spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

AAAAHHHH they're so cute 🥰

Done at last~ _(:3

I've tried my best ahahahaha xD

Enjoy the food~

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

He wasn’t scared of falling. He had fallen many times over the years. But hitting the ground still hurt.

How wonderful it would be if there was someone there to catch him.

Adhd-autism dream couple

Fan coloring of beautiful original art by Marina Primalova

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

This realization does happen early enough between the second and third book and thus gives us time to watch Damen react to his own changing perspective as well.

You can watch when Damen witnesses the scheming that Laurent's had to put up with, being framed for attacking a village, prompting retaliation, and even his efforts to find the real culprits being turned against him too. Damen is still a prince; he's not naive enough to not recognize that Laurent is facing opposition from almost every direction and has been forced to become a stone-cold bitch because everyone he's ever been kind to or relied upon has been threatened, killed, or systematically turned against him.

Damen sees the horrors of the border, where the people in Delpha are still Veretian at heart, no matter what someone drawing borders on a map says. He is heartbroken to see his own people happy to slaughter innocents just because of the feud between the kingdoms. Damen doesn't just become forced to rethink Laurent, he's forced to rethink Vere as a whole as well as his own ignorance of the things Laurent has been embroiled within for years now.

Damen is smart enough to comprehend what it all means, and he's strong enough to go through the existential crisis of admitting to himself that maybe he, and the way his father raised him, were WRONG. Damen is strong enough to let go of his pride and LEARN, and that's what makes him a worthy prince - as well as someone who is capable of falling in love with Laurent and having Laurent fall in love with him, despite Laurent's best efforts to hate him.

~Rant incoming as always~

And because I'm a Laurent lover myself:

When they are forced to get along in Prince's Gambit, you can see all the moments Laurent is shocked how hard Damen fights for him, how he doesn't escape or betray Laurent the moment he has the chance, and how Laurent really is weak to not just loyalty but competence. Damen absolutely can defeat him through sheer strength, even though Laurent has spent the last six years trying to prepare himself to kill Damen, and he doubts his own ability to outmaneuver Damen in a fight because he's blinded by his own inferiority complex that the Regent has instilled into him by force and that Laurent has to systematically unlearn.

Now, Laurent has to come to terms with the fact that if Damen's loyalties turn against him as well, Laurent's heart might not be able to take it either. Laurent is literally vulnerable to Damen in every way imaginable, and he's pissed. He covers it through sarcasm and banter, like when Damen admits he could grab Laurent and turn him over to Makedon's passing troops, but then is honestly relieved when Damen DOESN'T BETRAY HIM, AGAIN. Damen actually kills one of his own people by throwing a sword in a completely irrational maneuver, and you know Laurent is going through shit when you consider that he must think Damen only supports him because Laurent is just better than the Regent, the lesser of two evils, the spare prince that's only worthy because Auguste is dead...but maybe Damen also is just that good of a person.

Remember that Laurent isn't fooled by Damen's "undercover" identity for a second, so he's seething at the idea that Damen is the only one he can be honest with, if only because it's in Damen's best interests to not betray Laurent. He's coping with the idea that he and Damen would have absolutely gotten along if there wasn't this massive gap of them being from opposing kingdoms but also the matter of Auguste.

Once Damen's identity gets exposed and Laurent is like "Yes, I know, asshole, you're not exactly subtle", Laurent becomes a defensive bitch again for the first half of Kings Rising because the two of them really do have to confront that Damen killed Auguste and incidentally ruined Laurent's life. It wasn't personal, Damen had no idea any of that would lead to the other things - he had no control over the Regent's actions, and killing Auguste was just killing the enemy in wars they didn't start and didn't have the option to just sit down and talk about.

