#man's brotherless

[worstloki]

Someone posted a fake teaser trailer for a thor 5 and i think they should go to jail

and is the 'thor 5 teaser trailer' in the room with us right now?

[bones-of-a-rabbit]

The brotherless/what was taken au

Reader is an asshole. Snarky. Smartass. Rude for no reason. Just basically a prick. But there is something sincere abt them that Sun thinks is good. Moon likes the challenge, likes how stubborn and abrasive they are, but can tell that something has made them that way, the same way the virus made him into something different. Either way, both are curious about the reader, who seems equally as interested in them.

Takes place a few years (15? Maybe?) after Plex catches fire and closes permanently. Some unnamed company has dug out what was left behind and is messing around with the animatronics to see how damaged they are. Reader is hired for the Sun/Moon tasks. The company’s goal is to trace back what happened to the Plex, why it happened, and who was involved. When the project is done, the suitable animatronics (the ones cleared of the virus) will be given a chance to return to the world and carry on with whatever sort of life they wish, with close supervision for six months to a year to be sure they’re hospitable enough to live with the public.

Sun/Moon are kept in a square, bland as hell room with a big window on one side. This leads to an observation room where a staff member (reader) can talk to, interact with the animatronics without being close to them, and manage controls for the room. Sun/Moon are hooked up to a system by a series of chords that stretch from their back. These control them: turn them on and off, which parts of their body they can move, give short correctional shocks, basically can keep them easily under control and helpless. If they remove the chords, they power down immediately. There’s no way to get rid of the chords or ignore what they do.

Reader gives them simple tasks. “Pretend this teddy bear” a teddy bear is dropped into the room “is a distressed child. What do you do?” They ask them basic questions. “What were you built to do?” “What is 13 multiplied by 24?” “Why is the sky blue?” “Who created you?” Just testing their knowledge. What they know. About themselves, about the world. Sometimes they’re rude and play tricks on the animatronic for no reason. They don’t hurt them- just kind of push them around. Sun gets attached, with how Reader is, at heart, a jokester, and, when fixing any broken parts Sun/Moon are discovered to have, diligent and careful, making sure everything is as it should be, asking how they are feeling every step of the way.

Moon is still partially warped by the virus and rarely comes out. When he does, reader turns intense, borderline vicious, needles him and antagonizes him. They’ve got a fight to pick with him, it’s obvious, but neither Sun nor Moon can remember much from before the fire.

But reader went to the Plex as a child, often. And they remember everything.

-

Aka, reader is the older sibling of one of the kids Moon lured away, and even if it’s been years, that’s years they’ve spent seething and hurting, and they still want answers- and for Sun and Moon to regret what they did, and regret it properly

Also could be considered an unlikely enemies-to-tolerance-to-friends-to-confused-but-might-be-crushing relationship! Reader has always thought they knew what they’d do if they ever got the chance to make Moon pay for it all, but suddenly they’re here and he’s there and they’re both stupid and hurting and shells of themselves and neither is sure what they want anymore

[rogueshadeaux]

I’m in a meme making mood have this one too

[bloodmaarked]

➸ reading list

just added:

home fire, kamila shamsie

hits different, tasha ghouri + lizzie huxley-jones

someone who will love you in all your damaged glory, raphael bob-waksberg

how to solve your own murder, kristen perrin

the octopus man, jasper gibson

kim jiyoung, born 1982, cho nam-joo

brotherless night, v.v. ganeshananthan

gold rush, olivia petter

bittersweet, susan cain

beyond the door of no return, david diop

[fluentisonus]

okay okay but the thing with ariadne & the minotaur I'm thinking about is like. the minotaur is inside the labyrinth and she's outside of it. she doesn't see the minotaur and he doesn't see her but probably they both know each other exist. maybe they both wonder about each other. so what's making me chew on glass is that she sends theseus in, to a brother whose face she barely knows but still thinks about, and he kills him and the minotaur's gone, just like that, without her ever seeing him again, and just like that she's brotherless. And Then. thinking about This Line from ariadne's lament in catullus 64:

respersum iuuenem fraterna caede secuta

("following a young man spattered with my brother's blood")

which like. yes it's metaphorical but also thinking that possibly all she ever saw again was theseus walking out of the labyrinth dripping in her brother's blood. what it must be like to have a brother one moment and then not have anything of a brother except what's spattered across the face of a man who she's given everything up for and she's now supposed to kiss. aughhgbnghn

[amoritasart]

Why is there no war or conflicts in the Boiling Isles before Philip came into the picture?? I’m so confused?? Like everyone in the past was so nice ?? You telling me humans back home were suffering poverty, war, famine, killing and accusing each other of witchcraft, committing genocide against natives, but the witches had a whole utopia? Why did Evelyn even take interest in such a place?? You telling me tween Philip single-handedly introduced evil to an entire civilization?? A random fatherless, motherless, brotherless man took over an entire world full of beings that naturally have immense power, no one else ever even tried to abuse this natural born power ever ??

