#if you are climbing in china and are not a mountaineer

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

How cnetizens descending the mountain: many mountains in china are very high and steep, so going downhill tends to hurt the knees more than going up.

[xiaohongshu-for-you]

Crying because anyone can see the top of the mountain. The disabled, the elderly, children, everyone. ❤️ The US would call this DEI or woke or some dumb shit. I saw Americans in the comments saying it was "cheating". Let people see the mountain!

[autiebiographical]

Well, 2024 was certainly a year.

For my partner and I it was filled with mourning. My partner lost two grandparents and I lost my step-dad.

Losing my step-dad honestly broke me. A man who was a second father to me for 30 years. He passed away when I was in the final stages of editing my book so he never even got to see it. I know if he had he'd show it to anyone and everyone to the point he'd probably start annoying people.

"Look at what Theresa made! All those years of drawing and now they've published their own book! I'm so proud!"

You know the term "Pebbling"? The act of penguins giving each other pebbles to show affection. The neurodivergent community has kind of adopted it as giving a loved one a small token to show you they care. That's what I used to do with my step-dad when I was a kid! I didn't really know how to show him that I cared so I'd give him cool looking rocks!

He kept all those rocks. So many years passed and he kept those rocks. When I moved back to Canada from China my gift to him was a rock. It was a small rock from the mountain I had to climb to get to The Great Wall. He'd show it off to everyone.

Thanks for just letting me blather on. It's been over a month but I don't think I've fully processed his passing. I still half expect him to pick up the phone when I call.

Anyways, Happy New Years! Let's hope that 2025 isn't a disaster.

[venomvalley]

MOUNTAIN MAN — WEEK 1

chris redfield x afab!reader / 5.3k words

summary:

After retiring from the military, Chris finds sanctuary in the hills of West Virginia. Years of solitude pass until a flash flood plants an injured hiker on his doorstep. He soon learns that loneliness has done him more harm than good.

tags: 18+ (nudity, chris is sexually repressed and also horny), brief mentions of blood and injury, this chapter is mostly just set up before we get to the porn

notes: reader is very heavily appalachian and has a backstory revolving around where they grew up. no physical descriptors are mentioned.

here's how you can help appalachian hurricane helene victims

-> READ ON AO3 | MASTERLIST

He gets out of bed every morning—a sickening, habitual five thirty a.m. three decades in the making—and starts his day off with pain. The location changes depending on the previous day’s responsibilities, some mornings better than others, but he’s no stranger to it. Long-healed wounds that ache in the cold, joints worn down to bone that stiffen when a storm front flies in, migraines when he works himself a bit too hard.

This morning it’s his back. He spent the better part of yesterday evening moving all the lumber into the shed because some weatherman promised rain. A lot of it. Can’t let the wood get wet this late in the season, especially with how hot the nights stay. The weather here is predictably unpredictable.

A glance outside the living room window, blood red curtain shoved aside, reveals the aftermath of a thunderstorm. He thinks about the muddy mess of the forest, the soupy quality of the air, and almost resigns himself to a day of staying in. A little rabbit with barely enough meat for a meal isn’t fucking worth sweating through his clothes, or treading mud up to his knees, or falling prey to a landslide.

But something sends him outside anyway: the itch for a cigarette that gnaws at the back of his head. He plants himself in a rickety wooden chair (his hands were always better served for killing rather than creating) and settles in for a long morning smoke. Doesn’t even bother with coffee today, or else his hands might shake when aiming down the sight of his rifle.

A few guns stashed in the house are the only facet of his old life he allowed himself to keep. He tells himself that their presence calms his nerves living this far out in the woods, but he knows better. Go too long without shooting a gun and he starts to get antsy.

Better killing an animal than… well. Hunting keeps him busy. Busy and alone, just how he enjoys life these days.

Within the hour, he’s geared up and ready. Face washed, teeth brushed. Barely managed a five minute shower last night before collapsing into bed, and he doesn’t bother with shaving much anymore. A small bit of post-military defiance he’s allowed himself.

The rifle slung over his shoulder is a comforting weight, a constant amongst the unknown of the trees that surround him. He chose West Virginia to retire to solely because of Claire’s childhood obsession with Mothman. He remembers his teenage years, all the times they made plans to visit Point Pleasant, and now he lives an hour south of the town but something repels him from going near.

He should call her soon. Tell her he’s still alive. Up ahead, the tree line splits open to make room for a shallow creek, and he wonders where his life went wrong. The bone-deep exhaustion never gets easier to bear.

At least the view is nice.

The screaming that faintly echoes through the trees, however, isn’t.

He almost fails to catch it. A voice, high-pitched from panic, calls out to the endless void of the mountainside. He blinks and he’s back in Edonia, or maybe China or Romania, or maybe his own dreams where screaming civilians always cry out his name.

His feet move on instinct, tearing through the terrain, climbing up the muddy slope and latching onto tree limbs to propel himself forward before he comes to a stark realization that he’s too damn old for this.

But there’s something addictive about being a savior. He supposes he’s never been good at self-preservation, and the act of saving a life gives a solid excuse for the danger involved. It’s all woven into the fabric of his DNA. Predisposed for addiction by way of martyrdom.

He finds you at the base of a steep hill, crumpled in the brush. You call out to him, dragging yourself to a sitting position.

“Jesus Christ are you a sight. Feels like I've been screaming since the sun came out.” A fact made clear by the hoarse grit of your voice.

He takes note of your accent, the weak vowels and lengthy drawl. Even after four years of traipsing around the territory (buying the local produce on sale, traveling to the lake for a day of fishing, occupying a booth at the small-town bar), he hasn’t gotten used to the locals. Too friendly, too outspoken, too communal.

It’s something he outright refuses to be apart of.

Adaptation is a skill that Chris has long-since mastered—like learning enemy strategy, adjusting to a different schedule every week, surviving off of naps for months on end—but there are times when he feels much like a baby taking its first breath.

Now is one of those times.

Overhead, rain threatens to fall yet again, the sky a malignant grey, poisonous clouds moving closer toward the mountainside. No doubt the land around his cabin is more mudhole than grass, and a clap of thunder signals a heavy storm looming just up ahead.

He can't leave you here. The soup-like heat bears down on him, sweat soaking through his flannel and beading on the bridge of his nose. Mud thick on his hands, caked on his boots. It's unbearable and he's used to temperatures twenty degrees hotter.

“Listen, if you can just get me on a trail, maybe somebody'll come by.”

Given the weather, he knows that's not true, and with the blood soaking into the collar of your shirt—head wounds bleed—he's not too keen on dumping you in the woods somewhere and going back home.

Chris experiences a dilemma for the first time in four years. He looks you over on instinct. Takes note of your injuries: the wide gash on your head, a bloody scrape on your chin, skinless palms, a swollen leg. You're filthy in places, and one glance behind you up the hillside shows the path your rolling body carved out. Broken branches, trampled down bushes, deep pockets of compact mud.

The road that leads out of this place has no doubt flooded by now, which leaves only one option.

He explains the situation to you, coming across more short-tempered than he means to, but you're a clean break in his routine. A burden on his responsibilities. An outlier.

“I have a cabin you can rest in until the weather lets up.” Your face twists into a grimace, and he gets it. He's a big man, a stranger, but— “Unless you'd rather die in this heat. Your choice.”

You exhale a sharp breath, eyes trained on a nearby tree. “Fine.” You glance back up at him, eyes flitting between relief, anxiety, and anger. “I appreciate the help.”

Getting back home is a lengthy affair. His first instinct is to throw you over the line of his shoulders like he used to do his men, except he's not military anymore and you're a stranger. Instead, he throws your arm over his neck while you hobble along with the help of the tree trunks on your path.

Your adrenaline wears off when his cabin comes into view. A quaint thing, the yard half-dilapidated—he lives life on the basis of necessity, and he needs nothing more than a small garden, a wood pile, and his tools—while the interior carries a bit more bulk. The house is small, and he’s gathered a lot of things since his stay. Furs, leathers, blankets, canned food, stacked jars of moonshine, winter clothes, a bookshelf overflowing with mystery novels to keep the thoughts at bay.

You digest the living room as discreetly as you can manage, head downturned, both hands cradling your injured leg.

“I’ll be right back,” he says, halfway to the bathroom. Stops in the bedroom’s doorway to turn and glare at you. “Don’t touch anything.”

Your nose pinches up in a scowl. “Trust me, I got more important things to worry about.”

He fetches the first aid kit from beneath the sink, wets a clean washcloth, and grabs a towel from the cabinet. When he returns to the living room, you sit slumped back into the couch, quiet in your pain. Given the swelling of your leg, he’s dealing with a possible break. And a possible concussion. And injuries that need stitches.

Him and his savior complex.

Treating you is a breeze. You don’t complain when he gets too heavy-handed, you let him poke and prod at your wounds, you barely flinch when he pushes a needle through the skin of your forehead. You say thank you even while your eyes water.

“I’m no stranger to pain,” you say, after you’re all bandaged up and snuggled nicely on the couch. “I would argue I’ve had worse.”

You pick at the edge of gauze taped to your forehead, a thin slice of red weeping through the material. He’ll have to change it out in the morning, but at least the cut isn’t as deep as he originally thought. That’s the problem with blood. It tends to hide the severity of the problem.

“Since you ain’t from around here,” you continue, pointing a finger at him. “I should inform you that I broke the cardinal sin of these hills by letting you bring me home.”

He looks up from his piece of wood, knife carving away bits that fall into his lap. (A hobby he picked up during that first winter, when the boredom almost killed him faster than the cold.) “Did you have any other option?”

You glance around the living room in an attempt to locate your patience. “I guess not.”

He can’t help the laugh that leaves his mouth in a sharp breath, or the way his lips attempt a smile.

You’re trouble, even as concussed and incapacitated as you may find yourself. You encompass nicely a bit of the mountain grit he’s gotten so used to during his trips to the nearby town for supplies. It’s a facet of this life he’s grown to appreciate. The no-bullshit attitude reminiscent of his BSAA days.

The ceiling fan creaks with each rotation of its blades as the room falls into silence. Outside, the song of frogs and crickets and cicadas signal the beginning of night. The cavern of loneliness he experiences most days is filled with all manner of wildlife: the snakes seeking shelter from the heat; a rogue doe and her babies passing through on their way to the creek; a raccoon stealing from his compost. All fleeting moments, yet powerful enough to quell the isolation.

“What brought you here, if you don’t mind me asking?” Your voice slurs, eyelids struggling to open each time you blink.

He does mind you asking, and he responds with silence, settling deeper into the chair.

“I just wonder ‘cause people only come out this far when they’re running from something.” You attempt a smile, a pitiful thing given the swelling on your face. “Don’t wanna wind up dead tomorrow morning.”

He wants to be kind—he should be—but the idea of spilling his innards to a stranger leaves him baring his teeth in an effort to protect his soft underbelly. "Just go to sleep already.”

Your face falls, morphs into an anger running on fumes, and the only argument you manage is a grumbling, “Asshole.”

When your eyes close and your breathing evens out, he cleans up his mess of wood chips and sets his half-baked carving on the bookshelf. He hides the knife in the bottom drawer of his nightstand.

Come morning, he wakes in a puddle of his own sweat, the cabin sweltering with humidity. He finds his blanket tossed across the room as muddied visions of his dreams play out on repeat (his sister's skin peeling away from bone; Piers begging to be saved; Ethan entrusting him with Rosemary). Sleeping is difficult on his best days, but with the heat swarming like locusts, he wakes every hour in a state of misery. He sometimes wishes that the memories would sweat out through his pores. Maybe one day he can start all over again as some fresh-faced twenty-year-old with his whole life to fuck up. He’d do a lot of things differently.

He leaves his bedroom to find you sat on the couch, furrow-browed and dripping sweat. You huff out each breath, bent at the waist to cradle your leg.

“You look miserable,” he says, moving to fetch the first aid kit from the kitchen table.

“Not to shit on your hospitality, but I am. Can’t believe you live like this. We believe in air conditioners, ya know.”

In truth, he’s never thought to get one. Too used to gritting his teeth and bearing it like he does everything else.

“You’ll live.”

“I beg to differ.”

He leaves for the bathroom to wet a cloth with the coldest water the pipes can manage, then throws it to you on his journey to the couch. You pick it up with a gasp and swipe it over your face and arms.

When you're satisfied, he settles in next to you. Clears the blood on your wounds away with alcohol wipes and replaces your gauze. Unwraps the bandage from your ankle to check the swelling and discoloration.

