#the clever devil {Xia}

[wrestlingisfake]

Smackdown Fake Rankings, 12/26/2022

Men's singles division - babyfaces

Drew McIntyre

Sheamus

Ricochet

Braun Strowman

Rey Mysterio

Men's singles division - heels

Roman Reigns (WWE world champion, WWE universal champion)

Gunther (WWE intercontinental champion)

Sami Zayn

Solo Sikoa

Santos Escobar

Unranked: Angel Garza

Smackdown's key storylines are a) "WHO can stop Roman Reigns?", b) "WHO can stop the Usos?", and c) "WHEN will Sami Zayn's unlikely alliance with the Bloodline collapse?" None of these questions are likely to be answered before April, and I'm not even convinced they'll be blown off in 2023 at all.

So I could argue this roster isn't doing enough to set up strong babyfaces that can dethrone the heels, but it doesn't matter because WWE has settled into a very long-term formula. Arguing that Smackdown is overdoing the Bloodline would be futile; for better or worse, that's the brand now. It'd be like saying that AEW has too many little flippy guys, or that GCW needs to cut down on light tube spots.

Men's tag team division - babyfaces

Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods (NXT tag team champions)

Top Dolla & Ashante Adonis

Ridge Holland & Butch

Men's tag team division - heels

The Usos - Jimmy Uso & Jey Uso (Raw tag team champions, Smackdown tag team champions)

Cruz Del Toro & Joaquin Wilde

Erik & Ivar

Ludwig Kaiser & Giovanni Vinci

Sending Kingston and Woods to NXT is clever, but it's a bit of a kludge for a systemic problem. WWE can't think of anything for a top tag team act to do except make a run for the tag title or break up. It makes no sense to split the New Day or book them against the Usos for the hundredth time. So the only idea they have is to put the New Day in the hunt for a different tag title. Which works for now, but eventually you have to come up with compelling non-title storylines for everybody that's not on top. WWE can do this with the men's singles division but it's still too lazy to do it up and down the tag team and women's divisions.

Women's singles division - babyfaces

Raquel Rodriguez

Shotzi

Emma

Women's singles division - heels

Ronda Rousey (Smackdown women's champion)

Shayna Baszler

Sonya Deville

Xia Li

Women's tag team division - babyfaces

Liv Morgan & Tegan Nox

I'm not sure where the Smackdown women's division is headed right now, although it probably won't matter until after the Royal Rumble. Morgan and Nox have been established as a unit but they seem to be feuding with Xia Li, who cost them the tag title but doesn't have a partner yet. So maybe Morgan/Nox focuses on Li/???, or maybe Liv gets back in the hunt for Rousey's title and Nox vs. Li becomes a singles feud. It's pretty bad when your tag division is wavering between one and zero active teams.

No TV, PPV, or streaming matches in 30 days: B-Fab, Bray Wyatt, Drew Gulak, Humberto Carrillo, Jinder Mahal, Karrion Kross, LA Knight, Lacey Evans, Mace, Madcap Moss, Mansoor, Natalya, Shanky, Shinsuke Nakamura, Zelina Vega

Part-time/semi-retired: John Cena, Goldberg, Pat McAfee

Inactive

Big E (neck - C1/C6 fracture)

Charlotte Flair (storyline - wrist injury)

Naomi (suspended)

Rick Boogs (right thigh - quadraceps/patellar tendon tear)

Sasha Banks (suspended)

Banks is reportedly a free agent starting January 1, although I don't think everyone will be convinced until she's actually off WWE's roster and appearing for other promotions. I would assume Naomi is in the same boat but nobody's reported anything on her status.

I don't think Charlotte has appeared for WWE at all since Rousey "broke" her wrist on May 8. I could see them saving her return for the Royal Rumble, but for all I know she could be unavailable for other, unreported reasons. We won't know anything for sure until she's back.

The last I heard on Big E is that the doctors want to wait until March 2023 to check how his neck is healing. That probably rules out a return to the ring at Wrestlemania in April.

[wham-bam-thank-you-jam-wrestling]

WWE Championships (Part One)

Okay, here's the deal: as I write this I am getting set to watch the 8th August episode of Raw. When I have finished watching, or perhaps whilst I am watching, I am going to give my thoughts on the state of play for each of the existing WWE Championships followed by how I think they should be booked over the next few months, maybe all the way to Wrestlemania 39. There might also be some wrestler-specific digressions along the way because I do love a good tangent.

