#It's just their little inside reference wrapped up in catharsis

[s-wordsmith]

Modern AU Steve and Robin having "Melodrama Moments" where they go hard to "Michael in the Bathroom" and promise never to leave each other alone in the bathroom.

[crash-bump-bring-the-whump]

Day 12 - Self Harm

Hehehe a little bit of a twist on the prompt, but Mariano is indeed harming himself, along with like 95% of the other people in this building :)

Ping list: @ailesswhumptober, @whumperofworlds, @whump-captain

TWs: blink-and-you-miss-it reference to the threat of noncon, blood, self-harm, hand whump, dislocated fingers, captivity (the moment of escape), death, murder, burns, starvation mention, self-sacrifice, Dimitri being himself about pain

Mariano stood steadfast as alarms blared, the only one of the war mages who'd managed to slip his restraints. Laredo watched as he trembled, knees threatening to give out as more and more people continued to try to take him down. Mariano's magic gathered at his teeth, broken wards no longer keeping the plasma contained. It sparked at his fingers and palms, spitting and hissing in fury and exhaustion.

Laredo didn't remember Mariano fighting like this when he was younger. He was always efficient, and terrifying to see. Luis had picked him for a reason--Mariano could wipe a town off the face of the earth with no hesitation or change in his posture. He'd seen him do it; mechanically tackling every structure, killing every living person inside before he did so that they weren't trapped and waiting for an even worse death. That Mariano was a lot.

But this Mariano put that one to shame.

This Mariano, with scars and eyes that burned with more than just fear, moved like a predator. Laredo realized that it was almost too easy to think that he was some fragile little waif when they usually saw him next to his seven-foot-tall dragon, curled up on the couch to cuddle, or standing as one of the smaller members of their group. This Mariano burned holes through guards' heads without blinking, without missing a shot. This Mariano loomed and leaped, hands wreathed in blinding magic. He pinned the lead guard with little more than just his weight.

They'd seen how that guy had been looking at Manuel, at Mariano. Had heard whispers about what he wanted to do. Laredo glanced at Manuel, and saw the same fury and joy and catharsis in his eyes.

Mariano wrapped his fingers around the lead guards' throat. Mariano didn't let go until the man stopped screaming. He wasn't dead. Mariano didn't seem to care that much.

He didn't seem to care when his magic flickered, either. It shorted out, suddenly dimming before cutting off completley. Laredo's heart dropped. There were still more men to deal with--but they'd been held here for weeks, and hadn't even gotten to free Bastian yet. The starvation seemed like it had taken too heavy of a toll on the youngest war mage.

"Mariano!" Laredo called. Mariano didn't look at him, never looking away from the hallway that the threats had been pouring into. "Cut us free! Let us take over!"

Mariano didn't even seem to hear him.

More men appeared at the end of the hallway. They raised their guns. Suddenly, the hallway was lit by that same brilliant sunlight. For a moment, Laredo thought one of the others had broken free. Mariano's silhouette stood alone, though.

The men fell. They kept appearing. They kept falling.

Mariano was still casting. Laredo saw how horribly his palms were burned. They hung at his sides, loose and swaying as Mariano lurched forward, firing more magic from his teeth.

"Laredo." Dimitri said, drawing Laredo's attention away from Mariano. "Help me out. I'm almost free. I'm not as flexible as I used to be." Dimitri met his eyes, some grim determination filling his expression. His hands were almost free from the cuffs. He just needed a little help to dislocate his thumb. "His nose is already bleeding."

Laredo's stomach dropped. Mariano had already pushed himself too far. Mariano intended to keep going.

Laredo realized how horribly they were outnumbered. This whole place was meant to hold them for as long as necessary. Every single person here had a vested interest in keeping them under control. Many of them would be willing to die for it.

Laredo hooked his shoe up under the chain keeping Dimitri's cuffs linked. "I won't count you down." He saw how the metal bit into Dimitri's hands, into his skin, how it threatened to draw blood.

"Good. You know I like surprises." Dimitri shot him a grin as he leaned forward to give Laredo the straightest shot possible. He didn't scream when Laredo yanked his foot towards himself.

"Mm," Dimitri groaned, and Laredo couldn't quite tell how Dimitri felt about his newly dislocated thumbs. "Yes, I see why he didn't come unlock us after doing that to himself."

Dimitri staggered to his feet, grimacing as he sparked his magic and started slicing through the metal keeping Laredo bound. One cuff fell, and then the other. Laredo's skin smarted from how hot they'd gotten during the removal process.

Mariano was still casting, and people were still coming. His magic started to flicker and short out again. "Rookie, stand down!" Laredo tried as he began slicing through Manuel's restraints.

"He's not able to hear us right now." Manuel muttered, shaking his hands as he and Izan were freed next.

Just as Mariano managed to get his magic back at his teeth, Laredo grabbed him by the back of his collar and yanked him off of his feet. The cast fizzled and he stumbled, only avoiding dropping to the floor because of Laredo's arms around his waist.

Mariano blinked hard as Laredo pulled him away from the opening of the hallway, letting Izan, Manuel, and Dimitri take over the attack. "Laredo...?" Confusion was clear on his face.

"Yeah, it's me." He lowered them both to the floor, supporting Mariano's weight on the way down. "Dimitri dislocated his thumbs like a weirdo and slipped his cuffs. You don't have to hurt yourself anymore. We have you."

Mariano rested his cheek against Laredo's shoulder and nodded. "I...okay." He settled on, closing his eyes. His hands rested on his lap, skin burned and bleeding. "Okay." Laredo reached up to smooth some of Mariano's hair back and wipe some of the blood from his face.

Laredo held Mariano there against the wall until Dimitri's triumphant call heralded their victory.

[liquidstar]

Well then! let me begin with the appropriate music and say I play fast and loose with the Canon.

prelude, act 0

little guy runs from cult, ends up encountering a group who are referred to as jewel office, they take em in

grow stronger with them, meet other 3 little guys in their own partner offices and get on well because of being the little guys

one of the members of a partner office, the one with the fox like attitude, seems sleezy but helps teach valuable skills

eventually convinces that this line of work isn't for you, points the way to a power generating company, and says working there will be better than being out fighting so much.

you hate the smell of blood after all, it'll be a relief to be away from it

what could go wrong? hell he says he'll explain to the others, so you head off and join that company.

we skip the vast majority of this part for the sake of its a game plot

big light beam from the company joined, have grown accustomed to world but miss jewel dearly, eventually get wrapped into library alongside everyone else who worked there

begin chapter 1 of 3

meanwhile, the fox is making moves, wanting power that can be claimed by taking out all 4 teams, destroy them from the inside. one already had the little guy convinced to run, next will be the investigative branch to cover tracks.

library is growing stronger, eventually the fox is given an offer to join an ensemble of some of the strongest around!

which simply means he's gotta get rid of the old team, chuck them in the library

enter corkscrew, perish corkscrew. Little guy 2 kept alive through convincing to avoid the fight at large and joins the team!

next, there's assassins. but they won't be as strong without their weapons, make the workshop go in next, sending little guy 4 to a presumed death sentence and try to manipulate 3

enter alloy, perish alloy. Little guy survives because of shying out of the fight.

the assassin group is wearing themselves out without anyone to do maintenence, they get thrown into the meat grinder next. aside from the new protege of course. just need her strong enough to be worth killing.

enter orbit, perish orbit.

around this point the individual group leaders in the library have gone through their own arcs, and little guy 1 wants to abuse invitation system for good, being at wits end and knowing he ain't strong enough yet for the fox. in spite of 3 of the 4 groups having died to his team's hands.

remembers cult he ran from to join jewel. invites them in for the express purpose of murder.

finally! some good in the world.

jewel meanwhile have been fucking pissed at the fox, refusing to talk after their little guy vanished without a trace so long ago.

recognises names on an invitation list, recognises who'd cause that and why, know where their little guy is and have a plan to get him out.

little guy one thinks things are finally going to get better

enter jewel office

one grueling fight and near mental breakdown later, jewel office is defeated, there is no other way.

little guy 3 manages to piece what's going on together, the divide and conquer tactics and what happens if she sticks around

knows just running will get her caught and probably tormented for trying to run, but can go to the one place where she can use her state for good

enter little guy 3 to library, this time with no perishing.

a bit forward, that ensemble finally comes a knocking, not expecting the 4 little guys to all be alive, the fox admits he's going to enjoy ending them

unfortunately, a thing with this library is taking the strengths from those who fall within. which includes the groups said fox REALLY didn't want to deal with.

in 4 strokes of catharsis goes from 5 tails to 1, then from 1 head to 0.

end chapter 1, abridged version

ANON this is a VERY cool and concept and i can tell youve put a lot of thought and time into fleshing it out! to be honest this style of abridging makes it a bit hard for me to parse certain things, so i'm really sorry if i misunderstood something, but i read it all carefully and think i get it!

but i love the little guys, especially the main little guy on his whole adventure. the whole thing with him running away from a cult is really interesting and it makes me wonder so much about his backstory. and the whole thing with jewel office being sketch is also really cool, especially considering how he basically went from one bad situation (cult) to another (jewel). i think theres a lot there

the line about hating the smell of blood is also really cool, the way its spaced out here gives it extra impact i think. i like it

everyone entering the library and almost instantly perishing is so funny. im glad little guy 3 ended up okay though!!!! i really do think all the little guys are fun (based from the prev ask) and i would hate to see them instantly perish in a library. esp given what you said here abt how they get along, i bet their actual dynamics are a lot of fun!

also the ending is so sick!!! from 5 tails to 1 and 1 head to 0. thats so sick. they totally went to town there lol.

anyway you said its a game plot which sounds really cool!!! idk much abt games or gaming but i think it sounds like a really interesting story for a game and would be fun to play out! thank you for sharing all the cool ideas you have for your little guys and their adventures in cults and libraries and whatnot <3

[verobatto]

Destiel Chronicles

Vol. XCV

It was a love story from the very beginning.

And You Are Not Here... (Part. III)

(13x04)

Hello my friends! This is another meta from season 13. We are still mourning with Dean...

I'm gonna focus in just one episode, because I have a lot of things to say about this one. Obviously, the majority of the things have been already analyzed by the meta community.

But, let's see what we find...

Move on

Remember how the last episode ended, with Dean blowing out his feelings and pain to his brother, so, this episode starts with Sam trying to talk with his brother about that. And by that I mean: Cas.

SAM: Hey. How you feelin’?

[DEAN is working on his laptop. He looks up at SAM, but doesn’t reply.]

Sam understands now that fact he had always suspect, what really means to Dean losing Castiel. But Dean sees it coming and doesn't answer, because he knows he let his pain and mourn talking by themselves, and now he wants to come back to hide behind his walls. But Sam won't let that goes so easy. Another heated discussion about Jack brings the topic back.

SAM: Dean, we can’t hide him forever. And, you know, just keeping him cooped up here isn’t working.

DEAN: Yeah, it is, actually. You wanna know why? Because as long as he’s here, he’s not out there doing God knows what. So what, does this mean that your plan for bringing Mom back isn’t working? ‘Cause I’ll say it again—Mom’s dead, Sam. Lucifer ripped out her freakin’ heart. Now, the sooner you can wrap your head around that, the sooner we can all move on.

(Gif set credit @demondetoxmanual )

Look at this, Sam takes Dean's words and immediately repeats the ask but with another different meaning, aeaning his brother gets immediately. Sam tilts his head, and his eyes are searching for the answer in Dean's face, because he knows he won't have the answer in words from him.

These exchange of gazes is so so important, because Dean is saying "Are you really asking me if I can move on... From CAS?" Because is obvious Sam was implying that, for Dean, losing Cas was more painful and unbearable than losing Mary. "You want to move on, from mom?"

The pause, the coma, is pointing Sam is referring Castiel, not mom. Is not mom the one you want to move on, right?

Dean's silence is priceless, both men talks without talking, and both know what they're talking about. Of course Dean can't move on from Castiel. And Sam knows it. Because he experienced the same with Jess.

And Dean changing the subject after that is saying HE WON'T TALK ABOUT IT.

Lies and Toxicity

We have a beautiful scene between Jack and Sam, in which Jack snaps all the bad things he heard last night. But Sam explains to him, they need his help to bring Mary back, and Jack can connect again with S through the pain of losing their moms. And he gives the kid a tip to conquer Dean's sympathy.

SAM: (...) Listen, if there’s one thing that Dean respects, it’s effort. So come along. Help us out. Let’s go be the good guys.

So we'll see the kid really giving everything in this mission.

Another quote that caught my attention was Jack saying this:

JACK: I thought lying was wrong.

Just came to my mind episode 14x19, when Jack is sick of so much lies and turn the world into 'just truth's real madness!

And another foreshadow in the same episode we will have Cas coming back, they're talking about this ...

DEAN: (...) why’d she come back from the dead and knife his ass?

JACK: People come back?

SAM: When a person dies and their soul can’t move on…

Talking about this in this specific episode has a meaning: the wife, the woman that man loved coming back from the death, is a reflection of Castiel coming back at the end of this episode. Souls that can't move on, is talking about Dean and Castiel's decease.

Another thing that is pointed in this episode is Sam seeing the bad things of John Winchester in his brother.

Castiel in the Empty

As the preamble to Castiel in the Empty, we had this dialogue here...

JACK: My mother… could she be a ghost?

SAM: No, we, um… we burned the body.

DEAN: That’s right, and what gets burned… stays dead.

Dean is saying this to himself because they burnt Cas' body too, but this scene is cut and we jump into the next one: Castiel walking around the Empty.

Then, again, Dean goes with this quote here...

DEAN: So, aside from getting dead, what do Gloria and Wes have in common?

And the scene cuts to Castiel again, emphasis in loved people that was dead, and now comes back from it.

Another interesting scene is Dean finding Gloria's diary of mourning.

SAM: More of the same. Um, he really was into the whole catharsis thing.

DEAN: Yeah, sure. Who wouldn’t be? I mean, it’s like another word for “happy ending”.

