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neverdoingmuch · 4 years ago

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hello! I just wanted to ask, which do you think in the mdzs novel has the most questionable morality? like they have done more bad things but they still had kindness in them somehow (?)

oh!! this is a hard one for me anon! i’m always bad at ranking characters but i’ll do my best! i’m not sure if you were hoping for like a quick answer or a long one but i’m gonna go with a long one bc that’s always fun and i’ll do a tldr if you don’t want to read through all that? yeah that seems like it’ll work because holy shit i didnt mean for it to get so long (and kind of away from the point of your ask too so sorry about that!)

okay! So, the three main contenders for morally dubious characters are, as far as I’ve seen, Xue Yang, Jin Guangyao, and Wei Wuxian. Not a big surprise, I’m sure. While they’re the more obvious options, they do have a lot of parallels and exhibit a lot of the themes and ideas that MXTX was getting at. I mean, I love looking at Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian as foils, and even other combinations of the three, so my answer will probably be heavy on the comparisons. I do think it’s worth touching on Jiang Cheng as well though. Also, I’ll try to stay as unbiased as I can because there’s a few characters on this list that I just don’t like … like at all.

Jiang Cheng tends to get brushed over a lot when it comes to some of the horrible things he’s done. From promising to protect Wei Wuxian from dogs only to immediately use them as a threat whenever he wants to to leading a siege on a group of people he knows are completely innocent of any crimes to torturing and killing people for thirteen years, he’s definitely not a good person. His concerns lie first and foremost with himself and his. That doesn’t seem like a horrible thing at first – he should owe his loyalty to himself, his family, and his sect – but it does mean that when the Xuanwu’s cave situation happened, his response was to get mad that Wei Wuxian helped Jin Zixuan and Lan Wangji. (And that’s why Jiang Fengmian got mad at him!). Later on, when pressure comes from the sects regarding Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng chooses not to stand with him, which, while understandable, isn’t exactly a kind move to someone who called Jiang Cheng his family and was trying to repay the debt the two of them owed Wen Qing. There’s no denying that he does care about Wei Wuxian, but when forced to make hard choices, he picks what’s easiest for himself. In general, I’d say that his sense of morality is selfish and somewhat flighty, but not necessarily questionable, so I’ll move on!

For the usual suspects, I’ll start with Xue Yang because I’m just going to immediately eliminate him from the running. I’ve seen people interpret his character sympathetically or try to justify some of his actions or the way he turned out, but I honestly just can’t. While you could feel sympathetic towards him because of his childhood, we have Wei Wuxian as a direct contrast to Xue Yang, as well as, to a certain degree, Jin Guangyao. Both Xue Yang and Wei Wuxian were street kids who had a horrible time in their youth, but Wei Wuxian was able to leave that behind him. That’s a lot easier to do when you’ve been adopted into a major sect and afforded comforts above your station (and also have terrible coping mechanisms), but even Jin Guangyao’s revenge isn’t quite as wide-spread and malicious. I know it may seem a bit obvious, anon, but some people really do try and treat Xue Yang like he’s morally dubious which confuses me a lot because how?? Even if we do say that he has suitable cause, one of the messages of the novel is that your past experiences don’t justify your future actions, so even within the context of the novel – a novel which is concerned with highlighting the grey areas of morality – Xue Yang isn’t afforded any sympathy. So, there’s really no way to construe him in a positive light. His only moments of kindness come with his time spent in Yi City with Xiao Xingchen, where Xue Yang doesn’t change much – he may have cared for Xiao Xingchen, but Xue Yang still tortured him as he did so. I never quite read that arc as Xue Yang learning to care or being allowed to be kind again so I’d just say that he lacks both morals and kindness. On that basis we can boot him from this competition.

Jin Guangyao may have been one of the antagonists of the novel, but he wasn't a completely bad person or like The Worst. His main crimes involved getting revenge for slights against him or his mother – being from Nie Mingjue, Jin Guangshan, or any number of other cultivators. I think that, to an extent, his actions are justifiable. While you can contrast this to the way Wei Wuxian gets called a servant's son, they do differ in the fact that Wei Wuxian is afforded a higher level of protection due to him being favoured by Jiang Fengmian. Additionally, when Wei Wuxian does have his birth used against him, he's usually the person who acted out first anyway. Jin Guangyao was insulted for doing little more than exist and was never the person to act out first, yet still faced a near constant onslaught of insults. I'm not saying his actions were justified by any means, but the reasoning behind his actions is sound. The one thing I will note is that he doesn't let go of his grudges – even when everything is all done and dusted and he has everything that he could possibly want from life, he still holds onto that hatred. I remember seeing a post where someone mentioned that characters who were able to move on and change for the better were able to get their happy ending in MDZS, which isn't relevant here but definitely applies to Jin Guangyao when thinking about why he got the ending he did. I don't agree with the degree to which he enacted his revenge against certain characters and I loathe the whole Qin Su situation. I don't care how much he cries about it, he could've at least told her, but I mainly just pretend that part didn't exist. So, he has suitable cause for at least some of his actions, and his other victims can just be classified as necessary collateral rather than being intentional innocent targets, if that makes sense, but he's definitely vindictive and spiteful.

On the other hand, he did a lot of good, too. He's a side character for the most part so Jin Guangyao didn't get the most screen-time, but we do hear of some of the good things he's done. The main example would probably be the watchtowers. One of the interesting things about Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian is that while both of them are capable of kindness, the breadth and scope of Jin Guangyao's is much broader – the watchtowers are an idea that not only showcase how Jin Guangyao's upbringing allows him to see flaws in the cultivation world that the other privileged cultivators can't, but also show how he does care about the people. I've seen a few people try and play it as a spying technique but I don’t really believe that in the slightest. I mean, the point of the towers is to cover the areas where the sects aren't, so I have no idea what Jin Guangyao's people would even be spying on. Anyway, setting up those watchtowers really didn't benefit him any specific way – unless you consider him endearing himself to Lan Xichen and garnering a good reputation with the common folk something that outweighs the absolute nightmare it would have been to make the sects participate in the project to begin with. In a more specific case, Jin Ling's dog was given to him by Jin Guangyao. It's interesting that, despite Jin Ling spending the novel being trailed by Jiang Cheng, the gift that he obviously cares for deeply is from Jin Guangyao. In the Guanyin Temple scene I definitely got the sense that Jin Ling had loved and trusted Jin Guangyao before the truth came out so I'm firmly convinced that he would've been a wonderful and conscientious uncle to him and just generally good to the people who worked for him and/or the commoners.

Okay, now Wei Wuxian!! As far as I've seen, people are relatively good at staying true to his questionable sense of morality. Like with Jin Guangyao, we know that he can be vindictive and pretty excessive when it comes to getting his revenge, but I'm not going to deny that I was definitely rooting for him when he went after Wen Chao and his little gang. The main issue with Wei Wuxian is probably the demonic cultivation – the stigma against it tends to get reduced to it being bad for the user and their temperament etc. etc., but there's more to it than that. I'm no expert on Daoism by any means, but from my understanding desecration of corpses and disturbing the dead is a significant cultural taboo. This isn't just Wei Wuxian doing something no one else can do (though it certainly is true), it's also him doing something no one else should do. I've seen the massacre at Nightless City being added as another tally to his list of crimes, but I honestly think that that isn’t a crime worth adding – he needed to defend himself so he did, simple as that.

As I mentioned above, Wei Wuxian's kindness is a bit more specific – where Jin Guangyao cares for the people, Wei Wuxian cares for individuals. We see his kindness more clearly, be it because he's the main character or be it because actions are clearer and stronger when it's for a single person or a small group. It's a bit easier, in my opinion, to care about people when you don't have to live with them and face them every day, but Wei Wuxian does. Even though Wei Wuxian led a lot more comfortable life than Jin Guangyao, we never really see Jin Guangyao get his hands dirty in the same way Wei Wuxian does. When a sacrifice needs to be made, Wei Wuxian’s the one who makes it. He doesn't relegate, he does it himself. We know that he would do absolutely anything for those he cares about and that's why he's able to commit a lot of the atrocities he does.

When it comes to deciding between Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian for most questionable morality, I think we need to look at the reasons behind their actions. Wei Wuxian’s sense of morality is definitely nowhere near that of the Lans but he has always been driven by his sense of justice and his love for those around him. In that sense, I've always read him as having a flexible sense of morality rather than a questionable one. I'm not sure how much of it ties in with his sense of duty, but it's definitely a lot. Wei Wuxian is, and always will, fill the role that is required of him – be it the childish and sweet younger brother, the talented but flippant older brother, the monster that wins the war, or the fierce protector that gives his all, Wei Wuxian will twist himself into whatever position he's needed in at that moment. Obviously, he went after Wen Chao for his own benefit, and the corrupting influence of the resentful energy does need to be factored into this, but at his core, Wei Wuxian will always value his duty (to his sect, family, friends, and innocents) and doing what is right over anything else. He may have stumbled along the way, but he did manage to form his own path to uphold all the values that he wanted to. Jin Guangyao, on the other hand, is similar to Jiang Cheng in how he's driven by his own motivations for betterment and revenge, albeit with more grace and intelligence. Jin Guangyao may masquerade as being motivated by any number of causes but he will never do anything at his own risk, and he will always be his top priority. So, while it's a close call between Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao, I'm going to have to go with Jin Guangyao on this one!

tldr; the fandom favourites for questionable morality are xy, jgy, and wwx so i mainly looked at them. I included jc as well but neither xy or jc demonstrate the dichotomy needed so they got eliminated from the running. Jgy and wwx both commit and are willing to commit horrible crimes as well as being capable of caring for others and being kind. but, where wwx is driven by his sense of justice and love for others, jgy is driven by his own motivations for betterment and revenge, making for a more questionable morality (as compared to wwx's more flexible morality).

#mdzs #mdzs text #mdzs meta #dfgrgt i was like hm but what if this post isnt good enough to tag as meta #modao zushi #wei wuxian #jin guangyao #xue yang #jiang cheng #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #asks #legal talks #i figured that since i wasnt giving a very interesting answer i might as well throw in some discussion too #i hope this answers your question anon!!#thanks for asking me i had a lot of fun answering this #in case you couldnt tell from the uhh 2k i wrote #Anonymous #but if you want to send any more asks please do!! i love discussing things like this

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amethystpath-writes · 4 years ago

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If you have the time and motivation for this, would you mind writing about the hero finding out the villain has been dating his sister? And the sister has no idea but the villain is like taunting the hero with public displays of attention and gushy romance things. The hero can’t do anything bc he thinks the villain will hurt the sister if he says anything about it. You can decide whether the villain actually loves the sister or not :)

I have been excited about this idea since I read it. Thank you, nonny!

******

Pulling up to the curb, Sister pushed the door open. How long ago did she unbuckle? Hero wondered. He hated how- how…uncaring she was. It wasn’t so much about her hurting other people with her carelessness as it was about her hurting herself. Hero loved Sister, which meant he hated to see the path she was taking. She was going to get herself killed, maybe not by going on dates, but with all her other tendencies; things like getting into car crashes at sixteen, going to skateparks in the middle of the night, and the general rebellious thing she had going on. Hero wish she could understand that the reason he was so overbearing was because their parents weren’t at all. And he wasn’t a helicopter brother; he just wanted her to be safe.

Hero turned the key counter clockwise and pulled it out, before getting out of the car himself. Now was the moment he’d evaluate Sister’s boyfriend. Yes, evaluate. If the guy Sister was dating was some jerk or something right off the bat, Hero would make him leave. He’d- uh- puff his chest and…and do the intimidating stuff.

