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spiltscribbles · 4 years

Note

Can I request 7, 9 or 78 for pynch? I liked all of those, haha -- uncertainglobalfuture

~Notes: Thank you SO SO much gorgeous<3 This came out way to soft lmfao. |

A Reblog is worth a thousand stars<3 | Buy Me A Coffee?

~78. “Just please be my best friend right now, and not the person I confessed my love to~

When Adam’s seven years old his first grade teacher asks him why he never has a lunch. He tells her he forgets to get up early enough to make it. Three weeks after that she asks him where he got that nasty bruise on his left arm. He tells her he had wiped out on his bicycle. Two months after that she keeps him inside for recess and asks him to join her and Principle Jenkins for a little while. Adam didn’t mind, he never could make a friend as easily as the others— too distant and too reserved and too withdrawn for the lot of them. But then they start asking about Adam’s home life and parents and whether he needs help or not, all rinsing hands topped off by tense smiles that don’t touch their eyes.

Adam stays aloof— doesn’t bother to panic. He’s been trained by his mother for countless years on how to reply to these sort of probing questions. Has long mastered the owlish blink to his eyes, and diffident smile to his lips. Knows exactly what to do so that they could pretend that there’s nothing out of the ordinary. He knows full and well that none of them actually want to tackle this conversation, and knows that it’s pointless because he’s a Parrish, this is all there is.

This’s all there ever will be.

He doesn’t tell either of his parents about the meeting, is too afraid of their reactions. Besides he doesn’t see much of a point when only a week later they’re packing up and leaving this small town in the dust just to settle in another with the same pasted grins and eyes that slide off from truths that are too ugly to confront.

On Adam’s first day of classes in Henrietta elementary he comes to the conclusion that not everything is stuck being the exact same when a boy with cornflower eyes and dark curls pads up to him and tells him that he’s Adam’s assigned buddy.

“What’s a buddy?” Adam asks, pinning him with a one eyed squint, totally incredulous.

“’S someone who shows you round the classroom and playground.” the other boy answers with an imperious tilt to his head. “Duh.”

“I Don’t need a buddy,” Adam glares at him. He doesn’t yell because Robert yells and Adam hates it when he yells.

“Who peed in your cereal?” The other boy, Ronan Lynch, asks sourly, indignant hands on his hips.

“I don’t need a buddy,” Adam only reiterates, spindly arms wrapped tight against his chest, his jaw set and stance rigid.

“Fine!” Ronan huffs with an emphatic stomping to his foot for good measure. “Hope you get lost with all the big kids then!”

“Fine!”

Later that afternoon, during free time, a blonde boy Adam doesn’t even recognize gleefully shoves his gross ball of slime into Adam’s face with an emphatic gusto. Adam only escapes the situation when Ronan storms over towards them to interrupt.

“Get lost Tad.”

“Can’t hog the new kid Ronan!”

“Uh-huh! Mis Sanchez made me his buddy.”

“Oh,” Tad only pouts, totally put out, before ambling off with his aforementioned ball of slime.

“Uh, ah thank you.” Adam says, wide eyed as he stares at a still moody looking Ronan.

“Wasn’t to help you! Me and Noah need someone to play trains with us, now c’mon.”

He pivots around, marching towards the back of the room, and Adam is only sorta shocked that he actually follows suit.

Adam isn’t sure how, but impossibly— remarkably— Ronan Lynch never quite leaves his orbit for the rest of that year, or any of the ones that follow.

He isn’t sure if they’re friends, has never had a friend before, which might be sorta embarrassing considering he’s in the fourth grade now. But in Adam’s defense no one else really caught his attention, certainly not keeping it for as long as Ronan has somehow done.

If Adam’s forced to think about it, he thinks that they are.

They sit besides each other for class every day, and Adam isn’t even annoyed when Ronan pulls funny faces his way instead of listening along. Yesterday for kickball Ronan chose Adam first, even before Gansey or Noah, and Adam has only ever liked adventuring outdoors with Ronan, even if it meant scraped knees and dirt on his pants that he shakes off the best he could before going back home to the trailer park.

But even still, it couldn’t hurt to ask him, right? It’s a simple question that calls for a simple answer. It’s just to double check that Adam’s not just some leach grabbing for anything he can.

Robert hates it when Adam asks questions, tries teaching him to stop being so god damn nosey about everyone’s business. Adam’s never seen it like that. Question yield answers, and answers usually make someone smarter, so without questions the world would just be stumbling around, utterly ignorant to everything. He much prefers how his first grade teacher had called him inquisitive, it makes Adam feel smart, proper, like he isn’t just annoying everyone, more like there’s a purpose to it.

That said, Adam knows that he’s inquisitive as all get out, so he doesn’t even think twice before asking Ronan point blank the following day at recess if they’re friends or not.

Ronan scrunches his nose at him, lips curled morosely.

“Stop being a weirdo and come play four square with us.”

Adam reasons that’s as much of an affirmation as he’s gonna get, and decides to only shrug before following him to play along.

The first time Adam goes to Ronan’s house for a school project, it’s a sunny autumn afternoon, and they’re fresh faced sixth graders. It’s the last year before embarking on the looming threat of junior high— A practice trial of sloppy make out parties and getting buzzed off cheap wine coolers swiped from someone’s parent’s licker cabinet— Gansey’s determined to make it the best year yet, and of course Ronan enthusiastically agrees because he and Gansey are really brothers in all but blood, so of course he’s going to entertain all of Gansey’s grandest of whims. And Noah always loves a good tie.

Adam still thinks it’s miraculous that they’ve adopted him into their little, mismatched brotherhood. That just as often Gansey looks at Ronan for a joke, he glances to Adam to ask a question with a furrow between his brows. And Noah says that Adam’s the only one who could keep up with him on a skateboard, even if his is a pathetic hunk of plastic he had bought for a quarter at a nearby thrift shop. And Ronan—

Well Ronan’s a different beast entirely.

He’s loud and abrasive and yells when he’s feeling to passionately and curses like a sailor even before they’ve hit teen hood. On paper he’s the precise sort of boy Adam never wanted to entangle himself with, the sort of boy that might’ve scared him in another universe. In a universe that Ronan wasn’t his assigned buddy on that fateful day, and a universe where Adam didn’t see how he doted on his brother a year behind them in school, and how he always fed the birds outdoors with bread from his lunch, and how he sometimes looks at Adam with such caution and care that it makes him blush.

No, Adam hates the thought of that world, and he refuses to think on it for any longer.

“C’mon ’s just a bit further of a walk,” Ronan tells Adam with a slight tug on where he’s got a hand encircled around Adam’s smaller wrist.

The first thing Adam thinks of when he finally sees the mythic Barns is that it’s a castle from a storybook.

It’s all sprawling fields filled with daisies and a large, but cozy looking house that’s got the backdrop of such blue, blue skies behind it. There are even vines that snake up its entrance, a rosebuds that accent the doorway.

The inside is much of the same, a managed mess with coats slung on the sofa and family portraits hanging on the walls, and the scent of fresh baked cookies wafting in the air.

It’s a home, loving and lived in and ringing out with warmth.

There’s a pang to Adam’s heart. He’s never felt the chasms that divide his and Ronan’s lives so acutely.

“Love,” a low, melodic voice crows from what must be the kitchen. He recognizes it to belonging to Ronan’s mother, the golden and beautiful Aurora.”Is that you?”

“Yeah Ma!” Ronan shouts back, crass as ever and making it so Adam winces back. “Adam’s here too, we’ve got a biology project to do.”

“Oh how splendid,” Aurora says with genuine mirth as she steps into the living room, splattered in flower and glowing with pure delight.

“Sorry for the intrusion ma’am,” Adam mumbles even though his own mother cuffs him on the back the head every time he does so.

“Nonsense,” she admonishes with no real heat, just fond exasperation. “Now Adam darling, how does quesadillas sound for dinner?”

Adam pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, feeling his cheeks flush as he averts his gaze. “I won’t stay for dinner ma’am, I don’t wanna be a bother.”

“Course you’re staying for dinner dummy.”

“Ronan, language,” Aurora chides, but the reproach sounds more like a formality than anything else. “Adam sweetheart we have more than enough to go around, you’re more than welcome to stay. In fact you’re the only friend of Ronan’s that hasn’t come around for a meal, and I know Niall would love to get to know you along with me.”

Adam feels his cheeks heat even brighter. He knows that she didn’t mean anything by the fact that they have more than enough to go around. It definitely wasn’t intended as any sorta dig, it’s just the way wealthier folks speaks. They’ve never needed to want for anything. Besides, it would be awful of him to stay here and eat their surely amazing food when he knows there’s a three day old meatloaf that his parents would be heating up tonight.

“I should ask my Ma.” Adam says mildly, a sneaky out. He’s sure his parents won’t let him stay past dinner time, and at least this way he won’t inadvertently insult Aurora.

“We’ll make her say yes,” Ronan squawks, indignant at the thought otherwise. Because of course he is, with the parents he got, Ronan probably can’t even fathom eating leftovers or being made to finish all the household chores or being ignored up until either of his parents feel like a good yelling. “Ma, I know he’s skinny but trust me he eats like a freaking maniac. I don’t even know where he stores it!”

“I’ll make so many you boys won’t know what to do with yourselves,” Aurora chortles, and Adam isn’t sure if he imagines the soft, sympathetic look she tosses his way or not, but prefers not to marinate on it. “Adam there’s a phone in the kitchen, you can call your folks from there.”

Shockingly, his mom says that Adam can stay.

“Your dad’s at a poker night, so come back before he does and don’t forget to walk Luanne’s dog tomorrow morning or else the doe’s coming from your pocket.”

Adam’s so stunned he doesn’t even have it inside of him to remind his mother that he doesn’t have a scent to his name.

The rest of that afternoon is spent roaming Ronan’s truly massive backyard, and playing a game that Matthew’s made up using a kickball, a spoon, and two eggs from the chicken coop. Later on Declan helps them with their diorama, and he and Ronan are allowed to eat in his room while watching an old black and white movie in the small television he keeps atop a shelf cluttered with about a thousand other nicknacks and broken toys.

And it’s wonderful.

“He’s just such a prick.”

Adam doesn’t have to ask who Ronan’s talking about.

He’s working beneath an old Ford truck in the small auto repair shop that he somehow finessed getting a job inside of even though he’s only fifteen and a sophomore and frankly, always fucking exhausted.

It’s become the norm for Ronan to ditch Gansey and Noah and join Adam in the dingy, rundown garage on his work nights, mostly just to keep him company. Sometimes he’l bring over homework and read the chapter for whichever class they’ve got the next day, and sometimes they just chat and listen to the old rock station playing from the speakers. But tonight’s one of those rare nights when Ronan is well and properly pissed, so he’s just slamming a bouncy ball against the wall over and over again while ranting about Declan, and Declan’s stupid new internship on the hill, and his stupid new girlfriend, (The third fucking Ashley in a row! Can you believe that!) And has now moved to berating Declan’s slicked back hair and clothes and his know-it-all attitude.

“He’s just such a— A—“

“Prick,” Adam says, snarky as all get out as he slides from under the car and moves to dry his hands from the oil that’s leaked onto him. “You’ve said— Like a thousand fucking times.”

Ronan pouts, arms crossed against his chest. “Well I don’t lie Parrish.”

The corner of Adam’s mouth quirks up reluctantly. “But you do pout, quite moodily too.”

“Oh piss off,” he hisses venomously, flipping him the bird for good measure.

Adam only rolls his eyes at his friend’s antics.

“Is this really because you think Declan’s a prat, or ’s it cause he’s moving out for a whole semester.”

Ronan glares at him with the ferocity of a thousand suns, and a weaker man might’ve shuttered back. But as it is, Adam is not a weaker man, and besides— He’s been on the receiving end of that look, and a thousand other even more menacing ones a countless number of times, it’s part and parcel of being Ronan’s best friend.

“You bite your whore tongue Parrish.”

Adam laughs, appreciates that even when he’s bone weary, Ronan can always do that. Make him feel lighter and dazzling and smile like they were still kids and things sucked, but they just sucked a little less.

“You’re gonna miss’m.”

“I said shut! it!”

“Ronan loves his older brother, oh this is good! I can’t wait to tell Gans!”

“I will punch your lights out you little runt!”

“Oo, big words from a big man.” Adam waggles his brows, unimpressed.

“You don’t know the people I know Parrish, I can get you offed with a snap of my finger!” Ronan says, laughter glittering in his pale eyes. The same color of the blue sky that first day Adam visited the Barns.

“Hah,” Adam snorts, finishing up closing shop for the night. “You know me, who’s a workaholic. Gansey, who’s too busy getting off to old dead kings to care about any sorta espionage mission. And Noah, who’s stoned about 98.5% of the time and built like a twig. You’ve got nothing.”

“I feel like I should be affronted on Noah’s behalf,” Ronan notes contemplatively.

“Oy, can you think on this great moral dilemma on the way to the McDonald’s drive through? I just got paid this morning and have been craving their fries from the dollar menu.”

“Oh fine you heathen,” Ronan huffs, acting oh so bereft. “Who gives a shit about my problems when your stomach is obviously much more important.”

Adam tsks as they meander to Niall’s old BMW that Ronan begged to keep, declining to buy a entirely new vehicle like Declan had gotten for his fifteenth.

“Oh and this provisional license means that I can’t have you in, so if any coppers cruise by just duck down like you’re giving me some road head, yeah?”

It’s Adam’s turn to glare at him. “Keep it up and I’ll have to tell Aurora bout your potty mouth you delinquent.”

Ronan’s smile goes sharp at that, like something very lethal and very dangerous. Adam pretends it doesn’t go straight to his gut.

“Naughty Parrish. And here I was all prepared to save you like a damsel if the coppers actually did stop us.”

Adam scoffs. “Please, that’s not a favor to me, you’re so thirsty to get arrested, it’s pathetic.”

“Well a pretty little thing like you wouldn’t last a day in the slammer,” Ronan goads, pulling the car into gear.

“You’re an idiot, and a prick.” Adam tells him bluntly.

“Tell me something I don’t know beautiful.”

Adam rolls his eyes so hard that he’s afraid he might’ve sprained something.

“Fine, you’re lip piercing makes you look like a douche.”

“But it’s so bad ass though!”

“Yeah, to like ten year old white boys in the suburbs.”

Ronan clutches his fist to his chest, feigning distress. “Parrish you’ve wounded me, I’m bleeding out! A curse to you and your family! And your family’s cow too!”

“Eyes on the Road maniac.” Adam scolds, trying his damndest not to let his mirth show.

Ronan buys himself half the menu and pays for Adam’s happy meal under the guise that it would be too difficult to have separate orders. But he conspicuously doesn’t ask for the receipt, and Adam tempts down the flicker that wants to fight him on it.

They end up on a cliff overlooking town, devouring their food in a sickeningly short amount of time before lying back on Ronan’s car, staring up at the constellations while the radio plays an acoustic song about love and slow dancing and Adam is too busy staring at the infinitesimal space that’s dividing their pinkies on the glass to pay attention to anything else.

“You— Erm, you have nice hands.” More than a bit surprised, Adam flinches back and quirks a brow at him in question. “They’re, erm rough, and you’ve got long fingers,” Ronan explains, his face going bright red and his bottom lip worried between his teeth.

“Is that right?” Adam asks, a slow smile gracing his lips as he gazes over at Ronan’s sharp profile being kissed by starlight.

“It is,” Ronan says, giving one, quick nod and not daring to look over at Adam quite yet. And God, he’s such a mess.

Tentative, Adam links their pinkies together and tilts his head so that he’s resting it on Ronan’s shoulder, hearing it when Ronan lets out the breath he seems to have been holding in for quite a while now.

“Right,” he says in a near whisper.

“Is this good?” Adam asks, only teasing him slightly.

“This is fucking fantastic Parrish.”

“You know that I—“

“I hoped as much,” Ronan admits, a bit flushed.

“But everything’s just so crazy right now,” Adam continues to explain, focussing on the velvet skyline and the full moon pouring over the pair of them.

“Your folks,” Ronan surmises, his jaw set and his open fist clenched so tight that his knuckles go white.

“Ro— Just please be my best friend right now, and not the person I confessed my love too. Please.”

“Course Adam, of course,” Ronan says worriedly, hurrying to collect him into his arms. “Whatever you want, whatever you need. I’m here.”

Adam’s entire body goes relaxed, and he puts a gentle hand over Ronan’s heart. “This, this’s all I want.”

The smile Ronan gives him in turn is blinding.

Adam’s mother tells him early on— tipsy and slurring as she puts him to bed after one of Robert’s moods— not to expect much from this world, this life. She tells him not to get his hopes up with the folly of making it big one day. Of leaving the dust and brimstone that molded him in the first place, tells him it’s a wasted effort.

“You’re not better than us Adam,” she says his name like she meant something else entirely.

She says his name like she means plague, like she means ruin, like she means tragic. She says his name like she sees all the twinkling possibilities she once dreamt of touching slowly collapse right in front of her, like it was his fault that she’s fettered to a life composed of cold silences and loveless touches and being stuck existing in the underbelly of society. Like it’s his fault the light in her eyes fractured day by day until it shattered permanently.

“The teachers don’t know what they’re talking bout, think you’re just some quiet, bookish kid.” She continues to bellow, tiny fists knotted in the material of the threadbare blanket he’s wrapped within. Adam feels nauseous at the scent of beer masking her hot breath. “They don’t know how much of a pain in the ass you are! How you just keep revving your father on for the fun of it! How you’re a fucking disappointment.”

Adam apologizes because he thinks that’s his only option. His mother snarls like she can’t stand to look at him for any longer. And nothing changes because nothing ever does.

But now, sitting in Ronan’s beloved BMW— bloody and battered and barely conscious— Adam thinks he can maybe, finally escape it.

The next time he opens his eyes he’s in an abrasively white hospital room, and he can’t hear out his left ear, and everything aches. But Ronan’s besides him, and that makes everything bearable.

“I hate them,” is the first thing Ronan says when he realizes Adam’s awake and has already pressed the button for the nurse to come in.

“I’m not going back,” Adam tells him, more convicted than he’s ever felt before.

Ronan squeezes his hand in silent thanks and it’s the first time Adam notices that Ronan’s broken three knuckles from the impact against Robert’s face, and he’s surprised that he’s only worried that Ronan’s hurt himself.

Them falling into their relationship was one of the more natural changes in Adam’s life. He hadn’t realized how gradual, how fated their romance actually was. How it’s been building for nearing on a decade.

How Ronan had always chosen Adam first since childhood— through it all. How Ronan is one of the only people Adam has always trusted implicitly. How jealous Ronan had been freshman year when Adam took Blue to homecoming and how relieved he became when Blue and Gansey began going out later that year.

Adam knows that he and Ronan aren’t some sort of soulmate love story, that they can get on each other’s nerves and have fights and disagreements too. But that makes it just the more real, makes it something solid and tangible and something Adam can’t imagine living without.

But the night his Harvard acceptance letter comes is only three months after Niall’s death after a drunk driver had hit him on the slippery January streets. Ronan’s already decided to stay home after graduation to watch out for his Ma and to keep the farm going.

“I can go somewhere closer by,” Adam tells Ronan that night, tangled in one another and Adam’s threadbare sheets in St Agnus, his hearing ear against Ronan’s chest and the pair of them shirtless and clinging onto each other like they needed the closeness to breathe.

“Don’t be stupid Parrish,” Ronan says in a excruciatingly soft cadence, one of his fingers tracing small hearts down Adam’s spine. “You’re gonna go off and be brilliant, and I’ll be here when you get back.”

“Promise?” Adam asks lowly, his voice thick with emotion and his own hands beginning to tremble.

“I’d wait for you for forever and a day.” Ronan tells him with such conviction that Adam’s left speechless, only tilts his had upwards so he could capture Ronan’s mouth and snog him nice and thorough.

“God I love you.” And it’s the first time Adam’s said as much with so many words, but he’s not afraid, not anymore.

“I love you too Parrish.”

Buy Me A Coffee?

#pynch #adam parrish #RONAN LYNCH #THE RAVEN CYCLE #SPILT INK #cowboyformitski #this is so late #But ILY BUBBY

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nights-legacy · 4 years

Text

Another...Sea Turtle?-TMNT

Requested by @moonlightprime

+The boys reacting to another mutant, sea turtle that is female.

2014/16 Turtles

The Sea Turtle girls were mutated by some escaped mutagen that got onto the beach. The girl as a baby sea turtle wandered into the mutagen and was found by a kindly human that raised them as their own.(The pics of sea turtles are how the girls shells look.)

