#because it will save their lives
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frownyalfred · 2 months ago
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I’m sure someone has written it by now but on the off chance they haven’t…I need a fic where Jason never learned how to swim and it never came up when he took on the Robin mantle (maybe he lied, by omission, or maybe it truly never came up in conversation) until a patrol gone wrong where he gets thrown into Gotham Habor and almost drowns. Bruce has to teach him how to swim while dealing with his own guilt over never fully verifying if Jay could swim, because he grew up rich and had lessons in the pool out back and never fully put together — until that awful moment, seeing Jason’s head disappear underwater — that swimming isn’t often an instinct, but something that absolutely has to be learned. and practiced. and they both have to untangle their prides and guilt and do something as simple as jump in the pool together and swim.
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starii-void · 6 months ago
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going to chb must be crazy like imagine sharing a camp with
-one of the strongest demigods ever who's saved the world like at least 3 times, fought multiple gods & titans and WON (and is a tartarus survivor)
-the literal main architect of OLYMPUS who's also saved the world multiple times (also tartarus survivor)
-THE lord of the wild who's also close friends with the first two (and has helped save the world multiple times)
-an emo kid from the 1930s who again helped save the world and is also a tartarus survivor (TWICE)
-a son of apollo who survived tartarus with nothing but cargo shorts and sheer will (pun intended)
-the main designer and builder for the argo II, also the first hephaestus kid to have fire powers since hundreds of years ago (did i mention killed gaea? no? yeah he did that too)
-a girl who somehow charmspeak-ed gaea into falling back asleep (also side note daughter of super famous actor because why not)
-pretty much everybody is a two-time war veteran
-THE GOD APOLLO who just sometimes comes down to visit in the form of a teenage boy
-did i mention dionysus, god of wine madness and theatre
-also chiron, trainer of pretty much every greek hero ever
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teapot-of-tyrahn · 6 days ago
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"right, one more attempt, and then i think we're gonna have to call it the end of the session."
mumbo died on his last attempt. right before grian would have ended the session. right before grian could have saved him.
"but i just don't want to kill jimmy..."
he could have taken the shot then and there. he could have lived.
but the miner didn't want to kill the canary. he wanted the canary to live. and he died for it. because miners aren't meant to go into the coal mines alone.
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antiprivateeractivist · 2 years ago
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"it's okay to live with your parents as an adult if you're disabled" "it's okay if it's a cultural thing" "it's okay if you're trying to save mon-" shh. listen. it is okay for any reason. you don't need to have a justification. if your parents are alright with it and you're alright with it you can just do it. peace and love on planet earth etc etc
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demigods-posts · 8 months ago
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sometimes. i just have to remind myself that percy took annabeth to paris. like, canonically. he forgot their one-month anniversary. and took his girl to paris to make up for it. the standards are in elysium.
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sunderwight · 4 months ago
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Bingqiu AU where Luo Binghe's the chosen village sacrifice to the evil deity who lives up the mountain.
Normally the village sends maidens, but they've more or less run out of expendable girls of the right age and, ahem, "virtues". So of course Luo Binghe's early life bad luck kicks in. In the wake of his mother's death there's no one to really care about what happens to him, he's fairly pretty, and the village leaders decide that if they dress him up like a girl the teenaged homeless kid should pass well enough. And hey, y'know, he's probably got a hard life ahead for him anyway -- dying in a brothel of some venereal disease or on the streets of exposure or starvation. At least as a sacrifice, everyone else gets to benefit from his loss! And the kid will get added to a shrine and be remembered as a hero! If anything, he should be happy about this!
Binghe is not happy about this.
But he's also a skinny underfed nobody who is easily overpowered, dressed up like a bride, and tied to a post. So. Not much he can do but wait for the evil deity to come and do whatever horrible thing he's gonna do to him.
Meanwhile, Shen Yuan is pretty sure he's been isekai'd into the over-powered hero of some kind of supernatural adventure story? He's not totally sure because he doesn't recognize the setting, but the signs are there. He's got a shrine-like base of operations (though it seems to have become corrupted/ruined, probably he has to restore it somehow), he has a very resilient and handsome new body with spiritual energy of some kind flowing through him, and a very clearly magical sword. Plus lots of neat starter powers! Though it feels like he has other abilities that have been blocked somehow? Probably he has to level up in order to access them.
