#4kingdoms stuff

[misiwrites]

i should be in bed already but had to stick to my word (to myself) of updating today also so here i am

max is not having a good day. again. in fact his days are becoming worse

Chapter 89: Genbu-ou XXIII A spasm startled me awake. I blinked, vision blurry, mind in a haze. I was on the carpet, on my stomach, and it took a good minute of racking my brain to remember why. Beside me sat two computers with their screens propped up, one with the unfinished notes for a report due tomorrow, the other with a newsfeed filled with headlines about all the weather abnormalities – excessive flooding, record summer snowfalls, the world had gone all kinds of crazy lately. I considered continuing the report, then slammed the computer flat against the floor, my interest waning – with a headache building, I could hardly process a single word. I rolled over to my back and stared at the night sky in the ceiling, deep and dark, shrouded in clouds with the yellow sickle of the crescent Moon. It was spinning anticlockwise ever so slowly.

[four-kingdom-em]

Here is Leonardo! A main character of this story! The destined King of Hykoo!

So glad to get the ball rolling in actually getting all the main characters drawn ^^

[misdre]

might do a wild thing and actually study/practice some drawing-related stuff in peace for a while. idk why but i'm having such a hard time finding any softer brushes that actually work in infinite painter, but i also kinda don't want to change to some other app now.....

kinda same with writing where i thought i'd start slow by actually going back to some story other than 4kingdoms to warm up my rusty writing skills slowly, lol. seriously i'm not convinced i know how to write anymore

[misiwrites]

i said i would do another update this week, so here it is. a shortie about kai. (it's for building up the suspense, y'all)

Chapter 85: Suzaku-ou IX I stared at the ocean, at the never-ending crimson march of the waves below. I counted the rhythm of their foaming crests that rose and fell like a beating heart, kept staring until I realised I was chewing on the nib of my pen. I tasted metal and the salt of the ocean on my dry tongue.

[misiwrites]

we diggin' deep into the west now. hold onto your pants boys

Chapter 83: Byakko-ou XXV My legs grew root in the carpet of my room. The whole world had stopped breathing with me. I watched in astonished silence as the splash was followed by something emerging from the pond, back to the surface. No, not something. Someone.

[misiwrites]

i hope to have a double update to throw, a max chapter tomorrow to accompany this kai one that leaves things just sort of hanging because i sure love all these hangings. from cliffs. anyway this is kai doing his kai things.

Chapter 88: Suzaku-ou X The weather of early Harvestmoon was abysmal. As used as I was to the Hellish heat of this country, I certainly never grew any more affectionate with it. I wiped a bead of sweat off my brow with the back of a drawn hand. Then I fixed my aim, pulled slightly back, and released the bowstring. The arrow shot forward and landed smack-dab in the middle of the yellow bull’s eye, joining several of its earlier comrades, it was getting busy in that circle. I lowered the bow and examined the distance between my feet and the target boss. A couple hundred feet… I could still go further back. And to my right, Yuriy was perched atop the stairs leading down to the archery range, watching over me like a gargoyle.

[misiwrites]

today i bring another fun takao chapter! at least writing it was fun, idk about reading. that's secondary in importance

also it's my week off so i may be dropping multiple chapters this week, or at least one more because 85 is a really short chapter.

Chapter 84: Seiryuu-ou XXVIII The muddy waters of disappointment I’d been wading might have passed, but I did end up sending Max a tight message asking what his deal with Kai was. It only felt fair to openly admit how I didn’t like them talking about my family behind my back.

[misiwrites]

another short max chapter. a shortie but importie. that i may have put here just in order to lengthen the tension of the cliffhanger ending of the previous chapter but luckily you don't know that

Chapter 82: Genbu-ou XXII Snow Glory felt oddly muted without Giancarlo constantly on my tail. I was so used to him running his mouth by my side, now the quiet of his absence was deafening.

