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holden-norgorov · 10 months

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An Apologia to BEFORE MIDNIGHT (2013)

I've just finished rewatching for the umpteenth time the spectacular work of art that is The Before Trilogy, and since I've discovered it I have always refrained myself from writing about it because of my inability to put into words the beauty and the depth behind the meaning that these three films have progressively acquired for me.

But this time I'm going to try to say something for the sake of those who believe the screenplay to have failed in portraying Jesse and Celine’s personalities and gone out of character in this third installment – which I feel particularly compelled to defend as it's, in my opinion, not only the best entry in the trilogy, but also one of the best movies ever made, significantly thanks to the way the couple's characterization brilliantly builds up on two-decades of long cinematic work and collaborative effort and climaxes with an egregious payoff. I hope that reading about how I interpret the way Before Midnight blends in perfect harmony with Before Sunrise and Before Sunset may at least partially redeem the film for those of you who were left dissatisfied or disappointed by the decrease in naive idealism and dream-like romance.

WARNING: Detailed spoilers of all three movies under the cut.

Even though I think it’s quite easy at first to find a bit jarring the evident, apparently sudden change in Jesse and Celine's dynamic – reacting with a kind of discomfort that is clearly something the screenplay wants to induce in the audience, which is not accostumed to revisit Jesse and Celine after they have spent almost a decade together and studying each other inside out – I also think it quickly becomes clear that what Before Midnight aims to do, with regards to characterization, is to take all the most irritating and unpleasant shades Jesse and Celine had always had within themselves, whose seeds were planted and indeed palpable, albeit romanticized, in Sunrise (despite both characters trying their best to keep them hidden beneath a deeply self-conscious need to foster the spark of their newfound connection and perform the attraction/seduction role-play) and aptly watered in Sunset, and throw them full-force to the viewers’ face, challenging their ability to still feel invested in the couple by appealing to the idea that even our favorite, most beloved people in the world can intimately be ugly, paradoxical, occasionally toxic as well as endearing at the same time, because that’s a hard truth about human nature and “this is real life, it’s not perfect but it’s real”.

To demonstrate that their characterization is actually coherent with everything that came before, I challenge you to think about Jesse and Celine in these terms: Sunrise makes it clear that they are both smart college graduates, fundamentally contemplative and opinionated intellectuals (or at least, proto-intellectuals) who share a hardwired desire to shape the world around them with their thoughts and ideas and an idealist outlook on the universe, time and the human condition. The trilogy explores, among other things, the way they react to the realization that the universe, time and the human condition can’t conform to their idealistic vision, but that they themselves have to find out how to conform to the universe, time and the human condition. What deeply sets Jesse and Celine apart, then, is the direction they decide to channel the resentment and deep-seated unfulfilling dread steaming from this bitter realization towards.

Jesse directs it towards himself, which turns him into a depressed writer who is never going to be satisfied no matter what happens into his life. In Sunset, the movie starts with Jesse talking about how everything is autobiographical and proceeding to announce the concept of his next book, which happens to feature a totally depressed guy whose dream is riding motorcycles trough South America, being a lover and adventurer who finds happiness “in the doing, not getting what he wants”, but who is instead “sitting at a marble table, eating lobsters with a beautiful wife and everything that he needs”. Later on, at the Parisian café, Jesse rants about being unable to be “in the moment”, about not enjoying any minute of his best-selling book tour and about how Buddhists may have a point when they talk about freeing themselves from desire – which Celine aptly identifies as a symptom of depression. And while Sunset seems to want to make you think that Jesse’s depression may stem from his unsatisfying family life, even hinting at the idea that Celine may be the cure to his condition, Midnight slaps you hard in the face and awakens you to the reality that even though Jesse did get what he wanted, he’s still more depressed than ever – in fact, it clarifies that Jesse’s depression is existential. Celine herself outwardly calls him out on it after he relates an anecdote about the twins fighting over a trampoline, when he refers to pettiness, jealousy and selfishness as “the natural human state”. He seems to quickly scrape her comment off in the moment as one of her exaggerations, but later on admits to his accuracy when he tells her, in the last scene of the movie, that he has struggled all his life connecting and being present with those he loves the most. Which brings us back to Sunrise and his confession about being an unwanted, neglected child who eventually kind of adjusted and took pride in viewing the world as “this place where I wasn’t meant to be”, or to the acknowledgement that he is sick of experiencing his life from his own point of view (“see, I’ve heard all these stories, so of course I’m sick of myself”). I truly believe, during the car ride at the beginning of Midnight, that Jesse is thinking about the same words of his father’s that he was confessing to Celine in Sunrise, when he says, talking about his own absence from his son’s life, “This is the one thing I promised myself I was never going to do, and now I look up and I’m doing it”. I really think it often goes underappreciated how tragic Jesse’s character actually is. The point of his character is that his own childhood abandonment trauma colored his conception and experience of the world, and about how that adds up to his intellectual inability to find peace and contentment in the moment, and about how both aspects flow into apparently inescapable patterns of self-repeated misery. He’s not just depressed: he’s doomed to depression. And the truth the movie points to is that, ultimately, Celine can’t change this foundational aspect of Jesse’s nature. She has, to an extent, to learn to live with it and accept it.

On the other hand, the same intellectual resentment and unfulfilling dread that Jesse directs within himself, Celine aggressively projects to the outside world. If Jesse is fundamentally depressed, Celine is fundamentally angry. Sunrise does a masterful job at carefully planting the seeds that testify how Celine is, at her core, defined by her anger, while simultaneously never allowing for that anger to truly come to the surface and take the audience out of the otherworldly romantic idealism of their night in Vienna. She talks about the unfairness of being unable to complain to nice and supporting parents; she says that everything pisses her off and proceeds to list several examples; she thinks it’s a healthy process to rebel against everything in her life right after admitting that she has been raised happily, loved and wealthy and doesn’t even know “who or what the enemy is”; quite revealingly, she tells an anecdote about a professional shrink experiencing her anger to the effect that, after a single session with her, she had to call the police in fear that Celine might actually carry out the story about killing her ex-boyfriend that she had written as a consequence of her morbid obsession with him. And maybe most importantly, the palm reader makes explicit to the audience what ends up being the central theme of Celine’s character in the trilogy: “you need to resign yourself to the awkwardness of life; only if you find peace within yourself, you’ll find true connection with others”. Sunset dares to shed quite a bit of the romantic aura that Celine was wrapped in during Sunrise where, despite all of this, she still managed to resemble a Botticelli angel, and lets her anger manifest more vividly in several moments. “The world is a mess right now!” she shouts right before a bitter political rant. She’s also deeply resentful towards Jesse who, despite her statement in Sunrise about not wanting to be “a great story” or a male fantasy, has basically decided to spectacularize their night together and sell Celine’s most intimate side to the masses. This is why Celine proceeds to lie about not remembering them having sex – she feels like Jesse has stripped her of agency and control over herself and officialized to the world a one-sided interpretation of their encounter – so she wants to reclaim ownership and hurt him at the same time (“knowing his weak points, what would hurt him, seduce him” she told him in Sunrise while talking about her habit of studying her boyfriends in order to grasp how to manipulate them). The existence of this fictionalized version of herself out in the world that she didn’t consent to, along with the death of her romantic outlook on life that prompts her notorious rant in the taxi, only makes it easier for her to allow her deep-seated anger to bubble up and start defining her. Which brings us to Midnight, where that anger is so consuming that it ends up being directed also at herself (she resents herself for failing to live up to her own expectations of both motherhood and feminism, and for letting herself be consumed by anger). She engages in a lot of borderline toxic behaviors – parental alienation (she sabotages Jesse’s ability to talk to Hank twice), false accusation and public shame (she mischaracterizes their conversation in the car at the dinner table and exposes Jesse’s private fantasy) and generic hurtful insults. Her problem with Jesse’s monopoly on how the world perceives her is as alive as ever, and she makes it a matter of relative status in the relationship. And last but not least, she also resents the world – and men – for women’s unjust impossibility to avoid having to make compromises that motherhood (or largely, the female condition) imposes on them, leading them to sacrifice leisure time or renounce to opportunities that our modern, fully technological world increasingly abounds with. In the same scene, in the hotel room, where Celine calls Jesse out for being depressed, he accuses her of seeing anger as a positive means to deal with life, and despite her refusal to concede the point in the moment, she ultimately admits to it in the last scene of the movie (“I’m an angry person and I hurt my kids, my work and everyone that I love”).

In a nutshell, we could sum up their characters as follows:

JESSE: idealized, intellectual approach to the world --> finds out about world’s imperfection --> blames himself --> existential depression.

CELINE: idealized, intellectual approach to the world --> finds out about world’s imperfection --> blames the world --> existential anger.

Particularly interesting, in this regard, is the role each of them plays in establishing the kind of path the other ends up taking. Jesse ultimately allows his depression to take over him as a consequence of Celine's decision to miss their agreed-upon second encounter six months after Sunrise, whereas Celine ultimately allows her anger to take over her as a consequence of Jesse's decision to circumvent her previously expressed wish and publish a book about the night they spent together in Vienna. In a way, they both sealed each other's existential fate in their quest for the connection they had once shared.

So, once you peel away all the layers in their characterization and identify the root core of their motivation, choices and actions, I don’t really think it’s possible to argue that they are out of character in Before Midnight. In fact, it feels like a perfect follow-up to its predecessors, designed to force the characters to confront the origin of their unhappiness and realize that they are not meant to be each other’s salvation. Just as Celine is going to have to accept Jesse’s depression as something he’s never going to be able to fully part with, Jesse is going to have to learn to deal with Celine’s unhealthy relationship with her own anger (“I’m not asking you to change, it’s called accepting you for being you”). This is where Ariadni’s words come to mind as the testament of the film – “this is what fucks us up, right? The idea of a soulmate coming to save us from taking care of ourselves”. The point of the movie is that Jesse can’t save Celine from herself, and Celine can’t save Jesse from himself – that real love, which is to say real life, is not about that.

Another quite common form of criticism that I don't get is the annoyance at the movie being willing to occasionally be critical of feminism, or explore perspectives outside of the feminist lens – particularly with Jesse's character, whose detachment from and derision of Celine's overstated feminist apologia apparently strikes to many people as a betrayal to his characterization in the previous installments. But first of all, I don’t think there's any evidence that Jesse was ever portrayed as a feminist in the previous movies – and even if he had been, how can a change in one’s own ideology or outlook on life through an eighteen-years-long experience result in an “out of character” portrayal? People change. Ideologically and politically, I’m almost a completely different person than I was three years ago. Does that make me out of character? I don't think so. But that said, many seem to move from the assumption that Sunrise and Sunset were feminist movies in the first place, which I also disagree with. In Sunrise itself, when the topic of gender comes up for the first time between the two, Jesse points out the paradoxical nature of some common female behaviors and raises a biologically-rooted counterpoint to Celine’s obviously University-derived socially constructivist outlook. Nothing about that screams “feminist” to me.

On a sidenote, though, I find incredibly illuminating Jesse’s response to Celine’s rant about female sacrifice in the hotel room scene. He sharply brings up her privileged upbringing (she actually spent her whole childhood “travelling around the world while her father built buildings” and was raised “with all the freedoms he had fought for”, as she herself said to him in Sunrise), which starkly contrasts both with his own childhood of neglect and psychological abuse and therefore with her feminist axiomatic ideas of male privilege and female oppression, and then he mentions a specific historical male-only obligation (the military draft) to swiftly rebuff her claims. She calls him an asshole, but has no real counterargument to throw back at him other than some mockery. This writing choice was actually so clever that I had to pause the movie a moment and think back about Jesse’s character. Then it occurred to me: Jesse’s been divorced and likely lost custody of his son after a strenuous legal battle with his ex-wife that both he and Celine refer to multiple times during the film. He had to spend years travelling back and forth trying to escape the dreadful destiny of turning into his own father and dealing with a progressively litigious ex-wife who apparently exploited Celine’s pregnancy and the notoriously skewed U.S. legal system to make Jesse’s attempt at remaining present in his son’s life extremely difficult – all of this while still managing to maintain some kind of sympathy from the viewers, who know she’s been wronged and cheated on by her ex-husband. The screenplay of this movie is excellent to the point of being able to condense into a single line a character’s entire lived experience and approach to things. That amazing line from Jesse about the “trenches of the Sorbonne” not only reminds the audience that he’s not a feminist; it also reveals that he’s quite versed in (and therefore accostumed to) anti-feminist talking points. Which is incredibly accurate and realistic for an American man who has found himself having to deal with custody issues – as Celine rightly points out, “I guess judges assume that women have the mother instinct”.

The fact that Jesse’s lived experience makes him critical of feminism doesn’t mean that Celine’s own lived experience is invalid, though – nor does it mean that the movie itself is anti-feminist. And there lies the brilliance of the film. Celine’s deeply-held feminist views are still entertained and tested in their validity. She is allowed to be a feminist through and through and voice her ideas, often with incredibly powerful weight and resonance – in fact, two of Celine’s best and most poignant lines in the whole movie are "The world is fucked by unemotional, rational men deciding shit" and “You know what I love about men? They still believe in magic”. Most of the film's detractors just seem upset that those ideas are not presented by the movie as golden nuggets of truth that shouldn’t be subjected to scrutiny or falsification, or treated by the screenplay as axioms that should automatically be taken for granted by everyone. I also think having Jesse laugh at Celine exposing her worries about rape to be, once again, incredibly realistic – it highlights how there will always be some level of incomprehension between the sexes, and how men will never be fully able to put themselves in women’s shoes when it comes to truly understand and empathize with that kind of fear and vulnerability. It basically testifies men’s impossibility to live the female experience.