When he treks out of his "base" and finds what seems to be a distressed maiden, he takes it for his beginner hero mission. The girl claims that she's been doomed to be sacrificed to an evil god. That sounds a little above Shen Yuan's pay grade for dealing with, so he unties her and decides that they had better just get out of the whole region altogether. He already packed up anything useful from his base, anticipating he might get caught up in an adventure once he left, so they follow the river away from the settlement until they reach another one.
While they travel, Luo Binghe tells Shen Yuan about the cursed deity, Shen Qingqiu, who was cast out of the heavens for slaughtering one of his brethren and has apparently being do-who-knows what to maidens from the local village in exchange for his "protection" ever since. Sounds like a real asshole! And also mid-level boss type bad guy at least. Shen Yuan hopes he doesn't have to fight him, but he probably will.
Thank goodness he found Binghe, though! Clearly the helpful little sister type! He's definitely going to require her assistance if he's going to figure out how to navigate this world and level up his skills enough to take on a god.
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starry-bi-sky · 21 days ago
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on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.
Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.
Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.
Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.
There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.
#svsss#luo binghe#svsss au#scum villain#scum villian self saving system#shen yuan#shen qingqiu#disciple shen yuan#lbh. visibly exhausted and with twitchy eyes: im fine :) | everyone else: ho no the fuck you ARENT.#SQQ was hysterical not because he found out LBH was half-demon but bc he was having a long-awaited mental breakdown over his autonomy :)#or (limited) lack thereof. he was having a sudden onset crisis of mortality and was handling at quite literally the WORST time. oops#im thinking very hard that LBH would never push his disciple into the abyss especially with no system to force him to. so SQQ either#had to goad him into it (failing always) or throw himself in. he ended up doing it himself but not before some very impressive hysterics.#BUT ALSO. IF THIS HAD BEEN WHERE SQQ WAS THE HALF-HEAVENLY DEMON INSTEAD IT WOULD'VE BEEN SO GREAT.#and by great i mean horribly angsty bc SQQ is NOT doing too hot and has. in very SY-like fashion. convinced himself that LBH will kill him#when he finds out he's a demon. so when it comes out i have this mental image of him lunging at LBH and LBH flinches back. but SQQ wraps hi#hands around the blade of Zheng Yang and yanks it up so the tip of the blade is digging into his chest where is heart is. LBH can't yank th#sword away without risking slicing into SQQ's hands. SQQ's hair has fallen out of its tail/bun and is now messily spilling down his#back and its NO helping the kinda deranged look he has going on. he's visibly shaking and his eyes keep flittering away and back at LBH's#face. SQQ is looking at the messages from the system warning him that he has to go into the abyss or punishment will occur. he's like.#rambling though. talking about how shizun doesn't *like* unclean things and there is nothing more unclean than a demon. like he is#INSISTING. LBH can't?? get a fucking word in. actually. SY isn't listening that much either anyways. too overwhelmed with the system and#the amount of stress he's under and his crumbling mental state and the innate and primal desire to live even when he's standing in front of#his own executioner. it all ends with him sitting on the ground at the lip of the abyss with his hair falling in his face. he looks so#unkempt and fallen apart and so distinctly *non-Shen Qingqiu* that LBH feels physically ill over it. tears are streaming down SQQ's face#and despite everything he is smiling. its not a nice smile. its a very frayed falling apart at the seams about to crack smile.#he tells shizun not to worry about staining his blade with this disciple's filthy blood because this disciple will take care of it himself.#and then he falls into the abyss before luo binghe can so much as grab him. the only reason LBh doesn't literally jump in after him is bc#he was numb with shock and the abyss was already closed before he could feel his legs again :]
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egophiliac · 8 months ago
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(almost) four years in, and I finally had time to draw something for the anniversary! woo! 🎉🎉🎉
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nancywheeeler · 2 years ago
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hopeless time loop. the way out isn’t to save everyone. the way out isn’t to save even one person. the way out isn’t to change anything. the way out is accepting how it happened the first time is how it always will be. that’s how you acted, that’s how they acted, that’s how you would have acted every time if you weren’t given the curse of hindsight. the way out is accepting you can’t fix the past; you can only forgive yourself for it.
