#and my family would just criticize me constantly for being rude | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

carmillas-vampiric-rage · 1 year ago

Text

Random Bi-Han Headcanons MK1

this man has consumed my thoughts omfg i tried to fight it why am i always shocked when this happens

anyway, here's like a random selection of headcanons i have about this little bitch

warnings: none. my tomfoolery. bi-han being a gay loser.

bi-han x black biracial reader (gn)

he nearly cried when kung lao sliced him with that round blade (he did). boy was legit so upset and surprised he managed to get that blow in despite him being GRANDMASTER and kung lao being INCOMPETENT. picture that scrunch face you make when you trying not to cry and you keep blinking and your eyes burning- that's what he did (canon event)

he is the definition of Mean and Angry Bisexual™. boy is what i like to call a homophobic homosexual. he notices a hot dude or nonbinary person and immediately looks away and says via voice over "no. that is gay."

saw this on another random bi-han headcanon post and i absolutely agree: bi-han loves women of color. i think he primarily dates woc too hehe. let's say hypothetically he hates white people because of tomas. i didn't say that you did. we love tomas in this house btw. and like that same headcanon post; he has a preference for black and black biracial folks. i do not take criticism hehe. this is canon and a fact (he's dating me after all)

absolutely loves when you wear your hair naturally, in any style, he loves when you embrace your culture and family history. he'd never mention or talk about your hair to you, as it seems rude and disrespectful to him, but he thinks it. and he also thinks whenever you wear your hair in a full afro, he's never seen anyone so beautiful. each and every time it astounds him that he's still awestruck.

big cuddler. idc what anyone says, he loves to cuddle. he's literally the most clingy lil guy. after finally finding his person and being able to be vulnerable for the first time since his mother died, he just melts, and becomes inseparable from you. after a hard day, or when he's enraged (a rare occurrence), nothing calms his mind down or relaxes his tense muscles like wrapping an arm around you and pulling you flush to him, your back to him as you sleep soundly. he listens to your soft breathing (or snoring lets be real) and tries to calm himself from the day's frustrations. if you awaken from his entrance, and unsurprising cuddles, you'll touch his hand and squeeze, snuggling closer to him -as if he's not already melted into your skin- and smile as he kisses your jawline and the back of your neck. most of the time, you'll turn over to him, his arm not removing from your waist, and grab his face, kissing his face and lips. the two of you will remain as close, foreheads resting against the other, sometimes talking, sometimes enjoying the sweet silence until you both fall asleep.

like so many others have stated; he was way closer with his mother than his father. when he was a child, being around her was the only time he could actually put his guard down, and be vulnerable. she would protect him. spending time with his mother, were some of the few times he would laugh or smile, as she told him funny stories from her childhood, or tickle him to get a confession out of him, if he'd been the one to steal the last cookie. she was his everything. his closest person. his best friend besides his brothers. and her death broke him. he closed off even more than he already did, vowing never to let anyone besides his mother see his unguarded side. but if he was being honest -and not constantly pushing the thought from his mind- he broke down the night she died, sobbing uncontrollably alone in his room as he clung to the soft baby blue sweater she always wore.

I don't care what anyone says, I don't care what we see in the game or if official heights come out... bi-han is s h o r t. my headcanon is 5'9. that may seem short for him but he just radiates 5'9 energy i do not take criticism. my man is stout so it only makes sense that he a short king.

