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cold-neon-ocean · 2 years

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Some headcanon-y/AU thoughts about Baatar, Kuvira, and Bolin and how they’ve been living in my head as a goofy little friend group. This has been sitting in my drafts since January so I may as well post it~

Brief note: a lot of my thoughts here are contingent on my specific LoK AU Sovereign Guard but still extend to the canon as well lol

I personally really like the idea of Bolin becoming genuine friends with Baatar and Kuvira. And he's pretty much their only friend because they're a pair of weirdos no one really knows how to deal with. But they're each in a weird state of emotion that opens themselves up in different ways to each other.

With Bolin and Kuvira, having been pretty estranged from his previous best friend Korra, Bolin's feeling her absence and Kuvira comes to kind of fill that space in her own way. But he isn't just friends with her because he misses Korra and Kuvira is vaguely reminiscent of her, he does actually like and admire her on her own, especially her resilience when it seems all the world is against her. From Kuvira's end she just genuinely appreciates Bolin's willingness to be, and to continue to be friends with her despite the picture that's being painted of her by her various detractors, primarily Opal and Su. For the longest time, her and Baatar kind of just emotionally self isolated themselves believing no one would truly understand them, and this they deemed everyone not worth expending their energy on. Meanwhile Bolin had been willing to accept her- knowing good and well what kind of person she is, hearing all things Opal- his girlfriend, says about her and still choosing to be her friend. It's just kind of nice~ But Kuvira is that possessive sort of friend that needs constant reminders that you care about your friendship with her more than you do your friendships with others. It's like a competition to her where her prize is the validation of feeling like someone cares about her. She unsuccessfully tries to be subtle about it but she really doesn't like hearing about things you do with your other friends and about how much longer you've been friends with them compared to her. Bolin can mention his times spent with team Avatar and she always tries to steer the conversation back to talking about the time he has spent with her and Baatar. It's an insecurity she's developed after having grown up with exactly one friend (Baatar) and always knowing they were both each others' favorite. So knowing that a person likes her more than they like someone else is just a weird validation that makes her happy. Bolin miraculously has never caught on to her doing this.

Between Bolin and Baatar things are a bit more complicated. Bolin and Mako's relationship isn't necessarily estranged, but there are subjects they can't seem to discuss without arguing- mainly him joining the Earth Empire. Despite Bolin feeling proud that he's finally found a direction for him life apart from the group by his own choice, what with everyone from team Avatar growing out into their own directions, the fact that Mako can't be happy for him and has to criticize Kuvira, Baatar, and the way they're doing things- it hurts because Bolin feels like he just can't make decisions for himself without being put down for them since everyone thinks of him as a dumb one of the group. Especially after the whole film incident with Varrick. So Baatar just by virtue of proximity gets miscast into the roll of surrogate older brother, much to his.. eh.. disenchantment. See, for Baatar, he's not been on speaking terms with any of his brothers for a long time. And try as he might to convince himself and everyone else that he is entirely indifferent to the matter, he misses them so much it hurts. Hurts to where pretending he doesn't miss them at all at might convince himself that it's true after enough practice. But Bolin, who is incredibly reminiscent of the twins, starts unintentionally peeling that bandaid off, and Baatar really isn't sure how he feels about it. He does, in his weird way, like Bolin. He's very awkward about it but he does. But he also feels like he's in a place where letting anyone in is too precarious and too capable of leading to a similar fallout to the one with his family. The war campaign has turned him into a very different person. The kind that most would probably find.. less than palatable what with all the- you could say "unethical" experiments he's been doing with the spirit energy. And he just doesn't want to open himself up to the possibility of heartbreak again. He compensates by keeping Bolin at just enough of an arm's length that he is still he's really risking anything but it's still clear Baatar regards him closer than their other subordinates. In that Bolin hangs around him a lot more and doesn't get his head bitten off the way Baatar snaps at literally everyone else (minus Kuvira of course.)

And so the three of them are this weird little trio of oddly woven series of friendships/friendship-ish things. Bolin is closer to the two of them than anyone else has ever gotten. He's seen them at their best and their worst (to an extent) and despite how enigmatic they both try to act, like no one in the world could ever be capable of understanding them, he has a pretty good grasp on the two of them as people. People he's willing to put his faith and friendship in, and his loyalty to them primarily comes from there. Meanwhile Baatar and Kuvira are navigating the pitfalls of actually letting someone else in and not just scoffing at them for their failed attempts. Because much to their shared surprise, Bolin does get in, and seems to have done so without either of them realizing. For so long it had just been the two of them, and they both kind of don't know how to act with someone they have to actually build a newfound relationship with because relationships take being genuine with each other. Exposing just themselves to their worst is a lot easier than exposing to someone else. Baatar and Kuvira have already accepted the worst parts of each other and are both well in the knowledge that most people wouldn't do the same, so they don't want to be completely open but still want to connect with Bolin because he seemed at the very least somewhat receptive to them. But just connect in a way that doesn't compromise things. Kuvira does want to be Bolin's friend but she also wants to preferably be his BEST friend and gets very jealous/defensive to the contrary. Meanwhile Bolin and Baatar are unconsciously projecting their current damaged relationships with their actual brothers onto each other which makes things awkward despite the fact that they certainly could develop a stronger friendship if Baatar was willing to take an equal step but that would mean unveiling to Bolin some of the "hard truths" about the work he's been doing which Baatar is sure would cost him any sort of friendship so he's simply leaving things in the somewhat unclear state they're in now.

#Baatar Jr.#Kuvira #Bolin #Legend of Korra #LoK #LoK Headcanons #[ I'm constantly imagening these 3 like the horses from Ferdinand #it makes me cry laugh constantly lolol #Baatar and Kuvira have successfully converted Bolin to their weird celerity brand of obnoxious villainy #Bolin is ofc still a very sweet boy but he's trying to act like Baatar and Kuvira kind of cool because thats what they tell him is cool #meanwhile Baatar and Kuvira are just weirdos #plus I really just want Bolin to sort of ground them #and for them to give his character some purpose #like as scuffed as they are Bolin still values them as friends and people #he ofc doesn't excuse their behavior #but in potential redemption arcs he's the one sticking his neck out for them #to push them to be better because he KNOWS they can be #anyway there's a lot I could say about these three but I'll leave this here for now! ]

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fallinfl0wers · 3 years

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hellooo! this is the first time i request something from a blog :D could i request headcanons of diluc, scara, kazuha and xiao when their s/o tells them they're pregnant and possibly how they'd get used to having a kid? tyy! dont forget to take breaks and relax!

Literally baby-sized trouble.

summary: you're pregnant! how does he react to the news and how do the get used to your child? includes: diluc (26 bullet points), scaramouche (24 bullet points), kazuha (17 bullet points) and xiao (35 bullet points) warnings: fem!reader, pregnancy, children, non-explicit/non described giving birth, mostly fluff with a little bit of hurt/comfort and angst. format: headcanons thank you for your request!! this was so fun to write! >< imagining the characters being soft with children is just so cute :") i specially like these four a lot >< when i wrote this i was in a xiao mood if it wasn't obvious that his turned out longer than everyone else's lol, and it's also the first time i write for kazuha so it was shorter than the others, but i think his is the sweetest ><! i hope you enjoy it! ps. the names and meanings- i got them from google, feel free to correct me if there's anything wrong with them ><

Diluc

He's going to stop functioning the moment he hears the news from you.

Literally, he's still as a rock and completely taken by surprise.

He... can't say he'd never wanted children. He's pretty traditional and, since he has this beautiful relationship with you, he assumed it might happen sometime in the future.

But oops guess it will have to happen in the close future, since you're already pregnant.

After staring at you with widened eyes for a while, he speaks up: "...is... is it true?" You hold his hands on yours with a smile on your face, nodding. "Yes, Diluc. We're going to be parents." Hearing your words, he starts to tear up as he hugs you, his touch almost hesitant, as if you were so fragile he could break you if he wasn't careful. "...thank you." He'd whisper between silent tears, hiding his face from your sight.

Very supportive and very protective!

You will have the most comfortable of pregnancies. He will make sure you don't need to move a single muscle to get anything you want.

If the two of you aren't married or engaged yet, he's going to propose to you very soon, keep that in mind ><

He starts reading every book he can find on pregnancies and babies so that he knows what to do to help you when you give birth and how to take care of his child once they're born ><

You have to convince him that yes, you can go and eat in the dining room and you don't need to eat everything in your room or stay in bed all day and yes, you can still do most things and no, he doesn't have to worry so much.

But yeah, in later stages of your pregnancy he gets more overprotective because he doesn't want anything to hurt you or your baby :(

He couldn't be calm enough while you gave birth and had to wait outside of the room, which only made him more nervous </3

But when he finally held your little baby on his arms for the first time, he broke down crying.

You two had a boy! He looked a lot like him, too... with the red hair and eyes... so cute...

He's not sure of what to name him, he'd thought of some names before, but they all disappeared when he saw the little bundle of joy in his arms;;

So you two will have to think about a name again!

In the end, you settle for Felix; name meaning "happy" or "lucky"!

Diluc is a very busy man, but he still does his best to be there for you and his son as much as possible!

He's also not very sure as to how he should interact with him...

But he does know he LOVES playing with him as soon as he starts to understand how to play with his toys.

But... there are not so cute parts about having a kid, after all.

At times, he worries whether or not he'll be able to be there enough for him.

He wonders if he can be a good father, given how awkward he is with his emotions.

What if when Felix grows up he starts hating him for being absent? He wouldn't be able to stand it.

You always reassure him as you both put the baby to sleep on his crib.

All Diluc wants is for his son to have a happy childhood and a loving family, but worries he won't be good enough of a father.

However, when Felix's first word is "'iluc!" as he stretches out his tiny arms towards him, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can do this right.

Scaramouche

He thought you were joking, so he laughed.

When you didn't laugh along with him and was met with your blank face, he understood you were serious.

He never even thought he'd be with anyone in a relationship before you came along, let alone have a child with anyone... So he's obviously very shocked and confused as to how to proceed.

After an awkward moment of staring at each other, he cleared his throat and crossed his arms, looking at you with an equally blank face. "So? What do you want me to do about it?" "H-huh?" "In the sense of- what do you want to do? Keep it or not." You huffed, and when he heard your determinated answer, he sighed and gave your head some soft pats. "Alright, alright, whatever you want, I guess."

Okay listen here- it's not like doesn't care but it isn't like he cares so much either...

This man would do anything for you, really, and that's what happens.

He does anything and everything for you, because he's worried about you and not necessarily about the baby you're carrying.

It's not like he hates children- because you can't hate anything you don't perceive as equal or superior to you and a baby ceirtainly isn't either for him-

It's more like he doesn't know what to do with them because he's never been around children enough to understand them.

He's overall very indifferent towards the child ngl.

Then he sees you cradling your baby -a girl- in your arms and his mind just... goes blank. Huh, so that's what a human looks like right after being born.

Your little daughter looks more like him than she looks like you, sorry. But he can clearly see on her face some factions that will look like yours as she grows up.

But...

"Now what?"

He'll help you look after her however he can, since he doesn't want you to be too tired because he never knows when he'll have to leave for weeks or even months without notice.

He's not entirely cold or indifferent towards her, even if sometimes he might resent her a bit for taking away some of your attention.

But like when you were choosing a name for her, he gave a few suggestions and in the end you choose one of the names he thought of!

Her name is Hikari, name meaning "light"!

Due to the nature of his job, he doesn't want to be seen around either of you at the moment in public. It would only put a target on your backs.

And it takes a long, long while for him to warm up to her.

It disheartens you a little, but when you see him looking down at Hikari's sleeping form on the crib, softly poking her cheek with a strangely child-like curiosity on his eyes, you feel at ease.

And he thinks that he can probably handle this parenting thing better than he ever expected. Maybe it's not that bad, after all.

Ceirtainly, he thinks, as he holds her in his arms one day after she spoke her first word to him, this parenting thing is not really that bad.

(Her first word was "papa!")

Be ready, because once he gets attached to your daughter he won't stop spoiling her!

Kazuha

"Are you sure, love?" "Yes, I'm sure. We're having a child!" A smile painted itself on his face as he leaned in to kiss your forehead. "I hope I can be a good father for them."

So the Kaedehara family is getting a new member, huh!

Not that there's much left to his name, especially now that he's a fugitive... but he's excited nonetheless!

Although he's not one to settle down for long, he will make an effort for both you and the child, since it's not good for someone who's pregnant to wander around.

He's very protective, but not in an overbearing way! He simply wants you to take it easy and relax, he can take care of everything else on his own!

That being said, he's not rich like Diluc or Scaramouche, so he's also going to work harder than ever to get everything you or the baby need in advance so that neither of you have to stress out!

He's the one who takes it better out of everyone here, he's not extremely worried or outright indifferent, he's simply worried enough, excited and happy!

He already knew you were the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, so the idea of having a child with you didn't scare him or intimidate him in the slightest!

He's still a bit worried, though.

He is a wanted fugitive in his homeland, after all...

He can only do so much and wish for the situation in Inazuma to change soon, so that he can take both you and his child to see the places he loved to spend his time at when he was a child.

But for now, he's happy enough simply holding his child on his arms, sitting next to you in your small shared home.

You have a girl too! She has Kazuha's hair color and your eye color, she's super adorable ><

He wants you to name her, and you both agree on naming her Izumi, meaning fountain or spring!

"Kaedehara Izumi... it has a nice ring to it." He'd say, smiling down at her.

While Kazuha enjoys travelling more than anything in this world, he's reticent to leave you and your daughter alone or even bring you along with him. So he stays around for as long as you need it.

He will talk a lot to her all the time, so don't be surprised when she picks up very complicated, flowery words from a young age!

He wants her to grow up to be free as the wind and be able to do whatever she wants without fear, so he wants to do his best to be a good father for her!

Xiao

You can practically see the panic on his face when you tell him the news.

It's the most scared you've ever seen him be, and you've been there to help him through his karmic debt.

So yeah, he takes it the worst out of everyone.

"I'm not mad." He manages to tell you before disappearing to somewhere else in a panicked haze, he needs to sort out his emotions quickly before he can properly talk to you about it. The last thing he saw before he disappeared was your eyes, glinting with sadness. And that only made him feel worse if that was even possible.

It takes him the whole day to come to terms with his feelings on your pregnancy and finally face you again.

He's really, really afraid of hurting you and your child. Not to mention he fears he might've passed some kind of curse from his karma to either of you through the pregnancy :(

Like he said, he isn't mad. He's just scared.

He... he literally never, never thought he would get to be a father.

Family was a foreign concept to him, as were a lot of other things you've slowly helped him understand throughout your time together, so knowing he can have one of his own now... makes him happy, and scared, at the same ime.

He's worse than Diluc when it comes to protecting you and worrying about you.

He won't let you do anything alone, even if he doesn't want to be near you because he doesn't want the karma to harm you or your child in such a vulnerable moment of your lives.

Okay so that aside-

How do people care for babies?

What is he exactly supposed to do?

And- do half-adepti babies need any sort of special treatment in comparison to human babies?

He has no idea on what to do if it doesn't involve a physical fight with a tangible foe, so he goes asking for advice to everyone he knows that could have knowledge on that field.

Verr Goldet and Ganyu are a great help for him. Xiao listens with attention to everything they have to say and asks everything he doesn't understand.

Ganyu tells him about her own experience growing up as half-human so that he can understand what raising a half-human, half-illuminated beast baby might entail.

He also goes to Zhongli for advice and he gets more of the same advice he's already heard, along with many, many reassurances that sound like everything you already tell him every day.

He's very worried, but as the months go by and your child's birth comes closer, he can't help but feel a little excited about it.

Everyone who knows him is happy to see him openly happy for a change on those small moments when he gets excited about his new family with you.

When your child is born, Xiao doesn't want to hold him. It took too much willpower to stay as close as he was right now, standing next to your bed as you held your baby in your arms.

He was so adorable, so small, so fragile, so pure- Xiao was afraid of touching him and breaking or tainting him--

He was already crying, he'd started crying the moment he saw you holding your son for the first time.

He feels so... strange. He's crying, but this isn't a painful, or sad feeling. He feels... happy, but scared, but...

The feeling starts to make some sense to him when he finally convinces himself that it's okay for him to hold the little boy in his arms, when he stares with awe at his face.

The baby looks a lot like the both of you. Arguably, more like him, since he has the same hair and the same bright eyes, but in his face all he can see is you.

And he cries more.

You both named him Liàng, name meaning brilliant!

Xiao does his best to try and get used to parenting, and it gets hard at times.

But he tries, and that's all that matters. He tries to be a good father, and is always there to protect both you and your son from anything trying to harm you.

Even though he was so scared at first, you know he loves the new family you've formed together.

Especially when you catch him trying to hold a conversation with your son, sitting down on the bed next to him as he toys with a soft teddy bear, the two of them surrounded by pillows.

The soft look and smile he wears while he does so tells you that everything is going to be alright.

The three of you are going to be alright, and Xiao wants to make sure of it.

His son will never have to live what he lived or see what he saw. He will make sure of that, no matter what.

