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tywrites · 2 years

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every time i close my eyes (i see your face) | ryan erzahler

request: hello! can i req a fic where reader and ryan are in a relationship but they get nightmares and reader goes to his cabin asking for comfort and stuff, i’m not really sure but something like that :))

a/n: okay so i tweaked this quite a lot since i got ~inspired~ but i hope you enjoy it! i decided to set it after everything happened at the quarry <3 feedback is always appreciated thank u mwah

pairing: ryan erzahler x gen!reader

summary: when you get intense nightmares, ryan is always there to comfort you

word count: 1,013

warnings: teeny bit of angst if u squint

You were running. Sprinting through the Hackett house, trying desperately to find an escape. You'd lost Laura and Ryan. All you could see around you was door after door, leading you further into the house. You didn't dare to look back. Panting, you turned a corner, sliding to a halt when you see a large, deformed figure in the centre of the room.

It growled, low and deep. Standing up on it's hind-legs, it approached you, stomping with force. You were rooted to the spot.

Chris Hackett towered over you in his werewolf form, it's razor canines glinting in the moonlight. Thick drool dripped from it's mouth as it stared you down, it's piercing yellow eyes looking through you. You felt frozen.

You couldn't move.

It prepared to attack.

You couldn't move.

A claw slashed at your neck. Teeth latched onto your shoulder. Flesh ripped from bone.

You couldn't move.

You jolted awake, forcing your eyes open. Panting, you desperately tried to breathe, your breathing jagged and disjointed. You laid there – cold sweat clinging to your skin, your pyjamas pasted to your body. It was suffocating. Trembling, you attempted to sit up in your soaking sheets, cautiously sliding out of them. You sat on the edge of your bed, squinting in the darkness. Your night light glowed next to your bed, lighting up your bedside table. You stared at it, eyes going out of focus.

Breathe. One, two, three, four. Breathe. Repeat.

After steadying your breath, you quickly turned on your bedside lamp.

Each time you closed your eyes, all you could see was that thing standing over you. You couldn't get those eyes out of your head. But at least you didn't wake up screaming this time.

You felt lucky that you didn't have a room mate in your college dorm. Though the "special circumstances" that convinced the school to allow it definitely didn't feel lucky. But it would just be too embarrassing to constantly wake your room mate up in the middle of the night with your nightmares. Well, you considered them to be more like flashbacks.

Your hand automatically reached for your phone before pausing. You sighed.

You really didn't want to bother Ryan again. Especially on finals week. You already felt like enough of a burden to your boyfriend, you didn't want to be the cause of a subpar grade on an exam.

In reality, you knew he wouldn't mind. He'd want you to call him rather than wallowing in it. But it was 4am and he had to get up at 8. You went back and forth in your head, but a suspicious noise outside quickly had you dialling his number.

It rang twice before he picked up.

"Hey, you okay?"

Just the sound of his voice made you feel significantly more at ease.

"I'm sorry if I woke you, I just... I had another," you said quietly.

"No, no, don't worry. You didn't wake me. I couldn't sleep..."

There was a short silence. You heard shuffling on the other end as Ryan got out of his bed.

"Do you want to come over?" He said. "And no, you're not bothering me. Honestly, I could use the company too,"

You smiled. "You sure?"

"Just get over here."

You giggled to yourself before throwing some new pyjamas on that weren't caked in sweat, pulling a coat on over them. The walk to Ryan's was short, his dorm room only being a few buildings away from yours. Very convenient honestly. Like you, the school had made an exception for him in regards to having a room mate. Not that it mattered since you ended up sleeping over enough for you to count as a room mate.

Once you'd gotten to his room, you entered, knowing it would be open already. Ryan was inside, sitting up on his bed. He immediately stood, walking over to wrap you in a hug. His hugs really were the best. He pressed gentle kisses to your neck as he held you, his hands making soothing motions up and down your sides. No words were needed.

Eventually, he guided you to the bed, pulling the covers back and helping you in. When you were both tucked under the soft covers, he pulled you to his chest, your head just under his chin. You closed your eyes, savouring the moment. There was no werewolf waiting for you on the inside of your eyelids. Just a comforting darkness. You fiddled with the fingers on his hand, occasionally pressing gentle kisses to each one.

This had become a part of your nightly routine. Honestly, Ryan was the only thing keeping you sane at college. You weren't even planning on going before finding out that Ryan was. He said he wanted to get as far away from Hackett's Quarry as possible, which you could definitely understand. Leaving his sister with his grandparents was a difficult decision for him to make, but he knew it would be for the best. He needed to figure out his own life.

You'd gotten into the same college, different majors but you were still close by if the other needed you. It wasn't co-dependence but after living through the same experience, you just understood each other. Way more than the school counsellor did – she was a nice lady but she was way out of her league when it came to your trauma.

You pressed yourself closer to his chest, nuzzling into the warmth he radiated. The haunting experience was always in the back of your mind, it would never go away. But it considerably lessened when you were with Ryan.

"Try to get some sleep, okay? We can talk about it in the morning if you want," he said quietly, his hand gently stroking your hair. You could feel yourself drifting off already.

"Thank you," you mumbled. "I don't know what I'd do without you,"

"You probably wouldn't get much sleep," he chuckled.

You smiled to yourself, leaning up to kiss him softly. "I love you. So much,"

"I love you too, angel. Now sleep."

#the quarry imagine #the quarry x reader

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kenobihater · 3 years

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(I hope u dont mind me sending this as an ask i was gon do a reply but it ended up being long ;o;) idk if this classifies as romanticization but i love stories or hcs where witcher mutations are a bit more otherifying than we see in canon - such as changes in blood color/viscosity, maybe muscles that are anatomically different than nonmutated humans/elves, and the fangs like you said - the closer they hit Uncanny Valley the better. mainly because i think that its a little cheap that witchers look exactly like a normal human/elf (besides the eyes, depending on the canon, since i think in the books they keep their normal coloring - geral's eyes are described as "dark" often enough for that at least). visualizing the trauma inherent to witcherhood and making the metaphorical stripping of humanity/personhood manifest physically just Hits Harder, yanno?

and also i absolutely adore stories/settings/hc that actually acknowledge the witchers' enhanced senses and apply them realistically. cause like, we don't really know how far their hearing stretches, for example (at least i can't recall any specific details) but I think it's mentioned that witchers can hear heartbeats well enough. so they could easily be overwhelmed by sound even in a room so still and quiet that a normal person could hear a pin drop, simply because living beings are within that room - how difficult it must be for them to sleep in human settlements or share barracks freshly after the trial of the grasses when nobody speaks yet everyone is defeaned by their hearts and lungs and blood thundering in their eats. and hell, stomachs make lots of sounds that we can't usually hear - the witcher probably have a front row seat to all the fucked up noises all bodies make.

i dunno why i sent all that besides wanting to start a discussion to hear your opinions on it so i am a) sorry for bursting into your ask box like that and also b),,,,could you,,,,Rant About Things?? like both the whole discussion that prompted this and also whatever thoughts you have about witchers bc i love that (once again i am sorry)

i love getting asks, don't apologize! this is gonna be a disjointed and rambly response, so heads up for that lol! firstly, yeah, idk if that counts as romanticization, but i love the trope of a more heightened otherness too, and that's the kind of romanticization (if you wanna call it that) that i enjoy! anything that really makes them not quite human really helps to, as you said, stress the changes both mental and physical they go through during the trials.

secondly, yeah, acknowledgement of enhanced senses is totally my jam. i struggle to remember to do this in fics sometimes, but i've been getting better about it because it's just such a cool concept, yanno? balancing the right amount of enhanced senses in writing kind of reminds me how in my star wars fics i had to learn to acknowledge the force as a baseline sense for my force-sensitive characters. it's there, but you don't want to draw undue attention to it that would distract from the story. you want to use it to enhance, not hinder your plot, but it is important to recognize when it could actually be a detriment to the story you're telling and allude to that in the text (like, for example, in one of my upcoming fics i have someone lie to lambert and he mentally acknowledges it's a lie bc he can hear her heartbeat, but doesn't call her out on it for a reason. if i didn't acknowledge his superhearing now with the lie but bring it up later, it could ring false to the reader).

also, in the same vein of enhanced senses those are all wonderful points! sensory overload is something i occasionally experience and it is a cruel bitch, so having that due to enhanced senses all the time, and you're unable to turn it off and just have to learn to live with it and tune things out? oh, it's so good!

thank you for sending the ask, and also you're offering me free rein to rant? thank you! currently, the only thing i feel i could rant about is how psychosis is treated in the fandom by non-psychotics, particularly in regards to cat witchers.