bi-han used to be inseparable from his brothers when they were kids, their father taking in tomas at such a young age, bi-han always remembers him being there. there isn't a single memory from his childhood that both his brothers aren't in. he'd never tell either kuai liang or tomas, but he cherishes those memories of when they were kids, when they'd play outside every single day, look for creepy and interesting bugs, practice combat, aka, someone ended up with a black eye and sobbing. whenever those memories pop into his head, his permanent frown softens a bit, though he tries not to let anything show on his face. part of him does wish he could be close to them like they were as kids, but he's too stubborn and full of himself to actually try and repair the relationship he's mostly stilted over the years.

~~~~~~~

just a few super random headcanons of my babygirl. may come back to some of these or write another part if i think of more. feel free to add onto these i crave bi-han headcanons!!!!!!!

68 notes · View notes

nartml · 1 year ago

Note

Your misogyny is showing. Get your shit together

(First and last time I'll ever bother with such a rude ask, but I'll use this oh so sugary sweet statement to get some things out the way )

CW: Rant ahead, not Sakura or Hinata friendly, if you disagree and won't be nice about sharing your opinions fucking DNI, this isn't for you.

My misogyny 💀

Because I don't like Sakura and Hinata, I assume? Why is it always misogyny's fault with y'all?

Respectfully, I don't really care about Sakura and Hinata. I'm mostly indifferent to them, but they're fun to criticize, considering there's so many flaws to talk about.

Maybe I was harsh with my words when respectively bashing them, but what I said still objectively stands. Sometimes, not liking a female character has less to do with misogyny and more to do with the fact that they're really, really not that good.

But alas, I sincerely apologize for my just so disgustingly misogynistic words (in case you don't get it, I'm being 100% sarcastic)

In a bit less harsh, more analytical manner, allow me to rephrase:

Sakura is someone who doesn't fit in the Shinobi world. She's too delusional about her romantic fantasies regarding Sasuke to be able to properly advance in such a harsh environment. And Hinata, with or without her infatuation with Naruto, is an incapable kunoichi. She's far too timid and hesitant to be a warrior.

Now, those are not necessarily bad things. Not having what it takes to be a Shinobi can easily be considered positive; be it because you're a hopeless romantic and that hinders your ability to maximize your potential or because you just don't have the spine or endurance necessary to be a badass ninja. Those aren't reasons to violently hate on someone. Specifically about Sakura and Hinata, those aren't even the reasons why so many people dislike them.

Or at least I hope not. I'd understand the point of your ask better if I had said anything derogatory about their appearance, for example. Those types of haters are annoying, and I manage to turn into both Sakura and Hinata's biggest defenders the moment someone says shit that degrades Sakura for her chest or some other bs, and/or fetishizes Hinata in any way. Rest assured, I'm anything but misogynistic.

But oh shit, it's time we realized that Sakura's "feelings" for Sasuke were simply a shallow school girl crush. And that would've been okay, understandable, maybe even a little cute, if it weren't for the way she constantly pushed herself onto him, consistently referred to him as hers in her head, saw him as a trophy, a blank canvas to project her fantasies onto. She was disrespectful, and her confessions were sickening.

Because how dare you compare your loneliness to that of a genocide survivor? How could you make your supposed love's pain all about you? How could you be so ready to abandon your friends, family, life, and future just to follow him to someone who you know would cause him harm, when you so clearly don't even know or understand him? How could you try to minimize everything he went through, try to diminish all he's suffered in the name of "laughing and having fun like the good old times"? "What about me, Sasuke? I'll be in so much pain if you leave. Please, if there's even a small part of you that cares about me, stay". "I can't get close to you, I can't exchange blows with you, I can only whine and beg, it's pretty pathetic. There's nothing I can do for you".

These are all things she's said and/or done paraphrased. There's so much more I don't care to recall. And they're all very annoying.

Her sole motivation was Sasuke; he's the reason she talks about how she'll get stronger to catch up to him and Naruto, about how she wants to "save" him, or "protect" him, about how she wants to be able to "fight for herself next time".

But she never managed to really do any of it, because it was all so surface level. Her aspirations for life began and ended with Sasuke, a guy she ultimately doesn't know a single thing about. That's objectively pathetic.

I don't like her because of the way she treats Sasuke, because of the way she views him, because of the way she's so pretentious about her "undying love" for him.

I don't like anti-sasusakus who come at it from a "Sakura deserves better" perspective, because she got exactly what she asked for; now she even gets to parade around wearing that Uchiha crest like the trophy it is to her, while having done nothing to earn it!!!

But.

Honestly? They're not exactly wrong. Maybe she doesn't deserve better. But her character would, at least if Kishimoto even wanted to write that story.

What do I mean by that? I mean that Sakura, as a main character, does not benefit from her feelings for Sasuke. It's not that Sasuke isn't good for her, it's that her "feelings" for him aren't.

I'll use Naruto as a comparison. His feelings for Sasuke [No, I don't care how you interpret their relationship. If you want, they can be platonic feelings or familial feelings (you'd be wrong but who am I to judge), or romantic feelings] actually serve as his basis for self improvement.

Usually, in media, love is something that drives characters to be better.

Naruto's love for Sasuke is his greatest strength.

Naruto kept getting stronger, with Sasuke as his motivator. Naruto kept trying to understand him, to see things from his perspective, never held any sort of idealistic "Sasuke would never do that" train of thought.

Naruto got to better understand the injustice of the system through Sasuke and his love for him. Naruto initially fought to bring him back to Konoha, not because he wanted to play house with him, or because he wanted Sasuke to cater to Konoha's every whim, but because in Naruto's mind, Konoha is home and it's safe, away from Orochimaru's dirty hands.

But then once he finally understood Sasuke better, once they fought and he carried Sasuke's burdensome hatred with him, he let him go. He let him travel, leave Konoha, without ever asking for him to stay, because he gets it (Unlike Sakura, who still didn't get it, and did the exact opposite)

In Sakura's case, however, her "feelings" for Sasuke hold her back. Though that's a bit of conundrum, seeing as any sort of achievements she's made are directly linked back to her crush. Like I said before, he's her motive. No, it's specifically the shallowness of her love, the half-heartedness in her convictions to improve that holds her back. Her "feelings" aren't as genuine as she –or any of you– likes to think they are, and that keeps her from growing, from seeing clearly (i.e: in the long run, they hold her back)

They're proof of her superficiality. She's too caught up in romanticizing the absolute shit out of Sasuke, too caught up in using him to live out her fairytale dreams, too caught up in asking others to bring him back to her, or whatever. She's too caught up in whether Sasuke looks at her or worries about her to fight properly. And I mean "fight" both literally and metaphorically here.

So yeah, her "feelings" for him aren't good for her. It would've been a much better character arc, in my opinion, something that could be actually empowering that would give her depth, if she had ended up with Lee instead.

Because Lee is the exact opposite of Sasuke, in the sense that he's ugly in Sakura's eyes (I'll state here that I don't think Lee is ugly, bushy brows and all, he's very pretty to me), and so to end up with him, well. That would require Sakura to see past physical appearance.

Sakura tends to be very judgemental of other people's looks, and the way she treats them is often correlated to how beautiful she finds them.

But falling for Lee would've been a great way for her to move past the cover and read the book. Something which could then translate to her being less insensitive and judgy from then on.

[Sakura fans love to point out that she might say rude stuff, but then she regrets it, so it's okay! To that I say, it hardly matters that you regret something you say and promise that you'll be better, if you're just going to repeat the process the next day]

That said, she didn't even have to end up with anyone. She could've remained single, after realizing how wrong she was about Sasuke. She could've stopped pining after him, and gotten herself a goal that is bigger than just ending up with him.

But that's not who she is. That's actually, an entirely different character. That's not how Kishimoto wrote her, and criticizing him because of that is stupid. He knew what and why he was doing it, and the narrative some of you adopt, the one that goes "no, I'm better than so-and-so, this character should've been that way instead", is exhausting.

Sakura fans never represent her how she canonically is. Truly, 100%, the way she's depicted in the show. They nitpick which parts of her they like, and ignore the rest. You guys love the version of her that isn't shallow, that understands Sasuke, that is assertive, that is 3-dimensional; a person whose hard work actually comes to mean something, who is much more genuine about her love for Sasuke, who is by all means an independent badass. The Sakura who is selfless and understanding and a go-getter badass. And that's okay, I guess. But at least admit it.

It's always an outsider commenting on how "she's better than Tsunade" because they saw her punch one time, or "her feelings for you have matured" (something cancelled out entirely by Sakura later). It's always "I've caught up to them" after something that amounts to nothing significant. We're told she's great. We've yet to see it for ourselves, outside of those five? Six maybe? Eight is my being generous. Truly iconic scenes that she has in the entirety of the manga.

I stand by my closing line on her post.

She's foolish, and too caught up in her own romantic, fantasy world to substantially thrive in a reality as cold-blooded as the one she was born in.

And that's all she'll ever be.

As for my girl Hinata. I absolutely stand by everything I said on that post. Not taking a single word back. Maybe Sakura has a few redeeming qualities; like I said, you could explore her character outside of her crush on Sasuke and make a true badass out of her. (While still acknowledging the fact that that's not who Kishimoto wrote her to be)

But Hinata? There's no character to explore. Period. She's nice. Sweet. Kind, maybe? Sweet. Did I mention nice? I should probably not forget to say that she's sweet. Let's not omit that she's privileged and doesn't care one bit that her family is a-okay with slavery!! OH, and she can cook well. She also has those big boobs. And all her symbolism with Naruto was ripped off sns, coincidentally.

She's very passively likable, and the definition of forgettable. Like it or not.

____________________________________________

As for me, I should make it clear here and now that I am no misogynist. I like to think of myself as a very passionate intersectional feminist, who gives credit where it's due.

These two ladies? They don't deserve the aforementioned credit.

Have a great day 💞

#anti sakura fandom #anti ss #anti the last #sns #anti hinata #anti sakura haruno #anti sasusaku #anti naruhina #anti nh #naruto ramblings #my stuff #y'all need to get yourselves some of those shiny critical thinking skills #they're very useful #respectfully fuck off 💕💕#long post #pro sasuke #pro sasuke uchiha #anon #my anti ss agenda

132 notes · View notes

seaheaded · 5 months ago

Text

over and over and over again

jacaerys x fem reader

part 1 | part 2 soon!

modern au

synopsis: small moments that drive jacaerys to insanity and confusion because his feelings for his best friend are slowly turning into something less platonic ever day.

3K words

warning for both parts: cursing, typical friends to lovers pining but it's a soft story, the targaryens don't hate or want to kill each other in this they're just a big family

note: this is my first fanfic. english is not my first language, so if you have corrections or constructive criticism it's all good but don't be rude. i hope you enjoy it!

December 15, 2022.

“Oh, look at you!”

Jacaerys lowered the forearm that covered his face to watch her enter his bedroom, squinting. Even with the only illumination in the room being the grey light of the cold afternoon, he felt like it was too bright.

The smirk on her face, stretching to a big grin, provoked him to roll his eyes involuntarily as she removed her scarf and sat beside him on the bed.

“I was astonished when I heard your voice on the phone,” She said with sarcasm dripping from her words.

“Well, don't sound too worried,” He bit back, swallowing the pain that was to even utter the phrase, and covered his eyes again.

Jacaerys never got sick. His father used to say that all the ability to be ill was passed to Lucerys because the weather changes frequently got the worst of him. That was, of course, until the world decided to give him a break this year and toss all that pain on Jacaerys’ face.

Hence the boy at the threshold of his door, with his arms crossed and a familiar mischievous expression on his face.

“Joffrey said he sounds like that little rat from Zootopia now,” Lucerys said, and it made his best friend laugh out loud. “But I think he sounds like a—.”

“Get out!” Jacaerys yelled (tried) and weakly threw a pillow at him.

The item dropped at the feet of the younger brother, who chuckled with a shrug.

The last thing he needed right now was Lucerys' antics. Especially with her here. Jacaerys didn't want to sound like a possessive best friend, but since the family has gotten used to her presence, it was harder to spend time alone without an interruption. Everyone needed to say hi, his baby brothers needed to hug her and so on.

Noticing his mood, she got up from her seat and lifted her hands.

“Okay, okay. No fights. You're too sick for that,” She walked to the door. “I’ll see you later, okay, Luke?”

Lucerys, ever so compliant when it came to her, nodded and walked out after checking his older brother again with a glance, and she closed the door.

Jacaerys snorted and turned on his side under the duvet. His body ached from head to toe, and the fever brought out of him the oddest of tempers — it was better than yesterday, according to his mother, but if you asked him, he believed he was going to burst from discomfort at any moment.

Well, the good part was that his best friend was here. But he didn't want her to stand there and laugh at him with his brother.

Would it be silly to ask her to caress his hair instead?

Jacaerys twisted his face at his own thoughts.

“When you're done finding my pain amusing, hand me back that pillow so I can suffocate myself with it,” He said.

Her hand took his and placed the pillow under his arm, and she kneeled beside the bed, resting her chin on her forearm.

“If you try to suffocate yourself, we’ll have to cause a big scene by yanking you away from all the pillows in the house and into an ambulance like a maniac, and it's too cozy in here for that... Jace, are you listening?”

As she spoke, his fingers found a piece of her hair that fell over her arm. He loved her hair, and was constantly unable to refrain himself from playing with it.

“Your hair is so long now.”

She giggled and his entire body shivered.

He was too feverish.

A moment passed when she just let him sniffle and get comfortable again, then her voice came back more delicate.

“I was worried when you texted me,” She told him. “I jumped when you sent me that audio because your voice never sounded like that before.”

Jacaerys scanned her face with curiosity.

She did that sometimes, reminded him that she honestly cared about him after a tease, and recently it had become more frequent, which caused him to wonder why she did it at all.

There was something out of place because he knew she was kind. The light in her eyes alone was enough to convince him of it any day.

He smirked. “You like me too much, it's a bit embarrassing.”

“You wish.”

The wind howled outside, and Jacaerys hugged his pillow tighter with another groan of distress as he saw the branches of the trees in the yard moving around.

“This sucks,” He complained. “I didn't tell them, but I couldn't even sleep last night. My body feels all weird— Don't coo at me! Mom has done that already. Multiple times.”

She rolled her eyes, but Jacaerys could see that she was distracted, shrinking herself beside the bed like there was something on her mind.

“What is it?” He asked. “I can see the gears turning in your head.”

“Hm..." She shrugged. "I brought you something.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“The lady courts me? Taking advantage of my vulnerable state?"

“Funny," She retorted. "I was just hoping it would make you feel better, but now I think I should’ve brought you soup instead of that, pour it all over your head and leave.”

He ignored her culinary threat and supported his weight on his forearms to get closer to her.

“Early Christmas present?”

She nodded.

“It's mine and Helaena’s.”

“So it's made of clay.”

She and his aunt had worked at a ceramics shop since the summer of last year. It had been a famous spot in town from its opening, and the rest of the family was now accustomed to randomly receiving dishes and trinkets of clay from Helaena because of it. Rhaenyra even had to tell her that it was okay to not give her one at every family gathering because there was no space for more plates and mugs anymore. “But they are all beautiful! You are very talented.” She reassured her.

He caught her hand with both of his before she could take the present.

“Your hands are cold again,” He whispered, running his thumbs over her knuckles. “I’m gonna buy you gloves, I swear.”

On their first year of friendship, Jacaerys had found out that, like Lucerys, her hands could almost hurt from how cold they got during winter, and he had made an habit to check them whenever she came over during the colder months of the year.

She pulled her hand back quickly with a small chuckle and cleared her throat.

“Why are you acting like a newborn grabbing me like that? And I have gloves already.”

“So you're purposely walking around with icicles for fingers?”

“They're in my bag, Jace. After the thirty-fourth time you told me to wear them, I decided to carry them around.”

He hummed, satisfied.

“Where is that present then?”

April 9, 2023

Jacaerys stared at the dragon on his bedside table.

The small clay sculpture had olive green scales and orange membranes, and his name was Vermax.

It had been months, but he saw the dragon every time he went to bed, and the only reason he couldn't keep it locked in the drawer was the same reason why it was so distracting.

He knew he should stop thinking about her, but whenever he looked at the dragon, all that came to his mind was the memory of that December afternoon, when he was ill and ready to combust when she gave him the sculpture.

“I know it's a family thing, so I got this for you. I thought, I don't know, that I could bring him to life— well, sort of. Helaena helped, of course.”

