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#so i wrote another thing
floofyfungi · 8 months
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Summary:
Sari is alone.
Her village burned to the ground by an evil group of dragons called the Decepticons. She is rescued by not-so-evil dragons called the Autobots. They are kind and gentle. She cannot trust them.
Despite this, Bumblebee somehow becomes a part of her life. Slowly Sari comes to see this cheerful little dragon as a friend.
But can she tell him the truth?
Main Relationship: Sari & Bumblebee
Main Characters: Sari, Bumblebee, Rafael Esquivel, Optimus Prime.
This story is a sequel to my Miracle Fanfiction. Though reading that fanfic isn't really necessary to understand this one. This story follows Sari dealing with the aftermath of the Decepticon's destroying her home and Starscream kidnapping Alexis. Sari and Bumblebee slowly form a friendship, and she learns more about the mysterious magic inside her.
It is set in a medieval land with fantasy elements. Lots of angst, hurt/comfort, secrets and omitting the truth from each other. It'll have a happy ending though. I swear.
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Vivisections are like gay sex to me
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metalhoops · 1 year
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The Five Times Eddie Wondered Who His Soulmate Was  and the One Time He Didn’t Have To
1. 
The worst thing about knowing your soulmate was in trouble was understanding there was nothing you could do about it. 
As a whole, Eddie thought the concept of soulmates was bullshit. He thought all that fate and destiny crap was a scam to sell the idea of monogamy or co-dependence. If people were too busy fretting over when they’d meet ‘their person’, they’d forget that actual shit was going on in the world. Who had the time to care about systemic oppression when they were busy trying to work out if the cute girl across the corridor was their one true love? 
That being said, sometimes Eddie got curious about who they were. Not many people found their soulmates. It wasn’t as obvious as you’d think. When they were in pain, you would feel it. Two people could live across the world from one another, feeling each scraped knee and broken wrist but never meet. Hell, you could live across the street from someone and unless you were there to watch them get hurt and feel the same old pang of shared pain, you’d never know. 
It wasn’t like Eddie had never felt his soulmate before that day. They’d twisted an ankle when Eddie was twelve and sprained a wrist when he was fourteen, but he’d felt no pain from them so strong as when he was sitting in detention during his junior year. 
He was counting down the minutes left until he could get out of the high school, hell hole when a sharp and sudden pain flooded his jaw. He gritted his teeth and cradled it with his palm, feeling as though the wind was knocked out of his body. Eddie knew what being punched in the face felt like, and that was it. Just when the ache started to fade, another thud of pain to his cheek made his vision swim. From there, Eddie held his breath, waiting for the pain to end. He rested his head on his desk and felt his heart in his throat as the blows kept coming. 
He missed Mrs Click telling him to go home, too busy gripping the desk for dear life, his fingernails digging into the poorly carved desk graffiti, slicing a line through ‘RB 4 TT.’ He was elated when the pain finally stopped. 
Eddie kept his head down the whole walk home, trying to tell himself soulmates were bullshit, and that he didn’t care about his, but his thoughts kept returning to visions of them. He hoped they were okay. 
Eddie never wanted to know who his soulmate was until that moment. They’d had a hell of a day and Eddie wanted to be there with them, tell them he knew what it was like. He wanted to hold their head in his lap and tell them everything was going to be okay, that if it were up to him, no one would hurt them like that again, but he couldn’t. For all he knew, they could be a hundred miles away. 
2.
The next time it happened, Eddie was at home alone in the trailer. Uncle Wayne was working a night shift, and he was watching a horror movie marathon on the T.V. It was shaping up to be a good night, with him curled up on the couch watching a schlocky creature feature when he felt all the air knocked out of his lungs. 
For a moment, he was worried something horrible was happening to him. When Jeff had appendicitis, he’d reported the same kind of pain. Eddie rolled up the hem of his shirt, watching a black-blue bruise bloom and fade in the span of a second. Sometimes, if the pain was great enough, you’d get what they called an ‘echo’ of the injury. It only lasted a moment, invisible ink fading on pale paper. 
The pain had been so strong that Eddie hadn’t been able to tell if it was theirs or his. From there, it got worse. He felt a sharp pang crash over his head, then another series of blows to the face. It was always the goddamn face.
When it was over, Eddie was left feeling lightheaded. The sensation faded quickly, but he knew his other half would be stuck with the ache for the rest of the night, if not longer. 
There was a lot of conjecture when it came to soulmates. It was hard to conduct scientific studies on something based entirely on sensation, and any research that had been done was less than ethical. All the same, for the rest of the night, Eddie curled his arms around himself, holding his body in the hopes his person could feel it, that he could give them some comfort. 
“I hope you’re okay,” he whispered, burrowing his face into the crook of his elbow. 
Back at school, Eddie floated through the halls feeling less than himself as thoughts of his person swirled. The school was abuzz with rumours of a fight between Billy Hargrove and the former king of Hawkins High, Steve Harrington. Eddie couldn’t care less about some pissing contest for the highest rung on the social ladder, as he still felt the echoed ache of his soulmate’s pain throughout the day. 
He ditched gym, opting to hide beneath the bleachers and smoke. To his surprise, he wasn’t the only one with the idea. When he arrived, he found the overthrown king sitting cross-legged, cradling his still-bruised jaw. Eddie wasn’t a fan of the jocks, but they were the biggest contributor to his wallet, so he tried to play civil with them. Plus, Eddie wasn’t one to kick someone when they were down, and boy was Steve down. He sat beside the man, examined his face, and thought for a fleeting second. Maybe he was the one, but that was crazy talk. The Freak and the King. In what world? 
“You look like you’ve had better days,” Eddie noted. 
“I’ve had worse,” Steve replied. Eddie had a pit in his stomach. 
The two lapsed into silence, hiding out until the bell sounded for the end of gym. Eddie gave the boy a half-hearted salute as he stood.
“Hey, Steve?” Eddie spoke before he left.
“You okay?”
Steve gave Eddie the ghost of a smile, all charm drowned out by Steve’s two black eyes. 
“I will be.” 
3.
Eddie had been worried about his soulmate before, but he’d never thought he’d lose them until the summer vacation after his failed attempt at senior year. He and the rest of Corroded Coffin had just finished their set at The Hideout. Eddie and the boys were carrying their instruments back to the van when the feeling hit. 
He fell to the asphalt. The whole scene sounded all the more dramatic as the hi-hat he’d been holding fell with him. He really wished his soulmate would learn to keep their head down and stay out of trouble because this was getting ridiculous. He got ready to hunker down and wait it out, having gotten morbidly used to their annual beatings. Only this time the pain didn’t stop. 
He was hit with wave after wave of agony. This time, it wasn’t just the face. He felt blows to his jaw, his stomach, and his side. He also felt a sharp spike of pain in his hand, as though someone was trying to peel his nails from his skin.
He could hear his friends around him, desperately trying to get something coherent out of Eddie, trying to work out if it was soulmate bullshit or if the guy was having an aneurysm. By the way he was acting, either seemed possible. When the pain subsided, Eddie felt foggy, like he was going through the worst goddamn high of his life. The neon signs of The Hideout and the street lamps danced before his eyes. Hundreds of little halos clouded his vision. He couldn’t think straight. 
He managed to prop himself up against the wheel of the van and pulled his knees to his chest. He knotted his hands in his long hair and tugged, trying to remind himself what his own pain felt like, though stopped when he realised he’d also be hurting them. That was the last thing they needed. 
“You okay?” He heard Gareth ask when the world came swimming back into focus. Eddie shook his head. Far from it.  
“Are they okay? Are they... alive?” Eddie hadn’t let himself entertain that idea until it was brought up. 
He felt the last flush of colour drain from his face. He could still feel them, but there was something wrong with the connection. Maybe he was dying. Eddie couldn’t help but think of his soulmate as ‘he’. He just knew. 
Eddie kept trying to tell himself he didn’t care about them, but the fact that he could die without Eddie ever having met him made his heart ache. People thought the reason you felt your person’s pain was to protect them, to know when something was wrong. Eddie had done a bang-up job at that. 
“For now, but it’s weird. I don’t... I don’t know how much longer-,” Eddie didn’t let himself finish. 
The rest of the band suddenly took on a sombre mood. Jeff and Grant finished packing up the van while Gareth offered to drive. The boys stayed at Eddie’s trailer for the rest of the night, holding their breaths and waiting for the other shoe to drop. 
Eventually, Eddie dropped off to sleep and when he awoke hours later, he was relieved to realise he hurt all over. He was still alive, still waiting for Eddie to find him and god did Eddie want to. 
His uncle came home at the crack of dawn and let out an elongated sigh of relief at seeing Eddie and his band of merry men curled up together on the living room carpet. Wayne greeted Eddie with a tight hug that still hurt like hell.
“I was worried something happened to you,” His uncle stated in his gravelled tone.
“Why would something have happened to me?” Eddie asked, perplexed. 
“The mall burnt down last night. I was worried you were close by.” 
Eddie shook his head and let his uncle hold him as his mind ticked away. He wondered if it was possible his soulmate was in Hawkins. Eddie wasn’t sure he believed in coincidence.   
4.
Eddie started seeing spots during his lunchtime speech. By the end of his rant, the room had started to tilt. He felt unsure on his feet as he clambered from the top of the jock table to scamper back to the hellfire group. He must look worse for wear because he noticed one of his new recruits watching him.
“Eddie, you good?” Dustin questioned, sounding further away than he should. The lights in the cafeteria were too bright and his head was killing him. 
He felt close to throwing up and wondered where the pain had come from before realising the familiar distance from the sensation. It wasn’t his pain. Eddie didn’t want Henderson to butt into his love life any more than he already did, so he gave the kid a tight-lipped smile that more closely resembled a grimace. This wasn’t the first time he’d felt this sensation from his soulmate, but they were growing more frequent.  
Again, sweetheart? Eddie thought, knowing it was the second migraine that week. 
“Migraine,” Eddie hissed through gritted teeth. He could feel his band members' eyes on him. They knew exactly who the ache belonged to. 