[ten-cent-sleuth]

I have just finished Chapter 10 of Northanger Abbey. Some thoughts:

I kind of wish I had read this book first out of Jane Austen’s works, if only because I would have related to Catherine more

since I’m mostly familiar with Pride and Prejudice and Emma and Persuasion, and a little knowledgeable of Sense and Sensibility, (I have yet to even touch Mansfield yet, I am so sorry) I was immediately like what the heck do you mean Catherine’s got a brother

who is this man?? what is he doing here???

I’ve read too many P&P fics,,, the state of being brotherless is just so ingrained into the story conflicts and character dynamics in my head, whoops

Mr Thorpe was annoying from the first, and he has only gotten on my nerves even more (and do I smell a fortune hunter??)

Isabella is also hmm

at first I was leery of her and Catherine’s friendship because of how she’s older and more polished; I was sceptical of the sincerity of how quickly they seemed to get attached

also I get the vibe that she’s hiding something from Catherine (has she met Tilney before…?)

but if she’s really James’s love interest, then I see her as more harmless; more of a disappointment, less of a threat, I guess?

still absolutely relieved Catherine’s not overly attached to her now though

Miss Tilney intrigues me

I like her so far

might be my favourite character but we’ll see we’ll see

Mr Tilney also intrigues me but less decisively of a favourable bent

I’m kinda suspicious but idrk why

tryna withhold judgement since he hasn’t actually done anything sus yet (that I can think of)

plus I genuinely enjoy his and Catherine’s tête-à-têtes

so mostly on the fence

I am most curious about General Tilney, idk why but he is piquing my interest

the exposition about the late Mrs Tilney seems very deliberate

the whole family is just intriguing I s’pose ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

loving the writing, unsurprisingly

I put off Northanger for a long time because I hadn’t expected it to be as lighthearted as it is due to some reviews I’d read but

there do be plenty of funny parts

and of course Miss Austen’s characteristic wit is ubiquitous <3

Please forgive me for any egregious mistakes, I am no literary academic and cannot spot themes or symbols or meta details for my life. 🙏🏽🙏🏽

[the-owl-house-takes]

I was scrolling many random posts and one of them said that belos is actually fatherless, motherless and brotherless petty wrinkled man lmao.

I love belos (as a villain), but holy shoot this realisation made me laugh so much for some reason help😭😭😭

-

[thedosianexplorer]

1 for each, for Evaine Hawke!

ahahahahahaha yes enable me with the DAII brainrot, it only strengthens me <3

Rest under the cut!

Eros 1: Is your OC romantic in the traditional sense? Do they enjoy giving or receiving gifts of flowers or confectionery? Or are there other courtship traditions from their culture of origin that are important to them?

She would give it a try if she were more inclined to spend money on ‘frivolous’ things. Evie has a hard time remembering that she has Money now because most of it exists on pieces of paper Varric wrote up and sent somewhere important and poverty habits are hard to break. She wouldn’t ask for flowers or chocolate, though she can get some on the cheap. She’s pretty sure she owns part of a bakery, either that or she always gets free pastry there because she smuggled some Orlesian caster sugar or something to them back in the day. When she was poor in Ferelden she could pick flowers in a field and give them to someone special to remember her by. Gifts of flowers are too much like a goodbye for her since she moved so often. Now that she’s rich in Kirkwall (allegedly, according to Varric) it seems absurd to spend gold on fleeting gifts when she could get Fenris something he actually needs. If she’s going to give him a bundle of plants it’s going to be in the form of a healing potion because the jackass (affectionate) ran headlong into danger again.

When not chucking elfroot and spindleweed concoctions in Fenris’s direction, she prefers to spend her time with him, rather than her coin.

