ringsull

[ringsull]

a Jiang Cheng/Lan Xichen Chinese steampunk AU scene {NSFW}. On hair strands as smooth as razors.

this is a fragment of an unfinished work (that i might actually want to finish...). please view the author's note below if you're interested in the setting.

Jiang Cheng waved his sleeve nonchalantly as Lan Huan took in his face and gesture with the attention of a painter.

"Is Leader Jiang uncomfortable with my choice of topic?"

Jiang Cheng's ear caught three distinct intonations in his voice that on the surface sounded as serene as water in a mill wheel.

A teasing smirk, a sincere concern, a reasonable complaint.

Each of them referred to various aspects of his personality and behavior, and Jiang Cheng was struck with sudden pride as soon as he caught himself able to differentiate among them.

"Is Leader Lan most sincerely concerned with my comfort?" he asked.

A weird prickle in the back of his head told Jiang Cheng that he didn't choose putting pressure on this spot. It was the teenager inside of him that unexpectedly stepped in front of his experienced, adult political part.

Lan Huan softly tipped his head to the right and asked,

"Why not?"

"'In the end, we're not strangers to each other'?" Jiang Cheng quoted.

The mimicking received a visible reaction. A sparkle burst in Lan Huan's eyes, and Jiang Cheng felt its snow white shock wave.

"Has Leader Jiang found something for himself in this idea?"

Jiang Cheng's fingers froze on a fastener of his bracer.

"Has Leader Lan put something in it that was worth finding?"

His fingers readjusted the fastener in a firm move.

Lan Huan squinted at him.

"It depends on your personal interpretations of what that 'something that was worth finding' is," he said.

Jian Cheng raised his eyebrow slightly, the corner of his mouth twitched. He toyed with a paunchy extra tea pial on the table.

"Naturally, you'd like to hear my interpretation?" he asked.

"If that presents as possible, of course," Lan Huan answered.

Jian Cheng side-eyed him attentively, leaning into the play.

Lan Huan leaned backwards softly to show that he's hooked.

Jiang Cheng opened his lips with a click of his tongue and raised his head at Lan Huan.

"Leader Lan, certainly, is one of those privy to the knowledge that I'm a person of very few feelings..."

"I'm sure it is so only to a certain extent."

Jiang Cheng gagged but pushed himself to continue.

"Leader Lan, being as perceptive as he is, would also, I think, not be surprised to learn that matters of the heart are not of a priority among all those that I have to solve every day," Jiang Cheng spoke slowly and articulately, managing to catch himself here and there to not give away an extra detail.

Lan Huan didn't show a reaction.

"Leader Lan, therefore, won't be surprised to hear that such things had never interested me in the first place, so there is no interpretation I could give. I never even thought of this."

A pale spark of triumph exploded inside Jiang Cheng. But as he was about to get back to the pial that saved him from the necessity of looking Lan Huan in the eye, Lan Huan suddenly leaned backwards on his hands and settled down, his chest and stomach falling in a slow wave.

Jiang Cheng felt caught like a lassoed horse, and prepared ― for what, he didn't know himself.

Silvery-black strands were falling down Lan Huan's robe-adorned chest in lines as smooth as razors.

"Leader Jiang, I have a question and a comment for you. Which one would you like to hear first?"

Something in Jiang Cheng's throat and chest spasmed, sharply and stickily.

"Depends on which sequence you find more logical." he answered.

"In this case," Jiang Cheng felt like something was crawling towards him as Lan Huan spoke, "I'm asking the question first."

Jiang Cheng sat motionless.

"What did Leader Jiang imply with 'the matters of the heart'?"

Jiang Cheng blinked.

"I-I implied anything connected to interpersonal relationships and emotions tied to them," he blurted.

"And you're stating that a young master of your level of education never thought upon them, even out of curiosity?"

"You promised one question." Jiang Cheng countered.

"Please," Lan Huan's smile bloomed softly, "Allow me this liberty."

Jian Cheng felt that he looked like a hypnotized rabbit. This only made the vice on his throat grip twice as strongly.

He pulled on his vocal chords,

"Very often, just as now, I found other things to think about."

"Even in youth?" Lan Huan asked, his squint unchanged.

