#he's mostly right though its more to do with distress rather than emotions in general

[nightingaletrash]

Dredge has me thinking of an AU where Cross says ‘fuck you’ and wipes out the Blackwatch goons + Randall in Antarctica, takes Katya away, and goes into hiding as a nobody fisherman in the Marrows. Sure maybe the occasional fish comes in looking real fucked up, but that’s definitely Nothing to do with Katya, no sir. Its either pollution or some weird Cthulu shit and he’s sticking to his guns on that.

[ddarker-dreams]

Yan Adult Trio “Love” Languages.

Chrollo: 

Chrollo’s way of showing his love is Quality Time. 

Chrollo, by default, keeps himself busy. Traveling to scope out future heists, selling off items that no longer interest him, etc. So even he is somewhat taken aback by the urge to spend lots of uninterrupted time with you. From the three listed here, Chrollo is going to spend the most time with you. Whether that’s a good thing or not is up to your discretion. 

While you busy yourself with various things, Chrollo will come into the room and sit near you. It’s become a regular occurrence. He normally reads or drinks tea, stealing glances at you every now and then. You’ll both remain in silence until Chrollo feels like striking up a conversation. 

“What are you working on? You look quite focused, whatever it is. I’m almost jealous of the attention you’re giving it.”

He enjoys partaking in everyday activities with you. When you grow tired of opposing him, it makes for a decent distraction. Cooking together, gardening, even cleaning. Chrollo wasn’t kidding when he said he could make you forget about those pesky negative feelings if you gave him the chance. 

“Let’s do whatever you’d like this evening,” Chrollo offers, having settled into a comfortable routine with you. “Maybe we can even go for a walk later, though that depends on you.” 

It’s a guilty pleasure of his to run his lips over your neck. He’ll look up at you through lidded eyes, fighting back a smile at how your pulse quickens beneath him. Chrollo knew what he was doing when he made your wardrobe mostly off-shoulder tops. It feeds into a strong urge to mark you as his own, an impulse he doesn’t bother repressing. 

Hisoka:

Hisoka’s way of showing his love is Physical Touch. 

This man cannot keep his hands to himself for the life of him. The way your cheeks flush is addicting, he wishes he could frame that sweet expression and keep it all to himself. The cherry on top would be when you try to conceal your embarrassment. It makes him want to play with you even more, unfortunately having the opposite effect than what you intended.

He cherishes sneaking up behind you. Hisoka will wrap his arms around your torso, hot breath fanning against your ear, the scent of vanilla borderline suffocating. He thinks it’s endearing if you squirm in his grasp. When he finally lets you go, you’ll find yourself unable to move away, as he activates Bungee Gum to keep you in place. Then proceeds to mercilessly tease you for staying oh so close to him. 

“Now, now, what’s this? Here I was, thinking you were trying to get away. If you wanted to be this close to me, all you needed to do was ask.” 

Bungee Gum is the second worst thing to happen to you, Hisoka taking first place. He’ll attach your hand to a surface, preventing you from doing whatever you need to do at the time, observing your futile attempts at freeing yourself with amusement. When you’re at peak frustration, he’ll saunter over to offer an out. 

Hisoka bends down to inspect you. A long, manicured fingernail points to his cheekbone, tapping once. “Give me a kiss here and maybe I’ll think about letting you go ♥.” 

When Hisoka barges back into your life after disappearing for a while, he acts like a giant cat. Constantly draping himself over you, refusing to let you focus on tasks when he’s around, generally making a nuisance of himself. Hisoka acts like your residence is his own and you don’t have a say in the matter. 

Illumi: 

Illumi’s way of showing is love is Acts of Service.

Illumi’s not familiar to love as a concept. He’d take a clinical approach to it, feeling almost robotic, looking more for results than anything else. He sees it as a tool to further cement your position in his life rather than an expression of heartfelt adoration. You might get the impression he’s following a list of steps if he’s trying to romance you, giving flowers with a blank expression and offering monotonous compliments. 

The closest thing you’ll ever receive from him would be offers to give you what you want. If Illumi’s already this involved with you, you’re going to be living on Zoldyck grounds, no questions about it. He personally oversees the elements of your life that are most important. Other than basic necessities, he’d be amiable to you asking things of him. 

Illumi can ultimately be tone-deaf when it comes to pleasing you. He’ll casually mention offing a coworker you complained about once, fully expecting your gratitude for taking the time to do so. Should you express your horror at his actions, he’d be confused, wondering why you’re upset about it when you expressed dislike for them. 

“What? They were annoying, weren’t they? You said so yourself. I don’t get why you’re reacting this way.” 

He’s oddly attentive to your needs, which is confusing in its own right. Your emotional distress doesn’t get you far, but if you run out of your favorite snack, it’s treated as a high priority problem. Illumi’s prioritization is mind-boggling. You’ll be physically comfortable and miserable in every other regard. 

Illumi shoots you an optimistic look. “This dessert is one of your favorites, isn’t it? I remembered.”  

[robininthelabyrinth]

Beautifully Spent

aka Five Times Lan Qiren Left The Lan Sect Behind

- Chapter 4 -

Lan Qiren’s lips were bloody from coughing.

Coughing and coughing, choking on blood until it flowed from all seven apertures, and he couldn’t seem to stop no matter how hard he tried.

And he did try – he didn’t dare let anyone see him now.

The injury was a few years old now, and would never leave him, yet most of the time it was under control, manageable. If anyone saw his current state, they might ask what had happened to trigger this current attack.

The original injury had happened when the Wen sect had invaded the Cloud Recesses. Lan Qiren had maintained their shields to the best of his ability, spending life as well as power to keep them back long enough for Lan Xichen to take the sect’s most precious books and escape; when he could hold on no more, he had taken his sword and his guqin both, and tried to fight back as best as he could. He was no fighter, in his view, but his swordsmanship was decent enough and he knew the Lan sect spells of destruction well – though that, too, had exhausted his spiritual energy.

And then there had been Wen Xu.

Wen Xu had broken Lan Wangji’s leg, Lan Qiren remembered, before taking him away to the Nightless City as a hostage. He remembered that, hated him for that; he would have endured any pain a thousand times over rather than let Lan Wangji be hurt. And yet, shamefully, he hated Wen Xu for hurting Lan Wangji at least in part because he didn’t want to think about how Wen Xu had treated him. ‘A teacher for a day, a father for a lifetime’ – Lan Qiren had never taught Wen Xu, but Wen Xu had feelings about his father that he didn’t dare express to the man himself, and it seemed that having any measure of authority was enough to draw his ire.

After, Lan Qiren had saved his own life through his excellent memory and grasp of healing spells, as well as a newly discovered ability to cast them even through such imperfect mediums as broken whistling or barely audible tapping. When his own life had been preserved, he had unwisely thrown himself into using his abilities on those others in his sect that needed it, the ones on the verge of death, stabilizing their spirits even as their doctors raced to heal their bodies. And so, by the time the doctors had finally reached him, there was no helping it; the overreach had crippled him, leaving horrific spiritual wounds that would never fully heal for the rest of his life. Wounds which were aggravated by stress.

The Sunshot Campaign had been – very stressful.

There had been nothing anyone could do about that, of course. His nephews were in danger, his sect in pieces; he had gone from a puppet interim leader, useful only for warming the seat for the next generation, to a leader of displaced refugees, painstakingly rebuilding after disaster. When the war started in earnest, he had even taken on the mantle of general, no matter how poor his fighting skills or his health – his sect needed him, his nephews needed him, and so he would serve.

He had served.

He had fought in battles both actual and political, using his sword and his music and his knowledge of the rules equally as weapons, and now at the end of the war Lan Xichen was sect leader in truth, as he ought to be. Even the sect elders that had so bedeviled Lan Qiren - those that had survived, anyway - were subordinate to his rule, as they should be.

And Lan Wangji…

Lan Wangji had survived the war. They had been happy for a time, they had been rebuilding – and then – and then –

Lan Qiren pressed his hand to his mouth as he coughed, the bitter and metallic taste of blood on his lips. His eyes blurred, and he thought he might be leaking blood from his eyes again, and that only happened in the very worst attacks of disordered qi.

No one must see.

No one must ask why.

In order to avoid anyone seeing him, Lan Qiren turned to make his way off the main path, blindly blundering forward, allowing his legs to go wherever they would, relying on ingrained habit more than actual sense to avoid crashing into something. He wasn’t sure where he ended up collapsing onto hands and knees, choking and gasping for air, desperately trying to calm his disordered mind and disheveled spirit, but no one had raised an alarm to summon a doctor or Lan Xichen, which meant it was good enough.

He didn’t want a doctor.

He didn’t want Lan Xichen, either. If Lan Xichen asked him what the matter was, he would be obligated to respond – do not tell lies. But no, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t say, not even if he was asked; rather, he would refuse to answer, opting for the punishment for refusal to obey his sect leader rather than reveal the truth. But that in itself would be a sort of answer: Lan Xichen would try to figure out what had caused the fit, and probably would, and then they would know.

They would all know.

“Shufu?”

Lan Qiren trembled and turned his face away as if that would help. He could scarcely hear, see only in vague blurs. Coughs wracked his body, the fault of his own stupid and uncontrollable emotions that caused his qi to become unstable and his mind to be too unsettled to play himself calming music to control it –

“No doctor,” he rasped, reaching out for Lan Xichen’s hands, for it must be Lan Xichen that had come to him. Lan Xichen respected him, he could ask him to help hide away – perhaps he could ask him to trust him, to not ask any questions. His nephew, turned headstrong in the war, might not listen, but he could always ask…

The hands that took his own were callused in familiar ways, the marks of the sword and the guqin alike; it was the signifying marks of any member of the Lan sect. But it was also familiar in other ways, too, and Lan Qiren sighed in relief, recognizing the little details – the tiny circular scar on the thumb that came from an adventurous cooking accident at age five, the slightly protruding knuckles that the diviners said suggested stubbornness, the absence of calluses unique to playing the xiao.

“Wangji,” he murmured. “Wangji, why are you here? You’re not well…”

Lan Wangji was supposed to be in seclusion.

No, that was a lie, and do not tell lies. Lan Wangji was supposed to be lying in bed, healing from the horrible injury they’d inflicted on him. Thirty-three strikes with the discipline whip, scarring him for life…it had been the lightest punishment Lan Qiren could devise that would satisfy his sect and the demands of justice and yet salvage Lan Wangji’s reputation, allowing him to go free in the future. It was the greatest kindness Lan Qiren could orchestrate given what Lan Wangji had done: he had attacked his own sect elders, violently defending a murderer even as the man wrought havoc and brought death to his own kin. He had gone even further than what his father had done, and the sect had been livid.

A punishment was necessary, and only the form was the question.

Lan Qiren had himself devised the punishment that had nearly crippled his nephew, knowing that pain and loneliness were things could be borne and healed in time, knowing that isolation could not be. He remembered He Kexin’s imprisonment, the way she looked into the future and saw nothing but more of the same, and he knew, too, that a bad reputation could be as imprisoning as the walls of a prison.

He had tried to pick the right punishment. He had tried to salvage the most important parts of Lan Wangji’s soul, his life, his future. Had he done enough?

Lan Wangji had accepted the imposition of discipline, at least; he had even demanded it, when Lan Xichen tried to find additional ways to mitigate it further. And then, when it was done, he had refused to speak to either Lan Xichen or Lan Qiren since, even though they came regularly to his side to play healing music and supervise the doctors as they cared for him.

It had by now been nearly two years, and he still did not speak to them. The last words he had said to them were an exhortation to care for the war orphan he had adopted –

Lan Qiren spat black blood onto the ground.

“Shufu!”

When Lan Qiren next opened his eyes, his head still spinning a little, he was lying on the bed in the Gentian House. He recognized it, of course, and not just from its time as He Kexin’s prison. Lan Wangji had stubbornly picked it as the place in which he would enter seclusion – it was far enough out of the way to be an acceptable suggestion. Lan Qiren nearly laughed as he realized how he must have gotten there, why Lan Wangji was able to be the one to find him: his body still remembering to walk the path to visit He Kexin even though he had not gone even once since her death.

He stopped himself from laughing only because he knew that any laughter would be tinged with unhealthy hysteria.

Beside his bed, Lan Wangji was sitting in the place that Lan Qiren usually sat, pale-faced and tired, playing back to Lan Qiren the same songs of healing that they played for him – mostly Lan Qiren, really, since Lan Xichen’s duties kept him very busy, and moreover the sight of Lan Wangji, injured as he was, caused Lan Xichen great distress.

Lan Xichen preferred to distance himself from the things that caused him distress, and Lan Qiren could scarcely blame him, even if he himself was now counted among their number. He was a reminder of what they had joined hands to do to Lan Wangji. If Lan Qiren could turn away from his own face in the mirror, he would do so, so how could he blame Lan Xichen for a bit of coldness, a bit of distance?

If it made Lan Xichen feel better, Lan Qiren would take all the blame for everything, but he even couldn’t do that properly.

“You shouldn’t strain yourself,” he said to Lan Wangji, whose fingers stilled on the guqin. “Do not be reckless with your qi or spend your spiritual energy carelessly. It will injure you further, and your health is paramount –”

“Shufu,” Lan Wangji said, and his voice was hoarse for lack of use. “Your health is important, too.”

Lan Qiren shook his head in negation. “Wangji, one day your wounds will heal and you will leave this place,” he said, and it was suddenly urgent for Lan Wangji to understand. “You are angry with us now, I know, whether for inflicting the punishment on you or for standing against your love, but it was the only way to keep others from knowing – if your reputation is clean and your health good, you will be able to go anywhere you like, as often as you like. You won’t have to stay…”

As I did, he thought but did not say. He was accustomed to biting his tongue about things like that – he was accustomed by now not even to think it. It was only the agony that had brought it back to him, for a little while.

“Shufu,” Lan Wangji said, and his voice shook. Lan Qiren regretted nothing more in his life than causing his nephews pain, and yet he had had a hand in so much of it. “Shufu, what happened? Why are you like this?”

“Wen Xu –”

“Not generally. Today. Why would you not see a doctor?”

Lan Qiren faltered.

“Shufu?”

Lan Wangji should know, Lan Qiren thought. “I was concerned,” he admitted.

Lan Wangji frowned.

There was no kind way to put it. “Sizhui’s original surname was Wen.”

Lan Wangji stiffened.

He knew, then. Of course he knew.

“No one else knows,” Lan Qiren assured him. “The fever erased most of his memories, and he is very young. No one has any reason to suspect he is anything more than the nameless war-orphan you presented him as, and I will not tell anyone, not even if they ask; I would evade it, and take punishment rather than answer if they ask directly. And yet it is so dangerous – there are so many cultivators, here and elsewhere, that swore blood feud against the Wen for what they did, vowing to eliminate them root and branch until none of them were left…”

“Not you?”

“Oaths must be taken seriously,” Lan Qiren said. “After seeing what an oath of vengeance did to Nie Mingjue, however well meant it had been at the start, how could I ever swear any oath that involved killing?”

Lan Wangji nodded slowly. “How did you learn of it?”

“He forgot most of his memories, but not all – he said some things that made me think of it, and I remember, as few others do, what Wen Xu looked like, when he was young. When you think about it, there are many hints, whether in terms of timing or the known existence of a child at the Burial Mounds; that he has not yet been discovered has been largely through the beneficence of fate.”

Fate, and the fact that Lan Wangji had been in seclusion, although Lan Qiren was loathe to mention it.

Up until now, Lan Qiren had been the one largely in charge of raising little Lan Sizhui, a temporary measure while Lan Wangji healed. As a result, people generally assumed that he had been the one to adopt him – no one would expect him to take up the Yiling Patriarch’s bastard Wen child, as the people traveling through Yiling had once called him. But when Lan Wangji came out and took charge of him once more, Lan Qiren wasn’t so sure that the pretense would last; his sect, at least, knew how Lan Wangji felt about Wei Wuxian, and they might put together the truth just as he had done…

Lan Qiren could not guarantee that the Lan sect would be a safe place for Lan Sizhui. He could do his best, and would; he could keep the secret, he could try to muddy the waters and hide the facts, but if it ever got out…

It would only need one person to be blinded by anger and hate and the trauma of war. Only one person to raise their hand, and raise their voice, and then everything would fall to pieces. And yet, knowledge was an inexorable river, pressing against a dam – it could not be stopped, only averted…

“My health is poor,” Lan Qiren said, a terrible idea presenting itself to him in one moment and appearing the only possible answer in the next. “Perhaps I should go seek somewhere that would improve it.”

Lan Wangji looked at him, puzzled.

