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itsclydebitches · 3 years ago

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YYH Recaps: Episode 4 “Requirements for Lovers”

Hello, everyone! It's been quite a while, huh? Ah, the endless cycle of wanting to write and yet, astoundingly, not writing. I know it well.

Good ol' writer's block has skedaddled for a time though, so let's make good use of that and dive into Episode Four: "Requirements for Lovers."

Ohhh, YYH getting spicy with its titles 😏

Actually wait, I shouldn't be making dumb jokes just yet. First I want to acknowledge a slight change to future recaps: YYH, RWBY, and anything else I might try my hand at. Namely, a lack of pictures moving forward. A few weeks ago — months? I honestly can't keep track — tumblr implemented a new limitation where no post can have more than ten images in it. It's a move that, while I'm sure has its justifications, makes sharing analyses of visually-based media all the more difficult. I'll be doing my best moving forward to describe scenes as needed, as well as combining connected images together to stretch out my limit, but I'm not going to pretend that it'll be the same as getting the visual play-by-play we’re used to.

Tumblr certainly is a website, huh?

Anyway, we open on Yusuke once again lamenting the difficulty of hatching a spirit beast that doesn't immediately devour him from the head down. On the one hand this is an admittedly easy way to reset the story over the course of this arc — the storytelling equivalent of waking your character up each morning — yet I cannot deny that if I were undergoing a resurrection test, it would consume my every thought too. Can't really blame Yusuke for endlessly bringing the conflict up when the conflict is this deadly.

Well, deadly for a ghost, anyway.

Specifically, he's worried about how embarrassing it would be to get eaten by something that came out of an egg this tiny. I'm torn between reminding a fictional character that things grow — a pissed off chicken could kick my ass and it started out in an egg too — and just shaking my head over the absurdity of worrying about embarrassment when, you know, you would cease to exist. It's not even a matter of, "What if I die and then I'm embarrassed about it in the afterlife :( " Yusuke is already IN the afterlife. He's got nowhere to go but oblivion!

Luckily, Botan takes a more practical approach to these worries, pointing out that he'll be just fine provided he does some good deeds. Yusuke starts a rant about how do-gooders are only ever out for themselves.

Yusuke, you dumb-dumb, you're a do-gooder now. What was all that help for Kuwabara, hmm? As said, these early episodes exist in a semi-reset loop, where Yusuke needs to stew in his main character flaws for a while before any real growth starts to stick. Those flaws being, primarily, "I'm a pessimist" and "also I hate myself."

Case in point, Botan accuses him of always seeing the glass as half empty. Which, while true enough (outside of his confidence in fighting, anyway), by now we've got a pretty good sense of where Yusuke developed this attitude. He affirms this by talking about how Koenma's got him by the balls, "just another idiot abusing his power!" With an alcoholic mother and those teachers from last episode, it's no wonder Yusuke thinks this way. Mr. Takenaka's interest and Keiko's care aren't enough to combat the rest of Yusuke's experience, not when Takenaka is an outlier and Keiko is Yusuke's peer. Her desire to keep him on the right track reads only as an inevitability at best (the downside of having a perfect childhood friend), or a legitimate annoyance at worst. Or, as we'll continue to see in this episode, a way for them to flirt.

Is it any wonder Yusuke would sneer at Koenma's offer then, expecting the worst? The fact that Yusuke is still undergoing the challenge at all, no matter what he says, speaks volumes to me.

However, Botan is less than comfortable with his criticisms. She panics a bit at Yusuke insulting the (junior) ruler of the underworld so blithely. That, and the fact that he's carelessly tossing his egg around.

(Yes we’re using precious picture space for memes are you SURPRISED?)

Anyway, Botan isn't just concerned for the sake of concern. She cautions Yusuke against speaking too freely because there may be investigators checking in on his progress. No sooner does he ask what those investigators look like than one appears.

Thunder! Lighting! An energy so intense that Yusuke is briefly blinded! It is, as he says, quite the entrance. What kind of being could possibly be at the heart of such an astounding show?

Why, this teeny-tiny cutie, of course.

Remember, few appearances in YYH coincide with the character's true self. Would you ever assume this is the all-powerful investigator who holds Yusuke's future in her hands? Of course not. That's the point.

The investigator introduces herself as Sayaka and immediately demonstrates that she has no more patience for Yusuke's attitude than Botan does. "These damn kids," he mutters and my brain briefly blue screens because Yusuke. You're fourteen.

Plus, Sayaka and Botan clearly have some sort of eternal youth situation going on, so there's that too.

Sayaka is, in a word, fantastic. She pulls no punches with Yusuke, teleporting away from him with what can only be described as a shit-eating smile, all while refusing to tell him what exactly she's investigating. “I’m sorry, but that’s a secret!” However, Keiko is clearly at the forefront of her interest. She refers to her as Yusuke's "girlfriend."

Botan is more than happy to point Keiko out — because of course they're still following her around! — and pulls a Et tu, Brute? on Yususke, leading Sayaka right to her. Like most of the Underworld, Sayaka is rather shocked that the pretty, popular, scholarly girl is supposedly into the delinquent. It's the power of childhood friendship, you fools! Specifically, Sayaka references the "positive markings" that Keiko has accumulated, but the audience already knows by now that such markings are suspect at best. Yusuke himself is proof of that. So if his terrible marks don't preclude him from being a young kid's savior, should we really view Keiko's as proof of superiority?

I mean, Keiko is fantastic, but that's not really the point here.

Starting her own investigation into Yusuke's life, Sayaka begins with one hell of a bombshell: "There's no point in doing [the resurrection] if the people closest to you don't care." WOW. Not only is that a harsh assessment, it's one I don't think I can personally get behind. The offer to restore Yusuke to life is built on the acknowledgment that their system is flawed (even if there's no work to change or dismantle that system): they thought he was worthless, his sacrificial death seems to have proven them wrong, and now they want further evidence, in the form of this trial, that Yusuke is a good person at heart. The whole point of this challenge is to give him a second chance, with testimonies like Mr. Takenaka's emphasizing that Yusuke has always been capable of more, so long as he applies himself. This, as we'll see throughout the series, applies to relationships too. The Yusuke with one friend he play-fights with, a distant mother, and a school worth of kids who are terrified of his very name is not the future Yusuke they expect him to become, so... why base his resurrection on what he's already (not) accomplished? Granted, the show is very unclear about what, if anything, Sayaka will do if she decides that Yusuke doesn't have a life worth going back to (even if I have my own theory discussed at the end), but the fact that this is suddenly a factor at all seems grossly unfair, not entirely unlike Kuwabara's rigged promise. We as the audience know that people love Yusuke. Yusuke himself is beginning to acknowledge that. But if this fourteen year old delinquent truly had no one that wanted him back from the dead... isn't that all the more reason to allow a resurrection and give him the chance to build a life where he would be missed?

This stupid shonen got me thinking too much istg.

Yusuke, ever the self-deprecating pessimist, bypasses all of the above thoughts and jumps straight to, "It's clear if [Keiko] had any sense she'd want me gone." I'd find that attitude incredibly sad if I wasn't distracted by how cute Botan and Sayaka are, sitting on the oar together. The spirit girls who fly together, thrive together!

Botan starts teasing Yusuke about having a crush, which just feeds his temper and Sayaka's confusion. Deciding that she needs to gather more info, they follow along for an average day of school because these earlier episodes are, apparently, ghost-stalk Keiko hours.

We see her reading aloud in class from Heart of Darkness (not the easiest book for some middle schoolers), scoring a point during volleyball practice, refusing to let one girl cheat off her homework, but happily helping another who runs up with a question. So she's pretty, athletic, and academically successful, the trifecta for any good love interest. Sayaka is impressed not just with her "nearly perfect" scores, but also the maturity that Keiko demonstrates, such as maintaining her morals about cheating while remaining compassionate.

Actually, I really love the contrast this provides for us, the viewer. Meaning, Keiko is shown to be at her least mature when in Yusuke's presence. Not that her responses aren't justified, but watching her dramatically snatch gum from his mouth, slap him across the face, or pull crazed expressions as she yells at him is a far cry from this calm, poised, soft-spoken Keiko. It's a way to visually show us that she's comfortable in his presence, despite the suspect humor attached. Not that the Keiko we see at school is faking or anything — she is legitimately that kind and articulate — but we see that being with Yusuke allows her to relax in a way she doesn't with others. School!Keiko is, as Sayaka says, pretty much perfect, 24/7. Yusuke's Keiko is a little rougher around the edges, in a way that implies a multifaceted personality shining through.

However, the only conclusion our trio draws is that, given Keiko's accomplishments, any attraction must be one-sided.

Poor Yusuke lol.

In a plot move that is so ridiculously contrived, just as Yusuke is grappling with the accusation that Keiko couldn't possibly like him back, a "handsome boy" arrives to ask Keiko out. He says that he couldn't bear it when she stopped reading Heart of Darkness because he's fallen in love with her voice. "Will you be my girlfriend?"

Please excuse me while I lose my shit over how ridiculous this is. I legitimately straight up cackled when I watched this scene.

Luckily for Mr. Absurd, Keiko takes him seriously — and lets him down easy. She says she can't be his girlfriend and when he presses the "Why?", asking if she already likes someone else, Keiko confirms that she does. This is done through a shot of her feet. Not a POV shot given the angle, but close enough that it feels like we're stepping into Keiko's shoes (haha), shyly staring down at the floor in embarrassment and regret.

Rejection complete? The guy screams.

I mean he screams.

I mean this nobody we're never gonna see again unhinges his jaw and lets out an unholy shriek the likes of which makes me shriek in utter GLEE.

It's insane. It's wonderful. I'm going to use one of my coveted image spots to show you his face:

Look at that and tell me this show isn't amazing.

Okay, I'm focusing again. As Keiko runs off Botan and Sayaka start dragging Yusuke, teasing him about how Keiko chose him over that "charming handsome boy."

...Please scroll up and look at that image again. I find YYH's definition of "charming" and "handsome" to be hilariously wrong.

Yusuke, as per usual, throws himself into damage control, claiming that Keiko didn't say who she liked, so really it could be anyone. They're not buying it. “'I like Keiko' is written all over your face!” Botan crows. Meanwhile, Sayaka is scribbling in her little investigator's journal that feelings on both side are severely misunderstood. "Suggest serious counseling."

Fantastic idea, Sayaka. I'd personally suggest counseling for the whole dying/best friend getting resurrected thing... but relationship woes work too!

We cut to later when school is out and Keiko has gone over to Yusuke's. To say that Atsuko has done a poor job of keeping the house clean lately would be a serious understatement.

Keiko points out the old food and broken glass specifically, cluing us in that this isn't just a messy environment, but a dangerous one as well. This is proven when she accidentally knocks a stack of books over and a used bowl falls onto Yusuke's face. What's interesting is that Keiko says that things are "back to normal" now, though I'm not sure if that's in reference to the state of the house, or just the note Atsuko left behind, asking Keiko to take care of Yusuke while she's out. I'm inclined towards thinking it's just the note, partly because of Keiko's shock when she first arrives, because the house wasn't shown to be in this state prior to Yusuke's death (first image above), and because the note is accompanied by a great voiceover that makes Atsuko sound quite sloshed when she left. That's what's normal, the drinking and carefree attitude, not the state of her home. If we buy that reading, it allows for another fantastic look into Atsuko's mental state. If she's already an alcoholic, the trauma of her son's death and the following revelation that he's coming back might make her struggle in other ways. Like finding cleaning to be an impossible task.

She's depressed. It doesn't excuse the state she's left Yusuke in and, as previously acknowledged, YYH is definitely not a show interested in this nuance, but I still find it fun to take what little we've gotten and run with it.

However, Keiko is firmly on team "WTF Atsuko." She hurries to make sure Yusuke wasn't hurt by the falling bowl, bemoans him being "covered in garbage," and says that leaving him in this state should be considered a felony. Knowing it's far beyond her power to fix Atsuko's failings, Keiko swears to come here after school every day until Yusuke regains his body. It's as she's cleaning him of the dust that's gathered that Keiko becomes entranced with Yusuke’s features. Particularly his lips. The soft lighting returns, their theme song swells, and Keiko gets thiiiis close to kissing Yusuke for the first time.

Which is a little weird, right? I mean, we know why Yusuke is freaking out. Beyond the embarrassment of a middle schooler receiving his first kiss while two ghost girls eagerly watch on, he's made a hobby of denouncing his interest in Keiko to anyone who will listen. But for the average viewer — for Keiko herself — don't we care the he's, you know, dead? Or if not technically dead, very unconscious? Don't get me wrong, I fully understand the appeal of this situation in a generalized, cultural sense (with the side disclaimer that I'm reading a Japanese product through an American lens). Sleeping Beauty exists for a reason and there's definitely an element of that here: a gender-reversed setup where Keiko’s kills may break the "curse" of Yusuke's untimely death. Even his in-between state of being mirrors the "death like sleep" of the fairy tale. But when you strip away those Disney-esque thoughts, we're left with a girl about to kiss an unresponsive body, not as a common gesture of care (the parent who kisses their child while they sleep), but as a first time, romantic milestone.

It's a little weird lol.

But embrace the romance! As well as its inevitable interruption. Just as Keiko is about to land a peck, the neighborhood watch committee announces a heat and fire warning, startling Keiko out of her thoughts about Yusuke's "beautiful face." (There's another gender reversal for ya.) She gasps at her almost-action, conveniently remembers that her mom wanted her to do some shopping, and hightails it out of there before embarrassment can really kill them both.

So she runs off for food... in a sweater? The outfit is cute and all, but I wonder what the animators were thinking, putting Keiko in a puffy pullover during an episode all about a heat wave.

It's about at this point that the plot goes from cute romance to absolutely buck wild. The fires the neighborhood watch committee mentioned are not, in fact, due to the overwhelming heat, but an arsonist that's going around tossing molotov cocktails through open windows. Why is he doing such a thing? I don't know. Arsonists be doing arson, I guess. The important bit is that Yusuke's place is his next target, considering that Atsuko forgot to lock the windows when she went out. Within seconds all that garbage is set ablaze, quite obviously putting Yusuke's resurrection chances at an all time low.

"Wake up, stupid!" he shouts at his unconscious body. Mood, Yusuke. That's me every morning.

So this is a full scale emergency now and everyone is scrambling trying to think of something to do. Yusuke comes up with the idea to possess himself like he did Kuwabara — nice attempt at a loophole there — but since it would technically count as his resurrection, no dice. Botan decides to go get Kuwabara himself, even though he's too far away to do anything. It's still worth a shot. Sayaka, meanwhile, watches all this unfold with a somewhat clinical detachment. She's not quite indifferent and she's definitely not cruel... she’s just not as emotionally invested in this as the other two. Which not only re-emphasizes her purpose here, as an observer judging Yusuke, but also highlights the bond Botan is forming with him. As mentioned before in regards to her hanging out with Yusuke rather than ferrying souls, Botan is well past someone assisting Yusuke simply because it's a part of her job. He's her friend.

We get some shots of the growing fire which includes a hazy texture to the animation I quite like and then we cut to Keiko several blocks away, shopping bag in hand. Word of the new fire spreads, with one bystander mentioning that it's the twelfth today.

"This is eerie.”

“Yeah, I can’t help feeling we’re under attack.”

That's because you are! Someone stop that man!

Sadly, I don't think the arsonist is mentioned again, let alone captured. We'll just have to relegate that to my incredibly niche fic wishlist.

Keiko also overhears that the latest fire is on fourth avenue, which of course is where Yusuke lives. Recognizing that he might be in trouble, she takes off at a run.

Meanwhile, Botan finds Kuwabara practicing his kicks against a Yusuke dummy. Amazing resemblance, right?

Watching for the purpose of recapping, I'm picking up on a lot of details in the animation I quite enjoy. I don't think anyone would claim that YYH, at this point in time, has the most impressive or flashy animation (the fight scenes later are another matter entirely), but there's a clear love for the product that shines through. The scared expression on Kuwabara's dummy. His unexpectedly dainty kick, complete with pointed toes. Botan's more translucent coloring to emphasize her supernatural status compared to Kuwabara. There are a lot of nice touches despite the overall simplicity.

Plus, you can't forget the lovely irony of Kuwabara fighting a defenseless "Yusuke" while the real guy actually lies defenseless amidst a fire. We already know that despite his tough talk, Kuwabara would be horrified to learn that his friend rival had died (again) in such a manner.

Capitalizing on that transparency, Botan runs a hand through Kuwabara's back to catch his attention. He gets his "tickle feeling" and instinctively looks around towards Yusuke's house, seeing the smoke. "Something tells me I should go that way." Gotta love a guy who drops everything to chase a vague, supernaturally induced hunch.

As Kuwabara leaves we cut back to Keiko arriving at the house, staring in horror at the blaze. We get an audio flashback to her talk with Yusuke where she promised to take care of his body until he got back. So she tries to run in, only for a couple of the onlookers to snag her, quite correctly keeping her from undergoing a suicide mission. We learn later that Keiko absolutely would have died without Yusuke's sacrifice, so her "You cowards!" is born more of emotion than justified accusations. It's not cowardly to look at the raging inferno in a small apartment and realize that recklessly running in will only result in two dead teens, not one.

I mean, the flames are already right there, licking the door. Even if Keiko somehow managed to avoid burns, the smoke alone would do her in. Still, Keiko tries to mitigate the damage by dumping a bucket of water over her head. As a kid I remember thinking this was the smartest thing ever. Utterly inspired. Keep that in the back of your mind, kid Clyde, for future reference. As an adult... I have no idea whether this would actually help or not lol. Any firefighters doubling as YYH fans?

Recklessness and iffy precautions aside, I can't express how much I appreciate the story giving Keiko things to do. Yusuke recognizes that she's the only one with the maturity and open-mindedness to believe in his resurrection. She's the one picking up Atsuko's slack regarding his day-to-day needs. She never hesitates for a moment, heroically throwing herself into this blaze for Yusuke's benefit. Yeah, a lot of that still falls into the emotional/domestic sphere — what we expect of the love interest in a 90s anime — but too often action stories don't have a clue what to do with their non-action characters, not even when it comes to just supporting the fighters. They're simply... there. Keiko, however, isn't window dressing. Whether it's helping Botan survive an upcoming, supernatural plague, or cheering the team on at the Dark Tournament, Keiko is an important part of the story, despite lacking the fighting prowess of the rest of the cast.

Just as important, this episode establishes a core equality between her and Yusuke. We just watched Keiko reject a (presumably) accomplished guy for him, telling the audience that these surface differences — academics, power levels, popularity, looks — don't matter to them. Yusuke is not Keiko's lesser just because he doesn't have the same scores in Sayaka's book and Keiko won't become Yusuke's lesser just because she doesn't have spiritual power like he does. The only important thing here is that they love each other and they're both willing to sacrifice everything for the other. In the span of about ten minutes, Keiko nearly gives up her life for Yusuke and, in turn, Yusuke gives up his resurrection for her. The level of care they show towards one another is balanced, despite those differences.

They’re a good ship, y'all. Even if this recapping's got me noticing Yusuke/Kuwabara potential lol.

To get back to the plot, a drenched Keiko charges into the fire, yelling Yusuke's name for the drama of it because we all know he can't respond. Despite the audience (hopefully) recognizing Keiko and Yusuke's equality, that memo hasn't reached Yusuke yet. "You're a lot more important to this world than I am!" he yells, hammering home that despite everything — knowing he instinctively saved a child, watching his loved ones grieve for him, helping Kuwabara just because he can — Yusuke still, deep down, believes that he doesn't deserve to come back; that he doesn't measure up to those around him. The self-sacrificial nature this insecurity produces shocks Sayaka. She points out that if Keiko doesn't save his body, he's not coming back. "What's the point of being alive if Keiko has to get killed for it?"

Keiko means more to Yusuke than the rest of his living existence. Jot that down in your notebook, Sayaka!

Kuwabara arrives and runs into one of his friends who informs him that Keiko just went inside. “Yusuke’s girl? The one we saved from those thugs?”

BOY does that tell us a lot about their rivalry! I mean yeah, we've already established several times over that Kuwabara — just like Yusuke himself — is not the cruel street thug he'd like to present himself as. If these characters actually wanted to hurt each other outside of a martial arts challenge, don't you think Kuwabara would capitalize on the "Yusuke's girl" bit? Everyone seems to know that they have feelings for each other, but Kuwabara never once wields that as ammunition against Yusuke. There are no taunts about him not being good enough. Or rather, I should clarify there are no serious taunts — Kuwabara is well known for his teasing. There's also no attempt to steal Keiko out from under him, the common treatment of the love interest as a "prize" that many stories fall into. Indeed, later this episode YYH will deconstruct this a bit. Yusuke sees Kuwabara grab Keiko's hand and yells that he better not be getting "fresh" with her. But it's purely Yusuke's worries shining through. The audience gets a crystal clear picture of the situation and knows, categorically, that Kuwabara has only the most innocent of intentions in holding Keiko's hand.

(Well, running from the police isn't innocent, but...)

