#AND WHEN THAT IS NOT A THING HE IS RUTHLESS AND AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[mocacheezy]

Finished watching The Super Mario Bros. Movie, (there's a good quality version on soap2day.to) so here are my thoughts:

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Good stuff:

The animation is super fun!

It's very colorful, but not in the way that it will make your eyes burn

Music I love the remixes of different songs from the games (especially the super star one at the end). There are also quite a few songs that are older and meme-y and they were so cool to hear!

I enjoyed the characterization of pretty much all characters

No Forced Romance I absolutely fucking ADORE that there was no on-screen forced chemistry when it came to Peach. Yea, Bowser is madly in love with her (or the concept of marriage, jury is still out on this one), but Peach? Nah. She has a bit of a rosey tint to her eyes when she first sees Mario, and Mario also likes her, but the movie doesn't force it past this. There's no "Saving the other", or "Victory kiss" or the like. They are traveling together to save the Mushroom Kingdom and Luigi, not to find a romantic partner. DK also pokes fun at Mario for a bit, and Toad also banters about it, but Peach doesn't confirm or deny anything, and Mario just says he's being friendly... Like, I genuinely think these two have a 'good friends that might become more' kind of relationship in this movie. And I love it, and I adore that we didn't have an animated kiss of any kind. It was so refreshing, and I was pleasantly surprised there wasn't any hand holding in that field of flowers.

The brotherly affection between Mario and Luigi

It was so good to see. It was wonderful to see them both excited, both of them supporting each other, and the reunion had me feel such joy. This is the kind of sibling love I sometimes wish I was capable of experiencing with my siblings. AND THERE WAS NO FIGHTING AND HURTFUL WORDS OR ACCUSATIONS HURLED AT EACH OTHER!!! This, this is so rare in the movies or shows I've seen before. It does make sense, siblings do stuff that annoys the other, but these two really stick together and care for eachother and rely on eachother.

Luigi not being just a scared incompetent guy He was terrified in that forest, got kidnapped, and when faced with a terrifying turtle looking creature that was very ready to start torturing him, he STILL denied knowing Mario for as long as he could. His line about "not knowing every guy with a mustache" made me smile a bit because it's TRUE, it's a GOOD POINT and EXCUSE, even if it didn't work. And he doesn't give up, he doesn't break down and think how hopeless everything is. Hell, he sees things and remembers Mario and how he always comes to his aid. I was also ecstatic that he ALSO BEATS UP BOWSER WITH MARIO. This movie isn't Super Mario, it's Super Mario Brothers!!!

Bowser. Jack Black did an amazing job. The animators and script writers have my undying gratitude. Bowser is now permanently on my Blorbo List. I will now stop talking or this post will be all about Bowser appreciation and gushing over the character and animation.

THE CREEPY ELEMENTS I had a Mario game for my Nintendo DS, and I could never play it because the water level with the eel scared me too much. I was terrified then, and seeing the eel now had me freeze up. A big NOPE. And not just that either, the skeleton Koopa, the masked lil guys, the creepy parts were very creepy. I adore it. And the bats looked adorable :> Meh stuff:

I didn't really like Toad at the start. I found him pretty darn annoying even. But his bravery as a sharp contrast to everyone abandoning their Princess is admirable, and he did grow on me as the movie progressed.

Seems that every situation requires an exclamation of "mamma mia". Now both folks on the internet and folks I've met irl do use it, and say they use it quite often, but there are also other phrases that could be used. Every mother in Brooklyn has hiccups at this point. And yes, I know it makes sense because this is one of the catchphrases Mario has. But still, I personally found it a bit meh/repetitive. I am not Italian tho, so my opinion on the matter can be discarded.

... honestly, there weren't many things I didn't enjoy about this movie, it was a nice one!

I give it a 10/10 + a golden star because THEY GAVE BOWSER A MINI PIANO!!!!

