#sy asks

[syoddeye]

Possible idea: Price (or anyone) calls into some attorneys office to schedule a meeting (because even special forces need lawyers) - receptionist helps, they call her some pet name, she gets flustered and breaks decorum just a little… idk just a brain worm that smacked me upside the head this morning that I am freely handing over to you

hi! deeeeelicious, thank you for the worm. i love price flustering people. as i'm inclined to do, i took this in a slightly different direction. please enjoy 240ish words. 🧡

~~

He’s on a bit of a time crunch when he sees her. Flustered, uncertain, yet a little plucky—irresistible to a man like him.

Clearly in want, in need, of guidance. Looking for a manager who isn’t there. Petrified to see a man like him, stone-faced and solemn. He knows what he looks like, how he carries himself. It’s a confidence that comes with decades under one’s belt and no sooner. Confidence that carries him down the hall in one direction as the time of day encourages the opposite.

But. She doesn’t stop him. She merely asks for his identification. She’s only doing her job, she explains, which makes him inwardly smirk. Receptionists don’t check badges or keycards, but it seems she’s got a nose for trouble. He likes that in a woman. 

“Am I free to go, darling?” John asks as she scrutinizes the bit of plastic. He memorizes the name on her lanyard and notes the dog in the frame on her desk. Her coat’s half-on, apparently on her way out for the day.

She says yes and apologizes, she’s just not used to seeing people head this way, especially at this hour. It’s not a lie when he says he’s meeting someone.

Cute thing. He wishes he could stick around and try to charm her the old-fashioned way. 

But for now, he’s due at the next dead drop. The silencer. Poor Shepherd won’t know what hit him, and later, when he tracks her down, running hot on adrenaline, neither will she.

[adnauseum11]

hello hello! i have emojis for you: 🌍🧭❤️

Hello Sy :) thank you for the asks my friend!

🌍What tags or warnings will your / one of your wip(s) need if you intend to share it?

The 18+ explicit sexual content warning gets a decent work out in SNAFU. In my Logan WIP there's more physical violence on top of the smut but even then its canon typical (as intense as that can be). I tend not to write dark stuff. Angst and emotional turmoil is more my sweet spot. I read darker stuff than I write as a rule. I'm not-so-secretly a marshmallow, my heart can't take it.

🧭An alternative title to your/ one of your WIP(s)?

I considered making every story in my Logan AU titled after a Tragically Hip song. A) cause they're Canadian. and B) because they have a massive catalogue and I'm certain I could find something that would work. Gordie was a poet and his lyrics are consistently gorgeous. In the end I went another way but it was a close run thing.

Thank you for the extra kudos, I ended up getting a positive response to my job hunt related thing I was waiting on so I have something to look forward to working on tomorrow. The extra positive vibes seemed to have helped ;)

[itscherryterry-again]

This Barbie bites !

[vebokki]

shen yuan's weekly "binghe YOU HAVE watch this anime i can't let you walk around being so uncultured"

[cantarelaria]

Holy moly! Your SY Beast peak AU IS AMAZING!!! Just imagine how MANY beasts can actually be held on his peak...

Curiosity killed the cat, but not me since im a horse. What about Binghe? Who is he here?

Hi there 🩷 Thank you for the lovely message 🥰

Beast Peak is my purely self-indulgent au all comfort no angst, so while LQG and SQQ are too busy fighting over BingBing (as they did in canon), SY just waltz in and steals him for himself.

And so it begins the beast peak arc for the protagonist 🐉

[disgracefulthings]

Luo Bingge: I have lived for many years and seduced countless women

Luo Bingge: My charm had always been unmatched, humans and demons alike begged to be bedded by me

Lue Bingge: And yet I have found someone more powerful than me, someone whose harem made mine look small in comparison

Luo Bingge: I beg of you great one! Take me as one of your own! I will adore you as much as your other suitors. You have beaten me, and now I am yours

Shen Yuan: ????

[piosplayhouse]

"Oh dear," the unicorn thought. "I must've really mucked up the story beyond compare! The Red Bull Luo Binghe is protecting the last unicorn scum?! Unconscionable! He should have driven me off the cliff by now!!"

[ramp-it-up]

II Most Wanted-

Jake Syverson x Reader AU (Sy x Buttercup)

You fell in love with Captain Syverson 20 years ago. 17 year old Football and Baseball Captain Jake Syverson, that is.

