#u know. i like this outside of the realm of where their relationship dynamic

[midniallsnack]

I headcanon Kalim x Jamil to be in a queerplatonic relationship and that Kalim is aroace and truly values his friendship with Jamil. Jamil is also aroace and indifferent about relationships but eventually warms up to it

[exclamaquest]

what drew u to hiyuta? its just such a unique pairing

essay under cut

as all good things do, my love of hiyuta started in an au! in my original talentswap au, the way things shook out had Hiyoko and Yuta on Jabberwock together after the events of swap universe SDR2. through that, i started to explore their potential dynamic in the au more (Yuta having been through Towa City with soldier!Hifumi, and Hiyoko dealing with the guilt she felt from being a blackened) and started putting them together in more aus (most notably powers au, which is where it solidified more as a ship for me).

eventually, i started thinking about them in a potential nondespair au. i think that while they're a great example of opposites attract (their dynamic is in the same very rough vein as April and Andy), they do have a LOT in common (although Yuta's character is very speculation-heavy, you can easily extrapolate a lot about potential directions he could have gone in).

Hiyoko and Yuta are both uniquely affected by their talent or by their lack thereof. we know in canon that Yuta is a gifted swimmer in his own right, but chose to pursue track and field because he knew that he would never be as good as his sister. despite being incredibly good at his chosen field, there's no question of him ever being an ultimate. as someone who grew up in the shadow of a famous relative, i can say firsthand he's in a very unique situation. despite his own merits, through no fault of his own, he will always, always be overshadowed by his sister.

it's nobody's fault, really--it's a combination of what's necessary for Hina to shine to her full potential and the way that the world is structured around the ultimate system. that doesn't make it any easier for him to cope. for the most part, he isn't Yuta, he's Hina's brother. if one thing had changed, if he had been noticed before her, he would be an ultimate, but that's not how the cards shook out, and he has to be okay with that fact.

Hiyoko, as we all know, isn't "herself", either. she's the heiress to the Saionji family. ever since she was taken from her father, she's been shoved into the spotlight. she's desperately trying to carve her own path while still being forced onto one that's been set for her since before she was born. she's under a lot of pressure to perform in specific ways and to be "on" all the time--she doesn't have time to figure out who she is. she's a pessimist with trauma she's unwilling to work through. she does legitimately care about her talent and about preserving japanese tradition (as you can see in her FTEs), but her relationship to her talent and her family's legacy is tainted.

i think a lot of the ship is about the contrast of the shadow vs the spotlight. they're two people with very different but equally fraught relationships to their talents or lack thereof. due to this i feel like they'd very much be able to see through that in each other--they're not Hina's brother and the Saionji heiress, they're just Yuta and Hiyoko.

they're also finding themselves outside of their families and cementing their personal identities alongside one another.

ofc there's the fun combination of the unhealthy pessimism with the unhealthy optimism too. Yuta has the good old Asahina "if i don't think about it, it didn't happen" don't-do-sadness thing going on, while Hiyoko is firmly in the realm of assuming the worst from everyone. Yuta sees beauty in everything and Hiyoko is drawn to destroy it.

i think there's a lot to be said about them learning from each other in this regard--Yuta learning that it's best to be cautious in certain situations and that it's okay to take what he wants and to be selfish sometimes, and Hiyoko gradually coming to realize that there is beauty in things and sometimes things DO work out for the best in addition to letting herself put her guard down.

i'm gonna cut myself off here because this is getting long. i COULD go on for longer but tl;dr i think they're very very cute together and am always open to talking about them.

and they both like traditional sweets :]

[just-fandomthings]

For the kiss writing prompt 💕 frostiron + 29. "...as a promise"

Read on AO3 (Post Avengers, 2012)

...as a promise. 

“During my invasion, why did you offer me a drink? You were trying to stall, I’m aware, but why was that the method you chose?”

Stark startles, dropping the gauntlet he’s working on. “What the hell, warn a guy before you appear like that, would you? I’ve got a heart condition.”

“Apologies,” Loki says honestly. “I would have thought you were expecting me; JARVIS told me you agreed I could come down.”

“Yeah, I said you could, but I wasn’t expecting you to be here thirty seconds later. Doesn't matter, I heard you say ‘drink’, are you here to finally collect on my offer?”

“Sir, Loki asked permission to join you ten minutes ago,” JARVIS inputs.

Stark blinks. “Oh. Guess I lost track of time. So, what was your question?”

Loki clears his throat. “I was wondering why you offered me a drink in your tower when you first came to threaten me.”

Stark gives him a strange look. “Well, I needed the bracelets behind the bar so I’d have a suit in case we fought- or, in your case, if you decided to throw me out a window.”

The words are said lightly but Loki still grimaces. “That doesn’t explain why you offered me the drink,” he points out after a moment.

“Why not? I needed to get my bracelets and was planning to pour myself a drink to keep you distracted, so I offered you one too. I’m not sure what answer you’re looking for here.”

“I was not your guest, you owed me nothing. I was your enemy who had just killed your friend- you should have left your armor on when you came inside, instead of selecting a new armor to don.”

“The other one was damaged,” Stark says. “Needed the upgrade- besides, do I have to remind you that was my tower you were using as home base? JARVIS had my back the entire time.”

“Indeed I did,” JARVIS agrees.

“Is this you trying to tell me I’m reckless?” Stark squints at him. “Trying to tell me not to take on an enemy in battle when I’m out of armor or something? Because I gotta tell you, out of everyone on this team except maybe Bruce, I was expecting you to understand that I am more than just-“

“No, that’s not it,” Loki interrupts quickly. “Well, I would rather you not die since you are the least annoying person on this team I’ve been forced on, but I know that you are more than well-equipped to handle any difficult situation with no more than the clothes you are wearing.”

“Thank you, I don’t know why people always assume I’m helpless outside of my armor. And right answer, by the way, I was gonna stick Dum-E on you with the fire extinguisher if you were trying to pull a Cap on me. So, what’s with the third degree, what’re you trying to figure out?”

“I suppose, I am trying to ask why you were polite to me,” Loki mutters. “You did cleverly insult my manhood not a mere minute later, but you saw me in your building, in your home, and your response was to offer me a drink. You certainly weren’t expecting me to accept and talk with you, so why offer it?”

“Uh, common courtesy? Because I wanted to?” Stark frowns at him. “Either of those, both of them really, have your pick. I really don’t see what the big deal is, you know. It‘s not like I had time to stop and think everything through beforehand, so I just did it. And either way, I was going to get a drink as a stalling tactic so I could get to my armor, so why not offer you one too? You haven’t even taken me up on it in the three months you’ve been here, by the way, what's up with that? I thought you would have, to be honest.”

Loki is quiet for a moment. “May I do so later this evening?”

“Seriously?” At Stark’s incredulous inflection, Loki bristles, about to take it back, insult him, and storm out, but Stark surprises him by agreeing, “About time you took me up on my offer! I’m game, but I need to finish this upgrade first. Is my penthouse at eight-thirty alright, maybe later?”

“It’s not as if I will be busy with nefarious plans at that hour,” Loki huffs. “Yes, that is fine.”

Stark grins. “It’s a date then.”

The first two minutes of their conversation is stilted and awkward, with neither of them apparently knowing what to say. It lasts until Stark glances at him, drains the rest of his glass of scotch and goes, “Oh what the hell, I’m going for it. Please don’t smite me for this, okay, because I know you’ve gotten defensive every time someone has asked, but I really want to know about your Seiðr. How you learned it- I’m assuming you were taught- what the scope of your abilities is, and mainly, how it works. From one genius to another, can you please give me some answers?”

Loki blinks, retort dying on his lips. “You truly wish to know?”

“Uh, why would I not? It's probably the most powerful and complex thing I’ve ever come across- which hurts to admit- and I know nothing about it, which sucks, by the way. I hate not knowing things, especially things that interest me.”

“And my Seiðr interests you?”

“Yeah, thought I’d made that pretty obvious by now. I mean, Cap told me off for practically drooling during that battle last week when you eviscerated those doombots. I would have paid good money to see Doom’s face when he saw you literally rip his bots apart with just a wave of your hand.”

“That is but a simple trick,” Loki murmurs. “You are truly fascinated by my Seiðr, aren’t you?”

Stark’s gaze is expressive and searching for a moment before he nods. “It’s probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen, and I don’t say that lightly.”

Loki exhales slowly. He thinks Stark might just be genuine. “What do you want to know first?”

It takes only an hour of discussion for them to rearrange the furniture of the penthouse against the wall to give them an open floor space so Loki can show off his Seiðr. Stark keeps up with his conversations remarkably well for a mortal, far surpassing Loki’s expectations, and he finds himself relaxing, indulging in discussion of the more technical aspects of his Seiðr.

When they finally call it a night, hours into the morning, Loki is surprised when he finds himself wishing to stay longer and discuss his Seiðr further with Stark. So few have ever been kind in consideration of his Seiðr, even less have expressed an interest in it, and for Stark to have done both...

Loki doesn’t have words to describe it.

(Later, Loki will consider that evening as the dawn of their friendship.)

It is invigorating to engage in a battle of wits and intellect with Stark, Loki soon comes to find. Such was what had initially impressed him about Stark when he had been under the control of The Other, but with his presence in his mind gone, Loki finds himself naturally drawn to the inventor now. Their conversations are thrilling, and Loki finds himself leaping at the chance to flex his intellect with Stark.

They spend the following months spending an increasing amount of time together, even more so following the cease of Stark’s relationship with Pepper Potts. (Stark isolates for two weeks after that, before he emerges with an impressive performance of being fine.) They discuss in length his Seiðr, Stark’s technology, and other pieces of their lives that they both find interesting.

Stark’s technology, in particular, holds Loki’s attention, for while the designs that Stark has managed to come up with are far superior to anything else on Midgard, a select few are also unlike anything he has come across in his travels of the Realms. It’s an impressive feat, and Loki tells him so.

Loki is also especially fond of Stark’s creations, finding himself impressed by how his bots seem to have such curiosity and personality. (Dum-E and U both, he quickly realizes, are fiercely loyal of Stark.)

As their conversations of his Seiðr continue, it grows impossible to go without mentioning Frigga. Loki isn’t sure what he expects Stark’s reaction to be when he first mentions her, but Stark’s gentle smile and, “She sounds incredible, she must be proud of how talented you are,” far surpasses anything he had expected. The sentiment touches him, and something in their dynamic changes that night.

(Perhaps, it is because that is the night Stark changes to Tony.)

Despite this, they still do not engage in conversation easily about personal topics, both of them with too many difficult stories to wish to recall such information. Still, however, there are many nights where their respective nightmares leave them stripped of their shields, with only vulnerability left behind. It is on those nights that their bond is solidified; empathy and understanding found through sharing stories of past tortures and betrayals.

During one of those nights, Tony tells him of a man called Stane, sharing with him how Dum-E first, and then Pepper, had saved his life. His voice is broken, no more than a whisper, and his hand remains firmly on the device in his chest the entire time he speaks; a further testament to the pain of that betrayal.

Loki vows to him in that moment that he will never betray Tony, he swears it, for he would rather stab his own heart than cause his (only) friend pain in any way.

Tony just looks over at him, his expression sad and resigned all of a sudden. “I don’t think that’s a promise you want to make,” he says quietly. “Not when I’ll likely give you a reason to break it.”

“You know me; I say no less than what I mean,” Loki tells him. “And I can think of no reason that would ever make me want to hurt you or betray you.” He has betrayed others throughout his life, for reasons so little as for fun (stabbing Thor), but he knows he could never harm Tony.

Tony just shrugs. He doesn’t seem to believe him, but he provides no further argument. The blanket covering their laps as they sit together on the sofa suddenly feels stifling, but Loki resolutely ignores it. He understands that Tony’s skepticism is not personal, it is just a mere consequence of being betrayed time and time again by the people he cared about most. Loki knows he would hesitate to accept such a promise as well, even from Tony. Life has taught them both that it’s not safe to trust.

(Perhaps together, they can learn to trust again.)

The other members of the team remain wary of him, distrustful to the point that Loki is certain he will never be able to earn an ounce of trust with them. Outside of Tony, Thor seems to be the most accepting of the fact he is serving a ten year sentence for his attack on New York as a member of their team. Knowing he has Tony‘s friendship makes it easy, however, to disregard the fact that the others do not trust him, even on the field of battle. Never mind that his Seiðr has been limited to keep him in check, they clearly do not trust him to fight on their side. Loki pays this no mind; their belief in him or lack thereof is of no importance to him.

When he finally meets Pepper Potts, Col. James Rhodes, and a man named Happy Hogan, they all threaten him past the point of any return should he hurt Tony in any way. He believes them. The CEO of Tony’s company, his ex, however is the one whose threat genuinely gives him pause. He knows better than to anger her.

But for all their initial threats, the three of them all seem to accept him as Tony’s friend, therefore, as a part of their lives as well. It is awkward at times to be around Potts or Hogan, or even Rhodes when he is able to return home, but those moments of awkwardness, he finds, are worthwhile if it means he can remain at Tony’s side.

It’s a thought that should scare him, that he wants to be wherever Tony is, but he finds himself oddly at peace with that fact. They have grown close over the last five, almost six months since they first shared a drink in Tony’s penthouse, and Tony is incredible, a force of light wherever he goes; it is impossible not to be drawn to Tony, he thinks.

It’s a brisk day in mid-March when he and Tony crowd together on the sofa in his penthouse with a video feed in front of them to watch the fallout of their latest prank on Barton. Tony bursts out laughing at Barton’s indignation and leans against Loki as he praises their prank, saying they absolutely have to prank Cap next. Loki is overcome with joy realizing just how lucky and happy he is to have a friend who partakes and enjoys mischief just as much as he does.

That is also the moment Loki realizes he’s falling in love.

Tony has gone quiet as his side, eyes still sparkling with joy even as he asks, “You okay, Lokes?"

“I’m fine,” Loki reassures. “Just thinking of what to include in our next prank against Captain America himself.”

“I love the way you think,” Tony laughs, snuggling into his side the way he seems to do so frequently, now that Loki thinks about it. “Well, hit me with it. What’re you thinking?”

It’s easy enough to conjure a list of possible pranks at a moment’s notice, and from that moment onward, Loki’s feelings fall to the back of his mind, always quietly lingering in his every thought. Given enough time, he knows they will become a force he cannot hope to control, but that is a problem he can deal with in the future; the present includes planning a prank, and that comes first.

(Later, Loki will consider the moment he realized he was developing feelings for Tony as the day everything changed.)

“Can I join you?”

Loki startles minutely, so caught up in his reading, so relaxed, that he had not been paying attention to his surroundings in any capacity. But this is Tony who has come to his bedroom, and Loki knows he need not keep his guard up when the inventor is around. "Are you alright?" Loki asks, lowering his book to his lap.

"Fine," Tony says automatically. He looks uncertain. "I know you're reading and it's late, so if you want me to leave, don’t hesitate to say so.”

“Nonsense, I always enjoy your company,” Loki reassures absently, frowning at Tony’s haggard experience. He gestures to the space next to him on the bed, adding unnecessarily, “Please, sit.”

Tony hesitates for a moment and then sits down on the bed next to him, leaning back. His hands twist unnaturally together; a sign of his anxiety.

Loki marks his page and sets his book on the nightstand. “Do you wish to talk about what has you so tense?”

“Not really,” Tony mutters. “Not like there’s much to say anyway though. I fell asleep working on an upgraded set of arrows for Clint and woke up screaming. J said you were awake still, so I came up.” He pauses and then adds, "You've been reading all this time? Usually you call it a night at midnight."

"I got enthralled in an old journal on Seiðr and lost track of time. When I realized it was past two, I figured I would wait until I came to a natural stopping point before I retired for the night,” Loki admits ruefully. "I'll be tired in the morning, but it will be well worth it."

"I think I'm rubbing off on you," Tony says lightly. "Staying up until all hours of the night to finish something is my shtick, not yours."

"You have a point. You did, after all, initially encourage my pranks, then you took to assisting me with them, and now you have me staying up to all hours of the night," Loki points out, teasing, participating in the lighthearted atmosphere Tony seems to be trying to create. A distraction for his nightmare, perhaps, and Loki is happy to help. "You are a rather bad influence on me."

"Guilty as charged," Tony agrees, snorting. "Though I'm pretty sure everything prank-related is a result of you being a bad influence on me."

"A mere pleasant consequence of our friendship. You knew what you were getting yourself into when you first let me share a drink with you in your penthouse."

"I did knowingly sign up for all the mischief and chaos, you're right." Tony shrugs, looking pleased. "But as Rhodey will be more than happy to tell you, I caused plenty of trouble throughout my life, so you sadly don't get the privilege of claiming responsibility for all of my evil ways."

"I plan to ask about those stories, just so you know."

Tony laughs, looking lighter now than he had when he had first appeared in Loki's doorway. "Pretty sure you'll have to clear your schedule for the weekend when you do- but keep in mind, Rhodey did also participate in a lot of my plans. He was my partner in crime. So don't let his exasperated tone fool you, he's just as much a prankster as we are."

"In that case, we will have to include him in our plans to prank Thor whenever both your colonel and Thor are present in the Tower," Loki muses.

"Deal," Tony responds instantly. He goes quiet just a moment later, his expression darkening a little.

Loki frowns at the sudden shift in mood. "What's wrong?"

"I should probably go, let you finish the chapter you were reading so you can go to bed."

“I am more than happy to have you here," Loki says carefully, sensing that there is something else weighing on his mind. "But if you wish to go, that is your choice to make.”

“I don’t want to keep you up.”

“Then prepare for bed and lay with me,” Loki says without thinking. He pauses, realizing what he just said. Norns, he had not meant to offer that, but the offer has been extended and he is not one to take back his words. Still though, he clarifies quickly, “It’s an innocent offer, no more than the simple opportunity for you to not be alone tonight, if you don't want to be.”

Tony looks startled. “You want me to stay?”

“You are welcome to, if you want.”

“Why?”

“You are my friend,” Loki says simply. “We have fallen asleep watching movies together on the sofa before and that is fine, is it not?” At Tony’s nod he continues, “So too would your decision to stay here for the night. Nightmares are painful, and if I can offer some small comfort or reassurance of safety, I would happily do so.”

“You’re sure?”

“I mean every word I’ve shared,” Loki says gently.

Tony sighs and leans against him, his head on Loki’s shoulder. “Thanks,” he says softly. “For letting me stay and for not judging me.”

“You know how common my own night terrors are,” Loki points out. "I have nothing to judge."

Tony shrugs but doesn’t offer a response.

“Go, get ready for bed,” Loki says, nudging him with his elbow. “I have placed an additional toothbrush and nightwear for you in the bathroom.”

Tony nods silently and gets up, disappearing into the bathroom. Loki uses the privacy to lay down, trying to quell his racing thoughts and pounding heart. There is something charged and vulnerable between them; it feels like he is balancing precariously on a fraying line. What may happen if it snaps, he’s unsure.

When Tony exits the bathroom a few minutes later, he pauses at the side of the bed for a moment before he pulls back the covers. He doesn’t lay down, however, just says quietly, “You don’t seem as bothered anymore to be serving part of your sentence on the Avengers.”

“Is that a question?” Loki asks, never one to make things easy when he can help it.

“An observation, I think. Am I wrong?”

“No, you are not wrong,” Loki says. He takes a shuddering breath and admits, “I hated this team in the beginning. I was no more than a collection of broken pieces being held together by pure spite, and being placed on this team felt like a death sentence. I expected to hate every moment of my time here, for an abundance of reasons.” He swallows hard, suddenly certain he should not keep going, not when he has already stripped himself bare.

“But?”

As always with Tony, he is the exception to the expectations and restrictions Loki sets for himself. He finds himself staring up at the ceiling and admitting, “But I made a friend, someone who cares about me genuinely for all that I am. It took the work of months before I realized that all the reasons I expected to hate being on this team were insignificant in comparison to the friendship I had found. These last several months, I have found myself slowly recovering from the damage The Other inflicted on me- I am trying to at least- I am trying not to be the monster I was destined to be, and I somehow even find myself happy on occasion, something I thought I was only capable of when creating chaos.”

His bedroom is quiet for a moment. “Sounds like your friend is pretty special,” Tony quips.

“Special is not the most accurate term; short, on the other hand, or perhaps, talkative, or even-”

“You're an ass,” Tony interrupts him, laughing. His expression is pensive, however, as he lays down on his side and looks over at him. “Is that all we are though, just friends?”

Loki freezes. It takes a moment for him to remember to breathe, and then he exhales slowly, rolling over on his side to face Tony as well. “I’m not sure,” he admits, “Are we just friends, in your mind?”

“I asked you first,” Tony points out, smirking a little.

“I gave you a response, however vague, and then asked your thoughts. It’s your turn.”

“Uh huh, you want my thoughts on what exactly? You haven’t really specified what we’re discussing.”

Loki refrains from rolling his eyes despite the way his heart is threatening to pound out of his chest. “What are your thoughts on us,” he emphasizes. “That is what I wish to know.”

Tony’s eyes search him for a moment, perhaps trying to assess if this is part of a joke or if he is being genuine. “I think that you’re a royal pain in the ass a lot of the time, as well as dramatic and passionate, but I like that about you. You’re also mischievous and clever; you're a genius that speaks the same language as me. I also think you have feelings for me, just like I do for you. And I want to see if there can be an us...but maybe after I kiss you?”

“Is that a promise?”

“The romantic speech or the kissing part?”

“The part where you mentioned wanting to see if there can be an us, do you mean that?”

“Of course I mean it." Tony pouts at him.

It suddenly is so easy now to see what has been in front of him for months: their close proximity to each other, the way they are drawn to each other's side, their flirting; it has all been leading to this.

Loki leans over and kisses him. Tony gives a quiet sound of surprise and then relaxes, easing into the kiss with an approach that somehow already feels familiar.

“We need to do this more often,” Tony murmurs when they pull back. He's grinning.

Loki laughs, happy. “That is a promise I can easily keep,” he vows, and kisses him again to prove his point.

