I finally finished reading the fourth volume of svsss in full, and thing is--the first time through I only read the bingqiu content because I was ravenous for more of their happy ending.
Turns out that was a perilous mistake.
Because I started reading the airplane extras. And I swear to god. MXTX is trying to kill me
What do you MEAN demon lord Binghe was sitting on his big fucking throne. All stoic and forbidding. Surrounded by his demon generals who don't know shit about human courtship. Asking them what he should do, fully demoralized by constant rejections from sqq, only to have airplane tell him to act more pathetic and needy. Which is already hysterically funny and insane, UNTIL LBH'S RESPONSE IS THIS, KILLING ME INSTANTLY:
LUO BINGHE. WHY DOES HE SAY IT LIKE: "I already tried that, didn't work--nothing works :/ not mean, not maidenly, not housewife, not spicy, not capable disciple. Is doubling down on clingy really all it will take? What's a born hater with only one love in his life to do????"
The dichotomy of him sitting there like 'how can I reach the unfathomable depths of shizun's heart?' A HEART HE'S ALREADY WON OVER, MIND and then in the Holy Mausoleum solving the puzzle without blinking and being like 'oh yeah you just have to hit the acupoints, no sweat.' Literally the comedy writes itself I'm so--
How am I supposed to be normal about this. MXTX understands the juicy quintessential queer joy of a person with the world's power at their fingertips wishing only for love. Willing to do anything to earn that love, when unbeknownst to them it's already been freely given. Totally not screaming and yelling and clawing at the walls
And that's not even touching airplane's uproarious account of events. The way he's like 'lol what's next, lbh and sqq are best friends now? smfh' only to see lbh TACKLE SQQ LOVINGLY. FOR SQQ TO BE BASHFUL ABOUT IT BUT SO SO FOND OF THE LITTLE SCAMP. This when we've been experiencing sqq's constant inner monologue of 'I'm so cool and so dignified about my role, truly the epitome of propriety and poser-level fortitude.' Meanwhile, in their universe:
Airplane constantly flaming???? Sqq and lbh in his observations????? His absolute bewilderment and confusion????? Legendary. No notes every single second of this shit was hilarious.
Airplane's comment that sqq + older adolescent lbh traveling together was just watching a couple in their honeymoon phase. OR the fact that lbh is exceedingly petty and refuses to share their food in the wake of airplane's interruption of their time together, until sqq relents sheepishly and insists airplane eat what's left (ONLY AFTER PLACATING LBH WITH MORE FOOD FROM HIS PLATE, SOBBING)
Watching airplane salivate over Mobei-Jun and acting like that's totally normal behavior. Finding out mbj and airplane got together first. Finding out sqq encouraged airplane. LIKE THIS. WHILE HE IS STILL IN DENIAL ABOUT HIS OWN FEELINGS:
Mobei-jun clearly thinking their arrangement is a forever thing, heartbroken his human abandoned him with all the hapless fury of a scorned wife swept away by false promises of fidelity. Airplane writing demons to be the type to beat up their crush lovingly and still unable to connect the dots about mbj's feelings. Mbj letting him go and respecting his wishes, only relenting when there's indication airplane was poorly processing his own feelings and didn't actually want to leave. Mbj caring for him and listening to him as soon as airplane voices what he needs directly and with clarity. None of these gays are functional and it's everything to me
Unrelated, but I physically can't hold this information in anymore:
I'm still reeling from younger lbh having his sexual awakening from the image of sqq wrapped in the immortal binding cables. Condemn me as you like he was so, so real for that.
And no I will not be taking any comments about how luo bingge couldn't bear to see luo binghe cherished in ways he never got to have and all the haunting implications of that. I will also not be taking any comments about luo binghe's instinct to look for sqq in that alternate universe, only to be shaken to the very core to be unable to find his shizun anywhere. The unspeakable and latent horror of his relentless mind likely piecing together what happened, but unable to say it; to suspect what is true, and live with the harrowing confusion of his double's actions. To blame himself, to assume that he had let his anger get the better of him in that world and result in unspeakable folly...
