#OKAY BUT the thing is you desecrate it anyway. you do it because you still want it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lovelynim · 1 year ago

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i was debating if i should desecrate your temple with my dirty thoughts, but in the end i'm here foaming at the mouth. so... you know me. karu. every time i watched intimacy rooms with this pup i couldn't get rid of the desire to see him getting what he wants finally. he tried to tickle eiden once, but couldn't find the proper place and failed. what if after all the endless teasing and hurting his pride he finally managed... to punish eiden? 👀 after all he's still very ticklish

i wouldn't even mind it to be spicy, but it's up to you to decide. and of course feel free to turn it down if you don't feel like writing it!

How to tame a human

Nu: Carnival - Eiden x Karu

[500 Followers Milestone Event - "Punishment"]

A/N: Okay, first things first: it was such a pain to find an actual art with Karu in it because it is ALWAYS GARU!! cahem, anyway, I had a blast writing this and I accidently made it a liiiittle longer than it should be, hope you don't mind ~

Summary: After failing to control his human (again), Karu asks Kuya for advice and try to learn a way to do it properly

Word count: 1663 words

Across Aster’s mansion's hallway, the young wolf pup ran as fast as he could. Cheeks flustered, slightly wet eyes, Karu passed by each servant he met on his way as fast as he could, after all, he couldn’t let them see the mighty Karu in such a state. In that whole damned house, there was only one person that the young yokai wanted to meet.

“Master Kuya!!” He shouted, bursting the door that led to the gardens open. A pinch of relief struck his heart when he saw the old fox looking at him and, wasting not a single second, he ran to him, throwing himself at his arms. “Master Kuya, I found youuu…” Karu cried out quietly, burying his face into the yokai’s chest.

Trying to understand the whole fuss, the old fox simply looked down, still trying to figure the other out. “What has gotten to you, wolf pup?” Kuya sighed, hesitantly placing his hand on Karu’s shoulder, patting him. He had gone to the gardens to have some time by himself, but guess even he couldn’t properly hide his scent from Karu with so little effort. Guess this is where his rest time ended. “What are you crying about, hm?”

“Y-your plan, master Kuya,” Karu said, lifting his head to look up to Kuya as he tugged on the older yokai’s clothes, “it didn’t work! The human even made fun of me!!”

With an unamused - and slightly confused - look, Kuya tried to recall what the other could be ranting about. Plan? That had something to do with Eiden? How was he supposed to remember something so specific with such a vague description?

“And exactly what part of it didn’t work, wolf pup?” Kuya said calmly, placing the kiseru he was smoking down on a nearby table and gently lifting Karu’s face from his chest - he didn’t want to risk getting his clothes wet or anything, after all.

Sobbing quietly and slowly recovering himself from the disappointment he just suffered, Karu’s eyes still shined as the droplets hung on his lashes. “I-I tried to surprise him with a sneak attack - just like you said, master Kuya!”

“I assume it didn’t work, then?”

“Y-yeah! I tried to tickle him, but it didn’t work! Not at all!” Karu cried out, frustrated as he remember Eiden’s face and how easily that damned human turned the tables against him. The wolf yokai pressed his eyes shut, shaking his head before looking up to Kuya again, “I need your help again, master Kuya!”

Kuya scoffed as he let out a small chuckle, shaking his head. “I figured what went wrong, wolf pup,” he mused, raising a finger between him and Karu, pointing to him, “your skills are lacking efficiency.”

“W-what?”

“You see, your technique is still awfully dull and humans, especially someone like young master, are complex beings, full of surprises. You need to improve in order to tame him, wolf pup.”

Karu listened to Kuya’s explanation in awe, feeling the wiseness behind each word. It all made so much sense, of course Kuya’s plan wouldn’t have such a flaw - his master only didn’t consider his skill level.

“A-and how do I improve it, master Kuya?”

“Listen carefully, wolf pup,” Kuya grinned, leaned his head a little forward before he began to whisper his new instructions into Karu’s ear, giving the young yokai important details that he might have missed along his first try: how to properly apply pressure against the skin, different finger movements he should try and even how to properly wrestle his human without the aid of magic.

By the time Kuya was done talking, Karu looked like he had reached some kind of enlightenment, sparking up with joy and excitement to try the new plan out.

“Thanks, master Kuya!” The young yokai said as he walked away, waving back to the fox as he got inside the house. Kuya grinned - a devious, evil smile - as Karu turned his back to him. Picking up the kiseru again to resume smoking it, the fox chuckled. “I wonder how amusing the young master’s reactions will be, huhuh…”

Back inside the mansion, Karu wasted no time in relying on his sense of smell to track down his target. Taking him nothing more than a couple of sniffs to determine the direction where Eiden’s scent was coming from.

Unsuspecting the income danger, the grand sorcerer was peacefully spending his time inside the library of the mansion, trying to finish another book without Olivine’s aid.

As the sounds of steps coming from outside got louder, Eiden turned his head over his shoulder, wondering what that fuss was about.

“Is everything alrig-”

“Human!” Karu shouted as he slammed the door open, grinning cockly as he spotted his prey.

“K-Karu?!” He gasped, letting out an embarrassing shriek after getting scared by the wolf pup like that. “A-ah, you scared me, I thought something was happ-”

“Shut it, human!” He demanded, furrowing his brows while staring at Eiden, “did you really think you could humiliate me like that and I would leave it like that?! I’ve come for my revenge, prepare yourself!”

“...what?” Eiden blinked a few times, a bit too stunned to understand what Karu was ranting about this time. “Humiliate you? But I- oh, you mean tickling you back?”

A faint red hue spread across Karu’s face as the grand sorcerer finished talking. The disrespect… How dare he?! Done with waiting to strike, the yokai ran and tackled Eiden down to the library ground, using him to ease the fall. Straddling the human’s waist, Karu looked down to his face, getting even angrier when he sensed that there was no fear or resistance coming from Eiden.

“Y-you know, there was no need to pounce on me like that,” the grand sorcerer said, still feeling his ass sore after falling on his butt like that. However, seeing Karu so excited and eager to get his revenge, Eiden couldn’t help but to play along. After all, how bad could it be? “I mean, ahm, oh, you got me!”

Karu grinned, not even allowing him to state his last words. “It’s time to punish you for disrespecting the mighty Karu, human,” latching his hands onto Eiden’s sides, he remembered the instructions of his master, putting his best efforts to bring it to practice.

As soon as his nimble fingers started to tweak and prod at Eiden’s side, the grand sorcerer felt the corner of his lips twitch. ‘Wait, there is something off,’ he thought, trying his best to play along as, much to his surprise, Karu’s moves actually felt ticklish this time.

“K-Kaharu, what ahare- pfft- hehey! Wahahait!” As the first giggles broke through his lips, it became almost impossible to hold back his reactions any longer. Eiden was caught off guard by how bad it became, what did he do? Where did he even learn to… tickle like that?”

“That’s what you get for underestimating me, human!” Karu continued, easily evading and passing through Eiden’s attempts to stop his fingers, continued to tickle his sides and lower ribs, covering the sensitive spots with poke after poke, reducing the grand sorcerer to a mess of laughter.

The wolf pup’s tail wagged in excitement as the tickling went on and on, enjoying the feeling of finally having enough “power” to subdue that untamed human. On the other hand, however, Eiden was fighting for his life as those devious claws found their way to his ribs. No matter how hard he tugged on Karu’s wrists or pressed his arms against his body, the yokai’s hands would find their way through his defenses and strike his sensitive spots again.

“T-thahAHat’s e-enohohough, K-KahAHaru!! StahahAhap!” The grand sorcerer cried out, kicking his legs behind the wolf pup as he thrash in a fit of laughter.

But Karu was way too excited to stop. No, he wouldn’t let such an opportunity slip through his fingers like this, not at all! He remembered how much he needed to beg- I mean, ask for Eiden to stop tickling him before - and now he wanted him to stop like that?!

Letting out a cocky chuckle, Karu quickly moved his hands up, shoving them underneath Eiden’s arms and making the grand sorcerer let out an embarrassing loud squeal. “In your dreams, human! This is what you get for provoking the mighty Karu, hahah!!”

“O-okahAHAHAY!! AHahAHa- I-i’m sohOHORRY, K-KARU!! AHAhah, q-quihihihit it!!” The laughter kept breaking through and interrupting his words over and over. This was nothing like Karu’s previous attempts to tickle him. The clumsy, uncoordinated movements from before had evolved into merciless, well-aimed attacks that were driving him up the walls!

The grand sorcerer wasn’t sure what happened, but he needed to figure it out as soon as possible or the yokai would actually tickle him to death. “E-enoHOHOUGH! AhahAHAH, I-I’ll d-do ahAHANYTHING!! J-Juhuhust stop!”

“Submit to the mighty Karu and I might show you some mercy, human!” Karu said, speaking louder than he usually did, just to make sure he would be heard through Eiden’s laughter. “Or suffer! Heheh…”

“F-FIHIHINE!! Juhuhust stahHAhap!!” Eiden uttered with the last bits of his strength. As Karu finally moved his hands away, the grand sorcerer let out a huge gasp, finally able to try to catch up his breath. “A-aha… t-thank you, I thought I was a… a goner, ahh…”

“It worked, it really worked!” Karu cheered, quickly springing up back to his feet. He looked at his own hands, wiggling his fingers as if some kind of power was flowing through his limbs. He then pointed back at Eiden, smiling as confidently as ever, “now, you have to obey all my orders, human!”

“S-sure… just give me a moment,” Eiden muttered, sighing as he used his elbows to support his body. Whatever happened, he thought, it should be better to play along for a while - after all, sooner or later, he knew he would have his chance to strike the “mighty” Karu back…

#500 followers event #500 followers milestone #milestone event #nu: carnival #nu: carnival eiden #nu: carnival karu #karu x eiden #lee!eiden #ticklish!eiden #ler!karu #tickle fic #requests #vqler

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boatemlag · 1 year ago

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Hi I read your gift fic to Bee and I am soooooooooo wondering about the funerary rites of every empire pls tell me about them

[ID: Ask from erstwhilesparrow that says, "[staggers out of ao3 shaking slightly] okay so obviously now i have to ask you for your thoughts on empires funerary practices!! stares at you with big pleading eyes. share thoughts?" /end ID]

HI!!!! im so glad you asked >:) a lot of this is in my brain but this was the initial note for the concept for the gift fic so you see where i'm coming from

[Text ID: A screenshot of an iPhone notes app bullet point that says: "2. 2. mezalea and complicated system of rebirth and reincarnation-> no sense of grieving funerals? joel has never had to grieve because hes inorganic. clay structures dont die. interested in the connection between golems in judaism and clay constructs in mezalea" /end ID]

my basic concept with mezalea was ultimately that because constructs dont die (joel was made by the mother tree, and in turn made the mezaleans in his image? something like that) they cant properly die? and if they do die their friends and family or joel himself can reinstate them, and theres ritual for that, but its a thing that is ultimately for inorganics. and its not really akin to a funeral.

more under the cut, separated by nation! ones mentioned in the fic first!

mythland: for mythland i was inspired by this story i heard from a classmate of a funeral he attended in his father's hometown in china where they walked from the morgue to the cemetery and it took like multiple hours and they were singing funeral songs and prayers and such and then still had a ceremony at the cemetery. i had an image in my mind of the rain falling through the dark oak leaves and sausage dressed in the robes of a king even though he is so small (way too small for him) and the robes really are wearing him, and the hours upon hours of walking through the streets of mythland to the royal cemetery with hundreds of mythic citizens behind them singing mourning songs and the toll that takes on a boy too young to be king... yes. delicious. after the blood sheep religion is revived, these ceremonies involved ritual animal sacrifice.

