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antebunny · 3 years

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April 30: rebirth

(Also called Bargaining–idea is taken from an old Loki fic with the same time travel premise).

When Jiang Yanli dies, Wei Wuxian goes into denial and just runs from Nightless City. He goes back to the Burial Mounds and feverishly works on a time travel array. Within the month he completes it and prepares to travel back in time, but there’s a catch. He first activates the array and then spends the next several hours going through the ritual, while outside the Siege of the Burial Mounds begins. The Wens know what Wei Wuxian is up to so they understand why he’s not bothering to protect them. He completes the ritual just as Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan burst into the cave. They’re both there, at the front, in order to protect Wei Wuxian, but by the time they arrive it’s too late: the array is fading and Wei Wuxian is already dead. He barely sees them in the entrance when he dies, which leads him to (logical) conclusion that they’re there to kill him.

Here’s the catch: Wei Wuxian gets to go back, rewrite time, and change things. He decides to go back to the day before he got kicked out of the Cloud Recesses. But when time finally arrives at the time he activates the array, everyone gets their memories back. Although a lot of people will remember dying, it’s preferable to actually dying. Then Wei Wuxian has to conduct the ritual again, to ensure that this is the future that stays, and seal the deal with his own life. Basically, in order to change the future Wei Wuxian has to die. And obviously because he's Wei Wuxian, he decides that that’s okay so long as everyone gets to live.

So Wei Wuxian comes back to life with a golden core and cries for a solid minute, scaring tf out of Jiang Cheng, before he gets a grip. Then he proceeds to yell at Jin Zixuan, not get kicked out, and live life like everything’s normal. He enjoys the next six months of peace, and then he gets to work. Once the year is over, he goes on a very long night hunting trip, kills the Xuanwu of Slaughter, and sets up the cave for use. A year later and they’re at the archery competition, where Wei Wuxian still places first, meets Wen Ning again, and doesn’t pull off Lan Zhan’s forehead ribbon.

Then Wen Ruohan is ~mysteriously~ assassinated and the Wens declare war on all the sects in revenge. When the Wens come for Lotus Pier, there’s no personal vendetta, and Wei Wuxian hides in the shadows and drowns all of them. Then he pretends that he got knocked out and was unconscious somewhere hidden from the main battle where Jiang Cheng finds him. They win the war, and Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan are still alive and bickering with each other, the Jiang sect is still strong, etc. etc. Wei Wuxian personally hunts down Wen Zhuliu early in the war, before he can cause any damage. Then he also kills Jin Guangshan, blames it on the Wens (does it make sense? No. does anyone care? No) and Jin Zixuan commits fully to the war. Jin Zixuan learns to appreciate Jiang Yanli during the war, and since they’re already engaged they get married soon afterwards. Jin Guangyao gets taken in as Jin Zixuan’s younger brother, and since Jin Zixuan is a decent person who doesn’t want him to commit crimes but also needs Help, it goes a lot better. Meanwhile Wei Wuxian finds the DafanWen and they move to the Xuanwu cave, which Wei Wuxian has prepared. Also the carcass of the tortoise should scare anyone away.

Wei Wuxian sticks around to see his sister get married, takes Lan Zhan on a tour of Lotus Pier, at the end of which Lan Zhan proposes. Wei Wuxian is confused but figures that Lan Wangji must like this version of him that hasn’t used resentful energy as far as Lan Wangji knows or recused the Wens as far as he knows, or done any of the things that Other Lan Zhan hated him for. The Wens ask him to adopt A-Yuan, which he does after talking about it with Lan Zhan and after they get married. So now Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are married and they have an adopted child. That part was all the fluff and fix-it, cue the angst. The date of Wei Wuxian’s death draws near, and Wei Wuxian starts getting moody and antsy, starts drinking. Yu Ziyuan yells at him, of course, and everyone else worries over him. It is during one of these blackout drunk sessions that Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji that he fully expects Lan Wangji to regret marrying him in the future. Lan Wangji swears up and down that he won’t, and Wei Wuxian kinda critiques himself and calls himself selfish, for marrying Lan Wangji and raising a kid when he knows it’s not going to last.

Basically Wei Wuxian starts getting skittish and disappears for periods of time to the Burial Mounds, where he acquires enough injuries that Lan Wangji suspects that someone is hurting him, which Wei Wuxian vehemently denies, but Lan Wangji is still Onto him. He goes to Jiang Yanli, who says that Wei Wuxian has been acting differently ever since he came back from the Cloud Recesses, seemed to know things that were going to happen before they did, disappears at odd times and incidents that occur when Wei Wuxian is missing, and they get Jiang Cheng, who recalls that one time Wei Wuxian woke up in the middle of the night and just bawled, and after that didn’t lose his temper on Jin Zixuan, pulled back on his most crazy antics.

Still, none of them suspect the exact day, so on that day, Wei Wuxian gets up, tells Lan Wangji he’s going to train the Jiang juniors, and then just…disappears. Night comes and Lan Wangji is already worried, according to the juniors he never showed. Yu Ziyuan accuses him of slacking, but then Lan Wangji barges in crying, holding a note. In it, Wei Wuxian doesn’t tell him about the time travel, but says that Wei Wuxian is going forever, and Lan Wangji will understand why tomorrow. He understands that it’s too much to wish for that Lan Wangji won’t hate him, after how selfish he’s been and what a terrible person he’s been, marrying Lan Wangji and pretending it can last, but he hopes Lan Wangji can still look back and remember him fondly in the future. He apologizes again and tells Lan Wangji again that he didn’t mean to tarnish Lan Wangji’s reputation or saddle him with a child, but A-Yuan is here now and he knows Lan Wangji loves A-Yuan. He leaves a similar cryptic note for Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli, apologizing to all of them for things they don’t understand.

Lan Zhan immediately begins searching for him all through the night, and then in the morning everyone blacks out and suddenly has memories of a different past couple of years, for most people starting with Wen Ruohan getting assassinated. People don’t immediately suspect the Yiling Patriarch, because they think he was simply never created in this timeline, and lives as Head Disciple Jiang and Lan Wangji’s husband, but Wei Wuxian’s family know better. They immediately rush to the Burial Mounds, and find it guarded by corpses. Inside the cave, Wei Wuxian begins conducting the ritual, also crying because he really had a happy life this time and he really really doesn’t want to go, but he can’t bear to revert to the original timeline, not when everyone is still alive here, so he continues. Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian find out about the whole yiling patriarch thing and jiang yanli is just like…i don’t care. Jin Guangshan is dead and can’t care, Jin Guangyao doesn’t have a vendetta, Jin Zixuan does what his wife says, and Jiang Yanli is alive so Jiang Cheng has no beef, plus he sees the lengths Wei Wuxian went through to save everyone. He also understands the letter now, then he and Jiang Yanli confront Lan Wangji like…do you no longer love him? Lan Wangji of course reacts poorly to this accusation and denies it. They leave A-Yuan behind and go to the Mounds with the intention of convincing Wei Wuxian that he doesn’t have to run away and they want him back.

They arrive in the cave just as Wei Wuxian is finishing with the ritual. But of course, parallels, Wei Wuxian looks up to see them standing in the entrance of the cave and thinks that they’re there to kill him, but also can see how distressed Lan Wangji looks and attempts to reassure him that he doesn’t have to kill Wei Wuxian! You know, his husband in this timeline! Because Wei Wuxian will do it himself! Wei Wuxian makes them fight some corpses while he rushes to finish the ritual, because they seem keen on stopping him (“i know you disapprove of demonic cultivation but this is the only way to save everyone”). Lan Wangji tackles him away from his ceremonial knife, and Wei Wuxian fights back (still has golden core!) they both fight desperately (“i have to do it myself Lan Zhan, otherwise I would let you do it”) over the knife. Jiang Cheng insists that there must be another solution, bc he doesn’t want Jiang Yanli to die. Then Wen Qing and Wen Ning walk into the cave, and Wen Qing like the genius she is, proposes the Alternate Solution. (What is it? Idk. just a magic solution in which Wei Wuxian doesn’t have to die). Wei Wuxian pauses in the middle of fighting Lan Wangji (“i don’t have to die?” he asks while Lan Wangji is busy shattering the knife and then he and Jiang Cheng pin him down so he can stop trying to kill himself in front of them. “Nope,” says Wen Qing, the only person with brains here). So Wei Wuxian sits on the floor of the cave, tied with deity-binding thread (Wei Wuxian: let me go Lan Wangji: not until you promise to go with wen qing’s version of the ritual Jiang Cheng: unless…do you want to leave? Wei Wuxian: no!) (What’s the solution? Maybe all of them sacrifice something important to them, maybe they just…all use their power to BS their way through a solution? Again, I don’t know).

So Lan Wangji unties Wei Wuxian and they hug and kiss and they all head back to Lotus Pier, where they eat a celebratory dinner, and reunite with A-Yuan, and Wei Wuxian celebrates the fact that he can live this happy life and not owe the world anything/need to go through the ritual.

The End!

#mdzs #the untamed #antebunny's april prompts #spring fest 2021 #fic outline #my writing

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canary3d-obsessed · 4 years

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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 08 first part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary goodness)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Rabbits

The Jiang kids have some quality time with the rabbits. Initially Jiang Cheng says it’s wrong for gentlemen to hold rabbits, which is definitely in no way related to gay-rabbit-god symbolism, but changes his mind when he discovers how fun men rabbits are to cuddle.