You two didn’t make any sense: you were the new girl in town, and Sy was the Homecoming king, but you were his shotgun rider in his iconic Ford Bronco for a few majestic months in 2004.

An unplanned pregnancy, deception, and duty tear you two apart. Forever.

So you thought.

Life took you across continents, marriages, and careers as you both grew up, and you thought your heart was safe. But the feeling you got when you saw Captain Syverson, US Army, Retired, at your 20 year reunion was quite the unexpected twist in your orderly life.

This reunion causes your lives to collide in both the best and the worst ways. Will you run, or ride or die?

Old feelings and new promises.

Angst, fluff, and smut.

This one’s got it all.

Ao3 Link

Part I: ...And I don't know what you're doin' tonight… 🔥

Part II: Pedal so heavy...

Part III: Drivin’ you crazy…

Part IV: …Anytime you’d like 🔥🔥

Part V: Wherever You Take Me 🔥🔥🔥

Part VI: Came out of Nowhere 🔥🔥🔥

Part VII: One Day We Won’t Be 🔥🔥🔥

Part VIII: Time For Something New 🔥🔥🔥

Part IX: Shotgun Rider 🔥🔥🔥

Wedding Dress Poll

Part X: 'Til The Day I Die (1) 🔥🔥🔥

Part XI: ‘Til The Day I Die (2): Bless the Broken Road

[gaywarcriminals]

i think siren sj should try to seduce sy as they become adults which fails at every turn bc sy is blind to signals. cue sj hearing about sy’s new “friend” who is clearly going after him for sex! sj has a full belly the next night. sy is so sad his new friend is gone but at least sj has given him some pretty new shell or pearl to cheer him up!

Alklkacklanklcalkn. After a few deaths, rumors start going around that SY is cursed, and people start slowly backing off. SY mopes about his friends avoiding him, but luckily SJ is there to comfort him! (Side note:I think SY still hasn't realized that SJ eats people, since SY has been feeding SJ a steady diet of pork and candy for 10 years).

SJ has also been sooo nice lately, draping SY in all kinds of hand made jewelry, saying it's "traditional"! SJ keeps asking if SY has been eating properly, and poking and prodding SY's body tisking about how he's not "ready" yet-- he keeps alluding to something happening in the spring that SY is supposed to prepare for, and ofc SY can't disrespect mermaid culture but disobeying SJ's orders!

[starry-bi-sky]

Okay so this is almost a direct copy-paste of my earlier reblog but only the Xin Yuan parts, because its long enough to be its own post and i want to share it! It deserves it's own post <3 typical starry stuff to write a 2k word long reblog, unfortunately.

I say almost because I went through to proof read and ended up adding more stuff.

I've been cooking on this idea for the last two days since I saw the Xin Mo!Shen Yuan post but??? I can't find anything on Xin Mo's backstory or how it came to be -- which means that's free fucking plot right there baby. That's a sandbox and im making LIFE SIZED CASTLES. I'm so excited.

The idea of Shen Yuan transmigrating centuries before the events of PIDW as Xin Mo -- but when he wakes up, he's not the sword. He wakes up in the body of a young boy named Xin Yuan. Now it makes sense for this boy to be a demon, but the drama, the intrigue, the spice of Xin Yuan being a human child.

SY wakes up as a boy below the age of ten, and the System tells him where he is, and SY is excited to meet his favorite protagonist -- only to gradually realize that he's like, a thousand years or so before the events of the novel. The rant he gives the system is legendary.

Bc what's the point of getting dropped into PIDW if he's never going to meet his favorite character??? This is a scam! BUT he settles into his new life, he's like, some orphan street rat or some other tragic airplane-esq backstory.

The system gives Shen Yuan his first mandatory quest: become a righteous cultivator. Which was like, kinda his plan/hopes anyways, except! There's like?? No official cultivator sects anywhere? The Cang Qiong Mountain Sect hasn't even been established yet, and there are pockets of cultivators running around, maybe some groups or schools popping up and then sinking back down, but nothing's really taken root!

If he asks someone how to become a cultivator, there's no straight answer. No "oh you can go to X to do that". He's pissed! How can he become a cultivator if there aren't any schools around to teach him? Deus ex machina, that's how.

Out of sheer luck, SY manages to help save a rogue cultivator, and promptly gets adopted by said rogue cultivator, who gives SY the name 'Xin Yuan'. He is ecstatic. And you know what? It's actually pretty fun!

