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randomfoggytiger · 1 year

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Typing: INTPs In Their Own Words

A short while ago, I created a Mulder Typing post explaining why he's an INTP (not INFJ/INFP); and, while I was compiling notes, I collected some comments from INTP users and stashed them away in a document. While going back through to get inspired for a future post (whatever that will be), I found them again; and was struck with a brilliant idea: why don't I simply post them in full so that everyone can read INTP thoughts/processes in their own words? There are many flavors of INTPs (since Typing is just a system showing how the brain processes information, not as a personality box you have to stuff people into-- the old Nature vs. Nurture); and perhaps you'd be interested in what they have to say?

There's a lot of good, some bad, and a little ugly; but we need a full picture to see these good souls for who they are~.

(Shoutout to my INTP mutual @baronessblixen! She mainly inspired this post for me~.)

**Note**: I will try to translate the technical terms as I go along (since they are mostly referring to Typing terminology and processes), so don't worry if the comment doesn't make much sense at first! :DDD

And now-- in no particular order-- here they are on their own terms!

""Why bother... Why do I even bother?.... Why would anyone care?...." The mantras of the INTP"

""They are legitimately worried that other people in the world are stupid."" As an INTP, I genuinely started to have that worry when I started noticing that my former classmates are holding executive jobs. As for fashion sense, I used to let my mom buy my clothes until late high school. But in the past 10 years or so and probably due to my ENTJ sister's influence and my interests in arts I started to develop a bizarre wardrobe. It had mellowed down a bit but I still get "that looks cool but I'd never do it myself" comments."

"I’m an INTP and the telling the same story over and over again is definitely a thing. But I don’t do it because I don’t remember having told it that person, usually. I’m usually the one who remembers everything I’ve ever said to someone, or heard from them in response in unreasonable amounts of detail. And then, over time, no one else remembers our conversations as well. So I start telling the same story I like telling, assuming that either they don’t remember hearing it, or if they do, they’ll stop me and say they remember me telling that one."

"The Ni critic explains why i can never decide on an acedemic/career path. Afraid of not choosing the wrong path or not being able to contribute anything new/novel/inovative to the field. But desperately wanting to prove to the world our brain has some thing significant to contribute but afaid of failing"

"Ti is logic and it’s basically what the individual believes is true or false. Like me, for example, if this is truth and this has to be true, basically, if this-then this, constantly."

"My INTP younger sister is exactly like this [easily exploited]. I hate when she lets peope use her at a door mat. I've dated many INTPs as an INTJ female and really really love the dynamic. But how do I cultivate "immoveability" into the INTP? Personally, my own views are what matter to me, but I find INTPs to almost be too flexible (if that makes sense). One of my exes used to get taken advantage so much it caused me to question his love for himself. I love my sister and obviously want wants best for her, how do I give her some of the INTJ "immoveability" to be less of a door mat?"

"So I’m an INTP but I don’t feel like I’m nowhere near brilliant. I now understand why I always felt so different from everyone else. I understand stuff easier than most but I have to break it down and reiterate to myself. I also did poorly in school until last 2 years of college.... I also have a hard time putting my words together or finding the right thing to say or word to use."

"As a INTP I hate jobs with hierarchy. The idea that someone with a lesser mind will be in charge of me will irritate ... me. At the same time I don't want to be the boss either, the idea of having to baby sit lesser minds will also irritate me lol. The person in charge in my opinion has to be highly intelligent, because that is the only time ill accept it because then I feel like I actually have something to learn from that person to further my own knowledge and the position they have is actually justified in my head."

"In my opinion, INTPs "inevitability" stems from their pessimistic functions, both in the ego and the shadow. The sharp Ne [Me: the fate of all humanity, not just one's own path forward] parent with how responsble it is with its forsight combined with the Fe [Me: human interconnection and emotional outreach] in aspirational mode can provide the most efficient choices for anyone to be better. While their shadow reinforces with using their will with Ni [Me: personal future and fate, the path one creates forward for oneself] critic and principles with Fi [Me: personalized morals and beliefs] demon/angelic to give structure and brings things to reality to what they foresee."

"I’m an INTP, and can tell you in all honesty that we view forgiveness very differently than all the other types. Forgiveness is but something that you acquire, but in fact more of a gift. You either have it, or you don’t"

"MBTi type claim that they’re INTPs and use it as a crutch to not get anything done or not to go anywhere in life. To be honest, that’s not how that works. INTPs just get too comfortable, and really the only way to motivate an INTP or an INFP because they have Si child is to just make them uncomfortable, and to pull them out of that behind the scenes realm. So, in general respect the behind the scenes, but if they’re not growing as people, if they’re not becoming better human beings, be prepared to pull them out of the behind the scenes, be prepared to expose them, because it’s the only way they will grow. They only understand pain. It’s kind of like those people who have to hit rock bottom before they ever grow up, right?"

"[Me: Context-- INTP's Nemesis makes them want to question everything, even if they like the information they're given; but often ther Si Child doesn't want to get out of their comfy routine to actually fact check it.] The nemissis thing is funny because as I watched this (and just about everything else I have some experience with) I thought "yeah you seem to have a good grasp of this, but if I had time..." and then I moved on, my inner critic was appeased."

"It doesn’t mean that we should be labeling them hermits or these people who are not good with human beings, etc. Especially INTPs, people are just not as much of a priority to them, because they’re too busy playing with their metaphysical systems. You know, it’s like a big toyland universe that they have access to, mentally, that they’re able to use their thinking models and solve problems. Life to them is a giant puzzle box. Let them play with their puzzle box. They really need that."

" I was talking recently with an INTP mother, who’s actually very good at type, and she trained her son or her daughter, I don’t remember which … But she’s married to an ESTP and they go to church and get involved in church events, and she’d be extroverting in her unconscious or her subconscious side of her mind at that point, and then all of a sudden, she’s like tapped out of energy and she just has to completely disappear and people are like, “Where did she go? Where did she go?” And you’ll find her in a corner where there’s like nobody but her, literally doing nothing but playing puzzles. That’s just how INTPs are."

"Whereas Ne users are very beautiful, they just like to be told by the Ni user what they should do, right? Because the Ni users connected to extraverted sensing and then the Ne users able to be like, okay, “Well I should do this because that’s what you want,” right?” That’s how it works. [Me: Meaning-- Ni users are more focused on what they want/their path forward; and Ne users are less focused on those areas, and are chill if Ni calls most of the shots as long as their opinions/voices are heard.]"

"Fe [Me: INTPs] users want to feel valued, not be source of value. [Me: Meaning-- they don't want to be the stereotypical male bird in a mating ritual dancing and making a big fuss. Others can do that to make them feel valued; but that's not how they show someone that they love, value, or care about them.]"

"Growth and self improvement has always felt to me to be an illusory concept. Obviously we change based on experiences but you can never predict if the experiences you are about to experience are going to lead to being "better" than you were. And what constitutes better? This is the philisophical black hole an INTP like myself can get stuck in when it comes to wanting anything."

"My Fi Demon is a really sharp and brutally honest critic that tells the object of my anger everything that makes them wrong. It’s often followed by guilt, even though I’m only speaking the truth without applying any filter."

"I think with INTPs if they are smart taking the initiative to learn from self help books or if they grow up in a family and environment that constantly challenges them, it's more about learning what to avoid after repeated experiences of getting burned. I learned about physical pain through sports starting at a young age thanks to my father and social anxiety, dealing with it head on in sports locker rooms, taking toastmasters classes to become a good public speaker, approaching people in cold approach sales etc. So I have the ability to tolerate pain if needed but also have the knowledge on what to stay away from because I've experienced it repeatedly and already know the outcome."

"I definitely wish my parents had been strict with me. When I asked them for advice, they told me they had no advice to give, and that I should do whatever I want to do. I support myself now, but I spent 10+ years aimless, living off of them. I would have built more useful skills, self-respect, confidence, and better values if they had guided me towards a career and a normal lifestyle. I will definitely give my kids an ultimatum to move out and support themselves for at least a year at age 18, but also will give loving guidance and provide a sense of how to live rather than a liberal attitude of laissez-fair parenting."

"those INTPs, you know, driving their car, they’re like the old man driving their cars, you know what I mean, or the old woman, taking their jolly sweet time, you know, not really in a hurry, I’m never in a hurry. I make sure there’s enough time in my day scheduled, so I can take my time on the road, and [others], you know, cuss at me, honk their horns at me, you know"

"I agree with you about the subconscious part of INTP. We do care about our loved ones. But if we KNOW that they’re not going to listen, why would we bother?"

"hero of the INTP is a little different. It is Ti hero, logic comes first, they can see into the future of other people, but they do it from a more responsible, a pessimistic point of view."

"I know that although I always had a real hard time falling in-love and develop strong feelings for a guy, I didn’t have any difficulties being committed and loyal. I know that as a female INTP, it takes lot to decide on a lifelong partner, but once that decision is made, I am fiercely loyal"

"Sometimes, as an INTP, I feel like that I actually am a really-really bad person. I think that I'm actually a psycho, but now I know the reason. When my father died 7 years ago, I remember it was a cold night, my families were grieved, my mother was cried hysterically and so my big brother. Instead, I did not feel anything atm, my aunt kept telling me that my father Infront of me already died but I still didn't feel anything. I was thought that it just a phase of human life and everyone will die eventually, until my brother yelled at me 'What are you doing? It's our father who died!!!' So tried so hard to cry, I didn't even know if that was a real cry or not. And when everyone was still grieving, I decided to sleep so maybe tomorrow I would get my feeling and start to grieve. But after several weeks, I started to think that I don't have my father anymore, the one who was always love me no matter what I did, then finally I can feel my lost and start to cry sincerely. Don't be like me my fellow INTP friends, feeling is important. Don't be so full of logic in those important moments and just blend in. Have a good day!"

"Most of time I have to outsmart myself to not smoke weed, lay in bed, play video games, watch movies and rather go to work instead. Getting out of the comfort zone, nah rather, throwing myself out of the comfort zone is so crucial for me. It completely changes my mindset and pushes me towards growth."

"I'm an INTP. I was married to a very abusive man and had spent 8 years trying to make up my mind as to what I was going to do about it. I went to work one day with a black eye and a co-worker said "if you don't leave him I'll call CPS and then your kids will be taken away" (whether she would have done it or not, idk). That forced me to make the decision to leave and take me out of my "comfort zone". It was the best thing that someone has ever done for me."

"I loved when you talked about wisdom being harsh and "fire". Yeah turns out telling someone "here's the harsh truth about what you're doing wrong, just stop doing it and you'll be fixed" doesn't go over well with most folks. As a teacher, I could absolutely tell how kids were going to turn out due to their parents' behaviour (if the parents were too accepting, the kids would end up helpless; if the parents were too inconsistent, the kids would be unreliable as well etc.) But would I bother telling this to parents? No, of course not, no one likes to be told they're parenting wrong, no one would listen to advice from me, a childless professional with years of experience. Sigh."

"Society appreciates ignorance rather than wisdom."

"I am an INTP. As an ex-smoker it was really hard to stop smoking cigarettes I tried everything but I just couldn't. It was frustrating to me that there is something controlling me. That was [eating away at] ... my brain.I found a book called the easy way to stop smoking on Reddit recommended by ex-smokers. I read it I stopped in a week. Now I'm 8 months clean. I distributed the book to all the people i know who smoke ligit the whole uni. No wants to read the book they think they won't stop they don't believe me. People don't like to take advice people just don't care. This makes me sad."

"It's scary how accurate this is. I almost feel called out for my ways of thinking. In typical INTP fashion I hate being predictable so it's weird to see someone get something this spot-on"

"I see these personality types like INTP as a starting point for personal development and not as a destiny. For example I try to be the one who kicks me out of the comfort zone instead of being dependent on someone else to do that."

"When he said people will hate you and alienate you because you always think your right and come off as arrogant but you usually are right which makes them hate you more. My whole life summed up and yet I never understood why it seemed people had an aversion to me when I had the best intentions. Now I know"

"[Me: Context-- this poster is not an INTP, but has a lot of Fe users in their family. Further context: INTPs are Fe users] I have a family with, I think, a lot of Fe functions. I mean, it does get overwhelming as time progressed and I feel like I'm being gaslighted not being as normal as them, but I can handle it, yes. But the repeating part is just so true. My mom and dad like to repeat stuff as they say it i.e "Don't forget to bring them. Don't forget to bring them. The bag for grandma. Okay ? Don't forget to bring them."

"This was really interesting to watch. I feel that my Trickster Ne is worse because of my Asberger's, it's much harder to interact with people and be aware of my surroundings. Interacting with people and understanding them can be completely exhausting and draining. Weirdly, I find it incredibly hard to predict people, but when I do, it's scarily accurate. My husband, an ISFP, gets so frustrated that I'm "always right". He does have to push me to do things, too. LoL. He, as you said, doesn't give me options but just tells me to stuff, and I do it, kicking and screaming the whole way. :P"

"I am lucky to have a mom that appreciate me and tells me about it quite often, which is very good-feeling, but if she thinks that I'm getting too lazy, she'll be sure to make a move. Really happy to have her in my life."

"I have always had zero fashion sense and 'sloppy' with messy hair is my default look. To help me understand the art and science of dressing right, I have been studying the Kibbe body type system and seasonal color analysis for awhile now, and it was a great starting point. I ended up going really deep into it (like I would any other science), adding my own theories to it. I'd analyze and type friends and family, giving them fashion advice with great accuracy. As for myself, I still look sloppier than ever. Ugh. It's the shopping I hate. And I am too attached to my large comfy hoodies. I need to change lol. I mean, I am an attractive woman otherwise, and I'd like to settle down in the near future. Dressing like a 17 year old boy who lives in his mom's basement certainly isn't helping".

"As an INTP I get stuck in familiar and safe logical pattern loop, caused by my own thinking. On top of that I choose to endure that pain of not taking a risk, being open to risk and taking risk causes me anxiety. Not knowing what to want scares me even more cause i can see the logical fallacy of will and desire with its shortsighted-ness, which causes me further to retreat to my safe routine which i'm willing to endure cause its familiar or obligatory, not taking risk. Its like the saying 'paralysis by analysis', invoking fear and anxiety to risk taking."

"So, I am INTP and also a Psychology student. It's a little bit tiring explaining that I don't want to make therapy. I just want to follow the investigation path and well... they all just say then why did u choose Psychology- and then I am like bcs I WANTED TO KNOW HOW WE WORK. Sad hours... lol"

"I'm not afraid other people are stupid. I'm afraid they'll misunderstand, which is a slightly different Te nemesis manifestation because that misunderstanding is a HUGE threat to everything I do and it happens a lot. Also, I can be very ascetic. Wants are difficult for me. You put that on the Si child function but I really think it comes from the critic and the blindspot acting in tandem. Because Se trickster doesn't just mean I bump into stuff. I barely even recognize material reality. Like it actually [angers] me ... sometimes that I have to have a physical human body. I don't really understand the necessity of this skin suit. But as long as I've got it I may as well make it comfy right? So, I'm off to play PUBG and get some of that dopamine we love so much".

"As an intp I always felt like I could tell what people were going to do, but until now I never rlly figured the word used to describe it, I always just used the phrase i can read people better in certain situations but I never rlly felt socially adequate like others"

"Yeah... The best way to tick off an INTP is to know what peeves us, but do it anyway... We can tolerate a little, but one second past our timer(and you can't really ever know how long it will be at any given time), our patience will burn away FAST. The better we think you know us(<the "we think" is usually the reason it can seem to come out of the blue), the less tolerant ... we become. Our patience with strangers can be enormous(sometimes ridiculous or un-called-for), but those who we expect to be on our side are expected to know better(whether or not they understand that)... edit: typos"

"[Me: Context-- This is referring to an INTP being uncomfortable about being asked to talk about their innermost feelings casually.] As an INTP female, I have to say this was quite accurate :D I especially appreciated ''Never, ever ask and INTP how they feel! '' I would add, never give an INTP the advice "follow your hart". It makes zero sense to me :D"

"I'm an INTP, here's a little anekdote: When i was younger my dad often went out with me and my brothers to a lake and just relax in the evening before going to bed. So i was like 8/9/10 (dont know exactly) and before going there me and my brother had a discussion, about who is going to sit in the front seat in the car. We said he will sit there on the way to the lake and i will sit there on the way home. But when we wanted to go home, my brother switched into: "No, i am older than you and therefore its my right to choose the seat". We had a little fight and basically i was like: "Okay, ... i am out of here", so i just quit and walked about 15km into the little town where my grandparents lived, because - u know - at grandma's house everything is always fine :). My dad was searching for me, driving around and even thinking about calling the police..because i said NOTHING.. i was just gone I am 22 now and still i have some problems communicating my actions in terms of just leaving the situation. I am always thinking: "U dont have to care about me, you are fine as well so i dont have to care about you...so where is the problem?""