Lan Qiren met his eyes. “Your brother does not speak to me much these days,” he admitted, and ignored the flash of pain and anger in Lan Wangji’s eyes. Even if Lan Wangji disapproved, Lan Qiren did not blame Lan Xichen for it, even if it disappointed him; he understood the emotions behind his eldest nephew’s retreat all too well. “He would consent if I sought a retreat to some more restful place – and I think he would allow me an escort.”

Understanding lit Lan Wangji’s eyes. “Myself and Sizhui?”

“At least until the boy is old enough to know what to say and what not to say,” Lan Qiren confirmed, though in all honesty he wasn’t sure how long that would take, or if Lan Wangji, once released, would ever willingly come back.

“But – shufu – your teaching –”

“Who am I teaching now? There was no time for classes during the Sunshot Campaign, and we are still rebuilding; there are no classes to be held now. Other than helping your brother, who scarcely needs it, I have nothing else to do – and anyway my health really is as bad as all that. It may do well for you to get some experience in the world.”

To know what it was like to be free, Lan Qiren meant. Lan Wangji was still weak, but the worst of the discipline whip had faded into scars. It would be possible for him to go.

Lan Wangji considered for a little while.

“Yes,” he said eventually, and then suddenly smiled, which Lan Qiren had not seen him do in years and years, long ago, before the whip, before the Sunshot Campaign and the burning of the Cloud Recesses, back in the days before his too-serious adolescence… “Shufu can play the guqin as we go.”

Lan Qiren felt his ears heat up at the reminder of his old dream. “Wangji, really! I’m too old and respectable to take up as a traveling musician.”

“Not at all,” Lan Wangji said, looking pleased with himself. “Perhaps we will stay in inns instead of stables and play music to your former students rather than to strangers, but it will be good.”

Perhaps so. That was the longest sentence he had heard Lan Wangji utter in ages – perhaps it would be good for him to go, too, rather than just being for Lan Sizhui’s sake.

“I will raise it with Xichen,” Lan Qiren said, but Lan Wangji shook his head and pressed him back down.

“I will talk to Brother myself,” he said firmly. “You rest.”

Lan Qiren watched him go.

Perhaps it would work out after all, he thought, and closed his eyes. Perhaps…

[prompt-master]

Bear Trap (Part 1/3)

Request fill for @hibiscuswolverine and art done by @doodles-by-noodles

The world was starting to heal.

Little by little, everyone who survived Hope's Peak Academy's killing game was bringing about change to the world. It had only just started, and they likely wouldn't live to see their vision fully realized, but there was hope. Hope the world hadn't seen since the tragedy broke out in the first place.

Yep, Naegi Makoto had a lot of work to do, but he also already had so much to be proud of. He and the survivors had already proven themselves to adapt to a world that was nothing like the one they left behind. They had been given a warning from Enoshima Junko herself, but even with the knowledge of killer robots and rampaging despair-induced rioters nothing could really prepare them for life on the outside.

Honestly, they had never expected to make it to where they were right now. Proud members of the Future Foundation, able to work together with the higher ups to take down the biggest threats against the world's progression. It felt like just yesterday they were sleeping in the rubble of what once were apartments, tightly packed together in case anything were to break in. And now Makoto stood proud and tall, going over his next mission on video call with a member of one of the higher divisions.

"I suppose I shouldn't be terribly surprised that the Ultimate Hope would be so adamant on these matters."

Makoto smiled, still as strong and inspiring as it had been back in the killing game, "Really, you don't have to call me that. I'm nothing special, just Naegi is fine."

She completely ignored him, looking over the notes he'd sent to her one last time. He and Aoi had accidentally discovered a distress call from a group of survivors in an unsafe area. There was no way he could ignore something like that, he wouldn't ignore any possibility that someone was suffering like his class did. Even if there was an equal possibility that it was a trap.

"Well, your plan asks for Ultimate Detective Kirigiri Kyoko and Ultimate Affluent Progeny Togami Byakuya to go with you. With those two, plus the Ultimate Hope, equipped with hacking guns then I see no reason to be concerned for any mishaps. Your mission is approved."

Makoto's smile widened at that, feeling a rush of pride and hope at her words, "We won't let you down! Promise!"

She didn't even look up at him, simply humming to let him know she heard. But he could tell, there was a slight smile on her face. Makoto managed to melt his fair share of hearts even if he couldn't explain how. The call blinked off, and Makoto shut his laptop gently, but with no regard to what it was running.

He let out a loud sigh, slouching back into his chair. Any and all office calls felt so nerve wracking. Each one held its own weight in importance. Every exchange oversaw the future. He pulled his arms over his head, stretching them as far as they could go.

He could already feel himself getting pumped up. A small, prideful smirk snuck it's way onto his face. The plan wasn't anything extreme, but he knew with his friends by his side it would all be ok. They were meant to go together in a group so that they could protect themselves in the event of a trap or other unforeseen circumstances. The distress call came from a fallen city mostly blocked off by a collapsed building. They would drop off inside the city's bounds, and continue on foot to find any survivors they could. They knew there would be some despaired within, but that was a given anywhere they went now.

It would all be worth it to save them.

Now he just had to tell Byakuya and Kyoko the good news

It was clear to anyone near the survivors that Byakuya, Kyoko, and Makoto were a force to be reckoned with. While the general public has no qualms with calling Makoto the leader of the group, it was more so all three of them were coleading. Each taking charge in their own way, from the start of their new lives to now. The three of them were all incredibly smart in their own ways and their combined skills lead to a team that could likely conquer any despair they faced. But it took an even closer eye to see the emotional connection the three shared with each other. 

Makoto walked in front, leading since he had heard the distress call in the first place. It was certainly an interesting relationship that the three had. Although Makoto certainly didn't see himself as the leading type it seemed that Byakuya and Kyoko both trusted his guidance entirely. And he did the same for them. There was no way to describe the significance that lay underneath the floorboards of their bond. For the two most emotionally shut off of the survivors to so openly trust him? To Makoto that was enough to lay their hearts out in the open for him to see. And not to mention…

Makoto glanced back at the two. Byakuya was messing around with his hacking gun, glasses slipping down his nose, and hair nearly hiding his eyes from Makoto's view. Kyoko was taking in her surroundings, trying to figure out sooner rather than later if this whole thing was just a trap as suspected. Her eyes may be void of emotion but the color and warmth was vast. Makoto faced forward again, his face feeling just a bit hot. 

They were both really pretty. 

No, no he can't focus on his silly crushes. Yes, crushes plural. Because Makoto's sensitive heart was so big he managed to give it away to two different people. That didn't matter right now though, because the focus was on the mission. 

The town was about as decimated as it looked from the outside. It reminded him of his first experiences out in the new world, making him wonder how many survivors might be hiding under rubble, scared to come out. So far they hadn't run into any sort of trouble. No robots, no despaired, no survivors. There was really...nothing here. It was starting to look more and more like a trap. 

Makoto stopped walking at a split path, "The call said to find the convenience store but...I can't tell where to go since everything's been destroyed." 

Byakuya came to stand by his side, "Not that it should matter much all things considered. Let's just get this over with so we can clear out those insane idiots and rebuild this place already." 

"Togami-kun!" Makoto pouted, Byakuya may have softened up but he still had a habit of harsh thinking first, "don't say that. I'm sure there has to be someone here who needs saving. There's people who need to be rescued everywhere we go!" 

"Indeed" Kyoko chimed in, "but it's not a bad line of thought. If we stage a rebuilding operation here then that increases our chances of finding survivors then if only a search team walked around." 

Byakuya smirked, pushing up his glasses in that annoyingly arrogant way of his, "And to do that, we need to weed out the problems first no?" 

"Yes...yes we do." 

"Besides what would you rather do? Try to talk to the despaired? And get clubbed again?" 

"It was one time, Togami-kun!" 

Byakuya laughed, placing his hands on his hips as he looked around, "Come now, this way. All these buildings are too destroyed to make any sort of distinctions regardless. And by your sentimental logic we should be checking more than just the given location, wouldn't you agree." 

Byakuya didn't wait for an answer, he walked ahead to begin searching the first building to their left. Makoto had to break into a light jog to catch up to him; damn your long legs Togami! 

That marked the start of their exploration, building after building. They found nothing. Not to mention everywhere seemed like it has been residential, no sign of the store they were told the survivors were. Even Makoto felt like something was a little bit off but he couldn't quite place his finger on it. Regardless he kept up hope, he had heard those survivors speak with complete clarity in their voice. They had to be here. He wouldn't give up over a simple bad feeling. 

Byakuya stepped over broken glass, moving further into the crumpled home he was currently inspecting. A surprisingly intact kitchenette caught his eye, and decided a thorough search was necessary without telling his company. Although they didn't need much prompting to understand when he went off trail again. Kyoko thought if he was going to focus on possible material goods stored away in this forgotten piece of life, then she could at least see if there was any current piece of life hiding away as well. Makoto stood at the door of the house. He'd given nothing more than a glance to Byakuya before turning toward the outdoors again. Looking for anything. Any sign of life lurking under the foreboding red sky. 

Nothing. 

He sighed, turning his attention down to what used to be a grass area. Not much was left of that, in fact it looked almost like any plant life besides the weeds in the street cracks were...set on fire. The ground had this grey ashy feeling to it. And when Makoto scuffed it with his shoe….yeah, that was definitely the remains of something burning. That was a good sign right? It meant that someone was alive. This couldn't have been that long ago. 

Makoto opened his mouth to call for his friends, when a cold hand slapped over his mouth and forcefully tugged him backwards. 

Huh

Huh?!

Makoto was immediately kicking and yelling. He bucked like a disturbed wild animal, trying everything he could to get out. Wiggling, kneeing, elbowing, even trying to bite the hand over his mouth but none disturbed the individual. The house was getting farther and farther away but his voice was too muffled to ever reach it. There was heavy breathing in his ear, the air wet and warm against his skin in a way that made his body shudder. He forced himself to look up at his kidnapper. An individual with a wide smile on their face and eyes that spoke of a spiraling psyche. Everything about them...from their expression to their actions to their lack of reaction to pain...it all said despair. 

Eventually Makoto was dragged into the street and thrown down like a slab of meat. Makoto was about to scream again for help, when a hand quickly reached out for him. He couldn't help but flinch back, shoulders bunching up in an attempt to shrink away. His tie was yanked off, the force pulling his body upwards. When the tie snapped off he fell back again, he could feel rocks digging into his skin from the fall. Then his hands were tied behind his back. This was bad. This was so bad. Bad didn't even BEGIN to cover it. 

His captor came uncomfortably close, having lost all concept of personal space in the madness the end of the world has provided. Makoto tried his best to keep calm as they placed their arms to either side of him so that they were above, staring down below. There was a tense moment where neither moved, they simply tried to catch their breaths so that the silence would stop being filled with panting. It felt like a test. Like they were waiting for him to even dare to try to escape. They wanted to show Makoto what happened when he disobeyed! He could see it in their eyes! In the manicale look, in the smile that kept opening and closing like a strange gutted fish. The way their arms trembled and shook by Makoto's head, just waiting with the high of excitement.

Arms still shaking, mouth overflowing with spittle and pupils pinprick sharp, they began to slowly lower themselves. Makoto held his breath, willing his body to sink further into the concrete. His heels scraped against the ground, but he willed himself not to move in fear that any sign of escape would reward him with a slit throat. Their noses pressed against each other. The captor let out a shaky relieved sigh, as if the contact was the greatest thing they'd felt in a long time. Their eyelids fell half lidded, their smirk from excited to downright sadistic.

"I've got you now, Mr. Ultimate Hope."

Stay calm. You've dealt with this kind of person before. 

Makoto's nails gave a tug as he ran them against the concrete in an attempt to ground himself, dirt filling the space between skin and keratin. His heart hammered in his chest as if he were a scared rabbit, but there was no time to panic here. His life depended on it.  The despaired were completely delusional...which meant..

Makoto felt a laugh rise out of him, nervous and high in pitch.  A bit too high in pitch. He scraped the ground again, enough so that it began to hurt from the force. Calm down. Stay fucking calm. 

"Heh...heheh! Yeah! You got me..!" A smile graced his face, "what did you...get me for?" 

They pulled back, but not enough so that the pungent smell of smoke and ash left Makoto's nose. Their head tilted, daring to make an innocent face, "You know who you are, right?" 

"I do. And who are you?" 

Their body moved back and forth as they laughed with everything they had, their knees closing in so that Makoto could feel it against his leg. "Me? Me? Mememe?? Forget that! You're the Ultimate Hope!"

"That's right…" 

"I wonder what Miss Junko would say right now. Seeing you pinned down like this?" Their eyes flickered to the sky at the fantasy that no doubt filled their mind. 

Makoto tried his hardest not to cringe, and just attempted to change the subject instead, "Do you want me to do something for you?" It was a loaded question. One that made Makoto feel like he was picking all the wrong dialogue choices. 

"I do!" 

Progress. He wasn't sure if it was good progress, but it was, in fact, progress. 

"What's that?" 

Their voice dropped to a whisper, waning and cracking in excitement once again. They reached into their pocket. 

"I want you to watch this" 

They pulled out a little remote that looked horribly put together. Even with how much their hand trembled he could see that it was made of what seemed to be the remains of a torn apart scrap pile. Before Makoto could ask what they meant, they pressed the only button built in. 

What ensued was a large explosion. 

------

BOOM 

A loud eardrum breaking noise filled the previous silence. Byakuya was forced to grip the kitchen countertop as the world around him shook, a sudden intense burst of wind following soon after. The heat uncomfortable against his face. He made his way to the open wall, Kyoko not far behind him. 

"Was that an explosion?" Kyoko asked, not wanting to waste any time. 

Byakuya looked outside at the smoke and fire that overtook the sky. It was suffocating just to look at. Shit, it was definitely a trap then. "Looks like it" 

They watched frozen, transfixed on the horror as a building toppled from where it was standing, joining the others as rubble for them to walk on. They still stayed in place. They knew there was nothing they could do to prevent or help the issue. 

Byakuya was so focused on the sight, thinking about how he had to call for an early pick up that he didn't even notice until Kyoko asked. 

"Where's Naegi?" 

------

Makoto gasped and gasped as he ran for his life. After whatever that person had rigged went off he found himself surprisingly not being pinned anymore as the person sat cackling nearby. He had managed to slip away when more despaired came over and argued with the individual who had been pinning him.  Now he was running as fast as he could hoping he wouldn't get caught once again. 

He struggled against his traitorous tie, feeling it chafe against his wrists uncomfortably. Untying it would have been enough of a challenge without the running aspect. Now he found himself tripping over his own feet trying to think about the two things at once. 

Before he knew it, his feet had slipped right out from under him and he barely caught himself before faceplanting. 

Taking the fall as a hint, he stopped to catch his breath, looking around the area to gauge where he was. It seemed like more of the same until he saw a rather structurally sound convenience store. It was surprisingly big too for how little damage it had. A smile overtook his face. Aren't I lucky? Maybe the people inside can help me get this dang tie off. 

After letting his breathing calm down he made his way toward the store. Elation filled his heart, a familiar hope that kept him going. He knew it couldn't have all been a trap! Almost there now. Once inside he'd have someone untie his hands, and then he'd find his friends and-

His friends. He hoped Byakuya and Kyoko were safe. He had no idea how far the damage of the explosion traveled, but if it was enough to collapse an entire building there was certainly the risk of them being in hot water. Not to mention the multiple despaired that were walking around, who knows what sort of danger they could walk into. Then again, if anyone was capable of holding their own it would be Byakuya and Kyoko. But he should probably focus on his own safety instead of imagining Byakuya and Kyoko taking down their enemies in the most attractive way possible-

He was right there. He'd reached the convenience store. All the windows were covered up so that he couldn't see inside, but he knew someone inside was waiting. He just had to- huh? What's that? 

Makoto looked down to see a familiar, very unwelcome sight. It was a Monokuma with yellow and black stripes. At the top of its head was a red siren. And they were making eye contact. 

"Shi-" 

Instinctively he reeled back at the loud, sharp noise. The sound raised and lowered it's pitch smoothly, reminding him of tsunami drills he had to do back when he was in school and the implications it brought were similarly horrifying.

So much for being lucky. Makoto felt himself panicking again, the siren was loud enough to hurt his ears. He couldn't tell if his ears were ringing or if the siren was just that obnoxious. But he didn't have time to complain about that. The noise and the light… no doubt others would be coming soon. 

"Shh...shhhh!! Stop it!" He couldn't break the machine with his hands the way they were...he had to settle for getting help. 

Makoto stopped in his tracks before he could approach the door of the convenience store however, because there was someone watching him through the window. They'd opened the curtain to check what the commotion was. Makoto saw no madness or instability in their eyes...the survivors really WERE here. Makoto smiled, wishing he could wave and gesture for help, but he had to hope his expression was enough. 