“You need a cast on this.” An absolute, a fact—one you take issue with.

“And how are we supposed to get to a hospital?”

“I was stating the problem, not the solution.”

“Which ain’t helping.”

“You know, you’re very mouthy for someone who’s completely out of options.”

When you don’t respond, he looks up at you. Arms crossed over your chest, mouth twisted into a frown. The discomfort rolls off you in waves.

“Excuse me for being terrified.”

He huffs out a sigh, lowering his gaze to the painful swelling of your leg. “I’ll try to get you help. Alright?”

You nod your head, and he returns to work.

.

.

.

Chris turns on the radio. Newscasters report on outages all across the region. Collapsed roads, downed power lines, warning after warning to stay home unless absolutely necessary.

Flooding happens semi-regularly around here. It’s the reality of mountain life. Difficult to adapt to at first, but he learned about necessities from a local farmer and now each flood doesn’t carry along the mortality-driven dread that it used to.

Still. The circumstances are different this time.

You sit across from him at the kitchen table, head balanced on your folded arms. He’s kept up a routine of pain meds over the last two days even though he doubts they do much to calm the ache, but you always give a little thank you when he sets them in your palm that makes his savior complex purr like a tomcat.

“They’ll be weeks re-building the road,” you mutter, barely heard over the warning listing off affected areas. “If they even think to.”

“There are a few people nearby. They can’t leave us stranded.”

“They can and do. Look around you…” your sentence trails off before you sit up in your chair, blinking at him. “I just realized I don’t know your name.”

“Chris.” His own name feels foreign on his tongue, like it doesn't belong to him anymore. The locals don’t ask and he doesn’t bother enough to offer. He's a different man now anyway.

“Well, nice to meet you, Chris.” The smile you give him rivals the sun, and his name filtered through your accent feels like hearing it for the first time.

Within the confines of his ribs, his heart starts beating again.

You give him your own, and he rolls it around in his mouth before speaking it into existence.

It suits you.

He wants to say it. Wants to tell you it's nice to meet you, too. That, given the circumstances, you're goddamn lucky it was him that heard your calls for help. He's a mean man, not a bad one. In a world like this, the distinction is necessary.

But the moment passes, and he returns to the radio in silence.

.

.

.

Midday strikes hot and humid, much like most other days in summer.

You watch him chop up meat with all the reverence of a professional butcher. Leaned in close to survey the quality, to compliment the steadiness of his hand.

He had ordered you to rest, that you were likely concussed and needed the healing, but you were adamant about overseeing his carving of the deer on the porch outside. You had even helped him lay down the tarp (after throwing a borderline-tantrum about the necessity of pulling your weight).

“What’re you gonna fix with it?” you ask, shoulder brushing up against his as he turns the cut of rump over in his hands.

He’s never had an audience before. To Chris, preparing venison likens to meditation. He takes his time, ensures accuracy to prevent the loss of good meat. The spill of blood keeps him grounded, a controlled mess that has stained almost every shirt he owns.

Prey animals know the price of sacrifice, and maybe he sees a bit of himself in them. Knows how cruel fate can be.

“Fix?” Confusion twists up his brow as he slices away a stubborn piece of fat, and you scoff.

“For food. You can make all sorts of things with deer meat.”

“I just fry them up like steak.”

“Which is wasting good meat. We should make a stew. Or deer jerky.” From the corner of his eye, you shake your head at him. “You’re so lucky my daddy was a hunter.”

“Why is that?”

“’Cause I’m gonna teach you a thing or two.” He gives a pointed glance toward your injured leg, and you reach down to cover it with your hands. “My leg has no bearing on my ability to give orders.”

He bites back a smile, teeth aching from the force of his grit. “I'll take your word for it.”

Come to find out, it doesn’t. You instruct him on which ingredients to use, how to cut the meat, and when to add everything to the pot from your perch at the kitchen table. You’re like a little bird in his ear, singing away in an accent that grows thicker as the day wanes.

You eat your stew half-asleep. He shakes you three separate times when your head starts to droop and he fears you drowning in your bowl. But it’s the best meal he’s had in four years.

He drags you over to the couch, a feat given the way your legs buckle, and waits until you begin snoring, foot propped up on a pillow, to say, “Thank you.”

It's the first time in years, even before he hid himself away, that he's felt anything close to warmth thaw his insides. Gratefulness, maybe, that you possess the knowledge for self-sustainability. He isn't sure why he's so surprised.

He stares at you for a long moment as the wind howls outside, a sliver of light cutting your torso in half.

And then he goes to bed.

.

.

.

“I need to shower. Or bath. Something.”

He looks up to where you tower over him, leaning against the shelf of perishables he's been organizing all morning. “Then go.”

“I don't have clothes. And I'm not putting this sweaty outfit back on.”

Chris closes his eyes, massaging away the headache blooming across his forehead. It's hard enough to manage everything without your presence itching at the back of his skull. He knows you watch him when he isn't looking, no matter how discreet you attempt to be, and you strike up a conversation every time he's within earshot. He just can't figure out why. A copperhead would be a better housemate than him.

“Alright. Fine.”

With a tired huff, he rises to his feet and passes you on the way to the bedroom. He sifts through his dresser to find an old shirt and a pair of boxers he hasn't worn in a while. You'll bitch about wearing his clothes, but like the rest of this situation, you have no other option.

He doesn't really like the thought of you wearing them, either. Can’t put a finger on why, but the thought makes something foul churn in his gut. Too close for comfort.

Back in the kitchen, you take them with a sigh of resignation.

“That's all I have for you to wear.”

“No, it's fine. I appreciate it.” You survey his choices a moment before your head tilts and a wily grin stretches unsettling across your lips. You stretch out the hem of his underwear between each forefinger. “Comfy.”

Heat rises to his cheeks, butterflies swarming around inside his ribs. He wants to snatch them from you, to forbid you from entering his bathroom altogether, but he doesn’t. He drops to a crouch and picks up a can off the floor, scratching a corner off the dated label with his bitten-down thumbnail. “Jesus Christ, just go.”

A stagnant silence, and yet you still stand beside him.

“I was just playing. I didn't mean to—” He shoots you a glare over his shoulder (tries not to cave at the panicked pallor of your face), and your mouth clamps shut.

A few minutes later, the pipes creak and groan inside the walls as you start your bath.

The distraction of his sorting works for a while, until anger morphs into something easier to indulge in. He can’t think about you stretched out in the tub, naked, smelling like his soap. What you might choose to do with your precious minutes of privacy. Gritting your teeth through the pain of maneuvering your leg.

He’s not sure if wanting to help makes him a better or worse man. Selfish. A creep.

You don’t know him. He doesn’t want to know you. And yet he thinks, when the last of the supplies are sorted and inventoried, his back digging painfully into the shelf. He presses a bit harder to quiet his mind, until the welts of his spine bow beneath the wood, and still—this train of thought refuses to derail.

Because you aren’t a bad thing to look at all day, and he can think of much worse companions to share his home with.

The solitude sews poison in his brain. A rabid beast with gnawing hunger and sharp teeth used to satiate. He wonders how soft you are. How easy your flesh might give from the press of his fingers. The best way to shut up your chirping.

He digs the heel of his palms into each eye socket until he sees stars, and then the inevitable happens.

A thud from the bathroom rattles the house. On the other side of the wall, you spew out a string of curses that would make his old team blush. But you don’t call for help.

He weighs his options as he rises to his feet, already beelining for the bathroom door before his mind makes its decision. A swath of steam smacks him in the face when he opens it, and there you lay: sprawled out on your side, held up by an elbow, the expanse of your back and legs still dripping water. Bare. You missed hitting the sink by only a few inches.

A fresh wave of anger wells up inside his throat—how could you do this to him—before he swallows it down.

“What the fuck did you do?” The question poses more as accusation, rough as the rock that sits in the back of his throat.

He grabs you beneath each arm and sits you up, and you tilt your head back against his shoulder to meet his gaze.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I just—I got dizzy and—fuck, I’m so sorry.”

Every cell in his body fights the urge to look past your face, to the swell of your chest, the curve of your belly, the little heaven between your thighs concealed by a thatch of hair.

If he were a worse man, he would stare, but he spares your body little more than a glance before he’s helping you to the edge of the tub with a growling sigh.

“Are you hurt?”

You shake your head, and that’s good enough for him. He leaves as quickly as he came.

This is where his slow death begins.

You’re wearing his clothes when you exit the bathroom, and you smell like him, and you ignore him all evening. Actual torture would be more bearable than this. Anything but your newfound fear of him.

You eat dinner in silence, eyes glancing up at him when you think he doesn’t notice, but unfortunately for you, he doesn’t miss much. Especially not the pout that contorts your mouth, or the crystalline shine to your eyes.

From your point of view, he must not look too keen on engaging in conversation. Sour-faced and square-shouldered, stabbing at steamed vegetables with a fork.

When he settles in for bed, he thinks of you. The softness of your skin, the curve of your back, the nest of curls hiding away your cunt.

It takes him less than a minute—sharp, wet pumps of his fist—before he cums thick all over his belly, teeth sinking into the fat of his thumb to occupy his mouth. The regret sets in shortly after, when he hops in the shower and stares at the porcelain base of the tub beneath his feet. He can’t remember the last time he’s felt sexual attraction, too occupied with the inner workings of his head. And now that box has been opened, and every horrific, nasty thought kept tucked away for years seeks to drown him.

He wakes the next morning to a revival of guilt. Snow clinging to his lashes. Sand in his hair. Salt in his mouth. Plush thighs and pretty lips and hot wet velvet heat. He fists the sheets to keep from touching himself, until the sunstorm remnants of his dreams die out.

In the living room, you’re still sleeping. Morning has yet to break, the sky outside still dark, his yard a well of thick mist from an overnight rain. At this rate, you’ll be stuck here until winter.

He resigns himself to reading a book on the front porch, chain-smoking the morning away. Fractals of lightning strobe across the sky. A bird takes refuge on the wooden rafter above his head. His fingers itch with a need to busy themselves, but he would rather take his chances out here than share the house with you.

The bees drone on as they drill into the wood of his porch, scattering sawdust everywhere, but he can’t bring himself to care. The screen door opens with a creak, and there you stand, arms cradled against your chest as if chilled to the bone.

You refuse to meet his stare, opting to gaze out along the expanse of trees concealed by a wall of heavy rain.

“You shouldn’t be on your leg,” he says, dog-earing the freshly-turned page of his book before setting it aside.

“Just wanted to check on you. Thought you might be out in this.” You nod toward the yard, now a sea of mud and standing water.

Mosquitos are going to be brutal for the next week.

You open your mouth. Close it. Open it again to say, “I really am sorry, ya know. I didn't mean to push you like that.” Finally, you turn to look at him. “Gratefulness aside, you can be an asshole sometimes.”

He knows. It’s what’s kept him alive this long.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing. Just wanted to complain.”

Against his better judgement, he pulls out a seat for you. Says, “Well, we have all morning,” with a nod to the sickly grey sky.

The gesture is equal parts olive branch and apology. A rite of penance. One of the hardest things Chris has ever done—giving a chance for you to slip through the cracks of his inpenetrable armor.

You take it with a tender smile, nursing your leg on the way over. Stubborn little thing can't stay still to save your life.

The rain beats a steady rhythm onto the roof of the covered porch, and he has half a mind to slink back inside and sleep the day away. The weather opens his aches like popped-loose stitches, joints ground to the bone, a blooming throb at his temples.

You watch him with a propped-up elbow, cheek resting on a fist. “You're a frustrating feller, ya know that?”

“I'm aware.”

“At least give me something. A last name? Everybody's got one'a those.”

He considers it for a moment. Takes a long drag of his cigarette and ignores (or tries to) the way his shirt exposes the soft curve of your shoulder. The sheen of sweat on your face that makes you glow.

“Redfield.”

You hum. “Chris Redfield. You're one of a kind around here.”

“What, you don't see many Redfields?”

“Wasn't talkin’ about your name, big guy.”

He blinks. The way you smile at him—soft, so soft—makes his teeth bite into the filter of his cigarette. If he were a worse man, he would lean forward and bite the pretty curve of your shoulder instead. Carve his being into something much more giving. Sweeter.

He turns away to stare at the ashtray, to watch the filter burn as he stamps out its fire. From the corner of his eye, you shift.

“Listen, I know I'm a lot, but I really do appreciate you taking me in. You saved my life.”

