#He is so terrible it's funny as heck | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

supernovasilence · 1 year

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Ok we all talk about the Pevensies' trauma at returning to Earth at the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and their trouble readjusting to life there again but think of all the funny/good parts too

They return from the country, and their mom is surprised when all her children hug her at the station. Even Peter, who thinks he's all grown up. Even Edmund, who went away surly and withdrawn. She doesn't know her children haven't seen her in over a decade.

They miss their dear Cair Paravel, but they absolutely do not miss its chamber pots. Indoor plumbing is amazing.

It takes a while to remember how modern technology works, though. How many heart attacks did the siblings give their parents or the professor because they walked into a dark room only to turn on the light and find the children sitting there in the dark. (They were by the window! There was still plenty of light from the sunset! They would have gotten a candle in a minute!) The kids sheepishly remember oh yeah electricity is a thing.

(Edmund has a new electric torch in Prince Caspian. He was so excited to get that torch. Almost more excited than you'd think a kid his age would be, and his parents expect Peter at least to tease him, but the siblings all agree light in your hand at the touch of a switch is terrific.)

Suddenly getting really high grades in some subjects and terrible in others. Their grammar, reading comprehension, spelling, vocab, even penmanship? Amazing. History and geography? They don't remember anything. One time in class Susan forgets Earth is round and wants to die.

Also they can never remember what the date is supposed to be because Narnia uses different months and years. They can estimate time really well by looking at the sun though, and Edmund at least can always tell which way is north etc without thinking about it (again, using the sun)

Okay but how many times did they go to pick something up or reach something and realize they are so much shorter and less muscled than they expect? It's a common sight to see Peter climbing on counters to reach a top cabinet, grumbling about how he's High King this is demeaning. (No he never takes the extra five seconds to grab a stool. He will climb that shelf.)

Peter and Susan being delighted because they are no longer almost thirty. (In a few years Edmund and Lucy will tease them about being old and their parents will not understand.)

Lucy doesn't have to deal with periods anymore for a few years yet. Susan might not either. Heck yeah

Lucy loves to climb into her siblings' laps and be cuddled. In Narnia she eventually she grew too big, but now she is small and snuggleable again. Peter is her favorite, and if she's upset, he'll tickle her and tell bad jokes until she's smiling again, but really she loves cuddling with all her family. She grew up without her parents; how many times did she just want to crawl into her mom's lap and her mom was a world away? Imagine the first time she realizes she can now. Or, imagine one day, a cold and grey sort of day, when the rain is pattering against the windows, and it sounds like the rain on the windows of the Professor's house, that first day they went exploring. It sounds like the day they played hide and seek. It sounds so like the rain on the windows of Cair Paravel, that if Lucy closes her eyes she can imagine she's back there, having tea and chatting with Mr. Tumnus before the fireplace of her room, and soon the rain will stop, and they will go out on the balcony and wave to the naiads and the dryads and the mermaids, who have come out to enjoy the rain and visit one other on the banks of the Great River winding past Cair Paravel down to the sea.

But if Lucy looks out the window, all she'll see is the rain over London, so it's not only a cold and grey sort of day, it's a lonely sort of day too.

Susan and Edmund are playing chess in the living room (and they must have studied with Professor Kirke, thinks their mother, because they certainly weren't that good when they left). Lucy goes over to Edmund, and oh dear, thinks their mother, now he's going to call her a baby and be horrible to her, but instead he picks her up and puts her on his lap without even taking his eyes off the chessboard; it's simply a matter of course.

"Doesn't the rain sound familiar?" says Lucy in a solemn, wistful way.

Their mother doesn't know what that means, but her siblings must, because Susan says, "Yes, Lu, it does,” and Edmund gives her a little hug with his free arm as she tucks herself under his chin to watch the chess match.

(Five minutes later there is a crash from the next room as Peter falls off a counter. Their mother does not understand the words he must have picked up from the Professor, but he's grounded for them anyway. His siblings have no respect for their High King, because they refuse to stop laughing.)

#the chronicles of narnia #narnia headcanons #peter pevensie #susan pevensie #edmund pevensie #lucy pevensie #helen pevensie #the pevensies #okay this did end up a little bittersweet at the end but I tried #let's all just focus on the high king falling off counters alright #and yes the siblings all picked up narnian swear words and i refuse to believe otherwise #i'm also suddenly wondering how much language drift there is in narnia #when the pevensies return in prince caspian are all the swear words/exclamations they learned outdated?#are they using the narnian equivalent of oh horsefeathers?#nova actually posts stuff #long post //#the higher the queuer #post lww pevensies #soft post lww headcanons

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ikiprian · 21 days

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there’s a lot of interesting stuff that can be made by examining the objectively scary stuff the robins face in a realistic light, but also? i really like the robins making trauma jokes. humor’s a coping mechanism that makes a lot of sense for them, given their previous role as the lighter side of batman. and, perhaps more importantly, i think it’s funny

Dick: did you just house an entire family-sized bag of chips? by yourself, in less than an hour?

Jason: as an orphan, i qualify as a family of one

Steph: but you died too, so that would make you a family of zero

Damian: multiple of us have died. it doesn’t make anyone special. i, however, am naturally special, on account of being heir to the batman

Steph: ah, heck. well, i’m no longer special, guess it’s time to fake my death and flee to africa

Dick: are you really heir to the batman, though, if bruce kicking it anytime soon would just put me in the cowl? which is a terrible job, by the way, to which nobody should brag about being heir?

Tim: hey, guys. has anyone seen my chips? i coulda sworn i…

Jason: [makes direct eye contact as he tips the bag up, funneling the bottom-bag chip crumbs into his mouth]

Jason: oh, sorry. did someone take something from you? steal it, perhaps?

Tim: [deep breath]

Tim: do you want guns batman. because this is how you get guns batman

Dick: [muttering] at least someone wants the job

#kipthought #and both extremes (incredibly serious and sad vs incredibly casual and silly) are my favorite #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #stephanie brown #damian wayne #batfam #i guess less batfam and more specifically the robins #sorry duke-cass-babs i love u guys blows kiss

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writingmeraki · 2 months

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here and now.

a kim mingyu drabble !

pairing : secret!agent!mingyu x secret!agent!reader, established relationship ( they are married )

genre : angsty with fluff :)

warnings : reader is pretty miserable, cussing, cheol is mean but annoying mean, petnames, kissing, unhealthy routines.

author's note : ohhh i can't let go of these two, i rlly jst like this au a lot lol, i wonder if you would want more set in this same au, lmk hehe :) hope you like this !! but also the fact that i have other wips but i can't get this specific couple out of my head ???? very self indulgent bcoz tell me why i want this mingyu with me rn. also third work this month...let's hope we keep balling like that!!!

set in the SAME universe as this !

word count : 1.6k

The world was miserable.

You wanted to curl up in a ball and just lay in your bed, sleeping until you could no longer differentiate between reality and dreamland.

But alas, you couldn’t. As an agent, sleep to you was like a reward. One would think a need should never be something you get once in a while but, your job was practically making all your essentials feel like rewards.

Mayhaps not the healthiest, but you were already used to it and your body as well, so you were not truly affected when you couldn’t get any of your essentials.

Though, you were sure the world felt more miserable because you hadn’t seen him in so long.

Kim Mingyu, the man you married. Your husband.Your other half, your other puzzle piece, your other- you get the point. Six months, twelve days, and ten hours since you last saw him.

He was gone on a mission that was supposed to take no less than a month, but who were you kidding? Who was your boss kidding? Top priority missions always took up time.

The thing that still pisses you off is why you weren’t allowed to go with him.

Apparently, you were needed back in Seoul and not there was the bullshit reason. You spent enough time being annoyed and angry at that, now you just felt terribly upset. Upset without him in your life physically, sure virtually he was one message away, but being on the complete opposite side of the globe also meant time zones were a pain in the ass.

Sighing, you made your way into the tall building disguised as one of the offices but it was where your agency was. You held a cup of coffee, that was just as bitter as your mood, in fact you didn’t even like coffee, but today you felt no point in trying to uplift your mood because the only thing that would was a certain person who you were not even sure when you’d meet.

It was not you who felt this way, in fact Mingyu was probably feeling worse. Having been someone whose love language was physical affection, it did not feel the same through a fucking screen. He was ready to quit actually, three months into it because he terribly wanted to see you, but you convinced him he’d be back sooner if he finished it.

You knew you were lying to him and yourself, but you had no choice. This was your duty right?

The boss’ office was still as peculiar as he was, never failing to amuse you whenever you’d enter and always finding new collections or items decorating it. Today, you saw an art piece that was of the sun and the moon.

Everything reminded you of him. He was your sun, even your moon too.

You frowned more at the thought, wondering how the heck were you not able to not think of him for a few minutes. Then again, perhaps being together for more than a decade would do the trick. You’re practically bound permanently by that point.

Sitting down on the cushion chair in front of Seungcheol, you didn’t even bother greeting him, still in thoughts until you heard a chuckle from in front of you.

“What’s funny?”

“You look extra miserable today.”

You glared at the man, annoyance changing into anger with retorts about how he’d feel if he was kept away from his partner for this long, considering he was someone who was pretty boastful about his partner.

“But- I did not call you for that. I have a special mission for you. And no, I don’t have any updates on Mingyu.”

You groaned at his words, considering what he said was just getting worse and worse as he spoke.

“For this though, you’ll have someone with you. You’ll be needing another person to complete this task. They should be arriving in a few minutes.”

“Please don’t be a rookie, I don’t have the patience to deal with one, not right now.” You figured you couldn’t not do it. It was your job after all. But perhaps he’d be a little considerate.

“Oh don’t worry, I think they are pretty experienced, maybe even more than you.” He grinned but you couldn’t quite put a finger on what he meant. His eyes gleamed with something you couldn’t tell.

“Just say you hate me, Cheol. It’s easier.” You bitterly spat out, taking a sip of the now cold coffee and frowning in distaste. It seemed it was up to par with your state.

You leaned back, looking at the watch on your wrist, seeing it’s been a few minutes already and wondering just how long this person would take.

You tried to pinpoint who it possibly was, but you were never good with names of people you might have seen in passing. That was more of Mingyu’s thing, he always remembered the forgettable things.

The sound of the door opening was what made you perk up. You sat a little straighter, feeling like perhaps you shouldn’t make it outwardly obvious to the entire population how you were truly feeling.

Seeing the chair pull, you didn’t bother looking besides you, feeling that seeing them from the corner of your eye was enough. They were a little further from you, but you could tell they were quite…large? They were wearing a cap and a mask, practically their entire body was covered with a black coat. It was suspicious and you just wondered if this was just an excuse for Seungcheol to have you murdered in a discreet way.

Seokmin…? No, he's almost my height, probably Chan?

You didn’t even realise the person had taken your coffee, pulled off their mask,took a sip of it and almost spat it out.

“Baby this is actually so disgusting, since when did you drink this?”

Wait.

You recognised that voice.

He kept the cup back down on the table in front of you, wearing that very very familiar ring on his left ring finger.

You think your brain short circuited at that very moment.

Now you knew why Seungcheol had a sly grin.

The fucker planned this.

In all his glory, Kim Mingyu sat beside you, now seeing no point in wearing the cap, he tossed it off and threw it on the table. He shuffled his hair, which was now longer than you last saw it.

“Missed me?” He had the audacity to say that with his stupid canines peaking out, wearing that stupid grin that made you feel giddy all over and the stupid glint in his eyes that shone as he took you in.

Stupid, stupid, stupid Mingyu for making you feel like throwing up in all mixes of emotions.

So in the mix of it, you just remained frozen. Eyes blank, nothing on your face physically to indicate any emotion.

“I’ll leave you two…just don’t do…stuff.” Seungcheol retorted and your hands itched to strangle him.

Before you could even comprehend you were now alone, you felt your chair being pulled to face him. Your mind still in disbelief and conflict.

“Hi.” He spoke gently, his hands now reaching towards yours and grasping them. It had been way too long since he smelt your signature perfume, held your hands in his with the same intensity, felt your touch. He thinks he might just die in peace now.

“I’m just trying to figure out if I’m dreaming.” You murmured as you blinked slowly at him, still unmoving even though he now was bent down and closer to you.

The grin on his face widened as he leaned in, and next thing you know, you felt his lips on yours.

Familiar…just like…home.

He pulled back, still smiling as he softly laughed, “Real enough, darling?”

Mingyu wasn’t someone who was caught off-guard easily but he was the moment you launched forward and wrapped your arms around him. He yelped as he held you, surprisingly not toppling over.

