i ask for the feedback, i’m open to it.

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?  

      always. i am 100% always accepting development questions.

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?  

      nope. i don’t care if you agree with my headcanons or not. i’m sure there are people who don’t like that i have a ship with a sephiroth, or a reeve, or that i’ve had her mess around with rufus or biggs. i’m sure there are people who despise the way i make her speak to people ... and that’s fine. they’re allowed to. but this is my interpretation of aerith and so far i’m loving everything that i’ve gotten to do with her. especially those things that include character building with others.

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?

      they’re allowed to disagree. they’re also not beholden to follow me. i won’t be upset if they unfollow me. it’s their comfort, after all. and i’d rather spend time on here enjoying myself than either having someone voice their dislike of my interpretation or get vocal about how they’re uncomfortable.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  

      people have really hated aerith since 1997. they’re allowed to have their silly opinions of her. and i’m allowed not to entertain them.

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  

      please do. i’m human and i make mistakes. i’d love to fix them.

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?  

      yes, but i’ve had people mention that i seem a little unapproachable. please approach me. if you want to write with me let me know. if you want to chat ooc with me talk to me. i promise i’m an absolute dimwit on my side of the screen. i’m spacy but i try to be as nice and welcoming as possible. somehow i’ve conned a few friends out of this rpc already with my idiocy, so please please please come chat with me.

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

#❀ ﹙ about ﹚ « poetry bleeds from ivory bones like sweet syrup » #❀ ﹙ ooc ﹚ « what did you say? » #❀ ﹙ mun ﹚ « aaaaaaaaaaaa »

[plumoh]

all pain, all smiles, became a magnificent tale (1)

Word count: 5580

Summary: Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are both too aware of their feelings, but it is never the right time. / CQL 'verse

Note: AO3 link. Canon compliant, retelling of CQL with huge pining from the start. Elements like controlling corpses will be taken from the novel/donghua but the timeline and characterization are all CQL.

01.

The rumors and stories about the Twin Jades being as beautiful as the moon and as graceful as the wind didn't lie. The concept of beauty is one that Wei Wuxian understands on all levels—if something is pretty, then why not appreciate it and say it out loud? Compliments also have the benefit of making people happy.

Most people, anyway.

“Second Master Lan, you're really incredible!” he laughs. “Handsome and skilled? So many girls would swoon if they had a glimpse of such an amazing sight.”

Lan Wangji's grip on his sword tightens and his gaze seems to convey all the contempt towards Wei Wuxian that is currently boiling in his blood, and it doesn't stray away from the jar of Emperor's Smile that Wei Wuxian is protectively keeping against his side. It's almost comical, to see two people standing on a rooftop well after curfew, in such a strict and rule-abiding place like the Cloud Recesses; Wei Wuxian just set foot inside today and he already feels it will be a long year.

He props up his leg and carelessly uncaps the jar, sporting an amused smile.

“But once they realize how cold and inflexible you are, they'd run away!”

He takes a long sip of the alcohol, suddenly feeling extremely entertained by Lan Wangji's quiet outrage. It's kind of impressive Lan Wangji can say so much with his eyes alone—never mind silencing people with a spell, his gaze does the job perfectly. Wei Wuxian has seen different shapes of eyes in the past, but even if Lan Wangji's are small, there is an intensity in those clear and gorgeous eyes that makes him unable to look away. He could give orders or convey an entire message with one look.

Wei Wuxian tilts his head, playing with his jar of alcohol and jostling its content. “That's right, you're unreasonable and rigid, but it doesn't matter. Once I return to Yunmeng—mhh?!”

As Wei Wuxian chases after him to cancel the spell, he believes that Lan Wangji really needs to do something about his awful personality.

02.

Jiang Cheng tells him that he's ridiculous and stupid for wanting to catch Lan Wangji's attention whenever he sees him, but in all honesty, if Lan Wangji truly hated him, would he still respond to his calls?

“Ji-xiong!”

Wei Wuxian enthusiastically waves his hands, never missing the way Lan Wangji's face closes at his sight, like an invisible spirit forcefully makes him narrow his eyes and exude an untouchable aura. It's kind of cool, actually.

“Do you want to get punished or what?” Jiang Cheng hisses, pinching his side, while Nie Huaisang attempts to conceal his entire body behind his fan.

Wei Wuxian keeps smiling and waving, until Lan Wangji turns on his heels and ignores him, once again. The white robes are fluttering in the wind and his silhouette is as graceful as always, although his steps seem to be a bit stiffer. Must have been slightly more irritated than usual.

It's really, really fun.

03.

He wouldn't say there is a spark, or an explosion of stars, but he does feel something pleasant settling in his stomach when Suibian clashes with Bichen as he carefully moves on the cliff. He didn't realize who he was fighting at the beginning, but once he took in the immaculate robes and the impassive face his lips curl upwards in a mischievous grin.

“Ji-xiong, that's you! Wow, you really are skilled.”

He quickly unsheathes Suibian, gaze still trained on Lan Wangji's that stares down at him like he said the most absurd thing in existence. He's used to it, now, so it doesn't dampen his mood, it even lifts his spirits a little bit (it's always a delight to see the Second Jade, despite his ignoring). Wei Wuxian takes his time to admire the fine and delicate traits on Lan Wangji's face, which he probably will never tire of; he thinks about the stories and the female disciples gossiping, and he chuckles at the thought he's possibly the only one who gets to see him so up close. The waterfall and the green of the trees frame this face gently, making him look like a painting.

“I'm telling you a secret,” Wei Wuxian whispers, taking careful steps towards the other man. “I'm not the only one who wanders in the back of the Cloud Recesses, do you think it has anything to do with the spiritual consciousness stealing—hey!”

For someone so proper Lan Wangji doesn't hold back as he grabs Wei Wuxian's wrist and drags him all the way to the Library Pavilion, deaf to his burden's whines and complains that can be heard all over the Cloud Recesses.

Spending so much time in his company would have killed anyone of boredom, but Wei Wuxian managed to distract himself from his punishment by staring at Lan Wangji. In-between two lines of copying he looks up and stares at his companion, who sits still like a statue, diligently learning from books he's probably already read. Wei Wuxian ends up doodling rabbits, jars of alcohol and clouds in the corners of his papers, then decides it would be a waste not to exploit the infinite source of inspiration standing right in front of him.

Lan Wangji doesn't react at the portrait of himself.

“Come on, you must have something to say except for ‘boring’ and ‘pathetic’. Lan Wangji? Ji-xiong? Wangji-xiong?” And then, overtaken by sudden bravery, “Lan Zhan!”

Hearing his birth name shouted so casually draws a whole new expression on his face that Wei Wuxian can't decipher. He frowns.

“You didn't answer when I called you Wangji, so I called you Lan Zhan. You can call me Wei Ying if you want.”

He offers him his biggest grin for good measure, gleefully basking in the Second Jade's disbelief at such boldness.

Thinking back, he was already spending too much energy and time to commit to memory someone that was only supposed to be entertainment.

04.

“Lan Zhan, give me back my alcohol!”

So maybe he shouldn't prance around and being noisy with a jar of alcohol in hands, which break three of Gusu Lan's rules, but they're not in the Cloud Recesses and he is only trying to help a case during a nighthunt. What's wrong with speculating and attempting to dig up clues in the wildest theories? Discoveries are made because people are curious; Wei Wuxian would be very much surprised if none of his ideas turns out to be right. And in any case, Lan Zhan had no right to dump his alcohol!

He chases after him, ignoring Jiang Cheng's yells, and grabs Lan Zhan's shoulder. There are many cultivators trailing behind them, but Lan Zhan doesn't seem to care since he stops dead in his tracks and turns his head without uttering a word, like a warning. Wei Wuxian presses his lips together and slowly releases his shoulder, the loss of contact freezing his body with disappointment.

“Lan Zhan, why are you looking at me like this? You look more mad than me, and you dumped my alcohol. I should be the one feeling wronged.”

“I dislike physical contact,” Lan Zhan states firmly. “Stop fooling around. We are on a nighthunt.”

“Yes, yes, Second Master Lan, so professional...”

Lan Zhan sends him one last glare before walking away, and Wei Wuxian is left staring at his back, wondering why talking to Lan Zhan feels as frustrating as exciting. A voice sounding suspiciously like Jiang Cheng tells him that he's stupid.

“You're stupid or what? Stop bothering him.” Jiang Cheng snorts next to him, and Wei Wuxian groans.

“I wasn't even doing anything!”

Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes and urges him to follow the Twin Jades.

05.

When Lan Zhan lands on his boat, he expects a reprimand, but he simply gets an inquisitive look, albeit mildly annoyed.

“I didn't splash you on purpose, those ghouls are smart so I had to find something not to alert them. Are you recognizing I'm not completely useless?” Wei Wuxian asks with a smirk, delighted by Lan Zhan's lack of criticism.

Confident and reinvigorated after showing he's at least half serious about this case, Wei Wuxian takes a few steps forward and peers at Lan Zhan's face, smiling at his reddened ears and his inability to look him in the eyes.

“Stay away,” Lan Zhan snaps, gaze fixed on the water.

Wei Wuxian pouts but complies, seeing that he won't get much entertainment if Lan Zhan is focused on fulfilling this mission, especially with the other cultivators and their brothers around.

They take care of the waterborne abyss easily enough, if Wei Wuxian doesn't take into account their almost death. He would have much preferred being grabbed by the arm instead of his collar, but that's asking too much from someone who stated only minutes ago that touching people is absolutely out of the question.

“We're already so close, touching even my arm wouldn't be too bad, right?”

“We are not close.”

These words, more than anything, drive a knife into Wei Wuxian's guts. Lan Zhan's tone hasn't shifted from his usual monotone one, but his clipped words and adamant refusal to so much as look at Wei Wuxian, even as they're speaking, unload a new uncertainty in his mind.

On the way back to the Cloud Recesses, after offering loquats and failing at making Lan Zhan look at him again, he comes to the realization that when he does get Lan Zhan's attention, it brings him immense joy.

06.

“Lan Zhan, your forehead ribbon is crooked.”

Wei Wuxian's thoughts flicker for the briefest moment, imagining Lan Zhan's wife tying the ribbon around his head every morning, as ridiculous as it is. That rule of Gusu Lan sect is among the most bemusing ones, dictating a way of living that seems pretty extreme. Can a simple piece of cloth be that important to someone? Wei Wuxian discards the knowledge altogether (like most of the other rules he's copied) when the conversation turns to the topic of family. In that instant, he feels there is a special understanding that passes between them; there is a longing and sadness that Wei Wuxian has long tucked in a corner of his mind, far away from the thoughts that make him go through the day as seamlessly as possible.

Wei Wuxian has the fleeting suspicion that maybe, Lan Zhan doesn't like showing his emotions because there are too many of them inside his heart. It took a few weeks and a cup of alcohol to start unearthing the mystery that is the Second Jade, who looks as vulnerable as anyone else in his current drunkenness. His carved beauty remains, but he looks less unattainable. Wei Wuxian smiles, a sudden warmth spreading in his body as he lifts his jar of Emperor's Smile.

“A toast to us, who found companionship in unexpected misfortune. Let's drink while we still can, alright?”

He downs the jar in one go, knowing full well they won't share another drink together.

07.

Wei Wuxian's respect for Lan Zhan shoots up when he realizes he's taking the punishment without the slightest twitch, but it also confirms that he is a madman.

“Who willingly gets punished like that?”

Lan Zhan barely acknowledges his presence, focused on the rulers that beat and cut into his back. It's surprising Wei Wuxian doesn't forget his own pain while staring at Lan Zhan's impassive face that is almost a model to follow.

“The Cold Spring will relieve your pain,” Zewu-jun says when he meets him, a soft but knowing smile on his face.

Wei Wuxian has no idea why Zewu-jun is showing so much kindness towards him, but he won't refuse help. Even if Shijie tells him to take it easy, he runs as fast as he can despite of the stinging to the Cold Spring. He absolutely doesn't expect the person already inside the water, back turned to him with his hair spread at the surface. Wei Wuxian pushes down the astonishment and the onslaught of eagerness that pools in his stomach, blinking once then twice before leaning against a bamboo tree and grinning.

“Lan Zhan, were you going to keep this place all to yourself?”

Lan Zhan doesn't startle, but it's a near thing as he hastily pulls on his robes, unconcerned about making them wet, then glares at Wei Wuxian.

“Do not come closer,” he hisses.

The events in Caiyi city with their hurting words are all but forgotten, even if the similar situation plants a seed of doubt for a second before going away. However, Lan Zhan should know by now that Wei Wuxian doesn't follow orders, and finds pleasure in doing the opposite of what he's told—and even more so when it involves Lan Zhan.

“Come on, I told you we're already so close, why are you so distant?”

Wei Wuxian proceeds to take off his boots and gets into the spring, shivering at its low temperature, and makes his way towards Lan Zhan. He never stops grinning, feeling he shouldn’t think too much about the situation, and his amusement increases tenfold as he notices the tips of Lan Zhan's ears reddening (it's quite an occurrence, certainly because he's unused to physical proximity, and that's kind of adorable).

“Admittedly you're harsh and sometimes boring, but we've sparred and we're evenly matched, so I honestly think we can become friends!” Wei Wuxian extends Suibian, remembering that Lan Zhan dislikes touching people. “I mean, that's the first step of any relationship, right?”

There is something incredibly wild in Lan Zhan's gaze when he looks at him, like he's trying to discover what sort of nonsense is hiding behind his words. It's not the disdain and wariness that usually underlie his unspoken words, it's more disbelieving and, if Wei Wuxian reads it right, with a tinge of fear. He blinks, then tilts his head.

“I know you don't really like me, but becoming my friend can't be that bad? Lan Zhan, you're hurting my feelings!”

He lowers Suibian and crosses his arms over his chest, wondering. Lan Zhan is clearly lost in thoughts if he isn't reacting to his teasing, which shouldn't be as concerning as Wei Wuxian feels it is.

“Look, if you become my friend...I will pick lotus seeds for you when you come to Yunmeng!” He gets closer to Lan Zhan, who surprisingly doesn't step away and simply eyes him with his unchanging attentive gaze. “Yunmeng is fun, we have a lot of food, and rivers to cross. Come visit!”

“I will not go,” Lan Zhan finally replies.

Wei Wuxian sucks in a breath. “Fine, killjoy. I'll eat lotus seeds on a boat all by my lonesome.”

He tries not to think too much about this rejection since he should have anticipated the cold answer, but it still stings. He's just trying to be nice. He huffs, and deciding that he should as well enjoy the spring, he starts fiddling with his robes to shrug them off. This mere action calls for Lan Zhan's fastest reaction so far, eyes wide.

“What are you doing?!”

“Taking off my clothes to heal, obviously.” Wei Wuxian smiles, laughing at Lan Zhan's scandalized face. “What, is undressing in front of other people forbidden too?”

Perhaps he's said the wrong thing again, because Lan Zhan seems determined to leave the spring, and Wei Wuxian backtracks immediately.

“Wait, wait, don't leave! I'm keeping my clothes on, okay?”

Lan Zhan stands a few feet away from him, and if he wasn't so stiff and upright, Wei Wuxian wouldn't have noticed the way his fists are trembling, clasped behind his back. Is he really that upset about the situation?

Wei Wuxian doesn't have the time to ponder on the question as a burst of a strange energy hits him. He surveys his surroundings, eyes narrowed; something is clearly off but he can't pinpoint its origin.