I keep getting sidetracked. Plot! Keiko makes it to Yusuke's room and finds that he is already on fire. She then proceeds to try and put it out by patting it with her hands. I take back what I said about Keiko's smarts in this scene. Now we know where that supposed recklessness comes from though. Apparently they're both immune to fire! Nothing to worry about here, folks.

JK she's actually in danger, despite the animation choices. By this point everyone, including Keiko, realizes that there's no way out: the fire has blocked the door. Sayaka then reveals that there is one way to save her. If Yusuke throws his egg into the fire, the energy of the spirit beast will release and guide her to safety. The catch? Hatch the egg early and it won't complete its intended function of guiding him back to his body. This beast is gonna guide one person and that is it.

Cue Yusuke's near immediate decision to sacrifice his life for Keiko's. Granted, it's not precisely one life for another. Yusuke's resurrection was always contingent upon the beast not devouring him whole — something Koenma claims would have happened at the end of the episode — meaning that it's not technically a fair trade. Yusuke might have sacrificed Keiko's life for his own... only to fail to get that life back anyway. (There's a tragedy for ya.) To say nothing of how Yusuke is currently dead and has been for at least a couple of days, whereas Keiko very much is not. There's some sort of philosophical discussion there about potential being pit against current reality.

BUT that's not the point! The emotional point is that he sacrificed his life for hers — the potential of his resurrection, the potential of that life he might have led — all technicalities aside. And I, for one, think that's very neat of him.

A blue light shines as the egg's energy is released, providing a lovely contrast to the fire surrounding them. A path forms to the door and Keiko, recognizing Yusuke's presence, follows it. "We'll make it, Yusuke," Keiko says, which is one hell of a sucker-punch now that we know she's just carrying a corpse. Unbeknownst to Keiko, Yusuke is very much not making it. That's the only reason why she is.

Kuwabara appears to help them the rest of the way which is also a pretty awesome thing considering that, from everyone else's perspective, the fire is still raging and blocking the door. Despite his spiritual awareness, Kuwabara gives no indication that he noticed this strange light, or Yusuke's hand in the rescue. Which basically means he lunged into a bunch of deadly fire for Keiko and doesn't question how in the world he isn't burned.

Keiko's hands are fine, Kuwabara's whole body is fine... fire immunity must run in the friend group!

Yusuke has another rare moment of vulnerability — "They're both okay" — and I cackle happily at the "both" because see. You love Kuwabara too, Yusuke! All this bluster about hating him and finding him annoying. The second he rushed into that fire you were crawling up the walls.

Except then that happiness gives way to something that sounds a little more shocked. Devastated. "Well, I sure am... relieved..." Kudos to Cook's voice acting. You can hear the exact moment Yusuke realizes what he's done. Not that he regrets it, but the consequences are finally sinking in. He's relieved that they're safe, yes, but now he's never going to be able to rejoin them.

As Yusuke has an(other) existential crisis, Kuwabara peels back the blanket Keiko had wrapped Yusuke in, revealing his face. “What are you doing with Yusuke’s body?! Are you some type of sick grave robber?” he shouts. God I love when a story actually keeps track of who knows what. Kuwabara, for all his recent involvement in the plot, doesn't actually know what's going on. From his perspective Yusuke died, he made a scene at the wake, he saved "his girl" from a bunch of thugs, lost a huge chunk of time only to wake up with her randomly hugging him (then slapping him), participated in a bet with his awful teacher and had a couple weird, Yusuke related dreams while studying, and has felt the presence of ghosts perhaps a little more frequently than usual. Now he's trying to help save Keiko from a fire only for her to reveal she risked her own life for Yusuke's body. Of course he's freaking out! What's she doing with that?

What's utterly fantastic though is that Kuwabara takes all of five seconds to process this and then enters immediate Ride or Die mode for Keiko. She's been hoarding Yusuke's body for undetermined reasons? Well, who is he to judge? The important thing here is that people are arrested for keeping bodies, so they've gotta skedaddle before the firefighters show up.

Hence, hand-holding and avoiding arrest.

As Yusuke starts threatening Kuwabara not to get "fresh" with her, Botan sadly reminds him that he no longer has a say in who Keiko does or does not fall in love with. The switch in tone is jarring. Whereas before Botan would have teased him mercilessly for the crush, now she knows that nothing can come of that — and it would be cruel not to remind Yusuke of that too.

"Oh no. I didn't think..." Yusuke whispers, further establishing that he knew the risks of using his egg, but hadn't allowed them to sink in yet. Now they have.

He gives a fake little laugh with, "Just when it was getting good" and I cry at the development in the span of just four episodes. Despite what I said at the beginning about the show resetting each week, there has been a lot of change thus far. Yusuke wants to live now! He wants to be there for Keiko! He looks down on his tiny family and screams at the unfairness of it all! They're talking about how they can't wait for him to come back and now that's never gonna happen!!

It hurts, friends. It hurts a whole lot.

During this conversation between Keiko, Atsuko, and Kuwabara, we see that a couple of hours have passed (it's nighttime now, the fire is out) and Atsuko is apologizing for putting them all in danger like that. And by that I mean yes, she does technically apologize with an "I'm sorry" and everything, but it's also a one sentence apology pit against... well, near death for the three people standing (and sitting) before her. Atsuko seems just as concerned by Keiko losing her hair as she does Keiko nearly burning to death and she kneels by Yusuke's wheelchair, baby-talking to him about how he forgives her, right? I love Atsuko, she's great, but objectively speaking she is not a good mother. Not right now, anyway.

Oh yeah, and just to reiterate that: Keiko's hands are fine after patting down Yusuke's on-fire body, but her hair, which I'm pretty sure never catches, has to be cut short. Ah, anime logic. Funny thing is, YYH isn't the only story to take the love interest and give her a cool, short cut thanks to a traumatic event. Anyone read Ranma 1/2?

During this conversation we also learn that, sometime between the fire and now, Keiko filled Kuwabara in on everything that's happening with Yusuke. Makes sense. He kneels beside the wheelchair, joining the others in telling Yusuke that they'll wait patiently for his return. Yusuke, above them, continues yelling about how they're waiting on a dead man.

“It can’t be helped. He made this decision on his own."

Except it can, in fact, be helped!

Just as all hope is truly lost, Koenma appears and announces that Yusuke will be returned to life. Why? Because sacrificing his egg for Keiko is a better indicator of his worth than the egg itself could have been. Despite feeding on his negative outlook and heading towards biting Yusuke's head off — something the animation backs up by showing us teeth during the fire

— Yusuke's act demonstrates a tendency towards being a "decent human being" that is "so rare." Wow. That's depressing. Still, yay that Yusuke has those qualities! And this, to my mind, helps explain Sayaka's presence. Koenma recognized that judging Yusuke couldn't be left to the egg alone and indeed, Sayaka took note of his worth before he ever threw the egg into the fire. First it was questioning why someone as amazing as Keiko would go for him, then it was solidified through the shock of Yusuke announcing that coming back to life was meaningless if she wasn't in it. Even if Keiko had somehow, miraculously escaped the fire before Yusuke's sacrifice, I bet Sayaka's report would have tipped him in resurrection's favor anyway.

Everyone is, of course, overjoyed and my heart swells at the intense gratitude Yusuke displays. My favorite part though is when Koenma cryptically says that “Your added experience with death could make you very useful" (a nod towards future events that goes right over Yusuke's head) and his response to this is a yelled, "YOU THINK I'M USEFUL?" This poor kid. The God of everything ever is chucking out revelations left and right, about resurrections and spirit beasts, but the only thing that really penetrates is the realization that someone thinks he's useful. Talk about relatable.

You know, I've been thinking about why this moment works so well. I mean, there are a lot of other stories where undermining the consequences our hero faces — either with humor, or by erasing them completely — can feel like the audience was cheated. I think YYH dodged that with a couple of crucial factors. First, Yusuke's consequence isn't something new that he's now avoided, it's just a permanent extension of something he was already dealing with. We did get to watch him inhabit the space between life and death, grappling with whether he'd ever be able to return. The story didn't deny us that growth, it just confirmed something we all instinctively knew: this tale won't end here with Yusuke permanently going to some afterlife. Second, the Deus ex Machina fix doesn't happen too soon. Yeah, it's only a couple of minutes in a single episode, but we (and Yusuke) still get to sit with that outcome for a while, soaking it in before its removal. Finally, there's no doubt that Yusuke earned this reprieve. Koenma's timing might be sudden and (if you're not genre savvy) unexpected, but looking back at the series as a whole thus far, we're able to agree absolutely that Yusuke deserves this. Far from feeling like we were cheated, this solution invites just as much celebration as we're seeing on screen, for the simple reason that we can buy into Koenma's reasoning. We know now that Yusuke is a good person. We saw him selflessly sacrifice his future for Keiko. We agree that he deserves a second chance.

Thus, the episode ends with Yusuke flying up to fill the screen in his joy, a far better, final shot than Harry Potter and The Prison of Azkaban managed 😰

And that's it for Episode 4, folks! See you later for Episode 5 💕

#YYH #Yu Yu Hakusho #YYH Recaps #mymetas

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puppy-phum · 4 years ago

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for the character ask...OUR FAV BOY LIU SANG

(*´∇｀*)/💖

i had to come answer this one bc!! my son!!!! aaaaaaahhhh!!!!!! so thank you sob now i can talk about my second sour grape boy,,, wait. ok well, hissy kitten ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ spot the difference (you can’t)

give me a character

(placing this one under a cut too bc oh boy. i have things to say about liu sang)

How I feel about this character

Good lord. I feel so many ways about Liu Sang. He is absolutely amazing but he also just drives me insane every day. No other character has ever given me such headaches, he must be proud. Finally someone suffers as much as him (because I bet those ears cause him a permanent migraine). I feel sorry for him. I’ll take this pain gladly if it helps him in any way.

But well. As simply as with Jiang Cheng, I do love Liu Sang. I shouldn’t really be surprised (at this point) that I fell in love with him but back when I was watching Reboot, he hit me like a truck. Which,,, he probably drove that truck himself, judging from the way he was handling the car chase with Jiang Zisuan. Just ruthlessly drove me over. I never stood a chance, not in front of that arrogance and stubbornness and enormous puppy eyes.

And with all of himself, good and bad, he makes me feel so many things. One of those, probably the strongest one, is protectiveness. He needs someone to protect him from himself because he has a nasty self-destruction streak going. Boy has not known love since he was born. He has gone through way too much to try handle it alone. I can’t even remember how old he is supposed to be in Reboot (maybe 29?), but that is way too many years of fighting a battle he was never supposed to win. But he pulled through. Cynical and prickly and absolutely terrified of any human contact but he fucking pulled through. I want to fight some battles for him now. He deserves to rest. He deserves some peace and quiet and unconditional care. I want to tell him that he doesn’t deserve all the pain he’s going through, all the pain he himself is putting his body through because he thinks he can only be used as a punching bag. I want to tell him he deserves friends. I want to tell him that it’s okay to trust people again. I want to... just protect him. And maybe this is why – because of all this fragile mess I’ve discovered from inside of him while trying to figure out who he is – I struggle so much with writing him. I feel like I’m bringing up things no one is supposed to see. I feel like I’m pulling out words from him like teeth. But at the same time, I know he’s desperate to tell these things.

So I struggle because I love him. Willingly. But oh boy does he annoy me sometimes, under all that protectiveness and fondness I have for him.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

I am quite sure at this point that I don’t really ship Liu Sang with anyone. No one clicks with him in my head so well that I could feel myself slipping into the proper shipping territory. But I haven’t minded any of the ships I’ve seen for him, not Pingxiesang (which makes me super soft) or him with Kanjian (which is so sweet) or even @kholran’s pool noodle Risang (which is very interesting and I will read your fic, friend, when I am out of my Pingxie pit! I just need to feed these beasts first). I am mostly just very intrigued by all these ships people come up with because it really plays to my wish to just explore his dynamic with every other character that is available for him.

But to put it simply: Not one perfect match exists for him yet in my head. Let’s give boy some time to figure out freindships first.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Well, this one I love because! This is what he is all about for me, somehow. So I will mention three: Xiaoge, Bai Haotian, and Pangzi.

First, like I already mentioned in my Xiaoge answer, I adore Liu Sang’s dynamic with his ouxiang. They are both so damn awkward. I feel like I’m following a train wreck happening in slow motion any time I see them interact but instead of death and flames and screeching metal, it’s. surprisingly soft and sweet? They are both very tentative when it comes to people so they somehow get each other? Even if Liu Sang is a mess when it comes to Xiaoge which I totally get because I have once in my life met a person I consider a celebrity and who I look up to a lot and I was just shaking. And giggling. And acting dumbly. So I don’t blame Liu Sang for any of that; I’m actually quite proud that he’s keeping his cool so well and despite the rough start, manages to be a huge asset to his ouxiang. I am so happy that he gets to have this budding friendship with Xiaoge because they both need it.

Then! Bai Haotian. I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately and the more I rewatch some of their scenes together, the more I notice that they really develop a bond during Reboot. They are in a very similar position: brought in because of their idols, young, sometimes overlooked, struggling, and usually falling behind. And oh, definitely in need of some saving and with tragic backstories. They could be such amazing friends, and I think they come to trust and care for each other during their trip to Thunder City. Bai Haotian is so caring by nature and then Liu Sang is just right there. And Bai Haotian is so lowkey about her care; she doesn’t push if people don’t want her to, which works so well for Liu Sang. She’s there when needed. She doesn’t ask too much. She knows how it feels to look up to one of the members of the Iron Triangle and then curl your own life around them. (She also knows how it feels to have a crush on that same member and then notice that crush will never lead you anywhere, though I guess Bai Haotian comes to realize that during their trip instead of years before but well, details.) She doesn’t judge Liu Sang and somehow Liu Sang comes to rely on her a lot.

And last but not least (never the least!): Pangzi. God I adore these two to bits. Their banter is just *chef’s kiss* and when I look at them, all I can think about is a big dog trying to pat a hissing kitten with its paw. Which then turns to the kitten play fighting the dog’s big paw. And then getting tired. And falling asleep. While the huge dog just curls its body around the kitten to keep it warm, and maybe the kitten swats at the dog slightly for show but actually it enjoys it. Because it’s nice and soft and very warm. So yes, I love it how Pangzi and Liu Sang start off as enemies but come to care for each other. I cry about the peanut scene every day. Yes please adopt this poor stray kitten, he deserves a loving home ;; Give him food and a blanket and maybe he will hiss a little less (Pangzi also gives great hugs and Liu Sang deserves a dozen. For starters.)

My unpopular opinion about this character

Once again I am at a loss with this. I don’t really know what this fandom thinks about Liu Sang? I feel like our tiny Liu Sang hyping corner here on tumblr is very much unified with the opinions. We all love him a lot and want the best for him, case closed. So maybe I’ll just talk about my hypersensitivity headcanon for him? Let me do that for fun haha

So, I know he’s sensitive to sounds. Understandable, with his skills. And I feel bad for him for that because it must be horrible at times (we get introduced to him through him vomiting because he can’t handle a train station with all the noise, christ) but I also somehow relate to that. I get sensitive to sounds sometimes too. A simple click of my mouse can be annoying at times. I require absolute silence quite often, and this intensifies if my emotions are on the negative side. So, somehow I’m taking things from that. Touch hurts when he’s feeling bad about himself. Noises annoy him when he’s angry or scared. Lights look too bright or he feels like he can’t focus his gaze when he’s sad or panicking. Smells and tastes are intensified when he’s stressed. I dunno, just simple little things. Him feeling through his senses. Him just generally being sensitive with his feelings because this world is a demanding place and pushes you into feeling things. And I feel like a lot about him is already tied to his hearing so why not his feelings too? I’ve read so many nice takes on him which somehow support this so I feel like this just fits right in.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

Liu Sang joins the final celebration!! Him just disappearing doesn’t make sense at all!!!! Let him get hugs!!! Let him be happy!!!! Oh my god. I was so mad about that and still am because no way did he just leave and not join his new friends for this final evening!!! Dammit. No matter how much he feels like he doesn’t belong and like he’s just “a hired talent” among them, he’s not that dull!! He got those damn peanuts and some hugs and shoulder pats from people, he was there saving the day, he managed to create bonds!!! And god, knowing Wu Xie, he would never allow Liu Sang to think that lowly of himself!!!! He would be there to offer Liu Sang the world if he wants it!! Gaaaahhhh

So yeah, give Liu Sang his moment with his new family or I am throwing something, for fuck’s sakes

thank you again for sending me these asks ♥ i’ll answer the rest during these next few days! you’re amazing!!

#i would give him my right arm #or my lungs #if he asked #so here take my blabberings #also gonna tag this as #liu sang #bc i know ppl out there love him #and we like to see each other blabber lol

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foryouthegays · 4 years ago

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rendog is afraid of horse lips: a transcript

Ok everyone! Time to transcribe Ren being afraid of horse lips. This is on his July 1st stream (today), titled “Minecraft & Chill [Hermitcraft Vanilla Server]” on his Twitch account, rendogtv. This starts at 2:54:40, and ends at 3:05:15. this took me a solid hour to do. please give it some love.

Here’s a link to the stream, already at the time it starts: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/667092785?t=02h54m41s Starts under cut (if I can get the cut to work on Tumblr,,)

Yo Cordinho (twitch user Cordinho88) with 100 bitties, thank you dude! [reading donation] “four years ago you told me you were most scared of horse lips, [laughing] is this still the case?” yes. Yes, there's not much in uh, in life that scares me, my dudes, ok? Ya know? I’m a pretty tough guy, I’ve been through a lot of things in my life, survived a lot of things, gotten through a lot of things, [pauses] ya know? I mean, I’m an immigrant, I immigrated, I struggled, I bled, I’ve done a whole bunch of things in my life, there's, there's not a lot of things that scare me, but uh [pauses game to go search “HORSE LIPS” in Safari] there is, there is one thing that scares me, in uh, in life, ok? [types] there's one thing that terrifies me.

And uh, yeah, this is a great example, this is a fantastic example of what I’m talking about, right here, let me just zoom in on that, here we go [pulls a google search of HORSE LIPS, focused on a picture of a light brown horse pushing out its lips] horse lips. Horse lips scare the living bagingle out of me, my dudes. Ok? They are horrifying, terrifying. I can’t even look at this [the picture of the horse lips], this is traumatizing, I can’t look at them lips [takes tab out of screen, continues playing Minecraft]. And uh, and look, let me tell you why!

When I was a young child, my mum took me to a horse farm, or like a, uh, a ranch, or whatever, ya know, I don’t know what they’re called. And um, at the time, my mum wanted me to meet, I don't know, maybe I was like, twelve, [pause] right? My mum wanted me to meet, to uh start socializing more with uh, with girls, m’kay? And uh, she, uh, one of her friends had a, uh, a daughter my age, who uh, was into horses. And they, they had like uh, a horse ranch or whatever, um, I think it was their family business, you know, they had, like, horses or whatever, and so, one afternoon we went over to, uh, the horse farm, and my mum didn’t tell me that I was going to meet the girl, right? Like my mum was sneaky that way, she was sneaky! She didn’t tell me that there was going to be a girl involved, ya know? She was like, “oh, we’re going to go and visit my friend,” and I was like, “oh, I don’t want to go, ya know? I wanna play video games,” and she's like “no, you gotta come, we’re gonna go visit my friend, and uh, it's gonna be fun. You have to go, it's compulsory,” and I was like, “ok, fine” and [soft laugh] we went to this horse farm, and uh, lo and behold, there was this girl!

And, my dudes, listen, I’m, ya know, this girl was [sing song-y voice] fineeeeee, damn! I mean, at- at that age I hadn’t, I don't even think I had spoken to a girl, so, ya know, I was already like, completely, [laughs] completely lost as to what to do or what to say. All I can remember, though, is that, ya know, she was very pretty, and I was like, “ok, awesome,” [laughs], I was digging it, ya know?, I was like, “yeah, this is, this is great, it’s gonna go great.”

Anyway, she was like, uh, like a horse girl, ya know? Like, she was into horses and whatnot, obviously, uh, she had like three horses, they were like uh, a really wealthy family, and um, at one point, like, the mums were, you know, they were like, “we’ve got to get the kids to go and hang out together, like, you know, talk to each other and stuff,” so, uh, her mother was like, “hey! Why don’t you go show him your horses?” And, you know, [stutters] a perfectly innocent suggestion, and at the time, it seemed like a good idea.

So, the girl and I awkwardly went over to the stables, while the parents stayed, uh, you know, in the main house, drinking tea and watching on, vicariously, as we, we pranced down to the, uh, stables!, if you will excuse the equestrian pun, I do have a BA in English Literature after all [pauses].

Anyway, we got to the, uh the stables, and the horses were like, in the, their, uh, their cage, well, its not a cage, like, uh, what do you call it? [laughs] um, it’s not a cage, it's like a, uh, enclosure? I guess?, and you know, they can put their heads through like, like over the fence, and you can feed them apples and whatnot, right?

And you know, we were just chatting, and whatnot, and we seemed to be getting along pretty, pretty good, I think? I think things were going pretty well, [louder and faster] until she suggested that I feed the fricken horse. I’ve never fed a horse before, and I dunno if you guys have ever seen a horse in real life, but when you’re like, twelve years old, a horse is massive [pause], ok? When you’re twelve, you can pretty much stand under a horse, [pause] ok? Uh, its a beast. It is a giant beast with massive lips, an, and massive teeth, [pause] m’kay? And, that horse was eyeballing me, my dudes.