The survivor frowned, eyes fixated on the Siren Monokuma. Without looking at Makoto again they closed the curtain.

No one was coming to help. 

Makoto backed away. That's ok. There was still a chance. If he ran quick enough maybe he could get away before reinforcements arrived. 

The growling he heard mocked his fruitless thoughts. That was the deranged sounds a Beast Monokuma made…he couldn't hope to outrun one of those. They were like real rabid bears but worse because they never got tired. They never stopped running once they had you in its sights, just like this one. 

But Makoto tried anyway to flee, only to end up taking a riot shield to the face from a Guard Monokuma. 

"Oof!" 

He fell back hard feeling all air leave his lungs. The snarling and pounding of the Beast Monokuma was getting louder. Too loud. Makoto rolled onto his side, scrambling to get up. He winced as a claw grazed his cheek, first blood of the night welling up. 

He felt like an insignificant worm with how he desperately rolled on the floor, hoping to find good enough footing in his panic to stand. But when he got to his knees he was met with another riot shield. He almost didn't react in time to dodge another slash from the Beast, managing to get the tie around his wrists cut. 

He'd never gotten to his feet so quickly before in his life. Bits of gravel stuck to his palms and blood ran down his right arm. He scrambled to find something -anything- to defend himself with, but he was already surrounded. It was too late to even bother going for the Siren Monokuma. How the hell was he supposed to-? 

He yelled out as sharp metal claws dug into his back, seemingly deep enough that he feared for his spine. The claws rake along his back as the beast removes them. If that wasn't enough to bring him back to reality, he was quickly overwhelmed, bruises being beaten into every inch of his skin from the shields, and slashes from regular Monokuma's on his arms. And worse of all the Beast Monokuma that was trying its best to chomp his head off with it's twitchy manic movements. He tried his best to fend it off, pushing at it personally with his bare hands despite the continuous relentless assault he was receiving. 

Another good hit with a shield and his hands slipped. In a split second moment that he didn't even get to think about, he reached a leg up and kicked at its face. He only had a moment of victory.

It bit down on his leg and didn't let go.

Now the interesting thing about Makoto is that even though he doesn't seem capable, he's grown to be able to keep himself calm when it mattered. Even at his own execution, where he was slowly heading towards his untimely demise, With frequent reminders of what was about to come, he had managed to keep as calm as possible. Even well he fell stories down into the garbage. He refused to make a peep and panic when every one of his friends could see. But right now no friends were watching.

Naegi Makoto screamed.

-----

"I'm going to kill Naegi my damn self for running off when we find him." Byakuya was, as per usual, annoyed as hell. 

Kyoko sighed, "Calm down. I'm sure there's a reason, you know he isn't like that." 

Byakuya rolled his eyes, but didn't say a word. Kyoko was completely right, but he would never give her the satisfaction of admitting that. His silence was enough. 

They had made way for the source of the explosion only to find the path to the other side of the city was completely blocked off by the collapsed structure. Due to the closed off nature of the cities remains that left them with only one option: go the long way around and hope those entrances aren't blocked as well. 

When it was just Kyoko and Byakuya there was always this weird silence. Sometimes comfortable, sometimes tense. Makoto was always the one to fill it, he was like the bridge between the two. Kyoko wished he could tell Byakuya to cheer up -his attitude was getting on her nerves- but Makoto's absence was the whole reason for it in the first place. 

"Keep your guard up" she reminded, her own hand staying close to the pouch strapped to her thigh. Inside was an all weather purpose mini notepad and a handheld taser. She quite liked her taser, it was both heavy hitting and satisfied Makoto's wish to not kill anyone: even the despaired. "I'm certain that explosion was rigged up by a person." 

Byakuya scoffed, "I am Togami Byakuya" he kindly reminded her. Kyoko rolled her eyes, she'd heard that way too many times to count. "My guard is always up and my reaction time is perfect. Maybe you should worry about yourself instead." 

"Incorrigible as usual, I see." 

He glared back down at her, still walking forward with overconfident strides, "I'll have you know-" 

There it is. Another rant which consisted only of Byakuya boasting about his own skills. She shut him out without a second thought, focusing on her surroundings instead. It's not as though Byakuya would provide any sort of new information anyway. 

"Wait." She interrupted, which Byakuya hated, but his feelings be damned, "do you hear that?" 

Byakuya paused, facing towards the direction she was looking. There was a sound in the distance, something familiar. It was far, but if he focused hard enough he could figure it out. 

Kyoko and Byakuya looked at each other, both having recognized the siren's undeniable screech at the same time. With a nod, they began to run. Makoto or not, whoever was caught by that Siren Monokuma was in danger. Byakuya steadied his hacking gun in his hand and Kyoko effortlessly pulled her taser from it's bounds. Despite their great desire to find Makoto meer seconds ago, they hoped that anyone else would be caught by the Monokuma's. But, this was Makoto after all. 

It took an undetermined amount of time for them to loop around to the convenience store, but the time spent felt uncomfortably long to them both. When they did arrive they found it was a chaotic mess. There was a group of Monokuma's huddled together over one unseen person. There was blood scraped across the concrete as though someone was dragged with their horrible injuries and all. But there were no sounds of a struggle. The sight was more akin to school yard bullies gathering to kick a victim than a genuine fight. 

Without wasting much time Byakuya fired at the Siren Monokuma, destroying it without a second thought. "Damn noise was getting on my nerves" He said. 

Kyoko shook her head, "Focus" she pointed her nose towards the pile up. Byakuya's uncaring attitude toward the situation showed that he believed the person was already dead. One by one the machines fell apart or destroyed themselves. And in their wake was a small, bloodied mess in human shape. The smell of copper and the sickening sight of messy pink was one they had gotten all too used to over the years. But that didn't make it easier when you recognized one of those bodies as someone you cared about. 

Byakuya felt harsh, furious breaths of air pushing in and out of his nose. The action was an almost unconscious response. He couldn't help but let anger well up at the sight of Naegi Makoto laying on the ground curled up on his side.

He grit his teeth, "Is he…?" Dammit. A Togami didn't hesitate. Certainly not Byakuya.

"No." Kyoko's voice was barely more than a whisper, and for a split second he thought she was simply in denial. But no, she had caught  sight of Makoto's chest moving up and down. She made way to him, hands hovering over him unsure of how deep his injuries ran. The first thing she saw were vicious claw marks running down his back. There were bits of debris clinging to the wound. They were ugly and jagged things. She wanted to roll him onto his back to get a better look at him but was it even safe to move him at all? She didn't want to risk paralyzing him. Not to mention she'd be pressing his wound to the ground. She glanced to his leg. A complete mangled mess, she could tell the unit that attached itself to his leg was relentless in its attack. Shaking and thrashing and the like. The fabric that once covered his leg was all but torn to shreds leaving the whole injury on brutal display. There was blood pooling underneath where he lay on the ground. His skin was pale from blood loss, breaking into a cold sweat that made her certain shock was already setting in. Almost all exposed skin was blossoming into a different, unnatural color indicating a plethora of bruises. His breathing was quiet but heavy, he'd already lost a lot of blood. When her eyes finally trailed up to his face she felt a small bit of relief that his features were marred by only a small cut on his left cheek, with a lazy stream of blood pouring from it. 

Byakuya and Kyoko were two individuals with a massive disconnect of their emotions brought about by their upbringing. Byakuya turned any emotion he felt into anger and disdain. Kyoko snuffed out most emotions she felt so that nothing would show. They had the emotional resolve of steel, it wasn't easy breaking down their walls. Makoto was that strange part of the equation that ruined all of that. He managed to get Byakuya to be intrigued by someone so seemingly insignificant and he managed to get Kyoko to act pouty and almost childish during the game. Yes, their entire lives were spent crafting these defenses. And now they had to fight to keep it all together with only elmers glue in their arsenal.

Kyoko was up close and personal with all the gruesome details of his attack. She tried to shove it all down so that she could completely focus on ensuring Makoto's survival. But he was looking up at her with a dazed half lidded look, as though any second the world would slip away from under his feet. And despite that Makoto smiled when he caught eyes with her. Kyoko's heart cracked. 

Byakuya could only watch with his fists by his side. He had set out to ensure all the survivors of the first killing game continued to survive and here we are. He forced all these feelings to be translated into anger. But he knew the underlying causes. He knew there was a part of him that simply was scared for his friends sake. 

The two of them both understood the others emotional grievances. And that's exactly why Byakuya's heart skipped a beat when Kyoko looked up at him with fear vibrant in her eyes. 

"It doesn't look good." 

[tanoraqui]

Inspired by @robininthelabyrinth’s “Helping Yourself”. I couldn’t stop thinking about how the initial reveal would go.

A young man walked out of the Burial Mounds. He seemed to be alone, but of course he wasn’t: the dead accompanied him. The dead always accompanied him.

The first living people he met were some peasants on the road. They were’t particularly notable, so he waved hello and passed them by.

The next were a small group of in white and red - cultivators, he thought vaguely. He hated them. He hated them. Gorge rose in his throat with the desire to tear them to bloody shreds, not in a single instant only so they could plead as they watched each other die. 

But that sort of hate wasn’t particularly natural to him, even if it was true, so he waved a greeting, same as with the peasants.

“Hey, isn’t that the.....bastard brat?” one of them said, with a mumble in the middle. The others cried agreement, and drew their swords.

It really did feel good to tear them apart. Mostly he didn’t do it himself - the ghosts and ghouls had even stronger yearning for the tangible feeling of muscle and bone breaking apart, warm blood bursting forth, agonized screams shaking to pieces in deflating lungs. But he watched as he played his music, smiled, and afterward when one of the corpses offered him a hand covered in its own blood, he licked it off. Sharing was only polite. It was warm.

It was a few weeks before he met anyone who made him feel anything but indifference or murderous hatred. He was killing more of the red-and-white cultivators at the time - well, one in red and white, and his looming shadow in black. If he’d thought he hated the general assortment of these cultivators, it was nothing on how he hated these two. He sat on a table and whistled as two strong corpses held the shadow back and let him watch a pretty ghost woman flay the whiny one. But the shadow broke free and lunged for him - 

And came up short with a whip of lightning around his throat, wielded by a furious-looking man in purple robes. He was accompanied a pristinely beautiful man in white.

“Wei Wuxian!” bellowed the man in purple, as he yanked the shadow to the ground and bound him further in lightning. “Where have you been!”

Oh yeah, Wei Wuxian was him. It was easy to forget, sometimes. 

“Oh, here and there.” He waved a hand vaguely, then pointed at the lightning-bound shadow now choking on the floor. “I was killing that, but do you want to help?”

Normally he’d never consider sharing, but for the first time, his chest was filling with warm relief rather than burning rage. He’d missed both these men achingly, had been going quietly mad not knowing if they were alive and well, and hadn’t realized it until now. He wanted very much to jump down and hug the one in purple, check him over for hurt, and maybe hug him again (if no hurt evidenced itself, in which case he’d also have to go kill whoever’d inflicted it.)

(The dead had started to hiss a little, like restless snakes, but that idea quieted them.)

So he did. The man scowled and didn’t hug him back, but he did let it happen. For a moment, he even laid his head on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder with something like a sigh.

While Wei Wuxian was holding his shoulders and looking him up and down for injuries, the man pulled a sword from his belt - sheathed, the whole shebang - and shoved it at his chest.

“Here, we got this for you,” he said.

Obligingly, Wei Wuxian looked the gift over, and even drew it an inch. It was very nice. Shiny. The hilt fit perfectly in his hand, though nothing else leapt out to him as particularly curious.

Much more interestingly, he turned to the man in white with a wide grin.

“‘We’?” he teased, and pressed the sheathed sword against his chest with one hand (with the other, he still held his flute. On the floor, the ghost continued peeling the brat in now much more red than white, though she’d put a hand over his mouth so he’d stay quiet.) “Why, beautiful sir, is this gift from you as well?”

He wanted to fling himself at this man, too, but in a very different way. He didn’t, because the emotions about this one were more complicated, colored with wariness. And instead of scowling like the man in purple, which was more for show than anything, the beautiful man in white looked concerned. 

“Wei Ying,” he said. “What is wrong?”

Wei Ying was...also Wei Wuxian? A cold breeze brushed by with the displeasure of the dead, but, yes, that sounded right.

“Nothing?” Okay, maybe he’d fling himself just a little bit. Saunter closer, at least, and look up at him through lowered lashes. “Am I misbehaving?”

The man’s ears turned pink and he stepped hurriedly back - and tripped over man in red and very little white. Wei Wuxian looked down at him as well, and whistled for the ghost to stop playing with her food for now. He didn’t want this one to die without feeling it beneath his own hands.

The bloody sight seemed to renew the beautiful man’s confidence, even as it sparked a deeper, darker concern in his eyes. 

“You are acting unusual,” he said. “Do you not recognize.....”

Wei Wuxian cocked his head curiously as he trailed off into an indistinguishable murmur. Or maybe it was just obscured by the suddenly restless whispers of the dead: don’t need that anymore, no no, only us.

The man in purple snapped something in address, and, “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course he does. It’s just...been a lot.”

He didn’t sound convinced, himself. The man in white kept his gaze fixed on Wei Wuxian and asked, “Wei Ying, do you know me?”

Wei Wuxian could’ve said something joking about of course, we’ve been speaking for several minutes, or even, you make my heart beat twice as fast and I feel like I’m standing on solid ground and a daring precipice both at once. But the man looked so distressed, behind a feeble mask of calm, that instead he frowned and tried to focus.

The scent of sandalwood...a strain of music in darkness...something with an L...

No! the dead shrieked in chorus, and he clapped his hands to his ears. It didn’t help. You promised, Wei Wuxian, you promised! Us and us alone!

Yes, yes, he shouted back. Calm down! And he pushed them away, and smiled easily at the man in white again.

“I’m sorry, beautiful sir. But I’m sure I’ll remember you forever, with such an immortal face!”

The reassurance didn’t work. His face didn’t actually move very much, but it was plainly shattered. The man in purple sounded just shy of that heartbreak as he grabbed Wei Wuxian’s arm and demanded, “What about me? Do you remember me?”

Wei Wuxian didn’t want to watch that shattering again. He enfolded the man in his arms again and stroked his hair, and searched for something comforting to say.

“Don’t worry, I’m here,” he managed. “I won’t lose you again. Hey, we’re going to kill these bastards, right?”

That was good, right? As Wei Wuxian’s ghost still pinned the whiny one, so the purple man hadn’t once dropped slack the lightning whip that held the man in black trapped and half-choking. This was a shared vengeance, he knew in the same heart that burned with hatred and affection, respectively.

The man in purple yanked away much faster, this time. 

“You know.....and.....?” he demanded, with traces of both hope and disgust.

“Sure.” Wei Wuxian shrugged. “I mean, I know I want to watch them both die in agony.”

Satisfied agreement flashed across the man’s features, but he kept pressing. “Why? Do you remember what they did?”

Wei Wuxian shrugged.

“To whom?”

Another shrug. He was starting to get annoyed. Maybe the dead were right - he didn’t need these people. They were only getting in the way. Maybe it would feel good to pull their beating hearts out of their chests and feel the warmth fade in his hands...

He waved the gathering resentful energy away with his flute, and sternly hushed the whispering dead. They didn’t need to kill everyone. Even if it was tempting. He liked these ones.

“Do you remember where you’re from at all?” the man in purple asked. He was trying to keep scowling, but his voice cracked.

Fortunately, that was an easy one. Wei Wuxian relaxed, ire disappearing without effort. 

“The Burial Mounds! I’ve been walking for weeks, you know.” He cast a sly glance over at the man in white. “If only someone would give me a ride on their sword...”

[edit: continued here!]

[pumpkinpaix]

Hi I don’t know if anyone has asked you this already, but do you find it strange that we are never given either of the Nie brothers’ given names nor Jin ZiXuan’s, when it’s common practice (at least in the show) to address yourself by your given and courtesy names?

Hey there! :D No, no one has asked me this yet, ahaha.

To be honest, I don’t find it strange, but that’s mostly because I think MXTX assigned names as it was convenient/as it suited her. I do think in some cases, you can try to find textual reasons, like limited POV (@hunxi-guilai made a post about how that might explain why Jiang Cheng is disproportionately referred to by birth instead of courtesy name here).

In the case of Jin Zixuan, I think that makes a lot of sense. Since mdzs and cql are largely from Wei Wuxian’s POV, and he clearly already knows Jin Zixuan, there’s no need for him to reintroduce himself, which is usually where we get people mentioning both their names. I don’t have any textual reasoning for the Nie bros’ lack of birth names ahahaha.