The dragon, Vermax, was indeed a part of a peculiar family thing.

The first time Jacaerys and Lucerys had to stay at their grandfather Viserys’ house, Lucerys wouldn't stop whining about wanting his mom back. Jacaerys was not much older than him, but he wasn't bothered by it the same way since Rhaenyra had told him to be good and obey Viserys and Alicent. Still, because of Lucerys, Viserys started to tell stories to entertain the brothers. Stories about dragons.

“The largest was Balerion, the Black Dread, and after him came Vhagar!”

It was clear to Viserys how much they liked to hear about the creatures, so he kept creating more stories about the Targaryens and Old Valyria, where their ancestors came from, every time they went there. The old man didn't mind, especially after his children joined them with curiosity.

And because of said curiosity and childish imagination, during a family gathering, the story telling stirred chaos. The kids, except Helaena and their cousin Rhaena, fought to see who would get to ride Balerion because he was the largest dragon. Aegon said it would be him because was the oldest, but Baela reminded him that it was Rhaenyra, not him, and Aemond said that none of that meant anything because the dragon chose its rider.

They argued until Harwin stepped in and said that the dragon belonged to Viserys and their grandfather agreed, just to make them stop. However, Aemond quickly called dibs on Vhagar, which made everyone mad again — little Lucerys even slapped him for it — and Harwin couldn't fix that problem with simple talk this time. Aemond and Lucerys had to be sat at opposite ends of the table, and the only reason they didn't fight anymore that day was that Helaena started to name new dragons with the help of her father, and the rest of the bunch was invested once again.

But it didn't stop after that. The dragons made their mark in the children's minds, and what followed were birthday parties with dragon themes, pyjama sets that Viserys designed for everyone on Christmas (including the adults, to Daemon's horror), illustrations, embroideries by Alicent and Helaena and, of course, the infamous Zaldrizes Files, aka loads of pages about the history of dragons, physical descriptions and information about their riders. Every kid had a copy.

So, when she stepped into his life, Jacaerys knew the dragons would be a topic of conversation at some point in time. He just didn't expect her to care. He thought that perhaps she would be a little amused, laugh, and brush it off. However, in the first family vacation she was invited to, only a few months after they became close friends, the “kids” table loudly discussed dragons for an hour straight.

Now, there it was. Vermax, his dragon, on his bedside table. Because she cared.

Jacaerys sighed, unamused at his foolishness.

He could not tell when the change occurred. It took him a few daydreams while listening to songs to acknowledge that there was something wrong. The more he tried not to, the more these thoughts of her became detailed, straying from the simplicity of her presence, until that too became significant.

When she passed him something, all he could notice was her touch, and when she enjoyed something, it made him giddy by extension.

Jacaerys wasn't stupid — an idiot at times, but not stupid — he knew that closing his eyes at night and wanting her beside him wasn't the most platonic of ideas.

He rested his head in his hands, thinking back to the earlier events of the day.

They had agreed on a movie and lunch in the afternoon, and it was going well.

She arrived at the house, thankfully empty because the rest of his brothers and parents had gone out together, and they had decided on what to eat and watch.

But she had to see the sculpture on his bedside table, and smile like that, and remember and care all over again.

"What was that thing you guys said so they would breathe fire? Dracarys?"

Jacaerys froze with the laptop on his lap. Never in his life had he heard her say that, and for some reason, he wanted to hear it again.

It was humiliating. Apparently, someone speaking High Valyrian was attractive to him now.

Was he going insane?

"Yeah! Yeah, we—" He cleared his throat. "We had a list of commands and stuff."

"Hm," She put Vermax back in his place and joined him on the twin bed. "I think dracarys is the best."

Jacaerys gulped.

"Oh, my Gods, you fucking idiot," he said to himself, remembering it all.

He had to let go of at some point, and it would begin today.

His phone rang, and the sight of her photo on the notification made something inside of him turn.

Obviously, he wasn't in for a very good start.

July 15, 2023

i unlocked the door so you don't have to ring the doorbell

but lock it after you get in bc i’m scared of murderers or tourists getting in

Jacaerys read her messages as he went up the stairs of the small building, carrying a paper bag with two pastries from her favorite bakery and breathing heavily after all the running around in the last fifteen minutes.

When he opened the door, he stopped in his tracks.

“They took the fucking sofa?” He thought out loud.

What he knew about her roommates was that they were both assholes and extremely invested in each other for a while — she told him that one time she had to sleep with headphones on because it was too much — but he didn't expect them to be selfish to this point.

Apparently, the couple had recently planned to move out to a bigger apartment, leaving her alone in this one. That alone would not be an issue, but It was planned fast, without any notification until that week's monday, which shocked Jacaerys and even more Rhaenyra.

Oh, the woman was furious to the point you could imagine cartoonish smoke coming out of her nostrils. Right after finding out that they did it all without helping her to adjust to the change, she did an advertisement online for interviews for new roommates and said she would pay for everything she needed until she found two people who weren't pieces of shit to live with. Her own words.

“Jace?”

He locked the door and went to her bedroom, where the voice came from.

She was seated, or rather shrunk, on the armchair close to her window, with a blanket wrapped around her and the portable fan turned on.

He tossed the bag on her bed and rushed towards her, kneeling and placing a piece of hair behind her ear to see her face better. She seemed hurt. Her cheeks were red, and Jacaerys knew the blanket was too much for mid-July but didn't mention it.

“I noticed they moved,” His voice was quiet. “Are you okay?”

Her lower lip trembled, and she hid her face on her knees.

“I feel like a little kid.”

She hiccuped, and Jacaerys’ pulse in his ears was the only thing guaranteeing him that his heart wasn't breaking at the sight.

There was only one other time when she behaved like this, and it was the day he found out that she was terrified of her plans for independence going wrong and crumbling down. Unlike him, she had moved to the large city by herself three years ago — looking back, it feels like a lifetime — and she had no family nearby.

He called her name.

“You're not acting like a little kid. Something bad happened and it wasn't your fault.”

“But it's my fault that I’m here crying like a loser, isn't it? I don't know what to do. They took almost everything! They took the sofa and they didn't even buy it!”

“I could give you—.”

“No,” She cut him, lifting her head. “You're not gonna do more of your rich guy charity on me.”

“What?! It's not charity, I just want to help you.”

“You helped plenty, already! I think your entire family hugged me or tapped my shoulder at some point this week. Did you know Aemond sent me some weird emojis that I think indicated he could commit some crimes if needed? With a black heart on the side.”

“He has your number?” He asked quickly.

"That's your question?”

Jacaerys clicked his tongue and shook his head.

He knew her. And he knew that if she was in her room, crying and feeling this way, it was because she was finally letting it all out. And she wanted him there for her, therefore it meant even more.

Her teary eyes only looked back at him when he moved his hands to her forearms, trying to remove the blanket.

“What are you doing?”

“It's too hot,” He explained.

“So what?” She tightened the blanket around herself.

He sighed and rested his hands on her knees.

“Well, I want to hug you. So, if you could please remove this boiling fabric that I can see it's making you sweat—”

“Those are tears.”

He closed his mouth and gave her a blank stare.

She avoided it, but after a sniffle and a deep breath, she unclenched her fists and came out of her shrinking position, hugging Jacaerys as he kneeled between her now separated legs.

He closed his eyes, breathing in and letting his hands roam to remove the blanket before settling one on the mid of her waist, enveloping her torso with his arm, and another at the conjuncture of her neck and shoulder.

She smelled like her favorite perfume for summer — a mix of pink mango with coconut water that she ordered from another country.

He wanted to kiss her shoulder. But more than that, he needed to see her smile again.

“I’m sorry, Jace.”

He opened his eyes abruptly and separated himself from her, resting a hand on her cheek, incredulous.

“Don't apologise. Are you serious?”

She shrugged, leaning against his hand.

“I mean, I texted you in the middle of the afternoon and interrupted you—”

“I was basically my mom’s secretary today.”

“Well, I made you come all this way—”

“You mean ten minutes driving?" He licked his lips. "Look, I wouldn't come here if I didn't want to. And I did. You called me, so I came.”

“But—”

“No, no. Listen.”

He lifted her head so she would look at him, and the sunlight hit her eyes in a way he had never seen before.

She was too close.

Another stupid thought came to him. How could he show her that she was a force of nature that he couldn't resist?

No, ignore that.

“I know how you feel about asking for help" He said. "Whenever you ask me for anything, you think I am wasting my time with you, which is ridiculous.”

“Jace.”

“I’m serious. I am well aware that my time is mine, that I don't owe you any of it and all that. But you have to understand that I’ll always care and do everything I can to help you because I want to. You... You're my friend."

She didn't answer, but didn't look away either.

Jacaerys felt her thumb caressing his jaw.

“I was going to say I feel unlike myself when I cry in front of you like this, but I realised I'm just scared of you running away,” She whispered, breath hitting his chin. “I don't like being high maintenance.”

Jacaerys scoffed at the revelation.

“I'm not running. Besides, you and I both know you're too smart to believe some bullock catchphrase like that. I'm pretty sure you could start giving me a psychology lesson about it if I just pushed you a little more.”

Her nose scrunched against his with a close mouthed smile. He felt victorious.

“You're not wrong. I’m just feeling miserable. I don't have a sofa," She laughed. "Or roommates, or a way to buy everything now… But I still think I’m doing too much crying.”

“It all happened too fast," He whispered. "Cry as much as you want.”

“Will I be okay after, though?”

He wouldn't let her be any less than that.

It went unsaid, but he nodded.

Her arms found their way around his neck again, and her head slid back to his shoulder.

The sound of her relieved breath mingled with the laughter outside the building, which wasn't surprising given summer in King's Landing meant tourists and noise everywhere, all the time.

“Did you know there were some girls out there taking pictures of the clothesline between the buildings full of stuff when I came in?” He told her and she groaned.

“Oh, this happens all the time. Those aesthetic bitches— Oh, I shouldn't say that— Stop laughing, Jacaerys!”

She slapped his back and Jacaerys laughed even louder, squeezing her in his arms with a strange, newfound joy in her ease.

He could do this. Love her like that without crossing the line. It felt like it was enough.

this will probably be a 2 parts story only and then i might add miscellaneous moments to it. part 2 will be the reader's side of the story

#ren writes #jacaerys velaryon #jacaerys targaryen #jacaerys velaryon x reader #jacaerys velaryon x you #modern!jacaerys #hotd fanfic

344 notes · View notes

thenikster1994 · 6 months ago

Text

Aunt who calls me mean and rude and doesn’t respect my boundaries:

I have an aunt who has repeatedly told me I am mean and rude to her constantly. One family trip we took I said something to my dad and she took offense to it and jumped all over me and I stood up for myself. And afterwards I got very upset and left to take a walk. And when I came back she was sitting outside knowing I’d be coming back through that way. Then when I took a trip to go see my long distance boyfriend she was asking other family members about my trip and passing judgement. She’s criticized my sister and brother in law and she criticizes and judges strangers and is always talking about other people business but yet if it is her she would be very upset about it. Once again i answered questions she asked and she got upset and offended again. No matter what I do or say or don’t say I’m in trouble with her and being told by her that I’m being mean and rude and being disrespectful to her. I’m honestly so over her drama. Every time after things like this I always question what I did wrong and blame myself for her feelings and how she responds to things. It’s taking a mental toll on me. And I’ve expressed to my mom I can’t do this anymore meaning I don’t care if I talk to my Aunt anymore. I love her but I can’t take being the blame for everything. I just have a tendency to call her out. She definitely has some mental issues stimming from childhood trauma. Also she drinks a lot yet she will not acknowledge that. But critizied my grandpa on his drinking when he used to drink. What do I do?

0 notes

ruminate88 · 8 months ago

Text

”People Pleasing” (you’re also a form of toxic)

I JUST now understand it all… I always wondered why I went from one toxic man to the next and there is MANY life coaches and therapist on tiktok who insist you date toxic people based on how your parents treated you… WHILE I understand that and somewhat agree, let me take it a little deeper and wider.

so I did grow up with parents that were positive Christian people who worked in our church and they “served others”. My parents were always putting on the church dinners, setting them up and cleaning them up. Always being nice to people. I never seen my mom or dad get mean or rude to other people. (Doesn’t mean they never did it just because I never saw it as a kid.) I also helped with the set up and clean up all my life!!!

I’ve grown up in a very empathetic and loving home… My older brother was almost 10 years older than me so he was more like a dad than a brother and he was extremely loving and affectionate towards me. Hugging me up and protecting me. My brother was more protective of me than my parents were! That’s mostly what I knew in my home; love and closeness but also my dad could be critical at times of me (not in a judgmental way) just in a way he always wanted me to do better and be better but sometimes I felt like I just couldn’t meet his expectations…. 😓 He was trying to give me “tough love” plus he’s a very opinionated person!!

In school, they labeled me with a “learning disability” and a lot of teachers made me feel weak and less than other children. Plus, the kids in school were very mean and cruel towards me and my only friend Lori. Lori also had a “learning disability“ and she was made fun of way worse than I was… Lori leaned on me daily and because she was my only friend, I leaned on her as well, all the way until the seventh grade!!! I was getting tired of having to protect her while also feeling misunderstood and not accepted by anybody in school except Lori. 😟

My father did not accept me having a “learning disability” he did not accept when they held me back in the third grade. He was very upset I had to repeat a grade!!! I know he meant it with “love” but I didn’t always receive it in the best way. My Dad would never hurt me! I just felt so misunderstood by him…

After the seventh grade, I was doing so terrible in school. My mom had to take me out to homeschool me and my dad was VERY upset and defensive. He did not like me being homeschooled at all!!! 🤪 He complained about it for many many years and I just felt like my dad did not understand what I was going through nor was he really helping me. I felt like he was just constantly throwing rocks, even though he was just trying to help me be a better person… Once I was homeschooled, I now had no friends and the only friends I could really make was on the Internet and I found out the hard way that the Internet is a very toxic place!!!! 🥴

I was addicted to pornography so that distorted my understanding of true love and it taught me bad behaviors and made me look at myself in a very negative light. I also had to become the family caretaker at 15 years old. I took care of my grandmother and my brother’s kids for many years and I was use to focusing on “everyone’s needs and neglecting my own.” That made it easy to date toxic men because it’s a one-sided relationship anyway!!!!

by the time I was 23 years old, I had parted ways from Lori. That was the first time I really felt extreme loneliness, but I had to do it. It was the right choice. Lori had leaned on me so long and I felt like she was crippling my growth. I only ever had the one boyfriend Stewart, that didn’t work out and that wasn’t truly the best relationship either and so I really did NOT know what a good relationship looks like. 🤔 romantically or friendly 😳😳😳

but I had always envisioned this “big grand love” just like in the movies “the notebook” or something along those lines... I wanted this person that we were just so in love and crazy about each other and spend our whole lives together and be so much alike and I wanted that so much! 😭😭😭😭

also porn had distorted my ideas of love, so I thought being very sexual was a good thing actually… And whenever I had my first toxic relationship with Cody, the whole relationship was based on sexual desires and porn and just negativity all around!! there was nothing positive about it, but I thought I had so much to give and I wanted this big grand romance with Cody!! He had told me he was “obsessed with me” and I had never heard that before from anyone and I was so lonely and desperate, it made me feel soooooooo sooooooooooo good 🤯🤯🤯 and I thought I could just love Cody so much, sooo hard and deep, so I just poured all of me into him!!!! Quickly, I realize that it didn’t matter how much I poured myself into him. 😣 It didn’t change him or change the dynamics of the relationship. He was still incapable of reciprocating that love back to me. 💔

Once Cody had ghosted me, I was left with this wound now of neglect and betrayal. I’m so sad and broken. I’m cold and numb, but I still feel I have so much love to give and since I wasn’t enough for Cody, I was hoping to be enough for somebody else. THEEEN I met Andrew!! Andrew was asking me to marry him the first week that we met and wow it was so crazy. I couldn’t believe it. It made me feel so insane and good. I was so excited to have met Andrew. I thought finally I can love somebody and Andrew let me love him for over a year very very deeply but once again, he too cant reciprocate my love and I was betrayed again and I wasn’t good enough for him either…

Finally, I realized that I didn’t know what I was doing! I had no idea what “true love was “and I was running from one toxic man to the next. I met my husband, and I said I was gonna take it slow, and I only took it slow for about three months. To me, that was taking it slow, but that wasn’t slow enough. I jumped into marriage with my husband to numb the pain from Andrew, not even realizing that I was a “people pleaser” that I’m equally toxic and that I have all these wounds from being betrayed and neglected in past relationships!!! I’m super defensive towards my husband and I kind of push him away and I feel this major disconnect!!! that’s terrible! I have expectations for my husband to equally love me as much as I love him and guess what, it’s not there still!!!! 😰 (so what’s wrong with me then????)

