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lunanoc · 4 months

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so probably against what should have been my better judgment, i went ahead and actually wrote “meta”, except it’s only borderline meta because it ends up veering off into crack theory territory and is also insanely long, but i figure since it’s now too long to be posted as a discord liveblog like it was supposed to be, i might as well just. post it here (in several parts because no one wants a 10k post lbr)

disclaimer: i like to be transparent about where i’m coming from, so just know that i have not finished reading all the books yet. currently i’m practically through everything, books and extras included, up until and including sand sea part III, so anything i talk about relating to that is my own reading experience. i’ll sometimes reference later books i’ve either read snippets of, or talked about with people who have (and verified the information as best as i could), but because i lack full context for those, any mentions of those elements are automatically grain of salt and relegated to crack theory. for everything i have read that i can grab quotes for, i’ll be providing clear references to the specific chapters of the books they’re from

also, blanket spoiler warning for the books

but that being said, let me actually get into this thing:

king shang of lu, the iron-masked gentleman, king mu of zhou, the queen mother of the west, how they’re connected, who they might be, and what that could mean for the larger dmbj narrative

PART I: KING SHANG OF LU AND THE IRON-MASKED GENTLEMAN

writing this shaved years off of me, the rabbit-holing was insane, and there’s still no clear answers in the end but welcome to the ride i guess

starting off here, the problem with these two characters is that we have conflicting information about them from three different sources that all give a different version of the same story, all of which are various degrees of dubious for different reasons. and you could say ok but really, who cares i do apparently about these two because in the larger plot they don’t really amount to much in the end

BUT

given both the things we learn by the end of sand sea (and elements that pop up in later installments) about all the various parties involved in what’s essentially a subplot, and the fact npss goes into so much detail with such a deliberate throwback to something all the way back in the first book, i don’t think the fact that the various versions of the story of king shang of lu sometimes blatantly contradicting themselves is a mistake, but is rather proof of deliberate obfuscation of the truth. npss tends to like revisiting sometimes seemingly anecdotal or trivial things from previous books to connect them with a subsequent revelation, or open the door to a different interpretation of them, so that he’d do it here isn’t all that surprising to me

the three versions of the story of “the emperor” (or the ruler of the state of lu), king shang of lu, and the iron-masked gentleman we get are, in order of appearance:

version 1 from a silkbook found in the purple jade box in “king shang of lu”’s coffin (Book 1, Ch. 26, Purple Jade Box)

version 2 from xiaoge himself who gives an opposing account to the previous one that he supposedly read from a warring states period silkbook he found in a song dynasty tomb (Book 1, Ch. 26-27, Purple Jade Box / Lies)

version 3 from the powerpoint lesson given by the wang family to li cu (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, 133, 134, Lesson / King Mu of Zhou / Deception)

the first two accounts are both from book 1 and immediately follow each other, but neither of them quite fit with the last one, or at least it would seem so. you could argue this is simply because book 1 was when npss was still trying to figure things out both with his plot and characters, so the final account given by the wang family is a retcon, and while that’s always possible, like i mentioned, npss likes to connect things and tends to either incorporate these kinds of seemingly obscure and irrelevant details for a reason, or simply retroactively fleshes them out to revisit them at a later date and shed a new light on the bigger picture. so it’s more the fact we just don’t know which things he implements deliberately from the start and which ones he ties back to retroactively, but in the end seeing as the result is the same it doesn’t matter much. what does matter is that he does it pretty consistently, so it’s safe to assume he’s also doing it with this particular story (side tangent, but i like to think that npss has shown he’s a big fan of something called chekov’s gun and no i won’t elaborate on that or else i’ll be here for hours but google that if you’re interested it’s fun)

so tldr; i basically just want to argue that by intentionally bringing back this story with obvious divergences, it might be a way to shed light on something else that informs king shang of lu’s story while placing it as a puzzle piece in the bigger picture of dmbj lore

but let’s break down those three different accounts of the story of king shang of lu

the first account

i’m going to tldr; most of these for the sake of clarity, but i’ll be referencing the various chapters all these bits are taken from if you want to verify any of it

technically the first real account of king shang of lu’s story we get is what’s written on the stone slab in the hall with all of the coffins in the seven star palace that says that he was “born with a ghost seal and could borrow ghost soldiers from the underworld” (Book 1, Ch. 10, Shadow), but i’m not counting that as a full-blown version of the story because it’s not dwelt on all that much and mostly serves as a preamble for pangzi to later posit to wu xie that it’s a bunch of bs and was probably just an exaggeration meant to mythologize king shang of lu given that the tomb itself is a weird anachronistic mix of western zhou and warring states architecture (which is an important argument but maybe not for the reasons you’d think)

so i consider the first fleshed-out version of king shang of lu’s story we get to be the one wu xie reads off of the silkbook he and wu sanxing pull from “king shang of lu”’s coffin, and is one that very quickly gets debunked within book 1 itself multiple times, so while it may seem easy enough to write off, it’s not so much what it says that’s interesting, but rather why it exists in the first place

this version of the story essentially relates the life and deeds of king shang of lu, recorded on what’s supposed to be a warring states period silkbook pulled from the man’s own coffin. it talks about how he inherited his title from his father and was a lowly grave robber lord who was cruel and greedy, and how one day he gained from a snake demon/spirit in a tomb he excavated “two treasures” in a “purple and gold box” (this will be important later) which are never explicitated, although wu xie speculates one of those treasures to be the ghost seal as its acquisition is directly mentioned in the text. the snake comes to king shang of lu in a dream and promises to make him a high-ranking official and teach him how to use the treasures in the box if he spares its soul (he doesn’t). and so king shang of lu becomes a military officer under the command of the “emperor” of the state of lu. in his later years, however, he starts to get old and sick, and so the “emperor” demotes him back into being a lowly grave robber, and he starts to fear death, so king shang of lu goes to his military advisor, the “iron-masked gentleman” or 铁面先生 tiemian xiansheng, in search of a solution. the iron-masked gentleman then tells him that something called jade burial armor, a treasure from ancient times, exists, and that it can keep someone young forever. so king shang hunts and hunts and scours tomb after tomb until eventually he finds a western zhou dynasty tomb which will later become the seven star palace where he discovers a corpse wearing the famed jade buriam armor. iron mask takes the corpse out of the armor, subdues the blood zombie it turns into, and then helps king shang of lu fake his death in front of the “emperor” so he can be buried in the tomb he built for himself on top of the western zhou tomb he’d found (Book 1, Ch. 26, Purple Jade Box)