Truth be told, Hero didn’t know how to come off as intimidating without using his abilities, but no one knew about those, and no on could know. He had watched too many movies of people with weird powers being taken and experimented on or tortured or other terrible things. It’s why he and Villain took things to rooftops, or otherwise amidst destruction where they couldn’t be seen. But that wasn’t the point! The point was that Hero was about to meet the person his sister was spending so much time with.

Sister was running up to one of the tables of the small ice cream bar, and when she got there- or to the person there- she wrapped their arms around a man, and as he looked up, Hero felt his whole body freeze. He felt his hands shake as the man- Villain- dragged a hand up and down Sister’s back, taunting Hero because he knew the shock it would cause.

It was Villain. Villain was coddling Hero’s sister right in front of him, and he even made eye contact while doing it.

After a few more frozen moments, Hero took one- two- steps forward. Villain watched, not ceasing his teases. At one point he even full on glared at Hero, stopping him in his tracks. Hero didn’t know what to do but to remain where he was and watch. He nearly spoke, opening his mouth to break it up, to get Sister away, but one flick of Villain’s hand on her neck stopped him.

The two kissed, not too awfully long- certainly not a make out session, but it was too long to be considered a peck.

“Oh.” Villain’s gaze caught Hero’s again, and he smiled. “This must be the brother you have mentioned a time or twice.”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah.” She gave a small laugh, adjusting her shirt, as it’d become somewhat crooked, and turning to face her brother while still standing beside her boyfriend- who now slid a hand behind her before settling it on her waist opposite of his own side.

Hero swallowed. Should he talk? Initiate the conversation? But with that hand on his sister’s hip…it was a threat. Villain could take off with her any second.

Or maybe he just loved Sister.

No. No, of course he doesn’t love Sister. That was a ridiculous idea and Hero couldn’t believe he even thought of it for a second.

“You never said he was mute.”

Still not knowing whether to speak or not, Hero only took very slow and deliberate steps forward toward the- the couple, if you could even call them that. “When do I need to pick you up?”

Sister’s face scrunched up. “What? You suddenly don’t want the cone and taco you made me promise to buy you before you left?” She laughed and crossed her left arm over her chest so that she could place her hand on Villain’s shoulder. “You don’t approve.”

She thought it was because Villain was wearing raggy clothing, a shirt with purposefully torn holes and bleached pants. No. That wasn’t the problem at all. Someone who looked as Villain did now was exactly Sister’s type, and they weren’t all shitty people. It just so happened to be that this one was. And this wasn’t the clothing Villain typically wore either. It was a lie, a façade, to lure Sister in. It worked.

Villain’s hand began to draw circles on Sister’s side. Hero had to take a deep breath. Another warning, or threat, or whatever you wanted to call it, to Hero to say the right thing, to play a role in the act. “I didn’t say that,” he settled for. Easy, simple, neutral.

“Your face is saying that,” Villain said. Hero could have sworn Villain held up a one with his fingers for a moment. He felt his heart thundering in his chest.

“Why don’t we all order our food and sit down, hm? Clear the air up a bit.”

It wasn’t a request or a suggestion. It was a demand.

Hero didn’t realize his jaw was clenched until he opened it to speak as he walked toward them at a proper talking distance. He kept his hands in his pockets to hide the fact they were fisted. “Right. Not a problem at all. Sister, I’ll order for you. What do you want?”

She looked up at him, then Villain.

“I told her I’d pay, but if you’d like to go order for yourself with me, then that’s fine. Maybe we can get to know one another a little more. Do you want to pick a table for us, mi amore?”

Wordless, Sister left to do as Villain suggested. Now it was just Hero and Villain standing out in the wide open.

Villain was the first to begin walking to the order line. Hero followed two steps behind, too nervous to be any closer. He didn’t think Villain was stupid enough to act out here, but it was hard telling- especially if he was apparently willing to date Sister. Hero still couldn’t believe it. The denial would have been stronger if Villain hadn’t been actively cluing threats.

“I have really rendered you speechless, haven’t I?”

Hero said nothing.

“Go on, say something. Do you think I plan to rip out your tongue?”

No. I think you might snap my sister’s neck. “What are you doing?”

Villain gave a small chuckle. “Did you ever consider that maybe I just like your sister and that’s why I asked her on a date today?”

“I considered it, then found it unlikely.”

He hummed. “Well, you’re right. I don’t despise her, but I would have no interest in her if it didn’t dig under your skin. It’s funny, the way you find me to be so threatening. A touch on her wrist makes you think I’ll break it. A touch on her neck, and you think I’ll dig my teeth into her throat as if I were a vampire and she my prey. What else, hero?”

“You would do all of those things.” Straight to the point.

“Is that what you think?” Villain smiled, stepping forward in the line now that some kid finally decided to order three scoops of various ice creams with sprinkles and syrup on top- no cherry though. “Perhaps. That only means you should continue to tread carefully. I’d hate for you to twist an ankle.”

Hero was becoming more frustrated than worried now. What was the point in all of this? The only thing Hero could come up with was that this was Villain’s form of a punishment…for looking for him, Hero assumed. But why was that such a big deal? Maybe Villain was up to something and needed Hero off his back; dating his sister and threatening her nearly every moment was the solution, and it was somewhat effective.

Silence followed through the rest of the line until they made it to ordering. “You used to buy her the toppings options,” Villain said to Hero before looking back to the person taking his order. “Add some rainbow sprinkles on top.” Having finished the order, Villain handed over a twenty- Did he just hold up a two with his other hand? - and told the worker to keep the change- all five dollars and thirty-six cents. Turning back to Hero, he began again. “She misses those times- when you actually tried to spend time with her.”

Gritting his teeth, Hero said nothing. Villain knew the reason he didn’t talk to his sister- or any of his family. Hero was busy looking for wherever Villain was hiding out when he wasn’t going into cities and attacking people from above.

They waited for their orders after Hero paid for his, and as they did this, Villain spoke up again, “You’re thinking about what to do in this scenario.”

“I’m not thinking about much of anything actually.”

Villain hummed. “I would be head over my heels in thought. I must have really boggled you up there.”

Hero said nothing. There was nothing to do.

Bringing the food and ice cream back, the date went as any would- with the exception that Hero was now a part of the date. It was originally meant to only be Sister and whoever her boyfriend was- which as Hero knew now, was Villain.

They all chatted like good friends, and Hero was warned subtly a few times to watch his displeased facial expressions. The unhappy expression usually only happened when Villain would hold Sister’s hand and all Hero could think was, He’s going to crush her bones. He’s capable of it. One squeeze is all it’d take. They also frequented when Villain put an arm around his sister’s shoulders, draping a hand almost carelessly. Again, Hero’s thoughts would get the best of him. Fingernails in her arm, river of blood. What did he think Villain was exactly, Hero wasn’t even sure, but evil was an easy way to define him.

Sure, they both had abilities, but only Villain was sadistic enough to ever use them against people powerless and defenseless against it. He never did it where he could be seen, but- well, Villain was unpredictable, wasn’t he? Hero certainly never expected the guy to start dating his sister. It was possible he really would hurt Sister in public.

“Hero, what did you say you do for work again?”

He swallowed. Hero could out Villain right now, just say it in the next moment and no one would expect it. And it was outlandish enough that it would be surprisingly unquestionable. Some things you just couldn’t lie about. It wouldn’t even need thought, though, because Villain would deliberately prove it…by concussing Sister with a tiny flick.

“I work with the Containment Justice Department in town.” This was what Hero told everyone, mostly his family. It wasn’t so difficult to lie about anymore, except that now Villain was smiling with the brightest beam of amusement.

Containment Justice Department, Hero could hear Villain mocking him.

“Interesting. I thought you had to graduate from some police academy or something to do that.”

“I excelled.”

“Right. Sister said you dropped out of high school. Suppose that’s why I never saw you in the halls.”

Villain tucked a piece of hair behind Sister’s ears then brought his lips to her cheek. She smiled and pushed him away playfully. Hero held his breath.

What could Villain possibly do with a kiss? What deadly thing could come out of that? His creativity was shrunken at this point, exhausted. This had been such a long day, and the sun was setting. Hero was stressed beyond relief, he felt.

“How long have you two been together?”

Sister opened her mouth to answer, but Villain beat her to the punch, his lips still on her skin. “Next week will be a year.” He put a hand on her chin after drawing his own head back just barely to make room for movement, then dragged her head to him until their lips were almost touching. “Isn’t that right, mi amore?”

A blush rose in her cheeks before he kissed her, and this time it was longer than when she and Hero first arrived.

“Right, well it was nice to meet you. Sister, we should go before it gets dark.”

“Um, I was actually…” Sister began, but trailed off.

“I’ll bring her home later tomorrow.”

“We should go home now. It’s dangerous out at night.” Hero added, “Not just for her sake, but yours.” Hero only included this for two reasons: (1) Villain would have silently scolded Hero, threatened him- or his sister, he supposed- for not wishing good will for Villain, and (2) because Hero needed his sister to agree with him, to want Villain to go home so that he was safe since they were a couple and couples cared for one another.

“My house is well lit. I think we’ll be okay. But I do hate to drive at night. Astigmatisms,” Villain said, “nasty things. Are you ready to go, mi amore?”

She nodded, and Hero didn’t know what to do as she began to stand. Sister couldn’t go to Villain’s home; she might never come back. What if he killed her? Hero didn’t know where he lived, and that meant there would be no rescue. He had to stop this now. But he couldn’t. Because if he tried to, Villain would act out now, and he’d probably find a way to make it Hero’s fault.

“You win, okay?” Hero rushed out as the distance between he and Sister and Villain grew. “You’ve- uh- been there for my sister when I couldn’t be. You are a…” Hero grimaced. “You’re a good guy.”

Villain licked his lip before dragging it in with his teeth, then looking at Sister with only his eyes- no tilting of the head, no action Sister could see.

“Thank you for taking care of her. Drive safely.”

And that was all Hero could do to ensure any amount of safety; admit defeat. Admit the Villain one, and maybe he would ease up, maybe he would break the tie he made with Sister, let her be free, even though she didn’t know she was caught to begin with.

“Will do.” Villain tossed a hand in the air- a careless goodbye.

Hero felt his heart drop. What did the carelessness mean- if anything at all? There was nothing he could do about it anyways. Villain won. Hero could only hope- maybe even pray- that Villain would show mercy. Until then, Hero hopped in his car, and before he took off, he turned the ringer on on his phone. It was the least he could do. If Sister was in trouble, maybe she would text or call him, and he would be there in a heartbeat after she told Hero Villain’s add- That’s it!

Hero opened the messaging on his phone and clicked on Sister’s name. ‘What’s his address? Just in case something happens.’ he typed and hit send.

Not a moment later, Hero received a text back from Sister, reading, ‘Seriously? How dunce are you?’

Another message as Hero began typing. ‘That’s three.’ it read. Hero squinted his eyes, looking up at the brake lights in front of him. A hand was stuck out of the driver side window. Three fingers were held out. And then? The car in front of Hero surged forward, wheels squealing with the highest screech he ever heard.

“No!” Hero fumbled with his keys, trying hard- maybe too hard- to put in it the ignition slot. “No, no, no.” He glanced up and down, watching as Villain’s car sped off until it turned out of sight. “Dammit!” Finally, the key slid in, and Hero started the car, speeding off just the same as Villain did just two minutes ago, but by the time he turned on the street Villain had, the car was gone, his sister with it.

******

Requested Part 2 here

#request fill #hero x villain #hero x villain story #cursing cw #there's not too many but enough to give warning :)#I ended up cutting out an entire paragraph at the beginning though #wasn't too necessary to have in the story and it made longer than it already was haha #much love! Xx Dee

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phoebehalliwell · 5 years ago

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do you mayhaps have any thoughts on (dark future) chris’s daddy issues...

