Another Year, Another Rec List With Some Of The Best Xuexiao I've Read These Last 12 Months!! >w<

Good read on how sometimes something becomes too real too fast…..I need! To learn! To stop running from it!

His name is now Onslow and I will be figuring out how to embroider runes onto his back

daily entertainment

MR: Shizun, I'm gonna come in!

CWN: Shameless!!

MR: no problem, shizun, I'm gonna come in unannounced next time :D

Neil deserves freckles… I don’t make the rules.

Do you think freckles go away when you rank up? O.O

I hope you like my art, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

Drawing clothes that look bad is hard, so I gave up. We will just pretend this is after Jason gets him clothes.

Though if you hate the clothes… that was intentional.

Neil doesn’t have a lot of references, so I did my best.

Was so upset when I realized he did not have the magic dice as his casino power… T.T

Now that my brain is here…

Dom/sub verse where you get a designation six months to a year after you get your essences. Due to personality and whatnot, most adventurers are Doms.

Jason is a sub.

The presentation is slow. He starts getting fidgety when left to his own devices, unable to sit still. Worse than he was before being torn from his old world. Then he begins to get irritable. He prides himself on a laidback attitude. The bloke next door who will lend you a cup or sugar or tell you the secret ingredient he added to elevate his newest pasta dish. He’s affable, well liked, the baker down the street knows his sister’s name at this point.

Which makes Jason yelling at him all the more startling.

He apologizes and the baker accepts it, but the interaction sticks with him.

Then he’s out on a contract with Clive when it hits. His emotions have been a wreck, more than normal, but the fever comes in a wave. Dizziness, nausea. He can barely stand, Clive having to stop the skimmer and sit him down.

He checks the health status, the little person lit up in red. In big, bold capital letters it says “SUBDROP.”

Jason whispers it, scanning the word but not understanding. Luckily, Clive does.

Jason gets his first command that day.

“Jason, eyes on me.”

Clive walks him through a long routine. Simple requests. Giving Clive his hand, stretching, reading passages from one of Clive’s books. Jason runs through the motions until the fever and headache fade away, replaced by a blissful emptiness. A fuzziness.

When Jason comes to, Clive had parked the skimmer in the shade of a tree, a cooling ritual set up while he held Jason propped up against his chest. One hand stroking through his hair, the other holding up a book on magical theory.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Clive says when Jason moves. His body is heavy and awkward, like he’d been asleep for hours.

Clive walks him through what happened. Jason had gotten a “talk” from Rufus, but it was more equivalent to a first time mother telling their child about the birds and the bees. Oddly rehearsed and tense. Clive is more clinical. And apologetic when he tells Jason that he won’t be able to go more than a few weeks without a “command” before he starts to drop again.

And when he starts to drop, he becomes more susceptible to unwanted commands.

After that, Clive will give him small commands here and there. To pass him a napkin while they’re out to eat, read him a passage from an astral magic theory book, hand him a tool while he’s buried deep in his research. They stave him off until he needs another session a few weeks later.

Clive is respectful, never pushing the boundaries. He doesn’t even order Jason to share his interface powers while he’s in subspace. It’s comfortable, and Jason learns to love the crisp pronunciation of each syllable when he gives a command, the softer intonation of his voice when they wind down from a session, the feel of Clive’s hand as it scratches at Jason’s head and combs through his hair.

Sessions become more frequent, even when they aren’t necessary, and they become comfortable.

Jason notices the way other subs, usually crafts people, are treated around town. Subservient to their Dom, trailing a foot behind, quiet, secondary. A shiver runs down Jason’s spine even though Clive never once expects the same- and in fact encourages the opposite- from him.

Then they form the team.

Humphrey is a Dom, but he never pushes, never gives commands. He’d been oblivious to Jason’s designation for most of the time Jason had known he was a sub.

Neil joins, and it’s different. As a healer, he picks up on Jason in their first true interaction. An intake.

Humphrey is with Jason when Neil frowns, a blue flow from Neil’s diagnostic power blanketing Jason. There’s a sterile coldness about it and Jason shivers.

“You’re a sub,” Neil says, looking at Jason strangely.

“So I’ve been told.”

Neil turns to Humphrey.

“How’s he been managing with commands? Are you his Dom?”

“No. I don’t-“ Jason starts, but Neil keeps talking.

“What are the symptoms of his subdrop? So I can keep track.”

“You know,” Jason says loudly, gaining Neil’s attention. “I know I’m gorgeous and we’ll be a fantastic team of four, but I didn’t think I would be the Invisible Woman.”

