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fineillsignup · 5 years

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Clouds and Rain: a (snarky) Character Index

I lured @math-is-magic into trying to read Clouds and Rain despite no prior knowledge of the Three Kingdoms era generally and she professed being impressed at how, long long ago when I read Romance of the Three Kingdoms for the first time, I made my own character glossary to keep track of who is who.

CAVEAT LECTOR: Historically accurate only to the degree that it pleases my pedantry. Departs from Dynasty Warriors in some key areas. Limited to characters that have (so far) appeared in the story directly.

Wu aka Sun Wu - Jiangdong - The Southlands

Colour Scheme? Red Animal Motif? Tiger Part of China? Southeast third, from the Yangtze (more or less) down, west about halfway. Heat, rivers, pirates, rice, fish. Motivation? Bonds Hearts? ON FIRE Enemy Camps? ALSO ON FIRE

Sun Quan, ruler of Wu, style name Zhongmou: Wow, who died and left this loser to rule? Well, that’s the problem, everybody died and left this loser to rule. Ever so slightly neurotic. *coughs* Kind of my problematic fave. Thinks everybody in Shu is out to get him. (Everybody in Shu IS out to get him.) Lianshi: Technically she ought to be Lady Bu but since Dynasty Warriors didn’t bother neither did I. Former lady-in-waiting to Sun Quan’s sister, nicest woman you’ll ever meet, Sun Quan is her problematic fave. Big ol’ tiddies. Lu Xun, Wu chancellor, style name Boyan: OUR HERO. 92.3% perfect gentleman and Confucian af. Gan Ning, Wu officer: Adorable kitten thinks of nothing but murder all day. Former pirate, semi-reformed psychopath. WEARS BELLS, it’s his thing. Used to be in the employ of another army, during which time he kinda sorta killed the father of... Ling Tong, Wu officer: Rich kid who made good in his own right. Wanted to kill Gan Ning for a long time (in revenge for his father’s death) but has mostly gotten over it and now they are best frenemies. (Note to history buffs: just GET OUT of here with your FACTS.) Shield of laziness and apathy. “I don’t care,” says Ling Tong, caringly, as he cares deeply. Zhou Tai, Wu officer: Sun Quan’s personal bodyguard. Former pirate. Tall, dark, and... scarred. Well, two out of three isn’t bad. The strong silent type. Zhu Ran, Wu officer: Lu Xun used to be Wu’s pyromaniac character. Then they introduced Zhu Ran to be the pyromaniac and actually made Lu Xun well-rounded, and Zhu Ran is slightly bitter about it. Also a Rich Kid. (Is Wu’s army all rich kids and pirates???? MAYBE.) Ding Feng, Wu officer: One-note character who looks like Frankenstein’s monster and writes poetry. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Han Dang, Wu officer: One-note character who doesn’t want to be forgotten. Forget about him. Sun Shangxiang: Sun Quan’s younger sister, famous/infamous for being wild about martial arts and just generally wild. Arranged married to... (hold this thought...)

Shu aka Shu Han

Colour scheme? Green Animal motif? Dragon Part of China? At this point, the west-southwest. Smallest/least prosperous. Motivation? BENEVOLENCE Really? YES OF COURSE, BENEVOLENCE AND ONLY BENEVOLENCE. Pay no attention to the man behind the crane fan. What’s benevolence? 仁 Ren. Confucius says... no, come back, this isn’t a joke! Confucius really does say! Confucius says: Now the man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge others. What’s that guy doing over there behind the crane fan? NOTHING!!