I also now have at least a few story ideas, because listen... I need that Koopa Wizard pinning after Bowser, I need this in my life-

In conclusion, 10/10, it's a nice time.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Nie Mingjue is clearly the best father in the entire series, I have a long argument about how if any of the other families took responsibility and duty half as seriously as he did, so much could have been avoided. And he started when he was barely out of his teens, newly ascended sect leader in a clear time of crisis and still managed to raise Huaisang who was loved and coddled by his entire sect and knew it. What a man!!!

Have you watched Fatal Journey?  You should watch Fatal Journey.  I love Fatal Journey.  Absolutely murder my ass about the Nie brothers.  Nie Mingjue was a good sect leader and a good dad/brother and I totally respect and support Nie Huaisang deciding to go on the fucking war path after realizing what happened.

(I actually have Thoughts about Fatal Journey and specifically the fact that Nie Huaisang’s entire arc actually makes so very much more sense if he was unintentionally complicit in driving his brother to madness and his eventual demise, and also that parallels so beautifully with Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian and the guilt that pervades their entire relationship that I just couldn’t drop it.  Wei Wuxian and Nie Mingjue stop dying tragically on their kid brothers challenge.)

Anyway absolute fucking Tragedy Mode ending where Wei Wuxian receives a letter from Nie Huaisang a while after the end of things, completely out of the blue after not much contact at all, and the letter is...it’s nothing special, not really.  A few idle comments about how he hopes Wei Wuxian is enjoying his second life, about how he sent money to Mo Village and contacted Jin Ling about dealing with the fallout of their entire noble line being wiped out, about how the Nie sect is thriving lately.  It would be nothing.  Except that the last line is “If it’s not too much to ask, I would appreciate it if you came to Qinghe at your earliest convenience; there’s something I need your particular expertise on.”

Pardon Wei Wuxian’s paranoia, but nothing that needs his particular expertise is ever good news.

Wei Wuxian arrives at Qinghe with Lan Wangji two days later, as fast as they can travel with sharing a sword.  He strides through the gates and no one stops him, and he finds Nie Huaisang having a spirited shouting match with his head retainer--or, no, not a shouting match, Nie Huaisang is just shouting, his hands shaking in fists and his hair braided up into a dimly familiar style--

And he doesn’t look like himself, he’s not wearing his familiar fine robes with their sweeping sleeves, he doesn’t have a fan, and his hair is crowned with a silver guan that Wei Wuxian hasn’t seen since before his death, and--

“My brother,” Nie Mingjue snarls, raw-voiced.  “You allowed my brother to do this?  You allowed--”  He hits his own chest, Huaisang’s chest, with a closed fist.

“Please,” the head retainer says, and the man is in tears already, his hands reaching out--supplication, maybe, or grief.  “Please, we didn’t know, we didn’t know, he never told us--he never told us anything--”

“My brother,” Nie Mingjue says again, ragged, that closed fist still pressed to his chest, his other hand clenched around a piece of paper that Wei Wuxian doesn’t need to see clearly to know is covered with Huaisang’s beautiful calligraphy.  No scars for Nie Mingjue, no unclear terms.  A note, clean and tidy, and a body dressed in his own re-tailored clothes, hair braided in his own style, a hale and hearty sect ready to be returned to its rightful leader.  

“A-Sang,” Nie Mingjue says through his teeth, halfway to a keen, like an animal in a trap.  “A-Sang.”

“Nie-xiong,” Wei Wuxian breathes, feeling like he’s been stabbed in the chest--he’s been stabbed plenty of times, he knows how it feels, and this--this is how it feels.  “What did you do?”

[xcziel]

by @alxina @xantissa

Series: ← Previous Work Part 4 of the Between Dusk and Dawn series Next Work →

Characters: Wu Xie (DMBJ Series), Wang Can (DMBJ Series), Zhang Qiling

Relationships: Wu Xie/Zhang Qiling, Wang Can/Wu Xie (DMBJ Series)

Additional Tags: Spying, Revelations, Awkward Conversations, Relationship Negotiations, Angst, Humor

Summary:

When Wu Xie left Wushanju without telling him where he was going, Zhang Qiling followed, curious, and got to see Wu Xie with his… other lover, as odd as that sounded.