“What?” Neil asks.

“I’m right here,” Jason says. “And I’ve got all the answers you could need.”

Neil looks hesitantly between Jason and Humphrey.

“But he’s a-“

“Neil,” Humphrey cuts him off. “This team does not do things that way. Jason does not have a Dom. We will all be treated the same. If you cannot accept this, then you can find another team.”

And therein starts Neil’s fascination, soon to turn into admiration (and no small amount of jealousy), of Clive and Jason’s relationship.

2 (unedited) snippets from the Eren x Reiner long fic I'm working on

Firefighter AU. (Probably going to be 20,000-30,000 words) Nothing posted yet, trying bang out the rough draft before I actually post anything. But at least it's all plotted out! (Posting this is just me yelling at myself to hurry tf up)

Both are from chapter 1.

Reiner's flashback (Read: Origin Story):

“Reiner!”

It’s hot. So hot. The heat pushed at Reiner’s skin, incessant and needy. His sweat made him feel like he was drowning. His whole body trembled and he peeked up from his knees. There’s a hand in front of his face. Small, like his. Sturdy and unshaking, unlike his.

“Reiner, you have to move!” That voice. Marcel?

There it was again. Loud. Annoying. He wanted it to stop. Reiner curled into himself some more, shutting his eyes to the red and orange flames outside his closet door. The shadows looked like demons.

Reiner on falling in love with Eren:

It was fitting really, what with the reckless determination that was known to rule Eren’s actions. If in real life Eren ran around like a force of nature, tearing down walls and running through flames, why shouldn’t that also be true for the way he invaded Reiner’s heart?

Reiner knew now that his heart had belonged to Eren ever since those first days of working with him. All it took was watching him run haphazardly into a house that resembled a tower of flames more than a building and then actually return, arms wrapped protectively around a little boy, for him to fall.

It was a pure emotion. So raw that it cut through Reiner every time he so much as glanced at the man.

Modern AU where Shen Yuan accidentally sugar-daddies everyone.

So for the purposes of this, Shen Yuan's family is basically $10 Bananas levels of cluelessly rich. Shen Yuan has almost never had to look at the prices of anything he wants. He and his siblings all get an allowance from the family's main account, which increases when they reach adulthood, and in the interest of fairness his parents made it all the same size. So Shen Yuan gets the same amount of money for his daily living expenses as his older brothers with their penthouse apartments and vacation homes and private jets, at least from the family account (since he doesn't work, he doesn't actually make as much as them in total because they earn more on top of their allowances).

And the thing is, Shen Yuan genuinely just lives a lot more humbly. He likes people but what would he do with a vacation house? Anything really nice would probably require him to fly to get out there, and he gets sick as hell on planes. Living in the central city is also not great for him, because the air pollution is so bad. Having a whole house to himself would also be ridiculous. So he has a reasonable apartment, in a reasonable area, and he splurges every so often on purchases that make him happy and take-out food that he likes, and of course he pays a cleaning service to come in twice a week. Most people assume he's comfortably middle class and has some tech job he does from home, but he's been getting a lot more than he's been spending in his monthly allowances for years now, and the figures are big.

Enter into this environment author Airplane and his trash novels. Novels, multiple, because in this AU there's no PIDW, and instead after some alternate PIDW prototype got popular in the harem genre, Airplane decided to churn out a series of copy-paste shorter stories rather than recycling the same subplots in one massively long epic.

Shen Yuan of course discovers Airplane's writing and becomes as obsessed with it as ever, except this time he notices that if there are delays between new stories, they seem to clear up faster whenever he throws some cash at the problem. And also that the drops in Airplane's writing quality coincide with times when Shen Yuan was having health issues and not keeping up with his VIP purchases. So, he works out that Airplane's probably doing the writing for the money, and that when Peerless Cucumber isn't paying the most for it, Airplane starts listening to the other buffoons in the comment section more to try and entice them to pay his bills instead.

Peerless Cucumber leaves a comment on one of Airplane's latest stories that kicks off the two of them actually chatting, and Shen Yuan eventually gets to the point of offering to fund all Airplane's writing, in exchange for Airplane not doing his crap sellout stuff to appeal to other readers anymore. Airplane thinks he's joking or maybe mocking him. Shen Yuan asks how much it would cost. Airplane fires off a ridiculous number. Shen Yuan doesn't even blink and wires him the first payment. Then he gets annoyed because Airplane leaves him on read for a while, but that's because Airplane is staring at his account balance in shock.