“Lan Zhan, there's something strange here.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, he gets dragged underwater.

08.

Whoever invented such a complex and ingenious spell that recognizes specific people based on an item is admirable but also extremely bothersome in their current predicament.

Swallowing water and spending the next minutes sputtering isn’t fun, dodging the attacks of an ancient guqin is even less so. Wei Wuxian is ready to do anything to get out of this cave alive and unscattered, but when he yells for Lan Zhan’s forehead ribbon, he truly didn’t expect Lan Zhan to comply to his order without a word.

It’s absolutely astounding. He stares at the ribbon that’s binding them together like it’s a foreign object, then lifts his gaze to meet Lan Zhan’s. Wei Wuxian has an inkling of what makes his heart so light yet so heavy, having Lan Zhan willingly stand so close to him when he vehemently objected to it earlier. It’s maddening to keep these feelings at bay, letting them take a form of their own without the means to control or even understand them.

He did not mean to stare, but Lan Zhan quickly averts his eyes and tugs him forward. Wei Wuxian follows silently, the lull of the water the only sound his ears are registering. It feels inexplicably intimate to simply have a strip of cloth tying their wrists together, considering how attached the Lan family is to the ribbon. He doesn’t dare saying anything for fear of breaking whatever spell they’re currently under.

Instead, he takes a deep breath and lets his actions speak for himself, as usual. He gets scolded for wanting to approach the sacred guqin, is glared at for misbehaving, and suddenly he’s breathing easier, gradually forgetting what he was so agitated about in the first place.

The oath they pledge to stop evil from spreading makes his core vibrate with anticipation and his heart sing.

08.5.

His entire body is set aflame when there is contact of skin against skin, his face mere centimeters away from Lan Zhan’s, and he tries to contain his shock and bubbling panic by laughing, even if it sounds awkward to his ears.

“You can’t say we’re not close, after that.”

“Get off me.”

The arrival of Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing, staring at them in disbelief, also prompts Wei Wuxian to scramble up with energy before he further digs his own grave. He quickly unties the ribbon, not paying attention to the stillness of Lan Zhan’s hand or the way everyone is looking at him. It’s a miracle he can string two sentences together to explain what happened with his heartbeat thundering and the distinct sensation of Lan Zhan boring holes in his neck, but when he looks at his face, somehow he finds less anger than expected. In the crease of Lan Zhan’s eyebrows and his lips pressed downward, he finds instead an uneasiness that is almost painful to look at; and in these clear eyes, Wei Wuxian doesn’t let himself see hope.

09.

“It seems that the events in Caiyi and the spiritual consciousness stealing are related after all, Wangji.”

It’s becoming harder to hide his excitement whenever Lan Zhan says or does something surprising, and in this case, Wei Wuxian thinks it deserves a proper reaction.

“You told Zewu-jun about my theories? You really are my confidant, huh?”

From the corner of his eye he notices Lan Xichen smiling at his comment, and he could have chosen to pretend he didn’t, but it’s such a rare opportunity to shamelessly tease Lan Zhan for something that’s not out of Wei Wuxian’s imagination. It fills him with so much joy and satisfaction to know he has at least his trust.

“I’m sure we can solve great mysteries together,” he offers pleasantly. “You don’t even need to talk, we understand each other already pretty well! And we seem to both value righteousness a lot, considering what we said to Ancestor Lan Yi. Aren’t we a perfect match?”

He nudges Lan Zhan in the side with his elbow, grinning from ear to ear. Nothing he said is false, which is all the more exhilarating. He might be cheesy, but he sincerely thinks there is a connection he can form with that boy that doesn’t speak more than four words to him but still puts up with his antics and listens to what he says, however relevant or stupid the topic is. Calling him a confidant is well-deserved and shows just how much effort Wei Wuxian is willing to put in this bond—it’s well-deserved but it feels more than that.

“Do not be ridiculous,” Lan Zhan mutters, turning his head his way but not meeting his eyes. “This Yin iron issue is not to be trivialized.”

“I’m not trivializing it! I mean it, we’d work well together, and our cultivation level is similar. You should be honored to be offered this chance to work with the great Wei Wuxian!”

Wei Wuxian hits his chest once with the hand holding Suibian, an easy smile accompanying his words that are immediately met with the usual unimpressed stare. Given the lack of rebuttal, in the Second Jade’s language, it’s a positive response.

“Focus,” he simply says.

Wei Wuxian’s heart soars.

09.5.

“A-Xian, you are good friends with the Second Master Lan.”

Wei Wuxian coughs. “Do you think so? It’s not like he often talks to me.”

Jiang Yanli’s smile could make flowers bloom with how gentle it is. “That’s true, but the two of you seem to understand each other better than most. It has only been a few months and you know him very well, it’s rare for people to be so close in a short time.” She squeezes his arm, still as soothing as always. “Treasure this kind of encounters and relationships.”

Wei Wuxian has no idea how to react to his shijie’s words, but they lift his spirits considerably.

10.

“Is this some kind of tradition?”

“I guess so, the other Lan disciples were saying it helps us keeping our mind stable. You’re making a promise to yourself or something.”

“So it’s just a simple wish, then?”

Jiang Cheng shrugs, not that much interested in the specifics of the release of the lantern, and Wei Wuxian isn’t surprised; being the Jiang sect heir has drilled him into thinking ahead long ago, and to always pursue the goals he’s set for himself. Securing the future and protecting the sect—that’s what he ought to do, and what he wishes for, with no need to verbalize it.

Wei Wuxian wishes for something else. There is no doubt he wishes for the prosperity of the sect that took him in, but there is another wish that lies under it, stronger but quieter. He hums to himself as they climb the hill where they are to gather, his lips curled upwards as giddiness fuels every one of his step.

As soon as he has all the materials needed in hand, he leaves Jiang Cheng’s side and drops everything next to Lan Zhan’s. He gets comfortable and starts working on his lantern, ignoring the way his companion is looking at him with most certainly confusion, even if it doesn’t show on his face.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, do you often make lanterns like this? With Jiang Cheng and Shijie we like to make them during festivals, and we let the disciples decide which one between mine and Jiang Cheng’s is the best. Guess who always wins!”

He doesn’t actually expect a reply to his question, he’s only filling the silence like he always does whenever he’s with Lan Zhan. His presence makes him warm and more eager to share whatever thought is crossing his mind, as if filters don’t exist and he’s free to rveal every aspect of his personality. He can literally hear Jiang Cheng’s disapproval.

Wei Wuxian is happy, when he is with Lan Zhan.

The Second Jade ever so slightly glances his way, hands poised on his own lantern tracing delicate characters. His shoulders aren’t tense and he seems content, like he’s really enjoying his time despite the noise surrounding them.

“I would not know,” he says plainly.

“That was a rhetorical question, of course I’m the best!” Wei Wuxian laughs, and finally lifts his head to look at Lan Zhan’s face.

His heart skips a beat when he finds clear eyes directly looking at his. But the moment vanishes as if it didn’t occur and Lan Zhan resumes his writing, a flush spreading over his cheeks and ears, which is completely unexpected and Wei Wuxian feels his own face heat up at this sight. The implication behind what just transpired would have gone unnoticed to his admittedly blind eyes were it not for the fact he’s already entertained some ideas of his own feelings for a while, now.

It’s scary, to think about the what-ifs and the would-bes, though he feels there is a right time for everything. There always is.

With renewed vigor and satisfaction, he keeps painting his lantern, every one of his strokes assured and precise, aiming at pleasing.

“Look Lan Zhan, I drew rabbits for you.”

Lan Zhan has been steadily more willing to look at whatever Wei Wuxian is pointing at without being coerced into it (he has been observing). And it’s only because Wei Wuxian is on the lookout for any changes that he catches the shift of his expressions so easily.

“You smiled!” he exclaims gleefully, leaning forward to get a good look at this smile.

Lan Zhan’s expression immediately schools back into one of indifference, although his eyes are still telling another story.

“Ridiculous.”

Wei Wuxian grins. “Don’t be like that, I know you like it!” And with a burst of adrenaline and impulsiveness, he says: “Since we risked our lives together, let’s release the lantern together.”

Oh, he knows what people are saying; they’re impatiently waiting for Shijie and Jin Zixuan to release their lantern as a sign of love, the gesture seen as one of the most romantic to exist. Wei Wuxian doesn’t care about the peacock and the so-called romanticism, but he does admit that touching the lantern and letting it fly up, with someone, renders their wish more concrete, more valued; a silent witness to this private moment.

To say that Lan Zhan is shocked would be an understatement, and it would have been amusing if the situation was a bit less intimate.

“Never mind, I was joking,” Wei Wuxian backtracks, averting his eyes.

“No. I will do it.”

Lan Zhan reaches for the lantern, careful not to wrinkle it, and when their eyes meet Wei Wuxian thinks he’s found a whole new purpose in life. There is unparalleled determination and fervor, naked and genuine, unable to deceive whoever getting a glimpse of them. It’s beautiful.

The curve of his lips is gentle. “Okay.”

The world is reduced to the two of them, working on the lantern without a word. Wei Wuxian sometimes glances in Lan Zhan’s direction and is delighted to see how at ease he seems in his company; there is tranquillity that calms his mind and brings him comfort. Wei Wuxian can’t afford to voice his thoughts about the warmth and the elation that pool in his stomach, but he can still accept them and decide what to do later, when the right time comes.

He misses every look Lan Zhan casts him.

Wei Wuxian lights the fire, fingers firmly grasping the edge of the lantern. Their hands aren’t touching but Wei Wuxian feels his fingertips ever so slightly get warmer as they wait for everyone to get ready. He shows none of his turmoil as he brightly smiles at Lan Zhan, who oddly contemplates their work, something akin to satisfaction written on his face.

“Looks like we can really accomplish something when we do it together, doesn’t it?”

Lan Zhan looks up, gaze fixed on Wei Wuxian, but doesn’t answer. There is no small nod or word of acknowledgment, but the way he gets a better grip on the lantern is enough for Wei Wuxian.

They release it in the sky. A white dot joining many others, soon to be lost in the vast and infinite blue. Wei Wuxian’s gaze follows the lantern drifting away; he has been part of many events and has produced many lanterns, but this one irrevocably stirs something deep inside him. He’s choking on a wish that’s as much as a promise. He clasps his hands together and closes his eyes.

“I, Wei Wuxian, wish to stand by justice and righteousness. I wish to live a life free of regrets with a clear conscience.”

A full life—that’s what he wishes for most ardently, and he will endeavor to live by it. When he opens his eyes and turns his head, Lan Zhan is looking at him with a complicated face, like he is unsure he’s allowed to show vulnerability in front of others. Wei Wuxian’s heart swells at the sight, and he softly smiles.

“The words were hard to find, but I think I did good,” he jokes.

Wei Wuxian knocks his shoulder against Lan Zhan’s without thinking, remembering too late about his dislike of physical contact, but he doesn’t get rebuked or shoved away. He blinks at Lan Zhan, and when he opens his mouth to apologize, Lan Zhan looks up.

“I, Lan Wangji, wish to stand by justice and righteousness. I wish to live a life free of regrets with a clear conscience.”

He turns his attention back on Wei Wuxian, who stares at him in wonder. It’s startling and unexpected, but absolutely not unpleasing; words have such a way to don devotion once they are pronounced by someone cherished. Wei Wuxian can’t help but laugh, shaking his head.

“You never cease to amaze me, Lan Zhan. I’m happy to hear you approve of my wish.”

Lan Zhan offers a nod. “You know what you want, Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian pauses, chewing on his lips. He gazes at the sky while he gathers his thoughts, surprised by how unprepared he was to that statement. He lets out a chuckle, nervous on its edges but cheerful enough to be convincing.

“Yeah, it’s important to know what we want.”

He wants a lot of things—becoming strong, eating delicious food and drinking exquisite alcohol—and some of them require effort and perseverance to be obtained. He won’t disappoint as the head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang sect; he won’t let injustice dictate his actions.

Wanting Lan Zhan’s attention and wanting something else completely from him aren’t under his control. So he keeps smiling, under Lan Zhan’s observant eyes.

“Some things are just harder to get, you know?”

“Mn. I suppose so.”

Wei Wuxian swallows the thickness in his throat as he hears familiar longing in this deep voice, but his eyes never betray and he doesn’t know what Lan Zhan sees when he looks at them. Something unrestrained flashes on Lan Zhan’s face and hope flares again in Wei Wuxian’s heart.

11.

It’s cute and almost a relief when Lan Zhan stops by and attempts to comfort him when he’s not feeling bad at all. Jin Zixuan only reaped what he sowed and Wei Wuxian would have liked to land another punch or two to make sure the message got across.

“You are ridiculous,” Lan Zhan scolds him when he sees the ants Wei Wuxian is observing on a stick.

“Yes, yes, I’m ridiculous,” Wei Wuxian chuckles, waving the stick around. “Wait Lan Zhan, don’t leave, don’t leave!”

Lan Zhan aborts his step when he’s called, looking quite flustered after his display of hidden concern, but Wei Wuxian is for once sparing him of his teasing as he stands up. The reprimand immediately comes.

“You should be kneeling.”

“I know, but I don’t fancy kneeling in front of a rock when I want to talk to you,” Wei Wuxian explains with a smile.

Lan Zhan’s eyes are beautiful. He’s described as cold and unwavering, indifferent to everything happening around him, but this is clearly wrong. He might not be as expressive as most, but his eyes are the window of his soul, and right now Wei Wuxian is certain they are softening, just like when he saw the rabbits on the lantern. It’s subtle, it’s quick, but Wei Wuxian still noticed it.

“Thank you for releasing the lantern with me,” he says warmly. “That means a lot to me. Really.”

He doesn’t feel much embarrassment for saying it out loud, but it does tickle his stomach and make his face burn, just a little, and seeing as Lan Zhan is pressing his lips together he probably caught the sincerity of the words.

“There is no need to thank me.” He pauses, slightly shaking his head. “It is what I wanted.”

Wei Wuxian beams. “I’m glad.”

“Try not to be too reckless next time.”

“Ha, no promises this time!”

There is a sliver of exasperation on Lan Zhan’s face, though he doesn’t pick up on Wei Wuxian’s comment and simply walks away, most likely not wishing to be seen conversing with someone who is supposed to think over his actions. It’s already quite a feat they exchanged so many words in such a short time.

Wei Wuxian kneels again, a grin on his face playing with the ants until Uncle Jiang arrives and discusses with Lan Qiren and Jin Guangshan.