Philia 1: Does your OC have a Best Friend? If they do then how long have they known each other and how did they meet? If they don't then do they have a close group of friends they love equally? Or are they more of a loner?

Evie has heard the story of how famed author Varric Tethras met the Champion of Kirkwall, boldly pinning a pickpocket to the wall and offering the job that changed it all, but that isn’t how Evie met her best friend. Sure, something like that happened but back then he was a dwarf with a job, like many other Carta affiliates Evie knew. Things changed the first time they met up at the Hanged Man. Against her better judgment Evie opened up for the first time about coming to Kirkwall and losing Bethany. Against his better judgment Varric told her about his parents. Brothers were always a sore subject but easier acknowledged with pints of genuinely terrible ale. When the Hawke estate had been won but ownership tied up in legal proceedings and Gamlen’s apartment became too stale and resentful and cramped, Varric let her stay with him in the Hanged Man. She wouldn’t let him pay for a room of her own; she was saving up for that expedition and she didn’t want another expense on her ledger. She slept on the floor and better than she ever had at Gamlen’s. She never stayed a night there again. Months later she walked back into the Hanged Man, brotherless with the last of the lyrium-dusted mud in her boots and her mother’s sobs ringing in her ears. She could have left then with enough money to buy a house in Denerim, but she went to Varric’s room instead. What they talked about in the ensuing weeks stayed between them but his place in her heart was secured.

Storge 1: Did your OC's parents love them unconditionally? If so then has this helped them feel confident as an adult? If not then how has this affected them? What were the conditions their family attached to their relationship?

The Hawkes loved each other, and they loved their eldest daughter very much. They only had each other on the road and a limited network of trusted folk who helped them move around the country. They had to be everything for each other and sometimes that meant the twins needed a mother when Leandra and Malcolm worked in the fields. Sometimes Leandra needed a friend and Malcolm an accomplice. Leandra loved her eldest daughter so much she taught her how to keep her face calm in the Chantry and on the street, how to ingratiate, how to lie, especially since the twins were too young and she already had such a talent for it. Malcolm loved his eldest daughter so much he taught her how to make a fire, how to whistle up a wind, how to suddenly make a pursuer’s footsteps as heavy as lead. Most importantly, he taught her to spot silver-and-blue armor, and with it the face of the Rivaini man whose arrival in Denerim heralded their flight from the city. Wardens are more trouble than they’re worth and their affairs too dangerous for a family of apostates.

Others would say that keeping one mage child, let alone two, was the height of folly. Templars could as soon cut down an entire family harboring apostates to prevent possession as they could take everything- children, gold, horses- in exchange for Andraste’s mercy. But Malcolm and Leandra loved their eldest daughter, and because of that love they were sure to impress on Evie how important it was that she never, ever prove those people right.

Agape 1: Does your OC wish to make the world a better place? How far do they see that as being their responsibility? What lengths would they go to in order to help achieve this?

Evie is the definition of “introvirtuous”: someone who would rather be home drinking tea and working on a hobby but instead is patching a broken city back together one chipped piece of masonry at a time because no one else could be arsed apparently. She wants to live in a world where people can worship as they choose (or don’t), and being a Fereldan born with magic doesn’t mean being consigned to legal slavery* and she doesn’t have to worry about her friends’ lives every waking minute. Unfortunately that’s going to involve sacrificing her home, health, and too many lives that aren’t her own. After a life on the run she might go down swinging but she has to try.

*the Chantry takes control of properties owned by mages, controls their reproductive freedom, restricts their movements, profits off their unpaid labor by creating a group of lobotomized magic specialists to enchant goods for wealthy donors, and can force them into battle for the interests of Church and State. Don’t know what the fuck else to call it honestly.

Ludus 1: Does your OC have any particular favourite chat up lines? If not for themselves then perhaps ones they have suggested to a friend? How effective do these tend to be?

Does meeting your future husband while on the drunker side of tipsy and then yelling, “FUCK!” really loud when he rips a man’s heart out of his chest count? Isabela thinks it’s the best line she’s heard actually, since it gets the point across in a single word.

