#( prompt ) / * give me that fire .

[notbecauseofvictories]

a wild moment at work today, when my boss (at the end of quite a long speech about why I should track my work better) essentially said, "but you're not getting any credit for your accomplishments!" and I realized I genuinely didn't care.

[sysig]

Growing closer than expected (Patreon)

[iingezo]

! ! ADOPTABLES ! ! Celestial Pact

Excited for my first go at adopts!: D LOVED returning to this style for them too! It’s first-come, first-serve -- if interested, message me here on Tumblr with your email for a PayPal invoice & once payment is received I’ll send you the full resolution of the adopt ! A : SOLD B : SOLD C : SOLD ( TOS below the cut )

- Same as commissions : Personal-use ONLY - Trading is OK & Reselling cannot go above the original price   ( unless you’ve accumulated more art of them by then ) - Expanding upon the design (like alternate outfits / styling) is OK, but please keep physical features relatively consistent (feel free to take or leave the tits tho) & do not edit the original art - Feel free to post any new art you might make/commission of them, but do not repost the original art   ( I’ll likely post the fuller watermarked versions myself here later ) - Credit me for the original design   ( somewhere! )

[puppetmaster13u]

Hear me out: Zuko keeps doing Blue Spirit stuff and going Batman post-war

There's so much small corruption and so many smaller issues that build up into bigger ones that he really can't take care of as the Firelord, not helped by him having to actually repair relations with the rest of the entire world and figure out who actually deserves to stay in prison and who was literally just thrown in there. In anyways things are a complete and utter mess, and he can't leave the palace or city for days at a time. However we know he can sneak in and out of places that should be inescapable or have very high security. (for example, the episode Blue Spirit itself)

So it's not exactly a stretch for him to go out, maybe even be mistaken for a proper spirit seeing as there's already tales and rumors of the masked entity from during the war. Needless to say when the military and council start complaining about this shadow in the night he is not in a hurry to catch them. Or catch them at all, seeing as said shadow might also be said fire lord.

[moe-broey]

Reposting this one on its own bc. It means So Much To Me. It means EVERYTHING TO ME.

[hulloitsdani]

DAY 14: Risk and Reward PERSONA 5 BABYYYYYYYYYYY!!!

Thank you so much for @eriisaam for the suggestion of this alt and inadvertently saying my sleeper agent phrase. Persona 5 is possibly one of my biggest artistic inspirations and generally one of my favorite things. Goro Akechi ruined my god damn life and everyday I get closer to stealing Joker's gender. I adore this game.

Back to the actual risk and reward banner— It seems to have this fairytale theme? I could be wrong and it's more of an Alice in Wonderland beat, but I noticed Cath was clearly giving Cheshire cat and I think Nina was meant to be red ridding hood? I took this as evidence enough to ask friends to list some quintessential fairytales from off the dome and Cinderella was in the top three each time. I think that already works well thematically for Kiran, but then I remembered Sumire's persona is Cendrillion, an opera of a 1698 version of the fairytale. And then I remembered the glass weapons in Awakening.

Aw yeah, it's all coming together.

This one might have taken a bit longer, but I hope it was clear how much fun I was having. This felt like such a return to form for me. Got to smack two of my obsessions together into some of the most indulgent art for me personally.

[dragonskulls]

Girls who make poisons. Like if you agree

Also we just got to 1k, thank you all so much!!!

[limerickshere]

Have you seen the image of the cat yawning/breathing fire??? Could you write about that please??? Flameo hotman 🔥🔥🔥🔥

‘Fore taking this pic, the desire 

Was simply to see the cat tire

With cute little yawn,

But sunset was on,

Hence: monster whose breath is a fire

[yeyayeya]

Stop I keep saying I’m going to write a Scárthur fanfic one of these days and I just keep losing motivation to write

Do not look at my abandoned drafts

[potionwine]

Oooh, you’ve also seen Nirvana in Fire?!? That was SO good. And as inspiration for PF?? That, explains some things, dang! It works

My friend. My dear. My lovely Cimi—

WHAT in the world—

Have I seen the drama that bloody changed my life; my favourite comfort c-drama; the series that I rewatch yearly the way I rewatch lotr every Christmastime; that exquisite story with the most incredible breadth and variety of characters with impeccable character work and amazing themes and an ending that respects its viewers which however tragic is thoroughly earned and identity porn and politics and pride and grief, god, so much grief—and an Emperor who is shakespearean in his tragedy and—

Okay. Okay, no, you could not have known, tis a failure of my part if I have not spoken enough about it—I probably mostly reply to other people's posts as they liveblog their watching but. BUT. God when I saw your ask it felt like you came up to me to remark "hey wow so you also ship PF?" that's how gobsmacked I was lol!!!

