#Story-Heroisms

[clown-friend-gt]

Weighted Blanket

Edit: Changed the title of this post to make it fit in more with other bits of this story that I've posted

This is a story I've been working on for a while, but isn't substantial enough for me to want to post it yet. What I have right now is a half-finished lore doc and some scenes I've written with some of the main characters.

Both of the characters in this are students in a superhero training program. They're roommates in the co-ed housing that the program provides. Addie has the ability to fly, but has the tendency to lose control of her powers while she sleeps. Trevor's "ability" is that he is constantly growing, albeit at a slow rate.

This story takes place a ways into their time in the program, where they've already become friends. This is the beginning of what turns into a romantic relationship between the two.

************************************************************************

Addie woke up with her face pressing against the ceiling again. She groggily placed her hands on either side of her face and tried to push herself away, only to slowly drift back upwards. Before her face could become compressed again, she gained the awareness to stop flying. She let that familiar feeling of weightlessness leave her and fell the short distance back to her mattress with a sigh.

She’d been there more than a year and she was still waking up like this. Granted, it was happening less often as she got a better handle on her powers. Still, she would occasionally have nights like these where she’d start floating in her sleep and it wouldn’t stop until the morning. She could either take her chances with the fitful sleep she’d get like this or find something to occupy her time until the morning. Or…

She opened the door to the fence that surrounded her bunk. It was supposed to keep her from floating over the side of the bed, but with no ladder down, it almost looked like some kind of cage. Of course, she had no real need for a ladder anyway. She began to hover ever so slightly as she hung over the side of the bed to look at the bunk below hers.

Sprawled across the largest mattress she’d ever seen was her roommate, Trevor. At around 25 feet tall, he was even bigger than when they’d first met. It was hard to believe someone his size could still be growing. Then again, this place existed because of people like them, people who were beyond belief.

He looked so peaceful like this. His face, often creased with worry when he was awake, looked so relaxed now. She felt a little bad about waking him up. But she figured he was her only hope of getting a decent night’s sleep now.

“Hey. Trevor,” She whispered, with no response.

“Psst. Trevor. Trev. Trevor!” He scrunched his brow a little as she raised her volume slightly but stayed asleep.

“Trevor~” she sang out. He continued to stir.

“Trevor. C’mon, I need your help.” Eventually, as she continued to prod, he started to wake up.

“Huh? What is it,” he murmured, his eyes still closed.

“I need you to hold me,” she stated simply.

“What?” That woke him up. He opened his eyes to look at her critically as she cringed slightly at her own phrasing.

“I mean I need you to hold me down so I don’t fly off in my sleep.”

“Oh.” He sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Why?”

“I keep mushing my face against the ceiling and it wakes me up.” She pressed her hands against her cheeks to mime it for him. He chuckled at that.

Trevor took a sec to take in the sight before him. Somehow, Addie was hanging off of the side of her bed. As they talked, she began to dip lower and lower. It took him a little longer than he’d care to admit that she wasn’t clinging to the bed with her feet like a bat but hovering in place upside-down.

“How are you doing that without all of your blood rushing to your head? That can’t be comfortable.”

“Um,” she giggled, kicking her feet above her playfully. “It’s not.”

“Uh huh.” He laid back down and stretched his arms upwards, as if to grasp at her bed. “How were you expecting this to work? I don’t think I can sleep like this.”

Addie pushed herself away from the bunk beds. “Well,” she said, executing a few awkward mid-air acrobatics to try and right herself, “Obviously I have to get closer.”

“Closer?” He scootched over in his bunk, as if to make room. “I guess I could–”

“Not like that.” She made swimming motions to make her way over to him. It wasn’t strictly necessary, but she was having fun, damnit.

She positioned herself above him, flipped herself so she’d be on her back, and let herself drop, landing on his chest.

“O-oh.” Trevor said, feeling himself begin to blush. “I mean, if you’re comfortable like that?”

“Mm-hm,” she answered. “Now–hand.”