you can't just decide to go the route of writing them as psychotics and then just go "oh yeah, this character is psychotic :)" and NOT elaborate properly! that's literally like saying "oh yeah, this character has Symptoms of a Disease" and not fucking telling us what disease they have! because at the end of the day, that's exactly what psychosis is - a symptom for several different diseases! usually, the only elaboration fic writers do is going "ooooh, they have psychosis so they are Evil and Violent now" which, i cannot overstate this enough, is the single worst misconception about psychotic people i know of, one that has real life repercussions for psychotic people and has caused untold pain and suffering. putting this dangerous misinformation into your fics because you want to write a character as Edgy and Morally Bankrupt and blame it on the psychosis is fucking disgusting, and if anyone reading this does this you owe me and every other psychotic person in the fandom $50.

also, i don't like the take that mutagens can cause people to be psychotic. to my knowledge, drug-induced psychosis is possible, but isn't permanent, meaning even if the cat mutagens caused acute psychosis in the people receiving them, it wouldn't last more than maybe a few months, and while it could trigger an underlying, latent mental disorder, it could not create one. there's no such thing as injecting someone with fantasy steroids and accidentally giving them bipolar disorder (because it's always bipolar, when the writers do deign to name it). brain damage is another thing entirely and can cause personality changes, but i don't know nearly enough about it to talk about it with confidence.

bottom line, if you're non-psychotic and wanna write psychotic cat witchers, do your research, don't imply the mutagens did it, don't act like their psychosis is linked with their violent tendencies, and really think about why you want to write the characters that are almost entirely referred to as evil and morally bankrupt (except for lambert about aiden) as psychotic. psychotic people can write whatever they want, hell, i'm writing aiden as bipolar, but the difference is i'm doing it to see myself in the character and i'm also not implying he's unhinged and violent. i don't speak for all psychotic people, but those are just my two cents on something in the witcher fandom that REALLY irks me, and i think i'm gonna write up an actual proper post on it. thank you for letting me rant, i really needed this because i'm Fed Up lmao!

#len answers #non-psychotics don't clown on this post or i will simply block you. this includes mentally ill but not psychotic ppl! don't speak over me!#long post #len's meta

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limitlessgojo · 3 years

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Blood Bound: Red Strings of Fate (Ch 10)

Warnings: Action, Coarse Language, Fighting, Descriptions of Blood

Previous Chapter: Wait For Me

Next Chapter: Kyoto-Tokyo Goodwill Event

Tags: Soulmates AU, Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Fem!Reader

Taglist: @lessie-oxj @rizzo-nero @whoreuc @fkngkumiko @isl3t @gojoussunglasses @onepotatostand-blog @s-t-f-u-b-i-t-c-h @sunaswife

Notes: If you want to be tagged for every update, please mention it in the comments below ty <3

We are halfway through the story~ I never planned for this to be over 40k😅 but I've added some integral scenes in the later chapters. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 10: Invisible Ties

You couldn't sleep at all the few nights that followed. Mai and the others noticed your fatigue. They worriedly asked about you and let you cuddle into them and nap when you had some free time.

Miwa even let's you stay with her in her room at times, and it does help for a bit, but you don't want to bother them. And something was telling you it wasn't just regular fatigue.

You sometimes zone out in class and could barely stay awake during physical training. Eventually, you consulted Utahime about your possible insomnia.

You had a feeling it was tied to your feeling of unrest over your soulmate bond. It didn't help that your soulmark was stinging and all your heart wanted was to be with Noritoshi. There was a strong sense of unease over this bond.

You pulled down your sleeve to reveal the mark on your wrist flashing madly like a broken stoplight. You groaned and shoved your face into your pillow.

You've taken to wrapping a black velvet ribbon on it during the day, to not attract attention. If this light flashing keeps up, you might have to use a thicker fabric.

◇◇◇

Noritoshi was feeling the same uneasiness you did. He tried to shake it off and act as natural as he could around you, but even he was still shook at how quickly your negative emotions transmitted over the bond.

He was in his room and it was past 11. He tried to get to sleep, but found that he couldn’t so he tried studying. He was actually distracted for once, looking over his desk at the soulmate record and diaries of Hotaru and found himself reading them.

◇◇◇

On the other hand, you were restless in your room.

"I shouldn't bother Noritoshi senpai but..." You glanced over at your clock. 12:06am. Just past midnight, he was surely asleep. And yet you found yourself grabbing your pillow and blankets, and quietly making your way to his dorm room.

It was as if your body was moving under the command of your red strings. Pulling you back to the man who was responsible for messing you up like this.

You stood outside for a good 5 minutes, contemplating on whether or not you should knock. You haven't had a proper sleep in nights and it is starting to show in your studies.

Finally, you decided to quietly knock a few times. A beat passed and there was no response. You were about to walk away when the door opened. He was awake to your surprise.

He was in his dark navy Kimono, hair wrappings undone. Some strands of his hair fell over his eyes. At that moment, you thought to yourself that he was the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.

“Can I help you y/n?” He was staring at your pillows and blankets.

Ah right. All of the sudden you feel so small and dumb for coming all the way here for no good reason. “Ah, Noritoshi senpai. Um, good evening.” You scrambled for words.

“I, uhm, I’m sorry I can’t really sleep- Ah what I mean to say is that I haven’t been sleeping well lately and I was wondering if I-” a cold gust of air blew past you and you shivered.

Noritoshi’s eyes widened at this and he pulled you into his room and closed the door behind you. He was so close, your face turned bright red. Way too close for comfort.

He seemed to get the hint and took a step back from you. “So you want to stay the night with me, is that what you’re getting at?”

You stayed still before slowly nodding, then looked up to see his reaction. His face was like stone, nothing was giving anything away. He didn’t look so happy to see you in your opinion.

“I’m sorry to disturb you…. I was gonna…. ask… if I ….. could … sleep …. on … your floor…, “ your voice was getting smaller and softer with each word, heart clenching painfully. Your fists tightly scrunched up in your blankets.

Suddenly he leaned down close to bring his face to yours and raised his hand. You flinched and closed your eyes tightly, expecting a “no.”

He cupped your cheeks gently and touched the bags of your eyes with his fingers. “You’ve been looking so exhausted lately, I was actually going to bring it up to you, but I wasn’t able to catch you earlier today. Just share the bed with me.”

You blinked. What. Did you hear that right?

You looked at him with wide eyes. His face was red too. “Is this okay with you? I really don’t want to overstep my boundaries… Last time….” you opened your mouth then realized you didn’t come here to dump all the shit that’s troubling your mind onto Noritoshi.

‘I’m sure he also has it hard on his end’. “Ah, never mind. Thank you so much senpai.” you smiled up at him.

Noritoshi’s chest hurts to see you fake a smile towards him. Time and time again, he’s loved watching how expressive and honest you are with your emotions.

He’s seen your genuine smiles more often than not. Seeing you like this just felt wrong.

“Tell me.” He said.

“Ah- it’s really nothing, I know you’ve been dealing with so much on your end, you’re also stressed, I’m just thankful that you’re letting me stay here in your room-” you were rambling without realizing it.

“Tell me. Don’t hold back. I can feel your unease through the soulmate bond.” he said sternly.

Noritoshi was starting to understand that you both had to work through the negative emotions each one feels together. That’s the reason for the soulmate bond. Ignoring it would be like dragging yourselves through mud.

You got the gist of his line of thought, having the same realization at the same time. You spoke cautiously so as not to offend him, "This has been bothering me. Last time in your room, it just felt like you were treating me as an outsider and it hurt. Like I thought that we were more than that, but maybe it's just me. Also, you once said I didn't know who you are. So I just…. Wanted to understand you better..."

Noritoshi’s eyes softened, and he just couldn’t resist you anymore. He pulled you towards his bed and set down your blankets and pillows. Then turned back to you, “Can I hug you?”

“Of course.” It was fun to see him blush and awkwardly hold his arms out towards you. You stepped into his space, grabbed one arm to throw around your shoulder, and the other around your waist. As he didn’t seem to know where to hold you.

"I do admit I have my secrets and I’m not ready to tell you about them yet. For that I apologize, you have to wait a bit longer until I’m more comfortable with you. But you're not an outsider to me my dear. You could never be. I also believe that we are more than friends, like I said before. I need you to trust me a little more. And I’ll do the same with you, I’ll trust you a bit more. I want it all and this soulbond, as long as it's you."

Your eyes widened and sparkled upon hearing his words. Your bond finally settled into something of a quiet hum underneath your veins. You hugged him tighter, which he smiled at.

"I'm sorry, I should have explained to you how I felt senpai." You whispered sadly. But he just hushed you and held your hand. "It's okay, next time we can do better. Let’s start anew shall we?"

You spoke out a soft yes in response. It was honestly still a disjointed relationship. Like you’re both just two parts of a whole trying to find their way to each other.

"Let's face the truth. This is really an unconventional relationship. We can't really abide by the normal fall in love then confess situation can we?" You said.

