#cultivated to be tolerable & i feel like I keep learning things about myself or my experiences that I just don’t want to learn or to exist
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Completed - Star Fox 64
(Okay, so this should probably read, "Completed So Many Times I Lost Count - Star Fox 64." I'm trying to keep this title from being too obnoxious.)
"Star Fox 64" is not the best game I have ever played. It is, however, the most important one.
I know. That's a loaded gun of a sentiment. I've fallen in love with many games in my life, after all. "Tales of Symphonia," "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night," "Castlevania"'s Sorrow arc, the "Left 4 Dead" games, several "Smash Bros." titles, "Team Fortress 2"… I could make quite the list. What, in thirty-some years of playing video games, makes me say that "Star Fox 64" is the most important game that I have ever played? It's meme anthros acting out a melodramatic space opera, after all. Not exactly high art.
To put it simply? Becoming competent with it founded the bedrock for my ego.
Look. You're not gonna get my reverence for this game until you get me. Which, maybe you already do if you've been following me for a while. I know it's crass to make an autobiography out of a game evaluation, but for once, I'm feeling open about talking about myself as a person. So, if you're willing to indulge me, hang on for a few paragraphs. If not, CTRL+F or keep scrolling until you see ""Star Fox 64" is."
So, if you've read previous evaluations, you might know that "Super Mario Bros." convinced me that I would not be good at video games after a brief accident involving a timeout and my father being absent. Okay. A four-year-old will come to certain conclusions. It happens. Now, throw that kid into an education system that judges it to be intelligent. Like, not a hyper genius, but someone worth cultivating in talented and gifted classes. Someone whose entire identity becomes convinced that their grades were their sole source of value. Someone who cannot tolerate their own mistakes.
They don't take risks. They don't try something again if they turn out to be bad at it. They ignore it and go do something else.
Dominos were stacked. The 90s closed out. "Pokémon" became a thing. For the first time in almost a decade, my family got not one, but two new consoles. Naturally, a Game Boy Color and a Nintendo 64. "Pokémon" was played. Then, "Super Smash Bros." That brilliant goddamn masterpiece in marketing and child manipulation. The reason copies of "Earthbound" sell for $300 USD.
You know what you do with fighting games. You scroll through the characters, learning about this one and that one, trying to find the one that resonates with you the best. Yeah, I know about Mario. Donkey Kong's familiar, too. Who's this green guy? Link? Weird name. Who's the robot? Oh, it's a lady? Cool! Seems like her games are on the NES and SNES. But, the rental stores don't have NES games anymore, and I don't have an SNES, so I guess I'm out of luck. Yoshi? Eh. Kirby? Weird.
Fox?
Oh. Yeah, this guy! Air combos like nobody's business. He's got a team named Star Fox, huh? Kind of narcissistic, isn't it? But, it's his dead dad's team? And he's trying to earn his teammates' trust? He seems interesting. Why haven't I heard of him before? I'm out of luck with "Star Fox" being on the SNES, but "Star Fox 64"…maybe my local rental shop has that.
They did. And guess what?
I absolutely sucked at it!
But, only for a little while…
"Star Fox 64" is a rail shooter / vehicle driving simulator released for the Nintendo 64, as the name implies. It is part "Star Fox" remake, part reanimation of the scrapped (and super later released) "Star Fox 2." Its primary focus is on high-speed firefights, coupled with free-range dogfighting in its so-called All Range Mode. Depending on the player's capabilities in target neutralization, navigation, and team maintenance, they may take a myriad of paths through the Lylat System, all of which culminate in a final battle with the wicked Dr. Andross. Heavy, heavy emphasis on the a in "a final battle." Even that is split based on your skill.
While obviously not the first game in the series, "Star Fox 64" is a mold setter when it comes to overall series behavior and game lore. It introduces numerous reoccurring cast members, including Fox's father James McCloud (previously just Fox Sr. if you were reading the "Nintendo Power" comics, which, don't), team friends Bill Grey and Katt Monroe, and the rival troop Star Wolf. Voice acting and line refinement brings out a sheen of personality that remains fresh, even decades past the game's recording. Additionally, gameplay enhancements are granted for protecting each member of team Star Fox, increasing the incentive to keeping your team healthy and whole. It even grants two new vehicles to the player's available armada—a tank (the Landmaster, later a meme in its own right), and a submarine (the Blue Marine, which…okay, it's less memetic, but goddamnit. It's still better than "Zero"'s Gyrowing.)
Hmm. Nintendo got away with calling an aerial combat game "Star Fox Zero," and yet, they ended up censoring Andross' name from its Japanese variant of Andorf. I suppose me not needing to provide a link to explain the latter makes that choice a little more obvious.
You know how some people are freaks for physics of "Sonic the Hedgehog" games and get annoyed when Sonic doesn't operate in a precise manner? I get that exact impulse, but for "Star Fox 64"'s Arwing controls. That Arwing is my favorite machine of any game I have ever played. The offensive and defensive capabilities of it are absolutely mad. Stackable lasers, a sticky homing charge, bombs, barrel rolling—you can hit all functions at once to become a searing, rotating wheel of death. Threading while tipped 90 degrees onto the vehicle's side is a dream, too. The only detail I find lacking is with the boost meter, and even then, it is only because I got used to the length of "Star Fox Zero"'s meter. The Arwing is a good ship. A great ship. The ship I would slap a bumper sticker on my car for. It would truly be "my other car" in a "my other car is" sentiment.
Am I as deliriously passionate about the other vehicles in the game? Not as much. But, I do think the Blue Marine is fun, if slow. I'm a little clunkier with this game's Landmaster, but certainly, not incapable with it. After all, any tank with the ability to hover is going to win a few points in mobility.
Please, remember—I did not start out grand at any of these vehicles. Just because you have access to all of these capabilities doesn't mean you will get how to use them right out of the gate. This game will use any crack in your defenses to smash you to pieces. Fields of enemies will turn your screen into a cascade of red laser fire. Massive obstacles will take up 95% of your play space, and you will have to find a way to maneuver around them before they tear the wings right off of you. Even peeling bosses open may put you at greater risk. I mean, you've gotta do it, but it's important to know just how fast that boss will try to fry your ass once you do. It's definitely a case of being forewarned and forearmed.
Despite being violently antagonistic about your progress, the game also gives you avenues for aid. But, that entirely depends on how much help you're giving your teammates. Keeping Slippy in combat grants you analysis of a boss machine's shields, which lets you know how much life they have left. Peppy throws hints not only for level navigation, but for targeting enemy weak points. Falco…well, his selling point is initially that he helps you get into the harder route (and the true ending) of the game. But, honestly? Are you seriously going to let sarcastic, tsundere Falco Lombardi bite a bullet and miss out on his banter with other cast members? Is your heart that cold?
I don't think this game gets enough credit for its English dubbing. "But, D.F.," you might be thinking, "Isn't it schlocky as hell?" Absolutely. It is 100% a bastard sibling to works like the original "Resident Evil" games and the first "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" dubbing. Every actor here is leaning into the cartoony nature of the work and selling it for all they've got. It is appropriate. It is a treat. It is 12 years before Rick May (Peppy's voice actor) would honor us again with the "Meet the Soldier" monologue. Bless that man's memory a thousand times over for everything he did for the Internet and this game, along with the rest of the present cast. I'm so glad Nintendo of America's gone back to picking up as much of them as they can for modern releases. Absolute gemstones in a Burger King kid's crown.
Look. I've played through the Japanese dub of "Star Fox 64" a few times. It sounds very straight-laced. Trust me when I say you want that sloppy cheese of the English voice acting all over this pizza. It adds to the texture.
For me, the game's weakest point is its music. Not that it is necessarily bad, mind you. It just doesn't have the same drive that the original "Star Fox" or subsequent "Star Fox" games have. It's very checked, which fights with a level's pace, on occasion. When the soundtrack is at its best, it tends to be on eerier themes. Particular pieces of value here include:
Title Screen (particularly after the opening flourish)
Map
Aquas
Zoness
Warp (very X-Files)
Boss B
Hopefully, this gives you a basic understanding of this game's composition. Let me tie it back into why it was critically influential to me and why I'm still willing to mark out for it so many years later.
My first run in the game? I completely wiped out on Fortuna. Absolute Game Over. For those reviewing the map and game rules, that's three lives lost by Level 3 of the lowest difficulty route. 3/7ths progress, and dead. Would this be good for a newbie? I had no idea. There was no one reviewing my footage, keeping my score, telling me that I sucked or that I had to get good. It just was what it was in my own mind's eye.
Herein is where the wonderful composition of this game recompiled me.
Despite the game's difficulty, its chattiness brought me back. It had two primary actors—Peppy and Slippy—that were quick to point out my progress on handling tough enemies and difficult terrain. Even while kicking my ass, this game was trying to teach me. For the first time, I was comfortable with screwing up. I could measure my progress and gauge what I was doing right and wrong. Every failure was a closer reach to success. Dying at Sector X. Wiping out at Titania. Then, finally, hitting the credits, and ah shit!Having to learn the harder levels to get to the real ending!
And then, I did it.
I did it a lot.
I did it so hard that now, when I boot the game up after years of letting it sit cold, it's not a matter of success or failure. It's a gamble on how hard I am going to succeed.
Am I the best at this game? Obviously not. You don't see my name on leaderboards on some score attack site, do you? But, I am consistently, reliably good at this game. "Star Fox 64" was the first thing in my life where I went from trash to treasure because I fought for that skill. I had blood in my nose and scabs in my throat, and I still wanted mastery of this game. (Okay, the bodily wounds may have had more to do with a joint tonsillectomy and adenoid removal, but you get the picture, right?)
Why? Why was this game so worth my time and effort?
Well, it could always be backwash from being raised in a second-wave feminist environment, having to prove my worth through violence (or, at the least, masculine activities.) But, if not that? God, man. Why do some people rescue beautiful princesses? Why do others plant fictional farms and build dollhouses? Can't we have the real thing? Sometimes, the answer is no. And, no. I can't go to faraway galaxies and get in dogfights. I can't pilot a plane. I'd get sick! I struggle to make friends, and God knows I can't make my parents happy. But just for an hour at a time, I can have a world where I can meet its needs and it mine, even as it's burning to the ground.
This is the game where I fell in love with video games.
And man, that scares the hell out of me!
You get it, right? Things that you love can hold incredible power over you. Things that you love open you up to derision from others. Even on this obsessive fandom hell site, I still hesitate to talk about the things that I love, particularly when it comes to video games or stories. Because it's not real, is it? Not like your friends or your family. And yet, people gain something real from the love of a fantasy. Perspective. Empathy. Confidence. They can lose real things, too. Money. Sense. What vestiges of reality keep them alive.
I wish I had something sagacious to say here, regarding finding a perfect balance between fantasy and reality. Michael Ende would have had better words regarding that, but he's dead. I guess all I can tell you is that a bunch of cartoon animals barking at me ended up being pretty good for me, even in real life. It gave me room to fail, then helped me succeed. It helped me learn to study, plan, practice, and execute. And you know what? It turns out you can apply those tasks to many areas in your life. Like, I dunno. A taxing academic system or a demanding job or playing musical instruments or writing weird-ass fanfiction online.
Okay. Maybe I didn't come away from this game completely normal. Just better than I was.
If you too would like to have a brain reformatting and/or an existential crisis with a bunch of space furries, "Star Fox 64" is a pretty good way to do that. I imagine you will find it hard to start. If you find the Lylat System as charming as my child self did, it'll likely be worth the effort to keep trying. At the very least, pull up a long play and dish up the cheese. I mean, you get to have the benefits of YouTube, in this dystopian future. I didn't. I had to get my hands dirty, instead. But man, it was a thrill doing so.
If nothing else, I hope you can find love in something that kicks your ass. Weird and disturbing as that blessing is.
#post game evaluation#star fox 64#long post#D. F. 38 gets a little too emotional about the silly space animal game
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This is NOT the way to Rekindle a Friendship
It's a wrap, I arrived at a third strike and didn't even realize it.
"If someone is going to be your friend, the things that are important to you are important to them. This isn't that! #fullstop #period" - The words I said to my nephew about the situation
Reticence, that was the feeling I got from him from the moment I DM'd him on LinkedIn. The phone call I had gotten months ago regarding being his emergency contact, had left me thinking about him and what he was up to, and if he was doing better than when we had last spoken probably fifteen years ago. My exploration of my archived files just gave me a reason to reach out again, and since his old landline was now an iPhone I could unobtrusively text him some of my findings.
Maybe there was some tentativeness on my end too, as I have gotten more worn in the world, I have noticed that friendships are harder to start and keep. My natural tendency is to curate already established relationships as opposed to cultivate new ones. I think a lot of it has to do with I am at a place in my life where I don't tolerate as much as I used to. I won't settle for mediocre when I should have the best. #period
It was five months ago and I still hadn't seen him in person, that should have been a clear sign there was something unsaid in the water. If you were truly excited to have someone in your life again, I am pretty sure it wouldn't take you nearly half a year to state that you want to hang out. Even though I went anti-grace a full year ago, I think my natural default is to give others grace, I will have to work harder on this.
The only outstanding debts from my position, were the fact that he owed me some money for the groceries we had purchased in Chelsea Market for some holiday celebration at Adam's house, and he never showed up and never reimbursed me for my expenditure. The real reason our friendship was put on hold was his mental health struggles, that were in jeopardy of putting my own mental health at risk. I had to put some distance between us until he was in a better place emotionally. I was waiting to see him in person to mention both of these issues, just so from my perspective the air was cleared of any lingering and unresolved problems. But we won't get there it seems.
May 20th, 2023 was my first text to him, and a pattern I quickly recognized was that I was initiating text to him more than he was doing the same. I was being held at a distance and I wasn't quite clear why. #🤔 My experience with most of my friendships even ones left abandoned I usually picked right up where we left off, this wasn't that and I wasn't sure where the underlying issues were...
I had postulated with him that he might be a little depressed, my assessment coming from the fact that I deal with dysthymia and also the pattern of most all of my friends having some level of depression or anxiety. I do truly think we attract what we are, but I think we find comfort in those who understand what we are going though. But there was emphatic disagreement with this according to his less than a year of therapy.
Anyway after a couple of months of texting I had decided to kick the wheels on this rekindled friendship and make a request. My nephew was struggling at the hospital he was working at and was looking to make a change. I thought this was a perfect thing to ask of him, having learned that the hospital he was at he had been with over a decade. Also being cognitive of the way folks find jobs nowadays was due in large part to nepotism not merits. I didn't think the request presumptuous or inconvenient.
He shut me down concisely, he didn't know anyone on that side of the hospital. I was seriously like what the fuck? That wasn't even an attempt, or a soft-answer of 'let me look into it', it was a total and complete shutdown! As attempting myself to use nepotism to get an internship in this film program I was immediately offended and put-off, because you can't work somewhere ten years and not know someone who knows someone.
"If someone is going to be your friend, the things that are important to you are important to them."
Helping my most able-bodied and well-skilled nephew finding a job was important to me, very important in fact, and albeit I have always been of the mind to find employment based on merit, I could acknowledge the world I had known had moved on. I didn't make a huge issue of it, but I did make a mental note, not realizing I had arrived at a first strike.
He had gotten the Rona, according to him for the second time, so we were discussing the fact that I had never had it. The only recent illness I had was a flu from a few weeks ago, that coincidentally my nephew had also with a slight variation on the symptoms. And no, we didn't give it to each other, it had been more than two weeks since we had last seen each other.
So we were discussing vaccination, he wanted to know if there was anything that would change my mind about getting vaccinated and I stated unequivocally that it would make little to no sense for me to get vaccinated, I don't work, I live alone and most importantly I don't leave the house. Where am I getting exposed to anything or exposing anyone to anything?
This is where we approached our second strike, because the dialog was going the same way as my arguments with Adam about another communicable disease where me and him differed in our approach and opinion. Most importantly this ones feelings were undermining my agency and my competence to make decisions regarding my health on my own. I didn't care if he worked at a hospital, he was a chef, not a doctor. And even if all of his facts were accurate, I was my own person and I had made my decision and wasn't open in the least to changing my position.
Most importantly he was letting his feelings on the matter trump respecting my own feelings about my own health. This is more than a decorum issue or a manners issue, it was a fundamental problem. If you let your emotions take priority over anyone else's position that is rude and disrespectful. #FuckYourEmotions
I did what any responsible adult would do, I said we should just change the topic, because I was just getting pissed off just like when my physician assistant was going a little too hard in pushing the clinic her hospital offered. I don't at all appreciate when folks act like they know better about my health than I do. Even if they are qualified to. I am fully grown adult and the repercussions of my decisions or lack thereof are mine and mine alone to deal with. Seriously, I took care of a nonagenarian for over two years having to make all kinds of daily decisions about her care, and she died comfortable at her home of over fifty years.
Reviewing the text he did assent to changing the topic, but then asked about another complicated relationship Adam. I shared with him how Adam betrayed me and how that ended the friendship. He was appropriately empathetic, but even remembering the interaction I had sworn he had continued talking about the issue, not realizing how heated and enraged I had gotten. This was a technical strike. Not being self-aware enough to sense this might be a sore topic and pull his aggression back.