To Eddie’s surprise, Dustin passed him a cool glass of water and barked orders at Mike, getting the kid to remove the ugly Hawaiian over shirt, before throwing it over Eddie’s head, blocking out the light. It wasn’t Eddie’s pain, so it didn’t help but he could appreciate the sentiment. 
“Did they teach you first aid at science camp, Henderson?” Eddie guessed offhandedly. 
“Nah. Steve gets migraines all the time. Helps to know how to deal with them.”
Eddie would never understand how a kid like Dustin came to know Steve Harrington, let alone worship the ground the guy walked on. Usually, Dustin had such good taste.  
“Eddie’s soulmate gets them too,” Gareth spoke unhelpfully. 
Even without looking, Eddie knew he was shooting him a shit-eating grin, knowing the rest of the afternoon Henderson would ask him about his soulmate. Just because the kid found Suzie, he thought the whole world deserved to find their one true love. Instead, Dustin came out with the most bullshit statement Eddie had ever heard. 
“Maybe Steve’s your soulmate.” 
Yeah, right. On what planet would that happen? 
5.
With everything that had happened to Eddie in the past few days, he hadn’t had time to think about his soulmate. He’d watched Chrissy die before his eyes, learnt the existence of another dimension and was walking through said dimension after witnessing Steve Harrington take a bite out of a demon bat’s tail. It’d been a weird ass day.  
He wished he’d been like Robin and Nancy, able to jump in and rescue Steve on a whim, but as Steve disappeared beneath the black water of Lover’s Lake, he’d felt his throat close and his lungs ache for air. It wasn’t a good time for a panic attack. Nevertheless, he’d managed to get his ass in gear and follow the rest of the group down into Watergate. 
He’d dropped back to walk with Steve and found himself complimenting the man. Steve was nothing like he imagined. He was not only kind, but as Dustin had put it, a total badass. 
Once the adrenaline faded, Eddie found himself lifting the hem of his shirt, examining his side. He felt a dull throb of pain. It’d be his luck to bleed out without noticing, but he found there was nothing there. 
“You good?” Steve asked.
Eddie couldn’t help but let his gaze settle on Steve’s bleeding side. He held his breath. He thought about pushing his hand against Steve’s wound, hurting him more just to check, but Eddie couldn’t hurt Steve. Not now. Especially if he was who Eddie thought he might be. 
“Yeah, I’m fine. You okay?” Eddie asked, gesturing to Steve’s side. The boy nodded.
“I’m fine, just a scratch. Can hardly feel a thing.” 
If Steve was his soulmate, he was full of shit. If Steve was his soulmate when everything blew over, they had a few things to talk about.
+1
Something was very wrong. Vecna was going down in a blaze of flame when Steve’s body started to ache. He felt the familiar sting of interdimensional bat fangs digging into dermis flesh. Robin and Nancy were cheering, wrapping their arms around Steve, whooping, hollering and panting while Steve was busy feeling like he was being torn apart. 
He was pulling away from the girls and turning on his heels before he had the chance to explain, running from the Creel House to the trailer park as fast as his feet could carry him. There was only one person this pain could belong to. 
Steve had spent his whole life searching for his soulmate, desperate to know who they were, and he’d been under his nose the whole time. The fact that Steve’s soulmate was a boy hadn’t surprised him as much as it should. That’d been a crisis bubbling away in the background of his brain since he’d gone to his first swim meet. He’d seen a boy in tight swim trunks, with tan skin and felt the familiar heart-pounding, crush he’d experienced on pretty girls he’d passed in the school hallways. 
By the time he got to Eddie, he’d hardly been able to fight through the pain surging through their connection. Dustin was wailing, holding Eddie in the wake of a bat graveyard. He looked up in alarm at Steve’s figure, noticing his pale skin and sweat-slicked brow. 
“Harrington?” Eddie’s weak voice came from Dustin’s lap. 
Steve was busy removing his clothes, trying to stop the bleeding. Dustin didn’t need to show him where the man was hurt, he could feel it. 
“I really must have got some brownie points in the end,” Eddie murmured. 
Both boys hissed as Steve shoved his shirt into a wound at Eddie’s side. That was when Dustin appeared to catch on, his eyes swelling wide as they darted between the two boys. 
“What’re you talking about, Munson?” Steve asked, trying to keep the guy talking. 
“Must’ve got into heaven after all,” He hummed, his deep brown eyes gazing beyond Steve at the distant red sky. 
“Hey. No. None of that. You aren’t in heaven because you’re not dying,” Steve hissed, using what little strength he had left to lift Eddie’s body. 
“Gotta be in heaven, if you’re here,” Eddie spoke, giving Steve a lopsided grin. Steve felt Eddie’s pain beginning to fade and panicked, not ready to let things end before they’d even had the chance to begin. 
He hoisted Eddie up through the portal and waited to do the same with Dustin. It wasn’t long before the distant sound of sirens once more surrounded the Munson trailer and Steve found himself passing out from the pain as red-blue lights swallowed the world whole. 
Eddie woke in pain, his whole body humming with a familiar dull ache that was unarguably his. It took time for him to make sense of the scene. He was in the hospital. Steve was slumped over at the far edge of the room, sleeping in an uncomfortable plastic chair, his head thrown back and his mouth agape. Eddie’s eyes trailed to his bedside, where he met Dustin’s. 
“Holy shit, you’re awake,” the boy gasped, pulling him into a bone-crushing hug. 
Eddie cringed as he felt a rush of pain swarm through his body. He must have gasped, because Steve sprung to life, waking with a start as his eyes trailed from Dustin to Eddie. Steve’s eyes were a storm of quiet conflict, punctuated by deep purple bruises. 
“Eddie,” Steve breathed, standing to hover beside the bed, unsure of what to do next. 
He was surprised Steve was there at all. He wouldn’t say the two were close. Though Steve had probably found some way of twisting Eddie getting hurt into some fault of his, ever the damn hero. 
“Thought I was a goner for a second there,” Eddie admitted, trying to shake some of the strange tension from the room.
“If Steve hadn’t gotten there in time, you would’ve been,” Dustin spoke. Eddie watched as the boy’s hands trembled. He leaned over, fighting through the pain to ruffle the kid’s hair. Steve’s shoulders hunched over, doubling into himself. 
“I’ll get the nurse. Your uncle left for his nightshift, but he should be back in a few,” Dustin muttered as he made a beeline for the exit. It seemed strange the boy was extracting himself from the scene.
Henderson called over his shoulder. “I told you so.” 
And just like that, Eddie knew. 
He looked up at Steve with wide-eyed alarm, only to find his look mirrored.
“How’d you know we were in trouble?” Eddie asked, though thought he knew the answer. 
“After we killed Vecna, I felt... I could feel you. I knew you were hurt,” Steve explained. 
“How’d you know it was me?” Eddie pushed.
“Thought it was too much of a coincidence that it felt like my soulmate was getting eaten alive by giant bats. I’d call it an educated guess.” 
Eddie gritted his teeth and nodded. Surely, as far as soulmates went, he hadn’t been what Steve imagined. 
“I’m sorry,” Steve said, surprising Eddie. 
“For what?”
“Not being the person you wanted me to be, I guess,” Steve spoke so candidly, it made pain and panic swell in his throat. How could Steve think Eddie was disappointed that he was his soulmate?
“I’m not disappointed, Stevie. Why would I be disappointed?” 
“You had to have known,” Steve reasoned. 
Eddie didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious, but it sounded like Steve had been overthinking every second of it. 
“You give me more credit than I deserve. I didn’t know it was you, sweetheart. Cross my heart,” Eddie admitted, surprised at how quickly the term of endearment he’d used for his soulmate slipped off his tongue when talking to Steve. 
He hadn’t worked out shit. He’d had hunches, as though his heart knew, but the logical part of his brain kept overriding it. In what world were he and Steve perfect for each other?
Eddie threw caution to the wind as he saw the genuine look of affection and excitement painting its way across Steve’s face. He looked hopeful. Eddie cringed, sitting up and trying to lean closer to Steve.
“Come here before I hurt the both of us,” Eddie grumbled.
Steve shuffled closer to Eddie’s bed, crouching down, so the two were at eye level. Eddie wanted to kiss the boy so damn bad, and Steve was sending him all the signs that he should, but there was something he had to do first. He took Steve’s face between his hands, running a thumb over the purple bruises beneath his eyes.
“No more playing hero, okay?” 
Steve nudged his face into the palm of Eddie’s hand and nodded, letting out a weak chuckle. 
“I think I can agree to that.” 
Eddie crushed their lips together and despite the pain, it felt like everything was right in the world. 
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merukins · 9 months
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I defy anyone, mortals, gods or even darkness itself, to stop me from making my wish reality. But may it help, even a little, I’ll pour my hopes into these falling stars.
