#not written to be explicitly LU

[luimagines]

Undivorcing by Twilight

Another commission!

Same concept as the other one. A 'fix it fic' for the Divorce Headcanons for Twilight which you can reader right here!

Masterlist

Content under the cut!

“Can we talk?”

Those were the first words you’ve said to him after nearly a year of total silence on your part.

Instantly, his heart in his throat and his stomach has fallen through the floor. Link thinks he might vomit. He’s got half the mind to lurch over and slam the door in your face as he attempts to collect himself. 

The bout of instant dread is worse than if he was punched in the gut. Instead of slamming the door in your face like he wants to, he finds himself frozen. He’s back where it all started, in the kitchen with a piece of paper in your hand as you read out loud all his faults and sins. Every piece of evidence that equivocates him to a bad husband in your mind comes back to the forefront of his as he stares at you.

You’re staring right back at him, fidgeting your hands nervously like you were asking him to a first date instead. You gulp and rub your palms down your shirt, running your hands through your hair soon after.

Frankly, you look horrible.

Matted hair, dark circles under your eyes, holes on your pants and stains on your shirt. You look thinner than before and you’re certainly paler than how he remembers you- what happened to you?

“Link, please?” You gulp again, hugging your arms around your chest. “I- I know you have every right to slam the door in my face, and I have no right to ask this of you. …But I just��� I couldn’t not do this.”

“You want closure.” He assumes and takes a deep breath. The knot in his stomach only gets tighter, but he wants to think he does a good job of keeping the way he wants to cry off of his face. He thought he was doing better. He thought he was getting over you.

One look at you and his armor shatters into oblivion. 

“Well… yes and no.” You try to correct him. You shrink down on yourself and struggle to meet his eyes. The shame is clearly written all over your face.

“...What do you mean by that?” Link lean on the door frame. The angle makes his look angrier than he feels, colder than he bleeds- he’s just using it to make sure he doesn’t fall to your feet.

“I was just…” You bite your own tongue. With the way you wince afterwards, Link is tempted to assume that you’ve made yourself bleed. “I wanted to apologize. You deserve an apology. I was a monster. A cold hearted serpent with ice in my veins.”

You take another deep breath and force yourself to look at his face. You open your mouth but no sound comes out. Link can see you struggle to keep eye contact but he’s afraid to show the same amount of vulnerability.  “...I’ve missed you.” You gulp. “I… I was wrong. I shouldn’t have asked for the divorce. …I want to start over.”

Start over? Something cracks. Twilight isn’t sure if it was his heart or his mind but it allows him to stand up straight and meet your eyes with a gaze he’s never directed at you before.

You can see the storm you start and pre-emptively flinch, taking a step back. “Link-”

“You want to do what?” He says quietly.

It sounds like cannon fire in the otherwise quiet corner of the village.

Link runs his hand through his hair, choking on the laugh that tries to leave his lips. He can feel bouts of hysteria begin to build within him. Are you serious? Do you hear yourself right now? Couldn’t you hear yourself the day you read out loud the list of why you wanted to leave him?

But isn’t this what he wanted? Didn’t want you to get back together? Hasn’t he missed you too?

No. Not like this. Somehow this feels like an even worse scenario than he thought it would be. 

Link takes a deep breath, dragging his hand through his hair again and down his face. He inadvertently claws at his skin, leaving angry red lines on his cheek. He gets off of the door frame and moves away from the entrance, beginning to pace in the house, your house.

“Do you-?” He speaks, cutting himself off as he turns back to you. “Do you have any idea how long I spent waiting for you?”

That is not what he meant to say. Link has no idea why those were the words that left his mouth when that wasn’t remotely on his mind. He takes another deep breath, rubbing his cheek in an attempt to get his head back on straight. He can’t afford to let you in so easily. That’s how he got his heart broken by you the first time.

You begin to cry. “I don’t. But I can guess. I’m sorry, Link. I’m sorry. I know you loved me. I know I was the one that ruined us. I ruined everything. I know it’s my fault.”

You take a deep breath, smothering the tears over your cheek in your attempt to wipe them away. You smear dirt on your skin. Link has never seen you this filthy. You continue talking, keeping your head hung low in shame. “I know I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve a second chance. I know I hurt you. I hurt you badly. But I was wrong. I was so wrong. I’m sorry. Please-”

Link says your name softly, choking on his own spit. “Where did you even go?”

“Far.” You admit without missing a beat. “I couldn’t stand the looks that the village gave me when they learned I was leaving you. I already knew that if they had to pick, that they would choose you over me. I knew that. I still did it. I was still bracing myself for it but I couldn't take it in the end and left Hyrule.”

You hiccup. It sounds pathetic. “I went to Hebra for a while. I didn’t go to Castle Town because everything there reminded me of you as well. Your stupid hero’s legacy is imprinted everywhere you look… It’s not stupid. I’m sorry. I know it was hard for you.” You wipe your face again, getting it dirtier. “I stopped by wastelands for a month when I was feeling my lowest. The whole time I wanted comfort and a hug and someone to talk to and found myself looking for you when you weren’t there.”

Link clenches his jaw at the sight of you. He’s adult enough to recognize that he’s never hated you for what you’ve done to him. He could take the humiliation, the multiple hits to his pride and his heart and the echoing silence that now fills the house you once shared. But he could never hold onto the thought of something happening to you. He always prayed for your safety, your health and your wellbeing.

And he’s never been able to stand your tears.

Sighing, he steps closer and reaches his hand out, intending to wipe the mess you’ve made on your cheeks. You take a step back, hugging yourself close and shrink into a small ball of shame and self loathing.

“Don’t cry.” He says instead, placing his hands on your shoulders to keep you in place this time. He wipes the wet streaks from your face with the backs of his fingers. “You’ve always kept your head held high. Don’t stop now.”

“No.” You shake your head. “Don’t-.. I don’t-”

“Shhh…” He says, tucking your hair behind your ear. “If you’re expecting me to start yelling, stop it. I don’t want to get loud.”

You gulp, sniffling and whimpering pathetically as you struggle to keep yourself from crying some more. “You should. I’d deserve it. You can yell at me if you want.”

“But I won’t.” Link pulls you closer to him and against his better judgment, begins to lead you into the house. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up. You can tell me the whole story when you have decent clothes on and some food in you.”

“Link-”

“This way.” 

He leaves no room for argument, pushing in the direction of the bath with a towel and some spare clothes of his. You don’t ask if there’s anything of your clothes left in the house. Of course, he knows where they are, but he doesn’t want you to know that he didn’t bother to toss them out. He put them in the corner of the closet where no sunlight, moth or dust could touch them.

He’ll wash them later and give them to you.

While you focus on cleaning yourself and getting all the dirt and grime off of your body, Link decides to fight off the building panic by making Yeto’s soup. Cheese, milk, pumpkin- does he have everything?

The smell permeates through the air quickly, filling the home once again with comfort and warmth despite the unforeseen circumstances that had brought you back to him. He’s not sure if he should be grateful to the forces that may be, or if he should tear his heart out for a second time before it can be trampled on for old time’s sake. 

You emerge in an old shirt that Link isn’t sure where it came from and with pants that clearly do not fit you. Then again, why would they? They’re also his.

You look a lot better. You took the liberty of using his comb to tidy up your hair while all your new lines and edges of your face highlight just how not well you’ve been doing. You’re no longer crying at least. The dirt is gone and your skin has gotten a little warmer in tone, no doubt from the warm water.

The soup is almost done at least.

“Link-”

Link says nothing, pointing to the table for you to sit down.

You look over and notice that there’s still two chairs on a very empty table. Head down, you wordlessly go to sit down at your old chair and make yourself comfortable. Or at the very least make yourself as physically comfortable as you can be in a moment like this.

Within minutes, Link walks over with a steaming bowl of soup and places it in front of you. Without another word, he walks to the other side of the table and takes his place on his chair. He leans back against the back of it and crosses his arms. “Eat.”

You gulp, your mouth and throat feeling incredibly dry since you’ve arrived at the old house you’ve once shared. You take the spoon and very slowly begin to feed yourself the soup that Link has offered you under his supervision. It’s weird. You feel conflicted. It’s awkward and tense.

Link takes a deep breath, relaxing enough that you won’t know the difference if you were to look up and see him. He feels better to see you eating. The bruising under your eyes hasn’t gone away but surely it would look better after a good night’s sleep.

The pregnant silence weighs heavily on the both of you. The only thing to keep it from stagnating is the quiet clinks of your spoon against the bowl and your collective soft breaths. 

“...Were you serious?”

Link surprises himself by speaking first. You almost jump from the sudden sound but manage to keep your reactions to yourself.

A sniffle. A nod. “I understand if you don’t want me back. I was so-”

“Stay then.” He says, gulping down the emotion that threatens to override his reasoning. “...If you truly think we can still work-”

“You’re going to forgive me?” You say breathlessly. You don’t believe him. “After everything?”

Link bites the inside of his cheek but nods.

“Why? Why give me another chance to mess this up?”

“...Because I still love you.” He whispers.  “Stay.”

Tears pour over your eyes again.

“...I will.”

[theamazingmaddyas]

Look, I love The Sun and The Star as much as the next person; as someone who's written and consumed Solangelo media for years, but also loves comparing fics and headcanons to canon, the fact that I could get confirmation about whether headcanons of mine could possibly line up with the author's was amazing.

That being said, one super minor detail that has irked me since I bought the digital version of The Sword of Hades despite having a physical copy in The Demigod Files just so I could read the preview of the first chapter is what happened to the year rounders from the Hidden Oracle.

While we can't get tons of information on every minor character because the books would be miles long, but every character has their own story, even if we can't see it. Chiron says in TSATS that demigods probably want to see the world, especially after the few years they had, but if they've stayed at camp for a while, do they have a place to go? Do they have somewhere to live outside camp?

With this in thought, and more, I give you; my headcanons for what every single minor demigod at CHB in TOA is doing during the events of TSATS:

Note: I'm skipping Will, Nico, Austin, and Kayla as we know where they are as TSATS states it explicitly.

Billie Ng — Aeithales

Aeithales, for those who aren't great with place names, is the name of Philip McCaffrey's botany research facility that Meg refurbished for herself, the nymphs from the greenhouse, the Meliai, the children from Nero's army, Lu, and Herophile. It doesn't seem completely out there to believe that Meg invited her sibling(s) who don't have mortal families, whether because they're deceased or they don't get along, to live with her. Especially since Meg is working to restore Aeithales to it's former glory.

I hc she's about 14, so she'd probably attend the local high school with the older Nero adoptees.

