#yes even the one i abandoned for a year

[bumblerhizal-art]

Find the Word

Time for some Find the Word double duty! I'm only, what, three months late?

I've been tagged by @wild-houseplant to find Wrap, Consider, and Scream and @heniareth to find Make, Sleep, Tree, and Terrible. Because it's been so long, i'm linking the original posts [here] and [here] to encourage you all to go read them if you haven't already! Heniareth and Plant both excellent writers!

In return, i'll be tagging you two back as well as @heapster-45 @scarletkilometers @oxygenforthewicked and @icylook in case any of you have any wips lying around to ctrl+F

My words to search are Space, Want, Pass, and/or Dream!

Without further ado (well, after you click the readmore, so with exactly one more ado):

Wraps (from Rites of Passage)

As [Novhen] finished tying off the first leg, Cyrion exclaimed from the other side of their home, just barely hidden behind the corner. 

"Did you find it?" Novhen called.

"No, not yet!" Cyrion responded nervously.

Novhen rolled his eyes and began wrapping his other leg. His da was a terrible liar.

Novhen's trouser legs were thankfully compliant in staying put as the wraps rose along his other leg. As he approached the knee, he tied the wraps into a discrete bow and stood up.

Consider (from a so-far-unnamed fic where i figure out the logical conclusion of this post)

"My Lady, we should take some collateral before letting the elf run off."

"Please," Novhen said, "my word is my bond."

"Do you take us for fools? I've heard that from your ilk one time too many before," Swiftrunner growled. "I was thinking more along the lines of a bite. Some real incentive to make him release the curse."

Novhen's hair stood on edge.

"The walk to the Dalish camp’s a fortnight one way!" he rebutted.

He sneered, "Guess you'll consider yourself incentivized."

Scream (from the so-far-unnamed Protect prompt for the Apostate Soris AU)

(CW for burning alive)

Kallian now stood a chance, a far better chance than Soris could have given her if he had kept the blade for himself. In exchange, he was now vulnerable and unarmed, and she was forced to fight alone.

But there was still a trick up his sleeve. His fingertips grew warm, and the smell of sulfur and burning homes leaked into his nose.

He clenched his fists. If he didn't use it, there likely wouldn't be a single Tabris left alive by day's end. Even his uncle would be swept up in the purge they’ve already signed up for. He didn't have the luxury of choice. He exhaled shakily. If there were ever a sign he was desperate, this was it.

Kallian was holding her ground against the guards, but who knew how long she had until the fight turned against her or if she could defeat two professional soldiers before then. They began to press in on her.

He would just have to hope he could find a way of resealing the secret once this was out.

One of the guards screamed like a panicked coyote as Soris threw a fireball at his feet.

His hand burned, but the guard burned worse. The fire caught onto his gambeson underneath, and the howls grew in pitch and panic.

Make (from Gathering Frays)

“And did you know they made me remove my weapons before coming in?” Zevran said incredulously.

“Did they take all of them?” Novhen asked.

“Not remotely,” Zevran threw up his hands, “and they did not even once say ‘I said all your weapons’.”

“Really?” Novhen tried to laugh, but his chest resisted the movements. Instead, he fell into a brief fit of coughing. As the coughs subsided, he continued, “I didn’t realize the security here was in that poor a state. I can’t see my dog, but an assassin who’s traded his smallclothes for an extra lining of knives is perfectly fine?”

Zevran nodded knowingly, “Even the guest I’ve brought you today, the most harmless man in the world, is facing more scrutiny than I.”

Novhen smiled, “A guest? Is that why you used the door this time?”

Sleep (from Rites of Passage)

The salty morning air of the City of Highever reminded Novhen of Denerim’s shipyards, though it couldn’t quite measure up to the bustle of the capital. A thick morning fog hugged the ground with little disturbance to its form, and the warm dawn was just beginning to peer over the horizon from the direction of home as he snuck his way to the docks. The weight of stolen coin hung from his belt. Passage would be expensive, but the local guardhouse had been generous enough to hide their cache of "civil forfeiture" behind the simplest lock on this side of the Frostbacks.

This is the time of day when the docks should begin their buzz. The workers of the ships and docks had already commenced their morning shuffles, but no one yet yelled orders across the piers. Ships aim to spend as little time in port as possible, so he needed to search fast. He refused himself sleep all last night to ensure he could actually be awake early enough to take advantage of this opportunity away from the watchful eyes of the Wardens.

