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sillyrabbit81 · 2 years ago

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The Fallen Wolves Brotherhood - Part Twelve

Series Summary: Lori "Babycakes" Tate swore she would never date a biker but when her life is in danger, she is put under the protection of a small club known as The Fallen Wolves Brotherhood. She suddenly finds herself attracted to not one, but five bikers.

A reverse harem, biker AU.

Part Twelve Summary: Marshall has some revelations.

Pairing: Captain Syverson x OFC, Walter Marshall x OFC, Mike x OFC, Geralt x OFC, August Walker x OFC

Word Count: Approx. 2.7k

Warnings:

Series Warnings: Reverse harem, age gap (OFC 23, ages range from 23 to mid 40s), oral sex (male and female receiving), unprotected p in v sex, anal sex, group sex, masturbation, praise kink, mentions of body fluids, drug use, recreational drinking, sex work, criminal activities, mention of death, violence, use of weapons, mentions of war, mentions of abuse, angst, fluff, probably a lot more that I will add as they come up.

Part Twelve Warnings: masturbation (male), angst

Authors Note: Thanks as always to my lovely BBFs (Best Beta's forever) @henryobsessed and @nashibirne .

Sorry its a little late! And a little short. Its not edited very well at all, I'm so sorry! But I wanted to get the chapter out.

Divider made by me. Edited by me, there will be errors. (Probably a lot in this chapter, I apologise)

Masterlist

Parts Masterlist

Part Eleven Part Thirteen

Marshall

I woke before Lori and I was glad to. It seemed that neither of us had moved during the night; I was still on my back and she was still under my arm, her hand on my chest was curled into a fist, and her thigh was still across my stomach.

Some of her rich dark hair had fallen free from her loose braid and obscured her face. Careful not to wake her, I swept the wayward locks off her face and tucked it behind her ear to get a better look at her.

She was so beautiful. The kind of girl next door beauty that made most men turn their heads. I chuckled softly, she definitely turned all of our heads. Even Geralt, who always had women throwing themselves at him was dumbstruck by this girl.

But it wasn’t just that she was gorgeous that had me going crazy; my attraction to her was based on more than just her looks. For the first time in a long time, I found someone I couldn’t easily figure out. She grew up surrounded by bikers, and yet, she didn’t act like it. All of her friends were college buddies, and you’d think she’d never been around the life. But even that wasn’t totally true, when she was around them, she seemed to fit in as well as any woman could. She didn’t take their crap and knew what she could get away with. She was smart and not just street smart either.

My first thought was that she was a chameleon, that she played to her audience, unconsciously mimicking those around her. However since being around her the past few days, I could see that wasn’t true. It wasn’t that she was faking, she seemed to have many sides to her, and all were genuinely part of who she was. She was the college girl, she was the biker chick, she was the somewhat sensitive girl who seemed to feel intensely, and yet she could be hard as nails when she wanted to be.

Asleep she looked so young. At twenty-three she was probably too young for me. For all of us except Mike who was a few months shy of his twenty-fourth birthday. Just another reason to add to the list of why my currently throbbing cock was wildly inappropriate. I could blame it on morning wood, but the way she was clinging to me was absolutely adding fuel to the fire.

I groaned as my phone alerted me to a text message and I ignored the message; I didn’t want to move yet. But when my phone alerted me again, I twisted my upper body and reached for the phone, fairly certain I knew who was texting me.

The two messages confirmed I was right.

Sy: Walker really fucked me on this one, four days minimum, but probably seven.

Sy: How’s our girl?

Our girl. I didn’t know what to say. I don’t know how we got here, how Sy was ok with this, how I was ok with this. I wanted her so badly that I no longer cared if she was Sy’s or ours as long as she was also mine.

I slid out of her arms as gently as I could. Her brows furrowed, she moaned softly and her breath hitched but she didn’t wake up. I wanted to soothe the crease between her brows again like I had last night, but this time banish it with a kiss.

My phone sounded again and one of her legs kicked out from beneath the sheets, revealing her bare inner thigh. When I held her, she felt so soft; her body was all gentle curves, plush and warm. A strong hunger bloomed deep in my gut, and I couldn’t stop imagining my lips on her skin, kissing a slow path until I reached her softest and most intimate place.

Breathing deeply through my nose, I lifted the edge of the sheet and covered her leg. My chest puffed as I turned away from her, and sat on the edge of the bed, shuffling to make more room in my already loose sweats.

Sy: Tell her hi from me.

Me: Your girl is fine. Had trouble sleeping last night. She needed a herbal remedy. Got her some from Mike and now she’s still asleep.

Sy: With you?

Me: Yes.

I watched as Sy wrote and deleted a message three times before I wrote again.

Me: She didn’t want to be alone. We only slept.

I paused and added more.

Me: She’s wearing your shirt.

Sy: Okay.

Me: Okay? That’s it?

Sy: I already told you how it is, Brother. It's up to her what happens.

“Is that Sy?”

Like a teenager who’s been caught looking at porn, my first instinct was to hide the phone. Bloody hell this girl was fucking with my head. I dismissed it as stupid and told her the truth.