#diluc x reader #scaramouche x reader #kazuha x reader #kaedehara kazuha x reader #xiao x reader #melodywritings #melwritesgenshin #tw: children #tw: pregnancy

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asstrolo · 3 years

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a lil tarot love reading for the signs on this V-Day

very little, almost minuscule; this is not necessary romantic and it focuses on the energy that Valentine’s Day lefts on the signs for the next few weeks

check sun/moon/rising/VENUS, i also recommend stellium and dominant signs!

aries: if you’ve been dealing with past emotions for a while maybe this Valentine’s Day made you want or forced you to move on, or you’ve been trying hard to do so, the journey is long and never linear, but this could have been blocking NEW things, so work hard on the present these next weeks, i see the most important thing here is the money and a new-found independency that’ll be so good for you, you’ve been blocking your own blessing for something that is past, so now remember that what’s past is past, the future, even the prersent m,oment looks promising, cause good things will come if you put your focus in the present time, or even in the future

taurus: have you been feeling emotionally drained or restricted? your feelings are all over the place, in the past maybe someone betrayed your trust or you gave a manipulative person too much control over your life, now you feel super drained and tired, don’t feel like arguing or fighting anymore, if this is about a person then you’re done or too tired to deal with them and the repercussions, don’t worry, this was maybe a good decision and you’re going to focus on more IMPORTANT things, maybe self-love or doing things that de-stress you and give you joy, that’s very needed, take care of yourself mentally, physically and ✨ aesthetically ✨

gemini: there’s something here you wanted to happen so bad, maybe related to a person and you had very high expectations on this situation, almost too high, unrealistic, the situation was not met how you wanted it to, maybe you were too impulsive on your decisions, or trusting someone, you might have been lied to and this is why things didn’t went how you expected them to, but, if the truth hasn’t come out yet, it will very soon in this mercury rx, you are about to be shocked, if it already happened it was super quick almost unexpectedly, don’t beat yourself up for trusting this person, it’s ok, the truth about something is about to come out for everyone to know, they might get what they deserve

cancer: okay there was, or still is a situation that has you very dependent on something, you can’t be free, you feel very emotionally tied to a result or to a person and this has made you to lose countless days thinking of them and the outcome of something, while you still want to do your work and act like nothing happened, you can’t, you’re trying to juggle and balance a lot of things right now and it’s not good for your mental health, you feel defeated and like you lost something very important to you, don’t go around pretending you didn’t, if you wanna get over this then you have to acknowledge it

leo: if you’ve been hurting or in a bad emotional state right now, you’re using drugs, alcohol, food, sex, etc, to make you feel better and you know this, you know you’re just distracting yourself from thinking of something, if you know this, you ALSO know that it’s not working, maybe for a little bit, but you always come back tot he same mindset, don’t worry tho, if you’re aware of your bad habits and addictions then you know that you must change them, somebody hurted you really badly in the past or very recently, and you just can’t forget about them or the feeling and the pain, it’s time to see the bigger picture, have more self-love, look inward to why you do what you do and how it affects your mental health and emotional health, so many good things will come if you do the job!

virgo: for you there might have been an abrupt change that did a very significant change on you and your surroundings, it could be this overwhelming transformation or you’re just not welcoming this change, change it’s necessary guys! you must let things go with the flow and don’t try to control everything, there’s a chance for unity and communication here, if you have a person then you MUST let these fears go, you can’t control what’s gonna happen, take a risk, i know you wanna take care of your emotions and not getting hurted, but this looks good, even your friends might be supporting this new relationship or the person you like is a really close friend, that’s why you’re so scared things might not work out, but why fear something that hasn’t happened? enjoy the present moment

libra: there’s a situation here for a few of you, maybe you left someone else in the cold or they left you, maybe you’re going to apologize to someone or this person is coming with an apology of how things ended, but, if this last one’s the case, by the time this person comes you’ll be over it! the apology will not be needed, you have founded inner peace and moving on from this to a more positive place, it’s your choice to accept or not said apology, you’ll have new-found strength after this, since in the past you felt very stagnant and like there was no moving forward, like you were stuck in this thought and this situation most of the time, please don’t lose hope if this is the case! you’ll rely more on yourself now than in other’s so you’ll be more confident

scorpio: this is a complicated situation you are, o were in, there’s something you did out of impulse that now, thinking of it, you regret it greatly, maybe you got mad and said things you didn’t meant to, now you can’t rest because of this, you have all that’s necessary to fix or move on from this situation yet you’re lacking better judgement or other point of view, there’s something bad that’s gonna happen if you don’t sit down and talk this out, or reflect on the past, don’t get anxious, don’t blame yourself for everything, be rational, look for a second opinion if needed, you need to rethink your steps before moving forward, if you do this, the hard work you’ve been doing to keep this connection or to keep your mental health..., well, healthy, will not be in vain, look inwards, don’t criticize yourself so much, after all you’re just human

sagittarius: this one is a lot, if you’ve been pursuing a goal it probably did not come to fruition, it’s most likely you gave away all your time and energy into something that didn’t gave you anything in return so you were left tired and with no accomplishments, this can be because you’ve been working too hard and haven’t been taking care of your mental health, it’s at risk of becoming your main problem, if it isn’t already, there’s a lot of self-doubt and self-hate even, if something did not turned out how you wanted it to, beating yourself for it it’s not gonna help anyone, not you, not your future projects, you need a BREAK, you need to breath and stop trying to do everything all at once, especially if you have depression please rest, you’re too stressed right now

capricorn: you’ve been pursuing something that, at first, seemed to give good results and motivated you to keep going, but maybe you were using this thing to distract yourself from something else? sooner than later something or a connection with someone started to go south, maybe even unexpectedly because you are going through something you haven’t told anybody or you haven’t told your person about it and this makes the relationship feels stuck or weird, you’re going through a transformation, a test, a change, and you don’t want to see that this person or situation are changing you whole, accept that change it’s good, you’ve been lacking a lot of self-confidence and you might even think they don’t want you the same way you do, but this is why communication is important! don’t let your fears rule over you, you’re worthy of love, talk to them, a surpise might occur

aquarius: you’ve been too stuck in your own ways, your way is the only right one, you’ve been kinda selfish and even unreliable in work, friendships or in a relationship, maybe this is a way of protecting yourself from hurting, but it feels very defensive, you’re not telling the truth about your feelings or your situation, trying to act tough can only work for so long, if you have something to say or feelings you wanna talk about do it, don’t get mad and act indifferent, it won’t help you at all, if there’s a person or a situation in work/self, you don’t know what to do, all the decisions look bad, but you have to choose either way, to stay or to go, to talk or to be silent, but choose one, this maybe has more to do with a person and a relationship, but it can also be with yourself, happiness and celebration will come if you TRULY talk about what’s on your mind to them, don’t be scared!

pisces: okay, there’s a situation that made you back down and retire from socializing for awhile, there was something you were fighting for, but as of now, honestly? you kind of left it there, maybe you’re looking for a more peaceful solution or approach, or you’re not doing anything about it at all, like you stopped fighting for that thing and you’ve been trying to focus on other things, maybe this situation will solve itself out, or it was the one that is making you feel so small right now, like it took away a lot of your confidence, but you’re on your way to taking that back, being alone seems like the only way of healing from this situation right now, good for you! if a situation was making you feel bad or like you needed to fight to be with that person, then it wasn’t worth it

ROLES CAN BE REVERSED. Take what resonates and if it doesn’t don’t come @ me please.

REBLOG SO IT GETS TO MORE PEOPLE PLSS!!!

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yandere-sins · 3 years

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The Fox Wedding - Embrace the marriage (Kita)

Summary: You are to marry the fox spirit Kita Shinsuke after you accidentally agreed to become his wife by signing the deed to your new home. A contract is a contract, he says, but is there more to this marriage than you know? Will you be whisked away by one of the foxy twins instead, or have to marry Kita after all? Can you be with a creature that only seems tender on the surface, or will you try to run even if it might cost you your life? Choose your route carefully, you never know what these foxes are up to!

Characters: Kitsune!Kita Shinsuke x afab!Reader

Rating: Explicit Warnings for this chapter: Yandere, Kidnapping, Forced/Unhealthy Relationship, Rough Handling, Mention of bite marks, Mention of Non-Con, Pregnancy, Mention of (not human) blood, Monsters, Mention of burns, Verbal threats

“Don’t you remember?”

He asked you this again on that one gloomy night as you rearranged your kimono. You had gotten good at putting it on, not because you wanted to learn how to do it, but because it was the only thing that made you feel better about yourself. The way Shinsuke owned you was painful, stinging, and tear-inducing, and you felt better not having to see the countless bite marks of possession he put on you. Thus, you learned how to do it. Better you than a maid, or worse, Shinsuke himself.

“I don’t.”

Your answer was always the same. How long had it been that you two were wed on that sun-filled, rainy day? A month? Three? Half a year? Yet, he never stopped with his riddles, and this question was the only one that arose every once in a while. Your heart ached with the desire to go home, leave this godforsaken country to be where you belonged - where you never should have left. But of course, it wasn’t that easy.

“I see,” he whispered, and from the moon shining in through the open windows in your shared bedroom, you could see him nod his head thoughtfully while his eyes focused on your stomach. “You were still so small back then. The smallest human I had ever met.”

His soft smile was lost on you as you shook your head, unbelieving of his words. Shinsuke didn’t like unnecessary talks. He’d rather have a quiet morning than one filled with small talk you learned. And when he spoke, it was hard to accept what he said. Nothing good ever came from him saying your name. No affectionate string of words sounded like he meant it when he said it in the usual indifferent tone. An ‘I love you’ was quick to change into ‘Mind your manners’, and often he ignored your wishes in favor of fulfilling some kind of clan duties.

Perhaps, the only moment you managed to catch him off-guard was when a doctor - or something close to that just less human than you liked - announced your pregnancy, but you had been too shocked to be able to react to the sincere smile on his face and the tight hug he gave you despite the news being more of a tragedy to you. It wasn’t the child’s fault, even you knew that, but from day one, you felt responsible for it yet devoid of the feeling that you could love the kid like a normal mother would.

With your hand falling to the little bump on your stomach, you were glad it was still decent enough to not be immediately visible. Yet, as long as you were aware of the growing life inside you, the more you felt the dread of having to take care of yourself for its sake. There were worse wounds that Shinsuke could inflict on you, and unfortunately, you wouldn’t even put it past the clan to follow his lead rather than step in and stop him. It still made your blood freeze to think back to when you saw the real him for the first time. No, not him. The monster he was.

It was hard to forget the ashen creature that brought fresh meat for the village. You always thought foxes were small, playful yet wild animals, but that didn’t seem to apply to fox spirits. These images kept flashing before your eyes as you stroked your belly reassuringly, the baby inside of you not yet in need of comfort, but you sure were.

Fox spirits were tall as bears, and every one of them deadlier than a pack of wolves. It was bewildering to learn that Shinsuke wasn’t even fully grown yet, only six of nine possible tails emerging from his back once he turned into that beast. You could have sworn with his fox form being as tall as you were, he’d be at least grown out, and it unnerved you to imagine what he’d look like once he was.

Even if he allowed you to pat his fur, nudged you into the affection despite smearing deer blood all over you, it was no less reassuring to know what he really looked like even if he acted like that. You had seen him snap a deer’s neck in two cleanly with his maw. You had heard him growl. And none of this made you any less afraid of your own husband, the father of your child.

Involuntarily, Shinsuke had made you become what previously had been your worst nightmare. You were a healthy woman, so it was only a question of time until his forced intimacy would produce the child everyone around you was looking forward to. Except you, but how could you possibly be when this wasn’t what you wanted at all?

Even so, you realized the child was just another innocent soul in a much more complicated scheme of his ‘love’. One you still not understood even though he was so insistent that it existed. Nevertheless, you couldn’t let yourself be punished and endanger the little one, always seeing these huge, beastly creatures in your inner eye whenever you thought about running or misbehaving. However, you also couldn’t stop yourself from flinching when he reached over to caress your stomach, unable to forgive and, even more so, forget what all he had done to you.

Tearing you out of your life, your world even, force you into this relationship and himself on you, was small compared to the ‘lessons’ and ‘training’ he made you go through to become more fitting for your role as his wife. Your maltreated body was only one evidence of his ‘care’ and ‘love’ that he so generously had sworn to you before your wedding. There was no ‘happiness’ in sight even after being married for so long. If he thought that child made you happy, he had been wrong.

Answers. Answers would have made you happy - or at least, made this more endurable.

“Back then, you were scared too.”

His palm clasped around your hand tightly as he began to circle it over the baby bump. He acknowledged your flinching, your fear. Though even if he noticed, he only ever did so in his favor, dismissing it to do whatever he pleased or continuing to force you into obeying his will. Shinsuke always looked serious and talked with logic, you wouldn’t have believed the slyness in all of his doings even though it dawned on you that it was one of the foxes’ main traits.

“Back when?” you mumbled, wanting to pull out your hand but getting stuck in his grasp, sighing inwardly as you gave up on fighting him. Not when he was so close to the child. You didn’t want to risk upsetting him.

“Twenty years? Thirty? Time--” Interrupting himself, Shinsuke let out a thoughtful hum, clearing his throat before he resumed speaking.” Time is tough to calculate when you live for so long. Day is day, night is night. Sometimes it snows, and sometimes it rains, and all the other days are mostly the same. Only now, you are here with me, and that makes me happier than anything else.”

This time, it was on you to ponder, wondering about the time frame. There was no reason to get upset about the fact Shinsuke didn’t seem to know your current age, nor how long it really had been. The message ’a long time ago’ was received by you either way. What you couldn’t rack your brain around was that there wasn’t an instance you could remember meeting Shinsuke before, especially since you hadn’t been to Japan when you were as young as he made it seem-

“Oh,” you whispered. Oh, you had been to Japan before as a child, with your family to visit friends that resided in this beautiful country. But you had forgotten all about it, how old had you been? Four? Maybe five? Now you remembered that the reason for your first trip as a teenager had been to see the country you had been to before but could barely remember since you were just a toddler back then.

Finally sitting up from his futon, Shinsuke moved over to sit next to you, his right arm snaking around your waist while his left hand remained on your belly. “Do you remember it now?” he cooed softly, leaving a kiss on your cheek as he waited for an answer patiently.

“There was a fox…” you mumbled, straining yourself to remember what happened so long in the past. “I think it was wounded.”

“Continue,” Shinsuke instructed gently, bringing his lips to your temple before brushing back your hair to continue down your neck, leaving pecks of affection behind wherever they wandered.

“It was wounded, and I… I--”

“You gave me your rice ball,” he finished for you as you struggled with your words.

“That was… you?” you slowly but surely pieced it together, and he nodded, pulling you closer to him and burying his face in the crook of your neck. His embrace was tight but less formal than any other touch he laid on you so far. A wave of honest emotions seemed to overcome him as you remembered, a voice of relief leaving him as your shared past revealed itself to you.

“But… But--”

So many questions rushed into your head before you could even utter one of them. How much of what happened was coincidental? Was everything planned? Staged? Arranged? Your thoughts must have shown in your gaze, and though he only looked up for a split second, you were sure he noticed it as he chuckled a few times.

“The truth is, back then, I wanted to kill you. I came back for you every day, and you were always playing in the garden, but your parents were always around watching you.”

Shinsuke sat up straight, instead now pulling you to lean on him and petting your hair. Your instinct detected hostility in his words, yet, your body told you to stay put and not allure him of the fear that crept up in you. You now remembered the silver fox you had met as a little kid, and though the memories were spare and rare, to think you could have died by his maw back then made a cold shudder run down your spine.

“I didn’t want the humans to find out my clan was in that forest - now, this forest - I knew it would mean that I caused them to have to leave or hunters would come. However, when you did tell--”

“No one believed me…” This time you finished his sentence instead, and Shinsuke nodded.

“I couldn’t rest, so I came back day after day, until suddenly… you were gone.”

“Yeah, we flew back home after two weeks,” you mumbled, explaining it to him despite realizing you wished you had kept it a secret. He simply didn’t deserve knowing even a little bit more than necessary.

“Exactly.”

Gently rubbing your back, Shinsuke kissed your hair, his grip on you unbudging, but there was no notion and no feeling of yours that stayed hidden long from him. “Later I found out that the owner of that house - your family’s friends, I reckon? - were aware of us, and their ancestors were granted land from us to build their house in exchange for keeping this village and residents hidden. It’s passed down as a family secret.”

“And then…” For the first time, you sat up, and Shinsuke let you go without a moment of hesitation. Slowly, but surely everything made sense, even if those answers were less relieving than you had hoped. “I bought their house when they became too old to live there. Was that- Was that all planned?”

With your brows furrowing, you looked at his face, and Shinsuke closed his eyes for a moment thoughtfully, humming in contemplation. “Was it? Who knows. Once I learned the truth, I decided you shall be my bride.”

What a dissatisfying answer, you thought, and your expression faltered, body turning away in displeasure. For the first time since you were married, you heard him make a deep sigh, the shuffling of fabric behind you as Shinsuke inched closer, having recognized your defensive stance as telling him you weren’t all too happy with his story.

“If we say fate brought us together, then destiny arranged everything. But I rather think that it was meant to be. You coming back to me is because we are meant for each other, [Name].”

“I don’t agree,” you muttered, feeling defeated. All this time, you had wondered how and why this all happened to you, but in the end, it really had just been Shinsuke’s doing. Part of you felt more betrayed, but the other half wasn’t actually feeling impressed by the knowledge. Disappointed, but not surprised, as a friend of yours always liked to say. “Then why the contract? Why set me up like this?”

“What do you think? Do you think you would have married me otherwise? Do you not despise me? Think that I am a monster? I think that’s what you called me before.”

The level of self-awareness was nothing you would have expected from him. Instinctively you would have liked to argue against him, but at the same time, his words depicted your feelings quite well. “Maybe I wouldn’t have thought that if you had--”

“[Name], please.” There it was again, the patronizing tone in his voice that had been the end to many of your conversations before. His arms wrapped around you from behind, lips landing at the back of your head as he mumbled into your hair. “I waited for you all this time, and know my feelings. There was simply no need for a year-long courtship and proving what I felt.”

“I could have needed it. Are my feelings that unimportant to you?”

Gripping his arms tightly, you dug your fingers in as best as you could. You had enough. Enough of his will being absolute and everything centering around him. All this misery just because he decided on marrying you long, long ago on his own. For the first time, you managed to pull out of his hold by your own strength, twirling around quicker than him being able to capture you again and complain.

“You are a monster! I don’t care about your feelings either since you can’t seem to respect mine! I never wanted any of this!”

Gesturing loosely to him and your stomach, you made room for your anger, even getting up to stand your ground properly. You half expected him to follow, but Shinsuke kept sitting comfortable, merely lowering his eyes and shaking his head. “Calm down, [Name]. You’ll wake the whole village with your voice.”

“What if?! As if they didn’t know how I truly feel! As if they didn’t just turn a blind eye on this situation for your sake!”

“Arranged marriages are very common here--”

“But not arranged by the groom himself! And even so, you still forced me into this, I couldn’t even refuse! You… You beast! You monster! You’re the absolute worst being I ever met, and I hate you! I hate you so much!”

Finally, Shinsuke looked up again, his gaze calm and collected as always. It was the last straw that even now, he did not budge from his views, and you decided to do something you had tried to avoid ever since becoming pregnant. Turning on your heel, you marched towards the door, gripping into the depression of the sliding door to open it. As luck would have it, these kinds of doors didn’t have locks. Thus someone usually watched over you, never leaving you alone, but weirdly enough, it didn’t budge no matter how hard you pulled and tore on it, demanding quietly that it would move out of your way.

“[Name] stop. It’s not good for the baby to get so upset,” Shinsuke called after you, and you just knew he was standing up as he spoke, causing more pressure to fall onto your shoulders. You’d run away. No matter the cost, you wouldn’t stay here. Feeling the door heat up, you jumped away from it, shocked, looking at your fingers while eerie, small flames sparked up at the spot you just touched. By now, you were a little too familiar with foxfire and what it felt like, and yet, angry as you were, it only made you spin around to face him, not expecting to have his face right up in yours the moment you turned.

“I said, stop.”

“Then I won’t listen,” you hissed back at him, rubbing your fingers carefully as they trembled in fear. Never before had resisting him done you anything good, but you reached a point of no return.

“Let’s go back to bed,” Shinsuke instructed again, his patience wearing noticeably thin as you were unbudging. “You go to bed. I am going home.”

Taking a deep breath, he stared you down with those sharp, shining eyes of his, a glare that usually made your knees buckle in fear. You never had given him such a hard time before, normally yielding before it got this far. In some way, it was thrilling, in another, nerve-wracking.

“I’ll say it only once more,” Shinsuke warned, reaching for your wrist that you pulled away before he could reach it, slapping his hand away in the process.

“Or what?” you spat at him, as disgusted as you could. This would end here, you decided. All of it: The fake marriage, your submissiveness, the way you played along and embraced your role as his wife until now. The child too, if you got out of this house, this village, and his clutches.

“You saw the beast before.” Shinsuke spoke his words calm and slow, but his voice lowered dangerously as he kept up his glare unbudgingly. It was just his way of not losing his temper despite you being aware that he wasn’t going to be gentle from this point onwards. There was a never before heard tremble in his voice as he spoke again, the sentence making every inch of you freeze in fear.

Perhaps, you had needed that. One last attempt of being deviant. How else would you have learned that this place might not make you happy, but at least it was the only place that would keep you safe. Safe of Kita Shinsuke’s true nature, the one completely insane from his love for you. How else would you have known that calm waters were the deepest of them all? Deep enough to let you drown in them if you did anything to disturb them?

Maybe, being his wife wasn’t the worst there was.

“But you haven’t seen the monster yet.”

The worst was Shinsuke himself.

a/n: Thank you for reading Kita’s route of this story, I hope you enjoyed it! I noticed last chapter that it didn’t seem as enjoyable than the Prologues, I still hope that you will move forward to explore the other routes and enjoy this experience ^-^ Let me know what you thought, that would make me very happy ♥

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minor-solemnity · 3 years

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Curiosity pt.6

“Are you implying that I’m not good enough to blackmail?” Which well, that maybe isn’t what you should be annoyed by.