however

this version is quickly debunked twice in pretty quick succession, and then a third time a bit later, still in book 1, but before i get to that, a few extra little details i want to point out:

to be fair literally no one (who doesn’t speak chinese and is reading the original text anyway) would be able to guess either from the translation or merebear’s footnotes that “iron-masked scholar/gentleman” or 铁面先生 is not in fact necessarily meant to be taken literally. it’s partly an idiom. 铁面 tiemian is an expression that can mean “someone who is upright in character”, in other words someone with a positive reputation. so this man isn’t necessarily implied to have worn a mask at all (i think he did, but that’s also for later)

the purple and gold box that’s mentioned in this version of the story is the one wu xie finds in the hands of the corpse of the green-eyed fox (who’s also wearing the belt that has the qilin blood clot wu xie accidentally swallows can you believe, which is also another detail for later) that’s accompanied by a key in the corpse of a woman next to it (Book 1, Ch. 22, The Eightfold Treasure Box)

the second account

before we get into the first version of the story more, let’s briefly take a look at the second one. the first version of the story is first debunked by the second version of the story which is told in abridged format by xiaoge pretty much right after wu xie finishes reading the silkbook. he says that the silkbook’s account is incorrect because the person in the jade armor isn’t king shang of lu, but iron mask who faked his own death in order to escape the systematic execution king shang of lu enacted on all the people who knew about and/or helped build his tomb. he then snuck into the seven star palace and disposed of king shang of lu’s body before taking the jade armor for himself

xiaoge explains that he found this story in a song dynasty tomb he’d robbed a few years ago that contained a complete silkbook that turned out to be iron-masked gentleman’s memoirs (Book 1, Ch. 27, Lies). and you’d be inclined to believe this version of the story over the first one because it’s xiaoge telling it, and xiaoge usually isn’t one for intentional deception unless it serves a purpose, even less so if it’s verbal deception (literally the only time i can think of him openly lying rather than lying by omission is when he disguises himself as professor zhang). except even this version is called into question multiple times. the first time is by wu xie himself, who while choosing not to confront xiaoge about it, senses that xiaoge seems uneasy when wu xie presses him on the point that if it’s true that two people were pulled out of the jade armor in that tomb, then why is there no second blood corpse. xiaoge answers that he doesn’t know because iron masks’s memoirs only mention it briefly, and that maybe king shang of lu was pulled out early enough that he didn’t turn into a blood zombie. technically there’s the mummified body they find in the sacrificial ding cauldron next to the coffin with the monster at the entrance to the seven star palace whose head is cut off that could fit that description (Book 1, Ch. 9, Ancient Tomb), but in any case xiaoge according to wu xie looks like he’s lying. the second time this version is refuted is by wu sanxing, but i’ll get to that when i get back to the first account and how it also gets debunked

arguments against the second account

i already mentioned xiaoge isn’t typically someone who’s into overt deception as a course of action unless it’s strictly necessary (and even then). it’s always possible he was either acting on a compulsion from the heavenly gift or under some order from chen pi ah si (since he was working for him at the time, even if i doubt this to be completely honest) or even something else, so it’s mostly my own assumption that he’s not actively deceiving them by fabricating a story, because xiaoge’s deception usually relies on omission rather than a concentrated effort at producing an elaborate lie. so really, the only fact we can be certain of is that he has an “uneasy look in his eyes” when he talks about the lack of another blood corpse, and that wu xie gets the impression he’s lying, which is a sentiment wu sanxing apparently shares because they look at each other in that moment and silently agree. whether this means xiaoge was *actually* lying, or that wu sanxing was taking advantage of xiaoge’s unease to further his own deception (re: arguments against the first account i’m getting to in a bit) is really up in the air

however

i’d like to think if xiaoge was lying and there was nothing more to it than that, he wouldn’t make it so apparent that that was the case given he only ever really projects visible upset or discomfort at anything when it’s related to his memories or lack thereof, and only much later in the story does that start to extend to allowing himself moments of vulnerability, or just his own brand of open concern for wu xie and pangzi. but this is all happening in book 1 where wu xie, as perceptive as he is about people, doesn’t know xiaoge yet, and so doesn’t know his tells. therefore that he can tell xiaoge is visibly emoting when it’s xiaoge is noteworthy in itself. also, given that book 1 takes place at a time when xiaoge’s memory was still very much lacking and fragmented, and he was likely still working for chen pi ah si partly to search for his memories, i wouldn’t be surprised if his unease was visible because the confrontation of both the first and second versions of the story started triggering his memory in some capacity, or it might have even triggered the heavenly gift senses into letting him know that there was something of importance in these stories since the particular episode of it he’s going through at the time gets a bit fast-forwarded from the seven star palace onward seeing as not too long afterwards xiaoge goes into the gate at the end of book 3

something else that’s worth mentioning is the logic behind these memoirs of iron mask even existing. why it would be in a song dynasty tomb is up for debate and probably irrelevant (although it does to be fair align with king mu’s motives of perpetuating grave robbing for deliberate dissemination of information), but mostly i question how he could have written his memoirs if he faked his death and slipped into the jade armor himself shortly after, unless he waited a significant amount of time before doing so and lived his life in hiding, which is also possible given there’s nothing more we know about him. but more food for thought

