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allyeardepression · 1 month

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@jegulus-microfic | march 21 support | words: 976

hiiii so i had the worst fucking time at work lately and i felt like i needed to disappear and wondered why i was a public enemy number 1. so to make myself feel better i wrote this (yes, you guessed- james is me; reg is my therapist 🤠). do i feel better? not really. do i hope someone else with similar feelings will find comfort in this? absolutely.

tw: anxiety, self hatred, everyone is mean

James lay on the carpet and looked up at the fluorescent stars on the ceiling. He was having a shitty day; he started it with a huge smile on his face, but as he walked into the coffee shop he always passed on his way to work, the barista looked at him like he had just killed their pet. Maybe they're having a bad day, he thought.

So he ordered his coffee, waited until the order was ready, and watched the barista. They served another customer with a radiant smile on their faces. Well, maybe they just don't like me.

The thought made him lose his spark a little, but as he grabbed the paper cup and left with a cheery see you tomorrow, he plastered that bright smile back on his face.

It hasn’t stayed there for a long time. While waiting for the light to turn green, he looked at the girl holding her mother's hand and winked at her. The woman at her side must have read it wrong, because she frowned at him and led the girl as far away from him as the other people would let them. Yeah, she didn’t get it right; I was just trying to be friendly, not creepy.

As the day went by, there were similar situations waiting for him at every corner: his boss walked to the break room while James was making tea and gave him a nasty look; his colleagues didn't say a word to him all day, apart from polite greetings. James needed help with some paperwork and asked Carolina from accounting about it. She just huffed and took the papers with an eye roll.

He didn’t get it—what was he doing wrong? He was nice as ever, smiling at everyone and trying not to get in anyone’s way, yet still, each person with whom he interacted that day seemed to hate him.

Even Sirius seemed angry with him when, after being asked if he wanted to come over and watch today’s game, the long-haired man replied i can’t.

By 4:00, when he finished work, there was a purple spot on his hand where he was pinching himself to get his mind off of the whole everyone-hates-me thing. He walked out of the building, saying his goodbyes with a small smile and sad eyes that no one seemed to notice. He walked the five blocks from work to his flat, looking down, deep in thought.

What did I do? Are they mad at me for taking that sick leave last week? I didn’t even know they needed my help so much; I shouldn’t have done that. Was I rude to that barista the last time I went there? And Sirius? He’s never like this; I had to muck something up.

The spiral went on and on until James realised he was at the entrance to the building he lived in. And now he’s here, lying on the floor, looking at the stars he and Regulus put up there so long ago. James wondered if his boyfriend would also be mad at him.

He didn’t know how much time has passed before he heard a key turning and the door creaking. He still lay on the carpet when Regulus shouted, “Hi, baby! How was your day?”

“Good, I guess,” James replied robotically. As the younger man walked into the room, he heard a sigh and quick steps, and suddenly Regulus was looking down at him with a face James couldn’t exactly read from this perspective. “Am I a bad person, Reggie?”

His boyfriend crouched next to him, putting his fingers in James’ hair. That was the first thing today that didn’t make him feel like a piece of garbage.

“Que s'est-il passé chéri?” James has heard this question so many times for the last six years that he didn’t need translation, so he just started rumbling about everything that happened and everything he felt.

The longer he talked, the harder it was to hold back the tears in his eyes. When the first rolled down his cheek, Regulus laid down next to him, taking his face into his hand and caressing it gently with a thumb.

“You’re not a bad person, mon rayon de soleil,” Reg whispered to James, looking straight into his eyes with so much adoration and honesty that it made him cry harder.

They stayed on the floor, with James crying quietly and Regulus cradling his face. It took another eternity for the older man to calm down, but when he finally did, he sat up, rubbing at his eyes. Regulus stood up, extending his hand to help James up and putting his arm around the other’s waist for support. James felt sour after so much time spent in one position, so it actually was easier to walk like this.

Regulus sat him down on a couch and went to the kitchen to make them tea and pasta al pesto. Moments later, he was back at James side. They ate in peaceful silence, yet James' brain was still racing. Regulus must’ve noticed it, because he put their dishes on the coffee table and pulled James to his chest.

“Baby, you could start a cult,” he started into the crown of James’ head, “and you would still be better than anyone else. Even if you did something wrong, you would immediately try to fix it, and this is not a bad-person trait. You did nothing to piss all those people off; it was just an unlucky coincidence. They all had a bad day today, and apparently instead of dealing with it in a mature way, they decided to act like a bunch of kids. It’s not your fault. You’re not a bad person,” Regulus repeated the words like a thousand times.