End.

[sugar-petals]

Can u introduce yuzuru to us the caro way?👀

so you want to know about the one and only. ♡😌

yuzuru hanyū (25) of sendai, japan: the most beautiful ice prince with a heart of gold.

….an artist clearly not of this world, he’s been sent to us from another realm. 19 world records, two olympics won, dubbed the greatest figure skater of all time. and the most precious bean on top of that.

but let’s start from the beginning, shall we ♥︎

so, want to spot yuzu on the ice? use this checklist. slender silhouette, an even slimmer waist, feather-like outfits (he sketches those himself; the fandom lovingly calls him swanyu), soft blushy face. he has great androgyny.

outside of performances, you see him either with a deer’s gaze or the brightest, biggest eye smile. also, he’s usually found sitting with his wife: 

which is the ice 😄 these two are together forever. you can discern yuzu from a mile away by how he treats his working ground. 

there is a purity to him. you’d not guess that this is one of the most ardent athletes if you didn’t see what’s around his neck after competitions. the guy’s cuteness is as compelling as his skating technique.

look for it: yuzu’s face is super suave and rosy up close, even after his most energetic performances. some men are handsome, others pretty, he is both. 

even acoustically, he’s hard to miss. applause is all around, and he’s highly expressive. if you see a crying young man getting the high score, that’s yuzuru hanyu. you’ve not seen more beautiful happy tears.

and score reactions, anyway:

so, aye loves, the rumors are true. a cutie-pie off the ice, animated, a real unabashed meme — yuzu is easy-going, talkative. cheery, cheeky, one of a kind. his facial expressions are a league of their own.

if you thought this is the sort of guy who watches cat videos, you are correct 😄

yuz-uwu hanyu, everybody:

his undoubtedly feline behaviour is often unexpected, it stands out with its adorableness, too. a sweetheart par excellence. 

and, how else could it be: vice versa, the big beast on the rink. he’s cutesy, dorky, very well-spoken in daily life, but when it comes to skating, his seriousness escalates. you blink once and suddenly hanyu is a bedazzling, strutting lion :’D his performances stun with confident elegance.

he becomes full of ardor, drama, and focus. you’d never suspect so much fire burns in him. a showman and ambition icon, hands down. 

his skating is dynamic, perfected, and emotional. if you want to see art and the extra mile, tune in when hanyu competes.

the downside is; more light, more shadow. it leaves him crawling on the ice afterwards. yuzu performs so hard, it’s worrying.

he delivers it all. you won’t believe it:

this guy is an asthmatic.

the symptoms aren’t as bad as they used to be, but there are still regular attacks. he said that he’ll never take it as an excuse and often recalls how he started skating because of it. he’s a badass, extremely inspiring. yuzuru defies all limits, including gravity. his jumps have legendary status. 

off the rink, you guessed it: he turns into a wholly different person. 

it all dissolves completely when he’s dorking around again. 

don’t let it deceive you, he’s the no other option than first place type. he could not be any more decorated with titles, he achieved the grand slam in all competitions as of 2020. and still, king of sportsmanship hanyu is respectful and smiley towards all colleagues and never lets anyone feel left out. especially when it comes to his juniors (e.g. yuma kagiyama, 16, below) which says a lot about him.

he bows in every direction before an audience, too. lower than a 90° angle, even. this is more polite than any existing formality in japan.

talk about audience: i introduced fellow japanese skater shoma uno last week, who’s more uncomfortable with social contact and aggression. yuzu, extrovert he is: the exact opposite. he withers away with no people and competition. he’s befriended rivals, had crises over not having someone who could challenge him. when a competitor retires, he’s the one crying in their arms (e.g. with team mate and bff javier fernandez from spain below).

beside his competitive spirit and princely wow factor, hanyu is popular for his winnie pooh tissue box that he caresses, squeezes, and carries everywhere. he loves good luck charms & rituals, pooh is the most important one.

fans throw pooh plushies on the ice after his performances because of it. since it’s gotten so intense, yuzu recently started cleaning them up himself on top of the flower girls for the upcoming skater who could get delayed otherwise. (more about what happens with the piles of plushies later.)

so, the burning question is. 

what made yuzuru hanyu emerge so outstanding an entertainer? how does someone causing so much uproar become like that? it’s not just what kind of appearance he was given, although he really looks his part to a T. you don’t have to be an insider to see it right away.

like literally to a fault. and you can tell the way his blades sound on the ice is different. it’s soft even if he does the most hardcore quadruple jumps. i think it’s because his drive to do this is a higher one, hanyu has an altered relationship with the ice. where his devotion comes from has a more severe reason so, massive trigger warning. 

this is no exaggeration: yuzuru is considered a hero to the japanese. a survivor of the earthquake 2011, he narrowly escaped the collapsing rink in his hometown on that very day. he’s often talked about how the ice shattered underneath his feet and it was the moment that defined his life forever. he could have been dead by the age of 16. his motivation has been set ever since. this man is compelled by something bigger, that’s why you hear it and you feel it. he wants to skate not just for himself but others and seize every day. 

much of his copious charity work — that’s where all the pooh plushies go — went to mend the consequences of the tsunami ever since, he’s looked upon as a great hope in japan. the minister gave him the people’s honor award in 2018. 

now you know why yuzuru has such a fanbase and treats the ice as sacred, you see it in every gesture. his manners are without a single flaw, he helps staff repair the ice after performances. 

you might think it’s odd, but he honors the ground. he’s invested in the integrity of it. that’s why he’s the best skater. it’s gratitude and the will to live fully.

he hates to fall on the ice, he hates to damage it. alongside his feathery weight, that’s why the sound he makes while gliding along is so tender. 

i think that’s also why hanyu’s signature element is the ina bauer. it doesn’t rely on brutal force, instead this element slides across the rink like a swan. yeah, oh my god.

it’s his most well-known dramatic move. the way he surrenders into it. 

hanyu’s back arch and perfect split allow him to do elements no other male skaters can. his biellmann spin, for instance. i know, it’s ridiculous.

and those are just two elements of dozens and dozens. hanyu is a kinetic wizard. i highly rec this record-breaking delivery of his olympic program. in front of his home crowd! he’s just… mind-boggling. i live for his smiles here.

exceptional skater, exceptional mentor: it’s time we look at another puzzle piece that made yuzu the way he is. the masterful brian orser is hanyu’s beloved coach. missing gold by just one mistake at the olympics 1988, brian is now committed to give others what he couldn’t have— successfully so.

orser took the ice prince to gold twice, this hasn’t happened in 66 years. brian is the nicest and most supportive pooh carrier and yuzu’s utmost rock. hanyu’s talent rests safely in these hands.

he gets strict about punctuality lmao! but other than that, his guidance is gentle. canadian he is, brian’s courteousness mixes well with yuzu’s politeness. their bond is strong. as. hell. 

brian picked up yuzu from rock bottom several times. most fateful being hanyu’s accident with a fellow skater during competition warm-ups nov 2014. they collided at a high speed, it was unspeakably nasty. yuzu got knocked out for half a minute and had grave breathing problems but still decided to skate on with what later turned out as an almost-concussion. brian was the most worried ice dad in the world that day.

yuzu cried and crouched and bled like mad and my heart has been broken ever since. i hope he never suffers like that again. promise me you don’t search up the video, it’s a harrowing watch like a stab to the chest. sadly enough, hanyu’s body has still been a notorious wreck, esp. ankle issues regularly give him a hard time 😔

it hurts like a bitch with every jump landing but he takes meds and still manages to win, god knows how. sometimes even with crutches on the podium. at his worst, he’s still the best, it’s a tragedy.

he’s been recovering, or always is, but he pushes himself through injuries. his ambition and perfectionism are boundless. the cause is more important to him than his well-being. this is not an easy guy to stan once you see how he sacrifices and self-destructs. so, it’s good someone protects him. 

mostly from himself because nobody has profoundly surpassed hanyu. he has let himself no choice than to contest himself. not even health, only age can stop yuzu. i think that brian understands this ‘curse of a genius’ effect. his mere presence can make hanyu say these rare words:

his two other coaches contribute to that. tracy wilson (left) has proven to understand his playful side the best while ghislain briand (right) helps yuzuru deal with his fears. so you got 3 people taking care of the golden boy. brian once said: ���he is very sheltered” and you can see it’s true.

yuzu eased into learning english and communicates well with his coaches. like with everything, he studies hard and often forces himself to speak during interviews to practice. his skills are astounding. his speaking voice is also very soothing, very amicably low and high alike. yuzu is highly intelligent. he always says something eloquent and interesting.

now, privately, hanyu is very much like you’d expect someone so devoted to skating would be like. he doesn’t go out, has no social media, can’t eat nor sleep very well. no cameras allowed during practice. it figures he is attached to winnie pooh, think about it. in the cartoon, pooh is someone who sleeps, eats, and engages with friends plenty. 

these are the things hanyu can’t do, doesn’t have time/energy/incentive for. he is barred from balance in life but can at least admire this little carefree plushie for it. especially because pooh represents eating lots while yuzuru doesn’t have a good relationship with food (he says it doesn’t go well with jumps etc.), hanyu lives vicariously through him. 

what’s more, you have to see how he throws himself onto others and never wants to let go, yuzuru is extremely cuddly. 

to the degree that mere social customs can’t meet how much he really needs. so, what else can he resort to, he loves mascots and plushies. it’s how the tale goes in japan generally, tough work ethic, high responsibility, high pressure, so people turn to cute fluffy things.

he always fondles pooh’s head, even pretends he’s come to life so he has someone to snuggle with. i think that his isolated lifestyle doesn’t help. so, he gets his affection at least there, you can see how happy it makes him. and again: he does this all for charity.

that’s why fellow skaters are so important to hanyu. it really brings out his social spirit and comforts him best, it’s so wholesome. i’ve not seen someone react so relieved to being embraced, like he’s not been touched for months. skating this, skating that. at the end of the day, hanyu wants love.

as he once said, what motivates him is to express himself in the first place. hanyu is a romantic. it’s written all over him. it reflects in his music choices, his elegant motion, how he designs his outfits:

… and how thoughtfully he talks about marriage. he has big plans for starting a family and coaching after he retires. i won’t be the only one squeezing lucky charm pooh in my imagination so it turns out well for him. please make this heart of gold heal and see all his wishes come true ♡🐻

[everything-laito]

NSFW. As weird as this is, I've always wondered this, Can u analyze what if Laito got Yui pregnant? If we're basing it off of his HDB/MB (especially HDB), I'd be even more terrified of he threats he could make

Hi Anon! Thanks for asking! I’ve done two related asks, which you could find here (1) and here (2)!

Basically, I was saying how he wouldn’t take parenthood the best, considering what he’s been through, and how he’s pretty possessive of Yui, so he’d probably take Yui’s affection towards the child as loving them more than she loves him. Just some abusive jealousy stuff. MB Laito’s a different story, and I think there’s potential way down the line; not right away from where the game ends. But it’s more likely that he’d take parenthood better in that timeline.

But, I’m going to answer more of your threat comment, considering I dabble on the concept of pregnancy related abuse in the first analysis I linked you to. Please check it out for more information on this! Because I won’t re-rant on this (for both our sakes really haha). Although it’s Laito, TW below the cut for more specific abuse explanations.

Yikes!!! This shit fucked up!!! So uh,,,, let’s get into it…

Since…. We know Laito projects past abuse on his victims… So I do believe that he might utilize reproductive coercion. Not that he tried to do that to Cordelia or vise versa (because vice versa wouldn’t work), but the fact that he might know that’s what Karlheinz basically did to Cordelia. For those of you who don’t know what reproductive coercion means, it basically means when an abuser (typically a man) forces their partner into getting pregnant. It actually happens a lot more than you think; or at least some type of pressured reproductive control…. Which is incredibly unfortunate…

Signs of reproductive coercion may include:

Emotional pressure (turned physical abuse)

Birth control sabotage

Marital rape

Also, the intricacies of vampire conception in the DL universe is unknown to us. We know that they can reproduce like humans, but we don’t know if its more likely or less likely to get conceived, etc etc etc.

Another thing to consider is the fact that Yui’s Catholic, and I recently learned that Catholics don’t use birth control (which is changing in contemporary times). Sure, her religion is kind of,,,, altered/destroyed by the end of HDB and she turns into a vampire, but it still might be a factor. Not incredibly relatable but just something I wanted to get out there.

So if Laito does use reproductive coercion, it wouldn’t mean that he wants children. People who do reproductively coerce are ones who want to control the person from the inside as well. Which isn’t outside of the realm of Laito’s past antics. So that’s part of the threat basis. It doesn’t matter if Yui wants a kid or not, Laito will still have ulterior motives. And if Yui doesn’t go along with it, Laito would use that against her in a way of “oh you don’t love me enough?” Kinda thing.

If Laito doesn’t do reproductive coercion, and Yui gets pregnant without him “planning” it, he’d definitely use it against her. Similar to the previous threat, it would be like “Am I not enough for you? You have to try to make another man to suit you?” Or something along those lines, despite Yui (and any person with a uterus) unable to control when/if they get pregnant. I’m not a creative writer, I just do analyses, but I hope you get the gist.

Basically it’s a lot of emotional abuse and manipulation, because it interrupts their “perfect relationship dynamic” at the end of HDB. Depending on how Laito reacts if Yui gets pregnant in this scenario, he might force an abortion or something of the like. In the first analysis I linked, it was more relating to how he’d react to the children, so that assumes that Laito lets Yui have the child.

I don’t think I’m gonna develop on this much more, I think this conveys the gist of the situation enough. I know I was pretty vague about this compared to my other analyses, that’s just cuz there’s nothing much alluding to these situations in the games. So take it how you will.

I know I’m typically cheery at the end and all for providing information and my analyses and all that, because I seriously do love making these; but this one was more...real than usual. Just darker than usual. I’m probably gonna make a post after this or sometime this week that gives people the resources if they’re ever in an abusive relationship, or have been sexually assaulted, how to prevent it, look for signs, etc etc. Sure, these are fictional characters from a fictional franchise, but like how fictional usually is; it at least has a grain of reality to it. And these situations, aside from the vampire thing, can be very real.

If you have any questions or something I didn’t answer, or want to followup, please let me know. And again, thanks for asking me :)

-Corn

[misterbitches]

i feel like i’m watching two different shows and that is not a good thing.

there’s a world where consequences and real life exists converging with fake life when any of these illicit relationships make any sense at all beyond “men kissing” that isn’t really my point. the whole dynamic between muren and licheng is leaning towards making their own sort of like....idk romance girl idk what im saying. li cheng in the place being like “we can just be ourselves” and the way they interact and exist and HAVE SEX being their like...business not even that just like....u dont have to worry about what everyone else wants out of you in your rship in that way it’s just you two and you’re no one else. 

but then on the flipside is like the absurdity of conforming all these stupid patriarchal stereotypes and power imbalances that rest on these patriarchal ideas (the way they talked about what happened btwn yong jie and xing si) and like atp i know what to expect these people arent anarchists im not getting a complete story but outside of the sociopolitical shit it’s just simple fucking STORYTELLING. 

first of all i realized they fuck up the frame rate at certain points (on purpose like eslowing it down etc but i am p sure these are not in-camera effects) and it’s distracting, then some of the lighting, but WHATEVER. the acting is passable and the main couple is really engaging. flawed but engaging.

this just tells me they had two stories to tell and had no way to make it converge properly. like, muren and licheng can’t exist pretending this rship is okay and we’ve seen them talk about it. frankly i wouldn’t let yong jie around me ever and i would never forgive him not only as a best friend let’s say all of that was acceptable. but you punch me when you first meet me after stalking us because you’re upset? give me a fucking break. i can’t. this wouldn’t happen in real life unless the dudes are the worst fucking friends ever and total idiots. but they AREN’T. when licheng goes home after seeing xingsi he’s like “HOW CAN HE BE SO THOUGHTLESS”

like what realm are we living in. they don’t choose they’re like HERE THIS HAPPENS THEN THIS THEN THIS THEN THIS don’t ask us to be concise or even think about it. the two stories are just jarring especially because of how fucking isolated this abysmal character is. you can’t integrate him into a friend group or even normal society because it would   be ridiculous. 

this isn’t just fantasy or escapism, which btw still has to be done well, it’s just like. stupidity lmao. this b plot just really fucks with the flow and i particularly hate how xing si moves back home; not the circumstances surrounding that. but like being in the same space in your house when things are confusing, when your parents acknowledge they messed up because they did, and having that idiot be there. now it’s like his two best friends, another really major and compelling part of the flimsy story, are sort of removed from this life. which whatever you know it just sucks

i can’t tell how i feel about the show over all. the really intrusive air of a character who simply does not need to exist and deserve to breathe air. along with the trite story of workplace problems (i honestly hate this trope because it’s not only lazy but it’s cringe-y oh my god but we can handle that bc main couple is very cute and that’s great.) 

however! still how useless a lot of this show is simply superfluous because of this lazily pulled together story  and just empty space the absolutely best part is  is mureng (wow im a genius i did a portmanteau but it was a mistake lmao) and they MIGHT be my fav couple out of htis fucking HELLSCAPE that is this confusing show i will talk about the good stuff in another post. 

[one-leaf-grimoire]

JuLisa fluff alphabet <3

I am depressed so this somehow happened when I was supposed to be working on a lab lol.

Nothing spicy under the cut, only wholesome fluff. <3

A ctivities - What do they like to do together? How do they spend their free time?

Incidentally, Julius and Lisa basically spend ALL their time together, since they work and live together in the same place. But when they’re able to take a breather, they enjoy cuddling somewhere, reading a book, or going on a walk somewhere outside the noble realm. It’s nice to get fresh air and it gives Julius a chance to track down any cool magic.

B eauty - What do they admire about each other? What do they think is beautiful about them?

Lisa would say that she admires Julius’s confidence and positivity. He’s a very optimistic person and she needed someone like that to rub off on her. She finds his eyes to be very beautiful, as well as his lips...

Julius would say he admires EVERTHING about Lisa, but more than anything her tenacity and determination. She’s worked harder than anyone else in the kingdom despite being beaten down again and again. He would also say that her entire being is the most beautiful... but above all her eyes. And legs. ;)

C omfort - How would they help each other when they feel down/have a panic attack etc.?

Julius is usually the one who has to comfort Lisa. For a man who’s good with words, he knows that they don’t work in those low moments, and instead makes sure to hold her tight, a silent gesture to tell her that everything is going to be alright. 

But even though he’s strong, the pressure of his job sometimes gets to Julius. Wordlessly, he’ll bury himself in Lisa’s chest, and she strokes his hair and whispers things in his ear to help him calm down. You’re doing your best. You’ve done nothing but wonderful things for everyone. And for me, too. You’re good enough.

D reams - How do they picture their future with each other?

Absolutely, for both of them. Julius has wanted to marry Lisa since almost day one jafkdsl but he took it slow of course. Lisa is always a little scared to dream about the future but it fills her with joy. Marriage might not be at the forefront of her mind, since she would just be happy to be by his side for the rest of their lives. And of course... they both wanted to adopt children eventually and have a big family.

E qual - Which is the dominant one in the relationship?

Funny enough, Lisa is probably the more dominant one in the relationship (outside the bedroom but I won’t get into that lol). From the start, Julius has always been very careful about the power dynamic between them, since he’s the WK and all, and his solution was to let Lisa kind of take the lead in a lot of things, relationship-wise.

F ight - Would they be easy to forgive their each other? How are they fighting?

They really don’t fight all that much? If Lisa gets upset Julius can usually tell right away. If Julius gets upset, he’s quick to say something about it. But if it’s a rare, bad fight, Lisa usually retreats into silence until Julius comes to apologize. But like I said, they are fairly harmonious and even the fallouts of the “worst” fights only last an hour or so.

G ratitude - How grateful are they in general? 

Lisa is beyond grateful. She’d probably be dead if it wasn’t for Julius, and his presence in her life has changed it completely. As for Julius, meeting Lisa brought new meaning into his life that he didn’t before, and he was able to imagine a future for himself that wasn’t lonely and dedicated solely to his work.

H onesty - Do they have secrets they hide from each other? Or do they share everything?

Lol it is VERY hard to hide secrets between them, so they usually tell each other everything. However, there’s a few notable exceptions to this, including when Julius managed to hide the fact that he met a future version of Lisa during the elf arc. He did tell her eventually.

I nspiration - Did they change each other somehow, or the other way around? Like trying out new things or helped them overcome personal problems?

Yeah! For Lisa, Julius was the one who finally convinced her to leave her old life behind and become a magic knight. And later, he inspires to her want to become the Wizard King one day, returning long-lost ambition.

For Julius, it’s the other way around. He was ambitious when he was young, and sprinted to the top as fast as he could. He had resigned himself to a life committed solely to his job, but when he met Lisa, all that changed. Not only did she give him a more human reason to protect the kingdom, but she opened up a new future to him that he never thought he would be able to pursue... he finally found something he could love more than the kingdom itself.

J ealousy - Do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?

Both of them have many admirers but they’re both comfortable enough to know that nothing unfaithful would ever happen. However, Julius does NOT trust other men around Lisa ajksl and is not afraid to flaunt his status proudly if he feels like someone is trying to get friendly with her. 

K iss - Which one is the better kisser? What was the first kiss like?

At first it was definitely Julius. Lisa’s only kiss before him was quick and drunk, but luckily she was now in the hands of a master ;) Their first kiss was shared after Lisa was badly injured trying to stop an assassination attempt and their feelings were finally spoken. Over time, Lisa definitely grew to match Julius’s kisses :)

L ove Confession - How did they confess to each other?

At the same moment as their first kiss! Lisa realized that the reason she fought so hard was because she couldn’t bear the thought of Julius not being in her life, and Julius realized that Lisa meant more than the world to him. Holding her limp and almost dead in his arms was what hammered that point home for him. In the hospital later, he came to visit and they both ended up all over each other, and never wanted to let go again. :)

M arriage - Do they want to get married? How do they propose? What would the marriage be like?