Leo: Curiosity and Concern

It was on a mission down by the docks that brothers and i met Y/N. There had been reports of strange activity by the dock workers. They said they kept seeing a humanoid figure creeping around and swimming in the waters. The strange part was that the figure seemed to have something big on its back. We split up and i was investigating the water front under the docks when I saw it or more like her. I froze with my katanas at the ready, not sure of what I was seeing.

“Please, I don’t want trouble.” The girl whimpered and backed up into a support beam. I looked her over, taking her in. Long red hair, glowing green eyes, and a turtle shell adorning her figure?

“You’re a turtle.” i stated the obvious. She nodded but then shook her head.

“A sea turtle actually.” She whispered. I stepped forward and she pushed farther back, eyes locked on my katanas. I quickly put them away, having a feeling she wouldn’t attack, and knelt in front of her. She looked at him and he gave her a soft smile.

“Are you alright? Are you alone?” Leo asked. She nodded and looked off in the distance. I looked her over again, seeing scars and dirt scattering her skin. But this didn’t cover up the beauty she held.

“My mother didn’t wake up. She took care of me until then.” She explained. I connected that her mother was dead. “I have been hanging around her because I don’t know where else to go but the men here are mean. They throw things at me while I’m swimming.”

“I’m sorry. People just don’t understand people like us.” I held out my hand. She looked between my eyes and my hand. Shaking, she reached forward and grabbed my hand. I pulled her to her feet. “I’m leo. What’s your name?”

“Y-Y/N.” She said before her stomach growled. I looked at her with concern coursing through me.

“It’s nice to meet you, Y/N. How long has it been since you’ve…”

“Yo Fearless! Find anything? Woah.” I heard Raph come up as well as the other two. I turned and looked at them. They all had surprised looks on their faces.

“Guys, this is Y/N.” I looked back at her. “Y/N these are my brothers and if it’s alright with you, I think we need to take you to our home to make sure you’re okay?” She nodded after a minute. I smiled and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You can trust us.”

Raph: Abrasive but Intrigued

Damn Mikey and his fluffy nature. Damn Leo and his high & mighty ego. Sending me off to do the patrol around the water front all because of one little cut on Mikey’s head. I never thought that this patrol would lead to a discovery Donnie would be kicking himself for missing.

“Damn you Fearless.” I growled as I jumped from rooftop to rooftop. Out of nowhere, a loud commotion caught my attention. I skidded to a stop and listened. Once I caught the direction of the sound I ran for it. I looked over the edge and saw a group of men surrounding a crouching figure. I couldn’t make out what they were yelling but jumped down and interrupted. “Can I join the party?”

“Another one!” I furrowed my brow ridges at the statement but fought them off til they were running.

“Another one?” I turned to the figure and finally saw them clearly. My eyes widen when I saw a redish turtle shell acomponied by blonde hair that nearly hit the ground and dark eyes. “Who the hell are ya?” I said roughly.

“Some hero you are. Help drive those guys off then yell at me.”

“What do you expect? It’s not every day I stumble upon another turtle mutant!” I snarled while pointing a sais at her. She rolled her eyes but flinched and clutched her side.

“I’m a sea turtle mutant. Get it right.” I took a big breath and looked her over. How was this possible? Another mutant? “Why are you staring at me like I have two heads?”

“Just trying to figure out how there are more mutants running around.” I said truthfully. She shook her head and looked down. I saw her pull away her hand from her thigh and saw blood. “I should probably get you to my brother. He can fix that up quick.”

“Quick? So you can throw me out again to get another tomorrow?” I chuckled at her defensiveness.

“I may be an asshole but I’m not heartless. My brothers, father, and I know what it’s like to be on the outside. We won’t let someone we can help live the same way.”

Donnie: Inquisitive yet Mystified

I was out in the sewers checking the perimeters and security systems. Lately, every now and again, an anomaly was showing up on the scanners but it was there and gone so quick, it was barely picked up on. I made to the area and started the check on the system.

“Nothing wrong on the placement, nothing on the clarity, nothing…” A crunch behind me cut me off. I reached for my bo slowly and listened for more. Quiet footsteps walked toward me and a shadow appeared from behind me. I grabbed my bo entirely and whipped around knocking the person off their feet.

“Ahh!” A female voice caught me off guard. The next thing that threw me off was the person that laid before me had a shell. A Sea Turtle shell to be specific. I squinted my eyes and cocked my head in confusion. The female whipped around and looked up at me frantically. “Please, I…”

“Are you a mutant? Wait dumb question, of course you are.” I shook my head. I returned my bo to its place and moved my goggles down to analyze her. “Are you alright? I didn’t hurt you did I?”

“No. Just spooked me.” I heard her stifle a giggle. Her shoulder length brown hair bounced as she did. I lifted my goggles and looked at her eyes and saw they were bright blue.

“How did you become this way?” I asked as I was entranced by her eyes.

“My father said he found me next a puddle of green goo on the beach when I was a baby. He took care of me even though I was different. That is until he died some months ago,”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I nearly lost my father once and couldn’t imagine it actually happening. I don’t think my brothers could either.” I helped her up. “How did you end up down here?”

“A storm. Where I was staying flooded and washed me down here. It’s a maze down here and I got lost easily.” She looked around in fright. My heart leapt with something I didn’t recognize. But I did recognize the bruises and abrasions that littered her skin.

“Let me take you to lab and take a look at you wounds. Then I can get you some hot food and some water. You’re not lost anymore and there’s no reason to be afraid anymore. You’re safe with us.”

Mikey: Excited and Scared

I loved the sound of wheels on the concrete. Skateboard wheels to be exact. I was taking my normal skate through the sewers and listened to the echoes of my board. It was a small cry that came one of the openings that turned the echoes turned to crashes.

“What?” I mumbled as I rubbed my head. I looked back at the tunnel and slowly got up. I picked up my board and went closer. I peeked around the corner and looked over the dark area. I didn’t see anything at first. I walked in and got a closer look. “Anyone there?”

“Yes. No. Um…” My eyes darted to a pitch black corner where the small voice came from. I saw movement. I tensed. I set my board on my back and grabbed my chucks.

“Who’s there?” I called out. I didn’t like that someone was this close to the lair. I moved forward and my eyes adjusted to the dark. A figure was huddled into the small alcove. “How did you get down here?”

“I fell.” The voice sounded feminine. All of a sudden, a set of purple eyes peaked out, I gasped and took a small step back but I could see intense fear in theirs.

“Hey I’m not gonna hurt ya.” I placed my nun chucks away. They were still for a second before they crawled out. I was taken back by seeing another turtle, but not just that but a girl turtle with short black hair. “Yo! You’re a chick and a mutant. But you don’t look like be but you’re a turtle. What gives?”

“Haha.” She giggled through the tears I just noticed. “I am a sea turtle, mister. I’m Y/N.”

“Mister? Haha. The names Michelangelo. But my family calls me Mikey.” She smiled. “I like your name. This is so cool another good guy mutant!” I fist bumped but stopped short. “You are a good guy right?”

“I think so. I haven’t done anything wrong before. I’ve been hiding most of my life with my mother. I don’t want to be called a monster again.” She looked down. I sympathized with her.

“I get it. I really do.” I set my hand on her shoulder. “But you found yourself a safe place. Me and my brothers and my dad are all mutants like you.” She gave me hopeful eyes before shivering. “Come on with me back to the lair where it’s warm and we can get you some food. Do you like pizza?” Her eyes lite up.

“Of course!” I whooped and helped her up. I started to show her the way as a thought came to mind. How many other mutants are out there?

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go-events · 4 years

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GO Rom Com Spotlight: @mia-ugly

The delightful @mia-ugly (also mia-ugly on AO3) has claimed 10 Things I Hate About You to adapt for Good Omens in the Good Omens Rom Com Event.

For reference, here’s a little background about the source material!

About 10 Things I Hate About You: Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) is beautiful, smart and quite abrasive to most of her fellow teens, meaning that she doesn't attract many boys. Unfortunately for her younger sister, Bianca (Larisa Oleynik), house rules say that she can't date until Kat has a boyfriend, so strings are pulled to set the dour damsel up for a romance. Soon Kat crosses paths with handsome new arrival Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger). Will Kat let her guard down enough to fall for the effortlessly charming Patrick?

We spent some time chatting about how the adaptation is coming so far, as well as future plans for it! Now, get to know @mia-ugly a little better!

* * *

goromcom: Let’s start with something about you. :) You know how if you open a Tumblr chat with someone you haven't chatted to before, Tumblr tells you two things they post about? I wanted to tell you that yours reports that you post "#ineffable co-stars au and #let's go". Let's go, indeed!

mia-ugly: Haha, "let's go" is my pretty places to run away to tag. I didn't not realize that was such a significant part of my presence on Tumblr (I can have a little romantic escapism as a treat.)

goromcom: Heck, have a LOT as a treat. But let’s move on to your rom com. You chose to adapt 10 Things I Hate About You. Has this movie been a favorite of yours, or is there some other reason you chose it?

mia-ugly: I remember loving the movie when I first saw it, as a grouchy teenager who over-identified with Cat and her excellent taste in girl rock. Also because of Heath Ledger's hair and Heath Ledger generally (the eternal queer dilemma of whether I wanted to look like him or bang him or if both things were potentially an option.) I also wanted to write a "Crowley seduces Aziraphale for dubious reasons" fic before the romcom fest was announced and 10 Things just seemed like a perfect fit for that storyline.

goromcom: Kat does have great taste! But let’s get specific for a moment. What's your favorite moment of your movie, and are you looking forward to presenting it in your adaptation? Any loose plans for that scene that you can share?

mia-ugly: My favourite moment is probably the Grand Romantic Musical Gesture in the bleachers: "You're Just too Good to be True." (The man can lunge, I'll say that about him.) This particular moment is getting changed in my fic, there is no lunging through the bleachers, but there maaaay be a spontaneous and helpless miracle that one of our lovestruck fools accidentally manifests. Of the musical marching band variety. And my tentative title for the story is "Heaven to Touch," so. The song is going to feature in it more than once.

goromcom: Oh, that’s a great line from that song! :) Other than your plans for that scene, do you plan to stick very closely to the beats of the original story, or make bigger changes?

mia-ugly: I'm trying to stick fairly closely to the beats of the story, but this is also my first Ineffable Husbands NON-au (yikes) so there are major changes I'm making in the set up. I'm essentially mashing 10 Things and Good Omens together and hoping that it is a delicious, piquant stew and not just a mix of snow and rainwater.

goromcom: I can definitely see a lot of fun in store for that mixture, so it should be lovely. Let me see if I can get one more preview out of you before we risk revealing too much. What's an interesting decision you've made in your planning so far--a notable casting decision, a changing of venue, or some other plan you have to paint Good Omens all over your rom com?

mia-ugly: I'm getting rid of Bianca! Sorry Bianca. So the impetus for the seduction comes from a very different place. Also two major characters are going to be... animals. Yes, Crowley goes full on Disney Princess and gets himself some animal sidekicks/spies. This sounds like a nightmare, here's hoping it works.

goromcom: I can’t wait to see that! It definitely has vibes of the deleted scene with Crowley and the rats, so that really tracks with canon for me.

But let’s move on, before we give out too many spoilers. I am blatantly stealing this last question from The Good Place: The Podcast, but here goes: Tell me something "good". It can be something big or small. It can be a charity you think is doing good work, or you can talk about how great your pet is.

mia-ugly: My pet is pretty great but I'm going to go full-on capitalist and throw some love at a business. So.

I'm a Canadian white-passing Indigenous person (Yale First Nation, holla at me.) And throughout our education system here we're taught that indigenous culture is a thing of the past, and we need to grieve as a nation for the literal GENOCIDE that Canada carried out (as if that still isn't happening today) but we don't talk about indigenous culture as a current, gorgeous, growing thing. What always astonishes me and fills my heart with warmth are the indigenous creators and artists and designers taking traditional elements and shaping them and bringing them into the present. Because culture evolves, it isn't stable, and we're still the fuck here. We survived. We never left.

There are many, many examples of this throughout Canada and the United States and all over the world. But my particular good thing is: My childhood best friend and her impossibly lovely partner run a company called Indi City that celebrates indigenous culture and fashion and models and you can BET I own their "matriarchy" necklace. They made an electric light-up jingle dress, they are doing amazing work with incredible values and their jewelry is gorgeous as hell. As a person who works with a lot of indigenous youth, I love creators like this, who give youth an opportunity to see themselves reflected back as vibrant and important and thriving in our country.

Not only still here. But leading us forward.

goromcom: That sounds like a great business working for toward an important goal of shining a light on those cultures and groups. I love it.

And speaking of love, you’re all gonna love the GO adaptation of 10 Things I Hate About You, coming very soon!

#goromcom #goromcom spotlight #good omens #mia-ugly #10 things I hate about you

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shihalyfie · 4 years

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Everytime I see someone else that ships Daikeru, I’m filled with this light and do a tiny nerdgasm and I also feel like I have to ask them for any super fluffy and/or (if your up for it) smutty headcanons. Care to help a fellow shipper out?

Hello! It’s nice to see another Daisuke/Takeru shipper out in the wild here! Sadly I can’t help you much with the smut because it’s not my personal cup of tea (no shade against those who do it, it’s just not something I can specialize in) so you’ll have to take the other headcanons instead. Hopefully that’s good for now!

In regards to Digimon, where we’re talking about kids who were in elementary school as protagonists, I have a very hard time seeing them entertaining anything really serious until some years later (I feel like the existence of the epilogue and now Kizuna really helps stimulate the imagination, haha). This leads me to think less in terms of “are they into each other now?” and more “do I think they’d be able to get together in the future?” Which means that a lot of this is really theoretical, and because these kids really did love (loosely using the word “love” here) and respect and care for each other so much in the end, I don’t think of it in terms of “I see it happening/I don’t see it happening” (with the exception of a few that hit some “okay no” taboos for me) as much as I like to look at it in terms of, what would it take to for them to build a proper relationship in the future? And if those “requirements” are things I can easily write or get behind, then it becomes a ship I vibe with and like to write about 😅

Generally you want some kind of attraction (otherwise you might as well classify that as a very deep platonic relationship), and you also need the ability to maintain a relationship -- as in, a long-term, ongoing relationship with proper communication. Can you resolve disputes easily and have proper mutual understanding? That kind of thing.

I had a few reasons for taking an interest in Daisuke/Takeru, one in that it’s recently gotten quite popular on Pixiv and has led to some very adorable comics that bring out a beautifully wonderful tsundere side out of Daisuke, and two in that my last rewatch of 02 left me emerging feeling like Takeru had been trying to flirt with Daisuke the whole series, only for Daisuke to be too dense to notice. This only escalated with the recent Kizuna BD digipak cover, which has Takeru clearly enjoying teasing Daisuke a little too much like 02 was only yesterday. But really, the very first episode had Takeru calling Daisuke’s goggles cool right after meeting him and then teasing him “you’re so funny~”...so I think it’s pretty clear he finds Daisuke very amusing. Plus, Daisuke is the sort who’s straightforward, and honest, and that kind of transparent honesty is probably very appealing for Takeru, who himself has a lot of trouble being entirely honest with himself under the playful exterior.

On Daisuke’s end, things are a little more complicated -- I personally do take the stance that his interest in Hikari as of 02 is genuine (he’s not wrong, she is cute and nice), but that a lot of his trying to endear himself to her is based on the fact he was also very needy for validation during the series, and, not really knowing her all that emotionally well, he never really put proper thought into the “now what?” if he did manage to get her favor. But that’s something that I think he’s capable of settling out as he gets older and more mature, and especially since the events of 02 left him with a proper friend group that he can get that validation from. Because of that, I feel like he would definitely be able to stop being so defensive and maybe start more honestly accepting that Takeru’s just teasing and that he really does like him. Moreover, Takeru is playful, endearing, and good-looking, so all of those are appealing characteristics that I don’t see why Daisuke couldn’t eventually start getting into it. But of course, because he’s still trying to grow out of that abrasive exterior, that’s where the tsundere comes from -- he’ll take a hell of a time to admit it! That kind of banter is really appealing to me, especially because I love the pining aspect of the attraction portion, so that’s why it became something I personally like thinking about and working with.

Long-term relationship-wise, I do think there’s actually a solid base, even with what we have now. The 02 kids in general learned to trust each other a lot, and the good thing about Daisuke is that, because he’s so straightforward and so willing to reach out to others, he’s actually pretty up there in people who can be able to get through the maze of emotions that is Takeru (the fact that he wasn’t particularly invested in it during 02 is probably why Iori had to do it instead, but if you could get Daisuke up to it, he may actually do a pretty good job getting to the heart of things). So it means that if a dispute or a conflict of feelings happened, Daisuke is capable of the kind of emotional outreach needed to get to the heart of the problem, and it means they could probably get through a lot of things together with a lot of success.

(By the way, this is a side note, but I’m totally willing to try an analysis like this for a good number of the Adventure and 02-based ships, even if it’s not one I usually write for! Anything with a 2 year age gap or less and doesn’t involve Iori -- not that I don’t have absolute confidence in my son’s future relationship prospects, but more that I feel that with him at literally nine years old during 02 and with everyone in elementary/middle school, the age gaps in question were large enough that it had a significant impact for kids of that age, leaving me in a situation where I don’t feel personally comfortable even doing future projections.)

Headcanon-wise, I was recently planning out what high schools I thought the 02 kids would go to and headcanon ended up putting them in the same school (it actually wasn’t because of the ship, but rather something I figured based on what everyone’s likely academic tracks would be). I think that would be a lot of really good bonding time for them to hang out and for Daisuke to get some “alone time” with Takeru outside Hikari’s reach, so that Takeru could properly reach out to him...and maybe train himself on how to flirt with Daisuke without setting off his defense mechanisms. It also means that Takeru has a lot more opportunities to be kinder to and dote on Daisuke -- again, 02 established that everyone in the group really does respect and care about each other a lot, and these two are no exception -- so I really do think that time for Daisuke to mature a little bit and time for them to bond without other people to take away either of their attention would be really helpful here.

#shihaheadcanon #bobgoesw00t #takedai #daikeru #shiha's ask box

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axther · 4 years

Text

children are meant to be cradled, not placed in wars

a bnha/reader fic

chapter one

YN was normal.

She lived in a neighbourhood that had good families and minimal crime. She was popular at school, and her best friend was the quiet, weird kid stereotype. Some part of YN wondered why it was all monotone, but then her friend would pull her along and they would commit some minor crime like regular teenagers.

One day, after hopping over fences into a house that YN and her friend had deemed their own but definitely hadn’t bought, said friend was staring at YN.

The friend, Soma Quinn, wasn’t normal. She always wore the same clothes (a pair of worn jeans, a Bethesda Dark Brotherhood jacket, grey converse, and a black tank top), and had to repeat herself to get her points across. She had only one ear, as when she was seven, she played with scissors too much and sheared it off. She kept to herself and looked constantly like she wanted to fight someone. But Soma was sweet and would babble for hours about her games and stories.

Today, though, something was off.

Soma had a slight staring problem. She would retract into her head like a turtle, it’s shell and stare into nothing. But, if she was staring at something in particular, like YN, then that was exactly what she was thinking of.

“What’s up? Thinkin’ about, uhh,” YN dropped her voice. “Murder?”

“Kidnapping, actually.”

“Ooh, fancy. Who?”

“You.” Soma batted her eyes.

“Oh?” YN smirked. “You should take me out to dinner first.” “What do you call this?”

“Oof, fair.” YN blinked. “But seriously. What’s up?”

“I’ve been having dreams again.” Soma frowned. “Nightmares.”

YN furrowed her brow, standing up. “What is it this time?”

“You know that thing where your ear rings out of nowhere and you wonder if you’ve got tinnitus or something?” Soma began biting her lip, the previous abrasions on the bottom lip not even having scabbed over yet.

“Yeah?”

“It starts out like that. Then I see this big ass comet. And then, like, it’s Fallout Four, without any green mods. And there’s no Sole Survivor.”

YN was silent. Soma had nightmares, ones that she took medicine for, but they would always come true. They varied; from YN’s father getting into a car accident to one of their classmates trying to shoot up the school. Every time Soma called out her dreams, actions would be taken, and disaster would be avoided. And they were always right.

“What can we do, Som?”

“Gay panic, probably.” Soma put her head on her fist. “We can’t stop a comet, but…”

YN stopped pacing. “But, what?”