“Yeah. He’s checking on you.”

She looked over my shoulder and I didn’t try to hide the messages. She frowned.

“What’s up to me?” Her breath tickled my ear as she spoke, and her voice was husky from sleep.

Turning my head to hers and my heart thundered in my chest. She was so close, her full lips only a few inches from mine, it wouldn’t take but a slight movement of my head to feel her kiss. Her eyelids were heavy over her grey eyes, her cheeks were slightly reddened and I wondered if that's how she looks when she’s flush with heat and whimpering as she begs for more? I licked my lips and instead of seeing my lust reflected back to me, I saw genuine confusion on her face.

Sy should have been clearer, he is usually rudely blunt, but it’s obvious she didn’t know about the pact. I looked at her while I tried to decide how to tell her when I hardly understood how this would work myself. All I knew is that I wanted her and I would have her anyway she would let me.

I took a few moments to get it straight in my head, collect my thoughts in a coherent manner. I’d have to talk her through this, show her how and why we made the agreement we did and hope she understands.

“You grew up around this life,” I began. “You know how close MC’s can be. How strong the bond is between members.”

“Yeah…”

“We won’t let anything get in the way of that. Nobody is more important than the Brotherhood. Even Sy and Walker, there’s friction, but in the end, we’re family.”

Her frown grew deeper. I was making her more confused. I turned my torso to face her better, but she drew her knees up close to her chest and hugged them. She looked so vulnerable and blood flooded my already thickening cock. She wasn’t naïve though, she could handle this, I was sure of it.

“We all care about you, we all want to keep you safe. Not just ‘cause it’s the job. We’ve been watching you for a while, to prepare for the job, all except Walker that is. We all…” I stopped, wondering what the word was, love was a bit much, we weren’t there yet, except for Sy maybe.

“You all what?” she prompted.

“We all liked you. Instantly.” I cupped a hand to her cheek. “You’re beautiful, and maybe if that’s all it was, just a physical attraction, we wouldn’t have made the pact we did.”

“A pact?”

I ignored that for now, I wanted her to know how I felt first so she could understand why we did what we did.

“You surprised me. From the research Walker did on you, I assumed you would be something else. You were nothing like I expected, smarter, braver, saner than I would have thought possible. You left that life behind because you wanted to make your own way and I admired the strength it would take to do that. You went to college, you got a job. You’re tough but not jaded, you’re young but not stupid, you’re…”

“You can’t know this,” she interrupted me. “You barely know me.”

“Am I wrong?”

She looked away. “You make me sound like I’m some sort of dream girl.”

“You are,” I said. “For all of us.”

“But Sy…”

“Sy cares about you, don’t you doubt that,” I said. Steeling myself for the next bit, I swallowed hard. “He cares about us too. He trusts us with you. We all agreed, it would be up to you.”

“What’s up to me?” she repeated.

“If you wanted to be with us,” I said. “If you wanted none of us, one of us, or all of us.”

Her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped. I cursed Sy, I thought he’d prepped her better than this. The look of horror and disbelief on her face made it obvious that she knew jack shit about the pact.

Fuck. I’m going to have to fuck Sy up for this.

“As much as we all wanted you, we couldn’t let jealousy or competition tear us apart,” I continued, “We share everything anyway, our lives are so interconnected. If you wanted, you would be another part of that, another connection we had to each other.”

“What so all of you… and me? That’s what you want?”

“I want you, and I want to keep the Brotherhood together. I love my Brothers and want their happiness as much as my own. And I would be happy with you.”

She surprised me by standing up. “You know, if you all wanted a gang bang, there are easier ways to get one.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“But that’s what this is isn’t it? I mean so little, I’m worth so little, that you just want to pass me around between you?”

“No. You’re not hearing me…”

“Oh no, I heard you. And I heard Sy too, I just couldn’t believe he meant it.” She wasn’t mad, she wasn’t yelling, it was the strangest thing, it was like she was resigned. “I mean, I didn’t expect it from you. Or from Sy. Or the club as a whole. When he told me… I never really believed… But he meant it. He actually meant it. I thought you guys were different from my brother’s MC, but you aren’t. You’re just a bunch of misogynistic assholes, like every other biker I have ever met.”

“Sweetheart,” I warned, in a low voice. I stood in front of her and folded my arms across my chest. I realised my error far too late.

“Yup,” she said. “First groom, then coerce, then intimidate. Well done Detective Marshall, you’ve just passed `How to be a Pimp, 101’.”

She turned to walk away, then stopped, stormed over to my bookshelf, grabbed a book from my bookshelf and left the room, slamming the door behind her.

“Fuck,” I growled.

Taking furious lunging steps towards the door, I had every intention of following her, making her understand she had it all wrong. Instead I swore, angrily snarling in frustration and headed towards the bathroom, leaning against the sink taking deep gulping breaths through my nose until the reddish tinge that edged my sight faded and the rush of heated frustrations ebbed to a manageable simmer.