Dean shows here he knows exactly what that is, and how you can feel when you lose the love of your life. The "happy ending" is a reference of a suicidal thoughts as another way out from the pain. And as we will see in the next episode, was a way out Dean was considering for himself. Also, the journal was made by John after Mary died, and was made by this widow, after his wife died. Is important because in the interview with MIA (the ship shifter therapist) she will ask Dean if he has a diary.

Sam talks about catharsis, as an important way to process the pain, and he really tried to make his brother to do that at the beginning of the episode. Failing.

MIA: Mm. Most of the people I see are in the same boat. No warning, no goodbye, no closure.

These words play an important role for Sam, Jack and Dean, in loosing their mothers and loosing Castiel.

They exchanged heated words again in front of Mia, Sam accusing Dean because he is not carrying well with the deaths, and we'll have again an indirect question, with second meaning. Sam will be talking about Castiel again. But then, and just like Dean did at the end of the previous episode, Sam will have his blow out about losing Mary. Is a blatant comparison between Romantic Love (CAS/Dean) and Family Love (Sam/Mary).

Sam leaves, and Mia points at Dean. Dean drinks from his flask. He was doing that and eating a lot, as he always does when he loses Cas.

MIA: (...) You’re angry, Dean.

DEAN: And?

MIA: And if you don’t want to do anything about it, that’s your business. But you’re aiming it at everyone in your life.

Dean will take these words and do something about it, at the end of the episode. But, I want to talk a little about visual Narrative here, because while Mia was talking with Dean, there was a picture behind her, with BLUE/GREEN AND RED COLORS (Destiel).

The scene between CAS talking with the empty that had taken his shape is intertwined with the shape shifter that took Dean's shape. This is very meaningful bc both creatures decided to take the protagonists of this love story shapes.

So, the Empty explains where Castiel is, and also, is baffled by the angel that woke him up. Is the first time someone wakes up in the Empty, and the entity is really mad at it.

But Castiel doesn't know why he woke up, so, he went with the first idea: Maybe the Winchesters did some deal or spell. But they didn't.

The Empty represents all the darkness inside of Castiel: his doubts, his depression, his fears, his weakness. So, the only way to keep him there SLEEPING (as the image of depression) is to point at the lack of faith in coming back, or in feeling himself loved or needed.

The following dialogue shows us how smart is our angel.

CASTIEL: Having me awake causes you pain.

COSMIC ENTITY: If you can’t sleep, I can’t sleep. Yeah? And I like sleep. I need sleep.

CASTIEL: Then get rid of me.

COSMIC ENTITY: Oh, should I, should I?

CASTIEL: Send me back to Earth.

Castiel immediately detect the point of it, and tries to give a resolution for both of them.

COSMIC ENTITY: Or I throw you so deep into the Empty that you can’t bother me anymore, hmm?

CASTIEL: Except you know that won’t work, or you would’ve done it already.

COSMIC ENTITY: Pretty smart. Pretty smart, dummy.

CASTIEL: Send… Me… Back.

The first conclusion CAS arrives is by his side. The only way the Empty can get some peace is sending him back to Earth. What Cas doesn't know is, the empty won't come back to sleep, ever again after this.

COSMIC ENTITY: That’s not part of the deal. No, no. Besides, you don’t want to go back.

CASTIEL: Yes, I do. Sam and Dean need me.

COSMIC ENTITY: Oh, save it.

When the Empty says SAVE IT, is because he knows the excuse is making CAS to come back, is not the real one he has in his heart. Oh, save it is not because of that, is because ONE MAN NAMED DEAN WINCHESTER.

Because immediately after this, the Empty mocks him about it...

(Gif set credit @petercapaldi )

Look at Castiel's face when the Empty refers to his feelings as TULIPS, because the tulips represents the perfect lover, passion and romanticism. The tulip is a symbol of sincere love. It is an incredibly romantic flower that when giving it you express infatuation, passion, unconditional love, pure love.

So, the Empty is saying here: save it, you are in love, you want to come back because you are in love.

To the Empty, is very disgusting, aberrant, and it annoys him. He qualifies it as "little feelings"

Because he's trying to erase the hopes in Castiel. So, he shows him he knows everything about him, and if he didn't understand at first with the tulips reference, he makes it clear now I KNOW WHO YOU LOVE.

And seeding again the depression, because he needs CAS sleeping or defeated, he continues...

Unrequited Love. The Empty exposes right in front of Cas' eyes the fear of being unrequited. With this, he is trying to show him WHY WOULD YOU COME BACK IF DEAN DOESN'T LOVE YOU BACK? He needs to cut any hopes in the angel.

And after this, he shows CAS l his mistakes, and fears, and regrets, and guilts. All the bad things, all his darkness, to put him back to sleep.

But then, Castiel gets it, he is already saved. And with more energy and hopes inside his heart, he faces the empty again:

CASTIEL You can prance and you can preen and you can scream and yell and remind me of my failings but somehow, I’m awake. And I will stay awake and I will keep you awake until we both go insane. I will fight you. Fight you and fight you for…ever. For eternity.

COSMIC ENTITY No. No.

CASTIEL Release me. Release… me.

Symbolism again! Castiel asking his own darkness and depression, and regrets to release him in that moment, he release himself from all of that and he returns stronger than never.

Lack of Faith

Back to Dean, Jack and Sam with the shape-shifters we can see another interesting visual element, next to Dean: Sunflower.

The sunflower is the symbol of the Sun and symbolizes love and admiration. But also happiness, vitality, positivity and energy. ... For some religions it is a symbol of the one who permanently seeks God, the divine, since the star king symbolizes God.

This could be linked to what Dean means to Cas, but I think is mostly what Cas means to Dean.

But jumping into the dialogues and the symbolism and parallel of having two Deans as we had two Cas, there's a little clue for a foreshadow...

Look at this, the scene is pretty blatant, we have Buddy, Mia's ex, obssesed with her, jealouse of her life, intertwined with the dialogue between Dean and Jack, showing how important Jack is.

So, Buddy is the Empty, Mia is Castiel. And the most important thing in there, is Jack... These are the ingredients and this is the dialogue...

BUDDY: I never stopped looking for you.

JACK: I can’t.

BUDDY: And when I found this place, when I saw all that…

DEAN: Yes, you can.

BUDDY: …warm, fuzzy good you were doing. I couldn’t let you have that.

Buddy is the Empty saying to Mia, CAS, that he will search for him in a future, and he will see his happiness, one of the most important persons to CAS is JACK, that's why the dialogues are mixed here.

DEAN: Sammy believes in you, and when he believes, he’ll go Hell for leather…

BUDDY:

So I took it all away, and it was fun.

DEAN …but you gotta try.

Again, the Empty mirror talking about taking all away from Mia, Castiel's mirror, and we have Dean talking to Jack. This is the foreshadow of 14x08, when the Empty will come for Jack in Heaven.

MIA You’re… you’re a…

BUDDY: What? A monster? Well, so are you. And it’s about time you embraced that. So I’m not gonna kill those boys. You are. You end them, or you die, courtesy of Tweedledee’s silver bullets. So what’s it gonna be, princess?

MIA: Shoot me. Shoot me!

And now we have Castiel's mirror giving her life in exchange for Dean and Jack. Just like CAS will do with his deal with the Empty in 14x08 and his ultimate Sacrifice in 15x18.

Now, the last scene. Sam is ready to move on from having faith but Dean will take the advice that Mia gave him. But in this attempt of stopping Sam from being like him, he will show again one of his deepest feelings...

(Gif set credit @aborddelimpala)

Dean had lost faith, hopes, because he lost Castiel. And Castiel represented all of that to him.

Sam is worried, and Dean just realized he said it. He had just showed his brother part of his depressive thoughts. And the sadness in his face is all over.

Miscellaneous: The address in Mia's office door was 219, this is a very interesting visual element, is a reference to episode 2x19, "Folsom Prison Blues", in which Sam and Dean were two prisoners, trying to show their innocence. Finally breaking free. As a foreshadow of the emotional prison we will see in Dean's possesion in episode 14x09.

To Conclude:

This episode is full of symbolism and is centered on Castiel and his storyline with the Empty.

The episode shows us too the pain carried by Dean, Jack and Sam in loosing the people they love and how each one of them walks through it in different ways.

Hope you like this meta, see you in the next one!

Tagging @magnificent-winged-beast @emblue-sparks @weird-dorky-little-d @michyribeiro @whyjm @legendary-destiel @a-bit-of-influence @thatwitchydestielfan @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @lykanyouko @evvvissticante @savannadarkbaby @dea-stiel @poorreputation @bre95611 @thewolfathedoor @charlottemanchmal @neii3n @deathswaywardson @followyourenergy @dean-is-bi-till-i-die @hekatelilith-blog @avidbkwrm @anarchiana @dickpuncher365 @vampyrosa @authorsararayne @mybonsai1976 @love-neve-dies @dustythewind @wayward-winchester67 @angelwithashotgunandtrenchcoat @trashblackrainbow @deeutdutdutdoh @destiel-shipper-11 @larrem88 @charmedbycastiel @ran-savant @little-crazy-misha-minion @samoosetheshipper

@shadows-and-padlocked-hearts @mishtho @dancingtuesdaymorning @nerditoutwithbooks @mikennacac73 @justmeand-myinsight @idontwantpeopletoknowmyname @teddybeardoctor @pepevons @helevetica @isthisdestiel @dizzypinwheel @jawnlockwinchester @horsez2 @qanelyytha

@destielle @spnsmile @shippsblog @robot-feels @superlock-in-the-tardis @superduckbatrebel @2musiclover2 @madronasky @anon-non2 @cea1996 @lisafu02 @asphodelesauvage @destiels-canonahhhhhhhhhh

If you want to be added or removed from this list just let me know.

If you wanna read the previous metas from this season here you have the links:

Vol. XCIII, XCIV.

Buenos Aires, January 3rd 2021 6:46 PM

[scottspack]

SO YOU JUST FINISHED THE UNTAMED AND YOU WANT TO READ SOME FIC

Congratulations Jen @jlf23tumble on finishing The Untamed (tomorrow)! Now that you’re done with the show (tomorrow), you can finally dive into the wide and wonderful world of untamed fic!!! I’m ecstatic to be personally curating your reading experience! LET’S BEGIN!

I’ve started off with a list of 5 fics I think you should read in this specific order to 1. get some resolution from the end of the show and 2. get you acclimated to untamed fics! Then, I’ve listed a bunch of fics in different categories for your perusal to read at your leisure! This is an unbelievably long post holy shit brace yourself.

I’m like fairly certain that all of these follow the tv show canon BUT also its very typical for authors to combine many aspects of all of the different forms of canons to their liking. Therefore, I feel like I need to give a quick explanation of a couple things from the novel that show up frequently in fics that idk if you know already or not:

In the book, when Wei Wuxian is resurrected, he is brought back in Mo Xuanyu’s actual body and has his face and everything. Mo Xuanyu was pretty young when he died, I wanna say maybe 17 or 18??? and he was also short and pretty and flamboyantly gay. This is where the references to their crazy height difference come from, but again, I think I tried to include mostly fics that skew more heavily to the tv version where WWX keeps his same body and he and LWJ are more evenly matched physically.

Its novel canon that LWJ smells like sandalwood incense and has golden colored eyes. This is mentioned in like almost every single wangxian fic ive ever read, even if the author said they were strictly adhering to show canon lol

At the end of the novel wangxian run away together and elope! Obviously in the show that’s not how it goes down, but I think a couple of the fics I’ve recced might mention it in passing. (Oh also when they elope they make a pact to fuck “everyday,” a concept that might be mentioned as well.

Obviously, we have to kick it off with some fics that both reunite wangxian and give more resolution to the actual show. If you’re like me, it both took you a while to get all the way through the show AND took 100% of your brain power to remember all of the characters and plot lines. If that’s that case: these fics should be helpful in serving as a kind of emotional refresher for the show to wrap up some loose ends and to dive deeper into some of the things the show glosses over for one reason or another!

1. A Lot of Edges Called Perhaps by hansbekhart (Wangxian, E, 21k) 

The funny part is - and it is a little funny, even if Wei Wuxian has no one left to share the joke with - they never have. Not anything. He has never kissed any part of Lan Zhan besides his slim hands; never been even partially undressed with him anywhere besides a miserable, xuanwu-infested cave. It’s always been like this between them, this simmering need, this desperate understanding: a knowledge so deep that it lives somewhere in his bones, that if he wanted to have Lan Zhan he could have him, and if Lan Zhan wanted Wei Wuxian he could have that too. But they never have.

I found this fic on someone’s blog when they said that it was the definitive fic to read directly after finishing the series so i saved it, read it directly after finishing the series, and felt COMPLETE. Beautifully written, seamlessly fits with canon, and has a super fulfilling resolution. The perfect way to kick off reading untamed fic!

2. One Rogue Spark In My Direction by hansbekhart (Lan Wangji/Xiao Xingchen/Song Lan, E, 5k)

He’d thought, in Yueyang, that they’d seen something in each other, something familiar. That maybe they’d recognized something in him. But it’s been many years, and many things have happened since, and he’s guessed wrongly at other people’s hearts before. Lan Wangji looks back down at the table, at his steaming, bitter tea. He’ll beg if he has to.

In “A Lot Of Edges Called Perhaps” Wangji mentions that he has had sex before and this is the in-universe story of that time and WHEW BABY!!!! AHHHHHH!!! While this fic is like, almost pure smut, I think there is a ton of value to it in terms of emotional perspective on how fucked up LWJ was after WWX’s death. Also, it’s very hot.

3. Gathered Herbs & Sweet Grasses by hansbekhart (Laz Sizhui & Lan Wangji, G, 19k)

Later, when he’s older, it’s this that A-Yuan will remember most: the stretch of silence, the two of them both dirty and shaking with fever, as he looked at Brother Rich, and Brother Rich looked back at him.

This is a fic about Lan Wangji raising Sizhui from when he rescues Sizhui from the Burial Mounds until they bring WWX back to the Cloud Recesses after he’s resurrected. It made me cry about 18 times and I consider it fully canon in relation to the show. I think this gives a lot of emotional depth to the Wangji/Sizhui family relationship that is very important in most fics, so this acts as a good base since the show doesn’t really talk about it too much.