Listen. I’ve never been eyeballed by a horse before, until that day. And I’ve never seen a horse eyeball a human before either. I thought horses and humans were supposed to be friends. That horse was eyeballing me, lookin’ me up and down like I’ve never seen, my dudes. I walk into that stable and that horse was like, “yo, back up, back up, whatchu comin’ in here for, whatchu comin’ in here for, boy! [scoffs/ laughs] don’tchu be touchin my girl, now,” ya know what I’m saying? Like, that horse knew I was up to no good. That horse knew that I was, uh, ya know, and at this stage I was thinking, woah, maybe there's an opportunity for a kiss here, ya know what im sayin, [kiss noises], a little uh, a little peck, so I’m, you know, I’m uh [stutters] I’m not gonna blame the horse, the horse knew, I had ulterior motives, the horse was onto me, and he was not happy, and them lips man, them lips were quivering, [laughs]

Anyway, I’d never fed a horse before, [laughs] and of course, the way that you feed a h, a horse, is you put the food on like, the palm of your hand, you gotta hold your hand real flat, and then it uses its lips to like, chomp off the food off your, your palm, ya know? Like [weird chewing noises], like them lips go crazy!, they’re like, you know, they eat the food off your—and the reason you gotta keep your hand flat is if you don't, the thing is gonna bite your fricken fingers off!, [quieter and slower] listen, I’m not gonna go feeding an animal, no matter how cute, it is, if it can potentially bite my fingers off, [pauses], alright? There's no need for it! There is no need, to feed, another living creature, who can bite your fingers off, ok? It doesn’t make any sense.

Anyway, obviously, wanting to impress the girl, and you know, mayb— potentially, [kiss noise] get a little smooch action goin, ya know? Like, I wanted to uh, you know, I was like, ok, I’ll feed the fricken horse, and she showed me how to do it, ya know, like, she flattened her hand real flat, and the horse like, chomped on the uh, you know, some kind of, uh, cut up carrots or something, out of, out of her hand, [louder] and now its my turn to feed the fricken horse, put the ca, carrots on my hand, I'm so scared I’m shaken’, and this horse has been eyeball’n me, my dudes, let me tell you, that horse had fire in its eyes, it was not happy, that I was messin with its girl, okay? And when I put my hand up to that horse, them lips went cray cray, and I'm pretty sure, to this day, that horse was tryin’a chomp my fingers off, I’m telllin’ ya, he wasn’t just lippin up the carrots, he was goin, he was goin ham, he was goin for it, and I may or may not have done a little, like, v, very um, unmanly [uah! Scream noise] as the horses lips went for my fingers, and I dropped the carrots, and it was in that moment, that the girl realized that I would never be a horse person [pause] and thus! No kiss was ever received, or did I ever see or speak to the girl again.

Also! Hate horse lips now, ok? I hate them, I’m terrified of them, I could go the rest of my life without ever seeing another horse lip ever again, and I’d be a perfectly happy human being, there ain’t no need for them lips, and there definitely ain’t no need to be feeding a creature [pause] who can bite your fricken fingers off, ok? I’m just putting it out there, my dudes. [pause, laugh] and so yes, that is, uh, that’s the story of why I don’t like horse lips [laughs, pauses] [laughing] oh, goodness gracious, what a ridiculous, what have we been talking about tonight, guys, we’ve lost our marbles in tonight's stream I think, things have gotten out of hand around here.

#ris talks #rendog #ren #pls give this love it took forever #its a DIRECT transcript of what he says #like #down to the pauses #it was PAINFUL #1696 words if yall were wondering #god i would die for ren

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ladycynthiana · 4 years ago

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Im just... really tired of people hating on Stevie. I feel like most of it isn't even constructive criticism it's just negativity. And if rhett and link joke with or rib her at all, everyone on tumblr feels vindicated - like rhett and link don't like her either, which seems ridiculous to me. Do you feel like the mythical beast community on tumblr has become more negative? Maybe I'm projecting real life onto tumblr, lol.

I think she has just gotten under the skin of a few very vocal people, and like follows like, so people who agree with them magnify whatever issue they're having with her.

Personally, I'm fine with her and always open to hear genuine criticism if someone in the spotlight has said or done something wrong, but as far as I can tell, this is just a personality clash issue as she gets increasing screen (or whatever the audio equivalent is) time. Some people just don't vibe with certain other people. I know there have been a few crew members who have made me feel icky for no actual reason in the past, so I don't wholly blame people who are bothered by her. I would hope they can just keep their opinions to their own space, where they can be unfollowed if necessary.

If I were you, I would just unfollow people who you feel are negative to the point it's bothering you, and try to ignore it as best you can. Negativity feeds off of reaction.

I think the world in general has become more negative, anon, and the best we can do is just not add to it and add positivity where we can. Hope you have a nice day, wherever you are, and don't let it get to you too much!

#negativity #Stevie opinions #my opinion on Stevie has actually gone back and forth many times over the years #like I didn't vibe with her right away because she reminded me of some mean girls in school ya know?#but then we got to know more about her and see how devoted she is to Rhett and Link and Mythical and then she came out loud and proud and my #respect went way up #then it dipped when she made a big mistake using a trans person's deadname #and it's gradually repaired itself after she apologized and hasn't made any similar mistakes since #and I can see she and RandL are really good friends and that indicates she's probably got a very good core to me #and is not only capable of becoming a better person but also taking Mythical in a good direction overall #even if GMM hasn't been the greatest it can be for the past... idk... 10 seasons? lol it's not all on her... RandL share that responsibility

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justmailuck789 · 4 years ago

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Lightis ‘The Witcher’ AU Headcanon

Ever since I was watching Netflix’s The Witcher, my life’s never been the same. I was hot and bothered by it, constantly thinking about it…I was dying for more lmao. Thankfully, there is a Lightis day dedicated to The Witcher, so I thought…why not make silly headcanons about it? I will say though my knowledge of The Witcher storyline and the lore of it is very lacking, so if I got anything wrong, please accept my humblest apology. A bit of a warning though: The headcanon is very lengthy and long. And by lengthy I mean I did it from the beginning and end, because I couldn’t help it to be honest 😅. Hopefully, the undercut will save you guys from reading such a long post. If not, I’M SORRY. Blame Tumblr. Without further ado, let’s start! @lightisdays2k @givelightningherharem

So instead of the existent of “witchers”, there are l’Cie folks living in the world of Eos. And let’s just say these l’Cie have… “superhuman” powers such as strength, prediction of the future, high intelligence, healers, skilled hunters, and more. Finding a l’Cie is pretty hard nowadays since they’re all typically humans. And yes, to identify a l’Cie is if they have their brand on the skin. Most of them cover it up though.

Lightning Farron is a known mercenary l’Cie, always travelling and looking for some gil to feed for herself and sister. Light will accept anything that involves beast eliminations. But because of her always killing beasts, actual hunters who do this for a living get irritated. So, there are a few hunters who are willing to seek her and have her head.

Now let’s fast forward to where Lightning was minding her own business with Serah. The two were trying to find some wood for the fire to use for the night when they hear someone calling for help in the middle of the forest. Light instructs Serah to go back to the tent and hide. The older Farron investigates where the cry is coming from. Lightning finds a lone woman struggling to fight off a big behemoth. The woman’s magic is defending her from the incoming bites and scratches, but her powers are quickly fading. So Lightning comes to the rescue and easily defeats the behemoth before it can eat the woman for dinner.

The woman is thankful for Lightning and asked what she wanted. Lightning has nothing she desires, but the woman insisted. She decides to invite Lightning and Serah over to an upcoming banquet with a neighboring country from Niflheim. This is when Lightning discovers she and her sister are going over to some royal banquet and finds out the woman is Queen Aulea of Lucis. And yes, Queen Aulea knew that Lightning is l’Cie (and Serah too).

So at the banquet, Queen Aulea is already exposing the fact that Lightning and Serah are l’Cie, a race that is thought to be extinct.

Let’s say there as an assassination attempt on King Regis in the banquet (they were probably Niflheim spies, but no one knows), but Lightning has yet again saved the royal family and putting that assassin behind bars. Thankful once again, Queen Aulea asks if there is anything Lightning wants. Lightning does not want anything but finding her “focus”.

Every single l’Cie that is breathing in Eos were destined to find their “focus”. If they were fulfill it, then that l’Cie will be granted eternal life by turning into crystal. Or if they fail/give up finding it, then they turn into a beast. But for the sake of this AU, imma say that the l’Cie were already granted eternal life without being turned into crystal, staying forever in their 20s-30s.

ANYWAYS…the element of surprise comes to play when Queen Aulea suddenly vomits in the banquet! “What did you do?!” Regis panicked. His Queen is pregnant, and it’s linked towards Lightning. Of course, I’m not saying Light is gonna be the mother of Noctis in the future, but he is gonna be connected towards her “focus”.

Destiny (and Serah) starts throwing clues at Lightning about the future of Lucis and the whole world, but Lightning coolly dismisses it because she thinks it’s all foolery.

12 years and 9 months later, Insomnia falls. Just hours before the fall, Lightning and Serah decided to visit Insomnia, after the two sisters had an argument about how the past events they got themselves into were just too coincidental to begin with: like how Lightning was unable to sleep that whole week, the vague words of a dying princess she was hired to kill. Lightning eventually agrees with Serah to accept the fact she and King Regis’s child were meant to be. However, King Regis refuses and puts Lightning and Serah in prison.

Once Niflheim invades Insomnia, Lightning and Serah escaped the prison. They both see that King Regis is dead, making it a very high priority for Lightning to search for the kid.

I KNOW IT’S STUPID BUT HEAR ME OUT--Oh yeah and maybe Serah turns into crystal after fulfilling her “focus” when she tells her sister to find Noctis, now that things are starting to get real.

Meanwhile, 12-year-old Noctis escapes Insomnia, his father’s words of “finding a l’Cie named Lightning, for she is your destiny”. Now I dunno if I want to add in Noct’s friends (Prompto, Gladio, and Ignis). …Maybe I should since it’ll be weird to have Noctis to be by himself. Don’t worry, none of them dies!

Of course, Niflheim does find out Prince Noctis is still out there, alive…and the emperor wants him dead.

At some point, Lightning and Noctis meets up. The real fun begins here because lklfkds. Lightning trains Noctis and the boys most of their lives. Of course, the beginning of training wasn’t too fun in Noctis’s eyes. Wooden swords? Fighting with dummies? LAME. Noctis wants some real training, but Light is so damn strict. She probably made him run about 3 miles and back to her home as punishment.

Noct will quickly learn that Light also has a soft heart. Light can be relentless with her kills whenever there were beasts or bandits within her property, it makes Noct wonder if she’s “human”. This all changes when he sees her tending to an injured black wolf pup. He thought she was gonna kill it, but she didn’t. She was nice enough to let him keep the pup since she can tell the pup is an orphan. Thus, Noctis affectionately names the wolf Umbra hehehe.

Along with the intense training Noct and boys were doing, there were also some cute moments within Light’s house. As a little boy with child-like tendencies, Noctis wanted to play in the beach near her home instead of training today. And because Noct was being so damn cute, Light couldn’t deny him and let him relax. He swore he saw her smile for a second.

And maybe…just maybe…Noctis started to develop feelings for Lightning. He shook his head, it’s only a small crush. I mean she is pretty and all, but she probably has a lover or something…right?

Then about 6 months later (after the beach time fun), some snitch pointed a finger at Lightning’s house, and a small Niflheim army marched over there. SHIT! Lightning cursed and woke Noctis and the boys up. The only thing Noct heard from her is “RUN!” before she clashed a sword with a Niflheim soldier. Noctis wanted to fight, too, but he was too young. So he and the boys fled off while Light fights off every soldier. And it took her a while, got a few injuries, but she survived. She tried to go look for him, thinking maybe he’d hid somewhere but he was nowhere to be found. Light searched high and low for him without any luck.

And let’s say Noct and the boys were caught, but Niflheim only got him in less than a minute because Noct somehow warped away from his captures and escaped with his friends. The boys never really did reunite with Lightning now that Niflheim knows Noct is on the run.

Years later, Lightning finally gets a lead of Noct’s whereabouts after looking for him in what it seems like forever. She wouldn’t know how old he is since it’s been THAT long the last time she saw him. He’s must be an adult by now…she guessed. She eventually learns that the young prince is looking for royal arms scattered around Eos and attempting to defeat Niflheim by himself and his friends (also reclaiming the throne as the rightful king of Lucis).

She would be so close in reuniting with him after years not seeing him, but he’s always a step ahead of her. While Noct is on his mission, Niflheim is also tracking him down. Being the last prince of the Caelum family, he is still connected to the Crystal’s power. And let’s pretend that Emperor Aldercapt can’t get his wrinkly fingers on the Crystal, so as long as Noctis is still alive, which is the reason why Niflheim is hunting him down.

FINALLY, Lightning and Noctis reunite in Altissia! Light would notice…Noct grew to a fine young man, as well as Prompto, Gladiolus, and Ignis. But their happy little reunion would be cut short when there’s word that the Niflheim army is approaching. And Noct and Light knew they wouldn’t be able to fight the army with only five people, so they need to round up few more people. Noct would be asking around the people in Leide region, Duscae, and Tenebrae while Lightning will be rounding up other l’Cie folks, Cleigne region of Lucis, and talking to first secretary Camelia in Altissia.

With the whole world of Eos fighting against Niflheim, the empire army gets a bit overwhelmed heh. The army retreats. But it’s not a celebration yet! Emperor Aldercapt is still alive, and Noct is determined to kill that old man now that he has the 13 royal arms with him.

LET’S TALK ABOUT THE DAMN ROMANCE NOW THAT NOCTIS IS OLDER YAYYYY 😘. Noctis actually wanted to reunite with her earlier, but things keep getting in the way. Maybe Light started to feel attracted to him too when she sees him for the first time in years. Even though he has physically changed, he’s still the sweet boy she remembers. Oh yeah don’t worry Umbra is here too!

In battle though, Noct is little too eager to fight and wants to go in head on with his warp strike. Light would be annoyed by it and the two would argue about how they battle. For example, Noct would sometimes overuse his Royal Arm weapon which drains him and make him vulnerable to attack. Light would be there to deflect the attack and give him a potion. And Ignis and the others would tell Noct he needs to be careful. To his defense, he forgets, but not when Light is yelling at him as if he just committed a murder and didn’t tell anyone.

Now there was a point where Noct and Light were doing a side mission where they were attending a masquerade ball because there is a former Niflheim spy wishing to talk to Noct and spill the tea about the emperor’s plan. The ball itself was beautiful. Light was beautiful in a dress. Noct couldn’t stop staring at her. There was that one time a drunk was stalking them and hitting on Light, that it made Noctis to kiss Lightning to show that she’s supposedly “taken”. The kiss was sweet. She realized…he’s a good kisser 😩.

They probably banged a few times too when the chemistry starts heating up. First time was when they were arguing after the fact a djinn escaped and Noct wanted to use it to grant three wishes 🤭. Light knew djinns are no joke, so she fought and freed the djinn, making Noct pissed hehe. Their second time was when Noct confessed his feelings to her. “You’re important to me…” he whispered in his sleep.

Pillow talk moments where he learns how she craves to be human again instead of being a l’Cie, how he promised her they’ll get rid of the l’Cie mark together, even though it look sexy as hell on her left shoulder 😉.

Romance aside, Noct, his friends, and Light now are gonna prepare to fight Emperor Aldercapt once and for all. They knew the fight is gonna be tough. The travel from Lucis to Niflheim will take them a while. The party created a plan to infiltrate the imperial palace. A group of l’Cie mages will create a magic barrier around the palace to prevent anyone from leaving and/or entering the premise. And if the backup tries to harm the l’Cie, Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto will be there to defend.

Noct and Light would be the one fighting Emperor Aldercapt. It was a tough fight. The old man sure can use his magic pretty well 😯. Noct was gravely injured at some point and was about to be killed when Lightning jumped in took the hit!

But…BUT. Time suddenly stops! Light meets Etro Herself in another dimension. Seems like Etro is mad that Lightning is intervening Noct’s inevitable death. But Light wasn’t going to let it happen because she loves him. Then Etro says something about Light’s focus, which is to make sure Noct doesn’t die and that he is crowned king. But because Noctis is gonna die, it’ll mean Light has failed her focus, but she’s not gonna have that shit. So you know what happens? She fights with Etro 😱. Light ended up winning and decided to let Noctis live and make Light defend the incoming blow once time resumes back to normal. Unbeknownst to her, she didn’t notice her l’Cie brand is gone.

At last, Emperor Aldercapt is defeated! Noct and his friends are now deemed heroes of Eos. Noctis wants Light to be queen, so they married and start rebuilding Insomnia to its former glory 😊.

#lightis #lightning farron #Noctis Lucis Caelum #i'm sorry to all mobile users #long post #my post 101

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a-j-quill · 4 years ago

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Only A Ghost

Whoops, I wrote another Arthurian one. Blame it on the Nanowrimo project I’ve been dreaming up and researching for, which requires me to wander the far reaches of legend and lore to the tune of Malory and Monmouth and Pyle. Wheee, this turned out more painful than I expected, enjoy!

Do not do this, Merlin’s better judgement told him in a whisper. This was not the first time his conscience had made itself known this night, while he crept silently through a castle he had no business haunting.

Miles away, a battle raged across the hills of Cornwall. Even this far underground, he could hear the sound of horses’ hooves thudding against the earth, of shields splintering and tossing men to their graves. How many souls would be lost this night? Merlin hated to wonder. After all, the duty of burying them would fall to him come morning.

Hearing footsteps ahead, he ducked into an alcove, out of view of an oncoming kitchen girl. By the bowl of fine strawberries under her arm, she was on her way back up from the cellar stores to feed someone important. Now his task was simpler than ever—rather than guess his way into the heart of the castle, he could follow the girl.

You see? said the other half of his mind. This is meant to happen. You don’t have a choice.

The girl climbed and climbed, soft-footed on the cool stone, and Merlin climbed after her. Of all the great things fate had promised he’d be responsible for, this task seemed so petty, so cruel. How could it be necessary? If the duke was truly to die tonight in battle, then why the urgency? Why the subterfuge?

Simple, said the first half of his mind; the one he trusted the better, and was presently working against. Because the king of Camelot is selfish, and cruel.

There was no point in denying this, so Merlin focused his energy into not being seen. He kept his eyes fixed on the heels of the girl’s slippers as she passed through hallways and up staircases, finally commencing the climb to the grand tower. The knot in Merlin’s chest gave a tug. How do I escape from a trap I’m walking into myself?

Suddenly, the ring on his finger—the duke’s ring, stolen days earlier—began to sizzle against his flesh. It is done, he thought dourly, and he watched the ring fade from white-hot back into dull steel. The burn would scar his flesh, no doubt, but what did that matter? The burning of the ring marked the death of its owner; a grim spell, but a simple one.

He peered out a crenel in the tower, down to the battlefield where the Duke of Cornwall had just lost his head. The ring couldn’t tell Merlin so precisely how the duke had met his end, but the Prophecy had already foretold that sordid detail for him.

Hurry, urged his darker side. The king is waiting.

“The king,” muttered Merlin, “can go to hell.”

This must happen tonight. It has been prophesied.

“Prophesies change,” he hissed, through gritted teeth. He might be young, but even a boy of thirteen knew that matters of fate were fickle beasts.

There was quiet then, in the tower and his mind alike. Even the distant footfalls of the girl had ceased. Perhaps he’d lose his way now, without her unbeknownst guidance. Perhaps Merlin could run, now, and make his excuses to the king later. He fingered the lip of the vial in his pocket; considered smashing it against the wall now, and sealing the fate of this venture once and for all.

She must bear his son.

Then let him win her hand himself! Merlin thought desperately. Let him have the spine to treat her with honor!

His feet began to move without his consent, nervous, urgent, climbing one stair after another.

Too much depends on this single choice. Kingdoms and peoples, lives and deaths. The future. Hope!

Hot tears welled in Merlin’s eyes, and he strained against the force within him that drove him onward. But still, he climbed.

She must bear the king’s son.

At the top of the tower, a door stood ajar, teasing a candlelit room beyond. The Lady Igraine sat there, beautiful and improbable and stern, upon a velvet couch with her feet tucked up beneath her. She was smiling. Beside her stood the girl, holding out the bowl of strawberries.

When he saw the child in the full light, Merlin started. Of course she wasn’t a kitchen girl. Her nightgown was hemmed in silver thread, and her hair, which had been obscured by shadow until now, fell in thick curls that nearly reached the floor. The tresses were the color of fresh blood.

The lady patted a bare spot on the sofa, beckoning her daughter to join her, but the girl’s eyes flicked toward the door instead. Merlin ducked into the shadows, unsure whether he’d rather be caught than go through with this.

The girl emerged onto the landing, watchful eyes boring straight into the lump of shadow where Merlin stood, badly hidden.

“Are you real?” she whispered, golden eyes wide. She was maybe half his age.

