4 Works by Meseem
Listing Works
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Summary
It was a warm day in early summer, the rising heat offset by a pleasant breeze from the river, and Wei Wuxian hummed to himself as he stripped the drowned girl's flesh from her bones.
The Twa Sisters is an old ballad relating the following events: out of jealousy over a suitor, a young woman drowns her younger sister in a river. A passing minstrel finds the body and makes a harp from her bones and hair. He takes it to her family, where the harp plays itself and sings in the dead girl's voice, revealing what happened and accusing her sister of murder. The end.
The most interesting part of this charming little tale is, of course, the minstrel.
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Summary
Clear is my course, and unclouded, spread wide.
My life has a rhythm, a pattern, a rhyme.Then: a disruption – who dares interrupt?
Who climbs to the wall-peak, and only for wine?
He drinks it – he laughs at me – who gave him leave!
In anger I rush him, in ire I reach –Deftly he breaks away, brings out his wings
laughing and lively he lifts like a bird.
My own wings unfurl then, and fierce-set, I leap
to catch him, to duel him down to the earth.In a world where cultivators form wings in place of golden cores, much of canon stays the same – up to a point.
(Told in verse.)
Series
- Part 1 of Wangxian, word-woven
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Summary
When we first meet him, this wild-met world-warper
first-met, the future unfathomed so far
he falls. He is flung to us, flightless and soft-fleshed
a feeble thing, weak.Wei Wuxian gives up not his golden core, but his wings; is thrown into not the Burial Mounds, but the Pit.
Three months later, he leaves.
(Told in verse.)
Series
- Part 2 of Wangxian, word-woven
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By Heart by Meseem
Fandoms: 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
03 Jan 2023
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Summary
The boy climbing over the wall is clearly, straightforwardly breaking the rules, even before Lan Wangji sees the jars of alcohol he carries. When caught, though, he laughs — and for a moment, Lan Wangji can do nothing but stare, because despite the vague sense of disconnection that has lingered all day, here is someone fully, entirely real.
Oh, he thinks, and the sense of loss that has been weighing him down begins to lift.
Lan Wangji has his regrets about things he did and did not do, and he tried not only to do better when he got another chance, but to become someone who would not have made what he considers to be his original mistakes with the information he had at the time. So did he succeed?
(The answer given here is ‘Yes, and this can be contrived to plausibly make things better rather than worse.’)