I raised my head and looked at myself in the mirror, shocked at what I found. Sometimes I still couldn’t recognise myself physically, but the redness around my eyes, the drawn exhaustion in my features, those were perpetually familiar, although I hadn’t noticed it so starkly for the last week.

Sighing, I stripped off, and showered, hoping the cool water would further quell my irritation. Instead, as my immediate anger abated I was still left with an overwhelming frustration, and a raging hard on that hadn’t weakened since I woke up.

Throwing an arm against the wall, I reached between my legs, brushing my hand over the tight skin of my sack. My eyes closed with a groan and I leaned my head against the hand on the tiles as I abandoned any thought of making the act more than a way to expel the pent up fantasies of the past few days.

I let the suppressed images of Lori flood my mind, the sensation of her breath on my chest as she slept, the weight of her long smooth thigh over my hip, the smell of her hair.

Working my cock with a brutality that you can only inflict on yourself, my breath came in hard as the sounds of her orgasm rang in my ears. Images were replaced with fantasy, her body bare beneath mine, my mouth locked around her nipple as my fingers slipped inside her. Her legs open wide, my cock disappearing into her pussy, my hand around her throat as I felt the vibrations of her every moan.

Image after image rushed through my mind, each one lasting a brief moment but each one steering me closer to release. My skin surged with electrified tingles, lightning sparks of white hot heat rushed through my tightened, trembling muscles.

Then I could hear her moan my name, pitched low and husky in an urgent invitation, and my body rocked. Growling, I reached the point of no return and giving into it, I let myself get lost in the moment. Thick jets of relief rocketed up my cock in strong pulses that not only soothed my body but also purged and mollified my raging mind.

I stood panting, trying to push down the growing shame I felt before I hurriedly scrubbed away the evidence of my release. Lori is right. The position we are putting her in is wrong. I would have no further part in it, I don’t care what Sy and the others do, I’m not playing along with this any more.

I knocked on the open door to Walker’s office, my notebook in hand. After my shower, I had read over the notes I made while questioning Lori yesterday and those old cop senses kept tingling.

Walker was on the phone, but called me in with a jerk of his head and I sat across from his large, industrial, black wood and steel desk. He handed me a file with raised eyebrows and as soon as I flipped it open and started reading, I knew my gut instinct had been right.

By the time I read the few pages, Walker had hung up the phone.

“Thoughts?” he asked.

“Something didn’t sit right with me, but this,” I waved my hand over the file, “I didn’t expect this level of sophistication.”

“Agreed.”

“Do you have any idea of his real identity?”

Walker grimaced. “As far as my contacts can tell, the apartment Jake supposedly lived in has been thoroughly scrubbed, no prints, DNA, nothing. Like the whole thing was a prop to get close to her.”

“What about financials? Someone had to pay the rent.”

“I’m looking into that now, might take a day or two.”

“And nobody knows what he looks like? No security cameras at the apartment building?” I asked and Walker shook his head. “What about footage from the bar they met at?”

Walker inclined his head. “Look into it. You can start from there.”

“He can’t be working alone though,” I said, “The tracker, the scrubbing, the alias…”

“You hunt down his identity, I’ll work the finances,” Walker instructs, "We should be able to find who he's working for once we have that information."

“Have you told the client?”

“I spoke to the Sergeant At Arms,” Walker shrugged, and touched his nose, “He informs me that Hooks is a little preoccupied.”

“What do we tell Lori?”

Walkers lips press into a tight line. “Nothing for now. She’s smart enough to work out that he lied to her. We can wait until we have more, so she doesn’t have to be questioned more than necessary.”

I raised my eyebrows at the empathetic tone from Walker and decided to take advantage of his mood and spoke casually as I stood to leave.

“Oh. Speaking of Lori,” I said, “she wants to order some clothes and personal items herself.”

“Of course she does. She’s not going to do anything the easy way,” Walker grinned so broadly he was almost laughing, “Get Mike to supervise her. And don’t let her go overboard.”

“Shit. You do like her,” I said before I could stop myself.

Walker’s mood turned on a dime and his face grew hard.

“I’ll get started on this then shall I?” I said.

“You do that,” Walker replied with a near snarl.

I raised my hands and backed out of the room. But from the look on his face I could tell I was right.

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tossawary · 4 years ago

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Chapter 24: “Seeing is Believing” of “pride is not the word I’m looking for” random favorite lines and commentary. Not a full list or full commentary, but longer commentary than usual to talk about quest construction.

AN: This was... a weird chapter to write. When I started outlining, I had... the conversation with Shen Qingqiu planned... the conversation with Shen Yuan planned... the fact that SQH, SY, LQG, and LFL was the quest party... and the fact that they get the Eye at the end of it. That was everything.

The entire rest of this chapter came together FRIDAY LAST WEEK.

Huan Hua Palace wasn’t going to be there. The Weeper didn’t exist. The Eye or its previous owner wasn’t at all connected to the Garden Master. The Shadow Cave Wolf Spiders didn’t exist. The murder plant didn’t exist. The mysterious monster showing up at the end wasn’t originally planned either.