He's getting to travel the world of PIDW in its early stages, and gets to see the building blocks for the eventual main story. He's discovering all this local flora and fauna that are foreign to his old world and unmentioned in the book, and he's learning cultivation! Granted, its unsafe, newly(ish) discovered cultivation, but it counts!

Wistfully, he thinks about perhaps he'll do something grand and get his name carved into legend. Something that would eventually help the protagonist later down the line in his quest for revenge.

The system remains silent to his thoughts.

But Xin Yuan doesn't take much stock in that daydream anyways. It's nothing more than fantasy to him; wish-fulfillment. He does discover however, that he is positively brimming with spiritual energy. Overwhelmingly so.

It's both a blessing and a curse, as it puts a strain on his meridians if he's not careful, and leaves him prone to qi deviations for the exact same reasons. He already has a heart demon or two from a few traumatic experiences in the past.

(bc hey! angst a day keeps the writer sadism at bay, and all that)

I'll say he's about... eight when he gets picked up by the rogue cultivator, who I'm calling Lin Kai bc he deserves a name. They travel around PIDW up until Xin Yuan is twelve, where he goes through a traumatic experience that results in a heart demon.

It's after that that Lin Kai decides to put a stop to his wandering, and find a place to settle down to raise Xin Yuan in. Coincidentally! They settle down in a nice mountain region that's thriving with spiritual energy. The mountains at the time were called something different, but they will be eventually known as the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect

Coincidentally, the mountain Lin Kai and Xin Yuan end up on is Qing Jing Peak. XY does not realize that the mountain he's on is Qing Jing. The System does not tell him. But he likes it there, more than he was expecting. And as much as he's traveled around, he really does enjoy being in one place.

He has a tendency to go down the mountain and help the village setting up down there, and when he's a teenager he starts venturing out more and more.

Xin Yuan forgets sometimes that he's in a novel, especially after settling down on Qing Jing peak. The system becomes remarkably quiet since there's no quests for him to do and not a ton of opportunities to get B-Points. He cultivates with Lin Kai, helps tend to the garden they're growing, goes down to the village to play with the other kids.

There's one boy he's best friends with, a boy whose not all that good with words, named Liu Zhihao. He's got potential for cultivation though, so Xin Yuan drags him up the mountain when he can so that Liu Zhihao can sit in on lessons with Lin Kai. He drags him all over the forest at the foot of the mountain to go look at bugs and animals.

(One time, when they're fourteen and Liu Zhihao has been learning cultivation for a few years now, Xin Yuan drags him out of bed late one night to go look at the stars. Xin Yuan tells Liu Zhihao about ascension -- something that still feels like a far off dream to many in this time -- that night, while they're sitting on the wet grass.)

("We should ascend together." Xin Yuan tells Liu Zhihao, jade eyes gleaming. Never let it be said that Xin Yuan doesn't love deeply, no matter what kind of love it is. He was always so lonely as Shen Yuan, Liu Zhihao is his best friend. "We'll become immortals, and then we won't ascend until the other is able to.")

(Liu Zhihao stares at him silently, his face unreadable. Then, quietly, he asks; "Promise?")

("Promise.")

When he starts adventuring outwards, further away from the mountain and the village, Liu Zhihao sticks to him like rice. Not that Xin Yuan's complaining, that's his best friend after all, and Liu Zhihao has become a formidable cultivator. He deserves to show off his skills.

He starts making something of a name for himself by the time he's, like, 18 -- although that name is in its baby steps, along with Liu Zhihao. They're slowly growing renown.

Perhaps XY uses his knowledge of PIDW and cultivation in general to help make advancements in the cultivation field. Although the system prevents him from sharing too much, it doesn't mean he can't practice it himself. Perhaps he's one of the first cultivators to develop a golden core. One of the first known immortal cultivators. One of the first to have a spirit sword.

(Although I don't know the logistics of any of this since my knowledge on xanxia/cultivation stuff in general is all still pretty new and google wasn't all that helpful lol.)

Either way, its my excuse to eventually make Xin Yuan come across as ethereal to other people. Peerless beauty SY for the win. Hs wifebeam is too strong, Xin Yuan has a line of suitors following after him and he's completely unaware of it. The rest of history is not.

