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kaypeace21 · 3 years ago

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Will and the car on fire (theories)

*this is just under the assumption this is Will in the pic and not some other character. Which is still very possible .

Why it could be Will (it's for sure possibly not)

But, most of the rebuttals saying it's not Will are iffy. Cause we really don't have much evidence to point to any 1 character. Like the hair counterargument: that the hair is too long to be Will's .Will's s4 body double has a similar hair tuff on the back of his neck. And we know st uses camera shots of the back of Will's neck/silouette ,in past seasons . So doing so here could make sense. And Will of course is the most associated with fire: using fireball for Will the wise in s1 (3 times), the will the wise drawing from s2 had flames on his cloak, Will being being burned in s2,etc.

So...Will looking at lightning. And (Will?) looking at fire. Both have a dark full body sillhouete and red in the forefront .

We also see this character is possibly wearing a watch like Will?

And i've been hearing this a lot here ... but southern california (where the Byers are) does have a lot of trees lol. Not sure why people think otherwise.But, regardless a trip from cali to Hawkins would most certainly have some forrest.

*Also, any movies I’ll be mentioning (in the theories , below) were stated to be inspiration for ST.

So theories...

Theory 1) It's Joyce's car ( and it was rigged to explode/look like an accident by Brenner or Lonnie). And Will wasn't there but sees it in a nightmare cause it's already happened/or it's a dream vision of the future.

Evidence: CAR TROUBLES: Joyce’s car model was infamous for exploding in car accidents-being sued by the state of Indianna before the start of the series. We also have Alexi tell murray about a way to cause cars to explode-and turn people into dust (and make it look like an accident). Brenner’s name means “to burn” and he already hurt 1 mother to keep a subject -so not out of the realm of possibilities for him to hurt Joyce (and make it look like an accident to try and get Will and or el).

In s3, we have Jonathan and Hopper try and fix the car-and after this cars explode with people inside. Jonathan lifts the car hood- and notices someone rigged nancy’s car . Than, right after,Billy’s car lights on fire with him inside. With Hopper (he also lifts the car hood) and joyce barely escapes the lit car (but she may not be so lucky next time).

We also have Joyce tell Will 3x she’s going to be ok... which is a bit overkill if she will be OK ...

And, notice during the hoodlift we see Will observing- which is similar to Alexi watching and warning them before hand that the car (with Joyce inside) will explode. So it’s possible foreshadowing since Will may predict the future and was was paralleled to Alexi.Alexi ‘can we watch lonnie toons now?. Will : can we play d&d now?

movie inspos:

It’s hinted s4 will be around Will’s b day: In gilbert grape- Arnie after his b day, has his mom die, and a fire was stagged that lit his mom on fire. ( Before this,Arnie was also raised by his older brother Gilbert cause his dad wasn’t around). stoker- kid’s parent dies in staged car ‘accident’ on her bday (this allows ab*sive relative closer to kid-since dead parent banned him from seeing kid). The kid was taught how to hunt, by dad. And is also a painter and bullied at school (like Will). what dreams may come-painter blames themselves for fam dying in freak car accident- the relative was getting a present for them when it happened. so they blame themselves. The descent- also had (right before a b day, the main character’s fam dying in a car accident) .And the sole survivor/family member of the deceased hallucinates a shadow chasing her in a empty hospital hall. Get out-photographer (jonathan)blames himself for mother dying in car accident.

There’s also a lot of other films where the kid (for no logical reason) blames themselves for their mom’s/parent’s death: goodson, dream catcher, analyse this,etc. Of course ... this could simply relate to max and el having survivors guilt after the mall killed their family members (in a fake ‘mall fire’). However, a fake out fire causing family to die (in s3) could be foreshadowing for it actually happening in s4?

rigged car explosions: scarface -have guys try and bomb a car with kids and parent inside. backdraft -guy raised by older brother had 1 parent die in explosion and sees the freak explosion occur- later in the film someone rigs a car to explode and masks it as a freak car accident. Same thing occurs in godfather- he sees family member die in rigged car explosion. The dark knight- rigs car to explode. batman v superman- calls superman a demon and says they need to burn the witch that bore him (aka his mom).

dreams (if in the past): Never ending story (reffed in s3)- starts with kid with bowl cut saying he had another dream about his mother who died. Peanut butter solution- kid has visions in dreams about people he knew who died in fire. this next movie (emily rose) is said to be Joyce byers inspo according to Winona - has (kid with 2 personalities) have nightmares from the past of her and her mother burning in a car fire. while screaming/sleep walking she burns windows with her hands -accidentally using her powers. Some people suspect the videogame “life is strange’ is show inspo too- it has character named max caufield with a ‘never maxine rule’, etc. Anyways in the game prequel queer chloe, who plays d&d, would have dreams/nightmares of her nice parent’s car accident . Despite , chloe not being present for the car accident. After the parent’s death, she’s stuck with her mean step dad.

dreams (if predicting the future): Will says in s3 Will the wise can see into the future. We also see Will/Will the wise via a dream predict Hopper was in danger-saying to Joyce “he’s going to die”. In ‘12 monkeys’ and ‘Rebel Robin st novel’ they mention the myth of cassandra- who could make accurate future prophecies , but was cursed to never be believed by those she warned. In 12 monkeys- he tries warning others of a dreaded event in future- and it’s dismissed as him being mentally ill. Since, Will’s other abilities were dismissed as his ptsd in s2-and with the Byers fam having a family history of mental illness (they may not believe him over such a prediction). In ‘the ring’-the movie opens with the guardian saying the boy is drawing the car accident that killed his mom -as a psychological coping mechanism. Only for the teacher to say he made that drawing before his mother’s death (and it’s revealed later the boy is psychic). Terminator 2- sarah conner says she is having future visions, which include explosions, and everyone dismisses it as her being schizophrenic. Like how in s2 a scientist said about Will “let’s see if this boy is a wizard or a schizo”.

If joyce survives the accident she may be hospitlized (and unable to have legal custody). In black swan the girl (with 2 personas) -blames herself for what happened to Winona Ryder’s character (who is in a coma after a car accident. They had had a verbal fight before the accident). In girl with the dragon tattoo- the main character (who is compared to a phoenix and dragon) has 1 parent burned in a fire- and after this her kind guardian is hospitilized so they can no longer take care of her- and she is placed with an ab*sive foster dad (who resembles her bio dad). If Joyce was in a coma - it would further parallel her to terry- and be another willel parallel.

if dead: Tokyodrift- mom loses custody, and dad who is a mechanic and abandoned the family years ago, later gets custody. Super 8-mom dies in freak accident- douche dad gets custody. Book of henry-mom dies pre-film, ab*sive dad got custody. Outsiders- parents die in car wreck, relative gets custody of teen who he slaps etc.In black swan-girl who blames herself for Winona’s accident is stuck living with ab*sive parent. good son- mom dies, stuck with violent and manipulative relative after this.

Of course-joyce may be fine. And Lonnie may just visit for Will’s b-day and ruin shit that way.

Theory 2) It's an undercover government car that Will uses his powers against in self defense... or in anger after they hurt someone he loves.

Evidence:

Joyce about ‘Will the wise’: If he’s so wise, why does he need the fireballs? Why can’t he just outsmart the bad guys? Will: cause the bad guys are smart too. Joyce: so he needs the fireballs? Will: Yeah, to burn them to a crisp.

* the fact-this flashback happens at a funeral of a Byers, could also be narratively significant as foreshadowing.

Gov agents in s1 are called “the bad-men” so Will may use fireball on “the bad-guys”(government agents) . Fire has been used on all the other adversaries relating to the upsidedown-so why not the gov agents (aka human villains) next? 2 movies on the inspo list caught my attention: firestarter & carrie (which are both stephen king adaptions with psychic kids who have fire abilities).

Firestarter- she has pyrokineseis (firepowers) . And unlike every other psychic in the film- she is the only psychic that doesn't get nose bleeds (aka mini brain hemorages) from using her powers (Will). We know el and kali gets nose bleeds.

(Anger): She only unleashes her fire abilities on gov agents after they kill her parent...

*And uses a literal “fireball” on them.

Could also be another willel parallel. kali about the US gov:" They took your mother away from you!" El str*ngles man from gov agency that incapacitated her mom . El before str*ngling him: " you hurt mama".

(self defense): While in carrie she kills people who tried to run her over with a car. And causes the car to explode.

Also, in s3 Steve does technically cause a car to explode to protect Nancy from being run over by a car (so maybe foreshadowing?). I believe, tumblr user ‘bran-who-writes-theoretically” was the first to point out the Carrie/car on fire parallel.

* This car scene could also be added to the list of Willel parallels. El in s1 uses her powers to flip a government-car upside down. And looks back at it. And it’s a ref to the film Et. So Will causing a government -car to explode and flip upsidedown (referencing carrie) could be a parallel.

Of course El flipped over a car in s3 to attack the Soviet agents and protect her friends too ( right before losing her powers). Sort of like Steve using his car as a weapon in s3 to protect his friends. so who knows, if not Will, maybe El (wearing a ponytail) got her telekenesis back and she flips the car and it explodes ? To be honest, I just find this explanation too boring, cliche, and predictable. And I still hypothosize the mindflayer took her telekensis (but not her other powers). Since in d&d mindflayers have ‘mage hand’ (what el is called) and ‘telekenesis’/ along with the ability to steal powers from other life forms. But, we’ll see...

Theory 3) The car flips (maybe caused by a deer jumping in the road) and it blows up after the crash- with Joyce inside. And maybe Jonathan survives it/ Will wasn’t there but had a nightmare /vision about it?

Evidence: in s1 Jonathan sees a dead deer that was hit by a car. This could be symbolic : because it related to Jonathan mentioning the hunting story with his dad and how he cried for a week cause he liked the film Bambi. Which in the film : Bambi (a deer) has his mother k*lled. And after his mother’s death, he’s taken in by his douchey dad who was M.I.A for most of his life ,until his mom passed away. And the hunters are the bad guys in the film . In ‘get out’ the photographer , Chris,blames himself for his mother dying in a car accident - and he sees a dead deer hit by a car -and the dying deer was used to symbolize the guilt he has over his mother’s death. in ‘the long kiss goodnight’ a character is driving home with a friend- they swerve and hit a deer and 1 of them is ejected from the car into the forrest. But their friend is unconscious in the car and it quickly explodes on the road. The survivor turns and sees the car in flames- disoriented they stumble and kill the dying deer. And it’s left ambiguous if they were helping the deer end it’s pain or if it was vengeful-hunting (since it caused the car accident that killed their friend). Cause their face was emotionless from shock.

Even in the st novel "suspicious minds' rabbits- like jonathan was forced to kill on the hunting trip with his dad (around his b-day) represented the bond between mother and child.And the mother sacrificing herself for the baby-to not get k*lled (by Brenner).

-so maybe?? jonathan before he gets the pizza job/car (may have his car break down , like hinted it would in s3).

So him and Joyce share the car (once his car stops working) and the accident happens while Jonathan is behind the wheel -with Joyce. And after this he gets the job at surfer boy pizza. Billy was a surfer boy and that memory was used to think about his mother who is no longer around (once he's stuck with his ab*sive dad after moving away from Cali). While Jonathan moved to Cali after his mom passed-maybe stuck with Lonnie.Jonathan's actor in recent pics has a blonde mullet - which sort of resembles joyce/Billy's og hair. This may be why he starts doing dr*gs - which is pretty out of character for him- but it could be a coping mechanism(like in the s4 films). One of many examples was 'enter the void'- the older brother was surrogate parent to their lil sibling and after a car accident k*lls his parents , he starts doing dr*gs to cope. Also ‘hunger games’ was on the list- and Katniss (who was a surrogate parent to her litle sibling, like Jonathan is to Will) in the sequel, saw her family die in an explosion. And it really broke her emotionally.

I've mentioned this before but Billy is used to parallel and foil Will and Jonathan. And it may be more than a ... what if Lonnie had custody scenario. But to show how Lonnie (like most ab*sers) will later bring out the worst in the kids (once he does have custody). Like how s3 has Will mimick lonnie with the baseball bat (and we see in s3 Billy being bullied by his dad to play baseball and flashbacks showing him mimicking Neil). I've also discussed how there's a theme with pretty much every character mimicking their parent- for better or worse.

Killing a deer would certainly hint at Jonathan's possible character regression (and mimicking Lonnie to a certain extent). if he not only blames himself for Joyce's death. But is also stuck with his ab*ser.

The animal k*lling motif , and after that, mimicking an a b*sive father is already shown with el. Brenner , in s1,tried to make her k*ll a cat (using her powers) and she refused (similar to the s1 rabbit hunting story of Lonnie forcing Jonathan to k*ll a rabbit ). But in s2, she uses her powers to k*ll a squirrel (and like a deer- it's typical hunting game). Than in s3 el does literally everything Brenner ever asked of her- she spies on people and repeats the words back (like brenner told her to do), she becomes a weapon to ‘fight the commies’ (which was said to be the reason he k*dnapped her in the first place), and when looking into the void to see the mf (she mirrors the words brenner told her - when he made her go into the void to face the demogorgan).

And some s4 movies are literally about being trapped in a house with your ab*ser and slowly losing your mind because of the ab*se and gaslighting- lighthouse , black swan , good son, are prime examples. But movies like scar face , girl with the dragon tattoo, and book of Henry touch on this theme a bit as well. And ordinary people- is about a guy who survived a vehicular accident but his relative in the same accident didn't- and it causes him alot of issues /survivor's guilt.

The shadowy figure could just be Will in the shot - seeing it in a dream before or after it happens?

Theory 4) Will sees a future vision or has his ’now memories’ of someone else's car.

Evidence: i guess the s4 shot parallels El (in s3) spying on Billy while he’s hurting Heather. During that spying scene: the shot is of El near Billy's car. So it’s possibly a diff willel parallel?

If not Will. Who knows ...if El’s telekenesis is gone maybe her spying abilities strengthened and look different because of it (and now she can see background details)?

Theory 5) it's Lonnie's car and Will escapes from the trunk and uses his powers in self defense

Evidence: I’m pretty iffy on this one. This goes back to how people suspected Lonnie took Will in s1 (and could be foreshadowing). Even the recent rebel robin book-has characters say Lonnie probably took Will. Jonathan suspected Will may be at Lonnie’s - so checks Lonnie’s car trunk (to see if Will is there). We also see how the mf in s3, knocked people out by dr*gs/str*ngulation, ties them up, and throws them in a trunk (to k*dnap them). Or how the cops raided jonathan’s trunk- which had stuff to track the demogorgan (and the demogorgan parallels Lonnie) . And after looking in Jonathan’s trunk-they suspected something fishy is going on.

*heather was described as “another me” by Will- who was thrown in the trunk.

movies: “tangled” was on the s4 list- and had an ab*sive parent later try and kidnap their kid ,and that parent ends up dying. in girl with the dragon tattoo (the girl associated with dragons & phoenixes- lights her ab*sive bio dad on fire. In ‘drop dead fred’ (girl who is in love with childhood friend, named Mikey, who she met at age 5) lights a imaginary version of her ab*sive parent on fire - while in a trippy memory world. Chrissy accidentally lights her ab*sive relative (nickname “daddy”) on fire in self defense- in a trippy hell memory scape. in ‘long kiss goodnight- the girl with 2 personalities (Will/will the wise) was kidnapped and put in a trunk and escapes by jumping into a quarry. Not sure if that could relate to a flashback or something else? like in ‘don’t breath’ the older sibling who essentially was a surrogate parent to the younger sibling-mentions how their dad left the family, and her parent would throw her in the trunk for hours as a punishment.

#will byers #jonathan byers #joyce byers #el hopper #stranger things #stranger things theory

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thiserichann · 4 years ago

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cookies and cream - lee jeno

reader x jeno

genre: smut, strangers to fuck buddies, humor if you squint hard enough

word count: 4k-ish

warnings: recklessness (she met with a stranger online, don’t do it kids) excessive lying, 18+ scenes that includes: oral (f receiving) face riding, soft dom!jeno?

This is merely a work of fiction and is not meant to hurt the image of Jeno and NCT. Again, don’t be as reckless as OP. This was just a fantasy of mine that I’ve been dying to get out of my system.

Holy fuck.

That's the only word that you've managed to utter when you decided to check your messages that morning.

You got bored in the middle of the class and decided to sneak a peek on your phone to pass the time. The class is recorded anyways so you can always just go back to the parts of the lessons that you've missed.

But holy fuck.

You never expected to see THAT so early in the morning.

"Miss Y/N?"

You snapped back to reality and stopped malfunctioning for a second when somebody called your name. Everyone including your professor remained quiet and all eyes are on you.

"Oh. Sir what’s the question again?"

You answered nervously as you tried to review your notes and backtrack on what he is discussing a few moments ago.

"I see that you're distracted in the middle of my class again. Mind sharing what you're occupied with?"

"Uhm. I was watching KPOP fancams, sir."

"Fancams won't get you into law school, Miss Y/N. Phones off please."

You tucked your phone back to your pocket and never picked it up again since. The professor started blabbering again but no information is being retained on your head. It stayed that way at your other classes.

You wished you were looking at some KPOP fancams earlier. You’ve watched fancams at class before and got away with it unscathed.

Oh no. It was a goddamn dick pic.

A good one, too.

It was from a guy that you met in a kink site a few days ago. You created the account out of boredom and expected nothing to come out from it. It’s all the flirting and sexting without all the unnecessary commitment

It only took you a few minutes to set up an account. For some privacy, you made a random birthdate and a random nickname, because like hell would you share your real information to these people. You also picked a racy picture of a lady that looked a bit like you and passed it off as your own.

Within minutes, your inbox is flooded with messages. Most of them, however, are from men who are old enough to be your father.

Well, you were bored, so you entertained everyone and then went on back to your boring, vanilla life. A few political history and theory books later, you went back to see which ones messaged you on the site.

And that's where you've met him.

The most gorgeous piece of meat alive.

He seems like a nice guy. He introduced himself as LJ and your age aren’t that far off from each other. LJ is the only one who actually engaged in conversation besides "want to fuck?" or "are you horny?"

As soon as you started messaging back and forth, you scrolled on his profile to see what he looks like. The only thing is, his profile looked a whole lot like those high fashion male underwear photoshoots.

It was an array topless pictures (presumably his, you just can’t be bothered to check if it is actually his). It featured his sculpted abs and biceps, cropped up all the way to his full lips. Despite not seeing his whole face, you knew very well that he’s a hunk. To say you were intrigued is an understatement.

Since then, you've been talking back and forth through Snapchat (your secret one because you're not stupid) and sent him actual pictures of yourself, completely omitting the face. You took one from your bed, your bathtub, and probably every part of your house that you felt is sexy enough to be included on the pics.

You can't tell him if it's him or the repressed sexual urges finally manifesting itself after more than a year of not getting laid, but every text to and from him made your heart race. It was something that you looked forward to every hour everyday.

Hours went by that you totally forgot leaving him on read. You climbed up to your bed to rest your back to the headboard and opened your unread messages.

You: Hey svlr. School stuff.

He opened the chat and started typing right away.

LJ: Oh good. I thought I did something wrong to upset you.

You: Not at all. I loved the pic by the way. It literally knocked my socks off.

LJ: Just the socks?

You: You can take the rest of it off yourself ;)

You scoffed. The flirty banter has always been there ever since you started talking but nothing really came out of it.

LJ: If only I could :(

You: I know. Covid’s a bitch.

You set your phone aside for a second to go to the bathroom. On your way, you picked up some snacks at the fridge and sat back down to your bed, only to find your phone blowing up.

LJ: If you're down maybe we could meet

LJ: It's totally fine if you don't want to

LJ: I just made it weird, didn't I?

LJ: I'm so sorry I brought it up in the first place

LJ: I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable

LJ: Hello?

LJ: I'm really sorry

You: Chill. I'm right here

You: I just went to the bathroom

LJ: Oh

You: I'd be lying if I said I don't want to meet you as well

You: Well... I wouldn't write off the idea

You: But with the Covid

LJ: Thoughts?

You: I don't think it's a great idea

The screen says Seen right at the bottom but it took him a couple more minutes before finally replying.

LJ: I understand

LJ: But in case you change your mind, I'll leave the time and place up to you

LJ: I’ll take care of the rest

LJ: Deal?

You: I'll sleep on it.

You: Speaking of sleep, I gotta go. Morning class.

LJ: Okay. I guess this is good night then

You didn't, in fact, talk to him the day after.

You'd be lying if you said that you didn't want to see him and his abs in real life. But as someone who overthinks a lot, you just can't shake off the risk.

You: Good night. Talk to you tomorrow.

What if he's not really the guy in the pics? Or he’s psycho in real life? What if he's infected the virus?

You sighed.

Why must some global pandemic ruin your sex life?

You waited until the end of the day before you finally replied to LJ. The last thing that he texted was a brief good morning from earlier in the day and nothing else. He’s actually a pretty sweet guy, totally not worth ghosting, and you actually liked talking to him as a friend that you can share your sentiments with.

With your guilt finally eating you up, you took a break from your assigned readings and sat back at your bed to rest for the day. Your fingers hovered over the keyboard for a minute, thinking of something to say to him. It took you a few tries before finally hitting the send button.

You: So, I thought about it

LJ: And?

You: I need to know I can trust you

LJ: Okay. How?

You: I don’t know. Send me a proof that you’re real. Get tested?

You: Is that fine with you?

Within a split second, he sent his reply.

He actually did it.

You couldn’t believe it but he actually did it.

