#but there was this pigeon in the road and we wanted to save it

[seven-thewanderer]

Sorry y’all just spent the past… 4 hours? Crying over a pigeon…

(explanation in tags…) (it’s quite negative tho so please read the warning tag before you keep reading if you don’t wanna read that.)

[angelic-iam]

Stroke Of Luck Chapter One

Warnings: Profanity, angst, adult themes and conversations, hints at infertility, infidelity, death , light violence

A/N: Please excuse any grammatical errors I tried to go through it as best I could .second bear with me if its not up to reading standard im trying to jump back into my writing bag and this will be my first story I've actually released so I might be a bit rusty lol but please enjoy

Word count: 4273

Series Master List

I sat on the front porch of my family home trying to hold it together as I watched my father put the last of jordans bags into the car .Today was the day I had been dreading the most my older brother Jordan was going away again on deployment .He had told us months ago about his decision to reenlist and I had been preparing myself for his departure hoping it would put me at ease. It didn't. My brother is one of my best friends and to see him leave was going to leave me with a void. Even through my dismay however I was proud of him even if in this moment my emotions didn't allow for me to show it.It didn't take long before the empty space beside me was filled with a familiar face. I turned to see Jordan, his face filled with sadness. Respecting the space I was in he allowed for us to sit in silence a moment before deciding to break it. “you okay?” he asked concern laced in his voice. I shook my head “not really," I replied softly, trying to avoid eye contact knowing I would cry. He sighed pulling me into his side as the tears began to prick my eyes.” I promise this time will fly by so fast you won't even realize” he said kissing my forehead .”No jo I will notice it will not be the same without you. who else will keep me sane dealing with ma and jade you're the only thing holding us together “ I croaked “ Theres always facetime if that doesn't work then we write, and if that don't work I'll send a pigeon” he joked Not being able to it in hold in a laughed spilled from my lips Jordan joining in seconds later “Jo it's time to hit the road” our fathers voiced called out .Jordan nodded his head signaling for my dad to give him a moment. Jordan stood pulling me up with him into a hug me, nuzzling my face into his chest feeling the water works starting back up. “I love you so much josie” he said wiping a stray tear that slipped free “I love you more jo” I said turning him loose. “Oh, and sis do me one last favor” he said walking down the porch steps “name it” I called out “smile no more tears”. I cracked a small smile as he turned making his way to the car climbing in leaving me in a broken mess as I watch my dad's chevy Tahoe disappear down the road.

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In the same spot I stood five years later staring down the same dirt road my brother wouldn't have the opportunity of returning to. He was gone. Jordan was sent in on a rescue mission to save a fellow marine of his platoon, ironic in the end he ended up being the one needing saving. Shit went south and my brother was shot and killed in the line of fire. I was angry feeling as if the universe had slighted me robbing me of being able to share future moments with my brother. Him cheering me on when as I walked

the stage after completing nursing school, being a bridesmaid in his and his fiancé Arielle's wedding, holidays, birthdays. Gone. The only presence of him now in this moment was his framed picture that stood in the front of our family home for the repass. Not wanting to continue allowing myself to drown further in my grief I turned walking up the steps primary focus locating one of two people Arielle or my cousin India . It didn't take long to find ari talking with one of my aunts. Arielle was short in stature compared to most with smooth golden-brown skin that seemed to glow as the warm rays peaked through the window and a fit physique that would put Tyra banks to shame. No doubt courtesy of her personal trainer profession. Her round face framed with voluptuous curls. It was amazing to see her strength. Throughout her struggle a dimpled smile still adorned her face one that caused her Chinky eyes to disappear as she laughed. Noticing me walking over she politely closed out her conversation with my aunt walking to meet me. “Where did you disappear to “she quizzed giving me a slight nudge “ I needed some fresh air the condolences and sorry for your losses were becoming overwhelming” I huffed "Trust, I get it I have to many people asking me what i'm going to do with me and our son” she stated shifting uncomfortably. My heart ached for her. I couldn't imagine how it is to become a widow, single parent, and having to break the news to kaizen.

“for whatever your move or decision is you're not alone. You got me forever and so does nugget “I Said with half smile. She giggled at the nickname I assigned kaizen at birth. We glanced over watching the mini version of Jordan running around the house with the other kids.” I almost forgot your dad wanted to see us in the kitchen” she stated switching the topic. I nodded as we made our way to the cramped kitchen pushing past multiple bodies. My dad stood looking down at my mother with admiration as they talked among themselves “Hey daddy “I greeted walking over as he pulled me into a hug “Hey baby come sit your sister should be here in a moment” he said ushering me and ari to sit. I scrunched up my face at the mention of my sister. Jade and I had an exceedingly tenuous relationship. Jade was the youngest out of the three of us and was the golden child spoiled completely rotten. In my parents' eyes she could do no wrong and treated her as such. It didn't help that my mother drove the wedge and distaste for one another deeper pitting me and my sister against each other in a warped ass competition. Who is better than the other. My mother secretly rooted for jade while my dad on the other hands liked to play devil's advocate. Jordan was the only one who called them out holding everyone ,including myself accountable. The final nail in the coffin was catching Jade and my then boyfriend of two years Darien in bed together not to mention she continues to see him. To say I was hurt and angry was an understatement and as my family (aside from Jordan) tends to do they brushed it under the rug. As if her ears were burning jade stalks in turning her nose up at the sight of me. Feeling myself become anxious and agitated I decided to jump start the conversation “everything okay you wanted to speak with us” I question. Dad sighed grabbing a stack of papers from the counter sitting down placing them in the middle of the table. “We are going to start sorting out your brother estate and assets “Now” I asked in disbelief “Yes per your mother request”. Still not understanding the urgency I pressed further “Why so soon?” I said.” I have something important to take care of so I asked mom and dad to move it up” jade answered nonchalantly “what could possibly be so important that were doing this the day of our brothers funeral “I gritted out finding myself becoming angry. Sensing this Arielle reached over taking my hand in hers giving it a light squeeze “I have a trip I'll be going on we didn't want to move the dates” jade shrugged.” A DAMN TRIP!! WERE GRIEVING AND YOU HAVE NO CONCERN OR REGARD FOR ME OR FOR ARRIELLE. MY BROTHER ISNT EVEN IN THE GROUND GOOD AND YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT A TRIP AND IF WE CALL IT LIKE IT IS YOU’RE WONDERING WHAT YOU CAN GET YOUR HANDS ON FUCKING SELF-” 

“JOSELYNN TAYLOR, YOU MIND YOUR MOUTH IN MY HOME I DIDNT RAISE YOU TO BE DISRESPECTFUL AND WE AREN'T GOING TO START NOW “My mom interrupted slamming her hand down on the table. “Dad” I turned to him secretly pleading for him to jump to my defense but as always nothing.” Josie, I get that you’re upset I do but let's just rip the band aid off and get this over with” he said pulling his reading glasses on his face. Meanwhile jade's face held a victorious smirk, and I wanted nothing more than to put it through some dry wall “The lawyers drew up the paperwork dividing the assets based on Jordan's will. He had a one hundred fifty-thousand-dollar life insurance policy that will be divided fourways between his parents, two sisters and fiancé Arrielle. His dodge challenger he left to his sister Jade Taylor while rest the remaining vehicles will go to his fiancé Arrielle Rodriguez” From the side of my eye I could see jade smiling. “As for his properties he leaves the townhome located in California 9870 Blancas Blvd. in Anaheim to Arrielle and lastly, the ranch house located at 1600 rose ridge rd here in Dallas Texas as well as the 8 acres surrounding it” My dad paused taking a moment to catch his breath as my sister sat up in her chair ready “ will be left to his sister Joselynn Taylor” he finished laying the paper on the table. Jade scoffed snatching up the paper reading it not believing what she's heard. I sat in shock looking over at Arrielle who nodded confirming it for me.

“ Me and Jordan decided to create a backup plan in case of a worst-case scenario. Never thought id actually have to execute it. We thought it'd be best if I moved back to Cali to be closer to my parents and family for support, the house is way too much for me and kaizen by ourselves and besides it would be a painful reminder to our son “she stated fighting tears. “He thought you were the most deserving seeing as your in school and jade has support from your parents figured it would be the best for you” ari said. "But that's not fair I got plenty of cars that's nothing can't you do something” Jade complained her turn now to plead with our parents. My mother diverted her attention now to me “Josie can't you switch it's not like you need it. You’re single, no kids unlike your sister who's been in a three-year relationship with Darien and expecting “she tried to reason while sneakily throwing jabs at me. I let my eyes dance between my parents and jade reading their body language. It was true. "You -your pregnant” I stuttered as a began to internally crack “Yes it was confirmed yesterday at the doctors. Four weeks along I think Darien is more excited than me” jade beamed getting a kick at seeing me squirm at the news “you know I could refer you to our doctor he could possibly help with that sour ass womb of yours” she bragged tossing her hair over her shoulder. I could feel my throat begin to close up as tears were now flowing down my face “Jade that's messed up and out of pocket l what is that to say to someone? You just be lucky your ungrateful behind received anything your words are uncalled for” Arrielle jumped in taking to my defense “thanks Arri for taking up for me, dad I can't do this I gotta go” I stood abruptly pushing myself away from the table storming out of the house hoping into my car speeding off.

I drove with no destination until my crying turned into dry heaving processing the news. Not only did I have to take my sister snatching my relationship with Darien from under me but now I have the pleasure to watch them start a family one that should've been mine. A shitty way to rub salt in the wound. Ten minutes passed by before the sound of coco jones ICU blared through the car's speaker. Taking a quick glance at the car screen. I see my favorite cousin India name displaying. I may not have had a sister relationship with Jade, but I did find one with India. If I wasn't with Jordan I was with her. Three musketeers. I tapped answer “hey India wassup” I asked trying to mask the fact I was just crying “Honey I should be asking you that seeing the way you just ran out of here what happened”. I sighed “It's a long story “I stated “ wanna talk about it over some drinks at dukes “she offered ‘ooh please link with you at 8” I replied “see you then” she agreed

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I tossed back my second shot of tequila squeezing my eyes closed as the clear liquid burned my chest India taking the chance to laugh at my facial expressions. “Thats no ordinary liquor “ I coughed “ Yeah but your ass needs it , now do you want to tell me what happened back at uncle Melvins” she said getting straight to business “ Where to start let's see that bitch jades greedy ass talked to my mom to convince her to push up sorting out Jordans affairs disregarding the fact were hurting, the only good and surprising thing was Jordan left a house to me but of course jade with help from my mom couldn't let that slide nooo they had to degrade me and spring on me that jades pregnant by Darien, Jade finished with saying she can refer me to her doc for my quote sour womb” I rambled with air quotes causing India to spit out her drink “ I know you fucking lying” she blurted “I Wish I was “ I chuckled darkly signaling the bartender for another round “so are we dragging her now or later” she asked in all seriousness “ we can't she's pregnant” I retorted “ AND her face aint her lip would have been swole before she could leave the house” India shook her head completely dumbfounded “I'm honestly in a space of being mentally exhausted it feels like I've had the worst luck of the draw. I can't seem to maintain anything good “I said “Josie Girl, I love you but were gonna gone head and shut your self pity party down. Sure you're going through some shit right now but it's not the end of the world. Your smart as hell ,On your way to becoming a nurse, fine as hell with a fat ass” she joked giving my behind a poke causing me to laugh “besides there's nothing you've lost that can't be regained Darien left but he aint the only man left in the world. You just got to find the right one for you one that slangs the meat” she said gyrating “oh my god dee must you do that in public and why so loud” I said covering my face in embarrassment “ I don't care you need some but first you have to stop running them away” she teased. ”it's not my fault they can't handle me “I shrugged leaning against the bar. She wouldn't call it running them off more so like weeding out the bad. Joselynn was tough overall to crack. Her hard exterior was difficult to get through. She was already to some degree antisocial so to get a conversation from her was a blessing. Even then you had to be engaging enough to hold her attention both in and out of the bedroom as she got bored easily. She wasn't one to just settle for anything as the slightest misstep/red flag and you were gone. Joselynn knew part of it was due to Darien.” you need to come with a sign that says you bite” She teased tooting her lips up at me as I shoved her slightly laughing. Before I respond Tamia’s Can't Get Enough came over the bar's speaker causing hoops and yells to erupt. Instinctively me and India made our way over to where the line dance started joining in. I was grateful for the distraction India provided and the peace she managed to bring. We continued throughout the night to dance to a few more songs take a few more drinks to the head before deciding to call it a night. Stumbling into the house I kicked my shoes off at the door making my way to my bedroom struggling to find the light. I went to take a seat on my bed seeing both a letter and a manilla envelope. The envelope from my dad the letter from Jordan. My hands trembled slightly gripping the letter not wanting to pull myself back into a state of hurt. I sat the letter to the side grabbing the envelope ripping it open out tumbling out a set of keys, inside the deed to the house and a small note from my father  

Josie i'm sorry for earlier on behalf of your mother and sister inside is the deed for the house the keys as well as the address I love you always pops 

Part of me was still angry but I had a soft spot for my dad and he knew that. Officially tired I sat the paperwork on the side table stripping my clothes and turning off the light, deciding to shower in the morning. It wasn't long till sleep overtook me.

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A month had passed since the day of the funeral and I had tried to bury the emotions of Jordan being gone so much that I buried myself in other things to keep my mind occupied. Working at the hospital being a CNA provided some distraction and what my job didn’t cover in the distraction field schooling took care of the rest. In its own way they also provided me an excuse and shielding from my unrelenting mother who still made it her business to call pestering me to rethink my decision about the home. I won’t. It was one thing I had power over, and I wouldn't relinquish it so easily. For the first two weeks of his passing I went back and forth on whether or not I would actually move into the home not feeling quite right about it but after starting to feel like things were becoming stagnant decided it was best to move. I slowly drove up the light graveled path mouth dropping at the sight of the house that sat nestled at the end of the dirt road. It was a stunning two-story ranch style house with a wraparound porch. Coming into a stop I tossed the boxed moving truck into park hopping down to get a better look at the home “this is gorgeous “India stated walking up after parking her car. “I agree can't believe he left this for me” I marveled taking it all in “well believe it toots now let's gawk at it from the inside we got work to do” she declared holding her hand out for the truck keys. Dropping them into her hands she went to grab the first box as I went to open the door. The interior was just as beautiful as the exterior. The multicolored stone walls paired well with the mahogany hardwood floors and high ceilings. The set up with the furniture accented well no doubt due to Arrielle's careful selection when they were here.” Girl this is neeiceeee it don't smell like roaches in here or nothing "India shouted carrying in one of the boxes “You don't have the sense you were born with” I chuckled at her reference to girls trip “you ready to get this over with”. She groaned knowing just like me how long of a process unpacking was going to be. Without another moment of hesitation we jumped in getting started.

After what felt like years later I folded the last of my clothes, placing them away as India flopped on my bed groaning. “ I hate your don't need a man for shit mentality that was horrible” she grumbled “ It wasn't that bad” I giggled plopping down beside her “ Like hell it wasn't my ass is going to be hurting for days” she countered “I'll make it up to you I promise” I teased pinching her cheek “ yes you will tonight I want dinner fried chicken, mac the works” she responded smacking my hand away sitting up on her elbows “ Your joking” I asked not knowing if she was serious or not “nope I'm serious”. “Dee I don't feel like it” I whined “tough shit” she said not wavering. She was just as stubborn as I was.” Fine but you're getting the groceries” I huffed out relenting. “Cool with me I'm gonna go home shower then i'll swing back”. She jumped up grabbing her keys walking out. Taking this as an opportunity I grabbed a t-shirt and underwear from my drawer walking into the large master bathroom. I turned on the shower allowing the warm water to run relaxing my tense muscles strained by the lifting. After I finished I got dressed walking back in the room looking for my phone realizing I must have left it downstairs. Making my way to the stairs I could see the light from the living room reflecting on the wall. I figured India may have left it on that was until it flicked off. I froze on the top stair as my mind began to race, trying to rationalize what I saw. Maybe it was India. No, she wouldn't be back that quick. Maybe it was a blown fuse but a scared part of me didn't want to chance it. Tip toeing back upstairs I looked for something to use as a weapon eyes landing on the hammer I had used earlier to hang photos. Clutching it tight I slowly crepted downstairs the only noise was the sound of my heart thumping in my ears. Rounding the corner I froze seeing a figure standing a few feet away in the doorway the moonlight highlighted their 5’8 figure while providing shade from their face. Fear momentarily fueling me I got ready to charge forward when someone grabbed hold of my wrist twisting it causing my grip on the hammer to loosen eventually dropping it. Not having time to process what was happening I was grabbed and flipped on my back pinned down by the larger party. Still I struggled against the intruder managing to momentarily free my arm. I drew my arm back throwing blows anywhere they would land this didn't do anything but piss the person of as I was lifted slightly from the floor and slammed back down causing me to yelp in pain. Panic set in flooding through my nervous system. “TERRY WAIT SHIT I THINK THAT'S A WOMAN” a voice cut through from the other side. The lights flicked on seconds later giving me the chance now to get a look at the intruders. The one by the door stubbled faced held panic as he too assessed our current situation. Remembering the heavy weight at my midsection my eyes shot to the one who had me pinned. My breath hitched in my throat.

His honey kissed face glared back down at me while his plump lips twisted up in a snarl. His chiseled arms flexed as he kept me held in place but the most defining thing however. His eyes. A beautiful pool of blue gray encircling hints of hazel and green something similar to a painter who accidentally had his watercolor paints blending together into a perfect mess. “If I let you go do you promise to not do anything stupid” his baritone voice questioned snapping me from my awkward eye raping. I nodded in response. He stood pulling me effortlessly up with him. “Who are you and what are you doing in my house?” I asked finding my voice coming back as I rubbed my now sore shoulder. “I'm Mike that's terry" the one from the doorway answered “sorry if we scared you” he said sheepishly. “Scared is an understatement and that still doesn't answer why you're here or why I shouldn't be calling the cops for breaking and entering and assault” I fussed through gritted teeth. Still not saying much since turning me loose the one name terry walked past me grabbing something from his bag on the floor walking back over to me handing me a piece of paper. Jordans handwriting.

