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seventh-fantasy · 6 months

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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]

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.)

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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blended-ice · 11 months

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thinking about Those end credits

#bro the mental gymnastics I had to do to spell champagne right in the alt text #literally used 100% of my brain power my iq was 400 #always gotta say it aloud as cham pag negh #English words are wack #anyways crazy that these dudes are married and get to kiss each other every single day while sober #when is it my turn #btw please don’t look at the glass for the alcohol #I didn’t even try while drawing it and boy howdy you sure can tell #yuri on ice #yoi #katsuki yuuri #viktor nikiforov #peas n guac #viktuuri #id in alt text #fanart #tw alcohol

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chirpsythismorning · 1 year

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Idk what’s worse, the fact that there are milkvans out there that believe El commissioned Will’s painting, or that a majority of milkvans believe she didn’t, but still think everything Will said to Mike in the van scene applies to how El feels about Mike as well. And honestly, how could they not? Mike looked very happy and emotional hearing Will's words in the van... no shit they're hoping that's how El feels.

But El never called Mike the heart. El never said she needed Mike and always will. Those words coming from Will's feelings for Mike, then being used to inspire Mike to give his monologue to El, was disingenuous bc it was never El’s feelings being responded to in the first place.

‘It only works if it comes from you’

That’s the whole problem. It didn’t work bc it was coming from Will, not El.

IF everything Will said applied to El, why not have it come from her?

No, but seriously??

Is s5 just going to open up to El apologizing to Mike for ignoring him after the monologue, followed by her just repeating everything Will said with her own twist and Mike being like cool!! That works for me!

The problem with making the narrative choice to instead focus on Will's feelings at the forefront, only to follow it up with El's identical feelings, does nothing but make the whole thing fall flat.

Instead of seeing this main couple voice their love for each other themselves, I gotta have her brother do it for her?? And only then after he does it, can I see her do it in like a 2.0 version of sorts????

So many milkvans are willing to acknowledge that Mike and El’s dynamic throughout the series is riddled frivolous conflict more than anything, with little to no time dedicated to showing the development that actually matters. They say they wish the show spent more time with them actually face to face acknowledging how they both feel verbally without the constant cloud of some other third party interfering, causing them to have issues. They say that this time though, they think the Duffers will magically pull through for them and go from what they believe is shitty writing to ‘good’ writing, based in terms of how they'll handle Mike and El's relationship in s5...

But that's not realistic on any front, milkvan, byler or otherwise.

And that's a big part of the problem, bc they know the pacing has not been great for them, and they NEED the show to just give them Mike and El so they can be happy, but that's not how you build up suspense for a love story. And dragging out Mike and El any more, would just be a repeat of every other season before. They reached their peak and so they can only down from here. That's kind of the whole point.

One thing to note is that the Duffers always create conflict for the incompatible couple early in a season, so that the audience doesn’t feel too uncomfortable with the idea of considering the other option that’s at the forefront for the rest of the season.

This will ESPECIALLY be the case for byler, bc Will already has home wrecker allegations as it is. And it's also a highly controversial queer ship, and so people are going to be making claims left and right that it’s wrong bc of xyz.

They just wont be able to have byler scenes loaded with romantic tension all season long, more than any other season, and with the story making it more obvious they want us to root for them, while also having Mike and El still be together. And it's simply bc the reality is the Duffers have a record of doing the complete opposite of that.

This is also endgame territory, so there is a serious pressure on the writers part to get their audience to be closer to rooting for byler than denying it even being possible. Meaning they NEED the audience to be watching their first kiss and, for better or worse, be thinking, FINALLY just get it over with already!

Also what's El's supposed to be up to while this is happening? Are we assuming she's just stringing along waiting for Mike to get his shit together? Like Jesus!

El has every right to say her piece and get that shit over with, by episode 1 or 2 at the latest. She could be a focused on Max and her family and friends, which if you'll note also includes Mike and Will, but instead this time without the pressure of her having to hope that something will turn around and suddenly Mike will decide he finally loves her... She doesn't deserve that.

Byler is clearly the route they are taking. If that is the plan, it's time to make this separation so that the audience is finally confronted with viewing Mike and El without the constant rose tinted love at first sight goggles, and instead give them a chance to be their authentic selves.