Damen trying to say, "He died quickly," and Laurent's immediate defensive reply, "Like gutting a pig?" OOOOOFF FUCK LAURENT THAT WAS MY HEART

Damen and Laurent beating the shit out of each other as Laurent tries to kill him, but he has to yield and admit he would have died if Damen wanted him dead, but Laurent saying he'd rather have just died never getting to know Damen as a person because Auguste was everything to him and dying would be easier than seeing how he and Damen could have gotten along only to be denied it. Then Damen ending the confrontation with, "I wish..." AND HE CAN'T FINISH BECAUSE HE KNOWS WISHING WON'T CHANGE ANYTHING

Damen KNOWS he ruined Laurent's life by killing Auguste but he also knows it wasn't personal to him, but it became MASSIVELY personal to Laurent. He regrets it, he knows he regrets it, but regretting won't bring Auguste or Laurent's childhood back.

The cherry on top comes as Laurent fights Kastor and Damen realizes that Laurent absolutely IS AND WAS skilled enough to beat Damen in a fight, he was just being held back by his own emotions (and maybe a knife wound to the shoulder) making him desperate and sloppy. Laurent killing Kastor essentially makes them even as they each took a brother from one another; on the one hand their fates were *necessary* to make Damen and Laurent who they are today, but on the other hand - at what cost?

Laurent being told by Damen that he's a worthy prince by the one person he thinks he can't overcome, in contrast to the Regent telling him he isn't worthy and trying to force him to admit that he can't overcome his uncle - when in reality Laurent IS able to overcome them both.

Ugh, the extras when we finally get to see Laurent acting like a young man who can let his walls down and grieve, who can mess around with flowers and put himself beneath someone he loves without fear, who can just start throwing olives into a barfight for the miniscule layer of chaos. I love him. Damen loves him.

Anyway so I have a fanfic that's half complete where I ramble like this throughout:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/52964602/chapters/133982485

Thinking about how Damen does not even begin to comprehend the absolute life-altering trauma he caused Laurent by killing Auguste until like halfway through Prince's Gambit. Thinking about how their mutual dehumanization of each other led Damen to see Laurent as incapable of love or affection for anyone, he never even considers that Laurent loved his brother and was shattered by his death, never shows a shred of sympathy, his first assumption was that Laurent resented Auguste for being the golden child/crowned prince, and it's only when Paschal looks at him like he's crazy and says "no, he loved him." that he begins to realize the Laurent he's been experiencing is one that in many ways *he helped create* and that the purest form of Laurent was a sweet, shy little boy who loved his brother without a cruel bone in his body, he never wanted power or glory or anything, all he wanted was his big brother, and Damen killed that version of Laurent when he killed Auguste.

I think that is in part how Damen begins to come to forgive Laurent, or at the very least to begin to sympathize with him, realizing that in a fucked up kind of way, everything Laurent does to him, while still totally being first and foremost Laurent's responsibility and moral failures to atone for, is partially a consequence of his own actions, that he helped turn Laurent into the tangled ball of pulsating yearning in the shape of a man that he is.

I think realizing how wrong he'd been about the kind of man Laurent was, was what began his journey to coming to terms with the kind of man he, Damen, was at the beginning of the story. When he first meets Laurent he thinks he has him pinned and describes him as arrogant, self-absorbed, self-serving, spoilt, and "raised to overestimate his own worth", which in hindsight is definitely meant to be projection because those are all ways that Damen himself could be described at the beginning of the story, something he basically admits to at the end of Kings Rising when he reflects on the version of himself that existed before he was imprisoned.

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

So pretty, must reblog to save

Takes lots of time cuz things happen but alas Im done~

I love @poppingsoop.bsky.social Taihua n SHTB design 🥺💕💕💕 and got inspired. Also lol I'm bad at designing, nyeh dun care, just wanna have fun~ xD

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

*Calls out, “Hey, king. Are you single?” to the vaguely humanoid creature lurking at the base of the stairs*

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

the untamed if it was written by rick riordan

ep 1. I Accidentally Get Resurrected

ep 2. My Teenage Nephew Bullies Me

ep 3. The Teacher’s Pet Duels Me to the Death

ep 4. Lan Xichen Shoots His Shot

ep 5. Jiang Cheng Needs a Wingman

ep 6. We Speak With Lan Zhan’s Frozen Grandma

ep 7. Lan Zhan Smiles

ep 8. We Embark On an Epic Field Trip (Also Nie Huaisang is Here)