Jiang Yanli says, in a moment with zero foreshadowing, that if they take one rabbit away from the others, it will miss its family and be lonely. Also if a rabbit were to watch from the rooftop while a mean enemy rabbit poured wine on the corpses of its parents, that would be extra upsetting. For a rabbit. So let’s leave all the rabbits where they are. Check.

Speaking of cute fluffy creatures that are upset, we see this distressed look on Wei Wuxian’s face kinda often when he’s talking with Jiang Cheng.

There are some sibilng relationships where you will always do anything to help each other because you survived a shitty childhood together, but as adults you find you don’t actually share values, and that your interactions are kinda toxic -- for both of you. This seems like one of those.

Even though he’s younger, Jiang Cheng is in the role of the elder sibling who is being abused by the parents, and is handing the abuse on down the line to the “younger” sibling, in the form of constant criticism and casual hittings. Wei Wuxian isn’t actually younger, but he is lower ranked because he’s not a blood relation, and he gets plenty of parental abuse as well. It’s...not a healthy family.

(more after the cut!)

Lan Wangji has been lurking nearby during this conversation, and after the Jiangs leave, he looks at the rabbits and says farewell. He clearly means farewell to Wei Wuxian, or else he has a really unhealthy level of yearning being directed toward the rabbits. At least, for a vegetarian.

Uninvited Gusu Guest

Lan Xichen is meditating, and because the Director of Photography loves us, we get a bunch of nice closeups of his exquisite face. He hears a noise thing and tells Wen Chao to come in, which results in a dire bird scream and Wen Chao’s muddy feet intruding on his day. Why did Wen Chao bring the bird with him? He’s trying to be sneaky, right? So...ok whatever.

Wen Chao acts like a dirtbag and menacingly reminds Lan Xichen that his didi just hit the road all by himself. Lan Xichen gets so upset he curls his fingers slightly. His beautiful, beautiful fingers.

Is it slapping time yet?

Road Tripping

Fortunately for the Lan brothers, Lan Wangji isn’t going to be alone for long. Wei Wuxian is determined to follow him, and where friend-maker Wei Wuxian goes, an assortment of other helpful cultivators will soon follow.

Wei Wuxian leaves a note to say “I’m running away from home with the hot boy I met in summer school” and signs it with a smiley face, the dork. Jiang Cheng is angry, as usual; Yanli has confidence in Wei Wuxian, as usual, and Jiang Fengmian is autocratic and doesn’t explain what he’s thinking, as usual. JF is aware of the Yin Iron, however, so he may understand that WWX will be useful in protecting it on the road.

Lan Wangji has changed his hair, upgraded his crown, and put on the most absurdly beautiful outfit of the entire show to go on a solo road trip totally without any hot infuriating boys.

Quick, Lan Wangji, catch this callback to that time you rejected my advances back in Gusu! This time Lan Wangji catches the offered fruit and keeps it, presumably to consume furtively when he wakes in the dead of night, restless with unslaked thirst for Wei Ying. Or, you know, to have with his lunch while they’re riding on the boat.

This is a level of synchronized walking-with-shoulder-contact that would make the Guardian boys proud. Lan Wangji is all touchy feely now that he’s out from under the eyes at Cloud Recesses.

He also has upped his troll game, actually smirking after he says “boring” to Wei Wuxian’s declaration of I’m-gonna-come-along-you-can’t-stop-me.

He also...doesn’t seem angry? Like, he is still seriously on edge, but it feels like he left the boiling rage at home. Lan Xichen is right; having a friend IS good for Lan Wangji. And for whatever reason, Lan Wangji is ready, now, to accept Wei Wuxian’s friendship.

We Rate Birds

Wen Chao has the weirdest fucking pet. This bird has a resentful energy problem, obvs, but it also seems to be invisible except for resentful energy, but it leaves random feathers behind at places, and then when Wei Wuxian kills it, it’s a regular bird corpse with a little smoke. “Imbued with Yin Iron energy” seems to be the explanation. But Nie Huaisang said they see a lot of these in their neck of the woods. Did he mean “just a regular bird” and didn’t notice the billowing black visual FX? Either way I want to see a nest full of baby dire Yin birds, I bet they’re hideous cute.

Wen Qing has a new outfit and an elegant fiery golden crown. There’s probably some plot stuff happening here. Wen blah blah Yin Iron blah blah. She’s so pretty. I love her ears and her cool double hair parting. The girls’ hairlines are always nice and soft, presumably because they get to wear their own front hair instead of a lacefront like the boys are glued to stuck with.

I Call it Bondage

After the fun they had in the ice cave, it’s only fair that Wei Wuxian gets to have a turn tying up Lan Wangji.

One of the fun things in clipping The Untamed is that the show’s editors generally didn't drop any frames when they intercut the various scenes, meaning that some longer shots can be spliced back together by removing the other camera portions, as with these two string-pulling bits.

Lan Wangji totally lets Wei Wuxian put a leash on him, quickly declaring it boring and taking control of it, pulling Wei Wuxian along behind him.

Incidentally, at this stage about half of Wei Wuxian’s talisman’s are blue. After he loses his core, they are 100% red, but nobody notices that. Well, maybe Nie Huaisang does because he notices a LOT, but nobody says anything.

After they play around in the field for a bit, Lan Wangji’s magic bag of plot advancement goes off, sending them to Flower Town.

He’s Leaving Home Bye Bye

Meanwhile, at Lotus Pier, we get a nice view of the rooftops. I’d hate to be the guy whose job it is to hang up bells and tassels at any of these places.

Jiang Cheng sneaks out to go join his brother’s road trip. He gets caught, because his idea of sneaking is to walk out the front door in broad daylight and leave the door open behind him.

Jiang Yanli tells him to go ahead, though and he scampers off to have...the last carefree fun of his entire life, actually. Sigh.

Flower Town

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji go to Tanzhou and immediately run into Nie Huaisang, because sure, why not. China’s not very big.

Lan Wangji’s startle response

Wei Wuxian’s startle response

Nie-Xiong and Wei-Xiong are delighted to see each other, once Wei Wuxian explains that Lan Wangji isn’t there to bust them.

While Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang squee over each other, Lan Wangji ...tries to deal with that. His reaction is probably a mix of jealousy and social anxiety. This town has got to be overwhelming for him after the order and quiet of Cloud Recesses; he even admits--aloud!--that it’s too crowded for him at one point. Add in his boyfriend’s travel partner’s number one enabler, and it’s not a comfortable situation.

Oh great now they’re going to want me to get high and make out with them, ugh

However, with Lan Wangji in the mix, the Nie-Wei dynamic shifts away from mischief making, and they very quickly become a friend trio sharing a serious purpose. When Wei Wuxian, in his second life, refers to NHS as “that old friend of ours” when talking to LWJ, he’s not wrong. Nie Huaisang and Lan Wangji become friends during this trip, and arguably remain friends, within the limits of Nie Huaisang’s revenge remit.

From one point of view, Nie Huaisang is grown-up Lan Wangji’s very best friend (not counting his eventual husband). Everyone in the cultivation world knows what Lan Wangji’s heart desires most, after Nightless City, and Nie Huaisang gives it to him. By, uh, manipulating a crazy guy into ritual suicide. Hey, no gift is perfect.

Continued in Next Post! Soon!

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #the untamed gifs #wangxian #nie huaisang #chen qing ling #the untamed memes #the untamed spoilers #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original

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lilyinthesnow · 3 years

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Fic Idea #273 WangXian

Am I assigning them random numbers for shits and giggles? Yes, yes I am. Also is there a way on the app to do the read more thingy?

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What if, Modern AU-ish where WWX gets reincarnated into Mo Xuanyu, not brought back in his body and doesn't have his memories, but he has wicked messed up "dreams" that he Stephen Kings into a series of books about the Yiling Patriarch and his possibly husband Lan Zhan, Lan Wangji. They haven't gotten together yet, but he's almost certain they will. As soon as he figures out what happens after the whole Nightless City death of Wei Wuxian's sister thing. His dreams haven't given him that information yet, but the last one was pretty harsh; what with Yanli dying and WWX going batshit crazy and possibly flinging himself off a cliff and/or getting ripped apart by his zombies. He's hedging toward the zombie thing. Both ways of dying definitely put a damper on the whole marrying LWJ thing though. He'll figure something out. He's still got time to finish this last novel before his deadline. He's only got a couple months, but he feels like it's almost finished.

And LWJ had cultivated immortality so he's been living this whole time, thousands of years without his Wei Ying but he's got Xichen and Sizhui and Jingyi and their adopted children. He even, sometimes, meets with Jiang Cheng and Jin Rulan and they only fight occasionally.

Mostly they get together every couple of decades to drink and not drink and miss Wei Ying.

Jingyi, a sucker for supernatural romances, finds the first book by accident in a used bookstore and reads part of it there, just long enough to see the familiar names, buys it and takes it to Sizhui. They read it together and then order the rest of the series and read those too. They have to find a way to tell Lan Wangji.

They end up just handing him the books, Sizhui with a much too serious look on his face and a quiet "here baba, read these."