LJ: Consider it done.

He got tested for physical, including the virus test, and passed with flying colors. He even sent you a vid of him inside a medical clinic.

He just sent the uncensored results this morning where you can clearly see his real name.

Lee Jeno.

LJ.

Seems legit.

Well, the uncreative nickname shouldn’t matter now because the results meant only one thing.

You’re gonna have to push through with your promise.

You got ready around noon that day. You can’t remember the last time that you actually got ready to meet someone that’s not a delivery guy or a relative passing on something to your family.

As someone who overthinks a lot, you actually got everything covered. You picked a place near a restaurant to eat. The police station is just a few blocks away just in case something happens, and right in front of a library…

“Where’re are you off to?”

You raised your backpack to show to your mother.

“I’m off to the library. I needed to get these renewed. Maybe pick up a novel or two.”

She looks at you from head to toe, eyeing that incredibly loose hoodie, faded denim jeans, some worn out sneakers that looked like it’s supposed to be thrown away years ago and a medical mask that covers about ¾ of your bare face. It’s just your usual attire whenever you go out for errands.

She just nodded and went back to watching her favorite soap opera.

“It’s nice that you’re out of your room for once. Take some cookies from the kitchen so you’ll have something to eat in case you get hungry.”

… as an alibi to get away from your strict parents.

As soon as you left the door and made sure that you’re out of sight, you found the nearest public toilet and grabbed a whole other outfit from your backpack. The hoodie is replaced by a white, ruffled see-through blouse and you ditched the jeans for a tight skirt that’s at least four inches above your knees. You tousled your hair a little bit and put on some powder and tiny hint of lipstick before putting your facemask back on again.

It’s been a while since you’ve done an elaborate scheme like this. Your skills got a little bit rusty, but they always work.

Sometimes you wonder if you’re really meant to be lawyer or a criminal instead.

You stepped out of the toilet and blended right back into society.

Now all you have to do is find wherever the hell LJ is.

Jeno sat anxiously as he waited for you right inside the café. He’s on his fourth cup of coffee but it didn’t do anything to calm his nerves down (geez I wonder why).

You: I’m almost at the café.

He’s been staring at his phone the whole time. Once he received your message, which is a pic of you in the bathroom after the outfit change, he almost choked on his drink.

This message sent him on a panic as he turned his camera on to see how he looked. He did some minor adjustments to his hair and he wiped off his eyeglasses clean with the sleeves of his hoodie (which did nothing for him by the way) and then casually sat down and played it off cool like he hasn’t been waiting for you for over an hour.

On your perspective, you walked inside the café and looked around for LJ. Fortunately, there was only guy inside the café, twiddling with his phone on his hands and as he kept on peeking through the glass windows as if he’s looking for someone.

From afar, he actually looked really cute. His appearance, a shy, nerdy dude with glasses, looked way off from the fuckboy image that you expected him to have in reference to the messages that you’ve been getting from him.

It’s always the quiet ones that are kinky. You should know, you are one.

You walked over to his table and tapped his shoulders to get his attention.

He froze for a moment before he finally managed to turn around and face you.

“You’re actually here.”

“I know. I’m just as surprised as you are.”

tap tap tap tap

The room is so quiet that the only thing you can hear is the sound of your heels tapping against the tiled floor. You can say that that is one of your observable annoying habits tapping your foot on the floor when you're a nervous wreck.

Sighing in retaliation, you removed your hoodie, fanning yourself as you tried to relax and get comfy on the hotel couch (which should be comfortable enough since you paid a shit ton of money on that room), switching the TV on to get your mind off of things. The lackluster array of shitty sitcoms didn’t distract you at all, but it instead reminded you of the reasons why you’re in that room in the first place.

Having nothing to do to pass the time, you paced back and forth in the room, finally sitting down once you realized that it looks way worse than you just tapping your foot. You folded your arms right across your chest, looking at the watch from time to time but the hands of the clock seem to be moving slower the more you stare at it.

Quarantine started almost a year ago and it's been very hard for you. Sexually. It's been almost a year since you've been touched by a man and you’re more than ready to jump on anyone’s dick at any this point,

Too bad that that dick is taking his sweet time in the bathroom.

tap tap tap tap

Your foot found its rhythm once again, only this time, you’re not nervous anymore. Your patience is wearing thin.

As if summoned by the constant tapping, the guy comes out of the bathroom, just casually drying himself while wearing nothing but the towel dangerously hanging on his waist and a boyish smile on his lips.

No biggie.

"Hey."

Suddenly, you’re not tapping anymore.

Head empty, just thoughts of a hot guy patting down a towel all over his toned body.

“I hope I didn’t make you wait for too long.”

He spoke, tossing aside the towel on his hands on the sofa, finally giving you a full view of him and all his glory.

You must admit, you’re skeptical at first. The guy that’s been sending you faceless thirst traps just days ago, telling you how he’d fuck you senseless looked a lot different from the guy who entered the hotel room just a moment ago.

He came in wearing those black oversized hoodies that did a great job in hiding his best features. His hair was a bit long for your taste, covering half of his face while the face mask hid the other.

But this man right here in front you, he’s Adonis.

You unconsciously bit your lower lip, earning a chuckle from the guy.

“I’m guessing that you’d like to start now?”

You nodded, the tension and awkwardness rendering you unable to speak.

He smiles as he takes the remote from you, turning off the television because the main show is about to start.

You started to tense up again, eyes wide as you realized that he’s now right beside you, wrapping his arms around you as soon as he sat down. He leans over, soft lips coming into contact with your exposed neck and shoulders, landing small pecks all over.

You sat there breathless as he slowly ran his fingers to the side of your thighs, tracing circles at it while giving small, reassuring kisses on your neck and shoulders. It’s as if he’s asking you for your consent, waiting for you to open up to him before he makes a move.

He got his answer when you turned around to face him, running your fingers into his cheeks before cupping his face, your lips finally touching his. He moved in the same pace as earlier, slow and calculating. You got a bit impatient once again, biting his lower lips gently to let him know that he can do more.

He grabbed you by the waist and successfully placed you on top of him. The kiss got even more sloppy as you ran your hands through nape, then into his soft locks. His hands travelled once again, finger running through legs again, stopping as soon as he reached the hem of your skirt, flipping it up to reveal the thin lace material that barely covered your core. You took that as initiative to remove the towel on his waist and grinded against his growing member, the friction and heat enough to earn a groan out of him.

He held your waist once again, firmly this time, halting your movement completely.

You broke away from the kiss, staring him in the eyes to read his face.

“Something wrong?”

“Hold tight.”

You were about to ask about what hold tight mean, but your arms cling unto him involuntarily as he lifts the both of you out of the sofa.

Jeno laid you gently in the bed, making sure not to break eye contact as he does so. He looked like he's about to eat you alive, which is enough to send flush to your cheeks.

“I would’ve loved to bend you over that sofa, but I think it’s just proper that our first time will be on the bed.”

"God. You're beautiful."

He then ran his fingers towards the thin fabric of your blouse, feeling every part of your torso like he's memorizing every detail of it. His hands then travelled in your chest, squeezing the swell of your breasts on each hand, fingers shaking as he does so. It felt like an artist admiring his delicate work of art.

He situated himself between your legs, taking a moment to admire you first before doing anything else.

He started to run his hand on your cleavage and stopped on the uppermost button of your blouse, taking his time to remove all of them and placing a kisses at the exposed skin. After all of the buttons are taken care of, you lifted your body up and slid off the fabric. Your black lacy bra finally made its appearance. You took the liberty of taking that off too, as slow and as you possibly can.

Jeno just stared at your body in awe, breathing heavily as his eyes scanned your naked glory.

"Gorgeous."

He said under this breath before leaning down to claim your lips once again. You're turned on by how much attention he's giving your body now. You're usually loud in bed but his gestures are making you bashful. You've never felt this beautiful before.

You can feel his hands trembling as it travels all over your body, his kisses getting even more needy. There was moans of satisfaction every time he would lick your lips. Jeno was kissing you like you were oxygen and he needed to breath.

His hands travelled south, running across your thigh and your now aching core. You're about to remove your skirt and underwear but he stopped your hands midway.

"Keep it."

He took your hands away from your skirt and placed them just above your head.

"Just sit there and relax baby. Let me treat you."

You did just like he told you and gave him full control of your body.

"Good girl."

His lips brushed your ears, whispering sweet nothings about how beautiful you are under him. His kisses then went down to your neck, using his tongue and teeth, marking everything he can get his mouth on with his saliva. Meanwhile, his hands finally touched you down there, massaging your still clothed wetness.

His middle and index finger felt your slit, moving it in swift motion in search for your clit.

"Oh my god. That's it."

You gasped as his fingers finally hit the right spot, tossing your head back as his fingers made circles at your bundle or nerves.

You opened your legs more, leaning on your arms on your back, head tossed back and eyes closed as you feel your impending orgasm.

He dipped his hand inside your underwear and collected some of your essence with his fingers. The mental picture of him licking his fingers deliciously is enough to get you off for weeks.

It didn't take long before he took your panties off and his ducked his head down. He opened your legs once again and licked one long stripe on your core, making sure to taste all of you. You sat there and watch as he hungrily takes all of you in his mouth, acting like your pussy is a full course meal and he's been starving for years.

Within moments, you've become a moaning, toe curled mess. You ran your fingers to his blonde hair, guiding him on how to move his tongue and fingers on you. At one point, he bit some of your sensitive skin, making you scream a string of curses under your breath.

"Stop stop stop."

You grab a fistful of his hair and he paused from what he was doing. You pushed him gently away from you, leaving him staring at you confusedly. The confusion didn't last long when you flipped your current position, you're now on top.

"Can I ride your face?"

At this point, you're bold and horny enough to use your words and ask him. He just nodded, sliding himself from underneath you and went back to eating you like a champ. You grabbed his hands and placed them across your chest, squeezing your breasts to send him a message. He was quick to pick up and followed suit, pinching your nipples right in between fingers while your ride his face to orgasm.

"Shit. I'm coming..."

You writhed from above him as you come undone. Your body felt cold all over. Your eyes are ringing, feeling dizzy as you almost passed out while you bucked your hips a few more times to milk your release.

You didn’t have time to recover when you heard your phone ringing from outside. Your legs felt a little shaky and you almost tumbled and hit your head in the wall if Jeno didn’t help you get up. You sat down on the floor, butt-ass naked as you frantically searched for your phone from under all of your stuff before you finally pressed the answer button.

“Yes mom?”

“Where have you been? Your father’s been looking for you at the library. He’s picking you up on your way home.”

You buried your head on the couch to shake off the buzzing feeling on your head. You placed a pillow on your body while you searched for your discarded clothes all over the hotel room.

“Oh yeah. I went to the café and got something to eat. Tell Dad I’ll meet him outside the library.”

“Okay sweetie. Can you pick up some groceries on your way back? I’ll text you the list.”

“Yeah mom. Bye.”

You breathe a sigh of relief as you started putting on the outfit that you wore when you left home.

“Where are you going?”

Jeno reluctantly got dressed as well, his shy demeanor came back as soon as he wore his glasses and fixed his hair.

“I got to go, Jeno. I’m sorry that I’m leaving in such a bad time…”

You went over to him and placed a sweet kiss on his lips.

“I promise to make it up to you next time, okay? I’d love to meet you again.”

You grabbed a paper bag from your backpack and handed it to him, waving as you bolted out the door.

After fixing his things, he sat down for a moment and took a quick peek inside the package that you left him.

It was a ziplock bag of full of cookies and a whole other treat.

You left him your two-piece lace lingerie.

To be continued.

#nct #nct dream #nct u #nct x reader #nct smut #nct jeno #nct hard hours #jeno #jeno scenarios #jeno au #jeno smut #lee jeno #jeno imagines #jeno x reader

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masterhandss · 3 years ago

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ahh it was so cute to see the little end bit after the credits this ep w Acchan! I'm so emotional ab it...and that our sad, withdrawn 'black hearted prince' grew up to be such a happy & loving brother, friend, and fiancé

YES!! AAAA I KNOW RIGHT!!!! IT GOT ME EMOTIONAL TOO!!

Aachan is so cute!! I'm so happy they included it since the manga skipped it and opted for an Geordo Ending end card logo.

The episode in general is so nice, we don't really know the dynamics of the princes much so having it clarified with Geoffrey's POV is such a treat!! I had no doubt that Geordo cared for Geoffrey, but the few mentions of the first prince that we do get through the third prince, he's always just exasperated and tired of him. Geordo always seemed tired of Geoffrey's overbearing and flippant personality in the light novels because it makes him hard to predict and is annoying to him, so I'm just so happy to see such a soft side from the anime!!

He does care!! and it's so nice to see qwq

Seeing Geordo's emotional growth journey through his and Geoffrey's POV is so good, I love constantly being reminded how Katarina's positive influence and a subtle reminder of what could have been without it.

I also like the subtle implication that my friends always headcanon-ed that Geordo wasn't immediately in love with Katarina, he was just interested in her because of her wild behavior, but grew to love her over time because of the many things she's shown him. We already got that message in the first season but it's so nice to see more of it. Meeting Katarina didn't immediately make him energetic and happy again, some of it as a child was probably still him acting like a proper fiance, but watching over her free spirit encourages him to want to be the same qwq

While I'm at it, I wanna take this chance to talk about how I feel about Sophia in this and the previous episode. I think it's the GeoKata bias in me that's speaking, but it's an observation I wanna point out anyways.

I'm not saying Sophia couldn't get upset or angry at the outcome of events because she can and should be since she's in support of Nicol, but she's a lot more aggressive in the anime compared to the manga and novels. Many people have already said that the anime is the more bisexual take on the series and at this episode I can't deny that anymore.

Sophia in the anime is generally much more vocal about her own feelings and isn't just supporting Nicol. Her anger in the anime is definitely a combination of her own personal frustrations as well as her frustrations in Nicol's stead. I'm just surprised at how aggressive Sophia was, even trying to one-up Mary. Technically she did that in the light novels too, and there I had no doubt that her reaction is exactly the same as the anime, but there I read it as being a more subtle frustration, I guess that's just me).

Sophia in the manga was kinda going along with the events, I mean I doubt she wasn't angry at Geordo at all but she looked like she was going with the flow, you know? She was kinda even smiling, embarrassed to see a scene pulled straight out of a novel (heh), like she was amused before she got frustrated.

I know Sophia and Aachan are different people, they just share the same soul, but that lack of aggression on Sophia in the manga made me really feel like in a meta-context, she as Aachan was also happy for Katarina finally winning over the black-hearted prince (the route she tried so hard to finish & failed in the night before she died) as an addition to us seeing/hearing Aachan say that she's happy for her.

Again, I'm not saying that the anime's version is wrong, I'm sure that's how everyone imagined it, that's just how I personally felt about the scene. This is definitely just the GeordoxKatarina shipper within me talking qwq

Thank you for the ask!!

#mh talks #mh ask #hamefura #my next life as a villainess #my next life as a villainess x #hamefura x #hamefura s2 #bakarina #destruction flag otome #sasaki atsuko #atsuko sasaki #sophia ascart #geordo stuart #geoffrey stuart #jeffrey stuart

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dinosaurtsukki · 4 years ago

Text

BSD x university au hc’s | pt. 2

part 2 of the university au hc’s !! i am obviously a slut for chuuya and fyodor so don’t mind me. i hope you guys like this !!

check out pt. 1 here

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

Akutagawa Ryuunosuke:

i love akutagawa ryuunosuke my angst child but i’m just like ‘hmmmmmmm’ when it comes to what his course would probably be

after extensive research aka reading his character page on wiki i feel like maybe he’d be a history major because,,,, he likes antiques?

well his clothes do seem very dark academia-esque and i can see him liking something as cool as history

akutagawa’s probably into something like war history but he’s not weird about it he just finds it really cool how different strategies work or analyzing what exactly makes the winners win

he absolutely HATES the fact that he keeps having to read the Iliad for class

he’s also that classmate who INTENSIVELY DEFENDS achilles for being a bit of a little bitch (but he fully agrees that patroclus and achilles were gay af ok this was random moving on)

akutagawa has practically no social life. he doesn’t go to parties, he doesn’t talk to his roommate, he doesn’t even like to eat in the dining hall

BUT he absolutely loves being in debate team because WINNING

he’s such a nightmare to work with though but he just delivers so well when it’s time for him to speak. like, if he’s on a negative and it’s time to hash out rebuttals, just prepare to get MURDERED

other debaters: “esteemed scholars and adjudicators...”

akutagawa: “you, sir, have no idea how wrong you are.”

that is until dazai decided to randomly show up at a debate tournament all ‘la di da da’ like and completely crushed akutagawa along with his ego

from then on he started stalking dazai and just SOMEHOW managed to end up in his circle of friends

even though he’s antisocial in real life, akutagawa 100% runs a dark academia aesthetic blog on tumblr i’m right and i don’t accept criticism

it’s actually really good he has a ton of followers and even does requests for moodboards if someone asks nicely

atsushi was the one who actually found out about it but he’s nice so he didn’t tell akutagawa about it

kunikida probably follows that blog

Chuuya Nakahara:

if this part sounds like i’m just thirsting for chuuya then you’re absolutely right i love wine man

don’t get mad at me but i can ABSOLUTELY SEE HIM MAJORING IN FASHION DESIGN I MEAN LOOK AT HIM

he’s just always had such a good eye for fashion and he’s veryyy meticulous when it comes to snipping and putting together clothes

chuuya also carries a sketchbook full of designs and his drawings look amazing and he isn’t afraid to just show them off

that said he doesn’t dress like a tired uni student at all, like he just always looks so on-point and unbothered by his five million deadlines

dazai: chuuya, i said this was a CASUAL LUNCH

chuuya, dressed in what looks like silk pajamas: THIS IS CASUAL

tbh if he just wore a white t-shirt and jeans i would die maybe he’s actually saving us from this ordeal

he has so much talent though as a designer he’s probably had several internships with design companies all throughout his years at uni

i feel like chuuya’s also really active in extracurriculars and has been in leadership positions in some of them (he probably runs the student org for fashion design)

chuuya in a student band though oh my gosh i can’t breathe i can’t breathe him as a VOCALIST?? and wearing torn jeans and eyeliner and that same hat in concerts ican’t brEATHE

okay in all honesty he would thrive being in a band chuuya loves the attention and the creativity of being able to design their whole look and write songs

tbh i don’t know if he’d have a roommate chuuya’s probably the type who’d rather have one of those single rooms or just rent a flat for him to stay in even after graduation

because his social life is super vibrant, he does have a lot of friends and he does make an effort to get to know all of them individually

but he’s more open around those who he’s been friends with for a really long time and as much as he’d like to say dazai isn’t one of them, he is

also chuuya is definitely the type to party hard during the weekends and has more than once crashed in someone’s house after drinking too much (dazai drew on his face on more than one occasion)

Oda Sakunosuke:

i love this man SO MUCH you guys have no idea i would literally die for him

100% this guy majors in creative writing because this is supported by FACTS and not just me wanting to be coursemates with him in this fictional world

super serious and diligent with his work especially since he’s passionate about writing. he loves to read in his spare time and is such a fan of classic novels about social realism or philosophy

oda spends 99% of his time in second-hand bookshops that the owner probably knows him by name at this point

he’s super old school when it comes to writing though, like he still keeps and writes in a notebook before typing it up on a laptop and no matter how many times dazai tells him its impractical, oda just keeps doing it

lmao whenever workshops come around he’s super nice with his critique. i bet a lot of his fellow classmates like sending their writing drafts to him

he draws smiley faces and always adds ‘nice work’ on people’s drafts omg i love odasaku

he’s such an old soul, he probably doesn’t do a whole lot of partying but he likes more quiet, private social events like drinking with close friends or just hanging out and talking at other people’s houses

he and dazai probably met when dazai decided to take an intro to creative writing class and wrote a long poem about double suicide on his first day that kind of put off everyone in the class from wanting to sit with him

odasaku was the only one who wasn’t exactly bothered but he did give dazai some comments to help him with his poetry and dazai instantly wanted to be his friend

in terms of extracurricular life, i can definitely see odasaku joining a writing organization and even the campus newspaper. he does find joy in interviewing students for newspaper articles

he’s also pretty into photography and uses a really old, second-hand camera that he bought at an antique store and fixed himself. at one point he won a prize in a contest

odasaku would be the best roommate. he’s super sensitive to when you have a bad day and will invite you to sit on his bed and hug his pillow and talk about your problems

scratch that, everyone talks to odasaku about their problems and now your room is like a therapist’s office

Edgar Allan Poe:

i swear this was the only gif i could find other than actual edgar allan poe

ANOTHER CREATIVE WRITING BUDDY AHHH I WOULD LOVE TO BE BESTIES WITH HIM AHHH

well actually i feel like since he’s super ambitious and already has a fixed idea on the stuff he likes to write, he’d probably double major in something like forensic science because he’d use it to write his mystery novels

omg that’s where he meets ranpo and now pretty much every main character poe writes is slightly based on on ranpo

it’s a problem. his professor brings it up more than once during his classes but it’s poe’s Thing now

he also has such an unending passion for gothic literature and he wears those white, long-sleeved blouses and waistcoats on a REGULAR BASIS

chuuya probably saw him once and was like ‘hmm, i could pull that off’

poe’s daily route is just going to the library and to class and then go home and that’s about it

he ended up working as a student assistant at the library because he’s just super familiar with the book collections and it’s a job that’s peaceful and quiet

more than once though, he’d just be really in-deep with his writing to the point that he doesn’t even notice that the library has closed or that he hasn’t eaten the entire day

that’s alright though because ranpo always passes by the library at night to check on his friend and (reluctantly) give him some snacks

also since poe’s pretty much a recluse, he doesn’t go to any social event UNLESS it’s a halloween-themed one

he loves going all out with his costumes because he’s a Drama Queen like that but the problem is he keeps dressing up as gothic novel characters and nobody gets it

dazai, trying to guess his costume: umm,, Two-Face from Batman?