But he has always had an issue with always wanting to be right, which is something I entertained because I knew ultimately he could be right all he wanted, and I would still do what I wanted to do.
I didn't want to broach these personal topics, but I need to make a point. I was giving him grace and empathy that he wasn't giving me. He had two triggering areas that even nearly two decades later I was aware of. One was the child he had twenty-one or so, the second was his brief incarceration and felony charge.
He shared with me in these last few months that his son had died at twenty-nine, and that the mother of the child hadn't told him. Now this is where I appreciated my reaction to this information, because I was very in my feelings about the entire situation, and I really wanted more information. Truthfully, I wanted to curse her ass out for not telling him herself. Because I was lead to believe he had actually NEVER met his twenty-nine year old son and didn't have any current photos of him. I was like what in the holy-fuck is that about?
I understood these were my feelings and I knew parenting a child so young, and being estranged from the child and the mother had to be very complicated. Albeit, I wanted to help and find photos of the son, I stepped back because I could have my feeling, but my feelings couldn't encroach on respecting the complexity of the situation and how emotionally raw he might be about the loss of his child and the loss of the relationship they were slowly working toward.
I don't feel I was given this same grace.
Same regarding his incarceration, when we last spoke he was still on parole dealing with the other-side of life being a felon and having to deal with a probation officer and all that entails. He was extremely depressed around this change of his fortunes and wasn't quite sure how to navigate all of it, but his degraded mental health was pulling me down with him and I had to put space between us.
In the last five months I never as much as mentioned his incarceration, he bought it up on his own and albeit I had questions I never poached one, feeling this was something more appropriate for an in-person conversation, that would never come.
And now the third strike:
"Good morning, I accidentally broke my microwave. I tried to pop some more kernels in this microwave popcorn and broke something. I feel bad because these appliances just end up in landfills.
It was ten years old, I was hoping maybe to get another five years out of. Now I need to contemplate what can I replace it with, not that I use it heavily, I mean hardly at all. Maybe I can be fine without. Or maybe a refurbished one... "
A broad question I sent to him and another friend who I knew was experienced in cooking and food preparation. Him being an executive chef I thought he'd be the perfect person to assist me in my dilemma. I would learn that his help wasn't help at all, and when it came down to it I was on my own.
To consolidate the situation we had a text barrage of figuring out which device was the best for my needs, then whittling it down to a specific product. He approved the induction cooker I liked, and I sent him a link to the same product listed on eBay. I thought I was done but he then said I needed "induction compatible" cookware. He might as well have been speaking conversational Japanese, because the gas hasn't even been on in my apartment since I moved here in nineteen ninety-seven.
He recommended searches that were coming back way too broad, and I just asked him to suggest an appropriate pan, he did sending me an Amazon link, which I attempted to translate to the eBay equivalent. And like the previous link I sent the link to him for final approval before I purchased it.
Just an aside, the process I used with him is the process I learned in working with clients back in the late nineties at an ad agency. Whatever final creative you developed you always sent a link to the client for final confirmation, because ultimately it's their brand and they will know best. Silly me assuming that he would take the care to review the product and make sure it was the same as the one on Amazon, I would only find out later in an aside that there were two pans on Amazon one "induction compatible" the other wasn't, this wasn't information he shared with me.
The wrong kind of pan arrived in the mail and this was his reaction:
E: 🤣
T: Well I am NOT AMUSED! Why is it so difficult to find something that works with the induction cooker?
E: It's not. You just use eBay is all
T: eBay isn't the issue here. This pan was totally your recommendation.
E: Don't go blaming me, the one think I said was to make sure it's induction read.
T: Now I have a forty dollar frying pan I don't need.
E: The one I showed you was. Return it. I'm sure they take returns.
Curiously when I spoke to the girlfriend I had texted the same question, in two seconds she said, stainless steel. Anything stainless steel should be induction compatible. Mind you I was on fire, because how am I speaking to an executive chef albeit one recovering from COVID but someone with literal muscle memory he's been doing this so long. And he has me Googling obscure phrases as opposed to just looking for "stainless steel pans". I was so done, but then he put a cherry on top. #🍒
T: The 'hot plate' came with no manuals, no box, and fingerprints and other marks on it.
E: I did I just think you’re being mellow dramatic. You hit the high button and heat your food… big deal
T: I don't think I am being anything. I am trying to figure out and learn a topic I have not the least bit of interest in, and went to someone I thought was more experienced and still got mediocre results.
E: Again blaming me for something that I had nothing to do with. Your very good at deflecting
T: Okay fine, you have no culpability whatsoever. Its all my fault for not looking for one word. I will note this in the future, to just do it my damn self.
"If someone is going to be your friend, the things that are important to you are important to them. This isn't that! #fullstop #period"
[Photo by Brown Estate]
#journal entry#gaslighting#friendship#walls#distance#disagreement#lack of respect#asshole behavior#being a dick#nepotism#respect boundaries#empathy#hurt
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12/7/2022
the unfortunate thing about trauma is that you are constantly playing ping pong games in your brain all day long. Sometimes i’m uncovering truths i overlooked before and then i am wincing at each memory. everything was laid out IN front of me but i was too caught up to see it.
The past year, i’ve been obsessed with seeking revenge. the reason being is that i feel, what happened to me would be justified. But revenge is a never ending cycle, and you dont actually feel better. you just feel bitter for a long long long time. Why would i be happy at the thought of someone’s mother dying? I sort of feel worse honestly. When you love someone, you just want the best for them, no matter how much they tore you apart. the key to moving on is to really remember all the bad things they have done to you. I dont want to do that. I dont want to keep living my life fueled by hate. what makes me inspired is love. I love to love.
I dont know if i really believe in love. Or i dont know if i can ever really be truly attracted to anyone again. I was so young when i wanted to “date to marry” when i had no clue what it really meant. if marriage means being stuck with someone and having to tolerate them, i dont want it. I thought i knew what love was, and i felt so close to it. but i guess i had it all wrong. One of my friends brother in law told me i was never really in love, and im too young to understand it. hes also the same man that cheated on his wife several times, so i doubt he understands what it is either. does anyone actually know what it is?
I understand now why so many people participate in hook up culture. were all vile disgusting animals with the need to procreate. animals dont love each other. what makes us separate from animals other than an overly developed frontal cortex? most men my age dont have that. i dont understand men my age, and i dont want too. i think i spent enough time listening to so many men lie to my face. I dont need to be mansplained to, to have a man like me. I rather just be alone.
solitude. I’ve enjoyed my own company more than i would have wanted to at this point. But i cant disappoint myself. I’ve spent a lot of time with my favorite shows and music. i’ve cultivated a wardrobe of clothes that ive scoured the internet for hours for. I’ve dyed my hair, learned new makeup looks, and practically made myself unrecognizable. Good, I dont want to see a reflection of someone who was meek. I dont want to know the person i once was.
I am feeling rather pessimistic, Maybe ill change my mind later.
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Tedious Joys - Chapter 2 -
- Ao3 link -
“If you want A-Jue at this time of day, he’ll be at the training field,” Lao Nie said, standing up and immediately striding off in that direction. “Oh, and Qiren, I will warn you – he has his mother’s height.”
Lan Qiren rolled his eyes as he followed behind. “That’s helpful information,” he remarked. “Right up until you recall that I have never had the pleasure of meeting his mother –”
He stopped talking and stared.
“I didn’t think a further explanation was necessary,” Lao Nie said. He wasn’t quite at the level of sniggering into his sleeve, but he certainly had a shit-eating grin. Lao Nie was not a short man by any standard, although he was squatter, more muscular and more broad-shouldered than the tall and slender Lan sect – and yet…
“He’s under ten,” Lan Qiren checked, and Lao Nie nodded. “You’re sure.”
“I was present at the birth myself, and have cared for him ever since. And before you ask, I may be busy with my duties as sect leader, but I still feel like I would have noticed someone swapping him out for a child several years older.”
Lan Qiren squinted out at the training field, where a child (and it was a child, given the amount of baby fat in his cheeks, even if the overall size was more what he’d expect of a teenager) was happily dismembering a training dummy with an especially fearsome-looking saber under the tolerant supervisory gaze of the training master.
“Lao Nie,” Lan Qiren finally said. “About that first wife of yours…you would tell me if she were an actual giant – or a goddess –”
Lao Nie laughed and patted him on the back. He did not answer the question.
“A-Jue! Come here!” he shouted, and Nie Mingjue – demonstrating excellent discipline – completed his strike before turning around and trotting over to his father. “Say hello to Teacher Lan.”
“Teacher Lan,” Nie Mingjue said obediently, saluting properly like every small child introduced to a stranger, and then looked up. A smile suddenly spread over his face. “Oh, Teacher Lan! Fighting without permission is prohibited!”
Lan Qiren choked and Lao Nie burst out laughing.
“That was seven years ago,” Lan Qiren protested, and Lao Nie only howled more. “You were an infant. How do you even remember that?”
“It was interesting!” Nie Mingjue beamed. “You said that every word in the rule is like a principle – even if you have the rule, you have to agree on what it means. What counts as fighting, what counts as permission, what counts as prohibited…I use it lots!”
“He has a good memory,” Lao Nie said, wiping his eyes. “You should hear how many profanities he’s learned.”
“I would rather not,” Lan Qiren said hastily, because Nie Mingjue looked on the verge of volunteering to recite them. “Nie Mingjue, can you show me around?”
“Of course, Teacher Lan! Let me just put Baxia away first; I’m not allowed to carry her outside the training field yet. Unless there’s an accident, of course.”
Lan Qiren did not ask. As a sect leader who did not share a border with Qishan Wen, he didn’t think he had the right.
“Take your time,” he said, putting his hands behind his back and watching as Nie Mingjue ran away.
“Would it help to have me there?” Lao Nie asked, and nodded when Lan Qiren shook his head. “I’ll leave you two to it.”
Lan Qiren did not put forward any requests, curious to see where Nie Mingjue would take him, and was reluctantly charmed by the fact that their first destination was the nursery, where several pudgy toddlers of indeterminable age were sleeping.
“My baby brother,” Nie Mingjue explained, very seriously, inadvertently driving home that the fact that he was as tall as Lan Qiren’s elbow didn’t make him any older than he was. “He’s little.”
Lan Qiren couldn’t even tell which one of the indiscriminate toddlers wrapped in blankets was meant to be Nie Huaisang, but he nodded, and Nie Mingjue led him onwards, initially mostly silent with belated shyness but eventually coaxed into chattering.
In the evening, he returned to Lao Nie’s study.
“Well?” Lao Nie asked, face creased into the scowl he had on more often than not, despite being widely considered one of the more even-tempered Nie. “What do you think?”
“I think your son is a bright and enthusiastic boy,” Lan Qiren said. “With a remarkable sense of justice and morality that will serve him well, although maybe not so much in terms of politics. He’s very…straightforward.”
“Yes, well, I’m still holding out hope on A-Sang for the tact,” Lao Nie said. “That wasn’t my question and you know it.”
Lan Qiren tried to collect his thoughts. “I don’t think you’ve damaged him for life,” he finally said, and Lao Nie’s shoulders relaxed in a sudden exhalation of what was probably months of increasing stress. “I do think he would benefit from understanding a little bit more about what’s happening to him.”
“But he’s so young.”
“I know. Normally, I wouldn’t introduce the subject of his own mortality at this level of complexity this early – although I assume it’s hard for him to miss the concept entirely, given the political situation –” Lao Nie winced in acknowledgment. “– but I don’t think you have much of a choice. You’re not the only one who noticed the saber spirit.”
Lao Nie frowned, then understood, and frowned even deeper. “He’s noticed it?”
“I got him talking on the subject of his saber,” Lan Qiren said. “He regards it in the same manner as other children his age would an imaginary friend. It’s female, apparently.”
Based on the description, Baxia also had what he would, in one of his students, term a personality. He supposed it was possible that Nie Mingjue was just projecting the parts of himself that weren’t quite fit for company, since surely no one could be that earnest, and yet, based on what Lao Nie had told him…
Lao Nie groaned and put his hand to his head. “Jiwei didn’t develop a sense of gender for years,” he grumbled, and Lan Qiren was moderately certain that he hadn’t intended to admit that out loud. “This is ridiculous. I want him to live a good life, Qiren. A long one, insofar as that’s possible for our sect.”
“I’ll try to do some research,” Lan Qiren said. “In the meantime, could he be convinced to cultivate something else in addition to a saber? Music, perhaps?”
“You’re welcome to try. He’s practically tone-deaf.”
“Perhaps arrays, then, or talismans,” Lan Qiren said. “It would do him some good to find another thing to pour all that energy of his into.”
“I’ll think about it,” Lao Nie allowed. “And I appreciate any research you’re able to do, though of course there are limitations on your time – and what we can allow to be taken out of the Unclean Realm.”
Lan Qiren waved a hand. “It’s nothing. I enjoy keeping busy, and the subject is fascinating. Have you considered that regular visits by me might draw attention?”
Attention from within their sects they could handle, but they were both sect leaders – or acting sect leader, in Lan Qiren’s case – and their actions could never truly be wholly their own.
“I have a plan for that,” Lao Nie said. “It’ll work better if you don’t know about it, though.”
Lan Qiren hated plans like that.
“Very well,” he said, aware that he sounded like he was sulking. “If you must.”
“Could I send him to you next year?” Lao Nie asked, and Lan Qiren forgot his grumpiness to gape at him. “I wouldn’t impose this year, naturally, since you must already have a curriculum planned. But next year…”
“If you send him, that will be making a statement,” Lan Qiren said.
A statement about what, exactly, he did not know, but there was a major difference between being the sort of teacher that was respected enough to teach the sect heirs of some small, out-of-the-way sects and being entrusted with the childhood education of the heir to a Great Sect. Even if Nie Mingjue learned nothing, which seemed unlikely given his earnest performance from earlier, the other small sects would immediately want to follow suit, as if to rub off some of the same luck for themselves – he would be flooded with applicants.
His sect elders were going to hate it.
Although it wasn’t exactly against any of the rules…
“That’s why I’m asking your permission.” Lao Nie grinned at him, his teeth flashing white under his nearly trimmed beard. “Also, while you’re our guest here – you did plan to stay at least a week or two, right? Good, good. I will insist upon you joining me for some night-hunts.”
“Lao Nie…”
“I’ve explained to you how my sect cultivates our sabers. Are you really saying that you can judge that without seeing it happening?”
“You know perfectly well that I’m a weak fighter,” Lan Qiren said, even though that was a very good point, and one he probably would have insisted on himself sooner or later. “I don’t want to slow you down.”
“You never have,” Lao Nie said right to his face – the Nie sect did not discourage all lying, the scoundrels. “I’m serious! You’re not the fastest, no, but you’re perceptive, analytical, and creative. The insights I gain from hunting by your side are long-term gains, making me faster and more efficient in the future.”
“You’re flattering me,” Lan Qiren said suspiciously.
“I am not. The first time we went on a night-hunt together, you stopped by the river to rest and told me about how the flowers growing there were unique because they absorbed spiritual energy but not resentful energy on account of being too close to flowing water; three years later, I used that fact to find a gigantic nest of ghosts and demonic creatures that were using it as camouflage. They’d killed nearly a dozen villagers by that point and no one else could find them, but I did.”
Lan Qiren felt his ears heating up. “…that’s a coincidence.”
“Do you really want me to start naming other examples?”
“I would rather you showed me your library,” Lan Qiren said. He hoped he wasn’t blushing. He was probably blushing. No one else ever teased him the way Lao Nie did, except maybe Cangse Sanren. He was suddenly hit by a nostalgic desire to see her again. “At once, if you please. And also…”
He trailed off.
“Why the hesitation?” Lao Nie asked. “Do you really think there’s anything I would deny you, as long as you find a way to help my son?”
Lan Qiren cleared his throat. “It would be helpful if I could examine a more mature saber spirit that has already bonded to a human master. Your Jiwei, for instance.”
As he expected, Lao Nie scowled at the suggestion of someone else examining his spiritual weapon – and his saber spirit, no less – but after a few moments he collected himself and nodded, albeit begrudgingly. “I’ll leave her with you,” he said. “Be careful when you examine her – she doesn’t like to be touched by anyone but me.”
Lao Nie’s warning turned out to be both true, untrue, and an understatement of frankly shocking proportions.
During the course of Lan Qiren’s investigations into the subject of the Nie sect sabers over the next few months, and thereafter, he determined that the best, if not only, way to deal with Jiwei was to act as though he were handling a particularly vicious and single-minded dog.
Jiwei, it seemed, liked to bite.
If one treated her like a normal saber – an inert piece of metal – she would appear completely quiescent right up until there would be an abrupt and inexplicable accident, clattering off the table with the blade curving straight at clothing and flesh, and only very quick reflexes could prevent disaster. If one attempted to utilize spiritual energy with her, it would be even worse: she would pull as much as she could and feed back nothing, spiteful and ruthless.
A vicious creature, too quick to judge, loyal only to her master, who she loved.