Soma said nothing but continued staring at YN. The bigger youth began pacing again, and her eyes started tearing up.

“Oh my god. I don’t want to die. What about Mom and Dad? And...and we didn’t get to grow up! I wanted to go to the WTF Championships after my internship! You wanted to work at Bethesda! God! What the fuck!”

“There’s a hack we can use. But just us.”

“But what about-”

“Everyone else thought I was a freak. Even my own parents. But you don’t. Or if you do, then you don’t care. And honestly, that’s even better. I would kill for you, and I would die for you.” Soma glanced up at YN, and YN felt a chill go down her spine. There was a dark look in Soma’s eyes that was dangerous, like something deep and primal that neither of them had seen before had been untapped.

“I can’t let you die.”

Before YN could say anything more, a blue light lit up the floor. At first, it was just a circular pattern with a script that YN didn’t recognise, but then it filled out until lit looked like a cyan liquid (definitely not water; it wouldn’t be this bright) that splashed around and landed on YN’s bare arms. The outside of it began to collapse, with splintered wood and asbestos crumbling into dust and nothingness. YN started to pant, trying to grasp the situation.

“What the hell? Som, Som, what-”

“I am so sorry, YN/N.” Soma’s dark look became guilty and sad. “You and I can live free, now.”

“Wait-!”

And then, YN fell.

Falling to her death was nothing like what YN expected.

In all the movies and books and shows, it took a long time, with inner dialogue playing and no actual worry. But this was completely different. YN couldn’t think, and her throat felt like it had been sucker punched. The wind rushed past her, and she couldn’t breathe, and oh god, she was going to die-

But then, the smell of pine trees and sweat and a swath of white and black took over her senses.

Something, someone, had grabbed her bridal style, seven hundred feet in the air.

“I’ve got you! Don’t panic!”

The voice was loud and almost squeaky, but male. He seemed like a teenager, but no teenager could jump as high as YN was. She shook, her mind fuzzy and boggled. There was a controlled descent now, and YN could breathe again. When he landed, he gently set her down on her feet, and she fell to her knees.

“Oh! Are you ok? Are you injured?”

His voice was drowned out by the buzzing in her ears, and a distant humming. She could’ve sworn that it was familiar before it abruptly stopped.

“-s hurt, and she won’t respond, and oh gosh! What if she’s injured? How do I get her attention? Eraserhead hasn’t shown us emergency procedure yet, and what if she’s in shock? Of course, she’s in shock, you idiot!” The boy, who too had kneeled, was non-stop mumbling to himself. YN didn’t look up, but she listened.

“She hasn’t suffocated, I don’t think...ah! What would All Might do? Should I get Thirteen? He’ll know what to do! He is a pro-hero, after all! But she shouldn’t be left on her own...should I ask Ochako? I probably shouldn’t yell, she might have a headache from that fall. And I didn’t bring my phone! Ah!”

YN glanced up, and she had her breath taken away for the second time that day.

The boy before her (he was definitely a boy, she conceded) had huge green eyes and a smattering of freckles in perfect twin diamonds, but what astounded her the most was the mop of green hair. It looked perfectly natural, and even a little bit ungroomed, and it was increasingly surreal the more she looked at him. He was ridiculously pretty and seemed like he had stepped out of a movie.

“Excuse me,” She croaked. Her throat hurt, but she was confused above all.

“Ah!” The boy jumped again, striking a pose that seemed like an exaggerated surprise. “You can talk!”

“Where am I?” The more she glanced around, the less familiar it was, and the boy got out of the pose.

“You’re in Mustafu, ma’am.” He kneeled again. “Are you feeling alright?” He stuttered a bit on the ‘alright’, but seemed determined.

“For, uh,” YN glanced up, but the sinkhole was gone. “For falling, I think so.”

“Can you walk?” He held out a hand, and YN grabbed it. It had scars littered all over it, but it seemed quite soft.

She tested her weight and found that she was alright, for the most part. She nodded.

“I need to take you to some pro-heroes, so they can take care of you. Okay?” He tilted her head when she let out an undignified snort.

“Heroes?”

“Yeah,” He looked confused. “You know, like Thirteen, and Present Mic, and All…” He trailed off when YN’s brow furrowed further.

“What?”

“Oh no!” He looked shocked and guilty. “Maybe you hit your head and forgot!”

“Forgot-no, I didn’t forget-”

“Come on! We need to get you checked!”

He ushered her towards two figures and an ambulance, one of which looked like an over-inflated astronaut. Only then did YN realise that there was a huge crater in the ground, stemming from where the sinkhole was situated above. She blinked, perhaps stupidly, before pointing to it.

“Did I...do that?”

The boy glanced over and grinned sheepishly. “No, haha...that was me.”

YN paled. “You?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of a side effect of my quirk. I can’t control it too well. I’m getting better though!” He grinned cheerily, and YN paled.

“What?” She whimpered, but the boy didn’t hear her. He took her to the astronaut and a blonde man.

“Thirteen! This is the girl that fell! I think she has some memory problems…”

“Good job, Midoriya.” The astronaut turned to YN and took her spare hand. “Please, come with me. We’re gonna give you a check-up.”

YN choked on her words, glancing between the astronaut and the boy Midoriya, and then to the blonde man with the gravity-defying peaked hair and yellow sunglasses that wouldn’t stop grinning. The astronaut gently guided her to an older woman, letting the teen sputter the entire time.

“This is Recovery Girl,” He gestured. “She can take care of you, and see if you have any head injuries.”

He handed her over, and YN stared at the woman. She was most definitely not a girl and reminded her of her grandmother, but she looked matronly and had a pink and purple visor.

“Hello. Come, sit, sit!” She patted at the edge of the ambulance, and YN did as she was told. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a massive medical needle and felt her heart leap up to her throat. Recovery Girl followed her line of sight and laughed.

“Don’t worry! That’s my cane! It matches my line of work, obviously.” She smiled, and YN felt a little less apprehensive.

“What?” YN murmured, biting her lip.

“Does anything hurt, my dear?” Recovery Girl began putting pressure on YN’s limbs, seeing if there was pain. “It doesn’t look like anything is broken, but it is a precaution to check.”

“My head…” YN felt like her skull was splitting from her fresh migraine. “It hurts.”

“Ah!” Recovery Girl leapt up, and YN had to admit, she was surprisingly spry and youthful. She went behind YN and gently placed her palms on her cranium. There was a feather-light touch, and the pain seeped away. Inexplicable sleepiness came over YN, and she felt her eyes begin to drop.

Her head nodded forward, and she fell asleep.

(Me, a full ass gamer w/ Xbox, Playstation, PC, and Switch: what r some,,,,,,,,vido gaem word)

#bnha x reader #my hero academia x reader #boku no hero academia x reader #izuku midoriya x reader #todoroki shouto x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #ochako urakara x reader #iida tenya x reader #children are meant to be cradled not placed in wars #camtbcnpiw #camt

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vaguely-concerned · 4 years

Text

The Untamed Liveblog

Yes hello I watched the whole thing and wrote down some of my thoughts and feelings along the way so I wouldn’t fuckign EXPLODE! Only look under the cut if you’re prepared for a truly outrageous amount of rambling (...no really)

- I am elated to find that so far every adaptation I’ve seen has faithfully preserved the absolutely bizarre structure of the original book, I am appreciating the dedication haha

- the actor lends this version of lan wangji such an edge of youth and vulnerability right from the beginning, it breaks my heart. I don’t care how good he is with a sword, you can’t expose this pure sweet boy to the horrors of war!!!

- I am so glad I already know who all these characters are and wtf is going on, I can’t imagine watching this first time without that knowledge lol

- I love how they’ve made nie huaisang look so small and soft next to all the other cultivator, he looks like a floofy and eternally confused baby birb ;______;

- nhs citing the goldfinch as the reason he doesn’t want to die (presumably because no one will know to take care of it) TOT ur meant to be comic relief in this part of the story buddy you can’t make me cry like this yet!!!

(also the actor for wwx effortlessly sliding into being protective and reassuring and Good in a crisis. wonderful!)

- the actor for xue yang has chosen to go with the sexy baby school of evil acting normally associated with female villains and for that I can only applaud him

also setting up characters who are going to be important later on is something this show is doing better than the original haha, both the extra wen quing & ning and song lan & xiao xingcheng content is appreciated. (especially the latter suffered from ‘oh yeah those two -- actually wait who the fuck are these two again’ syndrome for me when I read the book. additional note: I am very sorry but clearly they are gay there’s no other explanation here)

- poor jiang cheng, they really haven’t given him much help in this huh. I would sort of have preferred it if they let him be ever so slightly less abrasive in the beginning, like in the book and the animated version; I’m not feeling quite as devastated over this relationship as I did in either of those.

- lan xichen’s soft knowing smile is a blessing every time. just a nice man. did not deserve this. protect.

- kudos to the actor for jin guangyao for the instinctive creeping unease I feel whenever he talks, even at this stage. he’s a wrong ‘un sir he’s a wrong ‘un

- y’know both the fact that nhs spent three days catching a bird and kept it with him undetected and that he’s the friend you go to for the good porn and managed to not only smuggle it into the cloud recesses but did so without getting caught... some wonderful subtle foreshadowing here (to make up for the very blatant visual foreshadowing that’s already been given out I assume lol)

- anyway lan ancestor lady and baoshan-sanren? gay. sad and gay. (I love how thoroughly wwx is getting to meet the in-laws btw lol how often do you have to meet your future spouse’s family from like three generations ago and take care of her rabbits for her after she’s gone, all before you even get to second base)

- fkadshfkasjdlhfsdjkfh the sheer consistency of nhs wistfully commenting on all the beautiful men surrounding him fsadfkjsdhfksd I think they might oh so subtly be hinting at some stuff here. HILARIOUS that this version, which has to maintain at least the veneer of some plausible homoerotic deniability, is a lot more overt about it than the book, which is free to be balls to the wall as gay as you please

- oh no nie mingjue just showed up my entire heart is on fire. BIG BROTHER!! so stern yet fair, so righteous, so worried y______y also can we talk about how his ‘hmmm I think imma stab it?’ approach to evil in general and xue yang in particular would have saved everyone a lot of grief later on? and he tells wwx the whole necromancy thing is probably not a good idea? (I really like how he does it too, he has so much Older Brother Energy it spills over when he talks to other kids around huaisang’s age lol. it’s good that they show his temper isn’t indiscriminate at all, he’s not angry at wwx even though his idea is provably incredibly dangerous) sole ornery voice of reason nie mingjue, also did not deserve what’s about to happen, I cry and my tears are blood

- ‘yeah okay I get that you’re mad but have you maybe considered... I didn’t do it?’ is an unusually weak opening move from jgy considering nmj literally did just see him absolutely 100% do it

- there should be a WARNING at the beginning of episodes where nmj cries so one could be PREPARED for the emotional devastation!!!!! tollest & stronkest man of the cast also stupidly pretty and heartbreaking while crying, it’s not fair

- I love how every cultivation sect’s home (except for the wens b/c they’re cartoon villains) is refined and beautiful and luxurious, even when it’s in a restrained way like the lans’... and then there’s the nie place which is like ‘please understand that this is a fuckn fortress’

- aww this doomed jiang cheng/wen quing thing is cute! too bad about... everything that’s about to happen happening huh

- oh wen ning. very hilarious that he’s known as the ~*ghost general*~ forevermore when actually... he is baby... cinnamon roll baby... too good for this world, too pure...

- how is this cgi turtle somehow less egregious than the one in the animated version lol. I quite like this bad little friend! long neck.

- oh NO lan wangji finally letting himself show that he’s in pain when they’re in private... i’m uwu

this beautiful boy is so long and lanky tho, I must admit he triggers my parental instinct more than the hot boy alert at this stage (but that’s fine I’m not the one who’s going to smooch him that’s wwx’s job lol)

the look of absolute disbelief and despair lwj gives when wwx thinks he’s in love with mianmian... this show is a cinematic masterpiece and I will hear no other opinion

- lwj looking at the love of his life completely missing the point: are you a joke to you (the answer is yeah)

- okay we’ve officially hit the point where everything’s about to go to hell for real, pray for me I’m not sure I can handle this again

- jiang fengmian acknowledge your other son who desperately wants your attention and affection challenge (unfinished)

- watching this scene knowing exactly what this promise means to jiang cheng and that wwx is going to break it... this is fINE

why the fuck did I do this to myself I know what’s about to happen when will I learn to quit while I’m ahead lol

- the change in subtext from the novel that EVERYONE sees wangxian coming from day one is so painful from jiang cheng’s side. this poor boy really has abandonment issues pelting him from every direction huh. tfw your idiot genius brother doesn’t even fucking realize he’s basically announcing he’s leaving your clan and your side to get married one day ;______;

- man mxtx is just so GOOD at peppering in the small private tragedies that somehow sting even worse than huge atrocities going on. the fact that madam yu and papa jiang never manage to reconcile and communicate except possibly in death... oof my friends. oooof.

- WAIT WHAT NO DON’T SHOW ME THE CHILDREN WHO’RE ABOUT TO DIE WHAT THE FUCK YOU MONSTERS

- like we’re right at the worst part now and she is an asshole... but damn madam yu’s last stand is epic tho. like a champ to the end

- wen zhuliu’s actor being able to uphold a look of tremendous boredom at all times regardless of what’s going on around him is Poetic Cinema Bitches

- jiang cheng and wei ying are holding hands on the boat... stab me in the heart... end my suffering

- you know what in this version we get to see that madam yu knew her husband came back for her and they died holding hands and not everything’s on fire yet, so far this isn’t quite as harrowing as the animated version. the dead children are fucking me up but the tone of the animated version is like a nightmare, this is less disturbing to me

also can we talk about how madam yu fought them off the whole day and night and her husband gets his ass owned within five minutes 😔 oh papa jiang

- oh okay turns out jiang cheng’s ‘I want my mom and dad’ gets to me in every adaptation good to know

they’re so young they’re bbs I don’t want to be here anymore haha

- wen ning. a sweet angel. just the goodest of boys. his sister raised him so well ;______:

- wen quing is so ethereally beautiful and also looks like she could stop a train with the force of one glance. like she’s my height but her presence is immense

- oh I see we’ve arrived at the tiny adorable flashback bbs part of this journey, let me just... just lie down somewhere huh

- outside of the central romance this is a tale about people who love their brothers very very much and it’s real sad for everyone involved

- me watching nie mingjue kicking down the doors to reclaim his own dang fortress: YEEEEAAAAH GO OFF DAGE!!! i um love him and his very handsome face

- jiang cheng dreaming about his family is EMOTIONAL WARFARE!!! how fucking dare!!!

- y’know what this isn’t a bad way of adapting the burial grounds thing! also pretty cost effective I imagine, gotta think about the budget when so much of it goes into fabulous wigs and robes

- credit where it’s due, the actor for wen chao makes his face do some shit I didn’t know human faces could do and he’s enjoyable to watch in the capacity as your friendly neighbourhood hate sink

- lwj consistently using wwx’s personal name even when talking to total strangers now... mhm this is also fine

- I can’t beliEVE this show is somehow less subtle about the gay stuff than the book, jin zixuan basically just asked lwj if he and wwx were... y’know... I guess cultivation partners would be the way to go here lol. between that and nhs more or less asking them if they were off fucking after the whole cold cave debacle... what a time to be alive even if they’re not going to kiss on-screen

- huaisang I hate to have to be the one to tell you this but your brother is an entire snacc. and yet I respect him way too much to ever proposition him, I know he is busy winning a war and being Righteous and slowly being driven mad by the ghost in his sword on top of raising his little brother, I’m not here to complicate things for him any further

I love this version of nmj so much though. this sense that he also sees the stuff that is genuinely good in jgy and has a real moment of grief that the dude just can’t seem to get away from his basic insecurity that causes him to do horrific things, even when handed other opportunities... the fact that he seems regretful and worried when asking jin zixuan how jgy is doing with the jin....... everything to do with his little brother...................... oh no he’s Soft in his private life this is awful

- poor lwj’s ‘I have a bad feeling about this’ face in this scene haha, he’s staring at this talisman like ‘I only know one person smart and dumb enough to pull this off’

- can’t wen quing just get one nice thing. one nice thing just for her. hasn’t she been through enough. give her her brother back and a nice quiet place to practice medicine and maybe some soft romance with jiang cheng eventually this show is kind of selling me on this.

- unexpectedly my favourite part of the revenge scene is just the camera switching back to lwj and jc watching in horrified silence like ‘...O___o dude this is fucked up tho right?? it’s not just me that’s messed up??’

- one is forced to wonder about wen zhuliu tho. this version reads as pretty explicitly depressed/suicidal to me, he’s kind of an interesting villain since his main traits are unquestioning loyalty mixed with unending indifference and also seemingly not too pressing a will to live

- oh nhs desperately trying to keep it together and pretend nothing’s different ;_____; this version is really driving it home that wwx is a lot of people’s only friend -- jiang cheng is mentioned to not have anyone but his sister to play with before he arrived, lwj was raised primarily on books and rules and his brother is ELATED that he has one (1) friend now, from the sheer depth of the attachment I’m willing to bet nhs hasn’t had many real friends in his life either. wwx gives and gives of himself and doesn’t know how to take help in return.

- foreknowledge is a beautiful thing; if you look at nhs when it’s revealed wwx didn’t bring his sword you can visibly see his brain kicking into overdrive haha. smart boy.

- big sister ;_______; I am an older sibling so I haven’t really had the feeling of having an older sister to look to, I see why it might be comforting now

- oh this is some real uruk-hai shit!! honestly the special effects in this aren’t half as bad as I’d been lead to fear, some of you guys just weren’t forged in the crucible of shitty sci-fi channel cgi at an early age and it shows

(honestly the weird fight stuff threw me much worse in nirvana in fire, because that series has such intricate, credible and realistic political world building and then people are flying all over the place through wire fu and it is so disorienting haha)

- oh nhs looking up at his brother like a puppy during the war council T______T baby bird boy

(between this point in the main story and fatal journey it’s very interesting how clearly nhs needs the emotional stability and safety of his brother -- who also seems to be his parental figure -- to function properly, even in his late teens. it looks like he needed more time to grow up than the rest of them even before they were all thrown into this awful bullshit. well he does have a lot of murderkitten brain to grow I guess that’s fair enough lol. wwx has some of the same thing with his sister too)

- whenever lxc and nmj look at each other it feels like the only two adults in the room meeting each other’s eyes like ‘...oh dear’

- aww lwj getting some advice from his brother. this poor kid really hasn’t been raised to handle the moral complexity of the real world huh, good thing lxc is here to lend some nuance to lan qiren’s unforgiving dogma

- oh lan zhan

- nmj’s plan to just idk somehow go in alone and fight the wen overlord mano a mano to avoid any more casualties... a spine made of steel, a heart made of gold, a head made of wood :’) truly a perfect man, good thing his brother got the brains in that family and he has some more sensible people around him

- in the face of inevitability I plead... jiang yanli... please don’t marry this asshole your son is going to be predictably insufferable

wwx has suffered through so much the last four months or so and yet his real breaking point is seeing his sister cry and can I just say -- relatable content

- NO! NO STOP HURTING HIM HE’S JUST GOOD AND HANDSOME AND DOESN’T DESERVE THIS

(could be applied to like 98% of these characters but in this case it’s nmj b/c I love him)

I do find it very funny and oddly comforting that nmj is literally so fuckn mad that it takes three times as many attacks for the evil sorcery stuff to take him down than we’ve seen used on anyone else fsdkfhasdkj too angry to die

wHY has my brain chosen for me to attach so deeply to perhaps The single most inevitably doomed person in this entire cast, at this point I’m just being cruel to myself lol

- I can’t describe how much I love the fanficiness of this story, in the best ways. the emotional fallout from the destruction of the lotus pier gets more screentime and attention than the entire sunshot campaign, and that’s exactly how I want it to be.

- they’ve been doing some great work to establish that the jin are also jeeeeeerks for such a long time, how’s that for foreshadowing

- equal opportunity traitor jgy gets his stab in lol one must respect the grift, though, he’s set himself up pretty darn good

*lxc stops nmj from killing jgy, hello darkness my old friend starts playing in the background*

fatal journey builds nicely on this fundamental thing that the nie boys take their responsibility to their people extremely seriously, it seems to be the fact that jgy so blithely talks about them as necessary casualties that really sets him off

- adlfsdfhsdkjh lxc and nmj meekly being like ‘...we could maybe... not commit war crimes? if that’s at all possible? no?’

