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lucidlivi · 10 months

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Chosen For Pleasure (VI)

Series Masterlist/Warnings

Tag List: @ladysparkles78 @suckitands33 @little-x-wolf @stoneyggirl2 @creative-writing92 @jc-winchester @mrsjenniferwinchester @lessons-of-red @jamerlynn @deans-baby-momma @willow-sages @ritz-hell-hotel @perpetualabsurdity (If you would like added, please send me a message, it's easier to keep track of! Much love to everyone already on it!)

soft ass chapter for you all!

I walked back down the dirt path towards Jared's house, a few stray tears slipping from my eyes. I quickly wiped them away.

I wouldn't give Jensen the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

It's not like he would anyways.

He was already practically at the door, taking larger strides than me. I noticed him stop, his hand on the handle, his shoulders slumped over. I thought he was going to turn around and apologize but instead he sulked inside the house with a huff.

I sat down on Jared's porch steps, taking a minute to collect myself. It wasn't like I could just leave, we were almost three hours away from Laredo, and I came here with Jensen.

Fuck.

Why did he have to make this so difficult?

I was trying really hard to understand him, but I won't fight for something if he won't even meet me halfway.

I heard the door open slowly a body slipping out.

"can you please just give me a minute Jensen.." I started but was cut off.

"It's Jared."

Jared sat down beside me placing a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"sorry, I just uh needed a minute." I said playing with my hands.

Jared nodded his head as I took a shaky breath.

"he's kind of a asshole sometimes." Jared spoke making me smile.

I thought asshole was putting it mildly but I wouldn't say that.

"just a little." I spoke biting my lip.

"look it’s really not my place, but he's been through some really bad shit, and so for him it's just easier to push people away then deal with his feelings which is why he acts like an ass." Jared explained.

I was silent, fighting the tears that threatened to fall any minute.

"but I can honestly say, him bringing you here, him grabbing your hand in front of the guys, that's him trying, something he doesn't do very often." he added.

"why can't he tell me this himself?" I asked placing my head in my hands.

Jared didn't say anything as he rubbed a hand down my back in comfort.

"he makes it so incredibly hard to get close to him." I spoke finally picking my head back up.

“I’ve watched Jensen push away many good things in his life, but I don't want to sit by and watch him lose this too. I think you're good for him, whether he'll admit it or not. you...you push his buttons, and you don't allow him to get away with his bullshit. that's exactly what he needs. I guess what I'm trying to say is to give him some time, he'll come around, and when he's ready, he'll let you in."

I chewed on my bottom lip contemplating his words.

"Jared, what did Jensen whisper to you the day I first met you, when you came to his house?" I asked nervously, turning my body so it was fully facing Jared.

Jared beamed with a smile looking in my eyes.

"he said you were definitely not like the other girls who've been there."

I couldn't fight the smile that appeared on my face. I guess if I really wanted Jensen, I'd have to take him flaws and all. I was just hoping that Jared was right, if I just gave it time, he'd finally let me in.

"thanks Jared." I smiled giving him a hug.

"of course, now you have to come in and try Gen's dessert, it's to die for." Jared smiled helping me up.

As he opened the door for us to go in, Jensen stood on the other side, like he was coming out.

"I'll uh, give you guys a minute." Jared said smiling at me and stepping to the side so Jensen can come out.

I stood in silence, my arms folded across my chest.

"what did he uh say to you?" Jensen asked hesitantly.

"don't worry, he didn't spill any of your secrets... said you were an asshole though." I smirked satisfied with my jab.

"I am." Jensen said.

It hurt me to hear him talk badly about himself. Even though he totally deserved it.

"he also told me that you were trying, and that you push people away because it's easier for you." I said uncrossing my arms.

Jensen looked slightly relieved at my words.

"I am trying, god (y/n) I've never had to try this much with a woman before, I slept with you in my bed, I.. I threatened a douche bag at the bar for you, I even went looking for a stupid sd card…” he rambled but I cut him off.

“you went looking for my sd card?”

“yeah, I mean I needed some excuse to see you again, so I went looking for it.” He said rubbing his neck nervously.

I felt my heart rate increase, the butterflies in my stomach erupting.

He does care.

“I’m trying and it's driving me crazy, you're driving me crazy." He murmured, his large hand cupping my cheek.

"Jensen I'm not trying to drive you crazy" I said laughing.

"you're driving me crazy because you're changing me."

I felt the breath get caught in my throat. I bit my lip looking up at him. I could tell this wasn’t him acting, he was being real and raw right now.

"how about this I won't push you about your past as long as you promise me you'll at least try to meet me halfway?" I offered him with a smile.

"I promise I'll try." Jensen said bringing his lips down kissing my forehead while pulling me to his chest.

I wrapped my arms around him, squeezing him tightly. He removed his arms, but settled one around my waist as he led me back inside.

"oh there they are, thought you two were screwing somewhere on the property." Jeff laughed, a shot glass in his hand filled with what appeared to be whiskey.

"I think he's drunk." Jensen whispered in my ear.

"no we uh save the screwing for his house." I joked with Jeff sending Jensen a wink.

I could see his eyes go dark with lust.

I walked in to the kitchen, wanting to apologize to Genevieve for my leaving. Jared was on his way out with a bottle of rum. He quickly caught my elbow.

"everything okay with you guys?"

"thanks in part to you." I said offering him a smile.

"yeah well, like I said he needs someone to keep him in check." Jared laughed.

It was a rather uneventful rest of the night. All the guys sat around a small fire pit on Jared's deck swapping stories while sipping on some rum from Jensen's business.

Well with the exception of Jeff who was chugging it, and was clearly wasted.

I sat beside Jensen listening intently to them talk, laughing at their antics. Jensen's hand stayed at rest on my thigh, stroking his fingers gently making me flinch every time he did so. Everyone started to say their goodbyes. I gave Genevieve a big hug.

"please come around again, it's nice to have another female here." she said smiling.

I gave a hug to Misha and Jared, and a handshake to both Mark's and Richard, not having the time to connect with them as much as Misha and Jared. Jeff gave me a big hug that lasted a little too long, forcing Jensen to pry me away as I laughed.

"ah come on don't be such a party pooper Ackles." Jeff slurred with a smirk.

He wasn't serious, it was all just in good fun.

“get your own Jeff.” Jensen laughed.

Jensen led me back out to the ferrari opening the door for me. Once he was in he looked my way with a smile.

“I think they liked you, some of them a little too much.” He said.

“I liked them too… especially Jeff.” I shot back biting my bottom lip.

He was an asshole tonight, so I was going to push his buttons, I mean it was only fair after all.

“oh is that right?”

“uh huh, he’s my favorite character from the show.” I smirked.

I could see Jensen’s jaw tense as I continued to tease.

“In fact I always found him kind of sexy.” I pushed further.

“sexy huh?”

“sexiest on the show.”

Jensen growled. He kept one hand on the wheel while the other rested on my leg running up my thigh. He continued upwards until he was rubbing his fingers over my lace thong.

“how sexy is he now?” Jensen asked rubbing his thumb over my sensitive spot.

I bit my lip not wanting to moan at his touch.

He wasn’t winning this one that easily. I put my hand on his thigh starting to massage it. He groaned as I let my hand linger over his crotch. He was already hard.

He pulled my panties to the side, easily inserting his two fingers, and rubbing up and down my slit. I panted heavily, it was getting harder to choke back the moans that wished to escape.

okay then, two can play your game. I reached over undoing the button on his pants and palmed him through his boxers.

“you better stop that if you don’t want me to crash this car.” He groaned.

“stop what?” I asked innocently.

I slipped my hand into the waistband of his boxers, gently running my fingers over his length He removed his fingers gripping the wheel tightly with both hands.

“fuck.” He groaned throwing his head back.

I rubbed up and down his length with my hand, his hips instinctively bucking up to meet my palm.

“fuck, you gotta stop, can’t focus on driving.”Jensen panted.

I slowly pulled my hand out of his boxers making sure my fingers danced over him one last time.

“oops” I smirked.

Jensen looked over at me, his pupils dilated with pleasure.

“take your panties off.” Jensen ordered.

“hm what for?”

“cause as soon as we get out of this car I’m fucking you senseless… or I could always rip them off, up to you.” He growled.

I leaned over peppering light kisses to his neck.

“I think I’ll go with option two..” I whispered seductively in his ear.

“as you wish angel.” Jensen growled.

I felt the car speed up, making me clutch the door handle for stability. I laughed as Jensen ran a stop sign trying his quickest to get back to his house.

“okay easy there race car driver, we can’t fuck if we don’t make it back in one piece.” I said as Jensen increased his speed a little more.

I gasped as he did a burn out in to his driveway. Once the car was stopped he grabbed me pulling me over to straddle his lap. His lips went to my neck kissing up and down it feverishly. I could feel him throbbing through his jeans. I ground my hips down on to his causing a throaty moan to escape his lips.

His hand traveled to my panties. The sound of ripping fabric filled the car.

“Jensen please fuck me.” I whined.

I’m not sure how he did it, but he somehow got out of the car with me still straddling him. My lips sucked on his neck, kissing his bearded jaw. He fumbled with his keys, trying to unlock the door.

Fuck he was taking too long.

He finally got the door unlocked. He walked me over to his dining room table laying me down gently. He quickly disposed of his shirt, before pulling his pants and boxers down to his ankles. I yelped as he pulled me by my legs down the table until my butt was dangling off the edge. He wrapped my legs around him, lining himself up with my entrance.

I let out a breathy moan as he thrust in to me.

“fuck you feel so good.” Jensen groaned.

He worked at a quick pace thrusting in and out of me. Jensen worked my dress over my head leaving only just my bra.

“better take that off, or I’m gonna rip it too.” He groaned thrusting deeper.

I quickly unclasped my bra, sliding it off and throwing it to the floor. Jensen’s lips came down to my breast, his sweet lips wrapping around my hardened nipple.

“fuck Jensen.” I moaned as my hands came up to his hair tugging it.

“that’s right angel moan my name.” He growled, his thrusts becoming noticeably sloppy.

“Jensen.” I moaned again feeling my high approach.

Jensen snapped his hips harder and faster.

“I’m not making it much longer sweetheart.” He moaned.

“that’s fine me either.” I panted.

Another snap of his hips had Jensen spilling out, a string of curse words leaving his lips. Just that sight alone was enough to make me reach my high. His name leaving my lips as I orgasmed.

My body went limp as he pulled out.

Fuck.

I don’t think I’d ever get tired of that.

Jensen picked me up bridal style bringing me over to his sectional, laying us down so I was on top of him. My head lay on his chest as his hands rubbed up and down my back.

“do you really have to go to California this weekend?” He asked hands now playing with my hair.

“yeah I do… I have to meet Richard.”

“but you already met Richard?” Jensen said confusion in his voice.

“not that Richard you doofus.. my moms new boyfriend.” I laughed.

“Oh and how do you feel about that?” He asked in concern.

“I feel that she deserves to be happy, and if this guy really makes her happy then I’ll be fine… she was really hurt when daddy died, she told me she’d never find another love like that, and she did… so maybe that means there’s hope for the rest of us.” I said biting my lip.

I noticed Jensen was quiet again. Oh no, he wasn’t shutting down again was he?

“Jensen? I didn’t say something that upset you did I?” I hesitantly asked.

“maybe some of us are just hopeless.” He whispered.

I quickly picked my head up to look in his eyes but he was glancing at the floor.

“Jensen look at me.” I said placing a hand on his cheek and forcing him to look in my eyes.

“you are not hopeless.” I spoke sternly.

“how can you say that, I’ve been nothing but an asshole to you?” He said.

that wasn’t entirely true.

“yeah well I guess I have a soft spot for you Ackles, I mean you did go through all that trouble to find my sd card.” I said smiling.

“do you know how hard that little thing was to find in the dark?” He asked laughing.

“oh I’m sure it was.”

“I spent over an hour looking for that thing, had Cole and a couple other guys helping me.” He said laughing still.

I felt the heat rush to my cheeks. I leaned down pressing a soft kiss to his cheek.

“and who said you didn’t have a heart?”

“I guess I let it come out every now and then.” He murmured licking his lips.

“well I really like when it does.” I whisper brushing my fingers across his cheek.

He cuddled me closer to his body. I laid my head back on his chest wishing we could just live in this moment forever.

however that wasn’t reality….

and reality sucked.

Author Note:

Damn another cliffhanger, I be doing this to myself too don’t worry. Remember if you’re enjoying and want to see more, show some love! It’s all appreciated!

xoxoxo

Part (VII)

#jensen ackles #jensen ackles imagine #dean winchester #dean winchester imagine #dean winchester x reader #jensen ackles x female!reader #jensen ackles preference #jensen ackles x you #jensen ackles x reader #jensen x reader #jensen ackles smut #jensen and jared #jared padalecki #jeffery dean morgan #jensen ackles fanfiction #jensen ackles fic

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deepestbluesky · 1 year

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WIP WORD SEARCH GAME

tagged by @aiyexayen! who prompted the words:

tear | soft | red | under | hold

alright let’s see what i can dig up in my wips... my own arbitrary rules are that i can only do one word per fic and starting with most recently worked on wip first and then working my way back until i find something

tear showed up in “batfam lan au” (cql/mdzs au, and this is NOT recent lol apparently i don’t use tear at all haha)

"Hey, Jingyi! Come say hi!" A-Yuan calls, and then flinches when [lwj] gives him a look from the other end of the couch. Jingyi comes tearing in, though, skidding to a stop behind A-Yuan.

"Hi Wei-qianbei!" Jingyi says enthusiastically. "A-Yuan and I found a bird nest today! I think he took a picture, you should get him to show you."

Xian-gege is laughing. "Yes, I heard! This must be an extremely exciting bird's nest, for both of you to tell me about it so quickly. Jingyi, I hope you know it's your responsibility to make sure A-Yuan gets into trouble."

soft showed up in “jc+lwj political marriage” (cql au)

"Let your husband speak for himself," she sneers. "Or is he just another person that you'll have to take the blame for?"

It's not like Jiang Cheng expected this visit to go well, but Jiang Cheng had hoped that Wei Wuxian's absence would soften his mother's scorn. It didn't work.

Lan Wangji is as still as Jiang Cheng has ever seen him, back even straighter than usual and the only movement Jiang Cheng can detect is his hand, gripping Bichen so hard it almost seems like it will snap.

red showed up in “vex/zahra lovm” (legend of vox machina)

“Have you been worrying about me all this time?” Zahra sounds curious and a little indulgent.

Vex sits down. “No. I’d forgotten, except occasionally when I caught a glimpse of red horns or found myself eyeing up a pretty stranger across a bar.” Or… other times, but she isn’t going to admit that quite yet.

under showed up in “cass omegaverse au” (batfam, this was WEIRDLY hard to find?? lots of understands and undercovers and almost no actual unders)

“Neither are you,” Steph snaps back. “She’s an adult, she can make her own choices. Cass, I have something I need your help with. It’s, uh,” Steph lowers her gaze, tries to sound embarrassed. “A personal thing? I kind of need your help specifically.” It’s far from the first time that Steph has pulled this move, and it’s almost true this time. Cass still hasn’t dealt with her heat well, but Steph will be damned if she lets her punish herself for it under the guise of “training”. As if Cass, of all people, needs more training fighting.

hold showed up in “han ying genders” (tyk/shl mashup)

The thing was, Han Ying knew that he was nursing an embarrassing amount of feelings for Zhou Zishu. He knew that, he had known that for quite some time now.

As much as he hated to think about it, it was probably obvious to others. Almost certainly obvious to Zhou Zishu, who, as befitted his role, was uncannily good at sniffing out exactly the secrets no one wished him to know. It was a recurring debate among newer Tian Chuang members: whether it was cruel or kind of him to clearly hold on to such information but not reveal it unless it became relevant. Han Ying thought it was neither. It was a tool.

this was very fun!!! i’ll tag @minnarr and @fractured-ice if you would like to play (i would also tag antique-forvalaka and rainsfalling except tumblr won’t let me, which is fair if you have done that on purpose but does regularly confuse me lol), and also anybody else who sees this and wants to play! your words are (including variants):

moment | see | blue | friend | until

#tag games #my writing or whatever?#idk who neds tags #me. when i try to find this later. but alas.#more varied fandoms than i was expecting!!!!

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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for the prompts: NMJ/JC - Everyone with a functioning brain cell can see that JC just needs someone to tell him he’s doing a good job. And if WWX isn’t stepping up? Well, NMJ definitely will. (Preferably smut and/or fluff) Thank you! ❤️

Compliments - ao3

It started in anger, out of spite.

Traditionally, the world took this to be a bad thing, but in all honesty the vast majority of projects in the Nie sect were started that way – they inherited fiery tempers and spiteful personalities from their ancestors along with their saber cultivation traditions – and it didn’t always turn out badly. There were any number of buildings, techniques, or technological innovations in the Unclean Realm that had started life as a furious fuck you to someone and only turned into something worthwhile about halfway through, once the person involved had calmed down enough to think about what they were doing, realize they were already committed, and then shrug and carry on forward because there was no point in stopping a charge midway.

What Nie Mingjue meant was: there was precedent.

He liked to think it started with Jiang Fengmian, but if Nie Mingjue was being honest with himself, it started back in the Unclean Realm when Nie Huaisang had told him, quite casually over dinner, that he thought that the female cultivator in his class was very pretty and that he’d be happy to marry her.

“Uh,” Nie Mingjue had said, very intelligently. “Huaisang, you’re seven.”

Nie Huaisang had not seen the problem. Instead, he explained very forthrightly that it was only right that he start thinking early on about his marriage, as getting married and having children would be his great contribution to the sect on account of being useless good-for-nothing unfit for anything else –

“Wait,” Nie Mingjue said. “Who told you that?!”

Nie Huaisang claimed he had deduced it.

Nie Mingjue claimed that Nie Huaisang was full of bullshit, and also that he wasn’t good-for-nothing even if he wasn’t good at saber, and anyway even if he was a total good-for-nothing he was still Nie Mingjue’s good-for-nothing and no one had better say a single damn word against him or Nie Mingjue would bite them.

“I meant stab them!” he explained, far too late; Nie Huaisang was already rolling around laughing to the point of tears. “I have a saber. I can stab people! I’m actually very scary, you know!”

Nie Huaisang hadn’t believed him one bit and had carried on, seemingly at peace and forgetting everything, but Nie Mingjue had gone seeking advice from all of his elders and counselors and the more dependable senior disciples of his sect, abruptly terrified that he was permanently damaging Nie Huaisang by raising him the wrong way or something. Didn’t children need encouragement at that age? Weren’t they all young and tender peaches liable to be bruised at the slightest glance or young sprouts that needed to be sheltered from the harsh wind lest they grow up crooked?

Everyone assured him that children were hardier than they appeared, flexible and capable of bouncing back from just about anything. He'd pressed, though, pointing out that even the most flexible wood would eventually form a crack in the face of a vicious hurricane, and in the end they'd admitted that it was better to avoid applying too much pressure at too young an age, that a child squeezed too hard or not hard enough might develop neuroses that would hinder them in the future.

They mostly tried not to look at him when they said that, presumably thinking to themselves that Nie Mingjue was little more than a child himself and had already been subject to the worst pressures possible, which would undoubtedly result in who knows what future issues, but he hadn’t paid that part any mind. As far as he was concerned, his life was already a loss – he had sworn to take revenge for his father, to make that ancient monster Wen Ruohan pay with his life for what he had done and furthermore he'd sworn to pay back the blood debt in full before any of that burden passed to Nie Huaisang.

Letting Nie Huaisang grow up happy – that was what mattered.

Letting him be insulted when Nie Mingjue wasn’t looking played no part in that plan. If Nie Huaisang were going to be insulted, let it be by outsiders who he wouldn’t need to care about! Within their Nie sect, at minimum, he should be doted upon and honored, or else those responsible would have to explain themselves to Nie Mingjue.

Those dark thoughts still lingering in his mind, he had gone to the Lotus Pier for a discussion conference, and that, perhaps, was where it really started.

Rumor had already made the entire cultivation world aware that Jiang Fengmian had found the orphaned son of Cangse Sanren and Wei Changze, and that he had taken him into his home as his ward, allowing him to become a Jiang sect disciple – treating him almost as one of the family, even. That much was known, so it didn’t come as much of a surprise when Jiang Fengmian proudly introduced him or even more proudly showed him off, praising him to the high heavens.

What did come as a surprise was how little he praised his own son standing beside him, despite them being only a few days apart in age. It was as if Jiang Fengmian had simply forgotten that such a creature existed, much less that he had himself contributed to its spawning, and the constant looks of hope – invariably crushed – the child sent him made it clear that the present situation had been going on for some time.

Fuck you, Nie Mingjue thought, seeing red, seeing instead Nie Huaisang in his failed saber classes, struggling so desperately to keep up with the rest even though his body wouldn’t allow for it, being told he was useless and a good-for-nothing and fit for nothing but marriage. Fuck you, Jiang Fengmian.

He couldn’t say that, of course.

So instead he said, “Excellent stance,” to the child, who'd received the courtesy name Wanyin but seemed to be universally called Jiang Cheng. “Do you know the others in the set?”

Jiang Cheng, staring at him, very slowly nodded, and demonstrated them.

“Absolutely perfect,” Nie Mingjue said loudly, drawing attention to himself with his over-loud voice that everyone would automatically forgive on account on him being both a Nie and a young man. “You can see how hard you’ve worked at it, and it has paid off handsomely. You are very lucky in your son, Sect Leader Jiang.”

“…thank you,” Jiang Fengmian said, a little bemused at being interrupted. He’d been talking yet again about Wei Wuxian’s brilliance at picking up the sword again after years of living on the streets without practice, even though at the moment the smiling boy's admittedly impressive skills were still largely wild and undisciplined.

Nie Mingjue nodded, and said: “When exactly did you say the opening festivities would be starting?”

Jiang Fengmian had clearly forgotten about that in his enthusiasm, so he quickly hurried back to the actual subject at hand and the discussion conference was started in earnest.

