#this has please stop normalizing hating your spouse energy
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Oh straight people 😔
#listen the second comment is supportive but like but like damn straight people come on now#twitter#this has please stop normalizing hating your spouse energy
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hello everyone, I return with more angst, this time, Willex!
As The World Caves In
Words: 2,554
Summary: 90s Alive AU where Sunset Curve performed in the Orpheum and are now rising stars. Alex and Willie have met and began dating shortly after the show. Around a year of their relationship, Willie falls seriously ill, and Alex is there to support him.
Disclaimers:
The boys are all around 18, as this is set a year after the orpheum performance where they were all 17.
The boys did not die in this AU, merely just had a bad case of food poisoning.
As this is set in the 90s, Flynn, Julie, Nick and other characters do not exist.
This is based on the assumption that Willie was also alive and 17 in the 90s.
I do not own any of these characters, however both Willie and Alex's parents are my own interpretations.
Ao3 link:
@thedragonemperess
Alex looks at Willie's face, and smiles weakly. Willie looks...weaker, than usual, and was clearly trying to put on a brave face for his much loved boyfriend.
"How do you feel today?" Alex asks, gently.
"...Better, I think." Wille replies, sheepishly.
"Willie, you don't have to pretend you feel okay, you know that, right?" says Alex.
"...You're right...well then, my chest hurts when I breathe, and I feel constantly tired. The other day, Reggie brought me in food that his mom made specifically for me, and it looked great and it smelt divine, but I couldn’t muster the appetite to eat it. He just looked so...disappointed, Alex."
Alex sighed, and took Willie's hand.
"He understands though. It's...it's harder on you, and we both know Reggie would never hold it against you."
"I know just-" Willie begins coughing violently mid sentence, "...Sorry. But it's just, I hate feeling so...useless, y'know? I want to get out and function like a normal person, but even getting out of bed winds me for the next hour, never mind walking out of here."
Willie looks at Alex. His eyes are so...tired looking. Alex's heart breaks a little more at the sight. Willie's eyes, the eyes that were always so bright and full of life looked so dull now. His face which always bore a smile, so...gray looking, skinnier. Even his arms which Alex loved to be held in were weaker. And yet he was still the man Alex loved, and would continue to love.
"Willie...I...look, you just..." Alex stammers over his words.
"Hotdog. It's okay. I know you're worried, but really, I'll be okay. I'm doing better than I look, the doctors say so. And lord knows they're being paid enough to tell the truth."
Alex laughs weakly. Willie still has his sense of humour. That has to be good, right?
Right.
A nurse enters the room to inform Alex that visiting hours end soon. Alex nods, and says he'll be out in a bit.
"You have to go?" Willie says sadly.
"...Yeah. I do."
"...You'll be back tomorrow though, right?"
"Of course. Of course I will."
Alex kisses Willie gently on the forehead.
"Is that it?" Willie says, a smirk on his face.
"Oh- Uh-" Alex stammers as his face turns bright red.
"You don't have to, you know? I was teasing."
"No- I- I just wasn't expecting to hear it. But since you asked," Alex leans in, "sure, that's not all."
Alex kisses Willie passionately, moving one hand to Willie's shoulder, and the other running through his hair. Willie pulls Alex in closer in suit. The two break apart, both smiling wide.
"That certainly wasn't all then." Willie laughs.
"What a 'bye for now', huh?" Alex says, his face still red from his moment of bravery.
"For now," Willie says, pausing for a second "I love you, Alex." he adds.
Alex stares at him for a second, unsure of what he just heard.
"...I love you too, Willie."
A few months later, Alex is visiting Willie again. Willie is still hesitant to admit it, but with his recently shaved head and the numerous more machines beeping and such around his bed, it is clear to Alex that his condition is worsening.
"Stay still, will you? I don't want to nick you." Alex says as he slowly, carefully, shaves the recently appeared stubble on Willie's face.
Willie does not reply but does become more still, merely watching Alex as he shaves his face with such care.
"There. Feel better?" Alex asks as he prepares to shave Willie's head.
"...Yeah." Willie says, hoarsely.
"I'm gonna help you sit up now so I can get your head, okay?"
"Sure." Willie says. As Alex helps him sit up, he starts coughing again. When he moves his hand away from his mouth, there are a few drops of blood. He makes hesitant eye contact with Alex, who, aware that Willie doesn't want to be made a fuss over, merely cleans his hand and sighs softly.
As Alex lathers his head with shaving cream, Willie starts to cry softly. When he notices, Alex stops, cleans off his hands, and sits on the bed beside him.
"Willie...what's happened, dear?"
"They, uh...they told me the results of my scan yesterday. The lung cancer...it's progressed. It's spread to my kidneys now. Alex...they uh, they aren’t giving me long to live."
Alex's shoulders slump in defeat. All the fighting...all the effort and the pain. Willie even lost his hair trying to fight off cancer and...for nothing. Alex stands up, wordlessly, and begins to shave Willie's head.
"So, you're just...saying nothing?" Willie says, a tangible note of hurt in his voice.
Alex bites his lip to stifle a sob. He can't cry in front of Willie right now. Willie is the one who's allowed to cry right now. He keeps shaving.
"Alex. Please. Say something...anything."
Alex lets out a sob, and immediately he feels Willie tense up.
"Alex-" Willie starts as he tries to turn around.
"No, please. Just...just let me finish shaving, please." Alex says, his voice breaking slightly.
Willie turns around again, facing away from Alex, and lets him finish shaving his head.
When visiting hours end that evening, Alex hugs Willie as tight as he can without hurting, and pats Willie's back as he sobs and yells into Alex's shoulder. He says it'll be okay, he tries to comfort him, but they both know this can't possibly ever be okay.
Alex is in a mall with the other three boys. In front of them is a case of rings. A jeweller walks over to them.
"Ah, you're-"
"Sunset Curve! Tell your friends." cuts in Reggie. The boys laugh.
"...Yes. My daughter loves you, she's booked tickets to your next tour."
"Ah! A fan! Or...well, rather a parent of a fan." Says Luke, excitedly.
"Indeed. Well, how may I help you boys today?"
"Well, uh, we're looking for a ring." Alex says.
"I think, if you follow me this way, you'll find more what you're looking for? This is the...engagement ring section."
The boys look at her blankly.
"Oh. Well, someone's a lucky girl-"
"A lucky boy, actually." They correct her, all looking towards Alex, who currently looks rather sheepish. The jeweller makes an "oh" face.
"Well then, Mr. Mercer? I think this ring right here will be perfectly suited."
She points to a silver band.
"We do ring engraving too, if that's your thing."
Alex looks at the boys. They smile at him and nod, already knowing what he's thinking.
Willie and Alex's parents crowd into the small hospital room. All four of them look ecstatic, an odd sight for a room with a dying man in it. Outside, Luke, Reggie and Bobby are fighting to get a good look.
"Alex, love...what on earth are you doing?"
Alex laughs, his hands shaking behind his back. He looks to his parents, who nod, then Willie's, who smile at him. He gets down on one knee beside the hospital bed.
"Willie, I have loved you since the day I met you backstage at the orpheum. I have loved you since you looked after me during the aftermath of that nasty ass hotdog, and I have loved you since you stayed by me when I came out."
Willie looks at him, unsure of how to react to what he's hearing. Alex brings out the ring box from behind his back.
"I know that we can't legally get married. And I know that it will never feel properly real because of that. But Willie...if I could..." Alex trails off.
"...Go on." Willie says, quietly.
"Willie...I- Will you marry me?"
The energy from the couples' parents in the corner of the room is electric.
"Of course, Alex. Of course."
Alex breathes a sigh of relief and stands up to give Willie the ring. The boys cheer and whoop from outside the room, before being shushed, because people are dying here.
"Alex...did you- did you get a hotdog engraved on this?"
Alex smiles slightly.
"I love it. I fucking love it." Willie says, as he lets Alex slide the ring onto his finger.
"And look," Alex says, pulling out his own counterpart ring from his pocket "mines has a skateboard."
Willie laughs, the first genuine laugh he's had in a while, but then in a snap back to reality, begins coughing harshly, and both Alex and his parents rush to hold him, and wipe his face of the blood spatters.
The rest of visiting hours are spent sneaking the boys a toast of champagne - for they know Willie won't live to 21 - as well as sharing baby photos and many, many congratulations.
Days later, Willie signs a deed poll to change his surname to Mercer. Both Alex and Willie reason it's as close as they'll ever get to marriage.
A month later, the nights get colder faster now, and Alex notices it more than he ever has as he speeds to Willie's hospital at 11 at night. As his listed emergency contact, the hospital have contacted him as well as Willie's parents. Alex is trying desperately to calm his breathing to concentrate at the wheel before he causes an accident, to little aid, as his vision is blurred by tears anyway.
He doesn’t even lock his car doors as he bolts to Willie's room. He can hear multiple doctors in the room, all discussing what's and how's and when's. Alex begs them for information but as he's neither the patient, a (legal) spouse, or a next of kin, they can tell him nothing. When Willie's parents arrive shortly after, they are informed that Willie has went into kidney failure, and as his cancer has already metastasised, a transplant would only delay the inevitable, information they immediately relay to Alex. The doctors give Willie a few hours at most.
Alex cries quietly at Willie's bedside, holding his hand as he watches his chest rise and fall slowly. The doctors have put him on morphine, to make his passing easier, more comfortable on him. Willie's parents stand behind Alex, Willie's father placing his hand on Alex's shoulder as comfort.
"Son...do you want us to give you a minute?" Willie's father asks. Alex nods quietly.
When he hears the door click shut, Alex lifts his head to look at Willie.
"Willie..why'd it have to be you?" he says quietly, weakly as he cups Willie's face and his thumb strokes his cheek. This isn't how it should have been. They should have been able to grow up together, get old, maybe even someday, possibly, get married. They should have been able to hopefully adopt a few kids, to watch them grow up and become adults of their own. And yet here Alex sat, being robbed of his first, his only love.
Alex buries his head into Willie's hospital gown. He cries out when all he receives is the horrible, sterile smell rather than what he wanted, Willie's warm, wood-ish smell. He doesn't have Willie's hair to stroke, it was all shaved off when the chemo started making it fall out. He looks at Willie's face again. He looks so...fragile. Alex's heart is shattering and he doesn’t know if he'll ever put the pieces back together again.
Willie's parents enter the room again, hot drinks in hand, and Willie's equally distraught mother hand Alex a coffee with a weak smile. Alex sips it, and grimaces at the bitter, yet watery taste. Nonetheless he is thankful for the caffeine.
A few hours later, while Alex and Willie's parents are engaged in light conversation, Willie's heart monitor starts beeping loudly in an alarm. When the three of them look at the monitor, they can see that Willie is flatlining.
"No. No. No this can't- No!" Alex starts shouting. He grabs Willie by the shoulders and shakes him. "Come on Willie, please, no, not now, please-"
Doctors flood into the room, and Willie's father pulls Alex back out of their way. Alex struggles to get loose but eventually goes limp as he sinks to the floor to wail in grief. The doctors, unable to do anything due to Willie's D.N.R, stand to one side and turn off the alarm.
"Time of Death...1:32AM..." one of them says, flatly.
Days later, at Willie's funeral, Alex seems to have been cried out. Even as one of the pallbearers, Alex's face just remains blank, empty. He sits at the front, with Willie's family. He even comforts Willie's younger siblings with a hug as they cry. But Alex himself sheds not one tear. He just stares into the distance. He barely talks.
Willie's parents ask Alex to say a few words, and rather reluctantly, he agrees. As he walks up to the front of the small church in Willie's hometown, his hands start to shake and he feels a lump form in his throat.
He looks out at the crowd, herded into the very much packed church like sheep. He clears his throat.
"I...I have known- I knew, Willie, for around a year. I knew him before his diagnosis, when he could still do the things he loved," Alex's voice shakes, "like skateboarding...or helping people, helping me. Not many of you know this, but I loved Willie. I still do. His death doesn't feel real to me and I doubt it ever will. I will miss him dearly, as I'm sure you all will. Uh...thanks for listening."
Standing at Willie's grave site, it isn't raining. In fact, the sun is shining and the temperature is almost mild. Alex watches in silence as they lower his partner's body into the ground. As they begin to shovel dirt onto the coffin, Alex's facade that even he wasn't aware existed, begins to crumble, and he buries his head in his mother's shoulder and cries out, his tears soaking her nice black coat. He hears other people begin to sob, and had he felt up to it, he would have consoled them. But right at that moment, at that exact time, nothing mattered to him apart from the fact that his partner, the man he loved enough to want to marry, was dead, was gone forever and was never coming back.
Weeks later, Willie's parents ask Alex to come to Willie's grave with them. Alex, who had barely left his room since the funeral, reluctantly agrees, letting him pick him up in their minivan. They drive to the cemetery in silence, none of them have the words to talk with, until they're walking over to where Willie was buried.
"We know that we didn't ask you...but since it's his legal name, we had to use it for the headstone..." say Willie's parents.
Alex looks at them, unsure of what they mean. And then he sees the name on Willie's headstone. Willie Mercer. In some strange way, he never expected to see it anywhere so official, so permanent. He realises that Willie's parents are awaiting a reaction, but he blanks on what to do. The sadness of seeing his love's grave taints the small joy that is seeing his own surname on it.
"I- I- Thank you." He eventually stammers out, and Willie's parents pull him into a hug.
For the first time in a long time, Alex begins to feel that things might, eventually, be okay.
#julie and the phantoms#jatp#julie and the fat ones#julie and the himbos#netflixwewantjatp2#netflixwewantjatps2#willex#alex jatp#willie jatp#tw death#tw illness#tw swearing
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On AO3
After allowing Jin Guangyao to get away with so much, for so long, Lan Xichen cannot be trusted to lead his own sect anymore.
Nie Huaisang comes up with a way to ensure Lan Xichen won't make a mess again.
inspired by @anxious-witch ‘s marriage AU!
Three weeks into Lan Xichen's seclusion, there is a knock on the door of the Hanshi, which he ignores. He is meditating. He should be meditating. He doesn't know how to meditate anymore. Intruders have been rare so far, but sometimes servants come with food. They have been instructed to leave it at the door in silence. Some do. Others feel the impulse to knock, especially if they find the remains of the last meal untouched. It is useless explaining to them that Lan Xichen can easily practice inedia, that it is a normal part of improving his cultivation. They worry. Lan Xichen ignores them. It is usually enough.
It is not enough that day. The knocking persists, until the unwanted visitor tires of waiting for an answer and comes in.
"We must talk," Lan Qiren announces, coming to kneel next to where his nephew is meditating.
Trying to meditate.
Lan Xichen ignores him.
It is easy to ignore what disturbs him.
His friendship with the late Jin Guangyao is proof of how good he's become at refusing to see what he doesn't want to see.
"Your seclusion has caused great controversy in the cultivation world," Lan Qiren explains, undisturbed by the lack of answer.
If Lan Xichen is used to willful blindness, Lan Qiren knows how to speak to those who won't listen. It comes from being a teacher.
It comes from being the only sane man in an insane family.
"People have been throwing serious accusations against you," Lan Qiren announces. "False, all of them, but that has never stopped them before. They have started saying you were Jin Guangyao’s lover, for some, his accomplice at least, for others."
If he still knew how, Lan Xichen would smile.
The first accusation is ridiculous. He never felt desire for Jin Guangyao, though he wrongly believed they were each other's confidant which is far more intimate. Even if desire had existed, Jin Guangyao would never have betrayed his wife, knowing too well what would be said of him if he did.
As for the second accusation, it is right of course. Lan Xichen, unknowingly, was Jin Guangyao's accomplice. His friend would never have done what he did without Lan Xichen's help and support. He even gave him the weapon with which to kill Nie Mingjue.
Intent matters little. Lan Xichen was part of the plot that killed his oldest friend, it is a fact.
"Some people have been asking for your head, Xichen."
Lan Xichen closes his eyes. It matters little if he lives or dies. It won't change the evil he allowed to exist.
"The fact that you entered seclusion is taken as a sign of mourning," Lan Qiren insists. "A sign of guilt. So most of them asked for your blood. But Nie Huaisang has offered a… different solution to the problem you pose."
At that name Lan Xichen opens his eyes, and lets his gaze fall on his uncle. However much he wants to shroud himself in indifference, on this matter he is curious. Nie Huaisang has shown to what extremes he will go for justice, for hatred. Lan Xichen can only wonder what fate awaits him, should his last surviving friend have the last word.
"Nie Huaisang has suggested it would be wise for you to step down from leading Gusu Lan, since you cannot be trusted with politics, and given in marriage to whoever can guarantee they will keep you out of trouble. He offered himself as a possible spouse."
Lan Xichen nearly laughs.
It is something Jin Guangyao suggested once, almost as a joke. A marriage between him and Nie Huaisang. One of them stepping down, unsuited for politics.
If that had come to pass, Lan Xichen would have done everything in his power to ensure Nie Huaisang’s happiness. He knows better than to hope the same kindness might be extended to him.
"I have talked with Nie Huaisang about this offer of his," Lan Qiren states. "He gave some serious guarantees on the subject of your safety. And considering the circumstances, if he is the one taking you under his protection, it is unlikely others will dare to attack you."
"Are you asking for my opinion," Lan Xichen asks, voice rough from disuse, "or announcing my punishment?"
"You can refuse. You are still entitled to your choices, good or bad."
It is clear that Lan Qiren knows what the right choice is. Lan Xichen lacks the energy to object.
His decisions have so rarely been right, it is wiser to let others decide his fate.
-
The wedding robes are heavy and cumbersome, but the nearly opaque veil is not unwelcome. Lan Xichen has no wish to see the Unclean Realm as he is led toward the place he will now call home until he dies.
He is grateful for the veil.
He is grateful Nie Huaisang is using a red silk ribbon rather than his own hand to guide him.
He is grateful this joke of a wedding takes place in Qinghe rather than Gusu, and he is not forced to let Nie Huaisang touch another ribbon.
They pause at a door, which Nie Huaisang opens without a word. He has been uncharacteristically quiet this whole time. Lan Xichen is glad he cannot see his new husband's face. He hopes the veil will stay.
They go in. Pause again. The door closes.
"You can remove the veil now, Er-ge," Nie Huaisang offers.
Lan Xichen does no such thing. Nie Huaisang does not insist.
"You should not be disturbed here," he states, his voice devoid of emotion. "It is isolated from most other buildings. I thought you would prefer it that way."
Nie Huaisang waits for an answer. None comes.
"There is a garden for you to enjoy," Nie Huaisang continues, undisturbed. "You may also go wherever you please within the Unclean Realm. I advise you against leaving our walls. I can only guarantee your safety here."
Perhaps Lan Xichen is supposed to thank him for that protection. For saving him from death.
He does neither.
And yet, he feels a crack through his carapace of indifference. It is the first time Nie Huaisang and him are in each other's presence since that fateful night when Lan Xichen's world crumbled around him. On this night, their wedding night, Lan Xichen would have expected the other man to talk about more important things than where he may or may not go.
"Why?" Lan Xichen asks at last.
"Why what? Why can't I protect you outside?"
"Why protect me at all?"
A long pause.
Lan Xichen feels tempted to remove his veil after all. He does not. He cannot face the man Nie Huaisang really is. It is another hard truth he does not want to see.
"Why indeed?" Nie Huaisang scoffs. "Even if I told you, would you believe me?"
"Probably not," Lan Xichen admits. "Not after everything."
"Then I won't even try. In fact, it's probably best if I stay away from you. I did not bring you here to intrude in your life, Er-ge. You won't see me here again unless you invite me."
Lan Xichen considers that statement, and cannot decide how he feels about it.
"I doubt I will," he only says.
"I doubt it as well," Nie Huaisang admits. "Goodnight, husband, and farewell I suppose."
Nie Huaisang lingers a moment more before turning around and leaving the room. In a surprising gesture of temper, he slams the door behind him.
Lan Xichen waits a while, to make sure the other man is truly gone, and finally removes his veil.
His new prison is a house of decent size, not much smaller than the Hanshi he used to live in, and decorated in a similar style. Lan Xichen cannot decide if this is meant as a kindness or a taunt.
Either way, he hates it.
But it is home now, no matter how he feels.
-
Lan Xichen spends his days inside his new home, trying to meditate. Although he has been told he is allowed to leave his house, he sees no point in it. He refuses to even look outside. That way, his life feels unchanged. He can nearly pretend he is still in the Cloud Recesses, reflecting on his crimes and improving his meditation. His wedding feels like nothing but a distant dream.
Nie Huaisang, as promised, never visits again.
It feels almost like home.
Almost.
Not quite.
In the Cloud Recesses, the servants knew to leave Lan Xichen alone.
Here Bai Yun, the woman assigned to serve him, comes and goes as she pleases. She refuses to leave food at the door, no matter how many times Lan Xichen asks, and she scolds him when he skips meals, the way a mother might. At least, so Lan Xichen has heard. His own experience with motherhood is incomplete.
It is annoying, the way she insists on chatting. Of course it is not unusual for servants of the Unclean Realm to take liberties, especially since Nie Huaisang’s ascension, but Bai Yun particularly irritates Lan Xichen.
He thinks, at first, that she must have been sent to torture him. She is there to break his peace of mind, to interrupt his meditation, to pester him until his good will breaks. It makes sense. Nie Huaisang must still want revenge, and driving Lan Xichen crazy isn't a bad way to obtain it.
As weeks pass, though, that idea vanishes. Bai Yun does not appear to be evil, only chatty. And Lan Xichen, so annoyed at first, comes to enjoy her visits. It has been a long time since anyone has spoken to him without expectations. It becomes oddly pleasant to hear her talk about her life as a servant, full of problems and joys different from those Lan Xichen encountered when he still had a life of his own, but no less intense to her. And Bai Yun seems happy when, almost without realising, Lan Xichen starts asking for details or follow-ups on some of her stories.
It is only what he was trained to do, he tells himself. It doesn’t make him kind or good. A lifetime of habits, of making small talk with anyone who feels they have a right to speak to him, is not a thing easily changed.
Still, Bai Yun’s conversation is not unpleasant.
And as it turns out, they’ve met before.
“During the Sunshot Campaign,” Bai Yun explains to a stunned Lan Xichen. “Ah, you wouldn’t remember I suppose, for you there must have been a lot happening. But I had been taking my daughter to the sect where she’d been accepted as an outer disciple, and we were captured alongside that sect by the Wens. But you saved us, and took all of us to Qinghe for safety. Now my daughter is a disciple here, and she’s going to marry someone of the Nie clan next summer. All thanks to you, Zewu-Jun!”
Faced with that gratitude, that radiant smile, Lan Xichen doesn’t know what to say. After weeks, months even, or ruminating on every thing he has done wrong, on every mistake, on every crime, it is odd to be reminded there was a time when he could do good.
Appeared to do good.
Back then he was already working closely with Jin Guangyao after all, using intelligence obtained from him to stir the course of the war. A lot of what Lan Xichen did was his own effort, but it seems small compared to what he accomplished thanks to Jin Guangyao. Lan Xichen saved a handful of people here and there, while Jin Guangyao won them the war.
And yet, in spite of this efforts to remind himself of his failures, Lan Xichen cannot help feeling some pride once more over what he did back then. There are people alive that might not be, had he not worked so hard on freeing prisoners and protecting those attacked by the Wen.
Pride is an odd thing to feel.
Odder still is the fact that Nie Huaisang gave him a servant who might have any gratitude towards him. It cannot be a coincidence.
Lan Xichen wonders what game the other man is playing.
-
Bai Jie is an energetic girl who looks and acts like she could have been born in the Nie clan. She is just as chatty as her mother, and just as determined to do as she pleases. After meeting her, it starts making sense to Lan Xichen why these two were welcomed into Qinghe Nie.
And Lan Xichen does meet Bai Jie, whether he likes it or not. After Bai Yun revealed this link between them, her daughter accompanies her one morning, eager to meet the man to whom she owes her life.
Unlike her mother, Bai Jie treats Lan Xichen with the respect he is more accustomed to, but only because she’s clearly more aware of who he is. Bai Jie sees him as a man who was once important and renowned, while Bai Yun only sees the spoiled child who refuses food and wastes away inside the walls of his own house.
They must have talked about that, these two women, because one of the very first things Bai Jie asks about is why he never leaves the house.
“I expect disciples of Qinghe Nie would find me an unpleasant sight,” Lan Xichen replies, surprised this even needs to be said, after he helped the murderer of their former sect leader.
“The esteemed Zewu-Jun judges us wrongly,” Bai Jie retorts. “We bear no dislike for Nie zongzhu’s husband. We know what happened, of course. Nie zongzhu told us, once it was over. We are all very sorry that Zewu-Jun was made to suffer so.”
Lan Xichen has to refrain from a grimace. He suffered much indeed, helping a murderer, helping an ambitious liar, having to be tricked into bringing justice to the unjust.
In spite of his efforts, his expression must change and reveal some of his thoughts. Lan Xichen is no longer as skilled as he was at controlling his features. He has not needed to in a long while, locked up inside with no company but Bai Yun.
Bai Jie notices, and sighs.
“Honourable Zewu-Jun, it is Nie zongzhu who told us that you suffered,” she insists. “Some of us were angry at first about the marriage, especially the older ones that knew Chifeng-Zun well. But Nie zongzhu told us the truth of what happened, he reminded us that many others fell for Liangfang-Zun’s lies, him first of all. And now, we understand and would not dare to gossip against Zewu-Jun, let alone speak ill of him to his face. If you left the house, you would find no enemies in the Unclean Realm.”