This is the first time EVER I’m understanding that, just because I think I have all this love to give not everybody has that same amount of love or can give it back and you can’t force people to treat you the way that you treat them. Being a “people pleaser” doesn’t fix anything. It makes everything worse actually. Neglecting yourself and putting all of your time and effort AND energy into the other person, does NOT make the relationship healthy at all. You have to focus on yourself and make your own self happy before you can ever make your spouse or partner happy!!! I just wish I would’ve known this before…. I could’ve done things different in my past but no time like the present 👍🏻❤️‍🩹

If you are not sure if you’re a “people pleaser”, ask yourself these questions….

“Do I feel the need to give so much to a partner becuase I have felt neglected in the past myself??”

“Do I have low self esteem or negative opinions of myself?”

“Do I feel like I need validation from others to feel good enough or feel worthy of love??”

Growing up in a Christian home, you are taught to “wash the feet of others” HOWEVER, that does not mean you abandon all your own needs and only focus on others. If you yourself are broken or not confident, you’ll chase people and seek their approval. I don’t believe God wants you to “please people” anyway!! Porn is NOT love!!!! It’s sex. Sex is just sex without love. You need to learn the difference because my whole teenage life, I just didn’t know. I was always shamming myself too and beating myself up becuase I felt it was wrong but I was soooo badly addicted, I couldn’t stop and in my toxic relationships, they’re very lustful and focus on sex as well. I felt “accepted” by both Cody and Andrew, I did not feel judged for how much I was into sex BUT I also felt unhappy and shame still. I knew I wasn’t a good woman by any means. 🥺 I wanted to be a better person…..

Growing and healing each day ❤️‍🩹 ONE DAY AT A TIME 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

1 note · View note

ahgasegotarmy116 · 10 months ago

Note

hi 😊 me again so difh hmm 🤔where do i start I don't think oc is even 49% not culprit she 100% guilty. She has her flaws as a sweet person bt nah nah he did not come across initially as that manipulative. She just wanted to unconsciously 1) save her marriage with a kid (things did seem to be going in troubled waters due to prolonged distress with the og couple) & 2) not ruffle any feathers with him incase he gets too angry with them and cuts them off financially soso ------ There's no way someone says just that and I'll be opening my legs sir you'll be eating with a straw for a long long time 🍼🧊

Also my heart doesn't believe for a second jk is not hitting a younger escort/clg gal at side for no strings emergency service hotline. He totally seems the type and He's emotionally invested in OC at this point there's a huge difference in the highs he gets from both🌶☕

and i love you but i don't think for a second anyone's getting divorce or therapy in that household for a long time. There's no way he'll LET og couple divorce split custody AND LET EVERYONE IN SOCIETY KNOW he fathered 2 kids. It's neither going to be a public thing nor is it going to feature even in hush hush high society gossip radar. 🧐🤣🤣

They'll be caught soon by the husband with how sloppy jk is bt i just don't see any open clear air or therapy or new beginning for the son. Jk's the kind to rub his disability in his face both bodywise, familywise and workwise (like plz how do u come home and tell ur papa i missed my impy flight, are u like 5?? call ur fucking secretary arrange charter plane, reach that fucking meeting in style) how son's so deficient at everything he HAD to make new heirs who are more great like him (can u imagine though if kids especially the boy turns to be 100% jk) he doesn't shows those murderous symptoms but you never know with the kind of psychopath jk is his son might even be in a car crash 😉😉 and then starts the court drama of oc trying to leave but this is fucking Korea and he's richie rich. Hell probably even house her in his mansion and adopt kids as his heirs legally all the while abusing her in private (hiding initially and then in front of his wife) while cashing on brownie points from public. (Maybe even OC was pregnant with their 3rd kid) such sadness on the family and the new kiddo who never got to meet his daddy 🥲🥲

My heart feels for OC though the mental stress she's constantly under and it's good that this is a fic atleast here things can end with her leaving bit i fr don't think she CAN leave EVER if u think about it realistically. She's trapped for life and he's hooked for life on her (third time's the charm😇)

Now I'll completely understand if u dint reach to the bottom of this kyle richards style msg but i have a couple of scenarios do u care that i share?? In the next one they are😊

Hey so I really do appreciate the analysis of the story but in your previous ask telling me or any writer "you're wrong" about their own story or that they're not being they're not "Think(ing) about it realistically" when it come to some of the choices made comes off as extremely rude.

I think/hope you didn't mean it that way so please try to figure out a way to reword that statement. You said "I don't think" or something to that equivalent throughout this whole ask and you are totally entitled to think anything you would like about anything but saying things like "I love you but..." in any context is very hurtful since it's showing your love is conditional.

You can totally give constructive criticism and I'm not super pressed about what you said but I would just say for future reference just because you think something should go one way or was the wrong decision doesn't mean you were right and the person who created the story and put time and effort into releasing it for free is wrong.

At the end of the day the writer has the last say and it's their story. Only they know the full details and true thoughts and feeling of their character and what they would or wouldn't do.

Imagining the story going a different way is fine but maybe keep those thoughts and feelings to yourself if you're telling them that they've made multiple wrong choices throughout the story.

Now I'll start responding to your analysis

I do agree that she is 100% in the wrong and she never said she wasn't in the wrong. In Drabble 1 she admitted to herself "I've backed myself into a corner, and there really is no one else to blame but myself. Jungkook might've pressured me into this but the choice was ultimately mine, and I chose wrong" so she knows that she fucked up.

This might've not been something that you read or noticed but she does think about these things and has been for years. Sometimes it's easy to put the blame on someone else so it would be seen that way but she is self aware it's just hard for her to have Jungkook around and throwing things in her face.

He might've seemed very manipulative at the beginning but he caught her at a time where she was feeling vulnerable and desperate and so people sometimes don't make the best decisions when they're in that sort of headspace and Jungkook knew that and used it to his advantage.

She didn't make those decisions "unconsciously" because she knew exactly why she said yes and therefore knew that although this wasn't the right thing to do it would be the easiest way for everyone to get what they wanted. And just like the title of part three says "I Did It For You" and thought of how much pressure this would take off of him.

Although people might've been able to say no to him some people might've said yes. There were multiple factors to this story and sometimes people aren't as strong willed as some others are. She's all talk at this point because of the fact that she doesn't want her husband to find out.

Not because of the fact that she doesn't want people to know what she's done (ofc that is a factor in it) but because she really truly does love her husband and she knows just how much this will shatter him and she doesn't want to see that happen and that's why it went on for so long.

People think differently and that's what makes life and stories more interesting because if we all thought and felt the same way then things wouldn't be all that interesting and very predictable.

I mean he definitely gets hit on and flirts with other women but he does have self control. In Drabble 1 he says "Darling it's your fault, you've ruined sex for me with other women. Nothing about them compares to you" so he doesn't find pleasure in it anymore because he's 1) obsessed with her and 2) obsessed with the power trip and how he can have her as much as he wants as long and she still wants to keep this all a secret.

Like you said he's emotionally invested in oc and so he feels like theres' no point if it's not with her.

In terms of divorce there's no real reason why anyone with need to know that he's the father. It might be something that comes out later but as far as the public knows he's still just their grandfather.

There are a lot of dirty secrets in high society that no one finds out about and couples get divorced all the time and it's not seen as uncommon these days so it's not taboo.

Plus the secret could still come out whether she was still married to her husband or not. The people that she wanted to keep the secret from already know so she doesn't care if it goes to the press if that's the only way to get away from them.

If anything that would be the best way that she could get her revenge and Jungkook at that point would see the divorce as necessary because what person in their right mind would go around keeping the family together once everyone knows the truth.

Oc doesn't want revenge though because she's not like that and she wants to keep her kids out of the press as much as possible and doesn't want people to treat them any differently.

Will it put a ding in the families reputation if she tells everyone? Sure but Jungkook doesn't have the power to nor have the desire to stop the divorce. Jungkook's manipulation stops when he loses oc.

He's not someone who wants to get revenge on someone in this situation because although he lost her, this is something he's always gonna be able to hold over her head and that's humiliation enough.

No one needs to LET oc do anything because this isn't the dark ages and woman decide what they can and cannot do. He wouldn't lock her in a dungeon and hold her captive because if he did then her mother in law would be the one to go to the press.

Her mother in law is actually very understanding and keeps in contact with oc throughout all of this. Even though what oc did was majorly fucked up her mother in law knows Jungkook and what he's capable of and understands why she did it.

Although you think they'll get caught by the husband that's not what happens.

It might be seen that in that situation her husband was being irresponsible but people make mistakes plus he was being run ragged and this time he didn't want to put in the effort to make things right even though he knew there would be consequences.

He honestly saw this as a way he could majorly fuck up so Jungkook would stop making him go on so many trips. Like who wouldn't be upset that he has to leave his wife and kids all the time? He truly loves them and wants to be there for them all the time and be there for those important milestones.

This was a way to kind of push back and wanted to seem like he was incompetent and that Jungkook needed to find someone else to do that kind of work for him. Someone who might be seen as more capable and qualified. It didn't end up working out that was because Jungkook just assigned an additional colleague to help him so it wouldn't happen again.

It's not his son's fault that he couldn't have kids so let's just get that part out of the way. Just because one slip up was mentioned doesn't mean that that's how he handles things all the time. The reason why he's sent on all of these trips is because he's successful and does convince a lot of clients to sign.

It would be way too suspicious to everyone in the company and be way to obvious and confusing to her husband if he was shit at his job was still was sent to go take care of extremely important matters and sign big clients pretty much monthly in most cases. Like he would give the company a horrible reputation if he was that "so deficient at everything"

Creating heirs is important for a corporate family so it wouldn't have mattered if his son was competent or incompetent, it's something that needed to happen anyways. Of course you want your heirs to be better. Who would want to hand over your legacy to someone who can't do their job or improve upon the company? The goal is to make things bigger and better so therefore you need your successors to be better than the one that came before him.

Saying that Jungkook would go so far as to murder someone does not match his character at all. He's manipulative and if he had those murderous tendencies he definitely would've made that known and gotten his son out of the way a long time ago.

No Jungkook's youngest son won't be like him. Just like Jungkook's first son his mother will be raising him right so that won't be happening. He's more or the artsy easy going, kind hearted type of guy but he will put on that suit and tie and take over the company when the time comes if his sister doesn't want the company instead.

That situation is something that you're allowed to make up ofc but as the writer I can tell you that that doesn't happen. It would be crazy but it doesn't fit well with the storyline and no theres no possibility of a third child.

She realistically CAN leave and she DOES but she knows full well that she'll still have dealings with the family since she does indeed have 50/50 custody of the children.

Again I appreciate the analysis but next time think about the way that you're phrasing things and just because you think something is wrong doesn't mean that it is. We're all entitled to our own opinion but telling the writer of the story that they wrote it wrong is majorly disrespectful.

I feel like you were creating a whole different story with the way you were talking about it 🤷🏻‍♀️

0 notes

littlealeta · 1 year ago

Text

I'm glad that you don't find me rude. A lot of people find me rude for trying to discuss/debate this game. I do get very passionate about it, but I don't usually try to insult people over it. And yes, it's find to make a separate post about it. It probably will burden the user too much.

My problem with Vince not telling Catherine he has a girlfriend doesn’t stem from the fact I expect him to settle down or think that’s best for him (the true freedom ending is my favourite for a reason) I have a problem with the fact it is a very serious betrayal of Katherine’s trust. While there are extenuating circumstances (the like… demon shit) Vince’s reluctance to come clean to both the girls purely stems from him not wanting to face consequences, which is selfish. Again I don’t think this is bad from a character standpoint, I find it very compelling, but it is immoral.

I haven't been in a relationship so I may be a bit ignorant of how healthy relationships work, hence my differing views on relationships. I also feel like I may have different morality views from many people because my morals are usually based off outside ethics like laws and rules and of course social etiquette (like not insulting others). So yes, doing bad things and hiding them is wrong, but the cheating thing is too ambiguous considering we've never seen Vincent make a move on Catherine. The things Vincent has done may come off as awkward and insensitive to people, but most of the time, he's never actually mean or intentionally cruel with it. Vincent is generally a socially awkward, naive, innocently insensitive character and I find that relatable as I also see him as an aspie and likely several other mental disorders such as adhd, anxiety, and depression. Assuming Vincent is a character that is supposed to be an undiagnosed neurodivergent and suffering from emotional issues, I think they did a great job with it without coming off as insulting to people with those disorders. He struggles, but he still tries to be a good person. I find his experience of being constantly criticized, demonized, and being pushed away for not being normal or for accidentally offending them relatable but also really sad and angering. I just wish people would try to listen and understand his side of the story more. I find it weird how people often insult characters like Vincent and the other characters don't get as much shit.

Instead, I see Vincent being afraid of the consequences of losing either one of the girls he loves forever and also not knowing what he wants. Vincent may have not even wanted a committed relationship with Katherine in the beginning, yet Katherine keeps forcing it on him. He may have even wanted to break up with Katherine before all the shit went down. Although, again, he's likely on the fence about it because he's attached to her.

Vincent still cares about people and doing the right thing, he just might have different morality views and/or he just doesn't have good enough social skills to know what offends people and what doesn't. That's how our brains are wired.

Vince being a guy who wants to sleep around and not settle down is the same Vince who wants to settle down with his family, or be with no one at all, we get to pick which Vince he becomes and the game is about Vince self discovering into the ending we pick for him. He is all and non of these things. Vince, and the other men in Catherine, experiencing pressure from women does not excuse thier treatment of them and I do not blame the women for this, it’s society as a whole that places this importance on marriage and women are more so affected by that expectation (that was created by men might I add). Marriage may be right for Vincent Brookes and it might not be. There is no right way to climb the tower.

The game takes place in 2011/2019. The importance placed on marriage before sex has been gone since a few decades before then. The game also doesn't make any implication that there is actually a law/rule forcing you to find a partner and immediately settle down. We know that one God completely believes this, but it hasn't been made clear in the outside world. The game is full of really selfish people because that's who the protagonist hangs around, not the world itself. I don't see how Vincent rebelling against these selfish women for forcing these expectations on him is wrong. Lying, scamming and cheating are wrong for sure, but calling them out and rebelling against selfish views, I don't see why that is.

Also sorry if this is pedantic but Catherine is set on Mars in an amalgum of the US and Japan (like Ace Attorney ((not the Mars part)).

There's a lot of ambiguity and confusion surrounding where and when Catherine is set. Atlus said it's set in an "undefined US city" and I think the art book said it takes place in the future, where space travel is a huge thing. But if that's the case, then why are LGBTQ, women, and men so disrespected then? And why is no one in the high school flashback carrying phones around? And why does Vincent still have a flip phone and everyone else's phones look like ours. Everything should be much more advanced than just space travel, like I can imagine pushing buttons to open doors and stuff.