Miranda Gardiner — College

While Miranda's age is not known, I personally believe she's around the same age as Percy. [I have no sound evidence for this, besides the fact that I believe Katie is the same age as Travis (because Tratie, a staple ship) and Travis attends college a year before Percy (as he is there in THO) and as Miranda is most probably Katie's second in command (because Miranda is said to be counselor in TLH instead of Katie, it can be assumed that Katie is a summer camper and therefore Miranda is in charge when she's not around. Like Malcolm for Annabeth or Sherman for Clarisse) I think she's a little bit younger than her, assuming that they were similar ages when they first attended camp.] which would put Miranda as a freshman in college during TSATS as Percy and Annabeth are freshman.

I personally believe Miranda would attend college, probably majoring in something agricultural or environmental.

Sherman Yang — College

Due to the fact that Sherman and Miranda are dating, I have come to the conclusion that Sherman is a similar age to Miranda. Now, whether he's attending the same school as his girlfriend or not, I'm not sure, but I feel in my bones that Sherman would go to college for kinesiology or exercise science.

Ellis Wakefield — High School in Arizona

Ellis was the hardest for no reason, because I hc he's younger than Sherman by a year or two, meaning he's not at college age yet (I do think he wants to attend college though), but rather a senior in high school, and then I thought, Clarisse would absolutely take in one of her siblings if she realizes that they'd be the only Ares kid at camp.

He lives in a small apartment just off campus of the University of Arizona with Clarisse and Chris, who are starting their sophomore year, and attends a local high school near by.

I have no proof for this, but I feel in my heart that he plays baseball and Clarisse and Chris go to every game, and Clarisse almost gets kicked out multiple times for yelling at the umpire. Also, Sherman comes every so often, and that's when things get really crazy and he and Clarisse do, in fact, get kicked out, leaving a really awkward Chris alone in the stands.

Malcolm Pace — SODNYC

Following in his older sister's footsteps, I hc that Malcolm goes to the School of Design Annabeth attends in COTG and WOTTG for his senior year. I personally hc he's a year younger than Annabeth, which would put him at like 17, so he'd live in the dorms there for a year before moving to a college to study architecture (since battle strategy isn't a major, lol)

Harley — Waystation

I have talked about this quite a bit, both on here and on ao3 through my fics, but Harley's adopted by Jo and Emmie and him and Georgina are best friends.

Honestly, Harley's the main reason I've become obsessed with finding out where every minor character is, because if any demigod deserves a fleshed out backstory, it's Harley.

He's eight in THO. Eight! And he's already been at camp for over a year since he's also in TLH. And because TLH mentions no new Hephaestus campers before Leo have arrived in a hot minute because of the curse, we can infer he's been at camp for at minimum, a year and a half by TOA, which means he arrived at, maximum, seven (or seven and a half if he turns 9 right after Apollo leaves camp). And the first series drills it in our head that Annabeth is an anomaly for coming to camp so young, so Harley, not only being a camper, but a year rounder, probably means he doesn't have a mortal family. (I wrote my own version of Harley's backstory, with this hc on ao3, called Wanting to Feel Safe) so yeah! Also, Harley and Leo are very close (see, the entirty of THO) so when Leo finds a family willing to take him in, his little brother isn't too far behind.

Harley's in third grade, is a math wiz, but struggles with spelling. He's also in the same class as Georgie.

Nyssa Barrara — Waystation

You think Leo's leaving Nyssa behind while taking Harley? Think again. I personally believe Nyssa's probably a year or two younger than Leo, which would put her at around her sophomore or junior year of high school, and she probably attends the same school as Leo and Calypso.

Valentina Diaz — BAG

For those who aren't The Kane Chronicles fans (go read them, they're amazing) Drew and Lacy both make an appearance as they attend Brooklyn Academy for the Gifted with Sadie Kane. I like to think that Val joins her sisters at the school studying fashion history (as she shows an interest in it in CHB Confidentials) (Lacy studies fashion design and Drew theater, source: me) and that she stays with Lacy and her father so she can attend school. She still goes to visit camp during holidays along with Lacy and Drew (as we see them at camp during winter break in TLH).

The reason she's not at BAG in TOA with them is because she found out she was a demigod only right after the war and therefore didn't have time to fill out the application to attend.

Connor Stoll — College

Connor and Travis are reunited in college once more! Yay!

I think Connor's studying linguistics, which Travis is studying business administration (though he's a sophomore already)

Cecil Markowitz — hanging with Lou Ellen Blackstone

Source: I made it myself.

As I hc Cecil being around the same age as Will (who's 15/16), he's not old enough to go away to college, or begin adulting like some of the others, so why not stay with his best friend?

They send Will letters in the mail all the time because Will, Cecil, & Lou friend group supremecy.

I also hc that Cecil is the boy that Hermes mentions from Wisconsin that Hermes has Percy promise to bring to camp, though that doesn't really affect where he's ending up.

Alice Miyazawa — her family

I hc that Alice's relationship with her family is strained because of her being more of a "troubled" kid (I also hc she has kleptomania) so that's why she's at camp year round in THO.

So, I think she's going to try with her family again.

Also, I hc that Alice (and Julia) are the two girls from Los Angelos that Hermes mentions to Percy in TLO so her family's in California.

Julia Feingold — with Alice's family

See previous note about Alice and Julia being the two girls from L.A.

Alice wouldn't try with her family again if Julia wasn't there, because they've been attached at the hip since they met at juvie in L.A. as kids, so Julia goes with her.

Damien White — Working

Chiara is stated to be about 18, and her and Damien are probably in a relationship, so it's not too off base to believe that Damien is probably around 17 or 18.

I don't think Damien decides to go to college (maybe later but I doubt it), so he decides to just go and join the job force as he's legally an adult now. What job? I dunno. He's in a union though, I can feel it in my bones.

Also, a little off topic but Apollo saying he didn't know if he wanted to steal Chiara from Damien or Damien from Chiara lives rent free in my head.

Holly Victor— Boarding School

Holly and Laurel are the only two who Chiron had a hand in them not being year rounders, because they're a lot. He's been training for thousands of years, he needs a break too.

So, I hc that Chiron enrolled them in a boarding school so they could quench that competitive spirit of theirs.

I think they're about 13 or 14, so they're either in eighth grade or a freshman in high school.

Laurel Victor — Boarding School

*see above*

But also, I think Holly and Laurel joined every single sports team they could do, and Nike showed up to watch one of their games and got thrown out for trying to fight the ref on a bad call.

Paolo Montes — College in Brazil

While Rick hasn't confirmed this, I am quite positive that Paolo was on summer break when THO takes place, and that's why he's not mentioned in TON and TSATS, because he's back in Brazil.

I hc him around 18, so he's probably in his first year of college.

Chiara Benvenuti — College

Chiara's the only one we get an exact age for—around 18—so it makes sense for her to have left camp.

I think she's studying something to do with Lit, though whether English or Italian, I'm not sure. It's just a gut feeling. And is she somewhere near Damien? Well that's also up in the air.

So, that's everyone at camp in THO and what I think they're doing. I would love it if Rick Riordan confirmed or denied these in TSATS sequel, but I have the habit of convincing myself something is so obvious and will be mentioned in the book, and then it never is, so I'm not hopeful for my own sanity.

[thelaithlyworm]

META The King Mu of Zhou/Iron Mask Scholar Theorem

[ID Head-and-shoulders of a man in a fancy hat looking with satisfaction at a pill taken from a small box. Below him, a man in alchemist’s robes bends over a recumbent form that looks like a large jade figurine. The right side of the picture is filled with curlicule ornamentation.]

Okay okay okay, I wrote a version of this with quotes and chapter references but it’s quite long so I suspect not many people have read it. (No judgement, I know it’s long, I feel it.) But this definitely is something I want to talk about, so I’m doing a paperplane version for tumblr.

So! The very first adventure in this series, Wu Xie encounters a double-layer tomb with a (living) man wrapped in jade armour who is promptly murdered by Zhang Qiling. The closest thing we get to an explanation is:

– Lushang-wang raided a Western Zhou tomb for immortality secrets, then built his own tomb over it so he could peacefully bake in the armour for a couple of thousand years, to finish the immortality process.

– Lushang-wang murdered by his advisor, a fengshui expert named Iron Mask Scholar, who also put on the armour.

– Iron Mask Scholar killed some time later by Zhang Qiling.

– The map to this tomb is one of a set of famously-encrypted documents sometimes known as the Warring State Silk Texts or more specifically the Lu Yellow Silks, or some variant in-between.

[ID Overhead view of a sarcophagus under a great tree, with various lids and layer scattered around it, and inside – and sitting up – is a body dressed in armour made of laced-together plates of dull jade. Wu Xie etc. recoil in alarm. End ID]

Come Vol. 4 Snake Marsh Ghost City, Wu Xie explicitly identifies the author of these Lu Yellow Silks as Iron Mask Scholar. He describes him as “the Leonardo da Vinci of Lu State” who encrypted documents to get important secrets distributed against the wishes of a higher power. (This is also the book that introduces King Mu of Zhou as a relevant historical figure, in the form of a stone mural which heavily implies his account of a diplomatic visit to the Queen Mother of the West was an outright lie.)

There are some bits and bobs throughout the rest of the main book series, specifically, part of the history of the Jiumen going on a super big raid to find a whole stash of Lu Yellow Silks to decipher for secrets of immortality on behalf of their current patron. The novel version of this arc doesn’t really dig into who wrote them and focuses on the effect they had in the 20th century. The Ultimate Note version changes the author to King Mu of Zhou and brings in a story initially written for the Sand Sea novel – King Mu of Zhou obtained an immortality elixir from the Queen Mother of the West but didn’t want to stay in her country to complete the process by sleeping in jade. Instead he made jade armour of his own and… put a baby in a jade box: “He built two figurines with jade meteorite. One figurine to contain himself, with another to contain a baby. After taking the pill, he planned to break the figurine in a few years under certain conditions. He would be reborn as a baby and attain longevity.” (UN, Ep 35, iQiyi subs).

[ID A painting of a great cavern with rough pillars, with the irregular shape of what might be a meteorite in the background. In the midground are two upright lumps of jade of equal proportions. Vague shadows inside indicate an adult in the left one, and a child in the other. End ID]

Skippy skip through some Jiumen stuff and some Tibetan Sea Flower stuff that suggests Zhang Qiling was the baby in the box… we get to Sand Sea proper, in which the chief antagonists are the Wang Family, descendants of Wang Zanghai from the Ming Dynasty.