“I am comfortable here,” Lan Xichen assures her.
It’s not a lie. Not really. He is comfortable. He has grown to like the safety of his prison. Bai Yun’s daily visits make isolation more bearable.
Inside his house, he is merely Lan Xichen. Outside… outside lay expectations he does not want to face anymore.
“He hasn’t even looked at the garden, you know,” Bai Yun intervenes from another part of the house, where she is doing whatever it is servants do to keep a house clean and tidy. “I’m not saying gone there, I’m saying not so much as glanced outside.”
Bai Jie gasps in horror, as if it matters to her whether Lan Xichen knows what his garden looks like or not.
It does not matter to him.
Curtains stay closed all day long.
It makes the house darker than it needs to be, but that suits him better. It is a prison after all. It has no business being bright and pleasant.
But Bai Jie, for all of her respectful ways, is a determined young woman, worse so than her mother. Bai Yun has long ago given up on making Lan Xichen do anything. Bai Jie pesters him all morning and afternoon about that blasted garden until Lan Xichen gives in and agrees to check it, just so she’ll leave him alone.
For the first time since arriving in the Unclean Realm, Lan Xichen opens his front door and steps outside.
Fresh air feels odd, after so long. Lan Xichen must have missed it without realising. He has to close his eyes to enjoy the slight breeze on his skin, the warmth of sunlight.
When he opens them again, he understands why Bai Jie and Bai Yun so wanted him to see the garden around his house.
It looks like the Cloud Recesses.
With the difference in climate and soil, it must have taken untold amounts of money and labour to get such a result. But it really does look like a smaller version of the Cloud Recesses, and so does the house, built in the same style as Lan Xichen’s old Hanshi. It would stand out among the rest of the Unclean Realm, but the garden is arranged in such a manner that aside from the highest buildings and the defensive walls, nothing of the Unclean Realm is visible.
Lan Xichen, overwhelmed, quickly returns inside, and wonders once more what Nie Huaisang is trying to accomplish.
-
It was a mistake to have given in once and stepped outside, because Lan Xichen misses it now.
He gives in to his need for fresh air, and starts wandering in his garden, in between Bai Yun’s visits. It is a torture, sometimes, to be stuck in this copy of his home, knowing it to be a prison. Lan Xichen has to assume it is meant to feel that way. Nie Huaisang has to be mocking him, mocking his failure to be what he ought to have been.
A fake Cloud Recesses for the man who played at being its sect leader.
At least, meditating gets easier out there. For the first time since that dreadful night, Lan Xichen manages to find some peace again, however fleeting it might be. Encouraged by that success, he spends more and more time out in the garden until he knows it by heart, just like his house.
He is outside, meditating under a tree, when Nie Manqian finds him.
It is a shock to receive a visit from Qinghe Nie’s first disciple. Nie Manqian is a cousin to his sect leader, and used to be fairly close to Nie Mingjue, under whose rule he became first disciple. Lan Xichen and him never had any quarrel before, and even bonded somewhat after Nie Huaisang had to rise to power, both of them eager to help the young man settle in a position that he clearly struggled with.
Lan Xichen knows better than to expect any good feelings to remain between them, now that he has been revealed to have helped murder Nie Mingjue.
And yet, Nie Manqian is perfectly cordial to him, asking if he likes the garden, if Bai Yun is taking good care of the house, if Bai Jie (who still visits at least once a week) does not bother him too much.
“She’s my future sister-in-law,” Nie Manqian reveals. “I know how she can be.”
It shocks Lan Xichen to learn this.
The Nie clan has always been more relaxed about allowing marriage of love rather than politics than any of the other clans, so it is no surprise that a cousin to the sect leader might marry a nobody, an outer disciple who brings nothing but her loyalty and skill.
No, what Lan Xichen doesn’t understand is why Bai Yun was made to serve him if she is about to rise in society with her daughter. Surely the future in-law to a high ranking Nie disciple should not be forced to clean floors for the man who murdered the sect’s beloved leader. Has she been sent as a spy? Watching him all along, reporting his every movements to Nie Huaisang, just another person pretending to befriend him for her own purposes…
A fake friend, a fake Cloud Recesses, all to match Lan Xichen’s undeserved reputation.
It might justice of a sort.
“I was so relieved when Bai Jie told me that you’ve been leaving the house at last,” Nie Manqian continues, undisturbed by Lan Xichen’s lack of answer. “We were getting worried about you, Zewu-Jun. I hope you will not mind me saying this, but you’ve never stricken me as a man to enjoy inactivity.”
Lan Xichen smiles.
It might have been better for everyone if he had not been so active, if he had not involved himself so much in the business of others.
They both know this.
“Zewu-Jun, I understand that the situation is not easy for you,” Nie Manqian says with a sympathy that Lan Xichen would fall for, if he did not know any better. “But I came here to remind you that you are free to move as you please in the entirety of the Unclean Realm, not just this house and its garden. In fact, I would be honoured if you considered sparring with me someday.”
“You would be disappointed,” Lan Xichen replies, almost in spite of himself. “My skills have rusted from disuse.”
“I doubt Zewu-Jun could disappoint me,” Nie Manqian claims. Lan Xichen wonders when he learned to lie with such sincerity. He always took the Nies to be poor liars. But of course, Nie Huaisang already proved that idea wrong. “I will not push for it, but rest assured that my offer remains, whether you accept it now or in ten years.”
“I will consider it,” Lan Xichen promises, intending to do no such thing.
He does not know what the Nie sect is trying to accomplish, but he will not play along.
Besides, he has not unsheathed Shuoyue since that night. He knows his sword’s blade is still stained with blood he does not have the courage to clean.
His skill might not be the only thing to have rusted by now.
-
It takes over a month, but Lan Xichen eventually makes it to the training grounds.
Nie Manqian might not have pushed for it, but Bai Jie heard about the offer, of course, and she had no qualms pestering Lan Xichen. All of his excuses were pushed aside effortlessly. She even found him a sword to practice with, when he explained that Shuoyue was in no state to be used. So Lan Xichen gives in, and follows her to the training grounds one night, late enough that nobody should be around to see them.
It is exhausting to yield a weapon again, after so long.
After barely a incense stick’s time, Lan Xichen muscles are in agony, his lungs burning.
Everything hurts.
Lan Xichen hasn’t felt so alive in ages.
-
Against his better judgement, Lan Xichen starts visiting the training grounds more and more. Only once or twice a week at first, but the way it makes his blood run again is too pleasant, and soon enough it is a nearly daily occurrence.
Only at night when it starts, but Nie Manqian hears about it of course and invites him again to spar. This time, Lan Xichen agrees.
He has not rusted as much as he assumed he would have, and it is thrilling to go against such a skill adversary. Nie Manqian wins their fight, but demands that they try again another day, claiming he won’t be happy until he’s faced Lan Xichen when he’s back to his normal level.
Lan Xichen agrees to this as well.
He still doesn’t know what game the Nie sect is playing with him, but he will take what he can get until his true punishment befalls him.
It is good to be sparring with a man he respects. It is good to see the assembled disciples watching their match, to hear them commenting on it, to find that they enjoyed that fight as much as he did.
It is good to be alive, to be himself.
Lan Xichen had forgotten.
That joy is short lived.
As Lan Xichen leaves the training grounds with Nie Manqian, he has to pass through the main courtyard of the Unclean Realm on the way back to his house. As he walks there, he is spotted by the leader of a small sect, waiting with his retinue for an audience with Nie Huaisang.
Hatred is too weak a word to describe the way that man looks at Lan Xichen.
“What is that murderer doing here, walking free with a sword in hand?” Sect leader Peng rages, pointing an accusing finger. “Wasn’t it promised that he would be kept under control?”
Nie Manqian stiffens and throws Lan Xichen an apologetic look before stepping in front of him, as if trying to protect him from that attack.
“Peng zongzhu, please keep your voice down,” Nie Manqian demands. “Nothing is happening here that goes against what was promised, and…”
“Nothing, really? He let Jin Guangyao murder whoever he pleased, probably helped him even, and you let him go around, dressed in finery, looking like a happy young master! I knew it was going to end up like this. You big sects always look out for one another in the end! We should have kept asking for his head! He never minded when we were slaughtered or cheated, why should he get to be treated any better?”
Lan Xichen feels his blood freeze.
It is one thing to have been told by his uncle that many wanted him dead for his association with Jin Guangyao, and quite another to witness it in person.
Before he can figure out how to react, a voice rings behind him.
“Peng zongzhu, I believe it is my right to treat my husband however I please,” Nie Huaisang states, passing by Lan Xichen without sparing him a glance. “We all agreed he should not continue ruling Gusu Lan, it so he doesn’t. We also agreed that if he lived, he should be kept under close watch, and so he is. Beyond that, I made no promises, and so I refuse to be faulted for failing to meet whatever criteria you imagined for yourself.”
“You implied he would be punished!”
“Isn’t it punishment to be married to a man such as myself?” Nie Huaisang retorts. Lan Xichen can hear his smile, even if he cannot see it at the moment, the other man's back turned to him.
“That’s…”
“I am in no mood to discuss my marriage,” Nie Huaisang continues, ignoring the attempted interruption, his voice steadier than Lan Xichen has heard it in years. “If you only came here for that, you may go away already, the topic really doesn’t interest me in the least. But if you are here for something that’s worth my time, I will listen of course. It is your choice, Peng zongzhu.”
Lan Xichen stares at this man who doesn’t speak nor act like the Nie Huaisang he knows.
Thought he knew.
Sect Leader Peng stares as well, but he’s far less confused than Lan Xichen and quickly starts explaining why he’s there. Troubles with demons that his sect lacks the power to deal with. Nie Huaisang invites the other sect leader to follow him so they can discuss this in private.
The two men pass right by Lan Xichen. Sect Leader’s eyes are still burning with hate, but Nie Huaisang acts as if he cannot even see Lan Xichen. As if the man who was once his friend isn’t even worthy of his notice anymore.
Perhaps he never was worthy of either notice nor friendship.
Nie Huaisang, more than anyone else, has every right to hate Lan Xichen for his failures.
This incident should be a wake-up call for all of Qinghe Nie, a reminder of who Lan Xichen is, what he’s done, what they’ve lost by his fault.
But Nie Manqian apologises for what just happened, and promises to be more careful in the future, so Lan Xichen isn’t exposed again to unwanted visitors.
“Nie zongzhu is going to scold me for this,” Nie Manqian adds. “But I thought he would have found time for Peng zongzhu already, and I was careless. It will not happen again.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lan Xichen replies. “Peng zongzhu said nothing untrue.”
Nie Manqian gives him a long, hard look for that remark.
“It doesn’t matter how Zewu-Jun feels about it,” he announces at last. “We were given orders to protect Zewu-Jun, and we failed to follow them. In the future, we will ensure you are kept safe.”
This brings dozens of questions to Lan Xichen’s mind. He doesn’t ask a single one of them, unsure Nie Manqian would be willing, or even capable, of answering them. They are both silent as they walk to Lan Xichen’s house.
Once he is alone, Lan Xichen collapses on his bed, telling himself it is only because sparring tired him. It does not matter that the world hates him. It is justified, after he cooperated with a murderer, after he failed to take action at every turn, after his complacency cost so many lives.
He understands being despised.
He does not understand Nie Huaisang giving orders to shield him from it.
-
Perhaps this is how Lan Wangji was born, Lan Xichen wonders as he hands Bai Yun a letter for Nie Huaisang. With curiosity, and an invitation.
His own birth has never been a mystery. There needed to be a child to make the marriage secure, and so he came to be. But Lan Wangji’s existence always puzzled him, once he understood the odd nature of his parents’ match. They never met, never visited one another, his uncle told him, so how did Qingheng-Jun seduce his wife into having another child, one that wasn’t necessary to keep her alive? All too often, Lan Xichen has imagined the worst of his own father.
But here he is now, a prisoner inside a sect he doesn’t belong with, a sect that ought to hate him, ruled by a man who would have every right to execute him.
Lan Xichen always feared becoming his father. It never occurred to him that he is his mother’s son as well.
It surprises him when Bai Yun, the next day, brings an answer from Nie Huaisang. More shocking still, the other man is accepting his offer to dine together than night. The calligraphy on that letter is elegant and flawless. But of course, that at least is something Lan Xichen knew to expect.
Nie Huaisang comes a little before nightfall, followed by some servants carrying their dinner.
Lan Xichen feels like he is in front of a stranger. He doesn’t know what to think of this Nie Huaisang who stands straight and proud, who carries a fan but doesn’t hide behind it, who meets his eyes without hesitation.
“I hope the house and garden have been to your tastes,” Nie Huaisang comments while the servants finish setting the table.
The dishes are all, without exception, vegetarian. Lan Xichen doesn’t know what to think of that either, when Nie Huaisang has always been so vocal in his dislike of Gusu Lan’s cuisine.
“Your hospitality has been most generous, Nie zongzhu.”
Nie Huaisang smirks at him. “Hospitality? I am not sure that is quite the right word here, Er-ge. But a man must ensure his spouse lives comfortably. I am glad if I was able to provide adequately.”
Lan Xichen watches the servant leave, unsure what he can or should say in their presence. When they are gone, he turns to Nie Huaisang again.
“Why are you doing this?”
Nie Huaisang opens his fan as he sits down, though only to idly play with it.
“A good question, but ultimately a pointless one. As I’ve said before, would you believe me even if I answered?”
Lan Xichen joins him at the table, and pours tea for both of them. He isn’t sure he will manage to eat, but drinking is usually easy enough.
“Whether I believe you or not is up to me. Either way, I want to hear your answer.”
This time, Nie Huaisang finally does hide behind his fan. It is such a familiar gesture that Lan Xichen aches at the sight.
“If Zewu-Jun wants to know, then I’ll try to explain,” Nie Huaisang sighs. “I’m doing this because I want to protect you. It’s that simple. Some people out there think that I did what I did for the sake of justice, and so I should want for you to be punished. Those people are wrong. Justice is for idiots.”
He fans himself slowly, careful to keep his face mostly hidden.
“I am not a good man, Zewu-Jun. I really don’t care about ideals. I don’t have the strength to stand for what’s right, like your brother and his husband. Like you. All that matters to me is the things and people I love. Someone killed my brother, so that person had to die. That person also hurt you, though you did not know it at the time, so he had to suffer as well. He manipulated the two people I love best and tried to lead them to their doom, so of course I had to do the same to him. It is really that simple.”
“The two people you love best… your brother, and who else?”
Nie Huaisang closes his fan with a sharp gesture, and gives Lan Xichen a pointed look that makes him blush.
“I find that hard to believe,” he says, looking down.
“Of course. Didn’t I say you wouldn't believe me?” Nie Huaisang asks, taking his chopsticks to toy with some of the food. “It’s fine. It took me a while to get there, but I don’t care about being believed or trusted anymore. It’s enough that I know the truth, and that I know where I stand.”
Lan Xichen falls silent, more puzzled than before.
He cannot say that the idea of Nie Huaisang holding him dear comes out of nowhere. There have been signs, here and there. Or at least, Lan Xichen had thought there had been signs. He doesn’t know anymore. Whether those signs were real or not, they never bothered him, his own sentiment on the matter fluctuating over the years. He used to be very fond of Nie Huaisang before Nie Mingjue died, before merely pitying him in the years that followed.
He doesn’t know how to feel about this anymore.
As Lan Xichen watches Nie Huaisang serve food for him, new questions arise. He almost doesn’t want to ask them. The answers he’s been getting, so far, have been anything but satisfying.
“If this is true…” he starts, only for Nie Huaisang to raise an eyebrow.
“If? So you really distrust me so much, Er-ge?”
“Does it matter? My trust does not reflect the value of anyone’s character,” Lan Xichen points out, making Nie Huaisang grimace. “So, if it is true that you feel that way, why did you never try to make our marriage more than what it has been so far?”
Nie Huaisang sips on some tea, clearly giving himself time to think how to answer that question. He was already like that as a youth. Or perhaps this too is an act, a way to comfort Lan Xichen, to make him feel like he still knows the other man.
“I know where I stand,” Nie Huaisang repeats, putting down his glass. “I think I know where you stand as well, perhaps better than you do at the moment. I have no illusions regarding the way you feel about me. You think me untrustworthy. You have clearly been expecting me to turn against you, to harm you. As for our values, much as I admire you, I also realise that we view the world too differently to be compatible. I am selfish, and I care only about what I consider to be mine, the rest can rot. You are a just man, trying to do good even to the undeserving. Of course, none of that needs matter, we could take each other to bed even with you despising me, but… ah, would you believe it, Er-ge?” he laughs, without warmth nor joy. “Even a man like me can want to be loved. And if I can’t have it all, I’d rather have nothing.”
Lan Xichen doesn’t know how to answer, and they both fall silent as they eat.
He cannot say he likes the Nie Huaisang in front of him, bold and cutting, so unapologetic about his defects that he almost sounds proud of them.
He cannot say he dislikes him either.
After dealing with Jin Guangyao’s half truths, after years of Nie Huaisang’s crocodile tears, unpleasant truths can only be welcome.
-
It ought to have been a one time occurrence, that dinner together. Lan Xichen has obtained the answers he thought, no matter how hard to believe he finds them. That should have been the end of it, with the two of them living separate lives, never meeting.
A week later, Lan Xichen invites Nie Huaisang to dine with him again.
He cannot say why he does it. He is not at a loss for company. Bai Yun is there daily. Bai Jie comes by whenever she has time. Nie Manqian and him spar when they can. And still, it is with Nie Huaisang that Lan Xichen wishes to dine and talk.
He is surprised when Nie Huaisang accepts that second invitation, and more surprised still when that second dinner turns out much more pleasant than the first. They don’t talk about their marriage this time. Instead Nie Huaisang starts chatting about his youngest disciples who are just starting to go to class, and how difficult it is to handle them. Lan Xichen finds himself agreeing, and they spend the evening chatting about teaching, and comparing how their respective sects handle it.
Lan Xichen is not surprised when Nie Huaisang accepts his next invitation to dinner, or any of the following ones.
It isn’t that their discussions are always pleasant, as such. They get into intense debates sometimes, fierce arguments about how to handle certain problems. Nie Huaisang believes in letting people handle their own issues unless they threaten his interests. Lan Xichen advocates for early interventions so things do not degenerate. At the same time, Nie Huaisang claims he sees little use in mercy, while Lan Xichen follows his sect’s refusal to kill unless necessary and thinks second chances ought to be given.
It has been a long, long time since Lan Xichen has been able to have conversations like that.
He used to, of course. With Nie Mingjue, before Jin Guangyao joined them and upset their balance. With Nie Huaisang as well, back before he started hiding behind tears.
Because as they dine together, week after week, Lan Xichen starts remembering the boy Nie Huaisang used to be, and realises that maybe he should have expected the way things happened. Nie Huaisang was always clever, always a touch manipulative, always a little selfish. He was a boy who got people to do his homework for him, who always knew what people could help him with what problem, who knew exactly how to get his brother to let him do as he pleased. He couldn’t memorise family trees, but he would recite poetry from memory and paint such lovely things.
Lan Xichen had forgotten how much he used to like Nie Huaisang.
It occurs to him, of course, that Nie Huaisang might be lying again. That all of this might just be a scheme to get his trust by playing at being the version of himself that Lan Xichen likes best.
Lan Xichen mentions it one night.
Nie Huaisang laughs, loud and unrestrained, the way he used to do when joking with Nie Mingjue.
“Er-ge, why would I lie to you?” he points out. “To others, sure, but you… there’s nothing I’d want from you I could get through lying.”
Lan Xichen, immediately, thinks that perhaps all those cultivators who wanted him to step down were right because there he is, believing the most skilled liar he has ever met.
It is pleasant to believe Nie Huaisang again.
“And what is it you’d want from me, that you can only get by saying the truth?”
Nie Huaisang laughs again. It is more forced this time, and he opens his fan. He rarely does it these days.
“Er-ge, let’s not talk about that, it’d just spoil everything. Isn’t it nice being together like this, as friends? I’m very happy with it, I must say. I’m grateful you’re still willing to be my friends, after everything.”
That gratefulness goes both ways. Lan Xichen cannot believe that friendship with Nie Huaisang is something he can have. Something he can want.
And now, after everything, after finding that he trusts Nie Huaisang in spite of it all, friendship might not be the only thing Lan Xichen wants.
He should ask, perhaps.
He doesn’t, and just leans over the table.
Nie Huaisang doesn’t resist when Lan Xichen pushes away his fan, nor when their lips meet. The warmth of his mouth, the soft solidness of his lips, are intoxicating. Lan Xichen feels like he might never want to stop, now that he’s had a taste of it.
But of course, there’s no reason why they should stop.
Nie Huaisang is his husband now.
Having long discovered the worst of what they both are, it is more than time they get to enjoy the best as well.
#xisang#lan xichen#nie huaisang#mdzs#mo dao zu shi#jau writes#I swear I'll go back to prompts and other wips now#I just really needed to get some stuff out of my system :)
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I’ll Meet You There (Part 3)
Pairing: Marcus Moreno/ Wife!Reader (AFAB, no y/n)
Word Count: 2.6K
Warnings: Talks about loss of spouse, loss of child, medical conditions/inaccuracies, grief/mourning, manipulation/brainwashing (subtext/implied, but we’ll get into it later *winkwink*)
Tags: Hurt/No comfort (for now), ANGST, eventual happy ending, one really sad man for whom I just keep making things worse, #sorrynotsorry, and now I’m just making stuff up as I go along
Summary(lite): You are Marcus’s wife, and you’re definitely not dead. No one is having a great time right now, but like hell if there's a force on this earth that’ll keep you apart forever. This is not a goodbye, its just a see you later. And the interim is going to be everyone else’s problem, you’ll make sure of it.
A/N: Hello dears, welcome back to my twisted mind story,,, guess who showed up like 2 weeks late with a smoothie! So things about this new chapter: I am a criminal with italics and someone needs to stop me, hello switching scenes and perspectives because I just want to fast forward to the good stuff but y’all don’t live in my head and don’t know all the stuff that happens to get us there so here we are taking the slow lane, and I keep brainstorming new and horrible things for my characters because I am A Lot, All The Time, and will not be stopped. Also hey, Marcus the Simp is here for you, so much. I hope this is acceptable to be a reader fic still, because I am giving you some serious personality traits... ehh, it is what it is. Tell me if you spot any of my various references, there’s a lot of ‘em. Thanks to everyone who has liked/reblogged/commented, y’all are gorgeous and I’m so grateful for the love <3 Drop me a message/ask if you want a secret about one of the characters (specify which one), I need an outlet for my endless b.t.s. plotting >;) Please enjoy p3!
AO3|Masterlist
[Previous Part]
---
There were more casseroles in his fridge that Marcus knew what to do with, and more sympathy and “thinking of you” cards stacked in piles around the house than he could count. He appreciated everyone’s gestures, but he could recognize the difference between people who were kind in the interest of helping others, and those who were kind only to help themselves. It was quite obvious which type were flooding his mailbox.
Hell, most of the people sending him cards, his fans, didn’t even know his wife, never spoke to her, didn’t feel the empty Her-shaped-space in their very souls. They just wanted the clout, the prestige, of being ‘involved’ and sympathetic to a grieving superhero. It was exhausting, but no one seemed to empathize with him on that.
The Heroics upper management, and the director specifically after his press conference and the publicity the attack had brought the organization, had insisted on Marcus taking an undetermined amount of leave from the team so he could “process and mourn his loss in the comfort of his own home.” Like he didn’t look around and see every piece of himself and his wife over the years; the Home they built for their family, filled with all the hopes and dreams of two starry eyed lovers ready to take on the world together. Like her absence wasn’t slowly killing him.
And it wasn’t like she was gone gone.
Dead.
She wasn’t dead.
No way in Hell.
Whether it was because she worked with superpowered people, her experience as a medical professional, or if she was just more paranoid than most, his wife was a planner, and she was prepared for this. “In the event of my death...," like she just knew it would be necessary.
Truthfully, she had schemes and contingencies and all manner of reactionary plans prepared for if (and when) the worst happened; terrified to be blindsided or caught unaware, unable to help those she would have been able to, if only if she had the time to think. Unpreparedness costs lives in both of their careers, and she refused to leave anything up to chance if possible. And so, she’d plan, and he’d listen.
All throughout their relationship, from before they’d even gotten serious enough to discuss marriage, to when they heard their unborn child’s heartbeat for the first time, and just on random weekday afternoons when they would take Missy for walks around the neighbourhood to show her the beauty in their lives, his wife would paint her theories and ideas like artwork. She’d tell him a story, full of action and mystery, humour and theatrics, tragic romance and harrowing adventure; she could spin a tale like she had a silver tongue, but she never lost herself in her own narratives. In the end, they were messages, lessons, for him to remember when everything was going wrong.
“It’s all about momentum, babe. Bleeding off energy and taking a bad hit instead of a fatal hit. You can’t just full stop; you’d absorb all the kinetic energy, and the resulting trauma will turn all your squishy internals into, like, body soup, which is just super unpleasant. And of course, head is always number one priority. Bracing for impact works better at giving you fewer serious injuries, especially for your neck and head. Muscles should absorb as much of the energy as possible, instead of letting it fall to your ligaments, discs, and nerves to take the force. So, tense up and roll in the case of a low air evacuation.”