I will, however, use this as a springboard to mention a few things I find generally interesting about the way naming conventions appear to vary between sects/interesting points about address in general. There’s like no deep meta here, just like. “I noticed this thing, and I think it’s interesting”. (hope that’s okay /o\)

One: The Jin sect is the only sect that uses generational character markers (Guang, Zi, Ru). Establishing that convention makes Jin Guangyao’s courtesy name a massive slap in the face I think. (a, for giving him the wrong generational marker, which implies that he’s never actually going to be recognized as a son/that jgs really just didn’t care to even get it right, and b, for reusing his birth character instead of bothering to give him something new–every other character who has a birth and courtesy name gets two entirely unique names, but not jgy.) It’s a cool way of implying certain things about his status, how his father regards him without stating it outright, how others might see him because of that etc.

Two: The Wen sect appears to almost exclusively use birth name–in fact, the only two characters from the Wen sect revealed to have courtesy names are Wen Ning (Wen Qionglin) and…. Wen Ruohan. Well, and Wen Zhuliu, but he was originally Zhao Zhuliu, so idk if that really counts, since his courtesy name predates his induction into the Wen sect. Wen Qing, Wen Chao, and Wen Xu are referred to by birth name only by both themselves and everyone around them for the entirety of the story, which seems rather strange, given that all of them are high-ranking members of the family (Wen Xu is the heir??). Sizhui is not given a courtesy name by his birth family, but by Lan Wangji.

(an aside, it’s been mentioned before by others, but historically, courtesy names were bestowed upon adulthood; however, in CQL, we see Wei Wuxian picking out Jin Ling’s courtesy name before he’s born. it’s possible this is a practice that differs from sect to sect, but again, very little to no textual support for that speculation ahahaha)

Wen Ning’s courtesy name is used only once by Wei Wuxian in a moment of extreme distress at the Guanyin temple. It reads, to me, like switching registers to indicate the high emotional levels of the situation rather than anything about respect/social relations, in the same way that like, lwj switching between “wei ying/wei wuxian” can indicate moments where emotions are running high. I hc that the intimacy/distance of birth/courtesy names are switched in the case of Wen Ning/Wen Qionglin (ie, only people who are intimate with him would be expected use Qionglin) but that has absolutely zero basis in any fact, cultural convention, or textual evidence. I just like it because it warms my heart. feel free to roast me for it, i can accept that criticism.

Three: Both the Lan sect and the Nie sect address by courtesy name, even within their own family. (Lan Qiren calls his nephews “Wangji” and “Xichen”. Sizhui and Jingyi call each other by courtesy name. Nie Mingjue calls his brother “Huaisang”.) Why? we don’t know! We could maybe try and meta about it in the case of the Lan sect, I think (they’re more formal in general etc.), but we have so little knowledge of the Nie sect that I think it’s functionally pointless to try and dig there. I feel like trying to come up with any plausibly supported reason is going to be a stretch.

Four: A’Cheng vs A’Xian. Jiang Yanli uses Jiang Cheng’s birth name to form his diminutive, but uses Wei Wuxian’s courtesy name to form his. I’ve seen people ask why she doesn’t call him A’Ying, which would be more consistent, but I hc that this is because “Wuxian” was given by her father, so her using “A’Xian” is meant to strengthen that familial tie. “Ying” is from before he was part of their family. “Wuxian” is something given to him by the Jiang family, so using it, I think, is a subtle way of emphasizing how much she really considers him to be her brother. (If you’re curious, in the flashback when he first arrives at Lotus Pier, the audio drama has her calling for him as “A’Ying”.)

Five: Yu-fu’ren. I mentioned this on an addition to another post a while ago, but I’ll copy the relevant passage from chapter 51 here again:

虞夫人就是江澄的母亲，虞紫鸢。当然，也是江枫眠的夫人，当初还曾是他的同修。照理说，应该叫她江夫人，可不知道为什么，所有人一直都是叫她虞夫人。有人猜是不是虞夫人性格强势，不喜冠夫姓。对此，夫妇二人也并无异议。

Yu-fu’ren was Jiang Cheng’s mother, Yu Ziyuan. Of course, she was also Jiang Fengmian’s wife [fu’ren], and once cultivated with him as well. By all reason, she should be called Jiang-fu’ren, but for some unknown reason, everyone had always called her Yu-fu’ren. Some guessed that perhaps because Yu-fu’ren had a forceful temperament, she disliked taking her husband’s name. Neither husband nor wife raised any objections to this.

I think this is actually a pretty interesting microcosm of the themes of mdzs. We don’t actually know why Yu Ziyuan is called Yu-fu’ren; we’re given the equivalent of a rundown on local gossip and that’s it. I feel like it embodies a little bit of the “what people say about you becomes the truth and then influences your fate” theme that runs through mdzs. Did Yu Ziyuan WANT to be called Yu-fu’ren? Did she request it? Is her husband actually fine with it? The audience doesn’t get any of their internal landscape and is instead given a leading interpretation of the situation. How is our opinion of her then influenced?

To be clear, I don’t necessarily think that was necessarily the intention of this passage (maybe it was! or maybe mxtx just wanted to call her yu-fu’ren and realized she had to come up with some justification for it. i really couldn’t tell you); I just think that regardless of intention, its existence in relation to the larger themes of the novel can present a cool juxtaposition, if you dig a little bit.

Six: Song Lan, a respected cultivator, is more often referred to by his birth name, including people who are not intimate with him (normally, this would be rude), while Xiao Xingchen (who is intimate with him) calls him by courtesy name. Why?? We also don’t know. Does this lend support to my earlier headcanon about Wen Ning/Qionglin having a reversed intimacy/distance implication?? not… not really, but I like to think it at least kind of shows a precedent….. orz.

Seven: I find Xue Yang’s courtesy name, Xue Chengmei (成美), really fun ahaha. It comes from the phrase, 君子成人之美, an idiom that essentially means, “a gentleman always helps others attain their wishes”. Jin Guangyao gave it to him (not sure if this is canonical or extracanonical–i heard about it in an audio drama extra, much like how i get all my information orz) which I think is greatly amusing for obvious reasons.

Eight: Lan Wangji actually changes Sizhui’s birth name, even though you wouldn’t be able to tell just from hearing it. His original birth name is 苑, an imperial garden, but Lan Wangji changes it to 愿, as in wish (愿望) and to be willing (愿意), among other very beautiful sentiments. partially im sure to protect his identity, but also because. you know.

Basically all this is just to say, I think the naming/address conventions in mdzs are pretty weakly conceived, but you can find interesting things in them if you go looking! and we all know i love to go looking /o\

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Ok, I've been sitting on this awhile (mostly because I worry that my reaction stems from personal feelings, rather than the content of your actual post) but while I agree wwx's arc is not ABOUT trauma, I do think he IS traumatized. Like, he has a literal phobia of dogs due to childhood trauma w/ dogs??? And I take issue with the idea that someone cannot be simultaneously traumatized and resilient/always smiling. I mean, refusing to process and deal with negative experiences and emotions because if you can choose to be happy, why would you choose to be anything else can actually be worse for you than just letting yourself be sad for a little bit. People are supposed to feel the full emotional spectrum and refusing to acknowledge sadness doesn't make someone not actually sad. As someone with a sunny personality who almost always let's things roll off my back, that doesn't mean I don't have trauma to deal, it just means it presents itself in different ways than someone with a different personality. Everyone is entitled to their interpretation of characters, so I'm not trying to say yours is inherently wrong, my point is more that it's not a guarantee that having a happy personality = not traumatized, especially when there are other things to point to them being traumatized.

Hi anon,

I think it’s important to consider the context in which I addressed fandom’s discussions on “WWX’s trauma/ptsd,” which in this case was a response to people explaining many of his behaviours during his first life, from the Sunshot campaign onwards, as resulting from trauma. I never meant to suggest that WWX could not experience trauma, at all, especially since in an earlier post about my thoughts regarding the trauma argument I did highlight that we get in the narrative an example of how WWX reacts when faced with trauma through his cynophobia (although I can’t find that post because it I can’t remember exactly when I shared it 🤷‍♂️). It was more to oppose the ideas that (1) events are inherently traumatic and thus that because these distressing things happened to WWX, WWX must be carrying trauma from them (because if we’re going to use psychology/psycho-analysis for literary analysis, it might be good to consider that the perception of trauma in psychology is not that) and (2) that there are no other narrative or character explanations for those behaviours that are not rooted in trauma. 

In this case, I think the novel makes it clear that while WWX is of course affected emotionally by the events, the things that people point to as resulting from trauma are actually tied to his cultivation methods and him losing control. I do feel like that interpretation is coherent with the authorial intent, which seems to be confirmed in one of MXTX’s interviews. To share here the most relevant possage:

[WN killing JZX] was perfectly an example of how Wei Wuxian was losing control. The more he lost control over his demonic cultivation, the more likely he was going to receive a backlash.

Of course, authorial intent is not the end-all-be-all of everything, and, certainly, there exists probably as many interpretations of a text as there exists readers (or, in the case of MDZS, we should also probably include all the people who haven’t read it but still have an opinion on its content). However, my brand of meta focuses on reading the text closely and challenging interpretations that are floating around in the fandom space against the text itself--the narrative, the characterisation, the themes, the symbolism. To say, ‘perhaps some people tend to associate a certain behaviour with a specific thing (ie, emotional volatility with a traumatic response to a distressing event), however does it seem like the text wants to lead you toward this interpretation? Does the text provide other story-specific explanations, some of which might actually be more cohesive and coherent with the narrative/characterisation/themes (ie, emotional volatility in this specific instance is a side-effect of the influence of modao on WWX and his loss of control)?’ That doesn’t mean I’m always right, of course I’m not. But I also do not prescribe to the belief that every interpretations are equally credible. That is, I do believe that people are entirely free to interpret a text however they choose, even if it means reappropriating the text and completely ignoring parts of it or mentally rewriting parts of it; all the same, I do not think these interpretations are particularly helpful when it comes to understanding and analysing the text itself (though they are interesting in that they help understand how a work is received by certain demographics). So, yes, sometimes I will write posts that aim to contrast certain popular interpretations with what can be gleaned from a close reading of the text. 

In addition, let me clarify that when I contrasted “resilience” with “trauma”, it was not in terms of personality trait so much as a reference to terms used in psychology: where how a person processes a distressing event through a trauma response or through resilience. 

As for the “smiling thing”, I think it is important to remember the context of the discussion, where I cited the novel:

Jiang Yanli said that he was born with a smiling look. No matter what unfortunate thing happened, he wouldn’t cling on to them; no matter what situation he was in, he would be happy. Although it sounded a bit heartless, it really was not bad.

In the original post, I did reframe this quote by acknowledging that yes, smiling is not an inherent proof that someone has never experienced trauma.

To me, this is a clear move from MXTX to position WWX as the kind of protagonist who can face a storm and keep his smile on his face. I can imagine that some people take it perhaps as a subversion, as the text telling us that WWX is weathering it all with a smile but underneath it all he is just a bundle of unaddressed trauma. And that’s certainly a possible interpretation, but it’s not mine. In this case I think the text is being straightforward. What we see of WWX also seems to support that: the way WWX just rolls with being brought back from the death, how easily he finds a way to adapt to things, etc.

That was more of an acknowledgement that wrt this topic, the novel seemed to have chosen a very straightforward approach or, in other words, to choose to not be That Deep. The smiling disposition here is not part of a psychological diagnosis, but simply a story/characterisation shorthand. I also never suggested that this meant that WWX is not affected by events: “ My point is not that WWX is unaffected by the things that happened to him or the things he’s done during this portion of his life: of course he is! Especially as they are happening to him, or when he is still stuck in a very difficult situation. But I don’t think his character and his arc is about trauma”. I think that nuance is important. 

At the end of the day, I do not want to force people to change their minds. I only use my free time to over-analyse a novel and sometimes try to challenge people to reconsider their initial interpretations of the text or their approaches to literary analysis more generally. 

[unquestionably-queer]

going off my previous post here but i wrote a mini fanfic/headcanon about zukos nightmares? this is really long but if yall like it im willing to actually write it from zuko’s pov and add dialogue. maybe even put it on ao3 maybe? anywho, id love to hear feedback! enjoy!!

it wasnt uncommon for zuko to wake up in such distress that he started frantically firebending. one time iroh saw his nephew quite literally wake up breathing fire. concerning, but very impressive. since joining the gang, he had worked on not doing that (as much as was in his control), as he had accidentaly burnt down a tent or three. but the nightmares themselves didnt subside.

not uncommon, zuko woke up gasping for breath. his head and heart were pounding, sweat dripping down his chest. he headed outside, planning to go to a nearby stream in hopes of finding some relief and peace, only to find sokka was sitting outside and very much awake. they both stared kind of awkwardly at each other before sokka ushered the older boy over. neither asked why the other was awake. they just made mindless chitchat before falling into a surprisingly comfortable silence. sokka got up to leave, but not before offering his company next time zuko needed it. when asked if the offer was genuine, he laughed. to be honest, he had said, he was just being polite, and didnt expect zuko to actually believe him. what a dick move, they both thought.

he woke up in a similar state a few nights later. he tossed and turned, begging for sleep to claim him again before ultimately grunting and accepting his fate. he wandered outside, once again finding sokka awake. zuko greeted him and explained he was going swimming. it was his silent way of offering his company, which sokka took. what started as idle conversation eventually progressed, and they found themselves floating in the stream talking about their youths. at some point they even talked about how they had both lost their moms due to the war (despite katara thinking she was the only one who had ever experienced any sort of emotional pain.) they hadnt even realized the hours that had gone by until the chirping of bugs was replaced by the chirping of birds and the sun put the stars to sleep.

this pattern continued. while sokka never asked what zukos nightmares were about, zuko learned that despite being a sleep enthusiast, sokka lost many hours of precious shut eye to anxious planning. sometimes they went on a walk, sometimes they were sparring, and sometimes they simply watched the stars. it was nice company, just to the two of them. no offense to aang, but sokka and zuko were closer in age and much more similar than they had originally realized. sokka offered his late night company. before zuko could question him, sokka placed a hand on the firebenders shoulder. anything for a friend.

on one occasion, zuko woke up and stumbled outside without thinking about it, only to be greeted with the faint glow of where the fire was, no man in sight. still groggy and disoriented, he rubbed his eyes and blinked a couple of times before shuffling back to bed, blaming the ache in his chest on the painful memory of his nightmares and not on the absence of a certain someones company. it took a long time before he could fall back asleep.

after becoming firelord, sokka decided to stay in the fire nation. mostly for political planning and engagement until zuko got himself on his own two feet. who else to help than the guy who had spent the past few months travelling the world trying to save it. the avatar, katara had said cooly. which wasnt wrong but sokka was offended that she hadnt just agreed. besides, sokka would assure zuko, its not like he could leave zuko alone. who would be his comedic relief?

since returning to the palace, zuko had gone back to handling his dreams alone, the way he used to. while his bedding was definitely made to withstand the panicked firebending, he figured there were better coping mechanisms. he quietly walked through the halls. the young firelord wasnt paying attention, rather just letting his body go on autopilot and he tried to clear his mind. after a solid 15 minutes of rights and lefts, he found himself a hallway away from sokka’s quarters. after some hesitation, he turned around and went back to his bedroom.

the next time, after much delay and pacing, he knocked on the door. its not like be hadnt’t done this before. it would be just like before. that reasoning didnt stop zuko from immediately turning around and walking away. fortunately. sokka opened the door before he could get too far. zuko awkwardly began to explain his situation, but sokka just interrupted him and told him to wait before shutting the door. zuko stood there mouth still half open from when he was talking before sokka emerged two minutes later, clothed and ready to go. they wandered to the kitchen and talked for what seemed like minutes but must have been hours, as they were politely shooed out by the staff beginning to prepare breakfast. zuko walked sokka back to his quarters before they parted ways. sokka reminded his friend that though things may be different, the option still stood.

many night rendezvous later, zuko showed up particularly shaken. much to sokka’s surprise, it almost looked like behind the curtain of now long dark hair, the mans face was wet. when sokka asked if he was crying while brushing dark hair behind a pale ear, it was confirmed that he was in fact crying. it started as silent tears, and slowly but surely turned into a violent sob. you know, the kind of gross one with hiccups and snot and general incoherence. at this point, they had known each other for years, and they had definitely surpassed the point of friendship (though they were both too dense to realize it themselves) meaning they had seen each other vulnerable. but never had sokka seen zuko cry like this, and definitely not because of a nightmare. now the same height, the watertribesman wrapped his arm around his friends shoulder and guided him to the bed. zuko wasnt big on giving physical affection, but he never pushed sokka away. not when the friendly slap on the shoulder became a tender shoulder massage. nor did when sokka went from tussling the mans dark hair to running his fingers through it to just simply playing with it. sokka sat and cradled zukos head into his own neck. zuko cries lessened into sniffles and then a gentle snore. sokka gently moved zuko, placing his friends head on the pillow and tucking him in.

zuko woke up the following morning, confused as to where he was. as he gained his bearings, he turned to find the source of what sounded like snorimg. he stared at the tanned man for a couple beats, processing what was in front of him. the firelord tensed when the snoring stopped, fearing some sort of negative reaction. zuko breathed out in relief when sokka simply rolled away from him and the snoring began again. zuko quietly slipped out the bed and out the room, but not before smiling fondly to himself in the doorway.

a couple days later, sokka and zuko found themselves caught up in late night shenanigans, a concept that wasnt foreign to them. they were sitting on the foot of sokkas bed when zuko stood up to dismiss himself for the night. sokka stopped him, and when zuko raised his eyebrows in question, sokka spluttered out a not so smooth joke that was just a weak attempt at asking for zuko to spend the night. for protection of course. zuko, who at this point was experiencing severe symptoms of polar bear-puppy love, said yes of course, and ended up spending the night.

when he woke up the next morning, he felt truly rested for the first time in years.