#cql #the untamed #wangxian #wei wuxian #lan wangji #my fanfic #fic: pain and smiles

[theseerasures]

Conspicuous Media Consumption, 2019

i mean, everyone's doing these write-ups, right? might as well hop onto the bandwagon

towards the end of last year i had one of my typical existential crises about my media consumption: am i slowly disappearing up my own ass because i no longer care about most of the pop culture people like to discuss ad nauseam? but on the other hand, isn’t it more responsible to find the niche items made by non-mainstream and marginalized creators? on the third hand, wouldn’t i be much happier if i just watched FMA Brotherhood over and over again, preferably while starting a new Mass Effect playthrough at the same time?

the answer to all these questions is probably “yes,” but i decided to try something different going into 2019. for every week of the year, i would try to get through a year’s worth of content for some kind of media, be it comics, video games, TV, etc--they didn’t all have to be recent, or even new to me, but once i was done with that week i’d be done, even if i didn’t finish the content, and i’d make a judgement based what i’d seen on whether i want to continue. mostly, i was trying to avoid what happened to me with video games in 2018, when i was hating every second of playing Uncharted but still felt obligated to finish because everyone and their houseplant liked Uncharted or listlessly doing the Master Hunter achievement in RDR2 because the main quest made me miserable.

the actual outcomes of this Project(tm) are a little more complicated than anticipated--some media i could finish in a day, while trying to play through ALL THE CONTENT OF AN MMO understandably took much longer than a week--but it all kind of evened out. in the end i did 48 weeks of this, and used December as my catch-ups month to follow up on some things i didn’t get to finish. i thought i’d give my thoughts on each of the things i consumed this year as part of this project below in a concise manner--and yes, i know the people who’ve read even one (1) thing i’ve written are probably laughing right now, particularly given how long i took in this introduction just to get to me point, but i really am going to try!! it’s all an exercise in shameless self-indulgence, basically, but hey: if any of you want to chat at length about any of this stuff below, hit me up.

(quick note: you’ll only find media that i chose for this particular project below, so things i watched socially with friends--like certain film properties slorping me back into Disney’s gelatinous monolith--are not included)

Devilman Crybaby (anime, finished 1/5/2019): honestly i should have twigged onto what the year was going to be like when the first thing i drew from the metaphorical barrel was demon tiddies and apocalyptic existentialism. i was determined to dislike it for most of the year due to fundamentally disagreeing with its main thematic thrust, but i kept THINKING about it even months after. at this point i’ve kinda mellowed out. it’s definitely not a must love, but there’s enough queer metaphor and philosophical richness in it to make it worth checking out.

Attack on Titan (manga, 3 volumes finished 1/12/2019): this is the second time i’ve tried to get into this franchise and...yeah, no. i still don’t see the appeal. the fascistic overtones juxtaposed with absolutely no one having a sense of humor wigs me out to no end.

Young Justice (TV, 2.5 seasons finished 1/31/2019): honestly, what even is there to say? they’re my kids. they’re back and grown up and making even more terrible decisions. i screamed when i saw Babs in her wheelchair.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf (book, finished 2/10/2019): i tried VERY HARD to like this book, given how much i liked Brief History of Seven Killings, but it just...didn’t click for me. which honestly is fine, since i don’t think it was made for me either.

Dragon Age (3 games, finished 2/28/2019): i feel like there’s always a part of me that’s going to think of this series as “the other one,” but y’know. it’s good. it’s my second playthrough (as a mage for all three) and it’s good! i even went around killing all the dragons in Inquisition because Knight Enchanter was a blast. appreciate the higher queer content vis-a-vis Mass Effect, even though i couldn’t care less about any of the plot. Dragon Age II is the best one, do not @ me

Bitter Root (comic, 4 issues finished 3/1/2019): i love intergenerational dramas and i love stories about vampire slayers, so this was aces. my only complaint is the pacing was a little slow for a story that was going on hiatus after five issues.

Pearl (comic, 6 issues finished 3/3/2019): i know that he’s done great things and grudgingly admit that he’s probably a net positive in the industry but Brian Michael Bendis can suck my entire dick

Lazarus (comic, 5 trades finished 3/ 4/2019): i really thought this was going to clench the position for comic of the year. it’s Rucka doing Highly Relevant Dystopia! it’s a corporate Lannisters AU! it’s a highly personal story about a woman with high privilege and little agency! what more could you want

Immortal Hulk (comic, 2 trades finished 3/ 4/2019): i vibed with the horror feel, but i don’t honestly think it’s THAT exceptional. being set in 616-verse means there was still ton of baggage i didn’t know or care about, since i’ve now swung more to the DC side of things

thank u, next (album, finished 3/5/2019): didn’t Ariana Grande get canceled this year for some reason? oh well, i liked her album

When I Get Home (album, finished 3/13/2019): i vividly remember listening to this for the first time and feeling vaguely disappointed that it wasn’t more like Seat at the Table until i realized that i was covered in goosebumps. still don’t understand the magic but it is Good

The Bird King (book, finished 3/23/2019): pretty much everything you’d expect from a G. Willow Wilson book--spirituality, the female lead finding Themselves and the Answer and learning they’re the same thing, etc etc. i’m slightly resentful that her Wonder Woman was so lackluster while this was so good, but whatevs

Psychodrama (album, finished 3/29/2019): possibly my favorite album of the year? dense and emotionally raw in a way i really appreciate. Dave has a Mercury and he’s younger than me

Mass Effect (4 games, finished 4/7/2019): wow guys did you know that Mass Effect is good! it is. all of it is actually, even the Mass Effect 3 ending, another controversial finale to a big franchise that i will obstinately defend. even Andromeda, which isn’t AS good as the trilogy but still has a lot of heart. all its bugs have been exhaustively patched since launch anyway

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV, 4 seasons finished 5/13/2019): i’m...still kind of mad about this finale, but can’t exactly deny that this show is one of the best things to ever happen to me, or television probably. i didn’t even mind new!Greg that much! tho he was probably the nail on the coffin of me jumping onto the Nathaniel train.

Knights of the Old Republic/The Old Republic (3 games, finished 7/4/2019): did you guys know that KOTOR II was my first ever video game? i feel like that...explains a lot about me. anyway, the first game is a classic and the second is a deconstructive classic and playing either of them is basically a fun way for me to turn off my brain these days. even the MMO wasn’t as much of slog as i worried it would be. the Imperial Agent storyline had some nice surprises and i dig the general atmosphere of ruthless pragmatism and crushing loneliness.

Wanderers (book, finished 7/13/2019): Chuck Wendig is a very well-intentioned man in dire need of a strict editor. still good tho! some VERY punchy emotional bits and an ending that still leaves me with vague existential terror.

Code Geass (anime, 2 seasons finished 7/20/2019): i feel like this is on the polar opposite of the spectrum as Devilman Crybaby, because i don’t think Geass is GOOD on like, any basis, and i actually find its central moral message kind of abhorrent? but some part of my lizard brain LOVED the High Imperial Family Drama (it’s been a good year for me and Lannister types, hasn’t it? well, with the obvious exception of--never mind), so...yeah. have i discovered the true meaning of guilty pleasure

The Farewell (movie, finished 7/23/2019): how could i not a) watch this and b) love this and c) feel emotionally cold towards this at the same time because the situations depicted were so similar to mine that i ended up feeling kind of alienated

The Nickel Boys (book, finished 8/8/2019): i STILL haven’t read Underground Railroad, but here i am a book late and a dollar short to appreciate Whitehead’s new book. the man’s stylistic versatility is jaw-dropping and i appreciate the plotting in contrast to like, 90% of the litfic out there that’s just “protagonist sad in different milieu”

Durarara (anime, 2 seasons finished 8/31/2019): it’s fucking bonkers and i loved pretty much every second of it? even the second season, where i finally got the BruceNat AU i deserved??? the first anime i’ve seen where everyone was relatively soberly dressed. the answer was love and having feelings and asking your middle school best friend to hurl you like a projectile so you can chop your girlfriend’s head off with a demon katana

Lover (album, finished 9/1/2019): i feel like with all the Discourse surrounding Taylor Swift re: she’s the devil incarnate or re: she’s good, actually the fact that she makes fucking bops gets kind of lost in the conversation. i have no vested interest in her as a person but i liked Lover, even though London Boy was “what if Style but stupid”

Are You Listening (comic, finished 10/2/2019): my actual choice for best comic of the year if i were giving out awards like that. it’s coming of age! it’s grief! it’s queers! it’s trauma! it’s magical realism! it’s cats! it’s expressive gorgeous art! Tillie Walden has an Eisner and she’s younger than me

High School DxD (manga, 2 volumes finished 10/10/2019): i don’t even know how to talk about this series?? i actually kind of came around to the whole “main character is a perv but goes hard for consent” by the end of the second volume, but it’s still...bad. i only can have lingering conflicted feelings about one Japanese adaptation of Christian mythology per year

Ghosteen (album, finished 10/18/2019): much like Immortal Hulk i thought it was fine but over-hyped. it’s Nick Cave doing his Nick Cave ethereal music thing. i still can’t tell what any of the lyrics mean, except Jesus is there sometimes

Watchmen (TV, 2 episodes finished 10/29/2019): i am nOT FUCKING CAUGHT UP so please watch out for spoilers. it is on my high priority list of things to be caught up on tho--i appreciate that the plot is blatantly unsubtle but still manages to give me aneurysms and i appreciate the political overtones just kinda...balances on a razor thin wire and also gives me aneurysms. i wanna say i have no expectations and would be fine if it does a full dive into the horrible bland depths of the both-sides porridge, but i’m sadly a fool who wants to believe in Damon Lindelof

Syllabus/Making Comics (2 comics, finished 12/24/2019): it’s funny--even before Making Comics came out i was like “man i miss Lynda Barry” and then BAM. it’s incredible how her work just makes me feel taken care of, even when we’re wrestling with tough topics or she’s demanding that i draw a Batman in 30 seconds. kudos for immediately shooting to the top of my gift list for my sister also

Allegiance/Choices of One (2 books, finished 12/24/2019): fun and largely inoffensive, but i was honestly hoping for more. the level of Empire apologia going on was too much for me, someone who thinks Mara Jade is the best Star Wars character of all time (still?????? still). it reeked a little of Zahn believing his own hype as the only valid guy in Star Wars Legends of whatever

Aldnoah.Zero (anime, 1 season finished 12/24/2019): turns out i also can only have “trash but my trash” feelings about one Japanese mecha show with higher art pretensions and patriotism verging into jingoism per year, and this one ain’t it. it’s not as good as Code Geass and Code Geass ISN’T GOOD. at least Geass attempted character complexity and moved at enough of a breakneck pace to distract me from its questionable bits. Aldnoah is just...bland, and nothing gets accomplished or revealed in 12 episodes, except the baffling and contradictory motivations of the main bad guy.

Baldur’s Gate (game, unfinished): yet again something i really wanted to like, given *gestures at all the BioWare above*. i think it’s mainly the Seinfeld issue, where it actually predates my own experience with video games and was so formative for the Western RPG genre that what was innovative just comes across as kind of staid now. i didn’t DISLIKE it, and will probably play the sequel since it’s supposed to be more character-driven, but by the time i finished the vanilla campaign i just didn’t have it in me to squint at more tiny avatars on the screen, so the expansions ended up a no-go.

most prominent thing i noticed about this list is that only one 2019 movie made it on the list and ZERO 2019 video games did so. the former i’m okay with because i currently live with two film people with whom i’m happy to tag along to the cinema. the latter bums me out a little more, because there WERE a few things i wanted to play this year, but all of them came out just as my semester was reaching its catastrophic boil, so i had no time. maybe i’ll use my free time after the New Year festivities to catch up on those.

to conclude: this worked out pretty well! i ended up finishing all but one of the things, and only a few were bad enough that i have no interest in seeking out more content. i’ll probably do this again in 2020--we’ll see if the scheduling can withstand a full year of grad school hell

#let's break out a new tag for this since this isn't really meta #conspicuous media consumption

[myaekingheart]

1, 2, and 12!!

Bless you, Jessie 🙌💕 

Alright so since I reblogged like 20 ask memes, I’m just gonna go ahead and take the liberty of doing all of these numbers for every single one I’ve reblogged that’s applicable to give myself extra stuff to do xD

Fanfiction Asks! 

1. Do you read fic? Do you write fic?

I actually write fic WAY MORE than I read fic. I find that the issue I have when reading fic is that I get really giddy and inspired and then I lose my concentration on the story in front of me and my interests rather shift more towards the story in my own damn head. I really need to start reading more of other people’s work, though. I have a handful saved on AO3 that I just have not gotten around to, but I really should. I really have so many damn things I want to read, fanfiction and otherwise, but lack the motivation to sit down and actually read it. 

2. Favorite genre of fic?

I feel like it’s kind of hard to pinpoint exactly what kind of fic I’m drawn most towards, but I guess the best descriptor would be drama? I don’t know, I just really like stories that focus heavily on character development and interpersonal relationships (so bildungsroman lmfao), especially when there’s some imperfect romance and action/adventure involved. Both of my main fanfics, my Narnia series Temptation and The Scarecrow and the Bell, my Naruto fic, both are pretty much just that: heavy focus on character with imperfect romance and action/adventure. I just think it’s fun seeing characters, especially ones that have feelings for each other, in stressful and dangerous situations trying to work through them together and oftentimes disagree and have to figure out how to handle the disagreements, too. Or have personal stuff they’re dealing with on top of things. I don’t know, I just really love focusing on relationship dynamics and situations like that are a fun lens to look through. 

12. What turns you away the most from a fic?

Honestly, grammatical issues and whether or not the story feels believable. I guess I’m kind of picky when it comes to that stuff, but I’m also used to being critical of writing solely because I’m a creative writing major and a big part of this degree’s curriculum is workshopping peer writing. Grammatical issues in terms of a misplaced comma or something aren’t that big a deal, I’m not that stingy, but things like lacking paragraph breaks, or not knowing when to switch paragraphs, bug me as well as habitual misspellings of common words--the one that peeves me off the most is spelling “definitely” like “defiantly” or “definately” or any other misspelling under the sun. The idea of a story feeling believable might just be me being really picky but I’ve opened up fics sometimes where I could hardly get through the first paragraph because the story didn’t feel genuine to me. It’s kind of hard to explain, but I guess as someone who puts a ton of research into my own fanfics and also really tries to perfectly capture the tone of the source material, sometimes I’ll read stuff that just feels out of place and it really takes me out of the story and honestly makes me cringe. I feel like saying all of that makes me sound like some kind of asshole, though. I don’t know, I’m just so goddamn picky when it comes to what I’m reading and especially with fanfiction, since it’s a lot more organic and it doesn’t go through the same fine toothed editing process that professionally published works do (although I’ve picked up on some questionable stuff even in print books; one such thing was so minor, but it was a forgotten period at the end of a sentence and I kept laughing about it saying to myself “Someone missed a period!” You know, like an asshole.) 

Music Asks

1. your favorite album opener

Beartooth’s Greatness or Death off their most recent album, Disease. It just really sets the tone for the rest of the album and feels like such an appropriate intro overall. They have a playlist for the entire album on Youtube with the correct track listing so that was the first song off thei newest album that I had heard and it just felt like such a great and appropriate intro, it really got me into the vibe and energy of the rest of the album and I just...I love it a lot. The song, the album, the band in general. 

2. a song starting w/ the same first letter of your first name

Aurora Avenue by Defeat the Low. I’m a huge Nirvana fan, and the song is all about Kurt Cobain. The entire first verse was literally pulled straight from his infamous suicide note (”Speaking from the tongue of an experienced simpleton who obviously would rather be an emasculated, infantile complainee.”) I stumbled upon this song by pure chance-- it was playing at the end of a video for a different song, which I think was actually a Beartooth one-- and it sounded interesting so I pulled it up and the minute I heard the first verse, I, who had read Kurt’s suicide note already, was like “WAIT A SECOND THIS SOUNDS REALLY FAMILIAR” but it didn’t hit me that that was what it was, and that the entire song was about Kurt, until later and it made me love it even more. 