I have dragged everyone in my life into watching this show! I have mutuals on here who can testify to my introducing them to it omg. I just checked and the earliest NIF post I reblogged was in 2016 so I have been watching it every year since 2016 hahaha!!! Although it's pretty complex chinese, and since so much of the show is made up of characters sitting around talking the intricate plot into existence, it's not really a beginner-friendly c-drama either!!!

NOW I DIDN'T KNOW YOU'VE WATCHED IT TOO???!!!

I. have. been. going. UTTERLY MENTAL. at the lack of anyone with whom I could talk about it? OR SO I THOUGHT. So many times I thought of going into our discord to be like "has anyone ever heard of NIF because hhhhhhh the phoenixflare resonance" or like "so is anyone into TGCF perhaps perchance mayhap???"——because heh. hehehehe. heheheh??? My fic is practically a NIF/TGCF mashup, it's a Lin Shu+Xie Lian!Joshua Rosfield & Jingyan+Hua Cheng!Dion Lesage——and I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW MANY TIMES I wanted to ask god please does anyone else see my vision please god does anyone?? but no one would even understand the references, and I couldn't even ask in areas (asian fandom) where there would be a higher chance of people knowing what crack I'm on because asian fandom is all about that...you know...that I loathe—and I have been in pain and I thought right well fine I'm writing the fic anyway it's fine if I have no one to scream about it with because I'm writing it and then I'll find fellow competence porn+politics enjoyers if they find my fic and—and.

God. What an earth-shattering message to receive in my askbox! You are some sort of miracle <3

Do you see it??? Do you see it? A boy who burned to death in an inferno as an innocent betrayed youth in a catastrophic event caused by his own family, his father slain, his entire clan (and all the troops under his banner) wiped out or scattered. A boy reborn after extensive and horrific injuries after an agonisingly long period of recovery: a ghost who crawled his way out of the gates of hell, the last of his broken once-noble house.

That boy's transformation into his new identity of Mei Changsu/Margrace. His off-screen discovery of the truth that led to Meiling/Phoenix Gate and his continued on-screen quest to learn more. His determination to hold the true culprits accountable at immense personal cost and suffering. His dogged persistence despite incredible odds and visibly failing health. Being surrounded by people who love him and want to protect him, and himself constantly undermining their efforts because his goals are more important than his health. (Because in truth he knows perfectly well that he won't survive, but he can make a difference while he is alive.)

Something that amuses me hugely is how Lin Shu and Joshua literally both come back as 宗主? I love it so much! They come back with the same title! Both of them come back as clan leaders of an organisation that obeys their every command! Margrace is the 不死鳥教団の宗主(=leader of the cult of the undying bird) and Mei Changsu is 江左盟的宗主(=leader of the Jiangzuo alliance).

AND. Hooooo yea this PF fic is just JingSu at this point because oh, a handsome, principled, prideful, and stubborn prince who is a decorated warrior famed for his numerous military accomplishments and the man who is essential to the success of Lin Shu's/Joshua's plans? The resurrected boy barging into his prince's life: no matter how insane it is to choose your side, still "I choose you, Your Highness Prince Jing"??? The fact that the undervalued prince has a history with our secretive ghost protagonist? And (arguably) frequently thought about and missed the bright boy he knew once upon a time in happier days—"I know you," says Dion Lesage without a shadow of a doubt, extremely normal of him to instantly recognise a dead boy he met 20 years ago?

Mutual admiration of each other's integrity and capabilities? Reciprocal faith and remembrance? The foundation of deep respect and enduring friendship, their shared goals and shared family??? I froth at the mouth. JingSu are cousins, PF are stepsiblings by their parents' marriage. Each pair is bound by destiny and by choice—other people have made choices that permanently entangled each pair's lives together forevermore (Joshua+Dion and Jingyan+Xiaoshu), and the choice they themselves personally made to choose each other—

DO YOU SEE THE VISION.

How difficult it is to pursue justice when everyone involved is family and how impossible it is for Lin Shu the nigh-extinguished Chiyan fire for Joshua, the guttering flame, to indict Jingyan's father the Emperor of Liang Dion's father the Emperor of Sanbreque of his crimes against Joshua's family without opening old wounds and hurting many loved ones in the process including Dion himself. The people directly responsible for the tragedies are related to the protagonists in one way or another! If Lin Shu Joshua ever wants resolution for his grief unending, he has to strike at his beloved's father, and plot meticulously to avoid all of the dangers of attacking such a powerful enemy.

