#ooc; out of history

[whetstonefires]

#4 please !

Now see this could be tricky, because generally if I don't get some key elements written down very quickly the idea flows away again and the 'yet' disappears, even if I remember generally what it was about, but I have one this time! I am still just enough plagued by this vision that it's not out of the question I'll go for the capture, but so far nada.

Idea was basically a Jiang family character study by way of modern au. (So tw canonical abuse.) I started from the reflection, in a modern au very high chance the Jiangs are divorced, because being a divorcee wouldn't necessarily ruin Yu Ziyuan in the modern world, as long as she was allowed to control the narrative enough that she didn’t look at fault, so it might be on the table.

Especially because modern views on child abuse are such that while she'd hold back more than she already does in terms of physical chastisement, Jiang Fengmian would also be under less societal pressure to not interfere in her disciplinary system too much, and both these factors mean he’s more likely to put his foot down.

So, concept: Jiang Fengmian, when his son is eight and his daughter thirteen, forces the issue of taking in his best friends' abused orphan child whom he’s just managed to track down in a nightmarish group home, probably leveraging the fact that wherever their money comes from it's mostly his, something he usually doesn't do, but she has always known he could, and been fucked up about it (reasonable) and hated him a little (less so) and hates him so much more now (understandable but still fucked up).

They were obviously still both pressured into this marriage by their families, because I literally cannot imagine them choosing one another of their own free will, and if they did that would be an au in an even more dramatic way than being modern, and no longer work as a character or relationship study as far as I'm concerned. I mean or it’s a cql-based au, but that’s not the version of this toxic marriage I find compelling.

Situation subsequently deteriorates to the point that when the boys are around twelve some outside party observes and is repulsed or otherwise upset by Yu Ziyuan's treatment of Wei Wuxian specifically--she's emotionally abusive to everyone in the family, canonically, and it harms Jiang Cheng significantly more than Wei Wuxian, which I think is also pretty explicit on the page, but she's more openly antagonistic about going after wwx because he's basically a proxy for her husband, whom she doesn't consider to be someone she's capable of harming.

And ofc in a modern family scenario, being abusive to your foster kid is more plainly personal misconduct than being unfair in how you discipline one of your husband's many students, even if it is his favorite. Which means she's very unlikely to chase him around with a whip, but whatever she does do will sting that much more emotionally.

Anyway the outside judgement provokes a more explicit confrontation than the last four years of maneuver and attempting to balance all the competing needs according to two very different standards. And the upshot is that by the time wwx is 13, the Jiangs are divorced. To avoid making a humiliating spectacle of themselves they present a weirdly united front in court and have a very smooth uncontested proceding, although the closed meetings with their respective lawyers involved a lot of vitriol.

Yu Ziyuan, despite having a smallish trust fund and probably a job of some kind, though one that's more prestigious than profitable like uh. Olympic fencing coach. Idk what they make but it's probably not enormous. She and Cangse Sanren probably competed in the same events back in the day.

Anyway she gets a solid chunk of alimony, the house, and primary custody of both her children, although Jiang Yanli is almost 18 at this point so mostly she just gets Jiang Cheng. Everyone thinks Jiang Cheng wants it that way, including sort of Jiang Cheng; he has this idea that if he has his mom to himself they'll finally have a good relationship, even though he's also terrified of being left all alone with her. He's complicated. Families are complicated.

Also she would never have forgiven him if he hadn't concurred that he wanted to stay with his mother because she was the only one On His Side.

Jiang Yanli ofc does not move out right away when she comes of age, in part because her brother needs her, but she probably does go to college, so she's only around part-time.

Jiang Fengmian, meanwhile, keeps most of his financial assets and Wei Wuxian, and gets his kids on the weekends.

So that's all setup for how you have this situation where Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng are entering high school--probably the same school, together, but no longer sharing the commute except maybe Monday mornings--and Wei Wuxian's primary residence is Jiang Cheng's dad's apartment.

It’s really chill. They get a cleaning service in once a week and eat a lot of delivery food, but they do cook at least once a week. The canonical thing where they largely agree about what’s funny and what’s right-or-wrong, and so forth, on the one hand really pops when there’s mostly no external conflict disrupting it, but also probably gains more complexity now that it’s not a thread of positivity fighting for its life against a background of drama. They get to know each other better than they ever had a chance to in canon.

Some of that isn't all that positive, because now they have the space to discover the places where they do actually have the capacity for friction, but both of them are very good at dispersing tension (I do tend to suspect jfm's dad was abusive he sure acts like it), and on the whole it's a good thing.