Hey T if you're receiving this letter it's because I'm dead. It's funny thinking on it seeing as the squad always joked calling me mister invincible but yet here I am gone. I thank you for always being there for me since meeting you you've always been like a brother to me rather than a fellow marine in arms. Given our prior conversation about your situation, I wanted to do one thing for you. I offer you T a place of solitude if you ever need to get away the address is listed below keys are hidden in the porch light fixture. Continue to be great .. I love ya man  

                                                          Jordan signing out for the last time 

I looked up at him handing the letter back to him. "You knew my brother” I said feeling the wave of his death rushing back again. I watched as his face widened in realization of who I was. “Yes we served together. I apologize for roughing you up I didn't realize you were Jordans sister. I thought you might have been someone that had broken in”. I nodded understanding. “it's fine I thought the same” I said calming down. “Look we don't want to crowd your space and sorry for the intrusion. I didn't think anyone would be here. Your brother as you can see failed to mention you moving in we will leave” Terry said signaling for mike to grab their bags. I sighed looking towards the ceiling having an internal battle with myself and before I could stop myself the words flew from my mouth “You can stay”

[slusheeduck]

Fictober 2023 Day 9 - Prompt: "I may not get another chance to say this." Fandom: Baldur's Gate 3

This was…presumptuous, at best. Nosy, at worst. And honestly, entirely not within his right, considering the current time frame. But damn it all, if this tadpole in his head didn’t take him out first, the orb in his chest would, so there really was no time like the present for Gale to do this, because there may not be much more of that left.

So, a few minutes after hearing Astarion’s drawled out, “Hello, beautiful,” and about thirty seconds after seeing Falerin walk away to go chat with Karlach, he took a deep breath, then made his way to Astarion’s tent.

“Could we…chat, Astarion?” he asked slowly, hands clasped behind his back. Astarion glanced back at him over his shoulder, eyebrows raising.

“I would ask if you were going to show me a bit of magic, but it sounds more like I’m about to get a lecture,” he said, corner of his lip quirking up in amusement. “But I suppose we could.”

Gale glanced about. “Let’s…walk. Less chance of being overheard.”

“Oh, now I’m very interested.”

Gale rolled his eyes. “Don’t get so excited. It’s bad enough with the tadpoles, but everyone here’s an eavesdropper, too.”

“Speaking from experience?” The knowing smile Astarion sent his way made Gale wince, and suddenly he was second-guessing this whole affair. It was none of his business. But it was. But it wasn’t. But…

“Look, I may not get another chance to say this,” he said quickly, pushing through the doubts. “There’s…yes, we saved the Grove and that was worth celebrating, but it’s far from the end of the road for us. And if things do get more difficult, then I want to say…”

Astarion’s eyes widened, and he paused by the shoreline. “Oh my. Is this a confession, Gale?” he asked, a cruel little smile already spreading across his face as he fanned himself. “Oh, this is all so sudden!”

“Will you stop it?” Gale snapped. “It’s about Falerin.”

That caused a shift in Astarion’s face. His hand delicately rested against his mouth, eyes narrowing. “What about Falerin?”

Gale hesitated, eyes darting between Astarion and the dying dusk over the water. “You look at him like you’re going to eat him alive.”

“Well, I mean…”

“Not in terms of your unusual diet.” Gale let out a long sigh, hand scrubbing at his face. “This is presumptuous of me, I know. We’ve both known him the same amount of time, give or take fifteen minutes, and as far as stressors go, this one should be much lower on the list. But he’s my friend, Astarion. Probably the best I’ve had since Mystra…” He sighed, dragging his hand down his face. “The point is, I’m worried you’re toying with him like…like my cat does a pigeon she’s about to tear to pieces.”

Astarion, who had stayed remarkably quiet, suddenly scoffed. “Darling, who do you think I am?”

Gale grimaced. “Please. I know he cares about you—it’s practically bursting out of every pore in his face. And I’m…I’m not trying to intimidate or scare you off, I swear. I just…some assurance, please, that you’re not going to hurt him.”

Astarion’s face had shifted into something unreadable—not scathing, not mocking, not sneaking. His gaze flitted over Gale’s face, searching for a lie.

“I’m not planning to hurt him,” he said, voice soft. “I can’t promise I won’t; I know the kind of person I am. But…I won’t toy with him.”

Gale should have been embarrassed with the obvious sigh of relief he let out, but he really wasn’t. He dropped down on a nearby rock, shaking his head. “I really should have gotten out more before this. I’ve forgotten how difficult talks like this are.” He let out another breath, then looked up at Astarion. “I haven’t been as kind to you as I should have, but I’d like to be in the future. I’d like to think that Fal would be upset if either of us left camp due to a spat.” He waved his hand. “So, any time you’d like to talk, feel free. Or…don’t. Ball is entirely in your court.”

Astarion’s mouth twitched up. “Oh, how very generous of you.” He paused for a moment, looking out at the water, then—very slowly, like he was approaching some dangerous creature—he sat down on the fallen log beside Gale. “So you…have a cat?”

Gale’s brow furrowed as he looked over at him. “Well, technically she’s a tressym, but yes.” He gave a wry smile. “Stereotypical, I know—lonely wizard in his tower with just his cat for company. Feel free to tease me about it; Tara certainly does.”

“No, no, I…” Astarion glanced over at him. “I’ve always been fond of cats. See a lot of myself in them, I suppose. Obviously having one’s always been out of the question, but…” He shrugged. “Maybe you could tell me about yours.”

Gale looked Astarion over, unable to stop the way his mouth pulled up. He knew a peace offering when he saw one. “I would be more than happy to.”

Fictober 2023 Drabble Master Post

[esdithequeen]

Hatchling

Ao3 Link

The worst part of being a lawyer, of any kind, was undoubtedly the paperwork. It piled up high on the desk, blocking out all light and joy from one’s life, and was undefeatable, a hydra of ink and printer paper— one stack went and two more appeared. An ouroboros of despair and suffering, inescapable and unending.

Which is to say that Simon wasn’t having a fun day at work.

He wasn’t having a very fun day at all, to be completely honest. Kay had to leave early in the morning in order to sort out some pre-trial nonsense, and he had been woken by the sound of Taka screeching and clawing at the bedroom window to try and reach some pigeon that had settled outside. The coffee machine in the break room had broken, and he couldn’t be arsed to go to the cafe down the road from the prosecutor’s office, mostly because he knew that in the time it would take him to walk there and back another pile of paperwork would appear on his desk.

So caught up in his own quiet decaffeinated rage, Simon didn’t even notice that Kay had poked her head through the door until she spoke up, “Is Taka in here?” She half whispered.

Simon’s brow furrowed, “Not right now, no.”

Kay sighed in relief, pushing her way into the office with a cup holder bearing two takeaway cups in one hand, and a shoe box cradled in the other. The drinks were all but thrown at him, and he grabbed one to take a sip as the box was gently set down on the desk, grimacing at sickly sweet concoction in his hand. Kay took it off of him, “That one’s mine, obviously.”

She moved to close the window as he reached for the other drink and cautiously brought it to his lips. An oat milk matcha latte with half a shot of vanilla. Much better. He eyed the shoe box on the desk, wondering why on earth was in it and why Kay had it— until the box chirped. Simon swivelled his chair around, “Kay…”

“Don’t get mad at me just yet.” She insisted, “I didn’t kidnap the little guy.” Pulling up a spare chair, Kay sat down at the side of the desk and pulled the lid off the box.

The sad little creature didn’t even have its down feathers yet. Its eyes were firmly shut, and despite being bundled in a nest of old rags and paper towels it shivered. Surely the chick could not be older than a day or two, “Another crow?”

“A scrub-jay.” Kay corrected.

    “And you couldn’t find the nest?”

“I found what was left of the nest.” She pulled out a bright blue tail feather, “And what I assume to have been mom. Whatever attacked clearly didn’t see him fall beneath the bushes.”

    “Or its hunger had been sated.”  Simon considered the tiny hatchling for a moment; it barely moved other than its violent shivering, already halfway to death’s door by the looks of it, “You know the chances of it surviving are extremely low, don’t you?”

Kay removed her gloves and gently lifted the chick out of the box, bringing it close to her chest in an attempt to keep it warm, “Of course I know that,” she said firmly, “but I couldn’t just leave him there. The thought of him starving alone out in the cold was too much for me.” 

    “It might not even survive the night.”

“I know.” Kay held it tighter to herself, a crease in her brow and her voice wavering slightly, “But I have to at least try.” 

He wanted to chastise her for being too soft, but the sight of her pulling her legs up onto the chair and curling around the little bird, as if it were the most precious treasure in the world, caused the words to die in his throat. Of course she would see this half-dead orphaned hatchling and do everything in her power just to have a chance at saving it. This was the same woman who visited him every single week for almost a year, determined to prove him innocent even when he had already accepted his fate on death row. 

Simon sighed, “You’d be better off taking it to a rehab centre.”

“I already did, but they didn’t have room for him. It’s fine though, we’ve both raised birds before.”

    “We? You want me to help?”

“Well yeah. You will, won't you?” She held out the chick to him, “Here, hold him while I try to get some food in him.”

Simon gingerly accepted the bird, holding it in one hand. It was splayed out awkwardly, anchored down by the weight of its own head, yet the tiny beastie barely even filled his palm. Fishing out a little syringe of food from one of her many belt pouches, Kay propped up the chick’s head with a single finger and manoeuvred the tip of the syringe into its mouth. It took a while— the bloody thing seemed determined to starve, but once she managed to get a bit of the sludge down its gullet the chick began to flail its stubby little wings around, letting out the weakest, squeakiest little chirp Simon had ever heard as it begged for more. 

It was… a little cute. In that strange ugly way that baby birds often were. Simon remembered when Taka was first thrust upon him by the prison guard, a mess of white down and sharp talons that cried and bit at his fingers when it was hungry. That clawed its way over his body just so it could sleep in the crook of his neck at night. He remembered wondering why he had been saddled with such an ugly, needy little beast, but now he couldn’t imagine being parted from Taka for more than a day. Simon began to gently run his thumb down the chick’s back.

“He’s winning you over, isn’t he?” Kay smirked.

    “Only a little.” Once there was no more food to offer, Simon lowered the bird back down into its box, fluffing up the bedding around it, “But we still can’t let ourselves get attached. So no naming it, understood?”

She leaned against the desk, eyes only the small scrub-jay chick, “Too late. His name is Noodle and he is my son.”

Simon sighed, “Our son.” He corrected.

[scary-movies-on-netflix]

ORPHAN (2009)

This is one of those movies that’s been on my to-watch list for a long time.  I’ve felt like I should watch it, but I didn’t really want to because it’s probably not good.  My hunch was right.

We start off with Woman, who immediately has a miscarriage, which is regrettable.  She plants a memorial rosebush in her greenhouse.  She and her husband, Man, have some marital discord (his past infidelity and her previous alcoholism), but they seem fine now and happy with two children (Son and Daugther).  Still, to fill a void in their lives they decide to adopt a child.  They visit an orphanage where they encounter an interesting little Russian girl.  She’s articulate and loves to paint, seems to have real depth to her soul, so they adopt her!

Naturlich, there is something wrong with this girl, Esther.  Son is playing with a paint gun and shoots a pigeon, much like Bart Simpson in the classic “The Simpsons” episode “Bart the Mother” (1998).  Esther tells him to mercy-kill the bird because it’s suffering, but when he refuses she drops a rock on it.  At school, she acquires a typical American bully, and after a very long sequence at a playground, Esther shoves the bully off a slide and she breaks some bones.  Woman begins to feel uneasy about Esther, but Man essentially calls her a stupid woman and tells her to shut up. 

A nun from the orphanage shows up and Woman asks about Esther’s background.  The nun promises to investigate.  The nun leaves, but Esther manipulates Daughter and together they manage to have Nun drive her car off the road.  Esther then bonks the nun on the head with a hammer a bunch of times and kills her.  She threatens Daughter with death, to keep her secret!  Esther then hides the evidence in the treehouse, but Son sees them!  That’s no problem, for Esther then sneaks into his room and holds a knife to him and tells him to keep quiet, or else! 

They take Esther to see Woman’s shrink, but Esther convinces her that everything is fine and, actually, Woman is the problem.  Esther then manipulates Man some more, and he tells her to make nice with Woman.  Esther does so by cutting the memorial roses for the stillborn child!  Woman freaks out, grabbing Esther’s arm, and Esther later breaks her own bone to make it look like Woman is abusing her.  Woman buys some wine to get drunk, but she resists the urge.  The next day, she is dropping the kids off at school, and Esther messes with the car so it rolls off on its own with Daughter still in the back seat.  She is fine, but later Man and Woman’s shrink have an intervention for Woman.  She insists that Esther is the problem, but no one believes her, because she’s just a filthy drunk.

Meanwhile, Son and Daughter are trying to solve their dilemma.  Daughter tells Son about the nun-murder evidence in the treehouse, but when Son tries to retrieve it Esther is there!  She locks him inside the treehouse and sets it on fire.  He manages to escape but falls to the ground.  Esther is about to drop a rock on his head, but his sister saves him!  Everyone goes to the hospital.  Woman continues to insist that Esther is the problem.  (She’s learned that the Russian orphanage has no record of her, and she found reference to an Estonian institute in Esther’s belongings.)  She tells Man, “I’m so done.  I’m done connecting these dots for you.”  Esther suspects that the adults are plotting against her, so she sneaks into Son’s hospital room and tries to smother him!  No one sees, of course, but Woman finds her afterwards and slaps the shit out of her.  Esther actually flies across the room!  Woman is sedated.  Man leaves her at the hospital and takes Esther and Daughter home.

At home, Man gets high and drunk.  Esther tarts herself up and tries to seduce him, but Man finally comes to his senses.  He sends her to her room and says that she’s going back to the orphanage!  Finally!  Esther proceeds to throw a tantrum in her room, while at the hospital Woman gets a phone call from the Estonian institute.  Turns out, it’s a mental hospital, and Esther (real name, Lena) was a patient there!  She has a rare hormonal disorder that causes “proportional dwarfism” so that “she only looks like a child.”  Esther isn’t a child – she’s 33 years old!  We see Esther taking out her false teeth, revealing rotting ones beneath, and she wipes off her makeup, and she suddenly looks so old, old like a 33 year old woman!   

Man wanders up to Esther’s room, which is empty, but he sees her art, which can only be viewed under blacklights.  It’s mostly of her stabbing and killing people, and also of her…um…fucking.  Mom leaves the hospital and proceeds to drive home in a reckless manner, so that we have to watch a couple of near accidents in the snow.  At home, Esther turns off the lights and then stabs Man to death.  Woman arrives home by crashing the car through the front wall.  We then have a chase scene involving Esther (with a gun), Woman, and Sister.  Woman ends up falling on Esther through the greenhouse roof, and Woman and Sister escape.  The police arrive and begin to search the house, but Esther is gone!

Woman and Sister end up at a frozen pond.  Esther catches up with them and tries to stab Woman to death, but the two of them fall through the ice.  After some predictable struggle, Woman is climbing out, but Esther pops up after her!  Esther says, “Please, don’t let me die, Mommy!”  Woman shouts, “I’m not your fucking mommy!” and kicks Esther in the face, also breaking her neck I guess.  Esther falls back into the water as police arrive and very gently take care of Woman and Sister. 

This isn’t horror.  It’s camp.  It’s kitsch.  Everything is crazy and over the top.  Still, it’s not quite awful.  The actors, strangely enough, are top notch.  The central conceit (“She’s just a tiny grown woman!”) is interesting.  Unfortunately, there are many flaws.  We get too many scenes where we’re made to think that something scary is about to happen (i.e. a jump scare) but then nothing happens!  A reverse jump-scare, if you will.  The characters are stupid beyond belief.  I haven’t even mentioned the weird sex stuff, and I’ll just leave it at that.

[magpie-moon]

well I love you, little dove

Just another depressed kid on the interwebs With ao3 and tumblr as my domain They think we’re all the same We have a hive mind. Aren’t you with the times? They say its normal adolescence But i don’t think it's typical to press blades into my thighs and lick up the essence To never make a mess and hide the evidence But it might be, i guess i’m just guessing And anyway that's an oversimplification, a dramatization Ignoring all the maybe ptsd, and trauma, the abuse, neglect and obsessive compulsive, adhd, anxiety and depression An obstinate delinquent, perhaps even anger issues. Here's a confession For 16 years everyone told me what to do, threatened me with violence And spent up all my mileage Now i’m just a rusted old jukered that gets grumpy when you try to fix me That screams when you try to change me To save me And really, it’s an art, being this foolish Like never missing a shooting star Or being able to always open jelly jars But now i’m about to derail all my plans As if they were ever attainable anyway Like those clouds and good math grades. Or ways to avoid getting caught with contraband for longer than six month and not being late for calls or never breaking anyone’s trust falls And well, maybe I move too fast. I’m speeding down a road, it's foggy. Not sure if that's slick black ice Or wet asphalt, shiny in the headlights 100 miles per hour when my speed should be 20 And i’ve always thought about my own mortality

Maybe it's just the morbid in me But stopping now would be fatal, just like giving me hope Like a noose around my neck, they gave me rope And i tied it, jumped from the ledge (and usually they took shortcuts along the ledge, one day they fell on the man below. His grieving widow encased him in crystal and warned people to be careful of people who fall from ledges like pigeon poop from pedestals. Oh, the circus of the mad) My neck all cracked like stained glass Cleaning up would be a pain Like cleaning up after twisters or fights in the rain, Forest fires or spilled milk in the dead of night I wish i were out of sight out of mind But really just i wish i had you in my sights Like literally, physically here with me Because i never learned how to put up walls Or separate tomorrow from eternity But now it's over, i’m at your beck and call It sometimes strikes me funny when you ask If i wanna deal with you when your burning up the sun When you can’t sit still and your brain is overrun Because honestly its kinda sick how much it turns me on In my mind, i help you out I kiss you dizzy, up against the lockers just before last period And whisper threats, i make you wait Your always desperate I'm always demanding In love with the way my imaginary you cries out with each little death I keep going, i never want it to end But really i just want you here, even though it kinda scares me Cause what if you leave as soon as you arrive

Or you realize i’m not that great at taking constructive criticism or even just compromise And you get tired of all things you thought you liked My endearing attributes that only end in spite Like the way i take long naps, or can’t cook to save my life Disorganized, careless and nothing ever gets done quite right And i’ll push you away eventually Even if it's just for a little while Cause i get tired and irritable Pissed off, unsatisfiable At best i’m annoying, at worst downright irredeemable I’m sorry in advance Sometimes i just need you too tell me i look decent When really my eyes are my only saving grace Isn’t that right? Once you called them mesmerizing Twice you called them stunning Thrice you called them lovely Well i love you, little dove And really, i just want a hug

[survey--s]

639.