You didn’t even grasp you were full on sobbing at that point, your entire body shaking and held you even more tightly. He stood up, one arm around your waist and the other gently rubbing your back.

“I’m here now, I’m here.” He whispered softly as his hand caressed your hair, you moved your arms to wrap them over his shoulder as you placed your head in the crook of his neck.

“i-i really-” missed you. I felt incomplete without you. I just…I really missed you. I really fucking love you.

You wanted to say as cheesy as it may have sounded, but cheesiness be darned you couldn’t hold back, not when the time apart made you realise that it didn’t matter if it was just another way of showing your love for him. You also realised Kim Mingyu deserved all possible ways of showing your love for him.

“I know, ‘s okay baby, I know.” You only sobbed harder as you pulled back, not caring how you looked, probably a whole mess with red eyes and tears all over, his arms were still around you as you held his face with both hands.

He was there. You thought as you caressed his cheeks. He was there. You thought as he looked at you like he’d finally found his treasure,eyes twinkling, smiling at you.

And he was there, right there, with you as you tilted your head up, closing your eyes and placing your lips on his.

Because no matter what or how long, Kim Mingyu would always find his way back to you, his other forever half.

And oh, you’d make sure he was never apart from you from then on. Not even for a day.

all written works as well as images and edits (unless credited) belong to pri. do not plagiarise, repost, re-edit or claim as yours. pics mostly found on pinterest.

feedback is always appreciated 💌

links : main navi ! | svt masterlist !

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drak3n · 4 months

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THE LOST LOVE

ꨄ. SYNOPSIS: two lovers who went seperate ways years ago… one of the cases we love most!

ꨄ. CONTENT WARNINGS: exes to lovers, angst, hurt/comfort, age gap (reader was in college & toji in his thirties when they met), dad!toji, breakup, implied divorce, insecurities, smut, unprotected sex

bold italic quotes = letter excerpts

PROLOGUE. | SERIES MASTERLIST.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ♡•°`.

“i like to think that meeting each other was like a breath of fresh air. for both of us. wouldn’t you agree?”

wake up. go to work. get home. eat. sleep. repeat.

toji’s life was a vicious cycle, one of a middle age man with no goals in life. it was funny to him how people would actually call that a life.

the only times he truly felt like he was alive was when he was seated on the bleachers watching a good old horse race. or a boat race. or whatever it was that he had bet money on.

no one understood him.

toji knew that life rarely gifted him anything. he was no lucky man. in the many years of betting and gambling, he seldomly won. and the money he had won those few times was enough to cover the ticket and perhaps a nice dinner.

and although knowing he was probably going to leave empty-handed, he did it for the thrill. it made him feel youthful again. like he hadn’t wasted his years on useless things that aged him faster than he had hoped to. like he was still the same old teenager he had been years ago.

it wasn’t until one fated day that he found out that there were other things that could bring him back to his youth, other than doing useless crap that only burned a hole in his pocket.

said thing being you.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ♡•°`.

“the way we met wasn’t really romantic. it wasn’t like a scene out of a movie or a novel. looking back, it was quite comedic, even. i’m sure you felt the same way.”

there were a lot of terrible things that came with being a busy person, one of which you were facing right now. standing in front of a ridiculously long line at the grocery store.

you ran out of basic ingredients for cooking, it was a saturday evening, and you really did not want to order takeout again for a third time this week.

standing in front of you was a group of drunken kids — by kids you meant they were around your age, maybe in college like you — but they were different. they seemed carefree. they used their time to have fun and laugh instead of constantly grumping and punishing you with more work than you had.

you wished you could be like them, too. at least sometimes.

what made you get out of your train of thoughts was the sound of an item being placed on the conveyor belt, the rattling sounding too familiar for your liking. another person who hated cooking, so it seemed. and another person who barely had enough change to get a cup of instant noodles.

it was a man — you heard from the occasional sighs and grunts leaving his lips, and the way his cologne wafted over to invade your senses.

why did you suddenly have the urge to turn around and bond with this random stranger? perhaps hit him up with something like ‘heck, youngsters these days, right?’

absolutely not. that would be goofy as hell. and judging by how slowly the like progressed, you were likely going to stand here for at least ten more minutes. you would rather die than make a fool of yourself and then proceed to stand here for even longer afterwards.

oddly enough, the huffing stranger beat you to it. your breath hitched in your throat at the gruff voice sounding.

“s’cuse me, little lady.”

a bulky arm shot forward from behind you, making you step aside to grant him access to the side of the conveyor. you cleared your throat, turning around with an apologetic smile— and damn was he hot.

he looked quite a bit older than you, and he looked quite… distraught. sleepless, deep green eyes, unruly jet black hair that looked like he hadn’t gotten cut in a while, and a stubble gracing his jaw and chin.

you hated romanticizing people who weren’t feeling their best. so, you quickly snapped out of it.

“sorry for hogging the conveyor.” you chuckled, trying to lighten up the tense atmosphere as everyone else in the line was quite angry. the man gave you a halfhearted smile, scar on the right side of his mouth stretching. you wondered how he’d gotten that scar.

“don’t worry ‘bout it,” he waved your apology off, slightly motioning at the impatient woman huffing and puffing behind him. “someone’s just very fuckin’ annoying.”

you couldn’t help but chuckle at his words. then, your eyes wandered to the conveyor, staring up to meet his again. “you can get in front of me, sir.” you offered kindly, already moving to make some space in front of you, “don’t have to wait even longer for a single item.”

the surprise in his eyes was a dead giveaway that no one had been polite or nice to him in a long time. before he could make it obvious, he shook his head, uttering, “s’fine. thanks.”

but you insisted, for some reason. it wasn’t until he was standing in front of you, cup of ramen placed in front of your groceries, and the seething woman now standing right behind you, that you were happily smiling.

the man walked off after paying for his noodles when the line finally progressed what felt like years later, not even sparing you a glance. you were barely able to contain your disappointment as you bagged your groceries and shuffled outside of the store, ready to take the train back home with full hands.

just to see the man from the line in the grocery store thumbing at the instant noodle cup’s lid, lit cigarette dangling from his lips.

his hands wordlessly approached yours to take your bags of groceries, not even frowning at the heaviness of them, as he let out a puff of cigarette smoke.

“i’ll drop ya off, little lady.”

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ♡•°`.

“our love was fierce. characterized by sleepless nights, stolen breaths and undying passion.”

ragged breaths filled the air of your small bedroom. it was dark, perhaps around nighttime, and the air was thick with sweat, arousals and the sinful smell of sex.

a lazy kiss was exchanged between you two with swollen, trembling lips as you settled down in each other’s arms. your eyes were shut as toji moved a little to light a cigarette.

your fingertips traced over his bare, built chest, post-orgasmic glow making his handsome face look even prettier. you were convinced he was the prettiest man you’d ever seen in your life.

“are you staying for dinner?” you asked, voice hoarse and quiet from how he had formerly railed you into your mattress. toji wasn’t a gentle lover. the word soft was very foreign to him. but you didn’t mind that. you didn’t mind him squeezing your hand too tightly whenever he held it. he didn’t know any better.

he exhaled the cigarette smoke away from you, large palm settling on the tender, bruised flesh on your hips. his thick, rough fingers traced over the softness of your skin that he had grabbed and kneaded mere minutes ago while manhandling you.

“sorry, baby,” he mumbled into your hair as you already knew what was coming, “gotta go. i’ll stay over next time, promise.”

you wanted him to stay, you really did, but with a sigh, you watched as he got dressed and left — not without pulling you into another kiss. missing the way his eyes twisted with a hint of guilt as he shut the door to your apartment behind himself.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ♡•°`.

“you weren’t a man of many words. you didn’t like talking too much about yourself. but you’d always listen to whatever i’d say. and whenever i wasn’t up to talk, we’d relish in each other’s silence. it was calming.”

“how many girlfriends have you had before me?”

the silence surrounding the air on your balcony after your question made you reconsider if it was a smart thing to ask.

it wasn’t. since when was it okay to talk about exes? you remembered it as one of the most off-putting conversation topics to ever come up with.

toji’s bare arms were propped up against the metal railing, gaze wandering from the unspectacular sight below him that consisted of old, run down buildings and sketchy streets, to you.

he knew it was too late to tell you the truth. he pressed his scarred lips together in regret, before opening his mouth to respond to your question.

“many.”

he saw the way your nose scrunched up at the ugly word — he wished it had been the truth. much better than hurting you with a fucking lie. made him wonder how you’d react to the truth.

“c’mere.” when you didn’t make a move to approach toji, he pulled you into him, dwarfing your body in his form. “you’re not mad, are you?”

“how could i ever be mad at you?”

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ♡•°`.

“there was just one thing i wish you had just told me from the beginning. you know, i actually knew the entire time. i was just waiting for you to tell me.”

“dad, the show’s about to start.”

toji was now a couple of years older, about to celebrate his fourth decade of living in a few weeks. he wouldn’t admit that he was getting older. he had just plucked another gray hair from his scalp this morning, but no one had to know that.

sock-clad feet padded from the kitchen to the living room, bowl of salted popcorn in his hand as he placed it in front of his college-aged kid. toji was in awe at how the brat was becoming more of a carbon copy of himself the more years passed.

the only difference being his spiky, wild hair and blue eyes he had gotten from his mother.

“we’re not watching a match today?” toji sounded rather bored as he leaned back on the couch with a can of soda in his hand, legs finding the surface of the living room table as the younger man munched on sweets.

megumi shook his head, eyes focused on the screen that was still playing some shampoo commercial. “have you ever heard of TATMYLB?” the green-eyed man beside him narrowed his eyes at the obnoxiously long abbreviation, .

“kid. i don’t understand your language,” he grunted, “i’m headin’ out if it’s another high school rom com.” said boy only snorted as he pointed at the tv that happened to be playing a trailer of what was going to be playing next.

“reading today… TO ALL THE MEN YOU’VE LOVED BEFORE’s 26th letter!” toji kissed his teeth. of course it was going to be some sappy ass show. why was it so popular anyway?

he raised from the couch, scratching his belly lazily under his sweater as he pointed to the door with his thumb. “gonna check the mail,” he uttered, “we haven’t emptied our mailbox in days.”

megumi hummed, too immersed in what today’s live episode was going to be about. just as toji approached the door, curiosity got the best of him, and he found himself listening.

“unfortunately, she won’t be joining us today, but we have received a beautifully written letter by her! what a lucky man to have been loved like this.” the host spoke gleefully as the audience erupted into cheers and applause.

“our writer is a 29 year old lady from tokyo, a journalist for a very popular newspaper, which explains her splendid writing,” the co-host added, “she has met a man she refers to as her LOST LOVE nine whole years ago.”

toji set his keys down on the shoerack and walked back to the living room. megumi took notice of his dad walking back and smirked. “caught your attention, old man?” he only scowled at his son and placed his hands on the back of the couch.

the stage was beautifully built, and one could tell how much budged was spent on it all. it was a hell lot of pink, too much for toji’s liking — then again, any amount of pink was too much for his liking. the hosts were dolled up to the max, host dressed in a baby pink, frilly dress with her hair done up while the co-host was dressed in a pink suit.

“adding on to that… we have not received an answer or a reaction from the recipient.” a glum round of oh’s echoed across the studio, which made toji snort. “which doesn’t have to mean anything, of course! perhaps he’s just terrible at checking his mail.”

megumi stopped mid-chew as he side-eyed his father, who shot him a look. “old man, you don’t think—” megumi might have been young, but he had a very good memory of his father’s past lovers. especially that one woman who had changed him forever. you.

although he had never met you, he could tell it was you who had a huge impact on his father. and he figured that toji never opened up about having had a son.

“don’t be silly, bud,” toji laughed, reaching over to steal a handful of popcorn from the bowl in his son’s lap. he didn’t even like popcorn, why the hell was he eating it? it had to be the most annoying snack in the world with how the shell of the kernels always got stuck in one’s gums or throat.

you must have moved on years ago. it’s been almost a decade, for fuck’s sake. perhaps you were married already. had kids. he hated how the thought made his jaw clench. it was none of his business anymore, after all.

