#eirenical

[rensrendition]

So... if anyone’s trying to reach @eirenical ...tumblr terminated my account.

I am DESPERATELY hoping I’ll be able to get it back, but... yeah.

That’s a thing.

That happened.

On top of an already crap day.

*sigh*

[besanii]

40 and/or 96 for Wangxian for the prompt meme? ^_^

#40 - “Okay, I didn’t see that coming.”

The crowd of people clamouring outside the gates to the Cloud Recesses is growing restless and the two disciples stationed to guard the area look thoroughly harassed. When they catch sight of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji descending the winding mountain path toward them, their harried expressions give way to an almost desperate relief; they bow deeply to them both and chorus their names in greeting.

“What is going on?” Lan Wangji asks.

The disciple on the left bows again, short and quick, before replying.

“Hanguang-jun, word has spread about yourself and Mo—Wei-qianbei,” he hastily corrects himself, “returning to the Cloud Recesses. They have come to pay their respects.”

“Pay their respects?” Wei Wuxian echoes, confused. “Did I hear you correctly? Are you sure you don’t mean collecting debts? Or seeking vengeance? I’m pretty sure we didn’t forget to pay off our tabs while travelling, Lan Zhan—your Gusu Lan pockets are so deep, after all—so it must be vengeance! Ah, I guess now that I’m alive again, people finally have someone to go after—”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says reprovingly. “Do not jest.”

The two disciples exchange glances before the second one bows to Wei Wuxian directly.

“Wei-qianbei did not hear incorrectly,” he says. “They have all come to pay their respects to you. But as Wei-qianbei is not an official member of Gusu Lan, Xiansheng said we should only take down their names so that Wei-qianbei may handle them personally.”

Wei Wuxian rubs the back of his neck with a sheepish laugh as he accepts the scroll from the disciple. Their notes are meticulous, as is to be expected of a Gusu Lan disciple, listing not only the names of the visitors, but also the place of origin, their affiliated sect, and their reason for calling.

“Ah, sorry to cause all this trouble for you both,” he says, scanning the long list quickly. “I’ll handle it from here—”

“Yiling Laozu!” a man calls out from somewhere on the other side of the gate. He breaks free from the crowd and charges towards them. “Yiling Laozu! Wait!”

The two disciples cross their swords in his path to prevent him from crossing the gate; Lan Wangji instinctively steps in front of Wei Wuxian, one arm thrown out to shield him from view. But instead of attacking, the man throws himself onto his knees and prostrates himself on the ground. Everyone stops in their tracks, baffled.

“Yiling Laozu!” 

Wei Wuxian blinks. “Yes? Can I help you?”

“Please accept my son as your disciple!”

Wei Wuxian stumbles half a step and almost drops the scroll in shock.

“What?” He must have heard wrong. “What did you just say?”

The man presses himself closer to the ground and repeats his plea: “Please accept my son as your disciple!”

“Uh…” Wow. “Okay, uh…I didn’t see that coming.”

Wei Wuxian had always prided himself on his intuition and on being observant. He can tell the exact moment when a night hunt is about to go terribly wrong, and knows instinctively what needs to be done to salvage the situation; he can tell when someone is lying to him, or hiding something, and usually knows how to coax, pry or force the information from them.

But this...this is beyond him.

He glances over at Lan Wangji for help, but Lan Wangji looks equally baffled by this sudden turn of events. Him? Take a disciple? They do know who is he right? They’re not mistaking him for someone else? 

“Yiling Laozu saved my son’s life,” the man continues. “Without your help, my son would be dead! A life debt must be repaid. He’s slow-witted, but he will work hard and do his best to learn from you. Please allow him to serve you as your disciple!”

Wow, he really isn’t kidding. Wei Wuxian definitely didn’t see this coming. He vaguely recognises the man—he and Lan Wangji had exorcised a demon in Guilin that had been possessing a young boy to feed on his yang energy. It had only been a day’s work or less, nothing that would be worth sending his son to serve a former criminal like him, no matter how much his reputation has been rehabilitated in the past year.

He looks up at Lan Wangji.

“Thank you for your kind words, sir,” he begins slowly, still looking to Lan Wangji for reassurance. The corners of Lan Wangji’s mouth soften. “But the credit for saving your son was not mine alone. And I have no mind to accept any disciples, now or ever. I only cultivated this path because there had been no other option available to me at the time, born out of desperation. I would not recommend it to anyone if they had a chance at something else."

The man looks crestfallen as Wei Wuxian steps around Lan Wangji to kneel beside him on the ground. He helps him up with a hand under his elbow.

“If you are really looking for a way to repay us for this life debt, then you should set your son on the path to help others.” Wei Wuxian claps him on the shoulder. “You have the chance to walk that righteous path. You should take it.”