He nods his head, tracks with his eyes a billowing smoke that mingles with the rain. “Then you should listen to me, for your own sake.”

You sink into your chair with a pout. “I'm not used to sitting all day.”

“You better get used to it.”

And get used to it you do. You stay out of his hair for the better part of four days, only interacting with him during meals and when he passes by the couch for his hourly cigarette. But still, you watch him tinker about the house as the radio drones on in the background. The daily weather report supplementing the rhythmic thump of his hammer.

He's finally gotten around to fixing the rickety dining chair (only because the first time you sat in it, you almost fell on your ass; he knew better).

“Don't you got a TV or something?” you ask him from your place on the couch, freshly awoken from your nap.

He glances over at you. Your eyes squint from the overhead light, shirt rolled halfway up your stomach. He does not take half a second to ponder the softness of your skin, or if you might giggle when he kisses you there.

If you still smell like him.

“Go back to sleep.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost five.”

You huff, collapse against your flat pillow with a thud. “Do you even have a phone?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I don't want one.”

“So you're one'a those types. Got away from society to start over or some shit?”

“Something like that.”

You fall silent, turning away from him to face the couch. A swell of regret settles like a rock in his throat. The fear that he's made you angry once again. He shouldn't care, but he does. He's grown used to your endless chatter, always something to talk about inside that brain of yours.

He hates it. Hates himself for letting you worm your way into his skull. A part of you settles there no matter how hard he tries to shake you out. It wasn't supposed to be like this. The flood wasn't supposed to happen. Your presence was never part of the plan, a liability unaccounted for.

He feels like he's been put on the chopping block and he watches the axe get polished. Waiting for the blade to fall, for the pain to end.

With a heavy sigh, he opens his mouth to speak. To indulge you just this once. “I used to work for the government. Had a bad time. That's all you need to know.”

You don't budge at his admission.

He blinks, waits a moment, then turns back to the chair.

A few minutes later, your snores flutter into the kitchen. So pitiful sleeping on his couch, small beneath the pile of his old comforter. Too good for a dog like him.

How sweet you'd be.

[accio-victuuri]

wang yibo - loewe feature interview 🎤

In between taking shelter from the rain, while the crew on set was busy moving equipment, we were determined to seize this precious moment and have a conversation with China's highly anticipated all-around artist Wang Yibo on the set of the 2025 Spring/Summer global campaign.

Wang Yibo not only served as a torchbearer for the Paris Olympics Games but was also nominated for the Golden Rooster Award for his outstanding performance in the movie "Hidden Blade" released in 2023. He even played with tennis superstar Novak Djokovic on the Great Wall.

However, this is just the tip of the iceberg of his colorful life: the new LOEWE global brand ambassador has also achieved impressive results in the Zhuhai Station of the Asian Road Motorcycle Championship and the Zhuhai Station of the 2024 GTSC Series. His love of speed and passion is also reflected in rock climbing, cave exploration, and Discovery's new program "Exploring the Unknown". In the program, he ventured deep into the tropical rainforest of Hainan to challenge his survival skills.

In between the sound of camera shutters, we explored the secrets of Wang Yibo's multifaceted life.

Q: "How does it feel to work with the LOEWE creative team on this campaign?"

WYB: "The shoot was a pleasure and I loved the outdoor scenes. The air was fresh, the environment was beautiful, and there was a mountain that looked perfect for rock climbing!"

Q: "Not all LOEWE global brand ambassadors or ambassadors can show off their skills on the racetrack! So how do you reconcile your work in music, film and fashion with your identity as a racing driver?"

WYB : "LOEWE's creativity itself is very diverse and has infinite possibilities. I like to try some new challenges, and we all pursue innovation."

Q: "Can you tell us about your passion for motorcycling or GT3 racing?"

WYB: "I love the feeling of speed and the thrill of competition."

Q: "How do you balance your multiple careers and interests? Do you ever feel like one career takes up too much of your time and you neglect the others?"

WYB: "These things are not contradictory in themselves. Works can take me to experience different lives, and hobbies allow me to be myself. I just need to focus on doing the one thing I want to do at each stage."

Q: "So far, you have been involved in many fields of art creation, including music, film and television, and dance. Can you talk about how you got started?

WYB: "It must be because of my love for dance that I started on the path of art."

Q: "Is there a similar sense of intensity and excitement in the arts and sports you participate in?"

WYB: "Both require a lot of concentration and adequate preparation. Artworks are relatively more enjoyable, while sports activities are more exciting."

Q: "What was it like playing tennis with Novak Djokovic on the Great Wall?"

WYB: "It was unforgettable, and there may never be another opportunity like this."

Q: "Are fashion, sports and acting more connected than most people think?"

WYB: "Although they seem to cross boundaries, they are actually a manifestation of inner spirit. They all show a person's spiritual outlook and convey a person's attitude."

Q: "What does 'craft' mean to you?"

WYB: "No matter what field you are in, passion is an indispensable driving force. For me, 'craftsmanship' is a spirit of innovation. I can feel passion and innovation in the style of LOEWE. It is simple, pure and full of soul, truly embodying the essence of Spanish craftsmanship, transforming the beauty of life into a comfortable and pleasing fashion art."

[djtommotomlinson]

last november i was in china when my little brother called me and told me to come home. over summer my nan, my mums mum, had passed away before i had managed to get back to see her and my mum, my best friend in the world, had a heart attack soon after. i was with her then. we went to the funeral. she got better. we saw robbie williams live. we went out drinking and to the beach and watched coyote ugly and la la land together, our fave movies.

when my brother called me to tell me mum had cancer i knew it was bad. i lost my best friend to cancer when we were just 16 years old. thats never a good word. but its my mum. and to quote her days after her own mums death 'i always knew one day my mum would die but i never knew she would, like, actually die'.

i knew in the back of my head why i was going home but i didnt believe it. i watched spiderverse for like the third time on the plane. i went to grab my suitcase and laughed when i realised i was at the wrong shanghai - gatwick conveyor belt. who knew there were two at almost the same time.

then my brother, my baby brother, who is 30 next year but was 28 and always our baby brother, called me and my life is never ever going to be the same. i knew the moment he called. and i sat on the floor at gatwick airport shaking and people kept coming over to ask if i was okay and finally my sister and my aunties, my mums sisters, arrived and they were let into the baggage area when they explained and picked me off the floor.

i dont think this is a grief that has settled yet. i was meant to see louis that night. i havent listened to a song by him since despite his music getting me through some of my hardest times. my denial, she'll walk through the door and say this was all a joke, phase went on for months after we planned and executed a funeral and wake on the beach in malta. i made a great playlist, i wrote a great eulogy. i did that but it didnt properly sink in why.

i still, almost a full year on, wake up and think about messaging her to tell her how im feeling and check in on her.

my mum used to send me one direction news she found on facebook every day. harrys got a new album emmy did you know? and i was like no mum wow thank you (of course i already knew). she loved niall and we were going to see him live together. she wasnt a big fan of louis' music but ached for what he'd been through. i woke up the day after hearing about liam expecting a text from her checking in because she got me 1d tickets in 2014 for my 23rd birthday and she brought me merch and the dvd of the movie -

my mum who hated the beatles because they were too mainstream but loved what i loved because i loved it and was passionate about it. god she would have been crushed for me today. she would have been heart broken.

and i think this has hit me like a train not only because everyone who knows me knows how much i loved liam as if he was my own friend, but also because this past year has been so full of grief i dont always know how to get out of bed. my dads mum passed a few months ago. my family are wrecked with it. this past year has been a nightmare we can't get out of.

i always related to liam as someone who was bullied at school and as someone who suffers from mental illness and has suffered from alcoholism, thankfully, for me, something ive managed to come back from and im sober and i always hoped for that for him. its such a hard fucking mountain to climb and i didn't have to deal with the fame side of it and this whole other thing he had to carry. i always wanted him to get better but in the back of my head i had this feeling, i had this fear that i would one day log into tumblr and see the worst.

i still cant, and im sure for a long time won't, believe this real. thats one of my boys. we were very much meant to get old together. i wanted to see him get better. i cant begin to comprehend the fact he wont have that chance. this still doesnt feel real to me man. thats my boy.

just a few days ago I was in a convenience store and they were playing heart meets break and i was jamming and excited to hear my boy in a store. i keep remembering its happened, and i look at the photo on my bedside of me and my mum at the robbie williams concert and i could really do with her right now. a link to a facebook article and her over use of emojis - a shocked and crying face and a broken heart. because what else can express this?

i know i didnt know him but i always had the comfort of knowing of him, of listening to his music and watching his videos and feeling less alone in a cruel and lonely world.

its okay to be a fucking mess, if you can take time out please do. i wish this world allowed more of that. after my mum everyone had to go back to jobs and life and it still blows my mind that i was walking down the street then and today and everything was the same. the world should pause but it doesn't.

at the end of all of this, one day this might settle and make sense but right now it doesnt at all and thats how these things work. i love you all, this is not something i thought we would have to face until we had all grown old and spent all of our money on reunion tickets and seen our boys grow old and live their lives.

give people you love a hug, tell people you love that you care about them, work out problems and differences if you can and make the most of it. you never know how much time you have.

[skyward-current]

I don't tend to post my reaction to reverse 1999 livestreams... but OH MY SISTERS IN WINDSONG we're finally getting a garment. We've been in the trenches for SEVEN losedsong patches. Jade Carving Story is free too – as per the typical Windsong fashion, you wouldn't need to pay a cent. Isn't Bluepoch so thoughtful, considering Windsong and gacha players' money is the friends we made along the way.

RATTLING THE BARS OF MY ENCLOSURE AND CLAWING ON THE WALLS I NEED HER I NEED HER I NEED HER I NEED HER I NEED HE– i can sit here waxing poetry about this garment for WEEKS (which is precisely what Bluepoch is going for, I assume). This garment has a target audience and I'm the audience being TARGETED. WINDSONG… your presence radiates such unparalleled brilliance that I would gladly embark on the most absurd and perilous journey imaginable just for the faintest chance to bask in the glow of your ethereal existence. I would traverse the entirety of the Great Wall of China on pogo stilts, juggling flaming torches and reciting the entirety of the Shi Jing backward, all while balancing a teapot on my head filled with Earl Grey. Your elegance is a celestial decree, a vision so radiant that it commands mountains to bow and rivers to reverse their course in homage. I would gladly ascend the sacred peaks of Kunlun, balancing an entire calligraphy set on my back while composing an epic poem about your beauty on silk scrolls with ink made from crushed jade and phoenix feathers. I would train a thousand cranes to braid the winds into a tapestry to capture the ripple of her robes. I would craft a ladder from moonbeams and climb to the heavens, challenging the Jade Emperor himself to relinquish the Milky Way so I could use its stars to embroider Windsong's name in the sky. OKAY OKAY I STOP, you get the deal–

[papaver-decervicatus]

Cat/Mouse/Den: Pt. 2, Mus Rusticus

After months of tense flirting and teasing with the mountain of a man she only knows an König, Mouse finds herself in a life-or-death situation while on patrol in the Alps. Maybe her new admiration isn't as one-sided as she thinks…

CW: Obsession, stalking, canon typical violence, intrusive thoughts, unsanitary wound care

Authors Note: Wow! The response to this fic has been incredible, heartwarming, and just baffling to me! I cannot express how happy I am to share this with you all!

Being completely objective, this chapter requires some suspension of disbelief, the circumstance is not totally likely but alas, I am here for fun.

My college classes are starting up soon, so expect slower updates moving forward. As always, please feel free to leave a comment/reblog with a message saying you want to be added to the taglist or just interact in general!

Cura ut Veleas❣️~ Caedis

PREV | Pt. 2, Mus Rusticus | 4.1k words | Mouse POV | NEXT

He’s a vision, he’s hard to miss on the horizon, he stands out like a mountain lion against his fellow men. He sways his hips wide, the trusty Glock Field knife he keeps on his belt shines like a beacon. It’s such an outrageously cocky move, to keep glinting metal on his person when she’s sure he’s supposed to be stealthy. He’s tall as a tree and broad as a train and always has some hood covering his face. He’s sniper candy, he’s so obviously right there it makes her dig blunt nails into her arm in frustration. He’s hard to miss, should be her straight shot. 

But he never is. 

She never gets the barked orders, the confirmation. She’s asked a hundred times. When it’s in the forest, it’s less warfare and more stakeout. She’s not paid enough to know what she’s looking for, but she always sees him. And she’s always been told not to shoot. She stops asking at some point, but like everything else with this man, she doesn’t quite remember when. Her life is a blur of missions and off time and him and nothing else.