[misiwrites]

random day to update again but i don't care. today i bring you western shenanigans with the new member of the court (...and rei being excessively melodramatic. as usual. he can't help it)

Chapter 87: Byakko-ou XXVI As expected, Olivier wasn’t thrilled about the turn of events. And, as expected, he learnt to live with it. (Or you could say I forced him to, but same difference.)

[misiwrites]

i took a little break from updating, now slowly getting back to it!

Chapter 86: Seiryuu-ou XXIX One glance right, one left, then I slipped to the narrow alleyway. As always, I didn’t run into anyone on this unremarkable backroad, a liminal space squeezed between the concrete wall of an overpass and the backsides of several small businesses, including the Saien noodle shop. The alley was mostly used for garbage collection. The cobblestones glistened under the streetlamps, it had been raining earlier. “Heeeey! I’m here!” I greeted my friend once I’d reached the unlocked backdoor of the Saien household.

[misiwrites]

4KINGDOMS RE-READ ADVENTURE part 8

Chapter 33: the tyka hide-and-seek

this one got a pretty banging opening paragraph ngl

takao's daily hobby is just running around the garden finding kai. then talking to him. and kai is like fuck off. and takao is like ok :) i'll come again tomorrow! (and he does)

ralf's been setting up traps for miguel in the castle AJSDBHGD i forgot

so eventually takao is like wait. why do i always know where kai is. YER A WIZARD TARRY

the scene of him finding kai in the labyrinth is cooler than i remembered, pleasant surprise

this was a well written chapter. i got nothing to say. pleased

Chapter 34: the elders promise rei a reality tv appearance

yes we are back to rei unfortunately

it's the second time he talks about himself as a zoo animal. on brand. i mean white tigers are very rare

rei finds a library book that talks about some ancient king having invented the qiang spear fighting and he's like HA HA! FUNNY JOKE! AS IF A BYAKKO-OU COULD BE DOING THAt

oh lol rei thinking that he'll be able to do whatever he wants when he turns 18. you think! i have bad news for you

also rei feeling like he's been abandoned in the palace, better get used to that too. it feels weird reading this now after having worked on the newest byakko-ou chapters because here rei is still all preserved about olivier and doesn't like him much. but he does like the elders enough still to start talking to them in the council

holy shit rei is such an ass, talking shit about both olivier and mathilda here left and right

always thought myself it's fucking funny that daitenji is one of the elders. like idk what kind of role you'd expect him to have but here he is. a tool

this also was actually an interesting chapter, i can't believe i've written good things sometimes. a lot of tension thrown around between the elders and olivier and rei here. i can see this is where i was starting to plan the story much more systematically than before, probably started using my physical notebook for musing

Chapter 35: romantic tyka apple tree garden date (that involves blood)

takao: it was almost funny that kai carried me out of the garden like a princess! but not quite.

AGAIN WITH THE COTTON (CANDY) CLOUDS

takao keeps having weird experiences in the garden and kai is like, it's your magic. and takao is like i don't have magic, and kai is like yes you do. and takao is like no i don't. and kai is like yes you do and this is why. and takao is like wow you said more than 5 words to me in a row

takao is adorable being like "i thought i was pretty mature for having accepted that i didn't have any magic even though i'd been SO disappointed about it earlier!" yes you are a good mature boy. when you let yourself process things first which you never do

okay here, my favourite line that i have ever written, when takao takes a good grip on ryuushinken and gives it a pull. put this in as the quote when you in the future refer to me as a famous author with beautiful prose:

It slid out like sausage in gravy.

