The day after Sirius shows up at the Potter’s doorstep, exhausted in every sense of the word, James writes a letter, rolls it up tight, and attaches it to his family owl with a purple ribbon.

He never gets a response.

Three years later, Dumbledore shows up to an Order meeting with Regulus Black in tow. He looks awful, hollowed out, empty.

“Reggie?” Sirius chokes and lunges forward, doing his best to gather Regulus to his chest, but his little brother has grown in the past few years, surpassing Sirius in height.

As soon as Sirius touches him, Regulus’ face crumples and he starts shaking, tucking himself into the curve of Sirius’ body.

The room is silent except for the brother’s ragged breathing, Order members shifting uncomfortably in their seats. James can tell Lily is staring at him from the corner of his eye but he doesn’t turn to her. His eyes are glued to Regulus’ wrist.

His sleeve must have hitched up when he moved to cling to Sirius. The bottom of the Dark Mark is visible, vivid against Regulus’ pale skin. But that isn’t what captures James’ attention.

Tied around Regulus’ wrist, after all this time, is a purple ribbon, ragged and fraying.

part 9 of the jegulus twitter confession au!

they went on a date!! and their friends are highly invested lol and apparently its reggie’s birthday so Happy Birthday Regulus!!

check pinned post for masterlist 🫶

this is the only reason i get news notifications on my phone

Steel Ball Run

okay but they actually had a very calculated disregard for speed limits?

some of the quick facts:

- average speed of 103mph (165kmh) including the 22.5 minutes of refueling - reached cruise speeds of 160mph (258kmh) - 700 horsepower from various upgrades - built-in Net Radar radar detector - windshield-mount Escort Max 360 radar detector - AL Priority laser jammer system - aircraft collision avoidance system (for finding highway patrol aircraft) - brake lights and tail lights disabled - vinyl trim used to make the rear lights resemble a honda accord (and not a race-ready mercedes) - 2 ipads for additional police tracking - 2 GPS systems to prove their record - police scanner - CB radio - 18 spotters along the route to watch for police - and my personal favourite, a roof mounted set of thermal binoculars

And that’s the way to do it.

Kings

I’m amazed they were able to beat the old cannonball record

I bothered to look up the source all the way back and some extra facts:

Apparently, they had cops helping keep the other cops away, they did this by convincing them that they would do it regardless and helping would be safer, and if they set a crazy enough record it would deter other people.

The speed discrepancy between the top speed at almost 200 and average speed of 103 is because they dropped it with other cars nearby, which was also a strategy to not get reported and stopped.

It was not a Mercedes it was an Infiniti Q50 modded with a GT-R drivetrain which was set up for multiple drivers with a MIDDLE seat like a McClaren F1? I cannot find pictures unfortunately.

The original interview says they had a fucking smoke screen if they got chased even. Recommended by his therapist apparently?

I think my favorite part was he is agnostic so he prayed to every god just in case. All of them he could find. Just to cover all the bases.

this idea started with this thought:

it would be extremely fucking funny if wei wuxian was lan xichen’s friend first

imagine if that’s how lan wangji meets him. that’s their introduction. the category wei wuxian is introduced to him as is “my brother’s friend” which puts him right there with nie mingjue.

in canon this is very good but slightly harder to finagle without being very au but you know where this is just very choice?

modern au.

how it happens is this

wei wuxian is a little genius and skips two grades when he’s young. on one hand, madame yu complains about jiang cheng not skipping any grades constantly, but on the other hand she can’t compare them so precisely because they’re talking different tests in different classes and for couple years at a time are even in different schools, which really cuts down on a lot of the tension between wei wuxian and jiang cheng.

this also means that wei wuxian is in the same class as jiang yanli

jiang yanli doesn’t have the energy to be jealous and is also much more gracious about accepting help. which means wei wuxian doesn’t let his sister get anything less than straight a’s in everything because he doesn’t want madame yu to yell at her for it.

when they’re all still young kids the jiangs move and the kids are enrolled in the same school as all our favorite people.

lan wangji is also a little genius but everyone’s very concerned about his social development and the potential damage skipping grades could do to it, so he stays right where he is. also in his class is jiang cheng, nie huaisang, mianmina, jin zixuan, wen ning, and meng yao who skipped one grade because he was worried skipping two would get him the wrong sort of attention.