I mean, I had a lot of pre-existing plot threads to tie in and weave with, but ohhh boy! Picture someone lying facedown on a floor like, “I forgot to plan the contents of the super important quest...”

I was originally going to have the Eye quest a lot simpler, but given the weight “Death of the Author” had when I finally reached this part of the story, that wasn’t really going to do! It had to be bigger than that! It needed oomph! This also felt like a good opportunity to really establish the new SQH-SY dynamic. To explore SY fumbling to find a place in this world without strict character role, especially in relation to settled and well-supported SQH.

“One attempts to remain dignified,” Shen Qingqiu agrees. “As there is little point in kicking and screaming about how such ignobility isn’t fair.”

“Ha! Is there ever?”

“Not in my experience.”

“Yeah, it’s definitely not cute when I do it,” Shang Qinghua jokes.

Shen Qingqiu’s lips actually twitch at that.

Success?!

AN: I wasn’t going into this fic with the intention of writing any Shang Qinghua and Original Shen Qingqiu almost friendship! But it started developing and it seemed a shame not to explore Shang Qinghua developing a real relationship with Shen Qingqiu (though not a particularly close one) when the man is suppose to be the scum villain (and the readers know that the man might get replaced by Shen Yuan).

I can see myself writing more Shang Qinghua and Original Shen Qingqiu content in the future. Someone dropped a particularly nice prompt for them in my inbox that I’m looking forward to exploring at some point.

(I mean, not to say that Shang Qinghua has a type, but Shang Qinghua has a type and it’s handsome, deadly, intimidating, frosty men with a villainous character design and trust/abandonment and communication issues. I could make it work.)

“Ah, well, two ‘ideal’ situations come to mind: severing the personal relationship for good… or, ah, talking about how to do better and trying that. You don’t have to forget or even forgive if you don’t want to! But, ah… there’s got to be a difference between totally swallowing your anger and cutting ties forever, right?” Shang Qinghua says awkwardly. “If there’s… ever going to be anything good afterwards…”

Shen Qingqiu stares at him for a sweat-inducing length of time.

“Ah, fuck,” Shang Qinghua thinks.

“Sorry,” he says. “Ahhh, I’m just… thinking about something someone told me… in… in regards to some of my own problems. Never mind! Never mind!”

AN: Luo Jiahui really is out here making Moshang and Qijiu get their fucking act together just by setting a better example.

“Shizun, my apologies for the interruption, but I came to ask Shizun if he would be willing to join our music lesson today? The disciples have missed his playing and are eager to present their improvements.”

“...Very well, unless anyone here would disagree…?” Shen Qingqiu looks directly at the Qian Cao Peak cultivator, as though daring her to object and die.

“It’s an excellent suggestion!” the Qian Cao Peak cultivator says quickly.

The young woman smiles. “And perhaps Shizun could sit in on the calligraphy lesson afterwards? In order to offer his opinion on my progress as a teacher?”

“Fishing for compliments is unbecoming,” Shen Qingqiu says dryly.

“Wait, what?” Shang Qinghua thinks.

AN: So, this has all been happening in the background, but Shen Qingqiu accepted this House of Rejuvenation woman onto his Peak about... 6-ish years ago now? This is kind of meant to parallel Shang Qinghua’s once-secret relationship with Luo Jiahui.

Shang Qinghua was out here trying to be a better person and Shen Qingqiu noticed; now Shen Qingqiu has his own positive (platonic) relationship with a nameless background character who was meant to die for plot reasons. What a thing, huh? If the story was saved because Shang Qinghua started a domino effect of saving random people who went on to change things?

After all, as Shang Qinghua said to the kid, besides Peerless Cucumber’s apparent talent for cultivation, he knows that his fellow transmigrator has three very important skills that will serve him well on An Ding Peak! 1) An encyclopedia knowledge for even seemingly pointless bullshit (which is kind of flattering, honestly). 2) The willingness to fight total strangers over seemingly pointless bullshit. And 3) a sharp enough tongue to win.

Peerless Cucumber didn’t find these points as funny as Shang Qinghua did.

AN: Shen Yuan was always going to end up on An Ding Peak. I thought about sending him to Qing Jing or Qian Cao or Qiong Ding... or any other Peak... but that would take him too far away from Shang Qinghua to really explore their relationship and to move him around conveniently in the story. And SY sticking to An Ding seemed to best illustrate the fact that SY is lost and doesn’t know what to do except cling to SQH.

“It’s not much, sure, but it’s yours,” Shang Qinghua says finally. “You’ll be joining the talisman classes soon, so don’t try anything from a book and then need to request some home repairs.”

Peerless Cucumber nods and puts his stack of manuals down on the table.

“How’s your tutorial mission going?”

“Fine,” the kid says shortly. “Have you found anything for the other one yet?”

“Ah, not yet.”

AN: “Are you winning, son?” meme energy here.