Demon realm stuff has been stirring up since Xin Yuan was a kid, but at the time it was rare and in the beginning stages. Its been steadily ramping up and the system is sending him on more and more treacherous quests -- some of them mandatory, some optional. SY doesn't often take the optional ones unless it comes with a sufficient B-point reward.

for all intents and purposes though, he's a wandering rogue cultivator with Liu Zhihao, going from place to place to either help a town or village, or to discover more creatures or artifacts (although there aren't that many). Just all around living his life. He participates in a few major quest lines that are sure to get him mentioned in legend, even if it's a background character way.

(Unbeknownst to him, rather than being a side character in these legends, he's named directly. You can't become one of the first immortal cultivators and NOT get name dropped for clout.)

He has a spirit sword named Shā Mó, (杀 shā - to kill/weaken/counteract/reduce) (魔 mó - evil spirit, demon, possession). He routinely goes back to QJP to see Lin Kai, or to rest when traveling has worn down on him and he wants nothing more than to sleep somewhere he knows he'll be safe in. It becomes more frequent as Xin Yuan becomes more famous. Liu Zhihao often comes with him.

it all comes to a head though when the rifts between the demonic realm and the human realm become too great, and the balance between both realms becomes unstable. A demonic emperor's influence, wanting to merge the two realms so he could conquer both to satiate his own greed.

Typical evil king stuff. This comes to a climatic head in a great battle between every cultivator available and the demon emperor's army. Xin Yuan was one of the many who helped lead the charge.

In the end, it was Xin Yuan who ends up defeating the demonic emperor, but the rift that the emperor used to cross between worlds is destabilizing as well. Except instead of trying to close, it's getting bigger and bigger, threatening to swallow the heavens and earth and demonic realm whole.

You know how Yue Qingyuan's soul is bonded to his sword due to a qi deviation? Let's take it a step further >:)

Xin Yuan uses himself and Shā Mó to close the rift. However, it takes all of his spiritual energy to do so, as well as him filtering the demonic qi into his body to redirect it back to the demon realm.

In the end, Xin Yuan and his beloved sword Shā Mó fuse. Xin Yuan's soul becomes trapped in the sword. His physical body is unable to handle the immense amount of power it takes to close the rift, and is destroyed. He is immortalized in legend by his grieving cultivators.

(Liu Zhihao ends up ascending alone. He ascends with the hope that one day he'll see Xin Yuan again, even if it's in the face of someone else. Lin Kai does not ascend, too weighed down by the grief of losing his son.)

Xin Yuan, now Xin Mo, falls into a stasis. He's very confused and disorientated when he regains 'consciousness'. The system has been silent for most of his life, only popping up to give him mandatory quests, hints, points, or to answer any questions.

But once he wakes up, it cheerfully pops up again, congratulating him on completing the origin story of Xin Mo. SY freaks the fuck out. he'd shake the system screen if he could, but he doesn't have arms. or legs. or eyes for that matter.

He can sense his surroundings, but its all like imprints to him. He can sense the energies, but he can't see anything. It's all very disorientating and horrifying after years of being human. Like a sensory deprivation chamber.

The closing of the rift and the cycling demonic qi tainted both Sha Mo and Xin Yuan irreparably, and it did some kind of damage that resulted in SY needing to feed in order to use the spiritual powers. Kinda like how Xuan Su uses YQY's life force for it's spiritual energy, but instead of feeding on his own lifeforce, Xin Mo feeds on others.

The rest is history. Xin Mo is originally tied to the story of Xin Yuan -- believed to be all that remained of the man after he sacrificed himself to keep the realms separate. It's believed that the force of the realms closing permanently infused Sha Mo with demonic energy, turning it into Xin Mo.

But, like many stories do when faced against the tide of time, things get lost; chipped off; changed. Xin Mo is steadily separated from Xin Yuan, especially once it becomes clear how parasitic the sword really is, until they are all but separate entities themselves and the origin of Xin Mo's creation all but forgotten.

The years blur together when Xin Mo is not being wielded, and at first Xin Yuan was agonized by the fact that he stole the lives of all his wielders. He knows it's only a novel, but his decades spent in this life have softened him, and he's grown attached to the world around him.

But time erodes the mind like water erodes stone, and he becomes numb to it, then eventually anticipating of it. He forces himself to remember what he knows of PIDW's plot, and kinda fixates back on his old obsession on Luo Binghe. But while PIDW stays in his mind, his memories as Xin Yuan fall to the wayside.

Not forgotten, per se, but... tucked away. The system prevents him from forgetting fully.