“No,” he told her. “I’m only a ghost.”

This made her smile.

Go now, cried his conscience. You are better than this.

“Morgan?” called the Lady’s voice. “Where are you, little one?”

The girl started. “I—I just forgot the cream, mummy.”

Merlin bit down on his lip hard enough to draw blood. From the folds of his robe, he pulled the tincture he’d prepared that morning—the second spell he’d used the duke’s ring to make. Whoever drank it would see the duke’s likeness in any man, at least for a few hours. It was the only spell of disguise Merlin had had time to learn.

With a swish of his hand, the vial grew into a bottle, and the tincture disappeared into a cloud of thick cream.

The girl gasped, almost too loud. “How did you do that?”

Merlin hoped she couldn’t see the tears on his face through the dark. “Magic, darling,” he whispered, and he held the bottle out to her.

----

Reposting this, since apparently tumblr decided to eat the content but leave the tags and title when I tried to post last night. :P

@flashfictionfridayofficial

#from the quill pen #wip #arthurian wip #flash fic challenge #flash fiction #flash fic friday #short fiction #am writing #dammit this hurts

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pandemonshq · 4 years ago

Photo

Welcome, Destinee, please grab your stake on your way to your tumblr to play Daphne Greengrass here at Pandemons. We were thrilled to see how you created a brilliant family history and dynamic for Daphne—the divorce, her family connections, and how her history feeds into her choices. And her job as a translator? Inevitably going to get her (and you) broiled in more trouble than expected here.

Your request for michaela conlin. // jessica henwick FCs have been accepted.

OOC

Name: destinee.

Preferred Pronouns: she/her, they/them

Age: twenty-four.

Timezone: est.

Activity Level: if you to ask me for one of those out of ten scores i’d probably give myself about a six. i really enjoy roleplaying but i have some chronic problems that occasionally put me out of commission. i’m typically online in the late afternoon and at night.

IN CHARACTER INFORMATION

Character’s Name: daphne greengrass.

Bloodstatus: pureblood.

Birthday: october 4th, 1979.

Gender and Sexuality: cis female, bi-romantic, demisexual.

Former Hogwarts House: slytherin.

Infection: no.

Faceclaim: michaela conlin. // jessica henwick.

SHORT HEADCANON TOPICS

Occupation:

translator.

daphne has always been a bright girl, though she was never the type to flaunt it. she was never the type to draw unnecessary attention to herself, preferring to slip by in the shadows - she was perfectly content to let others take the spotlight, and the blame.

still, she did love to know things. she was quite fond of history, and loved to know the stories behind mysterious artifacts and lost treasures. on sleepless nights, she has always been found curled up in the corner of a library, reading whatever happened to catch her eye.

it was her desire to read books and inscriptions that lead to the discovery of her talent for languages. she taught herself what she could for awhile, and then she turned to her parents, begging for lessons in any language that could be taught. her parents shrugged their shoulders, and let their daughter do as she pleased. unsatisfied with simply learning french and german and russian and latin, she threw herself into the study of ancient and beast languages, and found herself among one of the few with an affinity for such things.

daphne dreamed of putting her talent to good use - of traveling the world writing journals, or translating ancient inscriptions for cursebreakers. but then her parents announced that they’d found her a husband, and daphne put her dreams on the shelf to be the lovely, loyal housewife she was expected to be.

one of the first things she did after her divorce was finalized was dust off those dreams of hers. daphne has translated ancient texts and read the inscriptions of golden sarcophagi. she has translated for ministry officials as they delicately negotiated peace with magical beings, and been the helping hand to reunite frightened tourists with their lost children. she’s quite proud of her skill and of her work.

Marital Status/Ships:

daphne remembers clearly how it felt, to sit in the common room surrounded by happy, giggling girls and not understand. whenever her friends would gossip about boys, or gush over an attractive stranger, daphne would sit in silence. she learned fairly quickly that her friends found it odd that she didn’t seem to like boys, so she learned to smile and pretend to get it, but most of the time she just didn’t. when one of her friends had confided in her that she liked girls, daphne wondered if that was perhaps why she didn’t get it … but then, she found she didn’t really understand when her friends gossiped about girls, either.

pansy would talk about draco more often than anyone wanted to hear, and for long time, it went in one ear and out the other for daphne. but then she met him, and an offhand remark became the odd conversation became a friendship. and daphne finally started to get it. because she liked draco. more than she liked anyone - or, more accurately, differently than she liked anyone else. the trouble was that pansy liked draco, and pansy was the leader of their little clique. daphne had always been taught the importance of social circles, and so she never said a word.

daphne met a girl in the library in her fifth year; a ravenclaw with a thirst for knowledge that rivaled her own and a delightfully snarky attitude. they started dating in sixth year, and their relationship held strong through the turmoil and tragedy of the war and it’s aftermath. but then her parents reminded her that she wasn’t a child anymore, and it was time she started looking for an appropriate match. daphne crushed her own heart in her hands and ended the relationship, and she quietly fears that she’ll never recover.

daphne is still raw and aching when she finds out about astoria and draco. it brings a flash of old feelings to the surface, but once more, she stomps it down. she puts on a smile, and she supports her sister at every turn. it isn’t too long after that her parents nudge her in the direction of the wizard they’ve deemed her proper match - a frenchman with a handsome face and a flawless pedigree. daphne hopes something will spark between them, but it never really does. she marries him anyway, because it’s what her parents want.

the marriage is a disaster. they have nothing in common, except for regrets. they argue over what restaurants to visit, how daphne should do her hair, whether daphne should be allowed to work. he sleeps around, but truthfully, she couldn’t care less. the moment she finds out she’s pregnant, she’s more than happy to kick him out of her bed entirely. she’s only obligated to supply him one heir, after all.

their daughter is born, and daphne falls in love. cynthia instantly becomes the center of her whole world. her husband is not so impressed. he insists he wants a son, but daphne isn’t having any of it. the relationship devolves even further, and daphne sees less and less of her husband as the months roll by. cynthia is three years old when things hit a boiling point. her husband strikes her during an argument, and daphne is enraged. she draws her wand and forcibly hurls him out of the house, and sends his things flying after him. daphne will put up with a lot of things for the sake of her family’s reputation, but not this. he returns to france, and daphne at last feels free.

romance is the last thing on daphne’s mind these days. a single mother with a career doesn’t have much time to fuss about those things, especially when they’ve never been particularly fussed in the first place. now that her sister has fallen ill, she has even less time to think about it. she has to be there for her daughter, her sister, her nephew, and for draco. just because she isn’t thinking about it, though, doesn’t mean it might not surprise her. old flames and new could be hiding around any corner.

MULTIPARAGRAPH OR MULTI-POINT TOPICS

Family

Father | Nestor Greengrass. the greengrass family is one of the truest, purest bloodlines around, and sure, that’s something to be proud of - but more importantly, that’s something to take advantage of. nestor is as crafty as a salesman can be, and he knows how to market himself and the shop. he’s carefully crafted and maintained the ideal reputation; the perfect balance of shady and trustworthy. money is truly his main motivation for nearly everything he does. he’s always encouraged his children to be intelligent, sly, and greedy. he’s certainly a selfish man, but one that does care for his family. whether or not he cares about them more than he cares for himself, though, is rather hard to tell.

Mother | Meilin Greengrass. meilin has certain expectations. there are ways that people should and should not behave. there are obligations that people must fulfill, and duties they must complete. of course people are not perfect. little mistakes may be made from time to time. the young will stray from the path every now and again, but they simply need to be guided back into their place. she has always fully expected her daughters to fall perfectly in line - and the fact that things are so imperfect? that their perfect perfect reputation has been blemished? it infuriates her.

Sister | Astoria Malfoy. daphne’s relationship with her family is a bit … complicated, but she has always loved her little sister with all of her heart. from the time they were small, daphne has always tried to look after astoria, to be the best big sister she can be. she’s always wanted to be someone astoria could look up to, and it’s motivated her a lot in her life. when she found out her sister had fallen ill, she was devastated.

Daughter | Cynthia Greengrass. daphne never really thought much about being a mother. she supposes she’s always been a bit mother; she can recall the many times her sister would roll her eyes and say, “okay, mom” or the way pansy would sometimes groan and snap “you aren’t my mother.” she’s always known that she would have kids one day. it was one of her responsibilities, after all. continue the family line. but she still didn’t really think about it. even throughout her pregnancy, daphne didn’t really think of herself as a mother. she felt more like a bloated bus than anything else. but then she held her daughter in her arms for the first time, and it felt like the world shifted. her daughter is her sun and her sky and all of the stars. she would do anything to keep cynthia safe, and to make her happy. and if anyone were to threaten her sweet, wonderful little girl … she wouldn’t rest until they paid for it.

Childhood/Hogwarts

most people would say knockturn alley is no place for children, but to daphne, it’s simply home. she had spent her early years young and fearless, running down cobblestone streets, dodging the hags that often lurked in the crowds, admiring the dark artifacts her father sold, spying on the illicit clinic her mother ran. perhaps it warped her perspective a bit; perhaps she doesn’t always fear things that she should; but no one can deny that it’s blessed her with nerves of steel.

daphne is a little surprised to be sorted into slytherin. she had thought herself a bit more like her ravenclaw mother than her slytherin father, but she fits easily into the ranks. daphne attaches herself to pansy parkinson within the first few weeks of their first year. pansy is a bigot and a bully and a pureblood, and daphne knows immediately she wants to behind her and not in her way.

daphne makes friends and she gets good grades, but she’s never the center of attention, and that’s the way she likes it. it’s much easier to get away with breaking rules when people are paying more attention to the troublemakers; and people are much more forgiving when they have a worse example to compare you to.

hogwarts becomes a home away from home for her. she finds a sense of peace and simple joy there that she just doesn’t have at home. she loves her parents, she truly does, but that doesn’t mean they were truly good parents. her mother’s presence feels almost crushing sometimes; like her expectations have a physical weight and they’ve perched themselves right on daphne’s lungs and when she fails it feels like she can’t breathe. no one looks at her like they’re waiting for her to fail at hogwarts.

that peace is shattered by voldemort’s return. she watches the people around her change; sees the way the pressure warps and twists them, the way some of them just crack and chip away. suddenly it feels like everyone is watching everyone all the time; constantly on a knife’s edge. she knows what side she’s supposed to be on, but she can’t help but just want it all to end, no matter who wins.

daphne tries to be the sturdy one. she tries to be there for people, do whatever little thing she can for them. sit with them, talk with them, bring them tea, steal sweets from the kitchens. she knows how the rest of the school has started to feel about slytherins - even the ones who don’t deserve it. if no one else will be here for them, she’ll do it all herself.

Post Hogwarts

daphne is exhausted and the world around her is in shambles. she tries to be there for her family and for her friends - for the ones that are left, as they try to put the pieces back together. it doesn’t feel like enough. she doesn’t feel the same anymore. she can’t imagine how the others must feel. the ones who were truly in the middle of it.

she finds happiness in the brief moments she can spend alone with her girlfriend, just the two of them, peaceful and quiet. her mother tells her it’s about time she end her little fling, and daphne’s heart sinks to the floor. her mother reminds her that she must have known this relationship wouldn’t last long. her girlfriend was a half-blood, after all, and not fit for marriage. daphne does as she’s told. her girlfriend doesn’t understand, and daphne can’t blame her.

she sinks into a deep depression after the messy end of her relationship, and finds that she can’t stand to be alone with her thoughts - or with her mother. she starts making anonymous donations to charities and to projects to help rebuild. she throws herself back into learning languages and reading books. she avoids the world.

it’s astoria’s announcement of her engagement to draco that shakes daphne out of her daze. she has a few mixed emotions. it feels a little odd to see her sister engaged to her old crush; it feels a bit painful to see her sister engaged at all, after the end of her relationship. but more than anything … astoria didn’t tell her. all of their lives they had trusted each other with everything, and yet her baby sister hadn’t told her she was going to be engaged? for a moment, she’s angry. and then she realizes that it’s her fault. she’d been pushing her sister away without even realizing it.

daphne puts all of her energy into working through her depression after that. she’s determined to be there for her sister, come hell or high water. she reappears in the social scene, starts to go out with friends again, and ignores her mother a little less.

she’s introduced to her future husband not too long after her sister’s engagement, and they attend the wedding together. astoria doesn’t like him much, but daphne thinks he’s tolerable, and their mother seems very keen that they date. daphne regrets not taking her sister’s doubts more seriously, looking back on it.

daphne is a reluctant and miserable housewife for the course of their marriage. the birth of their daughter brightens her life; she loves being a mother. but she only hates her husband more.

the day her divorce was finalized she used her wand to send up fireworks in the street and laughed like she hadn’t laughed in years. she was free, and goddamnit, she was going to be happy.

she loves her work, and she loves her daughter. being a single working mother suits her far better than being a married housewife ever did. she’s happier than she’s ever been in her life … and then her sister falls ill, and daphne wonders if the sky will ever stop crashing down on her.

Current

daphne only really has one priority these days, and that priority is her family’s well-being.

daphne tries not to worry cynthia. she’s only a child, after all. she should be enjoying her time at hogwarts, not weighed down by tragedy. she knows she can’t keep cynthia completely in the dark; she’s a smart kid, and she’s very close to her cousin. still, daphne can ease her mind with sugar coated words and gentle promises … even if they so often taste like bitter lies.

whenever daphne has the time to read, she spends it pouring over anything and everything that might possibly help her sister. her reputation and skill set gives her access to a lot of unusual material, and she hopes one day it will help her dear sister.

she spends a lot of time with her daughter and with scorpius, always happy to look after her nephew or offer a helping hand to her sister and her husband. she loves scorpius as much as she loves her own daughter, and she’s promised her sister she would look after him.

she’s also promised to look after draco, and that’s proving much more of a challenge. she worries about him getting into trouble, crossing the wrong line, catching the wrong person’s attention. she wants to protect him, like she promised she would, but at the same time - how could she ever ask him to take a step back? she’s as desperate to cure her sister as he is; but she doesn’t want to lose him in the process, either.

Plots

i would love for daphne’s talents as a translator to come in handy for a plot, or plots. it’s an interesting passion of hers, and i love the idea of people coming to her to translate old writing, or ancient inscriptions, or people or magical beings.

daphne was the absolute mom of slytherin, but she also dropped off the map for awhile after the war. i would love to have her reconnect with old friends, or at least try to. bonus points if daphne still gets to mother them.

give me messy, complicated relationships please. romantic and platonic. i’m here for that shit.

potentially interested in the absolute panic of daphne being temporarily infected but we’ll see how things go.

daphne’s got a lot of money to throw around and i like the idea of someone approaching her to invest in something - some kind of charity, big event, business. they would need to win her over, of course, but it’d be interesting to have daphne really show her social/business/money skills.

daphne’s wanted to have more kids ever since she had cynthia, so that might come up at some point. whether she goes through with it, and how she goes about it, would depend entirely on how things end up happening in the roleplay.

Other

usually i have a pinterest board read before hand but it’s 2 am right now and i need to crash, so here is where the pinterest board will be. hopefully i put some stuff in it before y'all see it but if not … i’ll link it again later or something.

#urinfected

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satonthelotuspier · 5 years ago

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How Shall We Stop Dreams - Part 9

Chapters 8 & 9 of How Shall We Stop Dreams, posted over the weekend on AO3. It’s all starting to happen.

As ever follow the link to AO3 for the full fic (link takes you to chapter 8) or the tag below for the other parts here on tumblr, whatever your poison may be.

CW for torture, though it’s not described in much detail.

Chapter 8 – The Wens Unmasked – Part 1

It was greatly against his nature to rush into situations; especially those where he knew they could make things worse. It was scant comfort to Lan Xichen at that moment, however, who merely wished to tear the Nightless City apart stone by stone to get to Jiang Wanyin.

He was entirely to blame for Jiang Wanyin being in danger now, and he wanted to act. If he hadn’t spent so much time away from those books for his own selfish reasons he would have made the revelations so much earlier, in time to stop the other from delivering himself into the hands of the Wens.

Lan Wangji returned to the dining hall, followed by several of the other cultivators who he had managed to locate. They had each gone to round up who they could with the intention of giving everyone the full story of what they had discovered, and sending them back to their own sects to warn against the Wens before enacting a rescue for the Jiang sect heir.

Lan Wangji moved to join him where he leaned against the pillar; he had been the first to return and had had time to brood while waiting for the others.

Lan Wangji paused in front of Lan Xichen and bowed.

“Xiongzhang, I beg you to return to Gusu. You are in grave danger, and you well know it”

Lan Xichen should have expected Lan Wangji to make his request again.

He understood how perilous the situation had become for him, knowing full well he would be a prize like no other to demons who fed on human emotion.

“I thank you for your concern, Wangji, but I will be staying. The man I love is trapped somewhere beneath this city, and I won’t be leaving without him. Even if I could leave the Purpose in your hands at this stage, I couldn’t desert Wanyin”

Lan Xichen doubted Wangji had expected any different response from him.

They didn’t have to wait much longer for Wei Wuxian and Luo Qingyang to return with the remaining cultivators.

“Zewu-jun, lets go” Wei Wuxian nodded, and Lan Xichen moved to stand in front of the small crowd.

“I’m sure by now many of you have your doubts and concerns over what the Wens hope to achieve in bringing us all here. My clan had the same misgivings, and we came intending to investigate what caused our nightmares and why the Wens were so eager to draw so many young cultivators to the Nightless City” Lan Xichen glanced around the faces of the others, trying to gauge how his words were being received. “We discovered the Wens are direct descendants of the Demon Sun Kings, we know they feed on human emotions. We also know they have a cultivating crystal that is feeding on the qi energy of cultivators that they take beneath the city to experiment on. You will have seen the results in your shidis and shimeis who were returned to you, drained, confused, and ill”

They must plan to expand their influence if they have decided to come out of the shadows now, knowing full well what was being done to our sect mates couldn’t remain unknown for long. They have played a long game, and it seems to be time for them to act. I urge you to leave Qishan immediately, return to your sects and warn them to prepare for what may come. We will be sending our disciples back to Gusu and advising our elders to waste no time in seeking to discuss preparations with the other sects as soon as they may. If you are able to warn your own clans and have them begin their own precautions it will ensure we aren’t taken by surprise” he tightened his fist around Shuoyue; he had warned the others now, what they did with his warning was their own business. His one thought now was Jiang Wanyin.

“Zewu-jun” Jin Zixuan halted him on his way to the door, “how much proof do we have, should our sects be loathe to act without it”

“None I can put into your hands at this time, Jin-gongzi. I hope the Lan’s reputation might help me. As such I can merely assure you I am perfectly convinced of the scenario I have presented, based on our observations and information found in the Wen library” he waved a hand at the nearby table where he had placed the books he and Jiang Wanyin had studied last night, and the notes both of them had made whilst reading, “You are welcome to assess them, or take them back to your father if you think it will help” Lan Xichen threw one final look around the assembled crowd, “Whether you believe me or not, please ensure you leave the Nightless City as a matter of urgency, I can assure you there’s no cure to be had here beyond stopping the Wen’s plans. And I expect to have kicked open a hornets nest in a very few hours, after which there will likely be no escape. Better safe than sorry” Lan Xichen left the hall.

***

“I’m coming with you” Luo Qingyang rushed to stand beside Wei Wuxian, who grimaced.

“Luo-guniang, you should be returning to your sect to warn them. You heard Zewu-jun. The smaller sects especially need to be prepared and ready to defend themselves to ensure you’re not overwhelmed if the Wens act”

“The Liu sect have very close ties to the Yi sect, and I’ve already asked Yi Wencheng to ensure the Lius are told of what’s happening” she pointed to a young man in dark robes who was talking with some of the other cultivators. “I’m part of this, and you will need all the help you can get to rescue Jiang-gongzi”

In the face of her determination there was nothing Wei Wuxian could add; he merely bowed his thanks at her offer to help.

They were joined by one of the Lan disciples, who bowed to Lan Wangji before speaking, “Hanguang-jun, Su-xiong seems to have disappeared. He was with us when we joined Zewu-jun”

There was the tiniest creasing of Lan Wangji’s brows, “Search the houses, if you cannot find him continue with the plan and leave for Gusu, Xiongzhang and I will continue the search”

“Yes” the disciples bowed again and left; the trio were just about to join them in leaving when Mo Xuanyu walked over. He looked pale.

“Is it true? Is Wen Ning...are the Wens demons?” he demanded of Wei Wuxian, and Wei Wuxian could only nod. “I thought...I saw he moved too quickly. I hoped it might just be the danger” he rubbed his face with both hands, then looked up, determination set in his eyes. “I’m coming with you” he repeated Luo Qingyang’s words, and Wei Wuxian waved his hands in denial.

“We’re going into the lair of the beast, Mo Xuanyu, to rescue Jiang Cheng. I can’t guarantee your safety down there” he reached into his robes and took out the letter he had hoped he would have chance to place into the younger man’s hands. “This is from Jiang Cheng’s father, Uncle Jiang has agreed to let you come to Yunmeng to be an outer disciple. Travel to Yunmeng and tell him what happened here. Tell him I’m trying my best to look after Jiang Cheng” he pressed the letter into Mo Xuanyu’s hands.