I also refuse to talk about how heartrending it is to hear Tianlang-jun weakly say "In the end, I really can't bring myself to hate humans." The implication that the foolishness of that hope and bright-eyed fondness--the very thing that put him through such unspeakable agony--couldn't be beaten out of him entirely. To discover that his faith in Su Xiyan hadn't been misplaced, to the contrary: his beloved hadn't scorned him at all, but rather fought to the miserable end to protect the fruition of their genuine feelings of love when she couldn't protect tlj or herself.
How MXTX has sqq deliberately draw parallels between their situation and that of ygy+sj and tlj+sx; desperately wishing it might not be too late for them. The concept of breaking cycles of abuse and harm pervasive throughout the newly devised story, how it evolves for the better only when love takes the place of power, pride, and domination. How the moment sqq chooses vulnerability instead of saving face, the genre shifts to the so-called "cringe" girly genre where most if not every character is more fulfilled, more true to themselves. How the "male-oriented" former genre was aimlessly sensationalized and sexualized, how it was a sustained performance of aspirational toxic masculinity. How men objectify other men without end. All of the unspoken gendered implications that come with that.
Anyways. Going to go put my head in a sandbox and try to process everything I just witnessed because even a second reading is not enough to find a modicum of closure.
226 notes
·
View notes
frequent questions i keep getting on the bigeneration au(s):
-why don't ten (point five) and eleven tear each other apart/beat each other to death with hammers/eat each other
eleventh hour starts like normal, since they can't exactly leave while the tardis is redecorating, and then rory's like but how can they be here?? how can the raggedy doctors be real?? they were a game?? you made me dress up like the funny one all the time?? and ten's like sorry what. the funny one? and rory's like yeah uh [points at eleven] the funny one and the uh. um. [looks at ten] the uh. hot one. and That's How It Starts. every single interaction is an opportunity to show eleven up. does he want to beat eleven to death after they've spent longer than an hour together yes of course but good god the spite of it all. the DRAMA. the whole of leadworth knows him as The Hot Doctor. the ponds and clara ADORE ten. they love him so much. like sure he's a massive dick but compared to eleven he's the nicest guy in the world. he's incredibly suave and incredibly smooth and is capable of dressing like a normal person and literally everyone keeps commenting on it. sometimes he goes off on his own just bc the ponds throw him a party when he comes back. eleven keeps trying to get him killed and he just keeps slipping out of danger and it drives eleven up the fucking wall
-why does twelve allow eleven to travel with them
he simply does not notice him. just constant white noise. he's not clara and therefore he's insignificant. the three of them keep going on trips and then clara and twelve leave before he gets back to the tardis and it's not even on purpose they just literally forgot he was there. one time they accidentally leave him in victorian london while visiting the paternoster gang and he gets a boat to new york and ends up spending ~50 years with the ponds and when he finally gets to modern day london a century later clara's like huh you look different did you change your coat. and then hell bent happens and twelve finally throws eleven out (eleven didn't get wiped and twelve isn't gonna live with that reminder) and eleven retaliates by showing up to every single one of his lectures. the only reason he isn't dead is because missy would definitely find out about it and twelve can't deal with how incredibly smug she'd be
121 notes
·
View notes
still thinking about Hawkeyes resiliency. yes he's tired and broken and hurting, but he's got so many protective factors working for him. he's funny and loyal and clever, he tries so hard to see the good in people, to appeal to their sense of good no matter how ugly the world in front of him gets. and he cares!!! he cares so much it hurts but it also saves him. his kindness, his compassion, his selflessness allow him to connect to everyone around him and the connections keep him going. his suffering would be so much greater and darker if he didn't wear his heart on his sleeve because then he'd be alone. but he talks and shares and confides, and he leans on those around him when he needs to - always letting them lean back when they need to. that's what saves him, what keeps him from "walking into a chopper blade". It's. All. About. Connection.
233 notes
·
View notes
[ 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐬 ] : after being misinformed that the sender has died, receiver is grieving.