Did you ever used to make cookies, cakes or pie with your grandma? No. One of them was in her eighties by the time I was old enough to cook/bake with her, and the other was a raging alcoholic who didn't even know who I was half the time, ha.

Do you burn incense? No, but I do burn scented candles.

Do you smoke weed? Nope. The smell is awful.

Have you actually been through a devastating natural disaster before? No, thankfully not. England is pretty "safe" in that respect. We do get floods most years but nothing serious thankfully. Occasionally I need a day off work due to road closures but otherwise life carries on as normal for the most part. What fast food place, in your opinion, has the best french fries? McDonald's or KFC.

Do you believe one day aliens might take over Planet Earth? No. I don't think aliens would have any interest in this dumpster fire of a planet, lol.

Do you like soda pop? If so, which is your favorite and least favorite? Yeah - lately it's been Dr Pepper but I do like Pepsi Max and Tango as well, depending on my mood.

Does it bother you when people burp around you or do you do it too? It depends? I mean, if close friends/family do it it's just kind of normal to me, but I wouldn't want to be with someone who burped in a cinema or fancy restaurant or something.

When is the next time you’ll talk to the cousin you’re closest to? I'm not close to any of my cousins.

When was the last time you saw a bird? What kind of bird was this? I have no idea, there are birds everywhere around here. It was probably a pigeon, blackbird or seagull.

How old were you when you had the chicken pox? I was about six.

Ever had a friend named Alex or John? Alex, yes. I've actually never known a John my age before.

When was the last time you painted a picture? Years ago. It's been at least a decade if not more.

What kind of stuff do you like on your hot dogs? I'm not a fan of hot dogs.

Where did you kiss the last person you kissed? In the kitchen.

What’s your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? It depends on my mood, honestly. I have a few favourites.

Has someone seen you naked in the past month? Yeah.

How many concerts have you been to? Maybe 8-10 overall, but not for a long time now.

Do you think it’s right for straight guys to get their tongue pierced? What wouldn't be right about it?

Last thing you drank? Dr Pepper.

Have you ever thought about getting your nose pierced? I've had my nose pierced for 13 years now.

Would you ever donate blood? I can't donate blood. They've never been able to find a vein.

Have you ever driven without a license? No.

Are you ticklish? Yep, extremely.

What are you listening to? The final Lord of the Rings is playing but I'm really not paying it much attention, it's just background noise really. I might even put something else on.

Describe the main problem with your last relationship? He was a compulsive liar.

What’s on your shower curtain? It's just plain glass door.

What cartoon/anime character can you most relate to? None of them really.

Do you have any pictures of celebs saved to your computer? No.

Do you like turtleneck sweaters/shirts? No. I love the look but they make me itch and sweat so badly, lol.

Do you find hands attractive? Not especially.

Do you think it is silly to give names to vehicles, or other inanimate objects? No.

Do you ever wear a robe? When it's really cold in the winter, yeah.

Is there a hair color/style you really like but don’t think you could pull off? Blonde hair.

Out of all the Disney/Pixar animal “sidekicks”, which one is your favorite? Maximus from Tangled! <--- yes! Or Sven from Frozen.

If your mom was a teacher, would you want to be in her class? Nope.

As a kid, did you love playing on Neopets? I never played Neopets or anything like that, really.

Would you ever get a pet turtle? Why or why not? No, just because I have no idea how to care for them.

What shop/store/brand would you model for, if given the choice? No thanks.

If I search your room will I find birth control? No.

Have you ever witnessed a birth? Only on television.

Have you ever been told you were a good writer? Yes, in school.

Is the last person of the opposite sex you texted single? No, we're married.

Which Scooby-Doo character are you most like (Scooby, Shaggy, Daphne, Fred, Velma, the monster, Scrappy?) I've never watched much Scooby-Doo.

Describe your dream wedding where money is no option. I'm happily married already, I have no real desire to spend loads of money on what is basically just one day.

Do you have a birth mark? Where? Does it look like anything? Yeah, on my chin. It looks like spilled food, lol.

If you were blind for the rest of your life… what would you miss seeing the most? Sunsets, the sea, my family and my animals.

What is the most outrageous thing you’ve done for God? You're asking the wrong person, I've never been interested in religion and I've certainly never believed in any kind of God. What person in the Bible do you most closely identify with? Nobody.

If you were to write a book what would it be about? I have no real desire to write a book.

Who do you admire the most? I don’t really get the concept of admiring people. < Same, I always struggle when faced with this question. Idk…I just don’t care enough about anyone to hold this kind of lasting feeling for them. <--- yep.

Who was your hero when you were a child, and what did you do to be like them? I didn’t have any heroes.

If you could rid the world of one thing, what would it be? Poverty.

The last piece of roadkill you saw, what kind of animal was it? A fox I think, or a squirrel.

Has anyone ever cheated on their boyfriend/girlfriend with you? Yes. I didn't know he was in a relationship at the time, though.

Who/what is the last thing you kicked? The kitten's little furry ball toy thing. List 5 things that have happened in the last 7 days. (They can be anything at all, anything that’s happened involving you, or your family, friends, partner) I saw my mum on Friday and we spent the day together. All the cats went off their food so we had to find a new brand they'd all eat and that wouldn't give them the shits. I finalised my plans for next weekend when we go to Manchester. I rediscovered my love of Dr Pepper. We finally got round to ordering a new bed.

Do you like The Hunger Games? The books were okay but I wasn't really a fan of the films.

Random fact about the person you love/like? He loves fishing.

What would you do if your ex contacted you? Block the number. How many pets do you want? And of what? We have three cats and a dog which is plenty for us. In an ideal world I'd have a horse but there's no way I could afford it or have the time for it right now, to be honest.

Have you ever asked someone out? Yeah.

Is the last person you kissed a virgin? No.

Who makes you the happiest? My family and my animals.

Has someone smacked your butt in the past week? Yeah.

Was your last kiss standing up, sitting down, or laying down? Standing up. What are your views on spontaneous human combustion? It's pretty freaky to think about.

What was the last zoo/aquarium you went to? Uh, just the local one. It's pretty crap, really.

What does the last message in your Facebook inbox concern? Angela, Reena, and I were discussing the alcohol options we can have tonight when we have our sleepover at my place.

Who is your closest friend of the opposite sex? What’s the best thing about him? Probably Hans. He’s funny and has got great advice for everything. 

How did you meet the person you fell hardest for? Online dating.

What was the last alcoholic drink you had? I think it was just white wine.

What did you last take medication for? A headache. What was your favourite thing about the person you fell hardest for? His overall personality.

Are you a strong swimmer? I'm not a bad swimmer but I wouldn't say I was strong. I haven't really swum properly in years, to be honest.

What is your favorite combination of colors? Purple, green, grey and black.

When was the last time you screamed out loud and what were the circumstances? I can't remember.

Can you describe your father in one word? Stubborn.

What’s the first movie you ever recall seeing? Pocahontas or Lion King.

Do you still watch movies intended for children? Of course, all the time.

What was your worst fear as a child? Have you overcame that fear? Bears. And I mean, I'm not exactly going to come across bears in rural England, lol.

What’s your younger sibling’s name? I don't have any siblings.

Have you ever had a churro? Yeah, I love them.

How is/was your chemistry class in high school? I hated chemistry.

What was the first thing you ate today? Peanut butter and banana on toast.

[libraford]

OK so a brief rundown of each because theres a whole sit com happening here.

Zoning drama:

My neighborhood is home to a handful of unused plots of land that were going to be used as cul-de-sacs in the 80s before the developer ran out of money and it got taken by overgrowth. One of them got bought out by a different developer who wants to put in an old folks home but it has to be rezoned as commercial, city approved it. The neighborhood is PISSED in a very specific nimby way and put up all these signs on protest.

I've been a real pill about it because first it was 'save our parks!' Its not a park or I would have to maintain it as a parks employee. 'Save our nature preserve!' Not a nature preserve. Only nature preserve is tge one where they found tge body. 'Save our wetlands.' Not a wetland. Yalls move.

I keep asking them: what's wrong with having an old folks home nearby? They're great neighbors- they don't party, they're in bed by 9, and having a medical facility nearby means they have to reinforce the power grid. Only downside is mildly increased traffic, and the facility only houses like 32 people.

"Well, imagine your quiet little neighborhood is suddenly overrun by tge bright lights and loud sirens of emergency vehicles."

I live on the east end, Pam, right by the fire station, and BOTH my neighbors had multiple age-related emergencies in the past two years- face it Pam, the neighborhood is ageing.

But because my Facebook profile wasn't updated and says I still live in one of tge nearby cities, they've all decided that I was paid by the facility to silence them. Like if I was a paid actor do you thin I'd be living on the rental end of tge street, Pam?

Absolutely wild.

Roosters:

I wrote a longer bit about this when it happened, but over tge summer I worked for tge parks here. One day I was out on my rounds and saw two roosters in one of my parks. Called animal control and they did nothing. Got ahold of a local rescue and she captured the big one but tge little one got away.

Next Sunday I'm doing rounds again and I see a domestic pigeon at our shelter and she's clearly associating hands with food, so she's starving. Rescue lady can't come right away, we lock tge bird in the janitor closet.

She calls when she's nearby and we drop everything to get them together. Unfortunately this means interrupting a birthday party to free tge bird, upsetting one older lady who had opinions about birds and diseases.

Rescue lady tells me to keep an eye out for tge little bantam rooster that got away and I'm like yeah sure but there's coyotes here tgat bird is probably dead.

TWO WEEKS LATER I'm driving down tge road where they're gonna put tge old folks home and I think I see a crow, but it's not moving like a crow.

It's the fuckjng rooster, still fucking alive and living off of clover.

Long story short, we got all the birds and I got beef with tge head of animal control.

Psychic: tw domestic abuse, murder

OK so when i first moved here a woman went missing and her husband was leading the search. This was right before the pandemic and then continued during the pandemic, so there were some barriers causing the investigation to come to a halt.

We pretty much figured she was dead. And anyone who knew her according to my friend would tell you it was her husband because he was an abusive asshole to her and their kids. But tgere was no body, so there was no evidence.

Police don't employ psychics normally, they contact them when they're at a dead end. Enter Barb, local psychic medium and vodka aunt.

Barb tells them 'what you seek is at the beginning.'

So they go back to the house and search tge nature preserve behind the property and guess what- body. Strangled with an extension cord.

Find the murder weapon in their house, husband tries to cover it up as a suicide and he hid the body out of shame, then the kids finally spoke up and now he's in jail.

At least, this is details according to my friend who knows Barb and apparently she's very smug about solving the murder case kind of sort of.

And that's a summary of rumors and things that may or may not be happening jn my township.

Love small town drama. The Starbuck's near me closes down early because they can't keep staff (local dude keeps saying 'its because they unionized frowny face' and I'm like... if the manager is a piece of shite then the union didn't cause the walk-out, darlin') and someone was asking the facebook group where to get a cup of coffee.

Someone said, emphatically, 'Don't go to (local joint.)'

Local joint in question being very much a queer positive environment and specifically where all the queers hang out.

'Ok, why?'

'Neither me nor my friends go there and haven't since 2020 because they asked me to keep my mask on while all the other restaurants had lifted the mask rules and that was the final straw.'

... well.

....makes me wonder what the other straws were.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

"It was the perfect storm when Viktor Frankl came across me as i was typing a manuscript for a friend of his.....his mission was to save as many disenfranchised young people as he could and i was the prototype for the lost souls of this world. My childhood had left me for dead and were it not for his intervention i wouldn't have lived to tell the tale. Looking back at the skillful means he employed to create the miracle of breathing life back into me it seems to me that his first task was to get me to laugh. He worked at his job as a Merry Prankster relentlessly. He would do anything to get a laugh out of me and anyone else around him. Now that i think of it, his parting words to me were: "Don't lose your sense of humor!" Once he had me laughing a process of pulling the Gift I'd arrived here with to the forefront of my being began. He wasn't all that interested in the torturous road of my past and advised me over and over again to work to activate the place in me that had a good enough reason to live. I had the impression that this involved learning to work for something bigger than myself and that focusing on ‘me myself and I’ was a dead end. He was a great believer in the power of sunshine to reverse depression and most of our meetings took place while feeding a mangy flock of pigeons in a park. He was a shining example of someone that adored and reveled in Life.....people, pigeons, music, art, and dance were all thrilling to him. He had seen the worst that life had to offer and somehow had made it through to the other side singing its praises. He was right about everything of course. Especially the part where he explained that creativity is the antidote for destructivity. It doesn't matter how bad things get....what matters is whether we transform shit into gold. The photo is an example of just such an unexpected transformation....a section of an art garden I was compelled to create once in the middle of a nightmare. Leonard Cohen was asked once about his legendary depression and he said: "I've found that the answer is Good Work." The best advice I received from Viktor was to not set my sights on what I wanted from Life but to pray to God to be given meaningful work to do. He recommended that i get down on my knees on a regular basis and beg God to be given a job with purpose. This practice has made all the difference." ~ Sofya Smith 

[k-s-morgan]

Hi! Just a general update + reply to asks I got. In short: right now, I’m fine. This night has been the best for me so far and I was finally able to sleep more or less normally. 

Once again, thank you. Hearing your words, getting financial help and all the useful information many of you shared is essential and life-saving to me. Due to a recommendation of one person from Syria, I went to sleep in the hall, away from the rooms with windows, and it did feel much safer. Multiple people gave me advice and even phone numbers of those who might be able to help me transport my pets to Poland - this means the world to me and I can’t thank you enough. 

Right now, I’m stuck in my apartment in Kiev because there are fights all over the city and down the roads. Almost no transport is working and we don’t have a car. Staying here is safer than leaving at the moment, but I have no idea what the future will bring. Many of your offered accommodations - this level of support blows my mind. I can assure that if I ever seek out your help, I won’t be a burden for long: we have relatives spread all over different countries, so even if we had to seek shelter, it would be very temporary. Leaving the country is the main problem, especially since I don’t want to leave my brother and father behind and no one will let them pass the border. 

Answering some questions: my family does have savings, but they are in $ cash. Ukraine stopped accepting it, so right now these savings are useless - that’s why I asked for help. With you, I managed to buy enough food both for my family and my pets to last us a month, and that made a huge difference. 

As for events in Ukraine: things are dangerous, but while this might surprise many of you, at the moment, I’m more worried about Ukrainians themselves. Our government started giving guns to everyone without even asking them for any ID. Marauders have already began robbing and murdering people/marking the abandoned apartments. There is also nothing romantic about civilians arming themselves - if the trained army cannot win this fight, they won’t either. The number of the dead and the level of destruction will rise, that’s all. Yesterday, a group of such people killed/hurt two parents and their children by mistaking them for Russians. Ukrainian army itself is now busy taking some of such people down, so it was a ridiculous and desperate decision. 

Also, there is an order for everyone to stay inside after 5 pm. Anyone who breaks this order will be considered a Russian. But people constantly move between their homes and the bomb shelters, at all times! Our shelters don’t have enough food and water; they don’t have bathrooms; there is not enough air for some, so people need to go out. This is not okay. The government also demands soldiers to blow up bridges. This is ridiculous, Russians will still manage to get here, even if takes them longer, but we, on the other hand, will be cut off food supplies for who knows how long - we will be unable to escape the city. 

It’s terrible when the danger starts pouring from every side, even the one that’s supposed to protect you. But on a brighter side, things are fine in my suburb. It’s a pretty quiet place located away from the center and the main roads; the existing military base was destroyed the first night, so hopefully, no one will bother much with us now. But since I was unable to sleep until this night, I still felt exhausted, terrible and scared. I even cried when my family went to asleep - every sound felt like a threat. Then I fell asleep myself at last, managed to stay this way for the entire night, and now I feel collected and calm again. I also finally ate something and began to read - small things, but at a time like this, they feel like victories.

I hope peace comes soon, all my family does. My cats and pigeons have no interest in what’s happening, they are as silly and lovely as always. And thank you again - for helping, supporting, and just listening. 

[thinplacesradio]

night, from underneath pale wooden support beams, looking out into a foggy parking lot with a red neon sign. the image is distorted by VCR static. text reads:

[011] THE PASSENGER PIGEON. A CALLER COMMEMORATES A BYGONE BIRD. THE HOST LEARNS SOME NEW LINGO.

listen here, or anywhere you find your podcasts. transcript under the cut:

[static, radio tuning]

[Traveling Sales Rep: Don’t touch that dial! We’ll be right back, after these short messages.] [static, radio tuning]

[click]

Hello and welcome to Thin Places Radio. I’m your host,

and it is the middle of the night. But don’t worry. You’re not alone.