but two years ahead of them is wei wuxian, jiang yanli, lan xichen, and nie mingjue. lan xichen initially befriended wei wuxian (to his best friend nie mingjue’s annoyance) because he was new and young and lan xichen didn’t want him to feel intimidated and alone. then someone talked shit to jiang yanli and wei wuxian cheerfully squared up and kicked their ass which horrified lan xichen while nie mingjue was delighted and decided maybe this kid isn’t too bad after all

this is also good because we still have wei wuxian struggling with his peer group. are his peers the kids his own age? or the kids he spends all day ever day with in class and has for years? cue an identity crisis, wash rinse repeat

anyway sort of on accident wei wuxian becomes best friends with lan xichen and nie mingjue. he’s friendly with the others but they are, well, his best friends’ little siblings, even if they’re the same age as him, so they don’t really hang out. nie huaisang comes over sometimes but wei wuxian tries to avoid him when he does because they’re actually decent friends but jiang cheng gets upset about not having one friend that doesn’t like wei wuxian better which is, you know, unfair but also a valid emotion so wei wuxian and nie huaisang just text constantly

the fun thing about lan xichen and nie mingjue is that they secretly love getting into shenanigans but have to be responsible older brothers about everything and good role models and whatever. wei wuxian can’t be bothered with any of that. so he’s constantly getting them into trouble that they’re delighted to be in and they all practice sparring at the nie studio and wei wuxian is friendly and fun and outgoing in a way that neither lan xichen and nie mingjue are. the three of them all balance each other out so well, softening the hard edges of the other two, and of course they’re all very beautiful and smart and kind in their own way, and well

the three of them are the popular kids, easily, which baffles all of them to varying degrees

(if jiang cheng is never asked “oh, are you wei wuxian’s brother?” again in his life it’ll be too soon)

so throughout all of this lan xichen goes over to the jiang’s and he and wei wuxian both spend a lot of time at the nie but because lan qiren is strict and not fun it’s not until the summer before their junior year that wei wuxian goes over to the lans

this is the first time lan wangji is meeting the boy who’s been his brother’s other best friend for years, since obviously he’s known nie mingjue since they were toddlers

and uh

holy shit

his brother never told him wei wuxian is hot

commence the mortifying ordeal of 1. being a freshman and 2. having a crush on your elder brother’s friend

“Hey,” Wei Wuxian says, popping his head into his younger brother’s room, already in his swim trunks. “Do you want to come to Mingjue’s with me and A-jie? It’s too hot, we’re going swimming.”

Jiang Cheng looks up from his books, hesitating. He loves swimming, but his last middle school exams are looming ever closer, and he’s taking it very seriously. Wei Wuxian doesn’t take end of year exams seriously, as a rule, and that he aces them anyway infuriates pretty much everyone in his class except for his friends, and even they get pretty exasperated with him.

“Wen Qing will be there,” he says, which he thinks is pretty compelling and will definitely get Jiang Cheng to agree.

Instead Jiang Cheng flushes and looks down. “No thanks. I have studying to do.”

His brother isn’t looking at him, so Wei Wuxian doesn’t bother to keep the disappointment off his face. “Okay, well call us if you change your mind, okay? We’ll come pick you up.”

The frown around his mouth softens but he just nods and Wei Wuxian sighs before retreating.

He goes outside and shakes his head at A-jie. She’s wearing the sundress that Wei Wuxian got her for her birthday last year over her bikini and giant sunglasses that cover most of her face. Her mouth twists into a frown but she gets into her car, a deep purple convertible that her parents had given her for her recent sixteenth birthday which had made her the envy of all their friends. Mingjue had gotten a jeep which was extremely useful for camping but less outright cool. Xichen, unfortunately, had gotten a very sensible and boring white sedan. It’s also a BMW, but that only makes up for so much.

Uncle Jiang had promised Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng they’d get cars for their birthday too, but Wei Wuxian knows Aunt Yu hadn’t been pleased about that, and really, it’s excessive for his best friends and his siblings and him to have a car. It’s not like there’s any lack of people he can bum rides off of.

A-jie pulls up outside of the Wen’s apartment building. They own the whole thing and their entire family lives there. She beeps the horn because they’ve learned the hard way not to bother going inside. The doorman is a creep, and also they have guard dogs, so. No.

Wen Qing must have been waiting for them because she comes out a moment later, some sort of complicated red gauzy dress on, and maybe it’s for the best that Jiang Cheng didn’t come. It might have killed him. She hops into the back seat without opening the door.

“No Wen Ning?” Wei Wuxian asks.

“Hello, Wei Wuxian, I’m doing great, thanks,” she says sarcastically, leaning forward to poke him in the side. He squirms away from her but there’s nowhere for him to go. “He’s helping Granny with something in the kitchen. I offered to help, but they said no.”

“A smart decision,” A-jie mutters, pulling back onto the road.

Wen Qing kicks the back of her seat then slumps back and does her seat belt.

They pull up to the Nie manor twenty minutes later and Wei Wuxian hasn’t knocked since he was ten. Instead he takes out his keys and unlocks the front door, letting all of them in. “Mingjue, we’re here!” he shouts, heading towards the kitchen.

