#This is unedited and mostly off the cuff. However I will stand by it

[adhdo5]

I was prompted to post these a bit ago bc of my madness posting abt the Xiyao laundry audioextra upload someone posted like last week and I think there is really a lot there in the Xiyao laundry thing in general (hashtag release the Yunping tapes) and not all of it is smth I see ~talked abt as much as I think it deserves SO . Collected thoughts on Xiyao laundry

OK so like Yeah they're cute. I absolutely get why people's primary reaction to this is that it's cute and I think this is not even wrong. The politics of uselessness r complicated and I Will be returning to this but a legitimate angle of this is that LXC, who has spent his life largely defined by the fact that he pretty much excels at everything expected of him, has nothing expected of him and gets to be incompetent at something he ~feels obligated to do and have that not actually be a fail state, still get offered the same kindness regardless of his ability to be exceedingly capable/responsible etc.; meanwhile MY, who historically has had pretty much no one ever gaf about whether he's struggling or overworked or generally about him as a person (and the audiodrama extra version even has a bit where MY's coworkers are shit talking him including talking abt how he's probably not even actually doing any work), has someone earnestly caring about that, if ineffectually, and materially recognizing his workload as important and effortful and trying to help him with it. That is I think legitimately kind of sweet! Especially if one interprets the "he didn't even know who I was" line as true and as in the audiodrama extra this is set b4 MY figures it out! They appreciate each other in ways they don't usually get to be appreciated and it's nontransactional in this way and ;x;

HOWEVER. #Nuance. There's Other Angles.

I've talked abt this before inc on my blog but I do kind of never get tired of thinking abt it: there's a reason LXC is incapable of doing laundry and it's not just inexperience it's that he is physically incapable of the task bc of his cultivator strength!!!!! And the disparity of cultivation level is explicitly a class thing w/ JGY wrt 3zun especially!!! No matter his intention Zewu-jun CANNOT SULLY HIS HANDS WITH THE TASK bangs my head against a wall. It's such an innocuous detail yet it captures how from even this early on in their relationship and in this context it's not ignorable how much LXC is in fact a nobleman where JGY is not and this is a literal physical difference and it's in his very flesh and it has explicitly destructive results. See again vampire AU posting

And going off that it's notable how this does in fact also end up creating more work and while MY doesn't begrudge that in the moment and it's pettier here and arguably inextricable with the first point (LXC is not only incapable here he's actively bad at something, he actively makes smth worse and he's forgiven for it and that's genuinely kind of nice) it's it's also worth noting more grimly given how their relationship ends. It's not just destructive it's destructive to MY specifically

And on the notes of "inextricable from first point but also tragic" – it's sweet tht LXC gets no external consequences for this (yet lol) but is that really something he can Accept. It is an arguably underexamined element of Sunshot Xiyao how fucking miserable LXC is; he might be in an environment where this isn't fucking him up but he did bring his complexes here and you don't suddenly know how to accept that kind of grace yknow – and, and this is tangentially related to the stuff I was posting earlier today, this is one of the first of several kinds of vulnerability that LXC's almost only able to experience with MY/JGY. Considering how much that's arguably a running theme for them and considering where that leads that's also quite Foreshadowing Dismal!!

This is an audio drama exclusive but the way in the audiodrama extra ver that MY realizes who LXC is here and then ~lies about it is also crunchy as helllllll

AND between the coworkers thing in the audiodrama extra and the added scenes in the donghua and this and the notion in general (which comes from MXTX's post) that it's important they do the laundry themselves bc the robes would give LXC away it's a highlight of how genuinely precarious this is for MY which is another thing that both makes it more sweet and more. Despair.

It's just so lovely how it is both indicative of how genuinely good they are to and for each other, the ways in which they're meaningfully and significantly compassionate and helpful to one another, and also of the ways in which their situation here is precarious and high-stress and dangerous as fuck, AND also the ways in which they hurt each other so so bad, and how all of those things are largely different facets of the same qualities and the same significances. And That's My Post. Stream Apple Pie by the Scary Jokes

[broken-wings-and-whumpy-things]

Random WIP stuff

I haven’t been writing much lately so.... ye. Here’s some of my WIP stuff idk if I’m gonna finish, mostly unedited.

Content Warnings: Mental health and trauma, tasing/electricity whump, blood, lab whump, wing whump, muzzles, verbal cruelty from another captive, referenced minor whump (brief mention, character is currently 23)

Intended sequel to THIS drabble, and Whumptober 2019 prompt Isolation on Day 7.

CW: None

    The ride in the van was only a few minutes, but no less unpleasant. The cuts she'd gotten from the thorns still bled, the red fluid dripping onto the floor with every bump and turn. It was dark, very dark, pitch black if you will. Fae tried to summon a light, but the tiniest wisp of fog evaporated. Always with the magic-dimming cuffs- what was she going to do? Freeze her way out? Glow a hole in the side of the van? Please.    

