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yujeong · 5 months ago

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Pete's fever wasn't going down. It wasn't really Pete's fault. He had started eating more regularly, even if slowly to not upset his stomach. (He didn't want to vomit his insides all over the duvet again. It hadn't been a pleasant experience.) He had started sleeping more, too, and even though it had mostly been accompanied by disturbing dreams and could be described as anything but nourishing, at least it was something. This wasn't really Vegas' fault, either. Well. It was. It was difficult to explain, and Pete didn't quite have the mental capacity or the patience to make Vegas understand why he hadn't magically healed in a day thanks to a bowl of noodles, a couple of pills and some bandages wrapped around his torso. In all honesty, that was a lie. Despite Pete's reluctance to admit it, he had been way more patient that he should have. More than he could sustain. Today, his patience seemed to be at its limit. Pete didn't let it show - he never did, he couldn't afford to, not even now - but he could feel it brewing under his skin. The urge to snap at an anxious Vegas hovering above him with blood-shot eyes and trembling limbs was big and tempting, but Pete knew better than to succumb to it. He simply closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose, trying to forget about it. Vegas, of course, wouldn't allow that. "Pete," he heard Vegas whisper. When he didn't respond, Vegas said it again, louder. "Pete. Hey, look at me." Pete did. "Do you not hate me?" Pete didn't answer. "Don't you want to kill me?" Pete sighed. He refused. H wouldn't give Vegas the satisfaction. "How would you do it?" This was starting to get irritating. "Vegas-" "Tell me, Pete. What would you do? Would you use your hands or a weapon?" Pete couldn't escape this. He realized when he looked at the pure desperation in Vegas' eyes. "I'm a bodyguard, aren't I?" he foolishly said, his voice breaking slightly. He lifted his head and stared at the ceiling. He could picture it; him wearing his uniform, blowing Vegas' brains out with his gun. The image brought him no satisfaction. Only a faint sense of dread he couldn't rationalize. Vegas' humming snapped him out of it. "Yes, I can see that. I can't imagine you using a knife, though." Pete felt slightly offended by that comment for some reason. "Why? Don't you think I have the guts?" "It's too... emotional a choice for you. You wouldn't use it to kill me." Right. Pete huffed in amusement. "I guess you're right. I'm not like you." This did the trick. Pete could feel the effect of his words, the hostility Vegas was emitting. It gave him goosebumps, despite the temperature of the room. The sound of the door closing harshly made him flinch, a racing heartbeat remaining for a while afterwards. It didn't bother him. He was finally left alone. It didn't matter if he'd manage to get better or not. If only Vegas could see that.

(A snippet inspired by a scene in the movie "Eileen")

#I would have apologized about my random “Eileen” gifset spam #but as you can see the movie inspired me in a lot of ways #unbelievable how that happened #my VP brainrot is so bad you guys #anyway this is barely edited and looks sloppy in my eyes but it's midnight and I'm tired so take it as it is #I'm in my safehouse feels lately if you couldn't tell #Vegas wanting Pete to kill him so so so so SO badly fascinates me #and especially in this concept how he's craving Pete's animalistic fury on him #because it's a sign Pete is getting better #because it's a sign he hasn't failed in nourishing him back to health #because they can return to their initial performance (they can't)#(they could never)#(and both of them know it)#addicting it's simply addicting #vegaspete #yu is writing

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rinbylin · 1 year ago

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friendships as marital ties (and other notes on relational ties) in mlc

this is sort of a third installment in the series of meta on 'mlc as an exemplar of constructing queer narratives out of chinese ideological frameworks' (1. jianghu as queer space and 2. how it manifests in li xiangyi) - focusing on the nature of relationships in it. (which I've briefly mentioned in the first one and finally actually getting to it!!)