It’s been months since the ravine and she’s seen him just about everywhere she’s been. When SpecGru was gathering intel on KorTacs drug affiliations, she saw him in the haunted deserts of Sonora, Mexico where she lies in the dirt redder than blood and coyotes sing her to sleep. She gazes down at him atop crumbling 16th-century Byzantine marble when she picks off the guards of a weapons supplier in Belgrade, Serbia. In the ancient and verdant bamboo forest of Yibin, China, hunting down spy affiliations, she camps across a creek from him for a night. 

It’s a small world, but not quite small enough for her to believe just how they keep running into each other. No matter where she ends up, their eyes always meet. 

The eyes of the apparition with bloody tears on top of an executioner's hood always flick right towards her, even when she’s under a ghillie or some camo or nothing particularly obtrusive at all. She’s even taken off her scope once or twice to reduce glare, to see if the monster still turns her way then. To see if the cat is following a laser pointer she’s unwittingly putting out. 

He does.

Always finds her.

No matter what. 

He would’ve been a good sniper, in another life. If he wasn’t built like the trees she climbs for her shots. 

Very few things are constant in her work. Very few people stay, very few people know. It’s awful, but she starts to hope to see him on the fields. Like he’s some coworker she’s been flirting with in the coffee lounge. 

But he’s not her coworker. Quite the opposite, he’s a soldier on the other side. The enemy. He breaks men’s spines on his knee like toothpicks. He hums with visceral energy, like mud, blood, and guts. He disembowels men like fish. He walks like a monster with three legs (and at some point about three months into their little game, she touches herself thinking about that third leg.) He swings wide, he keeps his knives sharper than cat eyes. 

His stare is constant, glacial, beautiful. 

She wonders what the rest of him looks like, with such a beautiful set of eyes. Beautiful thighs. Beautiful shoulders. He must have some reason for the mask, but she can’t help but think (or hope) he’s a good kisser under there. That his hands must be larger than life, that his skin must be warm. That his teeth must feel good if used in particular places with caution and moderation. 

She’s sure if he ever caught her, the cat would sink his teeth right in. 

She finds she wouldn’t quite mind getting chewed on by him when they accidentally pick up each other’s radio frequencies in the field. They should be encrypted. They shouldn’t be able to, but the cruel stars align and they make their pacts. 

It’s a game of cat and mouse.  They’ve got their own little rules, too. 

They don’t talk about work or positioning, he always knows where she is but never tells anyone on his team. Once she reaches out, he never gets any closer. Like it’s a game. Like they’re playing hide and seek and he knows he opened his eyes too early so he’s closing them again and pinky swearing not to tell. 

He must not tell, because SpecGru has yet to fall into an ambush. So has KorTac, though. If anyone knew they’d have their heads, but no one else does. The secret stays between them and their radios become the divining rods of close encounters. 

Mostly it’s just breathing on each line, mostly it’s just- 

“König?”

“Maus?” 

“Mhm.”

“Hmm.”

And that’s it. And they breathe at the same time, and he looks up at her in the trees or in her towers or wherever she is. And she hopes he’s thinking the same terrible things that she is, and she hopes that he keeps striking out at base camp and bars and wherever just like she has, and she hopes that he’s lonely like she is. That he has nothing else to focus on so she takes all the space in his head like he does hers. 

She knows she should get a shrink or a good fuck to stop fucking thinking about him like this, but sometimes he whispers a joke into his radio and she laughs, and sometimes she tells him about the book she’s been reading, and sometimes he shows her his favorite knife tricks, and sometimes she tells him stories of before she was in the military and he always laughs and asks questions to show he’s actually engaged and he cares and- 

She doesn’t know when she started missing shots. When she started covering his ass the three or so times he didn’t recognize some hostile getting a bit too close for comfort. 

When the fire is heavy and the mission is condensed into a 100th the size of their usual open field rendezvous, she’s seen him in action. He can handle himself, he can more than handle himself.  Some terrible part of her hopes, though, that he is thankful for her. Cover fire from a traitorous Angel in the trees, makes for a good romance novel but a terrible dynamic in war. And that’s what this is, right? It’s war? But what for? 

She doesn’t know. She’s not sure she wants to. So she keeps their little secret and she prays that he stays safe when she really can’t risk covering for him. To that point, though, he does himself no favors. He fights like he can’t get hit. 

When they’re alone he’s the perfect gentleman, he gets no closer than when she reaches out to contact him first. When they’re not, it's a whole different story. He runs into the middle field like if he can just reach her, he can keep her. If he can carry back his conquest, well… kings get their war spoils, don’t they? It’s a terrible secret she keeps alive only in her heart, but she hopes one day he finally will. 

She’d never shoot one of her own, to save his hide. But when it’s one of his own going after his neck, or when one of hers needs cover too, or one of some other guys on him, it’s easy. 

The Mouse saves the King. 

But a game is no fun with only one player. 

The King also saves the Mouse. 

It’s November, it’s somewhere in the Alps. She’s had quite the pleasure of seeing him so in his element, so proud, broad-chested, and covered in the swagger of a mountain as it walks with its own. The snowfall constricts her view but not his movement. He’s practically prancing around like a snow leopard and despite the temperature it’s warming her up a little to think about how happy he looks down there. 

“Are you gonna get me, kitty?” She hums into her radio, lips curling into a saccharine smile, when it’s just them alone in the cold. His eyes find her immediately after she’s made contact. Like always, they breathe in and out at exactly the same time once those terribly fantastic eyes of his meet hers. 

“Haha!” His whole body shakes like an earthquake when he laughs. “No. Just…” he stops for a moment like he’s catching his breath or remembering the right word, “-watching.” He says, hand reaching to his mask, lifting it up just enough so she can see a red, red, mouth and sharp, sharp teeth turning in a cruel, Cheshire Cat smile. He languishes on a stump, playing with his signature knife, downright admiring her from far away. He pulls his mask back down, but the outline of his exhales still turn into clouds in the snow. 

They breathe in tandem. Their hearts must sync. 

Today is unusual because he is actually working at something in his grasp. Usually, his beloved knife is his dancing partner, his muse of movement, the loyal companion of his oversized hands. 

Many times she’s been lost in the beautiful dance of his hands and his knife, as he flicks it up and catches it with ease. Every time he does so, her heart clenches in her all of a sudden seemingly too-small chest as she fears it’ll come down and slice him. She knows how sharp he keeps his many knives, she knows how terribly it would go for him should it ever fall out of its practiced battle dance. The knife, of course, never does. When he gets bored of tossing it, he starts doing little tricks. He balances it on his index finger, he spins it between the fingers on his massive hand, he can even juggle it between his hands without a moment's hesitation. What’s worse, is the whole time he does it, he is watching her with a relaxed posture. Like he’s showing off like he’s saying “Don’t you see how good I can be with my hands? Don’t you want to invite me over? Don’t you ache to know just what I’ll make them do for you?”

This surgical precision never ceases to amaze her because she’s seen him around his comrades. The steady hands she so admires (and yearns to touch her) disappear and shake like leaves the second he has to talk strategy or cover for others outside of immediate battle. He’s a capable soldier, he’s a great commander, he’s an excellent strategist, sure. But he’s never at ease enough to make his knife dance like this, never like he is with her. His hands shake without adrenaline and with the company. 

His hands never shake when the two exist like this, though. No, the shy soldier boy who won’t look anyone in the eye doesn’t exist to her. Like a fairytale, the second the two see each other, he disappears and instead, a man of ferocious devotion finds himself in her sights. He waits for her. He never once gets closer to her than the moment she reaches out to him first. 

It would almost be romantic. If it wasn’t war and she wasn’t herself and he wasn’t himself. 

Her comm line lights up, ripping her away from her inattentive, lovelorn adorations. Apparently, there’s an enemy scout that’s inching treacherously close to her position and slipped past someone further ahead of her. If he gets beneath her, she’s D.O.A in her tree. 

She sees König’s body tense a second after hers, the way she’s come to recognize he’s received a transmission. He stops his idle patrol and puts down the something he was working on in his hands. Quickly, he tucks it into his pocket. He’s ready to hunt all of a sudden, the relaxed air of his body falls away with all the quickness and ferocity of an avalanche. She knows to pity the poor soul on the receiving end of that look in his eyes and-

Is it her this time? Her heart stutters to a stop. 

The snow is picking up, she can’t see much of anything but she sees him blur into motion. Towards her spot. 

“Keep moving and I shoot,” she says to him. In warning. Begging him not to. She’d miss his comfort if he does make her. 

“It’s right under you, Liebling.” His voice rasps through static colder than the snow on the ground. 

She realizes she’s stranded on her branch, there’s a widow’s maker close enough to her perch to mean she’s screwed if she moves too quickly. She doesn’t have enough time to maneuver out of the tree safely and she’s a sitting duck for someone else’s shot, so long as all they’ve got is short range. If it were longer range she’d be dead already. She’s going to fall to her death or get shot at from below. It’s a shame, but she’s a little happy that it’ll be König, her cat, that’ll catch her corpse. 

She sees the would-be assailant on the horizon and she brings her gun to her cheek. He darts frantically between trees, careful to only go far enough that she’ll have to re-aim as he darts out again. He’s gaining a substantial amount of ground as she finally has a good enough line of sight to execute and-

Her gun jams. 

With all the futility of a mouse in a glue trap, she begins to shake and replace everything she can afford to in such little time to make her rifle usable. The man on the forest floor uses all of the seconds she cannot afford to waste as it becomes clear that he will reach her before she can either get down or get her gun unjammed. 

But by the time she’s gone to pray and say her goodbyes in her head while frantically looking around, she hears the footfalls of a desperate man crunching snow and she sees red spill out. 

König’s massive hands cradle one of his very own, dead. She sees the outline of hardwired explosive packs on the corpse’s chest, apparently a suicide bomber? Alone in the Alps? 

For his part, the giant doesn’t seem the least bit displeased with his kill. He wipes his bloody knife on his pant thigh and sheaths it like it’s nothing. He’s got another man’s blood all over his lower half, he sliced that poor bastard clean between his third and fourth ribs.

“Threat eliminated. My position is compromised, I’m moving.” She says to her comm. 

“Rog, Mouse.” Someone in command responds. 

She, very slowly, makes her way down to the carnage near the base of her tree, sniper rifle at her hip like a mother huddles an unruly toddler. When she’s only 12 feet in the air instead of 40, König spreads his arms out to her. It’s snowing. Hard. He doesn’t move, arms outstretched like a tree.

“Maus, I‘ll help you!” He says. 

It’s the first thing he says to her outside of the buzz of the radio. 

It’s her name. Or, the only one he knows her by. 

And the first thing he says is a promise. A promise of help. A promise of aid. 

She shouldn’t trust him. 

She tosses her gun to the pillowy snow, against all safety protocols and everything she’s ever known. He doesn’t move for it. He’s got a rifle of his own, well- not a sniper's rifle, on his back. Maybe he doesn’t need two?

She unhooks her cabling. 

It’s snowing hard. 

She kicks off the tree and into the air. 

It’s snowing really hard and dawn is breaking. 

He does, indeed, catch her. 

He audibly gasps when she lands in his arms. He doesn’t move, she’s much too small and light to move the man. He just holds her. For a moment- in the air. 

“… klein,” he all but whispers and puts her on the ground. His hands don’t start trembling as she expects them to.

She doesn’t know what that means and goes to pick up her gun and makes a quiet mental note to find a German Dictionary or self-teacher or something if this weird romance is gonna keep up. 

“What’s this guy's story?” She motions to the left. Where there’s the stump of a man who should’ve been her death. 

“Traitor, against both sides. Al Qatala. Made off with classified files.” He rolls his shoulders, completely unconcerned. 

It could be a lie. It could’ve been that this man just has a weird obsession with her and couldn’t stand to see her get taken out by someone that wasn’t him. 

Well, if that were the case, why’s she still around? He could just kill her. But then again, couldn’t she have killed him multiple times over? 

She doesn’t think he's lying. He’s affected by some things, not by others. He’s much too jittery and anxious of a man to lie so easily to her. She recognizes she’s putting a terrible amount of trust in the enemy, but if it’s gotta be anyone, she’d rather it be the man who sometimes radios her terrible jokes instead of some stranger. 

But now they’re as face to face as over a foot and a half of height difference will let them be. There’s still the hood on his face which is haunting, but this monster-  he’s scarcely made a move to her that hasn’t been some perverse version of love or care. 