"I don't think an INTP forgets that he told the story already, I believe he tells the story he thinks about because it makes him feel better to talk about it. It's a selfish reason really, but I'm guilty as charged."

"i used to know this intp (i believe) friend. you are extremely on point... extremely. this guy was a red haired nerd who made me laugh harder than anyone i've ever met. i used to be amazed with his casual novel acumen. he often had me crying in laughter in class. he was a huge story teller (stories told over and over). i used to throw him random verbal stimulus (just throw ideas his way) to see his reaction. this man had, literally, zero friends in school (other than me) and i was generally considered somewhat popular and i would regularly leave larger popular groups of others to be around him for his insane entertainment value. he regularly called me a, "... idiot," which made me laugh every time (he would be dead serious when doing this). oh, and btw, i had to beg him to hang out with me when he did... to know how strange this is, you just have to know our situation i guess (like i said, i had the extreme social upper hand that he didn't care about)... anyway, he knew a bunch of small anarchist type knowledge like what would happen if you did these strange things like stick gum wrapper in a socket, rob places in particular ways; it was wildly interesting. the lack of attention he got from others baffled me because he was so unique and extraordinary in my eyes. i was always intrigued how his mind worked. it was intimidating being around this guy with so much street wisdom and casual ability to function flawlessly when he felt like it. ...he's now a pothead (smokes 4 times a day). he did earn a casual master's degree in psychology that he doesn't do anything with. if i smoked like he did, i would fail classes in days. he had a 4.0..."

"I was once told at 26 that I was too old to still be wearing “Sarcastic Tees” from Spencer’s like a 14 year old boy and should be wearing grown men clothes like a respectable member of society. I conceded to wearing flannel button up shirts over those tee shirts. May have been the best criticism that I ever received, because I’m often told how mature I dress now at 32... I guess not a lot of men these days look mature?"

"You just described my dad in 2 functions Ti= Super logical man. Loves motors and electricity. Thinks everybody's an idiot (Shadow Te) Si= Tells the same story a million times not knowing he told the story to the same person the last week. And the week before, and the week before. I've seen it. He doesn't know he's done it. 3 Sundays in a row he told the same story to the same man."

"Back when I graduated high school I skipped the ceremony. My family thought I was crazy and I was like, "so what, almost everyone has a high school diploma. Doesn't mean you're smart.""

"I had an INTP supervisor & his assistant is ISTP, they're brilliant with everything you've stated, but I think I was great at my office manger job & they were unsupportive with some changes I wanted to make. I was trying to create a more positive, supportive experience for our staff & clients by getting rid of [awful] staff. He agreed to fire 1 of the people I was adamant about, but ended up changing his mind (he can be a coward). At my last meeting with him he told me he appreciates me (but it pained him to do it) and I was very valuable to the program, so he does have a heart somewhere. He also said he was critical of me & other leadership staff, to help us. I let him have it. I'm not tolerating that .... He wanted to control everything, even from behind the scenes. He needs puppets and I wasn't going to be that. He is arrogant & 2-face. In front of clients & staff he pretends to be kind, behind their back he talks [badly about them]. He is also overly dependent on the istp too, when she leaves, he is [a goner]. Not a good match for me at all lol"

"[Me: Context-- INTPs are very chill until you ignore their warnings over and over and ruin their own life by extension.] I lost it when you described the Vegeta level tantrums.... So many flashbacks to grabbing the closest thing I could find and straight up hurtling it at someone's (my brother's) head."

"My first and to this day only experience in isfp super ego [Me: Meaning-- INTPs are their angriest/in a rage was, when my mom confronted me the morning before school that I didn't gave her an super important school letter the days before, so she wouldn't sign it that morning, I really thought I would need it this day (later I heard we would need it 2 days later, but I didn't know this at this moment) I saw my future and honor to the teachers and from the teachers breaking away, so let's get to the rage part, I ran into my bedroom and by mistake pulled the door 1meter away from where it should have been (it was ripped out those things which hold the door). That was a really shocky moment for me, because I thought I would have me under controle in such situations, but obviously I didn't."

"you nailed it why care when ppl don't want to know they hate you for caring"

"INTP here. As far as food goes, super adventurous and familiar at the same time. I'll try anything once, and if I like it I can eat it all the time. If I don't, I'll get the priciest/highest rated version I can to make sure it wasn't just the chef/ingredients."

"I'm a female INTP. I'm always so deep into my head that someone can be right beside me and I don't notice them. When they start talking to me, It startles me out of my head. There have been times when I have actually let out a slight scream. I usually get puzzled looks when I try to explain that I was deep in thought and didn't notice them."

"I'm an INFJ living with my boyfriend that is an INTP, and I had to laugh at some of your points because they're so accurate! This man is miserable [in] a suit!"

"I'm INTP and I'm trying to not stagnate, it's pretty weird, because it's seems easier to be moving than to start moving, so yeah moving is worth it I understand that logically, but that's not internalized and I just have incredible difficulty at starting to move forward, or even continue that without external help."

"i'm a intp, i love math, learning about things at school that are actually useful in my life, and the things that are not useful in my life i find it really hard to concentrate on."

"In school we had an art project once to do without the teacher. Just written instructions. I felt like I had understood what was asked and told my classmates. But they thought differently (in a actually wrong way). After ten minutes of pointless arguing I just left them where they stood and started doing my picture. I was practicly the only person who had time to finish. And I was the only one in my class that has understood the instructions correctly. In fact, this project had such bad results that the teachers didn't let it count for the grades. My whole class got Es and Ds while I got a B+. I got to keep the grade and dump another bad grade of mine."

"Used to think I was kind of a feeler and extroverted. Then I stayed alone over Covid... I invented a cure for aging and developed a new species of fish. I think I'm definately INTP. Absolutely nobody believes me, so I know that I must be one!"

"When I first saw the board, I saw Fe, Ti, Si and Ne. And literally it screamed out Iron, Titanium, Silicon and Neon."

"Although I’m not certain I am An INTP( I cannot figure it out!), the “everybody is stupid part” got humbled in me when I entered the oilfield workforce. I grew up with the idea that tradespeople are dumb, and if you aren’t university educated, you won’t be successful. After seeing firsthand that absolutely is not the case, and oftentimes we are struggling with the engineers( Usualt INTP) lack of foresight on their projects implementation. We also have this theoretical framework I use to learn how our plant works, but oftentimes it’s experience and outside the box thinking that operates the plant on a day to day basis. The framework is merely a framework, and reality is usually way different. Paper to implementation is never perfect. Tradespeople in my opinion are far more brilliant than those educated in our institutions and I find myself side by side with teachers, economists and the like. Something I didn’t mention was The humbling part for me was how stupid I was mechanically entering the work force. Able to explain complex plant processes but unable to drain a vessel to prepare for isolation( this is similar to how intps can become good cooks or drivers, by just doing it, million dollar concept eh??). I dedicated myself to doing things on my own like following manuals and YouTube videos for vehicle repairs and performing them myself. I am catching up to rest of my peers and once my working memory and mechanical ability are good, with my abstract ability I’ll be a very good plant operator."

"I’ve stopped doing it, now that I mostly eat lunch at home, but I had a habit of ordering only one dish in each restaurant I went to. My order was always the same, only the type of food changed. So, the waitress would see me and just put in my order. It was very efficient, I reasoned, no need to suffer through the ordering process every day. I wonder if they resented me for it or liked it."

"INTP's: say something that's obvious and really simple to us. ------------others:why are you so mean? ------INTP's: did you say something? ----Others: ...! ----- INTP: shrugs and goes back to absorbing information like a sponge."

"I am an INTP, but I don’t experience a lot of the apathy problems, mostly due to a dad that understands my needs. Also I understand the inferiority/ superiority paradox and constantly try to underestimate myself (still fail to see long term thinking in the majority of people) and try to give credit where credit is due"

"INTP female here; pretty accurate, feeling attacked lol used to be called ice princess as a child. my friends used to call me robot so when my [personality test] came out saying that INTPs are robots, my friends had a lot of fun with that."

"What would you say would be the cause for an INTP with a very messy apartment? I have a few things even from my high school days that haven't thrown away and I'm in my fifties. Also have trouble making decisions of what mail to throw away. Apartment at least navigable but not using nearly all the space that's available..."

"I have anger instead of apathy/indifference. I - or rather my Si - has gotten seriously tired of seeing the same mistakes happen constantly & their repercussions constantly affect my life too, so I can't bear to see people in my life make a similar mistake one more time; thus, I snap & I have to vent...."

"Don't fall into the trap of ignorance for Ti users: last known input or preferred input will make your Ti useless. You have to test and experiment with every opinion or premise, even if you disagree with them."

"A note on my physical environment: (I’m an intp) I do tend to set things down without even thinking about it, it’s like there’s a hidden part in my brain that decides when i want to put something down, and my body just does it, completely unaware. and since i don’t notice it, i can’t even consider whether the place i am setting the thing will lead to struggle in the future."

"[Me: Context-- Here's a rare 'brutally honest' INTP] I’m a woman who’s an INTP, and it’s definitely lonely lol I’m always correcting people, if what they are saying is false. I get told that most people don’t want to be corrected, and find it offensive. Which makes no sense to me. So I’m just rather indifferent when it comes to people. Same with advice, I’m brutally honest when people ask for my opinion/advice. They usually don’t accept it, and wonder why their situation didn’t turn out right"

"My fear of feeling like people around me are dumb have been quenched by my little brother being an ISTP, my mother being wise and my grandmother being an utter genius. If there are three intelligent people around me already there will be more. You will just have to find them and build networks of trust with people humble and knowlegable in their field. Edit: I had an emotional talk with my mother because I agree with my father (even tho his reasons are unknown) that my mother should stop funding my studies. Why? Because I feel like I need an incentive to do something, and I do nolonger want my father to have any authority to say anything to me. Just finally after 21 years to actually become a somewhat independent adult. I know I will always survive, but I am really stagnating."

"As a true INTP , i listened this while playing Sims 3 creating an INTP character , with music turned off while drinking coffee at 12:23 night. 10/10 would listen again. Anyway , i feel like only stupid people are repeating the same story over and over again. I have a rule , if i like a new person and we get close i use my crazy ... stories to "flex" and get close , but only one time. In fact if a person it's telling me the same story three times , im done, i send him/her to the "lame people zone"."

""Wisdom is like fire, it's truth. You gotta get burned in order to get closer to the truth."" THANK YOU. That was beautifully said."

AND LASTLY: INTPs who can't seem to pick a calling in life-- below is some advice (from Person B Person E, and Person F), commiseration, and soothing words of wisdom-- most INTPs change their jobs or career paths regardless because of their fluctuating interests!

Person A: "I am worried to pick my specialization. I dont know what to choose. I am interested in so many things and then i move on. Example: I love art, been going to extra curricular art class since childhood and we would try all different techniques. Even now when i do something, i am interested in it (sewing, knitting, editing photos, felting, clay modelling) and it never sticks long enough to become "proficient" in it, i do it just long enough to get the basics. I am using art or hand work techniques as an example, it is a hobby not a profession I wish to pursue..."

Person B: "Compare all interests, which one of them you stick to the longest and excites you the most. Use a scoring scale & hierarchy to compare so that it is easier to analyze. And then, refer to your Fe, of all those, which one would be the most beneficial to the society. Narrow down to 2-3 choices (you know it's hard to make one choice) and try exploring them (i.e take actions) to further make distinction which one is feasible for you to specialize in (I mean realistically). I was at one time that it is possible to me to choose any career path I want to, from medicine to architecture, from art and design to computer engineering. Just like in the video, a naive INTP decided not to choose because he knew people in those field and didn't feel like really great about them and thought it didn't feel too worthwhile to take on a path to be like them. I ended up compromising my specialization and chose a subjectively easier course just because I could continue learning other fields and I did learn them. Though right now, I didn't 100% regret my choice back then as I aspire to do integration of fields rather than traditional specialization, I didn't see any problem if I did choose one of the famous career path earlier and I might feel as fulfilling as I'm now but in different departments of fulfillment."

Person C: "I’m going through the same thing. I’ve completed my bachelors in science and I work as a youth worker... but I also want to be an author. In fact, it’s always been a passion but I’m just now realizing that. But I’ve also developed a passion in research while doing my undergrad so I’m wondering whether or not to pursue my masters since that might lead me to a more sustainable career"

Person D: "Everyone I Know: You are so gifted. You could literally be anything you wanted be without even trying. Just pick something. Me:.......There are so many options, but are any of them worth it. I fail to commit to one area of study and let years go by without moving forward in life."

Person E: "I think society puts so much pressure on what you're gonna do "for the rest of your life" and "it has to be the perfect fit FOREVER". Unfortunately it never works out like that, people change and you change, and you won't be the only person who will likely want to change careers later on in life, and that's ok. From what you wrote, it seems like you are more on the 'create and make' side of things, and I find that really cool, and I also think the best step forward would be to force yourself to stick to something and build it up a bit, after a while you'll find yourself comfortable with where you're at and you can either go to something else (creative jobs have lots of transferrable skills and you'll probably be very good at them if you wanted to) or stick with whatever you choose because it's now your new comfort zone Something that helped with my indecisive nature is reading a quote, basically: time will pass anyway, so might as well be a year in the future with a step forward towards a specific something than nothing at all."

Person F: "I struggled with this one for a bit at university when I found what I originally thought was the perfect profession that would blend everything together (medical illustration). I went to a school with a weak art program, wanted to transfer after the first year and felt guilty about starting something and not finishing it. I graduated with the degree but didn’t finish the art program. convinced a counselor to let me skip classes. Since I wasn’t at the level I needed to be 3 years ago, I changed my goal and decided to hold this one off until I’m way older. Do something for a few years then switch off when you’re ready for that next experience!"

WELP.

That's all for now!

If you want, I'll make another post in future-- maybe more INTPs, maybe some ISTJs (for Scully representation, post here~.)

Thank you for reading--

Enjoy!

Disclaimers: This is a self-assessed analysis. This information is not based on the abominable MBTI system (which has been butchered from its original Jungian typology since ~WWII); instead, it’s a combination between the works of Jung’s type psychology, Dr. Linda Berens’ Communication styles, Dr. Dario Nardi’s EEG brain scan compiled research, and others’ data and practices as compiled and simplified by CSJoseph. This system is based only on the Nature side of Nature/Nurture; and each “type” is not a “box” to fit everyone into– simply a tool to help understand the basics of the human mind that science has only begun to fathom in its limited scope.

#Types #Typing #INTP #In Their Own Words #analysis #mine #comments #and only a little mention of:#Mulder #xfiles #txf #x-files #meta #xf meta #life #beautiful #MBTI #but not

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woodchipp · 16 days

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hoo boy

"it's fiction, it's supposed to/has the right to be extreme!"

Omocat herself said the plotline of "Sunny kills Mari" that's featured in the final product was chosen primarily because it was considered "a believable circumstance" lmao. because a 12 yo kid improvising a cover-up for his bestie's manslaughter sure does sound believable. happened to my buddy Eric once

Secondly, the entire theme of the game is guilt and forgiving yourself and making Mari's death intentional will minimize the message.

If you want a story that handles themes of guilt and forgiveness with actual nuance and tact, you already have Silent Hill 2. Or even Bojack Horseman, for that matter. OMORI having a different message won't be a significant loss because it can't even handle those themes right.

Just make Sunny's arc about trying to deal with that "I made her feel unloved before she died, I should've noticed she was unwell, I should have died instead" type of guilt and understanding there's no point in beating himself up over Mari killing herself because it wasn't his fault. Characters tend to elicit more sympathy when they're fucked over by circumstances they couldn't control (as an example, this is why what happens with Lucas' family in Mother 3 is so tragic in the first place), and since OMORI really wants you to see Sunny as the Poow Widdle Bapy who was dealt a bad hand (even though he was responsible for killing Mari and thus created most of his problems himself), the only feasible way to rewrite the game without deviating from the game's original framework too much would be to actually screw Sunny over by circumstances he couldn't control.

the Mewo room in black space orchestrates and demonstrates the feeling of hopelessness

If you don't remember about the "Stab" option, that is. Speaking of that

It orchestrates and demonstrates the feeling of hopelessness, and that ending your life (choosing the stab option) is a much better option than facing whatever horrible reality (cutting Mewo). However, if you do in fact cut open Mewo, you are shamed.

Okay, wait. I need to unpack this.