-

Usually, Wu Xie was harder to follow. Zhang Qiling knew this because he’d made a game of trying to follow Wu Xie whenever he tried to slip away, and, the thing was, he’d found from this that Wu Xie had well over a sixty percent  chance to notice a tail. He checked back often and made lots of random direction changes to make the life of whoever was following him as difficult as possible.

But this time was different. Wu Xie had been pretty open about the fact that his other lover was going to be in town - and it was still so very awkward to hear that term; not just the ‘other’ part, but the ‘lover’ part, too - and Zhang Qiling had expected that the two of them would meet first. If this man was as fragile and as skittish as Wu Xie said, then it only seemed reasonable for Wu Xie to meet him in person first before trying to introduce him and Zhang Qiling. It made sense.

Zhang Qiling still couldn’t help his curiosity.

So, when Wu Xie had announced that he would be out for the evening and had mentioned no other plans for the next day, Zhang Qiling knew what to expect. After all, Wu Xie had told him everything regarding this.

But he still hadn’t expected the way Wu Xie had walked out without turning back even once, and then, halfway down the road, had realized that he was missing his phone and had come back, breathless, picking it up from the table where he had left it. It was definitely not the kind of behaviour Zhang Qiling associated with who Wu Xie was now, and it somehow startled him.

He gave it a good ten minutes after Wu Xie had come back and left again before he started strapping his bag around his shoulders, and then he waited for another five minutes just to be sure. He could always catch up, but he didn’t want to give himself away by going out too soon. He expected to have to take up to the roofs at some point, which was really the only way to get away from Wu Xie’s line of sight, but, since Wu Xie never bothered to check back, he didn’t have to after all.

Wu Xie didn’t take his car, which meant that he was either going somewhere close, or heading into the city center where parking was hard. He got onto a bus, and Zhang Qiling had no choice but to wait until the last moment and then get on with his cap tightly over his head and bulky headphones giving him as much of a student look as possible. He’d even abandoned his black hoodie for a tan, soft looking jacket, one that was very bulky and very much not anything he would usually wear.

Wu Xie never noticed him, too busy texting on his phone

[unwcvering]

the contrast with how cf manga uses arturia and gilgamesh (the two servants that tried to kill waver in the hgw) and how both are used to show how waver still fears them in his nightmares like... damn. he can’t even look at gray’s face because of it, and it makes me so sad for him. but it just solidifies how traumatic the hgw was for waver. it wasn’t just something that happened to him. it is something that still lives with him ten years after the war has passed. 

[aaronstveit]

once again thinking about the similarities between kaz and wylan

[tennessoui]

Mkay I know that ppl love seduction to the dark side for obikin but how do you feel about morally righteous fucking to the light 👀👀 it could be like in a kinda cracky suitless vaderwan au where vader actually feels remorse for what he did / realizes how good he had it before w obi and misses it, or in a raised a sith!anakin au where ani gets romanced and treated kindly for once in his life / obi rescues him from sudious or something hmmmm -#12

i do love a good fucking to the light story, tbh those can be sooo good i propose a story where obi-wan gets a warning in the force halfway to grievous and turns back because he knows that anakin needs him and he idk bursts into palpatines office and finds anakin kneeling to another man and calling him master so idk he kills him

(can you tell i find it super hard to forgive vader for anything after he kills the jedi im sorry im no obi-wan kenobi OR luke skywalker)

and the rest of the story is about obi-wan coaxing anakin back to the light; they even go to a small remote cottage far away from everything so anakin can only focus on obi-wans commands and his voice and 100% why wouldn't it turn into fucking obi-wan's gotta show vaderkin that there can be passion in the light too