LWJ reads them and cries because that's his life. That's his Wei Ying. Mo Xuanyu has to be his Wei Ying. No one else would know all of that. Not even the ones that were there for most of it.

He tries to hunt down Mo Xuanyu, but other than the books and a social media presence that’s obviously run by someone else, there's nothing. He gives in and contacts Nie Huaisang to help him. Huaisang finds the coffee/tea shop Mo Xuanyu likes to write in and LWJ starts going. Ordering various teas that taste nothing like the blend he likes most. Nothing comes close to the tea they had in Cloud Recesses. He wonders which of the writers could be his Wei Ying. The lanky one with makeup on a laptop that looks at least a decade old? The short stocky one on an expensive monstrosity that he imagines would buckle a lesser table? The pretty one also wearing makeup that's tapping away on a tablet in the corner, lounging in a graceless sprawl while downing shots of espresso and leaving the cups smeared with lipstick?

Why do so many writers love coffee shops?

In the end Mo Xuanyu notices him first, comes over to say hi and that he loves the modern au Lan Wangji cosplay thing he's got going on what with the forehead ribbon and such.

LWJ tells him it's not a costume. And then there's the awkward laugh Mo Xuanyu gives him and the conversation that shouldn't happen in a coffee shop. Xuanyu gets flashes as they talk, things he had dreamt and not put in the books. Not something this LWJ cosplayer should know.

He hightails it out of the shop, away from the most perfectly beautiful man he's ever seen and goes home, making sure he's not followed. Plastic surgery would explain the complete likeness to Lan Wangji's character in the book. Someone obsessed with it, with him, might do it.

He drinks himself to sleep and dreams. Dreams of telling Lan Zhan to get lost after he tells him he loves him. Dreams of being in a cave and losing control and being torn apart. It's the end for him. For Wei Wuxian. For Lan Zhan's Wei Ying.

He wakes up and Lan Zhan's name is on his lips. In his heart. He wants to find him. Wants to find out if his brother lived. His nephew. Wen Ning. Lan Jingyi. Wen Yuan. Little Wen Yuan that he planted in the radishes. The child he claimed as his. Likely gone forever.

He grabs his laptop, spends days lost in a haze as he completes the book. Sends it for editing. Goes to the coffee shop to find Lan Zhan. Two men are sitting with him at a table. All three of them eerily silent, clutching tiny tea cups.

He can't help but smile when his Lan Zhan looks up and sees him standing just inside the door. Wei Ying’s wearing a red ribbon in his hair and eyeshadow to match, lips painted crimson and looking like slick vinyl.

Wei Ying runs across the shop when Lan Zhan stands and throws himself in his arms. Presses wild kisses to his entire face, leaving behind traces of his lipstick that look obscene on Lan Zhan's face.

They kiss again, both mouths stained crimson afterward and Jingyi squeals and wishes Zizhen was there to see it, but he was too busy to come on short notice and was living vicariously through the wonders of text messaging and video calling. Wei Ying gives Jingyi a hug and introduces himself to Sizhui and cries with the boy when he admits he's Wen Yuan and that Uncle Ning will be happy to see him now that they know he's alive.

They get married the day the book releases and Wei Ying posts their wedding photo on his twitter. He and Lan Zhan are both dressed in red and gold, traditional outfits they would have worn if things had happened this way before he had died.

He leaves the publishing world for a while before bringing the series back with a modern twist, reincarnation, cultivation, night hunts, and maybe a little bit of their everyday.

#mine #fic ideas #wangxian #reincarnation #long post #sorta #lan wangji #wei wuxian #cql #mdzs

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Fandom 5k letter:

MDZS (novel)

I would like NMJ centric fic - something where he's the center of attention and the focus of someone's affection, rather than a secondary character in someone else's story. I want him to be the hurt-and-then-comforted, I want him to someone's crazy obsession, I want him being put first over other people, etc. Stories in which another character has an emotional arc in which they realize how much NMJ means to them are also good.

In terms of genre, I really like darkfic, h/c, or plotty action/adventure (and more worldbuilding re: the Nie sect is always great!). Smut is OK if there's character development during, but no PWP. For romance, I prefer getting together, not established relationships, and enemies-to-lovers (or, well, enemies&lovers) over friend-eventually-becomes-a-lover.

Ships are flexible, but some optional specific prompts below:

NMJ/JGY (silver-tongued manipulator JGY, not sad misunderstood JGY please!)

yandere!JGY obsessing over NMJ because he gave him respect when he was nothing or because he’s just so damn moral and it fascinates amoral!JGY; scheming to get him back (whether via manipulation, an arranged marriage, kidnapping, whatever) or to trap him as his own (mind control could be fun!)

JGY finding out about a traumatic non-con or dub-con incident in NMJ's past (SLN post-qi deviation? WRH before/during the Nightless City captivity? JGS?) and/or seeing it happen, then going feral in his defense and/or providing him with comfort over it

if you want to do a modern AU, serial killer/assassin!JGY becoming fixated on righteous man NMJ

NMJ/WRH (generally prefer this to be noncon/dubcon and then a rescue h/c by someone else; if you want to write them romantically, please avoid completely whitewashing WRH - murderous bastard but not outright fascist tyrant is OK, but please no versions where he’s not a murderous bastard in some fashion)

WRH becoming creepily fixated on NMJ, whether pre-Sunshot (discussion conferences?) or during the campaign, and the fallout from that (wanting to make him his empress? wanting him to bear him children? etc.) – prefer this to be in the NC/DC/rescued by someone else vein

WRH sets up an arranged marriage to NMJ to get him out of the way but finds he likes him more than expected (or possibly one where WRH time travels?)

if you want to do a modern AU, mob boss!WRH obsessed with righteous man NMJ (genre shift AUs with this dynamic are also OK) – this one is OK to do as romantic between them if you want

NMJ/LXC: Would love alternate meeting, canon divergence, or genre-shift AU here; not so interested in friends from childhood with puppy crushes on each other that eventually get together. I want to see LXC doing some pining!

NMJ & Baxia: positive relationship only, please! NMJ loves his sentient or semi-sentient saber and she loves him. Other than that, go crazy – do they team up to fight his death by qi deviation? Does she cultivate to humanity? Are they weirdly co-dependent? All the worldbuilding!

NMJ/any male: go crazy! NMJ/WWX? NMJ/JC? NMJ/Wen Ning? NMJ/XXC? All good! In all cases, prefer NMJ as the pursued, not the pursuer :) no modern AUs unless they specifically fit into the type described above (i.e. if you want someone else as the mob boss/serial killer/etc. that's fine)

Wants/DNWs:

dark, creepy, dub con and non con are obvious yes, including temporary mind-alteration (hypnosis, mind control, common sense adjustment, age regression, aphrodisiacs, somnophilia, training to respond to stimuli, etc.), but no outright mind-break or permanent personality alteration (no leaving someone as a doll, no implications of long-term drug addiction, no bimboification, no permanent amnesia, etc.)

I'm very fond of AFAB!trans!NMJ but if you go this route please have him present as male and not angst over his gender assignment - being upset over forced feminization is OK, forced impreg/breeding kink is great, but no focus on gender dysphoria under normal non-extreme circumstances

ABO is fine as long as it's omega!NMJ, but no bitching/NMJ-was-once-an-alpha-but-changes-due-to-trauma

for fics involving outright non-con, please end with NMJ being rescued and getting comfort from someone else; dub-con fics can have bad end/ambiguous end (i.e. NMJ as WRH's empress, JGY's hypnotized pet, etc.)

DNW: no top!NMJ, no character death for NMJ including no implications he suffers his canon fate, no permanent physical alteration (amputation, piercings, tattoos, etc.), no voluntary infidelity, no watersports/scat/vomit/lactation/focus on body hair, no replacement pining (i.e. I want person X but I can't have them so I'll settle for you), no LXC/JGY or any ships with Wen Qing, no Christianity

no modern AUs other than those explicitly specified

no pure PWP

MDZS DONGHUA

The MDZS donghua is my absolute favorite form of MDZS (though I haven't seen the audio drama yet). I love the way that it's so much more high-fantasy and EXTRA - WWX controlling flocks of crows, using resentful energy to fly, summoning green ghost fire, ripping out Wen Zhliu's core with his bare hands..! The beautiful arrays, the magical tools (giant bells!), techniques (gravity-bending by Wen Ruohan!), literally everything Jiang Cheng does with Zidian...plus I love the small but significant canon divergences (like how NMJ is not captured by WRH but confronts him in open battle with LXC at his side).

In terms of genre, I really like darkfic, h/c, or plotty action/adventure (and more worldbuilding re: the Nie sect is always great! ESPECIALLY with the donghua: I want to see NMJ get some of the special high-fantasy powers like we see for LWJ or WWX). Smut is OK if there's character development during, but no PWP. For romance, I prefer getting together, not established relationships, and enemies-to-lovers (or, well, enemies&lovers) over friend-eventually-becomes-a-lover.