*slaps ‘I don’t think you even tried at all’ stars on both of them* (I mean I actually do kind of see where they’re coming from a bit, they just came out of a pretty costly war and I wouldn’t feel too comfortable getting right back into it with arguably the wealthiest faction, who’s also been keeping back a bit and thus kept a lot more reserves. well played jin bastards well played)

- I could stop here. if I stopped here everything would basically be as okay as they could be and the world full of hope still. I suppose the question here is... do I love myself enough to quit while the going is good. and the answer is no I already started the next episode

- I think one incredibly endearing aspect of this version of nmj is that he has a look of faint but permanent worry about him. he walked onto the screen with a vibe of ‘...oh boy I don’t like where this is going’ and he’s just kept going ever since

in the book he’s kind of a flat character (whose one trait is Mad), I love that they’ve given him some depth and nuance here! probably partly down to the actor doing a great job, but this version has a real sort of warmth to him and also seems downright uncertain at times -- he thrives when there’s a clear goal and black and white sides, and is probably not t h r i l l e d with the weird tentative political situation after they take down the wens lol. thank god he has his little brother to make ‘bitch please’ faces over his shoulder when the jin get weird about things

anyway I’m always on the ‘nhs you are SO valid’ train, but in this version nhs is quadruple valid, in fact only mianmian is more valid in this entire world

- one of my favourite parts of this show is when wwx enters a situation and the camera takes some time to zoom in on the faces of his family and friends to convey their sense of ‘oh god what the fuck is he about to say now’ dread

- jiang yanli asking her little brother if he doesn’t want to stay with them anymore while crying is emotional kryptonite, help

this poor woman, she had to put all her points into emotional intelligence b/c god knows no one else in this family did

- hell YEAH lan zhan go break some rules!! treat yourself my guy

- hey sis if, theoretically, one hypothetically found oneself in -- for the sake of argument -- love with, as the case may or may not be, someone... how would one tell?? asking for a friend

- the whole summary of this fucking show is just ‘weaponized sibling feels’ everything hurts with foreknowledge why did I keep going

- aw no blindfolded kiss scene but here’s a scene with real earnest emotional intimacy stuff going on instead... I will joyfully take it your honor

- I do value and respect the translators giving us these subtitles so much... but they did also force me to read the words ‘bosom friend’ with my own two eyes right there and that was not very cool of them

- why oh WHY must jiang yanli, best person in the world, have been cursed with the horrible fate of being in love with the dumbest man on the planet

*jiang yanli juggling all the idiot men in her life* oh god my little brother is causing an international diplomatic incident again time to bUCKLE UP

oh ho ho you know shit is getting real when big sister gets mad I LOVE HER. suddenly you see she definitely her mother’s daughter after all lol

wwx crying because his sister just fiercely defended him in public... im uwu

- I hate jgy with all my heart but I do feel bad for him too. his barely faltering :) look while all his asshole relatives gang up on him sdfhskahf

- again the jin are dicks but when it comes to aesthetics they do go off, that’s such a beautiful shade of blue

- dsflhsdakjlfhsdakjfl sd this shot of lwj and nmj right before lxc drinks is the funniest framing imaginable b/c lwj is wearing a look of complete stonefaced

-___________-

and meanwhile nmj, who presumably has seen lxc drunk before since they’re longstanding bros, looks worried as fUCK

- awwwww I do love nhs capitalizing all of jc’s attention so the others won’t start shit with him/so he won’t get to say something publicly he’ll regret later because he’s (understandably honestly) mad at his brother for making his life even more difficult than it has to be (I have every sympathy with wwx but buddy... buddy must you make everything more complicated for your bro every darn time this is a real delicate political situation and he’s not suited for that even without your antics)

it’s a very nhs move because he comes across as slightly boorish and rude and thus leaves jc blameless and thus protected, you can get so far if you have no self respect lol

- showing us exactly how wen ning died is honestly a little too mean this is not fun

- good god this poor grandma has been through the wringer hasn’t she

- oh. oh wen ning, who never meant hurt anyone in his entire life :(

- listen okay the end is in sight just a couple more horrific tragedies to get through and then it’s the weird romantic comedy buddy cop antics of the current day timeline to ride to the end

- it cannot be overemphasized how much this lan zhan is Baby, I so desperately want to help and protect him

- I’m going to stop shouting out individual actors on this show they’re all goddamn brilliant haha (but am I tho)

- most valid person in the cultivation world mianmian

also enjoying the exemplification of nmj’s character that is ‘not sure how I feel about this dumb kid with the big mouth digging his own grave ever deeper but that girl’s got guts and I respect that’

- wen quing is getting a taste of the dangers and pitfalls of having wwx as a little brother dfhskdalfhsdaklj she and jyl should compare notes (he’s so good tho T-----T)

- how does wwx’s actor have such natural dad energy at such a young age, too powerful

- people give so little thought to how fucked up jc’s situation really is here, like he’s just being an asshole for the sake of it. spend three fucking seconds looking at it with some realpolitik in mind and realize that the clans around him have just shown that they can and will wipe out an enemy clan together if need be, and that his own sect hasn’t even gotten back on its feet after the war that almost wiped it out. like wwx is unquestionably morally right but has gone about it in such a way that it’s real fucking hard to support him without going down with him and how do you calculate that risk when you’re responsible for so many more lives than your own

also so sad about jc being so afraid this entire time that wwx would leave him like everyone else... and now he has :( jc doesn’t handle it well but then who would at this stage

- there is something so pure about a quietly horrified lan zhan getting Dad Advice from these guys (well he’s going to be needing it soon enough so)

oh the utter softness of his face looking at wwx and ah yuan ;_______; thank god, some fluff to bolster my heart before we set off into the last harrowing ordeal here

LAN ZHAN’S ENTIRE FACE LIGHTING UP AT WEI YING ASKING HIM OUT thank fuck there’s still some joy left in the universe

this poor love struck man, someone help him

lan zhan conscientiously grabbing ah yuan’s toys is fskhdfksjdlfhskjdhf

- lan zhan looking around the demon subduing cave: babe I love you more than life itself but this is tacky as hell

- crying because wen niiiiiing

- crying because sibliiiiiings

okay this is the last time the three of them will be together and nominally happy, need to appreciate it through my tears

- actually I take it back please just let the bad thing happen now so I don’t have to live in suspense anymore lol (...this probably says a lot more about me as a person than I’m strictly comfortable with)

- the fact that none of wwx’s little adopted wen family are AT ALL intimidated by him anymore is just... it’s too much to bear

again tho this book/show is so willing to let you dwell in the emotional stages of things in a very fanfic sort of way, I think it’s what makes the sad parts so much worse (and makes you feel so incredibly attached to these characters)

- I gUESS it’s a testament to jin zixuan’s character that he has any decency at all, considering who his dad is and where he was raised

I’m cracking up at their dad being the one who still doesn’t trust jgy tho lol snake recognizes snake

- jgy’s faint look of ‘are you fucking kIdDiNg me rn’ whenever all these jin douchebags talk is very entertaining. if he didn’t go on to do all that murder and incest and (probably) infanticide I’d sort of cheer for him no matter what kind of sociopath he is

- not to be a downer or anything but isn’t one month a little premature to be celebrating the survival of a baby in fantasy old timey china tho

sometimes I feel like looking back at history is just seeing a whole lot of dead children (and this is why I think that even if god did exist it would be morally inconceivable to worship him! sorry just a quick detour into my personal grudge against the inherent cruelty of the world there, let’s move on)

- it’s uncomfortable to watch even the outlines of the jin sect’s slow insidious stranglehold on power. even these random shopgoing nobodies know that nmj is Not Happy about these watchtowers and that it’s probably going to happen anyway. the jin are snakes but at least they’re clever about it and I do kind of respect that

- oh everything’s about to go so wrong I hate it

NOOOOO don’t make the zombie baby fight, nothing good will come of this

- man this is hitting me worse than lotus pier actually I’m just... crying haha

it’s almost cathartic tho... there’s something about wen quing’s dignity and certainty that really helps? I just really wish they hadn’t brought the whole little group, god I want them to be okay so badly and ah yuan will be all that’s left and. and just throw me into the ocean and let me sink tbh

- I know this is all so much black cgi smoke (pls let us see the red version again at some point btw that was cool as shit) but the emotional metaphor of wwx that you can’t take on more and more of other people’s suffering and trauma and not care for yourself because you will lose control of that at some point is just. very nicely done. (he’s a bit of an odd serial codependent for a lot of the story, isn’t he. thank god lan zhan is not a quitter)

- jin zixuan’s mom is breaking my heart a little here. this lady has been married to THAT GUY all this time and now this as well. sorry lady, I guess jgy probably Took Care Of You at some stage after this

- a) this is just real good acting for wwx. this is the perfect level of unhinged for this, even though I’m always like ‘just. just shut your mouth for one time in your life and stop digging this grave any deeper six feet should be enough for anyone huh’ at this stage of the story and b) I am cackling inappropriately at the shot-reverse-shots between wwx, jiang cheng and jgy. jiang cheng looks like everything he ever loved is falling apart around him and jgy is like ‘oh wow I didn’t even have to provide him any rope he’s doing an excellent job at hanging himself without me’

I love wwx so much but it did take him an unconscionable length of time to realize that when you set big enough things into motion you will not be able to control who it crushes along the way or who might steer it in the wrong direction. other people exist and have agency and a lot of those people are bad honey :(

- ah yes lwj being stopped by a barrier made of the physical manifestation of wwx’s trauma when he tries to reach him :’) this is okay and cool and fine

- it’s admirably obtuse of everyone to look at wwx at this stage and still think he’s in control of uh anything lol

- oh okay that went better than expected I don’t know if I’m just inured to sadness at this point

jiang cheng looking like a little boy clutching his big sister’s body is tugging at my heartstrings a bit tho

- ooooh this battle hardened intense lwj!!! I guess I can sort of see it now

- oh lan zhan 2, electric boogaloo

- finally! time for some comfort up in this hurt

- my man nmj still so fucking angry in the afterlife that anything even remotely connected to him is shaking with rage in sympathy in the real world. a mood

- fdsahfsjdklfhsdajk wwx being like ‘I can take everyone saying I was evil but how DARE you not mention I was also a snacc’

- when do you think nie huaisang really realized that his brother wouldn’t have children and that he was up for the sect leader seat next? nie mingjue seems to have known pretty far in advance himself and tried to prepare his brother accordingly, but that kid really didn’t want the job so I imagine he’d try to live in denial as long as possible

vaguely related: no other family is ever mentioned by either brother or anyone else, and nie huaisang straight out says that he is the only main disciple (I seem to remember and with the caveat that I might have misunderstood the translation) when there’s the talk of them being sent to the wen as hostages -- I suppose you sort of have to be very selective when your ancestral cultivation method is sketchy enough that you should keep that shit on the down low and you know people die young from it. so I think it’s possible if not probable that huaisang is the last of his family. isn’t that a fun little thing to think about? haha. ha. help me

- this random street vendor is an unexpected strong comedy performance, every face he makes is pure gold

- fkshafkjsdhfasd best introduction of adult nhs

- the quiet luminous love on lwj’s face whenever he looks at wwx in the present... give this man all the awards. it’s nice that wwx gets to be scared and childish and vulnerable with someone who loves him no matter what too, he’s been through some shit

- oh okay I see so the reason they chose to make fatal journey the way they did was because they already had the set built

- *nhs dropping one set of robes like that one gif from anastasia to reveal another even more luxuriously dandy-ish set under it* oh wow what a surprise to see you two down here, coincidences amirite (anyway here’s the testament to all the sins of my ancestors & a trail of breadcrumbs to lead you to the murderer of my brother)

no wait that’s slightly later isn’t it. well the point still stands

- dead!nmj is truly a mood -- “I don’t know where I am, who I am or what the fuck just happened but I do know that I am PISSED OFF”

(actually in the book I found that almost comforting -- at least the dude got to spend his afterlife doing what he loved (i.e. being angry), but this more nuanced and sympathetic version being trapped like that just. makes me very very sad)

nice of him to stick around to play a few rounds of hot or cold with his little bro’s friends tho lol. I mean from what I understand of this take on canon it’s actually the spirit of his sword and not him in person? but close enough, let me keep him as long as I can okay

- jin ling getting his dumb ass cask of amontillado’d within ten minutes of entering the tomb smh

look at your ROBES young man what is your (other) uncle going to say??

- hAH what did I say. pedagogic mastermind jiang cheng at it again

enjoying the fact that they chose the floofiest most benign-looking of dogs to play this ~*terrifying hound*~ so much

I have a lot of sympathy for jiang cheng, and the actor is doing a good job at aging him up here (not as good as lwj’s but then you can’t beat perfection). the way he’s calcified into bitterness and anger b/c he can’t express his emotions in a healthy nuanced way feels very... real I guess, people get like that sometimes

- I am somehow really endeared to this version of jin ling. a dumb baby, but a baby

- poor lan zhan lol “I LEFT YOU ON YOUR OWN FOR TWO HOURS AND YOU ALREADY MANAGED TO TAKE ON SOMEONE ELSE’S CURSE??? BABE!!!!!!!”

he consistently uses jiang cheng’s personal name too huh. well it is his brother in law I guess ETA: actually I’m an idiot ignore/forgive me, that’s jiang cheng’s courtesy name isn’t it. lan wangji is being salty/maybe-deliberately-maybe-not-(but-definitely-tho) distant/polite with him I think

- y’know... as I watch lwj carry the love of his life around on his back with all the tenderness in the world and I see people in the comments yell about why do you always need everything to be gay they’re just good friends you’re all crazy... I realize all over again that there really is no level of queerness they’ll ever find legitimate or acceptable. which like. feels bad, but there’s also the freedom in remembering they are always going to be assholes no matter what I do, there’s literally no need to listen to them at any time.

- I am CRACKING UP; watching this episode right after seeing fatal journey sure is a treat hahaha. nhs really must enjoy the acting on a deep level because he is hamming it up and I am living for it

“It’s nothing at all like unorthodox demonic cultivation methods!” he protests with his big innocent doe eyes, having yelled the exact same accusation at his brother within ten seconds of finding out about it dsfdskjha

- awww that’s such a sweet way of telling nhs who he is while both of them still get plausible deniability :’)

this show is making it a LOT easier to figure out nhs’ deal earlier just through visual storytelling and his reactions when lwj and wwx aren’t looking, but I guess you sort of have to do that without the benefits of selective POVs that you can do in written stories

- lan zhan’s little smirks are such a blessing

- can we talk about how INCREDIBLY rude lwj and wwx are being barging into other people’s ancestral tombs like they own the place. I know I said break some rules lan zhan but there’s such a thing as common decency too at least wipe your feet at the entrance or something

stop being big bullies!!! (nhs actually sounds a little salty at how debonair they are being lol he’s like yeah you’re doing what I want you to but you don’t have to be such dicks about it)

- nooooooo nmj don’t die ur so sexy ahaha (I jest so I do not cry godddddd my heart big brother come baaaaaaack)

I’m honestly finding it very hard to live with knowing that the last thing nmj saw in life was jgy having his little brother in his clutches D:D:D: looking at it like that... of course he came back mad as fuck, I’d probably do the same thing

- boys boys I love and support you but could you maybe not stand around talking about how this was totally a horrific murder like the murderee’s little brother isn’t standing right there?? i mean it’s useful for him but it’s kind of mean of you, I know neither of you were raised in a barn

okay there’s wwx irrepressible protective instinct that’s better. I just... nhs standing there looking small and sad and soft and lonely isn’t the whole truth but it is part of the whole truth, it’s nice to see wwx being like this even after all those years. (the physical closeness in their friendship in their youth in this version is so gooood. outside of wwx the only two people we see nhs consistently allow close or seek out closeness from is his brother and MENG YAO, who can frankly burn in hell even more than usual for the flute thing in fatal journey.)

- lan zhan contemplating the inherent impermanence of everything good in the world and then immediately getting blackout drunk -- MOOD. also I have never seen a scene where someone so obviously was about to press a soft kiss to someone’s forehead or cheek, don’t worry wwx I see you through the censorship lol

(it’s incredible how well they’ve adapted the love story considering the fact that they technically uh can’t)

- wen ning: shambles, zombie-like and disheveled with horror movie monster eyes, into frame

all of us: omg a BABY ToT

- live action drunk lan zhan is living up to the hype I am d y i n g

this poor repressed man

fjskdfsdkjhf he could do sword fighting in his damn sleep probably

I will say that leaving ‘wei wuxian was also here’ is going to scare the crap out of these poor people whose only crime was keeping well fed chickens

- they r so in love someone hold me

- this nmj!kid I am LOSING IT, this is so cute I want to lie face down on the floor and cry

- the yi city arc is my least favourite part of this story, so I’m fortifying myself to get through a couple of hours of sexy baby xue yang here

- Dad/troll teacher!wwx is in fact everything

- oooh wwx has the same weird crooked fingers as me when they’re extended! just some small Facts About Your Friendly Neighbourhood Blogger there

- this is not at all a bad take on ah quing! she qte

- ‘what’s your husband look like?’ song lan, crying: beautiful

- xxc you didn’t think it was a little weird the dude wouldn’t tell you his name -- even a name -- all this time. honestly

I know you’re in a bad place and this is sort of a rebound thing from your actual true love but stop letting him gaslight you like this buddy :(

- time for some MASSIVELY FORESHADOWING PARALLELS my friends

- I don’t know if I’m just a heartless monster but I honestly don’t care that much about anyone but ah quing in this little sideplot lol (probably my complete disinterest in xue yang tainting everything else)

- xue yang and jgy: the ‘sad backstory dude still inexplicably extra mass murder’ club

- godddd I’m so bored I’ve listened to this guy cackle ~*madly and evilly*~ for three episodes now when will it fucking end

- lan jingjy you are VALID

- fhsdkfhsdkj can’t get over baxia being like ‘OI you two stop gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes for five seconds and get on with avenging me’

must be annoying spending your afterlife in a pouch third wheeling the two most obnoxiously in love people in the world, I think this spirit sword is being admirably restrained and patient all things considered

- big brother I am so sorry you had to hang out under there all this time while this boring bullshit plot happened above you ;________________________;

I’m actually not clear on what the nie sect does with the bodies of the dead -- the saber tomb seems to be exclusively for the weapons/we see that some of the cultivators will go down there while they’re still alive to sacrifice themselves... maybe they go in the walls? I guess nhs is breaking tradition in a lot of ways tho so who knows!