Xichen grins at from where he’s in the middle of cubing watermelon. He nods at the girls, who wave back, but don’t pause in going out to the pool. Wei Wuxian boosts himself onto the counter then reaches out to steal some of the watermelon. Vodka bursts across his tongue and he nearly chokes. “Well, Wuxian?” Xichen asks innocently, “How is it?”

“This was not your idea,” he declares, popping another bite of the vodka soaked watermelon into his mouth.

“It was Nie Huaisang’s,” he admits. “Mingjue is worried about him starting high school and I’m starting to think he’s right.”

“Worried,” Wei Wuxian scoffs, deciding to actually be useful and getting down to pull a large bowl out of the cabinet to put the watermelon in. “He’s going to be ruling that place by the end of the year. He should be more worried about college. Nie Huaisang was made for college.”

Xichen pauses in cutting, a blank look on his face. “Don’t bring that up to Mingjue. You’re right, but for our own sanity let’s not introduce that idea to him just yet.”

Wei Wuxian laughs, and he’s still laughing when Mingjue comes downstairs in just his swim trunks. He’s already regretting having to see the looks A-jie is going to give Mingjue behind her too big sunglasses. He and Xichen are about the same height, and Mingjue is several inches shorter, but what he lacks in height he makes up for in wingspan. He can hold him and Xichen on each shoulder. They’d checked.

“Wuxian, finally, what too you so long?” he complains, punching him in the arm as he walks by.

Wei Wuxian gives an exaggerated wince and clutches his arm, but Mingjue just rolls his eyes and Xichen doesn’t look up from where he’s putting the last of the watermelon into the bowl. “Mingjue, please, I only have the one arm.”

“You have two arms, actually,” he says, unrepentant. He opens the fridge and starts taking out beers. Mingjue and Nie Huaisang’s parents are perpetually absent, always on some business trip, but for as long as Wei Wuxian has known them, they’ve given their sons the freedom to do pretty much whatever as long as no one gets hurt or arrested and the house is still standing when they get back.

It’s such a difference from the Jiang household and definitely from the Lan that it’s no wonder they spend all their time at Mingjue’s house rather than their own. Wei Wuxian has never even been inside Xichen’s house. Mingjue assures him he’s not missing much.

“We had to pick up Wen Qing,” he says instead of clarifying that he only has one left arm. “Her uncle took her car away again.”

The three of them share a dark look that covers a conversation they’ve had dozens of times before. Then Xichen picks up the bowl of watermelon and Wei Wuxian carries half the beers out and they put that aside for now, like they so often put aside the things they hate and can do nothing about, like Lan Qiren’s strictness and the Nie’s absence and Aunt Yu’s everything, and go out to have a sunsoaked day with their friends and each other.

The first time Lan Wangji hears about Wei Wuxian, he’s ten years old, it’s a Saturday, and Uncle is angrier than he’s seen him since Dad left.

Xichen had field trip to a planetarium today, but instead of going to pick him up at the school parking lot like they’d been planning, they’re on their way to the planetarium to get him because Xichen got in a fight.

Xichen. Got in a fight. With the other students.

Lan Wangji thinks that someone might be playing a prank on him.

They arrive, Uncle straight backed and furious, and find Xichen and Nie Mingjue standing outside with a chaperone. Xichen has a split lip and Nie Mingjue’s shirt is ripped and his knuckles bruised. Uncle exchanges quick greetings and apologies with the chaperone, then turns to them and demands, “What on earth were you thinking? What was that about? Did you fight each other?”

That seems almost as ridiculous as Xichen fighting at all. They’ve been best friends for longer than Lan Wangji can remember.

“It was with two other students, Wen Chao and Wen Xu,” the chaperone says. She seems more bored than upset about the whole thing. “Their father already came to pick them up.”

Uncle turns a concerning shade of red then snaps, “Well? What sort of explanation do you have for this? Why did this happen?”

Xichen and Nie Mingjue share an uncomfortable look, communicating something through several raised eyebrows and minute shakes of the head. Finally it’s Nie Mingjue who says, “We, um. Don’t. Know.”

“You don’t know why you started a fight with other students?” Uncle asks. Lan Wangji cringes and the tone’s not even being directed at him. “You just decided to act disgracefully for no reason at all?”

“No!” Xichen denies and Nie Mingjue elbows him in the side. “It wasn’t – um. We just. Well. There was a reason. We just don’t know what it was.”

Uncle pinches the bridge of his nose. Nie Mingjue brightens and Lan Wangji turns to see Nie Zonghui walking up the steps towards them. Nie Zonghui is a Nie cousin that’s only a handful of years older than Nie Mingjue, but he’s usually the one who shows up for things like this.

“Lan Qiren,” Nie Zonghui greets, then looks down at Nie Mingjue. “I had plans today, you know.”