Ships are flexible, but some optional specific prompts below:

NMJ/JGY

AU for the donghua! NMJ was never captured in the Nightless City, there's no indication he ever worked for NMJ, as far as we see he just appears when he kills WRH and then became sworn brothers with NMJ and LXC; there's not even any indication (yet) that he killed NMJ. Different meeting point? Different interactions? Wonderful opportunity to go completely off canon

I'm extremely fond of yandere!JGY or JGY going feral in NMJ's defense for some reason

if you want to do a modern AU, serial killer/assassin!JGY becoming fixated on righteous man NMJ

WRH sets up an arranged marriage to NMJ to get him out of the way but finds he likes him more than expected (or possibly one where WRH time travels?)

if you want to do a modern AU, mob boss!WRH obsessed with righteous man NMJ (genre shift AUs with this dynamic are also OK) – this one is OK to do as romantic between them if you want

NMJ/LQR (based on the interaction in the archery contest in the donghua, where LQR is the only one NMJ listens to)

something playing on inherent weirdness of someone a generation younger than you being your equal, plus seeing them having to stand up against the whole world more or less on their own

one of the other sect leaders tries to scheme against NMJ, LQR tries to intervene to stop them, stuff goes out of hand

NMJ/any male: go crazy! NMJ/LXC? NMJ/WWX/LWJ? NMJ/JC? NMJ/Wen Ning? NMJ/XXC? All good! In all cases, prefer NMJ as the pursued, not the pursuer :) no modern AUs unless they specifically fit into the type described above (i.e. if you want someone else as the mob boss/serial killer/etc. that's fine)

Wants/DNWs:

ABO is fine as long as it's omega!NMJ, but no bitching/NMJ-was-once-an-alpha-but-changes-due-to-trauma

no modern AUs other than those explicitly specified

no pure PWP

UNTAMED

Oh, the Untamed, my favorite AU fanfic that they filmed into an 50 episode series. I consider this canon completely distinct from the novel or donghua canons, so feel free to lean in to the canon divergences. Yin Metal? Ghost puppets? Completely different age gaps and/or chronologies? Baxia’s – uh – DISTINCTIVE appearance? All good!

For the Untamed, I’m less interested in darkfic (thought it’s still OK!) and more interested in hurt/comfort. For romance, I prefer getting together, not established relationships, and enemies-to-lovers (or, well, enemies&lovers) over friend-eventually-becomes-a-lover. Smut is OK but not preferred.

NMJ/JGY:

if you want to do a modern AU, serial killer/assassin!JGY becoming fixated on righteous man NMJ

Wants/DNWs:

ABO is fine as long as it's omega!NMJ, but no bitching/NMJ-was-once-an-alpha-but-changes-due-to-trauma

for fics involving outright non-con, please end with NMJ being rescued and getting comfort from someone else; dub-con fics can have bad end/ambiguous end (i.e. NMJ JGY's hypnotized pet or puppet, etc.)

no modern AUs other than those explicitly specified

no pure PWP

BLACK BOOK

This movie is a delight - as long as Fouché's on screen, anyway, out-acting literally everyone else by miles (especially the terrible main leads). As someone who did their history major on the French Revolution, I'm deeply, deeply aware of how inaccurate this movie is - as someone who enjoys over-the-top villains and endless snark, I love it anyway.

Fouché (solo): The snark! The inability to take anything seriously even once! The blatant amorality! The ambiguous relationship and chemistry he has with literally anyone who is on screen with him! The willingness to side with anyone at least once, and then turn on them shortly thereafter! The surprising competence he has at everything he does - politics? investigations? flirting? lock-picking? He's your man. For now.

Requests: I'd love some canon-style shenanigans (investigating something? arresting people? having to team up with someone unusual? politics! ALL THE POLITICS!) or something plot-focused. Maybe even the glimpse of the future we get with Fouché establishing a relationship with Napoleon, or possibly an AU where Max really does become dictator (but keeps Fouché around)?

Feel free to draw from Fouché's actual history (son of a (suspected) privateer! former math or physics teacher! may or may not have flirted with Robespierre's sister pre-Revolution while hanging out with Robespierre in a pie shop! may or may not have literally stolen a wife out of a convent and stayed very happily and monogamously married until she died decades later, much to the confusion of everyone around him!), but please maintain his key features from the movie (super competent, shameless, more amoral than outright evil). Complete genre shift AUs are also fine - I'd love to see a world where they're all mages or, like, steampunk, or IN SPACE! - but I'd prefer the vibe stay like the movie, aka completely ahistorical villains win/mad demagoguery/intrigue. Lean into the (light-hearted) dystopia!

Fouché/"Max" or Fouché & "Max": The inherent fun in a relationship where both parties know that it'll end with one of them killing the other and both of them are trying their damn hardest to achieve it, but also being absolutely essential to one another right now so. you know. let's just not talk about that.

Also just the way that Fouché calls Robespierre Max despite how much he hates it, speaking to a History between them, and the sheer glorious villainy of Robespierre in this movie - I love that he has basically a silver tongue, an almost hypnotizing ability to convince people (mostly the mob) of what he wants no matter what the situation, no matter what they know...I'd love to see that played with, including as a total AU/fantasy (magic-user AU? literal hypnosis powers? is Max planning on becoming a god?)

Would love to see plot-focused or "forced to work together" stuff, with a lot of mockery (and a great deal of competence) on Fouché's part and being ridiculously badass on Max's. Would prefer that they genuinely like each other, even if it's not going to stop them from murdering each other. Even if Max really, really wishes he didn't. Also would love to see an AU where Max really does become dictator but keeps Fouché around.

DNW: narrative endorsed anti-Revolution views (royalist or even "good idea but they went too far in 93"), no unasked-for crossovers with the Scarlet Pimpernel or something (using characters from actual history are just fine!), no major character death, no retrospective angsting (i.e. no "alas if only I hadn't killed him"), no focus on torture, no infidelity (except as approved and endorsed by spouses), no permanent amnesia, no permanent disfiguration/amputation (yes including Max losing his tongue), no "I want other person but you'll do" substitution, nothing that mind breaks either of the characters' personalities

#everyone can just ignore this #fandom exchange letter #mdzs #mdzs donghua #untamed #black book #french revolution

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trensu · 4 years

Text

Episode 23: the One where JYL Captains the Ship

Alrighty, so battle stuff is happening

Nothing major going on

EXCEPT wen ruohan leaves his evil lair to confront wwx about how he took control of his puppets!

Wrh: where did you get the Plot Device?? Did xy give it to you?? HOW ARE YOU MAKING IT WORK??

Basically just Angry Ranting that Bad Guys do

Wwx mouths off, as usual

Lwj’s eyes are glued on him this entire time bc when isn’t staring at wwx?

(I understand lwj, I too cannot tear my eyes away from wwx when he's onscreen, that beauty mark just under his lower lip is so goddamn distracting...)

Wwx: hey, wrh, i just finished making his nifty thing and haven’t shown anyone yet, wanna see it?

And tah dah! We now have Plot Device 2 (aka stygian tiger seal/amulet whatever)

Pay attention to Plot Device 2, guys, it’s gonna cause us some angsty wangxiantics in the future (BRACE YOURSELVES)

Pausing here to point out how freaking cool wwx looks, levitating the pieces of Plot Device 2

OH NO, WEN RUOHAN IS NOW CHOKING WWX

THAT’S NOT ALLOWED!!

STOP HURTING MY SUNSHINE BOY

And wwx is smirking in victory?? What the heck wwx

Oh, it’s bc since wrh and wwx are wrapped up in their confrontation, there’s no one controlling the puppets so the puppets all collapse. That was part of his plan, maybe?? Idk, doesn’t matter

What matters is that this frees up LWJ to fly to wwx’s side

WHICH MEANS THAT LWJ IS THERE TO CATCH WWX ONCE WRH DROPS HIM!!

Lwj: Wei Ying! *catches his soulmate*

Wwx: *passes out in the arms of his very dashing soulmate*

Lwj barely even acknowledges that Meng Yao kills Wen Ruohan bc who cares about the big bad villain getting killed whEN YOUR SOULMATE IS PASSED OUT IN YOUR ARMS??

Lwj: Wei Ying

He says again! As his eyes stay glued onto wwx’s beautiful unconscious face. HE HOLDS HIM SO CLOSE

I mean, he could totally hold him CLOSER but that would be too much for the censors maybe??

Ppl are cheering. I was cheering. I don’t think we were cheering for the same reasons.

I was cheering bc lwj was ~tenderly cradling~ our beautiful sunshine boy

I think the other ppl were cheering bc the bad guy died? Weird.

LOL, DEJA VU MOMENT HERE

Lxc is cradling an unconscious Nmj

I guess the lan bros ARE pretty similar lolol

Boring stuff. Plot stuff. OMG I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY MENG YAO, SHUT UP.

Ahhhh, this next scene!

WWX is waking up in a bed and jyl is at the bedside.

Jyl starts bringing out the wangxian pie~! Maybe i should start using soup metaphors since Soup is her Thing…

Jyl is so happy that wwx is awake now!!

Jyl: you’ve been asleep for three (3) days!

Wwx: THREE DAYS??? What about jc and lwj??

HE IMMEDIATELY ASKS ABOUT THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT GUYS IN HIS LIFE, I LOVE MY SUNSHINE BOY.

Jyl: both jc and lwj have been very worried about you!

We find out that even sect leader jin has been visiting which is disgusting, so we’re ignoring it

Oh, jyl is trying to get wwx to stop moving around so much

Jyl: LWJ says you need to rest more. He says you used too much spiritual energy

LWJ HAS BEEN KEEPING TRACK OF HIM THIS WHOLE TIME

JYL TRUSTS HIM TO TAKE CARE OF HER LITTLE BROTHER!!!