Moreover, the same detractors that lament their disappointment at the “lack of feminism” in the movie also seem to take umbrage at Celine being portrayed as profoundly human in her complexities, which strikes me as quite the paradox. Women can be as toxic and problematic as men, albeit often in different ways. It’s Celine’s own imperfection that truly makes her a great female character. The argument underneath this criticism seems to be that a female character who engages in problematic behaviors drawing from the ugliest side of human nature does a disservice to feminism – which I guess you might think, if your feminist belief assumes that only men can really be toxic and problematic with the other sex purely out of selfish reasons. It’s quite clear to me that a socially constructivist perspective on life and the world is informing these people's judgment on the movie and the characters, whose raw realism and unfiltered humanity they seem to find ideologically inconvenient.

I have to say I’m also baffled by some people's characterization of the argument scene in the hotel room as “boring”, or an example of “classic middle-aged couple problems" film. It’s anything but, in my opinion. I find it some of the best cinema I have ever seen, with directorial choices, a screenplay and acting performances so high-ranking and engrossing that I was left mouth wide open, with so many shades and aspects that I’d never seen any other “marriage movie” seriously bring up, let alone face. I could never give justice to the excellence of that scene with words. Similarly, I’m stunned by the recurring claim that the dialogue in this movie feels forced and pretentious, given the fact that this is uncontestably the less philosophical, more grounded script of the three. Even though I also don’t agree with those who claim that Jesse and Celine were ever pretentious, I can see how Sunrise could definitely give that impression at specific moments – though the actors’ chemistry and talent were always able to hide any artificiality as much as possible. But Sunset and Midnight particularly flow with such a spontaneous and natural rhythm, as well as flawless acting expertise, that it almost seems a criminal act to press pause during the film. This specific claim seems particularly paradoxical given the fact that the same people who complain about this simultaneously express dissatisfaction with the absence of the kind of idealistic, philosophical talk that the characters had with each other when they met for the first time – which could have easily sounded pretentious if it had been delivered by lower-skilled actors. As if, by the way, the lack of that kind of magic between the two wasn’t completely intentional and exactly the point Midnight is making, particularly when it comes to what Celine laments as her own forced sacrifice of existential discussions in favor of seemingly unending, practical maternal tasks. This is a movie where Jesse says that he misses hearing Celine think, and Celine replies that her thoughts now smell like shit. Not only is the Leopardi-esque “Death of the Illusions” one of the main themes of the film, it’s also an inevitability in the relationship between two formerly idealistic intellectuals who now have to deal with their own existential dread while at the same time raising a family together and being deprived of the luxury they used to have of closing the world outside of their time-constrained connection.

About the ending scene of the movie, I admit that it had to grow on me. On my first watch I didn’t really know what to think about it, mainly because I was still recovering from the brutality of their fight in the hotel room. But the more I rewatched the movie, the more it made sense, and now I find it not only extremely fitting but also kind of brilliant. The couple’s destiny is also once again left up to interpretation and not at all cemented in a definite trajectory like I've often seen being implied. At the same time, the trilogy comes full circle by having Jesse impersonate the time-travelling role-play that won Celine over during Sunrise, and consequently by evoking in the audience a comparison between the state of Jesse and Celine’s relationship now to that of the German couple who, likewise apparently in their 40s, had prompted Celine’s decision to change seat in the train and sit opposite Jesse, reinforcing that very idea of “awkwardness of life” that the palm reader advised Celine to resign herself to in order to find true happiness. As such, the ending solidifies the idea that genuine relationships take work to function, and that true happiness has to be found in carrying that work out ("in doing, not getting what you want"). Jesse realizes this and demonstrates that he’s willing to do the work to rekindle a kind of spark and magic that can exist outside of the transformative influence of time. Celine also eventually acknowledges this, and closes the film showing her own willingness to put in her own share of the work. "It’s not perfect, but it’s real."

Overall, this movie is a masterpiece, a milestone in romance and independent cinema and, as far as I'm concerned, the bar that any film intimately interested in the exploration of the human experience and the creation of solid characterization has to outdo.

This trilogy is History, and as such I will forever treasure it and pass it on. Thank you Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy for such a gift. Ad maiora.

#richard linklater #ethan hawke #julie delpy #before trilogy #before sunrise #before sunset #before midnight #jesse wallace #celine #jesse x celine #review #analysis #meta #mine

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discluded · 2 years

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Hi, what is your pov on some of these comments about mileapo fans being “delulu” and naive bc it’s “just fake bl fanservice”?

Because idk if I’m going crazy but like as a gay person this shit seems borderline homophobic? On the one hand I kinda get where they’re coming from with like the concert “plot” (idk what else to call it 😭), but otherwise seeing how they interact with each other in off-screen/stage moments and their chemistry and the huge ass difference with the entire cast, how they interact with each other vs others, the side couples energy with each other, it’s not that big of a leap… and to imply that it’s dumb or naive for ppl (lots of them queer themselves) to perceive that smells like homophobia to me… idk

I’m not even trying to be mad abt the mileapo thing bc frankly i don’t give a shit what people do or don’t believe about two actors but it’s the dismissive tone of such comments that pisses me off, and I was wondering if maybe you or any of your followers have some thoughts about this too.

Hello friend.

Thank you for trusting me with this delicate ask. Hopefully I can do a good job with it.

I'm hearing a couple of things in your question, part of which I'm guessing is just being able vent (glad to provide the space!) but the crux of which is commenting on the irony of homophobia in Kinnporshe / BL fandom. And yeah. You're not imagining it.

CW: Homophobia. I'm serious, this is your only warning. Some of this really upset me today and I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing.

I saw this after I got your ask and already spent some time thinking about how to respond, but these comments were in response to Tong coming out at KPWT Manila on Tiktok. I hate looking at them, but I'll embed them in case the tweet ever gets deleted as a reminder that EQUALITY IS NOT REAL IN THIS WORLD.

I won't lie, this hurt my feelings a lot and it's not even about me. I spent half a second being mad before just being sad about this for hours.

I've been into BL for so long, I am tired of this round-about argument we keep having over women, many of whom are queer or questioning, enjoying queer stories where the characters are male. There are culturally-adept literary and queer studies scholars who do research on this.

That being said, a not-small proportion of the fan base is made people who are genuinely homophobic and use BL as their fantasy. Just like watching lesbian porn doesn't make straight men allies, neither does watching BL make straight women allies. I am too exhausted to explain why they do but it's basically a mix of misogyny in not wanting to see other female actors opposite an actor you like but also using queer men as placeholders for your fantasy. Sometimes in fiction, but other times in reality.

I'm with @mirrorofprinces, we need to attack more homophobes for this. 😒😒😒 no more fighting over gay rights, time for KPTS-inspired gay wrongs and gay violence on the gaygenda.

The "delulu" and "it's just fanservice" comments are...indeed kind of homophobic. I respect people who don't want to comment on or interpret their relationship, like you said, or interpret it differently. And it kind of sucks to be like "well some people will be homophobic and you have to share a space with them" in fandom about a queer story, but how do you confront people, some of whom are happy to be openly homophobic, about homophobia that is more nuanced?

But I think one thing that undermines MileApo's authenticity is that BibleBuild do so much fan service despite also claiming not to. Fan service is a Thai BL industry standard with other actor pairs. And as a reality check to myself, I have looked at some of those pairs interacting and yeah. Definitely brotherly or fan service there.

The other part of the problem is young people, especially after the pandemic, genuinely do not seem to know what normal human interaction looks like, including the difference between what's fake and what's real AND what's platonic vs. what's flirty or romantic affection.

As for what my friends/moots think, here's @mellowroxy and @cookiedoughfiesta's thoughts from August about Mile saying he was in love with Apo about the "delulu" comments. (Though let's be real... sometimes the fandom is also... a bit much 🤣🤣🤣)

When I talked to Yams (@mellowroxy) about this earlier, here's what she had to add on to the point:

Me: fans were freaking out when Tom called Zendaya 'my MJ' on his birthday wish to her, and that's way more subtle than what Mile and Apo are doing

Yams: There wouldn’t be this much push back if it was a guy and girl. Most people would be like “oh another on set romance” and call it a day. On the Zendaya and Tom topic, if this was decades back when interracial couples were taboo as fuck then they wouldn’t come out as well.

A conscious reminder equality has always been hard-fought for.

But trust me, this paradox of people who watch BL who are homophobic have not escaped Mile and Apo's notice either.

"Equality isn't real in this world."

Apo's comment at KPWT Bangkok day 2, which many people have noted was likely about complaints over them reenacting Kinn and Porsche's first kiss live. I'm not going to look for it but @soft-husbands mentioned she saw a fancam that blurred the kiss out on Youtube 😑 (Why did you watch KPTS in the first place then.)

"People say that they are open minded, But they are actually not."

And isn't that the crux of it.

As I always say, you haven't have an opinion on the truth. So in the end, no one's opinions on the situation matters except for Mile's and Apo's. But it does suck to bear the brunt of people's negativity doesn't it.

Hopefully this didn't make you feel more sad... but you're not alone in noticing it at least.

#cw homophobia #mileapo #kpwt #kpwt bangkok #kpwt manila #mileapo and pride

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juliettedunn · 1 year

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The “Luzura” outfit and my interpretation of its symbolism for Luz.

The thing about Luz’s current outfit is that it is a remix of an outfit she wore before. In Lost in Language, she briefly wears an Azura costume (here they are side by side for comparison).

While similar, there are clear differences between the two, and both the changes and similarities are a reflection of her attitude toward her own heroism.

At the beginning of the show, one of Luz’s key flaws is her naïveté, and tendency to treat the Boiling Isles as though it were an entirely scripted, whimsical fantasy story.

This is most clearly seen in Witches Before Wizards, where she is sucked into a fairly obvious trap because she believes she is the Chosen One. Throughout Season One, she makes constant references to how things go in fantasy stories.

For example, that there is a chosen one, that the hero always returns home after their fantasy adventure, etc. Many of these tropes are subverted, though sometimes they are indeed played straight (befriending her rival, for example).

Through Season 1 and into Season 2,Luz gradually begins to mature and have a better understanding of the world. In some ways, this is healthy. Her concept of a whimsical world of predetermined destiny and happily ever afters isn’t real,and believing in it leads her into trouble.

However, Season 2 shatters this concept so intensely and abruptly that she goes too far in the opposite direction.

Luz is so removed from believing herself the hero, she sees herself as a villain.

This is highlighted with The Good Witch Azura movie in Thanks to Them, showing a villain with a similar outfit and design to her that she now believes herself to have more similarities with than Azura.

Even though she has many heroic qualities, she is unable to see them.

While The Owl House critiques the concept of happily ever afters and chosen ones, it also celebrates fandom, including stories like this.

You see it with The Good Witch Azura for Amity and Luz, and Cosmic Frontier for Camila, Hunter, and Gus. They are ridiculous and unrealistic, but it’s clear they have a positive impact on the characters’ l, such as Hunter relating to the clone character in Cosmic Frontier.

So Luz suddenly feeling like she is nothing like her favorite fictional character is portrayed as a negative, despite the naive attitude she had from it prior to Hollow Mind. This is why Luz taking on the Luzura costume is a very meaningful action.

She doesn’t fully believe she is worthy of it, but she dons it anyway, notably with some differences to how she made it previously. She is taking the comfort and inspiration of her fandom, while also making it unique to her, and giving it a more practical side than initially.

She wears boots and tights instead of a cumbersome dress, and she has a fanny pack equipped. Luz has grown out of her belief in an idealistic fantasy, but she also is allowing herself to return to that sense of whimsy and adventure.

She’s starting to believe in the possibility of herself as a hero figure again, just in a more realistic sense. She isn’t a chosen one, but she is a strong and kind person who CAN make a difference in the world.

It’s a wonderful way to call back to Luz’s beginning while also showing how Luz has changed.

How the maturity and wisdom she has gained can be balanced by a returning belief in wonder and heroism.

She herself hasn’t reached this point; she is still struggling heavily. It’s no coincidence it is Amity and Camila who encourage her to put on the outfit, trying to bring back that hope and joy she used to have.

“A good witch always has to have her hat”is such a powerful line, especially with Camila too finding comfort in fandom. It’s a show of respect for Luz’s interests,and an encouragement for her to regain that wonder she m had. Only this time, balanced with wisdom and maturity.

#the owl house #toh #luz noceda #the owl house luz #the owl house season 3

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innerchorus · 2 years

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Let’s talk about a name for Isfan’s mother! @tired-reader-writer mentioned that she deserved a name, and that’s absolutely correct. I started thinking about options myself and I’ll share what I came up with and why I chose it below, but I’m also curious to see if anyone else has other suggestions.

So, the name I came up with is Nima.

(This is apparently a male given name, but if Tanaka can base the names of some of his male characters on female given names, I can do the opposite too...).

According to Wikipedia, ‘there are different interpretations of what "Nima" stands for in Persian. It could mean 'famous, renowned, little king', deriving from Middle Persian nāmik (nām 'name' + -ik 'adjective suffix'; 'a person of good name'). It could also mean 'half moon', a compound of nīm 'half' + māh 'moon'. Alternatively it could be a compound of nē 'no, not' + man 'I, me, human being' meaning 'no man'. According to Dehkhoda dictionary it could also mean 'just', 'someone who treats others fairly'.’