The post asserts that cutting Mewo open represents "facing horrible reality" right before mentioning that you're shamed for cutting Mewo open. So the game actually insinuates that ending your life would be the better option in this case. bruh

If this game had better writing, I'd be able to write that off as Sunny's thought process being warped by his suicidal ideation. But since the narrative (how the story is presented to the player) never contradicts Sunny's unreliable narration (and even reinforces it at some points), I can't.

It's also important to note that the interpretation of the Mewo room presented in this post is just that. An interpretation. The game itself doesn't give you any solid clues to figure out why it suddenly wants you to kill a cat.

So, how does the "truth" help amplify the guilt? Simply by making the player blame Sunny

Name one OMORI fan who played the game and blamed Sunny. I'd give them head

If the game's intention really was to make the player blame him, one look at the fandom will tell you that it failed. Horribly.

Coming back to the intentional death option, I think it would be a more realistic approach, but it lacks the psychological turn (not events, but emotions!)

"Psychological turn" is quite a fancy way to say that the game pulls a plot twist out of its ass just for the sake of subverting the audience's expectations without regard to how it might impact the story.

Ah, but of course

(not events, but emotions!)

Whether a plot point logically makes sense for the story you're telling doesn't matter. It's all about the Emotions said plot point makes you experience.

Feels before Reals.

It's straightforward, and the player would sympathize with Sunny. They know, for a fact, that it wouldn't be his fault if Mari took her own life.

Sometimes, "straightforward" doesn't mean "bad."

"the player would sympathize with Sunny" OMORI's entire plot is based on pushing you to sympathize with him lmao

But with the other scenario, we get a deeper understanding of Sunny's guilt/fears from his perspective.

And we wouldn't be able to get a deeper understanding of Sunny if his sister killed herself because...?

No, seriously, what is this point even supposed to insinuate? Do you really think that the pain of losing a loved one to suicide is somehow less complex and easier to deal with?

I like that this post never mentions that having Mari commit suicide would've allowed the story to take a deeper look into Mari herself by elaborating on the reasons why she felt compelled to take her life.

But of course Mari's never relevant in such discussions. She's just the girl in the fridge, after all.

#i ventured into the 'omori analysis' tag out of pure morbid curiosity and it's needless to say that I shouldn't have #because WOW. the takes I saw in there are. well. they sure do exist.#omori #omori game #omori sunny #omori mari #omori fandom

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leohtttbriar · 1 month

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🛼🍄🔪🦷🦋🦴🏜️🍬☁️🧩 (lol I know this is a lot, whatever piques your interest!!)

heyyyy!

🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis

here's a kiradax one that i'm not sure i'll ever finish for reasons but i yet have the urge to write: 🙏😩💦🌊🪱

🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

so i really like t'pring/uhura because i think there's a sort of quietness to them that remains steely and resolved. just looking at how the characters function in the show, it's easy to see how they had so much oomph for their moment while being the kinds of characters now that few people notice or pay attention to. like, for uhura it's nearly impossible to find any content in fan spaces that's about her alone, despite her being a big main character in snw; which probably just speaks to misogyny and racism but also might have something to do with the fact that the character was written to do a lot of watching/listening originally and people don't know how to interpret that. but despite her lack of real character-attention, she gets so many moments where she sets her jaw and does her duty but also does what she thinks is right (also nichols did a very good job of implying this full person in the character of uhura, even if the show was so rarely focused on it). and t'pring has like ten seconds total of dialogue in tos but she's still so in control the entire episode she's in, in charge of the lives of several people, and we simply cannot be mad at her for it because she's right and logical and doing the only thing she can to ensure she is free to choose.

all that being said: my head canon for this pairing is that they aren't enormously expressive, that they're dutiful and bound to each other in this really quiet way, that they grow together sort of privately, keep each other to themselves, and that even when they're standing side-by-side you can't tell what they are to each other. part of that is me just really enjoying vulcan logic and non-expressive emotion. but part of it is extrapolating based on their characters in the show and how they didn't have to be shouting to be heard or seen. the story kind of honored them in the way the story knew how to do at the time.

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

necessary components of a crop-yielding soil

🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

personal wisdom: sometimes it's easier to capture a monstrous wasp on your kitchen counter if you call your mom and just have her on the phone while you do it

🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately

i've been thinking a lot about a quote from stephen jay gould, as he was describing the work of people who had first started to put together the geological time scale and history. i can't remember the exact quote, can't find it anywhere, and i lost the book but it went something like:

"not for the first time, or the last, scientific discovery was achieved not by clever thinking but by careful doing."

🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing?

bridge of spies, dir. by steven speilberg.

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

lol i love all comments, truly. they're all precious. i guess i love most the comments from people who love the characters as much as me.

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

my most unpopular opinions are about winn adami but i wouldn't call her a popular fandom character. my unpopular opinion is that she should be.

another unpopular opinion that i've probably heavily implied a few times but maybe never outright said: odo is an annoying character, to me. he just seems like the best expression for a lot of mid-90s male anxieties/ennui that i find uninteresting. i think odo is conceptually worth so much but the character fails to carry it in a way that convinces. he was confronted with the wrong people too often. one of the only times he was confronted with the right person was with lwaxana troi but, alas, she was not by his side for all seven seasons.

☁️ ⇢ what made you choose your username?

my first username was leohtebewunden which is old english for "bound/wound by/with light" which is a pretty image and also i need sunlight So Much. but that was long so i shortened it but then i was reminded of the word "briar" in a poem randomly and added it to my username bc i love it. it's a good word.

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

if the punctuation/grammar is just really wrong. that's less to do with me being there are proper ways to do things! and more like if you've read a lot of books, you would probably know how punctuation works without having to think too much about it. it's like banning brown m&ms in your rider.

#now i hope you answer all of mine!!#no pressure or anything #but still...#star trek #t'pura #my fic #ds9

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kyogre-blue · 1 year

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Hi. Sorry for the following rant, but you're the only person I know who seems to be having a hate-love relationship with genshin. Please feel free to ignore this though if you want.

So I was doing Zhongli's first story quest, about Havria, and it's revealed that when she died there was backlash due to her godly powers. Now I don't remember for certain if this is canon or fanon, but I also thought that the reason Osial was imprisoned and not killed was due to the backlash. So how did Zhongli's "death" not get questioned then? Like Rex Lapis' death should have leveled at least half of Teyvat. And maybe sure, common citizens wouldn't have this information, but at least the Adepti should have known. Was it explained somewhere and I just missed it?

Like Liyue arc was so full of plot holes it's not even funny anymore. (And this is coming from someone who is willing to overlook a few plot holes). Is it so hard for Mihoyo to hire some competent writers, or at least keep track of all that's being said. Like I get that writing is hard, but if you strip it to the bare bones genshin is a simple story, and I think if they had kept that in mind they could have done so much better.

Again sorry for the long rant. i guess I just needed to vent a little bit.

Ah, you poor soul....

You made the classic mistake. When reading Genshin, you felt the hollowness of the storyline and the lack of any logic or explanation behind its events, so you instinctively tried to connect what was happening to other parts of the story. Your self-made explanation made sense, it felt good, so you assumed it was actually canon. But it's not.

There is no reason ever given for why Morax sealed his enemies instead of killing them. This is simply never discussed or mentioned. Same way there is no explanation for why the Traveler wants to see Morax's corpse so bad, or why we think a Guizhong Ballista will help us look for the cocogoat. We just do it because the plot needs us to do it.

In regard to gods exploding when they die, it seems to be something they can choose to control. The energy Andrius unleashed when he died (because, yeah, he's a ghost in present day) was actually beneficial to Mondstadt, since it change the previously frozen climate to something warmer. There's also no mention of Deshret or Rukkhadevata causing any big explosions with their deaths.

Take your personal pick of whether Havria was just taken too much by surprise to control it, was too weak and pathetic to control it, or if she decided to fuck up those bitches who shanked her on purpose.

In regard to why the adepti never question the whole "Rex Lapis was MURDERED" thing, it's because his supposed murder is just a plot device to have a cool sequence of events where the Traveler is a fugitive for some reason. After the end of Act 1, the entire concept of his death being caused by someone intentionally is largely dropped. EDIT: On replay, there's some mention from Keqing that the Qixing would nominally be the best suspects (though no explanation how they could have possibly achieved it), but that the adepti simply do not believe humans could have done it. On the other hand, they also never mention the adepti looking for any non-human culprit, so... do they think he just dropped dead from old age? This is never explained. At the end, the Qixing just tell the human populace that Morax failed a heavenly trialed and uh ascended or something.

At the most generous, you can say that "murder" was just Ningguang's kneejerk reaction and she sweeps it under the rug as quickly as possible once she realizes how stupid it is, and the adepti never took it that seriously. They're just mad in a generic way that Rex Lapis is dead, whatever the cause might be.

Honestly, Genshin's plot being stupid is like... it's bad. But it's made infinitely worse for me by that fact that the characters are worse. The characterization and (lack of) character arcs are just... I can't do this. Why does this """story""" even exist? It's so pointless.

....I mean, I know why it exists. GOTTA SELL THOSE ANIME WAIFUS

#playing genshin

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moonlarked · 1 year

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What do you think about Quinlin as a character and Livvy's husband?

He’s pretty interesting, actually. We first meet him in Atlantis, and from there he’s characterized as somebody like Alden, who will rebel at times but is opposed to rebellion and supports the Council.

Then, during Neverseen, we learn that he and Alden were Cognates and the reason they broke up was because Quinlin had second thoughts about Prentice’s mind break.

Which makes you think: Why did Alden break but not Quinlin? Quinlin performed the mind break itself - surely he would have more guilt that Alden would.

I think that comes down to Quinlin telling himself that he regretted what happened with Prentice, but he won’t wallow in it. He doesn’t try to convince himself it was the right thing like Alden did. He strikes me as a very pragmatic and logical person. He doesn’t agree with everything the Council does, but he doesn’t openly rebel because he doesn’t see the logic in it.

Now, his relationship with Livvy. It’s said in Nightfall that they filed a “match-fail” aka a divorce. It’s never revealed exactly why they did so - Quinlin didn’t know about Livvy’s affiliations with the Black Swan, and Livvy didn’t know that Quinlin performed the mind break on Prentice. So I think they fell out simply because of their opposing personalities and perspectives. Quinlin is serious and logic-oriented and chooses to keep his cards close to his chest and work within the law when he can. Livvy is passionate and daring and wants to do whatever she can do to broaden her perspective and help her world. They both know their places and don’t lie to themselves about their true intentions, but they just don’t mesh well together. It wasn’t for one reason in particular - even if Livvy hadn’t kept the Black Swan from him they probably would’ve still fell apart.

Thanks for the ask!

#kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #kotlc livvy #livvy sonden #kotlc quinlin #quinlin sonden #asked

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collymore · 11 days

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Only in America!

By Stanley Collymore

Stewart Lucas Murrey obviously speciously lauded as a simply highly intelligent and equally unquestionably a competent and clearly confident man yet at his quite relatively young age of 49 years basically simply needs to go on a dating site to literally hopefully acquire a suitable partner, a state of affairs which actually seems evidently odd and absolutely strange to me, if Stewart is comprehensively such an unquestionably, specifically accomplished individual, yet clearly undoubtedly appears to be actually significantly devoid of, the relevant requisite skills that simply millions of people globally rather obviously generally undeniably and evidently significantly, distinctively naturally have, and that they frequently and literally successfully also utilize in aptly formulating and pleasurably engineering clearly quite crucially one to one personal relationships with members distinctively of the opposite sex and never once feel the need, any overwhelming urge or an indomitable compulsion to essentially utilize the services of one, or multiple dating agencies!

And isn't there simply a common denominator here Stewart? If actually, whatever number of women, who have clearly never met each other, effectively don't know one another; or weren't even cognizant of the crucial fact that you were simply seeing, or dating any of them; come up individually, and distinctively too unquestionably independently with the same negative analysis of you, Stewart; it's discernibly, not rocket science, to decipher, that there's a common denominator which truly is you! And significantly therefore those individual and independent analyses of you, are obviously far more accurate, quite distinctively honest, and rather objective than your biased, surely distorted and dare I say irrefutably narcissistic, egotistical and distinctly twisted exaggerated ones specifically of yourself by yours truly! Basically, therefore, if you actually, literally can't rationally, logically, or quite intelligently simply contemplate let alone discernibly specifically and rather realistically take that analogy on board, then crucially you're essentially, one hell of an insane sociopathic psychopath!

Author's Remarks: So if a woman takes steps to choose the right man she's wrong and will effectively distinctly run the risk of being sued. If, however, she fails to do so and simply evidently ultimately ends up crucially being beaten, assaulted, raped or even murdered, it's thus undoubtedly all her fault!

You need to get a real life Stewart Lucas Murrey as you're evidently desperately in need of one!

And having obviously previously in my life undoubtedly trained and worked as a psychiatric Nurse in the British NHS I do know what I'm talking about!

#Narcissism

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booksandwords · 6 months

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Realigned by Becca Seymour

Series: Coming Home #1 Read time: 1 Day Rating: 4/5 Stars

The Quote: Heat spread over every inch of my skin. Wicked tongue. My brain had short-circuited at some point in the last thirty minutes or so. I didn’t know if it had started when he admitted his feelings for me or at the mention of seduction. I knew one thing for sure, though: my addled brain could not shake the thought of his tongue. — Shaun O'Ryan

Warnings: None. Just a rock-loving scientist and his selfless idiot.

Realigned is Shaun's story. Shaun O'Ryan is an Australian country boy, a geologist employed by NASA. He's been living in America for 8 years not coming home in all that time, talking to his family by phone and occasional visits by them. Now he's in Australia for a two-week stay. The first event in the book is Shaun getting pulled over for speeding... a joke by his lifelong friend Sergeant Mitch Harris. It is kinda funny and is a perfect example of their relationship dynamic.

The novellas epigraph is Take risks.. This sets the tone for the whole story. Shaun is being headhunted by a big company, his family (especially his mum) wants him to stay in Australia for good, taking the offer and coming home. They decide to use Mitch as a weapon knowing full well that Shaun and Mitch have had a thing for each other for a decade. Honestly, it's simple enough. It is Shaun saying I can't have sex involved if I'm going to make a logical decision here. It's a premise a liked and I appreciated that Becca choose to use a single narrator to tell her story. Sometimes having both spoils the surprise for some events.

Have some of the long quotes I liked.

Since it was midweek, there were only a handful of patrons propping up the bar. I greeted every one of them with a handshake when they declared the astronaut had returned. I simply smiled and indicated to Mitch to hurry the hell up with our drinks. There was no point even attempting to explain I wasn’t an astronaut. Yeah, I was lucky enough to work for NASA, but I was all about geology and research. It didn’t matter in a small town like this though. Six hours from civilisation in the arse of the outback, most of the residents heard NASA and decided for themselves I would be travelling the solar system at some point in the future. Who was I to spoil their fun? — I have nothing to add to this really. It just feels like he is the ultimate hometown boy made good. This quote almost said more about him than anything else we got early on. (Shaun)

Apparently everyone knew whatever it was Mum was failing to act coy about. Even my brothers-in-law looked prepped for a reveal. I took a few moments to try to figure out what was going on before returning my attention to Mum. This time her expression was more relaxed, just too much so considering everyone else’s reaction. — Oh the pure joy of this level of this family dynamic. I love it so much. Meddling mothers are the best. (Shaun)

“Not quite sure yet.” I indicated Mitch with a chin lift. “That’s a question for Sarge.” I looked over at him and threw him a wink. “God help us all.” Lorna chuckled, and I glanced back to see her watching the two of us, an amused smile on her lips and a gentleness in her eyes. “You boys back together again.” She shook her head. “Not sure if it’s a good or bad thing Mitch here is now the sarge. Does that mean you’ll get away with even more, rather than not getting up to any crazy stunts?” With her brows raised high, she studied Mitch then clucked. I had no idea what she’d read on his face, but by the time I looked at him, his face was a picture of innocence. I rolled my eyes, not at all convinced. — There are several reasons I like small-town romance, particularly back home after a long-time romance, moments like this are one of them. The people who knew them as kids, the trouble making them, get the whole oh help us all vibe. It's fun and funny. (Shaun and Lorna)

"I’m happy with weird if it means you keep looking at me the way you do.” “What way is that?” I squeaked. “Like you want me to be yours and you don’t want me to ever let you go.” I was done. It was time to stick a damn fork in me. — I just love that last line. I know this is a fairly common quote but somehow it feels like home to me. I can't explain it. I also like the set-up here. (Mitch and Shaun)

I like Becca Seymour for her Australian romance. They have some angst, a whole lot of sweetness and Australian linguistics. Realigned is no exception to this. Better yet it is free on both amazon and Prolific Works (likely other platforms as well), giving this broad access option if a reader wants to try her writing for the first time. I'm giving this 4 rather than 3⭐ because it is free, yes it is short. But it is a HFN, not a HEA and I'm more than okay with that. This does have a follow-up Amalgamated, I will be reading that as well I think. It follows the same sort of ideas.