And I think El, being a character that could barely speak in s1, that her not getting her own voice in this situation is fucking serious. El not being able to say those words to Mike herself, like there's a reason for that. And so when she finally does get to say how she feels, there isn't going to be any room for subtext or misunderstanding, not on the audiences part nor Mike's. El has always been pretty clear about what she wants and I think that will apply in s5 now more than ever.

#byler #no but srs i try to imagine their version of the show and my brain sort of just freezes up #is their dynamic going to just completely shift and they'll communicate perfectly #after barely communicating at all at the end of s4?#like they know that milkvan need to be together by now to make sense and that's why their version has them happy right away #bc they cant allow themselves to see it any other way #bc it would just literally be a repeat of every other season...#somethings gotta give #give el her voice to say how she feels for herself #and don't be mad when it turns out her brothers feelings don't exactly match up with hers #you know.. the words mike smiled captivatingly too...

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fixatedonfandom · 1 year

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Aw, Hell

this is a pre-EngieScout fic :3 idea shamelessly stolen from @hanktalkin in this gorgeous post about ol' Engie's legendary temper, and the one thing proven to cool it off

This is the lightest and brightest thing I've ever written it made me feel like skipping through a field of daisies

I don't claim this to be the pinnacle of my writing but I do claim it to be darn cute and self-indulgent. If it reads strangely that's because I wrote this as a message from the divine. Thank you <3

~~~~

After four long hours of battle, and round after round of humiliating RED Team losses, the klaxon wailed and hailed the end of the work day for the poor fellows down in Teufort, New Mexico. The BLUs marched out with high heads and gloating smiles, and retreated to their locker rooms to count out bet money and crack open some beers. The REDs trudged through blood-clotted sand puddles to their lockers and scraped their heels in the door frame, with uniforms lousy, torn, and sweat-soaked beyond the good of washing. No blistering smiles, or cheerful banter, and not really much noise at all save for the slamming-open of the locker doors and the clatter of guns, hats, and accoutrements to the benches and the floors.

It was an ugly series of rounds, and an uglier loss overall, made worse with some faulty equipment (Scout’s headset had been acting up the whole day, Sniper’s best scope had a scratch), bad calls, and plum poor luck. Not a man in that room was happy, but none more pure and pissed than the good Engineer Dell Conagher.

He stomped his path to his standing locker and ripped the door near off of its hinges, and hurled his favored pipe wrench into the wall with a cantankerous CLANG.

“Dammit!” The man bellowed, tearing the canary-yellow hardhat from his head and throwing that to the concrete as he bitched. “God-dammit! We had them bastards on the goddamned ropes!”

It was true. Their losing rounds had been consecutive, frustrating, and downright embarrassing at times, but they hadn’t all been hopeless. The midpoint of round 10 had given RED a crucial break in the BLU’s push for the second point. RED Heavy begot a dead BLU Heavy, RED Sniper begot a dead BLU Soldier, and a pissy RED Medic begot a dead (and grossly dismembered) BLU Demoman. With that much space to breathe, and that much time for the Engineer to rush-upgrade his ballistic turret, they could’ve held that point much, much longer.

But that damn BLU Spy, and his damn BLU sapper. That solid hold they'd had fell apart about as hard and as fast as Engie’s turret had when he turned his back at the wrong time.

“Damn Spies…” Engie muttered through his clenched jaw. He was grinding his teeth together so tightly one could imagine he was trying to make corn flour in his molars. “I’m so damn mad I could spit.”

It wasn’t an often sight for the other 8 men to see the Engineer so hot. He was American, a people who could be known for their flaming tempers, and he was a Texan to boot, but Engie was cool-headed at the worst of times and could even be downright tranquil at the best. Never one to holler, shout, or scream at his fellow teammates in anger even in the thick of a losing battle, even if any one of them was being an obvious flaming idiot. He was a quick-witted, level-headed, stoic sentry of a man. That’s likely why his anger wasn’t much like a firecracker, but more of a pressure cooker left to stew for too-little too-long.