4. Your Name, Safe In Their Mouth by astrolesbian (Lan Sizhui & Wei Wuxian, G, 10k)

“You’ve got a fever,” Wei Wuxian says soothingly. “You just keep still as well as you can. We’ll have you fixed up soon.”

Lan Sizhui recognizes his tone—this is the voice that Wei Wuxian uses on hurt people and young children, a very calm and no-nonsense voice that has none of the mischief and cheer of the way he sounds the rest of the time. Lan Sizhui looks up and meets his eyes, and they are dark, stormy gray, muddled and concerned.

“I’m all right,” he croaks.

“Hush,” Wei Wuxian says, in a low croon, like someone quieting a baby. Then he blinks, and looks away, awkward. “I mean—you shouldn’t speak. You’re tired. Rest if you need to.”

or: lan sizhui gets sick on a night hunt. wei wuxian comforts him. they both have a lot of feelings about it.

The Wei Wuxian and Sizhui bonding fic that I so desperately desperately needed to read. Since we got the emotional depth to Wangji/Sizhui in the last fic, here’s some emotional resolution for Sizhui and his other dad!!!!!!!!!! Scratched the very particular itch of “but have they REALLY talked about what it means that they’re reunited after 16 years???”

5. climbing up that coastal shelf by Sour_Idealist (Jin Ling, Jiang Cheng, & Wei Wuxian, T, 15k)

Jin Ling had begun to suspect years ago that there were parts of his family history that had been crossed out; long streaks of black where Wei Wuxian had been. The truth is more like whole books being brought up from their hiding places again.

Or: Jin Ling tries to figure out what family means, now.

OKAY!!!! Last emotional resolution before I send you on your way to explore! This is the emotional resolution for the other half of WWX’s family. Featuring just a FUCK TON of family feels and a lot of TALKING that this fucked up family needs so damn bad. *chefs kiss* muy delicioso! ALSO i think this is a good introduction to a lot of the naming conventions that are used frequently in untamed fic that took me a while to pick up on!

WHEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now that you’ve gotten some post-show catharsis in the form of a few extremely well-written fics, it’s time for a full rec! I’ve divided it up into seven categories: long fics, smutty one-shots, 3zun (lan xichen/nie mingjue/meng yao) fics, fics about the juniors, family fun fics, some miscellaneous fics, and then some yizhan RPF! I wouldn’t have put any of these fics on here if I didn’t think they were worth reading, BUT! I did mark my particular favorites with asterisks to demark the crème de la crème of the bunch. SO! LET’S DIVE IN!

EPIC TALES (LONG AND/OR IMMERSIVE)

My Age Has Never Made Me Wise by idrilka (Wangxian, E, 63k) ***

“We hear that His Excellency might be married by summer’s end,” the merchant’s wife says and Wei Wuxian freezes, his heart in his throat. “The Gusu Lan sect has been buying enough red silk and brocade that the merchants in Caiyi can’t satisfy the demand.”

He feels himself grow brittle inside, like a flick of a finger to his temple might make him shatter. His ears are ringing.

“Who’s the lucky bride?” he asks despite himself. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth.

Or: The story of a marriage.

I LOVE THIS FIC. YOU MUST PROMISE ME YOU’LL READ THIS FIC. The absolute best kind of slow burn and I think such an extremely accurate representation of the canon material. I’m always surprised by the authors in this fandom’s ability to write shit that is so concretely grounded in the universe. This could and should be a real companion novel. Amazing. I love it. (Also I know you said you’re not into fics that are long just to be long and I think this fic is the exact opposite of that, it’s long but for good reason and has such an insanely satisfying payoff that it’s completely worth dedicating a few hours to!)

The Year of Drought by idrilka (Wangxian, E, 24k)

Wei Ying could not be contained by the walls of the Cloud Recesses, alive again and overflowing with it, bursting like a dam in spring with the force of two lives unspent. And so he had to go. Lan Wangji understands that—he understood it when Wei Ying told him of his plans, looking at Lan Wangji above the rim of his cup with an apologetic smile, like craving freedom was something to apologize for.

Wei Ying would go, and Lan Wangji would see him off; this has always been the only way it could be.

Or: In the absence of Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji waits.

The previous fic but from Wangji’s perspective. Absolutely required reading if you read the other one. Wangji baby.......i love you.....

further than the grave by idrilka (Wangxian, E, 32k)

There is something about grief that turns Lan Wangji numb. He cannot be certain if it is not some kind of defect inside him that makes him so. But just as he grieved his mother’s passing with dry eyes and a stone in his chest, so he grieves Wei Ying: quietly, frozen inside, without tears. Beyond the Jingshi window it might be spring, but Lan Wangji’s body and mind are still held within the winter’s grasp.

As the anniversary of his leaving seclusion approaches, Lan Wangji ponders the nature of grief and healing.

One last fic from the same verse as the previous two, this talks about Wangji post-WWX’s death and then them dealing with the past post-marriage. Its just as good and immersive and amazing as the previous two parts, but this is the only untamed fic that actually made me gasp out loud and if you read this and can guess what it was we will be best friends forever. (There are two other fics in this verse that are also good but these three in particular are god-tier in my eyes.)

Vagabond by xantissa (Wangxian, E, 66k)

Wei Wuxian comes back to Cloud Recesses after a year of wandering the world, hoping to start a relationship with Lan Zhan. He doesn’t expect to come into the middle of a case of sleeping sickness mysteriously killing people, nor does he expect what follows, putting everything he holds dear on the line once again.

OOOWEE CASE FIC! CASE FIC! This is truly the twisty turny intense and INTERESTING type of fic from this fandom that blows my mind. This could fully be a stand alone novel its that good and there’s that much to it. Another one that isn’t long just to be long, it has so much PLOT!!!!! REAL GOOD SHIT!

Seldom All They Seem by Fahye (Wangxian, E, 25k)

or, one hundred and thirty-three principles of the Gusu Lan, pertaining to the state of marriage

***

He bows to Wei Wuxian, sword in hand, sleeves falling properly. Wei Wuxian bows in return, and the sect leaders begin the opening courtesies, and for all of ten minutes Lan Wangji is under the impression that he is betrothed to a boy who is perfectly normal and acceptable apart from an unfortunate tendency to fidget with his clothes.

That impression does not last.

A canon-divergent fic exploring “what if Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian were betrothed from when they were young like Yanli and Jin Zixuan?” It’s extremely good and very compelling and also made me cry multiple times. (The confrontation in the rain doesn’t get any easier even if they’re betrothed!)

Half Cloak & Half Dagger by Fahye (Lan Xichen/Meng Yao, E, 13k)

Jin Guangyao lifts his head and smiles. "I'm considering a problem."

"Can I be of any assistance with it?"

He drops a kiss on Lan Xichen's chest. With the nail of one finger he lightly traces the characters for irony on Lan Xichen's side. "Not this one, er-ge."

A follow-up fic set in the “Seldom All They Seem” universe but focused on xiyao. Has hands down the best written characterization of meng yao in any fic ive read so far. I continuously come back to this fic just to read the absolutely genius way this author writes the Head Bitch In Control of the cultivation world.

The Absolutely True Story of the Yiling Patriarch: A Manifesto in Many Parts by aubreyli (Wangxian, T, 20k)

Wei Wuxian’s hand jolts, spilling a drop of wine onto the tabletop. “Love?” he croaks, then clears his throat and tries again. “Lan Zh— uh, Hanguang-jun, in love?”

“Have you not heard the story?” the other young woman asks, looking pitying. “You must, it is a truly heartrending tale of star-crossed romance and mutual pining — go to any storyhouse in town, everyone has been requesting a reading of this book.”

“There’s a book?” Wei Wuxian says blankly.

In which the junior disciples (namely, Lan Jingyi, Ouyang Zizhen, and a reluctant Lan Sizhui) turn to RPF in an attempt to rehabilitate Wei Wuxian's reputation so that he and Hanguang-jun can get together and get married and live happily ever after. It's... surprisingly effective.

I kept avoiding this fic, even though it was really high up on the list of most popular fics in the fandom, bc the premise sounded pretty goofy BUT I finally bit the bullet one day and AHHHHHHHH!!!!! Very very very cute and fun, made me smile like an idiot throughout the entire thing. Heartwarming and very well written!!!

never let me go by yiqie (Wangxian, E, 69k)

Wei Wuxian has certainly hoped so ardently in his two lifetimes, for so many different things, in so many different ways, that he could have summoned the demon to his front door with his bare hands. His eyes wander to Lan Zhan, settle on the back of his head, the blue-black curtain of his hair. Oh, how he has hoped.

Another extremely good and super immersive case fic. If you ever just want to sink really deep into an untamed fic, this is a great one for it.

hunters seeking solid ground by Attila (Wangxian, E, 24k)

“Hanguang-jun,” Wei Wuxian repeats. His heart clenches. He wants—but he’d really meant to have this nightmare stuff down before they met again, so he wouldn’t find himself relying on Lan Wangji’s nearness. He’s not supposed to go back yet. But he’s so tired, and his will crumbles. “Yeah,” he says. “All right. Take me back to Gusu with you.”

You want hurt/comfort? I gotcha hurt/comfort RIGHT HERE!

shadows in the sun rise by Yuu_chi (Wangxian, E, 25k) ***

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, voice slow and a pitch too quiet. A second later Wei Wuxian understands why. “I cannot hear.”

Or; Lan Wangji is cursed into internal isolation. Their ability to understand one another remains as unwavering as ever.

OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD. I have been thinking about this fic nonstop since I read it. It is…..fucking incredible. One of the best qualities of wangxian is that they’re so in tune with each other and able to work so cohesively with little communication and this fic is like “what if we take that and DIAL IT UP TO ELEVEN” and i was like AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

I hope that you will come and meet me by feyburner (Wangxian, M, 28k) ***

The second time Lan Zhan said Wei Ying, come back, Wei Wuxian did.

okay so this is literally getting added to the fic rec one day before i send it to you because i just finished it and WHEW BABY!!!!! YES it is just another wangxian post-canon reunion get-together fic, BUT 1. i cant get enough of that specific brand of fic and 2. ITS SO GOOD. ITS. SO. GOOD. achingly tender and incredibly soft but also funny and sweet and very in-character! i love it!

THE BONE ZONE (WANGXIAN SMUT)

Sweet Night by corteae (Wangxian, E, 10k)

It was like coming back to life again, like being restitched into existence, cell by cell, nerve by nerve. From the surface of his skin to the marrow of his bones, everything new and purposeful. Like being pulled back from oblivion into an embrace of pure light. A feeling of absolute asylum.

That’s what it felt like, to realize Lan Wangji was in love with him.

An in-show au of “what if they just admitted they’re in love and fucked during episode 43?” Soft and romantic and hot!

the crucial point by dissembler (Wangxian, E, 7k) ***

Months after parting on the mountain, Lan Wangji makes up his mind, plots his course on a map, and has faith.

I LOVE THIS FIC! Very realistic and sweet wangxian reunion fic from wangji’s perspective. Has so many good little details and is very true to their characters. Good shit. Great.

Stainless by Fahye (Wangxian, E, 6k)

"I'm starting to feel," says Lan Xichen, "that this was a counterproductive suggestion."

Wei Wuxian looks down onto the pristine, tranquil cold springs of the Cloud Recesses. Sitting in the water, their bare shoulders rising like dumplings carefully spaced in a steaming-basket, are a large number of Lan disciples.

"They seem to be doing better," he says, encouragingly. "If they--oh, no, I see what you mean."

At the near bank, someone has pressed someone else against the rocks and is kissing them frantically.

What is getting into a new pairing if not an excuse to read sex pollen in new and exciting ways!

To Recklessly Confess by la_dissonance (Wangxian, E, 8k)

Lan Wangji has a fantasy. Wei Wuxian gets several clues.

The “what if they just fucked in episode 43” au but from a different angle.

all the depths of me, real by northofallmusic (Wangxian, E, 15k)

Wei Wuxian is dealing with a curse a little worse than he'd like to let on, and Lan Zhan is a little less than willing to let it slide.

Another “what if they just fucked in the show” fic, this time set when WWX has the curse on his leg and Wangji has to carry him back to the inn. 

Every Day, Learning More by phnelt (Wangxian, E, 6k)

The pink was high on Wei Wuxian’s cheeks. “I mean I haven’t been able to… that I can’t. Not without you.”

Lan Wangji stared. “In this body, the whole time you’ve had it -- you’ve never…”

Wei Wuxian kicked his heels into Lan Wangji’s back. “I just said that!”

I knew at least one of these was more book verse than show! WWX hasn’t been able to jerk off in his new body, LWJ helps him out :-)

the meaning of the ritual by newamsterdam (Wangxian, E, 8k)

“Lan Zhan… wants to bed me?”

The hand on his chest is shaking, slightly. “Mn.”

“Oh,” Wei Wuxian breaths out.

There’s something— something powerful, about that. Lan Wangji wants to bed him. Lan Wangji wants to sleep with him. Lan Wangji wants to touch him, and kiss him. The immovable, implacable Second Master of Lan, with a face and principles both carved from jade, wants him.

“Is this a fantasy of yours?” Wei Wuxian asks. “Forcing all the demonic energy out of me with your—”

Lan Wangji claps a hand over his mouth. “Silence, now.”

When the entire cultivation world turns against the Yiling Patriarch, Wei Wuxian makes a risky gamble— he'll agree to participate in an ancient ritual for cleansing the spirit, so that his character can no longer be called into question. The catch? He has no idea who his partner for the ritual will be.

This is also book-verse! As the tag says “Let Lan Wangji Fuck the Yiling Patriarch”!!!!!!!!!!!

Hurricane by gdgdbaby (Wangxian, E, 6k) ***

"Haven't you heard?" Nie Huaisang replied, clicking his tongue, though he was clearly pleased that he could be the one to break the news. He leaned in to announce with a dramatic flourish: "Lan Wangji just took emergency family leave this past weekend."

