#I love me a good enemies to lovers

[singing-telegram]

Why are people shipping Shuri and Namor when Riri is right there!

[inkskinned]

in internet posts it is easy to cut them out of your life. they are hurting you! they aren't listening to you!

they held your hair back. they lent you lipstick. they held your hand at the train station and got you home safe. they rounded on your bully, got loud, said get fucked, spitting-mad in your defense.

they also cut the hair off again. told you that you should really think twice before wearing something like that. took you for granted. took your insecurities and threw them in your face again.

you know logically it should be easy. all the internet advice comments always read it will feel better. like an equation - if a person is rotten, you just remove them. you pull the tooth that's hurting.

but it was never a big flare-up moment. you don't live in a sitcom. they never tried to take your boyfriend or steal from your apartment. they showed up to birthdays and they wrote songs about you and bring you water without you asking. once you found out they carry an emergency inhaler for you, even though you haven't had an asthma attack in years - just in case.

where is the line? people fuck up. sometimes they fuck up badly. sometimes people have raw personalities, like a powerline, and being around them is dangerous. addicting. sometimes they can't help themselves, but you know they're trying. sometimes they are just rough-around-the-edges. sometimes they don't even realize how they sounded when they said that. sometimes it's just - you've both loved each other for so long now, the way this thing hurts goes back to the root.

and that's the fucked up part. you have pushed your fingers against the sweetheart of memory. things these days are electric, tense, harrowing. they didn't used to be. there were a lot of good days in there. sometimes you want to just close your eyes and say can this be over yet? do we still need to be fighting?

doing that would give up any chance you get of getting an apology, but you don't always know that you need an apology, you love them. once they flaked on your birthday party. once they told you to get over it, people are always dying. they also let you crash on their couch for a week after the breakup, handfeeding you when you were so sad you couldn't eat. they are also judgmental about everything, occasionally react to banal statements with an attitude that is weird and fiery. they also love you like a lighthouse sometimes, so strong they cut the storm like lightning.

but the problem is that you might be storm. you might be the thing that needs breaking. what if you are two forces who are desperately, horribly drawn to each other, shaped by the other person's passions, and both good for each other and bad in equal measure.

what if you're both just people, and you're no saint neither.

just cut them off! swallowing the saltwater, you catch yourself in the mirror. you've been shaking more than usual. there's an ache in you that is oblique, loud, impossible to soothe. is this what it looks like? when life is "easier"?

your mouth will always have a hole, is the thing, if you remove the tooth.

[melonalemonade]

I think they umm they

[taruolentow]

wine drunk

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

1x5 | 4x10

[they-didnt-last]

anyone interested in talking about the iconic 2000's middle-grade-bordering-on-ya book series gallagher girls??

[ninkaku]

“they had something” and it’s gihun and frontman ?? im sick

[bittersweetresilience]

can you be baited into talking about the good aesthetics of jingrenheng? the themes? please and thank you and have a nice day?

................okay... just for you anon...

they have complimentary color palettes! jing yuan has a lot of light associations, blade dark associations, and dan heng's teals are gradient or in between

they all have a symbolic plant of sorts, which sounds funny, but it looks pretty. the gingko and the spider lilies and the maple leaves. those are also red orange and yellow which mix well together. and imbibitor lunae has a lotus thing going on but he and dan heng mostly look visually similar

they have sun moon star symbolism. jing yuan is the sun, blade or should i say yingxing (应星) is the star, and dan heng or should i say imbibitor lunae (饮月君) is the moon. you could also argue that jing yuan (景元) is the world that the celestial bodies orbit in... the center of gravity, but also easy to overlook as an unchanging part of the surroundings...

dan heng is also wearing something associated with both of them. yes, The Relic™. BUT his coat also reads the same poem from which jing yuan took the name of starfall reverie

and lastly they are just three beautiful men okay it's impossible for them not to look aesthetic together

THE THEMES ✨

a guy running from his past, a guy chasing it down and driven perpetually by it, and a guy who can do nothing but hold onto it. it's like a soap drama of perfect proportions

someone who represents the right path, someone who represents the wrong path, and someone who represents the neutral path or trailblazes their own path

they were entangled in their previous lives and they remain entangled now, by their own will or otherwise. it can't get any better than this themewise.

renjing

i was going to say something about what each individual ship in the trio brings to the trio but i got distracted. what was i talking about again

okay, renheng has this 'thin line between love and hate going on' (因爱生恨) and it's about the extremes of passion to me. the hunter and the hunted. it's about the things from the past that should be shed but cannot be. then hengjing has the 'reconnecting through lives and through the mire of identity'. it's about forging a future uncolored by the mist of the past while also acknowledging that that past was there and meant something. then renjing has everything renjing has. renjing has

sorry i can't be objective about them renjing has everything because they are my babies

ANYWAY the point is when you put them together you net the ability to explore all of these different relationship dynamics at the same time plus trio dynamics like the mediation, the competition, each of them feeling left out in their own way, varying levels of memory, varying levels of history... a feast for the feasters

i also think jingrenheng successfully resolves all three of their issues in the sense that it's a relatively stable way for each of them to be able to recognize but also make peace with their past, and not let it impede their future. if jingrenheng actually experienced enough character development to get together and not kill each other, that would mean they have fixed things. a win for everybody.