“Sorry,” Nie Mingjue says, not sounding very sorry at all.

Nie Zonghui rolls his eyes then says to chaperone, “Sorry about the inconvenience. Can we take them home now?”

“Of course,” she says, “I believe the teacher will assign further punishments on Monday.”

He nods and she waves at both of them before going back inside.

“You’re really not going to tell me what all this is about?” Uncle asks.

Nie Mingjue and Xichen share another complicated look then Xichen says, “We don’t know why. We saw Wei Wuxian fighting with the Wen brothers so we, uh, jumped in. A little. Two against one isn’t a fair fight! Especially against Wei Wuxian, even if he is tall!”

Uncle goes nearly apoplectic in his rage while Nie Zonghui gives an approving nod, which seems to scandalize Uncle nearly as much as the fight. “Xichen! I taught you better than that! Have you no brain of your own? If this Wei Wuxian jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?”

The lack of immediate denial is definitely not the right answer.

Nie Mingjue shrugs and says, “Maybe? If the bridge was falling apart and there was a river underneath, or if there was a fire, or if someone was drowning? It would depend. It’s not like he came up to us and told us to punch them so we did. It was already happening! And we know the Wens are jerks.”

“Well, where is this boy?” Uncle asks.

“His aunt already picked him up,” Xichen says, and just for a moment a dark look comes over his face, and he almost looks like their mother.

Nie Mingjue crosses his arms and looks away from them, scowling.

Lan Wangji takes that to mean they don’t like this boy’s aunt.

“Fine,” Uncle huffs. “We’ll discuss this later. Let’s go.”

Nie Zonghui reaches out to ruffle Nie Mingjue’s hair and they all begin walking down the stairs.

“Wait! Hey! Stop!”

They stop and turn. A girl in bright red shoes with chin length hair comes running after them. They pause, but she doesn’t stop running until she’s in front of them, skidding to a stop in front of Lan Xichen and immediately bowing to him, then Nie Mingjue, and holding the bow as she says, “Thank you for helping my brother.”

“You’re Wei Wuxian’s sister?” Uncle asks.

She shakes her head at the same time as Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue. “No. I’m Wen Qing.”

Wen Qing. Like the Wen brothers that were also involved in the fight? It doesn’t sound like they were protecting them.

“What are you talking about?” Uncle asks, clearly at the end of his patience. “Do you know what this was all about?”

She hesitates, slowly standing straight. She bites her bottom lip but says, “My little brother really likes space, and I don’t like leaving him alone at home with Granny, so I got permission to bring him with me. Only Wen Chao and Wen Xu don’t – they’re always – my brother is sick,” she says, looking at the space next to Uncle rather than at him. “They’re always mean to him, but this time they went too far. They split off from the group and stole his inhaler and then locked him in a janitor’s closet. I was helping the teacher because he let A-Ning come, so I wasn’t pay attention, and I didn’t notice when he missing. Wei Wuxian did. That’s why they were fighting. Wei Wuxian found them and let out A-Ning, who went to go find me, but when they tried to stop him, Wei Wuxian fought back, and then Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue went looking for Wei Wuxian, and, well,” she shrugs. She bows again and says, “Thank you for helping.”

“They took his inhaler?” Nie Zonghui asks, scowling.

She nods. “It’s okay. He was panicking in there, but then Wei Wuxian let him out and gave him his inhaler, so he’s okay, and we have another at home. I’ll give it back to him on Monday. My brother is with Jiang Yanli now, but I wanted to make sure I thanked you before you left.”

“Wei Wuxian has an inhaler?” Uncle has a different look on his face than had before. Lan Wangji thinks that Xichen probably is only going to have to do a hundred push ups instead of a thousand.

“Sort of,” Nie Mingjue answers. “It’s not his.”

Uncle is back to looking like he has a headache.

“His sister uses one,” Xichen clarifies. “She’s in our class too. She has her own, but he always carries an extra, just in case.”

Wen Qing doesn’t smile at them, but she bow one last time, and then she’s running back up the steps to the planetarium.

“See,” Nie Mingjue says, “there was a good reason.”

Uncle glares at him, but it’s Nie Mingjue, so he doesn’t even look a little bit sorry.

“Alright, you’ve caused enough trouble for one day,” Nie Zonghui says wryly, “come on, let’s go, your parents are going to be – well, they’re going to hear about it, and they’ll have a reaction. Of some sort.”

Nie Mingjue shorts, but then they’re moving again, and he waves to them before walking in the opposite direction with his cousin.

Uncle still makes Xichen do a lot of pushups and handstands, but he doesn’t say that he shouldn’t have done it, which Lan Wangji knows is a victory in an of itself.