Liu Bei, ruler of Shu: He was arranged married to Sun Shangxiang! (I hope you didn’t hurt yourself holding that thought.) Tenuously related to the imperial family but grew up poor af. Charismatic as hell. Wants to tell you the Good News about Benevolence. Liu Shan, crown prince, aka A-Dou: Unspecified, serious intellectual disability. Bears zero resemblance to the Dynasty Warriors version. Affectionate, gentle young man. Gets along really well with Zhao Yun and Sun Shangxiang. Zhuge Liang, prime minister of Shu, chief strategist, style name Kongming, Taoist name Crouching Dragon: The smuggest of snakes. He has a crane fan and he isn’t afraid to use it. Likes: his wife, his lord, his plans, sex magic, being an asshole. "I meant to do that,” he whispers, calmly, while falling at terminal velocity into a pit of vipers. Yueying aka Lady Huang, inventor: Zhuge Liang’s wife. Unspecified not neurotypical. Likes: machines, her husband. Dislikes: people, distractions, social cues. Very little resemblance to Dynasty Warriors character. Zhang Fei, Shu officer: Liu Bei’s sworn brother dating back to when they all weren’t shit, along with the dead Guan Yu. Designated youngest brothers because in Chinese culture it is Absolutely Vital We Know Who Is Older. Big, burly, loveable drunk. (Again, do NOT confuse me with the facts.) Zhang Bao, Shu officer: Zhang Fei’s son. Young and unproven and determined. Grew up with Guan Yu’s children as pseudo-cousins. Xingcai aka Lady Zhang, Shu officer: Zhang Fei’s younger child. Xingcai is not here to make friends or play games. Xingcai is here to win. Unfortunately for Xingcai, her society dictates that ladylike behaviour means making friends and playing (diplomatic) games, not winning (on the battlefield). Guan Xing, Shu officer: The oldest natural child of Guan Yu. Honour, righteousness, honour, honour, rules, benevolence, honour, rules, and honour. Guan Suo, Shu officer: Youngest son of Guan Yu. In the wake of his father’s death, passive and disheartened. Guan Yinping: Youngest child of Guan Yu. Our heroine! Strong, sweet, determined, and genuine. Zhao Yun, Shu officer: One of Liu Bei’s first and best recruits to his cause. Famous for having single-handedly rescued Liu Shan as a baby while they were fleeing Cao Cao, fighting with the infant on his back. Madam Zhao aka Yunlu aka Lulu: Zhao Yun’s much younger wife, the sister of another officer in Shu, for some mysterious reason her identity is a (badly kept) secret, WHO could she POSSIBLY be? (People who know the answer: shhhhh.) Ma Chao, “the Splendid”: A multi-ethnic officer of Shu who joined because of wanting revenge against Cao Cao for the massacre of his clan. Yes, Ma Chao is Shu’s Sasuke. Catchphrase: JUSTICE. Ma Dai, “the guy who hangs out with Ma Chao”: Ma Chao’s cousin, trails along after Ma Chao trying to keep him from getting himself justiced to death. Wears the only non-stupid hat in Dynasty Warriors. An artist and a joker. Wei Yan, Shu officer: Speaks... like... this... why?... Unclear... maybe... head... injury...

Wei aka Cao Wei

Colour scheme? Blue Animal motif? Phoenix Part of China? The entire north, from the coast to the west, including the cities with the strongest claim to be imperial capital in that time. Motivation? Ambition and power Isn’t that slightly evil? I mean, not necessarily, but they’re the antagonists so in fact yes. So they don’t get the same revisionism deal as the other two kingdoms? Nope. Is that fair? Nope! Show me on the map where I store my fucks.