She realizes she’s thankful for him. 

Stockholm syndrome, she decides. Even though this is the first time they’ve been within 80 yards of each other. 

“Thank you.” Is what she says instead, breathless and quiet, almost like she’s sorry she has to say the words out loud. Almost like they’re bad news like she’s telling the kids they have to put the family cat down. 

“Bitte schön,” he says, gentle and warm like a wool blanket. His hands are drumming on his thighs with nervous kinetic energy and he looks intently at where he grabbed her, maybe he’s worried he hurt her? But he’s not trembling. She tries not to think about it, that he’s not trembling. Her face is red and her heart is fast but for all the wrong reasons.

Before they part ways and go back to their little lives on opposite sides of some silly war she’s sure is not worth the human toll, he reaches into his pocket. 

He brings the little thing to his hood and places it right where she reckons his lips are. 

Their breaths puff into billows of smoke. 

They breathe in time. 

It’s bloody from his pant legs when he presents it to her, holding the tiny object in two forefingers and thumbs. She cups her hands in front of her like a child begging the family pet to drop an injured bird it found in the backyard. He drops it just like that pet, a few inches above her hands to avoid bloodying her hands directly. Like it would be a shame. Like he cares about tainting her. 

It’s a piece of light wood, whittled into the shape of a mouse. 

She holds the thing in the palms of her hands and they ache. It is so small, so hard for even her to hold. His field knife, the one he loves so much, is massive but she knows it was the one that he used to make it. She did research one day, trying to discover what sort of blade it was. It's a custom Glock Field Knife, with a near mirror-perfect patina and two whole inches larger than the standard issue. She also thinks he wrapped the handle himself because she cannot find that stark red chord on any seller’s website. It's a monster of a knife, for a monster of a man. It’s not made for woodworking, for whittling, for creation– it's a thing of utter annihilation and destruction. Yet, he changed its nature. He utilized his most favored possession to carve intricately into fallen birch wood. He’s given a second life in the shape of her name to what would rot without his attention. He has created, against all odds, something beautiful and delicate out of a brutal tool and doomed material. For her.

She is dumbstruck by this man. She has no words for him, for herself, she wouldn’t have any for anyone who asked either. Suddenly, the Alps aren’t so cold even though it is verifiably snowing. 

When he turns to go she thinks how much his hands must’ve hurt to make this little thing and she can’t just let him go, not empty-handed. 

“Wait!” She calls to him. 

He stops and looks back at her. She fishes around in her pockets and curses her nearly-frostbitten fingers until she finds it. 

She tosses it to him. 

He opens the little leather pouch and she sees his smile through his eyes as he recognizes what it is. It’s her pocket whetstone, with the crown she doodled onto the leather holder with charcoal. 

Her lucky charm. 

She shouldn’t trust him, she’s really got no reason to. But this man, he’s saved her life. He likes knives more than she does, hell, uses them more than she does. There’s really no reason for her to have it (just like there was no reason for her to put his symbol into the leather.) His glacial eyes melt while looking down at the object and she’s never known the winter wilderness to be so warm. She tries not to think about the way her heart speeds up when his eyes soften looking at the object. 

“I will only use this from now on, Maus.” He says, voice quiet and reverent. Like he holds the keys to his kingdom when he holds the cheap piece of rock. 

“Don’t. It’s- it’s not a great one. Just. My charm.” She shrugs. She wants to say ‘It’s a piece of shit and useless, just like I am. It’ll fuck up your knives. I know you love them. Don’t ruin useful things on my account.’ 

“All the more reason to treasure it.” He replies, simple and unburdened.

God. She wishes he wasn’t so charming. There’s no going back. 

She feels like she’s in his jaws already, totally caught. He seems not to realize that he could march off with her and go anywhere and she’d just let him. He walks away and it genuinely hurts when his form disappears into snow and trees and leaves no trace like he’s a fairy tale. Like he’s not real and never was and cannot be. 

And with that, the King had saved the Mouse. He turned and left and she moved her position before returning to base camp. 

The next time she sees him, about a week later, she sees him sharpening his massive field knife with the tiny whetstone on his comically large thigh, and in response, she thumbs at the wooden effigy in her pocket. They laughed into their radios to each other. Her cheeks flush red. Her thighs clench around nothing. She dreams about those big, big, hands, the ones that cradled her in the air, pinning her down and leaving black and blue bruises all over her hips and thighs. She thinks about that red, red mouth tracing said bruises with a gentle tongue. She thinks about the hands caressing her neck, the mouth kissing the top of her head. The hands, holding her at the hip snug to his massive frame throughout the night. The mouth, hushing her to sleep and promising to be there in the morning. 

She’s got nothing for him, though. Other than her body and the vain, ridiculous, impossible dream that’s enough for him. He doesn’t seem the romantic type. She doesn’t think he’d settle down. She doesn’t know him at all, not really.

But, she does have something for him. The answer to a question from what feels like lifetimes ago. 

“It’s because I’m quiet.” She whispers into her radio, half hoping he won’t pick up. 

“What?” He hums back. 

“Mouse. Because I’m short and quiet in the field.” 

“Really?” He asks back. “That’s it?”

“Yep.” A heartbeat too long of silence passes between them. She chews the inside of her lip to bits, waiting for a response. “Your turn,” she prods gently. 

“Because I am not.” Is his response. 

“Really, that’s it?” She chuckles into her radio. 

He just laughs on the other end. And now she’s really got nothing else to give him, save a rare book recommendation, a laugh in return for his bad jokes, and her sharp eyes always trained on his form in her scope. She’s got nothing to give him that she hasn’t already given him, and nothing he couldn’t just find elsewhere. 

But God, she wants him all the same. 

It’s dangerous to be at war. 

It’s dangerous to play cat and mouse. 

Even more dangerous to fall in love on top of those two. 

taglist!

@kneelingshadowsalomee @sprout-fics @bucca2 @dead-cipher @gallowsjoker @lostagoodcigar 

[jowi8597]

250414 Vogue China Weibo update 💙

In the past year Wang Yibo has been exploring new places. Climbing ice on snowy mountains, cutting lines on rock walls, or traveling through deserts and rainforests. Sometimes we set out to see the vast world, but more often to explore the scenery in our hearts.

The Little Prince said, It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.

With this as inspiration, this time, we met with Wang Yibo in Paris to "waste time" with reason: falling into contemplation at the blues moment on the rooftop, or being a gardener for a day on a warm afternoon on a suburban farm. In the flow of light and shadow, capture a moment of tranquility and poetry. This moment is the most precious moment. #VOGUEMay#

Producer: Rocco Liu

Photographer: Liu Song

SongCreative Director & Styling: Liu Xiao

[hcdragonwrites]

River (Jttw-Monkeybuisness)

Ok I wrote another thing for @jttw-monkeybusiness there art inspires me and makes my brain itch and honestly I love Sophie to death so here you go!

And yes I suck at naming things when they are snippets of stuff I just usually name it what it’s about.

‘Getting water should be easy’ Sophie thought.

However it seemed that whatever gods were watching their trek today through China must have been bored and made this their entertainment for the evening.

Force the girl Buddha had plucked out of time to get water. Well it was unfair to assume it was the Buddha but whatever magical force actually had pulled her out of her time? Well that being was a massive dick. Sophie strained her arm, feeling the sway of the tree branch she clung to bobbed under her weight.

The banks of this river were steep as Trip and the group were making their way through mountains. The steep sides slide right into the dark water, rushing by in silent swirls of black- and offering no safe place for any traveler to easily reach it. The tree branch that Sophie now climbed upon, hung low enough off the steep riverbank, almost kissing the water with its bark. Moss had begun to grow from its limbs from the constant moisture. It offered Sophie a perfect opportunity.

She had both legs and arm hooked around the branch as it swayed, one free hand straining forward and dipping the water skins into the dark flow.

Jesus it’s freezing, she thought as her fingers dipped beneath the black current. Must be a runoff from a snow melt… If she fell into it she would be soaked and cold to the bone. Sophie shook herself, scattering that intrusive thought.

‘Only two more skins to go…’. She yanked the first one up, muscles burning. She lay flat, stomach hugging the branch and trying not to slip. Sophie wasn’t the most athletic person but she wasn’t a pushover either. Getting water was something she could do. Maybe she couldn’t fight Gods and humble the heavens like Wukong. Maybe she couldn’t breathe underwater and spear demons like Sandy.

Pigsy- well he was a fighter but mostly she had seen him run either away from a fight, pick a fight with Wukong, or fight to run towards women. Most of the time those women were demons in disguise that Wukong warned about. Sandy and her had a betting game going on silently between themselves as to which women were women and which were demons that wanted to devour Trip or herself. Mostly Trip but sometimes she would be mentioned.

So far the score was tipping in Sandy’s favor(who guessed mostly that the women they ran into were real women)- but only because the last village they had been in had been plagued by a child devouring rat demon. It was a morbid kind of way to make light of a situation that just kept recurring as Pisgy never learned.

Tripitaka even had his own abilities to commend, if some of those abilities didn’t translate over to combat. Staying still, meditating, being able to see the good in everyone - Sophie could hear Wukong now, thoroughly ripping into Trip for that belief- those were all traits that helped.

Sophie- a Girl out of time- was determined to have her own uses.

And if that was just doing minimal tasks then she would be GRAND at them!

She uncorked the last water skin and dipped it beneath the water as twilight began to descend into the gorge. The water turned black by the lack of light made Sophie’s stomach twist just a bit. There’s nothing in the water Sophie- nothing at all.

Her reassurances fell short. She had seen too much of demons and gods and magical mojo to really believe that nothing was staring up at her.

What happened next was a factor of several things. The first of those things we can lay blame at the feet of one Monkey King.

Sun Wukong had been given the task of collecting some fresh meat for the stew Trip was preparing and had sent Wukong to find some. The meat was mostly for Sophie and the rest but Trip would also partake. Being a Buddhist he usually kept to a strict vegetarian diet of noodles and soups. However, even he understood that on the road the pilgrims did not have much choice in diet.

So Wukong had gone, easily catching several rabbits and a large goose from further down the river. After his return and depositing them at Pigsys feet to be cleaned and prepped, Wukong was disappointed in the lack of praise. Usually bringing in a haul of food would give him some thanks- however the person that usually did the thanking was … missing.

“Where is the Reader?” Wukong demanded, arms crossing and tail lashing in annoyance.

Pigsy looked up at him from beneath bushy eyebrows. “Sophie,” Pigsy drawled, taking the first rabbit and cutting it clean of its pelt, “went to fill the water skins.”

“Alone? No one thought to go with her?” Wukong made a scoffing noise. Between her and the Monk there had been too many occasions where a demon had taken them as bait to lure out the infamous Monkey King. Didn’t she know by now that she couldn’t just wander off?

“She is not a Child, Brother.” Sandy interjected. The great water demon was sitting cross legged at the fire, stirring the pot. As Pigsy quickly and methodically cleaned the animals, Sandy was just as quick in adding them to the stew. The aroma was already becoming tantalizing. “She wanted a task and was given one. You know she does not like to be idle when there are things to do.”

“I wasn’t saying idleness was the correct answer.” Wukong picked at an invisible dust mote on his sleeve and flicked it away. He was feigning boredom when in reality he felt an itch under his fur. It was his responsibility to keep the mortals safe on this quest.

That included Trip and Sophie. The monk was easy to keep in one place, unless there were people that kept begging for help. Which - happened more than Wukong would care to admit.Sophie was … not so easily manageable.

That stupid women wanted to be as helpful as possible. Whether that be fetching supplies in town, carrying messages for the monk, or even tending to Yulong, she was always trying to keep busy. Which wouldn’t have been a problem for the Monkey King if it didn’t make his fur itch terribly so.

The itching would only go away after he knew she hadn’t gotten eaten by some wannabe river god.

“She needs to wait until I am back. Then she could have asked me for my help and I would have obliged.”

“I think the monkey likes Sophie.” Pigsy mock stage whispered, earning a murderous glare from Wukong. Pigsy flinched back, rubbing at the phantom pain on his head from the last time he had egged Wukong on a bit too much.

“She is only down by the river.” Sandy peacefully interjected before Wukong to react to Pigsys tone. “Just past the bend- I made sure she knew not to go farther.”

At least Sandy knew how danger inclined the mortals in their group were.

Wukong turned and left the camp, walking to the river not far off. The women wasn’t too far away to warrant an escort- she had learned from the last couple of times of almost being devoured or snatched up to not wander so far- but his fur wouldn’t lie flat on his shoulders. It itched terribly so. The sooner he could see her, the sooner the itching would go away.