Ah, now Shang Qinghua recognizes his fellow transmigrator’s expression! That’s the same stunned expression one of his Huan Hua not-disciples, Yu Chaonan, made upon meeting the Bai Zhan Peak War God for the first time. Shang Qinghua assumes that Peerless Cucumber was expecting a man who looked more like a musclebound giant and less like a pop idol (if one with amazingly muscular arms), which is a super common and never-not-funny misconception people have about Liu Qingge.

“Brother of one of the most beautiful women in this world, bro,” Shang Qinghua reminds his fellow transmigrator, amused. Aha! Now Peerless Cucumber’s vehement disinterest in the harem stuff is making even more sense than before!

Shang Qinghua’s assumption gets 100% confirmed when it comes time for Peerless Cucumber to fly with Liu Qingge for the next leg of the journey. The other transmigrator is so embarrassed and awkward about it that Shang Qinghua’s super direct brother-in-law asks if the young man is alright.

AN: This was so fun to write. Shang Qinghua really can use the Liu siblings to gauge people’s sexual/romantic orientation.

The map (or rather, the copy Shang Qinghua made of the delicate original map) takes them to a green and grey landscape of leafy trees crawling over a wide network of tall cliffs and deep gorges. Gurgling rivers cut through twisting rock formations. Shang Qinghua can’t see any of these rivers on the map. Or these deathly drop ravines. From the outside, the whole thing looks like a natural maze (holy shit, there could be so many monsters and death-traps in there!), and Shang Qinghua would know those golden robes flying low over the hanging trees anywhere.

“Huan Hua,” Liu Qingge mutters.

“Do you think they’re looking for what we’re looking for?” Luo Fanli asks.

“That’s usually how it goes,” Peerless Cucumber says, before Shang Qinghua can.

AN: I came up with the skeleton idea first. Then I was like... “I should give it three eyes.” And then I was like... “But who IS this dead author? A god? A spirit? What grander implications am I spinning here?”

And THEN I remembered that I had some ambiguous powerful being force the Garden Master into exile due to a flood. This was because, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the immortal man Gilgamesh meets in the abyss is the survivor of a great flood. So I was like, “Reduce! Re-use! Recycle! There’s my skeleton!”

So I wanted to relate the skeleton to water because of the flood angle. Water as a symbol of cleansing/reincarnation is a big thing throughout many cultures. I can’t remember exactly how the crying aspect came up, but I knew there was going to be water in the temple now, so at some point my brain like was, “Bro, this skeleton should totally be crying because mythology vibes.”

So I built the surrounding land off the idea that there was water flowing from or around this temple. At this point, I had decided that Huan Hua Palace should also be looking for this artifact, so I had to come up with a way to hide the temple, yet have a way for SQH’s party to track it down.

The damage to the doors is worse: someone once upon a time collapsed a part of the cliff face around the entrance, essentially leaving only the top fourth of the utterly smashed stone doors visible. It’s a wall now and has been for ages. It looks like it would take days to dig through the rubble. Someone has even super helpfully carved, “These doors will never open again,” just above the wreck.

“Guess we’ll have to go in as intruders rather than guests!” Luo Fanli says.

“What would be welcoming us inside a lost temple exactly?” Shang Qinghua asks vaguely, inwardly cursing the fact that explosive mining techniques will definitely attract the Huan Hua Palace Sect cultivators’ attention and also probably collapse the whole cliff on them.

“We only have to clear a passage for us, not the whole door,” Peerless Cucumber says optimistically. “Is there a special technique for this kind of thing?”

“Aha, not really.”

“Oh.”

“Why don’t we just keep following the water?” Luo Fanli says.

“...How so?” Shang Qinghua asks.

“Some of those waterfalls could be passages inside,” Liu Qingge explains, because he and the little sister-in-law apparently share the same brain. He’s already eyeing the waterfall wearing down the giant statue on the left.

AN: Temples in quests need to have traps and obstacles and monsters! Well, not ALL of the did, but this one did. I based the obstacles they faced as much as I could around the whole “Death of the Author” theme, while using this whole quest to explore Shen Yuan, Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua, Shang Qinghua and Liu Qingge and Luo Fanli, and so on.

The idea here with the door is that the “author” is not going to let them inside the temple to take the interpretation of the narrative (the Eye) for themselves. The story is over (the temple is closed for business)! The author is dead! If they want to get inside, they have to break inside or slip inside as intruders.

This also creates a convenient obstacle to hold up the Huan Hua Palace Sect cultivators so that our party can be nearly caught later! And shows off Shang Qinghua, Liu Qingge, and Luo Fanli’s twisty lines of thinking.

Luo Fanli is holding the light and Shang Qinghua passes the other transmigrator to her, while accepting Liu Qingge’s hand for help getting out of the water.

“Ahhh, that was fun,” Shang Qinghua mutters.

Then he notices that Liu Qingge has the Cheng Luan sword out and ready. Shang Qinghua looks through the surrounding darkness, but all he can see are columns and water. For a moment, he thinks he sees something, a prowling shadow at the other end of the cavernous room, but he wipes the water out of his eyes and it’s gone.

AN: The water in Shang Qinghua’s eyes briefly lets him see a flash of the invisible monsters who show up later! It helps up the tension.