Jiang Cheng's chest was slashed with a memory of an icy shining blade under the sun, clothes whiter than a snowy garden where he went for a walk, the impenetrably black smoothness of hair.

The dark amber eyes ― that were looking at him now with the attention of a surgeon.

"Even in youth," he answered, grabbing the teapot without spilling a drop.

His temples itched at Lan Huan's unchanging pose.

"I think Leader Jiang is lying to me."

It licked at Jiang Cheng's ears. His unaccountable attempt to look discreetly at the naked wedge of skin on Lan Huan's chest changed into a dissatisfied, yet brave look into his eyes.

"This is my promised comment," Lan Huan said. "I think you're lying to me but you're entitled to it to protect the riches of your inner life from my curiousity."

Disappointment sank into Jiang Chen's stomach. The one he would confess to no one and the one he wouldn't look at himself.

His boundaries bounced back to their normal rigidity after preparing to bend under pressure.

"I apologise for the offense I might have caused by touching on something I shouldn't have," Lan Huan said, looking almost ready to sit up straight again.

"I allowed you this," blurted Jiang Cheng.

Lan Huan's breath trembled.

Suddenly they were staring at each other like it was their first meeting.

"Leader Jiang..." Lan Huan almost whispered.

"Yes?" Jiang Cheng breathed.

"Come here, please."

Jiang Cheng launched forward, circling the table in an elegant motion, and slipped up, laying his chest on Lan Huan's chest.

Lan Huan's body sprung to him. He caught Jiang Cheng by the nape. He caught Jiang Cheng's lips with his.

Jiang Cheng clung to him with ease Lan Huan didn't expect. The movement of his lips showed a reserved furiousity, and its vibratons resonated between them, threatening to break out, onto Lan Huan's body.

And his body opened up under Jiang Cheng, pliable and languid, mixing the relief of the wait that was over with the long-standing readiness.

Jiang Cheng felt the rolls of his Adam's apple with his hand clutching Lan Huan's throat and clung to with his crotch to Lan Huan's thigh.

Lan Huan's hand travelled from the back of Jiang Cheng's head down his back and firmly squeezed his ass, crumpling the fabric of his dress.

Shivers shoot up Jiang Cheng's body, his gums itched in a carnivorous joy. Lan Huan had craved for him just as shamelessly as he himself was afraid to crave this whole time.

Jiang Cheng tore his mouth away and bared his teeth, pressing his ass to Lan Huan's palm. His fingers flew off Lan Huan's neck and snaked inside his robe collar to grab his firm, muscular speck.

Jiang Cheng snapped at Lan Huan's lower lip and opened his eyes ― to pressure Lan Huan with the hunger in his gaze.

Lan Huan answered with licking Jian Cheng's lower lip.

Jiang Cheng's hand threw his robes open, caressed his torso, and Lan Huan grabbed his face with both of his hands, taking him down to the floor.

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the jiang and lan clans aren't exactly in alliance. their relationship is built upon mutual business interests and a constant state of alert at the possibility of another betrayal. the previous one cost both of them too much money and pride. they can't not cooperate because their survival depends on each other as both clans belong to a dying-out cohort of enlightenment practitioners in an increasingly anti-spiritual world drowning in machinery smoke and the stench of gasoline. but cooperation is tainted and strained, always a moment away from conflict.

yet jiang cheng and lan xichen, both being the responsible first sons to their families who knew each other since childhood, eventually fail to hold their destructive mutual lust back. mistrust turns out to not be an obstacle to burning desire. in the world of metal, steam and artificial hum, there's a quiet tea room, a secluded garden, a deep dark lake. the machinery still needs immortals to ward off evil spirits. it's a life of contrast.

and it awakens existential questions neither of them would like to touch.

[ringsull]

"likes mean nothing on tumblr" you're sending me a little heart. that's not nothing it's your heart. look here's one for you <3

[ringsull]

Day 1. Ghost {a SKZ AU prompt ver.2}

artwork by Ariel Zucker Brull for Perturbator

this is an excerpt from an unfinished work. please view the author's note below

"Don't you think it's weird that we haven't seen the Ghost for long?" Jisung's voice came muffled as he watched Minho's boots raise thin dust clews with every step.

A pause hung between them like a heavy bunker oil droplet.

"It's a bad sign," Minho said, holding a neutral intonation.