As he came around the bend he saw her. Sophie was clinging to a tree that looked like it could be swept away into the river at any moment, legs hugging the branch as one hand dipped into the water. Her hair hung down, almost skimming the black surface. Wukongs fur stopped itching and he smoothed it down. Since no one but he was near Sophie to see, and she being too occupied by the river to even notice, he decided to indulge himself and stared openly.

When she had first joined their pilgrimage he had been pissed. Another human to take care of, to babysit, to feed was not what Sun Wukong, Great Sage Equal to Heaven, had signed up for. If he was being honest with himself, none of this pilgrimage was what Wukong had voluntarily signed up for.

Sophie was strange to boot. Fair of skin, eyes and hair, she looked like a spirit from some heavenly court. However she did not act like any women in the Jade Emperor's Palace, because on one of the more ridiculous of their days where The monk had almost been married to a demon queen and Wukong had to break through and kill a little too much, Sophie had let loose a string of curses that were so foreign and colorful that the Monkey King had been momentarily shaken from his indifference at her to turn and inquire to what those phrases even meant.

It had been the start to something Wukong would never admit openly to. It had grown since that day as he learned that, while she may look pretty, she was no women in courtly garb or village outpost. She had a sharp mind, always asking questions and trying to figure out the why and the how of everything. Why did Wukong have a staff that could shrink and be tucked in his ear? Where had Wukong learned to shapeshifter? How had he been able to master duplicating himself with just a bit of fur and spit?

Sophie was open about questions of herself- where she had come from, what she had done before (something about being an artist) and why she looked the way she did (this last bit was rude on Wukongs part and had had the monk use the circlet around his brow as a reprimand. ‘We don’t ask why they look a certain way Wukong," he had said. The Monkey king had not meant it rudley- more or less he just wanted to know where in the world other people like her existed - that looked like her.)

She didn’t like blood so that was a bit of a downside. But an upside was she wasn’t afraid to go toe to toe when the Monk was being so incredibly and unreasonably unfair in his punishments. Wukong didn’t kill too much. Just enough.

Wukong hadn’t had anyone stick up for him like that.

So Sun Wukong decided to play- though no one else would see it as such. Tormenting and teasing and egging and goading were usually not considered human equivalencies of play. On Flower Fruit Mountain those had been the height of games and pastimes. Finding the little things that would itch someone’s skin, that could in turn get right beneath the armor of good words and embarrass the person enough to stumble out of their rehearsed facade and reveal the true self was a specialty of the Monkey Kings. He had done so with all the attendants in Heaven, with all the would-be demon conquerors that marched onto his doorstep. Dig at something long enough and you will find what makes them tick

So Wukong poked at Sophie’s person. He took things from her bag when bored and kept them away (it wasn’t hard and he didn’t have to even make himself bigger to do so). Wukong would try and goad her into playing pranks with him, sometimes even dragging her halfway through one before letting her know that it was a prank. He would answer her questions, insult her intelligence by calling her stupid women, and challenge her on her moral standings. He did everything in the monkey fashion that would be considered teasing and mildly bullying to figure out who she was.

He didn’t realize till it was too late that this had become more than a game to him. He was enjoying this.

Wukong didn’t get to watch her openly. Pigsy would think him infatuated with her and then he would become insufferable. That couldn’t happen. So Wukong would steal glimpses, brush shoulders, take hidden moments like when Sophie had turned to him, eyes shining and bright, and had begged to be lifted up so she could pet a few monkeys perched within a tree. Wukong could still feel the weight of her on his arm, the smell of her. She had been so enamored with the monkeys above that he didn’t have to worry. He could watch her without disguise.

Like he was now. Her face was screwed up in concentration, lip between her teeth as she corked the water skin and swung it onto the bank. She may be a weak mortal but she had good aim. Sophie placed the last one in the water, blue eyes glittering in the twilight. He would have to teach her how to properly hang. She was so limited in movement on that branch, clinging to it like a cat. It was improper and she could still easily slip into the water and be lost. It was a good thing Wukong was here then.

So it was, in part, the Monkey Kings fault for what happened next. And in part, Sophie’s mind is at fault. Wukong was as silent as a tiger, walking up and onto the tree without a sound. And as he was silent and watching, Sophie’s mind was loud and preoccupied.

She only had one more skin to fill but her mind wouldn’t let go of the thought of there being some beast or creature watching her. Waiting for her. It was just like the irrational fear children get when they swim into the deep part of a swimming pool- that somehow someway a shark would come from the clear cemented depths and devour them.

Only- this wasn’t a clear swimming pool. And this wasn’t some childhood fear anymore. Sophie had seen Tripataka almost go underwater from a river monsters grasping hands. If it hadn’t been for Sandy at that time, the monk would have drowned. She shivered. The sooner she got back to camp and away from the spooky dark water and the night, the better.

“There!” She felt the weight was sufficient enough and quickly corked the water skin. Sophie could get down now, off this tree and back into the warm and comforting light of the fire. Maybe she could ask Wukong for another of his stories- well histories as he called them. He was good at telling stories- if they were centered around himself. She went to throw the water skin, already calming down—

Eyes.

Glowing eyes watching her from above. Something human shaped in the foliage—

“Fucking shit!”

Panic set in and instinct. She flinched back, dropping the skin—

And slipping headfirst into the water. The cold shocked her body, screaming for her to get UP GET OUT DANGER- and she kicked back to the surface, spluttering. The current however was stronger than she thought and was already yanking her down to begin with. Her clothes were a weight that the water happily tugged down, mangling it with the current.

Something shot out and grabbed her around the middle and pulled.

OH GODS THERE IS A WATER DEMON THATS IN HERE! Sophie swung out, flailing wildly to get free. Her hands hit something but it was like hitting stone. She would not end up as someone’s meal or bride or servant or anything else. The thing that had a grip on her didn’t let go. But it didn’t haul her under- it hauled her up. As she breached the surface, she spat water from between her lips, her hair blocking her face.

She breathed in just enough air to start threatening.

“WHOEVER OR WHATEVER YOU ARE, JUST KNOW IF YOU EAT ME YOU WILL REGRET IT.” Sophie breathed in more air so she could get louder- if she was loud enough maybe Sandy or Pigsy would hear. If Wukong was back he would definitely hear her. She had to fight until she could get enough air in her lungs to holler louder. She swung again, connecting to what felt like a face- but it was like runing her hand into a brick wall. “I HAVE A FRIEND WHOS THE BEST MONKEY IN THE WHOLE WORLD WHO WILL SKIN YOU—“

Another hand caught her wrist, holding away. Sophie would just have to swing her free hand around and —

“Stop fucking flailing women you will bring the whole branch back into the river !” The person hissed and Sophie paused. She pulled the wet hair out of her face with her free hand.

“Wukong?”

The Monkey King was holding her close, one arm wrapped around her middle and the other holding one of her previously flailing wrists. His eyes were narrowed to angry yellow slits.

“You idiot who else would it be ?” His face was wet from where Sophie must have obviously punched him and splashed water at him.

“What are you doing out here- I thought-“

“I came to fetch you since you were taking so long and everyone was worrying about you.” He adjusted his grip, and hopped off the branch and back onto solid earth. “Then you had to go and dunk yourself into the river like a fool and I had to fish you out. I was also able to get the water skin you almost lost. ” He held up the skin, tossing it onto the bank.

“I didn’t dunk myself in the river !” Sophie pushed off of Wukong and he let her go, crossing his arms. “If you weren’t spookily hiding in the branches with your glowing eyes I wouldn’t have panicked and lost my grip!”

“I can’t believe you hit me…”

“Of course I would hit you! I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS YOU!” Sophie shouted.

“You should know me enough by now that I’m not like every other gripping demon out there!”

“Wukong how would I know when I’m half drowning in the water and I can’t see you?!” Sophie countered. He rolled his eyes, collecting the cast off water skins she had thrown onto the bank, grumbling about mortals and being blind.

“What were you doing?”

Wukong didn’t reply to her, his tail twitching agitatedly. Sophie looked down at herself. She was drenched from head to bare foot in water. Her skin was already starting to break out in goosebumps as the sun sank behind the mountains, casting the gorge into shadow.

“Why were you hiding in the branches?” Sophie pressed, collecting her shoes and holding them in hand. She would have to be careful walking back not to step on anything. Putting her shoes on now would only get them wet from her pant legs being sodden. Wet shoes were also not fun to walk in and they had a long trek tomorrow. Trip wanted to get to the next monastery and have as he liked to call it “an honest meal” which mostly consisted of mushrooms, noodles and broth. Trip was a vegetarian by nature but on the journey he did at times have to make sacrifices.

“Again I wasn’t hiding. The great Sun Wukong doesn’t hide.” Wukong replied, combing his wet fur back into place. “I was coming to fetch you and bring you back for supper. It’s not my fault you didn’t hear me.”

“Did you call out to me?”

“I was making enough noise a deaf and blind beggar could have heard me!” Wukong patted his pant leg where the majority of the water had gotten onto him. It wasn’t as bad as the full drenching Sophie had taken.

Sophie could smell the lie even as Wukong ignored her angry glower.

“Bull-bull s-shit!” She challenged but it came out between chattering teeth. Fuck it got cold fast.

Wukong paused in his own musings, hands pausing in inspecting himself and turned. He peered up into Sophie’s face, so close that he was almost nose to nose. The Monkey King looked at her eyes, down to her lips, then across the rest of her.

“Um… Wukong?”

“You're cold.” Wukong tapped his own lips, and pointed out the raised goose flesh on her arms. “Blue lips and bumps mean cold” His voice was much softer now. “Stupid women.”

He stepped back, hands crossing over his chest again. He looked her up and down then demanded “Take that off.”

“Excuse me?!”

“I’ll turn around, just take off your wet shirt!” Wukong shouted back. “You have those dry … er, shorts right?”

“Yes back in my bag.”

Wukong nodded once.

“Good. Take off your shirt.” He turned around, good to his word.

Sophie did so- shivering as the cold air clung to her skin. The cloth was heavy with water and she sighed. It wouldn’t be dry until well into tomorrow- she would be forced to wear her ‘otherworldly’ clothing. It was fine by her but if they stopped by a village it also meant she would have to wait outside. Sophie had learned the last time that walking into a village with odd clothes could be one of several different reactions, all mostly negative and involving the villagers calling her a demon or witch. Or throwing rocks at her. As she peeled herself free from the sodden clothing the night air kissed her skin and sent her teeth chattering harder. “D-done.”

Wukong hadn’t turned around but he had divested himself of his own robed shirt, holding it out and behind himself. Sophie tried not to stare at his back too long.

“Put it on.” It was kindness Sophie wasn’t expecting. Wukong, the last time he had given her his shirt to wear, had been an order from Tripataka. She had to wash her clothes after a heavy rainstorm had her falling in mud. Of course she had had no spare tops- they all needed to be washed from the travel smell and the dirt. So Trip had ordered Wukong to give up his shirt. It hadn’t been willing kindness but Sophie had still taken it as that.

But this? This was unexpected. Sophie opened her mouth to reply when Wukong continued, “I can’t believe I’m going to have to wash it again of your stink.”

Well so much for kindness. Sophie thought. First the monkey had scared her into the river. Then he had rescued her and blamed her for falling in? All because she couldn’t hear him? She didn’t believe that- not for a second. Great Sage Equal to Heaven Sun Wukong had not been walking loudly. He hadn’t even tried to call out to her to get her attention. What had he been doing when he was on the branch? How long had he been there?

Well, Sophie thought, I should be more aware of my surroundings- or at least not let my mind run away with the rest of my senses.

Though in all fairness if Wukong had wanted to sneak up on her, she would never have known. He was too quiet for his own good and it played into how well he could slip frogs into Pigsys blanket roll.

Sophie shrugged the shirt up and over her head, feeling the residual warmth from Wukong already transferring to her skin.

“At least you won’t get sick and worry the Monk.” Wukong said. Sophie tapped his shoulder and he turned. Without asking, he grabbed her sodden shirt and held it out in front of him.

He may have caused her to fall in. He may have been trying to scare her or something else. But he had pulled her out of the river. He had given her his shirt- free of an order. Sophie was beginning to read the guilt through his actions. Whatever Wukong had meant to do- he hadn’t meant to do that.

“…. Thank you Wukong.”

He grunted, holding Sophie’s shirt in one hand like someone would hold a gross bug.