(Of course, I acknowledge the critical difference in Jingyan's versus Dion's feelings about their respective fathers.)

Now if only Joshua had done the famous blizzard scene with Dion instead of letting him go off to carry out his ill-advised coup—"Xiao Jingyan! You stand where you are! If I don't stop you today, what are you going to do? What do you think you can possibly accomplish if you charge in to challenge imperial power like this? Do you think you can simply force the Emperor [to do what you want/change his mind about Anabella Wei Zheng]? You have honour and valour but why do you just not have brains! How many more people must be hurt, you tell me!"

Anyway Joshy doesn't have the insufferable smugness of Xiaoshu but he does absolutely have Xiaoshu's pride, the sort of pride that is not just personal pride but familial pride too (after all Joshua comes from extremely prestigious lineage)—just look at how he speaks to Ultima in every scene, his lordly manner. Joshua I think has more Consort Jing to him, and Consort Jing is only my favourite character in all of NIF, in a drama where I love every character to bits—steel in softness, ever gentle ever polite yet not to be bullied and not to be underestimated and also extremely perceptive and learned and patient. Extra sweet bonus that Consort Jing is also a healer. Elegant, restrained, and very repressed. Who knows the depths of Joshua's Consort Jing's grief and loss?

But you know, Jingyan, near the end he is completely in charge—the prince who was always a great and respected general on the battlefield is now more than that, he's directly taking responsibility for all of his people as their future ruler—that means thinking on multiple fronts and exerting control over all of the key governing officials, not merely his military officers. He's leading with confidence, and there's that little scene where he apologises to Xiaoshu for taking action on several plans without consulting him, and Xiaoshu says no, this is the way it should be, this is the correct state of affairs: you are the crown prince, and this is rightfully your arena. You lead, you decide, you command.

Jingyan now sees clearly, he's found out and accepted the truths of his father's role in the atrocity at Meiling and everything that happened back then. He rightly perceives the failings of his family and seeks to redress past wrongs and avoid repetition of past mistakes, he weeds his court of the corrupt and the cowardly, he's become the best possible version of himself: stronger than ever, not just a powerful wartime commander-in-chief but an inspiring leader in the imperial court, careful, thoughtful and politically up-to-speed, finally stable in his sense of self instead of being permanently stuck as that angry and lost and hurting child. He has renewed purpose, he possesses hope for the future, he is able to dedicate himself fully to what he truly believes to be right and act in furtherance of righteous causes—

Critically, this is the man he becomes only because Xiaoshu came back into his life to shake it up. Without Xiaoshu he wouldn't even have the opportunity or means or knowledge. The radiant and fiery boy who Jingyan missed all his life came back to save him. From the outsider prince without contacts or support within the imperial court->to the crown prince who has the court subdued within the palm of his hand. From his pitiful existence as a neglected, unfavoured prince, his lowkey constant simmering resentment, his half-dutiful half-forced obedience of paternal orders that chafe at his conscience->into the steadfast and self-assured prince who is capable of fighting for the betterment of his country and the rallying point for virtuous officials who share those aspirations. The drama shows the audience that Jingyan is unquestionably ready to assume rulership, and together with the person he loves most, they achieve their goals, they save each other and their country (by arresting its downward slide due to the rotten state of its governance).

It's just a strong headcanon of mine (albeit one that I can absolutely present extensive arguments for) but to me Joshua Rosfield is the one and only character able to perform that same abovementioned function for Dion Lesage. Catalyst, turning point, spark that ignites the fire—whatever you call it, this is salvation. It is beautifully poetic that both Lin Shu and Joshua are characterised by fire. They are the fires of change that burn away the old life: before their arrival, the two war princes exist in a state of wearying routine, long-suffering and almost hopeless. Both Jingyan and Dion are shackled by their stations and duties, both are unloved sons with virtually no chance of their circumstances improving without drastic action, and both are trapped in precarious situations where they are subject to the whims of their father (if their imperial fathers turn on them, it will result in irrevocable loss of their status).

Dion's position is weak in the Oriflamme imperial court—pretty sure this point isn't up for debate, since no one ever speaks up in support of him despite the obvious injustice of his ill-treatment. His degree of influence in the court is much, much, so much less than any reasonable person might expect someone who is literally Bahamut and crown prince to have. The Council of Elders and other officials stand by haplessly while he is progressively stripped of power in favour of Olivier. Nobody defends him, nobody objects. (Or maybe some did, and were eliminated.) Even Dion himself submits to the abuse despite inherently superior abilities. Career politicians know which direction the winds blow—they don't defy their Empress, meaning they are either her cronies or too fearful of her to make themselves a target by any raising any opposition. Added to that is the implication that Dion was often away for long periods—and as Xiaoshu explicitly tells Jingyan in the drama, the crown prince cannot leave the imperial capital untended because that is the surest way to lose power. Dion may be Sanbreque's mightiest weapon and revered by the populace, but in practice his political sway is almost negligible. He is not able to leverage himself effectively.