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ganondoodle · 7 months
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so, inspired by the warm welcome the captain received with that rough doodle i posted, i made an updated design for Ki'ita as well (basic and with clothes)
i removed the piercings she had bc considering that they spend the majority of their time in arctic waters i think having metal directly in your skin is a bad idea, no matter how thick your blubber is; i also gave her typical white markings a green hue bc ... i liked how it looked and makes them stand out a little more
(i will not repeat what i wrote on the post about the captain but wanted to add a bit of more info about Ki'ita herself)
(i dont have ALL of their backstory done yet but) the captain and Ki'ita worked together in another organization, one in which the father of the captains child also worked at, before being betrayed and barely managing to escape, after which the both of them founded their pirate crew (possible name is the Solar Pirates bc of their solar powered boat stuff); since the captain had her daughter shortly afterwards Ki'ita managed most of the organisational matters at first, including the construction of their base on an abandoned island they had initially fled to
over the years they invented the solar powered ships that allowed them to gain control over a large part of an important trade route, leaving normal ships (mostly) alone but attacking those of hunters and similar, rescuing demons and mutants, even some humans from them, most of which also join the crew and it quickly lead to them becoming their own little community
Ki'ita does not like to spend alot of time among large groups of people, no matter how much she cares about them, and her originally being from norther lands gave her the idea to explore, and if viable, do underground missions in those norther areas to disrupt the infrastructure the hunters had built in recent years and overall keep the crew informed about things that may otherwise stay hidden; with each of their travels her time absent from the base increased but the patience of the captain is wearing thin so its likely a serious talk is underway on Ki'itas third solo mission she nearly died due to entanglement in abandoned nets made by hunters from an unknown material that she could not break, the massive scars on her tail especially come from that, only surviving bc the date they were supposed to return to the crew had passed and the captain grew to worried about her and made the entire crew rush into an emergency search, including the captain herself and her toddler, who were not suited for the cold climate just like the rest of crew, taking a huge risk that Ki'ita still feels ashamed of for causing; they stayed within the base for a whole year afterwards, not just to recover but also as a silent apology, taking time preparing herself to ensure theyd not get into a situation like that again
(before departing on their next mission the captain gifted her a sword with the blade made from the material of the net, a wooden handle, bc of the cold, and a blue wrap around it reminiscent of the captains striking blue teeth; a reminder of what had happened, a means to defend herself when their strength and teeth are not enough, and also a promise to always return again)
the oldest members of the crew know Ki'ita well and treat her like an old friend, among the newer members she has more of a .. cryptic status, the mysteriously absent vice-captain who only appears every few months or so out of thin air, throws a big party, sleeps for a few days and then vanishes again, the only hint to when they will return soon again being the captain getting noticably grumpier
(OC art, Ki'ita, she/they)
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starflungwaddledee · 4 months
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did you know that coo is canonically lonely? {shipaganza prompt by @veveisveryuncool}
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solacium · 2 months
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presence // aventurine
he'll never outrightly ask you what it is, not at the outset.
he might find you curled on the couch, quiet, trying to breathe out the something in your chest that writhes and constricts, or in tears, but he won't ask, only sit quietly with you, lean against you, the weight of him enough to reassure you of his presence. maybe you reach for him, curl into the hollow of his body, and he'll let you, hold you until the tears stop, or you can feel your hands again, or you fall asleep, to the steady rhythm of his heart.
you'll wake, or look at him, and he'll speak, then, maybe look back at you with those iridescent eyes that you love, as he asks, softly, if you're feeling better, if you want to talk about it.
he'll keep you company, either way, listening. there is a steadiness in the weight of his arms around you, in the even beat of his heart against your back. you'll have to move, eventually, one of your legs falling asleep under you, and you'll both laugh, and shift. he gently disentangles himself from you, to get you something to drink. you settle back down, curled around each other, talk quietly until the sunlight changes.
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cerise-on-top · 4 months
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Hugging, Kissing and Cuddling HCs for König
I'm trying to see him in another light again after everything I've seen about him, so I decided I'd write something fluffy and nice for him. And then came the realization I never wrote some HCs like these for him in my original posts, so I decided I'd change that! He's Austrian, so naturally I have to love him!
When it comes to hugging someone, König is a bit hesitant. Considering he’s not the most physically affectionate person out there, it’s almost an honor to be receiving an unprompted hug from him. Whether his hugs are long or short depends on the occasion: If he’s proud of you for accomplishing something, then the hug will be rather short lived. Though, he might pick you up and spin you around until you’re dizzy. If you’re sad and need some comfort then his hugs could last a while. He’s not the best with words, he prefers to listen to other people, but if he knows a hug is what usually helps you then he’s willing to do so. Despite being a big and strong lad his hugs are surprisingly gentle, he’s worried about crushing you. He could put his all into them, but then you’d likely end up with a few broken ribs and he doesn’t want that to happen. König is also surprisingly warm, so receiving a hug from him is a rare, but nice experience. Although he does go rigid at the beginning, not knowing what to do, but relaxes into the hug eventually.
Again, he’s not a very physically affectionate person, but isn’t opposed to the occasional peck on the cheek or on your lips either. There is some anxiety whether you’d actually want a kiss from him or not, so he doesn’t kiss you very often, even if you do reassure him that it’s quite alright. He’s a bit tense at first when he presses a kiss to your lips, but calms down eventually. It’s especially bad during the beginning of your relationship, but he’s since gotten better at being calm about it. Since there’s a good chance he’s taller than you he loves giving you a kiss on the forehead. It’s a small but sweet gesture. He doesn’t need to bend down entirely to reach you but he still gets to be affectionate with you. However, if you’re on the taller side, or just as tall as he is, then he’d love to receive kisses to his temple from you. It makes him smile every time you do it. If he’s in the mood for receiving a kiss then he’ll lay his head on your shoulder and nudge you a bit. Or try to get his head in your closer vicinity. Kind of like that one bunny video where the bunny stretches to receive some kisses.
Cuddles with him are a bit more common than hugs actually. However, he refuses to lay down on top of you. If you’re shorter and weaker than him then there’s no chance he’ll put his weight on you, he’s just that afraid of hurting you. If you’re taller or just more muscular, then he might, but he’s still a rather heavy lad. Most he’ll do is put his head on your shoulder while you’re cuddling in bed and are both lying down. Although it’d be a lie to say he doesn’t want to be held. König is alright with being the one to hold you, but sometimes he would prefer to be the little spoon as well. That urge gets especially bad if you’re roughly the same size as him. Sometimes just nuzzling into your chest does the trick for him as well, though. Loves it when you run your fingers through his hair as he does so. Another thing he adores is you sleeping on his chest as he holds you. He gets to hold you close, he gets to protect you and he gets to doze off a bit himself, it’s bliss to him. Sometimes he leans down to press a kiss to your head and accidentally wakes you up like that. He feels bad about it and apologizes profusely, but does chuckle a bit when he sees your disheveled hair and your tired expression that shows you just woke up.
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flowercrowngods · 1 year
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🤍 also on ao3
It’s just past 3am when Steve finally caves and reaches for the phone on his night stand. His fingers are trembling slightly as he dials Eddie’s number — he knows it by heart even though he never called before. Eddie gave it to him a few weeks ago, making him promise that he’d call if he ever needed to talk.
“Any time of day or night, alright, Harrington? Call me whenever.”
And so that’s what he’s doing now, feeling strangely vulnerable about it. There’s no way Eddie’s gonna pick up. He’s gonna wake him. He’s gonna keep him from his sleep, possibly even interrupting one of the few nightmare-less nights he has.
Steve feels guilty the very second the dial tone meets the silence of his room, his chest heavy, eyes closed. Part of him hopes that Eddie won’t pick up the phone, that he’s in deep enough sleep to miss the call, that he’ll come into Family Video tomorrow and smile at Steve like he always does, none the wiser.
But, miraculously, amazingly, unfortunately, Eddie does pick up the phone. Rather immediately, at that.
“Yeah?” He sounds sleepy, and Steve’s heart falls immediately. He can’t get his mouth to work, only holding the phone to his ear, soaking up Eddie’s sleepy voice and trying to replace the guilt, the weakness, the heaviness of another sleepless night. “Hello?”
Steve remains silent. Can’t quite get the words to work. Fucking figures.
“Stevie? It’s you, isn’t it?”
He nods, stupidly, before saying, “Yeah. Sorry.”
“Hey now, what the hell do you have to be sorry for?” There’s shuffling on the other side and Steve imagines that Eddie is sitting up now, settling in to listen to the sob story of the nightmare Steve had without even falling asleep first. He does that sometimes. Doctor Owens has a fancy term for it, but Steve doesn’t want a label for his insanity. Because if there’s a label, that means it’s nothing special — and that’s kinda the only thing he has left.
But he doesn’t tell Eddie anything about that. Maybe one day. If he sticks around. Gods, but Steve hopes he does.
“If you’re sorry for calling me,” Eddie continues, his voice impossibly soft, “you don’t gotta be that. It’s fine. It’s why you have this number, alright? I’m here.” There’s more silence for a moment, but it’s the kind of silence that leaves him room to breathe. Eddie is good at that kind of silence, despite the fact that he talks so much all the time.
Maybe it’s the constant talking that makes the silences all the more significant.
“What do you need, Stevie?” Eddie asks then, and Steve hides under his blanket, the phone pressed to his ear. “I could come over. Or you could come over, I don’t really care either way.”
“No. Don’t wanna move. And…” No company, he wants to say, but the words get stuck in his throat. Sometimes company and kindness make the bad times worse. They make it more real, and what Steve needs is for everything to be a little less real. Maybe that’s why he’s calling Eddie. There’s no way that boy with his doe eyes and his wide smiles and his gentle voice in the middle of the night is real.
“Alright, I got it.” Eddie breathes deeply on the other end and Steve remembers that that’s a good idea actually, so he follows Eddie’s breath for a while.
“Can we just…” He trails off. Gives up on finding words, cringing at himself, glad that Eddie can’t see him like this.
“Can we what, hm?”
Steve shakes his head and remains silent, knows that his voice will sound anything but strong when he opens his mouth, and every second Eddie doesn’t hear what a mess he is, is important.
“I’m bad at this,” is what he settles on, closing his eyes against the world inside and outside his blanket.
“At what? Sleep? Words?”
Yes, and yes. But it’s not what he means. “Asking for things. I’m not good at that.”
“Hey, neither am I,” Eddie says and it sounds like he’s smiling. Steve imagines it and he hopes, oh he hopes that Eddie is smiling. “Y’know how I told you to call me whenever? That was essentially me just asking for you to call me. To know that… that I’m here.”
“I do,” Steve says quietly, and his body is sort of trembling with the confession. “I do know that.”
“Good,” Eddie breathes. “So what do you need?”
Steve sighs and pretends he’s somewhere else, pretends he’s in a world where asking is easy, where being known comes naturally and not with shaking voice and trembling hands. Pretends Eddie knows him already.
“Can we just… Fall asleep like this? Talking, I mean, though I don’t even know if I have things to say. The silence is more important anyway. You’re good at those, did you know?”
A light chuckle comes from Eddie, and Steve smiles along with it. “I’m good at silences? Me, Eddie Munson? You sure you don’t have the wrong number?”
“Very.” It’s all Steve says, and then it’s Eddie who’s quiet— as if to prove his point.
“Yeah, Stevie,” he says after a beat, his voice making Steve shiver. “We can fall asleep like this. Do you need me to talk to you, or…?”