James still had his doubts.

But James felt better.

translation: Que s'est-il passé chéri? -> What happened, darling?

#jegulus #starchaser #dead gay wizards #james potter #james x regulus #regulus black #jegulus microfic #marauders #the marauders #modern au #james is having a hard day #i’m so sorry for this #reggie my beloved #they’re so cute #angst ig #angst/comfort #kinda #idk

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lunanoc · 3 months

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PART II: KING MU OF ZHOU AND THE QUEEN MOTHER OF THE WEST

(to see previous disclaimers and context here’s part I of this madness)

blanket spoiler warning for the books once again

fair warning, some of the bold connect-the-dots crack theories are going to start creeping in here, but more meta here we gooo

continuing where we left off with the various versions of the story of king shang of lu dmbj gives us, the wang family powerpoint lesson, besides giving us the third account of those, also introduces new key players, both one we know but did not know of their potential connection to king shang of lu, and a new one that offers an entirely new perspective on this subplot of dmbj lore: king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west

what the wang powerpoint and the subsequent discussions between li cu and members of the wang family tell us about king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west is not only interesting in itself, but also ties closely into both king shang’s and iron mask’s story, as well as the overall dmbj lore. i try not to go too far in trying to see possible connections with later books, notably here queen mother’s ghost banquet, because i don’t have the full context for those, so i won’t go into too much detail on what’s essentially a tenuous crack theory. however, for the record, the queen mother of the west as she’s described in sand sea part III could potentially tie into what we learn about the zhang family’s origins at the tail end of queen mother’s ghost banquet, namely that the zhang family are descended from a group of people millennia old (think xia dynasty or older, which makes sense given they were likely also the ones who built the original heavenly palace and the bronze gate in the shang dynasty c. 1600 BC, but that’s a tangent for another time) who ventured beneath the kunlun mountains, ate from the qilin fruit tree (aka the equivalent of the queen mother of the west of chinese myth’s peach tree), and rather than immediately turning into monsters like many who tried did, were special enough for some reason that they gained longevity instead at the cost of eventually, after maybe initially millenia, then progressively centuries, turning into monsters. some of those people then eventually ventured out from beneath the mountains into the vast world, later to form what would be known as the zhang family. but that’s all i’ll say on that

but back to king mu and the queen of the west

to start off, i feel it’s important to be aware that king mu of zhou isn’t a fictional character created by npss, rather he’s a real historical figure who actually existed and was an emperor of the western zhou dynasty (1046-770 BC) while it was at its peak (he himself probably reigned somewhere between 976 and 918 BC). as it happens, his connection to the queen mother of the west also isn’t something created by npss. references to the queen mother of the west go very far back (think shang dynasty mentioned earlier) and she’s one of the more prominent mythological figures in chinese tradition, who among other descriptors, is said to possess the secret of immortality in her garden of magical peaches that grant longevity in the kunlun mountains. either the queen of the west herself or her peaches make several appearances in chinese literature, maybe more famously for a western audience in journey to the west where sun wukong eats some of them and is punished for it

even the story of king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west meeting is a retelling of another piece of fiction called the tale of king mu, son of heaven, dating back to at earliest the warring states period (since the original copy of it was found in a tomb dating back to the tail end of it). like in sand sea’s rendition of his story, historically king mu of zhou did travel a lot because he enjoyed making territorial conquests, to the extent that king mu of zhou is the one who ultimately expanded china’s territory both east and west beyond the central plains. in the fictional story of the tale of king mu, son of heaven however, king mu of zhou specifically seeks out the queen mother of the west in the kunlun mountains to gain her secret of immortality, and while she ultimately invites him to her jade pool for a banquet where they exchange gifts, she doesn’t give him one of her peaches

in the wang family’s version of this story, it’s explained to li cu that king mu of zhou didn’t care much for politics and preferred running around china as he pleased, ultimately seeking out the queen mother of the west for her famed elixir of immortality. where this version of the story diverges from the myth is that they supposedly ended up falling in love (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 133, King Mu of Zhou)

king mu of zhou sought out the queen mother of the west because there had been legends even during king mu’s time of her having had this elixir of immortality for a very long time, which tells us at the very least that according to this story, the queen mother he met with was likely the queen mother of legend, or the one chinese mythology equates with a deity to some extent. she’s even further described as having dominion over all the kingdoms of the west, and that her great kingdom spanned from the kunlun mountains to even the qaidam basin, which is where tamutuo is located. i feel this tells us that the queen of the west of tamutuo and the queen mother of the west from king mu’s legend are one and the same. the fact she’s even referred to as “young” despite the breadth of her legacy reinforces the idea that there might be something unnatural about her