Once the vehicle finally stopped, Fae let her head knock into the wall, looking up in a silent prayer to abso-fuckin'-lutely nobody. The aftermath of a failed escape attempt was never pretty. This wasn't gonna be an exception. She listened carefully as the two enforcers exited the van and stopped around the door, their conversation incoherent. Then, a latch flicked, and the glorious light of... the lab's garage streamed in. She groaned into the muzzle, more out of contempt than anything. She wanted to compress some of her anger into sarcasm and send it their way, but the thing on her mouth made that pretty damn difficult.

This one I intend to finish someday, it’s the next drabble in Ari’s storyline. I have so much plot for this, y’all, I can’t believe I haven’t written it down, I have the entire next three arcs planned out if I could just wRITE-

CW: Verbal cruelty from another captive, mental health, blood and scar mentions

    Hours passed in the room of cages. A clock, somewhere in the corner, ticked away incessantly, filling the room with the sounds of mechanisms clicking and moving. Soon, Ari found her thoughts aligning themselves neatly along the seconds. For the first hour or so, she laid in the cage, examining her fellow captives with exhausted eyes. The wound on her arm had fully healed, and she'd flaked off the silver blood that'd dried around it. The scar, new and still slightly pink, laid among the menagerie of fading ones that wove up her arm and across her back. Nobody spoke for a long, long time.    

     When somebody did speak, however, the angel jumped. A low, gravelly voice snaked out from the left.     

     "I know you're listening, newbie. So listen closely," the voice said. Ari finally looked up, and found each conscious occupant of the opposite cages staring intently at someone on her side. "You fuck things up for us? We fuck things up for you. We've got a plan. Either stick with us, or stay out of the way. Those are your only options."    

     The angel was frozen. The words echoed and twisted in her mind, the threats trying to interpret themselves. What did they mean? What did she have to avoid? Who all was 'us'?

     "Well?"

    "Y-yes," she stammered, forcing the words out.

    "That's 'yes, ma'am' to you, newbie," the voice hissed again.

     "Yes, ma'am, s-sorry ma'am."

     "Better."

    The room settled into silence again, save for the ticking of the clock. What little tension Ari had managed to release had coiled itself back up into her, drawing her wings close and curling up against the scratched-up metal of the cage. She couldn't stand, could barely even sit, so she decided she might as well lay down. She had two people to be good for, now. And she wasn't quite sure what either of them wanted from her. So she remained, slowly tracing patterns onto the metal below to bide time. 

This one was meant to be a BTHB prompt, it’s almost fully finished but I’ve been tentative about where to end it for a while. Also, I’m worried about repetetiveness when it comes to these Onyx drabbles x-x CW: Mental health and trauma, blood, lab whump, wing whump, muzzles, referenced minor whump (brief mention, character is currently 23), tasing/electricity whump

The silence was stifling.

The buzz of fluorescent lights and forcefields, occasional footsteps filled the air. There were two dozen people in this hall and none of them spoke. Each corralled in their own little white cell, some of them paced, some tried to sleep, still others tried to tend to their own wounds. Twelve cells to a side, reinforced double-doors at the end of the corridor.

Faelynn laid in the solid cutout, one wing crumpled up against the wall and the other hanging over the edge. She tapped her fingers against her own arm in frustration, nearly staring a hole through the ceiling above her. She was running through her capture in her head over and over and over again, trying to figure out what she did wrong. How she ended up back here again. She ran her thumb along the edges of the cuffs clasped on her wrists, the ones that stopped her from using her magic; and began to fidget with her hospital gown. She clinked her ankle against the corner of the cutout, hearing the metal of the cuff collide with the... whatever the hell they used for this place. It felt like plastic, but she couldn't be sure. What was she thinking about?

Around the fifteenth time, the hybrid couldn't stand the stillness anymore. The buzzing was so loud, her brain searching for any sound it could, picking up every shuffle and whimper and minuscule change that happened throughout the entire hall. She finally twisted out of the nook, landing neatly on her feet and wincing at the pain that shot through her leg. Not a fracture, but there was claw marks covering about a third of her calf. They'd been cauterized, although carelessly, leaving burn marks around the wounds. And of fucking course, who would bother with anesthesia. However, she successfully ignored the pain and began to furiously pace around the cell. It hurt, every step sent fire up her leg, but the stillness was worse. Her wings flexed slightly, knowing she couldn't stretch them even halfway in this tiny cell.

It wasn't long until even the pacing wasn't enough. She wanted to stretch her wings, she wanted to fly and run and do literally anything else. Gods, this was agonizing. Fae gathered her hair. They'd ripped out her hair tie and snapped it in front of her, some kind of attempted display of power, like she hadn't snapped them by accident hundreds of times before. Her normal messy updo was gone, her hair looking crumpled and unkempt. The temporary feeling of her hair being lifted up was comfortable, but soon she had to resist the urge to pull on her own hair. She let it fall again, then hugged herself instead.