Xin Mo isn't fully a demonic sword either i think, but instead harbors an ugly cocktail of both spiritual and demonic qi. Special circumstances and all that. Everyone just assumes he's a fully demonic sword because that's usually at the forefront, his spiritual qi weakened from the initial fusion and from years of not being fed spiritual qi. It's part of the reason his wielders always end up destroyed by him, other than the whole, yk, 'overwhelming qi' thing.

Nobody would recognize Xin Mo's human form as Xin Yuan other than some truly ancient demons. Of which Meng Mo might. But even that's iffy because there's a lack of surviving paintings of Xin Yuan, but also because of XM's demonic appearance and supposed lack of connection to XY.

Xin Mo has never spoken to his wielders before, not in the same way he does Luo Binghe. He tells Luo Binghe this, and he also tells Luo Binghe down the line that he is both spiritual and demonic -- something he also never told his wielders because there was no point to it.

okay okay i've got to end it here because its already gotten ridiculously long -- of which im both apologetic and unapologetic for -- but i DO think the Shang Qinghua and Shen Yuan meeting (and reveal) would be fucking hilarious. Especially if SY has learned how to pop between sword form and human form by then -- although i guess it doesnt matter either way because SQH's reaction is still the same.

And that reaction is internally screaming and going "hey what the FUCK?? WHY DOES XIN MO HAVE A HUMAN FORM??? WHAT IS THIS??? SYSTEM??? EXPLAIN???"

meanwhile from his place on the sword hilt xin mo is squinting at Shang Qinghua in bewilderment and going "aren't you supposed to be dead" but doesn't pay too much mind to it because its not like its going to change anything.

...up until he catches shang qinghua going "WTF" silently from his little corner while all eyes are off him. One moment SQH is standing beside his king, and the next he's been tackled to the ground by one wild-eyed, human-shaped Xin Mo.

everyone, including SQH, thinks Xin Mo is going to kill him. It is a surprise to everyone when he does not, and instead dissolves into deranged, uncontrollable laughter after spitting out some phrase in some ancient tongue and watching SQH's eyes grow wide in recognition.

[dumbfucksystem]

do you guys think anyone remembers to put flowers on airplane’s grave…

[tk-duveraun]

LBH gets stuck in a timeloop at Jinlan City and he can't figure out why. Worse, no matter how much he prepares himself, he can't stop losing his temper with SQQ and feeding him his blood one way or another.

In the worst loop, he attacks SQQ and shreds his robes, seeing his back and the glowing green sigil there. Lbh retreats and finally remembers that in the abyss he saved a trapped spirit that offered him a wish and his wish was, of course, for shizun to be safe.

But in the next loop even though he avoids SQQ entirely, the Old Palace Master still has him brought to the Water Prison and the reset happens when SQQ agrees.

And here's the problem LBH thinks, he already entered HHP belt the timeloop started. He can't unring that bell and doesn't know what to do. He kills the OPM, but the sowers still accuse SQQ and the timeloop still restarts.

Finally he realizes Xin Mo is affecting his thoughts and actions, which is why he lashes out at SQQ.

He kills every sower himself, then returns to the abyss and destroys Xin Mo (MBJ bringing him back out)

Freed from the loop he tearfully returns to qjp in the middle of the night and begs sqq to believe him that he means to no harm and Xin Mo is destroyed (which shouldn't mean anything to SQQ but obviously DOES) and please let him just come home

[rhiangalaxy]

Plant baby sy gives me so much life. Thank you for drawing everything that you do, it brightens my day. I'd be really stoked if you continued drawing more of the plant baby au. I am curious to know about the upcoming abyss situation. Will sy dive into the abyss after Binghe?

Thank you so much! Glad you're enjoying this little au of mine :D Regarding the Abyss, the Immortal Alliance Conference is actually part of the next big installment to plant baby sy that I plan on working on! (It could end up being multiple parts so bear with me as it may take awhile ╮(╯▽╰)╭) So while I can't answer any major spoilers as to if anyone extra enters the Abyss just yet, here's a lil' doodle of some of the characters for the introductory piece of the conference :>

[ID: A Scum Villain doodle. All characters drawn in chibi style. Depicts Plant!Yuan standing and smiling brightly with his eyes closed between Gongyi Xiao and Luo Binghe, all during their late disciple days. His demonic butterfly rests on his ponytail. GYX to the left of SY also smiles brightly with one closed hand raised up slightly. To the right of SY, LBH looks towards SY with a flushed :3 face, and another demonic butterfly on his ponytail as well. End ID]

[biinaberry]

With the Doomed Polycule AU how are the rest of the peak Lords affected after SY gets put under house arrest, and also after he disappears during the immortal alliance conference. I would imagine that SJ and YQY's relationship with deteriorate further and after the disappearance, YQY probably wouldn't be able to look SJ in the eyes, and SJ I could I can probably see him either telling YQY that if he ever comes to Qing Jing peak he's going to kill him or he could just leave without a word a go search for his brother.