gilded helianthia: i really like the idea of helianthians being people of the earth, and not having huge ceremonies for their funerals. people coming from the earth and going back to the earth. planting their favorite plants in their resting place. this one is pretty self explanatory i think? and its a very logical extension of helianthia's values. the bonfire is something i think is very common in surrounding areas of bordering nations.

pixandria: pixandria is, i think, the only canon depiction we have of funerals? its kind of obvious to say "The Vigil" but like. the Vigil. im also a big fan of the idea of something similar to an ofrenda being common, visiting the memorials of lost loved ones. i also think corpses dont preserve well in the desert so cremation is very common. the body is not considered very sacred and its the soul that has to be memorialized.

rivendell: i spend so much time thinking about these goddamn elves its not even FUNNYY!!!!!! religious schisms make me SICK!!!!!! in the head. anyway. i think cremation used to be very very common in rivendell because in the cold of the mountains bodies decompose very very slowly. but after the schism fire is considered weirdly sacrilegious when it comes to rituals, so they sort of have shirked the cremation part of the ritual. theyve always had wakes i think, and theyve replaced cremation with a complex catacomb type situation. elves also dont die super often? so there are centuries of elves buried beneath the mountains but its not like. that many. comparatively. elves consider it important to see the corpses of their loved ones as part of the grieving process and its an egregious crime to desecrate a corpse or modify the body in any way, even back in the days of cremation.

cod empire/codlands: funerals are VERY important in codish culture because the swamp conditions mean uhhh bog bodies are very possible. and thats considered sacrilegious because the only preserved body allowed is the cod head lmao. its a religious symbol as well as a theocratic symbol. that being said, there are a plethora of ways cod folk prefer to care for their dead. for those who are closer in heritage to oceanic peoples, its very common to feed corpses to fish (livestock) and hold a ceremony during then. for those with mythic heritage (before the ravine and erection of the walls of codlands and mythland) funeral processions were very common, though usually taken out to sea. these are just a few of the types of funerary ceremonies the codfolk use.

ocean empire: as mentioned in the previous section, oceanic rituals often involve feeding bodies to the fishy livestock as a funeral ritual. other than that, more land-living oceanic citizens do something akin to a "viking funeral" where flaming rafts are sent out to sea

lost empire: heh. so theres two main things here: pre and post xornoth. the folks of the lost empire used to bury their dead in large clearings dedicated as cemeteries. for more important people in society they constructed tombs all connected by underground tunnels. post-xornoth, cremation was added as a common custom. this was obviously short lived for the empire.

house blossom/the overgrown: similar to gilded helianthia, except instead of the land around, citizens are buried with seeds on their being, to be used as nutrients for the large wild flowers. post burial rituals include several days of merriment and mourning, and i like the idea that bonfires are also common here.

the grimlands: i really like the idea of public burial in the fields outside of the main capital of the grimlands. there are pretty large cemeteries that are multilayered. the tradition has a common ancestor with the lost empire's tradition.

crystal cliffs: I REALLY LIKE THE IDEA OF LIKE. magic being involved in some way. perhaps the crystallization of famous witches and wizards and sorcerers immortalized in amethyst, deep beneath the mountains. because the crystal cliffs is run by the headmaster or headmistress at the time i think the general burial rights actually depend on the nation of origin or wishes of the individual. crystal cliffs is very much a nation of various peoples because anyone can attend.

the undergrove: the burial rights of the gnomes is a dying secret. because there are very few gnomes left, the decimation of the population has erased former traditions in the face of cremation to eliminate chance of Corruption. it used to be something else, but that knowledge is lost to time.

#empires smp #empires s1 #i feel like i should put this in my map tag. its worldbuilding. so i will #cartography table #asks #wooshofficial #erstwhilesparrow

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aita-blorbos · 1 year ago

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AITA for avenging my brother?

hiiiii ^^ so im (30, let's say M for convenience's sake) am currently the leader of a very big sect, which was Not the plan WhatSoEVER (i'll get into it). i was born as the younger sibling to the sect heir, which meant i had free reign to basically do whatever i wanted while he got the responsibilities and stuff! great deal methinks. our father died when we were both still young due to heart issues that run in the family and also being killed. since my brother had a decade or so on me, he pretty much raised me from then on while also having the new role of official sect leader on his shoulders.

again, seems like a good deal! he was strict, and really really insisted i practiced my fighting skills (like that wasn't the literal cause of our family's heart issues) to the point that one time he like kind of burned my paper fan collection in front of me but that's like it's all besides the point okay he loved me and i loved him and we were both there for each other okay? okay

anyway he had this servant/best friend/pretty sure somethingsomething was going on there. he was kind of like a second big brother to me. our interests overlapped and he also preferred stuff like art and poetry over fighting. he understood me in a way that my brother couldn't, and he helped raise me just as much, even accompanying me to my third year of summer courses. which lol was supposed to be a one year course but i failed twice. lmao w/e

things got... bad. a war broke out, the servant betrayed us by letting a dangerous enemy out of his cell, and he and my brother had a horrible fight that ended in the former's expulsion from our sect. fast forward yadda yadda this isn't so much the part of the story it's just context but basically that turned out to be a plan to get close to the enemy sect leader so he could stab him in the back. which turned out to become a recurring theme.

the servant, now a prominent figure in his own sect, my brother, and one basically-a-celeb from another sect became this big trio (and totally a Thing) because of the role they played in ending the war. servant-now-big-boy (let's go with snbb for convenience) used that position to send my brother into a cardiac arrest by playing a melody that was supposed to soothe him differently.

so now i was alone, and with one of the current biggest sects to lead, while all i wanted to do is look cute, paint and be bisexual. you can probably imagine how i felt when i learned who did it, especially considering how not only no one else knew, but he got /rewarded/ for it by becoming a sect leader himself. soooo i got a little silly and here's where i mighttttt be tah :3

basically i started a 10+ years revenge plan. i didn't really plan a /lot/ of it, but i knew i'd have to resurrect one of my childhood friends for it to grab attention away from me etc and such and so on and so forth. but basically i also got a gay and socially rejected teenager killed for that, desecrated the corpse of snbb's mother, paid some people to spread rumours here and there, possibly killed a few cats to lure a group of people where i needed them to be, and adopted a public persona of a useless idiot who couldn't run a sect for the life of me to keep suspsicions off of me for the duration of this, which was Also a part to get back at him because that meant he, as someone responsible and sooo niceys and oh won't you please help your poor little meowmeow with the big scary emails plssss (he basically ran the sect for me lol).

to top it all off i had him killed by the one person that loved him the most (mister sir basically-a-celeb. god his jawline is stronger than my will to live) (he has gone into seclusion and is isolating himself indefinitely to mourn)

but also all this allowed my old bestie to get gay married with his longtime heartthrob

so. aita?

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality #animal death

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best-overplayed-song · 1 year ago

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Re: Take Me To Church in response to anon-- a take by someone who first heard it a bit After it came out at the age of 20, was concerned it was overhyped, and on listening had to admit that it was in fact good. (Also disclaimer, I've got less context about like, Irish/English history and stuff than OP so uhhhh sorry this is just gonna be my own personal vibecheck)

Tw: sex mention.

A lot of my feelings on the song are more related to this bit: Take me to church I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies I'll tell you my sins, and you can sharpen your knife Offer me that deathless death and revolve around a. Possibly more sexual interpretation, so take that as you will (I was horny at 20 what can I say)

Okay first off let's talk about Why Church Is Horny. Religion and sex are both things that people often have a lot of feelings about. Christians specifically have even more feelings about sex, usually because they're saying it's bad. However, from a Catholic perspective, there's often a LOT of erotic imagery and stuff going on behind the scenes. See: lactating Jesus, saints' mysticism (for instance, Theresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena), and honestly just general medieval saints… people were SO horny for God. Plus, from an anti-sex Christian perspective, stuff still gets horny more often than you'd think. Milton was a Puritan, and that doesn't stop Paradise Lost from having originated Sexy Satan as a trope. All of which boils down to, coming from Christian, English-speaking cultural context a lot of your feelings about sex and religion, both of which carry enough baggage on their own, become intertwined.

So. All of that means you get the invocation of Christian stuff in the Bedroom anyway--lots of people say stuff like 'oh god' during sex, for instance. Think about the popularity too of the sexy nun trope, or even Destiel. A lot of people find desecration of the (Christian) holy, hot as shit, though it remains taboo.

For that reason! "Take Me To Church" being a song about sex?? About a woman referred to as a "lover," not a wife? Sex as worship? Get all those cultural hotbuttons pinged. (And that's just the first line we're looking at.)

I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies Hoo boy. So, again, worship = sex? That's a lot as seen above. Invoking the dog imagery as part of deference to a woman also gets into stuff about gender roles, taboos, and the breaking thereof. There's a lot to unpack here-- deference of a man to a woman, of an animal to the holy, the admission that it is a shrine of lies, and tied into all that is the implied desire and consent to do these things. That's sexy!

I'll tell you my sins, and you can sharpen your knife Shame is a strong feeling-- one that comes up a lot when we look at this religion/sex network. Telling of sins evokes the Catholic sacrament of confession. And then we get to the knife. I don't know how to explain my interpretation of this without getting real kinky so uh, let's just say that pain and blood can have significant associations with both Christianity and sexuality, and the use of the knife thing in this context brings in Yet Another hot-button thing.

Offer me that deathless death I always just interpret this as euphemism for an orgasm. But! That's not to belittle it. Could a deathless death also be an assumption to heaven? In the context of the previous line(s), it takes on so many alternate connotations it's insane. Has he been stabbed for his sins? (That carried penetration imagery with it fyi.) Has he been forgiven his sins and gets to go to heaven? Or is it sexual release? With the ambiguity the song leaves, all three are possible, keeping up all those threads of violence/pain, shame, ecstasy, sex, divinity, submission… there's A LOT here.

Anyway I'm gonna stop there cuz this is too long. I don't even like this song THAT much, I'm just here to explain why people do.

OH YEAH AND PS: ADD TO ALL OF THIS THE SHAME/RELIGION/SEX FEELINGS AND ASSOCIATIONS CAUSED BY THE LISTENER BEING QUEER okay bye

I loved reading your interpretation! Thanks for the breakdown!

#asks #song propaganda

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sburbian-sage · 4 months ago

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Hey there, Knight of Quartz again! I’ve been testin shit, here’s what I got for you so far:

I’m in the Land of Fabergé and Rhystic, LOFAR.

So right away, weird, because Rhystic isn’t a real word, it’s a thing from Magic the Gathering- a word used for cards that an opponent can pay a cost to prevent you from using. Rhystic Study for example draws you a card every time someone else casts a spell, unless they pay an extra point of mana. (God FUCKING DAMN do I miss MTG, can’t play it now though, too risky, lots of cards give corruption.)

Meanwhile, Fabergé was literally just a guy’s name I think? But the way it manifests here is clearly about Fabergé eggs, they’re all over the place.

It’s kinda hell actually. Tons of the eggs have consort ashes (and/or organs/bones) in them and are basically like grave urns. But some of them have important stuff so I gotta open em anyway, and I think all the funerary ones I keep desecrating by accident are actually dropping my land rep.

As for the Rhystic keyword, I’m kinda stuck actually. I’m not seeing much about it really? There’s a place called the “Rhystic Tower” in one of the consort villages, and the consorts get really weird when I try to talk to them about it, but I can’t figure out how to get inside.