But, say the Wang Family, we didn’t start this. Actually you need to go back thousands of years to King Mu of Zhou. The drama version of this revelation is a very clipped lecture, albeit with some interesting art, which mostly focuses on the snake eyebrow copper fish and the snake pheromones etc. etc. (It’s a fair call – sometimes you just gotta focus.) The novel version is very, very long, placed in the novel where you would normally expect the big climax/plot resolution/massive multiplayer final action scene to be. Some key points:

– Wang-laoshi keeps explaining that he isn’t lying but he is leaving gaps in the story for his student to figure out.

– We go right back to the story of Lushang-wang raiding a Western Zhou tomb, this time specifying that it belonged to King Mu of Zhou himself. Also that Iron Mask Scholar incited Lushang-wang to take up graverobbing from the start. He wasn’t an opportunist but a strategic planner who provided a “ghost edict” in King Mu of Zhou’s handwriting explaining that it was totes okay to dig up his tomb, the ghost of King Mu of Zhou thought that was fine, break out the shovel, kid.

– Story interrupted by a student explaining that for the handwritten edict to exist, King Mu of Zhou must still have been alive somehow to write it. (No forgers in Ancient China.) The teacher agrees, explaining that King Mu of Zhou took the Queen Mother of the West’s immortality elixir but could not by himself find jade armour to neutralise the deleterious side effects.

– FROM THEN ON Iron Mask Scholar is not in this story. This is now a story about King Mu of Zhou manipulating Lushang-wang from the shadows, creating the mechanism of a baby in a small dragon-pattern box as a timer and synchronous key for his own coffin, creating the Lu Yellow Silks which as we know were written in the Warring States Era and explicitly attributed to the guy who hid his face all the time………

– In addition, the rather odd (but fun) movie Time Raiders also features Iron Mask Scholar as a key player, this time writing his secrets on copper tablets not silk and also creating a box which is both a timer and a key, like that dragon-pattern box attributed to King Mu of Zhou.

My Conclusion:

King Mu of Zhou and Iron Mask Scholar’s deeds were so often conflated because they were the same guy. This is the truth hinted at by Wang-laoshi and Xu Lei.

(to be continued)

[muninnhuginn]

just generally musing to myself what makes thematic and plot sense for the link clink ending after reading some other people's takes the past few days. no real conclusions here, just some thoughts tied together with a string.

I've seen arguments that what needs to happen is that Lu Guang needs to accept Cheng Xiaoshi's fate and move on without regrets. This idea that the past has to remain as-is and you have to move on is a thread that the show has played with quite a few times. It's written into the very rules underlying the dives. The most obvious instance being the earthquake arc, where Cheng Xiaoshi was unable to save Chen Xiao's mum, but he *was* able to deliver the messages and thereby help CX gain closure. It's laid out by Lu Guang that it *was* worth it to deliver the words, and Cheng Xiaoshi takes this conclusion with him when he confronts Emma. (Of course, the fact this lesson was given by *Lu Guang* casts a different shade over the whole affair. I don't think it can be entirely discarded, given LG even admits he's going against his own rules, but it reads more like something he's trying and failing to convince himself of.)

So, the past has to stay as it is. We see a few different approaches to this idea in s2 - of people refusing to move on and trying to change the past. Qian Jin wants to force his wife "not to cheat"; he wants to alter her behaviour because she didn't act as he wanted. Li Tianchen wanted to change how *he* acted back then, even if indirectly, because he sees himself as his mother's killer, and thinks this is the point at which his tragedy was locked into place. They both thought their 'tragedies' were down to a single event. It's not that simple.

Lu Guang wants to personally protect Cheng Xiaoshi by controlling all scenarios. Not exactly taking his will, but limiting his choices. There's probably a whole post to be made on how QJ/LTC/LG each approach the agency of the ones they want to protect, but that's not for now.

Anyway, Li Tianchen as the foil to Lu Guang. At the end of s2, he has in theory let go of Li Tianxi but in practice he's just burying himself deeper by following Liu Xiao. Trying to entirely shun the past so he can believe that he still has some element of control. Both LTC and LG are at the extreme ends of clinging on vs letting go and that means the correct answer has to lie somewhere in the middle. Not shunning the past, but accepting it, and using that resolve to move forward.

So, Liu Xiao. We don't have much on him but what we do have is his belief that uncertainties should become certainties. He's deterministic and set explicitly as the counter to Lu Guang, whose own aim is to change events rather than lock them into place. They both want to *control* all aspects, but for differing reasons. In fate vs free will, it makes sense that our protagonist is on the side of free will, but it's interesting that he's presented himself so much as the opposite previously. He and CXS haven't exactly switched places, but to the audience, they've definitely taken on traits of the other.

Liu Xiao's whole spiel about how all options will eventually lead to the same outcomes, with him set *against* Lu Guang, very much seems like it's a setup for a "defeat fate" type plotline though. It's hammered in that there is no escape, no other option. Are we expected to accept this? It doesn't seem so. It's something I'm struggling to reconcile somewhat with the earlier messages about accepting the past, but maybe that's not quite it. Maybe it's about control vs freedom?

Trust fall. Every dive with LG and CXS is an act of mutual trust where they need to act in tandem. Dives go astray when one party acts without the other. For CXS, this is about him acting against LG's instructions (texting Emma's parents, staying in the earthquake dive). For LG, this is about him withholding info because he doesn't trust how CXS will react.

Lu Guang needs to put his trust in CXS before his withholding of information creates an unresolvable rift. He needs to stop trying to control CXS in order to keep him safe. We saw how that spun out for Li Tianchen and Li Tianxi. LG needs to put the choice into Cheng Xiaoshi's hands and let him decide his own fate. It reminds me of how Cheng Xiaoshi laid everything out for Emma and let her decide whether to live. It was only outside interference that prevented her, but she did make the choice to survive. And she did it by remembering those small moments. By accepting that tragedy happens but there are still people that make it worth it.

For LG and CXS, they need to mutually trust each other and that's how they'll find their way through.

[mengyan]

Hello! If you have read the novel, could you give us some details about Furong and Mofang? :) I am curious about their story since the drama unfortunately doesn't show much about them

sure anon! actually speaking, as the drama’s script was also written by jiu lu fei xiang (aka the author of the novel), she’s doing a fantastic job of expanding further on mo fang and fu rong’s relationship! there are actually more moments and, in a way, feelings between them in the drama compared to the novel. but that’s just my opinion as someone who has seen both!

in the novel, this is what we get (WARNING FOR PLOT SPOILERS):

the selling tickets thing doesn’t happen in the novel. mo fang and fu rong first meet when fu rong gets drunk in that wine shop. mo fang is furious at him for dragging shen li’s reputation down with him and thus goes to pick him up, taking him away. before he can do so, fu rong says he has “eyes like stars, with such soul” and kisses him in front of everyone. mo fang is dumbstruck but the second he recovers, he immediately knocks fu rong out before dragging him home. this scene was edited slightly to attempt to pass censorship and presumably filmed, but ended up being cut— thus resulting in that weird cut to the knockout and a shorter runtime of the final produced episode (which was only 36 mins).

although in the novel it is not explicitly stated how fu rong ends up grabbing mo fang’s pendant, he does do so while drunk (i headcanon that it happens while mo fang drags him back) and he does spend a long while trying to return it to him, just like in the drama. jlfx actually managed to keep 95% accuracy of their scenes and lines said, with the 5% amount of deviation due to censorship.

one of the lines cut was mo fang saying that he's "never hated/never been more annoyed by anyone in his entire life" which i wish they kept but it's okay

when xing zhi ends up clarifying that mo fang was rejected by shen li, fu rong is overjoyed and says something like “this is a good chance for me [to pursue him] then!!”

again, like the drama, fu rong is kicked and escapes to the mortal realm, and when fu rong returns, he clings every day to mo fang’s side. one detail i like that the drama added was that we got to see mo fang regret it and hold out his hand to help him up, but fu rong didn’t know he was trying to help and fled!! 😭

you lan still warns mo fang to stay away from fu rong and says all that stuff about how her brother normally doesn’t pursue men like this, like i am not kidding when i say jlfx is keeping everything she can

this is where plot spoilers begin so look away if you must!

while the demon realm is in crisis, mo fang is “swallowed” by demons upon fighting them, and “dies”. when fu rong finds this out, we learn from you lan that he went crazy, his spiritual power exploded, and because his powers are so pure, he ended up washing out all of the colour of his plants and exploded his courtyard.

he was unconscious for a long time, and when he woke up, he learned of mo fang’s betrayal, which broke his heart even further. he became silent and uncommunicative and did not let anyone fix his courtyard, so it’s still broken to this day.

from then on, fu rong dresses in plainer clothes (as if he's mourning... 😭) and swears to work hard to help guard the xutian abyss's barrier for the rest of time.

from one of he yu (fu rong) and xin yunlai (mo fang)'s interviews, it seems like we will be getting a lot more of their bond in the drama which makes me really excited! xin yunlai says that mo fang eventually ends up finding fu rong quite cute and that he doesn't want such a cute and kind person to be in danger. he yu says that later, when mo fang is revealed as a traitor, fu rong is the first to believe that he's not a bad person, and that he understands mo fang the most.

suffice to say i am NOT READY for the second half of this drama!! i hope this helps you out, anon!

[arecaceae175]

Pick a story you’ve written and tell us what you love about it!

Your writing style is absolutely wonderful!

EEEEEE thank you so much!!!! That's such a sweet question I LOVE talking about my stories!!!!!!

One of my favorite fics I've ever written is Sentiment. Besides Authenticity, I think it's my favorite. (TW: this fic involves Time and Wars arguing, and Time physically pushes Wars once to make a point. They resolve it by the end)

Quick rundown in case you haven't read it (but you should go read it bc I think it's very very good): Time and Wars are arguing and then they make everyone else leave the room, and then Time lets his "In Charge" mask fall and lets big brother Wars comfort him.

I love everything about this fic. I shoved SO many of my favorite tropes into it lol. First, Wars being all self-sacrificing and Time being best Dad trying to protect Wars, but neither of them have a healthy relationship with their emotions so they're being a bit mean. Here's some of the notes I have for everything going on in the fight scene that they don't explicitly say:

Time’s distaste of authority

Wars defending his authority

Wars defending his autonomy

Time not being able to handle big emotions because he still feels like a kid trapped in an adult’s body sometimes

Wars not having enough self worth to rest

When Time says “we” about setting the example Wars realizes he doesn’t want Time to feel like that either, and especially not the younger heroes

Time being so so so so afraid that Warriors got hurt but not knowing how to deal with it in a healthy way

That’s his big brother and he already lost him once. He will not allow it to happen again 

Wars felt like he failed and he HAS to redeem himself bc he has a reputation to uphold

What was the point of the War of Ages if he isn’t perfect? If he can’t protect people now???