Like I said before, YES! It wasn’t on Lisa’s mind until Julius brought it up, but she really wanted to. They were talking to each other about having kids, and Julius mentioned that, if they did, he would be expected to be married to the mother of his children. But he promised that he would do a better proposal later! Which he did... When Lisa came back from the Sea Temple mission, Julius took her up on the roof before pulling out a gorgeous ring, and asked her to “be my queen.”

As for a wedding, sadly they never got to have an official one. However, they eloped before the Royal Knights exam and sealed the deal. However, now that Lisa lives in a timeline where Julius is very much alive and well, they are still planning a large ceremonial wedding for sometime in the next year.

N icknames - What do they call their s/o?

Lisa usually sticks to simple things like “darling” or sometimes “Juli~” because it sounds cute. Julius bounces between many pet names, his favorite being “sweetness” <3

O n Cloud Nine - What are they like when they are in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?

Before they confessed, both of them kept their card close to their chest. Lisa was slightly worse at this. Images of Julius were constantly dancing in her mind and she would often get distracted lol. When she was around Julius, just a mere touch or an intense look made her blush furiously. It was pretty easy for Julius to tell that something was going on with her.

As for Julius, like I said, at first he was able to stay calm, but rest assured he was freaking out all the time on the inside. But in private, he too got distracted easily and would smile to himself “creepily” (in Marx’s words). It was very hard for him to get any work done.

Once everything was out in the open, Julius was not afraid to show his feelings at the drop of the hat. Lisa still got very flustered about it but was very happy to know that she was loved.

P DA - Are they upfront about their relationship? Do they brag with their s/o in front of others? Or are they rather shy to kiss etc. when others are watching?

Sadly, the two of them could not be upfront about the relationship for a long time. Lisa got into trouble last time someone found out about it, so they keep to themselves. But within the castle, Julius is very loving and doesn’t mind PDA at all. Lisa still is a little worried that someone from the press is going to find out, but is usually very eager to receive whatever he gives her.  

Q uirk - Some random ability they have that’s beneficial in a relationship.

Dyad. I’ll leave it at that ajkfdsl

R omance - How romantic are they? What would they do to make each other happy? Cliché or rather creative?

Oh boy. As soon as Julius got a girlfriend it was clear that he was the epitome of the romantic type. He can be creative AND cliche, and both are just as sweet. Flowers, fancy dinners, romantic escapes to the countryside, he would do all of it at the drop of a hat for Lisa.

Lisa’s approach is less of the grand gesture type and more small things. Small gifts, quality time, that kind of stuff. 

S upport - Are they helping each other achieve their goals? Do they believe in them?

Absolutely. Julius has already kind of reached his goals but Lisa is a great help to him every day as he goes through his WK duties. As for Lisa, she doesn’t really have any future goals for a long time but wants the kingdom to prosper, so she helps Julius as much as she can.

T hrill - Do they need to try out new things to spice out your relationship? Or do they prefer a certain routine?

Their relationship is very spontaneous. Both of them like to run off on a date at the drop of a hat, sometimes in the middle of a work day! But they do value routines too, especially when they’re winding down for the day.

U nderstanding - How good do they know each other? Are they empathetic?

After six years together, they know each other inside and out. Even without the help of a Dyad spell, they complete each other and are always open and understanding with communication.

V alue - How important is the relationship to them? What is it’s worth in comparison to other things in their life?

More than anything.

W ild Card - A random Fluff Headcanon.

Lisa really likes curling up under Julius’s robe. It’s so soft and warm and it smells like him. When Lisa is away, Julius sleeps with it too because it smells like her. In truth... the two of them have the exact same scent but it’s the thought that counts lol

X OXO - Are they very affectionate? Do they love to kiss and cuddle?

Yes. :) Julius is a big softie and Lisa is a human space heater so their cuddle sessions are pretty mindblowing lol.

Y earning - How will they cope when they’re missing each other?

Neither of them are very happy when they’re apart. Lisa deals with it a lot better, since she’s usually out training when she rarely leaves him. Julius is a lot more clingy and can’t focus as well when she’s gone. The nights are long and lonely for him, and he finds it very hard to sleep alone now.

Z eal - Are they willing to go to great lengths for the relationship? If so, what kind of?

Both of them are really secure in their relationship and it is not really in danger. However, both of them would do anything for the other.

[j-mysticalien]

🔫 the oc content, hand it over /lh

you don’t have to if u don’t want to lol I just saw you said something about ocs and 👀 I am interested

FIRST OF ALL 🥺🥺🥺

SECOND OF ALL OKAY OKAY HERE TAKE IT 

(I ended up dumping a lot ... I saw the opportunity and ran with it I didn’t mean to oops)

These guys have been in my head for y e a r s and even though I'll abandon them for months at a time, there are plot points I've forgotten, it’s very very unfinished, and clearly influenced by my freshman year interests, they're some of my favorites to imagine and write like every time I do a picrew chain or something I make them too for myself okay okay-

So. Exposition. For ages the demons and dark things have slipped between the veil and into the world. As evil rises, so do those who stand against it. In some parts of the world The Order was established not to eradicate or wage war against the demons, just to keep everything in their proper dimensions and destroy those who refuse. Members of the Order work in groups with assigned roles, often passed down generations. 1: trained in the physical aspects of fighting creatures, they have the unique and mysterious ability to survive in the other dimension-at least better than the average mortal. 2, “Alchemist”: Usually a witch, human descendant of a magical being, or a particularly skilled mortal even. they provide the magical aid since the other cannot perform magic themselves. (Though Witches tend to form their own communities or work with the demon realm which historically has caused tensions) While fewer and well hidden, this secret society guards the mortal realm to this day... 

There’s a small, quiet town in the northeast. Nothing much happens- the power may go out or the weather may turn within seconds and figures may appear and shift into the shadows but it all turns out fine eventually. Nothing to worry about. But those who know a  little too much know where to go when things need to be taken care off. Bloom’s Florist and Garden Shop, a sweet little store in the middle of town staffed by the owner’s two teenaged kids. They’ve got a lovely selection of flowers and herbs. If you hear noises from their basement, best to ignore it. If you see the kids sprinting down the street, best to stay out of their way. If they tell you to avoid the woods one night, you listen...

OCS MY BELOVED HERE THEY ARE

 Dante Achilles Sindweller. He is type 1.  He’s tall, thin but muscular, almost dangerously pale. His hair is blue, eyes blue though they sometimes look red. Riddles with piercings and pale scars. Cocky bastard but well deserved. Friendly and deadly all at once. He’s good at what he does and is always up for a challenge. Low key high key losing his sense of humanity. You see actually being in the demon dimension is draining because of the pure chaos of it but returning to reality is rough too. Because of the hunter’s ability (I’m pretty sure they have this ability bc the og demon hunters secretly fucked a bunch of demons so Hunters have demon blood and cannot “die” in the hell dimension but idfk at this point) they can adapt to the word with a combination of demonic attributes and idealized forms that disappear when he gets back. So um the mental toll is very much a thing that he hides very well...at least at first. He doesn’t actually have to travel too often thought, just during emergencies and later he genuinely visits some chill demon friends there.

Cordelia Emerys Bloom, “Cordie”. 5′2″, dark brown skin, black hair she keeps in two short braids, round rimmed glasses. She’s the alchemist. a few of her far off ancestors were fae. Her own magical battery is low so she’s become skilled in working with. potions and magical plants. She’s the most serious member. of the trio. She knows the job, she has a rhythm, she doesn’t like change. This group had three braincells and 90% of the time she has all of them. She likes her plants, her books, and Dante. She’s a little high strung and stubborn but she’s clever, intelligent, and really warm person once you get past her shields. She grew up way too fast and with all her adult figures gone, Dante slowly slipping (though she denies it to the point where Alice bright it up and they didn’t talk for a week), and this irritation turned fear that Alice’s presence is temporary leaves her with some issues but it’s okay im determined to let her be happy, she just has to let herself accept happiness.

Alice Barnet. A witch. Thick, bright red  hair, hazel/ blue eyes. Absolutely stunning. and a fashion icon. She moved to attend to uppity private school right outside of town. She stumbled upon the shop and immediately sensed the great power hidden in there. So she just walked in- because of the dimensional portal not because the girl at the register she saw through the window was so pretty what are you talking about it was witch instinct only- and announced herself and offered her services. She’s a flirt, though a sincere one. She projects a confident, fun vibes even if she doesn't actually feel it. Fake it until you make it I guess. Coffee addict will memorize your birth chart, Starbucks order, and all the little behavioral things. Most of my early drabbles with her involve her sitting on Cordie’s desk sipping her iced coffee while Cordie is like “how tf did you get in here” “good question. Better one: they didn’t have the black tea you like is green okay?” She actually is part of an informal coven but that’s a whole side story with its own cast of characters I haven’t touched in ages

Dynamics dynamics so Cordie and Dante are siblings in all but blood, they’ve been together for almost their entire lives. (Cordie’s parents are almost always away-either on Order business or just vibing idk they’re cool though. Dante’s parents are dead but only Dante himself seems to know that-Something about demon blood and dimension hopping doesn’t let their kind live long) They’re really close. If they met at this point in life they probably would never have been friends and Cordie probably would despise him but as they are they love each other and *know* each other. Technically Dante is older but Cordie is the eldest sister of the relationship.

The two of them have opposite reactions when Alice enters their life. (This entrance is one of the few *full* scenes I actually wrote down) Dante is allured-not by her but by the potential adventure she represents. She states her case and he’s like oh this’ll be interesting. They become best friends almost instantly. Their sass, confidence, and more adventurous sides click harmoniously- much of the time to Cordie’s dismay. To Cordelia, Alice is something unknown, something potentially dangerous. She makes her assumptions (prissy, incompetent, entitled, inexperienced) and tolerated her. Alice has had a crush on her since day 1. She was determined to prove herself to the group and really she’d just like to get her trust and friendship at some point, gushy feelings be damned. They fall in love slowly, they learn to trust and be weak and learn to know each other and be themselves Alice is genuinely interested in all the stuff Cordie knows about the magical world and Cordie gets to try to be a person outside of that world. The recent stuff I’ve actually written down involves a lot of sleepy conversations and whispered confessions and soft touched and hhh

Some of the non-human characters

“Lady”: the ghost that haunts the basement/ Order base. She can’t really speak and isn't always visible, never fully. They don’t know who she was or why she’s there. She helps out when she can though. Might help Dante in the very end. 

All of the actual demons are off ideas. Like each deadly sin has it’s own demon (they didn’t realize some humans had grouped them together for some time but they think it’s funny, sometimes they hang out just because of that) The gang doesn't directly meet a lot of them but 

Curiosity aka “Apple” aka “Heather” aka “Bee”aka...:The spark that fuels innovation ne the spiral of a downfall. frequently visits human world, team switches between stopping them from blowing up a building to playing Mario kart together. Like he definitely causes trouble and should not keep escaping through the portal but like...he’s fun to got to the mall with. Funky Lil dude who’s there for a good time and some chaos. Changes aliases all the time.

Nostalgia aka “Honey-Lavender”: the kind that leaves the ghost of a smile on your face, the kind that drowns you in the past, the kind that makes you want to go back, or forget. mostly stays in hell. One of the demons Dante visits and is acquainted with. They lay and talk. She can be a downer but he doesn’t mind, he appreciates the company and some days she keeps him tethered to his life and sanity (on the bad says she has the opposite effect, she can’t help it)

OKAY AHAHA THATS ENOUGH OUT OF ME THERE THEY ARE THANKS

[spockandawe]

So, my heart keeps circling and circling back to The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, and I was idly prodding at why that is, even more than the other mxtx stories, and then I thought to myself, ‘why not ramble into the internet abyss instead of just in your own head?’ And so here we are.

I love this story so much, seriously. It was maybe the most difficult of the three novels for me to begin, because the translation editing is definitely rougher than mdzs and tgcf, and I think the story itself assumes that readers are kind of familiar with transmigration concepts (teal deer, person from real world reads novel, involuntarily is pulled into novel, often(?) as one of the established characters, lives out the-novel-plot-but-different).

But once I got past like, that first chapter? MAN. I was so hooked. 

I think the first thing that really stands out to me is that Binghe as a love interest is...I’m not sure I want to say he’s more “flawed” than the other mxtx love interests, but that’s the best word I’m finding right now. The wangxian ship is mostly in tune with each other in the present, despite a few lingering misunderstandings. And the hualian ship, like, hua cheng rolls up like ‘heyy what up i would do anything you asked of me’ and xie lian was like ‘you. i like you a lottle.’ and their in-book development is mostly about bringing xie lian up to speed on the depth of their history together.

But Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe! The original canon Binghe is specifically a blackened hero, who is casually cruel and manipulative, and has collected up a massive harem of pretty ladies to be his wives and concubines. Pretty much the last straw in that blackening is that his abusive teacher (who he still desperately wanted the approval of) found out he was half demon (also news to luo binghe) and kicked him into the abyss where he had a miserable few years having his demon blood awakened. Later, he came back to the human realm, much stronger and angrier than when he left, and his morally questionable adventures involved de-limbing his old teacher, cutting out his tongue, and keeping him alive for years.

Shen Yuan is a modern-day human bean who has been hate-reading the webnovel of this story, where he can see a lot of interesting potential in the story, but is massively frustrated by the things the author has chosen to do with it. It is a Significant shock to his system when he wakes up inside the story, in the body of Shen Qingqiu. After Luo Binghe has already been his student for some time. Also, there’s a System that’s policing whether or not he acts in-character as Shen Qingqiu, and he’s going to get punished if his points drop below a certain threshold. He gets more freedom to act as the story progresses, but at first he has to do things like argue with the System about why he should be allowed to give medicine to Luo Binghe after he gets beat up (it will shame their sect if outsiders see him with a bruised face). And on the one hand, he’s trying DESPERATELY to avoid a future where he gets mutilated and tortured by his student, but... he is absolutely a massive softy who takes no time at all to start ADORING this kid and being super proud of everything he does. He won’t admit that, even in his own pov, and he has a very, very reserved external manner, but he’s so soft on the inside.

(ps why did using fans as conversational props stop being a thing. maybe sometimes i don’t WANT my face hanging out in public, maybe sometimes it’s extra fun to hide your expression.)

And this makes for a fascinating dynamic, because this new Shen Qingqiu 1) adores Luo Binghe, 2) is terrified of Luo Binghe.

At first, when Luo Binghe is still a teenager, it’s easier to land on the side of just adoring him. The original canon character was a sweet, sweet kid all on his own. And Luo Binghe is still an extremely good boy when this novel starts, even though he’s being mistreated by his teacher and most of his fellow disciples. But when Shen Qingqiu starts giving him support and positive reinforcement, oh my god, he BLOOMS. 

But Shen Qingqiu is from outside the novel, and he knows where this is headed eventually. And at the point where the original character shoved Luo Binghe into the abyss for a couple years of misery, the new Shen Qingqiu thinks he’s in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation, and... reluctantly does the same thing.

So here’s the trouble. Luo Binghe is... needy. He’s a needy, needy boy. He loves very hard and cares about his people (person) a lot, but he is also clingy as heck, jealous, and has MASSIVE abandonment issues. Getting this treatment from his favorite person in the entire universe is... not ideal. Having it happen when he’s just found out he’s half demon is even less ideal, especially when the framing makes it look like he’s being rejected because of What He Is, not something he has any power to change. And it ties back into to his oldest, most painful insecurities. His name literally means ‘lowered into the icy river’, because that’s what his birth mother did with him. 

So when he comes back to the human realm, he’s not as blackened as he was in canon, and doesn’t have a grudge of the same magnitude as the original Luo Binghe. But the person he loves most in the world hurt him very, very badly, and he :) has :) some :) questions :))))))))))))))

And this is the point where every time Luo Binghe breathes, Shen Qingqiu goes WAUGHHHH

Which is so TASTY, honestly! And the escalation of hurt and mistrust is such a delicious feedback loop! I love a good supportive relationship, but I live for two people who care about each other inadvertently inflicting massive wounds on each other’s hearts.

I don’t want to go into describing the later parts of the plot, because that seems like such a waste, but I feel like transmigration stories are the MOST tasty if having prior knowledge of a novel’s plot makes the leads act as dumbasses in all kinds of new and exciting ways. Which definitely, definitely applies here.

And there are all kinds of DELICIOUS side relationships, which weren’t there in the original canon, and that Shen Qingqiu accidentally discovers/uncovers while he’s fumbling around trying to dodge his canon fate. Like, early in the book, Shen Qingqiu is supposed to kill one of his peers in the sect. The guy was suffering from a qi deviation and the original Shen Qingqiu was like ‘look, he was out of control, and I didn’t want to kill him, but it was him or me.’ Everyone was skeptical, but they didn’t have any evidence to contradict him. This character was the brother of one of Luo Binghe’s eventual wives, so it was pretty much just another bonus reason to hate his shizun once he turned against him.

The new Shen Qingqiu is like ‘okay, so this Liu Qingge is supposed to be strong. Maybe if I save his life he’ll protect me from Luo Binghe?’ And it changes SO MUCH! And Shen Qingqiu is SO DUMB! He’s like ‘wow, liu qingge really hates me, huh.’ And Liu Qingge is like ‘WHY ARE YOU BEING NICE. IT’S WEIRD. ARE YOU REALLY STILL YOURSELF?’ And then later there are spoilery developments, but there’s this act of devotion that moves me so much. (five years!!!!!!!!!!)

And I don’t want to undersell the intense emotions these characters are so frequently feeling in this story, but they are also. so dumb. so frequently, frequently dumb. and I live for it.

Like, I just got past the part in the novel where Shen Qingqiu sees Luo Binghe and Liu Mingyan having their first conversation. Liu Mingyan is a legendary beauty (so beautiful she wears a veil, because otherwise her beauty is just too distracting) and eventually becomes one of Luo Binghe’s favorite wives. So Shen Qingqiu (who hates the original novel, but also sure has a lot of passion for it and remembers a lot of the details, considering how much he theoretically hates it) is like ‘OH, HOT DAMN. MY OTP’S FIRST CONVERSATION. I WANNA SEE HOW THIS GOES.’

And what happens is that Luo Binghe gets so massively jealous. We get a bit of his pov, where almost all of his thoughts are ‘WHY IS SHIZUN STILL LOOKING AT HER?? IT’S NOT LIKE YOU CAN SEE MUCH PAST THE VEIL ANYWAYS. AND ANYWAYS, I’M PRETTIER???????????????’ And finally Luo Binghe goes off out of sight with her so shizun can’t watch her anymore, and Shen Qingqiu is like ‘ah.... alas....... of course the protagonist and his lady get privacy for such an important scene..............’

They are so dumb, guys. They care so much, and they ache so much over each other, and they are so dumb. And the supporting cast isn’t much smarter. Even the smart ones have the dumb ones inflicted on them.

In the extras, at one point demon king Luo Binghe is addressing his main retainers, and he’s like ‘if... hypothetically..... two people’s hearts were out of alignment with each other........ how would u fix that.......... hypothetically..............’ And his poor retainers are like

But I really, really think that the protagonist being afraid of the love interest is a really key point for me, personally. And then it’s extra my favorite, because of 1) him having a good fucking reason to be afraid, and 2) his love interest having no goddamn clue. It makes for such a good blend of humor and sincere pathos. I’m weak to dumbasses-in-love as a dynamic, but it can be hard to have something so lighthearted while also working in painful emotional depths. The premise for this story is hard to replicate, and I’m kind of drawing a blank on anything that I’ve read that measures up to it, and the plot REALLY makes the use of some incredible foundations.

Anyways, thank you for coming to my ted talk, this book is ridiculous and i love it, and it’s also the shortest and most linear of mxtx’s books, and i highly recommend it to everyone.

[littlesailorinthesun]

manifesto no. 790: why nikki/bobo is the best ship

(Author’s note: The title is in jest. It’s just for fun!)

In this essay I will explore the appeal of why Nikki/Bobo is actually the most narratively interesting ship you could choose for Nikki and for Bobo. Note that I don't intend to bash other ships or cause ship wars, because if you know me, you know that I am a multishipper and I support and enjoy ships like Nikkimi. I just want to explain why I personally like Nikbo and why it is the most interesting one to me as it exists in canon. Also note that because of the way I experience "ships", romantic ships and platonic ships have a very blurred and sometimes nonexistent line for me. 

Shared Experiences

Not only do Nikki and Bobo first meet at the very beginning of the story, they spend nearly 100% of Volume 1 together, and all of Nikki's moments in Miraland as she learns about the world and forms impressions are spent with Bobo. Because of this shared time together at the beginning of the game, a lot of base game items and early events also have interaction between them, outside of what you see in the main story. By and large, they spend their happiest moments together. (There are way too many of these moments to list! Thank you, writers, for all the wonderful interactions.)

Of course, they also go through low points together. The rebellion in Chapter 12 was one of the few times they were separated before Bobo's eventual departure, and Nikki refused to leave Royal City with Ace until both Bobo and Momo were back with her. Bobo went from uncontrollable crying in V1:12-2 to feeling entirely certain that Nikki would be able to get them out of the mess by V1:12-7. (After all, she's Nikki's biggest fangirl!) The opposite happens in V1:15-9, when it's Nikki who's crying and Bobo giving her the strength to get up and fight. Despite that this was likely part of Bobo's mission, she makes sure to ask if Nikki's okay after Nidhogg defeats her for the first time. Neither situation actually involves much comforting, but they are both there for each other during those moments. 

Relationship Arc

To me this is what makes the ship very interesting. Nikki and Bobo do not have a static relationship. It's something that morphs and changes and develops as the story goes on. We all know the feeling of discovering that Bobo and Nikki's meeting was not a coincidence at all and that she was actually ordered to befriend Nikki! But beyond this we also know that Bobo realized quickly into her mission that she actually really did like Nikki, which is a driving force in Bobo's storyline. Without her genuine affection for Nikki, I think her story would have actually been very different.