WANGXIAN AS SPIRK STAR TREK PON FAR AU!!!!!!!!!!!!! WEEWOO WEEWOO WEEWOO!!!!!!!! This was actually recced to ME by CHI and I have not stopped thinking about this fic for a full month. It’s like author gdgdbaby sat down one day and was like “Tumblr user Liv Scottspack deserves everything she wants in this life.” and then wrote this fic. Thank you author gdgdbaby, I love you.

WORLD’S WORST THROUPLE (3ZUN)

The body is a blade by rheawrites (3zun, E, 2k) ***

In which Lan Xichen is taken by surprise, Nie Mingjue takes what he can get, and Meng Yao gets what he wants.

This was the first 3zun fic I ever read and whew baby, got it in one! It’s actually a slight AU but it gets their characterization so right and is a very fun read. One of those fics I go back to frequently because it does so much with so few words.

shang tiantang by fuckwarlock (3zun, E, 4k)

They wanted so much, and with the way A-Yao gasps at the saber-calloused hand unfastening his belts, he does, too. The night air twirls with the scents of osmanthus and cinnamon and melon. Lan Xichen smiles, leans in, and ghosts his lips over the crook of A-Yao’s neck. What kind of brother would he be if he didn’t give A-Yao what he wanted? “I think it’s your turn to ascend, A-Yao.”

The Venerated Triad celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival the best way they know how.

Truly the only way the venerated triad works is if meng yao gets Destroyed :-)

Favour and Fate by soulgusttheguardian (3zun, E, 8k)

There have been times in Meng Yao’s life when he couldn’t help but wonder how he came to be in his current situation. Found himself reflecting on the choices leading up to whatever misfortune had befallen him that day, and pondering why fate hated him so.

Granted, there had also been times when he couldn't help but wonder just what he had done to earn the favour necessary to be rewarded with certain things...

The current situation he found himself to be in, however, was definitely the latter.

More of the same! Truly I personally can never get enough of the 3zun dynamic in smut fics its just too goddamn motherfucking GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!

the stars do not take sides by everyearning (3zun, E, 4k)

Mingjue isn’t sure he’s ever seen Xichen do anything other than treat the boy like a porcelain doll and it’s laughable to him, to think of Meng Yao as something breakable, instead of the sharp, deadly object he is.

Okay one last “Destroy Meng Yao” 3zun fic! Enjoy!

never as alive as we are right now by ThirtySixSaveFiles (3zun, E, 12k)

Three perspectives on three sworn brothers, at three different times in their relationship.

(Or, three times 3zun got it on and some of the feelings they had along the way.)

Wait actually I want to end the 3zun fics on this one because it has true Emotional Resolution at the end and I think they deserve a little healing.

BABY BOYS. BABIES. (THE JUNIORS)

A Civil Combpaign by Ariaste (Jin Ling/Lan Sizhui, T, 20k) ***

“And,” said one of the pompous ministers, “there’s the matter of a marriage to consider as well!”

Jin Ling, who at the beginning of that sentence had expected to slam into the very last wall of his patience and lose his temper entirely, paused. “A what?”

Thing was… it wasn’t such a bad idea.

A MUST-FUCKING-READ!!! Jin Ling gets it in his head that as sect leader he should get married and sets his sights on Lan Sizhui. I cannot stress enough how FUCKING CUTE this fic is!!! Sizhui being the best boy! Jin Ling having more uncles than he knows what to do with! Jiang Cheng being the worst at relationship advice! It’s so fucking good it love it so much.

Anyway, Here’s Wuji by kakikaeru (Lan Jingyi/Lan Sizhui, T, 18k)

The melody gets a little clearer when he breaks out of the trees, and Jingyi changes course with certainty, barreling down the back hill and through the Cloud Recesses, dodging scandalized disciples left and right. He throws open the doors to the Receiving Hall without announcement and bows nearly double, eyes on the floor instead of on the shocked faces of the Mei delegation and the impenetrable gaze of the Chief Cultivator.

"Forgive this disciple," Jingyi shouts, because he's going to get punished for rule breaking regardless. "From the back hill, Hanguang-jun, there is a song in the wind!"

Lan Jingyi comes of age.

A Jingyi-central fic about Jingyi growing up and falling in love and being a hero and being the second best boy of my heart right after Sizhui. Not only is this fic sweet and romantic but it’s another one that explores a lot of interesting things within canon and all of the supporting characters are written very well and are just as interesting as second best boy Jingyi.

Ok, JiuJiu by kakikaeru (Jin Ling/Ouyang Zizhen, T, 16k)

Uncle's jaw works in the way that suggests he's about to say something irredeemable. Jin Ling, in a move of diplomacy he hopes the Chief Cultivator appreciates, distracts him with spicy food and his favourite subject: the incompetence of his own officials.

"I hear the lakes in the south east are having drainage problems?" he asks nonchalantly, sticking three big slices of braised pork belly into his Uncle's bowl.

Jin Ling just wants to get through the Discussion Conference with his Sect, his dignity, and his heart intact.

A follow up fic to “Anyways, Here’s Wuji.” I LOVE the Jin Ling/Ouyang Zizhen dynamic of Jin Ling having been raised by Jiang “I keep all my emotions right here and then one day I’ll die” Cheng AND being hopelessly charmed and smitten with Ouyang “President of the I Love Love Romance Novel Book Club” Zizhen! I LOVE IT! EXTREMELY CUTE!

Lan Sizhui's Guide to Courtship by Kimblydot (Lan Sizhui/Lan Jingyi, T, 23k)

In which Jingyi is a little oblivious, Sizhui is patient (and should have said something in the beginning), and everyone else is resigned to watching them dance around each other for far longer than necessary.

(Or: five things Sizhui tries to do in his courtship, and the one time Jingyi realizes there was one happening in the first place.)

I’ll stop describing fics about the juniors as being “cute” when they stop being SO FUCKING CUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

His Merit All My Fear by violettressed (Lan Sizhui/Lan Jingyi, G, 16k)

It’s too late for any of Hanguang-Jun’s rabbits to be awake -- one of the sundown chores for young disciples is to herd them back into their hutch -- but the rabbit field is as good a spot as any for quality sulking, so Lan Jingyi makes his way there.

Someone has beat him to it.

Lan Jingyi stares at Hanguang-Jun. Hanguang-Jun stares passively back.

When Lan Sizhui is swept away with the Ghost General, off on a new adventure, Lan Jingyi is the one who returns to Cloud Recesses alone.

Not only another extremely cute Sizhui/Jingyi fic BUT one that includes a Wangji/Jingyi friendship??? Incroyable! *chefs kiss*

spirit running wild by idrilka (Lan Sizhui/Lan Jingyi, E, 17k)

He doesn’t know, exactly, when the friendship he shared with Sizhui over the years has changed into something that’s made Jingyi finally understand why Hanguang-Jun always wears that expression whenever he looks at Senior Wei. There hasn’t been one single moment that he can point to and say, yes, this is where it started, because the thing about falling in love with your best friend is that it happens gradually, until it’s impossible to tell which step has been the deciding one.

Jingyi goes to Baling with a crush.

Written by the same genius that wrote the first three fics I made you read so you know it’s good. Its truly the childhood best friends to lovers of it all! Sizhui is adorable and Jingyi is a mess! *muah!*

FAMILY FUN TIME (NO ROMANCE, JUST FEELS)

Grow by cafecliche (Lan Sizhui & Wei Wuxian, T, 14k)

“Okay,” Jingyi says, as Sizhui puzzles this out aloud. “Okay! So the demon has been turning its victims into children.”

“I think so,” Sizhui says.

“To make them easier prey,” Jingyi says.

“Yes,” Sizhui says.

“So—” Jingyi’s voice cracks here, “this kid is Senior Wei.”

Wei Wuxian, still tangled in his own massive robes, blinks politely at them.

(Or: Wei Wuxian is cursed on a night-hunt, and the junior quartet rapidly finds themselves in over their heads.)

What I expected to be a goofy, silly fic turned out to be extremely emotional and made me FULLY CRY! It’s a very moving fic about Sizhui coming to understand himself and Wei Wuxian a lot better AND features all of the juniors arguing over who’s turn it is to hold 6 year old Wei Wuxian. A true win/win of a fic.

To The Act of Making Noise by words-writ-in-starlight (Lan Sizhui & Lan Wangji, G, 19k)

His father in white plays the song late into the night, and when A-Yuan wakes up confused and afraid, the guqin lulls him back to sleep.

Lan Sizhui hears his father play the same song every night for his whole life, and never, ever get an answer.

Another very moving and heartwarming fic about Lan Wangji raising Sizhui and Sizhui figuring out Wangji’s past and then eventually reconnecting with Wei Wuxian. It’s cute and soft and Sizhui is my best boy!

History (Proud To Call Your Own) by words-writ-in-starlight (Wen Ning, G, 5k)

“A-Yuan? Um—Lan-gongzi,” Wen Ning corrects, trying to set a good example. The children are young, seven and eight, exactly a dozen of them lined up in two crisp lines of tiny blue and white robes. Wen Ning can feel them staring at him, even though most of them have already mastered that Lan trick of neutrality. The smallest, a little girl with liquid dark eyes, is clinging to her nearest shijie’s sleeve and half-hiding. “Can I—what can I do for you?”

Wen Ning gets himself recruited for services, while he and Sizhui are visiting Cloud Recesses. Wei Wuxian gets a fan club.

Set in the same universe as “To The Act of Making Noise,” a very cute fic about Wen Ning finding his place in the post-canon world and being proud of Sizhui and being the world’s best substitute teacher. As the official Wen Ning Fan Club President, I had to include this.

the stone-filled sea by yukla (Lan Sizhui & Wei Wuxian, T, 9k) ***

He forgets how quickly Wei-qianbei changes faces, sometimes. Like pulling a theater mask over a bruise—color over color, a diversion with the swipe of his hand.

Lan Sizhui navigates a world that hates his father, one endless wave at a time.

Oh man oh man. I will never get enough of the fics where Sizhui (and the rest of the juniors) get ANGRY on Wei Wuxian’s behalf!! That’s their dad and their teacher and their friend and they will DEFEND HIM!!! YEAH BAYBEEEEEEEEEE!!!

PICK & MIX (MISCELLANEOUS)

This Side of Paradise by greenfionn (Wei Wuxian/Wen Qing, E, 3k)

Wei Wuxian does some very quick math in his head that goes something like this: He is pretty sure he’s in love with Lan Zhan - Lan Zhan is not here and likely never will be here - Wen Qing is here, not to mention very hot and let us not forget, actually interested in sex with him - there’s a solid chance he goes genuinely crazy or dies, or both, in the next few months and really, who wants to die a virgin?

Listen.......the fic premise is “Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing, noted bisexuals, figure life sucks enough at the Burial Mounds, they might as well have any fun they can before they die” and........I Am Looking Directly At It. It features Wen Qing bossing Wei Wuxian around and Wei Wuxian’s canon he-wants-to-be-pregnant kink. It’s........I liked it.

palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss by iodhadh (Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen, M, 15k) ***

The realization strikes Song Lan like a bolt of lightning: Xiao Xingchen laughs, and he wants with a sudden, stunning desperation to kiss the mirth from his beautiful mouth. How, precisely, he is meant to manage that—that, he has no idea at all.

Or: introspective meditations on touch, trust, and the problem of desire.

I Am Baby and for some reason cannot handle how sad the entire Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen storyline ended up so I rarely read songchen fics, and when I do they’re always soft pre-canon fics like this one. Luckily there are some very beautiful and moving pre-canon songchen fics!!! I love you fandom!!

purpose and ritual by iodhadh (Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen, E, 8k)

Song Zichen has beautiful hands. He's a powerful swordsman, strong and skilled, unfairly impressive and unreasonably handsome. He is devoted and self-disciplined and he takes direction like a dream. And he doesn't touch people—no one at all, if he can help it, except for Xiao Xingchen.

The poets might call him a saint, but Xiao Xingchen is so very, very human.

More of the same :-)

born to sweet delight by la_dissonance (Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen, E, 10k)

Xiao Xingchen lightly jumps into the center of the pool, the water a shock that cools his sticky, heated skin, and does nothing for the heat building inside him. When he surfaces, pushing the hair out of his face, he finds Song Lan's gaze and meets it. Between them, everything goes both ways. What Song Lan will offer, Xiao Xingchen will freely give too.

Or, Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan meet, pledge their lives to each other, and then fall in love.

This is about the angstiest I will go for songchen and its still absolutely Baby Soft lmfao!!!!!!

Pin it down by rheawrites (Jiang Yanli/Jin Zixuan, Jin Zixuan/Nie Mingjue, E, 2k)

“Yanli, I did not lie on our wedding night. You are the only woman I have gone to bed with. But… there was a man.”

“Oh?” Yanli blinks up at him. She does not appear horrified, or betrayed, which is surely a good sign.

Jin Zixuan swallows. “It was Sect Leader Nie,” he says quickly, as though that will make it easier.

“…Oh,” says Yanli, and her eyes are dark.

-

Jin Zixuan tells his wife a war story. Or, two thousand words of Jin Zixuan getting railed.

Have you ever looked at Jin Zixuan and been like “I bet that mf likes getting PEGGED!!!!!!!!” Well here’s the fic for you. 

*YIBO VOICE* DIDI LOVES YOU! (YIZHAN RPF)

never really over by gdgdbaby (Yizhan, E, 10k)

The thing is: it would be good to see Xiao Zhan again — if Yibo could just trust himself to be normal.

Author gdgdbaby is the yizhan master, so here are five of my personal favorites of their fics, starting with this post-filming reunion fic that was the first yizhan fic I ever read and HIT real good after having just finished the show myself.

pedagogy by gdgdbaby (Yizhan, E, 17k) ***

Yibo opens his mouth and says, "I want to learn," barreling past the rapid rise of Xiao Zhan's eyebrows. "To last longer. Will you teach me?"

Quick-fire Yibo comes too easily and Xiao Zhan helps train him to last longer :-)

you’re the reason that i just can’t concentrate by gdgdbaby (Yizhan, E, 10k)

Xiao Zhan hears about it from Yu Bin, which probably should've been the first warning sign.

