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deathfavor · 15 days

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my indulgent version 2 for @yeonban

Xue Yang grimace as he grips the edge of the sink, hunched over as he closes his eyes. Great. The word is bitter and angry in his mind. This self-appointed mission had been practically pointless and to top it all off, it seemed like Jin Guangyao was passing through the city. So the whole place is the human equivalent of someone kicking a massive hornet's nest. Frankly, Xue Yang can't be blamed for not knowing about the other's traveling plans for some clan event even if they were announced - he never kept up with the cultivators when he was a guest disciple, let alone now that he's supposed to be DEAD. But as he likes to say, he's going to make Death fight tooth and nail to drag him to hell. He was supposed to be dead for years now. Xue Yang IS dead as far as the world is concerned. Most of the world hadn't ever known he existed in the first place.

MAYBE he'd taken a distant peak at the heart of the city just for a glimpse. Xue Yang hadn't gone close ; he'd observed from the safety of the shadows far away. Now that he reflects on it, maybe that could have attracted attention from an eagle-eyed observer. Most other people has surged to the street for a glimpse while he'd stayed away. It's the only reason Xue Yang can think of for suddenly having someone try to follow him later. It was a LAUGHABLE attempt, but it had been rather NICE to slaughter and mangle the unfortunate fool. The dogs on the street were having a nice feast tonight.

It doesn't matter. Xue Yang will leave before the sun rises and this place on the outskirts of town doesn't ask for names or information. Xue Yang shoves off his outer robes and shirt, eyeing the ugly bruises and scars - blood from his earlier slaughter staining his collarbones while a fresh, recovering injury on his lower back has seeped through the messy, sloppy bandaging. More than that, though Xue Yang watches when the door. Age and time has only sharpened his already uncanny ability to sense danger. The door silently opens but he's already waiting with a skull piercing nail in hand. He throws it when a hooded figure steps in and watches it embed itself deep into the wood while the figure doesn't flinch.

Xue Yang hates that it means nothing. Nothing, because Xue Yang knows who that is. Nothing, because they both know if Xue Yang really meant it, he wouldn't have missed.

" Oh? Is this one worth a visit from an old friend? " Xue Yang flashes his teeth in a dangerous grin, and nearly wants to bark with laughter at the insanity of this situation. Jun Guangyao's too smart for his own good. Suddenly the fool earlier seems like a greeting - or a test to see if Death would appear in monstrous violence, a telltale sign of Xue Yang. Damn. Well played. He licks his teeth, head cocked to the side with a smirk.

XUE YANG. He hasn't heard his own name from someone else in YEARS. His smirk freezes, eyes focused intently on the man in front of him. His jaw clenches, unclenches, and clenches again. He's not mad though, or else violence would have already revealed itself. He doesn't know what he feels. He ALMOST wants to plead to hear his name again, and isn't that pathetic? It digs up the ugliness in his chest - the wrathful resentment that even temporary happiness hadn't been able to crush. Xue Yang didn't exist in Yi City until he was synonymous with death and disaster descending. It wasn't XUE YANG that was happy, just a nameless stranger. Now Xue Yang is alive, brought back on gilded tongue.

He couldn't care less about the blood or injuries that the other can see in the mirror or on him. There's no way he'd actually be here. It's probably just an illusion or talisman or something. Meng Yao is probably very comfortably lounging in some overly extravagant bed in one of the fancy buildings and whatever else clan leaders do. Xue Yang never has and never will care. Maybe he should be envious, but he'd never taken well to formalities even when he'd been with the Jin clan. A wild animal is still wild even in a sanctuary. So when Meng Yao says something about tending to wounds that Xue Yang waves off, ( some things never change ) , Xue Yang merely rolls his eyes. An illusion or projection can't do anything other than lecture.

Except Meng Yao can touch him and illusions can't do that. The warmth of fingers on his skin almost feels like FIRE. Xue Yang's head snaps towards the other and stares dumbfounded when the stained, messy bandages are yanked away and cold fabric washes away the blood at the injury he can't reach himself. ( Another eventual scar most likely given Xue Yang's lack of care to it. ) His mouth is suddenly dry. He's not afraid even though this is a DANGEROUS spot to be in. Part of him wants to shove Meng Yao away, to grab his few things and flee. Part of him just finds RELIEF that someone knows him. He wants to talk. He wants to run. He's suspicious. He's.....tired. In the end, Xue Yang finds himself just standing there and letting Meng Yao do as he pleases with a sharp eye following his every move.