arguments against the first account

let’s go back to the first account from the silkbook for a bit and take a look at the other two times besides xiaoge’s second account where this version is debunked:

the second debunking comes from wu sanxing as he and wu xie are waiting around in jinan while panzi is in the hospital, and wu sanxing comes back outraged bc when he tried to have the silkbook they brought back from “king shang of lu”’s coffin, he was apparently told it was a forgery because the gold in it was too pure to have dated back to the warring states period, and so was necessarily more recent, though how recent is never specified (Book 1, Ch. 29, Purple-and-Gold Box). he then suggests to wu xie that he thinks it’s xiaoge who snuck into the tomb ahead of them, and with his skills successfully planted a dupe to trick them. i’ll get back to this eventually, but again, while it’s not impossible, it feels unlikely to me that xiaoge would extend so much effort in deception unless it served a clear purpose he agreed with, which is why i’m not convinced he would have blindly been following orders from someone like chen pi ah ai. and xiaoge would likely not have gone to the trouble of making a fake silkbook either, so the idea would have to have come from chen pi ah si, which then brings into question what motive chen pi ah si would have had to go to such lengths to deceive wu sanxing. again, really the only time we ever see or hear of xiaoge making an effort at deliberate deception is when he disguises himself as professor zhang, and while we never get an explanation for the reasons behind that, that’s more likely to have stemmed from feeling like he had to conceal his identity rather than wanting to deceive if that makes sense. in any case, i don’t know what tangible reason xiaoge would have had to deceive wu sanxing and his team with a fake silkbook even if he’d been acting on chen pi ah si’s orders, because would chen pi ah si have had a reason to go to the effort of creating a fake silkbook to deceive wu sanxing with details so specific that you quite literally have to have been in that tomb before to know them?

the third debunking of the silkbook version is ironically a reverse uno from xiaoge directed at wu sanxing when he, wu xie, and pangzi are stuck in wang zanghai’s tomb in xisha (Book 1, Ch. 63, Chain). xiaoge’s just recovered a massive amount of his memories related to the first xisha expedition, and very bluntly tells wu xie that not only is the silkbook from the seven star palace a fake, it was wu sanxing who planted it there. to which wu xie obviously responds with “wtf no you did”. to which xiaoge then replies completely deadpan as he does with “no, it was your sanshu, he and da kui dug a hole under the tree to do it, probably why da kui had to be silenced”. which leaves wu xie very torn about what and who to believe. and mind you this is also a little before they find the inscription on the wall from “xie lianhuan” accusing wu sanxing of murdering him. honestly it’s possible xiaoge is telling the truth if you consider that wu sanxing might have planted a fake if he knew ahead of time what the silkbook contained, what the seven star palace was, and basically faked his own way through the entire thing

it wouldn’t necessarily surprise me because he does sound very pretends to be shocked in the delivery of many of his remarks (but again, how much of that can you attribute to this being book 1), and while he did bring wu xie along because he was trying to ease him into the game with the wangs, it’s possible he was prudent enough that he would have made wu xie’s first tomb experience take place in a somewhat controlled environment. which doesn’t mean he’d necessarily been there before, just that as entrenched in the wang shit as he is, i wouldn’t be surprised if he’d known even vaguely what the seven star palace represented and what could be found in there. he did know about the snake cypress and about the stone used to subdue it, and while that doesn’t necessarily mean anything seeing as wu sanxing is a highly experienced tomb robber, it’s worth noting that the only times we’ve ever seen those trees is in the seven star palace and in the snake mine in gutongjing. in other words, always somewhere connected to longevity and The Secret and all the parties involved in that power struggle

but then again, we don’t really know how much wu sanxing knew about the wangs and the zhangs etc, so it’s all very up to interpretation. if he did in fact plant the fake silkbook though, it might have served the purpose of making sure there was something to string wu xie along to push him towards xisha and the conspiracy, but the copper fish ended up serving that purpose in the end. nothing really elaborates on this silkbook again, so we don’t know why xiaoge would speculate that wu sanxing was the perpetrator, unless it was because he’d just recovered his memories of xisha (but even then xiaoge doesn’t accuse people so firmly based on impression alone) or he literally saw wu sanxing do it

regardless of who did it, the bottom line is that it’s safe to say the silkbook was probably fake and was placed there intentionally, both because as wu sanxing points out, it is suspicious that wu xie would conveniently only be able to understand what happened to be key portions of the silkbook relating parts of king shang of lu’s life, and because it mentions the purple and gold box in it, which when opened, wu xie discovers contains the first snake-eyebrowed copper fish

to me this actually pushes suspicion more heavily onto two parties in particular: wu sanxing and the wang family. because to be able to forge a silkbook that would specifically contain passages tailored to wu xie’s knowledge of old chinese and not run the risk of him either knowing more or less than speculated, you would have to have extensive knowledge on wu xie as a person on a personal level. and to be fair, this idea hinges a lot on the silkbook being put into that coffin for wu xie specifically ti find, so i’m working on assumptions again, but if this were the case, then only wu sanxing and the wangs qualify to fill that role, and in some ways the wangs even more so because this kind of covert manipulation is very much the way they do things. xiaoge would not have known wu xie to that extent in book 1, if at all, and while wang zanghai himself is a tempting possibility, he was obviously in the seven star palace long before any of this took place, so it can’t be him. in fact, the only thing that ties wang zanghai to any of this at all is the purple and gold box containing the copper fish, since whether or not the box had originally been there and he simply emptied it of its contents or brought it in from outside, he’s the one who placed the copper fish in it