I would like to first call attention to chinese ideological frameworks as a premise of queer reading in mlc. the goal of chinese philosophy is to explore the becoming of human, taking two broad paths of the (mainstream) secular vs. escaping the secular. (these two paths are not a strict dichotomy, and rather, are ever in flux and in conversation with each other.) as said by @markiafc too, chineseness is so much about the rigidity of structures, and in equal part, a desire to break out of them. thus, chinese ideological frameworks can very much offer a rich reading of queerness - that mlc, a story very deliberately structured based on chinese ideologies (more accurately, with good reasons for me to believe that it is as such), has managed to materialise.

if the conceptualisation of queerness is premised on a defiance against mainstream norms, then a reliable way to read queerness in chinese ideological frameworks can be to deconstruct it by the mainstream confucian frameworks.

in mlc, this is implicitly set up with its stage of wulin/martial jianghu. then it is further broken down by asking, hey wulin jianghu is still closely related to the hegemonic values and the mainstream structure of authority (historically, 侠 xia being politically involved says a lot about this), so what is the true meaning of jianghu? what does it then really take for jianghu to be a queer space offering comfort and freedom to those who have escaped to it - to be the space that allow the transcendence of rigid roles and labels? mlc took a step further to resist the proxy to mainstream values that wulin jianghu has become.

this is why there can be a very strong buddhism reading of mlc (suggested here, expounded in the A+++ meta by @markiafc here and here, and also what I've seen discussed by cnet as well), given that buddhism is one of the 'extra-secular' ideologies, alongside (philosophical) taoism. I've also touched on a taoist angle in this meta. both schools are articulated in different sets of languages, but ultimately convey a same ideal of what it means to be human and how to live well - that is, to resist the roles and labels defined by the norms.

so, back to confucian frameworks.

a lot can be discussed about mlc with it. but in the context of this meta about relationships in mlc, it's specifically drawing on how confucianism conceptualises social relationships with familial ties as a cornerstone, and how these relational ties are inextricable from the conceptualisation of the 'self'.

as such, one of the things about mlc that has fascinated me is how deliberately it seems to ignore and reject the conventional familial ties (the kind by blood and marital ties). I've joked about how it is a miracle for me to love mlc as much as I do, as a prime dysfunctional family story enjoyer, despite none of its main characters struggling with any complicated feelings about their (biological) parents. but on closer examination, mlc is also making a comment on the model of familial-based relationships that dominates mainstream society - but through the absence of it.

with this, I want to talk about 1) how mlc rejects the conventional ties; and then 2) how it repurposes these ties in its own ways.

the five relational ties in confucianism:

father and son 父子有亲 - (natural) affection between father and son

ruler and subject 君臣有义 - righteous relationship between ruler and subject

older and younger brothers 兄弟 (长幼有序) - this is actually about seniority within the family; the order between older vs younger family members

husband and wife 夫妇有别 - differentiation between husband and wife (demarcated by the 内外 spectrum of gendered inner-external spheres)

friends 朋友有信 - trust between friends

logically inferred, all these ties are hierarchical and familial-based except for the last one: friends. ruler-subject is sort of an extension of the natural familial ties, while friendship is the inverse space of 1-4 (ie. you fall back on 5 to define a social relationship outside of the familial sphere that cannot be qualified as 1-4). while all are premised on mutuality, it is only no. 5 that is defined by a sense of choice and equality.

on the surface, 1-4 don't quite exist in mlc in particularly meaningful ways to the narrative or are even outright overlooked, and friendship is the relational tie most valued by mlc. we can tell it's true just by looking at the most meaningful relationships in mlc of difanghua. but at the same time, it is more nuanced. we can take a closer look at how the story plays around with most of the ties as part of a broader queer narrative.

1) how mlc rejects the conventional ties

mlc's rejection of mainstream relational ties can be best seen in fdb escaping from marriage. and it was not just any engagement with anybody but an engagement with the imperial family. he struggles with the prospect of being married to princess zhaoling, but generally, it's about the idea of complying to mainstream conventions and expectations that includes compulsory heterosexuality. all these point not only to a defiance against amatonormativity - the resistance of the traditional husband-wife tie, but also an irreverence for the ties of ruler-subject (the engagement being an imperial decree) and father-son (matters of marriage being sole decisions made by parents).

of course this is on top of how fdb's own biological father is a p-o-s, and the narrative gives fdb minimal struggles in this aspect, allowing him to sever this tie without looking back (I love it, yeap). along the same line is how lxy is an orphan, who came to gain important relationships that are built on natural compassion among people rather than innate, blood-based ties - even as llh. the sense of defiance from the narrative is especially stark to me considering that he could have a completely different familial-based life - as a son, brother, and ruler, if his biological family was still around. the narrative also deliberately treats his biological brother as a phantom, replaced with an older brother who he was bonded with neither by blood nor marital ties. on dfs's front, absolutely nothing is to be known about his biological family. his childhood history with the toxic patriarch of his life - who is not even his biological father - was afforded a clean break and closure.

we can keep going on, but that's pretty much the point.

ritualisation is one of the most important things of the confucianism school, especially to the honoring of these social relationships (and the officiating of social roles). the one ceremony/ritual we saw in mlc involving the main characters - or more accurately speaking, came closest to seeing - was the imminent wedding ceremony of dfs and jlq. even in that case, it was premised on non-mutuality with dfs being the unwilling, passive party. (fem-coded dfs? 25 marks.)

and that brings us to the next part.