Still, sticky anxiety spiked in Jisung's chest as he noticed Minho turn away from him, to the wasteland, to hide the unease burning in his own eyes.

"Today I heard the girls whisper..." Jisung started.

"When he doesn't appear before anyone for 365 days it's an omen," Minho cut in. "Something massive is afoot. Something we may not be able to handle. The biggest clash in two decades happened last time this occurred. The one where we lost chairman Kim."

Jisung's shoulders tensed and hunched. Minho sensed he kind of wanted to cover himself under a huge blanket that'd serve him as a shield.

"Who's 'the Ghost'?" Chan asked, raising his eyes at Minho and catching a glimpse of Minho returning from where his thoughts took him for a moment.

"This world's regulator. Something like that. The only creature of Light aside from those that we brought here. His soul is as clean as a newborn's," Minho explained in a plain tone. "No one gets what he is in essence even now. Some say he may be a dead man who sacrificed himself for a greater cause, may be a martyr. I'm leaning towards him being a shard of the technological advancement of an eradicated local civilization."

"How so?"

Jisung was out of his stupor and looked at Minho too.

Minho winced in search for words.

"Well, we know for certain that this world's population reached such highs in its development before being swallowed that not only they created humanoid robots, they also came close to successfully cloning their own live specimen," Minho said. "I'm thinking the Ghost is a character of some AI program. Maybe a companion. Or a mentor."

"Are you saying it still functions even 800 years after annihilation of the technology that created it?" Chan asked.

"Dang! And here I was, thinking why it feels like a hologram to me whenever I see it," Jisung interrupted, suddenly lively with his discovery.

"And that's the problem," Minho continued, referring to Chan. "I can't imagine how this is possible."

"So what, it glows like a projection?" Chan raised his eyebrows, turning to Jisung.

"Mm-hmm..." Jisung confirmed. "And it's like it has a glitch effect added," he outlined the glow that he remembered with his hands and twitched his palms mimicking a glitchy picture.

"Actually, yeah, it really looks like a glitch," Minho agreed. "I noticed it's face blur or a piece of it's blade shift aside a couple times, like a distorted pic."

"A piece of blade? It's not a peaceful creature?" Chan asked in surprise.

"What did you think?" Minho retorted.

"I'd lose my shit fighting in this world for 800 years straight just to survive," Jisung shook his head.

"Our teams mostly meet him when they need help," Minho continued. "He either fights on our side or helps to find a way when the dark gets too thick."

"Wow. And you said it's boring over here," Chan noted.

"It is boring," Minho insisted. "With all due respect, one dude isn't gonna fix the staleness of this night," he nodded at the vast darkness spreading before them.

"Did anybody try do research it?" Chan asked.

"Huh. It slips through our fingers every time. Some people it knew for a while invited it to the camp. Someone even tried to capture it with force, still failed. That's why it's not on any of the world guides," Minho explained, "we left it alone since it's harmless. So it's kinda just a local legend now."

"Pretty much like an almighty chosen one from a young-adult book," Chan snorted.

The ideas of what the Ghost looks like spun before his inner eye.

"Oh, and to add to that, it's so pretty..." Jisung breathed almost reverently, with a pointed side-eye on Chan.

Chan laughed,

"What, are you serious?"

"Yep. Its appearace is... You could call it male but take a look at it's face ― and it looks like a girl."

"One more reason for why I think it was artificially created," Minho chimed in.

"So it comes to everyone in the same form," Chan noted, being used to a lot of creatures that came into contact with humans appearing with the faces of someone a human in front of them knew.

Or, their ideal lover.

"I wonder how many people tried to romance it..." He thought out loud.

"Oh, I'd be so embarrassed," Jisung shook his head again.

"What if he had my face?" Minho teased.

His face abruptly dropped when he realised Jisung was thinking in earnesty.

"It's hard to say, hyung."

"it's hard to say?!"

"What, would you like me to try?" Jisung's eyes sparkled as soon as the game moved to his own field.

"Ah, ps-s off," Minho blurted, turning back to the wasteland like it suddenly was the only thing capable of granting peace to his soul.