It was almost enough to allow Nie Mingjue to forget the matter and put it behind him.

Or, it would have been, if only Jiang Fengmian hadn’t continued to insert praise for Wei Wuxian at every possible instance – it was as if he were the man’s first-born son, rather than another person’s child.

Irritated beyond belief, Nie Mingjue started complimenting Jiang Cheng every time Jiang Fengmian said something nice about Wei Wuxian, and he made sure to keep his compliments accurate: he was a hard worker, dedicated and sincere, thoughtful, clever, not overly arrogant…

“Wei Wuxian came up with his own ideas for a sword style already,” Jiang Fengmian claimed at one point. “You can see him on the training ground now, practicing it – take a look!”

Nie Mingjue picked up a stone and flicked it over with his fingers, making Wei Wuxian jump half a chi into the air and nearly fall on his ass.

“Weak foundation, and he over-commits,” he analyzed dryly, because it was true, and because no one else was saying it. He didn't make it any harsher than it had to be: he had nothing against the boy himself, of course; it was only that he knew from experience that it was much easier to be the one being complimented than the one not. “He’s got his head so high in the clouds that his feet are barely touching the ground – the weakest fierce corpse would knock him flat as a pancake with a childish style like that. He’d be better off sticking with orthodox or he’ll end up in real trouble one day.”

“Sect Leader Nie, really,” Jiang Fengmian said disapprovingly. “He’s only nine.”

“Old enough to pick up bad habits,” Nie Mingjue retorted. “Your son’s the same age and he’s as steady as a rock. If Jiang Cheng keeps going as he is, he’ll have a strong enough base to outlast the fiercest storm.”

“A rock has no imagination,” Jiang Fengmian said, and was he actually arguing that his son was inferior? Out loud, in front of outsiders? Did the man have no shame? “Mingjue, you’re young, but you must know that my Jiang sect prizes freedom and creativity as the highest virtue –”

“Would you rather build a house using a firework or a foundation stone?” Nie Mingjue asked, doing his best not to outwardly bristle at the condescendingly intimate use of his name by someone who might be technically his elder but legally his equal. “Tell me, Fengmian, does your Jiang sect’s acclaimed ‘freedom’ only allow for people to be as fluid as the river and not as steady as the earth?”

Jiang Fengmian faltered, clearly not knowing how to answer that.

Nie Mingjue raised his hands in a sarcastic salute: “As the leader of a sect whose style is based on a grounded foundation, I would be very happy if you would educate me in your wisdom. No doubt my peers would benefit as well.”

Perhaps it was at that point that Jiang Fengmian realized that his words could be misinterpreted as an insult to all the sects whose styles were less free-flowing than the Jiang – just about all of them except for maybe the Lan and their subsidiary sects, given their preference for techniques modeled on the wind over the water – and moreover that this was a discussion conference, where every word was political, and that a great deal of people were glaring balefully at him. He hastily moved the conversation onwards, and left the subject of his sons for another day.

Later that evening, Madame Yu came over to where Nie Mingjue was nursing a bowl of very fine wine that he didn’t especially feel like consuming. Before he could start worrying about the Purple Spider’s intentions, she said, voice stiff, “Your words regarding my son are too kind. His skills are still inferior; he has a great deal of progress yet to be made.”

“He’s only nine,” Nie Mingjue said, feeling mortified that she’d noticed his little temper tantrum, which he had belatedly realized was probably extremely obvious. “Anyway, I wasn't lying. He has a good foundation; he’ll be a fearsome cultivator one day, there’s no doubt. I only said what I saw.”

“You didn’t comment about Wei Wuxian,” she said. “You must have noticed his genius.”

“Geniuses don’t need to be praised overmuch,” Nie Mingjue said. He himself had been termed a genius by his teachers, and he’d hated every single moment of it – couldn’t he just be good at things without having people fall all over themselves to compliment him? He’d enjoyed it at the start, but after a while it had started to wear on him; he was expected to be a genius in all things, and being simply ordinary was suddenly seen as failing. “It’s the ones that have to work hard that do, or else they’ll be discouraged…comparing someone to another person’s child works as a spur to a certain extent, but after a while it loses its potency as a tool.”

Your husband is a fucking idiot, he didn’t say. It’s his own son! How could he speak like that about him? Shouldn’t he be holding him in his palms like a gentle flame, protecting him from the wind and rain? How can he bear to scold his son when he hasn't shown that the scolding is meant for his benefit?

“Perhaps,” Madame Yu said, but it was clear on her face that she wasn’t about to start taking parenting advice from a half-grown sprout like Nie Mingjue. “Nevertheless, your words were kind.”

She swept away after that, much to his relief. He shook his head and daydreamed about a magic tool that would make this whole nightmarish experience go by that much quicker.

In the end, it went by at the same speed it always did. It could have ended there, but Nie Mingjue kept up the habit of blatantly complimenting Jiang Cheng in future sect conferences as well, if only because it clearly irritated Jiang Fengmian – less because Nie Mingjue was praising his son and more because it was so obviously meant as an indirect critique of Jiang Fengmian’s skills as a parent or sect leader, and moreover it reminded all the other sects of that unfortunate interchange and made them less inclined to listen to him – and of course, because, well, once you’ve started a charge, you had to finish it even if you came to your senses about halfway through.

He made sure to keep it proportionate, of course, since there was nothing worse than false praise. He didn’t really mean anything by it, other than the half-formed thought that someone ought to be doing it – that the boy should know that someone looked at him and Wei Wuxian and remembered to praise him first. Nie Mingjue praised Wei Wuxian too, of course, since the boy often deserved it; it was only that he made a particular point not to forget about Jiang Cheng, either.

(He also made sure the other sect leaders saw how well the technique could be used to fluster Jiang Fengmian, an intrusion into his personal life that could be masked in perfect politeness, and several of them picked up the same tact, though less consistently than Nie Mingjue – Sect Leaders Jin and Wen, naturally, always looking for a weakness, but interestingly enough also Lan Qiren, who was normally above such petty maneuvers. Possibly he was actually just complimenting Jiang Cheng because he sincerely approved of him.)

He didn’t think much of it.

Nie Mingjue didn’t think much of it during the other discussion conferences, or when he came to the Cloud Recesses to pick up Nie Huaisang, who had – amazingly – actually managed to pass this time, although the expression on Lan Qiren’s face suggested the pass might have more to do with the other sect leader’s desire to never see Nie Huaisang haunt his classroom ever again.

“You know what, don’t tell me. Tell me….hm…how did Jiang Wanyin do?” Nie Mingjue asked, hand over his eyes as if it could forestall the headache. “He’s a bright boy, and knows how to put his mind to something when he wants. Tell me about him instead, it’ll be less depressing.”

“He’s very bright,” Lan Qiren agreed. “Very thoughtful, and very thorough. He sometimes errs towards conservatism out of fear of giving the wrong answer, but that’s just a matter of confidence; his thinking is very good. He’s very clear-sighted as long as the matter is logical, rather than emotional.”

“No surprise,” Nie Mingjue grunted. “He’ll be a sect leader worthy of respect, in his time.”

When he’s rid of that father of his dragging him down, he thought ungraciously, and he saw Lan Qiren bob his head in a sharp nod of unspoken agreement.

“All right,” he said. “I’m adequately fortified now. Tell me about Huaisang.”

Lan Qiren gave him a look of profound sympathy.

It wasn’t until much later, during the Sunshot Campaign, that it was first called to his attention – by Jiang Cheng himself, oddly enough.

“Why do you keep doing that?” he hissed, having stayed behind after one of their meetings.

Nie Mingjue blinked at him. “Doing – what?”

“You – you said – about me…!”

Nie Mingjue tried to recall what he’d said during the meeting just now. “That you – were doing an excellent job while facing much higher level of obstacles than everyone else?” he hazarded, because he had said something like that. “Or was it the bit about how if any of them had needed to rebuild their sect and fight at the same time, we’d all be doomed because they couldn’t multitask for shit?”

Yeah, it was probably that one.

“I didn’t mean any offense by referencing what happened to your sect,” he said, hoping to explain. “It was only –”

“I didn’t take offense,” Jiang Cheng mumbled. “It’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine, but – it happened, everyone knows that it happened, not talking about it isn’t going to make it not have happened. That’s not what I meant…why do you keep saying such nice things about me?”

Nie Mingjue blinked at him. “Because they’re true?”

Jiang Cheng’s cheeks flushed red. “You’ve always said nice things about me. Ever since I was a little kid – every time you saw me, at the discussion conferences, or the Cloud Recesses, or even in your letters to my father…”

He had in fact done that.

“I just want to know why. Is it – my father’s not around, you can’t be doing it just to piss him off, even though I know that was part of it. Why me?”

Nie Mingjue coughed a little, having not realized that Jiang Cheng had noticed. Or possibly even overheard, in regards to the Cloud Recesses. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of the other person’s child,” he said, and Jiang Cheng nodded his head sharply, clearly thinking of Wei Wuxian. “You’re Huaisang’s.”

“Me?” Jiang Cheng seemed unduly vulnerable when he asked. “You compare him – to me?”

“It’s amazing he tolerated you at the Cloud Recesses,” Nie Mingjue said with a sigh. In fact, his brother had all but declared war on Jiang Cheng in absentia on account of all Nie Mingjue’s comments, only for his first letter home from the Cloud Recesses that year to be I see why you like him! He’s cute! A perfect match for you! because he’d apparently decided that Nie Mingjue had a crush on the boy.

Which he certainly hadn’t – at least not when he’d been that age, anyway. Jiang Cheng had grown up to embody every single one of the compliments Nie Mingjue had paid him when he’d been younger, especially with the maturity and natural aura of command that came to him after his personal tragedy.

“But why…you knew Wei Wuxian about as well as you knew me.”

Nie Mingjue snorted. “And that would have helped Huaisang how, exactly? If I wanted to compare him with someone who picked things up the first time they saw it, I wouldn’t need to go outside the Nie sect for that – I was also considered a genius when I was young. It’s no failing to be born without a vast and unending natural talent; Huaisang’s issue has always been his unwillingness to put in the effort.”

Jiang Cheng stared at him.

“Anyway, your father was so blinded by his adoration for Wei Wuxian that he overlooked your merits, which are different but no less impressive,” Nie Mingjue added. “As someone who was trying to figure out how to raise a child, it irritated me; I thought someone ought to make it clear to you that you were seen.”

“Yes,” Jiang Cheng said, his voice strangely hoarse. “Yes, you – you succeeded.”

He paused for a moment, meeting Nie Mingjue’s eyes intently, and then abruptly said, “I’ll be leaving,” and dashed out.

Nie Mingjue wasn’t entirely sure if that meant he should stop or not. Jiang Cheng had said he wasn’t offended…anyway, it was a fixed habit by now. He’d been doing it for over half his life! He couldn’t stop that easily! It would be like trying to stop his temper, or a charge – there was nothing for it.

Jiang Cheng would just have to live with a few compliments.

“Wow, you’re an idiot,” Nie Huaisang said when he told him about the incident, months later while he was lying in bed, recovering from the disaster that had been the end of the war. “I’ll fix this.”

“Fix what?”

“I’m going to tell him you’re dying,” Nie Huaisang decided.

“You’re going to do what?!”

“Stay in bed, da-ge! Doctor’s orders!”

The Nie sect chief doctor was an extremely terrifying person. Nie Mingjue stayed in bed.

Some time later, Jiang Cheng stormed in, face pale.

“Huaisang’s a rotten liar and I’m going to be fine,” Nie Mingjue said at once.

Jiang Cheng stopped mid-storm, and abruptly deflated. “Really?”

“Really. I would’ve stopped him, but I’m stuck in bed for the moment.”

Jiang Cheng took a seat next to him. “That sounds serious. You shouldn’t underestimate war wounds, especially given your sect’s tendency towards qi deviations...”

“Compassionate as well,” Nie Mingjue teased. “I’ll have to add that to the rotation of compliments.”

Jiang Cheng flushed red. “You’re…planning on continuing?”

“For the rest of my life, however short it might be,” Nie Mingjue said, because he was an honest person, even when it was inconvenient. He was going to explain about the habit, and the concept of stopping mid-charge, but he didn’t manage to start before Jiang Cheng grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up into a kiss.

After that, he figured that maybe explaining that part of it wasn’t necessary. He might be slow on the uptake, but he wasn’t actually stupid.

#mdzs #nie mingjue #jiang cheng #jiang fengmian #lan qiren #nie huaisang #my fic #my fics #compliments

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featherfur · 3 years

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I’m going to try and make sense with this so bear with me: I think a lot of untapped angst potential in fic is the reality of Jiang Cheng being the older one now and visibly more mature because Wei Wuxian died at 20? 19? And he wasn’t exactly maturing in the ghost realm during that considering he doesn’t remember it. Now he’s definitely matured via trauma but that’s not the same thing. And now they’re 16x on the wrong wave length.

Under the read more because uh, I go into detail

Now put Jiang Cheng in the same room as Wei Wuxian and they’re both 12, atleast in the beginning. But Jiang Cheng had his previously homicidal insane brother show up right next to his nephew after insulting his mom (who’s death he inadvertently led too) so JC (for me atleast) can be forgiven a bit for not being happy and wanting to kick his ass and thinking he may still be insane because an Okay Wei Wuxian Would Not Insult Shijie or His Nephew. Especially since JC not only didn’t tell the entire world that his brother was back, left him with Jin Ling, only yelled at him a bit and scared him via dog and— (I’m going to shut up here because that isn’t my point but man I could go on). JC had a lot of issues and he yells at Wei Wuxian to the point one wants to offer him a cough drop.

But post Temple JC? Who watched him walk away sadly and knows that Wei Wuxian is no longer unstable and thinks he doesn’t want to be his brother anymore? That’s so much wonderful angst because that means Wei Wuxian will not be greeted by Jiang Cheng his Shidi anymore.

He will be met with Sect Leader Jiang who clawed his way up from nothing but a baby in his right, a stack of spreadsheets on his left and the most feral disciples around that he has to protect. This Sect Leader who doesn’t have time to go around hunting Wei Wuxian down to harass him. Sect Leader Jiang who barely even greets Wei Wuxian when he visits because he has shit to do. He has audits and taxes and those damn merchants are complaining, he has to up the wages of the seamstresses that make the robes of his sect with so many protection talismans and find a way to convince Sect Leader Ouyang to stop fine-ing the caravans that deliver the goods. He has to organize the celebrations and make sure everyone’s safe during flooding season. That’s not even counting how he has to train and monitor his disciples and night hunts and the political hellscape!

But Wei Wuxian!! He doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know everything that Jiang Cheng has been taking care of or that he’s just seriously that busy. He thinks he’s being ignored and pushed away and mocked when Jiang Cheng walks by with a quick “Master Wei” and runs off! Because how could Jiang Cheng treat him like that when Wei Wuxian is clearly trying to reconnect. Every offer of night hunting his declined unless it was planned then already and when they do get together Jiang Cheng ignores him! Why is Wei Wuxian even trying!? What’s the point of Jiang Cheng can’t stand him but why can’t he stop trying either??

Meanwhile during those hunts Jiang Cheng is trying to keep an eye on his brother, his twelve disciples, Jin Ling and his entourage, Wei Wuxian’s Lan ducklings, that random Ouyang kid who apparently imprinted on Jin Ling, figure out what they’re hunting, mentally running the math for the cost of the inns for all of them, going through each of the attending Jiang disciples’ personal likes and deciding on whether to buy their favorite snacks or something else as a ‘thank you for not dying’ as has become accidental custom, trying to figure out if it’s weird to get Jin Ling and his friends something nice (CLEARLY he has to get the Ouyang kid something, he apparently has no other friends considering how often he’s just hanging around Lotus pier whenever Jin Ling swings by), and trying to think of he has any other disciples night hunting within a 50 mile radius he should fly out to check on before he sleeps!

Clearly Wei Wuxian just doesn’t care about the Jiang sect and wants to just be annoying but Jiang Cheng is busy! Cant he see that Jiang Cheng is only available on Mondays and Tuesdays during the odd months and Wednesday through Saturday on the even? It’s very clear when Jiang Cheng has time! Why can’t his brother just respect that not everyone has the free time to do whatever the hell they want? Is he flaunting it?!? How dare he!

It’s a giant mess and it only gets worse because Jiang Cheng is diplomatic, he knows how to bow his head when he’s overpowered (though he rarely is nowadays) or when the outcome isn’t worth it. So he doesn’t want to start a fight with Lan Wangji and from there the entire Lan Sect! He’s been holding his tongue for years he can keep doing it, especially if his brother’s happiness is on the line. He can ignore Lan Wangji being rude, he can ignore the dark looks, hell if he thinks Wei Wuxian’s position is threatened at the LAN’s he’ll even play real fucking nice so that Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen won’t do anything to his brother. He did it for Yanli he’ll do it now. (Also added bonus of now Sizhui has started to warm up to him and so he has to be extra polite so his new nephew doesn’t hate him and his free nephew [Jingyi] doesn’t light a building on fire in revenge for someone looking at Hanguang-Jun wrong). He might have snapped at Hanguang-Jun when shit was going down but now Lan Xichen is in seclusion and Jiang Cheng can’t piss odd Lan Wangji no matter how much he wants to chuck a beehive at his head

But Wei Wuxian doesn’t it take it that way! He just sees his brother suddenly calling him Master Wei and won’t interact with him during meetings or before or after and he’s acting so cold towards Lan Zhan! He’s staring right through his brother in law and keeps acting like he doesn’t exist and the only time in the last month Jiang Cheng sought him out was!! To ask!! If he!! COULD HIRE WEI WUXIAN?!? NOT EVEN TO SAY HI OR CHECK ON HIM OR FINALLY ANSWER HIS LETTERS BUT TO ASK HIM TO CREATE TALISMANS FOR THEIR CLOTHES! (Of course he said yes though because hey money and it’s actually fun chatting with the seamstresses) but that’s all his shidi cares about?? What Wei Wuxian can do for him? He doesn’t care about Wei Wuxian at all! Why does Jiang Cheng keep hating him, he thought they were atleast neutral but he keeps going further and further away!!! Wei Wuxian is hurting and his little brother wants nothing to do with him!

Neither of them are IN the wrong but they’re both wrong.

It takes until someone, probably Lan Xichen or Nie Huiasang, points out that “Wei Wuxian… He’s not your shidi anymore, he’s your Sect Leader well a Sect Leader… he’s a Sect Leader to one of the biggest Sects, he’s busy it’s tax season. I wouldn’t want to interact with anyone either.”

Meanwhile Jin Ling or a random slightly more insane then the rest Jiang disciple interrupts Jiang Cheng’s lunch to go “Okay you’re making this worse on literally everyone, Wei Wuxian is clearly trying to make this work why are you being mean? He’s trying!” (Or much more polite for the disciple)

They have to meet up and actually talk things through and honestly *that* only works because Lan Xichen grabs them both by their metaphorical ears and sits them down because “I would like my brother in law, both of them, to stop crying to me because they can’t talk. So now we’re going to learn to communicate and if either of you makes this weird I WILL just start fluting my way out of it and you’ll feel bad.” (Actually he just sits them down together while and he and Jiang Cheng have to go over payments for the next batch of trades and Wei Wuxian passes out on Jiang Cheng halfway through and when he wakes up he swears to never bother him on a work day because that was the worst moment of his life and they end up repairing enough to start the trek to being brothers again

#jiang cheng #the untamed #wei Wuxian #Jiang sect #fic material #MDZS

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canary3d-obsessed · 4 years

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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 07 part two

(Masterpost)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Lantern Lighting

Now we have the famous lantern scene, where everybody gets to express their character and have dates, ranging from disastrous to delightful, with the objects of their affection.

Wei Wuxian continues to be ridiculously good at drawing.

We’ve all seen Lan Wangji’s lovely first smile in the show a million times, so...let’s look at it again!

This scene is important not just because of the smile, but because there’s a distinct shift in the way they talk about their growing relationship. In the pond, it was “come visit me” and “never!” “I want to be your friend” “No need.” Basically Lan Wangji firmly saying no to Wei Wuxian’s offers of friendship.

This time, Wei Wuxian says “let’s do this together” and Lan Wangji says “I’m used to being alone,” which is not actually a No, just an explanation. And WWX says, you can change that. And then Lan Wangji DOES change it, sharing the lantern and the promise with Wei Wuxian.

Whoever painted this flower is even better than Wei Wuxian at plein air painting.

(more after the cut!)

Everybody’s wishes

Nie Huasang makes a practical wish. Wen Qing prays for her brother and Jiang Cheng notices how she’s like Yanli. Jiang Cheng isn’t very intense about Wen Qing, which could be a sign of his shyness but could also be a sign of his gayness or aceness. After all, later in life he’s an apparently wealthy clan leader who is hot as fuck, and needs an heir, since his nephew is a Jin. But he’s still not married, 16 years after breaking up with and uh, helping to kill and cremate, the girl he liked in summer school.

The Promise We Made Together

Wei Wuxian makes an ultra-idealistic wish/promise while Lan Wangji watches and falls the rest of the way in love with him, and silently makes the same pledge inside his head. Later they will each refer to this as a promise they made together, which is a really super high level of face-reading by Wei Wuxian, to understand that he really is speaking for both of them here. While making this promise, Lan Wangji brings out his Yin Iron Magic Bag and waves it around in front of everyone, but nobody notices.

Let’s take a moment to consider *why* this moment is so powerful for Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji is a boy whose emotions are always on the boil. He’s 100% upset all the time, at this age, and he keeps it clamped down all the time. His cultivation level is probably as high as it is partly because of all the work he does in emotion regulation. (note: if you haven’t read all the meta at @howpeacefulislwj , go read it; it’s awesome and hilarious)

Wei Wuxian doesn’t GAF about emotion regulation; he just expresses what he feels, all the damn time.

He is openly bored, lusty, playful, hungry, whiny. He straight up tells Lan Wangji “you’re boring and you have a stick up your ass” as part of saying he wants to be friends; no deference and also no falseness.

