#v: hostage

[cuckoo-among-beasts]

Verse: Hostage

tw: torture, amputation and sight loss.

Huaisang is not among the "guest disciples" that Wen Chao drags off to Mount Muxi and when the other disciples rebel and then escape, he is left behind and get to bear the brunt of Wen Ruohan's (and Wen Chao's) displeasure. However, they don't kill him, but they do send a message to Nie Mingjue, telling him that if he wants to see his brother alive again, he needs to promise to not fight the Wen. Obviously Mingjue does not agree, not even for the sake of his brother, partly because he's sure that Wen Ruohan won't actually kill the Nie Sect Heir, but also because no matter how much he loves Huaisang, it's more at stake than just the two of them.

Ruohan is not happy with Mingjue's answer and to show just how unhappy he is, he decides to send Nie-zongzhu a gift and a letter stating that Nie Huaisang is dead.

Knowing that Huaisang is an artist and a lover of beauty, he does what he thinks will hurt the teen the most: he cut off his right hand and gouge out his eyes. The body parts are then sent as above mentioned gifts to Mingjue.

Huaisang is alive, but blind and without a hand and angry in a way he has never experienced before. That is during the times when he's lucid enough to feel anger, since he has been tortured, starved and mutilated. He might still die, but he is determined to hold on until his brother, or someone else, saves him. Perhaps the Nie stubbornness will be enough to keep him alive?

v2: Huaisang survives and starts to heal, but now he has to learn to live without his sight and his right hand. It's not easy to do and he also caries a lot of trauma, guilt and embarrassment, which has made him more withdrawn than his previous self.

[stupidfatslut420]

me and my fat assss

[monowritestoomuch]

Y’ALL WE ARE NOT READY FOR THE ITHACA SAGA

[petrichormore]

I’m sorry it’s still crazy to me how fast shit hit the fan yesterday. Like Bad’s last conversation about Forever was a completely hypothetical, extremely early-stage venture into what might be making him act the way he’s acting. It wasn’t even really a plan. He literally had no information of his own, he was solely going off of what Phil and the eggs told him.

And then the next day @v@ pulls up - Bad had never even seen it before - with a gun to Dapper’s head and is like “get in the van”

[winepresswrath]

saw wicked back on my galinda/elphaba bullshit from high school i'm going to need 50 000 Galinda goes aus and an additional 50 000 Elphaba stays aus.

[diegusting]

Inktober: day 26 - Camera

Photogenic king

[chaddywaddy3]

Tell me why I've been doing extensive research on all the khajiit fur stocks to form my head canons even more. I just can't stop thinking about it.

[musedriven]

@dnangelic you better be ready for me to im you about hc's and ideas i am having about sato/krad as I reread these books to icon.

he was so obvious. it was like Niwa was taunting him -- or perhaps it was Dark that was being so obvious. Satoshi wouldn't put it past the 'fallen angel' to behave in such a brazen way. his joints ached with the barely contained fury of Krad at the very idea of being mocked by Dark. a monster clawing at it's cage for a chance to properly strike it's rival down and end it's own curse. too impatient and proud to let anyone else even try to resolve the feud between the artwork cleaved by foolish chance.

just let me out and I will spare us both his miserable existence, master.

" Niwa-kun. " he breathes against the pain, raising himself tall despite the fire threatening to melt him from the inside out. " you should really be more careful of your surroundings. "

[cuckoo-among-beasts]

A part of Huaisang wants to tell him that he's not a man, not yet. He's seventeen, not twenty, but of course he doesn't. An other part of him wants to punch Wen Ruohan in the face. Then, part of him also wants to just try and flee. In the end, he does nothing, except glancing up at the man, but keeping his head slightly bowed.

Hearing Ruohan's words, a shiver goes down his spine, making his body ache even more. Huaisang can't remember having ever felt this tired, hungry and sore. He has never needed to fight in battle, food has always been there for him, even with the Lans, but now... Now he's been left alone in a cold cell, beaten up by Wen Chao, like it's his fault the others escaped, and not given a single thing to eat for who knows how long. It's not like the cell had any windows.