poe: IT’S DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

there was this one time when poe took it upon himself to host the halloween party and it was EPIC

he basically designed it as a murder mystery night wherein everyone who came pretended to be guests at a house and then a murder happened

the only problem was that ranpo was conspiring with poe and it was pretty much unfair

except for the fact that ranpo was frustrated at how bad everyone was at deducing that he ended up solving the mystery for them

Fyodor Dostoevsky:

one of my favorite scenes of him in s3 was of fyodor playing the cello because god damn that is beautiful and therefore i am hc-ing him as a music major and you can’t tell me otherwise

fyodor is an absolute music genius and he was definitely scouted by the university’s music program and then he was granted a scholarship (because in this ideal university, the arts are valued)

he purposely decided to go to a university rather than a music conservatory because he’s also interested in learning a bunch of other things

aside from his music classes, he ventures into comparative literature and philosophy, even a bit of computer science at some point

people always assume that since he’s a music major he probably wouldn’t do well in other subjects but SURPRISE BITCH

anyway, fyodor’s a genius because god clearly has favorites

aside from attending class, he’s even part of an official orchestra and has even landed a few solos

that said, he’s quite busy and very preoccupied in his own work to actually have a social life either

you’ll often find him rehearsing by himself in an empty classroom for hours and hours on end (someone pls bring him food he’s also the type to forget to eat or even drink water)

if you are able to catch him perform at an orchestra or just practice by himself, it’s quite a mesmerizing sight. his eyes are often closed so he could focus on the sound alone and his fingers move so elegantly along the neck of the cello

(sorry i just love people who play any form of stringed instrument)

fyodor also takes such good care of his cello. also he would probably kill you on the spot if you touched his bow

he has a fairly small group of friends and they like playing chess together (even though fyodor is better than all of them) and just talk about um,, idk philosophy and stuff (whatever it is smart people do idk i’m not one of them)

i have a feeling he actually follows akutagawa’s dark academia blog and loves his content, even to the point of requesting ‘cello player moodboards’

also because he’s a cello player he needs to take care of his fingers so he wears gloves a lot (idk why i find this hot)

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

taglist (check out my post for details on being part of my taglist): @waitforitillwritemywayout @tpwkatsumu @laure-chan

#bungou stray dogs #bsd #bsd writing #bsd headcanons #bungou stray dogs writing #bungou stray dogs headcanons #akutagawa ryuunosuke #chuuya nakahara #oda sakunosuke #edgar allan poe #fyodor dostoevsky #bungou stray dogs university au #bsd uni au #bungou stray dogs scenarios #bsd scenarios

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xiyao-feels · 4 years ago

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new tu and xiyao fan from earlier. i searched ao3 as per your suggestion and there's only 500 or so fics for them. :( however, i do have a legit question - what are the differences between mdzs and tu (i've never read the latter). and if you want expand on nieyao (or xiyao) please feel free! i love reading meta! one of the few reasons i miss old school fandom spaces lol. thank you!! :D

Hmmm, I see about eight hundred if I limit to English? But I take your point! But that was just as a way to start; once you do find an author you like, you can look at their bookmarks, for example. (Also I'm not sure if you're familiar with the AO3, but if not, sorting by kudos when doing a general search is a way to get stuff that at least lots of people thought was good. I'm not saying it's perfect, but when you're starting in a fandom it can be better than the default by-date-updated.)

Also I'll take the opportunity to plug my absolute favourite xiyao author, roquen. I didn't mention them last time because they haven't I believe written a post-canon fixit, and you should know that they're mostly sticking to MDZS instead of CQL canon, although with some sprinkling of CQL elements and characterization. Some particular favourites of mine include their AtLA AU and their Sunshot/on the run fics (both series with a couple of short fics), their what you might call a mid-temple hopeful fix-it (divergence where LWJ strikes to kill and LXC takes the blow), the baby LXC fic ("Lan Xichen reverts to being a fifteen-year-old junior, and immediately gets an epic crush on Lianfang-zun"; disclaimer that I was fairly involved with the creation of this one but it's GREAT) and, of course, above all, their gigantic canon fix-it verse, it's worth it every time. It's SO GOOD and the characterization is fantastic and the prose is excellent and UGH. It's so good!!!!! Disclaimer that the second fic in the series, which is the main work, is still WIP, but roquen updates regularly and there are only a couple of chapters left; if you're still wary of WIPs, I'd at least recommend the first fic, which stands alone and is brilliant in its own right.

As to the differences between MDZS and CQL…ho boy. There are quite a few, both major and minor, and I'm by no means familar with all of them—especially the ones that don't involve 3zun, lol. I tried to google around but unfortunately the ones I found tended to be either short or, if more in-depth, contain inaccuracies about JGY/LXC—I think people tend to be more interested in the Wangxian, and then this stuff goes by the wayside. The wiki can be a good source for differences for specific incidents, and although I think it's not always accurate it /does/ usually cite chapter or episode, which can be pretty helpful.

This, by hualiann, looks like a good overview, though I'd add that JYL, WQ and WN didn't study at Cloud Recesses in the novel and that more generally MDZS has a lot of actual undead.

In general my advice is to take things people say about the novel with a large grain of salt, myself included. And about CQL, too! I have no idea if this is you but when I joined the fandom, if people asserted stuff about CQL I tended to just kind of take it as fact—oh, I thought, I must have misremembered! My memory is pretty terrible, and honestly there was absolutely stuff I did misremember. But also sometimes other people misremember, or fanon gets taken as canon, and then there's stuff like—I mean, I'm certainly not going to blame people for not realizing that "JGY conspired with XY at the Unclean Realm" is a lot more uncertain than you might guess at first, especially if they're more Wangxian focused which most people in the fandom are, but I'm still not going to present it as straight-up fact. (veliseraptor has a recent post examining this here which I would very much recommend).

Honestly I think I'd recommend reading the MDZS NMJ Empathy flashback—chapters 48, 49, and the beginning of 50. That gets you a lot of the JGY, LXC and NMJ backstory, and then you can compare for yourself! I'm also going to recommend Mercy's thread, here, listing common fanons about MDZS (I will add to the list, since it's a bugbear of mine, the idea that LXC recognized NMJ's fierce corpse by his abs).

Okay with all that out of the way, and in no particular order, Sun's extremely idiosyncratic and particularly- aka mostly JGY-focused differences list:

-In MDZS, LXC doesn't become Sect Leader until the burning of Cloud Recesses by the Wen, when his father is injured and then succumbs to his wounds. In CQL, he's Sect Leader from the beginning of the show, his father having apparently died not too long before the show started.

-In MDZS, MY wasn't working for the Nie at all before the beginning of Sunshot; he joined the Nie forces just after Sunshot began. NMJ didn't instantly promote him to be his deputy when he's telling at the Nie men for bad-mouthing him; it takes a few more encounters and/or battles with the Wen (after which MY clears the battlefield and helps the commoners).

-In MDZS, xiyao's first meeting happens when LXC is on the run with the Lan books after the burning of Cloud Recesses. We don't see it happen on the page, and we don't know any details of that time beyond, like, MY helped LXC.

-NMJ willingly sends MY away from the Nie, with a letter of recommendation for JGS, after, uh, an extended overhearing of a conversation between MY and LXC wherein MY's desire to be recognized by his father and gain a proper place in the Jin, the opportunity offered for that by JGS recruiting talent at Langya, and the possible difficulty of obtaining permission from NMJ are all established.

-NMJ sees MY stabbing a /Jin/ captain, at Langya, after he goes looking for MY. Rather than taking a blow for NMJ, MY stabs himself, faking suicide, then immobilizes NMJ (who's trying to save his life) and flees. This is because NMJ wants MY to go turn himself in for killing the captain; MY thinks they'll kill him, while NMJ says that if the captain has actually been mistreating MY as MY said, MY won't be killed. Personally I think that all the evidence suggests that MY is right, and NMJ is blind to the effects of his position to the extent it's a not insignificant moral failure.

-Okay, so, you know how in CQL MY stabs WRH while he's distracted with WWX, outside on the steps with the Sunshot alliance right outside? In /MDZS/, they're in the Sun Palace, WWX isn't anywhere near the place, he does it to save NMJ's life, and then he starts lugging NMJ's unconscious body out of the palace. And then NMJ comes to consciousness amd demands his sabre and tries to kill him. He likely only survives because of NMJ's wounds, and if LXC hadn't shown up (responding to a message MY sent for aid for NMJ) NMJ might easily have killed him. If you want a more in-depth analysis, I take a close look here in my response to someone's, er, imaginative interpretation of NMJ and JGY's relationship in MDZS.

-In CQL, NMJ's qi deviation happens at the stairs incident. In MDZS, it happens later, when he overhears JGY being upset to LXC about how NMJ treated him at the stairs, and, overcome with rage that JGY would dare (arguably in combination with being polite and pleasant to NMJ's face, although the last time he was confrontational to NMJ's face NMJ kicked him down the stairs and tried to kill him so), he kicks open the door and tries to kill him. He also kills several people as he's qi deviating (seeing them as JGY—while in CQL he also sees several JGYs they seem to be just illusions), and injures NHS.

-In MDZS, NMJ sets fire to all of NHS' nice things. I don't think we're told either way in CQL, although it's worth noting that in MDZS this happens after the stairs (and before JGY starts playing for him again). (I think they do something in FJ?? But I don't take FJ as canon for CQL; see confusion-and-more's post here).

-In CQL, JGY suggests to NMJ that he's always played the corrupted Clarity for him (though granted this is in Empathy, so it's hard to say for sure if this is what he actually said, but in any case it's the only version we're given). In MDZS, it's strongly indicated that JGY only started playing Turmoil for NMJ /after/ the stairs—there's a variety of evidence, but I think the most objective is that WWX, who in MDZS Empathy can literally feel NMJ's anger, actually observes it working beforehand:

Since [JGY started playing for NMJ], Jin GuangYao would travel from Lanling to Qinghe every few days, playing Sound of Lucidity to help quell Nie MingJue rage. He tried his hardest, without speaking even a single word of complaint. Sound of Lucidity was indeed effective. Wei WuXian could clearly feel that the hostile energy within Nie MingJue was being suppressed.

(Exiled Rebels translation, ch. 49)

And then the next scene is the stairs incident, so.

-In general, the degree to which JGY's position is completely awful is played down in CQL. confusion-and-more talks about it a bit here; I'd also note that some of JGY's dialogue defending himself is removed ( “Some trivial achievements?” He spoke in a shaking voice, “…What do you mean, some trivial achievements? ChiFeng-Zun, do you know how much work I put into such trivial achievements? How much I suffered? Glory? Without the handful of glory I have nothing!”, for example), we don't hear about his mother at the guqin scene, the temple flashback where his mother is dragged naked outside by a client and he's kicked down the brothel stairs is eliminated, etc etc.

-There is absolutely no second flutist in MDZS; also JGY tells us in the temple that QS was already pregnant before he found out about the incest. I think even in CQL it's questionable whether he actually intended to kill Zixuan (see this whole conversation), and significant unveiling or no CQL never actually says QS wasn't pregnant before their marriage so I tend to go with that too, but certainly it's easy to walk away with the impression that he definitely did both deliberately, especially if you aren't familiar with the novel.

-(In general, I think CQL JGY is a lot more sympathetic than most people think once you look closely, but he's also very much set up to look upon a more casual watching as Villain, so.)

-In CQL it's All A-Yao All The Time but in MDZS we see LXC calling him san-di after the sworn brotherhood, and then it's back to A-Yao in the present day (see my last addition on this chain here).

-In MDZS, JGY doesn't shove JL out of the way of the incoming attack.

-The LXC lifting JGY out of his bow thing is from CQL

-The watchtowers! Oh /man/ the watchtowers. God the watchtowers are so much. Uh, confusion-and-more has a post about how much they're mentioned in MDZS vs CQL here, and see my last addition to this thread for an argument that the watchtowers were indeed a force for good. God. Twelve hundred watchtowers. He must have saved so many lives...

-confusion-and-more's watchtower post also reminds me that CQL has the Guanyin temple giving out medicine, while MDZS does not

-The episode 23 scene where Sect Leaders Jin, Nie, and Lan agree to spare some of the Wen doesn't exist in MDZS (though I'll take the opportunity to observe that I disagree with popular interpretations of that scene, see point three here).

-In MDZS NMJ's fierce corpse is literally trying to kill JGY, there's no saber spirit. And like, it's been trying to kill JGY for a long damn time, that's why JGY dismembered him.

-The XY plotline—in MDZS, JGY recommends a young XY (who at thay point has a reputation but is not known to have committed any massacres) as a Jin cultivator, as part of an effort by JGS to recreate the Yin Tiger Seal. JGS has multiple people trying, but most of them aren't getting anywhere and XY is getting furthest. It's during this time that XY kills the Chang clan, and is discovered as guilty by XXC, who brings up the evidence at a conference happening in Lanling; the Jin are stalling, MMJ gets angry and shows up, he almost kills XY on the spot and gives JGS a lecture such that he's forced to relent and sentence XY to death (and incidentally scares JGY, imho quite seriously, while he's at it). Then JGS turns it into life imprisonment once NMJ has left, and then NMJ is extremely angry and attacks JGY at the stairs. (Ch. 30 and 118)

-I mentioned before but I'll add it here too: in CQL JGY asks LXC to stay and die with him, and LXC agrees.

-The CQL ending in general is...hmmm. Despite having most of the elements which complicate MDZS' ending (JL is in a terrible position!), it kind of presents as...happy ending all is fixed now? In MDZS I think it's presented as—more complicated, even though Wangxian do very much get their happy ending.

-Also LWJ is a lot less. uh. Okay, so in CQL he's more Mr Morality, and in MDZS it's much more Wei Ying Right Or Wrong. Also, he doesn't become Chief Cultivator in MDZS! I think that's my least favourite change, because it's like...LWJ hates politics, hates compromise, and never attends the cultivation conferences. At least one of 'this is going to be a major diisaster' and 'LWJ is going to have to go through some significant shifts in his worldview and approach' are going to have to happen, but that's not the vibe CQL gives off at all, and I think it really works against some of the major themes of the text :/

-OH RIGHT I knew I was forgetting something—in MDZS MXY's revenge is focused solely on the Mo; JGY is not part of the curse.

Okay I don't want to go too much on about xiyao or nieyao, because this is already quite long and I don't want you to be waiting forever, but broadly although I certainly think NMJ cares about JGY a great deal it seems to be about his competence and potential; he doesn't really seem to, like, actually like who he is as a person. JGY, meanwhile, is at first very grateful to and then increasingly exasperated by and very much fucking terrified of NMJ, but...well, he doesn't seem to be into him or interested in spending time with him for the sake of it or etc etc.

On the other hand—xiyao. Man, xiyao!!!! They just—they get each other so fast, they're /partners/, they work together so well, they like and they respect each other, they're both like—LXC and MS are on their own tier for JGY, LWJ and JGY are on their own tier for LXC, they're for each other in a way neither is for anyone else, they care a lot about the same things—it's not perfect overlap, obviously, but it's more overlap I think than either has with anyone else, they—invest, they're builders, JGY was planning the watchtowers project from way back and although I have no doubt he was driving it LXC was with him and!!!! ugh!!!!! xiyao are REALLY GREAT, okay.

#the best of men #more than one tag could contain #a gentle warmth filling the deepest of needs #anger burned in his heart #long meta #sort of #we can't change places #j #mostly jgy-focused discussion of differences between mdzs and cql under the cut

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seiin-translations · 4 years ago

Text

2.43 S1 Chapter 1.4 - Young Yunichika

4. MISCONDUCT

Translation Notes

1. Bon refers to a young man from a well-to-do family

2. These are lyrics from the opening theme for the famous volleyball anime, Attack No.1

3. I know nothing about Attack No.1 so I have no idea what this is referring to. The original line is “ヒロイン訛ってるって”. If you know anything about this, let me know

4. The kanji for Meisei is 銘誠. 銘 from 座右の銘 (means favorite motto) and 誠 is pronounced makoto by itself

5. Meisei-chuu as in Meisei Middle School

Previous || Index || Next

Haijima Kimichika was an idiot. No, his grades overall weren’t that bad. He was slightly above middling for his third semester finals. However, Kuroba was dumbfounded when he saw the breakdown of that “slightly above middling.”

In regards to math and social studies, he was well above the average, and in fact, he was at the top of the class in his grade. Math, ninety-five. Social studies, ninety-nine—that was the first time he ever saw ninety-nine on an exam paper. He was taken aback by the brilliance of the two 9’s next to each other.

But, things didn’t look good from there. Science, seventy-three. English, sixty. His marks around here were so normal that it made you wonder what his high marks in math and social studies were. Apparently, his strong areas were unusually inclined towards calculation and memorization.

Japanese,

Thirty points.

…They really were unusually inclined.

“Ooh, there’s a whole row of x’s here. What a nice view.”

It was a question about close reading a novel. The answers to “What are the emotional states of the characters”-type questions were continuously absurd, and the way the x’s were written was becoming increasingly desperate, as if to represent his Japanese teacher’s emotional state.

“For the question ‘Please answer in eighty words or less why you think the king forgives Melos,’ you answered, ‘Melos was naked the cow,’. I can see the signs of suffering from trying to write a little more, but not being able to write a sentence and getting frustrated. …Cow?”

“Shut up. You’re always joking about people’s exam answers.”

“Ow ow ow!”

Kuroba groaned as he fell prostrate on the exam papers spread out between his legs with a weight pressed tightly against his back. The other club members laughed at the two stretching as a pair.

“You shouldn’t laugh at other people, Yuni. You got forty-two in math and fifty-five in social studies.”

“Hey, don’t read it aloud. This is an invasion of privacy.”

“Japanese…oh? Eighty-seven. Not bad.”

“For real?”

His back lightened with Haijima’s upset-sounding voice. He lifted his body with a self-satisfied look that said “Fufufu. Japanese is the only thing this guy’s good at,” but Haijima, who snatched and returned Kuroba’s Japanese exam paper, once again pressed down on his back tightly with his entire upper body while staring at his answers with a slightly displeased look on his face. Kuroba grumbled “Ow ow ow” while facing the floor in an open-legged forward bending position.

“Why did you answer the cow question like this? I don’t get it at all.”

“First, let go of the cow…I think the first issue is that no cows appear in the story. I’m getting worried about whether or not you can get into high school.”

He briefly wondered if one could get into school through a volleyball recommendation, but even if one could, it didn’t matter because there was no chance of their weak club reaching the point where they could get noticed in a big tournament. If Haijima was in his previous middle school, recommendations might come, however—he hadn’t asked Haijima himself, but there was no doubt that he had been in a fairly strong volleyball club with a decent coach. He had no idea what a full-scale stretching regimen was until he started practicing with Haijima. Next, Kuroba laid on his back as Haijima took his legs and thoroughly stretched them.

I thought that since Haijima would have nothing left if you took volleyball away from him, it would be his greatest desire to go to a strong volleyball school, but…

Haijima Kimichika was a volleyball fanatic.

The ban on club activities, which had been suspended a week before finals, had been lifted, and they held a practice day at once. With people turning up once they knew it was active, the boys’ volleyball team, which used to be as good as non-existent, had more or less taken on the appearance of club activities recently. With just barely six people, they still haven’t been in a match yet.

It was when they stood up and stretched their backs after finishing their brief stretching session.

“Kuroba, how tall are you now?”

Haijima said while looking up at his hair whorl.

“Hmm? Didn’t I say I was one-seventy-three?”

“When did you measure that?”

“Um…in fall, I think…November?”

He tamped down his hair whorl, but his bed hair bobbed back up. He felt depressed when he wondered if he had been exposing this hair to people all day since morning.

There was a scale on the door frame of the gym equipment room that could be used to measure height, and was used to compare heights for fun during club activities and gym class. It was probably the work of students from decades ago. It was the culmination of very precise work, with each millimeter being carved out from one-fifty to one-eighty centimeters with a utility knife.

“One-seventy-five-point-zero.”

Putting an empty powdered drink box to the top of Kuroba’s head, Haijima read the scale out loud.

“Ooh, I grew two centimeters?”

“My turn.”

They exchanged places and now it was Haijima with his back to the scale.

“Don’t raise your heels. Um, one-seventy-two-point…seven.”

“Ah. I grew too.”

But, Haijima didn’t seem too happy about it. With a sullen face, he left the scale and grumbled “Two centimeters off.”

“Two-point-three centimeters off. Don’t round it down. You’re a setter, so you don’t have to be so worried about your height, right?”

“I have a favorite player. It’s Abe, who was selected for the national team. He’s a setter, but he’s one-ninety-one. Even for setters, the bigger you are, the better you block and the faster you set. And, Abe’s ambidextrous, and he has a good left dump.”

“Huh? That reminds me, do you also…”

Haijima served with his left hand. But which hand did he hit with outside of those times...he didn’t have a clear impression. He felt like he recalled him hitting with his left and with his right.

“Use both hands?”

“I do,” He said carelessly, but was that something so easy to do? “There’s still an eighteen-centimeter difference, huh… But Abe can’t hit jump serves, so once my height catches up, I’ll be better.”

