#When [SPOILER] became king........ i didn't see it coming but it makes perfect sense

[thenegoteator]

Finished the dalemark quartet yesterday and I may never recover

[centuryberry]

Queen of the Mountain Universe

So, after watching Season 5 (which has devastated me, by the way - completely and utterly destroyed me), I was inspired to incorporate a certain character into the Queen of the Mountain Universe and tie together the AUs tied to the games. (Excluding the A/B/O AU, Fae AU, and the Imperial Harem AU.)

This technically isn't a fic spoiler since I won't be adding any of this into the main fic itself, mind you. I already have too much planned in Acts II and III to include the new revelations, but I'm writing my ideas here. (May consider writing some oneshots set post-QotM.)

Warning: Spoilers for LMK Season 5 below!

We all knew it was Xiangliu. This snake man has a grip on me that only happened once before when Season 1 Macaque sashayed into my life. Holy hell, he's the definition of chaotic neutral. Also, the hints of lore he dropped before casually moving on because he thought it wasn't important? Drove me insane. What do you mean you and Wukong used to be friends? What do you mean Macaque made a deal? What do you mean be "he's winning"?! Who's he?!

I have no idea what LMK has planned for him (or if he's even going to come back in the future seasons), but I know what plans I have for him now.

To be honest, Xiangliu (the Nine-Headed Demon who nearly scammed Ao Guang and his ilk in Chapter 16) wasn't supposed to be significant in the Queen of the Mountain universe. But with how Season 5 ended up, I made him into a more important player.

Just like the LMK world, I'd like to think that the QotM world also experiences a similar "cycle" in the form of "resets." It would make sense, right? As In the Sun's Embrace and Sunchaser are games that encourages reloads and resets to explore different routes, it's not too far-fetched to think that the world itself experiences something similar.

I've always had a fondness of Time Loops in stories, especially with at least one person remembering every loop. Xiangliu would be that person in this case. Somehow, he became aware of what was happening and yearned for an escape from this constant resetting of the world.

(He must've gone insane gaining and losing friends, lovers, and enemies, doomed to repeat the same song and dance again except his bonds would never be the same since he's always changing and always growing while everyone else regresses every time.)

Eventually, he removed himself from the living world all together and replaced one of the Ten Kings of the Underworld to find a way out. Still, he'd pop up here and then to maybe make some interventions or watch when something new played out.

While a lot of the diverging AUs are mostly due to the different choices made by individuals, I'd like to think that Xiangliu made some of them possible. Notably, Warlord Shanzha AU, Withered Grave Flowers AU, Detoxify AU, and Extra Pilgrim AU.

Well, you noticed how LBD seems to be absent in those AUs, right? How Yue magically comes out of things alive and unpossessed by her into the modern era? Well, the answer in Xiangliu. He doesn't do this in every cycle, but he sometimes has the heart to spare Yue from her canon fate. Making her fate better always seems to give happier endings to all of the celestial monkeys. Not perfect, but happier.

(And, because it would be so funny to me, I'd like to think he at least hooked up with every member of the celestial monkey poly occasionally in between cycles. So he has a history with all of them which I may expand on in another post if anyone's interested.)

So, there you have it. A way for all of these AUs to technically be canon. (Thank you, Season 5.)

As for what Xiangliu is doing during Queen of the Mountain, he's doing nothing. For the first time, he didn't have to do anything to make a drastic change to the usual script. For the first time, he's interested to see how things turn out. Because of a certain six-eared baby monkey yaoguai who ended up in the palanquin.

[ghostiewriter]

(Spoilers for Six of Crows)

Me again, with my obsession of the crows...

Who do you think had the most tragic/ painful journey and background out of the six of them?

I honestly think it's Inej....Kaz and Matthias (the latter is often forgotten, but the poor boy lost so much) are close seconds. Because 1) she had a home and was wrenched from it. 2) Had her humanity crushed so that a disgusting woman could make money. 3) I feel like while the rest found some purpose (Kaz with revenge, Matthias with being a druskelle, etc.), she didn't. She became the wraith so she could earn her way out of the contract. And it wasn't until the incinerator climb (where she almost died!) that she finally know what she would do.

Other than this, the . amount of times she had bled for her crew gets me every time...

And now I'm crying.. great.

Bless dude, nah I love your asks!😂I’ll do a wee under the line thing so people who haven’t read it can avoid more spoilers though!!

It’s honestly so hard to choose because each of them have gone through their separate journeys, all traumatic in their own right and I honestly feel bad for comparing them 😅they are all shit and I wouldn’t like to have experienced any of them! I do think they all kinda represent different reactions to trauma and PTSD though, which I quite like.

Kaz obviously was not always the suave schemer we know. He was once a naive, young boy who believed what the adults told him. He would cling onto the last of his family and he trusted people that were scummy idiots in the end. I think being played by them and them being the cause of his brother’s death plays a lot into his reaction. When we first meet Kaz, he’s portrayed as this stone-cold, uncaring dude who gives zero shits about anything that doesn’t benefit him. But the more we read, we see that he’s actually gone out of his way to avoid making the same mistakes. He never trusts anyone blindly, but he does open somewhat up to the people he could consider the closest thing to his chosen family (Inej and Jesper) and it’s something we don’t really talk about tbh.