On Nikki's side of things, she had her faith in Bobo tested in V1:19-5 when it was suggested that Bobo might have been putting Nikki in danger on purpose. Of course, this wasn't far from the truth given Bobo's mission, though we don't know if every instance brought up (like Bobo tripping in the League Till outpost) was on purpose. But Nikki is so loyal to Bobo that she refuses to believe that she could have done anything like that. Reflecting on the matter in her dreamweaver The Girl's Decision, she says to herself, "Maybe you have your own difficulties, but I have always believed in you. You are my best friend on the Miraland. Your sincere wishes and dear heart, I have never doubted them." She also realizes then that she did not know how much she would miss Bobo until she was gone, which I think is important for contextualizing some of the earlier chapters.

We see their "low point" in the relationship at the end of Sunflower in Long Night, when the True King, who has been successfully manipulating Bobo for what seems like a while, forbids her from reuniting with Nikki who is actively searching her out. Paralyzed, she listens as Nikki leaves, and wonders to herself if that was the last chance she'd get, to which the True King responds, in the most ominous and chilling line to end a Dreamweaver ever, "You're right. There's no turning back." 

Nikki does eventually find out the truth in Brave New World, but by then she's seen the turmoil Bobo's been going through, and assures her that even if her goals were false, their time together was not, and that her memories were proof of their true and real connection. Their bond of shared experiences was so true that even the lies could not break it - even if it could shake it.

Personally, I just find it more interesting when the ships have, like, literally anything that might stand between them. The deception in this - even if it's a double layered deception where Bobo was only deceiving Nikki because she herself was being deceived - is a fun dynamic to me. They formed their relationship despite the factors that worked against them, Bobo's conflicting motivations and Nikki's being kept in the dark. In a story where many of Nikki's relationships just happen because she ran into them on the street, this is a really refreshing relationship: a dynamic story underlied by a beautifully simple bond.

Mutual Desire to Protect

Both characters are marked by their overwhelming desire to protect each other. It is natural that Nikki wants to protect Bobo. Nikki sees her at her absolute weakest, disappearing right before her eyes in the Cloud Realm due to her uncertain status in the real world. Of course, that's what prompts Nikki to make that promise that the writers will totally make her follow through on, because they would never ignore a plot detail involving a major character: "Bobo... I will find you... I won't leave you anymore, I will face everything with you. Wait for me."

But it's also very important that Bobo wants to protect Nikki just as much. Immediately after leaving Nikki, she's already worried about her, thinking: "Nikki, how are you doing? Are you safe now? Have you found any new clues? I'm sorry I didn't protect you." (This actually reminds me a lot of how Orlando will address Flynn while talking to himself.) She's put in an even more precarious situation because she was meant to involve Nikki in the disputes of the world, which inevitably meant that Nikki was put into danger, over and over.

In my point of view, I think this is why Bobo left. It's canon, as stated in Daymare Fairy Tale, that the gun was what caused her to leave, because it caused her to "wake from her dream" (presumably referring to the good times with Nikki). However, the specifics of this are where I lean into theoryville. I think Bobo did mean to trip in V1:19-4 and that's what caused her to realize her actions crossed a line. A gun was pointed at her - and, presumably, at the nearby Nikki - and she realized she could not protect Nikki and involve her in disputes at the same time. She could not complete her mission. There's another more personal reason she could have decided to leave, and that would be that the sight of a gun pointed at her brought up the trauma from the events surrounding the death of her father. Regardless, I don't think either interpretation - that it was related to endangering Nikki or that it was related to her personal trauma - is wrong, but rather, it is easy to read more into it than what's stated so I thought it was worth mentioning.

Their desire to protect each other continues into Brave New World, both the day and the night sections. Really, these two are basically in an endless "no let me protect u" battle. Bobo breaks through the possession of the True King twice, once in Day and once in Night. Both times, she tells Nikki to run, to leave Miraland and herself, so that at least she can be safe. Both times, Nikki responds by telling her she isn't going anywhere: "No matter what you want to do, I will be with you. [...] I choose to stay here to protect the Miraland and keep everyone's dreams and future, to also keep our precious memories. I will not let you face this all alone. Trust me!" Eventually Bobo does accept this and tells Nikki that she trusts her to protect her. I can't wait for Nikki to make good on that promise and find her!

Personalities, Compatibility, and Character Analysis

I realize I have not touched on why their personalities work together, so here are some thoughts on them as individuals. (I will lean into hypotheticals and headcanons here.)

I see Bobo as someone who indulges too much in escapism. She likes to pretend things are okay when they really, really aren't. We see a bit of this when she refuses to believe Nidhogg could have betrayed Lilith in Chapter 12, and of course it's sort of... the entire thing about why she spends so much time gallivanting around with Nikki. After this she's pretty much forced to understand and accept the realities of the world all at once, and I think this is a major component of her character development. Nikki is both a source of her escapism and the entire reason why it comes crashing down. I think, in a hypothetical post-canon context, Nikki could still be that type of person who could help distract Bobo from things for a while (because god knows that girl needs some comfort).

At the same time, just due to Nikki's nature, she wouldn't let Bobo wallow too much in the past. Nikki believes strongly in moving on and becoming the best version of herself. This is a theme mentioned in her most recent birthday suit, Sparkling Cupcake. More personally, she reflects on it in her dreamweaver. She recognizes that she used to be a passive person and vows to change that in order to better protect the people she loves. So I know she would also do her best to help Bobo, because that's just who Nikki is.

As I think about Nikki's main goals and motivations beyond this, I keep seeing one theme pop up over and over: she places a strong value on happy memories. (Really, I cannot overstate this - she talks about it all the time.) She treasures her memories of Miraland more than anything, so much that she is willing to face its impending destruction, because they mean so much to her. These memories are something crucial she and Bobo already share. It's why I think she would find true happiness with Bobo.

(I will also touch on the obvious things here, albeit briefly: they have shared interests, like cuteness, the color pink, and romance, and they... uh... quite obviously get along.)

Comparison to Nikkimi

Really, like I said, this is not an attempt to bash or put down any ship. Nikkimi is great (and canon), but there are a few things that frustrate me:

Their relationship is largely focused on Kimi, not Nikki. Nikki is the one who comforts and supports Kimi on her journey, and Kimi is not there for most of Nikki's moments of weakness, nor does she accompany her on her journey. Kimi doesn't even know Nikki isn't from Miraland until... the very last stage of Volume 1, 19-SS3.

They get together quickly and stay together with no major interpersonal challenges. While yes, this is definitely ideal in real life, it's just not that narratively interesting.

Concluding Thoughts

If there is anything that marks the earlier chapters, it's Bobo's sadness over still being single. Yet, I love the trope of when someone didn't realize the person they were looking for... was with them the whole time!

Bobo has so many countless lines where she is fangirling over Nikki that it is very easy to read more into that. I think people ship her and Kaja for this reason but oh my god there are just as many if not more where she is Nikki's cheerleader, constantly complimenting her and hyping her up to the people she meets (just open Dreamweaver for this).

And even if you still prefer Nikkimi, Bobo having unrequited feelings for Nikki is also pretty fun.

[wandering-bitch]

Notes for I Have Always Loved The Door (pt 1)

I Have Always Loved The Door is the Wen Qing/Mianmian fic that all the wlw wanted but canon could not in any way make happen 

This is part one of three, i’m sorry, but it is a 30k fic and i’ve never written anything this long. it’s like. six months of my life. annotations are gonna be longer, too.

What is this fic About? Uh. Lots. Mostly your relationship with your past and your future. making choices about what you carry with you into your life.

title is from Charly Bliss’ “Percolator” but like. the rest of the fic is in no way related to the song. Just the lyrics “I have always loved the door/but I will always love you more/I love metaphors” fit well for the wen qing mood

it is a fucking CRIME that wen qing died, and while i’m happy that luo qingyang got a happy ending with a soft man who just wants to make her happy, i think she deserves more. so i gave her a fancy job

i struggled with the outline for this so much until i realized that mianmian’s canon arc is partially about saying goodbye to your home/family because you no longer fit there + it’s not a great place anymore. and that’s so close 2 wen qing’s

so that drove a great part of the plot, and helped shape the youya/tuzai bit

ch 1

the first chapter is so funny and then nothing ever approaches it, i’m so sorry i got ur hopes up with the shennans TTnTT

i hate most of my writing after it’s up but i still like this chapter. wen qing being a doctor, nmj knowing his place, mianmian cursing loudly

“If you’ve been knuckles-deep in me, you can consider yourself a friend” i spend a lot of time in this fic trying to kill wen qing with Lesbianism, but honestly that’s just to make up for mianmian killing herself with lesbianism.

this was b4 i decided to care how i ended chapters haha

ch 2

i’m proud honestly of this fic alternating perspective, bc it forced me to learn to write more distinct voices. 

“are you eating enough red meat?” “in the unclean realm?” 

if i had 2 be in a Great Sect i would 100% want to be in the big sexy sword jock sect but unfortunately i’m a vegetarian

please think of me, an average-sized gay, with noodle arms, pushing away all the giant cooks and self-appointed nie aunties, who are trying to shove meat into my mouth

like you know how cats avoid the bath??? and their people are like “jesus fuck how is this 10 lb animal defeating me, i’m huge and strong and also have thumbs”??? that, except it’s an average sized sword gay fighting ten RIPPED aunties holding out beef

i do love the mianqing dynamic i created here and i’m not sure i kept it up but WHATEVER this is about annotations not about editing

mianmian: god FUCK the jin clan, the jin clan sux. wen qing: hmmmmmmmmmm

i think mianmian’s three older sisters might show up in a future work in the series

yeah, i fell in love with this au, there will be at least one epilogue.

ch 3

oh ho ho!!! it’s the beginning of Sword Content!!!

i watched so many videos of dao work vs jian work and then i ignored all of it!!!

by that i mean “there were only like two decent-quality videos on dao work that i found on youtube and i couldn’t study them hard enough to get what i wanted”

someone trying to correct your practice with boring, irrelevant suggestions??? it’s extremely likely, it’s happened to me multiple times, i straight up stopped practicing outside bc of it

please, men, i’m begging you. if you see me doing martial arts, rather than correcting me, ask “oh cool, what are you doing? ah, i do [this art]” and like. talk with me like i’m a human

not to be A Bitch but there is a 70% chance that i’ve actually studied more marital arts than you, on account of most ppl abandoning within a few years, and me practicing aikido for more than a fucking decade

god swinging a weapon full-speed at someone and stopping inches from their head??? a Fun Time

mianmian’s doing it as a big dick energy move

but in my school we just trusted each other to not fuck up.

im too gay to want any “”””homophobia””” or “””discovering you’re gay”””” or “””coming out”””” plots, i just wanna fast forward to the “”””i wanna kiss a girl””” bit

OH MAN i forgot wwx’s voice in wen qing’s head. 

“even after his death the yiling patriarch managed to annoy her” i love wen qing

ch 4

IT’S THE MEMORIAL DINNER CHAPTER

memorial dinners are an important part of my household’s mourning process sorry

“she waved her hand to indicate the entirety of his use of demonic cultivation, fall from grace, and mass murder” mood wen qing. fucking mood.

oh my god im rereading this and seeing where i misspelled shit ugh. sorry lwj

so sometimes i’m vague about food and that’s because the only food i can think of when i’m writing is pork. i just. can’t remember what other foods u can eat. pork and also buns (but meat buns) soup? never heard of her. chicken? what is that??? piles of vegetables??? no one eats that obviously

please remember that im vegetarian and not only do i not eat pork, what i do eat is piles of vegetables

ah yes!!! time for mianmian to say prisons are for burning!!!!

our girls are both radical leftists sorry not sorry

acab, reproductive rights, prisons are for burning, capitalism is an inherently exploitative system, unionize your workplace

“tip your servers well” -- wen qing

wwx, shouting from beyond the grave: GET SOME, GIRLS!!!

wwx’s ghost: do y’all need anything? snacks? water? a condom? ah, love you kids, you keep me young

oh i forgot “for my local radical,” i should make sure to keep using ‘my radical’ as a cute endearment for the wives

ch 5

awwwww yeahhhhhhh trauma dreamsssss

writing jin guangyao is so fun!! and stressful!!!

fun because he never says anything straight, only through six layers of plausible deniability, and that’s just a fun exercise

fun also because i Love a Bitch. 

stressful because he never says anything straight, only through six layers of plausible deniability. 

the bit where he threatens to expose wen qing and mentions specifically that nmj does not like being lied to??? took me several times to perfect and im still not happy!!! 

but i’m deeply proud of him sending the flame hairpiece, that’s some a+ innocent-looking menace right there, that’s the only thing on this planet i believe in anymore

i loved making up sect politics that weren’t specifically “let’s put up watchtowers” because i don’t think that happened while jgs was still alive

uh @ self why did i capitalize da-ge that’s so uncomfortable.

oh my god i just realized that jin guangyao has to watch his ex boyfriend/nie mingjue treat mianmian the way he used to be treated oh fuck

sorry i was not at all writing 3zun cinderella when i wrote this so i wasn’t in the habit of thinking about jgy being in pain and now???

get fukt jin guangyao

he 100% cries to lxc about this later

what’s that??? you say i keep writing overthinkers who are anxious and terrified of everything??? huh i’m not sure i agree and if even if you were right i’m not sure it means anything

“grumpy frog” mianmian mvp

god the flame hairpiece is one of like two whole good endings i did for this fic haha

next time: ch 6-10!!

[smallcowplant]

Hi! I'm sorry to bother you with writing advice but, I know that some of your projects take place in like, universes that aren't our own and I was wondering if you could give me some advice on how not to info dump about the world and how it works, bc I find myself doing that and I feel like it would be very confusing for the reader. Thank you!

Hello! You’re absolutely not bothering me, don’t worry! I love talking about writing!

A little bit of a preface: 

At the moment, the only project I’m working on that takes place in an alternate universe is Jinx (and I suppose TSS kind of does, but it’s very much more real-world). And perhaps, this sci-fi story I have bubbling in my head. But that’s a conversation for another day.

I don’t ever really go Full Fantasy (mostly bc I really don’t like writing in that genre lol), I just take fantasy elements and adapt them into a reality that is very similar to ours!

I remember reading something in a Rainbow Rowell book about the character putting on makeup for the first time: “she looked like herself, but with the volume turned up” or something along those lines….and for whatever reason that really stuck with me. My worlds ARE our worlds….just with the volume turned up. (Take that to mean that I build my worlds off of the reality we exist in, just adding in fantastical elements.)

Btw, I’m writing this as if you’re asking me about a sims-based story, so I apologize if it’s not 100% accurate to you!

EDIT: THIS TURNED INTO A GENERAL RAMBLE ABOUT WRITING/STORYTELLING IN GENERAL BC I AM RIDICULOUS AND ONCE U GET ME STARTED I CAN’T STOP I’M SORRY

Personally, I’ve noticed that taking away writing that is separate from the pictures (i.e. NOT writing an extended caption under the screenshots) has REALLY helped me stray away from info-dumping. 

Relying solely on the captions on my screenshots has forced me to truly pay attention to how I’m framing a scene! I think my brain switched between writing for a drabble/a book to writing as if I was making the screenplay for a tv/film! 

Tumblr is an inherently visual platform, just like film or television, so focusing on the visuals instead of long descriptions works better for me. A lot can be conveyed by facial expressions/angles—-framing your character as significantly smaller compared to something else can convey the vastness of the problem/how alone they feel, framing them as staring up at something skewed can suggest that the thing puts them off-kilter, cutting back to character reactions (without words) can quietly show the audience how each character is feeling.

But anyway……

This also really depends on the POV of the character(/s) you’re telling the story through. 

Is this a Call to Adventure/Hero’s Journey-type story? Where your character(/s) are thrust into a new world/journey that they know nothing about?

If so, consider

Is your character an outsider/transplant to this world? Like, did they fall through a portal/through the pages of a book/stumble into this realm unwittingly? 

Or are they an insider to the world….have they lived in this world their whole life, only to discover something earth-shattering about their status quo that NEEDS to change (take down a big bad/search for their identity independent of their previous role/etc.)?

This will greatly impact how you share information with readers. 

If your character is new to the world, there will probably be your fair-share of Harry Potter in Diagon Alley-esque scenes, where your character stares open-mouthed at the world and ask a ton of questions to their guide. 

If your character is part of the world, they probably have a good grasp on what the world is like/what’s going on. They will know things the reader does not, and will start off with different motivations and ideas than the hapless newcomer. 

I think that it’s good for YOU as a writer to know your world inside-and-out, but your audience doesn’t necessarily need to be the same (at least, at first). 

Plant breadcrumbs through scenes—-a comment here, a poster/paper there, an action here—-that show your reader things about the world…..you want there to be curiosity with your readers….how does this work? Where did this come from? Why is this the way it is? Those are questions that build interest, and they are the ones you, as a writer, MUST have answers to (even if you don’t share that info fully).

Side-note, but I’m a big proponent in my stories for SCENES TO MATTER. 

If I feature a scene in my stories, it HAS to matter for the bigger picture. 

They have to function as plot/story-driving scenes. That doesn’t mean that they all have to be fast-paced, action/heavy scenes. 

A lot of the scenes I like to write are intimate, casual conversations between characters or small, introspective views of character’s daily lives. A scene with two characters talking can bridge the gap between intense/plot-heavy scenes AND reveal valuable information to your readers. 

A good slow-paced scene:

Tells us something new about a character/characters.

Reveals something about the world.

Builds a relationship/dynamic with the characters/world they live in.

A bad slow-paced scene:

Rips us out of the story only to have the character(/s) state something that we already know/waste time. (I used to have PLENTY of these scenes in my old sim-stories. The character would wander away from the excruciatingly slow-moving plot to comment that they were lonely/confused/scared…and those scenes didn’t add anything, lol. They just sat there, like a boring journal entry where all you do is go to the grocery store and take a nap.) 

Is one that you could completely omit from the story and nothing of value would be lost. 

Basically, if you find yourself having characters fuck off away from the plot just to state the obvious/describe the situation to us….cut it. You can convey emotions/problems through scenes/dialogue without having to be tedious!

Think of IRL conversations and how they work—-you may have a couple occasions where friends/acquaintances catch you up on drama/information, but they usually don’t dump EVERY person’s name/motivations/relationships. Think….what do your characters know? What do they not know? How do certain characters view each other/the world? How would they communicate that?

The great thing about storytelling is that you aren’t trapped into only showing what your characters know—-you can cut to a scene completely divorced from their POV (i.e. the villain/another world/etc.) and give that perspective to the audience. 

Just keep a tab on what 1) you know as the writer, 2) what your audience knows and 3) what your character knows. These are most likely all different things. You’re the Dungeon Master, baby! You hold all the cards and you know all! (You can use this to sow doubt/drop foreshadowing unbeknownst to your audience/be selective with what you show!)

tl;dr: focus on understanding your plot/plotting in general—-once you know what you’re going for, you can trim the fat. be selective with what you show/what your audience see’s. try to treat your creation like it’s real—for example: on Earth, how does humankind function? what are the rules/status quo/known truths? what are the anomalies/oddities? apply that to your story. don’t dedicate entire scenes to explaining the world your characters are in—–SHOW us (whether in visuals/interactions/dialogue), don’t TELL us outright. your audience is smart, and they can put things together over the course of the story. if your world has rules, remember them. they don’t need to be outright stated, but if certain things are not possible, communicate that through actions in the story. 

[nadziejastar]

@Disney and SQ: Make LeaIsa canon u cowards. They had so much chemistry and history it would be make sense.

Saïx and Axel’s Fascinating, Complex, Beautiful and Extremely Well-Written Relationship

Write more about LeaIsa? Don’t mind if I do. YES! It’s such an underrated relationship, probably because of how poorly it was treated in canon. I would pay so much money to see it actually done justice in canon. And I rarely get invested in fictional ships to this degree. You’re right about their history together. It’s another reason I like LeaIsa so much. It’s the only Lea ship that I saw any evidence for. Axel’s relationship with Saïx is so unlike any other relationship in the series. I just found it so complex, unique, compelling, and mature in the way it was written. Seriously, it’s one of the most touching fictional relationships I’ve ever seen. And it’s written with such subtlety.

The writers force you to read between the lines, instead of spelling everything out for you. That made it even better, since it never once felt cheesy or forced. But with almost everyone I’ve talked to outside of Tumblr, the importance of Saïx and Axel’s relationship went right over their head. One person I talked to even said that the introduction of their past friendship felt pointless; simply an excuse to give Axel more “drama” in Days. Which was sad for me to hear.

It’s why I am so bitter that this relationship got shafted by the story as badly as it did. It’s such an insult to everything the writers accomplished. Unfortunately, I know many people in real life who would…not react well if they found out that Axel loved another male.

I can’t help but think that was a factor in why their relationship was handled so poorly, even platonically. It’s just so stupid to me, though. What a waste. It’s such a shame that stuff like this happens when creators try to step outside the box with their characters. There’s a real lack of healthy male/male intimacy in fiction, especially when it’s handled with actual maturity. It’s why I loved the KH2 ending with Sora and Riku so much. But hey, I still give gotta them credit for trying and almost succeeding.

As much as I loved the Roxas/Axel/Xion friendship, it was clear that Axel was the “dad” of the group. He was only half-joking about babysitting them. I feel even more strongly about this now than I did when I first played these games. It’s been 10 years since I first played Days and now I’m a bit closer to Axel in age than Roxas, lol. I don’t think Lea’s story could have ended truly happily unless he had another adult around him that he was close to.

Lea: In memories, you live forever, you know?

Isa: Well, you may be a really small part of my memories, but at least you’ll never disappear.

Lea: I’m SO flattered.

Isa: You’re such a pain.

I agree that they had a LOT of chemistry during their interactions. What I liked about Isa was that he was an equal to Lea. Someone his own age. He gave us an opportunity to see how Lea would interact with someone he could relate to as a peer, instead of as a mentor. Plus Isa was said to be very smart and mature for his age, which is probably why he didn’t seem to have many friends. And Lea was definitely much more on the intellectual/philosophical side compared to someone like Roxas or Sora.

