#claradwor

[amnesiaguy]

Hello hi I have a Caleb Question. How does he cope in midwinter when he's cut off from Astera? Knowing she'll return with the spring but those dark months must be awful.

i think about this part of the story so much. there is a narrative shift in the latter half of the book where [redacted spoiler] changes the dynamic completely, but in the beginning, caleb has to weather the winter entirely alone, with no magical help or divine guidance that he's making the right decisions on astera's behalf. it's a test of faith for Both of them... caleb, of course, having to believe with his soul that astera will return again and not abandon him, and astera having to believe that caleb will love her hard enough through the bitter winter months (when she can't give him godly rewards for his service) to make her come back to life in the spring. even in caleb's world, this is a strange dynamic. gods aren't usually this vulnerable & reliant on their human devotees.

anyway caleb deals with this by staying as busy as he possibly can. he tries not to get embroiled in anything too scary-- he has no safety net! if he dies, they both do!-- but he's caleb, so he can't just hunker down and hibernate. mostly he spends the wintertime absolutely wracked with fear and driving susannah bonkers :^)

i will say, though, that when astera is asleep & the nights are long and cold, sometimes Death (a woman) comes and speaks to caleb in his dreams. she's very old, and she speaks to caleb like she knows him...

[shanastoryteller]

Happy birthday!!! The untamed? (Also your writing is amazing thank you for sharing it)

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6

Jin Zixuan is alive.

Wei Wuxian hasn't run into him, but gossiping servants haven't failed him yet. He don't know why that surprises him more than Shijie, but it does.

He can't fight well, anymore, or maybe it's just that he can't fight for long. That part hadn't been clear, but the derision from the minor clans is obvious enough that servants are gossiping about it. Then again, it's not like the Yao and Ouyang have ever been subtle. He had expected better from the Yu.

His wedding to Lan Zhan is tomorrow, the curse mark on his arm is bigger than it was when he woke up, and he still doesn't know why he's here.

Sneaking out of his window past the guards is easy. He doesn't have a destination in mind, he just wants to clear his head, and he can't do that surrounded by the obsessive gold draped over every inch of his rooms.

He really hadn't expected to find his little brother drinking underneath the gazebo.

Wei Wuxian runs his eyes over Jiang Cheng eagerly. His face hasn't changed much, but his presence has. He seems more centered, like a lotus with it's roots buried in the earth rather than cast upon the current.

Or course, he doesn't look like much sitting on the ground, his robes dirty and rumbled and a wine bottle held in a white knuckled grip, but Wei Wuxian has seen him in worse shape.

"What are you looking at?" Jiang Cheng snaps. He's been drinking for long enough that his cheeks are red with it.

Wei Wuxian considers and discards several appropriate responses before holding out his hand and saying, "It's rude not to share."

Jiang Cheng's eyes narrow, but then he snorts and holds out the bottle. Wei Wuxian grabs it eagerly, tipping the bottle to swallow three large mouthfuls and rubbing his sleeve over his chin to catch what had managed to escape.

He holds the bottle back out to him, but Jiang Cheng stares at him and doesn't take it. "What?"

"Nothing," he says, taking the bottle back.

Wei Wuxian sits down across from him, sprawling in a way that he probably shouldn't now that he's a girl but it's not like anything about this interaction is proper to begin with. "I know why I'm drinking, but why are you?"

"Same reason, probably," he snorts. Wei Wuxian only has a moment to panic over Jiang Cheng and Mo Xuanyu's star crossed romance before he continues, "I can't believe he's getting married."

"Lan Z-Wangji?" he asks, hoping his brother doesn't notice his slip up.

"The way he carried on after, and he won't even fucking speak to me, but now he's going to bow to you?" His sneer melts into a frown. "No offense."

"None taken," he says faintly. "Um, so you - you and Lan Wangji were-"

"No!" Jiang Cheng's disgust shouldn't be comforting. It wouldn't even matter, really. He can't stay in this body forever, so his arranged marriage to Lan Zhan is going to be short. He'll be free to marry whoever he likes once his wife is dead.

It's too bad Mo Xuanyu hadn't known Lan Zhan. He would have helped her, if he could, and maybe she wouldn't have felt desperate enough to summon him into her body.

Wei Wuxian clears his throat. "Okay."

"It's a long story," Jiang Cheng mutters, hugging his legs and resting his chin on his knee like he used to when they were kids.

Wei Wuxian wants to lean against his side and mess with his hair and promise to fix whatever is upsetting him. But he's not Wei Wuxian, he's Mo Xuanyu, and Jiang Cheng wouldn't accept that from him even if he knew who he was. There aren't any cliffs around her, but the Jin's stupidly long stairs would probably work well enough with how weak this body is.

Something of his dark thoughts must show on his face, because Jiang Cheng says, "You don't have to - he won't hurt you, or anything. He's not like that."

"There's more than one way to be hurt," he says, because he's pretty sure marrying Lan Zhan is going kill him one way or another.

Jiang Cheng raises the bottle in a toast, takes a sip, then passes it over to him.

If he was getting married as himself, this is how he'd want to spend the night before the wedding, with his brother and wine and a beautiful, crisp clear night.

He takes a long swallow and pretends just for one moment that this is real.

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

Also "Gender is just something you do with an eyebrow pencil" please

sounds about right 

Askbox is currently closed as I work my way through these older asks

[isabelofwraithmarsh]

Hey I want some more opinions, what's your take on Robespierre/Danton (Hikarifuru) or Robespierre/st just (hikarifuru)

Asking me to get into ship wars in a fandom of two people and a shoelace? Welp, I love knocking glasses of water off the tabletop, let’s roll. 