Low air evac... she was concerned he was going to have to jump from an aircraft without a parachute at some point in his life. Which was probably accurate he’d admit, but still, he wasn’t hoping to actually need that plan.
Thankfully, it wasn’t always fire and brimstone with her, and she had many strange and terrible schemes to keep the common, everyday superhero family on their toes. Always carry at least two lip balms... never tell someone you don’t have plans for the evening... don’t smile in your mugshot... no clowns. Ever.
She was so weird, a total nerd, and so completely the girl of his dreams.
He loved teasing her about her unending train of thought, the brain that never sleeps, how she’d go on tangents while on tangents but always circle back around; even nicknamed her (quite cheekily, and because it made them both laugh) Doctor Batman, which was usually saved for when she was being particularly dramatic and gloomy. Turn the supercomputer off for a second, Bats, come see what Missy’s doing!
He was her anchor, always ready to pull her back to earth when she started drifting off too far from them, but he never asked and never wanted her to change. He adored her, silly or serious, or when she woke him up in the middle of the night to make him promise that he’d never get their kid(s) a pet owl (because they’re “scary”, and “our kids would be too powerful, Marcus. Promise me!”), or that in the event of them inviting a third to their bed, it would “absolutely never, ever, ever be Miracle. No way!”
He thought it was quite entertaining most of the time, listening to her plan for zombies and old gods and what to do if everyone just started hating cheese one day, but if it was all so important to her: having him remember this or agree to that, he’d accede to her requests in a heartbeat. Most of it was cute, harmless stuff he didn’t think would even happen, but sometimes she would hit him with serious stuff. Entirely out of left field, she’d go for his heart, and ask him for things that would hurt him, destroy him inside, if he ever had to follow through with it.
“Marcus, if it’s a choice between my safety- my life, and Missy’s? I’m always going to choose her. Kids come first, okay?”
She wasn’t superpowered, didn’t have a shred of anything other than pure, normal human in her, but she was easily the strongest person he knew. Fearless and brave, kinder than this world deserved, she’d do anything for the people she cared about. And she’d promised him, maybe as a way to repay him for all the things he’d agreed to over the years, that she’d move heavens and the earth to return to their family. That nothing in this world, or beyond, could keep her away. “Eventually,” she’d stared into his eyes, glossy with tears from how forcefully she believed, “I will find my way back to you. I swear it, so keep a weather eye on the horizon.” See? A whole-ass nerd, and he couldn’t have loved her more.
So, she wasn’t dead. Pure and simple. She was somewhere, somehow, and he was going to find her again.
---
“Marcus, the grieving process is different for everyone, but it is always unpredictable and painful. You will have days where you will feel like you haven’t made any progress, or even lost the progress you’ve previously made, but please know that this is natural; it's something everyone experiences, and that it doesn’t mean you’ve failed in your objective. Healing takes time, and a major part of recovery is learning to forgive yourself when you slip up. No one expects you to be back to normal tomorrow, or next week, or next month. Healing from grief is not a race, so we will go at your own pace, and we will work together to accomplish your recovery goals. You aren’t alone in this journey, and you don’t need to handle everything by yourself.”
The grief specialist he was seeing was someone he would describe as an “old soul”. She exuded the patience and peace of someone who had watched empires rise and fall, seen the turning of the wheel of time and drifted along with the current. Her voice was deep, rich in emotion and empathy for those who needed guidance, calming and intriguing with a soft lilt on her vowels. Timeless and ancient all in one, and even if he wasn’t actually mourning the death of his wife, he did find himself deeply grieving being without her. They were two halves of a whole, and though his soul was at a loss without its partner here, he still had their greatest creation, their pride and joy, their baby girl to raise.
He would do whatever he had to do to be the best parent he could for Missy. And so, if meeting with a physiatrist every week was something that would help, then he would be here, every week. He'd learn to live with his grief, his sadness and loneliness, with just the memory of his Everything, and he’d help their kid with all hers too.
It’s what he promised to do, after all.
“If anything ever happens to me, you’ll just have to love her enough for the both of us.”
---
There was nothing they could recover of the people closest to centre of the explosion. No remains, no blood, nothing. Like they hadn’t been there at all.
Suspicious.
Upper Management had brought in a team of private investigators to handle the case, people who would keep the details quiet and the public appeased with what little information they’d choose to release.
Marcus was a superhero, and sure, his job was to hit things until they weren’t a problem anymore, but he couldn’t understand why all the highly trained professionals didn’t question the sheer amount of evidence that just wasn’t adding up.
He tried to bring up the inconsistencies once with the lead investigator, but they had just given the distraught, widowed husband, so lost in his own denial and grasping at straws, a sad smile and told him they would do everything they could to find the truth for him and the rest of the victims’ families.
Typical.
After being brushed off without a second thought, he decided to keep his ideas quiet, and since they’d proven their unwillingness to listen, he’d just have to solve the mass disappearance himself.
“Have you ever thought about how to commit the perfect murder, mi amor? I have. First: If there’s no body, they can’t prove the person is dead. No evidence of death? No murder. Simple. But of course, completely vanishing a full human would be a challenge. Short of having the superpowers necessary to, like, erase someone from reality in their entirety, there would be a lot of chances to leave evidence. Ordering suspicious chemicals leaves a trail, driving out to a pig farm in the middle of the night is shady as hell and all neighbors are professional narcs, and fires? Hah! Do you have any idea how hot the fire needs to be to cremate human remains, and how long they would need to grill for? Huh, maybe the perfect murder isn’t a murder at all...
Hey babe...
Always doubt a body, but always doubt no body, more.”
---
You tended to lose time when there was no one else in your room. It was hard to tell when your eyes were open because you started dreaming about the only things you could see since you first woke up: drop-ceiling tiles, white walls, and pale blue curtain dividers. And it was easier that way, in the end. Your heart didn’t hurt when you only dreamt of the room. You couldn’t mourn the things and people only your soul could remember if you thought of the room. Drifting in and out of consciousness was how you were coping.
---
You had been here, left in this room alone, for ages. You had agreed to help the man who had saved you from the explosion that killed your family, but apparently you couldn’t help him until you had recovered enough. You’d read your charts, grilled your nurses and doctors more and more the longer you were kept here. What were they all waiting for? There was nothing wrong with you except the mild post traumatic amnesia, and the whole not-remembering-much-(or anything, really)-about-your-personal-life-and-family-of-the-recent-few-years thing you had going on. It was nothing compared to when you first awoke and could remember nothing. It killed you to be without the memories of your husband and child, to know only of them instead of actually knowing them, but there was nothing you or the doctors here could do. The brain was a tricky thing, and you had to accept that your memory loss might be permanent.
That just meant that you had to put all that you could remember to good use. You could help people here, and work towards getting justice for your family. Years and years of school, practical experience and training, you had gained it all back; re-read textbooks and studies, wrote papers on your re-emerging knowledge and jogged your memory about long nights and early mornings, surgeries and follow ups... it was all still in your head. It had returned to you easily, like diving into a cool pool on a hot summer day. It was like coming home and taking off your shoes; it felt good, freeing, as-it-should-be.
But still they weren’t letting you leave. So: what were they waiting for?
“Ah, Doctor, it’s lovely to see you, as always. How are we feeling today?” Okay, so the guy who “saved” you (read: paid the people who actually saved your life) gave you the heebie-jeebies. He looked like a classic pompous asshole bigwig, like, oil tycoon or something. And he definitely had some sort of thing for you. Gross.
“I’m doing as well as can be expected, trapped in a room with nothing to do, you know, brain rotting, et cetera. Thanks for asking.” The sass was a choice, probably not a great choice, but your choice none-the-less. You really hadn’t had many opportunities to choose anything for yourself in a while.
Well...
You were bored, and that was going to be everyone else’s problem.
“Ah, well, good news then! You have been cleared from observation and you’ll be able to be discharged soon. Isn’t that just delightful!” Mister Craig (“Please, just Greg is fine”), was some sort of horrible group hallucination, you were convinced. No one was that cheery, that animated, unless they were on something, or you were on something. “I’ll have someone bring you your personal effects shortly, and then I can show you to your new apartment. The complex isn’t in the best neighbourhood unfortunately, but it's got some real charm, very vintage! You’ll love it!”
“I’ll look forward to seeing it then; sounds like it’ll be a real interesting place to stay. You can also explain what it is I’m going to be doing with your organization. Because you haven’t specified yet. And I expect a proper contract and wage agreement. Legally binding preferably, for your sake, of course, Mr. Craig.” Even if you weren’t the most physically intimidating person around, you knew how, and more so, when, to assert your dominance in a conversation. Especially with men like him. He was the type of guy who would pinch a nurse’s ass and then accuse them of not being able to take a joke.
“You wound me, Doctor, I am a man of integrity! I promised you an opportunity to make a difference! To get justice for the loved ones so cruelly torn from you! You have nothing to worry about!”
Sounds legit. Totally above board. Can’t wait.
---
Taglist (omg!! thanks love): @killtherandomness
Drop me a line if you want to be added <3
#we can be heroes#we can be heroes fanfiction#marcus moreno#marcus moreno x reader#Marcus Moreno x you#reader x marcus moreno#reader insert#Pedro Pascal#hurt/comfort#eventual happy ending#say hello to doctor batman lol. theres a whole thing i created just for that nickname to happen. ask me about it if you want XD#also you're a sassy BAMF. oops
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The Untamed Liveblog
Yes hello I watched the whole thing and wrote down some of my thoughts and feelings along the way so I wouldn’t fuckign EXPLODE! Only look under the cut if you’re prepared for a truly outrageous amount of rambling (...no really)
- I am elated to find that so far every adaptation I’ve seen has faithfully preserved the absolutely bizarre structure of the original book, I am appreciating the dedication haha
- the actor lends this version of lan wangji such an edge of youth and vulnerability right from the beginning, it breaks my heart. I don’t care how good he is with a sword, you can’t expose this pure sweet boy to the horrors of war!!!
- I am so glad I already know who all these characters are and wtf is going on, I can’t imagine watching this first time without that knowledge lol
- I love how they’ve made nie huaisang look so small and soft next to all the other cultivator, he looks like a floofy and eternally confused baby birb ;______;
- nhs citing the goldfinch as the reason he doesn’t want to die (presumably because no one will know to take care of it) TOT ur meant to be comic relief in this part of the story buddy you can’t make me cry like this yet!!!
(also the actor for wwx effortlessly sliding into being protective and reassuring and Good in a crisis. wonderful!)
- the actor for xue yang has chosen to go with the sexy baby school of evil acting normally associated with female villains and for that I can only applaud him
also setting up characters who are going to be important later on is something this show is doing better than the original haha, both the extra wen quing & ning and song lan & xiao xingcheng content is appreciated. (especially the latter suffered from ‘oh yeah those two -- actually wait who the fuck are these two again’ syndrome for me when I read the book. additional note: I am very sorry but clearly they are gay there’s no other explanation here)
- poor jiang cheng, they really haven’t given him much help in this huh. I would sort of have preferred it if they let him be ever so slightly less abrasive in the beginning, like in the book and the animated version; I’m not feeling quite as devastated over this relationship as I did in either of those.
- lan xichen’s soft knowing smile is a blessing every time. just a nice man. did not deserve this. protect.
- kudos to the actor for jin guangyao for the instinctive creeping unease I feel whenever he talks, even at this stage. he’s a wrong ‘un sir he’s a wrong ‘un
- y’know both the fact that nhs spent three days catching a bird and kept it with him undetected and that he’s the friend you go to for the good porn and managed to not only smuggle it into the cloud recesses but did so without getting caught... some wonderful subtle foreshadowing here (to make up for the very blatant visual foreshadowing that’s already been given out I assume lol)
- anyway lan ancestor lady and baoshan-sanren? gay. sad and gay. (I love how thoroughly wwx is getting to meet the in-laws btw lol how often do you have to meet your future spouse’s family from like three generations ago and take care of her rabbits for her after she’s gone, all before you even get to second base)
- fkadshfkasjdlhfsdjkfh the sheer consistency of nhs wistfully commenting on all the beautiful men surrounding him fsadfkjsdhfksd I think they might oh so subtly be hinting at some stuff here. HILARIOUS that this version, which has to maintain at least the veneer of some plausible homoerotic deniability, is a lot more overt about it than the book, which is free to be balls to the wall as gay as you please
- oh no nie mingjue just showed up my entire heart is on fire. BIG BROTHER!! so stern yet fair, so righteous, so worried y______y also can we talk about how his ‘hmmm I think imma stab it?’ approach to evil in general and xue yang in particular would have saved everyone a lot of grief later on? and he tells wwx the whole necromancy thing is probably not a good idea? (I really like how he does it too, he has so much Older Brother Energy it spills over when he talks to other kids around huaisang’s age lol. it’s good that they show his temper isn’t indiscriminate at all, he’s not angry at wwx even though his idea is provably incredibly dangerous) sole ornery voice of reason nie mingjue, also did not deserve what’s about to happen, I cry and my tears are blood
- ‘yeah okay I get that you’re mad but have you maybe considered... I didn’t do it?’ is an unusually weak opening move from jgy considering nmj literally did just see him absolutely 100% do it
- there should be a WARNING at the beginning of episodes where nmj cries so one could be PREPARED for the emotional devastation!!!!! tollest & stronkest man of the cast also stupidly pretty and heartbreaking while crying, it’s not fair
- I love how every cultivation sect’s home (except for the wens b/c they’re cartoon villains) is refined and beautiful and luxurious, even when it’s in a restrained way like the lans’... and then there’s the nie place which is like ‘please understand that this is a fuckn fortress’
- aww this doomed jiang cheng/wen quing thing is cute! too bad about... everything that’s about to happen happening huh
- oh wen ning. very hilarious that he’s known as the ~*ghost general*~ forevermore when actually... he is baby... cinnamon roll baby... too good for this world, too pure...
- how is this cgi turtle somehow less egregious than the one in the animated version lol. I quite like this bad little friend! long neck.
- oh NO lan wangji finally letting himself show that he’s in pain when they’re in private... i’m uwu
this beautiful boy is so long and lanky tho, I must admit he triggers my parental instinct more than the hot boy alert at this stage (but that’s fine I’m not the one who’s going to smooch him that’s wwx’s job lol)
the look of absolute disbelief and despair lwj gives when wwx thinks he’s in love with mianmian... this show is a cinematic masterpiece and I will hear no other opinion
- lwj looking at the love of his life completely missing the point: are you a joke to you (the answer is yeah)
- okay we’ve officially hit the point where everything’s about to go to hell for real, pray for me I’m not sure I can handle this again
- jiang fengmian acknowledge your other son who desperately wants your attention and affection challenge (unfinished)
- watching this scene knowing exactly what this promise means to jiang cheng and that wwx is going to break it... this is fINE
why the fuck did I do this to myself I know what’s about to happen when will I learn to quit while I’m ahead lol
- the change in subtext from the novel that EVERYONE sees wangxian coming from day one is so painful from jiang cheng’s side. this poor boy really has abandonment issues pelting him from every direction huh. tfw your idiot genius brother doesn’t even fucking realize he’s basically announcing he’s leaving your clan and your side to get married one day ;______;
- man mxtx is just so GOOD at peppering in the small private tragedies that somehow sting even worse than huge atrocities going on. the fact that madam yu and papa jiang never manage to reconcile and communicate except possibly in death... oof my friends. oooof.
- WAIT WHAT NO DON’T SHOW ME THE CHILDREN WHO’RE ABOUT TO DIE WHAT THE FUCK YOU MONSTERS
- like we’re right at the worst part now and she is an asshole... but damn madam yu’s last stand is epic tho. like a champ to the end
- wen zhuliu’s actor being able to uphold a look of tremendous boredom at all times regardless of what’s going on around him is Poetic Cinema Bitches
- jiang cheng and wei ying are holding hands on the boat... stab me in the heart... end my suffering
- you know what in this version we get to see that madam yu knew her husband came back for her and they died holding hands and not everything’s on fire yet, so far this isn’t quite as harrowing as the animated version. the dead children are fucking me up but the tone of the animated version is like a nightmare, this is less disturbing to me
also can we talk about how madam yu fought them off the whole day and night and her husband gets his ass owned within five minutes 😔 oh papa jiang
- oh okay turns out jiang cheng’s ‘I want my mom and dad’ gets to me in every adaptation good to know
they’re so young they’re bbs I don’t want to be here anymore haha
- wen ning. a sweet angel. just the goodest of boys. his sister raised him so well ;______:
- wen quing is so ethereally beautiful and also looks like she could stop a train with the force of one glance. like she’s my height but her presence is immense
- oh I see we’ve arrived at the tiny adorable flashback bbs part of this journey, let me just... just lie down somewhere huh
- outside of the central romance this is a tale about people who love their brothers very very much and it’s real sad for everyone involved
- me watching nie mingjue kicking down the doors to reclaim his own dang fortress: YEEEEAAAAH GO OFF DAGE!!! i um love him and his very handsome face
- jiang cheng dreaming about his family is EMOTIONAL WARFARE!!! how fucking dare!!!
- y’know what this isn’t a bad way of adapting the burial grounds thing! also pretty cost effective I imagine, gotta think about the budget when so much of it goes into fabulous wigs and robes
- credit where it’s due, the actor for wen chao makes his face do some shit I didn’t know human faces could do and he’s enjoyable to watch in the capacity as your friendly neighbourhood hate sink
- lwj consistently using wwx’s personal name even when talking to total strangers now... mhm this is also fine
- I can’t beliEVE this show is somehow less subtle about the gay stuff than the book, jin zixuan basically just asked lwj if he and wwx were... y’know... I guess cultivation partners would be the way to go here lol. between that and nhs more or less asking them if they were off fucking after the whole cold cave debacle... what a time to be alive even if they’re not going to kiss on-screen
- huaisang I hate to have to be the one to tell you this but your brother is an entire snacc. and yet I respect him way too much to ever proposition him, I know he is busy winning a war and being Righteous and slowly being driven mad by the ghost in his sword on top of raising his little brother, I’m not here to complicate things for him any further
I love this version of nmj so much though. this sense that he also sees the stuff that is genuinely good in jgy and has a real moment of grief that the dude just can’t seem to get away from his basic insecurity that causes him to do horrific things, even when handed other opportunities... the fact that he seems regretful and worried when asking jin zixuan how jgy is doing with the jin....... everything to do with his little brother...................... oh no he’s Soft in his private life this is awful
- poor lwj’s ‘I have a bad feeling about this’ face in this scene haha, he’s staring at this talisman like ‘I only know one person smart and dumb enough to pull this off’
- can’t wen quing just get one nice thing. one nice thing just for her. hasn’t she been through enough. give her her brother back and a nice quiet place to practice medicine and maybe some soft romance with jiang cheng eventually this show is kind of selling me on this.
- unexpectedly my favourite part of the revenge scene is just the camera switching back to lwj and jc watching in horrified silence like ‘...O___o dude this is fucked up tho right?? it’s not just me that’s messed up??’
- one is forced to wonder about wen zhuliu tho. this version reads as pretty explicitly depressed/suicidal to me, he’s kind of an interesting villain since his main traits are unquestioning loyalty mixed with unending indifference and also seemingly not too pressing a will to live
- oh nhs desperately trying to keep it together and pretend nothing’s different ;_____; this version is really driving it home that wwx is a lot of people’s only friend -- jiang cheng is mentioned to not have anyone but his sister to play with before he arrived, lwj was raised primarily on books and rules and his brother is ELATED that he has one (1) friend now, from the sheer depth of the attachment I’m willing to bet nhs hasn’t had many real friends in his life either. wwx gives and gives of himself and doesn’t know how to take help in return.
- foreknowledge is a beautiful thing; if you look at nhs when it’s revealed wwx didn’t bring his sword you can visibly see his brain kicking into overdrive haha. smart boy.
- big sister ;_______; I am an older sibling so I haven’t really had the feeling of having an older sister to look to, I see why it might be comforting now
- oh this is some real uruk-hai shit!! honestly the special effects in this aren’t half as bad as I’d been lead to fear, some of you guys just weren’t forged in the crucible of shitty sci-fi channel cgi at an early age and it shows
(honestly the weird fight stuff threw me much worse in nirvana in fire, because that series has such intricate, credible and realistic political world building and then people are flying all over the place through wire fu and it is so disorienting haha)
- oh nhs looking up at his brother like a puppy during the war council T______T baby bird boy
(between this point in the main story and fatal journey it’s very interesting how clearly nhs needs the emotional stability and safety of his brother -- who also seems to be his parental figure -- to function properly, even in his late teens. it looks like he needed more time to grow up than the rest of them even before they were all thrown into this awful bullshit. well he does have a lot of murderkitten brain to grow I guess that’s fair enough lol. wwx has some of the same thing with his sister too)
- whenever lxc and nmj look at each other it feels like the only two adults in the room meeting each other’s eyes like ‘...oh dear’
- aww lwj getting some advice from his brother. this poor kid really hasn’t been raised to handle the moral complexity of the real world huh, good thing lxc is here to lend some nuance to lan qiren’s unforgiving dogma
- oh lan zhan
- nmj’s plan to just idk somehow go in alone and fight the wen overlord mano a mano to avoid any more casualties... a spine made of steel, a heart made of gold, a head made of wood :’) truly a perfect man, good thing his brother got the brains in that family and he has some more sensible people around him
- in the face of inevitability I plead... jiang yanli... please don’t marry this asshole your son is going to be predictably insufferable
wwx has suffered through so much the last four months or so and yet his real breaking point is seeing his sister cry and can I just say -- relatable content
- NO! NO STOP HURTING HIM HE’S JUST GOOD AND HANDSOME AND DOESN’T DESERVE THIS
(could be applied to like 98% of these characters but in this case it’s nmj b/c I love him)
I do find it very funny and oddly comforting that nmj is literally so fuckn mad that it takes three times as many attacks for the evil sorcery stuff to take him down than we’ve seen used on anyone else fsdkfhasdkj too angry to die
wHY has my brain chosen for me to attach so deeply to perhaps The single most inevitably doomed person in this entire cast, at this point I’m just being cruel to myself lol
- I can’t describe how much I love the fanficiness of this story, in the best ways. the emotional fallout from the destruction of the lotus pier gets more screentime and attention than the entire sunshot campaign, and that’s exactly how I want it to be.
- they’ve been doing some great work to establish that the jin are also jeeeeeerks for such a long time, how’s that for foreshadowing
- equal opportunity traitor jgy gets his stab in lol one must respect the grift, though, he’s set himself up pretty darn good
*lxc stops nmj from killing jgy, hello darkness my old friend starts playing in the background*
fatal journey builds nicely on this fundamental thing that the nie boys take their responsibility to their people extremely seriously, it seems to be the fact that jgy so blithely talks about them as necessary casualties that really sets him off
- adlfsdfhsdkjh lxc and nmj meekly being like ‘...we could maybe... not commit war crimes? if that’s at all possible? no?’