“What would you do without me? You are completely incapable of keeping yourself safe. Too weak to fight, and too uncoordinated to even balance properly. What were you doing using only one arm for the water? You should have hooked your legs over the trunk instead. ” Wukong walked only a pace ahead of Sophie, slowing whenever she winced over the ground. At least the ground was only slightly rocky here.

“Maybe I wouldn’t fall in rivers because the person that is so worried about my safety didn’t just scare me half to death.” She shot and Wukong merely grinned wider.

“ It seems you forget how to say ‘You are Welcome Wukong’ ! It was just a dip in the water and I was right there to keep you from drowning.”

“Uh huh.”

“ It was needed.” He sniffed the drenched clothing and grimaced, a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. “You did stink.”

“Oh hahaha let me laugh it up- not like there’s soap and a bathtub waiting at every spot we stop.” Sophie rubbed her arms, pulling her hair back from her face to tuck behind her ears. “You stink too when you come back from slaughtering half a hoard of demons ya know?”

“I take care of myself. Unlike you.”

“I thought you were some river monster coming to drown me and eat my bones you ass.” Sophie tilted her head and squeezed some water off the edges of her hair. She was going to need a brush, the bits of hair already curling and tangling together. “Lurking in the shadows above me is not a way to reassure a girl you aren’t there to devour them.”

“All the more reason,” Wukong crowed, “Not to go without an escort. If you are going to go anywhere, you have to take me with you. You are in a King's care after all. It reflects badly upon my own standing as King and guardian of this pilgrimage if you end up between the teeth of some demon. Mortals like you and the Monk should know this by now.”

“Sandy knew where I was.”

“And look at the good that did you.”

There was no popping Sun Wukongs bubble of pride- he had already wrapped this story up as a great rescue of some kind. He didn’t grin about it, but Sophie could see he was indifferent to the chaos he had caused her. She wished she could throw him sometimes. Maybe he would think twice about scaring her if she could dunk him in a river.

“…stupid monkey.”

Wukong turned at that, grinning now with all teeth. The game was afoot now in full force and he felt it.

“What we’re you saying as I pulled you up? Something like “A friend whos the best monkey in the world?’”

“If he really was the best he wouldn’t have half drowned me.” Sophie pointed out, sniffing. They were nearing the fire, and the smell of Sandy’s stew was enough to make her stomach give an audible gurgle.

“I didn’t.” Wukong corrected, helping her over a bit of prickly thorn bushes without being promoted. Maybe he did feel a smidge guilty then. He usually had to be begged to assist - or ordered by Trip. “ You slipped. It’s not my fault you can’t hear or see, stupid women.”

“Keep telling yourself that Wukong. Maybe you’ll make it true.”

As Sophie entered the camp she was bombarded from all sides by the concern of her fellow pilgrims. Sandy rose from the fire- a bowl of stew already being shoved in her hands. Pigsy threatened and yelled at Wukong enough that both of them started to get into a spat. Tripitaka had to stand, to command them to stop before it escalated from mere name calling to physical fighting. Trip then held out Sophie’s bag and she gratefully took it and dipped behind a bit of greenery several paces beyond to change out of her drenched pants and into the comfy pajama shorts and a comfy hoodie. When she came back Pigsy was still growling out threats while a disinterested Wukong cleaned his nails. He looked up briefly at her then away.

“When we reach the next village we will grab you a spare.” Tripitaka spoke around a bowl of noodles. He had opted just for noodles tonight, leaving the meat to the rest of the group. His smile was kind and apologetic. “Sophie you will probably have to wait outside the village till we can get you a replacement.”

She nodded. She could risk going into the village with her regular attire on but … being chastised and poked at by the villagers was not a pleasant experience. Once was enough for her.

“When you guys go into the village could you ask for some healing balm- or maybe a big hat?” Sophie looked to Sandy. “The sun is really starting to burn my skin and I only have so much left of my other world stuff.” Trying to describe the items in her bag at times left different reactions from the group- or more questions. Sophie didn’t want to answer those questions at the moment, hungry and cold.

Sandy nodded, passing a bowl to Wukong on her right. “I will ask for you, Sophie.”

As the group dug into their suppers and then settled for the night, Sophie was glad the fire was banked high. The chill was being chased from her bones and, even if the ground wasn’t comfortable, she looked on the bright side. She hadn’t been eaten. As Wukong took the first watch and Pigsy already was snoring, Sophie closed her eyes—

And woke to the stars still shining in her face as something bumped beside her head. She startled up, blinking out the sleep that clung.

“Hello-?”

“Shhh.” Wukong was crouched beside her, his tail being the culprit of what woke her up. His face looked tired with sleep, the scowl deeper and more furious. He shoved something into Sophie’s lap. She looked down. They were new clothes- a robbed top and pants.

“If you tell the Monk I stole it, I will give you a thorough washing in the river.” Wukong hissed, pulling at Sophie’s bag and rummaging through the contents. Well there he goes again, just digging through my stuff. It didn’t bother her anymore since Wukong rarely kept any of the items of hers he pocketed. He pulled out the coin string, taking some of the bronze rings. “I’m taking some of these so it looks like I bought them. Got it ?”

“So you are feeling guilty for startling me into the water.” Wukong opened his mouth, to argue, to plead his case that no he was not feeling guilty he was Sun Wukong and he did not feel guilt, when Sophie smiled up at him and laid back down.

“It’s ok. Your secret is safe with me-“ she grogely replied, laying back down and curling over the clothes. Sophie patted the ground beside her. “Your watch is over right?”

“Yes.” His head was cocked to the side, like a dog confused.

“Good. Get some sleep.” Sophie closed her eyes. She didn’t hear him move off but she knew he had settled just a bit away from her.

“And Wukong?”

A grunt from behind her- already settling into his spot, back to her.

“Thanks. I forgive you for almost drowning me.”

“I didn’t drown you.”

“I’ll take that as ‘your welcome’.”

[plutostaroftheworld]

Astral Projection Experience Sharing & Original Method Sharing :

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ᴹᵉᵗʰᵒᵈ

ᶜᵒⁿᶜˡᵘˢⁱᵒⁿ

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This is a method for astral projection developed by my Chinese friend. She used to rely on this technique to successfully astral project every time she went to sleep in a stable way. By using this method, she could consistently remain out of body for more than half an hour each time.

Since she’s from China, she hasn’t read any posts from international astral projection communities. Due to cultural differences and learning from different sources, some of the knowledge she shares might differ from what you’re used to. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.

Here’s her story:

She began exploring astral projection in January of last year.

Because she tends to get carsick easily, she can’t travel in the physical world. But once she learned how to astral project, she could visit anywhere she could imagine, and the places that are even difficult to reach in this physical reality. As she got better at astral projection, she even encountered masters (like Lester) during her journeys.

Through astral projection

whether you call it that or "out of body experience"(OBE)

you can use your mind freely, without being bound by time or space. You can even break through dimensions.

Astral projection allows us to break free from the limitations of the material world, and return to our most original form our true self.

She has traveled through space, seen the sea, climbed snowy mountains, and explored countless places.

During her projections, she could experience having unlimited money, fulfilling her shopping dreams without the worry of financial limits.

She also got to experience flying, and the intense, exhilarating feeling of complete freedom.

Her most unforgettable astral projection experience was her very first time.

These were her words:

╰┈➤

“It was around 8 or 9 in the morning, and I had just fallen asleep. In a hazy state, I suddenly heard a buzzing sound near my ears.

From what I knew about astral projection, I immediately thought, ‘Could this be it?’

I was so excited.

I instantly performed a finger-pulling reality check—and it worked. I realized I was out of my body.

I got up from my bed, walked to my balcony, and jumped. I landed on a street surrounded by buildings. Then I tried flying—and just like that,

I lifted off from the ground and soared into the sky, flying straight into outer space.

It was such an incredible experience. I saw planets, like Mars, Saturn and those things I had only seen in videos or textbooks were now right in front of me. And from space, I saw the Earth.

Oh my god... it looked exactly like it does in space documentaries and a round sphere, with green and blue on it...”

☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆

Although she isn’t a professional teacher, she taught herself through books and videos. With time and effort, she mastered and stabilized her ability to astral project.

Eventually, she developed her own method that worked perfectly for her and now, she hopes I can share it with all of you.

If you believe in her, please keep reading.

This method doesn’t require mind reprogramming.

Of course, if you know how to meditate or use the Sedona Method, it’ll be a great help. But this technique is designed to help you astral project every time you go to sleep.

Everyone is naturally capable of astral projecting.

This method is just one way to do it.

If you believe in it and feel that it resonates with you, you can give it a try!

If you don’t like the idea of doing a finger-pull check right when you wake up, that’s okay too!you can always find or create another method that suits you better.

☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆

Here’s the method

We called it “Finger-Pull at Wake-Up” Method

This technique uses the brief window when you're half-awake and half-asleep to enter a projection.

Usually, you can project within two minutes. It’s very simple, don't overthink it!

Astral projection can be as easy as breathing once you get used to it.

The key idea is that when you first wake up, your mind naturally drifts between reality and dream. You just need to use this golden moment to consciously slip into the dream state.

When you first become conscious after waking up, this is a critical moment.

Try not to move your body or open your eyes.

This helps prevent your mind from waking up too fully.

But if you’re the kind of person who can still fall asleep even after opening your eyes, turning over, or talking to someone, then you can skip this step entirely.

Now, with your eyes closed and still in the waking state (probably seeing just black), start imagining yourself doing the finger-pull. That means bending your finger backwards so that it lies flat against the back of your hand.

When your mind switches from waking to dreaming, you may suddenly see yourself doing the finger-pull. If you see it succeed it meaning your finger touches your hand at a 0-degree angle, And boom! you’ve successfully projected.

(Even if you just see yourself doing it, that’s enough. That image is the sign you've shifted into the dream.)

Important note:

The most important part is to trust that the image of the finger-pull will appear.

80% of the success with this method depends on that trust. If you don’t see anything at first, keep imagining it. Keep visualizing the finger-pull until something appears. Trust that it will show up.

Once you see the image, get up immediately. You’ll find yourself in your bedroom, but not the real one, it’s the dream version. We call this “the local dream state.”

Here are some signs to confirm you've projected:

The finger-pull succeeds, and your finger touches the back of your hand.

Bite your tongue, and your teeth will go through it with no pain.

Bite your finger, and it feels soft like clay, no bones.

Look at your palm, and your palm lines will look like ripples on water.

Usually, as long as you act quickly, you can project within two minutes of waking. If it doesn’t work right away, don’t give up.

You can keep trying until you get up , it could be 5 minutes or 30 minutes, it doesn’t matter.

Persistence is the key!

☆。*。☆。☆。*。☆。

3 common reasons for failure:

The half-awake moment is too short. This can happen if you’re anxious or depressed and don’t sleep well. Try to keep your mood light and positive.

You forgot to try projecting. Just remind yourself every day. A little daily intention helps a lot.

You didn’t trust the method. If you don’t see the finger-pull image and give up too early, it won’t work. Trust is crucial. Most people who succeed are the ones who believe in it deeply. So when you trying it, please keep it with trust, trust, and trust!

☆。*。☆。☆。*。☆。

To sum it up, here are the key tips:

• Completely believe in this method

• Keep trying consistently

• When you wake up, stay still, visualize the finger-pull, and wait for the image to appear

☆。*���☆。☆。*。☆。

If you find this helpful or it brings value to your journey, feel free to leave a comment sharing your experience with this method, and we’d love to hear from you!!

Wishing everyone a beautiful day and the freedom to astral project!

P.S. My friend also offers 1-on-1 astral projection consultations. If you’re interested, please message me on Instagram!

https://www.instagram.com/plut_o0415?igsh=MTNsOHQ3bXFhdXg3aw==

[theglowsociety]

For the Women Who Keep Going

To the woman who wakes before the sun,

Who carries the weight and still gets it done,

Who hides her tears in the quiet of night,

And fights battles unseen with all of her might.

To the one who gives while she’s running on none,

Who feels like her race is a lonely one,

Who wonders if anyone truly sees

The depth of her love, her silent pleas.

You are not forgotten, though it feels that way,

You are more than the roles you play each day.

More than the silence, the sighs, the despair,

More than the burdens you think you must bear.

They treat you like china, locked on a shelf,

Only brought out when they need your help.

But, love, you are not a forgotten thing—

You are a throne; you don’t need a king.

Remember the storms you’ve weathered before,

How you’ve mended your heart and built something more.