[navree]

not to rant but this thing y’all do with “wow can’t believe rome was so scared of cleopatra that they decided she could only be this super sexy witch” is dumb because, like, that wasn’t a roman thing, that was octavian being the smartest boy. octavian knew he wasn’t going to be able to justify bringing troops against antony and he knew that there were always gonna be some people on his side so he deliberately framed it as “i’m going to go and SAVE antony from this spooky foreign queen who’s beguiled him with her foreign boobs and made him renounce rome” (and antony’s dipshit self certainly hadn’t helped by renouncing his roman wife for cleopatra, decreeing he wanted to be buried in egypt rather than rome, and donating roman territories to his foreign born children). octavian made sure to create a specific propaganda campaign against cleopatra and how she’d “de-romanized” antony so that way people would be on his side when he and agrippa went to egypt and conquered it. it wasn’t a society wide belief, especially considering cleopatra had literally been in rome like ten years before back when caesar was still alive, it was octavian being smart and devious, like he always was, and outsmarting cleopatra and antony, which wasn’t that hard to do

[wackernagels]

It’s hyperfixating on vicious hours again

[goldenornstein]

I can’t believe Ornstein is my good muse. 🙄

[kiicho]

  Halfway through Kirin ga Kuru and the episode where Kichō realizes that if her father breaks the alliance she might die is also something that definitely happened to my Kichō too. I mean, I think she already knew that she had possibility of dying in Owari anyway, but if her father starts acting like he won’t help the Oda when they have an agreed alliance, she’s definitely up on the chopping block. She’d definitely feel that pressure, for sure, especially after it’s already been like a while of her being a hostage. 

[arson-sometimes-writes]

Giving Luise fangs just so Theodore can tease Viktor about having a thing for them.

[punsandfuturekingsmen-archive]

👑 ((I gotta know YOUR thoughts on this au idea!))

👑 For a Royal AU

Lewis “Sparrow” Pepper is the crown prince of his homeland. He is a good, kind soul and has won the hearts of his people with actions befitting a king they would gladly accept as theirs. But of course, with his just ways and the love his people have for him, he makes his own enemies.

Others in the court who have their own stakes they’re playing for, family in the line vying for a chance for a crown they may never reach with the loyalty of the people behind him, and enemy nations wishing for the chaos of a power vacuum make being the next in line quite dangerous. Especially when those desperate enough to be persuaded by the right words and a large enough sum of gold could be the difference between crown prince and a dead one.

The first attempt on his life, he had a lucky escape. In the streets he’d been attacked, and it was only by the sheer luck of a runway wagon startling his would-be assassin that he managed to escape, and they ran instead, losing their nerve.

After that, the Royal Family insisted that Sparrow have some kind of guard. A knight, to protect him and keep him from harm should danger cross his path again. A tourney was held to find the most capable.

And the winner, while strong, was certainly not the strongest. But what he was, was clever enough to outsmart his opponents, and nimble enough to evade and step in with precise strokes of his blade. He cut his way through the ranks, until only he remained.

A true Kingsmen to the royal line.

When asked if he would protect the crown prince with his life as he knelt before the king with blade in hand, he looked to Sparrow. He held his gaze with a determined spark in his eyes that was tempered by an equally soft warmth in his smile. He took the oath without hesitation, and took his place beside and behind Sparrow, as he newfound protector.

[immortal-trash]

nothing new here just reminding everyone that feral!nicky can still be generous and kind hearted, that joe is allowed to be angry and feel things and still be soft, and that characters don’t have to fit into a black and white dynamic just so that they can satisfy your need to have a couple that feeds into some kind of dichotomy 

[alterofnaught]

lamekit Yeah i kinda roll my eyes when people talk about how mean he was to Miu like she never retaliated or was ever rude towards other people. Also i find it amusing that the people Kokichi tends to target the most are those that are most likely to retaliate or react (Kaito, Miu, and even Kiibo with his responses to Kokichi's "robophobia"). Kokichi really is an attention whore.