"Why can't we?" Noritoshi asked, looking a bit surprised. "It's unconventional and gives us a fair share of problems, that's true. But we can still fall in love and confess the normal way. With time." He added.

You just hummed and nodded.

You pulled back from him, “Anywayss, Why are you still awake at this hour anyways senpai? It's bedtime.”

“Reading the diary of a man who was my past life.” Your eyes widened at that. “Let’s read a bit of it together, then we can sleep?” You nodded.

He set up the pillows so both of you could lean side by side in bed while reading the diary entries. The story was not a nice one. Hotaru eloping with his lover, on the run from their families, curses and curse users. Constantly taking odd jobs to get money, and hiding in old inns. It sounded so exhausting.

You found yourself looking over at Noritoshi every now and then, wanting to lean closer, your eyelids getting heavier.

He turned to you then looked at the clock. 12:47am.

No classes tomorrow, since it's the weekend but you looked terribly sleepy. So he closed the book, set it aside. Closed the lights before climbing in beside you.

You stretched out like a cat before tucking yourself under the sheets. "Sleep time??"

He smiled at you. "Yeah." He laid down beside you, and you were both lying on your sides, facing each other.

"Good night darling." He whispered. Your face heated up but you thanked the darkness that he couldn't see your blush at the pet name.

"Good night Nori- ah senpai." You whispered back.

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Drop the Senpai, just call me Noritoshi."

"Okay…. Noritoshi."

"Mmmm."

2 minutes passed, but you're both still staring at each other.

"Noritoshi."

"What is it?"

"Nothing much… Just saying your name feels nice. Can we hold hands while we sleep?"

He chuckled and reached to clasp both your hands in his. Your mark has long stopped flashing wildly. It's now a warm dark red glow.

You smiled at your marks.

"Can I kiss you? Properly?" He asked hesitantly.

Oh. You would like that very much. Your heart is literally in your throat, beating so furiously Noritoshi could probably feel it.

You could feel some of his stronger emotions through the bond. He really wants to hold you in his arms, you realized. You never felt so bare with another person before. He could probably feel your emotions too, so no point in hiding it.

As you nodded, he slowly crawled over you, caging you in with his arms. Slow, he was too slow.

You grabbed the front of his Kimono and pulled his lips down to yours. His eyes widened, but soon closed shut as he finally finally got to taste you. He was careful not to crush you as he pressed you into the sheets for a deeper kiss.

You both found yourselves running your hands over the other's body. His tongue entered your mouth and played with yours. Dangerous. Your hands tugging at his hair. It was getting dangerous.

Noritoshi quickly pulled back, chest heaving against yours, and tucked you under his chin. His heartbeat was beating furiously before quickly calming down.

"Darling I'm-" how could he tell you that he wants you right now. This wasn’t good, he had to hold himself back. He kissed you on the forehead.

"Shhhh, I'm right here." he whispered sweet nothings into your ears as you whined out at the loss of his lips on yours. "Time for bed as you said. Good night." He kissed you once more on the cheek.

You pouted and looked up to see him cuddle you with such a soft expression. So you relented, "Okay. Good night Noritoshi." And fell into a deep sleep in his arms.

◇◇◇

"Nnnghhh…."

"Mmnghhh…."

…. You opened your eyes to see Noritoshi groaning above you. It's like 3am, in the middle of the night, and you accidentally shoved your knee in his gut.

He was still asleep, but he could feel the pain. You hurriedly retracted your knee, reaching over to pat him on the back. Then moving to stroke him gently on the head.

As he finally settled back into sleep, you subconsciously moved forward to tuck your head under his neck. He is feverishly warm and comfortable. It’s gonna be hard going to bed without him.

And as you fell back into a deep sleep in his arms, Noritoshi, still asleep, wrapped his arms tighter around you and then continued dozing off.

◇◇◇

You felt yourself wake up with the best night’s sleep you’ve had in years. And that was saying something.

Noritoshi was still sleeping. He looked like he was having a rather nice dream. You traced the outline of his features with your fingers until his eyes snapped open.

You jumped back, shrieking and almost falling off the edge of the bed. But Noritoshi had fast reflexes, hand reaching out to grab your waist and pull you close to him. Your face smacked into his chest.

"Morning." His voice was so deep and raspy, you shivered at the sound. His eyes darkened.

"Morning senpai." You whispered, feeling so small.

"Do you make it a habit to play with other people’s faces while they’re asleep?" He whispered.

Goosebumps prickled along your skin as he stroked your arms slowly. "Ahh, I didn’t know you were awake, I’m sorry." You blushed.

Both of your stomachs were kind enough to growl and save your sorry ass. Noritoshi laughed at this.

"My darling needs some breakfast. I'll have the Kamo household prepare and deliver some for us." He said as he reached for his phone.

"Noritoshi, you don't have to, I don't want to be a bother really." You tugged at his sleeves.

“I already said you're never a bother to me haven't I?” He slumped over you as he typed out a text.

You groaned from underneath, "You're heavy Noritoshi."

"That's to stop you from leaving my room without breakfast." He deadpanned.

Blood Bound: Table of Contents

#jjk x reader #jjk scenarios #kamo noritoshi x reader #jujutsu kaisen fanfic #red strings of fate #blood bound

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yandere-daydreams · 4 years

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requests are open!! a yandere little merman please? like the one who gave up his voice to become human to be with his pirate princess darling :3 thank u !!

I never thought I would end up writing about, what is essentially, a gender-bend disney one-shot, but I love desperate mermaids struggling to show their love for their hesitant human Darlings too much to pass this up. Consider this a version of the ‘mermaid drags a drowning royal to land only to discover they’ve fallen in love with the person they think saved them’ trope. I’m a sucker for the classics.

Title: The Little Mermaid.

TW: Violence, Blood, Emotional Manipulation, Mentions of Drowning, Implied Lasting Trauma, and Jealousy.

Rielle liked to visit you, at night.

It’d been a habit since the first day he spent in your palace, when bruises were still spattered across his pale skin and he carried the smell of sea-salt and sand as if it was a second-nature, the latter of which took much longer to fade than the former. You couldn’t say you blamed him. He’d been rattled, and he was still in a state of shock, unable to utter a word about his home, his tragedy, anything beyond a few disjointed syllables you’d been forced to assume were his name. He hadn’t asked to sleep in your bed, nor had the curled up on your rug like a puppy still getting used to its new owner, but he’d tentatively rested his hand on your shoulder and listen to your stuttering attempts to fill the silence until he saw fit to return to his own chambers, thanking you for your time with a smile and a boyish blush. When he’d come back the next night, you hadn’t refused him. You were fond of him, and of his nightly visits, too. And even if you weren’t, he wouldn’t be turned away.

You’d never had the heart for that kind of thing, not when it came to Rielle.

He didn’t even knock, tonight, he didn’t really have to. Even if you were the heir to the throne, your kingdom was small and peaceful, and any guards you employed were more to soothe the minds of your weary parents than out of any genuine paranoia of your own. Rielle slipped in without a sound, only bothering to announce himself with an arm wrapped around your chest and a face buried in the dip of your shoulder, as much of a hug as your chair and desk would allow. He didn’t seem to mind, though, only letting a mess of violent, auburn hair linger in your vision as he slumped against you, the energy he’d had during the day just beginning to fade. It hadn’t been anything out of the ordinary, only a few meetings with your advisors and a trip into town to break up the monotony, but when Rielle clung to your side and approached everything with the same determined, prying amazement, it was hard not to let him take you by the wrist and lead the way, even if that ended in missed appointments and sore feet more often than not. It’d taken as much of a toll on you as it did on him, but while he’d be free to collapse onto the comforter of your bed as soon as he pulled away, you had paperwork to toil over, letters to write and bills to sign and corrections to make to plans you could swear you’d corrected the night before. The work of an heir, not a boy who’d washed up on their kingdom’s shores little more than a week beforehand.

“You couldn’t sleep?” You asked, if only out of formality, because it was what you asked every time he came to visit you. He didn’t try to sleep, not when you weren’t around, not when he couldn’t yawn at the lecture of a councilman or rest his head on your shoulder in the back of a slow-moving carriage. Out of routine, he shook his head, and in a merely performative response, you sighed and reached up, running your fingers through the hair that cascaded over your collarbone, as a result. “I suppose that’s my problem, isn’t it?”

A nod, this time. Non-committal, but in the eager, restrained way that lent credibility towards the contrary interpretation.

“And I suppose I’ll just have to let you distract me until you’re tired?’