" Ow- Ow! Hey! " Xue Yang is all skin and bones and raw power packed into muscles. His lower back muscles twitch under the cleaning and it fucking hurts. Yet even he knows better than to reject this help. ( Because who willingly helps Xue Yang? No one. And who does Xue Yang allow to help him? No one. Except, evidently, one lone soul who is the answer to both. ) " This is MY room you know. Showing up here and immediately in my stuff. " He scoffs and glares at Meng Yao in the mirror but he doesn't stop him or make any move to hurt him. He clicks his tongue. " You shouldn't be here you know. " Pot calling the kettle black, really. Neither of them should be here. It abruptly brings back a much earlier memory of them slinking around Jin Guangshan's hidden rooms where they shouldn't be, plotting a demise. He shakes his head slightly, knuckles white as he grips the counter. Fine, maybe it's a bit worse than he'd care to admit. " Guess this is rather fitting a reunion though, huh? " He grins, sharp again. He can't exactly imagine a TYPICAL reunion. Not for them. Xue Yang wouldn't ever change that.

#yeonban #i had the scene in mind #but then GETTING to that i was like 'ah that needs exposition'#and uhhhhhh here we are #IDK CHRIS I WAS JUST THINKING #during the like what 8 years give or take between everything and then yi city arc just reuniting #and also the different kind of dynamic even something as simple as washing blood away can be #xy had improved his self-care exactly 0% since they were younger #to no ones surprise #hearing his name really shook him #he v much just Yearns to hear it again and TALK #with someone who ACTUALLY knows its him #in my defense i apparently wrote most of this while half asleep #and too much work to just erase #i had something else to say but i forgot hgjfdg #᛭ — [IC] poisoned soul craving the taste of blood [XUE YANG]

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hella1975 · 8 months

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Hi hella!!!

I feel like i always start these off or end them by saying that these things are going to be incomprehensible in some way, mainly bc i have trouble translating whats going on in my mind into written words so i really dont know how much of my list thingies make sense to you but this one is especially probably going to not make much sense. (also bc i send them a lot when im either very tired or not sober, but i am sober and wide awake rn so this might be a different kind of incomprehensible)

I found one of my old drafts for an ask from around a year ago and it was a follow up response to the last chapter you posted at the time, so im not sure how its going to sound without the context of that specific chapter, but i also mentioned in one of my other asks that i add stuff in last minute and that ask i added a shit ton of stuff so i dont have any of that pretyped out so im going by memory. But im sending it again bc i havent seen you answer it

(please do not interpret this as ‘why didnt you answer my ask >:/’ or me rushing you to answer asks or anything like that, but like I said its been a year so im assuming tumblr ate it. If not and you just havent cleaned out your ask box and you find the original, congratulations you’ll know what i originally said. Bc idk how accurate this will be)

Theres two different ways that you seem to write metaphors (idk if thats what theyre called im not caught up on my literary terminology)

(im scrolling through your blog rn looking for my other asks and tumblr really did you dirty in your asks system like i started scrolling and the third one down was from 2021 and im fighting for my life trying to find my tag (thank you for my tag btw its very useful to me))

Anywho, most of your metaphors ( to me) can be split into two categories. Theres the simple ones and the complex ones. Now this might seem obvious but im going to explain to you how these have different effects on my brain.

An example of the ‘simple’ ones is

““If Nanook’s tone had a note of seriousness, then Zuko’s was the entire orchestra.”” (idk what chapter this is from its been a while)

You have a lot of these kinds of whatever the haick kind of literary technique this is (is this a metaphor i’ve been trying to google it for like ½ an hour and i cant figure it out) BUT these type of things that are simple and easy to process is one of my favorite things about the way you write. I think this is a very common technique but the way you do it to me is just a lot more unique than the ways ive seen it done before. Its extremely fluent with the voice of the characters and brings a perfect kind of vibe to the ‘conversation’ (or story, text, whatever) and it paints the picture of what your trying to say perfectly. I also really like how these types of things arent ever in Zukos pov a lot (sometimes it is, but not nearly as much, I’ve noticed) and its not in the more serious like revelations that you drop these in. Like I said, it adds to the voice of the characters, bc of the contrast of Zuko constantly having revelations and dramatic archs and stuff, and the other characters just in general being a lot more calm. Its like when youre listening to a song and you have the lyrics and the like ‘main’ music behind the lyrics, but then when you listen to the song a lot you notice the smaller, like backup music that adds a lot to the song and makes it a lot more enjoyable than if it was just the lyrics and the louder more up front music.

Then in contrast you have the bigger ‘metaphors’

An example of this is ‘You curse in words already invented’

THIS IS MY FAVORITE LINE IN THE ENTIRE FIC.