He was a 15-year-old who talked about wanting to live forever in people’s memory, after all. I think that’s why Isa liked him so much. He was outgoing, very friendly, and smart, to boot. He’s the whole package. I used the Japanese translation for that scene since it made them seem even more flirtatious. I found way Lea joked with Isa to be so…cute. He just never smiled or acted that way with anyone else.

And I felt the same way when Isa smiled during that scene. I could tell he admired Lea’s outlook on life. He likes how he wants to make every interaction with others meaningful. He probably feels the same way, though he has a harder time showing it. Isa obviously does not have many people that he feels comfortable opening up to. I always got the feeling that Lea was very special to him. I don’t have trouble believing that Isa was intended to sacrifice himself for Lea. Not at all.

Roxas: I found out about love on today’s mission–that it’s something powerful.

Axel: That’s true. It is. But I’ll never get to experience it.

Besides, you don’t just give a character dialogue like this, and then NOT have them find true love. I mean, come on now.

Riku: Heh, I sometimes envy how simple your world is.

Sora: Is…that a compliment?

Riku: I envy whatever makes you think it could be.

Sora: Gee, thanks.

Isa and Lea had a somewhat similar dynamic to Riku and Sora. One was an introvert and the other was way more extroverted. I loved seeing the effect Sora had on Riku. It was very sweet. But no offense to Sora…Lea and Isa gave me the impression that they were much more intellectual equals, compared to him and Riku. I doubt you would ever see conversations like this between them, for instance. So for me, they struck a perfect balance. They were opposites, but still very similar.

It was such a sincere question that Axel barely swallowed a laugh. The evidence was right there; Roxas wouldn’t be thinking of anything else.

“’Cos you’re relatively simple,” Axel replied. “Well, most Nobodies are.”

Despite being the “cheerful” one, Lea’s world was anything but simple. He’s not unfailingly optimistic and he has a very prominent dark side. He might make friends very easily, but I could tell that he had a strong desire to form very deep emotional connections that are rare and don’t come easily. So Lea and Isa complemented each other very well.

“It’s just… I’ve always wondered why we’re here, on this island. If there are other worlds out there, why did we end up on this one?”

Now I think it was because we had to be there to meet each other. And if this really is the end of all the worlds, I don’t mind fading out here.

“If the world is made of light and darkness…we can be the darkness.”

Beside him, Sora looked at the sea and idly stretched his legs. “Yeah. The other side, the realm of light…it’s safe now. Kairi and the king and the others are there.”

Even without us, the worlds will be okay, he thought as he gazed at the horizon. I don’t mind becoming part of the darkness, if I’m with Riku.

I still love Sora, though. No matter how many Disney worlds he went to, he never forgot Riku. I’m sure Isa was envious at times of Lea’s ability to instantly make friends with everyone. Isa only came out of his shell around Lea. He doesn’t get close to people easily. I’m sure he had as many insecurities as Riku had, if not more. He probably was clingy, even. But I doubt Lea would mind. I’m sure that he felt like no matter how many friends he made, he could have deeper conversations with a shy introvert like Isa than he could with anyone else.

Axel: Nothing lasts forever, man. Least of all for a bunch of Nobodies. But you know, we’ll still have each other…even if things change and we can’t do this anymore.

Roxas: Yeah?

Axel: As long as we remember each other, we’ll never be apart. Got it memorized?

Roxas: Ha ha, wow, Axel. That sounded ridiculous.

Axel: What? I thought it was pretty deep.

To me, Axel always came across as extremely intelligent, with a lot of inner depth and complexity. But he always kept his true feelings bottled up inside.

Roxas grinned. “Who are you, and what have you done with Axel?”

“Hey! I tried, okay?” All that effort to cheer them up, and they just turned it into a punch line. Chagrined, he looked away.

Xion burst into giggles, and then, as if it was contagious, Roxas started laughing, too.

“Oh, c’mon, it’s not that funny!” Axel scolded.

They paused, looked at each other, and giggled again.

“I don’t know why I put up with this…”

In the novel, he actually was pretty hurt and embarrassed during that scene, because he was being 100% serious.

Pence: Do you guys think we’ll always be together like this?

Olette: I sure hope so.

Hayner: Huh? Where did that come from?

Pence: Oh, well, you know. Just thinking out loud.

Hayner: Well, I doubt we can be together forever. But isn’t that what growing up’s all about? What’s important isn’t how often we see each other, but how often we think about each other. Right?

Pence: Get that off a fortune cookie?

Hayner: That’s it, no more ice cream for you!

Of course, I found it interesting how Roxas was later put in such a similar position to Axel. All these things happening to him that he can’t talk about with his friends. Being told he was never supposed to existand entering an existential crisis. The time when he would relate to Axel the most is when he doesn’t even remember him.

But to address the main topic of this post, I must say: Axel and Saïx’s whole relationship in the novels is just so excellent. I always liked it in the games, but the novels made me appreciate it on a whole new level. I was reading them for the first time a while ago, and I swear, I couldn’t help but pick up VERY strong romantic vibes between Axel and his memories of Isa. It’s not that I was looking for it, either. I wasn’t. It just really, really jumped out at me.

“Well, I think you can be inseparable, even if you’re apart,” said Axel.

Roxas and Xion shared a look.

“…Even if you’re apart,” Roxas murmured.

They trailed off, and this time Axel finished his ice cream. So he started talking again. “It’s like, if you feel really close to each other. Like best friends.”

Followed by…

“Love is what happens when there’s something really special between people.”

“More special than friends? Like…if they’re best friends? Inseparable?”

“Well, you can care about your friends, but that’s not exactly it…” Axel paused, groping for words that might make sense to Roxas.

“So it’s a step above best friends?”

“No—it’s not about steps.”

The wording was just so…intentional. Axel was obviously thinking about Isa when he was talking about best friends being inseparable, even when they’re apart. And he was obviously thinking about Isa when he said that as long as he has memories, he’d never have to be apart from anyone. Then Roxas uses the exact same words when he asks him about love. There was no way it was just a coincidence.

I was like, “Am I crazy, or are the writers trying to imply that Lea was in love with Isa?” Then I read the rest of the novel, and I’m like, “Damn, I guess they really are”. I swear, the novels are what totally convinced me that the writers genuinely viewed them as a romantic pairing. And then when I looked at the 358/2 Days weapons, I was like, “Okay, I guess I’m not crazy after all.”

I am working on a meta about the symbolism of Luxord’s Tarot cards. It’s just…incredible how the Fool’s Journey that’s depicted in those cards, follows Axel and Saïx’s character arcs so perfectly. There was so much care put into that relationship. I’m sure that the Tarot cards had meaning for everyone’s else’s weapons and character arcs, as well. But since we never actually get to learn that much about the other Organization members, it’s harder to interpret whatever meaning they have. There was more than enough with Saïx and Axel to read between the lines and see a whole arc. But Marluxia and Vexen? Eh, not so much.

“You mean I can’t talk to you unless I want something?”

“I didn’t mean that, but it’s—” a hassle. But if I say that, it looks like she’ll make it even more of a hassle. Axel shut his mouth. “Why are you talking to me? There are heaps of other people to talk to.”

“I don’t want to talk to rough old men,” Larxene clearly intoned.

“If that’s so—there’s Demyx, or Marluxia, who joined just before you did. And then there’s Zexion. There’s also Saïx, in a way—”

I found it interesting how Axel related to women. He talks about how you can’t push the wrong buttons with girls. Larxene touches his face in Re:CoM and his reaction is so annoyed. And then there’s the way he reacts when she flirts with him in the novel. Yeah, I know Larxene is a bitch and that really doesn’t prove anything. But those scenes felt like they were meant to show how Axel just isn’t interested in women that way. Also I like how he says, “in a way” when he refers to Saïx. Well, I guess he is young at least. However, while we’re on that subject…

Demyx: Who’s ready for a vacation? I’m ready for a vacation.

Axel: Saïx only gives days off when he’s in a good mood. Which is never.

…I found Axel’s dynamic with Saïx so fascinating due to their shared history. Saïx always has the most dead, lifeless expressions on his face. I think it hurt Axel deeply to see how miserable he was all the time. Axel must have assumed his condition was the result of the trauma caused by the experiments and losing his heart. After all, Nobodies typically have the same basic personality they had as humans. And Isa was not cold and robotic.

Indeed, Axel is all too aware of Saïx’s total emotional emptiness and he’s rather introspective about the whole issue. He reflects on it rather frequently in the novels.

“Shouldn’t you already be out on your mission, Axel?” Saïx interrupted.

Mission? Saïx hadn’t given him his assignment yet. Axel blinked up at him, and Saïx stared back.

Oh. Axel felt a little bit sorry for Saïx and his inability to lie.

Saïx can’t even fake emotion enough to tell convincing lies. At least Axel can do that much. He genuinely feels sorry for him.

In a way, Saïx put more effort than any of them into pretending he had a heart, Axel thought. And yet, he was more lacking than any of them.

Here too. Saïx is more lacking than any of them. He’s the only one who was turned into a vessel against his will, so he can’t just nurture a new heart like everyone else.

After watching them go, Axel stretched and turned to Saïx, expecting to see a scowl. But the expression had left Saïx’s face, leaving him as dispassionate as usual.

Of course, he had been faking it in the first place. Nobodies had no hearts; they only imitated what emotions they remembered. The very proof of their emptiness showed how desperately they each longed for a heart.

Axel probably did the same thing himself without noticing, and yet, for some reason, when Saïx did it—or actually, any of the others—it seemed so out of place.

None of the others in the Organization were that bad, though. They all had personalities and didn’t have to try so hard to fake one. And we know that they could grow hearts.

Saïx had no time for all these deliberately oblique remarks from Xigbar. “Nonsense. I see no problem whatsoever.”

Xigbar only laughed louder. “Pa-ha-ha! No, apparently you don’t!”

“Something you find amusing?”

“Oh, the things you hear from a guy with no heart,” Xigbar said through his hilarity.

None of us have hearts, Saïx was about to remind him, when Xemnas spoke again.

All except Saïx. No, he was unique, even among Nobodies.

He’d never deluded himself that tracking down Riku would be easy, and neither had Saïx. It was just that if he went back and reported that he couldn’t find anything, he would have to deal with those attempts at “personality”—the sneers, the snide remarks, the only trappings of human emotion that Saïx ever showed.

He tries so hard to have a “personality” that it’s actually very unsettling for Axel to witness. Yet, it was the only human emotions he ever showed. Because he’s nothing but an extension of Xehanort, with no heart of his own. He literally can’t connect with anyone or experience any emotion other than flat, numb, dispassionate misery.

“Don’t let us down now, kiddo. Shouldn’t be too much trouble without a heart,” Xigbar told Saïx.

Saix was a very tragic character. He became the way he is when he was just a kid, too. This is thrown in our face time and time again, so I was extremely surprised at the direction they took with his character in KH3. It made absolutely NO sense whatsoever.

In a room made of white marble, a large mirror reflected Demyx as he prepared to leave for the mission. He took particular care with his hairstyle, painstakingly manipulating the brown strands with a comb to make them stand straight up.

Saïx observed him from behind with what appeared to be distaste. In stark contrast to Demyx, Saïx left his long blue hair unstyled. The X-shaped scar on his forehead was all the style he needed.

“What d’you want? I’m kinda busy.” Irritated, Demyx turned around.

Instead of responding, the other man simply disappeared.

“Excuse me?!” Demyx shouted at the space where Saïx had been standing.

I doubt Saïx had any clue how uncomfortable he made Demyx. He just didn’t have the emotional capacity to pick up on things like that.

“No… Kingdom Hearts…” He opened his arms, bathed in the moonlight. “Where is my heart…?”

He dissolved into dark mist and faded from existence.

I don’t think Saïx was really Isa, and I think his and Axel’s relationship was very unhealthy, obviously. BUT. Axel thought Saïx was Isa and tried to relate to him as such. And that tells you a few things. Axel clearly thought of Saïx as someone who could understand his pain in a way nobody else could. And Saïx was a pretty miserable character. Even Sora couldn’t help but feel sorry for him when he called out for his heart. And back then, Sora thought Nobodies weren’t even capable of feeling anything. Yet, other than Axel, Saïx was the only Organization member whose disappearance left him genuinely sad.

All of it disgusted him. Saïx looked up at the skyscrapers, tracking Axel’s presence. He wanted a heart more than anything. But what could he do to get one? Here he was, yearning for a heart so badly, while Axel had managed to gain one without doing anything at all.

The blue-haired man had been the very first to join the organization after the founding members. He should have been special. The way number 13—Roxas, wielder of the Keyblade—was special. Axel was not. And yet…He remembered what the witch Naminé had said.

Axel seemed lonely. The man himself had denied it, but she was absolutely right. Axel was lonely. He’d lost Roxas.

Lonely. Didn’t that mean he had a heart? How had he gained one? Why only him? Was it an effect of his contact with the boy, or was there something else at work? He had no idea…

Saïx was jealous of Axel…but not quite in the way KH3 depicted. He was jealous of his ability to grow a heart. He was jealous that Axel even had the capacity to feel the loneliness of losing a friend. Saïx yearned for a heart more than anything. I can’t think of a single reason he would willingly join the Organization after being re-completed. It’s not even possible to describe how out-of-character that was.

Saïx collapsed to his knees. “Ngh— How much longer…?” He groaned through clenched teeth. “Kingdom Hearts… Will your strength never be mine?”

I think Roxas felt sorry for him too, after his defeat. He had the perfect opportunity to take him out, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. There’s no way Roxas was capable of taking out someone so utterly pitiable. Roxas just stares at him for a few seconds, dismisses his Keyblade, and moves on in silence.

“I feel bad for you, too,” she told him.

“What are you talking about?” Saïx towered over Naminé.

“You haven’t even noticed yet…that you have a heart.”

Several Nobodies emerged from a rift out of the corridors.

“A heart? I have a heart? No one wants your nonsense!” Saïx raised his sword over Naminé—but Riku was there with Soul Eater to intercept the blow.

“Hmph. I don’t have time for these games.” Darkness welled from a rift behind Saïx. “Run along and help your dear hero.”

With that, he disappeared.

“Are you all right?” Riku helped Naminé to her feet.

“Now I understand…,” she murmured.

“Naminé…? You understand what?”

She was silent for a moment and quietly shook her head as she stood. “It’s nothing. We have to find Kairi.”

Naminé felt sorry for him, too. Of course, she seemed to realize that his situation was unique and even worse than the other Nobodies. His heart was in Xehanort’s clutches. Saïx was genuinely anguished by what she said, though.

Maybe she had been sent away somewhere on a long-term mission, like Axel at Castle Oblivion.

But…asking about Axel seemed to put Saïx in such a foul mood, Roxas couldn’t bring himself to inquire after Xion.

I think Saïx was still subconsciously influenced by Isa’s captured heart, making him feel even more hollow and empty. I think that’s what forgetting his “true purpose” was all about.

“You made it back in one piece, didn’t you?”

Were you worried I wouldn’t? Axel almost said, but he didn’t want to deal with putting him in an even fouler mood. Disgust and rage seemed to linger closest to the surface of Saïx’s memories.

But ultimately, what we saw in 358/2 Days is this: Axel always empathized with Saïx, no matter how unlikable he was. Especially in the novels, he always exhibits profound empathy, patience, and understanding towards him. Their relationship is nothing like how it was portrayed in KH3. It was honestly so sad to see how badly Axel wanted to connect with him—to have things be like they were before. He was desperate to find any evidence that Saïx still cared about him.

He didn’t look at Saïx, but he did have one thing to say.

“Keep your mouth shut.”

Roxas had never heard him speak so coldly to anyone before.

Saïx made no reply.

The one time Axel loses his patience and confronts Saïx in anger, it hurt him more than it hurt Saïx. Axel couldn’t even look at him. But Saïx never acts hurt or offended after this scene. He’s just angry that Axel won’t listen to him. He couldn’t care less if Axel insults him, as long as he’s compliant and their plans remain unchanged.

But his voice was still oddly low. Running into Saïx had brought out a different side of him—and that side was a little scary.

Something just felt wrong about it—Axel was putting distance between himself and Saïx. Just like Xion did with him.

Axel was certainly deeply affected, though. Even Roxas, who hated Saïx, felt something was wrong about them drifting apart. He actually compared them to Xion and himself.

I just did what I thought was the best thing at the time. For Roxas, for Xion, for the Organization—and for Isa. But most of all for me.

He thinks like this even after he told Saïx to keep hid mouth shut. Even after that, he was still motivated by…well, not Saïx, actually. It was “Isa” who he mentioned. It’s the only time he used his real name as a Nobody, whether spoken or in his own thoughts. He talks about Saïx a lot. But when he thinks about his hopes for the future, it’s not Saïx’s name that comes to mind.

It’s Isa’s name. That’s how much of a distinction he makes between Saïx and Isa. The past and the present. It seemed like he desperately hoped that once Kingdom Hearts was completed, maybe Saïx would go back to being Isa again. And he clung to that hope for dear life. I couldn’t tell who wanted Saïx to get his heart back more—Saïx himself or Axel.

When he woke up after being re-completed, it was like he forgot all about their past conflict. He just wanted his friend back finally. This scene where he used Isa’s real name really stood out to me. It was the clincher. I knew there was no way that Lea did not love Isa with all his heart, when he had one. And after he started to grow a heart again, those feelings never left. Axel still loved him.

“Things are finally right again,” Saïx went on. “Of course, we’re better off this way.”

Axel had no retort for that. Maybe because he didn’t want to alienate Saïx anymore.

“Xemnas is exasperated from all the ‘fixing’ we’ve had to do. We have to set things right. There is too much on the line…Lea.”

Hearing his old name, Axel glanced up to see Saïx watching him intently. He remembered being human. Memories surged inside him, crowding the space in his chest. For Nobodies, memory had all the weight of a heart.

I remember. I won’t forget. But those sunsets with Roxas and Xion were part of his memory. Axel broke away again from Saïx’s gaze, looking down at nothing.

You can tell how conflicted he is when Saïx also uses his real name a little while later. He desperately wants to think Saïx still cares about him as well, but he’s starting to realize that he’s deluding himself. 

“I trust you.”

Axel let out a low chuckle. “Yeah? Because your heart tells you to?”

“Just the memory of it. But if you continue to interfere, I’ll have to overwrite that memory with everything I’ve learned as a Nobody.”

“…Should I take that as a threat?”

“More or less. Keep it in mind.” Finished with the conversation, Saïx walked away.

Axel didn’t move for a while.

This is the first time that Saïx actually threatened to do more to Axel than just end their friendship. He actually threatened to kill him, and he is totally in shock over it. He can’t even move. I found it so telling that Saïx always spoke about his memories in a way that made them sound so foreign to him. His memories of Isa tell him that Lea was once really important to him. But they are so at odds with his personality as a Nobody, that all he ever does is use those memories as a weapon to manipulate and punish Axel.

“We don’t need them both. Just one. And pretending won’t change it.”

We, who? Axel wanted to ask, but he held it in, along with a bitter laugh. He wasn’t sure if that “we” meant Organization XIII or just Saïx and himself.

“Think about that.”

Oh, I am. And I’m sick of it. I’m even desperate enough to ask you if there’s another way.

The words nearly escaped him, but Saïx was already walking toward the Grey Area. The set of his shoulders told him plainly what the answer would be.

Axel realized how great the rift was between how he remembered their past and what he saw now.

Why am I even here? I don’t know anymore. What am I trying to do?

But Axel forgave Saïx over and over and over again. He risked his life constantly whenever Saïx needed someone to do his dirty work. He cared SO much about Isa. But he’s starting to question everything now. What good are their plans if Saïx doesn’t even care about him anymore? If there’s no hope that their relationship can be like it was in the past?

KH3 says that Saïx felt forgotten by Axel, but I just didn’t see that at all. How could he have possibly felt abandoned by Axel of all people? All Axel did was pine for him the whole game. Axel would have been overjoyed if Saïx so much as asked him about how his mission went, or what he ate for breakfast that day. As long as it was something other than the Chamber of Waking. Of course, Saïx knew Axel didn’t forget about him. It’s why he knew calling him “Lea” would be such an effective tactic for his compliance.

“That’s enough.” Saix turned his head, giving Axel a sidelong look over his shoulder. “Traitor.”

Axel scowled darkly.

“I’m going. You know, don’t you, that you won’t stop me except by force? And even if you tried, you would fail.” Saïx went on his way. Memories informed him that he hated this kind of thing.

Here we go again. Saïx is still serious about his threat, and Axel is still deeply hurt. His memories tell him that threatening Axel should make him feel awful, too. In the past, he would be devastated with this situation. But, he isn’t. I really think Saïx simply had access to Isa’s memories, thanks to Ansem’s experiments on the heart. Just like how Xemns had access to Terra’s memories while he was talking to Aqua’s armor and calling it a “friend”. But he was never really Isa.

He had been using the Organization for his own ends from the start. The only thing that had changed in the meantime was who it was all for. Maybe Saïx would call that a betrayal. But his world had changed.

It took until this moment at the very end of the book, for Axel to finally change his mind on who he was doing everything for.

The Roxas that I know is long gone. Fine, I see how it is…

This is the moment where Axel has to finally accept the harsh truth. The truth that he’s known for a long time, deep down, but didn’t want to admit. The Isa he knew is long gone. Which was just so sad to me. Their relationship was SO messed up—it was incredibly damaging to Axel. How could KH3 make Lea and Isa just get over their past so easily? It was ridiculous.

There’s no way that Saïx was planned to be Isa all along. That would be so unfair and insulting to both of their characters. “Yeah, sorry Lea. Your best friend really DID want to kill you all along. So much for healing your pain…Here, have some ice cream.”  

“I sent dusks in before you in numbers. Think of failure as leading to immediate erasure.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Axel, and he bowed exaggeratedly.

“Was that supposed to be a joke, Axel?”

“That’s not too far is it?”

“…It’s not at all funny.” Saïx resumed typing on the keyboard.

Maybe, this is the last time I’ll see Saïx, too.

Thinking, Axel looked at the seated Saïx’s back.