Yibo was only 20 when they filmed the untamed, which lends itself perfectly to fics like this.

a truth so loud you can’t ignore by gdgdbaby (Yizhan, E, 5k)

It's their last day of filming in Hengdian when the secret comes out.

If yibo has to be a fictional virgin than SO DOES XIAO ZHAN!

if you would only let you by gdgdbaby (Yizhan, E, 32k) ***

"Well?" Yibo demands. Past the severe frown tugging at the corners of his mouth, a flicker of the old him slips through, the persistent boy who shoved his way into Xiao Zhan's space without a second thought and made a home for himself there. "Are you coming or not?"

Xiao Zhan's heart twists. He forcibly settles it back in his chest. He's only told Yibo no once in his entire life, and it was already the hardest thing he's ever had to do. "Okay," Xiao Zhan murmurs, quiet but decisive, and thumbs his phone off. "Let's go."

Like I said, all gdgdbaby fics are incredibly good, super well written, and very hot, but this one does stand out from the bunch for being a Full Epic Romance! This is one of Chi’s favorite fics so that should speak to it’s quality!

baby, who’s counting by nobirdstofly (Yizhan, E, 12k)

Xiao Zhan gasps, trying to rein in another peal of giggles. “What do I owe you anyway?”

Yibo shrugs one shoulder, and his smirk deepens. “Haven’t decided.”

Xiao Zhan’s still staring at him, laughter gone in his dry throat, when he hears someone yell for a reset. Yibo’s eyes are so, so dark, and he hasn’t stopped watching Xiao Zhan this whole time. Xiao Zhan swallows, nods, and pushes every dirty thought out of his head.

(Or: Yibo bets Xiao Zhan he'll break first during a take, Xiao Zhan loses, and it's all downhill from there.)

Ah sex bets, who doesn’t love sex bets!

Mystery Dance by mrsronweasley (Yizhan, E, 16k)

"That? That's your confession?" Yibo's toppled onto Xiao Zhan's side and is clutching his shoulder, trying not to fall over. "That's pathetic!"

"Oh, what, you can do better?" Zhuocheng is pretty flushed and there's a challenge in his voice that Yibo just can't walk away from.

"Hell yeah, I can. Hit me, Yu Bin." Yu Bin cheers and refills Yibo's shot glass. "All right!" Yibo downs the shot, gags only slightly, and says, "Everyone! I'm a fucking virgin!"

WHAT’S better than a Yibo virgin fic? A SECOND YIBO VIRGIN FIC!

This author also writes extremely good yizhan threesomes so here’s three of them!

Some Nights by mrsronweasley (Yizhan/Xuan Lu (Jiang Yanli), E, 2k)

Xuan Lu opened her legs to him and Xiao Zhan wasted no time diving in. He pressed his mouth against her pussy, licking her out steadily as her thighs trembled around him. She was nestled between Yibo's legs and if Xiao Zhan looked up, not only could he see the planes of her body, her small breasts going up and down with her breathing, ribs expanding, her tipped back head and open mouth, but Yibo, gaze boring into Xiao Zhan's as he ate Xuan Lu out.

The entire cast is hot and there is no reason they shouldn’t ALL fuck! Not one reason!!!!!!

gege loves you by mrsronweasley (Yizhan/Wang Zhuocheng (Jiang Cheng)), E, 7k)

"We are very sorry," Xiao Zhan murmured as he unbuttoned Zhuocheng's jeans while Yibo kissed his ear, "for how we've been acting."

"Is this how you apologize to everyone," Zhuocheng panted, hands already going for his zipper to help Xiao Zhan along, "or am I special?"

WHEW LORD!!!!!!!!! WHEW!!!!!!!

Talking in the Dark by mrsronweasley (Yizhan (Side Xiao Zhan/M/F), E, 14k)

Xiao Zhan has a light-hearted romp of a threeway with some friends, then makes the mistake of telling Yibo. It goes down.

A non-yizhan threesome BUT features jealous!yibo which is a ton of fun.

Finally, a couple AUs!

With Joy and Purpose by feenwitch (Yizhan, E, 30k) ***

Yibo has been alone for approximately five Earth years when Xiao Zhan crash lands on his planet.

YIZHAN ANDROID AU!!!!!!!! This is a very star trek-esque universe which is fun, but the fic itself is also CRAZY interesting and moving and beautiful!!!!!!!!! It’s A LOT! This was a rec from Nina, so thank you Nina!

Bound With a Same-Heart Knot by mrsronweasley (Yizhan, E, 59k)

London, 1892. Xiao Zhan, a promising young attache at the Chinese embassy is tasked with showing the new ambassador's son Wang Yibo around London. The inevitable happens.

Victorian AU! I actually think you already read this, but included for posterity.

AND SCENE! This is the result of two months of daily fic reading, having 50 tabs of fic open at any given time, reading truly anything and everything, and Loving The Untamed. I’m SO EXCITED you’re diving into fic for this show and I can’t wait to talk to you about all of them and to have someone to scream with! WOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

[ragingbookdragon]

Forging Paths PT. 6

Batsis Story!

A/N: Okay, right next to the ending, this was my favorite part to write. Catharsis is what this is y’all. And even if I’m cringing, I’m proud of this. -Thorne <3

In the twenty-seven years that (Y/N) had been alive; she had only seen her father's wrath a handful of times. The first, when she was ten and blindly put herself in harm's way to protect him.

 The second, when she was nineteen and Jason was fourteen, and they took a joyride all the way to Panama City in Bruce's brand-new Maserati GranTurismo.

 The third, when she was twenty-one, and a screaming match occurred between them over who was to blame for the death of a brother and a son. 

The fourth and final, was when she was twenty-three, and she stared down her father's cold fury as she left Gotham City for good. Yes, (Y/N) had seen her father's anger, and she no doubt expected to see it once more when he returned to the cave. Upon arrival, she immediately took in the sight of injured Tim sitting on an examination table, with the other's gathered around. Hurrying over, she saw Alfred stitching up a bullet wound in his right shoulder. "What happened Tim?" He kept his eyes downwards, looking at the mug he'd been holding, a grimace on his face. Jason leaned over and spoke to her.

"We got to the bank after dropping Penguin off at GCPD, and Timbers was in the manager's office, putting antibiotic in his wound. Two-Face got him when he wasn't paying attention. I told Dick to take him back to the cave and I'd go after Two-Face." She glanced over at Dick who'd been assisting Alfred.

"And where is Two-Face now?" Jason finally looked at her.

"Sitting next to Penguin at GCP- Holy shit what happened to you!?" At Jason's outburst, all eyes moved to (Y/N) who leaned over to look in the mirror hanging in the medical room. Dried blood was smeared across the majority of her neck and face. Alfred, who'd been focusing on Tim, began expressing concern.

"Ms. (Y/N), why are you covered in blood?! Master Dick go get a rag and some antiseptic and start helping her." Dick went to go wet a rag, and (Y/N) waved them off.

"Don't worry about me, it's not my blood." At this, everyone stopped and stared at her. Jason's face morphing into a look of concern.

"(Y/N), what did you do?" She took the rag from Dick and began wiping the blood from her face.

"I survived. That's what I did." Jason's face dropped.

"Did you do what I think you did?" She looked at him and gave a small smile.

"Don't worry about me little brother. I can handle him." The four men in front of her all shared a look, before Tim spoke up.

"Yeah, I'm all glad we're concerned about (Y/N), but I'm still in pain. Can somebody do something about that?" Jason reached over in flicked him in the forehead.

"I can step on your foot and you'll forget about your shoulder." Tim reared up and eyed him irritated.

"Jason that makes no sense." Jason rolled his eyes and threw the towel he'd been holding at Tim's head, before grabbing (Y/N)'s arm and pulling her off to the side.

"What happened out there?" (Y/N) looked down, reluctant to explain anything, until Jason placed a hand on her shoulder. "(Y/N). What happened?" His pleading tone cut through her and she sighed.

"There were three warehouses at the complex. Damian took the first, I took the second, and Bruce took the third. When I got in, I took down the guards, but their leader got the better of me and I started getting the shit choked out of me. I did the only thing I could do. I defended myself. Next thing I know, I'm on a roof getting told I had to come back here and that I wasn't a part of the mission anymore." What started off as an explanation, ended in an angered rant. (Y/N) closed her eyes and dipped her head back, inhaling slowly, then exhaling, trying to calm the simmered fury. Jason placed a hand on her shoulder.

"I believe that whatever decision you made, you made it knowing it was the best you could've." She opened her eyes and stared at him; he smiled back at her. "I'm always on your side big sis." He opened his arms, and she leaned in, wrapping hers around his waist.

"What would I do without you kid brother?" He thought for a moment.

"Crash and Burn." She snorted and pulled away, whacking him in the ribs.

"Supernatural reference? Really Jason?" He shrugged.

"What? It's a great show." She turned and went to the refrigerator, pulling out a bottle of water.

"Yeah, cause you think you're like Dean." He placed his hands on his hips and responded.

"I'm not like Dean, Dean's like me. I'm better than Dean." She rolled her eyes and sat down at the table, propping her feet up.

"Just keep telling yourself that wayward son." His eyes crinkled at the name and he went to sit beside her, when the Batmobile pulled into the cave. He glanced at her and watched her sit up, a hard look in her eye. Damian got out first and went to change out of his uniform, eyeing (Y/N) as he walked by. Jason moved to her side and listened as she began to take steady breaths. She looked up at him, eyes clear, and he grinned down at her and quipped,

"Out of the frying pan." She snorted and stood up, smirking at him.

"And into the fire." Moving to the center of the room, she stood waiting for him to arrive.

He walked slowly to meet her and she could see the anger in his eyes as he removed his cowl. He stopped a few yards away from her and stood up straight. Jason might be tall, but Bruce was taller. He stared down at her, jaw set firmly. From a distance, one would've thought they were just staring at the other, but in reality, this was a silent battle of who was going to give first. He did; he always did. "Mind explaining why you decided to deliberately disobey my orders tonight?" The way he spoke to her, that condescending, holier-than-thou attitude, made her blood boil, but she wasn't ready to give in yet, instead choosing a tone of almost humorous apathy.

"No, not really." Wrong answer. She thought, as he took a menacing step towards her, face hardening.

"Excuse me? What did you just say to me?" She took a step forward too and crossed her arms.

"I don't particularly believe I owe you an explanation for what happened tonight, and frankly, I don't even think you deserve one." She watched the fire rage in his eyes, and felt a deep satisfaction at being the person who was pouring gasoline into it.

"It doesn't matter what you believe or what you think, the fact of the matter is, you murdered someone tonight." She rolled her eyes but stood her ground.

"No, I defended myself tonight." He reared back, almost disgusted.

"By killing someone!? That's not defense (Y/N)!" She would've flinched at him, but she had long ago grown out of being afraid of him.

"When someone has his hands wrapped around my throat, you better fucking believe that's a damn sure way to defend yourself!" By now, everyone had all but gathered around the two of the screaming family members, watching a long-anticipated eruption occur. "I made a choice tonight to kill someone who was hell-bent on killing me! I don't believe I'm in the fault here! But just because I'm your fucking kid and I killed someone, it's just eating you up inside isn't it?! But it's not even that! It's because I am the only person you can't indoctrinate with your twisted sense of moral justice and it drives you up the fucking wall!" He was seething now, his words twisting a knife deeper into her.

"Yes! Because that's not how I raised you!" (Y/N) watched red color everything thing she saw.

"News Flash Dad, you didn't raise me! I raised myself! I pulled myself out of the goddamned gutter and rose to where I stand right now! I did that! Not you!" She was almost hysterical at this point, fury burning brighter than the sun.

"You're saying that I didn't raise you?! That I didn't take care of you?! Me?! Your father?!" (Y/N) didn't know what happened, but something inside her snapped, and the next thing she knew she was launching herself at him, punches and kicks flying.

"My father?! You've never been a fucking father to me! You've always acted like a strict teacher, but never a father! You're a damn disgrace to good men who call themselves fathers! How dare you claim that you cared about me?!" The pain in her hands and feet let her know she landed some blows, until a well-placed kick to her torso sent her flying back, rolling a few feet on the ground. She rose and began to run at him again when Jason wrapped his arms around her middle, locking her arms to her chest. (Y/N) resisted, but the sound of Jason shushing her silently broke the dam inside and hot, angry tears rolled down her cheeks. The strength left her body and she let Jason lower her down until they were sitting on the floor, her sitting curled up between his legs. She stared beyond the tears at Bruce, voice thick with despondence and pain. "You never cared about me. You've never cared about any of us. You never have, and you never will. We're just pawns to you in this stupid war on crime." She was sobbing now, barely able to get the words out. "I have always tried to be good enough for you. To be a good daughter. But it is never enough. Nothing ever pleases you." She sucked in a deep breath, and calmed herself enough to speak, and looked at him, voice dripping with loathing. "I hate you." Bruce's eyes went wide as he stared at her. "I hate you so much. I hate your name, I hate your house, I hate everything you stand for, and sure as hell I hate the fact that I am related to you. You are a poor excuse for a man and a father." Everyone's faces morphed into shock at the contemptible confession. (Y/N) let the rest of her pent-up emotions flow free and she rested her head back on Jason's shoulder and allowed her broken sobs to echo in the cave.

When (Y/N) came to, she was laying in an unfamiliar bed. Sitting up quickly, she glanced around the room, until her eyes rested on a snoring Jason. She didn't remember what happened after her meltdown, all she remembered was someone carrying her. Jason must've brought me to his apartment in the narrows. She looked over and saw her gear resting on the dresser. Careful, not to wake him up, she got out of bed and started slipping it on. Once she was dressed, she pulled the sheet off the bed and draped it over his sleeping form, taking note of the half empty bottle of vodka next to him. She huffed a laugh. Guess little brother needed a break from his feelings too. She thought. Rummaging around, she found a piece of paper and a pen, jotting down a few lines on the paper before folding it and placing it where he'd see it when he woke up. Walking into the kitchen she pulled a glass from his cabinets and filled it with water, picking up the bottle of aspirin on the way back. Placing them beside the note she leaned over and pressed a kiss to his temple, freezing when he moved, but only to groan and roll onto his stomach, burying his face in his pillow. See you around sometime kid-brother. She thought as she smiled at him. Standing up, she took in one last view of the apartment before heading to the window. Cracking it open, she leaned out and shut it behind her. (Y/N) climbed up to the roof and sat on the ledge, looking out at the city as it began to wake up. Golden rays appeared over the outlines of buildings as the sun rose. She felt empty, but it was a good kind of empty. Like everything she'd been holding onto was finally gone. She may have burned a bridge to the ground, but she felt relieved by it. And as she watched the sunrise, she looked down at the city and for the first time since she was sixteen, she thought,

You know, in this light? Gotham doesn't look so bad after all.