A month passes. You don’t talk in class, just keep your head bowed low, eyes fixed firmly on the ground. You ignore Tom in the hallways and in the lessons you share. You suppose that you should probably revert to calling him Riddle, but referring to a man you’ve had sex with by their last name, even in the comfort of your own head, makes you feel dirty.

He tries to talk to you twice. He doesn’t try a third time.

You don’t tell Marie or Stephanie what’s transpired between you and Tom and eventually, they stop asking. You’re content to let them believe that whatever courtship or relationship they thought had been budding between the two of you had died. It’s easier to pretend that you’re just sad that you’ve missed your chance with Hogwarts’ most sought after bachelor. The truth is so much more complicated.

The last of the bitter Scottish winter gives way into Spring and with it comes blue skies, crisp winds, and luscious greenery. Stephanie’s attention is fixed firmly on the final quidditch matches of the school year and Marie begins her yearly fretting over exams. You’re left in blessed peace to ruminate on and stew in your own misery.

It’s far too early on a Saturday for you to be up, but the Great Hall is always empty until at least nine on the weekends and you’ve taken to avoiding large crowds lest you accidentally run into him. As expected, you’re alone save for the ghosts this morning. You’re stirring honey into your tea when a shadow falls over you. You don’t look up. The shadow coughs politely. You glower at your tea. The shadow sighs and there are footsteps and the sound of someone taking a seat opposite you. When you finally look up, Tom is watching you intently. Merlin, it’s so frustratingly easy to get distracted looking at him. The first thing you notice (and you hate that you do) is that he looks somewhat tense. His expression is a mask of polite indifference and his hands rest casually on the table in front of him but there is a tautness to his posture, as though he’s steeling himself for a fight.

You think that that should please you. At one point, it definitely would have done, but right now you’re still too raw from the events of a month ago to feel anything other than resigned fatigue at his appearance. “You’ve been ignoring me.” He says, and though his tone is placid you can detect a hint of something hard lacing his consonants.

“What good observational skills you have. Though that’s hardly a surprise, seeing as I’ve been on the receiving end of your interest for months at this point.” The anger at your own stupidity and his manipulation rears its head once more and you’re somewhat taken aback by how much venom has crept into your voice.

“Perhaps, if you’d let me explain-”

“No.” You cut him off, gathering your things and shoving them into your bag with more force than is strictly necessary. “No, I will not let you explain. I think you made yourself perfectly clear the last time. You have what you want, your curiosity is sated. You have your own blackmail material on me, should you ever feel the need to use it, and all it took was-” You can’t finish the sentence. All it took was a little flattery and his clever tongue touching and playing with you until you’d… Really, it had taken nothing at all. “I don’t know what else you could possibly need to explain to me. I understand what I am to you and what this entire thing was about. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you just leave me alone.” You don’t hang around to see understanding dawn on Tom’s face, nor do you hang around to see resolve settle firmly on his shoulders.

Fifteen minutes later you’re sat with your arms wrapped tightly around your knees underneath a yew tree by the lake, your bag thrown haphazardly a few feet away. You stare at the lake and determinedly blink back the tears that are threatening to spill down your cheeks. A horrible mix of embarrassment and anger is bubbling in your stomach and your hands shake as you reach down and tug blindly at strands of grass as if they are what your ire is directed at. Merlin, you’ve been stupid. Incredibly, horrendously stupid. You’d known that Riddle was bad news. You hadn’t trusted him from the moment he’d smiled down at you that evening in the dining hall. Almost every meeting between the both of you since had been a constant push and pull, neither of you willing to back down or give way… And now…

Now he has the information that he wanted and the game is up. You’ve lost. And all because somewhere along the line you had forgotten exactly why it was that he’d been interested in you in the first place. You’d let your imagination get the best of you and for a moment you’d let yourself believe that it wasn’t about Mr Larkins anymore. That he was there because of you. Just you and not the secrets that you had tried so hard to keep.

Merlin, what was he going to do with you now that he knew. Blackmailing a teacher (and you have to admit to yourself now that that was exactly what you had been doing) was a serious offence. Enough to get you expelled for sure. Muggles went to prison for blackmail, didn’t they? Would you be sent the Wizengamot? Or would Tom just hold it over your head for eternity? Surely not. He had no use for you now, after all; you can’t keep kidding yourself that he liked or wanted you. You can’t keep kidding yourself that that was part of why this was so painful.

Beyond the fear you feel for your future, rejection is a bitter pill lodged in the back of your throat.

“You might appreciate it if I left you alone, but I’d appreciate it if you stopped running away from me.” Tom’s voice is conversational, cheerful almost. You let out a strangled scream of annoyance. He hums a soft little laugh in response. He settles himself down beside you, long legs stretching out in from him, crossed over at the ankle. You notice he’s holding the folder. “You honestly think I’d blackmail you?” He asks, still in that conversational toned and you feel your hackles rise.

“Are you implying that I’m not good enough to blackmail?” Which well, that maybe isn’t what you should be annoyed by.

“You seem intent on misunderstanding everything I have to say, I see.” He says and, at last, something approaching annoyance enters his voice. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see that he’s frowning slightly. As in the Great Hall, his posture suggests he’s at ease, he’s taken his tie off and the top two buttons of his shirt are undone. But something is lurking beneath his relaxed exterior that suggests he’s nervous. “I have no intention of blackmailing you. At first, perhaps, but not any longer. And…” You drop the pretence of not looking at him entirely and turn full to face him. He doesn’t look at you and you get the impression that whatever he’s trying to say does not come easily. “I apologise if that’s the impression I gave you.”

Your eyes widen in surprise at the apology, which whilst stilted, appears genuine. Then, almost immediately after narrow in suspicion and indignation. “What other impression could you possibly have given me? Apart from, maybe, toying with me for your own amusement.” You ask acidly.

His jaw clenches and you notice dimly that he’s making hardly any effort to hide his emotions. He’s almost an open book. Which is… strange. You’re reminded of all the times that Tom’s treatment of you has left you feeling confused. Confused because he doesn’t act the same way around you as he does with the rest of your peers. He’ll put on a facade of politeness, sometimes, but it usually unravels within minutes. You’ve watched him charm and flatter the worst of your professors, that small careful smile never faltering until they’re putty in his hands.

He’s tried to intimidate, taunt, and seduce you but he’s never tried to charm you. The realisation hits you harder than you’d like. But so what that Tom doesn’t seem to think you’re worth the effort? Does it matter that he drops his perfect little persona around you? Yes, the quiet, treacherously hopeful voice in your mind whispers, yes it matters. Of course, it matters.

“That we were having fun, perhaps?” He says at last and he looks pained just saying it. As though telling you that some part of him had enjoyed your company and had assumed that you enjoyed his is physically uncomfortable to admit. Maybe it is. “That I believed you and I had some level of understanding regarding our relationship?”

You ask incredulously, “Has this been your way of flirting with me, Tom?” At the sound of his name on your lips, he turns to face you and you can practically see him come undone. His throat constricts around a swallow and you can’t stop yourself from tracing the column of his neck to where his collarbones, surprisingly delicate and sharp protrude from the collar of his open shirt with your eyes. He follows your gaze intently. “You never tried to charm me.” You murmur, finally bring your gaze to meet his.

“I’ve only ever been honest with you,” He replies, his voice equally soft. An admission that his persona is mostly a lie, used to trick and manipulate everyone else. Maybe that should put you off, make you turn away from him for good. It doesn’t. “You can’t blame me for wanting to know you when the few things I did know were so interesting. You can’t blame me for liking you more when I found out the rest.” It’s strange, knowing that the parts of you that usually stop people from liking or trusting you are what draws him to you. Then again, maybe it isn’t strange at all. You’re remarkably similar in so many ways, after all. “I thought, perhaps, that you regretted it.” Regretted me, is what he means. Is what he won’t say. Is what you hear nonetheless.

You’ll need to talk more later; you need to know what he intends to do with the knowledge of your blackmailing schemes but later. Right now… You lick your lower lip and you don’t miss the way he tracks the movement. “I don’t. Regret it.” He nods once, a short decisive shake of his head. You’ve made up your mind. “You should kiss me now.” And he does. He shifts and suddenly you’re being dragged to his side, one large hand curving around your waist and another cupping your jaw, his fingers tangling in your hair.

You feel like maybe, you’ve just won the best kind of game there is.

(part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) (part 6)

#tom riddle #tom marvolo riddle #tom riddle x oc #tom riddle x y/n #tom riddle x you #tom riddle x reader #tom riddle imagines #tom riddle imagine #tom riddle fanfic #tom riddle fanfiction #minific

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cancerjupiter · 4 years

Text

astro notes: neptune edition (pt. 1)

neptune represents issues which are frequently unconscious, so all of this may operate without your awareness. if projected, the negative aspects of neptune become more emphasised. the more you reject it in your own life, the more likely it is that you’ll meet it in exaggerated ways outside yourself.

neptune in the 1st house

tends to be the kind of person who waits and sees, but your outward behavior doesn’t begin to describe what goes on inside. you feel connected to your environment because you’re aware of subtle energies, you pick up impressions from others they’re usually unaware to be giving. you find yourself in the uncomfortable position of knowing (beyond a verbal level) what others’ unconscious motivations are, what’s hidden behind their civility. you tend to be very idealistic, preferring to live in harmony: peaceful non-demanding relationships and quiet and aesthetically pleasing surroundings. you choose to think kindly of others, whether they reciprocate or not; your sensitivity gives you a natural compassion. you can be most charming, often whimsical, sometimes romantic, and usually empathic. you seem approachable and often receptive to a degree others find startling and deeply gratifying (if not a little scary lol). you want life to be perfect for yourself and others, and your desire for a better world can be channeled into artistic creative pursuits, social work, or mere daydreaming.

you often struggle with personal identity. you may be so open to others that you pick up their moods without realising it. you tend to mimic, unconsciously, the strong characteristics of the last person you were with. don’t become an emotional sponge; define your emotional boundaries and accept it is necessary for your growth to establish a firm identity. another thing i noticed about you is that you guys don’t mind suffering; no, i’m not saying you don’t hate it (everyone does!) but you seem to accept it when you don’t have to. you put others first and feel that it’s best to sacrifice your own well-being than to be responsible for someone else’s suffering.

there’s almost always a strong awareness of and interest in spiritual energies with this placement. you may actually be psychic, whether or not you’re comfortable with the ability. you may deeply religious, although not conventionally since institutions don’t satisfy you; you feel at home with a belief system you know, from personal experience, exists. your lack of interest in the real world can lead you into seriously bad habits like drug abuse or eating disorders and due to your dislike of physical activity, this can quickly damage your (often sensitive) health. alternatively, this placement can also lead to arrogance, depending on the sun and midheaven placements/aspects.

neptune in the 2nd house

you tend to be idealistic with the use of money and personal resources, not terribly attached to them. you look at them as temporary and although sad to part with something you own, you can let it go where others simply cannot. there’s an indifferent attitude towards finances, income and etc. some of you are v generous and will give things away to people who can truly admire it, believing nothing truly belongs to anyone. this outlook satisfies you greatly, making you easygoing but also easily being taken advantage of. this sort of gives you a fairy-tale attitude towards your money - it’s either always there when needed, or simply one of the world’s idiotic, materialistic preoccupations. you may be unpractical or simply forgetful with resources; not willing to sit down and figure what’s the best buy and choosing to go with intuition. purchases usually go by what you want rather than what you can afford (my friend has no idea how much is on her bank acc and doesn’t care to figure it out. she just doesn’t care lol). you should actually read the small print in contracts and not trust just anyone with your money.

alternatively, there may be a strong tendency to overvalue material things (neptune = beliefs in the house of money and possessions), specially if there’s an earth emphasis in the chart, making you inclined to putting great care and time into upkeep. you usually want your things to look aesthetic™️.

there’s also a strong creative tendency; it may be expressed in various forms but it will certainly be inherent. you need at least periodic access to music and inspiration, including the outdoors where you can soak up peace and serenity. since the 2nd house also relates to sensual pleasures, you probably expect these to provide a kind of ultimate ecstasy. in short, this placement forces you to face up to your tendencies to create illusions about money, possessions, sex, or creative pursuits. don’t expect more from them than they can provide.

neptune in the 3rd house

on one level, this placement can confuse and scatter the brain, giving it vagueness and disorganized thinking. sometimes, however, the mind exhibits uncanny insights into the subtleties of the environment. you sense the hidden nuances and meanings behind what’s being said. what you miss in terms of precise analytical ability, you can by being able to view the big-picture more clearly. there’s a danger to this however; your desire to view what’s beautiful and ideal around you can give a kind of selective perception in which only the good is seen and what doesn’t fit into that is ignored.

you don’t usually feel comfortable expressing yourself through normal channels of communication. what you have to say can be better demonstrated through dance, poetry, song, or picture (painted or taken). there’s often a shyness in the early school situation, which manifested in mental illness (my friend has dyslexia and this was a hard time for her) or simply confusion.

since this house also rules siblings, there may be some sacrifices to be made in relation to them; they may be a problem or have difficulties. since neptune fuses the boundary between the self and others, you may feel you’re responsible for their problems or everything which happens in the immediate environment (also ruled by the 3rd). if you don’t have siblings, you probably longed for the companionship of it, an idealized vision of what a sibling is. i also noticed this neptune placement showing exceptional ability as teachers - specially working w children who have learning difficulties. they can understand ways to communicate with and understand the child better than anyone else.

neptune in the 4th house

i have this one and it’s a loaded position: an unconscious planet in an unconscious house. to feel safe in a secure nest is fundamental, though that’s often quite unconscious. your idea of haven includes a lovely home, w lots of food and someone who will take care of your needs. there’s an assumption that the mother, early home life and emotional security all need to be perfect. that is, all needs will be met with ease, and there’s no upset or disappointment in these areas. the mom or other primary caregiver, is supposed to be there when needed, regardless of other commitments. the illusions connected to the 4th house (remember, neptune refers to illusions which must be exposed and released) are deeply intimate; and any threat to them is profoundly threatening to you.

neptune in the 4th generally has to overcome the strong need for the nurturing parent to not only be perfect but to continue being so into your adulthood. you have great difficulty separating from them; you may never fully do it. it doesn’t matter if they actually lived to your expectations, for their importance is in your head - the parent you idealized or pretended they were. sometimes, however, this desire focuses on the home rather than the parent. in this case, the childhood home was either perfect, or mysterious and elusive. you can react by trying to re-create the exact same nest.

with this placement, nurturing yourself becomes the ultimate value, a way to find supreme satisfaction. you can also make the most amazing caretakers and companions. your need to nurture others is a complicated expression of your own hunger to be taken care of; you give too much and eventually become resentful when no one appreciates your (not asked for) sacrifices. you might also project neptunian traits onto your parent; they may be v spiritual and loving, vague and confusing, or even absent, so you were left w only a fantasy of what they could - and should - have been. they might have also been a victim (similar to pisces moon) and you might’ve felt obligated to save them.

you feel like caring involves being swallowed up completely, and it’s something you either constantly yearn or are terrified of. you also feel if your (unrealistic) emotional security needs aren’t met, you won’t survive the disappointment (you did, and you will again). neptune in the 4th can make the most patient and loving parents, w a strong sense of their emotional bonding and spiritual responsibilities. you will do more to create an ideal parent/child relationship than anyone else and constantly remind others of how important it is to strive to be the best parent one can be.

neptune in the 5th house

this combo leads to a definite charisma, an aura of charm and power and importance (timothee, angelina, mlk, drake, etc). it’s a strong indication of some kind of acting ability, though it may be used as a teacher or a salesman rather than on stage. you’re likely to work in some area where applause and respect can be immediate and experienced personally. you need this; neptune undermines the self-confidence so you depend on others’ feedback to measure your worth. this can be a deadly dependency because even the highest praise and respect can truly fulfill the yearning to be loved unconditionally, only provide a temporary high, making you forever vulnerable.

some of the illusions related to this placement include the need to have perfect relationships and children, and the perfect artistic creation. whenever one expects perfection, they’re doomed to disappoitment, although the process of disillusionment may be needed to rethink your outlook on life. you may expect your love life to provide a complete sense of fulfillment. you can make a v romantic partner, the type to love cheesy romantic things and music, who can surround your lover with utmost affection. however, you might also expect them to sense your wishes and always meet them; or expect yourself to always be sensitive and caring at al times, regadless of your moods and/or needs.

you need to re-evaluate your tendency to romanticize lovers instead of seeing them for who they are. you may also harbor illusions towards children, your own or all, which hamper your ability to deal w them realistically and effectively. there’s a difficulty in developing a strong sense of self-worth, or maybe fancying yourself to be far more important than you really are. this placement is associated w a great deal of inspired creativity, however, and if other chart factors support it, it indicates exceptional artistic talent. with humility and self-awareness, you can use your magnetism to uplift those who have lost all confidence.

neptune in the 6th house

w this placement, neptune is in its polar opposite, since 6th house relates to virgo and neptune relates to pisces. this house is about the world as it is and how to manage it in a day-to-day basis. neptunian energy is the opposite: it yearns for and seeks to unite w the cosmos, which transcends this world. how can these two work this out?

when they’re well integrated in the chart, you can dream of neptune while using the practical 6th house skills to plan and organise the dream you wish to make true some day. it can direct the neptunian energy to envision something better, prettier, more creative and inspiring. without this, the 6th house is merely a housekeeping unit - a drive to organise and plan, but for what purpose? neptune supplies it with purpose and the house repays it with practical skills, usually related to some artistic work.

however, if the energies are at odds, there is the need to dream vs. the need to be practical and realistic. you feel a strong need to busy yourself w details and make everything as efficient as possible, tidying up and even criticising others (negative virgo energy). you may expect far too much from others and yourself, never able to say “no” when more work is piled on you. another expression is not being able to keep your shit together; you forget, are disorganized, feel tired and drained of energy, get sick often, or feel generally unfulfilled. my friend, for example, often seeks jobs for its glamorous aspects, only to get swamped by details and routine.

#astrology #zodiac signs #neptune #neptune houses #aries #taurus #gemini #cancer #leo #virgo #1st house #2nd house #3rd house #4th house #5th house #6th house

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

Note

Yang forgetting Ironwood helped her so she willingly made the decision to rat him out to Robyn (which she then “forgot” to blame Ruby for the whole mess, and then “forgot” that to argue with Ren when he wanted them ALL to take responsibility) is one of the reasons you are most definitely right about the show just forgetting those civilians who got blasted off the rainbow road.