He considers briefly, but he already knows the answer. He doesn’t need Eddie to talk. Just needs him to be there.
“Nah. Just… Just be there?”
There’s a hum now — the same kind of hum that Eddie always does right before giving him that secret smile of his, when he’s about to touch Steve or give him a new pet name. Sometimes, when the door to Family Video falls shut behind Eddie and Steve is left to deal with his fluttering heart, he likes to believe that this him has been placed into the universe with his name to it.
He wonders if Eddie knows. If the hum tastes like his name, if it makes Eddie’s heart flutter just as much.
“Hey Stevie?” Eddie interrupts their silence after a while and Steve can’t fight the smile on his lips.
“Yeah?”
“Did you know that otters hold hands at night so they don’t drift away from each other in their sleep?” He waits for a moment, allowing for a reaction, leaving another silence for him to claim. He does, but only with a smile as he grips the phone tighter, imagining it to be Eddie’s hand. “This sorta feels like that.”
The trembling that hasn’t really stopped is back now, the air heavy with implications and possibilities. Steve swallows.
“You keeping me from drifting away, Munson?”
“I hope so.”
It’s whispered words across the lines, crossing lines and blurring them. It’s taking his breath away, replacing it with something else, something new, something he has only felt when they were alone, but never this intense. He fills his lungs with it.
“Hey Eddie?”
“Yeah?”
More whispers, more greedy lungfuls of this something new.
“Is it bad that I kinda wanna hold your hand now?”
A beat, a sigh, a careful breath. It makes Steve think that the air in Eddie’s room is sizzling too, heavy and light at the same time. Maybe it’s just as addictive.
“Only if it’s bad that I’m kinda imagining yours in mine right now.”
Steve shakes his head again and doesn’t feel stupid about it now. “I don’t think that’s bad,” he whispers.
“Good.”
Maybe whispers are their new language. Maybe everything else is too harsh for this fragile thing, maybe the world outside Steve’s blanket isn’t ready to see the smile on his face or hear the rapid beat of his heart. He doesn’t mind.
“Tomorrow. Can I hold your hand tomorrow?”
“What do you mean, Stevie, you’re already holding it.” And there’s that smile again that makes Steve huff out the softest of chuckles, hiding his face in his pillow to ground himself against this heady feeling. “Yeah, you can hold it tomorrow, but only if I can hold yours, how’s that sound?”
“Sounds perfect, Eds,” Steve says, just louder than a whisper, and he waits with bated breath if anyone out there in the universe heard, if their bubble would burst.
But it doesn’t. Eddie only murmurs a sweet, soft, “Can’t wait.” And then there’s only silence because they’re both smiling, hearts racing, hands trembling around the phantom touch of warm fingers. They fall asleep like that soon after.
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bonefall · 6 months
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it is healing to come onto this blog and see basic respect for diasbility after being in other corners of the fandom and reading the words “snowkit could never be a warrior because he wouldnt know what anything is. he wouldnt even know what a clan is because nobody could explain it to him” said in full seriousness
Im..... That statement is so ableist I cannot even imagine the worldview you'd need to have in order to come up with that.
They really think the only way anyone learns anything is through verbal-speaking-words-noises? No one has ever observed something before? Not even once?
This is beyond touching grass, this person just fell out of the fucking Jurassic Period when all they had was ferns and stegosaurs.
I just...
OH YES. I remember my first day of Society Lessons as a hearing person, where the everything was explained to me. Via Audiobook. FIRST they spoke and said, "you are standing on the ground." It was a life changing revelation, and the world began to spin.
But it did not stop.
THEN they said, "there are fingers on your hands." The sensation of flesh and bone crackling into existence is indescribable, but I did not yet know pain, until they told me, "that hurts." I began screaming immediately.
And yet... it continued.
They explained so much. Chairs. Tables. Walls. The sky. Frogs. Ionizing radiation. Breathing. I was told all of it, in one sitting, and only then did I understand. Only when my ears were bursting with normal hearing knowledges, did they begin... my final test.
A strange wall-chair-finger emerged from the sky-of-the-wall, stood on the ground several times, until it was in front of me. A second one came behind it, this one slimmer. The audiobook gave these things names;
Human. Father. Mother. Door. Walking. It was completely impossible to know what these things were until that very moment.
I watch a human dip a hook into water and produce a fish, and I recall my Society Lessons where they called that "fishing." I am decked in the face by a nefarious hooligan, and I have only the audiobook to thank when I know I have been "punched" by a "bad guy." It was only the magic of verbal-speaking-words-noise that made me understand that there are "other people" and that they "do stuff."
Sometimes, even, in "groups."
Before the Society Lessons Audiobook, I knew nothing. I was pure, innocent, uncorrupted by concepts such as "parents" and "door." I am grateful every day that there is no such concept as "being shown things" or "simple logical reasoning" or "looking."
Blessed be those amongst us who escape the horrors of the Society Lessons Audiobook. I pray that you never learn what anything is. Be free! Free as a bird, which also knows nothing and famously cannot learn. 🤗
DEAF/HOH FOLLOWERS I'm losing my mind do you want me to bump a 'Hearing Disabilities Herb Guide' to the top of my priorities? Something you can use to bludgeon whackadoodles like that. This is ridiculous
Obviously not a MEDICINE guide but like; common causes of hearing disability in clan cats. Accommodations for hearing loss vs congenital deafness. Actual difficulties of not having that sense Clan-by-Clan. Debunking of misconceptions like... not being able to learn APPARENTLY.
#bone babble#Fennelposting#Obviously the answer is 'theyre incapable of THINKING' but like... they do know snow has a line right#In the book. He figured out. A word. Through observation.#He says 's'all right' because he knows it calms ppl down#He did not need to hear the magic words 'You can make noises at others to influence them'#Like a fucking tutorial tip#Im going to start keeping a JOURNAL of ''times people have been weird about snowkit specifically''#Ableism#cw ableism#I could also link to the pawspeak thing so it's all in one place#I wrote this last night and put it in the queue and I laid awake thinking of this...#What do they think happens when someone goes to another country where things aren't written/spoken in a language they know?#Do they think they wouldn't be able to figure out anything? Do they think the tourist would just perish#Would they collapse in the streets of Berlin sobbing?#Happened to me. Went to England and they called it a Car Boot Sale instead of a Flea Market and I died to death#AND if I did make that guide please tell me if there's any other weird misconceptions you need to see in it#I know that ONE of them is going to have to be that. like. deaf people make noise.#theyre actually quite loud because they don't know they're making noise#and people with hearing loss do not suddenly forget how to speak.#and people born deaf dont talk like cavemen#cw body horror#tw body horror#EDIT: OOPS sorry I have such an astonishingly tolerance for body horror I did not realize that counted as body horror
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chocodile · 7 months
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Apologies if you've answered this somewhere: for your Amaranthine 'verse, are there any "hybrid" animal folk? On one hand, kwillow's Theo has a rat and a stoat as parents, but Theo himself is a rat (with his mother's coloring, but still a rat). On the other, Ambroys very clearly looks like a cross between a horse (father) and Something Else (Celestial mother). In the middle is Hayden's one night stand with the cat barmaid, which resulted in a child with a bunny's snout/tail, a flatter catlike face, and bunny ears a biiiit too wide and pointed to be 100% "bunny."
I'm super curious about the genetics of it as well as the social aspect (i.e. is son considered a bunny/cat/both by his peers?). It's one of my favorite bits about anthro worldbuilding!
Hybrids exist, but are pretty rare!
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Typically, children will just inherit their species from one parent or the other. Hybridization is very unusual and typically is limited to one or two very minor traits--like the child of a rabbit having slightly longer ears, the child of a weasel having a noodlier build, the child of a carnivore having fangs, etc. In almost all cases, the dominant species of the child is very clear, and the hybrid traits tend to be very recessive--rarely preserved beyond one generation.
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Particularly in the Western Kingdom, though, hybrid children do have a reputation for being unlucky, an ill omen, or even outright cursed (depending how superstitious the person you're asking is). There are a few reasons for this… the simplest is that hybrid traits are sort of a "birth defect" that can sometimes present along with other health issues. Though not all hybrids are frail and sickly, any concern about a child's susceptibility to illness was a huge deal in rural peasant villages that already tended to have high childhood mortality rates.
Over time, the perception of hybrid children = ill omen became warped and exaggerated. Western Kingdom folktales sometimes cast hybrids as vaguely supernatural trickster characters, such as tales of mysterious changeling babies whose hybrid traits eventually revealed them to be half Infernal.
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For this reason, the actual frequency of hybrid traits is probably greatly under reported… anyone who can hide or ignore or lie about their hybrid traits probably will. Though most Western Kingdom superstitions fell away after the collapse of the old kingdoms, some degree of stigma in Post-Fall society remains. No one seriously thinks a sheep with fangs is half Infernal anymore (most don't believe that Infernals and Celestials even exist), but it will still probably be passively assumed that a hybrid is less fit for difficult labor, among other things.
Half Celestial and Half Infernal offspring work a bit different… they're always technically "hybrids", but specifically hybridize in such a way that they take the form of mythological creatures (unicorn, dragon, cockatrice, etc). I'll let Kwillow talk more about this when she discusses Ambroys' mother since she's been the one working on this section of the lore, but Half Celestials are most certainly seen as a blessing. Half Infernals… well, fear of them is part of the reason hybrids are stigmatized in the first place, so suffice to say they have it rather rough. How severe the stigma is varies across cultures and tends to be worse in the rural West, better in cities, and pretty much completely absent in much of the Eastern Kingdom.
In the Post-Fall present day, nobody believes Celestials, Infernals, or their offspring exist anymore... aside from those who know about The Kingdom of the Sun.
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Also, once in a while, a hybrid is born whose traits are so blended that their parent species are difficult to determine. These very unlucky individuals are referred to as "chimeras" and tend to have shorter life expectancies, among other things. We may be seeing a character who fits this description eventually. :P
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becca-e-barnes · 1 year
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Ok but what about submissive!dbf!bucky with a praise kink? Maybe one found accidentally? In the drabble where the reader wanted to say he was beautiful, what if she does and he just moans?? What if the word the reader is looking for is pretty? Imagine calling an older man pretty and he nearly finishes just from that?