you could argue that maybe “queen mother of the west” was an inherited title, and that her kingdom of tamutuo was a matriarchal society that had had many queen mothers, but the fact is there’s no real supporting evidence of that any more than there is of the opposite despite the arguments put forward, so really, you could argue in favor of both. i like to think she was the queen mother of legend, if only because it creates, thanks to the inclusion of the kunlun mountains in her territory, a strong connection in some capacity with the first people cursed with intolerable longevity mentioned in queen mother’s banquet, but once again, take with a grain of salt

slight tangent, i will say however while i’m on this topic that i strongly feel that the zhang family are meant to be depicted as one more of many human corruption motifs that are rampant in dmbj. this is something for another meta, but i would argue that beneath the tomb raiding and the conspiracies, the core theme of dmbj is that “humans are more terrible than monsters”, and so the narrative provides ample examples of human corruption causing others far more misery than any tomb creature ever could. as per their origins talked about in queen mother’s ghost banquet, it’s possible that alongside their knowledge of whatever secrets of the universe they’re privy to, and their subsequent need for control over china’s destiny through the ages, the ancestors of the zhang family had initially ventured out from under the mountains to seek a cure for the side effects of their terrible curse, and gradually discovered that the bronze and jade of the meteorites could potentially provide that. maybe the queen mother of the west was one of their descendants, and perhaps one of the rare people who stand to succeed in that quest (that we know of at least considering she’s presumably still alive in some capacity down there along with chen wenjin and other members of the xisha expedition). just food for thought, but anyone who’s read that far feel free to give your thoughts on queen’s banquet related ideas!

the wang in charge of instructing li cu admits in the course of his tale that they had to make some assumptions (so this means you have to consider this bit to be a little handwavy admittedly) about what exactly the nature of the relationship between king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west was, and settles on them having fallen in love despite king mu having “invaded” her kingdom and he did invade it, because we conveniently have a single reference to this man outside of sand sea in book 5, when wu xie and xiaoge find murals in the ruins around wu sanxing’s abandoned camp that depict king mu’s invasion of tamutuo that was clearly hostile and was met with responding hostility (Book 5, Ch. 25-26, The Third Night: Relief / The Third Night: Déjà-vu)

it doesn’t mean that these narratives are mutually exclusive and can’t both be true, and that after having been defeated, either party asked for a truce that led to something else, but it does already suggest there might be more to this story than what we’re told of it. this idea somewhat confirms itself, again hinging on believing that the wang’s narrative is one close enough to the truth to be reliable, when li cu calls the romance spin on king mu’s and the queen mother’s story into question (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 145, The Truth of the World). li cu suggests that the poem she supposedly gifted king mu (which i’ll get into in a little bit), as well as maybe the queen mother of the west herself and her secret of immortality, are all concepts fashioned and embellished by king mu of zhou to facilitate his grand plan which i’ll touch on later, all because he saw “the truth of this world” in the queen mother of the west’s kingdom, and sought not to reveal it to the world, but to conceal it, and build an entire nebulous plan with it at its core

i don’t feel like the queen of the west herself is a fabrication considering both the multiple references to her interspersed throughout various dmbj books, as well as tangible proof of her existence re: tamutuo, but the idea that king mu of zhou might have been the author of the tale of king mu, son of heaven and the subsequent romance plot derived from it in dmbj universe is something i can believe so long as you assume he believed it was one more component in his masterplan. i’m hesitant to call dmbj magical realism because magical realism is very much a western genre of literature and people would do well to remember that western constructs aren’t universally applicable, but dmbj does use a number of structural and thematic elements that magical realism also uses, and this subplot is no exception. contrary to what some might think, npss actually does a significant amount of research when he writes these books, and a lot of the supernatural or fictional tomb elements aren’t so much explained through handwavy science as they are derived from well-documented real historical events or figures, much like magical realism is heavily grounded in reality despite slightly deviating from it in believable ways. dmbj is deeply informed by chinese culture and history, more so than just using it as the backdrop to a fantasy adventure story: they’re integral parts of the plot, which i think is part of what makes dmbj so difficult to navigate without extensive knowledge of that backdrop (which i by the way don’t pretend to have either, my own knowledge is very much surface level all things considered)

