#i also snuck some wine from my mom it tastes like ass but i need to get my mind off of this shit

[queenmorgawse]

transmigration for dummies

chapter three. mdzs scum villain au. read on ao3 + end notes.  credit to @lee-luca, esp as another bit of the comic is mentioned here.  previous | first | next 

One hour, thirty minutes and two hundred rules into his punishment, Jingyi is as bored as he’s ever been in this life. To top it all off, the System isn’t responding to any of his pleas for company, only responding with oops ): something went wrong when he tries to ping it. Back home, this is about when he would have given up on homework and started scrolling through his Twitter feed instead, but there’s not much he can do without his phone.

Ugh, he’d kill for one of these crappy McDonalds games. Even a Kinder toy would make him happy right now. Instead, he doodles on his torn-up first drafts, on which the ink made blots from his clumsy first attempts to imitate the original text’s elegant calligraphy.

He silently adds bic pens to the ever-increasing list of modern appliances he misses.

When badly-drawn stickmen get boring as well, he starts to think about the original Lan Jingyi in his life. Maybe that’s how it works, after all. Mom sure would love someone who’d actually go to bed early when she tells him to. On the other hand, once he got over the initial shock of modern Jingyi’s life, he’d probably find it pretty dull. High school isn’t about to compare to flying swords and cultivation, that’s for sure.  

Opposite him, Sizhui is bent over his own stack of scrolls, poring over rows and rows of tiny characters and absent-mindedly running his fingers along the lines. From the way he hums to himself when he thinks Jingyi is too busy copying to care, he guesses they’re music sheets of some kind. Unlike Jingyi, he looks like he’s actually engrossed in what he’s doing.

Too bad. Jingyi’s reached that point of boredom at which he needs to talk to someone or else he’ll implode. ( Still, he promises himself he’ll stop if Sizhui shows even a hint of genuine annoyance. )

“Hey, Lan Sizhui ⎯ can I call you just Sizhui? Um, sorry I got you stuck here.”

To his relief, the other doesn’t look irritated, just surprised. “Sizhui is fine,” he ventures after a few seconds. A smile breaks out on his face. “That’s good. I was afraid you were still mad me, you’ve been so awkward all day...”

Wait, what? Who’s angry at you? Someone who kicks kittens for fun, probably.

Oh right, me. Maybe he’s the one whose brain needs a reboot. How does he explain that it’s not him who’s mad? Hell, he doesn’t even know what the original is supposed to be mad about. For some reason, it feels weird to ask, just because it seems important enough that admitting he forgot would be insulting.

“Anyway,” Sizhui continues after coughing into his sleeve, “it’s alright, you don’t have to apologize to me. I’ve got to go over these before tomorrow’s lesson anyway, I might as well do it here.”

“Inquiry?” Jingyi ventures, maybe-maybe-not because it’s the only title he clearly remembers from the ones canon mentioned.

“Oh, no. Asking very specific questions is still a bit out of my reach, but Fa...Hanguang-jun wrote down a list of phrases for me, so we’re going to try them tomorrow.” His face softens at the mention of Lan Wangji. If this was a fic, this would be when Jingyi keels over and presses his face into a pillow for a little while.   

The chat devolves into musical cultivation. Jingyi muddles his way through it the best he can, feeling like he’s bullshitting an essay out loud, but Sizhui doesn’t seem to find his vague answers all that off-putting. He still pointedly glances down at the stack of unfinished notes on the table from time to time, but since Jingyi’s calligraphy has been getting worse and worse the less attention he pays to it, maybe it’s for the better.   

When dinner time rolls around, they eat their bowls sitting on the steps leading up to the Library Pavilion, after Sizhui rightfully points out Lan Qiren would have their skins if they spilled even a drop of sauce on the sect’s precious texts. Gradually, Jingyi feels himself relax.

“So, are we chill?” he asks between two mouthfuls of rice.

Sizhui just stares at him.

Right. No slang. “...I mean, we’re doing good, right? We’re friends?”

Something complicated passes over Sizhui’s expression. It’s too fleeting for him to catch more than a glimpse of it, especially as it’s overridden by his usual calm smile before Jingyi can shove another rice ball into his mouth, but he could swear the other winced.

