Hi ! I also enjoy receiving your replies. And dont worry about replying a few days later. You dont have to be available 24/7.
Also i forgot to ask in my last ask. In the moze fics, does jiaoqiu have ulterior motives? Or is he just a best friend who cares? I found it noticeable how moze always got jealous at the mention/appearance of Jiaoqiu. And how Jiaoqiu was insistent on saying Moze didnt have a chance. It might be him just teasing moze because hes aware of how Moze is.
I mean, Moze also got aggravated when he found out the protag was sleeping around. And when the earth man was flirting, he didnt have time to get jealous because they were both busy trying to survive and escape. And he was more protective rather than possessive there.
🦢
SWAN ANONNNNNN HEYY (appreciate the smaller detail remembrance)
Ok so to fully answer the questions I'm going to split the premise into three. I'm gonna YAP while skirting around the topic (also so I can talk about their characters because DAMN they're interesting)
Reader: forcibly put into the proximity of Moze (plot convenience) (and also somewhat necessity for his work) after being kicked from the Intelligenstia Guild. This innate frustration of zero control, coupled with Moze's prickliness and mc's own standoffishness = colleagues with the sole benefit of hating each other and making it publicly known, while naturally gravitating to people who are the social opposite to their frustrating partner (aka Jiaoqiu and Zhi Hua, who's just some side character for the Shadow Guard since there's no actual info on them lmao)
Moze: from the lore, and tb quest, there's several points of information about him. He's known not to talk much, work alone, and make somewhat awkward jokes where the situation does not warrant it. He does "not wish to speak", which is also understandable as an occupational thing. Obviously there's bound to be huge reductions of his character to those three points but I digress.
Now, being put into forced proximity with someone he believes is irresponsible and a hindrance is something new. If he doesn't like someone, he avoids them, or in the worst case scenario he... takes care of them. That's his job, so no hard feelings. However, he's basically not got any option, because he's Feixiao's subordinate, to essentially 'babysit' (in his opinion). He's also not used to being close emotionally/and somewhat physically with people, case in point being his job and stint in prison. NOW bickering and arguing with someone every few days for a prolonged length of time is possibly some of the most ordinary shit he's been through. You're not trying to kill him. You're not scared of him. Yeah, you dislike him (strongly) and he dislikes you (strongly) too, but you're proving your capabilities and you dislike him personally rather than through hearsay.
Anyways, outside the job he avoids you like the plague, but inside there's bound to be far more complex emotions the more he spends time with you and the more he realises he was mistaken about your ability (but not about your shit personality). But again, not a lot of experience in dealing with emotions, so pestering you is basically him succumbing to you being a somewhat alright person rather than someone he keeps at arm's length. Or at least, he trusts your abilities (somewhat) but still holds zero expectations of you (or at least he thinks that) and still dislikes you
Jiaoqiu: remember social opposites? Honestly I don't think Moze was jealous of Jiaoqiu specifically but rather anyone who's publicly close to you (case in point A-hua), because this man is lowkey starved for affection. Like where in his job and life does he experience that? And I did purposefully write in diminutives for this man (xiaoze, a-ze) in a sarcastic way, which just makes this man's eye twitch since you have no problem being affectionate with his colleagues, not just stopping at civil. Like purposefully showing off your closeness is one thing but just slipping in a-hua or jiaoqiu's name casually is what really gets him - like your subconscious just has these two in an affectionate bubble in your mind and he's just glaring lmao.
I believe he's got a somewhat competitive side, especially due to his alleged nature to be tidy and clean. Like, he's meticulous, and he's already proved himself to you and you to him. Why are his colleagues better than him? He dislikes you even more for that lmao because he's subconsciously feeling closeness as a side effect of harmless bickering, because he has to pay attention to you in order to best find information to irritate you with
Except, a lot of his information stems around your relationships (case in point fake rumor with zhi hua in like the first fic for him)!! which he does not have (a lot of relationships) !!!!
Anyways Jiaoqiu's heard a lot of your complaints and honestly thinks it's funny as hell, like we've got his friend who's clearly going to need a while to grapple with his feelings while denying them, and then we've got the guy who just dislikes his friend. Honestly I wrote him as someone who just wanted to speed up the process, while also just being incredulous while thinking of your complaints. Because you complainnnn. Chaos inducing best friend
But a best friend who would NOT mind hitting 🙏. Ulterior motives yes, but also he does want his new friend to heal, hence the dissuading; because he's also never heard you say anything particularly good about the man, and vice versa. like ??? some people just do NOT like each other so he might as well take his chance instead lmao
Anyways I find it funny you mentioned the Earth guy bc I know damn well that knife Moze threw felt extra cathartic. Like the issue resolved itself: you fought him off with disgust, didn't suddenly become emotionally close, and he became a cadaver in the end - and once they're dead, Moze moves on. Thus, he just felt irritated this guy tried something without actually knowing why it felt refreshing to perform his occupation. The sleeping around thing is something else because it requires willing proximity (and you could've just chosen him smh).