as to why if it was wu sanxing who planted the fake silkbook he would shift the blame onto xiaoge, my theory on that would be that xiaoge was another convenient means of stringing wu xie along into the xisha expedition mystery by virtue of him being zhang qiling and therefore both highly mysterious and suspicious, as well as personally involved. part of me wonders if part of the reason wu sanxing went to chen pi ah si to hire xiaoge specifically because he was added insurance that he would have the means to trigger wu xie’s curiosity, and provide a first clue to lead him into the It conspiracy. wu sanxing did use the picture of the expedition team to explicitly tie xiaoge into it along with the copper fish story, so there’s that to consider

the third account

which finally brings me to the final version of the king shang of lu story, which is the one given to li cu during the wang family powerpoint lesson. this particular version also overlaps with the story of king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west, but i’ll get to in another part of this meta. so this version of the story is mostly ironically both the version that most blatantly contradicts the first two, while also being the version most accurate to the tiny introduction we get to king shang of lu at the entrance of the seven star palace that says he was “born with a ghost seal and could borrow ghost soldiers from the underworld”. the only real issue with that this third version has it’s told by the wang family to li cu, so just by virtue of it coming from obvious wang propaganda, it’s immediately suspicious by nature

going back to speculations about who planted the fake silkbook version of king shang of lu’s story in the seven star palace, it then also raises the question of, if the wangs were the ones who did it, what motive they would have had not only to do so, but to tell the story in that particular way, only to then tell a completely different one to someone they consider a candidate to join them. in my opinion, the only thing that makes this third version hold water is that given how it’s explained to li cu, and how wang xiaoyuan (the girl who passes by the window during the lesson) has the same version of it, the wang family believes this version is true, and by virtue of that, it gains a little more credibility, bc suspicious as they are and twisted by their own biases their version of history may be, the wang family is nonetheless well-informed for the most part. not to mention because the narrative has the wang family consistently mirror the zhang family and the way they function so perfectly it’s almost eerie, it stands to reason that the wang family also dabble in historical revisionism when they can, so putting out a fake version of history onto a fabricated silkbook seems up their alley

i’ll get into king mu of zhou separately because that’s a whole other can of worms, but this final version of king shang of lu’s story begins between the “emperor” of the state of lu and his advisor, the owner of a fox mask “with ancient patterns that often appeared on bronze ware” (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, Lesson). the “emperor” asks his advisor “around 1000 BC” (fyi the original says 一千年上下 which amounts to “around 1000 years” but it’s more of an approximation and can technically encompass the warring states period too) as a hypothetical whether or not it’s possible “to prevent people from dying”, to which the advisor answers that he himself doesn’t know how, but he does know where to find something that can “beneath the loess inside the mountains”. he then goes on to tell the tale of king mu of zhou to the “emperor”, and of how he was given an elixir of immortality by the queen mother of the west that he likely hid inside of his tomb centuries ago

it very quickly becomes apparent to the reader that this story is an obvious ploy by the owner of the fox mask, who in sensing that the “emperor”, while tempted, is reluctant to cast all appearance of morality aside to deploy his troops to rob king mu of zhou’s grave, calls a “strange man” to the court who’s “believed to be a descendent of the zhou emperor” (that is to say king mu of zhou) “who was able to communicate with the underworld”. the ruler of the state of lu thus gives this “strange man” a jade seal and seals him in an iron coffin deep in a well for 49 days, saying that if he can come back up from it with the ghost seal in hand after having successfully spoken to king mu of zhou, then it would be proof of king mu granting him permission to rob his tomb and take the immortality elixir from it. and so this “strange man” does, in fact, come back, not only with the ghost seal in hand, but with an imperial edict written by king mu of zhou himself that granted him the title of king shang (殇 shang meaning to die young or at war) as well as all the contents of his tomb

the ruler of the state of lu then uses this to make several leaps in logic to justify being in the right if he deploys his troops to rob king mu of zhou’s tomb, because if this “strange man” can communicate with the underworld and was given a title relating to dead people, then surely that means that this strange “king shang” is likely dead himself, and that king mu of zhou chose him as his heir after he’d died. it’s a very convenient out for the ruler of the state of lu to say that he’s only helping an esteemed deceased elder to recover his birthright if he makes him a general and lends him troops to go find king mu of zhou’s tomb (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 133, King Mu of Zhou)

it’s also quickly obvious to the reader that the owner of the fox mask and this newly minted king shang of lu are in fact working together, given it was the former who referred the latter to the state of lu’s court in the first place, which is something i’ll come back to in another part of this meta. from here, under the ruler of the state of lu’s orders, king shang and the owner of the fox mask, together with more grave robbers who also wore fox masks (as according to the wang family, foxes would live in graveyards and grave robber’s tunnels at the time, and so grave robbers associated their imagery with the profession), began their search for king mu of zhou’s tomb and the immortality elixir it supposedly contained. while this version of the story of king shang of lu more or less ends here, you could assume the rest of it might follow along the same lines of the first two versions, and maybe it does. you’d then assume that the person king shang and the owner of the fox mask (who’s by then inferred to be iron mask from the previous two versions) find in the western zhou tomb is king mu of zhou, who they then divest of the jade burial armor to take for themselves

however, one very important detail in this version compromises this assumption: king mu of zhou isn’t actually dead, and he thus gave king shang the edict personally (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 134, Deception). what this means is that the ruler of the state of lu was duped presumably not by two, but three people, all of whom were working together to find the jade burial armor for who appears to be king mu of zhou. in other words, where the other two versions of the story have two key players, this final version suddenly introduces a third one, and that changes things. how much it does is what i’ll be getting into in the next part on king mu of zhou more specifically

(tbc in part II and part III of this madness)

#dmbj #meta #dmbj meta #dmbj novels #i cannot believe i actually wrote this this was not planned #like at all #this was meant to be an unhinged liveblog mini thing #not whatever this is #i guess the crack theory conspiracy theorist is going public #if you don't know where i'm going with this that's ok i don't either