Well, ouch. It must show on his face, because Sizhui suddenly looks alarmed and adds : “Yes, yes, we are!” Another smile. This time, Jingyi can definitely see the strain. “We’re friends. You don’t have to doubt that.”

“Oh. Great!” Jingyi resists the urge to reach out and gently punch his shoulder. Who knows how it’d be perceived. “We’re gonna spend a lot of time together, if I’ve got to keep copying rules, so...I wanted to make sure.”

【OOC behavior detected : contradiction of backstory despite hints : -20 points. Current balance : 65 points. 】

Shut up! I want him to like me!

“We’re friends,” Sizhui repeats one last time, like he’s trying to convince himself. Then he reaches for Jingyi’s shoulder and gives his robes a tug. “We should get back in there. Two more hours before curfew, you can still get a few lines in. I won’t distract you.”

“Ugh.”

Jingyi makes a face. Sizhui laughs, and the tension from earlier dissolves. “Come on. The more you get done, the faster it’ll be over.”

-

It turns out they’re both severely underestimating the number of rules Jingyi can break without realizing, and therefore the amount of time they’ll be spending here.

Despite these setbacks, over the course of the next handful of weeks, Jingyi adapts to his new life the best he can. He finds out, with much relief, that even though he can’t access the original’s knowledge and memories, training since childhood pays off even after a body swap. He doesn’t have to think too hard about sparring, just keep a firm grip on his sword, and his muscles can apparently do the rest with minimal effort on his part.

It only works with the actual fighting, though. After going to bed feeling sore all over for a week straight, Jingyi gives up and gives the cold springs a shot. It freezes his limbs off, but the ache gets better after that. It even gets him about a dozen points, which he adds to the rest, gained through menial tasks across the Cloud Recesses and some well-timed mischief.

He also likes to think he gets some progress done with step one of his grand plan to survive this novel. There’s no undoing years of being a pain in everyone’s ass in a matter of weeks, but Jingyi still gives it his best shot - peppered with tasteful cursing at the System when it deducts points for actually following the rules or, you know, not being a dick to everyone he talks to. As a result, he goes from mostly being avoided by the other disciples to tolerated, even if no one but Sizhui goes out of their way to talk to him or invite him to join in on...whatever fun they have.

Jingyi doubts he’s missing out on much, at least where the Lans are concerned. But rumor has it some of the guest disciples snuck out into Caiyi to try some of the local wine, and he’s jealous of that, which is kind of irrational. He doesn’t even like the taste of wine that much, and besides, that may be too much of an infraction for a raised Lan, however prone to rule-breaking said Lan is supposed to be.

( He really can’t afford to slip up again. When he dared chop a solid forty centimeters off his hair after struggling to run a comb through it for the fifth time that week, the System’s alarm blared so loud he almost had an out of body experience. He’d felt the hundred points shaved off his score, though, even if he’d managed to negotiate half of them back. That was the spiritual equivalent of having a car zoom past right as you were about to cross the street, and Jingyi’s in no hurry to do it again...but with that said, it feels great not to have to deal with a bird’s nest every time he wakes up. )

-

Of course, he can’t just get comfortable with his new daily routine. Something has to happen. This time, said something takes the shape of a summon from Teacher Lan. Jingyi drags his feet over from the Library Pavilion and away from his sixth copy of Gusu Lan rules. His wrist is still complaining every time he bends it a little too far. Fuck corpse powder, it’s carpal tunnel that’s going to do him in.

Speaking of copies, maybe he shouldn’t slump this much. He’s fairly sure there’s a rule for that somewhere in the two thousand and nineties.

Given the circumstances, Jingyi fully expects another lecture from Lan Qiren the moment he sets foot in the communal hall, but quickly readjusts his expectations when he spots the small crowd of disciples gathered around their teacher. Most of them are familiar faces by now, except for the girls, who for some reason live in a completely different part of the Cloud Recesses. Still, he recognizes Lan Fan, the shimei who looks like she could bite your head off but actually gave him some pretty helpful tips on sword stances the other day, Tao Ming, the boy who’d seemed vaguely suspicious of him that first day, and of course, Sizhui in the forefront.

Lan Qiren narrows his eyes at him as he hastily joins the rest of the group. “Late again, Lan Jingyi.”