This time, he didn’t play at coyness, only squeezing you toward his chest and pulling away, a grin painting itself over his lips as he made himself comfortable propped against your desk, seated on the spot you left unoccupied just for him. He took a moment to survey your arrangement before plucking an unused quill from its inkwell, twirling the tip against the center of his palm and smearing back across his skin. That, in particular, earned a half-hearted frown and a lax effort to wipe the excess on the dark material of his pants, but the inconvenience was forgotten as his eyes found what you were working on - a nearly blank piece of parchment, only a name and scrawled out greeting marring its barren surface. You’d have to start over, but you’d have to figure out how to start, first. Rielle tapped a finger against the corner, leaving an unignorable blot of ink in his wake, but you didn’t scold him for it. You could never get mad at Rielle, not without feeling too guilty to stay mad at him.

“It’s supposed to be a letter,” You explained, leaning back in your seat as you stretched, working the kinks out of your spine. You were empathetic to Reille’s situation, anyone would be, but part of the reason you were willing to offer a supportive hand has to do with a more personal type of sympathy, one that wouldn’t belong to just any shipwrecked man you happened to discover. “While sailing here, about a month ago, my ship was caught in a storm. It was a bad one, too, and… I was thrown overboard. The rest of my crew was alright, but for all they knew, I’d drowned.” You paused, biting down on the side of your cheek, as you always did during this part of the story. You were uninjured, so the incident shouldn’t have bothered you nearly as much as it did, and yet, Rielle’s presence alone was enough to prove that you weren’t fully past it. “I hadn’t, obviously, but by the time I washed ashore, there was more water in my lungs than air. It’s like... those fairy tales about mermaids swimming sailors to land. Have you heard them?”

Rielle winked, gesturing to his chest, and you chuckled. Of course he had, who hadn’t? Every child born along the coast was raised on that kind of story, and you couldn’t say you hadn’t considered it, when you first awoke, delious with fever and desperate for a plausible solution.

“I’m just lucky there was a temple nearby. One of their acolytes had to nurse me back to health. I just…” You trailed off, this time, closing your mouth completely. Rielle rested a hand on your arm, urging you gently to continue. It was all you could do to nod, sending a small smile in his general direction. “He’ll never know how thankful I am,” You admitted. It was more than that, but you couldn’t seem to force yourself to voice what exactly more meant. “I want to make it up to him. I want to show him that I haven’t just forgotten. I… I think I’d like to see him again, if I’m being honest.”

Rielle went tense, and somehow, quieter than he usually was. Curiously, you glanced in his direction, only to wish you hadn’t. He wasn’t grinning, anymore, and his eyes were wide, but they weren’t full of amazement, they weren’t full of anything.

Suddenly, they were empty.

Suddenly, he was empty.

You flinched back, moving to voice your concerns, but for all his naivety and reckless abandon, he’d always been faster than you, always been stronger. In less than a second, his hands were in your hair, his nails digging into your scalp as he rooted you in place. With his free hand, he gestured furiously, but his motions were senseless, frustrated, mad, all sharp angles and pounds at his chest without any meaning to be found. His features contorted, scrunching into something irritated and unpleasant, the kind of ugly seriousness you’d begun to think Rielle wasn’t capable of. Again, you tried to interrupt him, tried to reach out and soothe him, but as soon as your attention shifted away from his abrupt outburst, his grip tightened, clamped down, ripped and clenched and tore until something hot and vibrant was running over his fingers, dripping down his forearm until you could see it pooling on your lap, staining your clothes with a mixture of red and black, blood and wet ink.

Your blood, Rielle’s ink.

That was when you screamed.

You decided that, in the morning, you’d request to have a guard posted outside your door, maybe two, maybe three, if they had that many to spare. Maybe you would, but maybe you wouldn’t. Having guards outside your door probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference, not when the sound was cut off so quickly, your breath hitching in your throat as you were wretched out of your seat, thrown to the floor without a spare moment to catch yourself. It was all you could do to catch your breath, to remember how to inhale as something heavy slotted itself against your chest, lean arms wrapping around your torso as another body settled over yours, holding you, clinging to you, pulling you so close, you could feel Reille’s cold breath against your neck, his warm tears against your skin, a shapeless mess of auburn hovering in the corner of your vision, unwilling to move. Not wanting to move.

You could’ve pushed him away. You wanted to. You were stunned, but you knew you should yell, you should fight, you shouldn’t let him cry into your chest like you’re the one to blame. He’d hurt you, he’d lashed out and he’d hurt you, but...

You could never be mad at Rielle. Above all things, you could never bring yourself to be mad at him, not when you could’ve so easily been in his place.

You’d just have to remember to lock your door, tomorrow.

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kurtanaaa · 4 years

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Top 5 favourite songs of all time?

oh see now THIS is a question thank u sm sm jas i love u 💞💕💗💕💖💕�� i LOVE it when people send me music asks my heart is full !!!!

okay lets get into this:

5. where did you sleep last night - nirvana: i love this cover. its gorgeous and it sounds like hes singing me a lullaby right up until he starts FUCKIN YELLING. yes king. give us everything. god i love nirvana. another contender for this spot would be all apologies

4. astoria - marianas trench: if you like ever after by marianas trench, you should give this song a listen. it follows a similar, disjointed, bohemian rhapsody-style vein. ridiculously good, feels like a sunrise and a goodbye all at once and its a religious experience

3. backstage romance - moulin rouge obc: the fucking PRODUCTION of this. the way the songs blend, the way theyve been changed, its INSANE. i love this song i have a million dance routines in my head to it

2. work song - hozier: in my personal opinion this is the most beautiful love song of all time and it gives me shivers to this day. i love the lyrics, the message, his voice, the production, the everything

1. everlong - foo fighters: will i ever shut up about this song? probably not. i am devoted to this song. the DRUMS the WHISPERS the LYRICS the HOOK the VOCALS, everything about it makes me batshit crazy. i love this song so goddamn much. it still gives me shivers and i still cry to it no matter how many times i sap the serotonin from it. also (BRAGS ABOUT MY GF) my gf gave me a bracelet with the spotify code to this song on it for our two years and i am so goddamn in love with her. like so fucking in love

ANYWAY!!!! THANK YOU FOR ASKING ME THIS JAS!!!!!!! THIS MADE MY EVENING!!!! have a lovely day mwah mwah

#jas ☀️#not glee #asks #rae talks

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storybookprincess · 4 years

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So, I was just reading 1 of your metas: The 1 abt Gon & his behavior (Which was good, even if I don't completely w/ everything in it. Here is an excerpt from it: "(killua, in contrast, is fine taking the short & easy path as long as he & gon get to go together, but killua’s motivations are a different post for a different day)." So I just wanted to ask, if u will ever do that other post abt Killua's motives & stuff (I love reading Killua & Gon metas. Like on their morality & motives)? Ask 1/2.

So yeah, I would if you did that post/meta someday! I love Metas/Analysis (I am craving more!), esp. for HxH, & 2 of my favorite boys ever; Killua & Gon. Also wanted to ask, in that excerpt I put w/ my 1st ask. But u said that Killua was also willing to fight it it met him & Gon passing & moving on to the next phase. I thought in the manga; Killua kept silent, so his thoughts/motives were more ambiguous, but maybe it was in the anime too? It was still prob. in character tho either way. Ask 2/2.

awwww thank you for sending these!!!! first, to answer your question, i haven’t read the manga, but yes, in the 2011 anime, killua explicitly says he’s fine taking the short & easy path provided he & gon are two of the people who get to take it.

as to whether i’ll write a meta about killua’s motives/morality in the future, my answer at this moment in time is probably not. i've made some recent-ish changes/adjustments to how i interact with fandom in general based on whether certain behaviors or activities were enriching my experience or detracting from it. and at least for me right now, making posts where i’m trying to argue a certain side/position within fandom aren’t really a positive experience. i like making small observations & connections, like here, or writing goofy & lighthearted stuff like this, or writing fun & cute headcanons, or giving advice to people, and of course i LOVE writing fic, but posting anything that will likely invite argument in a public setting isn’t my personal cup of tea at this point in time. there are plenty of people for whom that is fun & productive & enriching & that’s fabulous & they do awesome at it & i think they bring a lot of amazing perspectives to the fandom. it’s just not where i’m finding the most enjoyment rn, if that makes sense, so i’m not really in the mood to create that sort of content.

i apologize if anything about this answer is disjointed or convoluted or just generally strange--i am massively sleep deprived at the moment & have been dealing with some pretty intense vertigo all evening, so my brain is extremely extremely fried & i hope you can excuse anything about this that might sound weird. xo

#asked and answered #chatxkilluaxnoir

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tigerdrop · 4 years

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It's so fascinating to see your rough drafts, and how they compare to your finished fics! What is your process like, if you don't mind me asking?