Back to my current favourite, submissive!dbf!bucky bc I can't get enough of him rn, I have so much I want to talk about
Because ohhhh, I love the thought of him being so totally obsessed with going down on you, to the point that he'd almost do anything just for a taste of you.
And maybe he'd seen you in a pretty little dress at a get-together at your house. Maybe a birthday party or something. You had both been keeping up appearances, pretending nothing is going on between you because he's your father's best friend but he'd taken the risk and approached you, leaning over and whispering in your ear. "Next time I get you alone, I'm going to lick from your ankle to your cunt." That's all he says, his hand rests on your lower back and you barely feel the heat of it through your dress before it's gone again. God, you hope that's a promise.
Of course it is. As soon as he gets a chance to sneak away from everyone else the two of you are tiptoeing up the stairs to your bedroom. After a fierce few minutes of intensely making out, he's laid you gently onto the bed, pushing the skirt of your dress out of the way. He doesn't waste a second, his lips on the inside of your ankle, humming contently as he kisses his way up the expanse of bare skin.
For a man who's kissed every inch of your body, he never seems to get tired of it. His slight scruff scratches your skin and it's lovely to be reminded of how intensely he's worshipping your body.
"You look. So. Fucking. Breathtaking." The words are muffled against your skin, his lips trailing hungry kisses up to your knee. One of his hands holds your leg, keeping you still while the other slips higher under your skirt.
You brace yourself for the groan you know he's going to grace you with and when it comes, it doesn't disappoint. The fingertips of his index and pointer finger trail lazily across your bare sex, gliding easily thanks to the evidence of your arousal.
"No panties?" His fingers keep teasing you, trailing from your fluttering entrance to your clit and back again, giving himself time to decide where he wants to start.
"I took them off after you told me your plan and so far you've let me down." If this were any other night, he'd probably tell you to watch your mouth before he fills it but tonight is not that night. Tonight he's desperate to taste you; to walk back down those stairs, look you in the eyes for the rest of the evening, knowing he made you cum against his mouth and no one else in the room can tell. Then jerk off to the memory tonight when he's back in his own bed.
He wastes no more time after that, flattening his tongue against your ankle and purposefully trailing it up your leg to your knee, then on up your thigh. At the same time, he eases his two fingers inside you, curling them against the soft, velvety wall of your cunt.
You hold the skirt of your dress out of the way so you can see him latch his mouth onto your clit, sucking gently and flicking his tongue while he curls his fingers inside you.
This is fucking magical. You know his mouth is flooded with the taste of you, your fingers tangled in his hair to keep his mouth pressed against you. "Fuck, that's perfect." It's the only way to describe the sensation of his mouth and fingers working you in tandem.
He's lost in it. His eyes are closed in concentration, determined to give you what you need. He needs to please you and it's not a need you've instilled in him. It's one he's always had.
"You're so pretty, do you know that?" It's bouncing around in your head and you feel like you need to say it.
He groans against your sex and you don't think anything of it until he mumbles "Please don't call me that. Not right now." His fingers work you faster but your hazy, pleasure addled brain still manages to ask him why.
" 'Cause sweetheart, I don't want to cum in these trousers. I don't have a change of clothes. Didn't even know I was into that." He sounds smaller, almost pleading with you, palming his cock through his dark jeans.
"But you're gorgeous, Buck. You have no idea how pretty you are with your head between my legs." The moan he emits is so rewarding you swear you could get off on that alone, never mind his renewed need to make you finish quickly before you get him to a point of desperation.
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ninja-knox-ur-sox-off · 2 months
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AU where Zane Ninjago is the previous master of ice. like when he transferred his elemental powers over he also transferred his soul and he low-key reincarnated into this robo-body. cool beans. this means there's the potential of Zane starting to glimpse bits and pieces of past and not knowing why he can see it. the things master Wu talks about--why can he see them as if he were there?--he feels like he has experienced personally. give Zane a whole other crisis on top of after he finds out he's a nindriod not a human. this also means Zane in old clothes and styles from Master Wu's time whenever he has flashbacks which is a neat visual. like heck you could have someone other than Wu have previous villains that show up! you could balance that out a bit! Master of Ice's previous nemesis shows up ready to throw down when they discover he's technically still alive but also not. Zane questioning if this is his life at all. if he's Zane or someone else. If he was Zane before or if he was nothing. If he's Zane now or if he never was to begin with
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melverie · 7 months
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Okay, but you guys do realize that the reason Mephisto behaves the way he does is because he has been raised with the intent of only being beneficial to the future demon king and nothing else, right?
(Buckle up because this is going to be a loooonnngggg post)
Mephisto comes from a family that has been serving the royal family for ages. He mentions multiple times that his family has always acted as their knights, their advisors and their protectors to them, and it won't be any different with him. It shouldn't be any different with him. Being beneficial to Diavolo has literally been decided to be the very meaning of his life even before he was born. He's been forced into the role and he's following it to a T because he's never known anything else, and because he can't afford to lose that. Without it, what else is left of him? What worth does he hold other than being essentially a tool for Diavolo?
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And then the brothers fall and suddenly his position is at risk. Lucifer and Diavolo have already gotten along fairly well back when Lucifer was still an angel. Both Diavolo and Lucifer (as well as several others) mention that they go way back in their Nightbringer homescreen dialogues, and we see them having mutual respect by the end of the 'The Glory Days' Devilgram in the original game. Mephisto and Diavolo meanwhile might be childhood friends, but here's the thing
Diavolo wants a friend. A real friend. Someone that genuinely appreciates him for who he is as a person instead of focusing on his status as the future demon king. And that's something Lucifer can give him. They often hang out for the sake of it (apparently even eating dinner at Ristorante Six together regularly), they regularly engage in lighthearted banter, and Lucifer isn't afraid to give Diavolo his honest opinion
But that's not really the case with Mephisto...? He was never meant to be on equal footing with Diavolo; Diavolo even calls him "mini-Barbatos" at one point. He is literally still calling him 'Lord Diavolo' all the time, requests to speak his honest opinion first and waits for Diavolo to allow him to do so before actually giving it. That's why Mephisto keeps pushing down his own feelings and keeps showering Diavolo in praise any opportunity he gets while he adjusts every aspect of life to be beneficial to Diavolo in a way. Sure, he might be popular, but as long as Diavolo doesn't want him to get married he doesn't even waste a thought about relationships. He might have no real interest in journalism, but of course he'll take over RAD's Newspaper Club. After all, Diavolo asked him to! He's part of the House of Lords because as the future king's right-hand man that just makes sense. He was always just meant to be a tool for the crown prince to use, so he doesn't know how to treat Diavolo as anything but. He was literally groomed to be dispensable, so he's obviously going to act like it
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And that's also where Mephisto's dislike for Lucifer stems from—he can only watch as Lucifer slowly grows closer and closer to Diavolo, and threatens to take the role that was always made up to be his. And so Mephisto keeps challenging Lucifer over and over again, trying to sabotage their friendship any way he can in hopes of winning back his position as the crown prince's right-hand man
That obviously doesn't make the way he treats Lucifer (and the rest of the brothers!) right. Lucifer isn't responsible for any of this, and blaming him for it is misguided. But it still doesn't change the fact that Mephisto has the right to be hurt at the situation at hand. His entire purpose of existence is just being ripped away from him right before his eyes and all he can do is watch. That must hurt. Especially when your entire familiy's purpose has been to serve the royal family, and you are the first one to lose that
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Also, I feel like something else we need to talk about is how his fight only ever really seems to be with the brothers, especially Lucifer? Again, part of the reason is the entire Diavolo situation, sure, but I feel like it also has to do with the situation in the Devildom at large? I already vaguely talked about this in a different context a few months back, but ever since the brothers have been cast out of the Celestial Realm and arrived in the Devildom, the entire situation has just been super unstable. We as a player have a unique perspective on the events because we only have a limited outsider view to on the actual politics going on the the Devildom, while also being aware how things will play out in the future. We know that ultimately letting the brothers stay is the right choice, but that's not the way a regular denizen who has to live through all this sees it. I mean, just the way Mephisto describes the brothers really puts things into perspective:
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The entire realm is super destabilized, they just semi-lost their current king, and there have been multiple very real threats of war—first when the Devildom took the brothers in in the first place, then when "Raphael" showed up and told the brothers to return, and Lucifer rightfully points out to (a comatose) MC that they are bound to go to war should the Celestial Realm ever find out that Diavolo turned Lilith into a human. There's just a lot of tension in the air, and the brothers—extremly powerful as both angels and demons—seem to be at the root of most of it in one way or another. From a the House of Lords' perspective, it makes sense to want the brothers gone, same goes for a denizens perspective. And while it is a delicate situation all around that can't just be blamed on the brothers, it makes sense for Mephisto to also see them at the center of it all. Again, that doesn't make the brothers' treatment right, but it's at least understandable given the circumstances
On a side note, when discussing his beliefs, I think it's also important to remember that he to this day is incredibly sheltered. He just accepts all this as normal because to him it is normal, but as we've seen in lesson 31 hard mode Thirteen was so shocked by his views that she immediately decided to drop everything and play therapist for him (absolute Queen for not just blaming it on him btw 💖). I know this was just a throw-away line, but this paired with him basically excisting to serve Diavolo already says so much about his character:
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And with everyone else he seems to be generally pleasent? I mean, he says he doesn't want anything to do with angels or humans, and yet he risks getting injured in order to save Luke from falling. Yet he actively seeks out MC to solve one of the 666 Mysteries of RAD together with them, and saves them from tumbling on the floor because "anyone else would have done the same" (they wouldn't have. The season 1 brothers would have laughed straight in MC's face). He literally complained to Thirteen about how he was just about to go home and how he doesn't have time for her, yet diligently carries all her things for her as rain is pouring down on him. His actions always end up betraying his words
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Also he has a massive sweet tooth which alings perfectly with one of the headcanons I had for months and is RAD's local horse girl so we stan! <3
-> more character & relationship analyses -> masterlist
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seventh-fantasy · 7 months
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li xiangyi, yin, and femininity
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we all know that li xiangyi is a character of fractured identities. and li lianhua is an unreliable narrator to his own story. these make him not the most straightforward character to study. but I've believed in treating li lianhua as a part of li xiangyi, rather than separates. and there must be a common thread that ties all of him together. thus, I offer what I have found to be the most useful lens to use to view him as a cohesive whole, regardless as li xiangyi, li lianhua, or any other identity he may reinvent into: his 阴 yin qualities. (yin of yinyang)
this framework suggested by the drama's text itself has helped clarify to me his strengths, weaknesses, motivations, and struggles. by identifying this constant, too, makes it so much easier talking about what has changed in him.