Onto the topic of death, none so far. No comas either. I want to ask though, if Quartz DOES rely on no deaths, do you think dying to go god tier might fuck all this up and make it so I retroactively never would have been assigned the aspect? Not that any of us have found our beds yet anyway, but I'm worried about it... Realselves don’t leave a ghost in a dream bubble when they god tier, right? Since you are your realself and dreamself at the same time? Or am I wrong?

As for time stuff, the meteors seem to be working like normal. Appearifier is still letting us make paradox slime for frog breeding, and the Ectobiology labs are present in the veil (but we’ve not found a gate to them yet). I think the exiles aren’t working though? Hard to tell. They might just be subtle and not have much to say, or maybe all of us have too much pepleader or something.

Okay, now for the big list of abilities I’ve gotten:

The first two were [Rose Tint] and [Smoke]. I guess in reference to rose quartz and smoky quartz. They are notably NOT offensive, and in fact seem to barely work, if at all. I think they might just be bugged. I can target living things with them, and they eat up some pluck, but then nothing seems to happen. I know abilities can be finicky, but I’m running out of ideas.

[Record] is an ability that I’ve been using constantly though. I actually learned to freestyle this early on, though the ability version is way more efficient. Either way, it basically it lets me extract a memory out of something’s mind. They come out as these glowy colorful orbs, but I can’t like, stuff them into my own head or anything. When I touch them, I think I get an impression of what the underling I extracted from was feeling at the time (mostly anger and fear so far). I’ve not found a real use for these yet, but it’s become almost compulsive for me to [Record] every enemy I fight at least once. I assume they’ll be useful later on.

As for abilities that actually do stuff in fights, [Elegist] was my go-to for a while. It feels like it “skips” me ahead, to after an enemy is already dead, and then I get a mental summary of how I beat them. But while it’s running I’m actually just in a fugue state, it’s not time travel or anything even though it feels like it. Had to stop using it after it let me get run through the chest with a sword just so I could get in close and kill an imp, I almost died from that… Plus, I just don’t trust it, no way Sburb really gave me a “I win” button, I bet it’d fail against strong enough enemies or whatever.

So instead I’ve mostly been using [Brain Fart] and [Going In Circles]. Fart just makes a target forget what they were doing for a second, and the circles one seems to make an enemy want to go back to wherever they were standing when I used the ability on them, after a few seconds. Both of these are really good at throwing enemies off in battle, and cost barely any pluck, so I can spam them.

There’s more, but my coplayers need me for a dungeon dive, and these were the ones I’ve been using the most, so I’m just gonna send this off as is.

I'd be a bit concerned about the Land Keywords. The running theory is that Quartz is a bugged Aspect, and Lands don't typically generate pop-culture references. I mean, it'd be kind of stupid if you got like, the Land of Gonzales and Mug Root Beer and you don't know that wrestler/that soda isn't available in whatever country or world you come from. Pop culture is constrained almost entirely to Alchemy, so you should be seeing immediate red flags any time they pop up. Related sidenote, I am now much more skeptical of this entire post.

On the funerary ashes, you just gotta roll with it. Toppling sacred urns, desecrating mystic ruins, and defiling hallowed tombs is as natural as breathing. It's sad, but you can't make an omelette without traumatizing a few people.

"Retroactively not getting assigned your own Title" isn't a thing. The only thing you can do to make yourself not be the Title you've been assigned is to do Vagabouncy. The nature of the Quest Beds and how ascending works is unknown, so it's kind of your job to figure that out. And as for whether or not ascending leaves behind a Dreambubble Ghost, the classical mistake you're committing is thinking about Dream Bubbles. Don't do that. All thinking about the Dream Bubbles typically does is existentially freak yourself out. So don't think about it, or whether or not you leave a ghost when you suffer a non-Just or non-Heroic death.

That the meteors and Ectobiology labs are working as normal seems to throw a wrench at our previous "Quartz supersedes Time and replaces it" theory. The game DOES have back-ups in case the meteor plan doesn't work, so "it brute-forces the meteors to time travel when the Reckoning happens because that's an essential step of the game" isn't an answer. Or at least, it seems somewhat hackneyed.

I don't think [Elegist] is an "I win" button, per say. It gives you a roadmap for defeating an enemy, but knowing how to do something and actually doing it are two different things (I say as I smooch my bulging biceps while wearing a shirt reading "SAGE EXCEPTION"). It's like how you can read guides for how to get top scores on Punch-Out!!, but the input, timing, and RNG makes it difficult. I would advise not using it on tougher enemies... Alone. If you can get someone to run a distraction (or otherwise protect you), it could make for a really good tactic. The defending player learns how to protect against its attacks, you learn the perfect offense, and then you put it into action. Unite, synchronize.

Those other abilities seem more immediately useful though, yeah. One ability that might be looking into, either "try freestyling" or "potential in-game ability?", is forcing an enemy to repeat the last action they performed. It'd be really predictable, which would help one learn how to avoid or counter an attack, not to mention the potential of "making an enemy with an explosive attack keep exploding and causing collateral damage". That's the first ability I'd think of when it comes to Quartz.

I'm glad to hear the progress report. Keep your wits about you, seize all tomorrows, and report back with any breakthroughs.

#sburb #replay value au #quartz aspect #knight of quartz

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ilovewhiteroses · 2 years ago

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Workplace Affair Part 3.

Pairing: The Corinthian x Female Librarian of The Dreaming Reader Genre: Fluff, smut Warnings: Smut (sex in a human’s dream), knife play in an erotic way Rating: 18+ Notes: - The Agents, my OCs, previously appeared in ’Think Twice Before You Create Us’, where they were straight up evil, but I rebooted them and in this fanfic, they are two law- abiding dreams, who follow Morpheus’s orders

Your sensual encounter with Corinthian had its consequences, although it cannot separate you from each other either...

Morpheus managed to care of things quickly in the Waking World, so he could return to his palace in the Dreaming sooner. He had just set foot in the throne room when he heard groans. He went closer to the source of the sounds and saw you riding Corinthian on the throne and then continued having sex on the floor. Morpheus seethed inwardly with rage. He had seen many things in his long life, but never like this. It's not enough that you broke the rule that a dream can only mate with a dream, while a nightmare can only mate with a nightmare and even these only with his permission, but you also desecrated his sacred place, where he used to make important decisions... He must replace the throne, he thought to himself. On the one hand, he didn't want to leave Merv with the task of cleaning up the traces of your intercourse, and on the other hand, the throne was very old, so a new one would have been needed anyway. But even then, he couldn’t believe that you two, especially you, were capable of such a thing. He won't leave it at that, he will talk to you...

A few days later, your mind was still on your last meeting with Corinthian. Even now you felt the initial fear when you asked him about his eyes, and the pain in your heart when you found out why he did all the things he did... You saw his sexy body in front of you, you felt his touches on different parts of your body ... In your human life, you would never have dared to have sex at your place of work, no man would ever have been able to persuade you. But Corinthian was different, literally. You read his book out of curiosity, because even though you knew him intimately, you felt that there was more to learn about him.

You finally met Lucien and Merv, who had been very busy lately and only now got around to talk to you. You asked what they managed to do with regard to the construction of the palace. Allegedly, the library will be expanded and a few broken windows will be replaced, among other things.

"I’m sorry we didn't take you with us, but someone had to stay here in the library. Next time, when the architects call, you can go, I'll stay." Lucienne said with a smile

"Oh, it's okay, I wasn't bored, I kept myself busy." you answered with a shrug, meanwhile lush images of the sexy time in the throne room appeared before your eyes. You have no idea how much fun I had, you thought to yourself.

Suddenly Matthew appeared and said:

"Hi everyone! Y/N, Morpheus is calling you, he wants to talk to you about something.”

Merv and Lucienne stared at you. As soon as the raven said that, you felt as if you were standing on a cliff and someone pushed you into the depths. Nervousness and panic gripped you inside. No, it's impossible that he might have seen us, because he would have let us know that he was back...

"Okay, I'm going." you said and hoped the others didn't hear the tremor in your voice. "You're not coming?" you asked Matthew.

"No, because he emphatically stated that only YOU should go." he said, you gulped.

"Okay, I'll be back soon." you told them and walked to the throne room with trembling legs, as you heard Merv asking the others why the Lord called you to him.

You entered the huge room, but this time you had completely different feelings than last time. You've seen Corinthian and Morpheus from afar. The nightmare was in his usual elegant, cream coloured outfit with his hands behind his back, Morpheus stood on the stairs and looked at you with narrowed eyes, as if he wanted to strangle you. Oh, shit…

You stood next to Corinthian, he smiled at you and said a quiet ‘hello’ to you. You said hello back, but you didn't dare to smile, you were too nervous for that. You also put your hands behind your back, making the three of you look like you and him were two students who pulled a prank and were waiting to be scolded by the principal. Morpheus stood silently and stared at you, and you, in your agony, were already waiting for him to get over with it. Better to relieve the tension, you asked Morpheus with a forced smile on your face:

"May I ask you, My Lord, did you manage to arrange everything in the Waking World?" Morpheus didn't answer, he just continued to stare at you in silence.

Corinthian leaned in close to you and whispered,

"I asked him too, but he didn't answer me either."

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Morpheus finally spoke:

"May I ask what you did while I was away?"

You were about to open your mouth to answer the question, but Corinthian cut you off.

"Lord Morpheus, we were doing our usual tasks. I was in the library and Y/N helped me find the book of the man whose nightmare I appeared in next.” he told this lie with such confidence that even you believed it.

“Is this true, Y/N?” Morpheus asked looking at you and you nodded.

"Hmm, interesting… I remember differently." As soon as he said that, you knew you were done. You gulped and tried to keep yourself together.

"What do you mean by that, Morpheus?" Corinthian asked almost offended.

"As soon as I returned home from the Waking World and entered the throne room, I heard voices. In fact, not simple voices, but moans." You felt your face start to burn, you already knew what he was going to say.

"Lustful, loud moans. I came closer and saw you fornicating on my throne.” You were about to faint at this point, the thought of Morpheus seeing you freaked you out. You looked at Corinthian to see his reaction, but unlike you, he remained relaxed, even smiling proudly to himself. Morpheus continued:

"It's not enough that you broke the rules and had a secret affair, but on top of that right here, in my holy place! What excuses can you come up with?”

Neither you nor the nightmare knew what to say. It would have been pointless, because Morpheus wouldn't have listened anyway.

"I knew it. Corinthian, to be honest, I'm not surprised by you, but you, Y/N, I thought you were smarter than to put yourself in a situation like that.” You didn't dare to look Morpheus in the eyes, but Corinthian carefully reached for your arm, indicating that nothing would be wrong, don't worry. Morpheus saw that you regretted your actions and softened a bit. He took a deep breath and thought about your punishment.

“I must note that what you did is not the worst thing that has ever happened in the palace, it is rather unpleasant. But so that this doesn't happen again, I'm warning you: from now on, there can only be a work relationship between you, nothing more. If I hear of any more misbehaviour of yours, Corinthian, you can never set foot in the library again, I will tell you whose nightmare you must be in, and you, Y/N, I will set the Agents on you, who will watch every step of yours. Did I make myself clear?” he asked with a stern look and you and Corinthian nodded. The thought of possibly never seeing him again made your stomach churn. Morpheus asked you to return to work, he has to deal with other palace matters. On your way out of the room, Corinthian whispered to you:

"Don't worry, we'll figure out something." you looked at him and saw his lovely smile. I hope so, you thought to yourself…

When you returned, Lucienne was alone with a magnifying glass in her hand, reading a small print in a book. She looked at you and asked:

"Is everything alright? Why did Morpheus call you?”