And then I LOVE the moment when Sky steps in and stops the fight. The image of Sky standing with his hand on Time's chest, in between Wars and Time glaring at each other, IS SO STUCK IN MY BRAAAAAAIN. (((((If anyone ever wants to make me really really happy, draw that scene. I would combust and never recover (/light hearted, positive) ))))). It's such a good moment.

And then as soon as the other Links are out of the room, Time drops his mask. He has no fucking clue how to be in charge of 8 other heroes, and Wars is the only person he feels like he can truly drop the mask with. Because that's his Big Brother from the War of Ages. And Time is terrified to lose his big brother again.

Big brother Wars and little brother Time is honestly my favorite dynamic in LU. IT'S JUST SO GOOD!!! THEY LOVE EACH OTHER!!!!!! Time, Wars, and Sky are in the top tier of my 3 tier list of favorite LU Links.

And of course I threw in "Sprite" bc that's an adorable nickname for Time.

So yeah. I'm very proud of that fic and I reread it a lot XD.

Thank you SO MUCH for this ask!!!!! I'm honored you think my writing is so good. I'm happy stimming so much!!!! EEEEEHHEHEHEHHEHEHE

[quotesfrommyreading]

Slogans, jokes, objects and colors can stand in for complex sentiments. In Hong Kong, protesters carried yellow umbrellas—also useful to defend against pepper spray—as symbols of their demand for democracy. In Thailand, protesters borrowed a gesture from The Hunger Games series, saluting with three fingers aloft in the aftermath of a military coup. Elsewhere, rainbow flags and the name “Solidarity” have signified the successful fights waged by proponents of LGBTQ and Polish labor rights, respectively.

In some authoritarian nations, dissidents craft jokes and images to build a following and weaken support for the regime. In the Cold War-era Soviet Union, access to typewriters and photocopiers was tightly controlled. But protesters could share news and rile officials with underground samizdat literature (Russian for “self-publishing”), which was hand-typed and passed around from person to person. These publications also used anekdoty, or quips of wry lament, to joke about post-Stalinist Soviet society. In one example, a man hands out blank leaflets on a pedestrian street. When someone returns to question their meaning, the man says, “What’s there to write? It’s all perfectly clear anyway.”

In the early 20th century, generations of Chinese writers and philosophers led quiet philosophical and cultural revolutions within their country. Zhou Shuren, better known by the pen name Lu Xun, pushed citizens to cast off repressive traditions and join the modern world, writing, “I have always felt hemmed in on all sides by the Great Wall; that wall of ancient bricks which is constantly being reinforced. The old and the new conspire to confine us all. When will we stop adding new bricks to the wall?”

In time, Chinese citizens mastered the art of distributed displeasure against mass censorship and government control. That was certainly the case during the movements that bloomed after Mao Zedong’s death in 1976. At the 1989 protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, participants used strips of red cloth as blindfolds. Before the tanks turned the weekslong gathering into a tragedy on June 4, musician Cui Jian played the anthem “A Piece of Red Cloth,” claiming a patriotic symbol of communist rule as a banner of hope for a frustrated generation.

After hundreds, if not thousands, were gunned down by the military, China banned any reference to the events at Tiananmen Square. But Chinese people became adept at filling that void, using proxies and surrogates to refer to the tragedy. Though Chinese censors scrub terms related to the date, such as “six four,” emoji can sometimes circumvent these measures. According to Meng Wu, a specialist in modern Chinese literature at the University of British Columbia, a simple candle emoji posted on the anniversary tells readers that the author is observing the tragedy, even if they can’t do so explicitly. In recent years, the government has removed access to the candle emoji before the anniversary.

As a survivor of the Tiananmen Square massacre spoke to the crowd gathered at Washington Square Park, the undergraduate who called himself Rick expressed concern for a friend who had been taken into custody by police in his home province of Guangdong. Given the government crackdown, Rick suggested that public protests were largely finished for now. Still, he predicted, the movement will “become something else”—something yet to be written.

  —  The History Behind China's White Paper Protests

[adrift-in-thyme]

Hi!! I saw you're doing the DVD commentary ask game. If you don't mind, I'd love to hear about this passage. Your description of magic is so cool!

Dark magic warps around him, funneling him down, down, down. He reaches toward it with his own magic, trying to guide it, to nudge it in a safe direction. Water. They need to land in water. Otherwise this will end very badly. He solidifies an image in his head. A lake — big and beautiful and clear, waterfalls rushing down into it. There. That’s where he wants them to land. A hand grapples in the darkness. Fingers wrap around his own, familiar magic pouring through them to enhance his own. A slight smile lifts Legend’s lips. Hyrule. The image grows more clear and distinct. The smell of fresh water and dewy grass fills his nostrils. Legend steels himself and takes a deep breath. Any moment now… Heart pounding in his throat, he tightens his hold on Hyrule’s hand. “Don’t let go,” he orders through the waves of their entwined magic. And Hyrule’s grip strengthens in reply. Another moment slides by, a moment filled with utter darkness and the nauseating push and pull of gravity. Legend holds his breath, awaiting impact. It comes in a rush of magic and liquid, cold and heat, light and darkness. Legend catches a glimpse of blue sky and white clouds. Then his body breaks the surface with such force it knocks the air from his lungs.

Thanks!! I had a lot of fun describing magic here. I kinda always enjoy describing it lol. I’ve always been into fantasy (I read the Narnia stories so much as a kid that I practically had them memorized XD) and magic always seems like such a beautiful and powerful thing (even dark magic) that I’m always trying to find a way to capture that. It helps that I was in the Loki fandom before this so I got a good bit of practice figuring out how I wanted to portray his magic and that experience carries over into my LU fics now.

Also, recently I read ‘weathered and wavering’ and the author had such good descriptions of everything but especially magic. I wanted to eat their writing lol. So I was inspired by their work to portray magic as more idk intrinsic to the user’s existence I guess? More alive and linked with them and others.

And I just generally love the idea of magic users being connected through it (hence Legend and Hyrule’s telepathy moment lol).

Believe it or not I actually struggled a lot with this fic and this moment as a whole. I needed Legend to end up in a body of water somehow and I needed most of the Chain to be absent (so they couldn’t save him lol and also so that I wouldn’t have to write all of their reactions to him being a mer). And when I finally settled on the opening with him and Hyrule…I got Covid. So this was actually written as I sat on the couch, feeling miserable, with a cup of tea in one hand and my phone in the other 😅 The fact that it came out coherent at all is incredible.

It did help that I played Alttp during that time. I got to include a vague description of a part of Legend’s world (specifically Zora Waterfall, which I think would be gorgeous in Botw-type graphics). So though I don’t explicitly state it, Legend and Hyrule (and eventually the Chain) are actually in Legend’s Hyrule in this fic. Which is cool cause I usually default to Wild’s XD But also bad for Legend cause YIKES that creepy scientist was in his Hyrule??? He’s not gonna love that. As if he needed more problems

Aaaand I think that’s it! Thanks for asking!! <33

[irelandseyeonmythology]

I heard "Bres" pronounced "Bresh" on the Story Archaeology podcast originally, and was pronouncing it as that since...but I'm curious about the way it should be pronounced, if "Bresh" is not the way it actually sounds. :0

The "e" in "Bres" is broad, hence the spelling of "Breas" in modern Irish, so it's "Bres." Exactly how it looks in English. Terribly anti-climactic, rhymes with "press" as per Mark Williams.

Honestly, it's fascinating, the pronunciation they're using in that podcast, because it's inconsistent. Off the top of my head, I can hear "Lu" for "Lug", which is modern, deriving from "gh" becoming silent, I can hear "Tuaha Dé Danann", which derives from the modern Irish elimination of the "th" sound, but "Bresh." When the modern Irish spelling of Bres' name makes it very clear that it has a broad quality to it. "Elatha" sometimes has a silent "th" which it wouldn't have in Old Irish, though I sometimes hear them using the "th", but "Tethra" has his "th" pronounced, there's no fada over "The Morrígan" in how it's pronounced ("Mor-REE-gan", which pushes the emphasis kind of onto the second syllable, though, ngl, I've always struggled with this one so don't take it too much to heart), "Cath Maige Tuired" is pronounced with a hard "d" at the end and a kind of broad "u"; the way it would be pronounced in OI would be "Maige Tehreth", with a slightly hard "th" sound like "those", "Dagda" is pronounced with a hard "d" instead of a softer, lenited "d" in the middle, more like "Dagtha", likewise for "Cridenbél", which I notice they also pronounce like it has a fada over the "i", "Dinnshenchas" is pronounced with the "sh" being pronounced like the English "sh" instead of the silent "h" sound you'd get from the lenited s, the emphasis sometimes strikes me as being on an odd syllable...) (Like, there's nothing wrong with using modern Irish for Old Irish pronunciations; you will personally almost never hear me use modern pronunciations, but that's a personal choice and one that makes people tend to think I'm even more of an idiot re: pronunciations than I already am, but...I'm fascinated, honestly, especially since some of these traits are things that you'd never get in any stage of the Irish language and that got beaten out of me relatively early in my academic career.)

...also I'm not certain I'd agree that LGE is much later than CMT...given that CMT is a ninth century text heavily revised in the 11th century; LGE is an 11th century text. Like, CMT actually *drew* on LGE at a couple of points. (It's astonishing, honestly, that even though they're blatantly cribbing from John Carey's "The Baptism of the Gods" in that podcast, they don't reference it.) Like, I do believe that there are sections of CMT that were written a couple of centuries earlier, but I'm really not sold that it deserves that kind of emphasis. (Especially when you're using Oidheadh Chloinne Tuireann, an early modern text, to talk about Balor and the men of Lochlann.)

("being committed to writing around the time of the Viking encursions" It is being AUTHORED during the Viking invasions.)

...it is impossible for Bres to be king of a single túath given that Bres is, explicitly, king of the Túatha Dé. There's no reason to think he isn't a high king of Ireland. Like, first line describing Bres' reign: "There was contention regarding the sovereignty of the men of Ireland between the Túatha Dé and their wives." Bres is king of Ireland. That's 100% in the text. No reason to suppose otherwise. He rules over multiple túatha and he is the king of Ireland.

...I don't understand why we can't assume that there are literal family names, as opposed to indicating a general familial relationship.

