#honestly not much plot

[deuxcherise]

New Year, New Problem

C/w: Unhealthy behavior (?), happy lunar/Chinese new year theme, dragon x snake (?), dragon x tiger (?), snakesss, jade emperor appearance, Chinese zodiac stereotypes, random, no plot (?), start of enemies x lovers / rivals x lovers (?) Masterlist

Every lunar new year, the Jade Emperor hosts the annual banquet. However, unlike previous times, for some reason this time the Jade Emperor had decided to arrive later than the Celestial Animals.

CRASHHH!!!

The heavy marble table is thrown against the wall, shattering many bowls and dishes that took months to prepare. Cups full of wine that took years to age have been turned over, further adding to the ruined good mood that would have lasted a few days afterwards, if not at least a gracious week.

“Look at what you have done!” the Ox fumes. “All of the workers’ hard labor. Gone!”

“What I’ve done? How dare he show his face around here! You are not part of this banquet!”  the Tiger roars at the one who has angered him, hair puffed up.

“I would have been, had that conniving Rat not tricked me that fateful day!” the Cat retorts. “Besides, in the Vietnamese calendar—”

“Who cares? One or two drops of water couldn’t possibly outweigh an ocean,” says the Rat, looking away from the Cat’s glare. “That being said, there would have been enough food for everyone if that stupid Tiger didn’t waste it all.”

“HOW DARE YOU-”

While the angered Celestial Animals argue back and forth as to whose fault it was, the rest stand to the side, either discussing how they are all going to explain to the Jade Emperor as to what transpired to these events, or in silence.

The Pig, in particular, is too devastated to speak, half mourning the lost food and half in consideration of eating it off the floor. After all, every single block of this palace was crafted and now maintained by the best of the best housekeepers.

The Monkey stares at the remnants of spilled noodles, with half a mind to throw food at the angered ones, to either shut them up or to start a food fight to lighten the mood.

The Rabbit is quite fearful of the Jade Emperor’s potential anger, chittering and chattering about what to do to avoid punishment.

The Goat wonders if there is anything that can be salvaged from the mess, perhaps that plate of dumplings which have yet to fall off the plate, or that yet to be opened bottle of rice wine rolling around.

The Horse considers leaving, seeing as there could not be a banquet with all of the food gone. He would rather avoid the Jade Emperor’s wrath.

The Rooster, on the other hand, plans to remain as it is his job to ensure, should the night end dreadfully, that he’ll be there to wake everyone the following morning. Surely, he would be safe from the Jade Emperor for this responsibility. As too the Dog, whose job is to protect everyone.

The Snake looks at the Dragon, curiously.

“I sssee you’re taking thisss all in ssstride?” comments the Snake, flicking his tongue.

Eyes closed, the Dragon sips on her cup of tea as if she was at a tranquil tea party. When she does open them, there is a terrible flame burning in the slits of her eyes. “If I were to take down the Tiger now, the world would know no peace for the next millenia.”

“Ah. Ssso you’ll be ssstanding assside in this chaosss?” asks the Snake. The Dragon doesn’t answer, taking another sip. The Snake then asks, “Ssshall I offer a resspite?”

“I do not intend on leaving this place until I greet the Jade Emperor properly.”

“Oh, I know better than to dare asssk you to put aside your ssstub— I mean your sssteadfastness,” the Snake fixes his words when he receives a glare from the Dragon. “But asss you will be passssing the year onto me, I’m sssure you would like to have a place to eassse your troublesss, from all of thisss. A peaceful passssing guaranteesss good fortunesss for the coming year, yesss?”

In the chaos, one can witness the Tiger grabbing the Ox by their horns and flipping them over, only for the Mouse to jump off the Ox’s head to jump kick the Tiger in the face, only for the Cat to slap the Mouse down onto the ground, only for the Ox to quickly recover and tackle all of them. The Rabbit shrieks and the Horse neighs. The Monkey howls and the Dog whimpers. The Goat contemplates, Pig sighs, and the Rooster readies for the Jade Emperor’s arrival with fervor.

The Dragon sighs, feeling a headache come on. “You have no need to worry about me. All will be settled properly.”

The Snake tilts his head back and forth. “But you will not sssleep tonight. I merely offer company.”

“... Is there something you wish to gain from your generosity, Snake?”

“Not at all, Dragon. Not at all,” the Snake snickers, playfully shaking his head. “Prosssperity bloomsss from charity, doesss it not?”

“I suppose…”

CLANGGG!!!