Lan Xichen has known Mingjue for longer than he can remember. He’d been forced to play with a lot of his family friends’ children, but Mingjue is the only one who stuck.

He vividly remembers meeting Wuxian.

He’d been little kid standing next to his elder sister in a way that reminded him painfully of Wangji. Jiang Yanli hadn’t been in all their classes, and Lan Xichen had felt that it was his responsibility as a fellow elder sibling to keep an eye on Wuxian when Jiang Yanli couldn’t.

Mingjue hadn’t felt the same. Then it had turned out that they needed to less keep an eye on him than keep an eye on everyone who felt the need to piss him off.

The infamous planetarium fight was neither the first or the last time they ended up getting dragged into something by Wuxian. Once Mingjue had found out that Wuxian tended to solve his problems by being a sarcastic little shit with no sense of self preservation, he’d warmed up to him. Lan Xichen had despaired that now there were two of them.

Now he’s seventeen, smiling at the half dozen retreating boys with his mouth and nothing else, Wuxian and Mingjue at his side and blood on his knuckles.

Most of it isn’t his.

This fight has ended with the group of them ungracefully accepting their defeat by running away.

Lan Xichen is starting to have serious doubts about the intelligence of some of their classmates. He’s not sure how many times someone has to get their ass kicked before they figure out they’re not going to get away with being an asshole while they’re around. Some people still try and pick on Wen Ning, like Wuxian hasn’t spent the past half decade acting as his self appointed big brother.

(Lan Xichen is pretty sure this is why Jiang Cheng doesn’t get along with Wen Ning, but he’s never figured out how to say that without hurting someone’s feelings, so he just hasn’t said it at all.)

“Hey, are you okay?” Wuxian asks. “You’re the new transfer, right? Jin Zixuan’s brother. My condolences. He’s the worst.”

“Wuxian!” Mingjue sighs. “How can you say that? Jin Zixun is right there.”

A pause. “You know, that’s a good point. But consider this: Jin Zixun isn’t trying to date my sister.”

“What if he was though?” Mingjue muses, then a moment later yelps, “Ow!” when Wuxian punches him in the arm.  

“Sorry about them,” Xichen says. “Are you okay? It’s Meng Yao, right?”

“Yes,” he answers, looking between them carefully. “Thank you for your help.”

“Don’t mention it,” Wuxian says cheerfully. “I love punching those guys. It’s good for the immune system.”

Meng Yao smiles politely in a way that seems to imply that he thinks Wuxian is slightly unhinged. That’s oaky. Lots of people do that.

“You just moved here, right?” Lan Xichen asks.

“Yes,” Meng Yao answers, then wrinkles his nose. He reaches into his pocket and takes out a real actual handkerchief. He steps forward and grabs Lan Xichen’s wrist, delicately dabbing at he blood of his knuckles. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m Lan Xichen, actually,” he replies, voice too high, and immediately wants to die.

Meng Yao smiles instead of laughing at him. He has dimples. Death would probably be a mercy.

By his friends’ ominous, sudden silence, Lan Xichen knows that they’re absolutely going to mock him for this later.

Lan Wangji doesn’t have that many emotions about starting high school. It’s all the same people he’s known his whole life and the classwork that he’s been doing. It’s a new building and it has more students but the basic formula of go to class, go home, rinse and repeat seems largely unchanged.

The only real upside is that he’s going to same school as Xichen for the next two years. This also means that he can stop taking the bus and just drive to school with his brother.

By the time they get there, the parking lot is nearly full, which is why Lan Wangji is confused by him driving by the empty spots and then past several full rows. There’s not going to be any more free spots this close to the entrance –

There are three empty spots right at the front.

Xichen pulls in to one like it’s exactly what he expected to find. He turns off the car, but doesn’t get out, instead reaching for his phone and leaning back in his seat.

“Should we go inside?” Lan Wangji prods after another moment of Xichen making no move to get out of the car.

“What?” he looks up from his phone. “Oh. But everyone’s not here yet.”

Before Lan Wangji can ask about what he’s talking about, there’s a familiar silver jeep tearing around the corner and slamming into the parking space next to Xichen’s with eerie precision.

“Da-ge!” Nie Huaisang wails, clearly heard through the open window. “My hair! It’s ruined! You’re the worst!”

Nie Mingjue is too busy laughing as his brother slaps his chest with one hand and uses the other to frantically attempt to smooth his hair back. Xichen’s lips are twitching as he steps out of the car, Lan Wangji following.

A moment later a purple convertible turns the corner and pulls into the final empty spot next to Nie Mingjue. Jiang Yanli has on very big heart shaped sunglasses and a silk scarf around her hair, which is something Nie Huaisang might want to invest in if Nie Mingjue is going to keep driving like that with the windows down. Jiang Cheng is scowling so fiercely that it can only be to cover up his nerves.

