#he's their uncle yet he never gives any hint he feels related to them

[burnmyloveaway]

I was thinking about Franz as one of the very first people with Capek who saw the twins as newborns and there's something, idk, so intimate in seeing those newborns for whom he, in his own way, felt the strangest form of love, for the first time again in years as adults.

[annalyticall]

Saw your tags about MHA being a lesson in restraint when it comes to having different opinion than the fandom norm and please take this ask as an excuse to share your MHA thoughts <- I want to know them if you're willing to share

Oh ho ho I will gladly talk about how my MHA opinions differ from fandom thank you for the opportunity. That said I'm basing what 'fanon' is on what seems to be most popular in fan fics and popular posts I see on Twitter and Tumblr

Also I'm breaking this up into sections because I've noticed a lot of my fanon opinions tends to overlap

Fanon uses character interactions as proof of ships, cliques, or found families instead of considering each interaction as part of a narrative whole. Now, I know this isn't unique to MHA, every fandom does this to some extent, however with a cast as large as MHA's it's more prevalent when so many ships overlap. Each major or even minor interaction is "proof" of a ship being canon and is more or less valid than "proof" for other ships - meanwhile the narrative so rarely cares about romance (barring the Toga/Uraraka/Deku subplot) that arguing about any of that feels very pointless. Bakudeku shippers are the most guilty to me about this; for example, in a recent chapter when Deku thinks about how Iida held his hand and helped him feel calm (a moment that ties into the larger narrative theme of helping a lost child by taking their hand), I saw Bakudeku shippers try to pretend Deku was actually thinking about how much he wanted to hold Bakugo's hand since he never took it in their youth, despite that never being hinted at. I don't even dislike Bakugo or Bakudeku as a ship but it gets so grating when I see big moments for other characters get watered down because they don't fit a shipping lens, which goes doubly for MHA where the narrative supports the idea that everyone is important and everyone should help everyone no matter who they are to them.

While I'm beating the Bakudeku hornet's nest I might as well throw in my grievances with the Erasermic Family and its persistence in almost every. Single. Fic. Or at least the ones I read because Aizawa is one of my favorite characters, but so many Aizawa-related fics I've read seem intent on making Present Mic his husband and Shinsou his adopted son. Listen. Erasermic is fine. It's fine. I even like it from time to time. I just wish it wasn't a fanfic staple because I actually think their canon relationship of comfortable-yet-somewhat-strained old high school friends is much more interesting to explore, especially with the twist of Shirakumo's fate. It also cheapens Present Mic sometimes, because Present Mic is usually portrayed in these fics as... how should I say this... motherly? Wife-like. I don't like that. He's a silly goofy guy but he's also impulsive and angry and puts on a facade and that nuance almost never gets translated when he's transplanted into a domestic familial role with Aizawa. Shinsou being Aizawa's son also feels like it cheapens Shinsou's character arc in a way? I don't hate the son theory I guess but Aizawa clearly only trained him, not adopted him, and making Shinsou a "mini-me" of sorts tends to blur his actual character and motivations to be the same as Aizawa's when they're not. The only dynamic here that has any canon foothold is Aizawa being an adoptive father to Eri. I think Aizawa being a dad to most of the other kids is overblown sometimes but he will always be Eri's dad to me. Present Mic is like her goofy uncle.

Fanon loves making backstories too tragic. Two of the most popular fic tropes I see either makes Midoriya's mom abusive or gives Shinsou a muzzle and abusive foster family, which... okay, one thing I really love about MHA canon is that everyone has a good reason for what they do and everyone suffers a little hardship due to the way society is all in varied and relatable ways. Characters like Midoriya and Shinsou DO suffer in canon but not any more than being bullied in middle school for their quirk or lack of quirk, which I think works well enough for two boys who still aspire to be good and still have some faith in the system that hurt them like most people in this universe do. Characters like Toga, Twice, and Shigaraki already have plenty of tragedy to justify their villainy, as well as Hawks who also has a tragic backstory and serves as a hero counter for them, so it doesn't appeal to me to so often give that pain tenfold to characters who don't fit those roles beyond a what-if exercise.

Fanon takes things characters say at face value and accepts the most shallow interpretation of a character. This is especially true for liars like Dabi and Hawks, who often say one thing and mean another. It's not as much of a problem at current since both Hawks and Dabi are probably at their most authentic in canon right now, but it's still an issue in fics I read where Hawks is presented genuinely as a flirty and cocky hero and Dabi is presented genuinely as someone who doesn't care about anyone but himself. It's really frustrating when something I love about Hawks is his nuanced interactions with almost every other character, which are always glossed over in his discourse. I'll give two of the most glaring examples:

I've almost never seen a take about this scene that justifies why Hawks does this - I usually only see comments about how he's getting into Todoroki's space, isn't aware of personal boundaries, or is being too nosy in the family drama. To me, the answer to why he does this is clearly deeper: he's dropping his laid-back facade and asking a serious question all while putting himself in Todoroki's shoes and planting himself firmly on Todoroki's side. He wants an answer to the scar because the answer is important to him; if Endeavor was the one who inflicted it, it would have tarnished the view he had of his old hero because Hawks knows what it's like to have an abusive father. This is only further cemented when later on Hawks says Todoroki is better than he is because Todoroki is finding it within himself to help the parents who hurt him, unlike Hawks, who feels he abandoned his own.

There's also this and other panels during the fight with Twice ("I'll be sure to tell that to the league") where Hawks seems to be rubbing salt in the wound and overall being a dick about betraying Twice's trust, and I've seen the interpretation here that Hawks is simply being a dick because he is one. And, I mean, this isn't to say that Hawks can't be a dick sometimes, but in the moment it feels like a culmination of two things: 1. Half of this interaction is framed through Twice's POV, so of course we're seeing the worst of Hawks here, and 2. Hawks is intentionally distancing himself from the Hawks he knows would have gladly been Twice's friend, because he knows there's a chance he might have to kill him. Whenever we're in Hawks' head during this fight, it's always focusing on how much he doesn't want to fight Twice and how much hope he has for things to turn out for the better. When he finally makes up his mind that he can't turn it in his favor, he turns cold and harsh again, probably as a coping mechanism similar to Lady Nagant's. Also frustrating when people use this as an example of in-universe police brutality when in actuality Hawks is a groomed child soldier acting very hesitantly to fulfill government orders. Those two issues are not the same.

Oversimplification isn't contained to Dabi and Hawks, though. Kaminari flirts sometimes so all he is is a flirt, Midoriya cries sometimes so he's submissive and weak, Iida is bossy sometimes so he's a goody-two-shoes stick-in-the-mud. One-note fanon characterizations plague almost every character and that does almost none of the actual characters justice. Any character with more relevance than, say, Ojiro has more than one side to them in canon that doesn't get captured all that much in fanon.

Fanon overanalyzes things that are Shonen convention. It's funny, on one hand, I think fanon interprets characters too shallowly, and on the other, I think it reaches far too deep to draw conclusions where the actual answer is "because the author wanted it." Aizawa and All Might bear the brunt of this mischaracterization because they're the main adults in this series, so all of their missteps feel overanalyzed to prove an abuse of authority when actually it's just irrational decisions made to keep the story moving forward. "All Might was irresponsible for telling a quirkless kid he didn't have a chance at becoming a hero and leaving him alone on a roof" I guarantee you the implications of that was probably not even a thought when that scene was written, and if it was, All Might certainly wouldn't have assumed them or else he would have dealt with that differently. "Aizawa is a bad teacher for not expelling Bakugo after he almost killed Deku in their first test" if he expelled Bakugo or had properly dealt with their toxic relationship earlier we would not have a story. "Aizawa is a bad teacher for not expelling Mineta for being a creepy weirdo" if he expelled Mineta then Horikoshi wouldn't have his favorite comic relief pervert archetype. Sometimes we just have to say "Horikoshi wanted this to happen so that's why it happened that way" and move on.

Fanon has selective memory and short attention span. Maybe this is just because there seemed to be a falling off of fandom participation around the time of Season 5, but a lot of fanon I've seen seems stuck in pre-season 5 era characterizations, sometimes even pre-Season 3. Bakugo and Endeavor both have some of the best character developement in the series, and Aizawa also has a lot of subtle growth, but people tend to focus on how bad Bakugo and Endeavor were in Season 1-3 and how good Aizawa is in Season 4, even though Aizawa was also kind of an asshole Season 1-3. It tends to lead to some cartoonishly evil takes on Bakugo and Endeavor and overly-saccharine takes on "Dad"zawa. I say this also as someone who loves Aizawa and is fairly neutral on Bakugo and Endeavor, but I just don't think fanon takes in the whole picture of their character arc sometimes.

Those are my big umbrella opinions, I have more minute ones (especially regarding Iida, Aizawa, and Hawks) but I've already ranted long enough. I know a lot of this comes down to a young fanbase but to be honest the people I tend to disagree the most with are my age so I can't chalk it all up to that lol. Anyways thanks for the chance to rant!

[imaginationlandtrilogy]

Stephen, Linda, and Butters: A Broken Family Built on Abuse

or

How Stephen and Linda Love Butters Despite Their Parental Flaws

Stephen and Linda Stotch are often regarded as the worst parents in South Park, no matter which type of fan it's coming from. It's widely agreed upon that they, both as a pair and individuals, do not treat Butters as well as they could. Alongside this lies a misconception that many feel must be attached to it - that Stephen and Linda don't love Butters. This is false, as strict parents do not lie hand in hand with parents who don't love their children. I would argue that the Stotches love their child very much and this is shown numerous times throughout the series... although not in the traditional sense.

Stephen and Linda have faced clear abuse in their lives - this is visible in the way they treat themselves and treat Butters. They're both extremely emotional people, however, they exhibit different emotions stemming from the experiences they've had.

Linda, in my opinion, is one of the most interesting South Park characters (I may be biased, considering she's in my top three). I say this because there's little to nothing known about her life before Stephen, yet... her behavior sparks questions. Both Stephen and Linda have an outward appearance they put on for the world in order to appear as a 'traditional American family', but Linda is more prone to emotional outbursts, it seems. Unlike Stephen, we don't have many clues into what her family life may have been like... or her past. There are two indications of Linda's family in the series - these are present in "AWESOM-O" (S8E5) and "Going Native" (S16E11). In "AWESOM-O", we meet Nellie Stotch, Butters' aunt who is very similar to Linda in appearance. Despite her surname being Stotch (likely done to indicate her relation to the family), her appearance leans toward her being Linda's sister. The South Park wiki names her husband, Bud, as Stephen's brother, although I'm not sure where they got this - it was never explicitly stated in canon, and Linda's emphasis on Aunt Nellie (rather than Uncle Bud) hints that Nellie is the blood relative. A notable fact to bring up about Uncle Bud, though, is that he appears to have molested Butters, as stated in "The Return of Chef" (S10E1), an episode that aired two seasons after Bud was introduced. Whether or not Bud is blood-related to Linda or Stephen, the fact that he did this only further adds to the abuse Butters faces... and the problems of the extended family as a whole. In "Going Native", we learn about Butters' extended family on one side, although it isn't directly stated which parent's family it is. However, it's heavily hinted that it's Linda's family, as Stephen tells her, "It's our people's way, Linda. You know that better than I do" when Linda insists Butters is too young to visit Hawaii. This is only a small strip of dialogue, but it's the biggest indication as to what Linda's family and upbringing may have been like. To say the least, her family is very... delusional. However, this likely stems from a sense of entitlement than any emotional issues. They've convinced themselves that they're native Hawaiians, despite them admitting they arrived on a cruise ship. The 'rich culture and history' they see in Hawaii isn't the culture that was born 1,500 years ago, but tourist culture. This is clear ignorance on their behalf - ignorance rooted in arrogance. Despite them being tourists, they view tourists who recognize their tourist status as tourists (derogatory). They look down on others in order to give themselves a feeling of superiority. This is among the only glimpse of Linda's family life we get, but it's safe to say her family isn't what one would consider 'normal'. The effects deriving from this can be up for speculation.

I've spoken briefly about my interpretation of Stephen's past in an ask last year, but I feel as if I didn't have the opportunity to fully get into it because my topic wasn't centered on him as it is now. Stephen surprisingly has a lot of information about his past, most of which was given through verbal and behavioral clues. With Linda, we can't outright say she was a victim of abuse, but with Stephen, we can confidently conclude that. Stephen is a product of familial abuse and it is from those experiences that he treats Butters the same way he was treated. There are a couple questions stemming from this, though: What abuse did he face? Why does he treat Butters the same way he was treated if he was treated so poorly?

Before this is answered, I want to make note of Grandma Stotch's relation to Stephen to get it out of the way. It was not canonically stated that she's the mother of Stephen, but it's widely agreed upon in the fandom that she is. Additionally, she's listed on the wiki as Stephen's mother. However, in the episode she's featured in, she says to Linda, "...your cousin Albert, Linda, actually has two girls now." Either she's Linda's mother, or she was referring to Stephen's cousins as Linda's (something like a shortened form of cousin-in-law). This could also be why Linda didn't know about this cousin Albert's children - because he wasn't her biological cousin, but Stephen's. As it makes much more sense for Grandma Stotch to be Stephen's mother, I'm going to view her as such.

Possibly the most important hints of Stephen's abuse are his mother (as seen in "Butterballs" [S16E5]), his nightmares in The Fractured But Whole, and his relationship with homosexuality. Practically all of Stephen's problems can be traced to his childhood and how he was treated - this is able to be done with numerous context clues throughout the series. In "Butterballs", we're able to see firsthand the abuse Grandma Stotch inflicts upon others, although her primary target in this episode is Butters. She is continuously physically, emotionally, and mentally abusive toward him. Throughout the episode, she gives him a black eye, punches him, calls him homosexual slurs, takes his money, swears at him, follows him to school, attempts to put a urinal cake in his mouth, threatens him, stabs him with a fork, tampers with his food, snoops through his stuff, degrades him in a homophobic and sexist manner (using 'gay' as an insult and calling him "Captain Pussy"), and puts her bare mouth on Butters' arm in order to make him severely uncomfortable. Whenever someone interrupted her bullying, she would put on a facade, lighten her tone, and say something so sickenly sweet that it would automatically make Butters appear as if he was lying... if he did tell anyone. Eventually, Butters does stand up to her in the end, giving her a reality check about how things will be in the future if she continues to act this way. What's interesting is that Butters got through this, but Stephen didn't. The fact that Grandma Stotch continued to act this way into her seniorhood tells that Stephen never did anything - he stayed submissive his entire life... and this is extremely evident throughout the entire series. Stephen often blindly agrees with what others say, and even if he were to speak outright about something (such as in "Cartoon Wars" when giving a brief speech about censorship), if someone says something against him, he immediately backs down. To put it bluntly, Stephen's afraid. He's been afraid his entire life and looking at who his mother is, it makes sense.

In the Fractured But Whole, Stephen is shown in his front yard yelling to himself with his eye closed, implying he's having a nightmare. He's incredibly uneasy and panicked, saying, "No, mom... No, please don't... I'll be a good boy I promise", "Please, please don't ground me... I'm sorry!", and finally, abruptly gets up and yells, "YOU CAN'T GROUND WHAT YOU CAN'T CATCH!" while running away. This quote is used a lot when talking about Stephen, and with good reason. It's able to connect everything together with the canonization that Stephen was treated the same way he treats Butters. Regarding his relationship with homosexuality... it's a lot. It was the focus of the episode where he was first properly introduced, so it really is a big part of his personality. Stephen has a very twisted relationship with homosexuality. He seems to know that he's not straight, but both he and Linda are often in denial of this. Stephen is in denial due to internalized homophobia implemented in him by his mother at a young age. Linda is in denial for other reasons that are more difficult to pinpoint, but it's safe to assume she wants to resume this 'traditional American family' appearance. She was even seen reading a book in the bathtub in The Fractured But Whole with the words 'Gay Husband' on it. She's well aware, but she, much like Stephen, is in denial. Perhaps the greatest indicator of this is in "Cartman Sucks" (S11E2) where Stephen sends Butters to a camp in order to "make him straight". He immediately tells Butters he's "bicurious", which is an oddly specific label to give someone out of nowhere. It's as if Stephen used this label for himself because it wasn't fully homosexual and he felt he could be 'fixed' if he was "bicurious" instead of bisexual. Interestingly enough, Stephen didn't become furious or yell when he found Butters in that position. He was startled at first but immediately attempted to reassure him that he was simply "bicurious". It's almost as if he was talking to himself instead of Butters, still trying to reassure himself that... he was 'fixable'. In "Butterballs", his mother continuously used homophobic slurs and derogatory terms toward Butters. These were more prevalent than other insults, meaning that Butters' grandmother is extremely homophobic. It makes sense for Stephen to view homosexuality as something that needed to be 'fixed' if his homosexuality in youth was continuously ridiculed by his mother. At the end of "Cartman Sucks", Butters gives his speech, which not only resonates with Bradley but Stephen. Stephen accepts himself as "bicurious", which is an extremely important development within himself. Butters helped his father come to terms with something about himself, something he couldn't come to terms with throughout his entire life. Stephen wasn't ready to outright say he liked men, but he was open enough to verbally state the possibility. That's better than nothing, and it was Butters that finally moved him enough to do so. He was projecting onto his son so much so that when his son told him what he needed to hear, he finally listened.

There are two things I've put on hold until now: Why Stephen treated Butters the same as he was growing up and the layer of fear built into the foundation of Stephen's personality. To put it bluntly, Stephen treats Butters the same as he was because he never recognized how bad it was. He grew up believing homosexuality to be wrong, he grew up believing grounding your child over everything helps them, and he grew up repressing his true self. What that true self is, we can't know for sure, but everything Stephen knows is what he was taught and he simply never questioned that. Stephen presents himself in a very big and strong manner, but he's far from it. He's a coward. He often goes along with what everyone wants, never opting to repeat himself if he were to speak up. As it seems, this is the same way he views parenting. Stephen likely never defied his mother as a child, so when Butters does defy him, Stephen's at a loss. "The Ungroundable" (S12E14) is perhaps the best example of this. Butters believes himself to be a vampire and in doing so, believes it gives him the power to be ungroundable. He defies his father and rejects his grounding, not realizing it was his newly-found confidence that did that, not vampire powers. When Stephen is defied, he doesn't know how to react. He was never taught what to do when your child truly disobeys. Stephen likely only took after what his mother did and alongside that, what he did - nothing. It's safe to say Stephen never defied or stood up to his mother, given her wicked behavior lasting into seniorhood. Stephen's silence and obedience as a child created an adult that seldom adapts to the situation around them. It's a cycle of abuse, and although we can't answer if Grandma Stotch experienced the same thing, there's no denying that Stephen is in the middle of it.

I briefly mentioned this earlier, but the Stotch family holds the outward appearance of a 'traditional American family'. This is prominent in their personalities and behavior throughout the entirety of the series, but in order to get a grasp on this, we have to revisit where it began: "Butters' Very Own Episode" (S5E14). Stephen, as a character, was built to represent a traditional American father. He has a Transatlantic (or Mid-Atlantic) accent, smokes a pipe, has a very old-fashioned study room, and uses old-fashioned terms of endearment ("Honey", "Darling"), to name a few. Stephen is depicted as 'the man of the house' while Linda is depicted as a housewife. Butters is their only child and as such, carries the role of an innocent, naive young boy. Stephen, Linda, and Butters all play off of each other in this episode that mimics an old family sitcom - something like The Brady Bunch. In shows like these, there's always a problem presented that derives from the family, usually resulting in a happy ending and the family coming closer than ever before. What this episode does, however, is counter that with touchy subjects that shows like The Brady Bunch would never tread. Butters finds out his father is living a double life in which he goes off and has sex with numerous men, but Butters does not truly understand what this means. He views everything with childlike innocence, so even when he tells his mother, he doesn't understand. Linda reacts poorly and is driven to attempt suicide, but not before attempting to drown Butters in the lake, as she did not want him to be raised by Stephen. Fast-forward to the end of the episode and you have Linda and Stephen acknowledging they were wrong and confessing their lies to a group of people. This is a part that heavily contributes to the outward appearance of a traditional American family. In old family sitcoms, there are usually members of the family admitting their faults and making up with one another. This is exactly what Linda and Stephen do here. It's an interesting episode because their behavior exhibited here lives in their personalities for the rest of the series. They were created to mimic a traditional American family and that's something that still resides in them, even twenty-one years later.

Linda and Stephen are mentally unwell - this is a known fact. Of course, their family and upbringing likely had an enormous effect on this, as well as their inability to handle conflict, as shown in "Butters' Very Own Episode". Linda is incredibly prone to emotional breakdowns. In the previously mentioned episode, when she discovered Stephen's secret, it was as if she was put on auto-pilot. Her tone was completely flat (and rather light with no expression) and she opted for painting the walls over and over again... until she painted over a family photo and her scattered mind decided it would be a good idea to kill herself and her son. It wasn't with malicious intent - she didn't want to kill her son for the sake of killing her son. Linda was so far gone and so mentally unwell that at that moment, her mind convinced her that killing Butters would make things "clean" and keep him away from Stephen after Linda killed herself. This action was never meant to be seen as good or, by any means, the right thing to do. It was an action rooted in her mental state and that is what drove her to do this. Later in the episode, when Stephen finds Linda about to commit suicide, he attempts to console her and he somewhat succeeds. The only thing that was in the way of Linda completely calming down was the knowledge that she sent her son to die, which, now viewing the action with a slightly clear head, she reacts with hysterics. She confesses what she did, and begins to blame Stephen, only to reverse it onto herself, fully acknowledging what she did. She had somewhat of a mind at that moment to recognize that she shouldn't blame Stephen - he had already spoken to her and apologized. This was Linda's fault. She likely accepted the blame due to her love of Stephen and didn't want to blame him again, but her behavior in this scene displays self-loathing. At this point, she's breaking down and sobbing, and tells Stephen, "Just go away and let me die!". Linda tried to kill herself when she found out about Stephen's secret life, and now when she realizes what she did to her son, she immediately wants to die again. With this knowledge, it's safe to assume Linda is suicidal, likely stemming from her broken mentality. She didn't attempt to sit and talk to Stephen at all when she discovered his whereabouts - she instead decided the only option would be to kill herself.