The gong sounds loudly, silencing and freezing everyone in their place. Footsteps echo into the banquet hall until finally, the Jade Emperor makes his presence known. Several gasps erupt and the Celestial Animals stand in line to greet their great leader.

The Jade Emperor’s eyes look from the right to the left, sweeping over the entire banquet hall. His face is expressionless, almost stone-like. There is no anger, but there is no kindness. Everyone here knows not what he’ll do, but knows exactly that of his dissatisfaction.

“May I ask what had transpired here?” he inquires, his tone calm and steady.

No one says a word. Until the Horse steps up.

“Great Jade Emperor! What had transpired today began as a conflict between the Tiger and the Cat, the latter who arrived without a formal invitation.”

The Tiger growls. “That’s-”

The Jade Emperor holds a hand up, commanding silence. He turns and looks down to the Cat, who stands lonesome between the line of the Celestial Animals and the Jade Emperor himself. “I see that you are here now, after many centuries.”

The Cat bashfully looks between the Jade Emperor and the floor. “Yes. Was I not allowed here? Was this banquet only for the established Celestial Animals?”

“No,” the Jade Emperor simply answered. “All animals were invited, including you, Cat.”

One could hear the Celestial Animals stand up straighter in their place, as the Cat hides a smirk as he takes a bow. “Thank you for your graciousness, O Great Jade Emperor.”

“You’re very welcome,” the Jade Emperor says.

And thus from that day on, the Cat became a formal guest during the Great Lunar New Year’s Banquet.

“However… I cannot overlook the mess that you all caused.”

The Rooster pipes up, “Might I-”

“Whether you had participated in the destruction of the year’s work, or stood idly on the side, you are all responsible for not holding each other accountable.”

The Celestial Animals lower their heads, some in fear and some in anger and some in shame.

“Therefore, after the Dragon,” He nods to the Dragon who raises her head. “Passes the year over to the Snake properly,” He nods to the Snake who raises his head. “We shall have each animal pair up and live with each other for a year.”

Everyone looks at each other from side to side. Some stereotypical pairs, like the Horse and the Dog, or the Rabbit and Goat feel excited to pair with each other. Unfortunately, the great leader has other plans in mind.

With a gesture he manifests a list, a golden scroll that floats in midair and glows with a magnificence, holding all of the names of the animals. He begins with the first animal.

“Until the next year,” he begins. “The Rat shall be with the Horse.”

The Rat squeaks and the Horse neighs when they meet eyes.

“The Ox shall be with the Monkey.”

“What??” The Ox shoots a horrified look at the Monkey, who looks back with amusement and a shrug.

“The Tiger… shall be with the Dragon.”

The whole hall erupts with “Eh??” or “Great Jade Emperor??”

“Great Jade Emperor! With all due respect, why must I have to be with her?” the Tiger asks, exasperated.

“Indeed, must we be?” the Dragon agrees, stepping forth. She gestures to the Tiger. “He will die.”

Tiger jerks towards the Dragon, raising a fist. “What did you say??”

“I. Didn’t. Stutter.”

“YOU-”

The Jade Emperor raises a hand, silencing the hall once more. The Celestial Animals settle back in line, though the ones who have been paired off already are undeniably disgruntled. He continues running down his list: The Rabbit with the Rooster, the Goat with the Snake, and finally, the Dog with the Pig.

He flicks his hand and the scroll disappears. “You shall learn peace with your partner. If you do not,” he pauses, feeling the weight of his next words, “You will be dismissed from your position as a Celestial Animal.”

-----🐲🐯-----

As decreed by their great leader, the Celestial Animals have been relocated to live in homes in the heavens suited to their paired needs.

“.....”

“.....”

“Is tea all that you drink?”

The Dragon looks down contemplatively at her cup. “I suppose, since I’m forbidden from drinking your blood.”

The Tiger slams his fist onto their dining room table. “What is your problem with me?”

She glares at the Tiger, forcefully placing her teacup on the table as well. “I might ask you the same. Why do you always oppose me?”

He scoffs and leans in with his elbows on the table. “Oppose? Hah! Do you know how arrogant you are? Everyone thinks you’re humble since you came in fifth place because you were ‘helping out’ on the way. Be honest! You miscalculated and you came late.”

The Dragon’s jaw drops and she stands up with her hands on the table, towering over him. “From day one, that has always been the truth. I am not one to ignore those in need!” She smirks cruelly. “Unlike you, who has nothing but a stupid greed for power.”

The Tiger tosses the table to the side, destroying it in the impact and leaving nothing to serve as a barrier between the two. He takes amusement with the Dragon’s momentary unbalance. “Say that again, why don’t you?” he taunts, taking a step forward with his chest puffed.