12. a song you can scream all the words to

Hospital for Souls by Bring Me The Horizon. It’s an all-time fave, made even more so by the fact that it’s one of my top ship songs (for my Naruto ship, Kakashi Hatake x my OC Rei Natsuki, who I write the fanfic about, and even made an AMV for them with because I’M CRAZY). It also just hits really hard personally, especially the line “Have you ever put a blade to your wrists, or have you been skipping meals?” because it relates to my own mental health struggles. I’ve never had the right opportunity to actually scream all the words aloud along with the song, but I desperately need to find the right place to do it one of these days because I have a lot of feelings I need to get out that can only be done through that exact act and I need to do it in a way where I will not end up getting the cops called on me for being way too loud. I just need a soundproof room in general (not just for these purposes, but also because I’m a voice actress for an independent animated series called Space Hotel and I need someplace to record shit anyways.)

Soft and Ethereal Asks

1.secret garden or forest?

Secret garden! I love the idea of having someplace only I know guarded off by a wall with vines running up the side of it, the kind of place you enter through a wrought-iron gate, where flowers are growing through the cracks and there’s a bubbling fountain in the center you can sit by either on the edge or in the grass or on a dirty old cement bench from times before I was even a thought in my parent’s head, and just revel in the silence with a good book or a pencil and sketchbook and make flower crowns and daisy chains or have a little personal picnic laying out a checkered blanket and carrying everything in a big basket like strawberries and little sandwiches and homemade cookies and shit. I’m such a sap but I live for the idea of that gentle, pastel-tinted quiet afternoon. Pure solace. 

2.the stars or the moon?

The moon. I love stars to death, too, but there’s something about the moon that really hits me. Maybe it’s because it goes through phases but no matter what is still whole even when it appears not to be. Maybe it’s because it’s kind of comforting to look at. More than anything, though, it’s probably at least partially because one of my favorite films is Rise of the Guardians (and by extension, the book series it was based upon, The Guardians of Childhood) in which the moon is a major character, or at least The Man in the Moon. In the movie, he’s never seen or heard but he’s always there watching over the world. Jack Frost, the protagonist, doesn’t understand his purpose in this eternal life of his where no one can see him and no one believes in him, and constantly looks to the moon for answers but never hears any. The very first lines of the movie are even “Darkness. That’s the first thing I remember. It was dark and it was cold and I was scared. But then...then I saw the moon. It was so big and so bright. It seemed to chase the darkness away.” Not to get super religious here but in a way the whole moon thing even reminds me of Christianity a little bit, and I’m not really religious in the slightest (maybe spiritual, but not very religious) but this movie also came to me at a time when I was very at odds with the idea of God and faith and everything, and I felt like Jack Frost constantly questioning what the point of it all was and questioning whether something greater even existed and if so, then how could they let terrible things like this happen? Without any solid answer? I don’t know, I don’t want this to get into a debate about my own religious beliefs, but yeah. The moon and I have some history, so I’ll choose the moon over the stars. 

12.fiction or short stories?

Fiction. By nature of my degree, I have to read a lot of short stories for college and some of them are really enjoyable and interesting but then we get to the debate of genre fiction versus literary fiction, which I think is a stupid fucking debate and literary fiction needs to get off it’s damn high horse with it’s “holier than thou” complex or whatever. Or maybe it’s not the literary fiction itself so much as the people who praise it. Like yes, I get that literary fiction is contemporary fine art and nuanced and shit but sometimes I like stories about vampires and ninjas and teenagers with weird names and social anxiety. Literary fiction is fine and all, but let’s face it, genre fiction is way more fucking fun and that is why I chose “fiction” over “short stories.” 

65 Questions You Aren’t Used To

1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you?

If I’m going to be brutally honest, sometimes. Hell, sometimes I even question my own existence but I guess that’s just the depersonalization aspect of anxiety talking. 

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you?

With 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest, I’d say I’m at about a 3? I’m not as afraid of the dark as I used to be, but it’s situational. If I’m alone and it’s dark, then I get panicky because my awareness is impaired and I’m admittedly a very visual person so if I can’t see and I suspect there’s something going bump in the night, I’m going to freak out. Even hearing something, even when logically I know exactly what it is, freaks me out because I can’t know for sure unless I’m looking straight at it but if it’s dark, I can’t do that. I prefer to sleep when it’s like fully dark, though. I even used to wear a sleep mask to help with that and because the feeling of something soft over my eyes was comforting??? I don’t know, like I can sleep perfectly fine with the lights on, too, and sometimes if my anxiety is bad that’s what I’d prefer to make things easier on myself but for the most part, I guess it’s situational. I also feel like this is an appropriate place to say I have a duck nightlight in my bathroom, which doesn’t really have anything to do with being afraid of the dark so much as darkness in general but I also have a thing for rubber ducks so having a rubber duck nightlight is very on brand and I love it. 

12. Who told you they loved you last?

Probably my boyfriend. He’s the one whose always here anyways. If not him, then from my mother but I don’t particularly want to think about her right now because I’m kind of upset with her so we’re just going to go ahead and say my boyfriend. 

Sensory Asks

[sight]

1. favourite colour(s)?

Red is my top fave, and has been since I was three. I think it was when I got a red VW Beetle for my Barbie dolls that I really fell in love with the color. All the accessories that came with it were red plastic and looking at them just filled with me a lot of energy and joy, which I later realized I felt whenever looking at red in general. It also helps that I can now make the joke whenever I’m asked this question that I love red “like the blood of my enemies,” which is always fun. 

2. least favourite colour(s)?

I’m really not a fan of yellow, chartreuse, and tan/beige. I can handle yellow in certain instances like with sunflowers or lemons or sunshine related stuff, but I prefer gold over straight up yellow. I don’t dislike yellow nearly as much as tan/beige, though. That one I can also handle in certain instances but for the most part, it reminds me of a time I got sick as a kid so looking at it for too long brings back that nausea. Chartreuse is the end-all, be-all of the colors I’m not big on, though. It just...reminds me of snot. It feels really unappealing to look at for me, too. 

[smell]

12. favourite scent?

Clean laundry, hands down. I love nothing more than the smell of fresh laundry, like sometimes I’ll catch myself literally sitting at my laptop sniffing my shirt because I love the smell so much. It’s just so comforting, and I think that’s because it reminds me of this doll I’ve had literally since birth. I called her Baby Doll and she was just a basic baby doll with a plastic head and cloth body that my grandmother got from Avon and I was so damn attached to it as a kid. I brought Baby Doll everywhere with me, even in my backpack on my first day of preschool. I slept with her for way longer than I’d like to admit, too. But she smelled like fabric softener, and when I was a little kid and was having bad anxiety attacks (which I’ve been dealing with since I was three), I would hug her really close and the smell was just really comforting. So now I have to get it from my own laundry because I still own Baby Doll, but I’m a grown-ass adult and she’s very fragile now (and also currently in storage for safe-keeping). So yeah, clean laundry hands-down. 

Fashions Asks

1. What season has your favorite looks?

Fall! I’m such a sucker for big cozy sweaters and jeans. Back to school fashion lowkey excites me, too, and besides: I feel like it’s a lot easier to find appropriate outfits for my personal fashion sense that fit cooler weather than the seventh circle of hell 106-degree-heat-index I’m currently living in. I adore oversized sweaters, leggings, skinny jeans, combat boots, creepers, hoodies, layers, all that good stuff but you can’t do that when you feel like you’re dying of heat stroke even standing in front of the fridge butt naked. Not that I do that, but it’s hot enough here that I could if I wanted to. That’s not an issue in fall, though, which is super fucking nice. I just really love being cozy all the time always. 

2. Formal or casual?

Casual! As much as I love the look of formal clothes, I am chronically ill. I am anxious. I am depressed. I want to be comfortable all the damn time, and I just can’t be genuinely comfortable in formal clothes. For example, I attended my cousin’s wedding last spring and wore these really cute Mary Jane heels that I love. They fit my aesthetic and make my legs look great, too, if I say so myself. I was able to get through the ceremony with them on but after the fact, they started getting so damn uncomfortable that I went to the car and changed into my ratty five year old combat boots like a total punk because comfort. At least they still looked good with the dress I was wearing, though, so that’s a plus. 

12. What fashions do you hate?

Okay, I feel like a lot of people might get on my case about this but I really can’t stand Birkenstocks. They just...look like what your overbearing uncle would wear with socks to the summer barbecue to me. I don’t know, in certain cases they’re at least fitting for a certain look and I commend the people who can pull them off but as for me? I just can’t wrap my head around them. I dislike them even more than Crocs, which I am also not a fan of. But then again, like...I’m also not big on today’s fashion trends in general. There are some things I do like, like oversized t-shirts with leggings especially if they’re a band t-shirt, and those cute Japanese uniform style pleated skirts (I admittedly own one and I love it). The whole ethereal quirky pastel modern grunge e-girl shit, though, just doesn’t vibe much with me. My fashion sense is more on par with Luanna Perez’s alternative looks and the 2007-2012 era of the emo/scene style, as well as some pastel goth, genuine 90′s grunge, and kawaii/lolita inspired stuff. Like I will gladly tease the hell out of my hair, add in extensions and coontails and a little pink bow, and throw on a pink polka dot dress with fishnets and creepers or something. I don’t know, I just feel really disconnected from what’s considered trendy in today’s fashion sense. Maybe it’s because I tried so hard for so many years to fit what was in style despite it not feeling genuine to who I was personally, that now that I’ve finally mustered enough confidence to leave the house wearing what makes me happy even if it is unorthodox and alternative (like black lipstick!!!), I just can’t get on board with what everyone else is doing. Sure, I feel a little weird dressing like it’s ten years ago when everyone else is walking around wearing like those dinky crop tops that say “I have no tits” or have like applique roses on them or whatever and anything else that’s considered modern on-trend but like...in the wise words of Kurt Cobain, “I’d rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I’m not.” I’m tired of trying to fit the status quo and doing what everyone else is doing. If I want coontails and snake bites in 2019, then goddammit I’m gonna go for it (though not gonna lie, the 20NINESCENE craze has me crying because I regret not having “the phase” in middle school that everyone else did so much sometimes that it’s physically painful so to think that there are still people out there rocking the thick side fringe and heavy eyeliner and the RAWR MEANS I LOVE YOU IN DINOSAUR shit makes me feel like maybe I’ve been given a second chance to be true to myself and become a part of a community that means something to me, rather than what I was actually doing in middle school being dragged through the mud trying to redeem myself of some sense of popularity because I was losing my best friend to the alpha female clique mentality and I was so damn unhappy, I legit had a breakdown in her pool about it once so you bet your ass I’m going to say screw it and do everything I wanted to back then now that I actually have the confidence and stopped caring what people thought about me.) 

#this got so long i am so fucking sorry xD #answered asks #ask memes #lasaraleen

[radiowrites]

Beautiful Liar

He would settle the mask of lies on his face and tell himself that it was all meant to be. 

Read it on: AO3.org / FF.net / Below the cut!

[Ghost Hunt fanfiction short story. 4300 words, three chapters in the links above - one whole piece below. Koujo Lin. Pre-series, set before 1997. Originally written on 11-24-15. Heavily inspired by the music video with the same name by VIXX LR. I guess it’s a fanfiction of the MV, too...?]

Part I

Koujo Lin stood in front of a nondescript office building crammed between two identical structures.

Though Lin was well versed with the history and studies of the SPR, he had never visited its British headquarters. Perhaps he had never really intended to. He considered his training to be quite complete. One could even say his family was well known for producing fine sorcerers.

He had been in England for three months, and it had been a surprise to learn that the professor Lin had attended lectures from was a parapsychologist on the side. The man had invited Lin to visit the SPR. The professor was interesting and had earned Lin’s respect. The professor did not shy away like most people.

That was because most people did not know why Lin frightened them. They only knew that sometimes things worked in his favor in a way that was difficult to explain. The professor was well aware of the dark arts and the like that Lin practiced.

These dark arts were the presence of his shiki in the back of his mind, floating in the ether, hollow and ready to be filled with his commands. They held no physical forms, had no voices.

The street was quiet, and Lin could feel the eyes of curious office workers looking through slatted blinds on the other buildings. He was certain that the watchers had seen far stranger visitors to the SPR than this tall man of Chinese descent dressed in a simple black business suit. The only thing that could be remembered as unique was the fringe of sleek black hair that covered one eye.

The door opened to a short balding man in his late forties with a beaming grin.

“Mr. Koujo,” the portly man shook his hand vigorously, though he was barely holding on to the tips of Lin’s fingers. “I’m Jeffrey Smith, and we are so glad to have you here. Welcome to the Society for Psychical Research.”

“It’s Lin –”

“Of course, and you can call me Jeffrey. We’re all on a first name basis here too. Come in. So you’re from China?”

Lin hesitated on the stoop for a moment, a frown directed at the man’s back as he went inside, expecting Lin to follow. Lin was used to being referred to from his surname as a level of respect. He had never had someone mistake it as his given name before. “Actually,” he said as he entered the building and remembered to answer Jeffrey’s question, “Hong Kong.”

“Oh, so you’re practically British already. You’ll fit right in.”

Lin had to remind himself that it was self-indulgent to have a shiki wring Jeffrey’s neck for such a minor offense.

Jeffrey took Lin’s elbow – though he barely came to Lin’s shoulder – and started leading him down the hallway. “Let me show you around quickly. Headquarters isn’t too big, as you can see. You look so young. I’ve heard you control shiki already? How many?”

It had been a small hope that a society for psychic research didn’t linger on idle talk. “I control many,” Lin said. The lie was thick on his tongue. If there was someone who wanted to cause him trouble, how many shiki he controlled would be a valuable asset, so it was information he didn’t give away easily.

And he only had three so far.

“That would be such a stress at any age. You must be very balanced.”

Before he could reply to Jeffrey, the older man muttered, “Speaking of young…” He let go of Lin’s arm and backed up a few paces where they had passed a stairwell going up. Two young boys sat on the sixth step up. The twins – for that was clearly what they were – looked to be barely over the age of twelve, and were of Asian descent.

Jeffrey clapped his hands when they didn’t acknowledge him. “Boys! Where is your father?”

 “He went to get a cup of coffee,” one of the boys said. Lin thought he could detect a hint of an American accent, though he wasn’t well enough versed to know exactly where. The silent boy wore a mask of indifference, something Lin was well practiced in.

“Then you should be in the office he’s using, not out here,” Jeffrey said. From the abrupt tone in his voice, Lin had a feeling that Jeffrey was even worse with kids than he was.

“He locked us out,” the first boy said, the only one who had spoken so far.

“On purpose?” Jeffrey asked.

“No,” said the first boy.

“Yes,” said the mirror image of him at the same time.

They looked at each other, then repeated together, “No.”

“So if you just unlock the door sir, we’ll get out of your hair.”

Jeffrey shook his head. “I don’t have the key to that office; you’ll have to wait on him. Please stay out of trouble.”

The quiet boy watched Lin with cold eyes. The boys were Japanese, but Lin did not know where the thought had surfaced from. He felt a swell of fierce loyalty to his grandmother and horrific stories she had told about the war.

Lin sensed a shiki come to attention without a request from him. The talkative boy looked at Lin, or more specifically, past his shoulder. The boy turned away, the faintest shudder passing through his small body. The fact that a shiki had materialized enough for the boy to sense it alarmed Lin.

Jeffrey had taken off down the hallway, though with his stature, he had not gotten very far before Lin’s long strides met up with him.

“You watch out for those two,” Jeffrey said, throwing a glance over his shoulder, presumably to make sure the children were not following them. “Especially the older one. Or is it the younger one? How are you supposed to know that, anyway? Orphan twin boys, could have been mixed up at birth, for all they know.”