“We’ve known each other for a pretty long time, haven’t we?”

Ignoring Axel’s words, Saïx continued typing on the keyboard.

This is during the time of KH2, when Axel is going to infiltrate the data Twilight Town. There was something incredibly moving about the way Axel related to Saïx. It resonated with me on a deeply personal level, in a way few stories ever have. It was so powerful, without being the slightest bit cheesy or forced. In fact, it flies right under the radar unless you really pay attention.

Axel displayed true unconditional love. He just kept trying and trying and trying—even when his efforts got him absolutely nothing in return. He was totally undeterred. He’d just wait longer, and try even harder, until the day finally comes when his friend wakes up and comes to his senses. He was incredibly hurt by Saïx’s indifference towards him…but he never stopped loving Isa. Even when he lost all hope that he’d ever see him again…he never wanted to forget the pain of losing him. 

Axel didn’t waste a second grabbing his chakrams. But his body was reluctant somehow.

I don’t want to disappear… But still, it wouldn’t be so bad if I did. Not here.

Regardless of how bad things got, even when Saïx followed through with his threat and tried to kill him…Axel STILL loved him, even if only because of how he remembered Isa. Fighting Saïx killed him inside. I like to think that during that scene, on some level, Lea could sense Isa’s true heart inside of Saïx. And that Isa still loves him, too. After all, they are supposed to be inseparable, even when they’re apart.

I truly believe that in the original idea for the story, Lea refused to take off his Organization cloak because he couldn’t bring himself to be “free” until Isa was. I also think that was why he was always staring off at the sunset, looking wistful. There’s a certain type of bonding people experience during shared trauma, that is unlike any other.

Lea and Isa joined the Organization together. They both lost their innocence and their youth to the Organization. There was no way Lea could be free until he knew Isa was, too. He would never, ever be able to move on from the past. And when Isa was rescued, he and Lea would always have that shared history as test subjects. I think their pain was always going to be something they understood better than anyone else.

Terra: I just– When I really need you, Ven, I know you’ll be there.

Aqua: Ven, I’m sorry…I might not make it back as soon as I thought. But Ipromise I’ll be there, one day, to wake you up.

To me, these quotes felt like foreshadowing. Ven is promising the audience that he’ll use the power of waking on Terra, and Aqua assures us that she will be the one to use it on Ven.

Go on, you just keep running. But I’ll always be there to bring you back!

There’s not a doubt in my mind that Lea was going to use these exact words while trying to use the power of waking on Isa. I think Isa would have been so traumatized that his soul fragments would initially refuse to go back to reality. It would not be easy to convince him to come back. Even Riku needed to pass a “test” to revive Sora.

The sun sank lower and lower as Axel watched, his mind wandering.

If he stared for too long, the image would burn itself into his eyes, visible even after his eyes were closed.

A phantom sun.

Someone had once told him why sunsets were red… Who was that?

First of all, Tomoco Kanemaki’s writing is so beautiful. Secondly, why do I get the feeling that it was Isa who made an off-hand remark one day, informing Lea why the sun sets red? 

Axel is lost in thought, staring at the red sunset, before Roxas and Xion arrive. This is just before he talks about how they’ll never have to be apart as long as they have the memories of each other. Which is so similar to what he told Isa all those years ago. “If I can live forever inside people’s memories, then at least Isa can live forever inside mine.” That’s what I believe Axel was thinking that day.

You see, light is made up of lots of colors. And out of all those colors, red is the one that travels the farthest.

The red phantom sun. It burns into your eyes, staying visible even when you close them.

Pandora opened a jar containing sickness, death and many other unspecified evils which were then released into the world. Though she hastened to close the container, only one thing was left behind–hope.  

Axel’s Pandora Gear is called Prominence. Solar prominences are large, bright red-glowing loops of plasma extending outward from the Sun’s surface. They can measure many times larger than Earth’s diameter and last for weeks or even months. Saïx’s Pandora Gear is Crocea Mors, or Yellow Death; the one that looks just like his Berserk state Claymore.

Prominence is shaped like a swastika, or manji. It’s a symbol used to represent the harmonious interplay between opposites beyond the limits of time and space. In Hinduism, the arms pointing clockwise (卐) symbolizes surya (‘Sun’), prosperity, and good luck.

I wholeheartedly wish that Lea got to reunite with Isa—the real Isa. Not the watered-down Xehanort clone masquerading as him in KH3. There’s NO way the real Isa could have EVER inspired the type of devotion we saw from Lea, if he was ANYTHING like Saïx.

[fyrapartnersearch]

original, percy jackson, pokemon, avatar, skyrim, fallout ;

I’m AJ! I lost a couple partners in the holiday craze, which is totally fine! Now I’m lookin’ for some RPs to head into the new year. If we had something lined up and things fell off the wagon, no sweat, just message me again and we can get the ball rolling again! :)

  For original settings: apocalyptic (zombie, disease, extinction event, whatever), supernatural (fantasy, urban, sci-fi, literally anything). For fandom universes: Percy Jackson, Pokemon, Avatar: The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra, Skyrim, and Fallout.

  Gonna run through my basic info and then onto the particulars. 💕

  ⥽ About Me ; ⥼

  • Name/Age ; AJ! 22! Finally!

  • Timezone ; CST! I don’t mind time differences, this is just so you know my general schedule.

  • Length ;  Depends on whether it’s novella or multi-paragraph. If m.para, around 3-5 minimum I guess? Novella would obviously be much longer.

  • Reply rate ; Varies depending on whether we’re doing multi-paragraph or novella. I can respond anywhere from every day to every other day or a few times a week to weekly depending on the writing style of the RP and my schedule.

  • OOC ;  I like getting to know my partners and sharing enthusiasm over our ideas and characters. Nothing hits quite like mutual investment! I like making playlists/pinboards/sending you videos or songs or memes that remind me of our characters!

  • Contact ; Strictly email for OOC and roleplay unless we’re using GDocs for the RP itself. You can find me at jackrabbitsonata@gmail.com.

  ⥽ On the lookout for ; ⥼

  • Doubling ; Not a deal-breaker!! I just prefer writing a cast of characters, so this is something that’s more of a bonus. Ideally we’ll double, but I’m down for writing just one character each. Let me know how ya feel about it!

  • Will only write MxM or FxF ; MxF’s not my cup of tea (I’m extremely picky with it, fellow gays u know how it is). If we’re writing a cast of characters then I’m fine with having an MxF side couple. And I STRICTLY write OCxOC! Canon characters won't be found anywhere near this stuff, folks!

  • 20+ ; Partner’s gotta be 20+ even if we don’t write anything explicitly adult! I’m outta my teens now and don’t have any interest in writing with them. Same goes for characters. It’s a 20+ zone for both partners and characters ‘round here, folks!

  ⥽ Yes! ; ⥼

  • Smut ;  I enjoy writing it, but it’s not a deal-breaker if you’d rather fade to black.  All characters will obviously be adults. I expect versatile characters in bed by default, that way we’ve got an even route for playing roles in bed. Admittedly this shifts a bit depending on the character I write but for the most part, yeah, I stick to verses.

  • Face claims ; Spent a huge chunk of my roleplaying years on tumblr (it was very over-the-top and flowery and weirdly formatted and grossly difficult to read, I know I know), so having a face for characters stuck with me. If you don’t have any of your own and want good resources to find a face, I’ve got some recommended sites I can throw at ya! Not a deal-breaker, though, and for certain fandoms (Pokemon, Avatar) I actually prefer not to use realistic face claims so we can just opt outta that when writing in these universes.

  • Depth & growth ; Not a fan of one-dimensional characters or characters who act the same from beginning to end! People change with experiences and the people around them, so this is to be expected. ESPECIALLY when doubling with a cast. I loooove complicated characters growing together.

  • Plotting & Worldbuilding ;  *For original settings/worlds! I’m not picky with this if we’re working with a canon setting, so if that’s what you’re looking for, we can skip this section. I run into loooads of folks who say they do this when they really don’t. We’re writing an entire world together, so there’s some degree of effort involved! I need specifics to use as a start-off point for the roleplay and a general outline for where the story’s going. RPs that are just random, spur of the moment with writing as we go on tend to burn out REALLY quickly for me. I know not a lot of people are into this, so I’m sorry about that.

  ⥽ No! ; ⥼

  • Single paragraphs ; I’m not too picky with a lot of length a lot of the time, I just don’t mesh well with people who don’t write more than that. Go ham. I like my responses meaty!

  • Limits ; Abuse, nonconsensual/sexual assault, pedophilia, incest (includes step-relations, adopted relations, and that figurative like if one character essentially raised another or they were raised as family), weird age gaps, BDSM, any kind of master/slave or dom/sub dynamics.

  As for the goods, I’ve laid ‘em all out for you here! Keep in mind that while all of these are fun on their own, I’m definitely the type of writer who’s into mixing and matching. Sci-fi apocalypse? Fantasy apocalypse? Fantasy supernatural stuff? Sci-fi fantasy? Sci-fi supernatural stuff? Supernatural apocalypse? Period settings? Literally whatever you could think of, I’ll give it a whirl. The particulars down below are just to get the ball rolling and catch some interest, some asterisks for current cravings but I’m soooooo honest when I say that I’d love to write anything down below and won’t shoot you down if you come at me with stuff. Hit me up with whatever you’d like!

    APOCALYPSE: My bread and butter! Bro. I’m all about the tense, harrowing, and especially gut-punching when it comes to how close people become to survive together in quiet moments of a world they used to know. I’m a big fan of zombies, so that’s my loose preference. I loved Black Summer on Netflix – the earlier episodes, at least, as well as The Last of Us. That’s the kind of vibe I favor with zombies/zombie-like creatures. But, ofc, an apocalypse can be anything! I love writing different takes on the genre since there’s so much to cover. Extinction event, pandemic, impact event, monsters/beasts, man-made, whatever. The more creative the apocalyptic setting, the better, so I’d love to bounce some ideas back and forth. Not too into a nuclear apocalypse setting, since that overlaps a lot with Fallout down below. I’ve also had some ideas of a futuristic/sci-fi apocalypse that I’d love to tell you all about if you’re interested!

  FANTASY***: High fantasy, low fantasy, medieval fantasy, urban fantasy, whatever. Love dragons, love magic, love weird fantasy flora, definitely love the classic prince/princess x knight or commoner schtick. You want prophecies? I’m game. You want elves? I’m game. You want steampunk? I’m game. You want none of that and wanna do something else? I’m game, baby. The possibilities are endless. I’ve had two particular ideas floatin’ around in my noggin lately: an apocalyptic-fantasy that takes place in a medieval fantasy realm wherein an ancient curse/plague erupts across the land with horrifying zombie-esque symptoms (obv with more fantasy elements than just that) that involves a quest to try and awaken a god or two OR some magic journey to the heart of it all and out and end to it, and a modern fantasy involving a run-down summer camp secluded deep in the woods. Two new counselors (our characters) start working there over the summer and things slowly unravel from there, either with faerie stuff involving replacing campers/staff (definitely aiming for the freaky horror faeries as opposed to like, beautiful or only slightly unnerving faeries) or the camp being run by a secret cult that sacrifices campers/staff.

  SUPERNATURAL/PARANORMAL***: Vampires and werewolves and demons, oh my! Can’t go wrong with horror, especially can’t go wrong with comedy-horror. I’m more of the type to prefer humans and supernatural beings together in a ragtag duo type of way as opposed to two supernatural beings, but anything’s cool in my book. Medieval/fantasy setting for a dark fairytale vibe, urban/modern supernatural beings slinking in the shadows outside of the human eye, supernatural sci-fi stuff, mysteries and danger lurking around every corner? Seriously, it’s a great genre! Any and everything is fantastic. I’ve got a loose concept of demons/the Underworld I’d like to get into revolving around a human accidentally summoning a demon or making a really poor deal with a demon and the eventual threat of the opposite effect (humans who work with angels/angels who clean up demonic stuff) since I’m struggling with the worldbuilding of it, so applying all that to a roleplay to give it a whirl sounds like a great way to work out the kinks. Plus, c’mon. Paranormal romance. End of the world. Flipping the script on angels and demons with the demons being “good” and the angels being “bad” but really there’s more nuance to that since they’re two sides of the same coin. What’s not to love there? I’m a sucker for human/demon relationships and/or human/angel relationships, what can I say!

  PERCY JACKSON*****: I haven’t ever roleplaying this verse before, so this is completely new grounds for me. I’ve seen some fun takes on it, though! Scoured older ads but haven’t reached out to anyone because the posting time’s pretty old, but a couple ideas I’ve skimmed through sound fun. HP got a period take on it, so why not put that spin on PJ with a period setting rather than in modern times? Or just a regular modern setting. Y’know, keep it classy, keep it sexy, keep it fun! I’m definitely interested in life outside of camp since they’d all be adults. Life’s supposed to suck for demigods, so let’s get into that. I’ve only read the first series but I’m game to read more or look over the Wikipedia if it suits your fancy! I’m REALLY looking for a PJ RP, seriously, message me.

  POKEMON: Man, I just… miss Pokemon, dude, what else can I say? :( I miss fun adventures and goofy scenarios and taking a more serious or realistic route with threats. I’ve got a couple of ideas from heists to evil Elite Four members to Poke-Jurassic Park, but I’d love to hear anything you’ve got in mind!

  AVATAR*****: Alright, not gonna beat around the bush, I had a killer post-Korra RP setting like a year ago that died off early on and now I’m kinda itching to put it back into action! Basically this whole thing just revolves around our own Avatar and world/conflicts. Something before Aang could be fun too? Or a couple Avatars past Korra? There’s so many routes we could take this! And so many things we could bring in! I had an Avatar marathon with my brother this weekend and I just miss this universe. I’ve never actually managed to RP it before, so I wanna remedy that!

  FALLOUT***: Played 3, watched various playthroughs of New Vegas, 4, and working on 1+2! I’m a recent fan and I’ve fallen head over heels for it! I’ve got ten prepped OCs for this universe so feel free to take your pic once we get into contact! :D I think it could be fun if we make our own setting for this, but I’m so down for piggybacking off canon settings. I love the Mojave in particular, but everything’s cool in my book. I’ve also got a couple plot ideas, so I can tell you all about ‘em when we get into things!

  SKYRIM***: Well I’m a new Fallout fan so it should come to NO surprise that I’m new to Skyrim too. I recently got into it after someone recommended it to me and I’m having a blast playing the game on the Switch! I don’t have any particular ideas but I’d love to dip into the water here and see what comes of it. I’ve got a couple character ideas already so if I manage to rope anyone into this universe I’ll be one happy camper.

[scarlettlawyer]

Part 9 of my reaction/commentary to the Phantoms & Mirages fanfic series by @renegadewangs

(Chasing Phantoms): Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

(Haunted Specters): Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

(Vanquishing Mirages): Part 7 | Part 8

Welp. This is gonna be very painful for me on sooo many levels.

Hooo I kinda feel like I’m playing directly with fire in this post.

Now, it’s worth calling attention to the fact that these reaction/commentary posts are, first and foremost, built on my reactions to the source material. They are recounting the journey I, personally, went through as I read this series – that’s why I focus so much on my feelings and what I thought. There is more objective analysis at times, but it’s not the primary focus. Just in case you’re wondering why I’m focusing on myself so much and might get a little “omg can u shut up about urself and just get back to the story already???” pff. (And besides, more objective analysis is always inevitably filtered through the individual’s thoughts/mindset/perspective/preferences/etc anyway. So I’m basically just not even trying to tune any of that stuff out, as one would inevitably have to for a more proper series of reviews.) Ah… I hope reading in such depth about my personal rollercoaster journey is at least somewhat interesting. And not too boring.

…Yes, at the very least, I hope this post makes for a SOMEWHAT entertaining read.

That was part of my goal. Other than honesty to the point of self-sabotage.

Vanquishing Mirages, Chapter 18

There’s a whole bunch of small things I could comment on in this chapter but I’m going to gloss over them instead. I… can’t bring myself to dwell too much on the “side-things” in this post, really.

So. The image of the phantom, sitting with his head in his hands as Bobby and Palaeno dote over him while the phantom just irritably tries to wave them off is just, everything to me. xDDDD One of my faaaaavourite things. And then the phantom just leaping to his feet like that… The entire scene I could just go on and on about it at length… But I won’t. xDDDD The best game of “how much of an uncomfortable situation and awkwardness can we possibly apply to our dear spy – having other characters dote to the point of it being outright patronising – and how will this near-emotionless man respond to such outside forces?”

Okay actually, I will ramble just a Little. “Bobby and phantom = mother and child” is one of my favourite dynamics in this whole series. Bobby in this scene is just No. 1 Mum and it’s aaaall of my yes. So the phantom is forced to play the role of the child once more at this point in the chapter. The reality is that he’s a convicted criminal and therefore cannot be trusted on his own, hence requiring a bathroom escort. But he might as well be a helpless little child who requires adult supervision, as is the norm with children – this is the other amusing lens through which you can joke about Blackquill needing to lead the way there for him.

With that, Simon turned and led the way towards the door. The Phantom followed, as obedient as could be, and Fulbright looked like he was about to do the same. 

The “as obedient as could be” gets me every damn time, ahahaha. Because it really feels to slot him firmly into that “child” role. Being a good little child. For now. His major modes seem to be “obedient child” (e.g. “Sam Specter” doing the dishes in Haunted Specters if you wanted to push it) and of course the classic “petulant child”.

“Am I still meant to thank you for saving my life?” “Would it have even the slightest shred of sincerity to it?” Simon questioned. “Of course not.” “Then, no.”

THIS IS RIGHT UP THERE WITH SOME OF MY FAVOURITE PHANTOM EXCHANGES IN THIS SERIES.

“A fool, but not worthy of the title Fool Bright. Isn’t that right?” The Phantom managed some sort of failed echo of a smile. A smile that wouldn’t convince anyone who saw it. The words struck Simon as odd. Before the Phantom regained his memories, he would choose Fulbright’s side and use an almost defensive attitude to protect the man. Now that the lost year had returned to him, things seemed different.

Just. Shoot me. Please.

So I guess. Maybe he’s still trying to determine if Simon might be hurt the same way he’s sure Bobby will be?? I guess??? Perhaps… his words aren’t so much about how the name “Fool Bright” impacts him personally, but from his perspective… Simon calling him “Fool Bright” could imply that capacity for him to get deeply hurt by the phantom’s death, that Simon might also have some kind of attachment to him like Bobby does but is less obvious about it, and the phantom obviously doesn’t want that. So I guess his goal here… is possibly trying to determine if Simon has any sentimentality towards him that also needs to be stomped out for Simon’s own sake??

“You need to watch your tongue, Phantom. One might almost accuse you of being jealous.”

Me: um dude did he just. Go there? Did Simon really just- nah that can’t be right, I’m just reading things into his words that aren’t there you know-

“Your relationship? You believe I hold romantic or even sexual interest in you?”

Me: OH. OH OKAY. SO I GUESS WE’RE JUST? I GUESS SIMON REALLY WENT THERE HUH AND THE BOTH OF THEM ARE JUST NOT SHYING AWAY FROM THIS TOPIC OF CONVERSATION. THEY’RE JUST MEETING THIS TOPIC HEAD-ON. WELL. OKAY THEN!

The sheer level of whiplash that this turn in their conversation had on me- I had literally only just been joking with my friend about the parent-child dynamics present among the trio from EARLIER ON IN THE SAME CHAPTER as I’d been reading through it.

The scene just. Ends on that line. Wild enough on its own.

And then it. Bobby. The next scene. H. And then the ffffffffffffff

Chapter end.

Me:

“DOES ANYBODY WANNA TELL ME WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED???????”

And on that absolutely wild note, Vanquishing Mirages draws to a firm close. It was a little bit strange that this scene never gets revisited or expanded upon moving forward, but that’s no matter. I’m sure it was an innocent writing oversight. At least this fic managed to go out with a huge bang! Turns out that thanks to Simon, the phantom had been saddled with unnecessary feelings! Hahaha, what do you know! Sooo, that about wraps it up for me and my reaction/commentary/review for this post folks, I wish anyone reading this all the best! So next up, we have Lifting Spirits! Going into Lifting Spirits, the title already has a positive touch to it, and well, we’ll just have to see what else it has in store. Cya!

      Ah… I guess this post is a little short to just leave it at that then, isn’t it? Very well. Continuing on with the very next chapter that happens immediately after this one, as we begin the new fic:

Lifting Spirits, Chapter 1

He was just watching a documentary on the Tasmanian masked owl when the doorbell rang.

Hahaha omg that is such a Simon thing to do

A bit irksome, but then again, he was fairly sure he’d already seen this footage before.

Dfkjsfjksdf BIG NERD. BIRD NERD.

THE WHIPPED CREAM AND CHOCOLATE SAUCE COMMENT FROM BOBBY djdjnk GOODNESS ME. I wonder if we’ll get any further allusions to what his relationship with Domestique was, ahem, possibly like in future!

And there’s also th

     OKAY FINE.

     [sigh] FIIIIINE.

Finishing the Chapter 18 review then.

Well my first incredulous reaction was something like, “Are you… serious. Did we not just spend like… Two entire fics playing around with the notion that “Blackquill is Basically the phantom’s dad”???? And then you turn around and do this? HOW IS THE READER SUPPOSED TO FEEL ABOUT THIS? NARRATIVE CAN YOU MAKE UP YOUR MIIIIND? ARE YA REALLY GONNA MAKE A PLAY AT THIS AFTER ALL THE PARENTAL DYNAMICS THAT WERE INTRODUCED?

It’s… Oh my god.

But then again.