A bit like Lao Nie, in fact. Lan Qiren did not delude himself into mistaking Lao Nie’s passion for righteousness – Nie Mingjue was righteous, a serious child that was always wondering what was right, while Lao Nie was more inclined towards brutal, even callous, practicality that focused on what benefited him and his sect. He would do good, of course, but he could not be forced into it; he had his pride, his temper, and sometimes he erred too much in favor of those over even common sense.
But despite all his rough edges, he did truly love his friends.
He dragged Lan Qiren all over Qinghe whenever he visited, on night-hunts and to resolve minor conflicts, the sort of thing any normal traveling cultivator might do; he showed him the small towns and the hidden cities that Lan Qiren would not have seen on any normal visit, and asked him to play songs for his little family. Nie Huaisang was enraptured by the music, Nie Mingjue largely indifferent – Lao Nie had not been wrong to call him practically tone-deaf – and Lao Nie beaming all the while, even if Lan Qiren suspected that his eldest son’s lack of musical appreciation had largely come from him.
He even, after a stray comment, managed to track down Cangse Sanren, who brought her husband and son to the Unclean Realm and left them in Nie Mingjue’s earnest care while she sat with the two of them, drinking liquor as if it were water to the point that even Lao Nie refused to compete with her – when his protests were eventually overridden, Lan Qiren (who drank tea, of course) was roped in to be their long-suffering judge.
It was a good night.
“Is that another thing I took from you?” He Kexin unexpectedly asked Lan Qiren a week after Lao Nie had publicly announced that he would be sending Nie Mingjue to the Cloud Recesses for Lan Qiren’s classes. The ensuing hubbub, as Lan Qiren expected, had been enormous, and he’d braced himself to discuss nothing else for months, although he hadn’t really expected her to mention it.
The Cloud Recesses separated men and women, and He Kexin had borne two sons; they were old enough by now to live primarily with the men rather than the women, and so they had entered Lan Qiren’s care. He brought them to visit her once a month, and came himself like clockwork every two weeks in between to update her as to their progress, his eyes fixed firmly above her head as he narrated the report as if he were a junior returning from a night-hunt. It was not her fault that his brother had fallen in love with her and ruined Lan Qiren’s life, but it had been her decision to murder a man that had served as the trigger for the situation; Lan Qiren was meticulous about his duty to her as his sister-in-law, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. Or her.
By this point, she was moderately good at respecting that. In the beginning, she’d cursed him viciously every time he came to see her, especially after he’d provided her with definitive proof of her former friend’s lies and machinations. Later, she’d tried flirting with him out of what he could only assume was boredom or perhaps a willful misunderstanding as to why he still visited, assuming that he had perfidious motivations or shared his brother’s taste in women instead of suffering from an overdeveloped sense of responsibility for his brother’s misdeeds. It had taken him several months and, eventually, an explicit offer to even notice, and he’d nearly broken his neck fleeing from the scene.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” he said, still looking above her head instead of at her face. He Kexin had A-Huan’s smile and A-Zhan’s eyes, he knew that, but if he could scrub all of her other features from his mind, he would.
“Sect Leader Nie,” she said, and it was so odd to hear someone refer to Lao Nie by his formal title outside of a political situation or deliberate insult – even Wen Ruohan habitually called him Lao Nie by now, and as far as Lan Qiren could tell, they despised each other – that Lan Qiren’s eyes actually dropped to meet hers. “If you weren’t sect leader, you could’ve married him.”
Lan Qiren choked on air. “Do you think of nothing but sex all day?” he spat out, his cheeks going red. “We are friends.”
“I don’t have much else to think of,” He Kexin said, and he glared as if to communicate whose fault is that and maybe in your next life you won’t solve your problems with murder. “I heard you’ve been spending a lot of time with him, and now he’s sending his son to your care. It’s suggestive.”
“Talking behind the backs of others is forbidden,” Lan Qiren reminded her, and she shrugged. “Do I need to discipline your servants?”
“It’s news, not gossip,” she said. “And no, these ones are fine. No one’s playing any tricks.”
There had been an incident early on, where a few of the servants assigned to care for He Kexin had mistaken her confinement for abandonment; they had not expected Lan Qiren to grimly continue visiting as he would have done if she had been his sister-in-law in the normal course of things, nor to listen when she complained. He had of course taken all necessary measures to have the offenders harshly disciplined and expelled, replaced with servants of good character and sufficient intelligence to keep her company without seeking to take advantage, and there had been no new incidents since.
Her punishment was confinement, not torment. No matter what Lan Qiren felt about her, she would receive exactly that – neither more nor less.
“Is it Cangse Sanren, then?” she asked, propping her head up on her chin. “You fell in love with her, and then she married another man…”
“Sometimes people are just friends,” he said, irritated. “Why must I be in love with anyone?”
He Kexin shrugged. “Don’t you want to marry, one day? Have children of your own, rather than always reporting back to me on mine?”
“I’m acting sect leader,” Lan Qiren said tightly. “A marriage, much less children, would give rise to accusations that I was seeking to usurp my brother’s place or my nephews’ inheritance.”
“So it is another thing I’ve done,” she said, looking down at her hands. They were clenched tightly into fists, her knuckles white; sometimes Lan Qiren thought she wanted to punch him as a means of venting her feelings, and sometimes he didn’t even blame her for it. “I had only been thinking about it in the sense that you couldn’t leave, but you can’t even bring anyone back.”
“I don’t especially want to, anyway,” he said, because it was true. Even if she was right, that even his right to marry freely had been taken from him, it didn’t mean that she had the right to use it as a whip on her own back. If Lan Qiren couldn’t bring himself to obey the rule about not holding grudges, he could at least follow the ones about being generous and easy on others. “I haven’t found the right person.”
“And it’s really not Lao Nie?” He Kexin asked. “You go to visit him often, and for longer periods, than you go anywhere else, and A-Huan says you look happy whenever you’re going to go.”
Lan Qiren shrugged. He was happy to go. He enjoyed Lao Nie’s company, and the research, even when Lao Nie was too busy for him personally, and Lao Nie’s role as an allied sect leader meant that Lan Qiren had more latitude in arranging such visits than he did to other places.
“…A-Zhan says that your hands are white when you return.”
Lan Qiren’s eyes dropped to his arms, where there was in fact some white peeking out from beneath his sleeves – white bandages on his left wrist and the two smallest fingers on his right hand, this time, from the latest incident in which Jiwei had tried to slash him, but it was barely a nick in comparison with previous instances; he thought that it was a sign that they might be getting somewhere.
A moment later, he realized the implications of her statement and glared at her. “You’re not seriously asking if Lao Nie is abusing me? Weren’t you asking about my marriage prospects with him only a moment ago?”
“The two are not mutually exclusive,” she said dryly. “And the Nie temper is well known.”
“It’s from research,” Lan Qiren said. “I dropped a saber and I knocked over the table on to my other hand when trying to dodge.”
“I believe you,” she said, lips twitching. “If only because you would’ve come up with a more dignified excuse if it was a lie.”
“I don’t actually have to explain myself to you,” he said, reminding himself as much as her. “Is there anything else you want to know about your sons?”
“No,” she said. “But I’d like my husband to visit me again, if you can arrange it.”
He nodded stiffly.
“You know,” she said, playing idly with her sleeves. “If you never marry, I’ll be the closest thing you ever have to a wife? You manage my house, you raise my children, and you even provide me with services in bed, albeit indirectly.”
Do not succumb to rage, Lan Qiren thought to himself, and left without another word.
(Later, when Cangse Sanren next visited the Cloud Recesses, her husband taking A-Huan on a ride on their donkey with A-Zhan and A-Ying tucked into the saddlebags, she listened to him stammer through the whole humiliating story and gnashed her teeth on his behalf. “Don’t listen to her,” she told him. “By that standard, the rabbits she likes to raise are her concubines.”)
His simmering anger made his next session with Jiwei flow more easily, almost as if the saber spirit empathized with his rage – or perhaps it was simply that she found it more familiar, more reminiscent of the temper of her true master, and therefore less objectionable. He was attempting to draw out some part of her anger through music and store it into a jade pendant: his theory was that the eventual qi deviations of the Nie sect leaders resulted from a lack of balance with the resentful energy utilized by the saber spirit – the negative emotions streaming in through the saber, strengthening it, but having no means of cleansing beyond outbursts of temper.
It had been the way Nie Mingjue spoke of his saber spirit as if she were his friend that had given him the idea. Many in the Nie sect treated their sabers with both reverence and fear, as if the spirits were vicious creatures they had only temporarily tamed and which would one day turn upon them, but Jiwei was passionately loyal to Lao Nie, and Baxia to Nie Mingjue. Perhaps it was his inheritance as a Lan showing, or merely his own experience with his brother, but Lan Qiren simply could not understand how anything that loved so unstintingly, so unreservedly, could ever bring themself to intentionally bring about their beloved one’s destruction.
Even a dog would refuse to bite a master it loved unless it had gone mad.
Therefore, he concluded, it was not merely the human wielder but the saber itself that deviated in their cultivation. Lao Nie had once said in an aside that it was unclear what came first, the Nie sect tempers or the saber spirit-incited outbursts, and although he had meant it as a joke, Lan Qiren thought there was some merit to the question. Rage served a valuable purpose for humans, acting as a warning sign that something was wrong, that something was unacceptable, rejection and protection all at once, but rage that could not be excised would turn rancid and sour, like a poisoned wound. Sabers were cultivated by their masters and resembled them – they were filled with human rage, intensified by their cultivation of resentful energy, but unlike a human they could not shout or hit something or vent in any way other than through hunting.
No wonder Jiwei was so content after a night-hunt; no wonder Nie sect cultivators got irritable when they hadn’t had time to cultivate their sabers or fight evil or just get out and do something. But with limited venting opportunities (humans could not fight evil all the time), the sabers would fall into obsession, infected by the very same resentful energy that they excised when they hunted – their bloodlust simultaneously sated and inflamed – and as their power grew, and their true opponents grew fewer, they would become insatiable and, eventually, unbalanced. Demonic cultivation was abhorred by the cultivation world because it opened the door to obsession and fixation, and the most common way that demonic cultivators died, if not executed by the world, was through a backlash of their own power. Obsession was by its nature rigid, and that was the sole weakness of the saber: they had to be rigid, but never too rigid, or else they would become brittle, would break.
Deviation.
It was a very interesting theory, even if Lao Nie’s eyes glazed over whenever Lan Qiren tried to explain. Lan Qiren didn’t take offense: Lao Nie had always been an exceptionally practical man, more interested in results than theories, actions rather than thoughts.
“Aren’t you disappointed?” Lan Qiren asked him at one point, abrupt as he always seemed to be about such things. “That I haven’t gotten anywhere?”
Lao Nie looked surprised. “What do you mean? You have a valid theory, you’ve tried all sorts of things.��
“I haven’t succeeded.”
Lao Nie laughed. “My friend, this is a problem that has stymied my sect for generations. Did you really think you’d be able to solve it in three weeks?”
Lan Qiren scowled. “It’s been closer to three years.”
“You’ve made progress,” Lao Nie said confidently. “A-Jue has as solid a foundation as I could hope for, and all those conversations you have with him about the nature of ethics and morality have had an excellent effect on his saber.”
“Has it?” Lan Qiren asked, skeptical. Even the Nie sect experts agreed that Baxia was unusually vicious for a saber, powerful enough to frighten wild yao simply with her presence – Nie Mingjue’s cultivation remained shockingly fast, and even Lan Qiren, who had only a few years understanding of the saber spirits, could recognize the effects of it.
“It has,” Lao Nie said firmly. “He doesn’t fear her, and she loves him all the more for it, backs him like none other; no other saber of his generation will so much as waver out of line with Baxia behind them. As for the rest…ah, Qiren, if you can figure out a way to stymie the saber spirit even a little – give him even another decade – I’ll be satisfied. Don’t worry about it.”
Lan Qiren huffed and returned to trying to transfer spiritual energy from Jiwei to the pendant.
“Besides, all this time spent on the project has had at least one good effect,” Lao Nie added, putting his hand on Lan Qiren’s shoulder as he played. “I get the pleasure of your company.”
Lan Qiren’s attention was fixed on his playing, but the hand was warm on his shoulder. “That hardly seems so much of a benefit,” he said absently.
“You underestimate yourself. Do you know, outside of my sect, I think you’re my best friend?”
Only years of training allowed Lan Qiren’s fingers to continue to move smoothly over the guqin strings when his heart seized in his chest, warm and hot and squished and painful and pleasurable at the same time.
He did not allow himself to ask “Really?” like a small child, insecure and uncertain, did not permit himself to say “even above my brother”, did not say anything at all.
“Thank you,” he finally said, stiff and wooden. “I…you as well.”
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Protect Your Light: Going Into 2022
“Though she be but little, she is fierce.” ~ A gifted keychain from my first supervisor in film.
Sometimes I wonder, or fear, I’ve been hiding myself from the world out of potential pain. I’ve endured an unnecessary amount of pain within this year that will soon close — suffering. I was suffering, silently.
But I also found and created the pieces of myself that were lost in that fire. Thankfully, I came out alive. And still trying to live. But aside from work (which I actually enjoy now), I’m not sure if I have been doing enough living.
I’m not judging myself especially the experience I’ve been through this year. So I know it’ll take time for me to move through the world again and feel some sort of safety while doing so. But what I’ve learned is there is none, especially for women like me. Safety might be a psychological illusion at the end of the day, but it is a necessary one to get through the day. I’ve had to cultivate my own safety net. In doing so, I’ve learned to choose solitude with peace and sometimes joy because the other options weren’t greater than that.
Let me give you an example: Someone may ask me to go out for a drink, event, or party. But I’m not exactly sure how I feel about this person. I’m not sure if I actually like them as a person, or can tolerate the parts I don’t, or even trust this person enough to be outside of my comfort zone (home) with them. And if it’s ever a question I have to think too long to answer, I don’t go. That’s me protecting my light.
I’ve been taking more risks in my chosen career now than before – so risky, I can’t always tell when the next gig is coming through. But surely by God, they continue to come through! I haven’t been without work since I switched paths (I’m in film production now, btw).
As I went through the fire and learned the many things about myself and the world around me, the one I practice daily is protecting my light. When I was younger, on the outside I appeared to be one of the happiest children you could find. But that was on the outside. The feelings I had on the inside was a different story for another piece. Nonetheless, the blissful part of me I exerted was still true. So with joy like that, you tend to want to share it with the world so everyone else can experience it.
I had to learn in many hard ways, all of the world does not want that. There may be some that do, but there are many that don’t. And that’s ok. But it is my duty to identify those that do not appreciate my light and keep it to my self so I don’t lose it. The light in all of us is our essence. It’s the make-up of our soul, tendencies, bodies, our way of being on every level – physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. It’s the energetic force we each carry.
It took me nearly the entire first quarter of my life to learn everyone I may meet, speak to, or cross paths with, does not deserve or need my light. Some prefer the dark. And your light might annoy them, then they’ll want to extinguish it. So I’ve been protecting my light. That’ll look like staying home more often than I’d like but also reveling in the comfort of my safety and presence.
Beyoncé mentioned something like this earlier this year, but in the context of the entertainment industry. I understood exactly what she meant then, but now I put it into full practice. ‘This little light of mine’ will continue to shine but only when I want. I’ve given enough of myself for free through every stage of my life to the world around me and very few moments have I felt reciprocity.
Let your light shine, but only when you want it, never on another person’s time or comfort because it will end in self-sacrifice.
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The Irwin Agenda Chapter 1
Summary:
Lan Wangji is pleased that his brother and Wei Ying seem to be getting along like a house on fire. Lan Xichen is most grateful for Master Wei’s help. Lan Qiren is just happy that for once it seems like Wei Wuxian is keeping out of trouble and is optimistic that Gusu Lan has finally managed to tame the beast. Unfortunately, he should have learned not to count his chickens before they hatched… and he really should have been focusing on taming a very different sort of beast. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13942581/1/The-Irwin-Agenda
Chapter 1 - Lan Xichen starts a project.
Disclaimer: I do not own MDZS/The Untamed.
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“Ah Wangji, there you are.”
“Xiongzhang. 😲 What are you doing here? Is something wrong?”
“No no, nothing at all other than, you know, the obvious. I’m sure you don’t need to hear all about how my life got flipped-turned upside down.”
“What?”
“Nevermind.”
He cleared his throat, “Anyway I really came here to look for Wei Wuxian.”
Wangji blinked, indicating surprise.
“What does brother need with Wei Ying?”
“Hmm let’s just say I need his… expertise.”
Wangji’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “Brother isn’t thinking of….”
“Don’t be silly Wangji. I would never.” He’d leave the demonic cultivation and zombie best friends to Wei Wuxian, thank you very much. No, Lan Xichen needed him for a different type of expertise.
“Sect Leader Jiang visited the other day with Sect Leader Jin. He mentioned something to me and I need Wei Wuxian’s expert opinion.”
“You saw Sect Leader Jiang?” Wangji said, surprised once more.
“Indeed. We had tea while the kids were out doing whatever kids do when the adults aren’t watching. ” Technically they were young adults but, semantics.