I ADORE these character inconsistancies. With Orlando specifically it’s implied his use of their finacies in the scam was a betrayal of sorts (like he lost their life savings by getting tricked) and his wife leaving him cus of this was also a betrayal. I love it because there is no good or bad guy here, it’s humans in a human scenario where they both made mistakes and I find that deeply compelling. Orlando’s struggle with blaming his wife and then himself for the totality of the situation is soooo fuckin cool I feel like I’ve known people like Orlando.

I still can't find myself connecting with Orlando because again, his story is very vague and his motivations are never clear. Like why did he decide to scam in the first place? It's weird how the game gives much more character to the minor characters like the sheep, but not the secondary characters besides Jonny.

It's hard to empathize with Archie because he does things that he knows are illegal and mean-spirited, like assaulting women and stealing from them, just genuinely evil things to women due to his own judgmental views on them. I do appreciate that we have characters like this to show how forgiving and caring Vincent can be to even completely despicable, awful people, but as a character and person, he's so hard to connect to. Just because you had a horrible past does not mean you should take it out on others, that's what people like R. Kelly did. Archie definitely needs therapy and I hope he's getting it.

I think I just find characters like Vincent refreshing because they still want to do the right thing and care about others, but they are just generally clueless as to how to interact with people and how to stay on good terms with people. I find that more relatable than just taking your trauma out on a whole group of women, doing illegal things, forcing marriage and family down the throat of someone who doesn't have a proper lifestyle or mental preparation for these things, and constantly demonizing and criticizing and not helping and hearing your friend out who's going through a difficult time relationship wise and shit.

My problem isn’t with Vincent showing another side, it’s that I think this shift is sudden and jarring. Vincent acts sooo differently in the Rin cutscenes (even when he’s with his friends he was stammering next to like 5 seconds earlier). Like I said I thnk this is done better in regards to his slow gain in confidence with the sheep. Rin is the only character who is pretty much always nice to Vince and, yes, it is because they are an (at least allegorical) angel but I do find this… boring and not very compelling. Flawless characters send me to sleep sorry I just can’t personally see the appeal in someone who has no room to grow. I feel like an angel character can have compelling flaws but they just didn’t do this with Rin and thus their scenes do not grab me the way the rest of the cast’s do. I am aware this is my personal preference but I do like my characters with a little more going on. Rin refusing to forgive Vince for having the literally textbook transphobic response to seeing them naked is not a flaw, in fact I think they reacted too mildly. While Rin is not explicitly trans I hope you understand I’ve seen the whole: Character is she/her’d, character is revealed to have a penis (shocking!!! violent and/or disgusted reaction expected!!), character is he/him��d like a billion times and I am a little sick of it actually.

I mean, I guess they could've had more stuttering. Especially since Vincent is autistic coded and even when we're mentally stable, we still struggle to process things and to get our mind straight. But also, I don't remember Vincent stuttering even once in the freedom or good endings of the game, which implies this mostly happens when he's under stress. None of the characters in the game grow beside Vincent, at least not majorly so. Katherine changes in her new alternate ending to focus on fashion designing/modelling instead of marriage and Orlando tries to rekindle his relationship with his girl in the Katherine true ending, but that's about it. None of the characters apologize for how they treated and ignored Vincent and VINCENT had to be the only one to own up to his actions. That makes me really sick. It's like the game thinks that cheating is the only bad thing in the world and that everyone else is right for shitting on our protagonist who is already going through trauma on top of trauma and making things worse for him. Sorry, it just makes me really sad how negative this game can be and that Vincent has such terrible friends who are kind enough to let him get abused in the bathroom. Even if you didn't know what was going on, at least check in on your friend and calm him down, he might be schizophrenic.

I personally think that scene where Rin reveals who he is was blown out of proportion. Vincent didn't seem to react like he hated Rin for being trans or whatever, but it just read like a normal reaction of somebody being so emotional that they want to process things alone so thus "Leave me alone" and pushing them away. It might've been rude and aggressive to many people but acting like Vincent was evil and mean-spirited for it, I think is overreacting. Again, Vincent likely doesn't have a normal brain so he can't interpret how people will react to his actions. He literally mopes and cries about how clueless he is with interacting with people, which I find relatable as well. But having Rin written out of the story for this scene is melodramatic, imo. Vincent deserves some forgiveness and to catch a break for once in his week.

I suppose my point here is that Catherine is about the relationships between damaged people. Navigating those relationships through the hardships is what I find compelling about the game and Rin distictly lacks that dimension. Vincent works for and cultivates his healthy support system by the end of the game. He gets closer to his friends, to other men, to himself- regarless on whether he chooses to persue romance. Rin throws a pretty hefty spanner in this for me in a way that could of been interesting but feels underbaked. I get why people like these additions but it runs in direct contrast to all the things I find interesting about the game soo uhh yeh.

Again, we're talking about a game about an unhealthy small tight knit of friends who don't want to get outside their comfort zone. I don't see the problem with a more mentally healthy person coming along. I wish that Vincent got out of his comfort zone and tried to seek out more healthy friends than the people he has. I like that the game shows someone different from the type of characters we see in the main/secondary cast, it feels refreshing. At the end of the day, I just like characters who have understandable and well-written motivations no matter how likeable or unlikeable they are. Like how at least one of Vincent's friends doesn't really focus on taking care of him with his problems besides Rin is mind boggling to me. I know they're trying, a little bit, but their self-absorption and resentment of him often gets in the way. I just can't find that relatable as someone who would go out of her way to help a loved one or anyone going through a difficult time, especially people who are not mean, rebellious, or evil people generally speaking.

@littlealeta making a new post for this just cus I feel a little bad tagging onto this post ad infinum I hope you don’t mind :)

A lot of the things I have to say on this are pretty complicated (and I’m a little stupid) so sorry if this is like… uninteligable (also dw you’re not being mean! This is a pretty light hearted discussion about a video game I’m really not taking it to heart). I hope you don’t mind me doing the same right back at ya.

I don’t really mind Vincent not saying he has a girlfriend since he’s confused as to what he wants in his life, plus Rin and Catherine both threw themselves at him not Vincent. I think the game often gets viewed wrongly, a lot of people seem to think that if you have a partner, you should settle down with them and not think about breaking up with them. The game is trying to tell you that while it’s not okay to cheat and betray your partner, it is okay to not have serious relationships.

The problem is moreso how both Catherine and Katherine are written. They’re both selfish and overly controlling to your character in different ways that it’s just hard to fathom why Vincent would want to be with either of them. I wish Katherine was written to be less selfish, like why would you want to marry and have children with a man who drinks, smokes, lives in a messy apartment, and spends money impulsively? And Catherine had such rapey and yandere vibes from the start, which doesn’t make sense because again, the game is focused on cheating and the idea of whether you want to live a free or traditional life. So why make both women so mean-spirited to the protagonist, one of them even raping and sexually assaulting him? And Vincent isn’t even concerned about it? At least make Catherine’s evilness more subtle and maybe not really come up until later in the game as Vincent starts pushing her away more and have Vincent not remember what happened between him and Catherine at the bar at all.

I agree and I think Full Body remedied the points with Katherine specifically to an extent. The scenes we are shown of Kath and Vince at the begining of their relationship genuinely makes me wanna see if they can make it work like that again! I think Kath wants to marry Vince cus they’ve been together for 5 years and they’ve both drifted apart over the years and don’t want to acknowledge that. The K endings read to me as the rekindling of their dynamic that had been dampened over time if that makes any sense. The deal with C is that I think her malice is already a slow burn (the SA point I fully agree on btw even if it is kinda ambiguous if they ever actually had sex when she says they did ((cus of the whole demon thing)). I think theres a relitive suspension of disbelief with C because she is supernatural. I think C nad K are both pretty compelling and both can be good for the Vince that ends up with them (the Vince that wishes to settle down and rekindle his romance and the Vince who wants to be king of hell).

But isn’t that what all the characters in the game do? Is challenge women and each other? If they weren’t, wouldn’t we have Vincent agreeing to settle down with Katherine from the start? Sure Vincent has a problem with speaking up, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t wish to rebel against the pressure women place on him. Personally, I can see Vincent’s point here. He’s often pressured by women to live a traditional, old-fashioned life of finding one partner and settling down with them. Vincent doesn’t care about serious relationships, he just wants to take his time hooking up with women until he finds the one he truly loves. Like I said, cheating is never okay. But we’ve never seen Vincent make a move on Catherine.

Vincent may be jumping to conclusions about women here, but that’s all he’s ever known, since both Erica and Katherine and even most Catherine players are pressuring him to settle down and to stay with the one he’s been with for a long time, even if she may not be right for him.

Like Katherine, Erica can be well-intentioned at times, but just some of the things these two say just sound very morally biased, especially regarding relationships, mostly about the importance of being tied down. It’s why I cannot stand any of the women in the game. They all just seem so shallow and narrow-minded. Maybe it’s because I’m not someone who is focused on going after the idea of marriage, but I don’t see how it’s a problematic thing to not want to settle down, get married, and have a family, especially in the 21st century. Maybe that kind of thing is different in Japan, but here in the western world, where Catherine is set, those things aren’t important anymore.

I’m also adverse to marriage for myself, the talk in Catherine about the importance of marriage all sounds the same to me. But it is the same coming from every character in the game, which is why I don’t hold it against Katherine or Erica and still fully enjoy them (Erica specifcially being one of my favourites I love that she takes 0 shit from anyone). Also sorry if this is pedantic but Catherine is set on Mars in an amalgum of the US and Japan (like Ace Attorney ((not the Mars part)). It being a made up setting allows it to make its own culture, which happens to be one where society deems marriage very important. I wish the characters ‘happy endings’ didn’t tend to end in marriage too but that seems more like a general thing with how Atlus decided to write the game than a specific character issue if that makes sense.

Again, I do agree that Vincent isn’t written as well as he could have been but with what they had, I think they did a decent job, especially compared to characters like Shinji, Jerry Smith, and Arlo the Dinosaur who are just shallow and/or inconsistent characters. I just find everyone else shallow for the reasons I mentioned in the other post and I just can’t find myself connecting to their characters. Orlando even goes back and forth between saying his ex betrayed him and he betrayed his ex. Like, am I supposed to even sympathize with this character? Is he a victim or not? I don’t even know what exactly happened between him and his ex.

Like with Archie and some of the other sheep, trauma is not always an excuse to be an asshole. I went through some trauma, Vincent has gone through way more trauma, and we still care about others and want to do the right thing. We’re not perfect, but at least we’re willing to help others which Vincent’s friends rarely do, at least they’re not as empathetic with him.

I despise Archie and I would dance on his grave, but what I do love about this side quest is that it shows off how compassionate and loving Vincent is. He forgives and loves unconditionally no matter how awful a human being is and is always there to help them. When they die, he becomes quite shaken.

Here I think we are simply after different things in these characters. Archie’s trauma does not excuse his actions and never will but they do contextualise them and make him sympathetic. I can empathise with how he has come to the conclusions he has due to his past even if those conclusions are harmful and wrong. This is what I love in characters, messiness and humaness. This goes for all of the patrons for me btw. I agree that Vince’s interactions with the sheep bring the best out of him (tbh I think they showcase his more confident and heroic side in a much more natural way than Rin does lmao). Vincent finds comradre with a group of other traumatised, also misogonistic men. They learn together. Get better together. They open up to each other in a way society has barred from them outside of this life and death scenario and they are better people for it. They remedy their biases and they have each other now ( have i mentioned the bar patrons are my favourite part? cus they’re my favourite part).

I don’t see the problem with the game showing another side to Vincent. I think it was Atlus’s attempt at showing Vincent’s more likeable side (which I think they did a good job with compared to the original) but it also tracks because we’ve seen Vincent being mentally stable and compassionate like this toward the other sheep. Rin is the only character who’s consistently nice to Vincent, so it makes sense that Vincent would be at his best with him. Rin is perfect because he’s an angel. And he does have flaws, he refuses to forgive Vincent after he apologizes for pushing him away. That was a cowardly and cold move considering how close they were. I think I just like that Rin is the only character who actually shows empathy and support for our main protagonist when everyone else hardly did.

My problem isn’t with Vincent showing another side, it’s that I think this shift is sudden and jarring. Vincent acts sooo differently in the Rin cutscenes (even when he’s with his friends he was stammering next to like 5 seconds earlier). Like I said I thnk this is done better in regards to his slow gain in confidence with the sheep. Rin is the only character who is pretty much always nice to Vince and, yes, it is because they are an (at least allegorical) angel but I do find this… boring and not very compelling. Flawless characters send me to sleep sorry I just can’t personally see the appeal in someone who has no room to grow. I feel like an angel character can have compelling flaws but they just didn’t do this with Rin and thus their scenes do not grab me the way the rest of the cast’s do. I am aware this is my personal preference but I do like my characters with a little more going on. Rin refusing to forgive Vince for having the literally textbook transphobic response to seeing them naked is not a flaw, in fact I think they reacted too mildly. While Rin is not explicitly trans I hope you understand I’ve seen the whole: Character is she/her’d, character is revealed to have a penis (shocking!!! violent and/or disgusted reaction expected!!), character is he/him’d like a billion times and I am a little sick of it actually.

12 notes · View notes

snappleapple · 4 years ago

Text

their favorite types of kisses

people in this - dream, georgenotfound, sapnap, wilbur, punz, jschlatt, awesamdude, quackity

headcanon!

the most disgusting fluff i’ve ever written

warning - cursing, i think that’s all but if there is more please do not hesitate to tell me :)

word count - 2k

a/n: okay okay, i might’ve lied earlier about that being my last post but this was short and easy to make which is why i would like to feed my readers this early haha. anyways, enjoy and please disregard the errors in this post, i hate proof reading anything lol. also, i’ve been very indecisive on the title and i might change it later and ooh, my masterlist will be made soon. i’ve just been feeling very unproductive these days. also, please put in requests, i am so bored and dumb therefore there are no ideas in this brain. and if you’d like a part 2, i might add more people for the part 2!anyways, peace!

dream -

i get the feeling that dream’s favorite type of kisses would be cheek kisses

he just likes to watch as you struggle to reach his height

“aw look at those little legs do their thing.”

ends up with you not giving him his kiss

and mans becomes SO pouty

“y/n…come on. don’t be this way.” :(

if you don’t kiss him on the cheek, will also become SO clingy and whiny

“why won’t you KISS ME!”

clenches his fists and stomps away like a teenage girl during puberty

slamming the door to your room

so then you have to go and give him all the kisses he wants

his face is slammed into your pillow

you sit on the side of the bed and pet his hair

leading him to stare up at you with puppy dog eyes

“i will give you all the kisses you want. so stop being so pouty, you big baby.”

will literally leave zero feet of space between you and him

taps his cheek to tell you he wants kisses

when you go on dates, will literally make you stand on your tippy toes to get his kisses

does not bend down at all and actually lifts his head higher to tease you

in other words, clingy but rude hoe

george -

george is a classic romantic

he loves just lip kisses

pecks or lingering ones

he doesn’t care

mans don’t need too many kisses

nor does he need to be too clingy

total opposite of dream and sapnap *ahem clingy ahem*

if he wants a kiss,

he will come over to you and get it

doesn’t get pouty if you’re busy

just waits patiently

doesn’t enjoy it when you interrupt him when he’s streaming so you do your own thing

when you’re watching a movie with him,

he will literally only stare at you with his cute smile

and listen to your every criticism of the movie

he likes to just peck your lips whenever he feels like it

and you’re just not surprised anymore

just likes to stare at your lips whenever you talk

overall, is very sweet but not to an extent with showing affection

sapnap -

omg

sapnap just vibes with neck kisses

it tickles his neck and he loves them

giggles when you pepper kisses along his neck and flushes a deep red