im flushed......thats very flattering anon! and uhhhh hmmmm how to answer that

basically the first draft of anything i write is just me blasting out all the thoughts and ideas i have in one long rambly document. its easier for me to write like im talking to somebody, or explaining my thoughts to them. not really worried about making things sound nice - just about wringing out scenes and thoughts and ideas as quickly as possible to give myself a scaffold to work with

then i feed the rough draft into the weird little hopper in my brain and and start working on The Real Shit. this is the part that takes me the longest for obvious reasons. have to actually like......make things sound good......wtf......i prefer writing shit in the order that itll be seen in, rather than writing disjointed scenes and trying to stitch them together later - when i do the latter thing it can be more trouble than its worth trying to make those bits “fit”. (i still sometimes do it tho,)

i also have separate documents open where i keep Lil Bits: mostly unused text that ive cut from the final draft. i dont like getting rid of text entirely b/c it can come in handy later! but theres also like......links to clips from the show, little standalone plot points, fic ideas that i havent fleshed out (there are so many of these), my awful obsessive document on how characters interact, etc.......scrivener is super duper handy for keeping everything nice and neat

as u can see i really make use of it

thank u for asking this it make me happy (^:

#asky #thank god somebody ask me something that isnt 'trying to guess what fuckin show i was talking about'#ILL NEVER TELL

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fayewonglibrary · 4 years

Text

A Cantopop Dream Girl’s First Film Reverie (2019)

By Oliver Wang

If you weren’t a devotee of the Cantopop world in the early 1990s, the casting of Faye Wong in Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express (1994) may not have caught your attention. Starring in her first major role, the singer looked much the fresh ingenue, cropped coif, tinted sunglasses, and all. Her character—also named Faye—was played with such a frenetic, awkward energy that she may well have been the blueprint for the “manic pixie dream girl” trope.

In Asia, though, Wong had already become one of the region’s biggest pop stars by 1994, and the movie premiered a month after Wong had released Random Thoughts, her eighth album in six years. To put her casting in contemporary terms: imagine a promising but still unproven art-house filmmaker convincing Ariana Grande to star in a low-budget indie film that happened to come out weeks after the release of her chart-topping Thank U, Next. For Wong Kar-wai (WKW), Chungking Express was a breakout international hit, but for Faye Wong, it was one highlight in an already meteoric career.

Landing a genuine pop star was a kind of capstone for a director whose previous films had already shown a deep love for the power of pop songs. A key scene in WKW’s debut film, As Tears Go By (1988), is built around a jukebox playing Sandy Lam’s Cantonese cover of Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away.” The mysterious, mesmerizing title scene in Days of Being Wild (1990), set amid jungle foliage, makes use of the minor 1964 instrumental hit “Always in My Heart,” by the Brazilian guitar duo Los Indios Tabajaras. One wonders if, in an alternate timeline, WKW would have made a great, taste-making DJ.

Chungking Express is WKW’s greatest “jukebox” film for many reasons, including its casting of Faye Wong and its prominent placement of pop tracks, plus the fact that the director uses not one but two different jukeboxes in pivotal scenes. The actual number of songs isn’t as extensive as in Scorsese or Tarantino films of the same era, but the four tunes used most strategically in Chungking Express are each repeated at least twice. In the film’s first half (which features a young Takeshi Kaneshiro alongside the legendary Brigitte Lin in her final film role), Dennis Brown’s somber 1973 reggae single “Things in Life” plays four times. In the second half, which focuses on the unconventional relationship between Faye Wong’s Faye and Tony Leung’s Cop 663, we hear Dinah Washington’s 1959 version of “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes” twice and the Mamas and the Papas’ iconic 1966 single “California Dreamin’” a staggering nine times.

Most of these uses are diegetic, played on jukeboxes, CD players, or stereos. As we, the audience, listen to the music, we’re also watching people on-screen listening to music. Because of this, the songs in Chungking Express don’t just enhance ambiance, they also craft character, and these two streams flow together sublimely with “Dream Lover,” the Cantopop cover of an alternative rock hit by the Cranberries from 1992, performed by none other than Faye Wong.

Born Wang Fei in mainland China, Wong moved with her family from Beijing to Hong Kong in the eighties to pursue a performing career. Her first record label, trying to avoid associations with the mainland, gave her the generic, Anglicized stage name “Shirley Wong.” Her early albums sold, but after a few years, frustrated with her lack of creative control, she took a hiatus and relocated to New York City in 1991 as a gesture of escape and self-discovery. We can only assume she was also immersing herself in the trans-Atlantic pop scene of that time.

We don’t know if Wong heard the original “Dreams” in New York, but by the time she covered the song on Random Thoughts, the Cranberries’ song had become a signature hit twice over. It was the Irish band’s debut single from the fall of 1992, but they also rereleased it in the spring of 1994, after the massive success of their follow-up single, “Linger.” My friend, music writer Ned Raggett, described it as “a brisk, charging number combining low-key tension and full-on rock,” which is to say it’s a song filled with a sense of taut control but also giddy release. It’s easy to imagine how Wong, seeking to reclaim her artistic autonomy, might have been drawn to it.

Upon returning to Hong Kong in 1992, Wong reclaimed her birth name by changing her stage name to Faye Wong, and she immediately began to score a string of best-selling albums, many featuring covers of alternative rock hits. “Dream Lover” isn’t the only example to appear on Random Thoughts; the album also includes a pair of Cocteau Twins’ covers.

Showcasing “Dream Lover” in Chungking Express so close to Random Thoughts’ release was surely a savvy marketing move, common in the Hong Kong entertainment industry. However, the use of the song—alongside Wong’s real-life stardom—also works beautifully with the narrative and logic of the movie. From the moment Faye is introduced at the start of the second half, she’s already living in a dream of sorts. When we first meet both her and Cop 663 (Tony Leung), she’s working at her cousin’s food stand and blasting “California Dreamin’” out of a kitchen stereo. It’s so loud that 663 has to awkwardly shout at Faye just to put in his order, but Faye seems unfazed by the volume. With each repeated playing of the song, we’re meant to hear it as a commentary on Faye’s dissatisfaction with the drudgery of work and her weariness of Hong Kong’s gloomy, wet climate. California—“safe and warm”—represents a fantasy to escape to, first in her imagination, later in reality.

“Dream Lover” obviously extends the same “dream” theme, but as it’s also performed by Wong the singer, in scenes featuring Faye the character, there’s a rich meta-text at play. In “Dreams,” the Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan sings of trying to grapple with her sense of fantasy and reality in the context of an existing relationship. Wong’s “Dream Lover” has different lyrics that seem to recast the song as one about a lover who may be real or may be imagined. That ambiguity echoes Faye’s infatuation with 663, which she goes out of her way to avoid making explicit. 663 may be the lover in her dreams but not one she is keen to pursue in reality. As if to stress this point, we first hear “Dream Lover” after Faye has stolen his apartment keys in order to sneak in to dust his shelves, swap labels on his pantry cans, even drug his water bottle so she can continue her clandestine cleaning while he’s passed out. (This probably seemed more quirky and charming in 1994. Today, it’d likely be cause for a restraining order and psych eval.) Faye wants to be in 663’s presence, but only indirectly. She has more of a relationship with his domicile than with him.

That first use of “Dream Lover” is played under a montage of an extended cleaning session, and cinematographer Christopher Doyle shoots Wong with a handheld camera, adding to the already off-balance feeling of the scene. My colleague Brian Hu has astutely noted in a video essay that this shooting style seems to deliberately mirror the aesthetics of Wong’s music videos of the time. Hu’s analysis posits both the movie and music videos were shot in such a way to present Wong/Faye as a “whimsical dreamer,” “a free spirit,” “inquisitive and mysterious.” Moreover, in real life, Wong left Hong Kong to “find herself” in the U.S., and that story would have been well-known to any Cantopop fan watching Chungking Express. Film Faye is so tightly interwoven with Faye Wong that one wonders, if Wong had been unavailable or uninterested in the role, would WKW have abandoned the character or storyline completely?

When I first sat in a Bay Area theater to watch Chungking Express in the mid-nineties, I knew absolutely none of Wong’s backstory, and yet I still found the song immensely affecting, especially when it returns a second time, forming a coup de grace moment during the film’s final scene.

To recap: the last chapter in Chungking Express occurs a year after Faye has decided that, rather than meet with 663 at the California Bar, she’s going to travel to the actual California instead to see if it lives up to her dream. Now a stewardess, Faye drops by her cousin’s food stand only to find 663 there, no longer a police officer but now the stand’s owner. Before, Faye was the one infatuated with “California Dreamin’,” but now it’s 663 playing the song, also loudly, on the kitchen stereo. He is surprised but clearly pleased to see her. She, however, is nervous about having her “dream lover” in front of her and begins to make excuses to leave. At this point, the will-they/won’t-they tension from earlier in the film returns, and as viewers invested in their potential pairing, we’re left anxious that this moment too will end without resolution.