You know, RWBY's tendency to "forget" lots of different things aside, this list really emphasizes why canon!Yang (not fanon!Yang, still love her) has steadily become one of the least likable characters in the series for me. A summary of her major character beats would include:

Adores her "Super Mom" and is supposedly defined by both this loss and the need to help raise her little sister, but doesn't mention her again until Volume 8

Admits she has no reason to be a huntress other than liking adventure, but is never forced to confront this and figure out what she actually wants out of life, not even when the fate of the world is suddenly attached to her choices

Loses her arm and goes through a long arc to accept this new part of her, only to announce later that it's just "extra" and doesn't matter. This indifference includes ignoring the community she's now a part of/the disabled man who greatly assisted her, as well as the sudden disappearance of PTSD

Supposedly spends her entire life, since she was a toddler getting lost in the woods, searching for her biological mother only to decide that she only cares about her sister now

Listens to her biological mother anyway. She has no reason to trust her, claims to hate her, is outright told to question the information she's given... yet takes her perspective at face value, to the extent that she comes into Haven raring to accuse Ozpin

Demands "no more lies or secrets" from him even though, at this point, Ozpin has not lied or kept secrets from her. The transformation was Qrow's secret to divulge, along with his semblance

Appears to be grappling with Blake leaving at the end of Volume 3, but everything is fine once they're back together. Is mad that Blake expresses a desire to keep her save, but everything is (again) fine once they kill Adam. It's a dual issue of the story not acknowledging when Yang is being unfair (why does she get to go home to recover, but Blake doesn't?) while also just... not resolving these things

Is indifferently cruel to Oscar for a whole volume, from screaming in his face to only caring about Jaune after he attacked the kid

Is one of the most furious at Ozpin for keeping Salem's immortality a secret, but turns around and immediately helps keep that secret from Ironwood

Her justification for this is that they can't just trust people blindly anymore, but is the one to suggest that they blindly trust Robyn instead

Puts the blame for all this solely on Ruby's shoulders, ignoring her part in this mess and her continued promises to follow Ruby's lead, but then gets furious at Ren for expressing the same concerns

Tops off this question of trust by laughing along with everyone else at Emerald's speech despite being pretty much the only one to raise concerns an hour ago

Is told by her father that she relies too much on her semblance and puts both herself and others in danger by rushing headlong into situations. Volume 8 she revs up her semblance, rushes in, and "dies"

Is at the center of RWBY's one, presumed queer couple within the main cast, leading to numerous issues which complicate all of the above

Yang is... a mess, frankly. And not in a "She's a complex, multifaceted character" way, but a "The writers don't know what they're doing and it has severely hurt Yang's character" way. She comes across as a massive hypocrite, callous towards most everyone not in her small circle, yet is simultaneously trusting to the point of foolishness. We're supposed to believe that Yang is mistrustful of the established ally who gave her her arm, but is buddy-buddy with the woman who framed her and orchestrated the killing of the friend sitting beside her. We're supposed to believe that Yang has little knowledge, no emotional connection, and a healthy distrust of Raven, but believes all her lies anyway. We're supposed to believe that Yang is beginning to question whether it's a good idea to follow her little sister without question, but that she'll tell Ren he's just pushing everyone away when he agrees that things are indeed bad right now. A better written show might, for example, explore how Yang's instinctual desire to defend her sister is bumping up against her own concerns, but with what we've got, Yang is just a different character every couple scenes. She's constantly contradicting herself, changing for no reason, or staying static to the point where the audience is wondering what the point of previous arcs were, all of which makes her so frustrating to watch. I'll agree with Yang one episode, only for her to have done a complete 180 the next, with no acknowledgement of this change. Or she's spouting views that blatantly ignore everything else that's going on, making her appear to be in denial at best, but the story won't acknowledge that either, instead framing her as 100% correct. Far from being the emotionally rich character she once was, a young woman on the cusp of growing up - deciding what she wants in life, learning to reign in her temper, finding some independence from her sister, recovering from a trauma - Yang now is just... angry and hypocritical, at least when she's not with Blake. And that relationship continues to be marred by both the lack of a queer confirmation and the inconsistent way that the rest of Yang's character is handled. Yang just isn't a person I like anymore, even though it's obvious I'm supposed to. But I look at her actions and attitude across Volumes 6-8 and see someone who is impossible to get to know because she's changing her mind every ten minutes of screen time, leaving a string of confusing, hypocritical, and at times downright cruel decisions in her wake.

#rwby #rwde #mymetas #long post

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ibijau · 3 years

Text

How to Woo a Lan pt3 / on AO3

The issue with getting Nie Huaisang’s assistance in seducing Lan Sizhui was that Nie Huaisang wasn't an easy man to get a hold of. Except for conferences, or to go beg for help from his brother's sworn brothers, he rarely ever left the Unclean Realm. The second reason wasn't going to ever happen again, and Jin Ling wasn't in the mood to wait for both of them to attend the same conference.

That meant he had to invite Nie Huaisang to Jinlin Tai (an invitation he was almost sure would be refused) or invite himself to the Unclean Realm. He'd need a decent reason for that, or else the Nie wouldn't allow him inside their fortress, sect leader or not. He also needed an excuse to give the Jin elders and Jiang Cheng, who might not want him anywhere near Qinghe at the moment… but that part would be easy enough, when he had a lifetime of experience in dealing with overprotective relatives. He’d just say he had been invited by… well, not the Lan, that’d be too odd when he’d just been on a Night Hunt, but Ouyang Zizhen was always up for some mischief, and he was weak to a good love story.

Or a bad love story, for that matter, but Jin Ling knew his future romance with Lan Sizhui was definitely going to be a great one.

So he’d tell everyone he was going to meet up with Ouyang Zizhen for a made-up Night Hunt, and they’d head for Qinghe together, and… and it wouldn’t be difficult to dig up some official sounding business that he’d need to urgently check with sect leader Nie.

It would be easy.

It was easy.

Ouyang Zizhen loved the idea, especially since he’d had yet another argument with his father and wanted some space. That seemed to happen every other week, and Jin Ling suspected that his friend spent more time away from home than with his family. He suspected, also, that sect leader Ouyang wasn’t quite the tyrant that Zizhen made him out to be, but rather a grumpy old man who didn’t know how to deal with his emotions, much like Jiang Cheng.

The two of them, after meeting in the place they’d decided, headed for Qinghe together. Ouyang Zizhen stayed behind at an inn, so he wouldn’t get dragged into a bad situation in case sect leader Nie didn’t take too well to having his past affair with Lan Xichen thrown in his face. So it was alone that Jin Ling made his way to the high gates of the Unclean Realm, alone that he faced the guards standing at the entrance, alone that he announced he needed to urgently meet with Nie Huaisang on important business.

The guards, quite predictably, refused to let him in so easily. They insisted on being given details before bothering their sect leader, while Jin Ling absolutely refused to share any critical information with low ranking disciples. It was, quite frankly, a little insulting that people so low in importance could dare resist him in that manner, especially when Qinghe Nie hardly counted as a great sect anymore these days, but Jin Ling was starting to have some experience in dealing with obtuse underlings. He insisted, and insisted, and insisted some more until at long last the highest ranking of the guards gave in and sent someone to warn their sect leader he had a guest.

Jin Ling was allowed inside.

Not only was he allowed inside, but Qinghe Nie’s first disciple in person came in person to fetch him, and after he refused to talk to her about the business that brought him there, she promptly took him to see her sect leader. Everything was going according to plan. Jin Ling was starting to feel mildly nervous, especially as quite a few Nie disciples glared at the sight of an intruder wearing robes of gold… but that was to be expected. He’d known he wouldn’t be a welcome guest, and the Nie weren’t exactly warm people to begin with.

It came as something of a relief when Jin Ling realised that he wasn’t being led to the normal reception room to meet Nie Huaisang, but instead towards private quarters, most likely the sect leader’s office. It meant there would be no witness to their conversation. Then, just as quickly, Jin Ling panicked a little when he realised that meant he’d probably be alone with Nie Huaisang, a man who had every reason to despise him for being related by blood to his beloved brother’s murderer. It occurred to him that maybe this whole plan wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever come up with, but at that point it was already too late: the door to Nie Huaisang’s office was being opened for him, revealing the man himself, sitting at his desk.

As he walked inside the room, Jin Ling thought there was something different about Nie Huaisang. Maybe it was just that he’d so rarely seen him in a state other than “drunk and making a scene” or “crying and making a scene” or even “just making a scene for no discernable reason”. Instead, Nie Huaisang looked calm and collected, a bit annoyed perhaps, but there was enough paperwork on his desk that the annoyance might not even have been caused by Jin Ling’s visit.

“Leave us alone,” Nie Huaisang ordered his first disciple, in a voice firmer than Jin Ling had ever heard from him. To the boy’s mild horror, the first disciple did leave immediately, closing the door behind her. “Well? What urgent business do you have to share with me?” Nie Huaisang asked, opening an elegant fan and using it to gesture that his guest was welcome to sit down.

Jin Ling took the invitation and knelt down on the other side of the desk. He realised, a little late, that he hadn’t really thought of something to say, having half expected he wouldn’t even making it this far. In the end, Jin Ling decided that the best way to deal with this situation was to be brief and to the point.

“I remember about your affair with Lan Xichen,” he announced. “And I want to talk to you about something regarding that.”

The fan in Nie Huaisang’s hand closed with a sharp sound, and for a brief moment the man glared at Jin Ling with such open hatred that Jin Ling shivered and unconsciously leaned backward. Then, just as quickly, Nie Huaisang’s expression turned so perfectly indifferent that Jin Ling might as well have imagined that brief moment of rage.

“So you remember that,” Nie Huaisang pleasantly mused, tapping his fan against his chin. “I suspected as much, but Lan Xichen seemed to believe you’d forgotten. He’s always been the hopeful sort. I must commend you for keeping that secret, Jin zongzhu,” he said, his smile turning sharper. “And for trying to blackmail me now. A very bold move certainly, though not exactly smart, I’m afraid. After all, you know what sort of things I’m capable of, and I doubt you told anyone you were coming here. I might well do something regrettable to protect Lan Xichen’s reputation.”

“Someone knows I’m here,” Jin Ling retorted, suddenly glad Ouyang Zizhen was waiting for him. “And anyway you’re not stupid enough to kill me. You know if there’s one thing that could make Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng reconcile it’s that, and if they’re working together they’d find out the truth for sure.”

Nie Huaisang’s smile became milder, yet somehow Jin Ling still felt half threatened. “You’re a smart boy. Smarter than I expected. Very well, I’ll listen to what you want, if only because I’m very bored lately.”

Jin Ling nodded, and took a deep breath.

“Right. I want you to help me court someone from Gusu Lan!” he said. “Because everyone else I could ask for advice is a damn idiot, and you at least had that fling with Lan Xichen, and I don’t know when the two of you broke up, but…”

Nie Huaisang chuckled somberly, reopening his fan and moving it in a lazy manner.

“Of course you know. You were there. Let this be a piece of advice for you, Jin zongzhu,” Nie Huaisang added with an innocent expression. “Don’t make your lover kill his best friend, no matter how just and deserved the death. It can put a strain on a relationship.”

Jin Ling gaped, and awkwardly stared at Nie Huaisang who placidly returned the stare. He had expected the break-up to have happened a while before all that business with Wei Wuxian’s return started. But if those two had been together, then…

“Why didn’t you get him to willingly help you avenge your brother, if he was still your lover?” Jin Ling asked.

“That’s none of your concern, Jin zongzhu,” Nie Huaisang snapped, before mellowing back into a pleasant, if insincere, smile. “So you have a thing for someone from Gusu Lan… I heard you’ve been very friendly to that loudmouth boy, what’s his name again?”

“It’s not Jingyi!” Jin Ling protested, offended at the very idea. “I have better taste than that!”

“Then my second guess is Lan Sizhui,” Nie Huaisang mused, his smile falling. “Hm… of course you’d have to make this complicated for yourself. It runs in your family, I’m starting to think. You Jin can’t ever do things the easy way."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Nie Huaisang’s fan stilled, and he glared at the boy.

"It means give up, Jin zongzhu,” he said coldly. “If I'm right about the object of your affections, he'll refuse you even if he likes you. Especially if he likes you,” Nie Huaisang corrected after a moment of consideration. “He was raised by Wangji, he'll be just as stupid. No, find yourself a nice girl who'll let you play under her skirts, marry her, have a few babies… love isn't worth it, my generation should have proved that."

“Well, my generation isn’t going to be stupid about it,” Jin Ling hotly retorted. “If I had problems, I would trust Lan Sizhui to understand, and to do the right thing about it, because he’s the best person in the world! I just… need to figure out how to let him know I like him, first. I’m making a bit of a mess with that so far.”

“Truly your father’s son,” Nie Huaisang muttered, appearing unimpressed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Nie Huaisang didn’t reply right away. Instead he resumed fanning himself and stared a long while at Jin Ling. So long, in fact, that it was becoming uncomfortable, and Jin Ling found himself wanting to shout at the other man for being a creep… but ultimately Nie Huaisang was his elder, and someone of equal rank, and Jin Ling was pretty sure shouting at another sect leader could get him in trouble if his uncle heard about it.

Then again, just being there at all would get him in trouble if Jiang Cheng heard about it.

“I don’t suppose people have told you all that much about your father, have they?” Nie Huaisang asked, something going softer in his face. “A good man. Not the smartest, terrible with people, but… yes, a good man. A kind man, even. Bit of a prick when he was a teenager, but we all were, and he grew out of it in time. We had good fun together, back in the days.”

Jin Ling stared right back, and nervously pinched the hem of his sleeve.

“I didn’t know you were his friend?”

In truth, he didn’t know a lot about his parents, aside from a few basic facts. Few people had actually known them well enough for that, and those few people hadn’t been very willing to talk. Even Jin Ling, capricious as he could be, had quickly figured out how unkind it would have been to ask Jiang Cheng too many questions about the family he’d lost. But if Nie Huaisang had known his parents too… well, Nie Huaisang didn’t deserve Jin Ling’s pity, did he?

Nie Huaisang shrugged, and looked away.

“Zixuan and I got along pretty well, but I’m not sure I would have called us friends.” He sighed, and turned silent for a moment, before a half smile crept on his lips. “Well, I might have, I’m just not sure he would have agreed. But I helped him write poetry to woo your mother, back then. Heavens know he needed the help. Lovely, wonderful man once you knew him, but he had a gift for always saying the worst thing possible, no matter how well he meant.”

“Everyone told me my father was a perfect young master,” Jin Ling protested, fidgeting harder with his sleeves while heat creeped up his face at the insult, however slight, “and that he was well liked everywhere he went!”

“Oh, they said that when he was alive as well,” Nie Huaisang said with a short laugh. “People always find something nice to say about rich young men. No, your father was a disaster, and it’s a miracle your mother ever gave him a second chance.”

“A second chance?” Jin Ling gasped. “What’s that supposed to mean? They were engaged from birth, and they fell in love over the course of that engagement, and then they got married, what second chances were there to be had?”

It was the story he’d always heard. Even Jiang Cheng hadn’t ever said differently, on those few occasions he’d agreed to talk about Jin Ling’s parents. Their story had been beautiful, and romantic, and…

And come to think of it, Jiang Cheng had always firmly been opposed to any efforts by the Jin sect to pick a fiancée for Jin Ling, insisting that it should wait until he was old enough to have his say in the matter. Jin Ling had thought it was just his uncle expecting him to be a confirmed bachelor as well, or guessing that he usually liked boys more than girls, or…

Nie Huaisang grimaced, and closed his fan so he could toy with it.

“So you really don’t know the whole story, hm? You should ask…” he trailed off, and frowned. “Ah. Well, I suppose there’s not really anyone you could ask, so that’s the problem. Guangyao’s dead, Wanyin can’t stand speaking about his sister… I’d suggest you turn to Wei Wuxian, but quite frankly he’d already ran off to the Burial Mounds for the truly fun parts of the story. Of course I could tell you about your father’s great effort to seduce your mother once he realised that she was, in fact, the best woman in the world, but… I don’t particularly feel like it,” Nie Huaisang admitted with a disdainful smirk. “Nor do I feel like getting involved with any of your family’s problems. So shoo, off you go,” he ordered, chasing Jin Ling away with a gesture. “You’ve come to make a request, I have refused it, now leave me alone.”

“But you have to help me!” Jin Ling protested. “If you don’t, I’ll have to ask Wei Wuxian! Do you want that to happen?”

“Or you could just give up,” Nie Huaisang retorted. “I’ve told you, even if he likes you, that boy won’t… It would be a bad idea.”

“And it wasn’t, when you got together with Lan Xichen?” Jin Ling asked, slamming his fist against the desk, earning an unimpressed glance from his fellow sect leader.

“Of course it was a dreadful idea,” Nie Huaisang replied. “It’s a choice I’ve regretted almost every day for the past few months. Every day since I’ve discovered what was done to my brother. And now, the man I loved is in seclusion because I kept secrets from him and turned him into a murderer, almost ruining his reputation. If I could go back to the past…” Nie Huaisang paused again, his face tightening. “I should never have become involved with him. Love is a mistake, Jin zongzhu. Look at me, look at your parents, what good did love ever do anyone?”

“My parents were happy, before things went bad,” Jin Ling retorted, getting annoyed by all the self-pitying happening before him. Maybe Nie Huaisang really was as pathetic as he’d seemed to be, in the end. How disappointing. “Jiujiu doesn’t talk much about them, but he always says that: they were happy. Even after my father died, my mother said she didn’t regret that she’d at least had a little time with him!”

Nie Huaisang blinked at him, his expression softening.

"They were happy," he said. "Your parents. Out of everyone I’ve met from our circles, they were… I remember when your father told me your mother had agreed to marry him. I've never seen a man happier than that, except for the year after when he told me that they were expecting a child."

"I want to be happy like that, too," Jin Ling said. "And I know if I could just convince Sizhui… and I'd make him happy too! I'd do anything to make him happy! I just… I'm not sure how, because he's so perfect, and I'm me!"

Nie Huaisang blinked a few times, and put his chin on his hand, resting his elbow on the table.

"Oh dear, you have it bad, uh ? Ah, you remind me of… well. Nevermind that. And I suppose I'm the last person who could blame you for falling for a Lan. You are really sure it has to be a Lan, and that Lan in particular?"

Jin Ling thought of Lan Sizhui, kind and strong and unwaveringly good, and nodded firmly.

"Yes. I love him, and I'll court him, with or without your help!"

Nie Huaisang grimaced, but this time it looked almost like a smile.

"I see. Well, I suppose someone needs to make sure you don't cause a diplomatic incident like your father almost did a few times. I'd like to go a few years without Lanling Jin causing any trouble, if that's not too much to ask. Fine. Fine! I'll help."

"You will?" Jin Ling gasped, trying to restrain a happy grin.

"Sure, why not. I'm bored enough," Nie Huaisang sighed. "Fine, let's just… Tell me about Lan Sizhui."

"But you know him already. Better than me, probably."

"Oh, without a doubt I know him better than you," Nie Huaisang agreed. "But I want to hear this from you. I have to figure out how serious you are about this. Yes, yes, very serious,” he said, raising his hand to stop Jin Ling from protesting. “I remember being fifteen, thanks, and I thought I’d die if he didn’t look my way for too long. But he was a few years older than me, and there’s a lot I didn’t understand at the time, so I want to see how much you understand.”

Jin Ling opened his mouth to answer, than closed it again as he realised what Nie Huaisang had just said.

“You were already in love with Lan Xichen at fifteen? How long…”

Nie Huaisang raised a hand again, a severe expression on his face.

“Let’s establish something right now,” he said. “I am helping you, out of pity toward you and because your father was, in fact, one of very few people I’ve ever considered a friend. Aside from this, I still consider you an annoying brat, and the grandson of the man who had my brother murdered. Just because I’m willing to help you doesn’t mean I intend to confide in you, least of all on the subject of Lan Xichen. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you never mentioned him again in my presence.”

Jin Ling grimaced, but nodded anyway. Nie Huaisang, however, wasn’t done.

“And let’s be clear on something else,” he said, slowly, as if to make sure Jin Ling wouldn’t miss a single word. “If you ever tell anything, to anyone, about his relationship with me, nobody, not even Jiang Wanyin and Wei Wuxian, can save you from my wrath. I will not let anyone ruin Lan Xichen’s life, least of all another Jin. Do I make myself understood?”

Jin Ling shivered at the threat, which he felt to be a very serious one. Then, because he just didn’t know when to shut up, he said: “Oh. You still love him, don’t you?”