When it came to the subject of volleyball, Haijima became more talkative than usual. The way he spoke was basically like cutting short the front part of the context and throwing away the back end, but he came to be able to speak fairly long lines in a polite manner. He must love it a lot, he thought in half amazement and half admiration.

“I’m not sure if you have way too much confidence in yourself or is just an idiot…but I never thought you’d compare yourself to a member of the national team.”

He forced a smile, and got glared at with resentful eyes. He got scared, wondering if he said something that made him angry. He still wasn’t very good at knowing what set Haijima off.

“Kuroba, at the practice game, you see blocks and differentiate between hitting the ball cross and straight, right?”

“Cross-court and straight…oh, straight is where you hit the ball right down the middle, and cross is where you twist a little and hit it outside.”

“It’s the other way around, dumbass.”

He had answered with hand gestures while tilting his head to the side in confusion, but was completely denied with an insult.

“A cross is a spike that passes through the court at an angle. A straight is a spike that goes straight and parallel to the sidelines. When you’re hitting on the front row, you tend to step towards the center in front of the net a lot, so if you hit it straight on, it becomes a cross, and if you hit it with the intention to twist it outside, it will be straight.”

“So complicated…”

“It’s not that complicated, but…oh well. I’ll teach you step by step.”

He thought “Teach me?” every time, but why was he naturally acting like he was above him?

“Even if you don’t understand it with your head, you have good eyes, so you can deal with blocks. Being able to naturally rotate your trunk midair, the length of your time in the air, the suppleness of your shoulders…those are qualities you’ve probably always had. You will get good. It’ll be in no time if you do it properly. You’ll be taller, too.”

“…? Do you have a fever?”

He stared at Haijima’s face suspiciously and got a suspicious look in return.

“What. Did I say something weird?”

“No, it’s just that you’re always so self-important, so I thought you were someone who wouldn’t praise or acknowledge people in that way.”

“If there’s something to acknowledge, then of course I’m gonna acknowledge it. But, there’s no way to acknowledge what’s not there.”

Haijima stated, pouting and seeming truly upset.

Haijima never flattered. He wasn’t humble. He couldn’t hold himself back. Indeed, he might be sincere and straightforward in a sense. …But, he thought it was probably a tough way to live. Most people didn’t want to be told the truth right to their faces.

“You will get good.”

Afterwards, slowly but steadily, a ticklish feeling welled up in the depths of his body. It was uncool to take someone at their word, so he purposely looked indifferent and said,

“I have a talent for volleyball, huh. It won’t make me all that popular though.”

He feigned ignorance and talked big. Unlike Haijima, he felt like he had been drifting through life frivolously, with a bunch of façades lined up in front of him, obscuring reality.

***

The days have become longer, and the chill had subsided considerably. It was now often possible to sneak peeks at patches of blue in the sky which had been covered by depressing snow-laden clouds in midwinter. The sun had completely set when he nearly ran over Haijima in front of that karaoke box in February, but by mid-March, there was still some faint light left in the sky at that same time of day. A rusty copper sunset fringed the ridgelines of Mount Nokude in the distance.

Since their houses were in the same direction, he ended up going home with Haijima on days they had club activities. Their enamel bags, slung over their shoulders, rattled, and they tread on the rugged road in their snow boots. Although the snow on the road melted during the day and was close to becoming sherbet, it had begun to freeze again in the shape of punched-through car ruts and footprints. During the snowfall season from December to March, elementary and middle school students were prohibited from cycling to school, so it took forty minutes to get there on foot. There was no doubt that they would starve before they reached home, so the two stuffed their cheeks with sweet bread as they walked. Incidentally, he stuffed himself with two pieces of bread before club and of course he was going to eat dinner when he got home. At any rate, he was hungry. And at any rate, he was sleepy.

Until one or two months ago, he would have wanted to skip over middle school and become a high school student as soon as possible, but come to think of it, he had stopped thinking about that recently. He had no time to think about superfluous things because after he finished club activities, went home, ate, and took a bath, he immediately went to bed. He fell asleep feeling like he was sinking into the floor with his futon, and then when he woke up, it was next morning.

Finals were over, and now it was time to neglect everything and go into spring break. And whether he left it alone or made a fuss, once the break ended, he would become a third-year. The word examinee still didn’t really strike home for him.

“Haijima, what are you gonna do for high school? Are you taking it here?”

He finally broached the subject that actually wanted to ask him about during club, but hesitated over.

“Well, I was thinking of taking it here, but…”

He got stuck on how Haijima trailed off at the end of his sentence, which was unusual for him.

“But? Is there a condition or something?”

He once again asked Haijima’s profile, which was bulged out with the bread he stuffed in his mouth. He wasn’t wearing his glasses right now. Haijima always followed the procedure of putting in contact lenses and taping his hands before club started. If he taped first, he wouldn’t be able to handle his contacts. When club activities were finished, he followed that procedure in reverse, but there were days when he went home as he was, perhaps because he couldn’t be bothered. From the point of view of Kuroba, whose vision had never fell below 20/20 and whose fingernails and bones seemed healthy and strong, he had a difficult constitution.

“More importantly, new first-years will come in April.”

“Hmm? Oh yeah. Skilled guys would get picked up by the other clubs, so it’s better not to get your hopes up, but maybe we can get one or two people.” More importantly? He had a feeling he was changing the subject, but the timing to repeat the question escaped him.

“If we get more members, I wanna go to a tournament. I don’t know the tournament schedule here, but there should be a prefectural tournament before the summer inter-school.”

“Tournament, huh. But even if we can be in it, I don’t think we can win at our level…”

“It’s no fun if you don’t play a game. I wanna be in a match. I’m gonna train you all to be presentable enough by summer. I’ll take care of the rest.” Once again, he said that he was gonna train us without hesitation. Is he treating us like performing monkeys or something?

Ah, there it was. The sparkle in his eyes like that of a dinosaur-loving elementary schooler. Though he was just being arrogant and saying something self-centered, when he had that look in his eyes, he couldn’t help but feel that it was as though it was being secretly switched with something of pure purpose. Kuroba realized that he couldn’t oppose those eyes at all.

“Ooookay, got it. We need an advisor to be in a tournament or it’s no good, right? Let’s ask tomorrow.”

When he said that with a sigh, a crude voice called out to them from the side of the road.

“Hey, isn’t that the head house’s bon walking there?” (1)

It came from in front of the signboard of the aforementioned “Karaoke Box Monshiro”. Was this the only place to hang out? Well, it probably was. There were three men. Two 125cc motorbikes and one moped. Each of them was sitting astride their seats and hanging their butts on their tandem grips, smoking cigarettes as they tucked their chins inside their collars of their jackets, looking cold. They had the appearances of what countryside delinquents should be.

“Oh, Yori-chan!”

Kuroba called out to him with a smile, but Yorimichi only took a glance at his appearance and looked away.

The other two were Yorimichi’s senpais, both from the neighborhood. When someone other than his relatives called him the “head house’s bon”, it was probably filled with ridicule, but since he was used to it, he didn’t react to it every single time, and Kuroba greeted them in a friendly manner as well.

“’Sup. It’s been a while. I didn’t know you guys are back.”

“It’s spring break in uni too. Bon, how much you got today?”

“Oh…I only have some coins. I’ve been doing club activities lately so there’s a lot of times when I’d be leaving my bag alone.”

“’Club activities’?”

The two repeated it with a rising inflection that contained laughter.

“Oh, is that what Yorimichi was talking about?”

Smirking, they eyed Kuroba from the top of his head to his feet. He uncomfortably let his gaze escape to Haijima, who was waiting next to him. When he looked at Haijima, he could see his own appearance like he was looking into a mirror, or rather, he was just copying Haijima, but—he was wearing a knee-length padded coat over his jersey with his rectangular enamel sports bag slung over his shoulder, and he really did look like he was coming back from a sports club. In regards to the padded coat, Kuroba saw Haijima’s and also bought one recently.

“You do receives or something, how did that go again? We didn’t do it in gym in high school, so I completely forgot.”

The two had mean smiles on their faces, pointing their chins. Either the smoke of their cigarettes or the whiteness of their breath from the cold made their stubbled mouths misty.

“Um, it’s like this, I guess…?”

Kuroba had no choice but to drop his hips on the spot and did the posture for an underhand pass, and the two cackled and applauded.

“Wow, looking pretty good, aren’t you? I know, it’s that thing, Attack No.1, right?”

“That old manga? It’s that ‘I won’t cry, I’m just a girl’ thing, right?” (2)

“The heroine spoke in dialect. Gyahahaha!” (3)

“Haha…”

When Kuroba forced a smile while feeling his face turning hot, his bag was suddenly pulled on. The strap was biting into the pit of his stomach. “Gueh,” he groaned as he turned around.

“Haijima?”

“You’re just getting looked down on. We’re not playing around. Don’t keep them company.”

Like he was pulling on the leash of a not particularly disciplined dog, Haijima primly started walking while gripping the strap. “Okay, okay, don’t pull me. It’s dan…” Right when he twisted his body around and rushed to follow him,

“You’re hanging out with us, right, Yuni?”

Yorimichi called out to his back.

Haijima turned around, not even trying to hide his annoyance. Kuroba also followed his gaze while feeling lost. Turning away and smoking his cigarette, Yorimichi snorted sarcastically.

“Don’t tell me you’re getting’ influenced by Fighting Spirit Chika-chan, are ya? You’re the one who’s gonna be embarrassed later.”

“Hey…oh, hey Yori-chan, are you mad at me? Sorry for not hanging out with you lately. We’ll do stuff together during spring break.”

“Kuroba, we’re practicing during spring break too.”

Haijima’s dissatisfied sounding voice pierced the back of his ear. “We can’t practice everyday, right?” When he turned around with a half-smile, his face seemed to say, As a matter of fact, of course we are. “If we’re going to the summer tournament, we’ll still never make it in time even with that.” “Are you serious…” He was of course ready to have fun and relax during spring break, so when he was told to be prepared to completely spend that time on club activities… I underestimated this guy’s volleyball obsession.

“Yuuuuni. You understand, right? It’s no good for you. It’d be less embarrassing if you stop playing around. I ain’t patient either, so I can’t wait too long for you.”

“Hey, even Yori-chan’s being mean? You’re not serious, right?”

He looked at Yorimichi again with a twitching smile. “Oh, you’re pretty popular, Bon. If you pick one, you have to cut off the other. This is a real mess.” The two university students irresponsibly jeered and aggravated the situation.

“You, you get it, right? I have the same blood in my veins as you, so we get fired up and cooled off easily. I’ll probably get bored halfway, right?”

He ended up prioritizing putting Yorimichi in a good mood with a joking tone. A cold sweat ran down the nape of his neck as he felt Haijima’s burning gaze scorching it.

He knew that he was playing it safe. He was still afraid now that Yorimichi would throw him away. He wanted to secure the warm place he could always return to if things got tough. Don’t put me together with you, he grumbled in his mind. Haijima, who didn’t have an ounce of doubt about himself doing volleyball, probably wouldn’t understand, but for us until just now, guys who went hardcore for club activities were just something to be watched from a distance and gawked at.

Yorimichi bared his teeth and grinned.

“Haha, that’s right. You’re the same as me.”

Relieved, Kuroba also slackened his cheeks.

And, the heat wave of Haijima’s gaze that was burning the back of his neck also abruptly disappeared. The strap was released to send him flying.

“Then quit now.”

Haijima said it bluntly in a cold voice, a complete reversal from the heat of earlier.

“Hey, no need to go that far…”

“I don’t want to the tournament to get messed up.”

“Messed up…”

He immediately guessed that he was talking about scandals that would result in a suspension. Kuroba himself didn’t smoke or drink, but he overlooked Yorimichi doing it. It wasn’t illegal to ride double on a bike, but having only one helmet was probably not allowed. It wasn’t a good look to sneak into karaoke bars either. He didn’t really care about it until now, but it was somewhat understandable that school sports were sensitive to those kinds of issues.

Haijima’s concern was reasonable, and perhaps this was where he should be sorry. But on the contrary, antagonism reared its head. So, from the beginning, he wasn’t worried about whether or not Kuroba would continue to do volleyball or not, but about that?

“You showed your true colors, eh!”

Yorimichi’s loud voice suddenly rang out. Haijima glared suspiciously at him and Kuroba was also confused. Peeling his lips back in a vicious grin that made him draw back a little, Yorimichi continued to speak in a theatrical way.

“The infamous ‘Genius Setter’ of Meisei Middle School only thinks about satisfying his own desires, right?”

“Yori-chan? What are you talking about?”

“You were the one who wanted to know, Yuni. You asked why he came back here. That’s why I investigated.”

Haijima’s sharp gaze immediately moved to Kuroba. He did voice his doubts, but he thought the conversation ended there, so to think that Yorimichi would investigate it…

“Oops, you’re barking up the wrong tree if you’re blaming Yuni. It’s that ‘you reap what you sow’ kind of thing, right?”

Yorimichi came down from his bike and stepped on his cigarette to put it out. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his down jacket and approached him with bowlegs and swinging shoulders, looking particularly vulgar. “Move, Yuni,” he said, pushing Kuroba aside and standing before Haijima.

“I could have easily gotten the name of your school from your grandpa through mine. Well, I used Itoko though, since I’ve been given up on by Gramps. So when I quickly searched the net…oh look, there’s slander of the ‘Genius Setter’ who reigned over Meisei Middle until last year. The net sure is terrifyin’. Everything’s on there. Well, I guess it means you’re not liked very much.”

The more Yorimichi talked, the stiffer Haijima’s expression became. The color disappeared from Haijima’s face that seemed to embody the world’s arrogance and fearlessness, and his gaze dropped downwards. The shadow of Yorimichi, who was a size bigger in height and width, hung over the head of Haijima, who was looking down and biting his lower lip. “Oi oi, look at the poor guy, Yorimichi. Don’t bully middle schoolers. You’ll make him cry.” The two university students saying insincere things were completely taking the role of spectators.

“Yuni.”

“Huh? Y-yeah.”

Kuroba reflexively responded, unable to catch up with the conversation very well. Yorimichi’s face changed from that of someone tormenting a dying animal, and when he turned around, he was no longer smiling. It was an extremely serious expression.

“I don’t have anything against Chika, but I don’t really care. I think it’s petty to talk about other people behind their backs online. It’s all for you. Don’t get too absorbed in it. After all there was apparently someone who attempted suicide because of this guy——”

An instant later, Haijima barked something that couldn’t be expressed in words and grabbed Yorimichi. “Oh?” Although Yorimichi staggered a little, their physiques and amount of fight experiences were different. He grabbed Haijima’s face and thrust it aside, just like he was grabbing a ball—a dodgeball instead of a volleyball—with one hand and throwing it violently. Haijima was lightly blown off two or three meters away, the side of his face crashing into the muddy snow-covered road.

Because it was the first time he heard Haijima’s enraged voice, Kuroba was temporarily distracted by that. He hurriedly broke into Yorimichi’s path.

“Yo-Yori-chan, stop! Violence is no good!”

“He was the one who charged at me. Ah, it’d be no good for a sports boy to be violent, right? Didn’t you say that yourself? I’m being kind by ending it with just knocking him down.”

Yorimichi threw mocking jeers at Haijima over Kuroba’s shoulder. Kuroba turned around and ran up to Haijima, who was crouching and holding his hand to his face. “Oi, you’re alive…” he knelt down and was about to touch his shoulder, but what Yorimichi said flashed across his mind and he stopped his hand.

…Attempted suicide…?

“Let’s go back. My ass is frozen.”

Urging the two university students, Yorimichi returned to his bike.

“Yuni, get over here.”

Summoned, Kuroba looked up at the chin of Yorimichi, who was sitting astride his bike, but hesitated and returned his gaze to Haijima. His earlobe, which was poking out from the gaps between his hair, were terrifyingly white. No way, is he actually dead? He thought, but he saw a fist clenching the snow underneath his face pressed against the ground. Mud soaked into his white taping and stained it brown.

He couldn’t leave him here and go home.

“Even if you say go home, you won’t let me ride double anyways. I’ll send him home, okay?”

“Well, whatever.”

Yorimichi backed down easily with just a shrug of his shoulders. The sneering had already disappeared and he returned to his normal self.

“Don’t forget. Wash your hands of him as soon as possible. From his reaction, it doesn’t seem like those are groundless rumors. Be careful on your way home. I’m talking about the snowy roads and your teammate next to you.”

Perhaps Yorimichi also felt that he went a bit too far. He awkwardly turned his face away, made his engine roar its usual crude and vulgar sounds, and departed on the Komashi-gou.

***

“Mei from zayuu no mei and makoto, Meisei. (4) It’s called Meisei Private Academy Middle School. It’s a middle and high school in one, and their sports clubs are pretty strong. Apparently the distribution map of famous private schools is common knowledge among Kanto kids. You can’t really experience it here, can you? There aren’t enough schools to choose from. Hey, everyone’s gonna hang out in the city after the end-of term ceremony, so do you wanna come with us? I wonder if Haijima would come if we invited him. You guys have been getting along well lately.”

“Um, oh, yeah. If that’s all I can ask then I’m good for now. Thanks.”

He hung up first because it seemed like the conversation would never end if he left it alone.

Itoko said “Everyone”, so the group probably included girls. To tell the truth, he was really jealous of this merry spring break-like event. Normally he wouldn’t be able to refuse. But, it was only today that he couldn’t get into the mood at all. He was willing to bet that Haijima would never come either.

He put the phone handset next to the desk and turned towards the computer again. Since he had an agreement to not own a cell phone until high school, the only place he could access the Internet at home was the laptop in his dad’s study. When he tried to convert Meisei-chuu (5), he realized he didn’t know the kanji for it, and since Yorimichi said he learned it by way of Itoko, he called to ask her directly. Based on the current feeling, Yorimichi had really only gotten the school name, and it seemed he didn’t tell Itoko more than that. He felt relieved about that.

A school with a strong athletic department. If this school was that famous, then it might not be strange for there to be a rumor or two to float around the Internet. After all, there was even a message board titled “[Monshiro Town] Old Man Kuroba [Yokai]”—Yorimichi thought it was hilarious and told him about it, but Kuroba never searched for it because he was scared of learning the contents.

“Tokyo meisei academy middle school boys volleyball club attempted suicide”

He entered the search words, and just when he was about to click the search button, his finger stopped. He couldn’t easily press the key. Of course he was unbearably curious. But, he was afraid to find out the contents for that more than Grandpa’s message board.

“Yuni? Where are you?”

His mother’s voice came from somewhere on the other side of the sliding screen door. He twisted himself around on the tatami chair and raised his voice.

“In here! The study!”

“Why are you there? Aren’t you going to take a bath?”

“Okay!”

After thinking about it a little bit, he ended up pressing the backspace key to delete everything he typed in. Once he did so, he completely gave up, closed the computer and stood up.

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#2.43: Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu #2.43 book 1 #2.43 translation

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starryocean · 4 years ago

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I completely forgot to do this a few days ago, but I actually finished reading So I’m a Spider LN vol 11. Thoughts below. No spoilers in comments, please.

So, it’s actually kind of funny, because this was the exact sort of content I needed out of the later volumes. I’ve been kicking around an AU idea in my head for a week or so now, and I actually needed exactly what the novel gives--a sort of expansion/overview of the sorts of things Julius did up until his adulthood and the Demon War. It also helps to very nicely connect the past and the present together, so that you can go back and read Shun’s perspective again and kind of have all this nice context for certain things now.

So, yeah, I liked that a lot. Funny how the thing that most of the Amazon reviews seem to hate about this entry is actually what I loved about it. I also liked some of the bits that showed that Shun very obviously was not a normal child right from the start, and people could tell. Like, telling Sue Japanese legends and myths, claiming he saw it all in his dreams, being very emotionally mature...that was some good detail work.

It also affirmed my headcanon that Hyrince and Julius knew each other from a young age. I actually don’t remember if it was stated before or not, but I do think I remember something about Hyrince being nobility. Maybe in the web novel? Because I did read part of the web novel before I got into the LN, and I remember being surprised at how much changed...

There was one big thing that I didn’t like, though. Namely, the Youth chapter. Including a tentacle rape monster that canonically targets young women over men got a really big eye roll and “seriously?” from me, especially since Okina Baba has been good about subverting expectations, as I’ve said multiple times before. So having that sort of thing show up was a pretty huge let down.

Then, the conversation that I know most people on tumblr are going to hate as soon as they read.

Like, I kind of agree with the concept in principle: teenagers need to be able to know they’re not wrong to have sexual desire, and they need to be able to express it healthily and safely without fear of being prejudiced or shamed or preyed upon or what-have-you. But the execution of this sort of conversation in the text was...bad. It relied on a lot of anime tropes and cliches that ultimately dragged down the central theme. That, and the whole “I’mma keep it real with you Shinzo Abe the 57th Prime Minister of Japan, this will not improve Japan’s declining birth rate” aspect.

I did like that the adults in the room were trying to be supportive of these idiot teenagers, but what with the way it was written, it fell flat and came across as borderline inappropriate.

Another thing I didn’t like is again tied to the sexuality thing: namely, Julius talking about the size his female friend’s chests. I get it, he’s a teenager at this point. And yeah, that’s a common trope in anime, I get it. But it’s very very tiring to come from a conversation that completely mishandled its subject and then go into an already unfunny/dumb trope on that same subject. And I’m tired of seeing it in anime in general. I honestly thought Spider was above that. I guess not.

