#that last one is definitely the most insane
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˚₊‧꒰ა All Good Girls Burn In Hell ♡ S.Eunseok ff ໒꒱ ‧₊˚
💠pairing: Eunseok x Reader!afab | 💠wc: 7.1k | 💠cw: profanity, religious themes, drug use, abuse, coercion, protected and unprotected sex | 💠plot: Your tired of being mommy’s little girl so you sneak out to a college party with the Devil’s Advocate…
With the pressure of being the perfect daughter weighing on your shoulders, the last thing you needed right now was a boy.
Especially not when that boy was Song Eunseok
He was everything you weren’t and the complete opposite of what your parents
believed in.
Rule Breaker. Trouble Maker. Bad Boy.
His beauty... charmed you like a snake, entrapping you in his comforting grasp before crushing the life out of you.
His words... were like the devil’s music, enchanting you with his lovely tune as he led you down a path of darkness.
And his eyes... God his eyes were the most delicate yet aggressive feature of his face. Boldly standing out with a gentle aura surrounding them.
He was the perfect temptation. Sent by Satan himself to draw you away from purity and righteousness.
And you were the perfect target. You were weak and he could tell, which is what made corrupting you that much easier.
Your home life was just about as chaotic as you'd expect an extremely religious family to be.
“Honor thy father and thy mother, for this is the first commandment with promise,” she would say this whenever you did anything remotely ‘disrespectful’ in her eyes. “Don’t you want to live a long and happy life?”
Sometimes her words felt like vain repetition or taunts echoing through your head, as her method of reprimanding you often came in the form of lectures.
The neurotic controlling nature of your mother could only be tamed by one thing—aside from the public eye—and that one thing was…your father.
Unfortunately he was no longer around and your mother often blamed you for his absence.
Your mother taught you that a wife should submit to her husband for he is the head of the family and you--as his wife--are to be his helpmate.
Though that sounds fair, for the most part, Mom had a much harsher way of embedding what she believed into the lives of her children. Especially her daughters.
After your rebellious older sister ran off 4 years ago with her motorcycle-riding girlfriend, all hell broke loose at home. You had now been promoted to the oldest of the siblings and were therefore subject to physical pain on top of everything else. It felt like you permanently resided within the confines of a chapel, which often felt more like a prison than a home.
You’d had enough of this torture. You needed a break away from the unreasonably structured environment. Just for once, you wanted to feel like you were the one pulling the strings.
Never did you expect to hand your strings over to a new puppet master.
To keep things brief, you'd met Eunseok through your best friend Faith. Ironically, she was a girl you met at Sunday school in 9th grade who definitely wasn’t the perfect little angel people thought she was.
One time her dad almost caught her smoking outside. The way she launched that bud halfway across the street before sticking a sucker in her mouth was insane. Another time you could remember her telling you the story of how she snuck a boy into her room to have sex while her parents were sleeping…well the boy was her boyfriend, but still.
She had a wild side that you found alluring. Which made you wonder if you had a one too, well one apart from the scenarios you enacted in your imagination.
As a freshman in college, you were ready to try to relax a little.
"Or maybe not," you thought to yourself as you woke up to the sound of religious music playing from the kitchen. Your mother did this nearly every morning at the exact same time, almost like clockwork.
You could smell the coffee brewing, coupled with the scent of bread toasting. You knew you could only roll around in bed for a few more minutes before it was time to get up. Not only did you still have a bedtime, but you also had a specific time to wake up. No later than 8 o'clock were you expected to be out of your pajamas and have your bed made.
"Nothing comes to a man in his sleep, but dreams," another saying your mother loved repeating.
You lived in a house with two younger twin brothers and shared a room with your big sister. Though, now that she was gone, dust bunnies were the only thing sleeping in her bed.
One thing you had to learn was to be the first one in the bathroom. Sometimes you'd get up earlier to avoid the chaotic morning bustle.
After getting dressed you grabbed an apple for breakfast and waited for your mom to drop you off for your first day of uni. Luckily, you and Faith were going to the same university, so that eliminated the anxiety that came with being completely alone on a huge campus for the next four years of your life.
Unfortunately, loneliness, like most of your other personal problems, was none of your mother's concern. "Read and pray," she'd tell you. "The Lord will comfort you."
As this was your first semester in college, you decided to knock out a good chunk of your core classes, English, Math, History, and Politics.
After 3 hours that felt more like a lifetime, your first lecture had finally ended. By now hungry didn't compare to what you were experiencing right now. Unfortunately, you forgot to bring your wallet which meant that water would have to fill you up for now.
“I can already tell this semester is going suck ass. And the next 16 weeks of my life or going to be a nightmare from hell,” Faith sighed as she dropped her backpack on the ground beside her.
You had met up with her outside at one of the round red tables that were scattered across the open green field.
"Oh, come on you can’t say that. It’s only the first day, give it about a week or so, and then see if you still feel the same way," you said trying to encourage her to look on the bright side.
"No, you don’t get it. This guy hates me, like literally hates me. You should've seen the way he looked at me," she sighed. "God, he was such a fucking scumbag."
"Who?"
"My stupid fucking sociology professor. He started nagging about some bullshit and I called him out for it," she rolled her eyes before pulling out a box of cigarettes. "Want one?"
"No, thanks," you held your hand up. "Wait this is a no-smoking zone," you said as Faith lit the end.
"Shit, my bad," she shrugged before picking up her bag and walking off. "You're coming, aren't you? You're not just gonna tell me I can't smoke here and expect me to go off by myself," she held the cigarette between her two fingers.
"No, sorry, I'm coming," you stuttered.
"You better."
You followed your blue-eyed friend to a brick wall that was high enough that when you sat on it your feet couldn't touch the ground.
"So I guess we found our secret place," Faith smiled. "A sweet escape from the terrors of uni and their stupid, boring bullshit," she puffed.
You and Faith often found little areas that you claimed as your own. This was just another spot to add to your map of many discrete destinations.
"Woah, what the hell was that?" Faith looked as your stomach growled uncomfortably loud.
"All I had was an apple this morning and I'm starving," you sighed before cracking open your water bottle to take a sip.
"Well, that water isn't gonna do shit for ya. Let's go grab you something to eat," she hopped off the wall before putting her cigarette out on a rock.
"I can't...I forgot my wallet at home and my mom is already on her way here," you sighed before joining her on the ground.
"So what? I have money. Besides, it's not like she's gonna kill you for grabbing something to eat," Faith slung her bag over her shoulder. "I'm kinda hungry myself."
You’d be lying if you said you didn't have a slight gut feeling that your mom would be upset about this. But maybe Faith was right. There's no way your mom would get mad at you for eating...right?
After splitting a sandwich you headed to the front of the school to find your mom parked in a handicap spot. You waved to Faith as you walked over to the passenger side of the vehicle.
"So, how was your first day of college?" your mom asked as you buckled your seatbelt.
"It was good," you nodded as your mom pulled down the sun visor to reapply her Cherry Blossom Bliss tinted lipgloss. "How was your day?" you asked as you placed your bag on the floor between your legs as you looked out of the window.
"Good," she said plainly as she closed the car mirror and closed her gloss before tucking it away in her clutch bag.
You drove around a bit in silence before you heard the sound of her coin-filled bag swinging through the air. Hitting you in the mouth. Strangely enough, you heard the soft jingle before you actually felt the pain.
"Don't ever keep me waiting like that again. When I come here to pick you up you need to be ready," your mother said as you turned to her in shock, covering your mouth that was now decorated with a sliver of blood that seeped through the crack of your lower lip.
"But, I--" Your attempt to explain yourself was cut off by the stinging pain from your head as your mother dug her nails into your scalp.
"Are you talking back? Don't talk back to me you fucking brat," she spat. At this point, you knew that saying or doing anything else was just going to trigger her to spiral so you wiped the tear from your eye, attempted to fix your hair, and sat back in silence until you made it home.
It was moments like this that you wanted someone to vent to. But what good would that do? Even if you told Faith about this nothing would change. This was your life and the only smart thing you could do was learn from your mistakes.
Don't be late.
Don't talk back.
The next couple of weeks were like the first minus getting attacked for being late. You went to class, you did your homework, and you hung out with Faith. Today, your class had ended early since it was almost spring break and you took this as an opportunity to spend more time with Faith before your mom came to pick you up.
But today was a day to mark on your calendar as the beginning of your ending...
“Hey, Faith,” you said shyly as you noticed the two boys that sat with her. One of them being none other than Eunseok.
She waved to you tapping a spot beside her for you to sit. “Hey girl, we were just talking about going to one of the fraternity houses this weekend for a little get-together,” she smiled mischievously. "What d'you say? Wanna join us for some life-changing fun?"
You knew that look, and nothing good ever came from that. You’d been invited to gatherings like this before and always declined. You never regretted your decision either, especially when she’d tell you about all of the horrible things that happened. Faith never saw the stories how you did, they all sounded like exciting retellings of the glorious moments you missed out on.
"No that's alright," you chuckled as she glared at you with her big blue puppy dog eyes.
"Pleeeeeease," she whined, pouting her lips and squeezing your thigh.
"No, Faith," you giggled. "You're just gonna run off and leave me all by myself."
"I'll be there," Eunseok smirked. "In case she does abandon you," he sat on the opposite side of you placing his arm behind you.
"I-uhh," you stammered.
"Cool it big boy, she's not into that kind of stuff," Faith budded.
"Oh, sorry. I didn't know she was gay," Eunseok said, slightly backing away.
"Oh no. I'm not gay," you spat.
"Okay then, lesbian? Bisexual?"
"No, I'm straight. I just don't like boys," you were doing an awful job at pleading your case and you could see Faith holding in her laughter as she watched the awkward interaction between you two.
"How the hell are you straight, but you don't like boys? That makes no fucking sense."
"No. Wait. I like boys, but I'm not allowed to date."
"Who said anything about dating," he chuckled. "Are you already trying to claim me?"
"I never said that. I mean. Ugh, nevermind," you sighed.
"Relax, I'm just joking. Faith already told me about preserving your purity."
"Yep, I sure did. So you don't have to worry about him trying to lead you astray," Faith smiled.
"Eh hmm," the other boy cleared his throat.
"Oh, right. I forgot. This is Theo. I met him a year ago at a party and we've been friends ever since," Faith said as the boy waved.
"You got me over here feeling like an outcast," he smirked.
"Well, she barely knows that goofball, Eunseok. I think this was the first conversation they ever had." Their conversation faded in the background as you dug deep into your mind only to realize that this was your first time actually speaking to Eunseok.
You were much younger when you first met and you've always been one to keep to yourself. Plus, your sister had just left and life at home wasn't so great. So there wasn't much to talk about.
"So, you're coming right?"
"Huh?"
"The party this weekend...you're coming right?" Faith asked again.
"I don't think so. Sorry," you replied.
"Hmm...well I'm not gonna force you. Maybe next time," she said patting your shoulder. "Oh shit," she sighed as you noticed your mom walking over to you.
"I've been waiting in the car for over an hour now and you're out here goofing off with boys?"
"Mom, it's not like that I was just--"
"I don't wanna hear it. Go get in the car. Right now. We're going home," your mom looked everything but happy right now. She must've known you got out early and had been waiting for you all this time. Scared didn't begin to describe what you were feeling right now.
To your surprise, the entire ride was silent. Even when you made it home, pure silence. You went upstairs to take a shower before going to your room to study.
As you were going through your drawers to pick out an outfit, a head-spinning blow knocked you to the ground. Your mother's angry face hovered over you as she raised her hand to hit you again.
"You attention-seeking slut," she sneered. "You're just like your whoring sister," she hummed before grabbing your hair and dragging you to the middle of your room.
"I didn't do anything! I swear," you whined. "We were just talking!"
"First you'll have boys kissing and touching all over you. And the next thing you know, you'll be with a girl too. You'll be confused and broken. Just like your sister," your mother's eyes pierced through your soul like fiery daggers as she continued to berate you.
"I wish you had been born a boy like your brothers. I'd rather have a house full of men than one filled with whores in training," her words lingered in the air as she walked over to your bedroom door. "Sometimes, I wish your sister would've taken you with her."
Every word you thought of saying was caught in your throat. You were being choked by an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness and disparity. This was a common pattern whenever your mom would get violent.
Senseless slut shaming and misjudgment of your character coupled with the clawing sensation of her nails digging into your scalp was too much.