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shisabun-art · 9 months ago
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I got Poppy Playtime on the brain, so Worker OC and DogDay Au it is!
Angel is smol but determined.
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Also, I'm too lazy to draw the grab pack. Imagine it's there. 😂
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bungobble-my-balls · 2 months ago
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OK correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like the main 'yin/yang' parallel with Atsushi and Akutagawa is not something like 'this one is bad but secretly has a good side and this one is good but secretly has a bad side'.
I feel like it's more about 'who they are at their core vs who they choose to be'.
At his core Akutagawa is kind and at his core Atsushi is not. But despite this Atsushi tries every day to make the kinder choices and I love him so much for it. He has to work so hard to be good.
He wants to be a bitch SO bad I know he does but he tries his best to help people and be nice (sometimes he fails but that's OK <3)
Atsushi doesn't always WANT to help people, a lot of the time he's selfish and scared, but he does help people anyway. He keeps helping people over and over again. There's still some selfish motivation to it, and his initial motivation for helping people was because the headmaster told him that's all he was worth, but overall he does care about the people he helps and it weighs on him if he fails to save them. And of course, as the series goes on he starts helping people more because he can rather than because he feels like he needs to.
In Akutagawa's case, he's still capable of being kind but his environment led him into being someone who chooses to hurt people. But he's always been a protector at heart. In the start he was bad compared to Atsushi because he was choosing to hurt people and keep the cycle of abuse going. Just like how Atsushi developed in why he saved people, Akutagawa starts to get redeemed when he chooses to not just act on his rage. Not only does he start to spare people, but he speaks more kindly to them (apologising to Higuchi and telling Kyouka he's proud of her). It all culminates into the moment he chooses to help Atsushi and sacrifice himself for him, going back to his core value of being a protector. Even when he's finally revived, he keeps this role in his new position as Aya's Knight.
I kind of see the streaks of white in Akutagawa and the streaks of black in Atsushi not as their 'hidden sides' but as their fundamental selfs. That's who they are at their core, and their main colours (black for Akutagawa and white for Atsushi) are how they're presented to everyone else and how they try to have people see them as.
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As per usual, it’s DP crossover with (probably) DC, although you could probably adjust it for other fandoms
ANYWAYS
A little kid and his mother are trick or treating in another city, perhaps at some kind of event rather than knocking on doors, and the kid is dressed as Phantom. It’s very adorable, with his little ghost-shaped bucket and clearly homemade and already stained costume—listen, white only works if you can just fly over street grime or phase it out of your clothes—and his slightly I’ll fitting wig. The kid is SO happy to be out and about dressed as his favorite, and maybe even showed it off to Phantom back in Amity Park before his family left.
The hero, insert whoever you wish here, is probably in civvies and just enjoying the event. The kid, meanwhile, is so glad when people ask who he is so he can explain, and so- the hero gets to hear ALL ABOUT the local town hero who is probably pretty small time despite the kid’s clearly exaggerated stories. The hero certainly never heard of him, but the kid’s mom confirms that Phantom really was the town hero, despite some mixed reviews of the poor guy.
“Did you manage to show him your costume?” the hero asks.
“Yeah! We went down to the cemetery to leave flowers and I got to show him my costume.”
Wait. Cemetery? Maybe it was part of theme, because Phantom had to be named that for a reason, but… it sounded like…
The kid ignores the suddenly VERY still hero and instead turns to his mom. “Momma, do you think we should bring him candy? He doesn’t get to trick or treat like we do, and I can work super hard to get him a bunch!”
The kid’s mom just smiles. “We could, but maybe we should bring him something homemade. I bet he’d like something more filling, teen boys like him have a hollow leg.”
The kid wrinkles his nose. “Like Vernie with the pizza bagels?”
“Like your cousin, yes. We can make some cinnamon rolls and take them to his memorial, maybe bring some of the apples from your grandpa’s garden…”
The hero is pretty much forgotten as the two-part family wanders off, not quite intentionally forgetting the hero is there so much as the hero somewhat accidentally ended the conversation when they just froze and didn’t ask anything further.