[bigskydreaming]

princeescaluswords

I stare at you, accusingly. ;) So you liked it when Scott asked Stiles "Why did you think you couldn't tell me?" and the Sheriff asked Stiles "Did you really feel like you couldn't tell me?" I'm mostly kidding, but that writing choice still oppresses me from time to time. Feel free to ignore.

LOLOL, touché. No, obviously there are always going to be exceptions to every sweeping generalization, and its entirely possible for actual self-assessment to turn up no potential answer to ‘why did they feel they couldn’t tell me” because the answer IS irrational on the part of the other person....with irrational not being used as an indictment of them but simply an awareness of the fact that people experiencing mental, emotional or physical distress don’t always make choices based in rationality.

BUT the trick of it is......even if you didn’t actually do anything to make the other person feel they couldn’t trust or confide in you.....because the answer is simply that they weren’t viewing things from a fully rational or healthy state of mind at the time...... “why didn’t you tell me” STILL isn’t going to be a remotely helpful question to ask them because the answer is STILL going to be ‘cuz I wasn’t thinking rationally’.....whereas again, even when the answer to either question is just that the other person wasn’t operating at peak mindset....the person occupying the role of support system is STILL going to be better positioned to ultimately recognize that’s the real reason....and so they’re STILL best served by interrogating themselves first over the situation as to why it exists and how to change it for the better, rather than like....trying to position the person in need of supporting as like....the one who needs to explain themselves here, even when chances are they CAN’T because there simply ISN’T a fully rational explanation.

And this is why I both hate the writers for writing that line for Scott but also the fandom’s limited interpretation of it, because like....the situation is both exactly as I’m describing and a little more complex at the same time. In one sense, Stiles’ paranoia and distress over the whole situation are eminently understandable.....but the show and fandom’s interpretation failed by not acknowledging that with everything that had been happening AROUND the revelation of Donovan’s death in the Scott and Stiles fight, like....Scott HIMSELF was not remotely in a sound or stable emotional or mental place and was actively coping with and processing various traumatic situations himself at the exact same time, even as he took in the information he was given here, in the limited fashion in which it was doled out to him.

And then too I do think something that the SHOW should have made a point to acknowledge at other points, in order to ‘set the record straight’ so to speak, even though I DONT think it should have been on Stiles himself to ever recognize this himself, without help, BECAUSE I agree he had every right and reason to be irrational at the time.....is that again, Season 3B was an entire season arc dedicated to establishing the precedent that Scott not only is okay with the idea of killing in self-defense, he is perfectly willing to live with the knowledge that prioritizing Stiles’ life in that case inevitably led to other deaths before the nogitsune was finally defeated....and he STILL CHOSE TO DISREGARD ANY POSSIBILITY OF JUST LETTING STILES DIE OR CHOOSING HIS DEATH TO MINIMIZE HARM.

So like, the answer to that question between Scott and Stiles was STILL that Stiles wasn’t seeing things clearly due to his own trauma, and thus shouldn’t be held accountable for not recognizing the precedent Scott had established in 3B, BUT that Scott was as well valid for being confused that Stiles would think he wouldn’t understand him killing in defense of his own life, since Scott very clearly remembered the ramifications of him choosing to preserve Stiles’ life at all costs in 3B.

So where the show failed was by never having anyone ELSE, BEYOND just the two of them, weigh in on that and point that little detail out to BOTH of them, because BOTH of them were operating from states of ongoing trauma and subsequent irrationality and skewed perspectives throughout like, the entirety of Season 5 pretty much.

[shyrose57]

Part 2 with da angst

2: Young Ranbob did not understand at all what was going on, infact he refused to believe he ever had anything to do with the sabotages, it was only when Dream took over completely and gave Ranbob enough of his mind to know what he was doing, did he finally accept it. He tried and tried to break Dreams control and get control of his body back, but nothing he did ever really worked, and the more he tried Dream eventually began to punish him, forcing him to stop. He felt aboustely awful, like a failure, a murder, and just a shitty person during all of this. His journal shows basically all of his mental decline, it went from normal, him recording special things during the day, to semi-normal, him expression concern and fear over the sabotages and killings (with some out of place words or sentences here and there appearing half way through, showing Dreams presence), to recordings from someone with obvious mental distress (misspelled words, extreme fear, showing fear of himself, hasty writings and drawings, very obviously out of place sentences (their neater than the rest and written differently, written by Dream), and meaningless words and sentences, obviously trying to say something but not knowing how too), all they way to flipping entries of when Ranbob is in control (sadness, despair, hasitly done, regret, and just heavy sentences) to when Dream is in control (Neat writing, stating "facts", showing a level of glee). Ranbob does still have it, he actually still uses it to record what happens in the groups and how far he's come. To the Gladiators its more of a "Hey I found this thing, lets read this thing." "No let's not read the thing." "Im going to ignore you and read it anyway.". The pictures are from the current ruined state of the City of Mizu, and pictures showing Ranbob at the fishermens house, struggling to walk and even eat on his own, though a few are from before Dream ever got a hold of Ranbob. 

3: The way you just said "Causally drops some trauma on them, huh?" And "Traumatized gremlins" made me laugh so much. Its so accurate and made me just think of the brothers vibing toghere before I just pop in and drop tons of trauma on them before dipping. "Ah, damn, the opponent stared me in my chest." "WHY ARE YOU SO CALM ABOUT THIS!? YOUR BLEEDING OUT!" "Oh im used to this. Trust me I'll survive...probably." "RAN I SWEAR!". And "Ranbob when did you last eat?" "Uhhh, 2 days ago I think." "..." "D-did I eat too soon? I dont have to eat for another day or two max-" "Ranbob shut up and eat." "B-but-" "If you dont eat I'll tell Benjamin." "OK ok I'll eat."  Ran thinks its normal to get stabbed often, while Ranbob thinks its normal to only eat every 2 or 3 days, and to not sleep for a long time. There is one particular hunter that's been hunting him the longest, they go by Raq and are the most determined to get Ran, though they don't plan on killing him, but rather kidnapping him and exploting him for pearls. It was a bit hard at first, Ran kept having to leave to wander around the City for a bit, though he eventually successfully got accustomed to staying in one place, though he does sometimes wish he could travel again. 

4: A bit of everything, him getting violent and trying to run at first. But after that it fades more into what resembles a depressive state, with him refusing to move and crying while being lost in his head. He requires space to move around but be monitored in the first state, while for the second he needs constant comfort and physical contact. The aftermath was the fishermen and Jackie staying close to Ranbob for the next 2 days, while Grievous and Watson try to find Ran after he stormed off in anger and disbelief. Ran does know what a relapse means, but during the time he believes Ranbobs relapse might be something else (like his facade faulting maybe).

5: Not long at all, while Ran is carrying Jackie and Cletus makes fun of them as Ranbob is following him, Jackie quickly points out how Ranbob is like a lost puppy, and the same thing is basically happening to the two of them, but showed different ways. (The brothers making sure their family is safe by sticking close to them).

6: By the time they travel to Subbin, Ranbob has gained like 80 pounds and is a way more healthy weight and looks much more healthier than when the fishermen first found him. 

7: Their usually either getting materials, looking around the area/exploring, being taught things by someone, or sleeping. Charles was the one who revived the nickname! He called him that when trying different tactics to calm him down from a nightmare, Ranbob immediately froze and after a while started to cry, Charles panicked but Ranbob quickly comforted him, saying he just hasn't heard Bobby used in such a long time and brings back both incredibly happy and incredibly sad memories. And with permission, Charles starts using it more. Ran also freezes when hearing it, immediately going ridged and almost ripping a map he has in his hands, when asked by Grievous what was wrong, he just growled out nothing and moved on. Though he does mull over it later, conflicting emotions running all over him. 

8: Helping separate Ran and Ranbob was already big for the gladiators. As most people would just watch with glee. Then when they get time to talk and make the connection between Ran and Ranbob, they decide to make a exception and willingly put in effort to bond with the other group. Also them just naturally connecting made the bonding and trust easy between the groups. 

9: They do both! They keep some books, pictures, and other stuff, but sell others as relics. Ranbob mostly disapproves of them selling the items, but also knows it'll probably be best to sell them, and have them either spread the story of Mizu as a warning, or have the story of Mizu destroyed by assumptions and twisting of the story. 

10: I'm thinking maybe a Wilbur decendent is inhabiting a certain town, and when the groups stop in for a break, Wilbur decendant  houses them and listens to their story, and tries to help?

11: They mostly just find them, they either find them in book stores or ruined towns and cities (maybe I can put The Masquerade tale in here somewhere), a wide range of people, from scholars to plain history nerds, to books from during the time of the SMP itself to books written by seemingly no one. Ranbob finds some himself, mostly when exploring with the group. I think I misworded this! Dream is the one who compared Ranbobs journal to Ranboos memory book! Ranbob knows of Ranboos memory book but he himself doesn't see the connection. Ran feels all of the above. He is extremely ashamed and disappointed in himself for hurting his brother, he hugs him tightly and apologizes non-stop, promising to make it all up to him, and while he asks for forgiveness he also says he doesnt expect for his brother to forgive him. Once he finally sees Dream for real though he's the first one to blindly attack and try to kill em. Though he doesnt succeed. 

12: No one expect the brothers where outside in the rain when they fought. So no one knew of what was happening. Its only when Ran finally joined them, but alone, did they get scared and alarmed. And when Ran admits they got into a fight and Ranbob ran off, the fishermen immediately start yelling at Ran and run off to find Ranbob, screaming his name into the deafening thunder. Grievous follows them but Watson and Jackie hang back a bit, Jackie just looks at Ran with a heartbroken expression, tears in his eyes, and asks, with his voice shaking and laced with sadness, "Why can't you at least try to accept him, you dont have to like or forgive him, but why can't you just let him heal?" "Jackie..you dont know what's he done-" "I do know! And I'm willing to help him change and recover! You can't and your his brother! What kind of family member are you?" Ran tries to respond but Jackie just chokes and shakes his head at him, running off to follow the others. Watson then speaks up, simply saying "Mate, your doing more than hurting Ranbob at this point." Before running off to follow and join the others. Ran feels horrible, even before being confronted he so badly wanted to chase after Ranbob, but was to scared too and he constantly was trying to reassure himself that he did the right thing, but no matter what, he couldn't convince himself that was the truth. And after the confrontation, Ran is taking what was said to heart and also considering running away, leaving the group behind and sparing them of all the pain he believes he causes, believing that he's just as bad a family member as Ranbob was. But he doesnt, because he feels like he absolutely needs to talk to his brother and everyone else. 

2: Oh god. Poor Ranbob. He really went through it. It does make me wonder, did anyone notice something was up? His mentor? Parents? Friends? Speaking off, what was his relationship with them all? From what I know, he seemed to be under a lot of pressure, so how did that effect things, and how did Dream’s presence change that? And uh, gladiators reactions to reading the diary? Also, did they get caught reading it, or? And how did everyone in general react to the pictures? The fishermen may have taken the latter, but how did they feel about seeing Ranbob before Dream came into the picture?

3: I tell it like it is, glad to hear it’s made you laugh though. And uh, oh boy. On one hand, I definitely shouldn’t laugh at stabbing and possible starvation. One the other. Ran’s reaction. Ranbob being threatened with Benjamin. Is he often threatened with Benjamin? What exactly happens if Benjamin is told? Will Raq be causing future problems? Is Ran happy to be on the road again?

4: That sucks. Did the gladiators witness it first hand, or did the fishermen kind of realize what was happening and split off for a bit? Reactions to either seeing or hearing this happen?

5: Ranbob’s reaction to this? Heck, all of the fishermen’s reactions?

6: As he should. If he ever starts looking even slightly thin again, Benjamin needs to jump into immediate action! Also, give him a blanket and warm drink, please? Please, he needs it, they all do. 

7: So not too bad, that’s good. Charles was the one, huh? Interesting. Does Ranbob like having it back? And conflicting emotions, hmm? What would those emotions be? Does anyone ever notice the nickname makes him mad? 

8: So the gladiators consider that their big approval? Why’s that? Like obviously, they helped break it up, but was it something particular? Did they get between the two? Jump into the arena? What?

9: A warning of Mizu...there’s something awfully tragic about that. 

10: Sounds interesting! In what way would they be able to help? 

11: Scattered about, hm? So Ranbob knows about Ranboo’s memory book? Did Dream tell him, or did Mizu have a copy, or? And yay, Ranbob finally gets a hug! Most wonderful! Sad Ran doesn’t succeed in murder, but meh. Always next time, I suppose.

12: You...you were really going for my heart when you wrote this, weren’t you? Um, first of all, ouch. Second of all, also ouch. That’s all I’ve got for you right now. Just, ouch, Anon. Ouch.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “Medical Instruction Vd 1″

First day back at school, so forgive me for being short :) 

“Before we get started, I just wanted to make sure that it is known that all parties involved in these videos have agreed to let me use their footage for training purposes, though they may not be used for anything else in accordance with Human Medical Privacy Laws. These tapes will go directly to the intergalactic college of interspecies biology and medicine. Those who are found to use this footage in any way contrary to its original purpose will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law”

-

The camera turns on shaking form side to side over the floor spinning quickly from the right and then to the left before finally leveling out on an image of a hallway. The Vrul scuttles along the floor with great purpose small fleet clattering against the cold metal. He turns to look at the camera, “I just got a call up the Medical bay for a human in significant respiratory distress also complaining of chest pain, so we are going to head up there and see what is going on. Now I have been the operational medical officer aboard this ship for a while now, and I have seen almost everything there is to see. Doing medicine for humans is…. Well it’s a wild ride simply because of their combination of durability and breakability. They break horribly easily and in horrific ways, but are able to live through it when they do, and that leaves it up to the medical staff to make sure that they  are quickly treated so that the shock of their injuries doesn’t send them down the road of you know…. Not being alive.”

They hurried up a hallway following after the little doctor pausing for a few seconds before the medical bay doors which opened with a hiss. A wave of sound washes over the camera, people talking and someone breathing rather heavily. The camera pans up to show a group of humans gathered around a third sitting on the edge of one of the hospital beds. They are breathing fast and heavy a hand on their chest eyes wide panicked.

The crowd opens up as the little doctor walks in.

“What do we have?”

“30 year old male with racing heart, difficulty breathing, tingling hands, dizziness, and chest pain.”

The human was breathing even harder now looking around frantically, “I….I….I’m dying….. I think I’m having a heart attack…..I can’t breathe.”

“Alright, let’s get an EKG going first thing.” The little doctor gets to work very quickly all four arms working as he begins to speak, “Now the obvious worry here is the case of chest pain, which in humans can be an indication of a heart attack. Now the heart is a very major organ in a human, and acts as a pump to move blood around the body. The blood contains oxygen and infection fighting cells etc. With a heart attack one of those little vessels in the organ is blocked, usually by plaque or fatty deposits causing death in parts of the heart muscle. Now this human is generally too young and too fit for any of that to happen…” He turns to the human, “Is there a history of heart attack or heart disease in your family?”

The human shakes their head.

“Has this every happened to you before?”

Another head shake.

The doctor ripped off a couple of sticky white circles and attached them to the human’s chest, “Now this will give us a good look of what is going on in there.” There was a pause for a minute as they continued working.

The doctor glanced at the instruments once the information began coming in, “Alright, so this is good news, the heart IS beating fast, but there does not appear to be any blockage, and it is not fast enough to be considered tachycardia. Also their blood oxygen level is within acceptable range meaning that it isn’t likely to be some other issue. Now that leaves our post likely option as being a panic attack.”

He walked over to the human to get their attention, “Do you have a history of anxiety disorder in your family?”