Dragging your hand across your face, you wiped the tears from your cheeks as you curled up into a ball on the floor. The sound of the ceiling fan clinking blended with the ticking of the clock that hung on your wall. You ended up falling asleep on the floor with your knees to your chest.
If not for the lamp on your desk, you'd be in complete darkness.
The next morning you woke up earlier than you normally would. This gave you a chance to shower before going to school.
The water ran down your body as you thought back to what happened last night. You turned your back to the pouring water but flinched as you were met with a stinging pain. You looked over your shoulder to see small scratches on your back--likely from being dragged across the carpet floor.
You searched under the bathroom cabinet for something to clean the wound with. Nothing but a bottle of toner stared back at you.
"Well there's alcohol in it," you mumbled to yourself as you poured the liquid on a cotton ball. You dabbed every spot within your reach before throwing your clothes on.
"You alright?" Eunseok asked. His voice caught you off guard as you drifted off into your thoughts. Faith had walked off for a smoke break with Theo, leaving you behind with the dark-eyed boy.
"Yeah," you smiled feignly.
His energy was different than it had been before. Maybe it was because he saw how your mom behaved when she saw you guys talking.
"You sure? Don't take this the wrong way, but you look like shit," he said tilting his head to meet your eyes.
"There's just a lot on my mind right now," you sighed.
"Wanna talk about it? I'm a pretty good listener."
"No, I'm okay. It's not like that'll do anything anyway," you sniffed. Crying was the one thing you'd never do in public. And you'd rather struggle on your own than bring other people into your personal business for no reason.
"Alright, fine. Well then how about we not talk about it together this weekend."
"I can't go to that party. My mom would kill me."
"Well, you look like you're halfway in the grave already. You could use a bit of excitement in your life."
"But I've never...I can't..."
"You're an adult. You can't let your mom dictate your life forever," you were quiet before he continued. "I'm sure you can just ask your dad, right?"
"Yeah, that would probably work if he was still around."
"Oh...sorry I didn't know."
"It's fine. He's not dead, but he might as well be. I'm sure my mom would be happier if he was."
"If you don't me asking...what happened anyway?"
"Well, basically he left us because my mom is literally insane. They would always fight. And one night he came into our bedroom and slid a note under our pillow," you thought back to the feeling of him placing a kiss on your forehead as you laid there pretending to be asleep. You watched as he wiped the tears from his face. To this day you regret not saying anything. Not doing anything.
"That was the last time you saw him?"
"Yeah..."
"You're going to that party," Eunseok whispered before placing his hand on top of yours.
"How?"
"I'll sneak you out on Saturday night," He said pulling out his phone. "What's your number?"
You looked down at your hands as you shamefully replied. "Even if I give you my phone number, my mom takes it at night time..."
"Damn. Well, I'll just give you my old phone. I barely use it now so I won't be looking for it," he said reaching into his bag. He pulled out the smaller black phone which was protected by a bulky plastic case. "It's a dinosaur, but it still works," he chuckled.
"Are you sure? What if I get caught?"
"Relax, you won't. You just have to keep it hidden until tomorrow night. After that, you're in the clear," he smiled.
"Okay, but if I get in trouble it's all you're fault and I'll probably never forgive you," you said as you took the phone from his hands.
Maybe a night out would do you good...
To be completely honest, it didn't take much convincing to get you on board. He was attractive as hell and as much as you hated it, he definitely had an effect on you.
"Deal," he chuckled as he watched you slip the phone into your bag.
"What are you losers yapping about?" Faith grinned as she skipped back over to you and Eunseok.
"Uh--"
"I was just helping our little friend plan her escape," Eunseok said, cutting you off as he pulled you in for a side hug. "Isn't that right?"
You nodded as Theo clapped his hands together. "Awesome! Another innocent soul to claim for Satan," he words sent chills up your spine as you thought back to what happened the night before.
"Hey? You alright?" Faith asked as your face went blank.
"Yeah...I was just umm...I was just thinking about some stuff," you replied, trying your best to play it off. "Shoot!" you spat.
"What?" Faith asked.
"My mom is on her way. I gotta go," You snatched your bag up and began walking off.
"Oh...but--"
"Sorry, I don't wanna get in trouble again," you continued as you drifted back into your thoughts.
"Hey," you felt a large hand palm your shoulder. You whipped around to see Eunseok standing in front of you. "If you ever need someone to talk to, remember that I'm here for you," you nodded as his hands slid down your arms to your hands.
A warm feeling rushed to your face as all of your previous worries melted away. It was like he was the first person to take your mind off of everything negative in your life. He was like a drug and you were afraid to get addicted.
You both stared at each other for a bit before he pulled you in for a hug. "I'll be over to break you out tomorrow night. Don't forget, okay?" His voice sounded even more soothing when he held you close. The gentle vibrations from his throat were just about as relaxing as soaking in a hot tub.
You hummed in response before walking off to join your mom in the car.
11:24pm tomorrow night...
You quietly tiptoed through the darkness of your bedroom to your dresser. You pulled out the bottom drawer to grab Eunseok's phone from its hidden place.
Feelings of guilt, fear, and anxiety tugged at your heart as you thought back to the moment between you and your mom in the car the day before.
"I'm really sorry for how I reacted the other day..." your mom bit her lip as she gripped the steering wheel. "It's just that I'm afraid to lose you the way I lost your sister..."
You could feel the genuine pain and regret in her tone as she poured out to you.
"I don't want you to make terrible mistakes that you'll regret in the future. And sometimes...exploding is the only way I know how to fix it. That's how my parents were with me."
This was no excuse for her actions, but this did make you feel a sense of pity for her. It was almost enough to make you cancel. But you needed this more than anything else right now.
You just wanted a small taste of what else life had to offer you...
Anything was better than spending all of your free time in this hellhole.
You powered the phone on to text Eunseok.
"She's sleep. You can come pick me up whenever." you sighed as you waited anxiously for him to text back.
"Alright, princess. Your knight in shining armor is on the way to rescue you from the evil dragon." Reading his text made you giggle a bit as you struggled to find anything remotely skimpy to wear. Nothing but an old baby blue dress from your sister hung idly in the back of your closet.
You quickly hopped into the dress and slipped into a pair of silver heels.
*Tap. Tap. Tap*
The tapping sound from the window nearly made you jump out of your skin. The moonlight dimly lit your features as you turned to see Eunseok's face behind the glass. You tapped your finger against your lips, signalling him to stop.
You opened the window and stuck out your first leg to climb out. Eunseok came close to guide you out by the waist. "You ready?" he smirked.
"Yeah," you nodded.
"Then let's get the hell out of here," he chuckled, grabbing your hand and running with you to his orange Dodge Challenger. You climbed into the passenger seat as Eunseok closed the door behind you.
Your heart was beating fast as hell, probably the fastest it's ever beat in your life. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," you lied. Your throat was so dry it felt like you had cotton in your mouth.
"You might be able to lie to your mom, but you can't lie to me. You look like a scared little puppy," he smiled, scanning your body. "Nice dress."
"Thanks, it was my sister's."
"Well you look amazing in it," he turned the keys and you felt the seats rumble gently beneath you. You watched as Eunseok reached down to pull out a V-pen. He breathed in slowly before blowing out the sweet strawberry-scented vapor. "Here. Take this. It'll relax you," he said handing your the plug.
"Uhh...I'm okay. I don't smoke."
"Come on, just try it once. If you don't like it you can stop."
You hesitantly opened your mouth as he brought the device to your lips.
"Just suck it in slowly. Let it fill your lungs and don't try breathing out of your nose at the same time--" You began coughing aggressively, cutting him off mid-sentence. "Or that'll happen," he chuckled, before patting your back.
You looked at him through watery eyes as he reached to hand you a water bottle. "Don't worry, I didn't drink any of it yet."
"Thanks," you sniffed.
"So, what'd you think? D'you like it?"
"It tastes good, but to be honest I didn't notice much of a difference aside from coughing my brains out."
"Well, that one was kinda weak. Hold on. Imma give you something a little stronger," he smiled as he drove to a red light. "Look in the glove box and pull out that little red case," he directed you, pointing his finger at the glove box.
You sifted through the other miscellaneous objects before finding the red case. You placed it in his hand and watched as he pulled out another smoking device.
"Alright, I'm gonna go first and you just copy me okay?" he licked his lips before clasping them around the metal tip. "Just take a little bit first," he said after blowing out the cloud of smoke.
Remembering the mistake you made last time, you sucked in slowly.
"Woah, woah. That should be good enough," Eunseok chuckled as you inhaled the herby smoke.
You blew out the smoke, filling the car with the scent. You still coughed a bit, but it wasn't as bad as before. "That's weed, by the way," Eunseok smiled. "You should be feeling it in a bit."
He wasn't wrong either. You felt a sense of alertness wash over you.
"We're almost there," Eunseok said as he entered a subdivision before pulling up to a house shortly after. Cars were lined up the street, most likely belonging to the other partygoers. You could even hear the music blasting as you sat in the car with Eunseok.
This was the first time you finally noticed that Faith wasn't there. The amount of questionable decisions you were making in such a short time even shocked you.
You walked with Eunseok into to the lively house party hosted by Theo who greeted you at the door with Jell-O shots. "It's about time you got here, princess. We've been waiting for you," he smiled as he took down the cherry-flavored shot you rejected. "Did you get my message?"
"What message?" you asked.
"This one," he said, grabbing your hand to spin you around. "Wanna dance?"
"No, that's alright," you chuckled as he pouted playfully.
"Your loss. I'm a terrific dancer--"
"If by terrific you mean terrible then I'd definitely agree with you," Faith said cutting Theo off. "Hey girl, what do you think of the party? Are you enjoying yourself?"
"Well, we just got here a couple minutes ago."
"Yeah, and I was having a conversation with her until you came over here interrupting us," he poked her nose.
"Puh-lease. I'm sure she's glad I came over here to save her from your boring ass."
"Boring? Boring?! I'll show you whose boring."
"I'm already looking at you dummy," Faith playfully pushed Theo's shoulder. "If you really wanna dance then let's go," she giggled, leading Theo to a corner by the tip of his chin.
"Heh, later princess," he waved to you.
You watched as Theo grabbed Faith's hips. She swayed her hips, grinding her ass against him as he nuzzled into the crook of her neck. A seductive smirk crept across her face as Theo turned her around to face him. He caressed her thigh as he lifted her leg, wrapping it around him. He slowly leaned into her lips, hanging centimeters away from her soft pink lips before she placed her finger on his lips.
"I thought we were just dancing," she beamed.
"Dancing and kissing?" he chuckled awkwardly.
"Uh uh. Man, these shots have you acting extra horny today huh?"
You shook your head, scanning the room for Eunseok. You couldn't believe you were staring at them for that long. You didn't see him anywhere in the kitchen so you went out into the hall to look for him somewhere else.
To be honest, if Faith wasn’t busy teasing Theo, you'd probably be hanging out with her right now. But, Eunseok wasn’t so bad. You actually enjoyed his company.
Still feeling a bit fuzzy and lightheaded from the hit earlier you swayed through the partygoers, silently searching for a familiar face. You were more of a shy person, so engaging with random strangers wasn’t exactly at the top of your list.
“Hey, ~” a dark-haired girl waved to you as she was being dragged off to a bedroom down the hall. “Wanna come have fun with us?”
“No, that’s alright,” you smiled sheepishly.
“Oh come on, baby. I’ll make it worth your while,” the boy said, releasing the other girl’s hand to run his nose against the skin on your neck.
“I said, no,” you spat, pushing him away after he licked the exposed skin on your chest.
“Oh, you wanna play hard to get, huh?” He smirked devilishly as he pressed you against the wall.
You struggled beneath his weight as you looked down to see that the girl had passed out on the floor. Knowing that this was going nowhere good, you swung your free hand to hit him straight in the mouth.
“Argh!” He winced, licking the blood from the broken skin on his lower lip. “You little bitch! You’re gonna regret doing that,” he spat, grabbing your wrist, and twisting it slightly. You groaned at the burning pain travelling down your arm before kicking him between his legs which made him drop to the floor.
While he was on his knees swearing and shouting out all of the horrible things he was gonna do to you, you shook the collapsed girl to try and wake her up. There was no way in hell you were gonna leave her in the hands of this monster.
“Are we gonna play now?” She hummed. “Hmm, I’m sleepy. Can I stay here?”
“No, come on. I gotta get you out of here,” you tugged at her arms. “No girl left behind.”
The boy must’ve been feeling better by the time you finally got her to stand as you felt a set of hands push you to the ground. He grabbed you by the ankles and started to drag you down the hall.