“y/n. stop.” giggles between each word

but when you do, becomes the saddest person in the whole world

“i was joking.” :(

when he’s streaming and he begins to miss you

would leave his room and find you just to get a kiss

just like dream, would get angry if you give him no kisses

“GIVE ME KISSIES!”

very amusing for you

and you love to tease him

“i don’t want to give you kissies.”

continues to stare at you with a large frown until you give in and give him kissies

lsg supremacy but i’ll get into this later hehe

you better give him kisses or you’ll be dealing with a very sad sapnap

sadnap :(

wilbur -

wilbur, wilbur, wilbur

what can i even say

total nose kiss guy

i bet he’ll boop your nose twenty four seven

asks stupid questions just to get your attention

“y/n?”

“yes wilbur?”

“is a hotdog a sandwich?”

“why-“

“boop.”

“did you just say boop while you booped my nose?”

if he’s streaming and you bring him a snack

he will hold your face still and leave kisses on your nose

not too clingy but not too distant

likes to be just right with you

if its snowy outside and your noses get red

makes dumb jokes about he is rudolph and you’re mrs. rudolph

just a lot of smooches from wilby

takes you to a lot of hidden cafes in the city

and while you read, he balances his head on his palm, staring at you in admiration

if you’re insecure about your nose, you legit can’t be around wilbur because he will go on a tangent about how beautiful it is

substantially, soft boy hours all day bro, besides when he gets mad then you leave the hormonal man tf alone

punz -

i don’t see a lot of punz on tumblr so here we go

punz loves hand kisses

not to an extent where he has a hand fetish

god no but just like

when your holding hands, he’ll occasionally pull your hand up to his lips and leave a kiss

lots of hand holding

and i mean lots

constantly gets mad fun of for being a simp but ignores those comments because he genuinely loves you so much

likes it when you play with his hair and messing it up

also likes to compare hand sizes with you

always has a hand on your thigh or your hand in his whenever he is driving somewhere with you

even when you go on dates, always holding hands

no matter how sweaty your hand gets, he will hold on

sometimes if he holds on for too long, you have to tell him to let go

“punz, my hand is super sweaty. lets take a break from the hand holding.”

would flat out decline so you would have to pry your hand out of his

he would also love it when you would kiss his hand

makes him feel all polite and precious LOL

would also wrap his pinky along yours when you walk together

he once came with you to a family gathering for christmas and was so SHY

shy boy held your hand for security while your younger siblings made fun of you

afterwards, when you were under a mistletoe, he kisses you on the lips before kissing you on his favorite part of your body,

your hand

c!jschlatt -

jschlatt is a whole mess

the first time you met, he confessed that he would hate you for as long as you lived because you made fun of his boots

now he says he still strongly dislikes you but you’re more tolerable

doesn’t like it when you make him soft and HATES it when he blushes

“why must you do this to me, mother nature?”

also “hates” it when you even touch him because he “hates” you

when he actually confessed to you that he liked you with his grumpy usual grandpa voice,

you kissed him on his forehead, after he bent down of course

he is an actual giant and threatens to squash you like an ant if he feels the need to

is an absolute monster to you but loves it when you kiss his forehead because it makes him feel secure and loved

likes to watch the wind blow through your hair and mess it up but gives you his hat because he like you being “all pretty and shit”

gets SUPER jealous when you hug children

like for example, when you went over to a family gathering at his house, his cousins came up to hug you

and when you let go of the child, the man child comes and lugs you over his shoulder

gets yelled at by his mom and gives her a sheepish smile before rolling his eyes and throwing you down on the sofa set next to him

his mom doesn’t approve of the way he treats you but you tell her its fine because he’s cute

when you are far from any type of civilization or in the safety and solitude of your own home, he wants kisses on the forehead

pointing up to it and bending down so you could reach it

“y/n, i only love you because of your forehead kisses.”

“you only love me for my kisses?” :(

“mhm.”

actually feels slightly bad

“and because of your personality.”

“thank you-“

“shut up. we don’t talk about this.”

in conclusion, give him his forehead kisses or perish

awesamdude -

sam just adores it when you give him jawline kisses

not because it’s basically the only place you could reach but because it’s a sweet gesture

sam is all about sweetness

i mean have you even seen this man on his stream

he likes to watch you while you have conversations with your friends

not in a creepy way but more like an adoring way

cause man does he love you

i mean not only does he love you but his whole family does

and when you’re alone with sam, you love to bury him underneath all of your love

“i love you sam!”

“no i love you more y/n!”

“NO i LOVE you more!”

“NO i LOVE you MORE!”

“SAM NO. I LOVE YOU MORE!”

“okay thank you sweet pea.”

leaving you a bit confused but happy that he accepts your love

when you cuddle, omg

he never stops peppering kisses all over your face and vice versa because your relationship is disgustingly fluffy

when he lends you one of his sweatshirts, you sure as hell better wear that shit out or else (i am leaving a blank threat here)

sam loves technology but you guys sort of have a system

a system that involves mailing each other love letters rather than texting them

you guys also go on a ton of walks just about anywhere

hand holding is mandatory even though you probably look like a child compared to him

just give sam lots of love and in return, you’ll receive lots of love

quackity -

mans cannot leave you tf alone

likes to do ANYTHING freaky around you

“i will follow you to the ends of the earth, mi amor.” or

“ayy, back off.” if anyone gets too close to you

messes with you twenty four seven and makes it his job to drive you insane

plays horror games at two in the morning for fun

and when he gets scared, hides in the safety of your arms

“mi amor. i’m scared.”

“shut the fuck up and sleep, alex.”

“okay.” shuts up quickly and snuggles deeper into the crook of your neck

loves you so deeply but HATES your cat

“look at that little dumb thing stare at me. you got a problem bro?”

your cat also HATES alex

scratches him all the time and hisses at him

if you think sapnap is babie, wait till you meet alex

“y/n he bit me!”

when you glance down, you don’t even see a scratch

“kiss my boo boo.”

wtf

“what boo boo? there’s nothing there.”

gasps as if you offended him

“this boo boo that your el demonio did to me.”

this man will do anything to get boo boo kisses

istg, you once found him provoking your cat to get some scratches

in alex’s mind, ouchies = kisses from y/n

always has ouchies from god knows where and shows it to you

even though you find it annoying at first, you grow used to it and it sorta becomes your thing with alex

alex is babie and you need to take good care of him :)

9K notes · View notes

ghooostbaby · 3 years ago

Text

deeeep dive into why and how wei wuxian and lan wangji love each other, complete each other, are the inverse reflection of each other’s deeply hidden internal selves mirrored through the other’s external self, lan wangji’s inner wildness that he has to conceal and protect recognizing and loving wei wuxian’s outer wildness, wei wuxian’s deep, fuddy-duddy morality and values that he conceals with an elaborate subterfuge of jokes, mischief, and bravado, seeing and loving in lan wangji the ability to say no that it was never safe for him to express directly, “between you and me there is no need for thank you and sorry”

oh and a slight diversion midway through into a manifesto on WEI WUXIAN IS NOT INSECURE the whole story is about a society where being liked is ESSENTIAL for survival and it is actually completely perilous not to be liked, and his “people pleasing” is a skill and tool for his survival especially as an orphan and proven to be a necessary one when he stops doing it and STOPS SURVIVING

after the cut discussing the very interesting dynamics of consent in general in the novel, but not going into the consensual non-consent kink stuff till the last paragraph if you need to avoid for any reason.

I've been thinking about how Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian the exterior, unfettered expression of the wildness Lan WangJi holds in him and protects with rigid codes of conduct, propriety and outward dignity.

I have had this sense that these two are mirrors, either one reflecting the hidden, interior (and unallowed) self of the other. but it seemed more clear from Lan WangJi's side, especially knowing about his history with his mother and the spicy side that emerges when he drinks and in the extras.

I also - just... the way this whole story shows how romantic love is truly this longing for your self, to become yourself, to become the thing you're not allowed to be, seeing in that person the expression of whatever it is you can't become and longing for it, protecting it, joining with it as closely as you can without ever being able to let it live inside your own body.

On the surface it seems a lot more difficult for Wei WuXian to find a piece of his soul in Lan Wangji. I think its a bit too simplistic to see whatever draws Wei WuXian to Lan Wangji as a reverse-psychology sort of craving of acceptance from the only one who won't give it, pushing and pushing against this impenetrable boundary that he needs to break to feel assurance that no matter what he can make anyone accept him.

And he is SO drawn - in a mind boggling way, in the teenage flashbacks Lan WangJi rudely and aggressively throws him off over and over and Wei WuXian cannot keep away! Even when he talks about how boring Lan WangJi is, he never stops trying to be around him and talk to him.

I've seen discussions of the way Wei WuXian has always relied on the goodwill of others to survive, and that his placating of others to survive is a character flaw. Although that seems only halfway true.

As a young child he didn't have anyone's goodwill for a while and he survived, and it seems like he can always find a way to survive from whatever means and sometimes very limited resources he has at his disposal. Doing what he has to do to become powerful enough to survive losing his core and being thrown into the burial mounds slowly costs him the goodwill of everyone around him - and what happens to him as a result shows how much placation was a truly necessary for someone without the protection of biological/hereditary family bonds.

(Don’t get me started on how his loss of his golden core and his development of demonic cultivation to give himself power by ‘unnatural methods’ through the use of a musical instrument is a metaphor for disability and the way ableist society sees the use of accessibility devices and tools. Actually please DO get my started haha.)

Wei WuXian is so charismatic and seems very used to getting what he wants and needs on the strength of that. He pushes a lot of boundaries and seems pretty confident and flexibly prepared to handle the consequences, whether beatings or harsh words. But he does work so hard to make others feel good, good with him, good with themselves.

When he is in the cave with Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian is described as "like one who forgets all past pain as soon as the wound heals". He can't resist coming up beside Lan WangJi and talking to him again and again after every time Lan WangJi pushes him off, only finally staying away when Lan WangJi bites him (and he still keeps trying to talk to him after a little bit!) and then calls him an awful person (!!! Bad Wangji! :(((( ). In the end, when Lan WangJi (very minimally) discloses what happened to his sect and his father, and even cries, because of all the defences/assaults Lan WangJi has put up Wei WuXian can't do anything or say anything to help and feels miserable.

Lan WangJi just absolutely refuses to allow Wei WuXian to take care of him - and I began to wonder maybe that’s what Wei WuXian actually really likes about him? Why he is unable to resist coming up to Lan WangJi again and again? Maybe because Lan WangJi refuses to let Wei WuXian appease him. He’s not trying to crack Lan WangJi to get to this impenetrable place of approval and acceptance. In a way he can’t quite understand, Lan WangJi is a respite for Wei WuXian from the constant work to be the one who pleases.

And how different this is to how Wei WuXian is (or has to be) with Jiang Cheng when he wakes up in Lotus Pier after the cave. Jiang Cheng gets so down and really really needs Wei WuXian to do what he does so well (and wasn’t allowed to do with Lan WangJi) - chasing Jiang Cheng down while being injured and reassuring him about all his insecurities about his father's acceptance and becoming a sect leader and Wei WuXian's own abilities excelling his - and at first Jiang Cheng is pushing him away, but he really does need Wei WuXian to do all this to feel better.

Wei WuXian is described as not wanting to be lonely, and not wanting to see other people unhappy, and he keeps trying to push and pull with whatever he has to not be lonely and lift the mood for those around him. I don't think it's a kind of codependency or insecurity. It’s not that Wei WuXian is afraid to say no, in fact I would say he doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do, but he must always do it creatively, with humour. Similarly to Nie Huaisang, he uses a persona of foolishness to give himself a covert agency.

I also think I'm writing this because I don't like seeing this discussed as a sad bean character flaw for him to always need to be liked - its a strategy, its a tool, its how he survives and excels. Doesn’t the whole story prove how essential being liked is to a human’s survival? And he is so so good at being liked, in making others happy, even when he is refusing to do what others want from him that he doesn't want to do, he does it in a way that deflects criticism, with a smiling bravado that never says what it truly means and has people writing him off as shameless or foolish or just endearing himself toward them despite themselves.

He is always at work really, with jokes and flattery or mischief and teasing, to get the resources he wants and needs. Case and point, when he makes a big coquettish show for mianmian, definitely not being "people pleasing" for her, but the group of girls around them all find it funny and cute and in the end she gives him a perfume sachet which ends up being a valuable resource for later. Or the time he outright tells Jiang Cheng that if you give the girls some lotus seeds they'll remember you and return the favour in the future. (Also notice how his interactions with girls seen as flirtatious are actually strategic resource-gathering acts.) These are the skills he has developed to meet his own needs. (THIS IS NOT A CHARACTER FLAW. I REPEAT.) He takes what he needs and steals from the Lotus Pier markets knowing it'll be paid for, he lives like he never know when his next windfall will come from so he'll take what he can when he can find it. Like Jiang Fengmian said, if there is no guarantee of a meal in the future then today's meal should still be enjoyed. It’s how Wei WuXian said to Nie Huaisang at Cloud Recesses, you have to find ways to make your own fun out of whatever you have. So he gets kicked out of class, goes fishing, gets alcohol, he pursues his own pleasure. He actually is quite insistent of his own agency and right to choose, he just can never directly say no.

And that little detail that Wei WuXian always tucks coins into his clothes just in case, that makes him able to buy food when he and Jiang Cheng are on the run... breaks my heart and reveals so much about the way Wei WuXian is constantly at work on ensuring his own survival and never takes for granted whether he is safe (he knows he never is).

I've seen some people talking about Wei WuXian sacrificing so much for his brother and sister out of a need to be accepted out of a chronic sense of insecurity. But isn’t this just true? Doesn't he live in a world where being accepted is absolutely essential for survival? Doesn’t this whole story show the cruelty of a social system based on networks of hereditary/biological family that closes out and scapegoats any outsiders, and that without biological family connections that can enclose around you, you can never truly be safe if not constantly working to earn acceptance? (And then beautifully ends with the way a gay romantic relationship that queers marriage/family/etc disrupts all this and creates safety and inclusion for Wei WuXian without needing a normative family.) (AKA romantic love does not resolve some internal personal problem in Wei WuXian but disrupts and refuses and rebels against the problem of SOCIETY.) (*breathes heavily*)

And that’s why Lan WangJi is magnetizing to Wei WuXian. Lan WangJi is always saying no. Although what Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian is an exterior wildness, Wei WuXian is not really out of control so much as he is playing and caring and supplicating and showing off and pleasing people to get the resources and the acceptance he needs to live his life. He has firm values and desires that he can never outwardly state, only creatively spinning plates to distract and deflect while he refuses what goes against his values, protects who he cares for, or takes what he needs to in order to survive/thrive. Lan WangJi embodies an exterior of resoluteness and direct agency that Wei WuXian doesn't have the luxury of. And he's so drawn to him for his ability to repeatedly say no, to refuse to get along, or make others laugh, make other people happy, but just simply follow what he thinks is right.

Wei WuXian’s outward wild movement protects an inward stillness. He is an exterior of people-pleasing around an interior of refusal. He is an exterior of youthful rebellion around an interior of unflinching morality. He sees in Lan WangJi the outward expression of his stillness, his morality, his resistance that he can't express, that he's had to protect.

FYI after the cut gets more into the dynamics of consent in the story, and the last paragraph directly talks about consensual non-consent kink play in wangxian’s relationship.

When Wei WuXian is with Lan WangJi, there is no work to be done. Lan WangJi cannot be swayed by him, and so there's no point vying for resources or favors. Lan WangJi will either give him everything or refuse him everything based on who he is, it does not matter what Wei WuXian does and he can't do anything that will change Lan WangJi’s mind. Someone he literally can't win over. After the resurrection, they are often in an adorable tug of war, where Wei WuXian tries to take care of Lan WangJi, while Lan WangJi won't allow him to but demands to care of Wei WuXian right back. Actually, Lan WangJi insists that Wei WuXian take everything he wants or needs from him and is even angry when he doesn't take or when Wei WuXian tries to offer a gesture in return, even something as simple as a thank you Lan WangJi won't accept. It’s kind of adorable how frustrated Wei WuXian is in doing this thing he's learned that he needs to do, and just... so confused by Lan WangJi, and has to find a way to please this person who aggressively refuses to be pleased and is ONLY pleased by Wei WuXian being pleased.

(Not to mention the way Wei WuXian delights in finding that Lan WangJi can’t say what he wants, and they have sort of these chaotic cohesive both-being-so-pleased-by-working-hard-to-please each-other moments where Wei WuXian is letting Lan WangJi please him by finding out what pleases Lan WangJi and giving it to him.)