[Thin Places theme]

I’m coming to you live from my studio, which is what i like to call the backseat of my car! Again!

[gas pump clicking and beeping] [trucks screeching, groaning, and hissing]

I pulled off the road into this truck stop when the orange lights overhead started to burn their mark into my retinas. Just a second to myself, now, in my own private little universe. 

I’ve pushed the detritus on the seats into the well. The center console is my desk. The rat has received an upgrade - she gets to be in the driver’s seat, tonight. 

I don’t think I’m going to sleep. I might just watch the sun rise from the picnic table I parked next to around back. Not just because the backseat is so lumpy, or because I’m too nervous to close my eyes alone here. It’s a very alive place. I can feel the hum of it all around me - truckers headed in to take a shower, stopping to get diesel before the next leg of their journey, a college junior headed back after a long weekend who did the safe thing and pulled over here, saving their own life without even knowing it.

[cars passing]

I know this about all of them, even though I don’t talk to them. But who knows what pulled me off the road here? I don’t recognize this place, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t been here before.

[car door opening, then slamming closed]

What is Thin Places Radio? Well, you can call in about anything strange that you've got going on in your life - feelings, omens, premonitions, hauntings.

Are you having trouble getting out and about? Are you holding an extinct species in your heart so at least one person remembers them? Are you trapped in the present, but can’t stop thinking about the future and the past? 

Call in, get it off your chest. Let's close the gap between worlds a little bit more. Lines are open.

[click] [voicemail]

Hi! I wanted to know if you know anything about the passenger pigeon. It’s a bird that, uh - it’s one of my favorite birds, actually, but it’s extinct now. The last of its species died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. I’m thinking about it because I'm at a rest stop in the middle of God knows where Wisconsin and there's a placard dedicated to such bird. They cite a lot of - they don’t name anything specific as to why it went extinct. But having done my own research I know it was an incredibly social bird, and they had huge flocks of them that would travel around the entire United States. And apparently at this rest stop this was the nearby one of their largest nesting areas, according to the placard. 

I just wonder if one day, one other species, or people, will be relegated to being remembered by a placard - if people even know that this bird exists unless they stop at this rest stop themselves. Or if I, a person very interested in these type and other kind of birds, will be the one to remember them once everything is said and done. Sorry it’s a little sad, but I wanted to know what ya think. This is Remy. You can name me as such on the show. Thanks.

Hi from the middle of God knows where Wisconsin, Remy. Don’t worry. I like a little sad. I can feel it in my bones, sometimes.

[crickets chirping]

If a tree falls in a forest - no, I’ve said that before. We know the answer to the riddle. What we don’t know is when one person’s efforts - one person’s memory - is really enough. It never feels like it. But you’re doing something important here. You’re doing something vital, remembering the ghost of an entire civilization, risen and fallen.

[searching music]

We think we have evidence for it, when it comes to us, ruins and archaeology. But the most important things are the ones that we pass down, person to person, for everyone who didn’t get a museum, or a ruin, or even a placard. It’s only been a century, and all trace of this pigeon is already gone. It’s not like Tartessian, the last word spoken in the 5th century B.C., the few letters that remain still untranslateable. It’s only been a hundred years. But we forget much more terrible things much quicker than that - but only if we choose to forget them. So, we can’t. We have to remember the people who came before us, the people who left and the people who were killed on purpose, and the people who survived, who are still here. We have to remember the little things, too, the small creatures. There’s a special providence in the fall of a passenger pigeon. 

How must that last one have felt, in the Cincinnati Zoo? The last of its kind. Caged and alone and told where to go next. Transformed, by its sudden distance from everyone else, into something different. Something different. Maybe it didn’t even know. I hope it didn’t. It would hurt less.

[click] [cars passing]

Something weird, listeners:

Trucker lingo. It sounds made up, but linguistically speaking, it’s as real as anything. I just heard someone say his truck was wipin’ her feet on the way up here, and I think that must be something. Got your ears on? Here’s some more. The granny lane - oh, i can guess that one just fine. Southbound hammer down - going south and going fast. An alligator’s a tire on the road. A black eye’s a headlight out. I think bear bait means going too fast. Not the other kind of bear. There’s lots of stupid names for cops, thank goodness: barney fife, evel knievel, kojak with a kodak. Enough of that, though. 10-7. 

[click] [bell dinging] [car starting]

The bell to the convenience store door dings, as one of the truckers is coming back out with his coffee. He’s flying solo, but he isn’t alone. He has a whole flock, one chirp of the radio away.

I can see the sky getting brighter, as much as it ever does, that very first pale purple. [yawn] [sniff] It looks like I’m having shutter trouble after all.

[click]

Thank you for listening, callers, and thank you for calling, listeners. I hope you feel a little bit lighter. I know I do.

As always, our number is 717.382.8093. That's 717.382.8093.

Keep the rubber side down and the bugs off your glass. Until next time. I'll be - 

[sudden static cuts the host off]

[static] [Traveling Sales Rep: visit us at the - diner just off -] [Various Garbled Voices: ]

Thin Places Radio is a podcast written by Kristen O’Neal and produced by Kaitlin Bruder. The voice of Your Host is Kristen O’Neal. Tonight’s voicemail was left for us by Remy Ripple.

Editing and sound design are by Kaitlin Bruder, and the music tracks you heard in tonight’s episode are: the Thin Places theme, by Miles Morkri, and Umeed by RANA.

If you have a story to tell or a question to ask, give us a call at ‪(717) 382-8093‬. The lines are always open.

[Thin Places Theme outro]

[thereal-true-ogilvie]

THE EMOTION REBLOG.

in order, every time he shows strong emotion in an allistic human way

[Color coded by emotion. Evil/angry is red. Surprised/Shocked is orange. Happy/friendly is yellow. Concerned/Distressed is green. Hurt/Sad is blue. Anything said through laughter is purple. Other/I don't know is pink]

ACT 1

Why are you yelling at me?

[His evil laugh after jumping down the elevator]

Can’t FUCKING believe it. Don’t FUCKING talk to me.

TOMMY! :D TOMMY!

WAIT... I told you not to touch anything!...Hey!

What did you do?

Niice.

Let me out of this BOX.

Don’t shoot me! Why are you shooting at me? I should’ve never let you in here.

Watch out! [note: this actually wasn't audible, but was heard in the behind the scenes. He says this before shooting a pigeon that's behind Gordon.]

ACT 2

Did you just hit me?

Oh no… Who did this :(

what the fuck did you do to my friend- of Josh?

Oh my god, look behind you!

He pushed down and it went up! This guy’s clearly nuts, let me-

I’m okay! 

Oh oh! Ah! Ah!

Yo! Put me on the Wikipedia Logo!

Yeah well that was close I kinda wanted that ok! [spoken very fast and emphatically]

ACT 3

We’re going home!

Mleh meh, meh meh meh meh! Mleh meh meh! WEH WAH!

All those articles are online for free!!! [this is said emphatically but i don't know what emotion it's conveying]

He’s sleeping! [incredibly childishly. could be joking, but i'm not sure]

Do you like HD DVD, idiot? Or do- do you like Blu-ray, friend?

OH! Oh my god this is a big- this is a big fight! I’ve been waiting for this moment!

Do your job right and he’s gonna be dead soon!

Oh, they separated his arm! What the hell? What are they gonna do with that?

Drink up, BUDDY.

Hey where’d your- Why are we here? What happened to your arm? Whats goi- what’s wrong, man?

ACT 4

Yeah, you fucked up! Yo he fucked up, you- he lost his arm like an idiot!

Yo, you knocked it over!

Oh, so he finally said it! You weren’t supposed to be there!

Mleh meh meh meh! Yooo brazzers!!! Nice!

Yo, take me with you, bro!

Call of duty air strike! Who got a kill streak? Ahaha!

[GTA Cheat codes get destroyed] No!

Follow me! Follow me, little child, follow me.

Ooh, likin the view from back here ;) [flirting]

Leave me alone! Just get out of my room!

What were they THINKING?

It means I hate you!!!!

There’s a pungent smell right beside me, I dunno. Road trip! Road triip!

Brooo you got praaanked! Ohhhhh ohhhhhh!!!

Gordon Feetman! [teasing]

No YOU shut up.

Welcome!!!!

This guy’s crazy! You’re crazy, buddy!

Oh, who did that? Someone daied. What haaappened… what haaapened?

No, we’re going further into Hell! [Distressed and sad]

No I- I refuse to talk to you. You’re not my friend anymore!

And we’re back! [loud. idk what emotion]

Add me!

Yo, what the fuck, I just wanna play games with people, man.

Time to sleep! Oh yeah! Bed is over here- back here!

INTO XEN

[ok i give up. i guess i was wrong. he shows a lot of emotion in Xen, mostly either hurt or angry/evil. still gonna finish the list tho]

I’ve been telling you to go back, I don’t know, man, you’re not listening to me, it kinda hurts.

Man, we used to be great friends…

Hug?

Yo what- why would you say that, that’s so mean…

Yo, friend! Welcome!

That’s a LIE! You won’t make it!

I’m gonna fucking kill you!!

BOSS FIGHT

I feel a good, but you make me ANGRY

I was gonna be NICE to you, remember that?

Heavenly Sword is NOT a rip off of God of War.

SONY CEO JACK TRETTON SURVIVED a nuclear BOMB!... but I saved the WORLD

You forced me to be BAD so I gonna be BAD…

friend.

WELCOME!

Feel my passport!

One by one!

Stop shooting at me, I have to shoot back, I don’t wanna do that…

I’m gonna GETCHA >:3 [sounds more teasing than evil but yknow]

Broooo… :(

Hey! Get out of here!

I can’t wait for you guys to see hell!

Aaaah! Aaauugh! Who’s shooting me?

What a LOSER. You guys CAN’T HURT ME!

Bad little boy!

Yo, you wanna DIE? HAHA!

Don’t go in there, please, no! I don’t like that room…

Yo, fuck off, bro!

This isn’t fair! This isn’t fair! No-uh! No-uh! [whining]

NOOOOOO!!!!!

PRE-CAST COMMENTARY SCENES

You’re using my mirror!

Ah the- the reflection of perfection!

Did you flush? Why not?? What’s wrong with you!?

Look at the mess you’ve made!

Why is there a baseball? What’s wrong with you!

You’re gonna stay in there! Hold on!

Aw fuck!

Oh, little butterfinger boy!

I win!!!

-END-

yooooo check this shit out i was RIGHT ANYWAYS even tho i gave up!

[emotion rb has 670 words 3,358 characters]

[og post has 819 words 4,538 characters]

once i finish it ill post my full color-coded document with everything he says

Hello everyone welcome BACK to: I talk about Benrey for a minute here!

Today we will talk about everyone's favorite: Mischaracterization in Fanfiction!

[I want to preface this with a very important note. Anything I bring up here is NOT something I'm complaining about. I LOVE mischaracterizing my little guy sometimes, especially by making him more like me, heart emoji. I just also know what's wrong so I mischaracterize him in a better and more accurate way /ref]

Now, the most common little thing is him showing basically any emotion in a human/allistic way. Laughter is pretty much the only exception, followed only by whining. He would NOT apologize and he would NOT break down sobbing. In fact I don't believe he has tear ducts he forgor to make them.

[as user needsmoreexplosions has said in the replies, this is hyperbolic! he does show plenty of emotions, just more muted than you'd expect. The first act has more bursts of emotion than the later acts as well. They brought up the "dont FUCKING talk to me" and I mentioned him yelling to Tommy happily. However, there's still not MANY examples. I'm going to rb this with every example of strong emotion he conveys and itll probably be shorter than this post. again. i love people making him emotional anyways, even if its not quite in character]

If he were to learn that Regular People Can't Respawn, he wouldn't go crying and apologizing to Gordon. He would go "oops." He would complain that no one told him. He would make fun of Gordon for not being able to respawn.

See:

"Benrey's not on this team anymore, apparently."

"Yo what- why would you say that, that's so mean."

[Whining, not crying. Always]

SPEAKING OF WHICH. The arm thing. A LOT of people tend to go with "he was trying to get the trackers out/hev suit off," when Dr. Coomer literally says, "I think they're just spiteful." He was getting back at Gordon for all the times he like. Shot him or somethin idk. People are right that he didn't expect the soldiers to cut off his arm, but he also DID expect them (and hype them up) to kill him. Not so he'd respawn without the hev suit or with his passport, just because "hey everyone else has died. And you are so mean to me. Your turn."

He doesn't act like a cat or crave attention, I'm so sorry fic writers [again, it's so fun and I love it tho, so keep doing it please] In fact, he loves to fuck off and leave the team, he does not need their attention. And, when given attention, he tends to just be mildly confused or antagonistic.

And he's not obsessed with the passports, guys! Let me get my fuckin 26-page document up rq... He says Passport/ID 26 times in Act 1 [yo what the fuck what a cool coincidence..... That's actually fucking awesome], then literally once in Act 2 and it wasn't even directed at Gordon. He doesn't say it at all in Act 3, though he does say One (1) time how much he loves his. He says it 6 times in Act 4, ALL of which are during his Boss Fight.

People make him a gamer. Yes, he is 100% but they make him the wrong KIND of gamer. He's not a Minecraft Animal Crossing Mario Kart gamer, he talks about Heavenly Sword, God of War, Halo, MAG, Grand Theft Auto and TF2. 2 First Person Shooters, 3 very violent action/adventure games, and TF2.

[actually, speaking of this image, did anyone else catch Gordon referencing the stairs bit but with ropes? Gordon has canonically read Homestuck]

The only TV he references is All Dogs Go To Heaven 2 and Fighting Redemption which are WILDLY different. And also whatever Ms. Pebbles is.

Not necessarily a common mischaracterization, but an important tidbit is that Benrey tends to be pacifistic towards Xen creatures, and not towards scientists and later security guards. Lots of people headcanon Experimentation which, while there's not really any evidence for that, there's also no evidence against it and it's a good headcanon that I like a lot.

He likes taking pictures. (shakes fic writers) give him a photo album!!!! SCANS OF GORDON'S FEET WOULD NOT BE IN THE ALBUM HE DOESN'T ACTUALLY HAVE THOSE. IT WAS NOT A FOOTSCANNER HD HE LIED.

The things he does know vs doesn't know are. Difficult. He isn't clueless about "human Things" he understands that shaking = nervous and balled fists = angry. He doesn't know what pigeons are but he does know mayonnaise and Big Mac with Freesh Fries.

The final important bit of info. Canon is kinda... flimsy? Canonically, according to Gir, Bubby is a straight guy who FUCKS. Canonically, according to Holly, Bubby is agender and married to Dr. Coomer.

So like. Go fucking crazy! Go stupid! A a a a a!

Just be aware when you're wrong LOL

[britishassistant]

What happens if a new villain comes to town and starts tearing shit up? Like a new rival shows up, falls in love with yuu, and kidnaps them before enacting a huge take over the city scheme, will the NRC and RSA finally come together for the same goal? Or would it lead to chaotic in-fighting in their individual attempts to rescue the reporter and save the city/stop this jerk face from showing them up only for yuu to break out just so they can knock them all upside the head?

Thank you for the ask, dear anon!

“It’s so simple, love.” The villain coos, one hand cupping Yuu’s chin gently to tilt their face up, “Just accept my proposal, and we won’t need to have any nasty accidents where you and the tarmac down there have a...terminal disagreement.”

Yuu glances down at the drop from where they’ve been “tied” to the top of the skyscraper by the metal beams that the supervillain bent around their body like they were rubber. They think they can see a flock of pigeons flapping by below them. “That’s your idea of a threat? Really? Because I’ve heard worse over breakfast. Sorry, but I really don’t think we have the right chemistry to accept marriage to the likes of you.”

The villain pouts, leaning against the tip of the building as if they were a pair of people chatting on the streets far below, and not one hapless captive tied to an antenna and their captor floating with nary a second thought in midair. “Oh c’mon now love. Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be—you know that I could do far better with your Daddy’s little league than any of those second-rate bozos crowding around you.”

The reporter’s gaze sharpens, the corner of their mouth curling up in a snarl. “Don’t. Refer to them. Like that. They’re each seven times the supervillain you are, at least. Besides, I’d rather be turned into pancake mix on the pavement than do anything that could advance that man’s little projects.”

The villain tuts, coiffed hair ruffled by the breeze as he leans in far closer than Yuu is comfortable with. “Don’t play hard to get, love. So you’ve got Daddy issues, who doesn’t? It’s no reason to get in the way of progress. Maybe you’ll change your mind if I show you exactly what I can offer...”

Yuu recoils as the villain’s tongue forces its way into their mouth when their lips collide with all the force of a car crash, an invasive writhing thing that makes them gag at how far it pushes in as the villain hums greedily at their taste.

And one that the reporter swiftly brings their teeth down on.

Hard.

“FUCK! Ugh—you foul little bitch!!”

The backhand jars the reporter’s skull even as they brace for it, cutting the inside of their mouth and leaving them worried that if they try spitting out the blood gathering there, they’ll lose a tooth along with it.

The villain huffs, one hand carding through his ruffled hair. His tongue is already whole and unblemished, the last indents of their teeth healing as the reporter watches. “I didn’t want to do this, you know. I would’ve gladly taken you to the altar, and had you screaming in our wedding bed. I could’ve made you happy, if you’d just do what you’re told.”

Yuu sneers. “Frankly, I can’t imagine anything more boring.”

They take cold comfort in the fury that burns in the supervillain’s eyes at that.