Once I saw the Kokichi/Miu dynamic compared to the Hiyoko/Mikan one and I just... no.... that’s not the same. She goes right back and him and clearly enjoys their exchanges. The fact you get a convo where she talks about wanting to leave and not thinking their plan will work and he like just listens and accepts it shows that under the mean banter shows he absolutely has some respect for her as a person. And Miu is constantly rude like she’s not some helpless victim. 

And yeah... it isn’t just random... he clearly just really likes getting attention. And like I’m not saying what he says to Kiibo isn’t mean or is justified... but it is funny. Like when he calls him a bean counting robot and he just counters that he can count more than beans... that was hilarious sorry... it just reminds me of mockumentary style humor where Kiibo says ridiculous things back to him like how he has the strength of an old man or studied comedy routines and it’s just *looks directly into the camera*

Plus the fact that Kiibo considers him a friend in UTDP mode just makes me feel like he gets that he’s being messed with for fun to some extent. Like again its fine to not like that dynamic but like painting it as him being a ruthless tormenter when it’s more just him being a rude little shit for most of the game is just baffling to me. 

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Please explain LXC/Wen Qing and Wen Ning/Jiang Cheng because I have never read anything about them and now I very much want to

Okay, listen, I understand that Lan Xichen/Jiang Cheng is the Popular Ship, but I’m just not particularly grabbed by it.  It’s fine, I’ve read some thoroughly charming fic for it, but I like a ship with some drama to it, and therefore: what if we got Wen Ning the most complicated boyfriend(s) possible.  This is an incredibly spoiler-heavy rant, so if Tumblr decides to work with me it SHOULD be under a cut.

Lan Xichen/Wen Ning

The short version: Lan Xichen needs clarity, Wen Ning needs compassion, they’re both very fucked up by Jin Guangyao’s actions, they could heal together.

So from Lan Xichen’s side of things, he’s lost...the whole world.  Not really.  Not literally.  But he lost Jin Guangyao, and in losing Jin Guangyao he lost his solid ground, because Jin Guangyao is not who Xichen believed him to be.  That lie destroyed Xichen’s memory of his sworn brother, sure, but it also ruined Xichen’s sense of self.  He’s been defending Jin Guangyao against his detractors for a long time, he trusted him implicitly, he left Nie Mingjue in his care, he comforted Jin Guangyao over the death of his son, he backed Jin Guangyao against Wei Wuxian--the things that Lan Xichen has unintentionally been complicit in are numerous.  But most importantly, for the issue at hand, Lan Xichen stood by and let the Wens be massacred, because he trusted Jin Guangyao and wanted to keep the peace.

Lan Wangji couldn’t have stopped the massacre of the Wens--he might be well respected and revered, but he’s one man, and in the wake of the Sunshot Campaign...well.  One person’s voice probably wouldn’t have changed much.  But Lan Xichen?  Leader of the Lan Sect?  If the Twin Jades had stood together to defend the Wens, if Lan Xichen had believed Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing about the prison camps, if he had spoken on their behalf when Wei Wuxian was denounced as a liar and a murderer...things might have been different.  Lan Xichen chose to be silent because he wanted to keep the peace, and because he chose who he was going to trust, and now he knows he made the wrong choice.

And Wen Ning suffered for it.  Wen Ning fucking died for it.  Wen Ning is every mistake Lan Xichen ever made, walking around in the sunlight.  But Wen Ning is still a deeply kind person, who dotes on Sizhui and is endlessly loyal to Wei Wuxian and protects people who hate him because he doesn’t want to see more bloodshed.  In a lot of ways, Wen Ning actually is what Lan Xichen always believed Jin Guangyao was--self-effacing, loyal, trustworthy, determined, gentle, kind.  He’s also dead because Lan Xichen trusted the Jin sect too much to check up on their prison camps.  Tell me about how THAT shit goes down, when Lan Xichen starts to come out of seclusion and runs into Wen Ning visiting Wei Wuxian.

More than that, Wen Ning was used for sixteen years to advance Jin Guangyao’s agenda after having a lot of people he loved killed indirectly by the man himself.  I don’t know, I feel like he and Lan Xichen might be good for each other, in that capacity.  