“mistakes. we all make them. so far, we have had a lot of letters speaking about wrongdoings,” the host clapped her hands together, “but how about keeping secrets? crucial ones?”

of course they were going to drag it on. what a bunch of clowns the audience was for eating it up. he totally wasn’t, not with the way he was clutching the couch cushions in anticipation.

he just wanted to know it wasn’t you, so he could move on in peace. because if you have moved on, then he shall do the same.

the audience was then asked to talk about their experiences with secrets in a relationship, before they started guessing what the person might have done.

eventually, an elderly woman received the mic and laughed. “it wasn’t another woman, so,” she paused, “i’d say hiding a child.”

the two hosts opened their mouths before knowingly looking at the audience, and toji cleared his throat. by now, megumi was fully facing his father, a look of disbelief on his face. before he could speak, toji raised a palm.

“i said don’t be silly,” he warned megumi, “it’s not me. jesus.” megumi shook his head before raising his palm to invite his father to a handshake, challenging him to a bet, “fifty bucks if it’s you, then.”

toji could never say no to bets. maybe he should have checked his mailbox first, though.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ♡•°`.

the show was halfway through, currently on a commercial break as you found yourself in the kitchen to prepare yourself a cup of instant noodles. the sight of the cup still brought you back to day you had met toji.

before you could open the lid of the cup, you were halted by the sound of your doorbell ringing. leaving behind the sounds of your kettle whistling, you approached tye door to look through the—

your hand immediately flew to the handle to fling the door open. to stare right at the man you hadn’t seen in over seven years.

there was a lot both of you wanted to say. he wanted to apologize for having disappeared out of nowhere, for having abandoned you when things had been going so well between both of you; while you wanted to slap him, cuss him out and scream at him.

alas, all that came out was a choked sob on your behalf. a sound forced out of your throat, displaying the despair you had felt out of the lack of closure.

toji watched with wide eyes as you broke down in front of him. he wanted to make you happy. or get yelled at. anything but you crying. fuck, he was terrible at this.

toji was only ever good at leaving. that’s what he had done back then when his family no longer served him; that’s what megumi’s mother had spat at him before she left.

screw the past. screw all of his fears. he had waited far too long to come clean. you didn’t deserve this at all.

“i’m sorry.” he breathed, taking a step closer, now partially surrounded by the warmth of your place that hadn’t changed in the slightest. “i hid him from you because—”

you shook your head, trembling hands raising to wipe at your reddened eyes, “i don’t give a damn, toji.” he shut his mouth, because respectfully, you had all the right to be angry.

what he didn’t expect was for you to chuckle through tears. “stop looking at me like that,” you pointed at his lips, “that stupid pout of yours…” he had a habit of pursing his lips whenever he was distressed. you hadn’t forgotten about it.

when you stepped aside to welcome toji inside, he was baffled. “‘course you didn’t read the letter,” you sneered, which made him look down grimly, “if you had, you’d know that i could never be mad at you.”

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ♡•°`.

you didn’t ask toji to, but he told you everything. how he had just gotten divorced when he met you, and who had fought for split custody the entire time. who couldn’t have you over at his place because of the child’s room he had.

it wasn’t like he was ashamed to have had megumi. he considered him one of the very few good things in his life. but, he couldn’t risk scaring you off. not when he had found someone as perfect for him as you.

and when things got serious, he did what he knew best. which was to bolt.

it wasn’t a surprise to him that you already knew. he had the wrong idea of you by thinking you’d push him away just because he had a son. now he knew that you could have been the best stepmother megumi could have asked for.

if he hadn’t blown it all.

“so he’s in college now?” you were smiling as you were both situated on your couch. toji feld oddly calm looking at you. you hadn’t changed much.

“this was us at his high school graduation,” he couldn’t help but smile too as he showed you his phone wallpaper. the thought that you could have been on that picture too made your smile fade for a second before you found yourself melting at how proudly he glanced down at his son in his crinkled button-down shirt, one arm lazily slung over the boy who looked at the camera with an irritated, forced smile.

you wondered if megumi would have liked you and already accepted you as his stepmother if toji hadn’t left. wondered if you two would have been married by now—

thoughts like those were useless now.

it happened so fast. like the force of two magnets attracting each other, it felt like you were pulled towards each other. a mumbled ‘i missed you’ left your lips before they planted themselves on his, both of you getting lost in the sensation of the other’s lips.

toji’s lips tasted like salt and popcorn, whereas yours tasted of the peace of candy you had popped into your mouth while waiting for the water to boil.

ah… right. the water. the kettle had stopped whistling a while ago. but both of you were busy sucking each other’s faces to notice that.

you were sat prettily on toji’s lap, hands running across his muscles hidden by his clothes. the only sign of him having aged were the tiny wrinkles on the corners of his eyes. other than that, he still looked like the 31 year-old toji you had met in the line of the grocery store.

he was the same man you had given your heart to. and you were eager to do it all again.

your clothing was shedded in a matter of minutes, hastily and in a rush. it felt like you were being intimate with each other for the first time all over again with wide eyes and shaky hands.

toji pressed you into his chest as he slid inside of you, and it seemed like the world stopped for a while. toji didn’t do soft, he wasn’t gentle. but you could swear you saw nothing but softness and adoration in his eyes in this very moment.

once he started thrusting up into you, your hands straddled his face, fingers digging into his skin as if afraid to let go. toji saw and felt the fear in your eyes, and he took both of your hands to place soft kisses on them.

“‘m not leaving again,” he grunted, relishing in the tightness and warmth he was buried inside of, “promise.”

you whimpered, nodding as you pulled him into yet another sensual, messy kiss while you worked each other through your releases. out of all the times you and toji had sex, this had to be the rawest, most intimate time.

it wasn’t fucking. it was love-making. the kind you’d never expect from a man like toji.

he stayed inside of you after both of you came, buff arms trapping you as you listened to his slowing heartbeat as both of you trembled. neither of you wanted to move, if you could, you’d stay like this forever.

toji’s lips against your temple pulled you back from your daze, and you reached for your underwear to avoid a mess, sighing softly when he pulled out of you. “shower?” he asked, to which you nodded lazily.

before he could lift and throw you over his shoulder, you placed a kiss on his collarbone.

“let’s eat instant noodles and rewatch the episode after that. since you haven’t read the letter—”

oh, toji was never going to hear the end of this.

but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ♡•°`.

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artist-issues · 5 months

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I Saw Wish

And it was the worst animated Disney movie I’ve ever seen. I have to watch it again before I can get into the nitty gritty details. But I don’t need details to sum it up, because my dad actually said it perfectly as we left the theater:

“It was like someone who didn’t really understand Disney movies tried to make a Disney movie.”

Both the form (the technical arts of filmmaking) and the content (the morals, values, and themes of the movie) were totally horrible.

I don’t know who’s fault it was. Jeremy Spears was in the storyboard room and Mark Henn and Eric Goldberg did some 2D animation. But they must have gotten outvoted, or they must not care anymore.

Because holy cow. Here’s some stuff that’s just off the top of my head.

SPOILERS. Not that it matters, because nothing interesting happens in this movie.

The writing? Terrible. Ninety percent of it feels like the characters are filling time with quirky one-liners that are trying too hard to be appealing, then failing, then taking you out of the movie. The jokes aren’t funny. The characters just respond to each other in conversation to check a one-liner box. The other twenty percent is whole conversations repeating tell-don’t-show exposition that has already been covered, usually twice, in previous scenes. Like if in Tangled, every scene had included some variation of Rapunzel saying to friends and enemies alike, “I have to see the floating lights so I’m sneaking to the castle with this thief who wants a mysterious tiara I hid from him. Don’t tell my mother, she’s a bit overprotective!” Over. And over. And over.

The character motivations are way too broad. Asha? Her dream is just “that everybody around me gets to be happy.” That’s it, in a nutshell. No deeper exploration of that. Nobody asks, “why do you care so much?” Nobody tries to convince her she should look out for herself, and then she proves she was right all along. The King? We are told (not shown) that he doesn’t want anyone else’s dreams to be “destroyed.” But he in no believable way expresses that that motivation is still what’s driving him during the movie—what’s driving him is just a plain old lust for power, no nuance.

By the way, the whole premise of the movie? Undercooked. Half-baked concepts strung together with no definitive meaning. Therefore, it’s not believable. Example: The characters act like the wishes are beautiful—well, actually, no, this movie doesn’t know how to show, so there’s not a lot of meaningful acting—the characters just tell us that wishes are “the most beautiful part of someone,” and that’s why it’s worth going through this adventure to give their wishes back to them. But there’s no proof of that in the movie. In fact, it directly kicks it’s own legs out from under that idea, because it has every character who gives up their wish forget that part of themselves. Asha’s grandfather has forgotten his wish, but that doesn’t make him any less “beautiful.” She, and everyone, still treats him like he’s this wonderful old man who deserves the world, who everyone loves…but why is he so appealing? If he “gave up the most beautiful part of him?” The only character who is changed by their lack-of-wish is the Sleepy-analogue character…who is just sleepy, which is described as “boring.” But nobody else who’s given up their wish in the whole kingdom acts like that. It’s just him. Also, the King acts like it’s so important to protect the wishes from destruction. But what does destroying a wish look like? That actually happens to Asha’s mom. Her wish-bubble is broken, literally, and she just says she feels grief. But like. Why? She never remembered it in the first place; it had been missing from her life for years. Also, what the heck is a wish?! It seems to range from broad concepts like “inspire people” to “fly.” Just “fly,” like a bird. The desire to levitate off the ground is the most important, beautiful essence of one background character. Like, what?! But no character ever has the why behind their wish to make us care.

I could go on and on about that point. Like, think about Disney movies that wrote the book on how to make movies about characters with wishes. If Ariel were in Wish, her bubble would look like “dancing and learning and exploring on the Surface with someone who understands her.” But we believe that that is her real, genuine wish, and that it matters to her, because we are shown why being understood is so important to her. Because it’s missing from her life. There’s a scene where she explores a boat alone, and even her best friend doesn’t get excited about it with her. Her dad won’t listen to her point of view. Her siblings don’t ask her about her life even when they think she’s in love. She wants what she wants because of pieces of her life that we are shown.

We are never shown why Asha’s grandfather is obsessed with inspiring people, so we have no reason to believe it, or care whether he gets it or not. We can’t feel disappointed when his wish is said to “never come true,” like we did when Quasimodo was abused by the people he wished to join. We can’t feel elated when he finally “gets” his wish, like we did when Simba smiles on Pride Rock remembering the same way he used to as a cub and claims the crown with a roar. We don’t have anything to hang on to, nothing to relate to, nothing to grasp and feel with the characters. So we don’t feel, because they didn’t put the work in to help us feel. They just say, “the mom’s feeling grief. Feel grief.” And expect us to do the work ourselves. I have to stop harping on this point and move on.

But The main point of the movie is very broad because of that lazy premise, and it’s barely reinforced by any kind of appealing storytelling. If I had to guess, the point would be “Keep wishing for more even when it’s hard.” But the story they told to communicate that meaning was so unimpactful. Asha doesn’t have a dream of her own that’s such hard work to accomplish! (Neither does her grandfather; his wish is “to inspire people.” And at the end, we’re supposed to see him strumming a guitar and believe it’s inspiring? We were never shown how he worked hard to learn how to play the instrument. Or that he carved it with his own hands, or anything like that. So there’s no meaningful demonstration of working hard for it or achieving your wish even if it’s far out of reach.) And nobody except the king is trying to take wishes away from anyone, and he just does it literally, after they voluntarily give them to him, so there’s not even any impactful demonstration of “don’t let anyone tell you your wishes are dumb or unachievable, or stop you from reaching them.” Even when he takes them away, it’s just because they…could, someday, be used to threaten his kingdom in a vague, really unlikely way. There are so many things you could do with “keep wishing for more even when it’s hard.” For instance; you could say the main character has always been afraid to dream (wish for more), because maybe when she was a kid something wonderful almost happened but ended in tragedy, so she keeps her head down and doesn’t want much because if you don’t dream you’ll never be disappointed. She takes no risks, and has to learn that sometimes trying and failing is worth more than slogging through life all self-protective. I mean, the pieces were right there. She has this line about her dad, and how she wished he would get better but then he died. She has lines about how nobody should have to live with grief?? Then that’s never addressed again! It’s just a throwaway emotion-moment with no buildup or follow-through to tie it to and support that main theme.

The compositions of too many shots were so terrible. Characters got cut off in weird places. One shot has Asha dead center, with her grandfather on the left side of the table and her mother on the right, having a family dinner with a super exposition-heavy conversation that is meant to be emotionally charged. But despite everything else being perfectly centered, half of her mother’s body is chopped off. The movie’s shot like someone’s mom who doesn’t understand technology tried to take a video with her phone.