“Fine. Fine.” The villain floats away, his eyes glowing that same bright red that melted through the wall to Yuu’s bedroom when they were first taken. “I was prepared to do this the nice way. I wanted to do this the nice way. But if you’re going to be such a little bitch about it, then I can always rely on the old fashioned method of succession.”

The laser beams swipe through the block of abandoned offices four stories below where the reporter is tied up.

The top of the building wavers, then begins to crumble forwards.

The villain says something else, probably something mocking and challenging them to get out of this mess because that’s the kind of cliche line that’s always used here, but Yuu can’t hear him over the whistle of the wind in their ears and the scream torn from their throat as they plummet.

They try frantically tug their arms free as their legs are pulled upwards by gravity, try their damndest to squirm free, but it’s no use, they’re not The Prefect right now, don’t even have the fedora on them, they’re Yuu, just Yuu, just helpless reporter Yuu, who can’t break steel beams with their pathetic powerless normal person strength, they’re going to die, they’re going to die, they’re going to die, they’re going to die, they’re going to die, they’re going to die, they’re going to die, they’re going to die, they’re going to die, oh Great Seven, they’re going to die—!

“KING'S ROAR!!!”

There’s a discombobulating moment of freefall as the metal and concrete around them disintegrates into sand.

Then a strong, wiry arm loops around their waist and they’re pinned to a carpet as their rapid descent gradually slows to a stop in midair.

“Need a lift?” They can’t see Snake Charmer’s eyebrows through the mask, but they get the feeling one of them is raised in a wry fashion as he smirks at them.

The reporter lets out a hysterical, shaky laugh that only narrowly escapes becoming a sob, trembling hands seizing onto the two supervillains like they’re lifelines. “Wh-what took y-you so long? Did you ge-get held up in traffic?”

King grumbles, flicking their temple gently as Water Boy laughs gleefully from where he’s steering the carpet. “You could show a little more gratitude, herbivore. Do you know how hard it was to evade all the goody-two-shoes on the way here to save your ass?”

Yuu’s about to reply, when they catch a movement above them out of the corner of their eye.

“INCOMING!!”

Water Boy jerks the flying carpet to the side just in time for the villain to plunge past them fist-first, close enough to see his teeth bared in a furious snarl.

“DRIVE!!” Snake Charmer screams at his lieutenant above the rushing wind as the villain rises back up to try his luck again. Water Boy presses the corners of the carpet forwards and they go into a rollercoaster dive that makes the reporter’s stomach roil in protest.

King unleashes his powers on the two buildings behind them, disintegrating the foundations in hopes that the tonnes of concrete and rebar would be enough to slow the flying brick chasing them. The villain just bursts through the obstacles with nary a broken sweat, and speeds up to the point where Water Boy has to turn the carpet upside down so they don’t get knocked out of the sky.

“Where the fuck is that computer junkie?!?” King yells at Snake Charmer as they draw dangerously close to the road below. “He was supposed to be here hours ago!!”

“How am I supposed to know?!” They can hear Snake Charmer’s heartbeat hammer in his chest from where he’s pinning them to the vehicle in the absence of a seatbelt. “It was the conman who was meant to give him the si—”

Yuu can barely scream a warning in time as the villain looms behind Leona’s head, eyes glowing red and ready.

A rush of flying metal harpies collide with the bastard’s face, effectively pinning him in midair as he struggles to destroy the thousands-strong swarm that obstructs his path to them.

“OPEN FIRE!!” Comes Hermes’ high-pitched cry as a blue beam shoots past them at the center of the robotic maelstrom.

A pair of red lasers rocket out to meet it, almost seeming as though it could push Ortho’s assault back—!

A white-hot streak of lightening descends from the formerly clear sky to where the villain was pinned, disrupting the red eye lasers and allowing Hermes’ beam to make contact.

There’s a hideous scream and the stench of burnt meat.

“We’re coming in too fast!!” Water Boy yells, tugging on the carpet’s tassels until they’re almost vertical. “Ja—I, I don’t know if we’ll slow down in time!!”

Yuu barely hears the curses the other two occupants spit, lunging to try and cover as much of them as they can with their body. Even if they crash, if Yuu can just absorb most of the shock of the landing—!

Small pinpricks of pain latch onto their scalp, their pajamas, the carpet and supervillains beneath them, hundreds of small beating appendages smacking them all in the face as the carpet’s rapid descent slows incrementally.

“Oh boys~?”

Four sets of strong hands seize the front of the carpet, their owners grunting as they attempt to force the carpet’s stop through sheer force. Of course, the continued existence of Newton’s Third Law combined with the reporter’s precarious shielding position means that though the carpet experiences sudden stop, Yuu keeps going at the same high speed that will ensure serious injury once they hit the tarmac.

Or it would do, if they didn’t collide with a solid chest and waiting pair of arms first.

The reporter finds themselves cradled in a nearly crushing grip, their catcher muttering “child of man, child of man,” into the top of their head and a warm thumb swipes over the rapidly darkening bruise on their cheek. The wind picks up around them alarmingly, whipping into a gale.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, I’m okay.” Yuu reaches up to pat Tsunotaro’s head soothingly. “See? Just a few scrapes and a little scare. Give me an ice pack and a shower and I’ll be right as rain.”

Tsunotaro doesn’t look very convinced, but at least the wind drops to more of a strong breeze.

“Oi, let ‘em down, you dumb lizard.” King growls behind the reporter, the rings on his tail clattering as it swishes irritably. “We did all the work of saving them, you don’t get to take the rewards.”

Tsunotaro clutches them closer, getting that stubborn look in his eyes that makes Yuu want to groan in exasperation. “No.”

“Why you—!”

“Now, now children, the world works in mysterious ways.” Batman beams. “I’ve always found destiny draws those it finds most suitable together.”

The reporter rolls their eyes as King snarls in response to that remark and Snake Charmer mutters, “I didn’t know ‘destiny’ was what you called interfering old fools.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” Snake Charmer climbs off the carpet and straightens his headscarf. “What’s next?”

There’s a crash as the mass of robots pinning the singed villain about three blocks down the street begins to shift, however unwillingly.

“‘Kay, the ‘save the princess’ team barely cleared the parameters for their part of the mission.” Charon’s floating tablet drifts forward, the sounds of frantic tapping on a keyboard almost drowning out his voice. “Now it’s time for the ‘aggro’ and ‘debuff’ teams to move in, Tsuntaro-sshi, Royal-sshi.”

“Understood. I’ll leave the coordinating of the others to you, Charon.” Royal Flush looks up and raises an unimpressed eyebrow at the tall fae. “Well? Are you coming?”

Yuu could almost swear they hear a small grumble as Tsunotaro finally lets them down out of his grasp. He runs his thumb over their injured cheek one last time. “Sebek, Silver. Defend the reporter as you would me.”

“Yes, Tsunotaro-sama!” The two of them chorus.

Royal Flush shakes his head, then reaches out and squeezes Yuu’s hand once. “If anything happens, Three of Clovers and Howl-san will get you somewhere safe. But this shouldn’t take long.”

“Oi, don’t presume to give orders to my minion, Flush.” King growls, inserting himself bodily between the two of them. His mouth curls up in a smirk as he places a proprietary hand on top of their head. “Besides, I’ll be here, won’t I?”

Royal Flush and Tsunotaro narrow their eyes at him, but their attention is claimed by the sound of metal crashing down the street as the villain shrugs off the rubble, the burns on his arms and face healing rapidly as they watch. His eyes flicker over their motley group, before settling on Yuu with laser-precision.

It’s only the arrow that flies into his shoulder, combined with a second lightening bolt striking him from the blue that keeps that metaphor from becoming literal.

Yuu chokes a little at the pressure on their pajama shirt collar as they’re dragged out of the line of fire. From where they’re crouched behind a car, they can see Tsunotaro and Hermes throwing almost everything he’s got as the bastard, while Royal tries to close the distance without ending up attacked himself. They also catch a glimpse of who they think is Leviathan silently gliding closer through the alleys on the far side of the street.

But the villain just won’t stop getting back up. Despite the fact that anyone sane would’ve given up the moment the green flames were broken out, he keeps coming, no matter how many times he gets thrown back.

And he’s clearly getting closer to the reporter he so desperately wants to kill.

“Now what?” Yuu asks, barely able to hear themselves think over the worried growl rumbling from Jack’s chest.

Charon’s muttering to himself as more of his robots fly by overhead. “Need to pin down the rate of regen, if we can get that and surpass it so the ‘debuff’ team can do their thing before the second wave gets here, but what is it?”

The reporter blinks. Well, taking into account the insult, and the backhand...

“He was able to heal his tongue about...four, maybe five seconds after I’d bitten through it? That’s only a rough estimate though, it may’ve been shorter.” They murmur.

The area around them goes very quiet.

“B-bitten through...?” Water Boy asks, hand coming up to his own mouth with a wince.

Yuu scowls. “That creep put it in my mouth when I did not ask him to. Ugh, I would’ve gone for his balls too, but the metal didn’t let me lift my legs that far.”

They huff for a moment at the unfairness of it. Then, “King, stop grinning at me like that.”

“Like what herbivore?” His tone is the picture of innocence, even if the way he’s eying them is most decidedly not.

Snake Charmer ‘accidentally’ kicks him in the shin as the sound of frantic typing erupts from the tablet again. “Setting the Erinyes to follow up on Ortho’s and Tsunotaro-sshi’s attacks within a three point five second time frame...fwe he he he, let’s see how that mob likes this!”

With the clack of what sounds like an enter key, the robots above them begin divebombing the villain in sequence, deliberately targeting the parts of him injured by Tsunotaro and Hermes’ blows.

One of them sacrifices itself in a kamikaze dive that leaves a bleeding scratch on his arm.

The villain roars, the force of his fury almost knocking them over even with how far away their little group is crouched, turning the lasers on every robot within his line of sight.

Of course, this means he stops paying attention to the three supervillains who have been steadily making their way towards him.

“FAIREST ONE OF ALL!”

“IT’S A DEAL!”

“OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!”

The powers hit the villain one after another, his lasers sputtering out with a pained scream. The scratch on his arm doesn’t start healing. Neither does the gash he gets across his face when Poison Queen roundhouse kicks him away with those stilettos of his.

“Was that it?” Leviathan says, his careless facade somewhat ruined by the fact that he wobbles as he begins to levitate. “I must confess I don’t understand what all the tr-trouble was.”

A low whistle by their ear makes Yuu jump. “The bosses can be scary when they wanna be. Remind me never to piss off those three at once.”

The reporter look up to see Ace and Floyd standing behind them. “Ace, wha—where have you been?!”

Floyd giggles and Ace shoots them an evil grin as they chorus, “Sending out party invites~”

Yuu blinks and tries to puzzle out this cryptic phrase, but their attention is swiftly drawn back to the scene of the battle at the sound of manic, unhinged laughter.

“You think you’ve won? You think something like this will stop me?!” The villain cackles, eyes wild and beginning to grow red again despite the way his body tenses and the collar around his neck starts to buckle. “You think that second-rate half-hearted hacks like you can stop someone like me?!? I am your superior!! You all will bend the knee once I snap that ungrateful little bitch’s neck and take my rightful place as head of the League!!! I’ll decimate every last one of those pathetic, moronic heroes who pollute this city like a fungus!! And then, oh , and then I’ll make every last one of you who thought they could get away with this pitiable attempt to stop me—”

“Us? Here to stop you?” Poison Queen tilts his head. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re supervillains.”

“Stopping the likes of you.” Leviathan proclaims triumphantly, “Is their job.”

The villain stops.

The villain turns.

Over half the top heroes of the Royal Sword Association lead here by the minions meet his gaze.

“Hello.” Niko Niko Neko says with a wide grin.

Yuu isn’t close enough to hear if the villain whimpers, but they almost wish they were.

Almost.

[mcheang]

Alya decides to ask Lila for more details on Ladybug saving her, and Lila (being too vain to look at anything on the Ladyblog that isn't about her), makes up a story about having a been captured by an akuma whose rampage she didn't realize was witnessed and/or well-documented by Alya, and/or was one of her classmates or related to one to the classmates.

Timing

Alya asks how Ladybug saved Lila

Lila had watched the videos on the Ladyblog and had to choose a small, inconsequential akuma to base her story on

Lila: oh it was Mr Pigeon. I think he was angry at some tourists for shooing away his pigeons because they wanted a nice photo. So he started targeting newcomers like myself. I was just walking out of the airport when (she snaps her fingers) just like that, I was floating in a cloud of pigeons.

I was terrified I would fall to my death when the pigeons vanished with the akuma. But it wasn’t the miraculous cure that saved me, it was Ladybug! She swung by on her yo-yo and reached out a hand to grab me while I was falling and screaming like crazy.

Mr Ramier was so sorry he offered us all ice cream. Ladybug and I just clicked over ice cream cones and she said we should hang out again.

Alya: uh huh. And when was the attack?

Lila: the 2nd of April

Alix, who had been listening with the others, frowned. “That can’t be right. That was a Saturday, correct?”

Lila nodded. “Yup. I had the weekend to settle before attending school.”

Alix was still frowning. “But Mr Ramier couldn’t have attacked you then. We would have known about it.”

Alya: not exactly. Mr Pigeon is so common nowadays that even I have to rely on videos from the public instead of rushing over there myself. There’s not much point in remembering when he was akumatized at that point.

Alix: no, he can’t have been akumatized because we were with him when the Owl decided to arrange a Pigeon-friendly zone in the park.

Kim: oh yeah, we just tried to argue with Sabrina’s dad to let the man have his Pigeon corner.

Max: I remember!

Mylène: me too

Ivan: me three

Lila: it was a night attack, so that’s why you didn’t know.

Max: you don’t know how stubborn Mr Damocles is. He refused to let anyone leave until he won the argument, which lasted till 9pm. By then even Mr Ramier was so sleepy, I doubt he would have noticed tourists

Lila: he’s very sensitive to Pigeon matters

Ivan: he also was sent home by Sabrina’s dad because he and the Owl sent all of us home when he saw how tired we all were. I was there to see Mr Ramier enter his home, promising to go straight to bed

Lila: he must have seen the incident happen from his window

Max: there is no way. Mr Ramier’s home isn’t near any popular tourist attractions. And his window only looks out on the empty road.

Lila: maybe you got the dates mixed up

Alix: no. I specifically remember those first few days of April. First was April Fool’s. Second was Mr Ramier and the Owl. Third was a studying cram session since I couldn’t study the day before. Fourth was when you arrived.

Lila: then it must have been Mr Ramier’s twin brother. Why else is he akumatized so often? It’s because his twin is just as Pigeon nuts as he is.

But even that excuse was sounding ridiculous by now.

Alya: you’re a liar

Lila: no, I’m not!

Alya: prove it. The next time an akuma is defeated, I’ll wave Ladybug over and ask her if she knows you

Lila: she wouldn’t reveal our friendship. She wants to protect me.

Nino: then why did you brag about it on Alya’s blog, and didn’t even try to take it back

Lila: I...I...

Marinette: as happy as I am that you all finally opened your eyes, we don’t want another akuma. So just ignore Lila until she says she’s sorry. Oh, and Lila, i’d try to stay calm if I were you. If you do turn into an akuma, and when Ladybug defeats you, Alya will probably question her about your relationship. Do you want to be called out as a liar on the Ladyblog?

Lila did not and could only hope Alya would not remember her by the time the next one showed up

Alya deleted her interview and posted an apology, referencing to deleting posts where she did not do proper research. While Lila was not mentioned, some followers immediately connected the dots.

[fullmooncenzo]

Potential storylines for development in Vincenzo Season 2:

1. A shift in the underbelly of Vincenzo’s dark mafia world linked to a new case in Korea brings V back to his motherland once more. By this time, with the power of the Guillotine file and Agent An and Cho and Director Tae’s help, V can no longer be traced to the villains’ deaths and can safely return.

2. Possible connection to Vincenzo’s biological father later down the road. He could be anyone and anything! Which leaves room for any kind of storyline. I personally think it’d be interesting for V to connect to his young persona and discover the possibility of another kind of life. Or if he realises his own father is a villain. How will someone like V deal with this?

3. Which leads me to: Vincenzo’s heightened internal conflict between the prospect of having a normal life by washing his hands off of murder and blood, and his built-in mafia instincts and mafia-related history. Seeing his own evil reflected in his father’s might just put everything under a new perspective.

4. Chayoung’s mum and her past with her. More insight into her internal world and how her past villainous partnership with Vincenzo has coloured/tainted the way she fights for justice in her work, and how loving someone like V has impacted her.

5. Chayenzo’s relationship and how their LDR has affected them. Also possible development on what it means to be both partners in work and life. Major potential for more iconic moments and catwalks.

6. Since Geumga plaza is still very much intact thanks to Chayoung’s iron-clad protection, we can see how they might’ve changed and their reactions to V being back in their lives again.

I know that the prospect of Vincenzo season 2 lies very much in the hands of writer Park Jaebum, because he holds the keys to the world and can do whatever he wants. But all I’m saying is if a pigeon and his crew can save Vincenzo when he was literally at the precipice of death, anything is possible. So if ever inspiration hits and he has something more to say, I feel like where we left off in the story won’t make his job an impossible task.

[veliseraptor]

Hi! Can you give a brief spoilery summary of the Untamed? I just read [the pretties from your posts] died? Oh no. I tried getting information through google but it’s confusing for someone who doesn’t know the characters.

oh lord. there are all kinds of ‘brief summaries of the Untamed’ out there but I’ve always found them vaguely irritating so...I guess that means it’s time for my comeuppance in the form of having to do it myself? I’ll do my best.