Jiang Cheng/Wen Ning

The short version: Jiang Cheng needs someone who will call him on his shit without getting shredded in the process, Wen Ning could really stand to have someone fight for him (and push him to fight for himself), it would be combative and unfriendly for a while but they have potential to grow a lot together.

I talked a little in the tags on this post about this, but now I don’t have a migraine and am far more cogent so let’s take this one again.  That post features the best explanation I’ve ever seen of Jiang Cheng, which is that he’s essentially an emotional savant: he’s incredibly emotionally intuitive, but only when it comes to bespoke cruelty.  The rest of the time, he’s floundering, out of his depth just by existing.  It’s not his fault, he is what he was made to be, but it’s a huge part of the reason that all his relationships tend to look very combative and trend toward spectacular breakdown--even when he’s being kind, it’s being filtered through this reality that he only really understands people when he’s looking for a place to hurt.  He can avoid those old wounds, like he does with Jin Ling (he’s genuinely trying his best to be a good uncle and he’s definitely a big part of the reason Jin Ling is as functional as he is), but that’s about the best he’s got in his arsenal.

Which, of course, is why Wen Ning pretty consistently throws him off his game.  What’s he going to hurt Wen Ning with?  Guilt?  Wei Wuxian, in his grief and madness, already did a better job than Jiang Cheng could ever dream.  Shame?  Wen Ning, of the Qishan Wen, the Ghost General, has been heaped with every shame the world could create for him, and he kept walking because he had no choice.  Loss?  Wen Ning’s entire family is dead.  He’s just like Jiang Cheng in that way, except worse--Jiang Cheng lost his parents and his sect and his siblings, just like Wen Ning did, except that Wen Ning also lost himself, in every imaginable way.  But Wen Ning, killed in a prison camp and only barely rescued from a mass grave, has already hurt as deeply as a person could--Jiang Cheng can’t rip open that wound any further than it has been.  Wen Ning, in a weird sort of way, is immune to Jiang Cheng’s particular brand of cruelty.  It stings him to be denied entry to Lotus Pier, but he’s neither surprised nor upset, just resigned to the reality.  He’s only angry when that cruelty is turned on someone else.

Jiang Cheng can rant and rave all he wants, and Wen Ning will sit there and look him dead in the eye and say “no amount of cruelty is going to make you anything other than what you are,” and I dunno, man, I think that would be good for Jiang Cheng, to be totally honest.  Also, once he’s been exposed to Wen Ning for long enough to wear down some of that raw edge and realize that...actually, the Ghost General he’s spent all this time hating is just a somewhat tired man who drew most of the same short straws Jiang Cheng did, I think...

I think Jiang Cheng has real potential to start turning that sharp tongue on people in Wen Ning’s defense.  He’d hate it, the first time someone hesitantly asked if the Ghost General was allowed inside now (”of course he is, I invited him, didn’t I” Jiang Cheng snarls, and then pointedly ignores Wen Ning for the rest of the evening like that’s going to make up for it), but he hates being called out on having emotions at all.  And it would be good for Wen Ning to have someone who would step up to the mat for him, teeth bared and ready to fight.  

TL;DR I wound up on both of these because I wanted to think of the most angst-ridden potential romances for Wen Ning, but the more I thought about them, the more I realized that they’re both actually a really good match.  Like, they’re not just interesting ships, the characters would actually improve each other, in ways that would probably make them happy together.  Now THAT’S a functional ship, baby.  

[winepresswrath]

I am constantly torn between

looking at the Yunmeng Siblings and the horrible, devastating series of tragedies that befell them and getting deep in my sad feelings about it

taking a look next door at the Jiggy-Xichen-Mingjue-Huaisang clusterfuck and just being like yeah ok POINT MADE. I will take this w and content myself with how 2/3 of them are alive and so is their nephew and they can be in a room together without tricking each other into stabbing any other people they used to love.