- ‘from what I’ve seen he’s not so bad’ wei ying he smilingly asked you to use POWs for target practice I’ll allow lxc to be this dumb but you really have no excuse

- this duckling in red is a gentleman and a bro, one to watch

- wwx seductively arranging himself in the open window to cover his panic fsdkjfhsda

- lot’s wife WISHES she had the level of salt jiang cheng does

- ‘if they ask me any weird questions I don’t know the answers to I’ll have to pretend to be a total psycho’

lan zhan, dragging his husband with one deadpan face: I’m sure that is going to be a huge feat of acting for you babe

- NIE HUAISANG FALLING INTO FRAME AND LAUNCHING HIMSELF FROM ONE PERSON TO ANOTHER LIKE A GORMLESS WET RAG, I STAN ONE (1) BOY

‘but new problems appeared’ how is he such a mood

again tho you can give your unknowing accomplices so much space to investigate if you just don’t bother with self respect or dignity at any stage of the journey lol

- fjshdfkjlsahd that beat of lan zhan clearly taking a moment to contemplate the idea of wei ying confessing his love naked in public there

- uncle and nephew bonding time T________________T

- fsakfhsadkjlfhsad I can’t deal with this mission impossible ass music in the background as a little paper gingerbread man scoots around the palace

whoever animated this was clearly having a lot of fun, I love the little details like his dangling legs and him rubbing his lil paper bum after landing

- poor qin su, one of the most screwed over people in this whole show. at least in the book he didn’t mean to

- ah su, you’re being very unreasonable about this, what is a little incest between friends

- straight culture is this being chill to keep in the adaptation but god forbid anyone got a loving queer kiss at any point (not blaming the showrunners at all, they’re clearly stretching the limits as far as they will go and maybe a bit more at a few points)

- YES SISTER CALL HIM THE FUCK OUT I always felt like she’s known something was a little off for a long time but never could put her finger on what exactly

- ‘can you still not let me go’ hey jgy you piece of shit who’s keeping whose head in a weird serial killer cabinet here

- THANK YOU FOR BRINGING HIS HANDSOME ALIVE FACE BACK TO MY SCREEN IF ONLY TO MAKE ME SAD

- he’s so beautiful and righteous and strong 😭😭😭😭 dage come back to us

(makes even more sense that he’s so pissed off about what jgy did if he’s already shown clearly that he’ll shut down the people fucking with him if it’s brought to his attention. he gave you every opportunity you little oh-it’s-never-really-my-fault worm of a man)

- another nmj about to cry warning needed here help me

dON’T FUCKING TOUCH HIM YOU SLIMY FSKJLDHFKSJDHFSKDJLHF

the nie traits are undying loyalty, rage, and the intergenerational trauma of watching your parental figures succumb to death and madness through the same cultivation path you practice

- my cause of death: nmj’s eyes shining with unshed tears

this version has that edge of vulnerability to him, you suddenly do realize he was once just a kid watching his dad die a horrifying death and then having to take on all that responsibility and raising his brother

nie boys unfailingly devoted to the people under their protection I’m gonna go bury myself under a tree or something

- I’ve had to turn the volume down so I can barely hear anything b/c my emotions are too big to for my dumb body to contain already I can’t listen to this

- extremely sad but also a little funny that part of the reason nmj died was that he had no interest whatsoever in the arts. ‘music is music right?’ says local jock

- I’ve just been whimpering the last twenty minutes this is awful

- huaisang’s voice breaking on ‘big brother, it’s me’... sdlakhgsdjklfhsadjkghsdkjlfhdskljhgsdalkhgsdklgjhsdjklhgkdjslhgjskd I’m going to the bottom of the mariana trench and I’m staying there goodbye

- I can’t wait to watch nie huaisang end this putrid trash man’s whole career in the most devastating way possible tbh

- I’m just so SAD T______________________________T I hate jgy so much my heart burns with it I’m so glad he’s about to get some dramatic irony shoved up his -- but I digress

- haha poor jin ling standing there watching all this messed up shit like ‘O.O thanks i’m nine’

- I wish I was as good at passing the fuck out on command as nhs, I feel like it would solve a lot of my problems

- just some low key soulmate shit no biggie

- wwx is basically fantasy old timey naked again here the SCANDAL except no scandal they’re clearly married

- wwx is being so much more patient with lxc than I would have found it in my heart to be at this stage. he’s like ‘lxc you are my brother in law and I truly appreciate you and everything you’ve done for me but it’s sadly up to me to gently confront you with all the ways you’ve been a dumb ho just b/c you think jgy has pretty dimples 😔’

- “You’re not qualified to talk to me” oh lwj I love you so much. I thought committing murder was forbidden by the lan sect rules but there you go

- it honestly baffles me that some people think nmj would be the strictest parental figure in this universe when a) everything about huaisang suggests otherwise and b) lan qiren is right there

madam yu has that ‘super unforgiving to her son’s face but will also tear anyone criticizing him a new one’ mixed energy too

- lqr: I raised a perfect obedient righteous cultivator

me & wei ying: you’ve ruined a perfectly good boy is what you did look at him he’s too repressed to breathe

- well their dad clearly paid enough attention to worldly matters that two kids resulted from it, I’m not quite sure where we’re going with this lxc

one’s an accident two’s a pattern etc.

- wow I was so confused about ‘confidante’ being used here b/c it makes absolutely no sense in context, and the comments helpfully informed me that it’s more accurately translated to ‘soulmate’ or something like that; that does make a whole lot more sense yeah

- bb!lan zhan kneeling in the snow is more than anyone’s supposed to have to live with tbh

- lxc being like ‘so yeah my brother will keep loving people long after they’re gone and unable to give him love back! just a fun fact there, something to think about anyway here’s wonderwall’

- soft, ever-so-slightly messy haired at home lan zhan deserves the world

- oh wwx’s shift away from thinking the truth doesn’t matter at all to realizing the truth of you being held fully and with love by one person in your life is enough as lwj plays their song ;______________________________; this is almost more romantic than a kiss scene would be honestly jesus christ

- little apple is the best of us tbh

- apologies but they have 100% started to fuck off-screen at this stage, the looks wei ying is giving him dsafasdfhsjkd

- I take it back mianmian and little apple are the best of us

- imagine just finding the light bearing lord, second peerless jade of lan in his immaculate white clothes, peeking out from between your hay bales one day

- the exponential increase in lan zhan’s blessed little smiles lately: my oh-they-fawking thesis is validated yet again

- wei ying lying through his teeth: of course I remembered your face at once who do you take me for

(lan zhan: smirks in quiet satisfaction)

- walejhgskdjhgsjdaklfhsadjkflafhsjakdsf wen ning is so cute I don’t know what to do with myself

- wei ying this is where you first asked him out of course he remembers

- lan zhan is like ‘oh shit I forgot to tell him about our son and at this point I’m kind of embarrassed to bring it up’

- I am NOT thinking about the lotus pond they made for him here, you can’t make me

- ‘the worst time in their lives’ yeah, but there was such love there too. it h u r t s

- the actor for wen ning is so good at making his expressions look deeply earnest but also a little uncanny, like moving his face doesn’t come naturally to him anymore but his Good Boyness shines through

- DRAGGED in public by his own son. rip wwx he had a good run of it before his untimely murder

- wow thank goodness sect leader yao survived all this time, his death would as we all know have been a huge loss to society as a whole

- “I’m just here to round up the numbers” I love him more than I can convey to you in words

I’m a simple person, I hear nhs’ chronically befuddled voice and a burst of pure joy is released in my heart

sdfhjksadhfsad his soft little 😕 face peeking out from behind people’s shoulders fkjsdhfsdjal

- will I ever get enough of nhs masterfully manipulating a situation through his own apparent cowardliness and uselessness? no is the answer to that it’s always entrancing to watch

nhs as a teacher, nodding sagely as his disciples exchange glances: it’s never too late to go home instead of going big. saying ‘fuck this i’m outta here’ is always an option

- also nhs seemingly doesn’t use a saber at all anymore, where he at least used to have one back in fatal journey times. I’m very happy he’s trying some new things, time to break that very sad traumatic chain of dying young and furious

also him getting someone else to do the work of fixing the ward or whatever fskdfhaskdlf

teacher nhs, waving his pupils away b/c he’s busy painting or something: class dismissed. and remember, if at all possible, get someone else to do your homework for you. as long as you don’t get caught that’s an automatic A

- wwx is literally the cat surrounded by knives meme here lol

- lol lol lol wwx just removed his outer tunic thing to reveal lan zhan’s undershirt still under there and you can see lan qiren silently seethe with ‘that little hussy has seduced my nephew away from the righteous path’

(do I personally believe in slut shaming of any kind? nah it’s dumb as fuck. do I think lqr does? yeah)

- hahaha I can’t tell if nhs’ slightly glazed look here is b/c wwx did something he didn’t plan for him to do or if it’s because he’s for all intents and purposes half naked in front of them. (tbh I think there’s a case to be made in this version that he has a sort of wistful would-never-act-on-it-for-a-million-different-reasons-lan-zhan’s-furious-jealous-stare-being-foremost-of-them crush on both wwx and lwj from back when they were teens)

- WOW all these dicks inviting themselves to lotus pier!!! r u d e

- lan zhan flexing on lan qiren by raising a happy well adjusted child even while he’s mourning the love of his life: what like it’s hard

- wen ning kept that toy for sixteen goddamn years don’t touch me

- I’m crying about jin ling give me a moment. he is baby okay he’s even younger than ah yuan by at least four years

the image of him hugging the only thing he’s got left of his dad... fsdalkfhasdjlkfhsjdakhfsjdk

- lan sizhui has a crowd of good uncles/dads and poor jin ling has a crowd of utter disaster uncles and it’s very unfortunate (yes wwx is on both of those lists)

it is very sweet that it’s jiang cheng who consistently actually looks out for him, even in his feelings-wtf-are-feelings sort of way. the least disaster uncle, but only by comparison lol

- I think this ouyang kid might be duckling in red from before? LOVING the interspersed nhs reaction shots to him, anyway fsakdfh (I’m going to make it sad: how many conversations like this do you think he had with his brother as a kid? that’s fine we can both cry now I don’t want to be alone in this)

- ‘mr ning’ im Y___________________________________Y

- extremely Here for yet another full costume change from nhs hahaha (he’s changed at the boat already, god knows how he pulled that off but I’d expect no less from him)

- nhs must have been a sect leader for at least a decade at this point, and he still manages to exude such a powerful ‘kid at the adult’s table’ aura. incredible. mindblowing, inspirational

- ...oh they went with the same version of the previous jin leader’s death huh (but GOD FORBID that anyone should be openly gay amirite lol) O___O again though WHY is jin ling here, jiang cheng??????? he’s like sixteen, he’s never going to dare to even kiss anyone after this

- nhs has the look of a man who’s had to sit on this disgusting knowledge alone for years and finally gets to share that icky burden around, merry christmas everyone if I have to know about this so do you

- I don’t know if this is just me imagining things or reading more into it than what’s there, but I think nhs is actually sitting in the same pose his brother used to a lot in this part of the scene (the upright posture with palms resting at the top of the thighs/hips, fingers turned inwards/towards each other; it looks sort of... solid and self-contained, I guess)

- I would call jgy knowingly committing the incest character assassination if he’d had enough character to assassinate even in the book, I would never have put it past him

- y’know... god knows nmj had flaws (I think my immense depth of love for him in this version comes precisely from how hard he tries even while being deeply flawed. him dumb but him always trying :’) well actually he’s not dumb at all, he’s shown to be pretty darn politically savvy, I’m just having a hard time finding the right word here. ‘inflexible’ is maybe closer ), but the big defining difference between him and jin guangyao (and consequently xue yang) is that both of the latter are completely open about the fact that they see themselves as more important than anyone else -- xue yang considers one of his fingers worth more than fifty people’s lives, jgy kills twenty sex workers as a mere afterthought to his own revenge on his father. meanwhile nmj gets Messed Up by people dying under his protection to the degree that he came up with one of the dumbest plans I’ve ever heard just so he’d be the only one at risk, just so no one else would get hurt anymore. hmnghsjhfs.

- wen ning, proudly: my sister was the best doctor in the world

me, openly crying: she sure was buddy

- wwx: hey lan zhan are there any sweet patient lan ladies with an open mind around

lwj: ...why

wwx: I just think our zombie son should start thinking about getting friends, maybe even a real home

lwj, subtly relieved: oh

- JIN LING BABY BOY NOOOO D:D:D:

- nhs I need you to come in and end this man I cannot look at his awful face anymore

- ugh this garrotte sound effect is really unpleasant actually well done

- THERE HE IS!!! conveniently swooning his way into the scene again, my guy ;_______; smol and soft-looking and about to utterly obliterate a man on every conceivable level

I love every moment of the camera dwelling meaningfully on his innocent vulnerable face, this is going to be so great

it’s too bad he’s a behind the curtain sort of dude, I would kill for a poirot-style ‘I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here in the library’ moment here lol

- tbh jiang cheng’s got a point about that whole ‘making huge sweeping decisions about someone else’s life and never telling them about it’ thing

wwx has sort of structured himself as a person so that you’ll never be allowed to really reciprocate his dedication and sacrifices (unless you’re lz lol), and while that is a very sympathetic trauma reaction essentially it is sort of a dick move interpersonally.

- the weight and wisdom that comes along with the scars of older wwx... you love to see it

- nhs, with effortless grace, rousing from his disney princess slumber just as the real drama’s about to begin... your honor he is simply the best

- T__________________________________________________________T big brother

- the tinge of coldness in nhs’ eyes while he watches jgy through this whole scene even as he keeps up the ‘im baby don’t worry about me’ act.............. fashdfjlksdahfslkadj, not to say askfksjhafkjsldhfkjsalhfksjaldhfkls

- to say that jgy has perhaps ‘gone overboard with this’ might be the biggest understatement of any century lxc

- watching him kneel by his brother’s coffin here I’d like to propose that Nie Huaisang has exactly the same capacity for all-consuming rage as the rest of his family, except he can’t just vent it by hitting something real hard with a haunted murder saber so he has to get creative and that was real unfortunate for Jin Guangyao

- one thing that’s always tickled me is that nhs did give jgy the choice. the people around him -- the people he claims to love -- could have been left out of it, no dishonor being brought to either his name or any of theirs... if he’d been willing to sacrifice himself. (probably a gambit where he knew that was never going to happen, but still!)

- nhs standing there in the background like ‘yeah yeah we all have horrifying family legacies buddy, we just don’t knowingly marry our sisters or arrange for mass murders over it’

- arguably killing the previous jin leader could actually count as a good deed if not for the horrifying way he did it lol. jgy all over, he could have done something helpful, *john mulaney voice* and then he didn’t he just killed nineteen innocent women while he was on a roll instead

- while it’s sort of bullshit that some responsibility is taken away from wwx in jin zixuan’s death here it’s also making a bit more sense to me like this -- seems like an uncharacteristic gamble from jgy to just idk hope wwx would lose control at exactly the right/wrong moment. wwx is still at fault for how casually he treated wen ning as a weapon when he didn’t know what the consequences could be, I’m okay with this

- jin ling and the terrible horrible no good very bad week :( protect him

wow lan xicheng let’s stand around some more letting this awful excuse for a person tell this sixteen year old boy that his parents deserved to be murdered basically, I’m sure there’s a lot more fruitful discussion still left to be had here

- talk shit about nie mingjue’s brother get hit su she hell YEAHHHHHH

big brother still looking out for him I’m fsdklfhajsdlhf 😭😭😭

- I’M SO FULL OF FEELINGS ;________________________________; at least in this version the implication feels more like he’s finally at peace? (hilariously wwx managed to purge/cleanse the saber spirit, which is the entire conflict of fatal journey haha, nhs really did get his best friend to do his homework for him yet again, INSPIRATIONAL)

- HELL YEAH FINALLY GET REKT YOU PIECE OF SHIT! PRESS F TO PAY RESPECT EXCEPT JOKE’S ON YOU I’VE GOT NO RESPECT TO PAY

They did do away with any and all ambiguity around nhs here and I’m totally cool with it, that was awesome

- I’m playing the world’s tiniest little violin right now, wow much sad fuck you and your dumb hat

- may I just say that the fact that jgy uses his last moments on earth to make lxc, a person he proclaims to love, feel as bad as possible about his now inevitable death even though it clearly wasn’t really his fault... is just proof that he has never actually loved anyone at all except possibly himself

contrast with wwx, who tells jc that he’s sorry, dries his tears in the here and now and says to let the past go because there’s nothing either of them can do about it now and there’s no point in hurting themselves over it again and again anymore. jgy has the opportunity to give a similar kindness here and instead twists and twists the knife, so lxc will be in as much pain as possible when he’s gone. he’d rather be kept alive in lxc’s suffering than let him, someone he ‘loves’, ever heal and be happy. anyway I hope hell is real shitty for you jgy

- jgy you absolute piece of shit you couldn’t let my man have TEN FUCKING MINUTES to nap in peace? after sixteen years of your fuckery? urgh bye

- nhs looking at lxc sadly when lxc can’t see him... one last ‘I don’t know’ finally closing out his arc... I love all of this so much, there’s such a nuance of... he is genuinely a bit sad about causing lxc pain but he also doesn’t regret what he did At All. (I guess most of what he’s done must be pretty easy to rationalize/justify to himself, since the vast majority of his work went into finding the horrible shit jgy has done and showing them the way home to roost, rather than creating fresh suffering from scratch. and then there’s also the whole mo family but uh well eggs omelettes amirite lol)

- lan qiren telling people not to run or talk loudly b/c they’re at a temple, even under these circumstances fhakjsldfhkjsdafhkjsaldhf

- god the casting people for this show have a perfect track record of finding heartwrenchingly cute kids my GOD

- jfdsafhaskdjfh I love how they’ve done the moment with the hat -- the way the flashback sort of indicates that nhs does recognize on a deep level that the dude he just killed was someone’s son, was after all once an innocent child, like anyone... and again, it doesn’t make him regret it. he looks tired and sort of empty, but not like he’d take any of it back. he’s seen jgy for all that he was, good and bad, and made his decision. his reaction to seeing his hands ever so slightly stained with blood is mostly ‘...eh sure’ (and he knows none of this will ever bring his brother back and I am HURTING) . just. I love him so much what an interesting character

- lan zhan raised a child who can talk about his feelings, unprecedented & wondrous

who’s chopping onions in here

- never getting over ah yuan being the best person in the world at roasting his dad

- okay okay okay I’m going to have some incoherent feelings here -- the expression on nhs’ face right after wwx asks him if he intends to be chief cultivator is just... hm. how do I describe this. it looks almost like he’s thinking ‘oh yeah I forgot you don’t actually know me anymore (yeah okay that’s my bad)’? the previous scene is about lwj and wwx, The symbolic representation of true love in this world, naming each other/knowing each other for exactly who and what they are. that’s the thematic victory in this story; to be truly known, accepted and loved for the entirety of who you are, if only by one person in your whole life. (notably all sorts of love, parental, familial, platonic etc., not just romantic/sexual) and to get his victory, nhs has had to completely forsake that because his whole plan hinged on it; he hasn’t been emotionally honest with anyone for well over a decade at this point. no one really knows or understands him, and if someone ever did he’s long dead now and never coming back. and in this one moment both wwx and nhs seem to come to the quiet understanding that neither of them are who they used to be as kids and it’ll never be like it used to be again, and reach a sort of live-and-let-live truce about it. d u d e this goddamn story

(after all part of the reason jgy is so incredibly terrified of nmj is that he’s the first person to see straight through his bullshit to who he is behind it, and that it’s u g l y back there. jgy + nmj = being known without being accepted or loved (b/c honestly he doesn’t deserve to be loved or accepted yeah there we go I said it), jgy + lxc = being accepted and loved without being known, which turns into disaster all around.)

- man this was actually a really solid adaptation, it was excellently done! they did rush a bit towards the end there (it was never explained why jgy didn’t kill sissi along with all the other sex workers in this version, for example, leaving a rather substantial plot hole, and they never reveal why exactly lan zhan had to take over as sect leader which breaks off lxc’s arc at the end), but all in all that was wonderful and even added some stuff I liked better than in the book! now please god never let mtxt write a sequel, just let them be in this happily ever after, all of them have been through enough ;________;

- also the music was truly epic! I don’t even begrudge them using some parts more often and blatantly than what’s probably necessary, I want to wallow in this love theme as much as the next person lol

- what am I going to do with hours upon hours of my life now? I don’t know either, I suppose I will just have to find some way to hobble on

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #wangxian #nie brothers #(b/c predictably that's what most of my feelings boil down to lol)#meta #I think I might have outdone myself with this; this is a new height of aimless unproductive nonsense even for me lol #I did this instead of working on the edit of the fic I've got nearly finished because... I don't know either guys I just don't know

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scripting-life · 4 years

Text

FFVII: returning to my first love

*peeks out of the corner of my lurking spot*

Hello? Anybody out there? It’s only been, oh you know, four-ish years since the last time I’ve posted anything here. I apologize in advance for anybody who’s still following me from my Castle days. If you couldn’t tell from my extended absence, I’ve mostly moved on. Castle and Beckett were fantastic characters that let me to play with some deep-dive analyses, and Castle will always hold a special place in my heart as my comfort show and my first real and extended experience with online fandom. I’ll always be grateful to the community I’ve had the joy of interacting with (or, the community with which I’ve had the joy of interacting, as Castle would correct me my dangling preposition).

I honestly didn’t think I would ever have reason to come back to Tumblr after Castle ended. But the FF7 Remake has returned me to my very first love--when I was young and innocent and before I knew anything about OTPs or ship wars. I’ve been back lurking for several months now and seeing all the fanart/fanfics and fun theories and analyses has reignited my enthusiasm for the FF7 franchise. It’s also fun coming back to this franchise with a more mature understanding of the themes/concepts that completely flew over my head as a young preteen.

(This ended up being super long, so the rest is below the cut to spare everyone the pain of scrolling. Apparently, my rambling tendencies have not changed at all. lol.)

When FF7R was officially announced (five freaking years ago!), I was filled with apprehension. FF7 was my first taste of a “grown-up” game. I was 11 and played my brother’s copy of the OG on PC in 1-2 hours spurts on the weekends when I visited his apartment. It took me months, if not years, to finish the game (I ended up stealing his copy to play on our computer at home...lol), and I was so blown away by it. I remember the exact moment I finished it and how I was literally shaking as I watched the ending FMV.