A small, wistful smile flits across his lips and the light in his eyes dim; it is gone almost as soon as it appears, and he’s stepping away again to rejoin Lan Wangji. The man remains kneeling on the floor looking up at them both, wide-eyed with wonder, as if he’d been struck by a revelation. Wei Wuxian clears his throat and looks away with an awkward grin.

“Anyway, sorry to disappoint you after you’ve come all this way,” he says, voice coming out a little louder than intended. “I would offer to write you a recommendation letter to join another sect, but I’m afraid my reputation hasn’t improved that much—”

“That won’t be necessary,” Lan Wangji says firmly. He inclines his head at the man. “If you do not mind, Gusu Lan will accept your son as a disciple.”

The man’s jaw drops.

“Xianshi...” He throws himself onto the ground, pressing his forehead to the ground over and over again in thanks. “You have blessed our entire family by accepting my son into Gusu Lan. I assure you, he will work hard! He will not disappoint you!”

Wei Wuxian catches Lan Wangji’s eye and smiles, warmth filling his chest.

“I’m sure your son will do very well,” Wei Wuxian tells the man brightly. “He will have the best teachers the cultivation world has to offer. He’ll learn much more from them than he would have from me!”

“Wei Ying, too, is an excellent teacher,” Lan Wangji says immediately.  “The insight he has to offer is invaluable.”

Wei Wuxian’s face grows hot. “Aiyo, Lan Zhan, don’t be so embarrassing!”

Lan Wangji shakes his head with a noise of dissent, which tickles a laugh out of Wei Wuxian. The warm feeling in his chest expands to fill his body, tingling from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, before settling down into a deep sense of contentment. When he meets Lan Wangji’s eyes again, he finds that same joy mirrored on his face.

Ah, he thinks quietly. So this is the feeling of coming home.

--

buy me a ko-fi!

--

[imsorryandthankyou]

Da Qing is a super interesting character who I wish we saw more of. I want to know what he was up to for those thousand years after Shen Wei and Kunlun were with him, but before Zhao Yunlan 'adopted' him. I don't want anything bad to happen to him ever.

This video is inspired by the following story by @eirenical and how Da Qing has a fear of being left alone. https://archiveofourown.org/works/25115938 

With years of being alone, I can only imagine how hard it must be for him to connect with others and not having to worry about whether or not they are going to abandon him, or DIE or whatnot. Da Qing just deserves the world and I’m so glad he has his found family in the SID team.

Cats have 9 lives. How many lives do you think Da Qing has left?

*Disclaimer: I do not own any of the clips or the song. I'm only responsible for editing them together.

Show: Guardian (镇魂) Song: I Don't Want To Be Alone Artist: Abe Parker Edit: imsorryandthankyou

[yaaurens]

Eep, I’ve been tagged by @eirenical to post the last line of my WIP(s). Surprisingly, I actually have something! (Okay, technically I have something else too, but that’s sekrit for Guardian Wishlist purposes.)

Working title is “angsty Shen Wei”:

His former robes had been more than mere clothing - they had incorporated armour, and his new robes, while not quite as suitable for battle, still felt like protection, an anchor of familiarity in the sea of uncertainty he struggled with on a regular basis.

Tagging @galauvant, @hils79, @boredlizzie, @katvonbirb, @clevermanka or anyone who wants to play.

[orestesdreams-pyladesloves]

For the Spotify Wrapped: 17 and 23! :D

thank you!!! xD

17. Welcome Home, Son by Radical Face

haha,, yeah this song,,,, wow started on my lan wangji playlist and ended up on my zuko playlist as well so it got Lots of play time

this song is just so gorgeous both lyrically and in its instrumentation and the images it paints are Stunning like:

“Sheets are swaying from an old clothesline Like a row of captured ghosts over old dead grass Was never much but we made the most”

23. Touch by Sleeping at Last

sleeping at last is my top artist this year which like No Surprise but this song being so high up was a little bit of a surprise because i only have it on my zhou zishu playlist so that just means i listened to his playlist a Lot

i really am such a sucker for vivid imagery as we can see in just these two songs lol like:

“Invisible machinery These moving parts inside of me Well, they've been shutting down for quite some time Leaving only rust behind”

what the heck that’s just so pretty!!

[fixaidea]

e/R and Wangxian. ^_^

e/R

I’m literally in two minds about this ship. Do I ship it? Yea. I do, because I love what-ifs and canon divergence, but I also think it could never work as the two characters are presented throughout the most part of the story.

Also it’s really hard to find fic that’s actually about Enjolras and Grantaire and not BBC Sherlock’s over-zealous, dumb cousin and depressed, alcoholic Feuilly.

Wangxian

See, I really like these two, both individually and as a couple, they’ve just been lately over-shadowed by something even shinier (hualianit’shualian).