[to the, hopefully growing, boli lhl hivemind @markiafc @ananeiah]
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there are some notes on the concept of yinyang and chinese conceptualisation of gender I have to preface with.
[disclaimer: of course, I'm not even trying to cover a tip of what experts have extensively studied and debated in a depth it deserves. all I'm doing is try to parse the broad, fundamental ideas that are needed to explain my blorbos through my own spotty brain filter. so there bound to be nuances I've overlooked or some degree of my own interpretation. pretentious but needs to be done.]
阴 yin and 阳 yang are concepts characterised by passiveness, darkness, gentleness, femininity etc, and proactivity, light, toughness, masculinity etc respectively. a very key and handy concept to have in mind is their relationship to each other - which I'll not attempt at explaining better than literal scholars have:
Yin and yang exist only in relation to one another internally as the way warmth-coldness only exist relative to one another. Furthermore, when using yin-yang as an organizational schema, achieving balancing harmony is always the goal, not domination nor subordination of one to the other. [x]
while yin and yang can be symbols of femininity and masculinity, it doesn't mean all female are yin and all male are yang. it's certainly not a strict 1-to-1 equation. the concept of gender in chinese context is more social than biological. this suggests room for fluidity, and shaping of identities, often through social rituals as one journeys through life. it also means that there can be femininity in the masculine, and vice versa - in fact, that's only healthy because you need a good balance of the two worlds. no one part is better than the other. if you think of the two components as relative to each other, they are always interacting and affecting each other, rather than being strict and inert binaries. simply put, it needs to be kept in mind that there are greater nuances in applying yin and yang to the definitions of gender, and to avoid at all cost a simplification of this framework into a binary.
sure, the show has implied that lxy's powers and energy are yin-coded. but femininity is only one of the multiple attributes of yin. so how are we extending lxy's yin to femininity specifically? it's in the text that substantiates and qualifies lxy as feminine. dead women being used as proxies to his character. being literally dressed as a woman in order to put himself into their shoes and feel what they've felt. adopting a name that happens to be very, very feminine - 莲花 lianhua (lit. lotus flower) (it must be caveated that chinese names are NOT gendered. but there are just some names that are more feminine than others.) him coming to lead a life revolving around traditionally feminine, domestic things as li lianhua. him having interactions with the women around him like he's in his own element - no pressure and tension at all, unlike with all the other men.
as such, I'm more willing to use yin and femininity interchangeably in discussing lxy (while it's not necessarily applicable to every point that will be mentioned albeit there being some degree of implied association). and it's for the sake of elucidating what I feel is an intention or very plausible reading of the canon text in parsing feminine experiences in lxy's character. and thus, his queerness.
one last note is that taoism is going be mentioned quite a bit as well because of how much it as a philosophy honours the yin quality. its key tenets include valuing passiveness and inaction as a form of action, and submitting to the nature of things. and we will see how those come up in lxy's life too. (though I'm not gonna attempt to deep dive into it here beyond broad strokes of it.)
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a huge part of li xiangyi's yin actually manifests in him being a passive person. this applies not just to li lianhua, but also li xiangyi. I know. ok wait hear me out. the idea of yinyang is after all components that can change and are relational to each other: thus, there were points in li xiangyi's life when he was less passive than other points, but they ultimately don't match up to the degree of aggression displayed by other men around him. so relative to their display of proactivity and aggression, he can be considered as passive. the best example is that of shan gudao proposing to launch an offensive on jinyuan alliance, while lxy - as much as he was arrogant about it - was standing his ground on not taking action in favour of peace.
it has already showed up in his childhood as well. he wasn't a particularly competitive child: 从来都没有谁要和你争 nobody has ever thought of competing with you over anything, he told sgd as he recalled of their times growing up. it was in fact sgd who was desperate to control and override lxy's presence. baby lxy did not hesitate at all over giving up on winning in favour of protecting his only rare few close relationships left in the world (given how hard-earned relationships are when they're non-familial !!!!). as much as I resent the one-dimensional writing of sgd, he has served as a very strong marker to highlight on lxy's yin.
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I've harped on it several times before but this is the time I finally get to explain it proper: my own theory is that li xiangyi became an unparalleled swordsmaster because of his yin/feminine quality, not in spite of it. an interesting point that had been out in the open unclaimed until it was brought up in our friend group is that, li xiangyi does not actually fit anybody's conventional image of a 武林盟主 wulin mengzhu (ie. ruler of wulin). it would most likely have been some burly, muscular, ultra-masculine dude. even if they don't look like the demonic monk, it should be someone more like di feisheng. but. it's li xiangyi, the boyish, delicate-looking kid, who came to the top. (no wonder people - mostly men - love or love to bully hate him like weak men hate powerful women??)
"why didn't they cast someone who looks more like a wulin mengzhu (read: traditionally manly)?" no, no that's precisely the point. nobody said wulin mengzhu have to look manly. and also who is to define the manliness required to be in a place of authority? (or in my other meta, we would ask, who is to define anybody gets to have the authority over anyone else at all?)
by taoist ideal, gentleness is the most refined form of strength. li xiangyi has been haunting and distracting me in my chinese calligraphy practices lately because I'm thinking about how this must be the closest to what it felt like lxy becoming the best swordsman in jianghu. (so pretentiously brainrotten of me, I know, BUT IT'S REAL and I'm suffering.) mastering a chinese art is essentially about mastering a delicate balance between force and gentleness; being able to draw force from softness 柔中带刚 and an ability to maintain this balance. a beginner will instinctively hold a brush for the first time with brute, unrefined force. some fairly reputable contemporary calligraphers, according to my teacher, can be seen as being either too soft or too forceful - but are still able to pass off as good enough. it's then, the master of masters who will have the sophistication of a firm yet flexible control of the brush with the appropriate use of gentleness/laxness that produces a harmony of strokes. this idea extends to any other sort of chinese craft or practice including traditional chinese medicine, and I believe, swordsmanship too. I'm taking a fucking leap of faith here to say this because I practise NO sort of (chinese) martial arts, I must caveat. (someone who does may want to say something...) but theoretically that should be how it works.
it is not for no rhyme or reason, or *handwaves* that lxy emerged to the top AND is almost undefeatable. among a competitive, forceful (ie. yang) wulin, li xiangyi stood out with a power and energy defined by yin (ie. gentleness and stability) that led him to create his signature 扬州慢 yangzhouman. it is characterised by 慢 slowness (my calligraphy teacher says to us all the time to take it slow), and also described by dfs as 中正绵长 - which I would best describe by painting a picture of a steady and stable stream. these precisely speak of the essence of a mastery of gentleness as strength to me.
conversely, dfs's way in mastering power is very largely premised on taking action because he literally had no other choice in the environment he grew up in. both of them develop in opposite ways. it was the case of gentleness for lxy clearly because he grew up in a safe, nurturing environment that had allowed him to be slow and steady at his own pace, drawing on his natural gifts.
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now top of the wulin world at 17, li xiangyi founds sigu sect. li xiangyi, the boy before becoming menzhu and li xiangyi the leader of sigu sect are not the same.
how then did a (relatively) passive boy like lxy end up founding sigu sect. this lxy is the one who was fostered into competition - though not in an abusive, twisted way. in fact he was raised in a rather taoist way by his shifu: to be honest with yourself and respect your opponent. so he honoured whatever powers he had been bestowed with by nature. he gives into it. even so, at another level, I just have a sense that shifu and shiniang's competitive marital spat had an insidious effect on the boys...though the detrimental effect was more on sgd than lxy. baby lxy feels like a sweet-natured kid who was just in his own zone, you know - some (aka sgd) would say, too much of him even, to have not realised what was wrong at all with his shixiong for years.
that's not all of course. I've always gotten the vibes that his attitude behind forming sigu sect felt more like, this is what all the good men of jianghu do and I will have to do it now especially that I'm the best. it didn't feel particularly personal to me, but rather what would have been expected of him by the social climate of wulin jianghu (eg. lxy saying to 光耀师门 bring honour to his teacher). it's definitely not an expectation from his shifu, who explicitly told him that he was never expected to become a noble figure of any sort, but just to be alive and contented. as concluded by the man himself as li lianhua: "有些人入了江湖是为了立心,而有的人入江湖为的是立命。我却不知道自己真正想要的是什么。some people enter jianghu for the cultivation of the mind, others for a cultivation of a meaningful life. but I never knew what I truly wanted." he was ultimately, unwittingly a passive player in his own story of becoming the great sigu sect leader.