It did somehow segue into getting Sanatoria more characterization than just “Boobah Lady” though. I really liked the way the author handled Sanatoria’s reactions and her trauma about seeing someone literally eaten in front of her--it felt very real. Of course the sounds of chewing could be a potential trigger for her, after witnessing something like that. Ariel really is playing up her cruelty, here, but I think I understand why. A kind leader would not be able to get away with forcing the demons into war again, after they’re suffering so much. She would be overthrown, or at least there would be way more attempts to try that would drain on their species even more.

But a feared leader can prevent more overthrow attempts from happening, since Ariel’s style makes it clear that the war is happening, one way or another. This causes more people to give up while they’re ahead, such as Ricep earlier and Sanatoria here. And considering her strength, she’s able to back up her threats, making examples of the ones who don’t fit her plan.

Note, I’m not advocating for this kind of leadership. It’s a terrible way to rule, and it’s presented as a terrible thing in the text. But I understand why she chose this route, and I have to wonder just how much damage will be done to the demon race by the end of it. I hope their people make it out okay, and I really hope the story doesn’t play into it’s genocide themes that it has going on with both them and the elves. I really, really hope that the elves don’t get genocided, just because Potimas is leading them.

Because, again, what about the elves that don’t know the depth of what’s going on? Do they deserve to die? They may have helped, but they assume they’re doing the right thing, and can’t be shamed for wanting to help save the world. That’s not a bad thing to want, even if you get misled on what needs to be done to do it. It’s not their fault. Potimas is a bad guy, yeah, but his whole species can’t be blamed for his crimes.

anyway, looking forwards to the next volume, maybe we’ll finally figure out what happened after Shun passed out upon maxing Taboo.

#phoenix says boring stuff #so im a spider so what #so im a spider spoilers #so im a spider so what spoilers #kumoko #kumoko spoilers #kumo desu ga nani ka spoilers #kumo desu ga nani ka #kumo desu ga #kumo desu ga spoilers #reading tag

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kannra21 · 4 years ago

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Hi I just wanted to say that I have been following the fkbu fandom since the very beginning and you and user innovativestruggles were literally the only 2 ppl who shipped daisuzu when the anime was released and I want to thank you both for giving daisuzu content and never giving up on this ship even though there are so many toxic daiharu fans. I feel you two are a big reason why a lot of ppl started shipping daisuzu or feel more comfy shipping them so thank you!! 😊

Aww thank YOU for sticking around although a big part of the fandom discouraged it and some still do! 💗

It's true, me, @innovativestruggles and @narcopharmacist were there from the begging and I can remember it clearly how desperate we were from the lack of content to enjoy since FKBU staff mainly posted Daisuke and Haru merch among all the other things. 😂😂

Since we had nothing to work with I dedicated myself to drawing and creating HCs, innovativestruggles too and I remember her pointing out some amazing theories which started to make sense to me and concluded that DaiSuzu might still have a chance despite many claiming that they looked too similar to be in this sort of relationship. We played detectives of sorts and tried to find all kinds of evidence from the op video which we did and I was glad. innovativestruggles is a real intellectual who cares ab details so I never doubted her way of thinking. Btw she's the one who told me ab the novel and its possible endings. I'm still hyped ab the novel.

Later I met narcopharmacist who's the most informed from the 3 of us. She knows everything and anything and she's always telling me ab the stuff ppl are often posting on other platforms and social media, things I'd never know if she hadn't told me herself. We're still chatting in DMs and she's such a wonderful and optimistic person. So smart and has a great eye for details. I love both of them.

Like, we were literally fangirling by ourselves but now I noticed that others are slowly joining us as well! People who were too insecure to ship it bc of their worry if others would judge them for shipping incest IF it rly turns out that Daisuke and Suzue are truly related *which we still don't know yet and the clues are currently pointing at their distant relation which is acceptable considering that royal families do these kids of things to keep the money in the house*. I need to admit, I had my doubts as well and there were times when I thought to myself "what if all the content you were creating till now just falls apart, imagine the embarrassment", but then I said "it's just fiction and the most important thing is to enjoy yourself". So I went ahead without worrying too much and it was actually worth it. We got ep 4 and 8 which proved how Daisuke and Suzue care ab each other and now we only have 3 episodes to go.

There were also many daiharu shippers sending us uncomfortable and mean messages but we either deleted them or answered them in the most polite and level-headed manner. Because of our politeness, optimism and understanding, people felt safe and that's why some fans decided to join us. It's nice to have a safe space where everyone's opinion is welcomed, appreciated and where no one will worry ab expressing themselves. Daiharu hatred won't suppress daisuzu positivity!

#fugou keiji balance unlimited #fkbu #millionaire detective #daisuke kambe #suzue kambe #daisuzu

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altimys · 4 years ago

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Zero Escape Thoughts

I just finished playing all the Zero Escape games over the course of the past three weeks. Some thoughts.

Overall, I really liked the series. Most of the characters are well-written and dynamic, the plots entangled and unpredictable, and the ties to science, psychology, and sci-fi quite well done. I’d been dying to play these games since high school when I first heard about 999, and I’m very glad to be able to finally accomplish that goal. Spoilers ahead, of course.

999

999 is by far the best one in the series, maybe because it was planned as a single game and the series wasn’t anticipated. I’m a fan of the visual novel style, and the puzzles in here took advantage of math and cryptology, which was really cool. Junpei was an excellent protagonist, because he had the right balance of naivete, heroism, and wit to pull through the story. The banter with all the other characters made him feel a lot less shounen protag and more like a real person, someone who could say a lot of silly stuff at odd times, or slyly try to make Akane say perverted things. The other characters were also quite charismatic!

When the reason for the Nonary games was revealed, the impact was unforgettable. Unintentionally dragged into a plot to reach across time to save the one you loved. Like fated lovers, though it felt more than a simple romance because of how everything was entangled, and the fact that Junpei was not exactly saving adult Akane but the Akane that was a child. The true end was really great, with Aoi and Akane on the run (felt like noble outlaws), but the hope that Junpei could and would catch up with them.

Virtue’s Last Reward

I admit, initially I was not impressed with VLR, because the mechanic of the AB game and the overly mascot-like Zero III felt like some contrived death game rather than a masterfully crafted plot like 999. As the game progressed however, the mystery of the bombs, Radical-6, and the killer on the loose really got me engaged, wondering what the heck was really going on.

Sigma was also a pretty fun protagonist to play as, with his clueless nature and his sometimes perverted lines (ahaha). I felt like his relationships with the other characters were much more developed (as compared to Junpei), and his banter with Phi was more fun and relaxed as compared to Junpei and Akane in 999.

They really latched onto the multiverse theory with the jumping and everything, giving it more of a mechanic than 999, which was okay, but it kind of makes the “fate” of 999 lose a bit of its impact. Otherwise, the jumping mechanic was really cool, and did reasonably frame the reason the Nonary game here was started in the first place. However, the weakest plot points here were that somehow Hongou was said to have done the original Nonary game as a Free the Soul experiment, which was a weak excuse for a connection to the first game (no mention of FtS whatsoever then) and Akane being so cold as to never contact Junpei in that history and help conceive a game that *had* to kill people before it achieved its goal. Also, who is ? in the last scenario, and where did K go? It felt like it was implied to be the player, but the question is never answered.

The game introduced Luna, and I really came to like her a lot. I felt extremely hurt every time I had to betray her. I cherished her ending with Sigma, and did kind of ship them a little (LOL). Little did I know...

Zero Time Dilemma

The tone of this actually was more of a contrived death game than VLR, because it was implied that there was no chance at all nine characters surviving whatsoever, unlike 999 or VLR. Luckily, they got rid of the mascot and just went with a sinister Zero. The deaths were much more gruesome than the previous two games and definitely showed more blood. Shock value?

The fragmented timeline both adds and subtracts from the overall experience. It helped me as the player experience firsthand the disorienting gaps in time and memory that the characters were going through. However, the lack of a chronological timeline, or at least following different timelines in a more organized or linear fashion made decisions lose their impact. Every event felt transient.

Junpei and Akane were written far too out of character from what I would imagine them being like one year after the events of 999. Within one year, would it be possible for Junpei to be that jaded and edgy? Would he not try to revert to parts of his old self and at least be neutral, if not nice? Akane also had some serious yandere bits, which were bizarre because I didn’t think someone who is so focused on saving humanity would be that unhinged, especially if it was the death of someone she steeled her heart from interacting with. I would have expected her to show frustrated disappointment or even disdain, not straight up crazy murder time.

The new characters were difficult to get to like. You could like Carlos through his friendly banter with C-Team, and Diana because you could tell she was kind and synergized with Sigma and Phi, but Sean, Eric, and Mira were difficult to like, because no rapport was really built between the three of them at all. Almost all the Q-Team interactions were wrought with tension and misunderstanding. I also felt like Mira was supposed to play the role of The Killer (like Ace or Dio), but since the teams were so separate and memory so limited, it was incredibly difficult to rouse the same kind of suspicion and fear, so she just because a lackluster pretty killer. Not really much of a satisfying redemption arc for her in her post-game files either.

D-Team was simply my favorite, probably because Sigma and Phi were still true to their VLR personalities, and as mentioned before, the whole team synergized very well. The two bombs that were dropped in this team were the parts that make this game redeemable for me. The first reveal, that Diana was the one Luna was based off of, made me drop my jaw, but it also did not prepare me for the second reveal, which was the entire Sigma/Diana/Phi/Delta thing. Suddenly, everything made odd sense, even though it was kind of fucked up. No wonder the D-Team chemistry was there. Even now, I’m still kind of shocked at how unbelievable it is...

Well, the true ending was okay, but it felt largely unsatisfying, since Zero was portrayed to be some kind of anti-hero/anti-villain, but really it came across as just a big asshole who didn’t really care about justifying the means. Even with the “we will save the world because of this” mentality that was induced in the participants, it really felt like a letdown that we wouldn’t be able to serve justice for all the horrible things that happened to the characters, nor actually see the foiling of the future terrorist’s plan. Really felt like a cop-out. Other post-game complaints are (1) where the fuck is my post-game D-team files and (2) where is ? and K???

I do think ZTD is the weakest by far, but the writing that surrounded team D was emotional and well done, and is my favorite part. Without that, I don’t know if I would really have liked everything else that happened in ZTD.

Erhhh well, thanks for reading, I guess! Despite its faults (like overexplaining concepts like jesus shut up sometimes), I do like this series a lot!

#personal

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kaypeace21 · 4 years ago

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DID theory part 3: St novels/comics/spotify list analyses

*read part 2 of DID theory-first! You’ll be lost otherwise, seriously XD. First, I’ll say -I find the ST comics/ books as canon as the st movie inspirations . I don’t consider the books/comics ‘literal canon’ (cause they contradict the show ( like Max and billy meeting a year before s2 in runaway max - but meeting as little kids in s3, or El’s age being wrong in suspicious minds, in the d&D comic Will’s friends instead of him /Jonathan building castle byers, etc) .

So I think we shouldn’t take it literally - but more like the st movie lists - filled with foreshadowing/symbolism and other eastereggs (That the Duffers may have told them to add). So here’s some more (possible) alter / DID hints...

‘Suspicious minds’ novel

- Brenner equates k*lling rabbits to h*rting kids. And he’ll hurt (kid) Kali (the bunny in the analogy) if Terry tries running away from him . I wonder if Lonnie used a similar threat against jonathan? Jon could be giving only a partial truth to why he cried for a week (about the bunny story)?

-Kali “hops” like a bunny then talks about tigers obsessively (linking her to rabbits/tigers similar to the other alters/Will/Lonnie). Terry also imagines tigers and kali says to Alice they can all be tigers together.

- one of the only male psychic experiments (who can see the future) is gay

- Terry is into lord of the rings, like Will. Has her and her boyfriend dress as sam & frodo (m/m ship). Terry calls her and her friends “the fellowship”.

-when Terry/Alice were injected with d**gs -they hallucinated rainbows.yikes.

- Alice (like Lonnie) is a car mechanic. She can see the future like Will the wise and says “monsters of course my mind has them as long as they stayed in there, everything would be alright? Wouldn’t it?” (in her visions she saw the demogorgan).

(completed) graphic ST novels (by Jody Hozer) so far (+ other st comics).

*Jody Hozer writes all the graphic novels (every novel is 4 chapters each) - the will byers comic, number 6 comic , into the fire comic, and at the moment she’s writing the d&d series and the summer camp series (which isn’t done yet). Then there’s the occasional 1 chapter st comics not written by her.

- Number 6 has (the ability to foresee the future like Will the wise/Alice) and has an ab*sive dad.

When having a nightmare of the demogorgan ...she says as she wakes up “screw you dad” (another hint the demogrgan -aka in d&d means ‘deep father’ ...is Lonnie).

- when number 6 and others run they say they’re’ “rabbiting”(which yes technically makes sense but I found such an uncommon phrase odd.)

- The (summer camp and d&d graphic novels aren’t completed yet) but they establish d&d creatures are based off real life people the boys don’t like in real life. Or that d&d is used as an outlet to explain true events from their pasts -but they just give the true stories a d&d fantasy slant.

- Which brings me to the halloween oneshot(not by Hozer),taking place before s1. Will tells a scary story told to him by Jonathan, and originally told to him by Lonnie. Says the boys have to keep it a secret cause it was something he was never supposed to tell to anyone. Mike says he has to finish the story he started. It’s about a “ch*lld-eater” monster first attacking a boy near the quarry (like where Will was found) and attacking kids in a library (where Will was also found in s1).When the child sees the sheriff she bangs on the library door begging for help-he ignores her , walks away, and tells the other cops to never speak of what they saw as she screams for help. Because the previous sheriff was in kahoots with the monster. It def had some ... uh questionable imagery too 0_0

The vine in the mouth is also like the one in Will’s mouth (when Joyce found him in the library).And of course Dustin asks whether or not something like that could be covered up.

- In the “bully comic” (about troy) also not by Jody. We focus on Troy and his ab*sive dad (who encourages him to fight/ditch his best friend). The dad has a drinking problem (gets fired), calls Troy a “mess” , pushes him, and constantly encourages Troy to be vi*lent/macho. He pretty much tries sabotaging the relationship Troy has with his friend (which I could see Lonnie doing in the future with byler).The dad/troy is framed similarly to when Billy gives Max a ride home- after both ab*sers give bad advice saying not to hang out with their friend (after witnessing them fight in the school parking lot). Dad also laughs about almost k*lling a squirrel (a trait we see troy mimic)- and we see El feel guilty about k*lling a squirrel in s2. At the end of the comic- Troy (like Will) after making up with his bff james- moves leaving his best friend behind.

- (into the fire) Twins: (one was normal with no powers living in the real world and the twin with fire powers is trapped in a dark sunless “cold” world styled like a psych facility/medieval fantasy) . pics in link.She hated her reflection cause it reminded her of being betrayed by her normal non powered twin who left her behind in the ‘cold’ place. She’d call herself a ‘hunter’ who would defend herself and attack others to never be hurt again. Her powers being unleashed were described like opening “a door.” And she loves her twin deep down and just wants friends . And fire twin goes to the “other side” to reunite with her reflection and find happiness in the real world. *also there’s sunflower/bunny symbols which she lights on fire-which can relate back to Will/Terry/Lonnie etc. The twins = Will & Will the wise (mf)

Mirrors also connect to Will and Will the wise via the canon spotify playlists too.

Will playlist (song: mirror in the bathroom)-Mirror in the bathroom Please talk free.The door is locked -Just you and me.Mirror in the bathroom recompense for all my crimes of self defense.Cures you whisper make no sense!Drift gently into Mental illness.

Demogorgan playlist ( from perspective of Will the wise aka the mf) (song: are you dead yet? )-”polluted soul through a mirror I behold.Throw a punch, shards bleed on the floor. tearing me apart. but I don't care anymore.Should I regret or ask myself are you dead yet?Wake up, don't cry. Regenerate to deny the truth. The fiction you live in blindfolds your eyes. Disclosure, self loathing, this time you've gone too far.Or could it be, my nemesis, that you are me?

(*st ‘into the fire’ comic. the fire powered twin’s thoughts echo the song)

*I think this foreshadows the later plot points of mf (will the wise ) and Will interacting via mirrors. The fire-wielding twin and the non powered twin had a lot of mirror imagery. Including the fire powered twin (Who denies reality/and imagines herself in a fantasy world) punching her reflection because it reminds her of her non-powered twin. Here’s some cover art from the novels showing how much they emphasize mirrors.

*And in s4 movies Black swan - “the black and white swan twins (two halves of the same person-Nina)” had creepy mirror imagery. In long kiss goodnight the women with DID talks to her “ (supposed)dark 1/2″ via a mirror (in a dream). in ‘the visit’ the teen girl who’s dad abandoned her when young- refuses to look in the mirror (and it’s never explained why she hates her reflection). So yes I think we’ll see this in s4 or 5. We already see the mf take on the appearance of Billy when talking to him.

- Will in “zombie boy” comic is afraid he’s a monster.

also lets appreciate the lil byler moment of Mike and Will being the only zombies and mike comforting him. honestly , though, the characters were pretty out of character for most of this 1 ch comic (until the end) tbh.

- in the “d&d comic” mf is (possibly) described as a “protector” (aka like how i said the mf is probably a perpetrator alter- which are misguided protectors).

*update now that it’s finished... hinting Will created everything subconsciously.

‘Runaway Max’ novel (before s3)

(I didn’t get time to read this book unlike ‘suspicious minds’ -so can’t show screen shots of everything others talked about. May read it eventually)

-Max compares Billy to ‘her monster’ and a ‘shadow’ that will attack anyone that comes close (mf parallel).

- Dart k*lled a cat, El’s papa tried to force her to k*ll a cat. And Billy when seeing a d*ad cat lights it on fire for a “viking funeral”. A connection to WW (who has fire powers) and El & dart.

-Max and Billy both are into cars and bond over fixing them (similar to Lonnie’s interest in fixing up cars). And since Lonnie tried to brag to Jonathan about fixing a car up and Will is into tech it wouldn’t be a stretch that Lonnie and Will were into fixing cars together (like Max/billy who would hang out at a autoshop in Cali) . Similar to Will ,max says hanging with Billy wasn’t always so bad- which made things more confusing to her.

- Max compares Billy being beat up by Neil: to ‘punching a pocket of a baseball glove’. This is interesting since this book was pre-s3 which was when they established the connection of billy and his dad to baseball (similar to s1 saying Lonnie taught Will baseball).

-Billy’s friend is a nice ‘music snob’ . He tries distracting Max with music while Billy is burning the cat. Which reminds me of Jonathan trying to distract Will from their parents fighting in the next room-with music

- Max’s bio dad is a criminal who takes her to shady bars, and Max fears he’d ‘get bored of her’. Max also ran away from her mom to her dad’s 2x.Which reminds me of Jonathan thinking Will ran to Lonnie’s in s1.

-Max mentions how Billy misses his friends after moving out of Cali. And he starts acting even worse-after the move. Which will probably be the case for Will (at least a bit) when moving to California.

-Billy tells Max Neil isn’t his ‘real dad’ either because Neil can’t be a father to anyone.

-Billy also tells Max who (at the time ) is 12 years old not to act “easy” and breaks her best friend’s (Nate’s) arm over someone joking he was Max’s boyfriend and also cause Nate tried to get in between Billy bullying Max. Eventually all her Cali friends ditch her cause they’re afraid of Billy.And Ugh- why could I see Lonnie doing something like this in the future with Will/his new friends.

- Creepily Max says Billy doesn’t fool around with her like other girls not because of her age or being family. But cause she wasn’t ‘attractive’. This whole excerpt gave me the heeby jeebies,on so many levels, honestly. Almost like he’s jealous- and controlling her cause he doesn’t want Max to have any love interests. Maybe i’m just missing the context? But ugh... excerpt:

Will byers secret Files

-Hopper gets scared by a pumpkin-scarecrow. And in Will’s canon journal when talking about the mindflayer and his nightmares draws the same scare-crow , Hopper saw. There’s also a lot of s4-5 foreshadowing in the book... but that’s a post for another day.

Darkness on the edge of town (Hopper novel)

*didn’t get time to read this (except the preview)

I think it’s more foreshadowing for future seasons though- cult/supposed ritual k*llings, people being wrongly blamed for those crimes-like the hellfire club , most likely. (similar to the guy number 3 in the number 6 comic) saint john in the novel also has the same brain control powers as 3- similar to the mf. .” When a blackout plunges the boroughs into chaos, Hopper must escape the the mobs in the streets to make sure his family is safe and stop Saint John from fulfilling his prophecy.” I already talked about here- how the next few seasons would start having more religious symbolism/a future apocalypse (based on what we’ve seen in the show/s4 movies). Although, i think there’s quite a few differences between (the novel’s) saint john and Will the wise. Hopper is also a star wars nerd like the boys (alter hint)

Canon spotify songs (posted after s2/before s3) hinting at DID/ alter /lonnie stuff-

Will and Will the wise (aka the mf) being an alter

*Used Will and the demogorgan playlist (which i think has perspectives of Will the wise aka the mf, demogorgan, and Lonnie).

Besides the mirror songs previously mentioned...

Will (cold inside)-Doctor the problem's in my chest.My heart feels cold as ice but it's anybody's guess?Doctor can you help me cause I don't feel right?Better make it fast before I change my mind. Doctor can you help me cause I don't feel right?Better make it fast before I change my mindWell it's cold, cold, cold, cold inside. Darker in the day than the dead of night Cold, cold, cold, cold inside...Counselor give me some advice Tell me how hard will I fall if I live a double life?