Chapter 36: rei gets his ass handed to him by sir livliv

takao is having a mental breakdown over his magic because it's SO uncool, but also over kai leaving soon (or so he thinks)

rei's life is boring and slow again, is it ever anything but

i sure had fun coming up with what kinds of metal-related magic rei's ancestors had. one of them is just uri geller. the one who ate coins was fun

olivier is trying to make rei LOOK AT THE FOLDER! LOOK AT THE FUCKING FOLDER YOUR MAJESTY!!!! and rei is like i can't i'm gay. and runs off to have a call with max

wowow max being like I WOULDN'T MIND FAKE BEING SICK AGAIN SO I COULD LIE IN BED FOR A FEW DAYS! be careful what you wish for in my fic. idiot

he also calls rick "a little bitch"

max telling about his adventures in okkusu like yeah rick was a total ass, we didn't get along at all, hated everything about it. then we had a big fight. now we are friends. and takao's reaction is "Fastest way to a dude’s heart is to punch him in the face"

rei getting all jealous that max has people other than him in his life. it sure is a struggle to be a rei in love.

it's also a struggle to be a rei being told by olivier that he's a stupid little shit who thought he could do things behind his knight's back while olivier knew everything all along

and then this line probably exists in about 100 different variations in the story, because rei never learns

Olivier seemed to read right into my thoughts – which he always did, and would always do, and truthfully I had been a complete fool for ever forgetting the extent of his powers of observation.

so, like takao&ralf, rei&olivier have a nice little king&knight moment of promising each other they'll share everything with each other from now on. and then they actually do! unlike ralf and takao

this chap was not well written tho. it probably took me two hours to go on a quest to fix just about every part of this in some way. i wasn't a good writer after all, emergency over everyone can go home

Chapter 37: max is back

and he was supposed to be all mature and let his feelings for rei fade away but he comes back and is like I FOCKIN MISSED HIM!!!!!!!!!

Ah, well. That only meant that I would have to start over. (But I allowed myself to admire his sad, beautiful face for just a bit longer first.)

i know right. who doesn't love a beautiful sadface

giancarlo being all proud that he got to solve a thing with olivier. he also in love.

gianni is surprisingly smart in this chap and tells max he should focus on the north instead of going around trying to fix rei or whatever. fair. he's also the one suggesting that. you know your highness. why don't you just go to the west to meet the other kings. and max is like. it's not as fun as repeatedly risking my life for rei tho

[misiwrites]

4KINGDOMS RE-READ ADVENTURE part 9

damn nine parts of this shit and i'm almost at the half point mark.

this one is kind of quote-heavy now that i look at it all together

Chapter 38: an extension to kai's eastern warranty

the duality of takao first going YESYESYES I HAVE MAGIC!!! then a second later noNONONO I HAVE MAGIC

the semicolons. they are running so wild in this chapter. i was really in love with the semicolon for a while i see.

the descriptions of nightmares that takao has about his family dying afterwards are pretty grim. boy are you okay. i actually went and edited the details out because it was weirdly specific and out of place here, no takao is not supposed to have some kind of death clairvoyance

ralf getting his panties in a twist over takao sleeping in a different room for once. they are both simpletons aren't they

gramps tells takao and kai he's all happy that kai has requested staying in cherrywood for a bit longer!! :) yay!!! and takao is like no he didn't. and kai is like no i didn't

this sentence here is its own art form that i don't know the name of

I, too busy with the carousel of questions, theories and worst case scenarios playing round and round in my head to enjoy myself, was feeling uncomfortable; Kai, who only enjoyed attention if he was holding some weapon in his hand, looked uncomfortable; Ralf, who had been looking forward to getting rid of Kai, looked uncomfortable; Miguel, whose glassy stare as well as the dark shadows under his eyes gave him the appearance of a zombie, looked uncomfortable; the guests, who had arrived under the assumption that they would be watching Kai leave and were now forced to celebrate him staying after all, looked uncomfortable; the reporters and journalists, who had arrived at the scene to broadcast Kai’s departure on live television and now had nothing but footage of a bunch of nobles eating cake for three hours, looked uncomfortable; the only one clearly enjoying himself was Gramps, who was having a jolly good time with several pints of beer and his female secretaries (who, you guessed it, looked uncomfortable but humoured the old bastard nevertheless).

it's kind of a mouthful. i'd say.