Jyl: also don’t use Plot Device 2 all willy-nilly. LWJ says it’ll hurt you!!

Wwx: LWJ, LWJ, why do you keep talking about him? He’s so boring and he doesn’t talk enough!

BUT HE SAYS THIS WITH A CUTE LITTLE FOND SMILE

BC THINKING ABOUT LWJ MAKES HIM HAPPY

BOYYYYY

YOUR CRUSH CAN BE SEEN FROM PRESENT-DAY NON-FANTASY CHINA (but, uh, discreetly, bc of censorship)

Jyl: while you were comatose, lwj came by every morning and evening to play his guqin for you. To relax your mind and spirit

Jyl: you probably wouldn’t have woken up so soon if he hadn’t done that

AHHHHHHH THIS NEXT SCENE!!!!!

JYL IS JUST SPOONFEEDING US WANGXIAN PIE NOW

SHE’S GIVING US A BIG OL’ HELPING OF WANGXIAN PIE HERE!! WHICH IS GREAT BC I AM STARVING

Here comes lwj, with his guqin strapped to his back!

Lwj actually brings himself to knock on the door this time

SEE, THAT WASN’T SO HARD, WAS IT LWJ?? WHY COULDN’T YOU DO THAT BEFORE??

Jyl: oh, that must be lwj~!

ohhh, wwx's face when she says this! He looks all nervous and flustered

bc he has a ~gentleman caller~ and he’s not decent!!!

HE’S ONLY IN HIS ENTICING RED UNDER-ROBES!! IN BED!! AND LWJ IS VISITING!!

Okay, that’s probably not why BUT IN MY HEART THAT’S TOTALLY WHY

So jyl goes and answers the door

Lwj bows so respectfully to her (he knows she’s wwx’s precious person!!)

LOL, I LOVE HOW JYL DOESN’T MENTION THAT WWX IS AWAKE HERE

THAT’S MY CAPTAIN!! Lxc wishes he could captain as good

she just greets him like usual and lets him in

HE HAS NO IDEA WHAT’S WAITING FOR HIM INSIDE

IT’S AMAZING, JYL IS THE BEST

She leads him to the bedroom aND OH GOD, THE MINUTE LWJ’S EYES LAND ON WWX

HIS LIPS PART AS IF HIS BREATHING HITCHED IN HIS THROAT

HIS EYES NOTICEABLY WIDEN IN SURPRISE

THERE’S A SLIGHT PAUSE IN HIS STEPS!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HE’S SUPER EXPRESSIVE HERE GUYS

(...well, by lwj standards anyway)

And ooooh, wwx’s reaction is adorable!!

His eyes catch lwj’s gaze for half a second before they skitter down to the side as if seeing lwj in person (in his bedroom!!) is too much to take in all at once!

HE’S SO FLUSTERED?? HIS EYES ARE FLICKERING TO AND FRO TRYING TO LOOK AT ANYTHING BUT LWJ.

HE’S SO NERVOUS IT’S ADORABLE I CAN’T HANDLE IT

(i may have rewound to watch this scene 3x, DON’T JUDGE ME)

(there was so much happening! Lwj’s beautiful plush lips parted, wwx was acting cutely bashful)

(WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THAT, HUH? JUST WATCH IT ONCE AND MOVE ON?? I DON’T THINK SO)

And you know, jyl leads lwj like, right to wwx’s bedside and WATCHES ALL THIS GO DOWN

YOU KNOW SHE NOTICED ALL THESE THINGS TOO

I’M NOT A CRAZY PERSON HERE

Jyl: thank you, lwj! Without you, wwx would not have woken up so soon!

Jyl: you two go ahead and talk now

Jyl: i’ll just go tend to the other wounded

Jyl: and leave you both here ~all alone~

Jyl: in this bedroom

Jyl: with wwx just in his under-things

Jyl: still on his rumpled bed

Jyl: okay, byyyyeee~!

(LXC AND JYL NEED TO HANG OUT AND TALK ABOUT THEIR LITTLE BROTHERS AND HOW HOPELESS THEY ARE AROUND EACH OTHER)

(THIS IS A THING THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN)

Okay, and now not only do we get MORE wangxian time, we also just get the most beautiful scene ever?? Like, aesthetically? THIS SHOW IS A BLESSING

Lwj is playing his guqin in the communal area next to wwx

The music is gorgeous (it's the same Magic Music from before! it sounds like warm morning sunlight on a calm spring day)

And the set is beautiful, all reds and whites to match our boys’ colors, and it’s all emphasized with equally beautiful lighting

Wwx: lan zhan, actually, i--

Lwj: quiet. Concentrate.

Wwx POUTS and taps his nose and then SULKILY crosses his legs

HE’S THE MOST ADORABLE BOY IN THE WORLD AND I LOVE HIM

IF LWJ WOULDN’T MURDER ME IMMEDIATELY, I’D GO AND PROPOSE TO WWX RIGHT NOW

ACTUALLY I’D PROBABLY DO IT ANYWAY

I’VE LIVED A GOOD LIFE, I PROBABLY WON’T ACCOMPLISH MUCH ELSE WITH IT. IT’S TOTALLY WORTH IT.

Ahem

Back to the utterly breathtaking wangxian scene

No seriously, EVERYTHING IS SO GORGEOUS?

ALL THESE BEAUTIFUL SHOTS

THE CLOSE UP ON THE FLOWERS

THE UNFOCUSED SHOTS THROUGH THE HANGING SCREENS

THE LIGHTING THE COLORS THE MUSIC

LWJ IN HIS PHENOMENAL WHITE OUTFIT AND WWX IN HIS INDECENT RED ROBES

IT ALL ADDS UP TO THIS SYRUPY DREAMY SCENE THAT’S JUST, UGH, DRIPPING WITH TENDERNESS AND ROMANCE

IT’S TOO MUCH IT’S TOO MUCH

Okay, i’m done geeking out over the aesthetics

Oh, wwx is breaking his meditation pose and flexing his wrists excitedly!

Wwx: lan zhan, i’m all better now!

Lwj stops playing and calmly makes his way to the bed where wei ying is and checks him

Lwj: three more days are needed

Wwx does not like this answer lol. He leaps up from the bed all affronted

Wwx: but i’m totally fine now, look! *starts flexing his arms around*

Lwj is not budging on this tho

Lwj: exorcise evil, ease the mind. Do not be neglectful

Wwx: exorcise evil? I don’t need an exorcism!! I just used too much energy

Cue awkward silence (lwj’s eyes never waver from wwx tho)

Lwj: wei ying (you know, i think he just likes saying his name...)

Wwx: lan zhan, do you really think that Plot Device 2 is evil? Do you really believe there’s an undetectable something that can change someone from good to evil?

Ooooh, wwx is getting all philosophical on us!!

His brow is all furrowed here; he’s hurt that lwj doesn’t trust him with Plot Device 2!

And that’s the end of that MOST DELICIOUS SLICE WANGXIAN PIE

Other stuff happens

Screaming, the murder of innocent people, sect leaders debating on said murder of innocent people

You know, boring stuff.

There was a fun bit here tho

Nmj: maybe it’s okay to kill innocent civilians…

Lxc: *sad face*

Nmj: uh, maybe we can NOT kill defenseless people this time?

Ahhh, if only lan zhan’s sad face was effective on wei ying as lxc’s is to nmj…

Plot plot plot Jgs being an asshole Plot plot plot

MORE plot plotty plot plot

OH NO

WE’RE ON A CLIFF IN NIGHTLESS CITY

THAT CLIFF WE DON’T LIKE

THAT REALLY REALLY HORRIBLE AWFUL NO GOOD CLIFF

AND WWX IS STANDING CLOSE TO THE EDGE OF IT GET AWAY FROM THERE WWX, GET AWAY RIGHT NOW

And now lwj joins him

Wwx: lan zhan, what do you think of the people here? Who is good, who is evil?

Yeesh, getting right into the heavy stuff aren’t we

Like, nbd, i’m just gonna compLETELY CHANGE YOUR WORLDVIEW AND TEACH YOU SHADES OF GRAY (AGAIN)

Oooh, but as he says that, he starts clutching at his chest and swaying on his feet! Bc the resentful energy is hurting him!!!

Lwj grabs his arm to steady him

Lwj: wei ying, concentrate

Great, it’s about to get real hurt-y now

Lwj: wei ying, do you want to learn how to play Magic Music?

Wwx: lan zhan, you want me to learn that? Do you doubt me, too?

And the way he says it!! It’s a tone that says “please don’t let this be true”

BUT LWJ LOOKS AWAY AND FLASHBACKS TO WHAT WRH WAS RANTING ABOUT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE EP

WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT LWJ. WHY.

So instead of answering wwx, he just questions him on why he made Plot Device 2???

THAT IS THE WRONG APPROACH LWJ

THAT WILL NOT GET YOU WHAT YOU REALLY WANT

Wwx: lan zhan, if i told you i got a Screaming Sword of Resentment from the Murder Turtle would you believe me?

Lwj keeps answering questions with questions and the whole convo is devolving horribly

Lwj: if you already knew the sword had Plot Device stuff in it, why did you refine it?