Wangji’s mouth pursed slightly. He always looked like he’d bitten into a lemon whenever Sect Leader Jiang was mentioned (or present).
“Does Jiang Wanyin not know that brother is in seclusion?”
He frowned, “Wangji, you may not like him, but he is a sect leader. You ought to show due courtesy. Besides, I invited him.”
Lan Wangji was stunned. Why would his brother, who made it a point these days to avoid as many people as possible, take time from seclusion to have tea with Jiang Wanyin? He knew Xichen wasn’t in full seclusion, he’d come out for the banquet and other events important to the clan, but on a day to day basis the seclusion still stood. Which was why he was surprised Xichen was in the Jingshi to begin with, let alone looking for Wei Ying. Now he hears he’s been having tea with Wei Ying’s insufferable ex-shidi? What was the world coming to?
“Don’t look at me like that,” said Lan Xichen, “I’m perfectly capable of taking guests if I want to. And not all of us share your feelings about Sect Leader Jiang.”
Well, he could acknowledge that as true so he said nothing.
“Anyway, do you know where I might find Wei Wuxian?” continued Lan Xichen.
“Wei Ying is probably with the rabbits,” answered Lan Wangji. It was normal when he was busy with paperwork that Wei Ying would find other ways to amuse himself. The juniors were away on a night-hunt so the next best bet was the rabbits as Wei Ying was not currently occupied with any inventions.
“Thank you Wangji, I’ll see myself out.”
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Wei Wuxian was indeed with the rabbits. His stubborn donkey was unhappily chewing at a patch of grass next to him while the rabbits cowered away from the both of them.
He perked up upon spotting Lan Xichen. “Brother in law, what brings you here!”
“Well,” he said amused, “I might be here to relieve your boredom.”
Wei Wuxian sprung up excitedly. “What do you have planned?”
“A-Yuan said that you once managed to raise lotuses in the Burial Mounds.”
“Yes, did you want me to help you grow some here?” It would make sense that Lan Xichen needed his help. Neither the Burial Mounds nor Cloud Recesses had the right environment for lotuses to grow. What Wei Wuxian did was ingenious and altogether unheard of. The Burial Mounds was inhospitable to life in general although, even if it wasn’t, lotuses wouldn’t have grown there; but Wei Wuxian made it happen. He could certainly make it happen here too in the cold, mountainous Cloud Recesses.
“Well you’re on the right track! But...not exactly, ” said Lan Xichen.
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“Right well, I understand what it is you mean now,” said Wei Wuxian. He inspected the drawing. Lan Xichen had worked diligently to capture what he envisioned on paper. The problem now was making it happen.
“Do you have a place where we could do this?” enquired Wei Wuxian. He was so intrigued. If he could pull this off he would be impressed with himself. It would take a large area and it would be a lot of hard work.
“Yes, I believe I do. The back of the Hanshi has a lot of forest. I was thinking I could clear a big enough space. Nothing will go to waste either because we can use the wood from the trees to fence off the area.”
“Great,” Wei Wuxian said, clapping his hands decisively, “Let’s get to work then!”
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Lan Qiren was pleased. It had been a whole five months since Wei Wuxian had caused any sort of disturbance. And he was actually rising in the morning with the Lans now! And eating their food! Wonder of wonders!
He still was unabashedly clingy towards Lan Wangji but that made Wangji happy so, as much as it irked Lan Qiren to see their shameless displays, he would tolerate it...as long as the other rules were followed.
Lan Qiren always suspected his nephew was slipping alcohol to Wei Wuxian, though he could never prove it, but these days it appeared that Wei Wuxian was surprisingly sober most of the time. Lan Qiren didn’t even get a whiff of alcohol! For the first few weeks of this newfound adherence to the rules he was in a state of heightened panic. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop with each day that passed without any of Wei Wuxian’s shenanigans. But as the days went by he started to relax.
He attributed this change of behaviour to his first nephew, who Wei Wuxian had been spending a lot of time with lately. Wangji was blinded by love and so he indulged Wei Wuxian too much, but Xichen had a clear head. He must be acting as a good influence on Wei Wuxian. He hoped this behaviour continued. It was a sign that finally, finally his days of peace might return permanently.
Xichen was interacting with people again (well, only his immediate family and for some reason, Sect Leaders Jiang and Jin… but still, it was more progress than some people made in an entire lifetime --looking at you Qingheng-Jun 😒-- and no, he was not bitter at all, whatever would give you that idea?). Wangji seemed happy in general (as opposed to him moping around for the past 13 years in mourning clothes). And Wei Wuxian, that feral little gremlin, was actually following the rules!
Oh happy day!
He went to class with a pep in his step.
His students were noticeably happier as well because Lan Qiren in a good mood could only benefit them. He even removed the no interacting with Wei Wuxian rule from the wall, which is the one most of them broke constantly! The students rejoiced. Things were peaceful in the Cloud Recesses. Life was good.
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Lan Wangji was a happy man. He was married to the love of his life. His brother was getting better day by day, and got along well with his husband. And his uncle seemed like he’d finally come around to Wei Ying. He felt touched the day Uncle removed the rule forbidding interaction with Wei Ying. He knew that his uncle did not like him, even before the whole Yiling Patriarch thing. But he didn’t forbid them from living in Cloud Recesses. Sure he was not pleased that Uncle wrote a rule against Wei Ying on the wall, but it didn’t stop the juniors from interacting with him anyway and really only served to give Uncle some peace of mind that he did what he could to stop Wei Wuxian from “corrupting” the kids. Uncle needed to feel like he had some semblance of control so, aside from his initial protests, Lan Wangji did not fight him down on it. It wouldn’t stop him from giving Wei Ying a happy life anyway, so let Uncle have his rules.
Lan Wangji knew that his brother supported his relationship and that was enough. He couldn’t help but admit though that Uncle’s support meant a lot to him. He wondered what prompted the change of heart, since Uncle had had a grudge against Wei Ying since their school days and wasn’t the type of man to change his opinions that easily. He wasn’t so brave yet to ask him about it though for fear of ruining things, so he just accepted it.
Wei Ying himself had not noticed a thing. He was busy helping xiongzhang with his project. It was taking a long time because they had to do everything from scratch. Wei Ying didn’t have time to spare. He was matching brother’s schedule so that they could work together more efficiently. He didn’t even drink his favourite Emperor’s Smile these days because he didn’t want to lose focus. Even the food! Usually Lan Wangji would have enough time to make Wei Ying breakfast because...breakfast was usually lunch . But now Wei Ying got up to match the Lans and so he ended up eating breakfast with them too so as not to wait for a meal to be cooked and waste time. He was so tired at the end of the day he didn’t even complain about it, he just fell into bed at 9pm and that was that.
It really cut into the time they had together since they were both so busy but it was for his brother, who had stood by him after Wei Ying’s death for all those years and allowed him his freedom to go ‘where the chaos was’ as they said. He even helped him hide Wei Ying even though he thought Wei Ying was guilty. If this was what would help brother recover his spirits then Lan Wangji would not protest.
In fact, this little project of theirs helped his brother and Wei Ying to become closer. Rather than just accepting Wei Ying, his brother was actually forming a friendship with him. He even told him to call him Xichen-ge. He was impressed with Wei Ying’s ingenuity and grateful that he was going out of his way to help him when he really didn’t have to.
And as much as Lan Wangji loved Wei Ying, he still wasn’t much of a conversationalist, with Wei Ying doing most of the talking and himself, the listening. But with xiongzhang, Wei Ying found someone who was willing to debate with him and could easily carry a conversation. And brother found a friend who he could rely on. After Jin Guangyao’s betrayal, he thought that brother would never befriend anyone again. He may not ever be as close to Wei Ying as he was with Jin Guangyao, but it was a start.
Unfortunately, there was one downside to the project.
Somehow, the person who gave Lan Xichen the idea was *ugh* Sect Leader Jiang. What this meant was that the man in question would make frequent visits to see how it was coming along, providing them with insights as well. It irked him because Wei Ying and xiongzhang had insisted that the project was a secret. They promised they’d tell him before anyone else when it was completed and they’d asked him to cover for them and not let anyone on to what they were doing in the meantime.
Being a dutiful husband and brother he respected their wishes. It would have been fine if Jiang Wanyin had not been in on it. It chafed that he could not be there helping Wei Ying but instead it was Jiang Wanyin. He did not protest because Wei Ying still valued Jiang Wanyin and he would not do anything to upset Wei Ying, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. And since the project seemed to have helped Jiang Wanyin and Wei Ying reconcile, he was sure once all the work was done and Wei Ying wasn’t too tired to socialise, that he’d be forced to interact even more with the man, which he was dreading.
But of course he would endure it for Wei Ying. Sect Leader Jin was also involved somehow but the days when he visited made Wei Ying so happy that Lan Wangji could not begrudge his involvement in the project. Lan Jingyi and Lan Sizhui were also happy to meet with the young sect leader. Lan Wangji could not be upset when it made his family so happy. No, he would stay unaware for as long as they needed him to. Wei Ying was right after all, he would not be able to lie if uncle asked him directly about what they were doing. So he had to stay in the dark.
(But still, damn you Sect Leader Jiang! Why did it have to be you?.. No, he was not sulking!)
#lan wangji#lan xichen#lan jingyi#lan sizhui#lan qiren#wei wuxian#wei ying#jiang cheng#humor#the untamed#the untamed fanfiction#mdzs#mdzs fanfiction#cql#cql fanfic#the irwin agenda#aurora077#post canon#sect leader lan#sect leader jiang#jin ling
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Unless I'm feeling righteously angry, I really have trouble deliberately taking any action that might hurt people in any way.
I used to have a lot of ethical arrogance and stubbornness, so it was easy to circumvent this because I could be so sure of myself and that the other person was Wrong - so Wrong that being hurtful to them was a totally acceptable and probably necessary cost.
I could also easily get into this perspective: "your hurt is self-inflicted by your crap thinking - think good and you'll stop having any negative reaction to this, you fucking stupid/evil person".
I think I definitely learned to be angry and snarly and condemning in part to make it possible for me to override my empathy when asserting my boundaries or pushing back against wrong behavior. It was too hard otherwise and I needed that righteous anger to make myself do it.
But then for almost a decade now I've been increasingly aware and considerate of the full extent of how this causes me to hurt people, perhaps more than necessary.
So I've been on a long journey of trying to dial back the condemning and the judgment and the intolerance of wrongness. I've been trying really get good at quickly perceiving any and all rightness amongst or within the wrongness. I've been trying to do more compassionate, kind, patient, understanding, and constructive responses to wrongness.
But this leaves me really having to face the original and deeper problem, my natural predisposition towards acute and powerful discomfort with any hurt experienced by any mind.
So that's one way that getting into selfish and un-empathetic cognition was useful. It allowed me to cultivate a mental state, and ability to switch in and out of that state, where the hurt of other minds simply didn't matter. But this is not my natural state, and not very easy to get into or to maintain unless I'm unhappy and unfulfilled in specific ways. It's one tool in the toolkit but not yet a very reliable one.
It's also a state that tries to justify itself indefinitely - after all, if I am selfish and no-empathy, what is my incentive for being not selfish or empathetic? Well, as my selfish layer matured, I did eventually start to spot reasons to at least be mostly empirically indistinguishable from someone who genuinely cares and has empathy, and empathy ended up revealing itself to be a sometimes-useful motivational tool. I remember catching glimpses of this. Soon after that I think I found myself reverting back to primarily thinking from my empathetic and often unselfish layers, but I think this was mostly because I had improved things in my life enough to feel fulfilled and happy enough, not because of any robust conclusion that this was the best balance or partnership of the selfish and selfless, or the empathetic and un-empathetic.
The other open question here is cowardice. How much, exactly, is my concern about hurting people due to deep early prediction trees from that towards bad consequences? Hard to say, but since I seem to have been born a coward, and had to really effortfully grow every scrap of bravery I now have, I think it's a big enough factor to keep in mind.
Anyway, so that's a challenge. A really big challenge. I need to be able to face hurting people, especially in the many little emotional ways that come up in daily life, like saying no to things that would make people happy or rejecting people or ending an interaction earlier than the other person wants, or persisting with a disagreement when I think something is right enough, without emotionally buckling. And I think I still buckle a lot more than people realize. The ideal is a smooth, stable, general unphased ability to swim through all that discomfort. What I have now is a lot more uneven - very fluctuating, very stuttering - a somewhat inconsistent toggling between rigidity and very tolerant permissiveness rather than a consistently firmness which bends only deliberately and never due to discomfort with tension.
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Blink Twice for Final Judgement | Short Story Update
Hello everyone! I’ve been on hiatus for a bit, but I’m back today with a short story update for a piece I finished recently called Blink Twice for Final Judgement.
Just a reminder: This is my original work and plagiarism of any form will not be tolerated.
Plot:
On the ten year anniversary of her sister’s death, Eden visits her childhood home and agrees to photograph Sundown, a gratitude festival, after meeting the new (and strange) “family” who lives there.
Genre: Literary fiction, short fiction
POV: First person retrospective
Word count: 6679 (my longest story to date!)
Characters:
Eden (24)
Our apathetic narrator. She is unafraid to roast you but is simultaneously fragile. Her stubborn refusal of change makes her vulnerable to exactly! that!
Viv (14, dead)
Eden’s identical twin sister. She is not a character on the page, but is referenced throughout the story. We learn little about her, but gather she, unlike Eden, seemed to have more of an interest in teenage rebellion and femininity before her death. It is unclear whether or not Eden’s relationship with her sister is based off jealousy, love, grief, or obsession.
Iian (mid 40s)
New owner of Eden’s childhood home who seems to have curated a “family” (aka a cult)
Damaris (14)
Iian’s daughter and only child who Eden describes as Viv’s, and therefore, her own, doppelganger. She seems stifled by her father’s practices and finds friendship in Eden.
Conception:
This story actually began as a different draft called Anatomy of a Swinging Door that I started about a year and a half ago. I never got past 400 or so words in the story (I was very new to short fiction) and shelved the story, though I’d revisited it every few months to see if there was anything I could add (most times there was nothing).
I’ve not been having a great mental health month and really felt I was lacking drive and purpose, which leaked especially into my writing. Feeding Habits has been giving me problems since June, and since I’ve been writing it on and off, I lacked the momentous “high” that writing a lot in a short amount of time can give you (absolutely not the healthiest mindset, but I really needed a pinch of success to liven me). In an attempt to chase this “high” I threw myself into short fiction, finishing my draft of Phantom Limbs as well as another story, Slaughter the Animal. After I completed StA and Feeding Habits was still not working, I decided I wanted to write another short story. However, I didn’t have a working idea. While scrolling through my title list, I noticed I’d had the title “Blink Twice” and the title “Final Judgement” right underneath it, and immediately my brain was like “Blink Twice for Final Judgement” and it instantly reminded me of this story. So I popped open the old document of this story and began fleshing it out, little by little.
Initially, this idea began as Eden visiting her childhood home on the one year anniversary of her brother’s death, but I found this story screamed sisterhood, and so I changed the timeline, made it CanLit (TM), and made this sibling relationship one between twin sisters (which I also! am!). While on a drive with my family, I had a vision of the story’s end, and so referred to that note frequently when piecing the concept together, though my original vision strayed by the time I got to it.
And of course, because this is my cult story, I did do some research on cults during and after the fact. I listen to lots of true crime, so I’ve familiarized myself with a lot of cult stories, and so that knowledge, as well as some new research and imagination allowed me to create my own spin on a cult. It’s not based off a cult, but gathers some inspiration from a few.
The writing bit:
The idea expanded slowly, but I started to understand the idea, the changes I’d made to the initial draft, and the story began to take shape. It did take longer than expected to draft (about 3 weeks), and had its ups and downs. There were some logistics I struggled to sort out, for example, we know Eden has been hired to photograph Sundown, but I didn’t know how long it would be, whether or not I’d write her staying with the family long term, whether the story would lead up to Sundown or if it would start with it, etc. I did not know this answer until I finished the draft of this story two days ago, and was surprised with the direction the story went. It felt like I was drafting and simultaneously doing developmental edits as I implemented some structural changes to the story as I went. The structure of this story for this reason, was the hardest part to nail down!
Upon finishing the story, I was truly unsure of how the story had turned out as I had a feeling I might need another edit on the timeline of Sundown as my initial plan had changed up a bit. However, I ended up not needing to change much and after reading the story all in one go, am very happy with it!
The writing itself was pretty painless. I didn’t struggle with prose like I sometimes do, and quite love the environment of language I’ve cultivated. Eden has a distinct, cynical voice, and I like how that informs the details she notices (aka she often ROASTS). I think the prose is strong and I look forward to seeing what I do with the story in future.
Aesthetic:
While I can’t share excerpts of this story, here’s an aesthetic that captures the *vibe*:
Playlist:
I’ve been listening to a lot of Marika Hackman lately and Undone, Undress from We Slept At Last truly gives me this story’s vibes! Some particularly relevant lyrics:
Here's my body, I am undone
Let them have me, let them come
Blue beaks aching, flesh forsake me
Only bones for the hunter's gun
Load me heavy, I can't bend
Break me better, so I won't mend
The forest murmurs
'Careful creatures
She'll be gone when the master comes'
I wrote a lot of the story to this album and foresee this becoming a trend for future short stories lol!