Even though you kicked your legs in an attempt to fight him off, it was useless, he was much stronger than you and you didn’t stand a chance against him now.
Dazed, but conscious enough to see what was going on, the dark-haired girl ran off.
“Dammit,” you thought to yourself. Closing your eyes shut, you prepared yourself to just accept your fate. A set of footsteps ran up the hall toward you as you felt the boy drop your legs to the ground.
“Ugh!” He groaned as you opened your eyes to see a beer bottle had been smashed against his head.
You watched as Eunseok punched the boy in the face until blood came from his nose. His hair bounced at the force of every blow. You could tell he had broken his nose by the way his face had contorted.
“Let’s go,” Eunseok said, looking at you still on the ground. He grabbed the boy by the shirt and proceeded to drag him to the front door. “Does your brother know you’re here?” He spat looking to the dark-haired girl who you assumed ran to get Eunseok.
“I’m almost 18. I can make my own decisions,” she stuttered.
“Right, and we see where that almost got you. Come on, I’m taking you home,” Eunseok said as he walked up to a dark-skinned guy. “Lance! Can you keep an eye on this fucker? The cops are already on their way for him.” Eunseok said as he abandoned the lunatic who tried to assault you and the other girl. “He was trying to make a move on Eunchae.”
“Sure, man. I’ll hold him until the cops get here,” the boy whom Eunseok called Lance smiled as Eunseok walked outside with you and the other girl. “Tell your brother I said hi,” he chuckled as you walked outside.
“Get your ass in the backseat,” Eunseok spat as Eunchae folded her arms. “And put this on,” He said as he pulled off his oversized varsity jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
“Wait! I forgot my phone,” Eunchae exclaimed as the car started up.
“Too bad, I’ll have Theo hold onto it for you. We’re leaving,” Eunchae sat quietly in the backseat as you drove almost 30 minutes to a black and white apartment complex.
Acting like a spoiled child, Eunchae refused to go up the stairs. You could see that Eunseok was more than fed up with her bullshit as he threw her over his shoulder and walked up the stairs to knock on the door.
Eunseok, placed Eunchae on the doormat in front of him as he waited for the door to open.
“You’re not doing a very good job at babysitting her, Seunghan. Maybe you should send her back by your mom and dad,” he said as he poked her cheek.
“Yeah, I might do that because she’s obviously not ready to be an adult yet—“
“No! Ugh! You never let me do anything,” she huffed as she stormed to her room.
“Thanks for bringing her back, bro. I thought she wasn’t feeling well because she went to bed early.”
“Eh, it’s alright. But you seriously need to keep an eye on her. Oh, and Theo has her phone. He’ll probably bring it over later.”
“Okay, it’s not like she needs it anyway,” Seunghan chuckled as he closed the door.
You followed Eunseok back to the car as he started it up again.
“Sorry,” he said after taking a hit of the weed from earlier. “I’m pretty sure this wasn’t exactly the fairytale ending you were expecting,” he sighed.
"Well, it's definitely been interesting," you scoffed lightheartedly.
"Did you want to go back to the party or to my place? It's quieter there."
"Umm, wherever you want to go is fine with me."
You were hoping that he'd choose his place. Mainly because the party felt more like a freak show, a disaster waiting to happen.
"M'kay. My place it is," he said before pulling off.
He didn't live far from Seunghan so the drive was relatively short. You followed him up the stairs before entering his apartment which was uncomfortably cold.
You wrapped your arms around yourself in an attempt to contain some of the heat that was rapidly escaping your body.
"I would've offered you my jacket, but I already gave it to Eunchae," Eunseok said as he turned off the air.
"It's alright," you said sucking in your breath.
"C'mere," Eunseok whispered softly as he pulled you into his grasp.
Your cheeks burned hot as you felt the warmth from his body coupled with the feeling of his breath on your neck.
After a short silent moment, he turned your body to face him. He was met with a warm and submissive look on your face. A sense of innocence wrapped up by desire.
He leaned in to kiss your lips. Little did he know that this was your first kiss.
You freely allowed him to take the lead biting and sucking on your lips as he pulled your body closer to his. You quickly pulled away as you felt his bulge brush up against your core.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” you lied as you eyes fell to the ground.
“We don’t have to do this if you don’t—“
“No, I want to. It’s just that…”
“It’s just what?”
“I haven’t really done anything like this before.”
“Kissing or sex?”
“Both…”
“Oh…sorry, I didn’t know. I kinda just assumed you had done something.”
“There’s a lot that I haven’t done.”
“Well we can stop now if you want.”
“No, I want to keep going. Just take it slow with me.”
Eunseok led you to his room that was fairly empty. Nothing but a king-sized bed, a small night stand, and a laundry bin occupied the floor space.
You stood at the foot of his bed as he began kissing you again. Though this was your first kiss, you never expected it to feel so good. Again, you felt his hardness press against you, but this time you welcomed the sensation.
You felt his hands blindly move across your back stopping at the zipper before pulling it down. He pulled out of the kiss to slide your dress down before directing you to stand up and sit on his lap.
You couldn’t deny the fact that you felt a bit shy about being naked in front of someone.
He slid your panties down before he wrapped an arm around you. He reached his finger down to glide between your lips. The amount of wetness definitely wasn’t ready for his cock just yet, so he spit on his fingers before massaging your clit.
You jerked your body as he used his fingers on you. Gripping onto his arms, you threw your head back as he inserted one finger into your pussy. Your tightness gripped around his finger as you let out a soft moan.
He slowly pulled his finger back and forth grazing the flesh of your g-spot before picking up the pace.
You watched as he pulled his finger out completely covered in your wetness.
“Okay, what do you want to do first? We can go straight into sex or I can eat you out?”
“I wanna go straight into sex,” you replied as you stood up.
“M’kay. Let me go grab something first,” he said before leaving the room. You waited on his bed, playing with the wetness between your legs.
He came back shortly after and pulled down his pants to reveal his pulsing hard-on.
“I’m gonna put this on to make it easier for you,” he said as torn open the packaging that contained a dark blue condom. You watch as he slid it down his length before climbing onto the bed. “You’re gonna get on top okay,” he continued as you hesitantly straddled him.
You leaned forward to place your hands on his chest as he guided his cock to your opening. Slowly, he pulled you hips down gliding his lubricated dick deep inside of you. You whined as he broke through your hymen. A slight burning feeling filled your core.
“Mmm, fuck,” he groaned as he thrusted into your pussy. More swears left his lips before he came inside of the condom. You felt his warm seed fill you up as he laid there breathless.
“I didn’t expect you to be so fucking tight,” he groaned. “Alright, now you gotta suck the cum off so I can fuck you raw. That was my last rubber,” he sighed, fluffing his hair between his fingers.
He pulled the condom off before you went down to wrap your lips around him, sucking off the cum before gagging slightly on his length.
Once clean he bent you over on your hands and knees and plowed into your pussy as you came closer to your climax. He pulled out his cock to insert two of his digits into your gummy hole as you reached between your legs to rub your clit.
Breathless, moaning, and panting you came all over his fingers screaming out his name. He held you down and pushed in his cock to feel you pussy clench around him as you slowly came down from your high.
You collapsed on the bed from exhaustion and satisfaction as Eunseok stroked his length.
“Fuck, that was amazing,” he sighed as he kissed your shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you home before sunrise. Just get some rest for now,” he said as he saw your legs trembling from the orgasm.
This definitely wasn’t the night you were expecting, but you couldn’t say that you didn’t enjoy it.
You watched as Eunseok pulled his jeans up before stepping out on the balcony to smoke. Your eyes fluttered gently as you watched the puffs of smoke escape his lips. He ruffled his hair again before coming inside to join you in bed.
He guided your head to rest on his chest. The gentle hums relaxed you till you eventually fell asleep.
You don’t know what time you got in the car or what time he drove you home, but he made sure to bring you back before the sun came out.
Even though this had just happened the day before, you already couldn’t wait for your next opportunity to sneak out.
❀ Thank you all so much for reading! Make sure to check out other works on my masterlist!
❀ 𝚃𝚊𝚐𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝: @chlorinecake @hoyeonheeseung @addictedtohobi @chaenqen @nikisvanillaccola @mrswolfhard3 @hynjinnn1 @melobin @laylasbunbunny @urfavberry @swaggyjinnie @j4yluv @mimikittysblog @wonbinisbabygurl
#riize eunseok#eunseok#eunseok x reader#eunseok smut#riize fanfic#eunseok au#eunseok angst#corruption kink#tw religious themes#riize smut#riize imagines#eunseok scenarios#smoker x reader#eunseok hard hours#riize au#eunseok hard thoughts#corruption au#eunseok imagines#theo p1harmony#hong eunchae#hong seunghan
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sometimes i think about the future symphony "i should have married you" post you made and it makes me so sad but the other night as i was falling asleep i was struck with absolute agony by the awful idea of "i should have married you" because marrying her would have made her hamato and maybe just maybe then she would have been able to become a hamato spirit. and the brothers most likely would have been able to make contact with the hamato sprits like they do in the series. and because if he married her at least he would have been able to contact her spirit. hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh anyways thought i should share hope your day is going fabulously captain desceros
oh, this is awful. allow me to make it even worse :)
we’ve seen in the series that you dont actually have to have the hamato name to be ‘a hamato’ as april demonstrates. we’ve also seen varying levels of. hm. ninj-oscity? ninpo skills? from the boys. like raph and leo doing a ninja mind meld. just. just mikey.
and we’ve always seen that donnie struggles with ninpo the most.
his ninpo is mechanical. when he uses it at its most conscious level, we see it manifest as blueprints coming together. literal pieces, as if constructed with real material. when he panics or doesn’t go through this process, it’s a vague shape that isn’t as strong or as defined in purpose.
so let’s take this scenario you’ve brought to us.
viola-chan would have, unquestionably, been a hamato. and for that reason, i can definitely see her having a hamato spirit.
…..but i dont think donnie would ever be able to communicate with it.
mikey would be the most likely, since he has the strongest ninpo. but he’d be in high demand since he’s so strong, so i think it would tire him and i dont know how much time and energy he’d have to talk to anyone. not to mention the stress he’d feel when donnie would come to him like Hey Can I Talk To My Dead Girlfriend and mikey’s like…. dude i just got home from 24 hours of straight ass kicking i’m about to pass tf out.
and raph, i imagine, died not too long after viola-chan, so whether he could or not is moot.
leo. well. i dont think leo could communicate with viola-chan either. leo is rather avoidant when he feels guilty or ashamed, and (without going into too much of spoiler territory) he’d feel largely unworthy to talk to you, i think. and since we’ve seen that it takes an open heart to use the technique, it wouldn’t work.
and donnie. god. donnie would try. he would try so, so hard. he would try, hours upon hours, every free moment, banging his fists on his thighs as he’d meditate until he’d collapse. reaching out. seeking. already not as strong at this whole ninpo nonsense. unable to calm himself from the need to see you need to see you please just let me see you one last time please please please that would make it impossible to focus. he’d start thinking about tech that could bridge the gap. that’s how his ninpo works, after all. modeling his blueprint. so if he can design a machine that can talk to you. his ninpo can bring it to life.
but he doesnt exactly have a lot of time to dedicate to a personal project like that, let alone one so fucking insane in scale, so actually impossible to do. and as the time passes he grows more and more obsessed with thinking about it. yet simultaneously more and more sure it’ll never happen. i feel like his last moments, alone, bleeding, staring up at the rust-colored sky, he’d be smiling. because of course he he has some kind of death drone army set to go the moment his ninpo cuts off, and it’s one last middle finger to krang. …but also i think he’d be a little relieved. hoping his spirit will find yours and lavi’s.
(do they? who knows. no more hamato exist in that timeline to find out.)
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Hi Sissy! If it’s not too late, could you do a Fic of Elvis based on the song “Help Me Make It Through the Night?” Like Elvis and you know you’re not good for each other, but you can’t stay away. Can develop into smut but if you’d prefer not, that’s okay too! If it’s too late, I completely understand! Thank you! 😊
@peaceloveelvis Hi! Definitely not too late! First of all, this is one of my most favorite songs. I actually have a series planned to go with this song later, so stay tuned. But also, I haven't written anything without smut in a LONG TIME. This one came out this way and I might revisit it to expand on the smut later if there's interest, but I kind of like it without it. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this ficlet!