The wildness Lan WangJi had always hidden within himself is something he sees as just as dangerous as Wei WuXian thinks of his desire to refuse. He saw his mother be socially alienated, shunned, and eventually die because of her wildness. His ability to survive in the world, aka to be accepted by his family, is contingent on him being able to control this inner wildness. From a young age (re: Phoenix Mountain kiss) he could only understand his sexual desires for Wei WuXian as something repulsive or dangerous that had to be repressed and controlled, and that the only way he could imagine his desires as possible was as non-consensual. His secret gay desires were never available to him as anything but something monstrous.

Importantly, it’s not like everyone else other than Lan WangJi are all vampires cruelly demanding Wei WuXian’s constant sacrifice. Wei WuXian is always vibrantly, charismatically offering so much, before anyone has asked. It’s Wei WuXian who creates this kind of relationship for himself again and again. It’s Lan WangJi who simply refuses - he refuses to charmed, to be cared for. And so in the end Lan WangJi becomes the one person who Wei WuXian feels doesn't need anything from him. When he says he's eating the corpse's fruit to save Lan WangJi money and Lan WangJi says that will never be necessary. Or when Wei WuXian asks what toy he should win for Lan WangJi at the market game, and Lan WangJi says anything Wei WuXian gets will be the one he wants. (XD stahhhhp it’s too sweet !!!) He really just wants Wei WuXian to be, to exist, to spend his life discovering his own desires and allow Lan WangJi to help satisfy them, he doesn't want anything from Wei WuXian other than him living - happy and safe.

It takes someone like Lan WangJi to refuse Wei WuXian’s aggressive generosity, it’s definitely not an easy thing to say no to Wei WuXian, dazzling or annoying people so chaotically before they even realize there’s something to say no to. The sacrifice he gives to Jiang Cheng, he never even offers a choice - and perhaps it would have been too much for Jiang Cheng to accept if he had the chance.

Lan WangJi’s statement "Between us there is no need for thank you and sorry" seems like one of the most important sentences in the novel, and you can’t help but noticed the way “sorry” and “thank you” is littered meaningfully through the book. What is owed, what the characters owe to each other, the give and take, touches every part of the story (down to wangxian's erotic explorations!).

When Jiang Cheng talks to Wei WuXian at the Guanyin temple he makes a lot of contradictory statements about what Wei WuXian owes, what he was given, what he took, what he (Wei WuXian still) is owed in return. Wei WuXian, according to Jiang Cheng, took everything from the Jiang clan, and paid them back with their deaths. The Jiang clan give him his life when they took him in, and he owed Jiang Cheng service for the rest of his life as the right hand to the sect leader, that’s what Wei WuXian had promised anyway. At the same time, Wei WuXian sacrificed everything (his golden core) to Jiang Cheng, by giving everything he was taking one more thing - Jiang Cheng’s right to even be angry at him. Jiang Cheng had taken everything from Wei WuXian. Everything that happened around Wei WuXian after could be said to be because of the loss of his golden core, which Jiang Cheng might be said to be responsible for. But he never asked for it, maybe he never would have wanted it. He wishes Wei WuXian told him, but Jiang Cheng never told Wei WuXian his golden core was melted while he was sacrificing himself to save Wei WuXian. He wants Wei wuxian to say sorry, but that makes him feel pathetic. And Jiang Cheng says sorry too. It’s a mess of paradoxes, and in the end somehow it seems like the scales are balanced in the most hollow, dismal way.

What is owed, what is given, what is taken ... Wei WuXian has never been part of a family. He has always had to say thank you and sorry for everything he's taken. Wei WuXian himself admits that he used "thank you" as a way to enforce distance between himself and Lan WangJi. Lan WangJi's point i think is that they belong to each other, Wei WuXian is his, and he is Wei WuXian's, unconditionally. The way that Jiang Cheng speaks of him in the Guanyin temple (admittedly I read a fan translation and this is very nuanced, related to slight variations of grammar), even when Jiang Cheng clearly is so broken by the loss of Wei WuXian from his life, he talks about Wei WuXian as an outsider. It is what MY family gave to YOU, never what you took from our family. But at one point Wei WuXian was part of their family - but he takes too much, and becomes an ex-disciple, not a brother. Wei WuXian’s inclusion as a Jiang was always conditional.

Even when Wen Qing and Wen Ning leave him to go take the blame for qiongqing path they tell him "thank you and sorry", drawing a line between them and him, so he doesn’t even belong to these people who he sacrificed everything for. The way Wei WuXian acted when he was younger, he was always keenly aware of this - he always knew that he didn’t belong to anyone, no one is going to protect him unconditionally. And after first escaping the Burial Mounds, he is done pretending. When Lan WangJi warns him about what a demonic cultivation path will do to his heart, Wei WuXian replies: “After all, on the topic of how my heart is, what could other people know about it? Why should other people care about it?” He is done pleasing. Nothing has changed really, he still belongs to no one and is alone, but now he is angry about it, and instead of saying thank you and sorry he is going to become too powerful to be at anyone's mercy. And then we see in the story afterward what happens to people who don't say thank you and sorry.

The whole point I think is the impossibility of choice, the impossibility of consent in this society. If he didn't forgo the behaviour his social acceptance was conditional on, he wouldn't have survived the burial mounds. But once he becomes powerful enough to survive and get revenge on the Wens, he is socially outcast. Except he was already outcast from the beginning.

And so how do Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi find a way through all that to a life together where all their desires are possible, where Wei WuXian can say no while also being pleasing (safe) to others, and Lan WangJi can indulge in his wild desires while still being good? The answer is kinky sex!

It is kind of miraculous and beautiful how Wei WuXian finds a way to say no, while simultaneously pleasing Lan WangJi, giving pleasure, while taking it, saying no, and knowing his refusal is not just tolerated, but gives Lan WangJi pleasure, knowing Lan wangji and knowing the painful belief Lan WangJi holds within that his desires are unacceptable and unspeakable, and that Wei WuXian can take care of Lan Wangji in a secret little way and please him and give everything to him by craving this wildness in Lan WangJi while at the same time he gets to say no again and again , and it won't push Lan WangJi away, he can refuse everything while at the same time be totally pleasing and thus safe, and also for Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian's pleasure at saying "no" while still being held onto, that he genuinely wants to be fucked even while begging Lan WangJi to stop (and the many ways he does give his consent for this throughout, especially their first time), allows Lan WangJi the ecstatic feeling that this idea that his sexual desires are only possible through force are not just something his lover forgives him for but something his lover is SO turned on by, and that he has consent for his fantasies of non-consent, Wei WuXian has the same fantasies from the other side, he is doing what he is supposed to while doing what he shouldn't, and actually these monstrous feelings in him allow him to take care of Wei WuXian in a way that he needs - that they both need - and all these impulses that are so wrong with Wei WuXian become very right and a way to do good. And they are just both so perfect and perfect for each other and I love them and I am so happy for them to have a long kinky life together.

#wangxian #mdzs #mdzs meta #holds wei wuxian close and murmurs into his hair 'no one knows you like i know you baby'

1K notes · View notes

thatbostonbooknerd · 2 years ago

Text

musings on elain archeron

I was thinking lately about what bothers me about Elain, and something that occurred to me is that the main problem is not her character itself, but how SJM has portrayed her.

The way the people around her interact with her

There is a tendency from Elain's friends and family to infantilize her. This annoys me, because I feel that the only reason they infantilize her so much is that she is soft spoken and feminine, neither of which make her less capable of independent thought. She isn't actually much better than Nesta in the early chapters, but she is repeatedly given a free pass from others, which then creates resentment in some readers (myself included), asking, "why would she get a free pass on not being held accountable?"

This infantilization in turn robs the reader of information about who Elain is and her motivations

I think a lot of readers started warming up to Nesta after she reveals that her inaction was actually her being angry that her father was letting them starve and trying to force him into action. While we may not support the choice, it made her understandable, it made her human. Elain has a lot of choices where she is given a free pass--and because of that, she never has to defend herself, which would give us a window into her thoughts (as we got with Nesta, when she is confronted about some of this).

For example, it's odd to me that no one ever brings up issues like why she did nothing when Feyre provided for them. There are many possible reasons - for example, perhaps everyone infantilizes her based on her beauty and femininity to the point that she believes herself incapable of providing and is filling the role that appears to be carved out for her? - but we aren't given any of them.

And her engagement to Grayson, despite the fact that at that point Feyre is a Fae and she knows he would happily put her to death - maybe she had an interaction where Grayson showed her kindness and she felt abandoned by Feyre, so she clung to this person who presented her with protection. Or maybe she has seen glimpses of empathy and believed she could change him if he got to know Feyre. Even their love story itself, independent of Feyre and how that seems to conflict with it - we see the manor is a dreary place, and she quietly says something along the lines of it needing a woman's touch. Did she perhaps bond with Grayson over the loss of their mothers? Did he tell her how he was expected to fill the role of eldest son?

These are all just examples, there's a million possibilities. But because we don't get any of them, we aren't given the chance to connect with Elain like we do with Nesta and Feyre.

Telling, not showing, her good qualities

The final issue is that, in my opinion, SJM relies too much on telling us about Elain's good qualities and never showing them.

Now, I do think "show don't tell" is often overused - I see a lot of people use it to mean that you should show the minute facial expressions of a character rather than saying they're angry. Like, I'm a big proponent of just saying that they're fucking angry.

BUT where I think "show don't tell" is critical to a good story is showing the traits of a character. For example, for readers of The Poppy War, Rin is shown in her lessons at Sinegard to have ruthless strategy, so her later acts make sense because we know this about her.

We are constantly told Elain is so good, that she is given the power of being a seer because the Cauldron saw how good she is, but we don't actually see her do that much good. She hasn't done much that's objectionable, but she also doesn't seem to have many moments where she is actively trying to help people. And that's fine, not every character has to be a saint! But if a character is established as The Good One, The Kind One, etc you gotta show how exactly they are set apart from others as more "good" other than just ... refraining from being rude. It seems like a lot of it is that SJM has her in her head as having this quality and didn't bother to show it, because most examples we have are more along the lines of Nesta fighting Elain's battles for her, but that just shows Elain isn't super mean or confrontational, which is different from being a particularly good person. This didn't need to be part of her character, but if it is, we have to see it in action or at least hear some examples where she is showing this trait, and not just relative to Nesta's actions.

bonus: more infantilization

Also, there's scenes that just feel like they don't play well in terms of visualizing it. Like it seems weird to me to infantilize her to the point that her being captured - and not physically harmed - feels like it's treated as worse than a girl who is described as having been tortured to the point that her clothes have been almost entirely burned off her and are in tatters.

And Azriel is carrying Elain, but this girl who has apparently suffered torture on the level of a Hostel scene is walking?

(Look, I'm just saying, it's a goofy visual and if I was that girl I'd be pissed...)

All of this to say, none of these things are actually born of actions or traits of Elain, but how she's been depicted so far - for that reason, I'm hoping we learn more about Elain so that I can really connect with her ESPECIALLY if Elucien is endgame. I have a lot of thoughts about why Elucien makes so much sense to me, but I'll save those for a future post. But I actually don't mind how she reacts to Lucien, because it's one of the few times we see something about her (her resentment of being told she must want someone - even though I feel for our boy, that at least is something I can connect with).

But I am wondering if we will have a chance to better understand Elain through her having POVs in an upcoming book. At this point, I'm pretty neutral on Elain - but I hope that SJM can really dive into her character in a way we haven't seen so far.

I really love feminine, soft spoken women who are given a fully fleshed out character, so I think Elain actually has a lot of potential to become one of my favorites. But for that to happen, I'm going to need to feel like I know who she is...and right now I just don't feel like I do.

#elain #elain archeron #elucien #acotar #a court of thorns and roses #nesta archeron #acosf #feyre archeron

26 notes · View notes

angstymdzsthoughts · 3 years ago

Note

For the fem!wwx and creep!jfm:- Can we get a scene where lan wanji comes to know the truth about creep!jfm? (It'd be interesting to see how lwj reacts to creep!jfm, especially when lwj thought jfm was just a father figure all his life)

Something tells me that Wei Wuxian would still try to defend Jiang Fengmian despite everything because Jiang Fengmian sort of groomed her while she was growing up. So even while she tells Lan Wangji all the things Jiang Fengmian did and said that made her feel unsafe and scared and gross she tries to defend him and feels guilty for ‘abandoning’ her family and being so ungrateful for everything Jiang Fengmian did for her.

Even she knows how conflicted she sounds when talking about it. “He would constantly tell me how beautiful I am and how I look like my mother- but those might have just been compliments, right?” “He use to touch me all the time and would sometimes hug me really tight and sniff my hair- but I’m sure he didn’t mean to make me uncomfortable.” “Whenever I was alone with him I was scared and looking for an exit or praying someone else would join us- isn’t that so awful of me Lan Zhan? Who reacts like that to someone who loves them so much? There must be something wrong with me.”

She feels conflicted about Jiang Fengmian for years. She knows that she’s scared of him. She knows what he would have done to her if given the chance. She also feels terribly guilty for thinking or talking badly about him because she still feels indebted to Jiang Fengmian for saving her from the streets and teaching her cultivation.

As for Lan Wangji? He feels a lot of things. Anger and disgusted and lied to about the man who the rest of the cultivation world thinks highly of. The man abused his authority to make Wei Wuxian feel indebted and trapped. Jiang Fengmian is a disgusting man who desired a child. Lan Wangji would be happy to see the man suffer, but knows he cannot act. Jiang Fengmian is still a sect leader and Wei Wuxian is unwilling to tell other people about the abuse she suffered in his household.

People make note of how shockingly rude and cold Lan Wangji is to Jiang Fengmian. A lot of people criticize him for it. The lack of respect! Lan Xichen scolds him multiple times but, even more shocking, Lan Qiren stays quiet and only says that Jiang Fengmian needs to reflect on how he conducts himself. Wei Wuxian never asks Lan Wangji to change how he treats the man who raised her. She loves him all the more for it, honestly, and feels safer with him.

#Reply #its a mess but hopefully a hot one #Wei Wuxian #Lan Wangji #Jiang Fengmian #Creepy JFM AU #Gender Switch #mdzs

215 notes · View notes

howlingday · 3 years ago

Note

nora the arc au) nora finds out that blake was essentually a child soldier and blake admits she's afraid that she doesn't know how to be a good person nora sugests she find someone she trusts to be a good person and then just follow their orders. then study them to find out how to be a good person yourself.

she was expecting blake to follow her own team leader ruby. instead now she's got a cat constantly watching her and jaune trying to get intimate. SHE CAN'T HOLD HANDS IN FRONT OF SOMEONE IT'S TOO LEWD! she can kiss her husband tho so consolation prize

Ceiling Cat!

Blake heard everything. Blake saw everything. If it happens in Beacon, sooner or later, she would learn about it. So when she learned about her neighbors across the hall being both the most trusting people and the most loving couple, she needed to learn more, firsthand.

Her years in the White Fang taught her many skills, including infiltration. She knocked on the door, no doubt drawing the attention of the dwellers inside. The door opens.

"Hm?" Jaune peered out through the door. "Oh, hey, Blake! What's up?"

She needed to gain their trust if she was taking this route. Failure to do so could end in total mission failure. She needed to give them a reason to let her in.

"Hey, Jaune. Do you mind if we talk in your room?"

"Uh, sure!" Jaune opened the door wide and stepped aside. "Come on in!"

"Thank you." The door shut behind her. Mission accomplished.

"What are you doing by the peephole, Yang?" Damn! I've been spotted! It's all on you, Blake! Your partner's been captured by the ice queen! "Hey!"

Blake sat quietly across the tea table Jaune unfolded for their discussion. She was told it was an idea Ren had to help bond the team together. It was small, square, and only had enough room for one person at each end. Thankfully, however, it was tall enough to have tea on. She was served a cup pre-made by Ren for sudden guests.

"So what's on your mind?" Jaune asked.

"I'm told you're the most trusting man at Beacon."

"Wow, really?" Jaune blushed. "I had no idea!"

Blake nodded. "I wanted to get to know you a little better, and hopefully you can get to know me as well."

"Yeah, that'd be great!" Jaune beamed. "What do you want to know?"

"First, I'd like to know about your family." Blake began. "You were born to the Arc family, correct?"

Jaune nodded. "I take you've heard of them."