“They’re adopted?” Lin asked.

“Yes, they’re Martin’s boys. Whatever possessed him and Luella to adopt them is beyond me. They only look like trouble and heartache to me.”

…

About the time that Lin was ready to leave – or escape, Martin Davis came in through a side door to the kitchen. Davis was older than one would have expected by the youth of the two boys. Behind Davis was a young woman with dark cherry-colored hair. She looked too young to be his wife, so there was a good chance she was adopted too. Lin ignored the smile she tried to give him.

Davis came up short, a cup of take-out coffee in one hand. “Oh, Mr. Lin – I didn’t know you were coming today.” He transferred the coffee to his left and offered his free hand. Lin took it. It was a firm, confident handshake. “I’m glad you were able to make it. This is my associate Madoka Mori. I trust Jeffrey didn’t bore you?”

 “No, he was very informative.” And he was dropping gossip about you to a complete stranger, you probably should be aware of that.

Davis looked at him, a steady gaze, and proved there were levels of intelligence and strength in any society, big or small. Lin felt the urge to sit down on the steps and tell this man his problems, with Vivian, with moving from his home country, and from his third shiki…

So he thanked Davis, letting him know he would be in touch, and left.

Part II

Vivian wasn’t home yet. Lin dropped onto the bed without bothering to turn on the lamp. In front of him, the mirrored closet doors caught the light of the hallway, throwing shadows across his face in the reflection. His good eye glinted. It was wrong to have a mirror facing the bed. It invited the third party into your sleeping space.

Maybe he just disliked mirrors all together, because sometimes the shadows moved differently than they did in the real world.

Stopping at the SPR had been a waste of time. It was basically Jeffrey not knowing what to do with Lin, and yet wanting to not lose hold of him. They’ll try to get Lin on a team, if research was what he was interested in. Or he could apply for some grant money if he had projects to work on. Or, Jeffrey had continued, peering at Lin’s fringe of hair, if Lin wanted to have people study him instead…

Why isn’t she home. The thought came unbidden, and the angry undercurrents made it a statement, not a question. Lin could not push the irritation aside.

Jeffrey had called him balanced. Lin believed the last time he had been balanced was before he had left Hong Kong, before he had added the third shiki.

Shiki were hollow. They should be empty and detached until he was ready to use them. When Lin probed the presence, the third shiki felt…full. Of emotion.

Lin had been upset during the preparation and through the ritual. Vivian and his relationship had been rocky again even though they were not only moving in with each other, but out of the country as well. He was angry about the changes coming to his home country, how he was being forced to move if he wanted to keep his ways of life. He had wanted one more shiki before leaving for England, as if the shiki gained later on in another country would be somehow different.

It was possible that the lack of control in his own life slipped through into the spiritual ties with the shiki, that he had transferred these very human emotions right into the being. And Lin didn’t know what to do about it.

In reality, he needed the master, his grandfather, who had passed away suddenly three years ago. The death certificate said it was a stroke. Lin knew it was from a shiki his grandfather had lost control of. It was very possible that was the path Lin was heading down.

 The front door to the apartment clicked open. Her soft steps came closer down the hallway, and he heard them hesitate in the doorway. She turned the light on.

“Koujo, you’re home,” Vivian said in Cantonese. When they were young, they were taught English in school, but it was a comfort to drop into the language of their heritage. “How was the SPR?”

He could see her in the reflection. Her glossy black hair was pulled up, her eye makeup done to exaggerate her eyes. Her mother had named her Vivian after some actress – which one, Vivian wasn’t sure; the story had changed every time it was told. Her family’s elders had been appalled that a child could be named on a whim. Her mother had said it was simply being prepared for the time they would leave Hong Kong, which was inevitable due to the Chinese takeover.

“They seemed impressed by the paperwork I sent to them,” Lin said. “Yet they didn’t know what to do with me. The man who showed me around looked like he hadn’t done any field work in a decade.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. After a pause, a tentative smile crossed her face. “You’ll be pleased I found a job. It’s a modeling gig. He said that my face was exactly what he was looking for.”

“Of course he would, Vivian.” Lin turned around and her smile quickly faded. “Just another foreigner with an Asian fetish.”

“Maybe you’ve forgotten that we’re the foreigners here, Koujo. What was I supposed to do? You didn’t want me just sitting around the apartment.”

“But was your only option to sell yourself?”

“I didn’t –”

“Was I just your free ride out of the country?”

She stiffened. “Look, it’s just a few pictures for a catalog. Some type of artisan jewelry. It’s not like I’m taking off my clothes!” By the end of the last sentence, her voice had risen in pitch. She heaved in a breath. “Why do you always assume the worst when it comes to me? What have I done to earn your distrust?”

Tears she could not hold back marred her makeup, and she spun on her heel.

When he heard the bathroom door slam down the hall, he dropped his head and leaned his elbows on his thighs. He hadn’t paid her way. Vivian had plenty of her own family money. Why did he always lash out at her?

Lin looked up and he could almost see the outline of a shiki behind him. The shadows curved around the preternatural being like a water droplet.

He closed his eyes, slowed his breath, and attempted to settle his mind.

 Lin sat up when Vivian reappeared in the doorway. Because of the way the room was situated, she had to walk past him as she went to her small dresser. She handed a card to him as she went by, not taking the time to notice if he took it or not.

The paper was dark, and Wedding Invitation was written in silver foil across the front. “What’s this?”

“My cousin is getting married. I forgot to tell you. My aunt gave me the invitation this morning.”

If Vivian’s mother had been odd according to the elders, she had nothing on her older sister, who had up and moved to England a quarter of a century ago. Her youngest of three boys had been born here, and he was the one getting married.

Vivian and Lin had carefully not discussed marriage, and the unexpected invitation in his hand had brought the topic into focus. They should have been entertaining the thought by now. He opened the envelope, and saw that it was only addressed to her. Apparently her family had never planned on him marrying her.

He had intended on marrying her once.

She went to the wrought iron hat rack in the corner and started pulling off clothes she had strewn on it. She could have been simply looking for an outfit for tomorrow. Or she could already be packing to move out. The clothes accumulated into a pile on the floor until she sat down on the bed behind him, her body language sharp and irritated. He shouldn’t have been able to see her drop her head into her hands, but the mirror violated that privacy. She looked up and their eyes met through the reflection.

“Just go away, please,” she said.

Lin inclined his head, watching his face through a lowered eyelid in the mirror. His expression was emotionless, except for the taut lines around the corners of his mouth and eyes. Beautiful memories were being tainted as he struggled to remember why they were together in the first place. Would she be happier if he just let her go?

In the kitchen, the phone rang. She made no move, so he left the bedroom to answer it.

“Hello?”

“This is Martin Davis speaking. Have I reached Koujo Lin?”

“Yes. What can I do for you, Mr. Davis?”

“I want to offer you a side job. Outside of the SPR. If you are interested.” Davis’ sentences held an agitated undertone. “It’s one of my sons. His abilities are…well, I certainly won’t boast them as unique. But they are unusual, and he needs to learn how to control them.”

“I doubt I’m qualified, Mr. Davis,” Lin said, though he knew there was a very good chance he would be.

“That was quick,” Davis said. “I thought you would have at least waited to meet with him once.”

The problem was Lin had already met them. “I’m not good with children,” he said. Especially Japanese children.

“That would not be a problem. Oliver is more mature than most adults I meet.”

Lin was sure every parent said that at one time or another, whether the child was of their own blood or not. But to deny this opportunity would be a step backwards from the direction he was wanted to take.

“Would tomorrow be all right with you?” Lin asked.

“Yes, the hospital does not intend on holding him overnight.” Davis rattled off the address.

Lin stood there holding the phone after Davis was gone, trying to process the last statement.

…

The dinner dishes had been cleared but Lin and Vivian still sat across from each other at the small table. The hanging light above them was lightly swinging back and forth. Maybe a breeze was filtering in through the open window.

Vivian leaned forward to take his hand, and he instinctively pulled away. Her shoulders slumped as she stood up.

Lin almost reached for her hands. He assumed pride made him hesitate.

“I’ll spend the night at my Aunt’s,” she said. “Good night.”

 That night, he dreamed.

A man sat next to him on the end of the bed. They didn’t look at each other directly, instead making eye contact in the mirror before them. His face was similar to Lin’s in the way that each artist would draw a face differently when given a basic description. Minor changes in the cheekbones and jaw line made the face a different man. Then the artist had added flairs of their own: the other man’s hair was stark white, and both of his eyes were visible. They were an electric blue, like the eye that Lin kept so carefully hidden. The man smiled at him in the mirror. His teeth gleamed white, contrasting with a brightly colored suit. Red and blue clashed in an erratic tie-dye pattern.

Lin liked black. It was professional. It didn’t draw the imagination back to soothsayers found in the dark corners of brightly lit festivals.

Behind them, Vivian slept fitfully in a white silk nightgown that bared her thighs. The other man slid off of the bed and came around close to her. He leaned down, a hand straddled over her waist. He hovered over her lips, but he didn’t touch her. She gasped softly in her sleep.

“Don’t let her go,” the other man murmured. “She’s a good catch. Obedient, if trained right. I want you to keep her.”

Lin found himself agreeing with him.

Lin sat up with a quick intake of breath, completely alone, and still jumped at his reflection across the bed. His hair was tousled away from his face, and he had an alarming sensation that the mismatched eyes were no longer his own.

Part III

The next morning, he found Vivian at the door, not proud and composed as he expected, but a mess of tears.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

She paused in the kitchen, and wiped her tears on her sleeve. It didn’t stem the flow. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “Walking out last night wasn’t the answer.”

Vivian came close and cupped his face.  This wasn’t what Lin had anticipated. It was not how their last serious argument had panned out. He wondered, suddenly, if she had dreamed last night.

He lowered his gaze. It felt wrong to meet her eyes.

Vivian let go and collapsed into a kitchen chair. As she ran her fingers through her untidy hair, she said, “I guess I expected you to take your words back. That was stupid of me.”

He nodded. His body ached with the falsehoods he was piling on his shoulders, and his heart shuddered against the cage he secured it in. It didn’t matter anymore what he wanted. Her well being was what mattered.

 “I guess it is not fixable this time,” he said, and smiled wanly. He hoped it looked authentic, because it felt like thin plastic film was across his face, holding everything in place.

He sat down across from her, and she slid her house key across the table. The keychain was a brass padlock with its own heart-shaped key. It gleamed from the light overhead, taunting him. She had left the keychain on since he had given it to her.

As he reached for the key, the shiki in its human garb was there, standing at the table between them. He slapped it away from Lin’s outstretched fingers. The brass clinked onto the floor.

Lin blinked, and the keys were still on the table, for the shiki could not yet manipulate the physical realm.

Vivian twitched, as if she had heard the sound too. She looked up, and seemed to stare right at the shiki’s face. Then her eyes shifted away to Lin. They were unfocused and hurt.

It’s alright if you leave, Lin thought.

She got up and started down to the short hallway to the front door. The shiki started after her.

Lin caught its wrist. The shiki snarled as it jerked and twisted. When the shiki had almost escaped Lin leapt up and pinned its arms, and was tossed off with another growl.

Lin still held its wrist, and was forcibly dragged down the hall.

He could feel the pain in his arms, and he had to question if his body was actually still just sitting at the table.

 When he heard the front door open, then shut, he grabbed at the shiki’s legs and upended the demon. He soon had an arm around the shiki’s neck and his legs around its waist as it struggled.

Lin could feel love and fury, rage and desire churning through the being, and in turn, himself. It seemed like it wanted to speak, to make Lin understand, but Lin shut it out. Communicating with a shiki outside of a command was a dangerous dead end. When it seemed to know that Lin was not going to give it an audience, it attempted to rake its fingernails – which were now claws – over Lin’s face.

Every person had their own way to cut a spiritual cord. If the cord was thick from a good relationship that had gone sour, it could rebound on you if cut suddenly, causing physical pain. In the past, Lin had allowed during meditation a candle flame to gently eat away at cords that no longer served him. It let the strands go one by one, and when there was only one left it just fell away.

If there was the first plane of existence – where Lin’s body still sat, watching the door with a brooding despair – and the second plane was where this fight was taking place, yet another level came into prospective – where the shiki and he stood, calmly.

The shiki embraced Lin.

Don’t do it, it whispered into his ear, and Lin could feel its sharp teeth at his neck.

Lin imagined a machete and hacked at the cord which bound him and the third shiki together.

The shiki gasped and choked, though if it was from the cord being cut or from the arm that was blocking his windpipe, it was uncertain. The shiki should never have had the physical presence to feel the pain the lack of breath was causing.

The first hit didn’t sever the cord.

The second strike did.

The shiki melted from his hands, and reassembled into a vague shape behind Lin. Lin turned without getting up, watching the shiki fade as it walked, or rather stumbled away.

The remaining two shiki were silent. They did not have a concept of camaraderie. 

Lin, still sitting on the kitchen floor, closed his eyes. Weariness settled into his body from the violent removal. He tried to visualize Vivian happy and moved on from their relationship. The images wouldn’t come.

There was a flicker of hope that she would come back in, say one more time that they could make this work. He had no right for that thought, since he had already rebuffed the offer. He had done so for her safety and freedom, but that wasn’t something she was aware of. He had come to terms that he had never shared enough with her. Yes, his craft was a secretive work, but if he had allowed her to support him at times, maybe he would not be on the floor after the breakup, wishing there was a way to fix it.

He felt their spiritual cord snap. He had not prepared for it, so the sudden hollow ache in his heart hit him hard.

He knew tears were in his eyes, but he didn’t allow them to spill over. The cord had been tainted by the wants of the shiki, so the fact it had been broken wasn’t wrong. They could easily forge a new one, if he got up, followed her, and apologized. For everything.

In front of her aunt and cousins, who would see a broken man incapable of living without a woman.

In front of his remaining shiki, who might just be paying more attention than he gave credit to.

In front of the memory of his father, who had said to never grovel for a woman. Don’t give her that power over you.

The phone rang. It took all of Lin’s remaining energy to get up.

“My cousins will pick up my possessions tomorrow,” Vivian said. There was no pain in her voice. She sounded happier than she had been in months. If it was an act or the truth, he had no right to ask.

“I won’t be home,” he said. His voice was smooth and steady. “I will leave the door unlocked.”

He knew he had given free rein to protective men who viewed Vivian as a sister, but at that moment, he didn’t care if they emptied the whole apartment. He had nothing to lose.

There was no more conversation. They simply said good bye.

 He returned to the bedroom. To shatter the mirror was tempting but not worth giving an explanation to the landlord.

He stopped and examined his face, with its reddened, shining eye. He wondered if the other was capable of tears. The question should have been absurd, but he suddenly couldn’t remember the last time he had shed tears.

He wiped his hand across his face and smiled in the mirror. The expression was not believable, so he let it slip.

“I won’t miss her,” he told the reflection.

What a liar.

 “No woman is worth chasing after.”

Oh, and a coward as well.

#ghost hunt #fanfiction #koujo lin #vixx LR #beautiful liar #writing #radiowrites

[congregamus]

“Just....look”

My homily for tomorrow is below the break. The gospel from the lectionary is Matthew 7:13-21, quoted below.

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

In the name of one God, undivided.

Just….look.

OK. As I read it, there are three quick take-aways from this passage we just heard.