But 663 then retrieves the letter Faye had left him the night she departed. It’s a hand-drawn boarding pass but rainwater has blurred out the destination, and Faye offers to write him a new one. When asked where he wants to go, 663 replies, “Wherever you want to take me,” and the last we see of the pair is Faye inking a new pass on a napkin while 663 stares with affectionate intensity. One final moment flashes back to the stereo, where “California Dreamin’” had been playing just before. This time, it’s “Dream Lover” that swells up and kicks in before the end credits flash on.

Ending with a song as robust as “Dream Lover” doesn’t just reinforce the movie’s unique, unpredictable energy, it also captures something of how we often experience dreams themselves: as intense but disjointed bursts of images and emotion that we wake from, momentarily disoriented yet filled with feeling. The exuberance of the song offers a form of musical catharsis for all the deliciously confusing tension that’s built up over the past hour. We don’t know for certain what will happen to Faye and 663 after this scene, but what the sound of “Dream Lover” offers in the moment is a rousing sense of possibility. The song’s sonic verve—with its “low-key tension” and energetic release—fuels hope that our lovers may not be so star-crossed after all, as they pursue their romantic dreams, wherever those may take them.

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

SOURCE: THE CRITERION COLLECTION

#2019

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juunshua · 5 years

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well, opinions are opinions and we can't make people like what we like. i also want to pick your brain about hit! i personally felt that the song was just a bit too generic sounding and disorganized for my taste, but others have been absolutely raving about it because of its style. any thoughts? (good or bad, maybe both!)

i’ll answer both asks here! and i agree opinions are opinions to each their own^^ my opinions about hit under the cut! apologies for how late this is and for how long it got to be;;

honestly the song that i was expecting is not the song that we got ahhhahaa i too felt a sense of disorganization i think my first impression of the song was that it felt kind of unfocused…the main melodic topline part of the song like the actual vocal parts of the song (not the instrumentals) i just felt like wasnt able to mesh properly with the compositional part underneath…which i felt was the main contributor to this disjointed feeling that was felt perhaps? i dont know i just feel like if u ignore the vocals and focus on the instrumental, it flows a lot better. that falsetto in the prechorus both times…i am not a big fan of the choice of register for that part….prechorus in general is probably my least favorite part of the songalso not sure how necessary the ‘woahs’ were in the chorus. i loved the other miscellaneous vocal noises like whoever was doing that “ooh ooh ooh” and then woozis little thing that he does here but the woahs…those woahs…im kind of curious how the chorus sounds without it and what the reasoning behind putting in those woahs in were because it just felt like too much at times for me the chorus is already so many layered sounds and then we get the woahs on top of that…like is it supposed to serve as a counter melody to one of the main melodic figures thats in the bridge with the chants + in the chorus in the synths (which i love that they did!!! taking the melodic line in the synth and convert it into a melodic vocal line thats a lot of fun^^) to me the woahs sound more interesting if i treat it as a countermelody but it also just might have been a way to make the chorus sound less repetitive since we get the chorus twice, but the second time is just a dance break (but then again there are other compositional differences too like that alskdj idk what the name of the synth is but its like what id classify as almost a laser gun sound? laksdj pewpewpewww sound start up high once the dance break starts again indicating change) and also getting out of the bridge the ‘let me drop the music’ line that woozi says is followed by wonderful musical silence which i adore but alksdjlk those woahs start earlier and the break that you think youre gonna get you dont and the musical silence becomes more an instrumental pause which might have been the point but still laskjd im curious as to how this chorus thing would have worked without woahsthis is probably just a very very very very!!! personal opinion and experience but the bridge kind of scares me a bit alskj like the parts before the chanting that says ‘breathe’ over and over again maybe its the nasality combined with whatever vocal effect theyre using + how slow the buildup is rising but laksdj thats just me i guess haha i do agree we need a bit of a chill section for the bridge to i guess rebuild tension and things like that but again execution of the vocal line akdjlakjd but! loved the chants that followed for the reason i stated above^^its such a fun way to build hype and also that parallelism in the synth and what theyre saying vocally. though part of me does wonder how this chant would have sounded as a buildup in the verses but im not mad about it not being there because the buildup in the verse is shorter and you get to the point more quickly instead of dragging it out which is probably more needed for verses like i can see the reasoningi love the dance break section of the chorus so much though! definitely my favorite bit of the song ! esp in the first chorus when they do the brrrrr i wonder why they didnt keep that in for the last chorus haha. the dance break really fits the intensity of the composition at that part and im honestly really looking forward to seeing the full choreo to see how much it’ll take and expand on from the musical composition (no svt song is complete without choreo ever ahaha)im still on the fence i guess about how i feel about this song because there are things that are definitely my taste! like the dance break part of the chorus, and then there are things that im kinda super iffy about like the prechorus hahah and for me personally it really does sound unfocused at times and honestly i also got an overwhelming sensation of overstimulation?? which could be the point it is like dance/club music but alkdj idk at times i feel like i was listening to /too/ much but maybe its just because its the type of music im not used to listening to^^thank you guys for asking though and im super sorry this got long! would love to hear your thoughts on it though for sure^^

#replies #long post #(like REALLY long post lskj rip)#anon

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yinzhengs · 6 years

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more os fic! gen lu li/chi zhen or chilu, whatever, haha — lu li pov for once, post-canon but with no spoilers — some undefined pt in the future after they are starting to b a legit settled established relationship and soft and domestic bc im tired of hurting myself, oops. just softness here today, thank u

lu li’s barely through the door before chi zhen’s shouldering past him, letting go with his suitcase with a flourish and all but diving onto the hotel bed — lu li watches, unimpressed, as he bounces faintly, the thump of his back on the hard mattress in counterpoint to the faint wounded noise chi zhen makes at the impact.

“can’t the police budget get us a better hotel?” chi zhen complains, stretching.

“people don’t pay taxes to get you a softer mattress.” lu li fires back, rolling his eyes. he sets down his duffel bag and eyes the room, appraisingly: as far as hotel rooms go, it was decidedly average. of course, average meant that it wasn’t the worst, and as far as lu li was concerned, that in itself was its own kind of success.

he turns back to chi zhen, who raises himself up into a sitting position, meeting his gaze, quiet amusement dancing in his eyes. lu li steps forward, half-smile tugging at the corner of his lips, and chi zhen watches him fondly. lu li raises a hand, smoothing over chi zhen’s cheek and raking fingers back through his hair, thumb on his temple: the line of chi zhen’s mouth melts into a soft, pleased smile and he leans into lu li’s touch with a satisfied hum.

“you can take the first shower,” chi zhen murmurs. lu li grunts a vague noise of assent, leaning down to peck chi zhen on the lips — chi zhen raises a hand to lu li’s neck, keeping him there for a beat, before he lets him go.

“don’t take too long,” chi zhen adds. “i’m exhausted.”

lu li inclines his head in quiet agreement before he withdraws. he digs through his bag, grabbing clothes, before he pads into the bathroom.

the water is hot, almost scalding against his skin — lu li leans into it with a sigh, feeling the tension in his muscles drain away. it’d been a long case already, and it was gearing up to be a longer one, especially if jurisdictional issues kept barring their progress. he’d have to call wen miaoling in the morning, to make sure they would have access to the full files from the district bureau…

the shower turns off with a soft squeak, and lu li makes his way out, thoughts still swimming as he goes through the rest of his nightly routine. there were the end-of-quarter internal review forms to approve, and those were always a pain to negotiate with the higher ups, not to mention yinuo had a recital this weekend and he’d have to hurry back — and would chi zhen want to go with him? he probably would, lu li thinks, running a towel through his hair, but would it be appropriate? what would yinuo think — then again, she loved chi zhen too much for her own good, anyway…

lu li frowns as he tugs on his clothes.

at some point, chi zhen had made his way into their disjointed family unit in his own quiet way — lu li still doesn’t know what to make of it, but chi zhen — chi zhen is important to him, he thinks, pressing a hand over his eyes.

chi zhen is important to him, he thinks again, and feels the truth of it in his chest, in the hollow ache of his ribs. the truth first: the rest would come.

lu li finishes drying his hair quickly, padding out of the bathroom — chi zhen is sitting up against the headboard of his bed, squinting down at something on his phone, but he looks up when lu li approaches.

“your turn,” lu li says.

“took you long enough,” chi zhen mumbles, even though lu li’s sure he hasn’t been in the bathroom for more than fifteen minutes, at most. chi zhen swings his legs over the side of the mattress, getting up and glancing at lu li, suddenly hesitant.

“there’s two beds,” chi zhen says, rubbing the back of his neck. “but… if you — if you wanted…”

lu li raises his eyebrows but doesn’t respond — he feels his lips quirking up at the edges, though, because chi zhen is nothing if not ridiculous. lu li sits down on the edge of the bed — the bed chi zhen had just been on — and stretches out, mimicking chi zhen’s earlier position.