Xichen frowns and Lan Wangji is about to ask why when Nie Mingjue jumps out of the jeep and bellows, “Oi, A-Li! Where’s Wuxian?”

A hand appears from the backseat, giving the peace sign, before gripping the seat and pulling himself up.

Lying down in the backseat is another way to protect your hair, Lan Wangji thinks distantly.

There’s a perfect boy sitting in the back of Jiang Yanli’s car, his long hair held up in a ponytail and a huge grin across his face. Lan Wangji thinks he can hear his own heartbeat, which doesn’t seem anatomically possible, and also he’s possibly forgotten how to breath.

“Right here, Mingjue!” the perfect boy says cheerfully.  “Damn, Huaisang, what happened to your hair?”

Nie Huaisang screeches and then they’re all laughing, even Jiang Cheng pulled from his grumpiness into a snicker.

“Wuxian, be nice,” Xichen scolds, but he’s laughing too.

The perfect boy is Wei Wuxian.

His brother’s best friend.

High school just got a lot more interesting.

Xichen’s brother is hot.

Wei Wuxian isn’t going to say that, because he’d be in violation of several important codes of friendship, but it doesn’t make it less true. Standing there scowling in his slacks and his crisp button up he kind of reminds him of Lan Qiren, which is very much not hot boy energy, but the sharpness of his cheekbones more than makes up for it.

“Do you want me to walk you to class?” he asks Jiang Cheng, all of them clustered around A-jie’s locker as usual. Wen Qing and Wen Ning are heading to them from down the call, coming from the biology labs where Wen Qing absolutely isn’t running secret experiments. Jiang Cheng now isn’t paying any attention him at all, far too busy with drooling over Wen Qing. It’d be embarrassing, except he’s been doing it since they were kids and Wen Qing is pretty drool worthy. He continues, “I can show you the shortcuts!”

“Do not show him the shortcuts,” A-jie says sternly, touching up her lip gloss in the mirror inside of her locker. He stands behind her shoulder to do the same. “Cutting through other classrooms and the kitchens is really going to get you in trouble one of these days.”

“It hasn’t yet,” Mingjue points out. “Besides, the lunch ladies love us.”

Xichen starts frantically slapping at his shoulder and Wei Wuxian is confused until he sees the object of his friend’s affections standing with Dumb and Dumber and Mianmian. Mingjue pretends like he doesn’t notice them because he’s dealing with his crush on Mianmian by pretending she doesn’t exist. It’s both ineffective and hilarious.

He absently puts Wen Ning in a quick headlock while Wen Qing uses A-jie’s mirror to wipe some sort of unidentifiable liquid off her face. He knows better than to ask any questions.

“Oi, A-Yao!” he shouts and Xichen punches him in the arm hard enough to bruise, although he’s all gentle smiles when Meng Yao looks in their direction. “Your company sucks! Come hang out with us instead.”

Meng Yao hesitates, but Jin Zixuan never misses an opportunity to awkwardly pant over his sister, so he makes a beeline towards them while the rest follow. “Hi, Jiang Yanli,” he says.

“Hello Zixuan,” she returns.

Before they can continue anything resembling a real conversation, Jiang Cheng steps forward until he’s shoulder and shoulder to Wei Wuxian. “We weren’t talking to you,” he says pointedly, then pauses to add, “Hi Mianmian.”

“Hey guys,” she says. “Do I need an invitation too?”

“No, you’re cool,” Wei Wuxian answers. “They’re not.”

“As if you’d know anything about being cool,” Jin Zixun scoffs.

Wei Wuxia knows calling himself cool is a deeply uncool thing to do, even if it’s true, so he ignores him completely to say to Meng Yao, “Everything going okay? If anyone gives you a hard time again, Xichen would be more than happy to beat them up for you!”

Mingjue starts coughing in a terrible attempt to hide his laughter and a flush slowly starts to creep up Xichen’s neck. This is fucking hysterical.  

“Would you?” Meng Yao asks, looking up at Xichen from under his lashes.

“I – if you, I mean, I could. If, um, you needed, I wouldn’t, you know, mind,” he says. Wen Qing rubs at her temples and even Jiang Cheng looks pitying.

Wei Wuxian is thriving. Meng Yao transferring here is the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

“Thank you,” Meng Yao says, with what appears to be perfect sincerity.

Xichen is literally saved by the bell as the two minute warning reverberates off the halls. Everyone gives quick goodbyes and Wei Wuxian sneaks one more look at Xichen’s very quiet, very hot brother before heading to class.

The best thing for me, as an ex- Starbucks employee, is the horror that genuinely is the milk delivery when it’s only you and one other shift member. Though, I did end up learning how to carry six individual gallons of milk at once.