There's an episode I haven't mentioned through all of this because it covers so much ground in what I've been talking about: "Marjorine" (S9E9). The majority of what I've said so far has covered one part of the title, but not the other, so... What about the other? Where has it been shown that Stephen and Linda love and care about Butters? The answer lies in this episode, "Marjorine". It shows both parents' mental instability and it shows them caring about Butters through this mental instability. It's what I would consider the strongest episode proving their love for their son and the lengths they would go to, although dangerous, for him. Of course, Linda and Stephen are known to take the dangerous route in things, as Linda's mentality was so broken in "Butters' Very Own Episode" that she genuinely thought it would be best for Butters if he were to die. Stephen's actions in "Marjorine" are his equivalence to this.

In "Marjorine", Butters fakes his own suicide in order to appear as Marjorine the next day. However, Linda and Stephen were never informed of this plan, so when they see a body fall from the top of a building, they truly believe he committed suicide. Linda and Stephen's reactions here are strikingly different. While Stephen is in shock and unable to say anything, Linda immediately breaks down and begins screaming and sobbing hysterically. Even when Butters' 'funeral' is held, she continues to scream and cry, yelling, "NOOOO! NOOOO! BUTTERS! Don't put him down there! Don't put him down there!" while she's held down due to her hysterics. When we see Linda again, she's in her room sobbing on the bed. Stephen is concerned about her and asks her to come downstairs, only for Linda to ignore him and continue crying and muttering to herself about how they couldn't help him. Although this might be a stretch, her saying, "Why couldn't we help him?" may reflect her own experiences. I previously mentioned how it's likely that she's suicidal, given her attempts in the past, so seeing Butters 'commit suicide' likely took a heavier toll on her. Regardless, Linda is extremely upset about Butters' 'death'. Stephen leaves her be and is confronted by a farmer (the farmer) at the door, coaxing him into burying Butters at the "Indian Burial Ground up [the] road". This is a reference to Stephen King's Pet Sematary, but we're going to set that aside to take a look at the episode/characters separately. When the farmer tells Stephen about the burial ground, he's intrigued - he repeats to himself what the farmer said, almost as if going over the options in his mind. The next time we see Stephen, he's slowly approaching Butters' gravestone with a shovel in hand. His hair and tie are messy, reflecting his mentality. He also speaks to Butters' grave, telling him not to worry and how he's going to make everything okay again. This behavior clearly shows how mentally unstable Stephen has become since Butters' 'death'. He's set on bringing Butters back, no matter the consequences. Then again, is he thinking of the consequences? Once he heard about the burial ground and a possible way of bringing his son back, he didn't hesitate. It seems Stephen isn't thinking at all solely because he wants Butters back that badly. Once Stephen digs up the coffin, he opens it up and speaks to 'Butters', saying, "There he is! There's my boy". To be frank, he's speaking to what he believes to be the dismembered body of his son. Stephen is addressing this pile of guts and bones as a person because he so desperately wants Butters to be alive again, so he treats him as such. He's only attempting to fool himself, but cannot do so fully, as he verbally addresses the smell 'Butters' has, saying, "Oh... Butters. You smell like... bacon" in a broken tone. He knows he's not fooling himself, but he refuses to acknowledge that 'Butters' is gone. Once Stephen does bury the body in the burial ground, he tells Linda, who is in shock. There's a lot of dialogue to take in here, so I'll place it below.

Linda: Stephen, you did what?! Stephen: I had to, Linda. If there was even the slightest chance it would bring him back! I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing anymore! Linda: You dug up our son's body? Performed some kind of pagan ritual?! Stephen: Linda, I did it for you, you wanted him back so much! So did I! Linda: Not like this! Not like this. He wouldn't be our son, Stephen. He would be a walking abomination. An unholy demon spawn!

From this dialogue, it's clear that Stephen did this for not only himself/'Butters', but for Linda as well. When Linda was in her room crying, Stephen couldn't get her to come downstairs. Shortly afterward, he was met with the farmer at the door, so it's safe to say he did make this decision with Linda in mind, given how concerned he was for her. He truly cares about Linda, as is evident here. However, he was blinded by his own mental anguish that he didn't fully acknowledge what he was doing or how Linda would feel about it. All he cared about was bringing Butters back and making Linda well again. Bringing this back to the 'traditional American family' outward appearance they have, it seems whenever this is threatened, they become mentally unstable. When Linda found out that Stephen was cheating on her with numerous men, she went insane. It's safe to say Stephen reacted similarly when Butters was taken from them - he made rash decisions that involved trespassing on a burial ground and attempting to bring Butters back from the dead. Stephen and Linda, although mentally unstable at times, work well together (in the sense that they make for good companions). They have a similar mindset and at the end of the day, will do what it takes to keep their family together. Even when the real Butters walked through the door and they believed him to be a resurrected Butters, they wanted to keep him alive no matter what. Although, it was mostly Stephen who took the effort to do this. Linda was far too panicked to take any action, especially after she found out what Stephen did. At the end of the episode, Stephen takes Linda to the basement telling her that it will be okay. Butters is held down by numerous chains to the wall, something that was likely Stephen's doing. Linda is still adamant that Butters should've stayed dead and places her hand up to shield him from her view - she doesn't want to acknowledge what she believes he is (undead). It's also notable to mention that she's in Stephen's arms - she continuously sobs into him and holds onto him, likely due to her fear of Butters. When Butters states that he's hungry, both Stephen and Linda take the action of calling a woman to the house supposedly to provide curtains. Linda now seems okay with the idea of Butters being alive, as she repeats what Stephen says and leads the woman to the basement. When the woman sees Butters, Stephen kills her and pushes her body toward Butters to 'feed'. Linda now uses the word "we" in reference to what Stephen did to Butters, so it's safe to say she's fully accepted it now. This is likely due to the fact that she often goes along with what Stephen does. She even said in a previous episode that she lets Stephen handle the groundings, so it's not uncommon for her to follow suit in what he does. Despite how horrified she was at the aspect of her son being brought to life, she trusted Stephen and indulged in what they believed was the truth.

It's obvious that Stephen and Linda have a somewhat twisted sense of love for their son. It's not the type of love a son should receive, but it's the type of 'love' they give - and to them, this is love. There's no doubt that they do love Butters... but they show it in the wrong way. There have been other moments of them showing the traditional sense of love for their son, but that's scattered all throughout the show. I wanted to highlight the twisted definition of love they show for their son, which is, to them... still love.

Note: This isn't as organized as I would've liked it to be, but that's likely due to the fact that there's so much packed in here. Nevertheless, I hope this is readable enough to suffice as an analysis. There's so much that I wanted to say about Stephen and Linda, but even with all of this, I don't think I could've said all of it because there really is so much to look into with those two.

[ashesandhackles]

Deconstructing Harry: The boy we meet in Philosopher's Stone to the man in Deathly Hallows

I have often seen fans talk about how nebulous Harry is as a character, especially in the earlier books. They can't make sense of who he is as a character and other more colourful, more actualized personalities take over our attention from any traits Harry might display. Harry becomes more defined for a lot of people OOTP onwards where he displays traits that sometimes make him unbearable or unlikable.

Harry, as we are introduced in PS, has a very little sense of self. He is narratively self deprecating or plays down his presence or skills, not that he is aware he has any. He grew up without any presence of him displayed in the house - no photos, no idea about his parents or what they look like or what really happened to them and discouraged from asking questions. Harry as we meet him is neglected, rootless about his identity and longs for escape. For him, every day is a battle against Dudley, who bullies him or Vernon, thus setting a worldview that never truly goes away: him vs adults. But just because Harry doesn't attach traits or values to self, does not mean he does not have it.

It's an effective narrative tool though - for Harry to be our eyes of the world. Only in later re-readings can we get a grasp of the traits that become more pronounced as books go on. Also, it's not surprising that Harry develops a better sense of self when he is removed from an abusive home.

Let me begin with this:

1. Harry is a fighter

One of the things that struck me in later re-readings is that how much of a fighter Harry is, from the very beginning. He will not lie down and take abuse. The narrative presents it as no big deal, because Harry doesn't assign any importance to it - it's every day life for him.

-Verbal standing up-

See his reaction to Uncle Vernon and the letter fiasco. He stands up for himself, even if it falls on deaf ears. "I want my letter - as it is mine!". Later on, in the same book, a completely befuddled 11 year old Harry stands up to Snape too, but in a politer way: "I think Hermione knows the answer. Why don't you try her?". He gets less polite with Snape as books go on. Harry's humor is something he employs liberally with Dudley when standing up to him - "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it - it might be sick" and we see this trait manifest into the sass we all know and love.

- Fight or flight-

He is remarkably good at "fighting himself out of tight corners" as Snape put it. And although Snape attributes it to luck and more talented friends, he is onto something about Harry's ability to worm out of tight corners. He lives moment to moment in a dangerous situation - relying on his nerve, very fast reflexes and athleticism. He is also able to notice things in an environment that will get him out of a quick pinch. You see this clearly in Department of Mysteries in Book 5 where he comes up with the idea to smash shelves, the mad idea to escape on a dragon, the ministry escape where he manipulates Runcorn's image (as he noticed how people were reacting to him) to create chaos and get the Muggleborns and the trio out, Chamber of Secrets when he instinctively understood the diary is the source of power and stabbed it.

Where does the athleticism and ability to spot dangerous situation come from? This boy has spent a decade cheeking Dudley and running away from his gang, spotting when he needs to get out of the way as "long experience had told him to be out of Uncle Vernon's arms reach" or "ducking when Aunt Petunia aimed a frying pan at his head". The instinct to see a dangerous situation develops over the course of the books in his adventures - to the point Harry unconsciously brings out his wand in Tottenham road without thinking too much about it. He is almost always wary and less quick to lower his wand.

When hiding/ escaping is not an option, Harry is not above physical fighting - despite how small and skinny he is in Book 1. Both he and Dudley fight for a chance to listen at the door when letter first arrives for Harry. Dudley wins the fight. Later on, Harry jumps Uncle Vernon from behind and hangs on to his neck to get his letter. He even does the same thing to the troll in the same book. ( Then over the course of series, we see him beat up Sirius in Book 3, Malfoy in Book 5, strangle Mundungus in Book 6 - all of these are related to his fury over the dead, so different context. But still).

- Manipulation/ Cunning-

11 year old Harry even tries sneakily - waking up early to get his letter (unfortunately didn't work). The other sneaky methods he has employed throughout the series is - not telling Dursleys at end of PS that he is not allowed magic at home, threatens Dudley with it in COS, not telling them Sirius is innocent to play up the threat of a murderous godfather to keep them accountable, and also the smooth way he negotiates with Uncle Vernon for Hogsmeade letter. ("Well it will be hard work, pretending to aunt Marge that I go to St Whatsits" ,"Knocking the stuffing out of me won't make Aunt Marge forget what I could tell her"). He similarly displays his negotiation and playing to what he knows about people with Slughorn in Book 6, Pettigrew in Book 7.

The scene with Slughorn is disturbing, with Harry coercing a drunk Slughorn to give up his memory. You can argue that this is the influence of Felix Felicis, but I think the potion acted more as facilitation. The disturbing way Harry brings up his mother's murder to unnerve Slughorn is his own doing. ("Voldemort stepped over my father's body towards mum" "I forgot - you liked her, didn't you?"). Again, in a life threatening situation, Harry plays to Pettigrew's latent guilt: "You are going to kill me? After I saved your life? You owe me Wormtail!"

2. Relational justice over abstract justice

Harry's concept of justice is relational and based on his high empathy for the underdog. He notices power dynamic in a situation and empathises with the victim. This is in contrast to Hermione, who has more abstract, bigger picture view of justice. It's no wonder that Hermione is the one who is the most political of the three.

His high empathy for the underdog and needing to stand up for them is because he feels responsiblility that no one should go through what he went through. He stands up for Neville in PS and encourages him to stand up for himself. When he sees his father bullying Snape, it is not about an abstract "this is wrong behavior". Harry goes further: "Harry knew what it felt like to be taunted among a circle of onlookers" , Harry focuses on young Snape's mismatched clothes because he himself knows what it's like to wear clothes that are not yours or ones that make you look ridiculous. His empathy extends to Voldemort too - understanding why he may not want to go back to his orphanage and desire to be in Hogwarts, wondering why Merope wouldn't stay alive for her son, his fixation with Voldemort's maimed soul in King's Cross chapter and later asking Voldemort to feel remorse (" I have seen what you will become otherwise"). Even his reaction to Dobby in COS - "Can't anyone help you? Can't I?" when Dobby talks about his slavery. Hermione is usually seeing the bigger picture, Harry sees the individual.

3. Pathological mistrust of adults

He is less likely of the trio to take an adult at their words or be assured by them when they say they are taking care of things. He has learnt, from a very young age, that he is always expected to take care of himself. And the times he does take things to adult, they consistently disappoint him - by patronising him or acting like he is a child, neither of which he has tolerance for or appreciates. This is why he takes to Sirius and Lupin, who exhibit neither of these communication patterns. In some ways, Mr Weasley too.

Umbridge's abuse of him for him is framed as a battle of wills between her and him, as if he is an equal. And he loses if he complains - "not giving her a satisfaction of knowing she got to me". Harry's worldview has always been - adult vs him.

His inability to trust adults even extends to the ability of adults he likes to look after themselves. While Sirius is understandably a wreck in OOTP, he has by and large followed Dumbledore's orders. This doesn't register with Harry (Ron points it out: "Sirius listens to Dumbledore even though he doesn't like what he hears") and Harry's fears about Sirius, excaberated by Sirius's tendency for recklessness, comes to play.

He even showed similar distrust in Lupin's judgement in taking a potion from Snape in POA ("Harry felt the urge to knock the goblet out of Lupin's hands" and tries to hint at Lupin that Snape will "do anything" for DADA job). And he shows this once again with the most magically powerful wizard he knows - Dumbledore. ("if I tell you to abandon me and save yourself, you must do so". Dumbledore has to insist on this before Harry nods reluctantly. It's also Dumbledore's wording, but this is a wizard Harry feels safe with almost entirely because of his power - and yet Harry cannot obey an order like this without reluctance). It's not about Harry's own ability to take care of them - he just innately cannot leave people to it.

4. Humor as a value and coping mechanism

Harry has an established coping mechanism by the time we are introduced to him - quip in the face of danger/ dark humor. There are repeated instances of Harry amusing himself with snarky comments in his head when things are really bad for him. Like in PS, when they are in the hut, Harry wonders if the roof will fall in and then thought that if it did fall in, he might be warmer. In the earlier books (before his growth), he seems to value Ron over Hermione simply because he is more "fun". Harry enjoys being around funny people like Ron, Weasley twins, later Ginny simply because there is some dark stuff happening with him and he needs "fun" people for semblance of normalcy, escape. In fact, this desire is so strong, he attaches it to his romantic relationships: Ginny is a "blissful oblivion" and times with her are "something out of someone else's life". His relationship with Cho failed because her coping mechanism is discussing her trauma and Harry's is escaping it.

-dealing with conflict with people he likes, small digression-

A part of his growing up in later books includes valuing Hermione as much he values Ron and we see it in display in HBP, where he is more willing to stand up for her to Ron (something he kind of did more quietly before in POA - "can't you give her a break?" ) and also get confrontational with her instead of using Ron as a buffer between them to fend off her more boisterous/ bossy tendencies. ("let him make up his mind" "skip the lecture" "don't nag" - Ron took the heat in earlier books. In HBP, Harry is more willing to be irritable with her in a day-to-day interaction - "I hope you enjoy yourself" he tells Hermione when she states her intention to investigate Half Blood Prince. Or when she tests the book - "Finished? Or do you want to see if it does backflips?" "Do you have rub it in Hermione, how do you think I feel now?" at the end of HBP. ) In OOTP, his best method to deal with her when she bothers him was lying, avoiding her nagging and if that doesn't work, explode and treat her to display of his temper. There is more to explore here, of course - even with regard to how he deals with Mrs Weasley in Book 4, 5 and the difference of him hugging her in Book 7.

5. Fascination with the dead/ a passive death wish

Harry feels remarkably little sense of betrayal knowing that he was set up to die by Dumbledore. His self sacrificing streak is rooted in his love, yes, but I also think Harry is a little bit too fascinated by death, not surprising considering most people he loved are dead. Him wanting the resurrection stone in DH, him obsessively spending time at Mirror of Erised (to the point he feels feverish and Ron thinking he looks strange) until Dumbledore stops him, him almost wanting to fail to learn a Patronus because he wants to hear his parents voice, the hearing of whispering voices in the Veil in OOTP which only Luna could hear apart from him, the scene at the grave where he almost wishes he was "lying under the snow" with his parents, the possession scene in the book of OOTP has him wishing to die so he can be with Sirius. You can almost argue the Harry has, in many moments, shown raw desire of death. In fact, him choosing to let go of the stone and not go looking for it is a big character decision for him.

I also want to address Harry's temper and how that develops over course of series, the implications of understanding the people he loved and put on pedestal are flawed - but I am afraid this post is already way too long. So I will leave that for some time later.

[robininthelabyrinth]

CQL-verse! The characters have the same age gaps between them as their actors and actresses! Wwx and Jyl are the same age, jc is 5 years younger than them. Lxc is 3 years younger than wwx&jyl and lwj is 3 years younger than him. Nmj is two years older than wwx&jyl and nhs is 8 years younger than him and the same age as lwj. (1/2)

Meng Yao is 2 years older than nhs and jzx is 2 years older than MY. I'm leaving the Wen Sibs out of this because otherwise WN would be the same age as wwx and WQ would be 4 years younger than him. But hey! If you want to go with that, go crazy! I was thinking more of Yunmeng Sibs focus, but I will be happy with anything! (2/2)

ao3

Untamed

Nie Mingjue hated the Wen sect to the point of death and war, but he had always had trouble hating sad and gentle Wen Ning.

Wen Ning was technically his peer – there were only two years between them in age – and therefore capable of the same sorts of responsibilities and duties towards righteousness as Nie Mingjue, meaning that he ought to hate him as much as all the rest. But at the same time, Wen Ning was only part of the main branch family indirectly, a ward of Wen Ruohan; he was constantly suppressed and even tormented by Wen Chao, the eldest son of that family. If anything, it seemed almost as if he’d been brought into the family just to act as the family’s scapegoat, the inferior copy that was so hapless that he made that self-indulgent hedonist Wen Chao appear somewhat competent in contrast.

Nie Mingjue couldn’t imagine treating any of his own cousins that way.

He and Wen Chao were often compared, both being about the same age, and their young brothers were of similar age as well, both of them only fourteen; this juxtaposition made sure that every single person in the cultivation world talk of them in the same breath. Nie Mingjue always came out the better in the comparison, and Wen Xu the same for his, which in the minds of most people balanced out, but which caused Wen Chao no end of rage. He knew he couldn’t take out his anger on the talented Wen Xu and so took out on poor Wen Ning instead.

Nie Mingjue hated the Wen sect.

He did not hate Wen Ning.

Wen Ning, who should not be here.

“Please,” Wen Ning said, nearly in tears, as he threw himself down to the floor in front of Nie Mingjue. He’d burst into the room in the inn Nie Mingjue was staying at, the guards that no sect leader could do without no matter what they wanted following close behind in alarm until Nie Mingjue had waved them off with a gesture; he’d been panting so hard that he’d only just now caught his breath. “Please help this useless older brother do one good thing with his life.”

Alarmed, Nie Mingjue reached out and caught Wen Ning by the shoulders, pulling him to stand and even forgetting himself enough to reach forward with a sleeve to dab away the tears staining the other man’s face.

“What is it?” he asked, feeling anxiety curdling in his gut. He’d spoken with Wen Ning before during the discussion conferences, both when he was younger and even, in a few stolen moments, after he became sect leader; he knew Wen Ning had a steady personality, if a weak one from all the bullying he endured, and that he was not given to unnecessary hysterics. If he could tolerate Wen Chao’s endless torment with a faint smile and a don’t worry sect leader Nie once you’re used to it it’s more funny than anything else, then what could make him act like this? “What is that you need help with? I do not understand.”

Wen Ning looked tired. He always had, his health had always been poor, but now it seemed worse than ever; there were circles under his eyes, and Nie Mingjue had no idea how he’d managed to get away from the Nightless City to come find him. The town he was currently in was close to the border the Qinghe Nie shared with Qishan Wen, but it was still an effort, especially for someone like Wen Ning. He might be a member of the Wen family by name, but his freedom was significantly curtailed, and it wasn’t only because he was sickly.

“My little sister is going to be attending the lectures at the Cloud Recesses,” Wen Ning said.

“The - Lan sect lectures?” Nie Mingjue repeated blankly. It was a stupid thing to say; of course it was the Lan sect’s lectures, who else would give lectures at the Cloud Recesses? And yet, at the same time – “The Wen sect hasn’t gone to them in generations.”

“Sect Leader Wen asked A-Qing to look for something,” Wen Ning said. “I don’t know what. He talks to her more than he talks to me, when she’s treating him with acupuncture and other such things – he only wants blood relations treating him now, so she’s passing along what she can do, the doctors all say she’s talented – he told her something, I think, but I don’t know what, he doesn’t talk to me…and she doesn’t talk to me, either.”