It was the wrong thing to say, and Nie Huaisang startled at the accusation, tensing like a wounded animal cornered by dogs. Of course it had been the wrong thing to say. Otherwise, Jin Ling wouldn’t have said it.

“I’ve just said I don’t want to confide in you,” Nie Huaisang hissed, but he couldn’t quite make himself feel scary again, and instead just looked again like the sad, pathetic man Jin Ling had known all his life.

“Have you told him that you still feel like that?” Jin Ling asked before he could stop himself. “Because I think you should. Maybe you can still mend this! I mean, if Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji got together, then anything in the world is possible. You should…”

“I should kick you out of my house and let you deal with your boyfriend alone,” Nie Huaisang snapped, his face redder than cinnabar. “Now tell me why you love that damn Lan kid, and stay out of my business.”

Jin Ling pinched his lips, annoyed that yet again, every adult around him was apparently determined to ruin their own life by refusing to just talk. First there had been his uncle with Wei Wuxian, now Nie Huaisang… Apparently, growing up made people stupid. Jin Ling could only hope he wouldn’t end up like that, too stubborn to do the right thing.

He was sure he wouldn’t, because Lan Sizhui wouldn’t let him.

Ultimately, though, Nie Huaisang’s private life really wasn’t his problem. So Jin Ling dropped the matter, and instead prepared himself to explain every little thing that made Lan Sizhui the most amazing person in the entire world.

#xisang #zhuiling #lingzhui #nie huaisang #jin ling #mdzs #jau writes #operation woo a lan

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dramaticviolincrescendo · 3 years

Note

Okay, what are your thoughts on Ian's relationships? With his family, his boyfriends, and Mandy (since I think that's the only friend he's had)

Oh, no. Ohhhhhhhh, no. Now you’ve done it. You’ve asked about my dear, darling favorite character on the show. My love for one Ian Gallagher runs deep, which means this answer is going to run super long. The good, the bad, and everything in between—Ian Gallagher lives rent free in my brain and always will. I derive so much satisfaction from seeing Ian interact with other people, in whatever capacity that might be. I admire and aspire to the compassion he has shown for others over the years, even and perhaps most especially those who arguably haven’t earned it. He tries so hard to be good to people, and seeing their love for him manifest when he’s reached such lows where he can’t even fathom why the love of his life would want to be with him forever? That’s powerful.

So, yeah. I said I could write essays on these characters, and that’s exactly what you’re about to get: five hours and 6k words’ worth of my thoughts. (I am so sorry. There will be text walls.)

Let’s dive into Ian’s many and multifaceted relationships—his family, his friends, and his romantic pursuits.

Ian and Family

Ian told us where he stood on this in the very first season, and it set the standard for his character for eleven years to come. Faced with a prospect that others in his position could only dream of—not being Frank’s son and having a wealthy father with a functional, prosperous lifestyle mere miles away—Ian refused to buy into it. He refused to do what might have been objectively better for his future by seeking a relationship with Clayton. In that household, he would have had access to a better public school, more financial resources, a tutor to help him where he was struggling, and less urgency for him to work so that he could enjoy being a kid. When he got sick, he would have had access to better healthcare, too. Perhaps he would have had a better shot at West Point from that background than he did at home. But that’s just it: home was with his family, and he was very clear that they didn’t live in that nice house. All he wanted—all he wanted—was to be with his brothers and sisters. He has never referred to them as only half-siblings or half-cousins; he has never even used the words, “you’re not my dad,” on Frank. That’s his family, the people he loves most in the world, and he’s always been at his best when he’s with them and at his worst when he’s not. Let’s look at each of them:

1. Frank: It is so striking to me that Ian doesn’t appear to hold the outright contempt for Frank that Fiona, Lip, and Debbie have exhibited at different points over the years. Aside from the handful of instances where they’ve gotten into physical altercations (which Frank always initiated) and kicking him out of the house on occasion, Ian is simply indifferent to him. But there are these moments, these brief glimmers of mutual attachment and loyalty, if those are the right words. In the scene where Ian famously doesn’t count to three before using the pepper spray on him, Frank starts saying how his New Gallaghers weren’t his real kids—that Ian is his real son, and Frank is his real father. It’s a passing thought uttered while trying to manipulate his way into the house that neither of them think much of, nor does the audience…until you remember that biologically, Frank isn’t his father, and he certainly hasn’t behaved like one either. Ian has more right than anyone to comment on that, but he doesn’t because Frank is his father. He’s the father that Ian idly hoped wouldn’t come to his wedding yet sat joking about with Debbie rather than getting pissed off that he was making out with some lady in front of everyone. He’s the father who sat at the table with them eating breakfast in 11x03 and claimed Mickey was the man in their relationship without Ian saying a word to him about it, and who Ian saw no issue with taking Franny to school when no one else could. In s4, as far removed from his family as he’d been for a while, Ian still went straight to the hospital when he heard that Frank was at death’s door. We focus so much on his attitude towards Monica because of how obvious it was that we frequently miss these tiny moments and their implications. It would take an awful lot of patience, compassion, and love not to write Frank off completely after all he’s done. Not necessarily our standard definition of love between a son and his father, perhaps, but a loving soul.

2. Monica: I have actually written a pretty lengthy post about his relationship with her because while their shared mental illness definitely plays a role in his feelings toward her, that grew complicated far earlier than his diagnosis. The first time we meet her, we see that he has a visceral reaction to news of her presence. He runs. When Ian can’t process strong emotions, that’s what he’s done in the past. I happened upon an interview Cameron did just after the end of s1 where he mentioned something I had already been thinking: Ian’s age when Monica left is extremely important. He was a kid in s1, but one who could roll with the punches, sometimes literally. She left them two years before that. Ian would have been in middle school, roughly as old as Debbie was when she still called Frank “daddy” and forgave him for everything he did. It’s an awkward age that once again set Ian in something of a danger zone—too old to accept an excuse or no explanation at all, but not old enough to process the situation in a healthy way. And then she’s back all of a sudden with no warning. Ian doesn’t cry like Debbie, and he doesn’t typically get explosively angry like Fiona. He can’t deal, so he runs. He hangs back. He only speaks when he has to and compartmentalizes: Monica wants to take Liam, and they need to stop her. It doesn’t have to be about her leaving. They have a goal—he can focus on that. And then she’s back a year later, saying she’s here to stay while Fiona seems to take her at her word and Lip isn’t there to ground everyone. Ian tries so hard to behave like Lip would with his biting sarcasm and attempts to stay emotionally distant in a way that seemed pretty exaggerated for Ian, but he’s also dealing with a fresh wave of guilt over Mickey going to juvie—and Monica gets it. She’s the only person to acknowledge that he’s in pain and actively try to make it better. She’s the only one who really knows at the time, but that hardly matters. This poor kid, whose mother left him when he still needed her, has her standing in front of him and saying she’s sorry and listening when he speaks and taking him dancing—just the two of them. Embarrassing as it was and harmful as it could have been, she tried to facilitate his dreams when no one else wanted him to go into the military. She was there for him when he went AWOL. She came for him when he was arrested and even wanted to make a place for him in her new life, unrealistic as it was. This goes so much deeper than them both being bipolar. Ian’s comment about her parachuting into their lives in s7 wasn’t about Mickey or her role in them breaking up. He trusted her. He wanted her. He needed her. And she’d convinced him that she would be there—until she left. Over and over again. She was there for him and unintentionally took advantage of how desperately he still needed his mother. She made him keep loving her, and that’s both a blessing that has him crying into a voluminous man’s arms when she passes and a curse that wrecked him more than once.

3. Fiona: The trust these two have for each other cannot be understated. Fiona has discussed things with Ian that she never brought up around any of the other kids throughout the entire series. In the pilot episode, she tells him about feeling needed and takes his opinion on the matter to heart. At the end of the season, he’s the one she talks to about the car because she can trust him to give her an answer even without speaking. In s2, she tells Lip that the two of them are her rocks, and we see that time and time again. That’s part of what makes their falling out over the church hit that much harder: it’s Ian and Fiona. The only time they’d been on the outs in any serious manner up to that point was when Ian was adjusting to his new reality and they were trying to find a balance between sister and caretaker. Otherwise, that bond of trust had never been severed—not until Ian literally sold himself only for it to amount to nothing in the end because she had no idea the lengths to which he’d gone to get that building. That damage gets mended, thankfully, but what a powerful period of time when those two were the only ones who’d never really been at each other’s throats. There is a downside to that trust, though. As I mentioned before, Ian was so responsible and put together when he was younger that Fiona didn’t think twice about his situation with Ned or that he ran away. Not even seventeen yet, and she was telling Debbie that she didn’t like his decision to leave but trusted him. That is one of the things I love about this show—even something like trust that we always prop up as an important factor in our relationships can betray us in the most unexpected ways.

4. Lip: I won’t go into it here, but the relationship they share is something that means a lot to me on a personal level. It’s part of how I knew that Ian would become my favorite character pretty early on. The way he simultaneously admires and envies Lip, loves and is annoyed by him, relies on him and is desperate to pave his own path in the world—what a beautiful and accurate depiction of what it means to be a younger sibling. Lip is the first person to discover that he’s gay and openly accept him for it. (I think what he tried with Karen came from a well-meaning place even if it was horribly, horribly misguided.) Lip is the one who tries to get him into West Point, hate it as he does. He helps Ian when Terry is after him, takes care of him in the aftermath of the wedding when he realizes just how deeply Ian feels for Mickey, searches the whole damn city for him when he finds out that Ian is in trouble, gets him a job, leans on him in his own time of need… He’s not perfect. He slips up, just like Ian does. Some things break my heart, like Lip insisting that he’s earned his own space when his little brother is asking him for safe harbor or Ian thanking him for being his brother outside the prison. But they love each other so much, and I just… I can’t possibly put into words how much I love their dynamic.

5. Debbie, Carl, and Liam: I’m grouping these three together because they’re further separated from Ian in age, so we see a lot of the same trends with them as a whole. Ian loves taking care of people. We know this. We also know that Fiona and Lip don’t typically want him taking care of them—they’re the ones who take care of him when he needs it, specifically Lip. With the younger three, however, Ian can be the Big Brother. He can shake his head in utter bafflement at Debbie’s obsession with holding her breath for two minutes, walk Carl through what he needs to go camping, and promise his baby brother postcards when he leaves. The difference here is that his relationship with them is so much less fraught with conflict. We don’t see him fight with Debbie, Carl, or Liam the way he has with Fiona or Lip. While Ian tends to be the voice of reason during conflicts overall, I think it’s also because he relies on his older siblings in a way that he doesn’t with his younger siblings, and the latter don’t tend to rely on him as much as Fiona or Lip as well. There’s a lack of tension in most of their interactions growing up because that pressure isn’t there. Perhaps this is where Ian’s age and standing in the family is a bit more beneficial: young enough to have people he can rely on while too young for anyone to really rely on him for more than his share of the squirrel fund.

Ian and Friends

I’ve seen it mentioned that Ian (and Mickey) not having more friends is bad or lazy writing. I tend to believe that that fails to take something into account that, admittedly, most of us don’t really have to think about: having friends is a luxury. It requires time and effort to cultivate friendships, especially lasting ones. As a kid, Ian spent a lot of his free time working or helping to manage one family crisis after another. Going AWOL, losing his health, struggling to acclimate to his illness, trying to find a new career path, spiraling into the Gay Jesus movement, going to prison, adjusting once again to normal life, getting married, a pandemic… I’m sure he’s had plenty of acquaintances over the years, but having a family to support and constant upheavals would have made it extremely difficult to really forge strong relationships with them. I think that’s part of what makes his relationship with Mandy so special and valuable to him: she’s sort of the same way.

When we met Mandy in s1, she had other friends. We saw her meet up with them and go shopping; she told Ian a story about how one was mad at her for not sharing her make-up. As the trauma in the Milkovich household reached its zenith for her in s2 and she started thinking seriously about getting out of there, we saw those friends fall by the wayside—all except Ian. He saw her and let her see him early on. That’s a level of trust and respect that nobody else in their neighborhood would have displayed, certainly not to her. But then there’s this guy who defended her against their creepy, perverted teacher and treated her like a human being, not an object. It’s no wonder she developed an obvious, unrequited crush and sought physical comfort from him occasionally. It’s no wonder she tried to repay the favor by giving Mickey a hard time in s3 and s4, misguided and rather uninformed as we know it was at the time. (It’s also no wonder that she went for the closest Gallagher to Ian, either, but that’s for another meta.)

And Ian… Ian is loyal to a fault. We have watched Ian cut out his own heart and let the blood drip down his arm to pool on the floor at his feet if it would make a damn bit of difference for the people he loves. Like Fiona and Lip, Mandy immediately accepted him for who he is and suggested an arrangement that would protect him as well as benefit her. That is enormous where they came from. To him, that had to feel like the ultimate sign of friendship: he could trust her with a part of him that he hadn’t even entrusted to most of his family yet. From that point on, she was on the List of People Ian Gallagher Would Do Anything For. Finding out about Terry and what had happened? He held a bake sale, of all things, to fundraise for her. Seeing that his brother—his best friend—was treating her like garbage? He put him in his place. Her boyfriend was beating her? He brought her home and made it his goal to find a safe place for her to stay, even if it ultimately didn’t work. She was going to move away from all of her meager support with that boyfriend? He didn’t just rally his own arguments—he brought in outside help with Lip, who he thought might tip the scales. It’s usually just a saying that true friends will help each other hide a body, but Ian literally tried to do that. Lucky for him, he has a good head on his shoulders and used it.

No, Ian doesn’t seem to have a lot of friends. We’ve seen that he has spheres of influence, if you will, and acquaintances that he can call upon when he needs them. (For example, the guys that helped with the preacher.) However, Ian has always struck me as a “quality over quantity” type of person. Being a soldier or an EMT isn’t lucrative, but they’re meaningful for someone who sees them as vehicles for helping people. Seeing more parts of the world than just Chicago has appealed to him in the past, but he seems perfectly content to carve out a spot for himself right here at home. Having only three best friends—Lip, Mandy, and Mickey—doesn’t seem like much of a hardship for him.

Ian and Romantic Pursuits

I hate to say that there were five, but from Ian’s perspective, there were. So, let’s talk about all five. Even though…there weren’t five. There was only one. We’ll save the best for last.

1. Kash: The first of Ian’s perceived romantic pursuits that really wasn’t. I hope it goes without saying that I hate this man with the passion of a thousand burning suns. I hate him so much. However, their interactions taught me a whole lot about how kind and compassionate Ian really is—and how naïve. Of course, he would believe that Kash loved him. The man was buying him all sorts of expensive gifts, and that’s what we see on all the commercials and in so many movies, isn’t it? Grand gestures of affection through expensive gifts. Poor as they were, Ian still scraped together the money to buy him baseball tickets and CDs, convinced as he was that that was all part of what you did in a relationship. That desire to do things like a “normal” married couple in s11? Yeah, that starts here. Ian has always been a planner, and he’s always bought into certain stereotypes. We can see that here. What we can also see is Ian’s compassionate, kind, loving soul. He cares so deeply for other people, even ones that he doesn’t know very well, especially if they are living in circumstances that mean something to him. (For example, the mentally ill woman they tried to help at work and the shelter kids whose situations were so similar to Mickey’s.) Kash being a closeted gay man living in misery with a wife he didn’t love and two children he never meant to have clearly tugged at Ian’s heartstrings. Even after everything that happens, even though Ian behaves as though they’re awkward exes who just happen to work together, he still covers for Kash. He gives him that head start and takes it upon himself to break the news to Linda that he’s gone. He defends Kash to Lip when the latter finally says exactly what we all know: he was a pedophile who deserved to rot in prison for what he did. As with Fiona’s trust, Ian’s loving soul, compassionate heart, and desire for love outside his siblings are virtues that have done him harm in the past. This is one such instance.

2. Ned: The second of Ian’s perceived romantic pursuits that really wasn’t. To be honest, I don’t believe that Ian would even characterize it that way. He seemed very aware that Ned was a distraction from his problems—from Mickey being in juvie, Monica falling into a depressive episode, the money in the squirrel fund being gone, Lip moving out, losing his shot at West Point, and getting denied for service due to his age. Again, though, Ian has always wanted to feel valued, and this rich dude was letting him stay in a fancy hotel room with anything he wanted readily available. This (disgusting predator) guy was giving him attention and a distraction with no strings attached. Then the complications roll in, and he’s once again faced with being the mistress to a closeted, married man. The difference here is that he’s not comfortable with it. He tries to tell Fiona twice, which is enormous for Ian when he has never been very good at communicating if it means burdening others with or even merely facing his own problems. But he tries to tell her. He rejects the GPS unit and tells Ned that he has a boyfriend, boxing him into a strictly sexual arrangement. (This, unfortunately, makes sense. It aligns with how Fiona viewed things: where Jimmy was concerned about it, she told him that it was “just sex.”) He is also visibly embarrassed to admit to Lip and Fiona what has been going on with Ned. By that point, Ian is a year and a half older and, while still scarred and warped in his views because of Kash, perhaps a bit wiser. Emotionally, he kept Ned at arm’s length most of the time. He used Ned not just as a distraction, but as a way to galvanize Mickey into taking their relationship a step forward. But Ian is still Ian, and Ian is compassionate to a fault. Ned played that card by asking if he could have a little understanding for a man whose life was falling apart. Sure, he can. He’s Ian, the Gallagher too empathetic for his own good at times. We know how that spirals out of control. It just goes to show that even when Ian was trying to maintain some emotional distance, his heart is simply too big and his perceptions too heavily impacted by the grooming he’d experienced with two different people by then, and so he [SPOILER ALERT] still feels enough of a connection to Ned after all these years to be mildly bothered that he passed away.

3. Caleb: The third of Ian’s perceived romantic pursuits that really wasn’t. Ian’s relationship with Caleb strikes me as being similar to what he had with Ned. While more age-appropriate, Ian was very much using Caleb, just as Caleb was using him. That’s why it was so easy for both of them to walk away. Ian was in a difficult spot when they met. He was grateful to the firefighters who saved his life, but he had also just saved someone else at a moment when he was perhaps at his absolute lowest. That’s what he’s always wanted, isn’t it—to be a bit of a hero and help people? So, he’s understandably drawn there, first out of gratitude and then to be surrounded by very attractive gay firemen who helped people, saved his life, and invited him to be part of a function they were holding. But he made himself pretty clear from the start: he was interested in sex with Caleb. That was the draw. He still hasn’t come to terms with being bipolar and losing Mickey, but Ian has never not been with anyone for any extended length of time. That’s just who he is: he’s always sought some level of outward validation—from the army, Kash, Monica, Mickey, and so many others. We’re seeing him struggle with that now as he deals with the opportunities available to him as a mentally ill ex-con felon. So, he pursues Caleb as a distraction just like he did with Ned, only Caleb is a predator in his own right and can smell that his interest is coming from a place of weakness. He immediately (and initially unintentionally) preys on Ian’s desperate need for structure and order by insisting on a traditional date where Ian is very much out of his element and even goes so far as to instruct Ian on how to be intimate. It’s no wonder he mentions Mickey in these moments, as Mickey never wanted him to change, and Ian leans heavily (even slightly hyperbolically) into the fact that Mickey wasn’t a paragon of order and stability like Caleb outwardly appears.