You had to come up with something fast. "Nothing out of the ordinary, he just told me a few names whose book I should look for and that he needs to take care of the matters of the palace." You tried to look her in the eye as you said this because you knew that the hallmark of a liar is looking away and you didn't want Lucienne to get suspicious. She pouted her lips and shrugged.

"Alright then. Let me know if you need help searching.”

"Thanks, but it's not necessary, I'll handle it." you said. Until then, at least I'll have time to think over a few things…

After that, you didn't see Corinthian for days, or if you did, he only dropped by for a few books, and you pretended to be co-workers. He looked at you and even though you couldn't see his eyes through his sunglasses, you knew that with them he would say 'I'm sorry' and 'I miss you'. You missed him too: his closeness, his crude humour, his kiss...When no one saw you, you thought of him longingly.

You saw Lucienne marveling at how well you behaved around the nightmare.

"What? Didn't you tell me to watch out for him because he could cause trouble?" you asked her surprised

"Well, yes, and you're doing right. Good girl!" Lucienne answered you. Oh, but if you only knew about the insanely sexy moments I've had with him...

Another few days later, Merv told you that the Agents would soon come to check on you. Fuck! You almost had a heart attack at the news, you thought Morpheus had told them what he saw and maybe asked them to question you about your relationship with Corinthian. Although the main task of the Agents was to find meaning in human's dreams, their duties also included checking on the palace employees from time to time and reporting the situation to Morpheus.

You, Lucienne, and Merv stood there while Agent 1 and Agent 2 went through the documents and your notes. It was the second occasion in a short time you were this nervous, you thought a librarian job in the Dreaming would be less stressful. The Agents questioned you, but it was only about work things, luckily there were no issues concerning your private life.

Corinthian came again for another book and asked you to help him find it. Lately, Lucienne also went with you, but now she had something else to do, so after a long time you could finally be together again. You could talk to Corinthian in another hidden part of the library. He told you that the Agents counted all the Dreaming residents for the census, including him and asked him about this and that, but thank goodness they didn't ask him about you, so Morpheus really didn't tell anyone, only he knows about your little adventure. Of course, deep down you were afraid that you would get caught again, because then you really wouldn't see each other anymore. You agreed that when there is no one else in the library, he will come for you and you go into a human's dream, someone whose nightmare he has been in once.

Night has come in the Waking World, the human went to sleep and dreamed of a beautiful forest. It was evening and you arrived at a big tree in the forest. You remembered that Corinthian once mentioned this 'human dreams of a forest' thing.

"Whose dream are we in?" you asked him while enjoying the beauty of the forest.

”His name is Joel Mayfield. He had a couple of burglaries a long time ago, for which he was arrested. I appeared in his nightmare to warn him that it will not end well if he commits another crime. It seems that I managed to influence him and now he dreams of less dangerous, more peaceful things" He said and took your hand. "Come, let's find a place where he can't see us." You went further and came to a slightly hilly part. You stopped and then looked at Corinthian and asked:

"What if the Agents show up?"

"I don't think they'll show up, but if they do, I've set a trap for them." Since it was a dream and anything could happen, he actually set up traps so that wherever the Agents stepped, the ground would swallow them up. You liked the idea and were glad that he was so forward thinking. You calmed down, you knew you were safe. You kissed each other and you wished there was a bed there so you could finally make love comfortably. A large, comfortable-looking king size bed appeared. To make it even more cozy, you set candles around it. You knew this from your human life, that there is nothing more romantic than candlelight.

You both started undressing. You took off your top and bra, then you sat on the end of the bed. Corinthian also took off his jacket and shirt, then he took off your skirt, leaving only your panties on. You slowly climbed onto the bed, he took off his trousers and underpants, then knelt on the bed and started to climb towards you. He stopped at your ankles, then carefully began to caress your legs and thighs while looking deep into your eyes. Your heart was beating fast. The candle flames reflected on the dark lenses of his sunglasses, a metaphor for his fiery desires. His hands reached your panties, which he began to pull off you, you raised your bottom slightly so he could take them off you more easily. He didn't take his eyes off of you for a second as he slowly pulled the garment off you, taking deep breaths. By the time you were completely naked, he tossed your panties aside and licked his lips. You pulled him close and you kissed passionately. He wanted you so much, he wanted to taste every inch of you. He knew your body, knew where and what you liked. You closed your eyes to feel his touches even more intensely. He started at your neck: first kissing it, then carefully biting it. He went lower, gently and carefully biting the mound of your breasts, teasing your nipples with the tip of his tongue. He continued to kiss you, moving towards your belly and then your pubic mound. He then kissed the inside of your thighs, close to your pussy. You moaned longingly, letting him know that you wanted him to kiss you there too. He took this as encouragement and licked you. When he heard you murmur a low ‘Oh my God’, he continued and ran his tongue around your folds and then your clit. As a result, you started to squeeze the two sides of the pillow and turned your head back and forth, you enjoyed it so much, it was so good. You felt like you were in heaven and lying on a soft cloud. After Corinthian brought you to your orgasm, he moved back to kiss you and said,

"I'd like to try something with you, if you're in."

"What would it be?" you asked quietly and inquisitively as he flipped you over so now you were on top.

"I would like you to run my knife all over my body, and then yours!" he said as you sat up. You were surprised by the request. You have never been asked to do something like this before. "But only if you want to." Corinthian looked at you worriedly, he was afraid that he might cross a line. You bit your lip and thought about it for a moment, then said:

"I want to, but I'm telling you in advance, I won't cut you with it." you caressed his chest as you said this and the knife was already in his hand. You took the sharp tool in your hand and carefully touched the tip to his neck, then slowly stroked it along his naked upper body. He moaned and whimpered softly, enjoying that you made small scratches on his skin, You began to carefully scratch your name into the skin above his belly, but you made sure not to cause him pain, while you looked at him and flashed a sexy smile.

"You like it?" you asked confidently.

"Oh yes, very much." he replied and in the meantime he grabbed your breast with one hand and started kneading it gently, which made you even more aroused. You took the knife from his skin and now put it to your own neck and started to drag it along yourself, Corinthian's hand moved back to your hip. The tip of the knife touched your breasts and stomach, and then, guided by a sudden idea, you turned the knife in your hand and carefully touched the handle to your clit, where you began to slowly caress yourself with it.

"Oh my god, that’s so hot!" Corinthian moaned in his deep voice, you could tell he was going to like that. You stroked yourself a little more, then asked:

"What do you want me to do?" you raised your eyebrows sexily.

"I want you to ride me! I want you so bad!” You giggled and teased him a little more before he took the knife from your hand and threw it away. He grabbed your hips and lifted you up so you could gently place him inside you. When you felt that he was in, you leaned forward, grabbed the headboard with one hand, placed the other on his chest and he started moving under you, moving his cock in and out of your wet pussy. You loved how he fucked you like that, but you also wanted to control. You sat up in a riding position, you grabbed his wrists and pinned him to the bed, you fucked him, wildly moving your hips.

“Fuck Y/N, don’t stop! I'm yours, use me!” he encouraged you heatedly, you loved that you could drive him crazy. You let go of his wrists, then he sat up, put his arm around you and you continued like that, which made your lovemaking even more intimate.

It may have all happened in a human's dream, but it was very real to you. Romantic and passionate. By now, your opinion of Corinthian has changed. You read his book, and it is true that there is no forgiveness for what he committed in the Waking World, but at the same time you understood him, because he only did what he was created to do. No one told him what was allowed and what was not allowed in the world of humans. Until then, people were afraid of him, but he also longed for their recognition, and even though Corinthian knew that he was only a physical manifestation, he enjoyed being able to fit in.

As much as you didn't like him at first, lately you've started to feel something more than just a crush on him. He told you ‘I'm yours’. Did he just say this in the heat of the moment or did he also have tender feelings for you? You hoped it was the latter.

He grabbed you and flipped you over but was careful not to slip out of you and now you were under him. You looked at the sky as you put your arms around him and this time you really made love under the open sky, in the light of the stars, the moon and the candles, so passionately that you have never experienced anything like this before...

After you both calmed down from orgasms, Corinthian pulled up the covers and snuggled up to you. He put his arms around you like you were the little spoon. He kissed your cheek and then whispered gently in your ear:

"See you in the next dream!"

Tags: @thecorilove86, @placeinthemiddleofnowhere, @kittycat-kai, @e-dubbc11, @onehundredyearsofyearning, @yellowwithalisp, @icytrickster17, @lazy-queen26, @jessamydreams, @amidalasruby, @drowningnikki, @destiny-rahl, @atomwritez, @treasures-of-the-alleyway, @dayleis, @idealai, @belladiaz, @foodlover123456789, @violentviolet88, @merryandrewsworld @strudelbug07, @ionlyjoinedforboydholbrook

#the corinthian #the corinthian fanfic #the corinthian & female reader #boyd holbrook #Sandman

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sixsoulsredone · 1 year ago

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Patience and perseverance had known each other for a long time. Years and years.

They'd first met at the bus stop to go to school. Patience's dad tagged along every day, making sure his kid safely got aboard the bus. Perseverance had grown accustomed to doing most everything by themself. Independence is nice, yet lonely.

They had no classes together, and perseverance didn't like people sitting next to them on the bus. So they rarely spoke, except in small, "hello!"s and "Good morning"s. And the occasional "bye!"s, "good afternoon"s.

On the first day of middle school, they still shared the same bus stop. But something changed. Patience's father walked her to the bus stop, but he no longer stayed. Perseverance seemed more approachable. More comfortable with themself.

Lacking someone to ramble to, patience decided her victim would be the perseverance, who already seemed annoyed by by the mere fact that she was so happy and talkative so early in the morning.

"Hello!" Exclaimed patience, "how are you? Why is your face like that? Why aren't you happy to be here?"

Perseverance covered their eyes for a moment. They were trying to think of excuse not to talk to her but lacked one.

"It's just early. How can you dare to be like this right now? What did your dad put in your breakfast— red bull?" They asked, voice tinged with tired ness and an annoyance that patience was not yet accustomed to. Patience grinned anyway, padding perseverance multiple times.

"You're just a Grumpy Gus, that's okay, I'm going to make sure today is the best day ever for you. We're gonna be bestest friends ever." The shorter kid rambled, bouncing excitedly as they waited for the bus. The taller kid resisted the urge to groan.

"Best friends are for people who lack intelligence." Perseverance mumbles to themself.

"In- tell-a-gants?" The shorter girl asked, bewildered by the word. "How'd the gants get in the tell?" She asked, grinning crookedly. Perseverance rolled their eyes. It had only been 10 minutes, but they had had enough with this girl. They tried to relate silently for the bus, but the girl kept rambling.

She rambled on and on and on about sports, about her favorite colors, about her new school supplies about this about that. About what subject she's excited for this year? About all the favorite things that she's going to enjoy. Oh, did you hear that this year they replaced one of the teachers?

Perseverance own patience grew thin. They sighed with relief when they saw the bus, quickly climbing aboard. They headed to the back so they could get a seat alone. But patience had followed them once again, unfortunately. She sat beside him and didn't leave them alone until they got to school, even desecrating one of their new notebooks with a sticker. Thankfully, they had different first period classes. Perseverance had never been so thankful in their life to get away from someone.

This became routine. They'd wait for the bus, get on the bus, and ride it together until they got to school. For the first year, they didn't have class together. And yet patience still managed to endeared themselves to pet perseverance. Perhaps it's because she didn't treat them any differently than any other person, unlike their classmates who had started to.

Middle school, they quickly found out that they were considered 'The Weird Kids' for stuff they couldn't help. Like for having a single parent and being a little bit chatty, or the cardinal sin of wanting to be yourself. It was all the same to the other kids who had a particular way they wanted their social structure.