The meaning could also be ‘bow’, or ‘archer’/’chosen archer.’ I’m tempted to consider Nimah as an alternate spelling, which would link it more with the ‘half moon’ meaning, but I think I like the other spelling more. And I suppose I can assign it whichever meaning I feel is best, anyway.

I was drawn to this name because it’s an old Tabari name (and in this context, the ‘archer’ meaning is the historically correct one). Tabaristan, which corresponds to the modern province of Mazandaran (a name you might recognise from Arslan Senki, though its in-story location may well differ) is located next to Gorgan, which is where I headcanon that Shapur’s family lands are. Indeed, Gorgan itself was apparently sometimes considered part of the Tabaristan region. Isfan’s mother was a slave, and while I’m sure the nature of the slave trade meant that household slaves could originate from anywhere in Pars or even further afield, for her backstory I’m going to state that her roots were here. I headcanon that this is the province her parents were from — she was born into slavery, but her parents gave her a name from their home.

In terms of Isfan’s own name, I’m sure it’s based on Esfandiyar, but I also looked at the etymology of the place name Isfahan for an alternative meaning (purely for headcanon purposes) and found this: ‘from Persian اصفهان‎ (Esfahân), ultimately from Old Persian *spādāna- (“connected with the army”) or *spādānām (“of the armies”), from 𐎿𐎱𐎠𐎭 (spāda-, “army”)'. A slave would not have been able to serve in the Parsian army except as a footsoldier, but perhaps Nima dared to dream of something more for her child. Did she hope that his father would take an interest in him? Did she perhaps even imagine, naively, that he would be easily accepted into his father’s household and trained to enter the army in the cavalry division? Or could Shapur have suggested the name? Perhaps she asked him, hoping that a name given by the legitimate heir would bring good fortune and a positive association? In any case, I think she’d be so proud if she saw Isfan now.

Incidentally, Tabaristan means ‘land of the mountains’, so it’s not lost on me that there’s a kind of cruel irony in her being sent back to the mountains to die. At the time, Shapur would only have been able to take Isfan with him, but I’m sure he arranged for her body to be given a burial and funeral rites, too.

#arslan senki #the heroic legend of arslan #nima #oops i wrote a whole essay #tanaka didn't bother to name her but i will

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tomorrow-and-tomorrows · 3 years

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SNK 139.5: Towards the Final Pages with no Final Answers

The final pages of the updated ending are bold, but I think ultimately more evocative than the original preliminary ending.

Even after the intensely polarized reader reception that took issue with the lack of storytelling precision and clarity when it was most needed, SNK chose to end with a decisively ambiguous symbol. In literature, a symbol is something that clearly means something -- but with the most "literary" symbols, their meaning cannot be absolutely defined; any attempted answer as to what a symbol represents has no finality or certainty, and interpretation will remain ever open to debate. A symbol both invites and resists interpretation.

Naturally, the immediate response to the symbolic tree on the final page is to try answering the invitation to the question, "What does it mean?"

One prominent answer I've seen is that it symbolizes the continuation of the cycle of war and violence either because a) of the symbolic parallel to Ymir or b) on a more literal level, that it implies the actual potential revival of new era of Titans. A reasonable interpretation either way, but also, I think, an incomplete one.

The first reason for this is that "the endless cycle of war" was already clearly and powerful represented in the preceding panels:

The cycle of war was already continuing in the decades or centuries before the child arrived at the tree. A culminating image symbolizing the persistence or resurgence of an era of war as the final panel would thus arguably be redundant and unnecessary.

Furthermore, the chapter is entitled "Toward the Tree on That Hill." If the tree were simply a symbol of war, by implication the chapter could equally be called 'toward the endless cycle of war'. But such a relentlessly bleak and tonally flat ending sentiment would be firmly incongruous with the story's recurrent conviction in the equal cruelty and beauty of the world -- a conviction that I believe it has been faithful to all the way to its end.

The Long Defeat

But while on this topic of war, let's linger a moment on the "cruelty" side and the consequence of this wordless construction and subsequent destruction of a city -- the most bold and possibly controversial additional panels that are also my personal favourite additions.

One objection that has emerged against this brief sequence of Paradis' apparent destruction is that it renders the entire story to be "pointless". Eren's 80% Rumbling, Armin's diplomatic peace talks between the remnants of the Allied Nations and Paradis, and before that, the proposal of the 50-year plan and Zeke's euthanasia plan... everything, to the very beginning to the Survey Corps' dreams of some kind of freedom; was it all for nothing? All that striving, that hope, that final promise bestowed upon Armin: was it all a pointless story? Even more radically, is the story suggesting that Eren might as well have continued the Rumbling to 100% of the earth? Was Zeke's euthanasia plan the cruel but correct choice all along? What was the point of rejecting the 50-year plan if that had a greater chance of success at preventing this outcome?

I think Isayama suddenly pulling back to such a long-term view of history to the scale of decades or even centuries into the future calls for a reorientation in attitude towards exactly what kind of story we have been reading. Yes, if the metric is Paradis' survival, maybe it was indeed all "pointless". But that's also to say that, on the broadest scale, SNK is a story about futility, that it is a deliberate representation of the struggle to make one's actions historically meaningful.

In the long view of history, all the events, from Grisha running beyond the wall to see the airships and the first breaking of Wall Maria to Erwin's sacrifices, Paradis' discovery of the outside world, and finally to the Battle of Heaven and Earth, it would all merely be a handful of chapters in the history textbooks of the future. A future in which war and geopolitical conflict will continue even without Titans. That does not mean that all paths to the future are equal -- the 50-year plan would not have put an end to Titans, and Zeke's euthanasia plan distorts utilitarian ethics into just another form of oppression; there are better and worse decisions that lead to more and less degrees of suffering, but no decision can ever be the final one.

The additional panels remind us that in history, there never exists a singular "Final Solution". The reason there are readers who vehemently support Eren to have flattened 100% of the world, and the reason the Paradisians supported the oppressive, authoritarian, proto-fascist Jaegar Faction under Floch and even after the Rumbling, is that because they want to believe that a Final Solution to end conflict exists and will work. They resist the fundamental uncertainty and complexity of the situation, instead preferring a singular, unified, and coherent Answer to Paradis' struggle to survive. I'm reminded of the scholar Erich Auerbach's theorization of why fascism appealed to many people during periods of political and social crisis, change, and uncertainty. Writing in exile after fleeing Nazi Germany, he observed that:

"The temptation to entrust oneself to a sect which solved all problems with a single formula, whose power of suggestion imposed solidarity, and which ostracized everything which would not fit in and submit - this temptation was so great that, with many people, fascism hardly had to employ force when the time came for it to spread through the countries of old European culture." (from Mimesis p. 550)

This acutely describes the Jaegar Faction's rise to power and continued dominance in Paradis. But their promise of unity, of a single formula to wipe out the rest of the world either literally through the Rumbling, or to dominate them with military force, is a false one. Even if Eren had Rumbled 100% of the world instead of 80%, history would still go on. The external threat of the world may have been eliminated, but internal conflict and violence would still continue onward throughout the generations born on top of the blood of the rest of the world. Needless to say, out of all the options, Eren's 80% Rumbling is the very epitome of perpetuating the cycle of violence as it creates tens of thousands of war orphans like Eren once was, and it would justify employing violence for one's own self-interest to an extreme degree. For the generations to come that would valourize Eren as a hero, it would set a dangerous precedent for what degree of destruction is acceptable for self-defence -- nothing short of the attempt to flatten the entire world. It is no surprise that Paradis would meet a violent end when its founding one-party rule of the Jaegar Faction has their roots in such unapologetically bloody foundations.

Neither the 80% Rumbling nor the militaristic, ultra-nationalistic Jaegar faction that come to govern Paradis are glamourized as the "correct" solution to ensuring Paradis' future. (This can also put to rest any accusations of SNK's ending as "fascist" or "imperialist" propaganda, since the island's modern nation that they founded ends in war. All nations must fall eventually, but not all do in such blatant destruction). Importantly, neither is Armin's diplomatic mission naively idealized as that which permanently achieves world peace. No singular or unifying formula can work because reality is complicated. Entrusting oneself to seemingly simple Answers is simply insufficient, even if they are ideals of peaceful negotiation; that method may work given the right conditions, but the world will always eventually complicate its feasibility.

After all in the real world, there's the absurd irony that some in the West had called the First World War "The War to End all Wars". These days, WWI is merely one long chapter in our textbooks just a few pages away from the even longer chapter of the Second World War that is followed by all the rest of the conflicts that have followed since then even with the establishment of diplomatic organizations like the United Nations. In this sense, showing Paradis' eventual downfall is perhaps the only way to end such a series that is so concerned with history, from King Fritz's tribal expansion into empire, the rise and fall of Marleyan ascendency, and finally of the survival and apparent shattering of Paradis.

From its beginning to its end, SNK has poignantly evoked J.R.R. Tolkien's conception of history as The Long Defeat. In one character's words, "together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat". That is to say, "no victory is complete, that evil rises again, and that even victory brings loss".

No heroes, only humans

Eren's desperate, fatalistic resignation to committing the Rumbling, along with the characters' rejection of all the rest of the earlier plans to ensure Paradis a future, are merely the actions of human beings to that began with the need to find not even necessarily a Final Answer, but at least an acceptable and feasible one for the time being. But the characterization of Eren's confusion, childishness, and regret in the final chapter is startlingly real in how it demonstrates how, all along, we have been dealing not with grand heroes, but simply people who have no answers at all. SNK has always been about failures - and often ironic failures; it has always been a story about painful and frequently futile struggle.

People make mistakes, they can be short-sighted, selfish, biased, immature, petty, and irrational, and I think the ending follows through with depicting the consequences of that.

Erwin's self-sacrifice before being able to reach the basement (and his regression to a childhood state in the moments before his death), Kenny's futile chasing after that universal compassion he had seen in Uri, Shadis never being acknowledged by history despite his final heroic action, and so on -- these stories of ironic, futile failures are still meaningful in their mere striving. Eren's ending and Paradis' demise despite Armin's endeavour to ensure them a peaceful future are entirely consistent with this.

SNK certainly follows the shounen trope in which young individuals are bestowed great power and correspondingly great responsibility, and must then reconcile the burden of possessing that greatness on which the fate of the world depends. Yet it is equally defined by its representation of the state that us normal human beings confront everyday: the struggle against the apparent powerlessness to enact any meaningful or lasting change at all. Simultaneously, this helpless state does not exempt us from the responsibility to act in whatever small capacity we are able to resist oppression, ideological extremism, and the perpetuation of violence.

Towards That Symbol

That was a rather long but vital digression about the additional "construction and destruction" pages. To return to the issue of the symbolism in the final panel, here I will turn from seemingly affirming the tree as symbolizing the cycle of violence, towards what I think is the greater complexity of what the tree might "actually" symbolize.

As I've said above, I don't believe that the final chapter title is synonymous with 'toward the endless cycle of war'. In tone, theme, and characterization, SNK has always been defined by the tension between cruelty and beauty, the will to violence and the underlying desire for peace, and the rest of the contradictory impulses that all simultaneously coexist. The end of SNK as a whole commits to a similar lack of closure, ambiguity, and interpretive openness.

So far I have rambled on about only a view of the perpetual "cruelty" of history. Where, then, is the "beauty"?

In short, the "tree = cycle of violence" interpretation is obviously based on how that this tree recalls the original tree in which the spine creature, as the source of the power of the Titans, resided. But it's worth first considering, what exactly is this creature? We seem to get our answer in the chapter that most precisely crystallizes the dual "cruelty and beauty" of the world:

The spine creature might be said to be life itself. Or more specifically, the will of life to perpetuate itself, for no reason at all but for the fleeting moments in which we feel distinctly glad to have existed in the world.

The creature at the source of the Titans, and in extension the Titans themselves, is neither inherently a positive or negative, "good" or "evil", creative or destructive force. It's both and all of those at once. As with any power, the Titans were merely a tool that was put to use to oppressive ends.

So as I now suggest that the tree at the end is symbolically a "Tree of Life", I don't at all mean "life" in the typically celebratory or optimistic sense: rather, I mean it in the ambiguous, ambivalent, uncertain, and complex sense that has been evoked throughout the above discussion of the inevitable continuation of war.

The title "Toward The Tree on That Hill" is derived from its associations with Eren and Mikasa, but more specifically of course, from Armin's affirmation of existence. However, the tree as a symbol of existential affirmation is undercut with the revelation that, despite Armin's diplomatic mediation between the Allied Nations and Paradis, the island nation never escapes war just as no nation in the history of the earth has ever fully escaped war.

The image of Armin running toward that life-affirming tree by the end becomes twisted and complicated, as the image of the anonymous child approaching the Tree of Life evokes both awe at its beauty and grandeur, and a deep dread at the foreboding of its cyclical return to Ymir's tree that signalled the beginning of a bloody era.

And I think that is precisely it: Life is not some idealized, beautiful vision that we always want to run toward; it is also ironic, complicated, and dreadful. It is ambivalent. Like a literary symbol, the meaning of life cannot be pinned down absolutely. The tree therefore becomes itself a symbol of uncertainty, of an open future that is cyclical both in its beauty and war.

As a final observation, it is surely no coincidence that, the small, black, birdlike silhouettes of the war planes destroying the city from the sky is replaced by the similarly small black silhouettes of birds in the final panel.