“She’s sixteen, they’re like that,” Nie Mingjue said, trying to offer comfort, but he didn’t like the sound of that – Wen Ruohan growing reliant on the medical skills of a teenager, talking with her as if she were an adult…it didn’t speak well to the Chief Cultivator’s state of mind. “So she’s going to go spy on them?”

“She is. And maybe more. There’s – there’s something back in the Nightless City, something Sect Leader Wen is refining in order to increase his power. Whatever it is, it’s powerful and evil.” Wen Ning looked paler than usual, somehow. “It was something that was kept in a cave near our village when we were younger, once. Sect Leader Wen took it away to study, and it made something go crazy, I got hurt, and my parents – anyway, it doesn’t matter. I can’t go near it without losing my senses, so I really don’t know anything about it. But I know that Sect Leader Wen only has a piece – and the Lan sect has another.”

Lan Xichen had never mentioned such a thing, but then again, he wasn’t really old enough that Nie Mingjue would expect him to know everything about his sect – he was after all a full five years younger than Nie Mingjue, three years younger than Wen Ning; he was still only seventeen, having only just graduated from his uncle’s classes the year before. He was only very technically sect leader, in the same way Nie Mingjue had only been technically sect leader after his father’s death, although unlike Lan Xichen Nie Mingjue had fought his way to step up to the task for real early on. He himself was only barely considered an adult at the age of twenty-two; it was no surprise that in the Lan sect, which had Lan Qiren to rely on, Lan Xichen might not know it all.

Or perhaps he knew, and simply didn’t say. Each sect was entitled to its secrets.

“What are you thinking?” Nie Mingjue asked.

“I’m thinking that my sister is constantly afraid for me, even though she’s younger than me,” Wen Ning said solemnly. “I’m thinking that she will break her own principles into pieces to protect me. I’m thinking that she’ll find whatever it is, or find a hint to it, and then Wen Chao will take his forces to burn the Cloud Recesses to the ground in search of it.”

Nie Mingjue could see that.

He didn’t want to, but he could.

“My brother is attending those lectures,” he said blankly. Nie Huaisang was there right now. He could be in danger – no, he would be in danger. Nie Huaisang wasn’t a good cultivator, and at fourteen, he was just a baby. Nie Mingjue had sent Meng Yao with him, nominally as his attendant, but in fact to get the benefit of the classes himself and also bully Nie Huaisang into actually learning something – he’d brought Meng Yao into the Nie sect after Jin Zixuan, full of guilt over how his father had treated a boy only two years his junior, had sent him a letter beseeching him for help following Meng Yao’s public and humiliating rejection from Jinlin Tower – but Meng Yao was only sixteen, of age with Wen Qing; what could he really do?

Moreover, sending Wen Qing and not Wen Xu, even though Wen Xu was the same age as Nie Huaisang and Lan Wangji, indicated that Wen Ruohan didn’t want his more promising son to get involved in whatever it was that he was planning, or maybe in whatever consequences followed. If Wen Chao really were to try something violent, they couldn’t afford to have a weakness already there…

“I need to get A-Qing out of the Wen sect,” Wen Ning said, and Nie Mingjue turned to look at him in shock. “Permanently. I’ve begged her to go, but she won’t leave me, she won’t leave our family of the Dafan Wen, but she has to. Something bad is going to happen soon. I know it. I don’t mind trading my life for hers, but she has to live.”

“Is there any way you can go to the Cloud Recesses as well?” Nie Mingjue asked, his mind already racing. He’d long ago given up on helping Wen Ning because he knew the other man wouldn’t turn traitor against his family, being an upright and filial child, but if his family had reached such a depth of corruption as that, then it was only right to leave them behind. If Wen Ning was finally accepting that, maybe there was something he could do. “You’re sensitive to the – whatever it is. Right? Maybe Wen Qing can suggest bringing you around to help her find her way to it.”

“How would that help?”

“It gets you somewhere safe, while I can rescue Dafan Wen – without a threat to you or to them, your sister would have no reason to insist on staying,” Nie Mingjue said, though it wouldn’t be him, exactly, that did the rescue – he’d need a firm alibi lest Wen Ruohan use it as an excuse to start something with his Nie sect. He might have prepared for war as much as he could, but the Wen sect was still stronger; if war broke out, he needed to make sure that he had the moral high ground.

Luckily, Wei Wuxian, that walking calamity of a head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang, had of late developed the habit of wandering over to visit various other sects, including Qinghe (and Nie Mingjue in specific), at his leisure, and no one ever would think to blame him for such a strange thing as a subsidiary sect of distant Wen sect cousins disappearing.

After all, Wei Wuxian had no reason to know or care about the Dafan Wen, and everyone knew he abjured politics completely, violently and repetitively, so as to make no mistake about anyone who might otherwise see him as competition for the Jiang sect’s true heir, Jiang Cheng. The five-year gap between their ages kept them from being compared – you couldn’t expect a child, and at fifteen Jiang Cheng was still very much a child, to keep up with an adult just turned twenty like Wei Wuxian – but there had always been whispers given everything with Cangse Sanren, and Wei Wuxian had had to work very hard to put a stop to them.

Wei Wuxian’s wandering habit had started back when he’d been trying to find Jiang Yanli a new fiancée to replace the engagement he’d broken by fighting with Jin Zixuan, however shameful it was for him to fight with a boy two years his junior. It was for that that he had come to Qinghe to meet Nie Mingjue, leading to them hitting it off as friends despite Nie Mingjue expressing that he had absolutely no interest in getting married to Jiang Yanli, or indeed to any nice young lady at all; then, in turn, Nie Mingjue had brought him to the Lan sect to meet Lan Xichen. They’d gotten along as well, although the most notable outcome of that visit had been little Lan Wangji developing a crush on his elder brother’s new friend while Wei Wuxian remained blissfully oblivious. His wanderings had continued even after Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan had found their way back to each other, affianced once again through their own choice rather than their parents’.

Said parents had not yet been informed of this new situation, as they were waiting for the right time to mention it. Or perhaps more accurately, the right situation to exploit with it…

Now, Nie Mingjue thought. Now was the time. It would work perfectly.

And not just as a distraction.

“Are you sure…?”

“I am,” Nie Mingjue said. “Whatever it is, Wen Ruohan must be kept from obtaining all of the pieces; he’s already too powerful, and more power will only make him more arrogant. I’ll speak with Lan Qiren. Once I take the Dafan Wen back to the Nie sect, your sister will be able to testify to whatever it is that she was asked to search for, which will give Lan Qiren the evidence he needs to get his sect’s approval for retaliatory measures. Moreover, using Wei Wuxian to help me will force Jiang Fengmian to support me as well; there’s no way he’d ever refuse to back him to the hilt.”

“The Jin sect –”

“Will join us,” Nie Mingjue said, thinking of Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan’s yet-to-be-announced engagement. Once Jin Guangshan realized that he would be pulled into the same boat as the rest of them whether he wanted to or not, any resistance he had would crumble like a structure made of sand being beaten down by the tide. “They won’t have a choice. Is there anything else I should know?”

“There’s a child,” Wen Ning said, biting his lips. “Around the same age as your brother or my sister, or maybe the Jiang sect heir, I don’t know, around that. He helps Sect Leader Wen with whatever he’s doing.”

“A child helps him?”

Nie Mingjue didn’t like the sound of that.

“I don’t know. Some secret his family knows, I think…his surname is Xue.”

Nie Mingjue frowned.

“I don’t know much about him,” Wen Ning added. “Only that he has some history with the Yueyang Chang clan. Bad history.”

“That’s a good start,” Nie Mingjue said. He realized that he hadn’t yet released Wen Ning’s shoulders, and gave them a small squeeze before doing so. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will do everything I can to help you.”

Wen Ning looked at him with admiration in his eyes, making Nie Mingjue feel a little hot under the collar.

“Thank you, Chifeng-zun,” he murmured, and Nie Mingjue shook his head.

“Call me by name,” he said, and tried to smile. “You’ll be here a lot in the future, if all goes well.”

Nie Mingjue hated the Wen sect, but he didn’t hate gentle and sad Wen Ning.

He didn’t hate him at all.

[ota-division]

Kira's Thoughts on Toyama Division

Asato Rikiya

"I actually like Asato, or rather his produce. For those who don't know, my favorite food dish is tempura. It's pretty easy to make when you don't have any meat or seafood. So when I substitute that, I often use vegetables. And let me tell you, I don't know what Asato's family puts in their produce to make it taste so good, but other farms can't possibly compare!"

Yano Ietsuna

"Yano is... a nice guy, if a little emotional. I visited his workshop once to buy a gift for my boss, the Chief of Police, for his 60th birthday. He seemed to like desk tchotchkes so I visited some knick-knack stores for a good gift. Someone recommended Yano's workshop, so I stopped by and just started browsing his wares. I couldn't find anything good, so I started questioning him, asking him certain questions about some of the items on display." Kira scratches the back of her head, embarrassed.

"I guess I could have been a little more gentle or nicer to him, but he couldn't give me a straight answer, and I was getting frustrated, so he just started crying in the middle of our conversation. Luckily, his uncle came out and gave us both a hand, thankfully. I haven't been back there since, but maybe should I stop by and apologize to him, just to show that there are no hard feelings."

Kensaku Morimoto

"Kensaku..." Kira sighs and rubs the inside of her eyelids. "He's a guy that's obviously good at his job, no doubt about that. I often have to stop by his pharmacy to pick up some pills for Chinami and me. She needs medicine to help her with her eyes, and I... I often need night-aid pills to help me stay asleep at night. ...Don't ask, please."

"Anyway, I often stop by his pharmacy 'cause it's reputed to be one of the best, which it is. Like I said, Kensaku is a guy who is obviously quite good at his job." Kira then sighs. "I just really wish he'd stop trying to make me laugh every time I come into his shop. You think he would have gotten the hint the first time, but nooo. Ever since then, he's made it his mission to tell me every joke in his arsenal. So now, we have a bit of a competition going on."

"If he can succeed in making me laugh by the time the year is over, then I'll admit he's funny. But if he can't, then he has to swear to never tell me another joke as long as I'm in his vicinity. We shook on it, and that was that. He still hasn't made me laugh, but he's surprisingly strong-willed. I admire that."

ECO BooN

"These guys haven't been on the rap scene very long, but they're pretty popular. I think it's cause they represent the 'common man' stereotype. People can relate to them cause of that, I think. They haven't had any battles yet, but it'll be interesting to see who their first opponent is and how they do against them."

[s5anyu]

he is a terrible man. and yet amongst men, he is the most beautiful of characters.

Character Analysis for Askeladd of Vinland saga

On the surface, Askeladd is nothing more than a self-serving man. He is cunning, charming, and intelligent, qualities that no matter the disdain people have for his abrasive personality, have earned him respect amongst the Vikings, and beyond. Floki respects his intelligence enough to approach him to request the killing of a man who is regarded to be the strongest amongst all warriors. This being his first appearance is a solid testament to his ability to overcome any predicament – the basis of his development as a character throughout the Vinland Saga prologue. His men trust in all of his decisions, no matter how rash. They believe him to be as lucky as he is intelligent. His intelligence, wisdom and kindness complements the air of arrogance with which he carries himself. When hosted by his uncle Gorm, he laughs at him, before imparting wisdom on a young man who tells him that he would sooner die than live without pride. He says:

“Look. It’s terrible. The guy who’s a slave to money holds a whip and pretends to be the master of the slave he bought with his money. He just doesn’t realise it himself. Everyone is a slave to something.”

Such a sense of wisdom places Askeladd as a tool for Yukimura to present and explore the status of elders in Norse society. As an elder to Thorfinn, he guides him through different trials and encourages him to push his limits as a warrior, and become a better combatant. Regardless of whether or not life at war is the best option for Thorfinn, Askeladd always believes in him and his ability, and though he never expresses verbally his concern for Thorfinn’s wellbeing, he always shows an interest in Thorfinn’s safety and is always waiting for his return where the rest of his band do not care. To the other Vikings, Thorfinn is just another one of their men. Bjorn says of Thorfinn, “You trusted in his [Thorfinn’s] luck too much this time. It doesn’t matter. I didn’t lose anything.” This statement also reflects the stark individualism displayed by Vikings – although they may work together in bands of warriors or mercenaries or otherwise, they do so to serve their own interests – honour, valour, wealth, among many things. But to Askeladd, he is someone important - someone he cares for. When one considers the question of whether life at war is the best for Thorfinn the answer to this question evidences Askeladd’s selfishness. Despite knowing that life as a warrior is not the best for Thorfinn, he still uses him as a tool to further his own goals. In his own words, “It’s just easy to make use of an idiot who is not afraid of anything.”

There are, however, multiple occasions on which Askeladd appears to be straying from the typical Viking individualism of the era. The first example of this, is his kindness towards Thorfinn, as introduced in the previous paragraph. Amongst Vikings, such ideas of care and brotherhood are ultimately trumped by ideas of valour in battle and honour in death. One would not be greatly concerned with the death of one’s companions as long as they are assured that the departed are well on their way to the esteemed Valhalla – however the concern that Askeladd shows towards Thorfinn is evidence of his holding of attitudes that were unconventional for his time. This ties into the subtle revelation towards the end of the prologue that Askeladd does not believe that life at war is honourable, and does not hold the Viking people in esteem because of this; going so far as to disdain his own Norse heritage in favour of his Welsh heritage. His final actions and his final words reflect his sentiment from episode 10, Ragnarok, in which he declares:

"This is the age of twilight, Bjorn. Let’s go out with a bang."

In his final moments, he kills King Sweyn to protect both his motherland of Wales and the young Prince Canute. In this, he sacrifices himself to protect what is dear to him – and to protect King Canute who he grows to respect as a man with potential to be great in their short period of companionship. This is him leaving his mark on the age of twilight; this is him going out with a bang. He tells Thorfinn:

“In the future, after I die, how do you plan to live your life, Thorfinn? You haven’t thought about it, right? Move forward already. Don’t stay stuck in a boring place like this forever. Go far ahead, go beyond the world where Thors went. You’re Thors’ son. Go. That’s your real fight. Become a true warrior son of Thors.”

These last words reflect multiple things that are introduced at the beginning of the prologue and explored throughout it, the first being Askeladd’s feelings towards Thors. At the beginning of the prologue, Askeladd shows great respect to Thors throughout the duration of their battle. He outwardly expresses an appreciation for his strength, saying that he “could lead a whole army”. This statement shows that Thors is a man who is both physically strong and strong in character, and that Askeladd recognises this. He then asks of him, “why don’t you become our leader?” which shocks his men – as mentioned before they trust in him absolutely and are already surprised to see a man who can best him in hand-to-hand combat. However, none of them express dissent to this; whether this is out of shock or acceptance is open to interpretation. When he backtracks on this statement and says he’s only joking, one of the young men from the village try to attack Askeladd, to which he responds

“Damn kid. You should start valuing your life. You should be grateful to Thors. He was a man who was worth more than a hundred bratty kids like you.”

Askeladd greatly respects Thors and despite his decision, holds him in high esteem. The first part of this statement also reflects on his belief in – or at the very least respect for – Thors and his philosophy. He calls him a man of great value and he scolds the young man who he perceives as disrespecting the sacrifice that Thors made to keep him alive. “Don’t stay in a boring place like this” refers generally to the life of a warrior as opposed to their physical location of the king’s court. As detailed briefly above, Askeladd disdains the life of a warrior, and disdains the Vikings for it. Therefore, when he reminds Thorfinn “You’re Thors’ son”, he believes that Thorfinn Karlsefni has the potential to be as great as his father, if not more so. He believes that he can grow to become something greater than a warrior.

The second idea that this quote reflects is that of Askeladd’s care and concern for Thorfinn. He asks, “You haven’t thought about it, right?”. Askeladd has thought about how Thorfinn has been mentally since the passing of his father. Thorfinn has a stark hatred of battle and engages in it purely because of the hatred he has for Askeladd, and the proximity it gives him to his goal of killing him. Askeladd is aware of this. In his last moments, he could have been unkind and goading towards Thorfinn as he had been in the past – but instead he pushes him to seek something better. He knows that Thorfinn has been suffering emotionally and hasn’t known happiness from the day they met. Askeladd doesn’t appear as a man who wants to seek redemption – he wants Thorfinn to find happiness now that he has nowhere to direct the anger that has been his only motivator for the greater part of his childhood. From this, one could argue that Askeladd’s selfishness trumped his desire for Thorfinn to be happy. However, very early on in the prologue, Askeladd hints at his acceptance of defeat at Thorfinn’s hand.

"You’ve grown a lot. Well, time is on your side. You’re going to grow, and I’m going to get old. Someday, I’m going to lose to you. It’s only natural. Even the strongest dies someday."

Askeladd doesn’t attempt to dissuade Thorfinn from his desire for vengeance. Rather he tries to guide him towards the idea that vengeance is empty, and that any defeat he faces at Thorfinn’s hand is meaningless in the face of the natural order of the world. He knows that it is pointless to try and calm the resentment that Thorfinn harbours towards him; he knows the gravity of his sin and can’t tell Thorfinn not to hate him for it. From this, we can begin to explore the idea that Askeladd is similar to Thorfinn and sees himself in the younger man. Askeladd is just as full of hatred as Thorfinn is – as much as he is to a father figure to Thorfinn as a man, as a character, he serves as both a parallel and a foil to Thorfinn.

Askeladd is just as full of hatred as Thorfinn. His mother, Lydia, was taken from her homeland of Wales as a concubine to Olaf, and when she grew sick, she was of no value to him. She and her son were discarded and Askeladd grew to despise his father, and by extension his people. Askeladd, like Thorfinn, learned from the man he hated the most and sought revenge against him. Askeladd was successful in killing his father but his disdain for the Viking way of life and his bloodline led him to harbour resentment even into his old age. He is therefore a parallel to Thorfinn in that they both resent battle and war but tolerate it as a means to satisfying their own end. Askeladd, however, has seen and experienced first-hand the effects of Viking conquest on the innocent. Thorfinn has only seen it from the eyes of the oppressor.

Despite this, both continue to kill.

Askeladd’s ability to relate to Thorfinn’s anger is what makes him such a good father figure to him. He knows what it means to be so consumed by anger that you see nothing else, that you live for nothing else – to endure something you despise for the sake of vengeance. He knows that Thorfinn is miserable, and hurting, and lonely, because he is too. Such a sense of relatability is what puts him in a position to understand and take care of Thorfinn. It is because he understands how Thorfinn feels that he does not attempt to dissuade him from following him around in the hopes of killing him. He knows that Thorfinn cannot let go of the anger he has until he sees the recipient of that anger gone, because he too suffers from the same affliction. Therefore, it is not selfishness that drives Askeladd to keep Thorfinn around in his suffering – it is resignation; the same resignation he displays when he says that he will someday lose to Thorfinn.

Askeladd proves himself throughout his life to be ahead of his time. He is wise, caring, and understanding; but he is also cold, cunning, and ruthless. Man is not absolute, and Askeladd is no exception. But from those of his time, he is far above men – even with each and every of his nuances and flaws. he comes close to attaining the status of a true warrior as Thors was – and maybe if he had had more time, he could’ve seen his mother’s dream come true. The world is never that simple.

word from the writer:

When Askeladd was first introduced to me, he appeared to me as a terrible man. His intelligence and his strength is terrifying. A man who can kill for his own gain, without remorse. Such a terrible man. But amongst men he is the most beautiful of characters.

When I was writing this I wanted it to be a prelude to my upcoming essay on his relationship with Thorfinn. To some degree I’ve covered that here, so the next piece will most likely be on how Thorfinn views him and I would also like to talk about his relationship with prince Canute. Askeladd, despite not seeming like it, is a very fatherly man and I love looking at how he interacts with the other members of the cast. I hope you enjoyed this, and I’d love to hear what you guys have to say about this. my asks are always open.

Please look forward to the next piece in my Vinland Saga series.

[kaypeace21]

Analyzing the 5 plays in this drama club poster .From the bts pics of stranger things 4.

So... some of ya’ll know I'm going through the st s4 films given to us by the official st twitter + the films reffed in the show itself or mentioned by the Duffers in interviews .

So I decided to look at the plays mentioned here. Because even if we don't see the monologues in the show directly - the Duffers wouldn't name drop anything unless it inspired them in some way. Similar to films name dropped in the show. Tw : for some dark themes .

This is just a quick little analysis I decided to do since we probably won't get any new st content today (3/22). Nothing too deep. Just mentioning things that caught my interest especially cause these plays have a lot of narrative connections to the st s4 movies I've been watching.

Invitation to a march (Authur laurents)

Reminds me of the stancy/jancy love triangle. "A young woman is having second thoughts about doing the right thing and marrying a respectable , rich, kind, young man with good prospects.By way of a prewedding diversion, this woman becomes interested in the passionate but poor and entirely unsuitable son of a local landlord.Basically, the plot concerns the efforts of Norma Brown to choose between a conventional fiance who "puts her to sleep" but is wealthy (like what her own mother did) or go for this new-poor guy. The play is principally interested in how this youthful love triangle affects the three mothers involved (whether the kids like it or not)

12th night (Shakespeare)

 - viola (el) wrongly assumes a family member (hopper) is dead. She dresses up as a man named 'cesario'. A girl named Olivia falls for 'cesario' (violet dressed as a man). "Finally, when 'Cesario' and Sebastian (violet's twin brother: assumed to have drowned - Will) appear in the presence of Olivia there is more wonder and confusion at their physical similarity. Taking Sebastian for 'Cesario', Olivia asks him to marry her, and they are secretly married in a church. Cough if Olivia is 'straight' cause she fell for Viola (as a doppleganger dressed like her twin brother).Mike being into el who multiple characters in s1 said looked like a boy and specifically like Will is...suspish and a hint he's not straight lol. just like Olivia they're both into guys . plus, this play just has a butt load of love triangles (ugh i hated that aspect). There was also romantically coded letters (which was in the s4 films) . One character is also thrown into an insane asylum and framed as 'insane'.'Pretending that Malvolio is insane, they lock him up in a dark chamber. Feste visits him to mock his insanity'. We all know the psych hospital will be narratively important- talked about it more here.