(at this point, as a side note, I do wonder if there were any other similar sects or alliances that function the same as sigu sect that came before it. because I'm damn well sure there must be something, as likely as there must have been generations of wulin legends who came before lxy. but of course, this is not what the story is concerned with at all and I'm ok with that.)
it's crucial to point out that, even despite this being the phase of his yang in the display of taking action and enacting firmness, lxy had still done sigu sect with the sole purpose and manner of upkeeping peace and order (in the way of the pro-universal love, anti-aggression mohist 侠 xia leader of the people). he's still very characterised by yin in my books, especially when vis-à-vis to sgd.
a li xiangyi full of himself and made himself too useful to the people was only bound for a great asteroidal fall, in the concept of 物极必反 - or in taoist lexicon 反者道之动 (ie. anything that has reached its limit will only start developing in the opposite direction). if you think you're above all, you can only go down.
this manifests during the next time he took action - and it was one so forceful that it overpowered even his opponent, dfs who ended up being the passive, receiving party in this case - was in initiating the battle at donghai 10 years ago... and gee oh boy. it didn't end well - for both of them, but even more so for lxy. (dfs was like 'tis but a scratch (shrugs)' as compared to him being ripped off his tendons by jiao liqiao like nezha did to the dragon prince. truth is he had to go into a 10-year healing retreat served by his entourage. :p) ok, I digress.
xiao zijin was quick to attribute sigu sect's fall to lxy's arrogance - in turn setting the stage for lxy's 10 years of self-hatred and the framing of lxy as a villain? irresponsible figure? by jianghu. (god forbid girls do anything! ok for legal reasons, this a joke.) lxy lost his mind in ways I believe he never had in his life there and then upon seeing his shixiong dead. so, you could say he led the jianghu world to ruins out of love (using this term loosely). but it feels inaccurate to say it's due to arrogance. he did not do that out of self-importance or ego, especially when the revenge for sgd was a collective decision made by sigu sect as we know from the flashback. so when llh pinned all fault on himself for being arrogant in the past, it is with caution to take his words because that's the unreliable narrator in him speaking.
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anyway, it's precisely li xiangyi that is capable of bouncing back from such a fatal crisis, equipped with his yin and a mastery that gave him the power of flexibility.
it's extremely vital to re-establish that literally the only thing that was keeping li xiangyi alive, physically, as li lianhua is yangzhouman. (monk wuliao literally said that to lxy even though he did facilitate in saving him.) it's the yangzhouman that was drawn from lxy's mastery of yin. without yangzhouman, li xiangyi would not even have the chance to become li lianhua and undergo any needed process of transformation. without li xiangyi, there would have been no yangzhouman. no li xiangyi, no li lianhua, get it?
the point is not to deny the change li xiangyi wants to make and has made. but to acknowledge that change isn't about complete erasure and destruction. something from you survives. something in you had kept you alive to have you come so far, regardless of all the bad bits that you want to denounce of. you've always been worth it.
bringing back the thing about his new name: the distinction must be made that he did not pick it because it was feminine but it just so happened a feminine name had resonated with him. (read: he didn't necessarily identify as a woman but identified with femininity. at least within the parameters of canon text.)
he also made an interesting choice to retain his surname for someone who was desperate to sever ties from his past. hmm. or maybe he wasn't that desperate? when li lianhua says li xiangyi is dead, I believe it meant that li xiangyi the sigumen menzhu is dead rather than li xiangyi as an entirety. li lianhua is a returning to the path lxy could have gone if he did not establish sigu sect, the path that shifu wanted him to take. when he walked to the doors of sigu sect in the aftermath, nothing was actually stopping him from going back (people were still around and alive, instead of all dead people, you know)... except for himself. taking that action would have been too much for him. so he went with the flow of life giving him a chance at rebirth and walked away. there, inaction as a form of action.
zhan yunfei and qiao wanmian have said to li lianhua, oh that doesn't sound like li xiangyi at all. but has it been considered that, maybe it was sigu sect's lxy who wasn't the real lxy? sigu sect lxy was one big performance of the values of masculinity and heteronormativity that llh had came to an awareness of, and eventually struggle with again and resist against in the final year of his life. there had only been some glimpses of his true nature allowed (validated by fang duobing talking about lxy at his altar).
imho, most flashbacks of lxy during that period felt impersonal and more like a template of a hero expected to marry his girl at 18. going through all the motions and steps of a normative life even before he was old enough to grasp and explore his own identity and what it meant in the world. no wonder he denounced so much of what he had done as lxy including liking girls. walking away then also meant a walk away from those duties and expectations. li lianhua is li xiangyi liberated from masculine duties and heteronormative performance.
in doing that, he had the opportunity for the first time in his life to explore what he truly wanted, at least within the parameters of what he could afford to do at that point. he could go on to build a domestic, feminine life within the space of jianghu (as I've established here). it's a kind of feminine lifestyle that doesn't quite exist in mainstream society - being a woman there meant to stay put in a domestic space without much room to move socially. nor did it exist in wulin jianghu because even the women there like shi-guniang and jlq were expected to be masculine, aggressive, competitive. so building a mobile home in the space of jianghu is his way of defining the life he wants and can have. li lianhua is the extension of femininity in li xiangyi - and one that can be free.
it's also worth talking about in my opinion what is one of the most important and a favourite dihua moment: when dfs said to lxy that his greatest weakness was to like being a hero. and a swordsman should be without weaknesses. I'm forever wrapped up in how many layers this can be read in. was he mad at lxy for liking to be a hero or having weaknesses, or both? if the former, it was dfs criticising, based on lxy's public reputation, lxy's oversized illusions about being a hero - a figure of masculinity with an unrealistic sense to uphold noble goals eg. saving the world etc. that is actually perfectly logical coming from dfs, the straightforward, no-nonsense, morally neutral guy with no illusions about heroism (in this case, he feels more like a yin). but at the same time, we should understand that lxy's motivations behind the donghai battle are more personal than noble. if any, it was actually the opposite of noble - it was like he was acting out of the role of a caretaker of his family, and at a cost of the peace and order of jianghu he was set on guarding(!!) dfs also knew that lxy was there just for his shixiong. and so, dfs, who happens to be the epitome of yang, can be read as a symbol of masculinity disapproving of lxy for being sentimental and emotional; for having the "feminine" desires to simply want to defend his family (not saying those are exclusively feminine traits but they have been conventionally associated as feminine). I think both layers of reading are correct and should work together to contribute to the complexity of their characters. (we can see how it contributes to lxy and dfs being the perfect yinyang halves to each other, which I will come back to briefly touch on later.)
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for 10 years he lived a life of seclusion and staying-in-his-own-lane a taoist would be proud of. he knew he was dying and has always been ok with dying, as he claimed. but did he want to die? to think of it, it was the opposite. because in those 10 years when he could have 100% just taken action to take his own life, he didn't. in fact, he lived on and took care of himself in the way shifu wanted him to. he had simply preferred letting nature run its course. if bicha didn't take him, he wasn't gonna do anything. but if he died one day very soon, he would be ok with it too. sure, he was maybe banking on a lead to sgd's whereabouts to appear during his last years alive but that clearly wasn't the only thing on his mind for NINE years because he didn't actively go out seeking for that either. this is basically him telling dfs that he would just lie in the sun and wait for the sweet release of death, if dfs were to force him to fight. not even the mortal threat from dfs was enough to move him into action of fighting back or killing himself.
time and again, lxy as llh was dragged into fdb's cases but not only that, he also maintained an impersonal distance with them. it's starkly different from the usual (wuxia) hero archetypes (for eg. fdb) who would be more impassioned and personally invested in the plight of the victims- or unlike most seemingly aloof protagonists who would somehow grow emotionally invested over time. one of the many things I love about llh is that he never tries a second time to persuade people out of their decisions he finds unwise (eg. him just wanting to move on in response to the girls in 女宅 insisting on staying behind with their slave master at first.) he will not interfere in other people's choices made in their own lives. it's not his business. he didn't even want to be there, to be honest.
however as the story progresses, more and more people - especially men, his past, and the leads to the truth came back to demand and taunt him into doing something. they vary from well-meaning people without any harm intended such as fdb intruding upon his private space completely uninvited and qwm wanting him back; to dfs merely seeking him as a mean to an end initially (eg. I only need him to live long enough to have one last fight); and finally, on the other end of the spectrum, outright aggressive and hostile people like sgd and xzj who wanted him to die. under all this pressure, he tried his best to deflect, but he does waver especially when it comes to matters concerning the people he cares about aka his obsession wish of 10 years of looking for sgd's remains that had lied low until fdb entered his life, and then later on taking revenge for his shifu.
looking for sgd became his final bid at taking action. he was operating on a slim chance of getting some emotional closure from finding out his shixiong is dead for real, yes. what a good plan. but objectively unnecessary. or surprise! uhhh...finding out his beloved shixiong is actually alive and would strangle him for one corn chip? AND OH NO IT GOT WORSE- uncovering a devastating truth about his shifu's death that he could have totally gone on with life fine without knowing if he had continued not caring.
but it is sometimes just impossible not to care - it is only human to care. and he is human, not an icon in the image of a hero. so he took a chance, once more, and it killed him in unprecedented ways. it's donghai all over again. things in life don't go as planned. you fuck around and it fucks you back. finding out the truth behind his shifu's death and his family background from the past did nothing for him as li lianhua living in the present.
it's no wonder that this lxy decisively relinquishes the desire to take action in the end. he goes back to letting nature run its course. and this time, stands firmly to it despite everyone begging him otherwise. wangchuan flower could only give him a recovery (or survival?) rate of 30%. there's a 70% chance of failure and even in the 30% he was not sure what he was to become. in comparison, dfs took a 10% chance game of survival in a heartbeat, and it pushed him to new heights. that's how they differ: he thrives by taking risks and action while lxy the other way round. so, something like that has happened before and he wants none of it again.
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he leaves lotus tower, only taking his horse and a sack - relinquishing almost every other material belonging he had - and sets off on a journey. before xzj interrupted...where to was he going?? I wonder. we don't know for sure, I think? and are we allowed to know? that makes the scene he had with xzj an understated inflection point in the very last part of his journey. yes, he was already on his way to...maybe die? but not necessarily. you don't have to travel distances with your belongings for that, right? or speak to dfs personally about not wanting to fight? (borrowing one of @ananeiah's takes.) regardless, he was definitely leaving behind jianghu - not only wulin jianghu (he already did that 10 years ago), but also the jianghu space he had carved out in the last 10 years.
what sparked the decision to jump off the cliff in him was dfs's words from the night of their wedding 10th donghai anniversary: 横扫天下容易,断相夷太剑不易 conquering the world is easy, breaking xiangyi sword is not. in the original context, dfs was talking about defeating lxy being harder than conquering the world. but when it came to this scene, it was to lxy about forsaking the very last worldly possessions he had after already giving up on lotus tower and hulijing (including releasing his horse), especially his only connection left to swordsman lxy.
perhaps it had dawned on him that, wanting things at all was bad for him. in the last 10 years, he lived a life of seclusion, wanting very little. but he had still wanted things. there were still things he couldn't let go of that had led him to this state. despite having lived on an identity inspired by a buddhist teaching for 10 years, maybe it was only at this point that he was finally the closest to reaching an understanding of it. (I wish I was knowledgeable enough right now to dive into the possible buddhist reading here but alas. I'll leave it to our resident expert @markiafc)
it doesn't quite matter in the end where he was going after all. what mattered was that he literally went where the water took him and we're not supposed to know where it ends. I'm not seeing this in a bad and pessimistic way though. I think the relief in all this is that he had tried his best to within his abilities. also it's a form of enlightenment in relinquishing a desire, an obsession, a need to take any more action in order to live well. thus his ending felt to me relatively tender, empowering, and kind - albeit bittersweet and heartaching - than other possible kinds of ending, in a story where it was very possible for him to have died under the knives of his opponents or bicha at any moment, outside of his control.