I didn’t know how detailed you wanted me to get so I decided to get pretty detailed, since you did ask for spoilery. so this is like. entirely spoilers. spoilers for everything.

also, you can use, if it’s helpful, my brief character overview (‘brief’) which includes some plot information, and could be useful as cross reference also. I’m playing pretty fast and loose with a lot of terminology for the sake of intelligibility, because otherwise this would get even longer and have a lot more links.

also, because you asked me specifically for this, it’s going to have some bias. I tried to keep my interpretive commentary to a relative minimum? but. uh. yeah.

the briefest basic plot overview is (going off The Untamed canon, which you will also see abbreviated as CQL from the pinyin transliteration of the Chinese title (Chen Qing Ling)):

Wei Wuxian, a cultivation (think, loosely, magic) prodigy and creator of his own particular style of cultivation, dies reviled by most of the known world. Sixteen years later he’s raised from the dead by Mo Xuanyu, an outcast and the bastard son of one of the leaders of the main sects of the cultivation world, in order to take revenge on Mo Xuanyu’s enemies (specifically his abusive family and ~an unknown person~).

And here is where we get into the details.

Pretty much immediately upon Wei Wuxian’s resurrection, people start dying at Mo Manor, before Wei Wuxian has even done anything, because of (it turns out) a very angry spirit of a semi-sentient weapon. Wei Wuxian books it out of town after his old best friend/crush Lan Wangji shows up to help the Lan ducklings he’s shepherding (including most notably Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi, the only named characters of that bunch), only to wind up running into him again on the road - and not only him, but his orphaned nephew (shorthand, go with it) Jin Ling (Wei Wuxian was responsible for his parents’ deaths) and Jiang Cheng, his martial brother who (at least according to rumor) killed him sixteen years ago and still bears a hell of a grudge. In order to save Jin Ling, Wei Wuxian summons the “Ghost General” Wen Ning, who was supposed to be destroyed and whose presence confirms his identity to a very pissed off Jiang Cheng. Lan Wangji recognizes Wei Wuxian as well. Wei Wuxian passes out.

followed any of that? no? that’s fine, because now we’re heading into a thirty episode flashback that’ll clarify some things. (but not before you forget a whole bunch of things from the first two episodes.)

I’m going to split this into arcs. I’m also going to put this under a read more, because...yeah, this came out to just a little over 10,500 words. I’m...sorry.

have fun?

Cloud Recesses Summer School Arc

The time card says “sixteen years earlier” but it isn’t sixteen years earlier because that would make no sense, but it’s better to give up on timeline now or you’ll just drive yourself nuts.

This is the part of the show where you meet the main characters, some of whom you saw earlier (notably Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian’s younger sort-of brother), and some of whom you only know from reference (Jiang Yanli, Wei Wuxian’s older sort-of sister) and some of whom are significantly important (Lan Wangji). You also meet Jin Zixuan, the snotty heir to the Jin Sect, who will be important later. Jiang Yanli is clearly into him and he seems to very much not return the feelings.

At this point, there are five main sects that the characters belong to. They are (with the characters you’ve met from them so far: the Jiang Sect (Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Yanli), the Nie Sect (Nie Huaisang, a flighty and sort of feckless fellow), the Jin Sect (Jin Zixuan, his social skills translator Mianmian), the Lan Sect (Lan Wangji, his brother Lan Xichen) as well as the Wen Sect (more on them in a moment). Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian meet and immediately...something. Wei Wuxian wants to make friends, and Lan Wangji seems to emphatically Not.

You also meet Meng Yao, who is Nie Huaisang’s brother Nie Mingjue’s right hand man, and also the bastard son of Jin Guangshan (the leader of Jin Sect). He is also the son of (using the words of literally everyone) a prostitute, which people remind him of at every possible moment, in case he was in danger of forgetting, or something. He and Lan Xichen have kind of a moment. 

Later on, members of the Wen Sect, led by Wen Chao storm in, posturing disrespectfully, and drop off Wen Qing to “learn” (but secretly she has a mission looking for the Yin Iron/Metal). The Wen are ascendant in power and seem to be flexing their muscle looking for trouble. 

Wen Qing comes as a set with her brother Wen Ning - the pair of them are from sort of...a secondary branch of the main Wen family, and she’s being coerced into supporting Wen Ruohan despite being not thrilled about it. Wei Wuxian bonds with Wen Qing’s younger brother Wen Ning, who has a weird situation that makes him vulnerable to possession (this is important later).

At one point Wei Wuxian proposes - in response to a question! He’s just being innovative! - to put it simply, necromancy, which is, to say the least, not a hit. Remember that for later!

Eventually, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian end up falling by accident into some ice caves, where they learn from one of Lan Wangji’s ancestors (Lan Yi, she’s cool) about the Yin Iron, of which she has a piece. It is an spiritually corrupted metal that can’t be destroyed so it was broken into pieces and hidden in different places. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji resolve jointly to find the other pieces.

Wei Wuxian, Jiang Yanli, and Jiang Cheng (henceforth “the Yunmeng siblings”) are picked up early by Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng’s dad (Jiang Fengmian) because Wei Wuxian causes problems both on purpose and not. Wei Wuxian, however, puts together that Lan Wangji is going off on his own chasing the Yin Iron, and ditches the rest of his family to go help.

Yin Iron Hunt Arc

Wei Wuxian meets up with Lan Wangji, who is not thrilled to see him (at least, apparently). They run into Nie Huaisang, who joins them. They come to a town where everyone seems to have vanished and there is nothing fishy going on in the cave with the statue that looks like a dancing lady at all. Meanwhile, Jiang Cheng leaves home to go track down Wei Wuxian and bring him back.

The statue comes to life, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji fight together to defeat it, and then a bunch of...undead villagers (sort of, they get better) attack them, only to be lured away by Wen Qing playing a flute (this ability will never be brought up again). Jiang Cheng reveals himself as having been hanging out watching this go down. Ultimately, by killing the Stygian Pigeon that belongs to Wen Chao, the villagers are freed and they move on.

After a brief stopover in a village, they hear some rumors about a haunted house and take off to go check it out. When they get there, everyone is dead and Xue Yang is on the roof just kind of vibing. Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan manage to get him pinned down and taken captive. This is important and not just because I said so.

Nie Huaisang, who Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Wangji ditched in town, arrives here with Meng Yao, who proposes bringing Xue Yang to Nie Mingjue for justice purposes (which when I write it like that sounds...um. moving right along), which is where everyone heads next, less Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan who have their own things to do. Wei Wuxian realizes that Xiao Xingchen had the same master as his mother, and gets really excited about it; it’s adorable.

They go to Nie Mingjue, who is talked out of executing Xue Yang because they’re trying to find out where he put the Yin Iron (which they figure he has, because reasons. there are reasons, I just don’t feel like going into it.) Lan Wangji leaves in the night without saying goodbye, and then Wen Chao arrives. He is accompanied by Wen Zhuliu, who is called the Core-Melting Hand for reasons that will be important later. There’s a fight, Xue Yang gets loose, and Nie Mingjue finds Meng Yao in a very compromising position (killing a captain of the guard and among a bunch of other dead bodies). He kicks Meng Yao out of the Nie Sect.

Meanwhile, the Wens attack Cloud Recesses. Lan Xichen’s uncle makes him leave to preserve himself and the most important texts. Everyone retreats to a cave that’s hidden and walled off; Su She (who was introduced briefly earlier) caves to threats to his life and tells the Wens how to get into the Lan’s cave sanctuary. Lan Wangji returns with Lan Yi’s Yin Iron and gives it and himself up to Wen Chao’s older brother Wen Xu to spare everyone else.

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian leave for home (Lotus Pier). We witness family dynamics, which are terrible. The Wens want everyone to send their kids, specifically their heirs, to be reeducated in Wen territory, but they’re not hostages, we swear. No, really.

Reeducation Camp Arc

To reeducation camp with the Wens we go! Where Lan Wangji is not looking so hot, and Wei Wuxian rapidly causes problems on purpose to try to get to talk to him, but mostly just ends up getting himself tossed in a dungeon where he gets attacked by a very bad puppet of a dog. Wen Qing has told Wen Ning not to associate with Wei Wuxian because they’re on thin ice with their boss (Wen Ruohan), but Wen Ning sneaks him some medicine against Wen Qing’s orders anyway.

They go on a hunt, with the non-Wens featuring as bait. Here is where you meet Wen Chao’s main squeeze Wang Lingjiao, who was formerly a servant. Everyone ends up in a cave that contains a creature whose name is unfortunately translated as “Tortoise of Slaughter.” we’ll go with “Xuanwu of Slaughter” instead, it feels better. Wen Chao and his accompanying entourage make a run for it and ditch everyone else in the cave; they manage to sneak out but Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji end up trapped with no way out. They team up and kill the Xuanwu, partially because Wei Wuxian acquires a very cursed sword. Afterward, he is feverish and asks Lan Wangji to sing - enter Wuji! their theme. You see Lan Wangji mouth that it is called “Wangxian” before Wei Wuxian passes out. (Yes, he did name his composition after their ship name. Aww.)

I’ve skated through that very fast but it is important because it’s like...the point where they seriously bond in a major way and it’s all very...like, there was only one bed only they’re trapped in a cave and injured and forced to rely on each other. So not actually really like that.

Wei Wuxian comes around outside of the cave with Jiang Cheng and Jin Zixuan, who brought help to rescue him and Lan Wangji; Lan Wangji, however, is gone.

Oh Shit Things Went Downhill Fast Arc

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian go back to Lotus Pier, where Wei Wuxian is in big trouble with Jiang Cheng’s mother (Yu Ziyuan, seen later emotionally terrorizing all her children), who already doesn’t like him and accuses him of bringing trouble down on them by defying the Wens. Jiang Cheng’s dad is terrible, Wei Wuxian reaffirms that he and Jiang Cheng will be Together Forever, you, the viewer, know that is absolutely not how that’s going to go.

Word comes that the Wen have attacked one of the smaller sects, and Jiang Cheng’s dad (Jiang Fengmian) goes with Jiang Yanli to talk to Jin Guangshan about how to deal with the Wens.

Then Wang Lingjiao arrives with word that they’re gonna be in big trouble if they don’t punish Wei Wuxian right now. Yu Ziyuan uses her lightning whip to beat the shit out of Wei Wuxian, but Wang Lingjiao wants her to cut off his hand. Then she makes the mistake of saying that they’ll be making Lotus Pier a supervisory office of the Wens, thank you.

Yu Ziyuan reacts...poorly, Wang Lingjiao calls on her backup Wen Zhuliu (and everyone else); seeing the writing on the wall Yu Ziyuan grabs Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, puts them on a boat, and sends them away, bequeathing her sick-ass lightning whip (Zidian) to Jiang Cheng. They run into Jiang Fengmian and Jiang Yanli; Jiang Fengmian adds Jiang Yanli to the boat full of crying children and goes to sail back to Lotus Pier.

Lotus Pier falls, everybody dies, Jiang Cheng goes semi-catatonic and then disappears, having been captured by the Wens after going back for his parents’ bodies. (Which is more important than it probably sounds, from a Western perspective.) Wei Wuxian follows him and finds Wen Ning, who smuggles Jiang Cheng out and takes him, Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Yanli to Wen Qing for safekeeping.

Jiang Cheng wakes up; his golden core (the...thing that lets him do superpowered things, let’s go with that) was destroyed by Wen Zhuliu. Melted, if you will. And it’s not the kind of thing you can just, you know, fix. He descends into absolute despair as Wei Wuxian looks frantically for a way to fix it - and finds one! Though Wen Qing is not happy about it, she still agrees.

at this point we see the return of an old friend! Song Lan, who has a bloody bandage over his eyes, but has eyes that work, despite the fact that he was blinded by Xue Yang who also killed his entire temple. He explains that Xiao Xingchen said that he was taking Song Lan to his master Baoshan Sanren, the immortal who can cure anything, and doesn’t remember anything else.

Wei Wuxian takes Jiang Cheng to Baoshan Sanren to get his core back. Psych! It’s a lie that he totally made up to explain the fact that he’s actually getting his own core transplanted into Jiang Cheng in a highly experimental procedure. Importantly, Wei Wuxian does not tell Jiang Cheng this.

Post-surgery, rather battered Wei Wuxian gets caught by Wen Chao and Wang Lingjiao, who torture him and then throw him into a place called the Burial Mounds, which is more or less what it sounds like, is Very Cursed, and from which no one has emerged alive. Then this happens:

(I want you to appreciate how hard I’ve tried to not put any screencaps in here. but I had to do this one. I just had to.)

and you go oh shit and also well that’s sexy.

Jiang Cheng, delighted to have his core back, descends the mountain only to find that Wei Wuxian is...not there.

Cool! That seems fine.

Sunshot Campaign Arc

Timeskip to three months later! The rest of the sects have allied together to take down the Wen Sect (this is what ‘Sunshot Campaign’ refers to, because the symbol of the Wens is a sun). Things aren’t looking good for the Wens, including Wen Chao and Wang Lingjiao. Wang Lingjiao hallucinates to the sound of a flute and ends up killing herself. Meanwhile, Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng have teamed up to look for Wei Wuxian. On their way, they start finding piles of Wen bodies killed in a mysterious and grotesque manner involving an unfamiliar method of cultivation.

(Side note: around now is where Jiang Cheng frees Wen Qing from where she was imprisoned by the Wens for being a dirty traitor during the war and gives her the comb of pining he bought way back in the Cloud Recesses arc, telling her that he will help her if she asks. This isn’t...exactly important, except I wanted to note it.)

Eventually, they find a house where Wen Chao has holed up with Wen Zhuliu, and watch as it’s revealed that he has gone through some nasty shit, is terrified and traumatized and badly injured. Ominous signs: begin to happen! Flames going out: happen! Shots of someone climbing slowly and menacingly up stairs: happen! 

Yeah, it’s Wei Wuxian. New and improved, darker and meaner and very sexy about it, and with a new sick-ass flute. He starts attacking Wen Chao, and when Wen Zhuliu moves to attack Wei Wuxian Jiang Cheng jumps down and hangs Wen Zhuliu with Zidian. Lan Wangji confronts Wei Wuxian about this darker and meaner version and Wei Wuxian breaks up with him; Lan Wangji leaves Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian to kill Wen Chao because the family that murders together stays together!

(They won’t, but.)

The war goes on, but the tides have turned, and the Wens are losing. Both of Wen Ruohan’s sons are dead. Soup drama happens here, which I don’t need to explain fully but it is clear that Wei Wuxian is extremely emotionally unstable, and also will no longer carry his sword despite everyone telling him he needs to carry his sword. All is not well with the Wei Wuxian! But nobody knows why. Lan Wangji’s repeated “LET ME FIX YOU” overtures are not well received. Lan Wangji also has a nice conversation about how the Lan rules did not prepare him for moral complexity.

Eventually Nie Mingjue proposes going to attack Wen Ruohan on his own while the others move on the Wen stronghold at Nightless City (at this point, they have received a map of Wen defenses from a ~mysterious spy~). Nie Mingjue is captured, and it is revealed that Meng Yao decided that after getting kicked out of Qinghe he could find a better boss somewhere else. Outside, an undead army shows up to kick everyone else’s ass. Things don’t look good for our heroes!

Wei Wuxian brings out his secret weapon the Yin Tiger Seal and...takes over the undead army. This is very troubling to everyone involved, but it does bring Wen Ruohan out to see what the deal is. Wei Wuxian delivers one of the sickest lines in the entire show:

(i’m restraining myself! trust me! i am!)

so yeah, that’s a normal and reassuring thing to say.

And then Meng Yao stabs Wen Ruohan in the back. And that’s it for Wen Ruohan! Our major antagonist is dead! Surely everything will be fine now.

Well We Won the War, Now What Arc

[cracks knuckles] and here’s where the politics starts.

Ready and totally psyched to step into the power vacuum left by the fall of the Wens is Jin Guangshan! Leader of the Jin Sect, least impacted by the war by vitue of joining up late. He recognizes Meng Yao as his son now that he’s, like, someone that is valuable to him politically, and Meng Yao gets a commensurate name change > Jin Guangyao. Pretty much immediately Jin Guangshan starts manuevering to consolidate power - pushing to marry Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan, pushing to get access to Wei Wuxian’s Yin Tiger Seal, subtly undermining everyone else...the works.

Jin Guangshan is the worst, is what I’m saying here.

Meanwhile, Nie Mingjue is very unhappy about the whole “Meng Yao helping the Wens and fucking with him when he’s captured” thing, but then Lan Xichen (remember, Lan Wangji’s older brother) steps in and reveals that Jin Guangyao was a spy delivering information, actually, and also saved his life when he was on the run from the Wens, so don’t hurt him please. Nie Mingjue is still very suspicious, but he backs off. Subsequently, after agreeing to place the Wen (civilian) captives in a holding camp, Jin Guangyao has them killed (impliedly at the order of his father).

We are given cues that Jin Guangyao is bad news. Like, heavy cues. If you are me this makes you love him.

This is also where Lan Xichen, Nie Mingjue, and Jin Guangyao become sworn brothers, which is a big deal.

Meanwhile, back in Lotus Pier, Wei Wuxian is...not doing so hot! He’s drinking heavily, shirking his responsibilities in a way that is making Jiang Cheng particularly very upset with him, generally being weird and traumatized but nobody knows how to deal with that, or him. Then Jin Zixuan arrives to invite everyone to a special hunt being hosted by his father including Jiang Yanli because he, he means his mom, really wants her to be there.

The hunt goes great! By that I mean Jin Zixuan is a spectacular failure at expressing his feelings to Jiang Yanli, Wei Wuxian almost starts a fight with Jin Zixuan, Jin Zixuan’s enormous asshole cousin gets nasty until Jiang Yanli makes him apologize, in a seriously badass moment. The whole thing comes off with Wei Wuxian really not looking good, including his decision to ditch the celebratory banquet. But also Jiang Yanli getting a liiiiittle closer to something she wants (i.e. Jin Zixuan). Jiang Cheng is like “dude what the fuck” at Wei Wuxian and gets zero percent explanation. Meanwhile everyone in the vicinity pokes at his massive insecurities, because the cultivation world’s favorite activity is actually gossip.