“it’s big enough for two?” lu li guesses, finishing chi zhen’s thought.

chi zhen swallows, nods — lu li’s gaze slides over to the bathroom, meaningfully, and chi zhen gives him an exasperated look but obliges, shuffling over and into the bathroom, the door clicking shut behind him.

lu li sighs and burrows under the sheets, siphoning away chi zhen’s lingering warmth as he waits, the quiet noise of the shower running in the background lulling him half to sleep. he lets himself drift, content.

when he opens his eyes again, it’s to the sound of steps approaching, muffled on the scratchy hotel carpet: lu li throws back one corner of the covers, a wordless invitation, and chi zhen climbs into bed.

when he’s settled, lu li moves to face him, pressing up against chi zhen’s side — he’ll blame the affection on the drowsiness, but chi zhen is warm and soft and smells like the generic hotel shampoo, and he smiles over at lu li and tugs him closer, so lu li can’t complain, anyway.

“are you a cat?” chi zhen mumbles, half into lu li’s hair.

“year of the ox,” lu li corrects, sleepily. he feels chi zhen’s arm come up around him, a soft hand combing through his hair.

“explains why you’re so goddamn stubborn,” chi zhen mutters, and lu li kicks him half-heartedly beneath the covers. chi zhen just rolls his eyes, pressing a kiss to his hairline.

“go to sleep,” chi zhen says, shifting and reaching over with his free hand to turn off the lamp on the nightstand. “early day tomorrow. witnesses to intimidate, murderers to catch. plus, you can’t fall asleep during yinuo’s recital.”

lu li’s too tired to protest, so he just lets his eyes close, feeling chi zhen’s arm pull him the tiniest bit closer — he lets himself be moved, chasing the warmth, even as chi zhen’s words register.

“you remembered,” lu li whispers, against the curve of chi zhen’s collarbone. chi zhen breathes out a soft laugh. lu li feels it ruffle the top of his hair.

“of course i remembered,” chi zhen says, almost wounded, and it’s so nonchalant, so flippant, that lu li feels the warmth grow and spread in his chest — of course, he says, as if his care for yinuo, for the ones lu li cares about is something that should be taken for granted, as if there’s nothing surprising about it, as if there’s nothing difficult about giving his love freely. chi zhen has always — always given, and lu li has never known how to take without taking too much, how to reciprocate. he squeezes his eyes shut harder, and chi zhen snorts quietly.

“what are you thinking so hard about now?” chi zhen asks, fond exasperation in his voice.

“come with me,” lu li murmurs, before he can let himself back out. “to the recital. yinuo will be happy to see you there.”

i will, too, he doesn’t say, but he thinks chi zhen hears it anyway, because there’s suddenly a hand on his cheek and a smile in chi zhen’s voice when he responds with a quiet “alright.”

lu li finally lets himself relax at that, falling asleep to chi zhen’s breathing and the rhythmic pulse of his heart against lu li’s ear.

#chi zhen #lu li #chilu #original sin #原生之罪 #fic

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delmondo · 6 years

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hello, sorry if this a dogshit stupid thing to ask, but If you were given a big-huge grant to make a viddy/PC game, what would it be like? I ask because you seem like a critical thinker, by which I mean you think about why stuff is good and/or bad often so you probably have cool ideas.

omg thank u so much seriously. that is extremely flattering but as a fair warning i’m actually dumb as fuck.

but any how, i would like to make two things. first is a linear platformer that has a combat theme but focuses more on reaction and timing akin the original classicvanias. i understand that metroidvanias probably have a more desirable type of development flow to indie devs and are thus a more popular choice (maybe???), but i don’t like backtracking THAT much and i grew up with super’s mario so i’m naturally more acquainted with the rhythms and methods of exploration offered by the likes of it. i would also like this game to be moddable, every aspect of its behavior exposed and externalized to modders which would increase the game’s longevity, replay value, and ability for the player to pick apart what makes it good, bad, etc. this is very much in line with modern doom source port philosophies and are a massive testament as to why this game endures nearly 30 years after it was released. not that i necessarily want that exact type of merit, but that would surely make it more “fun” in the end.

(sapiosexuality warning)

the second thing i would like to make (i’ve been chewing on it for a lil while) is a first person shooter akin to wolfenstein and doom with short, well-designed levels and loose controls. thematically, it will have little in common with the aforementioned games (it’ll have dbz elements like throwing balls of concentrated energy and punching da shit out of people in it) but it will definitely wear the ‘90s FPS zeitgeist proudly on its cuffs. of course that sounds cliche as many indie games advertise themselves as progenitors of those games, which sort of establishes some pretense about what cultural impact it thinks it’s going to have regardless of the developer’s intentions, and i want to separate it as much as possible from those two games in that regard but take vital lessons from them both about things like hitstun, mobility as defense, diverse arsenals, and the long lost rhythms of exploration (the player to the keycard as the rat is to the cheese) that comes with their particular flavor of disjointed and abstract level design and progression. the more loosely coupled the individual levels are, the easier to is to organize extraneous things such as plot and characters which are things i do actually wish to incorporate into it. the success of overwatch’s minimal and popular (but oft-disparaged) character backstories tells me that it’s very possible for myself to consider my own game’s plot with enough importance and express it but have it take enough of a backseat to the meat and potatoes successfully.

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snailspot · 6 years

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Just found out your blog and really like it ^^ can I ask u when did u start realising your drawing style and how can you get inspired when drawing?

Hi hello! Firstly, thanks for sending the ask, I almost never get these so it’s always appreciated when I do uwu.

Every time I get asked either of those questions I don’t really know how to answer them? But I’m gonna try and answer the inspiration one first. I get inspired by so many things it’s hard to keep track of, though probably the biggest inspiration nowadays is my life, as fucking cliched as that sounds. I feel like a lot of my art has become more autobiographical than it used to, so a lot of my drawings and paintings are an attempt at representing the kinds of things I’m feeling and thinking at the time. I’m also pretty inspired by music, since I feel like it has such a great capacity to represent emotion more than any other art form, and also books, I love to read (mostly lame shit like art-history and philosophy :^) and a lot of that kinda stuff helps inform at least the conceptual side of my drawings. Though I guess with these kinds of questions people are more looking for specific artists so I guess my main artistic influences right now would be Jenny Saville, Mark Rothko, Egon Schiele and Lucian Freud, but it’s rare for me to be directly inspired by them, it’s more their thought process and the kinds of themes they tackle that interest me more.

I guess for the style question, I don’t think style was ever really a conscious thing that I “[realised]” or actually developed but it just came to be as a result of drawing a lot and how drawing over a long period of time transformed into its own thing. Looking at my own work, I really don’t think I have a style? Most of my stuff seems so disjointed aesthetically, dunno how much of it is that cohesive...

Hopefully, that answers your questions? I’m not very articulate so I’m sorry if the above seems like the ramblings from a gross swamp-hag :)))

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closetofanxiety · 6 years

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New Jersey Death (match) Trip

I’m sorry this is long. If you’re reading on a mobile device, I know Tumblr makes you scroll through the whole thing instead of respecting their own html cut.

Let’s just get this out of the way: I’m not reviewing the matches from Game Changer Wrestling’s Tournament of Survival 3. I haven’t watched enough death matches to qualify even as a mildly informed observer, and you know what? They kind of run together. It’s hard to distinguish one from the other, when you’re seeing one after the other.

When the first light tube spot happened on Saturday night, with a loud POP that could be heard everywhere in the building, the crowd erupted. By the time the hundredth light tube spot happened (not an exaggeration!), late into the show, no one in the crowd reacted at all. At some point, you just become numb.

I will say that, for sheer “Oh my God” spectacle, it’s hard to beat this kind of wrestling. I posted a bunch of short clips to my Instagram story, and friends who care not a whit about wrestling were messaging me all night about them. “What is that?” “Where are you?” “That looks insane,” etc. And when you’re standing a few feet away, the brutality is mesmerizing and almost artistic, like Artaud’s idea of the theater of cruelty, but for real.

On the other hand, all the criticisms I’ve heard of death match wrestling were on display: the comparison to the numbing effect of pornography seemed apt, as did the common complaint about guys who are theoretically trying to kill each other calmly waiting while their opponent sets up the next ridiculous spot. During one match (Ciclope vs. Alex Colon? I don’t know. They genuinely run together, especially in a tournament), one guy was setting up panes of glass on two chairs, but they kept slipping off, so THE REF started helping him out, while his opponent just waited on the turnbuckle for the suplex. Tell me that’s somehow less of an “exposing the business” scenario than an intergender match.

So, the matches were fine if you like death matches. Ciclope won, and good for him. What follows are my disjointed recollections of my first - and presumably last - experience at a death match tournament, lazily organized by chronology.

Saturday, June 2, 5:15 p.m.