Of Course I Do!!!!!!!!!! okay so here’s the thing is in my dark future is wyatt isn’t found until like 2008 and during that entire period it’s just like piper and leo manically searching for him, while chris is being raised by paige, phoebe, and victor but they don’t really represent like strong parental figures for him just because he’s constantly switched between the three of them. i think leo��s home more than piper because leo’s main strategy is asking people for information and like keeping his ear to the ground while piper’s method is more murder every single demon ever so she spends a lot of her time on the hunt. so like,, y’know chris is like a three year old doing like three year old things y’know like he fingerpaints a lil family portrait in preschool that obvi doesn’t have wyatt on it bc chris doesn’t know who that is and as he is three can’t quite wrap the head around the concept that he has an older brother but he was kidnapped and they’re trying to find him all he really registers is that his dad hates the painting. so chris is like okay L he didn’t like that so i should try to find something to make him happy so that’s what tiny lil chris does except it keeps not working and leo’s never really engaged and chris is like okay what the fuck??

they find wyatt when chris is four and they bring him back and chris is sorta like ??? who tf is this??? why is he so mean to me because let’s face it wyatt is Fucked Up bc uhh you don’t get tortured for like 5 years and not get like a really damaged skew perspective of how the world is. wyatt bullies chris Like A Lot. like in every manner of the word. and piper and leo keep trying to take wyatt’s side bc they’re sorta hoping everything will straighten out he just needs some time he’s just adjusting to being back and chris is like ??????? like i’m being hurt here please take my side???

so whatever they both get older and chris definitely starts isolating himself from the rest of the family bc he’s tired of obviously being the one everyone cares about the least. wyatt’s definitely proficient in killing demons by the age of nine and i think chris definitely tries to keep up with his brother but there’s no use he just isn’t as powerful of a witch as wyatt is. at age twelve wyatt runs away from home and piper and leo don’t really chase after him bc they lowkey know it’s futile and chris is like ten and it’s now just him and his parents (alternately mellie too if that’s the plotline you’re going for) and like piper and leo literally have nothing to pay attention to other than chris and yet they just don’t??? like they’re already so broken from the whole wyatt being incredibly fucked up that they just deadass can’t do it again and chris is like motherfuckers??? i’m your son too???? like??

and so piper trains him in witchcraft and she’s very stern and very serious but like at least she’s there. chris definitely sorta comes to revere her as like this really all time powerful witch because like that’s basically what she is. and they sort of have a bond it’s definitely not what a mother/son relationship should be she’s more like a strict teacher but it’s better than nothing (also lowkey why chris has so much trouble calling her “mom” in s6 but calling her “piper” is basically second nature). leo on the other hand is of no help i think after wyatt is officially declared a lost cause leo really drowns himself in charges trying to remind himself that a) there is still good in the world b) if given the proper guidance people can achieve great things and c) that he’s not a total, colossal fuck up.

and then wyatt starts picking off sisters with phoebe being the first to die in new york and chris is like do you think this could be wyatt but piper’s like no phoebe bound her powers any demon could have found her and killed her it was just a matter of time and piper starts to like shut down bc her sister’s dead but she’s trying to feel anything because they split up a long time ago they were barely even sisters anymore so it doesn’t hurt. it doesn’t hurt. it doesn’t hurt. and she shifts into high gear. piper’s training of chris becomes a lot more merciless. whatever bond they had is put on the back burner in favor of making him the best witch possible. paige is killed and they know piper will be attacked next. chris is like confident it’s wyatt but he’s stopped voicing those opinions around his mother bc she shuts them down every single time.

the killing of piper is very dramatic. excessively so. piper’s in the dining room and chris is upstairs in his bedroom when everything in the house starts rattling. chris moves to go downstairs to piper when legions of demons start to shimmer in. chris’s view is obscured by a pack of demons standing in the stairwell but he can here blasting and the sounds of demons dying from downstairs. the weird thing is, none of the demons he can see are moving. they’re not even bothering to attack his mother. they just seem to be waiting for something. realization hits chris. they’re waiting for

wyatt? the blasting stops as chris hears his mom call out to his older brother. he knows he has to do something quick before wyatt kills piper. he just doesn’t know what. he starts with the demons obscuring his view. he’s studied them, he knows what they are, and more importantly, where their hearts are. he silently works, crushing their hearts but keeping the bodies upright telekinetically, so as to not alert the demons standing around them. he’s maxed out a six demons but it seems to be enough, everyone else is enthralled by the show downstairs. piper is starting to cry. chris soundlessly moves the six corpses down the hall and move into place as subtly as possible. piper’s now full on bawling with all the pain she had tried to tamp down regarding phoebe and paige’s deaths and the fact that wyatt is the one that killed them all of it’s bursting to the surface and she’s so broken but wyatt doesn’t go in for an easy kill. he’s try to goad her into a fight. he’s asking her to demonstrate the wrath of the charmed ones, the great power he was born from. he’s asking her to die with a little dignity. piper can no longer form words she’s crying so hard. wyatt kicks her around a little bit, trying to elicit any form of a violent reaction, but it’s no use. chris can barely stand to watch.

wyatt, ever the performer, can tell he’s losing his audience. he decides to cut his losses. no fight, but at least a good death. his projection power hones a fine blade, and it swings towards piper in a definitive arc. chris shouts, trying to stop it, trying to telekinetically harden the molecules around his mother to make some sort of shield, but all it does is slow the blade down. piper’s not decapitated, but there’s a huge gash in her neck and she’s going to bleed out. and now chris has exposed himself.

wyatt turns to see his brother and he smiles, delighted to see him, and he calls him down. when chris refuses to move wyatt orbs him down, so chris is standing right next to piper, who’s fighting to stay alive, and wyatt’s like y’know what i’m feeling merciful today. i’ll make a deal with you. if you can heal mom, i promise Not to kill her. saying this knowing fully well chris has never been able to heal but chris is like fuck u i’ll prove you wrong i can do this okay it’s now or never i can do this i can do this except he most definitely Cannot. and he’s holding his hand over piper and he’s trying to heal her and he’s screwing up his face and his concentrating so so hard and wyatt’s just laughing at him bc they both know it’s not going to work. and wyatt walks over to chris and crouches down next to him, rests his hand on his shoulder and is like it’s okay and he hold his hand out and he heals piper. and piper comes to and sees both her boys standing above her and she realize wyatt’s healed her and even though her body won’t stop crying she almost starts to smile and then wyatt crushes her skull. and chris is screaming himself raw he can’t even form words and wyatt just having a ball and wyatt stands up dragging chris up with him and he claps his brother on the chest and is like you’re welcome to defend her honor. i’m really hoping to get at least one fight out of this and chris is like blind with range forgets all his training he just starts savagely attacking wyatt and wyatt’s goddamn loving it he’s dodging effortlessly, countering all of chris’s blows, and attacking in a great spectacle of ways. the fight is less about chris, and more about putting on a show for the underworld. he’s broken chris’s nose, send him flying up into the crystal chandelier, cut multiple gashes across chris’s face, and snapped chris’s femur. chris can’t do anything but scream, and he knows he’s going to lose the fight. chris orbs out. wyatt grins at where chris once was and holds out his hand, bring the other to his temple. but he can’t reach chris. he’s being cloaked somehow - chris himself definitely doesn’t have the capabilities. wyatt pretends this move is all part of the show, he brings the chandelier crashing down, send the orbs flying. he smiles to his new people, and they bow to the new leader of the underworld.

somewhere in sao paulo, leo heals chris from the brink of death. chris explains to his father what happened and leo keeping shaking his head like no no that can’t be right you must have got something wrong you must have misunderstood something and chris is like !!!!! i fucking didn’t!!! wyatt killed piper okay wyatt killed your wife do something about it!! and leo’s like what do you want me to do? and chris is like help me fight him. help me stop him and leo’s like i can’t do that. wyatt’s my son. and chris is like I’M YOUR SON but leo just shakes his head softly and says i’m sorry. that’s the last time chris ever sees his father.

#They Don't Call It The Dark Future For Nothing : )#if i need to tag any content warnings in here please let me know #also i know the ask was about daddy issues but u know i had to sprinkle in some mommy issues to boot #charmed #💌#dark future #margaretsminiessays #chris halliwell #cw: violence #just as a baseline #oh also #long post #lmk if i should tag anything else

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unpeumacabre · 4 years ago

Text

my kingdom for a horse: epilogue

the year is 1601, a messenger has been sent to dongnae, and he has not returned. lord cho-hak-ju advises the joseon king to send crown prince lee chang to dongnae to investigate, but the plot he unravels there threatens the safety of the entire kingdom, and the stability of the dynasty.

a rewriting of kingdom, and lee chang finds love.

Rating: Mature

Relationships: Lee Chang/Yeong-shin

Read on AO3 (bc tumblr might mess up the formatting + more extensive author��s notes on the story)

Count: 4k

<-- previous

(included my author’s notes at the end this time since this is the epilogue, and i had a lot of feels lol)

“He was a brave man,” Lee Chang says softly. The girl stares quietly down at the square of blue fabric, slightly stained with blood – even though he had scrubbed and scrubbed, the guard’s blood had not faded – and she says nothing.

The guard’s wife has her hands around the girl’s shoulders, and she herself shakes with the force of her crying.

“He was a brave man,” he says again, more gently, and the two of them look up at him. There are tears trailing down the face of the girl, now, and she grips the talisman tightly in her chubby hands. “We found his body again from where we had buried it, and we would like to arrange the funeral for him. He will be given every honour that befits him, for he died to save my life, and I will be eternally grateful to him for his sacrifice.”

“Your Highness,” the woman says, but she cannot continue. Tears choke her throat and render her next words unintelligible. Lee Chang waits patiently for her to compose herself.

“Your Highness, thank you,” she finally whispers, throat hoarse with her tears. “Thank you for bringing Mun-pyo back to us. Thank you for your generosity.”

“Don’t thank me,” Lee Chang says uncomfortably. “It is the least I could do. You have lost the breadwinner of your household, and so it is only right that I give you enough to support yourself and your family. Please – no - ” He catches onto her forearms as she attempts to lower herself in a bow.

“Take it as the fulfilment of my debt to your dear husband,” he says to her, as she lifts her tear-stained face to his in bewilderment, “for I owe him my life.”

***

When he returns to his chambers, he is exhausted, both physically and mentally. The day had been spent meeting and speaking to the families of the three guards who had died to save his life, all those weeks ago when they had been journeying to Dongnae. The men had left behind two wives, two daughters and one son between them, and an aged mother who had broken down completely when told of her son’s death. Lee Chang had arranged for gifts of gold and silk to be given to the families, in compensation for the loss of their men, and for the old lady, he had given her care over to the girl who had given him information in Naesonjae. She was an orphan, all alone, and the two women had taken to each other immediately. The girl herself he had given employ in the palace, under the eye of a lady-in-waiting he knew to be kind and just.

Lee Seung-hui had been found in the dungeons of Hanyang, in one of the dark, damp cells buried deep within the surface, with the basest of criminals as his cellmates. Eventually, under strict and torturous questioning by Commander Min, he had cracked, and finally admitted his motivations for spreading the disease. It turned out that, three years ago, the event that had ended the war had been the formation of a large corps of monsters from the sick people of Sumang village – a plot devised by Cho Hak-ju, and carried out by Lee Seung-hui. It had been fear of exposure of the part the physician had had to play in such a dastardly plot, that Cho Hak-ju had used to coerce Lee Seung-hui into beginning yet another epidemic that had eventually devastated the south.