Later, when I found out my brother had a copy of FF8 (my poor brother was so accommodating to his annoying little sister...haha), I was so excited to play, in large part because I thought it would continue the story of FF7. Young, naive me didn’t understand the numbering conventions of Final Fantasy titles. I was madly theorizing and breaking my brain trying to find connections between the two games’ plots and had literally played through more than half the game before I finally realized the storyline of FF8 had absolutely nothing to do with FF7. I was sorely disappointed, and I think that has somewhat tainted my appreciation of future titles. Not to say I haven’t enjoyed the subsequent FF titles, but I think a little part of me is always comparing them to that first experience of wonder and awe that I had with FF7.

I discovered fanfiction in my teens and starting writing FF7/Cloti fics in college. Aside from interacting with a few fic writers at the time, I was not involved in any online communities, so I kept myself pretty free of any ship war drama and the like. When I did research for my fics, I’d sometimes see shipping sites and theories where I didn’t always understand the logic of how certain conclusions were reached, but frankly, I didn’t much care and didn’t realize that Clerith vs. Cloti was such a touchy subject. I was peripherally aware that some sort great LTD war was waging, of course, but it didn’t really touch me. I stayed in my Cloti shipping/fic-writing lane and was probably a lot happier for it. And, to be honest, based on FFN’s listings for FF7, I felt like I always saw a bunch of Sephiroth/Cloud fics and thought that was just as popular as the more conventional ships.

Graduating college and entering “real life” pretty much ended my FF7 fanfic-writing journey. In the intervening years between college and the release of FF7R, I haven’t gone back to the OG too much. I’ve played almost all the Final Fantasy games since then, and I always enjoy getting my FF7 crew fix when I play the non-canon mobile games or the Kingdom Hearts franchise. But FF7 was a happy part of my teenage years, and I was content to think on it with sweet nostalgia.

Remakes, in recent experience (*cough cough* Disney, why?), have been hit or miss, with a lot of misses. It’s hard to strike a good balance between catering to nostalgia and delivering a fresh product, never mind the change in social mores through the decades. I was so afraid FF7R would screw up my memories, especially since I wasn’t the biggest fan of Advent Children. The graphics were great and the action scenes were fun, but the story felt like a let-down. Cloud, in particular, felt so different (and yes, moody) from where we left him after the OG. I understand now that a lot of his character motivation was better explained in the On The Way to a Smile novels, but back then, I just felt like AC came out of nowhere.

Btw, because I see this question a lot on other blogs when I’m lurking, I’ve ALWAYS thought that it was very clear in AC--even without reading anything else--that the reason for Cloud’s depression was due to guilt and not because he was pining for Aerith. The only reason I didn’t like his characterization in AC was because it felt like it came out of nowhere since AC is set 2 years after OG and by the end of the OG, he seemed to be in a pretty decent place mentally and emotionally. That being said, I can absolutely understand why some traumas resurface years after the originating incident and how times of peace might actually be worse because he is no longer solely focused on saving the world, but I was just surprised and a little bummed that this was the direction the devs chose to take AC at the time. Now that I’m older, I do better appreciate the complexities of Cloud’s mental state and the fact that they depicted a hero with lingering mental health issues is actually pretty awesome. I’m drawn to characters that have flaws--sometimes serious ones--but try their best anyway. Hence, why why Tifa Lockhart and Kate Beckett are some of my all-time favorites.

Anyhow, that didn’t stop me from pre-ordering FF7R, of course. I avoided reading any reviews as I didn’t want my first impressions to be swayed, and boy, was I happy that I went in mostly blind. That sense of awe really almost felt like playing the OG for the first time again, but somehow more. The combat system is incredibly fun and the world-building is nothing short of incredible. The variety and abundance of NPCs gives the game so much flavor and the locations have been rendered so well. As I’m going through areas like the Sector 7 train station and Wall Market and Aerith’s house, I can almost superimpose the layout from the OG in my head, but now it’s in 3D and so rich and full. It’s obvious that a lot of attention was paid to details, and I love all the head-nods and homages to the OG.

And oh, the characters!

This is the Cloud I’ve been wanting to see in glorious HD and the Cloud I remember from the original game: all awkward, dorky trying to be cool, socially inept, mentally unstable, abrasive-at-times, reluctant to act depending on who’s asking, wannabe hard-ass who’s actually a big softie inside Cloud. I remember reading an article a few years back about how the devs basically redid Cloud for the Remake because they wanted him to go back to his dorky roots--which ends up making him closest to his personality in the OG than his appearances in other franchises--and I was SOOOO incredibly happy to hear that. I was so sick of the way Cloud was constantly depicted as this cool, broody McBrood in his cameos when he was a pretty big dork in the OG. (Anybody remember him doing squats in the Highwind when Tifa says it’ll be lonely with just the two of them and Cloud responds that he’ll make enough noise to make up for it? Like I said: cute, but a dork.)

I WAS surprised by how comfortable and sweet and touchy (so very very touchy) the devs made him with Tifa from the beginning. That initial scene of Cloud being such a smooth operator giving Tifa the flower had my jaw-dropping and every single flirty interaction after that (and there are many) had my Cloti heart overflowing in shock and bliss. Throughout most of my years as a Cloti shipper, even though I believed Cloti was supported by canon and pretty clearly together, I was also under the impression--mistakenly or not--that Cloti was the minority ship. So for Square Enix to make it so blatantly obvious that Cloud is really into Tifa at such an early stage has been an unexpected gift.

Also, they’re just really hot together. (Clotiscrew tunnel--be still my heart!)

As for Tifa...oh, what wonderful character development we’ve already gotten for Tifa. Tifa has always been one of my all-time favorite characters ever since reading her character blurb in the OG game manual. Initially, as a child, it was because I saw so much of myself in her. She was outwardly bright and optimistic, but tended to hide all of her stronger feelings inside. She fought with her fists, and for someone who was a tomboy growing up who liked playing contact sports with the boys, I connected with her in a way that I had never been able to connect with other female protagonists who were primarily back-row specialists. (I also aspired to grow to her listed height of 5′4″, which alas, did not happen...lol).

I love how the Remake delves into more of Tifa’s moral conflict between the destruction that she causes as part of Avalanche and needing to do something to stop Shinra, and yes, even seeking revenge. They touched on this in the OG lightly, but the Remake really hammers it home. She’s perhaps the most conflicted character in terms of motivation in Part 1. That scene with the Shinra manager on the train is actually one of my favorite scenes of her because it highlights that tension. The elevator scene, if you opted for it instead of the stairs (or if you did one, saved, and reloaded to do the other one, like me), is also underrated in terms of how much it reveals about Tifa’s inner struggle.

On this point, I also appreciate that the Remake has the characters reflecting on the damage they’ve both indirectly and directly inflicted--the Avalanche team all do this to a certain degree. In particular, Jessie’s constant inability to figure out what she’d done wrong with the bomb to cause such a massive explosion and her remaining feelings of guilt during her death scene (”they were my victims” ouch!) were heart-breaking.

Aerith’s depiction was another pleasant surprise. I’ll be honest; I didn’t much like her in the OG. She was too pushy and willfully oblivious to the point of being mean at times. In the Remake, much of her sometimes too in-your-face playfulness was kept--perhaps still a little too much--but I appreciate the nuance that they gave her. The train graveyard scene tells the player that she didn’t have friends growing up, and I think that partially contributes to her lack of social tact at times. The other factor that gives her personality more nuance is the hint of special knowledge that affects how she interacts with the rest of the group. It gives her additional hidden motivation and adds to her mystery for new players while simultaneously pulling at the heartstrings for old players who get the impression that Aerith is somehow aware--to a certain, unknown extent--of her own fate.

I also appreciate that Aerith is more grounded as a real person than as some sort of revered being. I do blame AC for some of that. When you have the power to cure a fatal disease from the afterlife and send the dead back to life, it gets into some godlike territory. Maybe it’s a fair depiction of her powers as a Cetra, but I just get the feeling that Aerith herself wouldn’t really appreciate being made into this goddess-like figure. Remember that her character blurb in the original game manual implied that she was more interested in earthly things (i.e. the love triangle) than in exploring her own powers. I personally think that Aerith used the “love triangle” in the OG as a form of escapism from the weight of her burdens rather than genuine interest, and I just think she’d want to be thought of as a person rather than as a god. One of my favorite scenes for Aerith is when she and Cloud are traversing the rooftops and she slips on the ladder, letting out a simple, “Shit.” It humanizes her in a way that combats some of the ways she’s sort of been deified in the last 23 years. Also, Aerith wielding a folding chair like it’s WWE never fails to make me laugh. Overall, she just comes off as a more reasonably flawed and--as a result, to me--a more likeable character in the Remake, and I do very much like her now.

Barret is pretty much the exact larger than life character I imagined in my head, only somehow even better, and I really love how expressive and emotional his eyes and facial expressions are. His scenes with Marlene are truly the cutest thing ever. Red XIII is a big, furry ball of sass, and I need so much more of him in the coming parts (Cosmo Canyon still wrecks me to this day). The interactions between the Wedge, Biggs, and Jessie are incredible, and they really feel like people who’ve been friends and basically each other’s family for years. The Turks and Rufus are pretty much as cool as I imagined them in the OG.

There’s still so much more I haven’t even started touching on about the Remake, and I think that’s why I’m finally posting this now. I just can’t contain my love for this game any more, and I really really need a place to express myself. I don’t know if anybody is still reading, but I appreciate having the opportunity to finally gush about this game and franchise that I’ve loved so much for pretty much two-thirds of my life.

#ff7r #final fantasy 7: remake #cloti #cloud x tifa #cloud strife #tifa lockhart #final fantasy vii #final fantasy 7 #ff7 #aerith gainsborough #jessie rasberry #barret wallace #red xiii #for the love of the game #personal experience #not sure i'm ready to wade back into fandom life #but i really needed to gush #oh man i forgot to mention the cats #how could i forget the cats?!?!?

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incorrect-ikevamp-quotes · 5 years

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Yes I'd love to know your take on all the characters too!

Haha sure thing! Forgive me if this is a bit long, I just wrote whatever first came to mind about each of them! Feel free to let me know what you guys think too, I’m certainly not the end-all-be-all!

Under the cut for length, a continuation of this post:

Number four is our illustrious cad, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I must admit I haven’t read all that much of his content personally, since I have trouble on a personal level. But given the tangential things I’ve seen and his appearances in other routes, I like the complexity of his character composition. He’s incredibly hedonistic and lives in the moment; he doesn’t seem to care one bit in regards to the potential consequences of his actions, and every second is something to think about as a writer—if he’s not teasing Isaac within a hairsbreadth of a stroke.

In truth, I don’t think that surface level interpretation actually encompasses every facet of who he is. Because he also has remarkable moments of insight and deduction (though wrongly attributed to him because of the Sherlock books), and he does have odd moments of compassion for people/the MC. They ring a little hollow for me, but I can appreciate that he cares in a way that makes sense to him. I think a lot of his behavior speaks to his negligence of self; I have to wonder if his devil-may-care attitude is a means to communicate to others that he doesn’t deserve to be cared for (if he won’t ‘take them seriously’, then neither will they in regards to him, no?).

Granted, I’m sure his route will prove to have equal depth to the ones we’ve seen before, but my own preferences preclude a pretty resolute lack of interest.

Tl;dr: Probably has some level of narrative depth, but given the content I’ve seen he’s a little too aggressive and selfish for me to appreciate or enjoy it. Rated T for possible big trauma/turning point buried underneath all that, as well as big feels when he chooses you by the end.

Also if it’s no trouble, I would like to offer a trigger warning to any who wish to do his route when it does come out. I don’t know if his MS has any traces of assault/molestation, but I have read a few ES’s in which he does things to the MC that she does not seem to want/does not consent to. It was a very unpleasant surprise for me, so I understand if anyone would rather avoid it.

Number five is our sunshine painter, Vincent van Gogh. Needless to say, given that he appears to be a fan favorite, he’s another suitor that’s just so easy to love. He’s sweet and gentle no matter the situation, and has a remarkable ability to lighten a room simply by being there. But don’t let that quiet and shy disposition fool you; he’s actually a lot sharper than he looks.

He’s among my bias favorites, and the reason why is more simple than you’d think. I’m sure I don’t need to explain that he’s incredibly compassionate. He’s always thinking about what he can do to ease people’s hearts, always meets others with warmth and a beaming smile. But he’s not an airhead. He’s not kind because he doesn’t know any other way to be; near every second of it is a choice that he voluntarily makes. There are moments where this strength shines all too true, and he proves he’s much more than a pretty, sweet face. When the stakes rise, he rises with them.

Though—and do forgive me, Vincent—I’m inclined to agree a bit with his brother, Theodorus. He can be a little too yielding to the more negative forces in his life, a little too compassionate towards people that are frankly threatening. But he insists that he’s willing to work hard for his happiness, that he has no intention of waiting for someone to hand it to him—he’s ready to make sacrifices and work. And I think that sentiment, that fortitude after such a difficult life, is what makes him so admirable. He’s not just generous, he’s strong enough to give all that he can and thrive at the same time. He has such a remarkable capacity for hope given everything he’s been through, and it’s something that I love about him—I can’t help but respect it, even if I’m a bit more cynical lmao

Tl;dr: Absolutely the softest and goodest boy I have ever seen in my life, 11/10 would marry and cherish forever—die mad about it Theo. Much more intriguing than what a first glance offers, I invite you to do his route even if you have doubts; I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. I live for his surprising moments of sass and seriousness, and if I’m honest he and his MC seem to have some of the best chemistry in the game because of how directly he addresses any miscommunication/confusion between them. (He also loves hanky panky, as our esteemed Sebastian puts it, so jot that down).

Speaking of, “if anyone so much as looks at Vincent the wrong way I’m killing everyone in this room, including myself”, number seven is Theodorus van Gogh (number six is Isaac in the game’s main story order, but transitioning—you know how it is). I…truly don’t know how to encompass him in a few words, but I’ll do my best!

Everyone’s probably more than aware at this point, but he lives with the single-minded goal of protecting his brother and promoting new talent. A workaholic and fiercely protective of the only family he has left, he tends to be pretty terse and harsh with other people—abrasive. But he has such distinct moments of warmth (even if they’re still coarse as hell), and he gets down to the truth of a situation in milliseconds; wit as sharp as any knife. Unlike his brother, he is totally fine with violence if he deems it warranted, and he has a much harder time granting forgiveness. It goes without saying that he has a much, much harder time sharing what’s in his heart and healing as compared to Vincent.

I think my favorite thing about Theodorus is just how multi-faceted he is. At any given moment his range of emotion or reactivity varies, and I actually think it’s very natural? I think he’s just someone that responds to a situation after carefully measuring just how comfortable he is showing his own cards—and sometimes he reacts without thinking at all because he’s too overwhelmed with emotion to care (unsurprisingly, the opposite of his brother, who’s generally more placid/visibly unresponsive). One wonders—though I think it’s likely the case—whether or not he’s much more expressive by comparison precisely because Vincent was unable to express himself with such unfettered honesty.

Overall, he tends to keep his distance from people. And yet, even if his admiration for someone is a rare thing, when he does admire them he well and truly means it to the core. Equally put, if he loves somebody he loves them with every fiber of his being—to the point where he will give up near everything important to him to preserve their happiness. If I were to describe it in a word, I suppose I would say that he’s incredibly volatile. He lives, to an extent, in extremes; even if he’s still able to see traces of the gray in-betweens. I fully expected to find him and his route forgettable/unpleasant, but he grew on me before I even realized it!

Also just gonna put it out there, his interactions with Vincent are friggen ADORABLE. This big, looming, scowling swagger on legs seconds from tears whenever Vincent looks after him. Or how he hesitates and droops when Vincent scolds him. I just can’t they’re too much! For a guy that calls us dog in the Japanese version of the game he sure follows Vincent like an adorable puppy 😂

Tl;dr: Despite his frigid countenance, he’s a lot more bark than he is bite (yes I did that on purpose, do your worst fangface). Once you dig deeeeep deep under all that acerbic tongue-lashing (not the fun sort, unfortunately) you will find somebody that’s surprisingly soulful, and much kinder than he’ll ever let on. I very rarely know just what to expect from him, and while he can be a bit domineering, his heart is almost always in the right place.

Boomeranging back to number six is our adorable apple and baby of the house, Sir Isaac Newton. I’ve honestly been really happy to see how much love he’s been getting in this first route release for the big three, given that he’s such a sweetheart. Consumed with anxiety and very, very socially awkward; our boy is doing his best despite being big confused a lot. He likes to stick to math and physics where things make sense, and I can’t really blame him. He presumably asked to be given new life to do more studying—and if that doesn’t say anything about how isolated and lonely this man has been, I’m not really sure what does.

He’s also a bit of a mixed bag, like Theo. He seems to have a self-esteem located at the bottom of the Marianna’s Trench; and yet, has oddly courageous moments when he’s trying to help others (most especially Jeanne). While he can appear to be contrarian and bitterly defensive, he’s more brittle and nervous than anything else upon closer inspection. He’s too quiet and painfully shy to involve himself in conversation, to the point where he literally enjoys being teased about apples in the house—because at least he feels like he’s involved/belongs, that way. He’s distant and reserved, but isn’t lacking in warmth or compassion—he just expresses it in roundabout ways (I mean good lord, the boy felt bad waking up his own coachman). It can be hard to describe, but it seems like he’s always battling against his social anxiety—and sometimes it wins, sometimes he does.

I think what I love best about Isaac is how hard he tries, despite it all. Despite everything he’s lost, despite the droves of people that assumed the worst of him in life—he keeps trying, against all hope, to understand and be understood. Even when he’s afraid of being hated, even when he fully expects to fail, he picks himself back up and reaches out—no matter how difficult it is for him. All he ever asks of the MC is to bear with him while he tries to find those answers and meet her halfway, and honestly I think that’s the sweetest thing ever.

Tl;dr: Lost on the path of life but doing his best, all he’s ever really wanted is someone to call friend (girlfriend, if you’re so inclined). A little fragile and a little timid, all he needs is a gentle nudge in the right direction.

Next up, number eight, is the renowned veteran Jeanne D’Arc. Another bias boy (my list is endless for this game, lord) his route is my second favorite right behind Leonardo’s. Superbly written and paced, every moment of romancing him was raw and heartfelt.

Without giving too much away, he is taciturn and reclusive to the extreme—I’m talking hermit levels. But I loved that personally; it makes total sense that a man born literally four hundred years ago is going to be confused and overwhelmed by the level of stimuli present in the turn of the 20th century. And given how, much like Isaac, he has enormous levels of social anxiety—it makes for a very difficult way of life. The other men do their best to accommodate him, but there are other reasons why he avoids getting too close to people, no matter their good intentions (that part is a route spoiler so I’ll leave it to your imagination c:).

I think what I loved best about his route was how much it was about helping each other heal. And while some otomes can fall into trap of MC becoming his therapist (I’m not naming names—Mysme) it doesn’t feel that way at all, at least not to me. Granted, she does a lot to get him out of his shell, but it’s more because she wants to get along with him than some odd belief that he needs her help (also bc of wingmen Mozart and Sebastian—yes it was as amazing as it sounds). Not unlike Leonardo’s route, they both recognize the beauty that dwells deep within each other, and they fall in love without even having to think about it. They become just what the other wants and needs, without even trying—truly as natural as falling.

Which brings me to the other thing I love so, so much about Jeanne: his kindness. Despite everything he’s been through, despite decades filled with loneliness and pain and trauma—he’s no less gentle for it. He’s always putting MC before himself, always telling her to look after herself first and insisting he’s nothing but a nuisance. He treats her with all the tenderness in the world, and even jokes around with her in his moe, silly way. He’s charming and delightful and sweet, even if he can’t see it.

Tl;dr: One of my favorite otome routes to date. Falling in love with him felt as natural and as easy as breathing, and every single time I see him those feelings come rushing back. What he lacks in worldliness, he makes up for in pure passion and fierce consideration for the people he holds close to his heart.

At number nine lies our Monsieur Guillaume, better known as William Shakespeare. Where on earth do I begin with this one, I have no idea. He’s…a wild card to say the least, though a strangely methodical one? Jeanne’s Japanese route only served to confuse me all the more, to say nothing of Vincent’s route. Part of me wonders if he suffers from the narrative confusion that often results from making a suitor a primary antagonist at the same time. (Though I will admit, the fact that he barely even tries in Leonardo’s route bc: 1. Everyone’s terrified of Le Comte’s/Leonardo’s legitimate wrath 2. He deadass says LEONARDO CLOWNS HIMSELF HARD ENOUGH AND MAKES HIMSELF SO MISERABLE HE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO TRY. WHAT KIND OF GOD TIER, ACCURATE ROAST. I’m sorry I just needed to come clean about that one, I’ve been laughing about it for years).