ep 9. I Throw Hands With a Bird

ep 10. We Meet Our Celebrity Crushes

ep 11. We Pull Up to Evil Summer Camp

ep 12. The Low-Budget Dog Animatronic Tries to Eat Me

ep 13. We Battle the Tortoise of Doom

ep 14. I Threaten to Strip

ep 15. My Stepmom Ships Us Off

ep 16. Pretty Much Everyone I Love is Dead Now

ep 17. I Find a Cure

ep 18. I Plummet To My Death

ep 19. I Come Back Wrong

ep 20. Lan Zhan Breaks Up With Me

ep 21. I Evade Non-Consensual Therapy Sessions

ep 22. My Evil Flute Solo Kills Everybody

ep 23. I Ditch the Dinner Party

ep 24. My Ex’s Brother Tries to Stage an Intervention

ep 25. Jin Zixuan Fumbles My Sister

ep 26. I Reanimate My Homie

ep 27. My Brother Questions My Interior Design

ep 28. Lan Zhan Discovers the Joys of Fatherhood

ep 29. I Get Major FOMO

ep 30. I Fulfill My Cottagecore Fantasies

ep 31. Everything Goes Downhill

ep 32. My Nephew Becomes an Orphan

ep 33. I Plummet to My Death (For Real This Time)

ep. 34 Jin Ling Gets Eaten By a Wall

ep 35. We Become Tomb Raiders

ep 36. Lan Zhan Steals a Chicken

ep 37. I Force Feed Radioactive Porridge to Teenagers

ep 38. Xiao Xingchen Breaks the Bro Code

ep 39. I Go On a Shopping Date

ep 40. I Crash a Conference for Free Food

ep 41. Nie Mingjue is an Unreliable Narrator

ep 42. Everyone Wants to Kill Me (Again)

ep 43. Lan Xichen Trauma Dumps

ep 44. We Visit the Ruins of My Cottagecore Fantasies

ep 45. I Do Group Conflict Resolution In My Underwear

ep 46. The Truth Comes Out

ep 47. I Become a Hostage

ep 48. Jin Guangyao Talks Too Much

ep 49. I Reunite With My Evil Flute

ep 50. My Boyfriend Abandons Me On a Mountain (Not Really)

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

year of the snake

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

Wei Wuxian knows what he's doing 😆

Artwork so pretty thoooo

I finally finished a part of my MXTX band AU/crossover. 🙏

I really love imagining how these three would get along—probably total chaos with Wei Ying's influence.

Luo Binghe makes fun of Hua Cheng, but he's just as much of a simp. 🫵

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

Oh how wonderful, how terrifying, to be loved to destruction

The full quote can be found here

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

Sooo this is how it went?

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

Guys, why we debating whether or not LQ has or doesn't have a beak when the answer is obvious?

The Long Quiet is as versatile as Shifty. He's like schrondinger's beak. He both has one and doesn't have one until the need arises for an answer. He has one when he wants one, he has none when he doesn't want one.

Based on the Dragon and the Princess ending, I like to believe every single face of the LQ chooses whether they have a beak or not. And thus I present my hypothesis on the beak statuses of our best boys:

Hero has a beak but doesn't know it or consciously acknowledge it, too distracted by the narrative, that's just his nose wdym, he's doing his best your honor

Opportuntist is pro beak, though perhaps he conceals it until he gets the upper hand

Smitten is no beak because kisses, will only manifest a beak by accident when he's being sinister but would never admit it

Cold is no beak since bro doesn't feel enough for a beak to manifest

Broken is no beak, he's too wimpy for a beak - or alternatively, has a beak if his goddess wants it, anything to please her really

Stubborn seems like a beak guy to me. He'd use it to peck the Adversary's eyes or smth, just so long as it's another weapon to bash against his enemy

Hunted probably no beak, since he ain't no animal, but teeth? Yes, necessary part of survival you see

Paranoid probably no beak, too scared of it getting in the way during a crucial moment and potentially blocking that very necessary 3% of his vision and distracting him for a milisecond too long

Skeptic is the opposite, pro beak because he knows it's there and he wants to keep it in sight at all times because if it disappears that shit's sus

Contrarian IS the schrondinger, he is both pro and no beak at all times. He's half beak. He's demi beak. He is MADE of beak. He doesn't even know what a beak is. He threw the beak out the window

Cheated doesn't care about the damn beak, it's all a crock of shit anyway - just wait, he'll have a beak and then suddenly it's an inconvenience, but the moment he DOESN'T have a beak he'll find a reason to need it, just you wait and see, it'll happen--!