Don't get me wrong, for these reasons I extra extra love the canon portrayal of J*** obeying Joshua against her wishes and T****** obeying Dion against his wishes—I absolutely think their obedience is, to them, the truest and highest and final demonstration of their love and understanding of their respective masters. And both Joshua and Dion expected no less from them. [I've not typed the names out just in case the search function ends up capturing the post and putting it in their tags, not because I hate those characters; I just don't want to be uncivil within fandom.]

But the very point here is that, you know, sometimes you aren't supposed to leave someone just because they say so. Sometimes it is the worst possible course of action to obey someone just because they command it. Sometimes it is undesirable at best and disastrous at worst to support someone's every decision out of unchanging (if uncharitable, one might even say unthinking) loyalty. That is a fundamentally unequal relationship, and while beautiful in its own way, is also uniquely doomed. The truth is, Joshua was always going to pull that trigger, and Dion was always going to pull that trigger: the master was always going to sever the relationship. Those pairs were doomed as soon as they began, because one party can only ever say yes, and yes means the end, you see? That is The End, that is the final break. By their very subordinate nature and by their established personalities within the game, "yes" is the one and only answer J*** and T****** can ever or will ever give. Their master will say, "Leave me", meaning it is over, and they will reply, "Yes, I obey". Because this is the only answer that proves their devotion, leaving them totally incapable of changing the script. Both J*** and T****** knew it and played their parts to perfection, and my heart hurts for them.

In NIF terms, I reckon J*** is Gong Yu, and T****** is Lie Zhanying. Zhanying will follow Jingyan to the end, whatever it may be—in fact in one episode he explicitly says so, and his loyalty is never in doubt. He will go to his death if Jingyan orders it. He will always support Jingyan's decisions. He and the rest of Jingyan's men have been following Jingyan even when the prince was out of favour and cold-shouldered and constantly dispatched to safeguard the country's frontiers—inconvenient places where comfort is low and the environment harsh. Jingyan's favoured brothers live in the lap of luxury within their palaces (like Olivier), while Jingyan himself (like Dion) has always been at war. And as with Zhanying, T****** will never be able to change this status quo on behalf of Jingyan (Dion). For all his boundless dedication to his lord, Zhanying will never be able to improve his prince's standing in the court, never be able to secure more political power for his prince (unless his prince decides to revolt/coup), never be able to make his prince's father love or prize his prince.

It is not a problem of character or willpower or desire. It is, simply put, a problem of power. It is a problem of class. The servant rises as their master rises, and falls as their master falls. In other words, the servant's status is determined by their master's status. Zhanying is Jingyan's deputy. When Jingyan's status was elevated, Zhanying naturally also assumed commandership over more troop divisions because those were allocated to the prince by the Liang Emperor. (There is no doubt in my mind that T******'s status as second-in-command is because of Prince Dion. He's too young to have earned that position by gradual promotion through meritorious accomplishment. Unless you're telling me that the knights dragoon don't have a single officer above age 30.) Zhanying is invaluable to Prince Jing in security, in warcraft, and in a variety of generic daily tasks. However, he is part of the rigid imperial system and lower in the hierarchy. He may persuade his lord, but he cannot order him. He may disagree, but he cannot defy. He may privately despise the Emperor/Empress, but he cannot show it and cannot act on it (literally treason). His role is to follow and obey. If he does not perform that role for whatever reason, he fundamentally negates his utility to his lord.

Ergo, endgame Jingyan is only possible because his true equal and soulmate, his real zhiji, came back to challenge the status quo. In fact, came back to challenge him. It is not merely the fact that this person understands him above all, it is also the fact that this person has the ability to act on that understanding. Jingyan is technically also Xiaoshu's prince, master, and eventual Emperor—so where is the difference?