The younger man shuddered, looking at Wei Wuxian in disbelief, “Why would you do that?”

“Because you deserve a chance, and forgive me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think you want to go back to your home”

Mo Xuanyu snapped to attention, and bowed to Wei Wuxian; his hands shook, and Wei Wuxian caught him and pulled him up.

“Thank you for giving me this opportunity, I won’t disappoint Wei-shixiong. But I will be going with you. I need to see for myself” Mo Xuanyu assured him.

Wei Wuxian sighed, and turned to Lan Wangji, “Lan Zhan, do your magic mind thing and make them go” he said with a pout. But he knew Lan Wangji wouldn’t. Lan Wangji had explained to him the skill he used was a talent he had been born with, the thing that made his eyes glow gold, and was an ability to place a suggestion in someone’s thoughts and have them act on it, like how he had “suggested” the guard at the hospital entrance go to one of the other rooms and sleep, which had enabled them to access the caves and tunnels under the Nightless City.

“Wei Ying, it would be wrong to use it on an ally” Lan Wangji shook his head once, even though he was aware Wei Wuxian hadn’t asked in seriousness. “You should know how dangerous this will be, however, all of you. You may be captured or killed. Xiongzhang and I will do all we can to ensure we all walk out together, but I cannot promise”

“I know, Lan Zhan, but they have my brother, I’ll slay every Wen who comes to get to him” Wei Wuxian said, and Luo Qingyang nodded.

“It’s the right thing to do. I started this with you, I want to see it through” she added.

“And I must see the Wens unmasked as demons for myself” Mo Xuanyu said, clutching his sword.

Lan Wangji lowered his head in acknowledgement of the three, “Then we must join Xiongzhang now” and he lead them from the hall to meet up with Lan Xichen.

Chapter 9 – The Wens Unmasked - Part 2

They met Lan Xichen coming out of the lodgings the Two Jades had been assigned.

He eyed the additions to their group, but said nothing. He knew his brother enough to know Lan Wangji would have said everything needed to them; it was their own choice to face the danger.

“Xiongzhang” Lan Wangji said as they fell into step and headed from the guest lodging area towards the private clan areas of the city that the three had sneaked into the previous evening, “Su Minshan is missing”

Wei Wuxian saw Lan Xichen look at Lan Wangji, and something seemed to pass between them silently while they walked on without them missing a step.

“Wei-shixiong” Mo Xuanyu fell into step besides Wei Wuxian, who turned to give the younger man his attention. “Is Wen Ning…?” he didn’t seem to be able to finish the thought, but of course his meaning was clear enough.

“Yes, Wen Ning is probably half-demon. Ironically, if he wasn’t, you would be dead”

Mo Xuanyu nodded as if that thought had already occurred to him.

“Why did he save me?”

“I don’t know, perhaps it was because it was the right thing to do and he’s a kind young man” it was the only comment he could offer on the subject to Mo Xuanyu, he didn’t know himself. The fact still stood that Wen Ning had saved Mo Xuanyu’s life, and therefore, unless forced to act against him by circumstances or evidence, Wei Wuxian would assume he was a good person, demon or human.

***

The five moved through the Nightless City and into the walled off Clan areas. They admitted made their way through the back alleys towards Wen Qing’s hospital; but even so, the fact that they only encountered outer disciples, which meant Lan Zhan was able to deal with them easily, and without bloodshed, made Wei Wuxian’s scalp prickle.

He didn’t think the Wens were on their guard against anyone who may have caught on to their plans yet, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of unease. He didn’t really understand why, however, after all they had already sneaked through these streets once before, and again when they had returned to the surface last night, although they had had to hide in a deserted storage shed for a few hours on the way back to avoid the changing patrols and guard stations.

In hindsight Wei Wuxian wished dearly they’d chanced their luck and made a dash for it; if they had they would have been in time to stop Jiang Cheng from walking gamely into the Wen’s web.

Even in the hospital itself there was no more than the single guard sat at the entrance in the floorboards.

Once he had been dealt with in a similar fashion to the evening before they mounted the steps leading down into the rock bed beneath the city.

“I’m not experienced at sneaking into a secret lair” Mo Xuanyu said in a low voice, “but has this all seemed a little too easy?”

“Suspiciously so” Lan Xichen agreed, “Do not drop your guard for even a second, if I tell you to run, please listen”

Wei Wuxian kept his own council on that matter; if it came down to it he wouldn’t leave Jiang Cheng behind, whatever the Lans said to him. Jiang Cheng was his didi, his to protect and he had been doing a terrible job of it ever since they had come to the Nightless City.

As they moved deeper through the tunnels Shuoyue and Bichen unsheathed themselves an inch or so in perfect synchronisation.

Wei Wuxian was glad he didn’t stand on the opposite side of the Two Jades of Lan; their appearance alone was enough to strike fear into the heart of any enemy.

They moved in perfect harmony; their pure white robes; fair visages, set into identical looks of grim determination; and strong aura of implacable righteousness gave the impression of twin gods of vengeance come to earth to mete out divine retribution.

He loosened Suibian in it’s scabbard as he followed close behind the noiseless tread of the Two Jades.

The cloth scraps they’d left the night before were still visible where they’d placed them.

“Do we follow a different route and make straight for the cave floor or follow last night’s path and use the ledge to take stock of the situation first?” Luo Qingyang asked, her voice low.

“The ledge” Lan Wangji said firmly and they began following the miniscule scraps of pink under robe through the twists and turns of the labyrinthine tunnels.

Again, Wei Wuxian felt his scalp prickle in discomfort; he could just be overthinking, on account of his worry for Jiang Cheng, but it felt like this wasn’t the way they’d gone the previous night. Perhaps they should stop following their trail.

He voiced this to Lan Wangji, who agreed with a soft “Mn”

His fears were realised when the tunnel they followed didn’t branch off again, but kept dipping downwards, last night’s route had eventually begun to slope upwards a little.

“It feels like we’re being funnelled into a trap” Luo Qingyang muttered, a feeling Wei Wuxian shared with her.

Their path eventually led out onto the cavern floor, as they had all begun to expect by that point.

“Jiang Cheng” Wei Wuxian called in distress as his eyes alighted on the unconscious form of his adopted brother, tied at the wrists and hung from a hook suspended from the roof of the cavern. He didn’t even care that it was such an obvious trap that even a child could see it as he rushed forward, Lan Xichen matching him step for step across the cavern.

Lan Xichen caught Jiang Cheng around the waist, and lifted him up slightly. Wei Wuxian leapt up and caught hold of the chain with one hand, using the other to untangle the ropes from around the hook. Once Jiang Cheng was free, and carefully cradled in Lan Xichen’s arms he dropped back to the ground, and pressed in to check how Jiang Cheng was.

A small trickle of blood had escaped from his nose, but despite that and some bruising to his left cheekbone he didn’t seem to be too badly wounded. In fact a few seconds later he jerked back to consciousness, almost striking out at Lan Xichen with his still-bound hands. He realised who held him in time to pull his blow, however.

“Xichen, Wei Wuxian” there was a soft smile of relief that shaped his mouth, before he seemed to fully return to his senses and his face twisted into a look of panic.

“Get out of here” he struggled out of Lan Xichen’s arms and gave Wei Wuxian an almighty push back towards the tunnel where the other’s stood; Wei Wuxian felt himself be steadied by Lan Wangji. He was just about to shout at Jiang Cheng when the Wens spring their trap.

Now the prey had their teeth into their sweet little bait the cavern flooded with guards who surrounded the cultivators with their swords drawn. To the right, from another tunnel, a threesome walked into the cavern. One was the broad-shouldered demon they had seen in the cavern last night; the one who seemed to be the caretaker of the demonic crystal which he now held in his hands. The other two were Wen Ruohan, the Wen clan sect head, and Wen Xu, his eldest son.

Wei Wuxian sneered, “Thank you, Wen-zongzhu, for the welcoming committee. I don’t think we’ll stay for long though”

Wen Ruohan chuckled, sounding like an indulgent uncle, “Such a lively little golden core cultivator, I think the crystal will like you very much. Wen Zhuliu” Wen Ruohan waved an elegant hand lazily in Wei Wuxian’s direction.

“Zhao Zhuliu, the last scion of the Zhao dream demons, Jiang Wanyin was correct” Lan Xichen mused, and Wei Wuxian realised he was trying to draw the attention away from Wei Wuxian.

***

Jiang Cheng knew Lan Xichen spoke to play for time, to keep the Wen’s attention divided, but he had heard their foul plans while he had been strung from the iron hook like a piece of meat. He would rather die that let that vile crystal touch his brother.

Jiang Cheng turned to Lan Xichen in a move so fast it took everyone by surprise; he used the drawn Shuoyue to slice through the ropes still binding his wrists then gathered every scrap of concentration he could to focus his qi and send out his spiritual energy to yank the crystal out of Wen Zhuliu’s hands.

It was the oddest feeling, like his energy sank into the crystal and disappeared, and the crystal itself seemed to almost coo directly into his thoughts as it flew through the air towards him. He hadn’t initially intended to touch it, but it seemed to have a strong will of it’s own and it hit him in the centre of the chest, before dropping into his waiting palms.

He heard Lan Xichen’s warning, “Wanyin” a second before an enormous shock-wave of energy reverberated through the cavern; it’s origin was Jiang Cheng with the opaque in his hands; throwing every single person outwards and to the ground.

It whispered such seductive things in his thoughts, showed him how he could destroy the Wen guards with just a wave of his hand, how he could force Wen Ruohan down to his knees, how he could make Lan Xichen choose him above everything else in the world, how he could force Wei Wuxian into his shadow. Image after image flashed through his mind at the speed of thought, each designed to be more tempting than the last.

But the crystal didn’t know Jiang Cheng; the thoughts increasingly made him sick to his stomach and he tried to block them out, gathering his will as he threw the crystal to the ground.

He could give his brother one last gift to boost his chance of escape.

He gathered the last of his spiritual energy, managed to pick up three of the figures closest to the tunnel and threw them back down it, and with the very last tendrils of his qi, drew the sigils to form an energy barrier over the entrance. It would hold for a few minutes, keeping the Wens from following them directly.

His legs collapsed from underneath him but by now Lan Xichen was back by his side and caught him, lowering him gently to the cool, sandy floor of the cavern.

Blood flowed freely from his nose again, but he barely had the strength to even raise a hand to try to stem the flow. He felt a flood of qi trickle into his veins from Lan Xichen, who said his name over and over.

“I’m sorry, Xichen” his eyes flickered from those dark amber ones to Mo Xuanyu’s, who had been the unlucky fourth he just didn’t have the spiritual energy to save. The younger man had rushed over to Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen’s side when he had regained his feet and taken stock of what had happened. “I’m sorry Mo-xiong”

Lan Xichen soothed him with gentle noises, “You nearly killed yourself giving the others a fighting chance, Wanyin, you did well”

Jiang Cheng didn’t agree, but he finally had the energy to lift his head back and try to stem the flow of blood. Lan Xichen’s qi had mostly sealed the blood vessels and it had become a trickle in the interim.

“It’s alright, Jiang-xiong, I knew what the risks were when I agreed to come down here” he took one of Jiang Cheng’s hands and gave it a brief squeeze. Jiang Cheng found the gesture surprisingly comforting.

Wen Ruohan’s voice was strident and took their attention, “Catch them, I want them” he snarled, indicating the tunnel Luo Qingyang, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian had been thrown down.

A tentative voice sounded, “Respect, Wen-zongzhu, but may I suggest you have already won the prize” the voice was vaguely familiar to Jiang Cheng, ingratiating and servile though it was now.

Wen Ruohan stalked across the cavern to stand in front of the three trapped cultivators; his guards, some looking extremely dazed and confused, closed in around them.

Behind him, off to his side a little, in the snow-white mourning robes of the Lans, was Su Minshan.

“I must admit the Jiang heir is more than I ever hoped to find in a single cultivator” he reached out, as if to touch Jiang Cheng’s face, but Jiang Cheng caught Wen Ruohan’s wrist.

“Don’t lay your filthy hands on me” he snapped. He yelped as he was dragged to his feet with harsh hands. Lan Xichen and Mo Xuanyu were dealt with similarly. He had never learned when to shut his mouth though, “And you” he pointed a vengeful finger at Su She, “careful what you say, I’ll rip your tongue out and stab you through your treacherous heart. Be Righteous, what a fucking joke”

Su She barely spared him a glance, looking instead at Lan Xichen with something like a dangerous, predatory look in his dark eyes.

“May I present to you Zewu-jun, Lan Xichen, The First Jade of Lan, and the Lan Clan’s crowning glory. The first empath born to the Cloud Recesses for over eight hundred years”

“I’ll fucking kill you, snake” Jiang Cheng found a burst of energy, twisted free of the holding hands and launched himself at the traitorous Lan disciple, but he was caught again by incredibly strong, implacable hands. It was Wen Xu, who twisted his arms behind his back and held him still.

A look of pure, intense joy crossed the Wen sect leaders face as he contemplated the three captured cultivators in front of him.

“This is indeed beyond any prize I had ever hoped for when setting our plans into motion” he caught Jiang Cheng’s chin in his hand, fingers digging bruises, “A weapon of devastating potential” he tilted his head a little, and looked Jiang Cheng in the eyes, which burned with hatred and anger, “And such a delicious buffet all on your own, so stuffed full of quicksilver emotions, so nourishing” Wen Ruohan stepped back upon releasing Jiang Cheng, and moved to Lan Xichen.

Jiang Cheng had never seen the other so retiring; Lan Xichen tried to back away from the touch of the Wen sect leader, but he was held too firmly, and eventually he had no further room to retreat.

Wen Ruohan trailed a finger down his fair cheek, over his jaw and down the long, elegant line of his throat.

“So beautiful, a prize worth the winning, you’ll make such a darling little pet”

“Take your fucking hands away from him” Jiang Cheng snarled, even though he couldn’t shake the hold Wen Xu had on him even a little.

Wen Ruohan chuckled, back to his avuncular persona, “So much fire. So much ice. I’m going to have a lot of fun breaking you both to my will. And when I have, I will have gained so much for my time and care” he nodded once at Wen Xu.

His son forced Jiang Cheng to his knees and in a single, vicious move stamped on the back of his calf. The snap of Jiang Cheng’s shin bone was sickeningly loud in the echoing cavern, but it was immediately drowned out by his scream of pain.

With his arms suddenly released all he could do was stuff his knuckles into his mouth and bite down to stem the noise as wave after wave of intense pain washed over him.

At the snap a violent tremor had shaken Lan Xichen, who’s eyes had flashed golden, a shout of his own on his lips as his mental defences were smashed to pieces. The nearness of Jiang Cheng, his attachment to him, the intensity of the pain, and the demonic crystal which seeped through his walls all conjoined to break every safeguard he had built to protect himself.

An excited wave seemed to pass over the blood Wens in the cave at the sheer power of the emotion radiating from the Lan sect heir; Jiang Cheng’s pain channelled and amplified by Lan Xichen’s natural born curse, (for that was what Jiang Cheng considered his empathic ability) was heady stuff.

Jiang Cheng desperately tried to build walls of his own, to internalise the pain and shield Lan Xichen from it; but it was a futile effort under the intense onslaught.

“More than we could ever have hoped” there was a feral, excited tone in Wen Ruohan’s voice, and he closed his eyes briefly, before turning to the final member of their trio.

“And what do we have here?”

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packhuntcr · 5 years ago

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♒ - cooking/food headcanon asked by @thehearsc

Attempt #2 because tumblr ate more than half the first one, about which I’m super salty.

So, you totally only asked for one but...

I have lots of thoughts on this subject, okay?

Thought #1: Watery mac and cheese? Ten thousand percent the responsibility of one (1) Jacob Seed. But it’s not incompetence. Think about it. The boys grew up poor. Mac and cheese was cheap, plentiful, filling. They ate an asston of that boxed mac and cheese crap. And, being the oldest, Jacob was the one to make it. So, eliminating incompetence as a reason... it was absolutely an unsubtle protest to Joseph asking him to go. True, it’s a rare time even Joseph can make that great ginger sasquatch do something he doesn’t want to do. But just because he wasn’t forced doesn’t mean he had any kind of desire to share oxygen in the same vicinity as Nick Rye or any other idiot. And vexation loves company every inch as much as misery. So, that tupperware of sloppy noodles and processed cheese-product gets dropped onto the table, staring Joseph dead in the eye with a ‘I’m only here because of you and you bet your skinny ass I ain’t happy about it’ expression. I’m pretty sure it was a culinary ‘fuck you’ to Hot for Preacher and every other soul at that barbecue.

Thought #2: Going back to jacob’s familiarity with cheap, crappy food. Jacob grew up in a house that lived paycheck-to-paycheck in the best of times. As he got older and the number of mouths to feed increased, it became paycheck-to-it-might-be-awhile-before-the-next-paycheck. Throw in there their mother’s progression to a breathing ghost that can’t be assed to rouse to the cries of her children, and it wasn’t Mrs. Seed cooking. It was Jacob.

And not well.

Especially earlier on, before John came along, Jacob had a talent for both burning and undercooking the same item of foodstuff. It got better with practice, but there was precious little to work with. Fresh produce or meat was rare. The boys always ate like preppers: canned, items from that sad clearance shelf in the grocery, things that were cheap, filling, shelf stable. And when the pantry went empty, it was the eldest son out scraping together enough to fill his brother’s empty bellies. Jacob begged. He borrowed, he stole, he hoarded what he could from other sources. Some evenings after school saw Jacob waiting for the food pantry in a line that stretched around the corner, the tips of his ears burning bright as his red hair. But sating hunger, feeding his brothers was more important than his pride. Seasonings were expensive, intimidating to a boy who had to teach himself to turn on the stove to warm the contents of a steel can. More so, they did nothing to quiet the hunger and thus, were ruled unnecessary. Though he loved both his brothers, John was easily the favorite. John had no memory of their mother’s cooking, knew no other source of nutrition. So the baby happily ate whatever mess Jacob could pull together where Joseph had to force down a mess of oatmeal, peaches in heavy syrup, and vienna sausage. Which doesn't sound awful... Until you consider it was totally mixed together in one pot. But they were fed, went to bed with stomachs that didn’t growl most nights. It was enough.

Thought #3: If you think of it, school lunches were probably the only reliable source of food Jacob knew. They didn’t even last that long, but they were reliable up until that point. And there’s Jacob, at lunch knowing he’s got brothers at home without it. Knowing that the meal that evening or over the weekend isn’t guaranteed. So Jacob’s going to hoard food. He’ll never eat a full portion, not even of school’s sad PB&J. The boy grows up on half-portions, just enough to get by that he might have something to take back to share, to tuck away for thinner times. Dude’s thin most of his life. 6′4″ and gangling, but on such a broad frame. Jacob Seed wasn’t made to be slim. Look at the size of his hands, the breadth of his shoulders.

The first time Jacob finishes a meal without being hungry, he’s 18 and in the army. 18 fucking years old before he goes to bed with a full belly. Because, up until that point, he’s been too poor, been setting food aside, been trying to feed two more on enough for one. By the time he’s made it through Basic, most of his hope of finding his brothers again is beat out of him. He’s also in a place where food is plentiful, pushed upon him. He’s got a bit of money for the first time in his life and exists in a system that wants him healthy and strong. And lord does that boy fill out. Jacob, in his twenties, is a mountain of a man. Towering, that broad frame finally filled out with the physical labor to ensure it’s all muscle. Then that third tour happens. Miller happens. And Jacob never wants to be that hungry again. So the hoarding resumes. And it never stops. Not when he’s homeless. Not when his brothers find him again.

I guarantee you there are caches of food throughout the county. Jacob is a beast about waste. Take enough, take what you need, store the rest. By the time we see him in Hope, dude’s had a reliable source of nutrition for 8-10 years at minimum. But he’s still thin; his hands look massive compared to his body, disproportionately so. He hasn’t rebuilt that muscle that he lost. Because rebuilding and maintaining that frame is excessive. He doesn’t need it and he’d rather set that food aside for later when things won’t be so easy. You bet your ass he has nightmares about those first few years if he survives the Collapse. Jacob's the one going "no, fuck you we need food for ten years, not seven" and living in terror of blight and nuclear winter.

Thought #4: Pork. I see many within this fandom expressing Jacob’s refusal to eat pork, his inability to stand the smell of cooking bacon. And I totally get it. I mean, there’s a reason people are referred to as long pig. And, of course, the incident with Miller is a hugely traumatic moment. It's a moment that left mental scars every bit as prolific as the physical ones. But, for me and my Jacob, this fails to take into account his pragmatism, the overwhelming practicality of the man. Think about it: henrefers to people as ‘meat’. He actually went so far as to overcome taboo and kill his friend in the desert and consume him in order to survive.

And pork’s cheap. It’s prolific. It’s an easy choice when feeding the hundreds of the project. It cans easily in many forms. Jacob’s not going to turn it down. He’s known hunger. He’s known starvation. And he’s not going to waste a thing. Jacob Seed would eat your fucking puppy before going hungry. He’d eat you. Hell, the only ones he wouldn’t eat are John and Joseph. Even that is only because, without them, he doesn’t much want to survive. So yeah, Jacob will eat pork. Jacob will eat just about anything you lay before him. He’s probably the only Seed to not turn green at the notion of the Testy Festy. It’s just meat.