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deus-ex-mona · 2 months

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so aizo really is a demon in meoto… demon aizo x human sacrifice yujiro huh~~~~~~

#(echoing jp lxl twt) wait what happened to the ‘sengoku period’ setting—#they gotta keep the ‘forbidden’ part of the ‘forbidden’ romance in there somehow ig lmaoooo #i expected a reincarnation story but all i got was this fabulous historical fantasy story: the mv #dammit i wrote my crack ideas before i saw this i s w e a r #either way aiyuu are married now no objections #LXL MEOTO CRISIS 2K24 #ok i think im done fr now byeyeyeyeyeye

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the-cookie-of-doom · 5 months

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The Birds and the Bees (Gets Kim On His Knees)

Summary: Sex pollen AU Kim is getting POLLINATED. Bee boy Chay thinks he’s the prettiest flower in the bunch and he’s getting all up in his vase. (sober note: Chay is not actually a bee boy)

It starts out perfectly innocently, okay? Chay had a plan, and that plan was to woo Kim, because after his delightfully sweet confusion upon receiving the guitar pick from Chay was any indication, he’s never been romanced before, and Chay is going to romance him so fucking hard. There’s going to be chocolate and dates and flowers.

The flowers are the important part. Chay went into the florist with a polite request for something special, bc his honey only deserves the best, and he can’t remember the name of the flowers that were neatly wrapped into a big, fluffy bouquet, but it was pretty, and it sounded expensive, and Chay didn’t even bother checking the price tag before his handed over his credit card. Worrying about the price of things? That’s a Before Chay problem. Now Chay has mafia money, and he’s going to spend it on flowers to make his boyfriend blush, and no one is going to stop him.

The flowers make Chay blush a little bit, too. He gets all shivery and warm under the collar as he carries them out of the shop, little white flecks dusting all over him.

“Have fun,” the florist tells him on his way out the door, waving and laughing. “Don’t forget plenty of water.”

Duh. Chay knows how to keep flowers alive. Or, keep them from wilting, at least for a few days, bc technically they’re dead now that they’re cut. He’s giving Kim a dead gift. But that’s okay bc Kim gave him a bar fullof dead gifts, and these ones are prettier. They smell better, too, and they may be snowing bits of white fluff everywhere, but they aren’t going to leave so much of a mess. (Poor Yok had to close the bar for a month.)

Back at the apartment that Chay does not share with Kim, even though hes there more often than he isn’t, because kim hasn’t offered, and chay hasn’t asked, and besires, hia would probably kill him, anyway. Say something rude about a love nest, which is absolutely not what it is. (It’s exactly what it is.)

Without the use of his hands, given the *massive* bouquet, Chay has to settle for knocking his feet and elbows against the door until Kim gets the hint and opens it for him.

“Chay?” he asks, peering around the flowers, and oh, right, he probably can’t actually *see* chay like this. He ducks his head around the side and grins, then thrusts the flowers into Kim’s arms. He’s getting tired, and he needs a glass of water. Carrying those things has been making him sweat. Who knows flowers could weight so mich?

“Hi, honey,” CHay greets cheergully. “I’m home!”

Kim’s fae goes from confused to preciously warm and soft and chay wants to kiss him, bc he’s *so* cute, he actually can’t take it. Who said his boyfriend could be so cute? Kim is supposed to be hot and sexy and intimidating. Cute is cay’s thing. But Kim, bc he isn’t fair, bc he’s blessed, is everything. He’s so good and sweet and he’s watching chay with eyes so fond and warm they could melt chocolate, and Chay has to kiss him about it. Right? Kim’s his boyfriend now—it’s their 1 month anniversary—which means he gets to do that now.

The flowers are in the way, though.

Chay takes them back. Says, “These are for you, by the way,” as he carts them over to the table, and Kim closes the door, and follows after him with an indulgent smile.

“What’s the occasion?” he asks.

“You, duh. I just.” Chay puts the flowers down. He arranges them carefully, fluffing out the thick white buds. ROcks back and forth on his teeth. Twists his hands in his sweater. He loves Kim so much and he has no idea how to hake his boyfriend understand. “I’m just—y9ou make me so happy. And I’m really lucky to be with you. So, yeah. Flowers. For you. Bc you deserve nice things.”

“Chay…”

Kim comes up behind him, because Chay, flushed from the tip of his nose to the tip of his ears, does *not* look at him. He wraps his arms around CHay’s middle and nuzzles into the back of his hot neck, planting a soft kiss there.

“I love you,” he murmurs into the sensitive space behind Chay’s ear, making him shudder. “Thank you, love, they’re really pretty.”

“You’re pretty.” Chay ducks his head down but he lets Kim spin him and kiss the top of his head. “I need some water.” He’s still burning up, and now he’s certain it’s the embarrassment more than the thirst, but if he doesn’t drink something cold now he’s going to melt into a puddle on the ground. So he darts away and Kim lets him go with a laugh.

It gives him the opportunity to look at the flowers closer, leaning down to take a deep inhale. The fluff flaking off from the fleshy pink middles must egt vaught in his nose bc he starts sneezing, and chay giggles from the kitchen.

“SOrry they’re getting pollen, like, everywhere.” Like dandelions, almost. Except these flowers are more than balls of white, tufty seeds. The petals are thick and full, white around the edges, then peachy pink in the middle, and at the very center of them, where the petals are folded together the thickest, they turn a lurid, dusky purple. And those white tufts of pollen drip out from that tight furl of petals.

Kim straightens back up from his fit, and has pollen all in his hair and dotting his cheeks. Chay coos at him. He looks like he went frolicking in a daisy field.

[commercial break for porn]

“Chay—Chay, those flowers—”

“I know,” Chay groans, dragging Kim into a fevered kiss. Fuck, what was wrong with those flowers? He should have—he should have realized something was off, as soon as he started getting warm, and they florist—telling him to remember plenty of water for them, him and Kim, not the flowers, of fucking course. God, how could he have been so blind.