The charm of the art “style” wears off basically immediately. I know what they were going for. I see the sketch lines and watercolor textures. This is maybe the first time Disney ever failed to accomplish a visual “look” that turned out good. Everything looks dull. Muted. De-saturated. Slightly out of focus, but not in a cool Spider-Verse way. The sets or backgrounds are lazy; at no point does the scenery look complete; big, empty, boring spaces that do not create any kind of “stage” for impactful moments. The rendering looks unfinished. When Asha’s hair moves during her belting of the “I Make This Wish” song, it’s bad. It’s unnatural. It flops in a way that doesn’t make sense for the weight of her hair. The most impactful visual moments come from the villain, and they’re moments when he looks way too unhinged for the kind of line he’s saying.

There is no interesting character development. Asha goes from believing everyone is basically good and their wishes deserve the chance to come true , to….that, again. That would be fine, she could be a static character, if she proved contrast-characters wrong, in a believable way. But she never does. Because no other characters argue with her except the King. And it goes no deeper than “everyone’s wishes are basically good and they deserve the chance to make them true” vs. “nuh-uh, because I get to decide what makes them deserving.” The King doesn’t have any kind of interesting development, either. They don’t expand on his tragic backstory—it consists of one drawing of him near a broken boat, and a few images of the corner burned off of his family taoestry. They never say “King Magnifico wished for _____ and it was taken away!” They literally never tell you what his wish or dreams were, or what motivated him to create the whole kingdom that the movie’s premise sits on. So there’s no convincing sense of progression, how he got this way, why he’ll keep going “so far.”

The pacing is weird. It undercuts every moment that could have any kind of emotion behind it. One minute Valentino is suavely bouncing around, then he’s given a two-second beat to blubber with badly-animated tears that he’ll miss Star—then he instantly gets to have another funny one-liner so we forget he might’ve been sad a second ago. We’re clearly supposed to believe that the King and his wife are devoted to each other, and his turning evil was such a big betrayal, but there’s no time and no impactful evidence for us to believe either of those things. And even if we did, the moment he’s defeated and trapped in a mirror, and begs to be let free, the Queen kind of shrugs it off, makes a forgettable one-liner, and tells them to throw him in the dungeon. And he doesn’t look remorseful. And we don’t even get to assume he’s embarrassed or emotionally devastated that he’s come to this—because the last thing he says is “nooo, the dungeon is so smellyyy!” Like this is a half-baked LEGO short that can’t get emotionally deeper than what an actual 3 year-old’s parents might be okay with.

And that’s the worst offense: The movie is not genuine. It works hard for nothing, and it has no vulnerability. It just uses old Disney standbys to pretend to be vulnerable. Have the music swell and the characters gasp and the songs drip emotion when characters are meant to be saying or doing something emotional.

But truthfully, think of all the Disney movies you’ve ever seen with the hardest emotional moments. The sheer joy of Genie when he realizes he’s free. The anguish when Elsa thinks Anna’s been frozen forever, or when Anna thinks she’s dead. The trauma when Simba loses Mufasa. The longing and dreaming of Ariel when she reaches up out of her grotto. The sense of foreboding when Mother Gothel says “fine, now I’m the bad guy” or the heartbreak in Rapunzel’s eyes when she thinks Flynn has abandoned her, or the shame on Aladdin’s face when Jafar reveals he’s a street-rat, or the horror of cruelty when the stepsisters rip up Cinderella’s dress, or Kala’s tears when Tarzan leaves her in the treehouse, or Sarabi’s tears when Simba comes back, or Mulan’s father tossing aside the sword and token of the Emperor to embrace Mulan, or heck, even just Lilo pushing Stitch in the woods and telling him “get out of here.” This movie has no moments like that. It has moments you can tell that the filmmakers wanted to hit like that—but they don’t.

Because no work is put into building them up. You know how much Simba loves Mufasa, because you’ve been watching their chemistry more than any other character all the way up till he dies. You know how much Mulan wants to please her family because she spends all of Act I desperately attempting to do that. You know Quasimodo believes the world below is beautiful and wants them to accept him because he has interesting things like—talking to gargoyles, convincing us that he’s lonely; building a scale model of the townspeople, convincing us that he sees them in a beautiful way and wishes he were beautiful in more ways than one like them, too.

Right down to the facial expressions, none of them are as anguished, happy, sad, excited, silly, in any convincing way like all of Disney’s other movies. Asha’s “low moment” when she’s afraid her “wish” hurt everyone else (still vague on what that wish ever was) lasts two seconds, she’s not crying, she’s barely sitting with slumped shoulders, and her family barely spend two seconds comforting her. They basically just say, “aw, no, it’s not y fault, it’s the king’s.” And she’s like, “yeah okay” and that’s that. It’s like the animators we’re afraid to animate really intimate emotions on the characters’ faces. The voice actors, too.

And the whole movie is peppered with Easter eggs to past Disney movies. But all that does, if you really know Disney beyond the visuals, is make you think of how hollow this movie is in comparison. How much you wish you were watching Cinderella or The Little Mermaid or something with depth and vulnerability instead of Wish.

#I’ll talk more in an organized fashion later #wish #disney’s wish #wish Disney #wish 2023 #critique #spoilers

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milunalupin · 2 months

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helloooo, 33centaurrii here! Decided to ask anonymously (though announcing myself beforehand defeats the entire point of being anonymous) because secondary blogs can't be used to send asks. I think that's rubbish and a hassle and it's borderline criminal that Tumblr hasn't found a way to optimize that in several years from its conception

I really liked your post-azkaban Sirius and was wondering if you could write something regarding him escaping Azkaban and reuniting with reader ...the catch is that he reunites with them in his animagus form — his fur is matted and growing in odd ways, he looks and somehow smells like he's contacted some kind of disease and he's panting like crazy as a consequence of his sedentary lifestyle in Azkaban. Reader doesn't know this! Heck, reader thinks he's someone else's emaciated stray dog :')

How angsty or how funny or fluffy this goes is totally free reign to you! I've been thinking about adult Sirius way too much for wayyyy too long that I just HAD to request it

— 🌿

ty for the request ily <3 i hope you like it !

— homecoming

post azkaban!sirius x reader ★ 1k words

With a wave of your wand, the sign on the door turned from 'open' to 'closed' and the potion shop was closed for the night. You did a quick walkthrough one more time to make sure you weren't forgetting anything, and stocked up on a few potions that you were running low on at home. Once more you flicked your wand about and the lights in the shop were off. You walked out the back door and locked up, buttoning up your coat as you started your walk home. The night was chilly but the skies were clear, allowing you to see your favorite star, the brightest in the sky.

The walk to your home wasn't terribly far, and you quite enjoyed the peaceful walks down the empty trail. Suddenly a high pitched whine stopped you in your tracks, your eyes going to a wiggling bush on the side of the road. You crouched down and got closer, just to find a bloody lump of dark matted fur, it's tongue lolling out with heavy pants.

"Oh Merlin, look at you! You poor thing, can I please help you?" you gasped, tears already forming as you looked at the weary dog. You held your hand out near it's snout to let it sniff you first, but the dog pushed its face into you hand, whining as it used all its strength to lick your arm.

"Where's your owner, sweetheart?" You frowned, only receiving another whine in response. You looked around for someone who might be looking for him, but the village had been practically empty the past few hours. The dog nudged your hand again, his dry tongue scraping against your fingertips.

"Hold on tight puppy, sorry but this may feel weird." You apologized, wrapping an arm around the animal as you whipped out your wand and quickly apparated home.

The second you arrived in your flat, you rushed around to collect your healing supplies, dropping them in front of the dog, whose eyes drooped tiredly. You were lucky you saw him when you did, his injuries were terrible and he looked like he was going to pass out any moment.

He had gashes and cut all over him, some rashes and boils the result of intentional poisoning. You muttered a quick Reparifors to revert any poison in his system, the dog letting out a large sigh and few coughs. You got up and ran to and from the kitchen to set a bowl of water next to him to drink, so you could get started on healing his other injuries while he rehydrated. You dabbed a cloth with some Murtlap Essence, gently pressing it to his larger cuts, mumbling apologies as he cried underneath you.

You managed to get the dog onto the couch on you were done with the initial healing and laid a blanket over him. His larger wounds were dressed and he looked a little better after a few bowls of water. You gave him a few scratches under his chin and picked up his bowl before walking into the kitchen to refill it. Walking back into the living room you stopped dead, the metal bowl falling from your hands and clattering to the ground, water spilling onto your rug.

On your couch sat a naked Sirius Black, the blanket thankfully laying over his lap. You stood frozen with your eyes wide, your heartbeat picking up as he sat there just staring back at you, anxiously biting at his chapped lips.

"What are you- I don't- How-" you sputtered, your breaths getting quicker as your eyes watered, unable to look away from the man in front of you. He was supposed to be in Azkaban, for Godric's sake, what was he doing here?

"Hey hey, slow down poppet, take a deep breath for me, will you?" Sirius was at your side in a second, one hand holding the blanket around his bruised hips while the other hovered over your shoulder, his tired eyes staring down into your own. "You're alright."

"I- Are you alright? How are you here, Sirius?" you sniffled, raising your hand towards his face, fingertips lightly brushing over his cheekbones as you tried but failed to hold back a sob. "Merlin you're real, you're actually here."

His arm came around you in an instant, his own body shaking as he pulled you close to him, pressing kisses into your hair. "Oh please don't cry, lovely girl."

Sirius held onto you until you became too tired to cry anymore, guilty and ashamed of the man - or rather, dog - he came back to you as. It wasn't easy escaping, no it was complete and utter hell. But the first place he thought of to go was to you, how could it not be. You had been the one to dry his tears the summer after his little brother had surrendered to the pressure of his parents and received the Dark Mark, the one who held him late at night in the astronomy tower when the letters with the Black family seal were too much to handle on his own. Of course, you were just being a good friend, maybe too good. Sirius could've never confessed his true feelings back then, he didn't know if he was stable enough to hold a relationship, and he wasn't going to risk losing you in trying, so he kept quiet. But twelve years later, your hands were still just as kind and gentle holding him, his tears dripping from the tip of his nose onto your head that held the most beautiful and purest mind he knew.

"Do you want to talk about it?" You whispered, teary eyes looking up at him.

He sighed softly and shook his head. "Tomorrow love, I think we're both a little tired after tonight."

You nodded and led him to your bedroom, where you lent him some clothes to sleep in and pulled the bed covers back, sliding in and patting the space next to you. He slipped in beside you and let out a blissful sigh, closing his eyes for a moment to relish in the silkiness of your sheets and the plushness of your pillow. The two of you laid facing each other, studying the other's appearance. You reached for his hand and squeezed lightly, a sleepy smile on your face.

"Welcome home, Sirius."

#marauders #marauders era #marauders x reader #sirius black #sirius black x reader #sirius x reader #sirius orion black #post azkaban sirius

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hahskeleton · 2 months

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⚠️MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR TLAES/TSAMS SPOILERS!!!!!⚠️

Okay so WHATTTTTTTTT ECLIPSE GOT THERAPYYYYY!!!!

I know Moon made him go but I think it actually did him a little good! I’m being actually truthful, here, I think Eclipse really considered confessing a few things, but I also might be wrong. Eclipse could definitely still be putting up an act for all this but like he’s said in previous episodes, he never actually did anything he’s hated for doing. That was the previous copy of him, he’s just a replacement.

When he was asking about how Lunar was dealing with the whole *BOOM* thing and Earth was like, “We ain’t gonna talk ‘bout that” I’m honestly kinda glad. That would’ve probably flourished into a weird, long, argumentative conversation. On Eclipse’s part, tho, Earth’s pretty chill :)

When they were talking abt how Earth was coping with seeing Eclipse explode and Eclipse was like, “Yeah, how does that feel btw? Terrible? Scary?”

and then stuff happened and it led up to him saying, “You never know when your just going to go BOOM.” holy heck I should draw that. lmao I’ll probably be drawing a lot for this ep

also at the end when Moon fricking APOLOGIZED??? HUH??? Where was that hiding the whole time??? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I am so happy Moon finally said something to him, and damn it silenced Eclipse, too!

When he said, “You probably don’t want to hear it, but, I’m sorry for leaving you behind.” And eclipse DIDN’T SAY A SINGLE THING LIKE- holy moly man Eclipse I wish you actually took that relatively seriously. When that part came I was just-

ALSO when Moon said that specific line “I know you probably don’t wanna hear it, but,” we forget Sun has said the exact same thing to him before, except not him, it was Old Moon he said it to. In that episode, Sun said VERY DISTINCTLY, “I know you probably don’t wanna hear it, and I know I don’t say it often, but,”

This honestly probably means absolutely nothing, it’s just something I’m pointing it out—

Anything thing, when Eclipse first came in and Moon was like, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he was talking like he went into a dentist’s office and his kid was misbehaving. Also Eclipse is a five year old at heart and you can’t change my mind. The way he walked in and just started insulting everything and throwing sh!t around was kinda funny to me.

