I Sprained My Arm Awhile Back So This Took Me Awhile To Finish. I Can Draw Again Now, But Slowly….

Xichengclipse 2021 Day 1

Ex-Lovers

Jiang Cheng is really not sure how he ended up accompanying Wei Wuxian to dinner with his boyfriend but here he is.

“Tell me again why I need to be here?” Jiang Cheng asks, even though the four previous times didn’t make it any clearer to him at all and he doesn’t have much hope for the fifth time either.

“Because Lan Zhan’s brother will be there too, we can’t very well kick him out of the house after all, and that would just be awkward, but with you there it will be fine, because you can distract him, can’t you, A-Cheng?” Wei Wuxian rambles and reminds Jiang Cheng yet again that he is quite nervous about this.

“Doesn’t the guy have any other friends he could go to?” Jiang Cheng grumbles under his breath because he was looking forward to a relaxing evening, goddamit, but now he’s in the rich part of town and has to make small talk over a dinner he doesn’t care about.

Sometimes he really hates Wei Wuxian.

“He studied abroad for a long while and just came back, I’m not sure he had time to see his friends already,” Wei Wuxian says as he bounces excitedly on his feet.

“That just makes it worse,” Jiang Cheng gives back with an eyeroll. “Shouldn’t he get to spend some time with his brother first, before you barge in?”

“I said so, too, but Lan Zhan seems worried about his brother. He says he’s a little subdued ever since he came back and we can’t have that now, can we?” Wei Wuxian tells him with his most winning smile and Jiang Cheng fights the urge to punch him in the face.

“You could have brought Huaisang,” Jiang Cheng argues. “Hell, you could have brought A-jie, and it would have been better than dragging me along to this.”

“But not half as fun,” Wei Wuxian singsongs back at him, and before Jiang Cheng can reach out to strangle him, he rings at a door.

“This is not over,” Jiang Cheng hisses, just as the door is opened, because he will not forget this, and just because basic manners demand that he can’t strangle his brother right in front of the boyfriend and his brother doesn’t mean he has to completely let go of that urge.

There will be a chance at a later date, Jiang Cheng is sure of that.

But for now he plasters a smile to his face as he directs his attention towards the door, ready to meet Wei Wuxian’s boyfriend and at least play nice for today.

When he catches sight of the person on the other side of the door the smile slides right off his face though.

“Xichen,” Jiang Cheng gets out, his voice strangled and he watches as Lan Xichen’s mouth drops open.

“Wanyin?” he asks, clearly unsure and it’s enough to jolt Jiang Cheng out of his surprise.

“What the—” Wei Wuxian starts, but Jiang Cheng doesn’t hear how that ends, because he turns around on his heels and walks away.

His heart is racing and his breath is coming much quicker than it should be, so that means he probably shouldn’t run, but he needs to get away from Lan Xichen immediately.

He cannot believe that they would run into each other like that.

Читать дальше

Mike alternates seasons between El and WIll not just through time spent or who he's fighting to get back to, but in another way I noticed too:

Season 1 Mike and El is about their romance. Season 3 is about their friendship. Season 2 Mike and Will is about their friendship. Season 4 is about their romance.

And this is so important an order for what these stories are, too. El and Mike are the story of two people who date then find that they still really enjoy the time they spend together while broken up and face less conflict as friends. Mike and Will are the classic story of friends who, on that basis of friendship, are able to build a romance.

We don’t always get what we want, Jin Zixuan. 

dumbass trio of Gusu strikes again, ft. sensitive Jin-xiong.