Evie disagrees. As far as she’s concerned pick-up lines are not for her, but she does enjoy workshopping lines with Varric and the rest of the gang. Prospective lines (ranging from ambitious to crude to outright grotesque) are jotted down on parchment, folded up, and then Varric’s victims friends and trusted quality control team take turns drawing one and delivering it with utmost sincerity (first to laugh buys the next round) to the judges, Varric and Isabela. Winner is whoever goes the longest without cracking up and they gets to decide which line makes it into a future Varric Tethras novel. Evie is extremely pleased with herself for the hard work and sacrifice it took to ensure Varric had to employ the phrase, “blubbering tumescence” in Swords and Shields.

Pragma 1: Is your OC in a committed long-term relationship (or relationships)? If so then what has contributed to this relationship lasting so well? If they are not in such a relationship, then is this something that saddens them or which they regret?

Evie met Fenris when she thought her days of running were behind her. She took to him immediately, well, after the initial surprise (see above). He wasn’t happy to see a mage extending a helping hand but then he didn’t turn her over to the Templars, so she decided to keep an eye on her soon-to-be neighbor in Hightown. If slavers were operating openly in what was again her family home then he’d need all the help he could get. He was tired of running, and Evie found herself looking at Kirkwall in a new light. If she was going to encourage him to make a home for himself here then she would have to take her own advice. Somewhere between surviving the Deep Roads, staking out potential hide-outs, and cleaning out the corpses of his new home, she made a friend. That friendship balanced on the simple truth that they looked out for each other. Some years after weathering every heartbreak Kirkwall heaped on it (with plenty of help from both of them), the jagged edges smoothed out into a love they took with them on the road.

Philautia 1: Does your OC have a healthy sense of their own worth and value? Or do they see themselves as failing to live up to their original potential? Perhaps they are convinced of their own sinful or inadequate nature?

Evie’s family and the overwhelming Chantry presence in Southern Thedas raced neck-and-neck to see which group could fuck up Evie’s self-worth the fastest. That’s how it feels at least. Growing up an apostate meant that the only “potential” discussed in conversations too easy to overhear was the potential for disaster. Her father shared the burden with his daughters at best he could but while Bethany prayed for the Maker to remove a curse, Evie was thankful for a connection to the world around her she couldn’t imagine being without. Not being sorry for it in a society that wanted her freedom in apology left her with a broken pride. When Evie is at her most depressed the currents of those past conversations drag her down. It’s hard sharing her achievements with the empty chairs at the table.

[menaceintheworld]

L + don’t care + didn’t ask + cry about it + who asked + stay mad + get real + bleed + mald seethe cope harder + dilate + incorrect + hoes mad + pound sand + basic skill issue + typo + ur dad left + you fell off + no u + the audacity + triggered + repelled + ur a minor + k. + any askers + get a life + ok and? + cringe + copium + go outside + touch grass + kick rocks + quote tweet + think again + not based + not funny didn’t laugh + social credits -999, 999, 999, 999 + get good + reported + ad hominem + ok boomer + small pp + ur allergic to sunlight + GG! + get rekt + trolled + your loss + muted + banned + kicked + permaban + useless + i slept with ur mom + yo momma + yo momma so fat + redpilled + no bitches allowed + i said it better + tiktok fan + get a life + unsubscribed + plundered + go tell reddit + donowalled + simp + get sticked bug LOL + talk nonsense + trump supporter + your’re a full time discord mod + you’re* + grammar issue + nerd + get clapped + kys + lorem ipsum dolor sit amet + go outside + bleach + lol + gay + retard + autistic + reported + ask deez + ez clap + straight cash + idgaf + ratio again + stay mad + read FAQ + youre lost + you “re” + stay pressed + reverse double take back + pedophile + cancelled + done for + don't give a damn + get a job + sus + baka + sussy baka + get blocked + mad free + freer than air + furry + rip bozo + you're a (insert stereotype) + slight_smile + aired + cringe again + Super Idol的笑容 + mad cuz bad + my pronouns are xe, xem & xyr + irrelevant + deal with it + screencapped your bio + karen/kyle + jealous + you're deaf + balls + i'll be right back + go ahead whine about it + not straight + eat paper + you lose + count to three + your problem + no one cares + log off + don't care even more + sex offender + sex defender + get religion + not okay + glhf + NFT owner + you make bad memes + problematic + fall in line + dog water + you look like a wall + you don’t know 2 + 2 with yo head ass + you are going to my cringe compilation + you can’t count to five + try again + you failed kindergarten + rickrolled + no lifer + guten freunden schickt man einen deutschen panzer + you have a anime profile picture + an* + fatherless + motherless + sisterless + brotherless + orphan + you can't catch this ratio + catch some bitches + I don't care about your opinion + genshin player + you dress like garbage + 日本語がお上手ですね + get fucked + you can’t understand what the word intelligence means with your dumb ass + you have hair + queued + put some thought into what you're going to do with that + stfu + go to bed + yes, i'm taller than you + i think your joke is funny + i rejected your mother's advances + marooned + you can’t read + I win + final ratio

I just squashed my bitty from how mad I am.