"Da-ge will never break," Huaisang admits. As much as Mingjue loves his younger brother, he would never sacrifice the sect for him, and Huaisang isn't sure he'd want him too either. As selfish as Huaisang sometimes might seem, he does care for the sect, even if not in the same way as his brother.

An introductory tour? Everyone knows that the Scorching Sun Palace is filled with torture chambers. Contrary what it might seem, Huaisang isn't stupid. He knows what will come and hearing those words, any colour still remaining is drained from his face. Heartbeat roaring in his ears, the world feels like it's tilting for a moment, but the guard that took him to Ruohan keeps him upright with a rough grip of his arm. It hurts, but keeps Huaisang from hitting the stone floor.

Before he can fully find his bearing again, the guard drags him along, following Wen Ruohan to give Huaisang his tour.

Elation.

It’s the only word that comes to mind, that comes close to describing, what he feels upon Huaisang’s little outburst—and really, it’s nothing but, isn’t it? Not while he’s here, not while he’s in Ruohan’s presence. With the way he flounders almost immediately, as well, it’s enough to make him laugh (the image of a child crosses his thoughts again, makes him laugh all the more).

“Come now, don’t tell me you lose your spirit so quick?” He asks, false confusion colouring his tone, as he leans forward on a knee. “A man’s ire should never leave him so quick, you know.”

Not that it wholly matters whether it does or not—the moment Ruohan finds the rebellion tasteless, finds it boring, it’ll be as if Huaisang was never in Nightless City to begin with.

(He might grant Mingjue the mercy of sending a body part back, if the entertainment prior is suitable.)

There was much he could do—much he wanted to do—but he hasn’t much of a clue on where he wants to start. To lose Huaisang too quickly would do nothing to sate him, but keeping him too long would be its own burden. And there’s still the matter of the insurgence with Chao’er, in which every other Sect was part...

“It is truly unfortunate that it was you, of all of the disciples, to have stayed behind.” In another life, this might mean something to either of them; for now, it’s just wordplay. “Your brother won’t break easy, and that fact is to your detriment.”

It’s a mercy in its own right to be telling Huaisang anything, but Ruohan does it mostly because he wants to see the young man react. Any will do, at this point. He’ll be here long enough that he can afford to take his time.

“I fear I get ahead of myself, however; your first stay in our Scorching Sun Palace is deserving of an introductory tour, isn’t it?”

Not that he has a choice; not that the tour will really happen.

“Come along, now, after me.”

[endlessorch3stra]

Hunter Avery...

"Like flowers we wither away in silence..."

[silly-solnyshko]

I captured a caterpillar, debating if I should free it outside or keep it to see if it's a moth or butterfly

[little-paper-man]

Speaking of my usual journey brainrot… I made like three more dudes since the To-Chan one during spring break.

Yellow one is based on the ancestors, the light green one I tried doing a jointed cloak like the chicken kite design, and the red+teal one is my most complex one yet and the most recent!

They are my most favorite so far 💖

[cinematicnomad]

Request rec: What fic are you reading right now?

uh, lol, it's VERY random but i am reading a game of thrones fic. specifically a jaime/arya fic??? which sounds wild but i PROMISE it makes sense in the fic.

a wolf amongst lions by kallypso (108/108 | 444k+ | T) au: canon divergent; jaime/arya; alternating POV; canon typical violence; series

tywin lannister discovers the true identity of his cup bearer at harrenhal. now, with another bargaining chip in his possession, he has a chance to turn the war. arya stark, despite her best efforts, falls back into the game of thrones. to survive in a lion's den, a wolf has no choice but to adapt.

