FIGHT THE OPEN MOUTH WITH AN OPEN HEART

My favourite thing about the Xianle trio is just how sickeningly codependent close they are. Like, what do you mean you haven’t been friends in 800 years, your friend group fell out in the most painful and traumatic way it possibly could have, and you all have the absolute most reason to hate each other- but in The Cave Of 10,000 gods Mu Qing and Feng Xin were absolutely appalled at the disrespect to their prince. They were fiercely protective, refusing to let Xie Lian bear witness to what they thought was an incredibly perverted insult to his honour. They went toe-to-toe with one of the most terrifying ghosts who ever lived, all in defence of him, and did so without ever thinking twice. They dragged him through that cave system with desperately protective determination, caring for him fiercely despite being misinformed about the situation, and even though they had no obligation to. I’m biting people. Mu Qing and Feng Xin never stopped caring about Xie Lian. He’s no longer their prince, he’s no longer their employer nor even their friend, but they would still put their lives in peril for him. Even when they thought he was a violent criminal (Lang Qianqiu ily but pls kys) they visited his palace to give him medicine for his arm (something about Mu Qing brushing off his injury and saying it isn’t that bad cause all martial gods get injured, then being the first in line to go heal him is so sickening and vile I love him) and make sure he’s alright, then physically fought over the implications from each other about the other having been a bad friend. All of the bullshit trauma, all of the heartache, all of the reason they could have to not give a shit about him, and they were throwing hands over who was a better friend. I hate them. (I love them.)

I love her. I’m in love with her. I have been for years. I want her, to have and to hold, for better and through worse, for the rest of my life. I used to say that I wanted to be a part of her, a heart, a lung, a leg, anything. Not because I wanted to be her, no, but because I wanted to know her, better than anyone, so I could know what she needed, how best to help her. I want to be there with her through everything. I want to come home from work and cuddle up to her on the couch, to listen to her talk about her day, or her dreams, or anything.

I want her in all the ways someone can want someone else. I want to be her best friend, her lover, her comrade. I want the be the first person she calls when she needs to talk, when she wants to share good news, or bad news, when it’s late at night and she can’t sleep. I want to kiss her, and hold her, and sleep under the stars. I want to tumble into bed with her, to tease her about her bed head in the morning. I want to learn to cook her favorite foods in a kitchen we share. I want to dance with her, to watch her trip over her own two feet and laugh at herself. God, how often I make a fool of myself to hear that laugh. I want to see every expression she can make. I want hear every noise. I want to see the most beautiful parts of the world with her, because she’s the most beautiful part of mine.

I want to hear all the family drama. I want to go to her family get togethers. I want her to come to mine. I want to show her off to everyone I know. I want them all to see how much I love her. I want them to tell her how every time I look at her my love is so apparent it makes them want to hurl. I want her to smile and laugh and agree. I want her mother to invite me into her family with open arms and I want her to be welcomed into mine.

I want to share my life with her. I want her to share her life with me. I’m in love with her, I have been for years, and I think I always will be. But I know these wants can’t come to pass. She doesn’t love me back, but it’s fun to dream.

Oh my god you took the words out of my brain. I love it.

people change you and sometimes that is the worst thing in the entire world because you used to like yourself a little more but now you hate the flinch that lives in your shoulderblades and you overthink every moment and you never set a boundary without feeling internally destroyed and it fucking sucks because they shouldn't get to do that, they already ruined your life the once, it shouldn't echo into the future

but also people change you and sometimes that is the softest morning and the best surprise. realizing that you can divide things into perfect thirds without trying because you were a sibling in a group of 3 and always needed to measure out things. you learned to skip rope and step around cracks from the kid down the street. you love the way your favorite english teacher influenced your writing.

you're old enough these days to know your mother was right and you should take a coat just in case it gets cold but you are still too young to have outrun the thunderstorm of your childhood. you arrange your spoons the way you learned growing up but you've since reorganized the rest of your kitchen to make sense to you and the way that you like working. you fold your clothes actually still based on the marie kondo method (you just like the habit of it) but you allow yourself to just-loosely-chuck-some-of-it-in because really who has the fuckin' time for it.