Shen yuan in doomed poly is way more active than you would think. The Qiu household hardened him to where he doesnt take anyone's shit. He wants control just like his brother, but he is willing to use his hands to do so. He often fights with Qi Qingqi and Liu Qingge when they talk shit about his brother which leaves him with not a lot of friends outside of his disciples, Shang Qinghua and Mu Qingfang who he frequency goes on scavenging hunts for.

By the time the trial occurs no one is really Shocked or revolted. Sure they prefer him to his brother but they dont try to defend him. They're more surprised with the favoritism YQY shows by preventing him from being executed.

When it gets to immortal conference, YQY tries, but SXY lobs the palace master's decapitated head at him and asks if he wants to be next. So he drops it, he knows he failed again. But this time with the other shen brother. YQY favors SJ over SY even if he doesn't want to acknowledge it. When SJ comes to him saying he saw SY colluding with demons, he takes him at his word, and even spies on SY himself. Neither of them question SY to get an explanation and instead stick with this narrative in their head. After the first 2 years of isolation SJ never visits again because he is disgusted with his brother and how he is a traitor just like he suspected. And YQY visited but SY tells him to leave and never return, which he follows. Neither of them want to acknowledge or think about being wrong because that means confronting that they put their brother in complete isolation for 10+ years. YQY is guilty, but unlike with SJ there is no way to explain his way out of it. They left their brother to rot. To an outsider they look the same, but internally they are rotting. The people who are most vocal in their disgust is MQF and SQH who always rebelled against the idea and snuck in to visit SY when they can, but it is never frequent enough.

[cantarelaria]

I love love love your beast peak shen yuan!!!! I keep coming back to just look at them. Please tell me you plan to draw more!?

Aw, thank you for leaving such a sweet message 💗💗 Yes I sure will keep drawing more 🥰 I'm full of ideas for this au and it's been so encouraging to have such a positive response from the fandom! I love that you love him cause I love him too!

[lurkinginnernarrator]

in the spirit of thanksgiving

Cang Qiong should have an age old traditional feast.

Depending on who you ask:

It's great. Food, wine, the people you grew up next to and fought side-by-side with. The disciples you've raised.

It's terrible. Awkward small talk, other people's insane opinions (think modern day politics and stuff but xianxia), the adult versions of your fellow disciples(cousins) who either you bullied, or they bullied you, your terrible first kiss, AND those brats you have to teach/the one teacher that just hates you

(Shang Qinghua hates this feast. So, so much. Drunk peak lords, drunk hallmasters, drunk disciples. )

And there's dancing. It's great. It's terrible. All depending on who you ask.

Shen Yuan's first feast makes him dislike them. Between the distance acting as Shen Qingqiu puts between him and everyone else, and the empty void he feels in his ribcage it's not the best. He won't even think or acknowledge it, but it's there.

The feast reminds him of the family dinners from when he was younger.

But there isn't a Shen-mei to lean over to and show stupid memes, there isn't an Er-ge to gossip with, and there isn't a Da-ge to have a late night meaningful conversation with that sticks with you for the rest of your life.

Instead it's a bunch of strangers.

He doesn't actually know them. At all.

To everyone but him, these are the people who they've lived next to for years, shared meals, little joys and burdens, the monotony and life-changing events. Inside jokes and ribbing about choices you made as a teenager.

To him, it's the same as having a meal alone in a bustling restaurant: It's warm, full of laughter and gentle smiles, jokes and stories. And there he is; standing alone.

What's worse? To be completely unknown, or for people to believe they know you, and know your shared history, and be wrong. To have no-one acknowledge you at all, or to be held accountable for actions that are not your own?

As soon as it's socially acceptable to leave, he does so. He shoos all of his little disciples away, telling them to enjoy the festivities.

He comes home to an empty, cold house. At least it's quiet.

(The next feast is bearable. What makes it good is he and Airplane retreat back to the bamboo house together and get blackout drunk. They laugh, they cry, they dance (and sing but they don't remember that.). )