Not that the hero didn’t want to. But they’d learn something very serious.
One—there was a small town hero they’d never heard of. Two—that hero was apparently a teen. Third—most pressingly, the teen hero was both beloved enough to have kids dressing up as him and dead enough to have a grave.
This… might require some phone calls.
#dpxdc#danny phantom crossover#meanwhile Danny. sitting on a giant marble slab that has the most ridiculous gag gifts a ghost could ever ask for#he’s just like Oh Sweet Cinnamon Rolls!#he would try to convince people to bring him nasty burger but while val has MOSTLY gotten over her vindictive anger at Phantom DOES decide#that she’s gonna be petty and add cilantro to everything#because Danny has the cilantro soap gene#jokes on her he’ll still eat it#Danny likes his little memorial in the grave. it helps settle him sometimes. also he’s gotten to know the security guards for the cemetery#they’re fun. a bit morbid. they LIKE his jokes so you can stuff it JAZZ#MEANWHILE the hero. Whomstever they are but like 90% of you are thinking either batfam or Justice league#are having just. a TOUCH of a crisis#now they gotta figure out where the kid and his mom are from without either of them figuring out#dealer’s choice on what the GIW and why Amity Park isn’t on the radar#I’ll add my two cents bc when don’t I but I’m by and large not like… dictating this? anyways#I like making the GIW just a BIT more incompetent or just having some massive flaws as an organizational group#so they keep forgetting to tell people to not LEAVE and to keep quiet#average amity Parker if the GIW tried this anyways: aw that’s cute. anyways-#and if it’s dc I guess you need to figure out how the jl never found out. so#i mean there’s a LOT of heroes and cities in dc#and amity park is just lost to the noise or. bc Fenton bad luck#every time Danny tried to call. the jl had some insane disaster and or their systems were down#he eventually figured he might actually be cursed- jury’s still out on that -and he’s saving lives by just handling it himself#he can handle rhe metaphorical mega thunderstorms if it means he doesn’t accidentally summon a fucking tsunami to hit the planet ya know?#the kid and the mom have no idea that what they said was Odd#they are just so used to it. amity park already was using death puns and had an. interesting history and relation with death#even BEFORE there was a dead kid flying around in his white gogo boots
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curioscurio · 1 year ago
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The worst part is that when fat people talk about their struggles with fatphobia they're expected to ALWAYS have a disclaimer saying "Body shaming of all kinds is bad uwu even skinny shaming we're all victims of the same caliber of a body shaming society!" Lest they be seen as one of those Mean Fatties who hate skinny people and thus DESERVE to be systemically seen as unhealthy and lazy by society. I shouldn't have to reassure you that, yes, if someone tells you to eat a burger they're being an asshole. because I'm too busy being told I should kill myself for looking like a whale lol
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golyadkin · 1 year ago
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I cannot express enough that if your reaction, as a hobby artist, to not getting that many notes on your art is to say "maybe I should just stop doing art altogether" you need to stop posting art to tumblr
not necessarily forever, not even for long, but just stop putting your art on here and start doing it for you again, remember why you enjoyed doing art in the first place and stop relying on the attention of faceless people on the internet for your enjoyment of your hard work
believe me, I get it, nothing crushes the artistic soul quite like labouring for hours on a piece only for it to get like 10 notes, so you need to find your own source of joy in the act of creation and a lot of the time that means making art and not showing it to anybody
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sonknuxadow · 1 year ago
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its kinda funny that the chaotix are like the only characters who mention having to pay rent or buy food or whatever and theyll take any job that pays because theyre desperate for money but none of the other characters are struggling in this department at all even though most of them dont seem to have jobs. its like the concept of needing money to live exists for no one in the sonic universe EXCEPT for vector espio and charmy
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sunderwight · 7 months ago
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Thinking about a bingqiu Dreamling AU where Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua are both bored deities, just sort of taking a brief sojourn through the mortal world to shoot the shit and see some interesting monster or other that Shen Yuan has heard about, when they come across a tea house and decide to take a break and do some people-watching instead.