And he can see right through Lan Wangji’s reserve, barging into his loneliness and isolation without any regard for all of his wards. Wards are made to be broken.

(Unrelated note: Young Lan Wangji's rare moments of contentment seem to come from looking at something beautiful--the moon, falling petals, these lanterns, his mirror.)

But Wei Wuxian is also good. Lan Wangji desperately wants to be good. And here’s Wei Wuxian embodying this awful, amazing, tempting alternative path, in which all the interesting things in life get explored thoroughly, all the sweetness and beauty gets consumed unreservedly, all the pain and ugliness gets confronted and endured without hesitation.

In this moment, Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji “you can change,” and then offers up this prayer/promise that is just pure chivarly, speaking straight to Lan Wangji’s heart. Very simply, I want to spend my life doing right. Not 3500 rules; just one.

This infuriating boy, who breaks rules and who flirts indiscriminately and who pushes and pushes and pushes, reveals himself in this moment to be a hero at the beginning of his journey, and Lan Wangji sees it, and his heart goes right over the cliff.

The Girls’ Room

The girl cultivators all rush over to Yanli to get in her business about her betrothal, inspiring Jin Zixuan to act like a jerk to her and get even further onto Wei Wuxian’s bad side.

Talk Shit, Get Hit

Yanli’s wish was that Wei Wuxian would grow up and be good. He promptly launches his own personal Sunshot campaign, punching her fiancee so hard that the sun falls out of the sky and the previously well-lit scene transitions to full night.

So, in English, “don’t mention it again” is really mild, akin to “I don’t want to talk about it.” Wei Wuxian’s reaction makes it seem like Jin Zixuan said something really shitty, like “don’t you dare mention that woman to me!” So I’m assuming something is being lost in translation.

Lan Wangji tries to calm him down. He grabs Wei Wuxian’s sexy arm muscle and basically holds it until the Jiangs exit the scene.

Nie Huaisang has placed himself between the opposing factions, which is unusually direct of him. In the future he’ll stick to being an unindicted co-conspirator when Wei Wuxian starts trouble.

Ants in my Pants

Lan Wangji thinks kneeling can make Wei Wuxian cry, which is adorable of him.

He really relishes this opportunity to be a pedantic tool to his new boyfriend that annoying boy he hardly ever touches, and it really doesn’t work out for him, poor lamb.

Jiang Fengmian stops by to show exactly how deep his affection for Wei Wuxian runs, and to give him whiplash from constantly changing parental expectations. In a couple of hours he’ll be laughing over WWX & JC’s hijinks.

Wei Wuxian takes this opportunity to fantasize about bad things happening to the other boy in the fight, which is in no way foreshadowing of anything.

Douche Dads Conference

We now convene this meeting of the douchebag council. Jiang Cheng is also invited even though he’s a prick, not a douche. <--important distinction

This is our first time meeting Clan Leader Jin Guangshan. He's actually the most sensible and best parent in this scene, but his smug self-satisfaction hints at his true nature. This actor, Shen Xiaohai, has been active in cdramas for a long while now. I wonder what he looked like 15 years ago?

...Holy mother of god.

Jiang Fengmian is the worst dad and the worst husband here. His clan believes in letting children do what they want - uhh YOUR child wants to marry Jin Zixuan. “I wrote a letter to her mother, who arranged this marriage.” Uhhh she arranged for her sickly, low-cultivation-level, sweet and vulnerable child to marry the heir of a rich and powerful clan, with a powerful mother-in-law who’s looking forward to loving and protecting her. Basically she’s guaranteed her daughter’s safety and comfort, and even potential happiness, since her husband may learn to appreciate her (and in fact, does, thanks to soup and repeated beatings from WWX).

Mom worked hard and probably spent a fair amount of social capital to achieve this. And you’re going to toss that aside because the boy thinks he’s too good for her? What the everloving fuck, how are you a clan leader in the first place?

You can see that Jiang Cheng understands all of this and what a terrible choice his father is making here.

So do the other adults in the room.

Jin Guangshen: our wives are going to kill us

Lan Qiren: I'm looking at a couple of dead men

Jiang Fengmian pointedly won’t listen to Jiang Cheng or let him speak, showing that all his talk about being free is actually bullshit, that only applies to other people’s children.

Jiang Chang vaults off of the deck to tell Wei Wuxian about it. Hottt

Sorry Sis

Wei Wuxian goes to Jiang Yanli to sorta-apologize and sorta ask to be let off the hook for fucking up her engagement, which he absolutely did. He knows it, which is presumably why he bows to her in paperman form while hiding outside.

At no time has Jiang Yanli indicated to anyone that she doesn’t want to marry Jin Zixuan, as far as I can see, or said she wanted to be defended from insults with punching. Look how good SHE is at defending a person from insults, for comparison.

Yin Iron Blah Blah Blah

The senior Lans meet with Jiang Fengmian to talk about the Yawn Yin Iron. Yawn.

Jiang Fengmian addresses Lan Xichen as Lan Gongzi, which is adorable, since he is a big boy to everyone else. His family calls him Xichen and other people call him Zewu-Jun.

Farewell and Fuck You

The three Jiang kids come to say goodbye.

Lan Quiren says goodbye with a heap of criticism for Wei Wuxian and the horse he rode in on, and Jiang Fengmian basically says, yep, that’s what he’s like, all right.

Good thing Wei Ying gets so much verbal abuse at home he doesn’t take it very hard when he finds it in the field.

Wangji doesn’t say goodbye properly, which will be a recurring theme for the two of them.

I don’t know if this is because he has a problem with goodbyes, or is just being a jerk, or because he’s so bad at lying he doesn’t dare talk to Wei Wuxian lest he reveal his travel plans.

Indulgent Dad Continues to be the Worst

Jiang Cheng complains at Wei Wuxian for wanting to say goodbye to Lan Wangji, and WWX says he likes him because he is equal to WWX in fighting, whereas JC sucks. JC hits him tries to hit him--gosh, he DOES suck, comparatively.

Yanli, who has been keeping these boys in line all summer, sighs deeply at her Dad’s tolerance for their hijinks. OP has five brothers and this sibling-hijinks behavior is 100% accurate, except for the part where it is happening at someone else’s house in front of the hosts.

WWX pretending to be Lan Qiren where Lan Wangji can see him doing it, in front of Lan Qiren’s colleague and supposed friend, and just earning a laugh from the patriarch? Good lord. Dad Jiang tolerating this is shocking, particularly in the in-show culture where corporal punishment is as common as tea.

We’ve tried Nothing, and we’re all out of ideas!

Uggghh why are you like this?

Here in the real world, OP uses “positive discipline” with her child, and encourages other parents to consider it, particularly if your child is neuroatypical or asynchronous. That said, JF should be punishing the crap out of both boys for this behavior every time it happens, or should quit being a clan leader. He’s relying on Jiang Yanli to keep them in line while he gets to just be amused by them. And he’s letting Lan Qiren discipline Wei Wuxian instead of doing it himself. He suuuuuuucks.

Lan Wangji watches all of this. Lan Xichen reminds Lan Wangji that without Wei Wuxian, he’s completely fucking miserable. Lan Wangji still doesn’t plan to bring him along on his trip, though.

Time to return to our lives of crushing loneliness

Rabbits

At this same moment when Lan Wangji is staring down the barrel of future loneliness, Wei Wuxian is already deciding to leave the (forbidden) rabbits in Cloud Recesses “In case Lan Zhan gets lonely.” This small decision by Wei Wuxian - breaking the rules of Cloud Recesses for the millionth time - is kinder than he knows. Because what is the job of these rabbits? Let’s have a desaturated flashback.

Lan Zhan spent 3 years in the ice cave. The rabbits kept Lan Yi company in the ice cave. So...did the rabbits sneak in to keep Lan Wangji company in the ice cave as well? I’m going to say yes. By ep 43 they are following him to the gate of Cloud Recesses so they are very attached to him. Well done, Wei Ying.

Where my bitches at? Seriously, our warren needs bitches

(Is Watership Down still a thing people read? If not, just go ahead and assume all of OP’s rabbit jokes are about Watership Down because OP ain’t going to stop making them)

While Wei Wuxian annoys the bunny he has a flashback to the scene that happened 4 minutes earlier. The Untamed editors assume the viewership has the attention span of a goldfish, and I personally appreciate that they understand me so well.

Wei Wuxian figures out that Lan Wangji is going on the road alone, and tells the bunny immediately. The bunny is very concerned.

Writing Prompt: What do next-generation cultivators Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi wish for at lantern-lighting time?

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #wangxian #the untamed gifs #cdrama #chen qing ling #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs #the untamed spoilers

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postmodernmulticoloredcloak · 3 years

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I decided to watch the Walker pilot so you don’t have to. #2

Because I don’t love myself enough, I guess. Let’s continue.

Recap in case you missed the first part: it’s boring, Jared acts like he stumbled on the set and never heard about it before, Texan law enforcement must wear very pristine shirts and cowboy hats or they will die, I guess, the cinematography wants to be good but I’m not sure it knows how to do it.

The last thing I mentioned in the first post was Jared doing a thing with his mouth but I think you need to see it. It’s basically the extent of Jared’s acting in this show. I had nothing against you, man, I swear. I even got your autograph once. I’m not a hater. I’m just looking at him...

THE TITLE CARD! I had paused the episode riiight before the title card. You have to witness it in all its embarrassing glory

Whose idea was it??

Some shots of the city of Austin. Walker and Martinez (Mexican Lady Cop) are having lunch. She says she’s heard about him, he asks what she’s learnt, she says, I textuallty quote, “I hear you are the edge of the coin”. Again, we are not allowed to have any kind of slight metaphor without the dialogue slapping us in the face with it.

“Not head or tail, just... your way” Jared didn’t even come up with the metaphor in that interview, it was in the script. Unless he came up with that line, which isn’t even a good line.

She basically tells him not to get in the way of her career. Being a Mexican-American cop is hard! Such deep commentary.

They start discussing the case, which I had already forgotten about. The cop who was slightly assaulted and won’t talk about it. “Maybe whatever was in that truck spooked him enough to abandon his oath” maybe it was a monster. god I wish it was a monster so that’d mean I’m watching Supernatural and Jensen is in it. The “oath” thing is kinda icky, like they want to remind us that being a cop is a noble path. It is in some places under some conditions. But we’re talking about Generic American conditions.

He’s like “let’s use the traffic cams to see if we can see something” and he slips right into his Sam tone. Admittedly that’s a Sam kind of thing to say.

It was day, and now it’s night. Walker house. He arrives when his family have already started dinner. Except the daughter isn’t there, she’s out with a friend. “Isabel, some Mexican girl” Walker’s father calls the friend. “Mexican American, dad” the gay brother corrects him, a deep and interesting commentary on ethnicity in the United States, we’re weeping with emotion.

Walker apparently isn’t happy that his mother has enrolled his daughter in a Catholic school, his father snaps back at him. We don’t care. We’re not emotionally invested in any of this.

There’s some awkward dialogue because he mentions the daughter playing basketball, but she’s switched to soccer. Wow, it’s like she’s become an entirely different person in those eleven months he was undercover! Can you believe? Apparently she used to play soccer before, she’s come back to it. Whoa. She’s an utterly unrecognizable person now, it’s going to be so hard for Walker to get to know her again from scratch. Can you believe?

Then he gets a call. He needs to pick up the daughter from the police station. He does some Jared awkward faces and leaves.

The daughter (Stella) was at a party and was arrested for possession. I miss when possession meant demonic possession. Dramatic music plays. She’s there with the Mexican American friend, whose parents arrive and he starts a speech on how they should get to know each other better. It is so not the right context to start making friends. “Epic first meeting” Isabel says. “I’m so sorry, this is so embarrassing” Stella says. “For who?” Walker quips, like a normal person does.

He’s like, let’s go, and the girls hug, which is the only believable expression of affection I’ve seen so far in the episode. Can’t the story be about Stella and Isabel?

Father-daughter conversation in the truck. Apparently we have emotional moments in cars, which we have never seen on television before.

He asks what she was thinking, she’s like, duh what do people use drugs for. She calls him out for disappearing completely. She mentions how it was bad enough that they didn’t have mom. He says “we both got to stop acting like she’s gonna come back and put us right” which makes absolutely zero sense. It’s like someone wrote it on a note for how to develop the characters and they just decided to slap it into the script of the pilot. Remember these people haven’t seen each other for eleven months, he left shortly after his wife died. They didn’t have the time to process the grief together, why is he even saying that line here?

Meanwhile Martinez get home and we meet her boyfriend, a very cute Black man. They’re cute. Why can’t the story be about them?

He asks her about Walker, she says he’s a mess. Oh god. She says he was a Marine, “signed after 9/11”. Holy shit. He’s a Marine who signed up after asdfghjkl can’t you feel the Manly Trauma here????

He’s a Marine who signed up to fight Muslims after 9/11 and now has a dead wife, he’s exactly the kind of male lead character we need right now.

She says she’s trying to figure him out. Her boyfriend is like “dude stop thinking about that guy, he’s not at home trying to figure you out” and she replies “oh I’m pretty sure he thinks he knows everything about me already”.

This is the first scene that hasn’t felt bad so far.

Meanwhile Jared and his brother go to a bar. It’s very ~Texas Aesthetic~, and they’re wearing cowboy hats, of course. You are not allowed to go to a bar without a cowboy hat in Texas. “The brothers Walker” the flannel-shirt-clad bartender says, coming with drinks. Jensen Ackles makes a face somewhere in the mountains.

The brother goes to call his partner and the bartender starts chatting with Walker. She has a conversation with Jared’s awkward faces and she’s like, I guess you left because I couldn’t answer your questions about what happened yo your wife. This is how people converse in real life.

She asks him if he’s alright and he doesn’t answer, instead is like “let’s have a dance”. He doesn’t say he’s fine, but I think it still counts as a I’m Fine Lie Moment #2 because that’s what it is in spirit.

I know you’re bored, I’m bored.

They dance in the Texan bar, I’m distracted by the pool tables and wish this was Supernatural so we’d see Jensen Ackles play pool.

Obviously the dance is interrupted by work - a text from Ramirez who says she’s got something, “office 8am?” so he leaves because he has to wake up early. I’m not kidding.

I was kind of warmed over by Ramirez and her cute boyfriend and by the bar who was kind of nice as a location, when the next scene at the office immediately starts with Ramirez saying “My mom wouldn’t let me play with dolls when I was a kid, so Iearned about cars instead”. I die a little inside. It’s the second time she’s referred to her mother wanting a son...? So she’s badass because she wasn’t raised to be feminine...? Ew.

So they have this lead thanks to her knowledge of cars. They go investigate. I’m bored.

I shouldn’t have said I was bored, because Walker destroys my boredom by having Jared pick up a cross and start talking to “JC” sarcastically asking him for guidance about his kids going to the Catholic school. “Can you stop” Ramirez says, along with all of us.

By the way they’re in a workshop run by an ex-convict who employs former criminals to make figurines (like that cross). I got a bad feeling about this. Former criminal in cop shows is always code for current criminal.

The investigation leads to two guys who work in the store - “oh I know you,” one immediately says when he spots Walker, “you’re the ranger with the dead wife”. Walker is like, what did you say. And the guy is like oh I heard the story of a ranger’s wife biting a bullet near the border, guess you couldn’t protect her uh~~~

They exchange more provocations - Walker calls him some lowlife something and the guy goes to punch him and Walker beats him up. Violently. I’m uncomfortable. We’re supposed to think he’s exaggerating here but... he does get very violent and should not be a cop. Period.

They go to Ramirez’ house because he cut his hand. Her boyfriend is like “baby there’s a dude bleeding on your couch” I want a season of him, exclusively him.

She scolds Walker. Not because he beat up a guy with more force than needed, but because he acted stupid and that’s bad for her career. I’m uncomfortable.

Also, what’s bad is that they’re supposed to work *together*. He says he has his own way of doing things. Yikes yikes yikes.

She says that her theory is that they put them together because he always break the rules. Apparently she read up his cases and he always break the rules. The main character of the show is a cop who break the rules in half the cases he works. Yikes yikes yikes but also did I mention yikes?

No, wait, he acknowledges that he “bends” the rules, like that’s better! Yikes!

More bad dialogue, then Stella’s school calls him. She hasn’t been at school.

He goes to ask Isabel’s mother, who reveals they haven’t their papers yet, so any criminal activity would mean deportation. He talks about it with Ramirez and mentions that his brother who’s a DA could get in contact with the Feds to speed up the papers. Are we supposed to be like “oh what a good guy”? The thing is just creepy to me.

Well, at least Ramirez says something about it, or actually quotes her mother who used to say that the law doesn’t protect us. That’s why she ~burned bridges~ with her family! Apparently because she became a cop.

Ow. Her mother is not speaking to her because for her, her daughter being a cop is like a betrayal. But for her it’s a way to set things right! We’re supposed to think her mother is exaggerated. #notallcops #individualgoodcopscanchangethesystemfromtheinsideforsuredefinitely

Meanwhile their investigation continues. Remember the cross Walker randomly picked up to mock the concept of Jesus? Ramirez stole it. And now they find out there’s heroin in it. Alright... obviously the business that was supposed to rehabilitate former criminals is a cover for cartel drug dealing. What were we expecting. I’m tired.

Ramirez decides to work the case alone and sends Walker to look for his daughter. “I was that kid once, I always wanted to be found”. The impression you get from the scene is that Walker had forgotten about his daughter missing lol. Ramirez insists he goes. I’m uncomfortable with how many times people put on cowboy hats. Someone should count. We’re only 30 minutes in and it feels like it’s happened 80 times.

Alright, a break now! My laptop’s ventilation is running like crazy, VLC and long tumblr drafts are a bad combination. Or maybe it’s just my laptop being allergic to this show.

#cw's jared: legit texan #marghe watches walker for some darned reason

138 notes · View notes

guqin-and-flute · 4 years

Note

How have you done this to me AGAIN??? But seriously if we consider JC + Song Lan, then Yet Again our purple angery boy is someone's second choice, and seriously he's used to it by now it hardly stings anymore. BUT! If Xiao Xingchen COMES BACK (and don't tell me he can't this show is all about rebirths and we're well out of canon now) then lil grape gets the added bonus of "Oh good, someone I care for is leaving me Yet Again for their TRUE love." But THEN what if XXC and SL both /stay/?

You dare say this to me when you go and make it a compelling trio?! It’s that damn rarepair juice!! And I would never argue an ending that let Xiao Xingchen be happy. Cue handwaving and necromancy, I dunno, we’d make it work.

I think Xiao Xingchen would need...a breather and a minute to decide what exactly he wanted to do (and it’s nice that Lotus Pier would be a safe place for him to do that). I mean, that man had his entire world view shattered, like, 10 different ways til Sunday and he and Song Lan never got a chance to make things right before they both d i e d. (I think they would also have to reckon with the fact that Xiao Xingchen just...straight up did not want to exist, at the end, there. It would be a. long. time.)

I think SongXiao would need to figure out who they were together (meanwhile, Jiang Cheng is p a n i c k i n g and Song Lan is having a crisis) and they would have to decide if they want to go wandering again. (My personal vote is, yes, after a lot of healing and long nights of communication, they would want to get out there and be helping people again because that’s who they are and what they value).

HOWEVER. During this ‘finding themselves’ phase, Xiao Xingchen is getting to know Jiang Cheng as well, hearing about everything that happened and how he has been treating Song Lan so well and I think that would endear Jiang Cheng to him right off the bat. And what a perfect lil’ bottle fic where the 3 of them are just having little heart-to-heart healing moments all over Lotus Pier--Jiang Cheng and Song Lan have worked out a sign language system that not only allows Song Lan to communicate more efficiently, but allows them to sneakily talk shit at cultivator meetings down by their sides. Song Lan spelling into Xiao Xingchen’s palm to teach him. Xiao Xingchen practicing with Jiang Cheng who gruffly corrects him with hands that he desperately hopes aren’t sweaty.

Quiet dinners where they find out what makes each other laugh because god knows they need some of that. (Song Lan is the hardest, Xiao Xingchen is the easiest--though not as easy as it once was). Dealing with nightmares. Aaaall the nightmares. Xiao Xingchen trying to go nighthunting again for the first time with them and having a panic attack the first time Shanghua reacts to a fierce corpse--a real corpse, they tell him, they can make sure. Song Lan flinching whenever anyone touches his head. Jiang Cheng having night terrors about the burning of Lotus Pier, of the Battle at the Nightless City, about things that haven’t happened to Jin Ling but he can’t shake the terror of.

Oo, if you wanted to, you could even go the longer route of them not realizing how much they all mean to each other when they decide to go out as rogue cultivators again. When Song Lan tries to bring it up, Jiang Cheng is prickly and cold because, deep down, he knew this would happen--a better choice would come along, the person he was actually in love with, the actual first choice and how could he compare? He never could before. And so he insists, no, it’s fine. It’s where he’s happiest, right? Out there. With him. Away. So it’s fine. No, actually, I insist, you should go. Go. You need to go. Leave.

And Song Lan is like ‘you know I’m not going forever, right?’ and Jiang Cheng is just ‘[flatly, 40 yard stare] sure, I know, yeah.’ And Song Lan tries to make him understand like, ‘no, I’m not leaving, this is just traveling for nighthunts but we’ll be back’. And Jiang Cheng is just. Not having it. He doesn’t break it off or anything, but for him, it’s pretty clear it’s over and he’s not just jealous of Xiao Xingchen but he’s also really hurt that he’s leaving too and what the fuck is up with that? But Jiang Cheng talks about feelings with NO MAN and so he sees them off at the door, and all the while they’re both like, ‘we’ll see you soon, okay? before the next festival, probably even next month or something’ and Jiang Cheng is just ‘yeah. sure. bye. bye. bye. bye.’