* for you i would.
when does a war end? when can i say your name and have it mean only your name and not what you left behind?
they already died once.
bernadetta thought she had lost jules forever. but jules turned out to be alive. jules is yuri—yuri is jules. yuri is alive! and wasn't that the most wonderful discovery? yuri, her childhood friend, being alive?
bernadetta doesn't think she has the right to most everything in this world, let alone the right to ask which name of theirs is real. what matters is them. yuri can use whatever name they want as long as they stay alive.
alive. yuri is supposed to stay alive. she's probably begged it of them more times than she could possibly count—arguably sounding silly nine times out of ten, arguably just enough so she doesn't give away that she cares more than she should (she does, she does, she does care more than she should) because she is a repulsive worthless thing that nobody in their right mind would want caring for them—
and because yuri is no longer jules. yuri is no longer jules, and she cannot just wildly lunge and hug his arm like the girl she used to be. she is lucky enough that yuri might still think of her as a friend now. might. she does not dare assume beyond that. she can live with being a ghost or a blemish or nothing at all as long as yuri stays alive.
but whatever the case, yuri is supposed to stay alive.
yuri almost died because of her, already, and bernadetta can only imagine from the glint of their lavender eyes what hells they have clawed through afterwards. one 'almost' should have been more than enough. if not for her, then for them.
but yuri does not return from their mission. that is at least what she has been told. the debriefer shakes bernadetta off his elbow like the pest she is, and before he walks away, the punch of his words slams her into silence.
her first friend is dead. her first heart is dead. her father crushed them once and now they're dead again. immediately, the loudest thoughts come back:
if yuri had just brought down the knife that night like they were supposed to—
if yuri had just been able to take that gold and run without looking back—
later that night, she slinks haggardly into the greenhouse with rot in her steps and a pouch in her grasp.
bernadetta von varley is allowed a corner—a very humble one, secluded, but her own all the same. there she grows her peculiar motley of flowers, from colorful blooms to carnivorous plants. next to a fanged flytrap, there is a space in the dirt from a recent harvest of herbs. into her palm, she turns over the pouch in her possession, and small seeds tumble out.
she usually sings while she does this, but has no heart for it tonight. the seeds get buried in the soil with the care of a casket; her hands pat down the soft mound, then clasp—she doesn't know if it is a gesture of prayer or a mere pantomime of. she just doesn't know. she just doesn't know.
all things considered: she cannot bring herself to pray to the goddess her father claims to regale. the man's wretched face flickers through her mind. acid and ache rise in her throat.
and there, bernadetta cannot pinpoint exactly when the dam breaks—just that it breaks.
it shatters like the porcelain of a teaset she gets punished for dropping. it bursts like the double doors of her old room when the suitors won't buy her. it claps like a palm against the wood of a table and sends her careening over the edge.
so bernadetta, unable to hold back any longer, finally tells yuri.
crying, gasping, she hangs her head to the planted seeds and tells them everything, through the uncontrollable hiccups and sobs, the words streaming from her lips like the tears down her cheeks. she tells them about the wicked count, tells them all the truths she never thought would see the light of day. she explains to yuri that she is just property. she tells them that before the academy, she had forgotten how much it meant to be offered a hand instead of taking the back of it.
she tells them about why she cut her hair, about the fist in it that made her kick and scream so hard that even her mother could no longer stand by—how the woman had bernadetta bagged like garbage and shipped to the monastery without any say. she sobs and apologizes, over and over, for everything that makes sense, and for everything that doesn't.
"and sorry, i'm sorry, i shouldn't be dumping all of this on you—" because even in death bernadetta gives yuri more humanity than she will ever give herself. more humanity, more grace, and infinitely more kindness. "but i always really, really wanted to tell you the truth, you know? always. that i wished i could've ran—"
her voice cracks. "—ran away, with you, wherever you went, even if that was selfish of me. or that i wished you could've killed me if it meant one of us could live happy. a-and i know, i'm just bernie, i don't mean much! i know already! bernie's worthless and doesn't have to mean anything to anybody! and i promise that's okay, but for me you're someone who... who...!"
bernadetta swears that her heart has been ripped out from her ribs, flung to the dirt and stomped into paste. she can't take it. she can't take it. not when it's yuri. not when she has spent her life shut in that birdcage, bars just wide enough to have a loved few she can count on a hand—and to lose the one she already mourned most? what kind of sick punishment was it? why was it hers? she loves, and loves, and loses. bernadetta always loses. she weeps into her hands, nails curling crescents into her face.
she doesn't know how long the moon hangs over her head, sneering down at her foolish lament. at some point she balls into herself, head tucked over her knees with clenched fists on the ground. bernadetta cries and mourns until she's out of air, out of strength, out of everything—and somewhere along the way she toes across the line into slumber, limping onto her side with finality in her bones. the last thing she thinks she sees is the watery blur of lavender petals.