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prompt ver.1

so, this was my second take on the "ghost" prompt. fantasy, multiple worlds connected through tunnels and taken over by the same reocurring threat from the ouside. the people in this fragment are cadets sent to practice to one of the relatively quiet worlds. minho is the oldest in rank, chan is a rich boy sent by his grandpa to see what humanity is up against as part of his studies to become a business leader and decision maker. the ghost has hyunjin's appearance. yes, chan fell in love with it at first sight.

[ringsull]

Day 1. Ghost {a SKZ AU prompt ver.1}

this is an unfinished piece. please view the author's note below

"Ghost. Ghost, do you copy. Captain Bang calling the 'Ghost' program. Ghost, lay out the full report on the condition of the crew life support system."

Struck by a chill on his shoulder blades, Chan turned to Minho and found him frozen to his face with a firm, indescipherable gaze.

The thin long hairs adorning Minho's cheekbones rose and fell with the force of Chan's noisy exhale.

"It's fine," Chan insisted, peeling his bullheaded stare to Minho's eyes.

"For now," Minho bit, more out of warning than a wish to disappoint him.

"Call everybody in for an ad hoc, please," Chan held his gaze on Minho's face before turning back to the console a moment too slowly. "I'm gonna restart the damn thing manually."

Minho leaned on the panel with his lower back and put an autonomous emergency comm up to his face.

"Crew, this is staff sergeant Lee Minho. Report for an ad hoc meeting in the control room, you have three minutes. I repeat. Ad hoc meeting. Control room. Three minutes. Out."

Changbin's stocky silhouette detached from the shadows drowning out the far corners and walls unreached by the warm, somber emergency lighting.

Rubbing his hands, he approached Chan and with a smack of his lips asked,

"Welp, what do we got here?"

"Ghost went out. I'm restarting it. Please check the metrics manually," Chan shivered again, as if a draft crawled in through the ventilation, and nodded to the monitors registering oxygen levels, food and fuel supplies and crew health.

"Well, fortunately for us, we have enough of everything to survive for three weeks."

"How enough?" Chan pushed.

"78 standard meals and 4 snacks. Precisely 21 days of oxygen. As for the fuel, since we had an ISS pit-stop for that, it's 40 days and 18 hours," Changbin reported.

Chan's eyebrow twitched.

"All four of the crew members are in perfect health and physical condition. Well, leutenant Hwang slept three hours less than usual today," Changbin raised his eyes at Chan. "Overall, we're on the plan. We only have to make our turn towards the Earth tomorrow."

"Thank you," Chan nodded, twitching the "Ghost" settings.

The only announcement of bare-footed Hyunjin slipping inside was a swish of the sliding door.

"How are we doing here?" He crossed his hands on his chest and stood behind Chan who was still hunched above the buttons.

From the corner of his eye, Minho watched the centimetres of space between Chan's firm shoulder muscles and his own hip at the edge of the pannel.

"Chanie," Minho breathed, leaning his forehead on Chan's shoulder.

Then again,

"Chanie."

Chan leaned his cheek on the crown of Minho's head, his gaze stuck somewhere between the sheathing on the opposite wall and the fog clouding his head.

"Chanie," Minho whispered again, rubbing his forehead on the fabric of Chan's T-shirt. "I'm sure we'll get out of here alive. I already have an outline for a plan. We just have to go through it together."

Minho turned his hazy eyes from Changbin next to him to Changbin on the table.

"But Changbin died two days ago," he said.

Changbin stared at him in surprise.

It seemed to Minho that the light above them was blinking with tiny trembles. The trembles swallowed any humanity from Changbin's face, turned his arched brow and his twisted lip into a grimace of almost comical distrust.

"Hyung, you okay? That was you."

Minho turned his gaze from the floor to himself on the table.

Hyunjin was looking at Changbin on the table. It seemed to him that the glass partitions in the compartment trembled with the sound of Minho's shriek.

Hyunjin tipped to the side for a moment but pushed himself up with his hands on the doorframe.

"I told you. I told you we shouldn't go to sector 30."

His cheeks were glistening with tears, his eyes were red from dryness and a lack of sleep. The deciveness rattling in his voice covered up the urge to leave all of them to deal with this on their own.

"I told you that if something happened we won't manage here without hunters," Hyunjin's eyes bore into Minho's white face. "What the fuck are you gonna do with this fucking thing now?!" he yelled, pointing at Changbin.