Of course, it's Airplane who starts referring to Peerless Cucumber as his sugar daddy. Shen Yuan is just like "based on your sex scenes I don't think anyone would pay you for that" and Airplane's all "but you WOULD pay for my sex scenes ^_~" and Shen Yuan's like "technically I am actually paying you not to write that shit" and so on. Usual banter. The quality of Airplane's writing improves dramatically, a lot of his readership drops off but he does get new readers and gradually builds up an even bigger fanbase than before, and so on, it all goes pretty well. He eventually writes a few things that take off to the point of getting physical publications and international translations. Technically Airplane no longer needs Shen Yuan to pay all of his bills by that point but he's not going to tell Shen Yuan that! The contract's still good as long as he keeps writing!

Then one of Airplane's online acquaintances runs into some financial trouble and asks for help.

Liu Mingyan used to beta read for Airplane back when he wrote fanfiction (she was like thirteen, Airplane was unaware because internet and hey free beta), and it seems her family has hit a rough patch. She wants tips on how to go pro, but Airplane explains that it was extremely difficult and he mostly lucked out by finding a single wealthy backer. Mingyan wonders if the same guy would be interested in her writing, Airplane sadly thinks not because Mingyan exclusively writes kinky danmei erotica and Peerless Cucumber seems pretty firmly in the closet still and also generally prefers plotty and world-building heavy stuff.

But like, Airplane has definitely gotten a vibe off of Cucumber-bro, and Mingyan's gorgeous older brother does video streams of himself doing cool martial arts and swordsmanship stuff. So he asks her permission and when she gives it, he recommends Liu Qingge's videos to Shen Yuan, being sure to mention that the guy in question can't really afford to keep up with his hobbies and oh what a shame it would be if he had to stop making art like that.

Haha, Airplane, you're not subtle.

Even so, Shen Yuan watches the videos and immediately agrees that Liu Qingge is beauty in motion, and that it would be criminal to deprive the world of more videos of his sword. Swordsmanship! That is the, the art of, martial arts! Definitely. He clicks the donate button, reasoning out that he'll just send a donation about the size of his usual monthly payments to Airplane and call it his good deed for the day.

Liu Qingge is very confused by this new follower from nowhere who suddenly dumped a little over a month's rent into his account. One thing leads to another, with Mingyan and Airplane conspiring to try and get Shen Yuan as a permanent patron, and then Liu Qingge being let in on it. Except that Airplane keeps referring to Shen Yuan as his sugar daddy, and well... it's not like Liu Qingge doesn't ever get 'those' kinds of comments on his videos. At first he's embarrassed, then offended, then mortified that his own younger sister is apparently setting him up to make premium private videos for what he assumes is some old pervert who is going to want him to do untoward things.

However, their options are pretty bleak at the moment, and Liu Qingge worries that if he doesn't do this then Mingyan might. She even mentions something to the effect of having planned to offer herself, and only didn't because she wasn't this "sugar daddy" guy's type!

Teeth clenched, Liu Qingge asks Airplane stiltedly for advice on how to... appeal, to this wealthy benefactor.

In the end though it's not nearly as bad as Liu Qingge feared. He winds up doing more videos in costumes and cosplay, which ought to have been an untenable expense, but Peerless Cucumber always ends up covering the cost of whatever he invests in plus extra. Sometimes he sends Liu Qingge stuff with a request to wear it, but so far it's just been like, badass warrior-themed or historical costumes. Nothing overtly pervy. He does some LARPing, he makes enough to start doing horseback archery again, convinces some of his good-looking peers from various clubs to spar with him, and ultimately the most risque videos he ends up doing are the ones where he demonstrates how to put on certain kinds of gear. He still locks those ones behind paid subscribers only, mostly because he feels like he's doing something illicit now, even if he used to show more skin on his older videos any time he took his shirt off.

Peerless Cucumber doesn't leave creepy comments, either. In fact he seems genuinely nice and supportive, it's hard not to like him, and so even once his situation levels out Liu Qingge decides there's not really much need to stop making videos for him. (He maybe even gets a little giddy thrill over... well, sometimes he finds it all a bit... just when he thinks about Peerless Cucumber watching him demonstrate his physical prowess and finding that alone worth... ANYWAY--)

So that goes on for a while, before Yue Qi enters the scene.