What I'm saying is, all your fanart is valid and all you'all's opinions are correct, have a nice day

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

"But forever is not forever.

"I move and you react and both of us break the other. But broken is only a moment in time."

"You let me move and I slam the door, but that is not the end, and both of us must face our partner once again. The barbs twist deeper, but they do not have to."

"To change is to hold the potential to rise above. Would you limit yourself to what you are now, or would you like to see what you might become tomorrow?"

One of the ending monologues that stuck with me the most, the way the Witch and the Opportuntist are dancing around one another but stuck in place because they're more focused on being wary of the other instead of bettering themselves.

You actively have to go along with the dance in order to bring the Witch to Shifty, to play along and pretend, wary of each other but still going along with things until you can go out of your way to betray to one another. You have to trust in order to be betrayed, even if that trust is pretend. Attacking the Witch openly and directly, no lying or dragging it out, or even trying to abandon her and avoid the dance, smashes you into the Wild. Proving your sincerity even at the cost of your life brings you to the Thorn.

The Witch (like most Chapter II routes of course) is what happens when you don't learn from your mistakes and change the strategy. The Princess and the LQ decided that the endless revolving was what they wanted, nothing better, nothing worse.

And the way it all feeds back into the final confrontation where the Shifting Mound shows the Long Quiet the futility of revolving, because there are no victors if you choose to keep dancing in circles - the two of them absolutely CAN just keep spinning, but they'll always end up equally hurting one another and rejecting the paths of being straightforward or giving up. It's actively torturing themselves and choosing the self-destructive option to keep doing the dance, but I mean it's an option! All opinions are valid. It's just *chef's kiss*

What's ironic is that in all the ways you bring the Witch to Shifty, the two of you still have to face each other after the betrayal. Either you both broke your backs together on the stairs and have to stare each other down hoping the other is suffering just as much as you, or the LQ erases the cabin and the door she slammed in your face disappears too so oops this is awkward, no hard feelings right? :3 They always do face the consequences of being a prick even if they got the betrayal they wanted, "not sorry you did the bad thing, just sorry you got caught" style.

Witch and Opportuntist are such a funny duo, they're both such gremlins, they know what they're doing is selfish and sneaky and potentially the downfall of them both, and they're happy about it, they're vibing

"A trick behind your back, and a trick behind mine. We dance, revolving and revolving around each other, but forever stuck in place. We both move and yet we both don't, for each of us watches the other instead of ourselves."

---

Anyone order the Witch? I've got quite a few old drawings of her, she is such a silly :]

All I ask in return is to please ignore how I used to draw the Long Quiet (pictures 2 & 4), I could not figure out how I wanted to draw him, and I also was (still am) bad at drawing birds/beaks 😭That's why I eventually gave up and joined the no-beak-TLQ crowd lol

[Throwback | Scheduled post | Drawings finished : January 25th - 26th, 2024]

[Find my Slay the Princess art here] [Princess art] [TLQ art] [Voices art]

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

【千秋广播剧】 THOUSAND AUTUMNS AUDIO DRAMA

晏无师挑眉：“沈道长一人独往？” 

Yan Wushi raised a brow, “Shen Daozhang is traveling alone?”

沈峤：“不知晏宗主可愿与贫道同行？”

Shen Qiao, “Would Sect Master Yan like to accompany me?”

晏无师：“本座考虑考虑。”

Yan Wushi, “I will think about it.”

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

YES! BEHOLD! THE PERFECT WOMAN!

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

Slay the Princess also be like

Yan Wushi in book 3:

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

If I had a nickle for every time Lan Wangji actively cut off a cultivator's arm/hand, I'd have two nickles. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

Happy Halloween and Happy Birthday to our boy! 🥳

I have no one to impress because I'm a social hermit but I've spent too much time on MDZS to NOT be Wei Wuxian this year so