Blink Twice marks my eighth full-length short story which also means I am making progress on a potential future collection (not all eight stories will be in the collection, five are confirmed for now), which is exciting!
That’s it for now! :) I may be on here periodically, but I’ve deleted the Tumblr app and will keep it that way, so I may be a little slower to things (and also school is starting up so there is also that). See you soon!
--Rachel
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Worst engagement AU // on AO3
Jin Zixuan, without meaning to, seems to have acquired a friend.
Out of everything they learn in the Cloud Recesses, Jin Zixuan finds etiquette lessons to be the most useless. He knows how to conduct himself. Unlike some people, his parents made sure to properly educate him even before he came to this place. In fact, early on he wrote to his mother so she would request that he be excused from etiquette lessons. She answered that since he is so wise already, she expects him to have perfect grades in that subject, or else.
With that threat still in mind, Jin Zixuan pays extra attention to the lecture today, never once looking away from Lan Qiren. This is helped by the fact that there's nobody to pester him today, since Nie Huaisang is sitting near Jiang Cheng at the moment. Good for him. Jin Zixuan doesn't want to deal with him anyway, not after being stood up yesterday.
Not that Jin Zixuan cares about that. He never actually agreed when Nie Huaisang announced he'd be dropping by the Jin cabin after his much reviled weekly meeting with Lan Xichen. In fact, Jin Zixuan explicitly told the other boy not to bother. And so, Nie Huaisang didn't come. Which is good. It's about time Nie Huaisang learned to respect boundaries.
Too bad boundaries make for boring days.
The morning lecture drags on and on and on. Jin Zixuan thinks he can see movement coming from the direction where Nie Huaisang is sitting, and he's almost sure he hears his name called out once in a loud whisper, but he ignores that. He's not this desperate for attention, and some people here are serious, diligent students.
When finally they are freed for lunch, Jin Zixuan doesn't even have time to rise up before Nie Huaisang flops onto his desk with a pout.
"Jin-xiong, didn't you see me waving at you earlier?"
"I didn't. I was listening to Master Lan."
"Liar," Nie Huaisang accuses with a grin, stretching like a cat over the desk. "I watched you, you were almost falling asleep. Jin-xiong, are you angry at me for yesterday? It's not my fault you know, stuff happened. I'll tell you about it while we go to lunch. I am so cross at Lan Xichen!"
"You always are," Jin Zixuan retorts. "Isn't this your day with Jiang gongzi anyway?"
It's not a formal arrangement, but usually Nie Huaisang alternates between spending time with Jiang Cheng on one day, and pestering Jin Zixuan the other. Yesterday should have been Jin Zixuan's day, so today ought to be Jiang Cheng's. It's not a bad system, though it reminds Jin Zixuan of home in ways he doesn't quite like.
Nie Huaisang shrugs and fiddles with his fan, glaring at Jiang Cheng who is leaving with the other boys of his sect.
"Since there's a test coming, he said he wants to study," he grumbles. "Grades don't even really matter! I swear, he's too serious. And I have no intention to be serious whatsoever, so I'm going to stay with you this afternoon. You're not planning on studying, right?"
"Maybe I am."
"Then I'll have to convince you otherwise," Nie Huaisang retorts, grabbing Jin Zixuan's arm by the elbow and pulling him up as he rises.
Resistance is futile. Nie Huaisang is surprisingly strong, even though he's shorter than anyone in their class. Jin Zixuan tries to at least get his arm back, in vain. They are still elbow to elbow as they start walking toward the dining halls.
"So, did it go badly with Lan Xichen yesterday?" Jin Zixuan asks, even though he knows that he's exposing himself to a three hours lecture on everything that's hateful about Lan Xichen. He's not concerned about what might have pushed Nie Huaisang to cancel their plans without warning, just… curious.
"I don't even want to talk about it," Nie Huaisang sighs. "He was almost nice at first, you know. I mean, actually nice, like a real person. He smiled!"
"Isn't he always smiling?"
"A real smile! A human smile, like he was happy to chat! And I almost had fun!"
"How dreadful," Jin Zixuan mutters, rolling his eyes. "You, having fun with your own fiancé. I can't imagine what that's like."
"Watch what you say," Nie Huaisang warns.
Jin Zixuan grimaces and nods. It has been made clear to him that he's allowed to complain about his now dropped engagement in general, but cannot say anything against Jiang Yanli personally. Nie Huaisang is rarely serious, but Jin Zixuan has a feeling that for this, he would be.
"So we were very nearly having fun," Nie Huaisang resumes as they get close to the dining halls. "But then I tried to help him paint something, and so I took his hand, and I swear, you’d think a worm had fallen on his hand. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone more disgusted. Can you believe that? I know he doesn’t like me, but that was rude.”
“Did he say he was disgusted?”
“Oh, you should have seen his face. No doubt possible. What else could it have been, anyway?”
Jin Zixuan doesn’t answer right away. What else, indeed?
Last time Jin Zixuan visited Lotus Piers with his mother, Jiang Yanli noticed a scratch on his hand, from sparring a little too intensely with her little brother. It was nothing big, but she’d seen it anyway and, as if it had been the most natural thing in the world, she had taken his hand to inspect it and offered to clean it. Her fingers had been gentle, and her voice soothing, and she’d seemed genuinely worried for him, so of course Jin Zixuan had panicked. He had pushed her away, saying something about his cultivation being more than good enough that such a small wound didn’t matter to him like it would have mattered to her. His tone must have been really bad because she had cried, and then her idiot brothers had run to the rescue, and everything had been such a huge mess that Jin Zixuan had come out of it more convinced than ever that he hated that whole family.
All because Jiang Yanli was nice to him, and he never knew how to handle that.
He wonders if Lan Xichen too is the sort to panic. It doesn’t seem likely, everyone always praises his calm, but honestly Jin Zixuan has heard the same thing said about himself. He knows the worth of people's praises of an influential young master.
“Maybe he likes you and was secretly flustered,” Jin Zixuan hazards.
Without surprise, Nie Huaisang starts laughing at the suggestion, a little too loud for the dining halls which they’ve just reached. It attracts the attention of a few Lans, including Lan Xichen himself who stares at them with a blank face. Since he has a sense of propriety, unlike some people, Jin Zixuan tries to free himself from Nie Huaisang’s hold. It still doesn’t work. Nie Huaisang keeps him close, which probably should annoy him more than it does, and pulls him toward some empty seats. Only then does Nie Huaisang finally let go of his elbow.
“I miss eating real food,” Nie Huaisang says, pouting at their meal of rice, boiled vegetables, and bitter soup.
“Sometimes I think I’m forgetting the taste of meat,” Jin Zixuan agrees, poking at the cabbage in his bowl before making an effort and eating it.
It’s exactly as tasteless as he expected. He’s used to the rich, heavy foods of Carp Tower, and these few months in the Cloud Recesses have been a torture.
“We should go to Gusu one afternoon,” Nie Huaisang suggests, making no effort to eat anything. No wonder he’s so small if he’d rather starve than swallow something he doesn’t like. “It’s been a while, and if we fly, we can be there for dinner and still get back before curfew.”
“Don’t you hate flying?”
“I do. But for a chance to eat something that actually has a taste, I’d even crawl,” Nie Huaisang mutters. “I miss the food from home. Our cook makes that soup in winter, it’s the best thing ever. It’s just so good, there are no words. You’ll see when you come visit.”
“Who said I’d come?” Jin Zixuan protests.
Nie Huaisang laughs, still too loud for this place, and forces himself to bite a piece of mushroom.
“Of course you’ll come, and we’ll have a ton of fun. Qinghe is the best place in the world, and we have the best food in the world, you’ll love it. And Carp Tower isn’t very far, it’d be easy. Jiang Cheng has promised already that he’ll come with Wei Wuxian, and they’re much further away. If they can come, so can you.”
“Telling me they’ll be there does not make it very appealing,” Jin Zuxian points out.
“I’m not stupid, I won’t let you come at the same time. Not until I’ve gotten all of you to get along,” Nie Huaisang threatens.
At least, it feels like a threat to Jin Zixuan. He doesn’t think Nie Huaisang could manage that, because Jin Zixuan believes the Jiang boys are two horrid little beasts with no respect who need to have manners beaten into them, while they’ve made it clear they're convinced he’s stuck up and boring. There’s just no common ground to be found.
Then again, not long ago Jin Zixuan wouldn’t have thought he’d ever have common ground with Nie Huaisang either.
“I’ll have to see if my father allows it,” Jin Zixuan conceded. “If he does, I might visit you.”
“And if he doesn’t, then I’ll be the one coming to Carp Tower,” Nie Huaisang retorts. “I bet there’s a lot of fun to be had there too.”
“I didn’t invite you.”
“I’m inviting myself. Come on, Jin-xiong. I’m the funniest person you know. Of course you’ll want to see me again after this. Who else can you chat with? Jin Zixun?”
Jin Zixuan huffs in disdain at the idea. His cousin is a tolerable companion for Night Hunts, and because they’re so closely related they’ve always spent a lot of time together, but they only mildly get along. If they had any other choice of friends, Jin Zixuan is sure they’d have fallen apart long ago.
They might, now that Jin Zixuan does have someone whose company he does enjoy, even if he’s reluctant to admit as much. And if Nie Huaisang comes, they can visit bookstores to hunt for poetry, peruse his home's vast library and gardens, or go visit the goldsmiths and cloth merchants of Lanling.
It’s not an unpleasant thought.
Maybe Jin Zixuan will write to his father, asking both to be allowed to visit Qinghe and to have a guest now and then. Or better yet, he’ll write to his mother, since she’s the one who is most likely to spare a moment to give him that permission. Stern as she is, his mother would certainly be happy to hear he’s made a friend.
#xisang#worst engagement au#jau writes#listen jzx is a tsundere through and through even about having friends#mdzs#yes jc and jzx are divorced parents sharing a child but if you ask them they dont want the child anyway lol
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“Half”, 2019-2021, oil on canvas, 48”x 60”. It’s about growing up half Asian in America. Art is about wearing your heart on your sleeve and I have a lot to share about this one. It would really mean a lot to me if you read the story behind it. I reflect on the current events of the past week and past year. It feels very vulnerable sharing all of this, but I also know how important it is to share. This is one of the most important and personal paintings I’ve made in my life and I’m so happy I finally finished it. Thank you for your support, your inspiration, and for listening❤️
Growing Up Half Asian in America: A Reflection on Identity and Racism
By Amber Larks
I finally found my words. Day 1 I had no words, only grief. Day 2 I was furious with rage. And now I feel a sense of healing. Grieving together and supporting each other even just virtually has been so healing. And it inspired me to finish a painting I started sketches for in 2019. I’m not sure what strange force or feeling came over me to put it down and not pick it up until now, but I think it was meant to be.
These two years have been huge for talks about race and I’ve learned so much. I think my painting was finally ready to be completed because of how much I’ve experienced and learned and because of that, found my voice and identity in this movement.
This painting was art therapy for me and I know a lot of people will connect with it. I had been struggling for so long on my thoughts on current events because I am half. Half Chinese and half white. Somehow, I always feel my thoughts or feelings aren’t valid because “I don’t know what it’s really like to be Asian”. I have always struggled with imposter syndrome because I’m half. I constantly straddle two worlds. But being Chinese is who I am, it’s half of me. I was gaslighting myself wondering if my grief was valid. Thoughts like: “You’re not really Asian so stop playing the victim here”, “People will think you’re just a white girl trying to look woke” and “You should be sad, yes, but grieving like you knew them? That doesn’t make sense”. How fucked up is that?
But this is what being half is like. You feel like an imposter even though it is 100% genuinely part of your identity. And I honestly think this is where a lot of my social anxiety comes from because I feel like I don’t fit in anywhere. But being half is also a beautiful blessing where I’ve cultivated a deep understanding and practice of empathy.
Being half, you experience direct racism but more often racism in the form of people being racist in front of you not knowing they are in front of an Asian person. My first memory of racism is being in second grade and two white boys in my class pulling their eyelids up and down taunting “Chinese” “Japanese” “Chinese” “Japanese”. I will always remember it and the feeling I felt.
And Seattle, my city, as much as a beautiful, progressive haven that we are, we blindly participate in passive aggressive racism. I can’t tell you how many times people have complained to me about “Asian tourists” as if they are not human, but instead an inconvenience to your white city. As if they are not people who have worked hard and saved for years to take their family on vacation, land in a foreign city with a foreign language only to be scoffed at and not welcomed. Where is our empathy there? Where is our humanity? So much of racism is not seeing others as human which makes it easy to be so cruel. The dehumanization of minorities is pure cruelness.
Maybe we don’t do things like you, look like you, or talk like you, but that doesn’t make us lesser. We have feelings. We feel pain. We have depth. We’re smart. We can read between the lines. We know when we are not welcome and it hurts. We know when we are being ridiculed and it hurts. We know Hollywood only sees us as objects and it hurts. We see our brothers and sisters getting murdered and it hurts.
Growing up half taught me to hide my Asian side because from age 5 I deemed it unsafe to show in fear of being bullied. As I grew up, I continued to hide in fear of being disrespected, stereotyped, harassed, and sexualized. That last one is huge for Asian women and disturbs me to my core. I hope I never hear the phrase “Asian persuasion” again or “exotic” like we are some seductive fetishized foreign object rather than individuals.
Also mixed kids need to be normalized. Being mixed is becoming more common now thankfully but growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, I had people ask me if I was adopted, if my mom was my nanny, or “what am I?” and “Where are you from?” This is so alienating. And we’re still at a point where we’re being fetishized because of “how exotic we look”. Please take a moment to understand why these are issues.
It’s only within the last few years that I’ve gotten more comfortable sharing my identity as the world becomes more accepting of different cultures. Although current events show why I’m still weary with sharing my identity with people I don’t know.
And yes, I am privileged in many ways to be white passing because I have the option to blend in easier. I have realized this year more than ever just how privileged I am and oblivious I was. But I also feel the weight of pain our communities feel. And grief is grief. Struggles are struggles. Pain is pain. We need solidarity to move forward.
So I’ve been really touched the past 24 hours how much support and outcry there has been. My boyfriend (also half Asian) and I were saying how it’s actually weird seeing all this Asian stuff. I had to do a double take at what was happening- to see so many people talking about it. We’ve always just dealt with it and somehow society made us feel that’s just how it was. We were used to it. We learned to expect it. You learned to deal with it. And you don’t complain. “People have it harder” “We’re lucky to be where we are”. Silent strength. And silent suffering.
I think of my grandma and her strength. And how she never complained. And it breaks my heart to think of the things she must have endured throughout her life. She was my hero. So strong and so quirky and so herself. And I think of how all of that is in my mom and my sister and I. Being Chinese to me is to be resilient. My people have been through so much yet we’re taught to keep our heads down, work hard, and not complain.
So it really warms my heart seeing so many people speaking out about this and supporting us right now. It’s really moving to see how much positive support can help heal a hurting community. Just seeing people speak up is healing in itself. That people are listening and our problems are actually real. That we’re not overreacting. Victims normally don’t see themselves as victims if they’ve been manipulated to think their pain is normal.
That’s how it’s been for Asian people. (model minority myth at play here). And this is the problem with the model minority myth: It is crafted out of white supremacy to preach “congratulations you should be proud you climbed your way out of poverty. Not like those other folks. Look at the bright side. Forget the rest. Forget the torment we put you through. Forget the past. Aren’t you so glad to be you, a model citizen, a respectable citizen” when in reality it is giving a false sense of security and false praise in a society that is still so very hostile towards you. It delegitimizes our pain and manipulatively puts us against other minorities. It “deems” us closer to white even though that’s not true at all. It’s not a scale of white to black and everything in between. We are all unique cultures and something we just happen to have in common is that we are all not white. We all know what it’s like to be the minority. And we have strength in solidarity.
This has been a moment of clarity for me for my identity. I grieved and I’m still grieving for those lost and their families. Because they could have been me. They could have been my own loved ones.
Empathy can create so much change and healing. So please, when a community calls out for help, please return the call. Picture yourself in their shoes. For them to endure so much pain to finally reach the breaking point of calling out for help- it means it’s serious.
This past year has shown how much white supremacy upholds our society. It really does permeate every major artery, crack and corner of this place. It’s also shown how easily it’s tolerated. Excuse after excuse is made to uphold it and it’s time for that to stop. Thank you thank you thank you to everyone being vocal about this, everyone who is evaluating how their thoughts, words, jokes, or actions could be part of the problem(it’s not your fault, it’s the society we grew up in), and to everyone who reached out. Thank you.