He radiated anger like heat, and one could hear his developing migraine beating a pissed-off rhythm in his skull from down a long hallway. It was the kind of slow, rough, abrasive anger that killed people for breathing too loud too close.

The last time he'd gotten all up-in-arms like he looked right then, the team had elected to ignore the bellows and crashes coming under the base from his workshop, only realizing the extent of the damage when they'd found a mangled experiment tossed out by the dumpster, scorched and twisted beyond recognition or repair.

So, lest he be compelled to show the rest of the boys what his old pipe wrench was good for beyond sentries and dispensers, it was silently agreed among the rest of the RED men that the best course of action would be to stay out of the Engineer’s way when he was stewing.

The sticking point of a silent agreement, however, was that it wasn’t much good for a man who was as tone-deaf and emotionally unobservant as a fart in a funeral. The good RED Scout happened to be one of those sorts of men.

When Engie’s tight-lipped curses became mutters and huffs, Scout, who had been undoing his hand wraps, looked up and said, “Hey, Eng."

Shoulders tensed and hands stilled across the room, though Scout didn’t seem to catch any of that. Engie inhaled and bit out, “What, Scout?”

“Whaddayou call a mix between an elephant and a rhino?”

Immediately, the other REDs shuffled away from the scene, doing what they could to get cleaned up and get out of there before the pot boiled over. Scout was annoying; everyone knew this. He could try the patience of a saint. He seemed to know intrinsically the buttons of everyone he met and exactly how to push them. They’d seen him send people from zero to pissed in a few short sentences. None of them thought he’d be stupid enough to try and antagonize the Engineer, though. Not even Pyro played with that much fire.

Engie shook his head, then dragged his hands real slow down his face. “What?”

Scout chuffed, snorted back at him, “‘El-if-I-know!”, then hunkered over in choked off giggles that turned into the loudest sound in the room.

Engie didn’t chuckle, didn’t hardly smile, just pushed his lips together and started shucking his toolbelt to put it away.

When Scout collected himself he started on his left hand wrap, glanced mischievously over his shoulder, and said again, ”I got another one”

“Lad.”

That was Demo on the bench across from Scout a little ways away. He fought to catch Scout’s eye and, when he did, shook his head very slowly to warn him off.

Scout shrugged, like he was saying, ‘What?’.

Demo shook his head again and nudged it in the direction of the Engineer, trying to draw attention to his drawn-up shoulders and the steam practically coming out of his ears.

Scout just looked between him and Engie, he did it a few times, then shrugged again. ‘What?’

While Demo tried to come up with the most intelligent way to go about getting Scout to see what was right in front of his damn eyes, Scout went back to Engie.

“Whaddayou call a cop that’s asleep in a bed?” Scout got the last of his wraps off, and he turned a little further in his seat on the bench. “Huh?”

Everyone in the room had their eyes on Engie- Scout in mischief, the others anxiously. Engie worked his goggles off his face and rubbed his real hand over the indents they left under his eyes. He sniffed, then said, “What?”

The stupid smile on Scout’s face grew ten sizes. He managed to hiccup, “an undercover officer,” before losing himself in laughter once more and hunching over, just short of collapsing in his giggles.

He didn’t hear Engie sigh, didn’t see him shake his head tightly, or flex his jaw, but the others did. They glanced amongst themselves with obvious trepidation, obvious to all but two.

“Scout, lad.” Demo scooted further down his bench. “Read the room.”

“What?” Scout responded when his laughter calmed down. “Fuck you, that was a good one. Not my fault he don’t have a sense’a humor.”

Demo shook his head, then turned back to unlacing his boots. “Your funeral, laddie.”

Scout just scoffed at that. He fixed his hat on his head, and took his headset off and tossed it in his open locker, seeming not to care if it broke. He was getting a new one before the next match.

“Wait.” He suddenly perked up and turned his head back over his shoulder. “Hey, Eng.”

Engie pinched the ridge of his nose.

“Engie! Hey!” said Scout.

Demo leaned back over, about to hiss at him to shut his trap, but Engie grumbled before he could. “What, Scout?”

“This is the last one, I swear.”

“Damnit, Scout-” Engie mumbled.

“C’mon, last one.”