...I like the overall point about the Fomoiri not being a distinct foreign group, but are rather human, I like that there is an emphasis that it isn't just "stupid women electing the good looking one", I like the emphasis on Bres being essentially set up (even if, to be honest, I don't believe there's all that much evidence for it in the text) and the way that Elatha kind of creates him, it's something I've been prattling on about for ages, it's kind of shocking that in the discussion of the Dinnshenchas, they don't bring in Carey's "Myth and Mythography in Cath Maige Tuired", I have no idea why they're assuming that Bres is a 100% native, indigenous god, and I have no idea how they could get the idea that Elatha conceived Bres as a take-that to Cían and Ethniu....when Lugh was born *during Bres' reign* (Lugh is significantly younger than Bres.)

...now I know where the translation of Bres' name as "Beautiful horseman" comes from. God help us all.

...not to say that they don't know their stuff, since I know that Isolde Carmody has an impressive track record, especially since she translated the Morrígan's rosc while being blind and knows Old Irish, but. Well. To be perfectly honest, I'm disappointed specifically because I know that she knows better.

[evorathesylvurr]

because im in a mood /pos im gonna go over what modded genes + digimon id give each sinner. these were not written in order so some get more yapping than others.

faust:

id probably want to eventually give her innate mechlink (alpha genes) and maybe increased fix speed (alpha genes). idk where i’d find the mechanitor traits but i’d want to give them to her!

as for her digimon partner, faust strikes me as a renamon user.

yi sang:

this will sound silly, but id want to get him fission mouse affinity (alpha animals + alpha genes). ive never played with alpha animals but fission mice look so cute????? the docs say that it doesn’t do anything when added during gameplay, so I’d have to cheat them in somehow, but still.

i might be mean and give him the no wings trait, or i might be nice and give him a wings trait. it really depends ^-^ i might give him malformed wings because that would be mean.

his digimon partner is a kudamon

don quixote:

ive already given her a custom xenotype; she’d be the only one who DOESNT start as a baseliner.

her partner is a guilmon if only to give her gallantmon later.

ryoshu:

i’d want to give her the revia tail trait and potentially revia ears + revia claws & teeth (revia race - biotech) and then eventually get reduced raid presence or no raid presence (alpha genes) on her since revia tails are calc’d in raid presence.

as for her digimon partner, lopmon. not only because its one of a FEW digimon who undergo dark digivolution but also because lopmon is very cute and there is a part of me that thinks ryoshu would collect cute keychains in memory of her daughter. she’d also see sinclair (and/or her child) in lopmon bc lopmon is described as a “lonely crybaby”

meursault:

idk i feel like keeping him as a baseliner makes too much sense /gen

if i had to give him a gene from alpha genes, table resistance (alpha genes) or high survival instinct (alpha genes)

as for his digimon partner, I think I’d want to give him a gabumon.

hong lu:

i think id want to give him passive regenerator (alpha genes) and regeneration, minor (alpha genes) because if im gonna give him ANY traits, im gonna want them to be these ones.

i have no basis for this but I think he’d get a betamon. ITS A BETAFISH IM NOT CALLING HIM A BETA. OK THANK YOU.

heathcliff:

i might give him dog ears and/or wolf ears (biotech expansion - mammalia) because why not ^-^ maybe a tail too it’d be silly.

his digimon partner is lunamon though. this is 1/2 because i think lunamon would remind him of cathy in some way, and 1/2 because lunamon is one of my FAVORITE digimon ever.

ishmael:

water regeneration + water striding (alpha genes). potentially some other nereid genes.

i’d give her gomamon ^-^ or penguinmon for the penguinmon -> dolphomon -> whamon pipeline. ive talked about whamon explicitly having a reference to ahab.

rodya:

for fun i might give her moth antennae (alpha genes) because rodya with moth features actually sounds REALLY cute and I’m afraid of moths. is this because rodigor will be canon in this colony? oh, absolutely.

im giving her terriermon because i really like terriermon lol

dante:

i’d probably leave dante as a baseliner with only the generic colony baseliner+ genes (see misc)

probably monita.

sinclair:

i think i’d want to leave him as a baseliner, completely. even the generic genes i’m giving everyone in the colony, i’m gonna leave sinclair as a baseliner. he’s gonna need tables.

i’m giving him an elecmon for like three reasons. the big one is elecmon takes care of the digimon nursery thingy where all the digieggs go. the next one is because elecmon digivolves into leomon. i lied there were only two reasons.

outis:

armoured speed (alpha genes) because she was a warrior, enforcer (alpha genes) because i think i really should have someone able to arrest the other colonists (this is for handling addiction, etc)

i was gonna make some comment about her wanting an agumon because it’d be a sign of courage or something, but centaurmon evolves from agumon and theres no way i’m not giving her centaurmon

gregor:

i’d have to figure out which bug genes from alpha genes i’d want to give him. i’m hoping to be able to give him only one bug arm but i think i’d have to give him both. pneumatic claw (alpha genes) seems most likely but i might also give him insectoid mandibles.

probably wormmon for his partner

misc:

id want to get everyone reduced/no raid presence (I know i listed this under ryoshu specifically) because i KNOW i’m not gonna be able to be reasonable about maintaining my colony’s wealth

i’d also want to give everyone table resistance (again, i know i gave this to specifically meursault) but I need you to understand how annoying “-3 ate without a table” is when we have ishamel who is about 5 negative debuffs away from murdering someone at any given moment.

i’d also probably be giving everyone the “faithful” and/or “asexual” trait(s) because I am NOT micromanaging romance this time, thank you very much. once their romance partner shows up, they get the right orientation, and i dont have to micromanage. now, if a break up happens (i believe its unlikely with faithful lmao) then there’s micromanaging, but yeah. im a shipper it’s gonna be a thing.

bonus oc thingy bc ive decided to throw my limbus self insert into this:

elpis:

for genes, digitigrade (alpha genes) & cat ears & cat tail (depends on what cat ear traits are available lol, could be mammalia, could be base biotech)

as for her digimon, i’m giving her meicoomon or gatomon

I think if I start a new rim world save I’m

1) gonna start with baseliners and modify as I go, stealing genes from my prisoners and stuff. Ryoshu as a fox girl who sacrifices people to Satan is just too appealing to not go with.

2) going all in with making a hotel. please picture the sinners running a hotel. Thank you 🩷

3) I’m absolutely using the digimon mod. You cannot stop me from giving Don Quixote a Guilmon.

[hylialeia]

based a little bit on that last post, can i ask your thoughts on kylo ren. what were the sequels even trying to do with him, and what went wrong (or right, ig)?

This assumes the Sequels knew what they wanted to do with any of their characters Part of the issue here is that the writers tried to leave things too open instead of just committing to a single story, resulting in the nonsensical tug-of-war from movie to movie where no one got a consistent story arc. Another is that I don't think the original concept they crafted for Kylo was ever going to work for that open-road approach.

Consider: The Force Awakens wanted Kylo to be a reverse Anakin, ending up in the same position as Vader in the OT, but ultimately for the opposite reasons. Whereas Anakin struggled his whole life with the pull of the Dark Side, Kylo explicitly struggles against the pull of the Light; he doubles down on his commitment to evil for his own purposes. It's also worth noting that none of the films ever actually provide a motivation for Kylo in the way they do for Anakin, who we’re shown in the Prequels sought power because he became obsessively afraid of losing the people he loved (extremely in-line with his backstory as a slave on Tatooine). And no, I'm not counting books or additional materials as valid explanations; Kylo is a main character in the Sequel Trilogy, so this information should have been part of the actual story, not a DVD extra.

Furthermore, one of the things the Sequels actually do commit to is showing how Kylo's cruelty is a form of compensation; he's presented as childish, entitled, volatile, and insecure, evoking a completely different atmosphere than Darth Vader in the Original Trilogy. He destroys control panels with his lightsaber, wears a mask that he doesn't even need, and panics when Rey can tell he's only mimicking Vader's power. In the same way Anakin once tried to be the perfect Jedi Knight, Kylo is trying to be a perfect Sith Lord.

And I definitely think this is an interesting character route to go, using the clear parallels with Vader to showcase how different they actually are... but it begs the question, how do you carry out a story arc for a character who acts like this? And what do you do when the evil coalition you've aligned this character with is narratively the same as the fascist-coded tyrannical Empire from the OT? And what do you do when that character is also the only next-generation member of the main family these movies have all been following along with?

This is where I feel putting Kylo in Vader's position of the Empire-aligned antagonist AND secret family member really starts to backfire, because there’s no satisfying ending for him. Redemption? He’s a willing participant in a fascist regime (which blew up five planets, not that any of the movies ever feel like addressing this). No redemption? He’s the only next-gen Skywalker, the son of Leia Organa and Han Solo, the last member of the family this entire franchise has been building up for fifty years. Redemption through death (AKA, the option we actually ended up with)? Repetitive, literally a copy of what happened to Vader; plus, if you were against redemption, it feels half-assed, and if you were for it, he ends up dead. Everybody loses.

But then again, good writing can pull off virtually any of these options, can’t it? And therein lies the final issue: the Sequel Trilogy and its characters are poorly written. From their backstories to their current arcs and motivations, they’re inconsistent, designed to be appealing blank canvases for projection--for better or worse.

Let’s go back to the OT. Darth Vader is the villain, yes, but the way the OT handles his arc is with clear purpose and awareness; he's Luke's foil, Luke's potential future, Luke's father. Even his redemption is more about Luke's character than his own, focusing on Luke's insistence that there's good in him and that he can find a way to bring it out (thus his last words: "You were right, Luke. Tell your sister, you were right"). When you take into account the Prequel Trilogy, it's also clear that Anakin is meant to be sympathetic, his fall playing out as a tragedy orchestrated through circumstances largely beyond his control. He struggled against darkness and failed, suffered throughout his life, and in the end is pulled back into the light by his son before he dies, going out with one last act of defiance. His arc is structured. Planned. Fine-tuned, even, for his character.

I don’t think the Sequels ever knew what they wanted to do with Kylo, and certainly not to this extent. If they were going for a redemption, they shot themselves in the foot with their repetitive story concept more than anything else.

[wutheringmights]

I just read the newest chapter and I loved it! ♥ ♥ ♥ I was wondering if you had some hcs about the engineer that you could share?

Awww I'm glad you like it! I just spent 5 minutes trying to figure out what "HCS" meant before realizing I'm a tired idiot who can't read lol

But yeah! I got some headcanons for the engineer/Spirits I can share!

These headcanons are a mix of things I generally believe for any iteration of the Hero of Spirits and a few things exclusive to CTB. It's pretty obvious which are which.