I feel like a weight has been lifted finishing this painting and at the same time I am finding peace with my identity. Being Asian is having an unspoken bond with other Asians because you’ve all been through similar struggles. You are brothers and sisters in solidarity. And that’s what I love about the Asian community. We have an unshakable strength in each other. But recently our community has been violently rocked and traumatized seeing our brothers and sisters murdered and abused. It takes a toll on a community. It’s a collective grieving we are going through. So thank you to everyone returning our call for help. Thank you for listening. And thank you for your love. We will heal but we will need everyone’s help to get rid of white supremacy, racism, and domestic terrorism. And until then we will continue to stand in solidarity with all communities fighting for the same cause✊
I ask of everyone reading this:
Please try and use a lens of empathy to understand why marginalized communities are marginalized as well as their history and struggles.
Please take the time to reflect in the moment if your everyday actions, words, and thoughts perpetuate stereotypes and racism. I’ve caught myself many times. It’s in all of us because we live in a toxic society built on white supremacy. But that’s where the progress comes- when you address it and try and fix it.
Please vote and support leaders who are anti racist. Who work to uplift all communities. Voting and activism works. Rhetoric matters. And politics is not just an old man’s game anymore.
Show solidarity. It means you care.
Have empathy. Do your part to make the world a better place- not just for yourself and the people you care about, but for every human being. The light in me honors the light in you❤️
#asian american#stopasianviolence#stopasianhate#half asian#half Chinese#half kids#mixed kids#racism#racism in America#solidarity#minority#Chinese American
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16/17 for angst or 45? Happy New Year, Claire! I hope this upcoming year is prosperous for you and filled with good things -🥦
I’m not good at angst, but I tried! I just want everybody to be happy :(
Word Count: 1.7k
16. “I’m sorry, but…I don’t remember you.”
17. “I wish I’d never met you.” - “No…you don’t mean that.”
The evening starts as any other boring gala that you’ve attended as Duncan Shepherd’s girlfriend has. Hands are shaken, pleasantries are exchanged, and drinks appear in your grasp almost immediately after you finish them. Duncan talks with the political powerhouses of D.C., always strategizing the Shepherd Freedom Foundation’s next move, while you stand to the side and smile politely. The one time that Duncan had suggested you go and “get to know” the wives and girlfriends of his colleagues and acquaintances, you bit your tongue until you could taste blood in an attempt to not ruin the carefully cultivated relationships that Duncan and his family have spent years developing. A successful attempt, mind you, but still an attempt that Duncan was not willing to chance again.
You’ll put up with all of the bad aspects of political galas as long as you have Duncan by your side. While you never thought that you were the type of person to fall head over heels for a person, you would do anything for Duncan. You would follow him into the pits of hell if he asked, but you considered following him to a gala to be pretty close. All of the fake body enhancements and political tension in the world were made tolerable when you caught Duncan’s gaze from across the room and the small smile he would give you to reassure you that this was almost over.
It’s a rare moment where you and Duncan are actually alone, taking your drinks and disappearing to a secluded table near the back of the lavish ballroom. The attention of most other guests in the room is focused on the arrival of President Underwood, whom Annette and Bill are more than happy to rub elbows with if it means they get to throw a few cloaked insults her way, and vice versa. This is the most intimate moment you’ll be able to find with Duncan tonight, so you’re taking advantage of the relative quiet.
“Usher’s looking particularly rat-faced tonight,” you mutter into Duncan’s ear, hiding your smirk into his shoulder as he chuckles into his drink.
“Careful, his rodent ears will pick up on what you’re saying from across the room.” Duncan doesn’t hide his animosity for the Vice President and his mother’s lover, and you have no reason to like him either, so poking fun at him is a common pastime at these events.
“We’re terrible people.”
Duncan shrugs. “And yet, we still manage to be some of the best people in this room.”
Your sentence dies on your lips as you watch a redhead with the longest legs you’ve ever seen approach the table you’re situated at. Duncan stiffens next to you, and you squeeze his forearm comfortingly as you look at him in confusion. You’re certain that you’ve never seen this woman before, which means she’s not one of Duncan’s political enemies. Maybe she’s one of the notorious senators’ daughters that Annette consistently tried to set Duncan up with before you came into his life and her fears that her son would be a perpetual bachelor were assuaged.
“Duncan, hi!” Dammit, even her voice sounds pretty. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
A pained smile is on Duncan’s face as he drums his fingers against the table. “Sorry, have we met before?”
The woman’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, and she laughs. “Uh, yeah? I don’t really know how you can just--”
“I’m sorry, but...I don’t remember you.”
She stares at Duncan for a moment before her eyes land on you. Smiling slowly, her gaze flicks between you and Duncan before she nods. “Uh huh. So you don’t remember six months ago? That weekend we spent together, you know! It was supposed to be just a night, but,” she laughs and shrugs, “I mean, I’m sure your date understands what I mean when I say that you’re very persuasive.”
Your heart jumps into your throat before immediately plunging into your stomach, a Tower of Terror that you did not realize you were in line to ride until you were already strapped in. Even without the thinly veiled innuendos, you would have figured out what this copperhead snake was getting at. You don’t want it to be true and would place all of your trust in Duncan, if only he would vehemently deny what was being said and assure you that he would never do what he was accused of. When you see the look of panic that Duncan gives you, his jaw slack from the shock, you know that your worst fears are now true.
Six months ago, Duncan had learned that he wasn’t actually a Shepherd.
Six months ago, Duncan hadn’t been sure of how to healthily deal with his emotions.
Six months ago, Duncan had broken up with you in the midst of his crisis.
Six months ago, Duncan hadn’t answered your texts for an entire weekend before showing up on your doorstep, tearfully confessing that he couldn’t deal with what was happening without you.
“Duncan,” you mutter, attempting not to cause a scene, “tell me that it’s not true.”
His eyes squeeze shut as he rubs his hand along the stubble on his jaw before minutely shaking his head. “(Y/N), listen to me--”
You’re gone before he can finish his sentence, gathering the hem of your floor-length dress and speed walking across the ballroom. Duncan follows behind you at a pace that doesn’t make it look like he’s chasing you, which works to your advantage. Somehow, Annette notices her son and his girlfriend in their cloud of turmoil, and you can only help that societal conventions keep her from attempting to once again intervene in Duncan’s life.
The courtyard of the venue is as elaborate as the ones that you’ve only read about, with a carefully cultivated orchard and a large fountain serving as the centerpiece. The fountain provides the perfect cover for a soon-to-be quarreling couple, with the water making a makeshift curtain that shields observers from the other side. Duncan grabs your upper arm when you attempt to walk into the orchard to get some space, forcing you to a stop and jerking you around to face him.
“What?” you spit, eyes already burning with tears. “How are you going to explain your way out of this?”
“You have to understand that I was spiraling. I was going through a crisis, and I didn’t know how to deal with everything that was happening...”
“So you broke up with me and then slept with somebody else, what sounds like multiple times over the course of two days?”
“I know my actions are inexcusable. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I’m hoping that I can at least explain to you the reasoning behind my actions. I was alone, and I--”
“I was there for you!” you spit. “I was there, and you told me that you didn’t need me in your life. You were the one who kicked me out, you were the one who refused my support, and you were the sole reason why you were alone. You have nobody to blame but yourself for being in that situation.”
Duncan takes a cautious step towards you, pausing when you put the same amount of distance between you once again. “(Y/N), I hate myself for what I did. For months, I’ve tried to figure out the right way to tell you. I mean, technically we were broken up!”
“Shut the hell up, you Ross Geller wannabe!” Duncan grabs for your arm, but you pull yourself back from him. “No! You don’t get to try and sweet talk me until I’m the one apologizing for the way I feel.”
“I’m sorry for the pain that I have caused you, but you need to know that you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It was a moment of weakness, and foolishness, and I’ve regretted it since the moment that it happened.” Duncan’s blue eyes are cloudy as tears begin to roll down his face. “I love you, (Y/N). I have nothing else to say other than that I love you, and I’ll continue to love you no matter what. I only hope that you’ll give me that same honor.”
Shaking your head, you close your eyes tightly before taking a deep breath. “I wish I’d never met you,” you finally say.
The words seem to hang in the air, the weight of what you’ve said settling over your shoulders like a weighted blanket. The panicked expression that’s become so familiar to you over the past few minutes is once again visible on Duncan’s face, and his bottom lip quivers as he stutters out, “No...you don’t mean that.”
You’re not sure whether or not you’ll mean it in the morning, but right now, it’s the only thing you’re sure of.
“I can’t be here,” you mutter, turning your back on Duncan and walking towards the parking lot.
“Where are you going?” Duncan calls, knowing better than to follow you.
“Home!”
“But--we arrived together, you don’t have a ride!”
“I’ll get a Lyft, then!” You can feel his eyes on you, and you can hear that Annette’s already asking Duncan what’s happened, but you don’t care. The only thing you care about now is going home, going to sleep, and hopefully waking up from this living nightmare.
#Duncan Shepherd#duncan shepherd imagines#duncan shepherd imagine#duncan shepherd x reader#hoc#hoc imagine#hoc imagines#house of cards#house of cards imagine#🥦 anon
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Fic: Simple Pleasures, Chap 6
Title: Simple Pleasures
Fandom: Kushiel’s Legacy
Characters: Isidore d’Aiglemort, Anne Livet
Pairings: Isidore/Anne
Word Count: 5,625
Rating: NC-17
Summary: The story of Isidore d’Aiglemort & the gardener’s daughter of Lombelon. WIP.
Disclaimer: I do not own Kushiel’s Legacy. This is only for fun & no profit is being made from it.
Previous Chapters:
1. The Visit
2. Desire
3. The Harvest Festival
4. Triumph
5. Gifts
Chapter 6: The Eagle Unbound
I never thought betraying a former friend and lover would be as easy as it was.
Melisande told me all of it. Baudoin, fool that he was and utterly besotted, told her, going so far as to show her his mother’s correspondence with Alba. She’d invited me to her town house one night in early summer, perhaps a month before Baudoin’s natality. I’d intended to make a brief visit to Lombelon before returning home, but she made it clear she had somewhat important to share with me. It was over glasses of Namarrese red that she shared the details of the Lioness of Azzalle’s plot.
“You and I have a choice to make,” she said once I’d finished perusing the letters.
“I certainly have no intention of letting the idiot drag me down with him, and I doubt you do either.”
“You would be correct in that assumption.”
“It’s far too risky a gambit. There’s no guarantee the Azzallese would succeed in distracting the Master of the Straits, let alone distract him long enough to let an Alban army cross,” I replied. “And there’s no way Azzalle can stand alone against the Royal Army, not without outside help. If Baudoin thinks I’d rouse the Allies of Camlach for him, then he’s an even greater fool than I thought.”
Melisande inclined her head. “I defer to your superior knowledge of all martial matters.”
“They’re needed on the border now, in any case.” We sat in her receiving room, which was well-appointed with elegant décor. I was glad to meet with her there and not in the dining room. The pleasure chamber off it was rather excessive, even for a Shahrizai. I did grow used to certain things, mainly the pleasure chambers, after three years with them, but that was a kind of after dinner entertainment not to my taste. Though I had to admit the idea of taking Anne on the dining room table at Lombelon was not unappealing. I shook my head briefly to clear it of that pleasant and distracting image before speaking again. “I’ll not be brought down with Baudoin.”
Melisande was silent for a moment, no doubt considering my statement. “You surprise me, Isidore.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re surprised? Truly?”
“Only a little. I thought you might show a bit more reluctance.”
“I would have, once.”
“I know.”
“My tolerance for him wore thin a long time ago.” It was the truth. Baudoin had somehow managed not to mature at all past his adolescence. One might’ve thought time on the border would mature him, but it entirely failed to do so. What was amusing when we were young had ceased to be so when we were past thirty. I grew out of the urge to engage in drunken debauchery at every opportunity. He didn’t. “It seems I’m not the only one who has grown tired of him.”
Melisande smiled. “He had his uses and has now thoroughly outlived them.”
I confess I’d been surprised when I’d first learned of their affair. Not on Baudoin’s part—he was exactly the sort to be entranced by Melisande’s beauty—but I never quite understood why she bothered with him aside from him being a Prince of the Blood. She was not the sort to be amused by his antics generally. Of course, Melisande did have a history of surprising choices when it came to husbands. Both of her husbands initially seemed like strange choices until one recalled they were very old, very rich, and very childless. I’d attended her first wedding, as I was a fosterling with the Shahrizai when it happened. Melisande never did anything without a purpose. “Did you truly think he would wed you, or rather that Lyonette would let him wed you?”
“There was a possibility worth cultivating. For a while, at least.”
“I can’t exactly say I’m disappointed such a marriage will never come to pass,” I admitted.
“Nor am I in truth,” she replied, “and now that we know of the plot, we ought to decide what we’re to do about it.”
I sipped my wine. “Indeed. We could say naught and let the plot fail on its own, but that carries the risk it might in fact succeed. Baudoin then becomes King with Lyonette as the power behind his throne and he’ll expect me to jump to his whims, just as he has for the entirety of our acquaintance.” I looked away from her, thinking on the many examples of such treatment I’d endured over the years. “I’ll not be shunted to the side while he takes all the glory.” It was the first time I’d actually voiced those feelings aloud. They’d been growing within me for some time.
“I’ve always thought you more deserving of attention and praise than him,” said Melisande. “Anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows it is you who bears most of the responsibility for those victories on the border, not Baudoin.”
“Of course.” He was no Camaeline, that was certain. Not that he was completely hopeless at Camael’s Arts, but he was not made for the hard work of soldiering. For him, war was all about glory. “If we expose the plot, we’ll be seen as heroes.”
“It will need to be done carefully. It is no small thing to bring down a Great House and a Prince of the Blood. And I would rather keep my own role in this a small one.”
That was very like her, to work from the shadows. “Then I will be the one to expose it.” All I had to do was wait for the right opportunity to arise.
I had to return to Camlach to deal with the increased raiding summer brought, but I had enough time for a brief stop at Lombelon. I was in high spirits when I arrived, and they only grew higher when I saw Anne. She greeted me as warmly as always and I did not hesitate to pull her into my arms and kiss her deeply. Cheers could be heard here and there among the ranks of my men. They knew—I’d not bothered to keep our relationship secret. Why would I? It was hardly unusual for a D’Angeline noble to bed his servant. What was unusual was that our relationship had now progressed far beyond a casual dalliance.
It was hard not to share with Anne the details of Baudoin’s treason. Hard, but necessary. She could be discreet if I asked it of her, yes, but Melisande and I had agreed to keep our knowledge of it secret until the time came to reveal it. Anne would find out when the rest of the Realm did. Rather than dwell on keeping this from her, I chose instead to focus on my own desires. Our earlier kiss had ignited them and sitting beside her at dinner only made the flames burn hotter. My thoughts turned to my earlier fantasy of taking her right here on the table, her legs spread wide for me, both of us heedless of the possibility of discovery.
I watched her intently as she ate. She wore a dress I’d bought for her, lightweight and suitable for working outside in the summer heat. It had taken some doing on my part to convince her to accept such a gift, but she finally agreed to give me her measurements. I made sure it was suitable for work in the gardens and orchards, for Anne continued to work as she always had. She wanted to, she told me. I’d presented the dress to her during my last visit. It would do—for now anyway. Her hazel eyes were fixed on me throughout the meal. I did not have to be Namarrese to see the desire burning in them.
Once we’d eaten our dessert, a berry tart served with sweet cream, I rose from my chair and kissed her hard. She responded immediately, rising from her own seat to return my kiss with equal ardor. I led her past our empty plates to a clear stretch of table and pressed her against it. Anne quickly divined my intentions and sat on the edge of the table. We’d been lovers for long enough at this point that we were good at sensing what the other wanted. She hiked her skirt up around her hips and spread her legs for me. The sight of her, spread out in front of me like a banquet, inflamed my desire. I bent to perform the languisement, making Anne throw back her head and moan loudly enough that I wondered for a moment if anyone outside the door might’ve heard. The taste of her was exquisite, as always.
I was not minded to take my time and pleasured her only long enough to have her dripping wet before thrusting inside her. She arched her back and propped herself up on her elbows, giving me an excellent view of her. Ah Naamah, she felt so good! I could’ve died happy then, sheathed to the hilt, gripping her thighs tightly enough to leave marks. With my back to the door and Anne’s to the windows, there was the distinct possibility we could be spotted in the act. That knowledge did nothing to cool my ardor—there is little privacy in a camp and it is hard to hide who you choose to bring to your tent. I’d never seen much point in hiding them anyway. Looking into Anne’s eyes, I did not think her overly concerned with discovery either.
Once it was over and we’d both reached our peaks, I hastily buttoned my breeches and Anne pulled down her skirt. “You were quite eager today,” she remarked with a grin.
“I might say the same of you.”
Her grin widened.
That night we lay in each other’s arms with only a single sheet covering us. We were not yet at the height of summer, but it was warm enough to warrant going without coverlets. It had been nearly four years since we’d first lain together, somewhat which was hard to believe when I thought about it. That first time had been a spur-of-the-moment decision on my part, when I allowed myself to surrender fully to my own desire. I am not given to casual dalliances, and all of mine had more to them than just desire. It was obvious now that what I had with Anne had grown beyond a mere dalliance. I wanted more than that, and I was sure she did too.