The seagull (Anton Chekhov-russian)

similar to how I believed s4 will show m*#even already broken up since the months between s3-4 : act 3 (s3) ends with Nina begging for one last chance to be with Trigorin before he leaves/moves away. They kiss and make plans to meet again in Moscow.And in act 4 there's a timeskip where it shows they've been broken up for a long time between acts- and its established they never actually loved eachother. Do i even have to spell out why this parallels the m*#even ending in s3? There is also a play within the play (this is common in a lot of the st films- they have plays- or a story within a story- which illustrate certain themes or emotions of the characters within said film : blackswan, children of paradise, highschool musical, Rushmore, book of Henry, welcome to marwen, never ending story, romancing the stone, wet hot American summer, etc).The play is Konstantin's latest attempt at creating a dense symbolist work. There is also alot of love triangles in the seagull. TW!: for se#ual ab*se/su*cidal thoughts/ inc*st (here and in other play segments). The seagull motif reminds me a lot of Jonathan's rabbit story.Konstantin romantically into Nina shows up to give her a gull that he has shot. Nina is confused and horrified . Trigorin sees the gull that Konstantin has shot and muses to Nina on how he could use it as a subject for a short story: "The plot for the short story: a young girl lives all her life on the shore of a lake. She loves the lake, like a gull, and she's happy and free, like a gull. But a man arrives by chance, and when he sees her, he destroys her, out of sheer boredom. Like this gull."  This immediately reminded me of jon's rabbit story and some of the movies on the s4 list . Like in forrest gump- Jenny (who is poor) was se*ually ab*sed as a very young girl by her father. As a child she runs away into a field-away from her alcoholic father yelling at her -there she prays that she can "be a bird so I can fly far far away" .

Jenny as an adult struggles with this unresolved trauma- being with ab*sive partners, doing dr*gs, and having su*cidal thoughts . She as an adult when contemplating su*icide, jokes 'you think i can fly like a bird ?' while looking down at a bridge.God-i'm worried about jonathan (Jenny was also a musician sort of like jon). In another s4 movie example ' mystic river ' :(in the 80s) a preteen baseball playing boy is r*ped by men in the woods. He later says he wishes he could become an undead monster to not feel the pain of that experience - cause quote " if I'm not human anymore maybe the pain will stop" (Will) . slightly off topic but he also has another personality, imagines a alternate word that dissappears when he turns his head. And as a less direct animal parallel to the play - the boy from the film also imagined his perpetrators as monsters and wolves to cope.In 'getout' the photographer character sees a dead deer in the woods and it represents a parent/his own childhood tra*ma relating to his past. similarly in 'prince of tides' the 2 siblings as kids were ra*ed by men. The older brother remembered it and the younger sibling developed DID (so didn't remember but she would draw wolves- as the perpetrators/villains in her picture stories she created . In the film they also had an ab*sive dad and were very poor. She also tried k*ling herself multiple times-but started to get better after remembering the source of her pain and trauma.  There is also the theme of multiple attempted su*cides in the play- and the play ends with yet another attempt- and the audience is left unaware of the artist's fate at the end of the play.

The tempest (Shakespeare)

Prospereo - (the perceived antagonist) is a wizard with monstrous looks, storm powers , and ability to create monster-dogs

He wants revenge on a man who tried ra*ing his family member & revenge on his other family member who wronged him years ago. I mean... pretty much my did theory.But in the end.Prospero decides to show his enemies the mercy that they did not show him twelve years earlier. He tells Ariel to bring the men to him, he will restore their sanity and then renounce magic forever.Prospero breaks the spell that the men are under .

Diary of a scoundrel (Alexander Ostrovsky-Russian)

-  I suppose this could loosely relate to Jonathan? Glumov, is a young man from an impoverished family lacking status seeking entrance into society's pampered class. A 19th-century Russian scoundrel must scheme his way out of his meager life in a small apartment -whatever it takes.He has a quick mind and some talent for seeing through the hypocrisies of people around him ( Jonathan does make a lot of social critiques about society). That gives him some advantages. A tale of one man's mission to finagle his way into upper-class society and find a cushy job. Set in 1874, this social comedy follows Glumov, a Russian youth who begins his ambitious ascent to social esteem. He progresses by wit, guile and rhetoric. Pitting one stupid person against another, he soon gains his ends. To reach these goals, Glumov will lie, flatter, and cater to the vanities of the wealthy. Unable to contain his disgust with his victims, Glumov decides to relieve his unvoiced satirical comments by recording his schemes in a diary. But he is tripped up by his uncle's wife, to whom he has made passionate love on his way to success. At the end of the play, his diary is stolen and his duplicity exposed, but he can nevertheless suceeds. The author is much more critical about the high society itself than about the main character, so the play keeps attracting generations of directors by opening possibilities for political criticism while also avoiding naming names of the current rulers.The play's aim was to overthrow bourgeois tradition and establish a class-conscious art called eccentricism giving a deliberately comic portrayal of reality.

I suppose I notice some possible commonalities-  besides s3 critiquing the wealthy/capitalism in comedic ways . jonathan since s1 has worried about his family's finances / had some resentment toward the rich . In some of the s4 movies ‘orphan’ & ‘ girl interrupted’ someone reads their diary out loud to get at them (in girl interrupted the winona character’s diary even had critiques of her new friends).  Alot of movies also have someone (usually a teen/young adult) making a documentary about their life -which could narratively replace said diary? A few movies have a poor guy adjusting to snobby rich social circles (or being poor and then getting money)- titanic, kingsmen, karate kid, the craft , godfather,  wardogs,into the spiderverse,flashdance, and many others . And movies like wardogs has a poor-young-character do shady things to finacially support his family . There’s also that whole uncle’s wife thing- which makes me uncomfortable for obvious reasons (but I’m just thinking of Lonnie’s creepy gf who was into him). A few movies had the guy’s step mom innappropriately hit on him- orange county & you got mail. And him trying to avoid her advances. Or...not to mention ... it may be a problematic coincidence /trope. But in enter the void -the guy who needs to finacially support his sibling/ does dr*gs -hooks up with his dr*g dealing friend’s married mom (who would give him money).  Or in gilbert grape- the poor teen-who has to finacially support his siblings/single mom-has his endgame relationship be a girl his own age. But before that he h*oked up with a married woman -who would give him money. Don’s plum -young film guy-propositioned by older female film director (for dream job). Not even mentioning the other films that have the guy hooking up with toxic older women (like ‘the graduate’). Or analyze this-where the therapist accuses him of having an Oedipus complex (not touching that one... but the guy in ‘enter the void’ a 100% had one). It’s possible those movies were just- inspo for s3?  A coincidence? Or s3 was foreshadowing for this in s4- but unlike s3 it will accurately be played as wrong  and a sign of Jonathan recreating past tra*ma caused by Lonnie (cough like the photos) /being desperate for money. And not played ‘comedically’ like how it mostly was in s3. But shown as self destructive  (for Jon) and immoral on the Woman’s end. Like... Billy and Jon are character foils. Both are older siblings into rock music, with ab*sive dads who shoved them into walls. Both lose it (and beat steve to a pulp when Steve accidentally triggers their daddy issues). In s3 it’s established womanizer Billy has mommy issues, than he tries ho*king up with someone his mom’s age, and the characters ref ‘back to the future ‘ and Steve incorrectly says it’s about “alex p keaton trying to bang his mom.” This could illustrate his subconscious issues with parental figures/adults cause of Lonnie’s  possible past se*ual ab*se . One film the friend even says to the guy “you don’t have friends!” guy b: i have friends! him:  no you have acquaintances! ADMIT IT! YOU’RE AFRAID OF MEN!I mean-Jonathan liked Nancy- but he initially hooked up with her cause he wanted to prove he didn’t have ‘trust issues’ from his dad. Also it’s prob a bit of a reach (and maybe a coincidence)- but the fact Murray in the same breath compares Steve (Nancy’s then bf) and Lonnie  ... uh... if you think too long about it ... it’s very sinister .  Especially because in s3: muray tells Joyce  that despite her wanting to be with a nice guy, she’s curious about “the brute” Hopper despite him reminding her of a past “bad relationship”(aka Lonnie). Like- yeah connect some dots.  Quite a few films (other than forrest gump) also have the character who (as a kid) was  r*ped by their dad/parent-  begin to do dr*gs/be pr*miscuous as adults since they never learned to properly cope with their trauma (’girl with the dragon tattoo’,  ‘black swan’, and ‘magnolia’). Unfortunately the whole relative doing such things to kid-relatives is in at least 30+ movies. 

Personally, i would be MUCH happier if Jon had a age appropriate romance- and had not a single creepy adult near him. A few movies actually imply Lonnie gets yet another ‘new model’  replacing his gf in her 20s with a new gf- who is ‘barely l*gal” and just turned 18. so there’s that possibility as well- that she’s jonathan’s age.I just want Jonathan-happy &safe. GOD. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

[mk-wizard]

Big Hero 6 The Series: It could have been better

Hello, friends. Today, I will be analyzing a TV series based on a movie that I fell in love with for its colourful themes, deep plot, compelling characters, great CGI and memorable messages. Before I get into it, I want to take a moment to say that I have quit doing videos. They are too big of a pain in the petunia to make and I write better than I speak, so I will stick to writing essays, reviews and more. Anyway, onto the analysis.

All I can say about Big Hero 6 the series is that it had a great concept, it presented some great ideas and tried hard to be a cartoon of the times, but it could have and should have been a lot better. The show’s downfall all centers around trying too hard to be kid friendly which makes the shame sting all the more because Big Hero 6 was already kid friendly even with its dark themes, sharp edges and intelligent writing. If anything, even the brightest kid friendly cartoons (Steven Universe, She-Ra, etc.) had those things and actually benefitted from them. By needlessly trying too hard, character development got scrapped, the edges were all smoothed out, storytelling was subpar, the humour was too silly and the executive meddling in the end produced a dismal final season. However, I don’t want this analysis to be one lengthy negative rant about how awful the series was because in its defense, awful is an unfair word. It did have potential and ideas which are worth carrying over to a reboot that I hope will be done someday in the future. Also, we should root for a reboot because Big Hero 6 would not be the first story that needs it before striking gold. Just look at how many times Spider-Man was rebooted in film before MCU found the version that worked. Anyway, I will list all the things in Big Hero 6 that could have been better in my opinion;

1- Go easy on the laughs and be more generous with the action. - I love adding comedy to my own writing because I think a good sense of humour makes everything better, but Big Hero 6 is not a stand up comedy routine. It is a superhero story where we expect action, suspense and life or death situations that are to be taken seriously first. The comedy should be for relief and with the right timing. Also, the chibi cutscenes and having characters act like fools aren’t funny. Ren and Stimpy are the exception not the standard and their way of making you laugh doesn’t fit an action series. In a show as big as Big Hero 6, real life physics and danger matters.

2- Make the villains menacing and gritty. - I admit that after having a movie villain like Yokai who was the stuff of nightmares, it is going to be a challenging act to follow, but it was obvious that the writers were trying especially with some villains who could have easily gone into some dark relatable territory. For example, Mr. Sparkles (the gentleman in the photo above) embodies social media and Internet personalities. Right off the bat, you have a long list of things which embody the dark side of that like scams, fraud, using social media to dox or harass, driving people to suicide, online predators, the Internet personalities being very depressed people in real life, and much more horrifying things. When you stop and look at it, Mr. Sparkles even looks like the Joker which hints how dark and scary he could have been if the stops were removed. The same goes for enemies like Hardlight who embodies online gaming, Liv with cloning, Obake an amoral and insane scientist, and Trina and Noodle Burger Boy (more on him later) being evil robots. Globby especially should have been painted and written in much darker colours rather being played off for laughs because he has many parallels with Clay Face. The only two villains who I can say were supposed to be campy, charming and comical were Baron Von Steamer and Supersonic Sue because they were a satire of the Adam West style villains.

The rest of them needed to be dark and threatening including Mr. Sparkles. In fact, I would love a rebooted version of Mr. Sparkles who gives me the heebie-jeebies. Going back to Noodle Burger Boy, I must confess that I was actually excited when I heard that he was going to be the main villain of the final season because I thought he was going to fulfill his master’s final wish and as a reminder, Noodle Burger Boy was based on a super robot for military purposes.

It would have been fantastic if Noodle Burger Boy was upgraded into a full military war machine with a new threatening look. For that, I think all of the villains deserve to be rebooted and have their full potential unlocked for better or for worse.

3- A show about geniuses merits genius level art quality. - I am usually forgiving towards art styles, but in the case of Big Hero 6, the oversimplified style with minimal details and lack of textures did not suit the show. The characters blend in with the background which makes them look flat and the special effects were extremely dulled down. I also know for a fact that Disney can do a lot better than this because I saw how superbly Tangled the Series was drawn.

You can see and almost feel the difference in quality, the number of layers and level of detail between the two styles. I think there was no excuse Big Hero 6 was not done in the same style and at the same level if not better as Tangled.

3- Don’t dumb down or flanderize amazing characters. - I absolutely detest it when characters are flanderized because it makes them one dimensional and grating. For example, Go Go is tough as nails and extremely calm, but she is not cold or hesitant towards helping her friends. She doesn’t require very special episodes for us to know that. If anything, the movie version of Go Go reminded me a lot of Garnet in how she deconstructed the broody character. She isn’t cold or emotionless. Just calm and mature. Another good example was how Honey Lemon was rewritten to be overly positive to the point of toxicity, naïve and oblivious with a juvenile obsession with stickers. Then you have poor Fred who was rewritten to be an incompetent fool. The spark that makes Big Hero 6 shine is that they are a team of geniuses meaning they are all intelligent. Even Fred is genius in his own way just not a scientific one. He has a vivid imagination, he is resourceful and can get himself out of tight spots. Please, don’t turn characters into dummies especially if their intelligence is a part of them. It doesn’t make them better or funnier. It ruins them.

4- Tadashi needs closure and honour. - I am all for Hiro making peace with the loss of his brother, but Tadashi is to the Big Hero 6 team what Uncle Ben was to Spider-Man. His loss was the catalyst if not the reason. He should never be forgotten. Moreover, there was never any true closure to him especially with the possibility that he may still be alive up in the air. After all, like Callaghan, his body was never found and it turned out that Callaghan was still alive.

With that said, who is to say that Tadashi was not secretly still alive and just hiding or being hidden? This is something that Disney really needed to clear up if not for the fans, then at least as a service to such an important character. Never just forget about them.

5- The format can only be episodic with a deep plots, continuity and character development. - Random episodes with a mere monster of the day is an outdated format which doesn’t fit Big Hero 6′s modern and bright setting. In seasons 1 and 2, when the episodes were plot heavy with character development, the series shined brightest. It also helped move the story along, but with the final season, plot was removed, closure was abandoned or poorly written if any was given, and characters were disallowed from growing. A good example at how plot and character development could have made this series and its characters better was the relationship between Hiro and Megan. Would it have truly survived or would they have broken up?

Would Richardson Mole have eventually lost interest in his obsession with besting and bullying Fred or would his obsession consume him compelling him to become a super villain? I do see quite a few similarities between Mole and Reverse Flash.

Then you have Karmi who is in my opinion, the biggest wild card of the bunch. She was intentionally introduced as an arrogant, prickly and unlikable yet complex character who rivaled Hiro bitterly.

Yet had a huge crush on his alter ego and as time went on, started to grow up and even form a friendship with Hiro. What would have happened further down the road with her? Would she have become a super hero herself? Or maybe even another love interest for Hiro kind of like how Black Cat is for Spider-Man?

Is Obake really gone?

What does the future hold Diana (Liv’s clone), Liv herself or the Sycorax the genetics company?

Is Alistair Krei going to become an ally to Big Hero 6 or an antagonist? There is also the issue at how little we know about the other Big Hero 6 characters other than Fred, Hiro and Baymax. What are Honey Lemon, Wasabi and Go Go’s backstories? These questions matter and while not every mystery can be solved, leaving none of them solved is lazy writing.

6- Executives, kindly stay out of the writing and any other part of the creative process. - I’m sorry, execs, but there is no nice way to say it. History itself proves that every time executives got involved in the creative process of any media, it got worse not better. Leave the writing to the creative team and the execs should only handle the legal stuff. Please. We understand that TV is a business, but writing itself is not. It is an art which you just don’t have a talent for. Let the creative people do their thing with the freedom necessary and you do your thing, deal? Deal.

7- Focus on Hiro and Baymax. - The are the main characters so keep them at the heart of the series no matter what happens around them. That is all I can say.

And that sums up all the things that could have made Big Hero 6 the series better, but this is all just my opinion. What is yours?

PS: I am well aware that the Big Hero 6 series is being retconned because a new series called Baymax is in the works as well as the long awaited sequel to the first movie. I am looking forward to both with an open mind. PPS: I also am aware that some people liked this show the way it was including the art style and I am cool with that. An analysis for art that includes cartoons is never right or wrong. It is solely based on opinion. I may have thought this series could have been better, but there are people who make arguments that it could have been worse.

[kanene-yaaay]

5+1 [Part 3]

5 times Iida was tickled and the one time he wasn’t.

[PART ONE]

[PART TWO]

Kanene’s note: Heyaaa! Okay, I just want you to know that I am WEAK for b-day tickles ! It's just so cute and :'3 *whispering softly* truly precious. Oh, Tenya is 12 years old now! Y a y

Warnings, fun facts, random things and stuff:

* This characters don’t belongs to me! They all belong to the anime/manga Boku no Hero.

* This is a SFW tickle fanfic with family tickles, so, if you don’t appreciate this kind of content, please, look for another blog. There are a plenty of very greeat arts in this site!! ^w^)b

* This is Lee!Tenya with Ler!Hizashi + Ler!Aizawa with brief Ler!Tensei and Lee!Aizawa. All relationships are platonic. Around 1.800 words.

* Sorry for any spelling, pontuation and grammar mistakes! Any and every advice is very very welcome! \(-w-)/

* Allow yourself to have a slow day. Don’t forget to drink water, sleep and eat! <33

[~*~]

Iida drank a second cup of his special orange juice - used only on commemorative days and events - thoughtfully. His birthday party would be late in the evening and, since his family wanted to make it a surprise, he would spend the whole day hanging out with his brother, Aizawa-san and Hizashi-san until all the preparations would be complete. He, of course, offered himself to help with all the decorations, but his parents were firm on their decision and Tenya would be lying if he said he wasn’t excited to have some quality time with his brother and the other two heroes. Their work usually demanded a lot of their time.

 Still locked on his thoughts, as the doorbell rang, the teenager opened the door without a second thought in a polite stance, being rudely pulled out of his own mind as he stared at Aizawa and Hizashi, both with dangerous smirks that suddenly filled Iida with clear memories of a tradition Tensei started on the boy’s birthday and his ‘uncles’ (Tenya one day protested at the nickname, pointing it didn’t make sense call them like that because they aren’t blood related. However, his parents explained that this was just a way to express fondness and closeness for someone you care about. The younger one began to call them uncles with more frequency, except on social gatherings) caught on it as well.

 “Hello! ~” Hizashi chipped, making goosebumps run down his spine as Iida closed the door on their face, internally wincing at the clear disrespectful act, however valuing much more his safety than being a polite host.

(But, actually, he wasn’t truly anxious about it. They were always nice and kind with him, making him smile and enjoy himself, even when he wasn’t the perfect model he struggled to be.)

 Tensei’s head peaked from the second living room’s hall as he dashed at full speed across it, accompanying his baby bro with ease and drops of confusion. “Who was it at the door?”

 “Uncles!” Tenya frowned in concentration as he turned the corner, lowering his speed enough to not go face first on the wall, cheeks slightly red and sputtering starting to become present on his tune. “They are going to do that hideous tr-tradition you started when I was a kid!” And Iida Tenya, future hero from a whole noble ancestry of skilled heroes, definitely did NOT pout at his brother’s carefree laughter.

 “Oh, yeah! I forgot about that! It’s so polite of them to help me to remember, don’t you think?”

 “No!! It’s not polite! High level heroes like you shouldn’t be committing such embarrassing, hideous act in the first place, even less repeating it yearly!!”

 “Aww, you’re repeating your words. You’re excited, aren’t you?” Tensei smiled, knowing his brother enough to notice that gleam in his eyes and the lack of a real protest in his words. He ignored the squeaked ‘NO!’ thrown at him and smiled even wider, doing a fast maneuver that put his body between his brother and the door, hugging him on his chest with a ‘oof’ when they inevitably collided. “You know what? Since they’re being so nice with us, I think we should repay their kindness, right?” Tensei grinned when he heard the footsteps coming closer, shouting “HEY, GUYS! BIRTHDAY BOY IS HERE!”

 “Tensei!!” But he was already smiling, squirming excitedly on his brother’s hold, especially when a loud, happy ‘YEAHHH!’ boomed through the house. “No, no!! This is betrayal! Deception! Dishonesty! Trickery! Treason!!!”

 “Now you’re just reciting the dictionary.” Ingenium laughed, no hint of regret on his voice, distractedly nodding at his friends when they appeared at the door. “Look,” he whispered, conspiratorially, “I will need you to distract them until Shouta lowers his guard so I can sneak upon him. Hizashi would never pass up an opportunity to tickle him too, so you will be safe to run and get something useful for us to bribe them with, ok?” The younger gasped, quickly nodding. “Right. So, are you ready for your part of the plan, sidekick?”