Technically this is slight spoilers since most of this is not mentioned in-story, but Warriors is a such a self-centered asshole that I'm not sure when I can get him to explicitly ask about Spirit's backstory lol

This got super long and kind of just became me talking about Spirits's entire backstory, so enjoy:

Spirits is sixteen during the course of Spirit Tracks, mostly because that was the vibe I got from him when I first played the game (I made him younger for CTB)

He's not descendant from Wind (who I maintain disappeared instead of settling in New Hyrule); instead, he's Aryll's great grandson

His family name used to be Outset, but when everyone who originally immigrated from Outset island took on that last name, they changed it to Aryll to reflect the family matriarch

So Spirit's full name is Link Aryll, though there is a branch of his family that uses Macaryll instead

The Aryll/Macaryll family is huge; everyone has at least six aunts and uncles on all sides of the family and they can trace back how they are related to Aryll

"I'm Grandma Aryl's third son's second daughter's fifth child." -someone Spirits is related to, probably

He actually never met his great grandmother; she died before he was born.

Spirit's dad was full-blooded Lokomo while his mother was Hylian; his mother passed a few months after he was born after never truly recovering from childbirth while his father died in a fishing accident when he was eight

He went to live with an aunt and uncle who owned a general store; their relationship was polite at best. The aunt and uncle told Spirits upfront that they intended to give the store over to his cousin when he was older so Spirits needed to come up with his own life plan

Spirits didn't necessarily mind since he never wanted to work in a store for the rest of his life, but the ultimatum made it clear that they didn't care for him like a son

To this day, their relationship isn't strained and he doesn't hate them. But whenever they meet, he's overly polite; they're more acquaintances than family

He's cool with his cousin though. They have different interests so they aren't best friends, but they're okay.

Spirits also always had his spirit-sensing abilities. It's really like a sixth sense to him, as normal and automatic as seeing and hearing; he actually didn't realize this wasn't normal until he was a little older

His abilities at this point are limited to sensing vague ideas of a person's spirit (if they're light or dark, etc.), and seeing ghosts (which are really rare. You have to have a lot of power yourself to become one)

(Note: I'm not the only one who headcanons Spirits as having spirit sensing abilities; if you know who can up with the idea, please let me know so that I can tag/credit them!)

The elder of his village told him that select Lokomo had minor spirit sensing abilities, and those who did were traditionally made elders of their villages; being more of a follower than a leader, Spirits adamantly dismissed that idea and refused to be trained on how to hone his spirit senses. He also never learned any of the religion behind it

Which was a little worrisome since his abilities are way stronger than most

Besides, he's always liked trains and it's been his dream to travel around the kingdom as an engineer; being some town's elder would get in the way of that

Anyway, Spirits had to pass a written exam before being accepted as an apprentice engineer, so he's very studious and has a lot of drive (pun unintended?)

He went to live with his Uncle Niko during his apprenticeship in another town; Niko isn't related to him, but he's been a friend of the family for so long that everyone secretly thinks he's actually related to someone and they just forgot who

Niko is his real family, hands down. Those two are as thick as thieves and bring out the wild side in each other

A preteen Spirits used to think Niko was a little lame and kind of embarrassing, but now that he's older, he's all for Niko's weird old man-ness and has even picked up on some of his weird old man-ness himself

That being said, they're both disasters. Neither can clean or cook or do any kind of housekeeping and their shared house is cluttered with Niko's art projects and Spirit's half-finished tinkering

Growing up, Spirits had no idea he was related to the legendary Hero of Wind; Aryll died before he was born, but even in life she was filled with too much grief over her missing brother to discuss it often. Within the family, being related to the Hero of Wind is a rumor at best.

Of course, Niko knows but keeps it a secret from Spirits; once he got back from his LU-adventure, Wind told Niko about the curse of the Hero's Spirit. Then he went missing post-New Hyrule's founding, which really drove the terror of the curse home. Niko thought he could keep Wind's family from falling victim to it by not inadvertently encouraging them to follow in Wind's footsteps

So Niko kept it a secret

And obviously, that didn't work

Spirits' quest to save New Hyrule resulted in him realizing that he needed to embrace his Lokomo heritage and get a handle on his spirit powers; Anjean gave him a little training during his quest but afterwards he traveled around the kingdom to find as many people as he could with abilities like his

They were all really excited to teach him what they knew, especially the religious aspects of the abilities; Spirits is still not the most religious person, but he at least understands and embraces the cultural significance of what he is able to do

This is where he learned how to read a person's Spirit to get an idea of their life experiences and the kind of person they're like; he can also detect where a person is without having to put much effort into it

At Zelda's encouragement, he also got more sword training from the Castle Guard. She offered him a place among them, but he turned it down in favor of remaining an engineer. He still helps around as a swordsman when he can and will act as Zelda's body guard

Speaking of which, he and Zelda are 100% in love. Their relationship started out as puppy love but over the years as matured into a deep connection built on mutual respect

When he's working on designing new engines or parts for his trains, he occasionally brings his drafting materials to the castle gardens so that he can work alongside Zelda; sometimes she falls asleep leaning against his arm and he has to be careful not to shake her awake as he works

Whenever she need to go anywhere in the kingdom, she rides in his train and teasingly criticizes his conducting; he takes a lot of pride in his conducting, but he lets her get away with it since her critiques are objectively hilarious

He keeps a tiny pictograph of her taped to his dashboard

But there's a bit of a problem with their relationship, and it's that he doesn't know if he wants to be the prince consort or not. He does love her, but that would mean giving up being an engineer in favor of being stuck at the castle all of the time

Plus, he's doing great as an engineer; he's saving up to open his own garage that produces his own train designs

Eventually, he leaves for the War of Eras

His experiences with Warriors leaves him more sure than ever that he doesn't want to be the prince consort, resulting in him ending his relationship with Zelda shortly after he returns home

It hurts for a long time to be around her since all of his old feelings keep coming back, so he keeps his distance for a long time; it takes a few years for him to go back to hanging out with Zelda as friends

But now she's approaching marriage age, and he spends a lot of time when he's on body guard duty super jealous of these princes and ambassadors from foreign kingdoms who try to court her

But again, he knows he can't be in a relationship with her so he respectfully and silently pines over her (I'm just a sucker for pining, okay?)

Okay, more random headcanons that are a little less sad

Spirits likes super spicy food, but since he can't cook to save his own life, he just eats whatever he can get his hands on

He's super dirty all of the time, just the epitome of scrappy; there's always a smear of oil somewhere on his person

He actually really hates bathing and only keeps his curly hair in check to comply with train safety regulations

He's really polite and a little shy, but once he loosens up, he gets talkative and personable

He's also very contemplative; he likes conducting so much because he gets to spend long stretches of time alone with nothing but his thoughts

His trauma/stress response is to shut down; he goes quiet, loses energy, and sleeps for longer periods of time

He tends to gravitate towards socializing with people who are older than him, which gets him labeled as being no fun by his peers (despite having someone as cooky as Niko for a uncle)

Post-adventure, his best friend is Linebeck III. They're drinking buddies. Neither can really explain why they even like hanging out as much as they do

(I just like the idea of Linebeck accidentally getting attached to one kid and his whole bloodline getting forever tangled with Wind's; they're bros for multiple lifetimes)

Not only is Spirits good at designing and building new machinery, but he's great at tinkering; he can fix almost anything and will buy broken things on purpose just to have something to fix

No one really knows he's a hero; he doesn't like the attention and, at his request, Zelda did her best to keep his involvement with Malladus a secret

Because not many common people know about his adventure and records of New Hyrule are very rare, he's considered in Warrior's time to be a forgotten hero; some scholars believe that a Hero of Spirits may have once existed, but if he did, no one really knows who he was or what he did to serve the bloodline of Hylia

[cybernaght]

If this is not Prestige Television, I don’t know what is

The Long Night/沉默的真相 is a short drama in iQiYi’s Light On series. It’s based on a novel which I have not read, so I’m looking at it as its own thing. I have been struggling to formulate my thoughts on it, because it is such a heavy-hitter. It’s not sentimental or sad - it delivers rawness like a punch to the face. It does not make you sad - it makes you sick to the stomach with despair. So I will be talking about it effusively, it’s because I really cannot do so otherwise. 

This is a dark, gritty crime thriller, which is told across several timelines. In 2010, the body of the young public procurator Jiang Yang (Bai Yu) is discovered under quite extreme circumstances. In 2003, the same young procurator is looking into the suspicious death of a small town teacher, who dies mysteriously in the year 2000. The story is told just like that: across three different timelines, cross-cutting between them seamlessly. By slowly peeling back layer by layer, it reveals its core of abuse and corruption, and tells us of those who were ready to give up everything in order to uncover it. 

Thematically, this drama is about procedural justice that needs to be pursued and fought for, tooth and nail. The narrative really leans into the grind of justice-seeking, the desperation characters feel having spent and lost years of their lives fighting for it. There are no miracles, no lone heroes, no magical fixes. And the ending - while in many ways fulfilling the needs of everyone involved - is cathartic in the way that having an aching tooth being pulled out is cathartic.

The script simultaneously manages to be shockingly sincere and somewhat subtle. Both of the lead investigators in the 2010 timeline (played excellently by Liao Fan and Lu Xianlin) have suffered personal tragedies, and in other dramas you would so often see the script leaning into that sort of thing:, maybe there would be a sob scene, or a monologue about their pain. Here, you find out about them through context, or through throwaway lines. Similarly, there are relationships that you understand are significant which are never explained in full - because they need not be. There is a sense of expansiveness to the characters, of the life they have beyond the screen, which has to do both the way they are written and the way they are performed.

Performances, in particular, are fantastic. Bai Yu is incredible as Jiang Yang. Calling his performance a powerhouse feels inadequate. It’s honest and raw and fearless, and not in any way pretty. His character undergoes an incredible transformation from a youthful, vivacious ball of hope and sunshine to a man so weighed down that watching him hurts. This is the level of acting I have not seen in a very long while - neither live, nor recorded, not in media what originates anywhere in the world. 

Visually, the Long Night is slow and unfiltered. The story is told between long stretches of silence; panning shots of grim, untidy locations; lighting that looks gray and sunless, even in the “past” scenes which are awash with a warm filter to distinguish them from the present day. There are perhaps a couple of visual shorthands that I found a little bit on the nose, but overall the drama looks wonderful. Even though there are are some things shown on screen that went perhaps a touch too far in terms of their content, I don’t believe that they were handled gracelessly, or existed to add shock value rather than support the emotional weight of the story.

The only point of contention I would raise is that while a lot of the story is about corruption - including corruption in the justice system - it went to some lengths to state explicitly that those are just some bad apples, and the police are good actually. I understand that it’s there for a reason - because China, and in order for us to be able to see good shows they first have to be allowed to be released - but those little scenes were cut into the final couple of episodes which otherwise delivered some incredibly intense content, and as such really stood out. 