My visit to Lombelon was of necessity a brief one. I bade a reluctant farewell to Anne and rode for Camlach. The Skaldi had been growing bolder in their raiding, and it wasn’t all due to my and Baudoin’s activities on the border. They finally managed to find themselves a leader who could unite their fractious tribes. Word of Waldemar Selig was everywhere. Such a leader had not emerged among the Skaldi in centuries. Oh, sometimes one would manage to unite a handful of tribes, but never all of them. A unified Skaldic nation could pose a dire threat to Terre d’Ange. All my own intelligence indicated Selig was very likely planning an invasion. The Allies of Camlach would be the first line of defense in such a scenario, though I’d begun to consider that perhaps there were other ways to deal with the Skaldi threat aside from Camael’s way.
The latest border reports were not so dire that I needed to make for the border straightaway. Instead I took my time, visiting all the major garrisons of the Allies of Camlach. To the uninformed that might seem like a large undertaking, but it was made significantly easier than it would’ve been without our secret passages through the mountains. These are largely unknown outside of Camlach, as most travelers stick to the main passes and do not look for them. We certainly took care to keep them secret from the Skaldi.
I had to own that despite everything going on elsewhere, it did feel good to be home. In my mind there is no better place to pass the summer than in Camlach. The mountains are high enough to be pleasantly cool even in the hottest days of summer, and I have never been one for the heat. The cool mountain air made it easier to think. I’d told Melisande that I would be the one to publicly expose Baudoin’s plot. Baudoin himself was not currently in Camlach—no, he was always minded to spend his natality in the City and this year Melisande intended to throw him a lavish fête at Cereus House as a sort of goodbye present. I already declined my invitation. Baudoin had, however, left a number of his Glory Seekers in Camlach and I meant to use them.
We planned the exposure carefully, Melisande and I. Knowing Baudoin as well as we did, we surmised that she was not the only person he told. He was incapable of keeping his mouth shut when sober, let alone while drunk. He and the Glory Seekers spent their time carousing when not fighting and it was extremely likely he let slip some details of the plot. We needed only to wait. The harder part was obtaining proof. It had to seem natural so as not to arouse suspicion. Melisande would give me the letters to present to the King only after I’d gone through the pretext of an investigation.
It was late summer when the opportunity came. The Skaldi had been quiet, which naturally led to boredom among the border patrols. Deprived of Skaldi to fight, the Glory Seekers took up their usual pastimes of drinking and carousing. Sure enough, one of them was careless enough to mention the broad outline of the plot while thoroughly drunk, boasting of how honored they would be once Baudoin was King. That was enough. I had him and several other Glory Seekers questioned until one of them admitted to being privy to the plan. Baudoin had been careless enough to tell several others besides Melisande, trusting his men to keep their prince’s secrets. I daresay he’d have told me had we seen each other recently.
The inquiry ultimately led me to Melisande. Since I needed the letters before I could make the accusations, I sent a courier to her. As soon as he returned with the packet of letters, I set off for the City. With the urgency of someone who had just discovered a treasonous plot, I rode day and night to reach the City as quickly as possible. I went straight for the King as soon as I arrived. I didn’t bother to requesting an audience—better to make my accusations at a public hearing. The audience chamber had a decent-sized crowd when I burst through the doors, letters in hand, and made my accusations.
Pausing only to bow before the King, I spoke. “Your Majesty, I bear grave tidings. Lyonette de Trevalion conspires with Foclaidha of Alba to place Prince Baudoin on the throne!”
A shocked silence fell over the room. Ganelon de la Courcel regarded me with a guarded expression. “These are serious accusations against a Prince and Princess of the Blood. Have you proof?”
I held out the packet. “Here. Letters in Lyonette de Trevalion’s own hand outlining the details of the plot.” The Secretary of the Presence stood hastily and took the packet of letters. It was done. I’d just accused a Prince of the Blood, a man I’d known since childhood, of treason. Somehow that had been nowhere in my mind when I’d handed the letters to the King. Indeed, as I left the audience chamber my spirit felt as light as it had when I was at Lombelon. I had played my part; things would now transpire as they would.
Matters moved quickly. Ganelon sent the Royal Army under the Comte de Somerville to Trevalion, where the Glory Seekers surrendered after a brief skirmish. Baudoin and Lyonette were taken into custody. They would be tried before the assembled Parliament, as was their right as peers of the Realm. I was called upon to testify as a witness. So was Melisande. This was hardly unexpected, given our respective roles in exposing the conspiracy. I would also have a vote to decide their fates, as I was a member of Parliament.
I seldom attended sessions of Parliament. The seat came to me when I became Duc, it being held by my family for generations. Most of the Parliament sessions I’d attended had been terribly dull, filled only with the routine business of the Realm. This would be somewhat different altogether. During the days leading up to the trial, I found myself practicing what I would say over and over in my head. My initial excitement had by now given way to anxiousness. Besides that, my mind now saw fit to remind me of happier times with Baudoin—playing together as children, sharing a bed, fighting together on the border. If I dwelt too much on these memories, I would lose my nerve and be unable to do what needed to be done. With effort, I forced the memories aside.
Lyonette’s trial was the first of them. It was only fitting, considering she was the main architect of the plot. Baudoin wasn’t remotely smart or cunning enough to come up with such a scheme himself. To be quite honest I doubt he would’ve sought the throne without her whispering in his ear. He’d have been content to spend his days in drunken debauchery without giving much thought to politics. It would’ve been been better for him if he had.
It was easy to testify against her. Lyonette de Trevalion was nothing to me, only the mother of a man who was once my friend. She was defiant to the end, flaunting the manacles she wore for show as a prop to elicit sympathy. She glared at me with hatred in her eyes as I testified, though whether it was for my role in her downfall or my betrayal of her son I couldn’t say. When it was done, I took my seat in the Parliament and cast my vote for death. It did not escape my notice that Ysandre de la Courcel voted the same way. Marc and Bernadette de Trevalion’s trials followed after. I testified briefly in both, stating that I had not found evidence that they were actively involved in the plot, but could not say definitively that they’d had no knowledge of it. It so happened that they did know, but chose to keep that knowledge to themselves. For that, they were sentenced to exile.
At last it came to Baudoin. Unlike his mother, who remained proud and defiant, he had not coped with this change in his fortune well. I waited outside the Parliament chamber, watching him closely. He looked as bad as he did after a night of hard drinking. I’d seen him in such a state numerous times, usually combined with a terrible hangover. I kept my face carefully blank, concealing my nervousness. I was less nervous charging into battle than I was testifying against Baudoin de Trevalion. Fighting was natural to me; betrayal was not. My face was a perfect mask of composure as I waited.
“I am innocent!” Baudoin pleaded. He was not one to proudly meet his fate as his mother had.
Ganelon turned to look at me and nodded. I knew that for my cue and stepped onto the floor, pausing only to incline my head to Baudoin, giving him the bare minimum of respect due his station. I bowed to the King and gave my testimony. “… I could not dismiss the possibility of treason, so I immediately took action. Loyalty to the Crown must come before all things, even the bonds of friendship.” I stole a brief glance at Baudoin, who glared daggers at me. If he could’ve killed with a glance, I’d have been lying dead on the floor of the Parliament chamber. The pure hatred on his face might’ve given me pause had I not steeled myself for this. When it was done, I relinquished the floor and Melisande was called to testify.
She came accompanied by the usual pack of Shahrizai, who were there in a show of force supporting her. She gave quite the performance, claiming she’d been torn between love of country and love of Baudoin until my courier arrived to inquire about the plot. I daresay those who didn’t know her as well as I did believed her. If she intended to make herself appear non-threatening before the eyes of the Realm, it may well have worked.
Again, I cast my vote for death. Ysandre’s vote was the last. “Tell me cousin,” she asked Baudoin coolly, “would you have wed me off to a foreign potentate, or killed me outright?”
He had no answer.
“So be it,” said Ganelon. “Baudoin de Trevalion, you are sentenced to death. You have three days to name the manner of your choosing.” Lyonette might’ve been prepared to face death with dignity; Baudoin was not. He stumbled as he was led out, chains clanking. He had truly never considered this as a possible outcome of his schemes. How could he, when he never had to face the consequences of anything he did? It had always been so, when we were young. My own upbringing had been far stricter, as my father was something of a disciplinarian. It always surprised me when Baudoin was allowed to get away with things I’d have been punished for. His mother had done him a disservice, spoiling him as she had. No matter. It was a lesson Baudoin de Trevalion learned too late.
When the trials were over, it was a relief to return to my private quarters. What I would’ve liked was to visit Anne, but it was too late in the day for that. I resolved to go to Lombelon as soon as I could get away from the City. Since seeing her would have to wait, I contented myself with a glass of pear brandy.
The executions took place three days later. There was speculation, in the City and the court, on what methods Baudoin and Lyonette would choose. I never had any doubt. Baudoin, for all his faults, did not lack for courage. He would fall on his sword, as a soldier should. On the day he was to die, regrets crept into my mind along with the same memories I’d worked hard to suppress before the trial. Again I forced them away. It had to be done, for all the reasons Melisande and I had discussed. As long as Baudoin was there, I would be forced to remain in his shadow. Our association had become a heavy chain weighing me down. If I were to soar like the eagle that was the symbol of my House, I had to be free of him. It was necessary.
Let Baudoin die, then, so I might ascend.
**
I made my escape the day after the executions. Ganelon was canny enough to allow the City to quietly mourn for Baudoin and Lyonette. Baudoin had been quite popular, partially due to victories that were owed more to my prowess than his. Suffice it to say I did not join the crowds of mourners at the temple of Azza. Instead I gave the excuse that I had to return to Camlach and left for Lombelon. It was believable enough—Lombelon was northeast of the City and a reasonable stopping place on the way. I did mean to return home after the visit anyway.
Word of the fall of House Trevalion had already reached Lombelon when I arrived. I couldn’t say I was surprised, considering the City had talked of nothing else. “We heard everything,” Anne told me after giving me a warm kiss of greeting. “It must’ve been a hard thing, to choose between a friend and the Realm.”
“Not as hard as you might think. Once I had the proof of the plot, I knew I had to go to the King. Baudoin on the throne would’ve been a disaster for Terre d’Ange.”
“Given what you’ve told me of him, I can see why.”
“You don’t even know the half of it.” I really did not want to discuss Baudoin further, lest my conscience choose to resume pricking at me. Fortunately, Anne wasn’t inclined to do so. Summer at Lombelon was really quite lovely, the perfect retreat from the City if a bit warmer than I liked. All my thoughts of war and politics seemed to just slip away when I was with Anne.
The following morning Anne watched as I had my daily sword practice. It wasn’t the first time she’d done this, but it wasn’t a regular occurrence. The day was warm enough that I opted to do without a shirt for the duration. I knew even without looking at her that Anne appreciated the view. I went through the entirety of the traditional sword forms. I started learning the Camaeline ones around the time I learned to read. They were second nature to me and I could do them without thinking. There are some regional differences to be found in the provinces, and I have picked up some of these over the years. When I was done I sheathed my sword and strode over to Anne. “Enjoy the show?”
“Very much so,” she said, grinning. “It’s like a dance.”
“Indeed. The dance of steel, we call it in Camlach.” I retrieved my shirt and pulled it over my head. Anne took care to push a few stray locks of hair out from under my shirt. I was not about to spend the entire day stripped to the waist, but it was hot enough to do without a doublet.
“I had a thought as to how we might pass the afternoon,” said Anne.
“And what would that be?”
“I thought we could take our midday meal in the fields near the river,” she offered.
“That sounds like a very pleasant way to pass the afternoon.” The sun shone brightly that day and though it was warm, there was enough of a breeze to keep the heat from being unbearable. It wasn’t exactly a Camaeline summer, but I could get through it.
A short while later, Anne and I were laying out a blanket near the bank of the river, a tributary of the Aviline. A nearby tree provided enough shade to protect us from the glare of the sun. I was glad of it, for I had enough experience of patrolling and drilling in the summer to know my skin was liable to burn with too much sun. I wondered if it was the same with Anne. Somehow I doubted it. She packed us a light luncheon, consisting of fresh baguettes, berries, and brie. There was a bottle of chilled wine as well. It was exactly the sort of light meal that was perfect for a day such as this.
“You chose a perfect spot,” I said, reclining on the blanket after we finished our meal.
“Isn’t it lovely? I’ve come here many times, starting when my parents took me here as a child,” she replied. “I knew you’d like it.”
I stretched and folded my arms behind my head. “I imagine this must be a popular place for picnics.”
“It is. Picnics and… other things.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What might those be?”
“Exactly what you suspect. It’s a popular retreat for couples wanting a bit of… relative privacy.”
“Only L’Agnacites and Namarranes would make love in an open field,” I quipped, grinning.
“You don’t do such things in Camlach?” she inquired, returning my grin.
“Half the time it’s too cold to even consider it! The most we do is make love in a tent.” Which I’d done plenty of times.
She laughed at that. “I came here for my first time.”
I turned my head to look at her. She lay on her side, looking down at me. A faint hint of blush was visible in her cheeks. “Really? May I ask who it was?”
“It was a traveling Mendacant come up from Eisande. He was very charming.” She smiled at the memory. “I was… more than ready to return his attentions. Who was yours?”
“A Camellia adept. It’s a right of passage for peers of the Realm to visit the Night Court when they turn sixteen.”
“Camellia… that’s the house of perfection, is it not?”
“Yes. The house motto is ‘Without Fault or Flaw.’” I wasn’t surprised she knew that much of the Night Court, Lombelon being as close to the City as it was.
Anne’s face took on a wistful expression. “Visiting the Night Court after turning sixteen. I’d have been fair bursting with eagerness, were I a noblewoman.”
“Trust me, I was plenty eager myself. I had trouble choosing between the houses, though, and my friends grew tired of my equivocation and carted me off to Camellia for a night of perfection.” Baudoin had been there, of course, as had Ghislain de Somerville, Marmion along with several other Shahrizai cousins, and a handful of Camaeline lordlings. I’d have preferred a less raucous outing, but they’d been insistent. “I didn’t know you had such an interest in the Night Court.”
“Well, I suppose I can’t help but wonder about it. We hear things, close as we are to the City.”
“You know,” I began, “you and I could visit the Night Court together, if you wish. You can choose which house.”
“Together, as in we’d share an adept between us?” she asked, eyebrows raised.
“If that’s what you’d like, yes. Or you could visit on your own to satisfy your curiosity. I’d give you the money.” I’d never considered the possibility of visiting the Night Court with her, but the idea was intriguing. “That reminds me—there’s somewhat I’d like to discuss with you, Anne.”
“What is it?”
I shifted onto my side so I might meet her eyes. “I’ve been thinking on our relationship a great deal recently. You are more to me than a casual dalliance, so much more. And I think I am the same to you.”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Our current situation… is not reflective of what we are to each other,” I continued. “You live here as a commoner, still working as a servant…”
“I’ve never wanted more from you,” she cut me off. “Your love is enough.”
I stroked her hair gently. She’d been wearing it loose more often lately, since I told her it was beautiful and she ought to showcase its beauty. I twined a lock around my finger before speaking again. “What I mean is I want to take care of you, Anne.”
“Take care of me? I daresay you’re doing a fine job of that already!”
My hand slid down from her hair to rest lightly on her shoulder. “I mean I want to make you my consort.”
She blinked slowly, looking at me as if I’d suddenly sprouted wings. “Your… consort?” she forced out, disbelieving.
“Yes. I wouldn’t have said it to you if I were not serious.”
“I never thought… never really considered the possibility…” She shook her head.
“If you’d rather not—”
“No! I’m shocked, that’s all. You know I’ve been content with the way things are between us and never asked for more. I love you with all my heart and if you would make me your consort, my answer is yes.”
I beamed at her. “Nothing would please me more. I have given my heart to you; it’s only fitting that I name you my consort.”
She returned my smile and looked upon me with eyes so full of love I might’ve wept were I given to sentiment. This had come as a surprise to both of us, falling in love as we had.
“What of your wife?” Anne asked as if she’d read my mind. “You will need to marry someday. A man of your status must get a barrage of offers.”
“You’d be correct.” They were a constant annoyance. “It would not be unprecedented for me to forgo marriage entirely after naming you my consort. I can’t guarantee that—it may be that I will need to marry for politics or some other reason. What I can promise you is that you will always be foremost in my heart.” I didn’t tell her that I was currently courting the Dauphine. There was no sense in making Anne feel insecure beside Ysandre de la Courcel. There would be time to discuss it if it ever came to pass.
“Your love is enough for me. So how do I officially become your consort anyway?”
“I have to name you my consort in a public place before witnesses.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Most nobles name their consorts at courtly functions.”
Her eyes widened. “Court? You mean to take me to court?”
I laughed lightly. “Of course. But fear not—I prefer not to spend an excessive amount of time there.”
She let out a sigh. “That’s a relief! I’d be as out of place at the royal court as a sparrow among swans.”
“I promise you won’t have to spend more time at court than you want,” I assured her. “As much as I’ve complained about it to you, it really isn’t terrible. It can actually be quite enjoyable sometimes.” Her eyes narrowed, skeptical. I brushed my fingers across her cheek in a gentle caress. “I’m so pleased you’ve agreed to become my consort, Anne.”