Another low growl rips through the darkness and Peerless Cucumber shuffles a little closer to Shang Qinghua. Because that sounded really fucking close and yet Shang Qinghua still can’t see the thing that’s making that sound.

He doesn’t see Liu Qingge lunge at him either. He only feels his brother-in-law shove him into Peerless Cucumber, knocking them into the water, out of the way of something that howls when Liu Qingge slashes at it with his sword. Shang Qinghua rolls off Peerless Cucumber and looks up just in time to see dark blood splatter across the watery floor. Liu Qingge pursues the attacker with a second slash, but only seems to meet thin air this time.

“It’s invisible!” Luo Fanli cries. “Fuck!”

“Behind you!” Liu Qingge snaps, and spins to slash at the thin air beside him. Dark droplets of blood hit the water again and something hisses at him.

Luo Fanli whirls and slashes, searching for an opponent.

“They’re reflected in the water!” Liu Qingge yells at her, standing guard over Shang Qinghua as he gets to his feet again. “Listen for their footsteps and vocalizations! Feel the demonic energy and air displacement!”

AN: I got this from a list of Dungeons and Dragons puzzles. The idea is that there’s some puzzle that must be solved, but the truth of the room can only be seen in the reflection of the nearby water (or mirror or whatever).

Which felt fitting for a “Death of the Author” quest! Whatever an author’s intentions, the story is what they actually wrote, so the audience interprets a text without the context of the author’s insight. The truth (of the story) is in the reflection (audience interpretation)! It felt like a fun idea.

It also allows Shen Yuan to actually contribute to the quest via monster lore and bring up his impaired vision problem. And to confront Shen Yuan with the reality of this world. And to show off Luo Fanli’s fighting skills. And to show off LIU QINGGE’S legendary fighting skills, instincts as a warrior who fights many dangerous beasts, and the fact that he’s clever and observant!

Liu Qingge is good at what he does! And this is what he does!

Someone has… angrily… or desperately… carved a lopsided message into the wall.

“‘If I go blind, so does the world,’” Peerless Cucumber reads.

“...That’s probably not good,” Shang Qinghua says.

“Nooo…” Fanli agrees.

The messages continue as they climb, carved into the walls, the ceilings, the floors. Most of it is illegible. Some of it is just nonsense. Some of it looks like the same kind of historical records carved into the broken tablets. Some of it looks like someone attacked the walls after reading what was written there. There are deep gouges in the walls and cracked marks that would match a giant’s hands.

“‘The water cleans the lies,’” Peerless Cucumber reads. “‘I am the only one who can see.’ ‘Lies everywhere, lies everywhere, lies everywhere.’ ‘The water cleans the evil.’ ‘I do not have enough tears.’ ‘Everything is nothing now. Everything in vain.’”

“You really don’t need to read them!” Shang Qinghua tells the kid. “It’s fine. It's totally fine.”

AN: This is mostly here to up the tension, but it’s also here to try and give insight into this being and relate them more to the “Death of the Author” and the “Seeing is Believing” themes.

I also saw the phrase “If I go blind, so does the world” while I was browsing a list of riddles for D&D campaigns and I was like, “THAT’S SICK, I’M USING THAT.” Really brings the “an eye for an eye” and vengeance vibes. (The riddle was longer than that one phrase, but the answer was “the sun”.)

The top of the temple reveals one massive room that looks like someone was alternatively scratching their insanity into the walls and tearing chunks out of the interior design with their bare hands. Overtop of the rubble is that eerie overgrowth. There’s a fine layer of water over the floor. At the center of it all is an incredibly enormous desk, cracked in half, with a robed skeleton sitting behind it, slumped over the top. It’s a little too large to be an ordinary human.

Plus, its skull is a little too long, probably to accommodate the third eye socket in the forehead. There’s something gleaming softly yellow in the third eye socket.

“Is… there water dripping from its eyes?” Luo Fanli whispers.

“It looks like it…” Peerless Cucumber whispers back. “Like it's crying…?”

“Still…? Is it dead or not?”

“Holy shit,” Shang Qinghua thinks, slightly nauseated. “System, bro, the worst bro I’ve ever known, tell me that we have not been swimming in a three-eyed skeleton’s magical undead tears or something this whole time.”

The shitty, no-good System stays unsurprisingly silent.

AN: Okay, so the idea here is that this being was someone who recorded history and shared their knowledge freely. This being had the ability to discern the truth of a person - they were extremely perceptive. (The Weeper is either female or doesn’t have a gender, by the way.)

The Weeper met the Garden Master at some point. The Garden Master was an asshole, a liar, arrogant, etc.. The Weeper and the Garden Master clashed badly, until the Weeper sent the cleansing flood that nearly destroyed the sect and the Garden Master essentially had to flee to a personal abyss.

The Garden Master sent the plant as a final “fuck you” to the Weeper. The plant caused the Weeper to slowly go mad. The smashed tablets and destroyed temple are the Weeper’s work. The Weeper (not in a great state of mind) had the temple closed themselves once they realized they and their work had been corrupted. This was a “you destroy my (embellished) reputation, I destroy yours (and your entire life)” plot by the Garden Master.