in light of this, as far as the queen mother of the west goes, considering the relatively reliable outside account of a hostile invasion we get from the ruins of tamutuo itself, and then li cu’s own take on king mu’s and the queen mother’s relationship, while the romance spin isn’t necessarily entirely false, it does leave a lot of question marks as to what exactly king mu saw in the queen of the west’s kingdom. that he was given the gift of longevity is highly likely given he’s still alive centuries later, along with other key elements of the wang family’s story i’ll get to in a bit. however, the uncertainty in the nature of their relationship does potentially make the queen of the west’s motivations for offering king mu longevity if not just as uncertain, then potentially a little more sinister, since while she might have offered out of love, if we assume all her experimentations weren’t geared at gaining immortality for herself, but rather curbing the side effects of it, then her gift was very much a poisoned one as she knew full well what would happen to him if he used it. for all we know, king mu might have, on defeating the queen mother’s kingdom, inflicted the “truth of the world” and the curse of longevity on himself, and none of it was never a gift at all, but the consequences of his own actions. but all of this is just speculation in the end as there’s no solid evidence pointing in any one direction. in any case, the only potential insight we get into the queen mother of the west’s thoughts come from maybe the vaguest source yet, a poem she supposedly composed for king mu that she gifted him when they parted, and that merebear translates as follows:

White clouds in the sky, the hills emerge. The road is far away, between mountains and rivers. The child who is not dead, can still come back.

knowing how many layers of meaning can be crammed into classical chinese poetry, i had to go find the original text and investigate further, so let me also provide that:

白云在天，山陵自出。道里悠远，山川间之。将子无死，尚能复来。

full disclaimer before i continue, poetry and its nuances are notoriously difficult to translate in any language, and i’m not at all claiming to be proficient enough at the chinese language without outside resources to help me to ever claim to be an expert, but while merebear’s translation isn’t technically incorrect, it has a few possible double meanings missing and some word choices i’m not quite sure i understand, but this is only my own humble contribution (with some creative license in the english rendition) that anyone with better knowledge than mine is welcome to correct or add on to as this isn’t so much an attempt at retranslating as it is pointing out a few possible added implications:

白云在天，山陵自出。

the white clouds are in the sky/the heavens, the lofty mountains/the great tombs emerge of their own accord. 山陵 can also be used, and has been in chinese literature, to refer to tombs of people of significant importance as usually big tombs tend to form burial mounds, hence why it can also refer to ‘hills’

道里悠远，山川间之。

the way forth is distant, it winds amid the mountains and rivers ‘mountains and rivers’, mountains especially, are commonly associated with the chinese concept of immortals called 仙 xian that even has the radical for mountain in it, in part due to their reclusive nature. i would link the interesting study i have on that but it’s unfortunately not in english, though feel free to ask for it anyway if anyone is interested

将子无死，尚能复来。

one who leads does not die, he may yet return 将子 in this context technically means ‘general’ and 将 can even refer to the chief piece in chinese chess which you know. keeping that in my book of crazy convenient zhang parallels re: the qipan zhang

make of this what you will, but if nothing else, it does suggest a bit more explicitly that the double meanings are indeed referring to immortality and potentially tombs, though what nature of tomb is the real question in that case

we then go on to learn from the wang powerpoint presentation that king mu never returned to visit the queen of the west once he returned home, but that contrary to how things may seem, despite having being recorded as having died at the age of 105, king mu in fact did not died, meaning at some point after he’d taken the queen of the west’s immortality elixir, he faked his own death and disappeared somewhere. both the wang instructor and wang xiaoyuan (the girl who peeks at li cu out the window) confirm that according to the third and final account of king shang of lu’s story, king mu wasn’t dead at the time of those events, as he worked together with king shang and iron mask to find the jade burial armor (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 134, Deception)

this means he was spectacularly old by this point considering the warring states period starts at earliest in 476 BC. and king mu supposedly died around 918 BC. you do the math, but he was very very old. and to be honest this also somewhat feeds into the idea that the longevity curse (because it very much is a curse) used to last much longer before the side effects started to pop up, because if we’re to believe the wang family’s version of these events, then king mu was clearly still sane and not (or at least not entirely) a monster if he was still actively enacting the things he had planned

and so king mu, now long-lived because he took whatever immortality elixir the queen mother of the west gave him, had to face the consequences of that choice, yet rather than seek her out to find a way to quell the side effects of longevity (which he could have done and would have just ended up in the meteorite with her, although if he didn’t go to her, it gives a bit more weight to the idea that their story wasn’t necessarily a romance and/or that ulterior motives were involved), he went his own way to find something to save himself from turning into a monster, and eventually settled on finding a jade burial armor, which according to the wang family also came from the queen mother of the west’s kingdom. besides implying it’s likely that the jade armor is in fact made from the meteorite jade, it’s just one more thing to add to the long list of things tied to the heart of dmbj’s lore that end up having some form of association with the queen mother of the west. fun tidbit regarding this that’s not entirely relevant to anything (but it just adds more fuel to the crack theory), there’s an inscription on the belt of the green-eyed fox corpse where the qilin blood clot that wu xie accidentally swallows in book 1, and that merebear translates as “ruler of yinxi”, that reads as follows (Book 1, Ch. 21, Green-Eyed Fox Corpse):