Boy, are they all shocked when they turn up a week later with both Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen going, ‘UMMM WE HAVE GRAVELY MISCALCULATED A FEW THINGS, HERE’ and Jiang Cheng is coping with the idea that they actually, uh, came back? when they drop the bombshell that Xiao Xingchen also loves him and that’s kind of wild? Because Jiang Cheng kind of realized that about 3 days after they left as well. It was a weird night for all of them and they had started heading home right after. (Home, thinks Jiang Cheng, they said home?? AHHH--)

Hey, bring back A-Qing cause we’re already raising people from the dead and I said so? That’s a whole-ass family you’ve got there.

110 notes · View notes

spicykoreantatertots · 3 years

Text

Camp Blue Side - Part Two

Pairing: Jung Hoseok x Reader

Genre: Summer Camp AU, Non Idol AU

Rating: 18+ (eventual smut)

Word Count: 3.2k

Warnings: Swearing, angst, (more in future parts)

Summary: Last summer, sparks flew between you and Hoseok. He had an unforgettable smile, and you were putty in his hands. By the end of the summer, promises were made and you shared your phone number. But he never called. This summer, you're back at camp with a vengeance. Ghosted or not, you're ready for some friendly competition. He may be a Camp Blue Side veteran, but you won't back down.

Notes: This fic has been updated and is now part of the Summer of Love Collab! Please join us as we finish summer strong with seven summer themed fics!

Summer of Love Masterlist

Beta Readers: @thesoftsoobin

Banner: @sunshinejunghoseokie

Camp Blue Side - Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four

~~~~~~~

The staff parking lot is filled with cars and this year’s counselors are celebrating each other’s arrival. Each time a new car pulls up, usually honking loudly, the group cheers. Just about everyone has arrived already, Namjoon is fiddling with his clipboard and pen. Everyone should have been here by now.

Hoseok arrived about ten minutes ago. His beat up old mazda pulled up and you did your best not to look in his direction, only stealing a glance as he exited the car. The only way to describe that man is bright. Neon green shoes, rainbow tye-dye shirt, and his dazzling heart-shaped smile.

Somehow, he was even more beautiful than you remembered. You had spent the past school year hating him, but now he’s here, in the flesh, and you just want to feel his arms around you. You tore your eyes away from Hoseok, and you felt Seokjin’s hand on your shoulder. It grounded you back in reality.

As the final car, holding Jimin and Jungkook, pulls up, half-hearted cheers ring through the crowd. Not that you aren’t all excited to see Jimin and Jungkook, but no one likes to see an angry Namjoon.

“Hey! It’s Jimin’s fault, okay? I even got to his place early!” Jungkook jumps out of the car, hands held defensively in front of his body. Jimin, screaming his rebuttal from inside the car, is cut off by Namjoon’s announcement.

“Now that everyone is finally here, we will give cabin assignments and you can all get settled in before dinner.” Seokjin, standing a good two feet away from Namjoon, produces a clipboard from his backpack and begins listing off the cabin assignments. Two counselors of the same gender identity per cabin.

Of course, you already know who your cabin mate will be this year. You’ve learned a lot of privileged information by arriving early with Seokjin.

“Margo! Hey! We’re paired up this year in Cabin 2.” You whisper, not wanting to speak over your friend.

“Oh hey, that’s awesome! Let’s go!” Margo picks up one of her bags and you reach to grab the other. The two of you walk off to Cabin 2, making casual small talk about the past year away from Camp.

You were stoked to see a familiar name next to yours on the cabin list. Although you and Margo barely kept up with each other over the summer, you had gotten to know her quite well the year before. She was a first year counselor, and you were only a second year. You knew what it was like to feel alone, so you tried to take her under your wing and show her the ropes.

She ended up being a great person to talk to about your crush on Hoseok, and well now you have a lot of tea to spill.

“And he just... never called? Or texted?” Margo asks, eyes wide in disbelief.

“Nope.”

“But he’s here now.”

“Yep.”

“And you’re going to be competing against him in team competitions.”

“Exactly.” You share a devious smile.

“This is going to be an interesting summer, isn’t it?” Your cabin mate asks with a sigh.

“You bet your ass it is.”

~~~~~~~

After Margo got her belongings unpacked and stowed away, the two of you head to the Mess Hall for dinner and to catch up with your fellow counselors. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t nervous to see Hoseok and to have to explain to everyone why the two of you weren’t... together.

But it appears that Hoseok may already be handling that himself. A group of male counselors are sitting at a table where he is recounting some tale, and they are all listening intently.

You can’t quite make out what he is saying, but you spot Seokjin sitting at a different table with Yoongi and a young guy you don’t recognize. Must be Yeonjun, the new JC who will be co-leading Team One with Hoseok. You’ll be keeping an eye on him. Seokjin waves you over and Margo follows you.

“What has he been telling everyone?” You hiss at the guys when you sit.

“Well...” Seokjin starts and your heart begins to sink. You know that tone.

“He’s got a new girlfriend.” Yoongi says, ripping the bandaid off in one swift motion. It stings. “He’s been bragging about her to all the guys. She’s hot and they met at work, or something like that.” He adds.

“Ah.” You try to breathe through the feeling of your stomach dropping out, and Margo pats your bag gently. You spent the past year hoping he would call, processing the fact that he wasn’t going to, and burning with righteous fury. And now... you just want to cry.

But you can’t let anyone see you cry. Especially not here and not now. Hoseok may have hurt you, but you can’t let him know you’re in pain.

“Alright everyone, while we’re waiting on our dinner, let’s pair up in our activity groups and get to know each other a little better!” Namjoon announces and the room begins to buzz as everyone finds the people they would be working with this summer.

You look around for Margo’s twin brother, Mack. He is going to be your co-leader for Team Two this year.

“Hey Y/N!” Mack says, extending his hand for a fist bump.

“What’s up! You excited to crush Team Two and Team Three this year?” You may be over-enthusing to make sure you don’t seem... sad.

“Yeah! I’m sure you are too. Especially to beat Hoseok’s team.” Gulp.

“I do love some friendly competition, haha.” You reply dryly.

“Well aren’t you guys together?”

“Uh...” you pause, color draining from your face.

“Oh god. I’m so sorry. He was talking about some awesome girl he’s been dating. I only caught part of the conversation, I thought he was talking about you.” Mack, looking mortified, tries to explain himself.

“No, it’s okay. He ghosted me. I haven't heard from him since last summer.” You clarify. Mack looks so sorry he mentioned it.

“Well I guess we really do have to beat his team now, don’t we?” He says with a smirk.

While Mack makes some more small talk about the plan for the coming weeks, your eyes scan the room. Everyone is paired off in their little teams. Yoongi is with Xavier, his Music co-leader, Taehyung with his Arts & Crafts co-leader, but his eyes are across the room on the Lead Counselor in Training who is chatting with Namjoon and taking notes on her clipboard. You spot Hoseok all the way on the furthest side of the Mess Hall from you. He’s talking to Yeonjun, facing away from you and that feels intentional.

When the cook, Heather, steps out of the kitchen with a large sheet pan full of pizza, the counselors cheer. Then they immediately run to get in line, but before they can be served, Heather goes back into the kitchen.

“How are you doing?” Seokjin asks, lining up behind you.

“Fine, Jin. Just fine.”

“So, not fine, then?” He quips, laying a hand on your shoulder.

“He’s gotten ahead of the narrative.” You reply, but he gives you a puzzled look. “He’s already told everyone about a girl and now I just look... pathetic.”

“You’re not pathetic, Y/N.” Seokjin replies, giving your shoulder a pat.

Heather returns from the kitchen with a tray of side salads and a tray of desserts, a choice between a sugar cookie and chocolate pudding.

Unsurprisingly, you can see that Hoseok has secured a spot at the front of the line. Against your will, you watch him closely. He grabs his pizza, two slices, grabs a side salad, and reaches for a pudding cup. Something in your stomach twists, and you just want to get out of there.

“Hey, where are you going?” Seokjin asks, but you’re already out the door.

You try to hold back tears as you walk toward your cabin.

He used to give you his chocolate puddings. Who is he going to give it to now? Why would he pick it up if he doesn’t even like them.

When you make it back to the cabin, you throw yourself onto your bunk and let the tears flow into the pillow. Seeing Hoseok has been harder than you anticipated.

~~~~~~~

“Hey, Y/N, you okay?” Margo asks, tiptoeing into the cabin.

“Yeah, you should head back, isn’t everyone still hanging out?” You ask, bring your head up from the pillow. It’s dark outside already.

“Well, no. It’s kind of late. Did you eat anything?” She asks.

“Yeah, I had a protein bar.” You reply, but your stomach growls, as if to say, that wasn’t enough. Margo reaches into her bag and pulls out a package of oreos, holding it in your direction.

You cave, holding your palm open for a handful of the cookies. Your nearly empty stomach accepts the sweet treat and settles.

“Did everyone notice I left, they must think I’m so pathetic.” You pout.

“You wanna know what everyone noticed?” You nod in response to Margo’s question. “Everyone noticed that Hoseok left as soon as he realized you were gone.”

~~~~~~~

CPR training is a vital part of the yearly annual counselor training. Everyone needs to know how to resuscitate and potentially save the lives of the campers. Though it is a very serious topic, it’s hard to take the CPR dummies seriously. The faceless, limbless, lifeless dolls look very much like... blow up dolls.

“If I hear one more moan out of you guys I will dock your pay!” Namjoon shouts over the chorus of immaturity. Very suddenly, the room goes quiet, “I thought that might get your attention, now Seokjin, please continue with the demonstration.”

“Yes sir.” Seokjin replies, holding back a smirk.

He begins pumping the inanimate heart to the beat of a song and your eyes wander to Hoseok across the room. He’s giggling and whispering something to Yeonjun. Those boys will be fierce competition.

It’s something you thought about this morning on your run. As you were jogging on the wooded trail, you realized Mack was right, you have to do everything in your power to take Team One down. The fire of competition will get you through the sadness of Hoseok’s betrayal. And tonight, you’ll get your first shot at beating them in the game of glow in the dark capture the flag.

Standing from his kneeling position, Seokjin asks, “Alright, who is up next?”

~~~~~~~

The sun has set and the teams have been divided for a game of capture the flag. Hoseok ended up on Seokjin’s team, and although you wish you were on your friend’s team, you’re relieved you didn’t end up on Hoseok’s.

“Okay, Y/N, you’re a runner, I want you and Ryujin to be in charge of trying to get their flag. The rest of us will try to distract their team and protect our flag.” Namjoon orders in the huddle. The huddle breaks and everyone waits for the final ray of sunlight to fall behind the horizon.

“I’m nervous.” Ryujin whispers to you while you stretch your calves.

“Ah yeah, you probably should be.” You joke. “Listen, all you need to worry about is getting tagged. Just don’t let anyone touch you and do your best to stay hidden. If you get your hands on the flag, just sprint back to our base.”

“You make it sound easy.” She laughs.

Seokjin’s whistle sounds and you take off. Ryujin, poor girl, runs straight for the field between the two bases. A rookie mistake. You, however, have played this game before. You run to the trees on the side of the field to take cover and watch the game unfold.

It’s hard to see, but you can just make out Ryujin’s form running around the field dodging other bodies. It looks like so far your team is doing a good job of keeping the flag safe. Namjoon tackles a member of the other team and you decide to make a run for the other team’s base while everyone is distracted.

You can hear your heart beating in your ear as the blood rushes to your legs. You’ve almost run the whole distance of the field behind the trees when you hear something. Suddenly a pair of neon green shoes catches your eyes. Hoseok.

Holding your breath, you take cover, crouching behind a tree and hope to god that he doesn’t come over here. If he knew it was you, maybe he would spare you both the confrontation. You count to 60, slowly, and when he doesn’t come, you decide to stand up, intending to run for their base in a hail mary attempt to win.

But you’re cut short. Just a few feet away, Hoseok is standing, waiting. He doesn’t move at first, but after a few breaths, he takes a step, and another. You can finally make out his eyes in the darkness. It’s the first eye contact you’ve made so far.

There are no words shared between you. At this moment your mind is blank. Having your old summer fling within arms reach is overwhelming. You feel the pull to reach out to him. He’s eyes are looking directly into yours and for a moment it looks like he’s going to speak. But he stops himself, his brows furrow for a moment, and then, he runs.

~~~~~~~

After a long week of training, morning runs, avoiding Hoseok, and trying to figure out what happened between you and him during the capture the flag game, you are really looking forward to lake day. A day off from training before final camp preparations take place. The campers will be arriving in just two days.

You are one of the first ones to show up at the beach after lunch. You wasted no time changing into your bathing suit and slapping on some sunscreen. Jungkook and Jimin, the aquatic leaders, had already arrived as well.

Other counselors trickle in and you get to watch their interactions. It’s only been a few days, but everyone is already back into the Camp Blue Side swing of things.

The JCs all tend to head straight for the lake, while the older counselor’s chill on the beach. You’ve opted to sunbathe for a while before cooling off in the lake. You expect Seokjin will take a spot next to you when he arrives.

The LCT has found a spot on the sand with Yoongi and Taehyung, no surprises there. She’s delicately rubbing sunscreen on Taehyung’s back. When she finishes, Taehyung’s Arts & Crafts co leader calls him over and he puts sunscreen on her back. You’re pretty sure you can see steaming coming out of the LCT’s ears.

Someone lets out a joyful shout as they run from the edge of the beach all the way down the dock and jump into the lake. Hoseok.

“He really is still a camper at heart, isn’t he?” Seokjin asks as he sets his towel out next to yours.

“If you mean to say he’s a child, then I can agree with that.” You roll your eyes. He is horsing around in the water with the JCs, no wonder they all look up to him. Yeonjun, his co-leader, is trying to pull his head underwater, but Hoseok isn’t budging.

He hasn’t changed much and it takes you back to last summer. The campers would climb all over him during lake days, and he would let them. Once the two of you had become... a thing, you would always notice that he didn’t rub in the sunscreen on his nose. It became your responsibility to make sure the lotion was rubbed in all the way.

“Y/N, Jin! We need one more for volleyball!” Jimin’s invitation brings you back to reality. Seokjin consults you before claiming the spot. You follow him over to the net to watch the game. Hoseok is playing.

At first, you try not to watch him, but when the game gets going, Hoseok steps up his game. He serves, he sets, he dives, it’s hard not to watch him. You notice, toward the end of the game, that Hoseok has his signature white streak across his nose. He catches you looking, but instead of looking away, you point to your nose.

Hoseok, still looking at you, misses a ball that lands right next to him, losing the game for his team.

“Hoseok! What the hell man?” Jimin shouts, frustrated by Hoseok’s lack of attention.

“Sorry, sorry. I got... distracted.” Hoseok replies, picking up the volleyball. “Round two anyone?”

~~~~~~~

“All right campers, let’s give a big round of applause to Heather for cooking our dinner tonight!” Seokjin announces over the microphone. The children, hyped up on carbs from dinner, cheer loudly for the Camp chef. They all arrived just a few hours ago, descending on camp like a swarm of buzzing bees.

You’re a bit of a nervous wreck. For some god forsaken reason, you decided that you could volunteer to give a presentation at the camper orientation, and now you’re about to have to do that. Your notecards are organized and you rehearsed your talking points with Margo twice, but it doesn’t feel like enough when there are close to one hundred people in the audience.

“Okay, now that we’ve gone over the basic camp rules, let’s give it up for Y/N, the Team Two leader who will be discussing the team games!” Seokjin says cheerfully, stepping off the stage and handing the microphone over to you. This is it.

“Hey everyone! Who’s excited for the team games this year?” You ask, a big smile across your face. Of course everyone, counselor’s included, cheer loudly.

“Yeah, that's great to hear. I am also very excited. As you can tell I took a lot of notes to make sure I give you all the important info.” You joke, but there’s only a few scattered laughs. You have to tuck the microphone into your arm awkwardly so you can flip your note card over to find the right page.

“Oh well they’re out of order, so I guess...” You look out into the crowd of expectant faces. Some of the campers are already not paying attention, you’ve lost them. As always, Hoseok catches your eye. He can see you’re floundering already, and he smirks. He fucking smirks. “I’ll have to wing it.” You finish your thought and toss the notecards to the side.

You manage to get through it, even working a few jokes in here and there. And it seems like the kids are really pumped for the team activities and the competition.

“Okay, I think next up is Jungkook with some information about water activities and lake day!” The kids cheer, the girls squeal, all too excited for Jungkook to be on stage.

“Hey, that was pretty good Y/N!” Seokjin whispers as you step back down from the stage.

“You missed a few talking points though-” Namjoon’s critique is cut short.

“You were GREAT!” Seokjin reaffirms.

~~~~~~~

Hushed whispers can be heard in the cabin, but it’s the first night and you’re not going to try to enforce lights out. You would probably be struggling to fall asleep either way.

Your interactions with Hoseok thus far have been quite puzzling. He has been confusing, rude, and annoying, but what does it mean? You keep thinking about the look in his eye that night during capture the flag. You could feel a spark between you, but he almost looked pained. But he’s the one who caused your pain.

