#convenientalias

[seamayweed]

THANK YOU @convenientalias FOR KNITTING ME THE COZIEST CUTEST MOST BEAUTIFUL SOCKS IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!! 🤍💙💜🤍💙💜🤍💙💜

[veliseraptor]

For the ship meme, Jiang Cheng/Wei Wuxian?

ohhh this is a fun one because possibly the last time I did this meme the answer would be don't ship it (because I prefer it platonically) and now the answer is ship it, with caveats, those caveats largely being that I'm less interested in a romantic relationship or a platonic relationship for these two than a whatever the hell have those guys got going on relationship.

but, you know, close enough.

What made you ship it?

I've been obsessed with this relationship from the jump, pretty much. the first time I watched the untamed I watched the opening, looked between jiang cheng and wei wuxian, and went "oh that looks like fun" and you know what, I was right. initially I was like "eh I don't want actual chengxian because I prefer them more as brother-ish" but over the arc of my time in fandom and possibly partially out of spite that has turned into "I don't particularly need them to touch dicks or whatever but unresolved sexual issues do add some extra piquant spice to the whole thing, so"

which is about where I am now. it's kind of "my feelings about thor/loki" vibes, honestly, w/r/t the "so tangled up in each other painfully and intimately that it doesn't matter what specific shape the relationship takes, just that it's a mess.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

god!!! that it's a fucking emotional trainwreck all the way down. even at the time when their relationship is "purely" positive there's all jiang cheng's issues happening already, and things just kind of Get Worse from there, and even if you're a yunmeng shuangjie reconciliation truther (I am, personally), there's a long way to go to get there at the point canon leaves off. there's so much pain and love and devotion and suffering between these two characters and what am I here for in a ship if not pain and love and devotion and suffering. and intense bonds where the love makes it worse, that too.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I don't interact enough with the chengxian side of fandom to really know what's unpopular there.

outside of the pairing fandom itself, I don't know that I'd call being a full-throated jiang cheng stan is an unpopular opinion exactly, but it is an opinion that attracts some, ah, detractors. otherwise...while my feelings about this are quite strong they are not in the way that I feel compelled to seek out other peoples' opinions about it, which means I don't find out what other people think. I'm probably happier this way.

[wolffyluna]

Uno reverse: what do YOU think of Jingsu??? also, to change things up, what do you think of the classic Nihuang ships, Mei Changsu/Nihuang and Xia Dong/Nihuang?

Jingsu

I ship it!

What made you ship it?

Because of how my friends introduced me, I went into NiF expecting to probably ship it, and, yeah. That intense loyalty combined with the identity porn is a powerful combo. I was not yet cooked, but I was definitely in the fry pan, during that "I want to make you the Crown Prince," scene.

2. What are your favorite things about the ship?

The intense loyalty, and in both directions. They would both do almost anything for each other, up to and including "lie about own identity so the other one does not do something stupid to protect me." Especially combined with the way this intertwines and conflicts with their high ideals.

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I'm somewhat ambivalent to their relationship pre-canon. It just doesn't have as much crunch as what they have in canon.

Mei Changsu/Mu Nihuang

What made you ship it?

You know the scene in the abandoned house? With the hug? That plaintive "gege QQ"? Yeah, that's what made me ship it.

2. What are your favorite things about the ship?

The tragedy of-- it could have worked out great in the first place, they were affianced and they were a good match. But then the Chiyan case happened. And they can't ever have that possibility again. They can love each other! But not openly. And not without a metaphorical hourglass right behind them.

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I'm not sure I have one? Other than 'oh boy would it be a whole political thing for Sir Su to marry the Duchess of Mu and is thus really unlikely to happen?'

Mu Nihuang/Xia Dong

Why don’t you ship it?

I want to ship it, I feel somewhat obligated to help show up for the femslash team, but.

At the beginning of the show, their relationship is chilly, because they are both convinced that the other one is one the 'side' that got their husband/fiance killed. They think that the other one is a good person, if misguided, but. it's a hell of a bridge to cross. And this makes for a great platonic relationship but raises large questions about how they get in a romantic one, especially if you want both characters to have a sort of nice time.

And then partway through the show they find their husband/fiance and then they're just really distracted.

2. What would have made you like it?

The thing is, I really like that tension in their relationship because of the Chiyan case! I wouldn't be interested as much in their relationship if it was gone, but it is the thing stopping me from shipping it, so. Hmm. Kind of a difficult to solve.

3. Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

I do really like it! Complex relationships between women for the win! And I loved that scene in the first(?) episode on horse back outside the city. Just. I don't think it works romantically.

[avauntus]

Yo you have My Country WIPs? How exciting! I've been meaning to read Messenger for a while, that reminds me.... anyways, can you tell me about and/or post a snippet of trillium??

Thanks for asking! (If you end up reading Messenger, I hope you enjoy it!) 😀

Trillium

(another WIP set in @staidwaters One more lie... -verse. Hwi & Seon-ho on the road.)

What we call the trillium ‘flower’ is no flower at all...trilliums have no above-ground stems or leaves. Instead, the plant is a fragile extension of its underground rhizome, a process that happens, hidden and secretive, for up to seven or more years before a trillium grows from seed to a mature, blooming plant.

They weren’t even two days on the road when they had their first (post-death) argument about, of all things, a horse. Yi Bang-won had, inconceivably, decided not to kill them after they survived the first round of arrows and spears. That had been an odd hesitation that Hwi could not recall having seen before in his eight years of service to the lord, prince, and now King of Joseon. But Bang-won had given them enough supplies for a few weeks -- enough to load down a pack horse, also provided-- and sent them into the wilds. 

If they had decided to bicker over the direction, or the degree of trust they had in Bang-won’s word that they would be allowed to flee if they kept their survival quiet, that might have been understandable. Instead, they seemed to fall into an unspoken accord-- if Bang-won was going to change his mind again, there was little to be done about it, and clearly northeast into Gangwon-do and its mountainous landscape dotted with tiny valleys was going to be their best chance at vanishing. 

On the morning after they’d left Bang-won’s escort on the road, Seon-ho had rolled out of their blankets and said, calm as anything, “We should stay here awhile before heading out.”

“Why?” asked Hwi, blinking sleepily. He wouldn’t mind the chance to rest, but-- “Bang-won is going to expect us to go further away if we’re meant to disappear, and the longer we linger down here in the foothills, the deeper the mountains will be into winter when we get that high. The leaves are already turning,” he said to Seon-ho, although he would have thought Seon-ho knew all this, already.

“I’ll only need a few hours,” said Seon-ho, and Hwi had shrugged and yawned. Fine by him, then.

...

Seon-ho nodded, but didn’t otherwise comment, and Hwi huffed out a slightly frustrated breath. “Are you actually angry about something, or just brooding?” Hwi asked at last, and Seon-ho’s chin shot up-- he’d been staring at the ground, but now he met Hwi’s gaze.

“If I went ahead, you could probably return to Hanyang,” said Seon-ho levelly. “Whatever this is that Yi Bang-won is doing, it’s for you, not me. He’d take you back into his service if you asked.”

Hwi made a face, feeling the certain instinct he always had about Bang-won’s motives-- Seon-ho might be right, but that would only be enough to save Hwi alone. Bang-won’s own suspicion of the people around Hwi would lead him to act, sooner or later. 

“Maybe,” he told Seon-ho, serious. “But I don’t want to return to his service, and especially not without you! That promise he made to leave Hui-jae and Ihwaru’s network and the Northern Forces settlements, Chi-do, Jeong Beom, and Mun-bok alone, to not kill you-- it only lasts as long as we play his games, and this is one of them.” He grinned a bit. “Besides, it doesn’t sound so bad, retiring to the mountains! This is what I always wanted, you know-- freedom and enough space to settle down and live well. It won’t be a noble estate, but…”

“Hwi, it’s fall, and soon it will be winter,” Seon-ho cut in seriously. “I don’t think settling down is going to be a possibility in snowbanks deeper than our heads, and Bang-won isn’t going to allow for us bedding down in a farming village for the winter either, not if we’re meant to be dead.”

“How will he even know?” asked Hwi, and Seon-ho gave him a look.

“He’s had men tailing us since we left his guards on the highway,” said Seon-ho, and Hwi’s mouth twisted, because he couldn’t argue-- that sounded right. “In any case, I’ve sorted out the supplies, and I think I can carry enough of them that you can ride the horse from here on out without laming it,” continued Seon-ho, still level and nearly breezy, as if this were a foregone conclusion and they were just repeating their next steps.