When Engie said not a word, Scout persisted.

“Whaddayou call a solider whose survived mustard gas and pepper spray?”

Soldier’s head popped up, but Pyro was quick to wrap a hand over Soldier’s mouth and pull him back down before he started shouting in the tense atmosphere.

Scout scooched back and nudged Engie with his elbow. “Huh? Whaddayou call ‘em?”

Engie’s gloved hand tightened on the door of his locker. A creak was heard coming from it, and Engie was slowly and surely forcing five finger-sized divots into the metal where he gripped it.

A painful silence came and went before he responded, “What, Scout?”

Scout muffled a snort, and took just a second to compose himself, then answered.

“A seasoned veteran.”

Scout’s giggling started up again. Engie breathed in deeply. His eyes closed, and the Gunslinger tightened its grip like a pneumatic clamp. Then he exhaled.

As he did, though, his shoulders started shaking, and his door-grip faltered. The tight lines of his face loosened like uncoiled wires, and his breath…

He was laughing.

The rest of the REDs watched in shock when Engie threw his head back and released a bark of laughter that shattered the tension in the air like glass.

Scout whooped and hollered when he heard it, and leapt up from the bench and threw his arm over Engies shoulder with his other fist raised in victory. They were both laughing harder than that stupid joke called for, but they cackled and chortled like it was easier than breathing. Engie’s face was turning redder and redder, and soon he was bending over to lean on his knees while Scout leaned right on him.

“I knew it! I fuckin’ knew I’d get you!” Scout howled. “I fuckin’ told you!”

Engie shook his head and rubbed his hands down his face for the last time, but they came away to reveal a shameful, resigned, yet bright smile on his face. He leaned right back up against Scout when he straightened out and jabbed him in the ribs to get him to lay off.

“Aw, hell, boy,” He said through light chuckles. “Those were damn awful. Damn awful. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Hey, look who's talkin’, chuckles,” Scout said right back. “That one wasn’t even a good one!”

“You’re damn right about that.” The laughter had begun to calm, but the vestiges of it remained on both of their faces.

Engie slammed the door of his locker shut (not minding the handprint-shaped divot that kept it from closing properly) and Scout kicked the door of his to do the same. They made identical clangs. Engie sauntered towards the door of the locker room with both hands in his back pockets, and Scout sidled up next to him and started to go on about how he ‘couldn’t believe that stupid soldier joke was the one that made him crack’.

Engie chuckled and nodded along, but stopped them both when he sniffed and Scrunched his face up.

“What?” Scout asked.

“Christ alive, boy.” Engie huffed hard through his nostrils like he was trying to blow to smell out. “You need a shower worse than I do. That’s sayin’ somethin’.”

Scout shoved his shoulder. “Hey, fuck you. I’m starving, dude. Food first.”

“Not a snowball’s chance in Teufort I'm lettin’ you be near me smellin’ like that, roadrunner.” Engie shook his head, and nudged him back with his own shoulder. “I’ll tell you what: You shower, I’ll cook. That way you won’t kill everyone in this base and we won’t have to put up with your bitchin’.

“Fine. Whatever.” Then Scout nudged him right back, and they found themselves in a tiny shoving match where they kept pushing back and forth with their shoulders. “Breakfast for dinner?”

The remaining six REDs watched in silence as they left the room, joyful and tame. It was only when they were gone, hearing Engie’s voice echo down the hall saying something about sausage gravy, that any of them spoke up.

"The hell was that?" Sniper muttered.

“‘m I jus’ drunk off my ass…” Demo ventured, and dropped his foot off the bench to lean on his knees and stare down the empty doorway like everyone else. “Or did any of you lads see what I just seen?”

“If you mean the fact that Scout had attempted to annoy our Engineer, yet we’re not currently picking his remains off the floor,” Spy responded, his smoldering cigarette hanging from his lips. “Then yes. We all did.”

Medic and Heavy, who had been standing near each other through the whole exchange, glanced at each other, at the empty doorway, and back again.

“I see…” Medic murmured, mostly to himself. “Very interesting.”

No one asked him what he was thinking. Most every man in that room was thinking the same thing.

“They will tell us when ready,” Heavy said, sagely, and turned to close his locker door.

That was a good enough answer for the rest of them, too.