Also, yeah, Earth noticed he was avoiding trying to talk about himself and his problems, and she was right he was definitely doing that. He would change the subject whenever Earth asked something remotely close to his feelings or his trauma.

I have a lot more to say but I don’t wanna make this post any other than it has to be so yeah… I’ll probably post another ramble and rant post today sometime to ramble about Eclipse and lore and stuff.

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welcometothejianghu · 3 months

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Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 民国奇探/My Roommate is a Detective.

My Roommate is a Detective is a 2020 drama about the Jazz Age shenanigans of a terrible OT3: a useless noodle boy, a spoiled journalist girl, and a handsome thug-turned-cop, who together solve Agatha Christie mysteries in 1920s Shanghai.

I mean, seriously, have you ever wondered what Hercule Poirot would be like if he were a 6'2" Chinese rubber man? If he had a long-suffering sugar daddy from the wrong side of the tracks and a spunky sugar mommy who owned their shared apartment? The answer is, it would be a laugh-out-loud-funny series about a ridiculous and charming assortment of weirdos solving only slightly believable murder mysteries in charming period clothing.

This is another one of those shows where I'm kind of shocked at how not well-known it is, except I'm not, because I can see exactly the problems that keep fandom from descending on it like horny little vultures. Nonetheless, I think it's a good time that more people would enjoy if they gave it the chance. Here's five reasons why you should:

1. Equal parts smart as heck and dumb as butts

On the one hand, especially given its tone and tenor, this show has many surprisingly clever turns and thoughtful moments, carried along by some talented actors. On the other hand, [.gif of a guinea pig in a rollerskate being pushed merrily down a hallway]

This show is not a complicated intellectual exercise. It's an action comedy about a goofy sleuth, a rich-girl reporter, and the cop who should be the straight man in this trio, except he's as much of a goober as the other two are. If the promotional tableaus are giving you real "cover of a Clue box" vibes, you've understood the kind of pastiche it's pulling off.

The mysteries are preposterous. They're all the kind of thing that exemplify the Doyle line about how, when you've eliminated the impossible, whatever's left has got to be the answer, no matter how ding-dang improbable it may be. You know the type: tons of overly elaborate setups, unbelievably perfect timing, coincidental long-lost relatives, people hallucinating right and left. They're also very short -- most full cases take only 2-3 episodes to introduce, investigate, and resolve, even when interspersed with the larger goings-on in these weirdos' lives. The DramaWiki page for the show lists 23 separate arcs over 36 episodes, so you do the math.

And yet, it's way more thoughtful and clever than its doofy little setup would indicate. Its attention to detail surprised me on more than one occasion. Add to that a bunch of solid performances from an ensemble of real characters, and what you get is definitely more substantive than a junk-food waste of time. You can't turn your brain off while watching it, but you sure can turn it down, and that's great.

It also doesn't hurt that everyone is super attractive and wearing great outfits. The whole show's worth it for the wardrobes.

2. THE GIRL

Fuck the haters, fuck everyone, I am going to climb right up on my little soapbox and tell you all why Bai Youning is awesome.

She is insane. She's a troll. She's a clever little monster. Every other character's response to her is, oh my god, you are literally the worst. And she is! She has been spoiled beyond belief by her incredibly rich Crime Dad, and she has learned to leverage her uwu just a widdle girl status to get her whatever the hell she wants. She simply cannot hear it when someone says the word "no." She will look her future sister-in-law in the eye and point a loaded gun at her own head without blinking. Every ball she has is made of brass.

She's hardly perfect. During the course of the show, there are some times where her entitlement runs face-first into the brick wall of reality. She's not nearly as good at her chosen career path as she's been told (mostly by the people who get paid to tell her she's good). She's rarely prepared to deal with the consequences of her actions, especially when she can't just throw money at the problem.

So she learns, and grows, and changes. She's always going to be a stubborn bitch, but she can become a stubborn bitch with a more accurate conception of her relationship to the world around her.

She's actually a really good romantic foil for Lu Yao, who is equally stubborn and spoiled and obnoxious as hell. It is a pure brat4brat relationship, where each one thrives on comically enraging the other. What this means, though, is that when they actually start showing one another some vulnerability, it's really sweet.

Now: I'm pretty sure that you could not have made a female character in her position that everyone did not hate, no matter how cool you made her, because that is the fate of all girls who theoretically keep the two boys from kissing. (More on that next point.) If she were less outgoing and friendly, she would've been hated for being too cold. If she were less headstrong, she would've been hated for being a pushover. If she weren't as into the boy, she would've been hated for being frigid. I know the "god forbid a woman do anything" meme is a joke, but ... man, god forbid this girl do anything. She gets a level of hate entirely disproportionate to what she's actually like. As I said with Eom Dada, it's not always sexism, but sometimes, yeah, it's sexism.

(Real talk: Her character is also fighting both how she's definitely not written as well as the boys are and how the plot sometimes needs her to be artificially stupid and jealous for Straightness Drama Reasons, so that's a legit problem on a structural level. Also, she's dubbed by someone else and the boys aren't, which gives her voice an annoying not-quite-there quality that's hard to ignore. The deck is stacked against her real hard even before she steps onscreen.)

So here's my advice: Go into this show wanting to like her. Embrace her terribleness as a positive, intentional quality. Don't be mad at her for straightening up an endgame that was never going to be gay, even without her. Welcome her contributions to the chaos. Realize that she is exactly as entertainingly irritating as her boys are.

Truly, this is a story of three terrible people in love. They're all just awful, and you wouldn't want to be in a room with any of them for longer than you had to. Left to right up there, Bai Youning is spoiled and self-absorbed, Lu Yao is arrogant and lazy, and Qiao Chusheng is suuuuuch a fucking cop. If you're into the kind of dynamic that can only be described OT3: You All Deserve One Another, then this one's perfect for you.

3. Do you really miss '00s queerbaiting?

Like, really? Are you just super-nostalgic for being able to see the showrunners go, ha ha, girls, we know you're watching and we know you want these cute boys to kiss, which they never will -- but what if we pretended for just this one scene??? Do you just carnally ache for that with every fiber of your being?

Yep.

Now, why am I calling the occasional really gay moments between these two gentlemen "queerbaiting" and not "bromance"? Because these moments are a) obviously intentional, b) completely sporadic, and c) never spoken of again.

For example: There's a scene (which you can see a gifset of here) where the two of them are at a restaurant frequented by the cop, who brings a lot of ladies there on dates. When the waiter points this out, useless noodle boy says, I'm his date. The waiter looks mildly surprised by this, the cop says not to listen to his bullshit, and that's the end of it. The scene moves on. There is no further discussion of this comment. It does not affect their relationship.

That's the essence of queerbaiting: that little on-purpose nod to the homoerotic tension between the two, in a way that isn't a joke but also isn't not a joke, and either way is never going to happen. (In fact, the show is going to go out of its way to make sure that ship gets sunk, so, uh, get your fanfiction lifeboats ready for that.)

A true queerbaiting move is something that should make a difference in a relationship, but doesn't. It should make a difference that our cop is so comfortable in the noodle boy's personal space that he invades it at will. It doesn't. It should make a difference that noodle boy keeps getting real weird every time the cop has a date with a girl. It doesn't. Those are some real romantic moves the two of them keep pulling, and then nothing comes of them.

I had this show sold to me as being incredibly shippy, to the point of being even more so than its censored-BL contemporaries. And ... well, it is and it isn't. It has textually gayer individual moments, but it is much less pervasively gay. It's clear from the start that it's going to throw all its actual relationship points into its canon het romance. When it comes to these boys, the show is toying with you. It knows you want to see those boys smooch, just as much as it knows (and it knows you know) they're never gonna.

How you feel about this is entirely up to you -- and indeed, it may be a dealbreaker on the whole drama for you. If you are inclined to pitch a fit when your ship does not become canon, you'll be happier somewhere else. If, however, you see this as a delightful opportunity to do whatever the hell you want with the situation as it is presented, all the while enjoying little moments of startlingly blatant homoeroticism between two handsome dudes, well, here you are!

(I mean, if you want my take on it, what needs to happen is that the cop and the girl need to fuck while the useless noodle boy watches with asexual bisexual interest, and then they all need to snuggle with the noodle boy in the middle so they can both annoy him appropriately, but your mileage may vary.)

4. The multicultural extravaganza!

1920s Shanghai had a lot going on in terms of cultures and languages, and this show actually does a fair job of representing that.

By now, I've seen a number of shows set during this era, and they all at least acknowledge the international nature of the city -- usually by mentioning the French Concession and having a handful of evil Japanese characters. However, this is the first time I've seen a show go to such lengths to actually show so many non-Chinese characters onscreen, even to the point of making one a recurring character supporting the main squad.

Salim is the best. Whatever he is being paid, it's not enough. He's Qiao Chusheng's right-hand man, which means he is also the dude who most often has to put up the main trio's bullshit. (The actor himself is also a dude with a pretty cool backstory, which is another great layer.) He's sharp, he's loyal, he's patient, and he looks great with his shirt off. He's got it all!

Other non-Chinese characters include a white Jewish art collector (I'd issue a warning for period-typical antisemitism, except … honestly, it's mostly just confused), a sadistic priest who maybe is supposed to be Italian, a completely different priest who [last episode spoiler], and three whole sinister white dudes behind it all.

It's not just the world coming to China, though! A large number of the Chinese characters are said to have spent significant time outside of China, whether for business or for schooling. Near the end, when some characters are discussing moving away from Shanghai, they consider a number of foreign cities as potential destinations.

Here's a delightful detail: When Lu Yao and his sister speak English, they're dubbed by actors with posh British accents who sound like native (or near-native) English-speakers. This makes perfect sense, because both of the siblings did a lot of their schooling in the UK. When Bai Youning speaks English, she's dubbed by someone who speaks English very well but also has a noticeable Chinese accent, which makes perfect sense for her character's background. And Qiao Chusheng never speaks English at all, because he's a street tough who has no reason to know more than three words.

...This is also kind of weird to say about something literally made in China, but go with me on it: Everything's kind of got that Art Deco Orientalist vibe to it. It looks like China's idea of what Britain's idea of China during that period would have looked like. The result comes across less like what 1920s Shanghai would actually have looked like, and more what an ad for 1920s Shanghai would have looked like. It's a fascinating aesthetic, and more so for how it's mostly pretty subtle. The show isn't some visual extravaganza, but it's always very nice to look at, and I appreciate that in a show.

5. A wonderful horrible protagonist

A lot of mystery-themed prestige television involves an asshole genius detective who gets away with being a dick to everyone because he's sooooo smart, while all his long-suffering friends and colleagues spend a lot of time doing damage control for him because, sigh, he's an asshole but we need him, genius excuses all dickhead behavior, we'll always make exceptions for him because he's just ever so special. (Watch histrionic sage hbomberguy's video on Sherlock if you're unfamiliar with the trope.)

Lu Yao is an asshole genius detective, but one who winds up spending most of his time being an asshole to a) people who deserve it, or b) his horrible friends who will be assholes right back at him. When he is awful to the people who don't deserve it, the show smacks him pretty hard on the nose for it and makes him apologize.

This is a show where you'll figure out pretty quckly if you'll love it or hate it, because if you love Lu Yao, you'll love it, and vice versa. He carries most of the show himself, with his goofy charm and his incredibly bendy slenderman body and his ability to make the one competent person he knows both protect him and give him money.

Like so.

For my own part, I find him intensely charming, and I think a lot of this has to do with Hu Yitian's ability to play him as an affectionately bullyable weenie who needs to get shoved in a locker for his own good. He's the worst, and it's comically endearing instead of offputting because at the end of the day, he really does have a good heart. He's just also lazy as heck and disinclined to do anything that he does not want to be doing, and really, aren't we all?

As I alluded to in point 3, he comes across as real asexual. He's just not that interested in sex, and he is in fact pretty uncomfortable in situations where he finds himself the subject of someone else's sexual desires. He's perfectly capable of romantic feelings! I mean, not only does he get Bai Youning as a love interest, we actually meet one of his ex-girlfriends. He's just not partciularly horny about them -- which is even more noticeable as a sharp contrast to how extremely horny Qiao Chusheng is for just about everyone, but this exasperating little dork in particular.