If it’s not easy, it’s probably worth doing, but don’t expect a crowd to help.  (AKA “Narrow is the gate”...)

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. (or, “wolves in sheep’s clothing”...)

You can trust yourself. (Jesus said, “By their fruit you will know them.”)

Now, these teachings come in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, a treasure trove of spiritual wisdom. We should remember, too, that this list comes only one verse after Jesus reduces the totality of the Mosaic law to “the golden rule.” So, let’s grab that one, and finish our list with it, expressed for our purposes in the negative:

       4. If you don’t want it done to you, don’t do it to anybody else.

These lessons, enshrined within one of the most celebrated spiritual elucidations from antiquity, have been treated as icons, revered, worried over, and re-interpreted by every generation that approaches the text.

They have also been hashed and re-hashed, warmed up, served cold, and, worst of all, taken for granted. The Sermon on the Mount is part of the core of Western culture, and often enough, Western identity.

Jesus’s genius as a spiritual teacher comes to us in the gospels in the form of our never quite knowing which way the Master would have us take him.

Is this a passage where Jesus is being riddlesome or ironic? Is he hiding some deep truth behind common words? Which Jesus do we encounter in this reading? 

The four “take away” statements I began with are examples of common sense handed back to us as deep spiritual wisdom, so I would argue that here Jesus is being as direct as he gets. He essentially says, “I’m just reminding you of what you already know. You trust me, but you can trust yourself, too.”  Remember! These nuggets are right on the heels of the teaching that even we, when our children ask for bread, do not give them rocks to eat.

But is it really as easy as all that?

[TIME/TRANSFORMATION OF MOOD]

Recently, the Steward Guardian accompanied me on an outing to see a film adaptation of a book I read over and over as a young’un. The book is A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, one of the Episcopal Church’s many ambassadors to the world of fantasy fiction. In the tradition of C. S. Lewis, L’Engle makes no mystery of her faith in her story telling, and her moral outlook might as well be written in neon on every page.

Briefly, the story concerns Meg Murray, a troubled high schooler whose father disappeared four years before the action of the story begins.

The father has gone missing because the work he was doing on a secret project for NASA was in some ways successful, but, inexperienced at interstellar navigation as one might be, he became lost light years away from Earth. 

Everyone in the town, though, whispers that he abandoned the family. School and life are hard for Meg, and though it seems that she and her highly prodigious younger brother Charles Wallace should give up on the hope that their father will ever return, they encounter… difficult-to-describe messenger-guides of great wisdom and experience—we would call them angels. These messenger-guides help them in their Odyssey, eventually leading them to the dark planet CAMZOTZ where their father is trapped.

Now this planet is a special situation. Evil as it is, the messenger-guides cannot materialize on this planet, so the children are left alone, with only some advice to help. (Sounds awfully familiar to me.)

Strangely, once they reach the outskirts of the nearest town, they discover no immediate threat of harm. In fact, it seems the opposite of dangerous. Everything is tidy. Everything works. Everything is accounted for. At first glance, it’s a utopia, the American Dream™: a sparklingly clean suburban development whose well-behaved children do not argue when their mothers call them to dinner, but stop playing immediately and head inside. Our heroes, though, warned by their guides, know to remain on guard.

What we come to discover, with just the slightest bit of looking, is that on CAMAZOTZ, all personhood or individuality have become absorbed into a sort of super-consciousness, called “!!! IT !!!!” (can you hear that IT is written in all capital letters? It is.) And IT runs the planet.

A barely disguised metaphor for the egoic structures of the mind, IT wants to absorb everything into itself, especially the loving, precocious grade-schooler Charles Wallace. IT accomplishes this with a surprising lack of difficulty. And so Meg now has to retrieve both her brother and her father from the clutches of IT.

What makes IT so dangerous is that IT speaks exactly the language that our tired, scared selves want so desperately to hear. In fact, if we look at IT even just a little, we can see that IT gives exactly the opposite advice Jesus offers in Matthew. 

Instead of “Narrow is the gate”, “Wolves in sheep’s clothing” or “Trust yourself”, IT offers Meg an easy way, along with some lies about how giving into ITs control really is as good as it sounds. 

Instead of encouraging Meg to seek the Truth within herself, which you may remember from above as “you shall know them by their fruits”, IT tells her what her truth is, and then demands all trust be put in IT alone.

In fact, IT makes all manner of promises in ITs bid for control of Meg’s consciousness, including showing Meg a glamourous vision of herself, free from all her faults, no matter that in the vision she is soulless and in ITs control. IT shows ITs diabolic nature in this method of operation. No “golden rule” for our planet-sized Ego. Rather than functioning from a baseline of relationship, IT only imprisons, commands.

This is precisely the game of the Adversary—the original false teacher.

But how can we tell what’s real when the false teacher is good at illusion? IT on CAMAZOTZ presents such a picture of order, ease, and control. The Egoic Adversary is desperate for the same and presents us with as many lies as we will listen to in its bid for power over our decisions.

So was Jesus wrong? Can we not trust ourselves?

Indeed, we can. Jesus said that we will know the tree by its fruit, but he didn’t say we’d know from across the field. We actually have to perceive something, to look at it rather than look through it. We don’t really know if a tree is producing delicious or rotten fruit from the safety of distance. We have to get close enough to sense it fully. Only then can we properly discern if the “fruit” is health or poison.

It’s the same with wisdom. Some “wisdom” seems great from a distance—“an eye for an eye” anyone?—but the closer you get to it, the easier it is to figure out how bad of a decision it would be to live your life by that. It seems right, but it’s not if we look, and I mean really look at it.

[FINAL TRANSITION]

To some, Jesus, before he is anything else, is a savior. To me, he is above all a revolutionary in the arena of consciousness, and here, Jesus tells us to step out of our habits and to gaze, not glance.

If we look, and I mean really look, this reading is a wake-up call. Salvation, Enlightenment, Unity Consciousness, whatever you want to call it, is hard. Not many people are working on it. Plenty of so-called spiritual teachers, ready to take advantage of the open heart of the seeker, will use manipulation to accomplish their own goals. They may succeed for a time, but they WILL NOT WIN. Because it’s only through deeply relating—which was Jesus’ choice in the Incarnation—that we can hope to come close enough to the inner truth of both ourselves and the Other.

As much as we would like for the church to be easy, convenient, and right all the time (which is what our tired and scared selves desperately want to hear), the church can be a false teacher, too, demanding our full allegiance in exchange for answers to unanswerable questions, and the peace of seeming to be on the winning team. The relaxation of seeming to have the right answers.

I hasten to remind us, however, that Jesus was not on any winning team, that he looked to all the world like a loser, but if we just… look, and I mean really look, we will see that it doesn’t matter if it’s too hard to “win” and we’ll just “do whatever he tells us”. We’ll trust ourselves enough to ignore the seductive lies the Adversary offers us, finally bringing the realm of heaven to earth to rest upon the mercy seat in the holy of holies of the temple made not with hands, not by loving our neighbors as ourselves, but because we have come into the truth that our neighbor is not separate from us, and what we do to each other, we also do unto ourselves. 

Narrow is the gate. Many are the wolves, but we can trust ourselves. It only takes something that’s really hard—but not impossible—for humans to do: that is, to remain rooted in relationship rather than in a struggle for control, which, not being God, we will never, ever have anyway.

#feedback appreciated #minutiae #chapter 5 #text #sermons

[too-much-jonerys]

“Holiday Homecoming”- Jonerys Modern AU Fic

A/N: Whoop! Fic number 3 of my weekend fic spam! Jon and Dany head to her family home for Christmas to meet the Targaryens. But, in true Targaryen fashion, it is every bit as dramatic and lovely as one would think. Family bonding, family arguments, awkward dinners. Madness. Greatness. All-around A+ experience.

Note 2: Jon is NOT a Targaryen in this. 

Note 3: This is in the same verse as this multi-chapter modern AU I’m working on. I haven’t posted any of that, though, yet.

Note 4: This story is over 4k words, because I don’t know how to shut the hell up. Thank you. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this nervous before,” Jon said, looking over at Dany in the passenger seat.

She hadn’t said much on the ride over. She hadn’t said much that entire morning before they left either. Jon didn’t have to ask her why, though. Dany had answered that plenty of times before. They were visiting her family for Christmas, the first time any of them would meet Jon. Jon thought he would be the nervous one after the stories he’d heard about them, but it was Dany who showed the most resistance. She was not worried about her mother or about her eldest brother, Rhaegar, both of whom she had a very close relationship with and spoke highly of. It was her father and second brother, Viserys, that caused her the stress.

“They’re not kind,” she would simply tell Jon and not much more than that.

He believed her. Still, he felt that it was important to at least meet them, if nothing else. So, when her mother invited the two of them up for the holiday, Jon was ready for the opportunity. Dany was dreading it.

“I’m not nervous,” she spoke, looking over to him, “I just feel like we should have gone to your family’s for Christmas this year.”

“We went last year. And besides, Arya and Sansa are out of town. Bran is staying on campus. No one would be there anyway.”

“Then we should have just stayed in London.”

“I really think you’re worrying too much about this.”

“You won’t think that when you meet my brother and father.”

“I’ve dealt with shit relatives before. It doesn’t faze me anymore.”

“Yeah,” she replied, glancing back out the window. She may as well have said “Just wait.”

“It’s just one night.”

They pulled up to the grand entrance of a property closed off by a tall, stone wall and thick tree line. The gates were adorned with an imposing dragon symbol. Dany reached over Jon and punched in a code, opening the gate slowly. As they drove down the tree-lined path, a large manor-style house began to form in the distance. From far away, it already looked massive. Yet, as they approached, Jon could see how sprawling the estate really was. It was far more extravagant than their cheap London flat. Certainly in a safer neighborhood.

They parked, gathering their overnight bags out of the trunk. For the first time, he gulped with nervousness, wondering what type of people could own a place like this. But, he quelled his nerves, taking a minute to with Dany before they walked towards the house. Even with her makeup done well and long hair in loose, silky curls, her face was sullen as she leaned against the car.

“We can still go back. No one has seen us yet,” Dany said.

“We’re already here,” Jon replied before smiling. “You look too beautiful to leave now anyway.”

He grabbed her hand, gently pulling her forward as they walked towards the front door. They rang the doorbell, and it wasn't half a minute before a woman answered the door with a gleaming smile. She was not much taller than Dany with a nearly identical face. She couldn't have been out of her fifties, and her pale blonde hair only showed traces of grey at the edges. She reached out and embraced Dany tightly with a warm hug.

“Look at you, darling,” she said in a posh but friendly voice, smoothing over Dany’s cheeks. “Lovely as always.”

“Thank you, mother,” Dany smiled in return. She placed her hand on Jon’s arm, “This is…”

“I know well who this is,” the woman spoke, “It's wonderful to finally meet you, Jon. My name is Rhaella. At the risk of being cliche, I have heard so much about you.”

“It's nice to meet you.” Jon reached his hand out to shake.

“Oh, please. The formality,” Rhaella laughed as she moved in to hug him instead. All of the kindness shown in her voice was reflected in her embrace, and Jon smiled. “My apologies! Here I am keeping you out in the cold. Come inside.”

The inside of the manor was as grand as the outside, complete with a large staircase in the foyer, hardwood floors and ornate Christmas decorations. From the entry he could see a well-trimmed tree in the living area lined with gifts underneath. It looked like something out of a Christmas catalogue, Jon thought. Dany’s cheerfulness had even returned after seeing her mother, giving Jon hope for a peaceful holiday.

“Is Rhaegar here yet,” Dany asked excitedly.

“Rhaegar,” Rhaella sighed, her voice filled with remorse, “Rhaegar isn't coming this year. He's still in India.”

“Oh,” Dany replied, deflated, “I just thought he'd be here this time. I wanted to introduce Jon to him.”

“I know. Perhaps next time.” Rhaella turned to Jon. “My eldest is often on various spiritual journeys around the world. He always somewhere new and exciting. He misses many family gatherings, unfortunately. But, I hear he's happy.”

Rhaella smiled but Jon could see the sadness in her face over her absent son. Jon felt a sense of letdown that he wouldn’t meet the brother Dany spoke so highly about. But, he felt even more disappointment for Rhaella. And for Dany.

“Where’s father?” Dany nervously questioned.

“In his study. He is in quite a mood, though.”

“The same as always then.”

Dany glanced over at Jon giving him a look as if to say that was strike one. She would only take so much more disturbance before she took the car back home herself. The three of them made their way to the study.

They opened the door to find an old man sitting at a large mahogany desk, reading papers over his glasses. He wasn't how Jon had imagined him. From the stories and seeing his wife, Jon envisioned a man as polished and pristine as his estate. Elderly but in shape. The man Jon saw, however, had thin, white hair that appeared only half-kemped and the prickly scruff of white facial hair. His face was heavily wrinkled and slightly sunken in. His brows appeared to be in a permanent furrow as he mumbled to himself.

“Aerys,” Rhaella said kindly, “Daenerys is here,”

“I have ears. I heard her,” he barked. Dany exchanged another look at Jon.

“Of course,” Rhaella nodded, obviously trying to hide her scorn. “Jon is here, as well. Do you remember her speaking of him?”

Jon took a step forward to go shake Aerys’ hand but was stopped by Dany, who subtly shook her head at him. Aerys looked up, his face twisted in a glare, nose turned up. His piercingly cold blue eyes glared over Jon judgmentally before returning to his papers. Jon was too taken aback to say anything to him.

“Why isn't dinner ready?” That was all Aerys said. No further acknowledgement of Jon, at all.

“It's only still the afternoon. It is a bit early for dinner.”

“You won't even have it done by nightfall,” he griped.

“I will. But, I could use help. Perhaps next time we can hire Mary back?”

“And have her try to poison me again? Is that what you want?”

“She didn't…” Rhaella spoke but was cut off by Aerys’ sudden glare. She smiled an artificial smile and continued. “I'll get started on it now. It will be done shortly.”

No one needed to excuse themselves as they each left the study. Both Dany and Rhaella looked to Jon, apologetic and embarrassed over Aerys. Jon attempted his own artificial smile to put them at ease.

“I'm going to begin cooking,” her mother said, “You two go upstairs and get settled in. Dany will show you around, Jon.”

“We can come down and help you prepare dinner,” Dany offered.

“Oh, please no. You two have had a long drive. Rest up.”

“It’s no problem, really,” Jon said, “I’m happy to help.”

Rhaella gave them a smile and a nod before leaving them.

Dany showed Jon up the large staircase and down the hall to her bedroom. The room was bright with three windows and wooden furniture including a four-post bed. Her walls were adorned with a mix of art and poetry and maps, no doubt of the many places that she’d been to or wanted to go to at the time. On her nightstand was a picture of her hugging and smiling with a man whom Jon recognized as Rhaegar when she couldn’t have been more than ten, and he again hated that her brother wasn’t there.

“This is your room,” Jon smiled in an attempt to lighten the mood some.

“This is my room. Only slightly changed since I left it last.”

Dany began to angrily unpack. He knew that the conversation couldn’t be avoided and was aching to be brought up. Jon never doubted that the stories of her father were true, but he didn’t know. Not to the extent that he thought he’d known.

“Your father…”

“Was everything I said he'd be? And worse?”

“He mentioned being poisoned.”