Maybe he’s just trying to get under your skin to make sure his team wins. Well tomorrow is day one of camp, and you’ll be damned if you let him win.

~~~~~~~

#Camp Blue Side

17 notes · View notes

crossdressingdeath · 3 years

Note

On WWX’s parents, when you think about it - almost all the Night Hunts we see in the series are pretty easily handled by the Cultivators. What Night Hunts on the series are dangerous? The first one is the arm - but the arm wasn’t what they were called for. They Lans were called in for walking corpses, which are considered barely a threat by cultivators. The arm was thrown into the mix by an outside force.

The Waterborne Abyss. The Waterborn Abyss was only dangerous because it was unexpected. It was pushed there by the Wen Sect, the Lan Sect had no idea they were dealing with anything more dangerous than Water Ghouls (which are so non-threatening, WWX mentions his main method of dealing with them is diving into water with them). And once they realized it was Waterborne Abyss they managed to seal it and manage it. The Goddess Statue? Yeah, it was dangerous, but only when people made wishes on it. And again, it was really only dangerous for the inexperienced cultivators - WWX was confident either LWJ or JC could handle it, since he tried to get the juniors to call them. He only stepped in when he realized help wouldn’t arrive in time.

The Tortoise of Slaughter wasn’t exactly a normal Night Hunt. The Wen Sect was the only ones who knew what was going on, the others were intentionally put in a dangerous situation where they used as fodder. The murder turtle wouldn’t have even been an issue since it was trapped in its cave and sleeping. Basically almost every dangerous Night Hunt was only dangerous due to outside interference. I suppose you could consider the Burial Mounds a Night Hunt location that wasn’t caused by interference. But if you wanted to be safe, it was as simple as not going there. That’s all you needed to be safe.

Obviously one could just choose not to go on any dangerous Night Hunts. At the end of the novel, MianMian takes her young daughter and non-cultivator husband with her on Night Hunts.

I’m not saying CSSR and WCZ were completely in the right, but I think they had a decent reason to believe they weren’t going to die. Most cultivators have a very good constitution, and can retain their youth through cultivation. Only the Nie Sect cultivators have any real concerns about health, but that doesn’t apply to either CSSR or WCZ.

Again, not trying to say that they shouldn’t have planned for their deaths. But I feel like there is something odd about their deaths, especially since you would think that they would take every precaution to be safe if they had a child. Especially since, compared to other characters with dead parents, we actually know very little about them and their deaths. LWJ’s parents backstories and deaths are covered, JC’s parents are shown in flashbacks, as are JL’s and JZX’s. Even JGY’s parents are covered! It’s just always been a little detail that’s stuck out to me.

...I feel the need to point out that the only night hunt we see where no one comes incredibly close to dying is the one that is a hoax? And the least dangerous of the night hunts we see are the ones that were given to juniors, not fully trained cultivators, and they still nearly died because of things happening that they didn’t expect? And there were a lot of fully trained cultivators at Dafan Mountain; it wasn’t just the juniors! LWJ is known to be an insanely good cultivator and JC travels with a posse of cultivators, both of their presences would do a lot of good that has nothing to do with the goddess statue only being a threat to inexperienced cultivators. If you need either a small army or a guy known for being better than literally anyone else to solve a situation then that situation is a pretty big problem!

As for the Waterborne Abyss only being a threat because it was unexpected... uh, no. We’re talking about a force that drowned who knows how many people and took years to clear up. All the cultivators could do was run and come back with a larger force. The Wens pushed it onto the Lans because it was too big a deal to handle quickly and easily! Also, water ghouls being manageable as individuals doesn’t mean the amount we see in the lake would have been easy to deal with? Sheer numbers would do a lot to make the fight harder! A large force of cultivators could handle them, sure, but we’re not talking about a large force with WWX’s parents; we’re talking about two people. And the Xuanwu not being an issue is, uh... This thing killed a lot of people. Thousands, if memory serves. And was never defeated. It went into hibernation, which suggests that it got itself into that cave to begin with; there’s no evidence it couldn’t have gotten itself out again, or that it wouldn’t have woken up on its own eventually. Hell, we don’t even know for sure that the cultivators did wake it up; it’s possible, if not likely, that they just had extremely poor timing. And uh... the Wens knew what was going on and still ended up having to run despite presumably having prepared for a serious fight, so clearly it’s not just a threat because of a lack of knowledge. Basically if your only explanation for why a night hunt isn’t a big deal is because “Well it wasn’t doing anything until people showed up” for situations that involve creatures that either have killed massive amounts of people or are currently in the process of growing stronger and will likely soon be powerful enough to kill people without people having to go to them... well, if the cultivation world worked on that logic I suspect it would very quickly get extremely dangerous. Also... it’s their job, is the thing. It is the job of cultivators to deal with things that are putting people in danger. They couldn’t just refuse to deal with the goddess statue because “Well if you just don’t make any wishes it’s fine”. They will be getting paid for this. And you can’t just leave something that could gain enough power to start doing things without human interference lying around in the hope that no one will unknowingly (or deliberately; desperation makes people do really unwise things) activate her again? Sure, they can just tell the common folk who are paying them “Eh as long as no one ever fucks up again you’ll be fine”, I’m sure that will go over just fine...

And I do have to say... you’re saying that night hunts are only dangerous when unexpected things happen and saying that you can just choose not to go on dangerous night hunts, here. So which is it? Do incredibly dangerous things sometimes happen without any prior warning and if you’re unprepared you’re fucked, or can you always choose to only go on safe night hunts? Not to mention that as rogue cultivators WCZ and CSSR would have to take whatever work was available; Mianmian can choose to turn down any fights that seem too dangerous or call in support (who would then take a cut of the payment, I imagine) because her merchant husband (who presumably is still working as a merchant) brings an alternate source of income to the table; if WCZ and CSSR refused to take work or called in help too often, they’d starve. This is a dangerous profession; we’re dealing with the big leagues in MDZS, cultivators too powerful to get killed by small night hunts and too important to risk their necks on large ones unless they choose to (which most don’t, and the only one we see going out despite the risks is, again, insanely powerful), but I don’t doubt for a second that lower rank cultivators die on night hunts all the time. Don’t forget that the people in real trouble from these unexpected dangers on otherwise seemingly pretty safe hunts are juniors; their training isn’t finished yet, they’re not getting sent on really dangerous night hunts because they aren’t ready. The night hunts we see with them, especially when they’re largely unsupervised with just a senior nearby in case things get out of hand, shouldn’t be super dangerous because they’re training, presumably teaching them how to handle a night hunt without just turning to the nearest senior for instructions. Those are the cases where the real danger comes from an outside source because the hunt they were expecting was specifically picked out as being manageable by partly trained teenagers.

Basically, at the end of the day... we see enough to know that things go wrong. Night hunting is as dangerous and unpredictable as any other profession that involves a lot of travelling and fighting. CSSR and WCZ could be the most powerful cultivators ever and only go on night hunts they were sure they could handle and still die due to a situation turning out to be more dangerous than they had planned for. A good constitution is not going to save you from being mauled by monsters, just make it harder for that to happen. There’s no reason to think there’s anything suspicious about their deaths; if there was I’d expect the story to... y’know, go into that? Bring it up as a possibility, at least. We never really see them in flashbacks or hear about them because a) the earliest flashbacks take place several years after their deaths, b) WWX (our viewpoint character) only has a couple memories of them, which we do see, and c) the only people around him who knew them refuse to talk about them for a variety of clear or easily guessed reasons. The way I see it they made no plans for what would happen to WWX if they died because they were short-sighted, and quite possibly still of an age where they were convinced they were immortal. You’d think they would make plans, but... well, you’d think a lot of people would act differently than they do in MDZS. You’d think two people with a young child would try to find a job that didn’t involve travelling around and fighting all the time! This isn’t a story about people making the exact right choice every time. Bad calls by the people in a situation don’t automatically make that situation suspicious. As far as we see in canon WCZ and CSSR died because a night hunt went wrong, as you yourself have pointed out they often seem to, and no plans were made for WWX’s future if they died because they were short-sighted. It’s an interesting headcanon to say that they might have been murdered, but... well, there’s no evidence and no one with any real motive. Maybe YZY if you squint, but if that’s the case it doesn’t make sense that she doesn’t kill WWX, who she clearly hates and wants gone. I don’t know, I don’t buy it.

#mdzs #cql #wei changze #cangse sanren #also is it canon or fanon that jfm found wwx in yiling?#i can't remember #if it's fanon obviously it doesn't matter but if it's canon clearly wcz and cssr weren't avoiding the burial mounds #anon #asks

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palaugranetes · 3 years

Text

🔵BLAUGRANETS🔴

Ansu: So how did that basket idea do? @Iñaki

Iñaki: I'm actually nervous. It's been 4 days.

Ansu: I mean NYE and holidays you know.. logically it would take a bit.

Iñaki: Yeah, probably.

Arnau: You'll be fine bro

Iñaki: I really just want this to be over. I am ready to move on.

Arnau: And you will

Iñaki: BUT WHEN

Ansu: May I make a suggestion?

Iñaki: Has me saying no ever stopped you?

Ansu: Not really.

Iñaki: Then why did you even ask?!

Ansu: I was being courteous.

Iñaki: Just spit it out

Arnau: There will be no spitting of any sorts.. not even in words do I want to see it.🚫🚫🚫🚫🚫

Ansu: You can always talk to someone to be a medium...

Iñaki: Like?

Ansu: Leo

Iñaki: 😦

Ansu: He can help.. talk to the Capi

Iñaki: about this trivial thing!? You crazy?!

Arnau: Ansu might have a point there

Ansu: I am always on point bro

Arnau: Sure thing sweetheart

Iñaki: Do you think it would help @Ronald?

Ansu: Trust me.

Iñaki: Kinda don't. You would still have been in this predicament had you not assisted him.. which, I gotta say, is not fair at all.

Ansu: I can't control Geri's actions. The ONLY one who can is Leo.

Ronald: "Iñaki: Do you think it would help @Ronald?" Why are you asking me?!

Iñaki: I trust your judgement the most out of all of these idiots.

Arnau: Hurtful!

Iñaki: yeah well the truth hurts.

Arnau: I don't like this Iñaki..

Iñaki: You and me both.

Arnau: We need to rid you of the Geri stress.

Iñaki: WHAT DO YOU THINK I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO DO THIS ENTIRE TIME.

Ansu: TALK. TO. LEO.

Carlitos: I did. He said that he will talk to him.

Ansu: ☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾

Iñaki: Oh God.. HOW

Carlitos: How what?

Iñaki: How did you talk to him?

Carlitos: I used my words?

Iñaki: 😒😒😒😒

Ansu: I keep telling you it's not that hard.

Iñaki: It's Leo.

Ansu: Yes Iñaki, we are aware of that.

Carlitos: So fingers crossed.

Ronald: "Iñaki: I trust your judgement the most out of all of these idiots." Fair enough.

Ronald: Curly told me he talked to Leo.

Iñaki: You knew?!

Ronald: You didn't!?

Ronald: So I guess wait for Leo's response.

Frenkie: Seems like we all knew???

Iñaki: WHAT!?

Pedri: I knew

Sergiño: Me too

JC: I did too

Iñaki: YOU'RE IN PORTUGAL!!!!

Francisco: I knew

Oscar: Same here

Iñaki: WTF

Carlitos: @Riqui you were right, he did freak out

Iñaki: I hate both of you so much.

Riqui: 😂

Riqui: But yes wait for Leo...

JC: I sent Leo a gift basket as well😏

Riqui: Good for you

JC: Gerard didn't send the basket back so I guess that's a good sign.

3 January 2021

Ansu: FRENKIE 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

JC: 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

Ansu: That pass from Leo though🤩😍

JC: GOAT.

..........

Ansu: Okay... can y'all just do something..

..........

Ansu: Well.. A Win is a win.

Ansu: @Pedri @Dembz @Pedri @Frenkie @Ronald @Oscar 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

............

Riqui: I'm gonna start a book. I'll read it during matches. Imagine 90 minutes of reading.

Carlitos: y'all .. I got something to say

Carlitos: But not now

Ronald: 🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️

Riqui: You okay their rizos?

Carlitos: Uh.. yes.

Riqui: Alright.

4 January 2021

Iñaki:Anything from Leo?

Carlitos: Nope

Iñaki: Sighs... Okay

Frenkie: Guys, especially @Carlitos , why do I keep hearing that you might be going to Getafe?!

Riqui: Ew

Pedri: I saw that as well

Carlitos: Because It umm.. kinda is true.

Frenkie: OH COME THE FUCK ON

Carlitos: 😩 I don't like it as much as you do

Frenkie: There?!

Riqui: 😩😩🙄

Carlitos: I know.. It will be for a few months

Riqui: I CANNOT WAIT FOR JANUARY 24

Frenkie: Getafe...

Carlitos: Yes.

Frenkie: Man... Best of luck there bud

Pedri: Sighs

Francisco: We'll miss you.

Oscar: All the best rizos..

Riqui: It is only a few more months It is only a few more months It is only a few more months It is only a few more months It is only a few more months It is only a few more months

Ronald: 😂

Arnau: Hopefully things go by smoothly.

6 January 2021

Oscar: Alexia!! Are you guys watching?

Arnau: I am.. Legends

Oscar: Indeed

Carlitos: Look at them slaying those Pericas

Oscar: 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

.......

Oscar: THAT GOAL!!

Riqui: Melanie is a legend! Wow!

Arnau: 🤯🤯

Carlitos: She deserves it.

Oscar: I am so happy they finally got to play at the Camp Nou!

---------------

Ansu: Best of luck dudes

.......

Ansu: OH COME ON!!!

Carlitos: 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

.......

Ansu: YOU BEAST @Pedri

Ansu: That whole play was so 🤤🤤🤤

Carlitos: Blondie you are on fire!

.......

Ansu: I am in tears... FIRE

JC: Boy you are killing it @Pedri

Carlitos: That was beautiful!

.......

Carlitos: Again with the illogic..

Ansu: I am surprised Marc has not punched anyone in this team yet.

Carlitos: 😂😂

------------

Riqui: I knew bringing a book with me was a good idea

Ansu: You actually did it??

Riqui: I did

Ansu: 😂😂😂😂😂

Iñaki: @Carlitos did Leo say anything by any chance? I forgot to ask earlier.

Carlitos: Oh yes... He said that he talked to Geri but it was pointless because his plan was already in effect...

Iñaki: Oh fuck

Ansu: Yikes

JC: But my gift basket...

Carlitos: I'm actually glad I am not there anymore if only for that reason.

Sergiño: JC is in Portugal.. how is you being in Madrid gonna stop him😂

Oscar: Very true😂😂

Arnau: Dude barely speaks but when he does.. he makes points😂😂

Carlitos: Why has @Dembz been so quiet?!

Dembz: I'm just reading..

Riqui: Yeah me too 😂

Dembz: I meant the chat

Riqui: oh

Frenkie: "Carlitos: Blondie you are on fire!" 💙❤💙❤

Pedri: Leo told me to tell you guys that he needs to talk to us tomorrow before training.

Riqui: Did he sound angry?

Francisco: Nope

Riqui: And you know how?

Pedri: He was there

Francisco: Yep

Oscar: Did he say why?

Pedri: Nope

Frenkie: Okay.

Iñaki: All of us?

Pedri: Yep all of us.

Oscar: Do you think he knows about this group?

Ronald: Very valid question

Riqui: He can't.. Can he?

Sergiño: 🤷🏽‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️

Dembz: Did anyone slip?

Frenkie: I don't think any of the adults know about this

Pedri: "Oscar: Do you think he knows about this group?" He knows

Riqui: 😳😳😳😳

Frenkie: HOly shit

Ronald: Do you think Luis told him?!

Francisco: Very possible

Pedri: Nope.

Dembz: Did you tell him?!

Pedri: Yep

Riqui: 😳😳😳😳

Pedri: IT'S LEO. HE ASKED. WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO SAY?!

Ansu: Fair point

Riqui: Is that why he wants to talk to us?!?!?

Pedri: I don't think so. JEEZ we will see tomorrow

Francisco: what is this an interrogation!?

Riqui: This is major!

Pedri: I mean...

Riqui: God if he says anything to Gerard about this.

Pedri: Highly doubt he will.

Francisco: Just ask him tomorrow

Pedri: Exactly

7 January 2021

Dembz: Y'all I just got a text from Gerard

Riqui: Oh fuck

Dembz: "Geri🌴: "What disappears as soon as you say its name?"

"Geri🌴: The first one to get his is the one most known for being the opposite of the answer to that riddle."

Carlitos: WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?

Frenkie: Silence

Carlitos: Why are you shushing me?!

Frenkie: No dummy that is the answer to the riddle.

Dembz: The opposite of the answer.. so someone who talks a lot?!

Frenkie: Or is loud.. annoying..

Arnau: THAT COULD BE LITERALLY ANY ONE OF THESE CLOWNS

Frenkie: Hey he said it..

Dembz: I feel it's gonna be JC

JC: HEY .. WOAH.. WHY ME!?

Ansu: Let's face it, you're the most annoying

JC: I liked you better when you were 17.

Oscar: I feel it will be Carlitos

Iñaki: Riqui

Ronald: So many options

Ansu: I say JC

Sergiño: I'm just glad I have nothing to do with this whole mess

Francisco: Indeed

Pedri: 🙄

Ansu: 😂

Riqui: 😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒 I hate you

Carlitos: I hope he gets you first @Iñaki

Iñaki: CAN HE?! PLEASE.. I actually want him to.. at least that way I will be put out of my misery!

Arnau: Nah.. It's gonna be either Riqui or Carles

Oscar: Fully agree

Ronald: Can't wait to find out

Pedri: so cruel

Frenkie: I'll say..

Oscar: It is what it is.

16 notes · View notes

bettydice · 4 years

Text

I didn’t expect you to be lonely (too)

Xicheng, Modern AU, JC&WWX reconciliation, E-Rated

[Read on AO3]

Chapter 4

Wednesday

Jiang Cheng spends the day after getting drunk with Nie Huaisang feeling weird. And not only because he’s slightly hungover.

Are they really friends again? Did things go back to where they were? Just like that?

In the afternoon, he messages Nie Huaisang that he’s overcome his hangover and thank you for the cocktails. He wants to say “Will we hang out again soon?”, but he’s scared Nie Huaisang will tell him no. Then he spends ten minutes staring at his phone with a hammering heart, waiting for Nie Huaisang to reply. He sees the message status change to “read”, then Nie Huaisang is “typing”. He holds his breath.

The message he receives is an incomprehensible string of emojis and “next time u pay, babe”.

Jiang Cheng closes his eyes, leans back in his chair and takes a deep breath.

They really are okay… just like that. Jiang Cheng definitely doesn’t deserve it to be this easy and he certainly doesn’t deserve the hope currently warming his heart. But what if…

For all that Jiang Cheng has blamed himself and hated himself this past year, has he ever truly looked at what it would mean if he really is the one who messed it all up? Because if he wants things to be better, if he wants to fix things… he has to do something about it. Nothing will change if he continues to feel sorry for himself and his shitty life.

The only person who ever told Jiang Cheng that Wei Wuxian doesn’t want him in his life was Jiang Cheng himself. And he’s been wrong about so many other things. So, maybe…

Following that line of thought is more than he can handle this shortly post-hangover and less than 24 hours before meeting Lan Xichen again. Also it’s a Wednesday. This seems more of a weekend thought exercise, and Wei Wuxian’s selfie today was taken by someone else, probably Lan Xichen’s unsmiling brother - so Jiang Cheng visits his sister and spends a few hours playing with his loud nephew. Jiang Yanli asks him about Lan Xichen, with a meaningful look Jiang Cheng ignores, but she only asks once.. He’s very grateful for that.

Thursday

Jiang Cheng takes the subway to Lan Xichen in a pretty good mood. While he did a lot of thinking yesterday, he decidedly did not think about his crush and whether he was going to do something about that. Even though Nie Huaisang encouraged him, this seems like a later-problem. Can’t he just enjoy Lan Xichen’s presence for now? He’s really looking forward to seeing him again. Hopefully he’ll get to see the bunnies, too. Though please, no pee-incident this time. Maybe he’ll be invited for dinner again? No, no, that was an exception. Two exceptions.

Lan Xichen opens the door for him, smiling, as usual, but today it’s a little strained.

“Jiang Wanyin, would you mind joining me in the living room? I made us some tea. There’s… there’s something I have to talk about with you.”

Oh, that sounds ominous. Jiang Cheng immediately tries to think of possible things he could’ve fucked up. Has Wei Wuxian said something and now Lan Xichen thinks he’s the worst and wants to stop their sessions? Is Jiang Cheng so tense he’s a completely lost cause? Oh fuck, did Lan Xichen notice Jiang Cheng has inappropriate feelings for him? That’s it, isn’t it???

Fuck. Fuck fuck.

They sit down in their usual seats. Jiang Cheng folds his hands in his lap. His palms are sweaty.

Lan Xichen really looks nervous now. Hands folded just like him, forehead slightly furrowed. Neither of them drinks their tea. Oh shit. He really knows.

“Jiang Wanyin… I’m so sorry.” Lan Xichen finally says after about a minute of excruciating silence. “I don’t quite know how to tell you. We… I… I think it would be best, if I stopped treating you. I’ll find someone else to take over, of course, finish all the sessions. I…”

“Oh.” Jiang Cheng knows he’s scowling, so he tries his best to put an expression on his face that doesn’t show any of the shock, disappointment, and embarrassment he feels. Of course Lan Xichen doesn’t want to see him anymore. Shit, why was he so obvious? It must've been so awkward for Lan Xichen, massaging him when…

“You must be confused. I..” Lan Xichen clears his throat and when he lifts his hand to cover his mouth, Jiang Cheng sees his fingers are shaking. “I’m so sorry, it’s so unprofessional of me…”

Wait, what? “Of you?”

“Sorry, I went about this all wrong. I had written it down and then… “ Lan Xichen folds his hands again. They’re still shaking. He looks… miserable. Jiang Cheng would like to hold his hands until he calms down. Which is probably exactly why Lan Xichen doesn’t want to continue their meetings.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to explain. Lan-laoshi, we can just… stop this, it’s okay. It’s my fault anyway.” Jiang Cheng forces a smile on his face. Maybe it’s better that way. He has enough things in his life that produce confusing feelings without adding a one-sided love affair to the mix.

“Your-? Oh no, you’re wonderful. Which is exactly why…” Lan Xichen takes a deep breath, closes his eyes for a second, then looks at Jiang Cheng, intently. “I am attracted to you.”

“What?” … What? Neither ‘wonderful’ nor ‘attracted’ are words that make sense addressed to Jiang Cheng. Definitely not when coming from the man across from him, who is undeniably both of those things.

“I’m so sorry, it’s horribly unprofessional. You’re obviously very attractive, but it’s more than just an acknowledgement of that… This has never happened to me before. Not that I want to make excuses.” Lan Xichen averts his eyes now, so Jiang Cheng doesn’t feel the need to control the shock and confusion settling in on his face, when he hears all this. “I’ll find you someone else as soon as possible, and-”

“I don’t want that.” Jiang Cheng still isn’t sure what the fuck is happening right now, but he is sure of that at least. He doesn’t want someone else.

Lan Xichen’s eyes snap back to him, just as confused as he is. “You don’t… oh. Yes, I will give your sister a refund, of course. But I still think you should continue massages and physical therapy… I would not want you to stop, just because I-”

“No, I meant I want to continue. With you.” Maybe it would be the smart thing to stop their sessions. It would certainly be the easy thing. But he also doesn’t want to be responsible for messing another thing up by saying something untrue or saying nothing at all.

“Excuse me?”