If the birds represent freedom from war, the irony is that the immediately surrounding land appears to be one completely empty of people save for the exploring child; it is a freedom attained only without people's presence. Yet at the same time, a child from some existing civilization has reached it; perhaps it is freedom that they have reached, perhaps it is something else that they see in the tree. What is it that they were looking for? What does the tree and its history represent for the child, and what does it mean for their future? Alternatively, does the child-in-the-forest imagery negatively recall the warning that the world is one huge forest of predator and prey that we need to protect children from entering?

Rather than providing answers, this tree embodies all of the potential questions, and all of the potential answers. These possibilities will unfold themselves into an uncertain future beyond the chapters of history that Eren, Armin, Mikasa, Zeke, Erwin, and all the rest of the characters were part of and left their mark on; and whatever future this child will witness or create, it will similarly be one of the struggle against futility, as the journey begins anew with each generation in every new era. Neither - or both - hopeful or despairing, the final image of this tree, just like life itself, contains those innumerable irresolvable tensions as it gestures towards all possibilities, both oppressive and free.

#snk 139 #snk ending #snk extra pages #snk meta #snk #snk spoilers #brain dump #this is a pretty personal interpretation so if there are any logical inconsistencies i don't know what to do with them #yes the execution of the final arc/chapter is flawed but it's still very conceptually interesting #i still have my disappointments but overall i've made my peace with it #translating my tangled thoughts into words however imperfectly: i think that's what freedom is all about #snk manga #aot #aot 139 #aot ending

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anemoi-i · 3 years

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what’s ur opinion on kristoph and phoenix’s relationship over the seven year gap? i see so many different interpretations of it!! (personally i agree with krisnix because i think it benefits the plot the most, i wish dead dove writers would keep their hands off of it though :( )

Many AA fans dislike Krisnix because of the portrayal dead dove writers bring to the table. They turn the ship into something that's abusive, toxic, and wholly inhumane, and it's also for that reason many are wary of Krisnix shippers in like... general. It doesn't help that dead dove writers take Kristoph and write him like garbage, worsening his character. I could go on and on, but you probably get the point. I'm just going to get one thing out of the way: I don't actively seek out Krisnix content. I myself am wary of people who ship it for the reasons above, and I do not condone the abusive and toxic nature the ship can yield. I don't even read fanfiction involving Kristoph unless it is from mutuals who's writing I have read before and I trust.

The thing is, Phoenix and Kristoph's relationship is interesting, and there should have been more to it. Think about it: you had Phoenix, who was so desperate to take Kristoph down he gave Apollo falsified evidence which would have ended his career right then and there if Kristoph pointed out that evidence was fake (but he couldn't because it would call his authenticity into question) like he wanted to and not only that, he was only able to bring down Kristoph with circumstantial evidence and a run-of-the-mill jury. Kristoph didn't admit to anything. He was that conniving and ruthless that he couldn't even be taken down with concrete evidence (even if it was available, but inadmissable).

My main headcanon about this ship lies in a paranoia Kristoph developed when he did the deed and forged his evidence. It stemmed from many things, from Klavier piecing things together over the years and figuring out Kristoph manipulated him, to Phoenix realizing close to the equivalent (because there's no way Klavier, a 17 year old kid is out to get him for no reason, so there must be a mastermind) which he basically does.

So... Kristoph sticks around. He pretends to be a friend to Phoenix, someone that comforts him when he needs it most, but it is all a lie. Kristoph is skilled in masking his emotions. He is skilled in pretending to be caring or loving. When Phoenix wonders who could have taken his beloved career away, Kristoph hugs him and grins like the devil where Phoenix can't see because he thinks he's won and all he has to do is wait until Misham dies and his plan is complete, and no one will be able to cross him. This pathetic-former attorney named Phoenix Wright is taking comfort in the very man that took pleasure in ripping away his attorney's badge, and there's a carefully scripted play in that.

But Kristoph underestimated Phoenix, because Phoenix Wright is the kind of man to know when someone isn't smiling with their eyes, and he not once felt that Kristoph's care was genuine no matter how much he wanted to believe in Kristoph. Even under the walls Miles put up, he still was able to sense compassion in him. He learned from Dahlia's deception. He would never let himself be manipulated like that again, so Phoenix pretends to be the naive fool because he knows Kristoph wants that, and why not give the man a show?

The thing is, though, Kristoph Gavin made Phoenix Wright feel something he didn't even think he felt with Dahlia despite what she did to him, and what she tried to do to his closest friend: hate. I can't imagine Phoenix to say that he hates someone, but when Kristoph came into the picture, it was the first time he admitted he hated someone, because how dare this man come out of nowhere with his malevolence just because he didn't like the way Phoenix did things? How dare he, indeed? It messes Phoenix up, but he isn't alone. He has Trucy and Miles, and Trucy's whole existence is why Phoenix hasn't and would never give up worth a damn. We know the rest. Phoenix spends seven years collecting evidence to take Kristoph down.

In those seven years, Kristoph acted like a friend.

In those seven years, Phoenix pretended to accept his friendship.

Until it was time to break it off.

Kristoph lost, yes, but he did win in one thing.

Making Phoenix Wright feel hate. Making him feel an insatiable rage that he hides deep within, because no one should see that side of him, not Miles, not Apollo, who he needed to pull away from Kristoph, not Klavier, who he never blamed for anything and would take care of, and not even towards himself... because he hates that he knows that he has that side.

#krisposting #kristoph gavin #phoenix wright #aceattorney #answered #sorry this is long #but i wanted to get out my thoughts in an articulate way #kristoph headcanons

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athousandbyeol · 2 years

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Hiiiii my companion in danyok despair, how are you? I still fall apart everytime I think about them. What do you expect from the last episode? I am too scared for a possible death of my foolish broke cop... but what if he doesn't show up? What if Yok will never at least hear about Dan's motives? Will he think that it was ALL a lie from the start? What if Dan remains in that hospital and it seems like he still chose the system, even after threatening his parents and his lover?

I feel like both scenarios would hurt, but the least I'm would like to see is this little growth in Dan. He's a very complex grey character.

hello there, partner :) oh, god. idek. it's crazy because i haven't watched ep 13 but i'm acting as if i have lol. maybe it's best if we stop thinking about danyok for the time being... and resume pondering about them when it's sunday. xD

oh, wow. tbvh, idk :( but i have a few ideas about how the last episode will unfold (but it's only for danyok because they're holding me at gunpoint as we speak).

1. dan wouldn't survive. from what i know, dan actually set them free at the end of ep 13? and i think the hospital was ambushed by tawi's men and possibly, dan's still there (along with black). maybe, these two won't make it to sunrise. and the whole set-up for that last scene, when the elevator was closing, and dan had this sad smile on his face. i think... it's his goodbye to yok, and to us.

2. dan survives. but he won't be seeing yok anymore. he'll vanish without justifying the choices he made. because he was convinced that yok never wanted to see him again. i should've believed you back then. god. it's more than enough for dan to disappear without a trace. and this scares me because i think dan's a bit suicidal and to know he was so ready to k*ll himself worries me the most. but i don't think p'nuchy will show this bit. danyokers will go berserk (read: me, us).

it's silly of me but i'm expecting danyok to reunite at some point if nothing bad happens to them. and i want them to have their usual heart-to-heart talk about everything. perhaps, if the world is kind enough, they will let danyok fall into place together. because i think, if yok knows what happened to dan prior to the mission, he would forgive him? i was the officer that shot sean's father. it's okay. it's all in the past. i feel like they could have a chance, together. again. if, p'nuchy sees this fitting to their story.

i think dan knows by now the system is a true fuckery. the moment he was held hostage by that old man, and to know his drawings meant nothing, his efforts to make a change in the system was a waste, it was a poignant wake-up call to dan imo. i think when he set the gang free, he also let go of his naive sentiments.

yok- our precious lover boy- i think he was conflicted too. he was so heartbroken when he saw dan but then there's this confusion in his eyes when dan helped them escape. goodness. if dan didn't survive this mayhem, yok would think about it all alone and broke down into tears and that's the end for me. (i have high hopes that black + gumpha know what's up. i've been suspecting that gumpha is also a cop from the earlier episodes but maybe i'm just preaching. but there's a possibility that black + gumpha worked together with dan. please let this be true.)

indeed. dan's such a complex character and we can interpret him in so many ways. i think we'll get to see that change in him. if he made it to the end.

oh, dear anon, i'm sorry for this nonsense :( idk what i was saying but i hope it did answer your questions. and thanks for this long ask! i hope you'll be fine. don't think about danyok that much, if you don't want regrets. lol. i'm a mess. i'm sorry.

take care. x

#not me series #not me the series #not me #danyok #thanks for the ask lovely anon!#na answers

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kolachess · 3 years

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Pingxie Quote Translations / Analysis - Ten Years Promise + Origin

Ah yes, this is the most famous Pingxie quote, and also the reason why I jumped on the Pingxie fic-writing / Tumblr posting train. This quote is a little special, because it wasn’t spoken directly in the novel, but rather by the original author in an interview. Hence, I will explain the quote, the context in which it came about, and why it’s such a nightmare to translate and interpret.

Original Text (adapted):

用我一生, 换你十年天真无邪

Translation:

My lifetime, in exchange for you a decade of innocence and purity.

Analysis / Callouts:

用我一生 - This technically says, ‘use my one lifetime’. The word 生 here is interesting, because it means life, but when used in conjunction with ‘一‘ or ‘one’, it gives the connotation of ‘lifetime’ more so than straightforward ‘life’.

天真无邪 - The words here are ‘tian zhen wu xie’. Look familiar? They should be! First off, 天真无邪 is a common Chinese phrase meaning ‘innocent and pure’. You can read more here (MTL). Second, 天真 is Wu Xie’s nickname meaning, again, ‘naive’ or ‘innocent’. 无邪, which means ‘no evil’ is homonymous with 吴邪, Wu Xie’s name. So these last four words are poetic in that it means Zhang Qiling wanted to keep Wu Xie innocent and pure, but it’s also a beautiful play on his two names.

Do you see how a straightforward translation can’t capture the multi-dimensional artistry here? 😭 (Side note: I’m not sure if perhaps Wu Xie’s nickname was derived from this saying, but ah... still beautiful IMO.)

Background / Source:

Nanpai Sanshu AKA Xu Lei, the original author, had an interview in which in the interviewer asked about the fate of Wu Xie and Zhang Qiling. This interview was conducted around 2010(?) and somewhere on the internet (Chinese internet archive is terrible, especially back then), but there doesn’t seem to be any question of the authenticity of this interview. I believe I found a whole ‘transcript’ here? I’ll have to read it in original Chinese at snail pace sometime... because the MTL version has me cracking up in confusion and a little skeptical of just how they could be so blunt about the fan service (but then again, Nanpai Sanshu has sold out to fujoshi... ah, more at the end).

Original Interview Text:

南宫苓：吴邪在整部书里会不会是最惨的那个人？他和瓶子最后是不是真的要死一个？

南派三叔：吴邪最惨一生都是一个注定的悲剧但是老张也不容易

南宫苓：然后？

南派三叔：延迟了整个悲剧的发生

南宫苓：然后他们了一起杯具了？

南派三叔：用自己的一生，再换你十年的天真无邪

Translation:

Interviewer: Is Wu Xie the most tragic character in the entire novel? Is it inevitable that, between him and Pingzi [Menyouping AKA Zhang Qiling], one of them will have to die in the end?

Nanpai Sanshu: Wu Xie’s fate as the most tragic is a set tragedy, but Lao Zhang [Zhang Qiling] doesn’t have it easy either.

Interviewer: And then?

Nanpai Sanshu: Delayed the inevitable tragedy.

Interviewer: And then they encountered tragedy together?

Nanpai Sanshu: Using [his] own lifetime to exchange you another decade of innocence and purity.

Analysis / Callouts:

You might notice the quotes are slightly different. I presume fans adapted / simplified it so 1) it sounded like it was actually being spoken by Zhang Qiling, rather than the author speaking for him, and 2) it was more poetic sounding without losing any of the meaning. Hence why that version is more broadly circulated.

The difference of Nanpai Sanshu’s quote and the adapted quote is 1) the replacement of 自己的 with 我, or ‘[his] own’ with ‘my’, and 2) the omission of the word 再 or ‘another’. I’m a little less sure why this second change happened, but I guess it’s somewhat implied enough.

The implication from this interview is that (at least originally), Pingxie is supposed to have a tragic ending. Perhaps Zhang Qiling was supposed to die in the Bronze Gate.

Confused? What does this quote / interview actually mean in the broader context of Pingxie! Why is translation / interpretation of this so hard?

So normally, in a fandom, fan theories can always be traced back to the original text. But in DMBJ verse, we have the added chaos factor in that... the original author himself has no idea what’s going on anymore. Nanpai Sanshu started DMBJ as a fanfiction of another series, ‘Candle in the Tomb’ or ‘Ghost Blowing out the Light’, it then exploded into a craziness of its own that he did not anticipate, and he has since been widely accused of catering to fans and selling out (the growing shameless milking of Pingxie is the result 🤣).

And so it’s very possible that his original plan was indeed to give a rather tragic ending to the Pingxie relationship and DMBJ series, but since this is now his cash cow, he’s a bit reluctant to part with it. Although I think more so than money, he probably just doesn’t want to disappoint fans; he was / is very stressed as result of all the mounting pressure. And hence all the back-peddling and trying to explain away what appear to be plot gaps / holes to make it so that Pingxie can continue.