“No one poisoned him,” Dany spat as she threw her toiletries bag on the bed. “Mary is a local woman, who was in desperate need of any job. So, my mother hired her to help her around the house, including with cooking. Mary was lovely and nice and helped mum far more than dad ever has. But, he fired her because he swore that she was feeding him poison. She wasn't. Now, he's forbid my mother from hiring any help because he's a paranoid ass.”

“That's terrible.”

“He's terrible. Mum tries to say that he wasn't always like this. That it has simply come with his old age, but I don't think she's even convincing herself of that. He’s just a cruel man.”

“He didn't appear to take much of a liking to me either.”

“Nor will he. He's not going to like or approve of you, that much is certain.” Dany stepped close to him and straightened his tie with a grin. “But, that's okay. That means you’re a good person. I don't think I'd like you much if he did.”

He grinned back and she kissed him on the cheek. But, before they had a chance to settle in, Dany heard a car speeding down the driveway towards the house. She looked out the window and narrowed her eyes.

“Oh, great.”

“Who is it?” Jon asked, peering over her shoulder. They saw a tall, slim man with pale blond hair walking to the house.

“Viserys”

When Aerys retired, the reigns of the company eventually fell to Viserys, no less cruel or fair. Rhaegar briefly ran the business but quickly realized that he had no desire or personality for the corporate world. He abdicated the title and left for his travels after that. Unlike Rhaegar, Viserys had all the awful traits for that cutthroat arena, same as Aerys.

But where Dany’s father had focused his cruelty at home on their mother, Viserys had taken to tormenting Dany. While they had been quite close as children, that had all fallen apart through the years, especially after Rhaegar moved away. He bullied her, hit her, taunted her. Even as adults living separate lives, Jon would occasionally overhear Dany on the phone with Viserys where one-sided insults were yelled at her. Dany would attempt to argue back with him, but Jon could tell that she was different after speaking to Viserys. Quiet and sad. Defeated and deflated. Jon hadn’t met Viserys yet, but he already didn’t like him based on that alone.

It was a sentiment that was confirmed when they met him downstairs. As he saw Dany approaching, Viserys flashed a sickening smirk. The kind of smirk that let them both know that it would be a long night with him around.

“Sweet sister,” he spoke with the charm of a snake, “It's been a while, hasn't it?”

“It has. Even though we are both in London now.”

“Not much free time, with a career like mine. You may not understand that.” Jon instinctively placed his arm around Dany protectively, and Viserys glanced over to him. “And you are?”

“Jon,” he replied with a short tone.

“Jon,” Viserys repeated, mimicking Jon’s voice, before turning back to Dany, “You never told me about Jon.”

“I don’t see why I should have. You wouldn’t have cared either way.”

Viserys’ mouth made a hard line as he cocked his head to the side.

“What happened to us, little sister? We used to get on so well. You changed.”

“I have. But, I’m not not the only one who changed… big brother.”

“Right,” he scoffed, “Where is mother?”

“In the kitchen. We were on our way to help her prepare dinner if you want to…”

“I’d better not disturb her then,” he replied before Dany could volunteer his aid, “I will see what father is up to. Jon, I look forward to chatting with you at dinner.”

“Likewise,” Jon responded with pursed lips.

They went to the kitchen, and found Rhaella already swamped in work. Though clearly overwhelmed, she still managed a friendly grin. She still protested their help but they insisted on lending their hands. Between the three of them, they finished a full spread including a honey baked ham, bread, vegetables and desserts.

When everyone sat down for dinner, the beautiful food display in front of them, it seemed as if the tension from earlier had gone. Viserys, who spoke to his mother in a much more respectful and caring manner than he had to Dany, complimented the food. Aerys was silent, which was for the best. They had even joked some as Rhaella told Jon stories of Dany as a child. For a moment, it appeared as if the dinner would go smoothly and uneventfully. That was until Rhaegar was mentioned.

“It’s a shame that Rhaegar isn’t here again,” Viserys commented, taking another gulp of wine. “Where is he this time?:”

“India, still. You know that,” Rhaella said.

“Chasing after another woman, I’m sure. I wonder how long will this one be around.”

“He seemed quite serious about Elia last I spoke to him,” Dany spoke up in defense, “She sounds like a sweet woman.”

“Please. Anyone is sweet when you flash around enough money. Rhaegar, no doubt, is showing off for her, spending family money on her.”

“It’s his money to spend,” Dany snapped.

“It could’ve been if he hadn’t abandoned our company.”

“Enough about our family,” Rhaella smiled, sensing another argument brewing, “I would love to hear more about you, Jon. Do you have family in London, as well?”

“No, they're all back up in Manchester, where we're from.”

“Manchester,” Viserys said, “I thought I detected a Northern accent.”

The way he said it was obviously meant as an insult. A tired insult that Jon had heard from enough Southern private school boys to simply ignore.

“Dany tells us that you have younger siblings you care for,” Rhaella interrupted, changing the subject again.

“I do. Two sisters and a brother now.”

“Now?”

“There were more of us,” Jon began nervously, shifting in his seat, “There was an accident a few years ago. My father, their mother and two of our brothers didn't make it. So, I've taken care of them since then. We get by well.”

It was a difficult topic for Jon to talk about. Knowing this, Dany grabbed his hand beneath the table comfortingly.

“I'm so sorry to hear of your family. That's very strong and admirable of you.”

“What do you do for a living, Jon?” Viserys blurted out.

“Viserys,” Rhaella scolded, “That is not an appropriate question for dinner.”

“It's alright. I do freelance work. I've worked in construction. I've done tutoring for local students. Most consistently, I work as an assistant in a photography studio.”

“And you still manage to support yourself in London and your siblings in Manchester.”

“Yes.”

“And my sister, as well.”

“I support myself, Viserys,” Dany broke in.

“Ah, yes. Your language school work. It’s gotten you quite the lovely rundown flat, hasn’t it?” Dany scowled at Viserys’ words, but it had little effect on hm. “Well, I may have some ground level position at my company, Jon. If you'd like a real job.”

“And would you grossly underpay him the same as you do your other employees? To be sure you have enough money for your sports cars, of course.”

“It's a more respectable job than freelancing, is it not, Jon?”

“I like what I do. It gets us all by. That's more important to me than a title.”

“Existential happiness over tangible wealth and success. Perhaps you two are well-matched after all.”

“Viserys. Daenerys.” Rhaella spoke harsher than Jon had heard her before. “We will speak no further on this topic. I did not plan a dinner to have it ruined like this.”

They both apologized and all fell quiet for a bit. The armistice was short-lived, however, as Aerys finally looked up from his plate.

“You went to university in Manchester?” Aerys asked Jon. It was the first he’d inquired about Jon since they met.

“No, I didn't.”

“Did you go to a university, at all?”

“He went to a university in Iceland,” Dany added proudly. Aerys was unimpressed.

“Why? Couldn’t get into an English school?”

“I got into four English schools actually,” Jon confidently corrected, “But, I just wanted a change of scenery.”

“Nothing wrong with English scenery.”

“Nothing wrong with Icelandic scenery either,” Jon said.

Aerys shot Jon another daggered look, clearly unhappy with his tone. This time, Jon remained unbothered and locked eyes with him, too. Unwilling to look away from the young man, Aerys blindly reached for the bottle of wine but knocked his own glass over, spilling it in his lap. He immediately broke eye contact with Jon and swore viciously. Dany smirked.

“This is funny to you,” Aerys yelled at Dany, “You and your worthless lover here think I’m some fool to laugh at.”

“No, father. I just think you’re overreacting again,” Dany said, “It's only a stain. It does not warrant such a reaction.”

“What did you say to me, girl?” Rhaella tensed up at the sound of Aerys’ voice.

“Aerys, please…”

“You think because you're bringing some man in my house that you can talk however you want to. Show off in front of him. Like you're so special and tough now. You're not. I bet you're feeding him lies about me. Telling him I'm unhinged. That I'm mad.”

“You've done plenty to prove that today yourself,” she replied under her breath.

“How dare you speak to me that way?” He shot up quickly, causing Dany to jump back. Rhaella stood as well moving hastily to put herself between Aerys and Dany.

“Aerys, darling. Let us get you cleaned up now.”

She took Aerys by the arm an led him away as he hurled profanities at the room. More upset by his behavior than frightened by it, Dany quietly sipped a glass of wine.

“Look now, Dany,” Viserys said with his arms folded, “You've upset father again.”

“Father is not stable.”

“And you're not helping, as usual.”

“You only defend him, because you're becoming as bad as he is. It makes you feel better when his madness is someone else's fault. Maybe then yours is, too. Maybe it’s my fault. Who knows?”

“You're on a roll tonight, aren't you, sister? Feel as if you can speak to anyone how you please now.”

“What's got you upset, Viserys?” Jon spoke up in a challenging tone. The two both looked at him, but his eyes were trained unflinchingly on Viserys. “You've spent this whole time egging everyone on, especially Dany. Why?”

“Hm, I see you've sharpened your teeth, also.”

“You know what I think? I think you're just used to talking down to Dany. Using her as your punching bag. I know this because the walls are thin in our rundown flat, as you put it. I could hear you berate her just like you’re doing tonight. Difference here is she’s fighting back. That’s what’s got you so arsed. She’s gotten stronger than you thought, hasn't she? You can’t run over her anymore, and you don’t know how to take that.”

“Strong words from someone whom I've only just met. You've managed to gather that from one meeting with me.”

“Same as you’ve smugly gathered that I can’t take care of my family or your sister from one meeting. You’re wrong about me, but I’m right about you. That much I know.”

Viserys’ smirk disappeared as his eyes shifted between Jon and Dany. He was out of put-downs for the night, and he knew that they knew it. He only sucked his teeth and glared.

“Well-matched indeed, are we not?” Dany teased.

“Quite,” Viserys spoke annoyed and angry. He un-crossed his arms and stood, throwing his dinner napkin onto the table. “I’d say this has been more than enough Christmas for me. I’ll head back home now. You can apologize to mother for me. Tell her why I changed my mind about staying.”

“You weren’t planning on staying anyway, were you?” Dany uttered with realization. “I bet didn’t even bring a bag.”

By the look on Viserys’ face, she knew that she was right.

“Have a wonderful Christmas, Dany” Viserys leered, “And you, too, Jon.”

With that, he was gone. Unfazed by his behavior, Dany began to clear the table. There was no questioning that the dinner was finished for the night. Jon followed suit and helped. While he was glad that he spoke up against Viserys and Aerys, Jon couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt for his hand in the disastrous dinner. He wondered if he should have just remained silent. Maybe waited to put up a fight until the second time he met them.

“I’m sorry if I spoke too frankly tonight,” Jon began regretfully, “I just…”

He was silenced with Dany’s kiss. When she pulled back, her delighted eyes gave him all the answer and reassurance he needed.

By the time they had cleared the final plate, Rhaella returned.

“Has Viserys gone already?”

“Yes, I’m sorry, mother. He had to get back for work tomorrow.”

“On Christmas?” Rhaella questioned, shaking her head. “Aerys was the same way. I will save his gift for the next time he visits then.”

“Dinner is put away, so don’t worry about that. We’re going to head upstairs and get ready for bed. Thank you for everything, mum.”

“Actually, Jon, could I bother you to help me for a bit? Just some last minute gift wrapping?”

“It’s no bother.”

Rhaella hugged Dany, promising that she wouldn’t keep Jon long, and led him into the living area. With the amount of gifts beneath the tree, Jon somehow doubted that there could be any more to wrap. Sensing that he knew she was lying, Rhaella sat on the sofa and stared at the tree. Jon sat at the armchair nearby.

“There are no gifts to wrap. I only wanted to apologize to you for my son’s words. He somehow lacks a certain tact. I worry that he’ll grow to be too much like his father,” she said candidly and was reminded of Aerys, “I also apologize on behalf of my husband.”

“You don’t have to apologize for either of them. You’ve been a perfect host.”

“Thank you.” She looked Jon in the eyes with seriousness. “I overheard your argument with Viserys about Dany.”

“Oh. I didn’t mean to overstep. Maybe I’m the one who should apologize.”

“Absolutely not. I appreciated your fight on her account. The respect you have for her. She’s grown so much into such a strong woman. I was always concerned that she would find herself with someone who made her suppress that strength of hers. Sometimes, you find yourself in relationships that beat you down so much that you lose your fight. Lose yourself, really. Eventually, you're trapped, lost and weak.” Her eyes were sad, and Jon didn’t have to imagine what she was thinking of. “But, meeting you, I’m happy that she’s with someone who will only encourage her growth.”

Jon didn’t know how to respond. In his mind, he had so much to say. That she is far from weak. That Dany always spoke of how she drew such strength from Rhaella. That someone as kind as her shouldn’t have to be burdened by a husband like Aerys. But, the words were stuck in his head. All he could manage was a thankful smile.

“Here,” she said. Rhaella searched through the stack of presents until she pulled out a small box. She passed it to Jon, urging him to open it. When he did, he was shocked. The box contained a beautiful, silver watch, one far more stunning than he’d be able to get himself. Engraved on the clasp was the image of a howling wolf. “Dany said that you like wolves, so I asked to add the detail. I know it’s early, but in case you two decide to leave, as well, I wanted you to have this now.”

“I wish that I’d brought a proper gift or something.”

“You’ve helped me with dinner. What more could I ask for?” she joked, “I don’t need anything, Jon. All I needed was to know that my daughter was in good hands. She’s is happy. Just keep her happy. That's a gift enough for me. Happy Christmas, Jon.”

“Happy Christmas,” he replied with heartfelt thanks again.

Afterwards, Jon again made his way through the foyer to the staircase. The Christmas lights all lit cast the stairs and corridors in a calming glow. The vast beauty of the house should have been tainted slightly for him after the night’s events. The temper displayed by Aerys. The snobbery from Viserys. But, still, the house felt warmer than he could have imagined. It had to with such a kind heart as Rhaella’s residing in its walls. And, Dany had shown greater resilience against her brother and father than even he had seen in her. The experience wasn’t all failure, he thought. Even with the dramatics, he was glad that Rhaella invited them for Christmas and that they decided to go. Part of him even looked forward to another Christmas Eve dinner the next year.

But, maybe they would just invite Rhaella to London instead.

#Jonerys #jon x dany #jon x daenerys #jonerys fanfic #Jonerys fic #jonerys modern au #house targaryen #Reina writes stuff

[jjblue1]

As it seems the picture and the translations for Shoten 6 Tokyo Babylon story has disappeared from the net I’m going to share them.

The translation was done by iamsocool12345 and it’s shared here merely because it’s not available anymore anywhere as far as I know. Should iamsocool12345 ask for me to remove it, I’ll do it.

Now... since I know many people wonder about the last pic in which Seishiro put a ring on Subaru’s finger... well it actually isn’t a single spread picture.

That’s how the scene looked like on the original magazine.

As you can see you would have to turn the page to see Seishiro.

Now... I’ve placed all the other picture in order except those last two because it’s nice to see them as a spread page... but remember, in the original they wouldn’t have looked like one.