“That’s not necessary, Seon-ho,” said Hwi with a little frown, looking intently at the other man. “If anything, you should ride and I’ll carry the supplies; you were much more seriously wounded at the palace than I was.”

“I’ve recovered enough, and I’m not the one who was reckless enough to offer myself up to a rabid tiger in search of a crown,” said Seon-ho.

Hwi bristled at the implication in the statement. “There wasn’t another way to halt the bloodshed,” he told Seon-ho shortly. “Besides, who attacked us first? Yi Seong-gye. Bang-won had nothing to do with that!” He stood up and grabbed the cookpot off the coals with a hand wrapped in the folds of his shirt, and began forming the remaining rice into balls, briskly. “You want to prove something by hauling part of the horse’s packs uphill yourself, go ahead. I can tie you on to the horse’s back when your goat-stubborness leads you to pass out from the strain.”

Seon-ho huffed out a breath through his nose and smirked at him, as if Hwi were the one being ridiculous. “Hwi, your skin has been the same shade as campfire ash ever since we left the highway. It’s not me collapsing we need to worry about. This isn’t something you can wish your way out of.”

“I’m not!” exclaimed Hwi, then sighed at himself. He should be happy that Seon-ho cared, right? He should, and he was. This wasn’t Seon-ho trying to slash at him, verbally or otherwise, Hwi reminded himself. Maybe they could be the same as they had been, before Liaodong-- he’d like to get back to that, if it was even possible. That meant Hwi needed to try. He took a deep breath and smoothed his expression, even managed to laugh at himself, a little. 

“Sorry. I guess with everything, and worrying about Hui-jae and the others, I’m a little too on-edge. I really am fine. I’ve just been sore these past few days; I’m dealing with it, I promise,” he told Seon-ho earnestly.

“It doesn’t seem like just your arrow-wounds,” said Seon-ho, still looking at him seriously.

“Seon-ho, I know you mean well, and I appreciate that,” Hwi said, finishing shaping the last of the rice balls and setting it on the pot lid with the others. “But you don’t know me, now. We haven’t done much more than yell at each other from the opposite sides of a battle for years. I am fine, except I don’t like arguing with you about this,” he finished, meaning to bring the discussion to an end.

“Fine,” said Seon-ho flatly after a moment. “We’ll load it all back on the horse, then,” and they did, although Hwi noticed that Seon-ho kept some of the supplies split out into the smaller bag, as if he were preparing to carry them later. Hwi really didn’t want to fight, though, and left the organization of the horse’s packs unremarked upon.

It was a warm autumn day, for all they had been discussing snow and ice earlier, and they made decent time. Hwi was beginning to sweat more seriously as midday wore into afternoon, and he could feel the odd twinge and stab from his poisoned wound and stomach. Their supplies of medicine were limited, though-- they would have to find someplace to settle and work out how to contact an apothecary or doctor for more without alerting Bang-won’s men, and that would all take weeks, if not months. So Hwi resolved to save what supplies he could now, pushed on without the usual second dose he’d take at this point, with all the activity they’d been up to, and convinced himself that it really was fine. The pain wasn’t much different from his arrow-wounds, and those were healing. 

When Seon-ho paused at a fork in the road, Hwi realized it wasn’t just the pain-- he felt...light, almost. As if he could take a step forward and just float away. But rather than try it, he came to a swaying halt and looked at Seon-ho. 

“Right is more direct, but left might take us closer to a town,” said Seon-ho. “More wheel tracks. What do you think?”

 Of the two of them, Hwi had always been the more talkative, but this was getting ridiculous, he thought. Seon-ho was going to be down to single-word sentences soon. “Why are you so...tense?” Hwi asked, meaning to grin. His lips just twitched instead. “Did the Jurchen have something...against words?”

Seon-ho turned to stare at him, brow wrinkling as his eyebrows drew together, and Hwi took a shallow breath so as to not pull at his aching chest, then sighed.

“Go right,” he told Seon-ho. Better to arrive wherever they were meant to be going sooner, wasn’t it? 

As Seon-ho continued to frown at him, Hwi took a step forward down the right-hand road, meaning to show the other man how it was done, and his foot lost contact with the ground as his stomach spasmed. A bright flash of grey-white pain shot across his vision. He had a moment to be confused, and then was briefly, intensely irritated with himself before he hit the dirt and whited out entirely.

[kakushigo]

For the 5 headcanons ask meme: Nirvana in Fire, the Emperor is murdered before MCS returns to the capital AU.