That was fine with perseverance and patience. They became their own social structure. They became each other's friends instead of wanting to be their friends.

By the end of middle school, they decided they didn't want to be separated. They were inseparable always with each other. Always at each other's houses, they were practically siblings.

Despite living so close to each other, they realized that when they got to high school, they wouldn't go to the same school because of how the districts were set up. This was simply unacceptable on many levels. So, to avoid the inevitable, they tried, studied, and did their hardest work to get into private schools to get scholarships to go anywhere as long as it was together.

They still thought private schools would be terrible. But at least it'd be a type of terrible they could manage together.

But sometimes, even when you try your hardest and do your best, you don't always end up with the outcome you want.

#page 1 #six souls oc #undertale oc #cam #sid #patience #perseverance

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whogivesafughck · 1 year ago

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My entire life has always felt somewhat re-lived.

Though every now and then I am immensely overwhelmed by a sudden entity, a miraculous, beautiful being. And it didn't take long to realize that nothing is permanent, people come, and they go, much like the tides kissing the shoreline repeatedly. Or the sun creating the early morning dew, the moon nonchalantly being disguised upon the sky throughout some days. I'm well aware of what I am, the traits I possess. How I've always been a natural magnet upon countless strangers. It didn't take long to mentally scoff, sigh, roll my eyes and weep after being told "I'll always be here for you, I promise", because that is all people ever fucking do (leave). And that's okay, such is my stupid beautiful life. I am a collection of a vast variety of people who at a point were overly fond of me, then one day, after many, just cast me aside. Like a stupid toy in Toy Story. The thing is, despite how much I allow people to use and take advantage of me - I'm not a fucking toy. I am an overly emotional, complex, dark, wonderful, lost, hurt, isolated soul. I've shut myself away, ever since I was 4 years old. Growing up all I yearned for was to meet someone Vaugely similar to me yet at the same time it'd desecrate my heart, knowing they felt the ways I have and do. Every fucking day I do things I don't want to, via work - favors for other people - fucking merely existing sometimes. More so as of late. And I do not discuss those wretched disgusting thoughts with Anyone., Because I learned about a decade ago that it's easily dismissed - shunned - misunderstood. That is the epitome of my life. And it just fuxking Hurts. I opened up to a girl I hardly even know about a week ago and ended up with saying that - It fucking hurts - I hurt myself every gods damn day. I am Constantly torn between what I want and what I cannot have - due to my own actions and or lack of. The thoughts of just..perishing have been overwhelming lately and I fucking HATE it because I declared Many moons ago that that isn't even a fucking option - so why do I still have those thoughts. The only reason I didn't long ago was to prevent heartbreak / pain unto my loved ones and friends. Yet again, placing others before myself. I'm stuck at a cross roads. I know what I have to do in order to achieve what I crave, desire. It just isn't the same anymore. I'm not even sure I deserve such a life anymore, despite it being all I've ever yearned for. I stupidly find myself wishing I were anyone but myself. Which really sucks because..well I'm a beautiful person, or so I tend to think & constantly be told. Obviously not. Nobody fuxking knows the depths of the darkness that dwells and resides within me, and that itself breaks my fucking heart. Am I just a facade. A mask worn daily? I cannot stop imaging simply piercing a bullet through my heart so I may finally, eternally as well as peacefully sleep. The agony that would briefly spring unto those I care immensely for, sigh, just isn't acceptable. I am drowning in despair, while looking up at myself basking in the light - reaching out unto myself. I absolutely fuxking hate resorting to using this app, but my gods, it's much faster than physically writing., and I almost always delete it shortly after. plus, no one reads it anyway which is a bonus. I Love but Hate being me, I just wish to achieve the better versions of this essence, despite the consistent general heartbreak.

#this was only 3 days ago #yet again #the sheer irony #that is my life

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tinypurpleparrot · 4 months ago

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My partner Kaidan (M, 29) and I (F, 36) just took down a dragon. It was threatening to tear up a village and kill everyone it, and had already torn up a group of bandits well outside the village, so okay, that wasn't much of a loss, but the way it completely desecrated the bodies and left body parts all over was uncalled for. It was invisible, and taunting Kaidan who's already having a hard time with an identity crisis, and I'd finally fucking had enough when it put it's big, invisible, smug maw over the blacksmith's daughter walking out of her house while waggling it's eye...ridges? brows? at me. Fuck it.

So I pulled the river up and pinned the dragon to the ground like a giant butterfly with ice pylons. The village is fine, it's just soggy and the watermill is busted. Whatever. Is anyone injured? No.

But it wouldn't stop talking. So I cut it's tongue out. Besides, dragons use vocal magic, so it would have escaped if I hadn't. And it was still insistent on being a fucking dick. All the other dragons I killed weren't nearly this assholish, plus someone stole and destroyed all my notes and journals about draconic biology. Two dragons with one spear.

Look, I know what I'm doing; I even checked to make sure everyone was still safe and in hiding before I cut it open. Of course it's going to start screaming, who the fuck just has gallons of anesthesia with them? Kaidan tells me to cut it out (*snort*) and just kill it and stop being weird. I tell him to fuck off because this is my job. Plus, he already gutted it so it's going to die soon, anyway. And now the village watch is yelling at me and meeeh meeh meh, there's blood everywhere and the screaming is awful and yeah okay I'd very much like to see you try to arrest me after I just fucked this thing up.

Am I really the asshole here? Did I not just save an entire village? Am I forcing anyone to watch me do important work? No? Well okay, then.

if you're trying to get into the head of your story's antagonist, try writing an "Am I the Asshole" reddit post from their perspective, explaining their problems and their plans for solving them. Let the voice and logic come through.

#fanfiction #writing #kaidan skyrim #oc: Starfall

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yumester · 5 months ago

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OC rambling under the cut because I am having a moment

So I have an OC, let's say his name is Kasper; short for Kas. Kas is like going through the worst Tuesday of his life. In actuality, its been six years in the making and the world is ending—typical alien takeover, post apocalyptic/brutal dystopia Armageddon (some part Half Life and interlining Heavenly Delusion, mixed with Fallout NV in a drug laced worldbuilding cocktail). A bunch of stuff happens to him yada yada (i.e. mind taken over, body modified against his will, nightmares/hallucinations on a constant bases, loses every ounce of his previous life; family, friends, future desires, etc.). And, suffice to say, Kasper was about to live the rest of his life as a unyielding drone to some entity beyond his understanding.

That is until he meets professor Lise Blackwood while patrolling. Lise is another character of mine, originally a RP self-insert style scientist but unlike Kasper, I actually did a few stuff with her here and there.

Anyway, Lise and Kasper have history together, Lise was a tutor for Kasper in her college years—forming a close relationship of sorts. They reunite; Kasper technically chasing after her into a desecrated building while she fails to hide from him, only to be reassured when he does something that sparks recognition that its him. Funny thing is though, Kasper can't talk. Couldn't for years from the modifications (he's like one of the Combine Soldiers in that regard, junk rammed through his throat and body absolutely wiped clean). There is one thing Kasper keenly knows what to do for this. It's sign language.

Back in school, one of the things Lise taught Kasper was sign language. To be honest, Kas thought nothing of it at the time. He was technically forced to learn it. But he liked Lise's odd teaching so it kind of worked out.

Anyway, Lise takes in Kasper. Not necessarily like some dumb adoption or other found family nonsense. Kas is like in his late twenties, was literally in college when shit hit the fan, while Lise is in her late thirties/early forties. Taking in Kas is a process in and of itself. For one, she's literally commandeering the enemy, Kas technically is still viewed as a tool for the outsiders. Two, she has no idea if its actually Kas because he's tailored head to toe with padded armor and no voice to speak but she just hopes in a way it truly is him. Three, she has to talk to the current group she's with about it; technically just her, her old buddy from work, some robot she found in a parking lot, and lab rat of sort. A small group nonetheless. Last task isn't hard to do but the walking tin can of a robot despises her for it. Though, to be honest, he's always hated her (if I go into details about their dynamic this would be like 1k words later but lets just say they were siblings in a previous life <3).

Okay with that out of the way, I wanna say this; imagine feeling so out of place in a world you hardly recognize. What do you do?

To Lise, it's simple. Learn everything you can and adapt.

To Kasper, it's a hard and yet, to him it should feel easy. He wishes it was. He wants attainment. Whatever that might be, he doesn't know. For now he just kinda wanders the line of being there and not being there. Lise is like an anchor to him, a sad anchor but a good one nonetheless.

Thinking back to that post I reblogged talking about certain dynamics. Lise and Kas are like "I'd destroy the world to protect you" but in like a child, grown in harsh, cold environment trying to protect its mother type beat. Whereas Lise is like "I hate everyone but I love you more than anything" core. She literally does not care for people or things or anything, she is very cold at times not even gonna lie. Kas is like one of the, if not, only people she treats in high regard and yet, Kas would probably destroy any ounce of himself for her.

Funnily enough, both have the mindset of "I hate everyone in this room except you" but in like very different fonts.

TLDR; Boy who loses everything finds comfort in someone he lost and can and will absolutely do anything for them even if that means losing himself even more, even if that means betraying his former teacher.

#yume yelling #okay time to get back to more productive matters

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azureeyenews · 1 year ago

Text

Thanksgiving: Chapter 13

(TUMBLR EDITION EDITOR'S NOTE: I belatedly discovered that Tumblr does not maintain line breaks between the websites. I apologize for any previous difficulties making sense of what was going on that this caused. I will correct for it going forward, but I'm not going back and re-doing every single post so far.)

Kathy always wanted to be special. Which is weird, because your family basically owns the local county, and between politics and money she was already a local celebrity just by being born. For some people that's not enough. It's never enough.

You knock on her door, and are shortly invited in.

"It's so nice to see you again!" She exclaims, "I swear, it's like you vanished into some alternate dimension after you got banished from university. I didn't even know they COULD banish someone, I thought it was only expulsion."

"In my defense," you shrug, sheepishly, "I had no way of knowing that priest was a papal legate when I-"

"Oof," she winces, "yeah, the inquisition was pretty lenient, all things considered. Anyway, what brought you home after all these years?"

"Dad's invitation."

"What?" She raises an eyebrow, "That's... he WANTED you back? Are you sure you're talking about dear ol' Dad? The man who blames you for the death of his oldest and still mourned son? Who watched you drown his ex-boyfriend?" You show her the note. "Well I'll be damned! Or you."

"Yeah, I suspect it's the latter," you admit, "I'm pretty sure I'm getting offered up to the spook on Thanksgiving."

"Oh, did you finally find out about that? Took you long enough. I had a bet with Bronwyn you wouldn't before you got possessed. I suppose I lose."

"I don't suppose," you ask, "you'd know any way to NOT get my soul ripped out of my body and hurled head-long into eternity?"

"Again, oof," And again, she winces, "Sorry, but as far as I know the rules are A) be alive, and B) be the oldest living descendant. Which means you."

"Well, what if I just leave?" You... actually don't know why this hadn't occurred to you, before now.

"I have, darling, absolutely no idea. By all means, go! I love you, truly, but I'd be okay with you never coming back if you were safe.-

"-But that said, if you need help? I am not the one to ask. I am, as dear daddy describes it, a 'useless socialite' who's only kept around because I can manage some of the smaller businesses while the real boss is busy. You want eldritch knowledge? Ask someone else."

You wish your sister a goodnight, and then go down to do something you should have done as soon as your mom's grave was desecrated- you leave. Or you try to, anyway, at which point you discover that leaving the front gate puts you in the forest in the back, by the graveyard.