2) how mlc repurposes these ties

that particular wedding ceremony gets hijacked by dfs and lxy/llh, and gets turned into an important milestone in their relationship. they consummate - what is on text - their friendship after a long time being more enemies and rivals than friends. it is a clear establishment of the trust they have for each other. and here it is where I circle back to the subject of this post: friendships as marital ties.

in this article, as a part of a feminist, egalitarian reframing of confucianism, there is a proposal for spousal relationships to be reframed as a friendship tie. (this aligns with the interrelatedness of the five ties eg. the ruler-subject mirrors father-son dynamic, with the confucian belief that rulers have an obligation to their subjects alike parents to their own children.) by doing so, it removes the functional, gendered differentiation assigned to marital ties, and shifts it to something equal, and independent of gender. you exalt the value of trust between spouses, instead of basing marital relationships on gendered roles. as such, spouses become more like friends, and conversely, friends can also become more like spouses. (romance not a prerequisite. it has never been about romance anyway.)

given that mlc has repeatedly applied marital motifs to llh and dfs's characters in their joint narratives, this opens up a reading friendships as a marital tie. seeing marriage as a bridge for strangers to become family, marriage in mlc becomes a metaphor for the chosen commitment and mutual trust put in by strangers/friends (non-familial ties) into the becoming of family. the blurring of lines between marital ties and friendship encourages a genuine space of queer experience that goes beyond any pressure for strict labels - of sexuality, and relationships as romantic, sexual, etc etc.

(note: despite the borrowing of a feminist concept, I strongly hesitate to call mlc a feminist story. it's a whole discussion - or debate - on its own. nevertheless, it is definitely a gender-conscious story that lays foundation for a strong queer and egalitarian reading.)

it is to be noted that it is intended - and also beneficial to take the confucian framework of relational ties beyond face value. the framework offers what it believed to be the most fundamental social relationship dynamics, and sees room for extension and matching to other kinds of relationships (all if not, most). a relationship such as teacher-student, which is outside of the five ties stated, can also mirror the affection of father-son ties, albeit not in a literal and identical way.

speaking of which. fdb and lxy/llh.

indeed they're known by others to be good friends. fdb thinks they're good friends too - insists on it, and puts his best efforts in keeping it that way. but does it really go both ways? if it does not, then can it really still be friendship? my humble take is that, ultimately - weighing in with llh's perspective - this is a relationship that is not so much based on trust, and rather, based on an innate affection that is only unique to family. (in this case, not blood/marital-based but one that was chosen and built aka lxy's relationship with sgd.) in other words, less of a friendship, more of a familial one.

it is a lot clearer considering their relationship from llh's point of view: some brat you never wanted in your life came barging in, and whether he was going to bring any positive effect to your life was secondary to the tranquility - which you have carved for yourself in the past decade - that is so integral to your personhood. no way. but the moment you hear that he's family? well, that changes the game completely. even before learning about fdb being sgd's son (then beginning to take initiative in showing greater acceptance), it is apparent in llh that there was an instinctive resonance with fdb as his shixiong's nephew. (eg. he remarked to his shifu's grave about how alike fdb is to himself.) this is unlike with dfs whom he had taken a much longer time to build trust with. you do not apply trust - aka the quality of friendships - to family. family is something deeper, more instinctive than that. if fdb was never family, I find it hard to imagine given llh's personality, that he would have let some brazen, bratty stranger intrude for that long. (boy invited himself to llh's home, sat himself down eating the owner's dinner and nosing in his cooking abilities!!! ily bb but that was uncalled for 😭)

of course there are many more layers in their relationship. there is a substantial degree of their history as (unwitting) teacher-disciple: fdb is still healthy and alive all thanks to the existence of lxy as a spiritual teacher role model in his life, regardless it being one-sided or not. there is also indeed some part of friendship in it, especially from fdb's point of view. he sees llh as a kindred spirit who he could enjoy a life of freedom with for life. but llh never reciprocates. he knew this was short-lived. and so ultimately, the hierarchical layer of their relationship overpowers the equal one, where llh's treatment of fdb as a nephew/小辈 younger family member and a disciple is the one that sealed the fate of their relationship.