Also that change from Customer Service ™®© voice back to normal to informal joking-threats is amazing

Yeah the whiplash from “Hi welcome to starbucks how can I help you! :)” to “I’LL FUCK YOUR WIFE” killed me.

MILK.

DELIVERY.

Almost pissed myself laughing reading this addition holy shit

its so shiddy when u have to convince yourself to do your hobbies. like, its fun, you like it, why cant you just do it. do it. do it. but what if.... mindless media consumption instead....

im so sorry to the seven thousand of you so far who relate

upset at the accuracy of these tags

In case anyone wants some perspective on how utterly random triggers can be. I haven’t lived in a house with a garage door in four-ish years. Right now at this moment, I honestly can’t recall what they sound like, except something metallic moving and rather clanky.

There was one on tv. I wasn’t even paying attention to it, I had my headphones on and was actively trying to tune the show out. My ears picked up on the sound of the garage door, and a jolt of adrenaline shot through my body as I grabbed my laptop and moved to get out of my seat and run to my room.

I realized what happened after about two seconds.

The sound is gone from my ears, but my heart is still racing and I’m waiting for the door to the house to open, to hear the jingling of my mother’s keys and her footsteps moving through the house. My muscles are still tense and I’m fighting the urge to run to my room and stick a board in front of the door.

For years, the sound of a garage door was my warning to pack up what I was doing quickly and retreat to my room if I was out of it.

I can’t remember the sound of the garage door right now, but I can’t tell my brain to stop trying to react to it.

This can be reblogged, if anyone was wondering. I wrote up this post with the intention that hopefully people who read it and didn’t really get triggers would understand a bit.

So, a thing that’s particularly important here: The trigger here is not the bad experience itself.

after my super funtime medical adventure, i had to change all my bath products, because my brain had associated the scent of them with being terrified and in extreme pain.

these were products i had chosen myself because i liked the smell. and they got connected to the medical phobia because i was using them to wash off the hospital reek and the fear sweat and so forth. i don’t know why they became a trigger. maybe because washing off the hospital smell didn’t make me not in pain. maybe because their ‘fresh pine ocean breeze bluegreen spicy stuff’ smell didn’t really replace the hospital stench, just mingled with it.

but for whatever reason, smelling these objectively nice soaps made me do flashbacks and get all hopeless and wobbly. so they had to go.

triggers are random. they’re often something that was simply present during a trauma, and you can’t guess what they’ll be. no one who hasn’t heard me explain this would ever associate suave naturals ocean breeze body wash with unbearable abdominal pain. so i guess the takeaways here are twofold:

- if you have triggers, remember other people can’t predict them, and don’t expect to be protected from them all the time. that’s up to you.

- if you don’t have triggers, don’t assume you can judge what a ‘real’ trigger is, and if someone asks you to accomodate them, don’t be a dick about it. even if you don’t want to make that accomodation, decline politely and apologize, don’t disparage their request.

If you’re going to deny someone’s request to respect their triggers, don’t bother being around them. You’re not a safe person for them to be around, whether you like it or not, the simple action of declining any kind of safety (physical, emotional, mental, psychological, verbal, etc) is not something a real friend would do. 

Respecting triggers is the bare minimum of decency, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Not respecting triggers (even through “polite decline”) is ableism.

See, I knew this take would be here in the notes, and it is unfortunately an incorrect take. There are situations in which it is reasonable to say “I’m sorry, but I cannot accommodate your triggers, and it’s important that you know I can’t do this for you so that you can decide what’s best for you accordingly”.

Example: a follower of your blog asks you to tag something for them specifically. Maybe you don’t like using tags. Maybe it’s a tag for something really common, and it would be a huge hassle you’re expected to go through in order to make your blog trigger-safe for someone you barely know. Maybe you have a terrible memory and you know you’re not going to remember to tag this thing, so even if you wanted to make your blog safe for this one person you can’t promise strict compliance. Maybe this person wants you to tag something as a trigger that’s very personally meaningful to you/a very prevalent theme on your blog, so you’re not even sure why they want you to accommodate them because you’re not sure why they’re even here because your blog is never going to be tailored toward people like them and you are not about to even start to try making it so. (See: if someone asks me to tag “the q-slur”, not only am I going to say no, I’m going to tell them I don’t even want them following my blog because they’re straight up insulting a major facet of my identity.)

Another example: a friend is triggered by the smell of coffee, so they ask you - an avid coffee-drinker - to stop drinking coffee. Full stop. Not “don’t drink it around me”, which would be a more reasonable request, but not to drink it ever. This is an example of someone wanting their triggers respected, but who is demanding accommodation in a way that infringes on someone else’s right to live their life the way they like. In those cases, it’s reasonable to say no, because the request itself is unreasonable.