[nox-in-a-box]

Thinking about them again and realising that I don't like the idea that Greylock was practically a bully to Cedric in their schooldays or that Cedric hated him. To each their own, but I think they're just two dorks with a bit of rivalry who get super competitive at times. They get along quite well together when they're not competing! Well, and when Greylock's not pranking him. He's just the annoying friend, I guess. I don't want Greylock to ever stop being annoying, and I want Cedric to be seriously concerned if he does stop.

As for why Cedric wouldn't consider him a friend: this is Season 2 Cedric. Literally his whole arc is about friendship.

[crimeronan]

why did they make the owl house so good. i have been trying for DAYS to get my brain to latch onto a different property with even Half of my toh vigor & i just keep circling back to "WHEN will ANYBODY create ANYTHING that could POSSIBLY affect me as much as luz in belos's clothes. when will anybody else Ever understand becoming-the-thing-you-fear-most horror like this."

[puppppppppy]

Hey I’m new to the LMK fandom, why do so many people ship Sun Wukong and Macaque??

A lot of people like the hurt/comfort potential because of their backstory and because they’re just really good counterparts lol. Macaque even makes a whole play about their past relationship, which is where a lot of that fuel for the ship comes from and the whole “the hero and the warrior were like the sun and the moon” spiel that people love using for shits and giggles. There’s also a really strong enemies to lovers sentiment and i think it’s kinda sweet

Personally, I just really like riffing off the divorced energy. To me, these idiots would rather beat the shit out of each other than make up and I really really eat that up. Not just as a joke, maybe as a way to cope with their feelings like “I want things to go back the way they were but this is all I can do”

[mymarifae]

me: i finished the latest trailblaze mission in hsr so i can look at what other people are posting now! oh boy i hope it's discussions and theories about the story. i can't wait to see what everyone thought about firefly (what was going on with you sweetie...) and A Child's Dream - that segment in particular really left a profound impact on me. like who is mikhail? the voice we hear throughout is obviously misha's - did he have a twin? does mikhail have something to do with clockie? and from what we heard and saw, misha or... mikhail. encountered the embodiment of Death that lurks beneath the dreamscape. what's... the full story there...? i can't wait to see other people's perspectives it'll help me piece a more coherent theory together-

other hsr fans: *thirstposting about aventurine and/or dr. ratio, trying to cancel sparkle even though the entire point of her character is that yes she's a horrible person because it's high time we see how DANGEROUS and CRUEL the masked fools can be - no more reducing them to the silly wacky hijinks sampo pulled on jarilo; you should be scared of these guys; the game's story never wanted you to make sparkle your next skrunkly blorbo babygirl lol, heated discussions about whether dr. ratio displayed the same racism towards aventurine that sparkle did and if that makes aventurine/ratio a bad thing to ship (??????????), more thirstposts about aventurine, 500 billion generic yaois of aventurine and ratio that don't even maintain either of their characters*

me:

[turianslootbag]

The Prisoner, the Princess?

Chapter 8 of my butterflybog fic is up! I've been SO motivated by y'alls positive comments and feedback. Please keep it coming! It makes me so happy to know people are reading the work I spend hours writing! Also... I have Chapter 9 all edited and ready to post in another week or so c; I'm going to try to make some art for it, so it might take two weeks with finals coming up but we'll see!

Also, here's a link to my carrd account that has all my other pages you can stalk, Ko-fi to support me nd my writing and drawing or commission me, and Etsy shop so you can buy my cute lil stickers.

[vicontheinternet]

No offense to ppl who actually like fourth wing but it sound like a rough draft or bullet point for a book strung together. I don’t get why ppl were frothing at the mouth over this book

[beathyra]

Steb x Zaunite fem!OC

Pre-relationship headcanon/fanfic (slightly enemies-to-friends-to-lovers?)

A/N: My Zaunite OC's name is Alice, but she goes by her nickname Moth (that she has a tattoo of a moth on her chest, and as well as having a scar on her throat she got when she was in her mid-late teens). She's also one of Vi's childhood friends.

A/N²: Steb is selectively mute/non-verbal in this headcanon.

A/N³: Also, spoiler alert from Arcane S2. Had to rewatch some scenes and read Arcane wiki for accuracy from the show. And I might've added some creative liberties. And I'm not really familiar with the lore of League of Legends outside of Arcane.

A/N⁴: English is not my first language, so please excuse my terrible grammar. And I wrote this on my phone.

And consider this as a late New Year's gift for y'all.

Anyway, enjoy!☺️

🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊

First (Few) Meetings

First meeting (kinda) (s1 ep1):

Sten briefly caught Alice's eyes (and a slight glimpse on the bag which looked suspicious) while on his way to the memorial for the fallen Councillors alongside Maddie. Vi didn't notice she was there.