It wasn’t like these themes hadn’t been introduced before. The first fic in the series felt so far away, out of reach, and from so long ago (and I’ve already gone over how separated it felt from the rest of the story on first readthrough so I needn’t do so again)… But I had some vague recollections you know. The main thing that stood out to me was Blackquill’s confrontation with the phantom before the phantom allowed himself to fall from the apartment window. Where Blackquill basically Trump Cards the phantom with “Ha! You’re totally into me!” and the phantom went “oh god you’re right” and was soooo ruined over the idea that he was apparently ATTRACTED TO SOMEONE that he was like whew! Think I’ll be taking my leave now and never seeing or needing to speak to you or anyone else again, so great is my mortification! And then he went BYE BYE out the window, the end. That’s Totally what happened, right? And even if that’s not exactly how the scene went, I knew, for some reason(s) that I couldn’t quite remember at the time, that the phantom having a Thing for Simon during the first fic was indisputable. (WE WILL GET TO THAT).

And the thing that’s been preventing this being brought up this entire time? The memory loss. And what’s no longer an issue? The memory loss. It was paaaaainfully obvious that things were different once the phantom regained those memories. The entire parental dynamic wherein the phantom was positioned as being Simon’s son was all set up purely in Haunted Specters, during the memory loss phase. But if I looked at it this way, I took it as “fact” that phantom was into Simon in some way or another prior to the memory loss. All of the weird parental projection stuff seemed to only come after that, while the memories of the missing year were gone. And IF THOSE MEMORIES HAD NOW RETURNED… It makes sense that……………………………

There would be some kind of reversion back to…………

So could this fic compartmentalise it like that, then? And we are to leap from the parental realm now that the memories are returned, and straight into… this? Hmm. But this alone was not enough. There were a couple of other things, too.

See, I’ve already alluded to/essentially stated this previously, but… That scene just before the phantom allows himself to fall from the window? On first readthrough, at the time, I didn’t even particularly like it or truly appreciate it. And then, we come full circle, back to when I had all my pesky little “doubts” about how the phantom’s character was handled in the first fic, finally catching up to me for my full re-evaluation.

I hadn’t really bought the one-sided phantomquill during fic 1. It was one of those doubts from back then. It just hadn’t stuck at the time.

Would it stick now?

Let’s talk a bit about phantomquill.

Well, phantomquill has never been my primary focus. My primary focus has always been the phantom (in Dual Destinies content, anyway). If given the choice, I’d prefer to just have content that has the phantom in it. Not really phantomquill stuff, although phantomquill can certainly be interesting to think about, it was never really a priority or a preference for me.

Except… Almost all phantom-focused content usually seems to be inherently phantomquill in nature. Which is fine! It would be nice to just have some neutral phantom stuff, but it looked like phantomquill was the default. The prerequisite, almost, if someone was gonna have a focus on the phantom in their story. And I didn’t mind. But I’d probably equally enjoy said stories regardless of whether the phantomquill was there or not.

So I guess I’m always kinda inclined to just shrug and go “I GUESS?” when phantomquill comes along. But I had, however, become waaay more fond of phantomquill over the years. It still wasn’t much of a preference but I’d certainly gained an appreciation for it and quite enjoyed thinking about it at times.

And obviously, obviously, from how the last two scenes are set-up – the suspiciously sudden jumpcut between them, I knew there had to be more to what was going on. I knew there probably had to be missing lines that got exchanged that the audience hadn’t seen yet, leading up to/into what Bobby walks in on.

But regardless of what those lines were… The outcome would be the same, wouldn’t it? So what difference could the conversation’s direction possibly make? Things, in one way or another, from how their conversation continues, must have gotten out of h- well. Spiralled into what Bobby sees the phantom doing!!

And I was also amused because HMM… THIS WHOLE SCENARIO… WHEREIN A BLOND PHANTOM… KISSES SIMON, COMMITTING A TERRIBLE MISTAKE IN THE PROCESS OF DOING SO… ALMOST SEEMS FAMILIAR, SOMEHOW.

But actually, there’s really no harm in that. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with fanfics containing similar scenarios playing out with their own differences added into the mix. It’s FUN and EXCITING to see different authors handle somewhat similar situations in their own ways. If anything, it should be encouraged.

So could I really accept this scene playing out in THIS fic in all its terrific absurdity? One of the important questions for that was, did it feel “earned” in any way?

I found myself thinking back to previous Vanquishing Mirages chapters, as covered in the last post. About how, back then, I was thinking how this was “peak phantomquill” and how if there’s any way phantomquill should be, it was this. Even back then, I inadvertently found myself glancing at the fic’s tags. “No phantomquill tag? No phantomquill tag? Huh… well okay then. I guess the author doesn’t think it’s phantomquill if it’s not “romantic” in nature and/or only remains subtext. That’s fair enough.” To look at those scenes… To think back to the first fic… And look at it all through a phantomquill lens…… It did feel kinda earned to me.

And you even warned me, in your own way. “Originally planned to have one-sided phantomquill.” ORIGINALLY. That’s essentially what you told me, isn’t it? Aaaand that confused me for the longest time. Honestly. I read through Chasing Phantoms like “???? “Originally” how? This one-sided phantomquill is uh, PRETTY SOLIDLY CANON IMO.” I just figured you meant “one-sided phantomquill that wasn’t just subtext” or “way more obvious”. Figured that in your opinion, if it only ever remained subtext yet still clearly there, well it wasn’t proper phantomquill then was it?

And then when I read this chapter, I was just like… (AND EVEN MESSAGED MY FRIEND BASICALLY SAYING THIS):

��THIS FIC ISN’T EVEN TAGGED AS PHANTOMQUILL W H A T”

(HOOTY HOOO PAST ME THERE’S A REASON FOR THAT).

But it just made me think, “Oh, well. I guess the only reason the author would tag something as “phantomquill” ever is if the pairing becomes canon then? Which it obviously never will here. Therefore there’s no tag for it.”

Now, I’d like to draw your attention to something I wrote in a recent reply of mine to you:

“Not to mention that I loved the courtroom jokes bit so much that, once I decided to let myself enjoy it and accept it, my Willing Suspension of Disbelief was strengthened tenfold and was ready to take just about anything you would throw at it. (And you sure were ready to throw stuff at me and had more up your sleeve!). I gave the story even more leeway to work with willingly, because everything was so perfect and I wanted my suspension of disbelief to have plenty of leeway to fully enjoy EVERYTHING. NO MORE INNER KILLJOY. I knew I could trust in the narrative because it was so strong.”

I guess this was a huge part of my downfall.

I looked at this set-up the chapter left us with – one-sided, inevitably angsty phantomquill, thought back on everything and what it came down to was… couldn’t I just accept it, just like I’d accepted things like the joke-telling? Did I want to? Did I enjoy this scenario?

…Yeah. Yeah, I realised with a bit of surprise that I did. I REALLY, REALLY DID, ACTUALLY. And I wanted to accept it. My inner killjoy was cast aside. It was tiiiime to just enjoy this perfect “angst” or whatever youd call it.

It didn’t matter how ridiculous it may be. When it comes to fanfiction… the sky tends to be the limit. It’s precisely where you can see little fantasies like this one played out. It’s… It’s… If there’s any place this kind of scenario could happen, for sure. This was it. The best thing to do is just… enjoy it for what it is.

Almost everything had primed me to thinking that… This was indisputable one-sided phantomquill, was it not? And if just about every phantom-heavy fic out there seems to have some phantomquill in it, it’s only natural that this one would too, right? There was nothing driving me to question it. And accepting it just made me ridiculously happy and excited. Yeah, it’s “angsty” and one-sided, but it made me so dang happy nonetheless.

And if this wasn’t bad enough.

I went on to make a number of other mistakes that proved to be very, very fatal.

I read this chapter after midnight. And it was sooo much to process, and I wanted to be fully awake to process whatever was coming next… And it was just way too late at night. I figured, I wouldn’t be able to handle whatever was coming next… I needed to sleep. I needed to… save it for tomorrow. And it was too late to read another chapter anyway.

…Oh, if only I had read on… I could have spared myself so much. If I had just gone straight from this chapter into the next one… I would’ve been mostly fine. Nothing would have truly had a chance to sink in and my misconception would have been quickly cleared up. I would’ve been pretty much fine, I’m sure. I would have likely suspended judgement and saved myself…

It really is the kiss itself that was the killing blow, too. If the chapter had only, if it had only ended at the phantom’s last line, and Bobby’s segment saved for the next chapter, I would have EASILY maintained plausible deniability and would have been spared. Even when Blackquill and phantom’s conversation turned in that direction, I had NOT made ANY concrete assumptions.

But what actually happened was.

I turned my computer off,

And went to sleep.

And ohhhhhh boy.

I was very excited to find out how the narrative would continue in the next chapter. Especially how the prose of the text itself would approach it. Naturally, there was going to be immediate fallout.

But the narrative patterns of this series so far also fooled me. One thing was clear: the audience was to find out what happened during the jumpcut from Blackquill’s to Bobby’s POV in the next chapter.

And WHOSE perspective is missing, that is normally left until last? Was it not evident…?

So it seems like my mind couldn’t help brainstorming, and seems my dreams were like, “Oh, what if the prose was like this, starting with this sentence, and then…”

Haah.

So you see, when I woke up the next morning, I had these lines of prose fresh in my mind! And I really liked them, actually! I couldn’t let them go to waste! I had to write them down…!

Yep. It’s terribly embarrassing to admit. But I wrote my own little snippet of a sequel before reading the next chapter. “I can compare, see how the next chapter actually goes…!” I thought to myself naively.

Which brings us to…

Vanquishing Mirages, Chapter 19

Finally, I eagerly open the next chapter to read and it was just…

I don’t think I’ve ever been more thoroughly played by a piece of fiction in my entire life.

There was that time I was reading a book and one of the beloved characters that I was deeply attached to was very clearly dying. Their death had been one of the possibilities I had been DREADING even before starting the book. It’s a little bit hard to stay alive when there’s a sword lodged in you like that, you know? Their consciousness was slipping away by the moment. I couldn’t read on through my tears. I had to pause reading and pull myself together to push on.

…And when I did? The character suddenly, recovered on the next page. And was fine. Because here’s the thing: said character was a zombie. But like, a weird kind of “alive” zombie which could still die I guess. Had the sword remained firmly lodged in him, chances are he would have actually died. But another character – devastated over this character’s impending death, 100% sure it was about to happen, pulled the sword out. And then, what do you know? The character sat up again and was like “lol wait I’m actually feeling a lot better now lol… well I guess that’s being a zombie for you huh.”

Hah. Well. That’s one example that comes to mind and at least, in this case… the bait and switch was actually going from one thing I desperately didn’t want – to something I actually desperately wanted. For the character to live, or “live” as a perfectly conscious zombie.

There is another example that comes to mind, a little bit closer to home, which involves… ship baiting.

I like to think that it is very hard to make me fall for ship baiting. Sure, I ship things that aren’t canon in media. And I do so with the full knowledge that they aren’t canon and will most likely never be canon. I keep those two realms nice and separate and therefore my feelings never get hurt. I never get too invested to the point of becoming upset… And I can tell, usually, what is sheer shipbaiting and what constitutes actual, canon evidence.

So there was one piece of media I was into, where two male characters were shipped with each other from the very start by the fandom, even before they ever interacted with each other. Then they actually started interacting and their dynamic was awesome, they cared for and were looking out for each other. So the shipping of the two characters only heightened dramatically in the fandom, naturally. Now, everyone was getting invested, but I looked at these two characters and went… “yeah, sure, I would love to see them get together, so I ship it.” But I figured, you know, it was never gonna actually happen, so I didn’t get too invested. I thought, yeah… the writers are deeefinitely throwing in some intentional bait with those two that they will never actually follow through on. So I didn’t get invested.

But then something happened that changed everything for me… One of those two characters got 100% confirmed, beyond a shadow of any doubt, to be canonically in love with the other, in the media itself, undeniably. I always usually look for plausible deniability to cover my bases. That’s what ship baiting relies on. But there was no way around the concrete fact that this character was in love with the other.

And in that piece of media, there was no canon reason, absolutely none, why those two characters couldn’t get together. And if Character A’s canonically in love with Character B… there were MOUNTAINS of evidence that Character B felt the same way. If anything, if I had to take a blind guess at who was in love with who, I would have figured it was Character B way more than Character A.

Well, the writers messed up and stuffed around and played with its audience. They wanted to keep baiting this ship, they introduced very transparent & pointless roadblocks as to why they couldn’t be together only after the fact of one of the character’s feelings revealed, and yeah, turns out the other character doesn’t feel the same way back. They employed just plain bad writing to introduce pointless drama and turned the previously inseparable pair against each other.

Nooow that hurt a lot because I was shipping something that, for all intents and purposes canonically speaking, could've been on the verge of becoming a reality. Before the writers decided to add unnecessary complications and reveal that the other character never felt that way. I got really invested and it turned out to be blatant baiting and, yeah.

Well the example in your fic is obviously very different from that one on a number of fronts. The example just provided was baiting the ship becoming canon. The example in your series is merely baiting the notion that a character had a specific type of feeling(s) for another. In some ways that made it all the more crushing.

Suffice it to say, I felt like the BIGGEST, STUPIDEST idiot EVER when I read the next chapter. I still do. The pain never truly went away sdklsd;madl;dfkj

Well, let’s start on the chapter itself, shall we?

With the chapter summary:

The Phantom’s crazy way of thinking turns the situation into a bit of a soap opera. How does he really feel about Simon Blackquill, as far as feeling goes with him?

Stupid, stupid me, leaning into a microphone: um. Do you even have to ask. This chapter summary alone was one of my favourite things in the world… before reading on.

”My actions were Bobby Fulbright’s actions, not a reflection of my own desires.”

Okay so. I had not actually remembered this line until this second readthrough, and I absolutely have to call bull on this. We know that prior to the phantom stealing Bobby’s life, Bobby never acted on his sexuality. FURTHERMORE, EVEN IF HE HAD, I’m calling bull once AGAIN and am gonna say that the real Bobby Fulbright would never have abused his role as parole officer to cross a line that should not have been crossed WITH A PRISONER THAT HE IS PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR. Unavoidable power balance. The Bobby I know would not, end of story. Even if the real Bobby was attracted to Simon. He wouldn’t have acted on it if he was Simon’s parole officer. AND THIS ENTIRE SPIEL IS MOOT ANYWAY BECAUSE THE PHANTOM WOULD HAVE NO WAY TO TELL WHO BOBBY WOULD BE ATTRACTED TO AND I SOMEHOW DOUBT HE GETS THAT INVESTED IN HIS ROLES TO FOLLOW THROUGH TO THIS EXTENT. I guess what it comes down to is how he later basically says “seeking acknowledgement is one thing, seeking a relationship is entirely another”. So part of the driving force was the seeking acknowledgement…? BUT IN A WEIRD NON-PHANTOMQUILL WAY…? And there’s also the fact that the identity of “Bobby Fulbright” and the nameless spy known as the phantom were blurring together. But IF the identity blurring actually played a role, that would make it phantomquill, so I kind of doubt that’s part of the explanation.

And like, sure, I get it. Pretty sure “Bobby Fulbright” behaved that way immediately after Simon mentioned “the phantom” to him. So his goal was to manipulate Simon, a little bit of that “seeking acknowledgement” in there too (BUT NOT ACTUAL PHANTOMQUILL-STYLE “SEEKING ACKNOWLEDGEMENT” APPARENTLY????) and who knows. Maybe he was searching for the damn profile. Maybe he thought it might be hidden in Simon’s clothes. WHO KNOWS. But like, I get it, it was “not a reflection of his own desires”, APPARENTLY.

fffffffffffffff

”I am what one might call aromantic and asexual,”

So as a quick aside, worth noting that on the first readthrough… Like… I knew the kiss was still coming so at the start when he’s saying this stuff, it felt more like him denying it, only for ya know… the kiss to happen and all. It was only after it fully played out that I came back to this line all like “Oh my god… he was right… he wasn’t kidding…” BUT WE’LL GET TO THERE. WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY THOUGH-

My goodness. Reading this sent me into another realm. It just like? Astral projected me to some other planet because heLLOOOO I WOULD LIKE TO DISSECT THIS A LITTLE BIT:

Firstly, the word “asexual”? Okay, that’s commonly used outside of the context of people being ace. So it would not be too surprising for him to say something about being asexual because, that’s already a commonly-used English word, even if that “common definition” (see: plants and whatever) is not the definition he is using here, he could easily use this word in this context without knowing that plenty of people actually do use it in this context as a label for themselves.

BUT “AROMANTIC” … NOW THAT’S INTERESTING. “Aromantic” is a very specific word with a specific definition! It is not a commonly-known English word in day-to-day life among the average person and it is not used outside of people using it as a label to identify themselves with!

ALL OF THIS TO SAY… FOR HIM TO USE BOTH WORDS? IMPLIES HE KNOWS HIS STUFF.

IF the phantom had been randomly pulling out the word “asexual” because it would be “obvious what it means in this context” without knowing that asexuality is A Fairly Common Thing, he would have just called himself asexual and nothing else. Because for people who aren’t particularly knowledgeable on the subject, they often conflate asexuality and aromanticism together!

With that being said, there is still the possibility that he isn’t aware of the communities that have been formed around those labels. That he was doing a simple equation here and putting “a-“ in front of “sexuality” and “romantic” to demonstrate that he’s “none” in both.

BUT I’M STILL INCLINED TO SAY THAT THE FACT THAT HE SPECIFICALLY SAYS “AROMANTIC” MEANS HE’S KINDA KNOWLEDGEABLE ABT IT…

And I just CANNOT get over this and the implications attached to it. The phantom knows about asexuality and aromanticism and self-identifies as aroace? THE PHANTOM KNOWS ABOUT THE SPLIT ATTRACTION MODEL? DSDFKLMLKDF;LDSL;-

Ohhh my god.

And yes, in this year 2019 these terms and communities are becoming more and more widespread, but they’re still not particularly mainstream. I know also that this fic is set in 2028, but… I’m more primed to think about when this fic was written – a few years back – when these terms and communities would have been a little bit more obscure. That’s the primary background I think of RE: the phantom actually knowing this stuff.

Also, hah, it’s so many layers because WOW… Talk about absolutely awful aroace representation in a sense right here. You get this character in your canon calling themselves aroace and they’re… the despicable, emotionless murderer & VILLAIN. Feels like it falls directly into the “bad representation” trap, HOWEVER. I do feel that the situation is much more nuanced in this case.

Like yeah, he might be an emotionless murderer, and on the surface that looks bad, BUT! He’s also a major protagonist that we have come to sympathise with at times and feel bad for… The story has followed and focused on him so much. It has shown him in so many different lights, somehow managing to make him such an extremely well-rounded character with depth. Therefore, at least to me… It doesn’t necessarily feel like bad representation at all. He’s not limited to being the bad guy. He’s so much more than that. This is nothing but another aspect to his character. And being aroace is not necessarily directly linked to his villainy. So much about him has been broken down and deconstructed. So somehow… by some miracle… In the context of this fic, the fact that the emotionless murderer is aroace could almost circle back around into being almost good representation, amazingly enough. Or… well, that’s the thing. Whether it’s “good” or “bad” representation most likely ultimately isn’t your primary concern anyway. Neither is “representation”, for that matter. What matters is a good story with good characters that make sense. So there may be no point talking about the representation angle anyway: it’s not necessarily “representation”. It’s just a character with a certain identity that happens to neutrally exist in the plot, whoever that character may be and whatever that character may happen to be.

And I also have happened to see you mention that you yourself are ace!

But I’m merely analysing the text as I would with any piece of fiction – and will continue to do so. Being aware that you’re ace yourself gives me a little bit more perspective on things, but I wouldn’t have necessarily been aware of that in different circumstances and therefore wish to look at the text as its own entity and how it comes across to me as the reader.

As for the rest of what he says…

Ohhh geez. Now it’s time to talk about something else. Another little fatal mistake I made in my approach to reading this series. We must once again return ourselves to when I read Chasing Phantoms.

Now I myself am asexual, of the repulsed kind… xD

So when I came across That phantomquill scene in Chasing Phantoms, my response was basically just, “oh GEEZ that is NOT a mental image I want thankyouverymuch nope nope nope nope.” And just – kept reading on and did my best to forget about that scene. Juuust bury it away and not think about it. :P Ignore it! Pretend it didn’t happen. And this alone created some “distance” between myself and the narrative at the time, that my instinct already was to reject something connected back to that version of the phantom.

Looks like I did a little too good of a job forgetting about it. And with it out of mind, well, I’d become sooo heavily entrenched in the series by this point and really was clinging to everything that was canon.

I read this chapter and it was just like… oh dear. Oh DEAR. That was a thing. That happened in this series!!!

It was just SHOVED in my face undeniably in this chapter, as if I could not have possibly received a nastier slap in the face with the reminder of that incident’s existence. xDDDD

My distance when reading Chasing Phantoms had just come back to bite me in the biggest way… I’d gotten so heavily attached to the canon of this series by this point. But I’d conveniently forgotten the canon that I didn’t want to acknowledge, and hadn’t fully acknowledged back then. Suddenly! I was well and truly being forced to acknowledge EVERYTHING! Ahaha.

The spy pushed away from the sink to take a few steps towards Simon. The look on his face was harder than it’d ever been before. The closest thing to fierce determination the man could muster, perhaps.

THIS must be when he gets the STUPID idea to, I DON’T KNOW, SHIPBAIT ME INTO OBLIVION? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

There was nothing heartfelt or affectionate about it.

NOTHING????? NOTHING?????????

“Awww… Busted.” The Phantom ran a hand past his mouth, but he was still grinning. It was a grin that Simon remembered from those first visits to solitary confinement. A grin that’d been coupled with purposeful jabs below the belt. “Isn’t that a damn shame?”

In spite of everything…………. I love this line. I just love the “aw busted” it’s sdjdfnkljdlnk I LOVE IT. HE IS THE WORRRRRRRST.

“Don’t be like that. I was only attempting to relive that pleasant night we had last year before it’s too late.”

Me: OH MY GOD SOMEONE SHUT HIM UP SOMEONE SHUT HIM UP RIGHT NOW I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR ANY OF THIS SHUT IT DOWN.

Phantom: [opens mouth to speak]

Me:

Oh I can’t. I cannot.

Me: “I am BEGGING you to shut up. For once in your miserable life, in your whole pathetic existence… SHUT UP.”