Help Me Make It Through the Night
Warnings: none really, cussing, mentions of sex
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Elvis has been a part of your life since you met him during his Timex special with Frank Sinatra. The only thing you did more than make love relentlessly was fight endlessly. The nights were hot, but the mornings never failed to conclude with both of you yelling and at least one of you crying. There was no end to the way you loved each other or the way you managed to drive each other insane. There was always something to fight about and you left each other every time swearing you'd never be together again. But somehow, you'd end up in the same place and before you knew it you were naked in an elevator or in his backseat or in a bathroom or a hotel bed in some sketchy by-the-hour kind of place. Even after he got married, you didn't stop. Your pattern of fucking and fighting stayed the same.
In 1969, though, you had a particularly spirited tryst that ended with both of you saying things you regretted almost instantly. But you were both too stubborn to admit it, so instead you threw a shoe at him and screamed at him to get out and he called you a name and swore he'd never end up in your bed again. This time, the pain you caused cut so deep that you both insisted you'd never give in again. It was over, for real this time. The hurt was too much to make the good times worth it.
So, you did what any self-respecting woman would do. You married someone else.
When he heard about it, he broke an end table and all the things sitting on it in a fit of rage and jealousy and something else he was afraid to admit.
On your wedding night, you cried yourself to sleep with your new husband snoring quietly next to you in the bed.
Then, in 1971, you find yourself walking down the street and come upon a loud and frantic crowd. Your curiosity gets the better of you and you look to see what all the commotion is about. The crowd parts like ill-meaning clouds and he looks up at just the wrong moment.
His blue eyes pierce you straight through to your soul, even from across the street. Something inside you jumps and your hand goes to your throat. Memories of every time you've ever been together slam into you like a freight train and you're somewhere between ecstasy and wanting to die. By the look on his face, you can tell he's experiencing something similar. Everything inside you is screaming at you to go to him, but you feel the cold little ring on your finger and know that you can't. You turn and walk away as quickly as you can. He fights to get away from the crowd around him, but by the time he does, you're gone.
******
You're pacing the floor of your living room when the phone rings. Even several hours later, you haven't recovered from your encounter. You pick the phone up aggressively, annoyed to be distracted by the call.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Presley would like you to meet him tonight at the Presidential Motel at 11pm." Your blood runs cold.
"Why?" The line clicks with no answer. He's left the ball in your court and you hate it. You won't meet him. You just won't. He's impossible.
But at 10:45pm you're in your car. You've spent the last several hours trying to remind yourself of all the reasons you hate him. You finally decide you're going to see him just to tell him that you don't care what he says; you were serious last time. This is not a thing anymore and it never will be again.
At 11:06pm, you sit in the parking lot of the motel, a battle raging inside you.
"This is stupid." You mutter, finally getting out of the car. At the desk, you ask which room Mr. John Burrows is staying in. The clerk tells you and you stomp towards his room getting more and more angry as you walk. The nerve of him to think he can just summon you like this.
You pound on the door with every ounce of rage your body can contain flowing through you. The door opens slowly and your heart skips. Why does he have to look so good?
"You came."
"What the fuck could you possibly want to say to me?! The last time you saw me you called me a whore and said you'd rather swallow a knife than see me again. So, whatever you have to-"
"I miss you."
"You... what?" He speaks again slowly and deliberately.
"I miss you." It feels like your stomach has fallen to your kneecaps. "I'm lonely, honey."
"Call your wife."
"Will ya just... no. I want you."
"Have you forgotten-"
"No, I haven't. And I'm sorry." He's never apologized to you before. You stand in stunned silence just outside the door.
"You're-"
"Sorry. Yes. Now, will you come in please?" You stand there completely lost. Finally, he grabs your arm and drags you into the room, shutting the door behind you.
"What the hell, Elvis?!" He pulls you close to him and presses his lips to yours. For a second, you melt into him. Then, you remember why you were mad and pull away angrily.
"No, I'm not-" He pulls you in again, wrapping his arms around you and kissing you more deeply this time. You fight to get away, but he holds you tightly. Eventually you're able to escape his grasp and you push him backwards. He goes to grab you again and you slap him across the face. Your hands go to your mouth in shock and he looks at you stunned.
"Oh god, I'm-"
"I guess I deserved that." He walks to the bed and sits down. "You actually hate me, don't you?"
You stand there for a few seconds before sitting down beside him on the bed.
"No. I don't. But we said this was done."
"I know. I'm just... I'm alone, honey. And I miss you so much it hurts worse than being with you." You look at him, but he won't meet your eyes. It comes to you that he must be pretty desperate to put himself in this position.
"You're alone?"
"You know how it gets for me. There's people everywhere, but I just... I miss you."
"Why me?" He rolls his eyes and looks at you finally.
"You gonna make me say it?"
"Yes. If you want me to stay here, then-"
"I love you. I've been in love with you since I met you. You're the only one I want when I feel like this and it's been so long-" You reach out and put your hand on his knee and he looks down at it, setting his on top of yours, gently wrapping his fingers around yours.
You're used to these vulnerable moments from him. They're what has brought you together over and over throughout the years. So when he breaks down and sobs, you pull him into your arms and hold him without thinking. Somehow you end up lying in the bed with him cuddled tightly against you, head on your chest. You stroke his hair and hum quietly. This is a familiar position for the two of you and you've missed it more than you care to admit.
Eventually, his breathing evens out and you realize he's fallen asleep. You kick your shoes off and snuggle in to spend the night. As angry as you were, you can't deny him what he needs because the truth is you love him too and you always have. You kiss his forehead and hold him tightly. You've missed this too.
******
In the morning, you make love and it's sweet and sensual and exactly what you've both been needing. And this time you don't fight. Somewhere in the year you were apart, you grew. The love that you have is more important than anything that might separate you.
And as you lay naked together, the world opens up for you. He talks about leaving his wife and you decide your husband will be better off without you.
Will it happen? Will you finally find a way to be together in a way that works for you both? You don't know.
But you made it through this night together. Something tells you that you can make it through anything now.
******
The end?
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
#elvis presley#elvis presley fanfiction#elvis fanfic#elvis#elvis presley fic#elvis presley x reader#elvis x reader#elvis fanfiction#elvis presley x y/n#elvis fluff#elvis fic#elvis x y/n#elvis x you#elvis presley fanfic#elvis presley fluff#elvis presley x you
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For me, the most heartbreaking aspect of Ivan is that the poor clueless bastard didn't have the tools to express his affection in any way that didn't involve violence or manipulation, or weren't too inscrutable, quiet, or unseen to be picked up by Till.
I definitely interpret Ivan as autistic for several reasons, a big one being their Segyein teacher's notes about him:
It's just. Classic ND behaviour to me.
Not only does expressing emotion and communicating the way other kids do not come naturally to Ivan, but it's not as if he's been given a great example of coping with this from the Segyein.
Ivan managed to mask in a way that made him popular with other students, and got him in the good graces of their captors. He did everything expected of him to survive and thrive in this environment.
Then he meets Till, inscrutable and very different to the other kids, just like Ivan is. Except, Till doesn't mask. He doesn't change or try to endear himself to their captors, and he doesn't bend to anyone, no matter how much he is hurt and punished for it.
This is a new situation for Ivan, and he's never had anything to compare his feelings to. He also can't figure out how to communicate with Till, every interaction, no matter how well meaning, seems to end in failure.
I bring your attention to the cheer up comic, and how, again, autistic this interaction feels:
There could be many reasons why Ivan chose to say what he did, but to me it feels like ND bluntness not being received well. And that's fair! From Till's perspective Ivan is being a jerk for no good reason.
Instead of responding with glee towards Till laying him out (as we see from Ivan when they're a bit older), Ivan justs seems... really confused. Like he didn't expect that statement to upset Till that much, and he didn't expect Till to respond in the way he did. Everything was fine a second ago, what went wrong?
Then, Ivan uses the phrase he learned from Till in an attempt to self sooth. It might have been the first example of comfort after an injury/hurt he had ever seen, given how he defaults to it. And it was from Till trying to cheer up a flower.
This also shows some of Till's blindspots. He has grown up having to be vigilant, because violence and hurt have been a core part of his upbringing. This leads to anything he doesn't immediately, clearly understand as being perceived as a threat or a slight, and so he reacts violently to Ivan's statement.
I'll also draw your attention to this comic where, as far as we know, Ivan is simply stating a true fact in a blunt manner:
In my interpretation, these types of interactions keep adding up, and Ivan is grasping at straws the whole time, trying to be closer to Till and failing every time.
Eventually, the only surefire way to get Till's attention is to piss him off, provoke him, manufacture scenarios to talk to him. I'm not excusing this behaviour, but I understand where Ivan could be coming from, from the perspective of both an emotionally immature/stunted child and/or an ND child.
Despite how much they fight and bicker, at every moment it really mattered, Ivan was there for Till. It was always Ivan coming to free him, to take off his collar or gag, and it was Ivan who led their escape.
Ivan couldn't leave Till behind when he went back for Mizi. Even with the confirmation that Till would choose Mizi over Ivan every time, Ivan couldn't leave him.
The miscommunication goes two ways though. It's insane to think that Till didn't care about Ivan at all. They were close as kids, and I doubt Till ever forgot about the escape he gave up.
We have the graduation messages, where Ivan is able to write something that could be reasonably interpreted as affectionate or fond towards Till.
Meanwhile, Till's message-
If we're being charitable with our interpretations, we can say this was Till's way of saying 'of course I remember you' and attempting to communicate that Ivan HAD left a lasting impact on him.
However, how could any reasonable person be expected to get THAT out of 'you stole my fucking pencil'? Ivan could have taken this one of two ways:
1) Omg he remembers me 🥰
2) he leans into his 'i will never be loved back' bias and thinks that Till really doesn't care about him at all
Who the hell knows what goes through that weird little brain of his. But given how Round 6 went, and what Ivan had to say in the confession comic, he obviously didn't think his impact was significant enough.
Then Alien Stage happens, and in Round 3 Ivan is FINALLY communicating his feelings in a way that is vulnerable and might even have a chance of being understood as love and yearning!
Till is unconscious through it until the very end.
Then in the next round, Mizi goes missing, and Till can't care about anything anymore.
Ivan finds him after the private performance, takes off his gag, and just holds him. Again, Till is unconscious for all of this.
Then, in Round 6, not only is Till distraught from the disappearance of Mizi, but he's given no time to process what the fuck is going on before Ivan is dead at his feet. Till might have finally had a chance to really understand where Ivan was coming from, how he really felt all this time, and Ivan DIES.
And still, Ivan's most transparent act of affection? It's delivered with violence. He's kissing a distraught Till who tries to push him away, and neither of them are happy. He puts his hands around Till's neck, not really hurting him, but it's enough to look convincing for the cameras, and it's enough for Till to go limp and wait for death. Ivan's final loving act is to give Till a soft look with blood pouring out of his mouth, that Till still does not see, and then let go before falling to the ground.
It's just a collection of failures. We see from Ivan that he truly loved Till, made a lot of selfless decisions for his sake, was filled with so much longing and affection, but he just couldn't get it across in a way that doesn't seem fucking deranged from an outsider's perspective. And when he DID manage to communicate his feelings more clearly, it was to a Till that was unconscious, or too distracted/dense/traumatised to see Ivan's actions as ones of love.
There's no guarantee that Till would have reciprocated even if Ivan had managed to communicate his feelings in a healthier way, but there was at least a CHANCE. At least Ivan could have gotten some closure, even if he was rejected.
Instead Ivan died thinking he was completely unloved by the person who he cared about more than anything else, and his last ditch effort to make Till understand was deeply flawed and uncomfortable.
If these kids had grown up any other way, maybe they could have had a chance. Unfortunately, the world they were in didn't equip them to not hurt eachother in their attempts to grow closer.
#alien stage#alien stage ivan#alien stage till#alnst#alnst ivan#alnst till#ivantill#tillivan#alien stage round 6#if you saw me edit this a bunch of times trying to link the masterdoc post no you didnt
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Top 20 RotE characters!
My final piece of ranking for this series!
There will be some spoilers in this!
20. Nettle
- If there’s one thing I love, it’s difficult women. Nettle is as harsh as her name suggests. I love young Nettle with her dream magic and how completely kind she is to Thick. And I love older Nettle, who doesn’t mind hurting Fitz’s feeling for Bee’s benefit. She is unforgiving and always strives to do what she thinks is best - even if she doesn’t always know what’s best.