[lizardrosen]

October 2018? ^_^

(send me a month and year and I’ll share something I’ve written)

Okay i COULD have given you something serious but instead have a transcript of a brickclub conversation and a mini fic i wrote because of it. (I couldn’t find the original post, but my notes tell me that this was @melle93 and @orestesdreams-pyladesloves talking)

- No one reacts. No one intervenes. Everyone is staring and trying to puzzle the world back together. I guess there was no protocol to follow for situations like that? The beloved mayor of another town crashes a trial to announce that he is the convict they were looking for.

- I’m laughing a little because could you imagine if there was?? Like Madeleine speaks up and everyone just goes ‘oh no, not again’

- Hahah, imagine that it happens so often that someone created special forms for such a situation and every judge has some lying next to him. Long live bureaucracy!

“Wario is clearly the clumsy alias of the infamous ecoterrorist Mario. Look at their histories! Mario hailed from the Mushroom Kingdom; well so does Wario.”

Then after he fills out the forms he goes:

“And so Judge Bowser, you see it’s so: It’s-a-me, Mario!”

[gffa]

Another for the aro SW club here! ;D I honestly never thought about how my aromanticness (?) might interact with my love of SW and all things Jedi. But I agree that it may be related to SW focusing on the fact that ALL love is good, not just romantic love. It's the found family trope x 1000. Also, I'm with you on being an aro/ace person who loves reading and writing shipfic (even explicit stuff). I think it's bc I enjoy getting to live it vicariously through fic in a way I never would IRL. ^_^

Hi!  *fistbump of welcome to the aro SW club!*  I think, for a bunch of us aro people (and ace people as well, I would presume?), there’s at least an attraction to characters who not only aren’t defined by romance, but it’s by and large just not an issue for them. Sure, you have Anakin who is very clearly not aro, and you have Obi-Wan with Satine, but otherwise the majority of Jedi (at least in canon) just don’t seem to really think much about it, they’re not pining after it, they’re not missing something.  And I love that maybe this is at least partly because they have this incredible connection in their head, where they’re already spiritually and emotionally and psychically connected to so many people, you can send waves of comfort right into someone’s head, there’s not as much of a drive to find more physical or verbal expressions then. But also that it’s nice to have one culture where romance just isn’t part of it and that the people within that culture are free to choose it if they want, a few of them did and they were treated warmly for it, but that the Jedi chose other paths, they wanted other pants, they wanted other dynamics and meaning in their lives, they just don’t seem interested in romantic relationships. Look at Yoda, Mace, Shaak, Depa, Plo, Jocasta, Luke, Aayla, Kit, Yaddle, Even, Adi, Luminara, etc.  All characters who just don’t seem interested in romance all that much, that the Jedi being married to their Order doesn’t seem to be a hardship because there can be people--LOTS of people, even, not just one or two--who genuinely aren’t that into romance and have other types of love that are more important to them.  Even Ahsoka, one could argue, sometimes has squiggly feelings for characters like Lux or Kaeden, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily have to be romantic, sometimes feelings are confusing and messy.  Maybe Ahsoka is biromantic, maybe she’s a lesbian, but also maybe she’s aromantic and there’s a lot of value in that. I think you’re absolutely right that it helps that Star Wars has always been about how ALL kinds of love are good, that SW bucks a lot of the mainstream trends of everyone needing to be paired up in romantic relationships or that blood family is more important than adoptive families or that chosen families aren’t just as good as traditional nuclear families. A lot of us aro people are used to thinking outside of the traditional ways love is shown and so it’s not that we want to devalue romance, because we love romance and shipping characters, those can be great stories!  But having this one culture represent us, showing that we’re worthwhile and just as valid as other types of love, that can be meaningful.  And no one has to interpret it this way, certainly not even all aro people, I’m sure there are plenty who disagree, too!  I’m only speaking for my own experience and the people I’ve directly talked to about this, but there’s absolutely room for our aro/ace qualities and that a culture viewed through that lens has value. And I think this is why I get kind of tetchy about people who deride the Jedi for the no marriage thing.  In addition to that I think there’s a lot of misinterpretation about what the Jedi actually say, what they actually allow, what attachment actually means, that it’s not the same thing as love, etc., there’s all too often this sense of, “They’re denying a fundamental part of what it means to be human by not having romantic relationships!” from some critics and I’m over here like, YOU CAN TAKE THAT ATTITUDE AND SHOVE IT ALL THE WAY UP YOUR ASS, RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR HEAD UP THERE.  I know most people don’t mean it that way, I’m certainly not trying to paint all Jedi critical people with that brush, because that would be inaccurate, but I’ve definitely seen that attitude before and, as someone who is not missing some fundamental part of what it means to be human, who is not somehow broken for being aromantic, it’s definitely rankled.