The difference is, Lin Shu is comparable in nobility. Lin Shu is the cousin of princes and the incumbent Emperor's nephew, Lin Shu was raised amongst the imperial household, and played and studied and fought and hung out with them as peers of roughly equal rank. In this respect Joshua actually outstrips Lin Shu: Joshua is a prince by blood, and had Rosaria not fallen (especially if Sylvestre had not risen to the throne), would have been higher status than Dion. It's a massive pet peeve of mine that so many fans in XVI fandom don't seem to realise that Joshua was crown prince? Everybody knows Dion is crown prince, but do they realise Joshua is the original? In the English version prologue, the knights do call him "prince" and "your highness". The Rosarian throne is Joshua's by right of birth. At the time of their meeting as children, Joshua outranked Dion. They were equals as Dominants of their nation, but Dion back then was the child of a Cardinal and not the child of Sanbreque's ruler at that time; i.e. he was not a prince and not in line for the Sanbrequois throne.

The other wonderful similarity is Lin Shu's and Joshua's statuses as outsiders to the system when they reintroduce themselves to Jingyan/Dion. As Jingyan's strategist, Lin Shu has more leeway with regards to making his prince listen to him and take his advice. But importantly, he is now Mei Changsu, and that means he is able to play outside of the system. The imperial system effectively cast him out when it killed him. The strict codes of imperial conduct no longer chain him as they chain those confined within its structure. As a free agent unlike Zhanying, he has the right and privilege of choosing his own master. That includes the right to leave or to change his mind. And although the prince's strategist is supposed to be subordinate too, Xiaoshu would never truly be subordinate in the same fashion no matter how many times he bows his head, because at his core he is still high nobility and it still shines through despite everything. His manners are still perfect. He still navigates life with the easy expectation that people will serve him. He grabs the Duchess' hand and yells at Prince Jing and gloats at Marquis Ning. It's all the little ways that remind the audience, over and over, that this man was raised as a posh lordling. You can remove the boy from the upper class but you can't remove the upper class from the boy. It's the same with Joshua. His manners are still court-perfect. He still moves through life accepting that he will be served. He may bow his head to Dion and call him "your highness" but he also takes the liberty of throwing himself at Dion for a hug. Because to him, the prince is not some lofty and untouchable figure to be addressed with unfailing deference, he's just a friend.

(I know T****** is minor nobility, to be honest Zhanying definitely is too. The deputies of high level royals aren't going to be commoners. But I don't think I have to explain the gulf between ruling class/a close blood relative of the monarch versus lower nobility.)

Joshua too is an outsider that isn't beholden to Sanbreque's Emperor in the way that all of Dion and his knights owe their fealty. Again in this respect Joshua has it better than Xiaoshu—Joshua is his own sovereign master, and that should impact his perspective, his sense of self, and therefore his behaviour with others and how he navigates the world.

Gong Yu... I think anyone who's watched NIF will know exactly why I say that J***'s counterpart is Gong Yu lol. I think the s/h/u/a/t/e/s want her counterpart to be Princess (Duchess) Nihuang and they certainly produce fanwork in that vein, and I respect them for it because fans be doing what they love and hooray for that. But..... she's Gong Yu.

For all these reasons I am utterly obsessed with a Joshua that pushes back at Dion. The person able to challenge the status quo and challenge Dion. An equal who listens to Dion's absurd speech in the palace at Twinside and calls utter bullshit, who says, "A matter for the imperial family? are you joking? that's my mother, that's my younger brother. an imperial matter for you to resolve? say rather, our family, OUR problem to resolve. You don't get to go off half-cooked to arrest or kill my mother without actual political strategies, notwithstanding your military capability to launch a coup. And also, what about your dad? However much I love you, my darling Dion, we have to talk about the way that you insist on poor little meow meowing your awful father because my dear old mum didn't do Phoenix Gate alone and she for sure didn't immaculately conceive Olivier."

Endgame Dion isn't satisfactory in several glaring ways and it annoys me hugely that even unto the end he never grapples with and confronts the truth of his father instead of the idealised version that lives in his head. It's a little bizarre how Dion's arc is often praised by fans, since it feels very incomplete to me. Or, well, fine, perhaps just unsatisfying (since XVI simply isn't his story). His deep-seated need to be loved by his father prevents him from seeing anything clearly, which is so ironic for the only character to possess a third eye in canon? His honour and his might have been squandered in service to a selfish, uncaring, and objectively bad monarch, yet despite how earnestly Dion wants to be a good prince to his people he seems wholly incapable of recognising this fact? His mind repeatedly shies away from his father's shortcomings. In one scene he calls his father out for words befitting a tyrant, yet ultimately he persists in the belief that his father simply needs to be saved from Anabella's evil influence as if Sylvestre Lesage isn't a 50-year-old adult man who schemed his way to the throne and killed a woman's whole family and happily married that woman to beget legitimate offspring with her.