阴西宝帝 or yinxi baodi

once again, take this with a grain of salt because this is an inscription that wu xie sees while he’s presumably under the influence of the green-eyed fox’s illusion, and instantly recognizes it as “a spell to ward off evil spirits”, so it might not mean anything, but if you had to find some kind of sense in it, while the characters together don’t really mean much of anything, separately they can mean:

阴 yin

opposite of 阳 yang, one of the two opposing energies in taoism and representative of many things, but namely of the feminine

西 xi

the west as cardinal direction

宝 bao

treasure, precious

帝 di

supreme being, often used in the titles and names of emperors such as huangdi (the yellow emperor) or qin shi huangdi (the first emperor of china). fun fact, wu xie during sand sea is often referred to as 邪帝 or emperor xie by the chinese fanbase in reference to how powerful he was during that time

i’m not saying this is meant to translate into a reference to the queen mother of the west because the association of characters is a bit strange, but again. food for thought (and a lot of creative license)

the wang powerpoint then goes on to explain that king mu’s objective, once he’d secured the jade armor, was to ensure both that he would be able to come back to the world fully rid of the side effects of immortality, and be able to do so safely, secure in the knowledge that the legacy of his findings would remain intact for him to find again. and so to do that, he essentially makes certain that chinese tradition incorporates the necessity of entombing people with a number of valuable things, and supposedly instigates this during the spring and autumn period (which is the period that precedes the warring states period and is generally considered to be one of extensive intellectual prosperity, confucius was a contemporary of that time for example) by, as the wang instructor implies, at least partially pushing to prominence things like the classic of rites (or lijing) that among other things promotes rich burials. while li cu calls into question the idea that king mu’s plan solely aimed at disseminating information for the sake of keeping his own acquired knowledge in circulation, since king mu’s further objective was also to use grave robbing to spread whatever information best served concealing “the truth of the world”, it’s clear that his plan was meticulously thought-out

the wang instructor himself admits this, though he quickly adds that king mu’s plan, crafty as it was if desperate, failed to take into account the possibility that he’d one day meet his match in the person of wang zanghai, who essentially hijacked his plan for his own purposes. i feel this seems to imply that things were going pretty smoothly for king mu of zhou until then, which would then call into question the first two versions of king shang of lu’s story if we assume king mu was the original wearer of the jade armor, albeit more recently than those stories presented it, but this is also where i start veering into big wild assumptions and crack theory territory. i won’t be get into the box with the baby or the particulars of the feud between the zhang family and wang zanghai/the wang family because while it’s tied to this, it also branches off into something else that’s probably a whole other meta and this is long enough as it is

it’s also worth noting that king mu of zhou, as well as instigating his masterplan, not only hid an elaborate map leading to the queen mother of the west’s kingdom only perceivable if you soak the stone slab it’s on “with a certain liquid” (which if you remember what happens in both book 8 in siguniang when wu xie and xiao hua gut a pig, and in tibetan sea flower where it’s wu xie who bleeds his special blood to reveal the secrets inside the bronze gate in tibet, gives you a hint at what the nature of that liquid might be), but wrote the details of his plan down on what’s called the yellow lu silkbook, not to be confused with the silkbook that wu xie pulls from “king shang of lu”’s coffin in book 1. merebear speculates it might be the silkbook that the photocopy jin wantang brings to him to kickstart the entire plot belongs to, and in my opinion that’s a good guess. it might also be one of the many silkbooks the lao jiumen pulled out of siguniang during the greatest joint tomb robbery in the 1960s. who knows really

all i can say about this particular part of the wang’s powerpoint lesson and the connection it shares with the multiple versions of the story of king shang of lu is that assuming the wang family’s version is both the most complete and the most accurate, then “king shang of lu” has a direct connection not only to king mu of zhou, but to the entirety of dmbj’s overarching plot. and while knowing who’s who at the end of the day doesn’t amount to much when much of dmbj’s story deals with the present day cast bearing the brunt of the consequences of their elders’ and older generations’ choices, i want to go further and say that this story potentially further cements connections and solidifies dmbj lore rather than complicate it

(wild conclusions tbc in part III of this madness)