But what if it was a more reasonable request? Say, a significant other asking their partner, who they live with, not to drink coffee, because it’s kind of impossible to escape the smell of coffee when someone is brewing it in the place where you live? This is more reasonable to ask, since it’s understandably harder for the person with the trigger to avoid the trigger in such an instance…but it’s also something that could be a dealbreaker. Some people really need coffee to function. (There are even some people who need to self-medicate to some degree with coffee.) Compromise could happen - such as, maybe the partner gets their coffee from Starbucks so they don’t have to brew it in the house - but it could also be super disruptive for them, or perhaps unaffordable on tight incomes. So how do you handle that? In cases of conflicting needs, the person with the trigger needs to either try to reach a reasonable compromise with the person they’re asking to accommodate them, or accept that they need more accommodation than can reasonably be given by the other person and withdraw for their own safety. It sucks when conflicting needs like that can’t be resolved(which can sometimes happen), but it doesn’t mean the person putting their foot down is wrong to do so. It doesn’t mean it’s anyone’s fault. But it’s not only people with triggers that have a right to live comfortable lives with reasonable freedoms to do what they want.

It’s nice to accommodate someone’s triggers, obviously, but a reminder: it is not okay to make demands or expect complete compliance from strangers to make something that is not ultimately for you, specifically - such as someone else’s personal blog - safe for you. Likewise, even with close friends, making unfair demands or expecting someone to change major aspects of their life for you, without respecting their right to say “this is too much to ask of me”, is a great way to make Bad Guys out of completely reasonable people. There are limits to what it is reasonable to ask someone else to do for you, which are also tied into how well you know them and how onerous it would be for them. Asking a stranger to make very minor accommodations is not unreasonable; asking a close friend to make significant accommodations is not unreasonable. Asking a stranger to make significant accommodations, or a close friend to make unreasonable and/or actively life-altering concessions, really starts to enter “it’s great if they’re willing to, but they are not obligated to and you don’t get to call them a terrible person for saying no” territory.

Saying “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this for you” not only is a reasonable statement - after all, it gives the power of deciding what to do next, for their own safety, back to the person with the trigger(s), and it doesn’t chastise them for having their trigger(s) so much as it is warning them that a certain space cannot reasonably be made safe for them - but it absolutely needs to exist. Acting as though anyone who declines to tailor their lives to any and all trigger requests, for any reason, is ableist - without even the slightest consideration to conflicting needs, or certain spaces being inherently unsafe for certain people(if people being tied up is a trigger for you, perhaps you should not be demanding the shibari blog to make itself a safe space for you), or even whether the accommodation request was remotely reasonable to begin with…you’re basically saying “having a trigger means you have a right to make demands that only Bad People would ever refuse”. There’s no room for nuance. There’s not even room for other people to have the simplest of rights, like “having the content I want on my own blog, and the freedom to tag or not tag what I feel like in a space that is literally mine and no one else’s when tags are already a user-optional thing”.

And it opens the doors wide to people who will either make unreasonable demands because of their triggers(because people with triggers can be and sometimes are extremely unreasonable about how other people should keep them safe), or to people who will actually fake having triggers in order to force other people to do what they want. Which is utterly reprehensible, and obviously it’d never be safe to assume someone is faking a trigger, but if you’re saying people with triggers get to make demands that only evil ableists can say no to, can’t you see how tempting that arrangement would be to people acting in bad faith??? It invites people (whether they have genuine triggers or not) to strong-arm others into doing what they want, and if their demands are refused for any reason then they have an excuse to villainize and attack those people.

I’m sorry, but nuance, compromise between both parties, the possibility of conflicting needs, and the right to say “no” to accommodating triggers are deeply necessary aspects of any conversation about triggers. In a perfect world, everyone’s triggers could be accommodated by everyone else with no issue, but that is not the reality of the world we live in. You obviously have a very narrow view of who might refuse to accommodate triggers and for what reasons, but there is a lot more to consider that you haven’t taken into account. Your stance on triggers and accommodating them could do far more harm than any polite refusal.

#another one for the #‘when we are not allowed boundaries we will resent others for having needs’ wall

The Juniors of MDZS go from "lmao who the heck is that weirdo can he pls leave" to "Senior Wei might be a mass murderer but I would DIE for him without a second thought"

i am delighted to inform you of the existence of the Rosefinch, which is a real actual bird that exists!

if tonks were an animagus then this would be her form

some of my favorite tiny love stories

update:

(from nyt’s modern love column)

everyone else: *just says characters actual names*

mdzs fans: fuck it. nhs lwj wwx wq jc lqr nmj ljy jl lsz jyl. good luck idiot

every time i read jc i think of jesus christ and i’m so sorry

Our lord and saviour, Jiang Cheng