As a writer, this has me face-palming big time. Don’t sell out to your readers unless you were planning on that kind of input to begin with! As a fan though... I’m glad Pingxie continues! 😂. But ultimately, I have no qualms with someone adapting the course of events to fan input as long as it stays true to the characters and you can still have a smooth plot (and yes, I want Pingxie to continue).

So Nanpai Sanshu, I feel you. I still think you’re brilliant, and I thank you for keeping the Pingxie boat afloat! And I do understand the desire to not disappoint fans. But you’ve really written yourself into a corner haven’t you... best of luck.

#pingxie #pingxie quotes #quotes #daomubiji #dmbj #daomu biji #wu xie #zhang qiling

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c-aureus · 3 years

Text

How I think Hyrule would respond to Zelda's return, after the end of BotW.

Wall of text incoming.

TL;DR: I think they'd be very cruel.

Please remember that these are all only my interpretations and opinions, and should be treated as such.

A while ago, I made a post saying that I do not believe that Zelda or Link should be in any way 'happy' after the end of BotW. Imo, they've both lost too much for that, and I worry that the sequel will not give this grief or loss the focus it deserves.

Now, I plan to expand on that, by explaining my interpretation for how i believe Hyrule would respond to her after her return, which would only further compound their misery.

Now, I'd like to preface this by saying that I actually like BotW Zelda as a character a lot, and that I'm very sympathetic to her.

However... well.

The consequences of her failure are simply too big to ignore imo.

Firstly, as a general overview: Zelda was the ONLY person capable of stopping Ganon. Without her Divine sealing power, there was simply no way for Hyrule to survive Ganon's assault, no matter the preparations, or skill of the warriors. The best example of this is the Champions and Divine Beasts. They were all the best of the absolute best, and yet none of them were able to survive Ganon's assault, simply because they were not Divinely favoured to succeed, the way that Link and Zelda were. Even despite their incredible skill, prowess and dedication. There are other examples too, notably the fall of Hyrule's military outposts, and the annihilation of central Hyrule's civilisation and infrastructure.

To put it simply, with Zelda's power, they won. Without it, all of the preparations were for naught, and everyone would die. Zelda herself even says as much in a cutscene in AoC.

(Also, as a side note, in all of those levels in AoC where you relieve the Akkala Fortress, Great Plateau, and Hateno fort, remember that in BotW, they all fell, and the soldiers would have been slaughtered.)

So, in light of that...

The fact that Zelda only unlocked her power after it was already too late means that I don't believe that the shattered remnants of Hyrule's civilisation would be kind or sympathetic to her.

Link and Zelda were literally born by divine influence to protect Hyrule from Ganon. And, well...

Again, my point comes down to the fact that Zelda only unlocked her power after it was too late for the Champions, Link, and thousands of other Hyruleans who had either already been killed, or who would later die in the aftermath.

Now, again, I'm HIGHLY sympathetic to Zelda here. Indeed, she had lived her entire life with this Sword of Damocles hanging over her.

However. The sword fell.

And, crucially, Zelda avoided it, whilst it went on to kill literally thousands of others. They all died for Zelda's failure, whilst she herself survived.

Furthermore, those 'lucky' ones who did survive had to live in BotW Hyrule, which, if I'm being honest, is an absolute wasteland. So, so much was lost in the Calamity, the land was overrun by monsters, and even the tiny remaining pockets of civilisation suffer. I could go on for hours about how infrastructure, agriculture and trade were all annihilated, but I'll try to refrain for brevity's sake.

The long and short of it is that Hyrule is fucked.

I think my worry about this comes from BotW's post credit scene where Zelda tells Link that she thinks that if everyone works together, they can rebuild, and make Hyrule better than it was before.

And, this line really annoyed me. Because, quite simply, Hyrule has simply lost too much to rebuild. Infrastructure, agriculture, trade, population... Hyrule would be reeling for generations after Link and Zelda's death. To expect any kind of quick recovery is just... foolish beyond words.

(Another side note: I'm extremely grateful to AoC showing just how developed Hyrule is pre-Calamity. It helps give scale and scope to the devastation in BotW even more.)

So, Zelda's naive optimism here annoyed me. However, far more than that, there is another issue that this overlooks:

Namely, I cannot fathom why anyone in Hyrule would want to follow her, or would accept her as their sovereign.

Now, this is going to get extremely cruel to Zelda, and that saddens me, because I like her. This is just what I think the realistic response would be to her, given the circumstances, because people are cruel and like easy targets of blame. There are many examples of this kind of blaming behaviour in history, if anyone wants to look, lol. So apologies in advance:

BotW tells us through the memories that Zelda's reputation is AWFUL Pre-Calamity. Rhoam says that the people call her 'Heir to a Kingdom of Nothing' etc.

Now, perhaps poor parenting aside, this gives more context. Do you really believe that the 'lucky' few survivors of Central Hyrule would be kind, given that Zelda fulfilled their terrible expectations in the WORST possible manner?

No. I believe that that generation, which already disliked her, would spend the rest of their lives cursing her failure, and the death and destruction that came as a consequence. And, they would pass that down to their children and grandchildren.

This comes to another point: Zelda is (for the most part) out of living memory. The only thing Hyrule knows of her is her failure to prevent the land from being devastated. Furthermore, the 4 tribes of Hyrule might even have a decent cause to blame her for the deaths of the Champions.

(Cause and effect are tricky, but well... people are irrational. Maybe if Zelda had unlocked her power straight away, the Champions still would have died. However, perhaps they could have held on long enough for Link and Zelda to force Ganon to recall his Blights to protect himself, as he does in BotW if you attack him without liberating the Divine Beasts. Who is to say? The point is, people get hung up on these kind of 'what ifs', as I am doing right now, lol.)

I'd like to make a special mention of the Zora here, who not only have Zelda (and all of her failures and inadequacies) in living memory, but are also xenophobic towards Hylians.

We see how they blame Link in BotW, after all. I think that they would feel similarly to Zelda, who is 'technically' more deserving of blame.

From a Zora-centric perspective, Zelda may as well have stolen Mipha from them, to make her take the fall for Zelda's failures. She literally set Mipha up to die, she sacrificed Mipha on the altar of her own survival, etc.

To elaborate: Princess Zelda personally requested Mipha, the beloved Crown Princess of the Zora, to become Champion. Despite Dorephan's hesitance, he allows it. Then, Zelda fails her, and Mipha dies in the Calamity that Zelda failed to prevent, but also that Zelda manages to survive.

Like... as harsh, cruel, and unfair as this is to poor Zelda... do you think that the Domain, which is STILL mourning Mipha a century later, would just... wave that away?

Now... how much Zelda is truly to blame for the Calamity is another matter, one that I will explore in a post hopefully shorter than this one. Suffice to say, I have many opinions, and some of the conclusions are perhaps unkind to her, which only further justifies my interpretations of Hyrule's blame, and Zelda's guilt and grief.

The point is that... Hyrule would see an easy target to dump their grief on. And I I don't believe they would just let it go.

Furthermore, Zelda has no political influence anymore. She can't force anyone to listen to her, or obey her commands, since all of that was destroyed in the Calamity. Moreover, with Zelda's reputation being that of colossal failure, I doubt that anyone in Hyrule would wish to submit to her, to give her the chance to fuck everything up again.

God. I feel really horrible typing all of this out, lol. And yet, I genuinely believe that this would be the reaction to her. So, if in the sequel, everything is being rebuilt and everyone is totally happy with Zelda, well...

I'm gonna be very upset. Because, in my opinion, if all of Hyrule just forgave Zelda's failures, and ignored their disastrous consequences, that would be extremely unrealistic.

As much as this headcanon hurts, and would hurt me to see, I'd be very vindicated by it, lol.

If anyone has any opinions, feel free to let me know.

Just please keep everything civil lol. This is only a random person on the internet's opinion.

#botw zelda #botw #post botw #botw2 #loz botw #loz breath of the wild

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eleutheramina · 4 years

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Michiru & Shirou Thoughts

Binge-watched BNA last night.

Overall, I enjoyed it. It was cute and fun to watch. Most of all, I really appreciated the development of Michiru and Shirou’s relationship, and I wanted to write a bit a lot (channeling the former English major in me) because I’m sad there isn’t more content about them, and clearly, the relationship is integral both the narrative and each character's growth. Contains spoilers for BNA.

I want to talk about their relationship in general, but I first want to address what I have perceived as the conventional interpretations of their relationship on the interwebz.

Shipping? Romance?

On one hand, I totally understand many people not seeing them romantically - there's not much explicit evidence for it in the show--no random blushing, no side characters teasing them about their feelings, no kisses or anything close. Indeed, I think anything like that in the show would feel uncharacteristic of both Michiru and Shirou as we know them, especially since they don’t really grow closer until 3/4 of the way through the series. And I also understand that Shirou not only looks older than Michiru, but also is technically a thousand years old and immortal regardless of how childish he may sometimes act, so for many people that’s not acceptable or appealing.

Certain scenes could be construed as having romantic undertones (rather than simply just showing they care for each other, which is pretty incontrovertible)--I’m thinking mostly when Shirou jumps off a building to rescue her in episode 3. While I think this can be also be explained as conveying his general heroism and concern for beastmen, rather than being romantic, I think the inclusion of it in the story and the heightened drama surrounding it adds to an element of romance (I’m reminded of Guts and Casca’s fall in Berserk). Similar things could be said about their confrontation in episode 11.

I also think it's not beyond the realm of possibility (i.e. fanfiction) for there to be romantic development between them down the line, especially with Michiru staying in Animacity, and I personally do ship them because of my personal tastes (the aloof guy with the cheerful girl trope is v appealing to me) and because I love the development of their understanding of one another (which I elaborate on below).

Daddy Shirou?

At the same time, I'm somewhat bewildered by the popular reading of their relationship as one between a father and daughter. I get that it could seem that way from the promotional material, and also that it's cute and maybe mostly a meme (in which case, sorry for taking it seriously), but I honestly think there's not much support in the show for that kind of dynamic in their interactions beyond superficial things, like Shirou being older that Michiru, often protecting her, and giving her food (which happens on-screen, like, once).

Not only that, I think this label feels unnatural because it undermines Michiru's roles in their relationship and makes her seem like someone Shirou needs to care for. Instead, I'd argue that so often (and more and more as the series goes on), Michiru serves as more of an equal to Shirou, and their relationship is one of mutual trust and respect.

This doesn't mean that there aren't obvious power imbalances in their relationship--again, Shirou being older and being a super powerful immortal god, him having close ties to the mayor and literally serving as Michiru's social worker at one point, as well as him generally being more savvy about beastmen and Animacity. Significantly, Michiru also just perceives Shirou as older--in episode 3, she refers to him as an "adult," and in episode 10 she calls him a “stubborn geezer,” suggesting that she recognizes his older age. In contrast, Michiru is apparently 18 and still has high school student vibes, and at the beginning of the series, she clearly is ignorant and naive about many aspects of beastmen life and Animacity.

Despite these things, I think Michiru has power in their relationship because she erodes the dogmatic assumptions that Shirou has about humans and beastmen. This happens as early as episode 2, when Shirou is adamant that it's impossible for Michiru to be a human because "Humans are humans. Beastmen are beastmen." (Indeed, Michiru turns out to be right about most of what she says to him in that scene--her condition is termed as a “disease” later in the series, and there is someone else like her--namely, Nazuna.)

Not only does Michiru have power in their relationship because of this, but Shirou also recognizes Michiru's independence and agency. In episode 4, when he learns that she has left Animacity, he says she can "do what she wants." When the mayor tells him to get retrieve Nina and Michiru, he ruffles his hair, clearly annoyed, suggesting he doesn't see her as his responsibility (beyond, of course, his general concern for beastman wellbeing). He even doesn't go to the party himself to get the girls, but rather asks Michiru to return Nina--and act of trust that Marie even comments on. They also clearly have no qualms about roasting each other, as evidenced at their interchange of insults at the end of the episode. Here, if anything, their relationship resembles bickering siblings more than a father and daughter.

Additionally, we see Michiru growing to be able to hold her own with Shirou in the action sequences. Indeed, Michiru begins to be able to actually help Shirou with the enemies they face as her knowledge of her beastman capacities, rather than just needing to be rescued. I’d say we first see this in episode 7, when Michiru sprouts wings that allow her to save the falling Shirou and also help him catch up with the airborne Pinga. Then we see Michiru stepping up to help Shirou take down the rampaging Yaba in episode 8. Not only does she play an integral role in subduing him--it’s her wings that allow him to be transported to a remote place (where Shirou can then go Ginrou-mode), but it’s also here that we see Shirou and Michiru’s partnership really start to kick off. I find their teamwork pretty endearing, as they grow to trust one another--Michiru challenges Shirou’s independence and forces him to rely on her, and Shirou actually allows her to help and gives her directions. This doesn’t mean that Michiru unquestioningly accepts Shirou’s orders (for example, she pushes back when he tells her to drop them in the warehouse), but it’s clear that even when she doesn’t always agree with him, she’s willing to trust him.

Indeed, rather than their relationship being one of great power difference, I think they actually grow to have a pretty balanced amount of power in their interactions with one another (as much power as is possible given the aforementioned situational differences between them). Just as Michiru challenges Shirou’s conception of humans and the rigidity of the division between the two races, Michiru also recognizes her own lack of understanding about Shirou and of beastmen. More than that, he makes her aware of her own prejudices about him (just as he challenges his prejudices).