Shen Yuan is well into something of a shut-in phase, which Shang Qinghua doesn't like, mostly because when Shen Yuan is in those phases he doesn't do particularly well either. Shen Yuan's a social butterfly, for however little he cares to actually acknowledge it about himself, and his critique of Shang Qinghua's literary masterpieces gets so much harsher when he's not getting enough enrichment.
So when they overhear one of the kitchen boys solemnly insisting that he is going to do everything in his power to never die, and Shen Yuan laments that the boy would probably regret such a wish if it came true, Shang Qinghua decides to bestow a rare bit of godly power onto this mortal and grant his wish.
He doesn't make him a god, of course, that wouldn't even be in his ability. At least, not without using up more time and effort than he's prepared to expend on this one random kid. But immortality on its own is not that difficult. The boy will still finish growing up, and will still be able to be harmed, to know hunger and pain and illness. It just won't ever kill him.
Shen Yuan sighs that it's a cruel thing to do to a mortal, especially one with such low odds of ever cultivating other skills to mitigate the potential torment of it all. But Shang Qinghua just shrugs and they place bets, that this boy will ask for the immortality to be revoked in a hundred years, or two hundred, or so on, or else he won't. Shen Qingqiu approaches the kitchen boy and flusters and bewilders him by telling him to meet him back here again in a hundred years time.
A hundred years later, the tea house is larger. The boy has grown to be a striking young man, who looks at Shen Yuan with wariness and something else, something almost like awe, as he asks what manner of creature he's made this bargain with. Shen Yuan assures him that he has no nefarious intentions, and instead asks Luo Binghe how the past century of his life has gone.
Horribly, at least at first. Binghe's mother had already died by the time they met, but afterwards he managed to earn enough money to travel to a nearby sect. Working in the tea house's kitchen was just a minor stopover along the way. Shen Yuan was wrong, it seems, about his odds of becoming a cultivator -- Luo Binghe earned entry as a disciple.
Yet, he had no success. The master who took him on was unaccountably cruel and mercurial, and Luo Binghe's attempts to cultivate failed. Looking back he sees now that there were many times when he should have died but didn't, but when it was all happening he just thought himself lucky. At least until an enemy sect attacked a cultivation conference, and he suffered mortal wounds that absolutely should have killed him (or anyone) but still didn't die. (No demon race or abyss in this AU, but there are still demonic and fantastical creatures.)
His cruel master, upon witnessing this, accused him of heretical practices and tried to kill him as well by flinging him off the edge of a gorge. The fall was terrible. Binghe lay at the bottom in a horrifying state, injured beyond reason and yet, still, he didn't die. Eventually his body recovered enough for him to drag himself out, and once he did the only thing on his mind was getting revenge. For the next several decades he managed to ingratiate himself to all manner of potential allies, forging alliances, accumulating blackmail, and convincing people that he had to be some powerful cultivator through his supernatural resilience, lack of visible aging, and a lot of bluffing. He got revenge on his old teacher, drove his first sect into ruin, and rose to prominence as a feared and respected leader of the cultivation world.
Shen Yuan listens with clear interest, asking plenty of questions and seemingly quite taken up with the story. At the conclusion, Luo Binghe admits that his actual cultivation is still mostly a matter of smoke and mirrors, and wonders if -- now that the hundred years have passed -- Shen Yuan means to strip his immortality from him.
Shen Yuan asks if Luo Binghe wants that. When Luo Binghe says no, he accepts the answer, and tells him to meet him back here again in another hundred years. Luo Binghe calls after him, but before he can ask anything more, Shen Yuan has disappeared again.
A hundred years later, Binghe arrives back at the tea house with an entourage befitting of an emperor. The tea house has also expanded. Luo Binghe orders a lavish feast from them, which everyone hastens to provide. He's spent the past several decades consolidating his power, forging alliances with key political players via several marriages, producing heirs, and crushing his enemies. As he brags about the state of his massive harem to Shen Yuan, the deity's eyes begin to glaze over. He doesn't seem impressed. He also doesn't seem to care much for the food, and eventually his attention is stolen away by a conversation at another table. The diners are discussing the exploits of a promising new poet and novelist. Try as he might, Luo Binghe fails to regain Shen Yuan's attention before the evening is done. Shen Yuan doesn't think it's a big deal -- after all, if Binghe is still riding on top of the world, he's probably not going to want his immortality gift revoked just yet!