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if you've come so far in this post, congratulations! but also a reveal is that... you're not immune to the dihua propaganda threaded throughout this post. :P
as mentioned, other men like sgd and xzj in lxy's life were incredibly hostile to him. their yang nature overwhelmingly powers his yin. but dfs is different. dfs is the yang counterpart that fits perfectly to his yin.
dfs's yang is one that contains yin, that mirrors lxy's balance of yang in yin. it was suggested in text they are yinyang-coded meant to complement each other, given that whenever wangchuan flower's yin vs yang properties were discussed, the two men were always spoken about in the same breath. more importantly, as with the above few analyses of dfs's words playing a big role in shaping of lxy's choices with multiple meanings - as well as their day-to-day interactions - we can see that they constantly play off each other.
dfs's yang energy has been used to help lxy prolong his life (though not saving him entirely), while lxy has used his yin energy to save dfs and subsequently helped him attain his breakthrough. dfs has also helped lxy in his breakthrough of yin but not in the same way as dfs's cultivation of his combative powers, and rather, it's for lxy an understanding of his own path to take in life - a cultivation of the mind (both times 10 years before and after). given how significant dfs is in the shaping of lxy's realisation of the yin path - alike his shifu has, it's no wonder that they were the only two people lxy had imagined in his last sword dance of a farewell to jianghu.
with each of them coming together to form the perfect yin-yang model, they're a harmony of yin and yang representing the cosmos. what I also love is that they didn't start out as a perfect fit, but only towards the end of the story was the harmonisation completed, which makes sense for two components that are always in a flux influencing each other. the fact that they were number 1 and 2 of wulin, and being the only ones capable of understanding each other in a level nobody else could... it all reinforces the cosmic sense of their relationship. they're the halves to a whole, fitting in a specific way nobody else can.
(I mean. technically this is going into the space of extrapolation based on a tangential interpretation of canon text, so do take it with a pinch of salt. but of course this pinch of salt can do wonders for a shipper's feast... :P and this certainly could have been a meta of its own expanding on dfs's side of the analysis, but this is it for now in this context.)
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to think of it, li xiangyi has actually died more than that one time that turned him into li lianhua. first was a death of him as a nanyin royalty - I resent having to bring up nanyin like it should hold any weight to the narrative as far as I'm concerned, but the point being that he had a completely different (familial-based) life before that still stands. then he had a rebirth as li xiangyi, disciple and swordsman to his shifu and shiniang, and later died again when li xiangyi the sigu sect leader took over. lxy the sigu sect leader died at sea in the battle 10 years ago and came back as li lianhua. (just like nezha, died after battling at east sea and rebirthed from the lotus) li lianhua then dies by the end of the drama.
there can be a myriad of interpretations as to what exactly happened to him, including the possibility that he's still alive. regardless, we can agree that li lianhua as an identity has ran its course, and he had to evolve again. but into what form?
in the line of thought of yin and femininity, and how his transformation has been in an increasing degree of presentation of femininity - even way back when I was watching the show, I had the idea of him living socially as a woman post-li lianhua. I don't know what he would be realistically doing or what could be practical for him in such an identity. but conceptually it was sensible and compelling to me before diving deeper into the details. (I have more elaboration to do on this that I won't be talking about here publicly but it is in the same strain of idea as this other comparative meta I wrote.)
I think the next possible identity lxy can assume - alive in the material realm or not - is one that will be beyond a material being. a nameless entity. once you've gone through the phases of life - from not knowing to knowing, and perfecting knowledge, then to the surpassing of knowledge - you surpass all worldly existence, and become one with the cosmos.
I end this off with an excerpt from Tao Te Ching's Chapter 41 (I'm not pretending to have read the whole book ok but I couldn't resist including this):
明道若昧,进道若退,夷道若纇 [...] 道隐无名 The bright path seems dim; Going forward seems like retreat; The easy way seems hard [...] The Tao is hidden and without name. (x)
the character translated into "easy" is the same 夷 yi of li xiangyi's name. somehow this seems to encapsulate the journey of his life: one that seems blessed and smooth-sailing but ending up to be rocky and turbulent. but at the end of the day, after all that he had been through, he will become hidden and without name.
#莲花楼#mysterious lotus casebook#lhl#lhlmeta#my posts#a big win for the inaction fandom. lxy would have been patron saint#this inevitably turned into a 'lhl is a taoist and buddhist story if not a very chinese story' meta hbhjbjhbhjjb#the last thing i do before going to sleep is write this meta. the first thing i do after waking up is write this meta.#i feel so insane writing this. it kept growing like a monster. do you think this is a joke it's like my part-time job now#but it's one of the few times in my life i have confidence in my insanity. so.#crazier thing is. this meta is approaching 6k words yet i still think there must be things i haven't covered.#the last section is so nuts idk how i even wrote it guys i think i was possessed#it's also like the most pretentious way to put that he's dead in this world ok hjbjhbhjbhjbjbh#to be clear iirc the drama didn't say LXY'S POWER/ENERGY IS YIN in the same way it literally said dfs's energy is yang#but it's definitely implied by the explanation of the flower's healing properties for both of them. on top of yangzhouman#also fuck. another reason he didn't choose to save himself was so dfs could have the yang flower which he believed was what dfs wanted#thank u frens mark and ana for indulging my brain in the first time i brought the lxy as woman thing up. for it to have come this far#ofc disclaimer is that a lot of this is my own reading. it doesnt have to be agreed by everyone#i would be very happy though if any part of it resonated with anybody#also a good part of the analysis is based on my memory of the show. though i did revisit parts selectively to verify. sooooo. yeah.
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kalopsia1sblog · 8 months
Text
“Ants’’
Dazai x Fem! Reader x Chuuya
Voyuerism, Deepthroating, Cum Eating, Orgasm Denial, Inappropriate use of ants, Threesome, Fingering, oneshot
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Being in the ADA has calmed Dazai down from his previously apparent sadistic nature. Now, it only became visible whenever he was fucking you and cruelly manipulating your orgasms to his pleasure. This past time he had pulled you into the nearest alleyway and flipped up your skirt, bending you over and roughly pushing his deft fingers into your wet folds and stroking your clit.
“Wow, so greedy for me already.” Dazai snarkily murmurs, kneeling down to see the slick leaking out of your pussy. You whimpered, pressing your hands against the wall as he continued to stroke and occasionally pinch your nub, almost letting you reach your high. When he suddenly pulled out his fingers and gripped your waist taking away your first orgasms you whined desperately.
“J’ wait a second f’me, okay? I wanna try something.” He grinned heartlessly as he pulled a jar out of his pockets, and while you tried to twist around to see what he was planning to do, he reached over to grab your jaw and force you the other way around again.
“So impatient, just let it be a surprise.” Dazai groaned as you felt a curious crawling over your thighs as a sharp shooting pain went through you. Crying out from the uncomfortability, you felt Dazai’s hands leave your waist as he pressed his fingers against your thighs repeatedly. Looking down you saw ants crawling over your legs and Dazai killing them just to smear the blood over you. Tears leaking from your eyes, you saw his sadistic smile as he took one of the ants and left it on his finger as he drug his hand across your pussy, letting it bite you more before he squashed it. The pleasure of his long fingers mixed with the pain of the bites led you to complete your orgasm. Panting, you didn’t even notice that someone else had entered the alleyway, and was watching your encounter with Dazai.
“Oh? Chuuya, what a surprise!” Dazai sarcastically said. “What, you want to join?”
“You really are a shitty guy, you know?” Chuuya tutted as he walked over and pulled your hair, tilting your head back to look at him. “She’s much too pretty to be your slut.”
“Ah~ so rude Chuuya,” Dazai woefully remarked, as he fisted his dick, preparing it to thrust it into you. “She enjoys it well enough.”
Chuuya rolled his eyes as he stuck two of his fingers inside your mouth, pleased when you started sucking them, the squelching sounds making him hard. His eyes roamed over your body, seeing the ant bites and how they were quickly swelling with fluid. A heat began in his core as he imagined you filled with his fluid. Pushing your head down to his dick, he groaned as you sucked his length, deepthroating it and swallowing his cum. You lifted your eyes and saw Chuuya’s head was leaned back against the wall, clearly about to cum. Feeling Dazai’s rough thrusts into your pussy, your moans were strangled as your mouth was stuffed full of Chuuya’s cock. After he ejaculated, you swallowed his thick load, and your mouth was finally released from the full feeling. You could feel Dazai about to reach his limit as well, and when he cummed, your core was filled to the brim with white. Chuuya and Dazai helped you to stand up as Chuuya knelt on the ground and started to eat you out, his tongue licking deep inside your pussy. Dazai tilted your head up as he kissed you needily, still tasting Chuuya in your mouth.
Breaking off the kiss, Dazai tauntingly said to Chuuya, “How’s the taste of my cum, huh?”
Chuuya glared up at him, white ropes dribbling down his mouth, as he continued to deeply suck and lick your needy pussy. You orgasmed over him, and once he finished licking it off his lips, he replied, “I can only taste her, shitty Dazai.”
In a delirious state, you could feel them carry you out of the alleyway and to a nearby hotel so you could properly rest after having been used so thoroughly by the both of them.
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A/n: Why did I write this.
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