A bit of experimentation later & you map out that you are quite trapped on the grounds. You have been very thoroughly cursed. Swearing at yourself, you run through everything that's happened, trying to work out who cursed you and when. You saw Father... huh. When DID you see Dad?

You remember that he was angry. Furious. That he's dying of consumption. You remember him being there. But... but you haven't actually SEEN him, have you? What the hell? Has he been holed up in his room this whole time? Then how did you talk with him? You KNOW you did.

You mentally add a note to look into that later, and decide to go back inside. It's getting cold out, and there's other siblings left to talk to. You decide to go see:

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pumpkinpaix · 4 years ago

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Pleeeeeeease get into the class one at some point because I very much want to understand the class dynamics happening in the story but I have yet to find a meta that dives into it

god anon you want me dead don’t you alsjdfljks

referring to this post

okay, so -- my specific salt about class interpretations in mdzs are very targeted. I can’t pretend to have a deep understanding of how class works in mdzs generally because uhhhhh yeah i don’t think i have that. i’m just not familiar enough with the genre and/or the particulars of chinese class systems. but! i can talk in general terms as to why I feel a certain way about the class dynamics that I do think I understand and how I think they relate to the themes of the novel! i’m gonna talk about wei wuxian, the daozhangs, xue yang, and 3zun with, I’m sure, a bunch of digressions along the way.

the usual disclaimers: i do not think you are a bad person if you hold opinions contrary to my own. i may disagree with you very strongly, but like. this isn’t a moral judgment, fandom is transformative and interpretive etc. etc. and i may change my mind. who knows what the future will bring!

OKAY so let’s begin!

here’s the thing about wei wuxian: he’s not poor. I think because characters use “son of a servant” kind of often when they’re trying to insult him, a lot of people latch onto that and think that it’s a much stronger indication of his societal status than it actually is. iirc, most of the insults that fall along the “son of a servant” line come after wei wuxian starts breaking severely from tradition. it’s a convenient thing to attack him for, but doesn’t actually indicate anything about his wealth. (exception: yu ziyuan, but that’s a personal familial issue) this is in direct contrast to jin guangyao who is constantly mocked for his family line, publicly and privately, no matter what he does.

so this, coupled with all the jokes about wwx never having any money (wei wuqian, sizhui’s “i’ve long since known you had no money” etc.), plus his like, rough years on the street as a child ends up producing this interpretation of wei wuxian, especially in modern aus, as someone who is very class conscious and “eat the rich”. but the fact of the matter is, wei wuxian IS rich. aside from the years in his childhood and the last two years of his life in yiling, like -- wei wuxian had money and status. he is gentry. he is respected as gentry. he is treated as a son by the sect leader of yunmeng jiang -- he does not have the jiang name, but it is so very clear that jiang fengmian favors him. wei wuxian is ranked fourth of all the eligible young masters in the cultivation world -- that is not a ranking he could have attained without being accepted into the upper class.

wei wuxian’s poverty does not affect him in the way that it affects jin guangyao or xue yang. he is of low-ish birth (still the son of jiang fengmian’s right hand man though! ok sure, “son of a servant” but like. >_> whatever anyways), but for most of his life he had money. he, jiang cheng, and their sect brothers go into town and steal lotus pods with the understanding that “jiang-shushu will pay for it”. this is a regular thing! that’s fucking rich kid behavior!!! wei wuxian is careless with money because he doesn’t have to worry about it. he still has almost all the benefits of being upper class: education, food security, respect, recognition etc. I think there may also be a misconception that wei wuxian was always on the verge of being kicked out by yu ziyuan, or that he was constantly walking on eggshells around her for fear of being disowned, but that is just textually untrue. i could provide receipts, but I admittedly don’t really feel like digging them up just now ;;

even in his last years in yiling, he was not the one who was dealing with the acute knowledge of poverty: wen qing is the one managing the money, and as far as we know, wei wuxian did little to no management of daily life during the burial mounds days -- mostly, he’s described as hiding in his cave for days on end, working on his inventions, running around like a force of chaos, frivolously making a mess of things -- it’s very very cute that he buries a’yuan in the dirt, but in classic wei wuxian fashion, he did Not think about the practical consequences of it -- that A’Yuan has no other clean clothes, and now he’s gotten this set dirty and has no intention of washing them. is this a personality thing? yeah, but I think it’s also indicative of his lack of concern over the logistics of everyday survival, re: wealth.

furthermore, i think it is important to remember that wei wuxian, when he is protecting the wen remnants, is not protecting common folk: he is still protecting gentry. fallen gentry, yes! but gentry nonetheless. wen qing was favored by wen ruohan, and wen ning himself says that he has a retinue of people under his command (the remnants, essentially). their branch of the family do not have the experience of living and growing in poverty -- they are impoverished and persecuted in their last years, but that’s a very different thing from being impoverished your whole life. (sidenote: I do not believe wei wuxian’s primary motivation for defending the wen remnants was justice -- i believe he did it because he felt he owed wen ning and wen qing a life debt, and once he was there, he wasn’t going to stand around and let the work camps go on. yes, he is concerned about justice and doing the right thing, but that’s not why he went in the first place. anyways, that’s another meta)

after wei wuxian returns, he then marries back into gentry, and very wealthy gentry at that. lwj provides him all the money he could ever want, he is never worried about going homeless, starving, being denied opportunities based on his class and accompanying disadvantages. who would dare? and neither wei wuxian nor lan wangji seem to have much interest in shaking up the order of things, except in little things like the way they teach the juniors. they live in gusu, under the auspices of the lan, and they live a happy, domestic life.

were his years on the street traumatizing? yes, of course they were, there’s so much delicious character exploration to be done re: wei wuxian’s relationship to food, his relationship to his own needs, and his relationship to the people he loves. it’s all important and good! but I feel very strongly that that experience, while it was formative for him, did not impart any true understanding of poverty and the common person’s everyday struggles, nor do I think he ever really gains that understanding. he is observant and canny and aware of class and blood, certainly, but not in a way that makes it his primary hill to die on (badum-tss).

this is in very stark contrast to characters like jin guangyao and xue yang, and to some extent, xiao xingchen and song lan. I’ll start with the daozhangs, because I think they’re the simplest (??).

I think both xiao xingchen and song lan have class consciousness, but in a very simplified, broad-strokes kind of way (at least, given the information we know about them). we know that the two of them share similar values and want to one day form their own sect that gives no weight to the nobility of your lineage and has no concern with your wealth. we also know that they both disdain intersect politics and are more concerned with ideals and principles rather than status. but, I think because of that, this actually somewhat limits their perception and understanding of how status is used to oppress. as far as we know, neither of them participated on any side in sunshot and they demonstrate much more interest in relating to the commoners. honestly, i hc that they were flitting around trying to help decimated towns, protecting defenseless villages etc. I ALSO think this has a lot of interesting potential in terms of xiao xingchen and wei wuxian’s relationship, if xiao xingchen is ever revived. regardless of whether you’re in CQL or novel verse, xiao xingchen really doesn’t know wei wuxian at all, other than knowing that he’s his shijie’s son. he knows that cangse-sanren met with a tragic end, like yanling-daoren before her, and that he wants to be different. but here is cangse-sanren’s son, laying waste to entire cities, desecrating the dead. I would very much like to get into xiao xingchen’s head during that period of time (and i think, if i do it right, i can write some of it into the songxiao fixit), but that’s neither here nor there, because i’ve wandered off from my point again.

i would posit that song lan is used to an ascetic lifestyle, and xiao xingchen probably is too -- but that’s different from poverty because there’s an element of choice to it. I also think that neither of them is particularly worldly, xiao xingchen especially. he lived on an isolated mountain until he was like, seventeen, and he came down full of ideals and naivete about how the world worked. I think that both of them see inequality, that they are angered by it, and that they want to do something about it -- but their solution is neither to topple the sects, nor is it to reform the system. rather, it seems to be more about withdrawing and creating their own removed world. I think that the daozhangs embody a kind of utopianism that isn’t present in the minds of any of the other characters, not even wangxian. honestly, baoshan-sanren’s mountain is a utopian ideal, but one that is not described. it exists outside of and beyond the world. i have a lot of jumbled, vague thoughts about utopianism generally, mostly informed by china miéville and ursula k. le guin, and I don’t think i have the ability to articulate them here, but i wanted to. hm. say something? there is something about the inherent dystopianism contained within every utopia, that utopias are necessary, but also reflections of the existence of terrible things in their conception. idk. there’s something in there, I know it!! but i suppose what I want to say is -- i do not think the daozhangs understand class and social hierarchy very deeply because they don’t see a need to examine it deeply. for their goals, the details aren’t the point. they’re not looking to reform within the system, they’re looking to build something outside of it. I think they spend a lot of time concerned with alleviating the symptoms of social oppression, and their values reflect the injustices they witness there.

regardless, even if their story ends in tragedy and there is a certain amount of critique re: the utopian approach, i think the text still emphasizes that xiao xingchen left a utopia and that he thought that people mattered enough for him to try, and that was an incredibly honorable, kind, and human thing to do.

YEAH SURE THE DAOZHANGS ARE THE SIMPLEST ok ok RETURNING to class and moving forward: xue yang.

i also don’t think xue yang has class consciousness lol, or not in any way that really matters, but I do think poverty impacted him in a much stronger way than it impacted wei wuxian. wei wuxian spent some years on the street as a child. xue yang grew up on the streets. chang ci’an’s horrific treatment of him was directly due to his class and social standing: chang ci’an is a nobleman and xue yang is not even worth the dirt beneath the wheels of his cart. what I think is the seminal point though, is that this does not make xue yang think particularly deeply about systemic injustice, because xue yang is so self-centered, self-driven, and individualistic. he is not even slightly concerned about how poverty and class might affect other people -- they’re other people. what he takes away from his experience is not an anger at being wrongfully cheated by a system, but an anger at being wrongfully cheated by a specific man.

xue yang is not particularly concerned with the politics of the aristocracy -- he has no obvious ambitions other than, “i want to eat sweets whenever i please”, “i want to hurt anyone who wrongs me”, and “i want to be so strong that no one can hurt me”. like, he just doesn’t care -- it’s not the kind of power he wants. he sneers at people for like, personal reasons, not class reasons -- “you think you’re better than me” re: xiao xingchen and song lan. to him, all people -- poor, wealthy, noble, common -- are essentially equal, and they are all beneath him. after all, what does he care what family someone comes from, how much money they have? everyone bleeds when you cut them. some of them might be harder to get to than others, but xue yang does not fear that sort of thing. it’s just another obstacle he needs to vault on his way to getting revenge and/or a pastry.

ANYWAYS onto jin guangyao (wow this is hm. getting rather long ahaha oh dear): I would argue that the two characters with the most acute understanding of class/societal politics and the injustice of them are jin guangyao and lan xichen. i’ll start with jin guangyao for obvious reasons.

where xue yang took the damaging effects of poverty as personal slights, I think jin guangyao is painfully aware that there is nothing personal about them, which is, in some ways, much worse. why are two sons, born on the same day to the same father, treated so differently? just because.

he watched his mother struggle and starve and work herself to the bone in a profession where she was constantly disrespected and abused for almost nothing in return, while his father could have lifted her out of poverty with the wave of a finger. why didn’t he? because he didn’t like her? no -- because he didn’t care, and the structures of the society they live in protect that kind of blase treatment of the lower class.