~~~~

Thank you so much for reading!! I didn't really edit this so if you notice any glaring issues feel free to point them out. Still debating whether or not I wanna publish this on ao3 but I probably will so don't panic if you see it there too

The engiescout in this was not intended to be overt. I wanted to stay close to the spirit of the og textpost and make it seem like maybe Scout and Engie themselves don't really realize their own connection and everyone else sees it before they do, but I also didn't wanna make it too subtle.

This is also partially for just_mebs for dragging me into this hell ship so thanks to him

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sailforvalinor · 3 months

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…well, turns out changing to a Jo pfp is fitting in more ways than one.

#yeah turns out I’m going to be having a Jo and Laurie on the Hill moment. hopefully not to such a dramatic degree but #I went out with The Boy yesterday and I was dreading it so much #and it was fine but then at the end he asked if we could make it official that we were dating #and I asked him to give me a little bit of time to think (which he was super sweet about he did literally nothing wrong)#but yeah I just came to the conclusion within ten seconds of leaving the restaurant that it wasn’t going to work. like I felt nothing when #he asked me that question. and I wanted this to work so bad! it makes so much sense on paper but I’m just not feeling it #and I talked to my dad about it and he said that because the part of the brain that processes emotions is not connected to the part that #processes language aren’t connected that people who are married struggle to put into words why they married their spouse #so if I can’t put into words why I don’t want to date this guy it’s perfectly valid #and I suppose he’s right I just feel terrible about it. like how often do you find a guy this courteous and genuinely good? and like I #think maybe part of what’s bothering me was that there was almost no romance to this. like never at any point did he tell me that he even #liked me. it was just ‘hey we’ve hung out a few times now should we say we’re dating?’ and I’m not trying to rag on him he’s probably just #shy but it rang a little like a business proposition to me #but ugh. now I have to call (because I’m not going to do it over text) and break this poor boy’s heart #it’s a really good thing I have the play and my novel to distract me otherwise I’d be a mess #anyway prayers would be appreciated

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skeletalheartattack · 10 months

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theres another member of zarbons species in the moro arc of dragon ball super! he transforms into a differentmonster form than zarbon

Yuzun! i know him! or well, i kinda know him. i'm not really caught up or invested in anything Dragon Ball related beyond Buu Saga, but i've learned somewhat about him.

i think he's pretty neat! and i'm really happy they expanded Zarbons race just a little bit with Yuzun. though you hate to hear how he went out... there's no peace for my mans race. i hate this solar system. fuuuck.

#ask #shelbybunny #i like his design :) although its really hard to top zarbon's.............. <- sorry just those combinations of words turned off his brain.#understand okay?#i think his monster form is cool! idk if id be as weird about his monster form as i am with Zarbons :) but i like him #i dont know if Super would have this part in the anime... idk anything about super... but i imagine Yuzun having a surfer dudes voice #kinda like yajirobe's voice yknow #atleast that was always my first impression. though i guess i could see a similar regal voice coming from him #though ogh those wrist bands. i dont think anything for me could top Zarbons arm warmers #Zarbons arm warmers have always stuck out in my brain as like one of my favourite details.#literally would love to have some like... thick pink nylon arm warmers. thats how ive always imagined Zarbons to be #or a fabric similar to nylon. that smooth soft fabric yknow. that good shit.#i think if i wore those my brain would turn off because id be stimming those shits.#anyway :) yuzuns really neat. continuously happy knowing theres more of his race than just Zarbon #fuck frieza girlies. there'd be so much more of Zarbons race if it werent for that bitch bastard.#i'll never get behind the frieza zarbon dynamic. ive always kinda seen zarbon as being afraid of frieza #like its more obvious near his last few episodes in the show but. ugh man.#i believe what zarbon said in his final moments of saying he'd turn to vegetas side and go against frieza.#then that little bitch put a hole in him. horrible horrible. hate on planet namek.#anyway! thank you for the ask :) i appreciate getting to talk about Yuzun a little bit

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dabs-into-oblivion · 2 months

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hyperlexic autistic gifted child to adult who has periods where i am unable to access my words pipeline

#autism or dysautonomia? both? both. both is good #also likely secret third thing #speech related disability things #disability #if you saw my previous post you know this is about a disconnect in the part of my brain that processes thoughts and turns them into words #i am still able to speak just fine #the “problem” is that i can't translate the things i am trying to say #az talks #posts into oblivion