Tree (from another unnamed fic i wrote for 14daysDAlovers last year and never finished. oops)

(CW for accidental drug use -- Don't secretly harvest dangerous herbs for your assassin bf if you don't know what you're doing.)

Alim sneezed. That was probably a bad sign.

Whether or not that meant he had sniffed more pollen than hoped, he had to make his way back to camp. They would start to worry if he stayed out alone much longer. He slogged through the lightly forested path. His feet sunk deep into the uneven, poorly-trod peat. Maybe he didn't need to have taken from this particular patch, but the coloration was perfect. He vaguely remembered one of the botanists in the Circle talking about blood lotus once. She said that the deeper the color, the faster-acting the hallucinogens. He could have settled for a less secluded, lighter colored flower, but it could only be the best for Zevran.

The camp was farther than he remembered. Alim's steps became clumsier and clumsier until a foot caught on a snaking tree root. He faceplanted into the soft, squishy soil with an embarrassing plap. Jerking up off the ground, he spat mud from his mouth. Any smell of lakewater or flowers was now completely overrun by the rotten egg odor of a swamp.

Terrible (from Gathering Frays)

“How are you feeling if I may ask?” Zevran asked. “I’m glad to see you responsive again. You looked truly terrible when we first recovered you, and there were concerns that you wouldn’t make it.”

“You have no idea how close it really was up there. They keep saying worst of it’s over, but I’m not so convinced anymore that dying was the worst option,” he tried a pathetic smiled. “Even when I'm able to move enough to adjust myself over my bedpan, I have a splitting headache that won’t even go away in my sleep, and my body’s one giant bruise. I’m pretty sure Thedas is discovering new colors as it heals.”

“Truly?” he jested. “It seems your purpose may outlast the Blight after all. They might even dissect you.”

“Don’t give them any ideas. They might just do it,” Novhen said.

[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.

[daemon-in-my-head]

Ironic how the man who always wanted to be in control, wanted to take it, claim it, never give up on it, who gave everything for the promise of the aforementioned control, who went as far as worshipping a tyrant, a god of controlling himself and others, who, on the surface at least, puppeteered people as he liked to delude himself into thinking he'd been in control, wasn't even in control of his own body during his last moments and will never be of control in his eternal afterlife init?

But the people he sought so desperately to control, the people whos fates he thought he had taken hold of, the dying woman and the heretic fanatic, were the ones allowed to take control, defy him and their masters, even if only for their last moments to be truly their own?

Fucking funny ain't it-

[simcardiac-arrested]

IM SURE YOUVE ALREADY EXPLAINED IT SOMEWHERE but.. may i ask about the story in bitter choco decoration. I like those guys :)

you’d be surprised but i apparently have never talked about these particular ocs’ story in detail on this particular tumblr blog. so i shall do just that…. i tried to summarize but it got kind of long oops, as it always does when i talk about my mentally ill ass ocs

so! as u might already know the guys in the video are rikki and william, and the animatic happens from rikki’s pov. rikki is basically the golden child of the family—smart, well-behaved, always keeping her parents satisfied, etc etc. generally she is put under a lot of pressure a lot of the time. and then her family decides to get an insurance child so to speak—just in case rikki fails in life—but they don’t want to go through the trouble of raising another one, so they decide to adopt.

that’s where william comes in, baby! now he is decidedly Not the golden child. he is the problem child. parents thought they could reform him—well, not much to show for that. but him and rikki surprisingly get along, even though they’re opposites. william actually gets someone who cares about him for once and wants him to be okay, and rikki gets someone who wants her to be more bold, stand up to others and consider what she herself wants instead of people-pleasing. he even gets her to make snide jokes and cut her hair. they’re best friends, it’s nice. for a while.

but, none of it is perfect. you know how rikki always seems to be smiling even though she’s clearly not having a good time? and you know all those red eyes that appear pretty much everytime william’s on screen? rikki has so many layers of masks that william never really feels like he actually knows her. and william, even though he mostly wants rikki to do her own thing, can still kind of be selfish and controlling (because he’s a teenager, and traumatized, and scared of losing his best friend, but it doesn’t change the fact that rikki feels the same pressure from him as she feels from their parents).