Tokyo Babylon - Shoten Translation *********************** BABYLON Ancient capital of Mesopotamia. In the 18th century B.C., Hamurabi, ruler of the kingdom of Babylonia, claimed it as such, and the city prospered, as a thriving political and cultural center. In time, however, the people of the city began to grow proud of this prosperity, and challenged God's authority, building a tower called "Babel" that would reach up to Heaven. Unable to forgive this indiscretion, God struck the tower down, and with it, destroyed the common language of the people. People are now doomed to repeat themselves constantly, a mark of their foolish act against God. Woe to Babylon, City that suffered the wrath of God. "He seemed pretty cool, didn't he?" Hokuto muses, sipping happily on Subaru's iced cafe au lait. Subaru isn't quite sure what Hokuto's talking about. He tilts his head. "Who?" "Sei-chan." "Oh. Seishirou-san." Hokuto's already started calling Seishirou "Sei-chan". It took her all of three hours after first meeting him, but then, she's a little more...friendly than most. [1] This is Heinesen [2], in Shinjuku's Kabukichou. [3] Not exactly the first neighborhood you'd recommend to anyone as a nice place to live, but it's still got its fair share of quality apartment complexes. All of them with very good security systems, of course. And our hero is Subaru Sumeragi. He's 163 cm tall [4], 16 years old, and he's just been accepted into his first year at CLAMP Campus Academy's high school. He has one sibling: a twin sister, Hokuto Sumeragi, who's currently lounging on the sofa across from him, with a smile. Like some of you might already know (after reading Shoten 5), Subaru-kun goes to school and "works" at the same time. He's an onmyouji. Lately, his profession has gotten lots of attention from newspapers and magazines, and a lot of people have heard about what onmyouji do. They're well-versed in astronomy and study the calendar very closely, in order to perform fortune tellings, and other special spiritual rituals. In fact, people like Subaru-kun have started to show up everywhere in popular media, lately. [5] It seems like everybody has read "Kujaku-ou" [6] or seen "Teito Monogatari" [7], and they've noticed these characters who have incredible power. Abilities beyond what any normal human being can do. Sumeragi Subaru-kun is one of these onmyouji. As a matter of fact, they're growing increasingly rare in our day. So much so that, if he let it, publicity would completely overwhelm his life. Sumeragi Subaru-kun is an onmyouji. He's adorable, still just a high school student, and he might not seem like the sharpest kid his age, but when it comes to onmyoujutsu [8], he's at the very top of his game.The 13th head of the Sumeragi family. It's a position that claims quite a bit of respect. But with that respect also comes its fair share of difficulties. Subaru-kun keeps a smile on his face, but in a profession this uncommon, it's easy to feel spread thin. His line of work can be tough. And it is work for him; he gets paid for what he does, and because of that, he feels like he can't take on any case half-way. He has to go all out, every single time. Subaru-kun has come up against some pretty unpleasant situations, but he does his best to try not to let sort of thing affect him too much. Which is easier said than done. Sometimes, he can get a little depressed, but we'll leave that for another time. For now, something else entirely is bothering Subaru-kun. Something that has nothing to do with his job...or so he's trying to tell himself. Still, he can't help but wonder if... "Hey, Subaru!" If... "Earth to Subaru! Hello~ooo? Subaru!!!" Subaru looks up suddenly, to find Hokuto hovering over him. "You were thinking again, weren't you? You're always doing that! Getting lost in thought, and shutting yourself off from the rest of the world... And I'd bet money you were just depressing yourself over it, too, whatever it was. Would you cut it out already?" She looks down at him, and... Er, well. Subaru had thought she'd been hovering over him, but it turns out she's just sitting on his lap. "Here. Phone's for you." He hadn't even heard it ring. Subaru thinks she might be right; he really doesn't pay enough attention to what's going on around him, and it could get him into trouble, one of these days. What if someone came into his room uninvited, and he didn't notice? Although he can't really imagine that anyone would want to. A thief, maybe? But it's not like that sort of thing happened very often, anyway, and...- "The phone, I said! Geeze! You're totally impossible!" Oops! There he goes again. He's really got to break that habit... "Who is it?" "Loverboy." "L-Loverboy-san? Who's that?" "You have got to be kidding me." Subaru takes the receiver from Hokuto. "H-Hello? This is Sumeragi." "Hello, there! This is Sakurazuka." "Oh! Seishirou-san!" Hokuto jumps up, spins around, and starts hopping in place excitedly. Energetic would be an understatement. Have you ever in your life seen twins with two more opposite personalities? "I'm sorry that I kept you so long today." "N-No, it's fine! I had fun." "Well, there's something I forgot to give you when I dropped you off at your apartment." "Huh?" "Do you think you might be able to stop by the hospital on your way home from school tomorrow?" "S-Sure..." "Great. Be careful tonight. I know it's been really hot out, lately, but make sure you don't catch a cold from running the air conditioner, okay? [9] Have a good night." "O-Oh, um! Okay! G-good night!" Subaru sits blinking at the cordless in his hand. "So!? What did he say!? Tell me everything!" "Um... He said there's...um, something he wants to give me..." "Presents! Starting in with the fancy gifts already, in order to win over your affections! Ooh, he's good, he's very good!" "I-I really don't think he's trying to 'win over my affections'..." "But what on earth could Sei-chan be thinking!? He knows you're head of the Sumeragi family, and he's the Sakurazukamori!" The Sakurazukamori is part of the Sakurazuka family, another famous omyouji clan, like the Sumeragi. Except...the history of the Sakurazuka family is a little less prestigious, and the Sakurazukamori doesn't exactly make his services known to the public. Supposedly, though, the Sakurazukamori considers himself above ordinary moral restrictions, and buries all of his victims in a grave called the "sakurazuka". [10] Basically, the Sakurazukamori acts as the Sakurazuka family assassin. "We don't know that for sure! The Sakurazuka family is so mysterious that even other onmyouji can't tell the truth from legend, anymore. These days, anyone could be the Sakurazukamori. Just because Seishirou-san's last name is 'Sakurazuka' doesn't necessarily mean anything..." "Well, we know that the current Sakurazukamori is a man! Obaa-chama told us so!" [11] "But that doesn't mean that it's Seishirou-san!" "He didn't exactly deny it, did he?" "He didn't say yes, either!" "Oh, come on, Subaru! What's wrong with you? It'd be so much more interesting if you were head of the Sumeragi and he was the Sakurazukamori!" "...You're crazy..." "You dummy! Don't you realize what you're doing here? Every single day, I turn on the TV, and what do I see? Perestroika, Kuwait, Iran, environmental pollution, water shortages... [12] But you know what? That's all fine, so long as girls like me can still have our fun! But will boys like you let us!? No! Instead, you have to go and ruin everything!" "...If all girls think like you, then I'm a little scared..." "Sorry to make you come out here like this." Seishirou bows low to Subaru from just inside the hospital. Subaru bows back. "But I had some business to attend to in Ikebukuro [13] today, so I stopped in at this little restaurant called Melos [14], and brought us back some tiramisu. Huh? Where's Hokuto-chan?" "Oh, um, she said that Marui [15] was having a bargain sale today..." "Aha. I understand. That definitely takes priority," Seishirou nods vigorously. "Well, let's not stand out here all day. Come on in and tell me how school was. Are you getting used to it?" Subaru follows Seishirou into his examination room, where Seishirou sets out the tiramisu and some tea. "Yeah. There are so many new faces, but... But it's a lot of fun." "Mmm. CLAMP Campus is a good school. Even if they do get a little carried away, from time to time." "Where did you go to school, Seishirou-san?" "Would you like some more tea?" Seishirou changes the topic so smoothly that Subaru figures he must not have heard the question. "S-Sure. Thank you." "Actually, I got this tea from Krishna-san. He went home to India for a wedding, and brought some back to Japan with him. He must have felt very nostalgic, visiting home for the first time in so long." [16] "Have you lived in Tokyo your whole life, Seishirou-san? Or are you..." "What wonderful weather we're having today, hmm?" And then it dawns on Subaru: apparently, Seishirou doesn't want to answer his questions. "So what did you learn about today at school?" "Um. Well, actually, the evil Imonoyama Shopping District Secret Association showed up right in the middle of class, and then the CLAMP Campus Defenders Duklyon came in to chase after them, and things got a little crazy, and that was sort of the end of the lesson, right there." [17] "Ahahahaha! As interesting as ever, then!" Seishirou laughs, long and hard, and Subaru starts to wonder if he really might be the Sakurazukamori, like Hokuto had said. After all, he seems to be avoiding Subaru's questions about his past... For the briefest instant, Subaru feels his heart ache. "What's the matter? Is the cake no good?" "Huh!? Oh! No! I-It's delicious!" "You looked so sad for a second there. Are you sure you're alright?" "I'm fine! It's nothing, really! Honest!" "Hmm. Alright, then. Although I have to admit, it's a little suspicious of you to deny it so strongly." Seishirou laughs again, and reaches to refill Subaru's cup. "Oh, that reminds me! How about we get to what I called you over for, hm?" "O-Okay!" Still smiling, Seishirou reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small box, covered in red velvet. "What's that?" "Open it up and see for yourself." Subaru flips the box open...and freezes. "Th-This is--!" "A ring. The size should be fine, hopefully. I've got a knack for things like that." "Wh-Who are you going to give it to?" "Ahahahaha! Why, you, of course, Subaru-kun!" "W-Wha-! You-! H-! Hold on!" "Don't worry, I don't mean to tie you down with this. It's just that it seems like so many people have been getting married lately, doesn't it? Even at Iserlohn and Heinesen [18], I feel like I know at least 10 couples who've decided to tie the knot." "Y-Yeah, I've been invited to a few of them too, but..." "Veterinary hospitals might be hospitals, but they're still businesses! I started worrying that, one day, I might not be able to afford a ring anymore. So I went out and bought this for you yesterday, while I know for certain that I've got the money to." "But I can't accept this! It's so expensive!" "You won't take it because it's expensive, or because you don't want to?" "What?" "Because it really wasn't expensive it all, Subaru-kun. You believe me, don't you?" "Well, I do...-" "Then you'll take it!" "Seishirou-san!" "I promise I'll do everything I can to give you the wedding you deserve. And I'll be a devoted husband, day in and day out! You'll look after me, won't you, Subaru-kun?" Looks like Subaru-kun doesn't have much of a say this time around! Don't worry, Subaru-kun! We're sure he'll make an honest bride out of you, soon! *laugh* *********************** [1] A cursory note I'd rather ignore, but obviously, "chan" indicates a certain closeness that most people don't really feel they've achieved in 3 hours. [2] Heinesen is a tricky one. It's a German name, but I found out that it was also used as a location in an '80s manga called Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu (in English, Legend of the Galactic Heroes), which is where CLAMP probably lifted it from. I think they mean it here to serve as the fictional building/complex that Subaru and Hokuto are living in. [3] Like the text tells us, Kabukichou in Tokyo's Shinjuku district is...lively. It's well-known for being active at night, with its fair share of restaurants, love hotels, bars, etc. It wouldn't exactly be my first choice if I were looking for a place to live, either, but in with some of the seedier stuff are some really classy clubs and restaurants. [4] 5'4", for those of you as metrically challenged as I am. [5] Actually, Japan really did see a sort of pop-occult boom in the '90s. 1999 was coming up, for one, and young people especially started to really get into stuff like that. Think of the fortune telling and matchmaking and apocalypse fear that we see in Tokyo Babylon. [6] Late '80s/early '90s manga (translates to Peacock King), with gods and demons and magic spells, and exorcisms, and all that sort of thing. [7] '70s novel turned into late '80s/early '90s live action film and anime (translated as Doomed Megalopolis in the US). The main villain is an onmyouji. [8] Onmyoujutsu is onmyouji magic, or "yin-yang magic". [9] Okay. Korea is notorious for this sort of thing, and I met a girl from Brazil who believed it. I don't think I've come across any Americans who really believe this, but I could be wrong. Anyway, the idea is that an AC or fan, especially if left on overnight in a room that you're sleeping in, can make you sick. I... I mean, maybe if you set your AC to record low temperatures? I only make a note here since reading that line in English out of nowhere like that would probably make me think Seishirou's even stranger than I'd imagined. [10] Literally, "cherry blossom grave". [11] "Grandma", but I don't feel comfortable translating it as such, since the "chama" is distinctive. Think "chan" + "sama". Subaru simply uses "obaa-chan". And everyone in English has their own cute grandmother diminutive, anyway. [12] As in depressing early '90s news. Perestroika refers to Gorbachev's doomed economic reforms, then we've got the Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm, the hole in the ozone layer, etc. [13] Big, busy commercial district in Tokyo. Sunshine 60's there. Lots of department stores and activity. [14] "Melos" might be the name of a real restaurant somewhere, but probably not in this case. If anything, I'd say CLAMP's throwing a quick nod to Hashire Melos! (Run, Melos!), an '80s anime movie, remade in the early '90s. [15] Marui's a big, famous department store, well-known for women's fashion. The logo for the store reads "OIOI", but it's pronounced "marui"..."maru" for "zero" and "i" for "one". [16] Errr. I'm pretty sure Seishirou's referring to Krishna, the CLAMP character who appears in some of their earlier stuff. He works at CLAMP Campus as a professor, I believe, and looks pretty much like Ashura-ou? I think? If you've got any more info, let me know! In any case, I doubt Seishirou's talking about Krishna, the god. [17] See CLAMP Campus Defenders Duklyon, if you haven't checked it out already. That's more or less the plot of every single chapter. [18] Iserlohn seems to be another German name/location in Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu. See note #2.

#Tokyo Babylon #Shoten #Subaru Sumeragi #Hokuto Sumeragi #Seishirou Sakurazuka #S: Tokyo Babylon #S: Tokyo Babylon 1999 #S: Shoten #C: Sumeragi Subaru #C: Sumeragi Hokuto #C: Sakurazuka Seishiro

[echoraft]

Anyway, as far as I can tell, where young evangelicals are headed is simply out of evangelicalism. They have been, as Jared C. Wilson recently wrote, theologically and spiritually orphaned by pastors and other Christian leaders who were willing to entertain them and occasionally to hector them but who had no interest whatsoever in Christian discipleship. Millions of today’s young evangelicals have been utterly betrayed by a generation of pastors who could pontificate about how essential sexual purity is while simultaneously insisting that every real Christian should vote for Donald Trump, supporting their claims by a random handful of Bible verses wrenched from their context and utterly severed from the great arc of biblical story without which no piece of scriptural teaching can make sense. As I noted here, they cannot even distinguish a penitent from an impenitent sinner — that is how thoroughly they have emptied themselves of moral and spiritual understanding.         And yes: betrayed is precisely the word. A great mass of many* evangelical leaders have betrayed their young followers and congregants — and, equally, betrayed the theological and spiritual inheritance they received from their mothers and fathers in the faith. They exchanged a rich and truly evangelical birthright for a cold pottage of vague moral uplift and cultural resentment. Verily, they have their reward.         So if young evangelicals are leaving evangelicalism, where are they going? Not many, I think, will head for complete unbelief, but some will; a great many will drift further and further into moralistic therapeutic deism, which will offer them very little but, on the plus side, will ask even less from them; a smaller but still significant number will head for the older liturgical traditions, either for aesthetic or theological reasons.         There will of course continue to be vibrant congregations that define themselves as evangelical, but fewer and fewer as the years go by, I think. Most churches that would claim the label have abandoned their historic mission, and the historic Christian faith, no matter what their explicit theological formularies might say...As my old friend and long-time colleague Mark Noll has long contended, evangelicalism at its heart a renewal movement within orthodox Christianity, and such renewal will continue — but not in the forms that some of us have grown accustomed to over the past half-century. Renewal will need to find new strategies, new institutions. Some corpses can’t be revived.

Alan Jacobs, “where young evangelicals are headed”

#evangelicalism #alan jacobs #mark noll #Christianity #religion #renewal #ross douthat