Before I do either of those things, however, can I say how great it is that these championships, these titles, these... belts, are meaningful again!

Also, because I'm watching the opening segment as I share these preliminary thoughts, I will quickly say that (a) the women's divisions, on Raw in particular, are absolute fire right now and (b) Dakota Kai and Io Sky are absolute weekly highlights for me.

Alright, here's my thoughts on the belts:

24/7 Championship

Get rid of it. Enough said.

Women's Tag Team Championships

I'm excited for this tournament, which is kind of a crazy thing to type. Of course, I am a big fan of tournaments and their story-telling potential, something I am going to elaborate on soon. Hopefully. The bracket is solid, the pairings are interesting and there should be some good to great matches. The inclusion of Nikita Lyons & Zoey Stark is something I didn't anticipate. I'd suggest Toxic Attraction is more "ready", but I'm just a guy who watches wrestling. Plus, they needed another heel team to balance the bracket, and Lacey Evans seems to have been told to stay off TV for the time being.

On the left-hand side of the bracket, I think it is pretty obvious that Sky & Kai advance to face Alexa & Asuka in the semis. In my opinion, it is the former who need to advance to the final, with them being presented as a legit tag team, as opposed to two moonlighting singles stars such as their competitors. I also think that they should have the easier path to the semis, with Nikki A.S.H. and Doudrop needing a good showing far more than the comedic duo of Tamina & Dana Brooke.

The right-hand side of the bracket is a little more difficult to call. Before the matchups were established, I was hopeful that Sasha Banks & Naomi would return and make it all the way to the final of the tournament for the Championships that they never lost in the ring. The matchups we have though... well, I'm not sure how I want this to play out. If I have to choose something that I would like to see and would make for a good story, I think I'm going to have to pick Raquel Rodriguez & Aaliyah to defeat Natalya & Sonya Devile in the semi-finals and face the Sky & Kai team in the final.

Xia Li & Shotzi don't make for a natural tag team (though they're not the only pairing in this tournament to which that assessment applies) and they don't appear to be the kind of talent want to or need to push right now. Lyons & Stark could get the underdog run, but once again I do not think they're ready. They're also still young and they are babyfaces, which wouldn't make for the most compelling semi-final. Deville & Natalya on the other hand, well at least one of them feels like a solid showing or two away from being a consistent threat to upper mid-card and even main-event talent.

So, that leaves us with a Dakota Kai & Io Sky vs. Raquel Rodriguez & Aaliyah final. I don't think I need to type out who I think should win this matchup and be crowned the new WWE Women's Tag Team Champions. Rodriquez and Aaliyah can put up a little bit of a fight, particularly Rodriquez, who should continue to be pushed in the Smackdown Women's division, but in the end, the heels should score the, dare I say it, clean pin on Aaliyah.

As the newly crowned champions, Sky and Kai should be given a substantial run with the belts. They should be positioned as clever, crafty and talented title holders and should come out victorious in television and premium live event matchups against a variety of teams from the tournament bracket. Not all the victories need to be clean, but they do need to portray the champs as professionals who know what they're doing.

After that? Well, that's where I would bring back Sasha & Naomi. The former champions should be the first big test for the new champs. Whether that test comes at Day One, the Royal Rumble or Wrestlemania, that depends on how much WWE can get out of some of the smaller programs with their existing roster and whether or not they can establish or bring onboard any new teams in the coming months.

Ultimately, I believe that Sasha should be put into a main event-level singles program for Wrestlemania, one that she wins and that Naomi should join the Bloodline in order to freshen up her character and that stable as a whole.

WWE Intercontinental Championship

The good work is already underway with this title. Surprisingly enough, it started under the previous regime.

The best path to take here is to stay the course. Gunther needs to hold the title until Wrestlemania at the very least. He should be given quality, increasingly difficult challenges from former Intercontinental Champions and up-and-coming babyface talent alike, but he needs to continue to retain and he needs to do so cleanly. Should a credible opponent emerge, one that shouldn't be given the belt but does need to be protected to an extent, then some shenanigans are acceptable, but overall Gunther needs to be dominant. He needs the Roman Reigns push.