if (blood-based) familial ties are irrelevant in jianghu, then the closest proxy to a father-son relationship in the martial world would be a teacher-disciple relationship. lxy and his shifu are a clear, indisputable example. for fdb and llh, their teacher-disciple tie is murkier and not consistently applied. they were also never ritualised as teacher-disciple, and thus are not teacher-disciple in any official capacity as far as confucian ideas are concerned. yet in crucial moments, it is invoked by llh as a card of authority over fdb to get out of sticky situations with fdb. and there was their final scene together: in a moment of sincerity, llh gives the approval to fdb as his disciple - then entrusting fdb with the secret manual of his techniques, up until his final letter in which fdb was recommended to dfs as a successor to his martial abilities.

in an imperial setting, this would have been the relationship of an emperor and his crown prince that straddles both ruler-subject and father-son ties aka a tag-team of disaster. the teacher has an obligation to nurture his disciple as a successor to himself, and love him like a son too. on the flipside, he holds the final power in their relationship - withholding knowledge and feelings from the younger one. they are only equals in a way a parent-child can be. they are only equals as much as the parent allows. and this is how fdb got left behind in the dust of llh's departure. he was the child treating his parent like a friend, supporting him emotionally and begging to be loved back the same way he loves his parent - but the parent had a lifetime way ahead of him and stayed out of his reach, physically and emotionally.

llh and fdb operate with the trapping of a friendship but have always been family in the core. llh had known that way before fdb did, just like everything else he had known and put out of fdb's reach. because. fdb did not have to know. fdb is different and will forge his own path. and that's a kind of love llh has for him that nobody understands (in fact not even fdb himself) - one that is on a different plane from friendships.

by repurposing the framework of relational ties, mlc showed that the essence of familial relationships aka its intimacy and closeness can be independent from biology and formalised rituals. and it is important to myself for stories to say that people can build close ties and deeply meaningful relationships even without being born or ritualised into any.

then back to how these relational ties are inextricable from the conceptualisation of the 'self' in confucian worldview: the roles you play in these relationships are intended to define you. there is no 'self' independent from it. while the concept of a social, relational self is fully rooted in reality, being locked into social roles can be a painful way to live - a way that llh has experienced as lxy the sigu sect leader. so, in order for lxy/llh to realise a sense of self that exists outside the norms, it inevitably points to another way that requires a cut from these relationships. that is then the buddhist (or taoist) answer of looking past attachments to the world such as the confucian idea of relationships defining your being. only with a dissolution of a sense of 'self', can there be true liberation.

#莲花楼 #mysterious lotus casebook #lhlmeta #lhl #my posts #dihua #can't believe this is how i choose to spend an inordinate amt of my free time 😐😐 being a broken recorder of brainrot 😐#anw the handful of fanghua moments that have moved me are the ones that are about the unbridgeable gap between them as 长辈小辈 as 徒弟师父 #(me realising lxy telling fdb 这个徒弟我没有白收 actually drives me nuts)#me: a brainrot-level dihua shipper first and foremost. also me: dedicating more of this meta to fanghua than dihua #about how fanghua's relationship is its own unique kind in the story. equally deep as dihua. just in a wholly different way.#dihua are friends and married and familial. but fanghua is family through and through #-> tl;dr of this meta actually #i just have extremely strong feelings about fanghua as a complicated little family unit.#which is independent of “shipping” FOR ME. but for anyone else though you can make anything out of it.#(gotta admit i'm a bit antsy about posting this and is uncertain how it's gonna be read. bc my reading of fanghua is so specific...well)#anyways. obsessed with dihua appropriating the heteronormative rituals <3 #edit: I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT DIFANG aaaAAAGHHHHHHHHHH #but. it's true they're very purely friendship-based i think

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oh-meow-swirls · 4 months ago

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they are approaching.