BBC News

Japan court orders controversial 'Moonies' church to disband - BBC News

The Unification Church came under scrutiny after the killing of former PM Shinzo Abe in 2022.

conclusions may be drawn

Nie Huaisang becomes an uncle and immediately sets out to be a jokester about it

do you ever experience a moment of beauty and connection—like a call from a friend or the way soup your brother made you smells or the way you glimpsed the face of god when you heard a good song 20 times in a row one dark early morning or the way you see traces of dead loved ones in yourself the older you get—and think, “hey. maybe I can survive on moments like this forever. maybe i don’t need to express myself publically just because that’s the norm; maybe private moments of beauty are still enough, more enough than sharing everything or being understood or the idea of being accepted... maybe the loneliness of being has always been meant to be felt in conjunction with experiencing beauty... maybe nothing in between birth and death is real except revelatory experiences like this.” and then you have a sense of clarity, just for a bit, before it fades as normal habits take over... well, I think anything that you think or instinctively know during moments like that is the closest thing to clarity / understanding we all get to have. keep these moments close and don’t forget.

Mike and Will are two sides of the same coin. But Mike's curse is invisibility

I really love how @aemiron-main brought to light the idea that Will is a representation of LGBTQ people who are actively targeted because of their sexuality, and hated by their parents—parents who clearly perceive them and hate them for it (or at least one of them does, like in the case of Lonnie).

Meanwhile, Mike is a representation of LGBTQ people who slip through the cracks, the invisible ones, the ones their parents can’t see even though they desperately want to be seen and understood by them.

And I think it’s such a brilliant idea to have written them this way, to portray these different realities within the LGBTQ community—because yes, the 80s setting fits, but it’s not just about that. It breaks down stereotypes by showing us the overlooked representations, the so-called invisible community, the one Mike represents—so invisible that even the general audience of Stranger Things (aside from film students who know how to read cinematic language, and LGBTQ people who understand because we’re way less affected by the lens of heteronormativity) can miss it.

The fact that Mike and Will are both gay but in completely different situations is so fascinating. Whether it’s Lonnie or the bullies, or the people in town filled with judgment and prejudice, or even the ones who mean well—like his mom, his brother, and his friends—everyone sees Will.

Lonnie and the bullies take his sensitivity as an insult and attack him for it. Joyce and Jonathan cherish it and accept him for who he is. But either way, he’s seen.

And that’s the double-edged sword: being visible means he’s an easy target for hatred and violence. That’s why no one—not even Hopper or Ted Wheeler—was surprised at the idea that Will might be a victim of a hate crime.

But on the other hand, the people who love him and accept him can see him. They notice immediately when something’s wrong. They know when he’s not okay. They realize right away when he goes missing.

Who ever noticed that Mike was suffering? How long would it have taken for the Wheeler parents to realize Mike hadn’t come home if El hadn’t saved him from falling off that cliff?

Like the post said so perfectly—people don’t recognize Mike’s difference.

Sure, he’s spared from the bullying—kind of. He still gets bullied for his frog face, for being a nerd. But before Will disappeared, he didn’t seem to be targeted by the homophobic slurs that were directed at Will.

It’s not that they hate him. It’s that they don’t see him.

And that would explain his obsession with superheroes and people with powers, but also his desire to be normal. Deep down, Mike wants to be different. He wants to be seen. He wants to be himself—but he also knows how dangerous that is. He’s seen what happened to Will. And to El.

And one really important thing that aemiron-main said (which I think would explain the cliff scene so well, and which I really hope Season 5 will explore):

Will represents gay men who die from hate crimes. Mike represents gay men who die by suicide.

Will represents gay men who are too visible (through no fault of their own), whose families and the people around them sensed their queerness from a very young age. Mike represents gay men who are invisible—not hated, but never supported either.

Will represents gay men who are tormented, or taken away by force. Mike represents gay men who run away from home—or disappear by taking their own lives.

Will is a gay boy who gets picked on and called “queer” because of how he dresses. Mike is a gay boy whose clothes go unnoticed.

Will is good at hiding because he’s visible. He has to hide because people seem to see right through him.

Mike isn’t good at hiding. He’s not good at pretending to be “normal” because he never had to. He’s invisible. No one ever saw him before.

He never had to hide the way Will did.