Inej, like you said, went from having everything to nothing so quickly. She had her family, she treasured what she was good at and she quite enjoyed her life and then it was all stripped away from her and she was thrown into a place where she had zero control over anything she did. She had her freedom stripped away from her, and I think that’s why being the Wraith is the perfect contrast to her trauma. As the Wraith she may be doing bad things and not being as honest or kind as she once was, but she is controlling everything. When she’s jumping between rooftops, hiding in the shadows, all of it is under her control. She names her knives, she knows how to use them and she is the one that can be seen at any point whenever she chooses to. It’s really important and don’t even get me started on how her relationship with Kaz because I have so much to say for the both of them!

Jesper represents this underlying fear in everyone’s head of “I don’t want to disappoint my parents” and it’s the motive that kinda pushes a lot of his actions. He’s been through so much and then here his father gives him a chance to be a better man, he blows it and that guilt haunts him. His addiction to gambling is more than just about winning, it’s those moments just when he knows he’s going to win and the look on people’s faces after when he’s done just what he’s been boasting all night about. There’s no disappointment in their faces when it happens and that’s the high he chases. I think his father learning the truth plays a big part in him coming to terms with what he’s been hiding from, but also his friendship/brotherhood with Kaz. Because that boy always knows what to expect, he always has a plan B, he knows everyone’s next move because he’s always three steps ahead so therefore he can’t be disappointed in Jesper and that’s literally one of the best things for him.

Nina, bless her heart, I love this girl so much and what she’s been through just HURTS my soul. From being grisha, being captured and having her whole journey with Matthias, their separation and their eventual reunion. Creating that bond again and having to explain her actions (ones she did for her own survival so you can’t really blame her). But the thing about Nina that breaks my heart is the fact she’s still so hopeful. She still talks about her home like it’s there and thriving, she’s gotta quite an optimistic view even throughout the books. It’s not only a beautiful contrast to Matthias, but it’s just such a refreshing breeze from the rest of the crows in their outlooks. But you see her sacrifice so much, taking the powder and fighting that addiction, struggling to use her powers that she once was able to use without a blink of an eye, see her lose Matthias and starting to lose that sunshine as well. It’s heartbreaking and knowing her story isn’t over completely with King Of Scars, I do hope that Nina regains some happiness in her life cause that girl fucking deserves it.

Matthias is such an underrated character and so is the shit he’s been through. Peoples’s issue with him is somewhat similar to the reaction/hate towards Chaol from the Throne of Glass series, in the sense of their reaction to the thing they’ve been grown up and trained to hate. Matthias has known nothing but his purpose of a solider. He’s trained to be such and he’s trained to have a deep-rooted, prejudice hatred towards Grisha. His relationship with Nina is obviously a big part in him overcoming that, but it’s still not perfect and we can see that plenty of times whenever any other Grisha other than Nina is brought up or she discusses her home. It’s definitely environmental but it still plays a huge part in his identity crisis as well. And just think, he trusted Nina and she “betrayed” him and he was thrown into a prison because of it with no real inclination of why she did so until a year or so later. Think about what he had to go through in that prison, we even see him fight the animal he has worshipped all his life because he had to prioritise his survival. We see the other soldiers in the Ice Court mock and tease and judge him for the man he had to become because he was fighting for his own survival. His trauma and challenges and identity crises stems from the environment he was raised in, but he does overcome it in the end and it’s a fact that people seem very eager to skim over. I think that’s why his death hit me so hard when I read it because of his last chapter when he realised he was able to go home to the wolves, but he knew a part of him still belonged to Nina. God I’m crying now!!

And Wylan, bless his heart, this boy owns my heart and I wish to protect him from everyone. Growing up in an environment where you’re constantly told you’re not good enough is shit. Finding out your father faked your mother’s death is also shit. Finding out your father is an asshole who paid to have you killed is beyond shit. And yet, there was always a part of him that wanted to make his father proud because he wanted to prove him wrong, show him that he was worth surviving. It’s honestly so sad because his father couldn’t see how intelligent he was in other subjects. His father was so one-minded and picky and once Wylan realised that, and realises he shouldn’t have to prove anything to this piece of shit, his character growth is beautiful. It really changes him, makes him much more ruthless tbh and I think that shows in Crooked Kingdom when he and Kaz are quite buddy-buddy . He’s gone from being this naive boy that no one trusted and believed could ever do any good and he’s given his life purpose. He’s come out of his shell and he’s much stronger than the person he first was when we met him and I love it honestly. He becomes so much more sure of himself when he drops that “I need to prove myself to my father” weight off his back.

ANYWAYS😂I’m sorry for that wee rant but tbh I honestly don’t know who I would say had the most tragic backstory because they are all shit and I wouldn’t want to experience any of them. In conclusion, I love all of them very much and would like to protect them from the world :)