Cao Pi, ruler and self-proclaimed emperor: I genuinely have a grievance against the historical guy but he was no worse than most of the rest of the people here. But in this story, the fictional Cao Pi is a supreme douchebag. Zhenji, empress: Too good for Cao Pi and this world. Don’t mistake my meaning; also kind of a bitch. A perfect bitch whom I would die for. Sima Yi, Wei prime minister: Genius strategist. Did not even originally want to join the Ambition Kingdom, but has caught the spirit in a big way now. Zhang Chunhua: Sima Yi’s wife, pulls the strings, literally. Thinks all problems can be solved with enough murders. Don’t think I’m saying she’s a bitch and I don’t like her. She’s a bitch, and I like her so much. Zhang He, Wei officer: Could host Queer Eye for the Third Century Guy. Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee. Came to Wei from the same place as Zhenji and they are besties. Li Dian, Wei officer: Has a gut sense about things which is always right, unfortunately doesn’t stop things from happening, poor babe. A nice guy. Yue Jin, Wei officer: Smol and insecure about it, despite the fact that he could fuck you up. He can fuck anyone up. He can fuck himself up. BFF with Li Dian. Also a nice guy. Wang Yi, Wei officer: Hey remember how Cao Cao killed Ma Chao’s entire clan? Well while Ma Chao was attempting to get his revenge against Cao Cao, he whoopsy-doodle massacred Wang Yi’s entire clan. Now Wang Yi dreams of dancing with Ma Chao’s severed head in the moonlight. Xu Shu, Wei officer: Sad man who got tricked into leaving Shu because he loves his mama. Tries his best and deserved none of this. Jia Xu, Wei strategist: Loyal only to himself and shrewd, was an enemy strategist who came very near to killing Cao Cao at one time, but accepted being hired by him when he was captured. Does believe in doing his best.

And (I think) that’s everybody! Whee! I hope all three of you who read this enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

#dynasty warriors #three kingdoms #chinese history #sort of #i cannot be stopped #clouds and rain #sun wu #shu han #cao wei #roll call #my fanfic

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singingwordwright · 7 years

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Shadowhunters (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Lydia Branwell & Alec Lightwood Characters: Alec Lightwood, Lydia Branwell Additional Tags: Friendship, Introspection Series: Part 2 of A Series of Completely Not Awkward Encounters

He’s never had a stuttering problem before.

Alec wouldn’t consider himself exceptionally eloquent, but he can at least rely on his brain being able to string a few words together and have them come out as a cogent, coherent sentence.

So why is it that the mere presence or thought of Magnus Bane can render him incapable of uttering a single sensible word?

He explained himself badly when he told Magnus he’d proposed to Lydia. And he’d made an even worse mess of it when he tried to convey just where his mind was after that soul-shattering, life-changing kiss at the wedding-that-thank-the-Angel-never-happened.

And now here he is, staring at his phone for the fiftieth time in almost three weeks, waffling on whether or not to press the Talk button.

These weeks have been the longest of his life. In part, that’s because he knows every day Jace is missing is another day Valentine gets to spend pouring his poison into Jace’s already confused brain, doing who-knows-what to him, convincing Jace he’s something he’s not.

But also, the weeks have been long because he still hasn’t arranged that date with Magnus.

Magnus hasn’t pressed him. At first, that seemed to be because Magnus was giving him as much space as he needed to try to hunt down Valentine and get Jace back. He made it clear that he was available to render whatever aid they needed, free of charge, and then he disappeared to his loft.

They’ve texted, and oh, Alec has been just full of words when it comes to trying to explain to Magnus how afraid he is for Jace, and how exhausting day after day of fruitless searching has become. Especially now that he’s once again in nominal charge of the Institute. His parents are back in Idris—and wasn’t that a cold farewell, at least on his mother’s part?—explaining how they managed to lose one of the most promising shadowhunters of a generation to Valentine.

All in all, It just hasn’t exactly seemed like the right time for sweet nothings, and he thinks Magnus understands that. At least, he hopes that’s the explanation for the very pointed toning down of Magnus’s typically extravagant flirtations.

But inertia has set in. Or maybe it’s anxiety. Whatever, something’s making him hold off on calling and offering to cash that rain check for Magnus. And then it becomes A Thing. An “I haven’t done what you were expecting me to do and I know I don’t have any good excuse for it so now I’m even more reluctant to try to explain it” thing.

The texts are becoming less frequent, though. Stilted. And he has no idea how Magnus manages to put so many words into a gaping chasm of silence.

The ball is in your court, Alexander.