19. Thymara
- Definitely my favourite Rain Wild character. She had my favourite POV in those books as well. I liked how her story paralleled Sintara’s, with her dragon features becoming more beautiful, getting her wings, and her determination to be her own woman. I didn’t love that she ended up with Tats and ended up having a kid with him, but again, it mirrored Sintara’s mating with Mercor.
18. Starling Birdsong
- are we seeing a theme? Starling is so great because she simply does not care if people like her personality. She’s beautiful, she’s talented, and she got her song. The way she destroyed Fitz in Golden Fool was a peak moment in this series. And something i love so much is that no matter how much Fitz complains about her or thinks she’s annoying, he can’t help but like her.
17. Chade Fallstar
- I hate him, I love him, he’s the worst, he’s the best. I’ve said this before - I have complicated feelings about Chade but regardless, they are strong feelings. Ngl, I misjudged his age and thought he was about 80 in the first book so when he made it to the last book?? Incredible. His death got me in a way that I really didn’t expect it to.
16. Dutiful Farseer
- My boy! He had some great development from the most fifteen year old boy ever, to a genuinely good king. I loved his dynamic with Fitz in Fool's Errand. It was really on sight with those two and it was entertaining the entire time.
15. Selden Vestrit
- I saw someone say once that Selden felt like a random npc who managed to get a nat20 on charisma. He's great in Ship of Destiny, and fantastic in the Rain Wild Chronicles. His bond with Chassim was unexpected but so so lovely.
14. Molly Chandler
- I understand why people don't like her. Her character gets in the way of Fitzloved. Soz guys, but I've seen too many female characters get hate because fans were rooting for a mlm ship. Don't get me wrong, its frustrating but Molly never inserts herself in Fitz's life. It the other way around. I think people don't like her less because of who she is and more because of what she represents. She's a simple life, and is the face of Fitz's delusion. But I love her. She's down to earth, she's rough around the edges, she's a simple gal who wants a simple life.
13. Etta
- Etta!!! From a Divvytown prostitute to Queen of the Pirate Isles??? Insane, incredible, showstopping. One thing that I absolutely love about her that I think is overlooked is that, despite how much Kennit was pushing for it and how much Wintrow was pining for her, it did not even cross her mind to get with this 15 year old boy. Kennit is all like 'teach the boys your… skills.' and she's like, ah yes, I will teach him how to use knives. Queen behaviour.
12. Paragon
- Everyone's favourite murderous boat! His dynamic with Amber is great, and his friendship with Brashen is really underrated! He goes from being a grumpy old man to a bratty little boy in seconds (hmmm maybe the similarities between he and Fitz go past the face). He's unpredictable and he will kill again!
11. Althea Vestrit
- I fell in love with her immediately. She's rude to Kyle and then spends the next two weeks sleeping on the floor so she can be closer to Vivacia. She had my heart from the get go. Her ending will always leave a bitter taste in my mouth but none of it is her fault. She starts off a little immature and really grows into a woman worthy of captaining her own ship.
10. Wintrow Haven
- Ship of Magic!Wintrow has my entire heart. He frustrates me to no end with how he treats Vivacia but his arc is insane. He's generally an honourable guy. He frees the slaves and aids in the overthrowing of his father. He becomes a competent sailor and always shows Etta kindness. And despite his corruption by Kennit, he retains his moral compass and grows to be a good guy. I choose to ignore him in Ship of Destiny (just like Robin Hobb oops-) because I don't know who that man is :)
9. Malta Vestrit
- Without a doubt the best Liveships character. She has some of the best development I've ever seen. She's really the Amy March of Bingtown. She's self-centred, annoying, and that girlllllll. I love her so much. She's so clever and achieves so much.
8. Verity Farseer
- MY KING! treated Fitz like a human being which, in this book, is a step up from how most people treat him - especially when he's a boy. He's always a friendly face, even when he's so bogged down by defending the entirety of the Six Duchies with no thanks. He loved very honestly and had great respect for people who deserved it. And in the end, he made the ultimate sacrifice for his people for his folk.
7. Bee Farseer
- She's just as much my daughter as she is Molly's, Fitz's, Nighteyes', and Beloved's. She won me over so quickly, and just when I thought I couldn't love her more, she started biting. I hope one day we see more of her!
6. LadyPatience
- You should have been mine???????? Such a fun, unapologetic character. She is so herself. I feel so seen by her constant, ever-changing hobbies and messy room. She and Lacey are the duo of the century.
5. Burrich
- When I read a book and I fancy a character, I tend to stay loyal to that character. I can love all of the characters, but I only love one. I took one look at Burrich and knew i'd found my man. His parenting skills were questionable at time, but he was doing what he thought was right. He gave up his life to raise Chivalry's son. He stepped up and took care of Molly with no expectations. He raised Nettle like she was his own. Just a solid, good man.
4. Nighteyes
- The best parent in this whole series. He's sarcastic, he's clever, and he's got such an entertaining dry sense of humour. He's a great influence on Fitz and he isn't afraid to call him out. The Wit is such a fantastic aspect of this series and the wit-bond that Fitz and Nighteyes share is so so beautiful.
3. Kettricken
My Queen. I haven't felt this strongly about a character in a long time. Always a beacon of honour in a story of political intrigue, secrets, and betrayal. They really lucked out with this arranged marriage. Not a single person in this story deserved her.
2. Beloved
- Fool, Amber, Lord Golden, Beloved. What a character. every facet of this character is so interesting and deep and beautiful. Amber was THE character in Liveships, the Fool was THE character in Farseer, Beloved with THE character in Tawny Man. THE CHARACTER OF ALL TIME.
Fitz
- You get it.
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Might have to go back to using strive mods cause of the Kirby Axl skin I saw a while back on here. I could go back to using Kirbyman72 as my tag again
#guilty gear#sairambles#axl low#ggst#kirby#I was Kirbyman72 on everything back before I used SaiX -> Sai haha#used it for strive too until I started playing exclusively Axl which is when I decided “Daisuke's1Vision” is hilarious and I'm a genius#only reason I stopped using mods is I forgot what Unverum was and I deleted it LOL oops#The Wiimote and Nunchuk mod for Axl is crazy good it's so funny#also used the replacement for roundstart that was like “YOU AINT FROM MICHIGAN IF YOU'VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE”#made me laugh every time#that and the peter griffin “HOLYY FUCK” over the mortal counter noise LOL#that last one is definitely the most insane#modding comminity goes crazy on this game
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li xiangyi, yin, and femininity
we all know that li xiangyi is a character of fractured identities. and li lianhua is an unreliable narrator to his own story. these make him not the most straightforward character to study. but I've believed in treating li lianhua as a part of li xiangyi, rather than separates. and there must be a common thread that ties all of him together. thus, I offer what I have found to be the most useful lens to use to view him as a cohesive whole, regardless as li xiangyi, li lianhua, or any other identity he may reinvent into: his 阴 yin qualities. (yin of yinyang)
this framework suggested by the drama's text itself has helped clarify to me his strengths, weaknesses, motivations, and struggles. by identifying this constant, too, makes it so much easier talking about what has changed in him.
[to the, hopefully growing, boli lhl hivemind @markiafc @ananeiah]
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there are some notes on the concept of yinyang and chinese conceptualisation of gender I have to preface with.
[disclaimer: of course, I'm not even trying to cover a tip of what experts have extensively studied and debated in a depth it deserves. all I'm doing is try to parse the broad, fundamental ideas that are needed to explain my blorbos through my own spotty brain filter. so there bound to be nuances I've overlooked or some degree of my own interpretation. pretentious but needs to be done.]
阴 yin and 阳 yang are concepts characterised by passiveness, darkness, gentleness, femininity etc, and proactivity, light, toughness, masculinity etc respectively. a very key and handy concept to have in mind is their relationship to each other - which I'll not attempt at explaining better than literal scholars have:
Yin and yang exist only in relation to one another internally as the way warmth-coldness only exist relative to one another. Furthermore, when using yin-yang as an organizational schema, achieving balancing harmony is always the goal, not domination nor subordination of one to the other. [x]
while yin and yang can be symbols of femininity and masculinity, it doesn't mean all female are yin and all male are yang. it's certainly not a strict 1-to-1 equation. the concept of gender in chinese context is more social than biological. this suggests room for fluidity, and shaping of identities, often through social rituals as one journeys through life. it also means that there can be femininity in the masculine, and vice versa - in fact, that's only healthy because you need a good balance of the two worlds. no one part is better than the other. if you think of the two components as relative to each other, they are always interacting and affecting each other, rather than being strict and inert binaries. simply put, it needs to be kept in mind that there are greater nuances in applying yin and yang to the definitions of gender, and to avoid at all cost a simplification of this framework into a binary.
sure, the show has implied that lxy's powers and energy are yin-coded. but femininity is only one of the multiple attributes of yin. so how are we extending lxy's yin to femininity specifically? it's in the text that substantiates and qualifies lxy as feminine. dead women being used as proxies to his character. being literally dressed as a woman in order to put himself into their shoes and feel what they've felt. adopting a name that happens to be very, very feminine - 莲花 lianhua (lit. lotus flower) (it must be caveated that chinese names are NOT gendered. but there are just some names that are more feminine than others.) him coming to lead a life revolving around traditionally feminine, domestic things as li lianhua. him having interactions with the women around him like he's in his own element - no pressure and tension at all, unlike with all the other men.
as such, I'm more willing to use yin and femininity interchangeably in discussing lxy (while it's not necessarily applicable to every point that will be mentioned albeit there being some degree of implied association). and it's for the sake of elucidating what I feel is an intention or very plausible reading of the canon text in parsing feminine experiences in lxy's character. and thus, his queerness.
one last note is that taoism is going be mentioned quite a bit as well because of how much it as a philosophy honours the yin quality. its key tenets include valuing passiveness and inaction as a form of action, and submitting to the nature of things. and we will see how those come up in lxy's life too. (though I'm not gonna attempt to deep dive into it here beyond broad strokes of it.)
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a huge part of li xiangyi's yin actually manifests in him being a passive person. this applies not just to li lianhua, but also li xiangyi. I know. ok wait hear me out. the idea of yinyang is after all components that can change and are relational to each other: thus, there were points in li xiangyi's life when he was less passive than other points, but they ultimately don't match up to the degree of aggression displayed by other men around him. so relative to their display of proactivity and aggression, he can be considered as passive. the best example is that of shan gudao proposing to launch an offensive on jinyuan alliance, while lxy - as much as he was arrogant about it - was standing his ground on not taking action in favour of peace.
it has already showed up in his childhood as well. he wasn't a particularly competitive child: 从来都没有谁要和你争 nobody has ever thought of competing with you over anything, he told sgd as he recalled of their times growing up. it was in fact sgd who was desperate to control and override lxy's presence. baby lxy did not hesitate at all over giving up on winning in favour of protecting his only rare few close relationships left in the world (given how hard-earned relationships are when they're non-familial !!!!). as much as I resent the one-dimensional writing of sgd, he has served as a very strong marker to highlight on lxy's yin.
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I've harped on it several times before but this is the time I finally get to explain it proper: my own theory is that li xiangyi became an unparalleled swordsmaster because of his yin/feminine quality, not in spite of it. an interesting point that had been out in the open unclaimed until it was brought up in our friend group is that, li xiangyi does not actually fit anybody's conventional image of a 武林盟主 wulin mengzhu (ie. ruler of wulin). it would most likely have been some burly, muscular, ultra-masculine dude. even if they don't look like the demonic monk, it should be someone more like di feisheng. but. it's li xiangyi, the boyish, delicate-looking kid, who came to the top. (no wonder people - mostly men - love or love to bully hate him like weak men hate powerful women??)