 “YES!” Iida chomped the air, voice louder than he originally intended, but his squeal even louder as the other Iida squeezed his side before any hint of what they were talking about could be noticed by the two guests, who now were now much closer, I might say.

 “Now, now. It seems like a little listener here is excited for his so desired birthday tickles!!” Hizashi wiggled his fingers in his direction, meaneancily. “Oh! They grow up so fast! It feels like it was yesterday we would be playing heroes, and I, the most incredible villain LoudChaos would be defeated by Ingenium Junior and his vicious attacks of kicking his pillows at me!!” The blond pinched his cheek playfully, watching as the groan of his nephew dissolved in a determined look a few seconds later, energetic gestures following him.

 “You will never be able to crack me, villains. Not even with embarrassing memories from my childhood!”

 “I don’t know, I think those times when we had to buy at least three copies of your favorite plushie because otherwise you wouldn’t let us wash the original was pretty- ack! Hey, hey!” Tensei snickered as he tried to dodge from Tenya’s warning kicks, “I was kidding! I was kidding!”

 “Want me to hold him?” Aizawa asked nonchalantly, a small quirk of his mouth showing his amusement about the whole situation. At Tensei's affirmative nod he held the younger’s arms above his head, briefly messing with his neat combed hair before smirking. “Congrats for being twelve years next to death, brat.”

 Tenya deadpanned at him.

 “Ooh, right, twelve!!” Hizashi’s fingers were teasingly getting closer, slowly and then even slowlier, almost touching a spot before pretending to launch at others, resulting in kicks and muffled shrieks from the younger one. “You know what that means, right, Shou?”

 “Yes. We will have to tickle him for twelve entire years.”

 “Aw, such a pity.”

 “No! Lies! That is incorrect!”

 “Is that so, not-so-little listener? What should we do then?”

 “According to your rather silly and foolery tradition you should tickle me for twelve entire minutes. One minute for each year.”

 Aizawa and Yamada shared a look, Tensei holding his chuckles and tears in the background. His brother was just way too much precious.

 “We should what?” Shouta questioned with a voice completely devoid of emotion, maybe that is why Tenya felt the answer slip away from his lips easily even before he could register the potential trap.

 “Tickle me!”

 “Well,” Hizashi attacked, skilled fingers tickling and tickling and tickling every spot they could research. “If you insist.”

 There were fingers dancing on his ribs and poking his stomach as a maddening prodding began to be delivered on his sides and even a squeeze found its way to his knee. A much more lazy, almost unbearably light touch drew shapes on his neck, scribbling lightly and softly to his ears and then all the way back to his collarbone, going from one side to another, over and over again.

 “Coothie coothie coo, little listener!!” His loud laughter, intertwined with squeaks, yelps and guffaws due the mix between all the soft and energetic tickles, almost made the teasing disappear. Key word: Almost. “Have a tickle, tickle here!” He shook his head, trying to dislodge the fingers on his neck. “And tickle, tickle, tickle there!” Spidering on his shoulder blades made him squirm more. “Have all the tickles, tickly tickles everywhere!!”

 “YOHOHOHOU WILL NOT DEFEHEHEAT ME!” Tenya’s smile was almost taking over his entire face, chuckles and giggles spilling freely from him. Yet, - he decided, - he has an important part of the plan and would not lose easily! That was the only reason why he continued firm on his position, figuratively laughing his head out, and definitely not because of how their attention and silliness made him feel happy, safe and loved.

 “Of course not.” Shouta paused for a few pieces of seconds, checking his phone. “You still have five minutes left. I am sure you will agree to a defeat, eventually.”

 “Nehehever!” Iida did his best to shout, quick, airy snickers floating in the air when Yamada decided to give him a break, leaving only Shouta’s torment to keep the other smiling.

 “Hey, hey, hey, little listener!” Tenya knew this tune. He knew that when Uncle Hizashi used that he was planning something. His smile became wobblier and he refused to open his eyes. “Come on, don’t let me hang on here! Look at me, pleaaase?”

 The boy just shook his head, eyes still firmly closed.

 “Shoouuu, he doesn’t want to see the big, great, amazing surprise I have for him! That is not fair.”

 “He is smart. It’s not his fault for your lack of charisma.”

 “Gaaasp! You wound me! Friendship ended with Ereaserhead, now my new best friend is Tensei!”

 A pause.

 “Buuuut, the vacancy is still open if maybe, just maaaybe,” A wiggly finger tickled under his chin, a snort flew in the air, “a clever teenager with a cute laughter and blue hair decides to open his eyes…”

 “Yohohou will not crahack me!”

 “Please,” Poke, “Please, please, pleasepleaseplease!” Poke, poke, pokepokepoke-

 “Stop!” And then he finally opened his eyes, finding a very smiley Hizashi in front of him, making a silly face. He half groaned and half giggled, the former action only due Aizawa’s tickles, of course.

 “Aw, you didn’t find it funny?” The blonde crossed his arms, pretending to think about his next move. “Donut worry, then! I know something that will make you laugh!!”

 And then, in a blink of an eye, he blew a gigantic raspberry on his tummy.

 In the exact moment Tenya’s loud, uncontrollable, squeaky belly laughter exploded, Aizawa let go of his arms, a surprised, sharp snorts coming out as Tensei hugged him from behind, his hands being quick to attack his unprotect armpits, low muffled squeals and rumbling chuckles beginning to float in the air.

 Tenya fell on his knees, hugging his stomach and tittering non stop as Yamada tenderly ruffled his hair, giving the boy’s cheeks another gentle pinch before getting his attention captured by his best friend’s tickled laughter, his wicked grin making another appearance.

 “Is it already Tickle Shouta hours??” He cracked and wiggled his fingers, making a whole show of getting prepared, crackling in delight as the black haired adult laughed harder at the silliness, laying completely limp on Ingenium’s embrace, face starting to be colored by a light red, legs kicking and a hand hiding his mouth, even if the corner of his smile was still clearly visible.

 And, as Iida laid on the cold floor, rarefied giggles escaping from time to time, as new laughter and teases filled the room, he thought that he actually didn’t mind that much that such foolery, silly tradition had wormed its way in their family.

[tossawary]

Chapter 27: “The First Day” of “pride is not the word I’m looking for” quotes and commentary. Not a full list of favorite quotes or full commentary.

-

Right now, deep into the safety of darkness, Shang Qinghua thinks about how he never actually expected to be lying in his bed with Mobei-Jun. No, there’s a reason his sofa is comfortable enough to sleep on! That was by design too! Sure, Shang Qinghua had lots and lots of bed-related fantasies, but he had no expectations of those fantasies ever coming true. He didn’t dare to have expectations.

It’s kind of weird, lying in bed with Mobei-Jun. It’s definitely weird lying in his bed partially on top of Mobei-Jun. With the way things were headed, Shang Qinghua was admittedly fostering some hopes about those bed-related fantasies, but he still didn’t think to mentally prepare himself for the practical details. He really wasn’t mentally prepared for the softness of Mobei-Jun’s hair, for the thickness and the weight of the man’s arms, or for the coolness of his skin against the warmth of the blankets.

Fuck, now there is no way that Shang Qinghua is going to be able to see Mobei-Jun with a plunging neckline without thinking about touching the man’s bare chest. It’s a nice chest! It feels great underneath Shang Qinghua’s hands now.

He can feel a steady heartbeat beneath his fingers.

He can feel the gentle rise and fall of it with the man’s slow breaths, as the man’s eyes have fallen comfortably closed.

Shang Qinghua has never seen Mobei-Jun this relaxed.

-

AN: Moshang in bed together is very good. I loved writing Moshang cuddles. I think it’s really nice when they’re allowed to be soft and relaxed, and everything is understood between them. Mobei-Jun at this point has learned to treat Shang Qinghua like a particularly anxious cat sometimes - if he just stays still and relaxed, eventually Shang Qinghua will calm down and chill with him. 

Shout out to Mobei-Jun and all those years he spent trying to get some hint as to how human social everything worked, only to get nearly no help from Shang Qinghua. In this fic, part of the idea is that Shang Qinghua has been a slightly better communicator. Mobei-Jun can be a good listener when he doesn’t feel hideously embarrassed over his fuck-ups. 

-

“I had made plans to speak with you at some point about… this,” Mobei-Jun agrees. “But that was not why I had come to see you that day.”

“Ah, what… what was it, then?”

Mobei-Jun sighs. “I had come from a gathering of demon lords, hosted by my father at their request. They have loosely agreed to each contribute to an attack on the next conference of human cultivators,” he explains, apparently annoyed at just having to recollect this event. “My uncle encourages my father to force my involvement. He must have trouble planned… or see an opportunity for it.”

Shang Qinghua processes this, then sits bolt upright in bed. “What?!”

Mobei-Jun frowns up at him.

“There’s a demonic alliance to attack the next Immortal Alliance Conference?!” Shang Qinghua demands, leaning over the demon lord beside him.

“Yes.”

“And you waited to tell me this?!”

“There are years left before this event,” Mobei-Jun points out.

Shang Qinghua stares at him.

Sure! But he feels like he should start planning now! He already knew that there was going to be a demon attack of some kind - the seal on Luo Binghe’s powers has to be broken - but demon lords getting involved is bad news! Multiple demon lords who are important enough to be socializing with Mobei-Jun’s father is worse news! Demon lords potentially including Mobei-Jun’s shitty father and shitty uncle is the worst news of all!

“You should warn your people,” Mobei-Jun says, dryly.

- 

AN: Mobei-Jun doesn’t care about the sects, but he cares that Shang Qinghua cares. Mobei-Jun and Shang Qinghua really are villainous in SVSSS. Shang Qinghua just so happens to sometimes be on the protagonist’s (Shen Yuan’s) side and Shen Yuan has romanced a budding tyrant who has MBJ as a loyal minion. But, oof, I didn’t want to go that route with this fic. 

I mean, I considered it! I considered having Shang Qinghua be forced to bring a demon invasion down on the sect he’s come to care about and his own nephew, but that felt a little too angsty for me. It totally could have been good, I was just like, “I can’t handle that.” Plus, with the world update, it felt fitting to jazz things up a little bit - to up the ante by inviting more demon lords and also have a little role reversal by letting Mobei-Jun be the spy. This way, I think, it really feels like Mobei-Jun is on Shang Qinghua’s side. 

Shang Qinghua isn’t on the demons’ side. Mobei-Jun isn’t really on the humans’ side. But they are on each other’s side. They’re a team! 

Again, what’s more romantic than your demon boyfriend actually doing the work of growth on his own? Moshang can be a little rough and with a lot of sharp edges (on both sides, they’re both kind of mean people) sometimes, so it’s sometimes nice to remember that they can support each other too. 

Also, I’ve always been kind of curious about what Mobei-Jun’s family thinks of his relationship with a human. Mobei-Jun’s father is still alive throughout SVSSS, so it’s fun to think about ice demon politics, power and influence and loyalty in that court, and whether that factored at all into Mobei-Jun’s extremely slow-moving courting timeline of a human. 

-

The person at the door knocks a third time, and Shang Qinghua feels the person beside him stir. He can feel a not insignificant amount of weight shifting, a low and unhappy grumble, and cool skin brushing against his own as that person makes to get up. Possibly to handle the person at the door? Shang Qinghua here abruptly remembers many important details about his current situation that make the sect potentially being on fire seem like a not-so-bad emergency.

 “Demon invasion,” Shang Qinghua finds himself thinking. “Mobei-Jun. Fuck.”

“No, no, no! Don’t get up! I’ll get it!” Shang Qinghua cries, throwing off tangled blankets and flying out of bed. “I’ll handle it, my king! Sorry! Ahhh, sorry! I’ll take care of it, you can just stay where you are-”

Shang Qinghua, now on his feet, pushes firmly down against Mobei-Jun’s chest. He’s not expecting the man - a very, very strong and very, very stubborn demon lord - to go back down under his hand without any resistance at all. This easy obedience, this willingly being pushed down, leads to a surprised Shang Qinghua overbalancing and catching himself hard on Mobei-Jun’s chest and shoulders.

As though Shang Qinghua is actually pinning the man down.

Mobei-Jun stares up at him, eyes low-lidded, and raises his eyebrows.

Ah.

Wow.

Shang Qinghua is going to… well, he’s going to think about this for the rest of his life, probably.

-

AN: Mobei-Jun is so self-conscious in SVSSS that it’s kind of hilarious. So it’s fun to let him be a little more confident (rather than arrogant and lashing out defensively). Mobei-Jun probably thought to himself here, “You know what’ll be funny here? If I just go down now.” I feel it in my heart that Mobei-Jun is a teaser, especially when he’s relaxed and happy. 

- 

Shang Qinghua takes the time to fix up his appearance a little more - to get rid of the “I slept with a demon” smell - because if the asshole at his door has kept it up this long, they can wait a little longer. It turns out that he didn’t really need to bother, because it’s his fellow transmigrator and most dogged critic, Peerless Cucumber.

“Bro,” Shang Qinghua says seriously. “Do you have a deathwish?”

Peerless Cucumber - Shen Yuan, Shang Qinghua has to remember to call the kid by his real name - lowers his hand with a scowl. “...One of your disciples told me to knock on your door and keep knocking until you answered,” the other transmigrator says defensively. “After I said you said to meet you in the morning.”

“...Which one?”

“Wen Shufen, I think?”

“Ah, just for that prank, Sticky Fingers is going to be hauling fertilizer for Long Sheng Peak for a month,” Shang Qinghua says tiredly. “Bro, do not believe half the things your martial siblings here tell you. They’re pretty much all liars, cheats, and thieves.”

“Then why keep them around?”

“Ah, well, sometimes you need someone to lie, cheat, or steal.”

“...It’s nearly not morning anymore, you know.”

“Eh, I guess you get a pass this time, since I did tell you we’d have a nice long talk about things tomorrow morning. Come on in.”

- 

AN: I don’t know if this vibe is coming across, but Shen Yuan feels a little ignored and neglected. They just got back from a mission and Shen Yuan has already been shooed off like twice. Shang Qinghua is so busy. Shang Qinghua is so experienced and so established here. Shen Yuan has latched onto SQH as his lifeline, though he’s trying very, very hard to be independent, and yet Shang Qinghua kind of has SY on the back burner most of the time. 

Not only is Shang Qinghua the author of this world, but he’s also an important figure in this world. Shang Qinghua really lives here and if the plot wasn’t looming over them, SQH would be very happy here. This place feels 100% like Shang Qinghua’s | Airplane’s world and brand new transmigrator Shen Yuan feels like an unwanted intruder. SY is still lonely and scared. 

- 

“...Are you going to try to activate it now?” Shen Yuan asks.

“Hmmm… no, not right now,” Shang Qinghua decides, standing up off the dusty stool he was sitting on. “Cucumber, bro, I’m just not awake enough for tackling anything serious right now. Let me get a few texts and tools together first to test this thing properly, alright? Some safety equipment! Aprons and face shields! Thick, fireproof gloves! I’m still trying to figure out how to safely ask Duan Tianyu what he knows about this map the System apparently made him send me, when he might not even know what the fuck I’m talking about! Maybe he can give us some hints.”

“Who?”

“One of my Huan Hua not-disciples,” Shang Qinghua answers. “I picked up some extras a few deadly missions back. They’re good kids. All grown up now! Less naïve than they used to be! Duan Tianyu is teaching back at Huan Hua Palace now, so maybe I’ll have to be the one to wander over there on some pretense.”

Shen Yuan agrees that getting as much information as possible is probably the better course of action. Shang Qinghua ushers the kid out of his secret basement and his fellow transmigrator goes easily enough. Shang Qinghua complains about his shitty, no-good System on the way up for forcing them to do all the work by themselves.

“It must think everything is more ‘authentic’ if I don’t know what the fuck is going on,” Shang Qinghua suggests, removing his spiritual seal and causing the door to the secret basement to vanish. “Ah, I’ll admit that’s kind of cool to watch.”

-

AN: Throughout this conversation, SY is kind of reaching out, giving himself or Airplane excuses to let him stay. It’s not that he doesn’t want to cultivate, but SQH represents a sort of safety and familiarity SY doesn’t have right now. 

In SVSSS, Airplane was always pretty direct with Shen Yuan, from what I remember, but he wasn’t necessarily open. He was direct about some potentially vulnerable or personal topics, like Luo Binghe’s insanity or his own general fear of his character’s planned death, but that’s not the same as actually being vulnerable. They snap at each other, they’re pretty direct about their personal goals, but they don’t actually get vulnerable with each other by confessing their personal fears and new relationship developments. 

So I’ve tried to adopt that here, while making Shang Qinghua a little kinder and slightly more vulnerable, thanks to the efforts of Luo Jiahui. But Shang Qinghua still isn’t necessarily open here and neither is Shen Yuan. He’s just like, “Hey, it’s shit and I don’t like it either, but what can you do?” He’s not actually seriously talking about his breakdown or just how scared he is of his own plot. 

For some people, there’s a certain kind of openness in confessing things to a stranger, so it’s kind of like that too. Shang Qinghua and Shen Yuan have fallen into kind of familiar dynamics, because there’s nothing else to really do, and they are kind of acquaintances, but they’re still not friends yet. 

I think I want to have SY and SQH actually address this soon. SY feels that SQH has been kind of dropping the ball when it comes to honestly helping his fellow transmigrator, though SY, being SY, can’t quite put his finger on the lack of emotional intimacy and affection that he’s starved for right now. 

- 

The day-in-day-out of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect can’t get him down today! He feels kind of like he’s walking on air! Sure, the work never stops and there are some fucking terrifying things ahead, but he just had a very successful mission overall! He just had a really, really successful conversation with Mobei-Jun! He and Mobei-Jun are romantically entwined and Mobei-Jun was very explicit about the fact that he expects them to be romantically entwined… pretty much indefinitely!

“There is no one else,” Mobei-Jun had said. “There will be no one else.”

Shang Qinghua fostered a lot of hopes over the years! More hopes than he felt that he should have reasonably fostered! And to have those hopes unexpectedly fulfilled like this is… really something! It’s really, really something! Mobei-Jun really isn’t the type of character to say that - to say any of the things he said, and wow, he said a lot of things back there - without meaning it completely.

Shang Qinghua doesn’t really know what to do with that.

Forever is a long time.

He understands, of course, that some things really do last an impossibly long time. He used to be pretty certain that all love matches faded eventually - that people were genuinely wildly in love… that people were sincerely in love with each other, sure… up until they inevitably weren’t anymore - but now he can’t really imagine Liu Qingge or Luo Jiahui ever getting tired of each other. Liu Qingge keeps bringing Luo Jiahui new recipes to try and rare ingredients to interest her, so she can make dishes for the two of them or her family as a whole, and Shang Qinghua can easily imagine the two of them doing that pretty much indefinitely.

Shang Qinghua can’t think about this for long, before he has to focus on greeting his disciples (it’s just Peng Hongpeng and Chen Xuan in here at the moment) and getting to work. “Good things last while they last!” he decides for now, because thinking about things not lasting kind of makes him feel like he’s dying.

-

AN: Shang Qinghua can’t quite bring himself to believe in a relationship lasting forever right now. Part of it is his commitment issues, but another part of it is his persisting inability to see past the looming plot. He’s still worried about Luo Binghe and the Eternal Abyss, so he’s having difficulty seeing past that hurdle, even though things like Luo Jiahui’s marriage and his new relationship with Mobei-Jun are forcing him to confront the fact that there’s still a life outside of and beyond the plot. 

For Shang Qinghua, it’s kind of a “I’ll think about that later if we all survive” thing when it comes to him and Mobei-Jun. 

- 

“He made a mistake with good intentions and got a small injury for it,” Shang Qinghua says, as reassuringly as he can. “He’s fine! He’s in trouble with his shizun for it, though, but I’ll see what I can do about bringing you up to meet him or bringing him down here as soon as possible. I’ll do my best to make it happen!”

Luo Jiahui leans into Shang Qinghua’s side and admits, “I miss him.”

“He misses you.”

“I miss you too,” Luo Jiahui adds.

“...Ah, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” his sister-in-law says warmly. “I’d miss you even if you visited every day.”

Shang Qinghua is holding her hands, but it feels like she’s got an extra one wrapped around his heart. “Where’s that husband of yours? Doesn’t he come down the mountain every day? Should I be telling him off? Sorry I ran off with him for a little bit!”

“What does Qingge have to do with you and me?” Luo Jiahui demands. “It doesn’t matter how often I see everyone else, I still miss you and Binghe the most.”

“Hm, that’s a point! That’s a point.”

What else can Shang Qinghua do but admit that he misses her the most too?

-

AN: It was fun to follow up Shang Qinghua’s romantic developments with a return to his most important and longest relationship: the one he has with his “fake” sister. Luo Jiahui is and always will be important to Shang Qinghua and who he’s become. They have such a lovely relaxed feeling that’s nice to revisit. I’ve missed Luo Jiahui these past few chapters, as things get twisted up more and more in sect business. 

It would feel dishonest to the rest of the fic if Shang Qinghua’s other relationships disappeared in favor of his new romantic relationship. They all have their own importance. Mobei-Jun and Liu Qingge don’t make Shang Qinghua and Luo Jiahui any less important to each other. 

I am looking forward to making Mobei-Jun and Luo Jiahui meet again, and tackling some of Mobei-Jun’s thoughts on Shang Qinghua’s relationship with his family. Mobei-Jun has a really shitty family, so it’s interesting thinking about what family means to him and how loyalty/love plays into it. 