Each crack in your armor is proof of your fight,

A map of resilience, a beacon of light.

The days you feel broken, remember this truth:

You’ve risen from ashes and found your roots.

You’ve stitched together the parts that were torn,

And each day you’re standing, you’re being reborn.

It’s okay to feel tired, to weep, to break.

It’s okay to pause and step back for your sake.

But know in the end, the storms always fade,

And the woman you are cannot be unmade.

So take a deep breath, and hold your chin high,

You’ve climbed every mountain, you’ll conquer this sky.

If it’s not okay yet, then it’s not the end—

You are the phoenix that always ascends.

[coolstarfishbarbarian]

Naked apron(About what I'm doing these days）

I traveled to Yunnan Province of China these days. The day before yesterday, I went to Cangshan Mountain and climbed to the top of the mountain at an altitude of more than 4,000 meters. I don't want to climb the mountain anymore. I'm too tired.

I found a lot of beautiful flowers. Let me show you.

[crystal-cloudzz]

sbg headcanons (part 1/2)

ashlyn 🎧💚

-shes only cut her hair once, she hated it

-shes used to want to do a sport, but in one class, she got introduced to ballet and fell in love with it

-i don't know why but I have a strong feeling she'd love apple, grape and raspberry flavoured stuff

-every time when she was younger and saw a dog she begged the owner for it (they said no)

-she already has lots of freckles. She gets even more in sunlight

-shes a beach and mountain girl

Aiden 🔪💛

-has depression but got very good at hiding it

-used to sh

-has insomnia

-sprayed chemicals into eyes once by accident

-hes an avid great wall of china Eiffel tower burg khalifa skyscraper tree climber, he climbs to the peak then jumps off

-his parents keep forgetting his birthday, and his dad even keeps forgetting his name (he calls him aaron)

-once had a really good friend then moved

-hes the type to suggest to Netflix and chill then put on how to train your dragon 3 and pass you 7 tubs of chocolate ice cream then says "eat up :D" with a creepy grin

-has a fear of being left alone

-used to be sucidal

-hes a smileycore bitch, like with the drugs aspect and everything

-"oh it doesn't hurt, I'm fine" *arm literally snapped in half, twisted 360 degrees behind his back

-cant cook for shit. Not even 5 minute noodles are safe

-very self destructive

-hin dying his hair is a coping mechanism

-has a bad relationship with his parents (mainly his dad)

-his latest b-day party was when he was 5

-attention deprived

-touch starved

-once add raw meat to get attention (it worked, he never did it again afterwards)

Ben 🎤🤎

-trans male

-sofia the first (that's it. That's all I'm saying)

-has a way with animals, it's like he's telepathic with them

-no but he's actually Sofia the first I have so much proof for it I have an entire au for it

-cant cook either, can only bake

-makes the best cakes and you can't convince me otherwise

-hes the reason Aiden bounces off walls all the time

-always one of the last to be found at hide and seek (except when Lily's playing. Then he goes easy on her)

Oh btw Aiden and Tyler are my favourites if you couldn't tell by the abundance of Aiden hcs

[driedposies]

My Head of Pythons

Summary: A forgotten court of women.

Content warning: Forced marriages, implied sexual violence.

Word count: 1k

Notes: A small writing experiment.

The sun descends into its grave; Night Court is again at the height of its power. Where the rest of the world goes to sleep, those within the metropolis of Nightmares rouse. Like shadows, they tethered themselves to cobblestone walls and slink through downtown streets. 

Hewn City came to life at night. A haunted house of phantoms—bleak, hungry, vengeful.

Connected to the arteries and veins of this place was the castle heart. It was carved into the mountain itself. Gargoyles coiled at the gates, stone beasts nestled in fangs and claws as they devoured each other. Between them grew the only natural flora: flowing vines of jasmine and moonflowers and poisoned ivy.

If one were lucky enough, or ambitious enough, to make it inside, they’d be welcomed with spirals of polished ebony and tapestries of hideous figures—begging, revelling, fornicating. 

To receive an invitation to enter was a blessing, all would be made to believe. It would show status, that you had climbed above the desperate. 

But she knew better. 

She was fourteen when she first entered the Hewn City castle walls. A new gallery was opened for viewing the same month her father made an advantageous trade. His business in wines fermented with mirthroot made your family wealthy enough to brush shoulders with those of noble blood. 

Her mother silently stood by her father as he whispered in ears and sweetened his pockets. She was left to enjoy the art alone. 

There was a painting larger than she hung as a centrepiece. A woman with a head of pythons, her mouth hung open in a curdling scream, silenced by the man who tears his sword through her neck. Her body was depicted naked, back arched, splayed over a rock below her raised head. Erotic—males would mumble under their heavy breaths. Their female counterparts would press their lips together and bow their heads.   

She didn’t stop staring into the eyes of the angered, crying woman, even as her father laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. “You once asked me how you can help me,” her father would murmur into her ear, cold and unforgiving as the warrior who raised the female’s head. “You can help me now, daughter.”

The woman with the head of pythons became her mirror, while her father sharpened the sword later given to the male who promised to become her new keeper. 

In the opulent drawing room, the flickering faelights cast a warm glow over the unfolding precession. The man she was to marry was called Abernathy—an Earl with coffers made of gold. Her dowry was wine and pure flesh. 

The body of present witnesses were all family members and close council, as well as the officiant himself. She was adorned in a gown of ivory silk and lace, a garland of baby’s breath weaved into a crown atop her head. She held a taper candle, dripping white wax into her fingers, the burn a comfort against her new husband’s cold leer. 

She had once dreamt of flying so she could touch the clouds. As a child, she imagined them to be more plush than a feather-filled pillow, malleable yet dense to create small, safe creatures. 

She imagined she was flying on her wedding night. High above those clouds, far from her marital chambers. Far from her physical body.  

The High Lady of The Night Court. The title that was gifted to the mate of The High Lord. An equal in power and body—the first ever made. 

Talk within the streets of Hewn City ignited—hesitancy, anger, hope. Those in the castle walls spoke fervently of this change. Males scoffed and begrudgingly bowed their heads in submission to the new instatement. It was the females who excitedly gossiped and grinned behind palms over afternoon teas and gatherings. 

“I believe this will change everything,” one of her closer confidants affirms, smiling into the rim of her china cup. She toasts in agreement despite the uncertainty within her second friend. 

“Do not be excited over the slim possibilities,” her second friend warns. 

She shook her head, hopeful for what the figure of the High Lady could represent, what she does represent—equality, freedom, and progress. The weight of the diamond on her left hand was a chain she vowed to remove one day. She believed The High Lord’s mate would be the one to set her free. To set all of them free. 

She wore violet blue to the Winter Solstice. It was a statement in of itself, a calling, a dream. Her head was bowed, and her lips were tight as she followed close beside her husband. She did not speak until dismissed, so she resigned herself to listening. Trades, relationships, machinations. The hall was another business deal disguised as a celebration. 

Dark magic rumbled the core of the mountain, warning the approach of the High Lord and the High Lady. Faeries turned and gathered as the Throne Room doors yawned open. Gasps and sighs echoed at their court leaders—their Lady, garbed and crowned. And pregnant.  

She followed the crowd and dropped into a deep curtsy as they made for their throne. The hairs on her neck stood on end as she felt them fly closer. Despite knowing better, her gaze raised to peer through her lashes. Her heart sang with hope as she looked upon her High Lady. 

Look at me, her eyes pleaded, look at us. Do you see the invisible chains that keep us shackled? The rings we did not accept around our fingers?

The High Lady only looked where she was going, climbing the dias to her throne. Untouchable and unreachable. 

She rose, yet her stomach sank. The fae around her drank and toasted with her father’s wine. Her husband dismissed her early in the night, and she joined her circle of friends. 

The painting of the woman with a head of pythons still hung in the gallery—marvelled by males, empathised by females. She did not have a head of pythons, but she silently screamed into the abyss. 

She had hoped, and she was wrong. The High Lady was not their saving figure of change. Girls will still be given manacles while the Lady is here. 

This is a cycle that will never end. 

[p-redux]

I say he is in Nepal, either at base camp, or less likely, scaling Everest. Your opinion on this theory?

Hi, Anon, as I said in a previous post, I have a slight obsession with all things Mount Everest, have read the books, watched the movies, the TV series, and every year when it's the push for the summit in May, I follow climbers on Instagram, and watch their treks up to the highest mountain on Earth. Soooo, I do have some knowledge on this subject. Here's my take...

I know Sam has said in interviews that one of his bucket list items is climbing Mount Everest. And he was supposed to star in that Everest movie. The thing is, climbing to the SUMMIT of Mount Everest is only done in May, usually mid May due to weather constraints. And the prep dictates you have to start 2 months before to acclimate to the high altitude. I'll talk more about that down below. IF you are able to spend the two months in either Nepal for climbing from the South side of Everest, or Tibet (controlled by China) for climbing from the North side of Everest, you will be climbing to almost 29,032 feet, 8,849 meters. This is literally the altitude that jet planes fly once they reach cruising altitude. Sam has this pesky thing called a contract to finish out the remaining seasons of Outlander. I highly doubt his Outlander contract, and the insurance company associated with it, would allow him to take such a risk. Every year, people DIE climbing up or on the way back down from the summit. And some people don't die, but they get severe frostbite and lose fingers, toes, tips of noses. It's not for the faint of heart, and it's not for handsome actors who need to keep their beautiful appendages intact for filming Outlander. Unless the writers can work on a storyline involving Jamie Fraser missing a few, um, things.

Having said that, it IS possible Sam could trek to Mount Everest BASE CAMP. This is the area at the base of the mountain that all climbers go to to prepare to climb higher up, and eventually to the summit. BUT, some people who aren't making summit bids, simply make Base Camp their one and only destination. And that may be a compromise Sam makes with Outlander producers. Base Camp is still REALLY, REALLY high. It's at 17,598 feet, 5,364 meters. Sam isn't putting himself in too much risk at Base Camp...unless there's an avalanche. Sadly, there have been avalanches there and many people have died, as a result, the last one being in 2015.

Everest Base Camp in Nepal is trekked either for the Summit bid season February to May, with all summit bids happening in May. OR, it is trekked JUST for the Base Camp in late September to November. We are now in November, so it IS possible. 👇

BUT, you don't simply hop on a plane and get plopped down at Base Camp's 17,000 feet altitude. You could quite literally die from High Altitude Cerebral Edema and or High Altitude Pulmonary Edema due to the low oxygen levels. Soooo, IF Sam wanted to trek to Mount Everest Base Camp in Nepal, he would have to start acclimating at least two weeks before. All travelers going from Nepal's capital, Kathmandu at an elevation of 4,344 feet stay there for a few days, and then they do a 14 day trek up the mountains, to allow their bodies to acclimate to the altitude and the lower oxygen levels. 👇

Sam would have to allow himself at LEAST 3 WEEKS to make the Everest Base Camp trek. 2 weeks to climb there and acclimate, and then you want to spend at least a week there camping and just being there. Then you have to allow time for the return climb back down. This isn't a weekend excursion.

As for whether Sam is actually trying to climb to Mount Everest SUMMIT. That would be a definite NO. Not only from an Outlander insurance and contract issue, but also because it's not summit climbing season. 👇

And for people who want to climb to the Summit, they have to make a 2 MONTH commitment. The summit climb entails the two weeks to climb to Base Camp. And then at least 6 weeks, climbing up and down from each of the higher camps. I think there are at least 4 camps that climbers stay at, higher and higher on the mountain, until they reach the Summit. 👇

So, if a climber wants to go for a Summit bid, which is always in mid-May, they would have to start in mid-March and literally be on Mount Everest at the various camps the whole two months. It's a huge commitment. Most companies charge around $40,000 for the whole expedition. The reputable ones assign each climber a Sherpa to guide you. The Sherpas are natives to the area and they are expert climbers who are born in the area, therefore their bodies are completely acclimated to the high altitude. The expedition companies hire them to help climbers up the mountain. They set all the safety ropes, set up the camps, make the meals, and deal with the inevitable emergencies along the way. No one should climb without a Sherpa. Also, most companies will only take on a climber for a Summit bid if they can show previous experience in climbing at high altitude and have summitted a few of the highest peaks on Earth. That's not Sam. So, if anything, Sam would probably only be allowed to climb to Base Camp.

As you can see, I'm really, really into all things Everest and could keep writing all day hahaha. But, I'll stop here. I hope that was helpful info, Anon.