[noxstellacaelum]

Filtering Female Characters Through the Male Gaze

Female characters filtered through the male gaze:  A (way) too long post about why we need a more diverse and inclusive approach to staffing showrunners, writers, directors, crew – heck, all roles -- in TV and movies.  

Yes, I know I am not the first person here on this.  

And note that while I have included a few tags b/c I talk about my frustration with Shadowhunters, Veronica Mars, the Irishman, Richard Jewell, and a few other recent shows/movies, I don’t get to this stuff until the very end,  I appreciate that fans may not want to wade through the entire essay, which (again), is a bit of personal catharsis.

I recently had a random one-off exchange with a TV writer on twitter.  The writer said that she had enjoyed the movie Bombshell much more than its Rotten Tomatoes rating would have suggested.  She wondered if the disconnect between her experience/perception of the movie and that of mainstream reviewers might have been shaped by gender: Specifically, she observed that Bombshell is a movie about women, but most reviewers are male.  

I have complicated feelings about Bombshell.  On one hand, yes, there was and is a toxic culture at Fox News.  Yes, Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly were victims of that toxic culture.  But no, these women were not mere bystanders:  They traded in the racism, misogyny, and xenophobia (for starters) that still characterize Fox News today.  Why should these wealthy, privileged white women – both of whom spent many years as willing foot soldiers in the Fox News army -- get a glossy, Hollywood-approved redemption/vindication arc?  On the other hand, I am glad that the movie makers made a film about sexual harassment, and that the movie presented Kelly, in particular, as an at least somewhat complicated character.  This would not be the first time that a movie about women – especially complicated, and not always likeable women – has proven to be polarizing.

My ambivalence about Bombshell notwithstanding, the writer with whom I exchanged tweets is (not surprisingly, since she is in the industry and I am not) on to something when it comes to gender, character development and critical reception. It’s not just that Bombshell was about women, but reviewed largely by men; it’s that stories about female characters (real or fictional) often are filtered through the male gaze in Hollywood:  On many projects – even those focused on female characters – creators/ head writers are male, directors are male, showrunners are male, and producers are male.  This matters, because preferencing the male gaze impacts what stories about women get told, who gets to tell them, and how these stories are received inside and outside Hollywood.  

First, though, the caveats. I do not mean to suggest that men can never tell great stories about women.  Of course they can.   I also don’t mean to suggest that being female exempts creators, writers, directors, showrunners, etc. from sexism or misogyny (or any other forms of bigotry, as my discussion of Bombshell suggests).   There are plenty of women who prop up the patriarchy.  Rebecca Traister’s work speaks to this issue, as does the work of Cornell philosopher Kate Manne.  There is an important literature on the concept of misogynoir (misogyny directed at black women, involving both gender and race), a term coined by black queer feminist Moya Bailey, as well.  Intersectionality matters in understanding what stories are told, who gets to speak, and how stories are received in and outside Hollywood.  I also don’t mean to suggest that there are no powerful women in Hollywood.   Shonda Rhimes; Ava DuVernay, Reese Witherspoon (increasingly, given her role as a producer of projects like Big Little Lies), Greta Gerwig’s work in Lady Bird and Little Women, and others come to mind.  As I am not in the entertainment industry, I am sure others could put together a far more complete and accurate list of female Hollywood power brokers.  And, finally, I appreciate that Hollywood is a business, and people fund and make movies that they think their target audiences want to see.  So long as young, male viewers are a coveted demographic, we are going to see projects with women who appeal to this demographic onscreen.

Given these caveats, why do I think that the filtering of female characters through the male gaze is an issue? For me, it has to do with a project’s “center of gravity” -- that place, at the core of the project’s storytelling, where the characters’ agency and autonomy comes from.  It’s where I look to understand the characters’ choices and their narrative arcs.  When a character’s center of gravity is missing or unstable or unreliable, the character’s choices don’t make sense, and their narrative arc lacks emotional logic. Center of gravity is not about whether a character is likeable.  It’s about whether a character – and the project’s overall storytelling and narrative voice – make sense.  

When female characters are filtered through a male gaze, a project’s center of gravity can shift, even if unintentionally, away from the characters’ agency and point of view:  So, instead of charting her own course through a story, a female character starts to become defined by her proximity to other characters and stories.  She becomes half of a “ship” . . . or a driver of other characters’ growth (often through victimization, suffering, or self-sacrifice) . . . or mostly an object of sexual desire (whether requited or not).   Eventually, she can lose her voice entirely.  When that happens, instead of a “living, breathing” (yes, fictional, I know) character, we are left with a mirror/ mouthpiece who advances the plot, and the stories, of everyone else.

What are some recent examples of this? The two that I have mentioned recently here are Shadowhunters and Veronica Mars S4.  

- With SHTV, I will always wonder what might have been if the show – which is based on books written by a woman, intentionally as a “girl power” story – had female showrunners. Would an empowered female showrunner have left Clary, THE PROTAGONIST OF A 6 BOOK SERIES – alone on an NYC street in a skimpy party dress, in November, with no money, no ID, no mother, no father figure and no love of her life, stripped of her memories, her magic, and chosen vocation, as punishment, after she saved the world?  Would a female showrunner have sidelined Clary’s love Jace, and left him grieving and suicidal, while his family lived their best lives and told him to move on?  Would a female showrunner have said, in press coverage of the series finale, that the future of the Clary and Jace characters was a matter for fan fiction?  After spending precious time in the series finale wrapping up narrative arcs for non-canon and/or ancillary characters.  And to my twitter correspondent’s point, I guess I am not surprised that mainstream entertainment media outlets didn’t call out the showrunners’ mistreatment of Clary, and by extension, Jace, and the obliteration of their narrative arcs -- and yes, I am looking at you, Andy Swift of TV line (who called the above-mentioned memory wipe “actually perfect”).

- Likewise, with Veronica Mars, would a more diverse and inclusive writers room have made S4 Veronica less insightful and less competent than her high school self, or quite so riven with self-loathing, or quite so careless and cruel with the people in her life who love her?  Would a more inclusive creative team have made S4 Veronica less aware of the class and race dynamics of Neptune, yet more casually racist, in her mid-30s, than she was in high school?

- There are so many other examples from 2019.  Clint Eastwood falsely suggesting that a female reporter (who is now deceased and thus unable to defend herself) traded sex for tips from an FBI agent in Richard Jewell. Game of Thrones treatment/resolution of the Ceresi and Daenerys characters – where to even start.  Martin Scorsese’s decision to give Oscar winner Anna Paquin’s character a total of 7 lines in the 3-plus hour movie the Irishman.

- And, in real life, I wonder whether a Hollywood that empowered and supported female creators would make sure that people like Mira Sorvino and Annabella Sciorra got a bunch of work while also making sure that Harvey Weinstein never again is in a position of power or influence.   Same with female comics targeted by Louis C.K. Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose … the list is long, and Kate Manne’s work on what she calls “himpathy” is useful here.

To be clear, I am not saying that stories involving “ships” of whatever flavor, stories of suffering and self-sacrifice, and stories of finding (or losing) intimate relationships are “bad” or “wrong” or inherently exploitive of female characters.  I don’t think that at all.  I also don’t think that female characters have to be perfectly well-adjusted, virtuous, or free from bias, or that they should never be make bad choices or mistakes.  I want female characters who are flawed, nuanced.  I don’t mind lives that are messy, or romantic entanglements that are complicated.  Finally, I don’t think that that faulty, reductive, or unfair portrayals of female characters is a new thing.  Mary Magdalene was almost certainly not a prostitute, after all.  And classicist Emily Wilson – the first woman to translate the Odyssey into English – has brought a hugely important perspective (including an awareness of how gender matters in translation) and voice to the translation and study of canonical characters and works.

At the end of the day, I just want female characters to be able to speak with their own voices, from their perspectives.  I want them to have their own, chosen, narrative arcs.  I want them to speak, act, see, and feel as autonomous individuals, with agency, and not just in reference to others.  And, I think that more a more diverse and inclusive approach to staffing writers rooms and in choosing show runners, directors, and key positions in storytelling would help.  

[theclaravoyant]

AN ~ This fic is called “Catharsis” not just on the characters’ behalves, but on mine. I am planning another more nuanced, narrative-integrated exploration of some of these themes but in the moment when I started writing this I kinda Went Off at biphobia. Kevin was the vessel for my protectiveness... and Julia Diaz unfortunately copped the unflattering role of Every I’m-Not-Homophobic-But person I’ve ever met. This is for you grandma :)))))

NOW ON AO3 (~2400wd)

Warnings: This fic has a happy/uplifting ending (*jake peralta voice* I CATHARTED) but it does deal with themes of homophobia and biphobia, including a reference to AIDS. If you would like to know more detail about the fic’s contents before diving in, message me and I’m happy to chat.

Prompt: 4. “I know you didn’t ask for this.”

Fandom: Brooklyn 99 - featuring Rosa Diaz, Kevin Cozner, Julia Diaz, Jake Peralta, with background Holt x Kevin and Rosa x Jocelyn. 

Rated: T

Tags: Platonic Relationships, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Homophobia, Biphobia, AIDS reference.

-

Catharsis

“Rosa?”

She knew that voice. She ignored it.

“Rosa, mi niña…”

She glared at her report. Corrected a typo with an aggressive stab at the keyboard.

“Uh, excuse me, Detective Diaz?”

She gritted her teeth, and forced her lips into a wide twist on a hospitable smile. In an overly sweet tone that bristled for all to hear, she invited –

“Detective Peralta, can you assist Mrs Diaz please?”

“Uhh. Sure.”

Jake looked uncertainly between Rosa and her mother, but stepped forward. Rosa knew when she needed protecting and if this was one of those times then he would offer what he could. He couldn’t imagine what she was going through, after she and her mother had tried to talk about it again and had come to another explosive loggerhead. Still, he was not too sure of his place in all this. He wanted to give Julia a good scolding, but given that she was Rosa’s mother it probably wouldn’t be intimidating in the slightest by comparison. Plus, he had to remind himself, it was probably not his place. Rosa could scold her own mother. And now he was getting side-tracked.

“How can I help you, Mrs Diaz?”

Fortunately, the fact that Julia was still very keen on watching her daughter and apparently cared very little about Jake’s question, or presence at all, became side-tracked all on its own when the elevator doors opened and the newly-demoted Officer Holt arrived back from lunch with Kevin. It was not exactly a daily occurrence, but not irregular around these parts; still, the squad usually would have clamoured all over them for the day’s instalment of juicy wedding-planning gossip were it not for the never-before-seen Diaz family throwdown emanating a distracting amount of tension in the middle of the room.

At first the newcomers were unfazed, and Kevin opened the gate to the bull pen and gestured – with an arm full of flowers and a tiny but glowing smile - for Raymond to proceed him through. They would have happily continued in this distracted bliss, letting the team resolve whatever drama was going down, were it not for the fact that the lilies in Kevin’s arms and the slightest brush of his hand against Raymond’s arm as he passed made the two of them suddenly relevant to said drama.

It started small, just a little – Jake would have had to call it a wince, from Julia. She kind of, curled up her nose a bit, and Jake was reminded of the time he’d punched his former literary hero in the face.

Do not. Punch. Rosa’s. Mother, he commanded of himself, and of course he wasn’t going to, but after dinner and games night and the fight about Jocelyn and knowing the reason for no cop talk at parties and seeing how things like that sneer infected the lives of his friends, he couldn’t just stand there, and so it slipped out – his place or not -

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Julia baulked. “I just don’t think it’s appropriate for a workplace, that’s all.”

“What?” Jake frowned. Why did this keep surprising him?

“What?”

Rosa’s version was not so much confused, as cold. It was sharp – near ruthless. All the fear and pain and seething she had felt etched into her these past few months she spat into her words as she got up from her desk and stalked around it, closer to her mother.

“They’re coming back from a date,” she growled. “Kevin is Holt’s husband. They’ve been together for thirty years.”

Julia at least had the sense to look impressed by this, which quelled the biting fury and the stinging sense of rejection inside Rosa, if only a little. She shouldn’t need to shove wholesome couple after wholesome couple down her mother’s throat for her to get it, but at least it was something. At least it was something. She swallowed, and prayed that this would be over quickly. Of course, it wouldn’t. Not least because the next thing her mother said made her want to start digging a pit to the centre of the earth and never return.

“Well, that makes sense, dear. They were probably the only two left.”

“Ex-cuse me?” Holt interjected.

“Mom, oh my god,” Rosa protested, her stomach churning.

“IIIII don’t understand enough about what’s going on here to be standing where I’m standing,” Jake babbled, because he’d somehow ended up in an uncomfortably prominent position in a very tense, angry circle of Strong Feelings. He scurried out of the way, back behind some desks, and half expected Holt and Rosa to leap into the space he’d left and go after Julia like it was some kind of cage match.

But no.

It was Kevin.

Cool, calm, collected Kevin who was just starting to bristle around the edges and who had a sharpness to his glare, and to his tongue, that anyone in the room besides perhaps Holt would be hard pressed to say they’d ever seen in him before. Jake had. When they were being hunted by Sean Murphy, and Kevin had been trying and failing to protect his husband.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Mrs – Diaz, is it?”

She knew she was in for something, but nodded.

“I’m sure you understand that I don’t appreciate your making light of my relationship,” he continued. “Nor of a very serious disease that took several of Raymond’s and my friends away from us a very young age. Many younger, if I may point out, than Detective Diaz there.”