"why didn't they cast someone who looks more like a wulin mengzhu (read: traditionally manly)?" no, no that's precisely the point. nobody said wulin mengzhu have to look manly. and also who is to define the manliness required to be in a place of authority? (or in my other meta, we would ask, who is to define anybody gets to have the authority over anyone else at all?)
by taoist ideal, gentleness is the most refined form of strength. li xiangyi has been haunting and distracting me in my chinese calligraphy practices lately because I'm thinking about how this must be the closest to what it felt like lxy becoming the best swordsman in jianghu. (so pretentiously brainrotten of me, I know, BUT IT'S REAL and I'm suffering.) mastering a chinese art is essentially about mastering a delicate balance between force and gentleness; being able to draw force from softness 柔中带刚 and an ability to maintain this balance. a beginner will instinctively hold a brush for the first time with brute, unrefined force. some fairly reputable contemporary calligraphers, according to my teacher, can be seen as being either too soft or too forceful - but are still able to pass off as good enough. it's then, the master of masters who will have the sophistication of a firm yet flexible control of the brush with the appropriate use of gentleness/laxness that produces a harmony of strokes. this idea extends to any other sort of chinese craft or practice including traditional chinese medicine, and I believe, swordsmanship too. I'm taking a fucking leap of faith here to say this because I practise NO sort of (chinese) martial arts, I must caveat. (someone who does may want to say something...) but theoretically that should be how it works.
it is not for no rhyme or reason, or *handwaves* that lxy emerged to the top AND is almost undefeatable. among a competitive, forceful (ie. yang) wulin, li xiangyi stood out with a power and energy defined by yin (ie. gentleness and stability) that led him to create his signature 扬州慢 yangzhouman. it is characterised by 慢 slowness (my calligraphy teacher says to us all the time to take it slow), and also described by dfs as 中正绵长 - which I would best describe by painting a picture of a steady and stable stream. these precisely speak of the essence of a mastery of gentleness as strength to me.
conversely, dfs's way in mastering power is very largely premised on taking action because he literally had no other choice in the environment he grew up in. both of them develop in opposite ways. it was the case of gentleness for lxy clearly because he grew up in a safe, nurturing environment that had allowed him to be slow and steady at his own pace, drawing on his natural gifts.
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now top of the wulin world at 17, li xiangyi founds sigu sect. li xiangyi, the boy before becoming menzhu and li xiangyi the leader of sigu sect are not the same.
how then did a (relatively) passive boy like lxy end up founding sigu sect. this lxy is the one who was fostered into competition - though not in an abusive, twisted way. in fact he was raised in a rather taoist way by his shifu: to be honest with yourself and respect your opponent. so he honoured whatever powers he had been bestowed with by nature. he gives into it. even so, at another level, I just have a sense that shifu and shiniang's competitive marital spat had an insidious effect on the boys...though the detrimental effect was more on sgd than lxy. baby lxy feels like a sweet-natured kid who was just in his own zone, you know - some (aka sgd) would say, too much of him even, to have not realised what was wrong at all with his shixiong for years.
that's not all of course. I've always gotten the vibes that his attitude behind forming sigu sect felt more like, this is what all the good men of jianghu do and I will have to do it now especially that I'm the best. it didn't feel particularly personal to me, but rather what would have been expected of him by the social climate of wulin jianghu (eg. lxy saying to 光耀师门 bring honour to his teacher). it's definitely not an expectation from his shifu, who explicitly told him that he was never expected to become a noble figure of any sort, but just to be alive and contented. as concluded by the man himself as li lianhua: "有些人入了江湖是为了立心，而有的人入江湖为的是立命。我却不知道自己真正想要的是什么。some people enter jianghu for the cultivation of the mind, others for a cultivation of a meaningful life. but I never knew what I truly wanted." he was ultimately, unwittingly a passive player in his own story of becoming the great sigu sect leader.
(at this point, as a side note, I do wonder if there were any other similar sects or alliances that function the same as sigu sect that came before it. because I'm damn well sure there must be something, as likely as there must have been generations of wulin legends who came before lxy. but of course, this is not what the story is concerned with at all and I'm ok with that.)
it's crucial to point out that, even despite this being the phase of his yang in the display of taking action and enacting firmness, lxy had still done sigu sect with the sole purpose and manner of upkeeping peace and order (in the way of the pro-universal love, anti-aggression mohist 侠 xia leader of the people). he's still very characterised by yin in my books, especially when vis-à-vis to sgd.
a li xiangyi full of himself and made himself too useful to the people was only bound for a great asteroidal fall, in the concept of 物极必反 - or in taoist lexicon 反者道之动 (ie. anything that has reached its limit will only start developing in the opposite direction). if you think you're above all, you can only go down.
this manifests during the next time he took action - and it was one so forceful that it overpowered even his opponent, dfs who ended up being the passive, receiving party in this case - was in initiating the battle at donghai 10 years ago... and gee oh boy. it didn't end well - for both of them, but even more so for lxy. (dfs was like 'tis but a scratch (shrugs)' as compared to him being ripped off his tendons by jiao liqiao like nezha did to the dragon prince. truth is he had to go into a 10-year healing retreat served by his entourage. :p) ok, I digress.
xiao zijin was quick to attribute sigu sect's fall to lxy's arrogance - in turn setting the stage for lxy's 10 years of self-hatred and the framing of lxy as a villain? irresponsible figure? by jianghu. (god forbid girls do anything! ok for legal reasons, this a joke.) lxy lost his mind in ways I believe he never had in his life there and then upon seeing his shixiong dead. so, you could say he led the jianghu world to ruins out of love (using this term loosely). but it feels inaccurate to say it's due to arrogance. he did not do that out of self-importance or ego, especially when the revenge for sgd was a collective decision made by sigu sect as we know from the flashback. so when llh pinned all fault on himself for being arrogant in the past, it is with caution to take his words because that's the unreliable narrator in him speaking.
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anyway, it's precisely li xiangyi that is capable of bouncing back from such a fatal crisis, equipped with his yin and a mastery that gave him the power of flexibility.
it's extremely vital to re-establish that literally the only thing that was keeping li xiangyi alive, physically, as li lianhua is yangzhouman. (monk wuliao literally said that to lxy even though he did facilitate in saving him.) it's the yangzhouman that was drawn from lxy's mastery of yin. without yangzhouman, li xiangyi would not even have the chance to become li lianhua and undergo any needed process of transformation. without li xiangyi, there would have been no yangzhouman. no li xiangyi, no li lianhua, get it?
the point is not to deny the change li xiangyi wants to make and has made. but to acknowledge that change isn't about complete erasure and destruction. something from you survives. something in you had kept you alive to have you come so far, regardless of all the bad bits that you want to denounce of. you've always been worth it.
bringing back the thing about his new name: the distinction must be made that he did not pick it because it was feminine but it just so happened a feminine name had resonated with him. (read: he didn't necessarily identify as a woman but identified with femininity. at least within the parameters of canon text.)
he also made an interesting choice to retain his surname for someone who was desperate to sever ties from his past. hmm. or maybe he wasn't that desperate? when li lianhua says li xiangyi is dead, I believe it meant that li xiangyi the sigumen menzhu is dead rather than li xiangyi as an entirety. li lianhua is a returning to the path lxy could have gone if he did not establish sigu sect, the path that shifu wanted him to take. when he walked to the doors of sigu sect in the aftermath, nothing was actually stopping him from going back (people were still around and alive, instead of all dead people, you know)... except for himself. taking that action would have been too much for him. so he went with the flow of life giving him a chance at rebirth and walked away. there, inaction as a form of action.
zhan yunfei and qiao wanmian have said to li lianhua, oh that doesn't sound like li xiangyi at all. but has it been considered that, maybe it was sigu sect's lxy who wasn't the real lxy? sigu sect lxy was one big performance of the values of masculinity and heteronormativity that llh had came to an awareness of, and eventually struggle with again and resist against in the final year of his life. there had only been some glimpses of his true nature allowed (validated by fang duobing talking about lxy at his altar).
imho, most flashbacks of lxy during that period felt impersonal and more like a template of a hero expected to marry his girl at 18. going through all the motions and steps of a normative life even before he was old enough to grasp and explore his own identity and what it meant in the world. no wonder he denounced so much of what he had done as lxy including liking girls. walking away then also meant a walk away from those duties and expectations. li lianhua is li xiangyi liberated from masculine duties and heteronormative performance.
in doing that, he had the opportunity for the first time in his life to explore what he truly wanted, at least within the parameters of what he could afford to do at that point. he could go on to build a domestic, feminine life within the space of jianghu (as I've established here). it's a kind of feminine lifestyle that doesn't quite exist in mainstream society - being a woman there meant to stay put in a domestic space without much room to move socially. nor did it exist in wulin jianghu because even the women there like shi-guniang and jlq were expected to be masculine, aggressive, competitive. so building a mobile home in the space of jianghu is his way of defining the life he wants and can have. li lianhua is the extension of femininity in li xiangyi - and one that can be free.
it's also worth talking about in my opinion what is one of the most important and a favourite dihua moment: when dfs said to lxy that his greatest weakness was to like being a hero. and a swordsman should be without weaknesses. I'm forever wrapped up in how many layers this can be read in. was he mad at lxy for liking to be a hero or having weaknesses, or both? if the former, it was dfs criticising, based on lxy's public reputation, lxy's oversized illusions about being a hero - a figure of masculinity with an unrealistic sense to uphold noble goals eg. saving the world etc. that is actually perfectly logical coming from dfs, the straightforward, no-nonsense, morally neutral guy with no illusions about heroism (in this case, he feels more like a yin). but at the same time, we should understand that lxy's motivations behind the donghai battle are more personal than noble. if any, it was actually the opposite of noble - it was like he was acting out of the role of a caretaker of his family, and at a cost of the peace and order of jianghu he was set on guarding(!!) dfs also knew that lxy was there just for his shixiong. and so, dfs, who happens to be the epitome of yang, can be read as a symbol of masculinity disapproving of lxy for being sentimental and emotional; for having the "feminine" desires to simply want to defend his family (not saying those are exclusively feminine traits but they have been conventionally associated as feminine). I think both layers of reading are correct and should work together to contribute to the complexity of their characters. (we can see how it contributes to lxy and dfs being the perfect yinyang halves to each other, which I will come back to briefly touch on later.)
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for 10 years he lived a life of seclusion and staying-in-his-own-lane a taoist would be proud of. he knew he was dying and has always been ok with dying, as he claimed. but did he want to die? to think of it, it was the opposite. because in those 10 years when he could have 100% just taken action to take his own life, he didn't. in fact, he lived on and took care of himself in the way shifu wanted him to. he had simply preferred letting nature run its course. if bicha didn't take him, he wasn't gonna do anything. but if he died one day very soon, he would be ok with it too. sure, he was maybe banking on a lead to sgd's whereabouts to appear during his last years alive but that clearly wasn't the only thing on his mind for NINE years because he didn't actively go out seeking for that either. this is basically him telling dfs that he would just lie in the sun and wait for the sweet release of death, if dfs were to force him to fight. not even the mortal threat from dfs was enough to move him into action of fighting back or killing himself.
time and again, lxy as llh was dragged into fdb's cases but not only that, he also maintained an impersonal distance with them. it's starkly different from the usual (wuxia) hero archetypes (for eg. fdb) who would be more impassioned and personally invested in the plight of the victims- or unlike most seemingly aloof protagonists who would somehow grow emotionally invested over time. one of the many things I love about llh is that he never tries a second time to persuade people out of their decisions he finds unwise (eg. him just wanting to move on in response to the girls in 女宅 insisting on staying behind with their slave master at first.) he will not interfere in other people's choices made in their own lives. it's not his business. he didn't even want to be there, to be honest.
however as the story progresses, more and more people - especially men, his past, and the leads to the truth came back to demand and taunt him into doing something. they vary from well-meaning people without any harm intended such as fdb intruding upon his private space completely uninvited and qwm wanting him back; to dfs merely seeking him as a mean to an end initially (eg. I only need him to live long enough to have one last fight); and finally, on the other end of the spectrum, outright aggressive and hostile people like sgd and xzj who wanted him to die. under all this pressure, he tried his best to deflect, but he does waver especially when it comes to matters concerning the people he cares about aka his obsession wish of 10 years of looking for sgd's remains that had lied low until fdb entered his life, and then later on taking revenge for his shifu.
looking for sgd became his final bid at taking action. he was operating on a slim chance of getting some emotional closure from finding out his shixiong is dead for real, yes. what a good plan. but objectively unnecessary. or surprise! uhhh...finding out his beloved shixiong is actually alive and would strangle him for one corn chip? AND OH NO IT GOT WORSE- uncovering a devastating truth about his shifu's death that he could have totally gone on with life fine without knowing if he had continued not caring.
but it is sometimes just impossible not to care - it is only human to care. and he is human, not an icon in the image of a hero. so he took a chance, once more, and it killed him in unprecedented ways. it's donghai all over again. things in life don't go as planned. you fuck around and it fucks you back. finding out the truth behind his shifu's death and his family background from the past did nothing for him as li lianhua living in the present.
it's no wonder that this lxy decisively relinquishes the desire to take action in the end. he goes back to letting nature run its course. and this time, stands firmly to it despite everyone begging him otherwise. wangchuan flower could only give him a recovery (or survival?) rate of 30%. there's a 70% chance of failure and even in the 30% he was not sure what he was to become. in comparison, dfs took a 10% chance game of survival in a heartbeat, and it pushed him to new heights. that's how they differ: he thrives by taking risks and action while lxy the other way round. so, something like that has happened before and he wants none of it again.