#this occasionally comes up in bookfunnel and prolific works promotions #keep an eye out and you may be able to get it either free or cheap #becca seymour #coming home #realigned #read australian #book review #ktreviews #read 2022 #novella #booklr

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selormohene · 7 months

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day 92 (tuesday, october 3rd 2023)

Today's primary theme is inspired by a series of posts by a certain internet personality, to wit:

people play at all times the most fun game they know how to play. if you see someone doing something that looks ridiculously unfun to you assume it is because they literally don’t know how to play a more fun game than what they’re playing this includes assuming that you might not understand the ways in which the game they’re playing is fun to them people play the game of hatred because it’s fun, but they also play it because they don’t know how to play the game of love i forgot to spell out the rest of the logic: the implication here is that the way to change other people’s behavior is not by trying to argue them out of it but by visibly having more fun doing something else

I found this incredibly profound when I read it. Most people play the game of anything else because they either don’t know about the game of love or don’t know how to play it. In particular there's a difference between a lack of theoretical knowledge (not knowing about the game of love, or rather not knowing that it's more fun, although "fun" understates the point — the point is that it's a better game, full stop) and a lack of practical knowledge (recognising that the game of love is a better game, but not being able to convert that recognition into actually playing that game).

This reminds me of the Socratic point that no one willingly does evil. Really it has echoes in Descartes and Kant and really the entire tradition, by which I mean *the tradition* — what you might call the classical transcendental tradition in philosophy, which ties together Platonism, medieval theologians such as Augustine and Aquinas, early modern philosophical theologians such as Leibniz, Descartes and Pascal, and the German idealists. The tradition is characterised by some key ideas, central among them one or another variant of the thought that fundamentally, the intellect and the will are infinitely and absolutely good and only fail to be so by privation or lack (rather than capacities which may or may not be geared towards this or that end) and that the absolute good and the good of finite beings ultimately coincide (rather than goodness either being extrinsic to the will or assessment-relative), and so on. Contemporary philosophy calls this the guise of the good, but really it's not the guise of the good; every action is oriented towards the good, not the mere idea of the good, because our idea of the good is ultimately conscious of itself as answering to a normative standard given by the good itself, whose goodness is prior to our judgment.

But on the point that no one willingly does evil, this can be construed empirically, or logically/transcendentally (It’s impossible to willingly do something and for it to be evil, at least modulo one’s knowledge that what is actually good isn’t an external imposition but nothing nothing other than the thing most worth doing. (What about what’s good but difficult to achieve? There it's not that the cost of achieving the good is factored into our assessment of what is good; the effort of seeking the good isn't subtracted from the goodness of the good in order to arrive at the final value of seeking it. But this is a case that one has to answer if one holds the traditional thought.) In any case, I think the logical or transcendental point can be strengthened if we allow that the ignorance in question can run particularly deep: so someone who is repeatedly confronted with the good and yet seems to choose evil consciously, willingly and defiantly is simply in the particularly strong grip of a limitation of knowledge, of an attachment to a limited view of the self and of its ends (i.e. what is good for it) as opposed to what is good in itself. The wicked person doesn't realise that he is ultimately constructing the oppositional battlefield in which he takes himself to thrive.

There's a question, given whatever version of the thesis one beliees, if one believes some version of it (or believes that some version must be true even if one isn't sure which — which I do), of how one can get other people to play the game of love — how one shows, demonstrates, teaches, encourages it in others. In particular, the interesting thing about it is the fact that it’s pretty easy, for the most part, once you know what it is, and many of the barriers we see against it are really just self-imposed and dissolve once we recognise that, and we’re all constantly getting better at it. So for instance, thinking about what I've said about realising that not everyone is going to respond to your emotions the way you'd like and deciding to express them anyway: just making that resolution and allowing it to sink in makes it so much easier to just let things be, and just be yourself. Once you stop fixating about trying to control how people receive your gift of love, you can give it far more freely, which, funnily enough, makes it more likely for far more people to receive it positively.

I think I'm going to start writing research documents on Google Docs around topics I’m interested in. This occurred to me for various reasons. First, the notes I've taken in class (and the cross-referencing I've built up) have been immensely helpful in helping me crystallise my knowledge around large and complex topics. Second, it would be especially useful this semester because I'm thinking about so many related things concerning the philosophy of logic and (the foundations of) mathematics, but also I was at a talk by Manon Garcia today, and she said a lot of things I'd been thinking about over the years concerning the philosophy of love and sex, and a bunch of modes of further engagement as well as additional readings and so on came to mind and I think that's exactly the sort of thing I'd find valuable to have in one place (and eventually maintain in memory in virtue of having worked on compiling it all together in one place). But there are also other topics, things like affirmative action, the various black political traditions, all my niche interests at the intersection of various mathematical fields, all the other topics I’ve been thinking I want to develop views on.

To some extent there may well be a risk of ossification of the self that comes from having one's thoughts stored in written form and thus something like a permanent record, but then again there's the contrary risk of the sundering of the self which comes from not keeping things in memory. Of course, the more modes and modalities of being with which one engages, the more one recognises them as mere pieces of the whole, and the more integrated one's perspective is on life. This is something that this diary has really helped me with, and helped me realise. There's something about consistently having a record of things you want to do (and then doing them, and building on your previous ideas) which makes the intentional fashioning of the self take off in a way that it wouldn’t have otherwise. Again back to the idea of developing one’s power of memory as an ethical imperative.

Also I talked to two new people today which is nice. I'd actually been despairing of achieving my socialisation goal at all this month and wondered if I should give it up, but I'm only one behind so far, if you want. I'll try to chat to a few new people in the upcoming days.

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kalofi · 2 years

Text

haven’t posted in a couple days so here r a few closeups of a comic i’m working on ^_^

#art #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #suguru geto #geto suguru #gojo satoru #satoru gojo #yes it’s for an ask yes it’s stsg #satosugu #tho i’ll probably just make it into a post and tell the person who asked that it was made bc of them #anyway ppl who follow me on insta know abt how i don’t rly ship stsg and BEFORE U COME INTO MY INBOX ASKING WHY OR SCORNING ME. JUST LISTEN #LISTEN OKAY #it’s not like i don’t think they’re gay together. like literally read the manga theyre so fucking gay #they obviously care abt each other deeply like they’re literally boyfriends. i’m more than willing to admit that #but i’m not rly into the whole ‘ship built around angst’ thing bc i am sensitive and i Will Cry #so most of the time i just block them from my mind and my memory bc if i think about stsg too hard it just makes me rly sad #so i simply choose not to see it!!! it’s failed logic but whatever this is the life i choose to live #i don’t mind stsg in fact there r times where i enjoy it but it’s just not rly for me LOL #so don’t expect a lot of stsg art coming from this blog. u can expect maybe some. but not a lot #and u might b like ooohhh lofi ur such a hypocrite u ship nanago and that has angst too!#and to that i say: yeah ur right i’m totally biased nanami is my fave so he gets special treatment.#i told u my reasoning was built on faulty logic. my tastes are inconsistent but there’s nothing u can do abt it sorry #i love contradicting myself i think it’s good to keep u guys on ur toes #anyway rant over now u know my dark dirty secret that i don’t ship stsg…i hope u can forgive me

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ohheyitsokay · 3 years

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trials

this takes place in my ‘poly frontier’ universe

pairing: Will “Ironhead” Miller, Santiago “Pope” Garcia, Francisco “Catfish Morales, Ben “Benny” Miller and a female reader

wordcount: 2.1k

warnings: all fics in this series are 18+, poly relationship, domestic, romantic, and sexual intimacy. strong language, angst with a happy ending

summary: this one is a Santi story - he tries to bring another girl into the relationship, and learns instead how much he loves you

it wont be everyone's cup of tea but I felt like it was an important part of the story

note: don’t hate Santi! I think this is a pretty normal, and the best sunsets come after rain

Santi was the first to branch out. He didn’t mean to – hated himself for it a little, but he did.

This – whatever this is, it’s a ticking time bomb, he told Will. One of has to do something before it breaks all of our hearts.

It was a lie.

They both knew it. But he had the money and the looks and the confidence and he was just hurt enough by the sight of you asleep in Ben’s lap one afternoon that he just… let it get to him.

Brooded and boiled until he was overcome with false righteousness and pure selfishness.

He didn’t look you in the eyes when he told you he was going to try to get another girl. It wasn’t that he was leaving what you all had, just that he deserved a chance at whatever he called balance. His gaze in the other men’s eyes was too bold – the look of a desperate man, terrified of being hurt so causing it on his own terms.

You nodded numbly, shocked in spite of yourself, scolding and scathing voices in your mind telling you not to be selfish. Not to be greedy.

He deserves more than sharing.

Tucking yourself into Frankie’s arms, you tried not to glare or cry and only failed at the latter. Because it’s not the dating another girl that hurt, really it’s not. Polyamory is hard, and it was always an open option. What hurts is his blatant choice to ignore the relationship his has with you, specifically, that he’s ignoring everything you and him have worked for, built with love and time and care.

Rubbing gentle hands over your skin, Will and Frankie and Ben shared looks as Santi stalks away.

Frankie corners him in the garage the next morning. You had slept between him and Will the night before, but they had all felt you toss and turn, all spent a fair amount of time staring at the ceiling themselves. His dark eyes are an insecure that shoots into Frankie’s core – it’s a look he knows, has spent months overcoming. He swallows hard, his words dying in his throat, and he simply shakes his head.

It almost breaks Santi in two, the first moment one of his loves betrays the damage he’s done, but he tells himself there’s no going back.

“Better now than later, when our parents hate her or –”

Frankie’s look stops him and he flinches away.

Will is at the bar he chooses without an invite, knowing where he’d be without having to even ask and they both try not to think of you at home with Ben, probably dripping flames. Santi wonders if it hurts more to watch him flirt, or to do it, but neither of them say a word to each other. In spite of it all, the respect his judgement, respect his choice, and that hurts too.

It feels strange to have others looking him up and down and to look back, smile with lust void of love and soak in the attention.

Before he succumbs to it, Santi wishes Will would come over, slide his hand around his neck and… stop respecting him so much. It would pull him back, but since he doesn’t, the thought dies under the burn of cheap alcohol.

She’s lovely, really, graceful like a cat.

Santi has kept her from you all for a few weeks now, keeping his dignity with distance. But now she’s here, in your home, and you should be jealous but instead you just smile sadly at her, and slip off to the kitchen.

He likes… coffee, dark roast, with just a clump of raw sugar. You’re stirring it when you realize they followed you, hovering at the door. The ache of it is less than it was before and they’re happy together, so for his sake, you sit down across from her.

She’s kind, friendly. Knows the gist of the situation, tells you she’ll go at your pace.

And it crashes into you, how he’s pinned you at a time when know one else is home, offering her up to you like a plea, a child who used the superglue to make a gift, never mind the fact that his hands are both stuck to it and burning.

It feels reasonable to have another woman around, to make the numbers less absurd, to – to help you. Her smile is a little shy and she takes you hand and she looks at Santi with such adoration that a knot loosens in your chest involuntarily.

She doesn’t joke about it, any of it, and you almost wish she would. It would be so much easier to hate her if she was shallow, or stupid, or something but she’s not, and when she smiles you almost think you could be friends. You wonder if you could make it work, like they do for you.

Ben and Will come home early, stepping in like the angels they are, planting themselves solid at your side like trees with roots deeper than they are tall. When Frankie comes home, he takes the spot of the two of them as their eyes draw Santi into another room.

“What the fuck, Garcia,” Benny is as hurt as you are by it all, maybe more.

“Shut up Miller.” He’s glaring, filled with venomous satisfaction at how well the two of you have been talking.

“Cant you see it’s for the better?”

There’s silence – neither of them agree, too confused by him to respond.

“Don’t you ever wonder,” Santi tries again, knowing they’re listening because they love him too.

“No.” They spoke in unison, which makes Will roll his eyes. Neither of them hesitate, and something in Santi cracks.

You poke holes in the bottom of a styrofoam container with a plastic fork. She’s long gone now, but the date still lingers as you poke at your leftovers and try to unwind each moment of the date like strings of spaghetti.

On the surface it had gone well, you had thought you had fun until you felt a burn of tears under your eyelids.

Closing them you sigh, breathing like you practiced, gentle tides of love and logic washing over a feelings you tell yourself are selfish.

When you open your eyes, your Santi is standing behind her chair, and you almost cant breathe.

He went away for two weeks to help with a mission, and he’s here, one side of his mouth higher than the other. You want to kiss it, but you smile instead, and say, “You missed her by a couple minutes, sorry,” and actually mean it.

“I caught her in the parking lot,” he sits slowly, carefully, and when he reaches for your hands it’s almost tentative. It makes you blink again, how his eyebrows are bending. For the first time in what feels like forever, you don’t understand what it means, cant predict at all what he says next.

“I broke it off,” his eyes are in yours.

“I don’t understand,” you hear yourself say.

Santi searches for the words, like he had them but cant make them come out of his mouth.

“She’s not you,” he says. “I want you.”

You realize with a start that his hand is trembling, and he says your name in a way you’ve never heard before – like he’s terrified. That’s how badly he wants this, wants.. you. There’s no question in your mind, your eyes answer him.

It’s messy, not like a movie, the way he tugs you up and up and into his arms, the shudder of his broad shoulders and he buries himself into you as much as he can.

Like a hazy, blurry dream, your arms find their way around him, holding him like he’s fragile, another first.

He doesn’t say You’re enough for me, or You deserve the world, or anything dramatic.

Instead he says, “Can I buy you dinner?” And, “I’m sorry,” and “It’s been too long.”

And he says “I love you.”

He already asked the others, calling them each on his drive to you. Asked like he was young, if it was okay. Santi knew none of them had fallen in love with her, because even he hadn’t. But he had to ask for their permission as much as yours, to try to win you back.

They were more guarded than you, wary of his passion.

It takes time, and work.

He stays up later than he should talking with Benny about everything and nothing, hands nervously putting together snacks. When the younger man holds you, Santi teaches himself to join, to be held and hold you both. It feels good, which feels like guilt.

He works on that, too.

Frankie and him never talk about it. For weeks he thought his oldest friend had understood, more of less forgiven him without a word. One day they’re out for lunch, and his eyes flicker at the waitress, tucking her hair behind her ear. When he returns his gaze to the man across him, his blood runs cold. It’s been years since he’s seen furious determination brewing in Frankie’s dark, caring eyes, but it’s there now and he hates it. It takes discipline, to watch how he’s perceived as closely as he watched his intentions, but he does it.

It was easier than winning Will back.

“How long has your logic been shit?” Has your heart been in the wrong place this whole damn time?

“I just got on the wrong path, Ironhead.”

“Like hell you did,” his eyes were ice. “You let that happen.”

It would’ve been easier if he punched him. This wasn’t a kiss and make up moment either. The work ended up being long talks while you forced them to drive to pick you up when your car broke down the town over. Forcing words out being so honest it hurt, until has heart and throat felt raw. Making Will understand it was out of his own fears. Showing him how he was fixing it.

And weeks of letting with watch him again, eyes not missing a single touch or flinch or moment between you all. Actions to reinforce his words.

It hurt, but infinitely less than feeling distant from you all to begin with.

Will and your Catfish bring it up with you, one sunday afternoon as you tuck yourself between them and let their hands trace your skin.

“How are you doing?”

“I don’t know, Will. Better, I think. I missed him.”

Frankie places a row of warm kisses down the side of your neck.

“He missed you too. It’s Pope, he’s... he’s scared, love.”

“I don’t know if I believe that, yet.”

Ironhead grumbles at your confession, his big fingers squeezing the meat of your thigh.

“You gave him another chance, but you’re holding back. What does your gut say?”

“Unreliable - I’m in love with him.”

His head pops up and he kisses you before half-smiling. Frankie’s hand finds one of his, and they share a look.

“Can we tell you, querida? What we’ve seen.”

“Some objective evidence,” Will kisses you again.

“He loves us.” Another kiss.

“You.”

It’s quiet as Santi flips through his latest files. The evening air is cool, and he should be getting ready for bed but you’re not home yet, and they’re all milling about waiting. You texted them how tired you were, what an awful evening you had.

“It should just be another couple of minutes,” Will says, and Frankie checks his watch. Ben wanders to the kitchen and they can hear him mixing hot chocolate.