Regardless, the Long Night is incredibly strong. I would very happily watch the director Chen Yifu’s other works, only, according to My Drama List, he does not actually have any aside from a poorly reviewed movie he shot eight years ago; if this is true I am even more impressed with his work here. This was a wonderful piece of television, and one I will be thinking about for a while.

Next up, I’m watching something dumb, loud and fluffy (which does not include Bai Yu’s character being found dead in a suitcase) in order to regain mental equilibrium. 

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Yamata-no-Orochi (Part 3) Betrayal

*kicks the legs out from under the table, one by one*

You’d been stuck for hours. It was extremely late but you couldn’t sleep. Caesar and Chu Zihang drove in circles before finally parking in an alley to wait. At first, it was all emergency vehicles -- Police, Fire, and EMS -- then there were many reporter trucks with satellites mushrooming from their roofs.

After that, the streets got very quiet and occasionally you spotted dark sedans driving far below the speed limit, like sharks on the hunt. Hydra was looking for Mingfei and Erii.

You lay in the back seat to keep hidden. You were still in your silver Cheongsam and heels. You stared holes in the back of the driver's seat and listened to the radio. Seventy six people were dead. Only a single person was injured. They were painting it as some wild street race gone wrong. People were describing fiery debris. Bodies, some of them in various degrees of dismemberment, were strewn all over the street. It would take days to recreate the scene. One of the things the reporters quickly picked up on was the lack of wounded. How could a car accident be so catastrophically fatal?

But the noise of the radio faded away in your mind. Instead you were remembering when you first saw Z. It wasn’t in real life. You first saw him in your dreams. When you were hurt or frightened by the nursery staff, Z would appear and ask you what you would like to happen to those people. If they stuck you with needles you would say, “I wish they would be stuck by a million needles.” And then watch as they were stuck, screaming and crying in pain, just like you were.

Or if you were beaten by the nurses, something horrible and perverse would happen to them in your dreams. Like one round nurse would swell up so big and red you could see her veins through her transparent skin and wherever you popped her she would bleed.

When you first saw Z in real life, it was the special day when you graduated from the preschool section to the adolescent section and started to use your soul skills in experiments. He stood tall and proud, his bright red-gold eyes gleaming at you. He smiled at you, a warm smile like he was the king and he could have picked anyone in the world but he picked you. That smile was a gift that beckoned you to run towards him. You thought it was a dream. But he opened his arms and hugged you.

In the back of the car, tears fell at the memory. You’d never been hugged before. Ever. A warmth spread from his arms and his body and filled you. It made you bright. It opened your mind and heart and let him in completely, without reservations. After that he was your best friend. Between him, you and Renata, you felt privileged, you learned quickly how to navigate your dangerous world and soon you were the oldest and most successful hybrids there. You were sure to go to the capital.

It was only at Anton’s death that Z showed you the truth, but he didn’t help you survive Black Swan overtly. You still had to watch your friends die. You assumed Z died too. He never reappeared in your dreams again until you nearly died in Chizuru and then you were so happy to see him again. But your relationship changed into something far more intimate. You didn’t know if you were ready for something like that. But he certainly did.

At least he never lied. He never explicitly said he loved you. He didn’t even say you could love him either. He said you didn’t know any better. Of course you didn’t. He’d groomed you since you were a child.

Remembering that made it hurt all the worse. A great shadow has fallen over your past. Now you had no happy moments to reflect on with Z. Everything was full of crevasses that hid questions and doubts. Like the boulders that would forever separate Izanami and Izanagi from each other in the underworld, you and Z were now irreconcilable.

“I haven’t seen a patrol in the past 15 minutes. Think we’re clear?” Chu Zihang asked.

“How the hell should I know? We take a risk if we wait 15 minutes or an hour.” Caesar responded. “You okay back there MC?”

You look up at him, his blue eyes reflected in the rearview mirror. “I’m pissed.” you growl.

“I bet you are.”

There was more to be said but now was not the right time.

You end up making it a room across from the hotel where Erii was staying. Lu Mingfei was waiting for you there.

Mingfei cracked open the door and then let you in.

“Take off your clothes!” Caesar said coldly.

His voice was so sharp and harsh that Lu Mingfei immediately did so, removing his shirt.

When Mingfei unbuckled his belt, Caesar snapped. “Keep your pants on… turn around.”

“Oh, you were so serious I thought I had to take off all my clothes.” Lu Mingfei said.

Chu Zihang and Caesar curiously admired the dense lines of scars on Lu Mingfei’s back. They were so numerous that you could not find a single unmarked spot on him. It was like he had endured a beating of a thousand strokes or had rolled over a bed of knives. Even Caesar and Chu Zihang were stunned speechless.

“Are you done looking? I’m kinda cold.” Mingfei peeked over and startled at the sight of you. “Ah! You didn’t tell me MC was here!”

“She doesn’t care, stop wiggling!” Caesar hummed. “Incredible self-healing ability. A trauma of this magnitude would take at least 3 weeks to heal even at a top-notch medical center. But only eight hours have passed since you were attacked. You should have bled to death on the spot.”

“That’s because the wound began to heal itself the moment he was injured. The blood vessels stopped bleeding on their own, so the blood was locked in the body. The cells filled in the wound by a high rate of division. Even the ruptured tendons were repaired.” Chu Zihang said. “This self-healing ability surprasses that of Chisei Gen and MC.”

Could this be why the principal rated him as S-rank?” Caesar mused. “If he always had this ability, wouldn’t he make the perfect meat shield? If we have another gunfight with someone, we can send him in front of us to Main Tank the damage while we lay down suppressive fire!”

“The so-called lack-of-childhood must have been an act, then? Boss, you’re so familiar with the term ‘main tank’. What do you play? Warcraft or Warhammer? Anyways, shut up about that, we’ve got a bigger problem!”

“We already know, even if you didn’t come to us, we came to you. Every news channel is broadcasting what happened last night.” Caesar grabbed the remote from the chair and turned on the TV.

You already knew the story, so you don’t bother watching it again. Something else was bothering you. Caesar said she was 21, and was staying at a love hotel, but he also said she was wrapped around his finger. Didn’t Caesar say that he was hoping for Erii to fall in love with Mingfei? The whole idea suddenly made your skin crawl!

“Caesar. Is it alright if I go to the bathroom?”

“Huh?” Caesar looked up from the TV. “Yeah sure whatever.”

You walk inside and shut the door and get as far away from the door as you can and lean against the wall. You cross your arms, your nails biting into your biceps. You understood that Erii was potentially dangerous and that was evident today. But all you could think of was Z’s gentle hug, his indulging in your punishment fantasies, the play time and the jokes. It was all fun until it wasn’t. You recall the souvenir Mingfei got from her after she rescued him, a little duck bath toy. You’d tteased him for playing with it. Mingfei said he would never bathe with a duck.

He wasn’t that much of a kid.

Fire like a kiln blazed in your stomach. This was the person Mingfei had wrapped around his little finger? As Caesar had so blithely put it? You flush the toilet and pretend to wash your hands and open the door.

The boys were already moving on, talking about something else.

Caesar was standing next to Mingfei and handing him a card. “Meet at Pier 7 in Tokyo Harbor. The address is written on this.”

“What if she loses control while on the ship?” Lu Mingfei looked frightened.

Caesar handed him a box of medication encased in a glass vial to Lu Mingfei: “Isoproterenol, a strong anesthetic. Give her this medication. It will reduce her vital signs to a minimum and she will sleep until she gets to China. Give her some glucose half way through the trip.”

“But she’s very weak now!” Lu Mingfei raised his voice. “Injecting a very weak person with a strong anesthetic and only living on glucose for seven days? What if she dies?”

Caesar patted his shoulder: “We don't want her to die either, but this is the most feasible way to deal with it right now. She is a deadly weapon that could get out of control at any moment. And we can neither continue to hold this dangerous weapon nor return her to the Hydra, so the only way to do that is to send her out of Japan. It would take a bit of a risk, but it would get her out of Tokyo, the center of controversy. She’s the strangest hybrid we know of, perhaps related to the awakening of the White King. And with her gone, it would be the equivalent of a dangerous element being removed.”

Wait a minute. This didn’t sound like Caesar. The way Caesar was talking about her to Mingfei was not the way he talked about her to you. The way he talked to you was that she was a beautiful girl and that hoped Lu Mingfei and the Uesugi Clan Chief would get together!

Mingfei seemed convinced by this however.

Chu Zihang spoke up. “Caesar and I have discussed this before we came. And this is the only way. Find an excuse to take her out and bring her to the dock tomorrow at exactly four in the morning. She trusts you and should agree to board the ship with you.”

Chu Zihang’s words were like a bomb going off. “Uh… excuse me!” You say.

“What is it?” Caesar asked, his voice slightly dismissive.

“Why don’t you just tell her the truth?” Your face was awash in indignant confusion.

“What? Are you kidding?” Mingfei squeaked.

“No, I’m not kidding! Caesar just said,  ‘make up an excuse’. You’re going to lie to her!” You lower your voice to a whisper but point sharply at the hotel across the street. “Do you think she’s stupid?! When she finds out that you’re lying, she will go absolutely nuts!”

“MC.” Caesar took a breath. “MC… I know how you feel but now is really not the time.”

“No, you’re being cruel. Mingfei, you should know better!” You snarl. “You are her only friend, her only one! You are under an obligation to be upfront with her or else you’re no better than Herzog! You should know better. All of you should know better!”

“Hey…” Caesar growled, his eyes darkening. “This is completely different. Don’t compare me to that asshole.”

“What if she loses it? You don’t know if she can handle that sort of information. She’s extremely mentally unstable!” Mingfei whimpered.

“There is nothing more destabilizing than being betrayed by the people you trust.” You stare at  Caesar accusingly. “After all this time, after all you know about me. You turn around and pull this?” You take a shaking breath. “She is a child.”

The room descended into an uneasy silence and no one moved or spoke. The only sound was the continuous rain on the window and the rumble of distant thunder.

“That’s your plan? Tell her the truth. Are you going to take responsibility for her going on a rampage after she hears that she’s dying? Not everyone is that strong, MC.” Caesar was completely expressionless. He only got this way when he was upset.

You take a breath and let it out. You start to speak and nothing comes. You shake your head, struggling. “The man who told me I was dying was the man who loved me.” 

You turn away and leave the room to regain control of yourself.

A few moments later, Chu Zihang exited with a box of tissues but he quickly saw it wasn’t needed. You were just staring blankly at the wall in the hall. 