so this all culminates when they’re in high school and rikki buries herself in work—she wants to secure a good education and a good job so that she can actually get them both out of this shitty abusive household. for the first time in her whole life, she has a Goal that she personally has chosen. she now has someone to work hard for. but she also ends up spending a lot less time with that someone because of her studying, and it eats at william and eats and eats until—it turns out rikki’s hard work has actually paid off. she’s gotten a scholarship, and she can leave for a good university and she’s finally achieved something that she herself has wanted to do and not anyone else. for both of them. for her brother.

except her brother doesn’t react with support, like usual. he’s not cheering her on now that she’s fulfilled her dream and beyond. he just looks betrayed. because they’re best friends. they promised to be there for each other, to get out of this hellhole house together. how could she leave him behind? how is he supposed to make it without her, who is he going to have on his side? william loves her and wants her to be happy but he doesn’t want her to leave.

so in turn—because rikki is a) an avoidant little bitch who would rather masterfully evade conflict than try to have an opinion and b) doesn’t want her brother to hate her forever and not speak to her ever again—in turn, rikki, as always, as second nature, lies. i mean, it’s her dream, it’s something she’s been working towards for years, but she’ll stay. she’ll leave it behind. it makes perfect logical sense to her—best of both worlds: she doesn’t spend the last summer at home with her brother resenting her, and she still gets to actually go to university. it is basically flawless.

all up until, you know, the day comes where she actually has to move out and go to university. and william inevitably finds out that she lied to him. and they fight. it’s not good. it’s not happy. they end up separating on really bad terms, and not talking for the next 7 years because william runs away from home pretty much soon after rikki leaves (it’s not shown in the animatic but he does go MIA, rikki visits home once on holiday to find that her brother is just Gone, no one knows where he is, her parents couldnt give less of a shit, not great all around!!!) then rikki ends up graduating and looking for an easy first job, just to kind of set her foot in Job World.

unfortunately, it is also the exact same easy, convenient job that her brother ends up picking. hoo, boy. long time no see.

[twinstxrs]

“kristen applebees religion struggle overdone at this point” TO YOU! i personally am thinking about how helio, yes?, & cassandra relate to where kristen is at mentally in her journey of learning to live for herself & not for god and how helio is representative of kristen’s family, yes? is representative of tracker, & cassandra is representative of kristen herself, which is why kristen is shunning her.

[pwurrz]

being obsessed with yakumo is a job and baby i’ve never called in a sick day!!!!!

[writeouswriter]

Had a great time playing Sims today (spent 3 and a half hours searching for and downloading custom content and never once turned on the game)

[hiveswap]

If i remember correctly the nov16th streams ended before/around midnight in my timezone, but i stayed up late into the night. I remember how everyone was buzzing with excitement for HOURS. (there has truly never been anything like that era to me ever since, i can't imagine i'll ever feel like that again) When i woke up in the morning i was still in shock, first thing i did was sit down and crochet a bee i have still not finished to this day

[unproduciblesmackdown]

also if only the physical copy of how to disappear completely & never be found i first encountered & read a few years ago (sort of [roughly avg age ten] reader book, not any similarly titled How To) hadn't disappeared completely & not been found since, probably b/c i put it somewhere i intended to be For Safekeeping, which is also how my binder vanished....b/c it's one of those like. those book for late elementary/middle school readers when they just weave in this unrealism which makes for a delightful range & unpredicability? and with a cynical protagonist girl like off to the races like wow her mom is depressed asf & smoking? and it's about A Family History Secrets Mystery so blatantly a haunting that the inciting incident is basically introducing a haunted [family history secrets mystery] house. and spoilers don't matter like it's stemming from there being this missing uncle who grew up so in contrast to the Winsome Winning Sibling Who Does It All Right while seeing his own affiliation with rats that he tried to disappear completely & never be found which led to this Tragedy which led to this more unintended disappearance of his & he haunts this house & wants to be left alone & only goes out at night with this [ambiguous Is That A Giant Rat Or Weird Small Dog (protagonist affected by these family situations who expresses her preoccupation with an awareness of how fate can Strike and Get you with this interest with roving packs of killer chihuahuas. people think she's weird though she spontaneously befriends this other girl struck with this bolt from the blue & a bit weird / outcast & then Insightful who i wish was in it more)] & plays into the hauntedness danger like playing into the [something's Wrong with you then] until having to take yet more action where the urge to express the truth comes out more both b/c living that hidden is more threatened but also b/c now the niece children are more threatened as well. ft. a sort of preternatural blurring of time b/c of only being communicated with through this uncle via his comic pages (that he paints?) of dubiously accurate translations of irl events that are created so quickly it seems to verge on foresight, imagine like "hmm what's this painting. it's me standing in this room looking at this painting??? as someone ominous lurks in the shadows right behind me?" in both [now how could you know this & paint it really fast ahead of time] and [horror]

[moltage]

i've tried everything, different ways, different times, different places. i just can't seem to find my passion for writing back.