so, i donno, probably a year ago i was having some random GOT feelings, which i get sometimes, and started rewatching a bunch of favorite scenes on youtube. and one of my FAVORITE small arcs added to the show that wasn't in the books is arya's turn as tywin's cupbearer. so i decided to go look and see if i could find any fics about that time or about tywin learning after the fact that he unknowingly let arya slip through his fingers, etc. and, tbh, there aren't many! and most of them were short which was kind of disappointing. i'd clocked this fic but scrolled past it bc of the length and i wasn't looking to invest that much time into a random lark i was having re:game of thrones. i don't even think i clocked the arya/jaime tag tbh bc i was so focused on the tywin aspect. but the short fics didn't satisfy me so i decided to give this one a shot and SURPRISE. it was amazing.

this is, i think??? my third or fourth re-read of the fic in less than 12 months and the author recently started a sequel that i'm reading along as it's posted (one chapter a week!). and even though i just finished my most recent re-read in october, i decided to pick it back up again and it's still so rewarding. it's deliciously complex and beautifully written. the fic opens with arya's time at harrenhal and goes all the way through to after the end of the long night. the fic is, of course, wildly different from canon—how could it not be? characters killed in s1 are still around by the sequel, other's die at different times in different circumstances, some characters get bigger roles while other's get smaller, etc etc etc—but it's so good.

i highly recommend it to anyone who likes the series and loved arya and the moral gray area that jaime inhabited. especially anyone who likes a lengthy fic—this one is amazing.

✨sleepover friday✨

[une-sanz-pluis]

So, we know Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester was at Shrewsbury with the 16-year-old Hal (Prince Henry, the future Henry V etc.), whose guardian and governor he was. We know that some point before the 20th, Worcester slipped away from Shrewsbury to join with Henry "Hotspur" Percy in the lead up to his rebellion, bringing with him "a significant proportion of the garrison" and according to Walsingham, perhaps having stolen money and treasures from the Prince.

I sometimes wonder if Worcester had hoped to or tried to abduct Hal to serve as a hostage against Henry - or perhaps hoped to get him to defect to their side.

And can you imagine this poor 16-year-old kid discovering his guardian just abandoned him to join a rebellion against his father and the city's about to be under siege and his dad's nowhere in sight and a lot of the garrison's troops are gone? And he's in charge?

[tacticalgrandma]

Today in things I’d be searching on JSTOR if I was still at a university: every protest/resistance movement started by migrants held in US detention

[gwidien]

@gaskills asked: ❛   hunger .   give  my  muse  something  to  eat  /  drink . 𝐋𝐎𝐔𝐃  &  𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐅𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄  sentence starters (accepting)

The end of the year winds down, and he hadn't intended to meet her here.

Mary-Beth, several years older since he last saw her at Beaver Hollow, now an up-and-coming author, Leslie Dupont. She must have been invited here. Her newfound name may have gotten her foot through the door. Or perhaps she snuck her way in. Either way, in the heart of the city and inside a glinting, bustling venue, everyone dressed to the nines, they've reunited. 

She finds her way back to him with flutes of champagne, pale gold and sparkling. Trelawny thanks her, taking it by the stem. "This will hit the spot," he says, a punch to it. For a moment, he takes her in. "Let - me - look at you."

He hadn't had the time to before. Not really. There'd been too much in the way of it. The music and the how are yous. The surprise of seeing each other again. Light eyes and a red dress, the same but different.

"Aren't you the belle of the ball." He said it with gusto. Because she is. Because he flatters. He saunters on. "Making a name for yourself. From modest abodes," he recounts, lifting his hand, "...to silver spoons." He gestures back down to her. Then, he brightens. "You wear it well."

Beneath strung-up rosy ribbons and shimmering chandeliers, the lights throw themselves into Mary-Beth's eyes. They dance in them like little lighthouses. Like merry-go-rounds. And when she smiles, the clusters of her freckles bunch together, and Trelawny is aware of the fondness he has for this moment. One reserved for unexpected reunions. From the long years apart.

Partygoers buzz, jam-packed together, ready for the countdown.

He raises his glass to hers, as puckish as ever. "To happier trails, Miss Gaskill."