From what I understand he only really operates in two modes: extremely obsessive (and violent) or a complete lack of interest. Le Comte explains it much better than I do, but Shakespeare is a bit of a perfectionist; he wants an impeccable performance from a perfect, naturally acting cast. But MC tempers this with the correct analysis that he also has a very, very dark lack of compassion for other people. He truly does seem to have fae blood in that way; created for the sole purpose of dangerous mischief and dissembling. His poetic speech feels a little over the top, but it makes sense that he would speak in a flowery, distracting, and elaborate way if his goal is to keep his distance.

I find it…borderline terrifying that he gets along with Vincent because of the aftermath of Vincent’s trauma. As a result of the eldest van Gogh’s backstory, he tends to be “doll-like.” That is to say, as I mentioned, he very rarely expresses any depth of emotion. Shakespeare states that it lessens his temptation to want to make his life a tragedy like everyone else’s, and I suspect there is a level of envy hidden there. Shakespeare hates seeing other people express themselves openly; especially in terms of hope or love, because it is something he doesn’t feel he can have or because he believes it is fated to end in tragedy (or both?). His reasons seem to get pretty convoluted and can vary given the narrative goal, so I may only be partially correct here.

Tl;dr: If I’m honest, I don’t really feel anything for Shakespeare that’s positive—though I admit I do wonder about his intentions and what his route will amount to (sheer, morbid curiosity lol). I think he may have the potential to be redeemed—given that there are clear mentions of people going wrong from the turning process. But in general I find much of his behavior to be kind of appalling. At least it’s fun to watch le Comte punt kick him around when he’s done horrible things, lol (forgive me Shakespeare-lovers, it’s a bit cathartic for me)

Diez for our favorite (H)osamu Dazai, accomplice and enabler of Arthur’s thottery. He’s much simpler and somehow just as confusing as Shakespeare to get a handle on, and his content is pretty limited, but I’ll do my best to encompass what I understand!

Honestly, I find him a little fascinating in that he truly seems to believe that he’s good at keeping his distance; evading contact with MC, constantly calling her by the wrong name, and teasing her with his dramatic digressions—on the surface level, the implication is there. The game is very subtle about his moments of genuine unrequited feeling and adoration; if you blink it’s easy to miss. When a crisis hits, he uses her given name. When he’s frustrated that she’s not being treated as she deserves, he speaks out. He even tries the whole big brother schtick, though she brushes it aside (he was shooketh). Perhaps the abundance of third person narration makes it easier to tell (than it might be for MC) but I find he’s less convincing than he is stalling/avoiding the truth. Which begs the question. Why is he trying so hard if it seems half-hearted/forced?

The possibilities are, admittedly, myriad. My best guess is that he yearns for company even if he avoids/fears the commitment. I imagine a big part of his route will be getting him to accept the concept of companionship—no matter how much the idea scares him. I find it a little ironic, though, that for a man so desperate to die he says it wasn’t as fun as he thought it might be. Are the limitations his mental illness placed on him among his considerable regrets, enough that he felt compelled to try again in a new life? Only time will tell, I suppose.

Tl;dr: A little scatter-brained and a lot flighty, he’s lacking in conviction but not in compassion—and he may be a lot sharper than he first lets on. Rife with some sort of emotional/mental hardships, be prepared for a long, difficult ride if he’s among your favorites! It makes me wonder if MC will be reason enough for him to find meaning and peace in life for once, not unlike Jeanne’s rt. A girl can hope~

Ah yes, we arrive at another deeply beloved bias, Le Comte de Saint-Germain. I very much doubt there are words to encompass how much I love this man, but I will do my very best for your sake—and for his (it’s what he deserves).

Le Comte is a mystery to all but Leonardo, it would appear; right down to his alias. And in intriguing accordance with that fact, he is at times the epitome of a genteel nobleman—until he’s ready to unleash a flagrant can of whoopass to protect people. I think what I love best about him is that he’s quite literally a walking contradiction, in many senses of the word. He’s a gentleman with the heart of a punk/delinquent, only civil until a dispute carries too far. Saint Germain is the definition of a brittle character (something I have always been incredibly fond of in stories); I can never quite get a read on him. My best guess would be to say that while he’s patient, he’s also unpredictable. It’s not always clear how affected he’ll be by something or what he’s feeling. But when it becomes too much for him to bury within, you better believe everyone in a five mile radius can feel the aftermath. You’ll all come to understand what I mean, hopefully, but it’s the precise reason Leonardo becomes friends with le Comte—and why he continues to fascinate me.

And as odd as it sounds, I love how simple he is too, to some extent? No matter how convoluted the specifics of a situation get or blame is thrown around, he always cuts to the core of the issue—and doesn’t let anyone sidetrack that. He’s cautious, but not entirely incapable of being forthright; just choosy about when, where, and how. Which begs the question. Why does he always hold back so distinctly with MC? Side stories in the Japanese version suggest some very deeply rooted, agonizing fear that makes him avoid getting close to her no matter how much he likes her. I have theories, but nothing solid quite yet. All I know for now is that he is slightly shady, very benevolent, and a whole lot lonely.

Tl;dr: He’s literally the definition of the meme “aren’t you tired of being nice? don’t you just wanna go apeshit.“ Works to be gentle and understanding, but the second he deems somebody has gone too far he will act with surprising, swift, and deadly vehemence. He’s very sweet and surprisingly possessive/direct about his affections—though he often plays it off like a joke. I always find it funny though, when some of the residents—especially Arthur/Shakespeare—know they’ve gone too far and they just look up to his dark, saccharine smile like FUCK. 11/10 I’ve been waiting centuries for this man Cybird, pls set me free And last, but certainly not least, we have our distinguished butler, Sebastian. I love this big ol' nerd but can't deny that he does me a bit of a frighten. He can do...literally anything on the domestic front, and frankly its a bit alarming 😂😂

Just as the little question mark next to his description as stoic indicates, he goes for the whole unruffled English butler vibe and nails it for the most part. He's even got the witty banter down! But he's also pretty direct and unapologetic about his love for historical figures--and the stalkerish lengths he'll go to to observe them all. (I mean come on, this fool literally overshares about himself in milliseconds if you let him). Granted I can't fault the man for doing what makes him happy. Like Isaac, I just have to resist the urge to gently shove him into a locker sometimes lmaoAs for his romantic potential, I think the possibilities really range. From what little I've seen, I think he might be a bit like Mozart? He seems very unaccustomed to social interaction--and given his backstory he was more interested in books and people long dead than the ones beside him. He also has a bit of that fastidiousness to him, a bit stern and awkward despite moments of warmth. I think he can be more preoccupied with cutting straight to the truth sometimes than he is about figuring out how a person needs to be spoken to (re: what is tact?). And that's charming in it's own way, though the result can be hilarious inadvertent moments of callousness--quite literally photo taken seconds before disaster lmfao. (I think my favorite instance of this was when he was trying to reassure MC once and totally fucks it up, only to see her start panicking and go "Oh shit, I stepped on a verbal landmine, didn't I" and then Comte comes to the rescue) Tl;dr: Honestly, I think he'll be a really cute love interest even if I am all about the vampires in the game. He's his own kind of genius, even if he doesn't see it, and deserves just as many hugs! And I think he severely underestimates how sexy it is for a man to willingly share in the responsibilities required of a household. Get you a man as capable and sharp as Sebas LOL

#asks #as you can see i need sleep and a life #but i hope you enjoyed my rambles all the same!!#i love this game and i love how much the characters surprise/delight me!#so many good babies (both trash and pure alike I'm not picky LOL)#lord i cant wait for jeanne to come out in english yall my heart was shattered in the most beautiful way #to say nothing of the cute little gothic motif thrown in #and ik comte's route will be the end of life as i know it #im on bought time #crybird will not have mercy im sure #pray for me lovelies

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satonthelotuspier · 4 years

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Uhhhmmm please write the yanli badass au from the tags in her glorious pics??? Pretty please💖💗(don't feel pressured tho, thats not what I'm going for)

Haha thank you Anon, for thinking my skill is up to this. I feel like I might have a bash at it in the future, in a canon divergence sort of AU. Refers to my tags on this post here.

Here are some quick headcanons that have been floating through my mind today:

Jiang Yanli is a total hardass. Jiang Cheng is the marshmallow peacekeeper of the family.

This obviously doesn’t stop him from arguing with Wei Wuxian.

She would Ancient Chinese Jiu Jitsu the shit out of the pair of them rather than make them Pork Rib and Lotus soup when their fighting starts getting on her nerves.

She’s still betrothed to the Peacock, but Jin Zixuan is straight up intimidated by her bc JYL is beautiful, self possessed, confident, thirty times smarter and dresses better than him; the latter being something no Jin can bear the thought of.

JZX gets racked. Often. Because he still says dumb shit to her.

Wen Chao is completely obsessed by her, but he’d be the same as JZX if he knew even the smallest amount about her other than she looked good.

If we followed a similarish story going into the Sunshot campaign JYL would be the one to take on the mantle of Sect Leader, and lose her Golden Core, but her self confidence isn’t tied to it like JC’s was because she is so much stronger than that. She’s never needed to be competitive because she has always been. the. best. at. everything.

JC and WWX would be tripping over each other to give her theirs but she doesn’t need it, leading to the question of whether WWX would get in with the whole Demonic Cultivation crowd (no)

Post Sunshot WWX is forever trying to set up JYL with LWJ, because the Peacock sucks, and he knows LWJ is a good man and would treat his Shijie/Sect Leader right.

LWJ, is ofc, “You dumb bitch WWX, different AU but still gay. I like your shiny smile and loreal-ad hair, pls date me” in the quiet of his own heart.

JYL tries to get JC married off to the different sect heads, her first choice (and mine ofc) is LXC bc this soft himbo would look after her baby brother right. I’m a whore for XiCheng, but I’m not sure they’d work as well with a soft JC, Xichen’s soft works well bc of JC’s abrasiveness. I’ll have a little think about it.

She goes by the name of Violet Tigress, (as YZY was the Violet Spider), try to mess with her cubs and you’ll find out why. Only she’s allowed to beat them to a pulp. People with siblings will understand this.

The other Sect Leaders tried to talk over her (like they did with Mian Mian in Canon) at her first conference. Lets say it was that windbag Yao, she walks over to stand beside him and just screams at the top of her lungs until he shuts the hell up and she can continue as if nothing had happened. No one ever tries to talk over her again.

Feel free to throw ideas at me.

#mdzs #mdzs fanfic ideas #jiang yanli is a badass

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starwarsgirl10884 · 4 years

Text

A Suprise, to be Sure, But A Welcome One!

Pairing: Anakin Skywalker x Fem!Reader x Obi Wan Kenobi

Warnings: Slight sexism, Make-up sex, Dom!Anakin, Sub!Obi Wan, Switch!Reader, Mommy kink

Word count: 2,251

You were chilling in Tatooine and your boyfriend of five months, Obi Wan, had brought you here. He told you this is where he picked up his padawan Anakin, but you don't really care about you and anakin don't get along that well. (You think Anakin has a thing for Obi Wan). But while you're chilling in Tatooine you see your future husband Obi Wan(Authors note, isn't Obi Wan so handsome *drool*). Anyways Obi Wan enters the room and you greet him with a kiss, but then Anakin walks in and also gives Obi Wan a peck on the Cheek.

“Anakin stop it! My girlfriend is here!” Obi Wan giggled

“Well I have to express my brotherly love Obi Wan!” Anakin replied pouting. I rolled my eyes.

“ANYWAYS, I made dinner Obi, your favorite stewed cuisine. (What do people in star wars eat :d). As I said that I started walking towards the kitchen to get him a bowl. He works so hard its the least I could do.

As the two men began to sit down Anakin yelled, “That's where you belong y/n in the KITCHEN HAHA”. I was shocked at how he could have said that.

"H.. how dare you say that Anakin!? You know how sexist that remark was?" I looked over to Obi and he was too enveloped in TV to have paid attention to what Anakin said(are there TV's in Star Wars? O.o). I wanted to see how Obi would react to his padawan's sexism.

"Obi did you hear what Anakin said, it was really rude and uncalled for" I said in a sad tone.

"Ah he's just joking y/n, don't take it to heart. It was just a little jab." And with that I left with a huff. How could Obi side with Anakin and not me. I think there is something more between those two, I'm going to spy on them to see if they're doing something fishy. And see if my sweet Obi is really cheating on me.

Later that night I followed Obi and Anakin to some weird hotel. Anakin and Obi ordered a room and went to it. I had to figure out a plan to get in, and in being so smart I did. I walked into the hotel and told the man at the desk to give me a key to the room. He asked if I knew who was up there and I said my boyfriend Anakin. He asked for some identification of that being the case, and I showed him photos of me and Obi on Instagram.(Oh btw you should follow me on Instagram @starwarsgirl0884 :3). The man at the table said we looked cute together, which made me blush, and gave me a key.

Before I opened the door to their hotel room I listened to see if I could hear anything. And I did(😳😳😳).

I heard a lot of heavy breathing and semi loud moans, it made me kind of wet. But then I realized that it did confirm my fears, Obi Wan was cheating on me with Anakin!

Then there was another noise. Between the moaning. And what was uttered made my stomach plummet, "I hate y/n so much Anakin, I'm so glad I can be with you instead."

My head started to spin and my stomach hurt. I was so embarrassed I had to leave.

As I ran for the stairs I heard the room door open behind me. I was hopeful. I thought my lovely Obi Wan would run up and embrace me in his arms, telling me it was all a big joke. But as I turned around I saw Anakin. I was so mad with tears streaming down my face yelling at him, asking how he could take me Obi from me. I called him other abusive names like homewrecker, whore, slut, I had no filter.

I was about to hit him, but he grabbed my arm before he could. He then spun me around and held me tight to his body. I was oddly aroused. As he held me to his chest he said, "Hey y/n I'm really sorry, I shouldn't have fucked Obi Wan, I did it to spite you and frankly I'm really sorry." I was shocked at this answer, I didn't know how to reply, but he continued. "I knew you loved Obi Wan and I knew how much that would upset you, but now that I've seen you cry it really hurts me and really made me start to acknowledge your beauty…" I didn't know how to react, was Anakin flirting with me, was he actually apologizing, I didn't know what to think or how to feel. He then interjected, "also, those were some very hurtful names you called me, could you apologise for that and maybe suck my cock?” I was shocked by how abrasive the question was. Where the hell did that come from. I thought he hated me?

"S… suck your… cock??" I stuttered. Anakin started to grin and put his hand on my ass; it made me wet. Before I could say anything else Obi Wan came out of the room and asked Anakin what happened.

"What's all this then?" Inquired Obi Wan. "Why is your hand on my girlfriend's ass?" Anakin looked between me and Obi Wan, neither of us knew how to reply.

"Uhm, I was just catching y/n she tripped and almost fell haha." Anakin continued, "We don't like eachother but I couldn't just sit here and watch her embarrass herself!" He started laughing awkwardly.

"Well y/n what are you even doing here in the first place?" He said even more inquisitively, "Didn't you say you were gonna stay home?" I could feel Obi's eyes burn a hole through mine, I know he knows that this was no accident. As I went to come up with a false story Anakin jumped in.

"I invited y/n over, I didn't like the thought of her being lonely in Tatooine, I spent too many nights the same way, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone!" Quite frankly I was shocked at Anakin's thoughtfulness and generosity towards my situation seeing as how we had been at odds with each other ever since we first met.

"Well why didn't you tell me you invited her Anakin?"

"I wanted to surprise you, y/n is your girlfriend after all I'd assume you'd be excited if I secretly invited her!" With that Obi Wan had nothing more to say and told both me and Anakin to join him in his room.

Not gonna lie, having heard both Anakin and Obi Wan moan loudly and having Anakin grab my ass, I was very horny. Not to mention when we entered the room the men made me sit sandwiched between them. Not that I'm complaining but let's just say, you could waterboard someone with my underwear.

As I sit in-between the two men I felt a hand rub against my thigh, I was quite delirious still after hearing what Obi Wan said about me, but I think he said that in passion but his post but clarity made him realize he still likes me. So I wasn't sure about whose hand it was caressing my thigh. I looked at both of their faces to see if I could tell who it was by their reaction, but it was to no avail.

While I was lost in thought, I failed to realize that the hand was now further up my leg and right below my crotch. Before I could inquire the two men about whose hand it was, the aforementioned hand began to rub my crotch! I didn't know what to say or ask, but I knew it would feel good so I let the hand do its thing.

I felt the hand slide up my thigh, closer to my dripping core. I won’t lie, I wanted them to both fuck me sensless against the bed frame, using their jedi powers to hold me down.

“Mnnn” I moaned, a blush dusting my cheeks. Obi looked at me quizzically, then inquires, “Anakin, are you doing the egg drop thing?”I glance at Anakin and see his chest heave, he was definitely enjoying the thrill of this situation.

“Yes haha” he replied, his voice hoarse.

“Oh okay, hehe. It’s so funny when you do that! It tickles!” He said while giggling like a schoolgirl.

I look at Anakin out of the corner of my eye, grinning. “We can continue now.” I whispered, throwing him a cheeky wink.

He then proceeded, moving his hand further up my thigh, grazing a digit on my aching bundle of nerves. I try my best not to moan as Obi was watching Friends, however his laughing was distracting me from the real task at hand. It was the Episode in which Ross says Rachel’s name instead of Emily’s. Ironic. It seems that Ani and I are the Ross and Rachel of this sitcom (Wonk Owo).

Anyway, I could feel an unknown force push against my clit. It didn’t surprise me that Ani would use dirty{;)} tricks while touching me. I stifled another moan, this was so wrong, but so right!

Suddenly, I felt empty. Anakin had retracted himself from my dripping core, grinning like a maniac. I glared at him angrily. Cheeky Bastard I thought.

It was silent as the Friends episode had stopped and Obi Wan wasn’t laughing anymore, he sat staring at us. Anakin chuckled darkly and glared back.

“Dutch Oven” He cooed as he pulled the blankets over our heads. Obi Wan giggled playfully as the scent overwhelmed us.

“You cheeky bastard” He cried, tears of laughter clouding his vision.

I was still wet under the covers, praying he wouldn't notice the smell. I don't know what Anakin thought this would achieve. As I went to look at Anakin I heard Obi Wan pipe up.

"This was quite funny Anakin, but I don't smell a fart? It smells more fishy and I know you don't eat fish?"

I glared at Anakin, now Obi Wan knows how fishy I smell and I didn't want him to find that out.

Before I could explain away the smell Obi connected the dots, the moans he heard, the shuffling under the sheets, and the smell. He stared at both me and Anakin a small glint in his eyes.

"Would I be able to join you two?" He said coily as he ran his hand up and down my leg.

"I'm fine with it!" Anakin beamed, he then looked at me with hope in his eyes.

I nodded “I always wondered what it would feel like to be double penetrated.”

They both grinned and pounced. Both men started to kiss my neck sloppily, their eyes filled with hunger. I moaned freely, relishing in the fact that I had two men at my will. Anakin was slightly more dominant than Obi as he sucked on the nape of my neck and pulled my hair. The latter was currently kissing the crest of my ear and whispering about how long he has wanted this.

Anakin looked at me darkly

“You wanna suck my cock now?” He questioned, out of breath.

“Actually, I had something else in mind.” I cooed into his ear. I stood up and made my way to the bed, splaying myself across its cumstained sheets.

Both men sauntered toward me, it was so hot(😩😩😩). We all undressed, exposing ourselves to one another. Oh my force, Anakin is so big! I could see the precum slick on his throbbing cock, it made me hungy.

Shortly after, Obi Wan's erection sprang out of his undergarments, it was surprisingly small. (omg obi is such a bottom bitch O///O) Nonetheless I wanted both of them inside of my sopping core. They both stood in front of me, their hands on their hips as if they were inviting me toward their meat.

“Well then” Anakin teased, “get on with it.”

I kneeled in front of the men and grasped their veiny hardons. Obi let out a small whimper, I could tell he wasn’t going to last long. I started to stroke both of them at the same pace, but only maintained eye contact with Anakin, for he was clearly the most dominant of us. His hips rocked with the rhythm of my strokes, a smirk on his face.