Jiang Cheng is going to have such a mental health crisis, and Jiang Fengmian is going to handle it so badly. Because of course when his son starts replicating his ex-wife's toxic attitudes and behaviors more now that she has primary custody, he’s going to feel guilty and like it’s His Fault, but he’s going to feel like it’s his fault that Jiang Cheng is growing up to be a shitty abusive person.

And even if he’d never say that the subtext would come through, in the assumptions he made when framing communications and so forth, as in canon, so the thing where Jiang Cheng’s father loves Wei Wuxian more than him, or at any rate likes him better and thinks he’s a better person and prefers his company, would wind up feeding into a self-reinforcing loop.

(Jin Zixuan's nasty public remark about Jiang Fengmian treating Wei Wuxian better than his own children hits Jiang Cheng significantly harder in this scenario, where he's being Tormented by the feeling that all his peers know his dad walked out on him for another son. Wei Wuxian's punch is therefore even more clearly primarily for Jiang Cheng's sake, although Jiang Cheng is probably more inclined to see it as being for his dad's. Jin Zixuan is about halfway between the Jiang kids' ages here, so he's a senior saying this shit to a sophomore.)

So that cycle builds to the point where Jiang Cheng would eventually have one of those rare moments where he resorts to actual violence, because his poisoned feelings are choking him so bad his rationality deserts him.

He’s not going to be nearly as close to actually murdering Wei Wuxian as he was in canon the night the Jiang Sect was massacred, because it’s a less extreme situation, but he still goes for the neck. So Jiang Fengmian is in his home office one Saturday about a year and a half into this new normal, and realizes the boys are fighting. He hears through the wall the accusation you stole my dad. He says to himself, well that’s terrible but interjecting myself into this situation would definitely make it worse.

Then he hears sounds of violence, and then an ominous abrupt silence, and updates that analysis.

And when he opens the door to the boys’ room, Wei Wuxian is being strangled. He’s not really resisting, which is because he’s made the call that that’s way more likely to get Jiang Cheng to snap out of it, and thinks it might make Jiang Cheng feel better to get it out of his system (because he does sort of feel like what Jiang Cheng is going through is all his fault, or at any rate is much worse as a result of decisions made for his sake) and is severely underestimating the dangers of choking, but looks to a third party like he’s already passed out and Jiang Cheng is still at it. Which is to say, it looks like a serious murder attempt on the brink of success.

So that sure made that situation worse!

So yeah that's my idea that I probably won't write but it sure has its teeth in me.

[quackity1999]

RAPID FIRE QUIZ!

What was your first nest like?

How did you feel during your first mating season?

What’s one avian instinct you had trouble controlling as a child?

What’s your favorite word in Spanish?

What’s your favorite Mexican folk tale or legend?

Did you ever have a family pet growing up?

What’s your saddest birthday memory?

[ quackity stares at the pop-up for a second. what is this, an interview? ]

sheesh, okay. you're curious.

FIRST NEST: it was back in mexico, my parent's house. um. okay, i hid in the basement where we stored my grandma's couch cuz she couldn't fit it in her apartment- complicated story. anyway, i took my blankets, some well-insulated jackets and old t-shirts with me, snuck down and nested behind the couch. put up pillows on each end so i felt more, uh, enclosed, i guess. i can't remember too well. think i had teo with me, some marigold petals swiped from our día de los muertos ofrenda, one of my mom's cassette tapes, a year planner i got from a vendor when i went down to the market, all that stuff. janky attempt, but i didn't know how nesting worked yet.

MATING SZN: shitty. aaabsolutely shitty. i'm not gunna get into it right now, but maybe one day. bottom line is: i was fucking terrified.

AVIAN INSTINCT: i was a bit, uh. stupid. as a teenager.

when i was 11, i thought i could try and befriend the cooler kids around my neighbourhood by just— okay, there were these three rougher looking dudes who hung out and smoked ciggies near a barber shop. and, uhhh, i tended to follow them around sometimes. flocking, it's called. y'know, seeking out peers and shit. my mother didn't trust them, though, and if she smelled cigarettes on me, i'd get a whole mouthful about stranger danger.

aside from that, i had a habit of sharing food with people. offered up snacks or saved something special for someone i trusted.

if i ever got into an argument, which wasn't too often, but i certainly didn't shy away from having an opinion: i wasn't graceful about it. i'd flap my fucked up feathers and start chirping (literally) while trying to point out my own stances, and ended up never being taken fucking seriously. so.