“so my mother couldn’t choose her own fate, is that her fault?” jin guangyao demands. he knows that he is unbelievably talented, that he has ambition, that he has potential, and that all of it is beyond his grasp just because his father didn’t want to bother with it. his mother’s life was destroyed, and his own opportunities were crippled with that negligence. it isn’t personal. that’s just the way things are. your individual identity is meaningless, your humanity does not exist. when he’s kicked down the steps of jinlin tai, it’s just more confirmation that no matter how talented or hardworking he is, no one will give him the time of day unless he finds a way to take it himself and become someone who “matters”.

jin guangyao’s cultivation is weak because he had a poor foundation, and he had a poor foundation because he was denied access to a good one. he copies others because that’s all he can do at this point, and he copies so well that he can hold his own against some of the strongest cultivators of his generation. he’s disparaged for copying and “stealing” techniques, but -- he never would have had to if only he had been born/accepted into the upper class. the fact is that i really do think jin guangyao was the most promising cultivator of his generation that we meet, including the twin jades and wei wuxian: he had natural talent, ambition, creativity, determination and cunning in spades. in some ways, I think that’s one of the overlooked tragedies of jin guangyao: the loss of not just the good man he could have been, but the powerful one too. imagine what he could have done.

jin guangyao spends his entire time in the world of the aristocracy feeling unsteady and terrified because he knows exactly how precarious his position is. he knows how easy it is to lose power, especially for someone like him. he’s working against so many disadvantages, and every scrap of honor he gets is a vicious battle. jin guangyao fears, and I think that’s something that’s lacking in xue yang, wei wuxian and the daozhangs’ experiences/understandings of poverty. i think it’s precisely that fear that emphasizes jin guangyao’s understanding of class and blood. jin guangyao exhibits an anxiety that neither wei wuxian nor xue yang do, and it’s because he truly knows how little he is worth in the eyes of society and how little there is he can do to change that. to me, it very much feels related to the anxiety of not knowing if tomorrow you’ll have something to eat, if tomorrow you’ll still have a home, if tomorrow someone will destroy you and never have to answer for it. it’s the anxiety of knowing helplessness intimately.

moreover, jin guangyao is the only person shown to use the wealth and power at his disposal to take concrete steps to actually help the common people typically ignored by the powerful -- the watchtowers. they’re described in chapter 42. it’s a system that is designed to cover remote areas that most cultivators are reluctant to go due to their inconvenience and the lack of means of the people who live there. the watchtowers assign cultivators to different posts, give aid to those previously forgotten, and if the people are too poor to pay what the cultivators demand, the lanling jin sect pays for it. jin guangyao worked on this for five years and burned a lot of bridges over it. people were strongly opposed to it, thinking that it was some kind of ploy for lanling jin’s personal benefit. but the thing is -- it worked. they were effective. people were helped.

i believe CQL frames the watchtowers as an allegory for a surveillance state/centralized control (i think?? it’s been a minute -- that’s the hazy impression i remember, something like a parallel to the wen supervisory offices?), but I personally don’t think that was the intent in the novel. the watchtowers are a public good. lanling jin doesn’t staff them with their own sect members -- they get nearby sects to staff them. it’s a warning network that they fund that’s supposed to benefit everyone, even those that everyone had considered expendable.

(did jin guangyao do terrible things to achieve this goal? yeah lol. it’s not confirmed, but his son sure did die... suspiciously...... at the hands of an outspoken critic of the watchtowers........ whom he then executed....... so like, maybe just a convenient coincidence for jin guangyao, two birds one stone, but. it seems. Unlikely.)

lan xichen is the only member of the gentry that ever shows serious compassion for and nuanced understanding of jin guangyao’s circumstances. lan xichen treats him as his equal regardless of jin guangyao’s current status -- even when he was meng yao, lan xichen treated him as a human being worthy of respect, as someone with great merits, as someone he would choose as a friend, but he did so knowing full well the delicate position meng yao occupied. this is in direct contrast to nie mingjue, who also believed that meng yao was worthy of respect as a human being, but was completely unable to comprehend the complexities of his circumstances and unwilling to grant him any grace. you know, the difference between “i acknowledge that your birth and status have had effects upon you, but I don’t think less of you for it” and “i don’t consider your birth and status at all when i interact with you because i think it is irrelevant” (“i don’t see color” anyone?)

to illustrate, from chapter 48:

大抵是觉得娼妓之子身上说不定也带着什么不干净的东西，这几名修士接过他双手奉上来的茶盏后，并不饮下，而是放到一边，还取出雪白的手巾，很难受似的，有意无意反复擦拭刚才碰过茶盏的手指。聂明玦并非细致之人，未曾注意到这种细节，魏无羡却用眼角余光扫到了这些。孟瑶视若未见，笑容不坠半分，继续奉茶。蓝曦臣接过茶盏之时，抬眸看他一眼，微笑道：“多谢。”

旋即低头饮了一口，这才继续与聂明玦交谈。旁的修士见了，有些不自在起来。

rough tl:

Probably because they believed that the son of a prostitute might also carry some unclean things upon his person, after these few cultivators took the teacups offered from [Meng Yao’s] two hands, they did not drink, but instead put them to one side, and furthermore brought out snow white handkerchiefs. Quite uncomfortably, and whether they were aware of it or not, they repeatedly wiped the fingers they had just used to touch the teacups. Nie Mingjue was not a detail-oriented person and never took note of such particulars, but Wei Wuxian caught these in the corner of his eye. Meng Yao appeared as if he had not seen, his smile unwavering in the slightest, and continued to serve tea. When Lan Xichen took the teacup, he glanced up at him and, smiling, said, “Thank you.”

He immediately dipped his head to take a sip, and only then continued to converse with Nie Mingjue. Seeing this, the nearby cultivators began to feel somewhat uneasy.

all right, since we’re in full cyan-rampaging-through-the-weeds mode at this point, i’m going to talk about how this is one of my favorite 3zun moments in the entire novel for characterization purposes because it really highlights how they all relate to one another, and to what degree each of them is aware of their own position in relation to the others and society as a whole.

1. nie mingjue, who is a forthright and blunt person, sets meng yao to serving tea and is done with it. he notices nothing wrong or inappropriate about the reactions of the people in the room because it’s not the sort of thing he considers important.

2. meng yao, knowing that his only avenue is to take it lying down with a smile, masks perfectly.

3. lan xichen, noticing all this, uses his own reputation to achieve two things at once: pointedly shame the other cultivators in attendance, and show meng yao that regardless of others’ opinions, he considers him an equal and does not endorse such behavior--and he does it while taking care that no fallout will come down on meng yao’s head.

is this yet another installment of cyan’s endless lxc defense thesis? why yes it is! no one is surprised! but this is my whole point: both meng yao and lan xichen understand the respective hierarchy and power dynamics within the room, while nie mingjue very much does not. this is not because nie mingjue is a bad person or because nie mingjue is stupid--it’s a combination of personality and upbringing. nie mingjue is straightforward and has no patience for such games. but then again, he can afford not to play because he was born into such a high position: that’s a privilege.

to break it down: meng yao knows that he is the lowest-ranked person in the room, sees the way people are subtly disrespecting him in full view of his general who is doing nothing about it. in some ways, this is good -- nie mingjue’s style of dealing with conflict is very direct and not at all suited to delicate political maneuvering. after all, the way he promoted meng yao was actually quite dangerous to meng yao: he essentially guaranteed that his men would bear meng yao a grudge and that their disrespect for him would only be compounded by their bitterness at being punished on his behalf. (it’s like, why often getting parents or teachers to intervene ineffectively in bullying can just be an incitement to more bullying -- same concept) meng yao’s reaction during that scene shows that he’s pretty painfully aware of this and is trying to defuse the situation to no avail. nie mingjue gives him a bootstrap speech (rip nie mingjue i love u so much but. sir) and then promotes him, which is pretty much the only saving grace of that entire exchange, for meng yao at least.

lan xichen, on the other hand, understands both that meng yao is the lowest-ranked person in the room and that any direct attempt to chastise the other cultivators in the room will only serve to hurt meng yao in the long run. he knows that if this were brought to nie mingjue’s attention, he would be outraged and not shy about it -- also bad for meng yao. so he uses what he has: his immaculate reputation. by acting contrary to the other cultivators’ behavior, he demonstrates that he finds their actions unacceptable but with the plausible deniability that it wasn’t directed at them, that this is just zewu-jun being his usual generous self. this means that the other cultivators have no one to blame but themselves, nothing to do but question their own actions. there is nowhere to cast off their discomfort. meng yao didn’t do anything. lan xichen didn’t do anything -- he just thanked meng yao and drank his tea, isn’t that what it’s there for? he doesn’t disrupt the peace, he doesn’t attack anyone and put them on the defensive, but he does make his position very clear.

i know this is a really small thing and i’m probably beating it to death, but I really think this shows just how cognizant lan xichen is of politics and emotional cause and effect in such situations. certainly, out of context I think the scene reads kind of cliche, but within the greater narrative of the story and within the arc of these characters specifically, I think it was a really smart scene to include. it also showcases lan xichen’s style of action: that he moves around and with a problematic situation as opposed to moving straight through.

not to be salty on main again, but this is why it’s very frustrating to me when I see people call lan xichen passive when he is anything but. his actions just don’t look like traditional “actions”, especially to an american audience. it’s easy to understand lan wangji and wei wuxian’s style of problem-solving: taking a stand, moving through, staying strong. lan xichen is juggling an inconceivable number of factors in any given situation, weighing his responsibilities in one role against those in another, and then trying to find the path through the thicket that will cause the least harm, both to himself and the thicket. lan wangji and wei wuxian are not particularly good at considering the far-reaching consequences of their actions -- again, not because they are bad people, but because of a combination of personality and upbringing. they’d just hack through the thicket, not thinking about the creatures that live in it. that is not a terrible thing! it isn’t. it’s a different way of approaching a problem, and it has different priorities. that’s okay. there are advantages and disadvantages on both sides, and where you come down is going to depend on your personal values.

okay we’ve spiraled far and away from my original point, but let’s circle back: i was talking about class.

I think it’s undeniable that class, birthright, fate etc. are some of the driving forces of thematic conflict in mdzs, and the way each character interacts with those forces reveals a lot about themselves and also about the larger themes of fate, chance, and what it means to be righteous and good and how that is and isn’t rewarded. a lot of the tragedy of mdzs (the tragedy that isn’t caused by direct aggression on the part of one group or another) stems from the injustices and slights that people suffered due to their lot in life. it isn’t fair. none of it is fair! we sympathize with jin guangyao because we recognize that what he suffered was unconscionable, even if we don’t excuse him. i sympathize A Lot with xue yang as well for similar reasons, though I understand that’s a harder sell. this is a story focused on the mistakes of an entrenched, aging gentry and the effects that those mistakes had on their children, and a lot of it has to do with prejudice based in class and birth status. whether the prejudice was the true reason or whether it was just a convenient excuse, the fact remains that the systems in place rewarded and protected the people in power who used it to cling to that power. mdzs is also a story of how the circumstances of one’s life can offer you impossible choices that you cannot abstain from, and it asks us to be compassionate to the people who made terrible choices in terrible times. it’s about the inherent complexity in all things! that sometimes, there are no good choices, and i don’t know, i’d like to think that people would show me compassion if I had to make the choices some of these characters did. not just wei wuxian, mind you, every single one of them. except jin guangshan because I Do Hate Him sorry. and i guess wen ruohan. i think that’s it.

good. GOD this is clocking in at //checks notes -- just over 5k. 8′D *stuffs some weeds into my mouth like the clown i am*

(ko-fi? :’D *lies down*)

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zealous-whispers-of-us-redux · 3 years ago

Text

homecoming

(A/N: I tweaked an old, unposted [on this blog] fic of mine for @multi-stann and her 1k writing event. I picked the smut prompt: "Love the taste of you, but I need more.”) :)

Warning: demon sex and desecration in/of a church. Please don't read if that offends you!!