And I think why Ian puts up with it so long—being taught like a child, being used to upset Caleb’s parents, being paraded in front of his friends to make them jealous—is because he was getting something out of it too, just like with Ned. A stable place to live when their home ownership was in flux, a place away from his family when they weren’t providing the support he needed as he adjusted to his disorder, someone who validated his desires to help people regardless of their ulterior motives, and a physical distraction from his own problems. All of these parallel his relationship with Ned very closely. It was never going to last, of course. Ian is a strong person who temporarily forgot how strong he was because he forgot who he was, and Caleb didn’t want to be cared for—he wanted a project, like all of his sculptures. Being a project, being something that others see as needing to be fixed? That’s a hard no for Ian. It always has been. There’s a moment I love later in their relationship where Caleb tells him to turn off the lights when he goes out and lightly reprimands him for leaving one on the day prior. Ian is in a better place at that point, having regained a lot of his sense of self, and stares after him with indignation at being treated like a kid. He’s then lied to and cheated on, but I think that to mention those things to Caleb when they break up is to admit weakness on his own part—that he stuck with Caleb knowing that he was being mistreated, and Ian is not one to be called a victim. So, while we know from his discussions with Lip and Sue that the cheating and distrust bothered him most, he merely focused on Caleb lying about his sexuality, which removed a lot of the emotion from the situation—just like he did with Ned. It ultimately turned out to be a bad move since Caleb, being a skilled predator, made him question even his own sexuality in return, but we’re starting to see that Ian isn’t here to be someone’s toy anymore. Not an older, married man like Ned, but definitely not anyone his age either. I’m glad this pseudo-relationship happened because it showed Ian how strong he really was and that he could be in control of his own life. Sure, it destabilized him a little in the aftermath, but he worked through it. He leaned on his family, specifically Lip, who has always been his rock without the blurred lines that Fiona represented between sister/mother-figure/caretaker. Caleb is a garbage person, but Ian was the one who pulled the treasure from the trash, not him.

4. Trevor: The fourth of Ian’s perceived romantic pursuits that really wasn’t. Trevor is perhaps the first relationship where we don’t see Ian dive in. Whether that’s because of his confusion over Trevor’s gender identity or the fact that he was really beginning to fully mature as an adult by that point (ostensibly finishing his education, getting a career, being fully self-sufficient, etc.), he tried to take his time and not jump right in. They hung out, talked around the neighborhood, and yes, engaged in some casual intimacy at the club. Again, Ian might not be in a full relationship, but he’s never without someone for long. At that point in the series, all he was missing was a relationship when it comes to traditional, “normal” goals for people to have. But Trevor posed a situation he’s never been in before since, while gay himself, Ian has never been very interested in activism or engaging in the LGBT community. It’s just not in his culture or environment, so to be faced with someone he’s interested in that challenges a lot of his views of gender and sexuality is something he takes his time with. Unfortunately, Trevor is younger than him and not quite as mature, not quite as experienced. He tells Ian he has plenty of friends and doesn’t need another, which is an ultimatum that has never really sat very well with me personally because I’m generally of the mind that if a person needs time and you really care for them, you’ll let them have that time. I’m not unsympathetic to Trevor: he’s been burned before and has his own trauma stemming from responses to his identity, so it makes complete sense for him not to be patient in this regard. He shouldn’t have to be—but then, Ian shouldn’t have to rush into anything he’s not 100% certain he wants either. That’s exactly what he does, though, because Ian does for others without thinking of the implications for himself a lot of the time. They make great friends, but they don’t make great partners. Trevor treats Ian similarly to Caleb in that he’s a bit of a project. Trevor educates him on the LGBT community and incorporates him into his ventures for the shelter without ever really showing much interest in Ian’s life or family, which suits Ian just fine because for as interested as he is in helping with the shelter and as attracted to Trevor as he is, he seems to know they’re not compatible. Ian, who has been having sex since he was far too young, takes a step back from it when they run into compatibility issues. (And pushes back on the pressure to bottom with some of his own—neither of them were in the right on that.) He doesn’t ask much about Trevor’s family or try to be part of his personal life. They sort of embody the “friends with benefits” stereotype: they hang out, they have sex, and that’s really all there is to their relationship.

The reason Ian doubles down on trying to make it work isn’t because there was a future for them before Mickey broke out. It’s because he thinks he��s lost Mickey forever, he knows he’s lost Monica forever, and he’s not going to get the support he needs from his family when they couldn’t stand Monica and Fiona told him what he already knew to be true, namely that Mickey being an escaped convict would destroy everything Ian worked so hard for if he got involved. So, he does what Ian does. He needs that distraction—he needs to run from these strong emotions he can’t process, so he bottles them up and unfairly hopes that Trevor will provide some of that comfort after cheating on him with Mickey. (Had Mickey been released, I think they would have broken up. Instead, that was the first match Ian lit, but certainly not the last.) Now, the thing is, Trevor said at the start that he didn’t want to be Ian’s friend. He’s also younger and less mature in a relationship, which means he threw the concept of love out there prematurely, just like Ian thought what he had with Kash was love. The death throes of their relationship were a back and forth where Ian was spiraling and seeking comfort, and Trevor was providing some while keeping their relationship pretty amorphous. (Were they exes? Were they friends? Were they people who shared interests and danced around each other? Were they going to get back together? They never officially broke up—it fizzled and resurged, then fizzled for good.) Ultimately, whatever it was that they had couldn’t survive Mickey, Monica, or Gay Jesus. Trevor wasn’t prepared to deal with a full-blown manic episode, and based on his hands-off approach with involving himself in Ian’s life even before the Mickey-shaped bomb got dropped on them, it doesn’t seem like he really wanted to anyway. He did what he’s always done: prioritized his shelter, which I’m not deriding in the slightest. By that point, Ian was too far gone to care that he disappeared anyway. Had the situation been different and he was getting the support from his family that he needed, it doesn’t seem like he would have cared much there either.

5. Mickey: Finally. Only took over five thousand words to get here. I’ll preface this with something that anyone who knows me from other fandoms is already well aware of, namely that I don’t do romance. Ever. Never been interested. The relationships I’ve always been most passionately interested in are platonic ones, especially “found families” and siblings, which is probably obvious from the other five thousand words here. Ian and Mickey are the first relationship I’ve actively shipped or written for in a fandom. They’re the first I’ve been invested in to this extent. As such, one of the biggest pet peeves I had when I first joined this fandom was the saying, “Ian fell first, Mickey fell harder.” These two wonderful dumbasses face planted on the concrete in front of the Kash and Grab in s1 and never recovered. I could go on forever about these two, but that particular wall of text would probably be too daunting for even the most avid Gallavich stan to traverse, so I’ll keep it fairly brief. As we can see above, Ian has a very strict sense of what he “should” want in a partner. Someone who is moderately successful in their chosen field, makes enough money to at least live comfortably, and typically does something that helps other people (a doctor, a fireman, a youth counselor). These aren’t passionate people. They’re not men who operate on instinct the way most of the people in his life have always had to by virtue of their social standing. They have life goals and opportunities that he envies, and Ian has a great deal of compassion for them when they hit a roadblock or things don’t work out. The amazing dichotomy of Ian Gallagher is that he straddles a line most people can’t between the rough neighborhood that has instilled in him all of his values/behaviors and the middle-class mentality of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and aspiring to more. Ian has always aimed for what Lip said wasn’t possible for poor people: being successful without having to scam or steal. But as I said way back at the beginning of this manifesto, the South Side is his home. His family is his family. And none of the people he’s been with personify the South Side quite like Mickey—they don’t personify home like Mickey.

And I think that’s where the initial draw for Ian is. (I’m going to focus on Ian’s side since he’s who your question focused on.) The other guys look great on paper, and Ian’s brain says that that’s what he should aim for. We know better, though. We know that Ian has an enormous heart that belongs first and foremost to his family and their home. His heart says that this person—this dirty, rude, mean, violent person—is home. His heart says this person is everything about himself that he denies having, just like Ian was everything about Mickey that the latter declined to openly acknowledge for so long. I don’t like relationships built on “making each other better.” I really don’t. The wonderful thing about this is that it’s never been that way. Ian didn’t change Mickey. He’s exactly who he’s always been, but he’s grown past the fear of his own emotions and Terry’s response to them. He’s still a thief, a con artist, violent, and rude. Mickey didn’t change Ian either. He’s still rigidly conforming to certain stereotypes of what he thinks he should want, seeking structure (to his own detriment at times), and not a great communicator. The point for them is that they complement each other, not that they make the other a better person—not even that they bring something out of each other that wasn’t already there. That’s what Ian’s other relationships did. They made him shave off his edges so that he could fit a square peg into a round hole, and that’s not happiness. It’s simply what he thought he was supposed to do—what “normal” people did.

With Mickey, he doesn’t have to worry so much about what is normal or acceptable. He doesn’t have to worry about whether or not his life is objectively “on track,” not until fairly recently. Mickey is the only person he’s ever been with who has accepted him for who he is, faults and strengths alike, without the underlying insinuation that he should be aiming for something else or pretending to be whatever the other person needs him to be in order to care for them. Kash needed an escape—Ian provided it. Ned needed a very specific brand of toy—Ian played that role. Caleb needed a project to feel fulfilled—Ian went along with it for a bit. Trevor needed someone who accepted him as he was but did things his way—Ian did that. To care for Mickey has only ever meant being himself because all Mickey ever really needed was him. Mickey didn’t need an escape from his home—his relationship with his family is more complicated than that. Mickey didn’t need to be saved from his upbringing—it’s what made him the person Ian fell in love with and who he is happy to be. Mickey didn’t need someone to change who he is on a fundamental level because unless it is going to get him into trouble and separate them, Ian never wanted him to. (Even then, it’s about what he does, not who he is.) And yes, I’m sure that there’s a level of excitement that Ian finds exhilarating where Mickey is concerned, but I tend to believe it goes a lot deeper than that. What he finds exciting about Mickey is what Mickey embodies about the South Side—about home. About his own upbringing, but also Ian’s. About Frank and Monica, his siblings, school, work, ROTC—existing and surviving in an environment where it’s not guaranteed that you’ll have money to keep the heat on this winter or feed your family. They spent the early seasons living in a constant state of fight or flight. They couldn’t afford not to. And there’s excitement in that. Look at how many people say that the first seasons are their favorite! There hasn’t been a huge shift in the quality or direction of the writing, just the trajectory of the characters. They’ve gotten older, and their problems have been different. It’s not about survival so much of the time anymore, but those are the storylines that excite us. For Ian, that exhilaration in the constant battle of survival in their neighborhood is sewn into the fiber of his being just like it is Mickey’s. He saw his home in Mickey before they truly fell in love, and when that followed, Mickey became home.

In Conclusion

Ian has spent his entire life looking for the “right” path only to realize that it was laid before him: his family, his small circle of friends, and Mickey. I love that that is coming full circle this season, where [SPOILER ALERT] marriage has almost made him regress a bit to that place where there must be a right way of doing things going forward, and slowly but surely, we’re seeing him loosen up.

Good morning. It’s Ian Gallagher loving hours.

#shameless #ian gallagher #it's ian gallagher loving hours #shameless meta #well that took six hours #and I didn't get more writing done #but I feel accomplished

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x0401x · 3 years

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Given Movie: Anime Eiga Interview

The adult trio of “Given”, Nakazawa Masatomo, Eguchi Takuya and Asanuma Shintarou – finding out about each other’s appeal through proffering a deep love.

The sequel to the TV series that adapted Ms. Kizu Natsuki’s popular BL manga into an anime came in the form of “Given the Movie” and made its appearance in the big screen. Along with sensible expressions of emotion, this series depicts the circumstances of youthful love connected by music, capturing the hearts of the viewers. The movie portrays the “bitter and passionate love” between the band’s “adult members”, Haruki and Akihiko, as well as Akihiko and his ex-boyfriend, the genius violinist Murata Ugetsu, whom he continues to live with even after breaking up. Hence, this time, we have hit up Nakazawa Masatomo, the voice of Haruki, Eguchi Takuya, the voice of Kaji Akihiko, and Asanuma Shintarou, the voice of Ugetsu. What kind of appeal did they sense from one another after co-acting in roles where they had to proffer intense love? We had each of them discuss their thoughts.

Discovering the charm of the characters anew in a movie where the feelings of each accelerate.

——The movie is about the romance between Haruki, Akihiko and Ugetsu. The thoughts that they had been concealing are exposed, so what were your impressions when you read the script?

Nakazawa: In the TV series, Haruki, the character I play, was thinking about “wanting the band to do well” and “what he should do for the band’s sake”, being a “sideline support” for Mafuyu and Ritsuka, together with Akihiko. Haruki and Akihiko are said to be part of the “adult group”, but the two of them have their own ways of thinking - Akihiko is the type that aims for good things by taking action using a detonator. On the other hand, Haruki is always calmly concerning himself with everyone, so that they can do things freely. Both of them listened to Mafuyu’s singing voice, were influenced by it and suffered changes, so I felt from the script that I could get a glimpse at these changes. Regarding Haruki, he started feeling his own loneliness more strongly, and while watching Mafuyu display his musical talent more and more, he also had a complex about being just an ordinary person who liked music a little bit. I felt like we were able to see what Haruki was carrying under the surface.

——Were there any points where you felt the appeal of Haruki and Akihiko all over again?

Nakazawa: There were. Haruki never tells Akihiko that he likes him and does his best to hide it. It’s totally obvious, though... (laughs). Through Haruki, I felt that there are things you convey not with words but with feelings, and on the other hand, there are things that can finally be conveyed when you put them into words.

——Eguchi-san plays the role of Akihiko. Please tell us your impressions of the script.

Eguchi: I had read the original work, so I was looking forward to seeing the hearts of everyone from the “adult group” being moved and them putting an end to things. When I read the script, this is quite obvious, but I had many lines (laughs). Akihiko shows in it a part of himself that he never had until then, so destroying something like a sculpture of Akihiko that the TV series had warmed up was necessary work. Moreover, it was the kind of scrip that allowed for all kinds of fun, such as how long the monologues and narrations should be, so I felt a strong sense of compensation from it. During the recordings, I first tried throwing in what I had come up with. The team makes you want to create something together with them, so I felt like making up my mind and challenging myself. I was very happy to be able to take on the challenge.

——When you threw it in, were you able to see a new side to Akihiko’s appeal?

Eguchi: “So he was THAT compassionate?!” was what I thought. Akihiko is always cool, so I wondered when his emotions would take a swing, but I think this was a sign that he was afraid of “changing the present”. In the movie, I had to carry out the job of Akihiko properly facing all sorts of things and doing a retake on his true feelings. He gave off more of an adult impression until that point, so I think I got to see a more realistic, young part of him.

——Asanuma-san plays the role of Ugetsu, who continues living with Akihiko after breaking up.

Asanuma: There were few episodes in the TV series where Ugetsu showed up, but even in them, there are crucial scenes in which you can get a glimpse that “Ugetsu is this kind of person”. It’s exactly because he is a genius that he acts indifferent about anything other than music, gets fawned on in a genius-like way that makes people think, “If he says so, then there’s no helping it”, and has great interest in people like Mafuyu, whom he feels sympathy for. There’s a scene in the movie where Ugetsu and Mafuyu meet for the first time, and when I read the script, I felt that “Ugetsu approached Mafuyu with honest feelings”. It’s because he has sympathy for Mafuyu that he ends up telling him things that he can’t say to Akihiko face-to-face, such as “I love Akihiko to death”, and shows a side of himself that he usually doesn’t show to other people. It seems he speaks out his feelings when he’s with Mafuyu for some reason, which made me wonder if it isn’t Mafuyu who has the power to make people act like that.

——Ugetsu has a mysterious charm as a character. Was there anything you deemed as important when performing him?

Asanuma: It was my first time taking part in a BL show, but I felt that “Given” is a series that portrays emotions very delicately, down to the details. When performing, it’s exactly because the depictions of emotions are detailed that I make sure not to be “too theatrical”.

Love becomes more complicated as you grow older?

——In the TV series, we were able to see Mafuyu and Ritsuka’s high schooler-like romance, yet the movie is about an “adult love”, where they are “going through unfulfilling and agonizing situations, but no matter what, they like each other”. Was there anything you felt seeing their love?

Asanuma: There are things that we end up complicating precisely because we have accumulated experiences as adults. It’s because we know about all sorts of things that we don’t want to get in the other’s way and feelings of inferiority towards the other are born. When you’re a child, you don’t think much about things such as “pulling away because you think too much about the other person”, for example. There are many things we have to face when we become adults, so we might turn the feeling of “romantic love” around in complicated ways.

Nakazawa: I think “being able to break up once and for all” is important in adult romance as well. Not clashing with each other like, “I can’t do this with you anymore!” and parting ways, but instead ending it with, “If that’s how it is, it might be better for us not to be together anymore” after learning about each other’s circumstances is also a form of love. I think that reflecting about not just the feeling of “love”, but also about what you should do to make the “we can’t be together anymore” that lies ahead into a reality is what adult romance is.

Asanuma: They’re called the “adult group”, but they’re not adults yet. Even I, who am in my 40’s, have yet to come across anything like an “unconditional love”...

Eguchi: I believe this is valid for all kinds of romantic love, but I think it’s about being together with someone because you find that person to be an “irreplaceable existence”. And it’s because they’re irreplaceable that going out with them isn’t the goal, and the couple has to properly face one another. Also, when I looked at their romance, I felt it’s precisely because they like and are close to each other that there are words between them that they can’t say. They might have had a different relationship if they had conveyed those words, but there are words that can’t be conveyed exactly because this possibility exists. I think humans are extremely complex.

“Eguchi-kun is sharp!” – A casting that fit perfectly.

——What kind of appeal did you feel in each other’s acting and personalities through “Given”?

Nakazawa: The way that Asanuma-san bears a “quiet intensity” when playing as Ugetsu is very charming.

Asanuma: For real!?

Eguchi: And you’re also too good at putting on the air of a genius!

Asanuma: It’s only putting on, though. I have to make sure not to take it off too soon (laughs).

Eguchi: It had me thinking, “The way he envelops himself in the air of a genius is just genius!” Asanuma-san can push and pull splendidly. I was thinking, “He’s so awesome” when I watched it.

Asanuma: There are times when I tend to explain things with my voice no matter what. Before, in a different work, the sound director told me, “The animation is already doing the explanation, so you don’t have to try to explain with your voice so much.” In works like this one, where the subtleties of the characters’ hearts are so detailed, I think it’s even more important to bear in mind “not being too theatrical”, without deeming it as an exception just because it’s a BL, but instead seeing it as a love pattern that could happen anywhere and performing naturally.

——What is your impression of Nakazawa-san?

Asanuma: Nakazawa-san is tolerance incarnate! He can be no one but Haruki.

Eguchi: That’s right. He gives off a “mom” vibe (laughs). He’s like that during the recordings too; Nakazawa-san himself is a very soft person.

Asanuma: And although he may disagree, “looking troubled” suits him.

Nakazawa: I disagree!

All three: (Burst into laughter).

Asanuma: Since being troubled suits you, it feels like people gather around you, thinking that they “want to try and give you trouble” without any ill intent.

Nakazawa: That rings a bell (laughs). Indeed, I myself think that I have a Haruki-like side too. I also have a side that accepts basically anyone and any kind of comment... As for Eguchi-kun, if nothing else, he’s sharp! In terms of voice quality, his tone is low-pitched and solid, so the acting that he brings out is extremely sharp. There’s a fineness to it where it acts as a detonator, especially in “Given”, as if it will set fire, to his heart’s contentment, to anything that seems inflammable. He pulls off an acting that has an explosiveness to it, as he takes ahold of the important points while performing in a natural manner, so I have a lot of trust in him.