After that, I don't know that the answer is there right now. It could be Gunther's associate Ludwig Kaiser in a slow burn face turn. It could be Madcap Moss or a returning Rick Boogs, if they can improve their work rate. It could and probably should be Xavier Woods. It could be someone from Raw who is ready to breakout. In any event, it shouldn't happen for a while, but when it does it needs to mean something.

United States Championship

Look, I'm not a fan of former WWE , World or Universal Champions holding one of the traditionally secondary titles. That said, Bobby Lashley does make for a good choice as United States Champion. And I fully buy into the John Cena comparison here; Lashley is in that sweet spot where he makes for a believable champion who can elevate the prestige of the title and the reputations of his competition. However, and I'll be blunt here, there are far more interesting talents that are already at or need to be elevated to the main event level than the Almighty,

And this is why I think Bobby should remain the United States Champion for the foreseeable future. Exactly how long that is doesn't need to be expressly agreed upon right now, but the eventual title change needs to mean something in much the same way as the eventual IC title change does. The only difference between the two situations is that Gunther's title reign should probably be his one and only run with the secondary title before he is elevated to monster heel on the main event level, whereas Bobby is more someone who should stay at this level, for the most part, occasionally pinch-hitting in the main event scene.

What's the difference between the, you might ask? If anything, Bobby Lashley deserves to be higher on the card than Gunther because he is arguably more over with fans and his matches are far more representative of what WWE generally like to see their talent deliver in the ring. My response to these valid arguments is that Gunther is 34 years old, just hitting his wrestling rime, Bobby Lashley is 46.

Bobby has most probably hit his ceiling in terms o all the skills required to be at the top of a wrestling card. Yes, he is more over as a babyface now than he has been in his career, but I just don't see that continuing for long. His ringwork is fine, but it's never much more than that. His mic work has never been a strong suit and it feels like it is heading in the wrong direction listening to some of his solo promos.

Walter's promo work is behind Lashley's at present, but he has shown signs of improvement over the past few months, and the work he has put into other aspects of his character gives you a good indication that he is the sort of person who will keep working to improve. As far as in-ring work goes, Gunther has almost always delivered, his style suits his character far more than Bobby's does, and he can be relied upon to deliver better matches, more consistently and against a wider range of opponents.

All of this is to say that the United States championship should stay around the waist of Bobby Lashley even longer than the Intercontinental Championship should stay around the waist of Gunther and that even after Lashley loses it to Montez Ford, Angelo Dawkins, Chad Gable, Otis, Ciampa, Logan Paul or whomever, he should stay in that title scene.

Undisputed Tag Team Championships

Should the Undisputed Tag Team Championships be split and should we return to having Raw Tag Team Champions and Smackdown Tag Team Champions? That's the question that needs answering before a plan is made for who the Usos feud with over the coming months, who they eventually drop the titles to when they're done, and who enters the title picture after that. I don't want to waste too much time on answering this question because to me it is pretty simple. The title unification happened less than 6 months ago and there are barely enough established tag teams to support one set of belts. These two facts alone tell me that we keep the titles unified for the time being.

The only argument for two sets of titles that makes sense to me is the utilisation of talent argument. That is, with two sets of titles to target, more wrestlers can be involved in meaningful matches and programs. However, that can actually be done without extra belts, just write better segments for tag teams and have more competitive matches in the division. I also think that it is a bit of a tail-wags-the-dog argument in that, first, you establish teams, a division and a pecking order, then you think about installing a second prize for which to aim. It's the same reason I think the Women's division would have an Undisputed World Championship and two brand-exclusive secondary titles, rather than two world championships and tag tea championships, but I digress.

Right now, The Usos are the champs and given that The Street Profits didn't defeat the at SummerSlam and seem to have their own story playing out outside of the tag division, I don't think those titles would change hands anytime soon. WWE needs to build this division quickly with 2-3 teams who can credibly stand across the ring from The Usos. Right now, I don't know that there are any tag teams who are qualified to do just that. Even the teams sitting a tier below that believable title contender level - we're talking The Viking Raiders, Alpha Academy, any two of the Brawling Brutes, and Los Lotharios if you're being generous - won't work right now because they're heels.

I will quickly note that I haven't included the Mysterios, RK-Bro or the New Day in my considerations here because, in my opinion, these are all singles wrestlers who have been moonlighting (for lack of a better word) in the tag team division over the past 12 - 18 months. I'm alright with teams like this having a title reign every now and again - the RK-Bro reign with the Raw Tag Team titles was very good - but they shouldn't be a fixture of the division in the long term and when they've had their moment they should move on.

