I’d love to hear literally anything about the late great wife #9. Also, how many are there after 9? How many does he get away with?
(Obviously feel free to ignore this. Ik I’m super late to the DP AU)
she's funny.
vibrant in a way that girls who are late bloomers so often are.
she dimmed the longer she was with John but you could see that spark in her eyes still and it made you hope maybe she'd get out.
most of what you learn about her is learned in your grief. the other ex-wives have their own coping mechanisms (you think Mrs. Laswell takes it the hardest) but yours manifests like this. like a hunger, a need to know who she was before him, who she could have been without him.
you want to remember someone you never knew.
you spend a lot of time on her Goodreads.
she was an avid reader, across a wide smattering of genres and eras. every book is accompanied by a personal review and star rating, and her tbr is takes up pages and pages.
you learn a lot about her here. she liked science fiction (specifically anything with robots) and had a complicated relationship with fantasy (her reviews of those were paragraphs long, detailed and funny in their annoyance with soft magic systems). she had read nearly every Agatha Christie mystery, and still had never guessed the culprit before the reveal.
her last entry was a romance novel, a western, sappy sounding. it reminded her of home, which makes you think maybe she was american, and that makes your heart hurt. she was so far from home, isolated in a way no one in John's hands should be.
she seemed nice.
you wish you'd met her, and you file her away in your heart. a painful memory that you touch only when youre alone. guilt eats at you, but you make it a mission to meet the next one.
because there will always be a next one. after all a single man in possession of good fortune will always be in want of a wife, and John has always been a lucky mother fucker.
Taking foolish risks is not allowed in the Cloud Recesses.
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Breakdown:
云深不知处 - Cloud Recesses
内 - inside; interior; inner part or side
不 - [before a verb, adjective, adverb] no; not; won't; not want to
可 - can; to approve; to permit
不可 - cannot; should not; must not
玩 - play; have fun; employ; resort to; engage in; treat lightly; toy with; enjoy; appreciate; ponder; think
火 - fire; (in Chinese medicine) internal heat; anger; temper; be angry; be in a huff
玩火 - play with fire; take a risk or do something that is harmful to both oneself and others; be foolhardy; take foolish risks
Alternative translations:
Being foolhardy is not allowed in the Cloud Recesses.
Doing things that are harmful to oneself and others is not allowed in the Cloud Recesses.
Any mistakes in the translations or in the characters are mine, and if you spot any, please let me know 🙂.
The chosen images:
One of my favourite Lan Wangji scenes. He is young, proud, skillful and being provoked, but he is no fool. He keeps a cool head and he has internalised this rule: instead of taking the risk of fighting the Wen, he tricks them (using one of Wei Wuxian's talismans!) and flees, his priority to get back to Cloud Recesses 🩵.
But also, the slightly different "Doing things that are harmful to oneself and others..." 😟