OF ANY FIC OR BOOK EVER READ

AND THIS IS WHY

When I tell you I could not figure out what this meant for months I am AWFUL with stuff like this and interpreting it my english teachers hate me bc of it. Id have the question ‘why were the curtains blue’ and my answer would be ‘bc the people who decorated the room like blue maybe theyre interior designers and it goes with the room 😊 and thats so hot of them bc i love blue too’

But even thought i couldnt figure it out it stayed in my head and i probably thought about it once a day (i mean this literally, i think about that part all the time) and i cant remember the context for that or anything but i do remember that i knew it was a wonderful phrase.

I’ve mentioned in my other asks how whenever im reading anything at all that you’ve written (whether its tams, or toab, or in the tags of something even if its like 10 words), everything you type comes out so fluidly like a formula or a color wheel or however i put it last time i talked about this. And this is on the prodigious end of the spectrum of this.

But phrases like that are another part of the fic, theyre like the lyrics of the song. Like the phrases that gets all the attention and gets put in fanart and that gets quoted in comment sections because they deserve that recognition and you deserve that recognition and are just a reminder of how incredibly talented you are.

I mean that in the most sincere way that i know how to express.

I am constantly in awe of you and your writing style, and i really do think of you as one of the most talented writers of everything ive ever read.

And something else worth mentioning is that it isnt just your ao3 that portrays that. Like if I were to just read your ao3 I’d be like ‘oh wow this person is an amazing writer’ But your tumblr persona plays into it a lot more (In my opinion). Because then you see like more ‘backround’ stuff on ao3. And more of your system (im not articulating this in the way i mean it very well) and you get privy to the fact that you’re not a 30 year old with a masters in english and that you’ve never had any formal education on writing. I vaguely remember you talking about a story about a sailor (??? i might be misremembering that) that you wrote when you were a child and thinking ‘oh wow so she’s always been like that’. And its stuff like that that you dont get on ao3 that kind of reaffirms how incredible of a writer you are.

And this (to me) makes you a really easy person to admire. (ik i touched on this in a different ask but i dont remember if it was one of my list asks or not) but as someone who probably isnt going to ever be able to get an education around writing, it kind of reassures me that i dont need that to be great at it.

(i kind of feel like a lot of the stuff in this ask is too like ‘simple’ or obvious to be given a lot of weight, but this whole thing is about the kinds of things you do that brings me personally joy and the metaphors are one of them so)

Also on an off note when i was looking through your asks to try to find my tag, I noticed that i send you a heavy percentage of your anonymous asks (mainly without my alias) and I thought that was funny. But also i hope it doesnt come across as obsessive or weird, I swear i do that to a lot of people on here, I’m just a very social person. .😂

Also Im in your tbos server (lurking in the shadows) and someone pointed out that whenever you do the reaction emojis you always do the white ones, and thats going on the official ‘my favorite things about hella’ list because that was genuinely one of the funniest things ive seen.

Also the ‘anytime you type its very fluid (im too lazy to scroll up and see how i put it rn) also carrys on to discord. I think that i could probably block out the user names and be able to figure out that its you talking every time, you have a very distinct way of talking.

Also i wanted to mention that every time you answer these i read them again and i want to say like 1/3 of what i sasy, i have no recollection of. And i never have any idea what im talking about. so i think thats funny.

LIST ANONNNNNNNNNNNNN BAWLING MY EYES OUT HELLO BABY WELCOME BACK FROM WAR IVE MISSED YOU IM JUST HERE LIKE THIS RN

#this is so something i needed to hear rn bc always during exam season i 'lose' my ability to write like even the writing i do get done #just feels so fucking stale and awful imo and i just have to force myself to push through or else ill have a crisis about it #so i started studying in DECEMBER and it's now almost february exams are done but i CANT get out of that mindset for some reason #like ive been in a really bad writing flunk where im ABLE to write but the stuff i do write just feels genuinely terrible #like im losing it about dog teeth atm bc this story i was so in love with just feels so basic and underwhelming on a reread #and idk how much of that is me being insane and perfectionist and how much is valid criticism #so being told that actually there are people who not only enjoy my writing but are so thoroughly convinced it's a fundamental part of me #and something i am inherently GOOD at to the point even the way i talk CASUALLY is telling of it is just. oughhh im pacing my room #and the fact it doesn't HAVE to be my pretentious prose shit sometimes the more 'basic' stuff is STILL good. you're in my walls #i cant believe you're in the discord i hope you say hi!!! i dont bite!!! <- lying #also those assholes can take my silly white emojis from my COLD DEAD HANDS. white thumbs down will never die #ask #list anon

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