“What”

“Put your hand over me, like a blanket.”

“Okay.” He breathed out. Hesitantly, he placed his hand as gently as possible over her midsection.

“Yeah.” He felt her nod against him. “I think that’ll work.”

They sat like that for a bit. Trevor stared at the empty bunk above him, his free hand laying rigidly at his side. He had picked her up before, before he knew she could fly, but this was different. It felt almost…intimate. He hoped she wasn’t uncomfortable.

He wondered if his hand was too heavy. At least he couldn’t cover her whole body with his hand. He already felt out of place and unnatural around other people; that might freak him out a little too much. Still, this silence felt a little too awkward for him.

He cleared his throat. “So, is this better than being mushed against the ceiling?”

“Mm-hm,” she murmured sleepily.

“My hand isn’t crushing you, right?” He could feel her chuckling at that.

“No. It’s a comfortable weight, not a crushing weight.” She tilted her head up to try and look at him. She noticed him tense soon after she laid against his chest, but she didn’t know if he was uncomfortable, or nervous, or both.

“Is this okay for you?” She asked him.

“No it’s fine. It’s actually kind of nice.” He added that last part quietly, hoping she didn’t catch it. But with her laying up against him, she could both hear and feel everything he said, the vibration of his voice gently rumbling against her back. In the dark, Addie’s own face began to heat up.

Addie felt him slowly begin to relax after that. His chest raised and lowered slowly with his breathing. She felt like a small ship being rocked by the gentle waves of the ocean. His body was warm, but not uncomfortably so. Gently pinned between his hand and his chest, she fell asleep pretty quickly like that.

Meanwhile, Trevor was blown away by the surreal experience. There was an entire person lying on top of him, and yet here he was, cradling her like a stuffed animal. He could feel the tiny puffs of air as she breathed in and out. He smiled softly, his eyes beginning to drift closed again.

For the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel like a monster. He never could’ve imagined getting to hold another person like this before. She was so small to him, and yet she trusted him to be this gentle with her.

Addie was something else. From day one, she had trusted him to be this careful, even when he didn’t trust himself. She helped him realize that his strength was not just a burden. How could he ever thank her enough for that?

He was startled out of his thoughts when he felt the weight on his chest begin to lift. He looked down, but Addie laid in place. This must be what it felt like when she began to float in her sleep. Shyly, he laid his other hand across her, to keep her secure. Then, he let his eyes shut fully and drifted off into a comfortable sleep.

************************************************************************

Let me know what you think! I have a couple more scenes from this story written out if people want to see those as well.

[headlesssamurai]

//hacksaw_ridge/ //dir_mel_gibson/2016/

[thisisallthehattersfault]

Characters haunting their own narrative. A protagonist we don’t actually meet until four or five episodes in but who we hear of from damn near every mouth in the series. Their allies look out at the horizon and grit their teeth at their own troubles and reassure themselves like a prayer that they are coming, they’re coming, they’ll be here soon just hold out a little longer—

Their enemies look out at the destruction they have wrought and hold meetings to discuss the loss of men and territory and resources to this one person

People gather in bars and taverns and town halls and fountains to discuss the stranger who saved their lives or destroyed their businesses or liberated their people

We finally meet them when they arrive to help their friends, and the plot proper kicks off with everyone all together, we get to meet them and learn of them and see their personality, and eventually maybe we forget that they were introduced not as a person at all but as a ghost, a myth, a formless thing lurking around the edges of everything

(Sometimes they look so lost, fingers pressing to their pulse like they need the reminder their heart is beating. They confess to their closest friend that sometimes I’m not sure I’m real and their friend says sometimes I’m not sure either)

And in the end that character vanishes again, maybe dead or maybe something else, but they end the series the way they began: spoken of with a mix of love and terror, the ripples of their existence felt everywhere but they themselves nowhere to be seen, their ideals carried onward without them

Once someone they saved told them “you’re a hero! We’ll remember this forever!” And they smiled a small, sad, exhausted little smile and said it would be kinder to forget me.