I can’t chase after you any more. Especially not under the current circumstances.

If this is going to happen, you need to be the one to come to me this time .

It’s sort of like the wedding all over again. Magnus coming only so far, and then waiting, waiting for Alec to make up his mind, find his resolve, and close the distance.

Only this time, the distance can be measured in miles instead of feet.

A rap on his open door startles him into almost dropping his phone. He immediately looks up, with a ready glare for Clary or Izzy or whoever has the cosmically bad timing to bother him right now, just when he’s trying to find his sac and push the damn button.

Instead, it’s Lydia, and he just can’t glare at her. Instead he musters a halfhearted smile and shoves his phone in his pocket.

“Bad time?” she asks, giving him a quizzical look.

“No.” Alec shakes his head quickly, his eyes darting to the side of her face. There’s nothing to see now. Rune and warlock healing took care of her broken jaw almost as soon as he’d found her on the floor of the office, but her face had still been horrendously bruised. The last vestiges have since faded, but it still makes Alec’s fists clench to think how hard Hodge must have hit her to put her down for the count like that.

Lydia’s not exactly a delicate flower, any more than Izzy is. He’s sparred with her enough—and wound up on his ass on the training room floor—to know that very, very well. It’s not like she needs Alec’s protective instincts.

But she has them anyway, if for no other reason than sheer gratitude.

Besides, they’re now jointly in charge of the Institute.

The irony doesn’t escape him that this is the exact situation they would have found themselves in had they actually gone through with the wedding. It’s actually a really good deal for both of them; all of the partnership, none of the closeted-homosexual deceit, angst, and conflict.

Total win-win.

Lydia is overseeing the day-to-day demon-hunting operations while Alec is spearheading the search for Jace. She’d argued early on that he should let her do that job, because Alec’s better suited to the diplomatic functions of running the Institute and because he’s just too damn emotionally involved in Jace’s case. But she quickly saw just how futile it would be to expect him to sit on the sidelines while she was out looking for his parabatai.

So now they’re both receiving a crash course in areas where they have a natural and understandable deficiency. Alec is trying to curb his impulse to bust heads for leads, and Lydia is learning to gracefully smooth things over when Alec comes dangerously close to failing on his end.

“What’s up?” he prompts when she continues to stand there, studying him like a specimen under Izzy’s microscope.

She frowns briefly, then takes one step into the room, no more. “Alec, if you were in the middle of something... important ...I can come back. There’s nothing in the reports from last night’s patrols that can’t wait.”

He can’t quite meet her eyes, because how the hell is he supposed to explain that he can’t bring himself to even call the guy he literally left her at the altar for? “I wasn’t.”

He hasn’t spoken to her about Magnus since she got out of the infirmary. Which is stupid because he knows she’s not holding a grudge over what happened, but it still feels like an off-limits area.

That sort of sucks, because if he could bring himself to speak about it at all, he could definitely use a rational and sympathetic ear. Izzy is just too invested in him having a good experience with the first actually attainable guy he’s had any interest in, and he and Clary aren’t those sorts of confidantes, however much they’ve bonded over their mutual distress regarding Jace.

But talking to Lydia about Magnus? That’s a whole barrel of awkwardness and embarrassment he doesn’t need right now.

He wishes Hodge hadn’t turned out to be a traitorous asshole for more than one reason. Once upon a time, he could have confided in Hodge. Yes, even about this. Maybe especially about this.

Alec can’t claim to have much of a gaydar—at least not one that’s undergone any sort of field-testing. He probably wouldn’t have even noticed Magnus’s interest if Magnus hadn’t bludgeoned him over the head with it. But he hasn’t forgotten the weighted way Hodge referred to Magnus’s tastes as “exquisite.”

He’s reasonably certain that wasn’t just about jewelry.

Lydia gives him a shrewd look, one of her eyes narrowing a little more than the other. “How’s Magnus doing?”