[mishimaflatulence]

L + don’t care + didn’t ask + cry about it + who asked + stay mad + get real + bleed + mald seethe cope harder + dilate + incorrect + hoes mad + pound sand + basic skill issue + typo + ur dad left + you fell off + no u + the audacity + triggered + repelled + ur a minor + k. + any askers + get a life + ok and? + cringe + copium + go outside + touch grass + kick rocks + quote tweet + think again + not based + not funny didn’t laugh + social credits -999, 999, 999, 999 + get good + reported + ad hominem + ok boomer + small pp + ur allergic to sunlight + GG! + get rekt + trolled + your loss + muted + banned + kicked + permaban + useless + i slept with ur mom + yo momma + yo momma so fat + redpilled + no bitches allowed + i said it better + tiktok fan + get a life + unsubscribed + plundered + go tell reddit + donowalled + simp + get sticked bug LOL + talk nonsense + trump supporter + your’re a full time discord mod + you’re* + grammar issue + nerd + get clapped + kys + lorem ipsum dolor sit amet + go outside + bleach + lol + gay + retard + autistic + reported + ask deez + ez clap + straight cash + idgaf + ratio again + stay mad + read FAQ + youre lost + you “re” + stay pressed + reverse double take back + pedophile + cancelled + done for + don't give a damn + get a job + sus + baka + sussy baka + get blocked + mad free + freer than air + furry + rip bozo + you're a (insert stereotype) + slight_smile + aired + cringe again + Super Idol的笑容 + mad cuz bad + my pronouns are xe, xem & xyr + irrelevant + deal with it + screencapped your bio + karen/kyle + jealous + you're deaf + balls + i'll be right back + go ahead whine about it + not straight + eat paper + you lose + count to three + your problem + no one cares + log off + don't care even more + sex offender + sex defender + get religion + not okay + glhf + NFT owner + you make bad memes + problematic + fall in line + dog water + you look like a wall + you don’t know 2 + 2 with yo head ass + you are going to my cringe compilation + you can’t count to five + try again + you failed kindergarten + rickrolled + no lifer + guten freunden schickt man einen deutschen panzer + you have a anime profile picture + an* + fatherless + motherless + sisterless + brotherless + orphan + you can't catch this ratio + catch some bitches + I don't care about your opinion + genshin player + you dress like garbage + 日本語がお上手ですね + get fucked + you can’t understand what the word intelligence means with your dumb ass + you have hair + queued + put some thought into what you're going to do with that + stfu + go to bed + yes, i'm taller than you + i think your joke is funny + i rejected your mother's advances + marooned + you can’t read + I win + final ratio

I'm logging off of this account I can't do this.

-Kai

[julieverne]

Tommy Rizzoli killed Colin Doyle. Went to his big detective sister for help. Jane covered it up.

Maura Doyle was sent to find Tommy. She was, after all, a doctor as well as her father's right hand man. Her calculating brain always had her one step ahead of the law. Frankie was immune to her charms, but over days, weeks, months of flirting, Jane melted.

They made love. It was tender and soft and Jane fell asleep, woke handcuffed to a radiator. Maura held a scalpel.

Jane didn't break. Didn't betray her brother. A brother for a brother leaves the world brotherless, Jane told Maura, who almost smiled.

A call came through. They'd found him. He'd been exterminated. Maura normally wasn't compelled by human emotion, but Jane's weeping touched her somehow.

She had intended to leave Jane pinned to the floor, a scalpel through each palm. But to waste hands like that would be a sin against a deity she didn't believe in, so instead she left her huddled, cuffed to the radiator again.

"Paybacks's a bitch," Maura said, closing her medical bag. She was to start a new job tomorrow. Medical Examiner. Pointing the blame away from the family when the bodies turned up. Her family accepted her for who she was. Someone who didn't mind this sort of work. She stepped forward, brushed the sweaty, blood-matted hair from Jane's face, watching Jane's tear-stained eyes avoid her. "And so am I," Maura added, almost regretfully, before turning and leaving the basement.