"Only a few times. My father used to praise your family for being kind." Jaune grinned. "But he also criticized their recklessness." He frowned. "He said your family made a habit of sticking their nose where it didn't belong. The Faunus Wars, for example."

"Oh, yeah. You mean Abigail Arc, right?" Blake nodded. "Honestly, I don't know a lot about her, except that she broke Faunus from slavery during the early settling of Vacuo."

Blake nodded. "Yes, and at the time, she was my favorite human from history."

"Really? Who was your favorite Faunus?"

"I would say Ghira Belladonna, one of the early founders of the White Fang."

"The terrorist group?" Blake flinched, but Jaune didn't seem to notice. "Kind of weird, but I guess it makes sense if you cared a lot about Faunus rights."

Blake nodded. "Yes, and I do. Jaune, do you trust me?"

"Of course I do."

"And can I trust you?"

"You can." Blake removed the string from her ribbon, causing it to fall and reveal her small cat ears. Jaune blinked and gasped. Blake blushed as she revealed her secret.

"Kitty!"

"What?" Blake whirled around to find Nora standing behind her, gawking at Blake's ears. She had stars in her eyes, like a child watching a butterfly for the first time.

"Can I touch them?" Nora gave a pouty face. "Pleeeeeeeease?"

"Nora," Jaune warned, "mind your manners."

Blake giggled. "Are you sure you're a couple? You seem more like a parent and child relationship."

Nora scoffed. "It's just a gag we run with each other. Right, Jauney?"

Jaune chuckled. "Yes, honey, it is." Jaune then looked Blake dead in the eyes and shook his head, mouthing 'No!' Nora pulled up a chair and sat between them. "So, you're a cat faunus? I take it that's why you're so curious about my thoughts on Abigail Arc."

"Partially." Blake admitted. "Moreover, I was curious on your thoughts on human/faunus relations."

"What relations?" Nora asked.

Blake nodded. "Exactly. Humans and Faunus have had a strained connection between them since the end of the Faunus Wars. Some people have held onto their grudges from then, even when the war ended before their parents were born."

Nora nodded along. "Mhm, I see."

"It's a shame when people can't see past a set of ears or a tail to have a normal conversation." Jaune replied.

"Yes, a darn shame." Nora nodded again.

"Cardin is one example." Blake offered. "His great grandfather fought against the Faunus, and he still holds a grudge against us, even though we never harmed him."

"True, true."

"Nora," Jaune looked in his fiance's direction, "when did the Faunus Wars end?"

"Uh," Nora blushed, "sixty-three years ago starting at noon tomorrow?"

Blake and Jaune shared a look, then looked back in Nora's direction. "Lucky guess."

"Look, I don't really get it, but I still think it's ridiculous." Nora started listing things on her fingers, "The Faunus Wars, the White Fang, the Menagerie Outcastings, the SDC embargoes," Nora waved her hands in the air. "It's all ridiculous! At the end of the day, we're all the same squishy people with breakable body parts."

"A bit morbid, but I understand." Blake was surprised to hear Nora make an argument against not just Faunus discrimination, but discrimination as a whole. She smiled as she stood up. "I should be going." She tied the bow around her ears. "But before I go, I have one more question to ask you."

Jaune and Nora watched carefully. "Yes?" Jaune answered.

"I used to be a member of the White Fang. I used to hurt people for a living. For ten years, every day, I fought against violence with violence. Knowing this," Blake turned to face them, their visibly pale faces watching her every move, "will you treat me any differently?"

"Yes," Jaune answered immediately, standing up and approaching her. She watched as he closed the gap between them, unflinching, expecting the worst. "I'm sorry."

Blake couldn't move. She was trapped in his grip, and he refused to let go. Worse yet, it felt... nice.

Jaune hugged her, resting his head on her shoulder, one hand rubbing her back. "I'm sorry you had to go through that?"

"Jeez, Jauney," Nora teased, "now who's being rude, hugging a girl without her permission?"

"It's fine, it's..." Blake leaned into the hug, "nice."

Blake had left, and Jaune was currently putting the tea table away. He folded it and slipped it into the closet space. As he shut the door, he was hugged from behind by Nora. "You really do have a big heart," Nora said, "you know that?"

"Yeah, I know." Jaune answered. "What I didn't know was how much you knew about Faunus history."

Nora giggled. "Just because I don't talk about it, it doesn't mean I don't know anything about it."

"Fair point." Jaune admitted. "So, here we are again."

"All alone." Nora added.

"Ren and Pyrrha won't be back for a while. Do you wanna..." Jaune trailed off.

"Right now? In the middle of the day?" Nora asked.

Jaune turned around to face Nora. He draped his arms over her shoulders. "Why not? No one's watching."

Nora gulped. "O-Okay."

Jaune and Nora held their hands up, touching palms together. Jaune shifted his hand clockwise and began by wrapping her hand with his pinkie. Nora followed suit with her pinkie, nestling it between his Pinkie and ring finger. Jaune then lowered his ring finger down, followed by Nora, though her finger's ring cause Jaune to flinch from how cold it was. "Are you okay?" Nora asked. Jaune nodded, and continued with his middle finger. Then came the index fingers, leaving only the thumbs extended. Jaune wrapped his thumb around Nora's hand, with the girl looking up with a dreamy sigh.

"BLAKE?!" Nora shrieked. Nora leapt away and looked away with a blush. Jaune looked up, and indeed saw the Faunus girl above with cat eyes wide with pupils round.

"Should you be doing such lewd things without wedding rings on?" Blake asked.

Jaune grabbed his boot from the closet, hefting it up. "GET OUT OF HERE, CEILING CAT!" Jaune tossed his boot into the ceiling, forcing Blake to scurry away.

"What happened?!" Ruby asked, static covering her speech.

"Mission failed," Blake reported, "we'll get 'em next time."

#rwby #jaune arc #nora’s arc #nora the arc au #nora valkyrie #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #weiss schnee #ruby rose

58 notes · View notes

our-lady-of-night-ravens · 4 years ago

Text

The Bane of Our Family: Father

Inspired by @tri3tri’s S/W au along with a submission from @scorpiris-sideralis

There will be more for me to say at the end of the story.

In the Valley of Thorns, lived a princess who was born with the blood of both humans and fae. The crown princess of the Valley, under the tutelage of her father, the king, and the brightest scholars of the kingdom grew up to be an intelligent and cunning princess who was skilled in controlling her fae magic and was brought up to be a great Queen.

However, she knew that there were notable issues within the castle, starting with her family. Her father, who treated her like a national treasure, was possessive over her sweet and loving mother. The reason for that was simple. She didn’t love Father, at least not in the way father wanted her too. And so, Mother was forced to marry her father at a young age, even though most of his advisors were against the idea of father marrying a magic-less human. That reason alone was why many of her father’s advisors would look at her with scorn and disdain, no matter what she accomplished.

She cared deeply about her mother and treasured the unconditional love that she gave her and her younger sister from infancy. That was why for her sake, she would ascend to the throne and find a way to help her mother return to her true home. The princess spent years planning every decision out, gaining the favor of young nobles, winning over some of the members of her father’s court, and earning the love of the public.

However it was all torn apart when her father announced that he would be marrying another woman, a lady of a noble pureblood fae family, in hopes of giving birth to a son, and once she did, that child would be the next heir. He had denounced her as his heir, all that work, everything she did, it was apparently for naught.

Then again she can’t be too surprised, her father’s advisors had been badgering him to take on a second wife of pure fae origin so he could have an heir of pureblood.

Pureblood.

That was something about the Princess she couldn’t change about herself. She could study every book in the royal library and become the kingdom’s most brilliant scholar, she could take up the way of the blade and become the greatest swordsman in the Valley, she could even practice her magic and refine it to perfection that rivals even her father’s, but she could never change her blood. It was something that was always mentioned among the advisors like it was a blatant flaw of hers. Like it made it her inferior to all of them, despite having the Witch of Thorns’ blood running through her veins.

It simply wasn’t right, Mother, human though she may be, was the queen of the Valley of Thorns, had the proper authority to act upon her whims and punish everyone if she wasn’t so compassionate. It was disrespectful to see the court and the servants look at her and her mother with contempt despite all they’ve done for the kingdom.

She had to listen to Sebek criticize her mother all the time, no matter how well she did her job as Queen because of her human origins. It was disrespectful for a fae who was no more than a guard to berate his queen for doing her duty. It was frustrating seeing her mother have no choice but to grow used to the hurtful comments around her no matter what she did and watching her father do nothing to prevent them.

When she confronted her father in his office, all he did was brush her off, like she was dust on his shoulder.

“Father I don’t understand why you would give in to your court’s whims.”

“This isn’t your business, I suggest that some of your studies be dropped as you are no longer heir.”

“But father, you would always say that you needn’t have to remarry because you would always have mother and my sister and me. Why did you suddenly change your mind now?”

“That is none of your concern, the Valley needs a proper heir and your mother simply hasn’t become pregnant in these past few years.”

“A proper heir? Have my actions not shown that I’m capable of being Queen? Or is it that… you’re ashamed of my human blood, ashamed of me and mother?”

His back grew rigid, “Daughter, I would watch your words in front of me.”

“I refuse, I need a proper answer from you father. Would you have preferred that mother was born fae? Did you not, when I was younger, say that you loved everything about mother, or was just that simply just a lie?”

“Young Lady…”

“I’m right, aren’t I? You don’t love mother, do you? You just think of her as a fun toy that you grew tired of don’t you? You certainly don’t care that she’s constantly harassed by the castle’s employees, from the court to Sebek even the maids go about berating her for her human blood. But I’ve never seen you once attempt to stop them.”

Her father’s ears were turning red from contempt and his eyes were glowering at her but she stood her ground.

“Or is that your plan? You stole her from her home, forced her into marriage, forced her to have your children only to abandon her in a way of breaking her down until she’s desperate for care and affection from you. Is this all just a part of your sick and twisted attempt of getting her to love you?”

*SLAP*

A red mark bloomed on the princess’s face, her father standing before her, hand raised. He had slapped her. She raised her hand to the mark on her face with wide eyes. In the past, she never would have believed that her doting father would even harm a hair on her head, let alone slap her across the face. It hurt, even though she knew what he put her mother through, he was still her father and she always wanted to appease him and make him proud.

“That’s enough out of you, it seems you’ve grown as insufferably stubborn as your mother. Silver. Sebek. Escort the princess back to her room.” His guards, who were waiting outside, entered his office.

Silver was the first to approach her, “Princess please follow me.” But she pulled herself away from him.

“I’m not leaving until I ask one last thing to my father, Silver.”

Malleus sighed before answering, “And pray tell would that be, daughter?”

She stood up straight and looked him straight in the eyes, “I know you father, I know that for years you’ve done all you can think of to get mother to love you, to have the family you desired. But I ask you if this is truly what you want to do. Do you truly mean to set Mother aside in favor of another and to have another on the throne?”

He faltered for a moment before standing straight and tall, towering over his daughter, “Yes, and nothing is going to change my decision.”

She should’ve known. Mother always did say that father lied often. Like how he lied that he loved mother with all his heart. Or how he promised that she would be able to lead the Valley of Thorns proudly as Queen one day.

She lowered her eyes in a moment of sadness before glaring up at him in a split second before returning to a neutral face, “If that is your will,” She curtsied, “I hope you’re happy with your decision because there’s no going back. May your reign be long and prosperous, Your Majesty.” She made a quick turn before leaving, head facing forward, hands to her waist and her back straight, an exit filled with formal grace.

On her way to her room, she began to get lost in her thought. Lilia was on his way to see his majesty when he spotted the young first princess walking almost aimlessly. So he called out to her.

“Princess.” Her attention was drawn to the voice calling out to her, she turned to face Lord Lilia, one of her father’s most trusted retainers.

“Lord Lilia, I give my greetings.”

Now, now, princess, you needn’t have to greet this old one,” Lilia waved off her formality.

“Even if you are as you say, an ‘old one’, you are father’s most trustworthy retainer and have served the royal family since the time of my great grandmother, her majesty, The Witch of Thorns. To understate your prestige would be nothing less than rude. But that aside, did you need something of me, Lord Lilia?”

“Why yes, I was wondering how you were doing. I heard you were a touch shaken up after your father announced he would be remarrying and removing your title as heir.”

“I suppose I was shaken up however this matter is something that father has the final say in alone. If he wishes for that woman’s future child to be the next ruler, I have no choice but to set aside any opposition. I just came back from my father’s office and was planning on returning to my room.”

“I see but your highness, you just passed your bedroom door though,” she turned her head back to see the door to her bedroom just a few feet behind her.

“Oh! I didn’t realize… I must have been lost in my thoughts to notice, who knows where I could have ended up. Thank you for notifying me, Lord Lilia.” She turned around to enter her bedroom before remembering something, “Actually Lord Lilia,” The old fae’s ears perked before turning to her, “ I was wondering if you were on your way to see father… I meant to give him some policy proposals regarding the dispute regarding the villages along our border but it must have slipped my mind.”

The old fae smiled, “Actually, I, as a matter of a fact, was indeed on my way to see his majesty, I can deliver it on my way princess.” She smiled before entering her room and coming out with a small stack of papers in hand.

“The first half of the pages consist of a set plan with can act towards for long term and my argument for the plan while the remaining half includes smaller short term solutions that should appease the residents for the time being along with the territory’s lord too.”

Lilia’s face was a tad surprised, though the princess was a young adult to human standards, she was like a baby when compared to the average lifespan of a fae, and yet she comes up with intuitive solutions that most conservative fae would never think of in centuries but then again, look at who her mother is. The first female student of NRC and the young lady who stopped overblot after overblot in her first year alone, “You know to be quite honest your highness, whether or not you become Queen, I’m genuinely curious about what you’ll do for this country.”

“I appreciate the sentiment Lord Lilia but I’m afraid I might not be able to do as much anymore with my title as heir taken from me,” A saddened smile, present on her face. It pained Lilia to see the bright princess he knew with dreams as high as the sky so diminished, “Right now, looking after my mother and sister are what matters to me right now. Now if you excuse I’ll just return to my room.”

“Of course your highness. I’ll be off then.” Lilia left the princess to her own devices before setting off to his original course towards his majesty’s office.

Meanwhile, the princess closed her door before sitting in front of her vanity mirror. “Whew that was too close, I almost got excited in front of Lilia. My whole plan would have been ruined if that had happened.” A smile creeping on her face, “Though I can help but wonder what kind of expression father will have on his face when he sees my policy proposal... regret, annoyance, sadness? Oh, the possibilities.”

Father’s decision will surely backfire on him. She knows her father, to her, it would only be a matter of time before Father realizes that he regrets his decision. Father would never give up on Mother so easily, and the look on his face. He barely showed it but he must not have been aware of how she was harassed by the servants.

No doubt he’ll investigate it further and when he does, he’ll find out the mastermind in no time. After all, if she could do it in less than a week with few resources then he should figure it out in a few days at most. He’ll realize just how untrustworthy the court is and eventually, father will have to admit his mistake and reappoint her.

But until then...Let’s have Father suffer just for a little bit.

She looked at the small frame image of her mother and younger sister, ‘Perhaps I should arrange a tea party for mother and sister in the meantime. I can’t wait to tell them what I have planned.’ Her eyes begin to glow brightly.

The princess looked back at her reflection in her mirror, her green eyes, long black hair, and prominent horns made her a near spitting image of her father. If it weren’t for her facial structure, you wouldn’t see any of the queen’s genetics at all. ‘Oh, I’m sure mother will be excited to have father be away from her after so long. She has been going on about how she just wants some alone time.'

She thinks about how her father’s future second wife. From what she’s heard, the future second queen is a bit of an attention hog so she’ll surely demand father all of his free time. She wonders how long it’ll take before the court realizes their blunder about how the second queen is hardly active anyway outside of gossip tea parties and luxurious ballrooms. Meanwhile, her mother was never one who enjoyed being lavished in luxuries, much to her father’s dismay and worked hard in aiding this nation as a competent figure.

The princess couldn’t wait for the look of frustration on father’s and his retainers’ faces when dealing with this spoiled noble lady and how that woman will look whence realizes that she won’t be getting her happily ever after. Oh, the performance she’ll be able to watch alongside her sister and mother.

“How amusing this show will be...”

~ For Malleus and MC’s eldest daughter, I portrayed her as a cunning woman who cares about her mother deeply and will do what she can to ensure her mother’s happiness. Even if that means making her father miserable in the process.

Also I’m making a part 2 for this as well so expect that to coming soon.

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst oc #twst mc #s/w au #my writing #malleus draconia #twst silver #Lilia Vanrouge #sebek zigvolt #twst kids #no beta read #yandere malleus draconia #malleus draconia x mc #Bane of Our Family

447 notes · View notes