[immamapletreekid]

instead of grinding for finals i lost hours to a one piece wiki spiral

[tonyglowheart]

following up on this post though where I pinned down that by Chap 23/24, Shen Qiao already exhibits a shift in attitude wrt Yan Wushi. Which isn't to say he still doesn't rise to Yan Wushi's provocation, lol, because he very much does. But clearly by Chap 24... like, if he wanted to leave... he could? (Yes maybe Yan Wushi would stalk him and pop up wherever he went like :3 owo did you miss me? :3c) But he doesn't

And so that begs the question for me of like... why. Why doesn't he just leave? There's that line later in the chap about how if it were just a few days earlier, then he'd be uncomfortable all over (with Yan Wushi's provocation), but stuff like the goosebumps (he got), they decreased bit by bit until they were gone. - so yes he got used to it, but by early chap 24, he hadn't yet gotten to the point of, like... habituating to Yan Wushi's provocations?

so. really. I can only conclude that actually.... Shen Qiao likes it, lmao. Cuz, like, sure if Shen Qiao gives an inch then Yan Wushi will take a mile, but I also don't get the feeling that Yan Wushi really crosses any boundaries that Shen Qiao ultimately doesn't concede.

It's not like with Bai Rong - who he sets very clear boundaries with and doesn't really yield on them - or with like Huo Xijing or Sang Jingxing or the rest of Huanhe, who I think we can all agree are on another level of Bad, and who clearly SQ also sees as a different breed than Bai Rong (and tbh I think he sees Yan Wushi as being more akin to Bai Rong than like Yuan Xiuxiu or Sang Jingxing etc.)

With Yan Wushi, it's like... clearly Yan Wushi pushes his buttons and pushes his boundaries, but so far anyway, YWS doesn't seem to have done any pushes that are just a step too far beyond what Shen Qiao can tolerate.

So. Where does this leave us. Shen Qiao finds Yan Wushi irritating and but also stimulating I would guess? And at least tolerates his provocations if not continues to tacitly encourage it by being so permissive to Yan Wushi's antics. But also it gets his blood going and gives him jitters... hm why does this sound familiar........

Is. Yan Wushi. like a caffeine high that Shen Qiao is chasing lmao?? *insert all of the coffee memes of like it's so good but at what cost, sometimes it gives you accelerated exhaustion etc* i've connected the two dots dot.jpg

Which also means that, any time anyone asks Shen Qiao about Yan Wushi and like, what the heck clearly he just pushes your buttons and tries to get a rise out of you, why are you even sticking with this old man,. this is him:

[prismatica-the-strange]

Nope, I'm still crying

[wolpatinga]

when delilah asked samson to cut his hair he complied

he made a sacred oath to never cut this hair. he swore he'd remain as god made him

and he had to know she was the reason he was being swarmed with assassins every night

but he, out of foolish love, let her cut his hair

and then he died

and he may have been a reckless fool. he may have gone too far

but in the end, what broke him was when he let this love overtake who he was. he lost himself, he lost god, and he died

[fandom-fae]

honestly. on one hand. i really really really like the version of peter pan from once upon a time, in the way that the actor does a phenomenal job, the character has great dialogue and is just overall really really enjoyable to watch imo. but then i remember how he kept wendy in a cage for like 300 years and like

i stan him but that is so. AGSJDHJDHDJ. like i feel SO BAD for wendy there. this poor girl honestlyyy. like. that’s so disturbing honestly. like i can’t imagine much things that would mess with someone’s psyche more than that. like if he had just kept her on the island then fine, but constantly in that tiny hanging cage??? big OOF.

like i’m sure she’d need like permanent therapy afterwards and even then how would you even begin to unpack that in therapy???? like??????

[cuteniaarts]

First posted piece of 2024 featuring Ghazan’s older sister Haya, take 2!!