So, who is up next for The Usos? Who takes the titles? And when does this title change occur?

Firstly, despite what I have said previously and in previous posts, you're going to have to put The Usos against a non-tag team pairing for their next couple of marquee matches. It's not ideal, but it is a direct result of the tag division being neglected for so long. After Clash at the Castle, where I don't think there needs to be a Tag Team Championship match, there are three more premium live events this year. I think The Usos need to hold those titles for the rest of the year. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think Day One 2023 is where they should finally drop the belts.

Let's say that the ridiculous "brand supremacy" nonsense is dropped from this year's Survivor Series and The Usos are instead involved in a traditional Survivor Series match with Roman and Sami Zayn. They can go up against Drew and the other top three babyfaces on Smackdown. Drew can get his heat back by eliminating Roman. Sami can somehow be the sole survivor, annoying the Bloodline who were looking for a reason to kick him out or end their association, and setting the table for the Sami Zayn face turn.

This leaves two PLE's or which The Usos need a Tag Team Championship challenger. The first of these, which will be at Extreme Rules, should probably be against Drew McIntyre and a mystery opponent because Drew is sick of The Usos interfering in his matches against Roman. Who is Drew's mystery partner? Take your pick from these five options: Ricochet, Madcap Moss, Kofi Kingston, Shinsuke Nakamura and Pat McAfee. All these men either already have beef with the Bloodline or are a segment or two away from drawing the Bloodline's ire. Easy example, Ricochet wins a television tournament to earn a Smackdown title shot against Roman Reigns but loses due to interference from The Usos.

The second defense should be against a team or quasi-team from Raw. this one would take place at Crown Jewel. Again The Usos are the Usos, they're everywhere and they're annoying, so it's not hard to match someone up against them. For this defense, which is pretty much 3 months away, we simply need two Raw babyfaces who have a loose connection with each other and with The Usos. AJ Styles and Dolph Ziggler tagged together a couple of weeks back and are both amazing workers who could put on a brilliant catch with The Usos, so they're two of the options. Rounding out a top six options list, because that's how many people I considered for Smackdown, are Mustafa Ali, Riddle and Edge. (Side note: OMG the Raw babyface brigade is a shambles right now.)

Next question. The team that should take the titles from The Usos is... DIY. That's right, Johny Gargano is going to return, Ciampa is going to turn face and this already been a tag team with a tag team name and tag team aesthetic are getting a feel-good victory at Day One as well as a title reign that lasts through Wrestlemania 39. The team that finally defeats The Usos needs to be a beloved babyface team, which DIY is, because of who The Usos are and because 80% of the established tag teams in WWE are heels.

Post-Day One, DIY can feud with two or more of the heel teams I mentioned earlier. And throughout all of this, the mentioned-above teams, the yet-to-be-mentioned teams like The Judgement Day and Maximum Male Models, and a handful of brand new teams, are being built up through competitive matches against each other and squashes of local talent. I'm giving the Wrestlemania match to Alpha Academy, because Chad Gable should ALWAYS be given a featured spot, with the team to defeat DIY probably the Viking Raiders, because those guys have had to put up with a lot of shit and I really don't see either of them being future singles stars.

Right, that's five of the eight WWE title belts and I have written A LOT of words. I am going to put a pin in this for now and come back with a Part Two where I look at the two WWE Women's Championships as well as the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship.

I hope this has been an interesting read so far. Thanks for allowing me to fantasy book for a bit.

[carnivore-ivy]

A Harem Fight AU (crossover with Empresses in the Palace and its sequel)

In Antient China, the system of Imperial concubine was more like civil servant system. A girl who wanted to be an imperial concubine needed to be aristocratic(mostly) and passed a lot of exams(mostly). After entering the palace, they needed to begin with a basic level as assistant secretaries, then they would get promote or demote. As the Permanent Secretaries have their own department, high level concubines, such as Princess Consorts could have their own palace. They also had same things like KGB, KCMG to show their characteristics (usually the good ones, such as gentle, clever, beautiful)

Humphrey: referred to Huafei华妃, who was proud and beautiful. She thought the Emperor loved her, and she loved him a lot. But He just pretended to love her so that he could use her family’s power. These sentences are adapted from Huafei’s famous lines:

1. Even though I am not allowed to be nominated, I have been nominated many times.

2. Everyone is not afraid of the Prime Minister, and I am not afraid

3. There are so many political advisers, they make me angry

4. Have you ever tried to be bothered with phone at 4:00am?

Bernard: ZhenHuan 甄嬛 in early age. Because they both looked cute but clever and a little bit bad lol. The sentence is adapted from ZhenHuan’s famous lines:

It depend on your kindness to accept me; it depends on my wisdom to keep balance in politicians and civil servants.