What will get him though, is scent. See, when he and Miller got separated int he ambush, they weren’t completely without supplies. Each had only what they carried. A camel-back of water each, the contents of their packs and pockets. There’s a bit in the way of snacking there. Enough for a day or two. But Miller, ever a vain man, Miller had a can of body spray in his pack, guard against the desert sun and BDUs. And he used it. Prolifically. One small comfort in a pit of misery, who’d blame the man? Jacob. That’s who. Jacob would swear Miller went through that entire can in a matter of days. Out in the middle of BFE and the man reeked like an Axe cloud in an under-ventilated middle school locker room. It was pervasive, irritating Jacob’s sensitive nose. So much so that he’d swear he could taste it in the meat pulled from a spit over a small fire. But he ate it.

That’s the trigger for Jacob- strong smells. We all know more than half of men’s soaps, deodorants, and sprays smell the same. And dude cannot stand it. It feeds into his grimy state. Who’d want to bathe regularly with that memory in a bottle right there? Given the years, the severity of the trauma, it’s spread. Any strong, chemically manufactured scent will remind Jacob. He thinks John fucking reeks with all that hair product, cologne, fine soaps and detergents.

#thehearsc #headcanon #[asks answered

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erenthecoordinate · 6 years ago

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Hello. Please share your thoughts about the latest couple of chapters/Zeke's backstory.

Not gonna lie, this probably one of the most emotional chapters I’ve read in a while. I’ve been asking for a Zeke-centric chapter that would explain his motives and we got it in the classical heartbreaking fashion that this series is known to dish out. AND it includes an explosive cliffhanger that Michael Bay would be proud of and make a good portion of the fandom look at a panel at 200% zoom and contrast change for 3 days.

I think the last time I talked about Zeke on this blog, I mentioned that I believe there is a chance Zeke is being genuine with working on Eldia’s side, but it wasn’t yet clear how much he wanted to include Paradis in the fruits of his potential “free the people” plan. Yeah, so, things have changed obviously. But not as drastically as I was led to believe after chapter 112. By ch113, I figured there was more to the story with Zeke, since it seemed that his intentions for escaping was based on a time restraint and the fact he couldn’t trust Levi in the end. Fortunately for his fans and unfortunately for Zeke, Levi’s plot armor saved him this time. Only for fate to be teased once more! Ugh!

I’m going to give a few super brief hot takes that I posted before but Tumblr decided to throw it into the abyss the first time. This is going to be the least analytical and organized list I’ve ever written so be kind:

Finally, a flashback chapter of the most mysterious guy in this series

…AND HE’S CUTE!?

Oh my god.

Grisha and Dina are not the worst parents nor bad people but hell if they aren’t misguided, radical, and negligent of their only son.

This gives me middle school flashbacks.

I didn’t expect Zeke to suck at military training, to be honest. They really did just call him a child prodigy for his miracle abilities and the fact he betrayed his parents.

Which I don’t entirely blame him anymore…if it wasn’t his free decision, he was influenced by a replacement nurturing parental figure to do it. Ouch.

I was mad when these spoilers came out but now it makes sense why this is Zeke’s motive.

I’m pretty confident Eren is double crossing Zeke now.

Zeke is not dead. Levi is not dead. Splash text is clickbait.

I don’t even think Levi lost any arms, but we won’t know until 2 or 3 chapters from now. Hope he knows how to swim!

For wordy rambling, please read on--

As most of the fandom assumed, this chapter was going to be primarily a flashback containing Zeke’s childhood. And it’s a heavy reveal that spirals into his present-day motives. It opens up with another scene that illustrates exactly how mistreated and disrespected Eldians are, the janitor going so far as to question why they are “breeding” for more devils. This is unsurprisingly traumatizing to Zeke and those words are the seeds that flourish the plant of self-hatred soon to wreak havoc. On the other hand, Grisha vents his frustrations and feeds the idea that their only salvation is to be free from their internment. They have barely enough freedom to leave their residence and to do so require legal permission. At this point, we’re familiar enough with how Marley reacts to Eldians both in the past and present day and those views haven’t changed no matter the year. The story makes us aware that other nations prefer the race to be eradicated whereas Marley’s action is to keep them controlled, though of course there are people who support the former option. It’s demeaning enough to be ostracized but threatened with genocidal wishes from the general public induces a lot of paranoia and, in the Restorationists’ case, rage.

Zeke is considerably mellow though. There is no contempt because he’s too busy appeasing his parents. He struggles with his training and falls far too short from the other warrior candidates. But he is nothing but loyal to Grisha and Dina, even lying to his grandparents about how his father lectures him about their history. Zeke uniquely gets two different teachings, but interestingly we don’t see him doubting either of them. He seems to absorb more of what Grisha is saying, but doesn’t confess that to his grandparents, and simply nods and follows along to whatever is being read to him. Most of his anxiety is reaching the expectation of becoming a warrior like his parents wanted.

His parents don’t make it a mystery to Zeke that him becoming a warrior is part of their restoration plan. It’s not out of glory or that they want to best for him, but he is already exposed to the group as the one to save them all, a beacon of hope that the whole of the Eldian race depends on.

Of course, with the pressure on, Zeke cannot make the cut. A mix of physical weakness and mental turmoil has Magath questioning Zeke’s integrity. This brings him trailing behind his comrades, defeated, only to run into one of the current warriors playing catch with himself. This is where we get a first glimpse of Zeke’s hidden pitching talent. Tom Xaver, the current Beast Titan whose main job is a titan science researcher, is impressed and Zeke illuminates.

I know he murdered hundreds in very unkind ways, but it is a canon fact he is adorable.

Afterwards, Grisha, Dina, and their restorationist friend Grice become stressed with the fact Zeke isn’t performing to acceptable standards to even qualify to be a candidate of the warrior program, let alone having the chance to harness one of the titans. Zeke overhears this and is taken back by the urgency. Grisha takes notice and attempts to encourage his son by saying he is special and therefore he can succeed.

Immediately follows probably one of the most depressing, soul-crushing pages that doesn’t include death (unless you count the death of Grisha and Dina’s faith in their son). You don’t have to like Zeke to feel a twinge of relatability when he nearly breaks down from watching his parents turn away in disappointment. It’s the worst kind of rejection because there is no improving something you simply cannot do and don’t truly have a passion for, even if you fight tooth and nail for it.

Xaver comments on Zeke’s atrocious training attempt and Zeke admits that his parents are the reason he has to become a warrior. Xaver loosely describes the “perks” of being a warrior: harness unbelievable power, fight in wars, and die in 13 years by the teeth of your successor. Avoiding that fate doesn’t grant much freedom, but to Zeke, staying alive for as long as possible is good enough. To survive is fine. He doesn’t need to fight to be free.

Naturally, cruel circumstances bombarde Zeke’s world when he overhears that his parents are in serious danger of being discovered. He attempts to vere them to safer options so that they won’t be sent to Paradis, but Grisha and Dina immediately shut him down. Living in an oppressed system is damaging to their self-esteem. Revolution is necessary to change the world. Zeke is their golden ticket. There is a fatal risk to all this, but it is all for the name of their people. For those who died for trying to reach beyond their boundaries. Grisha omits his guilt over his sister’s death, saying what he wanted was simple. Did that deserve punishment? We already know his feelings about that, though.

Zeke on the other hand is convinced that it is all over for his family. The power others have over them is far greater than his parents can overcome. Xaver sees his distress and Zeke is quick to surrender any possibility of a long life, grateful he can hold onto memories of him as he eternally sleeps. Xaver is too fond of Zeke, though, and we learn he is the one who suggests Zeke turn in his parents in order to save himself and his grandparents. Zeke objects, of course, but it doesn’t take too long for Xaver to convince him that his parents cared more about their agenda than their child’s happiness and wellbeing. And then that all happens.

Several years pass, and Zeke has gone from adorable to totally handsome.

Err...and he has become a successor to the Beast Titan. He’s woven a close bond with this man to know progressions concerning his research. A lot of it is information we already know but to them it’s a mix of theory and hearsay. The new bit of information we gather is the theory that the Founding Titan can manipulate Eldian’s genetic makeup based on paths alone. It’s what has saved them from plagues in the past. Zeke recalls the janitor that harassed him and his parents years ago, and laments on the idea that the Founder can also prevent more Eldians from being born.

Xaver reacts somber over this concept. He confesses that he used to have a family under disguise as a Marleyan. It wasn’t until after his wife found out and killed herself and their son out of shame and disgust that he ultimately decided to become a warrior-- so he could die in the most glorified way possible, I guess? In that time, he was dedicated to his research more than anything, but overall expressed he virtually replaced the void in his heart with Zeke’s presence, which explains why he was so important to him. It’s kind of touching that they both found each other to fill in roles that were empty in their lives. Xaver still exhibits a great deal of self-hatred, something that Zeke can relate to. At this point, he declares his motive of taking the Beast Titan, recovering the Founder, and stop the cycle of suffering by effectively ending the existence of Eldians altogether. It’s...certainly a goal, albeit a method of giving in to their circumstances and accepting that they cannot fight against this oppression, so that the best thing to actually do is not exist. Because no matter what they do, to exist is to suffer, and what kind of life is that?

The flashback closes with Levi overhearing Zeke mutter that the only salvation for Eldia is their euthanasia, and that all the deaths he is responsible for was a method of setting them free. Of course, Levi doesn’t buy it and prepares for another round of Chopped. Zeke appears to be only partially lucid when he shouts for his dead mentor to watch his next move.

In a matter of seconds, Zeke jerks the string that pulls the fuse and Levi looks to try to make a quick escape. Zeke risks it all in an explosion that splits his body in parts, though it looks like his neck and head are still intact. Meanwhile, Levi is blown back a distance with some blood trailing from his body due to ambiguous injuries. And there is our cliffhanger of the volume!

I know I basically just summarized the chapter with some flavor additions, but there are a few things that drove me to a pit of emotions and questions during the spoiler drop. Context from the fully translated chapter fixed a lot of my primary thoughts.

The Zekecrets

First big gain from this chapter is Zeke’s motive! Finally, the zekecret is out! And it’s rooted from a traumatic childhood and is buzzing with controversy. I can’t say I agree with Zeke’s idea of ending the Eldian race by sterilizing them and killing those that he can. But I will say that considering his experiences as a child and that discussion with Xaver had inspired this motive and, therefore, makes a lot of sense. We’ve seen Zeke as a kind of chessmaster with many tricks up his sleeve yet was a shroud of mystery. He has killed without mercy, he has betrayed his country, and he has turned that people he claimed to protect into Titans. But to him, these deaths are convenient and align to his ultimate goal.

It’s honestly hard to believe that a character that has convinced people that his empathy level is so low that he barely even forms any attachments (as evidence with his betrayal) started off as an extremely sensitive and emotionally intelligent child. His confidence is constantly challenged because of his blood from both sides. His parents put him on a pedestal because his relation to them is what makes him special and therefore he must succeed. On the other front, he is subjected to harsh ostracization from the general Marleyan public for simply being Eldian. And at training, being the weaker of the child soldiers, he is put down by instructors and his trainee peers. And even so, he still finds a bit of salvation in learning how to pitch while having some close conversation with a kind stranger. Where he can’t find affection and acceptance in one area, he finds it in Xaver.

Still, the reality is that he is given these expectations that he himself simply has no strong drive to achieve nor the physical strength. He presses on for the sake of his parents, but only his success will gain their acceptance and...he is unable to do it. I think the most heartbreaking thing about this is that he accepts that he is somewhat of a tool for their agenda yet he sticks his neck out in hopes that he gets affectionate attention from his parents. The fact he watches a child play ball with their father on his way home show that it’s an attention he craves because he doesn’t receive it often. Even when he knows they are soon to get caught, Zeke’s first instinct is to say his goodbyes and surrender to whatever fate has in store for him. To him, he is useless to carve his own path. He has failed his parents, the Restorationists, the whole Eldian race, and himself.

Parenting Contrast: Grisha&Dina v Carla

I do briefly want to say that I don’t think Grisha and Dina were bad people, they are bad (not worst) parents and were too radicalized in their beliefs to realize that their son was emotionally struggling with self-esteem issues. Anything they knew about Zeke was very on the surface. Their priority was the revolution. They manufactured a child for this due to their ignorance and anger. But I don’t think they didn’t care about Zeke at all. Zeke, to them, was to gain just as much of a positive outcome and life of freedom if he succeeded. They were never aware of the pressure they put on Zeke. Grisha later assumed that their negligence was the reason for Zeke’s betrayal and he never blames him for it.

Ironically, though, Eren is the appropriate child Grisha could have had for his revolution before it rapidly failed. Second time’s the charm? This is likely due to Eren’s lack of responsibility. There were no dire expectations until later in his life. Carla parented opposite of Dina and Grisha, believing that not everyone has to be special to be great. Eren had more options open to him.

Regardless, I don’t think Grisha quite parented the same way as he did with Zeke, but it may have been a bit difficult to keep reactions to certain circumstances subtle. I don’t know if we’ll ever get more insight about why Eren used to be a weird loner kid that followed life through “the strong conquer the weak” system. I just have a sneaking suspicion that it’s due to indirect mimicking of Grisha’s behavior. After all, a real issue in this series are ignorant adults. Or sometimes kids are just weird and easily influenced. Unfortunately, in the end, Grisha does resort back to pressing responsibility on his second son, most likely because of their dire situation and Eren’s willingness to break free. Because Eren is his son, of course.

Bit by bit, however, Zeke seems to be progressively aware of the obsession his parents have over their revolution plan. They spend very little time with him, so he is often spending time with his grandparents, effectively keeping the cover up for his parents. And any time they do spend with him is spent reversing the studies he has learned at school. Zeke accepts the lessons but isn’t enthused. I mentioned that he doesn’t really seem to question which history is correct and which isn’t; he doesn’t cast doubts on either and it’s difficult to say whether Grisha’s teachings were ones he felt were more accurate or that he was just parroting in order to gain approval. A majority of his interactions with his parents are “yes” and nods.

When Xaver comes into the picture and Zeke projects him as a father figure, he becomes more aware of his parents’ actions. Which is why I don’t think it was especially a struggle for Zeke to believe Xaver when he told him that his parents don’t really care about him and that it’ll be worth selling them out if it means he and his grandparents get to live. Zeke is very good at shutting down his emotions at this moment. He is, however, not without heart though, because he continues to nurture that fondness for Xaver, who he is later a successor to. In fact, he is the reason why Zeke entertains the idea that Eldians should stop reproducing.

The Plan and is Eren actually part of this?

This is where things get controversial, of course. On one hand, technically, no longer existing means that they would no longer have to suffer. Zeke says those on Paradis are ignorant to what the world has in store for them. This isn’t to buy more time to properly unite with other nations, it was time to stop reproduction altogether and (probably) eliminate the Eldians on Paradis. To Zeke it’s merciful to end this. But it’s still genocide. And I don’t believe this is the ultimate answer nor do I believe Eren is actually going to end up accepting this plan.

Unlike Zeke, Eren grew up with an everlasting flame that urged him to seek freedom in every format. Freedom of his environment, freedom of his choices, etc. He too gets weighed down by crushing expectations, becoming something of a tool for the military and government to achieve victory, but it is something that he genuinely wants. Included, he still had the compassion of his comrades. He wished them long lives. He believes that people deserve to live simply by being born into the world. Their existence gives them the right to freedom. It gives them a chance to fight. Sterilization is a big surrender. Death and prevention of life, robbing that choice from others, is completely contradicting to anything Eren has ever learned, said, or believed in. And I think his reaction to Willy’s words at the festival is a key indicator that his intention is to keep the Eldians alive. I’m not sure how far ahead Eren is in terms of double crossing his brother, but at the very least, I think that if he knows Zeke’s true intentions, he has found or is finding a way to skirt around that option and use Zeke for his own plans.

I plan to write a progression meta theorizing Eren’s motives that edits and re-publishes with every reveal in each chapter but basically my guess is that Eren does know what Zeke wants and that he has been playing along with Zeke’s orchestrated plan, festival, Warhammer Titan, prisonbreak, etc. to earn loyalty points. Which unfortunately included him killing innocents in the process. But if Zeke really does believe their deaths are their true freedom, then Eren has to convince Zeke that he believe the same too. Doesn’t mean he hasn’t internally struggled as a result. But for now, Eren’s individual thoughts remain an enigma so it’s difficult to pinpoint his exact intentions at the moment.

Explosive (haha) End

Anyway, the other big thing was Zeke’s dramatic escape act which required an enormous explosion and the splitting of his own body. Uh, yuck! But I can’t help but feel a bit tickled that we actually have a panel with Zeke’s detached ass in the air. His torso, including his neck and head, are more or less together, so he can easily pull off the Reiner trick to implant his brain to elsewhere on the nervous system so that he can regenerate from there. So, yeah, Zeke will be fine. And probably pantless if he can’t recover his lower half.

Levi, on the other hand, has no regenerating powers and appears pretty injured if the blood splattering off his body is anything to go by. He wasn’t as close to the explosion, so it’s possible any injuries he sustained are because of the shooting debris and/or his sword, which he still had out in front guarding his body prior to the fuse going off. I remember when the first grainy image of this panel came out and everyone was zooming in and tracing areas to figure out if Levi lost anything. I think it’s consensus now that Levi has both legs intact and at the very least his left arm. The only big question is whether his right arm is there and any other injuries on his torso or face that may exist. If you want my personal visual analysis and theory, I think his injuries are not fatal nor crippling, meaning all his limbs are intact, but he probably has decent sized gashes on his body to have him temporarily side-lined. I think the angle of the drawing and multiple gradients to indicate fast motion and blood direction is meant to give the reader uncertainty but in the end it’ll reveal that nothing was lost. At least, I hope so. It would be absolutely disheartening and irresponsible to put him out of commission for the rest of the series and the rest of his life-- I think out of all the suffering Levi has gone through, he definitely doesn’t deserve to feel completely useless to do anything, Plus it’d be extremely underwhelming to set your strongest and most popular character on the bench before the big climax.

I will say that Levi is definitely not dead, though. None of the notable deaths we’ve seen have been obscured by body angles. They’ve been explicitly shown without debate on their status, Erwin and Sasha especially. I believe the only off-screen deaths the series has had was Moblit and Ymir, and even then the scenes before then leave you no doubt to their inevitable fate. Even Marco eventually got a scene of his death. And neither of these deaths happened as cliffhangers. But false death cliffhangers have always been a thing in the series. Plus, I think Levi is far more deserving of a multi-panel, half chapter death scene if he were to die at all.

I do think he will land in the river and those injuries will prevent him from fighting effectively against the current to stay in his location. I believe the convenient landscape was rather deliberate as it gives Zeke enough time and lonesomeness to recover and seek Eren. Really, the explosion was an excuse to remove Levi from the scene and quickly be transported elsewhere. But I want to bet we won’t find out Levi’s fate for another couple chapters. Because Isayama is just that cruel!

....

Sorry this got extensive. I’m still building up on these thoughts, so nothing is definite or without possibility of change. But to summarize, Zeke’s childhood is sad, his plan is genocide and Eren ain’t about that life, Yeagerbros are dramatic people and forever interesting to me, and Levi is alive and battered but not handicapped.

That said, I would love to hear from everyone else about what they thought of the chapter. Were you sympathetic to Zeke’s backstory? Is he irredeemable? What’s Eren’s role in all this? Does he actually subscribe to Zeke’s scheme of eliminating all Eldians to end their suffering, or does he have other tricks up his sleeve? Is Levi alive? How bad are his injuries? Does he know how to swim?

Will I ever recover from the emotional rollercoaster this chapter has put me though?

Thanks for sending this ask! I haven’t meta’d in a while and this honestly is inspiring to write again!

#zeke yeager #eren yeager #grisha yeager #dina yeager #carla yeager #levi ackerman #tom xaver #meta #analysis #theory #chapter reaction #my post #Anonymous

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itsclydebitches · 6 years ago

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RWBY Recaps: Vol. 6 “The Lost Fable”

This is a re-posting from Nov. 10th, 2018 in an effort to get all my recaps fully on tumblr. Thanks!

Today is a glorious day. Today, Ozpin stans and Ozpin haters must unite in friendship against the real assholes on this show:

The Gods.

But I’ll get to that. First, we start off with the clip that we were given earlier this week. Thrown into a high def pocket dimension housing all of Ozpin’s personal backstory (still not letting the girls off the hook for that one) we see Salem when she was still human, a lonely girl locked in a tower by her “cruel father.” She desires freedom above everything else, but can’t achieve that without help, despite her own magical power.

Lucky for Salem, a warrior by the name of Ozma arrives. He’s a man of “pure heart and courageous soul,” driven by righteousness and justice, not greed at the prospect of securing the maiden’s hand. So here we see a possible explanation (though not justification) for Salem’s father’s actions: it sounds like she was the prize for whoever could fix the problems in the kingdom. Ozma does this and, through the common irony found in fables and fairy tales, wins the girl’s heart because he was never looking for it in the first place. They fall in love, travel, and Jinn gives us a “happily ever after,” only to pull back and say that’s how it should have ended. Of course, we know that’s not the case.