*slaps ‘I don’t think you even tried at all’ stars on both of them* (I mean I actually do kind of see where they’re coming from a bit, they just came out of a pretty costly war and I wouldn’t feel too comfortable getting right back into it with arguably the wealthiest faction, who’s also been keeping back a bit and thus kept a lot more reserves. well played jin bastards well played)
- I could stop here. if I stopped here everything would basically be as okay as they could be and the world full of hope still. I suppose the question here is... do I love myself enough to quit while the going is good. and the answer is no I already started the next episode
- I think one incredibly endearing aspect of this version of nmj is that he has a look of faint but permanent worry about him. he walked onto the screen with a vibe of ‘...oh boy I don’t like where this is going’ and he’s just kept going ever since
in the book he’s kind of a flat character (whose one trait is Mad), I love that they’ve given him some depth and nuance here! probably partly down to the actor doing a great job, but this version has a real sort of warmth to him and also seems downright uncertain at times -- he thrives when there’s a clear goal and black and white sides, and is probably not t h r i l l e d with the weird tentative political situation after they take down the wens lol. thank god he has his little brother to make ‘bitch please’ faces over his shoulder when the jin get weird about things
anyway I’m always on the ‘nhs you are SO valid’ train, but in this version nhs is quadruple valid, in fact only mianmian is more valid in this entire world
- one of my favourite parts of this show is when wwx enters a situation and the camera takes some time to zoom in on the faces of his family and friends to convey their sense of ‘oh god what the fuck is he about to say now’ dread
- jiang yanli asking her little brother if he doesn’t want to stay with them anymore while crying is emotional kryptonite, help
this poor woman, she had to put all her points into emotional intelligence b/c god knows no one else in this family did
- hell YEAH lan zhan go break some rules!! treat yourself my guy
- hey sis if, theoretically, one hypothetically found oneself in -- for the sake of argument -- love with, as the case may or may not be, someone... how would one tell?? asking for a friend
- the whole summary of this fucking show is just ‘weaponized sibling feels’ everything hurts with foreknowledge why did I keep going
- aw no blindfolded kiss scene but here’s a scene with real earnest emotional intimacy stuff going on instead... I will joyfully take it your honor
- I do value and respect the translators giving us these subtitles so much... but they did also force me to read the words ‘bosom friend’ with my own two eyes right there and that was not very cool of them
- why oh WHY must jiang yanli, best person in the world, have been cursed with the horrible fate of being in love with the dumbest man on the planet
*jiang yanli juggling all the idiot men in her life* oh god my little brother is causing an international diplomatic incident again time to bUCKLE UP
oh ho ho you know shit is getting real when big sister gets mad I LOVE HER. suddenly you see she definitely her mother’s daughter after all lol
wwx crying because his sister just fiercely defended him in public... im uwu
- I hate jgy with all my heart but I do feel bad for him too. his barely faltering :) look while all his asshole relatives gang up on him sdfhskahf
- again the jin are dicks but when it comes to aesthetics they do go off, that’s such a beautiful shade of blue
- dsflhsdakjlfhsdakjfl sd this shot of lwj and nmj right before lxc drinks is the funniest framing imaginable b/c lwj is wearing a look of complete stonefaced
-___________-
and meanwhile nmj, who presumably has seen lxc drunk before since they’re longstanding bros, looks worried as fUCK
- awwwww I do love nhs capitalizing all of jc’s attention so the others won’t start shit with him/so he won’t get to say something publicly he’ll regret later because he’s (understandably honestly) mad at his brother for making his life even more difficult than it has to be (I have every sympathy with wwx but buddy... buddy must you make everything more complicated for your bro every darn time this is a real delicate political situation and he’s not suited for that even without your antics)
it’s a very nhs move because he comes across as slightly boorish and rude and thus leaves jc blameless and thus protected, you can get so far if you have no self respect lol
- showing us exactly how wen ning died is honestly a little too mean this is not fun
- good god this poor grandma has been through the wringer hasn’t she
- oh. oh wen ning, who never meant hurt anyone in his entire life :(
- listen okay the end is in sight just a couple more horrific tragedies to get through and then it’s the weird romantic comedy buddy cop antics of the current day timeline to ride to the end
- it cannot be overemphasized how much this lan zhan is Baby, I so desperately want to help and protect him
- I’m going to stop shouting out individual actors on this show they’re all goddamn brilliant haha (but am I tho)
- most valid person in the cultivation world mianmian
also enjoying the exemplification of nmj’s character that is ‘not sure how I feel about this dumb kid with the big mouth digging his own grave ever deeper but that girl’s got guts and I respect that’
- wen quing is getting a taste of the dangers and pitfalls of having wwx as a little brother dfhskdalfhsdaklj she and jyl should compare notes (he’s so good tho T-----T)
- how does wwx’s actor have such natural dad energy at such a young age, too powerful
- people give so little thought to how fucked up jc’s situation really is here, like he’s just being an asshole for the sake of it. spend three fucking seconds looking at it with some realpolitik in mind and realize that the clans around him have just shown that they can and will wipe out an enemy clan together if need be, and that his own sect hasn’t even gotten back on its feet after the war that almost wiped it out. like wwx is unquestionably morally right but has gone about it in such a way that it’s real fucking hard to support him without going down with him and how do you calculate that risk when you’re responsible for so many more lives than your own
also so sad about jc being so afraid this entire time that wwx would leave him like everyone else... and now he has :( jc doesn’t handle it well but then who would at this stage
- there is something so pure about a quietly horrified lan zhan getting Dad Advice from these guys (well he’s going to be needing it soon enough so)
oh the utter softness of his face looking at wwx and ah yuan ;_______; thank god, some fluff to bolster my heart before we set off into the last harrowing ordeal here
LAN ZHAN’S ENTIRE FACE LIGHTING UP AT WEI YING ASKING HIM OUT thank fuck there’s still some joy left in the universe
this poor love struck man, someone help him
lan zhan conscientiously grabbing ah yuan’s toys is fskhdfksjdlfhskjdhf
- lan zhan looking around the demon subduing cave: babe I love you more than life itself but this is tacky as hell
- crying because wen niiiiiing
- crying because sibliiiiiings
okay this is the last time the three of them will be together and nominally happy, need to appreciate it through my tears
- actually I take it back please just let the bad thing happen now so I don’t have to live in suspense anymore lol (...this probably says a lot more about me as a person than I’m strictly comfortable with)
- the fact that none of wwx’s little adopted wen family are AT ALL intimidated by him anymore is just... it’s too much to bear
again tho this book/show is so willing to let you dwell in the emotional stages of things in a very fanfic sort of way, I think it’s what makes the sad parts so much worse (and makes you feel so incredibly attached to these characters)
- I gUESS it’s a testament to jin zixuan’s character that he has any decency at all, considering who his dad is and where he was raised
I’m cracking up at their dad being the one who still doesn’t trust jgy tho lol snake recognizes snake
- jgy’s faint look of ‘are you fucking kIdDiNg me rn’ whenever all these jin douchebags talk is very entertaining. if he didn’t go on to do all that murder and incest and (probably) infanticide I’d sort of cheer for him no matter what kind of sociopath he is
- not to be a downer or anything but isn’t one month a little premature to be celebrating the survival of a baby in fantasy old timey china tho
sometimes I feel like looking back at history is just seeing a whole lot of dead children (and this is why I think that even if god did exist it would be morally inconceivable to worship him! sorry just a quick detour into my personal grudge against the inherent cruelty of the world there, let’s move on)
- it’s uncomfortable to watch even the outlines of the jin sect’s slow insidious stranglehold on power. even these random shopgoing nobodies know that nmj is Not Happy about these watchtowers and that it’s probably going to happen anyway. the jin are snakes but at least they’re clever about it and I do kind of respect that
- oh everything’s about to go so wrong I hate it
NOOOOO don’t make the zombie baby fight, nothing good will come of this
- man this is hitting me worse than lotus pier actually I’m just... crying haha
it’s almost cathartic tho... there’s something about wen quing’s dignity and certainty that really helps? I just really wish they hadn’t brought the whole little group, god I want them to be okay so badly and ah yuan will be all that’s left and. and just throw me into the ocean and let me sink tbh
- I know this is all so much black cgi smoke (pls let us see the red version again at some point btw that was cool as shit) but the emotional metaphor of wwx that you can’t take on more and more of other people’s suffering and trauma and not care for yourself because you will lose control of that at some point is just. very nicely done. (he’s a bit of an odd serial codependent for a lot of the story, isn’t he. thank god lan zhan is not a quitter)
- jin zixuan’s mom is breaking my heart a little here. this lady has been married to THAT GUY all this time and now this as well. sorry lady, I guess jgy probably Took Care Of You at some stage after this
- a) this is just real good acting for wwx. this is the perfect level of unhinged for this, even though I’m always like ‘just. just shut your mouth for one time in your life and stop digging this grave any deeper six feet should be enough for anyone huh’ at this stage of the story and b) I am cackling inappropriately at the shot-reverse-shots between wwx, jiang cheng and jgy. jiang cheng looks like everything he ever loved is falling apart around him and jgy is like ‘oh wow I didn’t even have to provide him any rope he’s doing an excellent job at hanging himself without me’
I love wwx so much but it did take him an unconscionable length of time to realize that when you set big enough things into motion you will not be able to control who it crushes along the way or who might steer it in the wrong direction. other people exist and have agency and a lot of those people are bad honey :(
- ah yes lwj being stopped by a barrier made of the physical manifestation of wwx’s trauma when he tries to reach him :’) this is okay and cool and fine
- it’s admirably obtuse of everyone to look at wwx at this stage and still think he’s in control of uh anything lol
- oh okay that went better than expected I don’t know if I’m just inured to sadness at this point
jiang cheng looking like a little boy clutching his big sister’s body is tugging at my heartstrings a bit tho
- ooooh this battle hardened intense lwj!!! I guess I can sort of see it now
- oh lan zhan 2, electric boogaloo
- finally! time for some comfort up in this hurt
- my man nmj still so fucking angry in the afterlife that anything even remotely connected to him is shaking with rage in sympathy in the real world. a mood
- fdsahfsjdklfhsdajk wwx being like ‘I can take everyone saying I was evil but how DARE you not mention I was also a snacc’
- when do you think nie huaisang really realized that his brother wouldn’t have children and that he was up for the sect leader seat next? nie mingjue seems to have known pretty far in advance himself and tried to prepare his brother accordingly, but that kid really didn’t want the job so I imagine he’d try to live in denial as long as possible
vaguely related: no other family is ever mentioned by either brother or anyone else, and nie huaisang straight out says that he is the only main disciple (I seem to remember and with the caveat that I might have misunderstood the translation) when there’s the talk of them being sent to the wen as hostages -- I suppose you sort of have to be very selective when your ancestral cultivation method is sketchy enough that you should keep that shit on the down low and you know people die young from it. so I think it’s possible if not probable that huaisang is the last of his family. isn’t that a fun little thing to think about? haha. ha. help me
- this random street vendor is an unexpected strong comedy performance, every face he makes is pure gold
- fkshafkjsdhfasd best introduction of adult nhs
- the quiet luminous love on lwj’s face whenever he looks at wwx in the present... give this man all the awards. it’s nice that wwx gets to be scared and childish and vulnerable with someone who loves him no matter what too, he’s been through some shit
- oh okay I see so the reason they chose to make fatal journey the way they did was because they already had the set built
- *nhs dropping one set of robes like that one gif from anastasia to reveal another even more luxuriously dandy-ish set under it* oh wow what a surprise to see you two down here, coincidences amirite (anyway here’s the testament to all the sins of my ancestors & a trail of breadcrumbs to lead you to the murderer of my brother)
no wait that’s slightly later isn’t it. well the point still stands
- dead!nmj is truly a mood -- “I don’t know where I am, who I am or what the fuck just happened but I do know that I am PISSED OFF”
(actually in the book I found that almost comforting -- at least the dude got to spend his afterlife doing what he loved (i.e. being angry), but this more nuanced and sympathetic version being trapped like that just. makes me very very sad)
nice of him to stick around to play a few rounds of hot or cold with his little bro’s friends tho lol. I mean from what I understand of this take on canon it’s actually the spirit of his sword and not him in person? but close enough, let me keep him as long as I can okay
- jin ling getting his dumb ass cask of amontillado’d within ten minutes of entering the tomb smh
look at your ROBES young man what is your (other) uncle going to say??
- hAH what did I say. pedagogic mastermind jiang cheng at it again
enjoying the fact that they chose the floofiest most benign-looking of dogs to play this ~*terrifying hound*~ so much
I have a lot of sympathy for jiang cheng, and the actor is doing a good job at aging him up here (not as good as lwj’s but then you can’t beat perfection). the way he’s calcified into bitterness and anger b/c he can’t express his emotions in a healthy nuanced way feels very... real I guess, people get like that sometimes
- I am somehow really endeared to this version of jin ling. a dumb baby, but a baby
- poor lan zhan lol “I LEFT YOU ON YOUR OWN FOR TWO HOURS AND YOU ALREADY MANAGED TO TAKE ON SOMEONE ELSE’S CURSE??? BABE!!!!!!!”
he consistently uses jiang cheng’s personal name too huh. well it is his brother in law I guess ETA: actually I’m an idiot ignore/forgive me, that’s jiang cheng’s courtesy name isn’t it. lan wangji is being salty/maybe-deliberately-maybe-not-(but-definitely-tho) distant/polite with him I think
- y’know... as I watch lwj carry the love of his life around on his back with all the tenderness in the world and I see people in the comments yell about why do you always need everything to be gay they’re just good friends you’re all crazy... I realize all over again that there really is no level of queerness they’ll ever find legitimate or acceptable. which like. feels bad, but there’s also the freedom in remembering they are always going to be assholes no matter what I do, there’s literally no need to listen to them at any time.
- I am CRACKING UP; watching this episode right after seeing fatal journey sure is a treat hahaha. nhs really must enjoy the acting on a deep level because he is hamming it up and I am living for it
“It’s nothing at all like unorthodox demonic cultivation methods!” he protests with his big innocent doe eyes, having yelled the exact same accusation at his brother within ten seconds of finding out about it dsfdskjha
- awww that’s such a sweet way of telling nhs who he is while both of them still get plausible deniability :’)
this show is making it a LOT easier to figure out nhs’ deal earlier just through visual storytelling and his reactions when lwj and wwx aren’t looking, but I guess you sort of have to do that without the benefits of selective POVs that you can do in written stories
- lan zhan’s little smirks are such a blessing
- can we talk about how INCREDIBLY rude lwj and wwx are being barging into other people’s ancestral tombs like they own the place. I know I said break some rules lan zhan but there’s such a thing as common decency too at least wipe your feet at the entrance or something
stop being big bullies!!! (nhs actually sounds a little salty at how debonair they are being lol he’s like yeah you’re doing what I want you to but you don’t have to be such dicks about it)
- nooooooo nmj don’t die ur so sexy ahaha (I jest so I do not cry godddddd my heart big brother come baaaaaaack)
I’m honestly finding it very hard to live with knowing that the last thing nmj saw in life was jgy having his little brother in his clutches D:D:D: looking at it like that... of course he came back mad as fuck, I’d probably do the same thing
- boys boys I love and support you but could you maybe not stand around talking about how this was totally a horrific murder like the murderee’s little brother isn’t standing right there?? i mean it’s useful for him but it’s kind of mean of you, I know neither of you were raised in a barn
okay there’s wwx irrepressible protective instinct that’s better. I just... nhs standing there looking small and sad and soft and lonely isn’t the whole truth but it is part of the whole truth, it’s nice to see wwx being like this even after all those years. (the physical closeness in their friendship in their youth in this version is so gooood. outside of wwx the only two people we see nhs consistently allow close or seek out closeness from is his brother and MENG YAO, who can frankly burn in hell even more than usual for the flute thing in fatal journey.)
- lan zhan contemplating the inherent impermanence of everything good in the world and then immediately getting blackout drunk -- MOOD. also I have never seen a scene where someone so obviously was about to press a soft kiss to someone’s forehead or cheek, don’t worry wwx I see you through the censorship lol
(it’s incredible how well they’ve adapted the love story considering the fact that they technically uh can’t)
- wen ning: shambles, zombie-like and disheveled with horror movie monster eyes, into frame
all of us: omg a BABY ToT
- live action drunk lan zhan is living up to the hype I am d y i n g
this poor repressed man
fjskdfsdkjhf he could do sword fighting in his damn sleep probably
I will say that leaving ‘wei wuxian was also here’ is going to scare the crap out of these poor people whose only crime was keeping well fed chickens
- they r so in love someone hold me
- this nmj!kid I am LOSING IT, this is so cute I want to lie face down on the floor and cry
- the yi city arc is my least favourite part of this story, so I’m fortifying myself to get through a couple of hours of sexy baby xue yang here
- Dad/troll teacher!wwx is in fact everything
- oooh wwx has the same weird crooked fingers as me when they’re extended! just some small Facts About Your Friendly Neighbourhood Blogger there
- this is not at all a bad take on ah quing! she qte
- ‘what’s your husband look like?’ song lan, crying: beautiful
- xxc you didn’t think it was a little weird the dude wouldn’t tell you his name -- even a name -- all this time. honestly
I know you’re in a bad place and this is sort of a rebound thing from your actual true love but stop letting him gaslight you like this buddy :(
- time for some MASSIVELY FORESHADOWING PARALLELS my friends
- I don’t know if I’m just a heartless monster but I honestly don’t care that much about anyone but ah quing in this little sideplot lol (probably my complete disinterest in xue yang tainting everything else)
- xue yang and jgy: the ‘sad backstory dude still inexplicably extra mass murder’ club
- godddd I’m so bored I’ve listened to this guy cackle ~*madly and evilly*~ for three episodes now when will it fucking end
- lan jingjy you are VALID
- fhsdkfhsdkj can’t get over baxia being like ‘OI you two stop gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes for five seconds and get on with avenging me’
must be annoying spending your afterlife in a pouch third wheeling the two most obnoxiously in love people in the world, I think this spirit sword is being admirably restrained and patient all things considered
- big brother I am so sorry you had to hang out under there all this time while this boring bullshit plot happened above you ;________________________;
I’m actually not clear on what the nie sect does with the bodies of the dead -- the saber tomb seems to be exclusively for the weapons/we see that some of the cultivators will go down there while they’re still alive to sacrifice themselves... maybe they go in the walls? I guess nhs is breaking tradition in a lot of ways tho so who knows!
- ‘from what I’ve seen he’s not so bad’ wei ying he smilingly asked you to use POWs for target practice I’ll allow lxc to be this dumb but you really have no excuse
- this duckling in red is a gentleman and a bro, one to watch
- wwx seductively arranging himself in the open window to cover his panic fsdkjfhsda
- lot’s wife WISHES she had the level of salt jiang cheng does
- ‘if they ask me any weird questions I don’t know the answers to I’ll have to pretend to be a total psycho’
lan zhan, dragging his husband with one deadpan face: I’m sure that is going to be a huge feat of acting for you babe
- NIE HUAISANG FALLING INTO FRAME AND LAUNCHING HIMSELF FROM ONE PERSON TO ANOTHER LIKE A GORMLESS WET RAG, I STAN ONE (1) BOY
‘but new problems appeared’ how is he such a mood
again tho you can give your unknowing accomplices so much space to investigate if you just don’t bother with self respect or dignity at any stage of the journey lol
- fjshdfkjlsahd that beat of lan zhan clearly taking a moment to contemplate the idea of wei ying confessing his love naked in public there
- uncle and nephew bonding time T________________T
- fsakfhsadkjlfhsad I can’t deal with this mission impossible ass music in the background as a little paper gingerbread man scoots around the palace
whoever animated this was clearly having a lot of fun, I love the little details like his dangling legs and him rubbing his lil paper bum after landing
- poor qin su, one of the most screwed over people in this whole show. at least in the book he didn’t mean to
- ah su, you’re being very unreasonable about this, what is a little incest between friends
- straight culture is this being chill to keep in the adaptation but god forbid anyone got a loving queer kiss at any point (not blaming the showrunners at all, they’re clearly stretching the limits as far as they will go and maybe a bit more at a few points)
- YES SISTER CALL HIM THE FUCK OUT I always felt like she’s known something was a little off for a long time but never could put her finger on what exactly
- ‘can you still not let me go’ hey jgy you piece of shit who’s keeping whose head in a weird serial killer cabinet here
- THANK YOU FOR BRINGING HIS HANDSOME ALIVE FACE BACK TO MY SCREEN IF ONLY TO MAKE ME SAD
- he’s so beautiful and righteous and strong 😭😭😭😭 dage come back to us
(makes even more sense that he’s so pissed off about what jgy did if he’s already shown clearly that he’ll shut down the people fucking with him if it’s brought to his attention. he gave you every opportunity you little oh-it’s-never-really-my-fault worm of a man)
- another nmj about to cry warning needed here help me
dON’T FUCKING TOUCH HIM YOU SLIMY FSKJLDHFKSJDHFSKDJLHF
the nie traits are undying loyalty, rage, and the intergenerational trauma of watching your parental figures succumb to death and madness through the same cultivation path you practice
- my cause of death: nmj’s eyes shining with unshed tears
this version has that edge of vulnerability to him, you suddenly do realize he was once just a kid watching his dad die a horrifying death and then having to take on all that responsibility and raising his brother
nie boys unfailingly devoted to the people under their protection I’m gonna go bury myself under a tree or something
- I’ve had to turn the volume down so I can barely hear anything b/c my emotions are too big to for my dumb body to contain already I can’t listen to this
- extremely sad but also a little funny that part of the reason nmj died was that he had no interest whatsoever in the arts. ‘music is music right?’ says local jock
- I’ve just been whimpering the last twenty minutes this is awful
- huaisang’s voice breaking on ‘big brother, it’s me’... sdlakhgsdjklfhsadjkghsdkjlfhdskljhgsdalkhgsdklgjhsdjklhgkdjslhgjskd I’m going to the bottom of the mariana trench and I’m staying there goodbye
- I can’t wait to watch nie huaisang end this putrid trash man’s whole career in the most devastating way possible tbh
- I’m just so SAD T______________________________T I hate jgy so much my heart burns with it I’m so glad he’s about to get some dramatic irony shoved up his -- but I digress
- haha poor jin ling standing there watching all this messed up shit like ‘O.O thanks i’m nine’
- I wish I was as good at passing the fuck out on command as nhs, I feel like it would solve a lot of my problems
- just some low key soulmate shit no biggie
- wwx is basically fantasy old timey naked again here the SCANDAL except no scandal they’re clearly married
- wwx is being so much more patient with lxc than I would have found it in my heart to be at this stage. he’s like ‘lxc you are my brother in law and I truly appreciate you and everything you’ve done for me but it’s sadly up to me to gently confront you with all the ways you’ve been a dumb ho just b/c you think jgy has pretty dimples 😔’
- “You’re not qualified to talk to me” oh lwj I love you so much. I thought committing murder was forbidden by the lan sect rules but there you go
- it honestly baffles me that some people think nmj would be the strictest parental figure in this universe when a) everything about huaisang suggests otherwise and b) lan qiren is right there
madam yu has that ‘super unforgiving to her son’s face but will also tear anyone criticizing him a new one’ mixed energy too
- lqr: I raised a perfect obedient righteous cultivator
me & wei ying: you’ve ruined a perfectly good boy is what you did look at him he’s too repressed to breathe
- well their dad clearly paid enough attention to worldly matters that two kids resulted from it, I’m not quite sure where we’re going with this lxc
one’s an accident two’s a pattern etc.
- wow I was so confused about ‘confidante’ being used here b/c it makes absolutely no sense in context, and the comments helpfully informed me that it’s more accurately translated to ‘soulmate’ or something like that; that does make a whole lot more sense yeah
- bb!lan zhan kneeling in the snow is more than anyone’s supposed to have to live with tbh
- lxc being like ‘so yeah my brother will keep loving people long after they’re gone and unable to give him love back! just a fun fact there, something to think about anyway here’s wonderwall’
- soft, ever-so-slightly messy haired at home lan zhan deserves the world
- oh wwx’s shift away from thinking the truth doesn’t matter at all to realizing the truth of you being held fully and with love by one person in your life is enough as lwj plays their song ;______________________________; this is almost more romantic than a kiss scene would be honestly jesus christ
- little apple is the best of us tbh
- apologies but they have 100% started to fuck off-screen at this stage, the looks wei ying is giving him dsafasdfhsjkd
- I take it back mianmian and little apple are the best of us
- imagine just finding the light bearing lord, second peerless jade of lan in his immaculate white clothes, peeking out from between your hay bales one day
- the exponential increase in lan zhan’s blessed little smiles lately: my oh-they-fawking thesis is validated yet again
- wei ying lying through his teeth: of course I remembered your face at once who do you take me for
(lan zhan: smirks in quiet satisfaction)
- walejhgskdjhgsjdaklfhsadjkflafhsjakdsf wen ning is so cute I don’t know what to do with myself
- wei ying this is where you first asked him out of course he remembers
- lan zhan is like ‘oh shit I forgot to tell him about our son and at this point I’m kind of embarrassed to bring it up’
- I am NOT thinking about the lotus pond they made for him here, you can’t make me
- ‘the worst time in their lives’ yeah, but there was such love there too. it h u r t s
- the actor for wen ning is so good at making his expressions look deeply earnest but also a little uncanny, like moving his face doesn’t come naturally to him anymore but his Good Boyness shines through
- DRAGGED in public by his own son. rip wwx he had a good run of it before his untimely murder
- wow thank goodness sect leader yao survived all this time, his death would as we all know have been a huge loss to society as a whole
- “I’m just here to round up the numbers” I love him more than I can convey to you in words
I’m a simple person, I hear nhs’ chronically befuddled voice and a burst of pure joy is released in my heart
sdfhjksadhfsad his soft little 😕 face peeking out from behind people’s shoulders fkjsdhfsdjal
- will I ever get enough of nhs masterfully manipulating a situation through his own apparent cowardliness and uselessness? no is the answer to that it’s always entrancing to watch
nhs as a teacher, nodding sagely as his disciples exchange glances: it’s never too late to go home instead of going big. saying ‘fuck this i’m outta here’ is always an option
- also nhs seemingly doesn’t use a saber at all anymore, where he at least used to have one back in fatal journey times. I’m very happy he’s trying some new things, time to break that very sad traumatic chain of dying young and furious
also him getting someone else to do the work of fixing the ward or whatever fskdfhaskdlf
teacher nhs, waving his pupils away b/c he’s busy painting or something: class dismissed. and remember, if at all possible, get someone else to do your homework for you. as long as you don’t get caught that’s an automatic A
- wwx is literally the cat surrounded by knives meme here lol
- lol lol lol wwx just removed his outer tunic thing to reveal lan zhan’s undershirt still under there and you can see lan qiren silently seethe with ‘that little hussy has seduced my nephew away from the righteous path’
(do I personally believe in slut shaming of any kind? nah it’s dumb as fuck. do I think lqr does? yeah)
- hahaha I can’t tell if nhs’ slightly glazed look here is b/c wwx did something he didn’t plan for him to do or if it’s because he’s for all intents and purposes half naked in front of them. (tbh I think there’s a case to be made in this version that he has a sort of wistful would-never-act-on-it-for-a-million-different-reasons-lan-zhan’s-furious-jealous-stare-being-foremost-of-them crush on both wwx and lwj from back when they were teens)
- WOW all these dicks inviting themselves to lotus pier!!! r u d e
- lan zhan flexing on lan qiren by raising a happy well adjusted child even while he’s mourning the love of his life: what like it’s hard
- wen ning kept that toy for sixteen goddamn years don’t touch me
- I’m crying about jin ling give me a moment. he is baby okay he’s even younger than ah yuan by at least four years
the image of him hugging the only thing he’s got left of his dad... fsdalkfhasdjlkfhsjdakhfsjdk
- lan sizhui has a crowd of good uncles/dads and poor jin ling has a crowd of utter disaster uncles and it’s very unfortunate (yes wwx is on both of those lists)
it is very sweet that it’s jiang cheng who consistently actually looks out for him, even in his feelings-wtf-are-feelings sort of way. the least disaster uncle, but only by comparison lol
- I think this ouyang kid might be duckling in red from before? LOVING the interspersed nhs reaction shots to him, anyway fsakdfh (I’m going to make it sad: how many conversations like this do you think he had with his brother as a kid? that’s fine we can both cry now I don’t want to be alone in this)
- ‘mr ning’ im Y___________________________________Y
- extremely Here for yet another full costume change from nhs hahaha (he’s changed at the boat already, god knows how he pulled that off but I’d expect no less from him)
- nhs must have been a sect leader for at least a decade at this point, and he still manages to exude such a powerful ‘kid at the adult’s table’ aura. incredible. mindblowing, inspirational
- ...oh they went with the same version of the previous jin leader’s death huh (but GOD FORBID that anyone should be openly gay amirite lol) O___O again though WHY is jin ling here, jiang cheng??????? he’s like sixteen, he’s never going to dare to even kiss anyone after this
- nhs has the look of a man who’s had to sit on this disgusting knowledge alone for years and finally gets to share that icky burden around, merry christmas everyone if I have to know about this so do you
- I don’t know if this is just me imagining things or reading more into it than what’s there, but I think nhs is actually sitting in the same pose his brother used to a lot in this part of the scene (the upright posture with palms resting at the top of the thighs/hips, fingers turned inwards/towards each other; it looks sort of... solid and self-contained, I guess)
- I would call jgy knowingly committing the incest character assassination if he’d had enough character to assassinate even in the book, I would never have put it past him
- y’know... god knows nmj had flaws (I think my immense depth of love for him in this version comes precisely from how hard he tries even while being deeply flawed. him dumb but him always trying :’) well actually he’s not dumb at all, he’s shown to be pretty darn politically savvy, I’m just having a hard time finding the right word here. ‘inflexible’ is maybe closer ), but the big defining difference between him and jin guangyao (and consequently xue yang) is that both of the latter are completely open about the fact that they see themselves as more important than anyone else -- xue yang considers one of his fingers worth more than fifty people’s lives, jgy kills twenty sex workers as a mere afterthought to his own revenge on his father. meanwhile nmj gets Messed Up by people dying under his protection to the degree that he came up with one of the dumbest plans I’ve ever heard just so he’d be the only one at risk, just so no one else would get hurt anymore. hmnghsjhfs.