They’re staring at each other now. Jiang Cheng can feel a hot flush spreading over his face. A part of him thinks this is either a) a dream and Lan Xichen will very shortly tell him actually, no, he isn’t attracted to Jiang Cheng but to Wei Wuxian, who is sitting behind him and laughing, or b) some kind of elaborate prank. But… what if it isn’t? What was it Nie Huaisang said?

“Just go for it.”

“I don’t want someone else. I’m also attracted to you. If that doesn’t make you uncomfortable, there’s no need to stop. There’s no reason why anything has to change.” Jiang Cheng isn’t quite sure this counts as ‘going for it’, but it’s a first step, right? He confessed - right? His heart is trying to hammer its way out of his chest after all. He voiced his actual feelings. Fucking mortifying. But also exhilarating.

“You’re… “ Lan Xichen blinks once, twice. Opens his mouth, closes it again. Just keeps staring at Jiang Cheng, who is pretty sure he’s going to have a heart attack. “So… you want to just continue, like before?”

“Yes. If that’s alright with you.” Jiang Cheng’s throat is dry, all moisture probably went to his hands and armpits, but he doesn’t trust his hands to successfully hold the teacup right now.

“I… suppose so?” Lan Xichen seems to be horribly confused by this entire situation. Something they have in common.

“Should I go get undressed then?”

“What?” Lan Xichen sputters.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. What’s wrong with him??? “I mean - for the mud pack! Should I go… prepare?”

“Ah, of course.” Lan Xichen’s eyes widen a little and he shakes his head as if wanting to clear his head from whatever images entered his head when Jiang Cheng offered to undress himself. “I’m sorry. Yes, go ahead. I will be with you in a minute. Alright.”

They both get up at the same time and for a few seconds they just stand there, staring at each other some more. Jiang Cheng can feel something hysterical bubbling up in his throat - laughter, screaming, crying, who knows - and flees the room, before it can burst out of him.

What the fuck? What. The. Fuck??? What??? What. What!? Lan Xichen is attracted to him? No??? What! And now he knows Jiang Cheng thinks he’s hot and they’re… did they just agree to not do anything about it and continue things as though nothing’s changed? Is that what just happened? Is Lan Xichen now just going to wrap a shirtless Jiang Cheng up in hot mud and a towel and is he going to give him a massage after? Is he going to touch him with his fingers, while Jiang Cheng can replay ‘I am attracted to you’ in his head over and over again???

Fuck.

Jiang Cheng pulls his sweater and t-shirt over his head, then uses the towel already lying on the massage table to dry his armpits. He puts it back down, then stands next to the table, staring into space. Tries not to think of anything, because his brain is trying to tell him this is a good thing and the worst thing that’s ever happened, at the same time, and he’d rather not think at all. Is this actually happening?

The door opens and Lan Xichen enters, carrying the hot mud mat, so yes, it’s happening.

They smile awkwardly at each other when their eyes meet. Jiang Cheng lies down on the hot mud, lets himself get wrapped up. Lan Xichen hovers next to him for a few seconds, mouth open, clearly trying to think of something to say. But all that he says is “I’ll be back in about twenty minutes. Enjoy.” Then he leaves the room. Before Jiang Cheng has finished taking a deep breath, Lan Xichen enters the room again, says “Uh, the music, I’ll just - “, turns on the generic music, and leaves again.

The twenty minutes are torture. All Jiang Cheng can think about is that Lan Xichen is going to put his hands on his bare skin and that Lan Xichen knows he’s attracted to him. He really wants to call Nie Huaisang, needs someone to tell him what to do. But he’s wrapped up in a towel and can’t move.

So he just lays there, thinking about Lan Xichen. Lan Xichen, who is attracted to him. Who has very long, elegant fingers he’s about to use to touch Jiang Cheng with. Who looked so nervous, as though he did something wrong. Well, Jiang Cheng might argue that being attracted to him is not the smartest move, because he’s… him. Fuck. Maybe he should’ve just let Lan Xichen arrange for someone else to take over. But he didn’t just want to try this whole ‘verbalize your feelings’ and ‘going for it’ stuff, he also couldn’t stand the thought of Lan Xichen feeling bad about his attraction. He just wanted to soothe him somehow, make him feel better.

He’s not quite sure he succeeded at that. He definitely made things more awkward. Very, very awkward.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

How much time has passed? Has it already been twenty minutes? He’s not ready!

Fuck.

Shit, Lan Xichen is probably regretting saying anything right now. Being attracted to Jiang Cheng is one thing, but then hearing “yeah I think you’re hot, no biggie, now go give me a massage” is probably not the greatest feeling??? He really is… a fucking idiot.

This is why people never dated him. Well, one of many reasons. He's heard a few. The most memorable one being "You don't want to choke me. Maybe start smiling more, you shouldn't mislead people like that." Wei Wuxian had laughed for 5 minutes when he told him, confused. Then he'd ordered Jiang Cheng's favourite food (after his sister’s soup) and watched his favourite movie with him. He wonders what Wei Wuxian would say about this situation, about Jiang Cheng telling his crush to not worry about being attracted to him, it won’t make the massage awkward. He'd probably laugh, too.

The door opens and Lan Xichen enters the room again. Shit, shit, shit.

Jiang Cheng reluctantly opens his eyes when Lan Xichen touches his shoulder. Lan Xichen smiles at him, though it feels a little strained, doesn’t seem to come as naturally. Because Jiang Cheng has ruined everything.

While Lan Xichen carries away the clay mat, Jiang Cheng lies on the massage table, desperately trying to think of anything he could say to… well, what is it he wants to do? He wants to untangle this mess, so Lan Xichen can feel better. But how can he accomplish that?

“Alright. Let’s… massage.”

Jiang Cheng, eyes squeezed together, tenses up as soon as Lan Xichen stands behind him. Shortly after, he can smell the soothing fragrance of the massage oil.

Lan Xichen touches his skin.

What about him does he find attractive? It couldn’t have been the Jiang Cheng who had an emotional breakdown right here on this very massage table. Or the Jiang Cheng who was covered in bunny pee.

“You should… try to relax more.” Lan Xichen is quiet, can barely be heard over the music. “Jiang Wanyin, your hands…”

Oh, his hands are balled into fists. Jiang Cheng breathes out, flattens his hands and tries to… just think of nothing. He fails, because Lan Xichen moves his fingers up his neck, begins massaging his jaw and a stray thought enters Jiang Cheng: “Would he touch my face this gently if we kissed?”

Because Jiang Cheng is so occupied with fighting his indecent thoughts, it takes a while for him to notice Lan Xichen isn’t massaging him anymore. His hands are simply resting on Jiang Cheng’s shoulders.

“Lan-laoshi?” Jiang Cheng opens his eyes, even though he can’t see Lan Xichen like this.

“I’m sorry… but… would it be possible… could we talk a little more?”

“Oh, of course!” Jiang Cheng sits upright, then turns so his legs are dangling off the massage table. Lan Xichen is going to tell him now that this is too awkward after all and they should simply stop these sessions. Which is probably the smart thing to do.

Lan Xichen hands him his t-shirt and Jiang Cheng hastily pulls it over his head, while Lan Xichen grabs the stool from under the table, so he can sit down in front of Jiang Cheng. He seems to still be just as nervous as during their earlier talk. Hands clasped in his lap once more and whenever their eyes meet, Lan Xichen smiles weakly, then looks away again.

Jiang Cheng waits a few seconds for Lan Xichen to say something, but when he doesn’t, he takes the initiative. “I guess it wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had to just go back to business as usual. It must be really awkward for you.” He laughs, even though he really doesn’t feel like it.

Lan Xichen looks at him then, surprised. “Oh, no, that’s not… but I could feel how you tensed up. Clearly this… you’re uncomfortable. As for me, I suppose I’m just… a little confused?” Lan Xichen’s words sound like an apology, even though he really doesn’t have anything to apologise for.

“I’m not… well, I did tense up, but I’m not uncomfortable, not really… it’s more… ah… because it feels… good.” Jiang Cheng often feels like a fool, but right now he literally wants the massage table to become sentient and throw him out of the window. Did he just basically tell Lan Xichen that Jiang Cheng finds the massage arousing? His face feels hot and he wants to rip it off.

“Oh.” Lan Xichen blinks a few times while he processes this embarrassing statement. A slight flush appears high on his cheekbones, making him even prettier. “I see… Well, that’s good then!”

Is it!? Jiang Cheng stares at Lan Xichen, slightly incredulous. Lan Xichen smiles up at him, still flushed. So, on a scale of one to ten, how badly do you want to make out with him? Nie Huaisang’s voice suddenly appears in his head. Twelve, definitely a twelve.

“I think I’m just a little off-balance, because while I had considered possible outcomes of our conversation, it never occurred to me you’d feel similar.”

“How could I not be attracted to you!? I mean - “ Jiang Cheng bites his lip to swallow down the rest of his sentence. Can he not think before he says something for once?

“Oh, well, attraction works differently for everyone, doesn’t it? I would never presume...Also, for me it goes further than just appreciating your good looks.”

Lan Xichen says this earnestly, without embarrassment or humour. As though it’s a given Jiang Cheng is good looking.

“Uhm…” is what Jiang Cheng replies.

Luckily, Lan Xichen keeps talking. “So, I suppose I’d just like to know what you mean, when you say you’re attracted to me. Is it purely physical or…”

Lan Xichen does sound a little embarrassed now, so Jiang Cheng doesn’t check his words before they stumble out of his mouth, as he rushes to reassure him. “Oh, no, of course not! You’re obviously ridiculously attractive, but you’re also just so very… lovely. And you cooked for me. And your smile…”

Said smile is directed at him once again “That’s… that’s good to hear. Thank you.”

Jiang Cheng can’t help but return the smile, pleased that he somehow was able to reassure Lan Xichen. Even if it meant embarrassing himself.

Lan Xichen suddenly huffs a laugh and rubs his forehead. “Ah, I’m really sorry I sprang this on you so unexpectedly. Your time here is supposed to be relaxing - I’m afraid today was anything but, wasn’t it?”

Jiang Cheng does not feel relaxed at all, that much is true. But he does feel lighter, in a way. “Well, certainly unexpected, but not unwanted. Or… or unpleasant.”

Lan Xichen visibly relaxes and the smile he sends Jiang Cheng’s way once more is radiant. Jiang Cheng almost has to look away, because fuck, knowing Lan Xichen is attracted to him makes it even worse that he’s so hot. Jiang Cheng could probably kiss him. It’s not an unattainable day dream anymore.

Luckily, Lan Xichen distracts him by asking: “Jiang Wanyin, would you maybe be interested in meeting me in a different setting than this?”

“You want to go on a date with me?” Jiang Cheng blurts out, needing to confirm he heard this right.

“A date.” Lan Xichen cocks his head a little, thinking about it. Oh, so it’s not what he meant. “Yes. I think that would be nice. Would you want that?”

“Oh, yes. Sure. Definitely!” Jiang Cheng almost, almost gives Lan Xichen a thumbs-up. Thankfully, he’s able to suppress that urge. A date. Him and Lan Xichen. Dating. Jiang Cheng is really, really bad at dating. Abysmally so.

“Wonderful! How about tomorrow?”

Fuck. He needs more than one day to prepare for a date. A year wouldn’t be enough. But Lan Xichen looks so excited, Jiang Cheng can’t say no. “Tomorrow would be great!”

“When and where would you like to meet? Or I could come pick you up?”

Uuuuh… The only place Jiang Cheng can think of is the trendy lounge he went to with Nie Huaisang, and he’s pretty confident it wouldn’t be the right place for Lan Xichen. “Why don’t you pick a place? I’m fine with anything!”

“Oh… well, I’m… I don’t really know any suitable places, so I’ll just follow your lead.”

Jiang Cheng doesn’t know any places either! Fuck. But Lan Xichen’s eyes almost look pleading, so he really doesn’t have a choice. “Why don’t I, uhm, text you with the details tomorrow morning? We could meet in the afternoon - 4:30 p.m. maybe?”

“Sounds great. I’m looking forward to it!” Lan Xichen really sounds like he means it and Jiang Cheng is torn between wanting to just sit here and stare at this happy, smiling Lan Xichen for a few hours, feeling just as happy, and yearning for that sentient throw-happy massage table again, because Jiang Cheng and dating always ends in a disaster.

“Should we continue the massage then?” Lan Xichen suddenly asks.

“Uhm… yes?”

“Great! Why don’t you take off your shirt and lie down. Now that we’ve cleared everything up, you can just close your eyes and… enjoy.” Lan Xichen’s tone and smile aren’t suggestive at all, but there’s a glint of humour in his eyes that leaves Jiang Cheng feeling a little flushed.

Tomorrow is going to be interesting.

#the untamed #cql #mdzs #xicheng #jiang cheng #lan xichen #Jiang Cheng/Lan Xichen #Modern AU #To Meet You verse #betty drabbles

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elevenharringtons · 4 years

Text

Babysitting El pt. 1

Pairing: None (but leading into a bit of Steve x Reader)

Summary: Hopper, exasperated by having to deal with monsters invading Hawkins and having a teenage girl, has asked you to come babysit while he investigates for the night. Max shows up (unannounced, to you at least) and proposes a mall day to cheer everyone up. However, things don’t go as planned, and you find yourself an accomplice to Mike and El’s breakup.

Warnings: Profanity

Word Count: 3.3k

This is a two-parter! This part is based on El and Max’s shopping trip. It’s not exact, considering El was the one to seek Max out, but nonetheless, you’ll read some familiar scenarios. Just some good ol’ girl time and bonding over stupid boys. Part Two should be out sooner rather than later, considering all the time that has suddenly found itself on my doorstep. Stay safe out there, y’all.

***UPDATE: There will be a taglist for the second part, so if you’d like to be on it, let me know!

“I’ll be there.”

“If that Wheeler kid shows up here one more time-“

“Calm down! She’s a young woman now, she’s doing what she’s supposed to be doing” you say, twirling the yellowed telephone cable between your fingers. This is the third time this week that your uncle has called you upset that El was dating the second youngest Wheeler. Hopper hadn’t necessarily been on good terms with Mike, considering he found ways around Hopper’s rules, especially rules that were crafted for Eleven’s safety. Grumbling ensues on the other line.

“What time are you going to be here?”

“8 o’clock,” you reply almost confidently.

“Sharp?”

“8 o’clock...ish?” Hopper was good at seeing through your facades. Your mother was a pro at being fashionably late to things, a habit that you’re not too happy that you picked up. “You know it takes at least 15 minutes to get back to Hawkins, and then at least another 20 to remember which turn into the woods I have to take to find your cabin-“

“Save it. Just...promise me you’ll take care of this?” Hopper pleaded. You could hear someone rapping on the door in the background and assumed it was Mike trying to get back in to see El.

“I’ll do what I can. Bye, Uncle Hop.” You hear indistinct chatter on the line before it cuts to a dial tone and chuckle to yourself, continuing to pack a small overnight bag full of clothes and other essentials needed to ‘babysit’ Eleven. Hopper had to deal with a special assignment that you had specifically chosen not to ask him about, knowing it must be a continuation of the strange events that kept happening in Hawkins the past two years. Your mission was to stay with El until Hopper returned, however, now that El was a teenager, that was no easy task. Boys, best friends, and fighting intergalactic monsters had El in more directions than you remember when you were her age. Then again, you didn’t have to deal with the intergalactic monster part.

The morning drive wasn’t as bad as you thought it was going to be. Surprisingly, you remembered exactly where to turn into the woods to find Hopper’s cabin. The ground was wet from a rain storm the night before as you tried your best to maneuver your mom’s old Buick through the slippery terrain. El was standing outside on Hopper’s porch, her eyes lighting up for a quick second before diminishing again. She turned and headed back inside the cabin before you had the chance to get out of the car. Hopper met you at the door.

“What’s her deal?” You ask, closing the car door and moving to the trunk to grab your backpack.

“I, uh, may have had a hand in that,” Hopper replied.

“What’d you do”

“Joyce told me to have a talk with her and Mike, but instead, I told Mike that his grandmother was sick and that he should go be with her instead of with El,” Hopper couldn’t meet your stare. You laughed out loud.

“Seriously, Uncle Hop?”

“She doesn’t know!”

“And what made you think that was a good idea? What advice did Joyce give you that made you do that? Couldn’t have been that bad, it’s Joyce!” You’re leaning against the car door, arms crossed over your chest. You weren’t letting your uncle off that easy before he left you with a moody teenager.

“She just said to set some ground rules, to talk to them,”

“The three inch rule?” You quip.

“Well, El doesn’t always adhere to the three inch rule, that’s why I had to do something about it,” Hopper replied.

“So telling Mike Wheeler that his grandmother was sick even though she isn’t is how you’re handling this?”

“Why do you think you’re here?”

“Oh, so I’m the diffusion? She needs to be a teenager, Uncle Hop! Explore! Kiss a guy! Kiss a girl if she wants to! Fall in love! Get her heart broken! You were a teenager once, weren’t you?” You say. Out of the corner of your eye, El reappeared on the porch.

“Y/N?”

“Hi, El!” You smile and wave as El does the same. Hopper runs his hand over his face before leading you to the cabin. He grumbles under his breath as you walk.

“Look, just make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. No one can find her out here, it’s dangerous.”

“I’ve got it under control, Hopper. She won’t leave my sight,” You assure him as you walk up the stairs to wrap El in a hug. Hopper watched as the both of you headed inside the cabin before starting his truck up and driving away.

“So, Hopper has you on some…guidelines, huh?” You say once the door is closed, taking in the cabin. It wasn’t as messy as you would have guessed it to be, definitely not like the lake house that you had practically grown up in. You put your bag down on Hopper’s armchair before leaning against the couch, watching El as she paced around.

“Guidelines?” She asked.

“Oh, um, rules. Like how he won’t let you out past a certain hour?”

“Or how he doesn’t let Mike over,” El nervously played with her hands. She was still pacing, clearly worried that Mike had abandoned her.

“Hey,” you say softly. “He doesn’t hate Mike, you know? He just…isn’t ready for you to grow up yet.” El was trying to take in what you were saying, but a knock was at the door causing the both of you to jump. El looks to you for permission to open the door, which you grant. She gets up and crosses to the door, standing on tip toes to peer into the peephole.

“It’s Max,” El says, almost disappointed.

“You can let her in,” you say. The door swings open to reveal the fiery red head, who doesn’t stay outside long.

“Lucas dropped all of our plans today for some family thing he forgot last minute,” she says. “So I told him that we were on a break.”

“A break?” El asks.

“Yeah. Like not a break up but you want to break up? Kind of?” Max says. You stare wide eyed at the two of them.

“I’m sorry, you told Lucas you wanted to take a break because he had to do something with his family?” You ask.

“Look, he pulls this last minute shit all the time. He’s probably at home playing with his stupid walkie talkie or at Mike’s. It’s better to take a minute to show him that I’m mad by taking a break than to dump his ass altogether,” she plops herself into Hopper’s armchair and right on top of your stuff without missing a beat. El sits stiffly beside you on the couch.

“Mike’s grandmother is sick, so he’s probably not at Mike’s,” you say, trying to go along with Hopper’s false narrative as truthfully as you could. Max rolls her eyes.

“Sounds like some last minute bullshit to me.”

“Last minute,” El says thoughtfully. “Mike didn’t call this morning.”

“Then dump his ass,” Max says matter-of-factly. “He keeps you on the line way too much for you to keep putting up with that.”

“I don’t think it’s Mike’s fault,” you say under your breath. Max doesn’t hear you.

“Dump his ass?” El questions.

“He’s obviously hiding something from you. Don’t put up with it,” Max shrugs.

“Nobody’s dumping anyone. Look, you can’t just break someone’s heart because they can’t do something with you,” you say. You may not have a lot of experience in the dating department, but you also could recognize human mistakes from lies. Plus, you had your uncle’s fake storyline standing over your shoulder, so it was best that El not make any hasty decisions.

“I’m just saying, El, you could do a lot better,” Max says. “In the meantime, though, we should give you a makeover and show him what he’s missing. Let’s go to the mall!”

“Whoa, El’s not allowed out. You know that,” you say, standing now between El and Max’s line of vision.

“Hopper’s not here is he? Plus, you’re here. Nothing bad can happen if you’re with us,” Max retorts. She had a point. Having an adult around two teenagers in a mall cramped their style, automatically making them less of a target to the bad guys. Right?

“Technically, I’m not supposed to have you here,” you reply. Max rolled her eyes.

“Y/N, can we please go to the mall?” El asks. Her shimmering brown eyes are enough to make you cave. She knew just how to push your buttons.

“Fine,” you say, “but you guys can’t leave my sight.”

“Deal,” Max and El say together as they race outside to your car.

“I said don’t leave my sight!” You yell, running after them. How bad could this be?

**********

Two hours later and you’ve become the stereotypical pack-mule “boyfriend” to your two teenaged counterparts. Max had insisted El buy a new wardrobe to make Mike jealous, so her muddied shoes and ragged plaid shirt were stuffed in a tiny bag from The Gap while Max made El try on several brightly colored combos. Then, El wanted Glamour Shots, so you watched as her and Max put on oversized pearls and lavish feathered hats, posing ridiculously for the camera. You’d bought each of them a keychain sized version of their favorite picture, adding another bag to your hand. Max had careened into JC Penney without your knowledge, taking El with her through the winding racks of aerobics wear and puffy jacket vests. You managed to find them, though, because Max was trying on bright red sunglasses in the mirrors right next to the entrance.

“What did I tell you about running off?” You say. Before Max could protest, El had walked out in a black romper with neon shapes plastered all over it. She was stumbling around on two inch heels, her stark white socks making it obvious that she’d never worn anything else besides sneakers. However, the smile on her face distracted you from the fact that she could fall and break her ankle at any moment. She stopped to pose in the mirror before turning to you.

“What do you think, Y/N?”

“I think it’s a winner. You look beautiful, El,” you say, her grin growing wider. Chastising them for running off could be saved until later. Or until something actually~ happened.

“That’ll show those stupid boys not to mess with you!” Max exclaimed.

“Maybe not in those heels, though,” you say, choosing to ignore Max’s comment. Not that you were doubling back on your whole “give Mike another chance” mantra, just that you didn’t want to ruin El’s confidence. You motion for Max to help you get the heels off of El before slipping her new Nikes back on her feet.

“Can I wear this out instead?” El asks.

“And ditch those cute yellow suspenders?” You quip.

“Come on, Y/N!” Max joined in. “What’s another bag? Another swipe of the old Visa?”

“This is the last time I bring you out shopping,” you sigh, watching as the two girls squealed, jumping up and down like they were front row at a concert. Max agrees to gather El’s other outfit from the dressing room while you take El to the register to pay. Then, you’re off again into the bustle of the Starcourt Mall. As you’re walking out, though, you spy Mike and Lucas, along with Will Byers, stepping out of a jewelry store in a heated discussion. Max and El giggled beside you, blissfully unaware that you had just caught both of their “men” doing the exact opposite of what they should be. You silently curse Mike for being this stupid. You careen then girls onto the down escalator.

“Where are we going?” Max asks.

“I saw a food court downstairs. Figured we’d go refuel for a little bit,” you say, not entirely sure the girls would fall for it.

“Oooo, can we get ice cream?” Max replied.

Mission accomplished.