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he leaves lotus tower, only taking his horse and a sack - relinquishing almost every other material belonging he had - and sets off on a journey. before xzj interrupted...where to was he going?? I wonder. we don't know for sure, I think? and are we allowed to know? that makes the scene he had with xzj an understated inflection point in the very last part of his journey. yes, he was already on his way to...maybe die? but not necessarily. you don't have to travel distances with your belongings for that, right? or speak to dfs personally about not wanting to fight? (borrowing one of @ananeiah's takes.) regardless, he was definitely leaving behind jianghu - not only wulin jianghu (he already did that 10 years ago), but also the jianghu space he had carved out in the last 10 years.
what sparked the decision to jump off the cliff in him was dfs's words from the night of their wedding 10th donghai anniversary: 横扫天下容易，断相夷太剑不易 conquering the world is easy, breaking xiangyi sword is not. in the original context, dfs was talking about defeating lxy being harder than conquering the world. but when it came to this scene, it was to lxy about forsaking the very last worldly possessions he had after already giving up on lotus tower and hulijing (including releasing his horse), especially his only connection left to swordsman lxy.
perhaps it had dawned on him that, wanting things at all was bad for him. in the last 10 years, he lived a life of seclusion, wanting very little. but he had still wanted things. there were still things he couldn't let go of that had led him to this state. despite having lived on an identity inspired by a buddhist teaching for 10 years, maybe it was only at this point that he was finally the closest to reaching an understanding of it. (I wish I was knowledgeable enough right now to dive into the possible buddhist reading here but alas. I'll leave it to our resident expert @markiafc)
it doesn't quite matter in the end where he was going after all. what mattered was that he literally went where the water took him and we're not supposed to know where it ends. I'm not seeing this in a bad and pessimistic way though. I think the relief in all this is that he had tried his best to within his abilities. also it's a form of enlightenment in relinquishing a desire, an obsession, a need to take any more action in order to live well. thus his ending felt to me relatively tender, empowering, and kind - albeit bittersweet and heartaching - than other possible kinds of ending, in a story where it was very possible for him to have died under the knives of his opponents or bicha at any moment, outside of his control.
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if you've come so far in this post, congratulations! but also a reveal is that... you're not immune to the dihua propaganda threaded throughout this post. :P
as mentioned, other men like sgd and xzj in lxy's life were incredibly hostile to him. their yang nature overwhelmingly powers his yin. but dfs is different. dfs is the yang counterpart that fits perfectly to his yin.
dfs's yang is one that contains yin, that mirrors lxy's balance of yang in yin. it was suggested in text they are yinyang-coded meant to complement each other, given that whenever wangchuan flower's yin vs yang properties were discussed, the two men were always spoken about in the same breath. more importantly, as with the above few analyses of dfs's words playing a big role in shaping of lxy's choices with multiple meanings - as well as their day-to-day interactions - we can see that they constantly play off each other.
dfs's yang energy has been used to help lxy prolong his life (though not saving him entirely), while lxy has used his yin energy to save dfs and subsequently helped him attain his breakthrough. dfs has also helped lxy in his breakthrough of yin but not in the same way as dfs's cultivation of his combative powers, and rather, it's for lxy an understanding of his own path to take in life - a cultivation of the mind (both times 10 years before and after). given how significant dfs is in the shaping of lxy's realisation of the yin path - alike his shifu has, it's no wonder that they were the only two people lxy had imagined in his last sword dance of a farewell to jianghu.
with each of them coming together to form the perfect yin-yang model, they're a harmony of yin and yang representing the cosmos. what I also love is that they didn't start out as a perfect fit, but only towards the end of the story was the harmonisation completed, which makes sense for two components that are always in a flux influencing each other. the fact that they were number 1 and 2 of wulin, and being the only ones capable of understanding each other in a level nobody else could... it all reinforces the cosmic sense of their relationship. they're the halves to a whole, fitting in a specific way nobody else can.
(I mean. technically this is going into the space of extrapolation based on a tangential interpretation of canon text, so do take it with a pinch of salt. but of course this pinch of salt can do wonders for a shipper's feast... :P and this certainly could have been a meta of its own expanding on dfs's side of the analysis, but this is it for now in this context.)
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to think of it, li xiangyi has actually died more than that one time that turned him into li lianhua. first was a death of him as a nanyin royalty - I resent having to bring up nanyin like it should hold any weight to the narrative as far as I'm concerned, but the point being that he had a completely different (familial-based) life before that still stands. then he had a rebirth as li xiangyi, disciple and swordsman to his shifu and shiniang, and later died again when li xiangyi the sigu sect leader took over. lxy the sigu sect leader died at sea in the battle 10 years ago and came back as li lianhua. (just like nezha, died after battling at east sea and rebirthed from the lotus) li lianhua then dies by the end of the drama.
there can be a myriad of interpretations as to what exactly happened to him, including the possibility that he's still alive. regardless, we can agree that li lianhua as an identity has ran its course, and he had to evolve again. but into what form?
in the line of thought of yin and femininity, and how his transformation has been in an increasing degree of presentation of femininity - even way back when I was watching the show, I had the idea of him living socially as a woman post-li lianhua. I don't know what he would be realistically doing or what could be practical for him in such an identity. but conceptually it was sensible and compelling to me before diving deeper into the details. (I have more elaboration to do on this that I won't be talking about here publicly but it is in the same strain of idea as this other comparative meta I wrote.)
I think the next possible identity lxy can assume - alive in the material realm or not - is one that will be beyond a material being. a nameless entity. once you've gone through the phases of life - from not knowing to knowing, and perfecting knowledge, then to the surpassing of knowledge - you surpass all worldly existence, and become one with the cosmos.
I end this off with an excerpt from Tao Te Ching's Chapter 41 (I'm not pretending to have read the whole book ok but I couldn't resist including this):
明道若昧，进道若退，夷道若纇 [...] 道隐无名
The bright path seems dim; Going forward seems like retreat; The easy way seems hard [...] The Tao is hidden and without name. (x)
the character translated into "easy" is the same 夷 yi of li xiangyi's name. somehow this seems to encapsulate the journey of his life: one that seems blessed and smooth-sailing but ending up to be rocky and turbulent. but at the end of the day, after all that he had been through, he will become hidden and without name.
#莲花楼#mysterious lotus casebook#lhl#lhlmeta#my posts#a big win for the inaction fandom. lxy would have been patron saint#this inevitably turned into a 'lhl is a taoist and buddhist story if not a very chinese story' meta hbhjbjhbhjjb#the last thing i do before going to sleep is write this meta. the first thing i do after waking up is write this meta.#i feel so insane writing this. it kept growing like a monster. do you think this is a joke it's like my part-time job now#but it's one of the few times in my life i have confidence in my insanity. so.#crazier thing is. this meta is approaching 6k words yet i still think there must be things i haven't covered.#the last section is so nuts idk how i even wrote it guys i think i was possessed#it's also like the most pretentious way to put that he's dead in this world ok hjbjhbhjbhjbjbh#to be clear iirc the drama didn't say LXY'S POWER/ENERGY IS YIN in the same way it literally said dfs's energy is yang#but it's definitely implied by the explanation of the flower's healing properties for both of them. on top of yangzhouman#also fuck. another reason he didn't choose to save himself was so dfs could have the yang flower which he believed was what dfs wanted#thank u frens mark and ana for indulging my brain in the first time i brought the lxy as woman thing up. for it to have come this far#ofc disclaimer is that a lot of this is my own reading. it doesnt have to be agreed by everyone#i would be very happy though if any part of it resonated with anybody#also a good part of the analysis is based on my memory of the show. though i did revisit parts selectively to verify. sooooo. yeah.
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Val Is Pretty Sure She Might Be Losing Her Mind, more at 11
#okay so y’all. do you happen to remember Alcott Boy? the guy I had a crush on from school last year (or really the whole time I’ve been in#college honestly) who had Opinions on Little Women#yeah him. anyway I thought I was over my crush on him but GUESS WHAT it’s back and worse than ever#like I only have one class with him that’s once a week but guys guys I feel like I’m LOSING MY MIND like. I’ve never felt the urge to#actually go up to a guy and say ‘hey do you wanna go out with me?’!! like I would never actually do that but the urge is most definitely#there??? and it’s not even that he’s cute (although I mean I think he’s cute) but he’s really really intelligent and funny and very notably#always willing to bring up his faith in class discussions (and this isn’t really the campus for that) and I’ve always admired him for that#(this is also the boy that looked at something I wrote in fiction class and said ‘that’s it that’s what love is supposed to be like!!’ LIKE#) and I genuinely don’t know what to do#like should I be concerned that I feel this strongly so soon after The Boy?? should I be concerned that this might just be limerance???#my roommate has been offering to talk to him for me and ask if he’s single and is it insane that I’m actually considering it???#like if I’m going to now is the ideal time—I’ve already had my class with him this week and spring break is next week#and I’m certain he would never make me feel bad if he didn’t feel the same. but if he did wouldn’t he have said something by now? I don’t#know I don’t know I don’t knooowww#but I graduate in two months and I don’t want to regret it for the rest of my life
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part two to this <33
your first week as Dottore's assistant was... interesting. interesting in the way that you'd never seen his lab before this, as the only people allowed inside were himself and the scarce few subordinates he trusted enough to not mess anything up, and interesting how Dottore's segments loved popping up out of nowhere and giving you a good fright.
you learned to listen for footsteps really well afterwards.
other than that, being Dottore's assistant wasn't exactly a joy. Pantalone had been reluctant to give you, one of his most level-headed agents, over to the mad doctor, and now you know why. Dottore was unpredictable and morbidly curious about the world's inner workings, and his segments often started bickering with each other, leaving you to run around trying to complete all the tasks they were supposed to do, not to mention that you're not exactly why you're here in the first place- Dottore hasn't said a word about the strange beast who hugged you in the hall, only making sure you're out of the lab by a certain time.
until one day he beckons you towards a door leading deeper into the lab with an ominous smile, opening the door a crack and shooing you inside, the words "He's calmer today." hissing out from underneath the bird beak-shaped mask. you hesitantly step inside, a deep sense of foreboding blooming in your chest.
then the door slams shut and your heart drops.
you know there's no point in begging Dottore to open the door- when he wants to test something, he'll see it to its conclusion no matter what- but when you hear a familiar growl you almost consider pleading anyways. instead you press your back against the wall, pulling out the small blade all Fatui agents are given even though your hands are shaking with fear. perhaps if you're quick and smart, you'll get out of here with only an arm or leg lost.
claws scrape on the floor as the monster approaches, familiar crimson mask and horns coming into view. but when its- his gaze settles on you, the angry growls from before immediately die into concerned trills, head lowering to your height. you watch, astonished, as the creature clicks affectionately to you, snuggling into your stomach, and you slowly lower your knife and allow it to drop to the ground. tentatively you begin petting the fluffy ginger hair before you, and the beast begins purring contentedly, much like the day you met him, now nuzzling into your lap and forcing you to slide to a sit. but you don't mind, and simply continue running your fingers through his thick coppery hair, a nervous smile twitching at the sides of your lips.
is... the monster crying?
the door suddenly swings open and you snap your head towards Dottore as the monster bristles and growls, leaping to your defense. the Harbinger simply chuckles and places a hand on your shoulder, wide grin showing razor-sharp teeth, and the creature balks, a fearful whimper slipping from his fanged maw as he obediently backs into the furthest corner, single eye trained on Dottore's hand. you hear more than see the Harbinger's smile when he speaks,
"Wonderful, the first experiment with Tartaglia was a complete success."
...Tartaglia?