- 

While he's busy plotting around the plot, there’s a hum of power behind him, the cool whoosh and crackle of a portal opening, the faint hair-rising warning of demonic energy. Shang Qinghua finishes tapping at his own face in thought, looks up at the looming shadow standing behind him, and smiles. He kind of feels like he should run away, but it's too late for that now. He held on long enough that he made it too late for himself.

“Hello,” he says.

- 

AN: I took this almost exactly from the first chapter of Part 3 of this fic. I can’t remember the chapter number, but it was the one titled “The Inevitable Plot”. 

Parts 3 and 4 of this fic blend together a little. Part 3 of this fic kind of ends here, but I have a couple more chapters that I want to tackle before I feel that I can say we’re for sure in Part 4? I have some things I want to accomplish before we go into a slight time skip towards the Immortal Alliance Conference. 

[bansheeoftheforest]

Syndicate + gang leader au where Henry kills his brothers

Jacob x Henry because it’s healthier than Lanyon x Henry

-🦎

OK THIS ONE IM ACTUALLY GOING TO TRY TO STAY ON TOPIC TO AND JUST RAMBLE IDEAS AND HCS INSTEAD OF TRYING TO MAKE A GODDAMN MASTER LIST OF EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THE AU JFC HOW DOES THAT KEEP HAPPENING SDJFHSJDF

Anyways <3

Gang leader / Syndicate crossover au:

Henry is the youngest of the three brothers, Raphael and Kent are nonidentical twins. Henry is two years younger than them and has always been the baby of the group. Raphael and Kent have always been protective of him and also love to mess with him.

Their parents were abusive, Raphael and Kent decided to take the opportunity to leave Glasgow the first moment they got and they took Henry with them. They moved to London and one of their uncles-- who owned and inherited quite a successful shipping company by the London docks-- gave Kent and Raphael jobs as Henry went to university. The uncle died before Henry graduated, and left the business to Raphael and Kent.

Henry did not talk a lot to his brothers while in University. He tried to reach out to them but suddenly Raphael and Kent were "incredibly busy", Henry assumed they were busy trying to keep the family business going well.

He went to visit them on their dock after he graduated and got his doctorate. He had learned a lot about the London "culture" and gangs from Robert (and Rachel) telling him everything there is about the London underground and the aristocracy. Much to his horror, he arrived at the docks to find his brothers dressed as Templars.

Henry was quickly forced into the Templar order against his will. His brothers gaslight and manipulated him into joining, other members threatened to hurt him or his friends if he didn't join, and it ended up being Henry's biggest regret.

Henry spent about 13 years in the Templar order working in secret for it. He was allowed to do as he pleased as long as he made poisons for them. In the meantime, Henry tried to make up for the guilt he had from the suffering he had caused by helping people on the street. Hungry, dirty, sick people who quickly becoming loyal to the doctor who always feeds them and gives them what they need to survive.

In this part of the au, Henry more directly creates the gang. He realizes that these people are willing to fight for him and they have placed him on a pedestal. He can't get himself down from it so he takes advantage of it. He makes sure that the Society is under constant protection and that the gang brings in money that can be spent on taking care of the members and keep the Society afloat. No Lodger cares enough for the finances to notice the sudden influx of money, and Henry merely tells Rachel and Robert that it’s “sponsors”.

It was only when the Frye Twins entered and began to liberate London that he decided that it was the perfect time to finally break free from the Templar order. He had long since lost any love he still had for his brothers and he would do anything to be free again. He ended up cornering and murdering his brothers in cold blood while his gang distracted the Blighters, and he blamed the murders on the Frye Twins afterwards, the very same Frye Twins that quickly would... Well... Realize that they did not kill these Templars and instead try to track down the murderer that blamed it on them.

In the end, they find their way to Dr. Henry Jekyll's office. Henry had done a good job and working behind the scenes and no one had really suspected him of working for the Templars, so the twins-- while hearing from Greenie that it was rumored that the Jekyll Brothers and Dr. Henry Jekyll were related-- did not know that Henry himself used to be a Templar.

Henry, however, assumed they had broken into his office to kill him. He had already resigned himself to his own death, he was not going to fight it. He had burnt every photograph and document he had that connected him to his brothers and he had merely been waiting for the twins to come and kill him. He was, honest to god, quite disappointed when the Twins seemed confused and instead asked him if he knew anything about the murder of the Jekyll brothers.

"...The murder of my brothers, the Templars? The murder committed by someone close and well trusted by them, the murder that went undetected, and that was later blamed on you? The murder that had slank past the eyes of public after a convenient gang fight right that moment?"

It does not take long for the twins to realize what he is hinting to. His voice his bitter and his body language is cold, yet it doesn't sound like he regrets it.

ahaha anyways i ended up accidentally just retelling the entire thing well time for some actual hcs about this au branch.

Henry gets extreme paranoia after having murdered his brothers. He swears he can still see their faces of terror or hear their screams of pain and agony when he closes his eyes and try to go to sleep. He constantly feels followed by them, but he is too used with Hyde, so he doesn't pay attention to "them". When he doesn’t sleep, they silently follow him with whatever other hallucinations he have at the moment, like Moreau.

He wanted to be the one to murder his brothers himself, he didn't find it dignified to have someone else do the murdering for him. He generally does not want his gang to murder people, only hurt those of necessity, and he still wanted to give his brothers the dignity of not having to be killed by a random gang member.

Something in him kinda... Died that day. His friends, the Lodgers, and his very on gang could all notice how Henry seemed... Colder, more tired, constantly exhausted. He refused to tell anyone why, though, and he still did everything he needed to do so no one could force an explanation out of him. It was not until the newspapers reported on the murder that people realized that he was acting weirdly because his brothers had been murdered. Henry debated snapping his own neck once the Lodgers began to flock to him with words of sympathy, unaware that he was the murderer.

He is extremely benevolent to his gang, something many feared he wouldn’t be at first. He has always been a kind person and that’s why people began to flock to him as it was, but some feared that he would... Ah, turn crueler after a while like most gang leaders. That never happened, though. He saw each and every one of his gang members as his family, and took care of them as such.

He and his gang began teaming up with Lucy many years before either met the twins. It was always fun when Rachel tried to introduce the two of them without telling Henry that Lucy is... Well, Queen Lucy, and it was always fun to act as if they had never met before and as if Henry hadn’t just been invited to dinner the night before. Henry is really good friends with Patrin and Elise.

Henry’s gang wear blue. The Blighters wear red and before the twins and the Rook started, Henry didn’t want his own gang associated or reminding him of Hyde. Blue it was, and it easily made his gang slip into crowds and disguise themselves to be the Scotland Yard.

Neither Brokenshire nor Abberline knew about Henry’s gang until Abberline started working with the twins and until after Henry was “recruited” by them. Depending on if Henry murdered his brothers before or after he joined the twins, Abberline and Brokenshire helped him cover up the murder. 

Ahaha wow Uhm. I keep forgetting how I format and classify these as rambles but anyways time for some Jekyll x Jacob <3 This is just going to be in general btw so <3<3

Henry was incredibly endeared by Jacob from the moment he heard about him. Something about a tall, strong ruffian bringing justice to the streets of London (and fighting Templars) was just incredibly... Ah, attractive in Henry’s eyes. He actually allowed himself to feel that because hell, he works for the Templars and Jacob is supposed to be the enemy, Henry hates the Templars, why not be incredibly gay for the assassin?

Jacob shamelessly flirted with Henry from the first moment the met. Breaking into his office to figure out who murdered his brothers and Jacob could certainly not read the room. Henry was far too gone that he merely huffed and flirted back... Well, until they came to the topic at hand. Even in other branches were Henry was recruited by them to make poisons, or where they met in a gang fight, and Jacob still shamelessly flirts with Henry.

Jacob tries so hard to be romantic. Henry is incredibly amused by it. He will be working in his office late at night and Jacob will pop by his open window to demand attention. He will come back to his office after having ran son errands and there will be bouquets of fresh lavenders, lilacs, and tulips. Jacob will constantly “force” him (or, well, bribe him to leave his work) to go on dates with him, dates that consists of wandering the rooftops of London and watch the stars at night or have a nice dinner together. He loves to spoil Henry rotten <3

Jacob loves cuddles. Henry was not very physically affectionate at first. He was afraid that Jacob would end up doing the same thing Robert did to him and while he couldn’t keep away from him, Jacob made sure to take it slow for him. Their favorite pastime is to cuddle on one of the couches in the train after exhausting missions, and Henry finds that he can’t keep away from Jacob’s touch for too long.

Rachel and Robert began to introduce Henry into the more... Ah, illegal luxuries of the London life. They take him to a fight club and are highly confused when Henry suddenly gets incredibly excited as he watches his boyfriend kick the shit out of people. He completely abandons them and practically fall into Jacob’s (sweaty and slightly bloody) arms the moment the fighting is done. Both he and Hyde love to check out Jacob fighting in fight clubs.

(Jacob post-fight is probably the hottest sight Henry has ever seen and Jacob knows that fully well. Jacob often uses the money he wins from the fights buying gifts for his lil boyfriend <3). 

Another ideal date in the eyes of Jacob is highjacking Henry’s carriage and abducting him. It’s all fun and games until he accidentally does that when Jasper, Rachel, or Robert are in the carriage too. That was not fun for Henry to explain.

After Jacob and Evie have liberated all child factories, Henry makes a spur-of-the-moment decision to adopt Clara (the child who wanted the twins to free the children in the factories). Clara ends up getting raised by two very protective and very lovely-dovely dads. She spends most of her time in the Society (while still helping the kids on the street) but Jacob visits her and Henry a lot.

Look I just want Henry and Jacob to raise a kid that won’t come back and try to murder them later on ok.

Anyways on to some other hcs. Jacob loves to make sexual jokes to Henry. Henry either acts dumb and as if he doesn’t understand them, or he will shot them right back until Jacob is the one blushing (or highly embarrassed).

Jacob loves to break into the Society and follow Henry around but make sure he doesn’t see him. He will be parkour over the ceiling beams and all the Lodgers will notice and get extremely paranoid, trying to get Henry to notice it too because clearly something is up, Henry will completely ignore him most of the time.

Jacob rarely sleeps because his work as an assassin rarely allows him to, but once he and Henry starts dating he always makes sure to visit Henry during the night (or have Henry come to the train) so that they can cuddle and sleep together, knowing Henry won’t sleep by himself.

Henry is always the tiny spoon. Always. Jacob loves to hold him. Henry is always cold and Jacob is always warm so for Henry it’s like being wrapped in a blanket and for Jacob it’s like having an ice cube chilling down his overheated body.

Henry gets overwhelmed quite easily, both in general and with their actual relationship. As dramatic and clingy Jacob can be at times, he always gives Henry the space he needs and especially in the beginning, when everything was so new and Henry had to take his time to process everything. Jacob is always patient with him.

Henry likes to create stuff for Jacob. It can be everything from new poisons to new gadgets, to something as simple as a painting or a hand-made sweater he did himself. When the gifts became more... Simple, so to speak, he worried that Jacob wouldn’t like them, but Jacob absolutely loves and treasures anything Henry does for him, although he routinely gives the sweaters and clothing back so Henry can wear them, and so Jacob can get them back and it smells like his boyfriend <3

(Evie always finds Jacob cuddled up with the sweater in the mornings when they can’t be together. She thinks that it’s stupidly adorable).

Jacob stays in London after Evie and Green get married and move to India. He would originally have thought of leaving London to return to the Assassin Order in Crawley, but ultimately decided to stay with his lover in London. After the end events of TGS, the two of them buy a horse ranch out in the countryside where they retire. Jacob occasionally returns to London as the leader of the Rooks, and soon they begin on working to expand the gang to other cities. Henry doesn’t normally return to London, but always eagerly awaits his husbands return. By the time they have retired and moved, Clara goes to University in London, but she always makes sure to visit her dads inbetween her semesters.

They get to die a peaceful death after having lived a long and fulfilling life. Henry died first, his body having gotten weaker after many years of HJ7, and Jacob died only a few days afterward. Clara made sure they got buried in the same grave, and their little farmhouse and their belongings (and their story) has been passed down from generations ever since. 

Lydia, Jacob’s canonical granddaughter that lives through ww1, is instead Greenie’s and Evie’s grandchild for this au/ship.

[il0veyoujk]

The mood

Summary: Nefeli (14) is in THE mood and she tries to get her cousin Tae to get her

Warnings: None

Notes: None

This is a tickle related ff, if you are not interested in it, please keep scrolling

Lots of love Nef 💕

Nefeli was in the mood again. And we can all understand what mood I mean. She wanted to be tickled right now and right then. Why? No one knows. She just woke up like that.

However, she couldn’t do much. The 14-year-old girl was stuck in her cousin’s house due to a storm and her parents were out with her uncle and aunt so she was forced to spend the night there. Don’t get me wrong, Nefeli of course adores her cousin more than anything, but she was really bored.

She was currently lying on the couch of his home, watching droplets of the heavy rain sliding down on the glass as she was trying to find ways to annoy him.

Suddenly he appeared in front of her, wearing a white, fluffy hoodie, and plopped himself next to her, scrolling through his phone. That was her cue to do something.

“Taeeeee” she dragged his name to get his attention and turned more to face him, her back against the arm of the couch and crossed legs.

Taehyung, her older cousin, looked at her and smiled his famous boxy smile every girl in his university melts for “Neffieeee” he mimicked her with a high-pitched voice, making her giggle.

“You look like a polar bear with this hoodie” she grinned cheekily and leaned back as she saw her older cousin raising his vision and looking at her.

“Then you are lucky because this hoodie is really soft and the best for cuddles and I can give you the best bear hugs,” he said and put his phone on the table in front of him and opened his arms for Nefeli to climb into them.

But the young girl had something else in her mind. After all, she didn’t want cuddles. She wanted something else...

“Nah, you are gonna eat me, like every animal” she mentally smirked as she saw his face straightening and a hint of mischief playing in his eyes. She was finally really close to get what she wanted.

“Take it back,” he told her as he scooted closer to her.

Nefeli was now having butterflies in her stomach and trying to swallow her giggles from anticipation. Her mood had started increasing and the more he was coming closer with such playfulness in his gaze.

“Why? I am just saying the truth! You are like a tall bear with that!” Tae’s lips formed into a smirk as he saw what his baby cousin wanted to do. When she was younger, she would always want to get tickled and he would always like to tickle Nef. And if he wanted to be honest, his studies had kept him away from his family and his cousin so he had missed having some fun.

“What do you want, Nef?” he leaned back on the other arm of the couch, smirking with the facial expression Nefeli gave him.

Her face flushed bright red and she looked down shyly. She had gotten caught. How would she now prove him wrong? He knows her better than his own self.

“Nothing, really” she grinned out of nervousness, playing with her fingers.

Taehyung smirked widen and crossed his arms in front of his chest. He loved so much teasing her about that. And he knew she liked that really much.

“Then I am not gonna do anything till you admit what you want” he tried to hide his smirk behind a serious face, but he wasn’t doing much.

This only pushed the young girl more in the mood and she wanted more to be tickled, but she was really shy to admit what she wanted. She was too afraid Tae would judge her. Little did Nefeli knew was that Tae finds what she wants really adorable and he likes it as well.

“So?” he asked, raising an eyebrow “Do you have something to tell me or I can go to my studio? I have a drawing unfinished y’know” he grinned, knowing full well he was really pushing her buttons.

It was a now-or-never decision. She was gonna tell him, but on the other hand, she didn’t want to say it. Ughhh, her mind was gonna explode! How she wished she would just go back in time and never had said anything to him about the hoodie? Now she is trapped in a trap of her mind.

“I-I um...” she shuttered, not really knowing what she wanted to do. Well, she knew, but she didn’t know how to do it. She was really embarrassed, especially since Taehyung was teasingly raising his eyebrow.

Her face was redder than a tomato and her nerves were only drumming in her head from embarrassment. She hid herself behind her long, black sleeves and giggled, carefully not to make any noise. Agh! This guy was always teasing her till death!

“Iwantyoutotickleme!” she mumbled fast inside the thick fabric of her sweater, not meeting his gaze.

“What? I cannot hear you? Speak louder please!” he mocked her, knowing full well he was embarrassing even more. It reminded her how they were messing when she was a baby.

“I want you to tickle me!” she said louder and hid even more behind her long sleeves and presses herself onto the arm of the couch. All the cheeky mood she was in some seconds ago was now vanished into thin air and now it was replaced by a shy one.

Taehyung chuckled deeply and pounced onto her, throwing over his shoulder and lying her onto the soft, warm carpet of the living room. He sat on her thighs, and pinned her arms above her head with ease, towering over her, since he is 178cm and she’s only 152cm.

“All you needed to do was to ask for it, y’know that, right?” he asked her teasingly, and not hesitating to wiggle his large fingers in front of her face.

Nef had already fallen into fits of tiny giggles, squirming around and trying to set her arms free, even tho she didn’t really want to. It was only a reflex. After all, this was why all of that had happened. For her to get into that place.

“Already in giggles? You must really want me to tickle you!” he exclaimed as he lowered his hand on her now bare belly, clawing there.

A waterfall of giggles poured out of her mouth as his fingers were wiggling softly around her warm skin “Tahahahehehe!” she giggled and tried to shot her arms down again. The fingers were roaming around her tummy, tickling and clawing fastly, and cute squeals and giggles were escaping her.

“Yes Nef?” he asked her, clawing faster on her flesh skin grinning from ear to ear.

“Nohohoho” she squealed, even tho she didn’t mean it.

“No? But you asked for it” he pointed out, shaking the tips of his fingers on her tummy, just above her bellybutton, bringing to the surface louden giggles and squeals “I think I should move somewhere else then” he smirked and moved his hands to her hips, drawing fast circles on her hipbone.

Nefeli arched her back and giggles louder, almost laughing as she felt electricity hitting her body. But if we say she wasn’t enjoying it, it would be a lie. She loved it.

Her giggles filled the room ad Taehyung’s hands were tickling her and her body was trying to squirm underneath him. But let’s face it, he was a giant against her. Nefeli was rocking herself left and right, trying to avoid the torturing feeling only out of reflex.

“Ahh, these giggles are so cute! I can hear them all day!” he said, not ceasing his attack, destroying her nerves one by one. It tickled so much but yet it wasn’t so intense that it was driving her crazy!

Just as she was thinking she wanted something more intensive, Tae brought his hand on her ribs, scribbling on them faster than the speed of the light. She exploded into loud laughter, thrashing around and howling like a wolf as one of her worst spots was being mercilessly attacked.

“NAHAHAHAHAHA TAHAHAHAHAE!” Nefeli cried in between her laughter as she was trying to curl up in a ball on one side.

Taehyung just chuckled down at his cousin, as her curly, chocolate brown, messy hair was all over her face and her smile was bigger than Europe. He felt like he was feeling before he went to university. Happy and with no worries about anything.

Her ribs were an incredibly sensitive spot on her body. Almost as sensitive as her sides and feet. She arched her back and fell back on the floor, shaking her head left and right, kicking her legs as she was getting what she wanted. However, she couldn’t help the ‘no’ which were escaping her mouth.

“PLEAHAHAHAHASE!” she pleaded, not really knowing why or what she was saying. She was too lost in her laughter which was going up octaves as Tae was alternating between her ribs.

“Please what Neffie? You are getting what you want, what else do you want now?” he teased more as he bend down and nuzzled his cute nose his her neck, sending her in a new fit of loud laughter.

“NAHAHAHAHAT THAHAHAT!” she laughed as loud as her lungs allow her and trying to block his nose from her neck but it was too late.

Tae was rubbing his nose up and down her soft, sensitive skin as the tingling sensations were being built up more and more. It felt like tiny bugs were running up and down her neck.

The young lad didn’t stop his assault on her ribs tho as he was pinching and rubbing each and every sensitive bone of hers like he used to do when she was a toddler.

Airy, childish-like giggles mixed with howled laughter was echoing the house as the weather outside seem to get worse and worse as the time was passing by.

“Do you have fun, baby cuz?” Taehyung whispered innocently inside her neck, sending shivers down her spine, tickling her more.

Nef tho didn’t respond. She was too busy laughing and trying to shot her arms down to protect herself. She was only shaking her head and howling with ear-piercing laughter.

“Tahahahehehe nahahahahahaha!” she giggled loudly and tried to shake her head side to side but she couldn’t since his head was still there, not letting her protect herself.

However, she couldn’t help but notice the wide smirk which formed on her cousin’s face all of sudden. Uh-huh... Nefeli could recognize the smirk from miles away. She didn’t know what he wanted to do, but she knew that whatever it was, it was sure it was gonna tickle like her.

Her eyes widened when she saw Tae leaving her arms go and turning around, facing her socked feet.

She started kicking and giggling loudly even tho he wasn’t even touching her, knowing full well it wasn’t gonna be like a walk in the park. Her feet are probably the most ticklish feet someone can ever meet.

“What are you laughing about? I haven’t even touched you yet!” he chuckled as he saw the panic in her eyes “But now I will” he smirked wider and scribbled his long fingers on her soles fastly.

Nefeli screamed loudly and fell into hysterical laughter, punching his back and the floor as she felt her nerves being set on fire.

Taehyung pulled back her socked toes and scribbled onto the base of her toes with his blunt nails as he was laughing along with her “Coochie coochie coo Neffieeee”

“NAHAHAHAHAHA TAHAHAHAHAE NAHAHAHAHAT THEAHAHAHAHA WAHAHAHAHARDS!” she snickered loudly and did whatever was needed to make the hellish feeling stop. She punched his back, she punched the floor, tried to kick his hands, tried to sit up but nothing seems to work.

“Yes, the words!” Taehyung laughed at her, knowing that she just couldn’t stand those words. They were just driving her insane!