She waited one day before calling in a disturbance at the abandoned house she'd left Jane in. She was supposed to wait two, but it was the only kindness she could offer to someone who'd offered the only kindness Maura had ever known.

+++

I don't normally go dark and I don't want to play with this any more. Just read a book that ruined my day so take a mobdaughter!Maura AU.

[thebiscuiteternal]

I have a prompt I'd love to throw your way for the jam:

MDZS/Untamed post-canon SangYao, another character (e.g. WWX or a snooping Junior) discovers that NHS has a little shrine/memorial nook set aside with JGY's hat, a lovingly painted portrait by NHS, and whatever other accoutrements strike your fancy (e.g. maybe a journal NHS writes in every day where he 'speaks' to JGY) that make it obvious the relationship SangYao once had. What they do with that is up to you, I just thought it would be fun (and potentially heartbreaking)

After thinking about it a bit, I've decided that I'm gonna set this in the same timeline as this one, so Jin Ling already knows that things between Nie Huaisang and Jin Guangyao were a lot less simple than everyone would like to believe, but he didn't know they were in a relationship at some point. Mixed canon, as per my usual.

------------

~ I suppose I should be angry. Would it be easier for you that way? For me to roar and rage about broken promises the way Da-ge does instead of hiding away in tears?

Well, I can't. Just like I can't say I never saw this coming. As soon as I saw you in the Nightless City, I knew I had been set aside for someone better and more acceptable in numerous ways.

Before I even fell for you, I knew I would never be good enough.

So I can't be angry.

But will you be angry with me if I am too ill to travel the day of the wedding? I promise to send extra gifts in my stead, and to try to send Da-ge in a good mood. ~

---

Jin Ling frowned as he closed up the letter and laid it back among the dozens of other letters and notes and drawings from Nie Huaisang that his shushu had been keeping in an unassuming little box hidden deep within the protected room where all his other most closely guarded secrets were held.

It was dated a solid two years before Nie Mingjue had die- been killed, but even though he didn't remember the wedding itself, he knew from records that Jin Guangyao and Qin Su had married after the murder and Nie Huaisang had attended as sect leader and representative.

Had he already tracked down any of Jin Guangyao's secrets by then?

Jin Ling doubted that. Surely there would have been more mention of him other than the guest list if he'd made a commotion, as Jin Ling had discovered many, many records of indescretions by assorted cultivators and outside nobles and merchants that could have been used as blackmail as he went through the contents of the room.

And some of them had been about Nie Huaisang. Jin Guangshan had found it almost disturbingly amusing to catalogue the apparent downward spiral of his hated rival's little brother.

So if there weren't any from the wedding... no, whatever had been going on then must have been genuine.

Knowing what he knew now from having talked to Nie Huaisang and read everything he'd found in the treasure room, Jin Ling could only feel an aching sort of pity for everyone involved except his yeye.

His shenshen, not having any idea what horrors were lurking behind her happy day.

Qin-furen, knowing what she was unwillingly allowing.

Nie Huaisang, newly brotherless and forced into the role of playing smiling wedding guest as the man he loved married someone else.

He even felt sorry for his shushu. It must have been miserable trapped under the weight of his mistakes and the what-might-have-beens.

Wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand, Jin Ling leaned back against the wall and let out a long sigh.

Unlike the blackmail records -burned- and the demonic cultivation notes -given to his shijiu- and a number of other things he'd already gone through, he wasn't sure what to do with these.

They were far too personal to just be put back on the shelf, and yet-

He considered possibly giving them to Nie Huaisang, but he didn't know if that would be an insult. The other sect leader had been surprisingly kind to him in helping him sort out his grief over several talks and exchanges of letters, and Jin Ling didn't want to wind up pouring salt in an old wound.

But it felt wrong to simply get rid of them, and he couldn't think of any better place for them to go.

---

Though he couldn't go anywhere he pleased with impunity like his shushu once had, Jin Ling had discovered during his visits that he still had a surprising amount of freedom in the Unclean Realms. Whether it was because most of the disciples and staff still looked at him as a kid, or because Nie Huaisang allowed it as a side effect of their personal discussions, he didn't know.

But he wasn't going to complain about it right now.

His original intent had been to leave the box in Nie Huaisang's library or somewhere similar, but then he'd remembered That Room.