“Sorry, Teacher. This disciple was busy copying rules when he heard.”

A few of his companions snort, the noise quickly disguised as a sudden and collective bout of coughing. Jingyi can’t blame them ; if he’d heard the same words everyday for weeks on end, he’d be laughing too. Lan Qiren gives a long-suffering sigh, but whatever he’s about to tell them must take precedence, because Jingyi gets away with what might otherwise have been considered cheek.

“Madam Mo of Mo Village has sent us a request for assistance.” Given their teacher’s expression, he might as well said that she’d beaten down their door in the middle of the night and let a donkey loose in the courtyard. “From the servants’ description, it shouldn’t be anything more than a few walking corpses. Nothing a group of juniors cannot handle.”

Yeah, right. Despite knowing he’s supposed to let canon run its course, Jingyi still feels a twinge of apprehension. Why, you ask? He can answer that in two points.

Things Jingyi knows : mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

Things Jingyi doesn’t know : how to kill zombies with swords.

In theory, he did spend the last few weeks training, and he didn’t slack off either, thank you very much. Doesn’t mean he’s ever gone up against a corpse before. He’s a coward, okay? Horror movie night was hell, back in his own world. He’s in no hurry to experience it in real (?) life.

“Lan Sizhui will lead the group,” Lan Qiren continues. “I expect all of you to keep your behaviors appropriate and not bring shame onto our sect.” To no one’s surprise, Jingyi thinks, and throws the interested party a small smile. To his surprise, Sizhui blushes and looks down at his boots, looking both embarrassed and pleased. It’s an unfairly cute look on him, but again, most of his looks are.  

Right on cue, the System wheezes to life like it just crawled out of a computer from the nineties.【Beginning stage checkpoint mission assigned. Destination : Mo Village. Mission : ensure the protagonist, Wei Wuxian, makes it to Mount Dafan to meet love interest Lan Wangji. Please click to accept.】

Jingyi mentally slams the Accept button.

Ding!  【Mission successfully accepted. Please read the file carefully for mission details and make appropriate preparations. We wish you success. 】

OOC function, here he comes!

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #lan jingyi #zhuiyi #transmigrator!ljy #kim's fics

[rachelclewis]

Dry January

Oh, January. You suck so much. You are like a cold wet dirty grey blanket left in the gutter, frozen at the corners, and covered in the needles of a discarded Christmas tree. Every year, I make plans for you – such grand plans – you wouldn’t believe. And every year, somehow you get me. You end up around my shoulders, weighing me down with your dirt and ice, and I can’t throw you off. It’s mean. And I don’t like it.

I have the Januwearies. In my last post, I was planning to spend January reading novels in a cozy corner while drinking loose leaf tea. I was also going to exercise along with a Jillian Michaels DVD, and then write for an hour, every day. I haven’t done those things. I have mourned the end of the holidays and I have sat on my butt eating leftover candy and feeling like a giant sack of “meh.”

My one promise kept, however, is that in the last eight days, I have not had a drink.

This is something that I don’t like to write about, because it is hard and not funny. But here is the thing: I struggle with binge drinking. Most of the time, I can have a single drink of wine at dinner and not need any more and I’m fine. I can go on for months like that. But sooner or later, I’ll “need” a binge and I’ll drink and drink until I blackout. God, that’s hard to write, but there it is.

I heard about the “Dry January” trend, where people take a month off from drinking to reset and detox a bit. I thought, “Yeah. That’s a good idea.” I wasn’t really thinking I needed to, because I’ve been in a pretty good place with the drinking lately. I was actually thinking it might help me loose a few pounds and/or inches.

However, once I decided (back before the holidays) I was going to do this, my inner addict, or as I unaffectionately like to call her, The Wine Gremlin, started to freak the fuck out. It’s like that voice that tells you that you need to eat an entire bag of Cheetos the day before you start a diet. Or is that only me? My binging isn’t limited to drinking, I should concede.

We traveled to California to visit my boyfriend Matt’s family. His brother and sister-in-law have a toddler and a new baby, so it made sense to bring Christmas to them. I struggle with social anxiety and being with people I don’t know well is hard for me. Also, I associate Christmas with drinking. But I was doing well… until the day after Christmas (or Boxing Day, as I like to call it, because I’ve been willing myself to be British for as long as I can remember).