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dutybcrne · 6 days

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Need smth to heal the soul

Now imagining Adelinde still squooshing Diluc’s face in her hands, bc no matter how old and rough’s tough that man may get, he is still her baby. Her dearest son boy. Her sweet little angel (forget that he has Murdered)

#☆ ┆ ( .ooc. );#//Can you imagine that first time seeing each other in 4yrs?#//Her near frozen in shock as he steps to her; eyes downcast in shame and awkwardness #//Trying to find the words to say; things he practiced in his way there; all gone Poof the instant he heard her gasp & saw her face #//Still as he senses her suddenly approach; then just MELTS the instant her hands cup his face; the FIRST gentle touch he’s felt in YEARS #//prolly tears up and starts sobbing before she does; practically collapsing into her arms and holding her so tightly #//So tight; as if he’s scared if he lets her go; she’ll disappear #//Her holding him just as tightly; thanking him for coming home; thanking the Archons for bringing him home safely #//Abt how much she missed him; how HAPPY she is to see him; making him silently swear to NEVER break her heart like that again #//Idk little thinkings as I try to scoop up the putty my brain turned into & attempt to cobble together replies #//bfbfbbd #//That is her SON #//I sometimes forget I have Addie as a muse Jdbfbf #//I should prolly put her in the list; actually-

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rohirric-hunter · 7 days

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#also okay #this coworker i was complaining about earlier #mr women music #so theres this other coworker #who is. a tad odd #mostly in that he uses weird sort of archaic words a lot #but anyway mr women music has this habit of every time this other coworker does something a little weird #as soon as he thinks hes out of hearing hell turn to me or whoevers closest and make Some Comment about how weird he is #which is not very nice okay. but today he was like 'wow i feel like everything he says is sarcastic'#and im like man #it is so easy to tell when this guy is being sarcastic #because literally every time he does it he then proceeds to say 'that wasnt sarcastic AT ALL'#like every time he uses sarcasm he then proceeds to loudly announce that he is being sarcastic #you just think hes being sarcastic because youve never heard someone say 'warms the cockles of my heart' in real life before #and because its so foreign to you your brain refuses to process it as genuine #anyway then someone else came and jumped all over me for assuming he didnt know what 'warms the cockles of my heart' meant #no i think he knows what it means #hes just never heard someone say it out loud before #which is a personal issue that he needs to get over tbh

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star-mum · 1 year

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"comfort for what? HAVING A BODY" you continue to be fucking iconic. like that entire rant had me CLAPPING but that part in particular was just oOOOOMF. that was it so like.... Gar x fat reader where Gar hugs her and his instincts go feral because feeling someone with extra fat on their body ignites his breeding kink?? like his animal brain is like "this is a wife. this is a wife who will bear your children and do it well. this is a plump, healthy body for your children. you're gonna fuck her brains out" and he gets a raging boner in what is supposed to be an innocent hug and has to excuse himself and wants to die of embarrassment and the reader is like INTRIGUED by him from that moment on but then he keeps dodging her and avoiding her because of his personal embarrassment

(set during s2 with a reader who is physically affectionate for no reason and would just give him a random hug)

thoughts?

I had to actually take a break when the words “breeding kink” showed up— LIKE THE GENIUS OF THAT ??? AND ABSOLUTELY HE WOULD AAAAAAAAAAA

Me reading this:

So,,, uhm things got a bit out of hand skskks and I talked way to much as usual so,,,

OKAY— so yes to everything you just said !! I can just SEE everyone’s in one the common areas (maybe a post training snack or breakfast, let’s say breakfast 🥴) and Gar’s standing with his back to the door talking to the rest of the group as the coffee machine does it’s thing and reader just walks up to them, greets everyone good morning and hugs Gar from the back, maybe rests her head either on his arm/shoulder so she can join the conversation OR on his back cause she’s just so tired and he just MALFUNCTIONS !!!