“A few …. Uncles.” He panted, “But it has to be…. A heart attack.”

“Well your heart is actually fine. I think in this case you ARE having a panic attack, now you are alright, this can happen to anyone not just people with a disorder, ok. Now just humor me, and I and I want you to take in one big breath counting to seven, hold it for five and then blow out at five seconds.” The human looked very skeptical, but at the order of the doctor they began.

He left the instruction to one of the other attendees, “You see, this is actually quite common in humans. Emotional functions are very closely intertwined with their physical functions mostly due to their greatly superior fight or flight mechanism. Humans have a very quick physical reaction to panic that causes the heart to beat faster, digestion to shut down and the pupils to dilate. The breathing will also speed up as you have seen. The problem is the human body reacts to the stress of being chased by a predator in the same way it reacts to, social stress, or an approaching deadline.

In this cause stress, and an elevated heart rate could have trigged a panic attack, where the body is having these physical symptoms despite the brain, and now they are trying to figure out an explanation. They generally assume they are having a heart attack or that something else horrible is about to happen, even if it is not.

He turned back to check on the human, whose heart rate had gone down a bit. They were looking a little better, but there still seemed to be a way to go.

“We are just going to have him continue this breathing exercise which is designed to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and calm down the feelings of anxiety and panic. I always find it interesting that the one thing that makes humans the best and dealing with extreme stress, is also the one thing that makes them crumble under more mild states of stress.

***

“So we have been called in again this time, we have a 25 year old male presenting with, extreme abdominal pain, vomiting, nausea, and a low grade fever.” The doctor walked in wearing more protective gear than he had last time. The camera pans up to another human lying on one of the beds curled into a ball moaning, face screwed up in pain, hands clutched around his middle rocking slowly back and forth in a writhing sort of way. One of the other doctors had placed a metal bowl by the human’s head as they groaned.

The doctor moved forward and had the human roll onto his back, though the human did not seem as if he wanted to. The alien doctor listened to the human’s innards, and then began lightly pressing on the abdominal cavity. As soon as he did, the human yelped in pain and curled up again looking as if he was about to be sick.

“Abdominal pain in the lower right quadrant, I would wager to say this is probably a case of appendicitis.” The doctor motioned for one of the orderlies to grab a machine and roll it over, “Now the human appendix is a part of the intestines that was long thought to be useless or a vestigial structure that humans used more when they had to clear large amounts of plant material through their digestive tract. In many cases it acts as a blind pocket that sometimes collects bacteria and then becomes inflamed. You CAN fix it with antibiotics, but the general consensus is removal.” He pulled the machine into position, using a short wand covered in cold gel to pass over the human’s skin just above the problem spot.

“Ah, just like I thought, you see that right there.” He pointed to the screen, “This right here is the inflammation being caused by the infection, and the reason that the human is going to be in so much pain right now. I would suggest at this point that we just go in and remove it with a simple laparoscopic appendectomy. As far as procedures goes, this one is actually relatively easy and should take no more than a few minutes for me to perform.  Now before you go questioning me about the time frame for this surgery, I do remind you that I am the most experienced surgeon in the galaxy. I guarantee the prep for this surgery will take longer than my ability to actually preform it.”

The human groaned.

“Don’t worry, we will have you fixed up almost immediately.”

***

“I find that there are a few general things you want to look for when treating humans. The first big one is energy level. Your average human is going to be very…. Sharp you will see it in the eye and head movements, they will, or should be very energetic with their head and arm movements, especially around the chest and shoulders. Humans like using their hands to talk. A lot of the time you can tell something is wrong with a human when they are listless and slow to respond. You may see their eyes wandering and they won’t focus on you, now some humans behave that way, but your average human will generally try to make eye contact with you at some point. Watch to make sure they are supporting their own heads, or does it seem to be bobbing or tilting in one way or another. A few other things is a general change in appetite from what is considered usual. A stressed or sick human may eat too little or too much. If your human appears confused or is having trouble answering simple questions, you will want to check them over straight away. As I said before, a sick human might appear listless, lethargic, they will tend to sleep a lot, and they may be irritable. I would make it a point to warn most students about that fact when dealing with humans, sometimes in cases of serious injury  humans tend to act in anger to pain, so they might try to fight you off or to get away, especially if the pain is really bad, they are sort of resorting back to their more baser instincts. Occasionally you may have to strap them down, or even sedate them , while there are a few humans who like comfort when they are in pain, there is a large group of them who do not like to be touched or talked to when they are. I would say that is also an important thing to note, both psychological and physical pain can cause a human to isolate themselves form you, so just make sure you are watching for those signs because they can be indicators that something is seriously wrong.”

[nice-kill-tanaka]

Hi! I read all your x readers and love them! I especially loved the Bakugou x Rough and Tough Crush, I was wondering if you do a part 2 of that one? Where the squad are trying to get the two together.

Of course Nony! Glad you liked my self indulgent work 🥰

—————

🌄Bakugo + Rough And Tough Crush: Part 2🌌

Looking for the whole set? Take Part 1 right here!

Summary: The Bakusquad gets a little sick of watching you and Bakugo pine after each other in your own...special ways. So, it was decided to devise a plan to get you two crazy kids together!!

A/N: Me, internally: First request, don’t mess it up, first request, don’t mess it up, first request, don’t mess it up, first request, don’t mess it up-

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

💥Katsuki Bakugo💥

Let’s start by looking at your end of the pining stick

When Bakugo started treating you differently (like an equal/rival rather than a hurdle to trample on) your own perspective started to shift

You now knew what it was like to be on Boom Boom Boy’s good side. And if you were being honest? It was fun as hell 🔥🔥

Nothing got under your skin very easily, so you took Bakugo’s aggressive taunts and jeers as petty opportunities to take him up on his challenges

What’s better than a free chance to get stronger??? (Mentally, emotionally, and physically)

It wasn’t very long before you began to find Bakugo’s unwavering passion and drive attractive rather than amusing. You wanted to see more of it, to draw it out, to match it

That wild and determined smirk he used past bared teeth when you bested him would really make you feel some type of way 😳

But Y/N is currently a single-brain-celled bastard in this household

My dude, you don’t even misinterpret your feelings. You're just incapable of giving them a label 😭

You just know that you have warm and fuzzy sensations in your stomach whenever Bakugo is being uniquely himself, which you mistook for indigestion on multiple occasions

Y’all are so freaking dumb it actually hurts 😭😭😭

((^^The Bakusquad’s general consensus on you and Bakugo’s mutual pining))

Which brings us to how the Bakusquad decided to go about bringing you hotheaded lovers together

Kirishima casually suggested that they let you two get together on your own, but was out-voted in favor of putting an end to the infinite frustration that came with watching two people crushing on each other and not doing anything about it

Mina and Jiro thought of the first plan:

They’d have a movie night for everyone in the friend group and Mina would conveniently choose a ✨romance✨ movie. The rest on the squad would think of lame excuses to leave in the middle of the film, leaving only you and Bakugo alone (hopefully on the same couch). If things went well, you two would be together by the end of the movie

Their reasoning was that if the concept of romance was introduced at the right time, you’d both feel more inclined to confess your own feelings 

It seemed feasible enough, so the plan was set into motion

As expected, the moment Mina pulled out the Blue-Ray box, Bakugo started to grumble about how corny the film was gonna be

But, Jiro caught a glimpse of you leaning over and muttering something to Bakugo, out of earshot of everyone else

Immediately, Bakugo began to loosen his shoulders, still not happy about the genre, but more complacent. He slouched into the couch and endured it like an adult

During the movie, especially the more romantic moments, the squad constantly stole glances towards you and Bakugo. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to look at

Bakugo, in the same position as the beginning, didn’t seem bored, but like he’d rather be doing anything else at the moment. His eyes were glued to the screen in a judgmental stare, but that he dared not say anything to ruin a certain person’s experience

You, however, looked like you were enjoying the movie! However muted your position might have looked. Though you weren’t enjoying it cause it was good. Oh no, you looked like you wanted to ✨a s c e n d✨ into orbit with laughter every ten seconds

For the sake of letting the rest of the Bakusquad enjoy the romance aspect, you limited your actions to biting your fist whenever something hopelessly cringy happened

Any longer than the halfway point, and you would’ve broken down in a fit of hysterical laughter, roasts, and jeers at the screen

Soon enough, the rest of the group made their excuses to leave the room momentarily, disappointed with their results

But, when they came back, something beautiful had occurred 

“Why the hell is she running back to the apartment?? HE CHEATED ON YOU?? KILL ‘IM??”

“SKSKSKS- Okay, but wtf is her FACE?! Is that supposed to be distress?? Freakin’ ahegao faceass.”

Bakugo was deadpan roasting the movie with an amused smirk. While you were coming after it with the gusto of Monoma coming after 1-A, snorting with every comment Bakugo made

Neither of you had even noticed everyone else come into the room

(Apparently, you had told Bakugo earlier that you two can shit on the movie all you wanted once you were alone)

Alright...not exactly the plan. But, possibly a step in the right direction

Sero and Kaminari thought of the next “plan”

I only put quotations, because it’s hardly thought out enough to call it one

It was literally just locking you and Bakugo in a closet 🤡🤡

Don’t worry Sero and Kaminari, I’ll play Taps at your funerals 🎺🎺🎺

You and Bakugo didn’t even have a genuine conversation in the closet...You were too busy yelling various profanities at your friends

“Dude, it’s really FUCKING HOT in here. Let us out while I’m still feeling nice!!”

“I’ll murder you bastards when we get out of here!!! You better start running now.”

Btw, you both ended up making it out of there on your own

You managed to deck the doorknob hard enough to break it off, giving Bakugo enough leeway to blow the door off its hinges

Bakugo took care of Kaminari, while you caught and hogtied Sero with his own tape 

You gave each other congratulatory fist bumps afterwards 😚

Despite the rest of the Bakusquad miserably failing in their schemes, their setups did help develop you and Bakugo’s relationship. Just not as fast as they hoped

You had become a pair that could laugh and fight together. Being each other’s advocate became a source of pride for you both

You were all set to become a romantic couple 

But, what actually brings you together??

Well, it went something like this:

I’m not too sure of the exact details, but I know that you and Bakugo were having an extra intense training session

Things were starting to get a bit sloppy, as your bodies were getting tired, but your morale was just as strong as ever

It could’ve just been a freak accident, or something neither of you saw coming

But, the point is: Either of you could’ve gotten really hurt, had you not been the tough cookies you are

In your perspective, you were oblivious to the danger that you had been in. And if you did know, you didn’t particularly care. You only saw that the person you cared about most in U.A. could’ve gotten hurt

The idea of that happening, and it being your fault (or, not being able to do anything about it) really rubbed you the wrong way. You were mostly angry at yourself

But, you took it out on Bakugo

Because you were the first aggressor, Bakugo responded with what he knew best: Aggression

Yes, he was absolutely mad at himself for putting you in danger. But, what made the feeling worse, was that you refused to acknowledge that you could’ve been injured as well

Your blatant lack of self-preservation pissed him off. Why couldn’t you care about yourself the way he cared about you?!

On the outside looking in, the fighting was far too intense for any peer of yours to try and break it up

Yelling, cursing, but neither of you put your hands on each other (Like you usually did when you play fought)

Strangely enough, I think that’s how you could tell the situation was serious

Finally, your emotions had reached their climax. All caution had gone to the wind at that point

You weren’t even thinking when you yelled the next thing in Bakugo’s face

“DO YOU THINK I’D FUCKING YELL AT YOU IF YOU DIDN’T MEAN THE GODDAMN WORLD TO ME?!”

“WELL FUCK YOU IF YOU THINK THAT YOU’RE ANY LESS IMPORTANT TO ME THAN I AM TO YOU.”

At that moment, you both turned away to storm off before abruptly stopping in your tracks

“What?!” You said in unison, registering what you both had heard and said

You sighed, frustrated at your own stupidity, unclenching your fists and begrudgingly explaining your true feelings to the seething object of your affections

As you spoke, you were realizing just how whipped you were for Bakugo. And how you didn’t know it until you were given the opportunity to blurt it out with pure emotion

Your words weren’t very poetic (You actually sounded very constipated), but what you said was what you felt in its rawest form

Bakugo could hardly think of what to do next. His crush was reciprocated and they confessed first??? Wtf???

His silence made you uncomfortable, and you didn’t feel like blowing up again. You huffed, shoved your hands in your pockets, and turned to stalk away, unsure of what to do next

Before you could completely turn on your heel though, you felt yourself being roughly shoved against a nearby wall

You weren’t even given time to react, because as soon as your back made contact with the wall, a warm, caramel-scented sensation met your lips

The kiss you had just registered didn’t even last two seconds, but the lingering feeling stuck with you as your brain effectively shorted out

“Yo, wh-what was that??”

Bakugo was impossibly red, one hand still on your shoulder, keeping you in place. Even though he refused to make eye contact with you, it was clear that what he had just done was completely intentional

He scoffed, voice barely above a grumble, “Damn dumbass...you didn’t even give me a chance to respond...”

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[🌌 There you go bud! That’s one set of headcanons for the road. Hopefully it lasts for a while, but if it doesn’t, feel free to come back! I’d be thrilled to see you again.🌄] —Reagan

[robininthelabyrinth]

Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 14 - ao3 -

If Lan Qiren hadn’t had any idea on what to do with Cangse Sanren to begin with, he had even less of an idea of what to do when he received a letter from his sworn brother which, after some deciphering of the small talk and insincerely meant pleasantries that could just as easily be read as implicit threats, seemed to boil down to so I hear you have a lover now? and also come to the Nightless City at once.

I do not have a lover, Lan Qiren wrote back crossly. You should send whatever spies you have packing because they are clearly completely useless to you. Also, I have classes that I have no intention of missing. If you want company, recall that you have a wife.

That won him a few weeks of blissful silence, possibly due to Wen Ruohan’s shock but more likely due to Lan Qiren having spitefully chosen to send his reply by usual post rather than by special post, which was more expensive and also generally reserved for important sect matters and not for obvious fishing attempts for gossip about the personal lives of juniors.

Which Wen Ruohan should be above, anyway. What did it matter to him?

The response, not long after that, went something along the lines of so what you’re saying is that you haven’t won the immortal mountain’s disciple yet? if you come to Qishan, I can advise you and that irritated Lan Qiren most of all, because right up until that point he hadn’t known that Cangse Sanren was a disciple of the famous Baoshan Sanren, the best-known immortal still in contact with the mortal world.

Mostly because Cangse Sanren hadn’t ever bothered to introduce herself.

It bothered him, a little. More than a little. She knew how much he valued people acting according to the rules; even if she didn’t care for them, shouldn’t she respect his inclination?

(It turned out that she didn’t introduce herself because she didn’t have a proper name, just the title that everyone used for her. Baoshan Sanren let everyone keep the name they came to the mountain with, but Cangse Sanren had come too young for any name at all, and so she’d never gotten one in all the suspiciously unspecified years she had spent on the timeless mountain. It was a pretty good reason not to introduce yourself, as such things went, and it also belatedly explained why she took offense to people calling anyone old.)

I am not trying to win anyone, he wrote back to Wen Ruohan. And even if I was, which I am not, I would still have classes and am not currently at liberty to travel. Has there been some sort of terrible tragedy such that your Wen sect is so desperate for additional people in the Nightless City?

You are not just any person but my sworn brother, Wen Ruohan responded. Am I not entitled to see you? Maybe I want to see this beard you’re reputedly growing.

Lan Qiren rolled his eyes and threw the letter into the box he was keeping all the others. He was trying to grow a beard, as it happened, though being a newly-turned eighteen it was a slow and frustrating process. He wasn’t entirely sure he liked the itchy feeling of it growing, either, but stroking his chin as if in thought was nearly as cathartic as waving his hands, only more socially acceptable; he liked that part very much.

He’d always had a tendency towards strange motions – moving his hands or arms, tapping on things, or rocking back and forth when he was especially distressed – but his brother had always hated it especially, always quoting Do not move arbitrarily at him even though he knew that that wasn’t the fundamental meaning of that rule. That wouldn’t have been so much of an issue, except most other people seemed to agree with him, citing the importance of acting in a dignified and restrained manner, limiting unnecessary movement and remaining still and calm as a placid pool of water no matter what the circumstance.

The beard was an acceptable compromise. Given how common beards were in the sect, it would be hard to criticize Lan Qiren without accidentally insulting an elder – and it felt so good to be able to move freely, the action serving as an aid for emotional regulation that he desperately needed.

Of course, Cangse Sanren thought it was ugly.

Lan Qiren didn’t agree, but he also didn’t think it was any of her business what he did with his face. Even if it was ugly, so what? He wasn’t particularly egotistical.

Accordingly, he thanked her stiffly for her opinion and then proceeded to ignore it.