Another hundred years go by. The tea house has returned to a more modest situation, the next time Shen Yuan sets foot in it. He waits an unusually long while for his guest to arrive, and when he does, he's almost stopped at the door by the tea house's servers. It's only when Shen Yuan bids them let him through that Luo Binghe is able to come to the table, almost collapsing against it and desperately falling onto the arrangement of snacks with obvious hunger.
Shen Yuan wonders if this, now, will be when the boy (no longer a boy) asks for the immortality to be revoked. Surprisingly, he finds himself resistant to the idea, even though it's also clear that the game has run too long. Maybe hundred year check-ins were too short? He doesn't like the implications of what's gone on, even if he's not really surprised about it either.
Between desperate mouthfuls of food, Luo Binghe explains that without mastering inedia, going hungry but never dying is a deeply unpleasant experience. Shen Yuan orders more food. Once Binghe has finally eaten his fill, he begins, haltingly, to explain his situation. His clothes are ragged, he is painfully thin, and his gaze is haunted.
Apparently, several of his wives conspired to assassinate him, despite his reputation as unkillable. Realizing that most poisons and such didn't kill him, but that he could still be incapacitated, they hatched a scheme to dose his food with a powerful sleeping agent, and then walled him up in a famous ancestral tomb. They went to great length to ensure that it was impossible to escape from. It took Binghe decades to do it anyway, digging away at the floors, and when he got out he found that his power base had collapsed. In-fighting and the incursion of his enemies had led to the deaths of all of his children, and what wives had survived had either fled or remarried. Not that he particularly wanted them back at that point, since the ones actually most loyal to him had also been killed early on after his own "death". His face marked him, to the eyes of his enemy, as a surviving descendant of himself. He was hunted down, chased across the continent and back again, until he managed to fall into enough obscurity that his pursuers abandoned the chase. Except that he has nothing, and any time he tries to regain something, he runs the risk of being hounded again. Those who might see some potential in him still remember the collapse of his recent "dynasty" and slam doors in his face, or else try and turn him over to those now in power in pursuit of a reward. Those who don't know that much see only a dirty beggar, and usually run him off on that basis instead.
Shen Yuan, almost hesitant, asks if Luo Binghe would like to have his immortality revoked.
Luo Binghe declines. How will he be able to take revenge on those who wronged him if he is dead? He has a hit list a mile long by now.
Which is definitely not the most noble of reasons to persist, but Shen Yuan finds himself reluctant to ask twice. Instead he orders more food, and then even reserves one of the traveler's rooms above the tea house for several days. By then the sky is turning grey, and Luo Binghe is losing his apparent battle with exhaustion. Shen Yuan presses the key into his hand, thinking it's probably not enough, but there are limits to how much gods are supposed to interfere and Shang Qinghua already stretched them to the breaking point with this entire scenario.
He leaves, not seeing the hand that reaches after him just before he is out of the door and gone.
Another hundred years pass. This time, Shen Yuan arrives to find Luo Binghe already waiting for him. He isn't surprised to see that Binghe's situation has visibly improved -- maybe he was keeping closer tabs on him, just a little bit, for this past while. If only to be sure he wouldn't have to warn the tea house workers to expect an unorthodox visitor again! But no, Binghe has been doing well enough for himself. No more harems or thrones, though. He dresses more like a well-off merchant now, deliberately posing as his own mortal descendant rather than as a great immortal cultivator. The food at the table looks far more delicious than usual too (Binghe commandeered the tea house's kitchen himself this time). As they chat, Shen Yuan is regaled with the exploits of Luo Binghe's travels and adventures, how even though he initially set out to claim revenge on those who overthrew him, by the time he was in a position to actually do so they had already died of the usual causes (time, illness, their own schemes backfiring, etc). Subsequently, only their children and grandchildren were left with the scraps of power they had obtained, and when one of those children employed Luo Binghe as a bodyguard, his initial plan to assassinate them eventually fell by the wayside. After all, the wrongdoings weren't actually theirs. From that point, Binghe was able to restore himself to a more comfortable life, joining his new employer on their travels until he had set aside enough earnings to take his leave before his youthful good-looks earned him suspicion. He then began investing in travel and trade, specifically cargo ships, because never spending too long in the same place or around the same people helped disguise his immortality. He had found that, at least for now, this served him better than playing the part of a cultivator. It also gave him time to try and actually repair his ruined cultivation base somewhat, and fighting pirates proved very diverting.