Everyone is still in pijamas and she’s not really wearing a bra, so he can feel her chest pressed up against him and hOMEBOY’S DOING FUCKING BREATHING EXERCISES IN HIS HEAD TO CALM HIMSELF DOWN !!! Whoever he was talking to — probs Rachel — goes “you,,, okay dude ?? you look,,, very intense in the face” and he freaks out, not thinking on an excuse quick enough and just BOUNCES “what?! 😧 Uhh yeah yeah im good,,, i just have to,,, i have to go now”

Also not to, once again, pull up my brazilian card BUT we have a habit of greeting people with a hug and a kiss on the cheek — it can be a real like kiss on the cheek or that like fake one sksksk where you touch the side of their face with your face and make a kiss noise KSKSKS most common to do that actually — my friends and I see each other every night in college but we still greet each other like that every time and less cause it’s the “polite thing to do” and more cause its a way to show we like each other and we’re close

SO— in my head, reader — who’s me cause,,,, who the hell else would she be sksksks — does that every morning. It’s a habit !! And when she asked the team if it would make them uncomfortable, to greet them like that, they said no !! So everyone’s getting a hug when she sees them, specially like the ones who don’t live in the tower the whole time !

And that’s fun in TWO different ways CAUSE

1. Gar really likes it and gets all weird about it later, cause the more times he gets turned on by her touching, the more innocent touches start making it happen too

2. POSSESSIVE ANIMAL INSTINCT BABY !!!! I hate — not really — to bring them into this BUT i feel like the ones who’d make Gar the more jealous of are -> Jason and Hank (stop rolling your eyes I have a nom biased explanation KSKSKSKS)

Jason is more of a logical jealousy, he’s hot, he’s their age AND he’s a major flirt/fuck boy sksksk even if it’s in jest or a friendly flirting when Reader hugs him or touches him, he’s still gonna say some bullshit like “i know im hot babe, but you really gotta stop touching me like in front of everyone” or “can’t keep your hands off me huh?” I desire him carnally

Hank is more of a — Absolutely One Sided — physical/animal instinct thing for suuuure. Like out of all the guys, he’s definitely an the closest thing we have to a Natural Alpha, he’s big, he’s strong, he’s agressive and dominant (not sexually but how he holds himself around other ppl) and Gar would just FEEL some sort of anger and jealousy when he sees Reader giving Hank any type of attention, even tho he KNOWS nothing’s ever going to happen (cause 1. Hanks not a fucking predator and 2. He’s very clearly with Dawn) — it definitely would NOT help if Reader let slip something about finding Hank hot/attractive, during a forced teens game night maybe? KSSKKSKS

She’d know RIGHT AWAY something’s off with Gar — cause she swears she saw his eyes turn green after a particularly Fuck Boy-ish quip got Jason a little slap on his arm/chest — he’s both avoiding her like the plague but also ALWAYS standing very close to her in social situations — on the off chance she holds onto him — so she’d up the antee completely -> push him til he breaks

And oh boy does he ever 🥵 Breeding Kink Gar is just supreme, I am not sorry

like I have personally a very clear stance about not wanting kids AND not wanting to experience pregnancy BUT IN FICTION ????? GIVE ME THE BREEDING KINK !! GIVE ME THE GETTING MARRIED AND HAVING KIDS !! THERE IS NO CONSEQUENCES TO MY ACTIONS !!!! LETS FUCKING GOOOO

#IT GOT SO OUT OF HAND #AAAAAAA #SKSKSKKS IM SO SORRY #idk if you sent this like is this a fic idea I’d be interesting in reading OR what do i think of this scenario #OR both KSKSKS #BUT PLEASE take it and RUN with it #I absolutely love ur fat reader content #i think thats how i found your blog in the first place #fat reader x eddie (or steve i dont recall now)#so i would DIE at your take on an absolutely feral Gar with a fat reader #now THAT — a character so fucking turned on by the reader and their body — is what makes me feel good about myself #seeing my body/body type as something desirable and not fee desired DESPITE my body #ALSO i fear i came off as a bit as an asshole by the end of the og tags SO i need to explain #the word chubby has been griding my gears specifically in that reader/fanfic context #not trying to eradicate the word as a whole SKSKKSKS #and it definitely DOES NOT apply to the word Chubbie -> not only different much cuter spelling #but ALSO i link that to you directly! that’s You; your blog; your handle; even tho that’s not ur actual name sksksks it IS to ME ur name #so my brain doesn’t even correlate the two #ik you didn’t say anything about that and you probably understood what I mean without me having to explain it like this #but i saw your handle in this ask and immediately went ‘oh no’ cause MAYBE idk it sounded like an asshole thing what i said #anyways fat reader supremacy #starbunnie

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