(Like seriously, 90% of the time, Chusheng is about to explode with sexual frustration at Lu Yao's skinny oblivious ass.)

This isn't to say you couldn't get Lu Yao into bed, because you absolutely could, and he'd probably have a good time. You'd just have to remove all distractions from the room, lest his ADHD ass wind up running off to solve a crime mid-coitus.

Twiggy little nightmare man. Garbage-animal boy. Love him.

sidebar: A word about the ending

I'm going to be vague and talk about general vibes instead of specific events, but you should still skip this section if you want to remain completely unspoiled. Jump to the picture of Chusheng holding the sledgehammer.

Okay, so, a lot of people do not like the ending, and I'm including myself in that number. I honestly don't know if they got rushed and had to wrap everything pretty last-minute, or if they thought they might get a second season out of it and were leaving things open-ended accordingly. Either way, it's incredibly unsatisfying.

I think there's a clue that the show didn't actually want to end this way, and it's not actually in the text of the show itself. Every episode, between the last scene and the start of the credits, you get to see a couple still frames from the episode (usually some of the queerbaity ones). After the very final shot of the series, you get two images: the boys hugging goodbye, and Chusheng's upset face. That's not a resolution! That is at best a "to be continued..." ending!

But no, that's it. That's all, folks.

It's not quite an ending so bad it ruins the rest of the show, mostly because it doesn't feel finished, so it's less like you're watching a car being deliberately driven into a wall because someone thought that was the best route to take, and more like you're watching someone leave a car on the railroad tracks because they figured they'd have time to move it later.

As far as I know, there has been no noise made about a second season. These 36 episodes are the entirety of the narrative. It had the distinct misfortune to start airing in March 2020, which wasn't exactly prime time for planning sequels, and that seems to have been that. (There is a 2022 show called Checkmate that stars the two main guys in extremely similar roles, also adapting Agatha Christie stories, but it's apparently pretty meh? Somebody else who's actually seen it, go ahead and weigh in here.)

I'll say that if you turn off the episode right after Lu Yao gets out the handcuffs, you'll save yourself the worst of it the awkward and unsatisfying moments (though I'm impressed at your willpower to stop watching something five minutes from the end). That's not all of it, though. Structurally, there are several situations rushed to a resolution and loose threads left flapping untied in the breeze. I guess stopping before the last five minutes simply saves you the hope that it'll pull a good ending out of the fire, because it won't.

And let's be real: The more you hate Bai Youning and her romance with Lu Yao, the more you'll hate the ending. (Not that liking those elements will necessarily make you like the ending, of course, because I'm a fan of hers and I still think the ending is butts.) The ending is already like a pair of uncomfortable shoes; if the het romance especially makes you grind your teeth, the ending becomes a pair of uncomfortable shoes that also have a rock in them. A lot of the comments online indicate plenty of people dropped the show when they learned the het romance would be endgame. It's a pretty common dealbreaker.

Oh well. Bring on the fanfic, I say! Those of us who are used to taking a sledgehammer to canon are unafraid.

Smash it, baby.

Still want to see some of these mysteries?

Both iQiyi and Viki have the answer to your sleuthing!

It's not a perfect show -- as evidenced by my digression about the ending -- but it's a lot of fun. If you can handle the occasional foible and some eyebrow-raising moments, you're in for a good time with some attractive people that occasionally tastes very gay.

Every roommate crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man

#my roommate is a detective #民国奇探 #rec post #i made this

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genshin-impact-writings · 1 year

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Personally proud of myself for thinking of this combo, but to fulfill the lack of Kaveh (which is criminal T-T) how about him with prompts 6 and 9 + Hanahaki (hurt/comfort)?

Pssst, remember to take care of yourself JJ :) <3

Hello Val! <3 You're rightfully proud about this combo, it's amazing, and I swear I screeched when I saw your request. This has gotten way longer than I initially expected (almost 3k words, help), so I really hope you like it. Take care too! <3 Pls don't let this flop.

Prompts: hurt/comfort + hanahaki disease + 6. “Stop lying to me.” + 9. “Leave me alone.”

Warnings: mentions of dying, blood and pain in general; some swearing

As I’m fading away – Kaveh x gn!reader

Kaveh stares up at the ceiling as he wonders if this is how he will die. With every day that passes, it’s getting harder to breathe, and every time he coughs up another tiny flower, its petals covered in blood, he knows that he’s getting closer to the end. He has stopped working on his projects because he just can’t focus on anything else but the nasty sensation in his chest that reminds him every day that he has made a terrible mistake.

With a quiet sigh, he rolls over and stares at the window. It has been weeks since he last left the house, since he last felt the warmth of the sun on his face. He doesn’t want anyone to see him like this, weak and sick and coughing up flowers. The people of Sumeru aren’t dumb. It would only take them a few moments to figure out what’s wrong with him, and Kaveh wants to spare himself the embarrassment. Hanahaki disease, they call it. The price people have to pay for falling in love with someone who doesn’t love them back. No one knows where it came from – the Akademiya doesn’t really waste time researching things like this. To most of them, love is an inconvenience, something that stops people from focusing on the things that really matter. Kaveh wouldn’t be surprised if that is why they came up with the surgery in the first place.

Because you see, Hanahaki disease doesn’t have to be terminal. There are, in fact, two cures: Either, the person you fell in love with returns your feelings, or you undergo a surgical procedure to remove the flower from your lungs. Easy, right? But in the process of eliminating the flower, they will also eliminate the love you felt. And some people firmly believe that after that, you can never experience these emotions ever again.

And Kaveh, being the hopeless romantic he is, is convinced that it’s better to love someone who doesn’t love him back instead of never loving at all. Even if it means that this love is going to be the end of him. (He knows it’s stupid. But forgetting that he has ever loved you seems even worse than death to him.)

* * * *

It feels like an eternity since you last saw your boss. Kaveh, you remind yourself because you know he hates it when you call him boss. “My name’s Kaveh,” he has told you at least a dozen times when you first started working together almost a year ago, “we’re working on this project together, there’s no need to act like I’m your superior.” (You never had the courage to tell him that you called him boss to remind you to keep a somewhat professional distance. After all, Kaveh is one of the most attractive people you have ever met – and, on top of that, he’s funny and kind and caring, too, and you’re definitely not in love with him.)

You shake your head, trying to think about something else because now is not the right time to think about Kaveh’s smile or the way his eyes light up when he’s excited about something. There’s a deadline you have to meet, and you can’t finish this project without your boss.

So, you start looking for him. You check the café down the street, the bookstore, the shop where he sometimes buys his supplies, and even the library at the Akademiya. But no matter where you go, no matter how many people you ask, no one has seen Kaveh. And you slowly start to get angry. What the heck did you do to deserve being ditched like this?

Before you even know what you’re doing, you’re standing in front of Alhaitham’s house. This is the last resort, and you’re sure he’ll not be happy to see that you know where he lives, but what else are you supposed to do? You reallyneed to talk to him. It’s simply unacceptable that he decided to let you deal with this project and the responsibilities that come with it completely on your own.

You raise your hand to knock on the door. When no one answers, you knock again, louder this time. On the other side, you hear something that sounds like a cough but still, the door doesn’t open, so you say, “You know I can hear you, right? Kaveh?”

No answer, just another quiet cough.

“Kaveh, I swear to Lesser Lord Kusanali, if you don’t open the door right now-“

You interrupt yourself when the door cracks open, and you come face to face with Kaveh. He looks awful. There are deep, dark circles beneath his eyes, a sharp contrast to the pale and sallow color of his skin, and his hair and clothes are a mess. But what really gets to you is the expression in his usually so kind and compassionate eyes – he’s looking at you as if you were his personal nemesis.

“What do you want?”

“Hello to you too, Kaveh,” you say. The shock about his appearance is not enough to let you forget your anger, especially not after these harsh words. “It’s good to see that you still know who I am after you left me alone with that project.”

Kaveh looks like he wants to reply something but instead, he presses his hand to his mouth when he falls into a fit of coughing. It’s so bad his entire body is shaking, and when the coughing finally stops after what seems like an eternity, his breathing is ragged and irregular.

You reach out for him, your anger fading away into the distance when you realize that he hasn’t ditched you or your project. He is seriously ill, you can see that now. “Kaveh…”

“No,” he cuts you off, his hand still covering his mouth, and he quickly takes a step back to avoid your touch. “Leave me alone.”

Before you can say something, he has already slammed the door in your face.

* * * *

Kaveh’s heart sinks when he sees the delicate red flower on his palm. It’s the first time he has coughed up an entire flower, and he has read enough books about this disease to know that things will only continue to go downhill from now on. His chest aches, not only from the coughing but also from the devastating knowledge that he won’t survive this.

“Kaveh! Open the damn door or I promise I will kick it down!”

Your voice brings him back to reality, and he takes a deep breath to calm himself down. A part of him wishes he could just open the door and spend the little time he has left with you but then he’d have to explain the whole situation to you, and he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to tell you that he has been stupid enough to not only fall in love but also to catch a disease like Hanahaki.

“I told you to leave me alone,” he rasps, although he already knows that you will do the exact opposite. “Please, (Y/N), just leave. I’m fine.”

“Stop lying to me! You’re not fine,” you insist, “please, let me take care of you. I’ll make you some soup and a cup of tea, and you’ll feel better in no time.”

Kaveh can’t help but smile at your words. Even when you’re mad (and rightfully so), you still care about him, and it’s enough to make his foolish heart skipping a beat. What if… No. This is stupid and nothing but wishful thinking. You just offered to take care of him, that’s not exactly a love confession. But there’s still a tiny spark of hope, and he decides to cling to it as long as he can.

Slowly, he opens the door. “Okay,” he says, quietly. “Come in.”

He doesn’t wait for your response before he makes his way towards the kitchen to wash the blood off his hand but the sound of footsteps is proof that you’re following him.

“You could have told me that you’re sick,” you say when the silence between the two of you gets uncomfortable. “Instead of disappearing, I mean.”

Kaveh doesn’t know what to reply, so he decides to remain silent. In the end, everything he’d say would probably be a lie, and you don’t deserve dishonesty. It’s not like you’re wrong with your assumption anyways – he is sick. You just don’t have any idea how serious it is.

He takes a deep breath (or at least, he tries because the subtle scent of your perfume seems to fill the entire room, and it makes him want to pull you close and kiss you). “Sorry,” he finally says, though he knows that his words sound shallow and not at all genuine, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Sorry my ass,” comes the angry remark, just as he has expected, and so, he tries again, “I’m serious, (Y/N). I didn’t plan on leaving you alone with a project like this but… well. Obviously, some illness got in the way.” There’s no point in denying his poor state of health, after all. Not when it’s crystal clear that something is wrong with him. And this time, your gaze softens. You take a step towards him, carefully placing your hand on his arm. “Kaveh...” Your voice is so soft that it would have made him melt on the spot, hadn’t he been so distracted by the fact that he can feel the warmth of your hand through the fabric of his shirt. He’s so stupid – and so, so in love with you.

In that moment, a sharp pain shoots through his entire body. His lungs feel like they’re on fire, and before he even knows what’s going on, he’s on the floor, desperately gasping for air. Every time he tries to breathe, the pain gets worse, and there’s definitely something blocking his airways.

“Kaveh!” The soft, gentle tone is replaced with utter panic as you drop to your knees right beside him. “Kaveh, please, what can I do? Do you need medicine? A glass of water?” You’re rambling, you know it, but you just can’t think straight when Kaveh is so obviously in pain. “Please, I-“

“I can’t breathe,” he rasps out. There’s a lump in his throat, and then, he’s coughing up blood and countless ragged flower petals again, and he’s sure it’s over for him.

* * * *

He feels like he’s floating. The pain has disappeared, and all that’s left is an oddly peaceful feeling that slowly lulls him to sleep. There’s a gentle touch too, like a feather brushing against his cheek but warmer, much warmer. The darkness surrounding him is comforting, and for a brief moment, Kaveh allows himself to give in to that feeling. It’s like nothing matters anymore.

But then something reaches his ear. Someone is saying his name, in such a hushed and soft tone that he would have smiled if he had the energy to. “Kaveh,” the voice whispers again, and he feels someone brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. “Please, I beg you, wake up.”

So, he’s not dead. Not yet.

And you’re still here with him.