[alvindraperzzz]

Artemis: “There is a custom in my tribe…you must redeem yourself by fighting the one who bested you! You must vanquish Devastation, to reclaim your honor!” Cassie: “Give me the chance, and I’ll reclaim it! And I’ll pound that smirk right off her face!”

Wonder Woman (1987) #157

Further evidence that Cassie’s training being handed off to Artemis is the (in universe) reason for Cassie’s weird disconnect from Diana’s mission and Amazon culture on the whole.

[whereserpentswalk]

How many times did you die chosen one? How many people have you saved who saw you torn apart by the monsters your body was built to vanquish? When you wake up on that table, new parts being sown onto you where your old parts were torn off, a new soul put into your body when your old soul has been torn to ash, do you remember? They make sure all your memories are safe, there's no reason why you shouldn't? Do you remember what it's like to die? What it's like to feel your body be torn apart? To see strength that has crushed demons become nothing? To see your beautiful body, a body statues were built of, defiled, played with by things human eyes should never see? Do you remember being put back together?

When this quest is over and you request your final form, will you request something that's stronger, something that dies less? Or will you be weaker? Do you want to need protecting when this is over? Do you want to be able to fight at all?

[marimeeko]

If there is just one main romantic thread in BNHA, I put forth that it is in fact, Katsuki Bakugou falling in love with Izuku Midoriya.

[windblume-violet]

Do... do I go with the username for the running gag of "worst kept secret" or do I say fuck it and say magister Merlin for giggles to see his reaction

[lemongrass77777-moved]

I will never be over the fact that Lily Potter was the one who defeated Voldemort in 1981 and she was never given proper credit for it in canon. We barely even know anything about her and she was the one who defeated the snake faced bitch the first time around. It drives me insane. Lily deserved so much better than what the books ever gave her.

[2dami2furious]

I get that people dislike the fandom characterization of miles g as some aggressive thug (I despise it) but sometimes I think people over-correct by saying that they are the EXACT same person. I’m sorry but no, not only does that not back up what kemp powers said about miles g being a bit “rougher around the edges” than our miles, It’s also really boring from a narrative standpoint.

What’s the point of creating the a version of your MC that came from radically different circumstances if nothing about them changes? It’s a nature vs nurture thing. Miles g is supposed to make you and Miles ask if his role as Spider-Man was destined, or if it was just some fluke that stopped him from turning out like his uncle.

[troythecatfish]

[gofancyninjaworld]

just peopling

I don't think Murata knows what he does for me when he draws characters showing their more unguarded, vulnerable moments. And I don't mean when they're undergoing a profound emotional experience. Just the mundane, everyday activities.

It's not easy to depict mundanity in a story: real estate is precious, and Everything Has To Mean Something. So Murata finding space both within and around the chapters to ground the characters as people despite their abilities is precious.

Something that comes to mind is Scott McCloud's comment in his excellent book 'Understanding Comics', where he notes that depicting a superhero going to the bathroom is funny as we don't see these characters as human and it breaks our immersion. In One-Punch Man, the characters may be incredible and in a fantastic setting, but ONE and Murata have pulled off their also being so human there's nothing remarkable about them eating, sleeping, going to the bathroom, or having a recycling schedule on the wall. It's not easy to do.

ONE does get mileage out of making superhumans doing ordinary things hilarious, but he does it by making the context funny. Sure, Sonic on the shitter is funny, but it's not funny because he's an impossible ninja having a shit as if he were human. We accept his humanity. It's why he's crapping his guts out that's hilarious: there's both the schadenfreude of seeing him hoisted by his own petard and the relief that because he's screwed up, he will stay human. Sure, Genos using his arm cannon to dry the dishes is funny, but not because he's a combat cyborg that probably costs the same as a fighter jet. He and Saitama ate. Of course the dishes need doing. It's that he's abusing a million-dollar piece of equipment to do something ordinary that's hilarious -- like an engineer abusing a high-powered laser to heat coffee [1].