#puppy rambles #yo-kai watch #mostly #the focus isn't on it tho so #i literally only added them a couple hours ago how..........#by the way status update: i have intense persona 3 brainrot <333 #i played 1 ½ hours of persona 3 portable‚ got distracted trying to add the mod that lets you date yukari as kotone‚ failed to do so #ended up reading gay fanfiction (hamugis my beloved <3)‚ spoiled myself from said gay fanfiction‚ gave up on playing the game for now #and have posted one p3 fanfic to ao3 and have several others on the backburner :333 #i am . so fucking autistic #funniest part to me is that i still have no fucking idea what happens between like. july and october. or between april and july #i assume things happen but idk what and i haven't gotten to googling it ggbgjgnfhfv-#i don't know what happens in november other than crucification also. that makes sense in context i swear. i think #idk i'm still confused on some stuff. but i can tell you with certainty that i will forever be mentally unstable on march 5th <3 /hb

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aihaloos · 5 months ago

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Okay I know I was freaking out about how we're going on a WARP train n shit but like. I want the event to come quickly.

I don't really know whether this will be an NPC event like Blade Lineage or Sinner-focused like TKT and Christmas event. Most likely the former, but I just have like. A specific hope about this okay.

So we know what happened in Lovetown. We have a rundown-kinda of how the train works. We know what abominations might happen. My main curiosities are: 1. Dante; 2. Sinclair

Dante's time powers was elaborated on in TKT, and my curiosity is self-explanatory, since WARP trains' mechanics warp time (get it? Okay sorry) during its travels inside the alternate dimension world thingy. I'm pretty sure prosthetics are usually fine since I don't think W corp bans prosthetics or anything (Atleast I don't remember them banning it...). But Dante's powers are related to his prosthetics so like. Will it be affected? Will the "bond" of the sinners' time be affected? Will they be affected? Will Dante's powers work in the train? Will he retain his memories if his clock head gets damaged at any point? I just have so many questions and PM leaving me (us) on a cliffhanger hurts(?) me...

Anyways point 2: Sinclair. We all know Canto IV is the first "real" Canto, so to speak. Gregor and Rodya's were clearly too short and just felt like mood-setters than anything, and Sinclair's is the closest we got to an actual one at launch. And also the (kind of) first Mili song we got. But the thing is. Sinclair didn't really get much of his moment. Kromer got killed by Demian. He still hasn't fully come to terms/move on with his past. We all know he's pretty much traumatized by things that overly "fleshy", so to speak. So now I really want him, like Rodya, to get some contemplation too. And who knows. If some fleshy abominations happen, I want to get more Sinclair content. Hell, draw a few parallels between Sinclair and this time's boss like TR and Rodya. Have it have prosthetics or smth but still be a fleshy mass. I'm just curious how he'll react to all this. I know any character development probably get reset since that's just how WARP trains are engineered to be, but this just circles back to Dante since they're bound to his time.

#Can you guys tell I have a huge bias for Sinclair?#Well it's there all right #And the mechanics PMverse has is very interesting #I'm just genuinely curious tbh #WARP train as a thing itself already gave me brainrot for a good while #So I half want it to be expanded on and half want Sinclair's reactions to all this specifically.#limbus company #lcb #dante lcb #emil sinclair #sinclair lcb

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meganechan05 · 7 hours ago

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"I've spent months looking for the Ice Rose thinking it was some jewel hidden somewhere. I'd never think it was something that can only be gifted by you. I suppose fate would always bring us together somehow."

"We were children back then. I simply thought you needed comfort after losing your country."

Himeno solemnly smiled as she recalled the memories of their past life. "Even then, you put in the effort to find it for me. You could've always given it to your mother since it's so rare, but you chose to give it to me. So let me return the favor."

She held out her hand, cheeks pink as she looked at her fellow Guardian.

"Let's defeat him together."

#kingohger #king ohger #ohsama sentai kingohger #rita kaniska #rita kanisuka #himeno ran #hymeno ran #himerita #hymerita #kingoh doodles #kingoh au #sailor moffun #can you tell i'm having intense au brainrot?#I'm just craving nb yuri content... like good lord I'm just making so much...

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teddybeartoji · 4 months ago

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AHHHHHHHH MICKEY I HAD TO COME HERE AND ASK FOR MORE I LOVE NEIGHBOR AUS -- so would it be like canon ?? and he moves away to a new country to be free of everything that happened in japan/sorcerer society ?? or would it be a non-sorcerer au??