Binghe is midway through recounting his adventures with a gigantic sea monster, while Shen Yuan hangs on every word, when they're interrupted by the arrival of a brash young mistress, clearly wealthy and trained in cultivation. The young lady declares that there is a rumor that a fallen god and a demon meet in this tea house once a century, that they wield strange powers, etc etc, and she intends to interrogate them both with the assistance of her hired muscle and her own spiritual weapon, and discover the truth of the matter. Then she whips out, well, a whip!
Before Shen Yuan can deal with the matter, Luo Binghe is already on his feet, disarming the goons and breaking a few arms in the process. Shen Yuan is so distracted that he almost misses the whip aimed right for him, but before Binghe can catch the barbed weapon with his bare hand (wtf, Binghe, no) Shen Yuan deflects it with a wave of his fan, and then efficiently knocks the troublesome young lady unconscious. The hired muscle flees, Shen Yuan arranges for their assailant to be placed in a room upstairs until she regains consciousness, and he and Binghe resume their meal and conversation in relative peace.
Even though it's clear that Luo Binghe has not yet reached the end of his tolerance for life, Shen Yuan nevertheless finds himself strangely reluctant to part ways at the end of the night. Still, he does, because that's what is expected of him, gently denying Luo Binghe's suggestions that they find some other establishment to continue their conversation at. He also has to investigate these "rumors" that the young lady mentioned. It's probably nothing (Shang Qinghua has a loose tongue when he's drunk, and a lot of imaginative storytellers have frequented this tea house over the years) but he doesn't like being caught unawares like that. Heavenly politics are... complicated, it's best not to court unwanted attention in any capacity.
Another hundred years go by. This time, when they meet at the tea house, Luo Binghe asks Shen Yuan why he keeps it up. Why did he pick Binghe? What is he really after? When Shen Yuan fails to give any kind of clear answer, Luo Binghe shoots his shot and makes a (very obvious) move on him.
Shen Yuan, flustered, gets up and flees. Ignoring Luo Binghe's calls after him. It just doesn't make any sense! Why would Binghe do that?! He's a man who once had a harem of wives in the triple digits! Clearly he's not gay, so what was that all about? Was he just messing with him?! How dare he! Etc, etc.
Another century passes. Luo Binghe waits at the tea house, which has fallen onto hard times again. With the construction of some new roadways, travelers no longer pass through as often. Binghe listens, worried, to the proprietor's laments that this old place will probably not be around in another hundred years. He listens because he has no one else to speak to, because Shen Yuan has not shown up. Not that morning, not during the day, not come evening, and not now that it is closing time. Binghe nevertheless charms and bribes the proprietor to let him stay even after the place has shuttered.
It seems damning, of course. He pressed too hard and now his mysterious benefactor wants nothing more to do with him. Except, no, he refuses to accept that. He's still immortal. And he has gleaned enough of Shen Yuan's character by now that he thinks that even if he was rejected, he would be let down more clearly and gently than this. The more he thinks about it, the less willing Luo Binghe is to believe that he has been deliberately stood up (also, since the tenor of his confession was different from Hob Gadling's, he never delivered an ultimatum about what it might imply when they met up again).
Over the centuries, Luo Binghe has built up a few contacts with similarly strange and supernatural stories. Cultivators, sure, but also others, fortune tellers and people of strange ancestry, questionable abilities, those who have interacted with powerful beings of mysterious provenance. He makes his way to a certain gambling den, frequented often by such people, and while he flashes around enough money to draw curiosity, he collects information. Shen Yuan wasn't the only person who started paying more attention to the kinds of rumors surrounding the two of them after their confrontation with the young cultivator a couple centuries ago. And in fact, Luo Binghe has been spending many, many years trying to find out more about his mystery man. Though, too many potential deities and immortals fit his description for him to have ever conclusively figured much out.
This is how Binghe gets wind of a rumor that an eccentric occultist has somehow captured a god in his basement...
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