Often, the context isn't funny for the sake of being funny. Genos cleaning the house? Not funny. Genos ignoring the sounds of battle outside because he can't bring himself to leave the house until he's cleaned up all traces of the previous night's party? Hilarious. However, it's not just funny: it's the setup for us seeing later the pots and bowls set out as the apartment is destroyed, all ready to start dinner as soon as Saitama comes back. He's prepared for a meal that neither will ever eat. We carry out our routines as if life will never change, even though we're aware it can be cut short at any time and in ways we cannot anticipate, and no amount of power or privilege changes that. In the meantime, we live.

Why do they go so far as to humanize the characters? Other than it being nice to see, it also allows the story to land points that otherwise couldn't work. Points such as everything takes time, effort, and attention and no one can do everything, but must needs choose, and these choices have consequences. That we need others to be human. That even the best relationships take work. That fulfilling yourself as a human being is a work in progress. That the idea of there being a 'thing' or 'state' that will make one happy is nonsense. That we can go too far. That we don't deserve second chances, but no one's counting.

Being human is complicated and frustrating and boring but oh so worth it. That's a big point that ONE wants to get across. And he can't do that if the very idea of a character needing the bathroom is hilarious.

[1] Obligatory health warning: do not fuck with lasers. A laser capable of warming your coffee in a useful time is both invisible and more likely to set you on fire than give you a warm beverage.

[clown-friend-gt]

Exploration

(1.5k words)

I'm breaking my posting schedule to post this, because I wrote it today and I'm excited to share it. I told myself I wouldn't be posting any more bits of this story out of order, but we haven't had anything with just Trevor and Addie for a while, so I figured, why not.

This takes place in what will be the second book, where Trevor and Addie are navigating their individual careers as superheroes. This one takes place about a year before "Nightmares," where Trevor is 20 and Addie is 19.

************************************************************************

Addie awoke before Trevor one Sunday morning, her first day off in a while. Pinned gently between his hand and his bare chest, she was practically stuck until he woke up. It was a cozy place to be trapped, nice and warm from his body heat. She snuggled into his chest and rode the waves of his breathing.

She laid there for several minutes, but she wasn’t falling back to sleep any time soon. She was starting to get bored just laying there, so she made up her mind to free herself. Before she did, though, she rolled over to face his thumb, which lay against her. She planted a quick kiss on the pad of his thumb.

Then she began to try and wiggle herself out from beneath his hand. With no small amount of struggling, she was able to get her top half free, but her legs were still pinned down. She sat up and began to try and lift his hand. Eventually, straining with the effort, she was able to lift the edge of his hand enough to pull her legs from underneath.

She took a moment to catch her breath. Then she noticed him patting around the spot where she’d been a second ago, as if trying to locate her. She scooched away from his hand, in case he found her and grabbed her again. Trevor was always respectful of her boundaries while he was awake, but she’d noticed that in his sleep he could be a little careless.

When he couldn’t find her again, his hand stopped its mindless searching and curled into a loose fist. She reached over and gave it a little pat.

“Don’t worry, I’ll come back in a minute,” she said, though she could tell from his relaxed breathing that he was still asleep.

She got to her feet as best as she could, though the ground beneath her was squishy and shifted with each step. After a few wobbly steps, she lost her balance and fell face-first onto his pec. She peeled herself off the slightly sticky surface of his skin and propped herself up. Judging by the look on his face, he remained undisturbed.

She gave up on walking for the time being and switched to a crawl to get around. Her current goal was to make it to his other hand, which rested palm up next to his head. She crawled over to his shoulder and got back to her feet to walk across his bicep. It was a little firmer beneath her but was still a bit tricky to walk on.

Balancing on his forearm like a balance beam, she soon made her way to his palm. She’d been held in this palm many times, but she hardly ever took the time to examine it closely. She bent over to do so now.

Every tiny little detail, every line, every crease was magnified on the hand which was bigger now than she was. She traced her fingers over them in awe. She was no palm reader, but she wondered what she would be able to see in the lines of his palm if she was.