AAAAAAAAAA CARINAA STOPPP I LOVE U SOOSO MUCHHH!!!!!!!! OKOK SO it'd be non-sorcerer au buuuuuuut i'm keeping the part of him having a bad past yk? so essentially it still is him just getting away from all of that!!!!!!! he's now in his thirties and he just wants a new start:((((( he just wants a Normal job and a Normal life:(((((((((((((

and the same goes for the reader too!!! they left everything behind them for a fresh start too and that's so scary yk? so despite the fact that toji has been there for a little longer (he moved only like a few months earlier), they're both so new to everything and so when they finally get to talking and they realize that they're in the same situation - it just kind of clicks. everything gets a little easier knowing that neither of them is alone:(((( they start going to the grocery store together and they start having dinners at each others places. they go to the cinema every week and they just overall get very comfortable very fast bc they kind of.. only have each other there... they're constantly just hanging out at each other's places and it's waahhh it's still very much a slow burn though lmao there's no other way for me to write anything i'm afraid.

omg wait i also need to add that i definitely imagine toji with an accent here too. like it's very important in my head. bc well i mean ofc he'd have one right? going from japan to some european country, he's now forced to speak english aand it's so weird for him at first and that on its own makes everything a little harder too... but ahh i think it's such a good little detail to add yk? like he definitely stumbles over his words every once in a while and gets a little embarrassed abt it:(((( he's cute. my favourite scary looking teddy bear of a man

blabla i also just think it's such a cute idea to have the reader and him teach each other stuff about their cultures:(((((( and languages too:((((((( you pester toji about him teaching you some japanese words and phrases and he's kind of against it at first because he just wants to leave literally EVERYTHING behind but when he finally folds.. he doesn't regret it at all because your own accent is fucking adorable and also kind of bad and it's funny and it doesn't make him think about all the bad things that have happened,, you're helping him forget all about that while creating new and better memories and AAAAAAAAAAAHHH it's so sweet okay:((((((((

AAAAAAANYWAYY CARINAA I HOPE U KNOW HOW MUCH IT MEANS TO ME THAT U CAME TO ASK ABT THIS:((((((((( ILOVE U I LOVE U I LOVE U AND I HOPE UR DOING SOOSO GOOD ANGEL!!! YOU DESERVE THE WORLD<33333333333

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its-cosmerely-an-obsesh-wound · 2 months ago

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A Promise Full Filled

Below is an excerpt from my most recent fic:

***CONTAINS WIND AND TRUTH SPOILERS***

It had actually happened. Kaladin wasn't sure if any warping of reality on his part had occurred but Dalinar had done what he had needed to do and the three of them had survived until the end. They had all suffered terrible losses but, tonight, they were choosing to ignore all that because they were fulfilling a promise they had made to one another. At the end. Drinks. Jokes. Laughter.

Currently, the laughter was at Kaladin’s expense. Shallan and Adolin had managed to wheedle out of him the particulars regarding what Szeth had mentioned. Szeth had made astounding progress on their trip to Shinovar, so much so that he and Kaladin had laughed easily and often by the end and Szeth had surprised both Shallan and Adolin by interacting with them comfortably when they had returned. Perhaps a little too comfortably. To Kaladin’s chagrin, Szeth had told them that Kaladin had been unable to best the Shin architecture. Szeth had refused to elaborate further and Kaladin had had also refused to give a full account at the time, citing a need to see his family. But, today, there was no diverting them so Kaladin had to explain in painstaking detail, while Shallan howled with laughter, what Szeth had meant.

“The Shin are much shorter people than the Alethi so there were a lot of doorframes, cultivated trees, and even ceilings that would not accommodate the stature of a normal-sized person—"

“An Alethi giant you mean.” Shallan corrected, as she craned her neck in an unnecessarily exaggerated manner to eye him pointedly.

“Fine. Someone of normal Alethi height.” Kaladin conceded.

“You’re tall, even for an Alethi, Kal.” Adolin asserted, appraising him with a slight smile and a lingering look that had Kaladin feeling...on edge. He was not that tall. For an Alethi. He was only a few inches taller than Adolin.

“So what did you do?" Shallan asked, her eyes glittering expectantly. "Try to punch and stab your way through doorways or…”

He wished that were the truth.