[Send me an AU & get 5+ headcanons about it]

Looks like we’re getting Emperor Jingxuan!  No way this’ll end absolutely horribly for everyone involved!

Jingxuan takes after daddy dearest and arranges for all his most dangerous brothers, cousins, aunts, and uncles to die. (Okay, it’s mostly Consort Yue doing the planning, but you gotta make sure it looks like it’s Jingxuan’s idea.)

Jingyan, our darling waterbuffalo, is spared- but only because he’s not a threat & honestly more use outside the capital.  He was called back to Jinling for the funeral, but once all that’s done, he’ll be right back out where he belongs.

This means MCS only has until Jingyan leaves the capital again to depose a different Emperor then the one he was planning on, get Jingyan to be crowned emperor (thank god Jingxuan doesn’t have a heir yet).  I mean, he could do it while Jingyan is out of the capital, but that’s so much harder.

He immediately sets Prince Yu up to get into fights with the newly crowned Emperor, as he’s currently the most powerful Prince who wasn’t already crowned, so he’ll be a threat Emperor Jingxuan and Consort Yue will actually pay attention to while he’s being sneaky.

Nihuang & Consort Jing are conspiring to get Jingyan to safety if/when Emperor Jingxuan turns on him. They quickly figure out who MCS is and MCS is like: Is it really that obvious? (no, they’re just that good.  Get used to it)

Prince Yu and Emperor Jingxuan kill each other (oops).  Prince Jingyan is in a favorable enough position to ascend the throne.  MCS doesn’t die, but the new Emperor Jingyan also doesn’t know MCS=LS (yet).  

We now have MCS sitting as an advisor to the Emperor, trying to cull all the bad parts of the court while Jingyan is pissing off most off them.  It’s a goddamn miracle Jingyan hasn’t been assassinated yet (a miracle and MCS+ Lie Zhanying’s hard work)

MCS eventually gets to bring the Chiyan Army case to Jingyan, who of course pardons them & sets about digging up all his father’s and brothers’ skeletons.  It’s messy and Da Liang almost goes to war a few times because of it.  

[girlwithalightsaber]

If you still want happy NiF fic recs, I have a couple. "The Bachelor of Da Liang" by romantic_drift is a fluffy modern AU. For fix-it future fics, would rec "Black Turns to Blue" by Branch and "Crouching Cat, Hidden Dragon" by orangememory. Some other recs--"Promises" by kimboo_york is a sweet Meng/MCS arranged marriage fic with a happy ending. "All That You Need to Say" by kitsunealyc is time travel fix-it. "Fur As White As Snow" by dearwhimsy has yeti!MCS fluff. These are all good fics.

Thank you so much. I'm always in desperate need of good fics. These sound amazing, I think I have that Bachelor thing on my to be read list but these others are all new to me.

I'm always insatiable to good fic, so if there is more please send it to my way. Bonus point if there's lot of pining and idiots in love.

[acesgroupchat]

Would you consider crossposting your drabbles to AO3? I'm asking for selfish reasons--I would like to be able to bookmark them :)

Omg this is so sweet!! I’m incredibly flattered and I am planning on crossposting but you know that post that’s like “Your worst nightmare: a post on AO3 called “A collection of drabbles” and it has a million tags for every ship ever made and like six different fandoms and it fills up your whole screen and it’s also always at the top because it updates several times a week?” This would become kind of EXACTLY that, and I don’t want to annoy people.

I’m trying to figure out a way to be as little of that as possible (a series with collections divided by fandom? aggregate posts once a week?), and I’m probably going to hold off a bit so that I can post a bunch at once instead of spamming the tag. They will go up at some point soonish tho.

Thank you again! this ask made my day.

[featherquillpen]

fanfic end of year asks 14 and 4?

4. total number of words you wrote this year

According to AO3, 72,734 words, but this is incomplete because I haven’t posted everything I’ve written. If I add WIPs and unposted fic, it’s 114,989.

14. a fic you didn’t expect to write

Mother Sky and Father Deep. It was a very intense fic that exploded into being when @inklesspen sent me an ask saying that surely there must have been at least one Hork-Bajir-Controller in the Yeerk Peace Movement. At first I thought no, impossible, and then suddenly, some version of how it might kind of be possible came and hit me upside the head.

(Fanfic asks)