The Dragon doesn’t back down, taking a step forward to meet him in the middle. “You. Are. A. Greedy. Bastard.”

The Tiger growls while the Dragon snarls, staring into each others’ eyes with audacity, neither one backing down.

Moments pass before the Dragon huffs. “It’s a shame.”

The Tiger narrows his eyes. “What is?”

“If you weren’t so hot-blooded, your eyes would be so much nicer to gaze into.”

…..

The Tiger blinks and leans back. “W-what?”

The Dragon doesn’t elaborate, twirling around and heading towards her room.

“Hey, wait a second!”

She stops and points at the splintered mess of the once beautifully carved table. “Make sure that’s fixed.”

“What? Why do I have to fix it?” the Tiger growls, indignant.

The Dragon turns around, her expression serene but haughty. “You broke it, you fix it. Isn’t that simple, or do you not have any common sense?”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do!” he shouts.

“But you have to anyway, right?”

On that note, the Dragon turns and strolls into her room, leaving the Tiger in conflict between fulfilling a simple task and his desire to crush her conceited, and pompous scaly behind.

[soulbrand]

man you all were not kidding abt the therapyspeak in veilguard.

[i-may-be-an-emu]

:))

[maxdibert]

Sirius: At least I’m not ugly as hell.

Severus: At least I’m not stuck inside all day talking to my mother.

Sirius: I DON’T TALK TO MY MOTHER!

Severus: Oh, right, I forgot. That would be less pathetic—it's your mother’s portrait.

Molly: Here we go...

[bumblebeebats]

Must scifi be "good"? Is it not enough to watch David Tennant and Catherine Tate run about, yelling? and also a nonbinary transwoman is there?

[benevolenterrancy]

Swords pining for each other's cultivator is my new favorite type of pining. Love your NieYao content! <3

I don't suppose we could get Baxia or Hensheng throwing a tantrum while Jin Guangyao / Nie Mingjue are away, leaving their owners to deal with the embarrassing aftermath?

Also, do you have any recs you'd recommend with these two?

this is the exact moment Nie Huaisang realised he was going to have to start meddling in his big brother's love life (con't: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Hensheng, on the other hand, doesn't throw tantrums but WILL sulk...

[forgettable-au]

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS!

Hii! This is the frequently asked questions post!

This is it for now but I might add more stuff if I keep getting more questions that I feel the need to include :D!!

Before everything, I recommend reading this post if you haven't already! I explain the basics of this AU there and that might have already answered some stuff :>!

This post is for both common questions I keep getting AND things I consider important that all of you know :D

PLS if you have any suggestions for things I should add to this post, tell me!

NOW FOR THE QUESTIONS:

Leaving the link to the theory I'm talking about here! I think this is where I first saw it????but I can't be sure,,,,,

(I really liked it when I saw it, I thought it would be fun to experiment with it in this comic hehe)

[xiaq]

Finally got around to reading these and I am furious. 10/10. Will happily resort to bribery for information on book 3’s release date.

[charmac]

Your interactions with Charlie and Glenn are making me tear up, thank you thank you, I'm so excited for you

This is literally the greatest evening of my life. Like I can't express more deeply how sincere Charlie Day is and how he truly does *get it* and he very much believes we *get it* too. He stuck around because he wanted to talk to us, and I'm not saying that to brag at all:

He let us ask literally anything we wanted. He talked a lot about caring so much about making sure the episodes focus on who the characters are instead of swinging for big ideas.

My favourite answer he gave us was when I asked if he was ever going to direct an episode and he told me "Probably not" and explained it was because he already does so much behind the scenes and there are so many people in their crew who want to direct and deserve the opportunity and experience to do that, and he doesn't need any more credit on Sunny.

When it was time for them to leave he grabbed each of our hands and said he thinks we get the show better than anyone else.

Straight up surreal. Doesn't feel real.

[turtleblogatlast]

Leo getting hit with a truth curse but instead of forcing him to admit to super sad or worrying things it’s things like “it was me who broke the remote” “I saw Mikey prank Donnie and helped hide it because it’s way funnier if he didn’t know who it was” “I rip my clothes to look more like Raph’s because he’s really cool” “my stripes aren’t even red they’re pink!”

[starssoblue]

i'm teasing you! i love you just the way you are, marinette dupain-cheng.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Always a bit puzzled by people saying that anyone who wanted long-term consequences for TotK Zelda's sacrifice are "edgy".