Fae didn't realize how hard she was gripping her arms. Her ragged nails left white marks on her skin as she dragged them down, and she groaned to herself. It hadn't even been two days and she was already going batshit. At least, she didn't think it had been two days... They hadn't taken her out for any tests yet, but she knew it wouldn't be long. But who knows? The lights never turned off. It could have been two hours or two weeks for as much as she knew. The uncertainty added to her building rage.

Too many feelings were coming back from when she was a kid. When she lived like this, day in and day out, torturous experiments becoming more and more frequent as she aged. It would be so easy to just slip back into compliance, to just sit down and take it. Half the city knew about the raid, the search and rescue team would be back to rescue everyone taken. But... they'd need time.

She couldn't. She couldn't do that. She wouldn't let herself get broken again, she couldn't set herself back like that. She'd give them a hell of a time, make them regret ever dragging her back to this fucking hellhole. They'd only managed to nab her because- oh, that's what she'd been thinking about- they drugged the shit out of her, keeping her weak and fading in and out of consciousness while they threw her into the back of a van. After that, she could barely remember anything but the pain of her wounds being cauterized and waking up in this cell. It replayed in her mind again, and again, until-

Almost involuntarily, Faelynn finally snapped. With an impressive roar of frustration, hatred, and pent-up agony, she brought her fists down on the ledge she'd been sitting on minutes before, sending a startling thud down the corridor of cells.

"God FUCKING DAMMIT," she started, to nobody in particular. She whirled around, facing out of the forcefield, just waiting for an enforcer to show up. The cell in front of her was empty, and she was glad she couldn't see the occupants diagonal to her. She must be scaring them- and although she felt horrible for it, she needed to do something. Before she completely lost it. Even if it would result in pain, extra restraints, whatever they were going to do, she was gonna fucking lose it if she didn't. Finally, she heard angry bootsteps coming up the hall. "HEY. Yeah, you," she practically spat at the approaching figure. "I've got some things to say, fuckface."

The enforcer stopped in front of her cell, staring her down with a blended look of smugness and disgust.

"What do you even get out of this job? You get good benefits? Vacation days? 'S that worth it for you, asshole?" Fae taunted, hatred and anger lacing her voice.

Oh, she was aware that this wouldn't end well for her. Well aware. She saw him reaching for his stun gun.

"You gonna shock me? Gonna knock me out? Leave a mark? Get in line," she snarled sarcastically.

It happened fast.

The enforcer slammed his palm onto the panel next to her cell, dropping the forcefield in order to get to her with the taser. Fae took a jumping start, sliding under his outstretched arm before scrambling to her feet and taking off down the hall, wings folded tightly for aerodynamics. She made it almost halfway down before a high-pitched whine pierced her ears. She barely had time to widen her eyes as she realized what was happening. Before she knew it, she was falling, twisting around on her side to minimize facial contact with the ground. She tried to swing her arms out to stop the fall, but couldn't separate her wrists. A panicked yelp escaped her throat, and she landed squarely on her shoulder.

And her right wing.

She felt the stalks of her feathers crunch under her own weight, and the pressure tore at her back.

Before she had time to process any of that, however, the enforcer was on her, trying to pull her back up by a shoulder. The second he got close, though, she bit on instinct. Fae felt her teeth pierce skin, saw the man recoil. She started to grin and opened her mouth to taunt, but was quickly cut off.

The sound of doors swinging open reached her ears. Next thing she knew, somebody was jamming the stun gun into her arm, her side, her left wing- with each blow, she could vaguely hear somebody screaming. She knew it was herself, but couldn't feel it, couldn't comprehend it, and soon the screaming coupled with tears.

The electricity stopped, but the burns racing across her skin flared, searing streaks firing across the hybrid's nerves like the lightning it came from. She felt one of the enforcers lift her up by her neck, and she was barely lucid enough to be aware of the device being strapped around her skull. She tried to dissent, but all that came out was a weak, hoarse whimper. She thought she could hear... laughing? A vague, misty impression was all she could manage. They were laughing at her. They found this hilarious. She tried, with the little strength she still held, to bite back again.

There was something covering her mouth.

The whimper grew louder, only by a hair, and then fell silent. Her voice hurt. Everything hurt.

One of the enforcers grabbed her by the cuffs and began to drag her back towards the cell. She had no energy left to fight it, even as her consciousness began to resurface slowly. The friction rubbed against her wings uncomfortably- then, nerves lit up in them as she felt primaries rip out. The pain didn't register immediately in her greyed-out mind, but she could see the giant feathers laying abandoned in the hallway as she was dragged back to the cell.

Once they arrived, the enforcer kicked her in with a blow to the chest. She landed unceremoniously inside with a dull thud, skidding across the pristine tile. One of her wings hit the wall behind her, and the muscle pain amplified tenfold. She laid there, unmoving, glaring harshly at the people walking away. Her mind was beginning to come back to full consciousness, as was the pain. Her shoulder stung with every slight shift, every breath. Except now, she couldn't stand and shout. She could barely breathe, her mouth covered by a fucking muzzle. The cuffs were still charged, effectively gluing her wrists and ankles together. And if she was angry before, now she was pissed.