#dmbj #meta #dmbj meta #dmbj novels #at least part one had some kind of order to it #this one just devolved into chaos #and more unhinged crack theory #and it's only going to get worse from here #i genuinely wonder if any of this makes sense but it somehow does in my head #somehow #the assumptions are bold #very bold

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singswan-springswan · 7 months

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Chenford as Beauty and the Beast

I have to do everything in this house.

words: 976

quick drabble for the fateful exchange scene since no one else was going to do it 🙄 smh you slackers

“Leave me!” Jackson hissed, the urgent tones of his voice bordering on hysteria. Lucy wasn’t too naive to make note of that. Jackson didn’t spook without good reason, and she’d never seen him this terrified in his life. There must be something truly horrifying—something dangerous lingering in this haunted castle. Lucy didn’t doubt it. But all the more reason not to leave him here. He had such a bright spirit; he wouldn’t survive this awful place if she didn’t help him escape.

“Absolutely not.” She snapped right back. “I won’t—” But before she could finish her affirmation of loyalty, a sudden heavy something dug sharply into her shoulder, spinning her around so fast she lost the torch in a shrill hurry to gasp. It clattered on the floor where it hissed and went out.

Lucy pressed her back to the cell bars. Their chill bit through her cloak.

“Lucy, run!” Jackson cried, but it was definitely too late for that.

She could see the hulking silhouette in the shadow of the stone. His heavy breath was low and predatory, even audible above the pounding of her heart. But Lucy refused to be intimidated when she hadn’t trespassed—and Jackson hadn’t done anything wrong! He was being held prisoner unjustly!

“Who are you?” She shot to her feet. Even standing, Jackson’s captor towered over her, though his features were obscured by the grainy fringe of darkness.

A menacing voice rumbled from the figure, so very much like a beast as he growled. “The master of this castle.” He shifted just beyond the beam of light from some window overhead, movements fluid and agitated. He didn’t move like a man. Lucy would have been unsettled if she wasn’t so indignant.

“I’m here for my friend. You can’t keep him here when he’s done nothing wrong!”

“I’ll do what I please,” The voice hissed. For a brief moment, there was a flicker of color against the shadowy shape of him. Something blue—light blue, like snow clouds. “To trespassers!”

Lucy felt a coil of rage snuggle up in her gut. She took a few seconds to gape hotly. “You—you’re a monster! You awful selfish heartless piece of—”

“Lucy!” Jackson squeaked: a pretty clear admonishment of “what do you think you’re doing making the powerful crazy jailor mad”.

Lucy bared her teeth, but she cut off the brief tirade. “Alright, what do you want? Name your ransom, you freak! I’m not leaving my friend here to die!”

The man paused for half a heartbeat, like her insistence had intrigued him the slightest bit. But his answer was decisive. “There is nothing you can do. He’s my prisoner.”

Lucy stamped her foot angrily. “I won’t accept that.”

“Your acceptance is irrelevant.” There was a rough scraping sound as he swung away, turning his back. Was that the cadence of his steps? Did he have spikes on his boots?

He was leaving.

Wait a minute, he was leaving, and he couldn’t even bother to throw her out! Lucy’s thoughts spun. She had to negotiate quickly, or this monster would never release Jackson. He just really wanted a prisoner, right? Maybe he was lonely in this big empty castle? Lucy hated to consider that she might be a more pleasing trade, but she would do anything to keep Jackson safe.

“Hang on!” She scrambled after him, forced to stumble in the single shaft of moonlight when he abruptly stalled, eyes flashing over his broad shoulder. “...Let me take his place.”

Jackson made a strangled noise. “Lucy no! You don’t know what you’re doing!”

She ignored him. “I’ll stay as your prisoner if you release him.” This curious master of the castle didn’t scare her, though as a young maiden, she should at least consider that they’d be alone here—there was no telling what his intentions or…desires might be. But it didn’t matter. Jackson’s safety would always be more important.

“You…” The man’s voice took on a disbelieving lilt. “You would sacrifice yourself?”

Lucy crossed her arms, lips pinched in challenge. “If I did, would you free my friend?”

Jackson again tried to argue—with more fervor. His captor ignored him too, contemplative.

“Yes.” He eventually growled. “But understand, you would carry out his sentence in full.”

The foreboding tone made Lucy’s stomach sink.

“Forever.”

Of course. Life sentence for trespassing. Seemed fair. Jackson rattled the bars and pleaded, begging Lucy to leave him behind, run for her life, and for the love of everything good in the world stay away from the roses! But she was distracted by the looming silhouette of her future master, closer now than he’d been before, close to the light. And her eyes had adjusted since climbing the dark tower, but she must be seeing wrong. He couldn’t be…

She tilted her head, squinted, like that would do anything. All she could clearly make out were those brilliant eyes, almost glowing. She had to ask.