El (ghost)-your ghost, the ghost of you.It keeps me awake.My friends had you figured out.Yeah they saw what's inside of you. You tried hiding another you.But your evil was coming through... living in the shade Your cold heart makes my spirit shake.

El (monster Lead me home)-I don't know what, what I was afraid of, I was afraid oooof...Monster take me somewhere...We walk in shadow.Monster lead me home.Where there is no place to hide.Stranger on the other side We walk in shadow.Monster lead me home.

The’ innerworld’/ other hints Max, El, Hopper, and Billy are alters of Will’s

Max (Logical song)-I know it sounds absurd. Please tell me who I am, who I am, who I am, who I am?

EL(Buzzcut season)-I remember when your head caught flame It kissed your scalp and caressed your brain ...nothing's wrong when nothing's true. I live in a hologram with you Where all the things that we do for fun . Play along (make-believe it's hyper real) But I live in a hologram with you.

Billy (broken bones)-Broken bones.Stay alone. If I see only what I believe -reality's bound by what I conceive

Max (Why can’t i touch it)-Well, it seems so real.I can see it.And it seems so real-I can feel it.And it seems so real-I can taste it.And it seems so real-I can hear it.So why can't I touch it?

Hopper (breakers)-Just to keep me from losing my mind .It's so easy to drown in the dream.Oh, and everything is not what it seems This life is but a dream.Shatter illusions that hold your spirit down ...From the inside, so it seems.Oh, I'm telling you it's all a dream It's all a dream It's all a dream It's all a dream It's all a It's all a dream.”

Max (comfortably numb)-When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye.I turned to look but it was gone.I cannot put my finger on it now.The child is grown.The dream is gone.I have become comfortably numb.

Max (Kids aren’t alright)-Still it's hard Hard to see Fragile lives, shattered dreams...What the hell is going on? The cruelest dream, reality.

El(team)-Livin' in ruins of a palace within my dreams. And you know we're on each other's team

Hopper (denial twist) ( just change ‘she’ to ‘he’)-Just because she makes you feel wrong she don't mean to be mean or hurt you on purpose, boy!Take a tip and do yourself a little service...by playing a different role Ya, by playing a different role, oh.The boat ya you know she's rockin' it.And the truth well ya know there's no stoppin' it.So what, somebody left you in a rut and wants to be the one who's in control.But the feeling that you're under can really make you wonder.How the hell she can be so cold?So now you're mad, denying the truth.And it's getting in the wisdom in the back of your tooth

El (the story)-You see the smile that's on my mouth.It's hiding the words that don't come out.And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed.They don't know my head is a mess.No they don't know who I really am.And they don't know what I've been through

El (hero) ( pretty much alludes to El being a construct of Will’s mind similar to his juju zombies in the d&d story he wrote )-Who knows what you'll find when you look inside (billy’s mind)?Haunted beach (billy flashback), roll the dice.The zombies in the corner aren't amused (d&d ref).Play the part of the blushing bride...Out of view, cloaked by night...My spirit dims, but I feel the force"No longer in my hands," (loses powers) .I say to you .I could've been a hero, I could've been a zero.Could've been all these thingsI could've been nothing, I could've had something.Could've been all these things.And if I am unable, tell him that I'll try but underneath the table will spin the wheel and hope for gold. Oh, and where it stops, nobody knows.

Max (it’s real)-I don't know who's behind the wheel.Sometimes I feel like I don't know The deal.But when I tell you how I feel-Believe me when I say It's real.I skated on a frozen Sea.It's real as far as I Can see?

Max (Halloween)-Because your role is planned for you there's nothing you can do.

El (White rabbit... alice and wonderland/lonnie ref)-And if you go chasing rabbits, and you know you're going to fall...When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead.

demogrogan(Dimensions of horror)-Gaze upon the ancient face you dread (lonnie)... Passing through the doors, into Dimensions Of Horror. Haunting visions from the past, rise once more.Realms of darkness, terror, death and gore.Scream in fear, your sanity is lost

demogorgan (SCHORCHED)-Terrorizing madness. Vivid dreams. internal. Hallucinating the unknown. Abstract entities prey.Through superhuman abilities.Fragments of memory erased.

demogrogan (Calling from a dream)-the shadow king...seven spirits (7 ref) Swarming around his head.Close your eyes.Listen to my call. Our bond will bring us together again.I will wait for you. For our hearts still beat as one.Listen to my calling from a dream. (integration?)

Maybe a coincidence or a hint at Will having both male &female alters?Billy (dude looks like a lady)- What a funky lady...Oh, he was a lady.Dude looks like a lady. Hopper (turn the page)-All the same old cliches,"Is that a woman or a man?" Max ( rebel rebel) (this was on her her pre s3 spotify list + post s3 “wrapped list”)- you got your mother in a whirl, doesn’t know if you’re a boy or girl?

SHIT DAD/ AB*SIVE FAMILY

*trigger w*rning ahead for dark themes like s**ual ab*se

demogorgan (my children)My children I never loved them.Why feel that way when their existence is my business?My children...feral vessals of my selfinterest...So don't lean on me man 'Cause I ain't got nothing to give.Don't lean on me man 'Cause I ain't got nothing to give.My children they're right behind you My children they're gonna beat you.My children if you let them Oh, oh, my children.

demogorgan (black dahlia-window): I’m not quoting the lyrics you can just look it up. it’s messed up.Based on the 1st person pov of Gilles de Rais -k**ler and p*d*rest who also kidnapped a cleric.

Will (creature comfort)-Some boys hate themselves.Spend their lives resenting their fathers... hate their bodies .Stand in the mirror (another mirror ref) and wait for the feedback.Some boys get too much, too much love, too much touch.

Jonathan’s Playlist- We’re happy family: “Eating refried beans (poverty). Gulpin’ down Thorazines (pills for a mood disorder). We ain’t got no friends (s2 ref). Our troubles never end. Daddy likes men. Daddy’s telling LIES.”

Jonathan’s playlist-Enter sandman: “Don’t forget my son. Sleep with one eye open. Gripping your pillow tight, Exit light, Enter night. Take my hand, we’re off to never-never land. Something’s wrong, shut the light, heavy thoughts tonight. Dreams of LIARS and of things that will bite, yeah. Hush little baby don’t say a word, and never mind that noise you heard. It’s just the beasts under your bed, in your closet in your head.”

Jonathan (The killing moon-guy sings this)-So soon you'll take me up in your arms. Too late to beg you or cancel it. Against your will!He will wait until you give yourself to him...In starlit nights I saw you.So cruelly you kissed me... unwillingly mine.

jonathan (haunted)-You and I both know that the house is haunted And you and I both know that the ghost is me. You used to catch me in your bed-sheets just a-rattling your chains.Well back then , it didn't seem so strange...In the midnight hour..I was busy trying to charm that snake. When the sun came up we had no place to hide...You and I both know that the house is haunted yeah you and I both know that the ghost is YOU! You used to walk around screaming, all slamming all 'dem doors Well I'm all grown up now and I don't scare easy no more But you and I both know.

Hopper (Confession)-Now I'm on the low Confession, to a virgin ghost Admission, force you know.

hopper (Tomorrow ) Yeah, and back when s*x and amph*tamines were the staples of our childhood physique.

Max (Last caress)-I got something to say.I k**led your baby today.And it doesn't matter much to me.As long as it's de*d.Well I got something to say.I r*ped your mother today.And it doesn't matter much to me.As long as she spread. (Lonnie pov? Neil?messed up song to be on Max’s list)

hopper House of the rising sun- And my father was a gamblin' man Way down in New Orleans... And the only time he's satisfied Is when he's on a drunk

Max Poor relations-An attitude, no patience, he's paper thin.Talking over everything you have to say...Don't correct the things he said, what's the use?Can't handle violence.Can't handle violence.Learning to love the abuse you can't live without.Your familiar oppression, your daily injustice...That loser man that belongs to you, he's ruling you.

el (sweet dreams are made of this)- Some of them want to use you ...Some of them want to ab*se you.Sweet dreams are made of this...Hold your head up.Keep your head up, movin' on.

Max (Alternative ulster)-They say they're a part of you.And that's not true, you know.They say they've got control of you.And that's a lie, you know.They say you will never Be free, free, free

max In bloom-”Sometimes at night I let it get to me.And last night it had me down and feeling NUMB...And thinking back upon those days Way way back when I was young.I was such a little shit.Cos I was always on the run.Well you know just what they say-Just like father then like son.Don't delude me with your sympathy.Cos I can do this on my own.And this will be the last time-That I break down and wanna crawl to bed. “(since Billy has a playlist I found this song choice being on hers instead of his interesting- in fact almost all of Max’s songs are from the 1st person perspective of a boy unlike the other gals.)

Max (comfortably numb)-The child is grown.The dream is gone.I have become comfortably NUMB.

hopper (numb)-Honey, here I go again Down that crooked road of sin.My momma locked me out again And hung me high to rust under the rain I am NUMB( 8x)....Little bluebird at my window Sing a pretty song for me Don't you know that you can fly, fly, fly away Don't you know that you can leave I am numb.

other psych songs

Hopper (life of sin)-Every morning when I rise I look in the mirror (another mirror ref) and despise the sight of everything and all that I've become. The level of my medicating some might find intimidating But that's alright cause' it don't bother me none.

Max (Moon over marin)- “Dive in my scalding wooden tub (connects to mf/el)...There, wasn't that a nice visit?Don't forget, a psychiatrist is on duty twenty-four hours a day in the blue room...Drink plenty of water when you take these.Now you can relax.” ( I wonder if stranger writers saying to “drink plenty of water” is secretly a line said by a psych person in s4?)

Max (Feeling ok)-My doctor says that I should take it -At least I won't have to keep faking.I know, someday I'll find it-Where I, I least expect it.Today I know I feel ok.

Max ( Going gets tough)-.No home since the fire.Me and the ash can't settle down...So I sink another round-Placebo for pain.And there's no one for to blame . I refuse to accept-That my work is all in vain...Still always remembering .When the going gets tough .That the labor of our love-Will reward us soon enough.

Max (Comfortably numb)-Hello? (Hello? Hello? Hello?)Is there anybody in there?Just nod if you can hear me.Is there anyone home?Come on now-I hear you're feeling down.Well I can ease your pain .Get you on your feet again.Relax // Now I've got that feeling once again.I can't explain . you would not understand.This is not how I am. I have become comfortably numb.I have become comfortably numb //Okay (okay, okay, okay)Just a little pinprick.There'll be no more, ah .But you may feel a little sick.Can you stand up?I do believe it's working, good.That'll keep you going through the show.Come on it's time to go// Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.

Explanations of Why the mf (WIll the wise)behaves the way he does

demogorgan (ww) (Cowards starved)- friends think of me as a priest.I had to show them that the weakest hands Can still make impressive fires. (aka MF = will the wise)

demogorgan (ww) (Unmerciful):I will be reborn...Tranquil demeanor.Now devoured.Surfacing malice...I can't reconcile the torment others bring unto me.I will not take any reproach.Turning the other cheek.Relentless hatred consumes.Control released.Absolved of all compassion.I am free .Look into my hate filled eyes and tell me What do you see?Surging aura of my rage Paralyzing you in fear.

Demogorgan (ww) (bodies-Beaten why for (why for)?Can't take much more.(Here we go, here we go, here we go).One, nothing wrong with me,Two, nothing wrong with me.Three, nothing wrong with me.Four, nothing wrong with me.One, something's got to give.Two, something's got to give.Three, something's got to give now...You're all by yourself but you're not alone...Driven by hate consumed by fear.

demogrgan (ww)-Orbs used as transmitters carry electromagnetic beams from above (affecting magnetic fields in the show).Silence, manipulated, tortured ...How immune is your system of suffering?Its in the blood of suffering (familial ref).Its in the blood.

Demogrgan (Monster)-I shoot the lights out..Whoa, just another lonely night...None of who you get it, ain't nobody cold as this.A zombie (will ref) with no conscience .Everybody knows I'm a motherfucking monster. Everybody wanna know what my Achilles' heel is? Love I don't get enough of it.

#stranger things #will byers #stranger things comics #did theory

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fanficimagery · 5 years ago

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Imagine being sister to Thor. Having fled your home after your mother's death, you went on a mission to find yourself. Then landing in Midgard, you lead a life of normalcy. That is until you fall for one of Midgard's Mightiest Heroes. He can only keep his secret for so long, but yours, on the other hand.. you're going to keep it as long as possible.

Steve X Reader

Midgard was dreary compared to Asgard. There were a lot of rude and obnoxious people, but for every one of those there was a kind or courageous individual. It really depended where on Midgard you were, but you were willing to deal with it since it was your choice to leave home.

Some places in Midgard were quite peaceful, while others were colorful and loud. Las Vegas was a little too wild for your tastes, so the next best thing was New York City- the same city your adopted brother once nearly razed to the ground with an alien army. There were many pros and cons about the city, but you managed to settle in quite nicely and find your own little niche after converting all the Asgardian money you had smuggled out with you into American dollars.

Almost a year in and you could pass for a local midgardian.

Sitting outside at your favorite cafe, you enjoy your breakfast while simultaneously reading George R.R Martin's latest novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. You finish your first plate of food and then enjoy a couple cups of coffee while reading before ordering your next plate of food (this was the only reason the cafe tolerated you reading and taking your time; your Asgardian appetite gave the cafe a lot of business). And it’s midway through your second plate that your senses go into overdrive and you realize you're being watched.

As you slow your eating, you subtly glance around your surroundings to find who the culprit is. Spotting the stranger almost immediately, you realize he's staring at you before glancing down at some sort of journal. He has a pencil- or was it a pen?- in hand and it furiously moves over the paper before he glances up yet again.

Finishing the rest of your food, you then ask for your table to be cleared. Once that's done you ask the waitress, just loud enough for the stranger to hear, where the bathrooms are even though you know exactly where they are located. But instead of actually using the bathroom, you ask for a to-go cup of coffee and pay your bill.

As you head back outside you see the stranger still seated and his attention solely on his book. So gathering yourself, you walk up to his table and take a seat across from him. When he glances up, his eyes subtly widen and you quirk an eyebrow at him.

"Hi," you muse. "Why were you staring at me?"

The man gapes as his cheeks flush at being caught. Up close you notice the man is quite handsome- from his stylish trimmed hair, to his beard, and blue eyes. "I am so sorry, ma'am." Ma'am? That's new. "I did not intend to make you feel uncomfortable."

"No?"

"Not at all," he's quick to assure you. "I was just- I'm an artist," he blurts. "And your hair, the braids caught my attention. More so the streak of purple against your nearly platinum hair that's weaved in and out of the one braid." He angles his book towards you and sure enough there's a sketch of your side profile. He paid a lot of attention to your braids and while the sketch is mostly black and white, the only color on paper is the purple streak in your hair. The man has some major talent.

Internally you're grateful it was nothing sinister, but on the outside you cringe. "Oh. You're really talented," you say as he lays his sketchbook back down. "And I'm sorry for thinking you were a creep."

That startles a laugh out of him. "You thought I was a creep?"

He's grinning and it's your turn to flush. "Well it is New York-"

"Fair enough."

"-and you just kept staring. I didn't know what to think and you sketching me didn't even come to mind as a possibility."

"Again, my apologies." You smile and his grin turns a little mischievous. "Then again it is your fault. If you hadn't done all those neat braids in your hair I probably would have been doing a crossword puzzle."

"My fault!?" You laugh softly to let him know you're honestly not upset at all. Amused is more like it. You shake your head, sipping your coffee.

"I'm Steve, by the way," he then introduces himself.

"Y/N," you return. Silence momentarily reigns over you two and you suddenly feel like you've overstayed your welcome even though Steve is still grinning. Pushing your chair back, you stand and offer him one last smile. "I really should be going now."

"Oh. Okay."

"If I see you around again, I expect to see a sketch of a new stranger."

Steve huffs a laugh. "Sure. It was nice to meet you, Y/N."

"You as well, Steve."

After pushing your chair back in, you take your leave. Then before you turn the corner, you glance back and see Steve still watching you. He waves and you salute him with your cup of coffee, ignoring the all too warm feeling in your chest at seeing his smile directed at you.

Over the next few weeks you run into Steve at the cafe and once at the park. The two of you always ended up sitting together and talking about anything and everything, so it's no surprise when he sheepishly asks you on a date.

You agree to the date and then to the four after, and it's really no surprise when the two of you become a legitimate couple. What is a surprise, however, is the third month of dating you find out he's none other than Captain America. There's a brief moment of panic because he's apparently friends with your brother, but fortunately it seemed like Thor hadn't even mentioned he had a sister. Steve seemed nervous when he let you in on his secret, but his story hardly fazed you. He was grateful you didn't seem to make a big deal out of it.

And after seven months of dating, the two of you move in together.

The smell of bacon is what wakes you and after blindly feeling around the bed you realize it's empty. Reluctantly you get out of bed, heading for the bathroom to fully wake yourself and freshen up before seeking out Steve.

Your boyfriend is scrambling eggs while the bacon sizzles when you sleepily walk up behind him and wrap your arms around his waist. Steve chuckles as you nuzzle the middle of his back and your hands find their way under his shirt to lightly scratch at his abdomen.

"Mmm. Food and abs. What did I do to deserve you?"

"A lot, sweetheart," he muses. "For starters, you accept me for me- shield or no shield." He scoops the bacon out of it's own grease and plates it on a paper towel to soak up the rest. Then turning off all burners, he moves the pan of eggs to the back cold burner. "And you put up with my creepy staring when I'm in a sketching mood." Turning around in your arms, he lightly grasps your face in his hands and kisses your forehead.

"S'all good. I do a lot of creepy staring myself. You're pretty."

"And you're still half asleep." He kisses the tip of your nose and you laugh, and then Steve walks you backward until the back of your knees hit a chair. Lightly pushing you down, you grunt as your bottom meets the seat of the chair. "Don't pout," he muses. "Eat your breakfast and then we can laze about all day on the couch. We don't have anywhere to be today."

"Yeah, yeah. Just give me the bacon."

Breakfast is then eaten at a leisurely pace, Steve chuckling every time he has to kick at your ankles when you nod off mid-chew. You kick back, grunting and whining when you miss and your toes smash into a table or chair leg. And then when you're all finished, you happily clear the table and load the dishwasher while Steve heads to shower off from his early morning run.

After a while Steve emerges and the two of you fall onto the couch. Finding a marathon of murder mysteries on TV, you leave it there before snuggling into Steve's side. Hours pass with the two of you barely moving and then around lunch time Steve's work phone is blaring it's emergency ringtone.

"Nooo," you groan, hugging him a little tighter.

Steve chuckles. "Sorry, sweetheart. Duty calls."

"I know. Before careful." You reach up and peck his lips just as he answers his phone.

Steve gets a brief rundown of what's going on as he moves from room to room gathering his suit and other necessities to shove in a duffel bag, and then he's giving off coordinates for a place to be picked up at since your cohabitation wasn't exactly known among his friends. You pick up his shield and place it in it's own personal bag before handing it off, you giving him another kiss but this time lingering a little longer.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," he says. "Aliens decided to pay a visit again."

You sigh. "You're going to be busy all night." He smiles guiltily and you press a kiss to chin. "Hurry back, but please be careful."

"Will do. Try not to watch the news."

"As if," you scoff. "I'm going to be glued to the TV as soon as you walk out our door."

He sighs. "I figured you'd say that."

"Yep. Now get out of here, babe. The world needs Captain America."

"Yes, ma'am."

The moment Steve is out the door and his motorcycle engine roars to life, you do as you said you'd do. You turn on the TV and immediately flip back and forth between all the news stations to see what the hell is going on. Aliens are pouring out of the sky yet again and Iron Man zooming around and blasting them is hardly putting a dent in their numbers. Even your brother and the Scarlet Witch can't quite keep up, and you're suddenly nervous that the Avengers are in over their heads.

You watch as the Hulk makes his appearance, he jumping and swatting aliens out of the sky like bugs. And still.. the aliens keep coming. Then fifteen minutes later, a quinjet is landing in the middle of an empty parking lot and Captain America, the Black Widow, and Hawkeye are seen jogging off the back ramp to join the fight. The Avengers seem to be holding their own even though they appear to be greatly outnumbered.

Not able to watch anymore, you put the TV on mute and head outside for some fresh air. To pass some time you decide to rearrange the porch furniture, but as you're doing so a feeling of dead momentarily overwhelms you. You stumble into the porch railing and the feeling of dread isn't evaporating. A moment later you're skipping down the porch steps and onto the front lawn. With your heart beating fast, you close your eyes and take a deep breath. Centering yourself, you concentrate and pull on your Asgardian magic to sense whether or not it's going to be a good day or bad day. All signs are pointing to something terrible happening.

Eyes flying open, you look to the sky. "Heimdall!" You call out. "Send down my beloved companion. They need my help."

Seconds tick by and you think Heimdall is refusing you because you had turned your back on everything after Mother's death, but then a portion of the sky shimmers and you can see a brief glimpse of the bifrost before the silhouette of a winged horse shimmers into existence.

Laughing, your gaze tracks the flight path of your pegasus. The pitch black creature lands and folds his wings in before trotting up to you, and you press your forehead to the pegasus' face. Lovingly scratching either side of his neck, you say, "Hello my morningstar. We have work to do."