- wen ning, proudly: my sister was the best doctor in the world
me, openly crying: she sure was buddy
- wwx: hey lan zhan are there any sweet patient lan ladies with an open mind around
lwj: ...why
wwx: I just think our zombie son should start thinking about getting friends, maybe even a real home
lwj, subtly relieved: oh
- JIN LING BABY BOY NOOOO D:D:D:
- nhs I need you to come in and end this man I cannot look at his awful face anymore
- ugh this garrotte sound effect is really unpleasant actually well done
- THERE HE IS!!! conveniently swooning his way into the scene again, my guy ;_______; smol and soft-looking and about to utterly obliterate a man on every conceivable level
I love every moment of the camera dwelling meaningfully on his innocent vulnerable face, this is going to be so great
it’s too bad he’s a behind the curtain sort of dude, I would kill for a poirot-style ‘I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here in the library’ moment here lol
- tbh jiang cheng’s got a point about that whole ‘making huge sweeping decisions about someone else’s life and never telling them about it’ thing
wwx has sort of structured himself as a person so that you’ll never be allowed to really reciprocate his dedication and sacrifices (unless you’re lz lol), and while that is a very sympathetic trauma reaction essentially it is sort of a dick move interpersonally.
- the weight and wisdom that comes along with the scars of older wwx... you love to see it
- nhs, with effortless grace, rousing from his disney princess slumber just as the real drama’s about to begin... your honor he is simply the best
- T__________________________________________________________T big brother
- the tinge of coldness in nhs’ eyes while he watches jgy through this whole scene even as he keeps up the ‘im baby don’t worry about me’ act.............. fashdfjlksdahfslkadj, not to say askfksjhafkjsldhfkjsalhfksjaldhfkls
- to say that jgy has perhaps ‘gone overboard with this’ might be the biggest understatement of any century lxc
- watching him kneel by his brother’s coffin here I’d like to propose that Nie Huaisang has exactly the same capacity for all-consuming rage as the rest of his family, except he can’t just vent it by hitting something real hard with a haunted murder saber so he has to get creative and that was real unfortunate for Jin Guangyao
- one thing that’s always tickled me is that nhs did give jgy the choice. the people around him -- the people he claims to love -- could have been left out of it, no dishonor being brought to either his name or any of theirs... if he’d been willing to sacrifice himself. (probably a gambit where he knew that was never going to happen, but still!)
- nhs standing there in the background like ‘yeah yeah we all have horrifying family legacies buddy, we just don’t knowingly marry our sisters or arrange for mass murders over it’
- arguably killing the previous jin leader could actually count as a good deed if not for the horrifying way he did it lol. jgy all over, he could have done something helpful, *john mulaney voice* and then he didn’t he just killed nineteen innocent women while he was on a roll instead
- while it’s sort of bullshit that some responsibility is taken away from wwx in jin zixuan’s death here it’s also making a bit more sense to me like this -- seems like an uncharacteristic gamble from jgy to just idk hope wwx would lose control at exactly the right/wrong moment. wwx is still at fault for how casually he treated wen ning as a weapon when he didn’t know what the consequences could be, I’m okay with this
- jin ling and the terrible horrible no good very bad week :( protect him
wow lan xicheng let’s stand around some more letting this awful excuse for a person tell this sixteen year old boy that his parents deserved to be murdered basically, I’m sure there’s a lot more fruitful discussion still left to be had here
- talk shit about nie mingjue’s brother get hit su she hell YEAHHHHHH
big brother still looking out for him I’m fsdklfhajsdlhf 😭😭😭
- I’M SO FULL OF FEELINGS ;________________________________; at least in this version the implication feels more like he’s finally at peace? (hilariously wwx managed to purge/cleanse the saber spirit, which is the entire conflict of fatal journey haha, nhs really did get his best friend to do his homework for him yet again, INSPIRATIONAL)
- HELL YEAH FINALLY GET REKT YOU PIECE OF SHIT! PRESS F TO PAY RESPECT EXCEPT JOKE’S ON YOU I’VE GOT NO RESPECT TO PAY
They did do away with any and all ambiguity around nhs here and I’m totally cool with it, that was awesome
- I’m playing the world’s tiniest little violin right now, wow much sad fuck you and your dumb hat
- may I just say that the fact that jgy uses his last moments on earth to make lxc, a person he proclaims to love, feel as bad as possible about his now inevitable death even though it clearly wasn’t really his fault... is just proof that he has never actually loved anyone at all except possibly himself
contrast with wwx, who tells jc that he’s sorry, dries his tears in the here and now and says to let the past go because there’s nothing either of them can do about it now and there’s no point in hurting themselves over it again and again anymore. jgy has the opportunity to give a similar kindness here and instead twists and twists the knife, so lxc will be in as much pain as possible when he’s gone. he’d rather be kept alive in lxc’s suffering than let him, someone he ‘loves’, ever heal and be happy. anyway I hope hell is real shitty for you jgy
- jgy you absolute piece of shit you couldn’t let my man have TEN FUCKING MINUTES to nap in peace? after sixteen years of your fuckery? urgh bye
- nhs looking at lxc sadly when lxc can’t see him... one last ‘I don’t know’ finally closing out his arc... I love all of this so much, there’s such a nuance of... he is genuinely a bit sad about causing lxc pain but he also doesn’t regret what he did At All. (I guess most of what he’s done must be pretty easy to rationalize/justify to himself, since the vast majority of his work went into finding the horrible shit jgy has done and showing them the way home to roost, rather than creating fresh suffering from scratch. and then there’s also the whole mo family but uh well eggs omelettes amirite lol)
- lan qiren telling people not to run or talk loudly b/c they’re at a temple, even under these circumstances fhakjsldfhkjsdafhkjsaldhf
- god the casting people for this show have a perfect track record of finding heartwrenchingly cute kids my GOD
- jfdsafhaskdjfh I love how they’ve done the moment with the hat -- the way the flashback sort of indicates that nhs does recognize on a deep level that the dude he just killed was someone’s son, was after all once an innocent child, like anyone... and again, it doesn’t make him regret it. he looks tired and sort of empty, but not like he’d take any of it back. he’s seen jgy for all that he was, good and bad, and made his decision. his reaction to seeing his hands ever so slightly stained with blood is mostly ‘...eh sure’ (and he knows none of this will ever bring his brother back and I am HURTING) . just. I love him so much what an interesting character
- lan zhan raised a child who can talk about his feelings, unprecedented & wondrous
who’s chopping onions in here
- never getting over ah yuan being the best person in the world at roasting his dad
- okay okay okay I’m going to have some incoherent feelings here -- the expression on nhs’ face right after wwx asks him if he intends to be chief cultivator is just... hm. how do I describe this. it looks almost like he’s thinking ‘oh yeah I forgot you don’t actually know me anymore (yeah okay that’s my bad)’? the previous scene is about lwj and wwx, The symbolic representation of true love in this world, naming each other/knowing each other for exactly who and what they are. that’s the thematic victory in this story; to be truly known, accepted and loved for the entirety of who you are, if only by one person in your whole life. (notably all sorts of love, parental, familial, platonic etc., not just romantic/sexual) and to get his victory, nhs has had to completely forsake that because his whole plan hinged on it; he hasn’t been emotionally honest with anyone for well over a decade at this point. no one really knows or understands him, and if someone ever did he’s long dead now and never coming back. and in this one moment both wwx and nhs seem to come to the quiet understanding that neither of them are who they used to be as kids and it’ll never be like it used to be again, and reach a sort of live-and-let-live truce about it. d u d e this goddamn story
(after all part of the reason jgy is so incredibly terrified of nmj is that he’s the first person to see straight through his bullshit to who he is behind it, and that it’s u g l y back there. jgy + nmj = being known without being accepted or loved (b/c honestly he doesn’t deserve to be loved or accepted yeah there we go I said it), jgy + lxc = being accepted and loved without being known, which turns into disaster all around.)
- man this was actually a really solid adaptation, it was excellently done! they did rush a bit towards the end there (it was never explained why jgy didn’t kill sissi along with all the other sex workers in this version, for example, leaving a rather substantial plot hole, and they never reveal why exactly lan zhan had to take over as sect leader which breaks off lxc’s arc at the end), but all in all that was wonderful and even added some stuff I liked better than in the book! now please god never let mtxt write a sequel, just let them be in this happily ever after, all of them have been through enough ;________;
- also the music was truly epic! I don’t even begrudge them using some parts more often and blatantly than what’s probably necessary, I want to wallow in this love theme as much as the next person lol
- what am I going to do with hours upon hours of my life now? I don’t know either, I suppose I will just have to find some way to hobble on
#the untamed#mo dao zu shi#wangxian#nie brothers#(b/c predictably that's what most of my feelings boil down to lol)#meta#I think I might have outdone myself with this; this is a new height of aimless unproductive nonsense even for me lol#I did this instead of working on the edit of the fic I've got nearly finished because... I don't know either guys I just don't know
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I’m Frightened
My mother became enraged earlier while I was cooking at what appeared to be nothing, left the house driving in what I can only describe as an extremely unsafe manner, came back, and began to scream vulgar abuse at my father, throwing things around the kitchen and at my father generally.
Then she spat in his face.
For days now she has been talking about how she’s concerned she may be infected with coronavirus, yet she spat in my father’s face. The fact she’s been saying that as a manipulative tool, which is the case, is irrelevant; it is unacceptable to do that.
She continued to scream and shout, slam things, and throw things.
She made statements regarding the household arrangements which are categorically untrue. She accused my father of awful behaviours which are the very ones she herself has been exhibiting now for many, many years and which have only grown worse, especially in the last three years since my father realised the patterns of abuse she was perpetrating and stopped catering to her every whim and called her on some of her many lies which for years have been harming the family.
She ranted at length about how unfair it was that she is no longer being catered to.
When she was told - calmly - that these things were all things she herself was guilty of and that this was her projecting all her own unacceptable behaviour on to my father, she became even angrier, despite that being entirely the case.
She stormed into her room, continued to throw things, kicked the doors, and kept shouting. All of it was vile, all of it was her accusing my father of behaviour and actions which she has been the one guilty of now for years.
My father did not go in her room. He stayed in the hall, then went in the bathroom with my dog, who was hiding and terrified, because he hates shouting and arguments, seeing as he’s a rescue dog who’s had two homes before us, at least one of which was physically abusive to an extent we can’t be fully sure of. My father tried to console my dog.
My mother then shouted, ‘Oh yeah, go and seek comfort with your oldest (child).’
This is the kind of thing she periodically says when she’s feeling very nasty indeed. She insinuates that there is something ‘unnatural’ about mine and my father’s relationship. She has made such insinuations in so many words many times, even to my sister, because she wishes to undermine us both, and particularly to hurt me, and hopes it will drive a wedge between me and my father as well as discredit anything we may say to anyone against her.
There is obviously nothing wrong with my relationship with my father. We are close because when I was an infant he was my main caregiver, my mother not being interested in the work involved in a child, and when my sister was born my mother made it very clear she now had a new child to love and shape in her own image as I was a disappointment to her, and did her damnedest to keep my sister to herself and away from both me and my father, meaning I essentially never had two proper parents. My mother has been abusive towards me and otherwise disinterested in me all my life.
My father told her in this instance that he was in the bathroom consoling the dog, and asked her what she was on about.
My mother said she ‘Knew what we were up to,’ and that ‘It’s always the two of you’ in the nastiest, most disgusting way you can imagine that said.
My father asked her to please keep me out of this unpleasantness of hers.
My mother then backtracked and started insisting ‘I never said anything about our (oldest child)! I never mentioned (me)!’
When my father told her that was utter nonsense, she then started claiming she was referring to him, because according to her, he refers to himself in the third person.
This is not true.
My father said as much.
My father also at this point asked her whether she had taken anything or drunk anything she ought not have, since she was making no sense.
He also asked her to calm down before she did something foolish.
She turned up the screaming again, demanding a divorce.
This is also something she does periodically. She never actually registers for one - it’s simple, you do it on the government’s website, the spouse gets an email, then the spouse signs off on having seen it, and it goes from there, and the registration costs roughly £50 or so - because she knows she has it good here, where no one ever asks her to lift a finger, everything is paid for, and the only thing that isn’t being done for her anymore is five-star-hotel-style laundry service and meal delivery. She obviously still has access to the laundry room, where everything is paid for and maintained by my father and myself, and the kitchen, where groceries and meals are provided and then scorned by her or complained about but still eaten although not appreciated in any way.
Essentially, she’s angry that she’s not being fully catered to any longer by slavishly adoring subservient staff in family form, and every so often when she’s been visiting a little too often with her two friends who both drink heavily (something my mum should not do at all since she has a damaged liver and cannot handle her alcohol) and encourage her to do the same, or when she’s been once again taking medicine she should not have and has no prescription for.
One of her friends gives her strong painkillers her liver can’t really handle, and also prednisone, which does not agree with her, especially when she’s been drinking. Prolonged use of prednisone has the very common side effects of mania, psychosis, and difficulty regulating mood. My mother’s doctor does not prescribe her prednisone any longer to avoid this and some of the other nasty physical side effects of prolonged use, but my mother has been acquiring and taking it for years anyway. Thusly she has many of these side effects. She refuses however to admit the two things may be connected.
Recently she has been both visiting her drinking friends and admitting to imbibing even though is takes days to leave her system and makes her unstable, irrational, and sick. She has also been taking the ill-gotten and unregulated prednisone and strong painkillers, one of which is Tramadol, which her doctor also will no longer prescribe her as she has liver damage, which is heavily contraindicated, and also has the side effect of worsening her instability.
My father knows this as well as I do, so he asked her if she had been indulging. He knows she has - she talks about it freely because she enjoys worrying us and also gets smug about ‘putting one over’ on the ‘idiot doctor’, and two days ago she actually spoke to a secretary at the doctor’s on the phone and admitted she was taking illicitly-got prednisone, which is a mark of how unstable and irrational she is at the moment since normally she would never have told someone like that - but she would not respond, instead claiming that what’s wrong with her is that she’s married to him, and she regrets every moment.
She then began to rant about;
- how he’s mistreated her (I cannot express how much a lie this is, no one I have ever met has been as spoiled as her by their family and spouse, she has been a pampered despot in our home all my life);
- how she feels like a prisoner in her own home (this makes no sense as she is free to come and go as she pleases, and does, she has her own car - though until a few months ago actually she used the family car which my father paid for and maintains at great cost since she is reckless with vehicles - and she moved into the biggest bedroom in the house of her own volition and after another huge pointless tantrum she threw to make sure we’d let her have her way about it when my sister moved out);
- how my father is petty for no longer catering to her every whim (which makes no real sense as just about everything is still provided for her despite the fact she pays for nothing, gives no one anything except shit, and makes huge demands on our time and energy constantly for help with things she won’t directly ask for or thank us for, including things relating to her job, which we have both helped her with immensely over the years).
My father told her all this was demonstrably false, which it is.
She did not like that and kept screaming about how she was going to register for a divorce so the house could be auctioned off and ‘that would teach him’.
That wouldn’t happen since he can prove that he’s been the sole household provider for years while she’s contributed nothing and she knows this, but she went on in that vein for some time quite irrationally.
My father then asked her what the hell she thought she was playing at and whether she really thinks her behaviour is acceptable, and at this point she began to make wild threats against us both and repeatedly claim we’d ‘be sorry’.
She is currently so unstable and so close to violent outbursts at any given moment that I am genuinely frightened. All her behaviour is characterised by aggression at all times, but this is a sudden escalation over the past week we haven’t seen before in this open way.
It’s the middle of the night and all this was five hours ago but I am still feeling utterly shattered because I don’t deal well with adrenaline fall-out, and my dog is sleeping next to me but keeps waking up with a nightmare and then being groggy and terrified and growling at me because he’s half-asleep and doesn’t recognise me for a few moments which then makes him horribly sad and confused when he does recognise me because he is not a boy who normally growls for anything and this is a pattern we see in him when he’s had a regression in his recovery and is working through trauma. It used to happen all the time in the first year we owned him but recently he’s been much improved. I am appalled and angry that he’s suffering this setback because of her.
I am also terrified of what she might do.
She is too selfish to do herself harm. She would seek to harm one of us. She is utterly without guilt or empathy and feels entitled to hurt us, as evidenced by her many past actions, but this time I fear she may go past the point of no return and try to do one of us serious physical harm. Previously she’s not gone that far because she’s had a sense of consequences, but at the moment she seems to be operating under something which is eroding her self-preservation to the point of lunacy.
I also don’t know what to tell my sister. My mother threw some things around earlier this evening which leads me to think my sister must have told her at some point about how my sister and I discussed - two years ago almost now - the possibility that my mother has an undiagnosed personality disorder (likely narcissistic, as it fits on all counts) just like her entire family (almost all of whom have had psychological issues amounting to a personality or mood disorder of some kind and a few of whom have been worse).
I have always tried to protect my sister from our mother’s worst. Especially when we were very young and her violent outbursts for once included my sister, which usually happened when my sister defied her or tried to stand up for me.
Especially because at the time my mother’s main weapon she liked to use on me was that ‘Your dad knows you’re a nasty little liar so if you tell him about this, he’ll believe me, and he’ll support me getting rid of you and you’ll be alone and never see your sister again’, and so I never felt safe telling my father what she got up to.
Owing to this, it’s only in the last five years or so my father has learnt about my mother’s abuse as she’s lost the ability to be subtle about it with him after a few head injuries.
It’s also caused my sister to be most of the time a tacit or willing accomplice to my abuse, and to develop her own trauma response of just not ‘seeing’ or even remembering our mother’s behaviour.
When I told her my theory about our mother potentially having a personality disorder about two years ago, it’s because at the time our mother was recovering from the latest of three recent mild head injuries and had begun to lose the ability to be subtle about her outbursts and tendency to lie about everything - she couldn’t keep her stories straight anymore, so my dad found some things out about how she’d been stealing and keeping money from him, gambling, and was still addicted to nasal spray, as she has been for many years.
My sister had noticed our mother’s irrational and strange behaviour worsen because our mother kept calling her (my sister lives in another city, same one our mother works in, with her boyfriend) and my sister was worried because as she told me, ‘It’s like she’s had an aneurysm, she slurs words, doesn’t make sense, and can’t remember what she’s just told me, and I think she’s lying to me about things but then she says she just can’t remember, and she’s being very rude and aggressive to retail staff and people she doesn’t like and having a lot of disturbing road rage and I think she’s sick...’
My sister was also at the time having personal difficulties and seeing a therapist, and was starting to remember disturbing events from our childhood which she wanted me to corroborate.
I did, as all of it was sadly true and I couldn’t lie, and I tried to be supportive and encouraging, and thought and hoped it was a good sign she was questioning and working towards realising our mother’s truth and coming to terms so she could work on the fact that their relationship has always been deeply unhealthy and is the source of most of my sister’s issues, but at the time it turned out my sister was not ready to make those realisations or take that step.
After her psychologist suggested to her that she consider that her problems closely mirrored those of children of parents with substance abuse issues, my sister stopped therapy and instead completely regressed backwards to a state where she now doesn’t ‘see’ our mother being cruel or rude to me or our father or anyone even if it’s right in front of her, and she responds to any criticism of our mother or any attempt by me or my father to inform her as to my mother’s mental state and behaviour with loud repetitive insistence that whatever our mother has done must be at least partially the fault of the one she did it to (usually us) and that anyway our mother is stressed and so can’t be blamed for anything.
Earlier when my mother came home screaming and violent, I could have called my sister and let her hear it.
I didn’t, because I was ready to call the police.
I have not felt the need to do that for years, usually when she was also threatening my sister.
I’ve never actually called the police on her. I probably should have a few times, looking back. I usually refrained because she convinced me they, like my father, would also see that I was just a little liar, and then they’d lock me up and take me away from my sister for good.
I am very frightened of what she might do. I am frightened because I don’t know what to tell my sister, who can’t handle the truth and thus is likely not to want to believe me and has probably already been lied to about this by my mother, but whom I feel has to know about this.
I am frightened because I do not want her to be alone with my dog, or my father, in case she does something heinous - if she’d had a knife to hand earlier she’d have tried to stab my father I have no doubt - but I do not want to be under the same roof as her anymore, and my father will not leave her here alone, both because he won’t be chased out of his own home which he pays for entirely but also because we’re actually both as always concerned for what she might do in a fit of irrationality which may cause her or others harm either by accident or on purpose.
It’s a pure miracle that she didn’t run anyone over earlier the way she was driving, and that sort of things happens all the time. She never displays remorse. She also regularly drives despite being tipsy as she won’t admit her liver damage means even a small glass of wine will linger heavily in her for up to 24 hours and she regularly drinks more when she’s with her friends. She also never displays concern or remorse about that.
For years my father and I have tried to protect her from herself, the irrational and aggressive behaviour that she can’t seem to properly control anymore at all, and to shield my sister from the worst.
But everything’s coming to a head now, and I am just frightened.
My dog keeps waking up scared and crying and I am frightened and I can’t go to sleep because part of me is afraid she’ll burn the house down with us in it or murder my father or something equally horrendous and my door doesn’t lock and I cannot handle her being anywhere near us anymore, it’s enough, and how dare she think she can get away with screaming at us earlier that she can’t stand looking at us another second or deal with being under the same roof as us when she has ruined my entire life and stolen my relationship with my sister and I have not once not been fucking frightened for one reason or another as the direct result of her deliberate actions against us all!
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Malex prompt! Slowly getting to know the love of your life better as friends is perhaps the most awkward time to have to pull off fake dating for the investigation, but needs must.
“I don’t understand why you can’t go,” Michael feels like he’s losing his mind, because Alien Club is a) way too populated right now and b) telling him that he and Alex need to go undercover at some alien collector’s house the next town over. He gestures wildly to Noah and Isobel. “You two are actually married!” He’s shouting now, but he knows it’s a front for his panic.
Better to be angry than to let anyone see how much he’s freaking out about the fact that they want him and Alex Manes to pretend to be a happy married couple interested in some items for their home.
“Because he knows me,” Isobel counters. “Not to mention, of the three of us, you’re the one with the power to manipulate security cameras and pick locks with his brain,” she snaps. “So, your choice of spouse. Do you want Valenti, who can defibrillate a security guard if things go wrong…”
“Hey,” Kyle cuts in. “I’d make a very convincing loving husband.”
“Or you can pretend to be married to Max?”
“That’s not an option,” Max informs the group, raising a hand like he needs to make that clear.
“What about Liz? Cameron?” Michael is starting to flail wildly with options, because he knows how this is going to end.
“Guerin, they want me to hack into the system while I’m there to plant a keylogger,” Alex sounds way too calm considering what they’re being asked to do.
It’s only been a few weeks since Alex turned up at the junkyard and told Michael that he wanted to start over and be friends. Michael’s been trying so hard to give him what he wants and needs, backing off every time things get too close or tense, trying to open up and genuinely be Alex’s friend.
He’s just not sure he can actually be Alex’s friend and pretend to be married to him at the same time.
“Then why married?”