“Caesar has decided to let you go. He wants you to stay with Mingfei tonight and go with them to the docks tomorrow. Take the ship to China with them.”

“What’s stopping me from telling her the truth on the way there?”

“Mingfei will drug both of you.” Chu Zihang said.

You turn to look at him and then immediately turn away, your heart sinking. “He views me the same way. So much for the ‘I'm not Godzilla’ speech huh?”

“Things aren’t always black and white. A lot has happened. You’re in obvious danger from something we don’t understand. You may not realize it but your mental state is not the same as when you arrived.” Chu Zihang’s voice was soft, barely above a whisper. “Your mind is going too.”

You just shake your head. “All I hear are excuses. Excuses for him to be a hypocrite.”

Chu Zihang sighed, and you see for a moment how tired he was.. “You don’t have any say in the matter. The decision is unanimous, not only between me and him, but also Lu Mingfei.” 

You drop your arms from your chest, limply.

He looked down at you, his eyes cold. “If you defy the orders, I won’t hold back. From your training you should understand what I mean.”

The door opened and Caesar walked out. “Alright, let’s go Chu.” He paused next to you, his eyes cloudy. “I care about you. I really do. But there’s too much you just don’t understand. We’ll talk about getting you back to Japan once this is all over.”

You look up at him and shake your head. “The key to my survival is in Tokyo. If I leave, you won’t see me again..

He reaches out to hug you and you let him. You take a deep breath of the smell of his shirt which still smelled of those fine Cubans. It might be the last time. He really did believe what he was doing was the right thing even though it directly contradicted what he said before. 

“Don’t say goodbye. I’ll see you later.” Caesar said. “Keep an eye out on the two love birds.”

He walked away and didn’t bother looking back.

You return to the room with Lu Mingfei and sigh. “What a mess.”

He laughed but there was no humor in it.. “Yeah no kidding.” He was holding a modified pistol in his hand, one of Caesar’s Desert Eagles!

“What… are you doing with that?” You shiver violently. 

“If she gets out of control, I will have to shoot her. The bullet inside is specially made to be completely lethal. Even to dragons.” He mumbled. His eyes were dark pools and you couldn’t read the emotion in them. “If, for some reason that doesn’t work, you’re to finish her off.”

“Will you use that against me too?”

After a long silence he continued. “Turns out we actually are going to be at war this whole time. Me and Erii were never going to happen. You and I were never going to happen. I tend towards being a human. You and Erii tend towards the dragon side. If we go to battle, we have to use all our resources against each other and fight tooth and nail. It doesn’t matter if you sit together on a Ferris wheel or… talk all night on the phone or… run through the streets in the rain.”

He lifts his head to you. “If that day comes, we just have to grab our weapons and fight.”

He looks back down at the gun. “You were raised to fight. It’s what you know. But Erii… she doesn’t know anything.”

Outside the window it was pouring rain.

[nevilles-insinuations]

More Than This - Luke Hemmings

Requested by @whyitsashitshow

You're a singer, you and Luke are best friends. He helps you out with recording a song, not knowing how you feel about him.

Warnings:  Lots of fluff and exactly one swear word. Word Count: 918

A/N:  Also I had No Takebacks by Kiana Lede stuck in my head when I wrote this.

Spinning around in your chair in the studio, you couldn't help but feel agitated as you waited for Luke. He was running late but you didn't mind. It gave you more time to overthink everything.

You had known him for what had felt like forever. Meeting the blond at a random party years ago. You got talking about life, music and eventually everything.

Immediately you became close to the boys, but especially Luke. There was just something about him.

His laugh, the way you shared such a dumb sense of humour, the chaotic energy that he just seemed to exude at every waking moment, he was hilariously perfect.

Recently you had started to realise that he was perfect because you were falling for him. It's not like you didn't want to, it was the best feeling but also constant torture. You couldn't wreck your relationship with your best friend. This frustration was coming out in your music, but hey- at least it sounded good.

You stopped spinning around in the chair, a tall blond figure emerging in your blurry vision.

"Hey- I know I was late but I can make up for it!"

He rushed towards you, an apologetic smile on his face. Handing you your favourite drink, he sat down in the chair opposite you.

"So what's the song?"

Luke asked, looking at you excitedly. You had explicitly refused to show him any part of it until today.

You pressed a couple buttons on the laptop, bringing up the file. The lyrics played in the background, as you sat awkwardly in the chair. You hated the sound of the demo, it was why you asked for his help.

Unrequited love was a tricky subject, but as you watched him close his eyes and listen to the music, you felt like he finally understood. He was really listening to your words and that made you even more nervous.

"Who's it about?"

Wiggling his eyebrows, intrigued at how you could write so lovingly about someone. The way your words flowed in a way that expressed unfathomable pain in adoration, in a way that he could very much relate. Loving someone that didn’t love you. Caring in a way that was beyond friendship. The uncertainty of not knowing how the other person felt, with little hope for a positive outcome in admitting your feelings.

"A guy"

"Who's the guy?"

"If I told you I'd have to kill you"

You stage whispered, laughing in an attempt hide how tense this interaction made you feel.

"Okay"

He rolled his eyes, but you knew he wasnt going to give up that easy. Luke was kind of annoyed that you weren't going to tell him. He was pissed that it probably wasn't him. Wishing he could make you feel loved the way that mystery guy could.

A couple hours went by, and you had finished the song. Now you were just messing around in the studio. It was fun but everything with Luke always was. Pulling funny faces at him when you were stood in the booth, trying to get through lyrics. Sitting on the couch, thinking of random instruments to add in to your other song ideas. Surprisingly, you didn't think a clarinet was going to improve much. Still, you always valued Luke's opinion on things. Your minds worked in a similar way when it came to music.

"So is this the first hit single of (Y/N)?"

He turned to face you, still sat on the couch, guitar in his lap.

"I mean I'd hope so but who's to say"

You had been working on EP's for a while and gained a small following, but you weren't famous famous. You didn't mind, music was more of a method of expression for you anyway. There was something about sharing a part of you with the world, that made you feel better.

"I can say that I was there when this masterpiece was created"

Your best friend put his hand on his heart, sighing like the drama queen he was.

"Ah yes the Great Hemmo"

You rested your head on his shoulder, nestling into him. He was always comfy, his hand snaked around your waist. When it was like this, it felt like you were in a little bubble. Perfect. Untouchable.

"Some guy is very lucky to have something so beautiful written about him"

He cuddled you closer, trying to act like he wasn't being vulnerable right now.

"You really think my song is beautiful?"

You looked up at the taller man, who was now facing you.

"Everything you make is beautiful, you're so talented"

"Thanks Lu, so are you".

"I appreciate that coming from you"

You took a deep breath, before continuing.

"Well I'm glad you like the song...because it's about you"

"Wait what?"

Blue eyes blinked back at you in surprise.

You nodded, watching the cogs turn in his head.

"Fuck. Wow. That's good. Because I can do this"

His lips met yours in a instant. The knot in your stomach disappeared as your hand rested on his cheek. Luke couldn't help but smile, finally able to enjoy the feeling of your body in his arms. The inexplainable warmth that radiated through his body from such a gentle but intimate kiss.

"You have to write a song about me now"

You laughed as you broke apart, his hand still lingering on his waist.

"Who says I haven't already?"

Smirking, he pressed another kiss to your lips, content that it definitely wouldn't be the last.

[helioptrixx]

Okay, let me take a moment to talk about the Legend trilogy by Marie Lu. (It’s an amazing series and if you haven’t read it, you should. And be warned, there are spoilers ahead.) (And be warned, this doesn’t go anywhere. It’s just me. Rambling.)

Actually, let me take a moment to talk about one character in particular. Thomas. Thomas is. I wouldn’t go so far to say that he’s my favorite, but I love his character.

Thomas is that character that starts out as a /seemingly/ complete asshole at first. He’s absolutely horrible to Day, doesn’t hesitate in giving the order to shoot at the protestors, and it’s revealed that he’s the one who kills Metias. And then June learns that Metias had romantic feelings towards Thomas which were likely reciprocated and used so he could kill him easier. And then it’s believed that Thomas and Commander Jameson are traitors to the Republic. And then Thomas dies for the Republic shooting at the Colonies soldiers.

I’ll start with the fact that, even in the first book, Thomas really is just a good guy. Since it’s only from Day and June’s perspectives, us, as readers, are influenced by their bias. Both June and Day believe that Thomas is attracted to June, when in reality it’s just Thomas attempting to fulfill Metias’ dying wish of protecting June. While it’s true that Thomas is being really protective of June, which can be interpreted as an attraction to her, he’s basically doing the same thing that Metias did as her older brother. Being, well, brotherly and protective. However, June doesn’t know that, since she’s never been as close with Thomas and which is why she believes that it’s just him being weird.

Technically, it’s never made clear whether Thomas likes Metias or June or neither or both. What I can infer is that he does have a romantic interest in Metias, but not so much in June. While, yes, he does this weird thing at the ball where he sort of tries to kiss June, but in Prodigy he says that it was just her reminding him of Metias, and that he thought in that moment the best way to protect her was to keep her close. But while it’s unsure whether Thomas has romantic feelings towards Metias, it’s proved that he is extremely close with him. He vehemently denies having anything to do with Metias’ death besides killing him. He’s distraught when June keeps accusing him of not doing anything. Okay, actually let me correct myself. I don’t think that Thomas ever explicitly says that he loves Metias. I don’t know. It’s been a while since I read the books and I only have Prodigy so I can’t be certain. (But it’s definitely implied.)

[Here’s the part where I realize that I haven’t actually explained why I like Thomas so much.]

I don’t know how to explain it exactly, but I just like the way his character is written. Yeah, at first he seems like a complete and utter asshole who is way too much of a rule follower and will do whatever he’s told. Then his character gets a bit more complex with the whole Metias-Thomas platonic but not relationship. He’s still mostly an ass, though. Then he gets sentenced for the murder of Metias, only to be broken out by the Patriots/Colonies. (I don’t remember who, exactly.) Then he gets killed by the people who had saved him, because he really is a loyal Republic dog.

I- yeah. He has a character arc, which I can appreciate. He’s not a static character. He has depth. I think what I enjoy so much is that, from the very beginning, you can see exactly what type of character he is, but do to the bias from the narrator(s) we believe one thing. It really is just Thomas trying to keep his promise to Metias.

I don’t even know, anymore. This was going to go somewhere but then it ended up just being me trying to explain my love of Thomas’ character and just repeating the same things over and over. Just. If you made it to the end, congratulations. Go take a break from tumblr and reward yourself with a cookie or something. I don’t know.