Soooo....... I've just spoiled the whole plot of my fic but it's really just NIF nonsense as usual and that is actually extremely predictable of me. But honestly the spoiling is not a big deal, because as with NIF, fundamentally my story is not meant to be plot-twisty and suspenseful—the real storytelling skill of the NIF drama is that the audience should be able to quickly grasp the overarching plot with no difficulty because the pleasure of this particular type of story is to watch the protagonist achieve their heart's desire, step by delicious step. The objective of this type of story is to properly pay off what it promises. NIF=the wronged protagonist seeks justice. We already know Lin Shu will obtain justice by the end of the tale, what we are here to enjoy is the journey! Same really for IEM I reckon; by the end of chapter 1 Joshua's goals should be really obvious, and since my little fic will have the happy ending tag because I only ever write happy endings, the audience basically knows he'll succeed—it's very much a journey not destination kind of story.

Ooof the post is crazy long and took me 3 nights to compose an answer and I haven't even managed to go into any TGCF elements but that work mainly contributes to characterisation instead of plot. One of the craziest XVI scenes was the Hideaway's sickbay after Twinside, the genuine regret Joshua expressed and how he blamed himself for not reaching out to Dion sooner; now the Empire and her prince lie in ruins etc. Surely he remembers this is the country that destroyed his own? Surely??? What kind of person, robbed of home and throne, can find it in himself to respond with so much empathy and kindness? Sanbreque has now experienced pretty much the same tragedy they inflicted on Rosaria two decades ago, and isn't that just the funniest parody of divine retribution? Instead of viewing this as Sanbreque's just deserts, Joshua Rosfield pities them and wishes he could have helped them avert this disaster.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wonderfully Xie Lian-coded. Something something someone who has been through the worst and nevertheless chooses goodness and kindness. Someone who intimately understands the ugliest and lowest depths that people sink to, yet refuse to lose themselves in that temptation even when vengeance would seem perfectly justified.

You've known for a long time now that I love a Joshua who is very similar to his mother. This is why lol. It's about that delicious, delicious contrasting foil. It is the difference between Jun Wu & Xie Lian, as it is the difference between Anabella & Joshua. That the indestructible integrity we see from Xie Lian or Joshua didn't come easy, they weren't born perfect, their ethics were tested and forged and earned through suffering the likes of which most people will never know. The person that they have each become is the sum of their choices actively made. In the canon of TGCF and XVI, both of these ex-crown-princes live on in disgrace, in circumstances best described as reduced and humiliating, their respective kingdoms fallen, their wealth and glory spent—but they are better and braver human beings than everyone around them, they are beautiful and noble souls, quiet and unacknowledged, and only Hua Cheng and Dion truly see and fully understand that (and therefore cannot help but love them utterly).

I've a few more thoughts regarding Joshua swirling around as captured in other Xie Lian posts: here, here, here, and here. Not sure if you know TGCF or are into it as well, but just leaving links to those posts here for my own benefit too. I've been gravitating towards phoenixflare comparisons in various hualian meta posts since early 2024 so clearly these concepts have been stewing in my head for some duration, but I haven't fully teased out what it is about these two ships that gives me that niggling sense of connecting similarities.

^ Whereas I clearly know exactly what it is about JingSu that makes me point and holler "THEM!"

[mellowwhumps]

Whumperless Whump Event Day 15: Passing out | Exhaustion | “I’ve got you, let’s sit down, I’ve got you.”

OCs: Twelve, Ida (AU)

@whumperless-whump-event

——

It’s wrong, the way they wake up. Cold. Normal. Not sick. They weren’t supposed to wake up.

It takes a long time for them to be conscious enough to register their surroundings, and even then, they don’t recognize where they are. They don’t remember. A blur of calm clouds their mind, foggy yet peaceful; a state they were more than used to.

Rubbing their eyes, they scramble to sit up. There’s so much energy in their limbs, unfatigued. The only thing that refused to cooperate was their voice, a choked, small little thing. 

Not that anyone ever knew what they were saying, whatever foreign language they were using. Not that they knew what the others were saying, either. That was why everyone thought they were a lost cause.

The place looked sterile enough to resemble the hospital, at least. A large pod lies in the corner, dormant, the only anomalous thing here they didn’t recognize. 

“Hello. How do you feel?”

They understand that. They understood all of that. Wrong accent, perhaps, but undoubtedly unrecognizable. The calm dissipates in no less than a second. They scramble to put both feet on the floor, taking a cautious step back.

Their knees buckle. Their legs give out. Their breath hitches, and for a moment, they wonder if they’ll breathe in again. The person speaking rushes forward in a burst of energy, catching them as they stumble, muttering something foreign.