The idea behind the tears is the whole “water is cleansing” thing. The Weeper tried to clean away the madness using their magical water-related abilities... and it actually worked for a long time. But eventually the madness began to overpower the effects of the magical water. The Weeper’s tears are from frustration and helplessness at losing control.

The water inside the temple combats the plant’s physical effects. Also stabbing the root killed the plant and essentially broke its mental/spiritual powers.

Unfortunately, to get the fuck out of here, they have to go back through the temple. But hey! That’s still a lot better than an extended hike through an underground, haunted desert in darkness! The battle with the now-dead plant caused its growth to writhe around the temple. The vines need to be hacked through sometimes as they travel down through the rooms of broken shelves and shattered tablets.

“So much history lost…” Peerless Cucumber murmurs.

“He still thinks of himself as a reader - an observer, a visitor, separate from the flow of fate.”

AN: This is... absolutely based on the Heart from the Dishonored franchise. But this sort of item didn’t originate with Dishonored and I need it! It’s a surprise/mystery tool that will help us later!

The Eye isn’t exactly a mind-reading object. I mean, it kind of is, but it works in a very specific way that I’m looking forward to getting into.

From there, their path back out of the natural maze is even more careful and stressful than before, now that the Huan Hua Palace Sect cultivators are actively looking for them rather than the temple. It’s slow-going and stressful and silent, except for when the Weeper’s Eye presses too close against his chest.

“He is afraid that if he starts screaming, he will never stop,” it tells him, when he’s looking at a pale-faced Peerless Cucumber, as they fly over a particularly deathly-looking drop.

“Oh, me too, bro!” Shang Qinghua thinks. “Seriously! Tell me something I don’t know!”

AN: Having Shang Qinghua be totally unimpressed by an object like this was very funny to me. He’s the author! He’s a transmigrator! He knows these people well! He already has insight into their situations.

Shang Qinghua groans, but supposes that Peerless Cucumber would have at least been disguising Liu Qingge from the back. “You tell them that you were tracking thieves who stole something from Cang Qiong Mountain Sect,” he says quickly. “Rule of embarrassment! Admitting something that makes us look bad to a rival makes it sound true. Don’t tell them what was stolen and act really offended if they try to poke into Cang Qiong business. I’ll come back as soon as I get these two out!”

Liu Qingge nods and launches forward into the fight.

“We’re just leaving him?” Peerless Cucumber says, as they do exactly that.

“I’ll get changed and come back ‘looking for him for urgent sect business’ as soon as I’ve dropped you two off in the last town,” Shang Qinghua says. “I’m really good at acting stressed and confused, and at desperately needing an unstoppable wandering Liu Qingge back at Cang Qiong Mountain Sect immediately. Now let’s go! Let’s go! Mission isn’t over yet!”

AN: Shang Qinghua is, at heart, a liar. I love him.

#tossawary updates #tossawary svsss #pride is not the word #tossawary commentary

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natsunoomoi · 4 years ago

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Holy crap. So like with the previous post I was thinking about Fushigi Yuugi again and kind of checking up on what was up with Byakko Senki cuz I haven’t checked on it in awhile and it looks like it’s on hiatus right now and she’s working more on Arata Kangatari, which is cool cuz I thought she finished that, but I guess not and she just took a break to like finish Genbu and do Byakko or something.

But also I was scrolling through her Twitter to find that she is really into this Chinese movie “Legend of Luo Xiaohei” and so I was checking that out cuz so ironic that Japanese mangaka that got her big break writing manga about an ancient China setting is interested in a Chinese movie. So just looking through her Twitter thread and apparently she found out about Luo Xiaohei from watching a CM while watching Modao Zushi. LMAO It’s amazing, but this situation just feels like an ouroboros eating itself because I have a high suspicion that her work on Fushigi Yuugi imported into China back in the 90s was probably a huge influence on Chinese creators and artists to write their own stories about their culture and helped to popularize the xianxia and wuxia novel movements in more modern times. On top of that MXTX said she was inspired by a D. Gray-man fanfic and while she mentioned that title specifically, I think in the periphery Fushigi Yuugi itself and more recently Arata were probably an influence too. Growing up a number of my Chinese friends also said they got into anime overall because of Fushigi Yuugi because it was an anime and work from Japan about their culture and arguably done pretty damn well.