Really, I’d say episode 9 is probably the strongest case for their relationship being something like a father-daughter relationship, but I think the dynamic is ultimately subverted. Shirou comes in with food for Michiru to lift her spirits (classic Asian parenting) while telling her not to go near certain places. Probably the most paternal we’ve seen him. Yet her response to the food she gets is not one of simple gratitude or even ingratitude toward a caregiver, but one that shows she is learning more about him and is willing to tease him (“I was thinking how a thousand year old person is so different.”) And also, because Michiru is her own person, she defies the restrictions he lays out--not out of rebellion against him, but out of her own friendship with Nazuna. Evidently, even when Shirou tries to guide Michiru in a father-like way, she responds in a way that subverts that dynamic.

Mutual Respect & Understanding (aka in which I gush about them)

Instead of a father-daughter relationship, Shirou and Michiru grow to have a relationship founded on respect for one another and a burgeoning understanding of each other’s differences. They care for and encourage one another and help each other grow, and I think that’s awesome regardless of whether or not you have hope for a romance between them.

I love how Michiru, whom Nazuna accuses of rushing into things based on her assumptions and an egocentric sense of justice, humbly recognizes not just her lack of knowledge about Shirou after learning his divine identity, but also the lack of effort she put into trying to know him. Not only that, but in episode 12, she is able to recognize Shirou as one who is “so sad and miserable, but still thinking about others,” rather than the offputting scary crying wolfman she met in the first episode. She knows that there are fundamental differences between her as a human and him as a beastman (in contrast to Nazuna, who says in episode 11 that “Humans and beastmen aren’t all that different”), but she is nonetheless able to understand him. She literally transforms into a wolf in order to track him down, using the acute sense of smell that is his trademark.

I love how she grows to understand why he turned into Ginrou during the festival. I love how, when she confronts him in episode 11, she starts with an apology for not understanding his feelings about the vaccine, when she should be the one to understand him most. I think basic but important things like these, like apologizing for not paying more attention to how someone else is feeling, is one of the reasons why I really appreciate Michiru as a character.

Likewise, Shirou learns to humble himself and trust someone else, as well as better understands a human. I love how he eventually just accepts that Michiru will want to help him when he goes off to fight. I love how he apologizes himself when Michiru confronts him in episode 11, and how he explains his intentions to her without holding anything back. I love how he thanks her for saving him from the Nirvasyl syndrome, how he chooses not to kill Alan when reminded of how Michiru does not like killing, how he encouragingly says that she can return to her human form soon (even if that means her leaving Animacity, which it’s implied would sadden him). Even his overlooking of baseball gambling, even if somewhat questionable, is sweet if you read it as him doing it because he knows Michiru enjoys it.

#michiru kagemori #brand new animal #shirou oogami #michiru x shirou #meta

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seb-owns-these-tatas · 4 years

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Witcher Of The Night (Chapter 10.1)

THIS IS MODERN ERA READER WHO WOKE UP IN THE DIMENSION OF THE WITCHER.

WITCHER OF THE NIGHT MASTERLIST

CHAPTER 10

Characters: Geralt of Rivia x small!Naive!Reader

Summary: You’ve woken up after the possession without remembering how it went, nor did you remember yourself confessing for the witcher. Three wishes were said with an comfortable feeling that seemed irresistible for you and for the white wolf himself too; leading into having renowned stress and frustration for Geralt with tensions that seemed to be carnal deep inside.

Warnings: Sexual tension. Frustration from both. Reader being one naughty woman for some bum staring and keeps on bothering a sleeping Geralt. Soft, soft, soft, Geralt of Rivia. Anxiety filled reader. Captain America is mentioned.

Words: 7.6k (SHEEIT. THIS IS LONG AF. WHAT THE HECK TATA HAHAHA. I WAS TOO HAPPY THAT THERE’S SOME TENSION NOW. HAHA! I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT!)

A/N: Smut will be up soon. (Maybe around chapter 14-16) There will be! Patience is a virtue, bb’s! Also, this is one of my favorite chapters that I’ve written! Heehee! I hope you’ll love it! 💖

TAGLIST IS STILL OPEN FOR THIS ONE! Heehee! Don’t forget to REBLOG, COMMENT OR GIVE FEEDBACK IF YOU DID LOVE THIS CHAPTER! IT’LL MAKE ME SMILE!

Disclaimer: PNG’s used in edits are not mine even the GIF’s too. However, the edits and oneshots are definitely from moi. Characters, places and said monsters aren’t from moi as well. GIF’s INCLUDED ARE CREDITED TO THOSE WHO MADE THEM! I DO NOT OWN THEM! (Some Gifs are from demivampirew)

MY WORKS ARE NOT NOT NOT NOT NOOOOOOT TO BE POSTED ON ANY OTHER WEBSITES. My official username in Wattpad is “TATATHEPOTATO” and that’s the only other site I have for writing aside from Tumblr. Thank you, Tater tots!

After the aberrant incident with your Djinn, you'd happen to wake up in the arms of the witcher. Geralt didn't know what happened; nor does he have any as to what explanations can be said. Nobody knew your wishes, not even yourself as you woke up sitting on a saddle; with Geralt's arms surrounding you in a warmth that tells you he was protecting the person in front of him; which was you.

He'd deeply pondered about it as the gang hiked back towards their path going home. What was the reason that you've been possessed by some sort of pneuma? Better yet, what have you really wished for?

All he remembered was your ebony eyes that consumed you from that time being. Though, drinking black blood was ticked off the list because he never even gave you the opportunity to try it nor is it possible for your tiny frame to take the elixir with no immunity like his.

You were definitely possessed; but then it left once you'd given him a barf of black smoke as explained by the bard who saw everything before his eyes.

He wasn't sure of it, but he couldn't be steadfast that the spirit wasn't in your body anymore; keeping you as a host. Though, the bard's explanations interprets that you've given the spirit to him.

Geralt would rather much prefer that than for you to painstakingly have it.

Hence, there was still a lot of questions especially that you woke up like finding a djinn never happened. Those words that was whispered out of your lips sounding like Elder speech.

He'd only understood the first word you've said which was 'Cáerme,'.

It meant Destiny. The word he hated the most.

The latter shouldn't have searched for the Djinn in the first place and just chose the latter option, but he just had to be so stubborn for wanting to flip the bird back at destiny who was trying to play him like a puppet and also at Durriken who began to spat shit back in the Tavern.

"Geralt," Jaskier extolled as the witcher walked Roach out of the forest. The way his pitch turned higher; sounding so mesmerized by the image he was seeing. The vast meadow sitting before him as a petite stone house castle appeared before them. Their wooden cavern long gone as another house has been magically changed; a stone house that probably had a second floor and rooms to provide for the whole family.

The bard gasped and stood in the middle of the field, his eyes shimmering in delight as he loomed before the new house; arms all wide as he exclaimed, "THIS IS SPLENDID! A MIRACLE, INDEED! What did she even wished for?!"

You were oddly silent. For Geralt, it was strange as he'd noticed that the first thing you've asked when you woke up in his arms was 'what happened?' as your eyes were weary and somehow filled with fatigue.

Your quietness was disturbing him to the fullest because he was fond of how you were always asking stuff whenever you see something uncanny in the midst of trailing down the path; which your naivety and curiosity lead to having a Hirikka living in his home. But, now; you were just staring out of nowhere as you sat on the saddle.

All your energy has just been taken from you when you've woken up in wonder; leaving you drained.

"What did you wish for, midget?" Geralt asked out of nowhere as he yanked on Roach's reigns as the horse galloped forward, towards an unspecified small, stone castle that you weren't accustomed with.

You've cocked your head to the side, squinting your eyes back at the larger house sitting in front of you and at the question that the witcher has asked, "What? I haven't yet. We were about to go to the swamps, remember?"

It was a sapped response that made the witcher hum in wonderment; shrugging to himself as the horse maneuvered to the side of the house to see that he'd still acquired his stable but not made of wood; but made in stones.

The house totally looked sumptuous to Geralt's surprise. He was used to the penurious looking stuff, but not the lavish life. He'd been sleeping in brothels before, had no home and friends other than his horses. Yet, life seemed like surprise him to the fullest.

"You've already made your wishes and we have already went to the lake," the witcher surly grumbled, his voice vibrating against his chest as you could hear the cavernous timbre that surely always does give you a touch to the spine.

Howbeit, once you've heard the velveteen gradient passing through; the effect was rather much profound. Kindling with the sparks that seemed to give your spine a shiver.

Totally bewildering, overwhelming and suddenly pleasurable.

"I...didn't? What are you saying?" you softly chided as your body went stiff by the patent purl of his effect on you. The witcher detected your body turning rigid like you've been shot to the head; yet he paid no thorough heed to it as he thought you've just shivered from the benumbing breeze of the night.

You've felt shifting from behind and noticed Geralt who'd gotten to jump off his horse first. No movements were made other than you who was stupefied at whatever stupendous feeling you were having. Beseeching peepers peering down at the witcher who had his beautiful amber eyes on you; silently watching like a hawk with his expression stoic but somewhat pliable that only you had the liberty to.

Very weird indeed.

"Jump." the witcher ordered, his voice sending more overwhelming ripples of shivers that made you subtly shake your head but it was noticed by Geralt as his mouth formed a firm, thin line; eyebrows slightly creased together from the reaction he got.

You timidly hauled your leg off his horse. The witcher's robust fingers spontaneously grabbing onto your hip before you could even jump then fall to the ground; like an instinctive reflex coming from the man himself, carrying you down with no effort. You were gently placed to the ground with much caution.

The wavelet of pleasurable specter traveled through every parts of your body, involuntary stepping an inch away from the latter which has made his hands stay where they have been, cocking his head to the side as he blinked in confusion.

He stared at his fingers far too long; seeming to be feeling what you were also feeling as of the moment. But, he never planned to tell; thinking that it was just probably the side effects of what has happened prior to the Djinn incident that has occured.

"Ughm," your heart was beating fast, giving you an unrewarding feeling when you've subtly moved away from the witcher; your actions never liking what it did when you've felt weight laid upon your chest, making you want to groan out loud in ire, "T-Thanks,"

Geralt could only raise a brow in silence from your reflexes; a weird abrupt feeling of frustration spreading through his chest but he paid no regard as he wanted something he couldn't quite understand.

The witcher was the first to leave, his mouth in a small frown by whatever was irritating him. You tailed behind Geralt stepping foot on their door step with quick marches. From the moment you've thrown yourself in the space of their new humble abode, you were awestruck as you've scanned the whole place with stupefaction.

The interior design of the whole house was in cardinal and wood brown, floor in stones. Geralt stood in the middle of a rather medium sized living room, thoroughly inspecting the place with his scrutinizing amber eyes with Jaskier, Cirilla and Kolby entirely delighted by the miracle that has been given.

You've stood behind Geralt, his Herculean back shown to you as you were staring at it far too long. A sudden thought for wanting to see his body bare which earned a mental slap for your untamed brain.

What were you just thinking right now?

The brooding witcher puttered an exquisite groan to himself, a phantom of satisfying prickle of your stomach giving your insides a warmth that seemed to slowly become insufferable as he'd turned around to meet your doe-eyes; guilelessly peering up at the witcher who was all colossal and strong.

"Tell me your wishes---" he firmly started, roughly spitting out his demands when Geralt met your vindicated gaze that could get him antsy. But, now he was just beyond feeling irked. His gaze simply falling on your lips that held nothing but kindness; those lips that he suddenly wanted to savor all night long.

What was wrong with you both?

Geralt exhaled a calm breath; tightly gritting his teeth as he sharply snapped his eyes away from your vermillion, "---right now. If I were the Djinn,"

Kolby was yelping in the background in his own way; the Hirikka way. Albeit, Jaskier was trying to avoid the harmless monster as it was trying to stand in his path, asking for something from the bard, "No! Bad Hirikka! Stay away!"

You've given the witcher a look of peculiarity; studying how rigid his stance was before you. Eyes closed and seeming to be breathing deeply. The latter couldn't help but take note of how unyielding your scent have been, a sudden feeling that he couldn't withstand and just want to bury his nose in the crook of your neck.

It made Geralt hum a dangerous and displeased short-lived grumble deep inside his chest.

Lemon with a hint of peony. His new favorite scent since the moment you came running off the forest.

"Why---"

The witcher has sharply cut you off out of the blue, jaw clenching as he'd fluttered his eyes for you to see; piercing, obscure and penetrating. "Just tell me, midget."

Those eyes seem to always take your breath away; maybe even your soul as well because of those lascivious thoughts whispering inside your head; scorching your spirit to the fire wanting to be flamed.

"A..A bigger, better house for your family," you hesitantly murmured, soft and quietly which made Geralt's eyebrows twitch. The sound was delicate and utter convincing for him with a perilous want to satiate.

The type of satiation that he wanted to covet; all night long.

It was definitely sudden and treacherous.

Jaskier gave you both a once over across the kitchen, eyes bulging out of its sockets when he'd noticed it was bigger than what they had before; more comfortable and homey. Kolby was trailing behind the bard like he was his shadow which was still being ignored by the lean man himself, "Which explains why we have a small castle house right now, thank you very much, small rat! I can now bathe without Roach staring like he wants me to breed him,"

Jaskier's laugh was loudly resonating around the house which accompanied with the silence you were having with Geralt. One thud and you've noticed the witcher came closer, glowing amber eyes solely on your small frame as he continued his interrogation, "And the second?"