Wwx: LAN ZHAN, ENOUGH

he snaps at lwj

he raised his voice at lwj

Lwj: you promised you’d let me help you (he says calmly)

Wwx: if you don’t believe in me, how can you help me?

OUCH

Lwj: Plot device 2 isn’t safe, you might lose control!

Wwx: you’re scared i’ll be like wen ruohan, but i’m not him! And Plot Device 2 is not the same as Plot Device!

And then before we can get too emotional about our soulmate boys being at odds (AGAIN), we get to witness the murder of innocent people

How fun

Jin Zixun shows us he’s scum of the earth by trying to shoot down a Wen mother carrying her child as she flees

Thank goodness lwj guqin’s the arrow away

There’s a confrontation but lwj doesn’t let wwx tear into jin zixun even tHO HE CLEARLY DESERVES IT

And everyone leaves but not before wwx comments that there’s gonna be a lot of resentment here where the innocents were killed and that the place needed Magic Music

Oh, turns out lwj didn’t leave

Lwj stays at the scene of the crime and plays Magic Music on his guqin.

As soon as wwx hears it, he starts playing counterpoint on his flute!

I love it when they play music together, Magic or not!!

We cut away here to watch lxc, nmj, and jgy become Official Bros™

BORING

Now Jgs and jgy are hosting a banquet

STILL BORING

Political posturing happens

SO BORING

Wait, something interesting just happened!

We see lwj just up and leave the banquet the moment he realizes wwx isn’t there

Bc wwx is out on the steps getting drunk

(wwx, we’ve talked about this. Drinking is not a Solution)

Wwx: lan zhan, it’s you! How about playing some Magic Music? (I'm detecting some sarcasm…)

Lwj: i’m learning a new score

Wwx: *scoffs* you haven’t given up yet? You’re really stubborn *mocking snort*

STOP BEING MEAN, WWX

That’s the last bit of wangxiantics we have for this episode

JYL GAVE US SUCH A GREAT MOMENT AND WE ENDED UP AT ODDS AGAIN

IT’S A WHOLE "ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK" SITUATION

I DON’T LIKE IT

Return to Masterpost

#WangXiantics #wangxian #the untamed #cql

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somepinkthing · 5 years

Text

Jin guangyao was able to easily manipulate his sect and the cultivation world because the system of corruption was already in place by the time he got there. Change my mind. The entire cultivation world wants to see themselves as the heroes and will twist or ignore any truth that paints them as anything but that. As a whole they're reactionary, arrogant, and unwilling to self-reflect. And the jin sect has always been one of the worst perpetrators. It's not shocking that jin guangyao easily played their reactions and got away with so much. It helps that abuse of power is pretty much built into the sect system and, from what I can tell, sect leaders have always had a free pass to do whatever they want anyways. Yeah... it was corrupt long before jin guangyao got there

Let's review. To note, these are examples where big, bad, corrupt JGY was not mastermind. It really builds up: The sects claim power for themselves under the guise that they "protect" the common folk with it but only a handful of cultivators ever show any concern for civilians, and most of them are considered either weird or exceptional for it. Xue yang? Everyone knew he was guilty but no one wanted to see that he sought revenge because a sect leader brutalized a child or go against the jin sect to have him tried. It was easier to gossip in secret than drag the truth out. The entire situation with the wen remnants? You're telling me no one else other than wwx ever questioned what happened to an entire village of people? No one knew because they didn't want to know--further proven by how they villainized wwx and the wens for "killing innocent jins" afterwards. Then, when jin zixun was cursed, no one bothered to question if wwx actually did it because it was such a convenient excuse to do whatever they wanted. The jin sect purposefully glossed over jin zixun's part in the death of his cousin and that the fight started when they ambushed an unarmed man. The jins covered up how they lied to get wen ning and wen qing to koi tower with every intention of using wen ning as a weapon themselves. Jin guangshan and his lot made the nightless city conference out to be a peaceful meeting instead of admitting that it was basically a war council where they declared their collective intent to wipe out every living person at the burial mounds AND warped how many died in the ensuing attack to seem more victimized. Everyone agreeing that wwx's recklessness caused the attack on lotus pier instead of facing the fact that the sects and their leaders had allowed the wen sect to do whatever they wanted for too long, leaving a bunch of children the job of stepping up to the plate and shouldering the consequences. Oh also, the sects use children as soldiers? Because that’s normal. Everyone also collectively ignored that jiang cheng was torturing innocent people at lotus pier because they were practicing illegal arts anyways--nvm that no one ever minds demonic cultivation when its convenient. The way the lan clan handled everything about the madam lan situation. The way the jin's and the mo's abused mo xuanyu and easily swept it under the rug. Then ofc there's the violence and lies that comes with everyday sect politics. Furthermore, look at how they treat people who actively try to step up. They treat the juniors like they're naive kids whenever they argue, lan zhan's the cultivator equivalent of a crazy hermit because he goes around helping people, and wwx was a reckless idiot for helping mianmian and a backstabber for putting a stop to the work camp. Speaking of mianmian, anyone time how fast her name was slandered the second she disagreed with the masses?

So yeah. Jin guangyao had it made. Who's easier to lie to than a violent group of people who love to feel good about themselves? Who's easier to hide things from than people who ignore their own complicity in crimes on the daily? Who's more likely to let things slide than people who've convinced themselves that doing nothing about a problem is the equivalent of being "above" it? The cultivation world is incredibly insular, hive-minded, and stuck in a twisted system built on lies, which makes them so easy to manipulate

#mo dao zu shi #mdzs #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #grandmaster of diabloism #jin guangyao #jgy #this isnt to say that i think xy jgy or wwx haven't done anything wrong #just that imo there are no innocents in the sects #aside from the juniors and maybe lwj #everyone else is complicit in one thing or another #wei wuxian #lan wangji #meng yao

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serendipitouscontaminant · 6 years

Text

@intearsaboutrobots asked oh g o s h, how bout forgetting to eat and ray (he's very busy ! doing science !)

This is for Bad Things Happen Bingo. This is my card.

Bingo square: Forgetting to eat

Content notes for grief and canon character death. Strangely enough, this is 70% comedy.

____

Guess We’ll Never Know

Ray is doing science.

Normal.

Ray is doing science in silence, literally locked in the lab.

Less normal? That's debatable, apparently.

Nate is convinced there’s something fishy going on here. Sara agrees. Zari and Mick both say to just leave Ray to do his thing. He’s a scientist, of course he’s going to lock himself in the lab sometimes, it’s not that weird. Nate and Sara counter that, yeah, that might be a stereotypical scientist thing, but it’s not a Ray thing. Ray loves spending time with other people, and he’s gung ho about living healthy, and when he gets really, possibly unhealthily, into something science-related, he usually at least tries to talk someone’s ear off about it.

He’s not the kind of guy who locks himself in his lab for nearly a week when there’s absolutely nothing even vaguely life-threatening going on, other than the Legends all living on the same ship, which might count.

Zari says that they’re being overbearing and they should just let Ray do what he does best, he can take care of himself and she could swear that she’s seen him in the halls a few times, probably going to get food or something.

This leads to the whole team trading Ray sightings and arguing as to whether they’re actually just making things up, right until Nate points out that they’re acting like Ray’s Bigfoot or something, and once you can switch out a conversation about your teammate with a conversation about a cryptid just by changing a single detail, in this case said teammate’s name, there’s a good reason to worry. He has a point, Constantine, who has no dog in this fight and has been playing both sides for a lark, says.

Mick says that this is all stupid, and walks away. Classic Mick.

However, in spite of Mick’s unceremonious exit, it can comfortably be said that at this point all opinions have been swayed towards ‘we should be worried.’

Well, not Constantine’s, because he cannot emphasize enough how he has no dog in this fight. He saves dogs for people he really cares about, and none of the Legends are there yet other than Sara. He quite likes Sara.

In spite of this doglessness, Constantine is the one to check on Ray, mostly because everyone else is debating on how to best check on Ray even though they could always just ask Gideon how he’s doing or go down there with no fanfare, two options that they have helpfully forgotten—much like how they have forgotten to be reasonable or efficient over what should quite frankly be low-stress decisions for a prolonged length of time—in the name of the continuation of the narrative.

Besides, they’re stir crazy without any actual missions. They’ll argue about anything at this point, and since Ray hasn’t been around (a pressing issue), there’s nobody to, say, arrange a catastrophic game night, which would at least get out everyone’s pent up energy.

…This is mostly because, while Constantine is a surprisingly affable and competent board gamer, he wins every game, and Mick is a terrible loser, Sara is a terrible loser, Zari is easily frustrated and also a terrible loser, Ray has the rules to literally every board game in existence memorized word-for-word and will not budge on them, and Nate, for all his ability to remember every single major fire in the United States since its inception, secretly still doesn’t really know how to play Monopoly, and is not above knocking the entire board to the floor to keep anyone from finding out his dark secret, even though fessing up would possibly spare everyone from having to play Monopoly, which would quite frankly be one of those acts of everyday heroism the Huffington Post is always on about.

(Mick knows about Nate’s Monopoly problem, though. How? Unclear. Mick just knows a lot of things. Why does Mick not tell? A mystery.)