Yue Qi is the childhood friend of one of Shen Yuan's older brothers (Shen bros!) and Shen Jiu owes him a big favor for something that he won't talk about. At least he won't talk to Shen Yuan about it. But Yue Qi is also not the type to ask for help, and Shen Jiu is very bad at offering it, so when Shen Jiu gets word that Yue Qi is having some difficulties making ends meet, he tells Shen Yuan to act as the middle man. Go offer Qi-ge money, he knows you're nice he'll just accept it, and then Shen Jiu will pay the actual bill.

Well it turns out that Yue Qi doesn't just accept it, of course he sees right through it, and gently but firmly tells Shen Yuan that he's not interested in burdening Shen Jiu further than he already has. Etc, etc, stoic stiff upper lips and no proper communication all around. Shen Yuan panics because it's not working and he's also genuinely worried about Yue Qi by now, so he tries to figure out how to make it compelling and basically blurts that, well, see, the thing is that sometimes he pays men to entertain him. You know. To like. Do things, for him. So. He could also pay Yue Qi? To do something for him?

Yue Qi gets the wrong idea entirely, and at first is like, oh, no, A'Yuan, you shouldn't be paying people for that! These things should just happen organically! But Shen Yuan is very adamant that he believes in compensating people for what they do for him, it's not like he can't afford to, and it gets awkward but Yue Qi is like well he does have health problems. It's perhaps difficult for him to meet people. So then he starts worrying about Shen Yuan and all these strange men he's apparently paying for "entertainment". Does his brother know about this?

No of course Shen Jiu doesn't know! He'd hate it, and Shen Yuan doesn't want to hear about how he's doing everything wrong with his life again!

Then Shen Yuan mentions that his prior house cleaning service up and quit on him (they didn't), and if Yue Qi would like to earn fair compensation he could just come over sometimes to help instead, and Shen Yuan would pay him just to tidy up and hang out for a few hours! Which Yue Qi thinks is a fantastic idea, actually, even if Shen Yuan is only doing this because of his brother, this will give Yue Qi a chance to keep an eye on him and his so-called entertainers. Even if he sort of... ends up also being one?

Shen Yuan keeps everything above board, though his apartment always seems perfectly clean and he overpays way too much (Shen Jiu is still footing this bill after all), and Yue Qi starts to think maybe he actually is being paid for intimacy. Of a sort that they're maybe still working up to? Shen Yuan usually has a very thin face after all. He's kind of got two minds about this prospect. On the one hand, he's got his situationship with Shen Jiu, so dating his brother would be absurd. But on the other hand, it's not actually dating, and he does like Shen Yuan, and maybe if they can be good company for each other then Yue Qi won't feel so depressed and Shen Yuan won't need to hire strange men so often.

Meanwhile it's come to Shen Yuan's attention, perhaps through an offhand comment he read online somewhere, that people who are struggling financially often also struggle to "treat themselves". Because even when they have enough money to be comfortable there's often the looming specter of deprivation, and etc, so he figures he should start buying some of his dependents more treats and things. Since they might not buy them for themselves? And also he's enjoying doing this but shhh no he isn't, it's a huge hassle, he's only doing it out of basic moral decency, etc.

So like, Airplane starts getting little things that he'd put on some public wish lists, clearly sent by Peerless Cucumber. And he tells Mingyan to make a list for Liu Qingge too, and sure enough, Liu Qingge (bewildered, slightly flustered) tries to figure out what he's supposed to do with an album from a band he likes and some high-end leather polish. Ultimately settles on playing the music and wearing his nicest leather in his next video. Yue Qi starts arriving at Shen Yuan's place to be plied with his favorite coffees and to have scented candles awkwardly foisted onto him (Shen Yuan does not know what Yue Qi likes in gifts) (he buys these presents himself they're not out of Shen Jiu's pocket).

So finally Shen Yuan's parents start to notice that he's been spending a lot more than usual, and start to worry that he's either been taken in by a scam artist or is secretly dating a gold digger or has developed a drug addiction or something. But asking things directly like normal people is basically illegal in the Shen family, so they decide to hire a private investigator.

Enter Luo Binghe, a young man of humble background who is struggling to make ends meet after the untimely death of his adoptive mother, and is using his P.I. job and his online cooking videos to help pay his way through school (scholarship student). Usually his cases are more like, cyberstalking someone to find out if they're cheating on their spouse, or helping someone planning a lawsuit accumulate evidence on their corrupt employer, or other things like that. When he gets the Shen Yuan case, the idea that the Shen family's son is paying for "company" is well within his list of probable answers.