Apparently, that didn’t sit well with her, a fact Lan Qiren only discovered when he woke up one day, groggy and unclear as to what had happened the night before, to find himself shaven clean and Cangse Sanren beaming at him from within his own room, to which he had never invited her.

He did not react well.

Stories of your shouting have reached even Qishan, Wen Ruohan’s next letter said. Was what your little lover did really so bad? I hadn’t known you were so sensitive. It’s not as if it won’t grow back.

This is your fault, Lan Qiren wrote back, irrational and upset, his calligraphy rough from the way his hand shook – though whether in rage or something else he couldn’t quite tell. I don’t want to hear from you.

Truly his reaction had been out of proportion with Cangse Sanren’s offense. Shaving a beard, especially a half-grown thing like that, was little more than a childish prank, even if it had taken him several months to get as far as he had; in the end, it was really only a blow to his vanity, and perhaps the loss of a convenient emotional crutch.

And yet, when he’d woken up and seen her there where she wasn’t welcome – when he’d realized that he couldn’t remember the evening before, just the way he couldn’t remember what had happened in the Nightless City that day, waking up to Wen Ruohan smiling at him and an oath he didn’t know nor want – when he’d tasted the sour taste of day-old liquor on his tongue –

He’d panicked.

She’d realized it, he thought in retrospect; the ever-present smile had slowly dripped off her mouth as he stared at her blankly for the first few moments, frozen, and had morphed into an expression of shock when he had broken through his paralysis to start screaming at her to go, get out, leave – he’d even picked up some of his own things to throw at her, just to make her leave faster.

He continued smashing his things after she’d gone, unthinking in his frenzy and unsure why he was so upset, and in the end when clarity had returned and he realized what he’d done he’d been so ashamed that he’d grabbed his guqin and slunk away, retreating to the rooms where the Lan sect entered into seclusion. He couldn’t go into real seclusion with so little preparation, of course, but he was practiced enough at inedia that he could skip meals for a few days and not need to see the world for at least a week.

Part of the feeling of shame was that he didn’t know why he had reacted so badly. Wasn’t it normal for peers his age to play that sort of trick on each other? It hadn’t been meant as a real insult.

He had no right to feel so betrayed.

And yet, he did.

Cangse Sanren had visited later that day, her hand tapping lightly on the door bound by wards and her normally brash voice murmuring explanations and not-quite apologies – saying that she hadn’t realized what it had meant to him, that she wouldn’t have done it if she’d known, asking if he wouldn’t come out to talk to her about it and let her apologize properly.

He ignored her.

He ignored her the next day and the day after, too. His hands were unsteady when he tried to play calming songs for himself, his music tangled and knotted up like the feelings in his chest.

On the fourth day, she came and sat by his door in the evening, late and near to curfew.

“I didn’t know, you know,” she finally said after sitting there for nearly a shichen. “About what happened to you in the Nightless City.”

His hands froze over the guqin.

“Drinking liquor comes as easily to me as breathing,” she continued. “No one’s ever been able to play a trick on me because I got drunk – it’s everyone else who falls over in the end, not me. Maybe what why, when someone told me how badly your family handles its liquor, I thought only of how funny it would be…and not how it would feel, waking up and realizing that you didn’t know what happened. What someone could have done to you.” She was silent for a moment. “What I did do.”

Lan Qiren shut his eyes tightly.

Yes, he thought to himself. She was right. That was why he was so upset.

It wasn’t about the beard at all.

“An oath made when you didn’t know it doesn’t count, you know.”

He laughed harshly, the sound catching in his throat like thick mud. “It does,” he said, and his voice was hoarse from the lack of speech. “Of course it counts. It’s my honor, in the end…anyway, there’s no reason for me to lose my head over it. Sect Leader Wen’s powerful and influential; there are those who would cut off their right hands for a connection with him, much less an oath of brotherhood.”

He wasn’t even all that angry at Wen Ruohan for doing it, either, not really. There wasn’t much point – his few experiences with the other man so far showed that that was just what he was like, always taking instead of asking, and scheming was as innate to inter-sect politics as fighting. Might as well be angry at his grandfather for the ancestral weakness to liquor in the Lan lineage.

It had only been the shock of Cangse Sanren’s unexpected actions that had made it feel like a knife stabbed into his back, a scabbed-over wound suddenly ripped open again.

“You didn’t trust him,” Cangse Sanren pointed out. “You trusted me. And I scared you.”

Perhaps that was true.

“You’re still you, you know. Even while drunk.” She chuckled. “You talk more, care less what people think of you; you’re a little more willing to stand up for yourself, a little more bitter, a little less consciously kind. You told me all about music, something that went over my head, then went to sleep in just the right and proper way, albeit right on the floor. I had to wait until you were asleep to shave you.”

That was a relief to hear. Lan Qiren hated the idea of being so vulnerable.

Although – perhaps he wasn’t. According to Lao Nie, he’d apparently kneed Wen Ruohan in the balls that night for bothering him with nonsense or possibly for trying to leave before he finished explaining something, sometime either before or after their oath.

(After, he assumed. If it had been before, it seemed more likely that he would’ve ended up dead.)

“Anyway, I wouldn’t have done anything serious,” she added. “You wouldn’t have woken up married or anything.”

“It’s not you,” he assured her hastily, alarmed by the thought. “I didn’t mean to imply anything about your character, which I know is good; I know you wouldn’t have done anything like that. It’s only – you don’t always know what people think is enough, coming from the immortal mountain as you do. If someone really wanted to push the issue, or if you didn’t have the background you did, just you being in my room unattended might’ve served as an excuse. And then where would we be?”

She was silent for a while.

“You really don’t want to be married to me,” she finally said. “You’re not playing games or anything; you really don’t.”

Lan Qiren felt something lurch in his chest.

“No,” he said, painfully honest. “Did – did you?”

“Maybe a little,” she said, and Lan Qiren winced. The possibility hadn’t even occurred to him, not even when others had suggested it.

“I didn’t mean…”

“I know,” she said, and her voice was warm. “Don’t worry about me, Qiren; I’ll get over it soon enough. There’s no pain I won’t forget a day later, never learning anything, it’s just the way I am.”

He gnawed on his lower lip. “…can I ask why?”

“Why you, you mean?” He could hear her shrugging through the door, the fabric of her clothing rustling against the wall she was leaning against. “You care about things, deeply and truly. Rules, honor, the right path…I like the way you think, the way you care. You have a good heart and a good brain. Why not you?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and felt rather a wretch over the whole thing. “I didn’t mean to…to…”

She laughed. “You didn’t lead me on, Qiren! You only ever treated me as a friend, and I was, I think. Maybe still am?”

“You are,” he said, and looked down as his guqin, then sighed, picking it up and going to the door. There was no point in pretending to be in seclusion now that the knot in his heart had loosened, and he was starting to get hungry. “Come on, let’s go. I feel a need to graze on the kitchen’s leftover vegetables, as if I were a wild rabbit.”

She beamed up at him, round face shining like the moon.

The next day, after he finished doing penance for missing classes without advance notice – two dozen strikes, but no more – Lan Qiren went down the mountain and purchased some tea said to have especially strong stimulant properties, and gave it to Cangse Sanren.

She blinked at it, then looked at him.

“If you brew this in the morning, you won’t be so tired all the time,” he told her, and shrugged. “Since we’re friends and all.”

He didn’t have that many friends – so few as to not even have recognized her as being one. He was determined to cherish them.

She smiled.

The next day after that, there was surprising news in the Cloud Recesses, the gossip reaching the classroom faster than the messenger sent there specifically for that purpose.

Wen Ruohan had come to pay a visit.

[meta-squash]

Brick Club 1.5.9 “Madame Victurnien’s Victory”

This is simply a translation thing, since Hapgood translates it as “success,” but I think the title containing the word “victory” is interesting because it really implies that Mme Victurnien got something out of what she did to Fantine, that she “won” against Fantine. What she got was a sense of sated curiosity, a curiosity whose satisfaction ruined another human being.

Hugo starts the chapter off saying that Victurnien’s actions did some good, only he then reveals that Valjean never entered the workshop and explains that the overseer was only charitable from a certain angle. How is this good? Valjean, who is described as “even the best men,” is trusting that this woman’s morals are in line with his own simply from word of mouth, rather than checking in. He never sets foot in the workshop and has given her full power. Again, no wonder people are turning to sex work as a side hustle. How many other women has this happened to? And the overseer thinks she’s doing some good!

The overseer is “full of the charity that consists of giving, though to some extent lacking in the charity that consists of understanding and pardoning.” But isn’t this the entirety of Madeleine’s system and philosophy? He helps people by giving them money. He tosses money at them but doesn’t want to see the aftermath and doesn’t want to be the one doing the face-to-face benevolence. He can’t handle being responsible for problems that a little bit of money can’t fix. The only time he seems to do things face-to-face with others is when they specifically come to him (like as a judge or a settler of conflict); he doesn’t ever go to them. The overseer is full of the “charity that consists of giving” because that’s what Valjean’s rules teach. They don’t have space for sitting down and trying to understand. The morality of these rules don’t allow for that. If the only rule to work in this factory is to be an “honest woman,” how do you confront a structure that creates this desire to seek out and banish immorality rather than examine itself and its components for prejudices and then find ways to assist these women who clearly have little to no support?

I’m wondering too if Valjean’s rule fostered this rumor mill. Having a strict code of morality is a great way to foster ill will if people are more nosey or malicious or less mutual aid-minded than others. Especially in a factory where people are paid by their output. If someone is better than you at the job you share, it makes sense to start a rumor about them to get them kicked out so you become the one who gets their pay. This isn’t quite what happens to Fantine, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened to other women. In terms of Fantine and Victurnien, again this strict moral code is a breeding ground for the gossips and rubberneckers that Hugo described last chapter.

Valjean’s system just frustrates me so much. Again, putting so much power in the hands of a person without checking if they’re trustworthy or not, without having a system of “is this person treating my workers right” is just so....careless? That’s not exactly the word I’m looking for but it’s just like Valjean puts this morally strict system in place and expects it to just solve all problems. He’s busy helping other people solve conflicts and things and doesn’t seem to realize that these rules he’s put in place are going to create problems as well. Not to mention that everyone’s ideas of ethics or morals are going to be different. Would Valjean have condemned Fantine if he’d heard her story? We don’t know. But this overseer’s idea of the right thing to do and the right action to take may well be very different from Valjean’s intention upon setting these rules. Which creates circumstances like this.

Am I reading something wrong, or did the overseer not take record that she had given Fantine the 50 francs? I read “of which she rendered no account” as the overseer not bothering to write down the fact that she gave Fantine 50 francs from the money for donation and aid to workers. Is that right? If this is true than it would also give even more reason for Valjean to have no idea: if he doesn’t set foot in the women’s workshop but does look at the expenses, this wouldn’t have shown up either.

The landlord telling Fantine “you’re young and pretty” is a foreshadowing of the next couple chapters, but I also think it’s interesting that the landlord seems to insinuate that she could be a sex worker. Again, this is a garrisoned town. Sex work must be an open secret here, something Valjean maybe refuses to see.

I love Marguerite so much. I think this might be the first and only time Fantine has a friend who actually cares about her. It makes sense that Fantine would have a much older woman as her friend. Hugo says she’s wise, and I think that her sort of quiet wisdom would resonate more with someone much older than with grisettes her own age. Plus an older person might be much more patient with her when teaching her these new ways of living and maybe guiding her through actually noticing these social cues for the first time. Marguerite is kind of like Fantine’s Myriel; she is a pious and religious old woman who takes Fantine under her wing to learn how to live and survive. Only, rather than taking Fantine’s soul for god or anything, she’s giving Fantine a friend, which seems to be something she’s never had before. This is the first time we see Fantine talking to someone else as an equal.

Hugo mentions that Marguerite taught Fantine how to give up an expensive bird. It’s odd to me that this bird is never mentioned. When did she get a bird? If it was with her in Paris why did she not sell it to move to M-sur-M? However, I 100% understand owning a pet even when you barely make any money to buy yourself food. Pets make you feel better about yourself because you’re caring for and getting love from another creature. Fantine has now had to give up Cosette and her bird, both two small things she’s able to give her love to.

Fantine’s backstory is so odd. How did she not know how to “live poor” already? She was an orphan, and as we see later, orphans in the Brick (taken in or otherwise) are generally treated poorly and are exceedingly impoverished. How had she never lived in enough poverty to learn how to reuse things and give things up? This is clearly the most poor she’s ever been, and even Feuilly makes a good deal more than her later on, but it seems strange that even as a young child or teenager she didn’t live in similar poverty, if she was an orphan with no other monetary support besides her own work.

Fantine mentions that she only sleeps five hours a night. We don’t get a lot of mention of characters sleeping. A little here and there, but the Thenardiers don’t seem to sleep, like, at all when they’re in Paris. This is a kind of subtle aspect of it, but being this poor is crazy hard to get out of because it requires so much work. Fantine makes like 9 sous (I think?) making shirts. She’s taking up just under 19 hours of her day sewing, which I would imagine might produce maybe 3 shirts? Depending on whether she’s doing the entire thing from scratch or using patterns or taking someone else’s already fitted and cut out pieces and stitching them together. Either way, sewing takes quite a while, and if she’s taking 19 hours of her day doing that, she has no time to do things like look for a better job. And she’s also still in debt, so she can’t move somewhere with more opportunities, either. The Thenardiers barely sleep because they’re constantly trying to come up with ways to get money as well. Marius seems to barely sleep; he spends his time translating. Sleep is so rare in this book, it’s kind of a surprise when it’s mentioned.

“When one is sad, one eats less. Sufferings, troubles, a little bread on the one hand, a little anxiety on the other--all that will keep me alive.” More of Hugo’s weird thing about suffering. Even more than an ableism kink, he’s got this whole suffering = good thing going on. This is from 3.5.1, about Marius, but I think it summarizes Hugo’s opinion well: “Firm and rare natures are thus created; misery, almost always a step-mother, is sometimes a mother; destitution gives birth to might of soul and spirit; distress is the nurse of pride; unhappiness is a good milk for the magnanimous.” (Hapgood translation as I’m too lazy to transcribe from FMA.) Reaction to suffering is Hugo’s gauge for a character’s goodness.

Also, this line about bread reminds me of Eponine’s line about not eating for three days, only Eponine admits to the misery of not eating, while Fantine tries to keep things light and optimistic. Again, we have Fantine seeing things through a sort of rose-colored lens. This time I don’t think it helps much, but it’s also not concealing danger from her either. It’s just that Eponine has lived so long in poverty that hunger is just an aspect of her life, and misery is something she seems to have simply accepted, while this is still vaguely new to Fantine and she’s trying to figure out how to deal with it.

“In this distress, to have had her little daughter with her would have been a strange happiness.” Mostly I just want to hang on to this quote because it parallels the later line talking about Baron Pontmercy wishing to have young Marius with him. I made a post before about the parallels between Fantine and Pontmercy, and somehow I didn’t catch this one, but here it is.

Everything in this book is about money, about how to pay. Everything in life is about money. It puts Valjean in an expressly unique position as someone who has a frankly ridiculous amount of money compared to pretty much every other character. But everyone except Valjean and Cosette are so highly aware of money, of how much everything costs, and what it takes to pay for something. And really the thing about poverty is that “cost” isn’t just francs, it’s also time and labor and emotion. If Fantine had just the tiniest bit more money, she could send for Cosette, but would Cosette then end up like the child of Valjean’s sister, sitting out in the cold in the early morning after Fantine went to work but before the schools had opened? Sewing shirts takes time; that’s either less time to be with Cosette and nurture Cosette or less time making shirts which is less money. Making enough money to live means sacrificing so much.

Only now does Fantine seem to be aware of social cues, which now have turned into paranoia (though she’s probably at least a little right). Since the beginning, she hasn’t noticed when people are laughing at her or whispering about her or making fun of her to her face. Even when Tholomyes left, I doubt she noticed because all of the grisettes were abandoned at the same time; I don’t think she would have realized that for everyone else it was a little bit different. But now all those whispers and mocking and social cues have been thrown in her face, and now she’s seeing them everywhere. It sounds like paranoia, but I think she’s right, and Hugo basically says so about a sentence later.

“She came and went, head high and with a bitter smile, and felt that she was becoming shameless.” This is another reason why I Dreamed A Dream in English frustrates me so much. The French version at least touches on Fantine’s anger, on the ways she has begun to harden. The English version really does not do that at all. It is interesting that she longs for the anonymity of Paris, and in the end seems to decide to treat M-sur-M as though it was Paris, and go out brazenly anyway.