“Chay.” And Kim—Kim is whining. That was definitely a whine. High and plaintive and pleading, and Chay has to take a deep breath before he comes on the spot.

This is fine, everything is fine, he’s in control here. He’s barely affected. See? Look, P’Kim, he can walk in a straight line, straight to their bedroom, because he’s fine. Chay isn’t the one that decided to inhale a lungfull of sex pollen.

Kim looks out of his fucking mind with it, though, little white flecks speckled through his hair, his pupils completely blown. Like a cat when it sees something in wants. Kim is looking at Chay like he’s never wanted anything more in his life, and it’s a heady feeling, to be on the receiving end of that gaze. For all Kim has become a whimpering limpet, he looks like he’s going to each Chay alive as Chay pushes him down onto the bed.

“Are you okay?” Chay asks, on top of him, kissing his throat, because he’s a gentleman. Porsche raised him to be very considerate of his partners, and dammit, he’s going to make sure Kim is comfortable and taken care of!

“Yes, Chay, yes, I’m so okay, fuck, are you—” Kim tugs at Chay’s shirt, seemingly forgetting how buttons work in his desperation to get it off of CHay. he settles for digging his fingers into the spaces between the buttons and yanking, ripping it apart.

Once again Chay is taking several deep breaths.

Do not come. Do NOT come, he tells himself.

Unfortunately his inhale led to a little tuft of pollen going right up his nose, and he snuffles a few times, trying to get rid of the tickling feeling. Now that he knows what he’s looking for he can feel it as the warmth spreads through him, spreading from his nose to his face and down his neck, and then it reaches his heard and flows through all of him, coalescing at his dick.

Which Kim is determinedly trying to free from the confines of Chay’s slacks.

Why did he decide to give up his usual uniform of tshirts and sweatpants, again? Dressing up for his boyfriend is overrated when he could be undressing for his boyfriend instead, and that’s a lot harder to do wrapped up in said boyfriend the way he is when he isn’t wearing something with a forgiving degree of stretch. He tries very hard to wiggle out of the stiff slacks while also palming Kim’s ass, which isn’t helpful at all, but it is nice.

“Chay,” Kim complains, and there’s that whine again. God, it shouldn’t be as hot as it is. It really shouldn’t. Except for the fact that it means Kim is utterly and relentlessl desperate for him, which means it’s approximately the hottest thing he’s ever heard.

“I’m trying,” Chay says, except he isn’t actually trying at all. He manages to pull his hands away from Kim long enough that he can open up his pants and kick them down his legs, while also trying to divest Kim of his own clothes, and somehow that ends up with both of them in a tangled the floor. Chay isn’t sure how that happened but there’s a dull ache in his shoulder and hip telling him that gravity was involved.

Kim, straddling Chay’s thighs in an instant, doesn’t seem to mind the position change. In fact he takes full advantage, throwing himself on top of Chay and kissing him absolutely breathless. CHay isn’t complaining, that’s for damn sure.

“I need you ti fuck me right now,” Kim demands.

“Yes. Yes yes yes.” Chay scrabbles on the floor, hoping for lube to magically appear when he needs it most. Unfortunately it does not. He makes a mental not to hide lube fucking everywhere later, just likekim has guns and knives hidden in all the nooks and crannies around his apartment, that way they can both be prepared for anything. Bc chay wants nothing more than to fuck kim on every available surface, please and thank you.

Today that apparently includes the floor, and honestly? Chay isn’t hating it.

“Lube, P’Kim, we need lube.” No way he’s going to fuck him dry. Because again. Gentleman. COnsiderate lover. All of that.

Except Kim makes a noise like—like—chay doesn’t know what it’s like. It’s high pitched and maybe kind of worried? And he’s reaching back between his legs, and his brows are drawn together as he scrunches his nose up in that cute way he does, and lips are parted so sweetly, and—

Before CHy can kiss him about it, Kim pulls his hand back, his fingers glistening with something that looks a hell of a lot like lube, except for the fact that they have no lube, as previously established.

“I think maybe we don’t?” he says. His voice, normally rough and deep, goes somewhere high and unfamiliar.

What the fuck, Chay thinks.

“What the fuck,” he says out loud. Kim’s eyes are wide and wild and is laugh is a little bit hysterical. Chay should probably worry about that. Try to calm him down maybe. Except he’s also read about this? “Let me just—” he wiggles his hand beneath Kim, brushes his fingers against his hole, and—yep, he’s definitely slick with something.

“What the fuck,” Kim echoes, still staring at his fingers.

He suddenly remembers the florist telling him, Don’t forget plenty of water. He’s going to die, actually. They’ve been sex pollened. Pollinated? Yeah, that. And fuck, she knew, she had to know, that’swhy she smirked and laughed and told him to drink water, because she knew things were going to get wet and fucking messy.

God, Chay can’t even be mad about it because—because it’s Kim, and he is wet, and Chay desperately wants to make a mess of both of them.

Kim shouts when Chay throws him back onto the ground, pinning him on his back. He made sure to pull a blanket down first (Gentleman!!) so Kim wouldn’t be bare on the cold wood floor. Then he grabs Kim’s legs behind his knees and forces his thighs to his chest, he’s vaguely aware of Kim’s hands slapping the ground, but then he’s thoroughly distracted by burying his tongue in the nectar-sweet slick dripping from Kim’s hole.

“Chay!” Kim cries, equal parts indignant and hopelessly turned on. HIs thighs clamp down around Chay’s head and do absolutely nothing to deter him. In fact, Chay elects to ignore him entirely, digging his fingers into Kim’s thighs and licking into him with fervor.

Deliriously, he thinks, finally, all those smut fics are good for something. He’s never been more prepared for something in his life.