When you walk through the front door, they fold you in their arms. Santi holds back, doubt still nagging at his mind. You let him back in, let him take you don't dates, but you didn’t fit together any more. He was running out of ways to communicate with you.

But you slump over, gently pushing aside his files and placing his laptop away before replacing it with yourself. Molding into him you sigh, and almost instantly fall asleep.

You’re small and vulnerable in his arms and the weight on his legs feels like trust.

The air in the room shifts, lighter, more breathable than it’s been in months. Adoring, proud eyes watch, and he wants to cry.

For the first time maybe ever, he’s sure that everything is going to be okay.

The bar was mercifully quite that evening, and if made it easy for you to find your love. A small, familiar feeling tugged in your gut as you made your way over to him, eyes on the waitress who was leaning over him with unwholesome intentions.

Then the feeling settled, and was replace with a warmer feeling. She was putting down a tray that had your order on it, and Santi was thanking her, distracted checking your message on his phone.

“Hey, handsome,” you said, the warm feeling spreading throughout your chest. “Can we actually get out of here?”

His brown eyes were big, dark lashes catching the low lights as he stared at you. Somewhere in his mind, he thought too protest because your drink just got there, but the words stuck on his tongue.

“Yeah... yeah of course, baby,” He signaled for the check before standing to draw you in his arms. Saying no to you had never really been an option.

The two of you barely made it to his truck before your hands were all over each other. You liked the feel of him, pinning you against the metal frame, the desperate way he kissed you.

Pope was saying something about how you looked so fucking sexy, needing him so badly you couldn’t wait. You couldn’t concentrate on them.

“Pope,” you said against his skin, sliding your hands under his shirt. In response, he only made a soft groaning noise and increases his urgency.

"Santi," you tried again, before your own gasp cut you off.

"Santi - fuck - Santiago!"

The look he gave you was that of a dog, when you held the treat just out of reach.

"I'm yours," you said, pulling his head in to press against your forehead. "And you," you kissed him, hard, fingers gripping his beautiful curls. "Are mine."

"Fuck," you could feel his heartbeat, his pulse, he was pressing into you so hard, like he wanted to blur where he ended and you began. You knew he understood.

"I am," he said into your skin again and again that evening. Not selfish position, a promise and a proclamation: "I'm yours."

"I'm yours."

taglist:

@fangirl-316 @scribbledghost @writeforfandoms @beautyagegoodnesssize @princess76179 @mrsbentallmadge @pbeatriz

poly frontier taglist:

@grogusmum

#triple frontier #poly frontier #triple frontier poly fic #triple frontier x reader #will miller x reader #santiago garcia x reader #francisco morales x reader #benny miller x reader

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

Note

LXC offhandedly says something about his relationship with NHS that would be totally innocent from *anyone* else, but sounds scandalously filthy coming from *him*. Bonus points if it's around LWJ and/or WWX and they are floored. Double bonus points if he did it on purpose for revenge over having to listen to *them* all the time. - 🦇

Petty - ao3

The first time was an accident.

No, that wasn’t right. More accurately, the first time was entirely Wei Wuxian’s fault.

(Lan Xichen sometimes thought, not very kindly, that many things were, more than Lan Wangji would necessarily admit to. He had not yet settled with himself if those were his actual thoughts or if it was merely bitterness about everything that had happened and in which Wei Wuxian had played chief role, but that was one of the things he was working on, for himself.

After all those years of being deceived, it was important for him to get to know his own mind, his own thoughts, and to be sure about them.)

“It’s good to see you out and about,” Wei Wuxian said warmly to him when they met again, as if Lan Xichen had only been confined at home with a brief illness rather than in strict seclusion for over a year.

Lan Xichen thought, perhaps, that Wei Wuxian was attempting to translate for Lan Wangji, standing beside him, practically radiating welcome and hopefulness and other such things that Lan Xichen honestly wasn’t equipped to deal with at the moment and had been purposefully ignoring. If so, it was not a very accurate translation, and unnecessary – no one knew his brother better than him.

Certainly not his brother’s long-dead lost love, who hadn’t even known.

“Indeed,” he said, not smiling, and Wei Wuxian’s own smile faded a little, as Lan Wangji’s own hope already had. “Nie Huaisang will be coming to visit me, and I plan to host him at the hanshi.”

That might also have been at Lan Wangji’s request, although only obliquely, if at all – even when he had appeared at his weakest, his most fallible and pathetic, Nie Huaisang had always been as stubborn as an ox (as stubborn as his brother), and no one could make him do anything he didn’t want to do. This included running his own sect, no matter how much they had tried, and it also included actually listening to the people he’d just begged to solve problems for him. Lan Xichen could remember all the countless times Nie Huaisang had sobbed on his shoulder, and Jin Guangyao’s, too, until they’d given him advice, at which point he would thank them effusively and merrily go along and do whatever he felt like doing regardless. He was very good at getting his own way in the end.

As subsequent events had shown.

Lan Xichen could tell from the expression on Wei Wuxian’s face that he didn’t understand why Lan Xichen would choose to break his seclusion to host Nie Huaisang of all people, especially when he had declined all similar efforts by Lan Wangji, but he wasn’t especially inclined to explain.

If he even could.

How to explain that contemplation had shown that he had been the one to fail Nie Huaisang and not the other way around? Long before they’d ever sworn brotherhood, he had promised Nie Mingjue to watch over Nie Huaisang and aid him whole-heartedly in all his endeavors. Nie Mingjue had always worried, first and foremost, that Nie Huaisang not be lonely, knowing that his brother, born with a weak body, had long struggled with finding his place in his martially-inclined sect – everything else was secondary in Nie Mingjue’s mind, even Nie Huaisang’s personal safety. He’d always said that Nie Huaisang was a proper Nie in that fashion, that he would devote every part of him to the things he loved no matter if it meant death, and there was nothing anyone could do about it; all he’d ever wanted, instead, was for Nie Huaisang not to be alone as he did so.

Lan Xichen had sworn to be there for him.

He hadn’t been.

He’d sworn to stand beside Nie Mingjue, too, promised it in his heart and in the eyes of all the world, and he’d even meant it when he’d done so. And then, despite it all, he’d spent nearly half his life supporting and shielding his murderer – he’d broken so many promises. To the Nie, to himself. The only thing Lan Xichen could do to atone for those failures was to try to do better: to learn from what he’d done, to teach himself what he’d lacked, to make up for his deficiencies. To live up to what little remained of those promises.

And so, if Nie Huaisang wanted to see him, he would see him, even if he had seen no one else.

Wei Wuxian didn’t understand that.

Couldn’t, maybe.

Wei Wuxian was his brother-in-law, he made Lan Wangji happy, and Lan Xichen was grateful for that. He was even grateful, in a painful, agonizing sort of way, for Wei Wuxian’s help in revealing the truth about Jin Guangyao and his dark deeds. But Wei Wuxian forgot pain as soon as it happened and believed everyone else ought to be the same: they were together now, so never mind about all those years Lan Wangji spent alone and in mourning; Jin Guangyao had been a murderer, so never mind about all the good things he’d done or the good times they’d shared; Lan Xichen was out of seclusion, so clearly he’d gotten over everything that had happened.

At least for Lan Xichen, pain did not work that way.

“Well, that’s nice,” Wei Wuxian said after a while, when the silence had gone from merely familiar to actively awkward and Lan Wangji was staring at the ground, his hopes dashed to bits, even though that had not been Lan Xichen’s intent. He loved his brother very much, but he couldn’t heal himself fast enough to assuage Lan Wangji’s guilt at winning his happiness at the expense of Lan Xichen’s pain, nor did he intend to try. “I didn’t know he was coming.”

Lan Xichen did not point out that he was Sect Leader, not Lan Wangji, and that his word was final regarding who did and did not have the right to enter the Cloud Recesses at any time. It would be petty.

He was trying not to be petty. It was very hard.

“I hope to spend some quality time together with him,” Lan Xichen finally said, some meaningless filler designed to let them get out of the current conversational impasse, and was bewildered when Wei Wuxian, possibly inspired by the high tension of the moment, burst out in raucous laughter, reaching out to elbow Lan Wangji in the side.

“I bet you will,” he said, his tone almost jeering. “Quality time, yeah? Just the two of you together in the hanshi and everything.”

It wasn’t until Lan Wangji’s ears reddened slightly that Lan Xichen comprehended what Wei Wuxian was implying. That he had left a year’s seclusion because, what, he wanted to hop into bed with Nie Huaisang?

The mere notion was so puerile that it could barely be considered as rising to the level of a joke, the implication not only crude but actively cruel and disdainful of all the work Lan Xichen had done to put himself back together over the past year, and Lan Xichen had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to respond.

He glanced at Lan Wangji, wondering if his brother would say something – apologize, maybe – but he was clearly unable or unwilling to help. Finally, he shook his head and walked away.

That was the first time.

The second time – and many of the other times thereafter – were not accidental at all.

Talking with Nie Huaisang had been wretchedly painful but cleansing, necessary, just as his silent and extended contemplation in seclusion had been. They had not wholly forgiven each other for everything that had happened, whether the harms they had knowingly or unknowingly inflicted or for the agonies they had each suffered, but they were on a path to get there together – each one of them agreeing to learn from what had happened, to try to extend trust to each other, real trust, so that neither of them had to continue on their lonely roads alone.

It might be nearly two decades late, but Lan Xichen was determined to make good on his promise to Nie Mingjue, and Nie Huaisang equally determined in his own way to live up to what his brother would have wanted now that it was an option.

One unexpected aspect of this, interestingly, was how the clash between their values – Lan sect rules, Nie sect principles – gave rise to any number of very interesting analytical conversations. Nie Huaisang was a poor scholar for rules that required rote memorization to learn, but he understood his sect’s moral code down to his bones, well enough to be able to fashion himself a path within it. When pressed for his thoughts on any given subject, his arguments were well-fashioned, logical, and difficult to refute.

Lan Xichen had not enjoyed himself so much in years.

Even in the days when he had wholly believed in Jin Guangyao, his former friend was simply too facile to have a proper back-and-forth with: he would always yield, or seem to, or else dance around the main subject until they were on another on which they could agree; he had always prioritized good feeling over intellecutal growth. He’d never understood what enjoyment could be gotten out of standing your ground on some theoretical or philosophical issue.

At any rate, one of the points Nie Huaisang had won, curiously enough, was in regards to the subject of pettiness: bad in large doses, but acceptable in small, in his view. He compared it to venting frustrations or to understanding and indulging oneself in the positive sense – if you’re a petty person, he said matter-of-factly, you can try to improve yourself, but you’re not going accept yourself unless you just admit it. If that’s the sort of person you were, you wouldn’t get anywhere constantly resisting the urge to fight things out in petty, stupid ways.

Sometimes you just wanted to get into it over something stupid because otherwise you’d get into it over something important, and that was, in Nie Huaisang’s view, not a bad thing: if someone got in your face, get back in theirs.

Lan Xichen was, in many ways, a petty person.

“So, how is Nie Huaisang doing?” Wei Wuxian asked when lunch was not entirely over. Etiquette dictated that Lan Xichen had to respond, and family rules that he knew Wei Wuxian knew made clear it was impermissible to talk over meals: the only acceptable solution, therefore, was for him to consider his half-eaten meal as already complete, respond, and wait until dinner to fill up. And all because Wei Wuxian simply couldn’t wait another half-ke to blurt out his question, because he was too free and unrestrained to honor the rules of the family he had married into just because he personally didn’t think they were important. “Where is he, anyway? I would’ve thought he’d be here with us.”

Lan Xichen put down his bowl with just a little extra more force than he should, enough to make it clink against the table, and Lan Wangji’s eyes tightened a little at the unusual display of irritation.

“He’s still in bed,” Lan Xichen said mildly. “I’m afraid I rather wore him out last night.”

Wei Wuxian choked, misunderstanding, just as Lan Xichen had intended him to.

They’d gotten onto an interesting subject of conversation and had ended up talking most of the previous day’s afternoon and evening, as it happened, and Nie Huaisang was still a sect leader, with important business to attend to; Lan Xichen was fairly sure that after he had retired at the usual time for his sect, Nie Huaisang had worked until nearly dawn. Anyway, Nie Huaisang wasn’t much for set meal-times, not even by Wei Wuxian’s lax standards; he’d shared an early breakfast with Lan Xichen before going to sleep.

“Perhaps you can speak with him later, if you need him,” Lan Xichen said, folding his hands in front of him. “I will pass along your regards when I return to the hanshi. Which I should do now, in fact: I have some correspondence I need to attend to.”

Lan Xichen wondered if Wei Wuxian even noticed that his words signified Lan Xichen’s graceful removal of the work of sect correspondence from Lan Wangji, returning it into his own hands. Lan Qiren and Lan Wangji had managed sect business between them during Lan Xichen’s seclusion, and both had recognized that even though he had emerged from that seclusion he was still very much in the midst of his recovery and neither had tried to push him back into the role of Sect Leader. His announcement that he needed to attend to correspondence indicated that he was shouldering that burden once more – moreover, it was, by Lan sect standards, a rather vicious snub to make the announcement of the transition a public one, however subtle the wording, especially when he did not similarly make any sort of announcement regarding the work his uncle was managing on his behalf.

Petty.

Unnecessarily petty, really – it wasn’t Lan Wangji’s fault that he’d married a man who couldn’t even after all this time comprehend that sometimes you valued something because someone else did, even if you yourself didn’t care for or understand it.

It was, however, his fault in not putting a stop to Wei Wuxian’s rudeness.

It wasn’t actually hard for a grown man to at least try to respect a rule as basic as do not speak during meals, or for that matter the one about not making tremendous noise late at night when you knew everyone else was sleeping. Having previously been in seclusion, Lan Xichen wasn’t aware of how bad it had gotten, with disciples rearranging their living quarters further and further away from any place Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian might be found breaking the rules against excessive promiscuity – and really, Lan Wangji should know better. No one was asking that he refrain from being in love, even extravagantly so, but they did live in a community, and he ought to have basic respect for others, even if it meant occasionally saying no to his beloved long-lost and miraculously reunited lover.

Lan Xichen knew how hard it was for him to say no, of course; he suffered from the same generosity of spirit as his brother. But hadn’t everything that had happened a year ago shown the folly of always saying yes?

“Ah, Wei-xiong,” Lan Xichen said a few days later when they crossed paths in the middle of the day. “Are you on your way to the apothecary? Could I ask you to pick up a few items for me?”

Wei Wuxian shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, presumably still aching from the bout of early afternoon delight that he and Lan Wangji had been indulging in over by the cold spring – which was meant to be a place for cultivation for all, not a private garden in which the young master of the sect could frolic like one of his pet rabbits. It would have to be cleaned before anyone else could use it, and Lan Wangji was undoubtedly back there giving those orders now, his forehead ribbon no doubt askew from having been utilized in private activity before being hastily replaced.

“Certainly, Xichen-xiong,” he said. “What do you need?”

“Some ointments of the sort used for stretching and to ease pain,” Lan Xichen said. “Huaisang has been complaining of soreness and stiffness as of late.”

He had, of course – among his misfortunes, Nie Huaisang had been born with something of a crooked spine, and his lower back would sporadically spasm, causing him great pain. Not that that was what Wei Wuxian was thinking of, of course.

“I’ve tried using my hands on him,” Lan Xichen added, allowing himself to sound regretful – which he was, as he hated to see Nie Huaisang suffering. “But he says it’s not enough, given the, ah, magnitude of the issue. I want to get him some relief and make sure he’s comfortable…I’m sure you understand.”

He was sure Wei Wuxian did not.

“Uh, sure,” Wei Wuxian said, barely bothering to hide the fact that he was giggling under his breath. “I’ll grab some for you, no problem…you should really ask Nie Huaisang to give you some, uh, books. To provide you with some guidance.”

“He’s provided several,” Lan Xichen said peaceably. Nie Huaisang was extremely fussy; naturally he would ensure that Lan Xichen was well supplied in guides on massage before allowing him to tend to him. “But thank you for the suggestion.”

Wei Wuxian nodded and saluted briefly, clearly ready to move on.

“Oh,” Lan Xichen said, as if only just remembering. “And tell Wangji that he doesn’t need to come to the meeting this evening – I know the two of you have better things to do with your time than having him listen to interminable reports on agriculture.”

Wei Wuxian actually smiled at that, as if the quarterly agricultural reports from the farms that fed the entire Cloud Recesses weren’t one of the most critical duties for Lan clan members to attend to and one that Lan Wangji had been assisting with since the age of twelve.