She focused on the long line beneath the last three fingers of his hand. It was deep and bold towards the beginning, but then became jagged and faded towards the middle. It deepened again towards the end but was split into two different branches. Addie was intensely curious about what that could mean. Maybe she’d have to get a book on the subject.

Trevor’s fingers began to twitch in response to her touch. She took that as her sign to move on before she roused him from his sleep by accident. She slid off the side of his palm closest to his head.

His head was turned to face her. Despite her roaming, his eyes were still shut, and his breathing was slow. The warm air he breathed out rushed past her. She felt her face flush slightly in response.

She knelt down by his lips, running her hand over them to feel the plush surface for herself. They were dry and chapped. She leaned in close to plant a kiss upon them. His lips parted slightly, the only warning she got before his tongue poked out to wet his dry lips. She leaned away in time to avoid him accidentally licking her face, but the hand she still had planted on his lips was not so lucky.

“Gross, babe,” she muttered, pulling her hand back and wiping it on the leg of her pants in mock disgust.

Then she walked away from his lips to plant a kiss on his forehead instead.

As Trevor slowly came to, the first thing he noticed was that the little weight on his chest was missing. Without opening his eyes, he began feeling around for Addie, but she was nowhere to be found. He huffed slightly in disappointment.

Then he felt a gentle touch on his eyelid. He opened his eyes carefully and spotted Addie leaning away from his left eye, where she’d just planted a soft kiss. She smiled softly as his eyes came into focus on her. He grinned sleepily in response.

“There you are,” he rumbled.

He lifted the hand behind her and pulled her close, pressing his lips to her stomach. She squirmed slightly at the sensation, but didn’t pull away.

“Good morning to you too,” she giggled, patting the bridge of his nose. He pulled back to give her some space.

“I’m just happy you’re still here,” he said, his eyes crossing to stare at her. “Don’t you have to go on patrol soon?”

She shook her head. “Nope! I’m off-duty today.”

His lips curled into an impish smile. “Good,” he said, then closed his eyes and pulled her back to his lips.

He kissed her over and over again on the stomach, knowing she was extra ticklish there. He kept pecking her playfully until she was laughing and begging him to stop. Finally, he relinquished his grip enough to let her escape, and she darted away.

She took a moment to wipe the tears of laughter from her eyes and catch her breath. He laid his hand where it had been before, and she took a seat on its edge.

“So, what have you been up to this whole time?” he asked her.

She gave him a mischievous look in return, and for a second, he waited for her to try and get her revenge for his earlier attack of affection.

“Oh, you know,” she said with mock casualty. “Exploring.”

He frowned slightly, a little confused. Exploring, as in the warehouse around them? There wasn’t much to see, as far as he was concerned. Just some chairs propped up in one corner, and his shirt and his jacket lying in a pile in another.

“Well then,” he said, propping his free arm underneath his head and shutting his eyes again to get a bit more sleep. “Don’t let me stop you.”

He felt her slide out of his hand and walk away. He moved his other arm to his side and rolled his head to face the ceiling in an attempt to get more comfortable. Then he felt something clambering over his arm.

He tilted his head up slightly to see Addie crawl across his arm, slide down the other side, and start to climb up his torso. He rolled his eyes and chuckled, watching with amusement as she flailed her feet and pulled herself upwards. He moved his hand beneath her just in case.

“So that’s what you meant by ‘exploring,’” he laughed.

His laughter shook Addie from where she’d been clinging, and she fell down into his waiting hand. She shot him a look of irritation, but it quickly shifted back to playfulness. He lifted her up and deposited her on his chest, which is where he assumed she’d been heading.

He laid his head back down and waited for her to lay back down herself. But she got back to her feet and began walking down his chest, apparently not finished in her exploration. Her bare feet tickled his skin where she walked, but he did his best to keep still for her sake.

That was until she reached his stomach. Then he couldn’t resist messing with her a little. He pushed his stomach out slightly, just enough to cause her to trip. She fell onto her hands and knees, and he snickered to himself.