That was until you had taken your eye off them for two seconds after looking at the time on the big yellow clock in the center of the food court. Max had taken El by the hand and bounded down the escalator, into the sailor themed eatery, Scoops Ahoy. You pushed through a group of teenagers balancing ice cream cones, finding the two girls receiving ice cream from a brunette boy in a ridiculous bright blue uniform. You couldn’t shake the familiarity of his face, like something you had seen in dreams. It wasn’t until you were inside of the shop, shivering from the slight temperature change, and smelling the sweetness of the treats before the name had come to you.

“Thanks, Steve!” Max said as she and El grabbed a strawberry and vanilla cone from the boy’s hands, blissfully unaware of your presence as they enjoyed their treats.

Steve Harrington. A name you hadn’t heard since you were in grade school. You remember him being the troublemaker, the one who had stolen your new pack of crayons when you weren’t looking and the one who was every teacher’s nightmare. But you also remembered him being the sweetheart. The boy who stood up for you when Tommy H was making fun of your bangs in second grade. The boy who tried to kiss you on the cheek by the swings when no one was looking. The last time you saw Steve Harrington was when your parents’ moving van was careening carefully down Main Street as you all were moving cities once you completed fifth grade. Steve was riding his bike, stopping in front of Melvald’s General Store before locking it to a rack and walking inside. Since then, Steve had become a memory, someone who would appear every once in a while as a nameless face in a dream.

You stood speechless at the counter, his back turned to you as he cleaned the ice cream scoops before meeting his next customer. There was no way he was going to remember you, your mind was racing. Years of never even thinking of him and here you were a nervous wreck. And for what? Shaking thoughts from your head, you reached into your bag to pull out three dollars for the girls’ dessert. The sound of change clanging on the counter caused him to turn. Shit.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that. They come here all the time.”

You looked up to meet his brown eyes, hands still nervously reaching for the change that had fallen out of your hands. You watched as something in his mind clicked.

“Y/N?”

“That’s me,” you reply, shoving the money back into your bag, trying to avoid an awkward conversation that probably neither of you wanted. “Sorry that they ran in here like that.”

“Jesus, how long has it been? What brings you to town?” Guess he wanted an awkward conversation.

“Oh, my uncle, he, uh, wanted me to come watch El for him while he figures out…you know, normal Hawkins police stuff.” God, why are you like this??

“How long are you here?” Steve asked, catching you completely off guard.

“I mean, I only packed an overnight bag,” you say.

“Oh, cool,” Steve replies. The spark that was in his eyes when you’d first connected had vanished.

“But, uh, Hopper never said when he was coming back, so, maybe the weekend?” You tell him, watching the corner of his mouth curl into a smile.

“Would you maybe want to catch up sometime? Like, tonight after I get off?” Steve asks. You could feel your cheeks getting hot. It was your turn to smile now. Instinct struck, though, as you turned away from him and noticed El and Max were gone from the place that they were sitting not too long ago.

“Uh, yeah, sure. I have to…go. Because the girls are…yeah. I’ll come here tonight,” you ramble as you rush out the front towards the escalator.

“See you…later,” Steve called after you. You waved a hand as you bounded up the escalator past several angry mall-goers. You couldn’t even process that you were having a “date” with someone that you hadn’t seen since elementary school, someone that you subconsciously always thought about. If you couldn’t find El, though, it would be your ass. You could already hear Hopper yelling at you at length over the phone when you spot Max’s slender frame standing out front with a melting ice cream cone in her hand. She was watching something, hopefully something to do with El, but you couldn’t figure out why Max wasn’t standing right next to El. Then it hit you.

El found Mike.

You pushed through the front door as quietly as one could push through a heavy glass door. Max’s expression went from supportive to nervous wreck once she had laid eyes on you. The “why did you run out of my sight you dumb idiots” conversation could wait a few minutes. You heard Mike trying to come up with a good excuse as to why he was out at the mall with his friends when El’s quiet voice cut through the palpable tension.

“I dump your ass.”

Max chuckled, mouth agape in surprise. You tried to keep your composure, especially considering you had told the girls not to just dump the boys over “nothing”, but you were proud of El for sticking up for herself. Mike, Lucas, and Will were stoic as El turned dramatically, hair bouncing, arm linking with Max. You heard the boys mumble to themselves as you ushered the girls away from the mall and into your car. In the rearview mirror, you watched as Max gave El a high five, offering to switch ice cream cones with her.

“Don’t think I haven’t forgot that you all ran away from me,” you half-smile. Their faces fell. “I’m not mad.” You scramble to say, just to bring that little bit of happiness back to them.

“Look, we got ice cream and then caught two lying ass boys. It’s not our fault that we fell behind flirting with the sailor boy,” Max said under her breath, taking a bite of El’s ice cream. Your cheeks grew hotter than they were in Scoops Ahoy.

“I wasn’t flirting…”

“Oh, please, I had to sit through weeks of watching El flirt with Mike. I think I know what flirting is,” Max said.

“How did you even-“

“We were sitting in a booth practically behind you. Then El saw Mike and I had to chase after her. You’re welcome, by the way. I should get some of the money that Hopper is giving you for watching her.”

“First of all, I’m not getting paid. Second, thanks, I guess?” You shake your head. “Plus, my love life is not something we should be discussing right now. Didn’t you both just dump your boyfriends?”

“Boys are stupid,” El said matter-of-factly. She wasn’t wrong. Max gave El another high five as they switched ice cream cones again.

“So are you going on a date with Harrington or not?” Max asked.

“Yes, but-“

“Great! I’ll spend the night, and El and I will help you get ready,” she said. El nodded in response, too enticed by her ice cream to give verbal recognition.

“I thought you were against boys?” By now, you had turned down the pathway to Hopper’s cabin. You put the car in park, turning to look at the two girls in the back seat.

“Those boys. Helping you nab Harrington is a different story.” Max said, grabbing her JC Penney bag and bounding out of the car. You helped El carry all of her belongings into the cabin before plopping it into Hopper’s armchair.

“Makeover?” El asked once everyone was inside and settled.

“Oh, yeah,” Max replied. They each took your hands and led you to the bathroom.

What were you about to get into?

#stranger things #stranger things fic #steve harrington x reader #elmax #eleven #max mayfield #stranger things 3 #stranger things season 3 #stranger things imagines

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trensu · 4 years

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Episode 30: The One where LWJ Wishes Jin Zixun Would STFU and Die Already

Okay, so we’re still in Yiling

Non-wangxiantics stuff happens

Unimportant nonsense happens

Ooooh, jc just appeared, looking awesome in purple robes as usual

Turns out he’s helped jyl sneak away so she can show off her wedding robes to wwx!!! And we get some wonderful Yunmeng Sib time!! I LOVE MY YUNMENG SIBS SO MUCH

OMG

Wwx’s face when he sees her in her wedding robes

HIS EYES WELLED UP WITH TEARS. SHE LOOKS SO PRETTY.

Jyl: i’m getting married, i wanted to show you my wedding robes!

wwx:*choked up* yeah, i heard you were getting married…(he’s looks so emotional here omg)

Jc: who told you?!

(he says this all snappishly bc of course he does, this is jc we’re talking about)

Wwx: None of your business! *scowls*

LOL SO DEFENSIVE, WWX. what’s the matter?? You don’t want to tell your sibs about your recent date with lwj?? How you showed him your home??? hoW YOU DISCOVERED YOU WANTED TO CO-DAD CHILDREN WITH HIM????

Ah, brothers…

Jyl calms them down before they could get too into it tho bc she’s a good big sister and knows her little brothers well

Jyl: i came alone tho, so you can’t see the groom today

Wwx: *pouts* i don’t want to see the groom at all

I can’t get over the way wwx keeps looking at her. HE LOVES HIS SISTER SO MUCH. HE’S SO HAPPY FOR HER

Lol, both of them tell her how beautiful she looks and she’s all it doesn’t count when you guys say it bc you’re my little brothers and it’s my wedding so you have to be nice to me

So now we get the obligatory soup time with the yunmeng sibs

And AHHHHHH, JYL JUST ASKED WWX TO COME UP WITH A COURTESY NAME

And wwx is all, “for who???”

And jc says, for my future nephew!! And he looks so damn pleased and proud when he says it. JC WANTS TO BE AN UNCLE SO BAD me too jc, me too

Wwx: hmmm, well, the next generation for the jin clan is “ru” so how about jin rulan?

Jc: jin rulan? It sounds like the lan clan. Why should a kid of the jiang clan and jin clan be called “rulan”??

Omg jc sounds so offended here; chill out bro

Wwx: it’s not that bad if it’s from the lan clan all right? Lan means orchid, a gentry amongst flowers! ALSO MY SOULMATE IS FROM THE LAN CLAN SO THERE

Wwx sounded all sulky here, like RULAN IS A GREAT NAME, HOW DARE YOU

Jyl cuts in before there could be any bloodshed with, oh yeah, having you come up with the courtesy name was jc’s idea

The look jc gives her is one of utter betrayal like, why’d you have to go and tell him that? HE CAN’T KNOW I WAS BEING NICE TO HIM, GOD.

They all have much more sibling time together but since there’s no more wangxiantics we’re gonna skip over it (EVEN THO IT HURTS ME TO DO SO BC I LOVE MY YUNMENG SIBS AND I WANT TO SEE THEM HAPPY AND TOGETHER FOREVER)

We cut to the Burial Mounds where there’s a Wen family dinner going on

Wwx is all spacey bc he misses his sibs so much but manages to distract EVERYONE from it by making grand declarations and generally being an over-the-top Drama Bi.

WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS LET THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE YOU TAKE CARE OF YOU LET THEM TRY TO MAKE YOU HAPPY STOP MAKING YOURSELF MISERABLE OMG

A-Yuan time!

Wen ning saved some of jyl’s soup to give to a-yuan!

He gives a-yuan a taste of the soup and a-yuan’s all “delicious! One more spoon!”

And after wen ning gives him more, he’s like, ONE MORE SPOON!

PRECIOUS, HE’S PRECIOUS AND SO CUTE

Then we get some Sad Times in the Demon-Subdue Palace where wwx has the saddest series of flashbacks ever

the promise he made to JC (twin heroes of yunmeng!!) that he didn’t keep

and then the oath on the lantern (always stand with justice and live without regrets) which he half-keeps

and then his declaration in the rain with lwj (if i should be killed, let it be by you) which he will keep BUT WE’RE NOT GONNA THINK ABOUT THAT

HE’S SO SADDDDDD

I’M SO SADDDDDDDDDDDDD

THERE’S SADNESS EVERYWHERE

Gross, now we’re in lanling, fastforwarding through that nonsense

Now we’re back at the burial mounds and get more A-YUAN TIME!!

Uh oh, a-yuan just murdered a lotus sprout

He’s all, what’s this?? And yanks the poor thing out of the mudpit it was growing in

Wwx yells at him: WHAT ARE YOU DOING

And a-yuan starts crying and wwx looks like he wants to start bawling too

Wen qing kind of tells him off

a-yuan’s a little kid and doesn’t know better, she says

Wwx gets this defeated look about him and says it’s fine, i see that it’s not meant to be now

LIKE, HE’S JUST RESIGNED THAT HE CAN NEVER HAVE ANYTHING FROM HOME EVER AGAIN?

HE CAN’T EVEN HAVE ONE STUPID LOTUS PLANT BC OF COURSE HE CAN’T HE DOESN’T DESERVE IT

MY POOR PRECIOUS SUNSHINE BOY

After a little adorable convo with wen qing, a-yuan goes to comfort wwx in his cave

A-yuan: i’m sorry i made a mistake. Wq says if you miss your sister, you should go see her

Wwx: she’s so far away...i won’t go

A-yuan: hmmm, you should become a bird and fly over there!

AND THEN THEY PRETEND TO BE FLYING BIRDS AND IT’S SO CUTE

But wwx is still sad inside :(

Now we get a time skip!

~ONE YEAR LATER~

Wwx overhears a bunch of gossipy cultivators talking about how the jin clan is doing a one-month celebration of baby Jin Rulan!!

WWX IS OVERWHELMED WITH JOY

HIS EYES ARE ALL TEARY AGAIN

AND HE’S LIKE, DID YOU HEAR THAT WEN NING? MY SISTER HAD A BABY! I HAVE A NEPHEW!!

Wen Ning is a supportive bro so he’s all congratulations!!!

And then wwx gets all the happiness gets drained out of him when he remembers that he has no official ties to either clan so he’ll probably never get to see his nephew ever

We cut to Lanling, where i guess guests are arriving for the upcoming celebration

We don’t really care about any of these people

EXCEPT THAT ZEWU-JUN AND HANGUANG-JUN’S ARRIVAL IS ANNOUNCED

AND WE’RE GONNA LISTEN TO LWJ TALK ABOUT HIS BELOVED SOULMATE

Unfortunately he’s talking to asshole cousin jz, fuck that guy

Lwj: since all of his seniors are invited to the first-month celebration, wei ying should also be invited as he is the baby’s senior too

Lwj says this all respectfully, gaze steadily forward and not looking directly at anyone

Jz: you want us to invite wwx even tho he’s the enemy of all four clans??

JFC IF SOMEONE COULD’VE JUST KILLED THIS GUY WE COULD’VE AVOIDED AT LEAST A QUARTER OF THE PROBLEMS WE HAVE NOW

Lol, lwj glares at jz SO HARD the minute jz calls wwx the enemy; i’m surprised the asshole didn’t drop dead on the spot

Lwj: not an enemy.

Jz: not an enemy? Do you have such a shitty memory that you don’t remember what happened in qiongqi way? Do i need to remind you?

NO LWJ NEEDS YOU TO STFU

Also, HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO HANGUANG-JUN THAT WAY??

Lxc: what wangji said isn’t wrong. Wwx hasn’t caused any trouble since he took off to the burial mounds.

Jz: what, you’re taking the traitor’s side too zewu-jun?

You know, i was almost proud of lxc for finally siding with wwx and lwj

But the minute jz throws that accusation, you can see him start to pull back, WTF LXC

So now, since apparently having to deal with JZ wasn’t horrible enough, we get jgs and jgy on the scene, yuck

Jz gives them a summary of the conversation

Oh, i forgot to mention jzx has been here the whole time too but he’s basically useless bc he never shuts up his cousin

Jgy is all like, ah, hanguang-jun is being kind but perhaps inviting wwx is not the best idea ever

And jz is all well, I heard that he went to the burial mounds but no one knows why he went there!

Lwj: to visit an old friend

LWJ IS NOT ASHAMED OF VISITING WWX. HE DOESN’T CARE IF THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS HE WENT THERE TO VISIT HIS SOULMATE

Jz: an old friend?! Wwx is a ruthless killer! Everyone wants him dead! Why do you have a friend like him?

I HATE THIS GUY SO MUCH

Lwj: when did he kill ruthlessly? Please tell us exactly.

DAAAMMN, LOOK AT MY BOY GO!

Jzx finally cuts in here and shuts them both up

He approaches his dad and is like, yeah okay so wwx killed some of our guys before and he’s kind of rebellious or whatever but like hanguang-jun said, he hasn’t done anything wrong for a whole year!

Then he goes on to show us that he’s completely whipped for his wife (AS HE SHOULD BE) by saying, also, since wwx has seceded from the jiang clan, jyl hasn’t been able to see him and she still misses him very much!!

Jzx: it’s a good opportunity to bring him back

His asshole cousin is all, are you crazy??

WILL THIS GUY EVER SHUT UP, OH MY GOD.

But thankfully lxc puts in his two cents!

Lxc: jzx makes a good point. If wwx intends to change and return to the right path again, it’s a good thing!

Jgs starts droning on and on about stuff i don’t give a damn about and lwj throws him the dirtiest of looks the whole time lol

But he more or less agrees to let wwx come on the condition that he turns in Plot Device 2

And jgy is like, SWEET, we can write him a letter telling him he’s invited but he must come alone (BC THAT AIN’T SKETCHY AF) and then once he’s here we can tactfully request he give me, i mean, the jin clan Plot Device 2

Lwj was looking concerned basically the minute jgy started talking but here he chimes in

Lwj: what will you do if he refuses?

BC HE KNOWS WWX IS NOT GONNA HAND THAT THING OVER TO THE JIN CLAN BC THEY’RE A BUNCH OF SLIMY SKEEVY BASTARDS

Then jgy does that thing where he replies without actually answering the question

Jgy: hanguang-jun, why are you so pessimistic? Wwx is not evil or vicious! (FUCK YOU JGY, WE ALREADY KNOW HE’S NOT EVIL OR VICIOUS, NO THANKS TO YOU) i’m sure if we talk it out, he’ll be reasonable and make the right choice!

Oh, thankfully, lxc answers the question properly

Lxc: even if wwx disagrees, he can go back to the burial mounds as long as he promises not to kill any innocents

Which, wwx would definitely promise that bc he’s never killed an innocent person IN HIS LIFE

BC UNLIKE THE JIN CLAN BASTARDS HE HAS INTEGRITY AND A FULLY FUNCTIONING CONSCIENCE

Jgy: hanguang-jun, can we bother you with the errand of writing the letter?

LOL

Jgy says that and we immediately see lxc smile at his little brother

Like, heck yeah, bro you have the chance to talk to your soulmate now! (LXC is trying to win back his greatest wingman title lol)

Ofc lwj keeps his face blank, but he bows and says yes

BC HECK YEAH HE GETS TO DELIVER GOOD NEWS TO HIS SOULMATE

HE’LL BE ABLE TO MAKE WWX SMILE

OFC HE’S GONNA BE ALL OVER THAT!

And that’s the last of the wangxiantics for this episode. Not a lot of them this time around, and none with shared screen time

But you know what

That’s okay

Bc this shows that they’re always on each other’s minds EVEN AFTER A WHOLE YEAR APART!!

Return to Masterpost

#WangXiantics #wangxian #the untamed #cql

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naturaldisasterfanfiction · 4 years

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10.

I would say it’s been the first time where I have not walked out onto my balcony and watched the sun rise, I am actually in bed and just woke up. I thought I needed my sleep, today is a big day for me and it’s something different too, I am travelling with Robyn and I am feeling ever so excited, I have my barber coming over today so I better get out of bed. I actually slept in my bed, like the bed I don’t like to sleep in because I prefer to sleep once the drugs hit me to knock me out, I am not sure if I am living off adrenaline but I am excited. I am so excited to see Robyn, I miss her, wait that is bad. I mean I am there for the baby “shit” I said smiling to myself, I really got Rihanna pregnant, nobody would believe me but I wouldn’t tell anyone because it’s boss lady orders but I am so happy, I stayed out of the way, stayed upstairs, smoked my blunts and then guess what, god blessed me with Robyn’ number, she messages me on Instagram and was like my number, it’s been years since I have had her number. I saved it under R with a heart, you never know who is looking at my phone, I am so happy. I feel so emotional about it all, I am so happy. I just can’t wait to see Robyn, the fact she is allowing me in her circle, she is so protective of it all, she is holding her hand out to me, I am taking it and not thinking twice. I have always wanted to be with Robyn, the world never allows it. I fucked up though, when she became busy, I was busy fucking with other women but then when I realised she was leaving me it was too late, I was in a fucked up place and I wish I didn’t make that shit happen, we would be together still, and to this day I am laughing and shy with her. I just want to hold her; I love her so much and it’s crazy. I know she does too, when I think back, we were both crying but she composed herself so well, I hope she doesn’t let me down, her people can be cruel and they was cruel to us back then, it hurt but I am going to be a daddy, I am ever so happy. I mean I am a father of two, but this is special, incredibly special.

Dapping JC “my man, thank you for coming” I feel so refreshed to be honest sleeping in a bed “get rid of that, and any other shit. My daughter is coming” I pointed at the counter, Hoody just stared at me “it’s for you? It just got bought?” shaking my head “nah, don’t want it. Just get rid of it from my home. I am not going to ask twice, just do it” walking off “oh and also Keeis will be housesitting, I will be away too. JC I will be back” Robyn wants me to be better, I will be better and it will start from my home, I can do it, I know what I need to do but I just needed someone to do it for. I feel whole again, I know it’s like doing the most, but I feel so much joy in my heart, I am excited to see Robyn so much. I called Nia, told her to come with Royalty, it’s not my day but I just wanted to tell Royalty that I won’t be here for a few days and I will be back, I rather say it to her then my mom, I can only imagine my mom annoyance and I can’t be bothered to explain anything when Robyn has said tell nobody and I rather not, I feel like people won’t be happy for me like I think. I don’t want the negativity right now when I am feeling like this, in life and in my mental state I always got to have a goal and making Robyn happy is my goal which will make me happy, I just don’t need people talking shit because I will end up knocking someone the fuck out. I think even my family will say Rihanna again, move on because maybe I am crazy for her.

I feel my peers are concerned, they are watching me and don’t understand where I am going without anyone “you only had a cut three days ago, look at you now. Again?” JC said, I chuckled. He is not wrong; I actually did just have a haircut, but I got to be clean “where is my dad? He said I have to come” hearing my daughter say, “he is here trouble” Hoody said, lifting my head up “hi Chris” Nia said “hi, I won’t take up much of your time. I know you busy making deals” Royalty jumped on my lap “hey, watch it. my hair is going everywhere, I mean barely anything” Royalty touching my head “you have no hair left” she is cheeky “thank you but I wanted to see you, tell you in person. Also, I missed you” Royalty pulled a face “I promise I did” Royalty smiled “ok, so what is it. Are we doing something fun?” shaking my head “dad has been not the best dad, and I have heard you complain about it too. I have noted what you have said and I want to be better for you” Royalty frowned at me “but dad I love you but I just want to stay with you now, we can do fun things?” nodding my head “I get it but I need some time to be better, I won’t see you for a few days and I know it’s the normal thing. I don’t see you much anyways, but I am hoping to be the dad you want me to be and that you can be happy with it. That I can be there for you, you would like that wouldn’t you?” Royalty nodded her head “I do, just because you are the best when I am with you dad” I cooed out “that makes me happy, but I want more of that so daddy will be doing a deep think, but I haven’t forgotten about you yeah?” Royalty nodded her head “can you bring something back?” I laughed “uh yes, what is it?” she always wants something “just you” hearing Nia say awww as Royalty hugged me “I will be back, I won’t leave you” hugging Royalty close.

Watching Royalty chase Zeus around the yard “are you going on a boys time away or something?” Nia asked, I mean of course she would ask “not exactly, I am going alone. I just need time to think, you know. For some change? That is what is needed, I need it” I do need it, I can’t wait to see Robyn, it’s pretty sad but I am excited. This is change, a change I am excited for “Chris Brown on holiday alone? Wow, that is not like you at all, are you sure you’re ok?” she questioned, I chuckled “yeah, yeah I am good. I will be back; I know it seems drastic. I ain’t going to kill myself” Nia’ eyes bulged out “don’t say that” I laughed out because maybe I shouldn’t say that “I promise, I just need some me time, I am good. I will be back a little more positive, but I am happy, you done well with roro anyways” I complimented “thank you, Royalty. Come on now, say bye to your dad and we can go and see Sinatra” Royalty groaned out “what! Ok, bye Zeus” she ran towards us and so did my dog, his big self running along with her “come here” picking her up “you know at some point I won’t be able to hold you, you know that right” Royalty wrapped her arms around my neck “never!” she shouted.

Looking at my watch, the SUV should be here soon to pick me up “are joining the FBI or something? Where are you going that nobody knows? This nigga is being sly, he been going missing for a while now” Sinko asked, they are all sat here just judging and having drugs, but me. I am high on the fact I am seeing Robyn “I just want you all to not be in the house while I am gone, you can’t just be here having parties and stuff, and girls included” pointing at the fact Krista is here “that? Really, just that now” I sighed out “I just need some time alone, that is all. Keeis, strict rules, you can be here and that is until I am back” seeing my phone screen light up with R on the screen, I snatched my phone from the table and answered the call “hello?” I didn’t let it ring twice, turning the volume down “that was quick, come to the house. We need to sort something out first” nodding my head “that is fine, I will see you then” I am like a dog, I mean she is literally running shit so yes “you can hang up now” Robyn said laughing “you also have that option too but I will do it” disconnecting the call, smiling to myself as I did “you got some new woman? This nigga has a new lady friend” I was going to throw my phone at Hood but I didn’t “SUV is here cuz” Keeis said “anyways, get out of the home while I am gone” grabbing my duffle bag “Chris” Krista caught my arm with her hand “when you come back we need to talk” frowning at her “about what? If it is the me and you thing, not happening” she frowned at me “you said you was thinking about it? Come on Chris, you have nothing else going for you, I am the one helping you to sleep” shaking my head “you were, but I need to change that. Like I said, everyone out until I am back” let me just leave, these are just fussing for no reason about me.