“I’m so sorry,” Julia apologised, and it could not be said that any part of that was faked. She just hadn’t thought of it quite like that. But the thought of her little girl succumbing to such a horrible disease only made her throat close up and her fears feel more prickly and urgent and intense. “I didn’t mean any offence. You can’t choose who you are.”

“Perhaps not,” Kevin rebutted, “but if I could, I like to believe that I would choose Raymond every time, and he me.”

Julia blinked. “You wouldn’t want to have a family?”

“Raymond is my family.”

“But… wouldn’t it be easier… I mean, if you liked both, wouldn’t being with a woman be easier?”

“Not always. For example, not all women would feel comfortable with the fact that I also enjoyed the company of men.”

There was a beat of eye contact between them, and Julia cleared her throat.

“…Well,” she said, somewhat quieter this time. “You wouldn’t have to tell anyone.”

Rosa wrapped her arms around herself, under the guise of crossed arms. The mask of irritation she had put up began to crack as she replayed the argument with her mother in her mind. It was Jocelyn that her mother couldn’t take seriously; it was always she’s a nice girl, but, like Rosa failed to grasped the concept of settling down. It was always nice, always compliments, so it was hard to explain how much it hurt. Few people in the room knew how that felt. Jake, at least, took note of the tears that were starting to burn her eyes, and shuffled a little closer to her. He was still a whole desk away but somehow she breathed a little easier at that.

Then Kevin met her eyes.

He had been about to turn back; to retreat from a conversation that was deeply uncomfortable and that might not be his place. He wanted nothing more in this moment than to shut himself in Raymond’s office – or even better, their home – and forget he’d ever poked this particular bear.

Then, across the circle, he’d seen her.

He’d seen Rosa, and her arms across her chest, the sheen of tears in her eyes as she tried to look neither away from, nor directly at the scene in front of her.

In her, he saw himself, in church, as a boy. He saw himself, in class, as a student, learning about Achilles and Patroclus and knowing he couldn’t say what he was thinking. He saw himself at his brother’s wedding, looking out at the crowd of people that had gathered to celebrate and wondering – knowing, at the time, or so it had felt – that such a crowd would never turn out for him.

And perhaps it was the fact that he and Raymond had just come back from booking the florist for a ceremony he’d once thought impossible, that sent a pain careering through Kevin’s chest like an arrow. It certainly did not help matters that they’d just started putting together the guest list and seating chart for the wedding, and his father was not on it. And worst of all, was the acute sense of bitterness that he remembered all too well, that had tainted his father’s last breath, when he had told Kevin that he loved him for the first, the last, and the only time since the day he’d come out.

He had tears in his eyes by the time he turned his attention back to Julia. She glanced between him, and over her shoulder at Rosa. There was something between these two, that much she understood. Could the gay thing really run that deep?

“Mrs Diaz,” Kevin said, and it was clearly taking a lot to keep his voice steady. Julia turned back to him, solemn and intrigued as he took a deep breath and spoke – not only on his own behalf, but on her daughter’s as well.

“I know you didn’t ask for this,” he said. “But your daughter is trying to share something with you that is very important to her. She is trying the best she can to share her life with you. It might be difficult to understand but please, please believe that the love you feel for your husband – that is the same love she is capable of feeling. Maybe for a woman. Maybe even for Jocelyn. That’s all she’s trying to tell you. And you should listen. And you should treasure her with all your heart. Because I know for a fact how it feels when that revelation comes too late.”

He let it land, and all of a sudden his knees felt weak beneath him. He marched past Raymond and out of the bull pen into the lift before the shock of what he’d just done could wear off enough to collapse him.

The others watched him go: most were baffled by his unusually vivid emotiveness, but Rosa for one was grateful. Jake hugged himself a little tighter; protectiveness over his friends warring with crappy-dad sympathy to make one super uncomfortable feelings-cocktail. Julia was a little hurt, a little stunned, a little intrigued. Holt, as per usual, took the unusual turn of events in his stride. He held up a wrist and explained:

“Kevin’s father gave me this watch the day he died. After twenty-two years of not tolerating my presence in his home, he apologised, and he wished us luck.” Luck. He snorted. “My father died when I was younger, before I met Kevin, but my mother has always loved and supported me - every part of me, and of the two of us – and believe me when I say I would not be where I am without that love and support. Do not underestimate your power.”

Julia nodded. Maybe, just maybe, it was starting to sink in.

“I know you love your daughter very much, Mrs Diaz,” Holt continued, a little more gently now – but only a little - “and she loves you. It would be a shame to let that go to waste. But I’m sure you know that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m needed elsewhere.”

He gave Julia a pointed stare before exiting the bull pen to track down and comfort Kevin.

Julia took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. If nothing else, it was comforting to know that her daughter had a very protective group of friends and colleagues. And the passion with which they all spoke about each other. And the watch…

When Rosa had walked out on her, Julia had feared for just a second, that her daughter might never speak to her again. It had been one of the most frightening moments of her life, and though it had passed blissfully quickly at the time, she couldn’t help but reflect on it now. And on Holt’s words. And on the gaping wounds their arguments seemed to leave in her. She was only trying to love her daughter, to want what was best for her. But if she stayed on this path, this dark future of bitterness and grief, how could that possibly be better? Wouldn’t she prefer to see her daughter carry herself with pride, smile at the one she loved, open the door for them and carry the bouquet they’d presented her and brush arms with subtle love on their return from a lunch date?

Julia turned to face her daughter, to find her midway through wiping tears from her face.

“I love you, mi niña,” she whispered. “And if Jocelyn makes you happy – then I am happy for you. And I’m going to try harder to understand.”

“Okay,” Rosa said, her voice wobbling dangerously. She cleared her throat. “And yeah. Jocelyn does make me happy. I dunno about marrying her yet but. You know. We’ll see I guess.”

Short sentences. Still not quite crying. Nailing it.

Fortunately, that was part of her daughter that her mother did understand, or at least was used to. She did not push Rosa for more, simply picked up her handbag.

“I got a new extension to Trivial Pursuit,” she said. “Your father and I would love to play it this Friday if you’re available. Bring your friends, of course - or perhaps… Jocelyn?”

Sick and dizzy as she felt at the barrage of emotion, Rosa’s stomach flipped. She was lucky she was not a naturally smiley person, or she might just have given herself away because all of a sudden her heart was screaming IT’S ALL I EVER WANTED, which was of course, an exaggeration, but after months and months of the most awful tension of her life it was like falling away like a mudslide. Is this what relief felt like?

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

Julia nodded, and took her leave.

[fleetwooded]

talk about music!!!!!! gimme the whole top ten, then i also want 22, 44, and 88!!

THANK YOU FOR ENABLING ME STEPH!!! this ended up predictably long-winded, so here is the list, and you can click through to read how i feel about all these songs if you want to. if you’re on mobile, and have to scroll through, i’m so sorry. 

1. why, fleetwood mac2. from the dining table, harry styles3. home, one direction4. animal, troye sivan5. i’m yours, pixie geldof6. ambitions, donkeyboy7. bring it on home to me, sam cooke8. bad (live), U29. american tune, paul simon10. 1950, king princess

22. everywhere, fleetwood mac44. trouble, lindsey buckingham88. border, years & years

ask me about my favourite music of the year! 

1. why, fleetwood mac - this is ZERO PERCENT a surprise, i think i’ve fallen asleep to this song every night for the past three years. it is one of my favourite fleetwood songs even though it’s a real niche one - the final track off mystery to me, which is uhhh not one of their more popular albums. but a) i am very fond of the awkward post-peter green pre-lindsey/stevie albums, b) christine mcvie gets paid DUST by everyone, but she is an incredible songwriter with an incredible voice, and really held the band afloat during that era, and c) this song is so gentle and beautiful and i could never ever get tired of listening to it. i’m obsessed with the extended guitar opening, which keeps you waiting for the piano to kick in for ages and makes you instinctively listen more closely to the guitar throughout the whole song. also the lyric well, my heart will rise up with the morning sun / and the hurt I feel will simply melt away is such a beautiful and clearly expressed sentiment. and when those strings come out from the back of the arrangement just before the last stanza!! ugh i love this song.

2. from the dining table, harry styles - honestly this is only so high up because it is one of the other two songs on my sleep playlist and therefore gets played every day lmao. i will say that this is pretty much the only song of his where the studio version is better than the live version, and therefore the only one i regularly listen to after going to his concert bc i don’t resentfully compare it to the live experience. that harmony on the third maybe someday you’ll call me and tell me that you’re sorry too and the strings in that whole section make the entire song worth it. 

3. home, one direction - lol i always say that my favourite 1d song is walking in the wind, but it’s really this one. i was in a very small, l*arry-free corner of the fandom when this came out, so it never had those associations for me, and i just think it’s a very warm and beautiful song and i DO NOT understand why it was not on the album. i also used to listen to it every morning back when i had to walk to work at 4:30am (in the winter! when it was pitch black and i lived in a not-so-great area!), and it was very very comforting to me, so listening to it always sparks that feeling of comfort, like being wrapped up tight in a warm blanket.

4. animal, troye sivan - the last song on my sleep playlist, and one of the best songs off his new album imo. my favourite kind of song is the kind where you can put on big headphones, get on a bus or train, close your eyes, press play, and just have an experience. it’s unquantifiable! everyone’s mileage will vary! you either feel it, or you don’t! but i really really feel it with this one, especially on the second verse. it’s such a stripped back song, but has this rich sonic landscape that just pulls you in if you let it. 

5. i’m yours, pixie geldof - ugh, this album was such a huge and exciting discovery for me this year. i had no idea she made music until i heard woman go wild on one of nick grimshaw’s insta stories and looked it up, and then i listened to her album over and over and over again for months and developed a massive, useless celebrity crush on her. it’s a little bit derivative, definitely nothing groundbreaking, but so perfectly matched to my sensibilities and so endlessly listenable. i also find it very satisfying to hear something and instantly know it’s going to be your new favourite thing, and then get to prove yourself right. i usually listen to the album all the way through, so i don’t think about the specific songs too much, but if i had to pick a favourite, it would be this one!

6. ambitions, donkeyboy - i’m pretty sure i found this song because it was referenced in a fic lmao? if that is the case, a million thank yous to whoever wrote that, because i never would have come across it otherwise. it’s a collaboration between a 2000s norwegian synthpop band and a girl whose only other resume builder was finishing in seventh place on norwegian idol. but it is a BOP, and a bop with a strong emotional drive, which is the best kind. the lyric I can't tolerate / the feelings that I feel when I feel is another one i spend the whole song waiting for. 

7. bring it on home to me, sam cooke - another song i have been listening to for years and years and never tire of. when my best friend moved out of her parents’ house, she said that the only reason she wanted her own place was so she could sit in her living room and play this song on a turntable. she did play it, often, because she only owned a few records for the longest time, so listening to it always brings me back to curling up on her couch and talking and talking while she made me dinner in her tiny and dark but beautiful home. 

8. bad (live), U2 - god i love this song. i think i have talked about it on here before, so i won’t go on and on, but i LOVE this song. tbh i have never actually listened to the album version of this song, and maybe it is just as good, but i really love live albums - when they can capture the spirit and energy and RISK of a live concert, they feel so electric. anything could go wrong at any moment when music is being played live, or it could go SO right, and the artist and crowd could feed off each other’s energy until the whole venue feels alive, and the music could take on a whole new artistic life. idk what exactly it is, but i feel all that potential in this song. it’s eight glorious minutes of that electricity, and every time you think it’s peaked, it just keeps going and reaches new heights. my favourite is the bit where bono just belts out the words desperation, dislocation, separation, condemnation, isolation, desolation, isolation, let it go like a cry out into the universe. i think about it so often. sometimes i also want to just stand in front of a crowd and yell ISOLATION, DESOLATION. i feel that live music can often feel like a purging, or a cleansing, or a transformation - like singing about these feelings of profound misery or pain or anger with a crowd of people who also feel those feelings can reshape them into something joyful and exultant instead.

9. american tune, paul simon - damn, this really was a melancholic year!! this is another of my go-to comfort songs when i am feeling those lost feelings. i listened to it a lot in the winter, and again this fall, and related a little too much to the bits about being so far away from home. it’s got this sense of deep weariness in its lyrics and structure that i like listening to when i am very tired and want to commiserate. the drums leading up to the and I dreamed I was dying are my favourite musical moment, but my favourite lyric is the ending, with: tomorrow's going to be another working day / and I'm trying to get some rest / that's all I'm trying to get some rest.

10. 1950, king princess - honestly, introducing me and the world to king princess is the best thing harry did all year. first of all, it’s truly remarkable how much cultural power he has - not that this song wouldn’t have been successful without him, but literally every write-up and interview mentions him tweeting the lyrics as a mark of approval that propelled her into the public eye. it’s also just an incredibly well crafted song, and i’m endlessly impressed by her talent. to write and perform a song like this at her age is no small feat, and i’m very glad she’s ended up getting the attention she has. i got to see her live this summer with my sister and a few of our friends, and she was every bit as commanding and magnetic as i would have imagined. 

22. everywhere, fleetwood mac - another all time favourite!! at my work this summer, my boss was a very cool woman who played in a very cool all-female punk band. we got along tremendously, except for that she had NO patience for me constantly playing what she referred to as “mom rock.” this one is the only fleetwood mac song she liked, so i would just play it over and over and we would delight in that shimmery little intro. when i was closing, i would put it on just as the sun went down enough to shine right through the big windows at the front of the store, and it feels good to know that i am going to listen to it years from now and remember that summer and that sun.

44. trouble, lindsey buckingham - my fave song of his, except maybe never going back again. i really like this whole album, but this song is another one i just want to burrow inside because it feels so rich and dense. i feel like i have nothing to say about him that hasn’t already been said - he’s a massively underrated guitarist, and a great songwriter, and i just love listening to him play.