11 notes
·
View notes
WIP its-not-Wednesday-but-close-enough
tagged by @autistic-sidestep! thank you for the tag :D i have,,, so many wips rn. pulp stop starting a million projects challenge. all of these are very rough, and a lot of them feature other steps, but i wanted to share a few :]
for writing, ive got these:
“What the hell, man!” Mitchel hisses. He’s let go, but he hasn’t bothered lowering his voice. Too loud, but real. Caine groans, pulling themselves up from the mattress. At least it wasn’t the floor– this could’ve hurt a lot worse. They wince at the throb in their shoulder as they reach for the wall, probing for a light switch. When he flicks it on reality re-establishes itself once more.
It’s Caine’s room, familiarly bare-bones. There’s only a singular twin sized bed in one corner of the room and a desk just across, with a heap of laundry they haven’t bothered to do taking up the chair. Mitchel stands on the mattress in the middle, both parts pissed and bleary eyed. His cheek is a lightish colour that’s a telltale sign it’s going to bruise, and a portion of his blanket stubbornly clings onto his shoulder. There’s no threat in here, or at least nothing more threatening than Mitchel annoyed. The knowledge doesn’t stop the blood pounding in their ears.
-caine wakes up and gets jumpscared by @hyper-pixels mitchel. they react to this calmly.
Marshal Steel has hair stuck in his finger joints. That's the first thing Daniel noticed when he came in to work this morning. Steel has his civilian hands on, which is normal when he has admin work. Those civilian hands will usually have hair in it too, mostly from Spoon. That's also normal. What's not normal is the colour; because instead of the odd tufts of grey fur Daniel's used to seeing scattering Steel's joints, this is a single, longer strand that he's sure wasn't left on purpose. Because the hair strand is brown. Suspiciously similar to Ortega's own brown hair.
-herald is suspicious that his boss is having another secret relationship with a pretty old man, but its none of his business! not at all. thats why hes eavesdropping on them from the breakroom pantry.
“What are you two talking about?”
Ortega jerks, nearly spilling coffee all over Wei, tearing a curse out of him as he yanks his head to the direction of the voice.
Speak of the devil. Caine glances between the two, head cocked. When did he get here? Ortega doesn't remember inviting him, and nobody told him he was coming either. Not that Ortega isn't happy to see him, but the timing…
“Dios mio, Spot, how long have you been standing there?” he mutters. He gives his coffee a once over, but nothing's spilled.
He turns back to Caine and double takes. The poor guy looks like he's just run a marathon– he's drenched in his own sweat. He's not wearing his raggedy sweater, for once. Instead, he's got a skintight suit with a simple white tee over it.
-a multi-pov fic featuring the same conversation, but told from the perspective of ortega, chen, and caine. trying to practice voices with it, and so far its been fun digging into each of them!
as for art wips:
-arde and vera based on the song "the villain i appear to be"! i actually made this today after playing the new revelations demo lmfao. i do not remember what arde looks like 😔 im so sorry ive done you a disservice
the next two have blood+mild gore in them, so im throwing them under the cut!
-cyrus gets Fucked Up by a dream version of fawn from @villainsidestep, based on this absolutely vile(/pos) soul read of him:
because why not fuck him up even more??
-mitchel painting i have yet to put down colours for that i am lovingly dubbing "cannibalism (NOT ROMANTIC)". chew it out with your teeth mitchel!!!!
ill be tagging everybody mentioned in the post, plus @idlenight, @disastersteps, and maybe @euelios if you all wanna give this a shot?
10 notes
·
View notes