Though this one is a little... peculiar?

Mostly because Binghe can't find evidence of Shen Yuan actually getting what he would, presumably, be paying for. At first Luo Binghe just goes through the online paper trails, using the info that the Shen parents give him to figure out that Shen Yuan is paying Airplane and Swordmaster Liu (*cough*) what seem to be exorbitant prices just for trashy fiction and cosplay videos. He assumes this is a cover, that someone's actually delivering drugs or going over for "private meetings" or at least actually sending dirty videos as well, but even when he pays for Liu Qingge's VIP access it's just tutorials and such. Neither of these guys are even on any of the sites that are more lenient towards hosting explicit content. Luo Binghe's aware that kinks aren't always obviously sexual, but people don't usually pay through the nose for the kind of content they can easily find for free all over the place, either.

He digs a little more but keeps coming up empty on evidence to clarify which of the many vices the Shen family's son is actually indulging in. Which is a problem because that's the information they're paying him to find out. Plus his curiosity kind of piques as he reads Shen Yuan's seemingly quite invested comments on Airplane's writing and Liu Qingge's videos, looking to see if there's any kind of clandestine code or pattern. But near as he can tell, whatever else Shen Yuan might be getting out of these arrangements, he does genuinely like the stories and videos too? Well. Sometimes. Sometimes he's actually scathingly vitriolic towards Airplane's writing.

Luo Binghe decides that surveilling Shen Yuan himself is probably the way to go. That gets more complicated in court cases, but since the Shen parents just wants to know what's going on and aren't planning on prosecuting their son for anything, it doesn't matter as much if Luo Binghe gets information in sneaky or underhanded ways.

So, Binghe uses the account he created to access Liu Qingge's videos to chat with Shen Yuan a few times, and then recommends his own cooking channel. Shen Yuan doesn't seem too interested in cooking, so Luo Binghe makes sure to include a video that has an image of himself in his recommendation, and then films a few new videos of himself cooking with his shirtsleeves rolled up to three quarters and a few more buttons than usual unbuttoned, adopting a more flirty persona than he typically does for his shows. He takes his cues from some of Liu Qingge's more popular videos for how to be enticing bait.

It takes a few videos, but eventually Shen Yuan comments. Luo Binghe latches onto the chance to start talking to him, playing up a persona of a vulnerable young man with little means who is trying hard to make it through school, etc, and sure enough Shen Yuan seems interested. Well, most predatory people like vulnerable targets, don't they?

However... Shen Yuan just sends him a chunk of money.

Luo Binghe is confused.

Isn't he supposed to ask for something or create some kind of expectation of repayment first? But, maybe this is his approach to handling new targets. Maybe he's just trying to lull Binghe into a false sense of complacency, before he starts indicating what he wants from all of this. Luo Binghe makes sure to move the money Shen Yuan sends him into a separate account, so that if the Shen parents get angry about it then he can return it as a gesture of good faith.

But Shen Yuan just keeps sending supportive comments and donations. Eventually he leaves a comment that alludes to how badly he'd like to taste Binghe's cooking, and Binghe is like finally, but when he implies that they could perhaps meet in person and Luo Binghe could thank him for his support by making him something, Shen Yuan backs off.

Things eventually progress to the point where Luo Binghe, who is a totally normal person treating this like a totally normal job still thank you very much, is basically camping out in the bushes in front of Shen Yuan's apartment building. At some point he conscripts the aid of his weird cousin (finding his birth family was how he got into this business initially), and then almost immediately regrets it because Shen Yuan helps get Zhuzhi Lang a job doing landscaping for his building.

Why would he want Zhuzhi Lang close but not Binghe? Binghe is much handsomer! He'd make an excellent target for seduction! >:(

Anyway eventually Yue Qi catches Luo Binghe lurking around like a creeper and is like, finally, I have caught one of these suspicious men, whilst Binghe is like oh so he does have a lover, well this guy sucks and is clearly not good enough for him, and they both try and chase one another off and Shen Yuan comes home to a heated passive-aggressive-politeness war being waged in front of his apartment. Eventually he realizes the misunderstanding and calls everyone together (zoom conference? in-person meet-up?) to clarify that he is not paying any of them for "special favors", that was just Airplane being deranged about his sense of humor, and then he has no idea what to do when the prevailing response seems to be disappointment.

I think I chose to be a math major cause I’m a masochist. There’s no other explanation.

*something weird happens*

Everyone: So Clive, was this your boyfriend?