Personally, I’m not necessarily a huge fan of Robespierre/Danton. Maybe it’s because I’m totally disgusted with Danton as a historical figure, maybe it’s that I don’t really see the chemistry so much, I don’t know, because it HITS so many of my Things. And yet. And yet. Like, you’ve got the angsty breakup, the lack of personal space, the inevitable tragedy, the “Danton haunting Robespierre’s ass,” but I just can’t GET into it, even though I can get it. Danton to me only really shines as a character when (1) He’s getting dommed kicked around by Talleyrand and Madame Roland, (2) He’s with Camille, or (3) He’s with Gabrielle. 

Saint Just/Robespierre: I mean....I do have a self-admittedly shitty fic for them. It might be the ONLY fic I make for them, because there’s honestly only so many ways you can work it, but I’m interested. Not necessarily in a healthy, requited way per se, but in the “Robespierre going down a dark path and needing an outlet and, hey, Saint Just is right there and obsessed” way. (Obviously not how I ship historical Saintspierre, who were a power couple if one existed, either platonically or romantically.) 

Like, Saint Just deciding to lay the moves on while Robespierre is spiraling into a whirlpool of hatred and betrayal? ART. It’s the kind of dynamic where Maxime’s seduction to the dark side is....well....a seduction to the dark side. 

Also, since we’re being brutally honest here, I’m going to briefly privilege the brutality over the honesty: I have a certain amount of sympathy for any of the times where Zuka blatantly tosses in gay subtext for fanservice while demonizing gay or gay coded characters at the same time. Saint Just has a gay crush on Robespierre? Makes the fans go wild AND it further solidifies that Saint Just is Wrong™ and corrupting Our Hero. His influence is supposed to be the exact opposite of Marianne’s stabilizing, moderate influence, which reflects Max’s more human side (though he also moderates her). Peyronan? Blatant fanservice, but, in the end, it’s also there to show that Lazare is Wrong™. Were it not for Ryuu Masaki’s questionable acting decisions, what we would end up with would be a highly gay coded, predatory villain singing suggestive lines and making heart eyes at a struggling, helpless, hero who immediately afterwards upgrades his relationship with his female love interest. Artois? Gets close and personal with Necker AND Fersen, as a way of showing how utterly debauched he is. George Carey can seduce Shakespeare in the Shakespeare musical, but it’s to show William’s slide to the dark, neglecting his wife and child in pursuit of George’s dick furthering his career.

They could do better. They should do better. They have done a bit better, in recent years, with Poe Clan and Baddy. I am not including I Am From Austria for Reasons, though they did.............try..........after Austria twisted their arm into a knot over it, but whether that really shows on the final video is...........debatable. But it is one way where Takarazuka’s traditionally conservative nature comes out, and honestly, it’s jarring after dealing with Toho long enough where, even though Toho ALSO has its issues (let us not think that I’m blind to some of Toho’s more questionable creative decisions), you can still see productions of, say, Rent, La Cage Aux Folles, Fun Home, etc. I am not saying that Takarazuka is Bad™ obviously, given that I enjoy it too, I enjoy these musicals, but it’s also something that I utterly refuse to give them excuses for.  To tie this back to the initial topic on which I’m supposed to be brutally honest on, I do think there’s something in the LGBT+ experience of looking at a narrative that is rather hostile to LGBT+ characters and going “No, this is mine, and you can’t have it.” Some people aren’t interested in SJ/Robes because it’s too obvious or because there’s only so many places it can go, and that’s something that I can totally get, especially given there’s no real way to “fix” it without totally destroying both characters, but, at the same time, I am interested in the dynamic even if it’s a somewhat limited one. 

[amnesiaguy]

Not sure if you're still packing but every once in a while I get hit with the brainworms about the perennial knight and am extremely unwell about the whole concept of your best friend becoming your God and being a fledgling God's first and most devoted follower

i will be packing & moving for the next two days!! our lease starts on the first of june :')

i'm so delighted to hear that caleb perennialknight has haunted you this way... he has also haunted me. if you wanna talk shop sometime, please lemme know!!!

[amnesiaguy]

Hi I thought too hard about Caleb and Astra and it made me think about how me (and a ton of people) almost rushed to swear fealty to the royals of our SCA kingdom (I wonder if that counts as treason as a Canadian 🤔anyways) because they fight for their position as our leaders and then serve us in kind and now I'm soft for Caleb and Astra as protectors of each other and serving each other in kind despite their positions

yes!!!!

what really kills me — which will be no surprise to the ones who know me — is the contrast between what the public sees (paladin who swore oath of devotion & is the spokesman for his god) and what they really are (a wisp of divine spirit trying not to gutter like a candle & their best friend who back-talks the orders given & keeps his faith with the human kind of trust, not the devotion of the pious). caleb is equally loyal and put-upon. astera is equally genteel and petty. their relatioship is messy!!! but that messy humanity gets smoothed over in the folktales and it drives caleb insane 😭

[amnesiaguy]

Hi hi I just wanted to tell you that Caleb and his bestie god now mean everything to me and I would die for them

i feel this way as well. will u read it when i go sicko mode and write a fifty page epic poem

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

Ok last one "Research ~ Miya Rurika Probably" (I apologize for all the thirst tweets my friends are just iconic and thirsty)

lmao its fine 

Askbox is currently closed as I work my way through these older asks