“One of the men was desperate, and ate the flesh of one of the monsters I was conducting my studies on,” Physician Lee had told the commander. “Then we found that it was eating their flesh that transmitted the plague far more effectively than infecting them manually. Lord Cho wanted to use that to his advantage, to create a distraction in the south that would draw His Majesty’s attention away from his plans in Hanyang. And he had hoped…” Here, the physician’s eyes had wandered towards Lee Chang, who had been standing unobtrusively in the background and watching the interrogations. “He had hoped that one of the monsters would keep the Crown Prince occupied in the south, far away from Hanyang, and that eventually, he would be killed.”

Lee Chang had exhaled then. Finally, the pieces were falling into place. Finally, he understood all.

He had granted Lee Seung-hui the mercy of death, a quick, private death at the hands of Commander Min’s sword. It seemed the thing to do, for the physician no longer wanted to live, and indeed, seemed to have gone half-mad with anguish and self-flagellation at having been the cause of so many deaths. He did not tell Seo-bi of anything he had learned in their interrogations, choosing to spare her the cruelty of the truth, and told her instead that he had died in prison from exhaustion.

He rather thinks she knows something of the truth, but chooses not to pry further. She is perfectly happy in her ignorance.

Lord Ahn Hyeon had also been implicated in the events of the war by the physician’s testimony, and at first, Lee Chang had not known what to think of his former master. The news had brought him anger and betrayal, at first, terrible anger, and a feeling that he had not truly known the man to whom he had looked up his entire life. That this man had been capable of such brutality and mercilessness towards his fellow countrymen had been something Lee Chang had been unable to reconcile with the gentle but stern guardian figure of his youth.

Then, after his initial grief, he had calmed himself, and thought more rationally. It was likely that Cho Hak-ju had been the mastermind of such a scheme, as he alone had the sly, ruthless mind that would have thought of such a plan. Furthermore, reading between the lines of the physician’s testimony, it had apparently taken days for Lord Ahn Hyeon to give in to Cho Hak-ju’s wheedling, and for him to agree to sacrificing the villagers of Sumang village. It had clearly been something he had been unwilling to do.

Lee Chang had forgiven him somewhat, then. He knows that he himself knows nothing of war, real war, despite his experiences in the south – the desperation of fighting against an enemy they had had no chance of triumphing over, the terrible choice they had had to make – sick villagers in Sumang, or the lives of the rest of the Joseon people.

Besides, it turned out to be a moot point in the end. Lee Chang had received a missive a few days after his coronation that had informed him that Lord Ahn Hyeon had passed peacefully in his sleep, the day prior. He had collapsed from stress and overwork, and it was found that he had been suffering from a chronic disease of which the cure was unknown. It had been a quiet, pain-free death, by all accounts, and a fitting end to the dignified and noble man whose only stain on his perfect reputation was something that two people in the entire world knew.

Speaking of ghosts from the past, Beom-pal had turned up in the capital the day before the coronation. Lee Chang remembers the encounter with a kind of resigned amusement. The man had had an unlucky encounter with a troupe of monsters, which had forced him to live in a cave behind a waterfall for weeks until he had been rescued inadvertently by soldiers sent from the capital to clear out the remaining monsters in the south. Beom-pal had emerged a hardened man, lean and fit, with little of the spoiled naïve Haewon Cho scion he had been before still in him.

Lee Chang had promoted him to Minister for Taxation, and summarily fired the previous one on the spot.

“I need support from those who once supported Cho Hak-ju,” he had explained later, drinking tea with the Minister for War, now a good friend and staunch ally of his, “and who better to bring them on my side than the last remaining member of the Haewon Cho clan? Besides, Minister Han was not to my taste. It was as good a reason as any to dismiss him.”

The man is indeed a far better minister than his predecessor, for he learns quickly and now knows how to carry out his duties in a manner that pleases Lee Chang. He still chases after Seo-bi, however, something that never fails to amuse Lee Chang whenever Seo-bi visits him and, with extreme confusion and worry, describes a new malady that Beom-pal has acquired in the past few days and needed her assistance with.

“First it was an infection of a cut on his hand, next a burn on his thigh, and now gonorrhoea,” she reports with obvious distress. “I worry for his health. He must take better care of himself!”

Lee Chang wonders how someone can be so intelligent, and yet so dense at the same time.

For she is indeed bright, and using her intelligence to great ends. Using their experiences in the south and the select few live monsters the soldiers had been commanded to bring back for her, she has been studying the disease that creates the monsters.

Lee Chang misses her dry wit and sharp tongue, honestly – for the past few days she has been gone, visiting the Yalu River to investigate a potential breeding ground for the resurrection plants, but he reminds himself that she is due back any day soon, and that reassures him.

Mu-yeong and his wife are now living in the palace, happily caring for their child, and spending all their days in oblivious marital bliss. It is almost impossible to be around Mu-yeong these days, for all his attention is – rightfully so – completely and wholeheartedly devoted to his wife and child. And so Lee Chang has been forced to take on another, lesser personage as his guard, a younger man who had been Mu-yeong’s protégé and good friend.

He is finding the lack of petty thievery of his daily desserts strangely vexing. Perhaps he will pay a visit to Mu-yeong’s rooms one of these days, and brave the infuriating cloud of marital bliss that hangs around his chambers, just to see his old friend. They had had beef cakes for dessert the other day, after all. Lee Chang remembers that it is Mu-yeong’s dear wife’s favourite. Perhaps he will pay them a visit, one day soon.

And as for Yeong-shin…

A lump rises in Lee Chang’s throat as he thinks of Yeong-shin, and he takes another drink from his cup. The soju burns its way down his throat and brings a pleasant buzz to the edge of his senses, but it is not enough to wipe his memory.

Not that he would want to.

The past two months without Yeong-shin have been… difficult, to say the least. At first he had felt nothing, thought nothing, and busied himself entirely with the running of the country. It had been easy at that time, after all, for there were always power-hungry officials trying to latch on to the throne, and petty land disputes, and aid to be delivered to the south, to occupy his attention. His days had been packed with his duties, and so he had had little space in which to think on his lost companion. Even in the nights he had had little effort to drag up his old hurts, for exhaustion overtook him the moment he fell into bed.

But as his position became more secure, and things began clearing up in the south – and elsewhere, where he was working on resolving the famine that had been plaguing the other parts of Joseon – there came more time to think, and more time to brood.

He regretted nothing, of course. Yeong-shin would have left anyway, with or without the kiss, and Lee Chang had not wanted him to go without at least taking some piece of Lee Chang with him. But it still hurts, to know that he is not wanted.

All his life, he has felt nothing like this, and he likely never will. Their bond is one forged through the flames of death and destruction, and any other romance seems insipid and lifeless in comparison. The officials parade their daughters in front of him often, attempting to find just one who will take his fancy and force him to break his vow, but it is to no avail. The more they flutter their fans and turn their skirts and peek out demurely at him from under beautiful eyelashes, the colder he feels.

A younger him would have appreciated the attention, he supposes. A younger him would have leaped at the opportunity, would have begun a harem like his father, and his father before him, perhaps. But now he is older, and he is tired.

This will likely be his life until he dies, he thinks, and it is not an unhappy thought. He has his friends around him, and a son to coddle and teach when he grows older – and, he has sworn to himself, he will be present for this boy in a way his own father had never been for him. He will give the boy all that he wants, and if that includes his time and his love, so be it. There can be nothing too good for his son, the boy who will be the heir to his legacy.

Yet despite all that, he realises suddenly, he is painfully and terribly lonely.

The thought brings him peace, as if giving voice to his feelings is an absolution in itself, and he looks down at his cup as he fills it once more.

“To loneliness,” he says, with a bitter smile, and his voice echoes around the empty room.

“To not being lonely,” comes a voice from behind him, and a hand reaches out and takes the cup from him.

Lee Chang jerks around, his hand flying to the hilt of his sword, a thousand thoughts running through his mind. It is impossible that someone could have broken through the guards in the palace, not to mention the guard at his door – why, he’s going to kill Mu-yeong when – if – he manages to get out of this, for leaving him to be guarded by a mere youngling of a man who could not even stop one bloody intruder from breaking in –

Then he stops, and blinks. He cannot believe his eyes.

Yeong-shin throws back the drink, and wipes his mouth. He nods approvingly at the cup, and sets it back down on the table. It makes a soft thud as it makes contact with the wood.

Lee Chang’s tongue lies leaden and heavy in his mouth, and at first he cannot speak.

“You - ” he finally manages, and stops there.

Yeong-shin sits down across him, and Lee Chang’s eyes follow him, unbidden, against his will, watching as if to make sure he does not disappear on the next blink. But he remains very real, and very much not a dream.

“You need better security,” Yeong-shin says seriously, picking up the jug of soju, and pouring himself another full cup. This he downs again with a flourish, and Lee Chang watches his throat bob with the swallow. He feels a thin layer of sweat begins to form on his skin.

“You grew a beard,” Lee Chang manages, a particularly asinine contribution to the conversation.

“So did you.”

Lee Chang fingers his beard self-consciously, and does not reply.

“It suits you,” Yeong-shin says abruptly, and makes an abortive moment as if to reach for the jug of alcohol again, but he draws his hand back at the last moment, and sets the cup aside instead. There is a beat of silence.

“Where did you go?” Lee Chang asks lowly, and the rasp of his voice is grating in the silence.

Yeong-shin turns his head, so his face is cast in shadow, and all that Lee Chang can see is the line of his profile, silhouetted against the dim light from the lamp.

“Back to Sangju. To my village. To find my brother.” His knuckles are white where his fingers grip onto the wood of the table. “He is not alive,” he says bitterly. “First I searched Gongju, but the magistrate said they’d never caught a boy stealing a jade hairpin from his wife. At first I thought him to be lying, but the guards’ stories aligned with his. And so I went back to Sumang.”

Sumang, Lee Chang realises, and he feels something horrible coil up in his gut.

“What did you find?” he asks, his voice quiet.

“Nothing. I found nothing.” Yeong-shin’s voice is toneless; there is no expression on his face, and somehow that makes it worse. “All I was chasing were ghosts. Beom-il lied – ah, I was a fool to ever believe him.”

Lee Chang feels his fingers twitch, and before he is able to stop himself, he has reached over the table, and his hand closes over Yeong-shin’s own. There is a roughness to his skin that Lee Chang finds foreign, calluses that mark him as a rifle-wielder, cuts and scars of a history Lee Chang does not know. But his hand is warm, and it feels familiar in his grasp.

Yeong-shin looks down at their hands, clasped against the grain of the wood – one dark and scarred, one paler but no less hardened. Something in his body softens, then, almost unnoticeable, were it not for the fact that Lee Chang knows his every, subtle movement by heart. Under the weight of Lee Chang’s palm, Yeong-shin’s hand relaxes, and the tension bleeds out of him – although he still carries himself ramrod-straight and alert.

“I am sorry for your loss,” Lee Chang murmurs, and the words have never felt more hollow. Yeong-shin side-eyes him.

“Do you remember what you said to me two months ago?” he says suddenly, standing up. He crosses to the window and stares out into the darkness. He remains motionless, calm, steady as a rock in the face of a snowstorm – and abruptly Lee Chang feels a wave of irritation wash over him at his composure. It is simply unfair, Lee Chang thinks furiously, that he is the only one so affected by Yeong-shin’s presence, when Yeong-shin is so clearly unperturbed by his!

So caught up is Lee Chang in his inner train of thoughts that he does not answer, and he only realises that Yeong-shin is waiting for a reply to his question, when the man turns and looks questioningly at him. Lee Chang blinks, and comes back to himself.

Then he notices how tightly Yeong-shin’s jaw is clenched. Sees how the tip of his forefinger is beating an agitated rhythm, ever so slightly - but still detectably - against the wood of the windowsill.

“I remember,” he says carefully, weighing every word, for every syllable he utters drops heavily into the silence of the room, “that I confessed my love for you. But I also remember that I asked for nothing in return – that I expected nothing in return.”