That task accomplished, Lan Xichen returned to the hanshi, where Nie Huaisang was scowling over the initial reports that had come in from the furthest farms in writing – he’d already offered to supplement any harvest shortfalls with the excess from Qinghe’s own extremely productive fields, but any shortage in one area could lead to shortages in others; no one wanted another famine among the common people the way there had been during the Sunshot Campaign and the hard years thereafter.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he asked doubtfully when Lan Xichen mentioned that he’d excused Lan Wangji from attending that evening and would therefore be doubly reliant on Nie Huaisang’s recollection of the meeting afterwards. “Lan Wangji may think you’re punishing him for marrying Wei Wuxian, which you’re not.”

“I’m not,” Lan Xichen agreed, because he wasn’t. If anything, he’d encouraged them to get together, and no matter the cost to himself, he was happy that Lan Wangji had achieved his heart’s desire after wanting it for such a long time.

“He may also interpret it as you punishing him for failing to control his spouse.”

“I don’t want him to control his spouse,” Lan Xichen said. “I want him to have some self-respect. Wangji has always greatly respected the rules of our sect and, until now, has always thought carefully before choosing to break them, accepting the consequences for doing so no matter how harsh. If I believed that Wangji truly disagreed with the rules, I would be willing to engage with him on the subject in good faith, but that isn’t what’s happening. He still believes in the rules.”

“He just doesn’t have the balls to tell Wei Wuxian that he wants him to stop stamping all over them?”

Lan Xichen huffed lightly. “I wouldn’t have put it that way.”

“But it’s what you think,” Nie Huaisang concluded.

“It is,” Lan Xichen said. “They’re going to spend the rest of their lives together – is Wangji planning on letting Wei Wuxian to win every argument without fail, no matter the cost to himself? Is he even planning on informing with him what the cost of his actions is? To always give and never take is not an equal relationship.”

“And your increased sensitivity on the subject of keeping secrets from your loved ones for, purportedly, their own good is completely beside the point, I assume?”

“The fact that I’m sensitive doesn’t make me wrong,” Lan Xichen said. “If Wangji is keeping secrets from Wei Wuxian, if he’s unwilling to rely on him or share his troubles with him, if he intends to one-sidedly sacrifice everything for him without even consulting with him as to whether he would be willing to accept such a sacrifice, then what they have isn’t a marriage.”

There was a house filled with purple gentians in the Cloud Recesses that stood as the eternal reminder of what that sort of marriage looked like, a terrible sacrifice that eventually became as much of a shackle on the recipient as it had been on the giver. Lan Xichen wouldn’t allow Lan Wangji to make that mistake.

And as for Wei Wuxian...if he truly oved Lan Wangji, he wouldn’t want it, either.

Lan Xichen certainly hadn’t.

Nie Huaisang sighed gustily. “All right, fine, fine. You know me, I’m always in favor of people standing up for what they think is the right thing even when it’s hard –” This was an almost grotesque understatement, but the friendship they were forging now was in some large parts based on the gallows humor emerging from their shared traumas. “– so I will reluctantly endorse your actions and, even more reluctantly, attend your meeting with you to take notes for later.”

“I appreciate your help. And your endorsement, of course.”

“Nie Huaisang has gotten much better at playing the xiao,” Lan Xichen remarked to Wei Wuxian on the day he removed Lan Wangji from the teaching roster and disqualified him from accompanying the juniors in night-hunts. “He’s a very – hands-on learner.”

Wei Wuxian snorted.

“I’ve been demonstrating the proper technique for him. Breath control is paramount, naturally, but of course you also have to know what to do with your tongue…”

Wei Wuxian was full on sniggering. “Oh, I bet,” he said salaciously. “I’m sure you’re a very hands-on teacher, eh, Xichen-xiong?”

“I want him to excel,” Lan Xichen agreed. “And that means plenty of practice…oh, I’m sorry, Wei-xiong. I shouldn’t have interrupted you – you were running somewhere?”

Right in the middle of the main pathways, no less, where the quick footfalls and sudden movement had startled countless people into very nearly raising an alarm before they realized there wasn’t anything to worry about. There were too many of them that remembered the war.

They had taken comfort in the enforced tranquility of the Cloud Recesses, before.

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it,” Wei Wuxian said breezily. “Just had an idea and wanted to get back to my workshop as quickly as possible, that’s all.”

“I see,” Lan Xichen said. “I won’t stand in your way, then.”

He actually was teaching Nie Huaisang how to play the xiao, at his request – he’d made some comparisons to it while debating a matter of ethics, and Nie Huaisang was determined to learn just enough to argue back in kind.

Lan Xichen didn’t have any illusions that Nie Huaisang would stick with it any more than he’d stuck with any other type of cultivation – he’d first tried teaching him musical cultivation when he was a child without any success at all, and Jin Guangyao’s example had definitely not endeared Nie Huaisang to the concept – but it was rather nice to discuss music without necessarily focusing on the backdrop of cultivation within it.

Accordingly, he continued the metaphor with Wei Wuxian for several days running. He talked about how energetic a student Nie Huaisang was –“He’s wearing me out,” he said, shaking his head. “Draining me dry…” – and mentioned that they were having an interesting time going back and forth on the subject of fingering, despite Nie Huaisang’s claims that his weak fingers weren’t nearly as suited for quick, assured movement as Lan Xichen’s.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Lan Xichen had said, even as Wei Wuxian had nearly cried from laughter. “His fingers are very flexible, and I get a great deal of enjoyment from his enthusiasm. Skill comes later.”

“Definitely something you have to work on together,” Wei Wuxian said enthusiastically. “It gets better as you go, doesn’t it?”

In the past few days, he had brought alcohol into public places, rather than leaving it in the jingshi where the breach would be a minor one, and tried to encourage the juniors to share it with him, although they’d refused; he’d even tried to bully them into doing so using his superior age and the respect they’d owed him until Lan Xichen had intervened with ‘urgent’ tasks for the juniors instead.

He had loudly speculated regarding one sect elder’s marital affairs after the man had refused to speak with him following a disagreement, breaking both the rules against malicious gossip and those against disrespecting the older generation all at once. He had gone hunting and fishing right outside the boundary line of the Cloud Recesses in clear sight of the disciples, including several who were attempting to practice cultivation based on compassion for all creatures; several others were pulled from their usual tasks to go purify the ground according to their customs, including a careful check of their wells to ensure that the blood and viscera had not seeped into the groundwater that ran so high and near to the surface.

In return, Lan Xichen relieved Lan Wangji of his requirement to go patrolling – “You’re married now, after all,” he’d said to Wei Wuxian, as if it wasn’t a duty shared by adult every sect member, “I’m sure you want the benefit of his company at night. Isn’t that right?” – and revoked his access to the restricted areas of the sect, including the discipline hall of which he had had sole charge since before the age of fifteen. He asked his uncle to resume the full schedule of teaching, including the classes which had previously been shifted in part over to Lan Wangji – his uncle agreed, understanding his motives, although he looked sick to his stomach with anxiety the way he always did when Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji were fighting – and had publicly chided one of the juniors for “bothering” Lan Wangji with questions regarding his cultivation.

“Aren’t you so old already?” he scolded gently, a smile fixed on his face and his eyes firmly on the junior instead of his brother standing beside him. “You can’t go running to Wangji with every little issue that comes to mind. Reflect on yourself, and take pains not to be a burden to others.”

The junior appeared very nearly on the verge of tears, and he was not the only one. He, at least, understood the significance of Lan Xichen issuing the reprimand in public – if the junior in question had truly been pestering Lan Wangji with too many questions, it would have been a tremendous rebuke to him personally; as he had not, and everyone knew he had not, it was a clear order from the sect leader that no one was to bring any questions to Lan Wangji.

“Brother,” Lan Wangji said, his voice low and hurt.

“I know you must be tired, recently,” Lan Xichen said, looking back at him with a steady, unflinching gaze. “I understand that you and your husband have been taking long walks at night.”

Through residential areas, no less, and Lan Wangji knew better. Perhaps their sect was too strict with the rules about waking and resting, strict enough that the other sects laughed at them over it, but the rules were in place for a reason. Even if Lan Wangji himself was feeling restless enough to wander at night, there were places he could go that were designated specifically for that – gardens, mountain paths, what have you – where their wanderings would not bother others who had already gone to sleep.

Lan Wangji hesitated, his shoulders rising to his ears, but he dropped his gaze to the ground and nodded, conceding the point.

He knew better.

He knew better, he cared about doing better, and he let Wei Wuxian walk all over him anyway.

“It must be difficult to go walking at zi hour and wake at mao,” Lan Xichen said. “Perhaps waking at si hour would suit you better.”

Lan Wangji looked stricken. After over thirty years of waking at the appropriate time, he would have to be suffering from true bone-deep exhaustion for him not to rise at mao hour per their rules; Lan Xichen’s suggestion, if he enforced it, would do nothing but restrict him from leaving the jingshi until that later time.

Confinement was not a punishment Lan Xichen inflicted lightly on anyone, least of all his brother. His brother, who had suffered just as much from what had happened to their mother as he had.

“Perhaps you can use the additional time to talk to your spouse,” Lan Xichen said.

Tell him that you don’t like how he ignores all our rules like he’s trying to make a contest out of it, he meant. Tell him that you wince every time he puts his foot in it, every time he offends someone he didn’t have to, every time he disrespects our ancestors and all but spits on everything they cared about. Tell him that you’ll compromise on some rules, the ones that are genuinely hard for him, but that you want him to follow others out of respect for the fact that they mean something to you.

He would do it for you, Wangji. He loves you. You don’t always have to be the one to sacrifice.

Just tell him.

Lan Wangji’s lips pressed together.

Another refusal. It wasn’t that Lan Xichen didn’t know how stubborn his brother could be, especially in matters relating to Wei Wuxian, and he didn’t really want to match wills against him – he never really had, not in all their life. He loved his little brother so very much, and so Lan Xichen always been the one to yield, the one to give in, the one to make up the difference between them. The one to encourage him, the one to look the other way: whatever Lan Wangji had needed or even wanted, Lan Xichen had sought to give him.

Even the dreadful punishment with the discipline whip had been something Lan Xichen had sought to avert, and would have, if only Lan Wangji had not so self-destructively insisted upon it.

He had allowed it to proceed only because he thought that the physical pain would give Lan Wangji some measure of relief from the enormous emotional pain he was suffering from.

But now – this wasn’t just a temporary physical pain that Lan Wangji was trying to choose.

This was the rest of his life.

Lan Xichen was not going to back down over this.

“Si hour it is, then,” he said with a sigh. Nor would he revoke the instruction he had implicitly given to the juniors that Lan Wangji was no longer an acceptable advisor, unable to guide them in the Lan sect rules that he was constantly defying by proxy. “It’s for the best, I suppose. It’ll help habituate you.”

Lan Wangji looked up sharply.

Lan Xichen met his gaze head on. His brother, he reflected, was for once the one underestimating his stubbornness.

“I understand,” he said, his words very slow and very deliberate and very carefully chosen, “that rising at si hour is customary in the Lotus Pier, if a little late. That’s where Wei Wuxian picked up his habits, was it not?”

Lan Wangji’s eyes were wide as if he couldn’t believe Lan Xichen was saying what he was saying.

Perhaps he had become infected by Wei Wuxian’s obliviousness and needed things to be said flat out.

Very well.

“The Cloud Recesses is the home of the Lan,” Lan Xichen said. “Our lives are here, guided by our rules that are laid out on the Wall of Discipline for all to see. It is the life we have all chosen, freely and without coercion – but I know it is not the life for everyone.”

“Brother!” Lan Wangji exclaimed, and he actually looked viscerally upset, the expression clear enough on his face that even Wei Wuxian ought to be able to tell what he was feeling.

“You don’t have to follow them if you don’t want to, Wangji,” Lan Xichen continued, inexorable. He, like most of his sect, disliked this sort of straightforwardness, but he was Nie Mingjue’s sworn brother and Nie Huaisang’s brother by proxy; he knew how to wield his words with the brutality of a saber as well as the grace of a sword or the gentle lilt of the xiao. “But I will not allow you to continue making a mockery of them. Not here.”

Lan Wangji looked as if he’d been stabbed.

No – Lan Xichen had seen his brother get stabbed. He had taken that better than this.

“I will write to Sect Leader Jiang by the end of the week,” Lan Xichen said, and clasped his hands behind his back to keep them from trembling. Tell him before then. Please. “Between the two of us, I’m certain that we can find somewhere to suit both you and your husband, so that you may live as free and unrestrained as you wish.”

He did Lan Wangji the honor of not looking back as he walked away.

He knew his brother wouldn’t want him to see the tears.

It was, if anything, a pleasant surprise when Wei Wuxian burst into Lan Xichen’s home less than a day later. Lan Xichen had thought it would take at least three.

“What is wrong with you?” Wei Wuxian shouted, slamming his hands down on the table in front of Lan Xichen. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Is it me? If it’s me you have a problem with, say it to my face directly!”

Lan Xichen finished swallowing the tea he’d just sipped. “Not everything is about you,” he said, feeling tired. “This is about Wangji.”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes were red-rimmed as if he, too, had been crying.

“You’re not seriously planning on kicking him out of the Cloud Recesses because I broke a few of your rules, are you?” he asked, biting off each word individually. “He’s your brother. He’s a perfect Lan – he ran your sect for a year!”

“Our sect,” Lan Xichen corrected. “Wangji will always have a place here, as will you.”

Wei Wuxian crossed his arms over his chest. “Then why is he convinced that you want him to go?”

Lan Xichen sighed.

“I’m sure his knees hurt,” he said.

“…what?”

“His knees,” Lan Xichen said. “From all the kneeling he’s been doing.”

Wei Wuxian looked truly bewildered now. “Are you – making a sex joke?” he said. “Now?”

“No, though I’m unsurprised you took it as one,” Lan Xichen said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “I’m referring to all the kneeling in penance that my brother has been doing to atone for all the rules he has been breaking on your behalf. You wouldn’t have noticed it, as I assume he’s been deliberately hiding it from you.”

Wei Wuxian stared at him. “He’s been kneeling?”

“Wangji cares very deeply about our sect’s traditions,” Lan Xichen said. “He would never have been made the head of the discipline hall if he didn’t. He knows them backwards and forwards, better than anyone except for my uncle and the sect elders that specialize in it. They’re important to him.”

“But –”

“He keeps track of every rule you instigate him into breaking,” Lan Xichen said flatly. “Every single one, large and small, major or minor, and he tries to do his best to pay for what he’s done because he’d rather kneel all night without getting any sleep, rather hurt his hand copying out rules, rather endure a beating or two if it means he doesn’t have to tell you to stop.”

Wei Wuxian’s mouth was slightly agape.

“Do you remember the story I told you about our parents? I shared that story with you for a reason, because I wanted you to better understand Wangji. We all carry the scars our parents left on us, and he’s no different. He’s so afraid of imprisoning you the way our father did our mother that he has decided to follow in our father’s footsteps by sacrificing everything for you.”

“I don’t – I don’t want him to sacrifice anything for me!”

“I know,” Lan Xichen said simply. “That’s why I said that this wasn’t about you. Yes, now that you live here, you should follow our rules, or at least respect them – and respect means respect, not playing around to see how many loopholes you can find in them. Do you think we don’t know about them? That no one in the history of our sect has ever figured out that ‘do not take life within the premises’ could be subverted by taking a life directly outside of it?”

Wei Wuxian was silent.

“We follow the rules because we want to,” Lan Xichen said. “They’re the rules our ancestors put together and handed down. They are meaningful to us, even when they are awkward or seem pointless. Even when other people laugh at us or belittle us or act like we’re stupid for choosing to behave the way we do.”

Wei Wuxian winced.

“Your conduct would be a problem if you were a guest,” Lan Xichen continued. “But you are not a guest. You are Wangji’s husband, my brother-in-law. You are family. If you do not wish to obey the rules, you do not have to, and you will still be welcome here. But Wangji wants to obey the rules – it is only that he fears losing you more.”

“How long have you been having this argument?” Wei Wuxian asked, because he wasn’t actually stupid, merely oblivious.

“I started taking away his responsibilities on the third day following my exit from seclusion,” Lan Xichen said. “I have steadily escalated it with every rule you have incited him into breaking with you since. And still, he refused to speak with you.”

Wei Wuxian’s hands were clenched into fists. He looked down at them.

“I know how much you love my brother,” Lan Xichen said. “If he had told you that it mattered to him, you would have found a way to reach a compromise with him – of that I have no doubt. But if it wasn’t the rules, it would be something else; some other thing that he would choose to sacrifice, another situation where he would choose to endure agony over having a mildly uncomfortable conversation with you. That was why I couldn’t just reach out to you directly. It had to be him; he had to be the one to tell you.”