Anyway, Constantine goes to see how Dr. Palmer’s getting on, mostly because he, like everyone else on the game nightless ship, is very bored and has nothing better to do. He is also a bit curious. He also feels a vague sense of doom about the whole situation, though that may just be the vague sense of doom he feels roughly one hundred percent of the time.

When he steps into the lab, he finds papers tossed everywhere, three whiteboards (well, ‘whiteboards’ is a little generous for what are more large plexiglass rectangles covered in scribbles, but that is not an issue at the front of John’s mind), and no less than thirteen empty cans of a drink called ‘Monster’.

He takes a step inside the lab (a can of Monster crunching underfoot), meaning to make his presence known to Ray, who currently has his back to him and is writing some equation on a fourth and comically large high fashion not whiteboard. (Too long, John has better things to do than think all those words over something so stupid.)

John is not sure when exactly this whiteboard was created or whether it did in fact exist before Ray went into this fit, because it really is excessively enormous, given that Ray is standing on a stool to scrawl mumbo jumbo on it, and Ray is six foot three.

“Hello, Dr. Palmer,” John says genially, only not fazed by this situation due to the fact that he consistently deals with different, more life-and-limb-threatening situations that border on the absurd, or catapult over the border and into the wide field of ‘what in the bloody fucking world is even happening, look like you know what you’re doing, John, you fear nothing’. He gauges that to be genuinely fazed, the cans of Monster would have to become actual small monsters.

Ray jumps and yet somehow doesn’t fall from his perch, even when he twists around to look at John, though he does sway dangerously, and John steps forward experimentally, wondering exactly how squished he will get if he tries to catch Dr. Palmer once the man inevitably loses his battle with gravity.

Ray’s hair is mussed and unwashed, his fetching chin is covered in stubble, his clothes are several days old, he’s shaking, and his eyes are full of the pure manic energy of a man who does not consistently drink large amounts of caffeine, and yet has made the unfortunate and currently inexplicable decision to replace half his blood with energy drinks.

“Constantine!” he says, voice both welcoming and edgy. His smile is so wide that John can see just about all of his teeth. The smile, paired with the general mad scientist vibe he’s emitting, makes him look like a serial killer, the kind that dresses his victims in fun outfits and then poses them in a whimsical manner while leading the police on a wild goose chase. He will never be brought to justice. “How’s it going?”

“You’ve been here for nearly a week,” John says. “Your friends are both worried and being utterly inconvenient about it.”

“A week,” Ray says, vibrating. “Wow!”

These are the last words he says before his eyes roll into the back of his head, and he falls to the floor.

John is briefly on high alert, given that eyes rolling into the back of the head is not a good sign in his line of work, but he quickly realizes that the good doctor is lying quite still and is happily unpossessed.

Wow indeed.

John wanders over to him to see if he’s just out cold or dead. He is thankfully just out cold, because even John would feel bad if Ray were dead. His gluten free cupcakes really aren’t so bad, and he very much enjoys winning all the games. He never wins against Gary.

Ray’s pulse is impressively fast. “Gideon, dear,” John says, “I think the others may want to see this.”

“Way ahead of you, Mr. Constantine,” Gideon says.

Of course.

It takes a matter of minutes—more than one, but less than five—for the others to rush in. Well, Mick doesn’t rush in so much as amble, brow furrowed in what might be annoyance and might be concern. (It’s both.)

Ray wakes up in under five minutes, which is good. He’s bleary-eyed and rubbing his head, and he’s discombobulated enough that he doesn’t really protest when Nate and Mick bodily drag him out of the lab, though he does give his enormous whiteboard a sad look, as if saying goodbye and promising to come back soon.

John stays behind, surveying the lab. He suspects that whatever happens in the medbay will involve feelings he’s not particularly interested in, so his work here is done.

In the medbay, Ray has finally found his voice again, and his voice isn’t happy about the saline drip he’s getting. He and his miraculously nonexistent concussion would rather take some laps around the ship.

“Actually, Dr. Palmer, I would suggest you eat,” Gideon says.

“Pish posh!” an actual human being named Ray Palmer says with zero irony. “You keep telling me that!”

“Because it keeps being true,” Gideon replies, dry as the toast that Ray could at least have tried to force down the past several mornings.

It turns out that, much like Bigfoot sightings, the Ray sightings were the product of wishful thinking. He really had not existed outside of the lab for all that time except to go to the bathroom. He even had Gideon make him seven six packs of Monster before going in.

And yet no food or water.

When Nate points out that astonishing oversight after hearing that Ray did prepare himself for his science fit, sort of, Ray shrugs sheepishly. “I forgot.”

“You, Mr. Three Square Meals a Day, just straight up forgot?”

“Yeah. There’s...I don’t have another answer, I really did.”

“Okay, so why did you go full absent-minded professor?”

Ray doesn’t answer the question, though a troubled look does flit across his face for about five point two seconds.

Instead, he decides to go back to the food thing.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” Ray says, clearly in a vaguely dreamlike and yet incredibly awake state. “I’ve transcended it.”

There is a beat as the others process the non sequitur and general insanity of that statement, and then chaos as everyone starts talking over each other about how stupid that very thought is, right up until Zari’s voice manages to break through.

“You’ve transcended hunger?” Zari parrots for about the third time. “Ray, take it from someone who knows—you’re just starving.”

“I feel kind of sick, actually,” Ray says in a polite rebuttal. “So there’s that.”

“Raymond, of course you feel sick, you’ve been overworking yourself and living off caffeine,” Nate says, all long-suffering hypocrisy.

“Oh, as if you don’t do the exact same thing, Mr. Do As I Say Not As I Do.”

“Yeah, I’m vetoing that nickname. And seriously, this isn’t really like you.”

“Actually, I was totally like this. I mean, I’ve been totally like this before. I missed work because I was so focused on work.”

“Yeah, but you’ve kind of...grown out of that. Or at least you weren’t like this about it other than when you were all imposter syndrome about your suit. I mean, buddy, I get being obsessed with your work, but you fainted. You’ve been mainlining energy drinks. It’s been six days. Even when you get weird and obsessed, you usually at least interact with...anyone. And energy drinks are like...caffeine and sugar. You somehow think both of those things are bad for you. Also, it’s been six days. This isn’t Ray behavior.”

“Oh, like you really know me,” Ray snaps.

His outburst causes only vague confusion. “...I do really know you, Ray. We all do. We’re on the same ship and the same team. We have literally met you as a child.”

Ray flounders. “Okay, you might have a point. But I’m just...this is important! I’m brushing up on nuclear physics! I mean, not that I’m not good at nuclear physics, I’m possibly amazing—it’s healthy to recognize your own talents—but I’ve really been leaning on the engineering side lately, not so much the theoretical, and now without...” he trails off and swallows hard. “Without Marty, I’m catching up. There are some questions I never got to ask him and now...” his voice breaks, and he runs a shaking hand through his greasy hair, “I have to figure them out myself.”

Silence settles over the room like a shroud, and Sara, without even thinking, looks over at the corner of the room where no one is, half expecting to see a familiar form sighing in a put upon way and pacing back and forth like a ruffled chicken.

Maybe Stein could’ve talked some sense into Ray.

Sara clears her throat and Nate looks down at the floor and Zari looks up at the ceiling in the way people do when they’re trying not to cry and Mick just stares at nothing because he’s staring at memories instead—he and the professor made a weird amount of memories in this medbay—and Ray swipes at his eyes. “If he was still alive, I could just use the temporal communicator to ask him, but he’s not, and I never got to ask him, and I don’t know if I’ll ever figure it all out.”

“He had more...time, Ray,” Sara says, and the words sound so ridiculous (he didn’t get enough time, he didn’t) she wants to laugh until she cries and then probably never stop crying, for Martin and Rip and Leonard and Laurel and even Jax, so far away and with half of him dead and gone. She doesn’t do any of that. She soldiers on. “He had more time to get it all figured out, and when you have...more time, so will you.”

And eventually, she absolutely does not say because no one says it, you’ll have even more time than he did, if everything turns out right.

Ray laughs a little. “That implies that I’ll ever be as good at theoretical nuclear physics as Marty.”

“Maybe you won’t be,” Zari chimes in. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not a genius and it doesn’t mean you’ll, what? Let us all down because you’re not him? You’re not him. You’re you.”

“He’s never coming back,” Mick offers in a grumbling undertone from where he’s leaning against the far wall. “You can’t replace dead people, and you suck at trying.”

He meets Ray’s eyes, and Ray remembers that time that they tried. He manages a smile. “I know.”

He sighs heavily and says, “I really went off the rails for a second there, didn’t I?”

Sara shrugs. “Happens to all of us.”

“I should eat,” Ray admits. “I can’t believe I forgot. I mean, I can, but that’s why I have alarms.”

“What happened to those?” Nate asks.

“I think I spilled Monster on my phone.”

“That checks out.” Nate heaves out a sigh. “Okay. Let’s go to the kitchen, big guy. You can go back to bothering us about three square meals again. And water intake.”

Ray agrees, because hydration is very important, no matter what the Ray who’d forgotten that Marty wasn’t actually just a call away seemed to think, and he only sways a little on his feet when he stands up after getting the saline drip out.

Constantine is in the kitchen when the rest of the team traipses in, sprawled on a chair and reading some kind of velvet-bound tome with his feet propped up on one of the other chairs. He looks up at the other Legends and says, “Ah, you’re back, then?”