“And I told you that I needed time to think,” Yeong-shin says.

“Yes.”

“It has been two months.” There is something in his voice that Lee Chang cannot quite place, and Lee Chang feels a vice begin to clench around his heart.

“Yes. Are we going to keep exchanging statements of fact, or did you come here with something else to say?” Somehow, he keeps his tone light.

It startles a sudden startled harsh bark of laughter out of Yeong-shin, and the sound is surprisingly bright. The snow drifts quietly past the window, piling up on the windowsill, and lending a soft glow to the light that suffuses Yeong-shin’s skin. He looks almost regal then, despite his tattered clothes and rough features, as if he belongs there in Lee Chang’s quarters, and the vice tightens.

“You are a prince – no, the king of Joseon,” Yeong-shin says softly, running his fingers absently on the windowsill, but his eyes are intent on Lee Chang. “And I am a chakho. Nothing more than a commoner.”

Ah. He thinks, finally, he sees where Yeong-shin is going with this.

Something begins to unfurl in his chest, filling his body with a warmth he has not felt in months. Lee Chang stands, slowly, and makes his way over to the window – quietly, gently, as if approaching a wild animal with hand extended, an animal which could either bite or flee at any moment. But he does not think Yeong-shin will do either of those things.

“And so, in our time apart, you have thought of all the reasons why we should not be together,” Lee Chang says lightly, “and you have convinced yourself that these reasons are unsurmountable.”

The stubborn silence from Yeong-shin is enough. He does not make any move to reach out to Lee Chang, but his eyes follow Lee Chang’s movements as he crosses the room, and there is an almost hungry light in his gaze that urges Lee Chang on.

Lee Chang reaches his side, and lays a hand on his arm. The man startles in reaction, just a minute tremor, but because they are connected, Lee Chang can feel his every movement. They are so close that he can feel Yeong-shin’s body heat radiating against his skin, and hear every quick shallow breath he takes.

“I have not, however,” Lee Chang says, “heard anything of what you feel for me.”

“You have not married in the last two months,” Yeong-shin says, looking away and out of the window again. The snowfall is deeper today than it had been all those weeks ago, when Lee Chang had stood by the same window and refused to look at the door till his room was empty. The footprints the palace maids and guards leave – they stay in the snow, now, and remain even as fresh snow falls.

“Yes,” Lee Chang replies, suddenly losing patience. “It is unlike you to be so unsure, Yeong-shin. What is it you wish to say to me?”

“When I lost my brother,” Yeong-shin says jerkily, his gaze blank and unseeing, “The pain was… like nothing I’d ever felt before. I’d sworn to protect him, but in the end, my promises meant nothing, and still he was taken from me. Yeong-ryu… he relied on me, and I could do nothing for him still. Even with all my strength and weapons, there was no one I could save.

“And you…” Yeong-shin’s eyes drift shut, as if he can no longer bear to look out the window. “I can protect you, for now, but there is no guarantee that I can do so indefinitely. The officials will not let you live without a wife, and they will plot and scheme until they can take control of the throne, and if you died… if you died, I do not think I would be able to go on living.”

Lee Chang feels as if he has just been struck by lightning.

Finally he sees Yeong-shin laid bare before him – unsure of their future together, unwilling to be the reason for Lee Chang’s demise, and yet, warring with that fear because of his desire to protect. At the core of this bright, shining, powerful man is someone who is afraid of loss, for it has been his constant companion all these lonely years.

But Lee Chang is different. Yeong-shin will protect him, and he will protect Yeong-shin in turn.

Gently, Lee Chang lifts his other hand to Yeong-shin’s face, and cradles his cheeks in the palm of his hand. Yeong-shin’s eyes open, slowly as if hypnotised and against his will, and he fixes his gaze on Lee Chang’s face.

“I am the king,” Lee Chang whispers, and every word is infused with conviction, for his words come from the heart. “What I want, I receive, and if I want you, there will only be one thing that can stop me – you. You know I will not let the ministers or the people have any say in my private affairs. If I am to be allowed some, occasional, arrogance – why, I have been a good king, so far, and I have done nothing deserving of complaint. I have named my heir, and he is under great protection here under my roof. There is no one who I will allow to have any say in our relationship.” He grips Yeong-shin tighter to him, as if it will stop the subtle tremors that have begun in the other man’s body. “Be mine to treasure,” he murmurs, his head lowered, their foreheads brushing feather-light against each other. “And I will be yours to protect.”

There is a long silence for a while.

“I did miss you,” Yeong-shin says quietly. “Every day. I missed you fiercely. At first I thought I missed the loss of a fellow warrior, someone I respected and loved as a shield brother. Then my longing became more terrible, and I thought it was because I missed you as my charge, as someone to protect. But the truth is not so simple.” He turns his hand, palm-up, so that his fingers intertwine with Lee Chang’s.

“I love you,” he says simply, and Lee Chang must forgive him for not meeting his eyes as he makes his confession.

“And I, you,” Lee Chang sighs, as he leans in for a kiss.

There are many problems as yet unresolved. Lee Chang knows that this will not be the last time their insecurities and inner demons – both his and Yeong-shin’s – damage their relationship, or set them back. There is as yet so much unknown about the resurrection plant, and out there, somewhere, monsters may still be made. The officials wilfully persevere with their scheming and plotting behind his back, and he must continue to strengthen his precarious hold on the throne, all while keeping safe the people who matter to him.

But those are problems for a future him, and a future them. Right here, right now, with Yeong-shin in his arms and the snowflakes falling on the footprints in the snow, Lee Chang feels invincible, and he feels like a king.

A/N: ahhhh it's finished!!! thank you to everyone for sticking with me all the way (readers both old and new) - this has been my first experience with the kingdom fandom and i have to say i've enjoyed every single moment of it. y'all are seriously such gems and it's been amazing hearing your thoughts, speaking to y'all etc ahhhh <3 this was my first (and probably last) kingdom fanfic unless inspiration suddenly seizes again, lol, but this pretty much covered all my kingdom feels.

(shameless self-promotion) and i'm currently writing another monster fic for mdzs/cql so if you're in that fandom i hope to see you again!! please talk to me here on tumblr and seriously, i love all of you so much, thank you!!

read on for long rambly thoughts on this monster:

writing this was sort of a cathartic purge for me, after binging kingdom... i loved lee chang's character so much, honestly, and i wanted to give him a proper love story. i have to be honest, it wasn't till i went onto ao3 that i even considered changshin as a pairing, but after i read a few fics i was like, i'm in too deep ;;; and i wound up wanting to write a story that was a slow evolution of their relationship, from reluctant acquaintances, to brothers-in-arms with unconditional trust, and then slowly, to love. which is why it took yeong-shin so goddamn long to realise he loves lee chang, sksksksksk

but yeah i thought it was far more realistic to write this kind of love story rather than one in which they fell in love at first sight, especially in the (somewhat) au i built, where it probably never even occurred to either of them that (1) they were possibly attracted to men, and (2) that they should even be thinking about love in this period of time wtf ;_; but yeah i thought what would draw them to each other was sort of a more intellectual, spiritual attraction, rather than one based purely on lust (even though they're both very good-looking, i fully admit)...

at first i was dissatisfied with the ending, because it seemed a bit lukewarm, but then on reading it again i thought it had the kind of hopeful, tender feeling which i wanted to conjure... although y'all might feel differently?? I KNOW, I WOULD HAVE WANTED A MORE FLESHED OUT KISS SCENE TOO AHHHHH in my head i was like wtf is this, is it a barbara cartland novel??? what's with that shitty regency-esque kiss description??? but in the end it didn't feel natural with the style of writing and the flow of the chapter to write more into the kiss, i'm sorry, i think i'm just a coward T.T but yes!! please let me know your thoughts!! (and thank you for reading all the way, i know i always ramble lmao)

#upm works #upm #changshin #kingdom #kingdom netflix #lee chang #yeong shin #seo bi #beom pal #kingdom fanfiction #changshin fanfiction #lee chang x yeong shin

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firebirdsdaughter · 4 years ago

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What’s hilarious [read: ridiculous] to me…

… Is that Horobi and Yua actually follow a fairly parallel path in their responses to their situations (I had a whole realisation about how Horobi-Fuwa-Naki-Yua are a four way parallel today; Horobi-Fuwa are parallels and Naki-Yua are parallels, but then their actions crisscross parallel). But there’s a massive double standard in how the two characters are reacted to… Despite the fact that Yua is a fully mentally matured and developed human adult and Horobi is an AI that has been hacked and brainwashed for the past decade in a way that forcibly stunted his development.

Yua was in a horrid and toxic work environment w/ an abusive boss. Now, admittedly, Gai kept a large amount of his worse deeds from her and to a point one could justify it as her thinking she’s acting for the greater good… Until we get to the part where it becomes abundantly clear she knows very well that what they’re doing is at the least morally questionable… But doesn’t try to defect at all, even to the point of insisting it’s of her own free will. Yes, she had a chip in her head, too, but given her reactions to him torturing Fuwa, she doesn’t seem to have known he could do that, and she didn’t know about Naki, nor did she have an AI drone in her mind. Now this is not to blame Yua—in fact, the point is that she was a victim in a bad situation. Her struggle to get out of there was fairly realistic given her situation. But she had the experience to know that what they were doing was wrong. That makes it tragic in it’s own way, yes, that she was under extreme stress and very conflicted, but she was aware of that. She was a fully developed adult. She deliberately pursued Izu w/ the intention of destroying her, and would have had Gai not said the wrong thing and set Fuwa off. And Izu was frightened and trying to run away. She resists Fuwa’s repeated attempts to snap her out of it.

Rightly so, people noted Yua’s situation, were upset for her and felt bad for her. When there were jackasses saying she should die, people called it out as bad. People were cheering for her to get away from Gai. People were happy when she did. And this includes me. I blocked people I saw shitting on Yua and saying she should die bc what the fuck, guys, she was in a seriously messed up situation.

Once free of Gai, Yua is uncertain what to do and decides to try and ‘make up’ for something she feels responsible for in a rather questionable way. She ends up helping the Ark rise and wreak havoc. Still people recognise that she couldn’t have known that would happen. Poor Yua’s been through a lot.

Meanwhile, Horobi is hacked and brainwashed by the Ark twelve years ago. She uses him to cause Daybreak. He is an AI being controlled by a larger AI designed to control HumaGear like him. Unlike and adult human being pressured and manipulated, he is literally incapable of thinking outside the Ark’s will. The Ark has complete control. Even if he did have any experience to compare w/ before, the Ark erases it. He has no frame of reference besides the Ark, no development of any kind to evaluate his situation w/. Even when Jin becomes important to him, everything is through the lens of the Ark, the Ark is more than a god to him. The brainwashing is so deep that even when disconnected for a bit, he can’t be anything besides blindly devoted. Talks about how the Ark is absolute. When confronted w/ something that causes uncertainty, he goes into a full on mental breakdown—literally, should have been a first clue that emotions were never going to come easy for him.

Eventually, he does end up w/ enough experience to just start to begin to break free. Manages to act completely on his own for the first time in his life—not an instinct that the Ark swooped in to take advantage of, he gets to go through w/ it on his own. And he’s floored. He literally cannot fathom why his body moved on its own, as far as he can tell. Can’t understand the fact that he wanted to do something. This is recognised as a big deal (one of the only times anyone tries to actually talk him out of things, in fact, unlike Yua, where there was a lot of effort). Horobi begins to wonder about things outside the Ark’s will, about himself, which he’s never considered before… Only to have it turn out his son was plotting to have the Ark possess him and then kill him to kill her. This completely upends any development he had. He’s re-hacked and rendered as largely a drone when not being possessed.