Things only get worse at the very bad after party. This is where we meet Su She again, who has gone and founded his own sect! Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji are sort of bitchy about it. But the real issue comes when Zixun peer pressures Lan Xichen into drinking despite the fact that it’s pretty solidly against the rules of the Lan Sect. Lan Xichen does it with a very “fuck you” smile, despite Jin Guangyao’s attempts to forestall the situation.

(I feel like I have not expressed the relationship between Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen? It’s a whole thing. Let’s just say that it’s a fairly popular ship for a reason.)

Lan Wangji, however, is not as diplomatic as his brother.

And then Wei Wuxian arrives! To ruin another party. Because he found Wen Qing wandering around in the streets and turns out that Wen Ning was taken prisoner by Jin Zixun and friends and removed to whereabouts unknown. Wei Wuxian proceeds to give the sexiest countdown ever to annihilating Jin Zixun if he doesn’t tell him where Wen Ning is.

Wen Ning, unfortunately, is in a pile of bodies. Because the Jin have been...well, experimenting on Wen prisoners, basically. Wen Ning is...not dead in this universe because censorship, but everything makes more sense if you just say “he’s basically dead and Wei Wuxian resurrects him to fuck up everyone in the vicinity who was responsible for his death, which is...everyone other than the other Wens. Eventually Wei Wuxian stops him by yelling his second (courtesy) name that no one else has used for him in speech up to this point (Wen Qionglin), because love is stored in the name. Wei Wuxian gathers up the survivors and takes off only to run into Lan Wangji standing in his way.

They have a point of no return moment. Wei Wuxian basically says “let me go or you have to kill me” only it’s better than that because what he actually says is like “if I’m going to be killed I should be killed by you, then I would know it was right” and it’s a whole fucking thing and anyway Lan Wangji steps aside and lets them all go and it is quite literally “I’m not crying, it’s just raining on my face” except he is also crying.

So...fuck.

Burial Mounds Arc

Wei Wuxian takes the Wens to the one place nobody’s probably going to follow them: namely, the Burial Mounds. Home sweet home!

Outside in the main world, rumors are flying about the army Wei Wuxian is building and the sect he’s planning to found and how ambitious he is and how he’s disrespecting Jiang Cheng and actually Jiang Cheng he probably never loved you anyway and is better and stronger and what are you good for, but I’m saying this out of concern and to be helpful (paraphrased from Jin Guangshan).

Accordingly, Jiang Cheng agrees to go and check things out and see what’s going on in Chez Burial Mounds. What is going on is basically a bunch of civilians eking out a very depressing living. There is also a child, a-Yuan, who is adorable. This will also be important later.

(are you keeping track of all this?)

Jiang Cheng also goes to see Wen Ning, who is...recovering from being dead/undead and Wei Wuxian is working on fixing him. Jiang Cheng says he has to die, and Wei Wuxian has to come home, and things are really bad, man, so stop worrying about these losers and avoid the entire cultivation world being really pissed with you, maybe?

Wei Wuxian isn’t going for it, and tells Jiang Cheng to cut him out of Jiang Sect in order to protect Jiang Sect’s reputation. It’s upsetting. They stage a very dramatic duel and Jiang Cheng announces that friendship ended with Wei Wuxian, he has no new friend actually.

This is also where Wen Qing significantly returns the comb of pining that Jiang Cheng gave her way back (remember that?) and is like. so you wouldn’t’ve helped me and Wen Ning actually, would you. And that is the end of Chengqing as a sidebar ship that never really sailed. Well done, you two.

Meanwhile, Jin Zixuan gets his shit together and proposes to Jiang Yanli by way of making her a lotus pond at Jinlintai. So that’s nice!

A bit later Lan Wangji comes to visit! Only it’s totally coincidental, he was just passing through, that’s all. He and Wei Wuxian hang out for a little while, pretending things are sort of normal, but they have to rush back to the Burial Mounds because the Wen Ning is out. They manage to get him under control and awaken him to proper consciousness again, though! Great! Things are looking up. :)

Lan Wangji does not stay for dinner, though. :(

In my notes I have written “meanwhile...political shitshow” and that is basically a summation of what’s up in places that aren’t the Burial Mounds. Specifically, Jin Guangshan, who seems to have deputized Jin Guangyao to do his dirty work generally, is making noises about how something needs to be done about that Wei Wuxian, and what about that Yin Tiger Seal anyway, doesn’t it seem Yin Iron-like, shouldn’t something like that not be in the hands of a random person? Probably it should be in someone else’s hands instead. Someone responsible with no ulterior motives. You know.

Also in here...somewhere, Mianmian tries to stand up for Wei Wuxian being maybe right about some things, gets shouted down, and decides to leave the Jin Sect entirely. Like...just walks out. Several people look at her like ‘you can do that?’, Lan Wangji is jealous, it is a total boss move. Mianmian hasn’t been a major character but this is important enough and cool enough that I had to mention it.

Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng come to Yiling (by the Burial Mounds) for a very secret rendezvous where Wei Wuxian gets to see Jiang Yanli’s beautiful wedding dress and eat some of her famous soup and it is very sweet and nice and Jiang Cheng is like “so do you have a plan for if everyone attacks you” and Wei Wuxian is like “absolutely. I will kill everyone is my plan.”

also possibly Jiang Yanli is already pregnant at this point??? she and Jiang Cheng are certainly exchanging a lot of conspiratorial smiles when she tells Wei Wuxian to give her future son a courtesy name.

She is for sure pregnant later, because there is a baby named Jin Ling who shows up! (Remember that name? No? He was the bratty teenager from episode 2.)  Jin Guangshan does not allow Jin Guangyao to hold the baby, for which he deserves what he gets. For Jin Ling’s 100 day/three month (again! timelines, fuck em) celebration, Jiang Cheng, Jin Zixuan, and Lan Wangji tag team to get Wei Wuxian invited, where he will come and it will be nice and everyone will discuss this Yin Tiger Seal issue like civilized people.

An invitation is sent for Wei Wuxian to come to the celebration! Wonderful! This is in no way going to go horribly wrong.

Oh Shit, Things Went Downhill Fast (Take Two) Arc

It goes horribly wrong.

On the way to Jinlintai to greet his new baby nephew, accompanied by Wen Ning, Wei Wuxian is confronted by - surprise! - Jin Zixun, accusing Wei Wuxian of putting a curse on him. Wei Wuxian denies it, naturally, since he didn’t. Jin Zixun decides the best way to deal with this situation is to kill Wei Wuxian, which will definitely break the curse that Wei Wuxian definitely cast on him.

He attacks, and Wen Ning goes Ghost General on everyone’s ass, and Wei Wuxian brings out his flute. Things are looking pretty hairy when Jin Zixuan shows up to call off the fight, trying to get Wei Wuxian to back down; he does not back down, because that would just mean getting shot full of arrows.

Wen Ning, who seems to have completely lost his mind, fists Jin Zixuan. Through the chest. This does, in fact, kill him.

His dying words are to say that Jiang Yanli is still waiting for Wei Wuxian to show up, just to make everything worse. Wen Ning kills Jin Zixun as well. This is not actually what Wei Wuxian wanted to happen.

Back at the Burial Mounds! In the wake of Jin Zixuan’s death, an ultimatum has been issued to give up the Wen siblings or else. This is pretty clearly (in my opinion) a pretext that doesn’t mean anything, but Wen Qing and Wen Ning have already decided to sacrifice themselves. Maybe they’re hoping it’ll work? Or at least that it’ll give Wei Wuxian some time? Wen Qing knocks Wei Wuxian out so he can’t stop them. The whole thing is really fucking heartbreaking.

Wei Wuxian comes around and goes to Jinlintai, where he sees Jiang Yanli, who is mourning her dead husband who got killed by her baby brother! Cool! She sees Wei Wuxian but he runs before she can say anything, partly because guards have been sicced on him. He is pretty clearly having a mental breakdown, hallucinations and all!

Cut to a gathering of...pretty much everyone important and all their followers at Nightless City, for a combination commemorating the dead/affirming the deaths of Wen Ning and Wen Qing/gearing up to kill Wei Wuxian.

Who spares them the effort of coming to find him by showing up on the roof! He proceeds to sic dark magic on everyone there except, conspicuously, for the Jiang Sect. Lan Wangji arrives to defuse the situation and fails to defuse the situation until Wei Wuxian hears Jiang Yanli calling for him.

Because she’s arrived on an active battlefield! Not her best idea but it’s not like I can actually blame her considering the week she’s having.

Wei Wuxian goes to look for her, as does Jiang Cheng who also heard her, and...suddenly loses control of his dark magic. Cool! One of the...undead? people there wounds Jiang Yanli. Even better! Jiang Cheng pleads with Wei Wuxian to get things under control, which he can’t! They have a moment while a lot of people around them are dying but you know what, they deserve it.

because like literally a second later Jiang Yanli pushes Wei Wuxian out of the way of a sword meant to stab him in the back and instead takes it herself. And dies.

So. Yeah.

Wei Wuxian loses the last threads of his sanity and destroys the Yin Tiger Seal. While everybody is fighting over it, he goes over to the edge of a cliff, and now we’re back here where we started! With Lan Wangji clinging to Wei Wuxian’s hand as he dangles over the edge of a cliff and tells him to let go.

Jiang Cheng arrives to defuse the situation, by which I mean “he tells Wei Wuxian to go die and stabs down.” He only hits rock; Wei Wuxian breaks himself loose of Lan Wangji’s grip and falls. You are left on the image of Lan Wangji’s absolutely devastated face.

nice! great. well, that brings us up to speed for the flashforward to the future, where you have probably completely forgotten what happened in the first two episodes.

For instance: remember how we saw Wen Ning despite the fact that he’s supposed to be ashes? Yeah.

And We’re Back in the Present Now Arc (Good Times in Qinghe Arc)

For some reason this is the part of the show where I remember the least and it all kind of blurs together with the exception of one scene? so I had to go look at Wikipedia episode summaries to make sure I was putting things in the right order.

Back in the present at the Cloud Recesses, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji discover that the very angry sword spirit last seen killing people at Mo Manor (remember that?) is pointing them in the direction of Qinghe (the Nie Sect territory). They leave to go there and run into Jin Ling, who semi-accidentally terrorizes Wei Wuxian by way of dog. 

By asking around, they also learn that there are rumors of a man-eating fortress in the woods, and that it hasn’t been dealt with because the leader of the Nie Sect is absolutely useless. The leader of the Nie Sect who is now - hey, been a while! - Nie Huaisang, since his older brother disappeared under mysterious circumstances after losing his mind years ago.

The dynamic duo go off to investigate the man-eating fortress, naturally, and what they find is a tomb full of swords and a wall full of skeletons, and also Jin Ling. 

They remove Jin Ling from the wall, Lan Wangji goes chasing a mysterious attacker, and Wei Wuxian takes Jin Ling to safety only to end up running into - oh boy! - Jiang Cheng. 

They have a calm talk about their feelings and address their dysfunction in a reasonable manner. 

Nope! Jiang Cheng corners Wei Wuxian with Jin Ling’s dog, throws a cup of tea at a wall, and yells at Wei Wuxian about how he both didn’t come home right away and also how he should die ten million times (no, like, actually). Fortunately, Jin Ling arrives, lies out his ass about how he saw Wen Ning to get Jiang Cheng to leave, and lets Wei Wuxian go. 

Back to that mysterious figure Lan Wangji went running after! Turns out it was none other than Nie Huaisang, who confesses - reluctantly - that the man-eating fortress belongs to his family and is a safe home for bloodthirsty swords after their owners die, which is a normal thing to get as a family heirloom. This is also where it becomes increasingly clear that (a) the sword spirit is Baxia, Nie Mingjue’s sword, and (b) Nie Mingjue is most likely hella dead, specifically murdered. 

With this new information, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian move on, tracking the directions of the angry sword spirit. They overhear some very depressing story about Song Lan, Xiao Xingchen, and Xue Yang, specifically how things turned out horribly for them (though without details), which drives Lan Wangji to drink.

Lan Wangji cannot hold his liquor, at all. Wei Wuxian takes his unconsciousness as an opportunity to flute Wen Ning to him again, and removes a massive metal needle from his skull, which fixes the whole “unconscious zombie” issue. Unfortunately, Wen Ning remembers nothing about what happened to him between going to Jinlintai with Wen Qing and when he heard Wei Wuxian calling by way of flute.

And now we have Drunkji, who is the most adorable, hilarious thing ever. He gives Wei Wuxian chickens, with utmost sincerity. They are wedding chickens. It is very important that Wei Wuxian have these chickens.

This interlude is not important to the plot but it is hilarious. There is also a not hilarious interlude of Lan Wangji being very sad about how he didn’t help Wei Wuxian before, and also admitting that he likes rabbits. Again: not plot important. It is adorable. 

Wei Wuxian herds Drunkji back to the inn, where a mysterious masked man attempts to steal the pouch holding the angry sword spirit, but is driven off and teleports away. Remember this guy! He’s important.

The next morning, they set off and hit the road for a place called Yi City, which if you’ve spent any time on this blog you know is deeply important in my heart if not, like, in terms of show space.

Yi City Arc Yi City Arc Yi City Arc

yes this is three episodes but this is my summary post so I get to give it its own section if I want to.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji arrive at Yi City, which is empty, and very spooky. They run into the pack of juniors (Jin Ling, Lan Sizhui, sassmaster Lan Jingyi and consummate romantic Ouyang Zizhen are the named ones), and shortly thereafter into a whole bunch of undead. They also run into a ghost (???) girl who is blind and has no tongue. They also also run into Xiao Xingchen, severely wounded.

Psych! It’s Xue Yang in disguise and he has an undead Song Lan under his control. what a fun twist this is! and he wants one thing specifically: for Wei Wuxian to help him bring someone back to life. Problem is that their soul is in need of some serious super glue and super glue doesn’t work on souls.

Xue Yang informs Wei Wuxian that his consent is optional and he will be participating in Xue Yang’s necromancy experiment fantasies whether he likes it or not. Lan Wangji objects strenuously to this idea. While Lan Wangji is fighting Xue Yang and Wen Ning is fighting Song Lan (corpse fight! corpse fight!) Wei Wuxian herds the juniors into a safe courtyard where the corpses won’t go, led by the aforementioned ghost girl, who shows them a coffin.

the coffin has Xiao Xingchen in it. The actual real one. There’s a bandage over his eyes, because he doesn’t have any.

Wei Wuxian goes into the ghost girl’s memories in order to find out what happened using a technique called Empathy, and the next chunk of things I’m just going to tell in full chronologically even though there’s a break where you don’t see all of it until an episode later.

The ghost girl, a-Qing, is a con artist who pretends to be blind; she runs into Xiao Xingchen (who is actually blind) when she steals his money, and he just gives it to her after stopping someone else whose money she stole from beating him up. A-Qing decides they’re friends now. They’ve been traveling together for...some amount of time when they stumble on a badly injured man on the side of the road. Xiao Xingchen picks him up and takes him home with him (to an abandoned coffin house in Yi City). You get one guess who he’s rescued and who is totally psyched to discover that his life has been saved by Xiao Xingchen, who doesn’t know who he is, because he’s blind.

So you know, everything is coming up Xue Yang.

What follows is three years of domestic bliss, including hits like “entire villages dying by Xiao Xingchen under sort of suspicious circumstances” and “threatening grocers.” And then who should show up but Song Lan! Looking for Xiao Xingchen and he’s so happy to have finally found him.

Only he notices Xue Yang first.

A fight ensues, in which Xue Yang...sort of talks Song Lan to death by digging into the fact that Xiao Xingchen is blind because he gave his eyes to Song Lan, actually, and Song Lan hurt him so bad when they broke up, and because Xiao Xingchen is blind Xue Yang has been able to trick him into killing living people when he thinks he’s killing undead ones, and oooh do you feel bad now, well, guess what, you’re gonna feel worse when I poison you into becoming undead and cut out your tongue. :D

And even worse when this means that Xiao Xingchen stabs him because, you know, undead monster.

Cool! Things are going great.

Or they would be only a-Qing saw everything, reveals it to Xiao Xingchen, who puts it together and greets XueYang coming back from grocery shopping with a sword (rude). They break up, and by “break up” I mean “Xue Yang reveals his tragic backstory, Xiao Xingchen is not convinced that his tragic backstory means all the murder was justified, Xue Yang decides it’s time to make this all go nuclear.” So tells Xiao Xingchen about how he’s been killing people actually! And guess what, bonus, one of those people was your BFF/life partner/whatever, Song Lan. isn’t that amazing, Xiao Xingchen, isn’t that so cool--

Xiao Xingchen kills himself and this is, it turns out, Not What Xue Yang Wanted. So guess who’s in the pouch Xue Yang was hoping to resurrect? Yeah.

Back in the present, with help from a-Qing directing Lan Wangji, Xue Yang gets...hella stabbed, but not before he kills a-Qing. Song Lan, freed from Xue Yang’s control, kills Xue Yang.

Oh yeah, and then we see Xiao Xingchen tenderly laying pieces of candy on a bed, which is symbolically important, and also Xue Yang dies looking at the last piece of candy Xiao Xingchen gave him, and now I’m going to cry. anyway Yi City Arc, you’re welcome. Where the only person who survives did not, in fact, survive!

Oh, yeah, I guess it’s also important that there’s a headless body buried here and it gets...pretty conclusively identified as Nie Mingjue because the sword spirit (remember that?) takes the shape of his very distinctive large sword (Baxia). Also Xue Yang recreated the Yin Tiger Seal but it gets snatched away by the masked man from earlier. There’s also a bunch of stuff about the Yin Iron plot but you can ignore it, it doesn’t actually really matter that much.