Asanuma: Eguchi-kun gives off a sense of broad-mindedness and security. Not because his body is big, though (laughs). I feel that he’s something like an emotional bodyguard. It was my first time in a BL series, but when I heard that Eguchi-kun would be the other party, I vaguely thought that “everything will go well”.

Eguchi: Thank you so much!

#given #dailygiven #givendaily #dailyshounenai #fyeahgiven #given movie #nakayama haruki #kaji akihiko #murata ugetsu #eguchi takuya #seiyuu #asanuma shintarou #nakazawa masatomo #my translation #interview #anime eiga

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doorsclosingslowly · 3 years

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Hell is just a beat away (3/9)

Despite early promise, young Maul has turned out to be a disappointment, willfully delaying his training with secret attempts to make himself friends from scrap metal. He must be properly motivated, and so Darth Sidious sends him to a slave market on an impossible mission. It backfires. Star Wars: Darth Maul (2017) comic AU | 5.2k | warning for slavery, sexual assault of a teenager (non-graphic)

Ten to doomsday, moving fast

Eldra does not sleep. She refuses. If she has to bite her fingers bloody when her eyelids threaten to drop, then so be it. Master Fyaar would have chastened her for it—she always insists that Eldra be at her best regardless of circumstance, and staying awake for what must be more than one or two entire standard days now will help with neither her innate distractibility nor her willful emotions. Her secret inadequacy, unknown to all but Fyaar, who chose Eldra when she was ten and had yet to develop the mind that is, and she has rarely admitted to those fears even in the privacy of her own brain, the mind that is perhaps fundamentally unsuited to the noble path of the Jedi. Sure, she does well enough in her classes, though she drives her teachers to frustration with her incessant fiddling with any trinket at all within her reach and her doodling and her daydreams. Sure, she mostly behaves acceptably among people, though she does not pick up on the right cues to be a diplomat and she vacillates too often between excited talking and secret loneliness, when she, once again, finds her peers more interested in each other than in whatever she has wanted to share. Her one friend in the Order is Bayro who’s two years older, though now she’s not even sure if Bayro would see her as more than a friendly, clingy acquaintance, and—

Will Bayro even miss her? They’ve made plans to watch a holovid after Eldra’s back from Teth and Bayro aces the Advanced Test on Coruscant Sublevels 6665 through 7900. Vague plans, though, and since Eldra didn’t know how long she’d have to guard Mayor Woobudg… Bayro will probably notice in a few months that Eldra hasn’t returned to the Temple, and then watch the holovid with one of her many other friends. She’ll—

Watch your feelings, Eldra, she remembers. It hurts. The memory of Master Fyaar hurts worse than even the imaginary indifference of Bayro does, but it’s necessary. As ever, Master Fyaar’s warning is right, even if it’s only the ghost of Fyaar living on inside Eldra’s grief. Eldra almost lost her calm over a scenario of her own imagination, yet another reminder of her unsuitable mercurial temperament. Yet another reminder of why she needs Fyaar, needs her constant watch, if she wants to remain on the path of the Jedi.

And Master Zalandas Fyaar is dead.

Fyaar’s dead.

Eldra watched her murder, and the murder of everyone she was supposed to protect on this mission. Eldra watched her murder and did not reach for the dark side of the force to avenge her. Eldra watched and held still.

Eldra allowed herself to be abducted.

She does not sleep in her tiny cell, just as she didn’t sleep on the freight ship that carried her to an unknown planet far away from bloodied Teth. She didn’t sleep then as stubbornly as she does now, but even before her wide-open burning eyes the pictures will not stop. The blood. The touch. The grin of her vile captor when he said that she would fetch a tidy sum, despite being a blue twi’lek (“A dime a dozen, they are, and this one’s not even a trained dancer! She hasn’t even… look!” Her captor had pulled her upper lip away then, and she had snapped for his fingers. “She’s still got those awful sharp teeth! Who the hell lets a twi’lek girl walk around with sharp teeth? She could tear a guy’s throat out, with these!”) she would still be worth a quick sale to her captors but only because she is (was) a Jedi padawan, and apparently there are quite a few pieces of shit out there who’d like to hurt a Jedi. Or—she keeps her eyes open, open, open till tears threaten to drop, and yet the thought comes. Or fuck one. Same difference.

A toy that’s padawan-shaped. That’s why they let her keep her own robes. But at least they did.

Watch your feelings, but still, Eldra shakes to her very core. She’s never thought of herself as being anything but a person, slightly inadequate perhaps in all ways that matter to her but a person; a luminous being, a small conduit for the very force to act through in the material galaxy; but now she’s been caught and taught that what she is is actually just a twi’lek girl. Cheap. Interchangeable. Nothing but her species and her gender, nothing but her flesh: a pretty dancer, never mind she hates dancing and if she ever makes it out, if the Jedi find and rescue her, please, please, she will never ever dance not even a single one of those silly novelty dances ever again even if Bayro does it first. She’ll go to whatever lengths needed to never be appraised, judged, looked upon, perceived as anything but a luminous dutiful Jedi ever again.

To these people, she’s not a person. Not a Jedi, unless the fetish counts, not really, not to the slavers and—watch your feelings, but still, the seething disgust returns and she wants nothing more than her lightsaber through her captor’s hearts or their hands torn off by her teeth—perhaps, maybe, please no, not truly anymore either to herself.

⁂

Maul wakes up to insistent beeping. He’s never heard the noise before, except—somewhere behind the headache and the nausea he remembers—except roughly five minutes ago, and five minutes before that, and five minutes before… He’s read about those periodical noises. Snooze button on an alarm clock, they’re called. He’s never used them before. He’s never used—Master teaches that a slothful tool is a tool broken, useless, and he’s never before dared to oversleep, even with his throat swollen and filled with mucus he didn’t, but now—it is a mercy he does not deserve, that Master was not here to witness Maul fail so deeply on this mission and just because something beats a booming drum inside his head and stuffed his stomach full of eels twisting up languidly through his esophagus.

Not real eels, though. He checks his vomit after throwing up. No eels. No animals hatched inside him; it’s just an inconvenient illness. And he feels better already, after spewing out the clear oily water and half-digested bread and no eels whatsoever. He does feel much better. Definitely. Illness during his mission would be inconvenient.

He has ample time to travel to the palace of Xev Xrexus before the padawan is sold there. Time he is grateful for, because Master’s ship will not let him in, so he has no access to his stilts or anything else he prepared apart from his cloak and the vocoder mask he carried in his satchel to the convenience store like a talisman of ingenuity and pretense. He doesn’t have his finest Sith robes that he left safe inside, only to be worn in the moment of Darth Maul’s triumph, and most of his weapons, too, apart from one anonymous knife strapped to his shin, are still tidied away in the ship Master gave him that will now pulverize anyone who dares approach.

Luckily, Maul is both incredibly clever—he figured out the location of the padawan! Despite Master giving him a wrong date and location! Solely by his own superior Sith cunning!—and he is within another sucker’s ship now—he sliced the lock in minutes! Because he is Darth Maul!—and the ship is full of new tools for improvisation.

Such as the large pair of black sunglasses that helps guard him at least slightly against the sun’s sickening poking and poking and poking of his cerebral cortex. Such as the trio of black shirts that, belted with a strange deltoid strip of fabric, bulk up his frame considerably and also make him feel toasty warm. Nar Shaddaa is cold, but Maul isn’t. Yet another victory to add to his tally.

With the gloves and the vocoder mask and the Sith cloak added on top, every square centimeter of Maul’s flesh is covered, and as he struts in front of the berth mirror he decides: he looks both incredibly dignified and scary, not to himself obviously but to those forcenull denizens of the underworld who will yet learn to tremble before the almighty Sith. He looks almost as impressive as Master. He doesn’t have the pale chin lurking under his cowl, obviously the most Sithly of looks, but in a pinch the black leather covering his cheeks and the opaque gridded speaker over his mouth should do almost as well.

Before he leaves, he ransacks the ship. No point in abandoning tools he might yet use. Everything he can carry, he stuffs inside his satchel.

Then, he begins the long pedestrian march to the palace of Xrexus. As usual, while he walks, he seethes in the Sithly anger of how much faster he could go if only he had a decent speeder bike. Soon, he reminds himself. Soon. After the oncoming awesome success of this mission, Master will be impressed enough to bestow the title of Darth and gift him a CK-6 swoop bike tuned up to the limits of terrestrial speed. Soon. Besides, with how slow the nausea is to settle, it’s perhaps a tiny bit useful that he is forced to take this brisk long walk in the Nar Shaddaa morning air. Although his coat and shirts fluttering with the speed of his bike would look very cool… He loses himself in his daydreams, and before long, he spies a duo of falleen in white dress shirts and black pants before the palace that belongs to Xev Xrexor.

The most adventurous part of his mission has just begun.

“Greetings,” Maul growls haughtily with the handsome baritone of his vocoder. “I have chosen to purchase a Jedi slave today. I trust this is the location for these sorts of errands?”

“Are you on the guest list?” the left falleen asks.

Guest list? Yet another complication. But Maul must not fail. “I am Ma Goweelr,” he says, borrowing the name of the man whose ship he ransacked. He found an identification card with his name on it and wisely brought it with him. He pulls it out now.

“You don’t look like Goweelr, friend,” she says.

“Unfortunately, I had… an accident.” Blast. They cannot see his face, so tt’s the height issue again. If Maul had his stilts, he could have made his way through easily, but because Master saw fit to lock the ship—no, it’s not Master’s fault. Because Maul was stupid enough to leave his tools aboard the ship, he now falters. What to do. What to do. What to—

“He’s slow,” the other bouncer whispers to his partner, but loudly enough that Maul heard it without issue. He stares intently at Maul, almost if he was expecting a specific reaction.

The left falleen winks. “All right. A little grease in the palm goes a long way, friend.”

Grease? Necessary for the function of machines. Cooking, apparently, also. Often a type of fat, either animal or plant-based, though hydrocarbons mined on certain planets or synthesized in labs such as Corellia’s X-Tech Max nowadays are a far more affordable and controllable—

“He’s dumb, Brighta. We don’t care whether you’re on the guest list. We want a bribe.”

A… Maul’s certain he read about bribes somewhere, but—

“Cash. Money. Credits.”

Credits! Maul found some on the ship. Since they were light enough, he put them in his satchel. The force is with him! He pulls out the chits he found, rummaging in a perhaps less than dignified way—the falleen exchange a look over his head that he’s too busy to try to read, but it doesn’t seem hostile—and when he hands over five thousand credits their vague non-hostility turns to genuine excitement.

“House Xrexus is honored to host you for this auction, sir,” the male falleen says when he opens the door.

“As am I,” Maul replies with a bow. When he walks past, the female bouncer taps him on the shoulder and then bends down to whisper in his ear.

“The Jedi’s auction’s in two hours, but the preview starts in one and she’ll probably get snapped up then, so. Might wanna hurry.”

“Thank… you?” Maul rumbles and winces at the vocoder turning his slight surprise into a question, but the falleen does not laugh this time.

“Appreciative customers are rare. Come back anytime,” and she winks and pushes him with her—warm, strong, startling—hand the rest of the way through the door and then slams it shut.

Presale. Other customers. Complicating factors Maul would not even have known about if it wasn’t for the bouncer—and for the force, therefore, willing him to succeed—because he didn’t… He did not actually expect any competition. After all, there are no other Sith but the Master and his apprentice. Who, then, would have need of a Jedi padawan? Who has need of Xrexus’ auction at all when they are not sent by their Master? Their… Master. Master might compete with Maul at this sale, both as a test of Maul’s readiness and as a failsafe, should Maul not manage to succeed in his mission. Master is incredibly smart after all, and foresees any number of possible twists and turns of a scenario, as unlikely as they might be. Even such unlikely eventualities as Darth Maul not completing in his mission. Master considers everything. It’s why he’s the Master.

Luckily, Maul was forewarned, and so when he passes a fire exit plan of the palace that’s nailed to a wall in the empty entrance hall he looks for any possible… There. A server room. A small bureau. Two places where Maul might gain access to the databases of Xrexus and convince the filing system that he has already bought the Jedi, before the first competitor has even placed their bid. It’s the only surefire way of preempting a person as thorough and prompt as Master is, and besides… Maul understands machines. He can charm and bend them to his will. His confusion at the bouncers’ hints and the tip the falleen gave him when he would never have expected anything of the sort based on the way the previous part of the encounter had passed—never mind the blasted lack of his carefully constructed stilts—were a sore reminder that in the field of people Maul does not yet excel to the standard of a Sith. Something he must remedy, but perhaps not on a mission as important as this. (Perhaps not among people who are oily and stare too hard.)

Laughter peals in a room straight ahead, but the server room is one floor down a side staircase. It’s sectioned off by a dangly gold chain that Maul needs to barely duck to pass under, and no-one passes through either the main corridor he left or the dusty unlit staircase while Maul hops down, thinking I am Sith alternating with I am shadow on every step.

The hallway leading to the server room is just as deserted. The door is locked, but Maul has sliced the access pads of twelve ships now and has refined his technique to under three minutes of elegant fiddling. This lock takes two seconds.

A datapad is already hanging inside right next to the door, from the cable with which it’s plugged into a socket there. Maul picks it up. Its screen is thrice-cracked and fixed up with clear tape. The touchscreen is incredibly sluggish to react, but as much as he might love the challenge of repairing it he only has less than an hour to spare. If he must, he will, but—gloves. He removes the right one, and the datapad responds.

A login screen.

Thus-far, the security has been abysmal. Worse than what he improvised for the secret hiding space of the first functional droid he built, and so he enters root, root. It works.

Pathetic, Maul thinks. Disappointing. Embarrassing. Horrendous. Useless. Awful. You deserve this. You deserve worse. It almost takes off some of the giddiness at how well Maul has been performing on his mission, thus far. His opponents are veritable morons. It is no great feat, to succeed against people as unprepared for basic survival as these, and it does not take a Sith’s cunning—it’s not worthy of the great Darth Maul who learns under Darth Sidious the greatest creature in the galaxy—to fight them.

In the central database he changes the status of the Jedi padawan to Sold and the buyer to Ma Goweelrand types in 666666666 for the winning bid. It’s a large number, and Jedi means valuable. It should pass muster. Probably. Money: yet another area where Maul requires further instruction. There was another card Maul stole with information on Goweelr’s account with the InterGalactic Banking Clan, and he enters it in the respective field. As to the user listed as making these changes, he picks the fifth-most appearing in the database. If he wanted to arouse no suspicion at all, he would need to research Xrexus’ organization in total, but—he’d really rather not. Even glancing at some of the entries of the database reawakened the eels in his stomach.

He pettily changes the admin password and wipes the screen carefully before he logs out.

Mission almost complete.

Half an hour left until the beginning of the presale, a clock tells him, and that’s most likely when they will check the padawan’s entry and approach Goweelr as her legitimate buyer. Everything is going according to plan, as long as he is not caught down here.

Since Maul is Sith and shadow and incredibly silent and deadly, he isn’t.

He sneaks back up and then strides, with as much power and dignity as he can muster when he wants to skip giddily to celebrate a job well done, into the room where the laughter comes from. It’s—

It’s bright. Loud. Full. But more than any other adjective, it’s huge, a room that is a thousand times bigger than anything Maul has ever set foot in, with a domed ceiling rising so far above that he can’t make out any details there. Can’t see whether there are any cameras, or snipers—can’t see anything but the luster and wealth on display. Plants growing on floating bowls of silver, plants he has never seen anywhere but in holos (Most plants are plants he’s only ever seen in holos. Almost all of them. Master rarely makes him train off-planet, and there is nothing but fire on Mustafar.), plants and waterfalls. Delicate staircases that appear to hover in the air just like the tree-bowls are. It looks like something out of a dream, if Maul’s dreams were able to imagine impossible worlds and not just impossible people who’ll save him.

Below it all, there are throngs of people in various kinds of festive garb, chatting and sipping on dainty glasses. People of most species he’s ever read about. Even…

Even a zabrak. There’s a zabrak over in a corner, not an Iridonian zabrak like the ones Maul finds often in his research but a zabrak who looks startingly close to him, hairless and bright and black-marked, only he’s much taller than Maul—he’s tall! Maul always worried that his species was doomed to remain as small as he is right now but he’s tall! He won’t need stilts forever!—and he’s yellow.

Idly—or trying to appear idle but actually shivering with curiosity—he saunters closer. The zabrak, it’s quickly obvious, is not here as a buyer. He’s chained up, both manacles connected to the neck cuff, though the bonds look so flimsy that Maul could have snapped them. He’s almost naked except for a pair of trousers that barely reaches his thighs and, moreover, is made of a fabric far too flimsy and tight to fight in. His skin is weirdly shiny as well, as if he was sweating but that is unlikely, given Maul’s not too hot under his three shirts and a cloak (in fact, it gets colder the closer Maul comes to the strange zabrak), and the yellow zabrak’s not exercising either but standing completely still, feet slightly apart and arms raised in a poor imitation of a fighting pose. The claws on his hand and feet would be called neatly trimmed if Maul didn’t know intimately that this length means they’re cut so close to the bed that it irritates several internal nerves. The horns are filed too close as well, and they look blunt.

A fighting slave.

No. A pretend fighting slave.

Everything about him might look fearsome to one who does not know what to watch for, but he does not stand or dress or groom himself like a fighter.

It’s—it’s difficult for Maul to sort out his reaction. This is a zabrak, the first person like him he’s ever seen, but he’s also a mockery of the warrior he trains so hard to become. Are all other zabraks like this? Does Maul look like this to other people? Flimsy and fake? It is almost enough to be ashamed of the association, and Maul is glad that with his clothes no-one else here can guess at their shared species.

“Welcome,” the unchained human next to the zabrak shouts, and Maul cranes his neck but apparently it’s addressed to him. “What are you looking for? A nightly companion? A gladiator? A—”

“This is not a gladiator,” Maul growls.

“Ah, well, he’s versatile,” the slaver says. “Do you see his muscles?” He squeezes the other zabrak’s biceps. The zabrak does not react. “He is excellent at bearing pain as well,” and alright, Maul will give him that. From this close, he can see the faint network of scars.

“He’s truly a wild beast when you want him that way,” and if to contradict him—the first time Maul feels anything approaching pride at their kinship—the zabrak refuses to bare his teeth, even when the human slaps him in the face twice and then prods him with something bearing electric sparks. Still, the zabrak will not relent. He’s breathing and moving but somewhere deep in his eyes he looks nothing short of dead.

“I have business elsewhere,” Maul stutters out and the vocoder smooths it into a low growl. The queasy pit in his stomach must be the return of the eels, or else the force aims to reveal to him that he might be being observed by fleets of holodroids, a technological wonder he should research immediately upon completion of his mission, when he will never think of the scar-covered zabrak and his empty eyes ever again. He won’t even remember his face or his color. No, Maul will attempt to engineer holodroids and present them to his Master, who will be proud.

That’s what he thinks about, while he wanders the huge room at random. Holodroids. He doesn’t think about zabraks. In fact, he’s forgotten every fact he ever heard about that species. No zabraks exist but Maul. That’s the way it goes.

He doesn’t think of zabraks at all for several more minutes, and then a tannoy system message calls out for Ma Goweelr and his time of floating is over.

⁂

Thus far, the boy’s little adventure has been a disappointment. There were moments of fear and shame and misery, but mostly, what Sidious receives from him is bright giddy elation at being entrusted with this mission. It should have figured that Maul is not intelligent enough to see through his Master’s true plans, and yet—it was folly on his part, Sidous is prepared to admit that, but he expected more of his little zabrak.

Well. More agony, mostly.