Arnold & Robert Armstrong: ZhenHuan in late. Because they are all devils and made people scared lol. The sentences are also adapted from ZhenHuan’s famous lines and it’s just to show how frightening they are.

(A lot of work I need to do so I decide only introduce 1 in the third pic)

Edward Bridges: Ruyi如懿. Ruyi was the Empress of Emperor Qianlong. They loved each other when they were young but later Qianlong met more beautiful girls and forgot his promise to Ruyi. A little bit like Edward and Churchill’s story.

Luke: Qi guiren祺贵人. A beautiful but stupid girl, who finally was thrown to Cold Palace when she irritated the emperor. Just like Luke, who finally was thrown to Tel Aviv.

Daniel Hughes: Xia changzai夏冬春. Another stupid girl who finally was given yizhanghong( 3-feet red, a punishment that hit one’s leg to bleed 3-feet long earth) by Huafei. Seems like him.

John Halsted: Jin Yuyan金玉妍 A Korean spy in palace who devoted her entire life to her mother country just because the prince of Korea smiled to her. The outlook of John Halsted is inspired by @oh-yes-minister , but I give him a totally different story lol just like Yuyan.

The line: I don’t want to see him unhappy. I want to see him smiling, just like the first time I saw him.

[itsbenedict]

Miscellaneous NPCs from the arc we just finished up- the party went to investigate the disappearance of a Marine admiral (at the behest of someone else who wanted her name cleared for murdering said admiral), and found out she’d gone and lost control of some crazy devil fruit power and turned into a killer forest that’d consumed the island of Suzhen Dao. Pictured:

Toby Fower, an innocent logger with the Fahai Logging Co. who’d recently arrived and been attacked by some very deadly trees (and was rescued by the party)

The generic lumberjack NPC template for the Fahai loggers, who’ve all got a suspicious military bearing and wear sunglasses

Barn Paulian, scary boss of the loggers with a devil fruit power that makes him unkillable- that’s a bullet scar on his forehead. How intense is this logging company??

:)

Oh, okay, these two guys (secretly one guy moving very quickly so you only see one side of him at a time) are(is a?) Cipher Pol 4 agent(s) the party ran into earlier, and yeah this whole logging company is totally a front for a secret police coverup intended to finish off the forest admiral lady before she can spill their secrets, isn’t it?

:(

Elder Qing Xiao of the village of Broken Bridge, who hired the party to escort him to the Goddess’s tree up on Mount Emei to hear a prophecy (and was convinced all this “actually a Marine admiral” business was just some clever test the goddess was putting him through)

Xia Hoka, warleader of a split faction of Suzhen Dao islanders who lived in the forest and got attacked by the loggers

Gibson Reach, a member of the Beast Pirates left behind on the island by his crew for inexplicable reasons a year ago, who has now stowed away on the crew’s ship as a “ＮＯＲＭＡＬ ＢＯＸ！！！” who you can definitely trust to not move or do any unusual non-box behaviors. Absolutely nobody wants this guy to be a recurring NPC and they’re going to have to learn that sometimes you don’t get everything you want.

[sentainokyodo]

[[Okay, some quick notes about Xia’s mom in the carnal dreamers verse:

Xia’s mother was an angel of death, and one of the oldest and most powerful. However, she became curious about life and gave up her divinity willingly to become human. She can still sense when someone will die, especially if it is soon, and can ease the passing, but cannot summon any of her other powers.

Xia’s power hasn’t fully manifested as anything yet, and mostly just lashes out as pure power, causing damage around him. While the chains partially contain his power, he’s only getting stronger as he gets older. He does have his mother’s death sense, and if people get too close to him, his power lashes out against him in an attempt to protect him.]]