“PLEAHAHAHAHASE NAHAHAHAHAHAT THEAHAHAHARE!” she shrieked loudly as he was now playing and scribbling on each of her toes, from their base to their tips.

The young girl tried to curl her toes to protect them but she wasn’t doing anything. She was forced to lie there and take it. But she wasn’t complaining at all. After all, she had asked for it.

Tae on the other hand was enjoying watching his baby cousin laughing from pure happiness and not because she wanted to let people think she was having fun when she didn’t. He had missed spending time with his happy shorty.

The young lad smirked widely as he brushed with his blunt, sharp nails the soft fabric of the shocks of her toes and soles and hearing at the incredibly loud laughter as his cousin was still tryna get him off of her,

However, Nefeli hadn’t tried one thing. With all her might she reached out and squeezed his sides three times before he finally let her go.

The young lad fell off of her and landed on the floor on his butt, looking at her with wide eyes and a smiley gasped mouth.

“What did you just do?” he asked in the most evil tone he could, making Nef gulp and try to back away.

She sat up and tried to stand to run away, but she was too slow. Taehyung had already pounced on her and pinned her down once again, hands above her head.

“Nahahahaha I ahahaham sahahaharry!” she giggled loudly and tried to escape what was coming. She knew whatever was coming was not gonna end up well for her. Probably it will leave her with tears rolling down her cheeks and panting hardly while she was still giggling her heart out.

“Ahhh I think you should have thought about it when you decided to squeeze my sides... Now you have to face the consequences” he lowered his voice in a devious and mischievous tone and lowered his head towards her now bare belly.

“NAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” she screamed and shook her head from side to side, preparing herself about what was coming.

Taehyung raised his head and looked at her with wide eyes “Wow, I didn’t even do anything yet and you are already screaming” he just chuckled and lowered his head again, only to receive another scream, a louder one.

“NAHAHAHA STAHAHAHAP!” he raised his head again and giggled along with her “Agh what happened now?!” he tried to swallow his giggles but he didn’t do much.

“Dahahahahan’t do ihihihihit!” she yelled in between her giggles, still shaking her head in anticipation.

“Whahat am I doing? I didn’t do anything yet!” he raised an eyebrow at Nefeli’s sweaty and giggling face.

“Youhouhouhou will blow a rahahahaspebrry as alwahahahays!” she giggled out, not daring to meet his gaze.

“Oh I wouldn’t, but if you insist” he smirked and bend down, blowing an abnormally ticklish raspberry just above her bellybutton, sending her into fits of loud, almost hysterical laughter.

“NAHAHAHAHA TAHAHAHAE!” she screeched in laughter as he continued blowing raspberries around her midsection.

What really got her tho was the fact that every so often Tae was blowing on her sides. She just couldn’t take it. Her sides are the most ticklish spot of her body and even the smallest stroke can drive her crazy.

Taehyung let Nefeli’s arms go and he squeezed fastly her sides and he kept nuzzling his nose in her bellybutton and all around her tummy. The young girl tried with all her might to push him away, but he wasn’t going anywhere. He was way too strong for her to move with a weak push.

“Maybe it’s time for the bear to eat this little, sweet girl!” he exclaimed inside her belly, sending shivers down her ticklish spine. He was enjoying it as much as she did, maybe more. He also knew how much Nefeli loved tickling even tho she had never admitted it.

“NAHAHAHAHAHAHA PLEAHAHAHAHAHASE NAHAHAHAHAT THAHAHAHAHAT!” Nef screamed loudly, knowing full well what was coming. Something which was gonna send her in pure hysterics.

Taehyung just rolled his eyes mockingly at her and all of sudden nibbled fastly all over her right side, up to her lower ribs and reaching down to her hips.

The poor girl let out an inhumanly loud scream and fell into the most hysterical laughter she had ever experienced. Dead people probably could hear her screaming and laughter from down there, that’s how loud she was at this point. It tickled so much that she couldn’t believe it. Al her nerves were being ripped one by one and every hair on her body was now straight.

“NAHAHAHAHAHA TAHAHAHAHAHA PLEAHAHAHAHA!” Nefeli couldn’t form whole words, her hysterical laughter was cutting her every time. She was trying to breathe but oxygen couldn’t reach her lungs properly since she was laughing too hard.

“Ahhh, stop screaming, and lemme eat you in silence!” Tae teased her, his hot breath brushing her warm skin, tickling more, as he used his other hand to massage her other side, adding as much pressure as it was needed to make it only tickle and not hurt.

Teasing is always getting her really much and it makes her so shy that she looks like an alive tomato. When Nef is being teased, she feels mental pokes on her sides and that makes everything more unbearable. (a/n that’s a true fact lmao)

As her most ticklish spot was being attacked, Nefeli felt like all her problems and burdens were being vanished. She couldn’t help but feel so happy and a merry aura surrounding her. She was getting what she wanted but she was getting as well what she had missed. Good times with her older cousin.

As Taehyung’s fingers were dancing up and down her side while his teeth were torturously fast brushing against her bones, she felt her breathing being taken away little by little as the moments were passing by. Her laughter had tuned silent and tears were rolling down her plump cheeks.

“N-Nohohoho mohohohore!” she managed to yell in between her silent laughter and immediately the young lad pulled away.

Taehyung sat on the couch and pulled the exhausted and panting girl onto his lap, rubbing her sides and back affectionately until her breathing came back to its normal.

Nefeli rested her head on Taehyung’s chest, listening to his heartbeat, which helped her relax completely. She smiled in his embrace, feeling love and happiness circling her.

“Thank you for that” she smiled widely and snuggled more into his chest.

He chuckled and kissed her temple lovingly, putting a piece of her hair behind her ear “Always baby cuz” he whispered back and fell slightly behind, resting his head on the back of the couch, the young girl still in his arms.

“Ahhh I had missed that so much” Taehyung admitted, closing his eyes they both drifted to sleep, while the storm was being kept going outside.

[jazzistolkienfanfics]

Beads and Braids - Kili x reader

Type: Imagine  Pairing: Kili x reader Summary: post BOTFA, everyone lives!AU, in which Y/N, a girl from Rohan seeking shelter in Erebor, befriends the Princes, and the mischievous Kili needs better ways of confessing his feelings. Warnings: ‘fuck’, ‘shit’ Word Count: 2735

All italicised, non-English words are in Khuzdul, one of the main Dwarvish languages.

Y/N was no stranger to being alone, nor was she unused to being unusual. Being on the run from a dangerous league of hunter assassins that were sweeping through her hometown of Rohan, spending months trying to reach Erebor, the Mountain of Gold, then arriving only to be turned away, had taught her not to care too much about loneliness.

Sure, she’d been allowed in eventually, after she’d insisted to the stingy King Thorin Oakenshield that she had ‘absolutely no fucking interest in your goddamn gold’, but the reminder that she wasn’t wanted in Erebor still stung dully day after day, even as she attempted to bury the emotion beneath layers of stone. 

Although, she was no longer completely shunned while in Erebor. The first few weeks had been difficult, especially as she was at least eight inches taller than everyone else, even as a relatively short human - Y/N was surrounded by Dwarves, and it was a transformative experience (she enjoyed being tall for a change). 

But as time went on, the Dwarves became far more accepting - mostly because when Bard visited with his children, Sigrid and Tilda (who was the reason they were there, to say hello to the ‘lucky Dwarves from the toilet’, namely Dwalin, her favourite) and saw her, he spouted a whole speech on the helpfulness of humans in the Battle of the Five Armies, especially how a number of them had charged Azog’s numbers, saving the line of Durin. That made Thorin begrudgingly become kinder to her.  

Y/N spent most of her days outside the cold fortress, reading old books on Dwarven culture and their previous interrelations with other relations on the ramparts or the grasses below the Mountain. It was on one of such days that she ran into someone who would change her life.

Well, Y/N didn’t run into him.

He really ran into her.

Y/N had been sitting on the ramparts, her legs swinging over the side and continually tucking her h/c hair behind her ears as the wind blew it into her face. A large book with a f/c leather cover that had stood out to her in the towering shelves of the Library was sitting in her lap, gold-leaf lettering across the front of it boldly proclaiming ‘A History of the Honourable Line of Durin’. She’d been told by Balin (a frequenter of the Library) that it was updated often with the latest triumphs of the youngest of the Line of Durin: Thorin, Fili and Kili, the Royals Under the Mountain.

Y/N wouldn’t lie, she was mostly reading it to make fun Thorin, but then again, history was interesting. 

She looked up from a particularly hilarious passage about Thorin’s ‘incredible bravery and innumerable acts of service to the Throne of Erebor’ at the harsh cry of a raven. It circled around her, cawing enthusiastically with something less akin to malevolence and more to happiness in its black eyes, before flying off. 

Y/N had been smiling but she frowned when she realised that the raven was not flying towards Erebor, as most did, but away from it.

Then it had to be flying away from something … Y/N connected the dots just as the door to the battlements whipped open and something slammed into her back just as she was turning around, knocking her off the ramparts.

She screamed loudly, looking at the ground beneath her and envisioning the fifty different ways she would splatter all over it.

A hand encased in a brown glove but for the fingers suddenly swung into her view, catching ahold of hers in a startlingly tight grip.

Y/N looked up, seeing a Dwarvish face that was at once familiar and entirely seperate from her small existence in Erebor, and she couldn’t put a name to him.

His brown hair reached just past his shoulders, and was not braided. Paired with his beardless, kinda attractive face (stubble did not count in Y/N’s eyes), Y/N reached the conclusion that he was still young, definitely under 100.

He was holding onto her with one of his hands and his other was held by a blonde Dwarf with much more facial hair than the former and a messy blonde mane like a lion who stood behind the battlements where she had been sitting prior to being knocked off by (presumably) one of the two. 

Y/N was very impressed that the Dwarf was holding her up with one hand, as she was at least more than half a foot taller than him, but she had no energy to be focused on that emotion beyond the hot fear coursing through her veins.

“Oi! Pull!” the brown-haired Dwarf yelled, and the blonde did so, clenching his teeth and heaving, until all three of them were safe on the ramparts.

“I am so sorry for my brother’s clumsiness, Miss Y/N!” the bearded, seemingly older Dwarf apologised. 

“Itkit! (Shut up!)” the younger brother hissed, giving the blonde a scathing glare. “But I do apologise, Lady Y/N.” He emphasised the title he gave her, though it was definitely not one she actually possessed.

“I’m sorry,” Y/N replied to the two enthusiastic Dwarves with confusion etched all over her face. Here they were, having knocked her off the side of a fucking Castle, calling her ‘Lady’ and apparently knowing her name when she could not match a name to either of their faces. “How do you know my name? Do I know you?”

“Oh, that’s right,” the brunette said thoughtfully, turning to his brother. “Uncle Thorin said she was new.”

“He also said she was a-”

“Oh Mahal, shut up! How many languages do I have to say that in?”

Uncle Thorin? Oh shit ....

“Anyway. Prince Fili-”

“-and Prince Kili-”

“At your service!” they both chimed, bowing low in unison and springing back up with wide grins that made them seem a lot younger than they probably were.

“Fuck...” Y/N muttered under her breath, curtseying as low as she could. “My Princes, I apologise-”

Her embarrassed apology was cut short with a squeak flying from her mouth as she was yet again jerked up by Kili, who brushed off her f/c dress that was dirty from falling off the ramparts. 

“Lady Y/N, you needn’t apologise; it is technically my fault for knocking you off the walls of Erebor!”

“Then you needn’t call me Lady Y/N,” the girl retorted, almost instantly regretting the familiarity with a royal figure, but also proud when Kili gave a loud laugh and wide smile. “I’m just Y/N.”

“Alright then, Just Y/N,” Kili teased, wiggling his eyebrows and taking her hand, kissing it gently. “On behalf of the Prince of Erebor-”

“-Princes, you little shit,” Fili interrupted, casually spinning a knife on his fingers.

“... Princes of Erebor,” Kili rolled his eyes. “Welcome, new friend.”

---

“You two are unbelievable,” Y/N complained, though a wide smile was affixed on her face.

“We know,” Fili and Kili replied, both still covered in flour from when they’d begun to throw it like snowballs in the middle of baking with her. 

“Well, at least we salvaged-” Y/N cut herself off as she took the cake out of the oven. “Mahal. What is that?”

The cake was less a cake, and more a complete mess. Half of it looked gooey and porous, and the other half burnt. Y/N just turned to the brothers, raising an eyebrow.

They eyed each other too, shuffling their feet. 

Y/N sighed. “This is why we don’t have food fights in the kitchen, guys.”

Fili and Kili had the decency to look a little sheepish as Y/N turned to dump the mess in the bin. As she did so, she glanced out the window and flinched.

“Shit! I’m meant to meet Bard soon - it’s a meeting of great importance. And I’m not ready, there is flour everywhere, my hair is a mess-”

“Well, we can handle at least one of those things,” Kili told Y/N, lightly pushing her into a chair, his hands clean of flour now. “I know a really good hairstyle for special occasions - our mother used to wear it.”

He began to run his fingers through her hair, gently untangling the knots with a brush Fili gave him (honestly, how much did that Dwarf have in his coat?) and braiding it. Y/N closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of his hands in her hair and its soothingness. Suddenly, she opened her eyes, flushing red. 

Was she falling for the Prince of Erebor?

No, surely not. After all, he was a dwarf, and she a human: a human the King of Erebor didn’t exactly have a partiality towards. It would never work out.

That doesn’t mean feelings just stop, dumbass. Y/N’s brain reasoned. She rolled her eyes at herself. 

 “Alright, it’s done! And Fili and I will clean up the kitchen,” Kili announced, pulling her up and lightly dusting off her f/c dress, careful to avoid any areas it was improper to touch, a small hint of pink on his cheeks as he did so. Y/N pulled some of her hair around her shoulders - Kili had done several braids amongst her loose hair, most of them tied with black bands but one with a beautiful bead in it that she didn’t get a proper look at.

(A/N - imagine this hairstyle, but only one bead, and that bead has lots of jewels all in different colours)

“We’ll clean up what?” Fili protested. Kili smirked, pushing her out the door.

“We’ll see you later, Y/N!”

---

Y/N ran as fast as she could, considering her annoyingly impractical skirt, and she finally skidded to a stop in the snow outside the great doors, taking in who was there.

Bard bowed his head in greeting, his eldest daughter, Sigrid by his side. (Y/N had thought she had heard faint giggles from inside, meaning Tilda was hanging out with Dwalin again), Thorin stood impatiently, leaning on his sword, and next to him, keeping a petty distance was …

“My lord Thranduil,” Y/N bowed, having also read all about the infamously glamorous Elvenking of Mirkwood. “I apologise for my tardiness.”

“You are on time, Y/N,” Bard said, giving Thorin a side-eye. The damages of the Battle of the Five Armies went far beyond death. 

Thorin chose to sit on a ledge that a) placed him higher than all of those present and b) allowed him to rest. Recovering from being impaled by the Pale Orc was a lengthy process, and one still far from finishing. 

“What is the importance of this meeting?” Y/N asked, eager to go back to her chambers and think on the startling discoveries she’d made on what her heart told her about Kili Durin.

“The purpose, Y/N, is for this …”

---

After the meeting, Y/N went to leave, but Thorin called her name, stopping her.

“Yes, my King?”

He reached for one of the braids Kili had put in her hair, smiling kinder than she had ever seen him do so.

“Kili’s bead. So you have not tamed the Lion, but you have chosen the Fox. Loyal, yet cheeky and sweet.”

Y/N opened her mouth, confused, but Thorin kept speaking.

“I congratulate you on your courtship, Y/N. I wish you much love and happiness.”

“My King, I’m sorry, but I am not courting-”

He swept off in a majestic swirl of furs, leaving Y/N with a finger raised and her eyebrows wrinkled in confusion.

“Courting?” she wondered aloud. “What in Middle-Earth ...” 

Suddenly, she recalled Thorin’s observation of ‘Kili’s bead’, and she pulled her hair in front of her face, scanning it for the singular, beautiful silver bead, with its nine differently-coloured gemstones, and some vague thought buried in the back of her brain called to her.

“That Dwarf ...” Y/N cursed colourfully, tossing her hair over her shoulder, picking up her skirts and running as fast as she could to the most familiar area of Erebor.

The Library. Shelves upon shelves, thousands stretching out further than Y/N could see from the entrance. She raced for the section on Dwarvish customs, pulling a dusty red tome titled ‘Dwarves and Their Secrets - The Rites and Customs of Their Culture’ and flipping through it, coughing as swirls of dust swam into the air.

Finding the page she was after, she slammed the open book onto a nearby table, running her finger down the page as her h/c hair fell in her face.

“That little fuck,” Y/N hissed, closing the book with a slam and sliding down one of the shelves until she sat on the floor, her arms curled around her knees, her face hidden from the world and vice verse by her h/l hair.

“So you found out,” a meek voice said, prompting Y/N to lift her head as Kili sat next to her.

“You bet your non-existent beard I did,” Y/N grumbled. 

“I’m sorry,” Kili mumbled, burying his face in his hands, which were large, the same size as yours. “I didn’t know how to tell you that I liked you. I chose the coward’s way out.”

“I can understand that,” Y/N admitted. “Although telling everyone that why were courting via my hairstyle was not the smartest way of going about it.”

“Well, technically, your hairstyle doesn’t say you are dating. (A/N: this part here is completely made up) These braids in this style, paired with the loose hair actually means unrequited love. And seeing as I did your hair, and I have a matching braid-” he briefly pushed his hair behind his ear, pulling on a small braid, that was, indeed matching, even with a simpler version of the bead, with only two gems. “-it basically tells everyone that I have a crush on you. Uncle Thorin just misunderstood because he only looked at the bead, which he knows I own.”

“What do the gems mean?” Y/N asked, knowing she was avoiding the topic of Kili’s love for her and her possible love for him, but too afraid to cross that bridge.

Kili smiled nervously, already flushing from what he anticipated Y/N’s reaction to be, and he pulled the bead from her hair, pointing to each gem as he explained their meaning.

“The white one with the blue sheen - moonstone. It means patience, like how I am willing to wait for you. This pink one is morganite. It symbolises divine love and prosperity. These two are the ones that I have in my matching bead.” And Y/N saw that this was indeed true.

“The red ruby, which symbolises passion.” Kili’s cheeks looked as red as the jewel as he hurriedly moved on. “An emerald, green, which is fertility. Not only in children, but fertility in the soil that grows the flowers of success. Old wive’s tale. The purple one’s an opal - which is for emotional purity. It’s meant to guard against jealousy and anger. The garnet and the citrine - orange and the yellow - both stand for protection, though the citrine also provides prosperity and success.”

Y/N was completely entranced by his knowledge of the gems, even as he came to the last few.

“This pastel blue one is for fidelity, although I don’t think you need that, you have loads of it.” Y/N and Kili laughed together, and Kili fixed the bead back in her hair.

“Wait! You didn’t explain the last one!” Y/N protested, eager to hear more.

Kili stopped, smiling. “Oh. That’s a sapphire, which means trust, like how I’m trusting you with my heart. But I put it in there because it’s the exact colour of your eyes.”

Y/N was so touched by this last one, that he trusted her with his heart, even after she heard that it had been broken by the death of the Mirkwood elleth, Tauriel, that she threw her arms around him, squeezing him tight. On the floor, they were a similar height, and he hugged her back lightly.

“You know, Kili of the Line of Durin,” Y/N said teasingly as her arms lingered around his neck, though she pulled back so she could look him in the eye. “I think I need to thank you for the bead and the braids, because you made me realise something.”

“What?” Kili breathed.

“I realised I’m kinda in love with you.”

And hidden in the endless shelves of the library, Y/N kissed him, right there and then.

Hi there guys! I’ll be putting up a dialogue prompts request list soon for you to request UP TO THREE numbers.

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to heart this imagine, give me a follow and/or request (it makes my day so much!).

[tiny-maus-boots]

Queen of Hearts pt 11

A/N: sorry it took so long. my world crumbled and well...it’s been a hard ass pandemic.

--

“So, this is how mobsters live…”

Aubrey flicked her gaze over the interior of the entry way, noting the mix of Corinthian columns and Romanesque sculpture with a splash of modern 80s interior decoration. It was a little over the top and gaudy but her Aunt Rosemarie thought it was the height of tasteful and luxurious décor. It wasn’t how Aubrey would ever decorate but if she were being honest with herself, she kind of liked it. It was familiar and comforting.

Aubrey ran a hand down a heavy marble column and chuckled. “Only the ones with style.”

Stacie’s laugh was sweet and light and soothed the nerves she didn’t even know she had. Aubrey took her fiancée’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Once they crossed the threshold into the living room there would be no turning back. Once you were in the family, you were IN the family, and no one leaves the family. Almost as if sensing what she was about to say, Stacie turned to bring their foreheads together, her smile wide and warm and just for Aubrey.

“You and me, right Bree?”

The blonde matched Stacie’s smile and nodded. “You and me.”

“And me. Don’t forget about me. Which I think you do forget about me because you never call me. You don’t write. No one knows nothing until you text that you’re bringing over the love of your life. You must be love of her life by the way. Hi. I’m Jesse, the smarter, more attractive, and talented, not to mention younger, cousin. Sorry dollface, you got stuck with this sad sack instead. It’s not too late to change your mind though. Just saying.”

A laugh bubbled out of her and Aubrey turned her head to face the annoyingly eager figure hovering just over her shoulder. His giddy smile was ridiculous and she knew she might have to threaten to shoot him to get him to stop being…well himself. Jesse put an arm around each of them, pushing himself further into their personal space and if he were someone other than family Aubrey would definitely shoot him.

“You’re really annoying.”