“You wouldn’t bring a casual boyfriend to a collector’s house to buy something. He’s supposed to have actual alien artifacts, Michael, and we need to know if there’s something worthwhile there.” Isobel’s gaze is steady and she has the look in her eye of a woman that knows she’s winning the fight. “Just go in, put on a good show, and maybe we’ll learn more about ourselves. You want that, don’t you?”
It’s not a problem of want.
Michael wants everything that’s about to happen.
He wants to learn more about his past. He wants to be with Alex in a way they’ve never had a chance to be, but pretending to be married feels like skirting a huge line that feels dangerous to step over. “Fine,” he says, trying not to look at Alex (which is good, because then he won’t have to see the puppy-dog mooning eyes Alex is sending him). “I’ll pick you up at six,” he tells Alex. “This better be a good lead, Isobel.”
He storms out of Isobel’s house without looking back at anyone and heads straight to the trailer.
Once there, he opens one of his junk drawers and pulls out a ring box that he’s had since he was twenty-one. It had been a wildly stupid summer with Alex back in town. That summer, Michael had very nearly run away to UNM, begging Alex to come with him instead of going on his second tour.
He’d bought a ring. Michael Guerin, twenty-one, stupid and in love, decided that the next natural step would be to buy a ring. Only, then Alex hadn’t showed up for their date where Michael planned to ask him to run away with him. Years later, he’d found out that he couldn’t, because Jesse Manes had pulled some strings when he’d found out about Alex’s plans, making sure that he’d be required on base.
Michael had put the ring away at twenty one and never brought it out again. At least, not until tonight, because he’s supposed to be playing married.
He taps the box against his chest a few times, his mangled fingers clasping it tightly, and he stares out the window, trying to figure out what you wear when you’re trying to impersonate a married couple.
He has a hard enough time impersonating a normal human being most days, how’s he supposed to do this?
Michael turns off the part of his brain that does feelings and heads to the meet-up point for six, getting in Alex’s car because apparently his beat-up Chevy doesn’t carry the right impression (thanks, Isobel, for that encouraging text).
“You ready?” Alex asks.
“Fuck no,” Michael responds, “but if this guy has anything that belongs to us, I need to know. What do you want to say if he asks about our history?”
“I made us up a background that should hold,” Alex says, as they start driving to the next town where David Trapper lives. “Let’s keep it pretty close to reality? We met in high school and started dating there, off and on. When DADT got repealed, we decided to get hitched, and now we live in Roswell.”
The way he says it is clinical and official, but even that is more than Michael’s ever thought he’d get from Alex. “Okay,” he says, tapping his fingers on the dash to get out some of his nervous energy. “And uh, our names?”
“I took yours. Alex Guerin is the ID he’ll find if he looks me up, which I anticipate him doing.” Alex is doing his Listen To Me, I’m In The Air Force voice, which means they’re about 0010 minutes from Michael being given an order that will get him embarrassingly hard. “I’m not going to mess this up for you.”
“I never said you were,” Michael replies heatedly. “This isn’t me freaking out because I don’t think you can do it, Alex, you have to admit this is awkward. We’re playing pretend. You broke us up, twice, I slept with Maria, now you want to be friends and the first thing we do is decide to get fake married to look into alien artifacts.”
Alex shakes his head in disbelief, but he’s smiling, so clearly he understands how weird this is.
“It’s not, admittedly, how I expected us to start over, but is it so bad? Friends investigate things together. They go out for drinks every few days to decompress and talk about their day. We’ve been doing that. It’s been nice, even.” Alex shrugs as he takes the turn down the long driveway of the address they’ve been given. “Maybe this is a good test for us.”
It’s dark, now that they’ve arrived and it doesn’t help with the ominous mood that’s been creeping up on him the last few minutes. Alex parks a fair distance away as they both peer out the windshield at what awaits.
The house is a creepy looking mansion in the dark and Michael hates it. He thinks he’d hate it even if he didn’t know the guy inside was collecting artifacts like it’s some creepy kink. It’s that gaudy flaunting of wealth that makes him sick, the same as it always did when he was a kid.
“Hey,” Michael murmurs, heart racing as he digs out the box from his pocket. “Gotta sell this, right?” He opens it and it’s probably sad to be as proud as he is about the fact that he doesn’t fumble the ring, but he manages to get it out and offers it out to Alex.
He’d fashioned himself one from some scrap metal and he’s hoping Alex doesn’t look at the ring too long and hard to notice that the platinum band doesn’t match the stainless one Michael’s wearing.
Luckily, Alex says nothing, even if he does give Michael a wary look as he slides it on, his eyes softening. It looks like there’s something on the tip of his tongue, though, but Michael can’t cope with a fake marriage and a mission in the same night as hearing real feelings, so he gets out of the car before Alex can say anything.
He’s pretty sure that Isobel didn’t think about the tension between the two of them when she’d sent them on this little mission of hers, because already he feels like they’re fucking it up. He comes to a stop outside the steps to the porch when he sees a figure standing there.
Someone’s been waiting for them.
Michael tries to convince himself this isn’t like an awful horror movie, and turns to find Alex using his crutch as he makes his way to Michael’s side.
“Mr and Captain Guerin,” David Trapper greets them from the porch of his lavish estate, and Michael threads his fingers into Alex’s hand not just to sell the bit, but because he could use the support. “Please, come in. Isobel mentioned that you had come into some money recently and were interested in seeing my collection.”
“We’re aficionados,” Alex smoothly agrees, giving Michael a nudge to get him moving. “We’d heard that you were intending to sell some of your items and were interested in seeing what you have to offer.”
“I do love to show it off. Please! Come in!” Trapper encourages. “I have the best collection of items I’ve purchased this side of Roswell, but I’m always willing to part with one of them for the right amount of money.”
Michael presses his lips together and tries very hard not to think about sending one of the suits of armor telekinetically flying into Trapper’s face.
Rich asshole bastard.
“Here we are,” he says, ascending a flight of stairs and leading them down a long hallway, with wood floors and heavy oak paneled walls. Everything here is behind a case and looks to have its own security measures. “Seventy years of collecting has yielded this, my own personal monument to our little green friends.”
It’s insulting, is what it is. Michael’s never been green, if you exclude the time he gave himself accidental acetone food poisoning by combing a bottle of it with some really bad sushi.
As much as he’s predisposed to hate this man and his house, his collection is actually incredible. Sure, there’s a few pieces of useless meteorites, but the technology looks genuine and he’s seen copies of the memos on display on the dark web, including the original transcripts from Brazel.
Michael drifts away from Alex’s side to keep going down this rabbit hole, barely paying attention to the small talk Alex is offering to keep Trapper occupied.
Considering he thought this place was going to be a bust, he’s quickly learning how wrong he is. The sound of a phone ringing cuts into his focus and he turns to watch Trapper taking a call, wishing he could listen in on whatever it is he’s being told, but he doesn’t seem keen to even be near them while he talks.
“I have to take this call, you two stay here, enjoy the Alien Wing,” he says, ducking out to the main foyer and leaving Alex and Michael alone.
The minute he’s gone, Michael shorts out the security cameras. “Asshole,” he grumbles, but his eyes are fixed on the various display cases on show, wondering how the hell he got his hands on these items, but the real prize possession seems to be at the end of the hall, with three times as many alarms as anything else. It looks like a glowing piece of the ship, but the placard makes him sick when he realizes that it’s alien in nature, but it’s not mechanical.
It’s organic.
He stares at it for a long time, his brow furrowed.
“Michael?”
“Organ from the 1947 alien autopsy,” he reads, staring at the iridescent shimmering before him, wondering if it belonged to a family member, a friend, a guardian, or someone else all-together. Did this person die to protect him? He’s staring at it while Alex starts to jimmy the panel loose, hooking up his device so he can hack into the security system.
Glancing up as he works, Alex looks worried from what Michael can see out of the corner of his eye. “It’s real?”
“I think so,” Michael says, feeling numb. He can’t explain why he thinks he’s so sure, but there’s a connection and a pull towards it.
Alex finishes with the software he’s sending, a conflicted look on his face as he presses in close to Michael, a hand on his hip. “Hey,” he murmurs. “You know we can’t take it. He’ll call the cops and that’s the last thing we need.”
“I know,” Michael replies, but it’s monotone, like he’s on autopilot.
“Michael…”
“I know,” he snaps, because he does. He has to leave this place because this is only recon and he’s not allowed to use his power to smash the glass and take back this stolen piece of his history.
“We’ll come back.”
He knows, but it doesn’t make it any better. “What do you want to tell him?” he asks, searching Alex’s face for advice and finding a flood of warm sympathy there. Maybe they’re pretending to be hitched, but he’s pretty sure Alex has nailed the whole ‘support your spouse’ part of this. “What should be we be making an offer on?”
“The memos,” he says. “We don’t want him thinking we’re into the alien stuff just yet. I’ll tell him we’re going to go home and think about it, then we’ll make sure he’s not connected to the government in any way.” He steps into Michael’s space so he catch his eye, clearly trying to calm him down. “Okay?”
It’s really not okay, but what choice does Michael have? He rips his gaze away from the glowing and pulsating object, swallowing back his stubbornness so they don’t get caught.
“Okay.”
It takes another ten minutes to conclude their business with Trapper and get out of there, but he doesn’t seem suspicious and that’s all Michael can ask for. The drive back is spent in silence, because Michael can’t stop thinking about the organ in the case, and he can’t stop thinking about the rings on their fingers – fake in Michael’s case, but so real when it comes to the one Alex sports.
Once they’re back in Roswell, Michael knows that he’s going back once he figures out a decoy to swap with the items in Trapper’s care. He’s not leaving anything back at Trapper’s place, but he doesn’t need a fake-husband for that. Alex has brought him back to the junkyard and parked the car, turning to face Michael as he lifts his hand, starting to work off the ring. “Here,” he says. “Before I forget, you should take this back.”
Watching Alex pry off the ring, Michael feels a wave of courage wash over him.
He reaches out and folds Alex’s fingers over it. “Keep it,” he says.
“Michael, it’s yours, it must have cost…”
“Keep it,” he says. “But the next time that you and I do something that requires a married couple to go, I’m not faking it with you,” he warns, a promise he intends to keep. Seeing his family’s body on display like that has filled Michael with a need to make sure that he doesn’t take anything for granted. “I spent fifty years in a pod, in stasis, but I came out at the exact right time. I don’t know how, but maybe you and I were meant to. I was protected by someone, and maybe this isn’t what they intended for me, but one year more or less and everything would’ve been different. I’m gonna make it right. I’ll talk, I’ll be your friend, but one day, I’m gonna earn that ring back from you because otherwise, if I waste away my life, what does that say to the people who worked so hard to keep us safe?”
He can’t keep fucking up with Alex and he knows they’re not ready, but he really needs Alex to understand that.
Alex slides the ring back into his pocket, nodding, looking thoughtfully at him. Michael’s expecting Alex to tell him to stop being unrealistic or to stop pushing, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he presses Michael against the door of the truck and kisses him like they had at the reunion, crashing into each other as Alex’s fingers tangle into Michael’s hair, kissing him until desperate sounds are wrenched from Alex’s throat.
When he eases back, Alex presses his forehead to Michael’s. “I knew you were secretly a romantic,” he teases. “You’re saying we’re fated?”
“I don’t know what else to call it,” Michael admits, because he believes in coincidence, but them finding each other feels like more than that. “Come on,” he says, swallowing the lump in his throat. “We need to tell them what we found and I need to go plan a heist.”
“Not alone, you don’t,” Alex guarantees, and Michael feels his heart pounding in his chest to know he’s got a partner in crime. “For better or worse, until government agencies do us part.”
“Yeah,” Michael agrees, and he’s ready to go reclaim a piece of his history, with the best fake-husband ever at his side.
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Yesterday, The Long Version
The day started out well, because it was Junk Food Day, and we had a plan I was looking forward to (mid-week pepperoni wangs). I get to work, and the boss lady (whom I love) came by to chat with me about an upcoming observation scheduled for next Wednesday. Observations are when someone sits with me and watches/listens to me taking phone calls, to see how it’s done. It’s not unusual for the company to sit someone with me when an observation becomes necessary. The reason it’s interesting this time, is that the person coming to observe me is the third highest-ranking officer in the company. So this is one of those occasions where it’s wise to have my manager come over and (a) make sure I’ll be there, (b) make sure I know who he is, and (c) make sure I’m together with their plan. I will, I do, and I am.
So I’m at work, and my boss is sitting right in front of me, and I need to log in. I start to log in, and fuck it up, because it’s complicated, and my boss is watching me. I try again, and about halfway through, my pocket starts vibrating. I log in successfully, pull out my phone, tell my manager, “This can’t be good; it’s the husband.” And I answer the phone. It’s my husband!
He’s obviously terrified. He tells me he had an accident, and he panicked and left the scene. My boss can tell it’s an emergency just from my end of the conversation and tiptoes a short distance away. My advice to the husband is, roughly, “Enhance your calm. The scary part is over. Call the police. Tell them what happened. It’ll be fine. And don’t sweat it honey, this is what your husband does for a living! We’ll deal with the shit.” His car is fucked up. He may be at fault.
What happened in the accident was this: He pulled to the exit of our apartment complex parking lot on William Cannon. He looked left, didn’t see anyone coming, pulled out, got straightened out in his lane, when a vehicle behind him and to his left hit his little Hyundai Accent on the left front. This means one of two things: the police will think Zach failed to yield the right of way exiting the parking lot, and got hit by the other vehicle, OR that Zach pulled onto William Cannon and then got nailed by someone coming into Zach’s lane. I have no idea which is more accurate, so I don’t know how the police or the insurance folks are going to make that determination, but that’s what happened. I just assume he’ll be cited for failing to yield.
After the impact, Zach was sitting there and the other driver walked up and tapped on the window. This moment here was almost certainly the beginning of the worst part for Zach. He tried to get his insurance out to give to the other driver, but he couldn’t because he kept slapping himself. He left with parts dragging, and with his front bumper and license plate still there at the scene, and came home to yell at and hit himself more.
I don’t mean to get too dark here, but...can you imagine being trapped in a room, and you can’t get free, and someone’s hitting your spouse in the next room over? It makes you willing to do anything to stop it, but you can’t, so it robs you of your sanity instead. The only good thing about it is that it ends.
By the time Zach and I are done speaking on the phone, he is calmer. His voice is back down into its normal register. He says he’s okay and will call the police. We end our call. I let my head fall to my desk with a small but audible boom, three or four times, and I hear from my manager in the background, “So...is everything okay?” And I tell her what she’s already deduced, husband in accident, panicked, left scene, thinks they might arrest him, isn’t it lucky his spouse works for the claims department of an auto insurance company. I don’t remember what she said in reply, but it amounted to, “Yeah, go.”
I went home and looked at the front of Zach’s car on my way into the apartment. I’ll include a photo here.
I think the car did what it was supposed to do to protect my husband. All the pretty curved plastic shit on the front end just took one for the team and gave up its life, so all the energy from the impact simply left the car, born away by the bumper instead of being transmitted to the driver, causing injuries. I could be wrong about some of the physics, but generally, the more the car gets fucked up, the better you feel after the accident. I’m starting to have a fondness for Hyundais.
So I’m now home with Zach. He’s been kicked in the emotional fork pretty hard, and is trying to make peace with a brain that’s telling him to panic, that he fucked up, that he’s stupid, that he handled it wrong, that he’s going to have to have SO MANY conversations with people in authority who will give him shit about it. So I begin to formulate the new plan for unfucking our situation.
By now, Zach had called 9-1-1, only to be told that he needed to call 3-1-1, which he did, and he reported the accident. He’d been given a case number and a phone number, but little information about the next step, and specifically NO information whether one police officer, or several, might be popping by to handcuff him and take him away to jail. Fortunately, plans like this pretty much write themselves:
Call the phone number provided by the 3-1-1 person and ask, in the humblest and most Texan way possible, complete with ma’ams and sirs, if someone could let us know whether there’s anything we should be doing, or maybe tell us what will happen next.
Get on the computer and file the claim with State Farm. Insurance company won’t care how little info we have; they’ll just want to set up the claim and assign it to an adjuster to get started working on it.
Address the husband’s need for a repair shop, and a tow to that shop, as his car is now strictly decorative cause it’s dragging shit on the ground.
Make sure I know whether a rental car is coming our way while Zach’s car is being fixed.
Calm down. Get under the covers. Order some wangs. If there are drugs about, abuse them.
I call the phone number provided by 3-1-1 and tell the nice lady my husband was in an accident, and might you please be able to tell me if there’s anything we should be doing now, ma’am? It takes a few different searches to find our accident, which she eventually tracked down with husband’s license plate number. She begins to ask me questions to fill in some missing info. What’s the car’s year, make and model? What’s the color, and license plate? Why did he flee?
Why DID he flee? Here’s why he fled, as best as we can figure out. We think he’s somewhere on the autism spectrum. We haven’t the resources to find out for certain, but it explains a lot of shit. Possibly Asperger’s. Reading the symptoms are like reading a description of Zach: He’s quite intelligent, but his social abilities are fucked up. He tends to avoid eye contact and speak in monotone. He hates, hates, hates change. He has a high IQ and superior rote memory. He has depression and anxiety. And the last time he had a regular therapist, that therapist said he thought Zach might have Asperger’s.
Therefore, he fled because he couldn’t handle the overload. Just like I did, when I had a similar accident in my mid-20s, he thought life as he knew it had just ended, only since his car was drivable (mine had not been) he went to ground. He ran home and called me. He fled because he panicked. He fled because he couldn’t stop hitting himself. Poor dude’s circuitry just exploded. I told the lady, “He’s...not very experienced with this type of situation, he’s autistic, he panicked and just went home and called the police.”
The lady I spoke with finished filling in the information she needed, and I even got a soft chuckle or two out of her while I obtained it. “Husband’s phone number? I regret I haven’t committed it to memory...um, honey?” (Husband reads phone number, woman chuckles.) She even made a little sympathetic sound when I explain why he left the scene. She was super nice. She summed up the next steps, which were not what I expected. Since Zach left the scene, the other driver is designated the victim.
Send a letter to the victim, have him get an estimate for the repairs, and mail it back.
That info will be given to a detective who investigates.
They don’t issue a warrant unless you flee the scene, AND they can’t reach you. If you’re in contact with the police, they will not, as a matter of course, send someone out to put you in the pokey.
Zach felt a lot better about things after I made that call. Any time you’re in a scary situation with a lot of unknowns, it helps you feel better by getting answers on those unknowns. Now he could relax a bit, cease panicking, and spend the afternoon quietly condemning himself for being worthless and stupid and whatever else.
The rest of the day is kind of a blur. I reported the claim on State Farm’s website, and that also addressed our short-term needs, namely, the choice of repair shop, the beginnings of the towing arrangements, and the beginning of the rental car arrangements. We ended up driving into downtown Austin yesterday--which is the opposite of what husband felt like doing--because we had to pick up the rental car. I checked, and I have coverage for $50 per day of rental car. That’s kind of a lot! Most people have coverage for $30 per day. We went to Hertz. Naturally, its parking lot is punishingly small and cramped. We spoke with a nice lady with long, pointed, avocado-colored fingernails who got us through the process. When it came time for her to give me the keys to the rental, she said, “We have a Chevy Traverse. That sound okay?” I have about as much respect for Chevrolets as I do for chlamydia, so I wasn’t thrilled, but what the hell. It’s a loaner.
Then this guy behind her, who was Asian, and had eyebrows exactly like Zachary Quinto’s, said, “Oh, you have a choice. We also have a Toyota 4-Runner. You can have the Traverse or the 4-Runner.” To which I replied, “Um...4-Runner! 4-Runner! 4-Runner!!!” And since the lady said that we would face a deoderizing fee of $300 if they found any evidence of smoking in the 4-Runner, I gave my cigarettes to Zach and said, “Remove these from mine sight.”
I never drive anything larger than my car, and a brand new 4-Runner, which is the size of an aircraft carrier, felt really, really strange to drive. Yesterday was so very weird. It was a day when I went to work, but only stayed for 17 minutes. Zach wasn’t keen on driving, so I suggested he drive my car home and let me pilot the star destroyer. I found myself listening to NPR while driving in heavy traffic in a very large, expensive vehicle, and all I could think to myself was, “I’m huge! Ohmygod I’m huge! I’m SO HUGE!” Stepping on the gas was like sending away for an authorization to accelerate. And when it was going 70, it felt like it was going half that speed. It has a backup camera, which I find unreasonably exciting.
We got through the rest of the day as best we could. Handling shit like this is primarily just a long series--days, weeks worth-- of phone calls to exchange information. Now it’s the next morning, and we’re getting his car towed from our apartment to the repair shop. It’s taken about eight phone calls so far.
And that’s how we handle it when Zach wants to hurt himself. We get through the moment, then we get through the day, then the next day is usually better. Once the tow truck is gone with his car, he’s going to hop into the star destroyer and drive it around the parking lot a little bit. I don’t know what this will cost us, but between the government shutdown and this, our plan to leave Austin by end of May is pretty much obliterated. So we’re considering changing our move date to December 1 of this year.
December 1 solves a few problems. It gives us more time to save up. It means I’ll be with the company long enough to earn next year’s gainsharing bonus. We can move in the fall, rather than at the start of summer. We can spend Next Christmas there, but we can spend the coming Thanksgiving here. It’s what would happen anyway, if we sign for another six months after our current lease runs out. It seems to be suggesting itself, because it feels right.
The tow is now done. Gonna keep an eye on husband a bit longer. The claim seems to be humming along as it should. Updates to follow. Now would be a good time for the government to reopen.
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Dear Ex Boyfriend,
I don’t know If I will send this. Its all very dependent on your response to the last letter. I am hopeful this will get sent, but only time will tell. Who knows, maybe we will let technology seep in ever so slightly and use email. At least with email we know it will arrive.
I do this now, I write. I do it for me to get a lot off of my mind. Its somewhere I can go back to if I need to rethink or readjust a storyline in my head. Its therapeutic. Its sad. I would rather just talk these things through with you. I would rather have a conversation. I would rather we tried to work through this. We got therapy, we worked on us, worked on our communication. I would rather a lot of things, that aren’t this ending. I think that is what hurts the most. That I saw so many other avenues before this one.
Do you hate music? I hate music now. I don’t think you will have the same feelings towards music as me. But I think that is because your music choices tend to centre more around drugs, someone getting shot, or about some cheating hoes (this list isn’t exhaustive of all your music). But my music tends to be the junk on the radio that harps on and on and on about love, being loved, loving someone, and just absolute utter shit I don’t want to listen to. Any joyous song I once used to just quietly play in the background, now invades my personal space and makes me relive that Friday over and over again.
I do have to thank you though. Not exactly for what you did, and absolutely not for how you did it. But you did free me. I don’t stare at clocks anymore calculating what time it is in Scotland. I don’t rush through my day to make sure I am available during my most productive midday hours to not be productive but to sit on a video call. Some good is coming from this. BUT the reality is that I could have had that same good if we were simply in the same time zone. This is only freeing because of the time zones. I wouldn’t be appreciative of it or even thankful in the slightest if we were in the same time zone.
We briefly messaged back and forth the other day. But I had to stop it. It was feeling too normal. Too back to normal… That was the problem. It felt like we were back to the old days, of just chatting about anything and everything. But I stopped it. I was heavily policing myself. In a very tiring way. A way I don’t want to police myself anymore. Policing myself wasn’t hard, it was just doing it for someone I hadn’t had to do that for-for years. That was the hard part. Talking to you wasn’t hard. Letting you know how G was, wasn’t hard. Omitting the fact that D had been struggling greatly, that I suddenly became the only thing between him and a really horrible outcome. That was hard. That is hard. The first person I wanted to call was you, even though it was 8pm at night, so you wouldn’t have been available anyways. I also couldn’t call you, as I was trapped on the phone with D for hours. I wasn’t free until midnight, where I was barely free, I was exhausted, and would feel the aftermath of that call for days to come. So its been a lot.
The one time I really needed my trusty support system, I don’t get it. But at the same time that isn’t so different from how it had been at times. I try so incredibly hard to suppress that one summer visit when my grandmother died, and you spent it skydiving. I don’t know who to be mad at for the trip. Myself for not speaking up and asking you to not do the one thing you love the most in life. Or you for not seeing the obvious heart break I was going through and to choose to step back yourself. I still don’t know who to be mad at. I think I am mad at us both. Me for not mustering up the energy to speak up, and you for not seeing this as such an obvious time to spend more time with me, not less. I knew you loved skydiving, I knew that that trip was all about skydiving for you. But when we packed and left for Canada we didn’t know we were going to arrive to a death, plans should have changed right then and there. But I wouldn’t ask you to change them. I never did, and never would. That trip has never not stuck with me. I had thought back to it all the time and still do. It confuses me, I don’t like that I don’t know what the right answer is, and that maybe there never was one. I don’t like forcing people to do what is seemingly right, or better for the greater good. I want people to get there themselves, on their own accord. The same way I didn’t want to force you to move to Canada, maybe my silence was the same mistake.
I had a funny little moment of realization today. I think this pandemic made me into the person you might have wanted. I became this homebody that cooks, cleans, works out, goes on daily long walks, is independent, and is working from home. I don’t know that that is exactly what you wanted, but I have a feeling that that person wouldn’t make you unhappy, you wouldn’t not be pleased. This whole time I wanted to push back against being that person. But here I am, and Its not the worst thing ever. I could easily do this for lifetime. The important part being that I am not alone, that the cooking and cleaning is a constant team effort with my mother, and walks are with her too. I am independent, but not doing much alone. Which is exactly what I always wanted. I wanted to just not be alone, to share moments on long walks, or cooking together. I just wanted those little moments of us, just us. Every single one on one hike, dog walk, movie night, dinner, afternoon tea. I was at my happiest, I wanted the gift of one on one time with you, I just wanted us to get back to basics, back to just us.