I arrive at “the historic Starland Ballroom,” which turns out to be a grim loading dock of a building in an industrial park. The parking lot is practically full, and I am arriving 15 minutes after the scheduled bell time, thanks to traffic jams in Meriden, Fairfield County, and New York City. Let me say this: if I never drive across the George Washington Bridge again, it will be too soon.

Luckily, I have not missed anything. Doors were supposed to open at 4 p.m., but there is still a line of people snaking around the side of the building. We’re not just on Indie Time, we’re on Death Match Indie Time.

The crowd is about what you’d expect, with a uniform of black T-shirts and baggy shorts and a general commitment to ill health, although there are more women here than at most wrestling shows I’ve been to. I may be the only person here who has a favorite book. I see three different TSOL t-shirts, which somehow makes sense. I am surprised at the number of WWE shirts I see. I briefly thought about wearing a Kevin Owens shirt, but feared I’d be mocked and derided; within minutes of arriving, I see a huge guy with sleeve tattoos wearing the same shirt. There are more WWE shirts here than CZW shirts, in fact, which I guess is not surprising, given the enmity that exists between the established New Jersey promotion and the GCW upstarts. There are, in fact, more T-shirts here that say “CZW is Pussy” [sic] than CZW shirts.

There are people tailgating in the parking lot, and fragrant drafts of marijuana smoke drift by. A burly guy in an orange T-shirt that says SECURITY waddles up to me and tells me I can’t bring my shoulder bag inside the venue.

“I understand, safety first at the death match tournament,” I say. He nods, either not getting the joke or deciding whether I need to be restrained in a chokehold.

5:35 p.m.

I’m through the doors. There are metal detectors and bored-looking bouncers in orange shirts, because this is a crummy rock club. A guy in front of me with neck tattoos is told he has to take his bottle of prescription medication back to his car. A woman is arguing about a bag search.

There’s a small table set up just behind the metal detectors. It’s hard to know who might be part of the GCW staff. A guy in a black T-shirt and baseball cap is yelling at a woman, possibly about people getting in with bogus tickets.

“I know every name on every ticket sold,” he tells her. Then, to me, he says, “What’s your name?” as I hold out my crumpled printout.

I tell him, and he says “You’re good.” I don’t feel good, but I go in anyway.

The venue is absolutely packed. There’s a ring set up in the middle, and a VIP seating section on what must be the stage for all the shitty bands that play here. There are rows of chairs on all four sides of the ring, and all of them are occupied. Behind the chairs, in standing room areas, crowds of people jostle for position.

My ticket theoretically entitles me to a seat in the third row. Pathetically, I hold my ticket up to a person working at the GCW t-shirt table and inquire about getting a seat.

“Sorry, bro, first come, first served,” I am told. I could have saved $15 and bought a general admission pass, I ruefully reflect.

It’s standing in the back, near the t-shirts and the barbecue vendor, that I notice the long bar is empty. This is a shame, as I am extremely thirsty and would pay at least $10 for a bottle of water. It turns out the venue decided not to serve alcohol tonight, which is the first good decision anyone has made all day.

I wander around, noticing merch tables and the Nick Gage-mocked treats for sale. No one has any water. The treat woman, God bless her, points me to a small bar in the back of the room where the venue is selling pizza, Red Bull, and bottles of water. I buy two and want to sob in gratitude.

“Yo, we’re starting soon!” a voice announces over the PA. It is now 40 minutes after the announced bell time.

5:45 p.m.

A man in black shorts and a baseball cap bounds into the ring. The crowd erupts in cheers. It is the same guy who knew every ticket buyer’s name. This must be a GCW owner.

“Yo, look at all these mothafuckin’ shot callers in this place!” he yells, and the crowd roars its approval. Are GCW fans shot callers? Am I now, by extension, a shot caller? I feel briefly stirred, until I reflect that a genuine shot caller would be allowed to bring his shoulder bag into the venue.

The guy tells us that regular ring announcer is sick tonight. “He’s in the bathroom, shitting and puking,” the guy says, and the crowd cheers, as if excited by any bodily function. Instead, there’s another ring announcer, who is dressed like a frat guy at a golf course and sounds like the world’s most convincing Joel Gertner impersonator. I mean, he really, really sounds like Gertner. It was uncanny, and throughout the night, it was weird to hear that voice and see it coming out of a guy who incels would characterize as a “Chad,” instead of a tubby, hairy Long Islander with a leopard-print neck brace.

We’re ready to go. The music starts. It’s Nick Gage’s music. The crowd goes insane. I am watching from the small bar at the back of the room. I have two bottles of water and a cupcake. I wanted the “MDK” variety (red velvet with cream cheese frosting), but the woman told me they all melted, so I get the “Ultraviolent,” which is just a vanilla cupcake with buttercream frosting. It’s a little soggier than I’d like, but it hits the spot. I am eating a cupcake and watching men rake pizza cutters across each other’s faces. This is Roman decadence. Our society is doomed.

The matches come and go. Shlak is here; people on Woke Wrestling Twitter hate Shlak and regard him as a Nazi, but I don’t know exactly what the source of that grievance is. He was recently shot in the leg, as he posted on Twitter, along with the motto, “I welcome death.” He gets a big welcome here. In his match, Markus Crane - who is introduced by Not Joel Gertner as “The Devil’s Big Red Dick” - repeatedly does horrible things to the leg where Shlak was recently shot. Eventually the referee stops the match and awards the win to Crane, which results in bloodthirsty disapproval from the crowd.

As this is going on, I notice a man watching the show at the bar, with his 8 or 9 year old son. I briefly think about calling the police, but instead I pay $3 for a slice of pizza that I saw delivered in a box and have another water. Between matches, members of the ring crew use huge industrial brooms to sweep all the broken glass out of the ring, because, safety first at the death match tournament.

7:30 p.m.

It’s intermission now. I don’t know who’s winning. I go over to Takayuki Ueki, the Big Japan wrestler who lost to Nick Gage in the first round. He seems nice. I buy a Big Japan yearbook from him and get him to sign it. Some other guys are selling loads of wrestling magazines from Japan. I buy one with a Minoru Suzuki cover and one with a Naito cover. I am a gormless tourist. “Got any joshi magazines?” I ask. The guy looks at me like I just asked him to make me a casserole. He does not have any joshi magazines.

I buy a Tournament of Survival shirt with all the participants, because I want to remember one of my most questionable decisions as an adult. Now I have a shirt with someone who may or may not be a Nazi. I will not wear this on first dates.

The show starts up again. I’m standing closer to the ring now. During one of the matches, I get hit with broken glass from one of the light tubes, a spot happening about 15 feet away. I decide to go back to my spot in the bar at the back of the room. I have another water.

Nick Gage comes out to wrestle Ciclope. A guy tries to start a “U-S-A!” chant and is immediately drowned in a sea of booing. I’m oddly relieved that the death match crowd in 2018 has no time for jingoism. After 10 minutes of brutalizing each other with glass, pizza cutters, light tubes, a fishing pole (don’t ask), and whatever else, Ciclope beats Gage with a schoolboy, which is hilarious. To me, anyway. The crowd is infuriated. Nick Gage was infuriated, and suplexed the ref through a pane of glass. Well, Nicholas, perhaps you shouldn’t lose matches to routine roll-up pins, hmm?

Joey Janela comes out. He’s wrestling the resurgent PCO in a non-tournament match. This is my first glimpse of the new look PCO, who I have vague memories of from childhood, during his goofy Not-the-Mounties stint in the WWF as one of the Quebecers. Pierre Carl Ouellet, Indie Darling, is one of the weirder and better wrestling stories of 2018. It would be like the Ding Dongs coming out of retirement to win the PWG tag team championships with a dizzying routine of high spots.

Janela and PCO start with a lockup and go into chain wrestling, and it’s like listening to jazz after hours of black metal. It’s so different and refreshing. Eventually they start breaking out the Home Depot supplies, of course, and since part of Indie PCO’s gimmick is that he has a gross, welt-covered chest, there are lots of chop spots involving that. But this is a good match overall. A solid 3.5/5 and my favorite of the night.

9:00 p.m.

It’s time for the main event: Ciclope vs. Miedo Extremo. It’s a death match. Ciclope wins. I scoot out early so I can exit the crammed parking lot and get on the road to my hotel, which is in Neptune. I have a full day ahead of me tomorrow at Asbury Park, where I plan to visit some weird places for a newspaper column I write. It’s also, unbeknownst to me, the day of the Asbury Park Pride parade, so the town is quite full, which explains why I paid $250 for two nights at a Red Roof Inn. I may be the only person in the state who, in about 12 hours, was a death match spectator, Catholic Mass attender, and inadvertent Pride parade viewer. What a day. What a weekend.

#GCW #Tournament of Survival #makin' towns #making towns #show reviews

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