i forgot there's a bit about takao crashing into kai and kai just fucking. hauling him over his shoulder and pressing him on the floor and takao is like wow i need to do this more often while kai tells him to not do that ever again

…as part of the first hint about kai knowing hitoshi. this scene is a bit weird

kai ALMOST gets honest with takao but miguel cockblocks their moment DAMMIT

this chapter really illustrates that takao's got one lively inner voice doing constant monologue to himself LMAO

i don't know if i'm just drunk or if the chapter is no good. but it took me ages to edit it over and over and over and over. this gay judo throw scene in particular

Chapter 39: rei overcomes a stage fright

cute. he gonna give a speech.

i was dreading re-reading this chapter a bit because i remembered struggling with this speech thing and it's one of those things i just kind of didn't want to read ever again but. well it's not so bad. i think i'll go edit it a little to make it more pro-liberation movement since i've alluded to such a thing multiple times afterwards but the actual speech doesn't give much for that purpose now that i look at it. a well

mao decides she wants to throw a soiree and a formal ball and rei is just no. nope. don't want it. but i will suffer through it

rei didn't realise his speech would be on youtube. the entire world has now seen his face. and max is just

This was so much worse than I had realised. Nobody told me there’d be something like an online stream that could be watched abroad. “Wow, the Elders are going to kill me,” I said and leaned my forehead on my hand. “Not if you kill them first,” said Max in a cheerful manner, encouraging in the way that only Max could be.

okay but there was exactly 1 grammar mistake to fix, 1 spelling i changed, and 2 mild edits to word order in this chapter and that's it. that's all the edits it needed. not a particularly good chapter but impressively complete as it is.

Chapter 40: max gets roasted by the heterosexuals, again

i can't believe this is chapter 40 and almost nothing has happened in this fic.

this line

“Well, I have a feeling that it’s not gonna be a problem,” Takao then said. “The evil geezer is real desperate to get Kai to befriend all of us. I can’t imagine he’s anything but pleased to complete the royal castle bingo for Kai.”

takao is just, inviting kai to the west on his own and max is like. maybe you should. like. ask him first whether he even wants to go tho. and takao is like /shrugs

wow judy telling max It's about time we also got you a woman to "keep you at bay" because you are such a shitty rascal, son! and then she's trying to pair him up with emily and mariam as if that would help

max's violent urges to first stick a fork up giancarlo's nose, then to make his eyes pop out of his head. max.

i always liked this little outburst from max that just boils down to him being like I'M GAY AS FUCK AND A GOOD SPECIAL BOI. NOT SOME HET NORMIE

I wouldn’t, for the death of me, have admitted it in that very moment, but the reason behind this unplanned outburst of words wasn’t so much being mad at my mother and Giancarlo as it was me regarding my feelings for Rei as something much more noble, pure, somehow sublime (and, indeed, mature) than a plain, run-of-the-mill relationship with a girl of my mother’s choice. The mere idea of it was degrading to me. How dare anyone think I was so simple, so ordinary? And I, who had promised myself to forget all about my feelings for Rei in the first place, drowned out this truth by shouting insults over it.

a short one but i think a pretty good one. i feel like a lot of max chapters are like that. how could that be not because he's my fave or anything, science side of tumblr?????

Chapter 41: takao dreams of adventures

takao's starting to realise there are actually uses for plant magic! then he proceeds to forget about all that to obsess over summoning seiryuu

max trying to explain to takao how to summon a beast and takao is just HE'S SUCH A SMARTASS. I WANNA KICK HIS ASS

ha ha takao casually dropping here that he's wondering if kai can even summon suzaku…….. haha

fucking roasting rei though

Max had enough sympathy for everyone, but I had to admit that I was personally thinking that Rei was not only stupid but a coward for not even trying to summon Byakko when he could.