She tosses the question out almost like a challenge, though not an unkind or belligerent one. Similar to the way she would invite him to spar. And Alec has no doubt he could end up on his ass here, too, if he’s not careful. But if she’s going there, he owes it to her to follow.

Alec swallows and folds his arms over his chest. “Um...good. He’s...he’s good.”

For fuck’s sake, Alec, how many languages do you speak again? That internal voice sounds a lot like Jace. That’s the best you can manage?

Lydia nods slowly, then her nose scrunches a little. It’s frankly adorable and not for the first time Alec half-wishes he could have felt for her the things she deserves to have someone to feel for her.

“Really?” she asks, blinking. She looks so gently confused that he doesn’t feel the trap closing around him until it’s already sprung. “I ask because I’ve noticed he hasn’t been by the Institute except to check on the wards. And you haven’t left the Institute except for patrols or to chase a lead on Jace. Has Magnus been accompanying you? If so, neither Isabelle nor Clary has mentioned it.”

He stares at her a moment, his mouth hanging open. “Okay, that was a play straight out of Izzy’s book, wasn’t it?”

He can almost hear his sister coaching her. Disarm the unsuspecting male with a clueless mein until it’s too late for him to back out of the confrontation .

She smiles and the tension between them is gone in an instant. She leans against the wall and folds her arms across her chest, though on her it’s casual rather than defensive.“That’s was good, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, you carried it off pretty well there. The diplomacy lessons are working.” He can’t help but chuckle, propping a hip up on his desk. “Seriously, though, Magnus and I, we’ve been, you know. Texting. Back and forth.” Though not as much this week as we were the week before .

One of her eyebrows lifts and that’s much more the sort of direct stare he would expect from her. “Yes, and...?”

“And what? I’ve been busy.”

“Sure, of course. We’ve all been busy.” Her mouth twists. “Busily chasing our tails, which I’m sure is exactly the way Valentine wants it.”

“That’s what I’m saying. There hasn’t been time—”

She holds up a hand, forestalling him. “How much time do you think we have, Alec?”

“What do you mean?”

“Valentine has the Mortal Cup. If we don’t get it back soon, he’s going to come after us, after Idris , and he’s going to bring an army with him. We all know it.” Her gaze drills into him and he knows she’s right. These days, here, now, are the calm before the storm. “Even if that takes him a while, in the meantime he’s probably going to go after Downworlders again, especially the powerful ones. So I’m asking you, how much time are you willing to waste before we’re caught up in a war we might not come back from?”

Alec rubs the back of his neck, which has been aching with tension and a lack of comfortable sleep since the day of their aborted wedding. “I have to find Jace—”

“You know as well as I do we haven’t had a single credible lead on Jace since Valentine took him. You really think tonight’s going to be any different? Or tomorrow?” Her eyes drop and she seems to shrink in on herself a little. The arms crossing her chest now make her look like she’s hugging herself. “Alec—take it from someone who didn’t have nearly as many days as she should have with the person she intended to spend her life with. Seize your chances now, because there might not be a later.”

She pushes herself off the wall and turns, pausing when she’s halfway out the door, speaking over her shoulder. “Besides, if you dumped me at the altar for someone you had no intention of following through with, I’m going to have to kick your ass and I’d really rather not.”

Once again, the capacity for speech is beyond him, and by the time he recovers, she’s gone, leaving him to stew in the knowledge he doesn’t just owe it to Magnus and himself to see where this thing between them can go.

It’s the least he can do to thank her as well.

He digs his phone out of his pocket before has has a chance to second-guess himself.

“Magnus? Hi...Um, no, nothing’s wrong...No, no change in the search for Jace, either. I was just...um...I was wondering if you were free tonight…you know, for that, uh, that drink we keep talking about...”

BUY ME A CUP OF COFFEE!!

#shadowhunters #alec #lydia branwell #malec #fanfic #my fics #tongue-tied #post-1x13 #s1ep13 #s1

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