[egelantier]

snowflake challenge day 8

share a favorite piece of original canon (a tv episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much. i was going to write about gintama, but naye had just perfectly covered the episode that sold me on the show as a whole, so you can read her version instead, and i'll try to talk again about nirvana in fire, the interrogation sequence, which is literally one of the best thing i've ever seen in any kind of visual media.

spoilers!

so, the whole thing happens about thirty episodes in, and by that time i was deeply sold on the show, but after it i was absolutely rabidly in love with it. the sequence of events that leads up to that scene is one of the most emotionally painful in the entire show (there are about ten minutes that i flat out refuse to watch and skip): jingyan, expertly manipulated by his enemies, decides that mei changsu the cold strategist had let jingyan's mother be hurt for the sake of his plans, and it's one of the lines he can absolutely not abide to be crossed. so he cuts all the ties with mei changsu in a very horrible scene and storms off to execute a plot-related suicidal rescue plan on his own. mei changsu (who doesn't even know by this point what was the problem, he was mostly unconscious for three days, okay) goes after him and, after a long and beautiful and tense standoff in the snow, browbeats jingyan into accepting his help with the rescue plan. jingyan does so with the face of supreme sourness (that he will pay, and pay, and pay, and pay, and pay for later, getting well-deserved shit from pretty much every. single. person on the show, i love it), and at some point mcs starts to mention one small, insignificant detail of the plan he comes up... and then stops himself waves it away. one tense and clever rescue after, it turns out that this insignificant detail was the fact that by executing his plan he puts himself under the sure risk of arrest and probably torture by the local KGB and one of the main antagonists of the series, xia jiang. by the time jingyan clues in, mei changsu is arrested and taken away for questioning, and nobody can do anything. the moment of arrest was when i started making teakettle sounds at court_of_ocelot in chat. xia jiang's people storm mcs' manor with a lot of soldiers and noise, but the gates open without resistance, and mei changsu stands in the courtyard, alone, ready to meet them, completely serene; he walks between the bewildered soldiers with such supreme, beautiful unconcern, towards something that could be his very doom, and just. oh man. (then, because it's nirvana in fire and they know their stuff, xia jiang comments to his underling, in undertone, 'this man is very weak, give him a blanket, he can't die yet,' and this is why, if you play a drinking game consisting solely of 'somebody comments on mcs' frail heart' rule, you will still die of liver failure ten episodes in). so! okay! that alone was a good entry into my mental hall of fame of images that began, probably, when teeny whee me saw luke skywalker get electrocuted by palpatine in the formative age. but then! but then there's an actual interrogation. mcs meets up with xia jiang, one of his most dangerous and terrifying enemis, in the middle of his territory, in the place of horror and torture, somewhere they both explicitly refer to as 'hell', and... begins with dissing the quality of his tea, as one does. he drops the humble sir su the polite strategist mask and takes out another - a sly, clever, ruthless, terrifying mei changsu - and from this place of utmost defeat, utmost weakness, calmly and thoroughly dismantles xia jiang's entire existence. the interrogation takes place over two episodes, and by the time it's over xia jiang is the one in chains, utterly ruined. there's a moment when xia jiang visibly switches from gloating to abject terror, because he realizes that he was fishing and caught a leviathan and is about to be devoured. it's so beautiful to watch it's almost insulting, it's divine. a lot of time when people write genius characters, they do them by dumbing down their antagonists, letting them win by authorial fiat. but xia jiang is a real opponent, a a real thing, a devil in the middle of hell - and in the heart of his kingdom he's brought down to nothing. by a man who can be killed by one tiny blow. my damn heart. (must... resist... rewatch number five...)

[sentainokyodo]

v: carnal dreamers

If Liang Xia ever had a guardian angel, they never showed up for their job, and his mother isn’t sure if she should be grateful or not. After all, she’s not sure if her son’s existence is something Heaven would tolerate.

Xia’s mother wasn’t really a fallen angel... It was more of a choice to give up her divinity, out of a fascination with humanity. While she still has some lingering divine power, and the truth of who she is coded into her very being, she mostly just seemed like a spiritually powerful human. So when she did eventually fall in love and have a son, she wasn’t expecting what happened any more than her human partner.

Xia’s father and his family are not exactly what one would define as good people. But because of giving up her divinity, his mother never sensed that until the day they took her baby from her and locked her away. They intend to use his power to better themselves [not that they needed to be any more well off].