and it's not even rude. because he's right

ralf accidentally feeding takao the idea of leaving to look for his family like hitoshi did….. tsk… then takao is like oh hell yeah. once i can summon seiryuu, i can go on adventures with max and maybe kai and also rei when he "STOPS BEING A SISSY"

johann polishing ralf's boots. and it has nothing to do with anything

Chapter 42: i didn't even name this i got nothing. it's reimax.

the elders have kicked rei out of the weekly council and he's just TOO BAD! I HATED IT ANYWAY

this chapter is kind of boring tbh i got nothing to say and this is also where i had to go and fix rei being all SAY WHAAT I HAVE METAL MAGIC because he literally said in some early chapter that metal is his element. in other news i'm an idiot.

but this is a good bit

We kept talking about magic to the late night hours, including what Max knew about the magic of the past Genbu-ous, and it did sound like it was in line with what I had read about my ancestors; it seemed that the further away you went in history, the more mundane the kings’ powers became, as if we, the current generation, had somehow accumulated all the wisdom throughout time and turned into a mutated specimen with incredibly complex and multi-purpose magic powers in comparison to where the earliest kings had started from.

[misiwrites]

4KINGDOMS RE-READ ADVENTURE part 7

it's getting................ ! not hot in here. it's actually getting a bit stale. but the quest must continue

Chapter 28: max gets bitchslapped

i realised maybe yesterday that giancarlo really just fails at his job as max's knight over and over and over again in this story and in this chapter he does it again. he let everyone know that max sneaked out and didn't do anything to cover up for him whatsoever HAHHAHAHA

so max gets back home. sick. tired. and judy comes over and bitch slaps him to oblivion

judy also says giancarlo is going to take orders from her and tarou from now on i---- i'm not sure if i've remembered this. AH WELL i mean probably yeah. maybe? um

okay this bit made me almost feel a little bad

I had never seen Mama like this. She had never spoken to me like this. She had never called me stupid and worthless like this. It didn't feel real. It couldn't be real. Was this really Mama? The same Mama who had been so understanding only one day earlier? Did I deserve this? Had I done something so bad that she would hate me for it?

aw. poor max. :) /rubbing my filthy hands together in satisfaction

Chapter 29: takao and kai have a Very Exciting Fencing Match!!!

takao is all pumped practicing for a match against kai. and then it just suddenly is the fencing match day?? this pacing man. so i write these pointless chapters about rei and max just kind of gazing in each other's eyes and holding hands but i jump entire weeks of takao&kai progression forward because i want them to fight. this may honestly be more flattering to tyka than reimax. because rei and max progress at fucking snail pace even when they are gay w each other from like day one (or. day two. day one rei was calling max a hobo)

takao being like, i could immediately tell tourists apart from locals because of them Acting Rather Foolishly! is hilarious, also real

and then kyouju tries to use the Power of Friendship on kai but he. i laughed a bit too much at this

At one point Professor, who was also present with his parents, came to talk to me by our table; and he tried greeting Kai as well, saying how he’d heard a lot about him from me. Kai only granted him a questioning glare that was enough to make Professor shake in his boots and hurriedly wobble away with an apology.

a little pathetic that this is probably the most action-packed chapter of the fic to the date. you won't get anything this exciting anymore

this is also a not very well written chapter, as in it has a whole lot of straight-up typos, i guess i got too into it while writing the match HAHAHA

kai is a little shit who uses magic to fly and dodge takao's strike, and takao is like, wow he can fly i'm so in love. and then he also wants to fly for the rest of the story

takao wins! and he's so happy to have won in front of his own proud people! yay.

then the crazy storm wind happens and takao stops it by yelling out seiryuu's name, i always thought this was a nifty little scene myself. a bit short-lived but, it works i think.

this chapter is too stretched out tho. i should have cut it at the end before the part with kai looking at the paintings and then showing takao that he can also do fire magic, but i know i didn't because it takes place on the same day still. this is a lot of information packed into just this one chapter