"Enough...food and clothes for everyone,"

Jaskier has seen a basket full of apples, oranges, grapes and everything you can ever wish for. His face twisting in oddity when he'd given the basket of apples to the Hirikka who'd devour it like he has been famished. The bard continued to listen, hearing Cirilla's loud stomps of excitement coming down the stairs of their new two-storey stone house, "Kolby is certainly loving it," he cajoled, stepping away from the Hirikka with a cringe on his face before looking at the princess who was now twirling around with a new pretty yellow gown that she held to herself; a huge beam on her face, "---Also, Cirilla."

You've stayed rooted on the ground, accepting the witcher's presence like it wasn't giving you the shivers and a weirdly palpable desire for wanting him close. Closer than you can ever imagine. Geralt also wanted you nearer, maybe even more. A lot more. Your irresistible scent clouding his mind as he'd taken several steps closer, your scent crashing his palates like a damn delicious snack he'd wish to devour.

The latter lowly whispered crude profanities to himself when the 'want' was starting to get to him. It wasn't like this before; the cravings and utter such. Only for tonight. He ceased his steps once he was an inch away from your feet, looming before you like a skyscraper as you've felt the heat of his stare totally irresistible as time goes by.

It was creating an enigma for your silent mental thinking; heedful of keeping your thoughts in a haywire.

"The last one?" It was a mere grumble, a volume that only you could hear as you were thoroughly enchanted by those amber eyes trying to burn your vindicated soul.

"The happiness of all, especially...yours," your heart was running a mile as you were consumed by the fire in his eyes. You softly stuttered with utmost sincerity. Never wanting the overwhelming sensation to go away as he was now closer; seeming that your desire to touch him was turning deep-seated.

You wanted to touch his face. Badly. The warm feeling threatening you to do it.

But, it seemed like the witcher was also feeling the same way and was somehow more immune to the irresistible repulsion. You've seen his eyes faltering, changing into a look of frustration, anger and depletion as he snapped his head away from you. The veins to his temples throbbing as deeply growled to himself; fighting off something he was feeling that you couldn't decipher.

Then, it was like he'd broken the spell as he abruptly shifted away from you; shaking his head. The overwhelming sensation changing into dismay and pain. His reaction sparking you to feel downhearted. Shouldn't he be happy that you wished for his happiness as well?

You've blinked back at the witcher with a frown, the way his eyes shun away kept your heart at bay, pondering of the fact if he felt it too or was it just another one of your ridiculous hallucinations? There were voices inside your head, screaming that you've told the witcher you liked him, though you never remembered when and where.

Maybe, it never happened?

Hence, why does the idea felt incorrect?

Jaskier, a great eavesdropper; managed to slid his way to where you both were. The bard's ocean eyes raking both of your rigid forms like you were acting pretty strange. Especially, the witcher who seemed to be having an internal battle within himself, "Alas! It seems like this is the wish that broke my heart because the witcher doesn't appear happy at all,"

Geralt gritted his teeth as he spoke; clearly upset of your last wish as he was glaring you down. The sudden change of his attitude making you scrunch your nose in dismay; his frustration seeming to also be given as you had your fists on either side, huffing out a breath; "You didn't wish to go back to that earth you call your home?"

"By the sound of my last wish, I think I did."

"It didn't sound like it," the witcher roughly spat. Bruising that selflessness and naivety of yours with his simple words. You crippled under his fierce gaze and felt yourself thwarting, "I really did! I didn't want to be selfish and wish for myself! Coming home makes me happy! Obviously, it would've been for you too based on how persistent you are in throwing me away! If I did say that to the Djinn then I should've portaled back home already!"

The sudden high-pitch timbre of your voice was an accident. You didn't mean to burst like a mad man at the witcher who had been wincing since the moment you've spat spiteful words after words. You were utterly infuriated; from the heavy, unrelieved feeling and also disheartened by how he was strong willed about how you should go back to where you came from.

Jaskier was rooted on the ground. Hands fidgeting over his cup of water, tapping the lid when you've started dropping a bombshell back at the unnerved witcher who now had a stoic expression carving his features once again; giving you each other looks as his mouth was in an 'O' form, staring back at Geralt; waiting for another mistake that he could do because he was that type of lout as Jaskier knew.

But, to the bard's surprise; his expectations had been high as he waited for the witcher to yell back like how he did to him back in the days; accidentally hurting his heart.

Yet, there was no angry witcher coming forth.

"You should've been more specific," Geralt calmly murmured, audibly sighing from the anger you've poured down on him; leaving Jaskier to his astonishment, "---you're too fucking selfless," the latter went on with his gruff rumbles, shaking his head in disdain as he turned his heel to drop his heavy metal sword on a medium sized brown mahogany table, "---to even include us in your wishes,"

Cirilla was nowhere to be found; currently in her room as she was jumping on her pretty large new bed. Jaskier wearily blinked back to the both of you who seemed to be in a mess; nodding to himself from the moment the witcher was the first to even calm down when you were maddened.

The simple action was enough for Jaskier to get blown away because he rarely does that when someone was proving a point to the witcher, especially when the point was actually about his rickety attitude that he couldn't control. The bard left you both to your argument, never wanting another quarrel and trying to cease the war by waving the white flag.

His firm and calm response made you feel bad. Totally bad especially when you've seen his frown. Howbeit, you were pondering why was he even thwarted about the fact that you included them in your wishes when he should've been thankful?

Witchers were complicated, you thought to yourself. The pent up aggression now leaving your body when you've tried to reason out to the witcher; though, it was still there deep inside. You just tried to shake it off.

You've tread on the heels of Geralt; throwing questions after questions as you were hot on his wheels, "But, did we get the Djinn?" First. "What happened?" Second. "Are you really not going to answer me? Is this a part of your brooding charm, then?" Third.

He'd ceased his steps before the first block of the stairs, your forehead hitting his beefy back. You've immediately hissed at that and caressed the part that was hit, silently groaning out for being an annoying idiot.

The witcher wasn't moved at all.

You were beyond awestruck from how you were acting. You've never been seeking for his attention before yet here you are; kindling with his patience.

"I'm sorry," the guilt was eating you alive. Your sudden caterwaul and needy attitude making you feel strange. You were never like that. Ever. You genuinely apologized to the witcher, biting at the pillows of your chapped lips from the anxiety, "---I didn't know you want me to leave that bad, Geralt."

Still, no answer from the witcher. Albeit, that was his problem with each passing day with you; the thought of you leaving was slowly penetrating his will on watching you go. He was slowly hating to see you leave.

If Destiny was hearing his thoughts, it'll be celebrating by how she was playing her cards right. It's what she wanted from him; from Geralt.

To accept his destiny. As always.

"---Also, thank you." you continued, trying to communicate with the silent hunk of a man, "---For always saving me when I should've been killed already,"

You've given him a small, sad smile without him even looking. Catching you off guard when he'd momentarily turned around to see a partial of his apologetic amber eyes.

"I---"

Though, it seemed like destiny didn't want that from Jaskier's brash interruption; Geralt didn't have the chance to continue what he wanted to say. A subtle roll of his eyes as the bard hollered from the second floor, being happy as a box of birds when he was welcomed with a bed that seemed so comforting to sleep on. He was just looking through the set of rooms; deciding to give Geralt the chambers that had wider windows then leaving to catch up on the others. There was also a pretty much medium sized bath room that took up most of the proximity of the home itself.

It was rather fantastic.

"THERE'S ANOTHER SPARE ROOM! HOWEVER, IT IS PRECISELY ONE ROOM DESTINED FOR ME!" he shouted from above, hearing him uttering out the most unfamiliar words he'd excitedly said as he continued to yell, "---YOU ARE AN ANGEL SENT FROM AN UNKNOWN PORTAL, Y/N! I SEND MY KISSES TO YOU! MUAH!"

Geralt's features was masking in complete fatigue and dismay; sighing from the bard's horrible interaction.

You bit your lips together, beaming back at the witcher who had a tight scowl on his face as you'd stealthily stepped back; planning to flee from his presence. Your thoughts thinking that maybe he was already annoyed, "Okay then, I'll give you your wanted silence."

You've side-stepped, cautiously aware of how heavy his gaze rested upon you. But, you were too bashful to even look back. Nervous that he would notice that you were already deeply fond of him.

But, something inside you says he already knows which is why it added more butterflies in your stomach; lately becoming uncontrollable and raucous.

"Where are you going?" Geralt bluntly questioned, you've ceased from escaping within his presence and gave him a look that tries to state the obvious, "To my chambers?"

The brooding witcher cocked his head to the side, curiosity filling his cat eyes. His lips twitching for a smirk to carve because your reasoning was hilarious, "The kitchen?"

You gave him a tight crease of your forehead, finding his queries rather abrupt and weirdly strange because he seemed to be pointing out that it wasn't your room and so you've laid down your opinions and viewpoint, "I know you were kind enough to lend me your bed because I was wounded. But, I think the medicine still works like a miracle and---"

Therefore, it was enough for the witcher to simper. The strange sentiments of keeping you close as he tries to sleep assaulted those strange senses that continues to give him impelling decisions.

"No," Geralt wanted to wince. It was not what he wanted to say. His crooked smile fell when you eyed him like he was a weird one, "What do you mean, no?"

"You can have my bed,"

The latter's nose was scrunched, subtly snapping his head to the side as he lowly cussed, "Ugh, fuck." when that was abruptly said out in the open.

He wanted you with him. On his bed. With reasons that can get him to sleep and also because of that feeling he couldn't get off his chest.

You puckered your lips in quick ponder, before shrugging to yourself and suddenly sleeping on his bed seemed to be normal, "Okay--What?"

Geralt calmly exhaled a breath, blinking back at you with a scowl as his body went stiff; uttering his next words with contrived annoyance, "You can suffer from Jaskier's lute strumming in the middle of the night; non stop like a dragon in heat," his teeth gritted against each other. Though, you didn't notice that and was more heedful of his anomalous attitude, "Is...Cirilla's room not available?"

The witcher shook his head, to the question sent and for his random actions, "You can't always sleep in her room," pause. He'd started again with doubt dripping in his baritone pitch, "---There are...peril instances that may occur when she is deep in her slumber,"

You clicked your tongue, "So, I have no choice but to sleep in your bed?"

"Hmm."

All you've gotten from him was a raise of his brow and a low menacing hum that seemed displeasing to the ears, "I think that was a yes," you avoided his intense golden peepers, thoroughly tentative of how your fingers fidgeted with the hem of your long mustard colored sleeved sweater; his demands giving your heart another blush, "---You are acting...weird today, Geralt."

With you stating the obvious ignited a grudging groan from the latter. Words were in a surly rumble as he languidly spun in his booted heels and took his flight up the stairs. His heavy, muscly weight making the floors creak with every step he takes; following him from behind, "Fine. Sleep with Kolby for all you want."

The way up was steep and narrow. Having an ounce of space for the person below the latter when he walks up. You were lost in wonder as your focal point was fortunately on Geralt's abounding derriere that made your mouth dry. 11/10, you rated inside your brain. Totally A+ with that tight leather pants he wore. He had a better bum than you, which made you look back at your own tushie, lighting up a scoff to your disappointment.

"---He seems quite unstable before we went to go get that faux of a Djinn,"

Halfway up the stairs, the witcher ceased. Sensing something was going on as he slightly turned his body to see you staring straight at his tushie. Geralt eyed you down in confusion, his amber eyes skeptical as he just caught you ogling at his firm glutes. The witcher couldn't help but scorn, seeing your mouth shut and in awe from what you were seeing.

You've blinked back to see him staring you down with that guileless curiosity of what you were just doing. Maybe staring at a witcher's bum wasn't exactly the brightest idea when he had heightened senses. A loud clear of your throat got him smirking before he continued to ascend.

"You--You called him Kolby!" you stuttered and tried to ignore that you were caught red handed by the witcher. You went after him and feel the blush creeping up your face, "Don't--Don't you turn your back away from me when I'm talking to you, Rivia! "

Your eyes scanned the way up the stairs, utterly surprised to see their house magically transformed into something better, "---So, I really did made the wishes already! Your house has a second floor right now?"

A crane of your neck as you watch his dirty, tousled hair bounce with every step you take. Those buns of his also jiggling when he took his final step and you couldn't avoid but silently give a chef's kiss; understanding how he was ravishing and utmost pleasing to the eyes of women.

Until your foot caught the ends of the stairs and you stumbled. One knee falling flat on the floor and a loud thud erupted from your clumsy accident. Too much bum staring. But, it was probably worth it. "Oh---Geralt! Ow!"

There wasn't much struggle as the witcher effortlessly grabbed your weight in one second; keeping you still as you were given a whiplash by those spellbinding eyes.

The witcher had one knee dropped to the ground, never hesitating to give assistance to your dextrosity. You were a lummox when you were bashful and shy; uttering out the most ungraceful confessions, opinions or even being an utter clutz because your fingers fidget from the embarrassment.

"So fucking selfless with her wishes and utterly cloddish,"

Geralt checked your bandages in haste, straightaway pulling the hems of your sweater in the right, respectful amount to see them all bloody and looking like you've stitched them open because of your accident. Touching you seemed to be the least of his worries when you've arrived; like he couldn't feel the prickling, delightful sensation that he pours out on you whenever he does.

He was prettier up close. You mentally thought to yourself, charmed by his handsome features when his focal point was on your bloody bandage, "You need those bandages changed, midget." he grumbled the thought out loud, slightly craning his head as you had the advantage on the position you both have; meeting those curious doe eyes like you wanted more from the witcher.

Something insatiable, pure and peckish.

Faces close in proximity, trapped in a spellbind that you both completely had no power in. His warm breath hitting your ajar mouth, slightly filling the curiosity you had for the witcher.