The black beast neighs and paws at the ground before stepping back and trotting circles around you. You lightly smack him on the butt and he takes off in a trot down the street. Several people have come out of their houses and are staring, and you hear gasps all around as Lucifer's wings unfurl. He stops and turns back around, and then a moment later he's running at full speed. You smile ferally and put your back to him, you then running down the street. As you run you can feel your clothes changing on their own and the second Lucifer's at your side you jump and land on his back.

Your own blue and silver Asgardian armor covers you from the neck down, and a silver helmet sits atop your head with a piece of metal drooping down between your eyes to the tip of your nose. Your hands twist into Lucifer's mane and as you lightly kick his sides he jumps into the air. Guiding him towards where you know the fight is, you only hope you can get there in time.

- X - X - X - X - X -

Out on the battle field, the Avengers are tiring. The team is at a loss of what to do, but at the moment they're just grateful that no more aliens are coming through the portal they had opened.

"Hey, Stark, I can really use another sweep," Clint says. "I just sent my last arrow into the field."

"On it, Bird Brain." Tony disengages from the alien he was fighting to collect all the arrows he can. "You really need to rethink your weapon of choice."

"Yeah, Barton," Natasha teases. "Upgrade, will you? Tony's new toys are fun," she says as she takes down four aliens, one right after the other with the glock that shoots energy blasts instead of bullets.

Steve jogs up to them, throwing his shield with a grunt and watching in satisfaction as it pings off alien head after alien head before hitting a wall and flying back towards him. "Guys, less talking more fighting. I really want to get home."

"Aw. Does Cap have a hot date waiting at home?" Tony muses. Steve falters, but doesn't rise to the bait. However, Natasha notices his little misstep and grins knowingly.

"Uh. Guys?" Clint then muses, staring up at the sky and following something with his gaze. "Am I the only one seeing a goddamn pegasus?"

There's a moment where the only sounds are of the battle, and then..

"SISTER!"

"Sister?" Every Avenger wonders as Hulk roars off in the distance.

The warrior on the back of the pegasus has a bow in hand, she loosing a volley of arrows with what appeared to be only one arrow. The winged horse swoops lower and the woman hops off, her horse taking flight once more and disappearing into the clouds.

Once your feet are on solid ground, you yank off your helmet at let it fall at your feet. You ignore the stares as you reach back into your quiver for another arrow, nocking it and grinning when the tip suddenly flames. With a whispered spell, you loose the arrow and smirk as it multiplies into a hundred and each arrow finds a place in an alien.

Before you can reach for another arrow, arms wrap around you from behind and you're suddenly being spun. Laughing, you let your brother have his moment. It's only when he sets you back down and turns you so you face him do you realize everyone but the Hulk gathering around.

"Y/N?"

You glance to your left and guiltily smile at a bewildered Steve. "Hi, honey. Surprise..?"

"Honey?" Iron Man muses just as Thor says, "You know of my sister?"

Clint snorts. "Shit. This outta be good."

You cringe as Thor continues to stare at Steve. "Uhh.. Steve and I are dating."

Instead of anger, Thor surprises you by beaming. "This is wonderful news!" You sigh in relief at his exuberance and then mentally groan when his smile falters. "But.. since when? You fled after Mother died. Have you.. have you been on Midgard all this time?"

"Yes." Thor suddenly looks unhappy and you frown. "I promise to explain everything later. Right now we have aliens to take care of."

"Yeah. About that," Hawkeye says. "Can you do what you did to your arrows to mine?"

You nod and hold a hand out for his arrows. Having collected them from Tony, Clint passes them over to you. Grasping them all in hand horizontally, you lift them so the shafts are near your lips. Then closing your eyes and muttering a spell, you hand them back to their owner. "There. You should be fine."

"Awesome."

Standing side by side with Hawkeye, the both of you nock an arrow each. As yours lights aflame, Hawkeye pouts and you huff a small laugh. Then angling upward, the two of you loose your arrows and everyone watches as they multiply mid-flight.

"So awesome," Clint muses again, watching as the aliens shriek and fall dead.

"All right. Now we're back in the game!" Iron Man zooms off, and after your brother shares a pointed look with you Thor twirls his hammer before taking flight.

Hawkeye and the Black Widow stare between you and Steve without an ounce of shame, and you sigh. Giving your attention to Steve, you say, "I'm sorry."

He frowns. "You could have told me when I told you about being Cap. Why didn’t you?"

"I knew you worked with Thor. I didn't want you to have to lie to him."

"I would have. For you."

Chuckling softly, you reach up with your right hand and cup his cheek. "Oh honey, you can't lie to save your life."

The Black Widow laughs at Steve's offended look. "I can to."

"Mhm. Then why did you have the guiltiest expression just last week when I asked what happened to the last of my honey butter?" Steve gapes and you lightly tap the end of his nose. "Yeah that's what I thought."

Steve sighs. "You'll tell me everything?"

"Everything." Leaning in you're quick to peck his lips. "I'll even tell you about that one time Loki tricked Thor into wearing a wedding dress and almost married him off to another Prince. I was sworn to secrecy, but I'll make an exception just for you."

"And me," Clint says, smirking. "Your other brother Loki might be a dick, but I need all the embarrassing stories on Thor I can get."

You roll your eyes, shaking your head in amusement. "Fine. You too." Clint fist pumps and you look back to Steve. "Now come on, babe. We got an Earth to protect."

#fanficimagery #steve rogers x reader #steve x reader #steve rogers imagine #captain america imagine #avengers imagine #marvel imagine #steve rogers #thor odinson #clint barton #tony stark #imagine

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lwjstiletto · 4 years ago

Text

wangxian au where lwj is a popular hand model and wwx is an independent jewellery maker [Part 1]

[Twitter thread version]

wwx is a go-getter kind of guy. he likes pretty things and pretty people. so his job is a win-win in that he makes pretty things for pretty people— well mostly

lately all his brain has churned out is designs that only the very nice old ladies in his neighbourhood indulgently buy from him

he’s grateful for it but nevertheless it’s been disheartening looking for the elusive muse for his next project

jiang cheng only sighs whenever he mentions this and rants about how if wwx just LISTENED to him and actually put effort into commercialising his bestsellers instead of hyperfocusing on one body part/gem/technique and hopping from one product to the next; and in general just making his business a chaotic mess where clients couldn’t guess what he would put out next, that he would have a better shot

but ofc wwx sighs even more at this and just goes ‘but jiang cheng~’

what kind of argument even is that? but jc lets it go bc wwx supplies him with endless half-finished projects that are complicated-looking enough to give his students a good challenge when drawing still life

so anyways, wwx is still making old lady jewellery and being generally pitiful when he stumbles across an intriguing article on twitter

—•—

lwj on the other hand has been fastening and unfastening his cufflinks for an hour straight. that’s pretty much status quo for hand models who have to spend hours on end either doing repetitive gestures or holding completely still

lwj doesn’t mind though, he has always had steady hands and dextrous fingers, practically an advertiser’s ‘wet dream’ as his agent, nhs, puts it

said agent pulls him aside when it’s finally time for his break. nhs looks harried, which isn’t out of the ordinary, but he’s also not meeting lwj’s eyes which sets of alarm bells in his head

“okay before i tell you,” nhs starts without prompting, “promise not to fire me.”

lwj doesn’t narrow his eyes, but the twitch of his eyebrow is close enough, “i will be fair.”

“that’s not a-“ nhs sighs, “good enough i guess. do you remember that photoshoot you did with da-ge a few months back?”

lwj nods. how could he forget? it had been... an experience for sure. it was a photoshoot for a book cover for a popular teen novel

and while lwj didn’t meet fellow hand models often, he had come across other ‘parts models’ as they were called

spending the better part of two days caressing nmj’s abs was... by far not the most unpleasant job he’d had as a hand model

nhs holds out a copy of the novel for him to see. the cover they used is from the second half of the photoshoot where they took a few wider shots

lwj sees nothing wrong with it. it’s a standard cover, if a bit lewd due to all the... ab touching. in fact the entire cover is just nmj’s abs and wide shoulders

lwj doesn’t think his hands serve any other purpose than obstructing the view in the poorest attempt to keep it pg. still he fails to see the problem

nhs wrings his hands together, “there was a blog post about it. do you know anyone named su she?”

lwj thinks for a moment, then vaguely recalls the name with a sinking realisation

—•—

wwx is still thinking about the article when jin zixuan comes to drop jin ling off at his apartment. unprompted, wwx asks him, “do you think i could sell feet pics?”

he can see jzx’s soul leave his body as he drops jin ling’s overnight bag on the pavement. wwx’s favourite new hobby is dropping these bombs on jzx and watching him dissociate from reality as he tries to answer wwx’s insane questions with logic

being a father has changed him. a few years ago he would have just slammed the nearest door in wwx’s face

“why... do you want to sell feet pics? is your business not going well?” jzx asks, and actually looks concerned. well, now wwx feels bad

“my business is just fine.” wwx says grumpily

“really? jiang cheng and yanli seem to think otherwise.”

“you eavesdropped on them didn’t you?”

jzx is entirely unashamed, “i’m just concerned.”

“again, my business is fine!”

“you know if you ever needed money-“

wwx turns jzx around and pushes him towards his car, “don’t you have things to do? get jin ling out of the car seat, it’s getting late.”

since the peacock has acquired immunity to his teasing by straight up being ~nice~ to him, it’s only fair that wwx sends jin ling back with so many new toys that they will take up at least a whole corner in his unnecessarily gigantic home

—•—

lwj meets his brother for iced tea at a cafe near huaisang’s office. lwj does not like iced tea but has deliberately kept this from his brother because lxc loves it and has made it his personal mission to try every iced tea flavour he can get his hands on

it is also the easiest way to lure his brother out of his busy schedule. lwj knows lxc would take time to meet him anyway, but he wants lxc to indulge in something he likes once in a while

“wangji, you seem restless.” lxc says, concerned

lwj takes a tentative sip of his black currant iced tea. it’s abhorrent

“do you remember su she?” lwj asks

lxc, “the one from your cello class?”

lwj nods

“the one who broke his string and his bow in the same day?” lxc asks, almost looking amused

lwj winces, “yes.”

“did he ever come back to the class after that?” lxc asks

lwj shakes his head, then taps the glass with a gloved finger

“has he been bothering you again?” lxc asks seriously, “if he has-“

“it’s-“ lwj sighs, “complicated.”

before lxc can make assumptions, lwj unlocks his phone and shows it to lxc

lxc reads silently for a minute or two, then his eyes widen. “he posted this on the novel’s discussion forum?”

lwj nods

“how did he even-“ lxc says, then pauses in thought, “is it because of the cello class?”

“mn, perhaps.” lwj says, “he saw the book cover i did with huaisang’s brother. he is a fan of the novel.”

“so he went and researched the models who were on the cover?” lxc frowns, “how did he even find that?”

“my name is public information.” lwj says, “it would certainly be hard to find, but it is available nonetheless.”

“are you going to be okay?” lxc asks.

“i am worried it will impact your reputation. my job is not... conventional.” lwj doesn’t meet his brother’s gaze

“wangji, that is the least of my concerns. you did not want to do conventional modelling by choice.” lxc says

he isn’t wrong, lwj hadn’t wanted to have his face photographed, it had never appealed to him. no matter how many compliments he received on his looks

his popularity started and ended within the advertising circle and nhs never offered him jobs he didn’t want. putting a face to his popular hand modelling career was not an ideal situation

especially since it had reached a lot of the novel’s fans who’d begun discussing him on other social media platforms

“i will handle this.” lxc says, “this is not right. you especially drew up contracts with advertisers to avoid this situation.”

“brother-“ lwj starts

“he should not have posted pictures of you.” lxc isn’t even drinking his iced tea, lwj notes

“it is already out. there is not much we can do.” lwj says reasonably

lxc doesn’t quite seethe but he doesn’t touch his iced coffee again

—•—

wwx finally admits to himself that he may be experiencing a slump. he hasn’t touched his tools in two months and his work bench has acquired a thick layer of dust on which jin ling drew a frowny face with his fingers then immediately tried to lick them

and what does one do when lacking motivation? harrass his brother in his cushy office at the university of course

to his credit, jc lets him prace around and poke at his things for a solid ten seconds before snapping at him. which means he and jyl must actually be worried about him

“wei wuxian” jc says through clenched teeth when wwx has pushed the paperweight on his desk to the very edge, trying to see how far jc would let him take it

ah, so not worried enough to break into his house at night, wwx notes

“so, do you think i could sell foot pics?” wwx uses his favourite new icebreaker

jc puts his head in his hands like wwx put the worlds’ weight on his shoulders. if he listens closely, he’s sure he can hear a repetition of ‘why why why why’ in jc’s head

“why...” jc forces himself to say

wwx shurgs with a grin, “i read an article about it. apparently a lot of people are into feet.”

“into... feet...” jc says

“yeah like they get off-“

jc holds up a hand to stop him, “i get it. did you come all the way across the city to ask me this?”

“yes and no.” wwx says, “i wanted to ask if you could draw me some.”

“some... feet...?” jc is going to kick him out soon, wwx can feel it

wwx places his chin in both his hands and tries to look pitiful, “isn’t it better than me buying foot pics? think of how that would reflect on you if anyone found out.”

jc feels a headache coming on, “please tell me you’re using them as reference to design anklets or something.”

wwx laughs, “of course! what did you think?”

jc glares at him, “i will ban you from campus.”

wwx bothers him a bit more and then gets thrown out more gently than he has come to expect from jc, still not sure if jc will actually fulfill his request

and maybe it’s because his luck has been down for too long that life took pity and decided to throw something good at him, he turns the corner to see one of the most beautiful men he has laid his eyes on

his attention is focused on the folder in his hands, and it’s late enough that there are no students milling the corridors. this is probably why the aforementioned beautiful, stunning, abolutely breathtaki- man manages to walk straight into wwx

several things happen at once. wwx sees it coming unlike the other person, so he reaches out to steady him. turns out there isn’t much need of that because the man gets his bearings back alarmingly fast for someone caught by surprise

the folder in his hands does not have similar balance though, and falls to the floor, splattering it’s contents halfway across the hallway

the man looks... well neutral, but the speed at which he drops to his knees lets wwx know that it’s not something he wants wwx to see

which, of course has the opposite effect. when wwx looks down to see the photographs that have not yet been put back into the folder- he is left speechless for once

the immediate and most obvious explanation is that this guy is an art student who is using these pictures as reference... but of course wwx’s first thought is Oh mY gOd this guy has a hand fetish because his talk with jc is still fresh in his head

once that thought is in his head, wwx notices a number of things in quick sequence

this dude looks uncharacteristically nervous for an innocent art student, and he’s wearing GLOVES like a CRIMINAL who’s STEALING pictures of those pretty hands from an art class for his own pleasure

art students don’t wear gloves, especially not in the middle of summer! and no one can possibly require that many pictures for just one body part

satisfied with his reasonable conclusion, wwx opens his mouth to accuse the man only to realise that he is upright once again with all his stolen pictures securely in his folder

“are you stealing those?” wwx asks straightforwardly

the man actually does seem to be caught off-guard for longer than two seconds this time

then he proceeds to walk past wwx

“hey wait!” wwx blocks his path again, “i get it, you know? we all have needs and i’m totally not judging you for it. but there are sites for this stuff.”

the man finally looks at him, and wow he’s even more attractive than wwx first thought and his eyes are so pretty and- he walks past wwx again

wwx, yet again, catches up to him and decides that walking beside him is more effective. “good quality photography like that is usually quite expensive you know?”

the man continues to ignore him so wwx grabs the folder in his hands and gives it a good yank

“what are you doing?” the man finally speaks. even his voice is nice. wwx is sure people would send him hand pics for free if he asked

“returning this to the rightful owner.” wwx holds the folder out of his reach

the man takes a deep breath, then pulls at one of his satin gloves- SATIN, how did wwx not notice that- and holds his beautiful hand up to wwx’s face

wwx’s brain immediately short circuits as he thinks ‘maybe ~I~ am the one with a hand fetish’ because that’s... one pretty hand

one... familiar hand. the same even tone, smooth skin and long, elegant fingers with perfectly manicured nails...

while he stands there, gaping like a fish, the man snatches the folder out of his hand and starts walking away with quicker strides

by the time wwx’s brain reboots and the realisation finally sinks in- he has finally found the muse he has been looking for- the man is already gone

—•—

lwj admits that he is... slightly stressed out, and is definitely showing enough signs of it that nhs has caught on

“you went to visit wen qing yesterday.” it’s not a question so lwj doesn’t answer. “did you perhaps run into an old acquaintance?”

lwj shakes his head, “it is not what you think.”

this sparks curiosity in nhs which is a toss up between better and worse than the implication that lwj’s stress stems from accidentally meeting su she at the university

“did you run into a fan?” nhs asks and it’s actually a reasonable concern since lwj wants to avoid even being /known/ at all costs

lwj shakes his head. he trusts nhs which isn’t as surprising now as it had been to him years ago when he had agreed to give nhs free reign over the work he chose for lwj

“somebody from the university knows of my identity.” lwj says finally.

nhs seems to think it over, “it was inevitable. even after taking down the blog post, people are still curious about you.”

lwj wants to tell him that it’s actually his fault but he stays silent as nhs continues his train of thought.

“you’re exciting because people have seen you without actually seeing you. you’ve worked with big brands and celebrities and it normally wouldn’t spark interest-

- but unfortunately for you, you are attractive. it will die down after a while, we just have to ride it out for now.” nhs concludes.

lwj nods, feeling reassured. nhs is usually right about these things, which is why lwj regards him so highly

he has a video shoot for some fancy kitchen installation company after that, and he tries not to think about the man who accused him of stealing his own pictures while he very slowly chops a mango on the surely unsanitary granite counter

he’s working with a photographer he knows well, one of the best in his line of work. song lan has a good eye for what would look enticing in an advert and doesn’t make him do weird, suggestive things like kneading dough in slow motion. lwj suppresses a shudder at the thought

after cutting enough magoes to feed ten people, the shoot finally wraps up and one of the PAs on the set holds out a basin for him to wash his hands in

the warm water is soothing to his aching fingers and he lets his hands soak but not for longer than a few seconds to prevent his skin from pruning. he then rubs the special concoction that is his version of the best moisturiser and puts his hands in soft cotton gloves

song lan comes to greet him after and expresses his sympathies about his pictures making rounds on the internet

lwj’s eyes widen ever so slightly, “you know of it?”

“my boyfriend is a fan.” he says with a fond shake of his head, “otherwise i’d have no idea.”

luckily before lwj can start to panic, nhs trots up to them and the conversation ends there as he’s dragged to his next shoot

—•—

“for the last time, i don’t know your ‘guy with pretty hands’.” jc says, exasperated. “what’s with you and body parts nowadays? if it’s a kink thing.. please rethink your life.”

wwx sighs. he knew going to jc was useless, but at least it confirmed his suspicion that the guy isn’t an art student

however, that makes the task of finding him and then begging him to model wwx’s jewellery harder. because yes, wwx has spent the last five days cooped up in his workshop making complex hand chains

now if he only had more than a memory to draw inspiration from...

it’s frustrating. wwx should have at least asked for his name and number. how can he be this stupid?

“very easily.” is jc’s reply to this

“jiang chengggg.” wwx whines, “i have to find him or my creativity will die a horrible death.”

jc looks like he is ageing before his eyes. “if i ask around the staff will you promise to only come to my office during emergencies? you’re freaking my students out.”

“yes!” wwx agrees enthusiastically, then frowns. “freaking them out? i’m so nice to everyone!”

“you tried to get at least five of my students to draw your pretty boy from description.” jc deadpans, “they think he’s a criminal.”

“a criminal after my heart, aha!” wwx says with finger guns.. and gets thrown out by jc for his efforts. it’s less gentle this time

a few days later, jc calls him, “apparently ‘his identity needs to be protected’. is he actually a criminal?”

“he was wearing gloves...” wwx mutters, “i’m kidding! not about the gloves, but i don’t think he’s a criminal.”

jc makes a doubtful noise on the other end. “well, whatever. so yeah, anyway, i can’t get wen qing to tell me anything. you can come bully her yourself if you dare to.”

“why does it have to be wen qing?” wwx groans, “she’ll roast me on low flame before she tells me anything. why couldn’t it be wen ning— wait. wen ning probably knows him too. jiang cheng i’m a genius!”

jc hangs up on him but it doesn’t dampen his spirits at all. he’s so close to finding him.