The beginning of this tale is everything RWBY is trying to undermine: the simple, predictable fairy tale. There’s a helpless woman, a warrior arrives to save her, they fall in love and live in bliss. End of story. However, even in the simplest tales there’s still conflict and I want everyone to keep that in mind as we move forward. The original world Ozma and Salem inhabited was by no means a paradise. We’ll come back to that.

So, despite surviving beasts and battles, Ozma falls ill and dies, leaving Salem a wreck at his passing. Let’s keep in mind that this was an abused woman who, presumably, was locked up for most—if not all—of her life. Ozma was the one person who cared for her and then suddenly she was left alone in a world she’d never learned how to navigate. We’re told it straight out: Salem found freedom in Ozma’s eyes, not the act of leaving her tower. Without him she doesn’t know who she is. The idea that you’d go to any lengths to win your true love back is always a good story. Combine that with your true love being your only link to the outside world and suddenly Salem’s actions read as pretty inevitable.

She immediately heads to the God of Light’s temple to ask for Ozma back because, presumably, that’s what the temple is there for. To pray for things. The Gods literally want the mortals to kneel, beg, and then they get to decide whether they'll grant the favor or not. In this case Light says no. Resurrecting Ozma would upset the balance of life and death.

Except… it’s already upset? Because of the grimm. It would be one thing if this was a world where people lived and died naturally; by old age, disease, and even by one another’s hand. But this is a world where one God has created an un-ending stream of destructive monsters that Humanity has very little defense against, and we know from past stories that the grimm have frequently pushed Humanity to near extinction. Death is already winning. What freaking balance?

Regardless, Salem isn’t happy with this decision.

Salem: “That’s not fair!”

Now we start getting into the morality attached to this episode and you know what? Salem’s right. We—meaning the actual humans watching the show and currently reading this recap—understand that the cycle of life and death is something we need to accept because for us it’s inevitable. On the surface that seems like a good thing for Light to demand Salem come to terms with. However, Salem is not living in our world. Why does a cycle of life and death exist for her, particularly one where death comes violently and unexpectedly to those who don’t deserve it? Because this God said so. He and his brother have the power here. They could change things if they wanted! Make a different world with different rules! Again, we think of death as inevitable because for us it actually is, but given the option why not create a world where everyone’s immortal? I’m not claiming that’s actually the solution here—people need space, resources, they want freedom from the pain life can bring—only that Light is acting like this balance is something intrinsic and not of his own creation. He could literally say, “Yeah okay, from here on out if people die when they’re not ready they can come back until they want to move on.” But he doesn’t. He's denying her this because he wants to, not because he has to. I can already hear people going, "Too bad, snowflake, the world isn't fair" but the entire point is that this world could be.

Light tells her to “let [Ozma] rest,” establishing that these beings are hypocritical as well. He preaches letting a mortal move on, but then drags that exact mortal into an endless existence when it serves his purpose. So yeah. These guys are dicks.

Ultimately, they want an unfair world. Why? So people will revere and pray to them. If they actually created something that was close to a paradise, well, then Humanity wouldn’t have need of Gods anymore. And as we’re about to see, the Gods are far more arrogant beings than Salem ever was.

God of Light won’t grant your prayer? Well, there are two brothers. I’m not blaming Salem for making use of her options here especially when, as established, she recognizes that things don’t have to be this way. She approaches the God of Darknesses’ domain and we have a more overt characterization that paints him as incredibly fallible. He’s not some omniscient, greater being that stands above Humanity in terms of ethics. He’s a megalomaniac, thrilled to have the “prize” of a “low woman kneeling before him.”

Keep the parallel imagery in mind: Salem is under the thumb of her “cruel father” and now she’s at the mercy of brothers who delight in her subservience. She’s a woman who is pushing against the presumed power of men… and she’s about to be punished for it.

Salem recognizes that the Gods have emotions just like Humanity because she’s careful not to mention the God of Light, acting like Darkness is the first one she approached. Thrilled at her supposedly blind faith in him (catching the theme here with Ozpin?) he immediately grants her prayer and Ozma is resurrected in a panic. For a brief moment Salem thinks everything is going to be okay.

Then Light shows up and the brothers start squabbling like, well, siblings. Just like it’s bad when teenagers with powerful weaponry and relics throw temper tantrums, it’s bad when super-powered gods start bickering. We see clearly for the first time that they really view Humanity as toys to fight over, rather than beings to be respected: Ozma is resurrected, killed, resurrected again, and killed again as they fight. Salem has to watch it all.

The fight finally ends when Light says that he doesn’t want to control his brother, but Salem does. She lied about approaching him first. So… she’s evil incarnate?

Seriously, this is some crazy manipulation on the Gods’ parts. They claim that Salem is punished for her arrogance, but what’s arrogant about praying to the gods who wanted your prayers in the first place? Of course, the real issue is she didn’t pray in the right way. They’re not upset that she’s messing with the (not intrinsic!) balance of life and death, they’re upset that she dared to question them. Light hates her because she didn’t say, “Okay, master” like a good girl and drop the subject. Darkness hates her because she didn’t feed his ego and actually approach him first. He doesn’t have any problem with resurrecting Ozma until he learns that the measly mortal managed to trick him, and then his pride is hurt. It’s not about the resurrection. It never was. It’s about a woman who won’t stay in her place.

“You monsters!” Salem cries and yeah, I agree.

They claim that they made her immortal so that she can learn the super important lesson that death is supposedly inevitable, but the real punishment is announced just a second later: “You cannot be with your beloved.” The immortality isn’t to teach her, it’s to make her suffer. It also says a lot that Light literally tortures her before explaining the curse: he swallows her in dragon form, has her fall from a great height, briefly drowns her, and then slams her against the now hard water. They want to bring her low.

Which might make sense to some people because in the real world a lot of religions teach that God is absolute and we must never, ever question Him. But in this world the Gods only have authority because they have the power to enforce it. We’ve been shown no reason why Humanity should obey them like this.

Oh but wait… it's because the brothers created them. So Humanity should be grateful and obey them in return, right? Except that argument has never worked for me. We see the same logic applied to parents and their children: I created you, so you have to do everything I say. Um, what? Keep in mind that I'm not talking about basic respect or parents enforcing rules because they have actual experience to draw from: i.e. you have to eat your vegetables because it's my job to make sure you grow up healthy and I actually understand why vegetables are important in a way you don’t yet. Rather, I'm talking about parents who see procreation as a catch-all excuse for blind obedience in all things. A child didn’t ask to be born and eventually they’re going to grow up. They’re their own, autonomous person who is not beholden to the people who first put them into the world. Have you ever heard parents claim that you should keep quiet because they gave you existence and food and a roof over your head? As if those aren’t the basic requirements of deciding to have a child in the first place? Have you ever had or met a parent who refuses to let their children become independent—including forming their own opinions and asking their own questions—because they like the feeling of power the current dynamic gives them? Yeah, we’re seeing the same thing here. Salem is starting to question her parents’ actions and they’re coming back with the God equivalent of, “How dare you defy me I am your father!”

[Insert obligatory Star Wars GIF here.]

Light: “Your selfishness and arrogance have led you astray”

Seriously, that line reads as a lot less damning if you question why Salem is selfish and arrogant for asking for happiness--happiness the Gods can easily grant her.

So she’s a prisoner again and Salem lets her anger guide her, deciding that she’ll take down the men who cursed her for—again—doing nothing except questioning them and their pride. She unites all the kingdoms together… which is supposedly what Light wants from Humanity. But oh, your unity is at the expense of worshiping us? Yeah no, don’t want it anymore, sorry. Granted, Salem unites them under a falsehood—she didn’t steal immortality from them—but the goal of this crusade, achieving immortality for all, is something that can happen. Salem has gotten all of Humanity to ask the question she started out with: why do you insist on governing an unfair world and why should we stand for that?

The Gods’ response? Kill everyone who’s questioning them.

From the Gods’ perspective Salem has infected Humanity with real independence. They don’t have blind faith in them anymore. So they should just be wiped out. Darkness kills every human alive for the actions of a few, further reinforcing that they’re interested in promoting an unfair existence. Light does absolutely nothing to stop him.

Salem calls it what it is, a “massacre.”

Then the Gods decide to leave. They made what they saw as pets, the pets started questioning their masters, so they slaughter them and move on to try again. “This planet was a beautiful experiment, but it’s merely a remnant of what it once was,” meaning that the time when Humanity possessed blind faith in the Gods was supposedly when it was “whole.” Darkness destroys the moon on his way out (finally that’s answered!) and “once again, Salem was alone.”

They’re still torturing her though. They’re mad at the pet for its lack of obedience, so what’s the best way to hurt it? Leave it isolated. The worst parts of Salem’s life were when she was alone in her tower, so now she can be alone once more with an entire planet as the tower instead.

And this is a common abuse tactic, the “see how better things could have been if you’d just listened to me?” The Gods are setting up a lopsided comparison. If you’d just obeyed us from the start you could have had the world even without your love, but because you didn’t you get nothing. Think about that the next time you want to question us.

So Salem wanders alone, trying to find some way to die. What else is she going to do? Really can’t blame her for throwing herself into the grimm pool, thinking that would finally get the job done. Instead that magic creates a “being of infinite life desiring infinite destruction” and the Salem we know today emerges; one who is literally incapable of working towards true peace. Destruction is all she understands now. In some ways, from then on she’s lost some responsibility for her actions. Oh, I’m not saying team RWBY and co. can just ignore her—still trying to destroy Humanity here—but if magic warps you into something that literally can’t be reasoned with, and you had no idea the magic would do that, and the magic was your only hope after the Gods royally fucked you over… yeah, talk about a tragic backstory. I certainly don't claim to know whether RT is going to go the redemption arc route (even if Ruby’s silver eyes look a lot like Light’s power and could perhaps destroy the grimm part of Salem…), but there’s leeway to do that if they wanted to. Remember our opening?

Salem: “There will be no victory in strength.”

Ozpin: “But perhaps victory is in the things you’ve long forgotten… a smaller, more honest soul.”

Strength quite literally won’t work because Salem is a cursed immortal. All the armies and relics won’t put a dent in her power. She can’t be killed… but maybe she can be redeemed. To me Salem the human and Salem the grimm are distinctly different people and if you can get rid of one half, the other might finally take responsibility for her actions and find some peace.

For now though, we get this bullshit between Light and Ozma.

Talk about further manipulation. Light tells him that “a tragedy has befallen your home at the hands of my brother” and while technically that's true, he’s spinning it like Darkness went AWOL and caused all this without Light’s knowledge or consent. He’s painting himself as the Good God here that Ozma should listen to. He was dead for pretty much all of these events and thus doesn’t know how cruel the Gods have been to Salem. If he had, I doubt he would have listened.

Light then gives Ozma a job: unite Humanity and then summon us with the four relics. If we like what you’ve accomplished we’ll live among you again; fail and we’ll destroy you. Oh, and here’s four powerful relics to help you achieve this. Remember though, what the Gods actually want is obedience, not harmony. There never was harmony! This is why I wanted everyone to keep “cruel fathers” and a kingdom at war in mind: even when the Gods considered Remnant “whole” there wasn’t peace. Things were still awful for humans, it’s just that humans had blind faith in the Gods at the time. That’s what they want again. It seems significant to me that Jinn—a being created by Light and probably a reflection of his beliefs—says at the very beginning that this was the age where Humanity was “capable of greatness.” Only in the shadow of Gods is Humanity supposedly at their best.

So basically, “Re-train the puppies so that they’re obedient. If you don’t we’ll just kill everyone a second time.”

However, all of this hangs on Humanity actually wanting the Gods back. I wouldn’t, and at this point I don’t think Ozpin does either. He’s trying to unite Humanity in his own way—bring about true peace by getting rid of Salem and defeating the grimm; working through the problems they have amongst themselves—and intends to use the relics’ power to achieve that goal. I’d be super shocked if after 2000 years and hearing at least part of Salem’s story, he’s still all, “Yeah let’s bring the Gods back! They seem like cool dudes.” Not unless he thinks that’s the only way to get rid of Salem’s immortality. The lesser of two evils and all that.

Back to the conversation though. It’s important to note that Ozma doesn’t want this responsibility. He wants to join Salem in the afterlife… who he apparently doesn’t know is still alive? He’s been dead for a while now so I guess Light just had him hanging unconscious in this space between worlds?? Idek it’s so messed up. It’s more manipulation. Ozma goes back not because he thinks the world should really rest on his shoulders (something that will change in time as survivor’s guilt starts eating at him—our current Ozpin think it’s “all [his] fault”), but because he wants to see Salem. He goes back for love of her, just like all of this began because of Salem's love for him.

This is why choice is so important to Ozpin. This is why he didn’t let Pyrrha rush into the decision to become a Maiden and questioned her convictions all the way up until seconds before flipping the switch. He once made a decision impulsively… and this is where it got him.

How the world was re-populated and why it’s so different isn’t made clear, but it sounds to me like Light deliberately created an even harder challenge—a more interesting “experiment.” Ozma has agreed to unite Humanity? Okay, okay, but how about we make two separate races that already hate each other? And take away all their magic? And scatter the relics so he doesn’t have easy access to them? And have him reincarnate in other people so it’s constantly a battle to balance their lives with his duty? And change all the cities so he can’t pull from any of his former political power? And keep the grimm so the people he’s trying to bring peace to are constantly threatened and terrified? Ozma is a rat running around a very complicated maze, one the Gods keep chucking traps into while wondering curiously if he’ll still manage to succeed. I don’t think they really care if he does or not. It’s a win-win for them. Ozpin either creates a world willing to worship them again, they destroy the world and move on like they’d originally planned to, or they just never come back at all. What have they got to lose here?

So Ozpin reincarnates in a man with short white hair and a green necklace, tiny bits of personality that he’s clearly held onto. He emerges into a world literally on fire, but after a panicked “Where am I?” and the staggering trauma of no longer being sure of who he is, he immediately jumps into saving people mode, cutting down a grimm that threatened a civilian. Ozpin is a good man.

During his travels he learns about someone known as The Witch and realizes it must be Salem. It doesn’t surprise me that after everything they’d just bask for a while in finding one another again and eventually question whether they shouldn’t be Gods in the brothers’ place. That’s the kind of arrogance that caused all this trouble to begin with. Not Salem’s supposed arrogance for questioning them, but the Gods’ warped logic: you should bow to me because I happen to have more power than you. Luckily, Ozpin realizes after a couple of years that this isn’t how to bring peace to Humanity. Especially when your wife wants to kill everyone who doesn’t agree with you.

Who did that before? Oh yeah! The brothers.

He doesn’t leave before having children with Salem though and oh my god they’re such cuties I'm so upset. They’re also clearly the first four Maidens: girls pure of heart who can wield magic. I don’t think Ozma’s daughters are literally reincarnating though. Rather, I think during one of his lowest points he met four kind sisters and was reminded of his own children; what Humanity is capable of achieving when driven by hope and love. So he gives them his magic and tells a story that further reinforces the connection in his own mind. Every time a Maiden is created there’s a little piece of his girls still living on.

Which puts an entirely new spin on how much he cared for Pyrrha… and how difficult it must be seeing Cinder wield that power.

Ozma tries to sneak his girls out during the night, but Salem finds them. Here we finally see how the grimm pool twisted her. It’s not just a nebulous “oh we should destroy people who don’t agree with us,” now we—and Ozpin—see first hand what a magical appetite for destruction creates. It has you attacking your husband while your children stand directly beside him; burning him to death while he tries to talk.

Yeah. Regardless of whether or not we think Salem is responsible for how she got here, the fact remains that she has to be stopped. A force like that can’t exist among Humanity.

Oh, and for the record? This is why Ozpin has trust issues. Even putting aside all the other times he’s been betrayed, the first time he spilled his secrets to someone he trusted, this is what it ends with.

And Yang is yelling about how he hasn’t shared shit with them. His own wife murdered him and their kids when he told this story and you literally just pulled out your weapon. Yeah, I’m sure Ozpin is feeling real comfortable right now.

We see some of the lives he’s lived since then. Old men just trying to get by, younger men who drown everything with alcohol (no wonder Ozpin doesn’t criticize Qrow for his drinking), but also men who keep moving forward and try to make a difference. Dadpin creates the cane—and I really like the idea that he did that so there’d be no more killing. Like Kenshin’s reverse blade sword or the Doctor’s screwdrivers. You might need a weapon in a war, but you don’t necessarily need one that kills. Ozma has seen (and experienced) enough death already.

Ozma finds peace with his hosts, learning to live among them instead of fighting them, and he hopes he can achieve the same sort of cooperation with the rest of Humanity. So he finds the relic of knowledge and asks the three most important questions:

Where are the other relics?

What are their powers?

How do I defeat Salem?

Jinn’s answer to the last question? “You can’t.”

It’s hardly the hopeless situation that the last frame paints it as though. As I said last time, jinns and genies are notorious for twisting wishes or taking questions too literally. So though that perhaps adds a grain of salt to all that we’ve learned today, it also means that Ozma’s initial question may have been too specific. “How do I defeat Salem?” You don’t. Not alone.

It reminds me of (minor spoilers!) Castlevania, where Big Bad meets Big Good and Big Bad wants to know why they think anything has changed. After all, you couldn’t defeat me before.

Big Good: “I was alone before.”

(Seriously please watch that show it's great.)

But that’s RWBY. From the Beacon teams to this entire volume talking about trust, cooperation is the key to survival. For reasons both personal and practical Ozpin has been fighting this war primarily on his own, like the God of Light willed him to, but that’s just another manipulative distraction. Saving Humanity is not Ozpin’s sole responsibility and even if he thinks it is, going it alone will never work. But with Team RWBY and company? Now he stands a chance.

I’m hoping now that the end of RWBY sees the destruction of the grimm and Salem (either completely or just her destructive half) with the acknowledgement that Humanity will never find paradise… but they can keep striving to make things better. The relics are destroyed, the Gods can no longer be called, and these creations live out the rest of their existence without cowering in any being’s shadow.

I’d like that for them.

So yeah. That’s the takeaway. The Gods are dicks. Direct all that visceral hatred towards them instead of Ozpin. I’d like that too.

See you next week!

Additional Notes

So when does Ozma change to Ozpin? He seems to have been Ozma for all of his reincarnations up until the one we originally thought of as Ozpin—unless Jinn is just picking a name and sticking to it. Still, I wonder when and why that syllable changed.

A couple of other fans have pointed out that the markings we see around Salem’s room look like an incomplete version of Jaune’s symbol—the one that would have been facing outwards on his shield when Tyrian says that Jaune interests him. It could be that Jaune is a direct descendant from the revamped version of Salem’s kingdom. The kind of person that Ozpin might have a soft spot for and let into his school even though he can’t fight yet…

I enjoy the twist on “ever after” here: Salem wanted to be with Ozma for forever—he wanted the same in the afterlife—and they both technically got what they wanted, just in the most horrific way possible.

The God of Darkness moves the same way the Nuckelavee does. Creepy.

Ozma is destroyed by the God of Light in the same manner that Cinder killed Pyrrha. Hmm…

Jinn says that “fate led [Salem] back” to the grimm pool, which is another odd mention of fate in a world where the Gods are canonically fallible.

“The brothers’ grimm”—excellent line.

I’m kinda bummed that the Faunus theory didn’t pan out. The one where Ozpin accidentally created them while figuring out how to turn people into animals lol.

So magic is inherited even if the rest of the world doesn’t have it… is that connected to semblances somehow? Because they still seem pretty magic-y to me. I hope we get an explanation of how those abilities tie into Humanity 2.0 this volume.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #mymetas #RWBY Recaps

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margarittet · 7 years ago

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Misha and Destiel 2018 AD - it’s not for pervs anymore

Let me tell you, when I woke up today and got a message from @tinkdw with the seacon video where Misha was talking about Destiel, I wasn’t sure I woke up properly. This was one of the surreal moments I often get in this fandom, where fiction and fandom and reality interract, and my brain not always can wrap itself around it.

First, here are some posts that sum up most of my feelings on the case.

HERE ( @bluestar86 )

HERE (from @thedogsled and @magnificent-winged-beast )

HERE ( from @impostoradult )

Now I woke up, and I would also like to rant a bit. This is not against Misha, mind you. NOT AT ALL. It is more against the general condescending way in which people consider fandom, and fandom creations, and how people BTS seem not to understand Destiel in the same way we do.

VIDEO

GIFSET

During the panel, Misha treats Destiel as some kind of a dirty secret, a guilty pleasure that the fandom hides under their beds, something that their parents, partners, spouses don’t know about, and the reason why everyone was banned from discussing it during cons is the same reason why you don’t bring up your kinks during a Sunday dinner at your grandma’s house - it’s just uncomfortable for everyone involved (even though everyone around knows you enjoy a good old bedsharing fanfic now and then, WE JUST DON’T TALK ABOUT IT).