Ray attempts one of his usual smiles, but it takes more work than usual. “I’m back.”

He wanders to the middle of the kitchen and just kind of stands there while the others wait for him to have a cardiac event or maybe pass out again.

Instead:

“What should I eat?” Ray asks the world at large, waffling. He really is not hungry, and he really does feel kind of sick to his stomach, like one might after drinking eighteen cans of a brand of energy drink he remembered seeing on a billboard in Star City.

“Waffles?” Nate suggests. “It’s breakfast.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, bro. Six days after last time you ate breakfast.”

Ray sighs and murmurs, probably to himself, “I just haven’t been able to figure it out without him.”

Nate and Sara share a look. It’s not a happy look. Trace amounts of the absences on the ship have traveled into every part of it, including the oxygen, and sometimes it hurts just to breathe.

“Grapefruit,” Ray says decisively, distracting everyone from their separate waves of grief for just a moment. “I want grapefruit.”

Very suddenly, everyone realizes that they also kind of want grapefruit, even though none of them can remember the last time they had it. Still, all of them—other than Constantine, who’s feeling a bit odd about the whole vibe in the kitchen right now, from Mick’s surprisingly glossy eyes to the way that Gideon’s already prepared a giant bowl of that infernal fruit even before Zari comes around to ask for it—know exactly where the craving is coming from.

(It’s an attempt to at least calm that empty ache in their stomachs that isn’t hunger, the one for Martin, because grief makes everything revolve around what—who—just isn’t anymore and somehow still is everything, like all of them have become planets orbiting a black hole, only surviving getting sucked in and pulled to pieces by a miracle of metaphorical pseudoscience, or maybe just each other.)

Zari plops the huge bowl of grapefruit halves down on the table, and Ray’s the first to take one. He digs his spoon into the fruit and sighs in pleasure when he takes a bite, clearly coming to the realization that his miraculous lack of hunger paired with queasiness is indeed actually the feeling one gets when starving. He gets through two grapefruits before he slows down at all.

All of them realize, while eating their breakfast, that, objectively, they don’t like grapefruit.

It’s still somehow delicious—though, Mick says critically, his is a little tart.

(They would all be horrified if they knew that somewhere on their Earth lives a woman—one they know and love, even!—who eats her grapefruit with salt, but there’s no one here who can share that particular little anecdote, and so the story goes untold.)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14898194

#legends of tomorrow #legends of tomorrow fic #ray palmer #fic tag #badthingshappenbingo #team legends #prompt: forgetting to eat #long post #long post on mobile

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theoneyouneed · 3 years

Text

God when I die I’ll finally feel the relief of muscle finally unflexed the release of the pressure built into life.

Wwx haunts Jin ling. Did I already write that? Based off of children beware the demon of Yiling. Did I already write that? And wwx is a ghostly boy and also a cat for some reason just let it happen and uhhh yanli is alive because I said so and her husband can be there too? Idk I don’t care either way like it’s be nice if he was there but ughhhhhh the angst versus the comfort.

Days after the siege of nightless city, people were starting to talk. In medical tents as they rested their sore and broken bodies, in taverns as they nursed another wine in remenace of the horrors they faced, and in the grand halls of the great sects, the same words were exchanged, the same question they all stumbled into that begged to be answered: ‘where did Wei Wuxians body go?’

The terrible night went like this: the four great sects, accompanied by the five lesser major sects, concentrated upon the entrance pavilion landing just outside the sun palace in nightless city. They listened as the Jin clan leader announced the death of the final Wen survivors, those straggling cock roaches, and denounced their protector, the Yiling patriarch. Wei wuxian declared his presence on the roof when they defamed him and praised him in the same breath, when they choked on their hypocrisy.

He stood here at the edge of the earth, with the entire world against him. Yes, he truly had nothing left to lose, is what he told himself as he pulled out his final weapon, the only thing powerful enough to keep him alive in the darkness, the stygian tiger amulet. He felt his blood rushing through his veins, he heard the screams and the cries of the restless spirits as they rose to his call, he felt the cold vestiges of resentful smoke curling around his finger tips. Yes he truly had nothing left to lose, he thought, as he turned the amulet, this tool of evil refinement and control, inward, towards himself. If he had a core, it’s pure natured energy would have fought off the yin energy of the amulet. It would have tired out both the amulet and his core, weakening both. He would have likely gone into Qi deviation, sapped for strength and overwhelmed by the darkness of the moment. Instead his body which housed no goodness, and no pure golden core, had no resistance to give when the amulet forced itself in. Hell it practically opened the doors and made tea for it so the evil spirit would feel welcome. Maybe this is what he’s been preparing for this whole time, he mused in a moment of insanity. With his past use of dark energy and how much resentment and yin he carries in his body, it’s all lead up to this.

For a moment, there’s nothing but the ringing in his ears. He’s not even sure if he’s breathing. In the silence. In the stunned realization that it actually worked. His last crazy idea. He merged himself with the very instrument of mass destruction they all craved nearly as much as they desired the creators execution. Now no one can get it.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees white. No no it’s too late.

It goes like this, with more resentment and shadows ripping through his body then blood, he wrestled control of the storm he was trapped in the eye of. Spectators saw the great Yiling patriarch split into a grin and crack open with cackling delight and mounting horror. The shadows swirled around him, building with speed and intensity. The resentment from the entire backfield was sapped out of the ground, out of the soldiers, out of the air, and pulled into Wei wuxian. A figure in white, the second jade of Gusu Lan, rushed unbidden into the waves of darkness.

“Wei Ying!” The cry was only heard between the two people standing near the edge of the cliff, the air was heavy and thick with the resentful energy. This close to the edge Lan Wangji could hear the spirits of the damned and vengeful crying and screaming. He gripped his friends shoulders to make him look in his eyes.

“Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian swayed, far more than he intended to, from the force of the motion. But his grin never left his face. But Lan Wangji wasn’t deterred by this, as he was also crying, and fresh blood dribbled down his chin from when he had spit up blood seconds ago.

“Let me go.” He whispered, any louder and he would have broken. Any louder and the amulet would have cracked and he would have shattered. He could feel his heart beating in his stomach, each beat was a surprise, he could taste his end on his tongue. At least he got to see the one person he still hadn’t doomed yet, just once more before he died. Lan Zhan looked beautiful, even with dirt on his white robes and his brow furrowed like that.

“No Wei Ying, your sister is-“ the peerless Hanguang Jun didn’t get to finish as he was shoved aside with all the strength Wei wuxian and the amulet could muster. Between one second and the next all the pressure in the pavilion seemed to increase and then, rather anticlimatically, pop. The place where the Yiling patriarch once stood was evidence only by the slight char marks that remained on the ground.

It ended like this: the amulet shattered when Wei wuxian overpowered it with a flood of the very spirits and resentful energy that it commanded. The amulet shattered, the pieces scattering across the pavilion, into the wind and lava and across the land. Wei Wuxian, who wanted to die, overlooked the little detail that he wouldn’t be allowed such simple desires. After all, he bound his own soul to the amulet, and in its pieces he lives on.

Seven years later.

Jin ling Rulan had a good life. He had the run of the palace, and everybody loved him. And if anyone was mean to him, his mom was always there to soothe over his tears.

Being one of the only kids in the grand world of the Jin palace filled with grownups. One of his favorite pastimes was going on stealth missions around the grown ups, to see how long he can go before they detect him. Sometimes he takes his younger cousin Jin Rusong with him, but Rusong always gives them away by making too much noise. Plus Jin Rusong is only four so it’s understandable that he can’t go on the important big kid missions that only Jin Ling is qualified enough to partake.

Grown ups always talk about this place called Yiling and a guy who’s from there. Jin ling tends to get distracted when they all talk about far away things though. It’s not his fault that politics are all so boring!

He found something really weird on this stealth mission. He didn’t intend to end up in his grandfathers private chambers, but he was trailing after his half uncle and he somehow ended up here. And the chest sitting under the bed -where Jin ling was currently hiding- looked really suspicious and inviting. And he was just going to take a peek anyway! He couldn’t move from his hiding spot right now, both his grand father and his half uncle were talking about boring grown up stuff at the tea set right next to the bed, and he had to wait until they were looking away or until his half uncle got up to leave to continue stalking him. So he was just going to poke around while he was waiting!

When he opened the chest, he was surprised to find that there was only one thing inside of it, and instead of gold or jade or a treasure map, the thing inside the hidden chest under the richest sect leaders bed was... a rock.

Jin ling wheedled the rock out and rolled it in his palm in disbelief. It must be obsidian or something just as cool because it was pure black and had jagged edges all around it. It was pretty small too. Jin ling could hold it in his palm and completely cover it in his fist. He flipped it around to his other hand a repeated the process of rubbing his fingers across the edges and trapping it in his fist. Well if his grandfather had this hidden away, then it must be a special rock somehow. He’ll ask his mom about it later.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the shaped of his grand father and his half uncle get up, as if they were bowing to each other to leave. Jin ling pokes his head cautiously over the edge of the blankets and watched his grandfather wander into his en suite study and his half uncle make his way towards the door. He slipped the rock in his pocket and snuck after his half uncle, and then he forgot about it.

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