Chapter 30: rei's number one enemy, internalised heteronormativity

this chapter starts off by takao complaining about kai having called him an idiot as the last line of the previous chapter, okay that makes the drawn-out end worth it

max has taken a hike to visit rick and doesn't seem to be coming back. byeeee

i can see the quality of my writing slipping here and i wonder why. like it's not bad, but there's a lot of… well idk, it just doesn't sound good. it's pretty dull, lots of poor punctutation choices. i did an elimination operation to semicolons

mao comes over to fangirl over a wedding catalogue and rei is like please shoot me in the head this sucks ass

the way i've portrayed mao in this early story is kind of icky. like she's very wifey with rei. just taking care of things for him and talking about marriage and clothes and fancy parties and she brings rei food and the list goes on. i've tried patching it up later by improving her role in the story but uuuuh yes. not sure what my thought process here was making it this way. maybe it's the internalised heteronormativity

Chapter 31: kai swinging weapons with his strong muscular arms, takao reacts like any normal boy would, i.e. damn he's hot

it's good that the takao stuff starts picking up here. also thinly veiled sword euphenisms. kai likes them long and thin. takao's is a bit curved.

the first line of this is better written than the entirety of the previous chapter

takao witnesses miguel descent into becoming a coffee addict i guess

max sends a postcard with a picture of. what takao calls. hairy cows

a lot of small things going on in this chapter. takao has a lot of frustration for kai being so cool and handsome and ripped with a sword in hand okay wow that got very gay very fast. takao leads kai right to ryuushinken and also tells him what it is like the fool in love he is

there was this real long ramble about some other city at the end of this, unrelated to anything and it didn't fit the pace of this already poorly paced chapter at all. i just eliminated most of it. like a semicolon

Chapter 32: rei is squeaky clean now

what are you gonna serve me this time rei. not much. unnecessarily detailed descriptions of how the purification period ends. why did i write this

olivier stress-baking macarons is the best detail in here

i swear rei choosing that he wants to wield a spear is not another phallic euphenism ...or is it

i'm honestly not sure where i was going with this thing about a fake byakko-ou crown having the gem of byakko on it. this is one of the very few details i flat out forgot what its purpose was. feeling a bit too lazy to change it at this point since this has existed like this for so long now. it also feels weird to have a description of rei's crown in the story but nobody else's. but um. (i changed the description entirely btw. it was so dry. this chapter is a raisin)

this is one boring ass chapter. nothing happens in it. the mention of byakko's stone is honestly the only relevant fact in here, i mean apart from macarons

this chapter's comments are full of "PLEASE UPDATEEEEE PLEASE MORE TYKA" fuck offe i hope you never got your tyka. bye

[four-kingdom-em]

I figured out the gist of the ruling crown last week? How about I put them on the actual rulers of Dagenhold 💀

I can say that the perspective and dimension of the crown on the head was so much harder than I thought 💀

Regardless, here’s three generations of the Ruler of Dagenhold! King Adonis 🦚, Queen Astrid 🎶, and Queen Rosetta 🌹 :)

[four-kingdom-em]

Been jumping around different things about this world. This week just so happened to be a general determination of what the ruling crowns of Dagenhold looks like and what Rosetta’s “casual” military clothing looks like.

I have so much I want to draw out and figure out but so little time lol

[misdre]

For W.I.P fanfiction game: dance

hehee thank you! that's a fun one, there's a lot of mentions about dancing in 4kingdoms. i assume the purpose of this meme is to use WIP chapters that haven't been posted yet, though i was totally prepared to go search in posted stuff... well anyway, this is takao and kyouju discussing magic in a WIP chapter. (the next takao one in order, actually)

I could tell he had thought about this a whole lot since our trip to the dance show. “That thing about music made more sense than any of Max and Rei’s ramblings about how they use and learn magic. They make it sound so easy, like you just grab a thing and focus and the powers flow out of you. But – I could grab a guitar, and there wouldn’t be any music flowing out of me.” “Precisely. And playing an instrument, or singing opera, or competing in a professional sport – it all looks awfully magical to most people, doesn’t it? [...]"