They thought it was over. Lying on the table, waking up, they felt well. They thought they could—

“Let’s sit down, I’ve…I’ve got you, okay? You don’t just—” Something else unintelligible to them. “Context. I’m not going to hurt you. This isn’t where you were. Remember me?”

At the very least, they recall that. The volunteer back there, the one that took interest in them. They don’t really know what to say, so what comes out ends up being more of a squeak rather than the question, “Why?”

The other understands. He hesitates for a while, hand to his chin in thought, before answering, “I don’t know. Felt like it.”

“Nobody cared about me. Why should you?”

“Helped you, didn’t I? Took me months, sure, but you should feel fine right now, if my method worked. Even if your muscles need time to get used to it. Would you rather I lie to you or you stay back there—”

“…Months?” Months. Months of an unknown. Even with fairly photographic memory, they remember falling asleep yesterday and waking up today, not…not months. Everything about this was wrong.

Their head throbs; piercing, sharp, familiar. Distantly, they think the person says something, yet their own thoughts overwhelm them, chasing his voice away from their cohesion.

No, they think, hanging on to that final shred of strength as their eyes grow heavy. They don’t want to fall asleep. They don’t want to see more of that nothingness ever again. 

Yet, slumping over and feeling the not-stranger’s soft touch, they find themselves not resisting the fading of their consciousness.

[lizzieraindrops]

hi send me your eris/ikora ficlet prompts!

i haven't taken fic prompts in a long time, but the seasonal story moves too fast for me to fully write and edit a full fic about it that i'm content with. and i Need to write some erikora immediately.

send me any non-expl!cit prompts (i'm too ace for that lol) and if i like it, i'll write it! you may get anything from a ficlet of a few hundred words to a few thousand depending on how much it tickles my brain.

i specialize in hurt/comfort and angst/fluff, but i'm open to anything. my fave eris headcanons are ace, autistic, and demiromantic; fave headcanons for ikora are trans, adhd, and aromantic spectrum

happy season of the witch women, everyone

[gracefullou]

Losing braincells just reading the replies 😭

[puppetmaster13u]

Thinkin' of WOF Au for DC, but like, it's a Gothamite and Fawcett thing. (And Amity Park if crossover)

Like those are the most magical areas in the world, even if Gotham is cursed as fuck. An unspoken secret of sorts that while they present themselves as human to outsiders, they are all Very Much Not.

Which means hilariously in the league, when everyone expects Batman to be suspicious and short with the new guy- even made bets on it- they are then shooketh when both visibly relax and start talking. And half the shared complaints don't make sense!

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Now Gotham technically has no Queen, nor does Fawcett, but Batman and Captain Marvel are the closest things. Not in the traditional sense of back when they were in separate tribes (& maybe from a different dimension but shh that was millennia ago) but in the sense of, they're the ones patrolling and protecting the cities along with calling the shots in disasters.

Which does sort of change the dynamic they both have in their city. If one of them calls to arms, the city would follow them. They could declare war, and their cities (begrudgingly in Gotham's underbelly's case of strongest is in charge) would follow. And while Billy is oblivious, both Marvel-the-not-hivemind and Batman are. They know they have to be very careful.

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I'm sure we all want Nightwing Bruce but no. Bruce, like both his mother and father and father's father and so on before him, is actually an Icewing. The Waynes however, have a case of melanism running in their bloodline. Thomas Wayne? Only his quills and part of his back were darker, but Bruce? Practically pitch black scales that shadow his eyes.

Now Alfred on the other hand, is a Nightwing. No special powers there, though you would hear many a child protest with how he seems to know everything.

Commissioner Gordon is a Mudwing, big stocky and very tired, which translates to his human disguise as a large trenchcoat. He finds this very amusing. Barbara similarly, is half Mudwing. Her mother was a Hivewing, making her a hybrid between both. Which does ironically mean that Batgirl does in fact have insectoid wings. Though that does ponder the question on if they'd all go by their original vigilante names.

Dick is a Silkwing. Wingless as he watches his parents fall and unable to do anything despite this place supposedly being safe for beings like them. He grows into his own, and his wings, when they come in, are dark Gotham colors through and through, with the deep blue of the sky he's come to crave.

Jason is a hybrid between a Mudwing and a Skywing. He's also an animus- not that he knew that. He doesn't find out until he's dying, telling himself to not die, to get back to Gotham, to his dad, his family- And then he wakes up in his Coffin, alive.