He expected some kind of retaliation, but it never came. Instead she kept pressing her hands into his belly, like a cat kneading contentedly with its claws.

“So soft…” he heard her whisper. His face heated up slightly.

He flexed his abs in response. “Is not,” he pretended to whine.

She laughed and swatted him on the stomach. “That’s cheating.”

He relaxed his stomach again and laughed along with her. His laughter shook her in place, and if she wasn’t already on her hands and knees, she might have fallen again.

Then their laughter was interrupted by a loud growl. Trevor’s face flushed fully as his stomach rumbled hungrily.

“Alright, that’s enough,” he said, snatching her up from his stomach. Addie only laughed harder. Eventually, he couldn’t help but join in again soon after.

[firstofficerrose]

I think that Frodo Baggins and Tiffany Aching are... hmmm. Well, I can't say foils, they aren't in the same story, but maybe reflections of each other. When told about the kinds of problems posed by Jenny Greenteeth, Tiffany says, "What can I do?" When Frodo understands about the need to destroy the ring, without know what that will entail, he says, "I will go, although I do not know the way."

They both do this very interesting thing where they Choose. There isn't really a call to adventure, there's a task that needs doing and they look at it and say okay, here I go. And in doing so, they start to save their respective worlds, intentionally and on purpose. I love it.

[pikahlua]

Sigh.

I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna say it again.

1. I warn you against taking the story beats in MHA at face value. Just because something looks one way doesn’t mean Horikoshi won’t make it go a different direction later. He only puts like one or two major story beats per chapter. Don’t be fooled by them.

2. Just because Hawks lost his quirk doesn’t mean he’s done. If you think this, you’re guilty of the exact thing the moral of MHA warns you against: equating a person’s worth to their quirk. Why’re some of y’all agreeing with AFO on this? We literally got a flashback to chapter 1 where this perspective was explicitly debunked!

3. Heroes are heroes BECAUSE they make sacrifices for others. I guarantee that by the end of this, many characters will suffer permanent consequences not as a result of being heroes but because definitionally making these sacrifices is what makes them heroes in the first place. And yet I predict a significant, noisy portion of this “fandom” is gonna cry about how someone losing their quirk or becoming disabled or dying ruins everything because some of these characters can no longer be “pro heroes”--as if the story hasn’t been telling us all along that “pro heroes” aren’t necessarily real heroes. Anybody can be a hero, regardless of their quirk. That isn’t referring to PRO heroes but TRUE heroes. Some of y’all need to listen to Stain more closely.

[rinbylin]

galaxy-brained mlc take of the day: mlc is wuxia, yes and maybeee not exactly? it very much is a wuxia aesthetically, but it's actually - conceptually - xianxia story in the core. (this is different from suggesting that it is a xianxia show.) however xianxia can (or should) be considered a subgenre of wuxia, not its own separate distinct genre despite the idea of 仙 xian being fundamentally at odds with the idea of 侠 xia, because they both stem from the same belief. (as seen in mlc, it works with the conventions of traditional wuxia aka li xiangyi the sigu sect leader, to get to the real bits of xianxia concept aka li lianhua's story.) so, mlc is wuxia through and through, inside out. send tweet 🫡👍

-

ok wait I can explain

so, this must be premised on the understanding that any discussion of "仙 xian/deities" in this context is only as its abstract idea of living a life distanced, detached from worldly, human woes instead of the possibility of immortality existing in mlcverse. (if you think about the deities in xianxia stories being basically human beings who have cultivated themselves into immortality.)

this is the explanation of xianxia as a wuxia subgenre (古仙武侠) in the baidu article of wuxia genre:

武侠中的侠，是脱胎于墨家“以天下为己任”的使命感；而仙侠的侠，通常是传达着“能力越大，责任也就越大”的朴素精神。侠乃入世，仙为出世，道教阴阳的无情大道（无情指寻求自我的不断体悟，以达精神的成仙，非没有感情之意）与武侠江湖的有情众生，即是矛盾也是循环，象征着太极之道，这也就是为何古仙武侠也属于正统仙侠流派的原因。

rough tl:

the xia of wuxia is born from the mohist ideal of bearing a sense of responsibility for the world

while the xia in xianxia focuses on the idea of "with great power comes great responsibility"

the idea of 侠 xia is secular. the idea of 仙 xian is beyond the secular - it is to pursue a life of suppressing/taming your own emotions (it does not mean to be completely removed of the ability to feel. it's a pursuit of self-realisation that makes one attain the status of a "deity" spiritually.) 仙 xian is then inherently at odds with wuxia jianghu's deep empathy and connection with the secular world, but it's also connected back to it. this is why 古仙武侠 is considered to be a part of the wuxia genre.

the relationship between xian and xia is conflicting because the former is all about distancing yourself from worldly issues while the latter necessitates an active effort to do something about them.

but it also means that both wuxia and xianxia acknowledge this weight of human emotions and connection to the world. it's just their respective responses and the outcomes they want that they differ in. what is the ideal person? wuxia says it's to be someone who can propagate and execute the ideal of doing something about this weight of your connection to the world, while xianxia says it's to learn to be at peace with that connection, and it's ok to not do anything about it actually - which might even be harder than trying to do something. (and focusing on your own cultivation can be a good thing for the world, in fact.)

with this, I hope it sounds less absurd that I'm connecting mlc's story to the concept of xianxia. lxy's life was a traditional wuxia archetype. (I've already harped on enough about how he fits into the quintessential mohist model of a xia leader.) what happens after, aka his journey as li lianhua, is the real story of mlc. it's a breakdown of that quintessential wuxia hero. it is a story in which the main conflict faced by the protagonist is to struggle with all the worldly woes including his own past and the cases' victims, in defense of the serenity he has found in the past 9 years. it is a natural battle to fight for someone such as llh because as long as you're still human, you will face the implications of human connections and the innate feeling of compassion and urge to do something about it (part of this, I guess, manifests physically in bicha breaking him down and the resistance to cure).

and relating that to an excerpt from an article discussing xianxia in relation to wuxia:

武侠剧的精神内核也是仙侠剧的精神内核，而“仙”实际上是实现新形式的“侠”的手段，由此扩展了“侠”的深度和其实施的时空范围。武侠之中的侠义精神，可以强调其自在，更强调其是自为的，前者是需要逐渐成长和觉醒的。然而对于高于人的仙而言，作为上位者的“侠”之精神，则应该是内在自觉且自为的。

rough tl:

the spirit of wuxia dramas should also be the spirit of xianxia dramas. xian should in fact be another way to bring out and explore the idea of xia.

the spirit of xia in wuxia can be an emphasis on the spirit of freedom, and even more so, the idea of agency and autonomy. the former is gained through growth and awareness. but for xian aka people who occupy a realm above the people on the ground, the xia spirit they embody should manifest in their inner awakening and agency.

it goes without saying that nobody is a deity in this show, and never will be. only in ep 40.5 it came so close to possessing that otherworldly, surreal edge, but that's all to it. deities do not exist in the mlcverse.

but but. it's interesting to point out in the ep 3 flashback when lxy walked through town in the aftermath of the sigu sect vs jym battle, commoners were heard describing it as 神仙打架 百姓遭殃 when immortals fight, commoners suffer. of course they didn't mean it literally but figuratively, that those people of wulin jianghu are high above, detached from the people on the ground. which is. contradictory to the idea of 侠 xia to begin with. so... it could even be interpreted that li lianhua living the spiritually "immortal" life embodied the xia spirit even more deeply than he did as li xiangyi the sigu sect leader, the "immortal" in the eyes of the commoners. actual immortals do not have any real attachment to the people, but a cultivated "immortal" does and is destined to feel and learn to deal with it over and over like llh did. it all comes back in a circle indeed.

[enjoythescientificmind]