“No, um, many times I didn’t notice until—"

“Stormfather! You walked into everything, didn’t you?” She asked with excited incredulity.

Kaladin pressed his lips to a line. He had not walked into everything. But she was right, it had happened. And more than he would have liked. She seemed to guess her aspersion was at least partially correct and he could see the joy in her expression ramping up as he replied.

“Well not everything but there were a few times I—"

Kaladin didn’t get to finish, Shallan erupted with a shrill scream of unbridled glee and Adolin’s barking laugh split the air next to him seconds later.

Sure, Kaladin felt a little embarrassed about how many inanimate objects his face had unexpectedly encountered but he had promised, drinks, jokes, laughter, and he was certainly delivering on the last part. Kaladin found himself chuckling too, after a fashion, but Shallan was definitely the most affected. It took several moments before Shallan wiped tears of mirth from her eyes and rested her hand lightly on his as her raucous sounds of merriment became a subdued giggle.

Kaladin’s laughter became uneasy and died as he processed several disturbing things at once: the hand Shallan had placed on his was her clothed safehand, the topic of conversation had changed to a distressing one, and the seating arrangement was...disquieting and too close. In short, somehow he had gotten trapped between Shallan and Adolin while they argued about Kaladin's farewell hugs all the while Shallan touched him in an arrestingly inappropriate and intimate manner. In the middle of a very public tavern.

How had this happened? He thought back. Kaladin had been sitting in the middle since they had arrived but he hadn’t given the arrangement much thought since they had started the evening a respectful distance apart from one another and they had been discussing a suitable topic: the strange Shinovarian flora and fauna. Shallan had shown a keen interest and Kaladin, grateful for the distraction from all the needling about Shin architecture, had seized the topic like a pouch of stormlight during an Everstorm. Kaladin had explained how lazy the grass had been, laying about and getting trampled all the time; how there had been these delightful happy animals called ‘dogs’ that acted like axehounds but were soft and squishy with no carapace or mandibles and enjoyed probing your backside with their noses; and how some animals Szeth had called ‘goats’ had been able to Surgebind—Szeth had insisted they did not Surgebind but there was simply no other rational explanation for how they scaled sheer cliffs like that, Kaladin had seen them at it with his own eyes—they had to be using adhesion or gravitation. Szeth was mistaken. Unfortunately, mentioning Szeth had reminded them about the storming architecture again but even those laughs at his expense had been better than this.

“You got two hugs.” Adolin insisted to Shallan.

“I had to initiate the first one though and Kaladin suffered it like a chull bound in a heavy stormwagon yolk. The one he initiated was much shorter than the hug he gave you.”

Somehow as the conversation and alcohol had flowed, the distance between them had shrunk to almost nothing, such that Shallan’s and Adolin’s present and disconcerting tete-a-tete was taking place practically on top of Kaladin. Kaladin was immensely uncomfortable. Why did the hugs he gave them matter and why were they chatting about it with no space for Honor between the three of them? Kaladin was finding it harder and harder to follow the exchange because he was becoming increasingly aware of their proximity to him in several would-be innocuous ways...

Here's a link to the rest of it, if you want to keep reading. Please take care, it is rated EXPLICIT because I cannot keep my hands off the smut when it comes to these three...or in general. You know that part in A Bugs Life with the mosquitoes?

Mosquito 1: Harry, no! Don't look at the light!

Harry: *entranced* I-can't-help-it. It's-so-beautiful. *Harry gets zapped and DIES*

Harry is basically me with smut...wait, there's a When Harry Met Sally reference here...if you want to have what she's having you might like my writing 😂 You've probably heard of a gutter ball. *Jumps up and down* Oh, yes, bowling! I've heard of that! Well, I have a gutter brain. There are balls involved in my gutter brain and many other euphemistic sports accoutrements that I could mention. But I won't. No one wants that. In fact, no one wanted this paragraph at the end, not even me, but I typed it already so...pipe down, I got the conch and... *does best Leonidas impression* THIS—IS—TUMBLR!

(RIP Piggy, sorry about your ass-mar and brutal murder—Roger was a right Piero Manzoni piece of work)

Well, that stream of consciousness was a trip to read in the stark light of day. Someone should take away my keyboard. Alright, shutting the fuck up now...

PS: See, I did mean what I said