There was most of a bottle of wine in the fridge left over from Christmas dinner, and it was calling my name. It was mine after all; I bought it. The day after Christmas was dull and deflated. The men folk went off to have a nerf gun fight in the park. Matt’s sister-in-law had gone out for lunch with her parents. It was just me and Matt’s mom at the house, and she was on the phone. I was waiting for the boys to come back so we could have our annual sword fight with the spent rolls of wrapping paper (I hauled them from Utah to California, I was so determined to make this happen). “May as well have some wine while I wait,” I decided. I finished the bottle by the end of the night, before we went back to our AirB&B to sleep. I snuck a little bit and then a little bit more. Finally, after dinner, I emptied the rest into a glass and drank it in the open while I did the dishes.

Then, before we left, Matt’s sister in law suggested we leave the kids with the grandparents and go check out some wine tasting bars in town, because California. We were leaving first thing in the morning and we had over 12 hours to drive, so we said, “Sorry, but we’ll do that next time we are in town!” I didn’t add, “I can’t take your drinking because I’m drunk!”

Her face sunk and I realized she had been planning this for a while. It was her chance to escape the new baby for an hour and have some adult talk. If I hadn’t been sneaking drinks all day, I could have taken her out and maybe had some bonding time just the two of us, helping me get over the anxiety I feel around her because she’s amazing and I want her to like me, but that didn’t happen. Worst of all, I knew after we left there was a possibility she would go to the fridge for a glass of what was a nearly full bottle of wine and it would be gone. God, It’s so embarrassing!

Just in case you are doing the math and thinking, “It was only four glasses of wine, stop giving yourself such a hard time!” I need to do some more confessing. There was also a matter of the mini-bottles of very cheap wine that I picked up at the grocery store in town earlier that day when picking up some snacks for our road trip home. I squirreled them away in the bottom of my purse and was nipping off of those, also. So, it wasn’t four drinks. It was more like nine. And Matt saw the mini bottles and I totally got caught.

The drive the next day was fairly miserable. It was 12 hours through blah Nevada countryside with a mild hangover, made worse by Matt’s quiet disapproval from the driver’s seat.

Fast forward to now, a week into this Dry January experiment. It’s going well. I do feel lighter, both physically and mentally. That said, it hasn’t been perfect. I saw my family last Friday for our regular family dinner. My sister offered me a glass of wine and didn’t react when I told her I was back on the wagon. Again. The evening was fine… fun even.  But I did notice a few things.

I don’t get drunk with my family (at least, not with my parents), but I do usually have a glass or two of wine on these evenings. Rachel a few glasses of wine in her is chatty and laughs loudly. Rachel with no wine is quiet. She’ll participate in a conversation, but she won’t start one. That was fine – no one seemed to notice. But the other thing is that Two Drink Rachel is uninhibited enough to show emotion. Sober Rachel doesn’t really do that. I was reminded of this when, on two separate occasions that night, two members of my family did two separate and very nice things for me. Thoughtful, effortful, genuinely nice things. And I said thank you. A distant part of me thought about moving in for a hug, but I didn’t. I felt like my mute button was on. Maybe it wasn’t real, but I feel like I saw disappointment or confusion on their faces, not getting the reaction that they were expecting from me.

At the risk of sounding like a cliché drunk feeling sorry for herself, I’m feeling a bit sorry for myself. I feel like I’m doomed to fail no matter what I do. I’m feeling guilty for not leaving some wine for my boyfriend’s sister-in-law and I’m feeling guilty for screwing up these moments with my family. I can’t win. Boo hoo. Might as well drink a barrel of wine, right?

No… not right. I’m not going there. I committed to a month and I’m doing the month. Even though Matt is going out of town in a few weeks and I’ll have the house to myself and I could spend that time binging on wine, Netflix, and Cheetos, I’m not going to do it. I’m going to see this through. And then, at the end, I’ll do some serious evaluation of the pros and cons. Meanwhile I’m going to give myself a little slack. If I don’t read and write and sweat and kick-ass every day this month, that’s okay. I’m giving my body a break from alcohol, and that’s enough. It’s got to be.

#blog #humor #dry january #alcohol abuse disorder