“I understand,” Wei Wuxian said. “I don’t…I’d rather find it out over this than have him throw away his life instead of telling me I was being stupid.”

Lan Xichen nodded. That had been his fear as well, and the reason that one of his first moves had been to restrict Lan Wangji from going out on night-hunts.

“I’ll talk to him,” Wei Wuxian said, and scrubbed his face. His eyes had started tearing up again. “I’ll – I’ll talk to him. I’ll make him understand that it’s not – he can’t just do that! He didn’t even ask me if I wanted him to give all of that up for me; he knew I wouldn’t want him to, that’s why he didn’t ask, and he just went ahead and did it anyway. He didn’t tell me that he was suffering, that you were taking away his responsibilities! He didn’t say a single word, and I just blithely carried on thinking everything was fucking all right and all the while he was suffering, and – and he – he…oh, fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”

Lan Xichen blinked.

“I did the exact same fucking thing to Jiang Cheng!” Wei Wuxian exploded. He leapt to his feet. “I’m such a fucking idiot! Lan Zhan and me, we’re both – we’re really well matched, aren’t we?”

He shook his head.

“I’ll talk to Lan Zhan,” he said again, and he looked grimly determined the way he had in the war, the same expression shining through even with a new face. “Don’t worry, Xichen-xiong. I’ll make him understand.”

He turned on his heel and marched out of the room.

Lan Xichen watched him go, thinking to himself that he might have inadvertently done something good for Wei Wuxian as well through all of this. And perhaps it would help Lan Wangji’s own crisis to see Wei Wuxian going through the same – because Lan Wangji’s crisis had already taken place.

He could have lied to Wei Wuxian’s face over why they were leaving. He could have chosen not to tell him that Lan Xichen was forcing him out, cutting him off; he could have kept it secret, hidden, could have come up with some story or just left it all unsaid. If he was truly determined to never let any of his pain onto Wei Wuxian’s shoulders, he could have done that.

He’d chosen to come clean instead.

Maybe now they’d be able to move forward as equals, as partners.

(And, if they were really lucky, maybe finally reaching agreement to stop breaking all the rules all the time would mean that they’d stop having sex on every possible available surface and keep it to the jingshi and a few gardens. No one else needed to see that. Really.)

“I see that Wangji-xiong and Wei-xiong are now even more disgustingly in love than ever before,” Nie Huaisang said. “And that Wei-xiong seems to have finally gotten over his obsession with defying authority through violating each and every one of the Lan sect rules. I was only away at the Unclean Realm for three days, you know.”

“I work fast,” Lan Xichen said with a smile.

Lan Wangji had come to him, eyes red, and put his head in Lan Xichen’s lap the way he used to as a child, and they’d talked. For hours, they’d talked, in the slow and halting way they had – where each word was carefully considered, each emotion analyzed, and only a quarter of conversation was said out loud – and at the end of it, they were both completely wrecked, but stronger for it.

They’d talked about their parents, which they had never verbalized before; they talked about Jin Guangyao, and Nie Mingjue, and Wei Wuxian, both past and present. They talked about their ruined expectations, their hopes, their guilt; they talked about the rules that bound them both, the ones that served them as both strength and weakness, the foundation on which they relied in their times of doubt. They talked about love, and fear, and anger.

They’d promised to never to need to have to have this conversation ever again, and they were both very determined to keep that promise.

Lan Qiren had agreed to work with Wei Wuxian regarding which rules could be bent and which ones ought not be – finally giving him the full version of education he’d missed out on when he’d been returned home too early by Jiang Fengmian all those years before, because copying rules didn’t mean understanding them – and Lan Xichen had returned to Lan Wangji all the responsibilities and privileges he’d taken away from him, much to the relief of all the juniors that had been suffering through their fight.

(Lan Wangji confided in Lan Xichen that he was relieved that Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi had been away on a long visit to Lanling Jin throughout the entire debacle, and Lan Xichen wholeheartedly agreed.)

“That you do,” Nie Huaisang said. “Did being straightforward help?”

“More than expected,” Lan Xichen conceded. That had been one of the things he and Nie Huaisang had been discussing these past few weeks, the merits of straightforwardness against obliqueness, and they’d both argued both sides of the issue, given their personal experiences. “I will grant you that it served its purpose well in this situation.”

“Good,” Nie Huaisang said, and put his chin into his hands. “Now tell me, what’s this I hear about you and me being the subject of a series of apparently godawful sex jokes?”

Lan Xichen froze.

Nie Huaisang grinned.

“It was…a metaphor?” Lan Xichen tried. “A means of communicating with Wei Wuxian while not acknowledging the ongoing situation, and a message about paying attention to underlying meaning.”

“Try again,” Nie Huaisang said gleefully. “You could’ve done that without invoking my name.”

“Who else could I invoke? I spend all my time with you!”

All the time he wasn’t being Sect Leader, that was. If there was one good thing that had come out of this entire debacle beyond his heart-to-heart with Lan Wangji, it was that Lan Xichen had been so anxious over Lan Wangji that he had forgotten his own fears about resuming his position, and now that he was back, it didn’t seem as scary as it had when he’d been alone in his room in seclusion.

Nie Huaisang did not appear especially moved by this eminently logical argument. He put his hands over his heart and fluttered his eyelashes, saying in an affected, almost operatic voice, “And all this time I never knew you felt like that, Xichen-gege –”

Lan Xichen choked.

“To think that all of this time that we spent cloistered together, pure as virgins, we could have been doing all sorts of things – using my, what was the term used, ample assets –”

Lan Xichen wondered if it would be possible for the ground to swallow him up at this very second. Failing that, a sect emergency would do.

Possibly an invasion?

“– and this, of course, refers to my extremely large…stock of picture books.”

“Huaisang…”

Nie Huaisang laughed at his face and settled down across from him. “I’m not ready to court or be courted,” he said. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“No,” Lan Xichen said. “I’m not either, I don’t think.”

He was starting to think that he might be one day, though. That there would be a day – a distant day, far in the future, just barely coming into view – where his days would be more all right than not, where he could make decisions and be confident that he was making them for himself and not to cover up some mess of trauma.

And maybe, when that day arrived for him, it would also arrive for Nie Huaisang, who was himself digging himself back out of the deep pit he had made in his soul seeking his lonely vengeance.

“Still,” Nie Huaisang said thoughtfully. “Since Wei-xiong and Lan Wangji are on their way here right now to join us, and given that I’m already crushing your hopes and dreams…”

Lan Xichen foresaw a great deal of mockery in his future, and he was almost looking forward to it.

“…do you want to pretend to be making out on the table that they’ll have to drink tea off until they catch us and plead for mercy?”

Well.

Lan Xichen did always say that he was petty.

#mdzs #lan xichen #lan wangji #wei wuxian #nie huaisang #mostly Lan brothers focused #background wangxian and xisang #my fic #my fics #petty #lan sect civil war #Anonymous #not as silly a fic as you might expect from the prompt

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nobodyfamousposts · 3 years

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Helluva Deal (Miraculous X Helluva Boss)

Well, since Miraculous crossovers with Helluva Boss/Hazbin Hotel are a thing now, I figured I’d write my own on how I think it would likely go. Since this IS the Helluva Boss universe, expect mentions of death and the afterlife, allusions to violence, innuendos, and general inappropriateness:

“Let me get this straight.”

Blitzo stared down the demon before him.

Said demon simply looked back, unimpressed. The little thing was small with blue skin, dorky-looking round glasses, and uneven horns. It wasn’t even a notable demon. Just a random weaker demon who somehow got the funds to pay for their services.

And normally, Blitzo was hardly one to turn down money—or a job that offered money. But this…

“You want to pay us to kidnap someone from Earth—not murder, which is in our company’s name, but kidnap. Which is decidedly more difficult and less fun.”

“Yep.”

Blitzo steepled his fingers together and held them up to his face. “And you want this person kidnapped—not so you can kill her yourself for whatever issue you may have, but because you want her to make you a jacket.”

“Yep.”

“A plain old jacket you could just get anywhere here in Hell.”

The demon gasped in offense. “It’s not just ANY jacket! It’s an MDC original piece and I want one!”

Blitzo took a breath, getting the feeling he was going to regret this.

“Why?”

This…made the demon pause and eventually shrug. “Well, I did say I would have died for an MDC jacket. And I’m dead now, so…gimme.”

Well, who was he to argue with that logic?

Although…

“That is going to require quite a bit more effort…” He started, obviously leading…

The demon gave a flat look. “I’m not paying you double. I need the rest to pay her for the jacket.”

“Why would you want to pay for it?” Blitzo demanded. “This is Hell! You’re a demon! Just steal one!”

“It’s a commission! I have to pay for it!”

Blitzo would have spit out his drink if he’d had one.

“What are you even in Hell for, anyway? You won’t kill. You won’t steal. You just want to pay some human for a jacket you could get anywhere. What’s the point of that?” He asked, giving the other demon a strange look because really, what kind of demon WANTED to pay for things?

The demon stared flatly at Blitzo, his tail flicking against the chair in apparent increasing agitation.

"Are you saying that a commission shouldn't be paid for?” The demon asked curiously, sounding a little...too polite. “Because the last guy who tried to skip out on paying for a commission died. Eyes stabbed out and everything. Do you want to risk that kind of thing happening to you?"

…

Blitzo paled.

“Oh.”

The silence lingered to the point of long past uncomfortable as the demon continued to wait for an answer and Blitzo’s not so subtle attempt to desperately press his secret security button under his desk had no effect.

This would turn out to be because of Loona disconnecting the thing due to her hangover. Though in the moment, Blitzo would choose to blame Moxie.

After a good minute of no response from his team, Blitzo started to sweat when the determined artist demon seemed to grow bored and pulled out a pencil.

He jumped to his feet.

“We’ll take the case!”

And immediately fled the room.

_______

Once on Earth, the problem came up rather quickly that they had no idea who MDC was or how to access them. The client only knew the target was a fashion designer in Paris, which narrowed it down to one city at least but still was little help when the city in question was one of the fashion capitals of the world.

Blitzo, naturally, took the lead in trying to work out a means of information gathering.

And by “naturally”, what was really meant was “horribly failing”.

“I’m telling you, the plan is foolproof. We hold someone for ransom until MDC trades herself.” Blitzo said with apparent glee.

“Sir, that would be the exact opposite of subtle and get us the wrong kind of attention!”

Moxie, for his part, was trying to come up with what he would call “sensible plans”. Millie was simply scouting the area while the two argued. Ever faithful Loona stayed behind to try using her own connections…a magazine.

Needless to say, Blitzo was the one carrying the team. Or at least in his not-so-humble opinion.

Blitzo rolled his eyes. “I don’t see you coming up with any plans, Moxie.”

The smaller demon gave his boss a disgruntled glare. “I already told you! We should just go back and ask the client for more information!”

“Hmm…” Blitzo paused, before pulling out his phone. “Hey, Loona. The client still in my office?”

“Yeup.”

Blitzo immediately closed the phone. “Yeah—nope.”

“Sir—”

“He gouged a guy’s eyes out, Moxie! I need my eyes! I’m too pretty to lose them! They frame my face!” Blitzo exclaimed, bringing his hands up to his head in a fit of dramatics. “Is that what you want, Moxie? Do you want me to lose my precious, precious eyes?”

Moxie stared at the man like he was insane. Granted, Moxie had long had doubts about his boss’s sanity, but still...

“Hey, fellas?” Millie called, interrupting the two as she waved them over to the side of the building they had set up a temporary base atop of. “Listen to this!”

Blitzo immediately headed over, with Moxie following along behind looking annoyed. As they got closer, they heard what Millie had called them over about. Blitzo leaned over and peeked into the room in question.

Below them was an open window of the building where apparently a number of teenagers were gathered within for some inexplicable reason. And in this specific room, a group of the teens were gathered around one particular girl with a large forehead and hair that appeared to be made of meat. It was this girl who had their attention.

“—really friends with MDC?” One short blonde asked, looking overly excited like Blitzo did when he got a paycheck.

“Of course!” The meat-girl replied, looking smug. “We go way back! I was even the one who encouraged him to start in fashion and inspired his Heroes line.”

Blitzo looked back up at his team. “I thought MDC was a girl?”

Moxie shrugged. “If no one knows their real identity who's to say if they're a boy or a girl?"

“What else are they saying?” Millie asked, which returned the focus to the room.

More talking from below, using words that none of the demons really understood or cared about.

“—which was why he even made the Fox outfit for me!”

“Wasn’t that design based on Rena Rouge rather than Volpina?” One other girl with blue hair asked from the doorway of the room. She appeared to be rather annoyed for some odd reason.

The meat-girl looked somber. “Well, that was before he had to change it. After all, as bold as he is, not many people would support an akuma line, even if he had kept my idea to donate the funds to charity for the victims.”

The group “oo”-ed over the girl and praised her for her thoughtfulness. The meat-girl preened at the attention. The bluenette rolled her eyes. Some other blond guy looked on in disappointment.

“How amazing!” The little blonde exclaimed, clasping her hands to her cheeks. “I’d love to be able to meet MDC!”

“So would we!”

All eyes fell to the window which Blitzo, Millie, and Moxie used to make their entrance.

Honestly, he thought it was one of his better displays of dramatics. It certainly warranted some applause. Or screams of fear. Maybe one fainting.

“Akuma!”

Honestly, he was rather disappointed by the underwhelming response.

“I know we're demons and all, but I thought this place was French, not Japanese!"

“Nevermind that.” Blitzo replied to his workers before stepping forward to face the students.

Or rather one student in particular.

“Greetings! I am Blitzo. The two behind me are Millie and Moxie.”

The class stared as one of the two glared at them while the other waved cheerfully—or would be considered cheerfully if her teeth weren’t so razor sharp.

“We represent IMP, a for-hire group out of Hell. We take contracts, complete tasks, and make wishes come true!”

The teens looked at the demons in wariness and confusion.

“That sounds nice…” The little blonde in pink said.

“Those wishes generally involve murder.”

“I take it back! That sounds horrible!”

Blitzo grinned. “We are the ‘Immediate Murder Professionals’, dealing with the unfinished business of those poor wretched souls who are seeking some small vindication in their current status in Hell.”

“Then…why are you here?” The bigger male demanded.

Blitzo ignored him in favor of his true target.

“You! Ugly girl!” He shouted, grabbing the meat-girl.

“Hey!” She exclaimed, insulted.

He shook her. “Take us to MDC and we’ll rip out those sausage-links you call hair!”

“…don’t you mean ‘or’?”

He grinned ferally.

“No.”

She shrieked in fear.

“Lila!” Others cried out in horror.

Ah, yes. There was the fear. This, Blitzo was good with. It made him feel better about the previous lackluster response to his entrance.

“Why do you want me?!” The girl—Lila shouted, looking panicked. “I don’t know where MDC is!”

He raised an eyebrow at this. “But you said you were friends.”

She glanced around, taking note of the fact that her cohorts were still in the room. Though he didn’t know why that should matter for her answer.

“We are! But…I don’t know where he lives now! He’s moved since his name got out there and hasn’t given me the address yet!”

A glasses-wearing girl frowned in confusion. “But didn’t you just say that he invited you to his house for fittings?”

“Yeah, you said it was for the latest line that just came out.” Another girl with multi-colored hair added.

“That was months ago. Before he moved.” Lila replied quickly. “So I can’t help you.”

“Sure, you can!” Blitzo replied jovially. “We can just use you as ransom until MDC agrees to hand himself over.”

Moxie approached the two, keeping his gun leveled at the other kids. “We can save some time and see if she can’t call him.”

“Hey, yeah!” Millie agreed, grabbing Lila’s bag off of her and searching for her phone. “If they’re friends, she’s gotta have his contact info!”

“It’s not in there!” Lila replied quickly. “I was worried someone would steal my phone to get his info so I don’t keep his number in my phone!”

Millie frowned, before holding the now open phone up to Lila. “Then just type in the number yourself.”

Lila glanced around the room in growing agitation. “I can’t! I don’t have it memorized!”

“Then where did you write it down?”

“I lost it!”

The demons were looking particularly vexed.

“When and where?”

“It was a while ago. I don’t know where.” Lila replied.

A girl with glasses looked at her in confusion. “But didn’t you say you just called him this morning to congratulate him on the new line? And that he promised you a free outfit as thanks for all your help?”

Lila paled. “I—”

“Then the number should still be in the phone under its call history.” Moxie noted. Millie grinned and looked back to the phone screen to look through the data.

“I deleted it right after!” Lila shouted desperately.

Millie looked up at her in irritation.

Then promptly crushed the phone in her grip.