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this au was meant for day 1 of fictober a while ago. the prompt was "ghost". it's a sci-fi horror, obviously, with minho/chan as the main pairing. chan's crew was on an ordinary delivery mission to a military outpost when they decided to act almighty and visit a sector of the map infamous for its lifeforms without qualified guards on board. how did they finish? i can't tell you. but an unknown cosmic shit playing with human minds gotta be one of my favorite genres.

prompt ver.2

[ringsull]

— Space weighs nothing, Yoongi-chi. Space is just a territory inhabited by stuff. Sometimes we come there too. And space meets us as we are. It's all tied to chaotic coincidence over there, same as on the Earth. There's not much more. No one owns the place. Any weird creature could die there even if it survives vacuum or the lowest temperatures. Well, maybe humans just have more options of death... Anyway, everybody has the same chances when you all are being sucked out of your ship through a hull breach.

☄️

a monologue excerpt that i thought to include in an old unfinished au were seokjin is an astraunaut and yoongi is left to haunt seokjin's apartment waiting for his return from a failed space mission in complete uncertainty.

[ringsull]

— Wonbin🪽 by ringsul

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i somehow ended up on a radical christian website and this was their system of upvotes and downvotes. Bless. 

[ringsull]

a Natasha Romanoff Ballerina Pattern

original comicbook art: Chris Samnee

[these are old but I'm fond of them because I tried to create something fun.]

[ringsull]

— Hyunjin in b&w by ringsul

[ringsull]

salt, skin, white tank tops; joowon & dongsik drabble

The first thing they were hit with when they got out of Joowon's car was the salt.

Firm Jindo winds carried its mass onto the shore and unloaded it into pine needles, mountain soils, sand, home textiles and, it felt like, anything soft and organic, including their own skin.

They sat on the beaten deck that oversaw the beach from their cabin up the hill. Its scorching wood prickled at their thighs with the white afternoon sun beating down on their naked shoulders, and neither of them moved, soaking up as much warmth as they could handle after an unbearably moist and rainy July in Gyeonggi.

Joowon, sitting a step lower, turned his head up at Dongsik. His hair flew into his eyes with the sea wind and he watched Dongsik's hair ruffle in it, youthful and dynamic in its unruliness.

Joowon's eyes scanned Dongsik's face from behind his black geometric sunglasses. There was boldness in the way it was open to the sea, no cap, no shades, just a slightly contorted but otherwise open expression Joowon had never seen on him before.

Not so openly, not so serenely.

The sun and the sea wind brought their faces to an even smoothness. Joowon's head spun with it, with how it blurred out the marks of Dongsik's suffering and left the heavy noblesse of his ageing shine alone.

Joowon thought to the dryness of his skin and how the salt was refining it as he watched Dongsik stare into the washed-out blue horizon bathed in sparkling water, in his white tank top he bought at a 7-11 on the way to the island.

Joowon thought about his own tongue on that skin, about mouthing on its expanse, about sucking on the salt that covered it and unearthing something renewed underneath, like peeling off a shell.

Dongsik turned to him, eyes creased but bright and demanding enough for Joowon to understand that Dongsik, too, could taste the skin of his shoulders exposed by his own white tank top, sickeningly hot from the sun, honeyed with tan, smooth and soft for the next 15 years.

Their eyes met, bodies instantly electrified and alert.

Dongsik smirked.

Joowon's face stayed still but he clutched the planks that his palms were leaning on. The planks didn't feel warm enough compared to the skin his palms needed to be on.

The seawind ruffled their hair again, firming it with salt. Their white tanktops shone in the afternoon sun.

Dongsik's smirk broke into a smile and then, a snort.

Joowon grinned back, lightheaded, and bit his lip, staring at Dongsik's exposed shoulder, his dry forearm muscles flexing in the light movement.

[ringsull]

常にあなたを他の誰かのようにし ようとする世の中で他の誰でもない 自分でいること、それは人間にとっ て最も過酷な戦いに挑むことを 意味する。 戦いを諦めてはならない。 — To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.

e e cummings

[a rough yuta edit that i made after a years long break from graphic design; the japanese translation of the quote is taken from comme des garçons]

[ringsull]

— Wooyoung in blue by ringsul

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— Lix in red by ringsul