Mme Victurnien and Tholomyes are at opposite ends of the self-centered individual. Tholomyes fucked Fantine over but didn’t care or think much of it, because once he’d satisfied the amusement he got out of his affair with Fantine, he simply dropped her and probably never thought of her or Cosette ever again. Victurnien, on the other hand, turns Fantine into a weird sort of obsession. Instead of not caring about ruining Fantine’s life, that becomes a kind of pleasure for her. A “dark happiness,” as Hugo calls it. It’s a sort of sadistic schadenfreude. Tholomyes didn’t spend anything to abandon Fantine, he simply left to go back to the country. Victurnien spent money to destroy Fantine’s life. Both are so terrible because one is so deliberately careless and the other is so heartlessly deliberate.

A last thought which is just kind of a throwaway thing, but since gaining the “Fantine as autistic” headcanon from whoever it was that came up with it, I’ve been imagining Fantine’s love of brushing and braiding her hair as a form of self-soothing. I haven’t had long hair in over 15 years but I remember when I did, brushing it or having someone else brush it always felt really nice. Fantine’s hair is so beautiful (later on Hugo says it falls to her knees which is !!!!) and I wonder if part of that is because of how often she uses brushing it to self-sooth when things are terrible.

[23-21-12-6]

Analysis

On October 23, 1966, Chanie Wenjack, a boy taken from his family because of who he was and who they are, died trying to return home. His is a story that deserves to be told and should be told, certainly by one more skilled than me, his among many others. But can these stories be told accurately? And if so, what obstacles might stand in the way?

Within Philosophical Investigations, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein suggests that individual words, or even sentences, only have meaning because of what he called “language-games” because, similar to “normal” games, language-games have a set of rules. It is from the application of these rules that words obtain a meaning. A meaning, singular, because rules and their resulting meanings for a particular word can change between games due to communication’s constant evolution. As an example, Wittgenstein uses the word “water”. Even used in isolation from any other words, “water” could be a command to be brought some for drinking, an alert to a leak or spill, or even as a code word. Meanings aren’t even fixed within a particular language-game; they can be fluid in use, like water.

Wittgenstein didn’t limit the idea of language-games to only word-based communication by using the example of a builder instructing where their assistant should place stones via pointing. Though he applied this to only objective communication, I believe he could have with good reason.

Human communication can be split into two groups: cross-cultural and intercultural. Cross-cultural communications are methods that everyone should be able to recognize, a set of universal rules for every language-game such as weeping being recognized as emotional distress regardless of the audience.  These sorts of indicators are instinctual and vague, unlike intercultural communication which is taught and precise. Intercultural communication is everything else: rules that are not seen in every culture, community, or scenario. These rules can range from widely recognized gestures such as pointing to natural languages such as English or French, to regional dialects, to slang, or to location-specific references.

This is the first problem with telling the story of Wenjack: particularly to a wide audience, using intercultural communication isn’t intrinsically more precise. Using words or interpretations that are too specific to a demographic will leave many unaccommodated. Generally, the broadest and most widely understood yet precise game is a natural language which dictionaries attempt to define and upon mediums such as encyclopedias rely. The Canadian Encyclopedia’s article for Wenjack uses no local slang and only terms that could be easily found in a dictionary. If there was any ambiguity, as for the term “Residential School”, or for a local term such as the place-name “Kenora”, then there is a link provided leading to an exposition. Though all word-based communication is intercultural, not all intercultural communication is word-based. Many cultures, including construction, have some form of “pointing”, but there can be important variations, sometimes within a single system, each form possessing its own meaning.

Wittgenstein only mentioned Intercultural communication but didn’t include all forms within: abstract symbolism was omitted. Some symbolism does only represent words, such as the octagonal “stop” sign, some also objective indicators: “x marks the spot”. The digital information particularly has worked best with icons, such as the reload, save, like, and go-back symbols that have become intuitive without being fixed to a natural language. However, abstract symbols have abstract meanings. Ravens are a popular animal for symbolism. Their scavenging habits have led many cultures to see them as representing death, not “death”, but the idea of death. Native cultures in North America instead saw their resourcefulness and intelligence as the signs of a prolific trickster; a character rather than a trait. In both the lyrical and illustrational aspects of Secret Path, a project directed by Gord Downie to tell Wenjack’s story, a raven accompanies Wenjack. As the story nears its end and Wenjack his death, the raven becomes more prominent. In the third last track of the album, the raven begins to speak to Wenjack saying “I know a way that I can help you.” Whether what follows are honest proposals with honest intentions I am still not sure.

The bases of all communication can be described by a model derived by C.E. Simmons which includes 8 steps through which information passes. In order, the steps are Inspiration, composition, encoding, transmission, noise, reception, decoding, then interpretation. However, for our purposes, we can boil it down to just encoding and decoding. As with any game (except maybe hunting and fishing) all participants should understand what game is being played and what the rules are. The presenter, the one who is encoding, needs to understand which “game”, or set of rules, the context calls for and how to effectively use those rules. The audience, those who are decoding, should also understand the set of rules that should be used and reverse engineer the meaning effectively. For anything that can be observed by both speaker and audience, perfect encoding and decoding can result in exact communication for the subject. However, this is only true for what is observable by both parties.

Language games were not Wittgenstein’s only contribution to language theory. To describe subjectivity and limitations in language, he proposed a thought experiment. Suppose everyone each had a box hovering above their head which contains… something. Importantly, only the person to whom the box belongs knows what is inside and everyone calls what is in their box a “beetle”. Wittgenstein uses this idea to show individual perceptions aren’t verifiable and how language can fail to communicate these experiences. We all experience something called pain, but we fail to know and communicate exactly how everyone else experiences pain. We all just call it “pain”. While we don’t know how others feel pain, we can still recognize the signs of cursing, crying, and holding the injured part using empathy. The reaction to pain is instinctual, while pain isn’t cross-culturally or interculturally, the reaction is.

We don’t know how Wenjack felt when he was home, confined to the school, or on the run. However, we can use empathy to make a strong guess as to what he felt. This is his story and he is at the centre of it. His perspective is integral.

              The question then becomes, which reactions, similar to grasping a stubbed toe, are rooted deeply enough in the human psyche that the subjective experiences of Wenjack or anyone else can be communicated, or even better, felt. Intuition is key, shared intuition is better. The methods of communication that result are generally labelled as art. Artists hone their craft, gain and enhance their intuition as a result, and apply it to various degrees of success. I referenced Secret Path earlier. Secret Path is certainly an art project meant to convey more than objective information; whether it be through phonetic lyrics and musical key choices on the album, or through the colour scheme and movement in the graphic novel and animation. I think the colour choice for the illustrations was particularly fantastic.

              What fascinates me is that while this use of colour is largely a form of cross-cultural communication it is still easy to see how it applies to the theory of language-game because right from the beginning it breaks a rule: if it isn’t only black and white, colour is to be used accurately. Secret Path uses only blue in addition to black and white; panning from the sky down to a forest without any green or brown. This breaking of the rule sets up a new rule: only blue, black, and white are used. This sets up a question; why blue?

Blue occurs relatively rarely in nature,  in the sky and in large bodies of water that mostly just reflect the sky, to see blue and only blue on land is a bit disconcerting. People also usually associate blue with sadness or cold, possibly due to blues prominence during winter. This new rule of blue, black, and white also gets broken when Wenjack is remembering his home: portrayed using the full visible colour spectrum but focusing on the warmer colours of yellow and red. The final set of rules relating to colour is that blue represents foreignness, but warm colouring indicates home and security.

              Downie stated that he wanted to get across “the idea of trying to get home.” Given that verbal key, it becomes easier to find that theme in the telling of the story. The last shot of the film is Wenjack’s consciousness walking away from the blue landscape towards a vibrant homestead. However, this is not what I was thinking of when I first heard Wenjack’s story. Though it has been a while since the first reception, I believe my initial thoughts are the same as my current: Wenjack’s forced choice between losing his life or personhood. I do not think that I got the wrong impression, nor do I think Downie failed. There is a dichotomy in communication: that objective encoding and decoding can be accurate, but no matter how some concepts are encoded they will never result in a message unaffected by the audience save by chance. Downie and I could have both had a beetle in our box (trying to get home), but I happen to call mine an apple (forced choice). For cases such as this, I believe there is no right answer because the answer is unknowable.  Works Cited

Carley, Georgia. "Chanie Wenjack". The Canadian Encyclopedia, 01 November 2016, Historica Canada. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/charlie-wenjack. Accessed 02 January 2021.

Cherry, Kendra. “The Color Psychology of Blue.” Verywell Mind, Verywellmind, 24 Nov. 2005, www.verywellmind.com/the-color-psychology-of-blue-2795815.

“Gord Downie’s The Secret Path - YouTube.” Www.Youtube.com, 23 Oct. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGd764YU9yc&t=2357s. Accessed 2 Jan.

2021.Ludwig Wittgenstein, and G  E  M Anscombe. Philosophical Investigations : The English Text of the Third Edition. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Prentice Hall [Ca, 2000.

[c-ptsdrecovery]

Fanny Price and Emotional Abuse

colubrina replied to your post “Emotional Neglect in Austen”

I would actually love to read your analysis of Fanny Price if you ever had time and inclination to write it out.

Oh my goodness, where do I start?

Fanny Price is abused and neglected from start to finish of that novel. She suffers direct emotional/verbal abuse from Mrs. Norris, bullying from Maria and Julia, excessive criticism from those three AND Sir Thomas, and emotional neglect from Lady Bertram and Tom. She also suffers PHYSICAL abuse and neglect, mostly from Mrs. Norris, who does not allow her to have any heat in her room in the winter and forces her to work beyond her strength in the summer even though Mrs. Norris KNOWS she’s chronically ill (and it’s no wonder, considering the amount of emotional strain Fanny’s under, that she should be chronically ill!). 

The only person in that house who even notices that she’s utterly miserable from the trauma of being torn from her family is Edmund: he’s the only one who treats her like a person and is kind to her. It’s no WONDER she falls in love with him: he’s the only person in the entire family who doesn’t treat her like SHIT. But while Edmund recognizes Mrs. Norris’ behavior toward Fanny to be beyond the pale, he generally does not seem to notice that his more immediate family also treats her horribly. Lady Bertram treats Fanny as a servant, putting her own (Lady Bertram’s) needs and wants before Fanny’s (”You don’t want to go to the party, do you? You want to stay home with me because I get bored if you don’t!”). Sir Thomas is generally so critical and cold that when he greets Fanny kindly on his return from Antigua she is “nearly overcome” by his kindness. Even Edmund himself begins to both emotionally and physically neglect Fanny the moment he gets interested in Mary--leaving Fanny for ages on the bench alone, keeping her waiting too long for her horse when she needs to exercise, etc. Fanny only gets noticed and included as a member of the family when Maria and Julia are both gone and the family is apparently bored without them--the same reason Henry decides to flirt with her.

The result is that Fanny has almost no self-esteem. She has completely internalized Mrs. Norris’s lesson that “Wherever you are, you must be the lowest and last.” At one point she parrots the lessons she’s been taught by the treatment of the entire family:

“I can never be important to any one.” “What is to prevent you?” “Everything. My situation, my foolishness and awkwardness.” “As to your foolishness and awkwardness, my dear Fanny, believe me, you never have a shadow of either.”

She believes she’s foolish and awkward because the family harped on her lack of education and “refinement” when she first came to them, and they have drilled into her, not only that she is not important to them, but that she can never BE important to ANYONE. Classic result of emotional neglect. And Fanny NEVER actually gets over it, throughout the entire book.

She’s nearly silent through much of the book too, mostly because she’s too terrorized to talk. As someone who was similarly brainwashed by emotionally abusive parents, I can tell you that taking any attention under some circumstances feels excruciating and guilt-inducing, because you’ve been conditioned so hard to believe that “being the center of attention” is somehow morally WRONG. Fanny suffers from precisely that false belief (note her distress when she is required, by the social rules of the day, to start the dancing at her own ball--Sir Thomas basically has to SCOLD her into it!).

That said, it’s amazing to note the one way in which she DOES have self-esteem: she believes in her own moral judgment. This is the only basis on which she is able to think and act independently of others. When Edmund treats her badly, she gets seriously annoyed. When she notices Henry’s bad behavior toward Maria, she is indignant. She secretly judges Mary Crawford the whole way through the book. I would attribute this trust in her moral judgment to be the result of the kind of long walks and talks she has with Edmund in the text and has had her entire life: he has molded her to think of things with the same moral judgment he uses and to think herself capable of being superior to others in that moral judgment. Of course, since she has absorbed the moral tone of Edmund, learned from Sir Thomas, she is pretty judgy sometimes, since Sir Thomas clearly feels himself and his moral code to be superior rather than conservative. She certainly feels superior to her birth family (with some reason, honestly lol), because in this one thing she has been taught that the family she grew up in was superior to others. She has imbibed this superiority and acts it out when at Plymouth.

Let me give you an example of Sir Thomas’s conservative moral code. You might think, from reading Mansfield Park, that Jane Austen disapproved of private theatricals, and that they were generally considered too naughty by the Better Sort of Person. It turns out that this isn’t true at all. Not only were private theatricals popular, but Jane Austen enjoyed performing in them and even WROTE some plays for that purpose! One of them involves a gentleman sitting on a lady’s lap!! It turns out that the strait-laced tone of the novel is not so much a reflection of the author’s standards of conduct, but of Sir Thomas’s, imbibed by Edmund and then Fanny. Edmund, Fanny, and Sir Thomas’s dislike of private theatricals would have been a bit PRUDISH at the time, not the obvious standard of Good Breeding.

Another thing the novel has imbibed from Sir Thomas is its insularity. The modern criticism of Mansfield Park talks a lot about the family’s isolation. Now, I don’t hold with the criticism that makes a big deal out of Fanny marrying her cousin and implying that that’s incestuous, because in the 19th century, cousin marriage was not only acceptable but a norm. Marrying your cousin was often considered desirable because it strengthened family ties and kept money in the family. BUT, I completely agree with the observation that the Mansfield Park family seems to shun the outside world. 

One thing that I don’t know if the criticism has commented on is that dysfunctional families often function like cults. Offspring of dysfunctional families tend either to rebel and “run away” (Maria elopes, Julia elopes, Tom rebels) or to fail to establish autonomy (Edmund takes a living in Sir Thomas’s gift and later the house right down the road; Fanny never gets out of the family at all because she marries Edmund). Dysfunctional families also teach their members not to trust those outside the family circle. They don’t tend to socially interact much with others. I can say from personal experience that my parents have VERY few friends that they see outside of work or church, and only one couple that they invite to the house regularly. As a child, I rarely got to have birthday parties with my friends: my parents would instead invite my extended family. I was taught not to establish strong bonds outside the family, to trust the family only to be generous or to help and support me. I find it difficult to establish strong ties of friendship outside the family or to trust those friends to support me the way my family might.

The Bertrams are the same way. Maria and Julia go to local balls, but that happens offscreen, and we never meet any of their acquaintances except Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth (who become family). The family disapproves strongly of Tom’s having such an active social life away from home, and disapproves when he brings home a friend (Mr. Yates) to stay. Even when Sir Thomas holds a ball for Fanny in the house itself, we never actually meet any of the guests except the ones we already know! And the “last straw” that causes Edmund to agree to join the theatricals is when they start asking people “outside their circle” of Mansfield and the parsonage to participate. He also deplores that they might invite in an audience of these personae non gratae. Frankly, it’s amazing that the Bertrams were willing to open their family circle enough to let in, not only the Grants, but the Crawfords.

I’ve gone on for quite awhile, but I’ll close like this. When I first read Mansfield Park, I hated it and I hated Fanny, because she had no backbone and cried all the time. Then I watched the 2007 adaptation with Billie Piper, and realized that although Fanny was so shy and retiring and weepy, she had an iron backbone in that nobody could make her do what she thought was wrong. Mansfield became one of my favorite Austen novels.

At the moment, I don’t feel like I can reread MP. I’m dealing so much with my own history of emotional abuse and neglect that MP strikes just waaaay too close to home (also the reason I can’t rewatch Tangled right now). I’m not sure how much I like MP anymore, frankly. Austen did a fantastic job of accurately portraying a victim of emotional abuse. And she gave Fanny what she wanted at the end, which was Edmund. But I can’t help wondering if Austen herself wished she could have ended the novel differently. She comes right out and says, authoritatively, that if Edmund had married Mary, and Crawford hadn’t run off with Maria, that Fanny would have married Crawford and been happy. She could have escaped from her abusive family, with someone who really sees their abuse: “And they will now see their cousin treated as she ought to be, and I wish they may be heartily ashamed of their own abominable neglect and unkindness.” If Crawford and Maria hadn’t run off together, the ending of Mansfield Park might have been entirely different--and it MIGHT have been better.