Honestly at that point I was crying too much to pay a whole lot of attention to the whole point of them being in Yi City to begin with. So sue me.

The Plot Thickens, and Secrets Are Revealed Arc

Exeunt Yi City, rendezvous with Lan Xichen to discuss, obliquely, who could be responsible for Nie Mingjue’s death. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji delicately imply that maybe it was Jin Guangyao; Lan Xichen is unconvinced and informs us that there are no curse marks indicating that he’d teleported on Jin Guangyao’s body, he would know, and also they’ve been together every night so he wouldn’t have time to get up to shenanigans anyway.

Hm.

Still, they go ahead together to ruin another party/investigate at Jinlintai, with Wei Wuxian safely in disguise (barely), unfortunately as Mo Xuanyu, who is not exactly welcome in the Jin Sect because he got kicked out of it earlier. Mo Xuanyu is a whole...thing that I’m not really going into here because the show doesn’t really get into it either.

Wei Wuxian ducks out to investigate, and in the form of an animated paper man, to the tune of music we have never heard before in this show and will never hear again (look, it’s just weird to me), goes sneaking into Jin Guangyao’s rooms to do some poking around. His investigations are interrupted when Jin Guangyao’s wife Qin Su, in a state of severe distress, returns, followed shortly by Jin Guangyao. They argue about an unknown revelation in a letter Qin Su received that has resulted in her being disgusted by...something, we don’t know what, and angry with Jin Guangyao. She accuses him of killing their kid.

Eventually he paralyzes her and removes her to a secret room through a mirror, which is a thing everyone has, especially one with a bunch of torture instruments and a body sized table with dried blood on it. Normal!

Remember how the body in Yi City was headless? Yeah, we found the head now.

And it’s time for another Empathy flashback! 

Empathy Flashback feat. Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao’s Bad Relationship Mini Arc

This time with Nie Mingjue (and Jin Guangyao). We see Jin Guangyao very quickly elevated from a servant who is spat upon by the other Nie cultivators to Nie Mingjue’s right hand man, like, literally in two seconds. Flash forward to episode 10 - remember that? - where Jin Guangyao has just been caught in a compromising murder position. Nie Mingjue accuses Jin Guangyao plotting all along and is a conniving little snake who was in league with Xue Yang (which is a thing that does not make sense, actually), and kicks him out.

We next see Nie Mingjue in Nightless City, having been captured and currently being taunted by a very sexy Meng Yao, who kills some other Nie cultivators and threatens to fuck up Nie Mingjue by shattering his sword (which would be catastrophic and is, we are informed, how Nie Mingjue’s dad died). Nie Mingjue is understandably rather displeased by this to the point of probable murder, though Lan Xichen reminds him (as he did in the previous scene) that Meng Yao was acting as a spy and Meng Yao argues that he needed to play his part.

The relationship between the two of them continues to deteriorate as Nie Mingjue becomes more unstable (something that just happens to the Nies by virtue of their cultivation style). That deterioration is being delayed by healing music from Lan Xichen. Lan Xichen teaches Jin Guangyao the healing music. Jin Guangyao seems to be possibly doing something not healing with the healing music.

This all escalates into a confrontation at the top of the stairs of Jinlintai, where Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao argue about class politics and justifiable violence (no, really) until Nie Mingjue explodes and kicks Jin Guangyao down the stairs. 

And then proceeds to, as Jin Guangyao looks on, have a qi deviation, which is...well, let’s just call it both a physical and a mental breakdown. Nie Huaisang arrives to see this happening, and while we saw this before and it looked like Nie Mingjue was threatening Nie Huaisang because he didn’t recognize him, this time it is more apparent that he’s directing it at Jin Guangyao.

Next we see, Nie Mingjue is chained to that body sized table in the secret room. Xue Yang is there, and uses Nie Mingjue’s sword to behead Nie Mingjue. He’s psyched as hell about it. If you’re me this is adorable.

And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming Arc

Flashback ends! And we are back in Jinlintai. Wei Wuxian goes to get Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen to storm Jin Guangyao’s bedroom, to which Su She objects, but Jin Guangyao eventually allows. They all file together into the secret room and look around, but there is no longer any severed head where Wei Wuxian left it. Whoops. 

Then Qin Su kills herself, Jiang Cheng arrives to defuse the situation while Jin Guangyao pleads innocent, and Wei Wuxian, by way of drawing his sword that nobody else could draw before now, reveals that he is, in fact, Wei Wuxian. Everyone in this room actually already knew this information except for Jin Ling, who is not thrilled to discover that his cool uncle is the guy who murdered his parents. Nobody else does a very good job of faking surprise.

Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian make a run for it only to be cornered on the stairs. Extreme romance ensues where Lan Wangji announces his intent to stand by Wei Wuxian forever against the world. 

This is where the “I was like, SCREAMS” meme kicks in.

Anyway, after that love confession (look, they can’t say ‘I love you’ but basically) in front of everyone, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian fight their way out together and are well on the way to freedom when Jin Ling stabs Wei Wuxian. 

Nobody is happy about this, including Jin Ling.

Wei Wuxian is okay overall, though he does faint and have to get swept off to the Cloud Recesses and undressed and redressed in Lan Wangji’s underwear. Don’t worry about it. And now it’s time to talk to Lan Xichen, who is currently feeling very “what the hell is going on, you have no proof and are accusing a person I trust completely of something horrible without any proof.” 

They still don’t have any proof, but Wei Wuxian reveals that in the flashback he heard Jin Guangyao playing the soothing music but different, and it comes out that there is evil Japanese music that can kill people and be used to poison someone slowly over time. It’s literally this post:

Lan Xichen is not entirely convinced but agrees to investigate; Jin Guangyao comes to Cloud Recesses and has an absolutely heartbreaking conversation with Lan Xichen about how is our friendship over, Zewu--jun :( while Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji eavesdrop.

That conversation isn’t plot important either, I just personally find it very upsetting.

The Burial Mounds, Take Two Arc

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji leave the Cloud Recesses, heading toward the Burial Mounds because Jin Guangyao mentioned something being up there. But they end up meeting - surprise! - Mianmian, who is living her best life. This is mostly important because she is literally the only female character who makes it out of this show alive. 

She mentions that there’s been some trouble around the Burial Mounds, so they head in that direction, running into Wen Ning along the way, who has been following them around because he loves Wei Wuxian. The Burial Mounds are indeed full of active undead and they fight their way up to the old farming commune location, which is less empty than expected because there are a bunch of kids tied up in Wei Wuxian’s old lair/cave/house. Like, all of them. Including Jin Ling, who really is having a terrible time lately, and I just feel the need to note that sometimes.

As they free the children and start to leave, everyone else arrives with the plan of killing Wei Wuxian again, because once wasn’t enough and obviously he’s Up To No Good, where else would these corpses be coming from, huh? 

Speaking of corpses. 

A small army of them shows up! All the cultivators who aren’t children lose their powers! Everyone has to retreat back into the lair/cave/house where they’ll be safe! So this is all...going well.

Fortunately, everyone being stuck in one place gives Wei Wuxian the opportunity to get his Hercule Poirot on and walk everyone through a series of deductions to get them to a place of realizing that (a) they were poisoned by evil music, (b) the evil music came from Su She, (c) Su She is working for Jin Guangyao who (d) planned all of this whole ‘everyone is going to the Burial Mounds to get killed’ thing.

Su She panics, inadvertently reveals that he alone still has his powers, and teleports out. Wei Wuxian decides that a reasonable solution to all these problems is to make himself bait for all the undead so everyone else can make a run for it, because Wei Wuxian is kind of like that. 

It’s okay, though, he and Lan Wangji make a spectacular battle couple.

(Oh, yeah. Throughout here it is becoming increasingly clear that Lan Sizhui’s identity is Significant and actually we Might Have Seen Him Before.)

Back to Lotus Pier Arc, or Jin Ling Has a Very Bad Day, Continued Arc

Safely out of the Burial Mounds thanks to Wei Wuxian, everybody goes ahead and invites themselves back to Jiang Cheng’s house. To be fair, it is closest. 

My notes here say “Wen Ning figures out that Lan Sizhui is a-Yuan, Jin Ling has an emotional breakdown” which is a more or less accurate summation of the situation. Honestly, though, I feel so bad for Jin Ling at this point, he’s had an absolute nightmare of a month and then today happened and like. I feel for him.

But Wen Ning reuniting with the last remaining member of his family! Though he doesn’t...actally tell Lan Sizhui this, and Lan Sizhui doesn’t have any memories of his early years. 

Jiang Cheng reluctantly allows Wei Wuxian inside. Wen Ning has to stay on the porch, but Lan Sizhui stays with him to keep him company, because he is a good boy.

This next part...hoo boy. It’s a lot of exposition featuring two ladies who appear to relate their stories about Jin Guangyao, featuring the part where he murdered his father by using a bunch of sex workers (who then were murdered in turn, except for one), also involving necrophilia, and the one where Qin Su was Jin Guangyao’s sister, actually, and he knew it and still married her. Sect Leader Bad Takes says that’s probably why Jin Guangyao killed their kid, because children of incest inevitably have developmental problems? Yeah, sure, buddy.

Anyway, everyone starts shouting for Jin Guangyao’s head, which is very familiar to Wei Wuxian, who leaves in some disgust. While wandering with Lan Wangji, they wind up going to the family shrine (which is, to be clear, a pretty sacred place). Which is where Jiang Cheng finds them! And once again they have a reasonable and emotionally steady conversation.

Nope. Jiang Cheng talks shit trying to provoke a fight that Wei Wuxian won’t have. As he and Lan Wangji attempt to leave, Jiang Cheng pursues because he’s not done yelling dammit, lashing out with Zidian. Wei Wuxian faints, and Wen Ning arrives to stand in between him and Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng, holding Wei Wuxian’s sheathed sword (remember, the one nobody other than Wei Wuxian can draw). Wen Ning proceeds to initiate one of the single best devastating beatdowns of the show without laying a hand on Jiang Cheng, specifically by shoving the sword at Jiang Cheng and telling him to draw it, because hey you can do that now! Wonder why that is? Wouldn’t you like to know what’s going on there, Jiang Wanyin?

Remember way back when Jiang Cheng lost his core and got it back because Wei Wuxian gave him his core? Yeah, this is when he finds out about that. Psych! Your brother loves you and also the only reason you got to be as strong as you are is because he sacrificed himself for you! Which is also the reason why he took up demonic cultivation in the first place! 

Seriously, it’s so good, I love this scene. Probably one of my favorites in the whole show.

Jiang Cheng runs away; Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have a moment on a lake where Lan Wangji indulges Wei Wuxian by eating stolen lotuses with him. It’s sweeter than it sounds when I put it like that.

Guanyin Temple Arc

oh god, how do I. how do I describe Guanyin Temple. partially this is hard because by virtue of censorship about dead bodies, among probably other things, there are huge gaps that make portions of it make no sense so I’m gonna go ahead and...fill in some of those that are intelligible pretty much only with some knowledge of book plot, imo.

Wen Ning, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian go to a place called Yunping because Jin Guangyao bought some land there for some reason. There they find a slightly suspicious temple (Guanyin Temple). They come back at night, leaving Wen Ning to stand guard, and spy on the courtyard, where a bunch of conspicuously armed monks are there, along with Lan Xichen aaaaand...Jin Guangyao. 

Jin Ling arrives! And decides it’s a good idea to climb over the wall. Wei Wuxian blocks someone from shooting him by using the bamboo flute he’s been using this whole time, so he now functionally has no weapon, and also he and Lan Wangji have been exposed, so now the two of them and also Jin Ling are in the courtyard. Lan Xichen admits he was tricked and doesn’t have any of his powers. Jin Guangyao threatens Lan Wangji into sealing his by threatening Wei Wuxian with a wire. It’s sexy.

Everybody goes inside the temple, where several monks are digging up something ??? under the floor. This is never explained and that is because it is supposed to be Jin Guangyao’s mother’s body, and there are very strict rules I understand about what can be done with dead bodies in dramas like this one. Anyway, Jin Guangyao loved his mom very much and built a temple where she was buried where the statue has her face. He is exhuming her so he can take her body with him when he flees the country, which is what he was planning here. Of course, now he has a bunch of unwanted hostages (and one wanted hostage), which was not actually part of the plan.

The next person to join the party is an unconscious Nie Huaisang, brought in by Su She, who basically says “I have no idea what he was doing here but...here he is” and Jin Guangyao is like. Well, guess he’s here now. 

Next to show up is Jiang Cheng! Making an excellent and extremely dramatic entrance. Unfortunately, he still gets injured and taken down as Jin Guangyao starts poking at his very obvious emotional weak spots, including revealing that Jiang Cheng knows about the golden core thing. Wei Wuxian, who did not know that secret came out because he was unconscious at the time, goes “wait, what?” and thus ensues the epic emotional catharsis crying and yelling conversation I was waiting for for 47 episodes. Seriously, it’s really good. They end up in a place where all is not solved but things are...maybe a little better? 

Of course, they’re still hostages. 

Meanwhile, back at the dig site, something gets unearthed that is not Jin Guangyao’s mother’s body but is in fact a coffin with Nie Mingjue’s body, now complete with head, in it. The reveal also drops here that Su She has the marks that indicate he cast the curse on Jin Zixun that Jin Zixun accused Wei Wuxian of casting.

A very ugly argument ensues where everyone is poking at everyone else’s things that they’re sensitive about, until finally Lan Xichen recovers his powers and turns the tables on Jin Guangyao by putting a sword to his neck. 

The next part is basically...explaining how all the bad things that happened were Jin Guangyao’s fault? Or at least that’s the explanation given. I find it personally very frustrating as a narrative choice and sort of unnecessary, but maybe that’s just me. Anyway, Jin Guangyao is pleading for mercy from Lan Xichen, saying he’ll leave and never return, the whole thing is very emotional. 

We also find out that Jin Guangshan kicked Jin Guangyao down the stairs. People really need to stop doing that.

And now Wen Ning arrives! Punting Lan Sizhui in ahead of him. He is possessed by a very angry sword spirit (namely, Baxia). Lan Wangji cuts off Jin Guangyao’s right arm, because Lan Wangji likes doing that, apparently. Baxia-possessed Wen Ning then targets Jin Ling because Jin Ling has Jin Guangyao’s blood on him - only for Wen Ning to stop the blade with his bare hand and save Jin Ling’s life, because Wen Ning is both a badass and very good. 

Jiang Cheng throws Wei Wuxian his old flute, which he apparently has just been keeping under his bed or something for sixteen years, which is a thing that I will always never be over, and Wei Wuxian flutes the very angry sword into the Nie Mingjue-holding coffin.

Which would be fine, only then Nie Huaisang starts yelling about how Su She totally stabbed him, no, really, look, he’s bleeding. Baxia kills Su She. Then Wei Wuxian manages to put the sword back in the coffin, as well as the Yin Tiger Seal, and locks both away.

Whew.

Everybody’s sitting down and recovering a little as Lan Xichen tends Jin Guangyao’s wounds. He turns around to get medicine from Nie Huaisang, who tells him to look out because Jin Guangyao is attacking you!!! 

Lan Xichen runs Jin Guangyao through. 

Oh boy.

Jin Guangyao is a little impressed about Nie Huaisang having been plotting this all along. Because he was. He absolutely was. He’s absolutely been planning this for years. Everybody needs a hobby.

But it’s Lan Xichen who he really addresses here, telling him that he’d never hurt him. The actual line really hurts but I’m trying to not reproduce lines here, except I am going to say that he drags Lan Xichen - still with a sword through him! - deeper into the temple and says “stay and die with me” as the temple starts to collapse. Lan Xichen, who was about to strike and presumably push himself away, lowers his hand, and Jin Guangyao abruptly pushes him away and out of the collapsing building.

Romance!

(No, but seriously, it’s a lot.)

Thus ends Jin Guangyao. 

Outside in the courtyard, everyone’s taking a breather. Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian stare longingly at each other across the room and say nothing. Jiang Cheng walks away and we learn that - surprise! - the reason Jiang Cheng was caught by the Wens way back when is because he was keeping the Wens from catching Wei Wuxian instead.

Everybody in this family in just a big circle of self sacrifice. In the words of Wen Qing:

(Who misses Wen Qing? I do!)

Anyway, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian leave with each other, only to be caught on the road by Lan Sizhui and Wen Ning - Lan Sizhui, who has remembered that he was a-Yuan and finally someone tells Wei Wuxian this, and ahhhh, okay, I know what I said about limiting screencaps but I can’t not:

Now that’s what I call a hug!

They part ways again, Lan Sizhui leaving with Wen Ning for some family time and for Wen Ning to find his own way. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian...seem like they’re going in different directions, but then they’re at Cloud Recesses together, playing music, hanging out, vibing. They talk to Nie Huaisang, but don’t directly confront him about his scheming. Mostly just making sure he’s not, you know, gonna do anything else.

Then Wei Wuxian leaves to go on a roadtrip to find himself. People really do not like this, but I personally really do like this, especially because the last shots of the show are Wei Wuxian playing his and Lan Wangji’s theme song (the one that Lan Wangji wrote, remember, from the cave? It’s come up a lot, I just haven’t mentioned it here), and when he finishes Lan Wangji’s voice says “Wei Ying” and he turns around and just like. Smiles. It’s scrunchy and happy and perfect.

Like this:

aaaaaaand scene! fifty episodes later your life has been ruined and you will never be the same.

and the thing is that this is leaving out, like. a lot, and probably is biased because I focus on different things than another person would, &c &c, but at least it might be a starting point for...the entire plot.

and also congratulations if you made it this far, I am impressed. have a screenshot of wei wuxian as a reward, whose mental breakdown does make him look sexy

you’re welcome.