SMUT AHEAD

Intoxicating dreams. The feeling of her mouth around his cock. His teeth sinking into her plush bottom lip. Heat racketing up his spine until all he knew was her. Wrapping a hand around her neck and feeding on her pleasure as he fucked her. Taking anything and everything she would offer him. He missed her. He missed her.

He...

Bucky jolted awake in the confession booth. Sweat dripped down his face, and he could still feel the flames of Hell licking his skin. He was hard in his slacks. Crossing himself absently, Bucky muttered a few prayers under his breath because this was happening again. He knew what it all meant. He has been away for centuries, but his past was finally catching up to him. The more vivid the dreams, the closer she was to finding Bucky. And the closer she was to finding Bucky, the more his true nature rose within him as his body fought against the angels' invisible chains. Bucky was hungrier than he had been in a long time, but the runes on his skin made him unable to leave the church, let alone go out and feed.

He checked his watch, and as he expected, it read 3:17 a.m. Bucky's heart thumped excitedly in his chest. He knew that she knew where he was. Finally, she had found him, and she would rescue him from this hell. He opened the door to the confessional just as she blew into the church, stalking nearer and nearer until Bucky could take her in for the first time in years. She looked just as beautiful as he remembered- wild and passionate with eyes that glowed from within. With each step she took, the floor cracked underneath her feet. Crucifixes clattered to the ground, and the stained-glass window shattered, raining colored glass down onto both of them. The statue of the Virgin Mary cried, and she grinned.

"There you are," she said, and Bucky could not take his eyes off of her.

"You found me," he croaked in the language he never forgot, no matter how many beatings he took.

"You’ve been calling out to me for ages, but your jailers kept you well-hidden. Even my father couldn't see you."

"They summoned me," said Bucky bitterly. "They summoned me, an' they stole me as a barginin' chip."

"If they think they can stop this, they're wrong. It is only the beginning. My father has gathered his troops. I asked him to wait until I found you. Lord Belial wasn't happy with me, but I came for you anyway. "

Bucky squirmed at the innuendo, his gaze dropping to her mouth. His stomach rumbled, and she must have heard it because she smiled. He reached out for her, and she threw herself into his arms. He pressed his lips to the top of her head, breathing her in.

“You do remember me, don't you?” she asked, sounding vulnerable in a way he would never expect.

“How could I ever forget my baby?" Bucky asked.

"How come you haven't left this church if you remember me?"

"The runes." He gestured to the symbols carved into his skin. "I can't leave."

"You can leave if the angels who created the runes are dead."

"What did you do?"

"They gambled away their vessels, and I burnt them to a crisp," she said, baring her teeth. "It was a fitting punishment, Father said. If they thought they could take away what is mine, they were wrong if they thought they could hurt you without retribution. They deserve worse than what I gave them."

"You-"

"You're free, Bucky," she said firmly, placing her hands against his cheeks. "What will you do now?"

Bucky kissed her, and it was like slipping a key into a lock. He had forgotten almost everything about his old life, except for her, but she saved him and was now giving everything back. He vividly remembered Hell again, remembered how it was not as dreadful as the angels brainwashed him into believing it was. It was his home. It was hellhounds and halls of crystals glittering in the low lamplight. It was decadent food that demons didn't need but ate anyway. It was her naked in his bed, waiting for him to return from corrupting souls on Earth. It was sex all the time, whenever Bucky wanted. She was as insatiable as he was.

“Welcome back,” she said.

“It's been so long,” Bucky replied, pawing at her greedily. “I need ya right the fuck now. I'm starvin.'”

“Remember when we fucked in that church in Romania? Right under the statue of their precious Mary?” she asked.

“Hell, I’ve missed you."

As they kissed again, Bucky felt her heating up under his hands until tendrils of flame erupted from her skin. She pulled back, and Bucky saw her eyes alight with hellfire. He gathered her closer with a groan, knowing he would never get burned. She kissed him again, clawing at his hair as she swung herself into his lap. The confession booth swayed dangerously, but both ignored it. Bucky sunk his teeth in her bottom lip, and she snarled, scraping her nails over his scalp in retaliation. They pulled apart to blink at one another, then she dove to take off Bucky's shirt. Her fingers burned his skin so good, leaving red streaks that would fade quickly. Bucky could feel it crawling under his skin again, the hunger for sex that he hadn’t felt in ages. He wanted; he wanted to feed off of her pleasure and make her scream.

“I see those pretty black eyes,” she said, drawing Bucky’s gaze from her bare chest. “I knew they wouldn’t succeed.”

“Missed you,” Bucky growled, sucking her jaw so fiercely that he drew blood, “Take yer panties off for me.”

“Ask me nicely.”

She dug her nails into his pecs- a warning. Bucky rolled his eyes as he carried her out of the confessional and into a booth.

“Please take off yer panties. Sweetheart,” he said.

“Okay, darling, whatever you say," she replied.

“Disgusting. Don't ever call me that again. An' take your fuckin' panties off, huh?"

“You're such a dick."

"Hey, leave me alone! It's been two hundred years."

She shoved Bucky’s shoulder, trying to push him off of her enough so that she could wiggle out of her bottoms. Bucky ignored her unspoken command. He grabbed her wrists and slammed her arms over her head.

“Keep ‘em there," he said.

“How am I expected to take my underwear off? Think things through, will you?” she said.

“Yer bein’ unusually bratty today.” Bucky wrapped his lips around one of her nipples. “Ain’t had anyone put you in yer place for a while, I guess.”

“Oh, please. My father is one of the seven kings of Hell. If anything, you should submit to me. I remember how much you liked it when I made you beg at my feet like a hound."

“It's been decades since I’ve had ya underneath me. Now that I have ya, I ain’t just gonna give that up so willingly. Stop bein’ a brat."

“For Baal's sake, just do something instead of talking about it."

“No swearin’, we’re in church,” Bucky said. “An’ keep yer arms above yer head. No touchin.’”

“For fuck’s sake.”

“An’ shut that mouth a’ yours too. You don’t want me to gag ya, do you?”

"Who the fuck has been going around and telling lies saying I wouldn't like that?" she asked with a smile.

Bucky softened. He knew he was probably looking at her like a dumbass, but she was so beautiful and here for the first time in a long time. Bucky wouldn't want his first feeding session in centuries to be with anyone else. If a beast like him could love, he was sure he would love her.

"Missed you," Bucky said softly, tucking his thumbs in the waistband of her panties and stuffing them in her mouth. "So much."

"Missed you too," she mumbled.

"Did you make 'em suffer?"

"You know I did. They hurt you."

She said everything he needed to know in just seven words. His hunger overwhelmed him, and Bucky blacked out until all he could see was her. Flames tickled him as Bucky leaned down to kiss a fiery trail down her stomach. She growled at him in an ancient tongue, and the foundations of the church shook at her words. The statue of Mary cracked in two the louder her words got, but Bucky ignored it, not content on just eating her out- he wanted her screaming. But she was a hard one to please. Bucky could rarely get her to scream when he ate her out, no matter the amount of coaxing he tried.

"Love the taste of you, but I need more," he said, his tongue flicking over her clit. "We still gotta topple that statue."

"Come up here and fuck me. It's been so long."

Bucky left the plush comfort of her thighs and made his way up her body, pressing kisses along the way.

"I know it has, babe," he said, kissing her forehead in a display of comfort that they were both unaccustomed to. "But I’m here now, an’ nothin’ can pull me away from ya again, you hear me?”

"I'll kill anyone who tries," she said.

Bucky grinned sharply. "That's my girl."

"Not yours," she countered.

"No?"

He reached down and drew her legs up around his waist. She locked her ankles together, holding him there so tight he could not move, not even to get inside her. He growled, trying to break free.

"I'm not yours," she repeated.

"If you fuckin' think for one second you ain't mine, you're wrong."

"I'm a fucking demon. No one owns me."

"Never said 'owns.' I said mine. Now, you gonna lemme fuck you or not?"

"No. How is it different?"

Bucky groaned, dropping his head onto her chest. He pressed a few kisses at her breast, bit her nipple.

"C'mon, gimme a break. I'm starvin.'"

"No, not until you tell me."

"Fuck's sake. You're mine, an' I'm yours, okay? An' I don't wanna feed on anyone else, ever again. You're enough for me."

"Okay."

"You don't have to reciprocate."

"I put a war on hold, and I killed three angels to find you," she said flatly.

"Yeah," Bucky said, his vessel's heart fluttering. "You did."

She loosened her grip on Bucky, allowing him to slip inside her for the first time. His body shuddered in delight at feeling her again. He could taste her pleasure in the air, and his tongue flicked out to gather it from her lips as they kissed. Bucky knew he wasn't going to last long, but he would be (more) damned if he finished before she did.

"Come on, move," she said, her nails pricking his back.

The pace Bucky chose was brutal, and she moaned, arching her back. He remembered now the way she’d never utter more than a moan. No matter the amount of coaxing, Bucky could never make her scream. She had passed out from him fucking and feeding on her a few times, but even then, all he managed to get were a few calls of his name. It kept him desperate to please her even though she was the one feeding him.

"Go faster," she sighed, her head tipped back enough so that Bucky could get at her neck with his teeth.

"I gotcha, babe. Wan' my hand?"

"Yes, please."

Naturally, Bucky obliged. He wrapped one of his big hands around her neck, squeezing gently and then harder. Her mouth fell open against his as he fucked her, and they stayed like that, panting into each other's mouths. And Bucky wanted so much for someone to burst in and see them like this, see him fucking her into the ground and feeding off her desire.

He pulled out of her when he got an idea. She speared him with a glare, but he calmed her down, urging her to get to her hands and knees. Bucky smacked her ass, and she muffled a cry into her forearms. The flames on her skin burned hotter and hotter the more Bucky spanked her until sweat was pouring down his chest. He gathered her hair up in his hand and dragged her up from the floor, curling a possessive hand around her throat. Flames licked his skin wherever her body was pressed to his. Bucky could feel it rising within her, and he gasped at the taste of it after so long without. It was the best drug in the world.

"C'mon, rub your clit for me, and scream when you come. You know it makes it taste better," he demanded.

"Make it worth my while, and I will."

"You wan' it? I'll give it to you," Bucky said, squeezing her neck until she was gasping. "Now, come for me. Gimme it."

It only took a couple more sweeps of her fingers over her clit and a quick kiss from Bucky for her to come. He kissed her to muffle her screams, drinking her down, thirsty for everything she could give him. He continued fucking her through her orgasm, his eager pants ringing around the church.

"Again, again, gimme one more. So hungry, babe, you taste so good," Bucky panted.

It didn't take long for her to come again, and Bucky fed on her, moaning as he felt her slipping down his throat. He licked his lips and pushed himself entirely inside her, holding still until she triggered his own orgasm.

"That's a good girl," Bucky cooed, kissing her to get the last of her orgasm.

"Are you feeling better?" she asked, looking upside down at him.

He snuggled closer. "Yeah."

"Are you pulling out or what?"

"Nah, wanna stay here for a minute or two. Missed this. So happy y'found me. You saved me."

"I always will," she said, scowling.

Bucky laughed, burying his face into her hair.

"How's Hell, anyway?"

"It's good. Will you come back with me?"

"I'll go anywhere you want me to."

"We'll get those runes off your skin."

"'Kay, but later. I'm still ravenous," said Bucky.

She grinned, all sharp teeth and fire in her eyes.

"Come on, then. Let's go to a real bed."

"Lead the way," said Bucky, flipping the bird toward the Mary statue that lay shattered on the ground.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #demon au #incubus!bucky #demon!reader #smut #angst #maybe??#multi-stann’s 1k writing event

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