#genshin impact#childe#tartaglia#gi ajax#foul legacy#foul legacy childe#genshin tartagalia#genshin childe#genshin tartaglia#genshin x reader#childe x reader#heheheheHEHEHEHEHE#dottore is allowed to be a little insane!!! as a treat!!!#i saw some people going 'oh pantalone wouldn't care about you' WRONG!!!!! you are one of his best agents and he is worried /lh#also dottore was most definitely threatening something in the last part#using you to control foul legacy...... yeah#wifi's brainrot#short scenario
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youtube.com/watch?v=CDrrKAqXp2Q&t=15618s
hi, i think you should watch this hasan vod with alex and aleksa
it’s actually the same stream as when they went shopping with xqc (but before xqc arrived)
anyway, they join at about 3:51:18, and the first ten minutes (like until 4:01:28) are especially good i think, though there are some good moments throughout
also please watch aleksa at 4:09:22
hiiiiiiii thank you so much for this rec there were so many insane moments that i was forced to strip this comp back to the basics bc the file wouldve been too big otherwise but i think this should still be a pretty exhaustive selection:
the cum eating / cum retention story
"i think i wasn't ready for alex's severe and intense training regime. he ended up putting me in the hospital during one of our spars... which is nice. 😁"
hasan being glad he didn't have to fight alex + saying he looks like a ufc fighter + alex: "i feel like you would still smash me."
"[alex] looks like he grew up in dagestan punching rocks"
aleksa: "alex would just dominate me the entire time"
alex complimenting aleksa
"we weren't going that hard, it's more just [alex] got, like, the sweet spot" (??????)
alex saying he was worried he would appear weak "because hasan's so big" Okay
(my personal favorite) them discussing alex's unreal physique + aleksa saying how annoying it is when he randomly starts working out at home + calling alex a weirdo + "just go bat off like everyone else"
hasan giving alex his shirt + alex saying he looks "like a schoolchild" with rolled down sleeves
"you guys bang each other? all the time." and aleksa's intriguing reaction
aleksa's obsession with bass pro shops shirts
aleksa talking abt wanting to show hunter biden's cock on twitter to alex
#i had no idea there was like a prequel to them going shopping with xqc!!!!!!!!!!#also hasan & alex complimenting each other's bodies again and the fact that alex was agonizing over which photo to send hasan#so much so that he apparently consulted it With aleksa........he like showed him both photos & needed advice on which one to send........#ididathing#boy boy#alex apollonov#aleksa vulović#aleksa at the last timestamp you mentioned.............no way........................incredibly thinking#he looks like hes surprised alex & hasan have banged each other and didnt tell him but he also accepts it insanely quickly.#which probably or most definitely isnt what it is but thats what it looks like alright hitting post and praying that this uploads#also i cannot believe that the entire boy boy fandom is turning into like a genuine hivemind#bc triija has told me to check this stream out recently too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so of course naturally i had to.
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for a long while when I'd visit my relatives on the chesapeake for a brief respite from the hells of home life, there was an odd beat-up little cardboard box sitting amid the plastic-cased ds games in the gamestop I'd always visit (rarely to actually get anything)
finally, one time before the journey back to hell, i actually had a scattering of bills in my pocket. after looking around at the shelves of shovelware (i didnt have enough for any of the proper titles like mario or pokemon), i finally decided to bring the story to a close and give the ragged little box a home
it was Sola-to-Robo, one of the rarest ds games ever published, possibly the most technically advanced engine ever devised on the system, and among the most unique and emotional experiences I'd ever encountered in a video game (which is saying something considering I'd already all but lost emotion by that point)
i barely remember it anymore, but for the time it became my favorite standalone game of all time (although it technically is part of a series, succeeding the PS1's equally obscure Tail Concerto)
I still dream of returning to it and seeing just how well it holds up from a more experienced point of view
the one thing i do remember is that it had and still has by far the most beautiful and powerful opening song of any game ive ever encountered, which is saying something considering the hundreds out there! it's up there with Atelier Meruru's Cadena
also the fact that when you beat the game, after the credits it goes "chapter 2" and there's an entire sequel within the game. altogether both parts are probably not longer than any other rpg, but on the original ds where full 3d action rpgs were resource intensive and typically limited in scope, it was mindblowing
also it apparently had like undefeatable copy-protection and to this day still requires a modified rom to emulate or even run on original hardware without a card?
anyways.... remarkable game. i was shocked to find that it's one of the most sought after titles on the system. in rarities ive personally enountered it's second probably only to Retro Game Challenge, which I encountered at regular price once in the late 2010s but didnt have the money for at the time... that's my "one that got away"
#for me it's also up there with klonoa and a handful of old sonic titles for having anthro designs that are actually great instead of weird#i always start thinking anthro designs are just a lost cause but then i remember like solatorobo and redwall and beatrix potter and am like#“no theres tons of room for animal folk in art it's just that modern 'furryism' is usually so soulless and based on corporate mascot styles#anyways..... my short recollection of a remarkable game#hotel dusk and last window are very rare too but theyre so obscure their prices aren't actually that high#tingle's rosy rupeeland wasnt expensive either back in the day but i bet it's gone way up now. wish i got it back then#mario 3-on-3 is another one that's insanely rare but absolutely no one remembers or cares about it lmao#i found it at a gamestop in ass-nowhere shenandoah in 2020 long after the stores were supposed to have done away with their ds collections#anyways..... original ds is a favorite system of mine... not actually for nostalgia reasons (i barely experience any anymore)#but for the sheer variety and uniqueness of titles to be discovered on it... maybe the most of any platform ever#and the fact that many of them had SSS-tier stylistic direction#ive yet to find another title that even comes close to the blue-skies beauty of bomberman land ds#OG ds was definitely a blue-skies system
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this is such an indulgent au I made for myself that's not even related to selfshipping but i love to imagine the dexholders in a filipino school setting where some of the kids are part of the class officers and this is definitely based on my irl experiences with my old class when I was elementary to... freshman. <3
#ill just ramble in the tags from here on out#the class batch counts from the kanto to the hoenn dexholders - since they're all the most tied to one another#the officer list might change but the ones ive definitely settled were like#blue. he's the president of the class - he's quiet smart but handsome and would be a teacher's pet because he's also oak's grandson#red is vice president - he's a goofy compared to blue but he still has that vibe of someone you can absolutely rely on (and he does it)#would sometimes get told off by blue for being too carefree with his duties but they still go well together as a duo#i think i wrote secretary for crystal!! since crystal would definitely have a lot of biodata on her pokemon#it's only natrual that she'd be pretty good at being a secretary#in my class being a secretary means to keep track of students' attendances and names - basically writing a lot of things!#she's the smartest i like to think shes probably in the same ranking as blue (high honor students)#red is around the middle#green is the treasurer! (i was the treasurer last school year actually)#now i know this ones such a wild one because green is noctorious for being a good thief but that also means you cant outsmart her with money#and she's sure to keep the money safe. maybe she would spend the money secretly for her personal wants but she refills the amount she paid#<- i totally did that. nobody from my class knows me here so i can say this with full confidence AKSJSJAJJSJSJD#except its not for personal its for emergency LMAO like getting plete for tricycle n shit#looking at my notes apparently i wrote that sapphire and gold should be sergeants - i mean. i mean they can do the job but like#they're also kinda. insane so like - that's gonna be funny#sergeants are supposed to watch for their classmate's misconduct or stop anyone from fighting or whatever#that's all i wrote - i left the rest blank#about sapphire - i totally see her in my old classmate who was crazy about anime boys (except its franticshipping)#she's aggressive (to boys especially) but she also gets super UWU OMG KYAA BOYS <3 bitch THAT'S LITERALLY SAPPHIRE AND RUBY#that girl also acts tsundere at times so like. yeah you're sapphire coded girlie#ok thats all....#i kept this au to myself for like 2 months now PGPPTPTPTPGTP#pokespe hours#🍀 jil's rambling
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my mum: you've been doing really good lately. every part of your life is really stable and you seem genuinely happy, it's great to see :)
me, who's felt like ive been going actually crazy bananas insane for months now: yeah haha
#sometimes i forget that 'being in total control of my emotions at all times' isn't just my cringe lore & is actually something im good at#like wdym my MUM said this. girl im experiencing horrors over here!#i got really offended by it? ilke i just smiled at her and agreed but inside i was like HELLOOOOO CAN ANYONE HEAR MEEEE#i just genuinely feel like i am so detached from myself and im entirely manipulative and i micromanage every facet of my personality#and change it day-to-day person-to-person and not in the Normal Human Way but in a crazy insane I Am Manipulating People Way#& it's a CONSCIOUS thing & like. idk who the real me is idk if there is a real me idk if id like her if i saw her idk if im a good person#but i look like im doing fine. i seem really stable and happy atm according to the person who knows me better than anyone#like that's the extent of my control on myself. even my mum cant tell. HUH#idk i feel like im being dramatic bc last week and this week ive definitely been feeling a lot better#and like maybe i was just having some sort of months-long episode but that doesnt negate the fact that while i was IN it no one could tell#not even the closest people to me that see me every day in the same house where im most vulnerable could tell#that's like. worrying surely. maybe. i think. whatever im just saying shit at this point#i always do this tho i go 'i fundamentally base my self-worth on how little i share vulnerability with people#and it's been a constant part of my personality since childhood that i dont talk about my feelings' and then i get SO pissed off#when people dont realise im going through shit. like girl what did you THINK was gonna happen. look inwards#hella goes home
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Whenever i am told thangs abt the leech i just go. What an embarrassing person gosh
#iykyk#god damn#The stupidest and most oblivious person ive ever came in relatively close contact with /gen. With several ppl who know them irl agreeing#i kind of feel bad they dont even realize this but not gonna bother myself with it its just me going damn#unfortunate#apparently they are under impression im a lurker. one of their MANY projections but possibly the funniest/most pathetic one#i literally did not see their blog/crs blog since waaay back when we were still getting along#i have 0 reason to go in their spaces#last ive heard they were obsessively going thru tags on my posts day in and out#at work out of work#that makes ONE lurker in all this haha even crink knew to stop at some point LMAO#literally all i know is from ppl telling me soz m8#osmosis#just. the fact they believe ppl care enough to lurk on them is really funny in a sad way#ive been told they are paranoid abt one of their followers or something?#theyre nobody i know but stay paranoid ig#the assumption ppl would care enough#i was chortling while having old pellets read out for me#i would have to be insane to care abt what someone like that says#by which i mean an undiagnosed unmanaged shut in#quote /the universe hates them/#definitely nothing to do with them being a mess#fitting that they have an alter ego/sona that is just their bad traits concentrated#like yeah. why are we even upset LMAO#projection town on their end allllllll the way it just screams /unwell and out of the loop/#they dont know... ajajaj...#night was not happy abt that post no surprise there#YES they are enabling infidelity yes they are inserting themself. was supposed to stay in the house a few months and now. poor night jfc#nine months to go is too long#im so glad she told them
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im thinking about the wire again
#p#ds9#thinking abt.. how julian is often v sensitive to what people think of him (e.g. the b plot in explorers)#but in Doctor Mode pretty horrible verbal abuse just rolls right off him#and that the lengths he goes to in it are objectively like pretty insane AND that he'd have done it for anyone#also about the notion of forgiveness wrt garak. he never said why he needed it and i imagine he never would say it#comparing it w improbable cause/the die is cast i do imagine that compassion like he mentions in one of the stories#and shows for odo has been something he's always had and struggled against to do his work#did he need forgiveness for the weakness of having it and acting on it? for not acting on it more often? for something else entirely?#one of the most interesting things about their dynamic to me is that julian knows he won't get a definitive answer there#and won't know to what degree garak worked for or against the occupation and any number of other things he'd morally condemn#(not to mention how he felt about those things as he did them not that it matters wrt making a moral judgement)#and he doesnt seem to care that much! it's an interesting point of hypocrisy#that last part is less relevant to the wire bc like julian says & demonstrates he would've done it regardless of his guilt#just thinking abt it & them more generally. bc they keep hanging out and julian talks v fondly to him in s3#garak#julian bashir
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.
#a little worrisome how people nowadays won’t develop a personality and somehow be proud of it#treating being a fan of an artist is not or at least should be not your only personality trait#I know we all constantly make jokes about how these people should go out and touch some grass but fr they should#I kid you not for the last 24 hours the cult behavior I saw from taylor fans on tt was actually insane#it’s not normal in fact it’s actually very weird to see the extents people go to defend someone who doesn’t know they exist#and I’m saying this exclusively about taylor stans I know there are other group of fans exactly like that too#but hers in specific are in another level lately they put her on this pedestal this type of parasocial relationship needs to be studied#being a fan of someone or something can be part of who you are but shouldn’t be your entire personality#and just bc you really love an artist that doesn’t make them immune to criticism#as a matter of fact some of taylor criticism are valid but because of the way HER FANS reacts it turns into hate#anyway would love to see some psychological analysis on the cult behavior some “fans” have#and again I know this behavior is not exclusive to taylor’s stans but is definitely the one I’m seeing the most lately#b talks
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