In terms of the danmei movement as well, I’m pretty sure Fushigi Yuugi was included in what started the movement as the movement was influenced by Japanese BL that came in via Taiwan, and the beginning of Fushigi Yuugi had the whole thing between Nuriko and Hotohori even though that kind of went nowhere, Nuriko dies to everyone’s depression (I have several friends who refuse to watch the rest of the series after Nuriko dies because it’s not the same), and that whole ship goes off a weird deep end with Hotohori marrying a woman that looks like Nuriko. Also, the exact reasons for Nuriko being in the harem and all that. There was a whole lot of shipping in the 90s from Fushigi Yuugi and it was one of the first series that had a male cast that was almost entirely ikemen and I think the actual first reverse harem. A number of shows probably simultaneously popularized the female gaze in mainstream anime, but Fushigi Yuugi was definitely one of them. Like literally one or two years before there was a lot of manly men and guy’s guys kind of anime characters, but beautiful ikemen, no, not really. In 2021, there are some things about the series that are a bit problematic, but it’s influence on the world is pretty significant. It was one of the first shows I’d seen that had any kind of reference to homosexuality or transgender in it and although it’s not necessarily portrayed well, the fact that it was there and that Nuriko was such a beloved character it started a conversation and helped us to get to a time where the topics she represents can be more discussed. I’m actually not even sure what pronouns would be appropriate for Nuriko because of her reasons for what she did and in Japanese the pronoun problem is actually really easy to get around because you just don’t have a subject or speaking in 3rd person is totally normal. But still, without her the minds of thousands or even millions of fans around the world would not have been opened as early to LGBT topics. Her existence, even problematic as it might be, allowed people to consider and love a character of a different sexual orientation or gender identity than their own and just open their minds to just not being a homophobic, biphobic (cuz relationship with Miaka?), or transphobic piece of shit.

Then also Genbu Kaiden and Uruki’s powers. Yeah.... I mean, also kind of with the earlier discussion, the idea of dual cultivation I don’t recall even being brought up much before in most media, but such ideas were also banned and repressed in China at a certain point. Documentation shows it was more of an ancient practice that suddenly became known about again. The book I was talking about that has it more explicitly written is banned in China has its only original surviving copy in the Japanese National Library as it was one of the books brought to Japan by scholars escaping persecution in China and bringing with them books to escape one of the many episodes of mass book burning. According to my Chinese lit professor who had us read an English translation of that book as a part of our curriculum anyway. Supposedly the translator of said book had to go to Japan to read the original in order to write the translation. There’s apparently a number of ancient Chinese texts like that because book burnings were a thing at different points in Chinese history, so if you are a scholar of Chinese lit if you want a complete picture of your field for some texts you do actually have to come to Japan to do your research. But yeah, that power mentioned in that very book Watase-sensei gave to Soi, and also the story of Fushigi Yuugi takes place in that very library that contains that ancient copy of a banned and would have been lost to the world book. If you’re asking why a “dirty” book would be something a scholar would grab to save, ancient lit scholars do regard it as a rather well-written piece of literature even though the content of it is basically taboo.

But also the Fushigi Yuugi Suzaku Ibun game is a hot mess when it comes to this same issue because if you romance Nuriko you can save her from death and my friend Hikari said she wasn’t sure if she was happy about fucking with the universe like that. (I’m not either.) Nuriko’s death was such a huge impact on the story and everything. Also, notably, most of the Suzaku Shichiseishi died, but Nuriko had the LONGEST tribute. Like Chiriko and Mitsukake’s was like a tag on of a few minutes. Hotohori’s was too even, but it was addressed more in the later manga chapters the publisher pressured her to write and in the OVA series afterward.

Also, like Fushigi Yuugi other than the Neverending Story was one of the original sucked into a book holy shit how do I survive stories. Idk if SVSSS is influenced by it in that way, but it’s fair to draw the parallels because of the similar theme. It’s just canonically Taiitsu Shinjin is not behind the the system in the book and in a number of ways Shen Yuan is more competent than Miaka. Miaka gets a lot of shit though and when I re-watched FY a second time I actually found the gripes people generally have about it make up only a small part of the series. People just talk it up so much that it seems like a huge thing when it’s not. Plus the technical canon is only the original TV series because that’s where Watase wanted to end the story and that is an emotional rollercoaster that makes you cry so good. But like there’s some other kinds of parallels as well like how toward the end and like the last two episodes you hate Nakago up until the exact moment you find out why he’s an absolute asshole, and characters straight up criticizing him about how he’s an asshole the whole damn series just gives the same kind of feels that SY gave criticizing the original throughout SVSSS. Can’t say for sure, but Fushigi Yuugi has a lot of clout in a general sense.

But yeah, Watase-sensei said that she was really surprised by the animation quality of Chinese animation these days and she thought Japanese anime was going down in comparison. Same, yo. Same. But still, her work was probably a huge contributor to the movement that allowed MDZS to exist because her art is damn beautiful, Chinese influenced, and she had one of the first works in Asia to like bring the subject of LGBT issues into the mainstream after years of oppression from mostly Western influence because in pre-modern Asia no one gave a shit before and there’s a significant amount of classical novels that address some form of LGBT issues at least in Japanese lit and like even academic documentation that notes Confucius saying that doing it with a guy was better than with a woman. And the author of the work that probably was very influential to BL back in the 90s watches MDZS. She noted that there wasn’t any in the actual anime, which is true, but I think she helped that series to exist and she watches the anime so it’s kind of exciting.

I hope it influences her to go finish Byakko, but OMG I want her to finish Arata too because I like Arata. I should try to find time to read more of it because the anime is too short and the wiki descriptions of what’s happening are so damn confusing and incomplete.

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