I have two problems with this assumption.

source

1. Fan fiction is not for perverts.

So, I come from a country that has a big problem with erotic writing. My country is a conservative one, and because of this my language only contains words for sexual acts that are either vulgar, medical, or childish. Some more kinky acts only have English names, with Polish endings added, and sex in general is not talked about even among female friends (I assume guys talk about it among themselves, and I sometimes talk about sex with my guy friends, but they are usually much more embarrased than I am, so I don’t know what to tell you).

To me, discovering fan fiction was like finding this special place where I can actually LEARN how one can talk about sex in a not-gross kind of way, and without feeling really, really awkward. It is not pornographic in a way I was used to. I was shocked to discover sex can be straightforward, clear, funny, exciting, and nothing to be ashamed of; that people have SO MANY things that turn them on; that there are so many different sexual orientations (thank you Tumblr); and that there are so many things I didn’t know about a a human body and sexual acts (and I am in no way a prude!). That stories full of sex can be actually interesting and fun to read, that talking about consent, condoms, safe sex, personal preference can be sexy as fuck, that communication during the act also makes a good story, that talking not only to your partner, but also to other people about sexuality and things you are not sure about is only good stuff. That sexual acts in the narrative can be something that turns you on, and not makes you cringe or yawn. That (even kinky) sex can be a normal, healthy part of a romantic narrative. That you are not a weirdo for being turned on (or not being turned on) by something. That as long as you don’t hurt anyone, all is fair game, and that communication is key to a great experience.

Fan fiction is also an amazing way of adding to the narrative, fixing the narrative, showing others what you want to see in the narrative. It’s a way for your favourite characters to fall in love again and again, in different ways, and I adore it so much. Fan fiction also helps me to see what key character traits fandom sees in a character, and which ones I agree and not agree with. It’s an integral part of the fan experience, and I will forever protect its right to be seen as such.

The amazing thing is that a lot of this fan fiction is written by women, and enjoyed by women. You would think that by now somebody would go, and look, and get it into their heads that women actually enjoy reading about sex, and not only about the S&M nonsense like Grey and Grey wannabes (the only type of erotica you can find in my country right now). You know why Grey is so popular? Because women actually want to have erotic stories written for them. It’s not our fault that mainstream media only feed us crappy stuff.

So no Misha, we are not perverts. We are people who have had to endure years of fictional sexual tention CREATED BY YOU, and needed to find a way to vent. As a byproduct, we learned a lot about sexuality, erotica and fiction, so we can only thank you for it.

2. Destiel is not just about porny fanon.

I am really wondering if he was willingly playing dumb here (most probably), or whether for him the story is…well, the story, and Destiel is just sexy porn fantasies based on the story. Maybe we are just having a problem with nomenclature? If so, I can let this one slide. If not, I need to rant about this a bit as well. One way or another, I don’t aim this one at Misha either, he couldn’t say anything substantial anyway (NDAs and stuff), but the whole idea as such.

I remember my own experience of preparing stories to be shown to the public. Some of the plays we did as amateurs had so many romantic pairings that we had problems keeping track. What made the whole actor experience fun (and I do assume that the whole experience is fun for everyone on set of SPN) was making jokes about our characters and the relationships between them. I would say that MAYBE it is different when you are a pro, but then again we get the broomstick dick fondling stories with concerning regularity, so yeah… I will go out on a limb here, and say that this is not so different from the fun I had backstage with my troupes.

One thing that we couldn’t avoid was to treat our characters how we would treat our favourites from a book or a show - creating headcanons, talking about OTPs, making fun of who slept with whom, how this behavior is ridiculous and how she is stupid to have gone with him there, she should have known he was no good. Yeah, we identified with our characters, but we also thought about them, about their backstories, about their motivations etc. There is no way a group of people who have been creating a tv show for so many years, with an OTP that was so dividing in the fandom that it had to be banned from being mentioned at all, are not aware of the million romantic tropes in the scripts that THEY HAVE TO RECREATE ON SCREEN. They may brush them off, or avoid talking about them after the scenes are shot, but they are aware of them being there. If they tried to ignore them, I guaratee you they all have friends, relatives, or coworkers who give them shit for being romantic AF on screen. Unless of course Jensen and Misha terrorized everyone so much that everyone is scared of mentioning to them…yeah, I doubt it.

But I digress. My point is, Destiel is a gorgeous epic love story, but I have a feeling that even if people mention the romantic part to Jensen and Misha now and then, they may not be aware just HOW GORGEOUS it is. You know, if you stand too close to the painting you only see the little part you are focusing on at the moment, but to really appreciate the beauty of it, you need to step back and look at it as a whole. I am willing to bet my money on the fact that none of the main players have ever done that, and this is partly the reason for a lot of the wank. They may be aware it’s romantic writing, but they don’t see the flow of the Destiel story from its conception till now. They only focus on the episode at hand, and move on. As in “this episode has a romantic moment, and this little arc is romantic”, but they don’t see how it weaves smoothly into a nine year long narrative, and how beautiful it could be if it was made canon. I don’t blame them. It’s not their job - it’s s job for the directors, for the showrunner, for the writers.

It would be nice if we had a reasonably short summary of Destiel that is not porn, codas or AUs, a summary of the actual narrative as shown on screen over the years, so that Misha and whoever else could see what we see. That would be great.

I think they would be really surprised by what they created.

#destiel #that one panel during seacon 2018 #misha collins #fandom musings #this kind of BTW stuff always fascinates me #but yeah #I will fight for our right to be taken seriously #even though it's super common that when you say you love fanfiction #you get awkward silence in return at best #and ridiculing comments at worst #but to me this is a great part of the fandom experience and it really changed me for the best #so yeah #fight me #and he would never say anything spoilery anyway #he likes having a job you know

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casuallysuperfox · 6 years ago

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A Moon

Hello, hello!

My name is Seabreeze27/casuallysuperfox and this is the first story I will publish on Fanfiction.net in (wow, has it really been) a year and the first one I have ever written for Archiveofourown.org and Tumblr. I hope you guys like it!

(-_-)

Megumi looked down in horror. She didn’t see anything, but really, she didn’t need to. After all, the tile that lined the shower of her childhood home didn’t change at all the years that she was gone.

Off chasing the sun.

Better known as Soma Yukihira.

The Genius Cook that blew the culinary world out of the water.

The boy that used to be her best friend.

The young man she followed, all over the globe, sampling exotic food and mixing mysterious spices at shady stalls.

The boy that gave her the courage to stand up and let her own cooking shine through.

The young man that drank wine with her in the Italian countryside just before dawn.

The boy she ultimately fell in love with.

The young man that ultimately broke her heart.

Hot steam slid down her throat in a foggy breath, coating the lining and relaxing her muscles. The same steam created water droplets on the shower door. She found herself fixated on a droplet of water, sliding, down, down, down before meeting up with the floor. She briefly wondered how easy it would be to slide down, down, down, down into the drain, following the water droplet to the nearby sea and disappearing into its dark depths.

After all, no one could stop her.

No one would ever know until after it had happened.

No one would see her sneaking through the halls, by passing guests, workers, and family members alike.

No one would watch her walk down to the Widow’s Cliff and then make a daring leap into the icy black below.

No one would.

A soft pearly glow suddenly filled the little shower stall. Looking up, Megumi blinked away the fierce glare the white moon cast down on her with astral vengeance. Its luminous embrace was finally peeking out from behind the clouds that had been mosing about all day. The sky light above her covered in steamy fog could have never blocked the moon’s mighty glow.

Smiling softly, Megumi swiftly turned off the water and stepped out into the awaiting plush robe her mother must have left for her. Barely stopping to turn on the fan to dispel the steam, she quickly stepped out into the hallway and ran down to the small side door that lead out into the privet garden her family owned.

As soon as she was outside, she looked up at the moon, smiling brightly as if she was greeting an old friend.

For that’s what the moon was.

An old friend.

Ever since Megumi was little, she believed the Moon was the best thing about the dark. When she was younger, it was her savior and protector. Scaring away mighty beasts that could eat little girls as a snack; slashing away at the king of darkness and his army of shadows. It was her most constant friend, and Megumi never forgot to wish it goodnight before drifting off on her pillow.

As she grew older, it’s role changed. No longer could it save her from monsters in the form of teachers handing out expulsions or slash the King and his army of spices. Instead, the moon seemed to send her a mini sun in the form of Soma. And so, like the moon, Megumi followed her sun.

While on her worldwide adventure, she would take comfort in the fact that no matter where she was, the moon was always there. Watching, waiting, and shining as bright as possible.

Megumi also never really got out of the habit of wishing the moon good night though. No matter how much she was teased by her friends.

In fact, the only one who never teased her about it was Soma.

Sweet.

Sweet Soma.

The love of her life.

The destroyer of her heart.

After all, is that not what he did? Destroy her heart.

Destroy her livelihood.

Destroy everything she worked so hard to build.

Destroy the past they shared, the years of friendship, the countless hours of cooking until they could literally cook an entire 9 course meal without saying a word to each other?

He destroyed it all when Soma, the lost sun, trying to find it’s home, found his galaxy full of stars.

Her name was Lea.

She was kind.

She was funny.

She could make Soma laugh until he clutched his sides.

She was the most beautiful woman Megumi had ever seen with her perfect body and perfect hair.

Megumi didn’t have a perfect body. Too many hours sampling her own and other culinary masterpieces have left her body too curvy to ever be considered a size 6 or below. Hell, she was lucky that she was still a size with the amount of food she ate. And her hair. Always in braids, even if she changed it to a French braid sometime after school when she finally got the hang of it, always frizzy after spending hours in a kitchen with a hot oven and other hot appliances.

She would often leave work sweaty and covered in at least six different food splatters.

Lea never seemed to get sweaty. Not even when she was working out.

She also never gained a pound, no matter how much food Soma set in front of her. She would always stay thin and pretty, and paint her nails-

Megumi violently pushed the thought of Lea away and instead watched fascinated as a little bit of clouds dared to cover the moon even a little bit. The solid wooden bench beneath her, her favorite since it was one of the few that didn’t have a plant blocking sky above it, echoed the slight chill that filled the air. Her back wet hair was pressed up against it and relayed the cold to Megumi She briefly wondering if she might get a cold because of it.

I bet Lea wouldn’t get a cold.

Megumi squeezed her eyes shut and pushed both the tears and the thoughts as far away from her as she could. The brief flash of a simple, yet elegant, RSVP flooded through her mind.

You are cordially invited to-

No.

-the wedding of-

No.

-Lea-

No!

-and-

NO!

-Soma Yukihira.

...Why does love hurt so much?

Why didn’t he fall in love with me?

Why didn’t he go with me when I told him that I had to go home?

Why didn’t he want to?

Is it me?

Is it my personality?

Looks?

Cooking abilities?

...My life?

Blinking away the few tears that rolled down her face, she looked up at the moon and for the first time in her life, cursed it.

After all.

Suns want galaxies filled with stars.

They want excitement, adventure.

They want long days of nothing but joy.

They want to get down to business and kick its ass.

They want to achieve their destinies.

They want perfection.

They want endless possibilities.

They want…

They need…

They need not moons.

And that’s what she was.

A moon.

(-_-)

To be totally honest, I was in a mood while writing this and just wanted to be emotionally wrecked by one of my OTPs. I have been out of the writing game for a while now (I blame school, bills, and my laziness) and really only resort to writing bits and pieces of things when I need an outlet for stress. This came about three months ago when I stayed up late the week before spring break (my fellow students of any age can relate to thE NEED FOR PAPERS AND DEADLINES THAT MAKES UP THE HELL BEFORE ANY EXTENDED “BREAK”) and left it simmering in my google.docs since then. I recently have been trying to get back into the writing game and decided to polish this up as both as practice and an experiment.

As for if there’s any fallow up story, as of now; no. I only write like this when I’m in one of my moods and usually my other stories are in 3rd person so trying to recreate this style is hard and that’s how I would right a sequel.

All in all, I hope you enjoyed and any feed back would be awesome!

#food wars! megumi #Megumi Tadokoro #soma yukihira #soma x megumi #souma x megumi #fanfiction #I think it's ok #I thought it would be harder to post fanfiction on here #I always see looong fanfictions and just assumed that it was hard to get the Keep Reading line in #but i'm proud of it #oh and #angst #and #sucidal thoughts

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mysticmessingupmylife · 7 years ago

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The RFA guys + V + Saeran reacting to MC having a daddy kink

yes hello it’s me, the submissive little shit back at it again with more dominance from our faves (i won’t do baehee in this as i can’t really imagine her having a mommy kink, so she would most likely kink shame you tbh)

((my first headcanon in months and it’s daddy smut, i’m not even sorry))

~jane

Yoosung

This boy is a switch, okay

It’s basically canon that he is often very submissive, but as soon as he gets jealous he gets super possessive and in my humble opinion dominant

Which means rough sex, including pinning you to the closest surface, hickies all over and the occasional spanking if he really needed to teach you a lesson

He needed to study for his final exams when Zen invited the RFA to see his newest musical, and therefore couldn’t join you there

He did however check his phone while taking a break and saw a selfie of you and Zen all over his feed, with crazy fans shipping the two of you

Taken over by jealousy, he had you pinned against the front door almost before you could even close it, attacking your neck with love bites as he muttered how you were only his

Seeing this side of your usually shy boyfriend always made you a stuttering mess, and before you had even realized it, you moaned out “daddy”

For just a moment he gave you his confused puppy look, before fully realizing what you said and blushed, his eyes darkening with lust

“That’s right baby girl, I am your daddy. No one else. Now go to the bedroom and be undressed in two minutes, daddy will make sure you remember that you’re his”

can you tell how much of a slut i am for dom!yoosung

After you were done he would be a blushing mess, as he didn’t even know he was into that

Although he would take control more often, he won’t be your daddy every time - but when he is, he takes very good care of his baby girl

Zen

Zen had gotten a role in a musical a few cities away but you were too busy to come with him, so he stayed alone at a hotel for two weeks while doing it

Even though the two of you made a point to call each other at least once every day, he missed you when you hung up to take a shower and decided to scroll through tumblr while he waited for you to come back

He knew you had a fan account on there and while he didn’t follow you because he didn’t want the spam from all your fandoms on his feed, he did check your account now and then

Totally not to see you fangirl over him, pff no

He scrolled quickly past the things he didn’t care/know about, a small smile on his face as he found it cute that you were so passionate about everything

That is until he saw a reblogged post saying “reblog if zen is is the reason you have a daddy kink - i would kill for him to call me princess and tie me up”

Flustered, he accidently dropped his phone on the floor and scrambled to pick it up

“Zenny? What happened, did you drop your phone again?”

You were obviously back from the shower, and the image of you naked and wet in addition to the idea of you calling him daddy made the beast within him groan with lust

“Princess, why are you keeping things like this from me?”

“What do you mean? What have I done?”

“You haven’t told daddy just how much you like being his little baby girl”

“I-I... I’m sorry daddy, I won’t keep things like that from you again”

“Hmm... Should I believe you? I think you should send daddy a picture of you to show him how sorry you are. Show me your apologetic look”

You tried your best to take a doe eyed selfie that showed how much he made you blush, making sure to show your clevage as well

“I don’t really think you’re all that sorry, princess. You should send me more pictures like that”

You heard his strict tone become a bit more relaxed as he started breathing heavy, and you hoped he was touching himself

You did as he said, trying harder to look innocent and sexy at the same time, and heard him downright moan when he recieved the picture

“Baby girl, facetime me now. You need to help daddy with something”

With that he hung up, leaving you kind of flustered as he had found out your ultimate kink, before you facetimed him and picked up where you left of

Jumin

You were trying to read a book and listen to some music while Jumin did some work in his home office, but Elizabeth kept playing with the cord on your headset

“No Elizabeth, stop it! Do I really have to go and tell daddy what a bad girl you are? Leave the cord alone!”

As you were listening to music and busy trying to distract the cat, you didn’t notice Jumin standing in the door until he chuckled

“Daddy, huh? i prefer that over ‘cat mom’, at least”

You blushed when you realized he had heard the nickname you used for him only around Elizabeth, and tried to play it off by lifting her up and talking in a baby voice, pretending to voice her

“But daddy, she is no fun! Your little kitten wants attention, and daddy was too busy to play. But I will be a good girl from now, I promise”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, kitten”

Jumin shaked his head in faked annoyance, but as he stepped closer you realized he wasn’t looking at the cat

You let go of Elizabeth and she walked away, leaving you alone with Jumin towering over you

“Good girls don’t blame others, my love. You’re the one who wanted attention, right? You’re the one who wanted daddy to play with her?”

You nodded and blushed more, trying not to show how much his words affected you

He caressed your cheek before gripping your chin and lifting your gaze up to meet his, wanting to know if you found this as hot as he did

“Let’s go get your favorite toys, then. Daddy will make sure his kitten won’t be bored for the next few hours”

707

He had been working for two days straight and you hadn’t even seen him leave the computer, except from the occasional toilet break

You were needy and wanted his attention, but he kept telling you off because he “just needed a few more minutes, then he would be done”

After a few more hours of this, you’d had enough and just plopped down in his lap, ignoring his furious typing

“MC, not now, I’m almost finished”

“But daddy, I’m lonely... Can you please play with me?”

His typing stopped and you could swear you saw his glasses shine mischievously for a moment

“Well... If my little princess is lonely, I guess I have no other choice but to play with her. Too bad you have been such a bad girl today, trying to distract daddy. How should you be punished, baby girl? Maybe some spanks on your cute little ass?”

You nodded shamefully, pulled your pants and panties down and repositioned so you were laying on your stomach over his lap, presenting him with your bare ass

You could only whimper when he smacked your ass without warning, before rubbing his hand over it soothingly

“Such a shame that daddy has to punish his pretty little girl... What do I have to do to make you listen, hm?”

He spanked you again and again with no mercy, until you were a whiny mess and tried to squirm free of his tight grip on your hips to save yourself from the bruises you knew would come

“Will you behave now, princess?”

As soon as he saw you nod, he picked you up bridal style and carried you to bed for your reward for being a good girl

fuck me up fam, he would be such a good daddy

When you woke up in his arms the morning after, he would already be awake and looking at you with heart eyes until your stomach growled, which would make him laugh

“Shut up, I’m hungry!”

��Hi hungry, I’m daddy”

Yes, he would use this as an excuse to say dad jokes

All he wanted was to edit a few photos of the two of you he had taken to make a card for your anniversary, but as he couldn’t find his laptop, he decided to borrow yours while you were out with some friends

However, as soon as he opened it up, he was greeted by the sound of obnoxious moaning and the sound of skin slapping

He quickly shut the computer again and hid his face in his hands, mortified that he stumbled upon the porn you were obviously watching

Deciding to respect your privacy, he really did try his best to find his own laptop, but he couldn’t find it anywhere

He eventually gave up and realized he had to use yours to get the pictures done, so with a deep breath he opened your laptop again, ready to click the porn away and focus on what he needed to do

The sounds started again and he paused the video, but as he waited for the editing program to open, he saw the title of what you were watching

“Daddy takes care of his princess..?”

Intrigued by the idea of you having a daddy kink he resumed the video, growing harder when he imagined the girl with the baby pink lingerine was you

A thought crossed his mind; he had the perfect idea as of what to give you for your anniversary

When the morning of the big day came around a few weeks later your blue haired boyfriend was already awake, presenting you with your gift as soon as you muttered a “good morning”

You opened the card expecting to find a cute message like he usually wrote on your anniversaries, but you were only met with “Daddy saw something that reminded him of his little girl and couldn’t resist getting you something special. Happy anniversary, my princess”

He was too shy to meet your shocked eyes, which only widened more when you opened the gift and saw the pink babydoll dress and vibrator

“Was it too much..?”

Obviously anxious that he assumed too much, you reassured him by pecking his cheek and resting your hand on his hardening croth, suprised by how much even the idea of being called daddy worked up your supposedly vanilla boyfriend

“I love it, daddy! Thank you so much!”

He smiled relieved as you changed from your sleepwear to your new set, gaining a boost of confidence when he realized he knew your body well enough to get you the perfect size

“You’re such a good girl, princess. Now lay back and let daddy give you your real present”

Saeran

“Harder, daddy...”

He was woken up by your needy moans and the feeling of your hips moving against his, grinding your ass against his crotch as he was spooning you

As he was half asleep he didn’t realize what you had said, the only thing he realized was how hard you’d made him and how badly he wanted you that exact moment

After hesitating for a few moments he let his hand travel down your belly before pulling your panties to the side, feeling how you were already soaking wet

This earned him another moan from you, which only got louder when he circled your clit with two fingers

“Saeran, I need you so badly... Please daddy”

Hearing his baby girl beg for him made him ever harder, and he couldn’t resist gently biting your shoulder

You woke up with a gasp as he pushed a finger inside of you, giving you some much needed satisfaction

“Were you dreaming about daddy’s cock, princess?” he groaned in your ear as he pushed it further in, crooking it to find your sweet spot

When your only response was a whimper, he pressed his crotch against your backside, letting you feel him

“I asked you a question baby, I expect an answer”

You nodded and wiggled your hips, trying to get him to shove another finger into you

“Tsk tsk tsk, such an impatient little girl. Daddy will take care of you, don’t you worry your pretty little head with that”

With that he rolled you over so he was hovering above you, before kissing his way down to where you needed him the most

fuck me up again, another good daddy

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