It’s incredibly hard to fight back the darkness around him and to open his eyes but for you, Kaveh tries. His whole body aches, like he’s been trampled down by a herd of sumpter beasts, and he has a terrible headache. But – and he can hardly believe it – other than that, he feels fine. The ever-present tickle in his throat that has been his only companion for the past weeks is gone.

Kaveh takes a deep breath, then another one and another one – and he doesn’t need to cough once. It’s like he has never suffered from Hanahaki. Which doesn’t make any sense because as far as he knows, there isn’t another cure. It’s either the surgery or the other person loving you back – or death. He’s clearly not dead, and he also didn’t have the surgery, so that can only mean that…

Oh.

You love him.

Although every bone and every muscle in his body screams at him to lie down again, Kaveh grits his teeth and tries to sit up. Almost immediately, there’s a hand on his back and another one on his arm. “Careful,” he hears you say, “no need to rush.”

Kaveh looks back at you with wide eyes, only now realizing how close you are. If he had still been sick, the proximity would have killed him but now, all he feels is his heart skipping a beat in anticipation. “(Y/N)…”

He hasn’t expected you to slap him across the chest. “You damn idiot! Do you have any idea how worried I was about you? I thought you were dying!”

“(Y/N), please,” Kaveh says quietly because he knows he doesn’t deserve you or your concern. He feels so bad for making you cry like this – trying to calm you down and convince you that you don’t need to worry about him is the least he can do now, “I’m fine. Calm do-“

The words get stuck in his throat when you throw yourself at him, pulling him into your arms without a warning. “You’re so fucking stupid,” you sob, voice muffled because you have buried your face in the crook of his neck, as you cling to him like he’s going to disappear if you don’t hug him tight enough, “why did you have to scare me like that?”

Kaveh doesn’t know what to do or what to say. For weeks, months even, he has longed for this, has wished to hold you at least once, and now that he has been granted that wish, he can’t move. He wants to wipe your tears away, pepper your face with kisses and just tell you how much he adores you and yet, for some stupid reason he can’t.

“You love me,” he eventually says, and you pull away, staring at him in disbelief. “That’s what’s on your mind right now? You almost died, right here in front of me, and all you think about is that I love you?”

Kaveh laughs, a shaky, insecure laughter than quickly can turn into tears if he’s not careful. “No, you don’t understand. You love me – that’s why I’m still alive.”

“Are you seriously suggesting that love saved you? Kaveh, that’s so fucking cheesy, even for you.”

“But that is exactly what happened,” he says and finally gathers the courage to reach out for your hand, interlacing your fingers, “I’m sure you’ve heard of Hanahaki disease before, haven’t you?” When you nod, he continues, “So you also know that it slowly kills those who fall in love with someone who doesn’t love them back. (Y/N), I have no idea why these things work the way they do – all I know is that it’s not a joke when I say that you saved my life.”

You stare down at your intertwined hands. “I’m sorry I made you think I don’t care about you in that way. I… I was trying to keep a professional distance because I didn’t want to make things awkward between us.”

“You have nothing to apologize for. None of this is your fault,” Kaveh says, softly. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s me. I shut you out. If I had the guts to tell you the truth, none of this would have happened.”

With a sigh, you raise your free hand to cup his cheek. It’s oddly comforting to touch him, perhaps because it reassures you that he’s alive and well, that he’s not going to die from a disease no one really understands. “We can play this game forever, so how about this: We were both pretty stupid.”

“Okay,” Kaveh agrees, quietly. His pupils are blown wide as he looks back at you, and for the first time in what feels like an eternity, a genuine smile flashes over his face. He leans in, gently pressing his forehead against yours. “I love you.”

It’s not at all what he had in mind when he has mused about the perfect scenario to confess his feelings – here, on the kitchen floor, his chest still aching from the Hanahaki – but you’re here with him, and now you close the gap between the two of you to press a soft kiss to his lips, and that alone is enough to make this moment perfect.

Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed it please consider liking, reblogging and/or leaving some feedback. I'd really appreciate the support! <3

Taglist: @genshinparty @ajaxstar @kaeyas-beloved @caesars-bubbles @the-gayest-sky-kid

#kaveh x reader #kaveh x you #kaveh x y/n #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact imagine #gn!reader #gender neutral reader #reader insert #hurt/comfort #genshin hurt/comfort

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chaifootsteps · 4 months

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Hi, hi! I've been a longtime follower of your blog, but this is my first time sending in an ask because of anxiety. You're the most consistent blog that keeps up to date with Viv and her work. As someone who first saw Viv through the Die Young animation, and watched the HH pilot when it was first released, I grew disillusioned as s1 of Helluva Boss slowly aired. It was mostly because I didn't really enjoy the Stolitz ship and I believe the Erin Frost drama had come out (god bless Erin - she, Ken and everyone else deserved so much better). Plus the world-building and character development was just so off.

I know people have said this before: the concept Viv has is good, but the execution sucks. There's a vision but the product is so damn juvenile. I'm ace, and I became attached to Alastor due to him being ace as well, but we all know how Viv responded when the ship wars were happening. I couldn't stand the constant sex jokes or swearing in HB since when was it required for an "adult" show to have that?

Thank you for the episode leaks. Only got to see ep 1 before they were removed. The only thing that made me laugh out loud was the Niffty gag where she stared dead into the camera. I also liked Adam a bit? Sure the "original dick" thing went on way too long, but he was funny too. I surprising enjoyed his song - the lil fist bump he did with Lute was cute, and I like Lute but knowing Viv's record... eh. There was this cool shot where Adam flew up and Lute and those golden angels go behind him and spread their wings making Adam look like the biblically accurate angel. Except Adam himself ruins the effect because what the ever-loving heck is he wearing? I hate it.

In terms of shipping, I wasn't into the Huskerdust interactions. Angel wasn't flirting, that was sexual harassment. In the pilot it was okay because their interaction was brief and Husk pushed Angel off. Chaggie was... something. I genuinely feel that Chaggie could've worked had they not been established as a couple in the first place. The reason why Charlastor (and I guess Charlentious?) happened is because they had chemistry and their interactions could be read as a romantic interest. Since Chaggie was already established, there was an expectation for them to have those, but they weren't delivered and we know well that they weren't supposed to be a thing in the first place. Have Vaggie still be her bff and bodyguard, but show those moments where she genuinely cares for Charlie's well-being that indicates she's in love with her, yet Charlie is completely oblivious to everything. Actually, reverse harem Charlie sounds pretty funny to me.

Btw, armchair psychology anon, as a person studying psychology in my final year of college, dw about people taking issues with your speculations. NPD and other personality disorders are ego-syntonic, which means that the individual's behaviours line up with their beliefs, hence why PDs are only diagnosed during adulthood once brain maturation and personality development is reached. The only exception to this is ASPD (which NPD shares a category with called Cluster B along with histrionic and BPD) as you can diagnose a child with conduct disorder that can become ASPD when they're adults. Cluster B PDs are terribly demonised by media and the public despite the volume of research (I blame misunderstanding and ignorance). Viv could have it or could not; it's just that she shows signs of having it, and that's it. Even if she doesn't, she's still an awful person. Idk what happened in her childhood or some point in her life for her to become like this, but it doesn't excuse treating people like crap - oh wait, ain't this her characters in a nutshell?

That's all I gotta say for now. I hope it's okay to send more like this in the future; I'd love to be a specific anon but idk what's already taken lol. Take care, Chai, and I hope you have a good day/evening.

By all means, send as many as you've got! Because this was a delight to read.

Let me know when you come up with a name. I'll give you a placeholder one for now.

#Anonymous #to be named anon #viv stuff #actual blog post #vivziepop critical

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suzannahnatters · 4 months

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My final Love Like the Galaxy reaccs!!! the tl;dr: I loved it and it's the sort of show that probably demands to be seen twice because TWISTS and HINDSIGHT so IDK, one day maybe! Anyway it's either on Viki or on YouTube for anyone who wants to see what happens when Jane Austen comedy of manners meets The Count of Monte Cristo, but, like, in Ancient China, featuring an epic romance between a naive sledgehammer engineer girl and the terrifying murder general who cannot help looking utterly besotted with her every time she drifts past: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZZZLpfFwcBprNI6msl3NWt3pdX6F-eGs And now: for the reaccs for episodes 43-56, including the famous Murder Party (TM), check under the cut!!!

If Yang Yang ends up with Smug Scholar instead of her sweet little marquis I WILL throw things (thankfully, the sweet little marquis is getting actual screentime with her)

oh I LOVE this: the Empress apologises to Consort Yue for stealing her husband, and Consort Yue points out that if it's anyone's fault it's the Emperor's, and why should the Empress apologise? it's the little things, you know?!

I love that in amongst all this scowly strategising and betrayal and people's families in mortal danger…there's a whole running joke about whether the armour Niao Niao made her beloved makes him look more like a chicken or a mandarin duck

cdramas asking the real questions

wow they really kept like 90% of the action budget for this episode and money well spent say I

once again murder general is rushing off to save our girl, only this time he guesses precisely where she is and what she's doing, and knows she's probably doing a great job of it :')

GASP we are suspicious of Elder Brother Snacks now???

I've got a bad feeling about him and the crown princess turning out to be bad eggs - almost as though we're building up to a BIG BETRAYAL between our babies

Wan QiQi swaggering into prison in a wedding dress is the energy I aspire to

Hmm… Lou Ben feels very very foreshadowy of an obsessive man making a self destructive choice to grab what he wants no matter how it hurts the woman he loves

All the foreshadowing is REALLY mounting up now - Snacks still caring about NN but not wanting to see her after what she's done, NN observing of another couple that they were birds on the same tree but flew apart when trouble came

Anyway we are all headed for a heck of a third act breakup aren't we

is zisheng,,, allergic to almonds

what an absolutely bonkers twist

poor little Wang Ling! how terrible does her family have to be that she is trying to save her murderous traitor of an elderly husband, just because he treated her better than anyone else in her life?

"he even had a flower garden planted in my courtyard to please me, although he has life-threatening asthma! which means that he can't visit me very often! he's the best husband, Niao Niao!" okay Mrs Charlotte Collins

"Cheng Shaoshang, it seems you really don't know anything about Ling Zisheng" OOOOOOHH

Smug Scholar: a voice of reason. a stickler by the rules. an indefatigable drama queen who is quite ready to beg murder general to go right ahead, be his guest, do crime, because then Smug might get to marry Niao Niao instead

torture is always wrong, revenge kids! that said, it's very funny that murder general has been busy with hot iron and boiling oil all night and found out nothing, while NN has put herself fully abreast of the situation armed with nothing more than…a conversation with a female acquaintance

"wait - all that stuff you did in my name was ALSO in pursuit of your revenge plot? who are you really?" this show keeps serving the best stuff

matching bite marks on the arm is a way cooler idea than matching tattoos tbh

why are you not telling her, zisheng, she already knows!!!

she's sworn up and down (with bitten arms!) that she won't mind, it's keeping this from her that she can't forgive, get a clue!!!!!

ooooo - we have been cordially invited to a MURDER PARTY love the gearchange from Jane Austen Romcom to Jacobean Revenge Tragedy

OK LET'S GO, WHERE'S THAT MURDER PARTY I WAS PROMISED

Glad that we were given this scene of Marquis Chengyang being delusional and Chunyu being Justly Terrified that the young man obsessed with revenge has finally agreed to come to his father's birthday party, it doesn't quite explain how nobody realises this is Very Bad News but at least lampshades it

Since filial piety is the norm in this society, I guess it's hard for the elders to realise just how at risk they are from someone unfilial!

I LOVE that Chunyu (sp? the stepmother) gets a whole speech to point out the hypocrisy of HER continually bearing the blame of "climbing into the master's bed" after so many ppl in the show have ridiculed her for it as though it wasn't a decision made by the marquis

oooooooooooohhh this is amazing: Yang Yang is disturbed that NN's farewell before the wedding sounds like she doesn't ever intend to return home. and from NN's response, she KNOWS murder general is about to do something crazy and is fully prepared to suffer the consequences alongside him

it's…really amazing that during the stretch of the cdrama when the male lead traditionally starts Machinating and Scheming and lying to the female lead about it, THIS show keeps the heroine's agency intact, she sees right through his lies, she is still front and centre. Chef's kiss.

she knows where it's happening; she knowns when it's happening; she's sending someone for news. she's amazing and so are these writers.

meanwhile: murder general refusing to enlighten the marquis as to his true identity is Irene of Athens-level pettiness and I love it

the way this show keeps this whole episode focused on the story's main character even though she has little to do with -

oh wait never mind she has decided to involve herself anyway!!! now we get the entire Cheng family charging into battle? with NN at their head on a black horse? EPIC?????

well THAT was the best of Jacobean revenge tragedy

shocked to discover that Zisheng has Always Known who was really behind the fall of the lone city - he's just been quietly, methodically working through the destruction of all the perpetrators, COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO style

I love a protagonist who holds cards so close to his chest that not even the audience knows what's going on

more than that, it really adds nuance to the show's themes about revenge. Sometimes the system is broken, & even in a good system people will sometimes get away with murder. What to do then?