you still can't be in the room while people look at your art (some kind of weird mix of guilt, shame, and embarrassment) but you picked up certain words and phrases from friends that help you slow down and treat yourself a little bit gentle with it. you always take other people's crafts with a reverence like praying, but you can't help that when you see your own work from a few years ago, you mirror someone else's snort of disdain. you saw other people's bodies and freckles and stretch marks and scars and you realized they are all still fucking beautiful to you, almost obscenely so, because they belong to someone you care for so deeply that it blocks out the sun - but you can't help the little flash of self-judgement whenever you pass a mirror; the voice from too-many years of 90's and 00's skinny-means-you've-won.

and it's kind of funny because you meet someone new and while they're making friends with you, you get to see these little stories playing out of them. you meet your mom and you think oh that's where they get the accent and you meet their college roommate and you think that's the same joke you both make and you meet their friend and you think ah so this is explains the oddly vast knowledge of freshwater lakes

and then one day in the mirror you reach your hand up to push back your hair and you think - oh shit, that was them. or you make a comment and you think ah, stole that from someone else. or you stand in the store and get that random flash of they would totally tell me to buy this. and it is like a little strange river to bind you to them - that over all this time and space, their hands guide your hands and your heart in silence. it is good and it is bad and is so precious and so horrible. it is both proof of love on this earth and it is also the thing that is keeping you hurt.

a little promise that is probably true: somewhere out there, your hands are ever-so-often guiding them too.

WERE SO BACK!! AO3 BACK UP!!! AP3 VOLUNTEERS YALL ARE MY FAVORITE PEOPLE AND I OWE YOU MY LIFE!!!

x

This was too long for a comment so I have to reblog, sorry if that bothers you!

I took the “that was the last me” line to mean that that was the previous him and each time he is caught and killed he gets a new body to once again be caught and killed. There is a pile of past Edwin’s in the corner, he’s been at this for a while.

Interesting thought about him dying in hell the first time around though, would possibly explain the time difference between sacrifice and death. Even though it’s kind of a large discrepancy, like at least 6-7 hours between sacrifice and death, maybe it’s because Sa’al felt bad for him and it was whoever he was traded to next that killed him? Maybe he struggled so, so hard to stay alive those extra hours? Maybe it was supposed to be 1:00 am and there was a typo? (My personal favorite option) Maybe it’s Maybeline?

There are still soooo many questions I have about his time in hell, especially since he talks about being traded from demon to demon to demon to “something worse than a demon” which I took to mean that he wasn’t always in the Dollhouse. So where was he before then?? On one hand I desperately want to know everything that happened to him and on the other I very, very much do not.

Also (tw: homophobia), Mary-Ann, what Simon and Gang were calling Edwin and chanting when they sacrificed him was slang for gay/effeminate men, so it’s quite possible that people figured out or at the very least suspected that he was gay and considering the overall attitude towards queer people in the early 1900s, that could very easily be at least part of the reason his disappearance was considered an “act of God.” Of course, this is just my own interpretation of events and everyone is entitled to their own interpretations, I just thought I’d share! Have a great day/night!

I just had a realisation.

In the Payne/Rowland file the Night Nurse has, it says that Edwin died around noon (1:00 pm), and not at night, I mean, when the satanic ritual was performed. Does that mean that Saal took him to hell alive?

There was no blood covering his face when he took him, but Edwin tells Charles "this is the last me" when he asks about it. So are you telling me he died in hell?

His disappearance was label an act from God, that means he was gone, they never found a body, probably his grave is empty (?). The demon he was sacrificed to, took him to hell and he died there, being torture, and it wasn't fast.

And... that was the last him?

Big shout out to the coalition of Catholic nuns who just told the US bishops to stop being transphobic.

“As members of the body of Christ, we cannot be whole without the full inclusion of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive individuals,” the letter reads. It goes on to argue that “we will remain oppressors until we — as vowed Catholic religious — acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ+ people in our own congregations. We seek to cultivate a faith community where all, especially our transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive siblings, experience a deep belonging.”

The letter also states transgender people are “experiencing harm and erasure” in various ways, listing daily discrimination, a groundswell of state-level legislation aimed at LGBTQ rights and “harmful rhetoric from some Christian institutions and their leaders, including the Catholic Church.”

Read about it here

All of MXTX's protags are unreliable narrators, but in different ways

Shen Qingqiu is unreliable because he is unable to understand that the characters around him are people and see how much his actions have changed the plot

Wei Wuxian is unreliable because he has self worth issues and thinks the people who love him actually hate him

Xie Lian is unreliable because he is a cheeky motherfucker who purposely keeps information from the reader