She made no reply other than to kiss me.
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Judgment XX
Part 1
When I was sixteen, I came home from school one day and my mother gathered my little sister and I in the living room with an enormous sense of urgency. Her face was full of fear and sorrow as she presented us each with a backpack, and told us that everything we would need to hopefully survive could be found inside. A change of clothes, running shoes, thermal blanket, protein bars, tablets to disinfect drinking water, basic first aid supplies, iodine tablets to prevent the body from absorbing radiation, and a bundle of cash in small bills.
She informed us that the very next day, according to the prediction of an evangelical pastor, the rapture would take place. In Christian theology, this is the second coming of Christ to Earth and the event that signals what is commonly conceptualized as “the end of the world.” As a Christian, my mother believed that she would ascend to heaven. As “non-believers,” my sister and I would be left in the rubble… which is to say some vague, resource-scarce dystopian landscape of smoky skies and fights to the death in abandoned grocery stores aisles.
My mom was ready to go. She was ready to leave this world, and move on prematurely to the afterlife. But this was not a new thing. She had been ready, with barely one foot on the ground, for as long as I can remember.
As a young child, I recall tornado warnings that would send us running to the basement with sleeping bags, ready for the worst. The world ending wasn’t always about Christ’s return, see. More broadly, for my mom, I think it was about retreating from reality. It was any excuse to hole up and defend her nuclear family from threats semi-real to fully imagined. She hoarded (and still, I believe, hoards) supplies as a regular practice--cleaning products, canned goods, bulk grains, batteries--and invariably most of it would expire before it was ever put to use. But it soothes her, my mother, and abates the anxieties stoked by Fox News, InfoWars and fire-and-brimstone preachers delivering end times prophecies to the day.
It is hard to share this. Despite the harm she caused me, and the fact that we do not speak, I have love for my mother. I see her paranoia and her attempts to feel safe in a world that is fundamentally not safe. I feel sad that she can only conceptualize safety as being more prepared than her neighbors, and keeping it all to herself. I want to share this, though, because in being raised by someone perpetually readying herself for the apocalypse, I developed a readiness of my own.
I am thinking about the Dean Spade lecture on mutual aid, “Solidarity Not Charity,” that I attended this past fall. There was a moment when he was speaking about the idea of safe spaces as being not only an impossibility, but a concept that actually detracts from effective organizing. I want to quote him as saying, “If I get my safety from making you wrong, that’s authoritarian.” He described being at a meeting where people were planning for a common goal, and someone saying something hurtful and offensive. Rather than immediately kicking the person out, he said, what could come of recognizing that you had a common enemy (capitalism, the police, etc) and educating them. The “safety” that would allow him to respond to that situation in the latter way was generated by “having enough, and being held in community so that we can tolerate discomfort.” it is this definition of safety that I have been orienting towards.
Part 2
Recently someone asked me what kind of witch I am, and I told them “a political one.” I say this because the witch hunts of early modern Europe are one of the main origin points for our current conception of what a witch is. Although the Wicca of second wave feminism claimed those executed as “witches” to be ancestors of a Pagan religious tradition, in reality many if not most of them understood themselves as Christian. According to Silvia Federici’s extensively researched thesis, the people executed as witches were killed for the threat they posed to the newly enforced order of economic and social relations— early capitalism. In medieval Europe, most people practiced some form of what we would call magic. Charms for love, money and protection were run of the mill. It was only the magic of those who existed in opposition to the patriarchal capitalist order--the unmarried, disabled, unhoused, and destitute--that was labeled diabolical. Those Christians became heretics, and heretics became witches. The practice of magic alone did not, and perhaps does not, make someone a witch.
I am a witch in part because I was baptized in the Presbyterian church. I am a witch because I am a dyke who loves God (in a polytheistic kinda way). I am a witch because I survived an upbringing that nearly killed me, and I have committed my life to fight to destroy the societal structures which give rise to the interpersonal violence that I endured. I am a witch because of the non-hierarchical way I strive to relate to life in all its forms— plant, animal, human and non-human, living and dead. I am a witch because I believe that what we can imagine, we can bring into being.
In March of 2017 I was preparing for a spring equinox ritual with a group of witches as part of a Wheel of the Year class offered by my teacher, Miel Rose. On the seasonal theme, we wanted to cast a spell for moving back into embodiment after a time of being numb... For embracing the movement of spring after the dormancy of winter. In the week between our planning meeting and the day of our ritual, I found out the man my sister was dating, Rafael, an undocumented man from Guatemala, was detained by ICE in Pennsylvania. I remember feeling utterly powerless to free him from the jaws of the evil machine that is our immigration system. I went into ritual thinking about our intention for greater embodiment and movement. It wasn’t complete, I realized, as a spell to support our own transformation. We needed to cast a spell for freedom of movement for all people, all beings. And so we did.
On the bike path in Northampton, under the South Street overpass, we chalked in huge letters
A WORLD WITHOUT CAGES IS POSSIBLE.
And we chanted and hummed and visioned and sent the truth of that world we could feel in our bodies out to be picked up and passed on by others.
After ritual, I wrote these words in my journal:
"I WILL FEED MYSELF
BECAUSE I LOVE THIS WORLD
AND I AM OF THIS WORLD
AND I DESERVE TO BE FED
Let it all come up into the (sun)light
Learning to be vulnerable, slowly
Learning I won’t be punished for it
Learning it’s ok to make mistakes, to be wrong, to fuck up
That I can and will be held
Real change is slow and sometimes it hurts but sometimes it’s a steady drip till the water flows in full."
We were unsuccessful in our legal efforts to free Rafael from detention and prevent him from being deported. Witnessing his journey struggling against the system--attending his asylum trial inside the prison where he was being held--further radicalized me and moved me to political engagement in a new way. Fast forward a couple of years and I’ve been blessed to organize as part of the Trans Asylum Seeker Support Network to get transgender and genderqueer asylum seekers across the U.S./Mexico border, out of ICE detention, and set up with sponsors and support in western Massachusetts. This work has drawn me into a web of community I had previously only dreamed of (and cast spells for). We believe it is possible and necessary to abolish the police, abolish prisons, abolish capitalism. As a collective, we treat each other with kindness and encourage honesty in everything we do. We recognize that we need each other, and we act like it. What an immense gift to be surrounded by people who believe that a world without cages is possible, and to be fighting for it together. The more I connect and build with radical left activists, the more I realize we could have an entirely different world.
Part 3
And that is what I am sitting with in this moment. Everyone is calling it the apocalypse, and I don’t think that’s heavy handed. The word apocalypse comes from the Greek apokalupsis, from apokaluptein meaning ‘uncover, reveal.’ The whole world is seeing what was behind the curtain that is the mythology of capitalism. There are extreme losses occurring in this process. Death abounds. This is heavy. And. In the shadow of death there is preciousness. On this, I think, my mother and I agree. Everything is cast in a softer light. The finiteness of life becomes more real. There is possibility for deep change, because the ultimate change looms so large. We feel the urgency of how totally unsustainable the current order of economic and social relations is. The working class is fed up, and recognizing that they have power.
I re-read the Revelation to John (aka the Book of Revelation) recently for the first time in years. I believe that the end of the world described there cannot be separated from the description of the downfall of the Roman empire. I choose to read it slant. I choose to queer it. I choose to cultivate a relationship with this apocalypse moment that centers weaving webs of care alongside on the ground organizing to bring about the downfall of our current empire. For me, it is the only way through.
#survivor#solidarity#liberation#anarchism#revolution#revolutionary#magic#spellcasting#apocalypse#prepper#theology#radical christianity#mutual aid#open borders#abolish capitalism#freethemall#covid#covid_19#covid2019#covid2020#coronapocalypse#corona#stayhome#getorganized#essay#prose#tarot#tarotreader#queer#lgbtq
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MDZS fic ideas
Things I’d love to see in Mo Doa Zu Shi fanfiction. These are my notes for things I have told myself I am not allowed to write. I’ve read...so many fics for this fandom, like most of the archive, and I’m sad that I’m pretty much at the point of rereading/waiting for updates. These ideas have been swimming around in my head that I have no time to write, so PLEASE someone take them and gimme some new words to read, I beg you. Of course, end goal should be wangxian in some way, because otherwise WHAT IS THE POINT, but I don’t have time to write these, so...here you go. Please let me know if you use them. I wanna read these, but I don’t have time to write them, so maybe someone else will want to.
*Time Travel AU in which WWX goes back and for some reason tells Madame Yu all the bullshit that’s gonna happen, so they team up and fix all the things. I just...really want Mama Yu to like WWX thanks. And dear god, LET JC BE HAPPY! I need so much more resolution on that front. Even the book did not satisfy me. I WANT MY BOYS TO GET ALONG! And I want Mama Yu to not be awful and abusive to WWX! I mean she had reasons for being salty but uh that is NOT good justification for the shit she pulled with WWX. Also, hell, let Jiang Fengmian get his core melted and have Madame Yu run the sect. WE NEED FEMALE REP.
*Cangse Sanren and Wei Changze live so WWX gets to grow up with his parents. He meets LWJ as a rogue cultivator or something idk. This would make a fun oneshot.
*LWJ’s mother lives! Honestly, I just want happy Lan-fam. Can I get that please? Just how much would it change the dynamic of the story if LWJ’s father led the sect properly and his mother wasn’t locked away in a goddamn building and actually got to spend more time with her kids? I am forever salty that we’ll never know why Mama Lan killed her hubby’s teacher or w/e. Somebody GIVE ME SOME REASONING.
*WWX gets taken in and claimed as heir by Wen Ruohan...and WWX doesn’t learn that their ways are wrong until he’s at least a teen (perhaps when sent to train at the Cloud Recesses?) and realizes how the other Sects really feel about them. Give him some convoluted morals that he has to unlearn. Make Wen Xu and Wen Chao hate him for being chosen over them. Change Wei Wuxian/Wei Ying into Wen Ying/Wen Wuxian and have it be a secret that he’s not actually a Wen. Have WWX actually not want the Wen Sect destroyed because despite how messed up its people are, not all of them are bad--mostly just those in power (it still baffles me that the other clans just DESTROYED an entire sect, like I know the Wens burned Lotus Pier but DAMN that’s cold!) Even some kind of variation where WWX influences Wen Ruohan and his children’s evil mindset would be really interesting. Otherwise, can you imagine WWX with Chenqing on the Wen side? Ouch. Also, this sticks WWX with Wen Ning and Wen Qing early on and I LOVE THEM, so there’s that.
*WWX doesn’t come back after his first death, and LWJ achieves immortality because he’s stubbornly still looking/waiting for WWX. Two centuries pass (we’re going to ignore any technological advancements and replace them with cultivation advancements or something) and LWJ ends up befriending a nice lady cultivator who falls for him, and even though he only considers her a friend, he agrees to marry her. They have 1 very stubborn gay daughter (only from consummation sex which brings up a boatload of other problems) who somehow stumbles across a reborn!WWX with all his memories--daughter is hella bitter that her father clearly does not return her mother’s affections and that he is apparently pining for someone who is so long dead that people don’t actually remember his name (ie - people remember Yiling Laozu but not that his name was Wei Wuxian). But without knowing who he is, the daughter ends up liking WWX until she finds out the truth about who he is and drama ensues. Can you tell I’ve wanted to write this one so badly? I mean I could just about draft an outline, but I HAVE TO FOCUS ON MY ORIGINAL NOVEL I’M SORRY.
*Time Travel AU in which Yanli alone gets a do-over with all the future knowledge and fixes everything just by being her amazing self. I feel like she’d be a really keen manipulator.
*The story from NHS’s pov. I wanna read all his manipulations and him putting them into place. Is there anything like this out there? Because oh my GOD I wanna know what’s going through his head sometimes. I really, really do!
*Jiang Cheng/Wen Ning - AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS THIS WOULD BE AN ENTERTAINING SHIP? Just...I sort of tolerate the JC/LXC and JC/NHS pairings because they’re commonly used, but honestly, I’m not crazy about either one. However, WN is such a sweetheart and JC is such a hothead and there is so much opportunity for drama there. Also, in some cases depending on timeline...WN is, yunno, a corpse--a fixable thing if you weave in WWX’s involvement and make him and JC get along again. GIVE ME THAT. Like I don’t read much other than wangxian focused fic, but I would read the hell out of this (also you could easily balance those two pairings).
*Somewhere in the waiting gap, LWJ is given three tasks by a deity of some sort who promises to bring WWX back if he completes him...but these tasks have to UTTERLY go against LWJ’s character and completely destroy his reputation as Hanguang Jun. Honestly, this could go cracky or painfully dark.
*No idea how, but Mo Xuanyu manages to bring WWX back fully in-tact and they both get to live. WWX of course takes MXY under his wing, and together they avoid the notice of even LWJ for a lot longer than WWX did in canon. I would love to see them figuring out the whole JGY plot in the background and LWJ tailing them around just a little too late to the party each time a major event goes down until finding out in some kind of dramatic finale that WWX has been back for a while. I have yet to see characterization for MXY that I really like. Most people make him either ridiculously whiny or so much like WWX that they may as well be the same character. :/ So, uh, maybe a different approach? I mean MXY is allowed some complaints, he’s had a rough time of things, but come ON.
*Lan Wanji never finds Wen Yuan and poor widdle Shizui manages to survive into adolescence living on his own in the burial mounds...accompanied by the fragmented ghost of his Xian-gege who very slowly is pieced back together by A-Yuan, who has sort of naturally started using demonic cultivation and somehow develops a heroic reputation as a rogue cultivator. Why? Because he’s Shizui, and Shizui is SO PURE OK? Maybe he has a fascination with LWJ, even though his memories of Rich Gege are kind of fuzzy. Shizui matchmakes his two ridiculous dads. Oh and inquiry doesn’t work on WWX cuz his soul is shrouded by the resentful energy in the burial mounds.
*The Wen clan burns the Cloud Recesses to the ground around the same time WWX has lost his parents, but LWJ somehow escapes. Reportedly, everyone in GusuLan is now dead, but he somehow ends up in the same town as WWX. They meet and bond immediately. Maybe LWJ saves WWX from the dogs. Anyway, JFM never finds WWX, so he and LWJ grow up together in poverty, eventually teaching themselves cultivation and night hunting, until their fame grows so much that they catch the attention of the Wen clan (or something). Have them ridiculously dedicated to each other, already in love and thinking of themselves as cultivation partners. I want their bond to straight-up shock people. LET THEM BE SHAMELESS. LWJ would have to have a fake name and wear something other than white.
*LWJ and WWX figure out their relationship stuff a lot sooner and end up building a proper sect in the burial mounds. I want LWJ wearing WWX’s colors. I want demonic cultivation to work hand-in-hand with regular cultivation. I want them to find artifacts or books or something in the burial mounds indicating a civilization used to be there that also studied demonic cultivation, or maybe they actually find some long forgotten god/dess of demonic cultivation who empowers them in exchange for worship.
*LWJ was not whipped for protecting WWX, he was imprisoned for life, not in GusuLan, but in some godforsaken prison that is so intense no one in the clans really likes to talk about it. I want him flung into some hellprison with ghosts and demons, where only his cultivation keeps him alive (and relatively sane) for that decade-ish gap until WWX’s fragmented ghost somehow finds him. Of course, WWX realizes LWJ loves him, which triggers in WWX a want to finally come back to life. He finds a way back to the living world and rains hell upon the people who decided it was a good idea to imprison LWJ until someone finally tells him how to get to the prison. He frees LWJ and helps him recover while all the JGY stuff is going on the background. Wangxian returns to the cultivation world in time to stop that catastrophe. (Before LWJ is imprisoned, he makes LXC promise to take care of A-Yuan of course!)
*WWX gets flung into the burial mounds and embraces demonic cultivation, but realizes he has somehow bound himself to the awful place and can’t leave. Over time, he lures stragglers and refugees to the mounds, where he welcomes them to stay and live safely. Outside, the Sunshot Campaign is a failure and what remains of the sects bow in subservience to the Wen clan. Inflicted with some permanent disabilities from the war and left to run GusuLan now that his brother and uncle are dead (sorry Xichen), Lan Wanji never gets the chance to go looking for WWX. Thirteen years pass and WWX has absorbed so much resentful energy from the burial mounds that he is practically a part of it. Finally, he is able to leave, but the world he finds is much different from the one he remembers, and his health fades fast when he is outside of the mounds. Somehow, WWX figures out that demonic cultivation doesn’t damage the body/soul/temperament if somehow counterbalanced properly with a golden core--and since he doesn’t have one, he and LWJ do a soulbond thing so that their cores (WWX: demonic and LWJ: golden) balance each other. Then he can take on the Wens.
I could literally whip out ideas nonstop, but these are the big ones that have been just...beating on the walls of skull trying to get out. Of course, they don’t always account for everything, so more thought is needed. Anyway, if you write any of these, please let me know so I can read them, and of course a shoutout would be nice. c: My username on ao3 is the same as here. Enjoy~!
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