You know what bugs me, Rihanna is pregnant but then people joke on me which has put me off with going on Instagram, they dogging me out and making it a joke because she is pregnant, but it doesn’t bother me now I know I am the dad but if I didn’t, then I would be very hurt about it all. If I stay quiet then people will think I am bitter, if I answer then I am bitter and deluded and I need to leave her alone so I can’t win either way, shaking my head seeing the memes about me. I think I will remain quiet, that is the best thing for me. Seeing another post, how am I trash, and Drake isn’t, I don’t get it like what the fuck. I am losing the will to live; I need to relax because clearly I did just say I would be quiet about it all. I am just going to put congratulation under her post, I have too because the blogs are dogging me out about this. Commenting under Robyn’ post ‘Congratulations QUEEN!’ simple, I mean what else can I say but this shit is just fucking bugging me out. How can she have good news and I am being tortured about it. This is why I take fucking drugs and stay the fuck high; this shit is blowing me to bad. The media want me to stay away from her but always make me out to be the loser and drag my name into it, it makes no sense at all. I am just going to cool it with the social media because it stresses me out, I am going to enjoy my time with Robyn, and I know it will be fun with them.

Putting my backpack on before grabbing my duffle back “thank you sir” closing the SUV door, if Robyn wants this to work she really needs to move in silence so I wonder how this will work out between us, she does pretty well anyways so I am sure she will figure something out. Pressing the buzzer on the front door, I feel like I am going on a school trip, I am excited. It’s like the feeling when I moved to Newark with family friends and I was like fourteen, I was so happy to go and do something different, get out of VA anyways. The door opened “hey Chris” it’s Noella “hi” smiling at her “oh wow, it’s Chris Brown” Majesty said, she has grown “you are tall, I remember you was so tiny. Hi” Majesty got shy and ran off “come in, it is hectic here. We have the Barbados nation in this home right now” I laughed getting inside “so how are you? Digested the thought?” Noella closed the door “I have, still nervous about it all. I get judged a lot so yeah” Noella waved me over “well come along, I must warn you, Monica, Ronald and Lionel are here. They stayed over from the Ball. Rajad and Rorrey are not here, they left ahead of us” letting out an oh, I stopped midway “this is a lot” I said, I mean come on this is her parents “don’t feel that way Chris, come on now. No hard feelings” I am nervous “what’s up Chris?” I just melted instantly hearing her voice, I just felt like a child “uh, hey” I smiled wide “big head is feeling all nervous now I said your parents are here” Robyn looks so beautiful, so full of life just smiling and glowing “don’t be, come on. Nobody will harm you, that is when we get to Mexico” I guess I better go in.

Robyn is laughing, not sure at me or just laughing in general “Chris” Ronald shot up “good to see you after all these years” dropping my duffle back to the ground, watching coming over to me “same” shaking his hand “I am glad you stepped up, I would have been hurt if you didn’t because I know you can be a good man, don’t make me hate you” I laughed, Ronald is a good man to me but I know Robyn has been up and down with her father “I wouldn’t miss it for anything, thank you for being welcoming though” looking to the side a little seeing Robyn just smiling “you know Lionel, he’s been waiting for you Chris. They know you are coming Bravo, it’s Chris. You said you wanted to tell him off” Ronald patted my back laughing “is this the boy, you come here young man” Lionel has aged a lot “don’t get up it’s ok” I said but he got up, I don’t think I am ready “you come to me as a good man, yes” he looked at me “I do remember you, yes I do. You’re here and I can be happy with that, we meet again older Brown yes” Lionel got his hand out “you called me young Brown when we first met” I do remember that “and now you old Brown and you back in my baby’ life, Clara would be laughing her little heart out sat here, she knew. Oh, she knew, my baby loves once, only. He’s been checked, he’s a good man” Lionel said as he shuffled to sit back down “he’s a good man? Welcome Chris” Monica said, she got up from the couch “nice seeing you again” I wasn’t sure to hug her or what, but she hugged me “wasn’t bad was it?” Robyn said, she is funny.

I have been sat here with Robyn’ family as they all spoke, I am just sat here not doing anything but listen of course “ok, I am back. Forever peeing now” my eyes lit up seeing Robyn, she looks so good pregnant “you all were supposed to be moving to the door though, what the hell. Well anyways, this is how we are doing this. Ja, Mel, Jen, Bravo and my mom with me in the car. Second one is my dad, Noella and Chris with Tina, she will be in with you. Tina is quiet don’t worry. Split it up, Chris you can go first with them, leave there and we will meet you on the jet. We will leave after just to give that space of arrival; it should be fine hopefully” Robyn has really thought this through “so I need the names mentioned up now, miss mamas you too” Majesty is just laughing at Robyn, getting up from the couch “and please try and not be seen, Chris mostly. Tina it’s on you if he is seen” the little Chinese girl just looked at Robyn in shock “but I can’t predict that!” she spat “I can predict me firing you, get out now. Hurry up” I rather be riding in the car with Robyn, but I guess the boss has spoken, I don’t mind Noella, she is a good woman. Walking behind then ladies and letting then get in the SUV first “after you” I gestured Ronald it sits in first, this is big. I am going to Mexico with Robyn’ people and I have no nobody there for me at all.

I didn’t know where to sit on the jet because it’s going to be a packed jet, so I just sat in the corner, stay out of the way. I am not sure who will sit with me, if only Robyn does but I am not pushing it “auntie taking too long” Majesty complained, I like that because Majesty is me, I think she is also taking too long “sorry for the hold up! We are here!” Jen said as she is the first to get on, then seeing Rich I think, her bodyguard and then another bodyguard. At the end of the day, I am just here to see where the fuck Robyn is but there she is, I smirked a little “I just want to say, I know you bitches like to go on live, you like to post picture but please be wary of backgrounds. You know how crazy people are, do not get Chris in it and me also. Unless I say it is ok, but just be careful. Other then that take your seats so we can go, I need to pee again chile. This is not cute” Robyn smiled at me as she sat at the table “I can fit in this still woo!” Mel also sat with her, along with Ja and Jen “Majesty please sit down, where do you want to sit, every seat is going to be taken?” Majesty is sassy, she is like Royalty “I will sit next to Robyn boyfriend” Majesty pointed at me “hey! Majesty, what we say about” Noella said while laughing “I will sit here” she sat next to me “well, that took turn” she didn’t hold back “that little rascal! Stop saying words!” Robyn shouted “stop it now, sit here and be good. If she does play up, I just there” Noella pointed.

Majesty is not it; she is not the best seat buddy at all. It is like sitting with Royalty, that is never good. This child just continues to speak “auntie has those” Majesty pointed behind my ear, she is climbing the damn seats “that is nice but I got mine first” Majesty pulled a face at me “I know who you are, play no games play no games” she started singing “you sing? You sound better then Rihanna” I complimented “I know, I say it a lot. She doesn’t hear me out” I busted out laughing, oh Robyn got competition with this “can you sing me a song?” if she wasn’t so cute I would say no but she is “choose a song then?” turning in my seat “rude boy!” she spat “oh you need to go and ask your auntie for that” she jumped up and down on the seat “no, I want you to sing you got it girl! Please!” I sighed out, now I got to think of the tune. Bopping “Lil baby in her bag in her Birkin, no nine to five put the work in, Flaws and all I love em all to me you're perfect. Baby girl, you got it, girl, you got it, girl” Majesty clapped screaming and then attacked me with a hug, catching as I hugged her but the whole jet decided to hear “is she annoying you? I can totally take her now” I chuckled at Majesty just being dramatic “we are doing singing lessons, she told me that Rihanna can’t sing like me” I lied of course “I did not!” Majesty yelped out “I am not a performing monkey like you” looking at Robyn “I actually enjoyed it, do it again so I can record you” Mel said, shaking my head laughing.

Arriving at the villa, it is beautiful and so private. There are no neighbours at all, just pretty much in the middle of nowhere and that is amazing for us. Getting out of the car, I have a little buddy with me now “I think Robyn wants you” Tina said at the side of me “she does” looking over at her, she waved me over, oh Robyn does want me “wait for me” hearing a little voice behind me, she held my hand “you taking over my niece now” Robyn’ face in this sun, she is glowing and I love to see it “she likes me” I said laughing “it’s nice to see you are bonding but Majesty please go to mommy, we will be in after” Majesty let my hand go and ran off “what’s up?” I asked, “you not hot in a sweatshirt?” is the first thing she asked “possibly, is everyone going to stay here? Like is there is enough space” I mean there is a lot of people “there is half sleeping elsewhere, staying here for the mornings and stuff” I guess that will be, I just know it “but you will be staying here so it’s fine, I just wanted to see if you’re ok and I wanted to walk with you inside. The main person that will show his dislike is in there” letting out an oh “well I don’t care, I ain’t going to scare away from him” I shrugged “you’re not but I invited you so I want to make sure he doesn’t try it so just do it my way” nodding my head, Robyn walked off and I walked behind, letting her take the lead of course. This place is beautiful “mom said-” Rorrey said but then stopped speaking seeing him “oh wow, really? Is that what we doing, I should have done the party in London then” I would like to punch him “he will be also there, he is here because he is the father of the baby and he has a right to be here” Rorrey hates and I see it ”you just don’t know when to leave or leave my sister alone” I am going to leave this on Robyn “we both had sex, I wanted it too so fuck whatever you are saying. Also, your place in the home has been replaced, you have no bed. So you need to sleep in the next one, and if you cause shit then you know how to get home and you don’t want to upset mom. Come Chris” like I said I am leaving that to Robyn “I will show you the bedroom, I have come here before and it’s so nice they all have a view” maybe I could sneak into her room “I bet yours is better” Robyn instantly giggled, she knows and she isn’t stupid “ be quiet” I hope her room isn’t far.

#Chrianna FF #Chrianna #Chrianna Fanfiction #Fanfic #Fanfiction

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canary3d-obsessed · 4 years

Text

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 11 first part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Goodness)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Okay! This episode is a real slice of healthy family dynamics, not triggering in any way. [Uh if this is your first Restless Rewatch: that is sarcasm, dear readers]

Goodbye to You, Goodbye to Everything We Knew

Nie Huaisang asks why Meng Yao has to leave and Meng Yao says "I killed a guy without permission, so your brother fired me."

Ha ha ha ha no he doesn't. But he does give Nie Huaisang a sweet, sad smile; he seems touched by NHS's distress.

Meng Yao carefully removes Nie Huaisang's hands from his shoulders and bows to him, wordlessly signaling the change in their relationship from intimate friends to formal strangers, while Nie Huaisang looks crushed.

They will return to intimate friendship in the future, but falsely. Meng Yao believes that truly loving a person can include destroying their family and using them as an instrument in your murder plots as long as you don't directly harm them. Nie Huaisang eventually learns to use people just as brutally, but he doesn't lie to himself about what he's doing. This farewell may be the last harmless moment between these friends.

Jiang Cheng is distressed by what's going on, while Wei Wuxian crosses his arms and watches, fully in Sherlock Holmes mode, instead of his more usual concerned-for-my-friend mode. This may signal mistrust of Meng Yao, who refused his initial attempt at friendship, and not in a sexy, slice-your-face-off way. Or it may mean that he's reserving judgement on a complicated family situation. He maintains his uncharacteristic reserve through the entire encounter.

(more behind the cut!)

Nie Huaisang runs in and asks his brother WTF happened. Nie Mingjue says "he killed my subordinate without permission, when he knows perfectly well power must flow from the ruler; it's like he didn't even read that Foucault book I gave him."

Ha ha ha actually he just yells at his brother, as if NHS doesn’t have his own relationship with Meng Yao after being wonder twink powers with him for probably a couple of years now. NHS has to sit and process his loss and confusion in silence.

As a younger sibling who would make friends with my older siblings' girlfriends and then lose those friends if they broke up, for reasons having nothing to do with why I liked their girlfriends, I super feel Nie Huaisang's pain here.

OTOH, older siblings are entitled to have break ups and not explain themselves to anyone besides their lover because that's the nature of intimacy. The moral is, uhh...don't have a family curse that makes you unreasonably angry.

Jiang Cheng steps up to advocate for Meng Yao, because Meng Yao is injured, and because Jiang Cheng is actually a born leader who knows better than to throw away a useful subordinate. For example, even when Wei Wuxian is at his drunkest and most defiant, Jiang Cheng tries to reform him, not kick him out, only drawing the line at having unpopular zombie friends.

Wei Wuxian continues to keep his mouth shut, waiting for Nie Mingjue to calm down, and speaking only about the tactical situation. He clearly knows there's more to this story but he's pretty good at keeping his head down in a family ruckus, and we're about to learn why.

Yunmeng Town

The Yunmeng bros go home to Lotus Pier, where they are greeted in town with bows, smiles, and free stuff.

We've mostly been seeing them in their roles within the cultivation community, where Jiang Cheng is grumpy and anxious, and Wei Wuxian is sassy and iconoclastic. Here among common people, they are both charming, friendly, and polite, like the imaginary good kind of gentry.

They hear the news from a local lotus seller that the small clans are coming to the Jiang Clan for shelter, but that otherwise everything's ok, which doesn't sound like everything is ok at all. He gives Wei Wuxian a giant bag of lotuses for his sister to make soup from.

Home to Lotus Pier

All the disciples practicing in the courtyard at Lotus Pier are excited to see them, and one girl goes running to tell Jiang Yanli. Thanks to the admittedly beautiful design of Lotus Pier, she is running for a long time.

A long, long time. Getting around on all these insane walkways must be a real drag if you're not the flying sort of cultivator.

Discipline and Punish

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian immediately go and kneel while they wait for their official punishment. Jiang Cheng is kinda worried about the punishment and Wei Wuxian is like, I'm good at being punished, just let me do it.

Much later, and for a really long fucking time

He also tries to get Jiang Cheng to stop being mad, even giving him skritches while he says they should be brothers after they die.

Which they will, as it happens, although Jiang Cheng after the Wen torture is only mostly golden-core dead, while WWX dies for real.

When Jiang Fengmian shows up Jiang Cheng starts to explain that they were with Lan Wangji, but Wei Wuxian hushes him; he is still keeping the secret of the Yin Iron. Although he's keeping it in exactly the manner that a teenager keeps their weed stash secret: immediately tell literally every teen friend about it, but keep it extra secret from everybody's parents.

Happy Families Are All Alike

Now we get to meet Yu Ziyuan, who is generally styled Madame Yu but who I'm going to call by her name just as if she was a male character. More on that concept in a minute. She rolls up looking, smelling, feeling like a million yuan, with her two murder bitches in tow.

Her marriage is an unhappy one, and her husband does his best to avoid her and avoid conflict, lying to the kids that she's tired and then sending her away later with the same line about being tired, which is a particularly gendered kind of gaslighting. She is obviously not tired, other than being tired of Jiang Fengmian's shit.

I'm not going to say she's the worst mother ever, because parenthood in a feudal society entails a wide range of skills, many of which she has in abundance. She starts off with a relatively tender greeting to Jiang Cheng, tuning up his always-amazing sartorial style, which is exactly like her own. They are all ready for the mommy & me fashion show.

That said, she dishes out hellacious verbal abuse to everyone in her family. She targets each one in turn, making Wei Wuxian the focus of most of her ire, but without ever directly speaking to him. He is not, in her view, part of her family.

The Stages of Family Dinner

1. Try to fix it and defuse the situation

2. Yeah no

3. Just keep your head down and be glad it’s not your turn in the hot seat

This family meal hammers home how much Wei Wuxian is not, actually, part of the family. Jiang Fengmian adopted him into the clan, and told A-Cheng and A-Yi to treat him as a sibling, but he didn't give him the Jiang name, and he didn't get his wife's approval. He also doesn’t expect him to dress like any other clan member, apparently.

Compare this to how Lan Wangji, actual good parent, fully integrates his own adopted son into his clan and family, starting with giving him the Lan surname.

The hits just keep coming as she goes after Jiang Cheng for being less gifted than Wei Wuxian, Yanli for performing labor for Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Fengmian for possibly begetting Wei Wuxian.

On first watching this scene I took her question "Is this how you raise someone else's son?" to mean that she thought Jiang Fengmian was being too nice to a kid who was actually an outsider, taking resources away from the real kids. But on rewatching, it's pretty clear that she's saying his favoring Wei Wuxian is evidence that Wei Wuxian is NOT someone else's son; that he's Jiang Fengmian's bastard.

Jiang Fengmian doesn't say a thing to this, or to her mentioning WWX’s mother. This shit is why WWX is running around in the world desperate for any crumb of info he can get about his Mom; he hears about her all the goddamn time at home, but only as insults to her character.

A Bitch is Not Wrong

Here's the thing, though; a lot of what Yu Ziyuan says is correct.

Jiang Fengmian should be a lot more concerned about the danger to the children, and should not leave it up to the kids to decide who's going to bear that danger.

Yanli does a lot of food=love, which is ok in the right doses, but causes her to pretty extremely lose face during the whole "soup for Jin Zixuan" debacle. And her doting on Wei Wuxian is...kinda excessive. I mean, yeah, she’s more like a mom than a sister to him, but still. Running out onto an active battlefield to look for him, frex, will be a skosh too much.

I have a dictionary too, mom

Jiang Cheng, as the future clan leader, shouldn't let his attachments affect his decision making, and should let Wei Wuxian, who's the superior cultivator, fend for himself more often. We love Jiang Cheng for those moments where he puts himself in harm's way to protect his loved ones, but it's not a good strategy. He constantly yells at Wei Wuxian for the exact same thing he does all the time himself; he just limits who he does it for.

After she roasts the shit out of everyone for these failings, she leaves, and everyone sits around being miserable and not talking about what just happened.

Not to be gender studies-y on main but: the awful things she says to her children are really not very different from the things that Jiang Cheng says to Jin Ling, although her targeting is more adept. JC also says a lot of mean things to WWX when he’s angry. When a man says cruel or insulting things, it's often presented as real love hidden under a rough exterior. When a woman does it, she's a monster.

If you enjoy this sort of interaction you should definitely have a look at Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and the plays of Eugene O'Neill.

Road Runner

Oh thank god, moving on

Lan Wangji is headed back to Cloud Recesses, and gets ambushed by the roadside with the most ridiculous trap this side of Wile E. Coyote.

Wen Chao thinks the "rug over a hole" trap is a good idea for someone who can literally fly.

Lan Wangji doesn't faff about with sword riding, he just fucking goes up in the air and stays there until he is good goddamn ready to come down. A hole in the sidewalk is really not going to be a problem for him.

Wen Zhuliu does get in one kick before Lan Wanji yeets backwards away from him, in a moment that's scarier on rewatching, now that I know what Wen Zhuliu is capable of.

Wen Chao talks some smack to Lan Wangji, hilariously complaining about "your patronizing tone" to a man who has literally never spoken a word to him, IIRC, and certainly isn't speaking now. Maybe it's a mistranslation and should be "attitude," or maybe Wen Chao is just that dumb.

Apparently Wei Wuxian made a stack of talismans for Lan Wangji to take on the road with him. This talisman is a twin to the one Lan Wangji brings out way, way later in Yunping, when Wei Wuxian says "you even have kept it until now." Missing scene alert! What else did he make for him?

In Yunping this talisman is used to distract some random harmless street bullies. Here it is used against a seven-man murder squad.

This works.

Assault on Cloud Recesses

Forgettable disciple #1, Su She, comes rushing in to tell Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen that Cloud Recesses is under attack.

I'm pretty sure these dudes already know it, because they are meditating extra hard with a buttload of incense, and Lan Qiren is about to cough up some blood. So I think they're trying to hold the ward, rather than just, like, chilling while their disciples get stabbed.

Cloud Recesses is super on fire, you guys; it's going to totally burn to the ground; look at that conflagration, oh the humanity, etc.

Lan Qiren Rises to the Occasion

Ok, I like to rag on Failmaster Qiren and he is definitely an authoritarian dick a whole lot of the time, but in this scene he is fucking amazing.

He starts off worrying about Lan Wangji, not just out of affection but out of strategic planning, probably in equal parts. All three of these Lans take their clan responsibilities extremely seriously.

Then he calmly assesses the situation while imperturbable Lan Xichen freaks the fuck out.

Lan Xichen is right to be alarmed, because he knows his uncle, he knows one of them is likely to die, and he knows that Lan Qiren will choose to take the hit.

I love, love, love Lan Qiren's physicality here; how centered and assured he is, as he holds his nephew steady and explains what is required of both of them.

Lan Xichen knows Lan Qiren is right. He is utterly fucking devastated, and all he can do to show his love...

...is to obey.

This whole scene just. kills me.

Su She and forgettable disciple #2 are in the room for this whole conversation, and they join Lan Xichen in this deep bow. Note: I will be reminding everyone of this fact in Part 2.

Whew. This episode is a LOT. Part 2 Coming Soon!

Writing Prompt: What other goodies did Wei Wuxian put in Lan Wangji's care package before Lan Wangji hit the road without saying goodbye?

Soundtrack: 1. Michelle Branch, Goodbye to You 2. Ludacris, Stand Up

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #the untamed gifs #wei wuxian #yu ziyuan #lan qiren #restless rewatch the untamed #the untamed spoilers #lan xichen #canary3d-original #my gifs #the untamed meta

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