Lila shrieked, though it would be up for debate as to whether it was in shock at the loss of her phone or in fear that she may soon share that same fate.

Blitzo seemed similarly put out, but ended up shrugging it off as he pulled Lila closer to him. “Then it’s back to Plan A to hold her for ransom. Or torture her to see if she can’t remember the details.”

“No, please!”

“Lila!”

“Let her go!”

Lila grabbed at the arm holding her, panicked but not enough beyond reasoning. She couldn’t afford to reveal she lied now. She could only hope that these monsters would take her somewhere private where she could manipulate them with less witnesses.

Marinette, for her part, was also analyzing the situation.

These were three unknowns. Definitely not akumas. If they were to be believed, they were actual demons. From Hell. Which existed, apparently. And was where Lila would likely find herself in the next hour if she kept this up.

But from Lila’s expression, it seemed she was insistent on staying tight-lipped about her lies. Marinette figured as much due to her history. But she would have thought that Lila would have had some measure of self-preservation. Though perhaps that only applied to the preservation of her lies and manipulations rather than her own well being.

It was clear that Lila wasn’t going to get herself out of this. Not in any way that would spare her and everyone else in the room, at any rate.

As it was, the classmates were about to rally in Lila’s defense. While they had stood their own against akumas in the past,Marinette didn’t want to see how well they would fare against demons. Nor did she want to have to test if the Miraculous Cure would be enough to fix whatever would be left of them if they tried.

Marinette looked to the doorway.

No one was paying any attention to her right now. She could escape. She could go out, find a place to transform, and come back to deal with these…demons.

But by the time she returned, who was to say what could happen. The demons could kill Lila. They could kill all of her friends for being witnesses.

Ladybug may not be able to fix this.

But Marinette…as Marinette, she could.

“I’m MDC.” Marinette admitted.

Everyone froze.

“Come again.”

“MDC.” Marinette enunciated. “It stands for Marinette Dupain-Cheng. My name. I’m MDC. I’m the one you want.”

Alya stared. “Girl?”

Moxie looked at her in consideration. “That would fit with the client’s report of MDC being female.”

Millie, frowned in suspicion. “How do we know she’s really MDC?”

Marinette took a breath and slowly pulled out her tablet. “Well, my signature is in the clothes, so if you’ll let me pull up one of the shots, I can point it out and—”

Blitzo cut her off, grabbing her arm. “Yeah, I think we’ll just take you both and let the client sort it out. Sound good? Good, because we’re leaving.”

“Bye all!” Millie said, waving to the group. “Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do!”

Moxie rolled his eyes. “That’s a pretty short list…”

Blitzo ignored them an opened a portal, dragging both girls after him. Without a glance back, both Millie and Moxie followed him through the portal. Before anyone else could move, the gateway closed behind them.

A long pause followed.

“Not so fast!”

Suddenly, the door was kicked open as Chat Noir burst into the room.

The much less enemy-filled room.

“Um…did I miss the party?”

_______

The room they soon found themselves appeared, for all intents and purposes, completely normal. It looked like an office of the sort they’d find anywhere in Paris. Complete with a secretary’s desk, a few chairs, and a table littered with magazines.

The difference was made quickly apparent, however, through the view out the window. The landscape the deceptively quaint room was mostly a collage of red and black, with a sunless sky above and a myriad of strange buildings. Also of note where the various denizens of…distinctly non-human appearance wandering the streets outside.

“All right, ladies! Welcome to Hell!” Blitzo announced with a flourish, causing the girls to pale.

Lila fell back with a screech, landing on her butt and immediately attempting to scuttle back away. Her path was quickly halted as she bumped into something. Looking up, that “something” was actually a wolf monster, making Lila panic even further.

Loona, for her part, was not having a good morning—ignoring, of course, that it was actually the afternoon. And as if it wasn’t bad enough that her hangover still hadn’t cleared, now some…thing had shoved into her, followed shortly by an ear-piercing shriek that only made her head feel worse.

Seeing the way the wolf demon growled, Lila opened her mouth, possibly to scream even more when Marinette quickly shoved a hand over her mouth with a smile to Loona.

“Oh my! Your hairstyle is quite lovely!” She lied. Blatantly lied to the wolf girl’s face.

“It’s bed-head.”

“I couldn’t even tell. It looks so sleek and shiny!”

“Whatever.” Loona grumbled and stormed off to the break room, slamming the door behind her (and then immediately regretting it due to the noise agitating her headache).

Marinette decided to take the initiative. “So…what do you want with us, anyway?”

“Our client paid us a pretty penny—”

“Basic contract.” Moxie interrupted.

“Pretty. Penny.” Blitzo continued as if he hadn’t heard. “For a chance to meet with MDC.”

Okay, they had mentioned that before.

“Then what?”

“If you are MDC, you can do whatever the client is wanting. If you’re not, you’ll at least make for a decent distraction while we escape and blow up the building.”

The humans in the room blanched at that.

“WHAT?!”

“I know. She was a beautiful building.” Blitzo said mournfully as he actually wiped a tear from his eye. “And I just got my office arranged how I like it, too. But it

Marinette stared.

Lila whimpered.

“I second that ‘what’.” Moxie interrupted. “Nobody at any point discussed blowing up the building!”

“It was on page 3 of the handout I gave you this morning, Moxie.” Blitzo exclaimed, covering his eyes in exasperation. “At least read the mission briefings!”

“Sir, the ‘handout’ was a paper napkin. There was no third page!” Moxie insisted.

Beside him, Millie for her part was looking over the aforementioned napkin for the part that was supposed to mention the circumstances in question…or really any of the plan.

“We’ll discuss it later.” Blitzo said over his shoulder to Moxie as he proceeded to grab both human girls and drag them over to a previously closed door.

“Hey wait—!”

“Hang on!”

Within seconds, Blitzo opened the door and proceeded to shove both girls through before slamming it shut behind them, the last thing they heard being him mentioning where to buy explosives.

_______

So.

Recap.

Hell was real. Demons were a thing. And the two human girls were getting a first hand view of the less than pleasant or holy side of the afterlife.

Marinette was…actually taking it all in stride.

Lila was less so. She was sitting ramrod straight in the chair, keeping a tight grip on her knees and trying very hard not to move as her eyes glanced quickly around the room at the assembled demons.

Marinette actually felt bad for her. And probably should have been panicking herself, all things considered. Maybe she would have been had it not been for her extensive experience as Ladybug.

Sure, it was Hell, but floating gods and people turning into monsters had already broadened her horizons of the possibilities of the universe. Plus despite the name of the company that had kidnapped them both, murder didn’t appear to be on the table. All in all, despite the circumstances, Marinette didn’t feel that scared.

The fact that the “client” in question who hired the group was actually a fan of hers wanting a commission helped quite a bit with that.

As did the flattery.

“OMG! OMG! I can’t believe it! It’s you! Can I get your autograph?! No—wait! I need to focus! Can I get a jacket with your autograph?!”

“Thank you.” Marinette said, somewhat flustered. Honestly, she hadn’t thought she had gained THAT much fame. Especially not enough for someone to want to commission her from the afterlife.

…was that a thing? Could that be a thing?

“What I don’t get is why the other girl had to tag along?” The demon asked, curiously. “Is she your assistant or something?”

Lila brightened, looking ready to speak—likely to try to lie her way out of this. Or mess up what little peace Marinette had managed to create.

“No!” Marinette interrupted quickly, ignoring Lila’s petulant glare. “No, she’s not. There was just a mix up since they didn’t know where I was or who to bring.”

Blitzo rolled his eyes. “Well, how were we supposed to know?!”

“You could have asked me when I contracted you.” Said the demon, somewhat annoyed.

“I have a website, you know.” Said Marinette, very annoyed.

They paused.

“…the fuck’s a website?”

Silence.

Marinette coughed. “In any case, you wanted to commission me?”

“Oh, yes!”

_______

It didn’t take long to make the arrangements. Marinette named her prices and the demon was more than willing to pay her for her services. They made use of Blitzo’s office to negotiate and fine tune some details regarding the arrangement. From determining the materials to writing up the contract to negotiating the costs, it was all pretty professional.

And ultimately involved the humans not being murdered and the building not being blown up, which was always preferable.

It finally came down to determining just how the demon customer wanted the jacket to look, and Marinette started drawing out some sample sketches on spare paper in the office that may or may not have been important documents for Blitzo which she may or may not have particularly cared given the whole “kidnapping and being used as a sacrifice” matter.

The only issue seemed to be that the demon customer wanted the jacket to be made of materials that were only available in Hell. Which made sense, she supposed, since she wasn’t sure how long anything she made on Earth would last in this environment. Millie and Moxie had been sent out to gather the necessary material in question, and what they returned with was a strange sort of leather. It was unique and of a color she had never seen before, and part of her really wanted to get a bit more detail about the make.

…given how pale Lila had already gotten, Marinette kindly decided to refrain from asking questions.

“Well then, let’s go over a few sketches and determine which one you like.”

The demon looked almost giddy at the prospect. The IMP team looked relieved. Except Blitzo, who still seemed to be pouting over their takeover of his office.

Lila was…less enthused. “WHAT?! What are you thinking?! He’s a demon!”

Marinette shrugged. “Well, I do have a non-discrimination clause.”

“That shouldn’t apply to demons!” Lila hissed lowly.

“The demons who have brought us to Hell and are currently our only way of getting back.” Marinette pointed out, dryly.

Lila huffed and went back to her chair.

So, with Blitzo and his team begrudgingly kindly being forced willing to donate their office for her use, Marinette sent to work to try and design a jacket to the client’s taste as quickly as possible.

The sooner she got done, the sooner they could go back to Earth.

…hopefully.

Lila, for her part, was terrified and miserable and just wanting to go back to Earth. Immediately would be preferable. Even without Marinette.

Yeah, thanks Lila.

“Why do I have to stay here? Why can’t I go back home? Or do anything else?”

The client tilted his head. “Are you saying you don’t like art? Because the last person who told me they didn’t like art had their eyes stabbed out. With pencils. Would you want that to happen to you?”

“…can’t I like art and not stay in Hell?”

“No.”

Lila paled and sunk lower in her seat, where she remained quiet for the next couple of hours while Marinette worked.

It was mostly in silence as Marinette drew one sketch after another. Asking occasional questions about preferred length, how many pockets, special embellishments, and which parts of the various jacket styles did he prefer. Eventually, they had come to an agreement about the set look he wanted, the materials needed, and when he wanted it completed by. And from there came the matter of payment…

“Um…I’m not sure what the exchange rate is for Hell currency.” Marinette said, looking at the coins he handed her.

The demon frowned, tilting his head in consideration. “I could always rob a human bank and pay you with that.”

Marinette paled.

“This is fine. Really. I can probably buy some things from Hell with this.” She said with a forced smile.

“There are tons of things you can only find here.” Millie said, brightening. “We could deliver them for you!”

Well, that was a good point.

“That’s true.” Moxie agreed. “You could make other things with the fabrics here. Hats. Shirts.”

He paused, looking over his shoulder at Millie who was busy chatting with the customer regarding the fabric he chose. Seeing she was suitably distracted, he turned to Marinette. “So…how much would it be to make a dress. Just out of curiosity.”

Aww. Even in Hell there was love.

She smiled. “We can certainly discuss it.”

The moment was ruined as Blitzo stepped in and slung an arm around Marinette’s shoulder.

“How about one of those sexy maid outfits for the bedroom? You’re French, right?” He asked before giving Moxie a nudge. “You could stand to have a little more fun in the bedroom.”

“Sir, I’m 14.” Marinette replied dryly.

“And what we do in the bedroom is none of your business!” Moxie rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Didn’t we just have a discussion about this last week?”

Marinette coughed as the two started to argue. “So…um…are we going to return to Earth so I can start working on this?”

Blitzo sighed. “Fine, fine. Killjoys.”

Lila heaved a sigh of relief. “Oh thank God.”

_______

With an agreement forged between Marinette and IMP to have the customer’s order completed and delivered within two week’s time, Marinette and Lila were safely deposited back in their classroom no worse for wear.

…well, physically. Mentally, there were probably going to be a few scars.

Several of their classmates had apparently remained since the earlier incident. Perhaps it was out of worry? Or maybe classes had resumed after their disappearance—akuma attacks and strange circumstances had become rather common, after all.

Still, it was Alya’s cry of surprise and then being pulled into a hug that assured Marinette she was, in fact, back home.

“You’re back!” Alya exclaimed, relieved. “We were so worried!”

It wasn’t every day your best friend and classmate was dragged to Hell, after all.

“—and I’d been trying to reach out to Ladybug and Chat Noir, but only Chat showed up and Ladybug must be busy or maybe she already knew? Did she help you? How did you escape?”

Part of her wondered if Alya had even stopped to breathe. The rest of her was just basking in the happiness that they had made it back safe and nothing too terrible had happened in the meantime.

The absolute LAST thing she needed was to come back and find out Hawk Moth had let loose another akuma that destroyed Paris while she was gone.

Alya suddenly gasped as though struck by a thought.

“Oh my god, Marinette! I can’t believe you did that!”

Marinette smiled. “Well, I had to—”

“You claimed to be MDC just to protect Lila! And here I thought you hated her!”

Happy feeling gone. Gone like a punch to the face. Knocked out. Dead, even.

Alya beamed. “I’m so proud of you, girl! I knew deep down that—”

“Nope!” Came a quick interruption. “That’s not what happened. It was just a lie. Completely and utterly.”

The interruption was half expected.

The fact that it came from Lila was not.

Everyone froze.

“What?”

“I never met MDC.” Lila explained, wasting absolutely no time with subtleties and just blurting it out. “I never knew Marinette was MDC. I just lied about knowing him because I thought he was the next big thing and I knew you would all believe me.”

“…what?”

Lila sighed. “I lied about knowing MDC. And being the muse behind his fashion line—well, hers. Since Marinette is MDC. She never lied. I did.”

The classmates were startled, but seemed to be taking in the information.

Rose, for her part, tried to be positive. “Oh...well, you didn’t have to lie about knowing MDC—”

“No, I mean about everything. Ever. In fact, there’s probably not a single time we’ve known each other that I was ever honest with any of you.”

Everyone stared.

“I’ve been lying since the moment we’ve met.” Lila continued. “I am a liar. Always have been. I am a horrible lying liar who lied about everyone I ever claimed to know and everything I ever said I did just to get you all to admire me because it was easier to manipulate you that way and get you to do things I wanted. From interviewing me for the Ladyblog to carrying my lunch tray to buying me things. I lied about having tinnitus just to get to sit next to Adrien and lied about not being interested in him to manipulate Nino into guilting him into letting me come to his house. Ladybug herself even called me out for lying. And when Marinette got upset that day I came back over the seat change? I threatened her in the bathroom because she was wise to me from the very start.”

A few stares were sent Marinette’s way. She didn’t have any explanation for them though. She was just as surprised as they were. More, even.

Lila shrugged. “Everything I’ve said. Everything I’ve done. All lies. Ever.”

Everyone gaped in shock. Nobody even really knew what to say.

Marinette started. “But why—”

“Because that was Hell, Marinette. HELL. The bad place you go to after you die, reserved for bad people. And until today, I didn’t even think it was real. Or that there could be a chance I could end up there. But I imagine if anything would warrant that, it’d be lying, manipulating, and trying to get revenge on a superhero.”

Nino blinked. “Wait…what was that last one—”

As if a great weight was lifted from her shoulders, Lila sighed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go join a convent to try and save my soul now that I know I have one.”

With that, she promptly exited the room, leaving the group staring after her in complete bewilderment.

Alya gaped. “...what?”

_________

Epilogue:

Marinette completed her commission to the demon and later for Moxie. Her fame increased in both realms and she eventually did open up her own design house. The only issue came in the customers who wanted to pay her by removing her competition, which she was mostly able to prevent until IMP took a hit on Gabriel Agreste. While Marinette did stop the attempted murder, this did still reveal his secondary identity of Hawk Moth, allowing the Butterfly and Peacock to be recovered and peace to return to Paris.

The classmates were shocked at the reveal of Lila’s true nature, but were more bewildered than anything given how it happened. They did all feel foolish and embarrassed for trusting Lila, but considering what could have happened, they all chose to take it as a life lesson to be more cautious in the future. They all remained friends and moved on to live quite fulfilling lives.

IMP formed a contract with MDC and gained a secondary job of delivery service as well as assassins, which increased their profits.

And Millie loved her new dress.

Lila Rossi convinced her mother to send her to a convent, where she became one of the most pious and devout members, spreading the message of being good in life more than any other.

#ml fic #ml crossover #marinette dupain cheng #Lila sucks #lila redemption #helluva boss

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