Now Cass, raised to be the perfect killer, is also a hybrid, just one between a Nightwing and a Rainwing, egg set out under the moon. Which succeeds, partially. She can't straight up read minds, but combined with her talent in reading body language on both human and inhuman bodies, it's a near thing.

Tim is a Seawing, borderline abandoned by his parents who seek treasures and more wealth as he's trapped back in a city where the water is dark and poisoned. But he's Gothamite, through and through, and he adapts. Scales darker than the original blues he was born with, and glow shifting to that sickly white of the Gotham's Bats.

Now Steph, is a full-blooded Rainwing, and can in fact change her scales, but can mostly be found in purples and golds. Though for a short time she was in another set of colors, thought dead before she slithered out of the shadows older and wiser than before.

Damian is his father's son, but he's also an Al-Ghul. The not-quite dragonet is half Icewing, and half Sandwing. And struggled to adjust at first, to a place so different from his first home where the only other dragons were blood related. But like any Wayne before him, he adjusts, and he adapts.

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Billy wasn't a Beetlewing originally, and perhaps he would have hesitated if he'd known it would change him, would change his body and the last thing he had of his parents. But his friends, his Team and new family help. And he can pass as a Silkwing like their sort-of foster mother. All six of them can do so now, even if the others look more like hybrids themselves thanks to not being the Champion. They might not be, but they're his family. And that's enough.

[victorluvsalice]

-->So -- after having some of their Winterfest spirit literally go up in smoke, it's no wonder that the trio wanted to go chill out -- somewhat literally. Victor retreated into his greenhouse to do the daily harvest, while Smiler made sure the chickens were well-fed and Alice did a little snow-shoveling to build up the old muscles. I'd just had them drop and make a couple of snow angels to try and recapture the fun they'd been having before the tree fire --

-->When who should I spot inside but one Clement Frost, adding presents to the present pile! I sent Smiler to go say hi to him and tell him about their weirdass day (though they ended up having to chase him to the foot of the front porch stairs, as for some reason he decided to hang out there molding some clay) while Alice joined Victor in the greenhouse, chatting with a gnome while Victor finished off his harvest. And then getting a lovely mistletoe kiss from him, as we can't do one couple and not the other! :) No matter what else happened today, at least everyone in the trio got their seasonally-appropriate smooches!

-->And then it was time to start asking Clement Frost for gifts! ...a process that took far longer than it should have, because the FIRST time Alice and Victor asked for their gifts, while the tradition completed, the interaction did not. I'm not ENTIRELY sure what broke it, but I think it had something to do with Alice and Victor standing at the TOP of the stairs to the porch when they asked, with Clement standing at the BOTTOM of the stairs and refusing to move at all. All I know is that Smiler, standing next to them, got theirs right away, while it took me trying to get everyone to go to the present pile to prompt Alice and Victor to receive theirs -- which only happened when Clement actually got up on the porch. *shakehead* This game, sometimes...but everyone DID get a gift from Clement in the end! And what did they receive?

...Smiler got ANOTHER big-ass karaoke machine; Alice got the giant microscope; and Victor got a fancy fridge that was not as good as the one they currently own. *facepalm* Clement, Smiler only needs ONE karaoke machine, Alice has no room for a giant microscope, and we already have all the fridges we could ever need, both at the store and the house. I guess we can safely say that Clement does NOT check HIS list twice! At least, not when it comes to figuring out what people already have or not.

-->Okay, well, that didn't go great -- surely the trio would get better presents from the present pile? I had them all gather around said pile (which took a couple of tries, as poor Victor was exhausted and Alice kept trying to wander off to play with clay) and open some presents. Smiler got a bowl of fruit (another thing we already have in the kitchen); Alice received some alcineat (either a new metal or mineral, I'm not sure -- at least it's not something she had before!); and Victor --

Uh. No clue. He had a disappointed face after opening the present, and no pop-up ever came up for him that I could see. As far as I could tell, the poor guy got an empty box. :( This Winterfest had gone pretty much completely from "awesome" to "awful."

-->However, I was determined to go out on SOMETHING of a high note, so Smiler and Victor got some heartfelt smooches and Alice and Victor some loving cuddles before the holiday was through. Because I WAS going to get my Valicer cuteness, damn it. Victor and Alice then slumped off to bed as Clement Frost took his leave, and I left it with Smiler transferring the Sim Scuffle LP they'd recorded earlier off the drone and into their media production station so it could be edited. Because when in doubt, work on SimsTube. :p

And that's it! Join me next time when, despite MULTIPLE blizzards and other sundry problems, WE FINALLY OPEN THE FUCKING GROCERY STORE. See you then!

[hourcat]

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