ESPAÑOL? : mi palabra favorita podría ser escarlata. it's a pretty word, rolls off the tongue, and gives off some bold imagery.

FOLK TALES: if i had one off the top of my head, i'd tell you. but i'd have to try and recall bedtime stories from my childhood, and i've forgotten a fair amount of their details.

FAMILY PETS: we couldn't afford one, dude! but i got overly attached to a jaguar i saw on a rare visit to the zoo and fully believed it was a tiger, so i took it upon my 8 year old self to abruptly declare it was my own pet that'd been stolen from me, or some shit. aptly named the poor thing "tiger" and talked about him for months afterward. haven't seen him in . . a long while now, but it's not like i have the time to go back. he's probably dead. sorry. ANYWAY.

UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY: probably my 15th, when my parents were too busy fighting the day away to give me much of anything. i mean, they'd done decorations and a few gifts, but at some point money turned into a debate-- as well as who's presents were more useful for my development, so. i holed up in my room, took a nap, and read up on how contract and constitutional law worked. then i hung out on the rooftop and watched the sunset.

um. is that all?

[albatross-lancer]

Greetings. We at Smith-Shimano corporation would humbly ask an audience regarding the Albatross's newest paracausal acquisition, and is willing to open negotiations with a complimentary duskwing

You think that I would ever surrender someone else to your custody, after everything you did to me and my family? Go. To. Hell. And if you ever dare show your faces here again, I will send you there myself.

[lemongogo]

why do i love the conflict more than anything else . the misery . the incompatibility that spreads like oil slick . wanting so desperately for resolution that never comes . hmmm

[jane-lynndrake-t]

I'd like to ask about your brother.

<3

Jamie is my half-brother. He loved creepy crawlies and flying things.

Mom would lock me alone in a room with him to 'bond'.

And I used to really dislike him because he ignored me for weeks. After about a month, I was so frustrated that I threw his book and deliberately got him in trouble.

As payback, he would talk my ear off about owls and insects every time he saw me.

Looking back, I was lucky my brother was, well, Jamie.

It's never a good idea to lock your 8 year old daughter inside a room alone with a 15 year old boy.

[piningpercussionist]

HELLLPP I WAS SHOWING MY SISTER STUPID FUCKING SCOTT PILGRIM MEMES AND I MENTIONED GIDEONSUGGESTIONS' "GIDEON X READER HEADCANONS" POST AND WE JUST:

"Gideon?"

Graves.

"Like. Gideon?" (Said with the inflection of Gideon from Gravity Falls)

Graves. Gideon GRAVES.

(She gives me side eye.)

GIDEON GRAVES. HE VAPORIZES YOU. I AM LITERALLY SHOWING YOU A SCOTT PILGRIM BLOG RIGHT NOW.

"OHhhhh! I'm sorry, I'm stupid today."

I can't with this fucking girl 😭

[darabeatha]

/ A reminder to never expect me to be fully updated on lore and know all the minuscule 9487548957894 details of a character's story and their surroundings, I'm empty as men came to this world and can only vouch for my muses through love (also bc I cannot remember things rip)

[tlgtw]

Man that DLC's final boss has got me feeling kinda fucked. I'm kinda depressed about it now that I'm done. Everything else is, was, so good. But I do not like that plot development. I honestly think it is bad. Why did they choose not to foreshadow this in literally any way? Why did Miquella attempt to resurrect Godwyn at all in the first place, then? Practice? Was this really what was originally planned? There's no actual evidence to the contrary so you gotta assume it must've been.

So yeowch...

[starmocha]

butting in but I don't think it's just the arm. I read somewhere that some of his bones were also infused with metal due to the explosion. kinda like wolverine. idk though how true that is. but it's pretty obvious he's been through hell, like, HELL.

regardless of him being a LI interest now, he was MC's first safe space (i think all LIs are her safe space though) so I can only imagine the dread and anger she feels over what happened to him.

i'm really excited for the event but I gotta admit I can't wait for the new Caleb fics, the angst, the drama aaaaAahĥhhhhh 🥹

THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO SAY. I really don't think it's just the arm. We're seeing the arm, because the skin (?) has been removed, but only that much. How far does it go?

Man, I was gonna do some writing tonight, but like half of my ideas might get scrapped/reworked because of this detail if it's really true. Thank god the main stuff I am working on are AUs LOL

[autisticcassandracain]

I dunno man I feel like most statements along the lines of ‘Batman isn’t REALLY x, he’s y’ don’t hold much water because usually, there’s a pretty good chance a number of writers over the years have written him as x, you just didn’t like it or think it doesn’t count for some reason.