He’ll have to be a little more patient. Someday soon, Maul’s luck will have to run out.

⁂

“This is her, Sir. Opening the cell now,” a woman says in front of the suddenly-bright cell, and Eldra’s hard-won, tattered, wide-eyed serenity dissipates.

It’s Dilar. Dilar, self-loathing traitor of a twi’lek slave. Eldra’s only known her for a day and enjoyed exactly zero seconds of it. The old woman’s hatred and revulsion at what she is forced to do, preparing slaves to be sold on, crowds out the very air. For the slavers, her utter loathing might be imperceptible—Dilar is a grudging, but polite tool—but it’s everywhere in the force, and Eldra cannot breathe. It’s hard enough keeping herself calm—keeping herself Jedi—when she knows that any time now a lecher with a Jedi fetish will come to her cell.

A lecher, or her rescuer.

Watch your feelings: do not give in to despair, Eldra, as Fyaar would say if she could. Maybe a Jedi will come.

It’s a war inside her, equal parts of hope and terror, and without her Master’s guidance how will Eldra find the strength to make herself calm again? Calm, serene, like the Jedi she was supposed to be.

A Jedi is better than this.

There is no emotion. There is peace.

There is no hatred, especially. Eldra should not hate Dilar. She shouldn’t hate every single slaver in the entire world, with even deeper depths of seething odium reserved for anyone selling or buying her. She shouldn’t. She does.

She isn’t wearing a force-suppressant collar, but that doesn’t matter. There are things far more binding than chains, than collars, in this world: Eldra promised her Master that she would be strong. She promised. She promised, and she hates these slavers. If she reached for the force now, she wouldn’t be able to call herself Jedi anymore. She would fail her Master and lose herself.

She would use her hatred to kill her tormentors. She would tear their throats out.

She would Fall.

Fear, raging and cold, has been her only companion for uncounted waking days now, that and bitter loathing. Master Fyaar died in front of her. Eldra’s been stripped of everything she thought she was and turned into a commodity, and now the only bright spot in her life is the fact that Martrey Woobudg the slaver, slaver, slaver who brought them to Teth is also fucking dead. Hopefully, it hurt.

The sudden hope is new, fragile and staggering and still too volatile to make reaching for the force safe. Hope: maybe the new arrival isn’t one of them. Eldra’s Master was in constant contact with the Temple, after all, and they must know about the ambush by now. They must have sent someone to save Eldra. (She tries very very hard not to remember that they don’t, sometimes, search for missing padawans, because of deferring to a higher purpose and the will of the force and being instruments of the Galactic Senate and not privileging attachments, including to their padawans, over the greater good et cetera et cetera, which is a code of conduct that Eldra, too, had always believed in. Until she got thrown in this cell, at least.)

Please, let it be a Jedi. Even if she gets thrown out for her hatred. Please, let it be a Jedi.

“Get up, girl,” Dilar says.

Eldra struggles onto her feet. She almost loses her balance, and that would kriffing hurt, because she’s got little chance of breaking her fall. Her hands are cuffed in front of her, encased in thin manacles she could easily break out of if it wasn’t pointless. If she wasn’t watched at all times. If she could use the force without Falling. If there was any way off this planet she doesn’t even know the name of. She could break them, but she can’t. They’re tight, and her shoulders ache from the forced immobility. (Almost, she’d told the slavers that restraining someone like this for days on end was a sure way of causing muscle damage, that they were lowering her value—were hurting her, by treating her like this, but she’d reconsidered. It would probably count as ‘helping slavers’. She hopes instead that they lose all their captives to their own bad practices. Eldra will not help them, if it kills her.)

If her visitor is a slaver, they’ll probably enjoy the sight of her helplessness. If they’re a Jedi, there may be compassion, pity, judgment—they’ll feel how scared she is, and how close to breaking—and that’ll be even more embarrassing to deal with afterwards, but at least there will be an afterwards for her.

For a second, the force floods with pain. Anger. Then, the presence hides itself again. Doesn’t matter. She’s felt it.

A force user.

A… Jedi, then?

Would a Jedi… Eldra herself would be angry, if she saw anyone else treated the way she is now, no matter how hard she tries for serenity. Eldra isn’t a good Jedi though. She’s too scared for that.

She looks up. If the visitor is a Jedi, Eldra doesn’t recognize them. But that means nothing: they’re covered head-to-toe in layers of black fabric. They’re wearing some sort of mask that covers their lower face, too, and oversized mirrored-glass sunglasses, and gloves, and a cowled cloak and what looks like at least two shirts, one over the other. They look like a black ball with legs sticking out. They look like someone decided to dress up as the platonic concept of shady. They look ridiculous.

They’re very short as well. They’re about twice the height of Grandmaster Yoda, and shorter than pretty much everybody else that Eldra knows. Well… they could be Master Piell. Would Master Piell dress up like this, though? Would he come to rescue her? Would he… well, he wouldn’t feel like the visitor in the force. Even Piell is a Master of the High Council. He wouldn’t fall prey to emotions as easily as Eldra did. He would not fail the light.

The only bit of skin that Eldra can make out is the bridge of the nose, between the jaw-mask and those sunglasses. Red.

Whoever it is isn’t human.

It might give hope, but—whoever it is has already paid and they own Eldra now, they tell the slavers, in a deep and slightly mechanic voice.

Paid.

Own.

Not a rescue, then. The Jedi wouldn’t reward a slaver for abducting a padawan.

Eldra will not cry. Not because if does not befit a Jedi, because the Jedi didn’t come for her. Eldra remained faithful—barely—she didn’t give in to her hatred and fear, didn’t Fall… and no-one came to rescue her. She will never see the temple again. She’ll never watch those holovids with Bayro, and Bayro—will she even notice? Will she mourn Eldra? Or will she be relieved that the clingy kid is gone?

She won’t cry. She will not give Dilar or this new buyer the satisfaction.

The shielding of Eldra’s cell opens. Dilar attaches a chain to Eldra’s manacles and her buyer ties the other end to their belt. They barely look at her, at least—in the nightmares she refused to allow herself to grow into images they always looked at her, excited and hungry, but this buyer seems curt and weirdly business-like.

Without another word, they start walking.

Eldra has no choice but to follow. The Jedi didn’t come. She is alone. Whatever awaits her outside, though, it can hardly be worse than this cell.

#darth maul #eldra kaitis #savage opress #savage oppress #hell is just a beat away #dimtraces makes things

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thefreakydeaky · 4 years

Text

Call Out My Name

Part Six Title: A Lonely Night

Characters: Negan, Reader, The Saviors,The Wives

Summary: You belonged to him.Try as you might to pretend indifference, Negan’s very presence has awakened feelings in you that you believed had died with the old world.Is the ruthless King of the Sanctuary still human enough to fall in love?

Warnings: Language, Canon Typical Negan BS, Diet Dr.Angst

Word Count: 2,145

“Can I trust you, Y/n?” He asked as you lay together after.

“Yes, you can.”

“I don’t know how to say it...”

Your eyebrows rose.

“You? At a loss for words? I don’t believe it.”

Negan chuckled dryly.

“I don’t know how to say it nicely.”He amended, his tongue poked out to wet his lip as he tried to find the right words.

“Do you remember what I said to you about my position as a leader?”

You shook your head ‘no’.

“It’s precarious.I work damn hard to make sure my people are taken care of and to make sure that everyone knows not to fuck with me.As I’m sure you have realized, I like to be on top.”

“Mhmm..”

“Sometimes that means I have to bash in a few heads. Sometimes it means I have to take a new wife, but I’d say I have everything I could want within reason. Wouldn’t you?”

You nodded in agreement.

“So imagine my surprise, when I go out to do some head bashing and find that despite all i have there is one thing I not only want, but need...You.” His expression softened as he gazed into your eyes. “The moment I saw you, I recognized you as my other self. That’s why I did it. That’s why I called you my wife without asking.We were made for each other. I can’t explain how I know, I just know, Y/n.”

You blinked back tears, overwhelmed by the unmistakeable ring of truth his confession held. You looked back up to find him watching your face wearily.

“How can I be sure you won’t think how I feel about you is a weakness?”

You laced your fingers with his.

“You aren’t weak.Neither am I.We have both put survival above everything else.”

He winced.

“Hell, that isn’t reassuring in the least.”

You smiled apologetically.

“What I’m getting at is, if you’re open to it, we could try putting each other first and survival second.You know, the way relationships were pre-walker?”

“And what would you know about that, hmm?”

“I was in a relationship back when.”

“What, some high school sweetheart bullshit?” He sighed, incredulity in his voice.

“No.” You turned onto your belly. “I was in a serious relationship with an older man.”

“Were you now?”

“I was.”

“What was he like?” Negan pressed a kiss to your shoulder.

“Do you really wanna know?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

You smirked at the envy in his eyes.

“He was...fifteen or so years older than me.”

“Mhmm.”

You carded your fingers through Negan’s hair.

“He had pretty blue eyes and a very nice smile.”

“What did he do?”

“He was a policeman.”

“A cop? You were dating a cop?” His brow furrowed.

“Is that surprising?” You grinned.

“It is.” He grumbled. “Did you love ‘um.”

“It was complicated, but I did love him. Then we broke up, the world changed for the worse,and I had bigger things to worry about than him.”

Negan mulled on that for a moment.

"I ever tell you I was married before the world went to shit?"

Try as he might to hide behind a veneer of nonchalance, you sensed some dark emotions beneath the act.

"Not very successfully, but she meant a great deal to me."

You nodded.

"I was shit at showing it, but I'm sure you know a thing or two about that."He grimaced.

Negan looked into your eyes. In the depths of his gaze you could see a sorrow so intense, it made your heart ache with compassion.

“Do you think we could make it if we tried?” He asked too casually.

“Yes, I reckon we could.” You kissed the back of his hand.

You felt so filled with warmth you could burst.

Negan kissed the corner of your mouth lovingly.

“You have my whole heart, Y/n.”

He took you into his arms.

"Until my last breath."

Feeling safer than you had in years, you snuggled into his embrace and reveled in the wonder of being loved.

Staring out of the window did nothing to improve his mood.Lighting flashed in a black as midnight sky at eleven o'clock in the morning.

"What's the plan?"Negan asked the room at large, taking a seat at the head of the table.

His lieutenants sat in a make shift conference room, looking worse for the wear from the battle with Alexandria.

Dwight tapped the back end of a switch blade on the table, seemingly deep in thought.Regina sat arms crossed over her chest glaring at Dwight's hands.The minutes ticked by quietly. Negan's already strained patience was growing thin.Gavin tilted his chair back and sighed.

“There's nothing left for us to do, 'cept kill them all."Simon concluded.

“Dwight?" Negan posed wearily.

"We don't need to kill all them people to get them in line.We just have to kill the right ones."

Negan narrowed his eyes at him.

"The right people, meaning who? Rick Grimes?"

“Grimes, The Widow, and The Ki- “ Dwight grimaced. “Ezekiel.” He amended apologetically.

“Hmm..." Their leader scratched at his chin, in contemplation.

"We'll put 'em on a platform, make it bloody, make sure they all see it happen." Dwight's gruff voice provided.

"I like the way you think, Dwight." Negan responded at last."Si, how long you need to get this set up?"

A blood thirsty grin broke out on Simon's face.

"We'll be ready by morning." He replied.

To the Saviors Simon directed a gung-ho,“Let's go to work."

Mean while, back at the doll house, boredom and gloom drove the wives to the parlor.

"We could play a game?"Tanya suggested.

Amber emitted a petulant huff in response and continued flipping through a beat up issue of Vogue

"We can play a drinking game."Sherri suggested.

“A drinking game?"You repeated uncertainly.

"We are all adults here, we're stuck 'till Negan says otherwise."Tanya pointed out.

"We might as well."Amber intoned, tossing her magazine aside.

You glanced uncertainly at Sherri.For a moment you considered declining, but much to their surprise, you agreed.

"Okay, What are we playing?"

Frankie sat up in her chair, with sudden interest.

“Never have I ever!”Sherri and Tanya said in unison.

You swallowed in an attempt to soothe your suddenly dry throat.This was a disaster waiting to happen.

Amber took it upon herself to serve each person in the room a generous shot of vodka.

“The way it works is, we take turns asking a question.Well sort of a question sort a not.”Sherri hedged.

“If it’s my turn I’d say something like, Never have I ever...smoked a joint.”

“Bullshit.”Frankie laughed.

“If you have smoked a joint you do a shot.If you haven't, you don’t.It’s fun.Trust me.” Sherri’s enthusiastic grin was a little scary.

You had never seen her smile before today.You eyed her skeptically, but didn’t back out.

“Why don’t we go from youngest to oldest?”You suggested.

Amber went around the room handing out the generous glasses she had poured to each of you.

“Go on then.”Sherri encouraged Frankie.

“Alright, never have I ever...given a blowjob.”

“Ha! That’s a cheat! We all know He loves getting head.”Tanya chuckled.

“Is not!”

You all took a shot.

Amber went around the room refilling the glasses.

As the game went on, you slowly began to relax.The questions were invasive at times, but no one had caused any trouble so far.

“Never have I ever”Tanya began, “been tied up during sex.”

“Ugh Tanya!”Amber exclaimed in disgust.

Sherri’s eyes were fixed on you.

She is so damn nosey. You frowned, but you were a good sport and drank just the same. To your surprise, so did Frankie.

You shared a knowing look then burst out laughing.Sherri was not amused.

“Never have I ever been to Texas?”Amber tried.

You shook your head.

“Never have I ever kissed another girl.”You threw out eyeing each of them in turn.

Frankie, Tanya, and You all took another shot.

“Really, Y/n?”Amber’s eyes went wide with curiosity.

“Oh, come on don’t act so shocked.It’s the freakin" apocalypse.”Frankie scoffed.

“Alright alright, never have I ever been eaten out by Negan.” Sherri said smoothly.

You cringed at the obvious ploy.

Tanya,Sherri, and Frankie each took a shot.

You could feel them all scrutinizing you.You and Amber were the odd ones out. You refused to rise to the bait.What happened between you and Negan was none of their business.

“Amber” Sherri prompted when she remained quiet for too long.

“Oh, uh, yes. Never have I ever..” She wracked her brain trying to come up with something, but came up empty. “Never have I ever had a three some??”

“Booooo!” a sloppy drunk Frankie complained.”We already asked that one.”

“Right right...”

“How about never have I eveeer, had a sexual fantasy about a Savior.” Frankie suggested.

Tanya blushed fiercely and took the shot.

The look on Amber’s face was bleak.

“Never have I ever been to Canada.”Sherri said quickly changing the subject.

No one drank.You felt bad for Amber.You had forgotten that some of these girls used to be in relationships with the men that were now Saviors.

Tanya smirked at you.

“Never have I ever, had sex with Negan in the middle of the day.”She said much too chipper for your liking.

“Just Negan?”

“Yes.”

You knew what she meant to find out, but you refused to go there with her. You didn’t take the shot.

Her brown eyes blazed into yours.She and Sherri drank simultaneously.

“Never have I ever lied to my husband.”You deadpanned to remind them that you were in this together.

Every one of them drank.

“Never have I ever had a sex related injury.”

Sherri stared at Tanya when she didn't drink.

“Taanyaa”

“Sherriii” Tanya mocked good naturedly.

“You have.”She insisted.

Tanya winced and took the shot. Embarrassed and hoping no one would ask the million dollar question.

“Okay, but how??”Frankie asked.

Tanya covered her blushing face in her hands.

“Damn it Sherri.”

“She was with Simon on a free pass day.”

Frankie rolled her eyes.”You know how that goes”

Sherri raised an eyebrow. “Not all of us do.”

"He gets a little...gymnastic." Tanya admitted, blushing.

“Never have I ever wanted to fuck Simon.” Amber singsonged.

“It’s not even your turn!” Tanya winced and took the shot.

You were feeling so warm and buzzing hard.You unthinkingly took the shot along with Tanya and Frankie.

“Simon?” Sherri’s voice was filled with judgement.

“Surprised?”

“Not even a little.” She sniffed.

“Anyone ever tell you, you’re awful judgmental for a woman in a polygamist marriage?” You snarked.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.You act pretty high and mighty for someone who sucks the same cock the rest of us do.”

“I’m not like you.” She hissed venomously.”I didn’t fucking choose this!”

“And you think I did?”Amber stood, swaying drunkly.

“Not you.” Sherri’s voice lost it’s venom. “But the rest of you did.”

“You’re so wrong for thinkin’ that and even worse for sayin’ it!” Tanya’s eyes filled with tears.

“Sherri, You’ve been talking down to me ever since I got here.” You spoke louder than you intended to.

“Yeah? And what are you going to do about it?”

“I’m not the one with the problem.”

“You sure as shit act like it.”

You threw your glass in her general direction. It pelted her in the shoulder and rolled onto the floor.

“Bitch if you’re feelin’ froggy go ahead and fuckin’ jump.”

The double doors burst wide open.

“What in the hell is going on in here?” Negan thundered looking around the room with an irritated scowl.

No one moved.Sherri’s fury was still apparent in her expression.You wondered how long he’d been listening.

“Explain.Now.” He demanded picking on Tanya who hadn’t said a thing.

“W-well...We were drinking and playing some stupid game. About sex.”Her eyes darted between you and Sherri.

“A sex game?” Negan repeated, disbelief in his tone.

“Yupp. Not a one of us’s been to Canada and Y/n kissed a girl, Now Sherri thinks we’re all a buncha sluts.” Amber hiccuped.

Negan took a steadying breath and stared down each of you in turn.

“Well I’ll be damned." He scrutinized Amber's slight swaying figure and shook his head. "Sweetheart, you are trashed!I’m cuttin’ you off.”

Negan took the bottle of vodka from her. From the look on her face, she had forgotten she was holding it.

“I’ll get you some water.” Frankie nodded decisively and tried to shake off her buzz.

She swayed a little on her way to the sink.

“So what I’m gettin’ here is, you all got wasted and started swapping stories about sex with me?”

You didn’t know what to say.You were, despite Sherri being an asshat, feeling pretty good right about now.

“You are around each other all day every freakin’ day and the subject has never come up before?” He asked with feigned interest.”I don’t know if I should take that as an insult or a compliment.”

Finally got a taste of his own medicine.

You snickered.

“What’s so funny over there,Y/n?”

Uh-oh no pet names.Daddy is maaad.

The ridiculous thought made you chuckle and soon you were emitting peels of laughter so infectious that Tanya started laughing too.

“You cut that shit out!It is not fucking funny.” He shifted his weight, brought lucille onto his shoulder, then licked his lips. “I don’t like drama.”

Sherri rolled her eyes.

“Coulda fooled me.” Amber jibed under her breath.

You mashed your lips together to hold back your smile.

“What did you just say?”

Amber shook her head.

You batted your lashes at him.

His nostrils flared like he could smell the insubordination.

“Wow I am havin’ a damn hard time rememberin’ why I thought keeping so many women around was a good idea.”

“Cause you expected a nonstop orgy?” You suggested. “Ya reap what ya sew, Babe.”

“What the ever loving fuck?” A pained look crossed his face.

“I mean,” Your languid gaze swept the room. “It isn’t right, but I get it.” You shrugged.

“That’s enough. I don’t have the patience to deal with all of you at once.Every one of you to your bedrooms! I don’t want to hear one peep out of you for the rest of the day.”

“Sure thing, Daddy.” The corners of your lips quirked into an almost grin as you stood and headed for your room.

“Smart ass.” He grumbled following behind you.

#negan x plus sized reader #the walking dead #jeffrey dean morgan x reader #negan x reader #negan #jeffrey dean morgan

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