“Your face is really anno….” It was all the taunt he managed to get out before a black lace folding fan smacked noisily off the back of his head. Aubrey chuckled as Jesse winced and reached up to rub his head. “Ma! It’s said in love!”

“Basta! Get out! Go…”

Jesse wasn’t the biggest guy in the world but he still almost a foot taller than the woman he was cowering away from. Her severe dark brows rose as she hissed out a warning when he didn’t move fast enough down the hall. She watched until she was sure Jesse was actually going before turning to Aubrey, her hard stare going soft as she took in the blonde and pulled her into a tight hug.

“You don’t call except for business; I never see you anymore. Who’s feeding you? You’re wasting away!” Aubrey bore the clucking and poking and prodding because arguing with her Aunt Rosie was like trying to fist fight the tide. She might be a big boss at the table but she was still and would always be Rosie’s little duckling. The small woman finally stopped her scolding tirade turned to take in Stacie in one long look from feet to face. “And who is this?”

“Zia Rosie, this is my girl. Stacie…this is my Aunt Rosemarie.”

“It’s really nice to meet you.” If Stacie was nervous meeting Aubrey’s aunt, she didn’t show it, which was smart. Any hint of fear shown now would last forever in Rosie’s mind. She might never mention it but it would be a mark against Stacie that would never go away in her aunt’s eyes. “Your cooking has been all Bree can talk about.”

“Hmmm.” Rosemarie tapped her hand fan lightly against her palm as she considered the brunette towering over her. “You cook? You don’t look like you eat much.”

Aubrey held her breath, unwilling to break into tension of the moment. On the surface it seemed like such a simple if slightly rude question but it wasn’t. Acceptance in the family only came through Rosemarie. If she didn’t like you, no one would trust you. No one.

“Not as well as I’d like to. Yet. But I’m getting there.”

“No one taught you? You have no mother?” The idea of a grown woman not being able to cook wounded something in Rosie’s spirit and Aubrey could feel the smaller woman gather herself to her full tiny tower of 4 feet, 11 inches of righteous indignation. “Who feeds you??”

“My mother is more proficient at ordering food rather than making it.” Stacie’s smile didn’t slip but somehow dimmed in its intensity making the air around them seem somehow heavier. “To be honest with you I didn’t realize how important cooking for your family was until I had one to feed. I could definitely improve…and I will. For my family.”

Rosie gave a slight nod and slid her arm through Stacie’s completely shutting Aubrey out of the conversation. Her aunt gave Stacie one more intense gaze, reading all her flaws and weighing them against whatever ideal she saw in her head.

“You like gnocchi?”

“I love gnocchi.”

“Good. Tomorrow we make. Come early.” Aubrey felt a huge weight slide off her shoulders as she watched her aunt give Stacie’s arm a squeeze. The small woman disengaged their linked arms and whirled on Aubrey with a sharp smack of her fan to the blonde’s shoulder. “And you! You wait so long to bring a good girl home, what’s wrong with you??”

“Sorry Zia…took me awhile to find her.” Stacie gave her a wink over her aunt’s head and Aubrey could feel herself smile in response, almost forgetting her aunt was standing between them. “But I promise I’m not going to let her go now that I have her.”

“Hm, finally something smart. Go…today you work. Tomorrow we eat, hm?”

Aubrey gave an obedient nod of her head and smiled when she was pulled into the softness of her aunt’s chest for a strong rose water scented hug. It reminded her of her childhood and her aunt comforting her through the upheaval of her mother leaving and her father going to prison. It had been a lonely five years for Aubrey but Zia Rosie had always been there waiting, just as ready and eager to give hugs as she did swats of her fan.

Her aunt pulled back and gave her a gentle shove towards the dining room to send them on their way. “Vai mia piccola anatroccolo.”

Aubrey glanced back from the doorway to the dinning room at her aunt still standing there watching her with a soft smile. Her own mother had left her but Aubrey had never lacked the love and caring a mother gave a child. She’d had Zia Rosie to hold her and comfort her through all her childhood hurts and fears, to teach her to cook, and raise a family, to grow from a girl to a woman. No, she hadn’t had the woman that gave birth to her in her life, but she wasn’t without a mother. Rosie turned away toward the kitchen and Aubrey squared her shoulders as she faced the dining room.

She could feel the slight current of nervousness energy from Stacie and gave her a reassuring smile and a wink before leading her into the big room filled with old men with loud voices. There was a chorus of greetings and a few claps from her suit clad uncles sitting around the table. A few of her cousins smirked and teased playfully about being whipped into bringing her girlfriend to the table which Stacie chuckled through. But one man was quiet, his arms folded over his chest, his dark suit pressed perfectly with sharp lines. Franco raised one hand and the boisterous greetings tapered away to silence.

“Hey Uncle Frank.”

He stood slowly from the head of the table and opened his arms. Aubrey didn’t hesitate, she let go of Stacie’s hand so she could go to her uncle and sink into his embrace. He was in his seventies now but the arms enfolding her had the same strength and warmth they had when she was a child. He kissed her head tenderly and held her out at arm’s length to look at her fully.

“Look at you hm? California is good for you; you have a tan and a smile. Who is this bella you bring? Are you why my girl here looks so happy?”

Stacie gave a soft chuckle, her eyes all for Aubrey. “I certainly hope so.”

“Uncle Frank this is Stacie. My fiancée.”

He gave her an approving nod and gathered Stacie in for a tight welcoming hug, kissing her on each cheek before placing her hand back in Aubrey’s. It was enough for him to know that Aubrey was happy and his acceptance was unconditional.

“Jesse…bring an extra chair for Bella.”

“It took me six years to earn a chair and she gets one on the first day? Wow Pops.”

Paolo, her cousin swatted Jesse in the back of head making all of them laugh. Her Uncle Pete leaned back in his chair and shrugged. “Hey kid, if you had looked like her, you’d have been in on the first day too.”

Jesse held out his hands in mock offense. “Whoa….hey not for nothing but I AM the only one in this family with the looks, okay? Look at this face. It’s gorgeous. This suit? This suit cost more than your third wedding.”

They all laughed at that as he set the chair next to Aubrey’s at Franco’s right hand and settled Stacie into it. Aubrey gave him a nod of thanks and slid into her seat with ease. She had missed this, being around her family, The Family. Not all of her uncles and cousins were related by shared blood, some of them were bound by the blood they had spilled. Sometimes that was as strong if not stronger than sharing similar DNA.

Stacie gave Jesse a mild smirk and tossed her dark hair over her shoulder so she could take in all of blonde woman at her side. “And for all that you still don’t look as good as Aubrey.”

Her uncles crowed with delight, teasing their sons and nephews with the statement until Uncle Frank cleared his throat and patted the tabletop to get everyone’s attention. He wasn’t a loud man and he didn’t have to be. A respectful silence fell heavily over the table.

“Now we’re all here, we’ve had some laughs, now we get to business, yes?” He gestured to Jesse and settled into his chair while a box was passed around the table. Each of them divesting themselves of their phones before the meeting started. Franco waited for his son to get back from locking the box away in the office before he started speaking to the group. “We all know why we’re here at this emergency meeting. When the Feds start looking at one of us their looking at us all.”

No one said anything but all their attention had gone to Aubrey. She was the reason they were having to close ranks and the weight of their judgement was resting heavily on her shoulders. Her fingers drummed on the table for a moment before she spoke.

“They’ve got nothing. Everything looks legit, runs legit, and is legit as far as the books go.” She ran her business carefully, making sure that she paid her taxes, and kept all the right paperwork to back herself up. The problem wasn’t how she managed the businesses she used as fronts for other lines of work. The problem was she’d gotten sloppy with something personal and that wedge was just enough opening to look deeper at her and anyone that did business with her. “But they do have pictures of me getting on to a boat that was later found on fire with its owner dead.”

“Jesus, kid…”

There were grumbles and a few headshakes but no one dared to confront her directly about it. One of her uncles leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table. His deep voice was slow as he weighed all of his words carefully.

“This have anything to do with what you did to Nicky?”

Aubrey let her eyes reflect the cold empty place inside of her that felt nothing for the people she had to hurt. Guilt could eat you whole if you let it and she wasn’t going to feel guilty about other people making bad choices.

“Nicky was into bad shit that was going to get us all noticed. I did you a favor.”

“Nicky was a good earner! You took away nearly 25 percent of my bottom line when you had your little tantrum.”

Stacie was listening intently to every word and if she was surprised at any of it, she was careful not to let it show on her face. Aubrey’s fist tightened at the word tantrum and Stacie’s hand covered hers with a squeeze, letting her know she had something to say. Aubrey’s gaze flicked to her and she nodded for Stacie to speak her mind.

“The main benefit of having your pal Nicky around wasn’t the money he brought from the women he supplied to rich influential men. It was the leverage he bought with his knowledge of his client base. And while that leverage was a powerful tool it only got you to gate of the manor, it could never get you inside. You can only push the buttons you know about.”

Franco laced his fingers together and leaned back slightly in his chair. The sharpness of his gaze measuring Stacie with vivid intensity. “I’m listening.”

Stacie pressed on at his slight nod. “I was born into politics, you could pay off a dozen interns in twice as many offices and you’ll still never have as much control as you would if you knew their secrets, their agendas, their entire family history. I know what these people are and how they think because I am one of them.”

“And so that fixes the little problem Big Mike has with Nicky. You want bigger prey, get a better hunter. Bene. Now what do we do about these Feds?” Her uncle, the one that earned some of his money from Nicky, grunted and nodded still unhappy with the situation but unwilling to go against Franco once he’d made up his mind about something. As far as Nicky the pimp was concerned that was just a loose end that got tied up. “Who is running this investigation?”

Aubrey gave a soft huff. “Alice Esposito.”

Franco gave her a disappointed shake of his head and Aubrey felt her cheeks flame. “Her?”

She could feel the tremor of a laugh being tightly held in by Stacie and threw her hand up in frustration. “I know! She just showed up again like a bad penny.” Aubrey was acutely aware of the fact that it was her actions that had made Alice so hellbent on taking her down. “My guy says she’s running loose with this. But I don’t have my own source in the Bureau to confirm that.”

“Quincy, talk to our man in Virginia. I want to know everything on Esposito. Where she eats, who she talks to, who she sleeps with, when she last shit. EVERY SINGLE THING. I want to know who is pulling her strings and I want them cut. You understand me?”

Quincy gave a nod and Franco made a gesture of dismissal. “Everybody else you move quiet. No changes. It’s business as usual until we find out where we are. Now go, I have to think.”

It hadn’t gone great but it could have gone a lot worse. Aubrey let out a breath as she watched everyone file out of the dining room to retrieve their phones and leave. She turned to give her uncle a look but he jerked his chin at the door.

“You too. Go show your girl around…go shopping. Something huh?”

She gave a nod at that and bent to kiss him on the cheek before she led Stacie out too. They might not all agree with the way things had happened but at least they were all on board with the direction things were going to go from here on. If they could figure out where this attack was really coming from, they could resolve it before it became a threat to the Family business. If not…Aubrey was going to have to find a way to make Alice and her evidence disappear for good.

[robininthelabyrinth]

All of your nmj fic responses are giving me LIFE. How about nmj/wwx : wwx finds that nmj generates a resentful energy repelling field and makes excuses to be near him. Nmj thinks he's flirting. Would this end up a comedy of errors or mmj wrecking wwx in bed?

The nightmares were getting worse.

Wei Wuxian had known there would be a downside to processing resentful energy, and even if he hadn’t, Lan Wangji’s constant reminders of the damage it did to the heart and the temperament weren’t very subtle. And yet somehow, he hadn’t expected the constant barrage of nightmares: anger, fear, hate, mixed in with wisps of memory from a prior life, grudges and malice and revenge…all that resentment. It wormed its way into his body during the day, and came pouring into his brain at night.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep that damaged the temperament.

Still, there wasn’t anything he could do about it – the Sunshot Campaign needed the edge his demonic cultivation gave him, and anyway it wasn’t as though he could just return to the orthodox path of cultivation whenever he so pleased. He walked along his single-plank bridge, balancing over the dark fast river beneath, and there was no turning back.

So he ignored it as well as he could, which wasn’t very well.

It had been a surprise, the first time he nodded off during a war council meeting – not so much the falling asleep, which he could do, but the fact that he stayed asleep, a deep refreshing sleep without dreams, until Jiang Cheng kicked him in the ankle and woke him up. He’d been energized enough to go on for days; it had been wonderful.

A wonderful fluke, or so he’d thought.

It wasn’t until the second and third time it happened, a pattern of it happening, that he realized that there was a cause. And after some thinking, he thought he’d figured out what the cause was.

“You…want to sleep with Sect Leader Nie?” Jiang Cheng asked, a weird expression on his face.

“Not like that,” Wei Wuxian said, rolling his eyes at him. “Literally sleep. Every time he’s around, I sleep without dreams.”

Jiang Cheng paused. “Really? That’s why you’re always falling asleep at meetings?”

“Well, that’s the theory, anyway; there’s still some other options that it could be. But I think that’s the reason, though I don’t know for sure,” Wei Wuxian said. “I’m going to find out.”

“…fine,” Jiang Cheng said with a sigh. “Just – be subtle about it, okay? And if he gets angry, you’re not allowed to tell him I gave you permission.”

Wei Wuxian grinned.

-

Project ‘Sleep With Nie Mingjue’ ran into its first problem – other than Jiang Cheng being a baby and objecting to the name for reasons known only to himself – and it was that the man was always on the move. Wei Wuxian had initially planned to simply take a nap in the vicinity of the man’s office as a test, but Nie Mingjue preferred action to paperwork and rarely stayed in his office for more than a short period of time during the day.

Also, he’d started asking if Wei Wuxian wanted anything in particular, having noticed Wei Wuxian hanging around his office all the time.

“Uh, no,” Wei Wuxian said. “Nothing. I’m good. Thanks for asking.”

Nie Mingjue didn’t look like he believed him, but he didn’t ask any questions.

His first plan having failed, Wei Wuxian turned to the second: to find a time when Nie Mingjue was in a single place for a long time.

“…why do you want to know?” the deputy Wei Wuxian had cornered asked.

Wei Wuxian put on his best demonic cultivator glare, leaned in close and said, “I didn’t ask you to ask me questions. I asked you for an answer. Now tell me.”

“He trains in the north field in the morning for a few hours,” the deputy squeaked.

Wei Wuxian was happy for exactly one heartbeat, and then he frowned. “How early in the morning?”

The deputy named the time and Wei Wuxian groaned; there was no way he’d be able to make it anywhere that early – nightmares or not, his body did eventually need to lie down, and he hated getting up that early.

“Thanks anyway,” he said, and stalked away.

Over dinner that night, Nie Mingjue remarked that he’d fired his deputy for revealing information about him. He even thanked Wei Wuxian for having helped identify the weak spot in his defenses.

“…think nothing of it,” Wei Wuxian said, ducking his head down and poking at his food.

After another night of nightmares, he decided to take advantage of the fact that he’d woken up in the middle of the night to stalk the north field in hopes that Nie Mingjue would show up, which he did.

Wei Wuxian sighed in relief and settled down on the nearby roof, intending on going to sleep at once, but unfortunately having just got out of bed, it was pretty hard to return to sleep, and the entire experiment ended in failure. At least watching Nie Mingjue’s training routine was interesting – the differences between the sword and saber were really quite fascinating, and Nie Mingjue a master of his sect’s techniques.

The indirect technique having failed, Wei Wuxian decided to be bold and daring.

“Is there anywhere that you go that you stay for a few hours?” he asked Nie Mingjue directly, pretending to ignore Jiang Cheng’s irritated expression. “I’d like to spend more time with you, but it feels like you’re always moving.”

Nie Mingjue looked at him for a long moment and Wei Wuxian thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he said, “You could come with me on patrol” and, sure, that sounded great. Especially a night patrol – or better yet, a night watch! They could take turns watching each other sleep.

He suggested the idea to Nie Mingjue, whose eyebrows went up a little even as Jiang Cheng put his face in his hands, but whatever, Jiang Cheng, Nie Mingjue still agreed, didn’t he?

Clearly, with Nie Mingjue, it was important to be straight with him.

-

Wei Wuxian slept well during the night watch.

“We should spend more time together,” he told Nie Mingjue, that beautiful talisman of sleep. “You work late on paperwork, don’t you? I help Jiang Cheng with some of his; I could come keep you company and we could work on it together – if you don’t mind me going to sleep after a while.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Nie Mingjue said agreeably. He was really a very agreeable person; Wei Wuxian had no idea why people insisted on calling him cold or hot, too angry for company – who wouldn’t be angry at the Wens, or at the stupidity of the vast majority of people? They’d gotten along quite well during the patrol, talking about all sorts of things – Nie Mingjue didn’t mind listening to Wei Wuxian’s chatter, and he apparently had a deadpan sense of humor underneath that angry expression. “In fact, you may as well plan to spend the night.”

Wei Wuxian couldn’t stop himself from beaming. “Of course! That sounds wonderful!”

“Yes, I thought so,” Nie Mingjue said, and he sounded amused. “I look forward to it.”

“Not as much as me,” Wei Wuxian assured him. Doing paperwork alone was in fact terribly boring – he couldn’t blame Nie Mingjue for appreciating having a bit of charming company.

And Wei Wuxian was very charming, if he did say so himself.

They continued to chat about little things on their way back, and right before they got to the gate, Nie Mingjue turned to look at him and said, “You know, I appreciate your forthrightness.”

Wei Wuxian had never been complimented on that before: normally, Jiang Cheng complained he was too outspoken.

“With this sort of thing, I too often find that people are afraid to simply go after what they want,” Nie Mingjue said. “It’s all a bunch of hinting and words with second meanings – giving them cover in the event they want to retreat. Is it really so hard to simply say ‘I want to sleep with you’ to someone?”

Wei Wuxian laughed, a little surprised. Had Nie Mingjue dealt with other people wanting to steal that beautiful dream-soothing quality for themselves? He’d thought it might be related to the resentful energy somehow, but maybe Nie Mingjue was just good for sleep generally. Insomnia certainly wasn’t an ailment limited to just demonic cultivators – after all, Jiang Cheng had his own set of nightmares.

“I agree, I agree,” he said, nodding his head. “Jiang Cheng advised me to be subtle about it, but it wasn’t working; I’m not good at that – I can be like a bull in a porcelain shop.”

“Clearly, if you even told Sect Leader Jiang about your plans,” Nie Mingjue said. He sounded mildly impressed.

“I tell him everything,” Wei Wuxian said, and then, with a thought, amended it to, “Well, most things.”

“There’s always some things that brothers don’t need to know,” Nie Mingjue agreed. “Not that that stops Huaisang from nagging at me – but I won’t tell him something that will only make him regret it.”

“It’s the same for me!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed. He really had found a good brother in Nie Mingjue. “Da-ge, you’re a good man.”

Nie Mingjue looked pleased with that, and didn’t even say anything about the overly intimate form of address; yes, things were looking very good for Wei Wuxian’s future sleeping habits.

“Since we’re agreed on being blunt, I should be straightforward,” Wei Wuxian said. “When I come over this evening, I’m not looking to do paperwork. I want to sleep with you.”

“Funny, that,” Nie Mingjue said. “I have the same thought as you.”

-

“So apparently we did not, in fact, have the same thought,” Wei Wuxian concluded, and shifted a little gingerly on the pillow he’d demanded Jiang Cheng lend him in exchange for telling the story. “Or, uh, rather that there was a small – small – misunderstanding…”

“I told you that you couldn’t just ask the man to sleep with you!”

“You said ‘be subtle’, not ‘Nie Mingjue cuts his sleeve’!”

Jiang Cheng groaned. “Wei Wuxian! Did you just miss all those jokes when we were younger about how people from Qinghe are notoriously undiscriminating? Or did you actually think they were talking about food?”

Wei Wuxian had, in fact, believed his Uncle Jiang when the man had said it was about food, but in his defense he’d been very young and still in the rosy glow of Jiang Fengmian having saved him; the man could have said the earth and the heavens were reversed and Wei Wuxian would have memorized it as a truism.

“Yes, well,” Wei Wuxian said. “So I didn’t realize! No big deal.”

“Really? He took your refusal well, then?”

Wei Wuxian paused.

“…you didn’t refuse,” Jiang Cheng said, and put his face in his hands.

“It seemed rather rude, since I’d come all the way there,” Wei Wuxian said. “And he did say he’d make sure it was good for me. Which he did. At length. In various positions. Did you know, if a strong enough man makes an effort, I can bend my knees almost all the way to my ears –”

“Stop talking,” Jiang Cheng said, gagging audibly. “I didn’t need to know that!”

“Oh? So you probably didn’t need to know what we did against the wall of his bedroom the morning after, or on his desk later that afternoon…”

“No wonder you didn’t come home for three days,” Jiang Cheng said, voice muffled by his hands. “Did you just – all the time –”

“More or less,” Wei Wuxian said happily. “Just that and sleep, sleep and that, over and over again. I’m telling you, Jiang Cheng, if I didn’t think I’d get bored and if it wouldn’t be a waste of my magnificent talents, I’d volunteer to be a flower vase in his bedroom.”

Jiang Cheng finally lifted his face out of his hands. “So it worked, then? You managed to sleep without dreams?”

“I slept like a untroubled child,” Wei Wuxian confirmed. “Not a single nightmare! And when I did have dreams, they were all pleasant – good memories, that sort of thing. Happy times, silly times. I haven’t slept that well in my life. I’m telling you, even without the sex, he’s like a talisman for good sleep – I feel refreshed, I feel rejuvenated!”

Jiang Cheng frowned.

“What?” Wei Wuxian asked.

“…do you think it’d work for me?”