—•—

shoots where he has to hold objects for an extended period of time are already unkind to his muscles, but holding objects with /postures/ is even worse. his fingers are so stiff after his seven hour shoot with swarovski that when one of the assistants on set hands him a cup of warm tea, it slips right through his grip and shatters on the ground unceremoniously

everyone freezes, and then start to buzz around him, asking if he is feeling unwell or if he needs to sit down. because lwj never drops /anything/. it’s in his job description NOT to drop anything

god, lwj hates jewellery shoots the most

nhs hears about this, ofc. lwj suspects he can be at multiple places at a time. so lwj is neatly packed into a SUV and sent away to get a relaxing massage and manicure

lwj would usually put up a fight but his muscles have been aching for days and nhs has theatened to text his brother at least three times this week. he doesn’t want to risk a fourth

wen ning, the meek but kind masseuse greets him with a bow, “lan er-gongzi, are you well?”

lwj nods, and is about to ask about wn as well when he hears the door of the masseuse parlour bang open behind him

“you!” comes a shout and lwj turns around, alarmed

the man who accused him of stealing his own pictures is standing there, pointing a finger at him

“if i was unclear the last time, i did not steal those photographs.” lwj says

the man seems stunned for two seconds, then frowns. “steal.. i know that you didn’t steal them.”

lwj nods, then starts to walk further into the parlour- except for the hand that grips and brings him to a stop. lwj would usually rip his hand away, but the slight pressure sends pain shooting up his arm

and lwj definitely didn’t realise how stiff his muscles were until then. he must have made a noise, a mixture between surprise and a wince, because the man lets go immediately

“are you okay?” he asks, looking alarmed

lwj closes his eyes to compose himself

“wei-gongzi, what are you doing here?” lwj hears wen ning ask

“i came to find him.” the man replies

lwj’s eyes open in shock. find him? does he know of lwj’s identity? is he a fan of the novel? this has gotten way bigger than either lwj or nhs predicted if people are actively seeking him out

“i think you have misunderstood.” lwj says, projecting a calm exterior even though he’s feeling a little cornered. cornered.. by a single person... what has his life come to?

but today it’s one person, next... he doesn’t even want to think about it. he has never wanted to be in the public light and does not want the /crowd/ and god forbid- the /noise/ that comes with it

he had gotten comfortable in the happy equilibrium of popularity and anonymity- the only thing which had lured him into accepting this job and has kept him in it thus far

... and it seems to be crumbling right before his eyes

“what? no i haven’t. i wouldn’t forget your face.” the man says, “hey stop running away-“

but lwj is already walking past him to exit the massage parlour. he needs to call someone. nhs most probably. or a cab.

the other man is speedy though, and blocks him right at the door, extending his arms and legs to cover the width of the opening as if lwj was thinking of sneaking around him. (he was, but that’s not the point)

“okay maybe i’ve come across as creepier than expected.” the man says, “but i swear i just want your hands!”

[wen ning shakes his head furiously in the background]

the panic lwj feels must be enough to be showing on his usually blank face, because the man backtracks

“i mean- no- that came off as even creepier oh my god. i’m not a serial killer, i promise.”

[wen ning makes a big X over his head with his arms]

the man takes a deep breath and actually seems to think before speaking this time, “hi, my name is wei ying. i’m a jeweller by profession. what’s your name?”

“move aside.” lwj says.

“do you promise not to run and actually hear me out? because it was so hard to track you down, god, it took me a week!”

[wn texting nhs: pls come and save lwj i think he’s about to faint]

“a week...” lwj says, “you tracked me down for a week?”

“no! i mean yes but not in a stalker way!” wwx seems to be having a mini meltdown, “you know just nice good ol’ asking around about the cute guy i saw at the uni... not... stalking...”

luckily lwj’s phone begins to ring, cutting wwx off. [wen ning is very thankful for this. he doesn’t think having the police here would be good for business]

“brother.” lwj says, still a little strung up

“wangji, i’m almost there.”

“what?”

“huaisang told me you were ill,” lxc says, “and i was in the area so i told him i’d take you to the doctor.”

lwj turns to give wen ning a scathing look. “he exaggerated. i’m fine. you don’t have to come here.”

lwj doesn’t think his brother will take the fact that he has acquired a stalker well

“i’m outside.” lxc says

lwj resists the urge to sigh. he’s going to strangle everyone in this room, then himself

“i’ll be there in a minute then.” lwj says.

“i’m making my way to the parlour.” lxc says, disregarding him completely

“brother i can walk.” lwj says calmly. murder is on his mind.

lxc hangs up on him. lwj actually sighs this time.

“if you don’t want my brother to report you, you need to move aside.” lwj says to wwx.

wwx opens his mouth as if he wants to continue to dig himself into a hole, but then moves aside degectedly

then he removes a business card from his wallet and puts it in lwj’s shirt pocket.

“you can look me up, i’m not lying. i really am a jeweller and i’d like to work with you.” he says

before lwj can protest, lxc is already at the entrance, carrying what looks like half the pharmacy in a paperbag

“wangji.” he greets, and then pauses to nod politely at the other men, “let’s go.”

lwj follows him silently

—•—

wen ning sighs and flips the sign on the door to ‘closed’ resigning to the fact that wwx will remain a permanent fixture on his floor for a while

“so you thought he was a creepy thief and now he thinks you’re a creepy stalker?” wn asks.

wwx, who has told him all of this between groans, groans again.

“do you... want a free massage?” wn offers

“yes.”

lwj fights the urge to touch his shirt pocket while in the car with lxc.

“you need to go to the hospital wangji, you don’t look well.” lxc insists

“i will eat every medicine in that bag if you drop me off at huaisang’s office.” lwj replies

lxc looks alarmed, “you’ll definitely need to go to the hospital then.”

“i will eat every medicine in that bag if you /don’t/ drop me off at huaisang’s office.” lwj amends, neatly closing all the loopholes

“at least let me come with you.” lxc says in his last ditch attempt to find out exactly what has left his brother so rattled

“i will eat-“

“fine okay. i just worry about you, you know? you never tell me when something is bothering you anymore.” lxc says

“if it is important, i will tell you.” lwj says. he doesn’t want lxc to worry but also doesn’t want to lie.

lxc nods, accepting this, then turns the car around

—•—

“wei wuxian.” nhs raises an eyebrow at the card lwj has placed on his table. “this is the man who has been stalking you?”

lwj nods.

“are you certain?” nhs asks, looking conflicted.

lwj gives him a look.

“okay, okay! just making sure!” nhs says, raising his palms in defence.

“you know of him.” lwj states.

“well,” nhs says, “he didn’t lie to you, he really is a jeweller. he is very elusive though. he tends to drop these groundbreaking collections every fall and then disappears.”

lwj tries to align the man he met today with this talented, cryptic jeweller persona. if they really are the same person, then perhaps unhinged genius fits him better.

“if he’s serious about working with you...” nhs gets a gleam in his eyes that lwj doesn’t like. this is /not/ how he pictured this conversation going. he’s slowly but surely developing a migrane

“look, i’m never going to force you to do anything.” nhs says, “but will you let me speak to him first? i want to know if this he’s the real deal of if we need a restraining order.”

restraining order. this is escalating way past lwj’s mental capacity at the moment.

nhs seems to see that, “you need to go home and rest. i’ll have a masseuse meet you there. let me handle this.”

he says it with such firm conviction that lwj has no choice but to trust him, so he nods.

[Part 2] [Part 3]

#wangxian fic #wangxian #lan wangji #wei wuxain #lwj x wwx #lan zhan #wei ying #the unatmed #cql #mdzs #my fics #hand model au #long fic

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kannra21 · 4 years ago

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I dare you! - even before the anime confirmation - suzue and daisuke headcanons lolol gonna take the risk?

Yea I thought ab something, for instance how they met and all that stuff. It's fairly different. In the novel, she came to the Kambe household as a secretary but from the anime we can conclude that she's so much more than this. In anime she can't be considered father's secretary since his parents both died I guess, although it wasn't mentioned but the creators pointed it out in a way.

Since that's clear, I made a couple of hcs/scenarios featuring their relationship from the begging. Hope you enjoy. ^^

- Kambe and the co needed to investigate the suspect of whom they had recently gathered information on the possession of suspicious substances. They didn't know exactly what it was about but they hoped they wouldn't arrive at the wrong time and encounter the entire mafia, in which case Daisuke decided to take the rest of the police department members as reinforcement in the case of an emergency. Daisuke has never needed any help, he often relied on his advanced technology and fortune, but this time was different and he clearly doubted that he could take on a couple of their men by himself. He's not a fool, he'll assign as many people as needed, just tell him how much and he'll find himself fine agents to cooperate with.

- When they reached the place he entered first, climbed the stairs and came across a room whose doors had a circular glass window. He cautiously peered through it and noticed eight men. Among them was also their suspect who was holding an open suitcase and showing it towards a person who was obviously someone from a higher rank. He held it before him like he was waiting for his approval. He couldn't make out anything else since the lighting was really bad and there were also three SUVs parked at the side of the entrance. Were there more people in the cars? He couldn't tell.

- He took his high-tech glasses to analyze his surroundings. He realized that the suitcase contained some dangerous chemicals involving nitrogen. Nitrogen-based explosives are considered incredibly volatile and Daisuke decided that this was no situation for messing around. But then he saw a girl with them. She emerged from the shadows and stood by the mafia boss's side, she looked somewhat insecure but knew that she was supposed to be there despite the tension building in the room. And then in the midst of their negotiations he heard him say that he'll pay for a bigger amount in exchange for the girl.

- She looked shocked beyond belief. She didn't want to enroll into yet another criminal organization. Just from her reaction Daisuke could conclude that she was nothing like the rest of the people she worked for, perhaps she was just a victim? Taken as a hostage so she could do their dishonorable job? He heard him say that the suspect could create more goods with her help. He admitted that they were running out of material recently so he offered her as the ideal tool. He praised her capability and skillful hands, that she was qualified for production of weapons, especially firearms.

- She objected, expressing her disapproval of the whole idea. She was nobody's minion to let herself be manipulated so casually. She didn't want that. The mafia boss seemed vividly unnerved by her attitude, she was lucky to be so pretty otherwise she'd experience a faith worse than death.

- Before the situation could get out of control Daisuke opened the door and dropped a gas bomb. The thick smoke filled the room and everyone started coughing. With his high-tech equipment Daisuke could still identify everyone and he entered the scene, ran past the group of distracted gang members and tried to save the girl by taking her hand. Since she also couldn't see much, she started to resist and she managed to kick him a couple of times before he took her by force and carried her somewhere safe. When they took a refuge, he called his police colleagues who then entered and started shooting. The mafia members were shooting as well but to no avail so they got into their cars and tried to flee. The police waited outside creating a barrier but with enough speed and force they succeeded in breaking it and escaping their sentence. Daisuke was disappointed, it was supposed to be a clear catch but it seemed like their cars were built of some fine titanium-like material which allowed them to push through it a lot easier. His thoughts got interrupted by the tight clenching of the woman's hands on his jacket, she was still holding onto him from all the fear she just expected.

- He got worried so he took her hands and shifted a little to look at her face. He asked her if she was okay and if she was going through some sort of a panic attack. She told him that she was fine. She still looked somewhat stressed out so he stroked her hair to calm her down. It was considered a normal police approach towards victims and children, it's not like he had compassion towards anyone in particular, he never did. He was a millionaire detective with no sense of empathy. They stood up and he decided to take her to the police station so she could give her report. When they arrived and got seated in the office she introduced herself. Her name was Hamada Suzue and she was working as a weapon constructor for the mafia boss, she knew of mechanics and engineering but also some other kinds of small jobs she used to do in the meantime. She got involved with them by accident and needed to keep up with their wishes for the past six months. She revealed everything they were doing, the plans she overheard them talking about and their lab for creating all sorts of things.

- After the interrogation she proved herself to be quite useful and gave them a large amount of information. Daisuke then went to drive her home but she said the mafia knew where she lived. It was unfortunate because everyone had already gone to their homes by now so they couldn’t organize a night watch. It would be too dangerous to leave her alone by herself anyways. Daisuke suggested she take her things from home and move in with him for a while until they finally caught the criminals. She began to refuse but he assured her that it was the right thing to do.

- Eventually she agreed and did as she was told. When they reached Daisuke’s mansion Suzue couldn’t believe her own eyes, she practically stared at the unique sight in front of her. When they went inside, she looked around and found herself fascinated by the whole place. She asked him where he got all this from and he replied that he was a millionaire detective. She told him that it was wonderful, that he must be so lucky. But then he looked a bit down and replied that it wasn't really like that, Suzue then looked somewhat sad and apologized. Daisuke ordered the servants to prepare dinner for them and during that time he showed her where her room would be.

- The servants, despite knowing that Daisuke's business was none of their concern, were still curious enough to ask him who was the girl that he brought with himself. He replied that it was a victim who needed a temporary accommodation until they imprisoned the criminals. Telling them that, he left and headed for the dining room. The servants gave each other knowing looks, they knew perfectly well where this was going. Daisuke could have called a hotel room for her but still decided to keep her here at his place. When she moved all her things to the closets, she joined him in the dining room and they ate.

- The atmosphere was nice and cozy. The ambiance so beautiful and luxurious and the food delicious. It was some type of unusual food since Suzue ate it for the very first time. As they ate, they talked a little about themselves and got to know each other. Suzue's discussions mostly revolved around work and so did Daisuke's. Despite working for the bad guys in the past couple of months, Suzue realized she didn't resent her work, in fact, it motivated her even more to promote her knowledge and skills. She had earned her bachelor's degree for a reason and she wanted to achieve herself as a person, to gain respect and approval. The only misfortune that struck her was that she entered into business with bad people, and now she claimed that she has learned from her mistakes. Suzue took the opportunity to thank Daisuke for the rescue and accommodation.

- Although she didn't come from an aristocratic family, Suzue had fine manners and a cheerful spirit, something Daisuke admired about her. She was so talented, so smart, so capable. She's doing things he couldn't even imagine himself doing without HEUSC, she was a real sight to behold.

- Daisuke talked about his detective work and motivation behind it, his past and the loss of his parents. Suzue felt bad but he told her it was fine, that it was something he needed to get used to. She asked him if he lived with someone to which he replied that he was alone. Suzue admitted that her childhood also wasn't all that great and that she lost confidence in pursuing relationships because of being surrounded by thugs, Daisuke on the other hand, felt proud that she felt comfortable with him and his place. They needed to grow up into responsible adults by themselves, they fought so hard to become people they were today. She concluded that they were lucky for how far they have come and wished Daisuke all the best, she said that past doesn't define a person and that each struggle is a steeping block to reach one's true potential.

- And then she got up from her seat and came to Daisuke's side. She placed a hand on his cheek, thanked him for the dinner and apologized for hitting him at the mafia hideout. Daisuke smiled a little and told her it was nothing. Then she left the dining room, leaving Daisuke alone with his thoughts. She was so respectful and kind through the dinner but something changed, the sudden confidence and flirtiness wasn't necessary, Daisuke concluded. It's like she was honest through the whole conversation that all of a sudden she remembered something that made her change her attitude, that sudden change of personality worried him. She's still hiding something. He chose not to make a fuss over it but still decided to keep his eyes and ears open in case something happens.

- He left the room and found a couple of servants spying on them. They panicked and apologized for their inappropriate act. They admitted that they just wanted to be supportive of their boss and the pretty lady. He said that their shift was over and that they were allowed to leave their work. As he watched them disappear into the dark hallway Daisuke felt embarrassed, did they really just look that close and comfortable with each other? No, it must be their imagination.

- He was climbing the stairs and just as he was about to enter his room Suzue stopped him and looked a little discouraged. He wondered if there was something wrong and she asked him if she could spend the night with him. She explained that the trauma of being surrounded by the hooligans took a tool on her and that she couldn't fall asleep. Daisuke felt uneasy, before fifteen minutes ago she was flirting and playing confident but now she's traumatized and frightened by her dreams. Either she developed some sort of PTSD, bipolar or she's trying to manipulate him into something which lowkey frightened him. His detective senses screamed at him that something was fishy about the situation but he decided to let her into his room, maybe she was just afraid.

- As he put his things away and went to take off his jacket, he felt something thin and cold pressed against his neck. A knife, wonderful. He should have listened to his instincts. He told all his servants to leave their work, it meant no one could help him anymore. Suzue told him to hand her the gun, he did so and she threw it on the floor far away from their reach. Now she didn't have to worry about him hurting her, so she ordered him to reveal important information they had gathered during the investigation. Daisuke asked her why she was doing this and she replied that she must have a plan B in case the mafia finds her anyway. If she proves herself to be useful and gives them away all that information maybe they'll spare her the torture and take her back in. Daisuke felt sad, realizing that she still didn't feel safe with him, that she didn't trust his words. It seemed like she was betrayed by the authorities before, that it wasn't the first time. Daisuke wanted to fix that, he just wanted to gain her trust again, this time for real.

- He laid his hand on hers, not to take away her knife but to calm her down. This time it wasn't a classic police procedure towards victims, he did this because he genuinely cared about her and he wanted her to know that. He told her about how much he had been in the police force, about his high-tech equipment, alarm system and other surveillance components, the basement where he kept all his weapons and aids in the case of emergency. He told her that he even does boxing and admitted that he could've disarmed her at any given moment but still decided not to do it because he didn’t want to hurt her. Suzue lowered the knife and let it fall out of her hand. She was so shaken, insecure, desperate. She said that all she really wanted was to finally trust someone and feel safe without having to make up for it.

- Daisuke slowly approached and hugged her, she hugged him back and cried. This was the first time Suzue could actually rely on someone and she was very grateful. He said that her past was being too hard on her but he also reminded her of her own words, that past doesn't define a person. He let her stay in his room that night.

- The next day he woke up to see a tray with food placed by his side and Suzue greeting him. A breakfast in bed? She told him she did it just for him after what happened the last night as an apology for being a nuisance. Daisuke was preparing himself to properly mock his servants for making their guest doing all the work but she stopped him by saying that it was entirely her idea and that they had nothing to do with it. Daisuke thanked her and asked how he should repay her to which she replied that she didn't want that, that she didn't want him to make up for anything. This reminded him of her words from the last night, that all she wanted was to feel safe without having to make up for it, she wanted him to feel the same way. So it was supposed to be a mutual understanding? When Suzue realized that, in all her determination to make things better between them, she didn't notice that she was ordering him around and acting very impolite to which she panicked and started apologizing.

- Daisuke smiled and he actually found it quite sympathetic. Listening to a stranger in his own home was oddly satisfying. It felt so normal and domestic, it reminded him of the days when his family was still together. No, he shouldn't feel so nostalgic just from a nice gesture from a stranger. A certain stranger who decided to step a foot into his world. Daisuke felt a warm feeling overflowing him, is she really supposed to be just some random stranger? They talked only yesterday and yet it felt as he knew her very well from the conversation they had.

- He thanked her for the meal, returned to his bed and tried it out. This was the very first time he tasted someone else's cuisine that wasn't from servants or specialized chefs. It was exiting in a way; she didn’t know his taste and everything she made was based entirely on her own preferences. He took a bite and couldn't believe how good it was. The flavors were nicely balanced and the texture was good, nothing too bland nor spicy. He complimented her cooking and she looked happy and proud of herself.

- After breakfast he needed to go back to detective work. He was still kind of worried that Suzue will feel uneasy being by herself so he showed her the basement with weapons and video surveillance so she could see what's happening in the house at any moment.

- Needles to say, when he came back he realized that she turned the basement into a workshop and he found her working on a weapon he has never been in a possession of. She greeted him and said that she noticed he didn't have enough firearm despite calling it the weapon's room so she took matters into her own hands and constructed something by herself. Daisuke, instead of warning her about messing around with his belongings without permission or criticizing his lack of equipment, decided to take a look at what she had made for him. She made a sniper rifle, he examined it and noticed it was correctly handled in every way. He decided to try it out on a dummy and it also worked perfectly. Daisuke smirked, showing her his satisfaction. He allowed her to do things like this more often.

- Daisuke has been away from home often lately and Suzue was not allowed out for her own safety. It was pretty boring for Suzue and even if she was allowed, she could only do so with Daisuke's escort. When he returned home she asked him if she could take part in his missions which he refused, saying that he didn't want to expose her to unnecessary danger. It's true, he took her to dinners and everywhere outside to spare her the boredom but she asked this time because she wanted to be useful. Daisuke finally decided to give in and let her do as she pleased. Arguing with her wouldn't do him any good and outraging her might even lead to an worse outcome, because she would probably come out on her own and get into trouble which would then result into him being guilty since police officers are the ones who're supposed to take care of their victims' safety. He couldn't really do anything about it, she was so determined and passionate about her goals that he had no other choice but to play along. Daisuke noticed that she was the first person to ever control him that way, he never let himself be manipulated by anyone. He was the millionaire detective, no one was supposed to get into his way of things and yet, this woman had the audacity to interfere and shape things the way she wanted. This was the first time Daisuke realized that he felt something more for the person he shared his mansion with.

- Suzue tried herself in the role of a spy and seductress so thanks to her help, they managed to uncover several other dealers and smugglers. She wasn't afraid this time because she knew that she was being put under constant watch and Daisuke decided to borrow her his high-tech equipment because he was this worried. Daisuke never shared his equipment with anyone, at this point it was obvious that he started acting so unlike himself, that he actually cared for her well-being.

- As they lived longer and longer with each other Daisuke discovered something new about her every day, all positive things. He adored her driving skills and when she told him that she was also in the possession of a pilot license, he felt so proud. He supported her in everything she was doing and she couldn't be happier to return his kindness with whatever he asked her to construct.

- The day has finally come when they managed to capture the mafia Suzue was working for. Now she was a free woman, she could go home and continue living her own life. The thing is, she couldn't. She was so happy living with Daisuke and she could finally use her talents for good, for helping the police and other innocent people like herself. It's like she finally found a place she could belong, Daisuke felt like home to her. When she waited for his answer she wasn't expecting him to kiss her. He was holding back all this time and hid behind his aristocratic politeness that he managed to deceive her, making her believe that he was just kind and supportive of her without any ulterior motives. She laughed with tears in her eyes, she was so happy and they returned home, holding each other's hand.

- They got married and in the two years since living with him, Suzue has adapted to a rich lifestyle and mastered all manners while Daisuke showered her in luxuries.

- He couldn't judge her at this point, because he knew that everyone would do that in her place, so he asked her if she had decided to marry him because of his wealth that he owned. To his surprise, she said no. She admitted that she was never the type of woman to be influenced by money so easily. She stayed with him because of him, and that was the only thing that mattered.

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