Finally, someone decides to put effort into him (kinda…) again. And, in a situation that heavily parallels Yua, he ends up finding it in him to break free of the Ark. Only… Again, a lot like Yua, it’s not a clean break. He’s still stuck w/ the past, the conditioning, and the effects of what happened. Additionally, as later becomes clear, his struggling w/ feeling emotions, which he has been carefully conditioned to reject and have no experience w/, for the first time. He’s mentally unstable and volatile. Now, in the show, what happens is the result of Azu/the Ark’s manipulations and people making poor decisions (and I do think you can make an argument for the fact that the Ark was intentionally keeping Horobi from feeling/having any experience w/ emotions to make him even more of a wreck later on), and poking a very volatile bear (well, a highly traumatised child soldier AI who has no fucking clue what emotions are to the point it feels like an outside being controlling him somehow), he lashes out, and Izu calmly stands there and deliberately takes a hit she very clearly sees coming. General chaos ensues. From Horobi’s perspective, the thing he’s been trained to think will get rid of the uncertainty and emotions etc. not only doesn’t work, but it makes him feel worse, and bc he has no other way he knows how to respond, he becomes more aggressive in rejecting those feelings. And then Jin dies, and he completely breaks down.

The reaction he gets? People calling him evil and horrible and saying he should die. That e’s choosing to do these things. People who talk about how Yua can’t really be held accountable, how she was coerced, look at a literal brainwash victim and say he choose to do those things.

Now, obviously, there are differences, which resulted in the different out comes—obviously the whole, one is a fully developed human adult and the other one is an AI. One was externally conditioned, the other, again, literally brainwashed. One had someone fighting to convince them to break free of their situation on a regular basis, repeatedly, constantly, the other didn’t. Yua was always going to have an easier break than Horobi, bc she had more mental and emotional maturity, but bc of that, esp in regards to actions done whilst under the ‘control’ of others, she has more responsibility for her actions bc she was capable of identifying them as wrong.

Now, of course, both situations are bad for the people involved. Both of them are victims.

But the issue is that people seem to be all over how Yua was a victim, Yua was mistreated… While attacking Horobi (and being upset about Izu dying is one thing, although, again, the person really responsible for that was Azu/th ark(well, Gai for creating her), Horobi was pretty much used as a weapon there, but this is for stuff he did while mind controlled).

And I used Yua just bc she and Horobi had the most parallel responses to their situations. The same goes for being able to see Fuwa as a victim, or Naki (so if Naki is the one who gave Horobi the ZetsumeRise Keys, does that make them responsible for Operation MaGear, or bc they gave Horobi the ForceRiser and said to use it on Jin, are they responsible for that? Bc that’s the logic of blaming Horobi for Daybreak), or Raiden, or even Aruto for that time he got hijacked via MCH. Any of the hacked HumaGear who were turned into MaGear.

Just… The concept of seeing how all of those people are victims in the situation… But blaming Horobi? Like… Not being interested in Horobi is one thing. Obviously, no on is going to be as madly in love w/ him as I am. It’s the act of not recognising him as being a victim while recognising everyone in similar situations as victims. It’s saying he was responsible for Daybreak, treating him like the Ark’s will was his (I’m literally having flashbacks to comments calling Horobi’s whole death ‘Horobi’s plan,’ even though by that point we literally knew the Ark was an entity that existed). Like… They literally confirmed it in show as not being that. Horobi is a mind control victim. What someone’s personal opinion of the character outside of that is another matter. But the fact is that he was mind controlled by the Ark and that the things he did under her control cannot be objectively called things he chose to do. Whether someone thinks he would have chosen them if he weren’t mind controlled… Esp given how all his actions of own choice were about protecting Jin, I personally disagree. But the show has been very explicit that he was mind controlled, and that he had no clue how to handle emotions (to the point he didn’t even seem to know what they are), so being able to understand that all those other people, esp the ones who went through similar things, are victims… But Horobi’s to blame for what he did? That’s just ridiculous.

And don’t even get me started on how anyone could ever see Gai as being a bigger victim than Horobi.

#Firebird Negativity #sorry #I'm not actually in a bad mood really #I just had to get that off my chest #bc it baffles me how people can see how Yua's situation was bad and tragic and she was a victim #but shitting on Horobi #and then saying GAI is more of a victim/tragic…#literally I stand by my view that they somehow switched the 'cores' of Gai and Horobi's storylines #and it's FRUSTRATING #but also blaming Horobi for stuff like Daybreak…#hey remember when Aruto literally called Gai the 'one responsible for the Ark' and I'm pretty sure said that for Daybreak too…#bc that happened #bc GAI CAUSED DAYBREAK

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halvatir · 7 years ago

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Hello mizu! Its okay if you're too busy/don't want to do it but could you do the more detailed character ask for flanel and randel? Curious anon here, have a good day!

hey there anon, hoping you’re having a good day too ( ᐛ )و - are you talking about this ask??? i’m not sure what you’re talking about but bless these kinds of tumblr blogs, here u go

btw the likes/dislikes are in reference to my interpretations for them, the fav/least fav moment are in reference in-game since y’know… these guys don’t exactly have ‘moments’ minus… idk, whoever the devs decide to feature in the updates (゜▽゜;)

flamel (… flanel lol i thought u were referring to another chara)

what i like about them: perfectly self-aware of himself: knows what his strengths + capabilities are and also his weaknesses + flaws, along with his morals + ideals + character. nope, any form of psychological bullshit won’t work on him. he’s absolutely aware of what he’s capable of doing and he’s not in denial about his shortcomings at all… what he does with that knowledge and what he plans to do about it is more of the question.

what i dislike about them: while flamel has a condescending air about him, he actually does not look down on people and he acknowledges others’ capabilities + character, even if they’re better than his own. that’s the problem: he knows or at least he has a general idea of a person’s capabilities + character, and what he dislikes the most is if it is not put to good use. without mercy, he can really say stinging observations about one’s failures and fears straight to their faces - the worst part is? it hurts, bc it’s true. he’s insensitive, but you can’t exactly deny his words either.

favorite moment: when i get his card lol bc i really like his card art??? not the mvp + biochemist one, the regular one - like… daMN??? i dig, he probably has the best regular card among the bio mobs imo

least favorite moment: ??? have u fought this fucker in-game??? no??? lucky u then, cecil’s still the queen bitch but mAN is flamel also a pain to fight, the last time i played ended up with my party dying partially bc of him and his clones

a situation with this character that i want to see explored more: not exactly a situation but his backstory??? or okay, something with his family - i know he’s nicholas flamel’s son but what about his mom? or what if: his parents announce that he’s about to have a sibling like??? what, i’m like around my 20s already then u tell me i’m gonna be an older bro i am questioning ur nightly activities??? cue a much needed slap from his mom lol

an interesting au for this character: lol i’d probably like to see flamel in a soulmate au where he feels the same emotions his partner does like wow he’s really irritated at it at first bc really why is this person so damned emotional / feel so much but eventually he’s able to compartmentalize his partner’s emotions from his own and he also takes note of the emotions his partner experiences in a journal daily, complete with time frames/lines??? that’s sort of sweet??? it also becomes a habit for him to look at the journal at the end of the day and think of reasons why his partner may have felt this way at each of the recorded times??? what’s funny tho is that despite the fact that he’s been taking note of his partner’s emotions for so long (probably middle school up to college?), he’s never gotten the urge to discover who his soulmate is, or to try find said person. sorry soulmate, you’re the one who’s gonna take initiative.

a crossover: top of my head, probably a fullmetal alchemist one lol - he’s probably some big shot alchemist then surprise surprise, one of his transmutation attempts fucked up him up pretty badly leading him to the gate of truth. he wakes up feeling ‘empty’ only to figure out that somehow his parts of him have taken the form of homonculi… and not just any kind of homonculi - they introduce themselves as a part of him, the sins in him that has made him the man he was today. they even call him father and take different human forms (lol, aka they take the form of his floormates, take a pick who represents each sin) - the revelation is in his travels tho while he’s trying to get to the homonculi, is that flamel himself embodies a sin, the seventh sin that completes all of them (try guessing what, lol). ooooh, this could probably be good if i actually fix this but yeah, there u go, it goes somewhere along those lines.

otp: none, actually.

other ships: kathryne // trentini

brotp: randel // alphoccio

notp: lady tanee hahAHAHA jk no seriously idk just ignore my first entry pls it was supposed to be a joke… maybe…

assortment of headcanons

surprise bitch, he’s the best chef in the biolabs but he ain’t gonna cook for anybody but himself - the only time he isn’t hung up on precise measurements + time is when he’s cooking

has a pair of reading glasses, uses them often and keeps them stored away neatly in his desk complete with a wipe - he always makes sure there’s adequate lighting + his reading glasses are present when he reads stuff, he sure cares for his eyes a lot

he… surprisingly follows a lot of good health practices - he always takes 15 - 20 min break if he’s been doing something for a straight hour (patrol + battles are exempted), drinks 8 glasses of water daily, sleeps early, etc.

his hands are always gloved - takes ‘em off only when he’s about to sleep. his right hand is pristine but his left hand has a strangely shaped burn mark that runs diagonally across his palm - it looks old.

he looks prim and proper but honestly his room is nuts - what’s more confusing is that he isn’t bothered by his room’s state at all + he knows exactly where his stuff is when he needs it, like… dude… how do u even know where to find ur shit in a warzone called ur room, teach me ur ways master

randel (oooh this is new)

what i like about them: he’s a very resolute yet flexible person: definitely not the type of person who’d go second-guessing on his decisions or would waver in times of crisis, but he’s not also the person who’d insist on pushing on with the initial goal/objective when difficulties or contradictions arise - he takes in the present situation + other factors & encountered facts and weighs them against the supposed goal/objective. from there he determines what he thinks would be the best course of action to take, and it takes him only a short time to do so even under pressure.

what i dislike about them: true to his class, he’s too self-sacrificing??? which is like… dude c’mon it’s probably an honor for the crusader line to die in the act of protecting others but still if u die, who’s going to protect those who can’t protect themselves? like yeah, he understands that too but he’s more inclined to believe that it’s better for him to be left behind/sacrificed/die in exchange for the lives of the majority. well - it’s either he’s that self-sacrificing or sadly, when weighed against the lives of the people he must protect, he doesn’t place that much value on his own life.

favorite moment: the feel when u don’t get his attention, seriously. pls let me sneak about ur floor in peace - i swear i went to church so pls stop with the grand + holy crosses

least favorite moment: fighting him is torture bc if rms data is right, 478,745 hp, man - he has the longest hp out of his floormates… and that’s just a regular randel… the paladin one has 3,870,000 and the mvp one a whopping 6,870,000… since his life is that fucking long, say goodbye to trying not to be mobbed by the other ghosts bc ur still busy trying to kill him, damn

a situation with this character that i want to see explored more: same like flamel, knowing his backstory would be A+ but… hmm, maybe something way back like his origins story or something, the story of why and what made him decide to be a swordsman/crusader. y’know, that’s if we’re assuming that he’s not from a family line of swordsmen/crusaders or something. idk, sometimes the thing is with characters who are in line with a faith/ideal is that i’m interested in what made them devote their lives to that certain faith/ideal in the first place.

an interesting au for this character: oooh, just… idk, a modern au where he suddenly ends up taking care of the bio2 kids who are orphans. he’s never mentioned it to anyone, not even to the people of his workplace who happen to be his friends/co-workers like for 4 years already. therein lies the problem: his friends on separate occasions have seen him with at least 2 or 1 of the kids. they all know randel isn’t married. the hair colors (cenia and laurell) + other features don’t match up. some distinctly heard a kid call him dad/daddy/father (see: wickebine, armaia, the rest respectively). conclusion: it’s either a) he’s babysitting as a part time job bc goddamn rekenber’s a cheap son of a bitch that won’t give him a raise, b) those kids are his cousins or something and are probably so fond of him that they see him as a father figure, or c) illegitimate chiLDREN FROM SOME ONE NIGHT STANDS ALRIIIGHT SCANDAL IN THE OFFICE. chaos ensues even before poor randel has a chance to explain himself.