The one situated in the same hallway as the sect leader's room and Nie Huaisang's old room, that his shushu had indicated he'd lived in when he'd been part of the sect.

The one Jin Ling had never seen anyone else living in even when he was small, not even the current second in command.

Hoping he wasn't about to get himself in deep trouble for snooping, he tested the door latch and found it opened easily, as if it hadn't gathered any dust in the years since his shushu had left.

Carefully, he peeked inside.

Though most of the furniture was gone, a hefty three piece writing desk and a cabinet remained.

At first, he thought they'd been taken directly from his shushu's office, they were so similar. But as he looked closer, running his fingers over the wood, he found a few differences.

The beast head of Qinghe Nie adorned the drawer and door pulls, for one. The desk was missing the place where he'd accidentally nicked it with a toy sword. The spots where Rusong had tried to chew on the edge while teething weren't there.

This, he realized, must have been his shushu's desk and cabinet when he was still Meng Yao. A welcome gift from his sect leader and young master.

And Jin Guangyao had had it replicated more according to Lanling tastes when he'd moved.

Oh... things really had been complicated between them, hadn't they?

Curiosity overtook him, and he couldn't stop himself from looking in the drawers and cabinets one by one.

A hat that he couldn't bear to see for more than the time it took to open and then quickly shut the drawer. A set of finely made brushes. Some fresh notebooks. A set of beautifully-designed green and gold robes that had likely never been worn.

A painting of his shushu, looking younger and smiling brighter than Jin Ling had ever seen him.

Other bits and pieces he didn't understand the meanings of.

And, finally, a carved wooden box.

Jin Ling found himself relieved by that particular discovery, knowing immediately what had to be inside without even opening it. Taking the box he'd brought with him out of the pouch he'd stored it in, he carefully laid it down next to the one already there.

Then slipped out of the little mausoleum-of-sorts back to his room.

---

Jin Ling looked up from his breakfast to find Nie Huaisang staring at him over the rim of his teacup.

For a moment, he froze, afraid he was about to get laid into for his nighttime sneaking.

But Nie Huaisang merely tilted his head in acknowledgment, then went back to his tea.

And Jin Ling couldn't help but grin before taking his next bite.

[tadpal]

1, 2, 3 for the asks :)

1. what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are?

i answered this here as well and i got super long winded with it so this time ill try to be brief!

my brothers (which if i was feeling cheeky i could just go One Two And Three three brothers three things:) but i wont) it's actually very weird to me that rn all of my friends are brotherless individuals. what do you mean no brothers... no brother real?

then probably my old guard dogs growing up! i written a bunch of shitty poems about them bc they were such a pair: a german shepherd who even when he had arthritis and multiple poorly healed leg breaks (neighbors horse on our property) he would still toddle out with me to keep me safe and a chow who was genuinely feared im the neighbourhood for her Viciousness. her favourite place to lie was under a huge thorn bush. she actively hunted a deer once. something something the lines between guardianship and ownership and violence and love. all intersecting i would say. love those old dudes

and then maybe. reading the hitchhiker's guide to galaxy aged eight. man that fucked up my use language forever and ever and im still not recovered.

2. show us a picture of your handwriting?

description in alt text!

3. 3 films you could watch for the rest of your life and not get bored of?

uhhhh man probably unfortunately emma 2020 - if we're only counting films. if we can also count tv then swap this for emma 2009. man this is tough bc i have immediately forgotten all movies but maybe the two towers extended edition? it's my favourite of the lotr movies and i feel like they deserve a shoutout considering. and then honestly Kung Fu Panda. feels good feels right for me

[makerofmadness]

aight so uh. I have So Much To Say about The Darkest Night it's unreal (THEY GAVE ZOMBIE COOKIE A VOICE I DON'T THINK THEY'VE HAD ONE BEFORE???????? IT GOT A VOICE I'M SO PROUD-). And I'm not even done watching the video but like Oh My God there's so much brainrot stuff and all the crap I've screenshotted is just Alchemist-related dkskksksksksksm.

but now I'm wondering if Vampire still exists in this game's universe 'cus so far he has yet to be even mentioned and like. Man if this version of Alchemist specially is brotherless-

Anyway I'll refrain from posting until I'm done watching that video but like. THEY GAVE ALCH LORE I REPEAT SHE HAS LORE-