“Come closer.”

There was a sharp inhale.

“Step into the light.”

A suspenseful moment of quiet passed, and then… he shifted forward. First, a single foot crossed into the pale moonbeam. No—no boots—but the spikes were there. Claws. And then his trousers were tattered, and his shirt was made of fur—no. No. The arms were barely arms, and his hands were grotesque and his hair was not hair—he had a mane instead and horrible gleaming fangs and twisted horns, curled and vicious and those eyes—so full of anger and beautifully blue.

Lucy felt herself grow pale.

She called him a monster, and the word was a haunting all its own. He was a beast. A horrifying, menacing, powerful beast.

But Lucy knew she couldn’t back down. She wasn’t afraid. She couldn’t leave Jackson with this creature. Yes, her resolve was already stone solid. Better her than him.

“I accept.” She said, voice small.

“Done!”

Jackson wailed.

#chenford #tim x lucy #tim bradford #lucy chen #jackson west #beauty and the beast #beauty and the beast au #my writing

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inkovert · 5 months

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Nine People You Want To Get To Know Better

Thanks to @freedominique for the tag! You sound like a pretty cool person :^) Impressed that you're casually reading about Foucault

Current Book I'm Reading: bro...the amount of books I've picked up and stopped reading in the past 3 months 😮‍💨 I don't know if I even deserve to claim I'm currently reading anything. But if I must give an answer, I'm currently buddy reading The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez with one of my friends. She chose the book and the reviews were off the charts and promised an unforgettable reading experience so I had to pick it up. And from the first few pages I read Simon didn't come to play. The prose is so beautiful that every time I try to read it it just has me itching to put the book down and write (anyone else have that issue??). So yeah. Haven't got that far with it even though I went out and bought a physical copy of the damn thing because listening to it via audiobook was doing it a disservice. I've also been listening to the second book in the Aristotle and Dante series by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. My friend recommended the books to me because I was looking for something lighthearted to read and it has not disappointed.

Last Song I Listened To: Okay hear me out. I'll give my honest answer if I'm answering the question literally but there's a reason for it. It was a song by Eminem but I can't remember which one bc I went down a rabbit hole of listening to some of his songs (maybe Do Rae Mi (Haile's Revenge?)). But it's because I went down a rabbit hole this afternoon of watching videos of different rappers naming their top 5 rappers out of curiosity and then ended up on a video about how black rappers in the industry view Eminem....so yeah. I haven't been listening to him regularly, just today bc of that (though he is a legend and has a lot of dope songs).

Currently Watching: Honestly, I'm not a huge TV person, I'm slowly coming to realize. I don't have an interest in watching any new shows that come out. Honestly, if I'm watching TV it's either a movie or something anime-related. I just finished watching Your Lie in April yesterday (beautiful anime from the animation to the storytelling). And I'm currently watching (and have been for the last 2 years) One Piece (only on ep 976 so haven't caught up just yet 😮‍💨).

Current Fic I'm Reading: Not a fic reader, sorry!

Next On My Watch List: hmm...oh! Across the Spider-verse. I rewatched the first movie a couple weeks ago so I could prepare myself to watch the new one once it hit Netflix, but looking at the run time of the movie is a little daunting. I know it's a masterpiece though and I'll get to it eventually!

Current Obsession: 🤔 One Piece? My WIP? Sleeping? Dismantling the patriarchy? Who knows.

Tagging: @that-chibi-writer @pertinax--loculos @words-after-midnight @wordsacrossemptypages @avrablake No pressure!

#tag game

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tj-dragonblade · 6 months

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20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by: @valeriianz, @acedragontype, @hardly-an-escape - thank you! 💖

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 124

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 374,456

3. What fandoms do you write for? I tend to be a one-fandom-at-a-time writer, so currently that's Sandman. Once in awhile I may dip back to previous fandoms so those would be MCU, Naruto, Saiyuki, and Gundam Wing.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? *Overall (they're all from my Naruto days): Delayed (or, Why Kakashi Is Never On Time) at 3672; 11 years old Past the Limits at 1225; 12 years old Affirmation at 997; 12.5 years old Worth It at 976; 15 years old Vigil at 821; 11 years old *Current fandom tops, just for fun: Use Your Words at 398; posted last Christmas Insatiable at 357; posted in May Fluffbruary Fills at 351; posted throughout February In the Morning Light at 295; posted in April Built For You at 275; posted in April

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Yeah! Seems only polite, and once in awhile conversations can start that way! Pretty sure there are some old comments scattered across some older fics that I missed in the recent years I wasn't really doing fandom, and it seems a little weird to answer them years later, but generally yes.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Going aaaallllll the way back to Gundam Wing, I did a songfic where I implied a breakup until the final-line reveal that the character had *gasp* actually died. There may be a couple other angst-based pieces in my catalog, but that I think is the Most(tm).