“You taste so sweet, P’Kim,” Chay says when he finally comes up for air, what could be minutes or hours later.

“You’re so fucking weird,” kim pants. His face is flushed, all the way down his chest, and his eyes are glassy. It’s the most beautiful CHay has ever seen him, and all Chay can think is, I did that.

Well, the flowers—the fucking sex pollen—did that, but Chay helped!

Chay shoves Kim’s legs open again, because they’re still crushing him a little bit, and crawls his way backup Kim’s body, where he greets him with a deep, wet kiss. Chay is covered in that sweet slick from nose to chin and Kim makes a face at it, mumbling, “Gross,” but does nothing to resist Chay’s kiss. Sucks on his glistening bottom lip, even, and his tongue, chasing the sweet taste of himself. It’s probably just because of the pollen clouding his judgment. Probably.

“I could eat you out for days, P’Kim,” Chay says, just to be sure, “So sweet for me.”

“Fuck.” That’s all Kim says. No agreement or refusal, absolutely not aligning himself with either side of that spectrum, and refusing to meet Chay’s eyes for fear he’ll see an answer there. That’s okay. Chay knows they’re definitely going to do it again, if only so Kim can have the chance to… properly decide for himself whether he likes it, or not, without the pollen making his brain fuzzy.

“Can I still fuck you, P’Kim?” Chay asks, sweet as anything. (Gentle. Man.)

“Finally, yes, please, if you’re done teasing me.”

“I’m not.” Not even close. Teasing Kim into a shuddering, pathetic mess is going to become one of the greatest achievements of Chay’s life, up there with Getting His Idol to Tutor Him, and Getting Into University. “I’ll make it good for you, though, promise.”

Really, it’s more of a threat. Chay makes himself comfortable in their little nest on the floor—he blindly reaches up and pulls a few pillows off the bed, one for him to sit on and another to shove under Kim’s hips, popping him up and putting him on display even more than he already is—and gets to work. Circles his thumb around Kim’s glistening rim, lightly at first, waiting until Kim’s breaths stop hitching and he takes a deep inhale, and then Chay dips the digit into him. Up to the first knuckle, nice and slow, and then deeper, until it’s all the way inside and the rest of his fingers lay flat against his cheek. Chay pulses it in and out a few times, nice and shallow, before he pulls all the way out and replaces it with his foreigner. A minute later he slides in the middle one, as well, and Kim keens sweetly for him.

#cookie writes #kimchay #copy-pasted directly from my google docs #no editing #i got rum drunk and wrote this garbage last night #i hope you all enjoy it lmfao #I'll work on editing it into something coherent later #for now enjoy the crack <3

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hamable · 8 months

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Need low stakes DLC Psychonauts 2 levels in, at this point, anyone’s mind. Fuck shit up and kick ass in the interns brains? Hell yeah. Otto? Sasha round 2? Milla round 2? ANY Aquato? I’d eat it up om nom nom. I’m begging. As a treat for me please.

#psychonauts 2 #psychonauts #double fine #and listen. fucking. it gets more and more obvious that Otto has Something going on with every playthrough #first play through I was thinking about literally anything else and I didn’t catch it #but going back and doing all the dialogue and keeping an eye on him?#Otto was sus as HELL #Like fully unresolved I think canonically he’s still up to some shit #he didnt mind wipe a family to stop a genocide a la putting tape over a cracking dam #but he’s still shady #and I think they kinda wrote him as a red herring #which is wild bc I did not give a fuck about Otto my first time through I was trying to connect so many other puzzle pieces #but yeah DLC content would be good but also… Psychonauts three???#it’s be too surface level for it to be just straight plot line Otto is the big bad tho so idk.#psychonauts 1+2 tells such a tight well thought out story that’s been cooking for two decades. I wouldn’t want a third game if it didn’t #lovingly expand the world and characters and story. but damn I got questions.#hence: low stakes dlc please and thank you have a good day 👍

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jade-of-mourning · 5 months

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been writing again. i miss writing for fun aha. pain why is this guy so repressed and fucked up.

this one's about lightning n plants n blah blah symbolism stuff and i stopped writing it over two years ago but now i'm back ig. mako is having a terrible time post-canon and it's great! (for me) i dumped out some stuff that i find unusable and am hoping the rest holds up to a reasonable extent

#lychee's word trash #rose beds and gasoline veins #it's genuinely been SUCH a long minute lolololol #yes i've got myself a crippling attachment to mako from lok idk what to tell you #i just threw out 1k from 6k but i'm writing rn and avoiding studying so it kinda skyrocketed to 7.3k!#if i think about him too hard my heart hurts for this fictional guy so like #y'know you gotta cope by watching that “just too hot” video on crack #i don't really know exactly Where this is going bc i forgot my initial plans #i should really start outlining otherwise i forget all my ideas instantaneously lol #guys i really wish that i wrote an outline for the time travel au bc i knew i had good ideas #i just can't remember what those good ideas were </3

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pickleking8 · 8 months

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9 - Adoption Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be - Chapter 9

Words: 1188

Ao3 Link

Previous - Next - Masterpost

Tw: kidnapping, general creepiness, trauma discussion, injury discussion, death discussion

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The shifting sea of their glances oozed over him, covering him in a substance that he could only wish to be rid of, slimy, sticky, and squirming, finding its way into every orifice, every pore, and burrowing deep inside him, making his skin feel all wrong, like it was too tight and too loose and he was too hot and too cold and his organs rolled in his body and his eyes in his sockets and his nerves curled and twisted and writhed, and it was wrong, so wrong, and then Danny was running, his headache worsening and building into a single point of awful focus all while tears gathered in his eyes. He pivoted fast, pounding feet in rhythm with the pounding of his heart, and he heard the shouts behind him, garbled and unintelligible, and in his mind’s eye he saw the grasping hands, reaching from an impenetrable maw and snatching for his ankles and tearing at his clothing and now, blue-gloved and covered in oozing green, dripping slowly with the consistency of honey. Danny slammed into a wall and quickly recovered, pushing off of it, borrowing momentum, and stuttering to a stop as he came face-to-face with a tall man with dark hair, who grabbed his wrists and smiled.