I'm not even particularly in the camp that she should have remained a dragon forever (I think this should have been Ganondorf's fate, it would have been sooo much more impactful than to explode him and move on but anyway). To be honest, I wish the rules for turning back would have been 1) clear 2) active gameplay on the player so that it feels like it's something we have earned, and 3) not make her have amnesia about it and/or at least having her gain some crucial insight because of the experience.

(also: doesn't she crave knowledge? isn't that insanely mean to have her watch over every civilization and every bit of history ever and then take it away from her? kind of dislike how totk privileges the comfort of the player's feelings over what the characters would actually want or need tbh)

To be perfectly honest, I fully expected us needing to turn her back before engaging Ganondorf so we would fight him together, especially since Zelda as a compagnon exists in the game code already (though in a very subdued state). It feels very very strange to me that all of this mechanic of Sages following us existing and yet we never have the very climactic cool Zelda-staple moment of facing Ganondorf or Ganon together (OoT, WW, TP, ST and probably more that I'm forgetting all did this in some way --even BotW had Zelda more involved than in TotK). I'm not sure Mineru was a compagnon that was needed over Zelda honestly, especially given the kind of non-insight she gives us on the zonai (even if the idea of the mecha is cool, it really could have been Zelda using her zonai + sheikah knowledge to pilot one for us or something).

But anyway: yeah, even if this isn't what I would have wanted personally, I think wanting Zelda to remain a dragon is kind of arguably more respectful of her relationship to Link, in a way, that what the game ended up doing. When she enacted this sacrifice, Zelda decided to trust him to such a extent that she lost herself, reciprocated his trust in her and his devotion to her, and now the future of Hyrule exists beyond her and beyond what Hyrule once was, but she trusts them to follow through and be happy and she will watch over them from the stars moving on. It's fine if we manage to save her from that fate, but even if we don't, honestly this sounds like a beautiful story/tragic romance to me, if you want to read it that way. Tragedy doesn't necesserily involve edginess. Fictional pain isn't always mean, or out to get you.

[merelyafacade]

The soundtrack didn’t seem to fit as well in s2. Hear me out, it wasn’t from the lack of quality in the songs themselves. I was so excited that Ashnikko was brought in for the Jinx song and I thought Ma Meilleure Ennemie (the French song for AU Ekko and Powder) was breathtaking. The songs themselves were such a treat but it was the stuff around them that made them stick out.

What was so magical about many of the songs/montages in s1 was how perfectly the song encapsulated the action of the scene to help amplify the emotion of the animation.

In s2, there was this weird disconnect between what I was seeing and hearing. Most of the time (don’t get me wrong, there were exceptions) the song slapped way harder than what was happening in the scene. The characters just got done saying something pathetic or doing something vaguely out of character and then an amazing song came on to try and hype everything up. Like ‘Paint the Town Blue’ is bad ass! Yet for all the posturing, Jinx does something dastardly to Piltover for all of 30sec in a single episode and then it’s blown off to tangent into the next wild subplot.

Having the songs take the content of the story more seriously than the plot itself does was distracting and it felt more like they were covering for the holes in the writing than working with the writing.

[windchime-of-teeth]

and heeeeeeres the jiang wanyin (derogatory) design for the wip animatic!

i’m sticking to relatively monochrome character palates for this, but because he’s actually alive he gets to have a not completely purple skin tone

i’ve been in design hell for literal *weeks* drafting and redrafting my lwj, wn, and wq designs because i love them but the -first time- i draw this guy his design is bestowed upon me by god /j and i get this in less than two hours!??

anyways… he’s really fun to draw even if i want to put him in a blender

notes (transcribed):

- lotus petal shaped garments and layers

- similar sharp features (and build) to the Yu clan

- jiang motifs tend to be curved and flowy, so this contrast highlights his insecurity and discomfort with fulfilling the jiang ideals

- the repeated petal motif is pushed to be almost diamond like in order to emphasize the points and it’s seen in his face shape, nose bridge, hair (repeated), shoes, skirt layers, pants, and sleeves

- i imagine that he has a very similar face to mdm yu plus her eye color, physical sharpness, and height (cause i picture mdm yu as being a slight bit taller than jfm) but has his fathers nose, swimmers build, and coloration

[bones-sprouts]

okay just watched nimona and reread the novel this is the consensus:

if you want a feel good movie, more explicit gay and trans rep, and a more well realized high tech midieval world watch the nimona movie

if you want a darker tone and more morally gray characters, a really compelling twist/mystery, and a gay ass scientist side character read the nimona comic

[thespiritlessghost]

no one understands how much i love the sasaki to miyano manga