For example ‘Batman isn’t REALLY a good parent, he’s actually a bad parent’, when Batman has been written as a good parent by a number of writers, and has, in addition, been written as realizing that he’s screwed up with his children and resolved to fix it by even more. At the same time, stating ‘Batman isn’t REALLY a bad parent, he’s actually a good parent’ is also incorrect, because Batman has been written as a bad parent by a number of writers, either intentionally or not; in addition, the pattern presented by the tug-of-war between writers who believe he should be a good parent and writers who don’t has, over the years, created an unintentional pattern that strongly resembles that of an abusive relationship. So, stating he is a good parent is inaccurate and dismisses a bunch of his canon writing, but stating he is a bad parent also dismisses a bunch of his canon writing and the intentions of the authors that wrote him.

The secret here is realizing that Batman has had so many writers over the years that it’s practically impossible to find a universal truth about him beyond the basic premise and maybe very, very basic characterization keystones. Writers with different beliefs about both the character and the world at large have written him in accordance to their worldview, and sometimes that worldview will align with yours, and sometimes it won’t.

Like, at this point, Batman is more an idea than he is a character. He is the bare-knuckled fight against injustice, but what ‘injustice’ is depends heavily on your worldview, as does what ‘bare-knuckled’ and ‘fight’ mean. Batman has been interpreted in dozens of different ways over the years, and singling out a few of those as the True Batman is largely arbitrary and dependent on your personal taste and belief in what the character should be. The only ‘objective’ measurement you could apply here are the old Golden Age comics, and I think most fans can agree that measuring modern Batman comics by how faithful they are to the Golden Age comics is, more often than not, a little ridiculous.

For the record, I do think that arguing about what Batman should be matters; if right-wing assholes use the character as a mouthpiece for their worldview we can and should critique that, but not because it’s ‘OOC’, but because the worldview espoused by those right-wing assholes is harmful and shitty. Batman should be a good parent, not because it’s ‘OOC’ for him to be a bad parent, but because having your paragon of justice be a child abuser is pretty shitty. Etc.

I don’t really have anywhere specific to go with this, I just think it’s a little strange when people try to view Batman as a character with a clear-cut characterization, rather than a concept that many people have approached in different ways over the years. Can that concept be mishandled? Sure. But it’s usually mishandled for reasons a bit more substantial than ‘a previous writer wrote it differently’.

[deus-ex-mona]

i miss her…

[phantom-overdose]

((If anyone ever wants to write with a scruffy, kind of (unintentionally) goofy, sweet but still totally animalistic, former prisoner, werewolf-esque, character (complete with wolf tail) who has read a bunch of self-help books and who is super committed once he falls in love, and who also just so happens to be from a post-grand-fairytales fairytale realm full of magic and chaos and all that good stuff... just, ya know, let me know <3))

[byanyan]

something something byan fracturing a rib in a parkour accident and stubbornly refusing to go to the hospital about it for like an entire week even though they are in agony

[iriysse]

🚢 just for funsies, what with mordú being genuinely villainous to varying degrees :')

send 🚢 or ( 'SHIP' ) if you ever considered shipping our characters romantically and want me to fill out the following form for our muses

oooh interesting...

do i ship our characters together?: yes | no | not yet but maybe soon

would i like to ship with you?: yes | maybe, i'm willing to try | no

type of relationship i could see: childhood or high school sweethearts | exes | engaged | married | long-term relationship | crushes | unrequited love | fling | long distance | online relationship | just dating | new relationship | toxic lovers | friends with benefits

tropes i'd enjoy writing for them: friends to lovers | enemies to lovers | exes to lovers | fake relationship / dating | forbidden love | grumpy and sunshine | star-crossed lovers | surprise pregnancy | second chance | soulmates | amnesia / mistaken identity | forced proximity | secret relationship | slow burn relationship

would i rather plot first or jump right in and see where it goes?: develop their relationship first | jump right in | something in between

what now?: let's plot something | send me shippy memes | i'll send you shippy memes | write me a random starter | i'll write you a random starter

anything else i want you to know about me / my character / my shipping habits: basically if you ship with me, expect 1. Lots of poking you for random reasons, and 2. Lots of angst. I like to talk things out ooc (aaand by talk I kinda mean screech and ramble about dynamics)... i am nerdy af. This is your warning.

[pvremichigan]

I see a bunch of people doing shipping guides for their muses so here's one for Mich:

Good luck. <3