a crossover: lol, idk… a shingeki one maybe where randel’s probably the head of the survey corps, watching over our fated trio (probably flamel/celia/chen for his floor, bio2&3′s are a mix&match). for some time, the trio don’t see him but strangely enough when the trio get old enough to join the corps, they discover that randel is considered a scum and a traitor to humanity by all three army regiments (survey, garrison, & military) which is strange bc randel is very well known and respected by humanity within the walls, wow. when the trio get deeper into his case, it turns out that randel vehemently fought against a group of scientists that were looking for human subjects for the ‘sake of saving humanity by using present resources’ - the three of them were seen as part of those potential resources and were eyed upon by the scientists were they were already young, along with other people from different parts of the walls (the other bio mobs). what happened to randel, however, is left in the air… was he even still alive, or had something important happened leading him to be branded as the traitor of humanity? politics, religion, science, drama, and titans (removers maybe lol) ensue.

otp: again, no solid one.

other ships: ????? surprising revelation is that i don’t exactly ship randel romantically, wow even i just discovered that now

brotp: his floormates - although honestly i think that one way or another, randel could be on everyone’s good side once they just get around to talking, probably

notp: zealotus oKAAAAY no seriously pls make me stop placing random mobs in this section

assortment of headcanons:

very, very religiously open + tolerant. he shows a lot of interest on other faiths and is knowledgeable even of various religious practices asides from his own. of course, he’s still steadfastly loyal to what he believes in first and foremost, but he feels no need to impart his beliefs to those who don’t / are reluctant to believe. he isn’t the type you’d see to be preaching about his faith either, that is unless you ask.

in line with the hc above, his tolerance also extends to people and their character + personalities, but he isn’t too tolerant to the point that he’d rationalize questionable actions + motives. he may have the patience of a saint, but no one’s so sure if they want to see him snap / test his patience to see what makes him tick. throwing bullshit about his faith doesn’t work on him, actually.

he’s pretty crafty - he pretty much taught himself other ways to help people, from practical stuff like sewing to more complicated stuff like woodwork + metal works, wow. he’s basically the ideal useful guy in survival crises… minus the fact that he can’t cook that well lol

he has the worst drinking tolerance among the bio3 + bio4 residents - the sign that he’s drunk is when his face shows more expression than usual + his posture breaks (the paladin randel card art lol). nobody knows bc damn son, he has a pretty good poker face and he can hold it for a really long time

... the only reason he grew his hair long is bc of a promise to his mother. he vowed that if ever he was to fall in love (and it was reciprocated) / find the person he would devote his life to, that would be the only time he would cut his hair, and his mother would do the honors... but... yeah... wow, i made myself feel sad

this was a lot of fun - thanks a lot for the ask anon, and i welcome your curiosity anytime! (　＾∇＾) i’m always in for a distraction from work lol

#anon #askdfghjl #hmm those aus tho... not bad #maybe i'd plot them out sometime lol

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programsbos · 5 years ago

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The life story of Alexander the Great Part III