I can't support the vindictiveness of the leads (& I'm not sure I'm meant to) but as revenge plots go, I like the weightiness of the themes - how to fight for yourself in a world where laws and manners tell you you shouldn't? - better than Dumas' more superficial take.

where did these two henchmen come from, because they are NOT being paid enough to be part of this absolute disaster

also WHEE Niao Niao gets to swoop in and save HIM for once! Well done our girl!

oh what an idiot. what an absolute peanut.

I was pulling for you, murder general, but I'm not sure how you'll manage to come back from doing the One Thing (abandoning her) she asked you not to do

she's still calling him by his false name T_T

something something she only ever knew him by his false name and identity not his true one

moment of silence, please, I'm experiencing an emotion

well, duh - of COURSE Third Prince is here to collect NN to go help him plead for murder general, who has obviously been quietly helping him all along. even better: we don't know if NN is just figuring this out now or has known it for months but she understands it perfectly, just like we do, the moment she sees Third Prince's face

!!! murder general has been deceiving everyone in so many other ways too???????

it's not just that he knew all along who was responsible for the lone city's fall and has just been working silently to gather evidence on them: he ALSO has been playing four dimensional speed chess with palace politics, supporting a totally different faction to the one he was supposed to be aligned with?

IT WAS HIM IN THE PAGODA ALL ALONG????

I just love the sort of character who plays certain things SO close to the chest while also being utterly open and vulnerable about certain other things. like, as long as we trust their judgement for hiding the certain things and know it's not for purposes of control. and while NN does interpret his secretiveness as control, due to her upbringing, it's also easy in hindsight to see things from zisheng's POV: he is playing not one but several high stakes political games, treading a tightrope between the prince he is supposed to be supporting versus the prince who would clearly be a better choice, and now suddenly thrown into the middle of all this is a naive and well-meaning sledgehammer fiancee who is an absolute force of nature but who is not yet quite insightful enough to see and understand where the deep waters run; she's simply driven by personal loyalty to protect her empress' son. and she keeps forcing choices on him: protect her, or serve the Third Prince? and he makes tremendous sacrifices, as with the Tiger Tally, to save both of them. so is he going to take the risk and tell her and trust in her, or is he going to keep her in the dark just about this, until the game is over (it's so close to being over) and he can be as candid about these things as he can be about everything else?

but at the same time, he was so frustrated with her for not being candid with him, for not telling him when the mean girls tried to KILL her, for lying to him about choosing to help the crown prince - he should have known better than to reproach her about this when he was doing exactly the same things to her all along.

I love that the show just doesn't support him in this. for two people who both say they want to work as a team, these two both spend an awful lot of time keeping things from each other. and it's only after going away and thinking about it that I start to see his side of the story at all, because she is so totally front-and-centred in the way the story is told.

oh wow - now she gets a whole speech and thesis statement about how just because she's a woman she shouldn't be shut out of her husband's confidence, and ends: "Ling Buyi is my most beloved person in the world. But I am still me."

I love this show so much

It's really wild that murder general, who everyone knows went on a murderous rampage to kill the entire Ling clan, goes from being condemned to death to the apple of the emperor's eye based on his surname changing

no doubt it's historically accurate and murder uncle, at least, deserved it - but for me it's just another sign of how irretrievably this system is broken, that bloodline so clearly outweighs right and wrong.

I'll be chewing over the question of whether this last-minute aversion of filial impiety ("it's ok! he was doing it to avenge his REAL father!") undermines NN's previous point about the right to filial reverence depends on a parent's conduct, or whether it's an author's saving throw to secure a HEA

"but I can never forgive him for abandoning me - he even swore it was for my sake" aha! How To Critique The Break Her Heart To Save Her Trope (Without Actually Using The Trope??????) this show didn't HAVE to hunt down and kill every bad Asian drama romance trope like this but is that stopping it? no

Empress telling NN that whatever decision she makes, she will support her in - hits like a punch because the only person who's told her this till now is murder general. On the other hand it is comforting, and underlines the themes of NN being a whole person without him, bc she still has love and support!

as an aside, I also like how the show has handled NN's terrible parents. by the end of the show, she's fought for, and won, their respect and support, & has come to understand the pressures they are under. but she will never love them the way she loves the Empress, bc they haven't earned that love. I feel this consolidates the filial piety critique.

we finally get to hear murder general's side of the story - and it's fascinating to hear him say that he failed. he did everything to bring ling yi to justice - and couldn't. the murder party was his failure.

I'm finding the murder party less problematic at this point than the Censorate beating

whoah, the empress is sailing in to admit that she spoiled her children until they were useless, so she's not upset about the crown prince being demoted? seems a rather unfortunate theme if children are only ever bad because of bad parenting

NN still taking absolutely no prisoners in the romance, though: "oh, I understand you perfectly. the problem is that you never understood ME" that's quite a burn

The Empress is now requesting to be deposed, and it's a complicated scene - is she blaming herself, or voicing regrets? I think she's regretting not fighting for herself: as she points out, her accepting a menage a trois has not spoiled Consort Yue's life so much as it has spoiled her own chance at love.

while the show has sometimes been finger-wagging, it's saved here bc she also blames the Emperor for going along with the flow, too, and tamely accepting a three-way marriage.

meanwhile at home, everyone's like "Niao Niao is so mature now!" and I'm sitting here like NO SHE'S NOT, SHE'S HAD ALL THE HAPPINESS CRUSHED OUT OF HER and…….along comes Not-Quite-So-Bad-Mum to say that precise thing, and confess to having been wrong all along???? This show just keeps hitting.

Love that NN's 3rd brother is completely on her side at this moment. he understands the assignment ("break up with murder general and send him away with a flea in his ear") and executes it with prejudice.

oh…mum has repented too late. I'm not sorry for her, but I AM sorry for the way NN chooses to spend the next forever - when there were so many things she wanted to see and do!

and now: five years' worth of mutual pining in excruciatingly aesthetic slomo, thank you

meanwhile everyone in the Cheng family is getting married? Yang Yang is getting married? Mum's warrior maid is getting married? Good for you warrior maid!

Smug Scholar, otoh, has remained UNmarried for our girl, and I actually love the choice he's presenting her - NN doesn't much care who she marries if it's a business arrangement; she just won't marry the man she loves knowing he was willing to lie to her and abandon her

is it really weird that I suddenly want to write the story about the coldly pragmatic fake marriage of convenience between NN and Smug Scholar

!!!! she IS going to get engaged to him??? murder general is going to come back from five years of picturesquely scruffy suffering to find her engaged to Smug Scholar??!?!?!!!??!

oh this will be GOOD

"thanks, but I can ride without stirrups these days" I love that this show is allowing the heroine to establish a life of her own apart from the hero - they have to be complete on their own before they can be good for each other.

and now: a break from reality for an absolutely bonkers carriage chase, which, because this is a cdrama, comes complete with one of the parties trying to extort a proposal of marriage from the person chasing them

I swear this is the third time this exact same cliff has cropped up in this show, one would think that people would know better than to gallop madly down the DEAD END CLIFF ROAD

Empress pays her last respects to the emperor: "I know that if it wasn't for Emperor Li's tyranny you would have asked nothing more than to live a simple life" LIESSSS this man requires a constant stream of drama to live, how would he have survived as a gentleman farmer?

"if you are truly filial, don't exchange your life for mine. Live well." while this show has come down in the end in favour of filial piety, I think that for the most part it keeps filial piety where it belongs: subordinate to ethics - and that's something I can get behind.

With NN decided that murder general is not the man for her and murder general determined to accept her decision, I really don't see how this will get believably sorted out in the next…3 eps. Bc she's absolutely right, he had his chance and he blew it. That said, I was really worried the show would blame her for being unreasonable, but only the recent antagonist has done that

even NN's mother is now telling him: we don't need you to perform guilt for us, we also had our chance with NN and blew it, now we can only defer to her conscience AND YOU SHOULD TOO

so, I guess we're headed for an "undeserved grace" ending, and I hope they make it a convincing one and not cheap, bc it's too late to show him doing any work to prove his repentance.

oh I love this scene: she tells him she forgives him but cannot trust him, and he without defending himself, vows to live well and take care of himself (because quietly protecting the people she cares about is the one last thing he can do for her)

and he won't ever tell her that he's been doing this because he knows it would only make her despise him more!!!

time for the bad family to apologise, the grandmother in particular for trying to control her children, and Niao Niao to decide no longer to carry resentment, but to dwell on the people who love her instead

I love that the themes have largely to do with resisting control, even when it's from family members, and fighting for yourself. Even more, I love that the highest expression of this theme comes in the trust there's supposed to be between husband and wife. Sometimes, lack of communication IS an attempt at control - although on thinking it over I'm not sure it always has been that on murder general's side. but if there's one thing the past five years must have taught him, it's that he's going to have to be be particularly open with this particular woman, because her family HAS tried so hard to be controlling in the past, and she can't take even the appearance of it from him.

somehow, yet another of NN's old enemies has an overly complicated plan to kill her sigh

loving how murder general jumps into this trap and promptly becomes useless and it's time for the lil henchmen to save the day

stop shouting his name and figure out how to open the trapdoors Niao Niao, smoke inhalation is no joke

murder general looks amazing for someone who was just blown up

TEARFUL RECONCILIATION SCENE

ahaha Snacks has fallen in love with his wife, we love to see it

Smug Scholar, meanwhile (exact words): are you all done flaunting your love?

EXPLODING PICKLES

flailing I love it NN is deploying her secret weapon….the family Cheng

"you can't be in two places at once, General!"

maybe not, but wifey and he can

"i'd like to see who interferes with my best granddaughter's marriage!"

*smash cut to the emperor having a hissyfit because he can't interfere with the marriage *

it's over? pokes couch cushions for spare episodes

OK I LOVED that murder general's grand gesture in the final ep comes in the form of a dilemma. should he go rescue his beloved as everyone is telling him - or should he stay on task, submit to everyone's ridicule for not protecting his woman, and risk her thinking he's abandoned her again?

his answer shows that at last, he has come to truly understand her (five years after she told him he'd never understood her). it's not physical abandonment she truly fears. what she fears is not being trusted & allowed to act as his equal. So he leaves her to protect Guo village while he stays on HIS task. His grand gesture, after so many rescues, is not to rescue her at all.

SCREAMING at that moment when Third Prince is like, seriously, mate, you'd better not abandon her! she needs help!!! go on I'll be fine!! and Zisheng VISIBLY WAVERS and then pulls himself together and shouts GUO VILLAGE HAS NIAO NIAO! GUO VILLAGE WILL BE FINE!!!

since the root of the contention between them was always him not treating her as an equal, this is probably the best proof of change we could get in the screentime. and the show is very insistent to tell us that if NN bends to take him back, it's because it's what SHE wants, not bc she can't survive without him.

the show does give her that moment of fright during the explosion to rush her past her abandonment issues, but since the real issue was always about control, I can make my peace with it. Similarly, she taught him a 5-year lesson about not consulting her. He knows - & her family makes it explicit - that he can never pull something like this again.

final overall thoughts: I have rarely seen such a well done romance in Asian drama, especially cdrama. The show was long & got repetitive, especially in the 2nd half, even though it had some of my favourite stretches as NN starts fighting for respect & equality within her marriage.

The themes about family, state, and fighting for oneself got fingerwaggy at a lot of points, many side characters were brutally humiliated and many of the numerous female characters became nonsensically villainous just to give NN antagonists. So, I would say the show is quite flawed.

that said, what this show does well, it does SO WELL. I was absolutely invested in this romance to an extent that is very rare for me. I was delighted by the way the show critiques asian romance tropes, there's a wonderful Dumas-level revenge plot, the fight scenes while rare are terrific, the show remains laser focused on its female protagonist all the way to the end, and if you are not delighted by the utterly besotted looks murder general serves up five times per episode, I don't know what to do with you.

#love like the galaxy #lltg #ling buyi #cheng shaoshang #cdrama #asian drama

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