Will had to learn how to hide and how to act “normal.” That’s exactly why he hates when people treat him differently, like he’s a “freak.” Will doesn’t want to be treated differently—because he’s always been treated differently.

Because he’s too visible. So he had to learn how to act “normal.”

Meanwhile, Mike wants to be treated differently—because he’s been invisible his entire life.

He never had to learn how to hide, or how to behave “normally,” not really. Even though now he tries, he doesn’t know how, because he never had to before.

Where Lonnie noticed every trace of queerness in Will, Ted just… ignored everything. Too busy being passive and watching TV.

Will was so visible that he couldn’t even breathe without Lonnie noticing and forcing him to play baseball, because “that’s what boys do.” Mike is so invisible he could’ve screamed “I have a girl with magical powers in my basement who’s wanted by the government” and Ted wouldn’t have noticed a thing.

Mike and Will are two sides of the same coin.

And now that I think about it… poor Mike is just lost. He doesn’t know where he fits.

Because he’s an invisible gay kid, he doesn’t feel normal—so he thinks he has to protect himself by hiding his difference and pretending to be normal. He performs heteronormativity for the whole world to see (aka the cis-het “normals”).

But at the same time, he’s not seen or accepted by the “different” ones either—because they don’t perceive his difference.

(Like when El says “no you don’t” after Mike tells her he knows what it’s like to be bullied—because she meant being different, and she didn’t see that in him.)

Mike doesn’t feel at home with the “normal” people, because deep down he knows he’s different. But he doesn’t feel different enough to be embraced by those who are different.

So he’s stuck. He’s floating in between. He doesn’t know where his place is.

Which also explains why it’s so hard for him to develop a sense of self-worth outside of being needed. Outside of being useful.

He suppresses and denies his own trauma because he thinks it doesn’t “count.” Because he didn’t go through what Will went through. Or what El went through. So he tells himself it’s nothing.

His curse is invisibility.

Even we, the audience, don’t get access to his point of view. He’s ignored, overlooked, minimized—and especially misunderstood.

And all of this gives him that aching feeling of belonging nowhere. Not normal enough, not different enough. Not this, not that.

Mike Wheeler is Vecna’s playground, honestly. If he isn’t one of his targets in Season 5, then what was the point of writing such a painfully complex character?

Here is the post who inspired me this post.

Do first!

No, do second

...ahhhh

I don't know. They are both equally tempting

Do both

So what iffff.....

A Fudanshi who is also the biggest xicheng shipper transmigrates into MDZS world (SVSSS style) into Jin GuangYao who makes xicheng canon and who also doesn't give a fuck about power and that shit and is willing to stay in the Unclean Realm with Nie Mingjue coz A) He hot and B) He hot

Unknowingly makes the great Chifeng-zun fall for him while he's clueless about it coz he busy plotting parties to bring Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen together. Little does he know that not only will xicheng be endgame but also NieYao 😌

Should I write this or should I write this?

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín/Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén, Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín & Jīn Líng | Jīn Rúlán, Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn Characters: Jiang Cheng | Jiang Wanyin, Lan Huan | Lan Xichen, Jin Ling | Jin Rulan, Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji, Lan Yuan | Lan Sizhui Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Parenthood, (well unclehood), florist!Jiang Cheng, teacher!lan xichen, angsty teen!jin ling, wangxian wedding planning, Angst and Fluff, Angst with a Happy Ending, Slow Burn, most characters dead in canon are dead at the start of this fic, Family Dynamics, jin ling’s Been Through It poor kid, jiang cheng is not good at parenting but he tries (oh my god does he try) Summary:

Jiang Cheng does not have time to be a best man at Wei Wuxian’s wedding. Not only does he have to run the family business all by himself, but he also has to raise his teenage nephew - a task that’s starting to feel increasingly impossible.

The last thing he needs is to waste time planning Wei Wuxian’s wedding. Especially when it means working with his stupidly attractive, insufferably nice fellow best man, Lan Xichen.