After the death of Dara, and the elimination of all competitors to the throne of Persia, Alexander took the title of «Shahanshah», meaning «King of Kings», and quoted many of the customs and traditions of the Persian, whether relating to clothing, food or protocol, and ordered to apply in his court, perhaps the most prominent was Kissing the hands of the highest standing and prostrating to him, a custom the Persians followed with the Shah in particular, and since he became the holder of this title, he ordered his men to follow this habit with him. The Greeks considered that this salutation was only permissible for the gods, and that Alexander exalted himself to the point of worship when he demanded its application, and many rejected it, renouncing their leader and boycotting him, forcing him to abandon it eventually. Alexander discovered a plot to assassinate him, one of his commanders, Philot Ben Parmenion, who did not hesitate to execute him, due to the arrival of several reports about him in the past talking about his intention to kill Alexander, was the discovery of the latter plan was the straw that broke the camel's back. Philot was tried by a committee of senior officers, tortured to reveal the names of his assistants, then stoned to death, and some sources state that he was stabbed with a spear. Philot's execution led to the necessity of the execution of his father Parmenion, who was commissioned by Alexander the Order of Hamedan, in order not to revolt and revenge, and sent him to kill him quickly. One of the most notable events during this period, which shed the eye of Alexander, was the murder of the man who saved his life during the Battle of the Granicus River in Asia Minor, the Black Clitus, during a quarrel between them in Samarkand, when both of them were drunk. Alexander from his drunkenness, halo his hands and felt great remorse. Later, as he traveled and conquered new cities in Central Asia, Alexander discovered a new plot to assassinate him, this time put him by his servants, and his own historian, Calisthenis of Oleanthosi, was found to have been involved in the plot, but modern historians have not been unanimous. It comes after. It is noteworthy that this Callistence had lost his favor with Alexander, when he became the head of the opposition aimed at preventing the practice of kissing the hands and prostration of the king. Alexander had entrusted Antipater, one of his experienced commanders and seasoned politicians, to Macedonia, before leaving for Asia. All the cities of Greece remained calm throughout Alexander's absence, and there was no revolt, for fear of being devastated. Only Sparta was an exception. In 331 BC, its king Agis III called on his men and his people to rise up against Macedonia and liberate it from its colonization.The consequence of his revolution was that he defeated Antipater and killed him during a battle in Megaloupoli the following year. The latter sent Alexander to Asia to tell him about the Spartan revolution and whether he wanted to punish them. There was also some sensitivity between Antipater and Olimpias, Alexander's mother. All in all, it was argued that the Greeks, including Greece and Macedonia, enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity during the absence of Alexander, especially since he was sent large sums of money collected in his conquests, which stimulated its economy to grow, and increased the proportion of commercial activity throughout the empire . Nevertheless, the country was running out of men, because of Alexander's constant need for soldiers, and he ordered him to send more of them, whether to enlist them in the army or to settle in the cities he founded and aim to make them typical Hellenistic cities of mixed races. The increasing emigration of men weakened the military capability of Macedonia in the years following Alexander's death, causing a grab in the hands of the Romans. After the death of Spantamensh, Alexander married a Bakhtiyar princess named Rukhsana to strengthen relations with his new provincial rulers, then turned his sights to the Indian subcontinent to open them. He sent tribal leaders in the province of Kandahar (Kandahar), presently in northern Pakistan, ordering him to confess before him. On their country. The owner of Tksila, Umfis, whose kingdom stretched from the Indus to the Jhelum, responded to Alexander's order, but the elders of some hill tribes, from the Kampuja clan in particular, categorically refused. What was from Alexander, but to carry on those tribes in the winter of 327/326 BC, and went to fight each of them in the backyard of her home: the valley of Canar, the valley of Bengkra, and the valley of Swat and Bonaire. The battles of Alexander with these tribes were very fiercely.When the Aspasias fell, he was defeated only after he had a dart in his shoulder.When he went to confront the Asakinis, he found that they had barricaded themselves in a few locations, in Massaba, Ora and Ornos, and he was forced to break the siege. After a few days of fierce fighting, during which Alexander was severely wounded in his ankle, the Macedonians were able to break into Masaba's fortress and destroy it. The Roman historian Quentes Cortius Rufus says: "Alexander not only slaughtered the entire mass of Massaba, but destroyed all her buildings and made them scattered dust." Warriors holed up in Aura were subjected to a massacre similar to that of their brothers in Masaba, and when the news reached the remaining Asakina, many fled to the fortress of Ornos, but it did not help them. Its importance in protecting transport routes, and after four bloody days, this site fell into his hand. After the victory in Ornos, Alexander marched his army and crossed the Indus to face Raja Pur, the master of the kingdom of Gorapha, now in the Punjab province, in an epic battle - called the Battle of the Haidasps - during which the land was bloodied in 326 BC. This battle was the most cruel battles of Alexander at all, he lost a lot of soldiers, and resisted the Indian Raja with his strength, and defended his country defense of the heroes against the progress of the Macedonian conqueror, but Alexander's military experience had the final say in determining the victor, and his commanders and soldiers The veterans could not easily be defeated, and they were able to defeat the Indian army. Alexander was impressed by the courage and bravery of Raja Poor, and his valor in defending his land, took him an ally, and kept him as ruler over the territory that formed his kingdom, and added to it other sections that were not belonging to him, and thus within his control of this region far more distant from Greece, if he had established it As a foreign ruler, he could not have easily returned it to his possession if it had revolutionized it. Alexander established two opposite cities on the banks of the Jhelum River, one named Boussevla after his horse, who died nearly this time, and the other, Nicea, or Victory, which is now near the town of Mong in Pakistan. The Mandaean Empire of Nanda was located east of the Raja Poor, near the Geng River, and the Bengali Empire fell east of the latter. Long war and nomads, they proclaimed disobedience near the Bias River in northern India, and refused to advance eastward. This river became the most eastern extension in the language conquered by Alexander. In his writings, Plutarch says: “As for the Macedonians, the confrontation with Poor weakened them, reduced their courage, their resolve and their desire to advance eastward into India. After giving their breath and preciousness in response to an enemy crowd of twenty thousand infantry and two thousand horsemen, they opposed Alexander and stubbornly stood up to him when he decided to cross the River Peng, which was allegedly up to 32 furlongs, deep to a hundred tall, and having learned what awaited them on the West Bank The interview was from hordes of heavily armed men, with horses and elephants, who were told that Indian kings had assembled eighty thousand cavalry, two hundred thousand infantry, eight thousand chariots, and six thousand elephants, in preparation for their slaughter. » Alexander tried to persuade his soldiers to advance eastward for a short time yet, but he did not succeed.One of his commanders, Quinus, intervened and begged him to change his mind and go back.``The men yearned to see their fathers and mothers, their wives and children, their land and their homelands, '' he said. Alexander was convinced by his words, and told his soldiers to prepare to return to their country. The army marched along the Indus River, and on their way conquered the lands of the Mull tribe, now in the city of Multan, and other lands of some other Indian tribes. Alexander sent the bulk of his army to the Kerman region of southern Persia, led by his friend Kraters, and commissioned Nierjhos to lead a fleet to explore and survey the shores of the Persian Gulf.He continued his march with the rest of the soldiers to Babylon, choosing the shortest, though most difficult, route, the Medea desert stretching across Baluchistan and Mekran, southern Pakistan and Iran today. Alexander arrived in the city of Sousse in 324 BC, and had lost many of the men by the desert heat. After arriving in Sousse, Alexander discovered that many of the provincial governors he appointed had misbehaved in his absence, and he executed most of them to serve as a lesson to others. He also paid the salaries owed to his soldiers, as a gesture of thanks and gratitude for their sacrifices, and announced that he would send veterans and physically disabled people to Macedonia, led by Kraters. The soldiers, however, misunderstood their leader's intent, declaring disobedience in the town of Avis, and refusing to return to their homeland in the belief that Alexander intended to replace them with Persian troops, or merge Persian units with Macedonian units. After three days during which Alexander was unable to persuade his men to reverse their decision, he appointed several Persian officers in his army, and granted Macedonian military titles to a number of Persian units, and the Macedonians died at his feet hoping that he would reverse his decision and ask him to allow. Alexander forgave all his soldiers who rebelled against him, and hosted a sumptuous banquet in which thousands attended. In an attempt to heal the rift between the Macedonians and the Persians, and unite their ranks and hearts, his senior officers ordered that they marry Persian princesses and held a mass wedding in Sousse, but it appears that few of these marriages lasted more than a year. Alexander left Sousse after he had arranged for him and went to Hamadan, and as soon as he found out that the guards assigned to protect the tomb of Shah Cyrus the Great had desecrated him, and quickly executed them. After Alexander's arrival in Hamadan, Hephaestion, his closest friend and possibly his lover, was also seriously ill, not long until he died, and one of them is said to have poisoned him. The death of Hephaestion had a devastating effect on Alexander.He was deeply saddened, ordered the preparation of a large crematorium in Babylon until his body was burned, and issued a decree of public mourning. After arriving in Babylon, Alexander embarked on a series of new campaigns at the outset of the conquest of Arabia, but he did not write any of them. He died shortly afterwards. Alexander died in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, on the tenth or eleventh of June in 323 BC, and is thirty-two years old. Historians differed slightly in determining the causes of death.Glutarch said that about 14 days before Alexander's death, he had received Nirajos and spent the night staring together and drinking wine with Medius Larissi, until dawn. After that he developed a strong fever, which continued to worsen until he became unable to speak, and feared and worried about his soldiers, they were given the ear to queue in front of him to greet him, has peace be upon them by reference. Diodorus says that Alexander suffered severe pain after drinking a pure wine bowl in honor of Hercules, and then died after being severely tormented by the pain. Other historians have cited this incident as a possible alternative explanation for Alexander's death, and Plutarch has completely denied it. But Plutarch rejected it and said it was an unfounded fabrication, while Diodorus and Arian said they only mentioned it for the sequel of interest. The available evidence suggests that if poisoning was the cause of Alexander's death, the main suspect was Antipater, whom Alexander entrusted to Macedonia during his absence, and then returned, removed and summoned him to Babylon. He instructed his son, Eulas, who had worked as a waterer for Alexander, to poison him in wine or water. Some researchers have suggested Aristotle's own involvement in the case. Some researchers have responded to this poisoning theory that the twelve-day period passed between Alexander's illness and death, a period that is too long for any poison of the species that was then known to take its full effect, slow-acting toxins were probably not yet known. According to a recent theory that came into existence in 2010, the symptoms of Alexander's disease mentioned in the old documents correspond to the symptoms of black water poisoning of the Styx River, which contains the high-risk compound kalekmecin, which is caused by one of the deadly bacteria. Refer to one of the chronic natural diseases that Alexander is likely to develop during his travels, and one that has been nominated to be behind Alexander's premature death: malaria and typhoid fever. According to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine from 1998, Alexander's death was the result of typhoid fever, which caused several complications, culminating in gastrointestinal perforation and then ascending paralysis. Another recent research suggests that meningitis is the killer. Other diseases whose symptoms match those of Alexander are: acute pancreatitis and West Nile virus. Theories of natural causes of death tend to emphasize that Alexander's health was probably in a gradual decline, since he left Macedonia and embarked on his expeditions to the far reaches of the known world. Through severe wounds, and finally his heavy drinking has had a great impact on weakening his body over the years. Also, the anguish and grief Alexander felt after Hephaestion's death may have played a major role in the decline of his health. One of the main reasons is also that Alexander overdoses of drugs made from hellebore, a killer if consumed large quantities. Alexander's body was placed in a golden sarcophagus made in human form, which in turn was placed in a gold naos. According to some texts, a fortune-teller named Aristander foretold that the country where Alexander would be buried "would know happiness throughout its days and no one would be able to conquer it." It is possible that each successor of Alexander's successors considered the acquisition of the body of their late king an act that would legitimize his own succession, especially since the burial of the current king of the former king was a definite proof of his right to the throne. During the funeral procession of Alexander from Babylon to Macedonia, Ptolemy was subjected to them and cut off the road, and turned the march to Memphis, the capital of Egypt, where the body was mummified and buried, and then his successor Ptolemy II moved the coffin to Alexandria, where he remained until before the beginning of the Middle Ages. Ptolemy IX, one of the late successors of Ptolemy I, moved the mummy of Alexander from the golden sarcophagus to another coffin made of glass, so that he could dissolve the first and mint the coins of his liquid. Roman leaders Pompey, Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar visited the tomb of Alexander, and the latter is said to have accidentally uprooted the nose. This age. It was also said that the Roman Emperor Calipula pulled out the pectoral plate from the mummy and kept it for himself. Emperor Septimius Severus closed the tomb of Alexander to the public in 200 AD, and his son Caracla, a great fan of Alexander, visited his tomb during his reign. After the reign of this era, the signs and texts that speak of the shrine are gradually diminishing until it is over until scarcity, so that its location and destiny are among the historical things that are currently shrouded in fog. In 1887, the Ottoman scholar and scholar Osman Hamdi Bey discovered a coffin near the city of Sidon in Lebanon showing the inscriptions of Alexander fighting the Persians in some of them and hunting animals in others. It contained the remains of the Macedonian leader. The sarcophagus was originally believed to have contained the remains of Abdounimus, king of Sidon, who was appointed by Alexander after the battle of Issus. Alexander's death was so surprising that when the news arrived in Greece with the news, many people did not believe it and claimed it was an unfounded rumor. At the time of his death Alexander had not yet succeeded an heir to the throne of the empire, but his son from Rakhsana, Alexander IV, was born months after his death. Diodorus says that the companions of Alexander asked him on his deathbed to which men left his vast empire, and he answered them briefly "to the strongest." Arian and Glutarch consider this story to be fabricated, as Alexander had lost all the ability to speak at this stage. Other historians have presented a more credible story, albeit ostensibly, saying that Alexander gave his ring to Perdicas, one of his bodyguards and his cavalry commander, in the presence of a witness, thus nominating him to succeed him. Perdicas proposed that Alexander's son, when naturally male, take office, and that he, Caraters, Leonatus, and Antipater play the role of guardians until then. However, infantry soldiers, led by an officer, Miliapros, rejected the arrangement on the grounds that they had not been consulted in the first place, and nominated Felipe Arredaeus, Alexander's half brother, to the throne of the empire. Eventually the two sides reached a satisfactory compromise after the birth of Alexander IV, and they made him and Philip reigns, albeit only nominally, soon after the Macedonian rift broke out, and there was a rift and rivalry among the senior officers, whose greed leaked and wished. All of them are judged. Virdikas divided the territory of the empire and distributed blood to them, and each of these territories became a base used by each leader to expand and proceed towards the territory of his opponent. After the assassination of Perdicas in 321 BC, Macedonian unity collapsed completely, and the brothers of yesterday fought among them for 40 years, and the war did not end until the division of the Hellenistic world founded by Alexander into four sections: the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt and its neighbors, the Seleucid Empire in the East, and the Kingdom of Pergamon in Asia Minor and the Kingdom of Macedonia. Alexander IV and Philip Arredaeus were assassinated. Deodorus says that Alexander had given Kraters detailed written instructions and recommended certain things before his death. Kraters proceeded with the full will of Alexander, but the successors of the latter stopped him alone and chose not to do more than he had done until then, arguing that what remained of the demands was impractical, reckless and extravagant. However, Kraters read Alexander's will to the soldiers, To discover that it invites them to expand in the territory of the south and west of the Mediterranean basin, and to build great monuments, and mingling with the peoples of the East, as detailed in detail: Construction of a memorial shrine for his father and former king Philip II, “comparable to the greatness of the pyramids of Egypt”. Construction of large structures in Delos Island, Madain Delphi, Dodona, Dion, Amphipolis, and a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena in Troy. From Asia to Europe and vice versa, in order to unite the two continents, and the composition of the hearts of peoples through intermarriage and the establishment of family ties ». Historians agree that Alexander deserved the title of "elder" or "great" well-deserved, because of his unparalleled military success, he has never lost a battle, although most of the armies that fought outnumbered his army and many, due to the good exploitation of the land of expectations, For his training of infantry and cavalry corps to use brilliant tactics, for his bold strategies ahead, and for the blind loyalty of his soldiers. Alexander armed his legions with long spears up to 6 meters (20 feet), and these legions had been trained to fight rigorously from the days of Philip II, until it reached the highest degree of military perfection of its era, was fast movement and maneuverability on the battlefield is large, has been exploited Alexander these things to surpass the larger and more varied Persian forces of his homogeneous battalions. Alexander also realized the possibility of a rift in his army because of his ethnic and linguistic diversity and his different weapons, and he humiliated this problem by personally engaging in battles, as a Macedonian king. When Alexander fought his first battles in Asia, the Battle of the Granikos, he used a small section of his army, consisting of 13,000 infantry and probably 5,000 horsemen, with 40,000 Persian troops. Alexander made the legion of spears stationed in the middle, placing archers and cavalry on the wings, so that the length of his army line was equal to that of the Persians, about 3 kilometers (1.86 miles) long. The Persians had their infantry stationed behind the horses, which ensured that Alexander could not circumvent him. Of stabbing them with their swords and short spears. The Macedonian casualties in this battle were insignificant compared to the Persians' losses, all thanks to Alexander's military genius. Alexander resorted to the same method of deployment of soldiers when he fought the first battle with Dara III in 333 BC, the battle of Asus, and put the Legion of spears in the middle, and were able to breach the ranks of the Persians again. Alexander himself took command of the attack in the middle and directed the enemy army in his favor. In the decisive position with the Persians at Gopmela, Dara equipped his chariots with machetes on her wheels so that he could break through the spears and provided his pedestrians with long spears similar to the Macedonians' spears. When the vehicles are heading towards them, then they line up again at the end of the attack and continue their progress. This tactic was very successful, breaking the center of the Persian army, and forcing the Shah and his soldiers to withdraw. Bakhtia and Sogdia, he used his throwers from crossbows and a light spear campaign to prevent enemies from wrapping around them, while rallying his imagination at the center. When he confronted the elephant corps in India during his battle with Raja Poor, he made his soldiers open gaps in their ranks until the elephants entered, and then closed them and stabbed the villagers with their long spears and dropped them from the back of their animals. The Greek historian Plutarch (c. 45–120 AD) described the external body of Alexander as follows: «1 The best person who took out Alexander 's body was Lesbos in his statues, and this was the only sculptor that Alexander entrusted to make statues of his incarnation, due to the accuracy of his work. 2 As for the detailed specifications that many of his successors and companions after him tried to imitate, namely: the shape of his neck, which was slightly inclined to the left, and the brightness of his eyes, this artist has perfected the most elaborate. 3 As for Avilis, whom he painted with a Zeus lightning bolt, he erred in the color of his skin, making it very dark, while they say he was white, and that his whiteness gradually turned red on his chest and face. 4 In addition, the smell of his body and mouth smelled so bright that his clothing was filled with, and this is what we read in the memories of Aristotelian. » The historian Arian (Lucius Flavius Arianus «Zenfon», between 86 and 160 AD) described Alexander: «That strong leader, handsome and strong, with bright eyes, one black as the night and the other blue as the day sky. » Alexander's Romantic Myths suggest that the latter suffered from iris variation, a situation in which one was born with a different color for each eye, and in the case of Alexander, one of his eyes was dark black and the other blue. The British historian Peter Green described Alexander the Great's external body based on the sculptures that he represented and what was said in ancient manuscripts. “Alexander was not an attractive man in terms of appearance. He was extremely short, even for the Macedonian standard, and stocky. He had a beard with a beard, and made himself distinct from his commanders through her entire shaving. His neck was so twisted that he seemed to look up a little. His eyes (one blue, the other brown) revealed female dewy traits. He was also characterized by his sharp temper and loud voice. » According to ancient historians and writers, Alexander was so impressed with the sculptures and drawings he had made for him that he prevented the other sculptors and painters from depicting him. The latter often used the position of incompatibility when portraying Alexander and other characters, such as the skimmer, Hermes, and Eros. One of the reasons why this man's sculptures are described as the most accurate is that they do not appear to be rigid and lifeless.

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