88. border, years & years - a fantastic song off a fantastic album. i’m ngl i was a little disappointed by their sophomore album, so i just kept listening to this one. also brings me back to great memories of seeing them live and the catharsis of yelling my heart, it will start to shine / and I will be alright with a whole crowd of people. live music is magic!!

if anyone made it here, thank you for reading. i love year-in-reviews. it feels good to take stock of a year and try to put all the little moments and periods of time in order and make some sense out of them. i also love music, and it feels good to sit down and listen to my most listened to songs with new ears and try to remember or figure out why i listened to them so often. it’s been a long, hard, tumultuous year, but my relationship with music has really flourished, and stuff like this feels like nurturing that love.

[clusterassets]

New world news from Time: ‘We Weren’t Prepared for This.’ Inside the Accidental Liberation of a Concentration Camp

In early 1945, World War II was approaching its end in Europe, a conclusion that would officially arrive when the Germans surrendered to the Allies on May 7, 1945. In practice, that final period of the war was also the beginning of a new phase of the conflict, as troops and the general public alike began to discover the extent of the atrocities they’d been fighting over.

In some ways, that reckoning continues to this day. The timing of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which falls this Saturday, commemorates the anniversary of the Soviet Army liberating more than 7,000 prisoners of Auschwitz on Jan. 27, 1945. In the months that followed, troops from the USSR, Western Europe and the U.S. would liberate many more camps, as the Nazis scrambled to destroy the evidence of their crimes. Though the persecution of Jews and others was no secret, the liberation period was when many people were first forced to realize the extent of what the Nazi regime had been doing.

One such revelation took place three days prior to the Germans’ surrender, when U.S. Army soldiers stumbled upon the Gunskirchen Concentration Camp, a sub-camp of the death camp Mauthausen.

And the lives that changed that day have continued to intersect in surprising ways. At the time, Alan Moskin was an 18-year-old American soldier who helped liberate the camp and Nandor Katz was a 19-year-old prisoner. The two men, now 91 and 92, recently found out that they live less than an hour away from one other in New York state, thanks to a discovery by Halina Rosenkranz, the Westchester Jewish Community Services’s Holocaust survivors’ groups counselor.

In the week leading up to Holocaust Remembrance Day on Saturday, they spoke to TIME about what they remember from that fateful day and what they want future generations to remember about that time.

An Accidental Discovery

Moskin, who served in the Army with the 66th infantry, 71st Division, recalls that his side of the experience started when a group of U.S. Army combat soldiers stumbled upon a prisoner-of-war camp, holding mostly Royal Air Force members, near Lambach, Austria. The British prisoners told the liberating soldiers that they’d heard rumors of a different kind of camp, a concentration camp for Jews, just a few kilometers away.

“I remember my buddies and I looked at each other,” Moskin tells TIME. “We knew Hitler wasn’t fond of Jews, but we hadn’t heard anything about any concentration camps.”

The day — May 4, 1945 — was overcast as he and his fellow troops marched through a forest, trudging through wet ground, looking for the rumored camp. The first clue that the rumors were true was the smell.

“We tried to cover our mouths and noses with a bandana, but it got worse and worse, and all of a sudden I remember looking through some trees and seeing a big barbed wire sort of [guarding] a compound,” he says. “That turned out to be the Gunskirchen camp.”

With the war nearing its end, the troops faced only a very little bit of resistance as they approached the camp. Moskin himself shot a guard who refused to surrender, and then the group cut through the barbed wire and entered the camp.

Katz — speaking through his daughter, Raisa Katz, who translated for him — says the Americans came just in time: “Himmler had just sent a telegram to the commandant ordering the people running the camp to shoot everybody. But because the American soldiers came and surrounded the camp, he wasn’t able to carry out the order. He was afraid. He thought it best to surrender.”

And, as Raisa Katz points out, it was pure luck that the soldiers did arrive just then. “My father had spoken about the liberation day so many times when I was growing up, so I had this image of the American government sending the soldiers for the purpose of liberating the camp, giving [the prisoners] food, and the commandant surrendering,” she says. “So the most striking thing to me is that the Americans didn’t go to liberate the camp. This all happened by accident.”

What They Saw

What came next was something neither man would ever forget.

“There were dead bodies on the left, piles of dead bodies on the right — and their arms and legs looked like broomsticks covered with no flesh,” Moskin says. Slowly, the ones who were still alive stumbled toward them like “the living dead, zombies,” in striped pajamas with a sewn-on star of David, calling out in German for food, water and cigarettes.

“I remember my buddies who did [smoke] were handing out cigarettes and getting ready to light them, when they [the prisoners] took those cigarettes and pulled the wrapping off and started chewing the tobacco like a sirloin steak,” he says. The soldiers also distributed what they could from their own Army-issued rations. “Many of them would start biting and chewing so fast they started to grab their esophagus, and I remember they would start choking and falling to the crowd. We got so frightened. We didn’t know what was happening. And then the medics started screaming at us, ‘No solid food, damn it!’ We weren’t prepared for this.”

The situation was even more desperate in the barracks area.

“There was a little path or roadway with a dead horse on the ground. I can never forgot, three inmates had pulled off the bark of a tree and were digging it into the entrails of this dead horse. And then they reached down inside the dead horse, and pulled out the guts and started biting and chewing. You could see the blood squirt out.”

The inmates were willing to eat anything, attests Katz, a native of a small Carpathian Mountain town in present-day Ukraine who had been working in Budapest when he was taken to a labor camp in 1943 and then transferred to Mauthausen. “There were some people who would cut flesh off of dead bodies just eat something,” he says. “There was no water. A couple more days, I would have been dead.”

An Army lieutenant who knew he was Jewish asked Moskin if he spoke any Hebrew or German, so that he could communicate with the prisoners.

“I remember saying the German for ‘I am also a Jew.’ It just came out of me. I don’t know where I heard it,” Moskin says. “An elderly man, very emaciated, started to smile and came towards me and he went down on his hands and knees and started to kiss my boots, which were tainted with blood, vomit, and feces. I knew he was trying to be affectionate toward me, but it made me very uncomfortable to watch him kissing my filthy, bloody boots. So I picked him up under the armpits, and as he came up towards me I could see open, festering sores going up and down his neck, and lice coming out of those sores. You could imagine that I wanted to pull away because he smelled so badly, but I didn’t. He had wrapped his arms around me and he was crying. He kept saying ‘Danke [thank you], danke, Jew.’ That’s when I lost it a little bit and started to cry.”

In the days that followed, word trickled in from other Army outfits that the events at Gunskirchen were just one liberation among many.

“Every time we found out,” Moskin recalls, “we said, ‘My God, how many of these damn hellholes are there?'”

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

Life After Liberation

After that day, Katz remained in the camp a bit longer, nursing his two brothers who had contracted typhoid fever, until they recovered enough to be taken to Budapest for treatment at an American hospital. He later made his way to the Soviet Union and resided there until 1973, when he immigrated to the U.S., where he worked as a silkscreen printer, raising his family in Philadelphia.

Moskin ended up staying in Europe until June 1946, as part of the U.S. Army of Occupation. An aspiring lawyer, he convinced an officer in charge to let him attend a day or two of the Nuremberg trials — an experience that only further cemented his career choice. But, despite working in the justice system, in the decades that followed he found it was too painful to talk about the injustice he had witnessed firsthand.

“I didn’t speak for 50 years about my experience,” he says, scared that nightmares of the dead horse would come back. “The kids say to me, ‘Oh, you had PTSD.’ We never heard that term. The only term we heard back then was ‘shell-shocked.’ I sucked it up. By the time I got home, I took a key and locked up that part of my brain, and I threw that key away. If anyone asked me about the war, I said, ‘I did my job, I was under [General] Patton and I don’t want to talk about it.'”

That changed in the 1990s when a woman at a local Holocaust museum, referred to him by one of his Army buddies, called to ask him to speak at an event. He hung up on her. She called back. After they spoke about the way Holocaust memory was evolving, from the 1993 publication of Deborah Lipstadt’s book on Holocaust denial to Illinois requiring school curricula to include the truth about the Holocaust, he agreed to tell what he had seen at an event on June 10, 1995, at the mall in Nanuet, N.Y.

He surprised himself by talking for a good two hours. It was the beginning of a second career as a Holocaust educator. “It was like a catharsis,” he says. “All that poison I had to bottle up inside me for 50 years, it just came out of me.”

Since then, he’s spoken to middle schools, high schools and colleges nationwide. “When we’re all gone, they [Holocaust deniers] are really going to come out of the woodwork,” he says. Katz says he was “overjoyed” to meet Moskin for the first time on Aug. 11, 2017, so they could corroborate their experiences. “I was happy that I met somebody who saw the conditions, so that my story wouldn’t be lost.”

Preserving that story, and its lesson, is a job that Moskin feels remains unfinished.

“I’m going to be honest with you, my generation failed,” he says. “We didn’t get rid of the hate and prejudice. There’s still hate out there, all over the place.”

But, as Katz sees it, that’s a job that will never be complete — which is why it’s important to remember that, even at the worst moments in human history, luck and goodness can run counter to evil.

“Even then, there were people that were good and kind,” he says. “Same thing now. There are some people that will always hate, and there are people that are good, and that’s just human nature.”

January 27, 2018 at 04:11AM ClusterAssets Inc., https://ClusterAssets.wordpress.com

[alaynestonebastardbrave]

GOT 7x07

Man, that's 80 minutes of my life I can't get back.

In the "Inside the Episode" one of the two Ds say that "we filmed for days in the Dragonpit" and let me tell you, it sure felt that was watching it all play out. We didn't need the Hound/Ser Gregor one sided verbal showdown (no Clegane Bowl in the show guys, sorry). Theon did not need to be there. Brien ne did not need to be there. Sansa's "interests" were nowhere represented in this parlay, not that they needed to be to begin with. Euron really did not need to be there. Nor Qyburn. Nor Missendei. Nor Jorah. Nor Davos. Or Varys.

Honestly, the fact that every single figure of strategic and military importance decided to show up was rather stupid. It would have been perfectly within character for Cersei to turn coat and kill them all. If we're really to believe she had no intention of ever helping the North against the army of the dead than she could have just ended it all right then and there. She literally had every major Targaryen and Stark (and Greyjoy I guess) person in her grasp. It was all just stupid.

And it really just took way too long. The first sixty minutes of this episode took way too long and could have easily been shaved down by half.

It never ceases to amaze me when the show still manages to lift a scene straight off the page of the books this late in the game. The scene of snow flakes falling on Jaime was very reminiscent of "winter" officially coming to the Riverlands at the end of A Feast For Crows and I guess show Jaime is FINALLY on his way to meeting up with the trajectory of book Jaime ... three seasons too little, too late.

Jon and Daenerys are officially cannon. I guess that's fantastic if you're a fan of the pairing. I've always kind of figured there might be a political marriage in their future but I've never seen it as more than an alliance and I doubt even one of them will be alive when all is said and done, let alone both of them, so it's a doomed romance. I might care a little more in the show of Clarke and Harrington had any chemistry whatsoever but seeing as how they don't I mostly just cringed through their scenes.

I'll wrap this up with my three biggest nitpics, all of which are really unfortunate for me personally because they are three things I've no doubt will go down in the books and they proved to be incredibly unsatisfactory in the show.

1. You guys couldn't find a better wig for Rhaegar than one that was clearly recycled from Harry Lloyd's stint as Viserys Targaryen in season 1? Really, costume department? That wedding scene was bad enough being hamfisted in the show with Bran's magical fairy powers (A literal line from the show: "That's not something you can just ... "see" ... is it?" I guess Bran is omniscient now. If he can truly see all things why not just tell us all how to defeat the white walkers rather than sit around all day sight seeing through crows? That means he should be able to see how the last Long Night ended, right?

2. Sansa turning on Littlefinger was not the least bit seeded at all and was robbed of all dramatic catharsis. I felt nothing and this is something I have been anticipating from day 1. I'm still not entirely certain what the hell happened in the last episode between Sansa and Arya because it did not at all come across as two sisters acting and playing Littlefinger. You know why? Because Littlefinger WAS NOT AROUND for any of their scenes. NO ONE WAS AROUND for any of their scenes. Are we supposed to believe their performances were for the benefit of the walls he was presumably lurking in? I guess he lurks a lot, but again ... those scenes were played genuinely. It felt like a couple of scenes were missing. No, you know what? It felt like entire episodes were missing and I'd like to say this is the consequence of a shorter season but we've already seen how this show's full 10 episode seasons play out and I have no doubt they would have still fucked up this turn.

We know Sansa's going to eventually be the one to destroy Littlefinger in the books because we have the benefit of her inner monologue correcting him every time he calls her his daughter when she's constantly referring to herself as "the blood of Winterfell" and "Ned and Katelyn Stark's daughter" in her head. I understand that we can't have Sophie Turner monologuing in the show without it coming across as a rip off of Twilight's god awful voice overs, but come on. There was not the slightest indication that the Stark sisters were conspiring with one another. It's just something that needed to happen so it happened, just like everything else on the show.

3. I've been waiting for that wall to come down since the dead marched on the wall all the way back in season 2 and it was sooooo disappointing. Because we don't even get the satisfaction of seeing the whole wall come down, just a chunk of it. Meh.

What can we glean from this season as far as what we might expect in books 6 and 7? Probably not much.

- I've still got my money on their being three dragon riders but I suppose if Dany were to lose one of her dragons it'll probably be to Euron and his dragon horn as we already know that the Night's King is a show construct and there won't be any member of the army of the dead to ride a dragon.

- Jon may have been legitimized. I've always speculated that Rhaegar and Lyanna married but seeing as how the books have already established the Targaryens practiced polygamy in Valyria, I'm more inclined to believe he took Lyanna for a second wife as the kind of still needed his first two children to be legitimate and that would mean no annulment to the first wife. If that scene actually appears in the books, it will be in front of a heart tree, because book Bran is not all omniscient. The magic in the books actually have rules.

- Sansa will be responsible for Littlefinger's death, but I think most of us already know that anyway.

- The wall will come down. But we already know that's coming as well.

Oy vey. Well that's it for at least another year and a half.

... I wonder if Gendry managed to make it out of Eastwatch before the wall came down. Hmm.

Also RIP Littlefinger and farewell Aiden. So sorry your last scene had to be so craptastically orchestrated. At least you are on to bigger and better things now.