This narrative had given me so much Suffering & Sympathetic Phantom and a whole manner of like… “Nice” Phantom and this is just…………… W O W. The narrative primed me so much on things like Sympathetic Phantom and “hahahaaaa he’s a child just look at him!” and this is just like! A harsh, merciless jolt! -OH ONE LIKE HE’S ABOUT TO RECEIVE ACTUALLY, WASN’T THINKING OF THAT WHEN I TYPED THAT BUT HAHAA…

BUT HIM SAYING THESE THINGS HAD SUCH ENTERTAINING SHOCK VALUE TOO. THE FLIPPANCY!

The Phantom stirred and pushed himself into a sitting position. He was still trembling, though at the very least that detestable grin had been washed off his face. “You’re welcome.”

Goooo to hell. Go to hell.

He briefly considered retrieving his feather from the ground as well, then thought better of himself. Five second rule aside, the fact that it was lying on the bathroom floor of a hospital instantly rendered it trash for the janitors to do away with.

SDKJBSDKJB SIMON.

“Understood.” The Phantom pushed himself to his feet, though he seemed to be having some trouble keeping his balance. Perhaps the electric currents had left a stronger impact on his body than was evident. To think this incident took place right before a jarring surgery…

HE IS SUCH A MORON. YOU IDIOT.

Perhaps this would be their final conversation, Simon realized with a sudden jolt. …No, the surgery would be harmless. It was an easy procedure. That was what the doctor had claimed.

This I had a small bit of trouble with, because something like brain surgery hardly seems like an “easy” and “harmless” procedure, but the dangers were actually touched on as I pointed out in my previous post… I just guess I would have emphasised the dangers a little more. But perhaps you did research and were able to determine that such a hypothetical procedure… would be “harmless”…?

The Phantom closed his eyes for a few seconds and Simon could see the corners of his mouth twitch. “I am… glad that we got to be partners one last time. Trust or no trust, I think that we make a favorable team.”

Look my soul had already well and truly left my body by this point of the chapter so I did not remember this line at all. I don’t really know what the hell’s it ‘sposed to mean or what’s going on. I guess it doesn’t matter. I have already been DESTROYED.

Dear Phantom,

Yours Sincerely,

-One of your biggest fans.

Sooo I was devastated. And felt deeply humiliated. And then that devastation turned to pure desperation. Even if things turned out this way… There had to still be hidden actual one-sided phantomquill nonetheless, right? I needed this. I needed this so badly, I’d staked everything on one-sided phantomquill’s reality here, something I had never truly done in any other phantom fic I’d ever read – fics that would willingly offer up phantomquill to me on a silver platter.

But every last bit of “phantomquill” that I’d been assuming and hadn’t even cared for prior to this point turned out not to be phantomquill at all…? It faded away, just when I needed it most. At which point, a second wave of devastation hit me. At the fact that not only had the chapter gone horribly, horribly awry from what my fantasies had played out in my mind, but that there had apparently never been any one-sided phantomquill. Heightening my sense of my own idiocy tenfold.

And this second wave was exacerbated by another realisation: Even if there were traces of genuine phantomquill to be found in other parts of the series, it hardly made any difference in the end. My feelings were hurt by chapter 19. Everything had been banked on that. And nothing could change how it actually played out.

And I thought it over countless times, because I usually like to pride myself on understanding and siding with authorial intent, you know? Or at least striving to most of the time. Was I truly just unbelievably stupid? What was I supposed to expect from the chapter? What about the other “phantomquill” scenes and implications that took place, dotted all throughout the series, that can be viewed through different lenses? It was clear that some baiting had been at play, but how much of it had been intentional and how much was me just an idiot reading the text incorrectly? (The fact that you were gunning for it in the beginning makes it seem like such a deep-rooted, ridiculously long-running con-job… my goodness… Even if it wasn’t intended to be a con from the start… That means the audience… Can you really say the audience is not being conned way back in Chasing Phantoms? How else were they supposed to interpret the phantom’s characterisation back then…?! How were they supposed to know…! And if actual phantomquill had been what you intended at the time of writing it…!) Oh I was ruined and driven into doubting myself so much and KICKING myself over this.

There was… No justice in any of this, it seemed. And I could not even feel “righteous” in any way. I just felt pathetic.

Because I’d only been asking for something one-sided… I’d wanted to see my favourite character suffer even more. It’s not the “normal” “I just want character to be happy” type angle. So it felt like such a weird thing to beg for. But beeeeeg for it I did anyway, huh.

I just! Wanted! To see some more Vulnerable Phantom! Maybe with just a little bit of genuine emotions leaking through! What would have made it so wonderful… Is that it takes place JUST before the surgery! Therefore it would demonstrate that even with his severely limited emotional state! He still…! THAT’S WHAT I WANTED OK IS THAT SO WRONG?!

No it isn’t and meet me out back I’ve got sources come prepared I’ll present my ten page essay on why you wrote your own fic wrong and sjsdjsdkj

^Me, in all-out confrontation & idiot mode, arguing at you over this, well and truly willing to go down with this one-sided ship

And when some of the devastation subsided, I went into Bitter Mode. Ohhhhhhh the saltiness. Ohhhhhhh I got salty, veeeeery salty. STILL not entirely sure if I’m done being salty. Or will ever be done being salty & bitter over this, played up intentionally to my friend to reap all of its comedic potential. :P I’d been burrrrrrrrrned.

So there you have it. Since you like irony so damn much…

I took the “phantomquill” in this series for granted at first. “Phantomquill” that I later practically begged for.

I didn’t care a whole lot for the initial scene where the phantom lets himself fall from that window in Chasing Phantoms (of course, I later realised how good it was on its own). A scene that was directly tied to and paralleled one of the extreme heights of my enjoyment in Vanquishing Mirages, also helping me to gain a far deeper appreciation of said earlier scene.

And the one time where I got super invested in phantomquill and wanted it, really wanted it, was with one of the very few fics that would flatly refuse to provide it.

Oh wait, one more thing too. The aro ace thing. Lol if he was agender too in this, he’d be triple-A hahaha

That was another thing when I came across the phantomquill in Chasing Phantoms initially. I was just like, “mmmm, no, nah. If anything, going by the “canon” of the game, if you absolutely had to put a label on the phantom, he’d be aro ace.”

Well. Turns out…

And, under just about any other circumstance, it would make me pleased to see the phantom call himself aro ace, and yet… The circumstances couldn’t be more… :T

So when it finally sunk in that, yea he is?

I was just like…

“No… no no no no no no… This is not happening… This cannot be happening…! MY OWN LOGIC IS BEING USED AGAINST MEEEEEE……………………”

: (

But yes. The ironies that can be listed of this situation do go on and on.

That was it. The last Simon saw or heard of the entity known as the Phantom.

Me, who in spite of everything, actually does still love the phantom very much and does not want to see him now promptly vanish from this really well-written series in his really well-written form, and has noooo idea how this is gonna go and what the result of this surgery is gonna be and is therefore very nervous about how “the phantom” will transform after this point:

If the doctors were successful, an intangible spirit would take the form of a true human, rather like a phoenix being reborn from its own ashes.

“I’ve literally just been brutally left in the dust I am hardly in any state to appreciate the beauty of sentences like this one. GO AHEAD, SHOW ME YOUR PRETTY PROSE, BUT IT’S A LITTLE LATE NOW ISN’T IT. IT WON’T WORRRRRRK I’M TOO BUSY HAVING BEEN SO THOROUGHLY OWNED BY A BAIT AND SWITCH THAT I’M LYING ON THE GROUND IN TINY PIECES”

To prove once and for all whether or not there was a true identity hidden inside him.

That’s nice but I literally just could not bring myself to care anymore. I was done. The fic ended in the last chapter. It was finished. “My version’s canon to me now.” That’s one way I could try to cope and pretend my heart & dignity can remain intact. Whatever is going on now it’s just an interesting au. My little self-indulgent version is what obviously happened.

This fic could do whatever the hell it wanted because nothing about it mattered anymore, I didn’t care, it’d lost me. I pettily decided at the time that Anything after Chapter 18 is the Wrong Timeline so It’s all meaningless as far as I was concerned!

Fulbright… Was he truly so angry that he would miss the moment of the Phantom’s awakening?

It’s kinda funny because in a sense, I was Bobby at this point of the chapter. Absent : ) Yeah, ok, I was reading on through my pain… But I was very. Emotionally absent, disconnected, or whatever you’d like to call it. In Chasing Phantoms I wasn’t particularly invested because of all the doubts I’d had. And here, my investment in however the series would continue dropped DRAMATICALLY because I’d been too invested in it. It was just like… “Ok. Might as well see whatever the hell happens. But nothing in this series can ever truly make me happy again as it did before. The line’s been crossed. Sayonara.”

…Yeah, rather bold words to utter just prior to Lifting Spirits.

But you baked the most perfect, beautiful and tantalising-looking phantomquill cake to me… and then you just… IMMEDIATELY destroyed it. You took a hammer to that cake. Threw it in the bin, leaving me desperately, brokenly reaching for the icing still smeared messily on the table, and when I did, YOU SLAPPED MY HAND AWAY. No siree I could not even have some of that icing. Ya blew it. I was done. UNFORGIVABLE. Line crossed. Your rights to the work were forfeit as far as I was concerned. It was all mine now.

Was he consulting with his trusted therapist, perhaps?

HOHOOH what if he did though. I can’t remember if that gets confirmed either way. PFFF WELL YOU CAN ADD THIS MESS TO THE LIST OF THINGS BENNY MIGHT KNOW ABOUT THEN???? HOW… INTERESTING!

Ok but also:

I SWEAR TO GOOOOOOOD THIS LINE ACTUALLY MADE ME SO? CONFUSED AND BORDERLINE, IF NOT OUTRIGHT SUSPICIOUS ON FIRST READ BECAUSE LIKE.

Okay, there was another much more direct Benny reference earlier this same fic. He’s actually NAMEDROPPED. I didn’t point it out at the time because I didn’t want to be too tedious about it and waited until the next reference like this, which I figured there would be, so that I could comment on MY THOUGHTS.

So waaay back earlier in the fic, when Benny actually gets namedropped for the first time:

What sort of advice would his therapist offer? He wished he could call the man and explain his situation, because Benny always had just the right answer to any problem.

Me at the time: wow, even the offscreen therapist gets a name? What a series! Is this series fleshed out or what?!

But even back then.

There’d just been. Such a handful of references to this guy.

Like, when the therapist first started being referenced it was all like “oh I’m so glad Bobby’s getting the counselling and help that he needs”.

And then he just

Kept being referenced after that

And with each iteration I just got a tiny bit more and more like

“O-okay…? We know Bobby is getting help… We are aware of it. And that’s great. I’m really glad. Not sure why the therapist matters though… weird focus on the therapist since it’s Bobby’s recovery that is paramount here, not the therapist helping him. Just not relevant.”

Like I was deeply impressed that such an unimportant character got named, yet at the same time it was like. Aaaaalright. He’s really not warranting this much focus. But okay then.

And now it’s Blackquill bringing him up, not Bobby. And SURE I guess the mention KINDA makes sense from him but the focus felt so fishy to me… “TRUSTED therapist”… why the emphasis on how great this guy supposedly is. C’mooon. It REALLY made me go HMMMM. I was just like… who cares though. There’s literally no reason to bring the therapist up he’s not connected to any of this or the plot at ALLL… He serves ONE purpose and that is to be the unseen background force helping Bobby to work through his issues. That’s it!

Vanquishing Mirages, Chapter 20

Oh… This chapter… is so good. Wow… Wow. Not much else I can say rn.

He’d never appreciated her. Now it was too late.

Simon saw no need to keep the truth from him. This plan had been the Phantom’s, not his own. He’d merely been roped into it as an unwilling accomplice, yet he refused to cover the spy’s tracks.

Ffffffffffffff

Yeah I was gonna go off about “idiot spy” again at this point but I’ve tired myself out from all the salt I’ve overloaded into this post so that my past pain can serve at least some kind of fun… But god. God. The phantom’s plan was PAPER thin just, ridiculously flimsy, yeah sure he came up with it on the fly whatever I guess but it like. Depends on Blackquill playing along and ffffffffffffff. Alright I guess maybe he figured Simon would play along if Simon was interested in shielding Bobby from grief as the phantom explained was his intent but god. Ghhhhhh. It just feels like insult to injury too cause he has this Grand Plan to protect Bobby which immediately proceeds to fail.

And it was enough to fuel his loathing further. He shook his head so violently that it made him dizzy, yet he managed to stop himself from raising his voice again. Shouting wouldn’t make his point any clearer. Instead, he stepped forward and crouched down before Fulbright’s chair. He grabbed the man’s nearest hand with both of his own. He was lousy with words and he knew that much, but he needed to at least try to communicate his thoughts- his feelings- before this misunderstanding was allowed to spread any more. “Do you truly not remember what I’ve told you from the day I first met you?” he demanded, his tone of voice more fierce than he’d intended but lacking in volume nonetheless. “You are nothing like the man who played the part of my chaperone. I would sooner take my own life than return to those days. You, on the other hand, give me another reason to live. I can tell the difference between the two of you and that makes all the difference in the world.”

[…]

“I love you, Bobby Fulbright, not the fallacy that pretended to be you. However, if you dare to call my feelings into question again, I will not hesitate to tear you to shreds myself.”

This is a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming for Blackbright right here. This is SOO good. I really admired and appreciated this shining Blackbright moment even amidst the whirl of everything else I was busy reacting to.

And… On that uplifting note, I’ll finish this otherwise ridiculously salty mess of a post. XD I’ll tackle the rest of this chapter & more beyond next time. This is already waaaaay too long anyway. But I knew that this post would inevitably be a massive one, and I had to essentially say Stuff You to the very notion of any self-imposed word-limits.

[jeonbase]

Hi Andrea can you please recommend me some angsty yoonkook fics ? I need a good cry akdkz thanks !

i think i actually made a list before? but i’ll just redo it

hope u don’t cry too much ;;

la douleur exquise - sobi 

(au, ghost au, angst):

[ la douleur exquise : french - the heartbreaking pain of wanting someone you can’t have. ]

the boy with the scarf changes everything.

(this is one of my ult favorite angst fics) 

to prosper - xiajin 

(mythology au, fluff, angst, love at first sight, forced separation, light smut)

do you adore me as much as i adore you?

(i love hades!yoongi x perse!kook so much)

i hear you in the spring breeze - ial 

(au, angst, implied depression, implied suicidal thoughts, major character death)

[17/09/01 2:12 AM] yoongi: i still dream about you[17/09/01 2:12 AM] yoongi: a lot[17/09/01 2:12 AM] yoongi: more than i should[17/09/01 2:12 AM] yoongi: is that weird

[17/09/01 2:43 AM] yoongi: don’t answer that

[17/09/01 5:57 AM] yoongi: is it though

(breaks my heart every time i read it but i love it so much, beautiful fic)

slow song - darling 

(hyyh au, angst, implied domestic abuse, destructive suicidal thoughts, hurt/comfort)

don’t do over.

do better.

and like flowers in his hands, death blooms - bellamees 

(hades/persephone retelling, angst, mild smut, mentions of death)

“i have this friend, he has a spare room,” namjoon says, and he sounds apologetic. “he’s an undertaker.”

heart bind - xiajin 

(fwb au, famous yoongi, singer jeongguk, emotional hurt/comfort, angst, mentions of starvation, mentions of attempted suicide, internalized homophobia)

yoongi didn’t need to break his heart; jungkook did it all on his own.

Not Dark Yet - dreamingdaegu 

(au, angst, parallel universes)

Every year, Jungkook returns to the forest.

Maybe this year he will find what he’s hoping for.

i know i’ll fall in love with you, baby - witheredleaf (micooled) 

(soulmates au, fanboy jeongguk, rapper yoongi, fluff and angst)

The soulmate/soulbond au where Yoongi is part of a famous rap duo and Jungkook is his diligent fanboy, they meet at a fansign and things escalate from there

(alt. Yoongi didn’t sign up for this)

eternity - xiajin 

(au, spirits, angst, tragic lovers)

while the sun creates, the moon waits.

the nights really were made for saying things you can’t say tomorrow day - siderum 

(canon verse, slow burn, angst, jeongguk centric)

“you know, the fact that my rap puts you to sleep should be insulting,” yoongi says wryly.

- 

the continuation fic ‘color in your cheeks (the feeling flows both ways)’

algae bloom - cherryjjk 

(canon/idols, angst with happy ending, fluff, smut, slow burn, praise kink)

“You have no goddamn idea, kid!” Yoongi screams, shoving Jeongguk away from him hard, just to get some space, “I hate myself for doing this to you. Every single day I wake up wishing it could be simpler. Wishing that I could have fallen for Jimin, Hoseok, fuck, anyone else but you.”

alternatively; yoonkook sort out their feelings, together.

hunt you down, eat you alive - notyoongs 

(zombie apocalypse au, bunny hybrid jeongguk, angst, fluff, smut)

“What’s going on?” asks Jeongguk sleepily, nearly tripping.

Yoongi doesn’t answer, just moves them along the walls until they get to the living room and he peers out of the window. “Fuck,” he says, hurrying to pull Jeongguk toward the door. “Fuck, fuck—”

“Hyung,” whines Jeongguk, rubbing at his sleepy eyes, and Yoongi finally turns to look at him.

“Zombies, Guk-ah,” he says. “There are zombies outside.”

(or: yoongi finds a bunny hybrid. the zombies find them both.)

siren song - xiajin

(magic au, angst, hurt/comfort)

the thing about jungkook is that he’s a bit of a spacey witch.

with you, anywhere - fruitily 

(hyyh au, angst with happy ending, amnesiac jeongguk, light smut)

“i loved you, too,” he says, but it’s not true. he did a lot of things, but he never lied to jungkook. so he corrects: “i love you, still.”

aere perennius - bellamees 

(gods & goddesses au, tragic romance, angst with happy ending, hurt/comofrt, mild smut, reincarnation, soulmates)

“one thousand three hundred and seventy-six years, hyung.”

or; gods never die, until they do.

As venom as love itself is - monoxxide 

(au, emotional/psychological abuse, hate sex, angst, love/hate, verbal humiliation)

Jeongguk is weak and just can’t help but loving Yoongi

Yoongi is weaker and just can’t stop Jeongguk from loving him

Your Smile Is My Happiness - Sealegs2414 

(angst, fluff, pining)

“Hyung…” the shorter male just grunted in reply.

“Is there a reason your knees are shaking and your hand is squeezing like there’s no tomorrow?”

Yoongi refused to turn his head towards Jungkook and meet his gaze. If it hadn’t been for the fact that it was really dark outside even with all the lights of the city, Jungkook could have seen his hyung blush. Sadly that was not in the cards for him to night. The two could see each other just fine but it wasn’t quite bright enough to see any dusting of pink on either of their faces.

A gruff, “No,” was the reply he got as well as a forced relaxation in the grip that the elder had on his hand but it still never moved. The knees however, well they got a little worse before they got better.

mouthful of forevers - notyoongs

(goblin au, major character death but not really, past minor character death, soulmates, fluff, angst with happy ending, eventual smut)

he can’t help the worry that gnaws at frozen feet as he waits for jeongguk to summon him, waits for the tell tale smoke that rises from his hands, lets him pinpoint jeongguk’s location and go to him. but it doesn’t come—it never does. and it’s new: this yearning. inexplicable, almost, for a heart that has beat for hundreds of years and never allowed itself to feel something like this.

maybe it’s time that yoongi let himself feel it. let himself acknowledge all of it—the way jeongguk has nestled into his heart, has made a place there for himself with candles and glittery costumes and bunny smiles. the way jeongguk has convinced him, bit by bit, that there are worse ways to live. yoongi is supposed to die—he was supposed to the first time, centuries ago. but now, finally, he understands something he couldn’t anticipate when he waited all of those centuries for his bride to show up: it’s not a punishment to live if he finally has something worth living for.

(or: yoongi has waited almost a thousand years for his bride, like the universe intended. but when jeongguk finally shows up, yoongi stops playing by the rules. a guardian: the great and lonely god au.)

transatlanticism - bellamees

(dystopia au, sun/moon au, night/day au, mutual pining, love at first sight, mentions of sexual content, angst with happy ending)

jungkook lives in the day. yoongi lives at night.

(or: the realms of day and night, two different worlds coming from two opposite poles, mingled during this time.)

sonata - numajiri

(au, pianist yoongi, cellist jeongguk, light angst)

yoongi’s fingers slot onto the keys like the first words they have ever known

all the ashes in my wake - shelightsupwell 

(hyyh au, explicit sexual content, hurt/comfort, suicidal thoughts, mental health issues, minor violence, implied/referenced child abuse, angst, angst with a happy ending)

Hoseok is right. Yoongi can’t expect Jungkook to read his mind. He just has to tell him straight out that sometimes he feels like garbage and he just wants to crawl into the nearest trash can and set it on fire from the inside, and it’s got nothing to do with whether or not he’s actually happy, because he absolutely is, but also he’s not.

Two years after Yoongi ran away from home, he’s reunited with Jungkook, and childhood friendship gives way to romance, but for Yoongi, struggling with depression, the relationship is as much panic-inducing as it is comforting.

surrender - notyoongs

(tokyo ghoul au, smut, heavy angst, murder, bloodplay, power dynamics, secret relationship, body horror, self mutilation, cannibalism)

jeongguk could kill him, but—he doesn’t. and maybe that’s enough to call it love.

the sound of winter - officialmaknae 

(werewolf/abo au, alpha yoongi, omega jeongguk, slow burn, angst, rape/non con elements, underage drinking, blood and gore, minor character deaths)

Yoongi has a lot on his plate, but when his pack discovers a small pup in their territory, he finds that he’s about to have a lot more.

Pale Petals - sue_bts 

(prince and peasant au, prince yoongi, fluff, angst, smut, slow burn, tragic romance, past abuse)

Min Yoongi is blind in his arrogance and power. Jeon Jungkook is a petal the prince plucked from a bouquet.