But Xia isn’t quite so easy to control, mostly because he has very little control himself. He tries visiting his mother, but because of how she is imprisoned, she can only help him so much. And the same power that keeps her contained prevents him from freeing her.

So his family recently reached out to Tanba Reiko, paying her extra to keep it quiet, to find a way to contain Xia’s power. Souji is pretty sure this is well beyond his abilities, but his mother accepted anyways.

[sentainokyodo]

[[While we’re on the angst roller coaster, I think it’s time I talked about Akio’s mom. There’s a read more because she’s... awful, and emotionally abusive, and no one should have to read that if they don’t want to.]]

Suzuki Kanada Asami met Yuuto in high school. Under pressure from his homophobic and just over all asshole of a stepfather, Yuuto accepted her confession and they started dating. She controlled pretty much everything about their relationship, but seemed nice and pleasant to everyone else, including his parents, and seemed mostly pleasant to him too. 

She ended up pressuring him into sex when they were both eighteen, and when she got pregnant, his stepfather insisted that he marry her. So they did, and Akio was born, and for a little while everything seemed fine. But as Akio grew older, Asami became more and more critical of everything and everyone in Yuuto’s life, especially his siblings. He ended up withdrawing from contact with them for the most part, only seeing them at family functions. His contact with his sister almost completely stopped after a particularly nasty fight between Haru and their stepfather caused her to stop attending family functions as much.

As Akio continued to grow, he noticed his mother getting more and more critical of him and those around him. If he tried to speak up in defense of anyone she criticized, she would automatically turn the criticism on him and make him feel guilty for talking back to her. However, she would only do this when they were alone, claiming that she only trusted him with this knowledge, while secretly doing the same with his father. When they were together, she would act the part of a caring and loving

When he was ten, Akio finally confessed to his uncle what she was doing, after making Right promise not to tell. To this day, it is the only promise Right has broken with Akio. He went straight to his brother, who confessed that she treated him similarly, and went off to find his wife.

He ended up catching her in the middle of berating Akio, and told her to get out of his house, and that this was the end of their relationship. She ran to his stepfather and mother, and got the stepfather on her side, causing the rift that was already between the stepfather and mother to finally splinter. Yuuto and Right’s mother ended up divorcing their stepfather shortly after Yuuto and Asami were divorced.

Asami did not fight for custody over her son, and has not reappeared in front of them since.

Neither Yuuto nor Akio will talk about her unless absolutely necessary, and the rest of the family follows suit.

[sentainokyodo]

[[Also, here’s a Xia.]]

[sentainokyodo]

[[Okay, so some information of Xia, Right, and a bit of Tokatti come Densetsu Sentai Ikimonger:

Xia and Right are currently living together. Right broke up with Zhen shortly after Hikari did, partially due to a conversation with Tokatti. Tokatti and Right’s friendship has only strengthened due to their relationship with Hikari, despite some initial uncertainty. And after Hikari and Zhen broke up, Tokatti confessed to Right that he was honestly a little relieved because he always felt that Zhen hated him, and he definitely made him uncomfortable whenever they were in the same room. While this didn’t make Right leave him right away, the words stuck with him, and he started noticing some things that he had shrugged aside, which eventually led to him asking Zhen if they could take a break. The break never ended.

Xia stayed with Zhen even after that, maybe partially just out of a sense of loyalty. He is close friends with Tokatti to this day, as well as a regular patron at his library, and he began to realize that Tokatti was rather uncomfortable at even a slight mention of Zhen, and Right tended to really obviously change the subject if he brought him up. And when Yuuto separated from his wife [which I will talk about more in another post], Yuuto talked about how she had never liked his family, or really anyone around him, and how it was hard to be in a relationship with someone who didn’t respect or like the people important to him. And while everyone had tried to not make Xia feel uncomfortable, the facts of the situation were hard to avoid. So Xia asked Zhen if he could have a little space to figure things out, and asked for the same from Hikari and Right. 

Xia and Right have restarted a romantic relationship, although not an actively sexual one. It’s mostly just a lot of cuddling and some kissing and lots of love and support. Xia does miss being with Hikari, and remains friends with both him and Tokatti. He carries some guilt over Zhen’s attempted murder, as he felt he should have seen it coming, as he knew Zhen the longest.]]