There's a lot of new people around here so I thought it'd be helpful to make one of these ✨
Hi friends, I'm elle! Welcome to my little corner of Tumblr. If Darrel Curtis is having a bad time, then I'm probably at the scene of the crime.
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This blog for the most part ebbs and flows with the tides (or like, whatever I’m into at the moment). Who’s to say what’s next? Or when? Certainly not me.
But currently pretty locked into The Outsiders (with the occasional dash of Tex for good measure) and probably will be for the foreseeable future.
Ask are always open! Feel free to come yell at me about all things outsiders or writing or whatever else you like!
I love the “captain’s log” mechanism in Star Trek as a method for time skips and exposition.
I am, however, devastated that we never got an episode where any captain’s voiceover is strained and slow. very precise about the events they’re describing. While the screen itself is showing the most batshit insane events and making it clear that the captain is trying VERY HARD to keep everyone involved out of a court martial.
You actually cannot skip to being good at a creative endeavour that you haven't put much practice into. You cannot trick your way out of the 'knows that your work is not what you want it to be but don't know how to improve it' stage by planning or reading or talking about it really really hard. At some point you just have to craft through it until your brain finds it's own unique way back to the 'everything I make slaps' stage and be prepared to start the cycle all over again. You just have to make that project you're excited about slightly less good than you want it to be. (Says this standing in a pool of blood and covered in blood and also coughing up a little blood)
He had servants, of course, fellow cultivators whose very status within the Jin Clan depended on him. They listen to him, agreed with him, acted on his every whim, some might even die for him if it really came down to it. But none of it was for him. No, everything they did was because of who he was— heir of the Jin Clan, leader who held their fate in his hands like a fragile egg waiting to be crushed.
There were a few that became something close to friends, though. Like MianMian, the only one brave enough to speak to him like a person rather than a young master. But she would always be the daughter of a servant, and he the son of a clan leader, and Jin Zixuan was no fool. Some class divides were too wide to breach, no matter how much he wished it to be different.
Of course, it wasn’t just servants who lived at The Golden Carp Tower. Jin Zixun might have been a friend, save for the fact that his cruelty knew no bounds. He could cut Zixuan with words so sharp he swore he’d bleed out. When he complained about it to Father, the old man would only laugh and say, “You’ll need thicker skin than that if you plan to be clan leader someday!” Zixuan would bite his cheek until he tasted iron and bow his head in agreement. He did his best to avoid Zixun, but sometimes, he went to him anyways. At least it was someone, at least with his cousin, he wasn’t alone.
Life at the Golden Carp Tower was lonely, but Zixuan grasped onto hope that staying at the Cloud Recesses would change everything. He would be around young masters his age, others who might understand his plights. His father always spoke of his days there with a fond tone he reserved for only his favorite memories. “You’ll meet some of the finest young cultivators there. If I could trade places with you, I’d go back in a heart beat.” Zixuan had spent his youth holding onto the day he could finally go and make friends with people who didn’t owe their life to his family.
Then the time came, Zixuan arrived, and nothing changed.
He tried to make friends. He did. He spoke to the other young masters. He laughed at the right time. He said all the words he was meant to say. But it was as if they felt his otherness, the way he was just a step out of time with their jokes, or how his stories didn’t quite match up to theirs. And then, without realizing it, Father’s voice crept into his mind, berating him for all the things he couldn’t get right. Like when he spoke too little (nothing to say, Zixuan? You must speak up!) or spoke too much (We get it, Zixuan, and have done so for the past half hour).
It all came so easy to the other cultivators. Wei Wuxian, who poked and prodded the others to insanity, yet managed to be so fiercely loved. Jiang Cheng, quick to temper but even quicker to be forgiven. Even Lan Wangji, somehow quieter than him, and yet the other young masters hung on to his every word. Zixuan felt an ache like he’d never known before. How could it all be so simple for them when Zixuan tried and failed until his mind felt raw? The harder he pushed, the less he was liked, until eventually, he quit trying at all.
He told himself he didn’t care (and he didn’t, thank you very much). He stopped speaking all together and eventually the others grew to expect silence. Preferred it, even. That was fine by him. Let the Jiang Clan hate him for their imagined slights. Let Nie Huaisang tremble in fear when he walked in the room. So what if they whispered about the rude young master, cold and stand-offish and arrogant and cruel? He was the future heir to Jin Clan, what did their opinions of him matter?
(But when the others no longer turned towards him, there was still Jiang Yanli, his betrothed, who’s quiet gaze always managed to find his. And she looked at him with pity and something else he couldn’t quite name. Fear? Anger? Hate? For the man she barely knew but was chained to for the rest of her days. How he wished in this one thing he could succeed, could find a way to not garner her animosity as well, if for no other reason than the fact that he didn’t want her to look at him the way his mother looked at his father.)
Jin Zixuan never had friends. He told himself that was okay. And some days, he almost believed it.