Meanwhile, Alice, being a freelance smuggler herself, was smuggling some Shimmer in her bag from someone in Piltover, who's probably a shimmer-addict, just to deliver to a Chem-Baron in Zaun. Alice never used Shimmer herself, but she needed the money just to get by.

Steb and Maddie stood guard during Mel's speech while Alice (hooded) was along the civilian crowd when the attack on the Councillors happened.

While Steb was evacuating the Councillors, Alice evacuated the civilian crowd to safety while being hooded, so the attackers wouldn't recognise her, hopefully.

After the attack, Alice quietly left for Zaun to finish her job. Meanwhile Steb couldn't find her, not being able to discover what she was carrying in her bag.

Second meeting (ep3):

Steb, of course, joined Caitlyn's strike team to hunt down Jinx. This would give him a chance to find the mysterious woman (Alice) if possible, who he discovered that she went by the name Moth, and to find out what she was carrying in the bag.

Steb, being caring for innocent people of both Piltover and Zaun, is not a fan of Caitlyn weaponizing the Gray to suffocate the people in the Undercity, even though he knew it's the only option in order to hunt down Jinx.

Meanwhile, Alice delivered the smuggled Shimmer to the Chem-Baron, but as soon as the Gray contaminated the Chem-Baron's secret base, he betrayed her (the deal was rigged for his own gain), wounding her and leaving her to die in the suffocating smog. But she wouldn't go down without a fight.

Just as Caitlyn's strike team got into the base, Alice, though wounded and weak, tried to fight against both the Chem-Baron and the strike team.

She managed to wound the Chem-Baron with a knife, only to be finished off by Caitlyn before he could say anything.

Vi, recognising her childhood friend by her scar, stopped Caitlyn and the rest of the strike team from shooting her old friend, and told Alice she didn't have to do this.

Steb stepped up to lower Caitlyn's rifle, having empathy for her, even though he discovered that she smuggled Shimmer.

Alice, even though she stopped fighting due to her wounds, was upset at Vi for joining the enforcers.

Later, even though Alice got arrested (which would put her into prison) for smuggling Shimmer, Steb tended to her wounds and checked her vitals.

She recognised Steb from earlier and, after everything that happened, her perception of him softened. She experienced kindness for the first time after a long while.

Third meeting (post ep3, months before ep5):

Steb came to check up on Alice right after Ambessa's speech (basically choosing Caitlyn to be a dictator of Piltover) (which Steb is silently not a fan of, but had to follow orders, even though there was something suspicious about Ambessa).

After what felt like hours (it's been minutes) of Alice over-explaining why she was doing all this (she needed the money just to get by, as well as admitting she never used Shimmer ever), and as well as opening up her backstory (she lost her uncle that raised her and nearly herself (that's how she got the scar on her throat) because of Silco, yet she had to indirectly work for him and one of his loyalists (the Chem-Baron she was betrayed by) just to get by), Steb didn't judge her. He sees her with empathy.

Alice apologised for over-sharing her story and she tends to do this when she's anxious and didn't want to be misunderstood, but Steb didn't mind and he was willing to listen to her story because he understood her without the need to over-explain. This gave Alice relief, even the comfort of being understood - something she never had before.

All Alice wanted is to help her people, not just survive on her own, even if that would mean helping Jinx (whom she remembers her as Powder) and the rebellion she would cause.

Steb, even though he was quiet listening to her story, revealed that he cared for everyone, whether they were from Zaun or Piltover or from anywhere else, and Alice was no exception. He wasn't like any other enforcer she'd encountered. His silent, simple kindness is enough for her to see him in a positive light. She felt safe when Sten was around.

Before Steb left to get back for duty, Alice revealed to him her real name. She only got her nickname Moth from her late uncle who used to call her "little moth" as a way of saying she'd always "find the light at the end of the tunnel" (because moths are attracted to light). Steb revealed his name.

Fourth meeting (months before ep5):

Less than a week after Alice's last conversation with Steb, she was unexpectedly released from prison.

As it turned out, it was Steb who convinced the warden to release her from prison.

Alice was surprised by Steb's kind gesture. And she felt it was unnecessary, but she was grateful for him anyway.

Steb offered Alice to return to Zaun to help in her own right, but she decided to stay with him, stating she could need some help from someone from Piltover in order to her own people.

Alice admitted that she had helped the civilian crowd to evacuate to safety from the attack on the Councillors at the memorial.

So, Steb and Alice would secretly work together (so that other enforcers or Noxian soldiers wouldn't notice) to help Alice's people in her own right. She would gain information from Steb when he's in Piltover discovering what Ambessa and Caitlyn were up to. Steb would go with her in Zaun to help her people in need. She would show Steb her old place where she'd spend her time day off from her freelance job.

🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊🐠🌊

OK, I know that was a lot 'cause I over-explain too. It's basically a massive OC lore dump. Anyway, I'll cook some more headcanons and fanfic (and maybe art).😁

[maingh0st]

my theory about why some readers didn't realize the ghost was hot until art was released is because he's blond—and at this point in fiction, that's practically shorthand for "not the love interest"