You've raked the small scars on his face, imperfections that made him more striking; wondering how many flaws did he have to take to become a monster-slayer in their world as you remembered Cirilla's stories about him. What more scars did he held on his body in which you find him still delightful.

The gap between the both of you was perilous. There it was again, the sensations that you both were having; yet no one was willing to risk.

"Geralt?" you softly whispered against the his lips; watching those eyelids of him fall shut when he'd craned his head to see your eyes staring right at him. Those gorgeous eyelashes that had been given to him; rather than to a woman like you. It was unfair to see how gorgeous he was up close.

Lemon. Peony. It was enticing for a witcher. Bringing him to a haven he didn't thought there was.

From the moment he'd heard you softly say his name, he'd slightly fell back; seeming to be caught in a vulnerable state. You've finally seen his eyes that was now filled with ire; like he was struggling with something within himself, "Hmm?"

"Did I...do something?"

The witcher exhaled a breath he has been holding, your scent catching his senses as he tried to imprint your scent by heart, giving him the advantage that it helps in making him calm and at ease, "No," he gruffly mumbled, breaking the spell and dragging his sky scraping height to the fullest; standing up with a frown on his face by wanting to achieve something that shouldn't be dreamt of, "Not at all."

Vulnerability would answer his curiosities and the witcher didn't know if he was ready yet because the last time he did, it got his heart broken.

You've had sleepless nights. Even more than you can ever imagine back in your apartment. The insomnia was kicking you in the ass for a thousand times as you kicked and stirred in your sleep, beside a witcher who has been giving your heart a marathon.

Just his breathing was keeping your breathing and heartbeat erratic.

There it was, the desire of having the big witcher close to you as he slept on the other end of the rather new large bed, his strapped, broad back away from you looking like the space he'd given himself was rather too little for his large frame.

It was funny to see him struggling with the small space as you've twisted and turned for the hundredth time. You couldn't hear anything other than the eerie, buzzing sounds of the night. Jaskier finally had shut up from creating new epics and strumming on his lute, so to say; it was probably three o'clock in the morning in their time.

You were wondering if that was how the witcher slept. Only on one position; never moving like he was dead. It has already been two hours and you had nothing to do but tap on the mattress with your fingers and stare at his clothed back. Did he also have scars on his back too? you mentally thought to yourself and gently turned your body to look at the wooden ceilings.

Sleep wouldn't consume you tonight. You'd rather have a different type of sensation that would consume you all night. Your breath hitched at the thought of that, wordlessly dragging the sheets above you to wrinkle your nose from the damaging ideas inside your head. Your soul probably tutting because of how you've become from the moment you've fainted and remember nothing.

There was a sigh. Your head snapped towards the witcher who seem to shift in his side of the bed, placing a hand underneath his pillows as his face was morphed into distress. He couldn't sleep at all because you were restlessly moving like a worm, also for the heavy feeling tugging at his chest since the moment he'd woken up from being attacked by the djinn.

"Geralt?"

He didn't answer.

"---It's cold, like really cold." with that, he deeply sighed; never planning on opening his eyes. The latter was hoping you would stop turning around the mattress and also for the uncomfortable feeling resting on his chest with every breath you take.

"Not for me,"

Geralt knew you were pouting at his response; but he paid no heed and tried to silently have his slumber. The brumal temperature of the night never giving him a headache because his body heat was taking it nicely as it was also helping the heat that began to start from his chest up till the every end and nerves of his body; making him groan to himself when you've unintentionally whimpered to yourself when he'd rejected the idea of closing the windows.

The sound you make was making him crazy.

Also, the clothes he was wearing to sleep was making him crazier; even hotter than it was supposed to be.

"Geralt," he grabbed onto the pillows a little more tighter, drowning himself in the fluff of his pillow as you continued to disturb him because you somehow couldn't find your own sleep as well.

"Yoo-hoo~ Beefy Legolas?"

It went on and on. Your twists and turns also did as he finally had to tiredly grumble.

"Let me have my nap."

You were lucky your wound was given medicine because it wasn't hurting anymore. An elbow on the bed to support yourself as you peeked to see Geralt's shiny hair glimmering beneath the candle light. Tempting you to give care and probably spend a little time tugging at it as well. Those thoughts make you shake your head, clearing your throat as you asked the witcher with utmost purity lacing your tongue.

"Geralt, can I braid your hair while you sleep?"

"No."

"Did you bleach your hair then? You know, it’s like a way of coloring your hair and such---"

"No."

You softly huffed in disappointment, lower lip jutting out as you sighed from the energy and itch that you couldn't fight off, trying to see if he had his eyes opened but his burly form was making it difficult. You could only see his back and ivory hair, "Where's the gym? I mean, obviously you do go to a gym with that...build. Except, if you're given a serum like Captain America's..."

The latter lowly grunted in response; making your spine shiver from the sound as he does so. You've suddenly swallowed the saliva down your throat, wincing as you subtly held onto your chest; feeling it strangely grow a temperature hotter. You shake your head to try and ignore the uncomfortable feeling.

"You are talking in riddles that I couldn't comprehend, midget."

Geralt audibly sighed, turning his sturdy body to see you wide awake and innocently blinking back at the latter. Acting all guiltless like you weren't just trying to wake him up. He exhaled an exasperated breath; amber eyes glued to the ceiling with a grimace on his face.

"So, you're...awake?" you innocently stated the obvious, trying not to act guilty that you were anxious about a lot of things and your brain doesn't seem to cooperate with your body.

"How can I sleep when you keep tossing over and over," the latter rasped before languidly turning and facing front to you. His eyes searching for whatever was keeping you awake; pondering why your energy level was at the top. Totally too much for his wearied ones, "---I'm starting to regret why I offered you my bed," he gave a soft shake of his head as he comfortably dropped his head on his fluffy pillows, watching you drop yours at the same time. You've welcomed those golden peepers drilling with your emotions; setting fire to your insides, though you've never told anyone but yourself.

"I told you so. I have insomnia when my anxiety strikes like a bitch,"

Geralt had his eyebrows in a tight knot, "A what?"

"I can't sleep." you honestly told, breathing out your frustrations as you've felt the witcher's stare heavy on you, "It's just so...cold,"

He gave a small, tender smile. It was unconscious, the witcher didn't know if he even was smiling when he had hunches onto why you couldn't sleep. Based on how you were giving him bear hugs up all night when your fever went high, a leg on his robust ones; face nuzzled on his clothed, wooly chest; he knew you were a cuddler.

Howbeit, nobody also needed to know that he had his fingers raked in between your hair like the witcher was brushing it to make him sleep.

Like it was calming him down; making his breathing steady and at ease.

"You want something." he simply graveled, thoroughly amused.

"W-What?! No!"

Did he know what you were thinking? Especially those promiscuous ones? Or only the part where you wanted to be near him as you slept?

The latter scoffed, his smile turning crooked as you've seen those teeth eventually showing as he beamed, "I didn't thought naive midgets lie. I must say, your flaws are surprising."

Albeit, despite of how he was making your stomach flutter wildly; this brooding man gives you comfort in such a weird way.

Adoration was definitely a complex part in life that nobody can ever explain. A diversity in their world and also in yours.

"You need a hug." the witcher stated as a matter of fact, knowing that it was what you needed as you continued to fidget and tap on the mattress with your fingers.

"Maybe," pause. You've peered back at the man who kept giving your heart beat a difficult time; being drawn to his amber colored eyes, enraptured by his presence as you were caught in a spell that he could only give.

Only him and nobody else.

Geralt seemed to be a good listener and so, you've done the inevitable as he was the only person you've shared a bed with for all your life. Other than your mother when you were younger. He was the only man you've approved of having your personal space infiltrated.

"I had...stuff toys and a big pillow back in my home. It was the only thing I could hold for me to sleep. The only thing that can keep me company in a cold day," you started, shifting your eyes away from the witcher who was on the far end of the bed; waiting for you to continue like he always does, wanting to know what was inside your head.

Curiosity always leads to something else.

"---So, I must say that it helps with my anxiety and insomnia. Thinking that I have someone to hold; someone to protect me from all the sadness, rejection or disappointments that seem to love me throughout my life,"

"Are they beasts?" you glanced at the latter, studying him if it was a joke. But, all you see was a determined witcher who was patiently waiting if his guesses were correct.

"Anxiety and Insomnia?" Geralt gave a quiet hum as an answer.

"What? No. Definitely---Well, maybe. If you think of it that way. They keep your mind unstable and problematic. Fifty percent would want you thinking about things that should've been left forgotten. It ruins your sanity,"

"It is a beast then,"

You've given him a small smile, memorizing each curvature of his face; never wanting it to be forgotten. The way his eyes peer back at you in curiosity for whatever you wanted to say like hearing you talk was his entertainment and pleasure.

He'd watched you move closer, letting your curiosity get the better of you as you've felt his hot breath fanning your face in a way that could give you warmth in the midst of the brisk night; his windows never closed shut and feeling him closer than you can ever ask for was giving you the warmth you needed.

A warmth that could take those horrid thoughts away.

"Tell me your stories," you softly urged him on, his voice seeming to be soothing. The only ones that could pacify your jitters to shut down.

The witcher blinked, appearing to be off-guard but utmost compliant nevertheless, "About?"

"Your monsters. The ones you've slaughtered," you joyously smiled, your eyes turning crescent shapes as it felt as if it was the moon that was giving Geralt light to his night sky, "---It might be helpful if I want to become a game developer of something,"

"I've only shared stories with my horse,"

You placed your palms under your head, craning fully to see those eyes piercing through your soul; satisfying your cravings for having him close than you can ever wish for, "You mean, Roach? You talk to your horse?!" a soft exclamation was all it took for Geralt to give a short scoff.

"Merely, now because I have Jaskier and Cirilla. But, prior before they came around; I only had my horses to talk," pause. "---You wouldn't want me talking about how I hunt monsters, it'll bore you to death,"

You firmly shook your head to show him your will-power in hearing those interesting stories he had. A monster-slayer who had boring stories? You doubt. Just learning the back stories of a main character's game was interesting, no doubt that Geralt's stories would even get you gasping from all his slaughters, "I love all types of stories," you cordially whispered, eyes twinkling underneath the candle light as the witcher blinked back, "---Also have read ones that weren't of a penchant. Yet, I've grown to love them."

With little effort of bringing out the big guns, Geralt obediently complied. The deep baritone of his pitch lulling you into having your slumber. He'd talk about his latest hunts and quests; learning about monsters that you didn't know existed. Mostly deadly as some has taken him down and eventually lead him to being poisoned. You've frowned at that, but he'd reassured you that his scorching trials created him to be immune to any poison that was harmful to humans.

He was mutated after all and it made him more compelling.

Geralt has stopped his lullabies when he'd reach at the point where he had tried saving a town called Blaviken; quietly simmering down as you were suddenly perspiring like a dog in heat and heaving deep breaths.

"Midget." he firmly stated, studying your face when you've fluttered your eyes closed as you started listening to his stories. You've nestled closer to the witcher who had a wince on his face as he was perplexed by the sudden drops of sweat that was forming on your forehead. "---Are you alright?"

You gave a quiet chortle as you've felt his breath fanning your forehead, "Maybe,"

His medallion rested on your forehead, realizing that you were cuddling him a little too closely but the bear of a man didn't seem to care, "Your answers can always leave a person guessing," he grumbled more so to himself as you felt him shift on the mattress. Curious as to why his big, rough, calloused fingers were behind you; his hand that he has used to hold a sword and yield for those men to be butchered.

His hand that had magic was now raking through your hair, gently and slowly combing your hair as it was giving you succor and protection.

"You're not...uncomfortable?" you hesitatingly asked, voice smaller and quiet as his body was taking in your small form. The witcher had his eyes closed now; like he was in peace, "I've done far worse than to be scared of giving people hugs,"

"But, this is called cuddles and chill because you're hugging and talking me to sleep,"

"Is that what it is now? Is that what its called in your kingdom?" you've heard him tease, his lips curved in a way that tells you he was poking fun at your modern references that he certainly didn't know.

His fingers continued its ministrations; how gentle he was made your heart beat drum so loud that you could hear them ringing in your ears and you were sure Geralt could be hearing it. You gawked back at the latter, "It won't be called Netflix and Chill because I swear it has a different meaning and---"

Geralt quickly cut you off, abruptly opening his eyes to give you a compassionate look in his eyes, "Cuddles and chill it is, then." you've bit your lip in an attempt to shut your mouth.

"---Sleep, midget." the once brooding witcher demanded before giving your spine a satisfying shiver as his thick fingers raked on the hairs of your nape as he patiently untangled those locks away, "Those beastly creatures you have won't slaughter you while I'm around,"

Inside both of your chests, there was still that insatiable feeling that you couldn't comprehend. However, the fire dissipating an ounce by the tiny bit of wholesome intimacy you've gotten; was just the rattles of one's cage because there was always more.

More and more you'll be willing to take.

Hence, It was a full moon and wolves howl whenever the moon shines bright against the brumal, cold nights as a cicatrix began to shine which has rested in between the valley of your breasts.

FEEDBACKS ARE VERY MUCH APPRECIATED! PLEASE DO LEAVE FEEDBACK IF YOU’VE ALREADY READ THIS OR EVEN PRESS THE REBLOG BUTTON OR LEAVE A HEART. IT’S FINE WITH ME. THANK YOU! HOW TO BE GERALT? MIDGET KEPT ON BOTHERING HIM. XD

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