Others would describe the smile as easy-going. Friendly, calm, inviting. Danny saw the way it stretched too wide, the way it betrayed a sense of triumph upon his capture that was too leering, too predatory; he saw how the man felt fulfilled with the chase in the way his teeth were too sharp and too hungry. Danny saw all of these things, but he was really looking at the eyes. The eyes that scanned and assessed and were all too alert, and the eyes that didn’t crinkle with that mask of a smile, that only showed a coldness and calculation. And Danny was terrified.

The man didn’t let go when Danny threw his weight against his grasp. He didn’t even falter. They stared at each other for a fraction of a second, Danny’s breaths panting and frantic, the man’s slow and calm. And then the smile widened further, until the man’s face split and Danny was left waiting for more cracks in his porcelain-perfect face to appear. Before they could, though, the man dropped his wrists, and before Danny could react, enveloped him in a crushing hug that made Danny’s skin crawl. Danny flinched as the man laughed, a sound that was distorted and much too loud.

He shoved the man off him, hard, and the man let him (and he was sure that the man was letting him). He fell back against the wall, tears finally spilling down his cheeks, stinging as they fell over cuts and scrapes, and settling in the folds of his shirt. The man finally stepped away, finally stopped being so close that he could feel his breath, hot like fire, on his neck. Danny watched, afraid, breathing erratic and hands shaking, and more and more people filled the hallway, coming from all sides, surrounding him, and his already-meager escape routes dwindled until he was stuck, alone, with that sea of predatory eyes boring into him.

“Jason? Are you okay?”, the man finally spoke, not in static and whispers, not garbled and distorted, as Danny had expected, but normal. Understandable. Not in the voice of the monster that Danny knew lurked. In his opinion, the normalcy of his voice might have been worse. This meant the monster was good at hiding. Danny stared at him. And then, not knowing what else to do, he spoke.

“Who are you? Who’s Jason?”, he said, and it was fast and panicked and the words sounded as though he had to force them out of a throat clogged with years of decay. The people donned various looks of surprise, eyebrows rose near-imperceptibly, breath was sucked in all too fast, the man who hugged him even jolted, and they all had the audacity to act wounded.

“You… don’t remember us? We’re your family, come on, Jason,” the man spoke, daring again in an insurmountable arrogance to sound hurt, to sound upset. Danny felt his chest tighten, the panic somehow rising, as did his anger. Fueled by his pain and the man’s words, he managed to spit out in a sputtering flame of fury,

“What the fuck? No, I’m not. No, you’re not. My name’s not fucking Jason, I’m Danny,” his voice softened, and it took on a pleading tone, one that was laced with desperation, “I don’t know who you are. You’re not my family, I know you’re not my family, just, please. Let me go. I won’t tell, I promise I won’t tell, please just let me go,”

“Your act will not fool us, Todd,” the smallest one spoke up, with a tone of superiority and confidence, “We have examined your injuries, they are the same as Todd’s when he ‘died’, and you bear his exact resemblance. You cannot possibly think that your subpar acting skills will convince us otherwise,”

Danny felt his heart sink as his skin crawled all the more, and his expression betrayed every emotion. The tears picked up again with renewed intensity, running in ruts down his face and creating shining trails paved with despair, as he looked up and met the hundreds of shifting eyes.

“Please. I promise, okay, I promise, I’m not Jason, I don’t know who that is, please. I want to leave, I want to go home, I just- ... please, let me go home,” he whispered, his voice scratching and filled with choked-down sobs.

A girl in the back suddenly stepped forward, melting easily from the darkness. She was younger than the first man, it seemed, with eyes that were much too black and sucked in the light around her, leaving her a shadow that was too silent, too empty, too seamless. This monster was good at hiding. Danny eyed her warily.

“He is not lying,” she said, and Danny’s heart swelled, “He truly does not remember,” she finished, and Danny felt his chin hit his chest. The people looked close to doing the same, until a short one with spiky hair snapped up suddenly, too suddenly, with a determination in his eyes that made Danny recoil.

“It’s okay! This is probably a trauma response or something! I mean, his maybe-death was probably pretty traumatic, so he’s probably blocking that or something. He’ll remember. We just have to give him time, and being around us and all his old stuff will probably help,” the boy almost yelled in triumph.

The others nodded enthusiastically, and as they accepted the idea, each one gained a manic tint to their eyes and their smiles widened to curl behind their ears and they all seemed to flicker green. They turned, slowly, their feet making no sound despite the heavy shoes many of them wore, and once again all of their shifting eyes, their warped smiles, their too-sharp teeth, and their twisted faces, all focused on Danny, and their jumbled speech flowed once more, horrible words that burrowed:

“It’ll be okay, Jason,”

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Next - Masterpost

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Hey! Hope y'all enjoyed this chapter, I wasn't sure if I was entirely happy with how it turned out; I don't think I got the pacing quite right? And I was trying real hard to lean into the unsettling vibe and I think I leaned too hard. Ah well though, it's late, no time to think through decisions about posting. Or editing. It'll be fine, right? Anyway, thank you for reading! Constructive criticism would be appreciated.

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Taglist: @tkiesai

#dpxdc #dcxdp #crossover #jazz fenton #danny phantom #jason todd #batfam #adoption isn't all it's cracked up to be #I'm like #proud of how much I wrote #but there's *something* off #perhaps the pacing #but im too tired to fix it #I should probably wait and post it tomorrow so I can fix it #but nahhhh #it'll be fine #thanks for reading anyway!

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