I think I must have reached the part where you sit around bargaining. But its a weird form of bargaining. Its not just relationship related. It isn’t me thinking of all the things I would give up and do for you. Although that is part of it. Its me bargaining everything. Its me debating if this is how I want to spend the rest of my 20s, stressed, chained to a desk, chained to school. Is that what I want. Pandemics are wild but great for self reflection. You finally get to slow down and breathe. Your brain finally gets a chance to get out of that fog of stress and burnout it has lived in for years. I don’t think this is what I want right now. It is something I want, and in an ideal world I would do it right now, I would get it out of the way. So that I could just live my life the way I want, after doing all the steps to please everyone in my life. I can go screw off and live in a van and travel, but hey at least I have a PhD. I guess I am bargaining. I used to see a PhD as something that wouldn’t always be available to me, so I had to do it while I could. Who knew that you were what wouldn’t always be available to me.
You were saying that our relationship had been flawed for a while now. At first I just couldn’t grasp onto why that came as a surprise. Obviously it was flawed. We met on exchange, you lived in Germany, I lived in Canada, I moved home for months, I lost funding for my masters, I moved back to Scotland to be live alone, I started a new degree, I started to train Walt, you left the army, you moved back to Scotland, we moved house, you lost money in trades, you started a new job, I finished my thesis, I defended my thesis, I couldn’t find a way to stay other than a spouse visa, we had to give Walt back, I got kicked out of the country, you moved house, I started a new degree. It was like a never-ending list of hurdles to be jumped. It wasn’t going to be perfect. It wasn’t perfect. But I was happy to wade through that bullshit with you. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. That light was Canada, and us being there together, back to basics, just us. That clearly didn’t happen.
I tried to think about when I was at my happiest in our relationship. Actually, I thought about when I was happiest in my life. 2 instances stand out. Both instances were when I did something crazy, something not quite normal, something for me. I did an extra year of school so I could go on an exchange, and moved abroad to do a master’s degree. Both times I cried at an airport leaving home. But I cried even harder moving back home afterwards. I never wanted to come home, I never wanted those experiences to end. I still tell everyone that they were the best experiences of my life.
I have grown J. For multiple reasons. I am off the birth control that left my depressed and in a fog. I finally have the opportunity to breathe and think without the burnout and stress of school. I have gotten therapy and speak with a professional weekly. I have grown. I have seen the mistakes I made in our relationship, that I denied for years. I see the times where I was in the wrong. I see that now. But I needed time to see that. I needed time to learn from them. I needed time to mature. I hope you have managed to do the same. I hope you have found an opportunity between work and James to think. To breathe. To mature in similar ways. I hope you still want to live in a van, travel, and skydive. I hope you still want to eventually get a dog and live on a big chunk of land in a log cabin. I hope your dreams haven’t change. I just hope you have grown the way I have.
You said it yourself that life is this wild thing and who knows what will happen. We have lived just one version of our story. But its all just one of those create your own story adventures. You can choose to stick to your guns, do something out of a RomCom, be stubborn, be empathetic, be open, be willing to change, be willing to risk it all, or choose nothing at all. You can just close the book and decide that is that. What I am trying to say in a super cheesy RomCom way is that I haven’t closed the book. I am ready to make some pretty crazy decisions. Decisions that will make people shake their heads in disbelief. I have done what I do best. Researched. I googled, I asked questions, and I have come up with possible plans. I have done what I always do, except this time I have done it with me in mind. With us in mind. Not with my family in mind, my friends in mind, my colleagues in mind.
I hate that I can’t just hop on a plane to Scotland right now. To do this in person. To just talk. I hate that this is all happening now. I hate that this is happening. But it is. And I am going to come out of this better. In everyway. I will be better inside and out. For me. I will come out on top. The question is where will you come out, where do you want to come out, how do you want to come out, and with whom?
Let me know when you have had a chance to breathe, to think, to mature, to grow. Let me know when you have though about different versions of the story, and what version you would prefer.
Let me know when you know. Clearly, I am ready to bargain.
With love,
Ex Girlfriend
This whole thing is just damn weird. My friends are all getting engaged in relationships that barely touched the surface of hardships we went through. They are just hoping love is enough to get through it down the road. But we did all that, we did survive. Through hard times caused by a multitude of little things we had been dealing with for a long time before. Things that before defined our success, became the last straw. It’s a hard pill to swallow. Evidently, I am not ready to swallow it. I am not ready, I also do not want to.
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Radical Acceptance: Start where you are
Radical Acceptance" Start where you are
Healing is a process. First one must accept there is a need for healing, that you have uncomfortable or challenging feelings and that you are not okay with staying where you are at right now. You will need to stop denying your feelings, putting on a brave face, spouting toxic positivity, or acting stoic or indifferent. This is the actually the first step of every 12-Step program, “admitted we have a problem” with alcohol, emotions, drugs, food, sex, power, anger etc. This typically does not happen until you “bottom out” meaning you blow your life up to the point you can no longer deny you have a problem. For some people this might mean going to jail or losing a relationship and/or family, or losing a job. For others it might mean getting caught at some unethical behaviors and feeling (healthy) shame. Everyone’s “bottom” is different; it is personal. And some people need to bottom out numerous times until they can no longer be in denial. This stage is also called “radical acceptance” to quote Dr. Ramani, a great therapist with a wonderful YouTube channel. You face reality and accept all of it whether it is realizing you are an alcoholic or a sex addict, or your spouse is, or you realize you hate yourself or your life. This is also what Pema Chodron also calls “start where you are”.
Getting to this place of radical acceptance, coming out of denial typically takes emotional venting, expressing despair or hopelessness, lots of self-hate and self-loathing, and often feeling like or presenting as a victim. When coming out of denial there is no balanced picture, no ability to take accountability for your own choices and actions. When working with a therapist or healer in this stage all that they can do is to encourage you to “get it all out”. Your therapist, healer or Teacher has balance siding with you and keeping you a bit balanced as you rail “against the bad guy” even helping you to vilify other people in your life. The person helping you will help you blame, well, everything, your parents, society, life, the universe. Anything to get your emotions and energy flowing after years of being stuck and stuffing your feelings and creating narratives for yourself to help keep you stuck. This is the first stage of healing, finding the hurt, becoming aware of your created narratives and your dysfunctional coping strategies. It is not rational, neutral, or mature. There will be blame, exaggeration, even complete lack of accountability. There will be no discussion of “let’s see it from the other person’s perspective” or this happened because of your childhood. This is a time of raw emotions, tears, rage, despair and more and nothing more can occur until this has run its course. Sometimes this can take a year, sometimes months.
Only after you have surfaced from this stage, truly moved into radical acceptance of what is true for you now in all your circumstances, your choices, and your feelings can you start to examine your role in it all and look at what you learned, and eventually look at the “spiritual” aspects of the situation, the lessons. You made choices, you accepted certain conditions and behaviors and even though you didn’t know any better, you now get to see and learn how you ignored red flags or tolerated behaviors from others and even yourself in order to get what you want. You put up with your choices, always, to get what you want. You want peace, you want to appear “spiritual” and “forgiving”, you want to be loved, you want power, you want sex, you want the money offered, you want recognition; the list is endless. What you haven’t learned yet, is to want your Self. What you haven’t learned yet is that you want a better life, you want to be able to make better choices. Sometimes with radical acceptance comes the responsibility of living with your choices. You are married to a narcissist or alcoholic, have children, have no income, no support system and cannot leave the relationship at this time. Now you have to make new choices on how to live with your current reality until circumstances change and only then might you even have different choices available to you.
Admitting you have a problem or problems, venting your emotions, blaming everyone and everything, is the first stage but you can also get stuck in that stage. After a while it is a very comfortable place to be, everyone “feels bad” for you, comforts you, shares their own stories, and often you will find members of the opposite sex are attracted to you and your shared wounded self. At this stage you are also a target for narcissists who love to take over wounded people and present as a hero so they can win your attention and hero worship and ultimately move into controlling and using you.Sadly, modern talk therapy psychology will help to keep you stuck in this stage and so will new age people as many co-dependents become therapists and (self-proclaimed) healers. You can stay in this stage, garnering attention and hugs for decade even moving through a few marriages, jobs, and passing on your sad story approach to life to your children. Few therapists/healers have the courage or strength to challenge people to actually step into healing, into recovery, into new behaviors. If you do that, you tend to lose clients and if you are a co-dependent therapist/healer you cannot tolerate the reactions you will have to move through when you challenge people rather than
People sometimes get confused. “Why did you agree with me that s/he was a bad person, or a narcissist or was acting like a narcissist?” and now you are pointing out my own selfish self-centered behaviors? Because you have moved on from stage one of venting, blaming, and being the victim. Now that you have started self-care on your hurts, you are ready for a more mature understanding and it is time to examine what choices you made, how you made them and the consequences of your choices. This is still only the beginning stage of healing. This is why there are 12 Steps in 12-Step programs, it is a Path and a Practice, not fixing a flat tire. And in fact 12-Step programs and having a Spiritual Path is a lifestyle choice, not a fix-it patch. Just like living a healthy lifestyle is a forever practice that will develop, morph, and evolve over your lifetime, so it is with being emotionally healthy, and Spiritually Evolved. Just as children evolve and grow and obtain new skills so are we children, children of the Universe, of Spirit, of your Higher Power. This means there is no rush. There is no “getting there”. As a lifestyle it is a daily awareness and practice filled with challenges and progress and joy.
Living as an authentic person is the Path of Spirituality. Living as an authentic person is a choice, every day, every moment. Authentic is an energy, there is no role model and no one way to do it as each person is an individual. Books, YouTube, and research will give you an education and tools but not the courage or strength to use them. Education without action or practice is like growing an organic garden and not eating from it but instead eating fast food, and telling everyone you have an organic garden. You can wow people with your narrative, your story, but it will soon be apparent that you are “presenting” rather than living authentically. Being honest is the skill that you learn and earn in the first stage of healing, admitting you have a problem, uncomfortable feelings, made horrible choices, stepping into the victim/self-blame and blaming others mode. Radical acceptance, if you move too quickly through this stage you will gravitate towards “presenting” rather than the uncomfortable work of healing and growing. If you move too quickly through this stage you will not develop the courage and strength to now start trying out new behaviors. Your biggest obstacle in moving forward will be your fragile attention seeking ego. Healing and learning means failing and not giving up and for this you must have the strength to be resilient, to believe in your Self and your Higher Power enough to have faith in your Self, your Path and Spirit to trust the process of learning, rather than constantly seeking accolades, complements, and attention.
Depending on what stage you are at choose how to do this work. You might at first need to be with an individual or group that will nurture you, give you complements, affections, and affirmation. But remember this is a process so don’t get stuck in one stage. Later on you will need to challenge yourself. Work with a group so your desire to ego please some authority figure can be kept in check. Work with a group to discover your how attached you are to “presenting”, looking good, or to discover how much you desire to “seek power” by manipulating the group to win affection or hero worship. Work with an individual who will challenge you, not stroke you, feed your ego, and will not allow hero worship but instead will create the space for you to have the strength accept who you are right now, the good and the bad, to accept your life as it is right now, the good and the bad. Only then can you begin to even consider how to re-invent your Self in your current circumstances. You cannot pray or wait for your circumstances to change first. Your circumstances exist in order for you to change. Most of all, work with Spirit, your Higher Power. Learn to receive energy through silent meditation or study with someone who can create this learning for you so you can master it.
Journey On
Life Path Healings: Classes and Private Sessions, Remote and In Person
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The “Ghosted” Friend 👻
I feel like I’m neglected and looked over a lot. Over and over again I’m forgotten about or the friend that’s put on the back burner. I’m SO tired of these things:
“Sorry just got this but I can’t because...(insert bs excuse)
“We should hang out! Really!” *never hear from them their just saying that because your suppose too
or my personal fav
*read
Being forgotten about
“We didn’t think you’d want to come”
This leaves me wondering this:
Did I do something wrong?
Why don’t they like me?
Am I too annoying?
Do I talk to much?
Does my homosexuality bother them even though they say they love how fem I can be at times
I talk to little
I’m not open enough
I’m too open
I text them too much
They are only using me
They are lying to you because they feel sorry for you
You’ll never be cool enough or good enough to be friends with them
It’s cause they think your too much of a straight edge
I would honestly rather someone tell me “I don’t like you and don’t want to be more than acquaintances with you. No hard feelings” then to lie and smile to my face and pretend to like me.
It bothers me a lot and I’m not sure why. I have a few thoughts though because I know I’m not alone in this...
You have to protect yourself first and formost! No ones mental/physical health should be jepeodized to make someone else happy or to “be polite”
My whole life I was taught manners and how to be courteous to others. I think every person especially children should learn and practice manners like please and thank you and holding doors and things, but you should never put with with a friend who puts your mental/physical health at risk.
Family or friend. This is how a toxic relationship is formed. As someone who had been in an mentally and emotionally abusive relationship I did a lot of things because I thought I was suppose to. Even if there was no positive outcome for me. I spent a lot of my days using all my energy to prepare for my SO to come home from work and ruin my entire night in 2 min by tearing me or anything down. I put up with it because I loved him and I assumed I was in the wrong and for our relationship to work he would need to be happy before me. I sacrificed my happiness in hopes he would be happy and change seeing how hard I tried. But it was the opposite. He would take more and more from me. And when I had nothing left to give and started to wonder what the point of my life was if I couldn’t ever make him happy?
Well I’m happy to say it took over a year for me to realize that would never happen and for my life to continue I would need to leave what started out as a easy friendship.
I was so entrained with a boy who wanted to be my friend and spend time with me I ignored the red flags. I think platonic relationships are the same. We have to set boundaries for ourselves. Concrete boundaries for the relationships in our life. The dictionary definition of boundaries is “a line that marks the limits of an area; a dividing line.”
Dividing line really sticks out to me. It’s so important to have the conversation with yourself what’s acceptable and what’s not and HOLD onto it! Remember it! Accidents happen and people make mistakes, but once is a confidence, twice is intentional, 3 times is a habit starting to form.
I’m not saying if someone fucks up to leave them their not good for you. We all mess up, we all do bad things but it’s about growing from that and being able to call your friends out on those things, you have a grown up- fierce conversations, and move on from it. And if a resolution can’t be met or the same actions are repeated that’s a good sign it’s time to move on. People do change. It’s rare, but you also can’t convince someone to change. Ask someone who’s ever loved an addict.
Your probably saying what’s a fierce conversation? Well if you haven’t heard of the book “Fierce Converstions” by Susan Scott Susan describes a fierce conversation as “One in which we come out from behind ourselves, into the conversation and make it real." She believes that interpersonal difficulties are a direct result of our inability to communicate well.
For relationships to be successful of any kind, (work, school, friends, spouse, kids, etc.) we can’t sugar coat our problems! By choosing NOT to speak up because you don’t want to upset or offend them or have that difficult conversation puts limits on your relationship. If you are uncomfortable talking about this now how will it transpire later in your relationship? What if it happens again, will you say anything? Will you stop hanging out with them? Ghost them? Block them? How you handle the situation is how your relationship will unfold. If you are open and honest you will have a strong accountable relationship. The opposite of that, hiding your feelings towards how a situation was handled, how someone spoke to you, something you were upset about whatever the case may-be puts limits on how much your relationship can grow.
Limit your emotions and your standards and you limit yourself. How can we grow as a person, especially us empaths that LOVE to “fix” or “help” if we are constantly giving out our trust/ our hand to those that don’t deserve it. It’s like each time you cut away at yourself and give it away to someone else with nothing in return to build yourself back up. Boundaries are the lines that protect our heart. Without them we burn out.
So I understand what a healthy relationship looks like. What people who genuinely root for your well being and existence in their life. But what when you can’t find it?
Honestly I don’t have the answer because that’s where I’m stuck...
My best friend moved 12 hours away. We had an amazing relationship and we still talk daily but obviously I’d like someone here at home to friend, but I’ve had no luck. I know a lot of people and I’ve attempted to make friends and do things and everything feels so forced and fake and I hate it. It’s like the people I’m with aren’t having a good time either and we are just pretending.
I’m so tired of fake!
I did customer service for most of my life, and I can spot fake happy in a second.
I try to think things like, “your anxiety is making you feel this way. They are just busy/tired/ didn’t really see it.” And I think that’s part of it...sometimes...maybe...
And lately my new thought, and I’m actually kind of proud of this discovery is “they are naive and don’t know any better. So you can’t blame them for not being at that stage of growth yet”
In the same way you can’t get mad at a child for how quickly they learn to crawl because they are growing. They don’t know any better yet” we all grow at different rates. I feel like my heart is a little lighter when I think like that. We have to remember we are all humans who are constantly growing and experiencing life and the journey is different for all of us. But that is not reason to hold onto a toxic relationship.
We can still respect and cheer for someone’s growth without them being an active part of our lives.
But I’ve done my research and I know who I am. I’m proud of where I’ve come and how far I’ve had to come to make it to where I am. I know I’m a good person and a good friend. I’ve never been mean or spiteful to anyone and I am always the cheerleader of my friends. Im never judge mental, I ’m a great listener, I’m funny (most of the time), I try to be a safe place for everyone to come. Someone to talk to. I’ve always said I wanted my home to be a place you can come anytime and have something to eat, a glass of wine, talk, not talk, smoke with, whatever you need at that current time. I think people sense that and know it and i get taken advantage from. And that’s where that line comes in.
I am that safe place for others, but also for myself. Some days, my empath senses need a recharge for myself to heal. So I’m an avid believer that you can isolate yourself and not talk to anyone for awhile. Be honest and tell them you are needing some time to yourself for awhile to heal and gain your strength back. A good friend will tell you they understand and ask if they can help in anyway.
Empathetic people want to be listened to, too. We are the “dream catcher” of everyone’s emotions and that catches up quickly if you don’t know how to process it. Knowing how self care works and what you need to bring yourself back to your normal self is important. Trapping those emotions in and not processing them comes out in other ways, like anxiety, lashing out at minor issues, high blood pressure, depression, ect.
So in conclusion here is my thoughts. People suck. Period. Relationships are fucked up and hard and scary but honestly they can be so worth it. My best friend that moved is my biggest supporter and we talk constantly. We’ve made so many memories and she has taught me so much about life and myself I owe her for teaching me to grow. To think outside the box and challenge the way people behave, and think. I base most of my friendships off ours and that’s probably bad because I’ve known her for 9 years,but I know what a healthy relationship looks like because of her. It’s because of her I see the actions of others who aren’t being authentically themselves.
Maybe it bothers me so bad that people seem to snub me and keep going because of how hard I’ve worked to become who I am. I was closeted for 19 years. 19 years I lived a lie in every way you possibly can and you lose who you are after awhile. You try to be fake for so long the line between true you and the person you fake being is blurred and you lose track of which life is which and if that doesn’t make sense to you, ask someone that is LGBTQIA+ and I’m sure they can relate.
I spent So long being fake these, forced fake relationships I’m getting from other people are just not doing it for me. And I think it’s because I’ve grown so much. I’m unapologetically myself because I couldn’t be for so long. And I don’t think others realize the value in that. I’m weird and loud and fem and I’m FUCKING PROUD OF IT because it’s me. I’m being my authentic self that IM proud of and I don’t care what anyone else thinks. If I’m not good enough for you the way I am, then your relationship in my life is not needed. I’d rather go home alone every night, never have a friend, boyfriend, family, whatever and snuggle with my cats knowing I didn’t conform to be anyone else today. I didn’t water down myself to keep a friend.
Despite I’ve been kind of sad about my shitty friends situation, I’m gonna be happy on my own. I’m gonna find things that make me happy like photography and community involvement to keep my mind and hands busy.
“I believe that the measure of a person's life is the affect they have on others.” -Steve Nash
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How To Survive The Pressure As A Sole Income Earning Parent
Much has been written about offering more support and empathy for the stay at home parent who gives up his or her job to take care of a child full-time. Being a full-time parent is one of the hardest jobs in the world because so much is at stake. Full-time parents deserve all the respect in the world.
However, little attention is paid to the plight of the sole income earning parent. The sole income earning parent seems to have it relatively easy because s/he doesn’t have to be on call 24/7. S/he can slack off at work with no devastating consequences. S/he can even attend the occasional company boondoggle and have stimulating conversations with adults over copious amounts of free alcohol.
However, any emotionally competent sole income providing parent faces the following difficulties:
The constant stress of knowing they have to provide for the family with no financial backup
The constant guilt for being away from their child because of work
Not being able to find support because a day job is considered the easier job
The expectation of having to do an equal amount of parenting after a long day’s work
Many couples fight over this division of labor. The sole income provider often wants to come home, have a drink, eat dinner, and maybe watch some TV and relax, before jumping into parenting duties, especially after a rough day.
But the stay at home parent, who has been going non-stop since not-at-home spouse left the house, resents this expectation because nothing is as energy sapping as caring for an infant. The sole income provider is resentful for not being allowed to take even half an hour to unwind. Problems ensue!
Let’s see if we can help the sole income providing parent get him or her get to a happier place.
Surviving And Thriving As The Sole Income Earner
1) Take everybody’s opinion with a grain of salt. Guilt comes from inherently knowing spending more time taking care of your child is better than spending less time, especially in the crucial first five years of development. Guilt also stems from other people’s opinions about what you should do, especially if people criticize you for choosing work and money over being a parent.
It’s good to get advice from more experienced parents. However, as a writer who shares my struggles in finance and in fatherhood, I’ve come to realize that whatever you put out there will be judged. Further, a lot of parents project their guilt onto you due to their lack of parenting.
For example, I shared with readers in my mid-year review that I wanted to provide six hours of joyful assistance or primary care to my wife and son during his waking hours.
I used the word “assistance” because during the first year of life, breastfeeding is constant and I do not have the ability to breastfeed. Trust me, I looked up whether there were any breast feeding contraptions for men, but couldn’t find a viable solution.
I used the words “primary care” so that I’d take full charge for a couple hours in the morning, especially after a rough night and a couple hours in the afternoon so she could have time to herself. On my “off hours,” I’d get to work writing and managing our investments in order for my wife to be a stay at home mom. Seems like a reasonable effort, right?
Not according to reader Sara, who ignores my words “primary care” and writes,
“Sam, I can’t believe I didn’t catch this before. “Assistance to [your] wife”!?!?!
Parenting, cooking, cleaning, etc. are part of being an adult and a parent, and equally your responsibility as hers. This isn’t the 1950s. You’re not “assisting your wife,” you’re being a responsible adult in a relationship who shares childcare and housekeeping duties. I can’t believe this is even a “goal” of yours; it’s certainly not something you should celebrate if you achieve it, as it’s really the bare minimum standard of being a parent and spouse.”
Here I was thinking I was doing OK as a parent and trying to get better. But trying to be a better parent is not good enough for Sara, who sends her child to day care because both she and her husband work. I was so confused by her reaction, the only logical conclusion for her judging me for trying to take care of my son during the week is her guilt for not doing the same.
You can see how her comment would start a huge fight after coming home from a full day of work if you are the sole income provider. You can also see how some men are too afraid to be stay at home dads due to the criticism and lack of support from other parents. When stay at home dads make up just 2% of all stay at home parents, it’s easy to get run over by the majority.
The only right way is what you and your spouse decide is the right way through constant dialogue. It’s your life. Don’t let anybody come between you and your partner. Certainly don’t let other parents project their guilt onto you for trying to do better.
2) Be explicitly clear about the budget. Money stress is strong when you’re the only one generating income. As a result, make sure you and your spouse know your exact after tax income in order to calculate how much of the income can be spent on supporting the family while also saving for retirement, paying down debt, and saving for your child’s education.
Don’t just break down your expense budget by month. Figure out how much the family can spend by week and stick to it. After each week, review the actual expenses with the budget and give yourselves a high five when you spend less. This exercise will help reduce the sole income provider’s anxiety because there’s always a little worry when even the person you trust the most is in charge of spending.
Before our son was born, I gave my wife the green light to spend as much as she needed to prepare for our son’s arrival. After our son was born, the green light continued for a full year without us discussing a single item of expense. In retrospect, we should have reviewed our budget because after the first year, I began carrying some anxiety for months that we were spending 2.5X more than reality. I felt relief to see the actual child expense tally once she ran the report.
Related: Financial DEpenence Is The Worst: Why Each Spouse Needs Their Own Bank Account
3) Practice gratitude you’re able to work and have a stay at home spouse. Gratitude always helps dissolve any festering resentment or bitterness. Instead of seeing being a sole income provider as a burden, see it as a luxury and an honor.
Two-parent households where both parents work full-time make up ~46 percent of the population today, compared to 31 percent in 1970 according to Pew Research Center. The percentage of both parents working full-time is going higher because the cost of living and the cost of childcare is outpacing wage inflation.
If you can have the person you love and trust the most take care of your child full-time before going off to pre-school or kindergarten, it is a wonderful blessing. Remind each other daily of this luxury.
If both of you have the luxury to stay at home to raise your child together, even better. Just don’t be too open about it in real life because you will be hated on by other families where one or both spouses have to work outside their home full-time.