“Hey stop that, naughty boy.” I chided with a wink.

Anakin begrudgingly complied, “Yes mommy.”

I grinned and went back to work.

As this conversation went on, Obi looked between us and my hand that was wrapped around his leaking member.

“Keep going, then.” He urged, trying not to sound impatient. I glared at him playfully and squeezed his cock. Obi yelped and nodded his head.

“I want you both to fuck me.” I said “At the same time.”

They both nodded obediently, though Obi Wan was slightly more eager to please, which made me laugh.

Obi Wan positioned himself in front on me, his erect cock glistening with precum. I felt Anakin’s hands on my hips, positioning long ani with my tight ass.

I continued to stroke their cocks for a few minutes, not letting them cum and completely overstimulating them both.

It made me wet thinking about the power that I held over them in these erotic moments.

TOO BE CONTINUED...

#reader insert #star wars #star wars x reader #anakin x you #anakin x obi wan #anakin x reader #anakin skywalker #obi wan x you #obi wan x reader #obi wan kenobi #anakin x obi wan x reader #to be continued #x reader #nsft #nsft text #lemon #smut #bi smut #smutty

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dwellordream · 4 years

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Hello I've got 2 questions: The first one was if you could do a directors cut of toms chapter from grass crown? The second one was if you have any tips for writers, specifically dealing with criticism? I'm not great with constructive criticism and have a hard time putting my work out there and I was wondering how you deal with it?

I like how chapter 10 of Grass Crown is now just known as ‘Tom’s chapter’ haha it sounds so foreboding. I was both very nervous and very excited to write Chapter 10 because I’d never attempted to write from Tom’s POV before, despite being tempted a few times during Barbed Wire. I know I discussed that chapter pretty heavily in the comment section so I’ll try to avoid repeating anything I said there. the chapter begins with Tom waking from a dream because I think it speaks to his nature- he has a lot of dreams for his future (most of them good for him, bad for others) and it could be correctly said that he is, in many ways, delusional. but he’a also got a pretty good track record with making his dreams (thus far) into reality, through a combination of smarts, cunning, blackmail/intimidation/threats, and networking. Amy has mentioned before, because nothing is really ‘off limits’ to Tom, he very rarely doubts that he can achieve something; he’s like that meme of ‘everyone should have the confidence of a mediocre white guy walking into an interview he’s unqualified for’ haha. He’s used to getting his way, either sooner or later. the only ‘thing’ he’s ever dreamed of that he failed to materialize was a life with Amy in it. It was also important to me that everything in his house be described as modern and new and top of the line and carefully selected by him or Lydia. it’s really his version of a ‘fuck you!’ to his childhood at Wool’s, where he had very little control over his surroundings. now he has all the control. we then go into the intro of the pensieve, which I knew pretty much from the start I wanted/needed to include, given the constant flashbacks and references to the past in this fic. Tom using a pensieve was a smoother transition to the memory than him just brooding on it for an hour straight.

what’s also interesting is the memory he’s chosen to ‘replay’ over and over again; yes, it is his and Amy’s ‘first time’ but his interest in watching this doesn’t really seem to be pornographic- he acknowledges that he’s not even interested in watching the act of sex itself over and over again- but what precedes and follows it. that level of vulnerability and intimacy which he had once and has never had again. I think it both intrigues and repulses him, the idea of ever opening himself up like that to anyone again. he mocks Amy’s appearance and his younger self’s devotion to her because that’s easier than confronting the pain of losing all that. he pretends to focus on the fact that sex just isn’t super exciting or even interesting to him anymore to avoid dwelling too much on the fact that being with Amy made him feel appreciated, not just in the physical sense for his looks, but appreciated and accepted as a flawed person, not for any other reason. we then get the creepy segue that A. Tom hasn’t been celibate since then, unsurprisingly or not and B. the one sex worker he frequents bears a passing resemblance to Amy. that sort of speaks for itself. Tom looks for her in the people around him, especially the women, and is both infuriated and pleased when they either live up to the standard she set... or miss it entirely. we then jump back into the memory and see Tom and Amy joking with each other after the fact and having a playful argument. this is obviously very painful for Tom, but he masks that by acting shocked and appalled that he ever let someone speak to him like that or mock him to his face like that. the lack of agenda or manipulation in his younger self at that point disturbs him, for all that the relationship between the two was already damaged at the time. we then see Tom head into work, which is pretty straightforward until the infamous interrogation with Jaime. Jaime is pretty much Tom’s opposite; referred to as a ‘conman’ and a ‘common thug’ and known for moving in the same circles as a lot of organized crime, he’s essentially the blue collar outlaw to Tom’s white collar, just-under-the-surface corruption and deceit. Jaime might not be trustworthy, but he doesn’t pretend to be, either. Tom is so dismissive and derisive of him that he is enraged when his usual tactics don’t work, and Jaime fails to immediately turn on Amy, as Tom had expected him to do so. the idea of a ‘common criminal’ having some kind of code or honor or even loyalty to anyone but themselves both perplexes and angers Tom. he pivots to assaulting Jaime’s mind in an attempt to get the info on her by force, and is further incensed when Jaime’s memories of Amy conjure up feelings of warmth and affection. the idea of her even having a friendly relationship with Jaime Isola clearly does not sit well with him. unfortunately for Tom, his attempts to then imperius Jaime our cut short... and we see the transition to home again and the anxious wait for the election results. his conversation with Lydia is always interesting for me to write because they are both very calculated but trying to play it off as casual and innocent, and both always think they’ve got the upper hand at the moment. Tom suspects Lydia is not nearly as pure of mind and heart as she pretends to be, but is ambivalent about this, content to wait until they’re married to pry much deeper, and acknowledges her intelligence and charisma in the sense that it will be an asset to his career. he ‘scolds’ her a little by bringing up the fact that he knows about her visit to MESP, but is surprisingly unfazed by her lack of cowering or subservience when she gives a clearly overacted apology. she still, of course, demonstrates plenty of deferral to him in other ways, fixing him a drink and getting his mail. also, of course, the note that Tom seems to like her best when she acts in a more ‘Amy-esque’ manner; he’s thrilled by her verbal approval of him and not nearly as put off as he usually might be by her open display of affection when she hugs him. re: dealing with criticism: this is something I continue to struggle with, although I do my best not to get into sparring matches in the comment sections and I try to ‘see the best’ in every comment and not get derailed into a pointless argument over semantics or fixate on someone’s wording. I’m a sensitive person (I think a lot of writers are) and I think it’s okay to feel upset or hurt by someone’s criticism without feeling like you are being arrogant or selfish. sometimes constructive criticism can be delivered unkindly or in a convoluted manner, especially when it’s mixed in with more minor critiques or compliments, and sometimes criticism isn’t really criticism and is just someone expressing their frustration in the comment section. I know a lot of writers choose to moderate comments or disable non-ao3-user comments for this reason. I don’t do this because I want people to be able to read my comments and get an accurate sense of how readers felt right when the chapter was posted. even when the comments are embarrassing to me or make me feel bad about my writing. this is a personal choice and I’m not saying you should or must do this. mostly I deal with it by trying to wait a little to respond; it’s easy to get upset and type out a snarky reply but sometimes if you wait a little you can get a better perspective on how the reader might have felt or what confused or annoyed or felt incongruous to them about your writing. when I do respond I try to just address things very point by point and straightforward, and I also generally do thank people for commenting unless they’re being a blatant troll and just looking for a rise from me. overall I feel like it’s just something you have to get exposed to over and over again. I’m much better now about not taking comments too seriously or letting them direct my writing than I used to be. when you gain confidence as a writer you can sort of develop a better filter for what critique is useful to you and what isn’t. just because someone has raised a valid point in the comment doesn’t mean they necessarily have the best solution for said problem. sometimes it is really just a matter of interpretation of a character. it also heavily depends on the fandom (if you are writing fic). in my experience the ASOIAF fandom, as much as I love it, tends to come in swinging a lot harder than the HP fandom, which I think is a little more chill and mellow and more ‘you do you’. if I mess up a worldbuilding detail or don’t explain myself properly in an ASOIAF fic, especially if it involves popular characters or plot points, I know I’m going to get heat for it in the comment section from someone. overall, I would say try to come at it from the commenter’s perspective, but also don’t let yourself obsess over it. it’s hard to remember but most fics do have a silent majority, and there are so many people who are just going to read it and enjoy it and who just don’t leave a comment because that’s not how they roll. if moderating comments and being able to approve them before they go up will make you feel more in-control and secure, then you should do that. I do find that if you reply to comments, a lot of times people might seem less abrasive or intimidating on comment #2 than #1, mostly because they’re not expecting to get a reply from the writer. you shouldn’t be afraid to go ‘actually, I agree with you regarding *insert*’ or ‘well, in my view, *character* is acting this way because...’ it’s good practice to be able to calmly state your opinion or defend your work without it turning into an online brawl, and it’s not a mark of weakness to agree with someone’s critique or acknowledge that you could have done something better. plus, you have to write a lot of crappy fics before you can write a good fic. I try to remember that when I look at my old works. nothing’s set in stone and you can absolutely continue to improve and adapt your writing as you go along.

#ask #anon #ask game

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marshmallowprotection · 5 years

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How do you think the RFA (+ V if you don’t mind) would do with a MC who has brittle bone disease? What would they do if MC broke something?

Oh, another Anon who wants an ask like this! I love writing for people who struggle with their own chronic illnesses because nobody ever really writes stuff for us. I did my best and I hope I have a kind of accurate experience here for you? I love you guys, I want you to know that you are valid, and if somebody is ableist towards you, never put up with that. Whether you have a visible disability or an invisible disability, you are valid and deserve all the love in the world.

Yoosung Kim

° When you tell him he isn’t sure what to think. That’s not any bad thoughts on his part he’s just not been around a lot of people with physical issues that are young. He’s has a few preconceived notions but they’re mostly defined by his ignorance and confusion. Yoosung assumes that you must bruise easily and have to be extra careful when you’re doing anything extraneous.

° That’s not exactly how that works but he’s got some kind of idea that’s close enough that you could correct him with some minor education, and that little bit of effort would make the world of difference with him. Once he knows what he’s doing he is a great support system.

° One afternoon while you’re with Yoosung, you’re working in the kitchen and you accidentally overextend your hand. You can feel the familiar pain before it seemingly happens. You wind up with a fractured finger all because you gripped something a little too hard.

° “Oops.” is the only thing that you can say.

° Yoosung who was oblivious to this could only stare at you holding your bruised hand in terror, “…Y/N, what do you mean oops?”

° You just look back at him. “Well… I may or may not have broken my finger. It’s a surprise.”

° Needless to say, you’re the one that is calm and collected while Yoosung is the one that panics. It’s just his instinctual response. He’ll get you the care that you need it will just take him a few minutes of babbling before you can calm him enough to get it together. He’s very empathetic and it’s almost like he can feel more of what you’re feeling at that very moment and he’s doing what you would have done if you weren’t used to this happening.

° Yoosung is a mess but he’s somebody that cares about you with all of his heart. He’ll do his best to take care of you when you need his help!

Zen

°Oh… so what you’re telling him is that you have to be gentle with yourself otherwise you’ll get hurt. It isn’t your fault that these happen but you have to deal with them as they come. Zen cannot possibly imagine what that’s like for you, but he’ll be the first one to try to understand what you’re going through. He has to be careful with his own body thanks to his own condition, you know, he fries a little too easily in the sun and some lights can be hell on his eyes.

° But in regards to you… his instinct, however, is to put you on a pedestal and do everything for you. That can be grating even though it comes from a positive place; You’ll just have to be upfront with him about how you can handle yourself. He means well. You know that. It can just come out wrong sometimes.

° Zen will go through the motions just as you do and put that fear in the back of his head. Of course, he’ll tell himself that he’s prepared for an inevitable outcome but he. is. not. at. all. Zen absolutely cannot handle the idea much less a reality where his MC gets hurt. It makes that it that much more difficult to handle when it really does happen.

° At least he manages to keep his cool when you keep your cool. As long as you are level headed then he is pretty much calm. Today just wasn’t going to be your day. You weren’t clumsy by nature and you typically went out of your way to watch your step as you walked but for some reason today was just not a good day for you and you wound up tripping over a crack in the pavement and twisting your poor ankle. It’s obvious to you that you likely went down too hard and there might be some damage on your insides.

° Zen is quick to your side, but you insist that you’re alright but all you can do is mutter a few soft curses underneath your breath and groan in disdain. It wasn’t the most graceful way to happen but its not like you ever have a say with it. “Are you serious, body? And after all the work I put in with you… ugh. One fall breaks it all.”

° “Have no fear, your prince is here, Jagiya!” Zen, are you going to hoist your MC up and walk her all the way to get that checked out? Yes? Oh. Okay. I see how it is. At least you’re dedicated to your craft.

° Zen is worried about you when you get hurt, and he really will do as much as he can to make you feel alright about it. He hates it when you feel awful or when you cry. He’ll be the one to try and keep happy for you, just so you don’t feel like everything is out of place.

Jaehee Kang

° Jaehee hadn’t heard of your condition before but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t read up on it when you mention it to her in passing when you’re chatting on the phone. She assumes that you must have a difficult time handling everything. She wants to educate herself further and learn more about what makes your life what it is; Of course, she’ll inquire you from you as well, because it’s always good to hear what’s the best way to handle things from the source.

° She isn’t as abrasive as some others might be when it comes to treating you as you are. Jaehee knows that you’re more than capable of functioning on your own, and it would be wrong to assume that you couldn’t.

° She is the most steadfast and controlled in a chaotic situation. Her brain might be on alert or popping but she manages to keep a straight face in the face of whatever is happening around her in that instance. If you can keep your cool then things can be diffused sooner or later. That’s the sort of rationale that she uses to get by, and has for a long time. In that same regard, she wants to apply the same theory to you if you have an accident.

° There’s no stopping you from working as hard as you do in the cafe at her side. All she asks is that you act carefully in order to minimize any incidents. Haha. You promised you would but today happened to be one of those days when you couldn’t help it. In short, let’s just say that it involved some heavy bags of supply and your inability to give up on what you were doing.

° Jaehee found you loudly cursing, that was out of character, clutching your now aching limb with a sheepish smile on your face. The first reaction is to ask you if you’re okay, “Y/N, are you okay? I heard some loud noises but-”

° You can only explain yourself, a little embarassed and very red-faced, what you had done. “Well, you see… the thing is…”

° She sighs in that way that only you understand, and holds out her hand in your direction. “We’re going to get that checked out.”

° Jaehee means well, and she often worries about you. That’s because she cares about you very much and she wants you to experience as little to no pain as you can. It’s not because you need anyone to do that for you, its because of how much she cherishes you.

Jumin Han

° For Jumin, it’s about everything that he can do for you that will make your life simpler and more comfortable. He realizes that your struggle in your day to day can be difficult at times when you least want it to be. He’s a little guilty of the same thing that Zen is guilty of, he wants to protect you from anything that could hurt you but nobody can do that. Things have the tendency of just happening to you and you won’t let that fear control every aspect of your life as it’s tried to do in the place. It’s okay to be hesitant or to take things with a few extra steps if that’s what helps you, but you can’t live your life in a gilded cage.

° But just as you do in his route, you have to reassure him and remind him of the reality of everything. With a lot of careful discussions and treating him as he deserves, he’ll come around and understand your perspective and lay off his inevitable onslot.

° Oh, boy. Today had started off like it was going to be like any other day but that's shoved to the side the moment that you fell flat on your face. You braced yourself with your hands and now you kind of regretted that because everything aches and you're just silently praying that nothing is broken. Giving it a test, it doesn't feel like it's broken but it definitely needs a compress and ice. So that's what you wind up doing lost of the day just trying to combat the pain.

° When it didn't go away, that's when you figured it was wrong. And when Jumin finds you tending to yourself when Elizabeth the Third at your side it doesn't take much for him to guess what's wrong.

° "Y/N." Jumin is giving you this look of concern, and something else that you can't quite identify. "Did you injure yourself?"

° With a heavy sigh, you just nod your head and let him cart you away.

° Jumin works well under pressure in some regard! He can keep it together as long as he needs to even if its hard, there's only a few things that make it incredibly hard to maintain that level of professionalism. When it involves you, V, Elizabeth, or the RFA, it's harder for him to deal with it. When all is said and done, he needs some gentle reassurance and kisses to put reminded that its okay.

° In the end, Jumin has the most intent and plans in regards to future incidents. He'll be sure to get you things you need to ease your accidents and the best care possible if you so choose to take him up on the offer. He cares in a very specific manner and I'm sure you wouldn't have it any other way.

Saeyoung Choi

° It’s something that he comes across in his research of your background and instantly those alarm bells are going off in his head. It’s seemingly more a reason to try to stay away from you to keep you from getting hurt more then you do, but alas, the heart wants what the heart wants and he winds up with you in spite of how hard he tried not to do it for your own sake. He figures it out firsthand that nobody should underestimate you because of something that is out of your control. You’re more than capable.

° Seven really doesn’t like the idea of you getting hurt at all. But your own body is fighting you every day. It’s not utterly out of your control but its a very slim kind of hold. He goes out of his way to make you little things that make it easier for you, and by little, I mean he’s making a hell of a lot of things… is it a good excuse for robots? Probably.

° He hadn’t seen you properly in three weeks, and the moment that he had a chance to go and catch up with you he is surprised to see a cast on your leg. Needless to say, he begins to ask you in rapid fire succession, what happened, who hurt you, what’s broken, or is it just fractured, can I do anything, do you need anything?

° His eyes are worried. “Y/N. I would have been here if I knew this happened!”

° You wave off the look he’s giving you right then. You know how worried he can get when he wants to. Which is why you didn’t exactly tell him the extent of your injury on the phone when you spoke. “I’m fine. I’m totally fine, Saeyoung! I just tripped over my own two feet in my apartment, it’s not a really big deal. I didn’t wanna worry you.”

° “Well, now I am.” Seven replies.

° He understands why you wouldn’t have told him. Seven would have put everything down to come to you. He’s been trying to sort things out with his brother this entire time and he had to dedicate all if not most of his energy to that endeavor. You understood that, and not letting it slip to him kept his head in a better space. In some regard you were right. Seven just hated that you were going through things alone.

° It makes him dedicate himself to working harder to put everything back together. He is just very compassionate about two things in his life and you happen to be one of those things. He’s always going to be looking out for you when you need him and when you don’t.

Jihyun Kim

° It's just one thing that he never expected himself to ever be content with his life ever again, and its another thing entirely when that ideology is thrown right out of the window by your sudden appearance to his side. For V, it was like he could start over. You're like this perfect person in Jihyun's world and he wouldn't have it any other way then that. He just didn't expect you to be afflicted with your own kind of troubles that you couldn't get rid of either. It's not a bad thing. He just never thought someone as kind as you could be in so much pain. It really puts a lot into perspective for him again, and like some of the other RFA member's reactions, he needs to change some of his ideas about the world and the people in it.

° You tell him that you've got some difficulties with your body. It's too easy for you to fracture things and worse, break things. You could be doing something simple and the smallest miscalculation might have you in a cast for a few weeks. There is only so much that you can do to combat that. His reaction is to respect your choices. You know how to handle yourself and you'll know what to do, but that doesn't mean he doesn't worry about your health. He often worries that you might get hurt and he wouldn't be there to help you out. It's reflective of some of his feelings towards his Mom when he was a kid.

° Those fears are probably realized when you come to see him and you've got your wrist wrapped up. You smile sheepishly and admit that you had hit something too hard and in return you earned a small split.

° His face is lined with those fears at that moment. "Y/N, are you alright?"

° "Of course," you tell him. "I know you're probably feeling like I'm not but I swear I'm okay. Just a little accident and it'll be back to normal in a little while."

° His reaction is this calm, and quiet one. However, on the inside he is feeling so many things that he can't even quite process them all. On the one hand when you get hurt he's always relieved to know that you take it without fear, but he always fears that you might get hurt too much one of these days and it'll be too hard to recover. You'll have to really speak with him about this often to make sure those feelings are out in the open and spoken about with great care to your health and his.

° Jihyun is grateful that you're in this life and he really wants you to live in comfort for the rest of your days. You deserve that. Just like you'll tell him he deserves that when he forgets to imply for himself. He's going to make mistakes but he'll do his best to do the right thing.

💜 Mod Kait 💜

#anon #ask #mod kait #mystic messenger #mysme #yoosung kim #hyun ryu #jumin han #jaehee kang #saeyoung choi #jihyun kim

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