side effect of competitiveness. Like based on his design and lore it's pretty obvious he's high up in the Shadow Guards, and perhaps one of their best assassins. He's polished his craft, but you evidently don't care about that. So being in even more forced proximity (apartment) is also forcing him to unfurl the tight bundle of annoyance to see exactly what it is. cue that whiskey scene (my favourite, because the desperation is a result of him feeling that inferiority hit)
tl;dr - yes Jiaoqiu's got ulterior motives but also sincerely believes it may be quite hard for moze to make his affections known (considering his reclusivity and emotional short-sightedness); also it's just funny as hell to poke fun at people in general and moze's a satisfying target
Moze's just jealous, because you're close to everyone but him (perceived). and you're just sarcastically calling him diminutives and ugh that's just something that lingers in his heart regardless.
but yeah sorry for the yap I genuinely like both their designs so much 😭😭
Projection on fictional characters is so fascinating to me, and I'm doing my fair share of it for sure, but this one variation of it that dudebros have is something else. They tend to be very annoyingly opinionated when it comes to fiction without being self-aware, and the perfect example would be Final Fantasy VII and twenty five years old "Tifa vs Aerith" debate with an attached ship war propelled by dudebros to this day.
Many people obviously project themselves on Cloud by the virtue of him being the main playable character, but the consequence of this is their complete infatuation with Tifa, not even because of her character itself, but because she's a wish fulfilment at its finest. In OG FF7 she's kind, strong in battle, designed to be as sexually appealing as possible and has no life or interests outside of Cloud's wellbeing, she even has this one infuriating line how she doesn't care about anything other than Cloud, including a meteor falling from the sky, and dudes eat this shit up. Her own feelings about their lost town or her parents or Sephiroth are completely irrelevant compared to Cloud's, which is so repulsive to me when accompanied by an army of her fans who come off as rabid and horny and worship her for being basically their dream girl and make more p0rn of her than of every other character combined.
Part 1 of Remake actually did her justice and made her a character because she's actually someone in Sector 7. She tends to her bar, she's town's favorite because she works and helps people there, she's a part of Avalanche on her own, she has actual relationships with its members, and none of that has to do shit with Cloud for once, she's not just a "cute childhood friend" that kept waiting for him for years for no reason and who's following his every step because she has nothing else to her like she was portrayed in multiple spin-offs.
The same thing happens with Zack, when Cloud's a moody blank slate for people to insert themselves into, Zack is a wish fulfilment when it comes to being this perfect unbreakable super soldier guy loved by everyone, and as a result people who like Aerith relocate her from being a funny self-sufficient girl making the best out of what she has to a pure naïve saint with her 80 letters to Zack because that's what heroes get, girls who have no life or priorities outside of some dudes.
All of this results in the dumbest debates imaginable with people bashing one character to alleviate the other. People hate Cloud because he's not Zack, even though anyone with basic reading comprehension should be able to tell that his entire character is about overcoming weakness and trauma after being broken until he's unrecognizable anymore. People hate on Aerith because she doesn't drop everything to aid "Cloud" (read, themselves) like Tifa would in their mind. I'm yet to see hate on the other two because they're completely idealized characters that are loved basically because they're selfless and show no actual weakness, which is a weird roundabout way that people's self projections take to this day.
I don’t ship Scorptra (i fully support anyone that does tho) cause I was always very set on the idea of Catradora and felt like it was important for Scorpia to realise she didn’t need Catra but oh my GOD, the Scorptra kiss in the Crimson Waste would have been such a good idea in my opinion. Seriously, it would have been an interesting move for Scorpia’s character to finally work up the courage to kiss this person who she looks up to and adores but Catra just can’t feel the same way, maybe she returns the kiss or maybe she pulls away but in the end Catra doesn’t feel the same way about Scorpia and it’s heartbreaking to see. It could have been a bit of an eye opener for Scorpia to realise that Catra isn’t the person she should be following. I know that eventually that realisation does happen later on, but a one sided kiss between Scorpia and Catra would also have been such an interesting way to go about it. I feel like a lot of people are sort of avoiding the idea and turning their noses up at it just cause it involves Scorpia being hurt by Catra but like, this whole show pretty much revolves around characters hurting each other and learning to cope and heal from it, so I can’t help but feel like it would be fitting.