4) Know that it gets better after your child goes to pre-school or kindergarten. A child usually starts pre-school at age 2-3 and kindergarten at age 5-6. Therefore, no matter how much pain and frustration you are dealing with, know that your schedule will get easier for both of you within six years for a developmentally normal child.
As soon as you commit to a timeline goal, everything becomes easier to accomplish. For example, one of the reasons why I can keep publishing multiple times a week on Financial Samurai since 2009 is because I made myself a 10-year goal to do so. To quit now would be a travesty. Why do we frequently hear stories about someone passing soon after a major accomplishment? It’s because they were holding on until the goal was accomplished.
Sure, there will be more child-raising issues that come up as your little one ages. But with more sleep and free time during the day, the stress of being the only one to generate income diminishes because the stay at home spouse now has the option to work. The guilt of not seeing your child all day due to work goes away because your child is in school for most of the day. The reward of having a child increases because he or she becomes more interactive.
5) Take mental sick days very seriously. Feeling the pressure to provide is not physical pressure, but mental pressure. Feeling the guilt of not being able to raise your children can be mental torture. When your mind breaks down, you don’t do your best work. You become irritable, combative, and sometimes very volatile. Mental illness can lead to neglect, fights, adultery, divorce, and sometimes even suicide.
For goodness sake, please don’t be ashamed to take all your sick and vacation days. Please know the Family And Medical Leave Act is a federal law that guarantees certain employees up to 12 workweeks of unpaid leave each year with no threat of job loss. Be open with your colleagues about why you need time off. If they are good people, they will understand.
6) Have your stay at home spouse generate income. If gratitude, budgeting, patience, taking time off, and ignoring other parent’s opinions don’t work, the only solution left is to have your spouse start earning income again. The income can be generated preferably through freelance work or through a part-time job. If you can run your own business from home, even better.
Some households simply cannot afford to have one spouse stay at home until their little one goes to pre-school or kindergarten. Money stress can really strain a relationship, even if being a stay at home spouse is worth a $100,000+ a year job.
There are plenty of ways to make money online now through freelance marketplaces like Upwork or Task Rabbit. For example, here are all the freelance work categories on Upwork to choose from. Surely you have a skill in at least one of these areas. If not, I know plenty of people, including myself who drove for Uber or Lyft during the early morning or late night hours.
Not only is my wife an amazing mom, she is also an amazing online business partner. Once our son started sleeping for at least a 7-8 hour stretch, she began updating a lot of my older posts with fresh content and writing new pages on top of the quarterly booking she does. Not only did her work help our business, it also gave her a lot of pride and satisfaction.
Be Proud Of Your Accomplishments
Time with a child is priceless
Although it may not seem like you’re doing enough when you come home to a tired and stressed out spouse who sometimes makes you feel guilty for being away from the house all day, know that you are doing a great service to your family. The person you trust the most can be a stay at home spouse because of you!
Practice gratitude every day. Keep the dialogue running so resentment does not build up. Forgive each other the first five years before kindergarten. Don’t listen to the criticism of others who don’t walk in your shoes. Please take time off to heal your mind. And finally, cherish every single moment! Before you know it, your kids will be all grown up and will want nothing to do with you.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.
Related:
The Average Net Worth For The Above Average Couple
How To Build Passive Income For Financial Freedom
Anybody else a sole income provider who wants to share how they survive the pressure? Is parenting easier if you don’t have to parent for most of the day? Why do some parents pay an exorbitant amount for day care during the initial years of life when the child needs the parent the most? How common is it for parents to project their guilt on to other parents?
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How To Survive The Pressure As A Sole Income Earning Parent
Much has been written about offering more support and empathy for the stay at home parent who gives up his or her job to take care of a child full-time. Being a full-time parent is one of the hardest jobs in the world because so much is at stake. Full-time parents deserve all the respect in the world.
However, little attention is paid to the plight of the sole income earning parent. The sole income earning parent seems to have it relatively easy because s/he doesn’t have to be on call 24/7. S/he can slack off at work with no devastating consequences. S/he can even attend the occasional company boondoggle and have stimulating conversations with adults over copious amounts of free alcohol.
However, any emotionally competent sole income providing parent faces the following difficulties:
The constant stress of knowing they have to provide for the family with no financial backup
The constant guilt for being away from their child because of work
Not being able to find support because a day job is considered the easier job
The expectation of having to do an equal amount of parenting after a long day’s work
Many couples fight over this division of labor. The sole income provider often wants to come home, have a drink, eat dinner, and maybe watch some TV and relax, before jumping into parenting duties, especially after a rough day.
But the stay at home parent, who has been going non-stop since not-at-home spouse left the house, resents this expectation because nothing is as energy sapping as caring for an infant. The sole income provider is resentful for not being allowed to take even half an hour to unwind. Problems ensue!
Let’s see if we can help the sole income providing parent get him or her get to a happier place.
Surviving And Thriving As The Sole Income Earner
1) Take everybody’s opinion with a grain of salt. Guilt comes from inherently knowing spending more time taking care of your child is better than spending less time, especially in the crucial first five years of development. Guilt also stems from other people’s opinions about what you should do, especially if people criticize you for choosing work and money over being a parent.
It’s good to get advice from more experienced parents. However, as a writer who shares my struggles in finance and in fatherhood, I’ve come to realize that whatever you put out there will be judged. Further, a lot of parents project their guilt onto you due to their lack of parenting.
For example, I shared with readers in my mid-year review that I wanted to provide six hours of joyful assistance or primary care to my wife and son during his waking hours.
I used the word “assistance” because during the first year of life, breastfeeding is constant and I do not have the ability to breastfeed. Trust me, I looked up whether there were any breast feeding contraptions for men, but couldn’t find a viable solution.
I used the words “primary care” so that I’d take full charge for a couple hours in the morning, especially after a rough night and a couple hours in the afternoon so she could have time to herself. On my “off hours,” I’d get to work writing and managing our investments in order for my wife to be a stay at home mom. Seems like a reasonable effort, right?
Not according to reader Sara, who ignores my words “primary care” and writes,
“Sam, I can’t believe I didn’t catch this before. “Assistance to [your] wife”!?!?!
Parenting, cooking, cleaning, etc. are part of being an adult and a parent, and equally your responsibility as hers. This isn’t the 1950s. You’re not “assisting your wife,” you’re being a responsible adult in a relationship who shares childcare and housekeeping duties. I can’t believe this is even a “goal” of yours; it’s certainly not something you should celebrate if you achieve it, as it’s really the bare minimum standard of being a parent and spouse.”
Here I was thinking I was doing OK as a parent and trying to get better. But trying to be a better parent is not good enough for Sara, who sends her child to day care because both she and her husband work. I was so confused by her reaction, the only logical conclusion for her judging me for trying to take care of my son during the week is her guilt for not doing the same.
You can see how her comment would start a huge fight after coming home from a full day of work if you are the sole income provider. You can also see how some men are too afraid to be stay at home dads due to the criticism and lack of support from other parents. When stay at home dads make up just 2% of all stay at home parents, it’s easy to get run over by the majority.
The only right way is what you and your spouse decide is the right way through constant dialogue. It’s your life. Don’t let anybody come between you and your partner. Certainly don’t let other parents project their guilt onto you for trying to do better.
2) Be explicitly clear about the budget. Money stress is strong when you’re the only one generating income. As a result, make sure you and your spouse know your exact after tax income in order to calculate how much of the income can be spent on supporting the family while also saving for retirement, paying down debt, and saving for your child’s education.
Don’t just break down your expense budget by month. Figure out how much the family can spend by week and stick to it. After each week, review the actual expenses with the budget and give yourselves a high five when you spend less. This exercise will help reduce the sole income provider’s anxiety because there’s always a little worry when even the person you trust the most is in charge of spending.
Before our son was born, I gave my wife the green light to spend as much as she needed to prepare for our son’s arrival. After our son was born, the green light continued for a full year without us discussing a single item of expense. In retrospect, we should have reviewed our budget because after the first year, I began carrying some anxiety for months that we were spending 2.5X more than reality. I felt relief to see the actual child expense tally once she ran the report.
Related: Financial DEpenence Is The Worst: Why Each Spouse Needs Their Own Bank Account
3) Practice gratitude you’re able to work and have a stay at home spouse. Gratitude always helps dissolve any festering resentment or bitterness. Instead of seeing being a sole income provider as a burden, see it as a luxury and an honor.
Two-parent households where both parents work full-time make up ~46 percent of the population today, compared to 31 percent in 1970 according to Pew Research Center. The percentage of both parents working full-time is going higher because the cost of living and the cost of childcare is outpacing wage inflation.
If you can have the person you love and trust the most take care of your child full-time before going off to pre-school or kindergarten, it is a wonderful blessing. Remind each other daily of this luxury.
If both of you have the luxury to stay at home to raise your child together, even better. Just don’t be too open about it in real life because you will be hated on by other families where one or both spouses have to work outside their home full-time.
4) Know that it gets better after your child goes to pre-school or kindergarten. A child usually starts pre-school at age 2-3 and kindergarten at age 5-6. Therefore, no matter how much pain and frustration you are dealing with, know that your schedule will get easier for both of you within six years for a developmentally normal child.
As soon as you commit to a timeline goal, everything becomes easier to accomplish. For example, one of the reasons why I can keep publishing multiple times a week on Financial Samurai since 2009 is because I made myself a 10-year goal to do so. To quit now would be a travesty. Why do we frequently hear stories about someone passing soon after a major accomplishment? It’s because they were holding on until the goal was accomplished.
Sure, there will be more child-raising issues that come up as your little one ages. But with more sleep and free time during the day, the stress of being the only one to generate income diminishes because the stay at home spouse now has the option to work. The guilt of not seeing your child all day due to work goes away because your child is in school for most of the day. The reward of having a child increases because he or she becomes more interactive.
5) Take mental sick days very seriously. Feeling the pressure to provide is not physical pressure, but mental pressure. Feeling the guilt of not being able to raise your children can be mental torture. When your mind breaks down, you don’t do your best work. You become irritable, combative, and sometimes very volatile. Mental illness can lead to neglect, fights, adultery, divorce, and sometimes even suicide.
For goodness sake, please don’t be ashamed to take all your sick and vacation days. Please know the Family And Medical Leave Act is a federal law that guarantees certain employees up to 12 workweeks of unpaid leave each year with no threat of job loss. Be open with your colleagues about why you need time off. If they are good people, they will understand.
6) Have your stay at home spouse generate income. If gratitude, budgeting, patience, taking time off, and ignoring other parent’s opinions don’t work, the only solution left is to have your spouse start earning income again. The income can be generated preferably through freelance work or through a part-time job. If you can run your own business from home, even better.
Some households simply cannot afford to have one spouse stay at home until their little one goes to pre-school or kindergarten. Money stress can really strain a relationship, even if being a stay at home spouse is worth a $100,000+ a year job.
There are plenty of ways to make money online now through freelance marketplaces like Upwork or Task Rabbit. For example, here are all the freelance work categories on Upwork to choose from. Surely you have a skill in at least one of these areas. If not, I know plenty of people, including myself who drove for Uber or Lyft during the early morning or late night hours.
Not only is my wife an amazing mom, she is also an amazing online business partner. Once our son started sleeping for at least a 7-8 hour stretch, she began updating a lot of my older posts with fresh content and writing new pages on top of the quarterly booking she does. Not only did her work help our business, it also gave her a lot of pride and satisfaction.
Be Proud Of Your Accomplishments
Time with a child is priceless
Although it may not seem like you’re doing enough when you come home to a tired and stressed out spouse who sometimes makes you feel guilty for being away from the house all day, know that you are doing a great service to your family. The person you trust the most can be a stay at home spouse because of you!
Practice gratitude every day. Keep the dialogue running so resentment does not build up. Forgive each other the first five years before kindergarten. Don’t listen to the criticism of others who don’t walk in your shoes. Please take time off to heal your mind. And finally, cherish every single moment! Before you know it, your kids will be all grown up and will want nothing to do with you.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.
Related:
The Average Net Worth For The Above Average Couple
How To Build Passive Income For Financial Freedom
Anybody else a sole income provider who wants to share how they survive the pressure? Is parenting easier if you don’t have to parent for most of the day? Why do some parents pay an exorbitant amount for day care during the initial years of life when the child needs the parent the most? How common is it for parents to project their guilt on to other parents?
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The post How To Survive The Pressure As A Sole Income Earning Parent appeared first on Financial Samurai.
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Will Loan Make You Happy?
Every Wednesday on To Love, Honor and Vacuum cleaner we talk marital relationship, due to the fact that I adore discussing traits that will definitely build up your relationship. Don't panic, our experts're certainly not going to highly recommend that you make hen soup a staple in your diet regimen to have a great marriage. Here is more information about yellow pages advert james nesbitt (Click In this article) stop by our own web site. Often companions frequently tell the various other just what they require or want to feel loved, appreciated, as well as essential, as well as the companion will definitely create some short tries to conform.
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You can attempt getting and also make a good lifestyle performing just what you enjoy if you adore building factors. Due to the fact that that will definitely lead you to duplicate the exact same oversights as lots of various other males normally create, don't attempt to perform things in the darker. All content submitted on this site is actually the accountability of the gathering submitting such web content.
Through performing normal physical exercise you modify your anatomy, you change your physical body chemicals, which will create you feel different, so you start paying attention to various points. Maybe you are to cook scrumptious meals at my favorite restaurant (that makes me happy) and also while you are producing awesome meals, your withins are twisting with delight!
The majority of married couples that enjoy the swinger way of living do it CONSIDERING THAT they possess a happy and also tough connection as well as a terrific sex life to start with. If you are actually avoiding the marital partnership, make sure that you possess pin pointed the factor behind this and that you have actually decoded to it. If you are trying to find the most effective solution, make certain that you attempt the Kamni Capsules for the betterment of your relationship. I was thus pleased and also visited him, that was just how our experts started cohabiting merrily again.
Nevertheless, an interfering snooze obstructed or even reversed this adverse emotional reactivity to rage and also anxiety while alternatively boosting rankings from positive (pleased) articulations. If you really love a specific exotic meals, discuss that and if that is actually achievable he will certainly book at a restaurant that provides this even when he never ever attempted it previously. Might make every comic book fans dream a fact along with a rumored launch of the Fair treatment Game in 2015. Not that I dislike how I look-- this is actually more only that I need to make some way of living modifications. Spanish destinations like Majorca keep exclusive appeal to holidaymakers from within Europe.
That is when a person performs something good for another person, and that individual, consequently, carries out something wonderful for the upcoming person, and after that that person performs one thing wonderful for an the following individual and more. That is exactly how our experts make the field and also impact around our company a better spot. They will create our team satisfied for a brief or not thus brief time period, yet in the long run you are going to get back to your preliminary state.
Everything that our team are actually for ... passion, count on, unity, kindness, happiness, inspires us, and every little thing that our experts protest ... hate, temper, uncertainty, anxiety, weakens our team. Now opt for: HAPPY or UNHAPPY. Over my life, 53, I met folks which were quite prosperous, but they were no so pleased as my Co-workers, Developers, Employees and Service Allies, that created their results as well as happiness progressively as well as improving gradually. You can use tailored stationery as invitations to a gathering like this, or even to a yard sales or party. Actually, these projects frequently produce individuals difficult (unless your heart resides in just what you carry out).
If you are actually not able to possess a construction, the result is that you might not have the ability to possess a satisfied lifestyle. Giving him opportunity to get ready for the sexual activity by definition will definitely make the encounter seem like greater than a commitment or day-to-day program to perform. I completely agree with you Esther, this is no one else's project to earn you pleased however yours.
As a matter of fact, I will say that a few of these love quotes possess a great deal of energy that they can easily even restore a lifeless connection if you utter these quotes to your affection. To create it that bit extra unique, bring in some details in this, special days and suggestions. By declaring and also paid attention to satisfied thought and feelings, your positive outlook usuallies attract individuals to you. These may consist of some wonderful publications to read through and also bags that she may profit. Allow me to offer to you my favored 10 fantastic Charming Lifestyle quotes as well as jingle your time up.
Therefore even though I want my loved ones to regularly more than happy, I ought to certainly never minimize their ache or even grief, however just allow them understand that I enjoy them and that when they are ready to allow that go, I'll be there to assist all of them. I am actually certainly not collaborated, I cannot fill out the blank, I'll never ever more than happy because filler in the blank once more and so on, you incorporate yet another block to the wall surface of worry. The colorful questions with vibrant elements must shock the attendees in the Xmas gathering.
If they're certainly not, make sure you do not rush right into marriage, as you could uncover that there is actually another person out there that is meant for you. If you are actually additionally looking for a solution which will deliver a brand-new period of enthusiasm back right into your life, ensure that you enhance libido and also produce your spouse the happiest person on the planet.
Our experts merely published a connect to it to our brand-new facebook web page named Generate a healthy and also happy life". So, below are some suggestions for every female available reading my write-up, that will certainly produce your husband crave for you! Seriously, most of us acknowledge that innovation is actually impressive, however when you devote long hours before one, this is important to unwind as well as see to it there is actually even more to lifestyle in comparison to the virtual.
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Soulmate blog #35: Little at a time.
My beautiful woman,
This weekend was a flop because I was being fussy. I’m sorry I complicate things. This is normally the time where others have checked out because they have found something else that offers them something better or they realize they don’t want what I offer. I’m sad that I couldn’t have been that and found myself lonely, but happy I’m that just for you or so I hope. Looking back, they didn’t deserve even the little amount of time I did spare them. Enough about those that don’t matter....
I am sorry I got an attitude. You really didn’t deserve the severity of it. Plus I’m always about communication and I did the exact opposite. I reacted to my feelings in an irrational way. However, I am not perfect and I am human. When you asked me what was going on... I didn’t know how to fully express myself without attacking you and that is why I got so silent for so long. It’s because one I took all this time last week to sit in the library to download these movies so I can watch them with you. So I can introduce you to my passion. But no big deal I had a feeling I’d get tired and fall asleep any way. What mattered was I was with my girl.
That’s when I got bummed because I like to hold you. I don’t get to but for a few hours once a week, so you bet your boots I’m going to do so. I need to not just convey how much I’ve missed you but that I also require some affection too. I know when you travel our lines of communication lessen dramatically and I understand but your behavior changes to the point that you don’t reply to me all day and when we do talk it’s short. When my whole day you’ve been on my mind. That’s why I’ve been trying to keep some distance so when you do go on a trip, I don’t feel so bad like I’m always constantly bothering you.
I got into a funk because I’ve been staying home on my free nights (all on my own choice) to either study and you’ve have had more free time of traveling with your friends and enjoying nights out. I feel like I’ve been missing out. Part of this is the fact that I still don't have a car and the other is how far we live from each other. I realized I still won’t get a car as fast as I’d like and that means even less time to spend with you. Not having a mode of transportation makes me feel inadequate. If I were to make a decision to not do my homework one night and go out for a girls night, I’d get super in trouble with you. I was also jealous that I choose to spend my already minimally free nights with you or I bring you to hang with my friends but maybe it isn’t the same with you.
My mind questioned me like maybe you only want to have me around only once in a while or it be just us alone. Which is fine with me because no one enjoys being a bum more than I, but I enjoy your friends and still don’t fully know them in which I’d like to. I feel like we are still letting us each other in. I suggested that the small time I’d have with you we should add your best friend in. So you can enjoy yourself out with me and your best friend as well. But you got all sick and I came over to try to take care of you.
Please don't think this is me telling you not to travel or enjoy your free nights out. That’s not what I’m saying here and this is why I didn't vocalize this because I don’t want you to think that you can’t do that. You are free to do so. You see all these feelings are honestly dumb. I’m just overthinking and it’s my insecurities acting up as they always do at this milestone of a relationship. It’s not that you don’t love me or show me a lack of love. It’s just I make up stories in my head and I worry for the worst. What I worry about is that there is someone you’ll find that is more available and dating them is more convenient. The other night I broke down because it hurt thinking that is a possibility. I do this as a tactic to question every possible scenario in order to put up a wall to protect myself from getting hurt again if it should come to that.
As I said, I realize that is sometimes to much to ask. Part of it is because that’s what I’ve always long for. I realize it’s no one’s responsibility to fulfill me but me. My therapist drilled that into my head. However, that’s sickening to a small extent. It feels good for me to give but then I’m left with little energy for myself. So what naturally feels good, I have to remind myself not to do so? That’s horrible! For me to tell myself to stop loving or stop caring so much! I have had a lack of love in my life that has made me the exact way I am today.
I don’t have a mother due to death and a father because his parents were unable to show him love thus creating this unequipped individual that is broken and doesn’t know how to love or be loved. I hope my kids will one day restore that in him, just as my generation has in my grandfather. Don’t think that is what I want for me.
I’ve known how my life was supposed to go. I knew my soulmate was coming, I just didn’t know who or when. But I knew it was around the time I’d be in college. It was almost like I was born with this outline of my life but I don’t personally know every detail.
I made the mistake of almost swearing myself to an individual that was not my soulmate. I knew that person wasn’t it. It wasn’t everything I had hoped for. It was maddening that I stayed and tried to make it that way when I knew early on it wasn’t going to last because they would continue to be the same person and probably still are. It just wasn’t for me. I knew once I found my soulmate my life would just click. As my life is doing just exactly that.
When previous partners would speak of the future I’d think to myself yeah sure.... marriage, kids, and happily ever WHATEVER (not with me you’re not). I never actually saw myself being proposed to (when they did, it wasn’t right). I never pictured looking into their eyes at an alter. I never saw myself slow dancing with them on our wedding day in front of all our loved ones. I never saw myself waking up in the middle of the night peering over towards them and thinking that’s my whole life in the human flesh. Even futuristic nights of a lack of sleep, waking up saying: “go back to bed, it’s my turn to feed the little one”. I never saw myself having to sacrifice my passion for the military in order to make them or their career better (that is a hard no). I never saw my career flourishing and being able to have a family as well.
I ask myself this all the time, WHAT WAS IT THAT I DID SEE? I saw myself having to worry about my spouse as if I had another child. I saw myself being this bread winner but against my wishes. I saw my sad little life of working a crappy job because I got pregnant when I was not ready to have a family with someone I was still very unsure of relationship wise. I didn’t want to have to be the hard worker I was while my spouse sat their lazy ass of at home all day never holding a real job. This sad story was that of my mother’s and I wanted nothing of the sort for mine. I never saw myself with them on a honeymoon. I never pictured them and I exploring the deeper beauty of the location we chose for our honeymoon. I never pictured our families combining with the commonality that they love the other individual brought into the family let alone children.
You see my love, I see all this as a possibility with you. I see myself or you dropping down on one knee with the promise and intention of the rest of our lives. Fast forward: I see myself wearing my uniform hand in hand with you in a beautiful dress trying to remember every exact detail so I can tell my future kids of this moment. I see me holding you and swaying back and forth to our song and feeling like it’s just us in the world. I see us snagging beautiful pictures and kisses near waterfalls, beaches, volcanoes, and other places that I’ll dream of for the rest of my life on our honeymoon. I see you being my love in the flesh, waking up to you, falling asleep with you, and taking care of the kid duty. I sometimes hate how much my family loves you because they guilt me for not bringing you with me every time. As if I alone aren’t enough. My family adores the hell out of you. Your family hugs and says hello like mine does. I feel at home with them. I love how well we fit with each other’s families. Hopefully our families continue this love for the both of us and one day love the next generation to come.
(SIDE NOTE- My grandmother got a little tipsy one night and told me she just adores you and hopes I don’t screw it up. That we remind her of her and my grandfather. That I’ve got a good girl on my hands and do everything in my power to get my shit together so you don’t take off. That’s what I’m doing I told her. She told me to not test your patience. As a woman I should know we can have some but it’s limited.)
I fall in love with you just as it is the first day every day. You continue to let me in little by little. I realized that just today that you have started to do so. Oh how my soul just leaped out of my body. A tear or two was shed in happiness that everything that we’ve been doing is all for good and not for nothing. Allowing me to take this time to really analyze how you’ve let me in this weekend, has hit me like a ton of bricks. WHAT AN ASSHOLE I AM. You were letting me in by finally breaking the wind and allowing me to hold you without pulling me away. I am ecstatic but in the same sense I am saddened. This is what I’ve wanted but am I forcing it on you? I say I feel comfortable with you; However, as I reread the start of this blog it shows that I too am still letting you in and SHAME on me if I’ve made you feel you’re behind. You’re not. It just shows that we are still on the same page just different subjects. It’s foolish to ask that of each other even still. Regardless if we already say I love you, if we shared ourselves with each other, or if we are in each other’s inner circle. We are still moving along like a typical relationship. It was just a way of a pacer. It checked me and reminded me that we are not going away but slowly chugging ahead.
You went to a shower this weekend and strange how we both had a dream of babies and we were together. When I tell you I’m going to give you everything I mean it. I just need some time to stabilize everything in my life so I can make room for you and maybe a family in the farther future. I want to do things right this time. I don’t want to rush. As I told you from our first date, I want to do right by you, I want things to be different, I want to get to know you, so that everything is special. I’ve never wanted kids as I do with you. I look forward to spending our weekends like they are in my dream and you’re right I will be protective of my wife and children. I will be the parent my father was not, the parent my mother tried to be both of. I don’t want this to scare you but to ensure you that something has changed in me and it’s because of you. I welcome this change when we have passed other relationship milestones and are ready I welcome it with open arms. Until then I just want to continue enjoying each other’s company. How does that sound my love?
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