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Uh. Hmm. A difficult question, when most of my stuff doesn't have plot arcs and most of it is generally happy. Let's go with…the Thessaly Breakup Fic, since there was a plot-like progression of events that were based in angsty pining and culminated in the happy ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Never have, would like to keep it that way.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Oh no, ✨~never~✨. Which is to say yes, I absolutely write smut; I am currently writing more smut than not. Not sure what's meant by 'kind'; the kind I like to read? Hopefully the kind that makes you want a metaphorical cigarette after? I don't usually dip into a lot of the standard things that come to mind when someone says 'kink', but neither would I describe it as 'vanilla' - not the bulk of it, at least.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? I have two crossovers and one fusion; I guess the Saiyuki crossover where Hakkai acquires Jiipu from Count D's pet shop would be 'craziest'? It's a bit cracky in tone and has a complete disregard for the fourth wall.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yeah, I don't recall which ones but I've had (and granted) requests for permission to translate into Chinese and into Russian.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yeah, a friend and I co-wrote a couple back in GW and it was...fun? Not the sort of thing I'd write on my own, and definitely not now. Co-writing again...idk. Would have to be the right timing, right idea, right personality mesh etc.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? ...yeah, that's not a thing I can answer. Whichever I'm fixated on is inevitably my favorite at the time but once the fixation fades, I still have the love for each of them.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Oh my god there are so many. Things in Sandman fandom are all still in the 'will-happen' slot of my brain with a 50/50 chance of actually finishing in reality. Going back to previous fandoms? There's the Thor/Bruce fairytale that I want to finish really badly, and the longer fic half-written where I was dipping into ace exploration that still nudges at my brain now and then. Lost all motivation for MCU fandom really fast and these two I think suffered most for that. They deserve to be finished but probably never will. In Naruto, I made the mistake of publishing two chapters of Closure when it wasn't all finished and the rest of it's half-written, but I was never that into the threesome involved and I've only gotten less so as the years have gone on. It's been 10 years since I posted the first chapter and nine since the second, and I still feel bad about it, but. Maybe I update with an explanatory note and just dump the half-written bits with synopsis so that the folks who subscribed and still care can at least see what I intended to do with it.

16. What are your writing strengths? I take great pride in my smut, and I like to think I'm good at it. Painting pictures with my words? Maybe character voice, in certain cases.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Plot. Stories with plot and progression and chapters and such. Follow-through to finish pieces that don't get done in the initial burst of focus.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Something I've largely steered clear of after my first fandom. If I had a need for it at some point, I would want to consult a native speaker to ensure correct translation and I would include the translation in footnotes etc.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Gundam Wing. If we don't count the 'DS9 novel idea' that I recall making notes on in my journal at the time, or any of the Mary Sue thoughts I would also journal about. None of that was ever 'actual writing' nor did I have anywhere I would have shared it in '96.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? Again. How'm I supposed to pick? Ugh. Let's see, fandom by fandom. Gundam Wing was so long ago I just, ergh. Possibly I could be convinced to re-read Bah Humbug without cringing too badly. From Saiyuki, maybe…When the Chips Are Down. Comedy gen-fic based on a tidbit of fandom lore is not something I manage terribly often but I am quite pleased with this one; Jiipu's pov always delights me and I'm proud of all the voice work here also. Naruto…maybe Seized? Sai POV is one of my strengths and I think it came through really well in that one. MCU…Carpe Diem, I'm very pleased with character voices in that one. Sandman…everything's less than a year old I can't pick. But I can say that I wish the Drunken Confessions Fluffbruary fic had gotten more attention. As well as the Thessaly Breakup fic. Actually what I wish is that I'd posted them all separately in a series instead of as chapters of a single fic where they all just kind of get lost in the shuffle, I buried some gems.

Tagging, no obligation, tag me into existing posts as needed: @staroftheendless, @chaosheadspace, @academicblorbo, @rainbowvamp, @landwriter, @delta-pavonis

#tagmemes #TJs Writing #laughing at myself for spending the time to link all the fics #when I understand the odds of anyone actually clicking through on them #but they're there regardless

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